Assistance URL Links
<------------------------------------->
Note: Following are websites that can assist in these troubled times.
<------------------------------------->
Free Prescription Medicine is Available to those who qualify.

http://www.mhsanctuary.com/add/rx.htm
http://www.needymeds.com/
http://www.themedicineprogram.com/
http://www.volunteersinhealthcare.org/home.htm
http://coveringkidsandfamilies.org/communications/bts/
http://www.freemedicineprogram.com/drug/ELDER+TONIC/
http://www.mycancernews.com/viatical.html
http://www.cancercare.org/HelpingHandsGuide/HelpingHandsGuideList.cfm?c=49
http://www.helpingpatients.org/
http://www.rxassist.org/default.cfm
http://www.mhsanctuary.com/add/rx.htm
http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/content/drugAssistance/
https://www.merck.com/pap/pap/consumer/request_application.jsp
http://www.sch-plough.com/schering_plough/corp/patient_programs.jsp
http://www.phrma.org/
http://www.hrsa.gov/osp/dfcr/obtain/obtain.htm
http://www.lillyanswers.com/
http://www.benefitscheckup.com/
<------------------------------------->
Every one of America's uninsured, regardless of age or income, can call toll free to 1-866-776-3700 or log onto the Internet at http://www.pfizerhelpfulanswers.com to find out how to get Pfizer medicines for free or at significant savings.
<------------------------------------->
Direct links to the food stamp site -- officially the USDA Food & Nutrition Service
Frequently asked questions: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/faqs.htm
Applicants and recipients: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/applicant_recipients/default.htm
<------------------------------------->
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/Default.htm
<------------------------------------->
Modest Needs is a non-profit, tax-exempt philanthropic organization that began as one man's personal project in March of 2002. Since that time, Modest Needs has become a community of unlikely philanthropists dedicated to helping others as best we can with what we have.
http://www.modestneeds.org/
<------------------------------------->
Find a National Depression Screening Day site near you (for members of the public wanting to take a free anonymous screening)
http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/
http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/locator/NDSDmap.htm
<------------------------------------->
A national free eye care program for low-income working Americans that is now open year round. See web site or call 1-800-766-4466.
http://www.aoa.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?site=AOAstage&WebCode=VISIONUSA
<------------------------------------->
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a Federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Programs for which CMS is responsible include Medicare, Medicaid, State Children's Health Insurance Program(SCHIP), HIPAA, and CLIA.
http://cms.hhs.gov/default.asp?fromhcfadotgov=true
<------------------------------------->
Links to help with Disabilities.
http://www.disabilitypolicycenter.org/relatedlinks.htm
<------------------------------------->
Sources of Free or Low-Cost Food and Nutrition Materials
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/pubs/bibs/gen/freelow.html
<------------------------------------->
A list of directories of grantmakers by state/region/city
http://fdncenter.org/learn/topical/sl_dir.html
<------------------------------------->
Volunteers in Health Care staff have prepared the following list of links useful to those serving the uninsured.
http://www.volunteersinhealthcare.org/links.htm
<------------------------------------->
Insurance for kids
Insure Kids Now - http://www.insurekidsnow.gov
<------------------------------------->
Patient assistance programs
http://helpingpatients.org/
<------------------------------------->
Prescription medications are an important part of total patient care
http://www.rxassist.org/default.cfm
<------------------------------------->
Free Medicine For Low Income People http://www.mhsanctuary.com/add/rx.htm
<------------------------------------->
Merck Patient Assistance Program
https://www.merck.com/pap/pap/consumer/request_application.jsp
<------------------------------------->
Habitat for Humanity
http://www.habitatforhumanity.com
<------------------------------------->
WIC
http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/
<------------------------------------->
Food Banks in the United States
http://www.wadv.org/foodbank.htm
<------------------------------------->
Administration for Children and Families and Domestic Violence
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opa/facts/domsvio.htm
<------------------------------------->
Energy Assistance: Home Heating and Cooling
http://www.ncat.org/liheap/referral.htm
<------------------------------------->
Free or Low-cost Medical/Dental Care
http://ask.hrsa.gov/pc/
<------------------------------------->
Financial Help to Pay for Home Heating and Cooling
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/liheap/faq.htm
<------------------------------------->
Head Start (Administration for Children & Families
http://www.headstartinfo.org/infocenter/infocenter.htm
<------------------------------------->
Job Opportunities for Low-income People
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/dcdp/joli/welcome.htm
<------------------------------------->
Medicaid - The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medicaid/mover.asp
<------------------------------------->
Resources to Help Children and Families
http://www.ncfy.com/Resources.htm
<------------------------------------->
State TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) Links
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/welfare/stlinks.htmSingle
<------------------------------------->
Touched Twice
http://www.touchedtwice.org/index.html
Touched Twice provides free clinics and more to the less fortunate.
many of the clinics provide free food, clothing, dental and medical
care, free haircuts, free legal, financial and spiritual advice. free
clinics located in the US.
<------------------------------------->
A leading resource for senior related information
http://www.friendly4seniors.com/_search.asp
<------------------------------------->
Get Connected: Afford-A-Phone
The Lifeline telephone discount program, also known as "Lifeline Assistance", gives people with low incomes a discount on the basic monthly service for either their wireline or wireless phone. The Link-Up America program pays for a portion of your wireline or wireless installation or activation fee excluding the handset.
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/getconnected/faqs.html#signup
<------------------------------------->
Listing Of Free Clinics
http://www.medkind.com/FCF/

(With humans), consequences may not alter bad behavior
by John Rosemond - Copyright 2008, John K. Rosemond - Dec 23, 2008

"American parents believe in behavior modification. They believe that the same principles that govern the behavior of a rat or a dog also govern the behavior of a human being. Therefore, they think the discipline of a child is a matter of manipulating reward and punishment. Furthermore, they think that if one manipulates reward and punishment properly, the correct behavior will ensue. If it does not, then they reason that they must not have used the proper consequences.

The problem with this reasoning is that behavior modification does not work on human beings. If it did, no one would go to prison more than once, and no prison sentence would need to last longer than a few months. One can use a right consequence on a human being and the wrong behavior may still persist. Witness the many parents who have told me, over the years, that their children seem impervious to any and all consequences.

Consequences compel rats and dogs to do what their handlers want them to do. Consequences do not compel human beings. Human beings change their behavior when they choose. Furthermore, the “you can’t tell me what to do” impulse, absent in animals, is powerful in human beings and often overrides rational thought.

The job of parents is not to get a child to obey. It is to simply teach the child that responsible behavior results in one sort of consequence while irresponsible behavior results in quite another. Some kids get it quickly while others stubbornly refuse to accept this fundamental reality. Some kids respond to low-level consequences, while some refuse to change their ways even in the face of what a colleague has called “the nuclear option.”

So, a parenting principle: When a child keeps on doing the wrong thing even when his parents do a right thing, the parents should simply shrug their shoulders and keep doing the right thing. Stay the course, keep the faith, never surrender, never give up. And while you’re at it, try praying.

The Disappeared

"People don’t just disappear in wartime, they also disappear in broad daylight. Los Desaparecidos. Not accounted for, never to be seen again. Some are lucky enough to survive, but they are not in peace for all that, they become the war. " Sylvere Lotringer
Berlin, February 23th, 2007

1. In Chechnya

Where did all the people go? The scandal of Chechnya's "disappeared" people. Compared with the first war of 1994-96, when Grozny was flattened, or with the early period of the second war in 1999-2000, Russia's grimmest north Caucasian republic is now relatively peaceful. But another peril, as terrifying and in a way more insidious, has replaced the threat of bombing. Credible estimates suggest that 3,000-5,000 people have "disappeared" in Chechnya since 1999, often to face torture and summary execution.

2. In Argentina

Desaparecidos is the Spanish word for "The Disappeared." For thousands of Argentine families, this word has become a symbol of a long harrowing nightmare.

In a coup on March 24, 1976, a military junta seized power in Argentina and went on a campaign to wipe out left-wing terrorism with terror far worse than the one they were combating. Between 1976 and 1983 - under military rule - thousands of people, most of them dissidents and innocent civilians unconnected with terrorism, were arrested and then vanished without a trace.

In 1983, after democracy was restored, a national commission was appointed to investigate the fate of the disappeared. Its report revealed the systematic abductions of men, women and children, the existence of about 340 well organized secret detention centers, and the methodical use of torture and murder. According to former president, Carlos Menem, records of the atrocities were destroyed by the military, following the 1982 Falklands War. The disappeared have not been heard of to this day.

3. America's War on Terror

September 11, 2001, sparked a firestorm of racial profiling, detentions and deportations by the United States government so grievous as to evoke the shameful internment of Japanese Americans of more than half a century past. Thousands have been imprisoned without either trial or any kind of judicial hearing: detained, often indefinitely, solely on the say-so of the executive. Yet knowledge of the particular circumstances and incidents of the detentions remains dim.

The book: America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment Detainees and the "War on Terror" brings together, for the first time, detainees' own testimonies with a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues by leading constitutional scholars working for their release. Going beyond the prevailing accounts to a detailed exploration of detention-the forms currently in use, and the conditions of each-the authors authoritatively refute its alleged justifications, boldly exploring its human costs.

Beginning with a catalogue of dragnet schemes--voluntary interviews, NSEERs, the targeting of foreign students-America's Disappeared proceeds to document the blunt reality of this program of detention, presenting detainees' chilling accounts of solitary confinement, isolation, and physical and mental abuse. Turning to a history of American detention policy, the book surveys U.S. opposition to these illegal practices undertaken outside our borders and warns of the dangerous precedent set by this homegrown example.

4. In Iraq

5. In Chile

6. In the USSR

7. In Croatia & Bosnia and Kosovo

8. Nepal & Sri Lanka

9. In Guatemala

10. In South Korea

11. In Mexico

12. In El Salvador

13. In Lebanon

14. In Colombia
<------------------------------------->
Note: The leaders who are responsible for policies of intimidation, torture, imprisonment, and murder of the "disappeared"do not have to bear the brunt of these conflicts. Instead it's left to the soldiers and the militia who know that for a fight to be successful it must be convincing, it must require the loser to put down his arms, it must be brief, and it should be impersonal.

Fighters meeting on the field of battle need know nothing about their adversary other than "he is not one of us"; whereas those doing the "disappearing" dirty work need to be part of the dominant power group, and be indoctrinated to consider the other as a foe regardless of the others behavior, appearance, or willingness to acquiesce to the State's power over their lives.

As pawns in these conflicts, the "disappeared" and their relatives do not cry out for vengeance in the same way as adversaries in actual combat. Kicking in the door of a suspected fighter in Vietnam, or Iraq and killing members of the family creates an automatic retributive urge in any surviving relatives. However, if the suspected fighter just "disappears" the vengeance factor is severely limited if not extinguished. Relatives of the "disappeared" know they must depend on those who abducted the "disappeared" for assistance in obtaining their release, to provide information about their fate, or to direct them where to retrieve the corpse.

It is the responsibility of the survivors, their relatives, civic, social, and government agencies to address all the issues of the "disappeared" as soon as an orderly civic society can do so without fear for their own safety or integrity. This is generally why the "Truth & Reconciliation" style courts appear after the fact. But for the sake of humanity, they must be created and empowered to help limit the scope of future extra-legal renditions.

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Need a coupon for converter to digital TV? Better get it now

By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

Have you converted? If you haven't, you might want to start hustling. The USA becomes an all-digital TV market on Feb. 17. When it happens — at midnight — more than 70 million analog TVs that use antennas to receive over-the-air signals will need help to keep going.

To hold on to their TV signal, consumers must install a digital TV box that converts analog signals to digital. The government is offering $40 vouchers to offset the purchase. The device costs $40 to $70, on average. Those coupons can take up to six weeks to receive. The upshot: If you wait much longer, you may not be able to beat the Feb. 17 deadline.

DIGITAL AFTERMATH: Some stations to reach fewer viewers

"You should deal with this now," urges Todd Sedmak, spokesman for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is handling the coupon program.

"We're encouraging people to apply for coupons by the end of the year," says Linda Yun, spokeswoman for the National Association of Broadcasters.

Sex and Money: Are Women Regulators Different?

Monday 22 December 2008

by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair has been arguing that banks receiving public funds should be required to rework mortgage terms to help struggling homeowners. (Photo: Getty Images)

It is hard not to notice that two of the regulators who stand out for doing the right thing in this incredible financial mess are women. Brooksley Born, as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Clinton, wanted to regulate credit default swaps and other derivative instruments back in the late 90s. Her effort was torpedoed by Clinton's economic heavyweights: Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

More recently, Sheila Bair, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Cooperation (FDIC), has been a pesky voice, arguing that the purpose of the financial bailouts is not to ensure that the Robert Rubins of the world get to keep their day jobs at the Wall Street banks. She has been arguing that the banks that received public money should be required to rewrite mortgage terms so that more homeowners are able to stay in their homes.

The role of these two women is surprising because finance, and its regulation, continues to be an area that is heavily dominated by men. Therefore, it is striking that just about the only regulators who stand out for trying to do the right thing in this tsunami of garbage finance are women.

While some of the luminaries of the economics profession might seek to explain the unusual role of women regulators by biological differences between the sexes, there is a more obvious explanation. Basically, the women who enter the financial world have not been fully integrated into the club. They are still outsiders. Therefore, they are more likely to blow the whistle on the sweet deals that can make hundreds of millions for the boys, while leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

This point was made explicitly in a surreptitious campaign to undermine Bair's standing in the Obama administration. According to one of the anonymous complainants, Bair is not a team player.

This statement was intended as an indictment of her conduct as FDIC chair, but it actually looks like the highest possible form of praise. After all, this team of financial regulators makes the 1962 Mets look like world champions. If Bair doesn't fit in, then this is all for the good.

If we needed any further evidence that the financial industry suffered from too much deference to insiders, Bernard Madoff filled the gap. He apparently ran a simple-minded Ponzi scheme for 30 years, stealing tens of billions of dollars from wealthy individuals, private charities and even large banks.

When some investors and reporters raised suspicions about Mr. Madoff, no one bothered to seriously investigate because he was such a good guy. After all, he belonged to all the right clubs, generously supported charities and was even a founder of the Nasdaq.

The regulators don't investigate respectable people like Madoff, and this is precisely the problem.

The regulators are not supposed to be friends of the financial industry. They are the cops, who keep the industry from running off with our money. Remember, the big actors in the industry all benefit from a government insurance policy called "too big to fail."

As any good believer in the free market knows, the finance boys will do everything they can to maximize the value of this government insurance policy. This means taking the biggest possible risks since, at the end of the day, the taxpayers, not the firm's creditors or executives, will pick up the tab. The financial regulators are the ones who are supposed to keep the banks from taking advantage of their government provided insurance, in addition to keeping them from ripping off pension funds, small city school districts, private charities, and any other suckers they find.

It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will be prepared to seriously regulate the financial industry. President Obama did pick a woman, Mary Schapiro, to be head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but her past associations with the financial industry make her look like one of the boys.

In the holiday spirit, perhaps we should give Schapiro and Obama the benefit of the doubt. But the reality is that the US financial industry is a cesspool. Cleaning it up must be a top priority for the Obama administration. The public must insist on a much smaller, cleaner industry and long jail sentences for the folks who brought us this economic disaster.

"Living Under the Trees"

by: A photoessay by David Bacon, From Contexts, journal of the American Sociological Association

About 30 million Mexicans survive on less than 30 pesos per day - not quite $3. The minimum wage is 45 pesos per day. The Mexican federal government estimates that 37.7 percent of its 106 million citizens - 40 million people - live in poverty. Some 25 million, or 23.6 percent, live in extreme poverty. »

Profile of the Sociopath

This summarizes some of the common features or behavioral descriptions of sociopaths.

• Glibness and Superficial Charm
  
  
• Manipulative and Conning
  They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
  
  
• Grandiose Sense of Self
  Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
  
  
• Pathological Lying
  Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
  
  
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
  A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
  
  
• Shallow Emotions
  When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
  
  
• Incapacity for Love
  
  
• Need for Stimulation
  Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
  
  
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
  Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
  
  
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
  Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
  
  
• Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
  Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
  
  
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
  Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
  
  
• Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
  Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
  
  
• Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
  Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
  
  
• Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
  Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

---

Other Related Qualities:

1. Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
2. Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
3. Authoritarian
4. Secretive
5. Paranoid
6. Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
7. Conventional appearance
8. Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
9. Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
10. Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
11. Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
12. Incapable of real human attachment to another
13. Unable to feel remorse or guilt
14. Extreme narcissism and grandiose
15. May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

(The above traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.)

How Green Is That ... Christmas Tree?

By Beth Connolly -eMagazine - Dec. 2008

© Getty Images

Feel guilty about chopping down a pine tree this Christmas? Think you’ll help the environment by purchasing an artificial tree? Think again. Even if you plan to reuse that artificial tree for years, it’s the most ecologically damaging option this December. Artificial trees are often constructed in China, can contain both lead and PVC, and can even cause an allergic reaction. There’s more: Buying a real, American-grown tree will help our economy more than investing in a Chinese product.

The truth is, you shouldn’t worry about “killing a tree” when you buy a Christmas pine. These trees are crops. When tree farmers cut down a tree, they plant a new one. If you can find a local tree farm that doesn’t use chemical pesticides, you’re golden.

After Christmas, make the effort to get your tree shredded into mulch chips.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to E/The Environmental Magazine!

Their loss, our gain
From cars to hotels to petrol, the slumping US economy means good deals for the rest of us
* Dean Baker The Guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 December 2008 17.30 GMT

"You probably didn't see this in the newspapers, but real wages rose at an incredible 14.8% annual rate over the last three months. The basic story is straightforward. While nominal wages have continued to grow at a modest 3.2% annual rate, prices have plummeted, hugely increasing the value of the paycheques of those workers lucky enough to still have a job.

This pattern is not likely to continue. Price declines will almost certainly slow, and rising unemployment will dampen nominal wage growth, but the nature of this wage gain presents an extremely important economics lesson.

Put simply, real wages rose because house prices and stock prices crashed. The collapse of the housing bubble destroyed more than $6tn of housing bubble wealth, while the plunge in the stock market eliminated more than $8tn in stock wealth.

This means that more than $14tn of paper wealth ($46,000 per person) has been destroyed in the last couple of years. This paper wealth gave its owners command over the goods and services the economy produces.

The elimination of this wealth has the same impact on those of us not directly affected as the elimination of $14tn of counterfeit money. The economy still has the potential to produce the same amount of goods and services, but the owners of housing and stock have much less claim over this output. That means more for the rest of us.

The more for the rest of us part of the story shows up in the form of lower prices for a wide range of goods and services. The most obvious item on this list is oil, as weakened demand, combined with speculation on both sides, has pushed the price of oil below $40 a barrel from its peaks near $150 a barrel. This has allowed drivers to buy gas for less than $2 a gallon, as opposed to the $4-plus prices faced earlier during the summer.

It is not just energy prices that are falling. New car prices have fallen at a 6.9% annual rate over the last quarter, while used car prices have plunged at a 22.9% annual rate. There is an enormous glut of cars on the market right now, and sellers are forced to slash prices to reduce their inventories.

There is a similar story with hotel prices, where a large number of empty rooms are forcing price reductions. Hotel prices fell at a 7.1% annual rate over the quarter.

In short, the loss of a massive amount of wealth by stockholders and homeowners has produced real dividends for those who had little wealth in stock or housing. Of course, the resulting falloff in consumption from these stockholders and homeowners is throwing the economy into a severe recession, which will threaten the jobs of almost everyone.

However, this just points to the urgency of a large government stimulus package. We need to replace the consumption of stockholders and homeowners with some other form of demand. The government has the capacity to spend enough money to replace this demand (as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said, we can always print more money). The only question is whether it will have adequate political will.

The real lesson that the public should learn from recent experience is how the income of one segment of society is a cost to others. The wealthy understand this point very well, which is why they design policies (for example trade and immigration policies) that are intended to depress the wages of less-educated workers.

If they can get low-paid workers to tend their gardens, serve them meals in restaurants, paint their homes and serve as nannies for their children, it raises their standard of living. The wealthy, along with the highly educated professionals who are largely sheltered from international competition, directly benefit when most workers are forced to accept lower living standards.

In the same vein, when the rich lose wealth it is a gain to everyone else. In short, they have our money. We don't need them to spend, since the government can spend just as well as rich people do. Unless they can show how their actions are increasing the productive potential of the economy as a whole (that would be quite a joke with regards to the Wall Street gang), the rest of us are made better off when the rich have less.

In this particular episode of downward redistribution, tens of millions of middle-class people took a big hit also, as their wealth was also tied up in the housing bubble and to a lesser extent the stock market. This is unfortunate (some of us did try to warn them), but it was an unavoidable part of an inevitable correction. Hopefully these folks will get better investment advice in the future.

This holiday season, the grassroots movement you helped build can make a big difference for those in need.

I hope you will join me in supporting your favorite charity or contributing to causes that are especially meaningful to me and my family.

While many of us will spend the holidays counting our blessings and sharing dinner with loved ones, millions of people around the country won't be so fortunate. Donating to your local food bank will help provide a holiday meal to people in your community who can't afford one.

Talking with the families of deployed troops was one of the most rewarding experiences I had during the campaign. Giving to Operation USO Care Package is a great way to send members of our military stationed around the world a reminder that someone back home is thinking of them.

This is a time to celebrate our blessings, the new year, and a new era for our country. But it's also a time to come together on behalf of those who need our help.

Do what you can to help today by locating your local food bank and giving your support:

http://my.barackobama.com/foodbanks

Or send a care package to an American in uniform:

http://my.barackobama.com/carepackage

Thank you for all that you do and have a very happy holiday season,

Michelle

Suspicious?

Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash
 Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation - MarketWatch

Wall Street Journal - Last update: 11:24 a.m. EST Dec. 20, 2008

WASHINGTON, Dec 20, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell's activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

On October 31, Mr. Connell appeared before a federal judge in Ohio after being subpoenaed in a federal lawsuit investigating the rigging of the 2004 election under the direction of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Connell to testify under oath at a deposition on November 3rd, the day before the presidential election. Velvet Revolution received confidential information that the White House was extremely concerned about Mr. Connell talking about his illegal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attorneys were dispatched to represent him.

An associate of Mr. Connell's told VR that Mr. Connell was involved with the destruction of the White House emails and the setting up of the off-grid White House email system.

Mr. Connell handled all of John McCain's computer work in the recent presidential campaign. VR has received direct evidence that the McCain campaign kept abreast of the legal developments against Mr. Connell by reading the VR dedicated website, www.rovecybergate.com.

VR demands that the Ohio Attorney General and the United States Justice Department conduct a complete investigation into the activities of Mr. Connell and determine whether there was any foul play in his death. VR demands that federal law enforcement officials place the following people under protective custody pending this investigation. Heather Connell who is the owner of GovTech Solutions, Randy Cole, the former President of GovTech Solutions, and Jeff Averbeck, the CEO of SmartTech in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Both GovTech and SmartTech have been implicated in the rigging of the 2000 and 2004 elections and the White House email scandal.

Our prior request to have Mr. Connell protected went unheeded and now he is dead.
SOURCE Velvet Revolution

http://www.rovecybergate.com

Laisse Faire Financials
(by Richard @ Bizmarts)

Note: If the proponents of "free markets" are still pushing the notion that any regulation of financial markets is "bad" for the economic condition of the United States, then it's fairly likely these folks did not personally own stock in Enron, Global Crossing, Lotus Development, Netscape, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and other mega-corporations when their stock prices hit rock bottom, or when they were driven into bankruptcy or insolvency.

The lunacy that markets are "self-regulating" leaves off the above, it also leaves off Madoff, Lay, Keating, and dozens of other manipulators who stole hundreds of billions of dollars from investors.

The very presence of thieves on the scale of Madoff gives ample proof to the lie of self-regulating markets, that is, unless the market approves of Ponzi schemes, of political corruption, and of outright theft through sophisticated financial instruments.

Is this what financial planners add into the mental prepartions when advising clients: ie, that investments should be sufficient diversified to account for "bad apples" in the industry?

One of my concerns is that the American dominance of international financal transactions is not pre-ordained. If we as a society continue to allow huge misappropriation of investor funds someone, or something else, will step into the picture...and be applauded for doing so, much to America's dismay.

Economist's View: Paul Krugman: The Madoff Economy

The costs of "America's Ponzi Era":

The Madoff Economy, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: The revelation that Bernard Madoff — brilliant investor (or so almost everyone thought), philanthropist, pillar of the community — was a phony has shocked the world, and understandably so. The scale of his alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is hard to comprehend.

Yet surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s ... had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.

Let’s start with those paychecks. ... The incomes of the richest Americans have exploded over the past generation, even as wages of ordinary workers have stagnated; high pay on Wall Street was a major cause of that divergence.

But surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right? No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an illusion.

Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients’ money..., then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets... For a while — say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate — he (it’s almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big — but he’ll keep those bonuses.

O.K., maybe my example wasn’t hypothetical after all.

So, how different is what Wall Street in general did from the Madoff affair? Well, Mr. Madoff allegedly skipped a few steps, simply stealing his clients’ money rather than collecting big fees while exposing investors to risks they didn’t understand. ... Still, the end result was the same (except for the house arrest): the money managers got rich; the investors saw their money disappear.

We’re talking about a lot of money here. In recent years the finance sector accounted for 8 percent of America’s G.D.P., up from less than 5 percent a generation earlier. If that extra 3 percent was money for nothing — and it probably was — we’re talking about $400 billion a year in waste, fraud and abuse.

But the costs of America’s Ponzi era surely went beyond the direct waste of dollars and cents.

At the crudest level, Wall Street’s ill-gotten gains corrupted and continue to corrupt politics... Meanwhile, how much has our nation’s future been damaged by the magnetic pull of quick personal wealth, which for years has drawn many of our best and brightest young people into investment banking, at the expense of science, public service and just about everything else?

Most of all, the vast riches ... undermined our sense of reality and degraded our judgment. Think of the way almost everyone important missed the warning signs of an impending crisis. How was that possible? ... The answer, I believe, is that there’s an innate tendency on the part of even the elite to idolize men who are making a lot of money, and assume that they know what they’re doing.

After all, that’s why so many people trusted Mr. Madoff.

Now, as we survey the wreckage and try to understand how things can have gone so wrong, so fast, the answer is actually quite simple: What we’re looking at now are the consequences of a world gone Madoff.

US refuses to support UN measure decriminalizing homosexuality

Written by Staff Reports - UCC News
December 19, 2008

The Associated Press reported today (Dec. 19) that the United States is the only Western nation unwilling to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

The refusal drew quick reaction from the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president. "The decision of the United States to oppose a U.N. resolution that would call for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide is appalling," he said.

"The fact that we were the only major western country to refuse to do so, and on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is especially reprehensible. It should come as no surprise, however, that an administration that condoned the use of torture and that turned the relationships of gay and lesbian people into a wedge issue for partisan political gain would take this action," said Thomas.

Top United Nations human rights official lamented that there are still too many countries that criminalize sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex and that some 10 countries still have laws making homosexual activity punishable by death.

"Those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, those who are transgender, transsexual or intersex, are full and equal members of the human family and are entitled to be treated as such," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told high-level panel discussion on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, held at U.N. headquarters in New York.

"The ageless cliché that everyone is equal but some are more equal than others is not acceptable. No human being should be denied their human rights simply because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. No human being should be subject to discrimination, violence, criminal sanctions or abuse simply because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity," she said in a video message.

"Ironically many of these laws, like Apartheid laws that criminalized sexual relations between consenting adults of different races, are relics of the colonial and are increasingly recognized as anachronistic and as inconsistent both with international law and with traditional values of dignity, inclusion and respect for all."

She said that laws proscribing the death penalty for such activities are used to justify threats, attacks to the physical and moral integrity of persons, including their exposure to torture, with human rights defenders being particularly vulnerable.

"The stigma attached to these issues means that violence and discrimination often go unpunished as victims dare not report their cases and the authorities do not pay sufficient attention to those who do," Pillay added.

Observers of the proceedings noted the U.S. delegation's concerns stemmed from an unwillingness to commit the federal government to policies that may conflict with existing state statutes. Several U.S. states permit discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of adoption, housing and employment at privately held companies.

Human rights advocates are disappointed that the United States would refuse to extend the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights to LGBT persons and are looking to President-elect Barack Obama to change course on such issues.

"One can only hope that the new administration will grow in its understanding that any limitation of human rights and civil privileges must be rejected," said Thomas. "Bigotry has always been veiled in calls for moderation, in the suggestion of legal complications, and in slippery slope arguments of unintended consequences. In the end, these arguments, whether made by governments or religious groups, cannot hide prejudice or the failure of moral leadership the world so desperately needs."

Greenspan and Democracy
- from Robert Reich's Blog by Robert Reich - Dec. 18th, 2008

Alan Greenspan, writing in the current issue of the Economist, argues that in the future banks will need more of a capital cushion than they needed before the crisis because holders of bank liabilities will require them to hold more capital. "Today, fearful investors clearly require a far larger capital cushion to lend" to financial intermediaries. In other words, there's no need for additional regulations requiring banks to have more capital. The financial market will take care of itself. Greenspan has learned nothing at all.

In 2004 and 2005, when many economists warned that a speculative bubble in home prices and home construction posed a risk to the financial system, Greenspan brushed aside such worries, saying housing prices never declined. Before that he had resisted calls for tighter regulation of subprime mortgages and other instruments which allowed people to borrow far more than they could afford. He had also opposed tougher regulation of derivatives. Almost a decade earlier, Greenspan had urged Congress to knock down the regulatory walls that separated investment and commercial banks, thereby inviting investment banks to place huge bets with other peoples’ money.

Barely two months ago, when Greenspan appeared before Congress to explain what had happened to the economy, Representative Henry Waxman asked him pointedly: "Were you wrong?"


"Partially," Greenspan responded. "This crisis has turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined."

It might be argued that Alan Greenspan’s failure of imagination was not just about the scale of the crisis. More basically, his ideology had made it difficult for him to imagine what could happen when financial markets are left to themselves. He had supposed that the interplay of millions of self-seeking individuals would make government regulation unnecessary – except to prevent outright fraud or theft. To Greenspan and others like him, the global financial market represented the almost perfect form of the free market, because buyers and sellers were could gather almost unlimited information about one another, at almost instantaneous speed, at very low cost. Not only would the financial market be self-correcting, but it would automatically give us everything we might reasonably wish from it.

Greenspan’s real failure of imagination was his inability to believe there are useful market rules beyond those that protect private property and prevent outright fraud. This, presumably, was why he kept insisting for so long that government be held at bay.

But now the United States has chosen to deal with the financial crisis by buying up a significant fraction of the shares of the nation’s major banks and its largest insurance company, underwriting the loans of a large portion of the nation’s home-lending industry, and is on the verge of underwriting the nation’s largest automobile makers. Yet little if any of this largesse has found its way to the broader public – to homeowners in danger of defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes, small businesses close to insolvency, state and local governments cutting public services because of budget shortfalls, families unable to afford health insurance, or young people unable to obtain loans to finance university tuition.

The ideology of a perfectly self-correctly free market has given way to what might be described as a raid by America’s biggest banks and corporations on the public purse, supposedly justified by benefits to the broader public which seem never to materialize. What happened to the ideology? On closer inspection, it turned out to be something of a cover all along.

During the same years Greenspan called for deregulation of financial markets, Wall Street was accelerating its bankrolling of the U.S. Congress. Securities and investment firms contributed larger and larger amounts of money – not just to conservative Republicans who might expect such support but also to Democrats who had never been so graced before. According to Center for Responsive Politics, Wall Street firms dramatically increased their contributions to both parties during these years. Their share of total donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for example, rose continuously, from 5 percent during the 1999-2000 election cycle to 15 percent by the 2007-2008 cycle.

The money was accompanied, and often raised, by Wall Street lobbyists who pushed Congress in the same direction Greenspan urged – blocking regulation of derivatives, weakening oversight of subprime mortgage lending, and preventing the Securities and Exchange Commission from doing its job.

To take but one example, the collapses of Enron, WorldCom, and several other giant corporations in 2002 revealed a troubling pattern of credit-rating agencies repeatedly assuring investors that such companies were good investments until just before they went under. When the Securities and Exchange Commission asked Congress for additional authority to oversee the credit-rating agencies, Wall Street and its lobbyists blocked the measure. With hindsight, it’s clear why. Wall Street investment banks were paying the agencies to rate various mortgage backed securities after first advising the firms that issued them – and collecting fees – on how to package them to get high ratings. Years later many of these same securities, based on risky loans, would prove to be worthless, threatening financial institutions worldwide.

Apparently Greenspan hasn't learned anything from all this, but the rest of us have no excuse. The real choice ahead is between democratic capitalism and authoritarian capitalism. China is perfecting the latter. But unless we are careful we – the citizens of democratic capitalist nations – will discover that our form of capitalism has become more authoritarian than democratic. The current economic crisis surely poses a test for capitalism. But it is also a test of democracy.

President-elect Barack Obama - When Wisdom, Honesty and Judiciousness No Longer Seem to Matter

Thursday 18 December 2008

by: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III: "Ask not what a President Barack Obama will do for you; ask what you can do to help President Barack Obama address the tremendous issues that this country is facing." (Photo: Jim Young / Reuters file)

It has not taken long for the criticism, skepticism and second-guessing to begin. Barack Obama has not even been sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and his critics on the so-called progressive left are angry that his cabinet selections suggest a shift to the center or to the right. Meanwhile, critics on the right claim that his actions in response to disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are politically motivated.

There are a few political realities that Obama's detractors need to appreciate and respect. There is a difference between campaigning and governing. During the primaries, candidates McCain and Obama both played to their bases in order to win their parties' nominations. In the general election, both candidates had to move closer to the center than their bases preferred in order to have any chance of winning. Many would argue that McCain's failure to move closer to the center, i.e. selecting Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate to placate the conservative base, cost him dearly.

Now that Senator Obama is President-elect Obama, he has to focus on governing. He can't effectively govern from the progressive left. America is not as liberal or progressive as the left would like, nor as conservative as the right would claim. These political realities are compounded by the practical realities of the housing crisis, banking crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, auto company crisis, etc., etc., etc.

For the most part, President-elect Obama has chosen to fill his cabinet with competent administrators and not ideologues. He seems to be focused on real solutions - not theory, conjecture or philosophy. He is selecting individuals who understand how Washington works and will be able to help structure legislation, pass legislation and implement effective policy. Obama decided to retain the services of Robert Gates as defense secretary in order to ensure continuity in defense strategy in these very perilous times. While this does not sit well with the progressive left, no one has greater firsthand knowledge of the complex issues that face America today.

Granted, not all of the individuals selected have unblemished records. For example, Senator Clinton, or "Billary," voted for the war and brings Bill with her. Much to the dismay of progressives, during the Clinton administration, Rep. Rahm Emanuel helped to get NAFTA, the Crime Bill and welfare reform passed. In private practice, Eric Holder has represented some questionable corporate clients. In spite of these issues, if President-elect Obama is as strong-willed as a president as he was as a candidate, these appointees and others will be implementing his policies and not allowing the interests of others to control him.

During the primaries and general election, Barack Obama was criticized by Senators Clinton, Joe Biden and John McCain and pilloried in the media for not having the requisite experience to "answer the 3:00 AM call" or respond to a real crisis. Governor Palin questioned his experience as a "community organizer" by saying, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities...." Now that he is selecting experienced and qualified people to serve in his cabinet, including some of his former detractors, the criticism has changed from a lack of experience to whether he has abandoned the progressive left. Some progressives are even calling into question his commitment to their issues and his honesty.

As if the attacks from the left are not enough, the right has launched its attack as well. As a result of Illinois Governor Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, being charged with conspiring to sell President-elect Obama's now-vacant Senate seat, political vultures are circling overhead, trying to tie him to the scandal.

In spite of the fact that US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said prosecutors were making no allegations that Obama was aware of any scheming, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia is on record as saying, "The serious nature of the crimes listed by federal prosecutors raises questions about the interaction with Governor Blagojevich, President-elect Obama and other high-ranking officials who will be working for the future president...." Why does this raise questions when no connection, direct or indirect, has been made? Just as in a time of war, America is in such dire straits that now is not the time for partisan "gotcha" politics of the past.

In spite of the fact that Blagojevich himself is on record having said, "they're (the Obama team) not willing to give me anything except appreciation," Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), states "President-elect Barack Obama's comments on the matter are insufficient at best." President-elect Obama has stated, "I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening" and the US attorney has made no allegations to the contrary. What else is Obama to say? The truth is its own defense.

Instead of contributing to the media feeding frenzy, President-elect Obama and his team are being measured, judicious and practical in their approach to this issue. Obama said on Friday, December 12, that he would release the results of an internal investigation into what conversations his aides and advisers may have had with Blagojevich in a matter of days. "What I want to do is to gather all the facts about any staff contacts that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor's office," Obama said. Instead of allowing Obama time to determine the facts, Duncan levies criticism by saying, "Americans expect the highest degree of transparency from their elected leaders, rather than promises of openness on the campaign trail." As chairman of the RNC, Duncan is the spokesperson of the party and speaks for every Republican who does not say otherwise.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said it had completed an internal review of contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich - but wouldn't release its findings until Christmas week, at the request of federal investigators." In a written statement released by his office late Monday, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald confirmed that he asked for the delay, saying he wanted more time to conduct interviews. Conservative journalist Britt Hume says, "It is curious that Obama has been so cautious about it. He is a cautious man, but you do wonder, don't you?" Wonder about what? Even though the Obama team does not have to comply with the request, why would they not?

The one thing that President-elect Obama and his team cannot do is get caught up in the conservatives' questions or the media's frenzy and start to put out statements that later prove to be inaccurate. They must remain disciplined and not allow the desire for short-term responses to cause long-term problems.

I am in no way trying to insinuate that President-elect Obama and/or his team are above reproach or should not be questioned. Democracy demands that our representatives be held accountable for what they say and what they do. For the progressive left to question cabinet appointments and claim that they've been abandoned or betrayed before the first executive order has been signed or the first piece of legislation proposed is premature, reactionary and some what naÔve.

For the conservative right to try to create a story where there is none is just Republican politics as usual. This just demonstrates that they have not learned a lesson from the recent election; the American electorate is tired of their politics as usual.

It is important to understand that many of the causes of the country's problems are grounded in flawed ideology designed to consolidate power and wealth into the hands of a few while the majority in this country are left to suffer. The solutions to these problems will not be grounded in ideology; they will require vision, wisdom, honesty, judiciousness, collaboration and cooperation. All of these are qualities that President-elect Obama has demonstrated throughout his life and career. If they were good enough to get him elected president, why can't people be patient enough to see if they will also help him govern?

Ask not what a President Barack Obama will do for you; ask what you can do to help President Barack Obama address the tremendous issues that this country is facing.

--------

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the producer/Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program "On With Leon," a regular guest on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and a teaching associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, DC. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.

Official Voting Results (aka: Progressive Agenda 2009)

On December 17th, MoveOn members began 2 days of voting to decide our top goals for 2009. Each member was able to vote for 3 goals. Here are the final results, with the percentage of members who included each goal in their top 3.

	Goal
1.	Universal health care	64.9%
2.	Economic recovery and job creation	62.1%
3.	Build a green economy, stop climate change	49.6%
4.	End the war in Iraq	48.3%
5.	Improve public schools	21.6%
6.	Restore civil liberties	16.8%
7.	Hold the Bush Administration accountable	15.2%
8.	Gay rights/LGBT equality	8.6%
9.	Increase access to higher education	7.6%
10.	Reform campaigns and elections	5.7%

Note: And here is one of the articulated agendas for 2009 as stated by Republicans.

...heavy on deregulation, heavy on tax benefits to business, opposed to universal health care, aggressively militaristic, opposed to ending the unilateral US war in Iraq, advocates for reductions in corporate income taxes, and increasing taxes on 'vices' - tobacco probably..., but what about alcohol, consumption tax on luxury items with licensing and property taxes increases on second-homes, private aircraft; ending tax exemptions for religious entities and their property; alternative minimum income tax for all corporations and LLC's; Federal tax on all purchase and sale of financial instruments guaranteed or regulated by a Government agency; or gluttony as defined by personal vehicle choices, etc, etc.

Some Quotes about Republicans:
I came from a disadvantaged home. They were Republicans.

--Paul Tsongas

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Republican. But I repeat myself.
--Harry Truman

As I've said repeatedly, Republicans are very good at describing things in black and white; Democrats are very good at describing the 11 shades of gray.
--Joseph C. Wilson

Latins for Republicans - it's like roaches for Raid.
--John Leguizamo

Instead of creating new jobs, Republicans gave tax cuts to companies that send jobs overseas.
--Joe Baca

Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged.
--Harry Truman

Big government conservatives are spending trillions and wasting billions. Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal conservancy, but the party of runaway spending and corruption.
--Sherrod Brown

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
--Jimmy Carter

I don't hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do.
--Howard Dean

Republicans have called for a National African-American Museum. The plan is being held up by finding a location that isn't in their neighborhood.
--Conan O'Brien

If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
--Adlai E. Stevenson

The Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- the more the minimum, the better.
--Harry Truman

The Republicans have a new healthcare proposal: Just say NO to illness!
--Mark Russell

How did sex come to be thought of as dirty in the first place? God must have been a Republican.
-- Will Durst

Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican.
--Lisa Simpson

Bob Dole revealed he is one of the test subjects for Viagra. He said on Larry King, 'I wish I had bought stock in it.' Only a Republican would think the best part of Viagra is the fact that you could make money off of it.
-- Jay Leno

One Central American Currency?

Submitted by fyl on Nicaragua Living Blog 10 December, 2008 - 06:41.

"Since the conference last week I have seen quite a few articles about regional integration. What is discussed the most is the idea of one currency for Central America. This article in Americas Society is but one example.

The [Central American Integration Summit] leaders hammered out a 41-point economic agreement of “urgent measures,”including proposals to step up integration, food security, and investment. The countries also pitched the idea of creating a common currency. El Salvador and Panama use the U.S. dollar while the remaining countries currently have their own currencies.

Is one currency a good idea? It should help in commerce but, as EU members have found out (Spain vs. Germany for a recent example) you lose the ability to adjust the value of your currency to help control the economy. For example, to control inflation. How has going to the US dollar affected El Salvador and Panama so far and, probably more important, what will happen if the dollar "goes out of control" as many predict? Clearly the decision of El Salvador and Panama to 'dollarize' was seen as adding stability but with the current U.S. financial crisis, foreign ownership of U.S. dollars (mostly in the form of owning U.S. debt) seems to currently be an important part of what is stabilizing the U.S. dollar. Thus, today, it would seem that anyone on the dollar standard could easily become a passive victim of the manipulation of the money supply by the U.S. government and/or Federal Reserve in an attempt to "fix" the U.S.-based financial crisis.

“Men are divided into two groups
— those that love and build, and those that hate and destroy.”
José Martí

O.M.G. !!!

Progressive Enemy #1: Bernie Madoff!

by bobswern, Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 04:27:13 AM EST

I happened to catch about 15 seconds on Anderson Cooper on CNN tonight, in the middle of the ongoing story on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme, which we're all reading and hearing about in the MSM over the past few days: here, here, and here.

But, the REAL horror story, at least as far as the Progressive blogosphere's concerned, is just unfolding. The reality is that Madoff's crimes have resulted in the virtual evisceration of hundreds of the very best, privately-funded social programs in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Madoff, single-handedly, has done more harm to the Progressive cause than almost anyone yet realizes. And, that's because The JEHT Foundation, one of the leading providers of grants for all things Progressive, has just abruptly announced they're shutting their doors at the end of January as a result of having come to the realization that they've lost virtually all their money because it was all under Madoff's management.

Of course, it's easy to blame Madoff. And, at this point, I'd like nothing more than for this guy to be taken out back and shot. But, I have to ask: What about the total lack of regulatory supervision that occurred as far as all of this was concerned? The extent to which our markets have gone completely unsupervised under the Bush Administration is beyond the pale!

You might ask: What is The JEHT Foundation?

Think: Amnesty International, the ACLU, Center for International Environmental Law, Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting....the list just goes on and on!

The JEHT Foundation was established in April 2000. Its name stands for the core values that underlie the Foundation's mission: Justice, Equality, Human dignity, and Tolerance. The Foundation's programs, in Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice, International Justice, and Fair and Participatory Elections, reflect these interests and values.

Criminal Justice
The Criminal Justice Program works to reduce levels of incarceration in the U.S. while protecting public safety; easing the financial burden to society of criminal justice systems; and ensuring that adults who come into contact with the justice system are fairly and appropriately treated and have a better chance of success upon re-entry.

Juvenile Justice
The Juvenile Justice Program works to reduce the unnecessary detention and incarceration of youth in the U.S. while protecting public safety; easing the financial burden to society of juvenile justice systems; and ensuring that juveniles who come into contact with the justice system are fairly and appropriately treated and have a better chance of success into adulthood.

International Justice
The International Justice Program seeks to promote U.S. adherence to the international rule of law and the engagement of key stakeholders in and outside of government to this end.

Fair and Participatory Elections
The Fair and Participatory Elections Program seeks to improve the voting process by promoting best practices and reducing barriers to voting. The Program also seeks to enhance fair representation and competitive elections and to strengthen government transparency and responsiveness.

"Statement of Robert Crane, President of the JEHT Foundation, on behalf of the Foundation's Board of Directors:"

Statement of Robert Crane, President of the JEHT Foundation, on behalf of the Foundation's Board of Directors
Posted under General News on Monday, December 15, 2008

The JEHT Foundation, a national philanthropic organization, has stopped all grant making effective immediately and will close its doors at the end of January 2009. The funds of the donors to the Foundation, Jeanne Levy-Church and Kenneth Levy-Church, were managed by Bernard L. Madoff, a prominent financial advisor who was arrested last week for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars.

The Foundation was established in 2000. Its name stands for the values it holds dear: Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance. It supported programs that promoted reform of the criminal and juvenile justice systems; ensured that the United States adhered to the international rule of law; and work to improve the voting process by enhancing fair representation, competitive elections and government transparency.

The JEHT Foundation Board deeply regrets that the important work that the Foundation has undertaken over the years is ending so abruptly. The issues the Foundation addressed received very limited philanthropic support and the loss of the foundation's funding and leadership will cause significant pain and disruption of the work for many dedicated people and organizations. The Foundation's programs have met with significant success in recent years - promoting change in these critical areas in partnership with government and the non-profit sector. Hopefully others will look closely at this work and consider supporting it going forward.

Contact:
Robert Crane, President and CEO
JEHT Foundation
212-965-0400

Here's a list of the JEHT Foundation's active grants, virtually all of which will be cancelled over the next 45 days:

JEHT FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE GRANTS

List of active juvenile justice grants of the JEHT Foundation:
(I'm assuming that all active grants on this list, with millions of dollars yet to be distributed, will be cancelled.)

Organization Name--Amount of Grant--Year Grant Was Made--Duration of Grant

$15,000 2004 1 year Advocates for Environmental Human Rights $450,000 2005 3 years
Altus Global Alliance $300,000 2004 18 months
American Civil Liberties Union Foudation $600,000 2006 3 years
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation $500,000 2004 1 year
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation $350,000 2004 2 years
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation $300,000 2007 1 year
American Public Media $80,000 2007 1 year
American Society of International Law $151,800 2005 18 months
American Society of International Law $140,500 2007 18 months
American Society of International Law $125,000 2008 1 year
American University, Washington College of Law, War Crime Research Office $103,000 2004 1 year
American University: Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law $83,365 2005 9 months
Americans for Informed Democracy $10,000 2006 3 months
Americans for Informed Democracy $65,500 2007 1 year
Amnesty International USA $250,000 2004 1 year
Amnesty International USA $300,000 2007 1 year
Amnesty International USA $250,000 2004 1 year
Amnesty International USA $1,000,000 2005 3 years
Aspen Institute $160,000 2005 1 year
Aspen Institute $324,570 2006 2 years
Brandeis University: The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life (ICEJP) $600,000 2005 3 years
Brandeis University: The International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life $600,000 2008 3 years
Business and Human Rights Resource Center $100,000 2006 2 years
Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict $150,000 2006 3 years
Center for Constitutional Rights $325,000 2007 2 years
Center for Constitutional Rights $37,500 2004 4 months
Center for International Environmental Law $600,000 2006 3 years
Center for Investigative Reporting $300,000 2006 1 year
Center for Justice and Accountability $450,000 2006 3 years
Center for Public Integrity $316,000 2005 1 year
Center for Public Integrity $900,000 2008 3 years
Center for Public Integrity $107,000 2007 6 months
Citizens for Global Solutions $250,000 2006 1 year
Coalition for International Justice $75,000 2004 1 year
Coalition for International Justice $60,000 2005 6 months
Columbia Law School: Human Rights Institute $90,000 2006 1 year
Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro $150,000 2004 2 years
Crimes of War Project $60,000 2004 1 year Crimes of War Project $23,400 2007 2 months
Crimes of War Project $60,000 2005 1 year Crimes of War Project $200,000 2008 2 years
ETV Endowment of South Carolina: Hedrick Smith Productions $75,000 2005 3 months
EarthRights International $200,000 2005 2 years
EarthRights International $325,000 2008 2 years
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights $49,600 2007 1 month
Harvard Law School: International Human Rights Clinic $43,261 2006 7 months
Harvard Law School: International Human Rights Clinic $118,000 2008 1 year
Harvard University: Program on Criminal Justice Policy and Management, Kennedy School of Government $768,739 2005 3 years
Heartland Human Care Services, Inc.: National Immigrant Justice Center $720,000 2008 3 years
Human Rights First $100,000 2002 7 months
Human Rights First $1,500,000 2005 3 years
Human Rights First $350,000 2004 1 year
Human Rights Watch $225,000 2002 1 year
Human Rights Watch $250,000 2004 1 year
Human Rights Watch $500,000 2005 2 years
Human Rights Watch $1,000,000 2007 3 years
Human Rights Watch $172,500 2007 1 year
Interights $600,000 2006 3 years
International Bar Association $29,729 2005 6 months
International Center for Transitional Justice $150,000 2005 1 year
International Judicial Academy $205,000 2006 4 years
International Judicial Academy $234,000 2008 3 years
International Labor Rights Fund $100,000 2007 6 months
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights $300,000 2006 1 year
Nation Institute $50,000 2007 3 months
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers $250,000 2004 1 year
National Institute of Military Justice $510,000 2007 3 years
National Security Archive $110,000 2006 2 years
National Security Archive Fund, Inc. $200,000 2008 10 months
New York University Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $130,000 2007 1 year
New York University Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $130,000 2007 1 year
New York University School of Law: Center on Law and Security $$75,000 2006 14 months
New York University, Center on International Cooperation: Project on International Courts and Tribunals $160,000 2004 18 months
New York University: Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $160,000 2005 2 years
Physicians for Human Rights $350,000 2006 2 years
Physicians for Human Rights $350,000 2008 2 years
Physicians for Human Rights $233,000 2005 2 years
Physicians for Human Rights $260,000 2005 18 months
Physicians for Human Rights $209,850 2006 1 year
Program on International Policy Attitudes $5,543 2005 1 month
Program on International Policy Attitudes $150,000 2005 1 year
Proteus Fund, Inc. $120,000 2004 1 year Reprieve $63,700 2006 6 months
Reprieve $400,000 2007 2 years
The American Prospect $132,500 2004 10 months
The Center for Justice and Accountability $100,000 2005 6 months
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center $175,000 2007 1 year
University of Notre Dame Law School: Center for Civil and Human Rights $176,825 2003 1 year
University of Texas School of Law $25,344 2003 4 months
Vera Institute of Justice $250,000 2004 1 year
Vera Institute of Justice $250,000 2005 1 year
WITNESS, Brooklyn, NY $75,000 2006 4 months
Yale Law School $120,000 2007 1 year
Yale University Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic $50,000 2004 1 year

JEHT FOUNDATION CRIMINAL JUSTICE GRANTS

List of active criminal justice grants of the JEHT Foundation which will now be cancelled:
(I'm assuming that all active grants on this list, with millions of dollars yet to be distributed, will be cancelled.)

Organization Name--Amount of Grant--Year Grant Was Made--Duration of Grant

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation $180,000 2006 1 year
American Prosecutors Research Institute $183,687 2005 15 months
Association of Paroling Authorities International $35,000 2006 4 months
Association of Paroling Authorities, International $200,000 2007 16 months
Association of Paroling Authorities, International $200,000 2007 16 months
Baptist Community Ministries $390,000 2008 8 months
Bazelon Center for Mental Health $493,162 2005 2 years
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law $25,000 2006 8 months
Brown University: Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies $355,937 2006 18 months
California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice $57,500 2006 1 year
Cascade Center for Community Governance $382,750 2006 18 months
Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services $360,000 2008 2 Years
Center for Effective Public Policy $268,000 2008 6 months
Center for Effective Public Policy $45,000 2008 1 year
Center for Effective Public Policy $500,000 2005 2 years
Center for Effective Public Policy $24,198 2006 6 months
Center for Effective Public Policy $50,000 2006 7 months
Center for Effective Public Policy $163,500 2007 1 year
Center for Employment Opportunities $350,000 2005 3 years
Center for Traumatic Grief and Victim Services $75,000 2006 2 years
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice $30,000 2006 9 months
Chicago Metropolis 2020 $65,150 2006 1 year
Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending $490,000 2004 3 years
City of Providence $197,000 2007 3 years
Colorado Department of Corrections $321,500 2007 12 months
Community Foundation of North Florida, Inc. $200,000 2007 6 months
Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan $510,000 2007 18 months
Corporation for Supportive Housing $643,500 2008 15 months
Corporation for Supportive Housing $251,000 2008 30 months
Corporation for Supportive Housing $150,000 2006 1 year
Council of Michigan Foundations $20,000 2006 1 year
Council on Crime and Justice $265,310 2007 18 months
Dallas County District Attorney's Office $454,000 2008 24 months
Death Penalty Information Center $125,000 2007 12 months
Drug Policy Alliance $750,000 2004 3 years
Families Against Mandatory Minimums $500,000 2006 2 years
Family Justice $30,000 2007 4 months
Fight Crimes: Invest in Kids $250,000 2007 2 years
Florida Justice Institute $52,000 2007 2 years
Florida Partners in Crisis, Inc. $125,000 2008 1 year
FrameWorks Institute $270,000 2003 2 years
Georgia State University Research Foundation $477,132 2006 2 years
Grand Rapids Community Foundation $205,000 2006 1 year
Immigrant Legal Resource Center $200,000 2004 2 years
Immigrant Legal Resource Center $25,000 2006 1 year
Innocence Project $2,400,000 2004 3.5 years
Innocence Project $2,250,000 2008 36 months
Institute for Social and Environmental Justice Education $61,680 2006 6 months
Intermountain Harm Reduction Project $35,000 2006 1 year
Job Opportunities Task Force $231,000 2007 24 months
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Center for Modern Forensic Practice $249,000 2008 12 months
Kansas Department of Corrections $450,000 2006 1 year
Kansas Department of Corrections $4,670,000 2006 3 years
Local Initiatives Support Corporation $592,000 2005 2 years
Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute $156,000 2007 1 year
MDRC $1,097,143 2006 4 years
Mental Health Association of Palm Beach County $300,000 2005 2 years
Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency $300,000 2008 8 months
Michigan Public Health Institute $334,300 2007 5 months
Michigan Public Health Institute $197,154 2007 2 months
Michigan Public Health Institute $280,000 2007 5 months
Missouri Department of Corrections $240,300 2008 12 months
National Center for Youth Law $204,000 2008 8 months
National Commission on Correctional Health Care $451,500 2003 3 years
National Employment Law Project $90,000 2006 18 months
National Governors Association $400,000 2005 2 years
National Housing Law Project $50,000 2006 6 months
New Jersey Association on Correction $90,000 2006 1 year
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice $450,000 2004 3 years
Pacific News Service $50,000 2006 1 year
Police Foundation $353,000 2008 28 months
Positive Health Program $264,999 2006 1 year
Pretrial Justice Institute $300,000 2007 12months
Pretrial Justice Institute $193,000 2007 12months
Pretrial Services Resource Center $343,528 2006 1 year
Pro Bono Net $50,000 2006 6 months
Public Policy Associates $67,500 2007 9 months
Public Policy Associates $1,694,914 2005 30 months
Rhode Island Family Life Center $512,014 2007 24 months
Rutgers University $236,554 2006 2 years
Stop Prisoner Rape $300,000.00 2008 2 years
Texas Defender Service $280,000 2006 2 years
The American Judicature Society $700,000 2007 18 months
The Defender Association $271,510 2006 18 months
The Institute $156,000 2004 2 years
The Sentencing Project $350,000 2006 1 year
The Urban Institute $112,986 2006 1 year
Tides Foundation $120,000 2004 18 months
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse $283,000 2005 2 years
University of California, Berkeley School of Law $500,000 2007 1 year
University of California, Berkeley School of Law $296,600 2007 3 years
University of Missouri - St. Louis $$226,700 2008 16 months
University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work $117,500 2007 1 year
Urban Institute $98,000 2007 9 months
Vera Institute of Justice $500,000 2007 24 months
Vera Institute of Justice $500,000 2007 30 months
Vera Institute of Justice $600,000 2007 24 months
Vera Institute of Justice $500,000 2005 2 years
Vera Institute of Justice $900,000 2004 3 years
Vera Institute of Justice $38,400 2005 1 year
Vera Institute of Justice $75,000 2007 3 months
Volunteers of America $500,000 2003 4 years
WISDOM $71,500 2007 15 months
Western Prison Project $200,000 2005 2 years
Western Prison Project $63,400 2006 9 months
Wisconsin Court System, Director of State Courts Office $573,000 2007 3 years
Women's Prison Association & Home, Inc $150,000 2007 2 years
Women's Prison Association & Home, Inc. $150,000 2007 1 year

JEHT FOUNDATION JUVENILE JUSTICE GRANTS
(I'm assuming that all active grants on this list, with millions of dollars yet to be distributed, will be cancelled.)

List of active juvenile justice grants of the JEHT Foundation:

Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD
aecf.org
Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative

The Annie E. Casey Foundation seeks to foster public policies, human service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today's vulnerable children and families. In 1992, it launched the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative program, a multi-year, multi-site project designed to demonstrate that jurisdictions can safely reduce reliance on secure detention. The Initiative works with system leaders across agencies to create better options for young people who do not require incarceration. This grant supports the expansion of this work.
Amount: $2,500,000
Year Made: 2005
Duration: 3 years

Center for Children's Law and Policy, Washington, D.C.
The Congress Project

The Center is a public interest law and policy organization focused on reforming systems that affect troubled and at-risk children. This grant supports building the capacity of juvenile justice advocates and stakeholders to support the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Accountability Act and to promote other federal policy reform.
Amount: $280,399
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 18 months

Center for Public Representation, Northhampton, MA
centerforpublicrep.org
Juvenile Justice Advocacy and Support Project

The Center for Public Representation (CPR) is a public interest law firm that works on behalf of people with disabilities in communities and institutional settings. This grant supports CPR's work with "Protection and Advocacy" agencies, a network of federally funded legal advocacy organizations in all 50 states, empowered by Congress to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. CPR's work with P&A's aims to improve services for youth in custody, but CPR's ultimate goal is to encourage justice agencies to press for the diversion of young people with disabilities into community based programs.
Amount: $718,320
Year Made: 2007
Duration: 3 years

Commonweal, Bolinas, CA
commonweal.org
Youth Corrections Policy Reform in California

Founded in 1976, Commonweal is a California-based research institute with programs dedicated to children and families, health, and the environment. It established a Juvenile Justice Program in 1982. This grant supports the Juvenile Justice Program's efforts to reduce the number of juveniles detained at the California Division of Juvenile Justice and promote restructuring of parole and reentry services.
Amount: $100,000
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 2 years

Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, Bridgeport, CT
ctjja.org
Regional Youth/Adult Substance Abuse Program

Formed in 2001, the Alliance's mission is to promote a safe, effective, and equitable system of services designed to meet the needs of children and adolescents in or at-risk or becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. This grant supports the Alliance's efforts to advocate systemic reforms on the issues of disproportionate minority contact, adult waiver, and the decriminalization of youth.
Amount: $200,000
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 2 years

Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, AL
eji.org
Challenging Death in Prison Sentences for Children

Founded in 1995, Equal Justice Initiative is a private nonprofit law organization focused on U.S. criminal justice reform. This grant supports a new program working to reduce sentences of life without parole for crimes committed by 13- and 14-year olds and to establish new Eighth Amendment jurisprudence declaring such sentences to be cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.
Amount: $500,000
Year Made: 2007
Duration: 1 year

Juvenile Justice Initiative, Springfield, IL
jjustice.org

Founded in 2000, this statewide coalition includes state and local organizations, advocacy groups, legal educators, community service providers, and child advocates. The organization is dedicated to reforming the juvenile justice system by reducing Illinois' reliance on incarceration, promoting fairness for youth and developing an adequate range of community-based resources. This grant provides general operating support.
Amount: $300,000
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 2 years

Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, PA
JLC.org

The Center is a public interest law firm dedicated to protecting and advancing children's rights in the public welfare and juvenile justice system. This grant provides operating support to deepen the Center's state-based work moving Pennsylvania toward policies and practices informed by principles of adolescent development.
Amount: $150,000
Year Made: 2007
Duration: 1 year

Mental Health Association of Greater Houston, Houston, TX
mhahouston.org
Operation Redirect: Building a Safety Network for Our Youth

The Mental Health Association of Greater Houston is dedicated to promoting mental health and improving the care and treatment of persons living with mental illness. This grant, together with other private and public funds, supports the launch of a comprehensive system of services and interventions designed to keep youth with mental health needs out of the juvenile justice system.
Amount: $500,000
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 2 years

Santa Clara Probation Department, San Jose, CA
sccgov.org
Ranch Enhancement Program Phase II

The Santa Clara Department of Probation provides a wide range of administrative, court, investigative, detention, and supervision services for youth and adults. This grant augments county funds to hire the Missouri Youth Services Institute to support the development and state certification of a new training curriculum for the Department.
Amount: $162,600
Year Made: 2008
Duration: 1 year

The Correctional Association of New York, New York, NY
correctionalassociation.org
Juvenile Justice Project: Campaign to Close Youth Jails

The Correctional Association of New York is a non-profit organization advocating for a fair and humane justice system. This grant funds the Association's efforts to support New York State's Office of Children and Family Services to close six detention facilities and reinvest the savings in community-based and alternative-to-incarceration programs.
Amount: $12,500
Year Made: 2008
Duration: 4 months

University of San Francisco Law School, San Francisco, CA
usfca.edu/law
End Juvenile Life Without Parole Project

This grant supports the Law School's Human Rights Clinic to lay the groundwork for a ban on juvenile life without parole, by strengthening opposition to its use in human rights forums, and subsequently using this opposition in litigation to advocate for an end to the practice in the United States.
Amount: $159,900
Year Made: 2006
Duration: 2 years

Vera Institute of Justice, New York, NY
vera.org
Juvenile Pre-Trial Services Planning Project

This grant supports a planning process for the implementation of a demonstration project to effect comprehensive reform of detention practices in New York City. The project will include family outreach, application of the risk assessment screening to match young people with appropriate alternative programs, and collecting juvenile justice data in a central location.
Amount: $80,000
Year Made: 2007
Duration: 27 months

YouthBuild USA, Somerville, MA
youthbuild.org
Criminal Justice Reform Initiative

YouthBuild USA is a national program that provides education, counseling, and job skills to unemployed youth. The organization is comprised of a network of 225 local YouthBuild programs serving about 8,000 youth annually. This grant allows YouthBuild to provide technical assistance to nine state coalitions to advocate for increased state-level funding to expand services for court-involved youth.
Amount: $275,000
Year Made: 2007
Duration: 2 years

JEHT FOUNDATION GRANTS FOR FAIR AND PARTICIPATORY ELECTIONS

"Pew Center on the States and the JEHT Foundation Award $2.5 Million to Improve U.S. Elections."

"In 2008, the JEHT Foundation partnered with the Pew Center and the Pew Charitable Trusts to deliver $2.5 million in support of their "Make Voting Work Initiative" to improve voter registration systems, polling place access, and poll worker training and on election audits and performance assessment."

The program focused upon "Voter Registration Assessment" ($669,000), "Vote Centers"--to study ways to improve overcrowded, inconveniently located and poorly designed polling places ($568,000), "Audits of Elections" ($467,000), "Online Training for Poll Workers" ($318,000), and "Election Performance Assessment" ($465,000). Key locations targeted for these studies included selected counties in: Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, and many other areas that ended up being quite critical with regard to the outcome of the national election early last month.

Confirmed: Air Force Falls Short in Third Nuke Test

By Noah Shachtman - Wired Blog - December 15, 2008 | 7:21:08 PM 

Now, it's confirmed. The Air Force has indeed blown a third test of its nuclear handling capabilities, as Danger Room first reported over the weekend. In a memo, the Air Force confirmed that the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base "rated unsatisfactory" on its nuclear surety inspection. Testers found fault with the missile unit's "management and administration," as well as "tools, tests, tie-down and handling equipment."

As the Project on Government Oversight notes, "this is the third Air Force nuclear unit to fail an inspection this year, and moreover, it now means that all three missile bases with deployed land-based Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) -- Minot, Malstrom, and now Warren -- have failed their security tests."

FEMA extends registration deadline, sticks to debris removal deadline

By RYAN MYERS - Beaumont Enterprise - Dec 11th, 2008

Hurricane Ike's trash, more than 19 million cubic yards of detritus, has made for Texas' largest debris removal operation ever.

Nonetheless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it will not budge on its six-month deadline for reimbursing local governments for the cost of cleaning up hurricane junk from public lands and roadways.

That 19 million cubic yards of Ike debris would cover a football field two miles high, Soshana Resnick, a FEMA public assistance supervisor, said Thursday in conference call with reporters.

To pay for that removal, FEMA has committed $140 million. The amount is likely to grow before the six-month dead-line for reimbursement. By contrast, Hurricane Rita in 2005 resulted in FEMA paying $111 for debris removal in Texas.

The reimbursement funds are part of FEMA's public assistance program that also helps repair roads, bridges and other public infrastructure. Including the debris funds, FEMA has committed $219 million to public assistance as of Thursday.

State and local officials have pressed FEMA to extend its six-month deadline for 100-percent reimbursement of public debris removal expenditures.

On Thursday's conference call, FEMA said 80 percent of debris removal eligible for federal assistance had been completed.

The Tet Offensive

On January 31, 1968, the NVA and VC attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and more than 100 other targets throughout South Vietnam. The assault became known as the Tet Offensive, named after the Vietnamese celebration of the lunar New Year.

(Full text of Don North's Report: "An American Reporter Witnessed the VC Assault on the U.S. Embassy During the Vietnam War)

Seven pillars of wisdom - from Lawrence of Arabia

Iraq - Afghanistan - Vietnam - etc - etc

"It is better that they do it imperfectly than that you do it perfectly. For it is their war and their country and your time here is limited."

Medicare Advantage ...is for the insurance companies

Medicare insurers' profits exceed expectations | ajc.com

By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — Health insurance companies that serve the elderly and disabled in Medicare are realizing significantly higher profits than they anticipated, resulting in the companies getting $1.3 billion more than projected, congressional auditors say.

Under a program called Medicare Advantage, the federal government pays insurers for delivering Medicare benefits. The insurance companies' payments are based, in part, on their anticipated revenues and expenses. If the companies had been more accurate, they could have spent much of that $1.3 billion on enhanced health benefits or lower monthly premiums, and they still would have maintained their expected profit margin, the Government Accountability Office said in a report expected to be released Thursday.

The GAO studied the Medicare Advantage program for 2006, the most recent year for which figures were available.

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who requested the analysis, said the government spends more on beneficiaries when they're in Medicare Advantage than if they're in traditional Medicare, about 13 percent more on average.

"This puts to bed this idea the plans are offering tremendous extra benefits with the overpayments," said Stark, a frequent critic of the program. "The overpayments are going to profits."

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the correspondence from the GAO to Stark.

Stark, chairman of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, said he will push for legislation next year that would lower the government's payments to insurers, an idea that President-elect Barack Obama backed on the campaign trail. But supporters of the Medicare Advantage program said participants are happy with their benefits, and they note that millions have enrolled in the program in recent years as a result.

Any attempts to scale back payments to private insurers would lead to benefit cuts or higher premiums for seniors in those plans, supporters of the program contend. About three-quarters of Medicare's 45 million beneficiaries are still enrolled in traditional Medicare, in which the government pays health care providers a set fee for particular services.

The GAO said that Medicare Advantage insurers generated $50 billion in revenue during 2006. On average, plans earned profits of 6.6 percent and they had projected to the federal government that they would earn profits of 4.1 percent.

The insurance plans also spent less covering medical expenses than anticipated, with 83.3 percent of revenue going to medical expenses. They had projected that nearly 87 percent of revenue would go to expenses.

In responding to the report, federal officials said the insurers' estimates for expenses were within a standard range, given the difficulty in forecasting medical trends and spending. They also stressed that Congress set up the payment structure for Medicare Advantage plans to make sure beneficiaries had wide access to the program.

"The goal of the payment structure, as mandated by Congress, was to ensure broader access to MA plans, particularly for lower-income, minority and rural beneficiaries," said Jeff Nelligan, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

American Health Care
There is a cure available for current plan

By DR. OLIVER FEIN

Atlanta Journal Constitution - Sunday, December 14, 2008

"The report last week that the U.S. economy lost nearly 2 million jobs this year, and 533,000 jobs in November alone, sent shudders through our nation’s households. That’s the biggest one-month plunge in jobs in 34 years. “Horrendous” was how one economist put it, while others said the number of unemployed, and underemployed, could easily double over the next year.

These job losses spell disaster for our health. Millions of people are losing their employer-sponsored health insurance, joining the 46 million who already lack coverage. Millions more are finding it harder to pay their co-pays and deductibles and are scrimping on their medications and doctor visits. Many go without care, risking their health and often their very lives.

In short, affordable health care has never been more urgently needed. Yet most of the health reform proposals coming out of Washington these days won’t get us there.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently unveiled his proposals for incremental health reform, which largely mirror the ideas of President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) However well-intentioned, the Obama/Baucus/Kennedy approaches share a fatal flaw: they preserve a central role for the private health insurance industry.

To varying degrees, they would mandate that everyone buy private health insurance – the private insurance that is failing us today. Some of these plans offer a Medicare-like, public option that people could buy into, but experience with Medicare shows that the private plans refuse to compete on a level playing field. They cherry-pick healthier patients and insist on more than their share of payment.

Experience with mandate-based plans in Washington state (1993), Oregon (1992) and Massachusetts (1988 and today) shows that they simply don’t work, achieving neither universal health care nor cost containment.

As long as we rely on private health insurers, universal coverage will be unaffordable. These companies generate immense overhead costs and force doctors and hospitals to spend heavily on billing and paperwork.

Administration consumes about one-third of every health care dollar in the U.S. By contrast, in countries with nonprofit national health insurance, administrative costs consume less than half that amount.

There is a cure, however. Eliminating the private insurance industry would save $400 billion annually in administrative costs, enough to ensure that everyone is covered and to eliminate all co-pays and deductibles.

At this critical juncture, a single-payer plan is the only medically, morally and fiscally responsible path to take.

We already have an example of an American single-payer system that works— traditional Medicare. It’s not perfect, but people with Medicare are far happier than those with private insurance. Doctors face fewer hassles in getting paid, and Medicare has been a leader in keeping costs down, at least until Washington politicians decided to pay private insurance plans to enroll seniors at a cost 12- to 19-percent higher than traditional Medicare.

Single-payer systems give patients complete freedom to choose their doctor and hospital. They also enhance cost containment through global budgeting, the bargaining power of being the sole buyer, and an emphasis on primary care and prevention.

With a universal plan of this type, doctors and other health professionals could return to their main task: caring for their patients.

Single payer, or an improved Medicare for All, is embodied in the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and 92 other members of Congress.

Opponents of single payer often admit it’s the best, most efficient and equitable way to provide quality care, but say it’s not politically feasible and is therefore off the table in this round of the debate. How so? A solid majority of physicians, 59 percent, and an even higher percentage of the public, 62 percent or more, support national health insurance, recent surveys show. Single payer should be front and center.

Medicare for All is within reach, but only if we are prepared to take on the private health insurance industry. The time is now. It requires only the political will.

• Dr. Oliver Fein is associate dean and professor of clinical medicine and public health, Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Madoff's Alleged $50 Billion Fraud Hits Other Investors

by: Jon Stempel and Christian Plumb, Reuters

Bernard L. Madoff, founder of Madoff Investment Securities LLC and former Nasdaq chairman, was arrested yesterday for running a $50 billion fraud scheme touching hundreds of companies and individual investors. World-wide, investors are scrambling to calculate their losses. (Photo: www.quantnet.org)

Investors scrambled to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, a day after the arrest of the prominent Wall Street trader. Prosecutors and regulators accused the 70-year-old, who was chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market in the early 1990s, of masterminding a fraud of epic proportions through his investment advisory business, which managed at least one hedge fund. Hundreds of people, investing with him through the firm's clients, entrusted Madoff with billions of dollars, industry experts said.
<------------------------------------->
Note: A $50 billion ponzi scheme hatched by a 70 year old former chairman of the Nasdaq exchange...and yet there are some WingNuts who say "let the markets decide"..."markets are self-regulating"...etc, etc. Hopefully some of these dummies will be those who will discover to their amazement that he stole their money!

Bridge Loan to the "Big Three"?

1. Unionized vs Non-Union Labor

With a bailout/bridge loan for the auto industry a perhaps increasing possibility albeit not a certainty, it's worth checking out an article in today's New York Times which breaks down the labor costs for the unionized American car makers and their competitors in non-union plants in the U.S. (e.g., Toyota and Honda).

The bottom line is that the difference in total labor costs is partly a matter of wages and benefits to current workers. Unionized workers get around $55/hr and non-union workers get around $45/hr. Most of that $10 difference is in benefits, not take-home salary. But an even more important part of the difference is health care costs for retirees: about $15-16/hr/worker for the unionized companies, but only around $3 for the non-union companies.

2. Labor costs

"That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle." (Thus 90% of the cost of an American vehicle has nothing to do with the labor used to manufacturer the vehicles.

3. Say no to bailout of money changer

Chapter 11 is the right road for US carmakers, by Joseph Stiglitz, Commentary, Financial Times: The debate about whether or not to bail out ... carmakers has been mischaracterised. ... In fact, a ... bail out ... would benefit shareholders and bondholders as much as anybody else. These are not the people that need help right now. In fact they contributed to the problem. ... Today, they are asking to escape accountability. We should not allow it. ...

4. American cars uniformly have a horrible maintenance and repair history compared to European and Japanese cars. The overwhelming majority of vehicles with low "true cost of ownership" are not manufactured by the "Big Three".


5. Residual value

Of the top ten cars, (manufactured in 2006), with the best residual value, as listed on Edmunds, not one is manufactured by the "Big Three"

6. Excessive management costs

The "Big Three" pay their CEO's and upper management excessive salaries and perks, especially compared with foreign based manufacturers


So, in short, I agree...Chapter 11 for the "Big Three" is the best option.
Cheers,
-=rwp=- ... Richard @ Bizmarts 12/12/08 - 3:05:51 pm

A Planned Approach to Coping with Problems
(by Richard)

a) Identify - problem dimensions in objective terms

b) Personalize - describe how, when, and why problem affects you

c) Options - find strategic and tactical options for dealing with problem

d) Evaluate - thoroughly examine and evaluate choices

e) Get - obtain access to preferred options

f) Evaluate - did choice address the problem effectively. If not go back to identification component.

g) Stay current - periodically read and study original problem to mitigate reemergence

Excavation of an ant colony

Posted by David Pescovitz, December 11, 2008 6:03 PM | permalink

Jennifer Lum points us to this fascinating segment from the TV documentary "Ants! Nature's Secret Power." Jen says, "Scientists poured cement into an ant colony structure and then excavated it. It revealed an amazing network of fungus gardens and tunnels and garbage pits."

Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Video
Dec. 6th, 2008

Don't Bail Out Incompetence

December 11, 2008 - Economics Blog

Joe Stiglitz says the car companies need to go through Chapter 11:

Chapter 11 is the right road for US carmakers, by Joseph Stiglitz, Commentary, Financial Times: The debate about whether or not to bail out ... carmakers has been mischaracterised. ... In fact, a ... bail out ... would benefit shareholders and bondholders as much as anybody else. These are not the people that need help right now. In fact they contributed to the problem. ... Today, they are asking to escape accountability. We should not allow it. ...

The US car industry will not be shut down, but it does need to be restructured. That is what Chapter 11 of America’s bankruptcy code is supposed to do. A ... bankruptcy ... can also address legacy retiree obligations. ...

With financial restructuring, the real assets do not disappear. Equity investors (who failed to fulfill their responsibility of oversight) lose everything; bondholders get converted into equity owners and may lose substantial amounts. Freed of the obligation to pay interest, the carmakers will be in a better position. ... Moral hazard ... will be averted: a strong message will be sent.

Some will talk of the pension funds and others that will suffer. ... The government may need to help some pension funds but it is better to do so directly, than via massive bailouts hoping that a little of the money trickles down to the “widows and orphans”. Some will say that bankruptcy will undermine confidence in America’s cars. It is the cars and ... the dismal performance of their executives ... that have undermined confidence. ... It is more plausible that confidence will be restored if the industry is ... given a fresh start. ...

US workers, working for Japanese carmakers, have shown their hard work can produce cars that are desirable. ... The failure lies with the managers...

As the bail-outs continue, numbers that once looked huge are starting to seem almost normal. Hundreds of billons are being given to banks and insurance companies. ... Even so, we should not forget that a few months ago, President George W. Bush said there was not enough money for health insurance for poor children although it cost just a few billion dollars. ...

[W]e need to think more carefully about who we are really bailing out and why. This should not end up as just another rescue package for bondholders and shareholders.

Sprint's debt rating drops to 'junk' status

Sprint's debt rating drops to 'junk' status
By Angela Gunn, BetaNews
December 11, 2008, 3:22 PM

The nation's third largest mobile provider took a hit on its stock price Thursday after Moody's Investors Service downgraded Sprint Nextel's senior unsecured debt rating to Ba2, known more commonly as the "junk" rating.

Sprint's stock has dropped 84 percent since the beginning of 2008. It traded at a low of $1.35 in late November, though it's currently back up to the low $2 range. (At press time, shares were trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $2.09, down $0.33 on the day.

Existing and New Cabinet Officers

Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice

Hillary Rodham Clinton

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Secretary of the Treasury

Henry
Paulson

Tim Geithner

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Secretary of Defense

Robert
Gates

Robert Gates

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Attorney General

Michael Mukasey

Eric Holder

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of the Interior

Dirk Kempthorne

Ken Salazar

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Agriculture
Edward
Schafer

Tom Vilsack

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Commerce

Carlos Gutierrez

Bill Richardson

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Secretary of Labor

Elaine
Chao

TBA

*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Secretary of Health and Human Services

Michael Leavitt

Tom Daschle

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Steve
Preston

Shaun Donovan

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Transportation

Mary Peters

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Energy

Samuel Bodman

Stephen Chu

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Education

Margaret Spellings

Arne Duncan

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Veterans Affairs
James
Peake

Gen. Eric Shinseki

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Secretary of Homeland Security

Michael Chertoff

Janet Napolitano

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jury in Atlanta courthouse shooting case unable to reach sentencing verdict

3 hours ago

ATLANTA — Jurors say they cannot reach a unanimous sentencing decision in the case of a man who killed a judge and three other people in a shooting rampage that started in a downtown Atlanta courthouse.

The judge told the jurors Thursday to continue deliberating.

The jury has already deliberated for almost 20 hours.

Prosecutors have asked the jury to sentence Brian Nichols to death.

If the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, Georgia law requires the judge to decide whether to sentence the 37-year-old to life in prison with parole eligibility or life in prison without parole.

Nichols was convicted last month of murder and dozens of other counts in the 2005 killings.

Nichols was on trial for rape when he grabbed a guard's gun and committed the killings.

We are hollow...
(by Richard)

America has hollowed out their textile, steel, optics, small appliance, semi-conductor, customer service, automobile, and newspaper industries...and has left us with aerospace, lawn care, insurance, and financial services - all of which are bloated, inefficient, bad for the environment, and of limited value on the World's stage.

Worse yet, Christian evangelicals and the G.W. Bush administration have actively worked to severely restrict the nascent bioengineering industry on so called "moral grounds". As have modern day Objectivists who raised objections to Green industries being State supported, or the Luddites who attempted to discount scientific knowledge, especially on Biology, Global warming, Family Planning, Energy sourcing, and Earth's ecology.

Our educational system which is the second highest absorber of local taxation fails to graduate half of their students. We rank poorly in International standards for philanthropy, educational attainment, political participation, multicultural and multilingual skills, we're untrained in and unappreciative of the fine arts, we are jingoistic, physically obese, socially stratified, fearful, and highly judgmental.

As an American progressive in late 2008, the prospects look bleak for the country I fought for, have loved and hated, and had such high hopes for in the past. We are the hollow land, the stuffed land, the dumbed down land, whose world view consists primarily of YouTube style videos. The only things we really have in our favor is the knowledge that most other countries of the World are at present in a worse overall condition than we are, and that America is the preeminent military power on Earth. Not at all inspiring is it...

T. S. Eliot » "The Hollow Men"

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
...

Lake Arrowhead, GA - 2008

Toxic Toys?
Here's a link to a website that reports on the health status and safety of hundreds of toys, with a searchable database of the good, bad, and the ugly - just in time for Christmas.

Recycling Goes From Boom to Bust

Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority Director Norm Steenstra is no longer accepting aluminum cans and plastics from municipal curbside collections, stands at the Slack Street Recycling Center in Charleston, W.Va. on Nov. 21, 2008. Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables. (AP Photo/P.J. Dickerscheid)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Norm Steenstra's budgeting worries mount with each new load of cardboard, aluminum cans and plastics jugs dumped at West Virginia's largest county recycling center..

Faced with a dramatic slump in the recycling market, the director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority has cut 20 of his 24 employees' work week to four days from five, shuttered six of the authority's drop-off stations and is urging residents to hoard their recyclables after informing municipalities with curbside recycling programs that the center will accept only paper until further notice.

"The market is just not there anymore," Steenstra said.

Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

Cardboard that sold for about $135 a ton in September is now going for $35 a ton. Plastic bottles have fallen from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans dropped nearly half to about 40 cents a pound, and scrap metal tumbled from $525 a gross ton to about $100.

It's getting more difficult to find buyers in some markets, Steenstra said.

While few across the country appear to be taking such drastic measures as Steenstra, the recycling market has gotten so bad that haulers in Oregon and Nevada who were once paid for recyclables are now getting nothing or in some cases are having to pay to unload their wares.

In Washington state, what was once a multimillion-dollar revenue source for the city of Seattle may become a liability next year as the city may have to start paying companies to take their materials.

Some in the business are describing the downturn as the worst and fastest ever.

"It's never gone from so good to so bad so fast," said Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. in Pekin, Ill., who has been in the recycling business since 1975.

The turnaround caught everyone off guard, said Steven Kowalsky, president of Empire Recycling in Utica, N.Y.

"Nobody saw it coming. Absolutely nobody," Kowalsky said. "Even the biggest players didn't see it coming."

At the height of the market just months ago, customers lined the street outside Kowalsky's business, hoping to hawk scrap to pay rising food and fuel costs.

"That's not happening anymore," he said.

The Kanawha County authority, which sells donated recyclables from residents and municipalities, sells about 7,500 tons of paper, plastic and aluminum a year, Steenstra said.

Ted Armbrecht III, managing partner of The Wine Shop at Capital Market in Charleston, says it won't be a problem piling up his recyclables at home, but he doesn't have that luxury with his wine business, which uses a lot of cardboard boxes.

"We'll hold onto it as long as we can, but once it reaches a tipping point, the only other place it's going to go is the dumpster," he said.

Trey Granger, spokesman for Earth911, a national environmental resource group, said the public's interest in recycling should be able to weather the downturn in an industry that has been growing for more than 30 years and has always been cyclical.

"Obviously times are tough," Granger said. "I wouldn't worry more about this more than any other aspect of the economic downturn we're facing."

Last year, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They recycled about 150 million tons of material _ roughly 80 million of that in iron and steel _ supporting an industry that employs about 85,000 with $70 billion in sales, said Bob Garino, director of commodities at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that represents more than 1,600 companies worldwide.

Most recyclables are shipped to Asian countries that use the material to make products that are shipped backed to the United States to be sold.

But the market shift is now jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of long-term contracts for scrap metal as some companies that signed when prices were high are trying to cancel or postpone deliveries to take advantage of the cheaper spot market, Garino said.

Davis, of Midland Davis Corp. in Illinois, said he hopes to wait out the market and may rent warehouse space to store his more perishable recyclables, like paper, until he can find buyers. He has some room to stockpile cans and plastics because in July, when prices were high, he unloaded more material than during any month in the past 10 years.

"It's going to be bleak for a while," he said. "We can just make our piles taller, and hopefully by spring, things will be a little better."

Whether that will come as early as spring is debatable.

"I don't know if we are at the bottom yet, bouncing along the bottom or we have new lows to achieve," Garino said.

The market's not likely to bounce back until the economy improves. Kowalsky estimates it could be several years.

"It's just time to pull in your horns and maintain what you have and try to survive until 2010," he said.

Clean Coal - Facts & Fiction

There are roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the US.
Not one of them captures and stores its global warming pollution.

“Electricity Facts,” US DOE 2008 (link); IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme CO₂ Capture and Storage Database (link); Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT, CO₂ Capture and Storage Project Database (link)

The coal industry is spending millions advertising clean coal, but not a single clean coal power plant exists in the US today.

“Big Coal Campaigning to Keep Its Industry on Candidates' Minds,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2008 (link); IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme CO₂ Capture and Storage Database (link); Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT, CO₂ Capture and Storage Project Database (link

Red Wolf vs Coyote: What do they eat?

Red Wolf: 50% white tail deer, 30% raccoon, 20% small mammals, less than 2% domestic pets or livestock

Coyote: Voles, Rabbits, Squirrels, Grass, Nutria

Target hit in missile defense test
By Julian E. Barnes - LA Times
December 6th,2008

Reporting from Washington --
The Defense Department conducted a successful test of its missile defense system Friday, taking out a dummy target with an interceptor strike over the Pacific Ocean, an exercise officials hope will build support for the controversial initiative within the incoming Obama administration.

Military officials said the test showed for the first time that various radars and defense systems could be used together.

However, the success of the test was tempered by the failure of the dummy target to deploy planned "countermeasures" -- devices designed to try to throw off the interceptor. As a result, officials could not tell whether the system can distinguish between a warhead and decoys that probably would accompany an actual attack.

Nonetheless, some Pentagon officials hope the test, the last of the Bush administration, will impede attempts by the incoming administration to scale back the missile defense system.

During the campaign, President-elect Barack Obama and his advisors identified missile defense as an area where spending could be trimmed. But some officials in the Pentagon oppose funding cuts that would slow development of a system that they say has begun to prove itself as effective protection.
- . -

Note: ...effective protection against what? There is NO country, or group of people anywhere in the world which would launch an armed intercontinental missile at the United States with any hope of surviving retaliation.

This is just the DoD trying to gain funding with their obscene emphasis on militarism. Not to mention that the only real value of a "missile defense shield" is to lay the groundwork for another century of US inspired buildup and supply of war-making equipment for every major player in international affairs, and has nothing to do with preventing an ICBM launch against America.

Unless as a Nation we are so f***ing stupid as to push some nuclear powered country to the brink of disaster where they just don't care what happens to them and their people. Think Pakistan, not North Korea, China, or Iran.

Frontline's April 22nd, 2005 Interview with Jeffrey Toobin
A Review of the 1995 O.J. Simpson Trial

Simpson Sentenced to at Least 9 Years in Prison

By STEVE FRIESS - NY Times - Dec. 6, 2008

LAS VEGAS — Four times, in a halting, broken voice, a humbled O. J. Simpson said Friday, “I’m sorry.” Yet for all his compunction about the September 2007 raid and armed robbery at a casino hotel for which he was convicted of 12 felonies, Mr. Simpson also continued to insist he had done nothing illegal.

And so Judge Jackie Glass of Clark County District Court, facing down the man acquitted in perhaps the most-watched murder trial of the 20th century, scolded Mr. Simpson for his arrogance and stupidity and sentenced him to a minimum of nine years in state prison.

Simpson was convicted of 12 felony charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery, stemming from the incident at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino. Mr. Simpson and five men, at least two of whom carried guns, stole a trove of sports memorabilia worth thousands of dollars from two collectibles dealers.

In remarks leading up to the sentencing, Judge Glass repeatedly insisted that neither she nor the jury had been influenced by the 1995 trial in which a Los Angeles jury acquitted Mr. Simpson in the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.

Mr. Goldman’s father and sister did attend the trial, and said they were pleased by the outcome. “There’s never closure; Ron is always gone,” the father, Fred Goldman, said on the courthouse steps. “What we have is satisfaction that this monster is where he belongs, behind bars.”

Four of Mr. Simpson’s accomplices pleaded guilty and testified against Mr. Simpson at the trial here, which played out like a very low-key echo of his circus-like trial in Los Angeles in 1995.

While many legal experts said they did not think the case would have gone to trial had it not centered on Mr. Simpson, a noted Las Vegas criminal defense lawyer, Dayvid Figler, said he was surprised and impressed that Judge Glass did not go harder on him. “This sentence is not out of line with someone who would be in a similar position as Simpson with those charges having gone to trial,” said Mr. Figler.

Lawyers for Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart said they would appeal the convictions on several grounds. They argue that jury selection was manipulated to produce a panel with no African-Americans and that one juror claimed on a questionnaire not to have a strong opinion about the 1995 trial but said in post-trial interviews that Mr. Simpson should have been convicted 13 years ago.

“This isn’t the end for this legal team,” Mr. Galanter said. “This is the beginning. There’s a long way to go. We’re not going to leave any stone unturned.”

Mr. Simpson was found liable for the deaths in a 1997 civil suit and was ordered to pay damages to the victims’ families totaling $33.5 million. Little of the civil judgment has been collected, and the Goldman family, which has vigorously pursued Mr. Simpson’s assets, is expected to push for hearings to determine who owns the Simpson-related items seized in the raid.

A Book Review of: "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson
(by C. Colt on Amazon)

This review is from: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Paperback)

"Blowback" is an important and timely critique of America's over-extended and obsolete empire not from a moral perspective but from practical considerations of the nation's future well being. The term "blowback" is derived from a CIA reference to American foreign policy decisions that generate unforeseeable, negative consequences. For example, following the Gulf War in 1991, the United States stationed more than 35,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia to deter any further hostility from Iraq. An unexpected consequence of this decision was the sudden fomenting of intense hatred toward America on the part of radical Islamic fundamentalists including Osama Bin Laden.

Johnson argues that while most great powers exploit their empires, America, is actually exploited by its own. During the Cold War the United States justifiably sought to create a buffer of Pacific satellite nations to cope with the threat of Soviet expansion in Asia. While this may have been an effective deterrent, it also came with a price. According to Johnson, the United States effectively bribed Japan with favorable economic conditions that fueled phenomenal growth in that country while largely destroying the manufacturing base in America. Although this may have been a prudent strategy during the Cold War, Johnson asks why the United States continues to sacrifice its productivity and living conditions at home in order to maintain a troop presence in Asia.

Where American troops were once stationed abroad as a buffer against Soviet expansion, they are now used to influence the countries they occupy or to train governments in counter insurgency and political repression. Johnson points out that in several cases American intervention on behalf of a repressive government merely turned American protectorates into implacable enemies. Johnson sites Vietnam and Iran as two examples of this failed strategy, and he warns of impending identical results in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The tragedy of America's misguided foreign policy, according to Johnson is that while it drains enormous resources from America, it fails to provide the nation with beneficial results.

Instead of continuing its obsolete Cold War strategy, Johnson calls on the United States to reevaluate its strategic requirements and to formulate a new foreign policy. An honest evaluation of American objectives according to Johnson would probably result in the recall of most American troops stationed abroad. Johnson foresees enormous resistance to such change from the military, which is the chief beneficiary of America's global military deployment. Johnson also argues that America is much better off accepting and working with China's inevitable economic surge and its increasing political status than attempting to contain the inevitable.

To anyone who is wondering why citizens of many foreign countries hate the United States, this book is a must read. In case after case, Johnson demonstrates the negative impact of American military bases on local communities such as Okinawa and parts of the Philippines where, rape, crime, noise, disease, and environmental contamination are routine byproducts of American military presence. Add to this American complicity in atrocities such as the Kwangju massacre (South Korea 1980) or the inept reorganization of foreign economies by American controlled institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank and foreign hostility toward the United States ceases to be a mystery. Written prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, this book accurately predicts increasing blowback against the United States both at home and abroad in response to its late 20th Century foreign policy. The American challenge in the 21st Century according to Johnson involves dismantling the American empire and coping with blowback.

This book is also a must read for self-styled Machiavellians, or believers in Real Politic. Johnson effectively argues that blowback is not a unique American phenomenon but is the product of expansionist nations in general. To this day, for example, Japan must tread carefully in its political dealings with nations such as South Korea and China that retain bitter memories of Japanese conduct prior to the end of the Second World War. To argue that American imperialism in its current form is realistic and necessary is to ignore historical examples that demonstrate the failure of empires that displayed similar arrogance, aggression, and a distinct inability to comprehend the perspective of their protectorates.

Human Rights & Trade

(from Chalmers Johnson's book: "Blowback") - Metropolitan Books - 2000

"The second aspect of human rights in China we must recognize is to ensure that poor working conditions and prison labor in China do not end up destroying the livelihoods of American workers. Without question the most powerful human rights tool the United States could wield would be to deny access to the American market to products from multinational companies that have abandoned American workers to seek out low-wage foreign workers lacking in economic or political rights of any sort, Not to speak of human rights.

The economics profession may attack such policies as “protectionism”, but the time is long past when the United States should allow corporations to use the bottom line, “globalization" or the pressures of competition as excuses for their indifference to basic human rights at home or abroad. Failure to consider this dimension of the rights question leaves the United States open to a charge of hypocrisy.

The answer to these problems, in the sense of helping to promote China’s economic development while preventing its predatory trade policies from provoking international conflict, is managed trade. All this means is the use of public policy to manage outcomes rather than procedures."

Alteril Review -Does Alteril Work?

Alteril is another one of these late night ads you just can't avoid if you're watching tv at night, especially if you have satellite like DirecTV or DISH. The key ingredients in Alteril are, L-Triptophan, melatonin, and valerian. These are all natural ingredients known to help someone go to sleep, without taking any over the counter or prescription drug medications.

These ingredients are actually much safer than their drug counterparts, whether prescription or non-prescription. The problem with Alteril is that the product costs about $30 a bottle after your teaser 7 day trial is over. That's a dollar a day for ingredients that cost pennies if you buy them on their own!

For example, if you take Valerian (root extract) on its own, you'll get the same effects for pennies compared to the $30 a bottle Alteril is charging! A quick search on the internet and I've already found a few different name brand vitamins selling Valerian at an effective 450mg dose with 100 capsules per bottle for only $2.59! Melatonin 5mg capsules at 120 per bottle is less than $3!!

These are just 2 examples! Why pay $30 a bottle when you can buy these specific ingredients for much less? Maybe people like the convenience of taking one product and are willing to pay 10 times more. During this down economy, it seems that people would rather save their money to spend on other necessities. If that's the case, I'll happily take the extra $20 you'd throw away and I'll even give you $5 cash back!

Always review product labels to make sure you kno what you're buying. Don't fall for fancy advertising messages and fancy packaging like Alteril. Always do your homework (which doesn't take much time these days) so you're educated about the product you're taking. I have nothing against Alteril. As a matter of fact, I really like their commerical and packaging! I just think the markup is a little too high for a simple natural product like this.

A Very Irreverent Video from Santa Claus
(courtesy of MKB - Alaska) - {2.9Mb}

Purcell & Johnson Development @ Lake Arrowhead, Georgia
(Dec. 4th, 2008)

As of today, Mechanic Liens filed against Purcell/Johnson for the new development total $707,474.42.

The following information is posted on the Cherokee County web site.

$29,116.11@ Skinner Nurseries, Filed and recorded 8/18/08

$10,770.10 @ Spencer Roofing and Construction, Filed and recorded 8/20/08

$162,556.96 @ C.W Mathews Contracting, Filed and recorded 9/3/08

$31,606.64 @ Legacy Farms, Filed and recorded 9/16/08

$ $13,579.88 @ Riverstone Outdoors, Filed and recorded 9/22/08

$ 98,851.82 @ North Georgia Foundations, Filed and recorded 9/25/08

$ 14,472.00 @ Superior Turf, Filed and recorded 9/25/08

$ 46,770.20 @ CTJ Enterprises, Filed and recorded 10/03/08

$ 5,146.67 @ HD Supply Plumbing/HVAC, Filed and recorded10/15/ 08

$ 252,640.04 @ Collins Construction Group, Filed and recorded 11/06/08

$41,964.00 @ Lafarge Building Materials, Filed and recorded 11/26/08

Ayn Rand - Egoist Supremo
(from Wikipedia & Others)

• Rand advocated rational individualism and laissez-faire captialism, categorically rejecting socialism, altruism, and religion
• Russian emigre arrived in America in 1926, and went to Hollywood to become a screenwriter
• Known primarily for her novels: The Fountainhead (1943), and Atlas Shrugged (1957)
• The core of the philosophical movement: Objectivism, is stated in a lengthy monologue in Atlas Shrugged by the novel's hero, John Galt
• Of Objectivism, she said: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
• Rand did not see charity as a moral duty, or major virtue. She opposed all forms of aid given by governments, just as she opposed any other government activity not directed at protecting individual rights.
• She said: "For a woman qua woman, the essence of feminity is hero-worship - the desire to look up to man." She strongly opposed the modern feminist movement.
• Rand's "fiercely independent - and unapologetically sexual heroines who are unbound by 'traditions chains' had sex because they wanted to. Yet the sex in Rand's novels is extraordinarily violent and fetishistic.
  
• While she opposed ethnic and racial prejudice on moral grounds, she still argued for the right of individuals and businesses to act on such prejudice without government intervention. "Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue - and can be fought only by private means..."
• In an essay by Robert Nozick, he argues her attempt to defend the morality of selfishness is essentially an instance of begging the question
• Rand stated in a 1963 essay that her fictional writing was intentionally different in that its goal was to project a vison of an ideal man: not man as he is, but man as he might be, and ought to be.
• She said: "the most important parts of my philosophy are my theory of concepts, my ethics, and my discovery in politics that evil - the violation of rights - consists of the initiation of force."
  
• Philosophical and literary criticism include:
  

1. when first published her novels "received almost unanimously terrible reviews" - Jennie Turner
   
2. her novels are "sophomoric", "remarkably silly", and "can be called a novel only by devaluing the term" - Whittaker Chambers
3. "Her characters are flat and uninteresting, her heroes implausibly wealthy, intelligent, physically attractive and free of doubt; while arrayed against antagonists who are weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty, and lacking in imagination and talent" - Mimi Goldstein
4. "She was opposed, on principle, to the cultural heritage of the West." - Greg Nyquist
5. "a traitor to her own sex" - Susan Brownmiller

• The Galt Gulch oath: "I swear by my life and my love of it that I well never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
  

Taxes & Semi-Legal Cheating - who doesn't pay:

a) in general, there are no State or Federal sales taxes on sales of intangible property or related services

b) most ordained ministers do not pay Federal income taxes

c) individuals whose annual income is less than the current year standard deduction

d) "side money" less than $400 in a calendar year paid to an individual is not taxable

e) according to the GAO, two thirds of US Corporations, ( or more than 1.2 million companies), paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005

f) in the same time frame, 68% of foreign companies, (or more than 38,000 companies), doing business in the US also did not pay any federal income tax

g) most religious entities do not pay real estate or income taxes

h) there is generally no State or Federal inheritance or estate tax due on estates valued at less than $2 million

i) companies like Kellog Brown & Root which declare their headquarters as located at a shell office in the Cayman Islands do not pay Federal Social Security and Medicare taxes on their 10,500 American employees working in Iraq.

j) companies that transfer US aquired income to foreign subsidiaries which do not tax that income

k) if you can successfully claim your business had a net loss during your fiscal year there will be no Federal or State income tax

l) if income is derived from unregulated or illicit activity and is paid in cash

m) if income is in the form of barter or trade of services the extent of it can easily be disguised

n) most local community hospitals do not pay property taxes

o) renounce US citizenship by gaining citizenship in a low tax country while continuing to work in the US, or be paid by a foreign government

p) real estate is valued based on current use value, so converting residential acreage to timberland will save on real estate taxes.

q) most large commercial enterprises gain highly favorable tax abatements from their local tax authorities

r) most Indian tribes do not pay property taxes on sovereign lands

s) many industrial manufacturers receive exemptions from State sales and use taxes

t) in some cases, if you are a former insurance agent, fishing crew member, military person serving in a combat zone, or work as a notary public, that income is usually exempt from SE taxes.

u) LLC's are "pass-through" tax entities, and members pay taxes as part of their individual tax bill

v) individuals selling items on the Internet generally do not charge or collect sales taxes

w) high income investors can make their income appear to be capital gains rather than earned income

x) create an annuity contract with a self-created entity to convert capital assets into an annuity income stream thus avoiding federal income taxes which would accrue if the assets were sold outright

y) avoid State taxes by moving to a State that does not have State income taxes

z) create a charitable organization that uses only goods and services provided by that organization

VA Ousts Managers for Claims Deception in NY

Veterans Report - VA Ousts Managers for Claims Deception

Week of December 01, 2008
The Department of Veterans Affairs has reassigned the director of its New York regional office after finding that employees misdated hundreds of claims to make it appear they were being processed on time. VA spokeswoman Alison Aikele said last week that the director and five other top managers were ousted after investigators discovered a pattern of deception in the handling of claims at the regional headquarters in Manhattan. The shake-up at the New York regional office, which serves 800,000 vets living in eastern New York State, came as veterans organizations and members of Congress have criticized the federal agency for mishandling, losing or destroying the benefits claims of veterans. Read the full article on Miltary.com.

IBM Asserts - Energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows

Ever wonder how much energy could be created by having solar technology embedded in our sidewalks, driveways, siding, paint, rooftops, and windows? In the next five years, solar energy will be an affordable option for you and your neighbors. Until now, the materials and the process of producing solar cells to convert into solar energy have been too costly for widespread adoption.

But now this is changing with the creation of “thin-film” solar cells, a new type of cost-efficient solar cell that can be 100 times thinner than silicon-wafer cells and produced at a lower cost. These new thin-film solar cells can be “printed” and arranged on a flexible backing, suitable for not only the tops, but also the sides of buildings, tinted windows, cell phones, notebook computers, cars, and even clothing.

How to Stay Alive in a Terrorized Hotel

(by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic - Nov. 2008) - edited by rwp

Four hotels I've stayed in recently have now been blown up, so count me an expert on where not to stay. But I've also thought a bit about how to stay alive in hotels - I'm sort of the TSA of hotel security, except that, unlike the TSA, I recognize that most of my advice is utterly without value.

Also, my personal security guru, Bruce Schneier, says it's foolish even to worry about hotel safety, because the chances of something happening on any particular night in any particular hotel are vanishingly small. The taxi ride to the hotel is invariably more dangerous than the hotel itself.

But: Here are several ways to minimize your chances - already remote - of dying in a hotel besieged by terrorists. I'm not including in this some of the self-inflicted mistakes people make, such as allowing Russian prostitutes into your Baku hotel room and believing that they have your best interests at heart.

1) Avoid big hotels. I stopped staying at the Marriott in Islamabad years and years ago. It was fairly well-protected, as hotels go - not like the hotels in Amman, though not terrible - but it was an obvious target, a supersized American hotel in a country boiling with anti-American feeling. Terrorists tend not to waste time on small targets; they're trying to maximize the body count and hit targets of maximum symbolic value at the same time.

2) If you can't help but stay at a behemoth, order room service whenever possible. This minimizes your exposure to restaurants located off the lobby. Obviously, the lobby is the most dangerous place in a hotel; it is akin to the security lines at American airports, which are prime targets for suicide bombers precisely because they're entirely insecure.

3) Ask for a room on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th floor, unless you're reasonably sure the fire department in the city you're visiting doesn't have ladders that reach up to six. I try to be high enough to escape whatever chaos might occur on the ground floor, but not so high that I can't be reached. I'm always of two or three minds on this question; it's also not a bad idea to stay on a floor close enough to the ground that a jump will leave you with broken legs and nothing more.

4) Make two plans the moment you set foot in your room. Figure out how you're going to escape, and figure out, alternatively, how you're going to survive a siege. If escape isn't an option - say, you believe that men are roaming the floors with automatic weapons - try to figure out what you're going to use to fortify your room. In certain parts of the world - well, two - I'll barricade myself in my room at night, using a desk or dresser. This is dangerous, of course, in the event of fire. But I measure the risk. In dodgy places, fill your bathtub, if you have one, with water; it will come in handy if you can't leave (and, of course, if there's fire outside your door). Always travel with a flashlight, utility knife (they're easy to sneak past TSA), matches, and a few energy bars. Know where your shoes are, as well as your passport and money, just in case you have to get out in the dark. Also, identify a lamp or other piece of furniture that could be used as a weapon of last resort.

5) Set up tell-tales in your room before you leave for the day; I use a discreetly-placed length of dental floss to make sure no one's tampering with my laptop. It's always good to know if somebody's been poking around your stuff.

6) Stay in hotels that have already been bombed or otherwise attacked. Mumbai is a fairly safe place for travelers right now. And visiting India soon sends a message that civilization cannot be defeated by terror. But that's another subject.

7) Consider which side of the building is more vulnerable to rocket or bomb attack. In general, it is better to stay on a room at the back side of the hotel, away from the main street. Relatedly, consider the location of the hotel in the city. If it's next to the US or Israeli embassy that could be a good thing (greater security measures) or a bad thing (greater risk of attack).

8) Get a mental picture of the surroundings of the hotel. Where would trouble come from (not just terrorists, but muggers etc). Where would you escape to if you need to get away from the hotel.

9) Regarding jumping out a window: onto what? Grass and bushes, concrete?.

10) Be nice to the hotel employees: you might find that they have some inkling of problems, and have good advice (but don't necessarily take it).

11) Could an attacker hide in your room, and where?

12) How sturdy are the door locks and doors? Could you easily break down the door by yourself? If so, ratchet up your defensive plans a few notches.

Disney's "Innoventions Dream Home"... is it banal - or just MOTS

eBay Traffic Plummeting
( Henry Blodget | November 25, 2008 12:10 PM)

eBay's (EBAY) core business continues to fall apart. Some of the decline is likely the result of the declining economy. The rest of it is likely the result of the trends that have been clobbering eBay for the past two years: competition, overpricing, and the deterioration of eBay's value proposition. eBay's efforts to turn around this business do not appear to be working.

Check out the year-over-year decline in U.S. unique users to eBay.com, per Nielsen data below (year-over-year declines in lower right corner). Note the acceleration in declines since the summer.