Missions Incredible: South Korea sends more missionaries than any country but the U.S. And it won't be long before it's number one (Rob Moll, 02/24/2006, Christianity Today)
Samuel Kang was God's improbable choice to be a leader in the world's fastest-growing missionary movement. Kang was born in Japan when the Japanese empire was forcing alien Shinto beliefs down Korean throats.At the end of World War II, the Kang family returned to Korea and grew deeply fervent in their Christian faith. The Kangs dedicated Samuel to God, and they told him, "You will become a pastor."
Kang rebelled. "I did not want to accept my parents' dedication of me to God without my consent," he says. For years, he resisted God's call. But by the time he was 20, Samuel's heart softened, and he felt compelled to give himself to God. "No one can escape from his sovereign call," Kang says.
It took another 20 years of discipling and discernment before Kang set foot on a mission field. At age 39, Kang and his wife, Sarah (who had discovered her own call to missions work), left South Korea for Nigeria. When they departed in 1980, there were only 93 Korean missionaries worldwide.
During the next 11 years, Samuel and Sarah Kang raised a family, planted Nigerian churches, and started a Bible college for Nigerian pastors. Kang's eyes sparkle as he recalls his days in Africa. "The Lord gave me this wonderful opportunity to serve him," he says. "If God gives me another life, may I give it to him as a missionary."
Kang doesn't look backward very often. Now 64 years old, with silvery hair and a gentle smile, he is leading an ambitious 25-year plan to help South Korea send out more missionaries than any other country.
Kang is chief executive director of the Korean World Mission Association and dean of the Graduate School of World Mission at Seoul's influential Chongshin University. He has helped move South Korean missions into a place never before imagined: South Korea today sends out more missionaries than any other country except the United States. In terms of missionaries per congregation, Korea sends one missionary for every 4.2 congregations, which places it 11th in the world. (The U.S. does not rank in the top 10.)
But more than that, mission scholars agree that Koreans are a potent vanguard for an emerging missionary movement that is about to eclipse centuries of Western-dominated Protestant missions. They call it the "majority-world" mission movement. They say this new term—"majority world"—is necessary to replace the aging terms "third world" and "developing world." The radical change in Protestant missions is forcing scholars and missionaries to create new ways of talking about the global scene.
The global majority (5.2 billion people) live in less developed nations. Of the world's 6.4 billion people, less than 18 percent live in developed nations. Scholars say the church's future in large measure rests in the hands of the global majority.
"The day of Western missionary dominance is over, not because Western missionaries have died off," says Scott Moreau, chair of intercultural studies at Wheaton College (Illinois), "but because the rest of the world has caught the vision and is engaged and energized."
'Let the prisoners pick the fruits' (AP, 3/31/06)
"I say let the prisoners pick the fruits," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of more than a dozen Republicans who took turns condemning a Senate bill that offers an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship."Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter 'A,'" said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, referring to a guest worker provision in the Senate measure.
Insurgents Justify Release of Jill Carroll in Web Tape (ABC News, March 30, 2006)
ABC News has found a video on an insurgent Web site showing U.S. reporter Jill Carroll before she was released by her captors in Iraq. The circumstances surrounding the video are unclear and it is equally unclear whether Carroll was under duress during the taping.The tape appears to have been made earlier today, before Carroll's captors released her, but the time of the taping has not yet been confirmed by ABC News. [...]
Voice: Do you have a message for Mr. Bush?
Carroll: (Laughs)Yeah, he needs to stop this war. He knows this war is wrong. He knows that it was illegal from the very beginning. He knows that it was built on a mountain of lies and I think he needs to finally admit that to the American people and make the troops go home and he doesn't care about his own people.
He doesn't care about the people here in Iraq, he needs to wake up and the people of America need to wake up and tell that what he's done here is wrong and so hopefully this time he can get the message that this war was wrong and the continuing occupation is wrong adn he could change his policies. He's dangerous for Iraq. He's dangerous for America. He needs to accept that and admit that to people.
Voice: Do you think the Mujahedeen will win against the American Army?
Carroll: Oh definitely. Things are very clear to see even now they're already winning. Everyday there are soldiers killed. Everyday humvees are blown up. Helicopters are shot down from the skies. Everyday, it's very clear that the Mujahedeen have the skills and the ability and the desire and the good reasons to fight that'll make them ensure that they will win.
Voice: What do you feel now that the Mujahedeen are giving you your freedom while there are still women in Abu Ghraib living in very bad (unclear)?
Carroll: Well, I feel guilty honestly. I've been here, treated very well, like a guest. I've been given good food, never, never hurt while those women are in Abu Ghraib. Terrible things are happening to them with the American soldiers are torturing them and other things I don't want, I can't even say, so I feel guilty and I also feels it shows the difference between the Mujahedeen and Americans, the Mujahedeen are merciful and kind that's why I'm free and alive. The American army they aren't [...not clear...] I feel guilty and I also feel that it just shows that Mujahedeen are good people, fighting an honorable fight, a good fight while the Americans are here as an occupying force treating the people in a very, very bad way so I can't be happy totally for my freedom, there are people still suffering in prisons and very difficult situations.
Bush Wanted War (Richard Cohen, March 30, 2006, Washington Post)
There remains, though, the little matter of what was in Bush's gut -- not his head, mind you, but that elusive place where emotion resides. It was there, in the moments after 9/11, that Bush truly decided on war, maybe because Saddam had once tried to kill George H.W. Bush, maybe because the neocons had convinced him that a brief war in Iraq would have long-term salutary consequences for the entire Middle East, maybe because he could not abide the thought that a monster like Saddam might die in his sleep -- and maybe because he heard destiny calling.Whatever Bush's specific reason or reasons, the one thing that's so far missing from the record is proof of him looking for a genuine way out of war instead of looking for a way to get it started. Bush wanted war.
MODERATOR: People watching here tonight are very interested in Middle East policy, and they are so interested they want to base their vote on differences between the two of you as president how you would handle Middle East policy. Is there any difference?GORE: I haven't heard a big difference in the last few exchanges.
BUSH: That's hard to tell. I think that, you know, I would hope to be able to convince people I could
handle the Iraqi situation better.MODERATOR: Saddam Hussein, you mean, get him out of there?
BUSH: I would like to, of course, and I presume this administration would as well. We don't know --
there are no inspectors now in Iraq, the coalition that was in place isn't as strong as it used to be. He is a danger. We don't want him fishing in troubled waters in the Middle East. And it's going to be hard, it's going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.MODERATOR: You feel that is a failure of the Clinton administration?
BUSH: I do.
GORE: Well, when I got to be a part of the current administration, it was right after -- I was one of the few members of my political party to support former President Bush in the Persian Gulf War resolution, and at the end of that war, for whatever reason, it was not finished in a way that removed Saddam Hussein from power. I know there are all kinds of circumstances and explanations. But the fact is that that's the situation that was left when I got there. And we have maintained the sanctions. Now I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and I know there are allegations that they're too weak to do it, but that's what they said about the forces that were opposing Milosevic in Serbia, and you know, the policy of enforcing sanctions against Serbia has just resulted in a spectacular victory for democracy just in the past week, and it seems to me that having taken so long to see the sanctions work there, building upon the policy of containment that was successful over a much longer period of time against the former Soviet Union in the communist block, seems a little early to declare that we should give up on the sanctions. I know the governor's not necessarily saying that but, you know, all of these flights that have come in, all of them have been in accordance with the sanctions regime, I'm told, except for three where they notified, and they're trying to break out of the box, there's no question about it. I don't think they should be allowed to.
Nobel Laureate Rips Ernest Hemingway And Henry James (NY Sun, March 30, 2006)
The 2001 Nobel laureate for literature, Sir V.S. Naipaul, 73, has launched an extraordinary assault upon his fellow writers, including some literary giants Americans hold dear, the BBC reported. [...][S]ir V.S. saves the title "the worst writer in the world" for the seemingly innocuous Henry James.
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Naipaul targets literary icons (Hasan Suroor, 08/03/01, The Hindu)
On the eve of the publication of his new novel Half a Life, he has torn into E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, Charles Dickens and James Joyce besides lashing out at the doyen of 20th century economists John Maynard Keynes.Even R.K. Narayan gets a gentle ticking-off for believing that India is ``eternal'' while the fact, according to Mr. Naipaul, is that it is ``a ruin.'' His most acerbic remarks however are targetted at Forster who, he says, wrote ``rubbish'' and had no idea of India.
In an interview in the latest issue of Literary Review, Mr. Naipaul attacks the author of A Passage to India both for his literary ``pretence'' and his homosexuality. Forster's sole interest in India, he suggests, was to ``seduce'' garden boys.
``He was somebody who didn't know Indian people. He just knew the (royal) court and a few middle-class Indians and the garden boys whom he wished to seduce,'' he tells the interviewer, Mr. Farrukh Dhondy.
A Passage to India, he declares, was ``utter rubbish'' and Forster's views on India's three religions were a mere ``pretence''. ``It's false. It's a pretence. It's utter rubbish,'' he says rubbishing Forster's sentimental impressions of India. He was simply a homosexual who had ``his time in India, exploiting poor people...'' And his friend Keynes was no better, Mr. Naipaul alleges.
``Keynes didn't exploit poor people; he exploited people in the university; he sodomised them and they were too frightened to do anything about it,'' he says accusing Forster and Keynes of setting their work against a background of ``mystery and lies''. [...]
Mr. Naipaul also ridiculed Maugham saying he was now ``part of the dust, part of the imperial dust''. And Dickens ``died from self-parody''.
As for Joyce and Ulysses, he didn't make sense. ``I can't read it...he is not interested in the world''.
Help Wanted as Immigration Faces Overhaul: Congress Considers New Rules, and Businesses Worry About Finding Workers (S. Mitra Kalita and Krissah Williams, March 27, 2006, Washington Post)
Year after year, Professional Grounds Inc. runs a help-wanted ad to find landscapers and groundskeepers. Starting wage: $7.74 per hour.In a good year, three people call. Most years, no one does.
So the Springfield company relies on imported labor -- seasonal guest workers allowed to immigrate under the federal guest-worker program -- to keep itself running. For 10 months this year, 23 men from Mexico and Central America will spend their days mulching and mowing, seeding and sodding for Professional Grounds.
Tuning In to Anger on Immigration: Rep. Tancredo's Profile Grows With Push to Secure U.S. Borders (Shailagh Murray and T.R. Reid, March 31, 2006, Washington Post)
The first time Rep. Tom Tancredo got really angry about immigration, the year was 1975, and he was a junior high school social studies teacher in Denver. [....]A year later, Tancredo launched a political career animated by his obsession to stem the tide of immigration from Mexico and Central America that he feared would change the character and security of the country. [...]
Tancredo is particularly riled at the business community, which he says has become "addicted to cheap labor." Employers are a driving force behind the guest-worker program and other Senate provisions that amount to "nearly universal amnesty" for the 12 million people currently living in the United States illegally, Tancredo says.
Levee Repair Costs Triple: New Orleans May Lack Full Protection (Peter Whoriskey and Spencer S. Hsu, March 31, 2006, Washington Post )
The Bush administration said yesterday that the cost of rebuilding New Orleans's levees to federal standards has nearly tripled to $10 billion and that there may not be enough money to fully protect the entire region.Donald E. Powell, the administration's rebuilding coordinator, said some areas may be left without the protection of levees strong enough to meet requirements of the national flood insurance program. Those areas probably would face enormous obstacles in attracting home buyers and investors willing to build there.
Blacks Turn to Internet Highway, and Digital Divide Starts to Close (MICHEL MARRIOTT, 3/31/06, NY Times)
African-Americans are steadily gaining access to and ease with the Internet, signaling a remarkable closing of the "digital divide" that many experts had worried would be a crippling disadvantage in achieving success.Civil rights leaders, educators and national policy makers warned for years that the Internet was bypassing blacks and some Hispanics as whites and Asian-Americans were rapidly increasing their use of it.
But the falling price of laptops, more computers in public schools and libraries and the newest generation of cellphones and hand-held devices that connect to the Internet have all contributed to closing the divide, Internet experts say.
Another powerful influence in attracting blacks and other minorities to the Internet has been the explosive evolution of the Internet itself, once mostly a tool used by researchers, which has become a cultural crossroad of work, play and social interaction.
Studies and mounting anecdotal evidence now suggest that blacks, even some of those at the lower end of the economic scale, are making significant gains.
Tough task awaits Hamas finance chief (Roger Hearing, 3/31/06, BBC)
Dr Omar Abdel Razeq has the least enviable job in the new Palestinian government.As minister of finance, this tall, bearded, 46-year-old US-educated economist is faced with squaring a nightmare circle of ever-growing debts and ever-diminishing income. [...]
His idea is that by dealing effectively with the corruption and incompetence that characterised the old Fatah administration and was so dramatically rejected by Palestinian voters last January, Hamas will eventually be able to win round the doubters in the international community.
"What they care about in the West is the way we handle public funds," he says.
Dr Razeq may be right in the end.
However, many in the West Bank and Gaza fear the economy has reached such a dire position that it cannot endure the loss of most international financial help while it waits for the west to make up its mind about Hamas.
French job law 'constitutional' (BBC, 3/31/06)
France's top constitutional body has ruled that a youth employment law which has sparked weeks of protest is legal.The Constitutional Council move clears the way for the bill to be signed into law by President Jacques Chirac.
His prime minister has championed the law - aimed at tackling high levels of youth unemployment.
Mr Chirac will be making one of the trickiest decision of his long political career, says the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris.
Mr Chirac is loath to lose Dominique de Villepin as Prime Minister - he remains his political son and chosen heir for the presidency, our correspondent says.
Intense speculation swirled around Chirac's intentions but parliamentary sources said they expected the president to announce he would sign the measure into law before explaining his decision on television at 1800 GMT (12 p.m. EST).Aides told the Le Parisien newspaper the 73-year-old leader had opted to sign the law rather than lose conservative Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who is widely reported to have threatened to quit if Chirac backed down over the measure. [...]
Unions and students have vowed to continue their protests if the government presses on with the CPE, which aims to encourage firms to hire workers by allowing them to fire employees aged under 26 without stating a reason during a 2-year trial period.
"The president knows the trade unions' attitude. He knows the frustrations of many youths," opposition Socialist party leader Francois Hollande told RTL radio.
Making clear he thought Chirac would sign the law, he said: "Do you think the many students and workers who have been fighting against this text for months ... will understand the president's decision? Do you think that will be a factor of appeasement, a solution for the country?"
PM, Bush mend fences (SUSAN DELACOURT, 3/31/06, Toronto Star)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is headed to Washington this spring to seal a growing friendship with President George W. Bush and to build on today's expected kick-start to resuming talks on the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute."The Prime Minister made an emphatic case for softwood lumber and I appreciate his steely resolve," Bush said yesterday, after sitting down privately with Harper at the "three amigos" summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the resort city of Cancun. [...]
During their talks yesterday afternoon, Bush invited Harper to Washington and Harper accepted, so now it's left to officials only to work out when it will happen.
It's not stated outright, but the two men are trying to correct what is widely viewed as the more toxic atmosphere that prevailed at the end of Paul Martin's tenure, and the anti-U.S. posture of much of the Liberal rhetoric in the recent election.
The U.S. decision to ignore a panel ruling in Canada's favour on softwood in the North American Free Trade Agreement had stirred much tough talk from Martin and his ministers, who said there could be no new negotiations until the U.S. demonstrated an embrace of the principles underlying trade between the two nations.
Harper noted that if talks can't be started, Canada would not hesitate to keep fighting through the more confrontational route of litigation.
Still, the bonhomie between Harper and Bush was evident yesterday in the many glowing ways the president talked about the new prime minister and the country. He spoke of Canada's commitment in Afghanistan and about the $500 billion in trade between the two countries.
"There's a lot of people in my country who respect Canada and have great relationships with Canadians and we intend to keep it that way," Bush said.
Harper was mutually admiring, saying there is great resolve in his government to work with the U.S. on issues such as building security and trade, and seeing where they can find common cause on the environment.
"Canada and the United States share very important common values — values like freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law," Harper said. "We may disagree how we get there, but that's the objective that we share."
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While the Canadian Left gets its own Third Way option,
Text of Ignatieff speech: The following is the full text of the speech titled "Canada and the World" delivered by Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff at the University of Ottawa on March 30, 2006 (Globe and Mail)
Ever since I entered Parliament in January, people have been asking me: Why have you gone into politics? As in: “ Are you nuts?”No, I’m not nuts.
This is my country, after all.
As a child, I played in the barns of my uncle’s dairy farm in Richmond, Quebec; I swam off the rocks at my aunt’s place in Georgian Bay; when I was a young teacher out in British Columbia, I remember sailing up Howe Sound and watching the sun burn the mist off the ocean; as a father, I rocketed down the Kicking Horse River in a raft with my children; as a husband, I stood with my wife among the graves of the Hungarian pioneers — her people — who settled the country near Esterhazy, Saskatchewan.
This is my Canada. These are the memories that made me who I am. This is the river that runs through me, as it runs through you. This is the place that defined my political allegiances. This is the place I call home.
My father came off a boat in Montreal harbor in 1928, a refugee from Russia. He became an ambassador for his country. Canada made him who he was, and he repaid his debt with a life of public service.
Now it’s my turn.
My family taught me to think of Canadians as a serious people.
Steadfast, tough, courageous.
During World War II, my mother worked in London with the French Resistance. One of her closest friends was a young Canadian who parachuted into France in 1943 to fight fascism. His name was Frank Pickersgill. He was captured by the Nazis and died under torture in Buchenwald. He died so that other men and women could live in freedom.
At our best, we are that kind of people.
Today, we are concerned about our soldiers in Afghanistan. So we should be. But service in Afghanistan is in the best traditions of our people. From Vimy Ridge to Juneau Beach, from Rwanda to Bosnia, we have earned our place in the world of nations by service and sacrifice.
I’ve been to Afghanistan, once when the Taliban were in power and once since then. I’ve got
faith in the Afghans who are pushing their country out of the ditch. It’s good that Canadians are putting their shoulders to the wheel to help them.Critics say I’ve been out of the country a long time. They seem to miss the years spent teaching at UBC, at the Banff Center for the Fine Arts, the documentary series I made for the CBC, the television shows I hosted for TV Ontario, the Massey Lectures I gave on CBC radio, the books and articles I’ve devoted to Canadian problems. I don’t feel I’ve been away at all.
But yes, I’ve also been a war reporter, human rights teacher, journalist and I’ve seen a lot of the world.
Sometimes you only see your country clearly from far away.
I saw it clearly in eastern Croatia in 1992. I had just crossed a UN check point and had been taken prisoner by a half a dozen armed men high on alcohol and ethnic nationalism. A young UN peacekeeper arrived, as I was being bundled away. He cocked his M-16 and said: ‘We’ll do this my way.’ And they did.
That young soldier was from Moncton, New Brunswick.
I saw my country clearly watching a policewoman escort frightened families to and fro across a mined no-man’s land in another part of Yugoslavia. When I asked her why she was doing dangerous work in a foreign country she said, with a smile: ‘It beats writing traffic tickets in Saskatoon.’
I saw my country clearly in the young Canadians who took my classes at Harvard. I saw how eager they were to test themselves against the best the world has to offer.
So this is my Canada and these are my Canadians. We are serious people.
I’ve tried to be a serious person. Being serious means sticking to your convictions. I went to Iraq in 1992 and saw what Saddam Hussein had done to the Kurds and the Shia. I decided then and there that I’d stand with them whatever happened. I’ve stuck with them ever since. Whatever mistakes the Americans have made, one day Iraqis will create a decent society. When that day comes, Canadians should be there to help because their struggle is ours too.
I’ve always believed that Canada should fight for a world in which force is never used except in a just cause.
I’m proud that Lloyd Axworthy named me to the International Commission on Sovereignty and Intervention. It reported to Kofi Annan on the rules that ought to define when it is right to use force in international affairs. Our report said that countries like Canada have a "responsibility to protect" people when they are faced with genocidal massacre or ethnic cleansing.
Canada can only discharge this responsibility when the cause has the support of the people of Canada; when it has the support of the UN or a coalition of free peoples; and when the cause furthers international and Canadian security.
I’m in politics to speak up for a Canada that takes risks, that stands up for what’s right. A Canada that leads.
We are a serious people.
For a long time, however, we haven’t taken ourselves seriously enough.
We need to ask more of ourselves.
For the first time in history ,we now have a real claim to being able to solve problems that have dogged human life for millennia: hunger, disease and environmental destruction. We have the science. We have the money. What we lack is focus and determination.
Forty years ago, a Canadian Prime Minister set the standard for international citizenship at 0.7 percent of GDP in overseas aid to developing nations. Forty years later, we still have not met Mike Pearson’s targets.
The time for excuses is over. We need to fulfill our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals before 2015. We need to meet this target, but we need to do more. We need to focus development aid to those who can really use it. Let’s stop spending money supporting regimes that abuse their people. Let’s find development partners who govern in the interests of their people. Let’s remember that Canadians are the people of "peace, order and good government." The single thing the developing world needs most is good government. We should be the country that leads the world in governance, in helping governments in the developing world to govern more justly.
We need to bring the same leadership to the environment.
The old excuses—the science isn’t clear, action will undermine our economy, our problems are really our neighbors’ fault— are just excuses.
Let’s stop blaming others. Let’s get our own house in order.
We take pride in our support of Kyoto, but Canada’s performance on greenhouse gases is dismal, ranking 27th of the 29 OECD countries in per-capita emissions.
We possess vast amounts of the world’s water supply, but we are poor stewards of this vital asset.
So let’s get serious. Let’s move the environment from the margins of public policy to the centre. Let’s clean up our lakes and rivers. In my riding of Etobicoke Lakeshore, we take pride in the national treasure of Lake Ontario, but the water isn’t clean enough for kids to swim in. This isn’t good enough. We need a federal initiative to clean up the entire Great Lakes watershed from Lake Superior to the Grand Banks. Fairness to the generations of Canadians that follow us mandates a new approach. Let’s make the case for why environmental action is smart business.
Let’s follow Stephan Dion’s leadership and do what we have to, right away, to meet our Kyoto commitments.
Let’s be the very best in the world at making cleaner cars, cleaner trucks and world class public transportation system.
Let’s work with the provinces to invest in public transit and rail before our great cities are completely gridlocked.
The Canadian Arctic is a crucial piece of the global refrigeration system. This system is breaking down. The science is clear. Global warming is happening. Working with other nations in the Arctic Council, we must take leadership in stabilizing the global climate system.
In understanding Canada’s place in the world, we need to think of ourselves not just as defenders of our own sovereignty, but as stewards of the global commons.
From “the responsibility to protect” to “human security”, Canada has been a leader in putting good ideas into circulation and then getting them accepted into practice. Without us, there wouldn’t be an International Criminal Court, and without us, no Land Mines Ban.
But to lead with ideas, we have to know where we are. We leveraged our influence in the 20th Century by tying our fortunes to the United States.
But if the 20th Century belonged to the United States, it’s possible that the 21st will belong to China and India. Canada will have to adapt: reducing our economic dependence on the United States, increasing our trade with the new giants of the international system, working to create stability in a world where old forces are weakening, and new forces are rising.
The 21st Century will be convulsed by vast global flows of labour and capital. As a result, all societies are becoming multicultural. All societies are opening to the world. All societies are struggling with the challenge of maintaining stable and democratic political orders among peoples from different faiths, ethnicities and national origins.
Canada is uniquely placed to show the world how to do this better.
Since 1867 we have been demonstrating that three founding traditions — aboriginal, French and English — can share the land together and create a democratic system in which citizens are both free and equal, in which minorities receive the same respect as the majority.
It is not easy trying to maintain common bonds of citizenship in a nation split into five regions, two language groups, ten provinces and three territories.
This is a formidable task, but we have never succumbed to the demons of division.
We have survived two referenda on separation. We will win a third were it to be forced upon us. Sovereignists want to oblige Quebeckers to choose between parts of their very souls and to choose Canada or Quebec. Quebeckers have always refused this choice.
Quebeckers will remain Canadians because our country respects their right to be Quebeckers and Canadians, in whatever order they choose. Canada has never imposed a unitary patriotic creed on its citizens. We’ve built Canada on respect for the freedom that we enjoy — within the limits of the law — to decide what being Canadian means to each of us.
So Canada will prevail whatever separatists have in store. But that does not mean all is in order in the Canadian house.
Quebec did not give its assent to our constitution, and until it does so, our union remains on an uncertain foundation. We must create the conditions of goodwill that will enable us to build a constitutional foundation with the full-hearted assent of all the partners in our federation.
To create these conditions of goodwill, tomorrow , we need to practice the federalism of recognition and respect today.
The federal government must respect the legitimate jurisdictions of the provinces, the cities and the aboriginal orders of government. Federal authority should have the confidence to move beyond frantic displays of its relevance by constant intrusion into other partners’ jurisdictions. It should concentrate on being a competent manager of its own jurisdiction. Who can say, for example, that the federal government is a competent manager of its responsibilities towards aboriginal peoples?
Recognition means understanding that all provinces are not the same, but all are equal.
Quebec is entitled to practical recognition of the distinctiveness of its language, culture, civil law and its history. It is entitled to be master of its own house within the Canadian federation.
Quebec is also entitled to play its part in international negotiations where its provincial jurisdictions are involved.
But respect is a two-way street. All provinces should respect the legitimate jurisdiction of the federal government.
It is charged with the defense of the country, the protection of its borders , the development of national infrastructure and a national economic market, as well as safeguarding the rights of citizenship. That all Canadians hold in common. Without respect for these federal domains, we cannot have a country.
The federal government does not possess a monopoly in foreign affairs but it is appropriate for it to coordinate Canada’s external presence to work together with provinces to ensure that Canada speaks with one voice, even if the voice that speaks for Canada comes from a province.
Respect and recognition also imply clarity. Mr. Harper’s strategy of calculated ambiguity towards Quebec’s international aspirations is a dangerous game. Already Mr. Duceppe salutes Mr. Harper’s gambit on UNESCO as the first petit pas towards an independent foreign policy for Quebec.
This game has to stop.
In dialogue together, Canada and Quebec must demarcate who does what in international relations so that Quebec’s aspirations for a voice in international domains can be reconciled with the right of Canada to co-ordinate our nation’s presence in the world. If we display our jurisdictional quarrels to the world, we will reduce Canada’s standing , but Quebec’s too.
In promoting a politics of recognition and respect within the federation, we need to change the way we think about national unity. For too long, we have equated national unity with the challenge of Quebec.
If we remember the immense role that Quebeckers since Laurier have played in the making of our nation, if we recall the continual tradition of political innovation that has flowed from Quebec and inspired the rest of Canada, from the Quiet Revolution onwards, it is clear that Quebec has never been the Canadian problem. Quebeckers have always been part of the solution.
Today, we need to re-think the question of national unity. We are divided by much more than language. We are divided by race, religion, class and ethnicity. We are divided into town and country, rural and urban, eastern and western, northern and southern regions. As population concentrates in our cities, our regions and small towns feel left behind.
Canadians long to be more united. They know that we are more than 10 provinces and territories strung together like a string of beads along the 49th parallel.
Unity does not mean a domineering Ottawa. It does not mean a federalist steamroller. Instead of thinking that unity must require a domineering federal government, we need to understand that unity means a strong federation in which orders of government take responsibility, display
accountability, and respect each other’s domains.We are far from that ideal.
Some provinces are running up huge surpluses while others are struggling to balance their books. This horizontal imbalance in the federation threatens to weaken Canada’s capacity to maintain roughly equal conditions of citizenship for each of our people, regardless of the province in which they live.
The right way to fix this is not to rob Peter to pay Paul, not to confiscate the wealth of rich provinces with new energy taxes, but to create a 10-province equalization standard that counts all of the fiscal capacity of the provinces and then uses federal tax dollars to equalize the condition of those provinces still behind.
There is also a vertical imbalance between a federal government that runs up surpluses, while several provinces struggle to fund their ever-rising costs in education and health care.
There is a right way and a wrong way to fix this problem. Permanent transfer of tax power to the provinces would damage the national unity of our country. Gutting Ottawa’s power to collect taxes won’t make the country stronger.
A federalism of respect and recognition points to another solution: just as we need to negotiate a 10-province standard for equalization, we need to negotiate a new 10-province standard for transfers to help provinces meet their spending needs in education and health. These need to be comprehensive, multi-year agreements between orders of government so that each can plan and budget and neither feels subject to blackmail on the one hand and lawless whim on the other.
Behind the issue of fiscal imbalance, we need to address a deeper question: what is the federal government for? What is its essential purpose in the federation?
I believe that the federal government has one core function: to maintain the national unity of our country by sustaining the indivisibility of Canadian citizenship. It is the only order of government with this specific task.
Equality of opportunity means that all Canadian citizens enjoy roughly comparable rights, responsibilities and services.
The chief threat to our country is the weakening of the bonds of common citizenship.
It is good for provinces to experiment with new ways to deliver health care and contain costs. But we have fought for 50 years so that health outcomes do not depend on income. We do not want them to depend on the accident of location either. Defending the basic principles of the Canada Health Act is vital to maintaining the equality of our citizenship.
The federal government is charged with maintaining a national economic space. Do we truly possess one if Quebec workers are barred from working in Ontario and vice versa? If professional credentials recognized in one province are turned down in another? If students from one jurisdiction have to pay more to study in another province? If there is not one national securities market but 10, with separate regulators for each?
We cannot promote equality of opportunity without a national strategy to improve our productivity and our capacity for innovation.
Such a strategy doesn’t mean more government intervention. Indeed it may mean less: cutting through red tape that hampers exporters; breaking down inter provincial barriers to the free movement of labour and capital; cutting back on the cozy rules that protect our banks, insurance and telecommunications companies from needed foreign competition.
A national productivity strategy implies a productive government: one that uses tax dollars frugally, that eliminates waste, that cuts taxes whenever it can be done without endangering common services.
Besides making government itself more productive, a national productivity strategy has to invest in infrastructure — to build the national gateways in Halifax and Vancouver for global export traffic and the national links to move goods, energy supplies, people and information in between.
A national productivity strategy invests in people. A productive future requires sustained, multigenerational investment by government, corporations and people themselves, in post-secondary education, science and technology research.
I have spent a lot of my life in higher education. When I was in the classroom, I always knew I was not just in the business of teaching a subject. I was teaching hope and self-belief, the key engines of productivity.
A national productivity strategy is an opportunity strategy.
We cannot be productive unless all Canadians participate.
Our society lives by the promise of opportunity equally distributed to all.
We know how far short we fall. Aboriginal Canadians, visible minorities new to our country, and the working poor lack opportunity, security and skills. We are wasting our seed corn.
The federal government has long been charged with providing income security for Canadians. We must take steps to enhance the equality of life chances for the working poor. Canadians working 35 hours a week earning minimum wage are making less than $15,000 a year. These hard-working Canadians are now under-represented in our income security regime. We need to make certain that our system provides the incentives for them to remain or return to the labour market, work hard, while removing the fear and insecurity that blights their potential.
Let us commit ourselves to a Canada where no one goes hungry at night, where no one is denied a world-class education because of their race or ancestry; where we bet the future of our country on the proposition that if we can unlock the hidden talent of every citizen, we will always pay our way in the world.
We cannot afford to waste the productive talents of new immigrants. If we fail to recognize credentials, if we fail to invest in language training and re-settlement assistance, we risk creating new citizens who feel betrayed by their Canadian home.
We need to recast our immigration policies as a crucial element of a national productivity strategy. The federal government should increase its investment in programs that re-train immigrants, that top up their credentials, that apprentice them in Canadian companies so that they can gain Canadian experience. If they can’t get recognition of their credentials in one province, the federal government should assist them to move to provinces that will recognize their skills.
In a globalized economy being open to new experience is the key to success, being provincial a sure way to be left behind. If you ask a representative group of young Canadians how many of them have actually lived outside their own province, studied in another jurisdiction or worked outside of their region, you would be dismayed by how few have done so.
We cannot be a country unless we know each other, unless we have lived with each other, unless a Canadian from Chicoutimi has been to Banff, and a citizen of Whitehorse has had the opportunity to study in Halifax.
Innovative federal policy has helped to deepen our national experience. The Canada Council, the CBC, the research councils in the social sciences and humanities have all helped to deepen and extend the networks of knowledge and connection that tie us together as Canadians.
An essential deepening of our common experience has been the promotion of bilingualism: increasing the numbers of English speaking children who grew up in French immersion, as well as the number of francophones who learn English in order to advance in the global economy.
But the federal government can do more to promote a national experience: by offering bursaries, internships and tax credits to help young Canadians to study and work in other provinces and to serve overseas in humanitarian and development work.
To build a country, we must create citizens, and to create citizens, we must create shared national experience. We need to make it easier for Canadians to get about their country and begin to feel a love for it in their bones.
My Canada is held together by a spine of citizenship, common rights, responsibilities and common knowledge so that we truly feel we are one people. This is not just an important priority of political leadership at the federal level. It is, in my view, the only priority.
This is a different view of Canada from the one offered by Stephen Harper. He stands for a decentralized, re-provincialized Canada, with growing differentials between the regions and provinces, with growing differences between rich and poor regions, and rich and poor individuals. It is a sauve qui peut Canada. His is also an idea of politics which sees government as the problem, when it is often the solution. When Canadians are presented with the choice between the slow provincialization of our country and a Liberal vision that seeks to use government to sustain the equality of our citizenship, I know how they will chose.
I believe in Canadians. I believe in you. As I said at the beginning, we are a serious people.
Indonesia back on the world stage (Michael Vatikiotis, 3/30/06, Asia Times)
Welcome to the brave new world of Indonesian foreign policy. The international community has only just started to focus on Indonesia's successful democratic transition, the economy is only just recovering from nearly a decade of malaise and crisis, and the business community is waiting with genuine expectation for the government's "war on corruption" to be won. But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is an impatient man - he wants Indonesia to make its mark on the world now."We are the fourth-most-populous nation in the world. We are home to the world's largest Muslim population. We are the world's third-largest democracy. We are also a country where democracy, Islam and modernity go hand in hand," Yudhoyono declared last May in his first major foreign-policy speech. "And our heart is always with the developing world, to which we belong. These are the things that define who we are and what we do in the community of nations."
In fact, what Yudhoyono aims to do is pretty ambitious. Bringing democracy to Myanmar comes high up the list. So, too, does helping Palestinians win their statehood from Israel. Then there is North Korea: the president wants to visit Pyongyang and has already sent an envoy to the hermit state to try to restart stalled security talks between the two Koreas. And if dealing with one end of the "axis of evil" isn't risky enough, Indonesia has also flagged its intention to help reconcile Iran with the West, exemplified by Wirajuda's visit to Tehran last month, and thereafter by at least two high-level visits by Iranian officials to Jakarta.
Talk to many Indonesians about Yudhoyono's foreign-policy objectives and they will argue that the country simply isn't ready to take on the world. There are too many priorities at home: sorting out the economy, combating corruption, resolving internal conflicts and curbing Islamic militancy, to name just a few. Realists and pragmatists such as former foreign minister Ali Alatas argue that Indonesia is weak and has no clout in the international community. "Who would listen?" Alatas asks, though he recently served as a special envoy to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Fortunately for Yudhoyono, the United States is listening. Indonesia's democratic and moderate Islamic credentials appeal to Washington, which is also on the lookout for a strategic counterbalance to China in the region.
"Your challenge now is to expand the peace, the opportunity and the freedom that we see in much of Southeast Asia to all of Southeast Asia," Rice said in a speech to an Indonesian international-relations forum during her mid-March visit to Jakarta. "The United States is eager to work with ASEAN through our new enhanced partnership, and we look to Indonesia ... to play a leadership role in Southeast Asia and in the dynamic changing East Asia."
How the GOP can survive the immigration debate (Dick Morris, 3/.29/06, The Hill)
One must separately consider the three key elements of immigration reform under discussion: The border fence, the guest-worker program and the criminalization of illegal aliens and those who employ them.The GOP base wants a fence. It is vital to the entire concept of whether or not we can control our borders. All efforts to beef up manpower on the border have failed to stem the daily flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. A fence is the only way to do it. By backing a fence and demonstrably taking control of our southern border, the Republican Party will appease the demands of its base.
But to prevent disaster among Latino voters, it must accompany the fence with a more liberal policy on guest workers and criminalization.
Simply put, the fence must have a gate that swings open for immigrants we want and need. To avoid permanently antagonizing our southern neighbors and to keep the labor supply on which so much of American business and prosperity depend, we need a guest-worker program.
The GOP base, happy with the fence, will probably go along with it. Whatever the Congress needs to do to differentiate the guest-worker program from amnesty it should do, but it must pass a generous guest-worker program. (If it is necessary for those here illegally to return to Mexico and reenter as registered and enrolled guest workers, to convince the right that a guest-worker program is not amnesty, so be it).
With a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, we will be slitting our own throats by denying our economy access to Mexican workers. We just need to make them legal, not illegal. With a border fence to enforce the difference, a guest-worker program will work politically.
The Erring Republican Authority: Kevin Phillips is wrong about everything. Why is he taken so seriously? (Jacob Weisberg, March 29, 2006, , Slate)
Phillips' declinism relies on fatuous anti-market prejudices familiar from his earlier work: that a healthy economy must be based in manufacturing, that free trade and globalization impoverish us, that foreign ownership is treacherous, that industrial policy works, and that a robust financial sector means trouble.The hostility to Wall Street implicit in the last notion is part and parcel of a condescending, aristo-populism that recalls Gore Vidal without the twinkle. In the Phillips worldview, plutocrats exploit the American proletariat, which supports the policies that keep it miserable out of false consciousness—the poor hicks actually believe Christ is coming to save them. But any potential Marxist rigor swiftly dissipates into a haze of Syriana—paranoia about the Bush dynasty and the CIA, Skull and Bones, the House of Saud, and the discredited October Surprise conspiracy. Have I mentioned that Phillips is an appalling writer? His prose is cliché-ridden, self-referential, maddeningly repetitive, and dull enough to kill weeds.
Once upon a time, Kevin Phillips crunched a lot of numbers to give shrewd, if cynical, political advice to Republicans about capitalizing on white fear of black people. Since switching sides, he has proposed various ways for the liberals to knock down the conservative majority he helped to build. Democrats would be wise to beware of geeks bearing such gifts.
Blair will be gone by Christmas, say friends (Toby Helm, 31/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Tony Blair is to announce his resignation by Christmas, members of his inner circle believe.The Prime Minister's closest aides feel that, following a series of damaging rows over education and "sleaze", he will quit within nine months.
The disclosure comes as John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, agreed to try to broker an agreement between Mr Blair and back-bench MPs over the succession after being warned that uncertainty about the leadership is having a disastrous effect on Labour morale.
US regains top ranking for technology (Frances Williams, March 28 2006, Financial Times)
The US has regained top position in the 2005 information technology rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum after slipping to fifth place in 2004.Releasing its latest Global Information Technology Report, Geneva-based WEF said the US lead reflected its excellent physical infrastructure, a supportive market environment and high levels of business and government usage of the latest technologies.
Singapore, first in 2004, came second and Denmark third. Four Nordic countries – the others being Iceland, Finland and Sweden – are in the top 10 alongside Canada, Taiwan and Switzerland.
The UK, in 10th place, is the top-ranked of the European Union’s large economies, followed some way behind by Germany (17), France (22) and Italy (42).
Reiner Quits First 5 Panel: The move comes amid accusations that the state commission founded by the producer was using tax money to aid his preschool initiative. (Dan Morain, March 30, 2006, LA Times)
Hollywood producer Rob Reiner resigned Wednesday as chairman of a state commission he founded seven years ago to aid children, amid accusations that the commission used tax money to boost his new political campaign.
G.O.P. Risking Hispanic Votes on Immigration (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 3/30/06, NY Times)
Over the last three national elections, persistent appeals by Mr. Bush and other Republican leaders have helped double their party's share of the Hispanic vote, to more than 40 percent in 2004 from about 20 percent in 1996. As a result, Democrats can no longer rely on the country's 42 million Hispanic residents as a natural part of their base.In a lunch meeting of Senate Republicans this week, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate, gave his colleagues a stern warning. "This is the first issue that, in my mind, has absolutely galvanized the Latino community in America like no other," Mr. Martinez said he told them.
The anger among Hispanics has continued even as the Senate Judiciary Committee proposed a bill this week that would allow illegal immigrants a way to become citizens. The backlash was aggravated, Mr. Martinez said in an interview, by a Republican plan to crack down on illegal immigrants that the House approved last year.
The outcome remains to be seen. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said on Wednesday that he recognized the need for a guest-worker program, opening the door to a possible compromise on fiercely debated immigration legislation.
Democrats see an opportunity to "show Hispanics who their real friends are," as Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, put it.
But the issue is a delicate matter for Democrats as well. Polls show large majorities of the public both support tighter borders as a matter of national security, and oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. Many working-class Democrats resent what they see as a continuing influx of cheap labor.
The stakes are enormous because Hispanics now account for one of every eight United States residents, and for about half the recent growth in the country's population. Although Hispanics cast just 6 percent of the votes in the 2004 elections, birth rates promise an imminent explosion in the number of eligible voters.
"There is a big demographic wave of Hispanic kids who are native born who will be turning 18 in even greater numbers over the next three, four and five election cycles," Roberto Suro, director of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center, said.
Cook a beef brisket to calm the soul, ease tension (TOMMY C. SIMMONS, March 20, 2006, AP)
If you have had one of those weeks with problems at work, fatigue at home, too much traffic and family making demands, you need a big dose of comfort food. What better to calm the soul than a good beef brisket?It's inexpensive, wholesome, versatile - and so delicious.
Beef brisket is a boneless cut of meat from the breast section, the underside of the cow's forequarter. A whole beef brisket weighs from 8 to 10 pounds, with each pound serving two to three people. [....]
Brisket Braised in Beer4 slices bacon
One 3-pound brisket
Salt and pepper
3 thinly sliced onions
Four 12-ounce bottles of beer (not dark)
1 large, peeled rutabaga, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
6 carrots, cut crosswise into 1 1/2-inch pieces
6 potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but not melted
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cook bacon in a Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring, until crisp. Transfer to paper towels and drain. Crumble bacon. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from bacon.
Pat brisket dry and season with salt and pepper.
Heat the bacon fat over medium-high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add the brisket to the Dutch oven and brown on all sides. Transfer brisket to a platter. Add onions to Dutch oven and saute until golden. Add bacon, brisket and beer. Bring beer to a boil. Cover and braise in oven for 2 hours. Stir in rutabaga, carrots and potatoes, and braise for 45 minutes more, or until vegetables are tender. Transfer brisket and vegetables to plate. Cover and keep warm.
Blend butter and flour and set aside. Bring braising liquid to a boil and reduce to about 3 cups. Gradually whisk in flour-butter mixture. Simmer for 3 minutes.
Slice brisket and put on plate with vegetables. Pour some sauce over dish. Sprinkle with parsley.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
(Recipe from http://www.eHow.com)
Blair in Indonesia terror accord (BBC, 3/30/06)
Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised to work closely in the fight against terrorism with Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population.Mr Blair was speaking after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for an hour in the capital, Jakarta. [...]
After the meeting between the two heads of state, Mr Blair described Indonesia as a "crucial partner" in ensuring greater understanding of people of different faiths. [...]
Mr Blair's visit is the first by a British prime minister to Indonesia in two decades.
The country, which has a population of about 225 million, has developed close business ties with Britain and the US.
The BBC's correspondent in Jakarta, Tim Johnston, says Indonesia is increasingly being seen as a vital bridge between Western and Islamic nations.
Democrats Detail Security Policy: Bin Laden, Iraq and Domestic Safety Identified as Midterm Issues (Chris Cillizza and Dan Balz, March 30, 2006, Washington Post)
Emboldened by President Bush's declining approval ratings, Democrats unveiled a national security platform yesterday for the midterm elections that stresses renewed focus on capturing Osama bin Laden, reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq and stepped up protection at home.
Journalist Jill Carroll Released in Iraq (Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer, 3/30/06, Washington Post )
American journalist Jill Carroll, abducted in early January by gunmen in Baghdad, was released to a Sunni Arab political party in the capital Thursday morning after 82 days in captivity."I was never hurt, ever hit," she told a Washington Post reporter. "I was kept in a safe place and treated very well."
Like Susanne Osthoff and Giuliana Sgrena.
MORE:
Questions About Carroll's Captivity (Howard Kurtz, March 31, 2006, Washington Post)
Reporters for big news organizations, after all, generally travel with security details, while Carroll is a 28-year-old freelancer who went to Baghdad on her own, became a stringer for the Christian Science Monitor and clearly was bent on understanding Iraqi culture.This is a courageous young woman.
I must say, though, that I found her first interview yesterday rather odd. Carroll seemed bent on giving her captors a positive review, going on about how well they treated her, how they gave her food and let her go to the bathroom. And they never threatened to hit her. Of course, as we all saw in those chilling videos, they did threaten to kill her. And they shot her Iraqi translator to death.
Why make a terrorist group who put her family and friends through a terrible three-month ordeal sound like they were running a low-budget motel chain?
Now perhaps this is unfair, for there is much we do not know. We don't know why Carroll was kidnapped and why she was abruptly released. She says she doesn't either, but surely she must have gotten some clues about her abductors' outlook and tactics during her 82-day captivity. Maybe she was just shell-shocked right after being let go. Maybe she won't feel comfortable speaking out until she's back on American soil.
As my colleagues in Baghdad point out, when that interview was taped, Carroll was still in the custody of a Sunni political party with ties to the insurgency. It may have just made sense for her to be especially cautious. And they tell me that Carroll did cry -- off camera -- when the subject of her murdered translator came up. Still, people are buzzing because her taped remarks have been played over and over again on television. I hope she'll be able to share a fuller account of her ordeal soon.
ABC News has found a video on an insurgent Web site showing U.S. reporter Jill Carroll before she was released by her captors in Iraq. The circumstances surrounding the video are unclear and it is equally unclear whether Carroll was under duress during the taping.The tape appears to have been made earlier today, before Carroll's captors released her, but the time of the taping has not yet been confirmed by ABC News. [...]
Voice: Do you have a message for Mr. Bush?
Carroll: (Laughs)Yeah, he needs to stop this war. He knows this war is wrong. He knows that it was illegal from the very beginning. He knows that it was built on a mountain of lies and I think he needs to finally admit that to the American people and make the troops go home and he doesn't care about his own people.
He doesn't care about the people here in Iraq, he needs to wake up and the people of America need to wake up and tell that what he's done here is wrong and so hopefully this time he can get the message that this war was wrong and the continuing occupation is wrong adn he could change his policies. He's dangerous for Iraq. He's dangerous for America. He needs to accept that and admit that to people.
Voice: Do you think the Mujahedeen will win against the American Army?
Carroll: Oh definitely. Things are very clear to see even now they're already winning. Everyday there are soldiers killed. Everyday humvees are blown up. Helicopters are shot down from the skies. Everyday, it's very clear that the Mujahedeen have the skills and the ability and the desire and the good reasons to fight that'll make them ensure that they will win.
Voice: What do you feel now that the Mujahedeen are giving you your freedom while there are still women in Abu Ghraib living in very bad (unclear)?
Carroll: Well, I feel guilty honestly. I've been here, treated very well, like a guest. I've been given good food, never, never hurt while those women are in Abu Ghraib. Terrible things are happening to them with the American soldiers are torturing them and other things I don't want, I can't even say, so I feel guilty and I also feels it shows the difference between the Mujahedeen and Americans, the Mujahedeen are merciful and kind that's why I'm free and alive. The American army they aren't [...not clear...] I feel guilty and I also feel that it just shows that Mujahedeen are good people, fighting an honorable fight, a good fight while the Americans are here as an occupying force treating the people in a very, very bad way so I can't be happy totally for my freedom, there are people still suffering in prisons and very difficult situations.
UPDATE:
Exclusive: Jill Carroll Middle Man Says Kidnappers Demanded $8 Million (ABC News, April 12, 2006)
The man behind Jill Carroll's release tells ABC News in an exclusive interview that kidnapping the American journalist was a mistake. Sheikh Sattam al-Gaaod reveals what it took to free her — and why he supports the resistance.Al-Gaaod was one of three people specifically thanked by Carroll's family after her release.
"They are defending their country," he said in an interview at his summer house outside Amman, Jordan. "They are an honest resistance. And sometimes they do mistakes."
One mistake, he said, was kidnapping Carroll. Al-Gaaod said he used his influence to help free her... [...]
Al-Gaaod said he believes attacks on U.S. troops are justifiable because the Americans are occupiers, but he calls attacks on civilians criminal.
The editor of the Christian Science Monitor said today he was unaware of any ransom payment paid by anyone.
MORE:
Kidnapped Reporter Had Unlikely Friend (The Boston Channel, April 13, 2006)
We're learning more about the road to freedom for kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll, who was released two weeks ago.It turns out the former hostage from Massachusetts had an unlikely friend behind enemy lines.
NewsCenter 5's Mary Saladna reported that there were three people Carroll's family specifically thanked for her safe return when she was released from her captors, one of them a sheik who was once one of Saddam Hussein's closest business associates. He says he's now one of the proud leaders of the Iraqi insurgents.
"They are defending their country and they are honest resistancy and sometimes they do mistakes," he said.
Tories cut Palestinian aid: Canada first to join Israeli-led boycott (MITCH POTTER AND GRAHAM FRASER, 3/30/06, Toronto Star)
A senior minister in the new Hamas government last night accused Canada of "double standards" for deciding to freeze funding for the Palestinian Authority.Khaled Abu Arafa, who learned of Ottawa's decision just hours after he was sworn in as Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, told the Toronto Star he was "dismayed by a ruling that doesn't give us a chance."
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay announced yesterday Canada has cut off contact and funding to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority but will be maintaining its aid to Palestinians through non-governmental organizations and international agencies.
This means a suspension of $7.3 million in Canadian funding, almost one-third of the $25 million a year that Canada spends in aid in the West Bank and Gaza. Canada became the first nation aside from Israel to cut off financial assistance to the authority since Hamas won the legislative elections in January.
MacKay announced that because the Hamas-led government has not renounced violence, recognized Israel or accepted the "road map" for peace, Canada is responding by cutting aid.
McCabe folds on pensions (PETER MACMAHON, 3/30/06, The Scotsman)
MINISTERS are preparing to back down on public sector pension reform in the face of the threat of a new wave of strike action by local authority staff.The Scottish Executive had previously insisted there could be no movement on plans to raise the age at which hundreds of thousands of public sector workers could retire without any financial penalty, from 60 to 65.
But just a day after 200,000 local government workers took nationwide industrial action over the issue, Tom McCabe, the finance minister, has signalled a change of heart.
President Discusses Democracy in Iraq with Freedom House (George W. Bush, Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., 3/29/06)
We meet at a time of war, but also at a moment of great hope. In our world, and due in part to our efforts, freedom is taking root in places where liberty was unimaginable a couple of years ago. Just 25 years ago, at the start of the 1980s, there were only 45 democracies on the face of the Earth. Today, Freedom House reports there are 122 democracies, and more people now live in liberty than ever before.The advance of freedom is the story of our time, and we're seeing new chapters written before our eyes. Since the beginning of 2005, we've witnessed remarkable democratic changes across the globe. The people of Afghanistan have elected their first democratic parliament in more than a generation. The people of Lebanon have recovered their independence and chosen their leaders in free elections. The people of Kyrgyzstan have driven a corrupt regime from power and voted for democratic change. The people of Liberia have overcome decades of violence and are now led by the first woman elected as a head of state in any African nation. And the courageous people of Iraq have gone to the polls not once, not twice, but three times, choosing a transitional government, a democratic constitution, and a new government under that constitution.
Each of these countries still faces enormous challenges that will take patience and the support of the international community to overcome. Yet, Freedom House has declared the year 2005 was one of the most successful years for freedom since the Freedom House began measuring world freedom more than 30 years ago. From Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut and beyond, freedom's tide is rising, and we should not rest, and we must not rest, until the promise of liberty reaches every people and every nation.
In our history, most democratic progress has come with the end of a war. After the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II and the collapse of communism in the Cold War, scores of nations cleared away the rubble of tyranny and laid the foundations of freedom and democracy.
Today, the situation is very different. Liberty is advancing not in a time of peace, but in the midst of a war, at a moment when a global movement of great brutality and ambition is fighting freedom's progress with all the hateful violence they can muster. In this new century, the advance of freedom is a vital element of our strategy to protect the American people, and to secure the peace for generations to come. We're fighting the terrorists across the world because we know that if America were not fighting this enemy in other lands, we'd be facing them here in our own land.
On September the 11th, 2001, we saw the violence and the hatred of a vicious enemy, and the future that they intend for us. That day I made a decision: America will not wait to be attacked again. We will confront this mortal danger. We will stay on the offensive. America will defend our freedom.
We're pursuing the terrorists on many battlefronts. Today, the central front in the war on terror is Iraq. This month I've given a series of speeches on recent events in Iraq and how we're adapting our approach to deal with the events on the ground. At George Washington University I reported on the progress we have made in training the Iraqi security forces, the growing number of Iraqi units that are taking the lead in the fight, the territory we're handing over to them, and the performance they turned in after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
Last week in Cleveland, I told the American people about the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, which was once a key base of operations for al Qaeda and is now a free city that gives us reason to hope for a free Iraq. I explained how the story of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy, because in that city we see the outlines of the Iraq we've been fighting for, a free and secure people who are getting back on their feet, who are participating in government and civic life, and are becoming allies in the fight against the terrorists.
Today, I'm going to discuss the stakes in Iraq and our efforts to help the Iraqi people overcome past divisions and form a lasting democracy, and why it is vital to the security of the American people that we help them succeed.
In the wake of recent violence in Iraq, many Americans are asking legitimate questions: Why are Iraqis so divided? And did America cause the instability by removing Saddam Hussein from power? They ask, after three elections, why are the Iraqi people having such a hard time coming together? And can a country with so many divisions ever build a stable democracy? They ask why we can't bring our troops home now and let the Iraqis sort out their differences on their own.
These are fair questions, and today, I'll do my best to answer them. I'll discuss some of the reasons for the instability we're seeing in Iraq, why democracy is the only force that can overcome these divisions, why I believe the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in freedom and peace, and why the security of our nation depends on the success of a free Iraq.
Today, some Americans ask whether removing Saddam caused the divisions and instability we're now seeing. In fact, much of the animosity and violence we now see is the legacy of Saddam Hussein. He is a tyrant who exacerbated sectarian divisions to keep himself in power. Iraq is a nation with many ethnic and religious and sectarian and regional and tribal divisions. Before Saddam Hussein, Iraqis from different communities managed to live together. Even today, many Iraqi tribes have both Sunni and Shia branches. And in many small towns with mixed populations, there's often only one mosque where Sunni and Shia worship together. Intermarriage is also common with mixed families that include Arabs and Kurds and Sunnis and Shia and Turkmen, Assyrians, and Chaldeans.
To prevent these different groups from coming to challenge his regime, Saddam Hussein undertook a deliberate strategy of maintaining control by dividing the Iraqi people. He stayed on top by brutally repressing different Iraqi communities and pitting them one against the other. He forced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of their homes using expulsion as a weapon to subdue and punish any group that resisted his rule. By displacing Iraqi communities and dividing the Iraqi people, he sought to establish himself as the only force that could hold the country together.
In Saddam's campaign of repression and division, no Iraqi group was spared. In the late 1980s, Saddam Hussein unleashed a brutal ethnic cleansing operation against Kurds in northern Iraq. Kurdish towns and villages were destroyed. Tens of thousands of Kurds disappeared or were killed. In his effort to terrorize the Kurds into submission, Saddam dropped chemical weapons on scores of Kurdish villages. In one village alone, a town called Halabja, his regime killed thousands of innocent men and women and children, using mustard gas and nerve agents. Saddam also forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of Kurds from their homes, and then he moved Arabs into those homes and onto the properties of the people who were forced to leave. As a result of this strategy deep tensions persist to this day.
Saddam also waged a brutal campaign of suppression and genocide against the Shia in the south of Iraq. He targeted prominent Shia clerics for assassination. He destroyed Shia mosques and holy sites. He killed thousands of innocent men, women and children. He piled their bodies into mass graves. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam brutally crushed a Shia uprising. Many Shia fled to the marshes of southern Iraq. They hid in the wetlands that could not be easily reached by Saddam's army.
The wetlands, by the way, were also home to the Marsh Arabs, an ancient civilization that traces its roots back 5,000 years. So Saddam destroyed the Marsh Arabs, and those who hid in the marshes, by draining the marshes where they lived. In less than a decade, the majority of these lush wetlands were turned into barren desert, and most of the Marsh Arabs were driven from their ancestral home. It is no wonder that deep divisions and scars exist in much of the Shia population.
Saddam also oppressed his fellow Sunnis. One of the great misperceptions about Iraq is that every Sunni enjoyed a privileged status under Saddam's regime. In truth, Saddam trusted few outside his family and his tribe. He installed his sons and his brothers and his cousins in key positions. Almost everyone was considered suspect, and often those suspicions led to brutal violence.
In one instance, Saddam's security services tortured to death a pilot from a prominent Sunni tribe, and then dumped his headless body in front of his family's house. It caused riots that he then brutally suppressed. In the mid-1990s, Saddam rounded up scores of prominent Sunni economists and lawyers and retired army officers and former government officials. Many were never heard from again.
It is hard to overstate the effects of Saddam's brutality on the Iraqi nation. Here's what one Marine recalls when he was on the streets of the Iraqi capital. He said, quote, "I had an Iraqi citizen come up to me. She opened her mouth and she had no tongue. She was pointing at the statue. There were people with no fingers waving at the statue of Saddam, telling us he tortured them. People were showing us scars on their back." Iraq is a nation that is physically and emotionally scarred by three decades of Saddam's tyranny, and these wounds will take time to heal. As one Marsh Arab put it, "Saddam did everything he could to kill us. You cannot recover from that right away."
These are the kinds of tensions Iraqis are dealing with today. They are the divisions that Saddam aggravated through deliberate policies of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence. As one Middle East scholar has put it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was "a society slowly and systematically poisoned by political terror. The toxic atmosphere in today's Iraq bears witness to his terrible handiwork."
The argument that Iraq was stable under Saddam and that stability is now in danger because we removed him is wrong. While liberation has brought its own set of challenges, Saddam Hussein's removal from power was the necessary first step in restoring stability and freedom to the people of Iraq.
Today some Americans are asking why the Iraqi people are having such a hard time building a democracy. The reason is that the terrorists and former regime elements are exploiting the wounds inflicted under Saddam's tyranny. The enemies of a free Iraq are employing the same tactics Saddam used -- killing and terrorizing the Iraqi people in an effort to foment sectarian division.
For the Saddamists, provoking sectarian strife is business as usual. And we know from the terrorists' own words that they're using the same tactics with the goal of inciting a civil war. Two years ago, we intercepted a letter to Osama bin Laden from the terrorist Zarqawi, in which he explains his plan to stop the advance of democracy in Iraq. Zarqawi wrote: "If we succeed in dragging the Shia into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to waken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger. The only solution is for us to strike the religious and military and other cadres among the Shia with blow after blow."
The terrorists and Saddamists have been brutal in the pursuit of this strategy. They target innocent civilians; they blow up police officers; they attack mosques; and they commit other acts of horrific violence for the cameras. Their objective is to stop Iraq's democratic progress. They tried to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They tried to stop millions of Iraqis from voting in the January 2005 elections. They tried to stop Sunnis from participating in the October referendum on the constitution. And they tried to stop millions from voting in the December elections to form a government under that constitution.
And in each case, they failed. With every election, participation was larger and broader than the one that came before. And in December, almost 12 million people -- more than 75 percent of eligible voters -- defied the terrorists to cast their ballots. With their votes, the Iraqi people have spoken and made their intentions clear: They want to live in liberty and unity, and they're determined to chart their own destiny.
Now the elements of a free Iraq are trying to stop the -- the enemies of a free Iraq are trying to stop the formation of unity government. They've learned they cannot succeed by facing coalition and Iraqi forces on the battlefield, so they've taken their violence to a new level, by attacking one of Shia Islam's holiest sites. They blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra in the hope that this outrageous act would provoke the Shia masses into widespread reprisals which would provoke Sunnis to retaliate and drag the nation into a civil war.
Yet, despite massive provocations, Iraq has not descended into civil war. Most Iraqis have not turned to violence. The Iraqi security forces have not broken up into sectarian groups waging war against each other. Instead, Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish soldiers stood together to protect religious sites, enforce a curfew, and restore civil order.
In recent weeks, these forces passed another important test when they successfully protected millions of Shia pilgrims who marched to the cities of Karbala and Najaf for an annual religious holiday. In 2004, the terrorists launched coordinated strikes against the pilgrims, killing scores of innocent worshipers. This year, the pilgrimage was largely peaceful, thanks to the courage and the unity of the Iraqi security forces. In the midst of today's sectarian tension, the ability of Iraqis to hold a peaceful gathering by millions of people is a hopeful sign for the future of Iraq.
In these last few weeks, we've also seen terrible acts of violence. The kidnapings and brutal executions and beheadings are very disturbing. There's no place in a free and democratic Iraq for armed groups operating outside the law. It's vital to the security of a free Iraq that the police are free of militia influence. And so we're working with Iraqi leaders to find and remove leaders from the national police who show evidence of loyalties to militias. We're partnering U.S. battalions with Iraqi national police to teach them about the role of a professional police force in a democratic society. We're making clear to Iraqi leaders that reining in the illegal militias must be a top priority of Iraq's new government when it takes office.
The violence we're seeing is showing the Iraqi leaders the danger of sectarian division, and underscoring the urgency of forming a national unity government. Today, Iraqi leaders from every major ethnic and religious community are working to construct the path forward. Our Ambassador to Iraq, Zal Khalilzad, is helping Iraq's leaders reach out across political and religious and sectarian lines, so they can form a government that will earn the trust and the confidence of all Iraqis.
Putting aside differences to build a democracy that reflects the country's diversity is a difficult thing to do. It's even more difficult when enemies are working daily to stop your progress and divide your nation. Yet Iraqis are rising to the moment. They deserve enormous credit for their courage, and their determination to succeed.
Iraqi leaders are coming to grips with an important truth: The only practical way to overcome the divisions of three decades of tyranny is through democracy. Democracy is the only form of government where every person has a say in the governance of a country. It's the only form of government that will yield to a peaceful Middle East. So Iraqis are working to overcome past divisions and build a free society that protects the rights of all its citizens. They're undertaking this progress with just a year's experience in democratic politics.
Many of the institutions and traditions we take for granted here in America -- from party structures to centuries' experience with peaceful transitions of power -- are new to Iraq, so we should not be surprised if Iraqis make mistakes or face setbacks in their efforts to build a government that unites the Iraqi people.
We're beginning to see the signs of progress. Earlier this month, Iraqi leaders announced they had reached an agreement on the need to address critical issues such as de-Baathification in the operation of security ministries, and the distribution of oil revenues in the spirit of national unity. They agreed to form a new national security council that will improve coordination within the government on these and other difficult issues. This council will include representatives from all major political groups, as well as leaders from Iraq's executive, judicial and legislative branches. As a result of this council's considered advice, the Iraqi government that emerges will be more effective and more unified.
Another important sign of progress is that Saddam Hussein is now being called to account for his crimes by the free citizens of a free Iraq. Millions of Iraqis are seeing their independent judiciary in action. At the former dictator's trial, Iraqis recently saw something that's got to be truly amazing to them. When Saddam Hussein stood up and began to give a political speech, the presiding judge gaveled him down. Saddam growled at the judge, declaring, "I'm the head of state." The judge replied, "You used to be the head of the state. And now you're a defendant."
Three years ago any Iraqi who addressed Saddam in this way would have been killed on the spot. Now the former dictator is answering to a judge, instead of meting out arbitrary justice, and Iraqis are replacing the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.
Finally, some Americans are asking if it's time to pull out our troops and leave the Iraqis to settle their own differences. I know the work in Iraq is really difficult, but I strongly feel it's vital to the security of our country. The terrorists are killing and maiming and fighting desperately to stop the formation of a unity government because they understand what a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East means for them and their ideology. They know that when freedom sets root in Iraq, it will be a mortal blow to their aspirations to dominate the region and advance their hateful vision. So they're determined to stop the advance of a free Iraq, and we must be equally determined to stop them.
The irony is that the enemy seems to have a much clearer sense of what's at stake than some of the politicians here in Washington, D.C. One member of Congress who has proposed an immediate withdrawal of American forces in Iraq recently explained that what would happen after American forces pulled out was this: He said, "They'll fight each other, somebody will win, they'll settle it for themselves." While it might sound attractive to some, it would have disastrous consequences for American security. The Iraqi government is still in transition, and the Iraqi security forces are still gathering capacity. If we leave Iraq before they're capable of defending their own democracy, the terrorists will win. They will achieve their stated goal. This is what the terrorists have told us they want to achieve. They will turn Iraq into a safe haven. They will seek to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction. They will use Iraq as a base to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East. They will use Iraq as a base from which to launch further attacks against the United States of America.
Mindful of recent history, I ask you to think about what happened in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the United States helped Afghan freedom fighters drive the Soviet Red Army from Kabul, and once the Soviets withdrew, we decided our work was finished and left the Afghans to defend [sic] for themselves. Soon the terrorists moved in to fill the vacuum. They took over the country; they turned it into a safe haven from which they planned and launched the attacks of September the 11th.
If we leave Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists will move in and fill the vacuum, and they will use that failed state to bring murder and destruction to freedom-loving nations.
I know some in our country disagree with my decision to liberate Iraq. Whatever one thought about the decision to remove Saddam from power, I hope we should all agree that pulling our troops out prematurely would be a disaster. If we were to let the terrorists drive us out of Iraq, we would signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve and tighten their repressive grip. The global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever. For the security of our citizens and the peace of the world, we will not turn the future of Iraq over to the followers of a failed dictator, or to evil men like bin Laden and Zarqawi.
America will leave Iraq, but we will not retreat from Iraq. We will leave because Iraqi forces have gained in strength, not because America's will has weakened. We will complete the mission in Iraq because the security of the American people is linked to the success in Iraq.
We're pursuing a clear strategy for victory. Victory requires an integrated strategy: political, economic and security. These three elements depend on and reinforce one another. By working with Iraqi leaders to build the foundations of a strong democracy, we will ensure they have the popular support they need to defeat the terrorists. By going after the terrorists, coalition and Iraqi forces are creating the conditions that allow the Iraqi people to begin rebuilding their lives and their country. By helping Iraqis with economic reconstruction, we're giving every citizen a real stake in the success of a free Iraq. And as all this happens, the terrorists, those who offer nothing but death and destruction, are becoming isolated from the population.
I wish I could tell you the violence in Iraq is waning and that all the tough days in the struggle are behind us. They're not. There will be more tough fighting ahead with difficult days that test the patience and the resolve of our country. Yet, we can have faith in the final outcome because we've seen freedom overcome the darkness of tyranny and terror and secure the peace before. And in this century, freedom is going to prevail again.
In 1941, the year the Freedom House began its work, the future of freedom seemed bleak. There were about a dozen lonely democracies in the world. The Soviet Union was led by the tyrant Stalin who massacred millions. Hitler was leading Nazi Germany in a campaign to dominate Europe and eliminate the Jewish people from the face of the Earth. An imperial Japan launched a brutal surprise attack on America. Today, six decades later, the Soviet empire is no more; Germany and Japan are free nations, and they are allies in the cause of peace; and the majority of the world's governments are democracies.
There were doubters six decades ago who said that freedom could not prevail. History has proved them wrong. In this young century, the doubters are still with us; but so is the unstoppable power of freedom. In Afghanistan and Iraq and other nations, that power is replacing tyranny with hope, and no one should bet against it.
One of the greatest forces for freedom in the history of the world is the United States Armed Forces. In the past four-and-a-half years, our troops have liberated more people than at any time since World War II. Because of the men and women who wear our nation's uniform, 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan have tasted freedom, and their liberation has inspired millions more across the broader Middle East to believe that freedom is theirs, as well.
This is going to be freedom's century. Thank you for giving me a chance to come and visit with you. May God bless. (Applause.) [...]
Q Mr. President, I'm from the Public International Law and Policy Group. I'm also from Egypt and I aspire to one day go back there and join Egyptian politics. So my question is --
THE PRESIDENT: Go for President. (Laughter.)
Q I'm working on it, I'm working on it -- in 2017, everyone. (Laughter.) But my question is, would you support the regime of Gamal Mubarak if he takes over after President Mubarak?
THE PRESIDENT: That's a leading question. (Laughter.)
Q -- question.
THE PRESIDENT: No? That's a question I don't answer question. (Laughter.) I support a country which does not fear political movements, but is willing to compete with political movements. That's the kind of country I support.
There's a -- first of all, I appreciate the fact that there were elections in Egypt. That's positive. I think people in positions of responsibility like mine ought to say, if there seems to be a movement gaining ground on the streets, the question ought to be why; not how can we repress it, but what is taking place? What is it that's causing somebody to be in favor? What are they saying that I'm not saying, or what are they doing that I'm not doing?
Competition for ideas and the votes of people are very healthy in societies. As a matter of fact, it's one of the ways to defeat the terrorists. Terrorists feed on resentment. When people don't feel their voices are heard, they become resentful, and then they become eligible for recruitment. If people don't feel like they have a chance to express themselves and have the government listen to them, they're likely to turn to people -- the false prophets, people who subvert a great religion to play on people's frustrations and then use that false prophecy to kill.
And so I -- the answer to your question is, is that I support an openness in the political process. I think when -- I think Egypt is a -- has a chance to be one of the leaders of the freedom movement in the Middle East. I recognize that not everybody is going to embrace this concept of democracy and freedom as firmly as I'd like them to. But all of us have got to continue to advance progress.
One of the interesting debates we have about the freedom movement is whether or not institutions have to be right before there's elections. So in other words, kind of one of these interesting philosophical debates that's taking place. My answer -- you heard my answer -- my answer is, you got to have -- you can't wait for perfect, because it's an excuse for the status quo.
Elections start the process. They're not the end of the process. They're oftentimes the beginning of the process. And one of the reasons I respect the Freedom House is because you understand that you follow elections with institution-building and the creation of civil society. But for those who say, well, we can't have elections until everything is just right, or until we know the outcome of the elections, are those who provide excuse, in my judgment, for a foreign policy which in the past has said, it's okay, just so long as energy is priced okay; and okay so there's no ruffles on the -- the sea looks calm. My problem with that attitude is, beneath the surface, there's resentment and anger.
I'll also tell you another -- I'm not going to tell you your business in the Freedom House, but I think a movement that must be tapped into in order to advance freedom is the women's movement. I just -- there is something universal about the desire to be treated fairly and equally. And therefore, in societies in which women are not being treated fairly and equally provides great opportunities to advance the cause of freedom. We've got to be wise about how we do it in the United States. Sometimes the stamp of America obviously provides those who are trying to resist freedom, given them an excuse not to. I understand that. But it's -- there are great opportunities in the world.
The temptation in today's society is to say, it's not worth it. Or, certain people can't self-govern. It's really part of the debate in Iraq, isn't it, when you think about it -- is, can these people self-govern? And I can understand why some in America say they can't, because all they see is unbelievable violence. And we're a country of deep compassion. We care. One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry. We don't care what the child's religion may be, or where that child may live, we cry. It upsets us. The enemy knows that, and they're willing to -- they're willing to kill to shake our confidence. That's what they're trying to do.
They're not going to shake my confidence, I just want you to know. I understand their tactics and I know their designs. But I also believe that Iraqis can and want to self-govern. That's what I believe. And so when you see me make decisions, or make statements like I make, you've got to understand it's coming from a basic set of beliefs. That's what I believe. And that's what a decision-maker ought to do. The decision-maker ought to make decisions based upon deep-seeded beliefs. You don't need a President chasing polls and focus groups in order to make tough decisions. You need Presidents who make decisions based upon sound principle.
Now, people may not agree with the decisions; I understand that. But I hope after this talk, those of you who didn't agree at least know I'm making my decisions based on something I believe deep in my soul, and something that's worked in the past. Democracies have yielded the peace. I believe 30 years form now, people are going to look back at this moment and say, thank goodness a generation of Americans stood up and said, we have faith in democracy, faith in democracy to lay the foundation for peace, and an American President will be discussing issues of peace with duly-elected leaders in the Middle East, and our children will be better off for it.
And I want to tell you one anecdote now that you've got me wound up. (Laughter.) I sit down at the table with Prime Minister Koizumi. I tell this story all the time, because one of my jobs is to go out and explain to the American people the consequences of the decisions that I have made and why I think it's in our interests. Koizumi and I are not only good friends, but we're partners in peace. We talk about a variety of issues -- North Korea is an issue, we talk -- you know, he's got 1,000 troops in Iraq. Isn't that amazing, when you think about it? Because he understands the benefits of democracy in the broader Middle East. We're close friends.
Sixty years ago -- it seems like an eternity for a lot of people, I recognize that, but it's not that long ago -- my dad fought the Japanese, and so did your relatives. They were the sworn enemy of the United States of America. I find it an unbelievable part of history that I am now sitting down at the table with the Prime Minister of Japan talking about the peace, and my dad fought them. And so what happened? What happened was, Japan adopted a Japanese-style democracy. That's what happened. And now they're peaceful. And they sit at the table with their former enemy. I think that's a lesson worth listening to and understanding.
But I bet you after World War II there were great doubters as to whether or not Harry Truman was doing the right thing to help Japan become a democracy. I see Stevens nodding, he was there. Weren't you? (Laughter.) Well, I wasn't. (Laughter.) But I'm reading a lot about it. And I believe it's a lesson for all of us in this -- in the 21st century. Spreading democracy is hard work. It's hard to overcome sectarian division and torture. It's hard to overcome that. But it's worth it, for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
States Have More Schools Falling Behind (Paul Basken, March 29, 2006, Bloomberg News)
More than a quarter of U.S. schools are failing under terms of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, according to preliminary state-by-state statistics reported to the U.S. Department of Education.At least 24,470 U.S. public schools, or 27 percent of the national total, did not meet the federal requirement for "adequate yearly progress" in 2004-2005. The percentage of failing schools rose by one point from the previous school year. Under the 2002 law, schools that do not make sufficient academic progress face penalties including the eventual replacement of their administrators and teachers.
The results raise doubts about whether the law is working and its results are fairly calculated, said Michael Petrilli, vice president for policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington-based research group.
Israelis vote for peace at their price (Con Coughlin, 30/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
The true indicator of the desire for peace lies in the performance of Likud and Labour, which were once regarded as the traditional parties of government in Israel.Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader, conducted his campaign on a "no surrender" ticket - ie, that Israel would not undertake further unilateral withdrawals from Palestinian territory following last summer's forcible removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. In his view - and that of his followers - the West Bank is part of Eretz Israel, the biblical land of Israel, and Jews have just as much right to live there as Arabs.
Amir Peretz, the Labour leader, while supporting the disengagement policy, favours a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, rather than simply abandoning them to the apartheid-style enclaves they inhabit in the West Bank.
The humiliating defeat inflicted on Likud, which won just 11 seats - its lowest share of the vote since the early 1970s - and Labour's surprisingly strong showing with 20, is indicative of the direction in which public opinion is moving. [...]
Arafat's refusal to accept Barak's offer, and his subsequent involvement in launching the second intifada, explains the radically different approach that has been taken, first by Sharon and more recently by Olmert, in seeking a permanent resolution of Israel's security needs. If the Palestinians are not interested in negotiating a peace settlement, the Israeli government will implement one with or without their involvement or approval.
Olmert indicated during the election campaign that he will apply this policy of unilateral withdrawal, which was unveiled during Israel's disengagement from Gaza last August, to the West Bank if the Palestinians are unwilling to participate in meaningful negotiations. This prospect appears more remote than before with the radical Palestinian Islamic group Hamas - which does not even recognise Israel's right to exist - yesterday forming the new Palestinian government.
In a ploy aimed at influencing the Israeli electorate, Ismael Haniya, Hamas's new Palestinian prime minister, declared on the eve of the poll that he was keen to enter a dialogue with the new Israeli government, and thereby avoid the bloodbath his organisation threatens will inevitably occur if Israel proceeds with its unilateralist agenda.
The problem for Haniya and the rest of the Palestinian leadership is that, from Israel's point of view, the negotiating parameters have changed dramatically in the past five years.
The 97 per cent of occupied Palestinian territory Barak offered Arafat is no longer on the table. When Olmert last week outlined his ambitious plan to establish permanent borders by 2010, he indicated that Israel was prepared to vacate only 84 per cent of Palestinian territory. The large Israeli suburban settlements, such as Ma'ale Adumim on the outskirts of Jerusalem, would remain under Israeli control, as would the strategically important Jordan valley.
Indeed, the proposed new border bears an uncanny resemblance to the nine-metre-high security fence (Palestinians call it the "apartheid fence") built by Sharon to isolate the main Palestinian population centres from Israel.
Olmert, like Sharon, does not seem to mind whether Israel's borders are established unilaterally, or through negotiations with the Palestinians - assuming the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority is actually committed [to] having a serious dialogue.
Judicial activism or restraint? (Walter E. Williams, March 29, 2006, Creators Syndicate, Inc.)
Are federal, state and local justices appointed to office to impose their personal views on society or to interpret law? Is it a judge's duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and state constitutions in the cases of state and local judges, or is it their duty to uphold foreign law and United Nations treaties? Should what a judge sees as "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights govern court decisions, or the U.S. Constitution?It was the former – not the U.S. Constitution – that determined last year's Roper v. Simmons decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the execution of a convicted murderer because he was 17 years old at the time of his offense. [...]
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker has little patience with his colleagues who use their office to impose their values instead of applying the written law, but he's in trouble for saying so. Judge Parker wrote an opinion article that was published in the Birmingham News on Jan. 1. It criticized the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that banned executions for murderers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. [...]
Joel Sogol, former chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union's litigation committee, filed a complaint against Judge Parker with Alabama's Judicial Inquiry Commission. The complaint charges Parker with violating Alabama's judicial ethics standards when he publicly criticized his eight Supreme Court colleagues and the Roper v. Simmons U.S. Supreme Court decision. Sogol says that Judge Parker's criticism breeds contempt for the law.
Sogol has it wrong. It's the court's failure to meet its constitutional duties that breeds contempt for the law.
Audiences in Seoul face the music about North Korea (Donald Kirk, 3/30/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
Telling the world "what it is like" motivated the director, a North Korean refugee, to press on with the production in the face of funding problems and a government that remains extremely uncomfortable with criticism of its northern neighbor.Officials called asking the show not to go on, says director Jung Sung San, who escaped to China after leaping from a truck carrying him to prison in 1994. He had been sentenced to 13 years in jail for listening to South Korean music. "We got anonymous calls telling us not to do it. We toned it down and revised it a lot."
British Columbia bill would allow apologies without legal fallout (The Associated Press
Sorry may soon no longer be so hard to say in British Columbia.The provincial government on Tuesday became the first in Canada to propose legislation that would allow people and organizations to apologize without risking liability for damages or other penalties. Under the measure, evidence of an apology would not be admissible in legal proceedings.
"There are times when an apology is very important and appropriate, but the legal implications have long been uncertain," provincial Attorney General Wallace T. Oppal said in the legislature.
"The Apology Act is designed to promote the early and mutually beneficial resolution of disputes by allowing parties to express honest regret or remorse," Oppal said.
Legislature passes bill to expand when deadly force can be used (BOB JOHNSON, 3/29/06, Associated Press)
The Alabama House gave final passage Tuesday to legislation to expand the instances where a person can kill someone to protect a home or vehicle.The House passed the legislation 82-9 after breaking a filibuster by some black legislators, who expressed concern it would cause people to be shot when they accidentally stray on someone's property.
The legislation now goes to Gov. Bob Riley. A spokesman for the governor, David Ford, said Riley has said he supports the bill.
Congresswoman McKinney Punches Police Officer (Drudgereport, 3/29/06)
MORE... Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer today after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector, HOTLINE reports... The entire incident is on tape. The cop is pressing charges and the USCP are waiting until Congress adjourns to arrest her, a source claims... Developing...It's not even my birthday.
Lapses in cargo screening uncovered: Undercover officers reveal the need for even tighter security, after sneaking 'dirty' bomb material into the US. (Alexandra Marks, 3/30/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
All it took were some forged documents to "smuggle" into the US enough nuclear material to make a "dirty" bomb - the kind that mixes radioactive material with conventional explosives to cause extra damage.In a government sting, US investigators twice managed to slip the illicit materials across America's border, once at a point of entry from Canada and another time from Mexico. And that was after border agents in both instances detected the presence of the nuclear material, but were duped by Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents the investigators had faked.
'The Last Helicopter': Mideast dictators try to "wait Bush out." They may be miscalculating. (AMIR TAHERI, March 29, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Hassan Abbasi has a dream--a helicopter doing an arabesque in cloudy skies to avoid being shot at from the ground. On board are the last of the "fleeing Americans," forced out of the Dar al-Islam (The Abode of Islam) by "the Army of Muhammad." Presented by his friends as "The Dr. Kissinger of Islam," Mr. Abbasi is "professor of strategy" at the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guard Corps University and, according to Tehran sources, the principal foreign policy voice in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new radical administration.For the past several weeks Mr. Abbasi has been addressing crowds of Guard and Baseej Mustadafin (Mobilization of the Dispossessed) officers in Tehran with a simple theme: The U.S. does not have the stomach for a long conflict and will soon revert to its traditional policy of "running away," leaving Afghanistan and Iraq, indeed the whole of the Middle East, to be reshaped by Iran and its regional allies.
To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.
According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an "aberration"....
Judge Rules Teachers Have No Free Speech Rights in Class (Matthew Rothschild, March 24, 2006, The Progressive)
Here's an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said her contract was not renewed because she answered a student's question about whether she would participate in a demonstration for peace. [...]On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer’s case, granting summary judgment to the defendants.
The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance.
But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that “teachers, including Ms. Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period.”
The judge ruled that “school officials are free to adopt regulations prohibiting classroom discussion of the war,” and that “the fact that Ms. Mayer’s January 10, 2003, comments were made prior to any prohibitions by school officials does not establish that she had a First Amendment right to make those comments in the first place.” The judge also implied that Mayer, by making her comments, was attempting to “arrogate control of the curricula.”
And the judge gave enormous leeway to school districts to limit teachers’ speech in the classroom.
“Whatever the school board adopts as policy regarding what teachers are permitted to express in terms of their opinions on current events during the instructional period, that policy controls, and there is no First Amendment right permitting teachers to do otherwise,” Judge Barker wrote.
Peace isn't made when real wrongdoing goes ignored (Jonathan Gurwitz, 03/29/2006, San Antonio Express-News)
"The consequences of doing nothing in the face of evil were demonstrated when the world did not stop the Rwandan genocide that killed almost a million people in 1994. Where were the peace protesters then? They were just as silent as they are today in the face of the barbaric behavior of religious fanatics."
-Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, writing in the Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2004A peace laureate acting as an advocate for war might seem odd. Odd, unless you understand that war is not the worst evil known to mankind. And odd, unless you understand that the absence of war is far from being the same thing as peace.
"Some may accuse me of being more of a warmonger than a Nobel laureate," Ramos-Horta wrote. "It is always easier to say no to war, even at the price of appeasement. But being politically correct means leaving the innocent to suffer the world over, from Phnom Penh to Baghdad."
I recalled Ramos-Horta's powerful essay while reading the piddling statement from Christian Peacemaker Teams after coalition forces stormed a house on the outskirts of Baghdad and freed three of the organization's members.
Enough with the globo-gab: Transnationalism may be on the way out -- and not a moment too soon
(MARK STEYN, 3/27/06, Maclean's)
In Redefining Sovereignty, Orrin C. Judd brings together a splendid collection of essays on the tension between national sovereignty and the new transnational entities. Full disclosure: there's an approving quote from me on the front of the book, but other than that I have no stake in its success or failure; don't know Mr. Judd, nor most of his stellar contributors, from Václav Havel and Jesse Helms to Francis Fukuyama and Kofi Annan. The token Canadian is a good choice: David Warren, represented by a fine essay yoking Bush's approach to Islamism with Lincoln's to the Civil War -- liberating the Middle East is not the point of the exercise, any more than liberating the slaves was. But in both cases it was necessary to fulfill the strategic objectives of saving the Union a century and a half ago, and of saving the nation-state system today. As another contributor, Lee Harris, puts it, "The liberal world system has collapsed internally." He means that there are no longer, in Kant's phrase, "maxims of prudence." That's to say, we don't know the limits of behaviour. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, we cannot reliably assure ourselves (though many foolish experts do) that this is just a bit of rhetorical red meat, a little playing to the gallery for the Saturday-night jihad crowd.The transnational gabfests aren't much use in this new world. The Kyoto treaty is, in that sense, the quintessential expression of the higher multilateralism: the point of Kyoto is not to do anything about "climate change," but to give the impression of doing something about it, at great expense. If climate change is a pressing issue and if the global economy is responsible -- two pretty big "ifs" -- then Kyoto expends enormous (diplomatic) energy and (fiscal) resources doing nothing about it: even if those who signed on to it actually complied with it instead of just pretending to, all that would happen is that by 2050 the treaty would have reduced global warming by 0.07 degrees -- an amount that's statistically undetectable within annual climate variation.
That's fine for "climate change," which, insofar as there is an imminent threat, is a good half-millennium away. As Kofi Annan, the bespoke embodiment of transnationalism's polite fictions, says, "There is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations." Which is swell if your priority is "legitimacy." That and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee -- unless the tsunami hits and sweeps the lunch counter out to sea. Yet these days, even with natural disasters, the international order divides -- like Bagehot's view of the British constitution -- into its "dignified" and "efficient" halves. The efficient humanitarians -- the Pentagon and the Royal Australian Navy -- have boots on the ground in Indonesia and Sri Lanka within hours, rescuing people, feeding them, housing them. The dignified humanitarians -- the UN's 24/7 permanent humanitarian bureaucracy -- are back in New York holding press conferences to announce they'll be sending a top-level situation-assessment team to the general vicinity to conduct a situation assessment of the situation just as soon as the USAF emergency team has flown in and restored room service to the five-star hotel.
Kofi Annan referred to the UN's "unique legitimacy," and he's right about the "unique" part. The transnational system, in insisting that the foreign minister of Syria is no different from the foreign minister of Denmark, confers a wholly unmerited legitimacy on the planet's gangster states. In Redefining Sovereignty, Roger Scruton wonders of Saddam "how it is that a petty tyrant could have defied the world for so long." But, if "the world" is represented by the UN's "unique legitimacy," you don't have to defy it, you just have to strike a deal -- in this case, the Oil-for-Food program, that Hydra-headed racket under which, among other fascinating codicils and appendices, a million greenbacks from Saddam got funnelled via his Korean chum Tongsun Park into a Canadian petroleum company run by the son of the quintessential transnational Canadian Maurice Strong -- Mister Kyoto himself.
Based on current trends, by mid-century, America, India and China will each be producing roughly 25 per cent of world GDP, with Europe down to 10 per cent. As the columnist John O'Sullivan points out, the three global powerhouses are all strongly attached to traditional notions of national sovereignty, so Europeans and others who've bet on transnationalism have the next 10 years to cement its existing institutions and expand its reach.
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Play Madison Square Garden (EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, 3/29/06, NY Times)
It takes a peculiar sort of ambition to want to catch a 70-pound cannonball being propelled at your rib cage at 75 miles an hour. Or to teach three Doberman pinschers to dance on their hind legs. Or to lower yourself under the belly of a horse as it gallops around a ring. Or to ride a motorcycle at 50 miles an hour, circling inside a 16-foot-diameter sphere, four inches away from six other racing cyclists.Maybe it even takes a peculiar sort of ambition to want to watch these things. But watching — which can be done now at Madison Square Garden at the 136th edition of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus — is also peculiarly satisfying and entertaining.
Taking on the teachers unions (Frederick M. Hess and Martin R. West, March 29, 2006, Boston Globe)
IT IS RARE -- and risky -- for a governor and national political aspirant to put the interests of children above those of a constituency that has as much electoral clout as the teachers unions. Yet Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has done just that with the education reform package he proposed last September and is touting nationwide.The governor's bill seeks to upend the status quo in teacher pay and evaluation that has been written into collective bargaining agreements across the Commonwealth. Specifically, it would offer annual bonuses for teachers with a math or science degree who pass the teacher test in their subject, forgo tenure, and receive a satisfactory year-end evaluation. It would also make teachers in all subjects eligible for a bonus upon receiving an exemplary evaluation and empower superintendents to reward teachers who work in low-performing schools. Crucially, the bill would remove teacher evaluation from the collective bargaining process and establish statewide criteria for assessing each teacher's ''contribution to student learning."
While several states and districts nationwide are experimenting with differential pay for teachers, Romney's proposals are noteworthy for their breadth and the size of the proposed bonuses. All told, an effective math or science teacher could receive up to $15,000 a year in three bonuses.
Catherine Boudreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, predictably criticized Romney's proposals as ''inequitable, divisive, and ineffective."
Driver charged in I-277 crash that killed fetus (Michael O'Malley, March 29, 2006, Cleveland
Plain Dealer)
An Akron man who police say was driving drunk at high speeds has been charged with homicide in a one-car crash that paralyzed his pregnant teenage girlfriend and killed the fetus she was carrying.
Cleveland schools struggle with 'No Child' law's rules (Ellen Jan Kleinerman, March 29, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer)
Test scores in math and reading rose under the No Child Left Behind law in Cleveland and in districts nationwide, according to a new study, but there was a price.About 70 percent of the 299 districts in the survey cut back on instruction in at least one other subject to make more time for reading and math - the two areas monitored under the law, said Jack Jennings, CEO of the Center for Education Policy, a Washington, D.C., research group.
Violence Mars French Strike (Stefan Simons, 3/29/06, Der Spiegel)
Choosing Divorce over Peace ( Pierre Heumann, 3/29/06, Der Spiegel)
Ehud Olmert's election victory shows that Israel is turning inward: voters want their government to focus on fighting poverty inside Israel rather than pursuing a peace process they have lost faith in. Israelis have accepted a plan to separate themselves from the Palestinians with a security barrier and a final redrawing of the border.The Israelis are demanding a change in politics -- center-left instead of center-right, inward rather than outward-looking. They paved the way for that change in Tuesday's parliamentary election. Parties pledging a withdrawal from the West Bank got the most support. Voters hope the pullout will free up the energy and the resources needed to solve the country's problems. [...]
The election sprung unpleasant surprises on a number of politicians. Olmert may have won but his support was considerably weaker than opinion polls had indicated. The Labor Party fared better than expected, and Olmert will now have to come to an arrangement with Amir Peretz, the former trade union leader who now leads the party.
Iran Hard-Line Regime Cracks Down on Blogs (LARA SUKHTIAN, 3/28/06, Associated Press)
The Iranian blogging community, known as Weblogistan, is relatively new. It sprang to life in 2001 after hard-liners — fighting back against a reformist president — shut down more than 100 newspapers and magazines and detained writers. At the time, Derakhshan posted instructions on the Internet in Farsi on how to set up a weblog.Since then, the community has grown dramatically. Although exact figures are not known, experts estimate there are between 70,000 and 100,000 active weblogs in Iran. The vast majority are in Farsi but a few are in English.
Overall, the percentage of Iranians now blogging is "gigantic," said Curt Hopkins, director of an online group called the Committee to Protect Bloggers, who lives in Seattle.
"They are a talking people, very intellectual, social, and have a lot to say. And they are up against a small group (in the government) that are trying to shut everyone up," said Hopkins.
To bolster its campaign, the Iranian government has one of the most extensive and sophisticated operations to censor and filter Internet content of any country in the world — second only to China, Hopkins said.
It also is one of a growing number of Mideast countries that rely on U.S. commercial software to do the filtering, according to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet Initiative. The software that Iran uses blocks both internationally hosted sites in English and local sites in Farsi, the study found.
Brazil hopes to build on its ethanol success (David J. Lynch, 3/28/06, USA TODAY)
A three-decade-long alternative energy campaign has outfitted Brazilian filling stations with fuel pumps that offer pure ethanol, a blend of gasoline and 20% ethanol called gasohol, or even natural gas. This year, Brazil will achieve energy independence — a goal the United States has been chasing without success since the energy crises of the 1970s.Now, even as the U.S. haltingly sets out on the path Brazil blazed, producers here are drawing up plans to transform sugar-cane-based ethanol from a national success to a global commodity. Brazilian companies are investing $9 billion in dozens of new sugar mills to boost ethanol production while aiming to double exports by 2010. The eventual goal is to spread new ethanol industries in countries from Japan to Nigeria.
"We are moving fast to the wholesale export of ethanol. ... We're investing in infrastructure in Brazil to make it easier to export in large quantities," says Jose Gabrielli, chief executive of the state-owned oil company Petrobras, which oversees ethanol sales abroad.
In the USA, ethanol imports are expected to surge from modest levels this year as refineries phase out a gasoline additive called MTBE, says the Energy Information Administration.
Joe's Special: From The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook by Christopher Hirsheimer and Peggy Knickerbocker (The Splendid Table, 3/29/06)
This dish has appeared on San Francisco restaurant menus for decades, and is still regularly ordered at Original Joe's on Taylor Street, which dates to 1937. [...]* 3 or 4 large eggs
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 pound ground grass-fed beef
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 1 large onion, any kind, finely chopped
* 1 pound spinach, tough stems removed and leaves chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano1. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs until blended and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. In a large, heavy skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Crumble the beef into the pan and cook, stirring, until some of the red is gone but not a minute longer. This will take only a few minutes (keep it pink). Pour off the excess fat and transfer the meat to a bowl. Set aside and keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, add the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil to the skillet and place over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the spinach and cook, stirring occasionally, until it wilts and is tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Return the meat to the pan, add the oregano, and taste and adjust the seasoning.
4. Add the eggs, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring constantly, just until the eggs are set, another minute or two, then serve.
Caspar Weinberger's In the Arena (Edwin Black)
In the Arena [Regnery], Casper Weinberger's plain prose memoir generally devoid of emotion recounts the 20th century as it intersected the events of his life.In the very first chapter, Weinberger bluntly lays to rest the assumption that he was raised Jewish, recounting that both his father and grandfather were indifferent to any religion dating back to a synagogue quarrel in Bohemia three generations earlier. Weinberger was instead influenced by his mother's interest in the Episcopalian Church. Later, during his Harvard days, he became an active Episcopalian, confessing that his "faith in God has been an enormous influence and comfort all my life."
Weinberger's intense interest in things military started with his "illegal" attempt to join the RAF in 1941 to fight Germany before the US joined the war. (He was turned down because of bad eyesight.) Later, he did enlist in the army, serving in the South Pacific. [...]
Laced throughout the book is Weinberger's immense devotion to and admiration of Ronald Reagan, whom he credits with winning the Cold War. The turning point, Weinberger writes, was "when President Reagan, in perhaps his most major violation of conventional wisdom, blatantly told the world that Communism was an Evil Empire."
Boehner hints a back down on 'amnesty' (Charles Hurt, March 29, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner refused yesterday to rule out compromising with the Senate to expand the House border security bill to include a guest-worker program or provisions that opponents call "amnesty." [...]
Conservatives were especially appalled to see so many Republicans -- Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas -- join panel Democrats to approve the proposal.
"It appears that the members of the committee who voted for this misguided legislation are more in tune with the thousands of protesters waving Mexican flags in the streets of Los Angeles than they are with the overwhelming majority of Americans who are demanding that America's borders and national security be protected," said Bill Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union. [....]
The only solace for the conservatives has been the House, where many Republicans adamantly oppose any process that permits current illegals to apply for citizenship without first leaving the country. Also, they say Congress must prove to voters that they can enforce existing immigration laws and strengthen the borders before creating any guest-worker program that draws new immigrants.
Mr. Boehner and other House leaders said yesterday they still prefer their border-security-only bill.
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Who are illegal immigrants? Most are young, bring families (Stephen Ohlemacher, 3/29/06, The Associated Press)
They are more likely than American citizens to hold jobs but less likely to have high-school diplomas. They tend to be younger, and many have children who were born in the U.S., making the kids citizens.They are illegal immigrants, their numbers estimated at 12 million as the question of what to do about them reaches a boiling point on Capitol Hill.
Fewer than half fit the profile of young men sneaking across the border to find jobs and send money back home to their families. Today, most bring their families with them, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington.
"There's about 6.5 million adults who are in families, either couples or couples with children, and there's another 2 million children," said Jeffrey Passel, a senior research associate at the center. "The vast majority of this population is families."
McCain tweaks maverick image (EJ Dionne, 3/29/06, Seattle Times)
McCain's problem is that political parties very rarely nominate mavericks, and McCain has decided the only way he'll ever be president is as the Republican nominee. So today he cares very much about what hurts him or helps him in his own party.The most flagrant sign of this was his February vote to continue Bush's dividends and capital-gains tax cuts that he once eloquently opposed.
"It's a big flip-flop," one-time McCain foe Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Washington Times' Donald Lambro, "but I'm happy that he's flopped."
Those of us who defended McCain in the days when the likes of Norquist were attacking him do see the Arizona Republican's new position as a major flop. But so what? Norquist has more power in Republican primaries than McCain's old base among pundits and reporters. Whenever a liberal turns on McCain these days, the senator's supporters gleefully e-mail the criticism to conservative activists as a sign of their man's true faith.
The prevailing view among McCain's lieutenants — it's also the conventional political view — is that since the main obstacle to his nomination in 2008 comes from the right and from Bush partisans, McCain's main task is to appease the right and make nice with Bush on issues (such as Iraq) where McCain actually agrees with the president. Liberal attacks can be ignored since most liberals will eventually vote against McCain anyway. There will be plenty of time after he's nominated for McCain to don his maverick apparel again for the benefit of moderates and independents. [...]
Republican and Democratic friends alike object that this analysis is based on a misunderstanding: McCain's non-conservative, non-Republican sympathizers, they argue, have always overrated his progressive credentials. It's time to face the fact that McCain really is a conservative Republican and stop hoping he's something else.
Joshua Brewster Bolten: Longtime Ally, Now a Top Aide (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 3/29/06, NY Times)
Joshua B. Bolten, the incoming White House chief of staff, would appear to have the insider credentials and ability to soothe Congress that the White House desperately needs.He grew up in establishment Washington, the son of a C.I.A. officer, and graduated from the elite St. Albans School, former Vice President Al Gore's alma mater. As White House budget director, he amused his 500-member staff by renaming his weekend rock band Deficit Attention Disorder for a performance at the Office of Management and Budget. He has nurtured relationships on Capitol Hill, and is personally close to President Bush.
But the question is whether Mr. Bolten is the man to right a listing presidency, and whether his skills, instincts and access to Mr. Bush are enough to overcome public anger over the war in Iraq and the growing questions in Washington about the competence of the West Wing staff. Mr. Bolten, after all, has been with Mr. Bush from his first days as a presidential candidate, and in the last three years has presided over the biggest budget deficits in the history of the United States.
New Bazooka Joe something to chew on (Jesse Noyes, March 29, 2006, Seattle Times)
Bazooka Joe might be over 50, but he’s never looked so young.
The eternal kid is getting a fresh look as executives plan a $4 million relaunch of the iconic brand in an effort to entice a new generation of bubble gum chewers.
“Bazooka Joe has sort of been brought back to life,” said Paul Cherrie, managing director at The Topps Co., which owns the Bazooka Joe brand. “He’s been contemporized.
South of the border, fence is no deterrent: Would-be migrants say nothing will stop them from working in US. (Danna Harman, 3/29/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
While debate in the US continues over immigration reform policy, here, on the south side of the border, there seems to be consensus that enforcement measures will deter almost no one. "Walls and lights and sensors and police fill our heads," says Dagoberto Martinez, "...but they don't make us turn back." [...]The border patrol caught 1.2 million would-be illegal immigrants in 2005; that's an average of one arrest every 30 seconds. There are no official stats for how many made it across, but the Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are, today, between 11.5 and 12 million illegal immigrants living in the US, of whom 56 percent are Mexicans.
From Altar, some, going it alone, flag down buses headed north, where they will try to sneak across. Others - the majority, according to the US Border Patrol - have hired coyotes, or people smugglers, to guide them. These travelers get on vans and are shuttled to whatever point along the border has been chosen for them that day.
Blair cooling on green targets for Kyoto successor (Philip Webster in Auckland, Mark Henderson and Lewis Smith, 3/29/06, Times of London)
TONY BLAIR was accused last night of caving in to American pressure by proposing a watered-down replacement for the Kyoto Protocol that relies on new technology rather than binding greenhouse gas cuts as the solution to climate change.The Prime Minister will call today for a new international goal of stabilising temperatures and carbon emissions at present levels when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012, to be achieved primarily by investment in cleaner energy technologies. [...]
Mr Blair’s proposal, which comes as the Government admitted that it would miss its pledge to reduce carbon dioxide output by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2010, will be laid out in a speech to a climate change conference in Wellington, the New Zealand capital.
Caspar Weinberger (Daily Telegraph, 29/03/2006)
Caspar Weinberger, who died yesterday aged 88, was US Secretary of Defence under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987, and a loyal friend to Britain during the Falklands War.
Strike protests in Paris and London (Philip Johnston, 29/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
[W]hereas in Britain the day was marked by nothing more revolutionary than picket lines and rallies, in France it ended with clashes on the streets. In Paris, where 700,000 marched, police used tear gas against several hundred youths who threw bottles and petrol bombs.The protest, which threatens to bring down the government of Dominique de Villepin, forced the Eiffel Tower to close and caused delays for commuters. A third of flights were cancelled, 70 per cent of public transport was disrupted and national newspapers failed to appear. [...]
[A]s night fell in Paris, the smell of tear gas was in the air.
Victory puts Olmert at centre of Israeli politics (Tim Butcher, 29/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
The political landscape of Israel was redrawn last night as the newly-formed Kadima party led by Ehud Olmert became the first centrist movement to win an Israeli general election in the 58-year history of the Jewish state. [...]"We are ready to compromise, to give up parts of the beloved Land of Israel … and evacuate, under great pain, Jews living there, in order to create the conditions that will enable you to fulfil your dream and live alongside us," he said.
"It is time for the Palestinians to change their ethos, to accept compromise as soon as possible. If they manage to do this soon, we will sit and work out a plan. If not, Israel will take control of its own fate, and in consensus among our people and with the agreement of the world and US President George Bush, we will act. The time has come to act."
As the results came in there were gains for Left-wing parties including Labour and a surprisingly strong performance by a party campaigning for pensioners but the election was a disaster for the Right-wing Likud, which lost two thirds of its seats.
According to the first exit polls, Kadima (which means Forward) won 30-32 seats, fewer than the 35-40 seats suggested by earlier polls but still enough to ensure Mr Olmert would lead the next government as prime minister.
In a late-night victory speech Ehud Olmert spoke of a new chapter in Israel’s history, offering peace to its enemies and uniting internal divisions.Just four months after the party was formed by Ariel Sharon – to whom Mr Olmert paid fulsome tribute – Kadima was predicted to win 28 seats after votes were counted in 50 per cent of polling stations, according to Israel Channel 10 Televison.
The centre-left Labour party came second, winning 20 seats, leaving Mr Olmert the possibility of heading a centre-left coalition with more than half of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats.
In a major blow for Binyamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister and anointed heir to Mr Sharon until last year, his divided and bickering Likud Party was reduced to a right wing parliamentary rump, predicted to win just 12 seats.
The Secret of George Mason: What its Final Four basketball team and its unusual economics department have in common (Peter Boettke and Alexander Tabarrok, Slate, 3/28/06)
Unlike his neighbors, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, founding father George Mason has rarely gotten his props from historians and the public. Until recently, the same could be said of the university bearing his name. But the advancement of Mason's basketball team to the NCAA's Final Four is only the school's latest surprise win. The GMU economics department—which didn't even award Ph.D.s until 1983—has two Nobel Prize winners on its faculty. The law school ascended to the first tier several years ago, a striking achievement for a new program that 10 years ago was being run out of an old department-store building. What's remarkable is that GMU's freewheeling basketball team and its free-market academic teams owe their successes to very similar, market-beating strategies....I'd love to bet on George Mason, but I'm worried that the bench is too thin. And that's just the Economics Department.James Buchanan, GMU's first Nobel Prize winner, has never had an Ivy League position and indeed he has never taught above the Mason-Dixon Line. Gordon Tullock, a potential future Nobelist, has no degree in economics and took only one class in the subject. Vernon Smith, who moved his team from the University of Arizona (again, no Harvard) to GMU in 2001, had to fight to get people to treat experimental economics as more than a cute parlor game.
In the academic market, herd behavior is compounded by political correctness. In the 1960s, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock were joined at the University of Virginia by Ronald Coase (who would later win his own Nobel). But the university administration and powerful organizations like the Ford Foundation thought their free-market ideas (limited government, tax cuts, selling radio spectrum!) were disreputable, and they worked hard to push them out of the university.
Fed boosts key interest rate for 15th time (Associated Press, Mar. 28, 2006)
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday boosted a key interest rate to the highest level in five years as new Chairman Ben Bernanke followed the Alan Greenspan inflation-fighting formula.The action, the 15th consecutive quarter-point move, left the federal funds rate at 4.75 percent, its highest level since April 2001.
Americans see profanity getting worse (Associated Press, Mar. 28, 2006)
This is a story about words we can't print in this story.You probably hear these words often, and more than ever before. But even though we can't print them - we do have our standards - we can certainly ask: Are we living in an Age of Profanity?
Nearly three-quarters of Americans questioned last week - 74 percent - said they encounter profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago. And as for, well, the gold standard of foul words, a healthy 64 percent said they use the F-word - ranging from several times a day (8 percent) to a few times a year (15 percent).
Next step for immigration (Arnold Schwarzenegger, March 28, 2006, LA Times)
Here are the basic immigration principles that have always guided me and that I believe should guide Congress.First, immigration is about our security. The first order of business for the federal government is to secure our borders. And Washington simply must do a better job of it. We learned on 9/11 that not all those who cross our borders want to share in the American dream. A few want to replace it with a nightmare. If we don't know who is coming over our borders, we won't know what they might do. And in a post-Sept. 11 world, that is a risk we cannot take. Congress must strengthen our borders.
That's why as governor of California, I have supported legislation to end human trafficking and stop the issuance of driver's licenses to those who aren't legal residents. By bringing folks out of the shadows and into the light, we help immigrants, and we help America.
Criminalizing immigrants for coming here is a slogan, not a solution. Instead, I urge Congress to get tough on those illegal immigrants who are a danger to society. If an illegal immigrant commits a serious crime, he must leave the country — one strike and you're out. No excuses, no delays.
Second, immigration is about our economy. The freest nation in the world, and the freest economy in history, depend on a free flow of people. Immigrants are here to work and contribute. I support efforts to ensure that our businesses have the workers they need and that immigrants are treated with the respect they deserve. We should pass a common-sense temporary worker program so that every person in our nation is documented.
We can embrace the immigrant without endorsing illegal immigration. Granting citizenship to people who are here illegally is not just amnesty … it's anarchy. We are a country of immigrants, yes. But we are also a nation of laws. People who want to be citizens will want to do it the right way.
Finally, immigration is about our values. Too often the debate centers on what immigrants owe us. Too seldom do we ask what we owe them. Above all, we owe it to our country and our immigrants to share our values. We should talk about our history, our institutions and our beliefs. We should assimilate immigrants into the mainstream. We want immigrants to not just live in America but to live as Americans.
Can $10,000 Check End Welfare State? (Andrew Ferguson, March 28, 2006, Bloomberg)
"Harebrained'' may not be the first word that comes to mind when you hear about "In Our Hands,'' Charles Murray's new book. "Crazy'' might come first, or maybe the more idiomatic "crackers.''But then you start to read it, and the word that pops into your mind is ``Hmmmmm,'' which of course isn't technically a word at all.
Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, has made himself famous as a provocateur -- a social scientist and activist who plants his flag at the furthest edges of the contemporary debate and then waits for everyone else to join him.
It takes a while, but often they do. ``Losing Ground,'' his book on the failures of the U.S. welfare system, was considered scandalous when it was published in 1984. Twelve years later it served as the basis for the welfare reform signed by President Bill Clinton.
``In Our Hands'' is an attempt to leapfrog today's political argument about the size of government. The idea he offers is so unexpected and radically comprehensive that it could force both sides to question their own presuppositions. But first they have to read the book. [...]
His larger goal is to revive those social institutions, particularly the family, the workplace and the local community, which the welfare state has weakened and supplanted and ``through which people live satisfying lives.''
If you want to see the enervating effects of the all- encompassing welfare state, he says, look at Europe, where marriage and birth rates have plunged and work and religion have lost their traditional standing as sources of happiness and personal satisfaction.
In Europe, he says with evident disdain, ``the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible.''
Here the reader of ``In Our Hands'' may suddenly pull up short. What began as a wonkish policy tract enlarges into an exploration of how people live lives of meaning and purpose.
Who knew? It turns out that Charles Murray, the nation's foremost libertarian philosopher, is a moralist.
In the end, though, moralizing and libertarianism make for an uncomfortable fit.
On the one hand, Murray says he wants to liberate citizens from the welfare state so they can live life however they choose. On the other hand, by liberating citizens from the welfare state, he hopes to force them back into lives of traditional bourgeois virtue.
It's a circle that Murray can't quite square, but it's fun watching him try.
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The Plan to Replace the Welfare State (Max Borders, 28 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
Borders: You have elsewhere called yourself a libertarian.Murray: Absolutely. I wrote a book calling myself a libertarian.
Borders: So do you believe that justice demands we correct the -- as the philosopher John Rawls would put it -- the natural lottery, the inequalities that life hands us? Or is In Our Hands a kind of pragmatic compromise with the egalitarian left?
Murray: More the latter. I want to say to my fellow libertarians out there: I not only still consider myself a libertarian, I don't consider that I've wavered in it.
But here's what I think we have to talk about. You think, if you're a libertarian -- as I think -- that the best solution of all is to leave all of this money in the hands of the people who started with it. And this would energize unimaginably effective, widespread, voluntary means of dealing with the problems we face. You believe that. I believe that. That's fine.
We cannot blink at the fact that there's so much money out there -- and the impulse to use the government to redistribute is widespread. We are not going to change that. For all time to come, governments are going to take in vast sums of money and redistribute it. And then the question for libertarians becomes: if one accepts that it's going to happen, is there a way to do this which leaves people's lives in their own hands?
And that's the source of the title of the book. So there will still be government redistributing a lot of money. The big difference is it's no longer bureaucrats who are going to be doling it out in dribs and drabs under certain conditions if you have demonstrated certain kinds of need. It is going to be giving people sufficient resources to run their own lives.
But let me add, however, one other element.
Whereas I still think that the best solution is the pure libertarian solution, I am more sympathetic – and I think my work on The Bell Curve and IQ sort of pushed this along -- I am more and more sympathetic to the proposition that in the lottery of life some people come up with the short end of the stick on a whole bunch of different dimensions. It's not so bad if you don't have an IQ of 130 if you're beautiful, charming, or industrious. After all, there are all sorts of bundles of qualities that make it very hard to rank people from "high" to "low."
It is also true that there are substantial numbers of people who are not that smart, not that beautiful, not that charming, not that industrious, for reasons that they have no control over -- and they've gotten the short end of the stick. So if I'm talking about using government to redistribute some resources to that person, I'm not going to lie awake nights thinking that I've done some awful thing by helping them out. I'm happy with this compromise.
Immigration: Global Economies' Crack Cocaine (David A. Andelman, 03.27.06, Forbes)
There was rioting and strikes by construction workers in Dubai last week, which ordinarily wouldn't raise much of a blip on the global radar screen, except for what some of the workers were saying: It's getting to the point where we can earn more money back home in India than we can in the Middle East.That is a little-recognized, but potentially hugely dangerous, prospect that has gone all but unremarked. Across the region, but especially in the heart of the Arabian Gulf--Saudi Arabia and Dubai in particular--the engine of explosive growth and rapid development has brought millions of grotesquely underpaid workers from the subcontinent and Southeast Asia. How else could one tiny city-state, Dubai, have 80 apartment buildings, each 30 to 60 stories in height, rising at the same time, not to mention the world's tallest office building, expected to exceed 100 stories when it's completed. This structure, the Burj Dubai, happened to have been the scene of last week's violent labor actions, which spread to the construction site of the emirate's new airport facility.
And the construction in Dubai is only the tip of the iceberg, especially for the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia is already in advanced stages of development of an entire new city on the shores of the Red Sea north of Jeddah--the King Abdullah Economic City--which has been budgeted initially at $30 billion. Those prices, however, are built on the assumption of a virtually unending supply of cheap foreign labor of the type that's built Dubai. The kingdom even went so far as to eschew its own developers, including the powerful Bin Laden Group, in favor of Dubai-based Emaar.
The fact is that immigrants, also known as cheap foreign labor, have long been and continue to be the engine of growth for much of the developed world, and even more so in the Second World of regions like the Arabian Gulf. It's not surprising that President George W. Bush on Monday, in proposing his new immigration plan, pointed out that Google was "built by immigrants." For that matter, going back a bit further, New York City was built by cheap foreign labor from Ireland in the 19th century at the same time America's railroads were being stretched from coast to coast on the backs of cheap Chinese laborers.
The problem is that the world is now running out of cheap places to go for labor.
Targeted Killings Only Work For A While (Oxford Analytica, 03.28.06)
The available data suggest that decapitation offers clear strategic advantages in the short-medium term. However, over time, the practice may undermine the perpetrator-state's objectives:-- Benefits: Israel has been the most prominent and successful proponent of targeted killing. Although undoubtedly brutal, its policy has been effective.
-- Drawbacks and dangers: While targeted killing may help deter and disrupt attacks by terrorist or insurgent enemies, there is a strong case that it also alienates the "hearts and minds" of surrounding civilians. Winning over these individuals is a prerequisite for long-term success in any counter-terrorist campaign.
Targeted killing operations can have a significant short-medium term disruptive affect on terrorist organisations. Therefore, Washington is likely continue the practice, despite concerns that it may be counterproductive over the long term.
'Galileo Was Wrong,' claims geocentrist writer (DRU SEFTON, 3/28/06, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE)
Bible proves Earth is center of universe, author arguesThe Earth is at the center of Robert Sungenis' universe. Literally.
Yours too, he says.
Sungenis is a geocentrist. He contends the sun orbits the Earth instead of vice versa. He says physics and the Bible show that the vastness of space revolves around us; that we're at the center of everything, on a planet that does not rotate.
He has just completed a 1,000-page tome, "Galileo Was Wrong," the first in a pair of books he hopes will persuade readers to "give Scripture its due place, and show that science is not all it's cracked up to be."
Geocentrism is a less-known cousin of the intelligent design, or anti-evolution, movement. Both question society's trust in science, instead using religion to explain how we got here - and, in geocentrism's case, just where "here" is.
Consumer Confidence Highest Since 2002 (ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, 3/28/06, AP)
Americans' optimism in the economy rebounded in March, sending a widely followed barometer of consumer sentiment to a near four-year high, a private research group said Tuesday.The Conference Board said that its consumer index shot up 4.5 points to 107.2, the highest level since May 2002, when the reading was 110.3. Analysts had expected a reading of 102.
Caspar Weinberger, presidents' aide, dies (ELIZABETH WHITE, 3/28/06, Associated Press)
"He left the U.S. armed forces stronger, our country safer and the world more free," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.Determined to ensure U.S. strategic strength to counter the Soviet Union, Weinberger pushed Congress to fund such programs as the Strategic Defense Initiative, Midgetman and MX missiles, B-1B bombers and stealth aircraft.
Supporters contended the defense buildup helped cause the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"His legacy is a strong and free America, and for this and for a lifetime of selfless service, a grateful nation thanks him," former first lady Nancy Reagan said Tuesday.
Stanislaw Lem, a Polish science-fiction writer who, in novels like "Solaris" and "His Master's Voice," contemplated man's place in the universe in sardonic and sometimes bleak terms, died yesterday in Krakow, Poland. He was 84.The cause was heart failure, his secretary, Wojciech Zemek, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Lem was a giant of mid-20th-century science fiction, in a league with Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick. And he addressed many of the themes they did: the meaning of human life among superintelligent machines, the frustrations of communicating with aliens, the likelihood that mankind could understand a universe in which it was but a speck. His books have been translated into at least 35 languages and have sold 27 million copies.
What drew the admiration of many of his fellow writers was the intensity with which he studied the limitations of humanity, in ways that could be both awed and pessimistic.
In "Solaris," a densely ruminative novel first published in 1961 — and made into films by Andrei Tarkovsky (1972) and Steven Soderbergh (2002) — contact is made with a dangerous and unknowable alien intelligence in the form of a plasma ocean surrounding a distant planet. As they attempt to understand the organism, astronauts aboard a space ship are plagued by hallucinations drawn from their own memories.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
THE RED PILL VS. THE BLUE
Mexico, A Sleeping Giant Next Door (Pedro G. Cavallero, Safe Democracy)
As America’s attention follows the expansion of democracy to far-off corners of the world, somehow it disconnects from political developments unfolding much closer to home. Highly-scrutinized elections in the Middle East are constantly visible and nonstop reporting exposes the Byzantine play of alliances, fast-evolving scenarios, and candidates’ shifting allegiances. In contrast, electoral processes in Latin America receive sporadic coverage. However, most of the region’s democracies are far from fully consolidated. It was not long ago that almost all Spanish-speaking Americas were ruled by non-elected governments. From Mexico to Argentina, a broad spectrum of regimes colored the hemisphere, including highly-repressive juntas, cleptocratic dynasties, Stalinist-oriented guerrilla-clad cliques, and fraudulent one-Party semi-Gods.During 2006, several Latin American countries will go to the polls to elect presidents, including America’s closest neighbor to the south. Six years after passing a major political test by dumping the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) regime, Mexican voters will chose President Fox’s successor. In 2000, Mexico joined the fold of emerging democracies when discarding a system that Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa labeled as the “perfect dictatorship.” This time a politically exhausted president will be relieved from the burdens imposed by a long sexenio in office. The July 2 election may also provide closure to the democratic process’ “opening-up” phase initiated in 2000. In fact, the outgoing administration highlights one of its (otherwise scarce) achievements as having led the nation through a major political transformation, namely power alternation. However, whomever succeeds Fox will need to exhibit other accomplishments. And building a realistic, inter-dependent relationship with the United States should be at the top of the agenda. For this to happen, Washington should start sending the right signals. [...]
Since the passage of the NAFTA agreement, Mexico positioned itself as America’s second-largest trading partner (Canada being the first), unquestionably a major leap forward in the bilateral context. However, opinion-makers and policymakers alike fail to place American-Mexican relationships on a higher platform. This partnership also proves wrong those alarming voices advocating the building of fences in the border. In fact, there is no other nation whose internal dynamics (political, social and economic) would have such a direct and lasting impact on America’s daily life. This long-standing disconnect seems to be a resilient and deeply-rooted factor in U.S. foreign policymaking. Persistently, it forces Washington to look across the Atlantic (and far beyond) in search of tomorrow’s opportunities. Meanwhile, it prevents the U.S. from looking south and engaging with the hemisphere’s largest Spanish-speaking nation, where both undeniable challenges and enormous opportunities lay. In the meantime, a sleeping giant lays next door.
Fukuyama's Fantasy (Charles Krauthammer, March 28, 2006, Washington Post)
History will judge whether we can succeed in "establishing civilized, decent, nonbelligerent, pro-Western polities in Afghanistan and Iraq." My point then, as now, has never been that success was either inevitable or at hand, only that success was critically important to "change the strategic balance in the fight against Arab-Islamic radicalism."I made the point of repeating the problematic nature of the enterprise: "The undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail."
For Fukuyama to assert that I characterized it as "a virtually unqualified success" is simply breathtaking. My argument then, as now, was the necessity of this undertaking, never its ensured success. And it was necessary because, as I said, there is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the root causes of Sept. 11: "The cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world -- oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism."
Fukuyama's book is proof of this proposition about the lack of the plausible alternative. The alternative he proposes for the challenges of Sept. 11 -- new international institutions, new forms of foreign aid and sundry other forms of "soft power" -- is a mush of bureaucratic make-work in the face of a raging fire.
It should always be rememberd that Wilson had 13 good Points but went down fighting for the awful fourteenth:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
[editor's note: Redefining Sovereignty contains both the Fourteen Points and an essay by Francis Fukuyama]
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-LECTURE: Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World (Charles Krauthammer, February 12, 2004, 2004 Irving Kristol Lecture, AEI Annual Dinner)
The French in Denial (Robert J. Samuelson, March 28, 2006, Washington Post)
To anyone who cares about Europe's future....
Overstating Jewish Power: Mearsheimer and Walt give too much credit to the Israeli lobby (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 3/27/06)
There has been some disquiet expressed about Mearsheimer and Walt's over-fondness for Jewish name-dropping: their reiteration of the names Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, etc., as the neocon inner circle. Well, it would be stupid not to notice that a group of high-energy Jews has been playing a role in our foreign-policy debate for some time. The first occasion on which it had any significant influence (because, despite its tentacular influence, it lost the argument over removing Saddam Hussein in 1991) was in pressing the Clinton administration to intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. These are the territories of Europe's oldest and largest Muslim minorities; they are oil-free and they do not in the least involve the state interest of Israel. Indeed, Sharon publicly opposed the intervention. One could not explain any of this from Mearsheimer and Walt's rhetoric about "the lobby."This argument pops up all over: we could have avoided this war, and could now end it, through some unilateral action of our own. We could abandon Israel, we could increase gasoline taxes, we could pull out of Iraq, we could turn ourselves into Fortress America or France, and, abracadabra, the war would be over.Mearsheimer and Walt belong to that vapid school that essentially wishes that the war with jihadism had never started. Their wish is father to the thought that there must be some way, short of a fight, to get around this confrontation. Wishfulness has led them to seriously mischaracterize the origins of the problem and to produce an article that is redeemed from complete dullness and mediocrity only by being slightly but unmistakably smelly.
Our enemies are our enemies because they choose to be our enemies. There is no substitute for victory.
France hit by nationwide protest strike (JAMEY KEATEN, 3/28/06, Associated Press)
Paris deployed police by the thousands Tuesday before the latest massive protest over a new youth employment law, and commuters across France struggled to get to work during a nationwide strike over the measure.
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Riots in France, Quiet Debates in Germany (Markus Dettmer and Stefan Simons, 3/28/06, Der Spiegel)
For many young workers, entering the job market means accepting temporary contacts, working multiple jobs and going through regular periods of unemployment. This is as true of manual workers as it is of people with a background in engineering or academic studies.Often it takes as many as eight years to arrive at a permanent position. Almost a quarter of those under 25 are unemployed, one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Europe. But the problem isn't just limited to France -- youth unemployment has reached record levels all over Europe. For its part, Germany has fared somewhat better, with a total youth unemployment rate of 15 percent, putting it at 16th place worldwide.
With his legislation, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin wanted to cure the French malady all by himself while scoring points against Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, his main contender for the office of president. Now it looks as if the prime minister's proposed reform of the labor market will be vanquished by student resistance and the categorical "non" the trade unions have given the law.
Black leaders send gov ultimatum (DAVE MCKINNEY AND FRAN SPIELMAN, March 28, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times)
The Chicago City Council's black caucus met with state Sen. James Meeks on Monday and agreed to back Meeks' possible third-party gubernatorial bid unless Gov. Blagojevich commits as much as $4 billion during the next four years to African-American causes."If the governor doesn't meet the needs of the African-American community, then we're not going to support his candidacy, and we're going to move forward with supporting Rev. Meeks," said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th). [...]
Today marks the first day that Meeks (D-Chicago) could put nominating petitions on the street to gather the necessary 25,000 signatures required by late June to join Blagojevich and Republican Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka on the Nov. 7 ballot. There were no signs that effort materialized as of Monday night. Meeks did not return calls left at his Chicago answering service or Springfield legislative office.
Mayor Daley, meanwhile, weighed in on the potentially devastating threat Meeks poses to Blagojevich.
When asked if Meeks had the ability to torpedo Blagojevich and perhaps the rest of the Democratic ticket in the fall, the mayor said, "Sure. Sure, that's happened before. That's a reality."
In 1986, two supporters of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche scored stunning upsets for lieutenant governor and secretary of state in the statewide Democratic primary, wrecking the Democrats' efforts to unseat Republican Gov. James R. Thompson.
Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff, Administration Official Says (Terrence Hunt, March 28, 2006, The Associated Press)
White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Josh Bolten, an administration official said Tuesday.President Bush was expected to announce the shake up during a meeting with reporters with reporters later Tuesday morning in the Oval Office of the White House.
FEC Rules Exempt Blogs From Internet Political Limits (Thomas B. Edsall, March 28, 2006, Washington Post)
In a unanimous vote yesterday, the Federal Election Commission left unregulated almost all political activity on the Internet except for paid political advertisements. Campaigns buying such ads will have to use money raised under the limits of current federal campaign law.Perhaps most important, the commission effectively granted media exemptions to bloggers and other activists using the Web to allow them to praise and criticize politicians, just as newspapers can, without fear of federal interference.
The rules "totally exempt individuals who engage in political activity on the Internet from the restrictions of the campaign finance laws. The exemption for individual Internet activity in the final rules is categorical and unqualified," said FEC Chairman Michael E. Toner. The regulation "protects Internet activities by individuals in all forms, including e-mailing, linking, blogging, or hosting a Web site," he said.
In Israel, an Unsettled Electorate: Today's Vote Will Test Old Loyalties (Scott Wilson, March 28, 2006, Washington Post)
Israelis will elect a new parliament, and by extension a new prime minister, on Tuesday after a campaign season marked by complacency, disappointment and a sense of betrayal among many voters now searching for new political leadership. The result is that a large number of voters remain undecided, a floating segment that could determine a quarter of the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. More Israelis than in any past election are expected to sit out the vote.Neither Likud nor Labor, the parties at the center of Israel's political life for decades, is projected to win the plurality of seats that would carry the right to form the next government. Although it has slipped in recent polls, the Kadima party that Sharon created last November is still running far ahead, even though he is now hospitalized in a coma.
The campaign has emerged as a referendum on Sharon's unfinished program to separate the Israeli and Palestinian populations through a series of unilateral withdrawals from the occupied territories. He argued that Israel must act alone, after years of largely fruitless negotiations, to draw its final borders in a way that would separate a Jewish majority from the Arab population.
Moussaoui Says He Was to Fly 5th Plane: White House Attack Planned for 9/11, Terrorist Testifies (Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer, March 28, 2006, Washington Post)
Zacarias Moussaoui took the stand at his death penalty trial yesterday and declared that he was supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and crash it into the White House in the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. [...]His words were as stunning as the way in which he delivered them. When he pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda last year, Moussaoui denied involvement in Sept. 11 and insisted that he was to be part of a second wave of attacks. He then launched into one of his rambling courtroom outbursts, ending it by screaming, "God curse America!"
The familiar Moussaoui was gone yesterday. In his place was a hardened terrorist operative who spoke calmly and methodically, looking straight at his questioners as he voiced his hatred for the nation that had put him on trial for his life. [...]
The extraordinary spectacle of an admitted al-Qaeda member testifying about the deadliest terrorist attack in American history was later matched by something equally unusual. Defense lawyers read into the record evidence gathered in the United States' secret and controversial detention system, telling jurors what Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a key planner of Sept. 11, would have said had he taken the stand.
And Mohammed's words, given to interrogators at the undisclosed location where he is being held, contradicted Moussaoui's testimony.
He said Moussaoui had been slated for a second wave of attacks that would have included targets not hit on Sept. 11, such as the White House and the Sears Tower in Chicago. Mohammed noted that the Sept. 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon proceeded on schedule despite Moussaoui's arrest while taking flying lessons in Minnesota.
Even if Moussaoui's precise role is never certain, what was clear yesterday was the damage that his testimony, given over the strenuous objections of his lawyers, had done to his defense.
Slow ticket sales force freebie AG fund-raiser: $500 a head...or $0, whatever works for you (Maggie Mulvihill, March 28, 2006, Boston Herald)
Listless ticket sales forced Attorney General and aspiring governor Tom Reilly to send out complimentary invitations to his birthday party fund-raiser tonight, according to political sources and Reilly campaign documents.
The $500 VIP event at the posh State Room comes as Reilly has shown sluggish fund-raising numbers in 2006.
In the first two weeks of March, he reported receipts of $9,380 compared to Democratic rival Deval Patrick’s $57,787 and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s $191,625, according to state campaign finance records.
Trucks to face new fuel-economy rules (Jayne O'Donnell, 3/27/06, USA TODAY)
New fuel-economy rules for trucks to be announced this week would not only impose mileage standards for the first time on previously exempt heavy-duty models, such as the Hummer H2, but also would overhaul standards for other trucks, according to auto industry officials and others familiar with the plan. [...]Federal officials wanted a new system that doesn't encourage selling more small trucks in order to meet mileage standards. Statistics show that bigger, heavier vehicles are safer to their occupants in crashes than smaller, lighter vehicles are.
If the new standards encourage larger vehicles, "from a safety perspective, that's good," says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Lyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman and adviser, dies (AP, 3/28/06)
Franklyn "Lyn" Nofziger, the rumpled and irreverent conservative who served Ronald Reagan as press secretary and political adviser, died of cancer Monday. He was 81. [...]Nofziger, who joined Reagan's ranks early in the political career of the actor-turned-politician, headed the White House political office during the first year of the Reagan presidency and then quit to form a political consulting and lobbying firm.
"He was a great big garrulous guy who was very serious about his politics and very serious about Ronald Reagan," Michael Deaver, Reagan's deputy chief of staff, said Monday. "He was sort of the keeper of the flame."
"He was fun to be around," Deaver said. "Reagan would light up when he came into the room."
Nofziger's great-niece Carol Dahmen said Monday: "He transcended parties; he was loved on both sides of the aisle. You could love him or hate him but everybody respected him."
Conservative columnist George F. Will once described the non-conformist, cigar-chomping Nofziger as "Sancho Panza" to Reagan's Don Quixote.
Asked why he was leaving the White House, Nofziger replied, "I don't like government, it's just that simple." He denied as "99 percent untrue" a report he'd quit because of his exclusion from the president's innermost circle.
His determined irreverence extended to the Reagans.
"I'm not a social friend of the Reagans," he told an interviewer. "That's by their choice and by mine. They don't drink enough."
Bombay gin, outrageous puns and fierce loyalty to Reagan and conservative Republican principles were Nofziger hallmarks. His caustic wit made him a favorite among some reporters who covered Reagan as governor and president and on his various campaigns. [...]
As White House liaison, Nofziger had mixed success with militant conservatives who early in the Reagan administration began chafing at the number of moderate Republicans given key jobs.
"Every time we appoint someone they don't agree with to a job, they feel the victory trickling away," he said in an interview.
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Strategist, Reagan Adviser Lyn Nofziger (Martin Weil, 3/28/06, Washington Post)
An offbeat figure who wore Mickey Mouse ties with the knot pulled down, Mr. Nofziger won a reputation as a shrewd, two-fisted political battler, who blended loyalty, cantankerousness and pungent phrasemaking. He was known as one of the key staff members involved in Reagan's rise from the California governor's chair to the pinnacle of American power. [...]After leaving the White House, Mr. Nofziger felt in a personal way what he considered to be governmental overreaching. He was found guilty in 1988 on three counts of illegal lobbying at the Reagan White House within a year after he left to set up his consulting firm.
But a federal court of appeals overturned the conviction in June 1989, asserting that prosecutors had failed to prove that Mr. Nofziger "knowingly" violated the law. The Supreme Court declined to consider reinstating the conviction.
Earlier, when he had appeared in court for his sentencing, Mr. Nofziger demonstrated what supporters viewed as his stubborn resolve to remain faithful to his principles.
Recognizing the value of declaring remorse before being sentenced, Mr. Nofziger said: "I cannot do that if I am to be true to myself and to those hundreds of people all over the country who have supported me . . . because they believe I am an honorable man.
"Your honor, I am an honorable man."
No Room in the Big Tent (Rose Aguilar, March 28, 2006, AlterNet)
Anti-abortion Republicans have a lot to celebrate. The confirmation of Samuel Alito and John Roberts, two anti-abortion Supreme Court justices, and the passage of the South Dakota law banning all abortion, have been seen as clear Republican victories. But for pro-choice Republicans, appalled and disgusted by the South Dakota law, the party ended a long time ago. While some say it's important to speak out and fight for change, others say they're tired of fighting a losing battle."I was a Republican. I did stand up. I got crucified for it and finally said, 'To hell with it,'" says Elisabeth "Jinx" Ecke, a longtime Planed Parenthood supporter and board member in San Diego, Calif. "I've tried to support Republican candidates in the California Assembly, and they swear on a stack of bibles that they'll vote pro- choice. Then they go to Sacramento and they vote anti-choice. I'm done."
Ecke, 74, cast her first vote for Dwight Eisenhower back in 1953. Four years ago, she reregistered by checking the "Decline to State" box. "I'm supporting mostly Democrats for one simple reason: choice," she says. "People say you can't be a one issue voter and I say, 'Yes I can.'"
Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America: The disastrous foreign policies of the US have left it more isolated than ever, and China is standing by to take over (Martin Jacques, March 28, 2006, The Guardian)
It is clear that the US occupation of Iraq has been a disaster from almost every angle one can think of, most of all for the Iraqi people, not least for American foreign policy.
The majority of Iraqis overall view the recent parliamentary elections as valid, are optimistic that their country is going in the right direction and feel that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been worth the costs. Sunnis, on the other hand, overwhelmingly reject the validity of the elections, see the country going in the wrong direction and regret the overthrow of Saddam. This pervasive pessimism challenges hopes that the alienated Sunni Arab minority, which boycotted Iraq’s first post-Saddam elections a year ago, would feel empowered by participating in last month’s elections.The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Limited/D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted January 2-5 with a nationwide sample of 1,150, which included an oversample of 150 Arab Sunnis (hereafter simply called Sunnis).
Overall, two out of three Iraqis (66%) believe that the recent parliamentary elections were free and fair. Approximately the same number (68%) say “that the government to be established by the newly elected Parliament will … be the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.”
Even larger majorities feel this way among the Shia and Kurds. Eighty-nine percent of Shia and 77% of Kurds say the elections were free and fair, while 90% of Shia and 81% of Kurds say the new government will be the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people. [....]
Overall, 64% of Iraqis say that Iraq is heading in the right direction, while just 36% say it is heading in the wrong direction. [...]
Among the Shia and Kurds optimism is even higher. Seventy-six percent of Kurds and 84% of Shia say they think the country is headed in the right direction. [...]
Iraqis overall have a positive view of the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Asked, “Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the US-Britain invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?” 77% say it was worth it, while 22% say it was not.
Gallup asked the same question in April 2004. At that time, 61% said that it was worth it and 28% said that it was not.
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Iraqinomics (Nima Sanandaji, 28 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
Can Middle Eastern states put oil resources to better use? Is it possible for free enterprise to thrive in the Arab world? The experience in Iraq suggests that the answer to these questions might be yes. The democratization of Iraq has meant that both foreign and domestic businesses can operate in a freer economic environment. Although media seldom report about this, the Iraqi economy is rapidly growing. According to the report "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq October 2005," GDP per capita has more than doubled between 2003 and 2005. Compared to pre-war levels the increase was 31 percent. And the future looks bright. According to the Brookings Institution Iraq Index the Iraqi economy is expected to have a real GDP growth of 49 percent in the period 2006-2008. The oil sector has still not recovered to pre-war levels, partially due to the terrorist menace. Still, if Iraq continues on a path to democracy and economic progress, it is a fair assumption that its natural resources will be put to better use. Foreign investors and consumers would most likely appreciate the possibility to buy oil from a country that does not support terrorists or fundamentalist schools abroad.Of course, Iraq still has a long way to go in order to recover from the war and the many years under Saddam's tyranny. But if the Iraqi economy can grow despite the ongoing attempts by radicals to undermine it, the same should be possible for the rest of the Arab world. Iraq could serve as a positive example in a region where policy makers have little knowledge about the benefits of free market reforms.
Why U.S. Business Is Winning (Sebastian Mallaby, March 27, 2006, Washington Post)
The dawn of this heyday came in 1995. In the two preceding decades, the productivity of American workers had grown more slowly than that of Japanese and European competitors. But in the decade since 1995, U.S. labor productivity growth has outstripped foreign rivals'. Meanwhile U.S. firms' return on equity -- that is, the efficiency with which they manage the capital entrusted to them -- has pulled away from that of Japan, France and Germany, according to data provided by Standard & Poor's Compustat.Other measures tell a similar story. Up until the 1990s, management books were crammed with Japanese buzzwords, and the early Clinton administration was in awe of Germany's apprenticeship system. But today the United States provides most of the business role models, from Starbucks to Procter & Gamble, from Apple to Cisco. The (British) Financial Times publishes an annual list of the world's most respected companies. In 2004 and again in 2005, no fewer than 12 of the top 15 slots were occupied by American firms.
Or consider the database on management quality constructed by Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen of Stanford University and the London School of Economics. This duo organized a survey of 732 medium-sized American and European companies and measured their management procedures against benchmarks of best practice. The result: American firms, including the subsidiaries of American firms in Europe, are simply better managed than European rivals. In fact, superior American management accounts for more than half of the productivity gap between American and European firms. [...]
Competition and meritocracy cannot explain all of America's superiority, however. The U.S. economy has always had these advantages but hasn't always trounced overseas rivals. Nor is it enough to say that Americans work harder than Europeans, since the productivity numbers show that Americans are boosting what they achieve per hour. And anyone who explains America's superiority by saying that the country is more "dynamic" or "creative" is merely relabeling the mystery we're trying to solve.
The best guess about the "X factor" is that America's business culture is peculiarly well-suited to contemporary challenges. American business is not especially good at coaxing productivity out of factory workers: The era when this was all-important was the heyday of Germany and Japan. But American business excels at managing service workers and knowledge workers: at equipping these people with technology, empowering them with the right level of independence and paying for performance. So the era of decentralized "network" businesses is the American era.
Moreover, America's business culture is perfectly matched to globalization. American executive suites and MBA courses are full of talented immigrants, so American managers think nothing of working in multicultural firms. The immigrants have links to their home countries, so Americans have an advantage in establishing global supply chains. The elites of Asia and Latin America compete to attend U.S. universities; when they return to their countries, they are keener to join the local operation of a U.S. company than of a German or Japanese one.
So the shift from manufacturing to services; the gallop of globalization; and the rise of information technology that flattens corporate hierarchies: All these forces come together to create an American moment.
Clinton chauffeur an illegal immigrant (UPI, 3/27/06)
An embarrassing hole in security surrounding former U.S. President Bill Clinton turned up when one of his chauffeurs was found to be a wanted man.Is he the Zelig or the Gump of American presidents? Of course, seven years ago Mr. Qureshi would have been the Clinton Administration nominee for port security Tsar.Shahzad Qureshi, 42, was in one of three cars awaiting Clinton at Newark Airport last week when a Port Authority policeman happened to check license plate numbers.
The computer came back showing the Pakistani national had skipped a residency-status hearing in 2000, and a deportation order had been issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the New York Post reported.
An Interview With Claire Berlinski, Author Of Menace In Europe (John Hawkins, Right Wing News)
John Hawkins: Why are Europeans so secular compared to Americans?Claire Berlinski: American religiosity doesn't need to be explained; after all, throughout history, in every civilization, people have believed in the supernatural. What needs to be explained is European atheism, which is the aberration-unique in the world and in human history. It has its origins in politics, I think, not metaphysics. Voltaire was of the view that it is not so much the intrinsic power of the argument for atheism that caused people to reject faith, but rather the corruption of the Church, and largely I agree with him. Before the French Revolution, there were no atheists in Europe. Heretics, sure. But atheists? Unheard of. Political atheism-as opposed to philosophical atheism-emerged from revulsion with the corrupt Catholic Church and the detested Bourbon Monarchy; the two being intimately identified in peoples' minds, as indeed they were. Une foi, un loi, un roi, as they said, and with two down, a trifecta seemed inevitable. This in turn paved the way for intellectual atheism, represented by such figures as Nietzsche, Marx and Freud-all of whom, by the way, assumed atheism as the starting point rather than endeavoring to prove it. You could ask-why atheism, why then? Why not, say, an anticlerical form of religion? I suspect the answer lies in the linkages between atheism and the scientific revolution-linkages of loose association only; after all, no scientific discovery ever specifically disproved the existence of God. Atheism is the natural correlate to the doctrine of scientific materialism, and clearly atheism gained strength through its identification with the triumphs of science. But it needed a political context to take hold, and only in Europe did it find one. In this sense, the separation of Church and State in the US worked, paradoxically, to the advantage of the Church.
But in another sense, as I argue in my book, the popular view of Europe as a completely secular society is too facile. Anticlerical forms of religion have taken hold. Someone once sent me an article, perhaps in was in the Guardian, about three young women, imbeciles all, who had devoted themselves to radical beliefs: the first to the destruction of capitalism, the second to Islam, and the third to something like an old-fashioned Christian heresy, close in spirit to the Albigensian heresy. There is something going on in Europe, a flourishing of sects, all of which have something in common and that is an absolute, virtually pathological, refusal to profit from experience. Now, why should anyone devote herself to the destruction of capitalism when we know perfectly well, if we know anything at all, that the realistic alternatives are monstrous, inefficient, stupid, brutal and self-defeating? When it comes to anti-capitalism and fruity Christianity, it is quite interesting to think of both as Christian heresies. As official belief has waned in Europe, Christian heresies have come to flourish. Communism, after all, has its roots in certain apostolic teachings about poverty and property; and free love is just what the Church faced in the 12th century and effectively crushed. One can argue-and I do, in my book-that Europe remains what it has always been: a Christian society, one now tormented by heresies. [...]
John Hawkins: Do you think Americans should regard France as an enemy nation? Why or why not?
Claire Berlinski: Oh no, of course not. An enemy nation? Like North Korea?
War in their future, Mids choose Marines (Bradley Olson, March 25, 2006, Baltimore Sun)
When it came time for Jake Dove, a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy, to decide how he would fulfill his required military duty after graduation, there was no question about it: Marine Corps all the way."In my eyes it's a perfect community," said Dove, an Annapolis High School graduate. "The idea of being a platoon leader in charge of guys that have done two, three tours in Iraq already, when I haven't been over there - that's an awesome responsibility. I'm eager to take it on."
Despite a war that has entered its fourth year with mounting casualties and waning public support, more and more midshipmen at the Annapolis military college are volunteering for the Marines when asked to choose how they will fulfill the five-year commitment required of all academy graduates.
Senate Panel Approves Immigration Bill (DAVID ESPO, 3/27/06, AP)
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved election-year immigration legislation Monday that clears the way for millions of undocumented workers to seek U.S. citizenship without having to first leave the country.After days of street demonstrations that stretched from California to the gounds of the U.S. Capitol, the committee also voted to strip out proposed criminal penalties for residents found to be in this country illegally.
The panel's vote cleared the way for the full Senate to begin debate Tuesday on the emotional immigration issue.
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President Attends Naturalization Ceremony (George W. Bush, DAR Administration Building, Washington, D.C., 3/27/06)
Thank you all. Thank you very much. It's good to be with you. I am grateful for the chance to witness this joyous and uplifting ceremony. It is inspiring to see people of many different ages, many different countries raise their hands and swear an oath to become citizens of the United States of America.For some of you, this day comes after a long and difficult journey. For all of you, this is a defining moment in your lives. America is now more than your home; America is your country. I welcome you to this free nation. I congratulate you and your families, and it's an honor to call you fellow Americans.
I appreciate the Attorney General. Dr. González, thank you, sir. And, Alfonso, it's good to be up here with you. I want to thank the President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Ms. Presley Wagoner, for letting us use this fantastic facility for this important ceremony. Thank you for singing the National Anthem so beautifully.
It is fitting that we hold this ceremony at the home of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Daughters of the American Revolution were the daughters of immigrants, because the leaders of our revolution all had ancestors who came from abroad. As new citizens of the United States, you now walk in the footsteps of millions. And with the oath you've sworn, you're every bit as American as those who came before you.
Our immigrant heritage has enriched America's history. It continues to shape our society. Each generation of immigrants brings a renewal to our national character and adds vitality to our culture. Newcomers have a special way of appreciating the opportunities of America, and when they seize those opportunities, our whole nation benefits.
In the 1970s, an immigrant from Ireland -- or the 1790s, an immigrant from Ireland designed the White House, right where Laura and I live. And he helped build the Capitol. In the 1990s, an immigrant from Russia helped create the Internet search engine Google. In between, new citizens have made contributions in virtually every professional field, and millions of newcomers have strengthened their communities through quiet lives and hard work and family and faith.
America's welcoming society is more than a cultural tradition, it is a fundamental promise of our democracy. Our Constitution does not limit citizenship by background or birth. Instead, our nation is bound together by a shared love of liberty and a conviction that all people are created with dignity and value. Through the generations, Americans have upheld that vision by welcoming new citizens from across the globe -- and that has made us stand apart.
Naturalization ceremony participants raise their hands and hold American flags as they are sworn-in as new U.S. citizens Monday, March 27, 2006, during the Naturalization Ceremony at the Daughters of the American Revolution Administration Building in Washington. President George W.Bush addressed the audience, saying that each generation of immigrants brings a renewal to our national character and adds vitality to our culture. White House photo by Eric Draper One of my predecessors, President Ronald Reagan, used to say this, "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Japan, but you cannot become Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in America and be an American."
The new Americans we welcome today include men and women from 20 countries on five continents. Their ages range from 18 to 59, and they work as teachers and small business managers, and nurses, and software engineers and other professions.
One new citizen is Veronica Pacheco. Veronica first came to the United States from Bolivia 15 years ago. In 2000, she moved here permanently and found a job at a catering company in Virginia. Every Friday and Saturday, she spent five hours studying English at the local community college. Over the years she saved enough money to buy her own townhouse. Here's what Veronica says about America: "This is a country of opportunity. If you want to be successful, you can do it. You can have your dreams come true here."
Another new citizen is Masoon Shaheen. Masoon grew up in Kuwait, and moved to the United States with her husband seven years ago. She enrolled in the community college to improve her English, took a job teaching Marines to speak Arabic. Here's what Masoon said: "The United States is a symbol of justice, freedom and liberty. I love that. Here they respect people because they are people. I feel I am honored, and I feel that I'm loved."
America is stronger and more dynamic when we welcome new citizens like Masoon and Veronica to our democracy. With that in mind, I've called on Congress to increase the number of green cards that can lead to citizenship. I support increasing the number of visas available for foreign-born workers in highly-skilled fields like science, medicine and technology. I've signed legislation creating a new Office of Citizenship at the Department of Homeland Security to promote knowledge of citizenship rights and procedures.
And after September the 11th, I signed an executive order making foreign-born members of our military immediately eligible for citizenship, because those willing to risk their lives for our democracy should be full participants in our democracy.
Over the past four years, more than 20,000 men and women in uniform have become citizens of the country they serve. They've taken the citizenship oath on the decks of aircraft carriers, on deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, and at military bases around the world. At Bethesda Naval Medical Center, I watched a brave Marine born in Mexico raise his right hand and become a citizen of the country he had defended in uniform for more than 26 years. It's a privilege to be the Commander-in-Chief of men and women like these, and I'm proud to call them fellow citizens.
All who swear the oath of citizenship are doing more than completing a legal process. They're making a lifelong pledge to support the values and the laws of America. The pledge comes with great privileges, and it also comes with great responsibilities. I believe every new citizen has an obligation to learn the customs and values that define our nation, including liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, tolerance for others, and the English language.
Those of us who have been citizens for many years have responsibilities, as well. Helping new citizens assimilate is a mission that unites Americans by choice and by birth. I appreciate the work of patriotic organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution. Some of the new Americans here today might have used DAR's Manual for Citizenship to prepare you for the citizenship test. They obviously did a pretty good job, since you passed. (Laughter.)
Many other organizations, from churches to businesses to civic organizations, are answering the call to help new citizens succeed in our country, and I am grateful for all those who reach out to people who are going to become citizens.
Government is doing its part to help new citizens succeed, as well. The Office of Citizenship has created a new official guide for immigrants. This free publication includes practical advice on tasks like finding housing and jobs, or enrolling your children in school, or paying taxes.
We're conducting outreach programs with faith-based and community groups to offer civics and English language courses. My administration will continue to pursue policies that open a path to education and jobs, promote ownership, and to give every citizen a chance to realize the American Dream.
Our nation is now in the midst of the debate on immigration policy, and it's good. Immigration is an important topic. Immigration is also an emotional topic. And we need to maintain our perspective as we conduct this debate. At its core, immigration is a sign of a confident and successful nation. It says something about our country that people around the world are willing to leave their homes and leave their families and risk everything to come to America. Their talent and hard work and love of freedom have helped make America the leader of the world. And our generation will ensure that America remains a beacon of liberty and the most hopeful society the world has ever known.
America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws. All of you are here because you followed the rules and you waited your turn in the citizenship line. Yet some violate our immigration laws and enter our country illegally, and that undermines the system for all of us. America should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society. We can be both at the same time. And so, to keep the promise of America, we must enforce the laws of America.
We must also reform those laws. No one is served by an immigration system that allows large numbers of people to sneak across the border illegally. Nobody benefits when illegal immigrants live in the shadows of society. Everyone suffers when people seeking to provide for their families are left at the mercy of criminals, or stuffed in the back of 18-wheelers, or abandoned in the desert to die. America needs comprehensive immigration reform.
I've laid out a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that includes three critical elements: securing the border, strengthening the immigration enforcement inside our country, and creating a temporary worker program. These elements depend on and reinforce one another, and together they will give America an immigration system that meets the needs of the 21st century.
The first element is securing our border. Our immigration system cannot function if we cannot control the border. Illegal immigration puts a strain on law enforcement and public resources, especially in our border communities. Our nation is also fighting a war on terror, and terrorists crossing the border could create destruction on a massive scale. The responsibility of government is clear: We must enforce the border.
Since I took office, we've increased funding for border security by 66 percent. We've expanded the Border Patrol to more than 12,000 agents, an increase of more than 2,700 agents. And the budget next year funds another 1,500 new agents. We're helping these dedicated men and women do their jobs by providing them with cutting-edge technology, like infrared cameras, advanced motion sensors, and unmanned aerial vehicles. We're installing protective infrastructure, such as vehicle barriers and fencing in urban areas, to prevent people from crossing the border illegally. And we're integrating manpower and technology and infrastructure in more unified ways than ever. Our objective is to keep the border open to trade and tourism, and closed to criminals and drug dealers and terrorists.
Our strategy to secure the border is getting results. Since I took office, our agents have apprehended and sent home more than 6 million people entering this country illegally, including more than 400,000 with criminal records. Federal, state and local and travel enforcement officials are working side-by-side. Through the Arizona Border Control Initiative we apprehended more than 600,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona last year. The men and women of our Border Patrol have made good progress, but we have much more work ahead and we cannot be satisfied until we're in full control of the border.
We're also changing the way we process those we catch crossing the border illegally. More than 85 percent of the illegal immigrants we apprehend are from Mexico, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. We face a different challenge with non-Mexicans. For decades, government detention facilities did not have enough beds for the non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught at the border and so most were released back into society. They were each assigned a court date, but virtually nobody showed up. This practice, catch-and-release, is unwise, and my administration is going to end it.
To end catch-and-release, we're increasing the number of beds and detention facilities by 12 percent this year, and by another 32 percent next year. We're also expanding our use of a process called expedited removal, which allows us to send non-Mexican illegal immigrants home more quickly.
Last year, it took an average of 66 days to process one of these illegal immigrants. Now, we're doing it in 21 days. The goal is to increase the process faster. It's helped us end the catch-and-release for illegal immigrants from Brazil and Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua caught crossing our Southwest border. And since last summer, we've cut the number of non-Mexican illegal immigrants released in society by more than a third. We've set a goal to end catch-and-release over the next year. I look forward to working with Congress to close loop holes that makes it difficult for us to process illegal immigrants from certain countries. And we will continue to press foreign governments, like China, to take back their citizens who have entered our country illegally.
When illegal immigrants know they're going to be caught and sent home, they will be less likely to break the rules in the first place. And the system will be more orderly and secure for those who follow the law.
The second part of a comprehensive immigration reform is strengthening enforcement of our laws in the interior of our country. Since I took office, we've increased funding for immigration enforcement by 42 percent, and these resources have helped our agents bring to justice some very dangerous people: smugglers, terrorists, gang members, and human traffickers. For example, through Operation Community Shield, federal agents have arrested nearly 2,300 gang members who were here illegally, including violent criminals like the members of MS-13.
Better interior enforcement also requires better work site enforcement. Businesses have an obligation to abide by the law. The government has the responsibility to help them do so. Last year, I signed legislation to more than double the resources dedicated to work site enforcement. We'll continue to confront the problem of document fraud, because hard-working business owners should not have to act as detectives to verify the status of their workers.
Next month, we're going to launch law enforcement task forces in 11 major cities to dismantle document fraud rings. We're working to shut down the forgers who create the phony documents to stop the smugglers who traffic in human beings, and to ensure that American businesses are compliant with American law.
The third part of comprehensive immigration reform is to make the system more rational, orderly, and secure by creating a new temporary worker program. This program would provide a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. Workers should be able to register for legal status on a temporary basis. If they decide to apply for citizenship, they would have to get in line. This program would help meet the demands of a growing economy and would allow honest workers to provide for their families while respecting the law.
A temporary worker program is vital to securing our border. By creating a separate legal channel for those entering America to do an honest day's labor, we would dramatically reduce the number of people trying to sneak back and forth across the border. That would help take the pressure off the border and free up law enforcement to focus on the greatest threats to our security, which are criminals and drug dealers and terrorists.
The program would also improve security by creating tamper-proof identification cards that would allow us to keep track of every temporary worker who is here on a legal basis and help us identify those who are here illegally.
One thing the temporary worker program should not do is provide amnesty for people who are in our country illegally. I believe granting amnesty would be unfair, because it would allow those who break the law to jump ahead of people like you all, people who play by the rules and have waited in the line for citizenship.
Amnesty would also be unwise, because it would encourage future waves of illegal immigration, it would increase pressure on the border and make it difficult for law enforcement to focus on those who mean us harm. For the sake of justice and border security, I firmly oppose amnesty.
This week, the Senate plans to consider legislation on immigration reform. Congress needs to pass a comprehensive bill that secures the border, improves interior enforcement, and creates a temporary worker program to strengthen our security and our economy. Completing a comprehensive bill is not going to be easy. It will require all of us in Washington to make tough choices and make compromises. And that is exactly what the American people sent us here to do.
As we move toward the process, we also have a chance to move beyond tired choices and the harsh attitudes of the past. The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way. No one should play on people's fears, or try to pit neighbors against each other. No one should pretend that immigrants are threats to American identity, because immigrants have shaped America's identity.
No one should claim that immigrants are a burden on our economy because the work and enterprise of immigrants helps sustain our economy. We should not give into pessimism. If we work together, I'm confident we can meet our duty to fix our immigration system and deliver a bill that protects our people, upholds our laws, and makes our people proud.
It's a joyful day for all of you, and it's one you'll always remember. When you came here this morning, I was the President of another country. Now I'm the President of your country, and I'm grateful for that honor. I wish you good luck as citizens of the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.
May God bless you and your families, and may God continue to bless America. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Panel: If no spending cuts are taken, how about 22% sales tax by 2015? (Japan Times, 3/28/06)
The consumption tax will have to rise to 22 percent from the current 5 percent by fiscal 2015 if the government is to achieve a sound balance between tax revenues and outlays, unless major spending cuts are made, an advisory panel to the finance minister said Monday.For the government to put its fiscal house in order without any tax hike, it would have to slash its general-account expenditures by 26.9 trillion yen by fiscal 2015, the Fiscal System Council said in a report on the nation's long-term financial outlook.
Financial assets and home equity held by households averaged 39 million yen as of the end of November 2004, a drop of 11.1 percent from 1999, when the last survey was conducted, according to a survey by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry released Monday.The assets include savings, securities and personal pensions, home equity including land for housing, and durable goods, including automobiles and furniture.
Asahara death sentence appeal foiled: Insanity motion fails; top court still an option (MAYUMI NEGISHI, 3/28/06, Japan Times)
The Tokyo High Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, increasing the likelihood the guru's death sentence for masterminding the deadly 1995 gassing of the Tokyo subway system and other murders will stand without further sessions.After effectively giving Asahara's counsel extra time to submit appeal documents after they "missed" last August's deadline because of what they claimed was an inability to communicate with the babbling guru, the court decided Monday the foot-dragging had to come to an end and said there was no excuse for the delay.
THE CHRISTIANIZING OF AMERICA: Without a Doubt: a review of Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth By Richard John Neuhaus (Damon Linker, 03.24.06, New Republic)
Following Pope Benedict XVI, Neuhaus maintains that, far from restricting or abolishing freedom, the surrender of the mind to the absolute authority of the Church is the "foundation of freedom." But this is sophistry. Matthew Arnold, who was himself deeply exercised by the cultural consequences of the crisis of traditional religion, beautifully and accurately defined free thinking as "the free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches." Neuhaus appears to want no part of such serious play, such open-ended inquiry. Denouncing it as pointless "complexification" and yearning for what Paul Ricouer called a "second naïveté" on the far side of reflection, he gives every sign of preferring a comprehensive and hermetically sealed religious ideology that will definitively insulate him from doubt. Those less inclined to recoil from the joys and the trials, the frustrations and the rewards, of critical thinking will look on such longings with a mixture of perplexity and alarm.And then there is politics. In his insistent emphasis on the need for order, authority, and tradition, as well as in his warnings about the psychological and social ravages of modern skepticism, Neuhaus echoes such luminaries of the European (and Catholic) right as Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and (once again) Carl Schmitt, all of whom were staunch opponents of liberalism and modernity. Yet Neuhaus would have us believe that his own anti-liberal and anti-modern views are perfectly compatible with--no, synonymous with--the principles underlying modern American democracy.
We have considerable reason to doubt this. Take the crucially important issue of authority. Setting aside the question of whether an authoritarian outlook is harmful in religion, and there is a considerable religious and philosophical literature on the subject, an authoritarian outlook can certainly be destructive in politics. A nation in which such an outlook is explicitly encouraged and esteemed will be tempted to support political leaders who promise to shield us from the inherent complexity and difficulty of truth itself. This temptation is especially dangerous in liberal democratic nations, which depend on citizens informing themselves about exceedingly complicated issues, making use of alternative sources of information, doubting the assertions of public authorities, and thrashing out an inevitably tentative truth in open-ended argument and debate. This is the unavoidable price of citizenship in a free society. It is our citizenly duty to be suspicious, and to cultivate suspicion, of any and all who would rescue us from the rigors of our own freedom.
The offense that Neuhaus's political theology gives to American pluralism and civility is no less great. Since 1984, he has maintained that "only a transcendent, a religious, vision can turn this society from disaster and toward the fulfillment of its destiny" as a "sacred enterprise." Since 1987, he has further stipulated that this vision must be supplied by the Roman Catholic Church. The legitimacy of this ideological project--its potential to unify rather than to polarize the nation--stands or falls on its ability to avoid the social dynamic that Neuhaus himself once identified with Protestant evangelicalism. The Moral Majority was incapable of providing the nation with a unifying religious ideology, he argued in The Naked Public Square, because non-evangelical Americans would inevitably view the attempt as one group's illegitimate effort to impose its private theological convictions on the nation as a whole. Conservative Protestants thus negated their claim to speak for the whole of society in the very act of presuming to do so.
Over the years, Neuhaus has gone out of his way to show that unlike evangelicalism, with which he has often made common cause, Catholicism is capable of speaking with moral force to all Americans, regardless of their religious attachments (or lack of attachments). In the Church's natural-law tradition and its social encyclicals can be found the rudiments of a spiritual and moral outlook that is perfectly compatible with pluralism and democracy in the United States. Whether or not individual American citizens are conservative Catholics--or even liberal Catholics, or even Judeo-Christians, or even believers in a personal God, or even believers in any spiritual reality at all--they can and should accept the universal validity of traditionalist Catholic moral arguments and employ them as an ideological framework through which to understand the nation and its role in the world.
It is a beautiful story, but it is a fairy tale--at least when viewed in the light of the narrow and sectarian form of Catholicism that Neuhaus defends in Catholic Matters. Consider his delight in repeatedly claiming that the Catholic Church provides "the true story of the world," of which all the other stories are merely a part, "including the story of America." Neuhaus helpfully elaborated on the point in a recent issue of First Things, where he likewise asserted that "it is time to think again--to think deeply, to think theologically--about the story of America and its place in the story of the world." The Catholic story of the world, that is. These statements make it quite clear that Neuhaus longs for an omnivorous Catholic Church to devour and to absorb American culture and public life. Short of universal conversion to traditionalist Catholicism on the part of the American people, this effort to Catholicize the nation and its public philosophy would surely generate much more division and do far more to heighten sectarian tensions than the rise of the Moral Majority ever did. (One wonders, for example, how even Neuhaus's traditionalist Protestant allies will respond to his ecclesiological boast that the Catholic Church is "the gravitational center of the Christian reality, the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time.")
And what would the Catholicizing of the United States portend for the country's millions of non-traditionalist Christians and Jews, let alone its many Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics? To judge from a troubling essay that Neuhaus wrote in 1991, they would likely have to be excluded from the category of good citizenship. Focusing on unbelievers, he declared that while "an atheist can be a citizen" of the United States, it is on principle impossible for an atheist to be "a good citizen." The godless, he maintained, are simply incapable of giving a "morally convincing account" of the nation--a necessary condition for fruitful participation in its experiment in "ordered liberty." To be morally convincing, such an account must make reference to "reasons that draw authority from that which is higher than the self, from that which is external to the self, from that to which the self is ultimately obligated." No wonder, then, that it is "those who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus [who] turn out to be the best citizens."
To his credit, Neuhaus fully acknowledged the blatant circularity of his argument--the way it excluded atheists from the category of good citizenship by appealing exclusively to the assumptions of those religious traditionalists who believe that good citizenship requires the affirmation of divine authority. Yet in his effort to defend this circularity, Neuhaus made a startling admission. Establishing standards of good citizenship on the basis of exclusionary theistic assumptions is thoroughly justified, he claimed, not because such assumptions can plausibly be found in the Constitution or in its supporting documents or in established American practice or tradition, but because such assumptions are supposedly made by "a majority" in contemporary American society.
This is an appeal to raw majoritarian power, and its implications are plain. Neuhaus has often portrayed himself as a defender of a "civil public square." He has frequently insisted, against evangelicals and others, that public debate should take place using reason and that it should employ categories and concepts that are equally accessible to all citizens. But in his remarks on atheism Neuhaus made it very clear that the country's moral and religious consensus is actually the imposition of the beliefs of one part of a highly diverse community onto its other parts. In Catholic-Christian America, dominated by a traditionalist Christian majority, might would by definition be synonymous with right.
Neuhaus would no doubt insist that this exclusionary logic applies only to atheists (as if that weren't bad enough!), though it is hard to see why we should believe him. In the Catholic-Christian story of America and the world, non-traditionalist Christians and Jews, as well as adherents of other faiths, are at best peripheral players--and at worst antagonists. The most vivid and ominous example of what politics might be like in an America marked by such theologically motivated antagonisms can be found in the November 1996 issue of First Things, in which Neuhaus and his closest ideological compatriots, repulsed by a series of Supreme Court decisions on abortion, euthanasia, and gay rights, let out a cry of religiously inspired fury, and suggested (in terms identical to those Neuhaus employed during his period of leftist radicalism) that a morally corrupt "regime" was usurping democracy in America--and that a justified insurrection on the part of the country's most religious citizens might very well be in order.
All of the participants in the First Things symposium--it was called "The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics"--permitted themselves radical rhetoric. Robert H. Bork denounced the nation's "judicial oligarchy" for spreading "moral chaos" throughout the land. The Catholic theologian Russell Hittinger asserted that the country now lived "under an altered constitutional regime" whose laws were "unworthy of loyalty." Charles W. Colson maintained that America may have reached the point where "the only political action believers can take is some kind of direct, extra-political confrontation" with the "judicially controlled regime." And in a contribution titled "The Tyrant State," Robert P. George asserted that "the courts ... have imposed upon the nation immoral policies that pro-life Americans cannot, in conscience, accept."
But it was Neuhaus himself who did more than anyone else to push the tone of the symposium beyond the limits of responsible discourse. In the unsigned editorial with which he introduced the special issue of the magazine, Neuhaus adopted the revolutionary language of the Declaration of Independence to lament the judiciary's "long train of abuses and usurpations" and to warn darkly about "the prospect--some might say the present reality--of despotism" in America. In Neuhaus's view, what was happening in the United States could only be described as "the displacement of a constitutional order by a regime that does not have, will not obtain, and cannot command the consent of the people." Hence the stark and radical options confronting the country, ranging "from noncompliance to resistance to civil disobedience to morally justified revolution."
The West in an Afghan mirror (Spengler, 3/28/06, Asia Times)
Death everywhere and always is the penalty for apostasy, in Islam and every other faith. It cannot be otherwise, for faith is life and its abandonment is death. Americans should remove the beam from their own eye as they contemplate the gallows in the eye of the Muslims. Philistine hypocrisy pervades Western denunciations of the Afghan courts, which were threatening to hang Christian convert Abdul Rahman until the case was dropped on Monday. [...]The practice of killing heretics has nothing to do with what differentiates Islam from Christianity or Judaism. St Thomas Aquinas defended not just the execution of individual heretics but also the mass extermination of heretical populations in the 12th-century Albigensian Crusades. For this he was defended by the Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, author of learned books about the faith of the United States of America's founding fathers (see Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy, November 23, 2004).
Western religions today inflict symbolic rather than physical death. One's local priest does not like to preach such things from his post-modern pulpit, but the Catholic Church prescribes eternal hellfire for those who come into communion with Christ and then reject him. Observant Jews hold a funeral for an apostate child who is spiritually dead to them (retroactive abortions not being permitted).
The last heretic hanged by the Catholic Church was a Spanish schoolteacher accused of Deist (shall we call that "moderate Christian"?) views in Valencia as recently as 1826. Without Napoleon Bonaparte and the humiliation of the Church by the German and Italian nationalist movements, who knows when the killing of heretics would have stopped?
"Where are the moderate Muslims?" sigh the self-appointed Sybils of the Western media. Faith is life. What does it mean to be moderately alive? Find the "moderate Christians" and the "moderate Jews", and you will have the answer. "Moderate Christians" such as Episcopalian priests or Anglican vicars are becoming redundant as their congregations migrate to red-blooded evangelical denominations or give up religion altogether. "Moderate Jews" are mainly secular and tend to intermarry. There really is no such thing as a "moderate" Christian; there simply are Christians, and soon-to-be-ex-Christians. The secular establishment has awoken with sheer panic to this fact at last. In response we have such diatribes such as Kevin Phillips' new book American Theocracy, an amalgam of misunderstandings, myths and calumnies about the so-called religious right.
'Marriage Is for White People' (Joy Jones, Washington Post, 3/26/06)
And that's when the other boy chimed in, speaking as if the words left a nasty taste in his mouth: "Marriage is for white people."The War on Poverty has been the war on the black family, and has arguably been worse for African Americans than slavery.He's right. At least statistically. The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our society to marry. In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent. Such statistics have caused Howard University relationship therapist Audrey Chapman to point out that African Americans are the most uncoupled people in the country....
Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families. In his account of slave life and culture, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," historian Eugene D. Genovese wrote: "A slave in Georgia prevailed on his master to sell him to Jamaica so that he could find his wife, despite warnings that his chances of finding her on so large an island were remote. . . . Another slave in Virginia chopped his left hand off with a hatchet to prevent being sold away from his son." I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin. [Emphasis added]
Field Museum exhibit tells evolution story (TARA BURGHART, 3/27/06, AP)
A new exhibit at The Field Museum examines life in everything from the Precambrian to the Quaternary periods, but it's opening during a period when the theory of evolution is under attack by supporters of so-called "intelligent design."Museum officials say that the timeliness is a coincidence - work began on "Evolving Planet" four years ago, and it replaces an exhibit that touched on many of the same themes.
But if there is any doubt about where the exhibit falls in the debate, it closes with a quote from Charles Darwin, who concluded that species evolve over time.
The "intelligent design" movement challenges Darwin's theory, contending that organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher authority.
Scalia: Foreign detainees have no U.S. rights (AP, March 27, 2006)
Justice Antonin Scalia reportedly told an overseas audience this month that the U.S. Constitution does not protect foreigners held at America's military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [...]''War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant, you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts,'' Newsweek quoted Scalia as saying in the speech. ''Give me a break.''
Now Troops Have Body Armor And They Shun It as 'Too Heavy' (ANTONIO CASTANEDA, 3/27/06, Associated Press)
Extra body armor - the lack of which caused a political storm in America - has flooded into Iraq, but many Marines here promptly stuck it in lockers or under bunks. Too heavy and cumbersome, many say.Marines already carry loads as heavy as 70 pounds when they patrol the dangerous streets in towns and villages in restive Anbar province. The new armor plates, while only about five pounds per set, are not worth carrying for the additional safety they are said to provide, some say.
Blessed America loving Jews (Bruce Walker, March 27, 2006, Enter Stage Right)
Jews voted in elections in colonial America as early as 1702. The first Jews elected to office in functioning democracies were Jews elected by non-Jewish voters in pre-Revolutionary America. Jews also attended and graduated from Christian universities in colonial America. Francis Salvador was a Jewish member of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. David Emanuel was elected Governor of Georgia in 1800 and after him many Jews were elected or appointed governors, senators, congressmen, speakers of state legislatures and appointed chief justice of supreme courts throughout the South.What about "intolerant" New England Puritans? These Puritans learned Hebrew, Puritan girls as well as Puritan boys. They created a religious structure consciously modeled after the synagogue. Puritans deliberately took Old Testament, rather than New Testament, names. These were not ignorant Puritans unconscious of what they were doing. New England Puritans were the best educated immigrant population in human history, with significant percentages of the population having degrees from great universities in Britain.
Washington's famous letter to the Jews of Newport speaks for itself: "All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more than toleration that is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that any other enjoyed the exercise of their inherent rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, giving it on all occasions their effectual support…May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy of their other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."
John Adams wrote to Mordecai Noah, a Jewish leader in America : "I wish your nation be admitted to all the privileges of citizenship in every country of the world." Thomas Jefferson was just as sympathetic when he wrote that he was: "…happy in the restoration of the Jews, particularly, to their social rights, and hopes they will be seen taking their seats on the branches of science as preparatory to their doing the same at the board of government." The Founding Fathers seriously considered making Hebrew the national language of America.
Two centuries ago Christians founded the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of Jews, which helped and protected Jews, whether or not they embraced Christianity. This society, sometimes known as " Israel's Advocate," had two hundred branches within the Christian community in the United States. Nothing comparable existed anywhere on earth.
The young American government repeatedly intervened on behalf of Jews across the Atlantic. When Jews approached Martin Van Buren for help in ending a ghastly persecution at the hands of Ottoman Turks in the 1830s, they found that he had already taken action so on his own. Abraham Lincoln pointedly chose a Jewish consul to the Swiss Confederation, although it offended the Swiss government. American policy was to protect persecuted Jews since the earliest days of the Republic.
Twenty years before the Balfour Declaration, a cynical effort to gain Jewish support during the First World, a petition was signed by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and 413 of the most important American writers, clergymen and journalists calling for "an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home."
Fukuyama's John Kerry moment: a review of America at the Crossroads Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy By Francis Fukuyama (Steven Martinovich, March 27, 2006, Enter Stage Right)
[A]merica at the Crossroads is one of the better arguments against the war and its aftermath, both on philosophical grounds and real-world politics. In it Fukuyama argues that the current strain of neoconservatism, one he no longer considers himself a part of, responsible for the war in Iraq is far different from the one pioneered by the alumnus of the City College of New York in the 1930s and 40s. While the movement's founding fathers were convinced that American power could be used for good in the world -- as World War II proved -- today's neoconservatives have departed from several key principles.Those principles include an aversion to preemptive wars and recognition that social engineering -- which Fukuyama uses as a euphemism for nation building -- was extraordinarily difficult. If Saddam Hussein was indeed a danger to global security, Fukuyama argues, then the war was too preemptive considering the failure to actually find the weapons of mass destruction the world was led to believe he possessed. And the post-war difficulty the coalition is experiencing is certainly proof that building a democracy is impossible without the internal demand for liberty and the institutions necessary to sustain it.
Groundswell of Protests Back Illegal Immigrants (NINA BERNSTEIN, 3/27/06, NY Times)
When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee meet today to wrestle with the fate of more than 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, they can expect to do so against a backdrop of thousands of demonstrators, including clergy members wearing handcuffs and immigrant leaders in T-shirts that declare, "We Are America."But if events of recent days hold true, they will be facing much more than that.
Rallies in support of immigrants around the country have attracted crowds that have astonished even their organizers. More than a half-million demonstrators marched in Los Angeles on Saturday, as many as 300,000 in Chicago on March 10, and — in between — tens of thousands in Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee and elsewhere.
One of the most powerful institutions behind the wave of public protests has been the Roman Catholic Church, lending organizational muscle to a spreading network of grass-roots coalitions. In recent weeks, the church has unleashed an army of priests and parishioners to push for the legalization of the nation's illegal immigrants, sending thousands of postcards to members of Congress and thousands of parishioners into the streets.
The demonstrations embody a surging constituency demanding that illegal immigrants be given a path to citizenship rather than be punished with prison terms.
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African churches bloom in U.S.: A new, dynamic wave of Nigerian-based churches is establishing itself in America, evangelizing with fervor in hundreds of communities. (RACHEL ZOLL, 3/27/06, Associated Press)
On the 25th floor of a luxury office tower, a church most people have never heard of is planning to save America.Its leaders believe Jesus has sent them to spread a difficult truth in the United States: Demonic forces are corrupting society and only spiritual warfare can stop them.
Call it the message.
The messenger comes from Nigeria.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God was founded in Lagos by men and women who were once the target of missionary work themselves. Now their church has become one of the most aggressive evangelizers to emerge from the advance of Christianity across Africa.
The Redeemed Church is part of a boom in African churches establishing American outposts. Jacob Olupona, a professor at the University of California, Davis, has found hundreds of examples in cities large and small.
''Anyone who writes about Christianity in America in the 21st century,'' Olupona said, ``will have to write about African churches.''
At the core of the shift are pastors from Nigeria. Over the last century, Christians there have swelled from a tiny minority to nearly half the population, and its pastors have shown an exceptional talent for winning believers abroad.
In the United States, the Redeemed Church is ahead of them all.
Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says (DON VAN NATTA Jr., 3/27/06, NY Times)
In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin." [...]
At several points during the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, there was palpable tension over finding a legitimate legal trigger for going to war that would be acceptable to other nations, the memo said. The prime minister was quoted as saying it was essential for both countries to lobby for a second United Nations resolution against Iraq, because it would serve as "an insurance policy against the unexpected."
The memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, "If anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning the oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq, a second resolution would give us international cover, especially with the Arabs."
Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.
The document added, "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway."
Scientists bring home the bacon with healthy pig fat (Anita Srikameswaran, March 27, 2006, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Someday you could eat bacon and ham instead of fish and nuts to get heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids into your diet.Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the University of Missouri-Columbia's National Swine Resource and Research Center, and Massachusetts General Hospital have made pigs that produce the beneficial nutrients.
Omega-3 fatty acids cut triglyceride levels, the risk of irregular heartbeat, and the growth of artery-clogging atherosclerotic plaques, according to the American Heart Association. The association recommends eating fish, preferably fatty ones such as salmon, at least twice a week because it is rich in omega-3.
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And for dessert, New chocolate marketed as heart healthy (Hilary E. MacGregor, March 22, 2006, Los Angeles Times)
After working below the radar on a cocoa farm deep in Brazil, and toiling for years over test tubes in food labs, scientists say they have developed a top-secret formula for an undisciplined candy lover's dream: a healthful chocolate bar.Eating a couple of tiny slabs a day of this dark chocolate could lower cholesterol, relax your blood vessels and help ward off heart disease, they say.
Loaded with potent chemicals such as cocoa flavanols, plant sterols and soy -- and stamped with an icon that reads, "promotes a healthy heart" -- the CocoaVia line of chocolates has been available in select locations since October 2005. By April they'll be in mainstream grocery stores.
In Iran, Even Some On Right Warning Against Extremes: Conservative Faction Fears Radicalism (Karl Vick, 3/27/06, Washington Post)
Nine months after the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, Iranian politics has shifted so sharply to the right that some traditional conservatives are warning of the dangers of radicalism. [...]"Ayatollah Mesbah is an extremist," said one Iranian official close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the soft-spoken cleric who has been Iran's supreme leader since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.
"Ayatollah Khomeini warned the people lots of times not to allow these people, the Shia Talibans, to come to power in Iran and have space," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noting that Khamenei has judged it prudent to accommodate even extremists within the system and accord them respect. "Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei feel these people can do a lot of damage. They can damage Iran. They can damage Islam. They are like the Taliban. They are like al-Qaeda. They say they know what Allah expects from us -- that we should do what he wants from us without paying attention to the consequences.
"And it's a very dangerous belief."
The tension highlights significant divisions within Iran's conservative camp, often viewed from outside the country as a turbaned monolith. In reality, 27 years after the 1979 revolution that brought Shiite clerics to power, Iranian politics is a nuanced landscape defined largely by the lessons taken from the previous quarter-century.
Traditional conservatives describe themselves as firm but flexible. While remaining committed to the precept that clerics should hold ultimate authority, they were chastened in the 1990s when reformists -- determined to lessen the intrusion of the state into private lives and show greater tolerance for dissent -- won landslide electoral victories.
Wind power 'ahead of predictions' (BBC, 3/27/06)
Onshore wind farms will provide about 5% of Britain's electricity by 2010, according to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA).In a new report, it says turbines are being installed faster than predicted.
If this is correct, onshore wind farms will take the government halfway to its target of generating 10% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010.
Musical brings Korean horrors home (Charles Scanlon, 3/27/06, BBC)
It is probably the least cheerful musical since Les Miserables - a three-hour song and dance extravaganza set in one of North Korea's notorious labour camps.Yoduk Story opens with goose-stepping communist soldiers and rousing revolutionary arias. Before long the action shifts to the hell of Yoduk - a North Korean prison camp that is believed to hold 20,000 political prisoners and their families.
It is the harrowing story of a celebrated state actress, who is sent to the camp with the rest of her family after her father is arrested as a spy - common practice in the North, where families down to the third generation are held accountable for the crimes of relatives. [...]
South Korean officials says privately that the North is holding some 200,000 political prisoners - but they argue that engagement rather than direct confrontation is the best way to bring about change.
Almost the entire musical is set at the Yoduk camp - it is portrayed as a nightmare world of public executions, rape and starvation.
The heroine is raped by the camp commander and bears him a child - but later survives to forgive him.
The theme may be too dark for some, especially younger South Koreans, many of whom find it hard to conceive of the horrors taking place just across the border.
"I'd heard of the camps but never took much interest. Seeing it has really shocked me - it's helped me to care more about what's happening," said Park Bang-hee, a student in her 20s, after the curtain went down.
The production can count on the enthusiasm of conservative and Christian groups - and is likely to spur debate on North Korean human rights, which have been overlooked in the rush to reconciliation.
Beckett turns up volume -- Hurler fires words, Ks (Jeff Horrigan, March 27, 2006, Boston Herald)
The Red Sox were hoping to get a younger version of Curt Schilling when they acquired Josh Beckett from the Florida Marlins, and yesterday Beckett gave a strong indication that he is every bit as intense as his new mentor.The 25-year-old right-hander showed that he is not one to be messed with by nearly sparking a brawl with Ryan Howard when he mouthed off to the mammoth Philadelphia Phillies slugger and accused Howard of hot-dogging after hitting a deep fly ball to center field in the sixth inning of the Sox’ 3-2 win at Brighthouse Networks Field. [...]
“It’s not like I wanted to fight the guy. I just wanted to make the point that you look like a jackass whenever you hit a ball like that and you’re pimping it and you’re out. " [...]
With Beckett still chirping, Howard walked toward the dugout, finally throwing his glove down to prepare for a fight. Beckett attempted to ascend the stairs to meet him, only to be intercepted by teammates as a scrum formed in foul territory and bullpens emptied. Rudy Seanez, who participates in ultimate fighting during the offseason, led the relievers’ charge.
“I told him he was a little slow,” Francona said of Seanez’ arrival.
Judicial intemperance: Scalia flips message to doubting Thomases (Laurel J. Sweet, March 27, 2006, Boston Herald)
Minutes after receiving the Eucharist at a special Mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had a special blessing of his own for those who question his impartiality when it comes to matters of church and state.“You know what I say to those people?” Scalia, 70, replied, making an obscene gesture under his chin when asked by a Herald reporter if he fends off a lot of flak for publicly celebrating his conservative Roman Catholic beliefs.
“That’s Sicilian,” the Italian jurist said, interpreting for the “Sopranos” challenged.
“It’s none of their business,” continued Scalia, who was the keynote speaker at yesterday’s Catholic Lawyers’ Guild luncheon. “This is my spiritual life. I shall lead it the way I like.”
Taiwan towers as an innovator (John Boudreau, 3/27/06, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Think of most tech gadgets, from the iPod to the PlayStation, and an engineer on this island of 23 million probably has had a hand in its creation.While India and China share the spotlight as emerging giants, Taiwan is already a huge behind-the-scenes maker of tech products.
Taiwanese companies produce three-quarters of the world's notebook computers, two-thirds of its personal digital assistants and nearly 70 percent of its liquid crystal display monitors, according to Taiwan government statistics.
The island is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's largest made-to-order chip manufacturer. Civic leaders like to point to the jade-green Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper that towers over the densely packed city, as a sign of Taiwan's economic prowess.
Now Taiwan is making strides in moving to a more visible role as tech innovator. As China muscles its way into more and more sophisticated manufacturing, Taiwanese companies are elevating their research-and-design skills and creating their own brands that can be marketed globally to stay a few steps ahead of its intimidating neighbor.
Boston's breakthrough schools (Neal Peirce, 3/26/06 Seattle Times)
Could this city's "pilot schools" — a cross between charter schools and regular city system schools — signal a "tipping point" in the long struggle to reshape urban America's embattled public-education systems?Paul Grogan, author of the 2001 book "Comeback Cities" and now president of the Boston Foundation, believes so. He predicts that pilot schools, part of the formal school system but granted charter-like powers over budgets, hiring and curriculum, may prove the missing key to overcoming stifling bureaucracy and conquering "the final frontier of inner-city revitalization."
For a flavor of pilot-school culture, I visited the four-year-old Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA), formerly a problem-plagued district high school with low academic scores. But when headquarters moved to close the school, the recently appointed principal, Nicole Bahnam, her teachers and parents protested vehemently and asked for pilot-school status.
Headquarters agreed. With help from the Boston-based Center for Collaborative Education, Bahnam and her staff rewrote their entire school mission to focus on a rigorous academic experience and personalized attention — in Bahnam's words, "a program driven by kids' needs, not by any bureaucracy."
Invasive Species Threaten Galapagos's Diversity (Juliet Eilperin, February 27, 2006, Washington Post)
Introduced species are the greatest threat to native plants and animals, including some that were brought deliberately by humans and others that slipped in, several scientific experts said."If we don't manage in an efficient way the arrival of new invasive species, the consequences could be disastrous," said Felipe Cruz, a Galapagos National Park official who focuses on eliminating the invaders from Santiago and Isabela islands.
Gilda Gonzalez, a naturalist for the U.S.-based tour operation Lindblad Expeditions who also monitors the park for Ecuadorian authorities, said the archipelago's isolation from the mainland 600 miles to the east makes it especially vulnerable to new arrivals: "This is a big, big problem. For a long time the animals, the plants, the insects in this area, they didn't have competition."
The invasive species range from large mammals, such as donkeys and goats, to tiny fire ants that kill tortoise and bird hatchlings.
On some of the 10 islands, alien species have already driven native ones extinct. [...]
At this point, the 720 introduced plants growing in the Galapagos outnumber the islands' 500 original plant species.
Cablevision tests 'remote storage' DVR use (David Lieberman, 3/27/06, USA TODAY)
In a move that could ignite a major debate about consumer "fair use" of TV programming, Cablevision Systems will unveil plans to test a service that gives cable subscribers the ability to record and time-shift shows using existing digital set-top boxes.Although it works just like TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs) — consumers choose in advance which shows to capture and can fast-forward through ads — the recording itself will be stored at the cable system, not on a hard drive in the consumer's home.
The technology for what Cablevision calls its "remote storage digital video recorder" (RS-DVR) "is here today, and in Cablevision's case, we can use it to put DVR functionality in more than 2 million digital cable homes instantaneously, without ever rolling a truck or swapping out a set-top box," COO Tom Rutledge says in a statement.
Richard Fleischer (Daily Telegraph, 27/03/2006)
Richard Fleischer, who died on Saturday aged 89, was the Hollywood director responsible for films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Boston Strangler and Fantastic Voyage.The film that marked his breakthrough, The Narrow Margin (1952), a low-budget thriller filmed almost entirely in a railroad car, is considered by some critics to be one of the best B movies ever made.
His autobiography, published in 1993, Just Tell Me When to Cry - subtitled "Encounters with the Greats, Near-Greats and Ingrates of Hollywood" - is one of the most absorbing of its kind.
Richard Fleischer was born on December 8 1916. His father was the animator Max Fleischer who, with his brothers Dave and Louis, conceived the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons and was a rival of Walt Disney's. [...]
A better film, in which Orson Welles gives a bravura court-room performance as a lawyer, was Compulsion, a version of the Loeb-Leopold murder case. Fleischer found Welles easy to work with - and also that "he knew more about directing than you did or anybody did". [...]
Fleischer was undaunted by Dino de Laurentis's proposal for the biblical epic, Barabas, and the result was better than most of that genre, owing something to the surprising presence of Silvana Mangano.
Fleischer's next venture was the memorable Fantastic Voyage, in which a team of scientists are put into a submarine which is reduced to the size of a microbe and injected into the human bloodstream.
Among the intrepid party is Raquel Welch, who dons a diving suit to venture outside the vessel - only to return covered in antibodies that have to be removed.
"No one wanted to be the first to make a grab for one of Raquel's splendid boobs," Fleischer remembered, "so they grabbed everywhere else.
"The result was, when I finally called 'Cut!', a de-antibodied Raquel except for her bosom, which was thickly encrusted with them and looked like a Las Vegas showgirl's rhinestone-bedecked brassiere." [...]
After the thriller The New Centurions (1972) came Soylent Green, with Edward G Robinson, then mortally ill. Set in a hellish, futuristic Manhattan, the film is notable for the scene in which Robinson's character elects to die; it was the last scene he ever shot.
I was wrong to say I'd quit, admits Blair (Neil Tweedie, 27/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Tony Blair appeared to admit that his decision to announce his intention to resign as Prime Minister was an error that has left him weaker and allowed his opponents to push for his early removal from No 10.He was speaking on Australian radio after a 19-hour non-stop flight to Melbourne as Downing Street insiders conceded that uncertainty over his departure was causing disquiet among MPs.
Their admission followed six weeks of relentless pressure during which controversy over the family finances of Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, followed by the "loans for peerages" controversy, has reignited debate over the Labour succession. Sources close to the Prime Minister, who is touring Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, say he has decided when to go but has not told even his closest friends.
Does sort of squander one of the chief advantages of the parliamentary system.
A Word a Day (WordSmith, 3/27/06)
Parthian shot (PAR-thee-uhn shot) nounA hostile remark made in departing.
[After the natives of Parthia, an ancient country in southwest Asia.]
Parthians were expert archers. Their specialty was firing arrows while in (or pretending to be in) retreat which disrupted the enemy forces.
The more descriptive term "parting shot" is a synonym.
Incoming Hamas PM says ready for talks with mediators (SARAH EL DEEB, 3/27/06, Associated Press)
The Palestinian Authority's incoming premier said Monday his Hamas-led government was ready to hold talks with international Mideast mediators, though he reiterated that Hamas would not cave in to economic pressures to soften its hard-line agenda.The so-called Quartet of mediators -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- is demanding that Hamas disarm, recognize Israel and accept past Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. Hamas has so far rejected these conditions.
“The government is ready for dialogue with the Quartet,” incoming Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh told parliament. “The European Union has provided a lot of aid to our people, and supported our right for freedom. ... We are interested in a strong relation with Europe.”
'Lack of deep sleep led to dinosaurs' demise' (RHIANNON EDWARD, 3/22/06, The Scotsman)
DINOSAURS were most likely killed off because they never got a good night's sleep, scientists have claimed.Giant meteorites from outer space, fire storms, tidal waves and an ice age have all been suggested by experts to explain the demise of T-Rex and other giant dinosaurs.
However, the latest theory to explain their extinction claims they did not survive because their reptilian sleeping patterns meant their brains did not learn new skills properly.
Unlike mammals and birds, reptiles are unable to experience slow wave sleep, the type of sleep believed to be responsible for boosting memories, especially those connected to performing new tasks.
Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins: Anti-religious Darwinists are promulgating a false dichotomy between faith and science that gives succour to creationists (Madeleine Bunting, March 27, 2006, The Guardian)
The curious thing is that among those celebrating the prominence of these two Darwinians[, Richard Dawkins & Daniel Dennett,] on both sides of the Atlantic is an unexpected constituency - the American creationist/intelligent-design lobby. Huh? Dawkins, in particular, has become their top pin-up.How so? William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"
But while Dembski, Dawkins and Dennett are sipping the champagne for their very different reasons, there is a party pooper. Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: "Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level." The nub of Ruse's argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: "If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool."
A 'Rheingold' That Stands on Its Principals (Tim Page, 3/27/06, Washington Post)
The best way to approach Washington National Opera's new production of Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold," which opened Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, is as a solid, abstract and sometimes very attractive updating of a classic.In short, forget most of what you might have read about this being the first installment of an "American 'Ring' " -- that is, a staging of Wagner's four-evening "Ring" cycle based on what WNO calls the "rich history of the United States." It isn't, unless you count as pointed political commentary, dressing up the earth goddess Erda like the lady on the Land O' Lakes box, casting African Americans in the roles of the captive Nibelungs, and having the giants Fafner and Fasolt bop and swagger like wild 'n' crazy guy construction workers.
Perhaps the next three operas in the series -- a new "Die Walkure" will enter the repertoire next season, with "Siegfried" and "Gotterdammerung" promised for later -- will deepen the American subtext. For now, just enjoy Francesca Zambello's "Roaring Twenties" staging for its general usefulness, its evocative projections (mist, sun, water and some creepy snakes), its occasional moments of majesty and whimsy.
I am grateful, I suppose, that none of the characters wear antlers on their heads, but I am less happy that the production, for the most part, lacks the luminous beauty of the best traditional stagings...
Buck Owens; Singer and 'Hee Haw' Star (Matt Schudel, 3/26/06, Washington Post)
By blending rock-and-roll rhythms with country harmonies, Mr. Owens created the distinctive "Bakersfield sound," which propelled him to enormous success. Between 1959 and 1974, he had 45 songs in the country Top 10 and 20 No. 1 hits, including "Act Naturally" (1963), "Love's Gonna Live Here" (1963), "Together Again" (1964), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" (1964) and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line" (1966).He was unquestionably the leading country music star of the 1960s, annually selling more than 1 million records. He performed more than 300 nights a year and appeared at Carnegie Hall and the White House. In the mid-1960s, he had 15 consecutive No. 1 country hits. As a patriotic gesture in the late 1960s, he began to perform with a red-white-and-blue guitar, which became a signature.
From 1969 to 1986, Mr. Owens and Roy Clark were the hosts of "Hee Haw," a comedy and country music program that was hugely popular in rural America. He had a syndicated television series, "Buck Owens' Ranch Show," from 1966 to 1972.
Except for his weekly "Hee Haw" appearances, Mr. Owens stopped performing in 1979 to focus on his varied business enterprises, which were concentrated in Bakersfield and Arizona, the state where he spent an impoverished childhood.
His career had a late resurgence after a Bakersfield country star of a younger generation, Dwight Yoakam, walked into Mr. Owens's office on Sept. 23, 1987, and asked him to join him onstage that night at a county fair. The response was enthusiastic, and he collaborated with Yoakam the following year on "Streets of Bakersfield," which became Mr. Owens's 21st No. 1 hit. [...]
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born Aug. 12, 1929, in Sherman, Tex., where his father was a sharecropper. To escape the Dust Bowl, 10 family members piled into a Ford sedan in 1937 and headed west, stopping in Mesa, Ariz., where their car broke down.
Mr. Owens quit school at 13 to work in cotton and potato fields and later was a truck driver and ditch digger.
"That was where my dream began to take hold," he said, "of not having to pick cotton and potatoes and not having to be uncomfortable, too hot or too cold."
He learned to play the mandolin and quickly moved on to the guitar and other instruments.
By 16, he was performing in clubs and on radio in Arizona. He married his first wife, singer Connie Campbell Owens, when he was 17 and performing with a group called Mac's Skillet Lickers. In 1951, he moved to Bakersfield after hearing that the oil-rich city held opportunities for musicians.
He played trumpet, saxophone, harmonica, piano and drums but was best known for the ringing, jangling sound of his Telecaster electric guitar. He gained most of his musical training from the radio, listening to the Texas swing of Bob Wills and to bluegrass and rhythm-and-blues music played on Mexican "border stations." He absorbed the sounds of early rock-and-roll and in 1956 released a rockabilly record under the name Corky Jones.
"Out of all that came my music, country mixing with the early rock-and-roll sound," he said. "I always wanted to hear music drive with a lot of beat. If I'd wanted to go to sleep, I'd have taken a nap."
He worked nights at a Bakersfield club called the Blackboard and commuted during the day to studios in Los Angeles, where he was a backup musician for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Kay Starr, Gene Vincent, Wanda Jackson, Faron Young and other performers.
After signing a contract with Capitol Records in 1957, Mr. Owens formed a band, the Buckaroos, named by a fellow Bakersfield singer and musician, Merle Haggard. (Haggard later married Mr. Owens's ex-wife.)
From 1958 to 1960, Mr. Owens lived in Puyallup, Wash., where he had a radio show and played in clubs. While there, he met a 16-year-old fiddler, Don Rich, who later switched to guitar and became a key part of the Buckaroos' success.
Disdaining the packaged, syrupy sound associated with Nashville, Mr. Owens recorded his music in California, layering it with jangling guitars, driving drums, pedal steel guitar and tight vocal harmonies designed to sound good on radio.
He wrote many of his hits and composed several songs popularized by other artists, such as "Cryin' Time," which was a hit for Ray Charles in 1966.
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Buck Owens shaped sound of country (Ken Barnes, 3/25/06, USA TODAY)
Powered by the crisp guitar licks of the late Don Rich and the driving rhythms of backing band The Buckaroos, Owens' hits jumped out of the radio, contrasting with the strings-laden Nashville productions of the era. Owens was the driving force in establishing his home base, Bakersfield, as the only serious modern rival to Nashville's grip on country music, as he, protégé Merle Haggard, Wynn Stewart and Tommy Collins saturated radio airwaves.Although Owens cooled off on the charts by 1974, cutting such novelties as On the Cover of the Music City News, Monsters' Holiday and You Ain't Gonna Have Ol' Buck to Kick Around No More, a parallel career made him even more widely known to the American public at large: He co-hosted the country comedy series Hee Haw from 1969 to 1986.
That bucolic role unfairly pigeonholed him in many people's eyes, but his musical reputation was restored in 1988 when a duet with then-hot new star Dwight Yoakam, Streets of Bakersfield, became Owens' first No. 1 hit in 16 years.
Yoakam was an avid Owens booster ("I will cherish forever the musical moments he graciously shared with me during his life," Yoakam told the Associated Press) and helped fire him up to take one last whack at the country charts in 1989, when he had minor hits with Hot Dog, a rockabilly tune he had cut as Corky Jones in the '50s, and a duet on Act Naturally with, fittingly, Ringo Starr.
Leveraging McCain (Salena Zito, 3/26/06, Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW)
The first thing that strikes you about John McCain is that he's comfortable in his own skin, a trait possessed by too few of his colleagues.Capitol Hill is about being "on message." McCain is who he is. [...]
McCain, the Republicans' frontman for the midterm elections, says the GOP has benchmarks it should build upon, the economy being "the biggest success story ... and we are not doing an effective job communicating it."
He's equally candid about the failures -- namely Social Security -- and agitated by the behavior of Democrat colleagues.
"Did you see when the Democrats stood up and cheered at the president's remarks about (failing to reform) Social Security?" McCain asks, shaking his head. "Stood up and cheered? How can you do that? What is that all about?"
Getting a job done is the only option for McCain and he is adamant when it comes to fixing Social Security.
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Meanwhile, the Democratic base will drag their 2008 candidate ever further from the mainstream and into the partisan fever swamps that Americans despise, Feingold's Standing Boosted Among Voters (FREDERIC J. FROMMER, 3/26/06, Associated Press)
While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions. But he does challenge Democrats who argue it will help energize Republicans.
"Those Democrats said that within two minutes of my announcing my idea," Feingold said in a telephone interview last week. "I don't see any serious evidence of that."
A Newsweek poll taken March 16-17 found that 50 percent of those surveyed opposed censuring Bush while 42 percent supported it, but among Democrats, 60 percent favored the effort.
Case Dropped Against Afghan Christian (AP, 3/26/06)
An Afghan court has dismissed case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity for lack of evidence, an official said Sunday.
Neo No More: a review of America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama (PAUL BERMAN, 3/26/06, NY Times)
The neoconservatives, he suggests, are people who, having witnessed the collapse of Communism long ago, ought to look back on those gigantic events as a one-in-a-zillion lucky break, like winning the lottery. Instead, the neoconservatives, victims of their own success, came to believe that Communism's implosion reflected the deepest laws of history, which were operating in their own and America's favor — a formula for hubris. This is a shrewd observation, and might seem peculiar only because Fukuyama's own "End of History" articulated the world's most eloquent argument for detecting within the collapse of Communism the deepest laws of history. He insists in his new book that "The End of History" ought never to have led anyone to adopt such a view, but this makes me think only that Fukuyama is an utterly unreliable interpreter of his own writings.He wonders why Bush never proposed a more convincing justification for invading Iraq — based not just on a fear of Saddam Hussein's weapons (which could have been expressed in a non-alarmist fashion), nor just on the argument for human rights and humanitarianism, which Bush did raise, after a while. A genuinely cogent argument, as Fukuyama sees it, would have drawn attention to the problems that arose from America's prewar standoff with Hussein. The American-led sanctions against Iraq were the only factor that kept him from building his weapons. The sanctions were crumbling, though. Meanwhile, they were arousing anti-American furies across the Middle East on the grounds (entirely correct, I might add) that America was helping to inflict horrible damage on the Iraqi people. American troops took up positions in the region to help contain Hussein — and the presence of those troops succeeded in infuriating Osama bin Laden. In short, the prewar standoff with Hussein was untenable morally and even politically. But there was no way to end the standoff apart from ending Hussein's dictatorship.
Now, I notice that in stressing this strategic argument, together with the humanitarian and human rights issue, and in pointing out lessons from the Balkans, Fukuyama has willy-nilly outlined some main elements of the liberal interventionist position of three years ago, at least in one of its versions. In the Iraq war, liberal interventionism was the road not taken, to be sure. Nor was liberal interventionism his own position. However, I have to say that, having read his book, I'm not entirely sure what position he did adopt, apart from wisely admonishing everyone to tread carefully. He does make plain that, having launched wars hither and yon, the United States had better ensure that, in Afghanistan and Iraq alike, stable antiterrorist governments finally emerge.
Our common security is challenged by regional conflicts -- ethnic and religious strife that is ancient, but not inevitable. In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides. America stands committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserve a government that serves their interests and listens to their voices. My nation will continue to encourage all parties to step up to their responsibilities as we seek a just and comprehensive settlement to the conflict.Above all, our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions. In the attacks on America a year ago, we saw the destructive intentions of our enemies. This threat hides within many nations, including my own. In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction, and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.
In one place -- in one regime -- we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.
To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.
He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.
Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke this promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September the 11th. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.
In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.
From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.
And in 1995, after four years of deception, Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.
Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.
Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that it can inflict mass death throughout the region.
In 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime's compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq's people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and to buy arms for his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.
In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq's commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading, and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, condemning Iraq's serious violations of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994, and twice more in 1996, deploring Iraq's clear violations of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing flagrant violations; and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq's behavior totally unacceptable. And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.
As we meet today, it's been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq, four years for the Iraqi regime to plan, and to build, and to test behind the cloak of secrecy.
We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.
Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
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Saddam, Al Qaeda Did Collaborate, Documents Show (ELI LAKE, March 24, 2006, NY Sun)
A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a "significant set of facts," and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda.In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC News did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Nonetheless, the former senator from Nebraska said that the new document shows that "Saddam was a significant enemy of the United States." Mr. Kerrey said he believed America's understanding of the deposed tyrant's relationship with Al Qaeda would become much deeper as more captured Iraqi documents and audiotapes are disclosed.
A Poverty of the Mind (ORLANDO PATTERSON, 3/26/06, NY Times)
So what are some of the cultural factors that explain the sorry state of young black men? They aren't always obvious. Sociological investigation has found, in fact, that one popular explanation — that black children who do well are derided by fellow blacks for "acting white" — turns out to be largely false, except for those attending a minority of mixed-race schools.An anecdote helps explain why: Several years ago, one of my students went back to her high school to find out why it was that almost all the black girls graduated and went to college whereas nearly all the black boys either failed to graduate or did not go on to college. Distressingly, she found that all the black boys knew the consequences of not graduating and going on to college ("We're not stupid!" they told her indignantly).
SO why were they flunking out? Their candid answer was that what sociologists call the "cool-pose culture" of young black men was simply too gratifying to give up. For these young men, it was almost like a drug, hanging out on the street after school, shopping and dressing sharply, sexual conquests, party drugs, hip-hop music and culture, the fact that almost all the superstar athletes and a great many of the nation's best entertainers were black.
Not only was living this subculture immensely fulfilling, the boys said, it also brought them a great deal of respect from white youths. This also explains the otherwise puzzling finding by social psychologists that young black men and women tend to have the highest levels of self-esteem of all ethnic groups, and that their self-image is independent of how badly they were doing in school.
I call this the Dionysian trap for young black men. The important thing to note about the subculture that ensnares them is that it is not disconnected from the mainstream culture. To the contrary, it has powerful support from some of America's largest corporations. Hip-hop, professional basketball and homeboy fashions are as American as cherry pie. Young white Americans are very much into these things, but selectively; they know when it is time to turn off Fifty Cent and get out the SAT prep book.
For young black men, however, that culture is all there is — or so they think. Sadly, their complete engagement in this part of the American cultural mainstream, which they created and which feeds their pride and self-respect, is a major factor in their disconnection from the socioeconomic mainstream.
Dose of Tenacity Wears Down a Horrific Disease (DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., 3/26/06, NY Times)
For untold generations here, yardlong, spaghetti-thin worms erupted from the legs or feet — or even eye sockets — of victims, forcing their way out by exuding acid under the skin until it bubbled and burst. The searing pain drove them to plunge the blisters into the nearest pool of water, whereupon the worm would squirt out a milky cloud of larvae, starting the cycle anew."The pain is like if you stab somebody," said Hyacinth Igelle, a farmer with a worm coming out of a hand so swollen and tender that he could not hold a hoe. He indicated how the pain moved slowly up his arm. "It is like fire — it comes late, but you feel it even unto your heart."
Now, thanks to a relentless 20-year campaign led by former President Jimmy Carter, Guinea worm is poised to become the first disease since smallpox to be pushed into oblivion. Fewer than 12,000 cases were found last year, down from 3 million in 1986.
Mr. Carter persuaded world leaders, philanthropists and companies to care about an obscure and revolting disease and help him fight it. His foundation mobilized volunteers in tens of thousands of villages to treat the drinking water the worms live in.
Timbit nation (KENNETH KIDD, 3/26/06, Toronto Star)
Conversation with 19-year-old daughter Parental unit: "Do you ever go to Tim Hortons?" Daughter: "Well, obviously. What's your point?" Parental: "Well, I'm meant to be writing about Tim Hortons and Canadian culture." Daughter: "Isn't that obvious?" [...]Every couple of years, the marketing people go out into the field to interview customers. They call it a "brand character" study. The words they hear back about the chain have been pretty consistent: unpretentious, caring, friendly, dependable, and (wait for it) Canadian.
It is, in other words, one of us.
We even call it "Timmy's," the kind of nickname that comes freighted with other Canadian associations. In hockey dressing rooms, from pick-up to pro, just about everyone's name similarly grows a "y" or "ie" appendage. (Think "Dougie" Gilmour.) It's the great leveller, a way of checking everyone's outside-world status at the arena door.
You can see a species of that in any Tim Hortons, especially downtown, where the line-ups are apt to be both longer and more diverse than those at the neighbouring Starbucks.
"Every kind of vocational level is represented in one line and not the other," says Paul Wales, president of Enterprise Advertising, the people who produce the Tim Hortons television ads.
But we also give similar nicknames to neighbourhood pubs, a practice that dates at least from the time Toronto taverns still had separate entrances for "ladies and escorts." A bar like The Benlamond invariably becomes "The Benny" in neighbourhood parlance, just as The Wallace House becomes "The Wally." It's as if, in order to sanction a local meeting place, we have to strip away any hint of pretension.
So has Tim Hortons replaced, or at least joined, local bars as the informal town halls of neighbourhoods?
Pollster Michael Adams, whose book Fire and Ice explores the growing differences between Canadian and American values, thinks there might be some truth to that theory.
"Americans aspire to independence," he says. "Their model is to drive out of town, Gary Cooper with Grace Kelly, and get on their ranch and she's in the kitchen and having babies and he's standing at the ranch gate with a gun, saying, `no trespassing.'"
Canadians, by contrast, are far less fearful. Yes, we're mostly autonomous (from institutions and the state) but also interdependent (with each other as individuals).
That's partly because, despite the vastness of Canada, our population is much more urban: Roughly 40 per cent of us live in the three biggest cities, compared with 15 per cent of Americans.
This, in turn, colours our respective views of "community." Americans now increasingly use churches as their replacement for a sense of community lost to long working hours and lengthy commutes. Not us. "We don't go to church as much on Sundays," says Adams. "We go shopping and we go to Tim's."
A Plan to Replace the Welfare State: The government should give every American $10,000--and nothing more. (CHARLES MURRAY, March 26, 2006, Opinion Journal)
This much is certain: The welfare state as we know it cannot survive. No serious student of entitlements thinks that we can let federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid rise from its current 9% of gross domestic product to the 28% of GDP that it will consume in 2050 if past growth rates continue. The problems facing transfer programs for the poor are less dramatic but, in the long term, no less daunting; the falling value of a strong back and the rising value of brains will eventually create a class society making a mockery of America's ideals unless we come up with something more creative than anything that the current welfare system has to offer.So major change is inevitable--and Congress seems utterly unwilling to face up to it. Witness the Social Security debate of last year, a case study in political timidity. Like it or not, we have several years to think before Congress can no longer postpone action. Let's use it to start thinking outside the narrow proposals for benefit cuts and tax increases that will be Congress's path of least resistance.
The place to start is a blindingly obvious economic reality that no one seems to notice: This country is awash in money. America is so wealthy that enabling everyone to have a decent standard of living is easy. We cannot do it by fiddling with the entitlement and welfare systems--they constitute a Gordian Knot that cannot be untied. But we can cut the knot. We can scrap the structure of the welfare state.
Instead of sending taxes to Washington, straining them through bureaucracies and converting what remains into a muddle of services, subsidies, in-kind support and cash hedged with restrictions and exceptions, just collect the taxes, divide them up, and send the money back in cash grants to all American adults. Make the grant large enough so that the poor won't be poor, everyone will have enough for a comfortable retirement, and everyone will be able to afford health care. We're rich enough to do it. [...]
The Plan returns the stuff of life to all of us in many ways, but chiefly through its effects on the core institutions of family and community. One key to thinking about how the Plan does so is the universality of the grant. What matters is not just that a lone individual has $10,000 a year, but that everyone has $10,000 a year and everyone knows that everyone else has that resource. Strategies that are not open to an individual are open to a couple; strategies that are not open to a couple are open to an extended family or, for that matter, to half a dozen friends who pool resources; strategies not open to a small group are open to a neighborhood. The aggregate shift in resources from government to people under the Plan is massive, and possibilities for dealing with human needs through family and community are multiplied exponentially.
The Plan confers personal accountability whether the recipient wants it or not, producing cascading secondary and tertiary effects. A person who asks for help because he has frittered away his monthly check will find people and organizations who will help (America has a history of producing such people and organizations in abundance), but that help can come with expectations and demands that are hard to make of a person who has no income stream. Or contemplate the effects of a known income stream on the young man who impregnates his girlfriend. The first-order effect is that he cannot evade child support--the judge knows where his bank account is. The second-order effect is to create expectations that formerly didn't exist. I call it the Doolittle Effect, after Alfred Doolittle in "My Fair Lady." Recall why he had to get to the church on time.
The Plan confers responsibility for dealing with human needs on all of us, whether we want it or not. Some will see this as a step backward, thinking that it is better to pay one's taxes, give responsibility to the government and be done with it. I think an alternative outlook is wiser: The Plan does not require us all to become part-time social workers. The nation can afford lots of free riders. But Aristotle was right. Virtue is a habit. Virtue does not flourish in the next generation because we tell our children to be honest, compassionate and generous in the abstract. It flourishes because our children practice honesty, compassion and generosity in the same way that they practice a musical instrument or a sport. That happens best when children grow up in a society in which human needs are not consigned to bureaucracies downtown but are part of life around us, met by people around us.
Simply put, the Plan gives us back the action.
The book of glove may put Rangers on defensive: Management using 'Fielding Bible' as evaluation tool (EVAN GRANT, 3/26/06, The Dallas Morning News)
[The Fielding Bible] aims to take the next step in baseball's never-ending thirst for statistical evaluation. It tries to break down the nebulous world of defense into cold, hard stats.And in the case of the Rangers, some of those stats are particularly cold and harsh. Among the book's assertions:
• Two-time All-Star Michael Young ranks as the worst defensive shortstop in the majors, one spot behind Derek Jeter.
• Only two years after ranking first among all third baseman, Hank Blalock had fallen to 26th among the 27 players rated.
• The middle of the Rangers' defense was as porous as mesh.
• Gary Matthews Jr. is the Rangers' best defensive option in center field. Laynce Nix is average. Brad Wilkerson ranks 29th of 35.
• Mark Teixeira, who won a Gold Glove last year, is the best first baseman in the majors.
• Ian Kinsler, though not ranked, almost certainly will be an improvement over Alfonso Soriano at second. Soriano ranked 34th of 36 second baseman last year.
The changing face of Malaysian politics: Recently the daughter of a former prime minister of Malaysia compared the fate of Muslim women to black South Africans under apartheid. And senior police officers received a public dressing-down by their chief for a lack of awareness of human rights. But Jonathan Kent is keen to put on record that, behind the headlines, lurks another, different, Malaysia. (Jonathan Kent, 3/26/06, BBC)
This kopitiam is the favourite of Lim Kean Chye. The doyen of Penang lawyers, 86-years-old and sharp as a pin.I ask him what has changed here during his lifetime.
"Nothing," he says. And of course it has not.
The noodles are the same, the local coffee, the chatter as people meet friends and eat.
But then he tells me of the old days when doors were left unlocked, bullock carts were parked on Northam Road and there was always a free cup of tea for the rickshaw pullers.
There is a nation of quiet Malaysians out there.
Recently I recorded five from very different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds debating police reform, something I think they may have been too scared to do under the old premier, Mahathir Mohamad.
But these last two years the quiet Malaysians have started to speak up.
And though the braying benches of parliamentarians who call one another monkeys or racists warn that public debate will lead to race war, disorder and strife, the Malaysians I meet can thrash out the issues and get along with one another just fine.
And with a quiet Malaysian like Abdullah Badawi at the helm perhaps their time has come.
I ask him what has changed here during his lifetime.
"Nothing," he says. And of course it has not.
The noodles are the same, the local coffee, the chatter as people meet friends and eat.
But then he tells me of the old days when doors were left unlocked, bullock carts were parked on Northam Road and there was always a free cup of tea for the rickshaw pullers.
There is a nation of quiet Malaysians out there.
Recently I recorded five from very different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds debating police reform, something I think they may have been too scared to do under the old premier, Mahathir Mohamad.
But these last two years the quiet Malaysians have started to speak up.
And though the braying benches of parliamentarians who call one another monkeys or racists warn that public debate will lead to race war, disorder and strife, the Malaysians I meet can thrash out the issues and get along with one another just fine.
And with a quiet Malaysian like Abdullah Badawi at the helm perhaps their time has come.
MP3
This time it's personal (BRIAN BRADY, 3/26/06, Scotland on Sunday)
WHEN David Cameron condemns the old-fashioned "Punch and Judy" knockabout that he insists he wants to drive out of British politics he speaks from bitter personal experience.Ever since the youthful MP for Witney emerged as the great white hope of the Conservative Party whenever he has stood up to speak in the arena of the House of Commons he has been confronted with the full destructive power of the hardest puncher in the building. Dennis "the Beast of Bolsover" Skinner immediately pulls himself to his feet, leans as far as he can across the floor of the House and bellows: "Cameron! You put black lead on yer 'air!"
Cameron's aides, and the Tory leader himself, cheerfully admit that they have little idea what Skinner's repeated intervention actually means - although they suspect he's casting aspersions on how Cameron maintains the impressive head of dark hair that is part of his "housewives' favourite" appeal. What they know with absolute certainty, however, is that the Beast is not trying to be complimentary.
Cameron should not feel too victimised by Skinner, who spreads his contempt around the opposition benches like great dollops of mud. The Tory leader's greatest political friend, shadow chancellor George Osborne, regularly runs the gauntlet, having to deliver speeches with "you changed yer name from Gideon" echoing in his ear. The rather blunt accusation is that Osborne - like Cameron - is a toff who is attempting to dumb down in order to appeal to a wider section of the electorate. And Skinner doesn't like toffs.
Until now, the Bolsover MP's approbation has simply been a minor irritant, but the veteran's aggressive approach looks increasingly in line with the mood of his party - and its leader-in-waiting.
Meanwhile, the Tories go all Ownership Society, Tories demand action on housing (BBC, 3/26/06)
Conservative leader David Cameron has demanded urgent action to tackle what he calls the growing gap between rich and poor due to high property prices.He warned of "a growing inequality at the heart of British life" because the property ladder was beyond young people from less well-off families.
He called for more housebuilding to provide an adequate provision.
Down with stability (Mark Steyn, Mar. 22, 2006, Jerusalem Post)
"Containment" is not a strategy but the absence of strategy - and thug states understand it as such. In Saddam's case, he'd supposedly been "contained" since the first Gulf War in 1991, when Bush Sr. balked at finishing what he'd started. "Mr. President," Joe Biden, the Democrat Senator and beloved comic figure, condescendingly explained to Bush Jr. in 2002, "there is a reason your father stopped and did not go to Baghdad. The reason he stopped is he didn't want to be there for five years."By my math, that means the Americans would have been out in spring of 1996. Instead, 12 years on, in the spring of 2003 the USAF and RAF were still policing the no-fly zone, ineffectually bombing Iraq every other week. And, in place of congratulations for their brilliant "containment" of Saddam, Washington was blamed for UN sanctions and systematically starving to death a million Iraqi kids - or two million, according to which "humanitarian" agency you believe. [...]
A NEW study by the American Enterprise Institute suggests that, aside from the terrific press, continuing this policy would not have come cheap for America: if you object (as John Kerry did) to the $400-600 billion price tag since the war, another three years of "containment" would have cost around $300 billion - and with no end in sight, and the alleged death toll of Iraqi infants no doubt up around six million. It would also have cost more real lives of real Iraqis: Despite the mosque bombings, there's a net gain of more than 100,000 civilians alive today who would have been shoveled into unmarked graves had Ba'athist rule continued. [...]
True, there's a political stalemate in Baghdad at the moment, but that's not a catastrophe: if you read the very federal Iraqi constitution carefully, the ingenious thing about it is that it's not just a constitution but also a pre-nup. If the Sunni hold-outs are determined to wreck the deal, 85% of the Iraqi population will go their respective ways creating a northern Kurdistan that would be free and pro-western and a southern Shiastan that would still be the most democratic state in the Arab world. That outcome would also be in America's long-term interest.
Indeed, almost any outcome would. In 2002, Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, warned that a US invasion of Iraq would "threaten the whole stability of the Middle East." Of course. Otherwise, why do it?
Diplomats use "stability" as a fancy term to dignify inertia and complacency as geopolitical sophistication, but the lesson of 9/11 is that "stability" is profoundly unstable. The unreal realpolitik of the previous 40 years had given the region a stability unique in the non-democratic world, and in return they exported their toxins, both as manpower (on 9/11) and as ideology. Instability was as good a strategic objective as any.
We've made a conscious effort over the years not to ask folks to pay for the site -- though the unsolicited support we've gotten has been deeply appreciated -- but I'd be personally gratified and grateful if folks who think the topics covered in the book would be at all interesting could help to sell out the print run--which is, I think, 3,000 books--so that my publishers don't end up having to pulp them. I harbor no delusions of grandeur, but would really like to avoid such an ignominious fate for a text to which I have a hopefully understandable fatherly attachment.
UPDATE:
It's available on-line at Amazon now:
MORE:
-BOOK SITE: Redefining Sovereignty (Smith and Kraus Publishers' Global)
-Sovereignty Blog
PROFILE: Sovereignty Redefined (Edward B. Driscoll, Jr., 11/03/2005, Tech Central Station)
REVIEW: of Redefining Sovereignty. Ed. by Orrin C. Judd. Mar. 2006. 520p. Smith & Kraus, $29.99 (Brendan Driscoll, Feb. 1, 2005, Booklist)
Changing the rules: a review of Redefining Sovereignty: The Battle for the Moral High Ground in a Changing World By Orrin C. Judd (Steven Martinovich, February 27, 2006, Enter Stage Right)
ESSAY: Revisitation (David Warren, 3/12/06, Real Clear Politics)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Redefining Sovereignty, edited by Orrin C. Judd
INTRODUCTION
I. SOVEREIGNTY: Setting the terms
Sovereignty: an introduction and brief history. (Daniel Philpott)
II. WESTFAILURE: The sovereignty frog-boil
Not So Sacred Borders (James Kitfield, National Journal)
Kosovo and the End of the Nation-State (Vaclav Havel)
The US and the UN: Legitimacy vs sovereignty (Criton M Zoakos)
Defining a new role for the United Nations In a unipolar world (Kofi A. Annan)
III. THE TRANSNATIONAL CHALLENGE: Who rules?
Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism (John Fonte)
Sovereignty and Democracy (Marc F. Plattner)
The U.N.: Now Less Than Ever : There must be a way out (Roger Scruton)
The Shackles of Consensus (Jeane J. Kirkpatrick)
UN General Assembly Voting Habits (Fred Gedrich)
After Guantanamo: The War Over the Geneva Convention (Jeremy Rabkin)
The Sovereignty Implications of the Kyoto Protocol (Jeremy Rabkin)
Roots of Eco-Imperialism (Chapter 2 of Eco-Imperialism by Paul Driessen)
Should Foreign Law Be Used to Interpret Our Constitution? (Stuart Taylor Jr.)
What is the EU? (James Kalb)
On the Nation State: Empire and Anarchy (Yoram Hazony)
IV. THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGE: Hastening the End of History
History Is Still Going Our Way (Francis Fukuyama)
Stability, America's Enemy (Ralph Peters)
Our World-Historical Gamble (Lee Harris)
The triumph of just war theory (Michael Walzer)
The new liberal imperialism (Robert Cooper)
The Empire of Freedom (Ramesh Ponnuru)
Voting Bloc (Jonathan Rauch)
President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East (Remarks by the President)
V. THE PERSISTENCE OF JACKSONIANISM: Same as it ever was
The Jacksonian Tradition And American Foreign Policy (Walter Russell Mead)
Bush & Lincoln (David Warren)
Ronald Reagan at Bitburg Air Base
American Sovereignty and the UN. (Jesse Helms)
A grand strategy of transformation (John Lewis Gaddis)
Feminism in The 21st Century (Phyllis Chesler and Donna M. Hughes)
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX
The Mayflower Compact
Declaration of Independence
Washington's Farewell Address 1796
Monroe Doctrine
James K. Polk Inaugural address
Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
Atlantic Charter
Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy
City Upon a Hill (Ronald Reagan)
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
Academic Israeli path goes astray (Boston Herald, March 26, 2006)
We can’t recall an academic document as misleading as an anti-Israel tract turned out this month by a Harvard dean and a University of Chicago professor.
The United States “has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel,” asserts a paper on the Kennedy School of Government Web siteby the academic dean of the Kennedy School, Stephen Walt, and his collaborator John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at Chicago.
And why is the United States allied with Israel? “Domestic politics, and especially the activities of the Israel Lobby.”
Their major evidence of that is the boasting of groups such as the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee. This boasting is not evidence of much. It’s like that of the rooster who thinks he makes the sun rise.
The fact is, Americans long have overwhelmingly supported Israel, a democracy that tries to live by the rules of civilized society in the face of enemies who don’t. A new poll by Quinnipiac University shows that Americans have a higher opinion of Israel than all other countries save Canada and Britain. The Israel Lobby is not changing minds; it is plowing prepared ground.
Christianity's second wave? (Brian Murphy, 3/26/06, The Associated Press)
Centuries after the Gospel was brought to sub-Saharan Africa by colonizers and missionaries, the faith is coming back to the West. The forms are passionate, powerful and come with various names: Pentecostal, afro-evangelical, charismatic, Christian renewal.For millions of worshippers in Africa and around the world, the movements represent a sharp break with tradition and have redefined how they practice their faith — with great emphasis on fever-pitch gatherings, spiritual "rebirth" and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives.
Many in mainstream denominations, from the Vatican to Westminster Abbey, view the new churches as an invading army that is reshaping Christianity faster than they can adjust.
Some theologians say the "African century" of Christianity is already under way.
If so, then populous and English-speaking Nigeria is its spiritual homeland, and churches like Adeboye's are its new missionaries.
What began as a living room Bible study in 1952 is now a juggernaut: a university, movie studio and satellite television outfit. Now add to that millions of followers in more than 90 nations. Just this month, close to 1 million worshippers turned out during a three-day prayer gathering near Lagos.
In a rare interview, Adeboye revealed where he hopes to go from here: "At least one member of the church in every household in the whole world."
The dream, however improbable sounding, has some genuine underpinnings.
The broad Pentecostal-charismatic-evangelical family currently accounts for about a quarter of the nearly 2.2 billion Christians, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity in South Hamilton, Mass. It could grow to more than a third by 2025.
That's despite critics who say the movements are often based on shaky or cynical theology. Scripture, they claim, is used to enrich pastors through the so-called "Prosperity Gospel," which says that God has no trouble with material wealth and smiles most on the generous givers to the faith.
Nigeria itself has become a religious hothouse that has nurtured hundreds — perhaps thousands — of new churches that now overshadow Roman Catholics, Anglicans and other religious mainstays by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio among Nigeria's 61 million Christians. (There are nearly as many Muslims.)
In 1981, Adeboye inherited a church that had grown only modestly from its roots in the parlor of its founder, an illiterate preacher.
Adeboye — tall, eloquent and holding a doctorate in applied mathematics — took the title of "general overseer," or G.O., and immediately pushed for global expansion. Daddy G.O., as he became known, constantly worked to open new doors.
The top pastors seem to take their style cues from Daddy G.O., who favors well-tailored Western suits but slips into African prints when he needs an ethnic touch. His smooth baritone can shift from precise, professorial English to the rapid-fire patois of the slums.
That craft and charisma helped the Redeemed Church break away from the pack in Nigeria's crowded spiritual marketplace.
The church simply outran its rivals as it pursued a shoot-for-the-moon agenda: A church someday within a five-minute walk of every home in poor nations and a five-minute drive in wealthier countries. It also gained important access to capital and clout in Nigeria through prominent followers, who include governors and bank executives. Later, the church tapped into the power of broadcasting, the Internet and Nigeria's churn-them-out movie industry known as Nollywood.
The Redeemed Church claims 5 million followers in Nigeria and 250,000 abroad. Adeboye has set a goal of 50 million — roughly the size of the entire Assemblies of God fellowship (another, older Pentecostal group) around the world. In the United States, 7,000 people attended the Redeemed Church's annual conference last year in New York's Madison Square Garden.
Christendom--late antique, early medieval, high medieval--knew that it was attractive to outsiders by reason of its wealth and power. These widespread perceptions furnished the activists in the diffusion of Christianity with their trump cards. They also possessed an unshakeable self-confidence founded upon those heady and tremendous assurances about God's purposes which they had read in the Bible. Riches and order confirmed and strengthened their confidence. They could play these cards again and again, and almost always with success because manifestly the Christians were almost always the winners and the pagans the losers.
MORE:
Memo to China: Careful what you wish for (Spengler, Asia Times)
Christianity requires tradition less than it does conversion. To become a Christian, the Gentile forsakes the gentium of his origin to join a new people in flesh and blood, through the ancient rite of rebirth by passage through water, that is, baptism. Because the new people of God into which the Christian is reborn is not quite of this world, conversion must be perpetually renewed. That is something no tradition can do.
Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math (SAM DILLON, 3/26/06, NY Times)
Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.
The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.
The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art. A nationwide survey by a nonpartisan group that is to be made public on March 28 indicates that the practice, known as narrowing the curriculum, has become standard procedure in many communities.
Christ the King Lives Up to National Reputation (JULIET MACUR, 3/26/06, NY Times)
That's news?
Harvard Prof. of Psychiatry Labels Oslo Supporters Delusional (Israel National News, March 26, 2006)
Dr. Kenneth Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege, terms "delusional" the behavior of Israeli population segments that supported the Oslo Accords.In an interview with Tovia Singer on IsraelNationalRadio, claims that as a result of their desire for the Arab siege on Israel to end, many Israelis conditioned themselves to believe that a potential partner for peace existed in the Palestinian Authority, when the reality pointed only to the continued escalation of violence and terror.
Dr. Levin, an instructor of clinical psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Princeton-trained historian, has blended the two disciplines in his extensive writings on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“It is characteristic of people under siege or chronic attack - whether you’re talking about minorities that are marginalized, defamed and attacked or a small state under attack by larger neighbors - it is characteristic of portions of those populations to embrace the indictments, however bizarre, and to believe that if they perform in a way consistent with those indictments, then the siege will end,” Dr. Levin stated.
Levin compared the psychological delusions that led up to the Oslo Accords to those created by abused children desperate to end their suffering. Levin explained, “Abused children always blame themselves for the abuse because they want to believe that they can have control over a situation that is really beyond their control. They believe that if they can change their behavior they can make their situation better.”
“The hope is that if they just accept the indictment, if they just repress the recognition that they are being attacked unfairly, and try to change accordingly that somehow they’ll win relief from their attackers.”
According to Levin the behavior exhibited by contemporary Israeli governments is not a new phenomenon:
“It’s a very old problem, characteristic of Jews throughout the Diaspora. There were segments of the population that consistently embraced the indictments of the Jews' enemies when Jews were being attacked, and it is characteristic of Israel during the chronic Arab siege.”
When a 'life sentence' means just 15 months in jail (Ben Leapman and Ben Sheppard, 26/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Criminals are being released from jail little more than a year after they have been sentenced to life imprisonment, the Government has admitted.One offender was freed only 15 months after a life sentence was imposed. Another was jailed for life with a recommendation that he should serve just 16 months. [...]
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, called the sentences "ludicrous" and said: "If they are sentenced to a nominal life sentence it should not be possible for them to be out in little over a year." Legal experts blamed the very short life sentences on the "two strikes and you're out" law, devised by the former Conservative leader, Michael Howard, when he was home secretary, and introduced by Labour in 1997. This compelled judges to impose a life sentence on anyone convicted of a second serious sexual or violent offence.
Judges managed to get around the rule in practice by imposing life sentences but setting minimum terms to be served at an average length of only five years.
House and Senate Override Governor Sebelius' Veto: Kansas Passes Right-to-Carry (NRA, March 23, 2006)
Both the Kansas State Senate and House of Representatives voted to override Governor Sebelius’ veto of the National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed Right-to-Carry legislation, Senate Bill 418, “The Personal and Family Protection Act.”“After 12 years, it took a collective, bi-partisan effort to win this fight. Kansas now joins 46 other states who enjoy some form of Right-to-Carry,” NRA Chief Lobbyist Chris W. Cox declared.
The Kansas State Senate voted 30-10 to override Governor Sebelius’ veto of the Right-to-Carry legislation. Less than a day later, the Kansas House of Representatives voted 91-33 to sustain the override.
Fault East of Bay Area 'Locked and Loaded' (SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press)
New cracks appear in Elke DeMuynck's ceiling every few weeks, zigzagging across her living room, creeping toward the fireplace, veering down the wall. Month after month, year after year, she patches, paints and waits."It definitely lets you know your house is constantly shifting," DeMuynck said. So do the gate outside that swings uselessly 2 1/2 inches from its latch, the strange bulges in the street and the geology students who make pilgrimages to her cul-de-sac.
DeMuynck could throw her paint brush from her front stoop and hit the Hayward Fault, which geologists consider the most dangerous in the San Francisco Bay Area, if not the nation. Like others who live here, she gets by on a blend of denial, hope and humor.
It's the geologists, emergency planners and historians who seem to do most of the worrying, even in this year of heightened earthquake awareness for the 100th anniversary of San Francisco's Great Quake of April 18, 1906.
Several faults lurk beneath this region, including the San Andreas Fault on the west side of the Bay area, but geologists say the parallel Hayward on the Bay's east side is the most likely to snap next.
"It is locked and loaded and ready to fire at any time," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Tom Brocher.
How 200 soldiers saved 3 pacifists: `Task Force Black' didn't use its guns But it took elite team to free hostages (MICHELLE SHEPHARD, 3/25/06, Toronto Star)
Of all the covert operations in Iraq, Task Force Black is among the most secretive.The British-led group of more than 200 military and intelligence officers, tracks hostages and Iraqi war criminals and employs all the tricks used in domestic investigations.
Using telephone intercepts, satellite photographs and undercover work, and trying to court sources inside Iraq's insurgency, the group is credited with saving the lives of many foreigners.
When four peace activists, including Toronto's Jim Loney and former Montreal resident Harmeet Singh Sooden, were kidnapped Nov. 26 in western Baghdad, the Canadians joined the team.
How Canada was involved in helping rescue three of the men this week is something no one in Ottawa now wants to talk about, citing concerns over national security.
But sources have told the Toronto Star that while the contribution may have been small, there was an important Canadian element. Agents with Canada's spy service, Mounties and analysts with the Canadian Security Establishment, the secretive electronic eavesdropping agency, rotated through Baghdad's Green Zone during the four months the hostages were held captive.
Members of the Defence Department's elite JTF-2 were also on the ground, although there were never more than a few at a time.
In total, the Canadian contingent, which included diplomats providing the link from Baghdad to the hostages' families at home, didn't number more than a dozen.
Task Force Black worked around the clock, and before Thursday's success in rescuing the two Canadian peace activists and their British colleague, Norman Kember, there were many failed attempts. And they were unable to save American Tom Fox, who was kidnapped with the group and whose body was found earlier this month dumped on a street in Baghdad.
Yesterday, the Christian Peacemaker Teams issued a belated thank you to those who saved their members.
Major League Baseball and Partnership for a Drug-Free America launch second phase of anti-steroid initiative (MLB.com, 03/20/2006)
Major League Baseball and the Partnership for A Drug-Free America today unveiled the second phase of an anti-steroid initiative designed to educate America's youth and influential adults in their lives about the dangers of steroids and performance-enhancing substances. The next stage of the public outreach campaign includes a new component, a poster campaign utilizing high school coaches, which is designed to expand the initiative's impact on the issue of youth steroid use.The initiative message will be communicated across the country through a multi-media campaign with TV, radio and print ads. The first ad, "Shrinking," will debut during the broadcast of the final game of the World Baseball Classic tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. PT) on ESPN.
"Shrinking" targets young male audiences and takes a more provocative approach to communicating the dangers of steroids. As a voice-over describes how the drug can affect the body, a set of sports equipment, including a baseball, basketball, soccer ball, and football, quickly and noticeably decrease in size. A second ad, "Fade," will debut during the 2006 season and will target both youth and their parents. [...]
The "Shrinking" spot will be available on the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's Web site, drugfree.org and on MLBPressbox.com. The Partnership also will distribute the "Shrinking" and "Fade" ad messages through their State/City Alliance Program. This program supports the Partnership's mission at the local level.
Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement (Charlie Savage, March 24, 2006, Boston Globe)
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
Going Ape in Politics (Quin Hillyer, 3/24/2006, American Spectator)
Troglodyte. Antediluvian. Neanderthal. Caveman!For years, liberals have thrown such epithets in the direction of conservatives, as when Teddy Kennedy of all people used the above "N" word on the Senate floor to describe Republican judicial nominees. The idea is that we're insufficiently modern. Uncivilized. Primitive, even. And, of course, brutal and unintelligent in a jut-jawed, knuckle-scraping way.
Well, fine. I'll take that as a compliment.
Last weekend I saw again (after a 12-year interim) a performance of a splendid, award-winning play, Defending the Caveman, which holds the record as Broadway's longest-running one-man play in history. It's a clever, indeed laugh-out-loud funny, examination of the differences between men and women -- differences that, original playwright/actor Rob Becker posits, grew directly out of habits learned somewhere back when Cro-Magnons first walked the Earth. Men hunt; women gather. Women cooperate; men negotiate. Men focus on one thing, one prey, at a time; women take in a broader expanse of visual data, and linger. And so on. Ooga-booga, ooga-booga. All of those sex roles, according to Becker, were signs of sophisticated evolution, helping the human race thrive and prosper.
In short, the caveman (and the cave woman) wasn't a hideous creature worthy of scorn, but a successfully adaptive lord of his environment. And it is those same cave-man genes and instincts that explain why middlebrow pursuits such as bowling and fishing (and filling the potato chip bowl for TV football games) aren't to be sneered at, but admired.
Democracy Isn't 'Western': Cultural determinists should look beyond Ancient Greece. (AMARTYA SEN, March 24, 2006, Opinion Journal)
The belief in the allegedly "Western" nature of democracy is often linked to the early practice of voting and elections in Greece, especially in Athens. Democracy involves more than balloting, but even in the history of voting there would be a classificatory arbitrariness in defining civilizations in largely racial terms. In this way of looking at civilizational categories, no great difficulty is seen in considering the descendants of, say, Goths and Visigoths as proper inheritors of the Greek tradition ("they are all Europeans," we are told). But there is reluctance in taking note of the Greek intellectual links with other civilizations to the east or south of Greece, despite the greater interest that the Greeks themselves showed in talking to Iranians, or Indians, or Egyptians (rather than in chatting up the Ostrogoths).Since traditions of public reasoning can be found in nearly all countries, modern democracy can build on the dialogic part of the common human inheritance. In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela describes how influenced he was, as a boy, by seeing the democratic nature of the proceedings of the meetings that were held in his home town: "Everyone who wanted to speak did so. It was democracy in its purest form. There may have been a hierarchy of importance among the speakers, but everyone was heard, chief and subject, warrior and medicine man, shopkeeper and farmer, landowner and laborer." Mr. Mandela could combine his modern ideas about democracy with emphasizing the supportive part of the native tradition, in a way that Gandhi had done in India, and that is the way cultures adapt and develop to respond to modernity. Mr. Mandela's quest for democracy and freedom did not emerge from any Western "imposition."
Similarly, the history of Muslims includes a variety of traditions, not all of which are just religious or "Islamic" in any obvious sense. The work of Arab and Iranian mathematicians, from the eighth century onward reflects a largely nonreligious tradition. Depending on politics, which varied between one Muslim ruler and another, there is also quite a history of tolerance and of public discussion, on which the pursuit of a modern democracy can draw. For example, the emperor Saladin, who fought valiantly for Islam in the Crusades in the 12th century, could offer, without any contradiction, an honored place in his Egyptian royal court to Maimonides, as that distinguished Jewish philosopher fled an intolerant Europe. When, at the turn of the 16th century, the heretic Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Campo dei Fiori in Rome, the Great Mughal emperor Akbar (who was born a Muslim and died a Muslim) had just finished, in Agra, his large project of legally codifying minority rights, including religious freedom for all, along with championing regular discussions between followers of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and other beliefs (including atheism).
Cultural dynamics does not have to build something from absolutely nothing, nor need the future be rigidly tied to majoritarian beliefs today or the power of the contemporary orthodoxy. To see Iranian dissidents who want a fully democratic Iran not as Iranian advocates but as "ambassadors of Western values" would be to add insult to injury, aside from neglecting parts of Iranian history (including the practice of democracy in Susa or Shushan in southwest Iran 2,000 years ago). The diversity of the human past and the freedoms of the contemporary world give us much more choice than cultural determinists acknowledge. This is particularly important to emphasize since the illusion of cultural destiny can extract a heavy price in the continued impoverishment of human lives and liberties.
The Real Bias in the Classroom (Scott Jaschik, 3/20/06, Inside Higher Ed)
A new study — soon to be published in PS: Political Science & Politics — finds that students are the ones with bias, attributing characteristics to their professors based on the students’ perceptions of their faculty members’ politics and how much they differ from their own.The authors of the study say that it backs the claims of proponents of the Academic Bill of Rights that students think about — and are in some cases concerned about — the politics of their professors. [...]
Liberal or conservative isn’t the key factor, Kelly-Woessner says; the real disconnect comes in the difference between the views of student and professor. “It’s pretty much the same either way,” she says. “The thing that matters is the difference between them.”
In the research being published in PS: Political Science & Politics, findings included the following:
* Most students feel confident that they know their professors’ political inclinations and that they are not hidden. Asked if they knew their professors’ leanings, 15 percent said that they were “positive,” 32 percent said that they were “very confident,” 40 percent were “somewhat confident,” and only 11 percent were “not at all confident.”
* Students considered 77 percent of their professors to be left of center, and 7 percent right of center. (While the authors of the students didn’t verify that the professors indeed held those views, they note that such findings would be consistent with other surveys of the profession.) While more students in the survey identified themselves as liberal than as conservative, the split was such that the student body in this study was more conservative than the professors — as perceived by students.
* Professors who students think are conservative are generally rated more favorably by students on whether they present material objectively.
* Professors who students think are liberal are generally rated more favorably by students on whether students are encouraged to present their own viewpoints, whether grading is fair, whether the learning environment is comfortable, and whether they care about the success of students.
Chirac gives use of English tongue lashing (Leigh Thomas, March 25, 2006, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE)
French President Jacques Chirac yesterday defended his eyebrow-raising exit from an EU summit session, accusing the French head of Europe's employer union of insulting French pride by daring to speak in English.
Researchers peg Putin as a plagiarist over thesis (David R. Sands, 3/25/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Vladimir Putin -- KGB spy, politician, Russian Federation president, 2006 host of the Group of Eight international summit -- can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist.
Large chunks of Mr. Putin's mid-1990s economics dissertation on planning in the natural resources sector were lifted straight out of a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics nearly 20 years earlier, Washington researchers insisted yesterday.
For the French, Joie de Vivre Fades Into Fear: Recent Riots Magnify Malaise Gripping Nation (Molly Moore, March 25, 2006, Washington Post)
Outside the Grand Palais museum, people stood in line for hours in biting cold this winter to see the city's most popular art exhibit -- Mélancolie , a collection of paintings and sculptures evoking depression, sadness and despair."It doesn't surprise me that this exhibition is such a success," said Claire Mione, a 20-year-old Web site editor who joined the rush to the show in its closing days. "Melancholy is an overwhelming feeling in our society right now."
Many French agree. In art galleries, on bestseller lists, in corporate boardrooms and on the streets, the country's outlook has become so morose that President Jacques Chirac has urged citizens to stop the "self-flagellation."
Basque terrorists finally call it a day (Boston Herald, March 25, 2006)
Al-Qaeda’s vicious and murderous terrorism seems to have had the unexpected effect of discouraging long-standing terrorist movements in Europe.
The announcement by ETA, the Basque-language initials for “Homeland and Liberty,” that it is swearing off violence for good in its campaign for independence from Spain is the second prominent example, the first being the announcement last year of the Irish Republican Army that it was ending its war for the unification of Ireland and turning to politics exclusively. [...]Secession is not dead in Europe (or even in North America, where the status of Quebec in Canada is still open though happily not the subject of a terror campaign). Bombs still go off in Corsica from time to time. The Balkans are full of national causes. Kosovo and Montenegro are still officially part of Yugoslavia, though perhaps not for long. The Northern League’s campaign for an independent “Padania” in Italy may be invisible for the moment, but the resentments that spawned it are still there. ETA’s decision, we hope, will help persuade hotheads in these places, and others, that violence is the wrong tactic.
UN speeds up Darfur peace mission (BBC, 3/24/06)
The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to speed up preparations for UN peacekeepers to be deployed to Darfur in western Sudan.The council is calling on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to come up with a range of options within one month. [...]
"It's a real step forward in building peace across the entire country," Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said in a statement.
Released hostages 'refuse to help their rescuers' (Oliver Poole, 25/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday.The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages.
Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements.
Choi claimed (Chris Snow, 3/24/06, Boston Globe)
The Sox have claimed Hee Seop Choi off waivers, giving them a third option at first base, in addition to Kevin Youkilis and J.T. Snow. The 27-year-old Choi, who has an option remaining and can be sent to the minors, hit .253 with 15 homers and 42 RBIs in 320 at-bats last season with the Dodgers.
Tom Cruise Less Popular Than Saddam (NewsMax, 3/24/06)
Could actor Tom Cruise be even less popular than a mass murderer?Respondents in a poll said they’d rather spend the night with deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein than the "Mission Impossible” star.
"Osama bin Laden Contact With Iraq" (ABC News, March 23, 2006)
A newly released prewar Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to the document, Saddam's presidency was informed of the details of the meeting on March 4, 1995, and Saddam agreed to dedicate a program for them on the radio. The document states that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." The Sudanese were informed about the agreement to dedicate the program on the radio.The report then states that "Saudi opposition figure" bin Laden had to leave Sudan in July 1996 after it was accused of harboring terrorists. It says information indicated he was in Afghanistan. "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location," it states.
(Editor's Note: This document is handwritten and has no official seal. Although contacts between bin Laden and the Iraqis have been reported in the 9/11 Commission report and elsewhere (e.g., the 9/11 report states "Bin Ladn himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995) this document indicates the contacts were approved personally by Saddam Hussein.
Good versus evil isn't a strategy (Madeleine Albright, March 24, 2006, LA Times)
Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction.
Ben Domenech Resigns (Jim Brady, Executive Editor, 3/24/06, Washington Post)
In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.
When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.
We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations.
In Reversal, Graduate School Applications From Foreigners Rise (ALAN FINDER, 3/24/06, NY Times)
The number of foreign students who applied to graduate programs in American universities during the current academic year increased by 11 percent from the year before, according to a survey to be released today. That growth reverses two years of decline that occurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]The council suggested that there were several reasons for the turnaround. After the attacks of 2001, foreign students, particularly those in scientific and technical fields, experienced trouble obtaining visas. But recent changes in government policy, though continuing to emphasize security, have made it considerably easier.
"There's no question that both Homeland Security and the Department of State do play a role in this turnaround," Debra W. Stewart, the council's president, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Musharraf sends stern warning to terrorists (Mohammed Rizwan, March 24, 2006, Daily Times)
President General Pervez Musharraf has warned terrorists and extremists in Pakistan that they will be eliminated.“I warn those foreign terrorists in Waziristan to leave otherwise we’ll finish them off,” he said in a speech to a large crowd at Minar-e-Pakistan on the occasion of Pakistan Day. “I also warn those religious extremists who burnt down The Mall on February 14 to refrain from such activities in future as destruction and arson will not be tolerated anymore.”
The president also appealed to the people of NWFP to support the operation against the terrorists. “If people stand by the Pakistan Army in Waziristan, I assure them that law and order will be restored in the area,” he said.
The Interior Ministry has advised President Pervez Musharraf to deploy army troops against foreign militants hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) only as a last resort and rely on paramilitary forces instead.A senior Interior Ministry official told Daily Times that during meetings with the president on FATA, the ministry opposed frequent army operations against militants in the tribal areas. The president was advised that the Frontier Constabulary and Levies should be made responsible for taking action against militants in Waziristan and other troubled tribal areas. The ministry called for continuing the dialogue process to find out a political solution to the conflict. It proposed that pro-government tribal elders be encouraged to gain support for the government from tribal people.
Sometimes I read livejournal. Livejournal, if you don't know, is the blogosphere for pathetic, lonely overweight women and the weasels who want to have sex with them. It is, by my estimation, 99 and 44/100 percent insane, frothing at the mouth liberal.
I saw the picture below as somebody's icon today.
Giant Evil Vampiric Bush sucks the living ichor from the Statue of Liberty! Roooaar! Bush smash!
Thomas Nast in his prime could not have come up wth a less subtle cartoon.
But now I want to see Giant Evil Vampiric Bush fight the alien-constructed Mecha-Bush.
Cheney's Needs on the Road: What, No NPR? (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 3/24/06, NY Times)
Vice President Dick Cheney may be a rock star only to his most ardent Republican supporters, but he has on-the-road demands just like the Rolling Stones. Still, Mr. Cheney appears easier to please than Mick Jagger or Keith Richards.At least that was the evidence from "Vice Presidential Downtime Requirements," the heading of a document posted Thursday on the Smoking Gun Web site and confirmed as authentic by Mr. Cheney's office.
The document listed 13 requirements. Among them were these: All televisions sets in Mr. Cheney's hotel suite should be tuned to Fox News, all lights should be on, and the thermostat set at 68 degrees. Mr. Cheney should have a queen- or king-size bed, a desk with a chair, a private bathroom, a container for ice, a microwave oven and a coffee pot, with decaf brewed before arrival.
The vice president should also have four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite and four to six bottles of water. He must have the hotel restaurant menu, with a copy faxed ahead to his advance office. If his wife is with him, she should have two bottles of sparkling water, either Calistoga or Perrier.
NAACP: Evacuees face poll tax in New Orleans (Chicago Sun-Times, March 24, 2006)
State election law is effectively placing a poll tax on up to 13,000 displaced residents who would have to make costly trips to New Orleans if they want to vote in city elections scheduled next month, advocacy groups said Thursday.The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other advocacy groups filed a motion raising the issue this week in a federal case seeking the postponement of elections scheduled for April 22.
Japan-Taiwan Ties Blossom As Regional Rivalry Grows (Anthony Faiola, 3/24/06, Washington Post)
With Japan seeking to shed a half-century of pacifism and reassert itself in world affairs, and China acquiring vastly larger economic and military might, relations between the two are as tense as they have been at any time since World War II.Nowhere is their contest more visible than here in Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary. In recent months, Japan has made a series of unprecedented overtures toward Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945. In Tokyo, leading politicians are increasingly adopting the view that Japan must come to the island's aid in the event of Chinese aggression.
Many analysts say they believe Japan's evolving interest in Taiwan could tilt the regional balance of power. The United States, which has diplomatic relations with mainland China, is nonetheless sworn by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to defend the island territory if it is attacked.
"The peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait and security of the Asian Pacific region are the common concerns for not only Taiwan, but also Japan and the United States," Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian said during an interview last week. Therefore, he said, "Japan has a requirement and an obligation to come to the defense of Taiwan."
Like many countries, Japan severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in the 1970s in deference to Beijing's "one-China" policy. But lately, Japan has been less particular about its rule of maintaining a careful distance. Twice in the past two months, Japan's foreign minister, Taro Aso, has angered China by publicly referring to Taiwan as "a country." Last year, the Tokyo government dropped visa requirements for visitors from Taiwan. And Japanese and U.S. leaders have for the first time jointly declared protection of the Taiwan Strait a "common strategic objective."
In a less public gesture, Yoichi Nagano, formerly a general in the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, the army, is serving as the first military attaché at Tokyo's de facto embassy in Taipei, the Interchange Association. In an interview, Nagano said he conducts meetings with Taiwanese government and military figures and sends regular dispatches to Tokyo.
In 2004, a group of Japanese legislators formed a committee on Taiwanese security. This May, Tokyo is set to allow former president Lee Teng-hui, the Japanese-educated champion of Taiwanese democracy, to visit Japan for the second time in 18 months. So-called Track 2 meetings between Japanese and Taiwanese politicians, academics and retired military officials have intensified, according to officials in Taiwan and Japan.
These moves coincide with the rise to power in Japan of a new crop of hawks in the long- ruling Liberal Democratic Party headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. During his five years in office, Koizumi has pushed aside rivals in the LDP who had long stressed the importance of maintaining a respectful distance from Taiwan.
Killing off Chef nets ‘South Park' ratings (ERIN CARLSON, 3/24/06, Associated Press)
Last week's spat that pitted “South Park” against Scientology and Isaac Hayes, with a rumoured dollop of Tom Cruise stirred in, led Wednesday night to the animated series' highest-rated season premiere since 2002, according to a Comedy Central spokesman.An estimated 3.5 million viewers — including 2.3 million in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 age bracket — tuned in to watch the show unleash a new salvo against Scientology.
In the episode, the first of the series' 10th season, Isaac Hayes' Chef character was brainwashed by the “Super Adventure Club” and then apparently killed off.
U.S. to pay foreign firm to run nuclear detectors in Bahamas: The Bush administration is hiring a foreign port operator to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo headed to the U.S. (TED BRIDIS AND JOHN SOLOMON, 3/24/06, Associated Press)
In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign firm will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present.
Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from the U.S. coast, where cargo would be likely to be inspected again. The contract is being finalized.
The administration is negotiating a second no-bid contract for a Philippine company to install radiation detectors in its home country, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. At dozens of other overseas ports, foreign governments are primarily responsible for scanning cargo.
While President Bush recently reassured Congress that foreigners would not manage security at U.S. ports, the Hutchison deal in the Bahamas illustrates how the administration is relying on foreign companies at overseas ports to safeguard cargo headed to the United States.
Hutchison Whampoa is the world's largest ports operator and among the industry's most-respected companies.
Rumsfeld vows Iraq drawdown will continue (Rowan Scarborough, March 24, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that commanders are planning further troop reductions in Iraq despite ongoing violence that has killed hundreds of civilians after the February bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque.
Asked about President Bush's remark Tuesday that U.S. troops will be in Iraq until at least 2009, the year he leaves office, Mr. Rumsfeld said there could still be Americans training the Iraqi security forces (ISF). It was a clear signal that the defense secretary expects that by that time the United States' combat role will be greatly reduced.
Women Wage Key Campaigns for Democrats (ROBIN TONER, 3/24/06, NY Times)
If the Democrats have their way, the 2006 Congressional elections will be the revenge of the mommy party.Democratic women are running major campaigns in nearly half of the two dozen most competitive House races where their party hopes to pick up enough Republican seats to regain control of the House. Democratic strategists are betting that the voters' unrest and hunger for change — reflected consistently in public opinion polls — create the perfect conditions for their party's female candidates this year.
"In an environment where people are disgusted with politics in general, who represents clean and change?" asks Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Women."
Protest Turns Violent in Heart of Paris (Molly Moore, March 24, 2006, Washington Post)
It was just the scene the French government had been dreading: burning cars seven blocks from the Eiffel Tower, shop windows smashed along one of the capital's toniest streets, and columns of helmeted riot police advancing across the greensward of a prominent tourist venue.Antoil Ethuin, 48, stood outside the shattered windows of his Bike n' Roll rental shop Thursday, stunned by the destruction of the worst violence in two weeks of student protests in Paris and other French cities.
"My country is broken," said Ethuin...
MORE:
France searches soul over anti-Semitism (SUSAN SACHS, 3/24/06, Globe and Mai)
They hate Jews for believing in the soul.l
Rail safety test a smashing success (Patrick O'Driscoll, 3/24/06, USA TODAY)
With a thunderous thunk, a five-coach train of commuter rail cars slammed into a 130-ton locomotive Thursday in a federal government test of measures to curb deaths and injuries in railroad crashes. (Graphic with video: Plans to make trains safer)Unlike in so many real-life rail disasters, the train and locomotive stayed on the tracks and barely suffered a scratch, dramatically proving the worth of new "crash-energy management" technology designed to save lives by spreading out the force of a collision.
The $5 million experiment delighted test engineers and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who watched in a white hard hat from 100 yards away with dozens of railroad dignitaries.
Although hundreds of tons of iron and steel met head-on, the crash had all the mayhem of a fender-bender in a grocery store parking lot.
The lead coach or "cab car" at the front in "push-pull" mode (a commuter-rail configuration in which the locomotive pulls in one direction and pushes from the back on the return trip), was barely dented in the 31-mph crash. No cars or locomotives derailed. [...]
Mineta said later that the measures — including "push-back" couplers and an "anti-climber" bumper to keep the lead car from riding up and over an oncoming locomotive in a crash — "basically turn once-rigid trains into giant shock absorbers that help protect a train's crew and passengers."
American Muslims gaining a foothold in politics (Jill Lawrence, 3/24/06, USA TODAY)
[T]he 9/11 attacks jolted Muslims into realizing that they needed to make themselves known to their neighbors and heard by their government. They are voting, running for office and getting more involved in civic and political life at every level, from PTAs and school boards to town councils and state legislatures. At least two — Texas Republicans Amir Omar and Ahmad Hassan — are running for U.S. Congress.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which promotes Muslim political activity, has opened 23 of its 31 U.S. chapters since 9/11. In the 2004 election, two studies found, one in five Muslim voters were first-time voters.
"There was a silver lining. We became more public," says Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey-based American Arab Forum.
This large-scale entry of Muslims into public life is not only testing the courage of Muslim candidates and the tolerance of voters. It's also prompting politicians to take notice of a community that has growing clout and is open to appeals from both parties. [...]
Mosques, numbering more than 1,200 across the country, are "the grassroots center of our political empowerment," Assaf says. They hold voter-registration drives and policy discussions. They invite candidates to speak, offering access to large crowds at Friday prayers.
Up to a third of American Muslims are African-Americans who vote mostly for Democrats. The rest come from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. Many lived in dictatorships or theocracies and did not participate in politics in their homelands. "It is definitely a new idea," says Mohamed El Filali, outreach director of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson.
The immigrants are in tune with Republican conservatism on issues such as abortion, gay rights and religion, say analysts such as Georgetown University professor Zahid Bukhari. But they agree with Democrats on civil liberties and government social programs.
At this point, Muslims aren't firmly allied with either party. Bush won backing from Muslim leaders in 2000, before 9/11, and outperformed Democrat Al Gore among Muslim voters, polls and studies found. Four years later, dismayed by the Iraq invasion and what they saw as civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act, the leaders endorsed Democrat John Kerry, and he won a majority of Muslim voters.
Sherine El-Abd, 60, an Egyptian immigrant and prominent Republican who lives in Clifton, personally tried to convince a number of Muslims to switch back to Bush. It was, she admits, an uphill battle: "There were more that didn't go."
Analysts say the shift is likely to be temporary. "I wouldn't call it a realignment," CAIR research director Mohamed Nimer says. "What we've seen is just a one-time deal."
Muslims are comparable to Hispanics, a much larger swing voter group, in their diversity and their compatibility with positions of both parties. Analysts say they're also similar to Hispanics in that they are young and likely to wield increasing influence.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation in Dallas, a statewide Muslim advocacy group, cites a 2002 Cornell University finding that 60% of the U.S. Muslim population is 30 or younger: "You have this huge bulge that over the next 10 years is going to mature politically" and be far more active.
Is this the end of Lab-Lib Dem pact? (HAMISH MACDONELL, 3/24/06, The Scotsman)
NICOL Stephen, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, paved the way for an end to Lab-Lib Dem rule in Scotland last night when he insisted he would not compromise on either his anti- nuclear approach or his commitment to scrapping the council tax.Mr Stephen told The Scotsman the Liberal Democrats would go into next year's Holyrood elections with demands for a local income tax and a ban on all new nuclear power stations at the heart of their manifesto.
But with Labour taking a different view in both areas, there is now so much to divide the parties that it will be difficult for them to find sufficient common ground to form a third coalition.
Ben Johnson, Cheetah. Get it? (MORGAN CAMPBELL, Mar. 24, 2006, Toronto Star)
Ben Johnson is back. And he's still a "cheetah."Nineteen years and two flunked drug tests after he first set the 100-metre world record, Canada's most famous sports cheater is trading on his infamy to sell a new energy drink called Cheetah Power Surge.
The pun is intentional, say the people who created two TV commercials featuring Johnson that are now on the air. But sports and marketing experts find the association with the disgraced sprinter bizarre.
And a Great Joy Visited the Team (Thomas Boswell, March 23, 2006, Washington Post)
Mr. Soriano, meet Mr. Robinson. No, not the one you've had breakfast with in coffee shops all over Florida as he tried to sweet-talk you into doing what every player has done since 1869 -- in a crunch, play where the team tells you. No, the real Robinson is back, finally -- the same 70-year-old who tried to punch Mike Scioscia in the mouth last year.Several Nationals players also missed the pregame Kool-Aid. Maybe they were underserved. "Let's face it. He didn't really have a choice but to come back and play," said one Nats veteran. "We all know he's not happy. He's not going to be a good outfielder right away. He's going to drop some balls. Everybody will be on him. 'Was he really trying?' That's when I'll support him. He realized the team always has got to come first. Now, top to bottom, we have a lineup that's much better than last year."
In the end, that's what matters. This is high-pay hardball, not Ultimate Frisbee. Happy is optional.
Chancellor caught in loans row (Andrew Pierce and Rajeev Syal, 3/24/06, Times of London)
A BUSINESSMAN who secretly lent £1 million to the Labour Party was made chairman of one of Gordon Brown’s flagship projects just weeks after handing over the money, The Times has learnt.Rod Aldridge, who resigned yesterday as executive chairman of the technology company Capita, will launch the £150 million youth community service scheme with the Chancellor in May.
The timing of his appointment links Mr Brown for the first time with the “loans-for-honours” affair that has engulfed the Prime Minister.
20,000 job cuts forecast as more NHS hospitals join critical list: Brown denies ignoring health funding in Budget, saying trusts have been promised an extra £12 billion over next two years ( Sam Lister, David Charter and Patrick Foster, 3/23/06, Times of London)
ONE of the largest staff culls in recent NHS history worsened yesterday as more hospitals announced cuts and politicians gave warning of a final total of up to 20,000 job losses.Two trusts, in the North East and Kent, said yesterday that cuts were imminent or likely involving hundreds of members of staff. The announcements took the total job losses this month to more than 3,000, with two thirds occurring in the past week.
The Conservatives yesterday accused the Government of runnning scared of a crisis that would probably result in a cut of between 15,000 and 20,000 employees across the NHS.
While Gordon Brown fended off criticism for skirting round the health service’s mounting debts in his Budget statement this week, it also emerged that there would be no specific health funding debate in the wake of his speech.
Johnson Remains Orioles' Unforgettable Fire (Thomas Boswell, March 24, 2006, Washington Post)
Maybe [Davey] Johnson, 63, hasn't entirely forgiven and he certainly hasn't forgotten. But he's over it. The anger is gone. So is the "ill will" and "animosity" that he says he carried for years toward Angelos. Partly, the change of perspective is probably because Johnson almost died in late 2004 with a medical condition that withered his frame by 70 pounds and had doctors at the Mayo Clinic repeatedly "asking me if I had a living will." He's recovered now, looking fitter than when he left Baltimore. But he's lost some of the edge that made him famous or, perhaps, he's simply replaced it with the acceptance and grace of age.Partly, his return to visit the Orioles, the team he played for, managed and still follows with affection, is the result of the flowers that Angelos sent to the funeral of Johnson's daughter, Andrea. That gesture snapped something in their clenched-jawed ill will.
True to the silliness of feuds in baseball, it also helped that Angelos funded a Greek team in the '04 Olympics and Davey, managing a group of comparably inept Dutch men, beat the Angelos-backed bunch. "They were terrible. They couldn't get it out of the [batting] cage," grinned Johnson, tale-spinning in his Texas twang. "I don't know what they'd have been like if Peter hadn't helped them out. So, that eased the animosity. That and the flowers."
"That and the flowers." In Johnson's face, it's hard to say how many emotions are at play in a man so smart he has an advanced degree in mathematics, was 15 years ahead of the curve in using exotic statistics devised by a Johns Hopkins professor in his strategy and made his first million in real estate in the 1960s long before he became an all-star with the Orioles.
Davey still gives you "aw, shucks" and spits tobacco on the dugout concrete. It's easy to forget he flies planes and played scratch golf. And that, when he played for Earl Weaver, he loved to take the manager's money at gin -- just to show Earl who was smarter. Not the best idea? Some percentages Davey never could play, especially the ones that told you when to back off from the boss and when to confront him. Johnson's gears didn't include reverse.
Now, part of that person, who led the Mets to the '86 World Series crown but also got fired everywhere he managed, has definitely mellowed. Walking around with a burst appendix for a year -- and not knowing what's wrong with you -- will do that to you. Especially when doctors says that, by 60, your appendix has either been removed or else it's never going to burst.
"That's just like my whole life," said Johnson. "Typical of me to have something nobody's supposed to have at that age."
Suicide by a thousand cuts (Molly Ivins, March 23, 2006, Creators Syndicate)
I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying -- it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.
Less safe after years in Iraq (Sheila Suess Kennedy, March 23, 2006, March 23. 2006)
We have just "celebrated" the third anniversary of our invasion of Iraq.Some wars, regrettably, are necessary. Iraq was not such a war. It was a war of choice, impelled by ideology...
Paris's streets ablaze over workers' rights (Colin Randall, 24/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Trade union leaders, who joined students and school pupils in opposing a new law that would make it easier to hire and fire young workers, accepted an invitation to meet the beleaguered prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, today.They insisted, however, that they would not negiotiate unless Mr de Villepin withdrew the law, which is due to take effect next month. He has ruled out scrapping the measure and his offers of concessions have been rejected.
Mr de Villepin's aides promised that the talks on the new law, which would affect job-seekers under 26, would "not be limited in any way".
He is expected to explain his offer to reduce the most contentious clauses in some fields of employment, creating a two-year trial period during which employees can be dismissed without reason.
The aim of the measure, known as the Contrat Première Embauche, or first job contract, is to tackle France's grave youth-unemployment problems.
But Mr de Villepin is struggling to rally support for the law, among even the ruling centre-Right UMP party.
The education minister, Gilles de Robien, will also have talks with protesters today.
T for Terrific (Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing, 3/22/06)
One irate citizen's Margaret Thatcher is another's George W. Bush, which might explain why writer Alan Moore has distanced himself from V For Vendetta, the big-screen adaptation of his influential graphic novel.Penned in 1989, Moore meant for his work to be taken as an indictment of Thatcher's conservative platform in England. The screen version, filtered through the sensibilities of Hollywood players such as the debuting director James McTeigue, producer Joel Silver and the writing-producing team of the Wachowski Brothers (all of whom were involved in making the Matrix trilogy), has been upgraded for a new chapter in world history. The Great Britain of the 1980s remains, but it's now forced to share space with the United States of the 2000s. [...]
Set in England in the year 2020, V For Vendetta envisions a world that's been torn apart by all manner of conflicts. The United States, we're told, has fallen as a superpower and now lays in ruins, largely destroyed by a civil war from within. England, meanwhile, struggled with a dreadful plague that killed thousands but has since reemerged under the rule of a fascistic government headed by Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt). In this Orwellian landscape, dissidents, intellectuals and homosexuals all meet with the same fate -- execution -- while all news is filtered through the sensibilities of a government-sanctioned TV network.
Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) is a low-level worker at the TV station, yet she's also the daughter of political activists who were dragged off -- and summarily murdered -- by government thugs when she was still a child. Like most Britons, she lives in fear of the ruling body and keeps her head down in an ongoing attempt to remain clueless about the atrocities surrounding her. But that's before she meets V (Hugo Weaving), an eloquent swashbuckler who sports a Guy Fawkes mask and speaks of a regime change.
A man of mystery, V subscribes to the theory of a radical revolution, of achieving freedom by any means necessary. He refuses to apologize for his violent actions, and while Evey gradually comes to understand his goals, she can't quite commit to his methods. Meanwhile, Chancellor Sutler will stop at nothing to remove this thorn in his side, and his administration largely depends on the efforts of dogged Chief Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea) to locate and apprehend the masked man.
V For Vendetta is that rare blockbuster that's interested in words more than action. That's not to say the picture doesn't contain its share of explosive set pieces and dashing derring-do, but its import rests in the muddy waters it navigates. What exactly divides a terrorist from a freedom fighter? V's mission to take down Sutler involves blowing up lots of prime real estate (indeed, the movie's November 2005 release was delayed partly to distance it further from last July's London bombings), and those in charge refer to him simply as "the terrorist." But when a government is as rotten as the one seen here, does the end justify the means? [...]
[S]ome of the allusions skewer more toward the Nazi regime than the Republican Party (though many will persuasively argue that they're one and the same), but how to deny the topicality evidenced in the scenes involving detainment centers where prisoners are hooded, humiliated and tortured, or the presence of a TV station that's unabashedly pro-government, or an administration that instills a vague fear of foreigners to quiet the teeming masses, or a ruler who uses faith-based initiatives to crush opposing viewpoints?
One is frequently tempted to give these Bush = Hitler folks the benefit of the doubt and assume they're just reaching for a convenient, bad analogy -- and then loonies like this guy remind us that an awful lot of them really mean it.
Tax break for families with kids eyed (Japan Times, 3/24/06)
The government and ruling coalition, at the first meeting of a special committee charged with devising measures to halt the declining birthrate, agreed Thursday to study giving families with children a tax break, panel members said.Many lawmakers from the ruling bloc -- the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito -- want the panel to look closely at the family tax break, the panel members said.
LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Hidenao Nakagawa said the committee should consider higher tax-break rates for families with low incomes and those with a lot of children.
Kuniko Inoguchi, minister in charge of dealing with the birthrate decline, told the meeting the public is strongly in favor of tax cuts to help families with kids.
Another Bad Slip for 'NY Times': Katrina Victim Unmasked (E&P Staff, March 23, 2006, Editor & Publisher)
For the second time in less than a week, The New York Times today admitted to a serious error in a story. On Saturday it said it had misidentified a man featured in the iconic "hooded inmate" photograph from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Today it discloses that a woman it profiled on March 8 is not, in fact, a victim of Hurricane Katrina--and was arrested for fraud and grand larceny yesterday.As it did in the Abu Ghraib mistake, the Times ran an editors' note on page 2 of its front section, along with a lengthy news article (this time on the front page of Section B). Again mirroring the Abu Ghraib episode, the newspaper revealed a surprising and inexplicable lapse in fact-checking on the part of a reporter and/or editor.
The original article, more than 1000 words in length, was written by Nicholas Confessore. He also wrote the news article about the error today. Without saying that he wrote the first story, he wrote today: "The Times did not verify many aspects of Ms. Fenton's claims, never interviewed her children, and did not confirm the identity of the man she described as her husband."
Ukraine's new, bumpy path: Its embrace of democracy contrasts with Belarus, this week's elections show. (Fred Weir, 3/24/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
In contrast to the tight government control that largely squelched opposition forces in Belarus ahead of last weekend's elections, Kiev's main square is a veritable bazaar of competing voices. Nearly 50 rival political parties are heading into the final leg of parliamentary polls slated for Sunday. The roughly 2,000 foreign observers here have noted no serious irregularities, and Ukrainian experts say these are the freest and most open elections in the country's history."There is absolute transparency, and an equal playing field for all parties," says Alexander Chernenko, an analyst with the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, a grass-roots monitoring group. "There is no fear, no coercion. People feel this is irreversible."
Right invasion, wrong explanation (Jonah Goldberg, March 23, 2006, LA Times)
THE BEST MOMENT of political theater at the president's news conference this week came when that thespian carbuncle of bile, Helen Thomas, hung a question mark at the end of a diatribe. The "dean" of the White House press corps all but called President Bush a lying warmonger who invaded Iraq for no legitimate reason.Thomas lost the exchange, but the sad truth is that her side has won the larger argument. Ever since the controversy over the "16 words" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address — in which the president alleged that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa — the administration has been gun-shy about defending its original decision to invade. That's understandable, given the consequences of that episode: Not only did it make the White House seem inept, it made former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson and his very important hair a permanent fixture of the media firmament.
It is now simply taken as a given inside this White House that having an argument about why we invaded Iraq is a political loser. So the president prefers to talk democracy, not WMD.
In Dark Times, Blame the Jews (The Forward, March 24, 2006)
On the face of it, there's little that's new in the provocative research paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published online last week by two leading political scientists, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Their underlying thesis, that Israel's advocates have pressured America into an unjustified and damaging alliance with Israel, has been around for decades, flogged with little success by generations of Israel's detractors. Their more immediate argument, that Israel and its allies manipulated America into war with Iraq, has been simmering at the edges of the debate since before the invasion. By now it's part of our national background noise.What is new and startling is the document's provenance. Its authors are not fringe gadflies but two of America's most respected foreign-affairs theorists. One, Mearsheimer, is a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago. The other, Walt, is academic dean of the nation's most prestigious center of political studies, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Though it's tempting, they can't be dismissed as cranks outside the mainstream. They are the mainstream.
Even more startling, given who they are, is the flimsiness of their work.
Wal-Mart gets a warm welcome (Mae Gentry, March 22, 2006, Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Retail behemoth Wal-Mart may be unwanted in other parts of metro Atlanta but south DeKalb County is rolling out the welcome mat.Community leaders and residents will be on hand today when Wal-Mart celebrates the grand opening of its first store inside the Perimeter --- at Gresham Road and I-20.
The 214,000-square-foot supercenter, located on the site of an old Kmart, could help revitalize an economically depressed area and provide much-needed jobs.
"It's a good shot in the arm for the community," said John Evans, a community activist and former president of the DeKalb NAACP. "We needed development there. It may serve as a real catalyst to bring in new businesses." [...]
DeKalb Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones said new Wal-Mart's location off I-20 will also attract shoppers from outside the county, putting sales-tax revenue in county coffers.
Jones also believes people in the community should welcome the new supercenter, especially because of what it replaced.
"I think it's obvious what people would like, if they have a choice between a dilapidated, crack-infested old building with no jobs versus a thriving retail box with supporting retail shops, providing jobs and services and improving the property value," he said. "I think it's a no-brainer."
Chirac walks out on EU leaders as tensions rise (George Parker and Chris Smyth, March 23 2006, Financial Times)
Jacques Chirac, French president, on Thursday night stormed out of a European Union summit after a French industrialist began addressing leaders of the bloc in English.Mr Chirac and two senior ministers walked out in protest at the decision of Ernest-Antoine Seillière, head of the Unice employers organisation, to make a plea for economic reform in “the language of business”.
Mr Chirac’s boycott reflected the high tensions surrounding the two-day economic summit, which comes against a backdrop of French street protests over labour market reform and claims Paris is engaged in protectionism of its energy market.
The French president was not in the room to hear Mr Seillière urging leaders to “resist national protectionism in order to avoid a negative domino effect”.
Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, issued a thinly veiled warning to France and Spain to open their energy markets, as a dispute over protectionism overshadowed the start of the summit.
If torture works…: The debate over torture is not as simple as it seems. Those of us who oppose torture under any circumstances should admit that ours is an unpopular policy that may make us more vulnerable to terrorism (Michael Ignatieff, April 2006, Prospect)
It is difficult to think about torture honestly. In a recent article on the interrogation techniques employed by the US, the writer Mark Bowden observed that few "moral imperatives make such sense on a large scale, but break down so dramatically in the particular." The moral imperative—do not torture, any time, anywhere, in any circumstances—is mandated by the UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency," says the convention, can "be invoked as a justification of torture." That terrorists themselves torture does not change these imperatives. Our compliance does not depend on reciprocity.As long as we stay on this high ground of unconditional prohibition, we seem to know where we are. Problems begin when we descend into the particular, when we ask what exactly counts as torture. [...]
Clear thinking about torture is not served by collapsing the distinction between coercive interrogation and torture. Both may be repugnant, but repugnance does not make them into the same thing. If coercion and torture are on a moral continuum, at what point on the continuum, to use Posner's words, does queasiness turn to revulsion? Vigorous interrogation might mean lengthy, exhausting, harassing exchanges with interrogators. Provided that there was no physical contact between interrogator and subject, no deprivation of food or water harmful to health, this might qualify as lawful interrogation. But at every ratchet of coercion, moral problems arise. Sleep deprivation will not leave physical or permanent psychological scars, but as Menachem Begin, who was interrogated in Soviet Russia, remembered, "anyone who has experienced this desire [for sleep] knows that not even hunger or thirst are comparable with it."
It might be lawful to deceive a subject under interrogation, by stating that all of his associates are already in detention when they are still at large. But other forms of deception can inflict excruciating psychological anguish. Threatening a subject with the imminent death or torture of those dearest to him may not leave any physical marks, but it rightly can constitute torture, not just coercion, in even the US Senate's definition. Both Elshtain and Posner have argued against the moral perfectionism that elides the distinction between coercion and torture, and have stressed the cruel, if regrettable, necessity of using coercive methods on a small category of terrorists who may have information vital to saving the lives of innocent people. Posner justifies coercive interrogation on utilitarian grounds: saving the lives of many counts more, in moral terms, than abusing the body and dignity of a single individual. Elshtain justifies coercive interrogation using a complex moral calculus of "dirty hands": good consequences cannot justify bad acts, but bad acts are sometimes tragically necessary. The acts remain bad, and the person must accept the moral opprobrium and not seek to excuse the inexcusable with the justifications of necessity.
My own work on "lesser evils" brings me close to the Elshtain position. I agree with her that necessity may require the commission of bad acts, which necessity, nevertheless, cannot absolve of their morally problematic character—but I still have a problem. If one enumerates the forms of coercive interrogation that have been judged to be inhuman and degrading by the Israeli and the European courts—hooding, holding subjects in painful positions, exposing them to cold or heat or ear-splitting noise—these techniques also seem unacceptable, though at a lower threshold of awfulness, than torture. Like Elshtain, I am willing to get my hands dirty, but unlike her, I have practical difficulty enumerating a list of coercive techniques that I would be willing to have a democratic society inflict in my name. I accept, for example, that a slap is not the same thing as a beating, but I still don't want interrogators to slap detainees because I cannot see how to prevent the occasional slap deteriorating into a regular practice of beating. The issue is not, as Elshtain implies, that I care overmuch about my own moral purity but rather that I cannot see any clear way to manage coercive interrogation institutionally so that it does not degenerate into torture.
On the issue of regulation, there are those—Alan Dershowitz, for example—who believe that banning torture and coercion outright is unrealistic. Instead, the practice should be regulated by court warrants. But judicialisation of torture, and of coercive interrogation techniques involving stress and duress, physical abuse, sleep deprivation and so on, could lead to torture and coercion becoming routine rather than an exception.
Consider, for example, a means of warfare for which there is near universal support: UN sanctions against regimes. What, at the end of the day, are sanctions if not coercive measures imposed by the community of democracies whose specific purpose is to inflict sufficient pain and sufferng on an entire society that its leadership is forced to yield? Is there any moral coherence to an argument that says we may not treat a captured Saddam Hussein brusquely in order to determine where his WMD went but we were perfectly justified in killing 500,000 Iraqis to try and get him to tell us where the WMD were?
Mr. Ignatieff's slippery slope does not lead to too much torture but to complete tolerance of evil.
Obituary of Lord Ackner (Telegraph, 3/23/06)
As a High Court judge, Ackner's penchant for plain speaking was evident at the trial of a schoolmaster accused of assault for breaking a pupil's jaw. The schoolboy had started the day with half a tablet of LSD and spent the morning break screaming obscenities at the teacher before kicking him in the stomach.Another international precedent unlikely to be adopted by the Supreme Court."Have we really reached the stage in this country," Ackner asked the jury in his summing up, "when an insolent and bolshie pupil has to be treated with all the courtesies of visiting royalty?
"You may think we live in very strange times. Whatever may be the views of some of our most advanced, way-out theoreticians, the law does not require a teacher to have the patience of a saint." The teacher was acquitted.
But Ackner's distaste for what he saw as a decline in the nation's moral standards could at times be controversial, and never more so than in 1987, when the House of Lords decided by a 3:2 majority to re-impose an injunction preventing newspapers from publishing excerpts from Spycatcher, the book written by former MI5 officer Peter Wright, even though it was widely available abroad.
"To refuse to allow the injunction to be continued," Ackner's judgment ran, "would have established a charter for traitors to publish on the most massive scale in England whatever they have managed to publish abroad. Fortunately, the press is, as yet, not above the Law, although like some other powerful organisations, they would like that to be so."
Google evolves into all-purpose website (MICHAEL LIEDTKE, 3/23/06, Associated Press)
The finance section Google Inc. unveiled Tuesday continues a philosophical shift that's turning its once-pure Internet search engine into an all-purpose website that seems increasingly interested in getting people to stick around instead of sending them elsewhere.The evolution has been unfolding during the past four years as Google has introduced free e-mail, news, photo sharing, instant messaging, shopping and mapping services that are staples of one-stop websites commonly known as "portals."
MORE (via Gene Brown):
Hobbes in Sudan: What a world without U.S. power looks like. (Opinion Journal, March 23, 2006)
The Arab League--so quick to denounce Danish cartoons--has also stymied any global intervention to stop the murder of their fellow Muslims. Here's League Secretary General Amr Musa earlier this month: "In Sudan, there is a problem related to Darfur. We will listen to the Sudanese state minister to explain to us the developments in the issue of Darfur . . ." The League plans to hold its meeting next week--in Khartoum.The African Union has at least sent 7,000 troops to the region, but they are under-funded and under-equipped to enforce a truce that Sudan blatantly flouts. But the African failure is also political. In January the Union held its own summit in Khartoum, and next year it plans to award Sudan its presidency. The rule seems to be never to say a discouraging word about other African leaders, no matter how murderous.
As for Europe, France would be ideal to lead an intervention force. The French have military bases in neighboring Chad and could establish a no-fly zone to stop Janjaweed bombing. However, Paris is already occupied with another intervention in the Ivory Coast, and with its own business interests in Sudan isn't volunteering in any case.
Amid this global abdication, Mr. Annan finally decided last month to call in the American cavalry. He visited the White House and, with media fanfare, all but begged President Bush to do something. Despite U.S. obligations in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places, Mr. Bush responded by proposing an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force under "NATO stewardship."
Dovetailing of good news has Dow flying high (Chicago Sun-Times, March 23, 2006)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to its highest level in almost five years Wednesday as an improved outlook for corporate earnings pushed auto and drug stocks higher.Upbeat news from big companies: a patent settlement by Bristol-Myers Squibb, strong earnings from Morgan Stanley and a cost-cutting deal between General Motors Corp., Delphi Corp. and the United Auto Workers bolstered investor confidence.
"We have felt all along profits would come in better than expected" in 2006, said Keith Wirtz, chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati. [...]
The Dow rose 81.96, or 0.73 percent, to 11,317.43, its highest level since May 21, 2001, when it reached 11,337.92.
Broader stock indicators were higher. The S&P 500 index rose 7.81, or 0.6 percent, to 1,305.04, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 9.12, or 0.4 percent, to 2,303.35.
"Star Wars" film legend George Lucas wants more worldly Hollywood (AFP, 5/23/06)
Legendary "Star Wars" film creator George Lucas told a packed house the United States is a provincial country with a culture that has invaded the world via Hollywood....We shouldn't show the world's have-nots what we have, because they might want it and "destabilize" their own kleptocracies. An argument only a billionaire can love. This is a nice demonstration of how the Democrats have become, simultaneously, the party of the wealthy and the reactionary party."It shows all the morality we espouse in this country, good and bad. The French were the first to start yelling cultural imperialism."...
People see shows such as "Dallas," about a wealthy Texas oil family, and decide they want the grand lifestyles portrayed, according to Lucas.
"They say that is what I want to be," Lucas said. "That destabilizes a lot of the world."
"There has been a conflict going on for thousands of years between the haves and the have-nots, and now we are in a position for the first time to show the have-nots what they do not have."
The New New Gore: From our April issue (full content): Five years ago, Al Gore was the much-mocked pol who blew a gimme with his stiff demeanor and know-it-all style. Today? C’mon, admit it: You like him again. (Ezra Klein, 03.21.06, American Prospect)
Since his loss, Gore has undergone a resurrection of sorts, shrugging off the consultants and the caution that hampered him during the campaign and -- aided by new distribution technologies -- evolving into perhaps the most articulate, animated, and forceful critic of the Bush administration. And now, with Democrats taking a fresh look at a man they thought they knew and speculation mounting around his ambitions in 2008, it seems that the man much mocked for inventing the Internet is in fact using the direct communication it enables to reinvent himself. [...]It’s fitting, then, that after some hanging chads lynched his political ambitions, he returned to his roots, accepting a post at Columbia’s journalism school to teach about the intersection between journalism, his first career, and the Internet, his longstanding obsession. The class, which began in Spring 2001, was entitled “Covering National Affairs in an Information Age.” Gore’s first lecture engaged objectivity itself, challenging the journalistic trope that fairness resides in controversy and an article has to represent all sides -- no matter how marginal -- equally. Instead, Gore argued that the journalistic impulse to exalt even the most fringe views to parity in order to furnish opposing perspectives is harmful to basic accuracy. This didn’t sit well with more than a few of the wannabe reporters in the class, many of whom were aghast at the suggestion that the media should attempt to actually mediate between truth and spin. As Josh Bearman, a student in that class and now an editor at the LA Weekly, recalls it, “He stood up there challenging the entire dogma of the journalism school. First semester, you learned that objectivity was emperor, then Gore came in and told you it had no clothes.”
And along with that backlash, the old anti-intellectualism Gore experienced in 2000 made a reappearance. As Bearman tells it, “He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn’t like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior.” Gore did not return to teach the class in 2002. [...]
If the Internet is reinventing Gore, though, Gore is using its lessons to reinvent television. His October 2005 speech to the We Media conference was a tour de force, ranging from Johannes Gutenberg to Thomas Paine, Walter Lippmann to John Kenneth Galbraith, the historian Henry Steele Commager to the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Gore was a know-it-all, and he didn’t care if they knew it too.
Iraq War Vet Wins in Illinois Race (Eric Pianin, 3/23/06, Washington Post)
Tammy Duckworth, the decorated Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in a grenade attack, won a close race Wednesday in her bid for the Democratic primary nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R) in Illinois's 6th Congressional District.Duckworth, the most prominent and best-financed of nearly a dozen veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars attempting to launch careers in Congress, was vying with Democratic rival Christine Cegelis, a computer consultant who has been running nonstop since she lost to Hyde two years ago. [...]
Cegelis sought to portray Duckworth as a political carpetbagger in the congressional district, a traditionally GOP bastion west of Chicago in DuPage County. Cegelis asserted that many residents resented that Duckworth lives in a home three miles outside the district and that she raised most of her $517,747 campaign war chest with the help of her national Democratic allies. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, helped Duckworth raise $139,000 earlier this month with an e-mailed fundraising appeal.
In Florida, 'Uniform' Foolishness (George F. Will, March 23, 2006, Washington Post)
[F]lorida's Supreme Court fulfilled the desires of the teachers unions, and disrupted the lives of the 733 children and their parents, by declaring, in a 5 to 2 ruling, that the voucher program is incompatible with the state constitution. [...]This court last seized the nation's attention when, after the 2000 election, it acted legislatively, rewriting state election laws in ways helpful to Al Gore's attempt to erase George W. Bush's slender lead. Back then, all the court's seven members had been nominated by Democratic governors. Since then, the court has acquired two justices nominated by Gov. Bush. They were the two dissenters from the court's "uniformity" ruling. Elections can slowly turn tides.
All of Archbishop Curley's 43 Opportunity Scholarship children who are not graduating in June are going to stay in the school. The voucher is worth about $1,800 less than the school's $6,400 tuition, and about $3,400 less than the $8,000 cost of educating a pupil. But Brother Patrick Sean Moffett, the head of the school, says, "We're going to keep them all, somehow."
It is stirring to see the quiet tenacity of people whose lives are disrupted by other people's political struggles. When Octavia and her mother -- and David Hill, 14, a ninth-grader, and his parents, and several other parents and relatives of students -- recently gathered around a table at the school to discuss the end of the OSP, there was no rancor. The children and parents at the table were black. None were Republicans. The NAACP, as usual, is in lock step with the Democratic Party, which is in lock step with the teachers unions.
A naked Chancellor (Philip Webster, Political Editor, and Gary Duncan, 3/23/06, Times of London)
GORDON BROWN paraded himself as a prime minister in waiting who would spend rather than cut taxes yesterday as he made narrowing the gap between state and private schools an ambition for his premiership.The Chancellor laid bare his strategy for fighting David Cameron at the next election by deliberately staking out a battleground that highlighted dividing lines with today’s Conservatives — with the choice between tax cuts and public spending the biggest of all. [...]
In his response to the Budget, Mr Cameron said that Mr Brown was an old fashioned tax-and-spend Chancellor who represented “the past.” He was the “analogue chancellor in a digital age”; he was the “roadblock” to reform.
“What we’ve got is a chancellor who has taxed too much, borrowed too much and is the roadblock to reform. He is a politician completely stuck in the past,” he said.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem leader, said that the Budget had been a missed opportunity. “He could have tackled the unfair tax system. He could have made the environment a priority. He could have faced up to the pensions crisis.
“He has declined to do any of these. This is a legacy from which it will be difficult for him to escape.”
In 50-Yard Square in Belarus, a Country Within (C. J. CHIVERS, 3/23/06, NY Times)
Since a rigged presidential election on March 19, the capital of Belarus has seen a protest like none in 12 years of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko's autocratic grip. For four consecutive days, protesters have defied warnings of arrest and bloodshed and stood in a corner of October Square to demand a new race.Their numbers rise to several thousand each evening, as they form a rally and impromptu dance party on the edge of an ice rink, and then dwindle, hour by hour, until midnight, when this core stands through the night, in two lines, to hold the place for the next day.
It is a frigid, risky vigil, given the Belarussian weather and the government's history of reflexive brutality against those who dare to stand and call for better lives than Mr. Lukashenko's island of Soviet nostalgia and corruption has been able, or willing, to provide.
Mostly they are young men in their 20's. A few look too young to shave. But since Tuesday night, when the opposition's leaders began to disagree about how best to proceed in their effort to unseat a president they do not recognize, this all-night core has become an independent force in a quixotic struggle.
Their influence emerged when one of Mr. Lukashenko's two principal challengers, Aleksandr V. Kazulin, urged the protesters to disband Tuesday night and save themselves before the police crackdown.
"There is no sense in keeping them on the square," Mr. Kazulin said. "We should think about our children, protect them, and not keep them in front of us."
The protesters refused to go. And they rejected the label of "children," applied to them by Mr. Kazulin, as well as by Mr. Lukashenko, as they crowded together in the plummeting cold. They formed their two lines, one facing out of the camp, to warn of any advance by the police, the other facing inward, to keep an eye on the behavior of the demonstrators, ensuring that no provocateurs had slipped inside.
After midnight, they occupied a portion of Belarus, a country of 10 million people the size of Kansas, that was no larger than a 50-yard square.
It was a country within.
Roberts Dissent Reveals Strain Beneath Court's Placid Surface (LINDA GREENHOUSE, 3/23/06, NY Times)
Writing for the majority, Justice David H. Souter said the search was unreasonable, given the vocal objection of the husband, Scott Randolph. True, Justice Souter said, the court had long permitted one party to give consent to a search of shared premises under what is known as the "co-occupant consent rule." But he said that rule should be limited to the context in which it was first applied, the absence of the person who later objected.The presence of the objecting person changed everything, Justice Souter said, noting that it defied "widely shared social expectations" for someone to come to the door of a dwelling and to cross the threshold at one occupant's invitation if another objected.
"Without some very good reason, no sensible person would go inside under those conditions," he said.
"We have, after all, lived our whole national history with an understanding of the ancient adage that a man's home is his castle," Justice Souter said. "Disputed permission is thus no match for this central value of the Fourth Amendment."
Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the majority opinion, as did Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who explained himself in a concurring opinion notable for its ambivalent tone. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not vote, as he was not a member of the court when the case was argued.
The dissenters, in addition to Chief Justice Roberts, were Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. In his opinion, the chief justice took aim at the majority's description of social custom, as well as its reliance on that description to reshape "a great deal of established Fourth Amendment law."
Every lower federal court to have considered the issue, as well as most state courts, had concluded that one party's consent was sufficient. The Georgia Supreme Court, in its 2004 decision that the justices affirmed, was in the minority, ruling in this case that the evidence of Mr. Randolph's cocaine use was inadmissible.
"The fact is that a wide variety of differing social situations can readily be imagined, giving rise to quite different social expectations," Chief Justice Roberts said. For example, he continued, "a guest who came to celebrate an occupant's birthday, or one who had traveled some distance for a particular reason, might not readily turn away simply because of a roommate's objection."
Noting that "the possible scenarios are limitless," he said, "Such shifting expectations are not a promising foundation on which to ground a constitutional rule, particularly because the majority has no support for its basic assumption — that an invited guest encountering two disagreeing co-occupants would flee — beyond a hunch about how people would typically act in an atypical situation."
The majority missed the point, the chief justice said; the fact is that someone choosing to share space has also, already, chosen to share privacy.
"Our common social expectations may well be that the other person will not, in turn, share what we have shared with them with another — including the police," he said, "but that is the risk we take in sharing."
Machine Woes Slow Vote-Counting in Illinois (Kari Lydersen and Zachary A. Goldfarb, March 23, 2006, Washington Post)
Election officials here resumed counting ballots Wednesday after problems with new electronic voting machines around Cook County forced them to halt the count in a key local race in Tuesday's primary that also had voters casting ballots for governor and Congress.The election was one of the first major tests of how well states and localities, seeking to comply with new federal law, have replaced outdated voting machines with modern, more accurate technology that is more accessible to disabled people.
Mom had `decoy' child in carpool lane (BOB MITCHELL, 3/23/06, Toronto Star)
A 39-year-old Aurora woman has become the first person in Ontario to be caught using a decoy in her vehicle so she could drive in a carpool lane.Instead of finding a child in a car seat during yesterday morning's rush hour, an Ontario Provincial Police officer patrolling the high-occupancy vehicle lane on Highway 404 discovered a stuffed winter coat.
"It looked like Kenny from South Park was strapped in the child seat," OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley said.
3 Western peace activists freed in Iraq military operation (AP, 3/23/06)
A coalition force on Thursday freed three Christian peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.The Iraqi Interior Ministry said the captives were rescued in a joint U.S.-British operation in rural area northwest of Baghdad, between the towns of Mishahda, 20 miles north of Baghdad, and the western suburb of Abu Ghraib, 12 miles from downtown.
British officials in Baghdad said those freed were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32; and Briton Norman Kember, 74. The men — members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams — were kidnapped on Nov. 26 along with their American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, whose body was found earlier this month. [...]
In a statement, the Christian Peacemaker Teams said the activists went to Iraq "motivated by a passion for justice and peace." The group called for coalition forces to remove their troops from the country.
MORE:
U.S., Iraqis foil insurgent attack, capture 50 (Chicago Sun-Times, March 23, 2006)
Emboldened a day after a successful jailbreak, insurgents laid siege to another prison Wednesday. This time, U.S. troops and a special Iraqi unit thwarted the pre-dawn attack south of Baghdad, overwhelming the gunmen and capturing 50 of them, police said.
The bolder the better.
Yanks start to wonder: Torre hopes for best from a thin rotation (Tony Massarotti, March 23, 2006, Boston Herald)
The New York Yankees are vulnerable in that worst of all places, their starting rotation, and you cannot help but wonder if Joe Torre knows it. There was simply little starting pitching to be had over the winter and the Yankees acquired none of it.
Like most everyone else in baseball entering the 2006 season, the Yankees can be had.
“These are the guys (we) brought to the dance,” Torre said when asked about his current stable of starting pitchers prior to last night’s game between the Red Sox and New York Yankees at Legends Field.
Basque terrorists lay down their arms after 40 years (Graham Keeley, 3/23/06, Times of London)
Unlike the previous conservative government, Señor Zapatero’s administration has signalled its willingness to talk to Eta. Last May the Spanish parliament passed a law allowing it to negotiate with Eta if it renounced violence. Yesterday’s ceasefire was warmly welcomed by Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president whose republican movement has had close links with Eta.“Eta’s announcement provides all sides to the conflict with an opportunity of historic proportions,” he said. “There is a particular onus on the Spanish Government to respond positively and creatively.”
One figure who appears to have played an intriguing backroom role is Father Alec Reid, the Belfast priest who helped to prepare the ground for the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. Since last year, he has been involved in talks between Basque nationalist parties and the main political groups in the region.
Smoking can seriously affect your potency (Nicole Martin, 23/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Men who smoke a packet of cigarettes a day are 40 per cent more likely to become impotent than non-smokers, a study has shown.Researchers questioned more than 8,000 Australian men aged between 16 and 59 and found that almost one in 10 had problems maintaining an erection.
Of those interviewed, more than a quarter were smokers, with a fifth smoking 20 or fewer cigarettes a day, and one in 16 smoking more than 20 a day.
Compared with non-smokers, researchers found that men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day were 24 per cent more likely to be impotent. The figure rose to 39 per cent for those who smoked more than 20 a day.
Chris Millet, from Imperial College London, said he hoped that his study would persuade male smokers to quit.
China’s competitiveness ‘on the decline’ (Tom Mitchell, Financial Times, 3/22/06)
The competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industries has suffered serious erosion over the past year, according to one of the world’s largest trade sourcing companies.Someone alert Michael Crichton so he can start writing Rising Tide.Hong Kong-based Li & Fung group, which manages a $7.1bn a year trading business, said price rises crept back into the Sino-US and EU supply chains last year, after at least six years of often “severe deflation”.
William Fung, Li & Fung managing director, reported an average 2-3 per cent increase in the once unbeatable China price its US and European clients were willing to pay. He pointed to a “double-digit” rise in Chinese labour costs, the revaluation of the renminbi and higher oil and energy costs for the shift.
“China’s costs are all going up,” Mr Fung said. “It is no longer the most cost-effective country in the region...Anything [sourced] from China has a higher inflation component than from other places around the world.”
Beneficiaries of China’s rising prices have included textile and garment manufacturers in India, Bangladesh and Cambodia, which were expected to lose orders to China after the quota regime governing textile production expired in January 2005.
Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study (University of Minnesota News, 3/20/2006)
American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell.
Britain pushes for military option to restrain Tehran (Richard Beeston, 3/22/06, Times of London)
BRITAIN is pressing for a United Nations resolution that would open the way for punitive sanctions and even the use of force if Iran were to refuse to halt its controversial nuclear programme.In a confidential letter obtained by The Times, a leading British diplomat outlines a strategy for winning Russian and Chinese support by early summer for a so-called Chapter VII resolution demanding that Iran cease its nuclear activities.
If the Government in Tehran refused to comply with such a resolution, the UN Security Council would be legally compelled to enforce it.
The strategy marks a significant hardening of the Government’s position. It contrasts with public statements by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, this month. On March 13 he insisted that military action was “inconceivable” and that the dispute with Iran “has to be resolved by peaceful democratic means”.
The confidential letter was written only three days later by John Sawers, the political director at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and sent to his American, French and German counterparts.
Nick, Michael and I had a word yesterday about how to handle the E3+3 meeting in New York on Monday. We agreed that we would need to have a shared concept of what would happen in the Security Council after the period specified by the proposed Presidential Statement. I agreed to circulate a short paper which we might use as a sort of speaking note with the Russians and Chinese. This is attached.Implicit in the paper is a recognition that we are not going to bring the Russians and Chinese to accept significant sanctions over the coming months, certainly not without further efforts to bring the Iranians around.
Kislyak might argue that those diplomatic efforts should start straightaway after a Presidential Statement is adopted. Our own assessment here is that the Iranians will not feel under much pressure from PRST on its own, and they will need to know that more serious measures are likely. This means putting the Iran dossier onto a Chapter VII basis. We may also need to remove one of the Iranian arguments that the suspension called for is ‘voluntary’. We could do both by making the voluntary suspension a mandatory requirement to the Security Council, in a Resolution we would aim to adopt I, say, early May.
In return for the Russians and Chinese agreeing to this, we would then want to put together a package that could be presented to the Iranians as a new proposal. Ideally this would have the explicit backing of Russia, China and the United States as well as the E3, though Nick will want to consider the scope of presenting this in that way. Our thought is that we would need to finalise this during June, and the obvious occasion to do so would be in the margins of the G8 Foreign Ministers’ meeting. The period running up to the G8 Summit will be when our influence on Russia will be at its maximum, and we need to plan accordingly.
Maverick engineers Indian Railways turnaround (Raja M, 3/22/06, Asia Times)
Asia's largest railway network, India's national lifeline and one of its perennial financial headaches, has found an unlikely savior in Lalu Prasad Yadav, a maverick politician often dismissed as a rustic buffoon or a crook.Yadav, fighting corruption cases ranging from a US$225 million fodder scam to a $789 million subsidized-food-grain scam, has as railway minister turned the world's second-largest rail network around. Indian Railways now has $2.48 billion in fund balances, from $78 million in 2001, a stunning reversal after being long seen as a terminal debt trap.
With new budgetary announcements of passenger-friendly and growth-aimed projects, the once-doddering behemoth is now dancing sprightly to attract big chunks of the $150 billion in foreign investment that financial experts expect India to attract in the next five years.
Railway container services will be privatized from April 1, a move welcomed by industrial associations. Licenses to operate container trains would have 20-year validity with the option of a 10-year extension.
Dubai Ports, fresh from its US ports controversy, was among 14 companies bidding for the railway container business, which is expected to attract more than $2.255 billion in the next decade. The railways have already collected $121.8 million as registration fees.
These are rosy times for Indian Railways, wide awake now to the enormous investment potential of a business carrying more than 16 million passengers every day and running more than 2,500 daily trains.
Egypt's opposition targets reforms: Muslim Brotherhood members, Parliament's largest opposition bloc, are being closely watched. (Sarah Gauch, 3/23/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
So far, the speeches and activities of Brotherhood parliamentarians emphasize political reform. Their agenda includes demands widely backed by democratic activists: changing legislation that allows journalists to face prison sentences for libel, granting independence to Egypt's judges, and canceling a 25-year-old emergency law that forbids gatherings of more than five people."We need economic reform and development, in education and health, but we can't realize this until we have political reform," says Mohamed el-Katatny, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc. The government, meanwhile, emphasizes economic reform with slower-paced political reform.
Vive la France! Vive le 'joblessness'? (The Monitor's View, 3/23/06, CS Monitor)
Today's world economy demands a fresh approach to work, including a flexible labor force. Yet young French people - and many other Europeans - want nothing to do with the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" model, which they feel is heartless. Pulling their fluffy duvets over their heads, they'd rather dream of the jobs-for-life their parents enjoyed since the end of World War II. [...]One could brush the demonstrations aside as typical French protests - practically a rite of spring in la république. But they point to an overall resistance that will make economic and social reform that much harder in the future.
Each year of delayed reform will only prolong the sluggishness of the French economy and high joblessness. According to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development index that measures restrictive job environments, French job inflexibility is nearly 15 times higher than in the US, where workers can expect to change jobs six times in their career. The US jobless rate is less than 5 percent, while in France it hovers near 10 percent.
Basque separatists call cease-fire: After four decades of deadly violence, ETA declared a permanent truce to begin Friday. (Peter Ford, 3/23/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
On Tuesday, the Spanish parliament approved a new relationship between the central government and Catalonia, recognizing it as "a nation." Some observers suggested that the vote encouraged ETA to hope for a similar, or better, deal if it renounces violence. Last year, parliament authorized the government to hold talks with ETA, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, on the condition the group laid down its arms."If I was in ETA I would be optimistic" about the outcome of expected negotiations, says Florentino Portero, an analyst at the Strategic Studies Group, a think tank in Madrid. "Zapatero is a new generation of politician with a radically new way of conceiving of the state" as a confederation of sovereign regions.
Interview with Ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama: "A Model Democracy Is not Emerging in Iraq" (Der Spiegel, 3/22/06)
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your new book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy," is a rejection of the political views you have held throughout your academic career. What happened?Fukuyama: Iraq happened. The process of distancing myself from neo-conservatism happened four years ago really. I had decided the war wasn't a good idea some time in 2002 as we were approaching the invasion of Iraq.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why? After all, one of the neo-conservative pillars is a profound belief in democracy and the spread of democracy.
Fukuyama: I was partly unsure whether the United States could handle the transition to a democratic government in Iraq. But the biggest problem I had was that the people pushing for the intervention lacked self-knowledge about the US. When I look back over the 20th century history of American interventions, particularly those in the Caribbean and Latin America, the consistent problem we've had is being unable to stick it out. Before the Iraq war, it was clear that if we were going to do Iraq properly, we would need a minimum commitment of five to 10 years. It was evident from the beginning that the Bush administration wasn't preparing the American people for that kind of a mission. In fact, it was obvious the Bush people were trying to do Iraq on the cheap. They thought they could get in and out in less than a year.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where did this belief come from? Was it naivete, hubris or just plain ignorance?
Fukuyama: A lot of the neo-conservatives drew the wrong lessons from the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism. They generalized from that event that all totalitarian regimes are basically hollow at the core and if you give them a little push from the outside, they're going to collapse. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, most people thought that communism would be around for a long time. In fact, it disappeared within seven or eight months in 1989. That skewed the thinking about the nature of dictatorships and neo-conservatives made a wrong analogy between Eastern Europe and what would happen in the Middle East.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it was an invasion based on misinformation and misinterpretation?
Fukuyama: Yes.
Tancredo, colleague tussle in ugly spat: After TV debate, epithets hurled (Anne C. Mulkern, 3/22/06, Denver Post)
A cursing, screaming, epithet-laden fracas erupted between Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo and an Illinois congressman this week after a televised debate about immigration. [...]Tancredo, R-Littleton, and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., sparred Wed nesday on the CNBC cable-TV channel about which version of immigration reform Congress should enact.
Tancredo said that as they were removing their microphones afterward, Gutierrez noted that Tancredo had been late for the show and said, "The immigrant shows up on time. The gringo was late. I guess that's why we get the jobs."
Fla. to Link Teacher Pay To Students' Test Scores (Peter Whoriskey, March 22, 2006, Washington Post)
A new pay-for-performance program for Florida's teachers will tie raises and bonuses directly to pupils' standardized-test scores beginning next year, marking the first time a state has so closely linked the wages of individual school personnel to their students' exam results.The effort, now being adopted by local districts, is viewed as a landmark in the movement to restructure American schools by having them face the same kind of competitive pressures placed on private enterprise, and advocates say it could serve as a national model to replace traditional teacher pay plans that award raises based largely on academic degrees and years of experience.
Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has characterized the new policy, which bases a teacher's pay on improvements in test scores, as a matter of common sense, asking, "What's wrong about paying good teachers more for doing a better job?"
Idaho Potato Crusted Pizza (The Associated Press, 3/22/06)
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
* 4 tablespoons cornstarch
* 11/2 pounds Idaho potatoes (about 4 medium), scrubbed
* 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 1/4 cup beef or chicken broth
* 1/2 cup prepared basil pesto
* 1 cup cooked, shredded chicken
* 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into rings
* 4 ounces crumbled feta cheese
* 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 8 to 10 fresh basil leaves, torn into piecesHow to make it:
* Preheat oven to 400 F.
* In a small bowl, stir together the salt, pepper and cornstarch; set aside. Using a food processor or mandoline, slice potatoes very thinly and place them in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle half of the cornstarch mixture over the potato slices; toss the potatoes, then sprinkle them with the remaining cornstarch mixture, and toss again.
* Brush 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over a 12-inch round pizza pan. Layer the potatoes on the pan, overlapping the slices in concentric circles (cover the pan completely). Sprinkle the potatoes with the broth, brush them with the remaining oil, then press the potatoes down firmly with your clean hands to compact them into a crust. Move the oven rack to its lowest position, and bake the potato crust for 20 to 30 minutes, or until edges are browned and potatoes are tender.
* Remove the potato crust from the oven and spread the pesto over the potatoes using a rubber spatula. Top the pizza with the cooked chicken, pepper rings, feta and Parmesan cheese. Return the pizza to the oven for another 10 minutes, or until feta is softened and the pizza is heated through. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with basil and cut into wedges. Use a spatula to loosen the potato crust from the pan.
Makes 6 main-course servings, or 8 appetizer servings.
Save a Prayer: A novel describes our Islamofascist future: a review of Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (John J. Miller, National Review)
In reading Prayers for the Assassin, it’s important to engage in what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called a “willing suspension of disbelief” — i.e., it’s essential to grant Ferrigno his unbelievable premise that a certain set of circumstances may arise to compel millions of Americans to convert to Islam. Once you allow this, everything else falls into place, because everything else about Ferrigno’s invented world feels utterly believable. If the imagined history that he describes actually were to happen — Ferrigno explains here why it’s not so farfetched — our world might be very much like the one laid out in Prayers for the Assassin.This, in fact, may be the chief reward of the book: The creation of an alternate reality that abides by a set of internally consistent rules as well as a place that reminds us of what’s at stake in the war on terror. In Ferrigno’s future, the Superbowl is played at Khomeini Stadium, cab drivers have Osama and Zarqawi emblems dangling from their rearview mirrors, LAX is called Bin Laden International, Jews try to escape to Canada on a 21st-century version of the Underground Railroad, Disneyland is a slum overtaken by prostitutes, and radical Muslims have tried to blow up Mt. Rushmore just as the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. The clever blend of Islamic radicalism with American culture results in passages such as this:
Rakkim turned the page of the magazine. There was a full-page ad for the Palestine Adventures outside San Francisco, happy families waving to the camera, the kids in plastic suicide-belts, hoisting AK-47s to the sky. “You ever been to Palestine Adventures?”
Ferrigno has a sense of humor that is both black and wry: San Francisco, nicknamed “Sharia City,” has become a magnet for radicals. “They behead homosexuals at the Civic Center every week,” explains one character. A quick description of the Golden Gate Bridge (“renamed for an Afghan war lord”) is especially macabre.
All the while, Ferrigno’s future is a place full of complexity: The bad guys are Muslims, but so are the good guys. And even at the core of the new Islamic republic, there’s a grudging admiration for certain aspects of the non-Muslim world. As one character comments, “Those peckerwoods in the Bible Belt are black-hearted infidels and eaters of swine, but you have to admit, they know how to make soda pop.” That line is a joke, but one that’s pregnant with meaning.
MORE:
Abdul Rahman and other heroes among us (Robert Ferrigno, 3/22/06)
One nation, under Allah: an interview with Robert Ferrigno: Orrin Judd interviews Robert Ferrigno, author of Prayers for the Assassin, a novel about the near future which posits a world where much of the United States has become an Islamic state (Orrin C. Judd, 3/20/06, Enter Stage Right)
Booming South Shore Line to add rail cars (Chicago Sun-Times, March 22, 2006)
With ridership growing, the South Shore Line is working on a $40 million plan to add passenger cars -- possibly including double-decker cars.The South Shore Line's ridership grew 7.3 percent last year. For the first two months of this year, it has grown 10.7 percent.
"We are at capacity," said John Parsons, a spokesman for the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, which operates the commuter rail line that runs between downtown Chicago and South Bend, Ind.
The mother of invention (PAUL LIMA, 3/22/06, The Globe and Mail)
[W]hen it comes to filing patents to protect intellectual property, Canada lags behind other countries.With 2,193 patents applied for in 2005, Canada ranked below Germany, China, Russia, Britain, Taiwan, Italy, Australia and Brazil, and just above Sweden and Spain, according to Thomson Scientific, part of the scientific and health care market segment of Thomson Corp.
Why the average performance?
"Canada is a resource-based nation lacking the technology-intensive nature of smaller countries like Finland and Sweden," said Thomas Keil, assistant professor, entrepreneurship, with the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. In addition, Canada has many branch plants, and patent applications are usually generated by head offices, he said.
"Patents and copyright are central mechanisms to foster innovation," Mr. Keil said. "Patents are the only tangible thing a small firm or inventor owns. With few resources and personnel and no brand, patents may be all they have. They are one of the motors that keep innovation going."
Reports: Basque separatists announce 'permanent' ceasefire (Associated Press, 3/22/06)
The Basque separatist group ETA on Wednesday announced a permanent cease-fire, apparently bringing a dramatic end to nearly four decades of violence that claimed more than 800 lives, Basque television reported following a communiqué from the group.
Justices Limit Jurisdiction of States in Investor Suits (Reuters, 3/22/06)
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Merrill Lynch on Tuesday in a decision limiting shareholders' ability to bring certain class-action lawsuits in state courts.The justices found that a 1998 law required that the suits be brought in the federal courts rather than state courts.
An 8-to-0 ruling, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, said, "The magnitude of the federal interest in protecting the integrity and efficient operation of the market for nationally traded securities cannot be overstated." [...]
A lawyer who represented Merrill in the case, Jay B. Kasner of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said the "decision impacts all public companies by closing an enormous loophole created by plaintiffs, which would have led to an avalanche of state law securities-fraud class actions accompanying virtually every federal securities class action."
Brown takes on critics with £26bn gamble: Budget to include PFI expansion (Patrick Wintour, March 22, 2006, The Guardian)
The chancellor Gordon Brown will try to bury the Conservative charge that he is Labour's roadblock to reform when he uses his budget today to justify plans for a controversial £26bn expansion of the private finance initiative across 200 public sector projects.His proposals, set out in a Treasury paper to be published alongside the budget, will infuriate the unions, especially the public sector union Unison. There had been widespread rumours that the Treasury had gone cool on PFI, which draws on private sector money to build and then run public sector projects such as hospitals and schools.
Today's report, published as part of Mr Brown's 10th budget, will reveal that the public sector has so far signed 700 PFI projects. Over the next four to five years the government plans to begin another 200 projects worth a total of £26bn, representing the largest programme of its kind in the world.
The announcement of such a sharp expansion of the scheme will cause controversy within the Labour movement.
Don't deport `honest' workers: Builder: Skills are critical for construction (RICHARD BRENNAN AND TONY WONG, 3/22/06, Toronto Star)
A prominent GTA developer has condemned the federal government for wanting to toss "honest, hard-working" illegal immigrants from Portugal and other countries out of Canada."There is definitely a shortage of workers in the construction industry right now, and it doesn't matter — from road building to plumber to bricklayers — there is a shortage," Silvio De Gasperis told the Toronto Star yesterday.
"This process should be stopped until they get a chance to review and assess the entire situation," said De Gasperis, one of the country's largest private developers. "Maybe if they did they would realize that the good families, the honest people, should be staying and working."
Iraq War Vet in Close Race in Illinois (Eric Pianin, 3/22/06, Washington Post)
Illinois voters also picked a Republican nominee to challenge Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. At 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Associated Press declared Judy Baar Topinka, the state treasurer and former state GOP party chairman, the winner; she led with 37.9 percent of the vote in a crowded five-candidate race. Blagojevich, whose administration has been embarrassed by a series of corruption investigations, fended off a challenge by Edwin Eisendrath, a former Chicago alderman. With 71.1 percent of precincts reporting, Blagojevich had won nearly 68 percent of the vote.
Grants Flow To Bush Allies On Social Issues: Federal Programs Direct At Least $157 Million (Thomas B. Edsall, 3/22/06, Washington Post)
Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the African American and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush's presidential campaigns.Programs such as the Compassion Capital Fund, under the Health and Human Services, are designed to support religion-based social services, a goal that inevitably funnels money to organizations run by people who share Bush's conservative cultural agenda.
France PM 'flexible' on job law (Caroline Wyatt, 3/22/06, BBC News)
French PM Dominique de Villepin has indicated he is willing to be flexible on at least one key element of a controversial youth employment law.He said he is willing to cut the length of a trial period from two years.
After 3 years, Somalis struggle to adjust to U.S. (Rick Hampson, 3/22/06, USA TODAY)
[Dan] , a Portland (Ore.) State University professor involved in a national effort to study and assist the Somali Bantu, says almost all the men who can work do, usually in low-wage posts such as janitor, warehouse worker and orderly. Most of the men have learned some English. Many have bought cars and gotten driver's licenses.Most of the women are isolated at home without a car and with several small children. Their only exposure to English is a volunteer tutor for a few hours once a week.
Bantus are determined to drive — so determined that many living in Connecticut, which does not offer the driver's test in Somali, have flown to Arizona, which allows them to take the test with a Somali-speaking interpreter. To fulfill the residency requirement, Abdiaziz says, they list the address of the relative or friend with whom they're staying. There is so much to learn about America.
Last winter, Hartford police were called after some newly arrived children were seen playing outside without coats or shoes, just like in Africa. On July 4, some Bantus in Springfield, Mass., were terrorized by what they thought was gunfire. "But at least we had them prepared for Halloween," says Robert Marmor, director of Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts, which helped resettle 250 Bantus.
For some Bantus, the adjustment has been particularly difficult:
•More than 200 Bantus ended up in homeless shelters last year in Columbus, Ohio. They'd moved to the city, which has a large Somali population, from the communities where they were originally settled, looking for work.
•The 100 Bantu families who were resettled in Pinellas County, Fla., in 2004, found jobs and housing so scarce that within a year all had moved elsewhere.
"We had no idea how hard it would be, even though we spent a year preparing for their arrival," says Marmor, the Springfield agency director. "We didn't realize there would be people with no knowledge of Western civilization."
The biggest problem, he says, is a lack of English, particularly among women. Their children also are not learning as fast as they should, partly because for the past two years there were only a few part-time Somali interpreters for about 90 Bantus spread among 20 Springfield public schools. (Last month, in response to a civil rights complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education by advocates of the Somalis, the school system agreed to hire more bilingual tutors and start after-school programs for the high school students.)
Overall, however, Marmor says he is struck by how much Bantus are like other refugees: "You could be talking to a Russian émigré from 1900. They want the same things — a job, a home, education for their children." Whatever their disadvantages, he adds, Bantus have passed other trials — bondage, war, the camps. "They may not have known what a door was," he says, "but they know how to survive."
First impression’s a hit: Pena scores points at plate (Jeff Horrigan, March 22, 2006, Boston Herald)
Players scattered from the incoming liners in the outfield yesterday morning, when Wily Mo Pena took his first batting practice cuts at City of Palms Park as a member of the Red Sox.
It should be noted, of course, that the outfield where they were ducking for cover was on a neighboring practice field, at least 450 feet from where the mammoth slugger was taking his cuts.
Iran's supreme leader favors talks with USA on Iraq (AP, 3/22/06)
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that he approves of proposed talks between U.S. and Iranian officials on Iraq, but warned that the United States must not try to "bully" Iran. [...]Khamenei is considered the leader of hard-liners in Iran who largely prevented reformists from opening greater contacts with the United States. Still, under his rule, Iran has held lower-level talks with American officials, particularly in multilateral gatherings for efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and counter narcotics, for instance.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Friday that the talks could help Iraq form a government, while Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said Iran hopes the meetings will help lead to U.S. troop withdrawal.
Iran has considerable influence with Shiite political parties who dominate Iraq's parliament, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said U.S.-Iranian talks on Iraq could be "useful."
Analyzing Baseball's Dream Dimension: a review of Fantasyland by Sam Walker (DAN BARRY, 3/22/06, NY Times)
If you hate baseball, the crossword puzzle is around here someplace. But if you adore baseball, if you think owning Thomas Jefferson's autograph or Oil Can Boyd's is a toss-up, then do not turn the page simply because this review concerns a book about that national pastime mutation called "fantasy baseball."Fantasy baseball does not imagine, say, an outfield of Bettie Page, Yoda and Robin the Boy Wonder. But neither does it take into great account those aspects of the game often called the "little things": laying down a sacrifice bunt; hitting the cutoff man; using the least detectable steroids. This is because fantasy baseball is a cafeteria form of baseball, heavy on the carbohydrates, with no interest in all the spices that make the game so enticing.
Here is how fantasy, or rotisserie, baseball generally works, as neatly described by Sam Walker in his entertaining first book, "Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe." You and your colleagues enter teams in a virtual league, conduct an auction of Major League Baseball players while keeping within an established salary cap, and compete against one another by tracking the statistics of your players.
In a classic rotisserie league, only certain statistics usually help to determine the league's winner at season's end. For hitters: home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases and batting average. For pitchers: wins, saves, earned-run averages, and something called WHIP, which Mr. Walker explains is a formula for "walks allowed plus hits allowed divided by innings pitched."
If your head is now imploding because you never saw a WHIP statistic on a bubble-gum card, you are not alone — though if you think about it, the statistic makes sense.
For nearly a generation now, two camps have battled over how to assess a player's worth. The traditionalists, usually mocked as tobacco-stained scouts with radar guns, rely on old-fashioned statistics and gut feelings about the little things. The newcomers, usually mocked as college wonks who think a jockstrap is a BlackBerry accessory, use advanced formulas worthy of NASA and dismiss gut feelings and the little things as sentimental claptrap.
Mr. Walker addresses this scout-wonk struggle within Major League Baseball, but focuses more on a related phenomenon: the rotisserie leagues that have millions of participants — and you know who you are.
Called by God to Help (ROGER MAHONY, 3/22/06, NY Times)
I'VE received a lot of criticism for stating last month that I would instruct the priests of my archdiocese to disobey a proposed law that would subject them, as well as other church and humanitarian workers, to criminal penalties. The proposed Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives in December and is expected to be taken up by the Senate next week, would among other things subject to five years in prison anyone who "assists" an undocumented immigrant "to remain in the United States."Some supporters of the bill have even accused the church of encouraging illegal immigration and meddling in politics. But I stand by my statement. Part of the mission of the Roman Catholic Church is to help people in need. It is our Gospel mandate, in which Christ instructs us to clothe the naked, feed the poor and welcome the stranger. Indeed, the Catholic Church, through Catholic Charities agencies around the country, is one of the largest nonprofit providers of social services in the nation, serving both citizens and immigrants.
Providing humanitarian assistance to those in need should not be made a crime, as the House bill decrees. As written, the proposed law is so broad that it would criminalize even minor acts of mercy like offering a meal or administering first aid.
Foreign Policy Speech (Tony Blair, 21 March 2006)
Over these past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy. We have been strongly activist, justifying our actions, even if not always successfully, at least as much by reference to values as interests. We have constructed a foreign policy agenda that has sought to link, in values, military action in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq with diplomatic action on climate change, world trade, Africa and Palestine. I set out the basis for this in the Chicago speech of 1999 where I called for a doctrine of international community, and again in the speech to the US Congress in July 2003.The basic thesis is that the defining characteristic of today's world is its interdependence; that whereas the economics of globalisation are well matured, the politics of globalisation are not; and that unless we articulate a common global policy based on common values, we risk chaos threatening our stability, economic and political, through letting extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked.
The consequence of this thesis is a policy of engagement not isolation; and one that is active not reactive.
Confusingly, its proponents and opponents come from all sides of the political spectrum. So it is apparently a "neo-conservative" ie right wing view, to be ardently in favour of spreading democracy round the world; whilst others on the right take the view that this is dangerous and deluded - the only thing that matters is an immediate view of national interest. Some progressives see intervention as humanitarian and necessary; others take the view that provided dictators don't threaten our citizens directly, what they do with their own, is up to them.
The debate on world trade has thrown all sides into an orgy of political cross-dressing. Protectionist sentiment is rife on the left; on the right, there are calls for "economic patriotism"; meanwhile some voices left and right, are making the case for free trade not just on grounds of commerce but of justice.
The true division in foreign policy today is between: those who want the shop "open", or those who want it "closed"; those who believe that the long-term interests of a country lie in it being out there, engaged, interactive and those who think the short-term pain of such a policy and its decisions, too great. This division has strong echoes in debates not just over foreign policy and trade but also over immigration.
Progressives may implement policy differently from conservatives, but the fault lines are the same.
Where progressive and conservative policy can differ is that progressives are stronger on the challenges of poverty, climate change and trade justice. I have no doubt at all it is impossible to gain support for our values, unless the demand for justice is as strong as the demand for freedom; and the willingness to work in partnership with others is an avowed preference to going it alone, even if that may sometimes be necessary.
I believe we will not ever get real support for the tough action that may well be essential to safeguard our way of life; unless we also attack global poverty and environmental degradation or injustice with equal vigour.
Neither in defending this interventionist policy do I pretend that mistakes have not been made or that major problems do not confront us and there are many areas in which we have not intervened as effectively as I would wish, even if only by political pressure. Sudan, for example; the appalling deterioration in the conditions of the people of Zimbabwe; human rights in Burma; the virtual enslavement of the people of North Korea.
I also acknowledge - and shall at a later time expand on this point - that the state of the MEPP and the stand-off between Israel and Palestine remains a, perhaps the, real, genuine source of anger in the Arab and Muslim world that goes far beyond usual anti-western feeling. The issue of "even handedness" rankles deeply. I will set out later how we should respond to Hamas in a way that acknowledges its democratic mandate but seeks to make progress peacefully.
So this is not an attempt to deflect criticism or ignore the huge challenges which remain; but to set out the thinking behind the foreign policy we have pursued.
Over the next few weeks, I will outline the implication of this agenda in three speeches, including this one. In this, the first, I will describe how I believe we can defeat global terrorism and why I believe victory for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is a vital element of doing that. In the second, I shall outline the importance of a broad global alliance to achieve our common goals. In the third, in America, I shall say how the international institutions need radical reform to make them capable of implementing such an agenda, in a strong and effective multilateral way. But throughout all three, I want to stress why this concept of an international community, based on core, shared values, prepared actively to intervene and resolve problems, is an essential pre-condition of our future prosperity and stability.
It is in confronting global terrorism today that the sharpest debate and disagreement is found. Nowhere is the supposed "folly" of the interventionist case so loudly trumpeted as in this case. Here, so it is said, as the third anniversary of the Iraq conflict takes place, is the wreckage of such a world view. Under Saddam Iraq was "stable". Now its stability is in the balance. Ergo, it should never have been done.
This is essentially the product of the conventional view of foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This view holds that there is no longer a defining issue in foreign policy. Countries should therefore manage their affairs and relationships according to their narrow national interests. The basic posture represented by this view is: not to provoke, to keep all as settled as it can be and cause no tectonic plates to move. It has its soft face in dealing with issues like global warming or Africa; and reserves its hard face only if directly attacked by another state, which is unlikely. It is a view which sees the world as not without challenge but basically calm, with a few nasty things lurking in deep waters, which it is best to avoid; but no major currents that inevitably threaten its placid surface. It believes the storms have been largely self-created.
This is the majority view of a large part of western opinion, certainly in Europe. According to this opinion, the policy of America since 9/11 has been a gross overreaction; George Bush is as much if not more of a threat to world peace as Osama bin Laden; and what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the Middle East, is an entirely understandable consequence of US/UK imperialism or worse, of just plain stupidity. Leave it all alone or at least treat it with sensitivity and it would all resolve itself in time; "it" never quite being defined, but just generally felt as anything that causes disruption.
This world view - which I would characterise as a doctrine of benign inactivity - sits in the commentator's seat, almost as a matter of principle. It has imposed a paradigm on world events that is extraordinary in its attraction and its scope. As we speak, Iraq is facing a crucial moment in its history: to unify and progress, under a government elected by its people for the first time in half a century; or to descend into sectarian strife, bringing a return to certain misery for millions. In Afghanistan, the same life choice for a nation, is being played out. And in many Arab and Muslim states, similar, though less publicised, struggles for democracy dominate their politics.
The effect of this paradigm is to see each setback in Iraq or Afghanistan, each revolting terrorist barbarity, each reverse for the forces of democracy or advance for the forces of tyranny as merely an illustration of the foolishness of our ever being there; as a reason why Saddam should have been left in place or the Taliban free to continue their alliance with Al Qaida. Those who still justify the interventions are treated with scorn.
Then, when terrorists strike in the nations like Britain or Spain, who supported such action, there is a groundswell of opinion formers keen to say, in effect, that it's hardly surprising - after all, if we do this to "their" countries, is it any wonder they do it to "ours"?
So the statement that Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine or indeed Chechnya, Kashmir or half a dozen other troublespots is seen by extremists as fertile ground for their recruiting - a statement of the obvious - is elided with the notion that we have "caused" such recruitment or made terrorism worse, a notion that, on any sane analysis, has the most profound implications for democracy.
The easiest line for any politician seeking office in the West today is to attack American policy. A couple of weeks ago as I was addressing young Slovak students, one got up, denouncing US/UK policy in Iraq, fully bought in to the demonisation of the US, utterly oblivious to the fact that without the US and the liberation of his country, he would have been unable to ask such a question, let alone get an answer to it.There is an interesting debate going on inside government today about how to counter extremism in British communities. Ministers have been advised never to use the term "Islamist extremist". It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those - perfectly decent-minded people - who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims. And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a "Protestant" bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it.
Yet, in respect of radical Islam, the paradigm insists that to say what is true, is to provoke, to show insensitivity, to demonstrate the same qualities of purblind ignorance that leads us to suppose that Muslims view democracy or liberty in the same way we do.
Just as it lets go unchallenged the frequent refrain that it is to be expected that Muslim opinion will react violently to the invasion of Iraq: after all it is a Muslim country. Thus, the attitude is: we understand your sense of grievance; we acknowledge your anger at the invasion of a Muslim country; but to strike back through terrorism is wrong.
It is a posture of weakness, defeatism and most of all, deeply insulting to every Muslim who believes in freedom ie the majority. Instead of challenging the extremism, this attitude panders to it and therefore instead of choking it, feeds its growth.
None of this means, incidentally, that the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was right; merely that it is nonsense to suggest it was done because the countries are Muslim.
I recall the video footage of Mohammed Sadiq Khan, the man who was the ringleader of the 7/7 bombers. There he was, complaining about the suppression of Muslims, the wickedness of America and Britain, calling on all fellow Muslims to fight us. And I thought: here is someone, brought up in this country, free to practise his religion, free to speak out, free to vote, with a good standard of living and every chance to raise a family in a decent way of life, talking about "us", the British, when his whole experience of "us" has been the very opposite of the message he is preaching. And in so far as he is angry about Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan let Iraqi or Afghan Muslims decide whether to be angry or not by ballot.
There was something tragic, terrible but also ridiculous about such a diatribe. He may have been born here. But his ideology wasn't. And that is why it has to be taken on, everywhere.
This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds of its adherents, are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core. By this I don't mean telling them terrorism is wrong. I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive; and then since only by Muslims can this be done: standing up for and supporting those within Islam who will tell them all of this but more, namely that the extremist view of Islam is not just theologically backward but completely contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Koran.
But in order to do this, we must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress; that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away. The only way to win is: to recognise this phenomenon is a global ideology; to see all areas, in which it operates, as linked; and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists.
The roots of global terrorism and extremism are indeed deep. They reach right down through decades of alienation, victimhood and political oppression in the Arab and Muslim world. Yet this is not and never has been inevitable. The most remarkable thing about reading the Koran - in so far as it can be truly translated from the original Arabic - is to understand how progressive it is. I speak with great diffidence and humility as a member of another faith. I am not qualified to make any judgements. But as an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, rather as reformers attempted with the Christian Church centuries later. It is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance.
Under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands was breathtaking. Over centuries it founded an Empire, leading the world in discovery, art and culture. The standard bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian.
This is not the place to digress into a history of what subsequently happened. But by the early 20th century, after renaissance, reformation and enlightenment had swept over the Western world, the Muslim and Arab world was uncertain, insecure and on the defensive. Some countries like Turkey went for a muscular move to secularism. Others found themselves caught between colonisation, nascent nationalism, political oppression and religious radicalism. Muslims began to see the sorry state of Muslim countries as symptomatic of the sorry state of Islam. Political radicals became religious radicals and vice versa. Those in power tried to accommodate the resurgent Islamic radicalism by incorporating some of its leaders and some of its ideology. The result was nearly always disastrous. The religious radicalism was made respectable; the political radicalism suppressed and so in the minds of many, the cause of the two came together to symbolise the need for change. So many came to believe that the way of restoring the confidence and stability of Islam was the combination of religious extremism and populist politics.
The true enemies became "the West" and those Islamic leaders who co-operated with them.
The extremism may have started through religious doctrine and thought. But soon, in offshoots of the Muslim brotherhood, supported by Wahabi extremists and taught in some of the Madrassas of the Middle East and Asia, an ideology was born and exported around the world.
The worst terrorist act was 9/11 in New York and Washington DC in 2001, where three thousand people were murdered. But the reality is that many more had already died not just in acts of terrorism against Western interests, but in political insurrection and turmoil round the world. Over 100,000 died in Algeria. In Chechnya and Kashmir political causes that could have been resolved became brutally incapable of resolution under the pressure of terrorism. Today, in well over 30 or 40 countries terrorists are plotting action loosely linked with this ideology. Its roots are not superficial, therefore, they are deep, embedded now in the culture of many nations and capable of an eruption at any time.
The different aspects of this terrorism are linked. The struggle against terrorism in Madrid or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PIJ in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq. The murder of the innocent in Beslan is part of the same ideology that takes innocent lives in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen or Libya. And when Iran gives support to such terrorism, it becomes part of the same battle with the same ideology at its heart.
True the conventional view is that, for example, Iran is hostile to Al Qaida and therefore would never support its activities. But as we know from our own history of conflict, under the pressure of battle, alliances shift and change. Fundamentally, for this ideology, we are the enemy.
Which brings me to the fundamental point. "We" is not the West. "We" are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. "We" are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts.
This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other. And in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain. We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us. Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy. It is just that; it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong.
And this is why the position of so much opinion on how to defeat this terrorism and on the continuing struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Middle East is, in my judgement, so mistaken.
It ignores the true significance of the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact is: given the chance, the people wanted democracy. OK so they voted on religious or regional lines. That's not surprising, given the history. But there's not much doubt what all the main parties in both countries would prefer and it is neither theocratic nor secular dictatorship. The people - despite violence, intimidation, inexperience and often logistical nightmares - voted. Not a few. But in numbers large enough to shame many western democracies. They want Government decided by the people.
And who is trying to stop them? In Iraq, a mixture of foreign Jihadists, former Saddamists and rejectionist insurgents. In Afghanistan, a combination of drug barons, Taliban and Al Qaida.
In each case, US, UK and the forces of many other nations are there to help the indigenous security forces grow, to support the democratic process and to provide some clear bulwark against the terrorism that threatens it. In each case, full UN authority is in place. There was and is a debate about the legality of the original decision to remove Saddam. But since May 2003, the MNF has been in Iraq under a UN resolution and with the authority of the first ever elected Government. In Afghanistan throughout, UN authority has been in place.
In both countries, the armed forces and police service are taking shape so that in time a democratically elected government has, under its control, sufficient power to do the will of the democratic state. In each case again, people die queuing up to join such forces, determined whatever the risk, to be part of a new and different dispensation.
Of course, and wholly wrongly, there are abuses of human rights, mistakes made, things done that should not be done. There always were. But at least this time, someone demands redress; people are free to complain.
So here, in its most pure form, is a struggle between democracy and violence. People look back on the three years since the Iraq conflict; they point to the precarious nature of Iraq today and to those who have died - mainly in terrorist acts - and they say: how can it have been worth it?
But there is a different question to ask: why is it so important to the forces of reaction and violence to halt Iraq in its democratic tracks and tip it into sectarian war? Why do foreign terrorists from Al Qaida and its associates go across the border to kill and maim? Why does Syria not take stronger action to prevent them? Why does Iran meddle so furiously in the stability of Iraq?
Examine the propaganda poured into the minds of Arabs and Muslims. Every abuse at Abu Ghraib is exposed in detail; of course it is unacceptable but it is as if the only absence of due process in that part of the world is in prisons run by the Americans. Every conspiracy theory - from seizing Iraqi oil to imperial domination - is largely dusted down and repeated.
Why? The answer is that the reactionary elements know the importance of victory or defeat in Iraq. Right from the beginning, to them it was obvious. For sure, errors were made on our side. It is arguable that de-Baathification went too quickly and was spread too indiscriminately, especially amongst the armed forces. Though in parenthesis, the real worry, back in 2003 was a humanitarian crisis, which we avoided; and the pressure was all to de-Baathify faster.
But the basic problem from the murder of the United Nations staff in August 2003 onwards was simple: security. The reactionary elements were trying to de-rail both reconstruction and democracy by violence. Power and electricity became problems not through the indolence of either Iraqis or the MNF but through sabotage. People became frightened through terrorism and through criminal gangs, some deliberately released by Saddam.
These were not random acts. They were and are a strategy. When that strategy failed to push the MNF out of Iraq prematurely and failed to stop the voting; they turned to sectarian killing and outrage most notably February's savage and blasphemous destruction of the Shia Shrine at Samarra.
They know that if they can succeed either in Iraq or Afghanistan or indeed in Lebanon or anywhere else wanting to go the democratic route, then the choice of a modern democratic future for the Arab or Muslim world is dealt a potentially mortal blow. Likewise if they fail, and those countries become democracies and make progress and, in the case of Iraq, prosper rapidly as it would; then not merely is that a blow against their whole value system; but it is the most effective message possible against their wretched propaganda about America, the West, the rest of the world.
That to me is the painful irony of what is happening. They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake. They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong, that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.
What happens in Iraq or Afghanistan today is not just crucial for the people in those countries or even in those regions; but for our security here and round the world. It is a cause that has none of the debatable nature of the decisions to go for regime change; it is an entirely noble one - to help people in need of our help in pursuit of liberty; and a self-interested one, since in their salvation lies our own security.
Naturally, the debate over the wisdom of the original decisions, especially in respect of Iraq will continue. Opponents will say Iraq was never a threat; there were no WMD; the drug trade in Afghanistan continues. I will point out Iraq was indeed a threat as two regional wars, 14 UN resolutions and the final report of the Iraq Survey Group show; that in the aftermath of the Iraq War we secured major advances on WMD not least the new relationship with Libya and the shutting down of the AQ Khan network; and that it was the Taliban who manipulated the drug trade and in any event housed Al Qaida and its training camps.
But whatever the conclusion to this debate, if there ever is one, the fact is that now, whatever the rights and wrongs of how and why Saddam and the Taliban were removed, there is an obvious, clear and overwhelming reason for supporting the people of those countries in their desire for democracy.
I might point out too that in both countries supporters of the ideology represented by Saddam and Mullah Omar are free to stand in elections and on the rare occasions they dare to do so, don't win many votes.
Across the Arab and Muslim world such a struggle for democracy and liberty continues. One reason I am so passionate about Turkey's membership of the EU is precisely because it enhances the possibility of a good outcome to such a struggle. It should be our task to empower and support those in favour of uniting Islam and democracy, everywhere.
To do this, we must fight the ideas of the extremists, not just their actions; and stand up for and not walk away from those engaged in a life or death battle for freedom. The fact of their courage in doing so should give us courage; their determination should lend us strength; their embrace of democratic values, which do not belong to any race, religion or nation, but are universal, should reinforce our own confidence in those values.
Shortly after Saddam fell, I met in London a woman who after years of exile - and there were 4 million such exiles - had returned to Iraq to participate in modern politics there. A couple of months later, she was assassinated, one of the first to be so. I cannot tell what she would say now. But I do know it would not be: give up. She would not want her sacrifice for her beliefs to be in vain.
Two years later the same ideology killed people on the streets of London, and for the same reason. To stop cultures, faiths and races living in harmony; to deter those who see greater openness to others as a mark of humanity's progress; to disrupt the very thing that makes London special would in time, if allowed to, set Iraq on a course of progress too.
This is, ultimately, a battle about modernity. Some of it can only be conducted and won within Islam itself. But don't let us in our desire not to speak of what we can only imperfectly understand; or our wish not to trespass on sensitive feelings, end up accepting the premise of the very people fighting us.
The extremism is not the true voice of Islam. Neither is that voice necessarily to be found in those who are from one part only of Islamic thought, however assertively that voice makes itself heard. It is, as ever, to be found in the calm, but too often unheard beliefs of the many Muslims, millions of them the world over, including in Europe, who want what we all want: to be ourselves free and for others to be free also; who regard tolerance as a virtue and respect for the faith of others as part of our own faith. That is what this battle is about, within Islam and outside of it; it is a battle of values and progress; and therefore it is one we must win.
Government economist calls for boosting foreign labor (Japan Times, 3/22/06)
A scholar involved in the government's efforts to formulate a new economic strategy based on globalization called on Japan on Monday to accept more foreign labor as its rapidly aging population continues to shrink.Motoshige Ito, professor of economics at the University of Tokyo, said at the Foreign Press Center that the need for foreign laborers will rise in such areas as nursing, medical care and housekeeping because the number of working women is expected to climb as the labor shortage kicks in.
Expecting the demand for foreign laborers to grow, Ito said, "We have to provide adequate care to support the livelihood of foreign workers in education and other areas."
We want our money back (Christopher Hope, Jeff Randall and George Jones, 22/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Labour was plunged into a full-blown financial crisis last night after millionaire businessmen embarrassed by the disclosure that they had made "secret" loans insisted on the party paying back at least £6.5 million.The threat of Labour being bankrupted by the loans scandal came as Scotland Yard announced that it had opened an investigation into the alleged sale of peerages.
At least five of the 12 businessmen who lent almost £14 million to Labour last year expect to be repaid, a survey by The Daily Telegraph has found.
The five - including Chai Patel, Rod Aldridge, Sir Christopher Evans and Barry Townsley - advanced £6.5 million in total. All said they wanted the money back. About £3.5 million is due this year, with the remainder expected in 2008.
Typically, the businessmen have charged 6.5 per cent interest, which means the figure eventually repaid by Labour will be much higher. City experts believe the party could be running up interest charges of £1 million a year.
Vietnam-era deserter sorry he did it (The Associated Press, 3/20/06)
A Vietnam war-era deserter who was caught crossing into the United States and held for a week recently says he made a mistake when he went AWOL from the Marine Corps in 1968 and fled to Vancouver."When I was 18, I wasn't aware that duty and honor would mean as much to me as they do now," Allen Abney, 56, told a news conference Monday in this southeast British Columbia town.
"Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have done what I did 38 years ago," he said. "It wasn't worth it, all the pain I caused my family."
Abney said new anti-terrorist requirements for identification resulted in his arrest at the Eastport crossing at the northern end of the Idaho Panhandle.
He had used the same crossing countless times before, but March 9 was the first time he had to show his birth certificate as identification.
When the Customs agent asked him to pull over, Abney said, he looked at his wife and said, "I'm screwed."
Maligning McCain (Howard Kurtz, 3/21/06, Washington Post)
John McCain has always gotten great press, especially since he started riding around New Hampshire in a bus in 1999 and conducting rolling news conferences with reporters that would last for hours.McCain fell short in that election, of course, but he emerged as the media's favorite maverick. In the first Bush term, McCain won some battles in which he challenged his own party--on campaign finance reform and an anti-torture amendment--that further burnished his legend as an independent truth-teller. John Kerry, you may recall, even begged him to run on the Democratic ticket.
During that whole time, McCain never presented himself as anything other than a rock-ribbed conservative, albeit one who took moderate stances on a few issues. I lost track of the number of liberals who told me privately that they would vote for McCain, even though they disagreed with him on a whole bunch of things, because they viewed him as a leader, war hero and straight talker.
But now, in the early maneuvering for 2008, the Arizona senator (who has been going out of his way to back the battered Bush) is seen in many quarters as the front-runner. And, the ridiculously early CW goes, if he gets the GOP nomination, he would be a good bet to win the White House.
The result: The left is trying to rough him up a bit.
He is, some commentators are shocked to discover, not just a Republican but a conservative.
Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details: Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen? (Aram Roston, Lisa Myers, NBC News, 3/20/06)
In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence....Wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on the wall at NBC News this week:The sources say Sabri’s answers were much more accurate than his proclamations to the United Nations, where he demonized the U.S. and defended Saddam. At the same time, they also were closer to reality than the CIA's estimates, as spelled out in its October 2002 intelligence estimate.
For example, consider biological weapons, a key concern before the war. The CIA said Saddam had an "active" program for "R&D, production and weaponization" for biological agents such as anthrax. Intelligence sources say Sabri indicated Saddam had no significant, active biological weapons program. Sabri was right. After the war, it became clear that there was no program.
Another key issue was the nuclear question: How far away was Saddam from having a bomb? The CIA said if Saddam obtained enriched uranium, he could build a nuclear bomb in "several months to a year." Sabri said Saddam desperately wanted a bomb, but would need much more time than that. Sabri was more accurate.
On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.
Reporter 1: I've got a report on how international anti-war protests are sweeping the world, demonstrating that Bush has squandered the world's traditional love of all things American.
Reporter 2: I've got a report on two Harvard proffessors who say that Israeli lobbyists have captured American foreign policy.
Reporter 3: Uh, bad news, boss. I've got a report that the Iraqi Foreign Minister was passing Iraqi secrets along to the CIA before the war, including that Iraq was stockpiling WMD's, was in violation of the UN's resolutions and that Saddam still wanted to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.
Ed: We can't use that. Wait, did he say anything that was contrary to the administration?
Reporter 3: He denied that Iraq had any active WMD programs....
Ed: Great, run with that. Can't you guys even recognize the lede when you stumble over it?
Iraqi soldiers graduate Humvee course, receive two dozen new Humvees (US Army, 3/21/06)
Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division received 24 High Mobility, Multi-wheeled Vehicles (Humvees) yesterday after graduating from a three-week Humvee licensing and preventive maintenance course.I know that Americans aren't paying any attentioin, but I have to wonder if anyone else has noticed that we're going to leave the Iraqis with the second-best army in the region.More than 20 enlisted soldiers were recognized in a formal graduation ceremony, where they received certificates of completion from the commanding general of the 2nd Brigade and the commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 7, Col. W. Blake Crowe....
“We get new vehicles to help us fight terrorism,” said one Iraqi Army officer following the graduation. “Now, we can help our battalions with convoys and use this vehicle to help support our battalions. There are future bad days for the insurgents.”...
Greene and a handful of his Marines worked “day and night” with the Iraqi soldiers to complete the training.
Lance Cpl. Jonathan B. Vest, a 20-year-old Marine mechanic from Claremore, Okla., spent countless hours under the hoods of the vehicles with the Iraqi soldiers, and says he was impressed by their eagerness to learn.“They’re fast learners,” said Vest. “Most of them were in one of the Humvees the whole time. It shows that progress is being made and that they are improving.”
The Mystery of the Numbers: We all love movies that make us laugh, even in the worst of times—and from B&C's annual baseball preview, 2006 edition. (Michael R. Stevens, 03/20/06, Books & Culture)
I can't begin to cover all the angles that 27 essays in the volume use to approach the game, let alone account for the motherlode of new formulae and extensive acronyms that now apply (my favorite, from a rhetorician's perspective, is PAP—Pitcher Abuse Points). But I'll mention a few of the essays that reveal the tension of the old-school baseball fan in the face of the new statistical onslaught. Chapter 4-1, "What If Rickey Henderson Had Pete Incaviglia's Legs?" by James Click, is an extended meditation on the overvaluation given to stolen bases as compared to simply sound baserunning. Now here is the difficulty: those of us who watched Rickey in his prime know that he was among the most exciting, nerve-wracking players of our time (and that's a long time, since he played for a quarter century!). But the harsh numbers reveal a different story. After factoring in the sliding-scale (no pun, I swear!) for stolen-base value by inning, and the damage done by the infamous "caught stealing," James Click reveals the unthinkable: "In a typical season, the difference between a great baserunner and a terrible one is significantly smaller than between the best and worst hitters in the league. If Henderson hadn't stolen a single base in 1982, the A's would have lost about 2 runs on the season, or about one-fifth of a game. If he'd been as good as Incaviglia on the basepaths over his career, he would have contributed about 5 fewer wins in 25 seasons. He was fun to watch, but the first rule of baserunning is 'don't get caught,' advice Henderson disobeyed more than 700 times. Taking the extra base is good, but getting on base and eventually scoring is better." Scoring runs and accruing wins—that resounds like a chorus throughout the essays, biting into our nostalgia and sentiment. It is clearly a book written for General Managers and their ilk, guardians of efficiency and maximum return on investment.But there is a bit of baseball's poetry still flowing amidst the numbers. In Chapter 2-1, "Why Are Pitchers So Unpredictable?" by Keith Woolner and Dayn Perry (a chapter of immediate interest to any Cub fans glancing at the table of contents), we witness the question eloquently analyzed: "An intricate web of interrelated and overlapping actions must ultimately align to deliver a successful pitch." The faultiness of the notion of ERA, which doesn't even correlate to runs scored or winning and losing, and is tied painfully into defensive performance, invites the creation of DIPS ERA (defense-independent pitching statistics). Here, only the situations that a pitcher can control—strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, and home runs—are factored in. Then, the authors apply the kind of exactitude that makes this book maddening and compelling by further tweaking home-run rate into groundball-tendency rate, to get as accurate a read as possible on what a pitcher can control. The final claim is thus a bold departure from the usual head-scratching about finicky pitching stats: "Pitchers are unpredictable in that they're more likely to get injured or fatigued than any other player on the diamond. But when it comes to measuring a pitcher's performance by the numbers, only flawed, context-dependent measures such as wins and ERA make them unpredictable. Use the right measures, and pitching performance becomes less enigmatic."
Indeed, many of the essays thrust daggers at the heart of cherished baseball stratagems, daggers wrought of carefully derived numerical margins and the bottom-line of scoring/preventing runs and earning wins. The onslaught is most obvious in the provocative Chapter 3.4 "Is Joe Torre a Hall of Fame Manager?" by James Click, where we are introduced to the rather startling notion that almost all traditional managerial moves are destructive! Hence, "the primary conclusion to be taken from this analysis is that nearly every manager costs his team wins through overuse of these strategies. Only six times in thirty-three years has any manager used sacrifice attempts, stolen base attempts, and intentional walks to increase his team's win expectation over an entire. Even the best managers cost their team more than a game per season by employing these tactics." So much for "the inside game"!
Elsewhere, in the essay "Was Billy Martin Crazy?" (bite your tongues—I'm a virulent Yankees fan), we hear from James Click that "Batting order simply does not make that much difference … Teams without a player of Bond's caliber could gain about 10 runs (1 win) a year by routinely batting their players in order of descending OBP [on-base percentage]." Another item mentioned in several of the essays is the misuse of bullpens in contemporary baseball; James Click laments "the near complete absence of bullpen innovation in modern baseball," and Keith Woolner responds to his own question "Are Teams Letting Their Closers Go to Waste?" by pointing out that "This is one area where the refinement of strategy has actually taken us away from the optimal usage pattern. During the 'stopper' era of the 1970's, it was common to see a relief ace such as Rollie Fingers or Goose Gossage come in as early as the sixth inning to halt a nascent rally. That was the smart way to go. Focusing on situational leverage, rather than the accumulation of easy ninth-inning saves, is the best way to get the most out of a relief ace." Once again, a commonly held strategy is shown to be counter-productive, and we are left enlightened and yet frustrated. We have to rethink the basics of the game.
Dem Focus on Unmarried Voters Ducks Their Problem (Peter Brown, 3/21/06, Real Clear Politics)
There they go again.Democrats lost the 2004 presidential election even though they met the party's goal of turning out more of their targeted voters.
Now they have decided to target a new demographic group. But, that group is made up of mostly the same people they have focused on over the years during which they lost their grip on the nation's political power.
Their new target: unmarried people, especially single women.
If Only …: The lessons of our Iraqi bungles. (Fred Kaplan, March 20, 2006, Slate)
A question worth mulling, on this third anniversary of the war that President Bush told us was over and won two years and 10 months ago, is this: Were the fiascos inevitable—built-in products of the nature of the war itself—or could they have been avoided, or at least might their impact have been minimized, if President Bush and his top advisers had made smarter decisions?This isn't the stuff of parlor games; it's a vital question. If the disasters were inescapable, then we shouldn't get involved ever again in this sort of war. If they were preventable, then maybe these broader issues of war and peace can't be settled by this particular conflict, but we can draw the lesson that we should elect less dogmatic leaders; and the officers and advisers who counseled against those decisions, who turned out to be right all along, can draw the lesson that they should speak out more boldly, perhaps even resign in protest, if they find themselves mired in such catastrophes again.
So, let us review the key strategic bungles of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the pivotal moments in this anguishing chronicle—not the decisions that seem mistaken only in hindsight (a too-easy enterprise), but those that some senior officials saw and warned about as mistaken at the time.
(1) We should have helped the Shi'ites overthrow Saddam in '91. Not only was rule by Saddam antithetical to every American ideal, but having encouraged the rising we bore moral responsibility for it. Because we instead helped him to put down the rebellion and then imposed and maintained sanctions for over ten years it was unrealistic to expect the Shi'ites to be particulalry enthusiastic about our return in '03. we earned their distrust, perhaps even enmity.
(2) We should have recognized Kurdistan as a sovereign state after peeling it off from Iraq in '91. Maintaining the fiction that it was still part of a greater Iraq served no one well. Helping the Kurds to create a viable democratic state would have served as important example of how benign our intentions in the Middle East really are.
(3) We should have had a transitional government up ande ready to accept a handover of sovereignty in Iraq before we began the regime change. This government would have needed Ayatollah Sistani's stamp of approval, but that wouldn't have been a problem, and would have had to be clearly designated as just a temporary authority until elections could be held.
(4) Whether there should have been less troops in the initial invasion or not--it seems likely there should have been--the ones that were sent should have been drawn down much quicker. Structuring the post-war period as an occupation treated the Shi'ite majority of the Iraqi people as the vanquished enemy rather than as Saddam's victims--like they were the Germans after WWII when they were much closer to being the Jews.
The revealing thing about this set of mistakes is that they all represent instances when we didn't act sufficiently in accord with our own liberationist theology, didn't trust the Iraqi people and their natural desire for democracy enough. The lessons they teach all have to do with our being more rigorous in applying the ideas that underlie the crusade for liberty as we move forward to take on other oppressive regimes in the future.
In full pursuit of democracy (Tod Lindberg, March 21, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Mr. Fukuyama, in "The End of History and the Last Man," posited classically liberal, democratic capitalism as the final answer to the question of how the world's political economy would be organized, a system beyond the reach of serious challenge by any ideological competitor. Going forward, how the challenge of radical Islam fits into this scheme is an unsettled question. But the more important element of Mr. Fukuyama's analysis was his twofold explanation of why democraticcapitalism prevails.
The first element was simply its success: The command economies of the Soviet era were failures, and the productive capacity of the West (broadly construed) outstrips that of all other economic "models." Insofar as a serious challenge to the democratic capitalist order would require resources at a level that could be competitive, other systems, such as communism and national socialism, are simply unable to generate them over the long run.
That's the material element. But Mr. Fukuyama also explored another avenue, this time of a "spiritual" nature, underlying the material circumstances. He described democratic capitalism as the system that best satisfies people's desire for mutual recognition as free and equal human beings, a desire Mr. Fukuyama described as fundamental.
As far as I am able to make out (without yet having read his new book), Mr. Fukuyama now regards the first element of his explanation as decisive and the second as problematic. In reviewing his previous work, he has characterized "The End of History" as essentially a thesis about globalization. The element of psychic satisfaction is much diminished.
That becomes a problem because the Bush administration is all about the psychic satisfaction of liberal democracy. As the new National Security Strategy itself notes, "we believe that the desire for freedom lives in every human heart and the imperative of human dignity transcends all nations and cultures." Hence the administration's stated goal of "ending tyranny" and democratic transformation.
Now, good things, in the administration's reckoning, follow from this: "Governments that honor their citizens' dignity and desire for freedom tend to uphold responsible conduct toward other nations." But the point is that this analysis begins from a Fukuyamian premise no longer embraced by Mr. Fukuyama, who has become much more interested in the vexing questions of cultural impediments and individual psychological impediments to acceptance of democracy as a form of satisfaction.
Showtime in Illinois (Tom Bevan, 3/20/06, Real Clear Politics)
Tomorrow is primary day in Illinois and there are three races to watch. The first, and biggest, is the GOP primary for Governor which has essentially boiled down to a two person race between moderate Judy Baar Topinka and conservative Jim Oberweis.Topinka is the only Republican currently holding statewide office (Treasurer) which demonstrates her appeal in a state where the GOP has basically been reduced to a smoldering heap of ruins. [...]
Oberweis, the multimillionaire dairy magnate and financial services manager, is a two-time loser for the GOP Senate nomination, most recently in 2004 when he made a name for himself - in a bad way - with an over the top anti-immigrant TV spot that had him flying in a helicopter over Soldier Field. [...]
However, Oberweis has problems of his own, which include an alternative conservative candidate pulling double digits (State Senator Bill Brady, 15%) and a penchant for making himself look silly by daring his opponents to draw straws for the nomination and passing out coupons for free ice cream wherever he goes. Frankly, Oberweis would be more of a threat if he wasn't such a bad candidate. Be that as it may, Oberweis may have a good enough organization to make this one close.
In the buildup to today's Republican primary election for governor in Illinois, it has been all but impossible to ignore the campaign bluster over the George H. Ryan factor.Judy Baar Topinka, the state treasurer and onetime leader of the Illinois Republican Party, is leading the polls in the five-way fight and is seen as the party's best chance to unseat incumbent Democrat Rod Blagojevich. [...]
Oberweis has had to battle against his own connections to Ryan. He has admitted that he sought Ryan's support while making a bid in the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate. And one of Oberweis' deputy campaign managers, Brad Roseberry, was subpoenaed to testify at Ryan's trial. Roseberry told jurors that, while on the clock as a state employee, he spent the majority of his time campaigning for Ryan and other GOP candidates.
Islamic preacher ripped for reform push: Popular Egyptian televangelist tries to bridge Islam and West (AP, 3/20/06)
Islamic televangelist Amr Khaled is young, smiling, teaches love and mercy and is so popular he's credited with inspiring thousands of women -- turned off by dour, traditional clerics -- to take on the veil.The idea that Islam is fundamentally different from its brother religions is no more likely to survive than the idea that Muslims are fundamentally different from other human beings.Now he's putting his popularity on the line by trying a new role, as a bridge between Islam and the West at a time when many are talking about a clash of civilizations.
In the process, Khaled is sometimes telling the faithful what they're not used to hearing from clerics -- that Muslims aren't blameless in tensions, that the West is not always bad and that dialogue is better than confrontation.
"A young Muslim goes to Europe with a forged visa, takes unemployment insurance there, then goes on TV and says, 'We're going to expel you from Britain, take your land, money and women,'" Khaled said recently on his weekly program on the Saudi satellite TV channel Iqraa, trying to explain mistrust of Muslims in Europe. "It's a rare example but it exists."
U.S. eyes privatizing cargo security work (Audrey Hudson, 3/21/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Homeland Security officials are looking to have private companies validate the security procedures under which cargo travels from foreign ports into U.S. terminals.
The program, which would give speedier entry to U.S. ports to ships and suppliers that meet the security standards, is now in the hands of 80 Homeland Security inspectors who have to plow through more than 10,000 applicants.
Although Homeland Security plans to hire an additional 40 inspectors in the coming months, the department also is looking to outsource to private companies some of its duties, in particular the validation process, which has dragged for years and involves on-site inspections of ships and cargo abroad.
Bangkok shrine attacker is killed (BBC, 3/21/06)
A Muslim man has been beaten to death in Thailand after attacking a Hindu shrine in the capital, Bangkok.
Freedom, Yes, Iraqis Say, But at Great, Grave Cost: Contrasts to Hussein Era Leave Some Hopeful, Others Bitter (John Ward Anderson and Omar Fekeiki, 3/21/06, Washington Post)
Sardar Muhsin Maheed, 25, a student at Mosul University, said too many people blamed the occupation for all of Iraq's ills. He traced most problems to Hussein, suggesting that issues such as the poor economy are legacies of the ousted president."The U.S. has liberated us from Saddam and his oppression," he said. "We are not ready to form a democratic state, and that is because of the burden left by Saddam's regime."
Another of Hussein's legacies, he said, was sectarian tension in the country. An Iraqi government has been democratically elected, but the politicians and their parties are creating a new Iraq based on religious and ethnic interests.
Luay Mohammed, a 57-year-old Sunni Arab who spent 35 years working for the Education Ministry, said he was forced to retire because the government and the ministry are now run by Shiite Muslims. His son could not get a job "because he is not a Shiite and he did not suffer" under Hussein, Mohammed said, his voice laced with bitterness and sarcasm.
"We've been waiting for years for true democracy to come, a democracy that makes everybody live and work together with respect and love. But here it is: a democracy with maximum chaos," he said. Now, all of his sons have cellular telephones -- not because it is hip or because of a communications boom, but because the security situation demands it. "This is what democracy has brought us."
The U.N. sanctions that had been imposed on Hussein's government have been lifted, and a vibrant free press has emerged. But unemployment is stuck between 27 and 40 percent, while oil production -- which the government counts on to generate 90 percent of its revenue -- remains below prewar levels.
"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime was worth everything," said Fakhri Fikry Kareem, owner and publisher of the daily Meda newspaper, one of more than 100 newspapers that have begun publishing in Iraq since Hussein's fall. Despite a rocket attack on his office, a bomb attack on his car and the killing of three of his reporters, Kareem said: "I have never felt as free to speak any day in my life as today. If George Bush did anything good, it was toppling Saddam Hussein."
Kareem, 63, said he opposed the war. While drinking Turkish coffee and fingering a long string of worry beads in his Baghdad living room, he talked of what might have been, suggesting that perhaps the United States could have removed Hussein without starting a broader conflict.
"I am not pessimistic," he said. "But I'm upset, because the war and the occupation, which could have led to a new situation in Iraq, were squandered by the stupid mistakes committed by the American administration and military and the U.S. representatives in Iraq."
Subhi Nadhem Tawfik, a professor at Baghdad University's Center for Strategic Studies, said people no longer believed that helping Iraq was foremost on the U.S. agenda during the invasion. "The U.S. has won a tremendous strategic victory," which has come increasingly at the expense of Iraq, he said.
"With the occupation of Iraq, the strategic significance of all the states in the region was diminished," Tawfik said.
Call for action in schools as racist crime in Scotland hits all-time high (MICHAEL HOWIE, 3/21/06, The Scotsman)
MORE racist crimes are being recorded by Scottish police than ever before, with offences running 11 per cent higher than last year, a Scotsman investigation has revealed.The total number of racist incidents recorded by police is set to exceed 4,800 in the year to the end of April - compared to 4,349 in 2004-5.
Since police began recording racist crimes in 2000, the number of incidents has soared by around 75 per cent.
The President's Crown Jewel (Robert T. McLean, March 21, 2006, FrontPageMagazine.com)
While it is a widely held belief that Prime Minister Singh has minimal interest in helping the United States balance China, recent Chinese strategic advances in the Indian Ocean have the potential of encircling his country. Beijing has been strengthening its long-held alliance with Pakistan and is in the process of developing the Port of Gwadar, providing China with access to the Arabian Sea to India’s west. To the East, Beijing hopes to establish a semi-client state in Burma and currently exerts more influence with the military regime than any other external actor. These developments, coupled with disputed border lines and Chinese military advances, leave India as a natural ally of the United States and undoubtedly have factored into Singh’s assessments.The strengthening of relations between Washington and Delhi has already had an effect on trade between the two countries. This is essential for the United States because as trade continues to grow, so too does America’s trade deficit with India. The imbalance reached over $1.2 billion in favor of New Delhi in the month of January alone. The Bush administration – in particular, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who also made the trip – is actively seeking Indian measures to lower its trade barriers to allow more American products to enter India’s vast and expanding market. Efforts to increase American capital into India were made during the early March trip as business leaders from both countries discussed ways to encourage investment in physical infrastructure, such as turning Bombay into a regional financial center. [...]
Militarily advantages to the United States from this partnership are clear. India’s potential for manpower alone could be significant in any future conflict and New Delhi has been offered both F-16 and F-18 fighter aircraft from the Pentagon. Since 2002, India and the United States have conducted thirty joint military operations. According to Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Indians are also building three carrier fleets and have stepped up regional cooperation with neighbors such as Singapore and Sri Lanka to counter China’s quest for influence on India’s periphery.
Of equal importance, the growing alliance with New Delhi will produce concrete geopolitical gains for the United States. India has traditionally been rather hostile to American interests in international forums, such as the United Nations. However, New Delhi decided to join the United States at the IAEA on Iran, and increased congruency will continue to arise as the partnership strengthens and the Washington expands its influence with India.
As President Bush noted as he concluded his trip to India, “the United States and India, separated by half the globe, are closer than ever before and the partnership between our free nations has the power to transform the world.” Washington and New Delhi are united by a relatively parallel set of interests and values. While there will inevitably be situations that arise where our interests may vary, it is likely that India will emerge with Japan – and perhaps South Korea – as the principal American allies in Asia. The ramifications of such a development are large, and the United States, as well as the president’s legacy, will be rewarded immeasurably.
MORE:
Getting India Right (Parag Khanna and C. Raja Mohan, February/March 2006, Policy Review)
I'm boss, Hil tells Bill: Senator's word is now 'final,' says the ex-Prez (KENNETH R. BAZINET, 3/21/06, NY DAILY NEWS)
After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said.
Asia's young democracies are showing their age (Paul Wiseman, 3/20/06, USA TODAY)
Across East Asia, young democracies are struggling with street demonstrations, impeachment drives, autocratic and erratic elected leaders and political battles that have nothing to do with the challenges of governing complex, changing societies."I am frankly worried" about the fragility of democracy in the region, [Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution] says. Consider:
•The Philippines continues to struggle with the legacy of two People Power revolutions — one that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos and established democracy in 1986 and one that ousted Estrada in 2001 and replaced him with his technocratic vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now Arroyo, facing allegations of corruption and electoral fraud, is fending off calls for her resignation. She declared a weeklong state of emergency Feb. 24, charging that her opponents in the military and on the far left were planning a coup.
•In Taiwan, which emerged from martial law in 1987 and held its first free presidential election in 1996, opposition parties want second-term President Chen Shui-bian impeached. About 20,000 people turned out Sunday in Taipei to challenge his policies and legitimacy.
The president's party suffered big losses in local elections in December. He has responded by trying to rally his base in the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Most recently, he closed a government office dedicated to working toward eventual reunion with China — a move that risked conflict with China and defied warnings from the United States. Chen also has played up divisions between "mainlanders" who fled across the Taiwan Strait after communists took over China in 1949 and "native" Taiwanese, who support his party. "The deep, polarizing division over national identity ... has retarded the process of democratic maturation in Taiwan," Diamond says.
•South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae Chan resigned last week after coming under fire for playing golf during a national railway strike. The episode blew up into a scandal when it was revealed that Lee's golf partners included a man with a criminal record. Even so, "the way he was shot down did not involve a substantive issue," says Byung Kook Kim, director of the East Asia Institute, a Seoul think tank.
The incident was typical for the region, where weak and immature political parties focus on exposing opponents' supposed ethical lapses instead of on policy.
Belle and Sebastian pouring out their souls — again (Ross Raihala, 3/21/06, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
When Belle and Sebastian emerged a decade ago, the Scottish seven-piece instantly built a cult following based on what it didn't do. The band didn't conduct interviews, pose for publicity photos or embark on proper tours.Those idiosyncrasies — coupled with leader Stuart Murdoch's insular, wry lyrics — proved to be polarizing. Detractors branded Belle and Sebastian's music as the soundtrack for tea-sipping, poetry-reading shut-ins, while fans passionately declared the band the most important of its ilk since the Smiths.
MORE:
-AUDIO: Belle and Sebastian Concert (NPR.org, March 6, 2006)
-Belle and Sebastian (NPR, March 02, 2006, Here and Now)
-Belle and Sebastian: 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' (Steve Inskeep, October 12, 2003, All Things Considered)
Cuba falls to Japan in final (Jack Etkin, March 21, 2006, Rocky Mountain News)
The possibility of players from Cuba rolling around American soil in their distinctive red uniforms and celebrating could have sent shudders through the State Department and made commissioner Bud Selig and others in Major League Baseball's hierarchy a bit uneasy.Japan prevented that outcome with a 10-6 victory, but not before Cuba came roaring back Monday in the final of the World Baseball Classic and a crowd of 42,696 at Petco Park was treated to an abbreviated, and somewhat muted, late-inning touch that was distinctly American and very local.
After Cuba cut the lead to 6-5 on a two-run home run in the eighth by Frederich Cepeda, Akinori Otsuka came out of Japan's bullpen. He spent the past two years in a setup role for the San Diego Padres before being traded to Texas in the off-season.
As Otsuka ran onto the field, Hells Bells - the AC/DC song that blares out to theatrically accompany the appearance of closer Trevor Hoffman - was played for Otsuka, who pitched the final 1 2/3 innings to earn the save and had asked the Padres reliever for permission to use the song. He retired the two batters he faced in the eighth, and Japan, able to exhale, broke the game open with four runs in the ninth.
My Ideal War: How the international community should have responded to Bush's September 2002 U.N. speech. (Christopher Hitchens, March 20, 2006, Slate)
So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.
Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.
Oil prices fall by more than $2 a barrel (Associated Press, 3/20/06)
Oil prices fell by more than $2 a barrel today, maintaining downward momentum from late last week after OPEC lowered its demand forecasts and U.S. crude oil inventories grew.
Hispanic Catholics Celebrate Faith in Harmony: Worshipers Jam D.C. Armory for Weekend Revival (Mary Otto, 3/19/06, Washington Post)
Sister Olga Lucia Parado had the crowd of thousands moving. Long habit swaying to the beat of the drums, she belted out a lively cumbia and cried Aleluya !And why not?
"God made the salsa," said Manuel Aviles, looking on yesterday at the swaying throngs in the D.C. Armory. "God made the merengue."
A vast, weekend-long revival and celebration of faith was expected to draw 10,000 Hispanic Catholics to the Washington region's second Encuentro Catolico to sing and pray, weep and dance.
Yesterday, there were rosaries and electric guitars, incense and drums, priests clapping and laborers forgetting their cares as the revival unfolded.
The excitement of the preachers and drummers seemed akin to evangelical and Pentecostal styles of worship that, in recent years, have attracted many Hispanics away from their 500-year-old Catholic traditions. But Catholics too have started to embrace a more charismatic approach, especially in places such as the metro area, where thanks to immigration, the Hispanic population is estimated at more than 575,000 -- although many believe the number is much higher.
It's not competition for souls, said the Rev. Jose Eugenio Hoyos, director of the Spanish Apostolate for the Diocese of Arlington.
"We can't compete for the love of God," he said. This style of worship is "an expression through music to show God is alive."
That is why Ecuadorean-born Ligia Pasquel said she came yesterday -- to bask in the music and the comfort of faith. Immigration can be lonely, said Pasquel, who lives in Silver Spring. Life as a house-cleaner can be hard.
Yet, she added, "God is all the time in my life."
"There is a lot of healing," agreed Jose Morris Gutierrez, a Salvadoran-born plumber, leading his 5-year-old daughter, Belen, by the hand.
He said many in the crowd are struggling.
"They live in a house with no heat, no hot water. They came here to feel better."
If Bush ruled the world (William Pfaff, MARCH 20, 2006, International Herald Tribune)
Intellectual poverty is the most striking quality of the Bush administration's new National Security Strategy statement, issued on Thursday. Its overall incoherence, its clichés and stereotyped phraseology give the impression that Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, and his fellow authors assembled it from the boilerplate of bureaucratic discourse with contempt for the Congress to whom it is primarily addressed.It reveals the administration's foreign policy as a lumpy stew of discredited neoconservative ideas with some neo- Kissingerian geopolitics now mixed in.
The statement's only visible purpose is to address a further threat to Iran, as its predecessor, in 2002, threatened Iraq. The only actual "strategy" that can be deduced from it is that the Bush administration wishes to rule the world. The document is nonsensical in content, insulting to other nations and unachievable in declared intention.
If people read it to find a statement of American foreign policy's objective, they will learn that the United States has "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Good luck.
Best job market in 5 years for grads: report (Reuters, 3/20/06)
U.S. college graduates are facing the best job market since 2001, with business, computer, engineering, education and health care grads in highest demand, a report by an employment consulting firm showed on Monday."We are approaching full employment and some employers are already dreaming up perks to attract the best talent," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In its annual outlook of entry-level jobs, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said strong job growth and falling unemployment makes this spring the hottest job market for America's 1.4 million college graduates since the dot-com collapse in 2001.
Social Security reform rejected (Amy Fagan, March 20, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Last week, during the Senate budget debate, Republicans raised the issue of Social Security reform, and Democrats -- surprised that the issue won't go away -- pledged to make it a major campaign issue this year. [...]Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, offered the proposal, which would have let Congress create a reserve fund protected under budget rules to save the Social Security surplus to pay for future benefits instead of other federal programs, as happens now.
"There is simply no way to save Social Security if we don't have the courage to stop using the surplus as a secret slush fund," Mr. DeMint said. "We will not be deterred by cynics who offer no solutions."
The Senate defeated the proposal 53-46, with eight Republicans voting no, but Democrats still called it a step towards creating the Social Security private accounts that President Bush wants.
Mr. Schumer pledged to tell voters that electing a Democratic Senate is the only way to "make sure Social Security isn't privatized."
"Any time there's an opportunity to privatize Social Security, they'll take it," said Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat. He said the DeMint proposal was "evidence today that they're going to stick with it."
Mr. Bush's proposal to let individuals divert a part of the Social Security's payroll tax into personal retirement accounts was "soundly rejected by the American people," yet Republicans still pursue it, Mr. Baucus said.
One nation, under Allah: an interview with Robert Ferrigno: Orrin Judd interviews Robert Ferrigno, author of Prayers for the Assassin, a novel about the near future which posits a world where much of the United States has become an Islamic state (Orrin C. Judd, 3/20/06, Enter Stage Right)
Best-selling novelist Robert Ferrigno burst onto the crime thriller scene with his critically-acclaimed 1990 debut, The Horse Latitudes. With his penchant for rendering truly scary psycho-killer villains against a sunny Southern California backdrop, he soon developed a reputation for delivering a combination of what NY Times mystery reviewer Marilyn Stasio termed, "frantic energy" and "macabre fun." But his new futuristic thriller, Prayers for the Assassin, represents a considerable departure.In the year 2040, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Mecca have all been devastated by nuclear warheads, the attacks admitted to by Mossad agents who were trying to drive a wedge between the West and the Islamic world (giving the event the title the Zionist Betrayal). The resulting chaos has led to the creation of an Islamic States of America, making up most of the Northern and Western states of the old Union. An uneasy truce exists with the Bible Belt states of the South after a long civil war, and the Catholic Church is tolerated, but the federal government is essentially an Islamic republic.
Within this richly imagined context, Mr. Ferrigno sets the story of Rakkim Epps, a former elite soldier in the American Fedayeen, and Sarah Dougan, a young historian who has uncovered evidence that casts doubt on the official version of the Zionist Betrayal. The two were raised by Redbeard, the head of State Security -- Rakkim an orphan he found on the street; Sarah, the daughter of Redbeard's assassinated brother. When Sarah disappears, Redbeard asks the estranged Rakkim to find her, without revealing why she's gone into hiding. As he searches, Rakkim soon finds himself shadowed by Darwin, an assassin and psychopath, who serves the Wise Old One, a fundamentalist leader who thinks Redbeard and others in the government too moderate.
All of the author's usual chops are on full display, so fans and thriller readers will be satisfied, but the background he provides will interest even policy wonks and political mavens. Fiction is used here to make us consider why a billion people choose Islam and whether it's too far-fetched to think that Americans might find it attractive under the right circumstances. As Mark Steyn said in his review, "If it's a choice between the defeatism and self-loathing of the Piss Christified West and a stern unyielding eternal Allah, maybe it's Islam that will prove the great seducer."
Mr. Ferrigno kindly took time out from his author's tour to answer some questions about where he got his ideas for the novel and what he hopes readers will take away from it.
Student Riots Shake France to the Core: It's youth against the establishment in France as university students battle a planned labor market reform. Just like in 1968, the revolt threatens to paralyze the entire nation. With a sluggish economy, though, France desperately needs labor market improvements. (Mathieu von Rohr, 3/20/06, Der Spiegel)
At first glance, the demonstrations recall what happens whenever the Grande Nation tries to catch up with social change. The government enacts a reform, protestors take to the streets to voice their opposition, and in the end, the government backs down from its position. But this time, it may turn out differently. This time, it looks as though Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin may have little other choice than to push through the contentious legislation, even in the face of fierce opposition.
GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION RALLY, SAN FRANCISCO, MARCH 18, 2006 (Zombie Time)
[W]hen March 18 finally arrived, there was no one single big rally to unify everyone who was against the war and/or against the government. Inevitably, this fracturing of the movement caused all the various events to attract substantially lower attendance than in previous years, even when the number of attendees at all the March 18 events were added together. According to reasonable estimates, no more than 10,000 people showed up at the main ANSWER rally (a total that seems about right, according to my personal observation). The Anarchist Bookfair drew a few thousand throughout the day. And most of the suburban rallies drew a few hundred each, though a couple may have been in the low thousands.There was no way one person could cover all the rallies, so I attended both San Francisco events.
This first photo essay covers the ANSWER "Global Day of Action" rally that started at San Francisco's Civic Center around noon. At the bottom of this page you will find a link to my report on the Anarchist Bookfair, which I visited later in the afternoon.
Heading to Canada, freed Chinese dissident held by Thais (GEOFFREY YORK, 3/20/06, Globe and Mail)
Seventeen years after a recklessly courageous anti-Maoist gesture, Lu Decheng has served his prison time and paid his price. But even now, on the verge of freedom in Canada, he cannot escape the long arm of Chinese repression.The veteran Chinese dissident, who fled to Thailand after spending nine years in a Chinese prison for splashing red paint on the famous Mao portrait in Tiananmen Square, has found himself unexpectedly blocked from refuge in Canada -- even with a Canadian visa in hand. [...]
Mr. Lu's case could become an early test of the foreign policies of the Stephen Harper government in Ottawa, which has pledged to support human rights in China. Under the previous government, many Conservative MPs complained that the Liberals were ignoring human rights in their scramble for Chinese business deals. [...]
NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough urged Ottawa to take action. "In opposition the Conservatives expressed concerns over Chinese human-rights violations, now in government they have an opportunity to prove those concerns were genuine," she said. "The federal government must convince the Chinese government to allow Mr. Decheng to come to Canada."
But the case might also trigger a new diplomatic clash between Beijing and Ottawa.
The way forward for Iraq hinges on the US's way out: Western experts agree that Iraq is not yet lost, but differ on how to withdraw (Mark Sappenfield and Mark Rice-Oxley, 3/20/06, CS Monitor)
[T]o many others, Iraqi leaders won't be forced to make the hard decisions until the security blanket of coalition forces is gone - or at least on its way out. "With the new government, we're going to have to talk tough," says former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, who oversaw America's gradual withdrawal from Vietnam. "If we don't start moving, we're never going to get them to realize that they have to fulfill their responsibilities."He contends that South Vietnam fell only when Congress decided to cut support to the South Vietnamese military - two years after the withdrawal of troops. "Let [the Iraqis] know that we will stand with them," he says.
Chirac may back down over job law backlash (Colin Randall, 20/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
President Jacques Chirac was under pressure from the threat of a general strike over France's new employment law.The unrest could force his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, to perform a humiliating climb-down.
Behind Louisiana Aid Package, a Change of Heart by One Man (SHAILA DEWAN, 3/20/06, NY Times)
Louisiana was in a foul mood on the February day that President Bush's Gulf Coast rebuilding coordinator, Donald E. Powell, stood before an audience of fellow bankers in Baton Rouge.Two weeks before, the administration had rejected Louisiana's housing recovery plan. Mr. Powell's own idea of housing aid excluded thousands of homeowners, many of them poor, who lived in the flood plain but did not have flood insurance when Hurricane Katrina hit.
Asked about those who had counted on federally built levees to protect them, Mr. Powell, a wealthy man from the dry Texas Panhandle, noted that he had been responsible enough to buy flood insurance for his home in Amarillo.
The members of the Louisiana Bankers Association were not won over. Nor was The Advocate, Baton Rouge's newspaper, which demanded Mr. Powell's dismissal, calling him a "flint-souled" bean counter whose only concern was "guarding the money."
Those with a more charitable view, Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, among them, complained that he lacked the authority to be effective, and some critics wondered if he was simply another presidential crony.
But barely a week would pass before Mr. Powell did an about-face that turned many of his critics into fans, showing that not only had he listened to the locals, but also that his conclusions had carried weight with Mr. Bush.
With Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mayor C. Ray Nagin at his side, Mr. Powell announced that the president would seek $4.2 billion more for Louisiana to compensate homeowners — even those in the flood plain.
Mr. Powell's epiphany came after hours of listening to Louisianians: the decision makers; the woman who cleaned his room at the Sheraton; Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the wife of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (whom he called after hearing she was a Louisiana native); the inspectors examining high-water marks in homes. As he drove through New Orleans with Mr. Bush on March 8, he pointed to a small restaurant in the Ninth Ward and rattled off the owner's real estate woes.
"He had a learning experience," said Walter Isaacson, vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "It's the most amazing thing for somebody of his stature. It's because by himself, he walked around. He walked around and talked to people."
Mr. Powell says walking about in the region incognito, in blue jeans and boots, is becoming a bit harder now that people are starting to recognize him. "I went with no preconceived thoughts," he said. "And I realized that while Mississippi was an act of God, Louisiana was an act of God and man. There were some flaws. The levees breached."
Last week, Mr. Powell spent much of his time lobbying House members, successfully, to preserve the appropriation.
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn (ERIK ECKHOLM, 3/20/06, NY Times)
Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men. [...]
"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."
Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.
"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.
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Governor Bush delivers remarks at the Republican National Convention (August 3, 2000)
[I] come from a different place and it has made me a different leader. In Midland, Texas, where I grew up, the town motto was, "The sky's the limit," and we believed it. There was a restless energy, a basic conviction that with hard work, anybody could succeed and everybody deserved a chance.Our sense of community -- our sense of community was just as strong as that sense of promise. Neighbors helped each other. There were dry wells and sand storms to keep you humble, life-long friends to take your side, and churches to remind us that every soul is equal in value and equal in need.
This background leaves more than an accent, it leaves an outlook: optimistic, impatient with pretense, confident that people can chart their own course in life.
That background may lack the polish of Washington. Then again, I don't have a lot of things that come with Washington. I don't have enemies to fight. I have no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.
The largest lesson I learned in Midland still guides me as governor of Texas: Everyone, from immigrant to entrepreneur, has an equal claim on this country's promise. So we improved our schools dramatically for children of every accent, of every background. We moved people from welfare to work. We strengthened our juvenile justice laws. Our budgets have been balanced with surpluses. And we cut taxes, not only once, but twice.
We accomplished a lot.
I don't deserve all the credit, and I don't attempt to take it. I work with Republicans and Democrats to get things done.
A bittersweet part of tonight is that someone is missing, the late lieutenant government of Texas, Bob Bullock.
Bob was a Democrat, a crusty veteran of Texas politics, and my great friend. We worked side by side, he endorsed my re-election, and I know he is with me in spirit in saying to those who would malign our state for political gain: Don't mess with Texas.*
As governor, I've made difficult decisions and stood by them under pressure.
I've been where the buck stops in business and in government. I've been a chief executive who sets an agenda, sets big goals, and rallies people to believe and achieve them. I am proud of this record, and I am prepared for the work ahead.
If you give me your trust, I will honor it. Grant me a mandate, I will use it. Give me the opportunity to lead this nation, and I will lead.
And we need a leader to seize the opportunities of this new century: the new cures of medicine, the amazing technologies that will drive our economy and keep the peace. But our new economy must never forget the old, unfinished struggle for human dignity. And here we face a challenge to the very heart and founding premise of our nation.
A couple of years ago, I visited a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, and talked with a group of young inmates. They were angry, wary kids. All had committed grownup crimes. Yet when I looked in their eyes, I realized some of them were still little boys.
Toward the end of the conversation, one young man, about 15 years old, raised his hand and asked a haunting question, "What do you think of me?" He seemed to be asking, like many Americans who struggle: Is their hope for me? Do I have a chance? And, frankly, do you, a white man in a suit,* really care about what happens to me?
A small voice, but it speaks for so many: single moms struggling to feed the kids and pay the rent; immigrants starting a hard life in a new world; children without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship or drugs promise peace, and where sex sadly seems the closest thing to belong. We are their country too. And each of us must share in its promise or the promise is diminished for all.
If that boy in Marlin believes he's trapped and worthless and hopeless, if he believes his life has no value, then other lives have no value to him, and we're all diminished.
When these problems are not confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On one side are wealth, technology, education and ambition. On the other side of that wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair. And my fellow Americans, we must tear down that wall.
Big government is not the answer, but the alternative to bureaucracy is not indifference. It is to put conservative values and conservative ideas into the thick of the fight for justice and opportunity.
This is what I mean by compassionate conservatism. And on this ground, we will lead our nation.
We will give low-income Americans tax credits to buy the private health insurance they need and deserve.
We will transform today's housing rental program to help hundreds of thousands of low-income families find stability and dignity in a home of their own.
And in the next bold step of welfare reform, we will support the heroic work of homeless shelters and hospices, food pantry and crisis pregnancy centers, people reclaiming their communities block by block and heart by heart.
I think of Mary Jo Copeland, whose ministry called Sharing and Caring Hands serves 1,000 meals a week in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Each day, Mary Jo washes the feet of the homeless and sends them off with new socks and shoes. "Look after your feet," she tells them. "They must carry you a long way in this world, and then all the way to God."
Government cannot do this work. It can feed the body, but it cannot reach the soul.
Yet, government can take the side of these groups, helping the helper, encouraging the inspired. My administration will give taxpayers new incentives to donate to charity, encourage after-school programs that build character, and support mentoring groups that shape and save young lives.
We must give our children a spirit of moral courage because their character is our destiny.
We must tell them -- we must tell them -- we must tell them with confidence that drugs and alcohol can destroy you, and bigotry disfigures the heart.
Our schools must support the ideals of parents, elevating character and abstinence from afterthoughts to urgent goals.
We must help protect our children in our schools and streets, and by finally and strictly enforcing our nation's gun laws.
But most of all, we must teach our children the values that defeat violence. I will lead our nation toward a culture that values life -- the life of the elderly and sick, the life of the young and the life of the unborn.
Good people can disagree on this issue, but surely we can agree on ways to value life by promoting adoption, parental notification. And when Congress sends me a bill against partial-birth abortion, I will sign it into law.
Behind every goal I've talked about tonight is a great hope for our country. A hundred years from now this must not be remembered as an age rich in possession and poor in ideals.
Instead, we must usher in an era of responsibility.
My generation tested limits, and our country in some ways is better for it. Women are now treated more equally.
Racial progress has been steady; it's still too slow. We're learning to protect...
... we're learning to protect the natural world around us. We will continue this progress, and we will not turn back.
At times we lost our way, but we're coming home.
So many of us held our first child and saw a better self reflected in her eyes. And in that family love, many have found the sign and symbol of an even greater love, and have been touched by faith.
We discovered that who we are is more than important than what we have. And we know we must renew our values to restore our country.
This is the vision of America's founders. They never saw our nation's greatness in rising wealth or in advancing armies, but in small, unnumbered acts of caring and courage and self-denial.
Their highest hope, as Robert Frost described it, was to occupy the land with character. And that, 13 generations later, is still our goal, to occupy the land with character.
In a responsibility era, each of us has important tasks, work that only we can do. Each of us is responsible to love and guide our children and to help a neighbor in need. Synagogues, churches and mosques are responsible, not only to worship, but to serve.
Iranians See Talks With U.S. as Historic: Desire for Improving Ties Grew With Population Too Young to Recall Hostage Crisis (Karl Vick, March 20, 2006, Washington Post )
Iran's acceptance of direct talks with the United States over Iraq is being regarded among Iranians as a major foreign policy development, a historic if still tentative departure from 27 years of official enmity that held the government of the "Great Satan" as one to be spoken against, but never with."America's objective in inviting Iran for talks is to send a message to Islamic movements throughout the world that Iran gave in to Washington after 27 years of resistance," Kayhan, a hard-line daily newspaper, warned Saturday in an editorial that analysts said underscored the significance of Iran's shift.
"Announce as soon as possible that you won't have any dialogue with the U.S. and avoid entering a destructive trap that has been prepared for Islamic Iran," the editorial continued.
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Realism pushes US and Iran a bit closer: Mutual interest in Iraq's future will bring the two together for first time since '03 - but to what end? (Howard LaFranchi, 3/20/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
A mutual interest in a stable Iraq is driving Washington and Tehran - two otherwise increasingly antagonistic capitals - to sit down and talk. [...]In Iran, "efforts to talk to the US may well be the work of foreign ministry pragmatists [in Tehran] reasserting their influence" over the extremist stance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, adds [Daniel Brumberg, a professor of comparative government at Georgetown University in Washington.]. For these pragmatists, landing in the Security Council is the direct result of Mr. Ahmadinejad's confrontational antics, and they may see in Iraq a way to start undoing the damage.
Why are the French so ready to take to the streets? Maybe because, unlike the British, they have something worth fighting for (Stuart Jeffries, March 20, 2006, The Guardian)
Last week I had the misfortune to watch a DVD of Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Innocents. It's an old sex pest of a film about a libidinous, incestuous threesome in Paris, 1968. When the brother and sister light a Molotov cocktail behind a barricade at the picture's insufferable denouement, I was rooting for the CRS - the nasty, brutish and futuristically attired French riot police. Please, I urged Bertolucci, let them break at least two finely chiselled Gallic jaws. I had suffered pointlessly for two hours, so now it was their turn. It didn't happen.Then I flicked over to the news, where those Parisian streets had become a battleground again. The CRS, in even more barmily chic outfits, were getting pelted with rocks. No less dressed up for the televised ritual were the sons and daughters of soixant-huitards. With their hoodies up, they wore getaway trainers and, often, ski goggles to nullify the effects of CS gas.
I was torn between admiration and contempt - the latter because street radicalism often seems poised to collapse into narcissistic posturing.
Ballpark figures: Sports economists agree that cities--and taxpayers--get close to nothing from spending public money on sports teams. What they haven't figured out is why we're still doing it. (Drake Bennett, March 19, 2006, Boston Globe)
WHEN A TEAM WANTS money, and it's usually money for a new stadium, it commissions an economic impact study. The predicted economic impact tends to be dramatic. The study the accounting firm Ernst & Young did for the proposed New York Jets stadium in Manhattan predicted that it would bring in $72.5 million in additional annual tax revenue. A similar study by the consulting firm Economics Research Associates, ERA, calculated that the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas, due to open in 2009, will add between $12.48 billion and $27.65 billion to the county economy over an estimated 30-year lifespan.Independent economists dismiss these numbers. Much of the envisioned economic impact, they argue, comes from the money spent by fans, either on tickets or concessions or in nearby restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops, and the like. The problem with this argument, economists say, is that most families, whether they keep a budget or not, spend a finite amount of money on entertainment. As Vanderbilt University economist John Siegfried puts it, ''What are people going to with their money if they don't spend it on the Red Sox, flush it down the toilet? No, they'll spend it on something else: books, maybe, or bowling, things that Boston would benefit just as much from."
As for new jobs, sports teams and their stadiums do create them, but remarkably inefficiently, according to Roger Noll, an economics professor at Stanford University and co-editor, with Zimbalist, of ''Sports, Jobs, and Taxes" (1997), one of the most comprehensive works on the public funding of sports. In Baltimore, he says, the cost per job created by Camden Yards was $125,000, whereas for the city's other urban redevelopment programs it was $6,000 per job. And $125,000, according to Noll, is actually pretty efficient for a sports stadium.
University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson puts it another way. ''Cities would be better off," he says, ''if the mayor were to go up in a helicopter and dump out $100,000." [...]
ACCORDING TO Siegfried, there's a remarkable agreement on these points. In economics, he says, ''with most empirical issues there's lots of debate. Does the minimum wage cause unemployment? There's lots of debate about that issue. Here there's no debate." Even the consulting firm ERA put out an issue paper, back in 1995, cautioning against ''overblown claims of the economic value of major league sports teams" and concluding that, ''Compared with more traditional public investments of scarce economic development dollars. . .sports facilities are a rather poor investment."
But if public subsidies for sports teams are such an incontrovertibly bad idea, why is a city like Washington, D.C., still willing to pay $611 million for a sports stadium? Sports economists point, with varying degrees of frustration, to a combination of politics and unfortunate economic realities.
Major league sports, they argue, are essentially monopolies: They can ensure that the number of teams always stays below the number of cities that can support one. In economic terms, this creates a scarcity of supply and thereby drives up the ''price"-in subsidies, favorable land terms, or stadium lease deals-that a team can demand. Chicago built the White Sox a new stadium to keep them from moving to St. Petersburg, Fla., in the late '80s, for example. More recently, Nashville had to agree to build a new stadium to lure the former Houston Oilers to town.
Politicians, who like the publicity that comes from being associated with a major league sports team, see sports subsidies as a particularly glamorous use of public money-and are particularly vulnerable to the allure of gaining a team or the pain of losing one. As a business sector, major league sports is fairly small, and yet, points out Clemson economics professor Raymond Sauer, ''It's the only sector with its own section in every major newspaper in the country. It's an attention getter, so it's very natural for political people to align themselves with sports projects."
Still, there are also less cynical explanations. Mark Rosentraub, dean of the college of urban affairs at Cleveland State University, has consulted on a number of stadium projects, and has been vocally skeptical of many of them. But he believes that well-thought-out projects can benefit cities. Though they don't create economic growth, he argues, stadiums like Camden Yards and San Francisco's SBC Park (which was built almost entirely without public funds) have helped guide it.
The natural pattern of development, Rosentraub asserts, tends to be sprawl, but stadiums can function as focal points around which apartment buildings, stores, restaurants, and bars cluster. And they can help bring back hollowed-out downtown areas. In San Diego, the Padres' new Petco Park turned a desolate area full of abandoned lots and storage facilities into a landscape of luxury condominiums and boutique hotels. Washington is hoping a new stadium will do the same for the city's blighted Anacostia neighborhood. Of the recent stadium deal, Washington Mayor Anthony Williams's office has said the ''exciting economic revival" the stadium would trigger, ''will benefit our whole city for generations to come."
OF COURSE, THERE'S ANOTHER, more familiar factor that can skew the models of economists and planners alike. Many people, Rosentraub points out, just really like sports, and in a way that falls outside traditional measures of cost and benefit.
Afghan man faces death for Christian conversion (Daniel Cooney, March 20, 2006, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under the country's Islamic laws, a judge said yesterday.
The trial is thought to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam should take here four years after the ouster of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Gene scientist's new venture: Create life, use it to make fuel (Michael S. Rosenwald, 3/20/06, The Washington Post)
Maverick biologist J. Craig Venter wants to cure our addiction to oil. To do so, he proposes creating a designer microbe — the heart of a biological engine — from scratch, then adding genes culled from the sea to turn crops such as switch grass and cornstalks into ethanol.While he's at it, he'd like to modify or devise microorganisms to produce a steady stream of hydrogen. [...]
Current production methods of ethanol rely on using corn kernels, which are converted into sugar, fermented to produce alcohol and then distilled into ethanol. Meeting the country's energy needs using that method could eventually strain the food supply, particularly for animals that feed off corn.
Ethanol can be produced other ways, though it is more difficult. One way is to use plant matter such as switch grass, cornstalks or corn husks and break it down into cellulose using a combination of enzymes.
Until energy prices skyrocketed, that option was far more expensive than using oil, and the cost of building a plant was prohibitive. Technology is bringing the cost down, and biotech companies are lining up to advance the technology further.
Patrinos thinks Synthetic Genomics can reduce costs even further by using either a soup of microbes or genetically designed ones to perform, in essentially one place, all the biological functions needed to break down the plant material and turn it into ethanol.
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Sun shines on solar IPOs: Markets have turned on to its potential; but vast capital is still needed to flip the switch (TYLER HAMILTON, Mar. 20, 2006, Toronto Sun)
By all accounts, the solar market is busting at the seams. Unprecedented global demand for solar photovoltaic technology has led to a shortage in polysilicon, a key ingredient for making conventional solar PV cells. Lack of silicon has meant lack of solar modules, creating frustration for suppliers trying to get their hands on inventory."Module makers can't keep up with demand," says MacLellan. "These guys are sold out."
Solarbuzz LLC, a San Francisco-based research firm focused on the solar industry, reported last week that the generating capacity of solar PV installations around the world grew by a stunning 39 per cent in 2005, with more than $1 billion (U.S.) invested in new plants to manufacture solar cells. The industry also raised nearly $2 billion on the capital markets last year, and was one of the hottest areas of venture capital investment.
Investors, perhaps blinded by the sun, can't seem to get enough. Initial public offerings of solar technology companies in Europe, China and the United States have a stunning track record. China's Suntech Power Holdings went public in December and has seen its market value nearly double to $1 billion (U.S.). SunPower Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., went public at $18 a share (U.S.) in November and is now trading at about $41 with a market value of $364 million.
Jumping on the bandwagon of solar IPOs is Cambridge, Ont.-based ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc., which announced last week that it will publicly spin off its solar group, comprised of its France-based Photowatt subsidiary and its Spheral Solar Power division in Cambridge. Analysts believe the new spin-off could attract $1 billion (Canadian), maybe more, given the success of SunPower and Suntech.
What's feeding this frenzy? An alignment of many stars. Advancement in solar technologies is helping to dramatically reduce the cost of solar PV systems, which only the rich, principled or government-subsidized have been willing to purchase in the past.
At the same time, heightened concern over global warming and pollution caused by fossil-fuel power plants has drawn attention to renewable alternatives, and supportive government programs out of Europe, Japan and the United States — including an ambitious subsidy program recently announced in California — has accelerated solar adoption.
Railroad roots to help Atlanta draw together (Larry Copeland, 3/19/06, USA TODAY)
This city has always had a special relationship with railroads. Atlanta began as a tiny settlement called Terminus because it was at the southern end of a rail line to Chattanooga, Tenn. [...]Now, community and business leaders are launching an ambitious plan to reclaim some of the old rail lines and use them to increase Atlanta's public park space by 50%. They say it will improve transit in the city, reconnect neighborhoods split apart for decades by railroad tracks and highways and serve as a blueprint for development for decades to come.
The 22-mile "Atlanta Beltline" will link parts of five rail lines in a corridor encircling the city. The corridor, which will be 100 to 200 feet wide in most places, will connect 40 existing parks and add more than 1,200 acres of green space. The Beltline ultimately will include a transit system such as light rail or streetcars and miles of hiking and biking trails. The city expects developments that mix commercial, retail and residential uses to sprout along the Beltline. Many of the Beltline's tracks are still intact although new tracks would have to be installed for light rail.
Deaths fall for U.S., rise for Iraqis (Thomas Frank, 3/19/06, USA TODAY)
According to U.S. military data, about 15 Americans and 73 Iraqis are killed or injured each day. A USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data shows the number of U.S. forces killed during the war has declined steadily since November.RAND Corp. military analyst Nora Bensahel says the increasing level of Iraqi casualties "means Iraqi security forces are in positions of responsibility." The United States, which has 132,000 troops in Iraq, is "doing fewer patrols on its own and more in support of Iraqi operations," reducing U.S. casualties.
The U.S. military also has cut the number of American deaths by thwarting the homemade bombs that are the insurgency's prime weapon. Soldiers and Marines now find and neutralize more than 40% of the bombs, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in an interview. That compares with 30% in September. Lynch said that 41 insurgent bombmakers have been killed or captured. Insurgents "are losing skilled bombmakers," he said.
Meanwhile, Iraq's 240,600 security forces increasingly are fighting insurgents directly, the Pentagon says. Sixty-three Iraqi units are operating independently or in a lead role with coalition support, up from 37 in September. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari says military recruiting remains strong, despite the rising casualties.
Hugely hyped Arctic Monkeys deliver (BRIAN ORLOFF, 3/20/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Each year we can count on the British to export a band so big, and so hyped, there is no choice but to shut up and pay attention.In the past, groups like the Futureheads (justifiably cool), and farther back, Oasis (though they have failed to staggeringly succeed lately) earned mountains of praise. This year brings the Arctic Monkeys, a scruffy quartet from Sheffield, comprised of guys whose average age lingers around 20. The fanfare surrounding the Monkeys reached maximal heights last month after the group broke British sales records, outselling all the chart competition combined with its debut album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not."
Though the album has performed moderately here since its late February release, the lads nevertheless managed to effortlessly sell out their short North American tour, which stopped Saturday night at a packed Metro.
Because of the mania surrounding the band, Saturday's show came slathered in expectation. And the Monkeys -- who appeared to be just four regular guys -- carried through their 55-minute set with breathless verve and just enough ragtag momentum to keep the young crowd engaged.
It is easy to get swept up by hyperbole, and Saturday's show was not the transcendent experience many -- especially the eager British press -- have characterized. But it was most certainly a high-energy experience, full of swagger and promise.
Beyond the Party: Catholics and Government's Moral Purpose [Samuel Gregg, D.Phil. (Oxon.), 3/08/06, Acton Institute]
Last week, 55 Catholic Democrat members of the House of Representatives released a self-described “Historic Catholic Statement of Principles.” It asserted their identity as Catholics and their commitment to working towards realization of basic principles of Catholic social teaching.Some hoped that the statement would indicate that the spirit of the late Bob Casey, the pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, was alive in the Democrat Party. They were, however, to be disappointed.
While the statement claims to break new ground, there is in fact nothing historic about it. Sadly, it merely represents the latest attempt by some American Catholic politicians and their unnamed theological advisors to rationalize the untenable: their claim to be faithful Catholics while supporting practices that intentionally violate what the Church teaches is inviolable: innocent human life. [....]
That some signatories are conscious of their position’s incongruity is apparent from their qualification that while they “seek the Church’s guidance and assistance,” they “believe also in the primacy of conscience. In recognizing the Church’s role in providing moral leadership, we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas.”
Certainly the Catholic Church has always emphasized the importance of conscience. But it does not teach that conscience is somehow above the truth – this, the Catholic Church teaches, is revealed by reason and, ultimately, the Catholic faith. Conscience in fact only acquires morally binding characteristics when grounded in objective moral truth. Otherwise “primacy of conscience” could be used to justify all sorts of barbaric behavior. Thus we do not absolve Communists and Nazis who killed millions because they sincerely believed “in all good conscience” they were doing the right thing.
In other words, the “tension” experienced by some signatories does not simply arise from the inconsistency between their position on certain issues and Catholic teaching. Rather it arises from their denial of truth: the truth about what science tells us about the beginning of each human life and the truth that all innocent human beings - regardless of their stage of development - ought, as a matter of natural justice, to enjoy equal protection from lethal force.
Arctic refuge drilling back on the table (MSNBC, 3/17/06)
The Republican-led push to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is back on Congress’ table, after the Senate included that provision in its $2.8 trillion budget bill.Democrats were unable to block the provision after one of their own, Sen. Mary Landrieu, supported the budget bill, which passed 51-49 on Thursday.
Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches (JENNIFER LOVEN, , 3/18/06, Associated Press)
"Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."
"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."
Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.
Speakers for the motion:
* Amir Taheri, born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris; author of "Holy
Terror"* Raphael Israeli, a Professor of Islamic, Middle Eastern and Chinese history at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem.* David Pryce-Jones , the Senior Editor of the National Review and author of “The
Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs” [as well as the author of the Foreword to Robert Spencer's Islam Unveiled]
Government isn't the best way to provide all Americans with health security. It's the only way. And it's time for liberalism to say so openly.
In praise of an instant classic (Gordon Edes, March 19, 2006, Boston Globe)
The tiebreakers have to go. This is still baseball, after all, not soccer.Find another time slot. We can't have Americans with the built-in excuse of saying the world caught us when we weren't ready. And the calendar is already overcrowded by March Madness and spring training. A midsummer gathering of nations sounds irresistible. Make it a real All-Star break.
Turn up the dial on America's best players and make it almost impossible for them to say no to playing, and make them realize they'll be sorry if they skip the chance to play.
Tell umpire Bob Davidson that, in his case, it's two strikes and you're out. No point in risking another international incident.
And whatever you do, make sure the Cubans come back, with or without Fidel's ''doctor" son in the dugout.
But by all means, call off the pack of bloodhounds crazed by the scent of Barry Bonds long enough to acknowledge what Bud Selig has been promising all along, that the World Baseball Classic has been a heck of a show, and a great promotional tool for the sport far beyond our borders.
Divided, Iraq might just have a chance (Gareth Stansfield, 19/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
[F]uture historians may also consider that the terrible situation of Iraq in 2006 had deeper origins. The trauma inflicted upon Iraqi society by a decade of sanctions following a decade of war with Iran; the existence of an all-pervasive totalitarian state that broke social bonds and played upon differences in society to preserve the regime; the continued Kurdish rebellion against the Iraqi state, resulting in the emergence of a Kurdish de facto state in the north; and the rise in political Shi'ism in the 1990s were all in place long before George W Bush's attention was brought so forcibly to Iraq in the days following September 11. [...]Although politicians and academics are arguing about whether there is already a civil war raging in Iraq, the fact is, violence remains localised and there still exists a great deal of sentiment and hope among ordinary Iraqis - as expressed by political, religious and social leaders - that calmer heads will still prevail in these difficult times. However, with scores of bodies being found almost every day, it seems their voices are being increasingly ignored. If it is not yet a civil war, it is not far off being one.
What now needs to be addressed is what to do if the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate. Does the Coalition sit back and watch what would be a chaotic unravelling of Iraq, with militias acting to defend their own communities and attack others (as is increasingly happening), and with the once cosmopolitan cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk and Basra exposed to the horrors of sectarian blood-letting?
Or should the Coalition, perhaps, be proactive in enforcing a managed partition of Iraq, decentralising political authority to the Shia in the south, the Kurds in the north, and the Sunnis in the centre? The fact is, this has already happened to a great extent, with the Kurdistan Region now codified, and Basra effectively out of the political orbit of Baghdad.
Peres: We'll talk with Palestinians on pull-out (Harry de Quetteville, 19/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Israel will negotiate a planned withdrawal of settlers from the West Bank with the Palestinians after the general election in 10 days time, Shimon Peres, the country's two-time former leader has told the Sunday Telegraph."I can't set a date for the next pull-out," Mr Peres said, describing the plans of Israel's next government - of which he seems certain to be a key member - "but we shall try first of all to negotiate directly with the Palestinians."
Mr Peres said he hoped that the pull-out of Israeli settlers would prove "easy" adding: "We have the precedent of last summer," when 8,000 Jewish settlers were forcibly evacuated from the Gaza Strip in a controversial but ultimately rapid police operation.
In Search of the Next Great American Opera (ANNE MIDGETTE, 3/19/06, NY Times)
No one told audiences at Mark Adamo's "Little Women" that they weren't supposed to like contemporary opera: the work has been staged by 40 different companies since its premiere at the Houston Grand Opera in 1998. Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking" has been performed around the United States and Europe. Richard Danielpour's "Margaret Garner" (with a libretto by Toni Morrison, based on her novel "Beloved") played to sold-out houses in Detroit, Cincinnati and Philadelphia.Declining ticket sales overall are forcing American opera presenters to take a broader view of the future, Mr. Adamo suggested between rehearsals for a revival of his second opera, "Lysistrata," at the New York City Opera, which opens Tuesday.
"We've got to think outside the box," Mr. Adamo said, "because the box is crumbling around us."
There has certainly been a surge in commissions, and not just for experimental theater, young-artist programs and children's opera, often the main arenas for new work. The Metropolitan Opera and the major companies in San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Minnesota, Seattle and Miami are all planning at least one premiere within the next five seasons.
"We're in a boom," said Philip Glass, who is writing "Appomattox," his 22nd opera, for the San Francisco Opera. Mr. Glass said he recently called his music copyist to ask about availability and learned that the copyist was preparing three other opera scores.
But while more companies are subscribing to the idea that American opera is worth preserving and expanding — and is also a way to generate the press and local interest that can help ensure their futures — everyone still seems to be trying to figure out what exactly it takes to make the next great American opera.
How Pop Sounded Before It Popped (JODY ROSEN, 3/19/06, NY times)
FOR a couple of months now my iPod has been stuck on Stella Mayhew's "I'm Looking for Something to Eat." It's a lurching little waltz-time pop tune, drawled over brass-band accompaniment. The lyric is hilarious, the lament of a gal on a diet who can't stop eating, and it climaxes with a glutton's soul cry: "I want some radishes and olives, speckled trout and cantaloupe and cauliflower/ Some mutton broth and deviled crabs and clams and Irish stew." I can't get it out of my head — so far, it's my favorite record of 2006.As it happens, it's also my favorite record of 1909. It is an Edison Phonograph Company wax cylinder, recorded 97 years ago by Mayhew, a vaudeville star who liked to poke fun at her considerable girth. In certain ways, the song is up to date: the satire on dieting is plenty relevant in the early 21st century, and Mayhew's slurred talk-singing is a bracingly modern sound. But the noisy, weather-beaten recording is unmistakably a product of the acoustic era — the period from about 1890 to the mid-1920's, before the advent of electric recording — when musicians cut records while crammed cheek-by-jowl-by-trombone around phonograph horns in rackety little studios.
Mayhew's record is just one of several thousand cylinders, the first commercially available recordings ever produced, that have recently become available free of charge to anyone with an Internet connection and some spare bandwidth. Last November, the Donald C. Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara, introduced the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project Web site (cylinders.library.ucsb.edu), a collection of more than 6,000 cylinders converted to downloadable MP3's, WAV files and streaming audio. It's an astonishing trove of sounds: opera arias, comic monologues, marching bands, gospel quartets. Above all, there are the pop tunes churned out by Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the century: ragtime ditties, novelty songs, sentimental ballads and a dizzying range of dialect numbers performed by vaudeville's blackface comedians and other "ethnic impersonators."
Public Comments by Justices Veer Toward the Political (ADAM LIPTAK, 3/19/06, NY Times)
Speeches by Supreme Court justices are usually sleepy civics lessons studded with references to the Federalist Papers and the majesty of the law. That seems to be changing.This month, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told an audience at Georgetown University that a judiciary afraid to stand up to elected officials can lead to dictatorship. [...]
The recent speeches, said Kermit L. Hall, the editor of "The Oxford Companion to the United States Supreme Court," may be breaking ground in judicial decorum.
"What's going on," Mr. Hall said, "is that Ginsburg and O'Connor are using their position — and it is striking that both are women — to state a position in favor of the judiciary that comes real, real close to taking a political position."
US ships in Somali pirate clash (Cathy Jenkins, 3/19/06, BBC News)
The US Navy says two of its warships have returned fire on a group of suspected pirates off the Somali coast, killing one person and wounding five. [...]The navy statement said the two warships - the USS Cape St George, a guided missile cruiser, and the USS Gonzalez, a guided missile destroyer - were conducting maritime security operations about 25 nautical miles off the Somali coast when they spotted a suspect vessel towing two smaller skiffs.
The Gonzalez sent a team to board the vessel and noticed that a group of suspected pirates was brandishing what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenades.
According to the statement, the suspected pirates then opened fire on the navy ships, which returned fire with mounted machine guns in self-defence.
One suspected pirate was killed and a fire started on board the vessel.
Secret loans: Blair warned but gave the go ahead (BRIAN BRADY, 3/19/06, Scotland on Sunday)
[I]n an extraordinary off the record interview with Scotland on Sunday, one of his closest allies revealed that:• The Prime Minister and a select band of confidants involved had to "convince each other" that taking loans from party supporters was the right thing to do;
• Blair opted for the loans strategy because the party was "skint" and faced meltdown during the General Election campaign last year;
• The clinching argument was the belief that rival parties were using the system to swell their coffers.
This weekend, Blair and the Labour high command have also "gagged" Labour's treasurer to prevent him from exposing the identities of the party's multi-millionaire lenders, because they are protected by commercial "confidentiality clauses".
The Prime Minister entered into the deal with the group of lenders to ensure that their contributions could not be exposed at a later date.
However, it emerged last week that three Labour lenders - Sir David Garrard, Chai Patel and Barry Townsley - were on the list of nominations for elevation to the Lords signed by Party chairman Ian McCartney in October.
What We've Gained In 3 Years in Iraq (Donald H. Rumsfeld, March 19, 2006, Washington Post)
Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side"and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned."Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates -- who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years.
The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case.
Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack. History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately.
Consider that in three years Iraq has gone from enduring a brutal dictatorship to electing a provisional government to ratifying a new constitution written by Iraqis to electing a permanent government last December. In each of these elections, the number of voters participating has increased significantly -- from 8.5 million in the January 2005 election to nearly 12 million in the December election -- in defiance of terrorists' threats and attacks.
Cuba, Japan Advance to WBC Title Game (Dave Sheinin. 3/19/06, Washington Post)
[T]he WBC [has] brought together 16 national teams -- including a handful, such as the United States, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, whose rosters were loaded with multimillionaire major league players -- for three weeks of often inspired play.Japan's hard-fought victory over archrival South Korea in the night game --which avenged one-run losses in each of the tournament's first two rounds -- was a perfect example.
Crisp pitching and suberb defense kept the game scoreless until the top of the seventh, when Japan pinch-hitter Kosuke Fukudome smashed a two-run homer off South Korea reliever Byung Hyun Kim, launching Japan to a five-run inning. Seattle Mariners superstar Ichiro Suzuki contributed an RBI single in the inning, as Japan silenced the sizeable pro-Korea segment of the announced crowd of 42,639.
For Kim, the outing bore an uncomfortable resemblance to his last appearance on a stage as big as this one. In the 2001 World Series, while pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Kim served up titanic home runs to New York Yankees Tino Martinez, Derek Jeter and Scott Brosius -- the first two of which lost Game 4, and the last of which blew Game 5.
Although Cuba has long dominated Asian teams in international play, in the last major meeting between the teams Japan beat Cuba, 6-3, in the 2004 Olympics. Cuba, however, rebounded to win the gold medal.
Scouts, international baseball experts and even some Cuban ex-patriots in the big leagues predicted the Cuban team -- despite having dominated international baseball for generations -- would lose early in the WBC when matched against the best talent in the world. Meantime, Castro, Cuba's polarizing dictator, predicted certain victory.
In Saturday's semifinal, Cuba merely outlasted its more renowned opponent, taking advantage of a throwing error on Dominican third baseman Adrian Beltre and surging to a three-run seventh inning against the Dominicans' bullpen. Two Cuban pitchers, right-handers Yadel Marti and Pedro Lazo, combined to hold the powerful Dominican lineup -- anchored by sluggers Albert Pujols, Miguel Tejada and David Ortiz -- to eight hits and no earned runs.
Lazo's penultimate pitch of the game, to Dominican pinch hitter Alfonso Soriano, was a fastball that lit up the radar gun at 152 kilometers per hour (or 95 mph) for strike two, and he followed that with a 138-kph (86-mph) slider. Fooled by the pitch, Soriano tried unsuccessfully to check his swing.
"They are not professionals," Soriano said, "but they play like professionals. We are professionals, but we are not in very good shape."
Having watched the entire game from the top step of their dugout, Lazo's joyous teammates were already halfway to the mound when the umpires ruled that Soriano, the Washington Nationals' newly acquired slugger, had gone around for strike three. The Cubans gathered near the mound in a giant, teeming huddle, then -- suddenly and oddly -- most of the players were on their backs on the ground, kicking their legs in the air like overturned beetles.
Rallies Across France Protest New Job Law (Molly Moore, March 19, 2006, Washington Post)
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched in anti-government protests Saturday across France, with the largest of the rallies ending in clashes between riot police and protesters at one of the largest plazas in Paris.Teachers, unionized government employees and retired workers joined students in escalating demonstrations against a new law that would allow companies to fire employees under age 26 at will during their first two years of work. [...]
The demonstrations have grown larger and have spread to more cities in recent days at the urging of France's powerful student and worker unions, creating a crisis for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and his Union for a Popular Movement party as France heads toward presidential elections next year.
Villepin pushed the new law as a vehicle to prompt companies to hire more young people at a time when joblessness among that group averages 23 percent and exceeds 40 percent in some poor neighborhoods populated by immigrants and their French-born children. Villepin argued that under existing labor laws, employers were increasingly reluctant to hire young people because of job protections that make it all but impossible to fire workers, even if they are incompetent.
Iranian Dissident Released From Jail: Defiant Journalist's Criticism of Ruling Clerics Remains Untempered (Karl Vick, 3/19/06, Washington Post)
Iran's most prominent dissident emerged from prison looking far older than his 46 years. His clothes hung on a frame reduced to 108 pounds by repeated hunger strikes. He smiled through a beard grown to the bushy nimbus of a Hindu holy man."All the time I was in prison was illegal," Akbar Ganji said of the six-year sentence he served for exposing the government's role in assassinating its critics. "From the very first day it was illegal."
Ganji's incarceration ended at 10 p.m. Friday, when Iranian security services dropped him unannounced at his family's apartment in northwest Tehran. The homecoming, which blossomed Saturday morning into a celebratory news conference as word of his release spread, was a rare moment of cheer for Iranian activists who have been steadily steered to the sidelines by the clerics who regulate Iran's politics from powerful, appointive offices. [...]
In 1999, thousands of Iranians marched in the streets to express their outrage at the assassination of dissidents in their homes. Ganji went to prison in 2000 for writing about the killings, but public support for reforms continued to grow. The demonstrations, along with landslide elections of a reformist president and parliament, checked the power of conservatives who insisted that a hard line was essential to protect Iran's theocratic system after the death of its charismatic founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
But by 2004, conservatives had regained the upper hand, relieving pressure for social freedoms by greatly relaxing enforcement of laws on personal behavior while steadily reducing the maneuvering room of political reformers and publications that supported them. [...]
Emad Baghi, who like Ganji was jailed for writing about what were known as the "serial murders," served only half of the same sentence. During the extra three years Ganji remained inside as a beacon of defiance, Baghi began a newspaper and, after it was banned, a human rights organization.
"I believe both of the approaches are important for us," said Saeed Bostani, a reporter who worked for Baghi and was jailed for seven months for reporting Ganji's deteriorating medical condition.
"When I was in prison, I believed in Mr. Ganji's approach that refuses to compromise, just go all out," Bostani said. "But since I came out into society, I think Mr. Baghi's approach has merit, that we can put pressure on the state and make changes."
Neither avenue is free of risk. Two of Baghi's associates were jailed for a month by security officials suspicious of their attendance at a human rights workshop in Dubai last year.
Lobbyists Foresee Business As Usual: Post-Abramoff Rules Expected to Be Merely a Nuisance (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, 3/19/06, Washington Post)
Some of Washington's top lobbyists say that they expect to find ways around congressional efforts to impose new restrictions on lobbyists' dealings with lawmakers in the wake of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, and that any limits will barely put a dent in the billions of dollars spent to influence legislation.Though Congress may ultimately vote to eliminate a few of the more visible trappings of special pleading, such as gifts, free meals and luxurious trips, lobbyists say they have already found scores of new ways to buy the attention of lawmakers through fundraising, charitable activities and industry-sponsored seminars.
McCain Taps Former Bush Political Director (RON FOURNIER, 3/18/06, AP)
With an eye toward the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona has hired one of President Bush's top re-election advisers to help run his political action committee.Terry Nelson, political director of the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, will be senior adviser to Straight Talk America, according to several official familiar with the hiring. They spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt an announcement by McCain's committee.
McCain is using the PAC to raise money and organize his travel on behalf of Republicans running in November's midterm elections.
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McCain Campaign Hires 'Best Bricklayer' (Chris Cillizza and Zachary A. Goldfarb, March 19, 2006, Washinton Post)
"Senator McCain has demonstrated a real commitment to helping our candidates up and down the ballot and I am excited to be a part of his effort," Nelson says in a statement the PAC plans to release Monday.Nelson's formal role for Straight Talk will be to maximize the organization's influence and effectiveness in the 2006 midterm elections, but his hiring also makes a major mark on the 2008 landscape.
McCain and his chief political strategist, John Weaver, have spent much of the past year courting key members of the Bush campaign team. Until now, the majority of that recruiting has focused on the men and women -- designated Pioneers, Rangers and Super Rangers -- who each helped collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush in 2000 and again in 2004. (In that vein, Straight Talk America recently received $5,000 checks from former Texas governor Bill Clements, a Republican, and lobbyist extraordinaire Ed Rogers -- a close ally of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who recently removed himself from the 2008 field.) But the hiring of Nelson shows that McCain and Weaver are not neglecting the staff side of the presidential process.
Iraq War Protests Attract Fewer People (PAUL BURKHARDT , 03.18.2006, AP)
Protests were also held in Australia, Asia and Europe, but many events were far smaller than organizers had hoped.In London, police said about 15,000 people joined a march from Parliament and Big Ben to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Planners had expected 100,000. [...]
In Stockholm, Sweden, about 1,000 demonstrators gathered for a rally and march to the U.S. Embassy. One protester was dressed as the hooded figure shown in an iconic photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison. "We do not need Abu Ghraib democracy, or Guantanamo Bay freedom," said Eftikar Hashem Alhusainy, addressing the rally.
In Copenhagen, Denmark, more than 2,000 demonstrators marched from the U.S. Embassy to the British Embassy, demanding that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen withdraw the 530 Danish troops from southern Iraq.
In Turkey, where opposition to the war is nearly universal and cuts across all political stripes, about 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul, police said.
Arab world needs more Dubais (MARK STEYN, 3/18/06, OC Register)
How’s that Dubai ports deal going? You remember, the one where Dubai Ports World agreed to sell its U.S. port operations to an American company?"It appears," huffed Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., "that the divestiture announcement from DPW last week may have been nothing more than a diversion designed to deflect attention away from this outsourcing of American port security. Congressional action blocking this deal is the only true assurance we have that this deal is dead."
You go, girl! Tote that barge, lift that bale, git a little drunk an’ you land in Congress! Why doesn’t the House of Representatives buy the port operations with the money earmarked for prescription drugs for seniors or Hurricane Katrina "relief"? I don’t expect a busy woman like Rep. Schultz to run the new company herself – though she could certainly put in a couple of shifts at the Port of Miami each weekend – but how about that INS official who mailed Mohammed Atta his visa six months to the day after he died in an unusual flying event in Lower Manhattan? How about leaving the ports to those State Department chaps who approved the 9/11 killers’ laughably incomplete paperwork ("Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA")? Or how about those officials at FAA headquarters who on the morning of 9/11 found it all a little too much and just walked out of the room?
After all, all those guys are still working for the U.S. government. By golly, if we’re gonna have security breaches at American ports, let’s make sure they’re all-American security breaches!
From Iraq's front line, it looks like the media has lost the plot (Miranda Devine, March 19, 2006, Sydney Morning Herald)
A SOLDIER friend stationed in Baghdad for the past two months has been sending me emails with such arresting lines as: "It's late here and I [have] to get the Chief of Staff back to the Palace."From his office in the fortified military and government area, the Green Zone, he scans the web for news about Iraq and compares it with his reality.
"Baghdad is not burning down around my ears," he wrote last week. "Things were tense a while back, but violence was within limits. Callous thing to say, but that is the reality around here."
The only "quagmire" he sees is "the soft patch of ground out by the rifle range and no civil war in sight".
He exhibits a soldier's sang-froid. "We are expecting to be very busy the next few days. The terrorists are extremely media savvy (it's the only area they get to win) and will be looking for big headlines. End of religious festival, big crowds and convening of new government."
But with the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion tomorrow, he says, "the only people who seem to have lost both their grip on reality and their nerve are the western media".
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Fact Sheet: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Three Years Later (White House, 3/18/06)
Remarkable Progress Has Been Made In Iraq In The Last Three YearsOn March 19, 2003, United States And Coalition Forces Launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was marked by brutality, fear, and terror. Iraqis had no voice in their country or their lives. Saddam Hussein devastated Iraq, wrecked its economy, ruined and plundered its infrastructure, and destroyed its human capital.
Three Years Later, Iraq Has A Democratically Elected Government. The reign of a dictator has been replaced by a democratically elected government operating under one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world. Millions of Iraqis have joined the political process over the past year alone. The transition from three decades of dictatorship to a fully functioning democracy is still difficult, and Iraq must overcome many more challenges before it fully secures its democratic gains.
* Saddam Hussein Is Facing Justice In An Iraqi Court. The Iraqi people are holding Saddam accountable for his crimes and atrocities.
The Next Year Will Bring A Consolidation Of These Gains, Helping A New Iraqi Government Stabilize The Nation And Build A Solid Foundation For Democracy And Increased Economic Growth. Iraq's elected leaders are diligently working to form a government that will represent all the Iraqi people. As the Iraqi government comes together and Iraqi Security Forces continue improving their readiness, efforts to stabilize the nation will increasingly be Iraqi-led. We will support the Iraqi government in these difficult times, and we will keep our commitment to the Iraqi people.
Securing A Lasting Victory In Iraq Will Make America:
* Safer by depriving terrorists of a safe haven from which they can plan and launch attacks against the United States and American interests overseas.
* More Secure by facilitating reform in a region that for decades has been a source of violence and stagnation and depriving terrorist control over a hub of the world's economy.
* Stronger by demonstrating to our friends and enemies the reliability of U.S. power, the strength of our commitment to our friends, and the tenacity of resolve against our enemies.
Despite Progress, The Situation On The Ground Remains Tense. As al Qaida's actions and statements show, terrorists reject democracy, reject peace, and want to impose their own concept of a dictatorial government on the Iraqi people. The United States and its Coalition partners are united in support of the Iraqi people and helping them win their struggle for freedom. The terrorists know they lack the military strength to challenge Iraqi and Coalition forces directly - so their only hope is to try and provoke a civil war. Immediately after the attack on the Golden Mosque of Samarra, the Iraqi people looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw. Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace - and they will oppose a violent minority that seeks to take that future away from them by tearing their country apart.
The President's National Strategy For Victory In Iraq Has Three Tracks - Political, Security, And Economic. All three tracks are progressing. Access the National Strategy for Victory at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html.
The Political Track: Iraq Has Transitioned From Tyranny And Oppression To Freedom And Democracy
Three Years Ago, Iraqis Had No Voice In Their Government Or Their Nation's Future. Simple acts like voicing concerns about bad policies or organizing a meeting were denied. Citizens feared arbitrary arrest, torture, and imprisonment. Thousands of innocent Iraqis ended up in mass graves.
Today, Millions Of Iraqis Are Shaping Their Own Destinies By Participating In Iraq's Political Process:
* Iraqis Completed Two Successful Nationwide Elections And A National Constitutional Referendum In 2005. Each successive election experienced less violence, bigger voter turnout, and broader political participation. On December 15, more than 11 million people - more than 75 percent of the Iraqi voting-age population - participated in the election for a new government under Iraq's new constitution, an increase of more than three million voters over the January election.
* Iraqi Voters Approved A New Permanent Constitution. Iraq's new permanent constitution, approved on October 15, 2005, provides a solid legal framework, based on a democratic process and inclusiveness, which the Iraqi people are working to strengthen.
* Iraqi Leaders Are Now Forming A National Government. The December election resulted in a representative parliament and offers Iraqis an opportunity to build a national unity government. Iraqi leaders continue working on forming a new broad-based, inclusive government in furtherance of their commitment to democratic principles.
The Security Track: Iraqi Security Forces Are Increasingly Taking The Lead To Protect Their Nation
Three Years Ago, Saddam Hussein And The Ba'ath Party Were Preserving The Regime's Tyrannical Rule. Under Saddam Hussein's rule, the Iraqi army was used as an instrument of repression against Iraq's own citizens and against Iraq's neighbors.
Today, An All-Volunteer Iraqi Security Force Is Taking Increasing Responsibility For Protecting Their New Nation And The Iraqi People:
* Trained Iraqi Security Forces Are Growing In Number And Assuming A Larger Role. More than 240,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped and are working to protect their fellow citizens. Iraqi Security Forces demonstrate growing competence and capability, and over 90 percent of Iraqis say they support their efforts to bring stability to the country. Over 112,000 Iraqi soldiers, sailors, and airmen have now been trained and equipped. More than 87,000 police have been trained and equipped. These police work alongside over 40,000 other Ministry of Interior forces.
* Additional Iraqi Army And Special Operations Battalions Are Conducting Operations. Last fall, there were over 120 Iraqi Army and Police combat battalions in the fight against the enemy - and 40 of those were taking the lead in the fight. Today, the number of battalions in the fight has increased to more than 130 - with more than 60 taking the lead. As more Iraqi battalions come online, these forces are assuming responsibility for more territory. Iraqi forces now conduct more independent operations throughout the country than do Coalition forces.
The Terrorists Are Turning To Weapons Of Fear Because They Know They Cannot Defeat Us Militarily. After the terrorists were defeated in the battles in Fallujah and Tal Afar, they saw they could not confront Iraqi or American forces in pitched battle and survive. So they turned to IEDs - a weapon that allows them to attack from a safe distance, without having to face our forces in battle. Innocent Iraqis are the principal victims of IEDs. Our strategy to defeat IEDs has three elements: targeting and eliminating terrorists and bomb-makers; providing our forces specialized training to identify and clear IEDs before they explode; and developing new technologies to defend against IEDs.
* Coalition Efforts To Defeat IEDs Are Producing Results. Today, nearly half of IEDs in Iraq are found and disabled before they can be detonated - and in the past 18 months, the casualty rate per IED attack has been cut in half. During the past six months, Iraqi and Coalition forces have found and cleared nearly 4,000 IEDs, uncovered more than 1,800 weapons caches and bomb-making plants, and killed or detained hundreds of terrorists and bomb-makers.
The Economic Track: Iraq's Economy, Infrastructure, And Quality Of Life Is Improving
Three Years Ago, Saddam Hussein And His Regime Led A Life Of Privilege And Luxury, While Leaving The Iraqi People Without Infrastructure To Provide Essential Services. Those out of favor were denied the simplest public services, with hunger and essential services used as weapons of tyranny. As a result, parts of Iraq suffered a severe lack of electricity, water, health care, education facilities, and other vital services. While challenges remain, and while it will take years to modernize Iraq's economy and infrastructure in the wake of Saddam Hussein's decades of neglect, significant progress has been made over the past three years.
Today, Iraq's Economy Is Recovering, And The Iraqi People Have Better Access To Essential Services:
* Iraq's Economy Is Recovering, And The Iraqi People's Standard Of Living Is Rising. Iraq's economy is showing signs of recovery after 30 years of dictatorship. In 2005, the Iraqi economy grew an estimated 2.6 percent in real terms, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated it will grow by more than 10 percent in 2006. Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqis' standard of living deteriorated rapidly. In nominal terms, Iraq's per capita income had dropped from $3,800 in 1980 (higher than Spain at the time) to $715 in 2002 (lower than Angola). In 2005, per-capita income is estimated to have increased to over $1,000.
* Iraq Is Rejoining The International Economic Community. Iraq is on the road to World Trade Organization accession, has received both an IMF credit facility and its first World Bank loan in 30 years, and has secured a debt agreement with the Paris Club that will lead to the forgiveness of at least 80 percent of about $40 billion of Saddam Hussein-era debt.
* Investors Are Optimistic About Iraq's Economic Future. Foreign and domestic banks are opening new offices, the stock market established in April 2004 currently lists nearly 90 companies, and a total of over 32,000 businesses are now registered in Iraq.
* More Iraqis Have Access To Clean Water. 3.1 million Iraqis enjoy improved access to clean water, and 5.1 million have improved access to sewage treatment.
* Iraq's Education System Is Being Rehabilitated. More than 30 percent of Iraq's schools have been rehabilitated, more than 36,000 teachers have been trained, and approximately 8.7 million revised math and science textbooks and 3 million school supply kits have been provided to students nationwide.
* Iraq's Public Health System Is Improving. Vaccination campaigns have significantly reduced infectious disease outbreaks. For example, 98 percent of children under five have been vaccinated for polio.
Change the Subject: The Republican strategy for 2006. (Fred Barnes, 03/27/2006, Weekly Standard)
POLITICS IS PRETTY SIMPLE. If the debate in an upcoming election puts your party at a disadvantage, it makes sense to try to change the debate. At the moment, the 2006 midterm election is framed as a referendum on the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, putting Republican candidates on the defensive. Party strategists, led by chairman Ken Mehlman, want to rejigger the debate so it's about a choice between candidates, putting Democratic candidates on the defensive as well. In short, they want it to be a choice election, not a referendum election.This is not a new idea. Republicans brought about a choice election in 2004. Democrats believed they were a cinch to win a referendum on President Bush's first term, and Republicans worried they were right. But Republicans were able to make Democrat John Kerry at least as much of an issue as Bush was, especially on national security.
For 2006, the Republican National Committee, the White House, and most Senate and House Republicans are on board with the choice strategy. In fact, some members of Congress are already repeating a phrase first used by Bush in meetings with congressional allies. It's an assertion that Democrats would "raise your taxes and raise the white flag" in Iraq.
Candidate proposes chopping block for 'porn-pimps': Congressional hopeful Zirkle wants to spark debate. (JAMES WENSITS, 3/16/06, South Bend Tribune)
Republican 2nd District congressional candidate Tony Zirkle has proposed a four-stage approach to stopping sex- related crimes such as child pornography, rape, sexual slavery and human trafficking. [...]"If I am elected to Congress, I will introduce a declaration of war against human traffickers, porn-pimps and child rapists," Zirkle said in a campaign release. "We must put fear back into the criminals who are preying on our children."
The first stage of the battle, as proposed by Zirkle, calls for suspension of the constitutional protections of property rights for "porn-pimps.""Every adultery (sic) book store will be immediately seized and the property will be forfeited to the taxpayers without any process of law other than a hearing within 10 days of seizure to give the porn-pimps the opportunity (to) challenge the sufficiency of prostitution evidence."
Stage 2, Zirkle said, would involve "actual arrests" for those who did not learn from Stage 1. Stage 3, if necessary, calls for "super speedy public trials with severe punishment that is swiftly carried out after a rapid appeal."
Which leads to Stage 4. "If this stage is necessary, then I am willing to debate the idea of returning the guillotine and lynch mob for those who prey on children under the age of 12; however, no capital punishment will be extended without at least four witnesses."
Zirkle said he favors the death penalty but believes current law offers insufficient due process protections.
"One witness can send you to death now," he said.According to Zirkle, debate could fuel discussion of his guillotine proposal but, so far, "no one will debate me."
Emboldened Democrats court party's left wing: Sen. Clinton seen abandoning turf (Nina J. Easton, March 17, 2006, Boston Globe)
Former senator John Edwards got high marks from labor for a new effort to unionize hotel workers, and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold's demand this week that President Bush be censured was music to the ears of activists on the left.Meanwhile, Mark Warner, former Virginia governor, recently hired one of the leftist blogosphere's biggest names to run his Internet outreach campaign, and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana began a blog on the liberal Huffington Post, peddling his foreign policy views.
The next round of prospective Democratic presidential candidates, even those with centrist credentials, is actively courting the Democratic Party's left wing -- which speaks loudly through its blogs, enjoys rising fund-raising clout built on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, and is imbued with a confidence that it can build on Republican disarray. The Democrats are rushing to fill a void left in the hearts and minds of many liberal activists by New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to move to the center, particularly on the Iraq war.
A high-5 for Dow, S&P (CHRISTOPHER WANG, 3/18/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Lower oil prices and a rebound in manufacturing activity helped Wall Street extend its rally Friday, lifting the Dow Jones industrials and the Standard & Poor's 500 index to a fresh five-year high for the fourth straight session. The major indexes each gained about 2 percent for the week. [...]The Dow climbed 26.41, or 0.23 percent, to 11,279.65, its highest level since May 21, 2001. The S&P 500 index rose 1.92, or 0.12 percent, to 1,307.25 -- its highest close since it reached 1,309.38 on May 22, 2001. The Nasdaq composite index added 6.92, or 0.3 percent, to 2,306.48.
Jacques Barzun, part two (Tim Wiles, Letters in the Dirt)
Now, back to Jacques Barzun, a Frenchman in America, describing the national pastime in 1954. When last we left off, Barzun had been describing the mental action and physical choreography of the game, comparing it to chess. Let's continue in his words:"Baseball takes its mystic nine and scatters them wide. A kind of individualism thereby returns, but it is limited--eternal vigilance is the price of victory. Just because they're far apart, the outfield can't dream or play she-loves-me-not with daisies. The infield is like a steel net held in the hands of the catcher. He is the psychologist and historian for the staff--or else his signals will give the opposition hits. The value of his headpiece is shown by the ironmongery worn to protect it. The pitcher, on the other hand, is the wayward man of genius, whom others will direct. They will expect nothing from him but virtuosity. He is surrounded no doubt by mere talent, unless one excepts that transplanted acrobat, the shortstop. What a brilliant invention is his role despite it's exposure to ludicrous lapses! One man to each base, and then the free lance, the trouble shooter, the movable feast for the eyes, whose motion animates the whole foreground."
Whew! What an amazing description. The genius of calling the shortstop "A movable feast for the eyes," or of calling the pitcher "a wayward man of genius, whom others will direct!" Besides getting to the heart of the matter, Barzun's writing has an almost sensual quality of what his countrymen call "le mot juste," or "the perfect word." Ironmongery, indeed. Here he expounds on the catcher: "Every part of baseball equipment is inherently attractive and of a most enchanting functionalism. A man cannot have too much leather about him; and a catcher's mitt is just the right amount for one hand." This passage foreshadows a later description by the great baseball writer Roger Angell. "Any baseball is beautiful. No other small package comes as close to the ideal in design and utility. It is a perfect object for a man's hand. Pick it up and it instantly suggests its purpose; it is meant to be thrown a considerable distance--thrown hard and with precision." How about a game of catch between these two?
Barzun gets inside the soul of the game in a way perhaps that no native could, since we are freighted with our collective knowledge of the game, blinded by the normalcy of the game around us. Here's another nice Barzun quote for the ages: "That baseball fitly expresses the powers of the nation's mind and body is a merit separate from the glory of being the most active, agile, varied, articulate, and brainy of all group games." And yet another: "Accuracy and speed, the practiced eye and hefty arm, the mind to take in and readjust to the unexpected, the possession of more than one talent and the willingness to work in harness without special orders--these are the American virtues that shine in baseball." Hey, Madison Avenue, sign this guy up as a spokesperson for the game!
On October 3rd, 1951, Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit a home run which, though viewed by only a half-capacity crowd at the Polo Grounds, has come to reverberate in the nation's consciousness so that it is known as "the shot heard round the world," and a hefty literary tome by Don DeLillo uses it as a starting point for limning the second half of the century. Again, writing in 1954, Barzun was an early commentator to grasp the significance of that home run: "The wonderful purging of the passions that we all experienced in the fall of '51, the despair groaned out over the fate of the Dodgers, from whom the league pennant was snatched at the last minute, give us some idea of what Greek tragedy was like. Baseball is Greek in being national, heroic, and broken up in the rivalries of city states. How sad that Europe knows nothing like it!"
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Jacques Barzun, part one (Tim Wiles, Letters in the Dirt)
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of American had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game, and do it first by watching some high school or small town teams." So goes Barzun's most memorable quote from the essay. But to read that quote in context is a distinct pleasure. It continues: "The big league games are too fast for the beginner and the newspapers don't help. To read them with profit you have to know a language that comes easy only after philosophy has taught you to judge practice. Here is scholarship that takes effort on the part of the outsider, but it is so bred into the native that it never becomes a dreary round of technicalities."Some interesting responses come to mind about the fuller quote. First, it is interesting that Barzun considers the big league games too fast for the beginner. When Barzun wrote the essay, there was no cable television, no remote control, and no channel surfing. Today, the game is often criticized for being too slow for the television audience. But I don't think we are talking about the physical speed of the game here. Rather, I think Barzun has correctly pointed out that baseball at the big league level involves so much thinking on the part of players, managers, and knowledgeable fans that its depth cannot be perceived while channel surfing. Barzun divides potential fans into natives and beginners. This was perhaps natural for him to do, as a Frenchman in America. To update the analysis, we could perhaps divide Americans up into two groups: the initiated and the innocent. To the innocent, baseball seems to lack the reckless, headlong action of football, hockey, or basketball. To the initiated, the "scholars" as Barzun alludes to them, there is much, much more going on in a baseball game than in any of these other sports.
To this type of fan, it is natural to compare the game of baseball to the game of chess, an extremely intricate world of actions, consequences, and reactions. Perhaps Barzun was the first to do so: "There has never been a good player who was dumb. Beef and bulk and mere endurance count for little, judgment and daring for much. Baseball is among group games played with a ball what fencing is to games of combat. But being spread out, baseball has something sociable and friendly about it that I especially love. It is graphic and choreographic. The ball is not shuttling in a confined space, as in tennis. Nor does baseball go to the other extreme of solitary whanging and counting stopped on the brink of pointlessness, like golf. Baseball is a kind of collective chess with arms and legs in full play under sunlight."
Reading through coverage of the All-Star Game in the Rocky Mountain News, of Denver, earlier this summer, I noticed an observation which supports the chess analogy. Science fiction author Dan Simmons was quoted as saying that he "...likes that when Craig Biggio's knees move one way in the batter's box, Juan Gonzalez shades him to the line, Derek Jeter moves over and Jim Thome backs up." Barzun earlier used the word choreographic, and baseball is also frequently compared to ballet, for its "moment to moment beauty and grace," as the movie shown daily in the Hall of Fame's Grandstand Theater attests, and also for its flashes of action.
Hunter gets captured by the fame: Brit soul singer breaks out in U.S. (Daniel Gewertz, March 18, 2006, Boston Herald)
James Hunter’s new CD, “People Gonna Talk,” arrives from Britain like a small miracle. It’s almost as if Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson were reborn. Hunter doesn’t just imitate the sound of luxuriously melodic soul, circa 1961; he actually sounds as sweet and solid as the hit-makers of yesteryear.
The voice is rich and knowledgeable. The band is a tight sensation. And the graceful songs - all written and arranged by Hunter - uncannily evoke classic American pop r & b. You’d think they came directly from some solid-gold vault.
Yet singer-guitarist Hunter, who plays the Regattabar on Tuesday, insists his music is not a studied attempt at retro. He simply doesn’t know how to play anything else.
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WXPN Artist To Watch - March 2006 - James Hunter (World Cafe)
-James Hunter: 'People Gonna Talk' (Michele Norris, March 8, 2006, All Things Considered)
-James Hunter and the Return of Analog Soul (David Dye, February 13, 2006, World Cafe)
French fry LNG foes: Takeover could thwart shutdown try (Jay Fitzgerald, 3/18/06, Boston Herald)
The state-run Gaz de France is bidding to take over private French energy group Suez SA, which owns the Everett terminal through its subsidiary Distrigas of Massachusetts.
The French government moved late last month to buy a controlling interest in Suez in order to block the sale of Suez by Italian energy group Enel.
But the deal may also ultimately blunt calls and efforts to force the closure of the Everett liquefied natural gas terminal, which critics say is a dangerous facility in the post-Sept. 11 world of terrorism.
“It takes a bad situation and makes it more complicated and perhaps worse,” said state Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedord), referring to the French move.
Craig Hooper, a research fellow at the Monterey Institute for International Studies, said it’s a “little scary” that any foreign government, directly or indirectly, could take over such a major energy facility in the United States.
He noted the recent outcry over a proposal by a Dubai company to take over six U.S. port operations.
“Even if France is an ally, sometimes they have interests that diverge” from that of the United States, Hooper said.
U.S. eyes Baghdad for talks with Iran (Washington Times, March 18, 2006)
The American ambassador said yesterday he wants to talk with the Iranians -- but not negotiate -- in Baghdad.
"We are not entering into negotiations about Iraq with Iran. The Iraqis will decide the future of Iraq. We have concerns -- and I've spoken about them -- with regard to Iranian policy in Iraq," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told the Associated Press in an interview.
U.N. to raise its profile in Iraq (Betsy Pisik, 3/18/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The senior U.N. official in Iraq yesterday said that the United Nations will soon be raising its profile there, acknowledging that its "perceived absence" has been noticeable since a tragic suicide bombing after the U.S. invasion three years ago.
How I Learned to Love the Wall (IRSHAD MANJI, 3/18/06, NY Times)
I appreciate that Israel's intent is not to keep Palestinians "in" so much as to keep suicide bombers "out." But in the minds of many Palestinians, Ariel Sharon never adequately acknowledged the humiliation felt by a 60-year-old Arab whose family has harvested the Holy Land for generations when she has to show her identity card to an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant in an Israeli Army uniform who's been in the country for eight months. In that context, fences and walls come off as cruelly gratuitous.For all the closings, however, Israel is open enough to tolerate lawsuits by civil society groups who despise every mile of the barrier. Mr. Sharon himself agreed to reroute sections of it when the Israel High Court ruled in favor of the complainants. Where else in the Middle East can Arabs and Jews work together so visibly to contest, and change, state policies?
I reflected on this question as I observed an Israeli Army jeep patrol the gap in Abu Dis. The vehicle was crammed with soldiers who, in turn, observed me filming the anti-Israel graffiti scrawled by Western activists — "Scotland hates the blood-sucking Zionists!" I turned my video camera on the soldiers. Nobody ordered me to shut it off or show the tape. My Arab taxi driver stood by, unprotected by a diplomatic license plate or press banner.
Like all Muslims, I look forward to the day when neither the jeep nor the wall is in Abu Dis. So will we tell the self-appointed martyrs of Islam that the people — not just Arabs, but Arabs and Jews — "are one"? That before the barrier, there was the bomber? And that the barrier can be dismantled, but the bomber's victims are gone forever?
Young Muslims, especially those privileged with a good education, cannot walk away from these questions as my interlocutor in Abu Dis did. If we follow in his footsteps, we are only conspiring against ourselves. After all, once the election is over, we won't have Ariel Sharon to kick around anymore.
Cited as Symbol of Abu Ghraib, Man Admits He Is Not in Photo (KATE ZERNIKE, 3/18/06, NY Times)
In the summer of 2004, a group of former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison filed a lawsuit claiming that they had been the victims of the abuse captured in photographs that incited outrage around the world.One, Ali Shalal Qaissi, soon emerged as their chief representative, appearing in publications and on television in several countries to detail his suffering. His prominence made sense, because he claimed to be the man in the photograph that had become the international icon of the Abu Ghraib scandal: standing on a cardboard box, hooded, with wires attached to his outstretched arms. He had even emblazoned the silhouette of that image on business cards.
The trouble was, the man in the photograph was not Mr. Qaissi. [Editors' Note, Page A2.]
Military investigators had identified the man on the box as a different detainee who had described the episode in a sworn statement immediately after the photographs were discovered in January 2004, but then the man seemed to go silent.
Mr. Qaissi had energetically filled the void, traveling abroad with slide shows to argue that abuse in Iraq continued, as head of a group he called the Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons.
The New York Times profiled him last Saturday in a front-page article; in it, Mr. Qaissi insisted he had never sought the fame of his iconic status. Mr. Qaissi had been interviewed on a number of earlier occasions, including by PBS's "Now," Vanity Fair, Der Spiegel and in the Italian news media as the man on the box.
This week, after the online magazine Salon raised questions about the identity of the man in the photograph, Mr. Qaissi and his lawyers insisted he was telling the truth.
Iraqi troop control 'to spread' (Adam Brookes, 3/18/06, BBC News)
A senior US general has said 75% of Iraqi territory will soon be under the control of Iraqi security forces.Speaking by video link from Baghdad, Lt Gen Peter Chiarelli said the progress made in building Iraq's new army and police forces had been enormous.
Iraqi forces were currently responsible for security in less than half of Iraq's territory, he said.
By the end of the summer, he said, he wanted to see three-quarters of Iraq under their control.
Labour admits £14m in secret loans (JAMES KIRKUP AND GERRI PEEV, 3/18/06, The Scotsman)
LABOUR yesterday admitted taking almost £14 million in secret loans from wealthy individuals, but refused to name the lenders. The admission was the latest twist in a saga that threatens to leave Labour mired in allegations of sleaze.Tony Blair had previously admitted that he knew about three loans worth £4.6 million, a financial arrangement that Jack Dromey, the Labour treasurer, says he was not aware of.
While the loans do not technically breach any disclosure laws, they have left many Labour MPs deeply uneasy about the party's finances.
Australian talks centre on Iran (BBC, 3/18/06)
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Australia and Japan have expressed grave concern over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.In a joint statement following trilateral security talks, they called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities and resume negotiations. [...]
Ms Rice, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said they discussed the need for "concerted action" by the UN Security Council to convince Iran to "promptly suspend" uranium enrichment activities. [...]
The three ministers also called on North Korea to "immediately and unconditionally" return to six-party nuclear talks. [...]
Earlier, Ms Rice and her counterparts held talks on how the three countries could deal with issues such as China and tackle its growing military strength.
Ms Rice had voiced concerns that Beijing would become a "negative force" unless it was more open about its military build-up.
This ministerial-level meeting has drawn the attention of political leaders and analysts across the Asia-Pacific region. Many view the new "triple alliance" with suspicion. There is a concern that this might be the beginning of a new Cold War-type alliance in which China is cast as the adversary.This suspicion has become even stronger in the light of the comments made by Rice before her departure for Indonesia. China, she claimed, could become a "negative force" in the region. Consequently "all of us in the region, particularly those of us who are long-standing allies, have a joint responsibility and obligation to try [to] produce conditions in which the rise of China will be a positive force in international politics, not a negative force". Not surprisingly then, China's military and economic rise would be at the core of the trilateral security discussions.
This development will not be taken kindly in many capitals around the region. Although China has not responded to Rice's comment, it will most certainly make Beijing furious. To make a particular country the main item of discussion, as Rice has suggested, is far from the stated aims when the process was put in place five years ago.
The trilateral security dialogue process was put forward by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and endorsed by then US secretary of state Colin Powell and then foreign minister of Japan Makiko Tanaka in July 2001. The proposal was made in light of the weakening of multilateral processes such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in economic and security spheres, and growing concerns by the three nations over both North Korea's nuclear capability and China's intentions in relation to Taiwan and its growing defense capabilities. These and other security-related concerns, such as global terrorism, led conservative governments in Australia and Japan to link themselves with the United States and each other.
Iranian dissident freed from jail (BBC, 3/18/06)
Iran's most prominent dissident journalist Akbar Ganji has been freed from jail after six years.Ganji was jailed in 2001 for writing articles in which he linked senior officials to the murder of dissidents.
Correspondents say he is a hero to Iran's reformists for standing up to hardliners, and many world leaders have called for his release. [...]
The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says many Iranians thought Ganji, 46, would never be freed from jail, even though his sentence was due to end.
The release comes days before the United Nations Security Council is due to discuss Iran's stand-off with Western nations over the country's nuclear programme. [...]
His imprisonment came amid a media crackdown by hardliners as the then reformist President Mohammad Khatami appeared to be threatening their power.
Viewpoints: French protests (BBC, 3/18/06)
Here, Physics student Judith Duportail, a demonstrator, and Economics student Victor Vidilles, who is he helping to organise Saturday's march, explain why it is important that the government backs down over its labour reforms."It is wrong to make it easier to hire and to fire people here in France.
I know it is the case in other countries, but there you don't have to wait months and months, perhaps even years, to get another job like you do here.
Draft law in France poses a challenge to iPod (LAURENCE FROST, 3/18/06, The Associated Press
Apple Computer faces a serious challenge in France as lawmakers move to sever the umbilical cord between its iPod music player and iTunes online store — threatening its lucrative hold on both markets.Amendments to an online copyright bill, adopted early Friday, would give rivals access to the hitherto-exclusive file formats at the heart of Apple's music-business model as well as Sony's Walkman players and Connect store.
Gerry Adams detained at D.C. airport (Carolyn Thompson, 3/17/06, AP)
Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party in Northern Ireland, was detained at a Washington airport on Friday after attending a St. Patrick's Day event at the White House, according to a congressman.Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., who had invited Adams to speak at the Buffalo Irish Center, told the audience Friday night that Adams didn't make it to Buffalo in time because he was detained at Reagan National Airport. [...]
"Gerry Adams should not have been on a terror watch list," said Higgins.
Yeah, we'll have to wait for him to win a Nobel Peace Prize to be certain he's a threat.
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terror (Jamie Glazov, March 15, 2006, FrontPageMagazine.com)
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Chuck Morse, the author of The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism - Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini.Glazov: Give us the story on Amin al-Husseini.
Morse: Amin al-Husseini, regarded in the Arab world as the founding father of the Palestinian movement, chose the path of denying the national rights of the Jews to that tiny area between the Jordan Rover and the Mediterranean Sea known as Israel.
Al-Husseini instigated a pogrom against indigenous Palestinian Jews in 1920. After conviction in absentia, he was pardoned by British Mandate Governor Herbert Samuel, himself a British Jew. Samuel was responsible for elevating al-Husseini as Mufti of Jerusalem thus establishing a strange pattern of western leaders supporting extremists over moderates, a pattern that continues to this day in many cases.
In 1936, al-Husseini met with Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazi masterminds behind the Holocaust against the Jews, in Palestine where Eichmann visited for a few days. Al-Husseini then was put on the Nazi payroll and received Nazi funds which he used to instigate the Arab Revolt of 1937-1939 according to testimony at the Nuremburg and Eichmann trials.
In 1941, al-Husseini played a key role in instigating a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq. Following the collapse of the coup, al-Husseini helped instigate the Fahud, or the murder campaign against the indigenous Jews of Iraq, a campaign that has been compared to the kristalnacht in Germany.
In November, 1941, al-Husseini met with Hitler in Berlin where he was treated as a visiting head of state. al-Husseini spent the war years in Nazi Germany where he was recognized as the head of state of a Nazi-Arab government in exile. Hitler promised al-Husseini that he would be chief administrator of the Arab world after the Nazi "liberation."
While in Nazi Germany, al-Husseini directly participated in the Holocaust against the Jews by preventing the exchange of Jews for German POW's and instead insuring that they went to the crematoria. Al-Husseini led in the effort to train Bosnian Muslim brigades and other Muslim European brigades who were involved in many atrocities. He funneled monies form the sonderfund, money looted from Jews as they were sent to the concentration camps, sending the funds to the Middle East to be used to promote Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda.
After the war, al-Husseini escaped to Cairo ahead of indictment at Nuremburg where he spent the rest of his life agitating against Israel. He died in Beirut in 1974.
Glazov: In contrast to al-Husseini, there have been moderate Arab leaders who have supported the aspirations of the Jews in Palestine. Can you tell us about them?
Morse: Emir Faisal, later King of Syria and Iraq and recognized as political leader of the Arab world, who signed an agreement with Chiam Weizmann, recognized head of the Zionist organization, known as the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement in January, 1919.
This agreement, which recognized the Jewish National Home in Palestine, reflected the more moderate and genuinely progressive view held by many Arabs at the time. I contend that this agreement constitutes established international law. Faisal envisioned an Israel, existing within "modest and proper" borders, coexisting with the emerging Arab states and helping those states emerge into modernity with the development of democratic institutions, western economies, and greater civil rights for Arabs. Had the Faisal vision been realized, perhaps the Arab States today would be prosperous and free rather than what they became -- which is authoritarian systems with endemic poverty and little freedom. [...]
Glazov: In many respects, you could say that al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas etc. are all, on one level, branches of Nazism. No?
Morse: Nazi money, largely looted from Jews, was used before, during and for decades after the war to help establish and influence these groups. Nazi war criminals emigrated to the Arab countries after the war in an effort known as "Oerationn Odessa." Al-Husseini played a role in this operation. Certainly they have embraced Nazi style anti-Semitism and tactics.
Iraqi Sunnis do not welcome Iranian help (UPI, Mar. 17, 2006)
Sunni leaders in Iraq denounced talks Friday between Iran and the United States over the Iraq's political future.
The Tawafuq Front, a Sunni coalition, called the talks "an obvious unjustified interference in Iraq's affairs," The New York Times reported. Leaders said in a statement that the front "is not committed, under any circumstances, to any results."
Two held in Afghanistan with letter of Zawahiri (Dawn, 3/16/06)
Afghan police said they arrested on Thursday two suspected Taliban insurgents carrying letters from the movement’s fugitive leader and Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri.The Afghan nationals were arrested separately close to the border with Pakistan in eastern Nangarhar province, border security forces provincial deputy chief Mohammad Ibrar said.
“One of them was carrying letters from (the Taliban’s) Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Mr Ibrar said.
Remark About Gays Shadows St. Pat's Parade (VERENA DOBNIK , 03.17.2006, AP)
As huge, happy crowds lined the streets, the chairman, John Dunleavy, sidestepped questions about his remarks to The Irish Times."Today is St. Patrick's Day. We celebrate our faith and heritage, everything else is secondary," he said before the start of the Fifth Avenue parade.
Dunleavy set off a firestorm this week when he told the newspaper: "If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow Neo-Nazis into their parade? If African Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?"
Referring to the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, Dunleavy said, "People have rights. If we let the ILGO in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"
French protests nothing like those of '68 (JOHN LEICESTER, 3/17/06, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Tear gas. Students clashing with police around the famed Sorbonne university in Paris. Barricades in the capital's streets. Is March 2006 proving to be May 1968 all over again? So far, no. While comparisons between the student protests of then and now are tempting, they are also misleading.The young protesters of '68 wanted to turn French society upside down. "Break the old molds" was one of their many slogans.
Their children want not revolution but status quo: the same access to pensions, jobs, prosperity and generous welfare systems their parents enjoyed. In short, a comfortable European lifestyle that many feel is under grave threat.
After Words: Harvey Mansfield interviewed by Naomi Wolf (C-SPAN 2, Saturday, March 18 at 9:00 pm and Sunday, March 19 at 6:00 pm and at 9:00 pm)
Description: This week on After Words, Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government at Harvard University explains his answer to the question, "What is Manliness?" Using historical, philosophical, and political examples, Professor Mansfield traces the evolution of the word's definition from ancient times to its current meaning in today's gender-neutral society. He is interviewed on his new book, "Manliness," by author Naomi Wolf, who has also written books on gender and society including "The Beauty Myth : How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women," "Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood," & "The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love, and See."
To Your Health: Why modest reform is preferable to single-payer health care. (Michael Kinsley, March 17, 2006, Slate)
In the March 23 New York Review of Books, Paul Krugman makes the case for a health-care system that is not only "single payer," meaning that the government handles the finances, but in some respects "single provider," meaning that the government supplies the service directly.Krugman and his co-author, Robin Wells, correctly diagnose the problem with the Bush administration's pet health-care solution of encouraging people (with tax breaks, naturally) to pay for routine care à la carte instead of through insurance. Like Willie Sutton in reverse, this notion goes where the money isn't. Annual checkups and sore throats aren't bankrupting us: It's the gargantuan cost of treating people who are seriously ill. People who can get insurance against that risk would be insane not to, and the government would be insane to encourage them not to.
Most lucky Americans with good insurance are doubly isolated from financial reality. They don't pay for their health care and they don't even pay for most of their insurance—their employers or the government pays.
New Documents from Saddam Hussein's Archives Discuss Bin Laden, WMDs (ABC News, March 16, 2006)
Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of four of the nine Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which were released by the U.S. government Wednesday.The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more.
The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm [...]
"Hiding Docs from the U.N. Team"
Document dated March 23, 1997
A letter from the Iraqi intelligence service to directors and managers advising them to follow certain procedures in case of a search by the U.N. team, including:
Removing correspondence with the atomic energy and military industry departments concerning the prohibited weapons (proposals, research, studies, catalogs, etc.).
Removing prohibited materials and equipment, including documents and catalogs and making sure to clear labs and storages of any traces of chemical or biological materials that were previously used or stored.
Doing so through a committee which will decide whether to destroy the documents.
Removing files from computers.
The letter also advises them on how they should answer questions by U.N. team members. It says the intelligence service should be informed within one week about the progress made in discarding the documents.
(Editor's Note: This document is consistent with the Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence, which described a pattern of deception and concealment on the part of Saddam Hussein's government towards the U.N. inspectors in the mid to late 90's. Hussein halted all cooperation with those inspectors and expelled them in October 1998.)
Religious Rapprochement in Israel: Officially, Israel and the West have rule out talks with the Islamic extremist organization Hamas. However, dialogue is quietly being sought with the new Palestinian leadership. (Christoph Schult, Der Spiegel)
Rabbi Menachem Fruman has been fighting a lonely battle for years now. A religious Israeli settler from the mountains in occupied West Bank, he has been tirelessly pushing to improve dialogue with the militant Islamist organization Hamas. Motivated by the principle that peace between religious believers should be possible, Fruman has regularly braved the Gaza Strip to meet radical Palestinian leaders.His efforts climaxed in 1997, when he shook hands with the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Fruman's settler friends regarded him as a traitor, and even within the Israeli peace movement he was viewed as naïve. Most of his compatriots just thought he was crazy.
But now -- ever since the Islamists won the parliamentary elections in January -- Fruman is very much in demand. With Hamas aiming to make their leader Ismail Haniyeh the next Palestinian prime minister, the 60-year-old rabbi knows more about how the new people in power view the world than practically any other Israeli.
Even the government is suddenly showing interest in what Fruman is doing. Recently, a close advisor of the acting Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert called him up to request a confidential chat. Fruman met the prime minister's representative in the anonymity of the lobby of a hotel in Jerusalem. He wanted to know how likely an improvement in relations between Israel and Hamas would be. "I said that Hamas can be put on the right path more easily if the organization is accorded some respect," says Fruman. [...]
According to surveys, 50 percent of Israelis are in favor of dealing with Hamas. But because of the elections in two weeks time, top politicians feel they have to show themselves to be unshakably tough. Although Hamas has not even formed a cabinet yet, Olmert has already labeled the new Palestinian government a "terrorist administration." And Israeli officials have threatened the Hamas leader Ismail Haniya with assassination. Olmert seemingly wants voters to believe that Israel is able to completely cut all links to the Palestinians.
But mutual dependence is far too great for that to ever happen. Only last week Israel was forced to re-open the border to the Gaza strip to allow aid through, after a three week blockcade. This was the only way of preventing a humanitarian catastrophe. And Israeli firms lose out on millions of dollars because they are unable to export their products -- especially milk, sugar and bananas -- to the Palestinian areas.
Democracy Push by Bush Attracts Doubters in Party (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 3/17/06, NY Times)
The critics, who include Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Representative Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, as well as Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, are alarmed at the costs of military operations and of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.They have also been shaken by the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections in January and by the gains Islamists scored in elections in Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon.
The administration, with support from legislators like Senators John McCain of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas, contends that whatever their outcome, elections are better than violent upheaval.
My 5th grade teacher was a former nun and one day she came out into the hall to yell at us: "At East Orange High School they may all be shooting heroin in the bathrooms but at least they're quiet when they change classes!"
Paris Flambé: The student protests in France are getting worse. On Thursday, some 250,000 demonstrators took to the streets with more than 300 arrests made. The student violence is the worst since 1968. (Der Spiegel, 3/17/06)
Two weeks into the violent protests, the rage of French students shows no signs of subsiding. How angry are they? So angry that they're even carrying protest banners written in English in the anglophobic Republique. "Villepin: Give Up, in France You Are not the King!" and "We Shall Never Surrender!" The Academie francaise surely won't be pleased, but the banners do help ensure the maximum international media impact. [...]For several weeks now, students in France have been protesting a new law introduced by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin that makes it easier for employers to fire young workers under the age of 26 from their first jobs. De Villepin's logic is that companies will be more inclined to hire younger workers if they know they also have the option of laying them off.
Scientists Find Evidence Universe Inflated in Less Than Trillionth of a Second (David McAlary, 17 March 2006, VOA News)
Scientists report evidence that the universe was born in less than the blink of an eye, expanding instantly from sub-microscopic size to astronomical proportions.
Ginsburg Faults GOP Critics, Cites a Threat From 'Fringe' (Charles Lane, 3/17/06, Washington Post)
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg assailed the court's congressional critics in a recent speech overseas, saying their efforts "fuel" an "irrational fringe" that threatened her life and that of a colleague, former justice Sandra Day O'Connor.Addressing an audience at the Constitutional Court of South Africa on Feb. 7, the 73-year-old justice, known as one of the court's more liberal members, criticized various Republican-proposed House and Senate measures that either decry or would bar the citation of foreign law in the Supreme Court's constitutional rulings. Conservatives often see the citing of foreign laws in court rulings as an affront to American sovereignty, adding to a list of grievances they have against judges that include rulings supporting abortion rights or gay rights. [...]
Reflecting the tension between the two branches, O'Connor used a speech at Georgetown University Law Center last week to repeat her own past warnings about the threat to judicial independence posed by Republican criticisms of the court's rulings. She referred to comments by former House majority leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) but did not name either man.
She noted that death threats against judges are rising, according to a National Public Radio report on the speech, but she did not refer to the Internet threat mentioned by Ginsburg. No transcript or recording of O'Connor's speech is publicly available.
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O'Connor Forecasts Dictatorship: Why didn't the American press chase the story? (Jack Shafer, March 13, 2006, Slate)
The smoke drifting out of your computer over the weekend was not the result of a fried motherboard but the scent of bloggers setting themselves on fire in response to Nina Totenberg's NPR Morning Edition Friday, March 10, dispatch. Totenberg had attended a speech at Georgetown University given the night before by retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in which O'Connor invoked the word "dictatorship" to describe the direction the country may be headed if Republicans continue to attack the judiciary.
Kempthorne Picked for Interior: Idaho Governor Hailed by Bush, Assailed by Environmentalists (Peter Baker and Juliet Eilperin, 3/17/06, Washington Post)
President Bush named Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as the new secretary of the interior yesterday, choosing a popular Western Republican with Washington experience and a disputed environmental record to oversee the nation's parks and public lands.If confirmed, Kempthorne would succeed Gale A. Norton, who announced her resignation this month at a time when her department is tied up in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Kempthorne, 54, a two-term governor who served in the Senate in the 1990s, presumably should have little trouble winning the approval of his former colleagues. [...]
Kempthorne has been a favorite in the Bush White House for years and was considered three years ago as the likely choice for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He may have cemented his relationship with the president last summer when he and Bush went biking through Idaho trails together. Bush recalled that day fondly yesterday and noted that Kempthorne and his wife, Patricia, were married during a sunrise ceremony atop Idaho's Moscow Mountain.
But Kempthorne has also demonstrated independence from the White House on some issues. Just last month, he led a protest by the nation's governors against Bush's proposed cuts in Pentagon funding for the National Guard, calling them "a formula for disaster."
The bird or not the bird? (RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, 3/17/06, Associated Press)
Was it or was it not an ivory-billed woodpecker?Experts are still arguing a year later, while bird fanciers flock to the part of Arkansas where the bird in question was said to have been seen and heard.
The issue takes wing again in the Friday's issue of the journal Science, with one set of researchers arguing that the bird videotaped last year probably was a common pileated woodpecker and another group stoutly defending the identification as an ivory-bill.
It is an important distinction, because the ivory-billed woodpecker had been thought extinct.
Man severs own penis, throws it at officers (ERIC HERMAN, 3/17/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Before cops threw the book at him, Jakub Fik threw something unusual at them -- his penis.Fik, 33, cut off his own penis during a Northwest Side rampage Wednesday morning. When confronted by police, Fik hurled several knives and his severed organ at the officers, police said. Officers stunned him with a Taser and took him into custody.
'Jericho effect' boosts Israeli leader: Olmert's Kadima party reclaims wide lead in polls after attack on Palestinian prison (MARK MACKINNON, 3/17/06, Globe and Mail
After taking a slight dip in the polls, acting prime minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party has rebounded to reclaim a wide lead less than two weeks before Israel's parliamentary elections, benefiting from what observers have called a "Jericho effect" in the wake of this week's Israeli military raid on a Palestinian prison.An opinion poll released yesterday forecasts that Kadima will win between 42 and 43 of the 120 seats up for grabs, up from 38 seats a week ago and easily enough to give it first crack at forming a coalition government in the 120-seat Knesset after the March 28 vote.
The bounce was attributed largely to popular support for the Israeli army's surprise attack Tuesday on the Jericho prison, which left three Palestinians dead and led to Israel's capture of six wanted militants in Palestinian custody. While the raid provoked violent protests across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it was hailed by the Israeli media as a major success.
Harper restricts ministers' message: Officials urged to stick to five key priorities; PMO wants to vet all other public comment (CAMPBELL CLARK, 3/17/06, Globe and Mail)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has imposed central control over all information and comments to the public issued by government officials and even cabinet ministers, directing them to have everything cleared by the Prime Minister's Office, according to an internal e-mail and government sources.The orders, described in an e-mail to bureaucrats, indicate that ministers have been told to avoid talking about the direction of the government, and that the government wants them to be less accessible to the news media. And all government officials are instructed to avoid speaking about anything other than the five priorities outlined in the Conservative campaign.
"Maintain a relentless focus on the five priorities from the campaign. Reduce the amount of ministerial/public events that distract from the five priority areas [--"a Federal Accountability Act, a GST cut, a child-care allowance, tougher criminal sentences, and a patient waiting-times guarantee"--] identified in the campaign," the e-mail states.
Fighting Smarter In Iraq (David Ignatius, March 17, 2006, Washington Post)
Three years on, the U.S. military is finally becoming adept at fighting a counterinsurgency war in Iraq. Sadly, these are precisely the skills that should have been mastered before America launched its invasion in March 2003. It may prove one of the costliest lessons in the history of modern warfare.I had a chance to see the new counterinsurgency doctrine in practice here this week. U.S. troops are handing off to the Iraqi army a growing share of the security burden. As the Iraqis step up, the Americans are stepping back into a training and advisory role. This is the way it should have happened from the beginning.
GOP Irritation At Bush Was Long Brewing (Jim VandeHei, 3/17/06, Washington Post)
What Bush is facing now, beyond just election-year jitters by legislators eyeing his depressed approval ratings, is a rebellion that has been brewing since the days when he looked invincible, say many lawmakers and strategists. Newly unleashed grievances could signal even bigger problems for Bush's last two years in office, as he would be forced to abandon a governing strategy that until recently counted on solid support from congressional Republicans.The White House at times has been "non-responsive and arrogant," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). "There are a thousand small cuts," he added, that are ignored when things are going well but "rear their heads when things are not going well."
"Members felt they were willing to take a lot of tough votes and did not get much in return," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), an early critic of the port deal.
Congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein has written that the recently vented anger, after being suppressed for years out of loyalty or fear, might be seen in psychological terms. He called the condition "battered-Congress syndrome."
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U.S. hovers close to its debt ceiling (Tom Abate, January 8, 2006, SF Chronicle)
The federal debt is so mind-boggling it's no wonder lawmakers would rather not think about it. In per capita terms, the current debt is about $27,000 for each of 298 million Americans.But economists tend to look at the national debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product -- the sum total of all goods and services. This links the debt level to the nation's ability to pay and factors out inflation over time.
By this measure, the national debt has ebbed and flowed with world and political currents. According to historical tables in the 2006 federal budget, debt peaked at 121.7 percent of GDP in 1946 because of World War II spending. It fell to about 33 percent of GDP in 1980, then roughly doubled to the 60 percent range during the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush.
After hitting 67.3 percent of GDP in 1996, a few rare budget surpluses during the Clinton era drove the national debt back down to about 57 percent in 2001.
Debt as a percentage of GDP turned up again as the Bush administration began running deficits and now stands at an estimated 65.7 percent of GDP. The 2006 budget forecast predicts that the national debt will be 70 percent of GDP in 2010.
English plagues French news channel (Colin Randall, March 17, 2006, LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH)
France's television dream of mounting a challenge to CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp. has suffered an embarrassing setback after reports that the new channel would broadcast most of its output in English. [...]The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine quoted Jean-Pierre Paoli, right-hand man to CII's head, Alain de Pouzilhac, as saying: "It could be half in English, half in French or a different proportion."
But the weekly said CII executives told counterparts at the state-owned France Televisions, a partner with the private TF1 network in the venture, that French-language transmissions would be limited to three hours each morning. The rest, Le Canard Enchaine said, would be "in the language of Shakespeare."
Homosexual men boost increase in syphilis rate (Joyce Howard Price, 3/17/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The syphilis rate among U.S. men soared 81 percent between 2000 and 2004, primarily as a result of increases in reported cases among homosexual males, federal health officials reported yesterday.
While the rate among men nearly doubled during that time -- from 2.6 per 100,000 to 4.7 -- the syphilis rate among women fell from 1.7 to 0.8 per 100,000 from 2000 to 2003. It remained stable in 2004, marking the end of a 13-year decline.
"The vast majority of the increase is attributable to a resurgence of syphilis among men who have sex with men ... syphilis rates continue to increase among [this group]," said Dr. J.F. Beltrami and other authors of a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.
They also pointed out that sexually active bisexual men "likely contribute to syphilis among women."
White House offers talks to Tehran (Joseph Curl, March 17, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, has been "authorized to speak with Iranians," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said. "But this is a very narrow mandate dealing specifically with issues relating to Iraq." [...]Iraqi Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim had urged Shi'ite Iran to become involved in the talks in an effort to address U.S. accusations that Iran is meddling in Iraq.
"We will accept the proposal to help resolve the problems in Iraq and establish an independent government there as it was made by Mr. Hakim," said Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and secretary of the country's Supreme National Security Council.
The move marks a major shift in Iranian foreign policy, just as the United Nations is weighing action to punish the nation for its nuclear ambitions.
More kids on anti-psychotic drugs (Lindsey Tanner, 3/17/06, The Associated Press)
Soaring numbers of U.S. children are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, in many cases for attention-deficit disorder or other behavioral problems for which these medications have not been proved to work, a study found.The annual number of children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and 2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, the study said. That is an increase from 8.6 of every 1,000 children in the mid-1990s to nearly 40 of 1,000 in 2002.
More than half the prescriptions were for attention-deficit and other nonpsychotic conditions, the researchers said.
The findings are worrisome "because it looks like these medications are being used for large numbers of children in a setting where we don't know if they work," said Dr. William Cooper, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and lead author of the study.
"Impostor": Stirring up a fight on the right: a review of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy" by Bruce Bartlett (Bruce Ramsey, 3/17/06, The Seattle Times)
The argument of "Impostor" is that George W. Bush is not a conservative. He is another Richard Nixon, who had a conservative aura and conservatives as his political base but used the presidency to create wage and price controls, the Environmental Protection Agency and other items irritating to the conservative digestion.It all depends on what you say a conservative is. Author Bruce Bartlett — who according to newspaper reports was fired last fall from his job at a conservative Dallas-based think tank for writing this book — defines it on Page 1: a belief in "small government, federalism, free trade, and the Constitution as originally understood." [...]
Bartlett also uses Milton Friedman's principle that the true measure of government is what it spends — and, of course, Bush has been a geyser of spending. In hindsight, says Bartlett in appreciation, Bill Clinton "now looks almost like another Calvin Coolidge," the parsimonious Republican who paid down debt from World War I.
MORE:
U.S. hovers close to its debt ceiling (Tom Abate, January 8, 2006, SF Chronicle)
The federal debt is so mind-boggling it's no wonder lawmakers would rather not think about it. In per capita terms, the current debt is about $27,000 for each of 298 million Americans.But economists tend to look at the national debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product -- the sum total of all goods and services. This links the debt level to the nation's ability to pay and factors out inflation over time.
By this measure, the national debt has ebbed and flowed with world and political currents. According to historical tables in the 2006 federal budget, debt peaked at 121.7 percent of GDP in 1946 because of World War II spending. It fell to about 33 percent of GDP in 1980, then roughly doubled to the 60 percent range during the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush.
After hitting 67.3 percent of GDP in 1996, a few rare budget surpluses during the Clinton era drove the national debt back down to about 57 percent in 2001.
Debt as a percentage of GDP turned up again as the Bush administration began running deficits and now stands at an estimated 65.7 percent of GDP. The 2006 budget forecast predicts that the national debt will be 70 percent of GDP in 2010.
Mexico stuns Rocket, U.S. (John Nadel, 3/17/06, Associated Press)
Roger Clemens was a loser in what might have been the final start of his outstanding career, and Mexico eliminated Team USA from the World Baseball Classic.
Oliver Perez and seven relievers combined to pitch a three-hitter last night, as Mexico beat the Rocket and the United States, 2-1, giving Japan another shot at Korea in the WBC semifinals.
Beckett’s booming (Jeff Horrigan, March 17, 2006, Boston Herald)
The look on Torii Hunter’s face when he couldn’t catch up to an exploding, two-strike fastball in the second inning of the Red Sox’ 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins at City of Palms Park yesterday was all Terry Francona needed to see to realize that Josh Beckett was nearly ready for the regular season.
“The best I can put it is I’m glad he’s in our uniform,” Francona said. “I thought he looked strong and he had to work a little bit, which is good. He threw a couple of good changeups and his fastball had a lot of life. You saw Torii Hunter turn around and say, ‘This has got a little extra giddy-up on it.’ ”
Hub’s loss a real boomer: Data show working families moving on as empty-nesters move in (Jay Fitzgerald, 3/17/06, Boston Herald)
Suffolk - which is dominated by Boston but also includes Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop - saw a 1.48 percent decline in residents last year and a 5.15 percent decline over the past five years, placing the Hub dead-last in population growth among the 100 largest counties in America, according to Census Bureau estimates released and analyzed yesterday.
Among all 3,141 counties in the United States, Suffolk’s loss of 9,835 residents last year was the sixth-highest decline in hard numbers, according to census data. The overwhelming majority of those 3,141 counties, including many of the nation’s largest, experienced population gains.
The Herald first reported yesterday on the Hub’s population drop. But economists were stunned that further analysis showed Suffolk County was tops in population loss nationwide.
“It’s not good,” said John Bitner, chief economist at Boston’s Eastern Bank. “When you have a declining population, it starts feeding on itself. It’s tougher on small businesses. It’s 10,000 less haircuts, 10,000 less trips to dry cleaners. It becomes a downward (economic) spiral.”
Boston’s five-year population slide, on a percentage basis, outpaced even Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore and Milwaukee, all of which sustained heavy population losses.
I used loans loophole, admits Blair (George Jones, Toby Helm and Rachel Sylvester, 17/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Tony Blair admitted yesterday using a loophole in the rules on political donations to nominate three businessmen who made "secret" loans of more than £1 million to Labour for peerages.The Prime Minister made his admission about not informing the independent watchdog on Lords appointments as he found himself drawn further into the "peerages for loans" scandal. It raised suspicions of new moves to force him to make way for Gordon Brown this year.
Labour was gripped by bitter infighting with Mr Blair's close associates still reeling from the shock claim by Jack Dromey, the party's elected treasurer, that he had been "kept in the dark" about secret loans totalling more than £10 million.
"This was a dagger aimed at the heart of Tony Blair," a close ally of the Prime Minister said. "It is all about the politics between Blair and Brown."
The Shmooze: Swinging into Canada's Baseball Pantheon (ANTHONY WEISS, March 17, 2006, The Forward)
On Tuesday, March 7, Adam Stern was a well-regarded prospect for the Boston Red Sox. On the disabled list in the middle of the 2005 season, he had a decent but far-from-certain shot at a permanent berth as a back-up outfielder in 2006.By Thursday, March 9, Stern was Canadian national hero.
In between, the London, Ontario, native led Team Canada to "the biggest win in Canadian baseball history," according to Tom Valcke, president and CEO of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. In Canada's 8-6 shocker over vaunted Team USA in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, Stern went 3-for-4, including a rare inside-the-park home run and four RBIs. He also managed two spectacular catches in center field, including a leaping eighth-inning grab that helped Canada preserve its lead.
With that game, Stern, 26, leaped into the pantheon Canadian baseball greats, alongside the likes of pitching ace and Cooperstown Hall-of-Famer Ferguson Jenkins as well as current major league star Eric Gagne and National League Rookie of the Year Jason Bay.
He had already entered Jewish baseball history in 2005, when Boston fielded him along with Gabe Kapler and Kevin Youkilis during the ninth inning of an August 8 game against the Texas Rangers. It was the first time any team had put three Jewish players on the same field at once since the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960s.
Stern is only the second Canadian Jew to play the major leagues. The first was Goody Rosen, "The Toronto Tidbit," a center fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1930s and '40s.
Sonny Rollins played at the venerable Gusman Center in downtown Miami on Tuesday night. Printed above Sonny's name on the ticket were the words "Sax God"...not as poetic as "Saxophone Colossus," which is what I've previously seen printed on Rollins tickets (and the name of perhaps his greatest album), but a more efficient use of letters and syllables and just as accurate. Given the turnout I've seen for other jazz concerts in Miami, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the theater was sold out.The evening started with some functionaries presenting Sonny with (1) a proclamation from Mayor and City Commissioners declaring March 14 "Sonny Rollins Day" and (2) a key to the City. For some reason, they made the speeches and held up the proclamation and key without Rollins being on stage. But soon enough, Sonny ambled out with his peculiar stiff-legged shuffle gait, and accepted the awards with a few quick "thank you's" and a bemused smile on his face. By the way, his walk is about the only sign of his age catching up to him (he's 75). Although his beard is all white and his hair is more snow than coal, he is still tall and powerful looking and his odd, nasal voice (think Muppet) is still strong and clear. But his walk is that of an old man, perhaps a former football player or basketball player whose knees no longer have any cartilage.
After the brief ceremony, the band took the stage: Sonny, Clifton Anderson (Sonny's nephew) on trombone, Bobby Broom (who I went to jazz camp with almost 30 years ago) on guitar, Victor Lewis on drums, and Bob Cranshaw, who has been playing electric bass behind Sonny for more than 20 years.Sonny Rollins is, without debate, the World's Greatest Living Jazz Musician, but his performances can be uneven. When he's feeling it, no musician can bring an audience to greater heights of musical ecstasy; but when he can't find it, Sonny will noodle around on the head of a tune for a few minutes and then turn things over to the band. Sometimes, both phenomena happen in the same concert, and Tuesday night was fairly typical.
During the first 2 numbers, neither Sonny nor the band could seem to get much momentum going. The first number, a medium tempo standard (that I didn't recognize) wasn't helped by the fact that it featured a long drum solo...it seemed out of place so early in the show and didn't seem to build up from anything. The second tune was "Park Place," a calypso (a Sonny trademark and a nod to his West Indies heritage), but it was a strangely subdued example of the genre. Sonny's playing wasn't bad...his distinctive tone was strong and there were some interesting phrases...but it wasn't what we came to hear from the WGLJM.
Ah, but then Sonny segued from the calypso to the opening notes Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," and in an instant, there was magic in the air. As is his custom, Sonny started pacing the stage while playing, at times criss-crossing a small false stage front that was about a step below the main stage as though he were "walking the bar." His sound became magisterial, his ideas began flowing more smoothly, and the rhythm section starting laying down a cohesive, firm foundation for Sonny's excursion. (Bob Crenshaw's bass playing is especially worth mentioning. It took me the better part of 15 years to get used to Sonny playing with an electric bass, but now I can't imagine any other backing for him. Crenshaw's tone is as supple as one can coax from an electric bass, and I've come to believe that Sonny's thunderous tone would overwhelm an acoustic instrument.) The music continued at that unsurpassable level for then next 2 numbers, "They Say It's Wonderful" and an old waltz, "Someday I'll Find You." "They Say" was Rollins at his jaunty, euphoric best. Riffs, swinging lines, shouts, growls and wails poured out of his horn in a torrent of power, intellect, warmth and humor. If his solo had lasted for 2 or 3 hours, I don't think anyone in the house would have left his seat. He was a bit more contemplative on the waltz, but no less active and engaging. Just amazing.
Sonny and the band throttled back a bit on the last 2 tunes on the main part of the program: "Nishi," a blues Rollins wrote on a trip to Japan and one of his signature calypsos "Don't Stop the Carnival." Although the playing was fine all around, it was almost as if the band (and the audience) was a little worn out (physically and emotionally) from the "E" ticket ride we had all been on for the previous 40 minutes. Still, a scaled-back Rollins is better than 100% of pretty much anyone else.
After a long standing ovation, the band returned to the stage for an encore, Sonny's classic "Tenor Madness" (which he recorded in his only studio encounter with his friend and rival, John Coltrane). Rollins and Anderson played the head in unison, at a slightly slower pace than usual and with a real emphasis on swinging the melody. In his solo, Sonny dug into the blues changes with a more gusto and authority than he had on "Nishi." Towards the end, Sonny and Victor Lewis engaged in a tasty exchange of 4's which led into the final chorus. The finale was a great reminder that for all of his exploring and searching, Rollins's playing has (and has always had) at its core, the essential elements of jazz that have pertained since the days of Armstrong: swing and blues.
So March 16, 2006 may have been Sonny Rollins Day in Miami, but it was also another reminder that in the jazz world every day is Sonny Rollins Day.
Hey, Big Spender: Should we have known that President Bush would bust the budget? (Peggy Noonan, March 16, 2006, Opinion Journal)
This week's column is a question, a brief one addressed with honest curiosity to Republicans. It is: When George W. Bush first came on the scene in 2000, did you understand him to be a liberal in terms of spending?
At any rate, given that Ms Noonan believes, for some reason, that Ronald Reagan was a conservative and George W. Bush isn't, it's perhaps helpful to just compare the two: when Ronald Reagan left office in 1988 he was dunning us 18.1% of GDP to pay for a federal government that spent 21.2% of GDP. In 2004, the last year for which I could find numbers, George W. Bush had lowered our tax burden to 16.3% of GDP-- a level last reached in 1959--to pay for a government that spent 19.8 of GDP.
There doesn't seem to be any coherent reason why a president's conservatism should be judged by how much he spends, but if you're using that as your yardstick then Mr. Reagan was the most liberal president since FDR during WWII and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the most conservative since Nixon.
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Inflation slows in February (Associated Press, 3/16/06)
Inflation slowed sharply in February as food costs moderated and the price of gasoline, natural gas and other energy products posted big declines.The Labor Department reported Thursday that its closely watched Consumer Price Index posted a tiny 0.1 percent increase last month after having jumped 0.7 percent in January. [...]
Outside of the volatile energy and food sectors, so-called core inflation was also well-behaved during February, rising by a slight 0.1 percent, after a 0.2 percent gain in January.
Senators near compromise on immigration reform (Donna Smith, 3/16/06, Reuters)
Although no vote will be held until after a weeklong congressional recess, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday appeared ready to back a proposal by panel member Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, who has worked on the issue with his Republican colleague John McCain of Arizona. [...]Kennedy told the committee the proposal was not an amnesty. People seeking legal status would have to pay a $2,000 fine, apply for a six-year temporary status, have a job, pay taxes, learn English and show an understanding of U.S. government.
They would not get permanent status faster than the three million foreigners awaiting legal entry, he said.
"There is no moving to the front of the line, there is no free ticket," Kennedy said. "This is not amnesty."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, quipped that the requirements "probably exclude half of my family."
The panel also reached tentative agreement on a guest worker program sought by President George W. Bush has said he wants. A compromise struck between Kennedy and Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, would give future temporary workers an opportunity to seek permanent status after four years.
U.S. business groups favor creating a temporary worker program to help fill jobs that Americans either cannot or will not do. Both business and labor groups also favor giving current undocumented workers a way to legalize their status.
The Israel Lobby (John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, 3/23/06, London Review of Books)
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Canadians beginning to shun office life (SCOTT DEVEAU, 3/16/06, Globe and Mail )
Canadian's priorities are shifting away from the office towards a more balanced personal life, according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday.According to the survey, conducted by Workopolis, an online job search site, family has become more important to Canadians than their careers, reversing the priorities they held five years ago when a persons' career took the top spot.
In 2001, when the online survey was last conducted, 37 per cent of respondents said their career was their top priority. At that time, only 31 per cent said that their family was most important part of their life.
Those priorities have changed, however, with 44 per cent of respondents now saying family was the most important aspect of their life, while only 31 per cent said their career was.
Iran says it's ready for talks with U.S. about Iraq (ALI AKBAR DAREINI, 3/16/06, Associated Press)
A top Iranian official said Thursday that Tehran was ready to open talks with the United States over Iraq, marking a major shift in Iranian foreign policy a day after a top Iraqi leader called for such talks.Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and also secretary of the country's Supreme National Security Council, told the Islamic Republic News Agency that any talks between the United States and Iran would deal only with Iraqi issues.
Inflation slows to 2.2% (ROMA LUCIW, 3/16/06, Globe and Mail )
Canada's annual rate of inflation fell to 2.2 per cent in February, as consumers paid less for gasoline, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
Passport saved Canadian hostage: Held hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared for his life – until his captors discovered his passport and declared 'We love Canada' (MARK MACKINNON, 3/16/06, Globe and Mail)
Can't you just see the Canadian Tourism Board running those ads: "Canada, terrorists love us!"
P&O Ports to find U.S. buyer (William Glanz, March 16, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The port-operating company that DP World bought this month will oversee the sale of U.S. port operations and expects to find a buyer in four to six months.
One Vote for Gore (Chris Cillizza, March 16, 2006, Washington Post)
Al Gore, non-candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has his first inside-the-Beltway booster for a 2008 campaign.The support, enthusiastic if unsolicited, comes from Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who urged Gore into the race yesterday during an appearance on C-SPAN. In an interview after that appearance, Moran was careful to note that he is not formally endorsing Gore or any other 2008 candidate just yet, but he cited the former vice president's popular-vote advantage over George W. Bush in 2000 as his strongest selling point.
"I'd like to give him another shot at it," Moran said.
He went on to draw a comparison between Gore's political career and that of former president Richard M. Nixon...
’Beisbol’ finds its new heart and soul (Michael Silverman, March 16, 2006, Boston Herald)
There certainly are pockets left in the U.S. where baseball is a way of life. Boston, of course. St. Louis. Certain portions of New York City. But in the Caribbean, baseball is life in so many more important and heartfelt ways.
Passion is one thing, but it’s time to both acknowledge and celebrate who just passed through Hiram Bithorn Stadium, a ballpark that lacks any redeeming architectural feature but reverberates with the horns, cheers, whistles of adoration and sometimes rum-fueled throngs lucky enough to have sneaked a peek at the prodigious talent that just played six games here.
For Puerto Rico, Javier Vazquez, Carlos Beltran, Ivan Rodriguez and Javy Lopez. For Venezuela, Johan Santana, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Zambrano and Bobby Abreu. For the Dominican Republic, Bartolo Colon, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz and Miguel Tejada.
That’s who was here. Left out is Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, Felix Hernandez and Pedro Martinez.
And for Cuba, until the political landscape changes there, the motherlode of talent is simply immense and, more importantly, still untapped, guaranteeing the Latin influence in baseball will continue, unabated, for years to come.
Korea in; U.S. at the controls (Steve Buckley, 3/16/06, Boston Herald)
It’s probably pushing it to portray Team USA as the scrappy underdogs of the World Baseball Classic, but, well, here they are: When Korea had completed its thrilling 2-1 victory over Japan last night at Angel Stadium, it enabled the Americans to live for another day.
Its mission now clear, Team USA can advance to the WBC’s championship round - an international hardball Final Four, if you will - with a victory over Mexico tonight.
And Roger Clemens will get just what he wanted: a chance to pitch an important game on the international stage.
Census shows city population dropping (Jay Fitzgerald, 3/16/06, Boston Herald)
People are leaving Boston at a stunning rate of about 27 a day - with nearly 10,000 bolting Suffolk County last year alone, according to new U.S. Census Data.
That’s more than 1 person bailing out on life in the Hub every hour.
The pace of population decline in Suffolk County - made up overwhelmingly by Boston but also including Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop - was the fastest of any county in Massachusetts from July 2004 through July 2005, data shows.
The prohibitively high cost of housing and lack of jobs helped drive 9,835 people out of Suffolk County last year - the fourth straight year in which the Boston area lost population to outlying communities or other states. [...][Michael Goodman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts’ Donahue Institute,] said the census estimates do reflect statewide numbers showing Massachusetts is losing population. Earlier this year, the bureau estimated the state’s overall population fell by 0.1 percent to 6,398,743, the second straight year of population decline.
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Metro area 'fringes' are booming (Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg, 3/15/06, USA TODAY)
Americans continue their march away from congested and costly areas halfway through the decade, settling in more remote counties even if it means longer commutes, according to Census population estimates released Thursday. (Graphic: Population shifting)Some of the fastest-growing counties in 2005 lie on the farthest edges of large metropolitan areas, stretching the definition of "exurbs" to the limit.
"It's not just the decade of the exurbs but the decade of the exurbs of the exurbs," says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution. "People are leaving expensive cores and going as far out as they can to get a big house and a big yard. Suburbia is moving much further out."
So You Say You Want a Deevolution?: With the GOP defaulting on his Contract with America, Newt Gingrich may be rallying the ultra-conservative troops for a charge at the White House gates. (Ezra Klein, 03.15.06, American Prospect)
In 1994, Newt Gingrich became that rarest of creatures: a successful revolutionary. That’s when his decades-long emasculation of the Democratic majority finally broke them -- as he always knew it would – and the Republicans, with Gingrich at their helm, retook the House for the first time in 40 years. Then, in 1998, he entered the next, and usually final, stage in the revolutionary’s lifecycle: the humiliating fall from grace. His brand of unalloyed conservatism and partisan overreaching repulsed the country, and voters responded with the worst electoral drubbing any opposition party had received since Johnson walloped Goldwater in 1964. Gingrich resigned a few days later. And that, we thought, was the end of his story -- just another political tragicomedy.But the silver-haired revolutionary from Georgia has never been genteel enough to follow convention. So now, nearly four election cycles later, he’s angling for an incarnation rarely attained among his species: the triumphant comeback. And, thanks to the Republican Party’s drift into crony capitalism, big spending, and general incoherence, he just might get it. [...]
Ten years ago, when Newt and his coterie of red-faced radicals returned Republicans to power, they branded themselves deficit hawks, sworn foes of entitlement programs, devotees of limited government. They wanted to abolish the Department of Education, cut Medicare spending, and pass a constitutional amendment ensuring an eternity of balanced budgets. That the restored Republican majority instead fired Newt, elected Bush, passed a massive expansion of the Department of Education, added a new entitlement onto Medicare, and turned a large budget surplus into a gaping deficit is a fairly cruel irony, a political joke matched only by their brazen rejection of the ethics standards they rode in on.
In addition to being a small government manifesto, the Contract With America was a broadside against Congress’s culture of corruption. Before running down its 10 promised policies, it offered a list of eight reforms that Republicans promised would clean up Congress: independent auditors; term limits; less powerful committee chairs; anything that’d make the Democratic majority look like they’d been running a bureaucratized Enron.
And while Democrats would love to see the GOP run on doing away with Medicare and the federal role in education, the reality is that Newt would run on expanding vouchers and HSAs, which W already passed, and bringing the same type reforms to Social Security, which Democrats happen to have enough votes to block in the Senate for now. He wouldn't run on ideas that are at 20% in the polls.
US foreign policy puts accent on democracy (Caroline Daniel, March 16 2006, Financial Times)
The US will on Thursday place the promotion of democracy at the heart of its foreign policy as it adopts a tougher stance towards Russia, China and notably Iran.The move comes in the new National Security Strategy published on Thursday – the first formal review since the invasion of Iraq.
The document marks the first significant revision of the landmark 2002 document that advocated pre-emptive strikes against perceived terrorist threats. [...]
The document places “transformational democracy” as the overriding aim, in spite of rising criticism that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been an expensive military and political failure.
Although the concept of pre-emptive strikes is now less prominent, the official denied that the US had abandoned the policy. [...]
In the foreword, President George W. Bush says his strategy is based on two pillars: promoting freedom and confronting global challenges by “leading a growing community of democracies”. The struggle against militant Islamism is described as the “great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century”.
America’s mission is still one of “ending tyranny in our world” but “our National Security Strategy is idealistic about its goals and realistic about means”, the document says.
The Do-it-Yourself Deity (Julian Baggini & Jeremy Stangroom, Philosophersnet.com)
Do-It-Yourself DeityWhat is God?
In an attempt to resolve any disagreement surrounding the meaning of the word "God", TPM has assembled a crack team of "metaphysical engineers" who have devised a new computer-modelling virtual environment in which to test the plausibility of different conceptions of God.
Here's how it works. You are invited to select from the list below the attributes which you believe God must have (or the attributes that a being deserving of the name God must have). Metaphysical engineers will then model this conception of God to check out its plausibility.
Please select from the list below. You may choose as many, or as few, attributes as you wish. Then press the submit button. [...]
The Report
Plausibility Quotient = 1.0
The metaphysical engineers have determined that your conception of God has a plausibility quotient (PQ) of 1.0. A PQ of 1.0 means that as far as the metaphysical engineers can determine your conception of God is internally consistent and consistent with the universe that we live in. A PQ of 0.0 means that it is neither internally consistent nor consistent with our universe. More than likely, your PQ score will be somewhere between these two figures. But remember that this is your PQ score as determined by the metaphysical engineers. The editors of TPM have no control over their deliberations, so don't blame us!
*******************
What kind of God is that!?
The metaphysical engineers are happy to report that, to the best of their knowledge, the God you conceive is internally consistent and could exist in our universe. But they are less sure that what you have described deserves the name of God. She is not, for example, all-powerful. A God which knows everything or is totally benign may be a wonderful ideal, but is she really a God unless she has ultimate power?
Tories heave the schools Bill past Labour rebellion (Philip Webster and David Charter, 3/16/06, Times of London)
LABOUR MPs staged one of the biggest second-reading revolts in their party’s history last night, forcing Tony Blair to rely on Tory support to get his education reforms past the first and most important hurdle.Mr Blair secured a majority of 343 for his Education and Inspection Bill, which provides for the setting up of new trust schools. But 52 Labour MPs voted against the measure.
SPLIT BY ABORTION: The Front Lines of the Religious War in God's Own Country (Frank Hornig, Der Spiegel, 3/13/06)
South Dakota has passed the most restrictive abortion law in the United States. But much more is at stake. The rural state has become only the most recent front line in an ongoing religious war in the US.Germany, perhaps sensitive to the Holocaust argument, has a much more restrictive abortion law than we do:Abortion In Germany (Answers.com)Phillips Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota -- located in the heart of the flat Midwestern prairie -- is a sleepy thoroughfare. There are a few businesses along the street, a couple of restaurants, and a souvenir shop which struggles to attract customers.
But last Thursday, this dreary provincial boulevard became the dividing line separating two irreconcilable camps in the city -- and it became the most recent front line in an ongoing war that bisects the entire nation. For about an hour, opposing groups of demonstrators swore at one another across the street, launching a new round in an old dispute that has long since expanded into a cultural battle -- a bitter fight that has raged for decades between conservatives and liberals, devout Christians and women's rights groups.
Last Monday, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, a Republican, approved a radical new law that outlaws abortion under virtually all circumstances. Even rape and incest victims are forbidden from getting abortions under the new law....
But evil, it seems, is in the majority these days. Even in South Dakota, where about 300 protestors, mainly young women wearing pink T-shirts, are vocally defending the right to abortion. The signs they're carrying convey their message loud and clear: "My body -- my choice" and "Save Roe."
Father Morgan smiles mildly, seemingly confident of victory. "We're writing history here," he says. In 25 years, he adds, Americans will liken abortion "to the greatest crimes of mankind, crimes like slavery and the Holocaust."
In 1975, West German state laws permitting some abortions were struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany as inconsistent with the human rights guarantees of the constitution. It held that the unborn have a right to life, that abortion is "an act of killing", and that the unborn child deserves legal protection throughout its development.Somehow, Justice Breyer never mentions that international law precedent.Nevertheless, in 1976, West Germany legalized abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy for reasons of medical necessity, sexual crimes or serious social or emotional distress, if approved by two doctors, and subject to counseling and a three-day waiting period. The legal requirements were extremely strict, and often led women to seek abortions elsewhere, particularly in the Netherlands. In 1989, a Bavarian doctor was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and 137 of his patients were fined for failing to meet the certification requirements.
The two laws had to be reconciled after reunification. A new law was passed by the Bundestag in 1992, permitting first-trimester abortions on demand, subject to counselling and a three-day waiting period. The law was quickly challenged in court by a number of individuals - including Chancellor Helmut Kohl - and the State of Bavaria. The Federal Constitutional Court issued a decision a year later maintaining its earlier decision that the constitution protected the fetus from the moment of conception, but stated that abortions during the first trimester should not be subject to punishment, assuming that the mother had submitted to counselling aimed at changing her mind. Abortions are not covered by public health insurance except for women with low income.
I tell you after all that I do not hate Mankind, it is vous autres who hate them because you would have them reasonable Animals, and are Angry for being disappointed.-Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, November 26, 1725
Dutch immigrants must watch racy film (BRUCE MUTSVAIRO, 3/15/06, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to participate in the liberal Dutch culture.If they can't stomach it, no need to apply.
Despite whether they find the film offensive, applicants must buy a copy and watch it if they hope to pass the Netherlands' new entrance examination.
The test - the first of its kind in the world - became compulsory Wednesday, and was made available at 138 Dutch embassies.
Taking the exam costs $420. The price for a preparation package that includes the film, a CD ROM and a picture album of famous Dutch people is $75.
"As of today, immigrants wishing to settle in the Netherlands for, in particular, the purposes of marrying or forming a relationship will be required to take the civic integration examination abroad," the Immigration Ministry said in a statement.
S&P 500 breaches 1,300 mark: Broad gauge at May 2001 high after Fed Beige Book (Mark Cotton & Leslie Wines, Mar 15, 2006, MarketWatch)
U.S. stocks rallied to a higher close Wednesday, with the S&P 500 breaching the 1,300 mark for the first time since May 2001, after a Federal Reserve report showing the economy growing at a steady pace with few inflationary pressures.The report raised hopes the central bank could end its cycle of interest-rate increases. The Fed has been lifting short-term rates in a bid to slow the economy and curb inflationary pressures.
The S&P 500 Index climbed 5.54 points to end at 1,303.02. The last time the broad gauge closed above 1,300 was on May 22 2001.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 58.43 points to 11,209.77. The benchmark index is also at its best level since May 2001.
The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 15.94 points to 2,311.84.
VIDEO: King Mike for Monarch (YouTube)
Best supporting neocon (Max Boot, March 15, 2006, LA Times)
DEAR George Clooney,[...]
Dare I say it — you're the No. 1 neocon in Never Never Land. [...]
Then there's "The Peacemaker," your terrific 1997 thriller that sought to shake the nation out of its post-Cold War complacency by showing how easily terrorists could smuggle a nuclear bomb into the U.S. Neocons in the 1990s were arguing for a more ruthless anti-terrorist policy. Your character, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, didn't let legal niceties stop him from saving New York.
All that is by way of prelude to your 1998 neocon masterpiece, "Three Kings." It showed that the 1991 Gulf War didn't achieve its goals when it left Saddam Hussein in power. Amid frenzied postwar celebrations, your character, Maj. Archie Gates, observes gloomily, "I don't even know what we did here." Neocons like Paul Wolfowitz were saying the same thing; they wanted to oust Hussein from power, not just from Kuwait.
You lead a group of three other soldiers to steal gold taken from Kuwait, but it soon becomes apparent that, despite your crusty exterior, you can't ignore the suffering of Iraqi Shiites who have risen up against Hussein at American instigation, only to be slaughtered. In the movie's pivotal scene, you watch as an Iraqi goon shoots a Shiite woman in the head. The Iraqi officer in charge is willing to let you leave with the loot. "You go now please," he pleads. "I don't think so," you growl. And then you beat up the Baathists on behalf of the Shiites.
The rest of the movie follows your attempts to get a group of 55 Shiites safely across the border to a refugee camp in Iran. Saving them isn't cheap — you lose most of your bullion, one of your soldiers is killed and another is badly wounded — but it's the right thing to do.
The message is clear: The U.S. should pursue its ideals in foreign policy, not simply try to protect its strategic or economic interests. Believe it or not, that is the essence of modern neoconservatism. And that is precisely the policy that President Bush has been following in Iraq, notwithstanding the sniping he's received from you and your friends.
Cosmic 'DNA': Double Helix Spotted in Space (Bjorn Carey, 15 March 2006, SPACE.com)
Magnetic forces at the center of the galaxy have twisted a nebula into the shape of DNA, a new study reveals.The double helix shape is commonly seen inside living organisms, but this is the first time it has been observed in the cosmos.
Pepper extract could stop prostate cancer growth (Nutra Ingredients, 15/03/2006)
Capsaicin, the compound that gives red pepper its heat, could stop the spread of prostate cancer, claims a new study.
Hillary’s hegemony helps GOP (Mark Mellman, 3/15/06, The Hill)
Democrats will spend much of this midterm election year “finding their voice,” as liberal Democratic activists are fond of saying.As I argued in this space last week, the possibility that some über-liberals might suddenly rise up and scare America with their rhetoric is a major reason that Democrats seem poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But it’s not the only reason.
Hillary Clinton’s imperious control over her party’s presidential politics will also become a stumbling block to the Democrats’ prospects for recapturing control of either house of Congress this November. [...]
Ms. Clinton’s glittering favorable ratings among Democrats, even liberal ones, make it altogether a slam-dunk. Eighty percent of all Democrats and 86 percent of liberal Democrats hold favorable impressions of Her Highness.
An Ally Betrayed (Harold Hutchison, 15 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
This is a country that has been a long-standing ally of the United States since 1971. The UAE was part of the coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1991, and also has supported the United States in the War on Terror (including, among other things, providing access to a deep-water berth that can accommodate aircraft carriers, use of a training facility for air-to-air training, airfields, and logistics support). It is a country that has proven largely inhospitable to al-Qaeda (instead, the focus is on business), sent forces to Afghanistan to protect the construction of a hospital that they donated and built, and sent humanitarian assistance to Iraq while providing a location for training Iraqi police.In 2002, the UAE also captured a major al-Qaeda figure, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was involved in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and handed him over to the United States despite threats from the terrorist organization. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the UAE donated $100 million for the relief efforts. Both Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace have described the relationship the United States has with United Arab Emirates as "very close" and "superb". General Tommy Franks (who commanded Central Command during the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq) praised the UAE for providing first-rate intelligence.
One of the things that has been frequently ignored in the anti-UAE diatribes is the fact that the United Arab Emirates is a Middle Eastern country where religious tolerance is the rule. The UAE's constitution guarantees freedom of religion (albeit it declares Islam as the official religion), and largely permits religious freedom. In 2003, the UAE shut down the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, which was publishing material that promoted anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Isn't that the kind of behavior the United States is trying to promote in the region? [...]
In another fact ignored by the scare campaign, the UAE has the only port in the Middle East that is part of the Container Security Initiative run by Homeland Security. Dubai Ports World agreed to mandatory participation in other programs to improve security and to prevent the illegal shipment of nuclear materials, will provide documents on internal operations on demand and has agreed to cooperate in future investigations.
Microsoft Confirms it Originated iPod Box Parody Video (iPod Observer, 3/14/2006)
Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla on Tuesday confirmed with iPod Observer that his company initiated the creation of the iPod packaging parody video that was first reported last month. "It was an internal-only video clip commissioned by our packaging [team] to humorously highlight the challenges we have faced RE: packaging and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding," he said via e-mail.
The Internet Campaign Loophole (NY Times, 3/15/06)
For all the avowals to put the brakes on ethical lapses, the House is showing its true colors with an attempt to turn the Internet into a free-flowing big-money trough for uncontrolled political spending. The measure would exempt political ads on the Internet from a reform law barring corporate and union donors from buying up grateful candidates with six- and seven-figure contributions.Politicians who chafe under the law's "soft money" ban would be free to run unlimited ads online, empowered by private donors who would not even be required to file campaign records. A similar loophole attempted by the Federal Election Commission has already been struck down in court for inviting "rampant circumvention" of the anticorruption law.
The House bill pretends to be trying to protect the free speech rights of bloggers on the Internet.
Bush and entitlement growth (Joseph Knippenberg, 3/14/2006, No Left Turns)
Following up on the conversation I initiated here, let me offer this article and this chart. While it would seem that proponents of smaller government would have reason to be unhappy with the Bush Administration’s record, the most rapid growth in entitlements seems to follow from the 1996 welfare reform applauded by conservatives of all stripes. [...]All of this strikes me as consistent with the agenda of "compassionate conservatism," whose original purpose was eventually to build a culture of personal responsibility in place of the culture of government dependency. Transition costs will be high...
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH CZECH PRESIDENT VÁCLAV KLAUS: "The Past Is the Past": Czech President Václav Klaus, 64, discusses his criticism of the European Union, the problems of exporting democracy and his country's postwar relationship with neighboring Germany. (der Spiegel, 3/13/06)
SPIEGEL: Your fundamental criticism stands in stark contrast to the great attraction the EU has had in the last 16 years for many people, especially in Eastern Europe. Hasn't the European Union played a decisive role in promoting democracy in Eastern Europe?Klaus: No, the EU didn't advance our democracy by a single millimeter.
SPIEGEL: What about Slovakia, where authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimír Meciar was voted out of office in 1998?
Klaus: But the Slovaks did that on their own. As far as I'm concerned, it would be unacceptable to push forward such a process from the outside. We created our democracy ourselves. And besides, EU membership isn't a question of attraction. There simply is no alternative. For the countries in question, EU membership represented important political recognition. In fact, the rule of thumb in Europe is that the good ones are EU members, while the bad ones are not.
SPIEGEL: But didn't the EU encourage processes that wouldn't have gotten underway as quickly otherwise? Think about the development of a new legal system, for example. Current membership candidates Bulgaria and Romania are now going out of their way to satisfy EU standards by reforming their judicial systems.
Klaus: The Bulgarians and Romanians are already interested in a normal, free and democratic society. They don't need anyone to tell them that that's what they want. We developed our democracy for ourselves -- not to make someone in Brussels happy.
SPIEGEL: You are opposed to minimum social standards in Europe and a common tax policy. Do you find a common foreign policy equally objectionable?
Klaus: I think a common foreign policy is completely unnecessary. The various European countries have widely differing priorities, goals and prejudices. It would be wrong to force them all to follow the same course. Just look at the outcome of the popular referendums in France and the Netherlands. Voters in the two countries rejected the constitution for very different reasons. And that's ok. We can't allow someone to show up and force us all to buy the same shirt size, even though one person has a size 39 collar and another a size 41.
SPIEGEL: You certainly have many objections to the EU. How far should integration go, in your opinion?
Klaus: The development of European integration can be divided into two phases. The first era ended with the Maastricht Treaty. It was a liberalization phase, with the main goal of European integration at the time being the removal of various barriers and borders in Europe. I was completely in favor of that. But the second phase is a homogenization or standardization phase, one that involves regulation from the top and growing control over our lives. In my view, this no longer has anything to do with freedom and democracy.
Gospel of Judas has Church worried (IAN GALLAGHER, 13mar06, The Advertiser)
THE Gospel of Judas - said to be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times - is about to be published amid explosive controversy, Britain's The Mail on Sunday newspaper revealed yesterday.Scholars have translated 26 pages of a crumbling ancient text that purports to tell the story of Jesus's last days from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, a man reviled for almost 2000 years.
Sensationally, the manuscript portrays him not as a villain but as a hero and Christ's favoured disciple.
It claims to repeat conversations between the two men and shows that in betraying Christ, Judas was fulfilling a divine mission.
The Mail on Sunday has interviewed experts involved in the project and has established that, according to the gospel, Christ instructed Judas to betray him with the words: "You will become the apostle cursed by all the others. Judas, you will sacrifice this body of man which clothes me."
Medicare education sought for blacks (Brian DeBose, March 15, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Black doctors and advocates for senior citizens spoke loudly to black Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday urging them to put politics aside and work harder to enroll seniors in the Medicare prescription drug plan.
Will DP World sell its stake?: An e-mail raises questions about whether Dubai Ports World really will sell its stake in the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Co. (STEVE HARRISON, 3/15/06, MiamiHerald.com)
''After the sale happens, if you went to the corporate secretary of POMTOC, the registry would say: Eller 25 percent; Florida Stevedoring 25 percent; P&O Ports Florida 50 percent,'' Scavone said.DP World referred all questions about the e-mail to P&O Ports North America. The company released a statement to the media that didn't address a timeline for selling the American operations.
''P&O's U.S. operations remain subject to a whole separate arrangement that went into effect when DP World officially took over March 9,'' DP World executive Michael Moore said. ``Under this arrangement, DP World has, to date, exercised no control over any P&O Terminal or stevedoring operation in the United States.''
The confusing e-mail drew the ire of some Democrats.
''It appears that the divestiture announcement from DPW last week may have been nothing more than a diversion designed to deflect attention away from this outsourcing of American port security,'' said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Pembroke Pines. ``Congressional action blocking this deal is the only true assurance we have that this deal is dead.''
Study: New Orleans about half old size by '08 (ALAN SAYRE, March 15, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times)
By the time the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina rolls around, New Orleans will have only about half of the population it had before the storm, according to a study to be released today.The study was prepared for the city by the RAND Corp., a nonprofit think tank.
Almost all of New Orleans' estimated 465,000 inhabitants left after the storm struck on Aug. 29. The city's population has bounced back to an estimated 189,000, according to state officials.
The RAND study projects that the population will stand at 272,000 by September 2008 -- or about 58 percent of the pre-Katrina level.
In Iran, Dissenting Voices Rise on Its Leaders' Nuclear Strategy (MICHAEL SLACKMAN, 3/15/06, NY Times)
Average Iranians do not seem uniformly confident at the prospect of being hit with United Nations sanctions.From the streets of Tehran to the ski slopes outside the city, some people have begun to joke about the catch phrase of the government — flippantly saying, "Nuclear energy is our irrefutable right."
Reformers, whose political clout as a movement vanished after the last election, have also begun to speak out. And people with close ties to the government said high-ranking clerics had begun to give criticism of Iran's position to Ayatollah Khamenei, which the political elite sees as a seismic jolt.
"There has been no sign that they will back down," said Ahmad Zeidabady, a political analyst and journalist. "At least Mr. Khamenei has said nothing that we can interpret that there will be change in the policies."
But, he said, "There is more criticism as it is becoming more clear that this policy is not working, especially by those who were in the previous negotiating team."
There are also signs that negotiators are starting to back away, however slightly, from a bare-knuckle strategy and that those who had initially opposed the president's style — but remained silent — are beginning to feel vindicated and are starting to speak up.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, recently publicly criticized the aggressive approach and called a return to his government's strategy of confidence-building with the west.
"The previous team now feels they were vindicated," said Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University who is close to many members of the government. "The new team feels they have to justify their actions."
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say, issued a strong defense of Iran's position on Tuesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers retreat over the nuclear issue, which is the demand of the Iranian people, as breaking the country's independence that will impose huge costs on the Iranian nation," he said.
"Peaceful use of nuclear technology is a must and is necessary for scientific growth in all fields," Ayatollah Khamenei said. "Any kind of retreat will bring a series of pressures and retreats. So, this is an irreversible path and our foreign diplomacy should defend this right courageously."
Rice Praises Indonesia As Model of 'Tolerance' (Ellen Nakashima, March 15, 2006, Washington Post)
Condoleezza Rice, in her first visit to Indonesia as secretary of state, praised its government Tuesday for setting an example of "moderation, tolerance and inclusiveness," and for urging officials in nearby military-ruled Burma to respect human rights.At a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, Rice defended the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies, which have aroused criticism and violent protests in many Muslim countries, including Indonesia.
"I understand that the United States has had to do things . . . that are not that popular in much of the world," she said. "We are fighting a very tough enemy, an enemy that has been felt here in Indonesia with bombings in Bali and Jakarta."
She also suggested that the United States is sometimes misunderstood, and she stressed "how much the United States respects people who are of Islamic faith." Before the news conference, Rice visited an Islamic school, where she announced an $8.5 million grant to develop a version of "Sesame Street" for Indonesia.
Damon's shoulder problem sore point (DAN GRAZIANO, 3/15/06, Newark Star-Ledger)
Mystery surrounded the condition of the left shoulder of Yankees center fielder Johnny Damon yesterday.The player was in Anaheim, Calif., still with the United States team in the World Baseball Classic, even though his recurring shoulder problem apparently will prevent him from playing for that team in the near future. [...]
[A]ll anybody knows is that Damon's throwing shoulder, which bothered him during the 2005 season with the Red Sox, is bothering him now, and that he won't play for a little while.
Life, the Universe, and Everything: Quantum mechanic Seth Lloyd says we really are controlled by a computer. (Kevin Kelly, March 2006, Wired)
Seth Lloyd is the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with. Between gulps, the MIT prof will impart the details of how the universe really works. And if you order another, he'll give you a summary of one of the most mind-boggling ideas emerging in science today. His new book, Programming the Universe, is a plainspoken tale of how the universe is - tell me if you've heard this before - one very large quantum computer. - Kevin KellyWIRED: I hear you're a quantum computer repair guy.
LLOYD: Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time.
You've jumped from working on quantum computers to saying, oh, by the way, the universe is a gigantic quantum computer.
When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you're hacking existing systems. You're hijacking the computation that's already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else's computer.
What is the universe computing when we are not hijacking it for our own purposes?
It computes itself. It computes the flow of orange juice as you drink it, or the position of each atom in your cells.
Japan searches for Scot who modernised nation (AURA SABADUS, 3/14/06, The Scotsman)
HE GAVE Japan its national anthem and its first brass band, playing a key part in the country's modernisation.But for more than a century, John William Fenton's role in westernising the country has gone unrecognised in Scotland, where many believe he died.
Now, after years of searching, the Japanese are soliciting the help of Scots in trying to track down the brass band leader's final resting place.
In Japan, Fenton is seen as one of the country's father figures.
US Democrats in dry dock over ports (Stephen Zunes, 3/14/06, Foreign Policy in Focus)
Congressional Democrats finally found the courage to challenge the Bush administration on a post-September 11, 2001, security issue - one they were able to win. This came after they had proved themselves timid in challenging the administration in its invasion and occupation of Iraq, the initial passage of the Patriot Act, the bombing of Afghanistan, the detention without due process and torture of thousands of detainees worldwide, and other horrendous policies.Unfortunately, they chose an issue of little real importance and decided to appeal to popular racist and jingoistic sentiments by raising exaggerated fears over the implications of a routine transfer of ownership to a company that operates facilities at some terminals in six US ports.
The Feingold Resolution and the Sound of Silence (Dana Milbank, March 15, 2006, Washington Post)
Democratic senators, filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday, looked as if they'd seen a ghost."I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).
"I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).
"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.
In a sense, they were. The cause of so much evasion was S. Res. 398, the resolution proposed Monday by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) calling for the censure of President Bush for his warrantless wiretapping program. At a time when Democrats had Bush on the ropes over Iraq, the budget and port security, Feingold single-handedly turned the debate back to an issue where Bush has the advantage -- and drove another wedge through his party.
Which of these things doesn't belong? (Rod Nordell, 3/15/06, CS Monitor)
Here's a game you can play in the car or just about anywhere. It's called Groups of Four. One person names three things that are alike and a fourth that is different. The others guess which one is different and why it does not belong in the Group of Four.
Bush Visits Autistic Basketball Hero (JENNIFER LOVEN, 3/14/06, Associated Press)
President Bush is the latest in a string of high-profile fans to call on Jason McElwain, the autistic basketball manager who drew national cheers by scoring 20 points in four minutes for his high school team.On his way to Canandaigua, N.Y., Tuesday to speak at Medicare events, Bush stopped at an airport near here and greeted McElwain — accompanied by his parents and coach — and called him "a special person." [...]
"I wept, just like a lot of other people did," he said, as McElwain beamed beside him.
Beowulf rides again: With swords and monsters all the rage, an ancient literary hero is now a hot showbiz property (BRIAN D. JOHNSON, 3/10/06, Maclean's)
It's revered as the first epic work of English literature, although it's written in what looks like a foreign language. And it has become the bane of English students everywhere, a book famous for being avoided. In Annie Hall, as Diane Keaton's character leafs through a course catalogue, Woody Allen says, "Just don't take any course where they make you read Beowulf."Growing up in Vancouver, Sturla Gunnarsson was made to read Beowulf in Grade 12. He couldn't finish it. He says he was more interested in cars and girls. But as an 18-year-old Icelandic immigrant whose second language was English, he remembers dipping into the Anglo-Saxon verse and being amazed by how much of it he could decipher. "Old English," he explains, "is very close to Icelandic, and with great difficulty, I could read it. That was uncanny."
Thirty-six years later, Gunnarsson, now a veteran filmmaker (Rare Birds, Such a Long Journey), has not only read Beowulf, he's eviscerated it. With Beowulf & Grendel, which he shot in the barren reaches of his native Iceland, he's created a revisionist spectacle that turns the story inside out -- it portrays the monster Grendel in a sympathetic light, gives him a father, embellishes the plot with a whore who beds both the hero and the troll, and offers dialogue salted with profanity. Purists will be offended. But Gunnarsson's movie tries to strip this sixth-century tale of a Scandinavian hero down to its pagan roots. And it's surfing a wave of Beowulf-mania that has torn a medieval epic poem out of the hands of academics and pushed it into the mainstream. Once a quaint scholarly fiefdom, Beowulf -- a prototype for the Hollywood western and the horror movie, and an inspiration for The Lord of the Rings -- is now a hot showbiz property.
Buffett's Billion-Dollar Boo-Boo (Jerry Bowyer, Mar 14, 2006, Human Events)
In his annual letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett acknowledged that his bet against U.S. currency had collectively cost them almost $1 billion. Buffet wrote, "My views on America’s long-term problem in respect to trade imbalances, which I have laid out in previous reports, remain unchanged. My conviction, however, cost Berkshire $955 million pre-tax in 2005. ..."
Feingold Blames Stalled Censure Motion on 'Cowering' Democrats (Fox News, March 14, 2006)
Sen. Russell Feingold on Tuesday blamed fellow Democrats for inaction on his stalled resolution to censure President Bush for his authorizing the National Security Agency's electronic terrorist surveillance program."I'm amazed at Democrats ... cowering with this president's numbers so low," said Feingold, D-Wis. "The administration ... just has to raise the specter of the War on Terror, and Democrats run and hide."
Feingold's resolution, introduced Monday, accuses Bush of violating the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has failed to garner any co-sponsors.
DP World: No Plan to Sell Miami Port Ops (TED BRIDIS, 3/13/06, Associated Press)
The Dubai-owned company that promised to surrender its U.S. port operations has no immediate plans to sell its U.S. subsidiary's interests at Miami's seaport, a senior executive wrote Monday in a private e-mail to business associates.Even if DP World were to sell its Miami operations to quell the congressional furor over an Arab-owned company managing major U.S. ports, "that would probably take a while," wrote Robert Scavone, a vice president for DP World's U.S. subsidiary. [...]
Scavone is executive vice president for security at P&O Ports North America Inc. and was among the company's executives who testified about the Dubai ports deal during congressional hearings this month.
Scavone told the AP that under U.S. corporate laws, P&O's ownership in the Miami port company would not change even under DP World's planned divestiture.
"Just because a shareholder owns the top company of an elaborate network of corporations worldwide, it does not mean that what those corporations own changes hands," Scavone said.
Peninsular and Oriental handles significant operations at ports in New Jersey, New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia _ plus lesser dockside activities at 16 other ports in this country.
Scavone declined to confirm or deny he sent the e-mail, but he contacted a reporter less than one hour after AP's inquiry to explain the message's meaning. Another P&O executive, Frank Fogarty, said he received Scavone's e-mail and did not doubt Scavone sent it.
Fogarty, the company's senior vice president for marketing, said Scavone intended to tell Miami officials that, "as far as they should be concerned, they should just assume they're working for the same company they always have."
DP World previously agreed it will not control or manage any U.S. port operations it acquired until May 1 or until the outcome of the unusual, broader security investigation into the ports deal by the Bush administration.
Germany's sex industry gears up for World Cup (Karin Strohecker Tue Mar 14, 2006, Reuters)
The combination of nail-biting soccer matches and crowds of beer-swilling males could mean hefty profits for Germany's sex industry.It is deploying an army of prostitutes to satisfy the needs of libidinous fans during the month-long 2006 World Cup.
Some 1 million foreign visitors are expected to flood into Germany from June 9 and many expect large numbers of male spectators to wind down after a match in the arms of a prostitute or in the red light districts of the 12 host cities. [...]
"Football and prostitution are a great match," said Hans-Henning Schneidereit, owner of the St. Pauli's Safari Cabaret, renowned for its sex shows.
The States: Mississippi Churning: Anti-abortion activists in Ole Miss debate the wisdom of a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade. (Arian Campo-Flores, 3/20/06, Newsweek )
For years, Mississippi anti-abortion activists have sought to shut down the Jackson clinic, the only remaining facility of its kind in the state. With their legislative allies, they've succeeded in passing some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, including a 24-hour waiting period and a requirement that minors obtain the consent of both parents. Now the Mississippi Legislature is considering a bill that would ban all abortions except in cases of rape, incest or a life-threatening condition for the mother. Yet even some of Mississippi's right-to-life forces have started to wonder whether things are moving too fast—mirroring a strategic debate now raging among anti-abortion conservatives nationwide. "At this point, it's a little bit of a runaway train," says Terri Herring, president of Pro-Life Mississippi, who fears that the ban could backfire—and lead to a reaffirmation of Roe v. Wade. [...]Last month, [the Jackson clinic] stopped performing second-trimester abortions while it tries to overcome additional regulatory hurdles put in place by abortion foes. If the new bill passes, Susan Hill, president of the National Women's Health Organization, which owns the clinic, vows to sue to block it. "We didn't come to Mississippi to be run out," she says.
Straw Poll Strategy: John McCain is changing his tactics for 2008. Inside a maverick’s campaign. (Howard Fineman, March 13, 2006, Newsweek)
In a sense, Sen. John McCain’s campaign for the presidency in 2008 began with a personal, private phone call he made last week—to President George W. Bush. [...]Private though it was, the McCain call was emblematic of the ‘08 strategy that he and his circle have decided to pursue. They want to build out their campaign with members of the Bush circle, and base McCain’s pitch on the notion that he is the only sensible, electable and competent commander who can take control of the war on terror.
“Competence and electability,” that’s what we’re going to talk about,” said a key advisor. “If you support the president’s vision, John can carry it forward.” [...]
Here in Memphis, McCainanites worked closely on straw poll strategy with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a Bush loyalist widely regarded as one of the sharpest strategic and organizational minds in the party. They are wooing him to come aboard officially, which would be a major coup for McCain.
Dems' hold on blacks is slipping: African American candidates in '06 are impressive (Deroy Murdock, March 12, 2006, SF Chronicle)
They all should promote free-market ideas that have helped, and will help, blacks voters, and remind them how Democrats routinely say, "No!" to such reforms.On taxes, for instance, Bush has reduced them every year in office, always over Democratic objections. The result? The economy grew 3.5 percent last year despite the war on terror, sky-high oil prices, and hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. For those with lower incomes, the bottom tax rate is now 10 percent rather than 15 percent. Meanwhile, higher-level tax-rate reductions leave more money in black middle-class pockets.
The national unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, its lowest level since July 2001. The bad news is that black unemployment is 8.9 percent. The good news is that it is down from a 10 percent average under President Clinton.
Meanwhile, with white unemployment at 4.1 percent, there is a 4.8 percent gap between white and black joblessness. That gap averaged 5.5 percent under President Clinton and 6.9 percent over the last 30 years. So, despite howls of Democratic protests, Bush's tax cuts have helped create the best black employment picture in a generation.
On Social Security, Bush tried to bridge The Dividend Divide, the nearly 11-1 asset-ownership gap between white and black households. Voluntary personal retirement accounts would let black individuals and families build nest eggs and bequeath them to their loved ones. This is excellent for black males who, on average, die at age 67.8 after collecting from Social Security for less than a year, while average white males enjoy seven years of benefits. Bush's proposed accounts offered an alternative to this mess, but Democrats wailed, and his plan died of rejection.
On education, Clinton vetoed a voucher program for students in Washington's dismal, predominantly black government school system -- twice. Bush, in contrast, signed that bill into law.
Imagine what would happen if the 2008 Republican presidential nominee could campaign on these issues in inner-city Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia with fellow Republicans who have been elected statewide and also happen to be black.
Iran Freedom Concert (March 18, 9 p.m., Leverett House, Harvard University)
The coalition of activists and organizations supporting the Iran Freedom Concert spans the spectrum. As individuals, we hold a wide range of views on appropriate policies for handling the Iranian regime. As a coalition, we are united by the belief that the essential individual rights of all Iranians must be respected. We recognize that because we live in freedom, we have a responsibility to help echo the call of Iranians our own age demanding freedom.The Harvard student organization hosting the concert is the Harvard College Middle East Review. Co-sponsoring organizations include the Harvard Democrats, Harvard Republicans, Woodbridge Society, BGLTSA, Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship, Free Culture Society, Harvard Salient, and Veritas Records. On other campuses across the country, various groups and individuals are organizing programming to mark the day.
Funding for the concert has generously been provided by the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Institue of Politics (IOP). Guidance and logistical support comes from HAMSA: Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance (a project of the American Islamic Congress). Other organizations backing the Iran Freedom Concert include the Damascus-based Tharwa Project, a Middle East minority rights initiative; Students for Global Democracy, an international alliance of student activists; and the Committee to Protect Bloggers, which has led high-profile campaigns to release jailed Iranian bloggers.
U.S., Malaysia to Launch Free-Trade Talks (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, 3/08/06, The Associated Press)
The United States and Malaysia announced Wednesday that they have agreed to begin negotiating a free trade deal to eliminate trade barriers between the two nations.The decision was announced at a crowded Capitol Hill news conference attended by lawmakers from both political parties, marking an effort by the administration to build bipartisan support for its trade policies at a time when the country is running record trade deficits.
By selecting Malaysia for free trade negotiations, the administration chose a country that is already America's 10th largest trading partner with $44 billion in two-way trade. The administration announced last month that it planned to launch free trade negotiations with South Korea and free trade talks with Thailand, another economic power in the region, are already under way.
Sins of the Father: Reform in Rabat (Jim Hoagland, March 5, 2006, Washington Post)
Any effort to understand that experience starts with Mohammed and his dismantling of much of his father's political legacy: The young monarch has unleashed the most sweeping peaceful political and social reforms of this decade in the Arab world.Few of his 33 million subjects expected the sovereign, who is 42, to be such a forceful agent for change when he came to the throne in 1999. Educated in the small, extra-elite Royal College in Rabat, Mohammed is known to be intensely shy. He dislikes delivering speeches and is awkward when he does. He does not give substantive interviews to journalists. Moroccan editors have come to understand that his encouragement of greater personal freedom does not extend to reports on the personal lives of the royal family.
But Mohammed has pursued a controlled evolution for his tradition-centered society with surprising determination and skill. Does this stem from courageous commitment to change? Oedipal resentment of an overbearing patriarch? Or political calculation rooted in keen survival instincts? A visitor hears all these, and more, suggested in Morocco.
"He is certainly courageous," says Benzekri, who was surprised to be named by the monarch two years ago to head a high-level investigative commission on human rights, which has staged dramatic televised accounts of the suffering and deaths of political prisoners. "This king also understands that he needs to separate himself from the past."
The publication in January of the commission's final damning report on its review of more than 16,000 cases -- including at least 600 disappearances and secret deaths of activists in detention -- followed a push by Mohammed to modernize the kingdom's family laws and give women more rights.
Speaking as a member of a royal family that traces its lineage to the prophet Muhammad, the king declared that his liberalization of inheritance, divorce and employment laws did not contradict the Koran. "He is a modern man who understands the threat that demographics, youth unemployment and globalization pose to a nation that does not have oil," says one acquaintance of the king. "He has drawn a line between the old ways and his ways."
If there is a larger regional meaning in what is happening here, it is this: The greatest peaceful political change in the Arab world is occurring in a handful of countries where traditional rulers are implementing top-down democratization, which, like Islam itself, emphasizes personal submission to a greater purpose. The Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar lag behind Morocco but are moving in the same direction. Monarchs in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and elsewhere have adopted more rhetoric about freedom, at least when speaking to Westerners.
"Ah, you are so lucky to have a king," one self-styled revolutionary Arab leader said to Moroccan officials recently when they discussed the changes.
New 'cold war' looms with Iran (Paul Reynolds, 3/14/06, , BBC News)
The United States is developing the concept of a "cold war" with Iran.It would be a third way between trying to engage with the hard-line government there and attacking its nuclear facilities with the risk of major conflict.
The idea is that regime or policy change could be effected by the Iranian people themselves.
However such a cold war might turn into a hot war if Washington decided this approach would not stop Iran from developing the technology needed for a nuclear bomb. [...]
President George W Bush himself heralded the Iran policy in his State of the Union speech in January, when he said: "Our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."
That in turn followed his mission statement in November 2003 that he would promote "democracy and freedom in the Middle East".
But the policy is also born of political disagreement in the Bush administration about the way forward.
The old policy of engagement with Iran has run into the ground.
Even its advocates accept that they cannot get round the problem of Iran's method of government. Senior ayatollahs have a veto on reform and blocked reformist candidates in last year's election.
At the other end of the spectrum, those favouring military strikes against Iranian nuclear installations are having trouble in justifying a policy which would have huge consequences, adding to the problems the US is already facing in Iraq.
The third way is led by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice herself.
According to the Washington Post, Iran has "vaulted to the front of the US national security agenda".
Ms Rice is, like Mr Straw, trying to draw a distinction between the Iranian government and people.
"Our problem is with the Iranian regime," she said to senators recently.
Myth: Ahmadinejad's "landslide" win reflects the aspirations of Iranians. In the first round of voting last spring, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, the centrist former president, received more votes than Ahmadinejad. Faced with the lesser of two evils, most Iranians boycotted the runoff, allowing Ahmadinejad, who campaigned as an anti-corruption populist, to claim victory thanks to mere third of eligible voters. Some mandate.Myth: All power now rests with a united clerical regime. The regime is rife with institutional divisions and personal rivalries. Under the Iranian constitution, absolute power still rests with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who may fear a challenge to his authority from the radical Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor.
Khamenei and the clerical elite already seem, to be tightening the screws on the new president. Parliament rejected Ahmadinejad's first three nominees for oil minister, and Khamenei has given the Expediency Council, which is headed by Rafsanjani, new authority to supervise Ahmadinejad's administration. [...]
Faced with these realities, it's time for Washington to call Ahmadinejad's bluff by playing the card the hard-liners fear most: a dramatic U.S. offer of reconciliation, including a security guarantee like that offered North Korea. Such a move would expose the rifts in the regime, deny the hard-liners the confrontation they court, and deprive the bankrupt revolutionaries of their Great Satan.
South Florida two-way trade increases nearly 12%: Big ticket items and the rising price of imported fuel helped lift South Florida's two-way trade to almost $66 billion in 2005. (JANE BUSSEY, 3/14/06, MiamiHerald.com)
International shipments through South Florida rose by almost 12 percent in 2005, spurred on by surging demand for big ticket items in South America and the rising price of imported fuel, according to a report printed in WorldCity magazine. [...]The total international shipments both in and out of South Florida ports reached $65.9 billion, according to Commerce Department numbers that are analyzed by WorldCity. That figure was a historic high, although the South Florida Customs District, which extends from Fort Pierce to Key West, has slipped from the 12th largest district to the 13th largest in the past two years.
According to WorldCity, Brazil and Venezuela held the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in terms of two-way shipments, including almost $9 billion in two-way trade for Brazil and $4.3 billion for Venezuela.
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New York's Port, Beyond Dubai (Mark Berkey-Gerard and Pat Arnow, 13 Mar 2006, Gotham Gazette)
For many New Yorkers who make their living from the city’s harbor, the high-pitched, month-long debate over the so-called Arab takeover of the port was beyond baffling.Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, was going to operate only one facility in New York -- a port terminal that handles just cruise ships, not cargo. (It would also have shared control of another terminal in New Jersey.) But there are seven other port facilities in New York Harbor, and the company would have had nothing to do with them.
Faced with ever-increasing opposition in Congress fueled by public opinion, DPW announced that it was dropping the port deal, and would "transfer" the lease to an American company. But even if the deal had gone through, Dubai -- despite what politicians and columnists said over and over again -- would not have “owned,” “controlled” or “taken over” the ports. The port is owned by the taxpayers and controlled by state and local governments. The lease that DPW had purchased from a British company was simply to manage the facilities.
“It’s not like foreigners are just coming in and doing their own thing,” said Captain Timothy Ferrie, a ship pilot and president of the Maritime Society of New York City. “There’s American involvement every step of the way.”
Those who know the waterfront best also point out that foreign companies –- even some with close ties to governments that the U.S. considers dangerous –- have been operating on the waterways for years. A high-ranking official in the Communist Party in China is in charge of a company that for the past ten years has managed a facility on Staten Island that not only handles cargo ships, but also deploys military equipment for the U.S. Army.
Missile deal stirs fear, anger: A secret operation to destroy some shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles has tarnished many reputations and yielded few clear answers (TYLER BRIDGES, 3/14/06, MiamiHerald)
It was a straightforward operation, U.S. officials insist.Bolivia's top military leaders asked for U.S. help last year in destroying about 28 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that were dangerously obsolete, they say, and Washington agreed. [...]
''This is the typical example in Bolivia of a muddy layer of graft, corruption, secret dealings [and] inefficiency . . . combined into one package,'' said Lupe Andrade, a former La Paz mayor who has followed the controversy closely because she knows many of the players. Nonetheless, she added, ``The Americans have been innocent victims.''
Abdel Padilla, a journalist who covered the story for the newsweekly Pulso, disagrees.
''I think the United States . . . feared that Evo would be elected president and thought that . . . it would be more difficult to win approval to destroy them under him,'' Padilla said.
The socialist Morales, who has close ties with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, regularly attacked the Bush administration during the presidential campaign -- promising he would be Washington's ''worst nightmare'' if elected. Morales has toned down his remarks since assuming office, however, saying he wants good relations with the United States.
Amid the confusion, the only thing clear is that the U.S. government has increasingly been trying to secure control of shoulder-fired missiles throughout the world since al Qaeda terrorists fired one at an Israeli commercial airliner in Kenya in 2002. The weapon, about eight feet long, can fit in a golf bag when disassembled and be hidden in a trunk, making it ideal for terrorists.
The United States has helped with the destruction of more than 13,000 of the shoulder-fired missiles since 2003 in countries including Nicaragua, Bosnia, Liberia and Cambodia. Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños has said about 1,000 missiles in his country were destroyed last year.
Colleges Open Minority Aid to All Comers (JONATHAN D. GLATER, 3/14/06, NY Times)
Facing threats of litigation and pressure from Washington, colleges and universities nationwide are opening to white students hundreds of thousands of dollars in fellowships, scholarships and other programs previously created for minorities.Southern Illinois University reached a consent decree last month with the Justice Department to allow nonminorities and men access to graduate fellowships originally created for minorities and women.
In January, the State University of New York made white students eligible for $6.8 million of aid in two scholarship programs also previously available just for minorities. Pepperdine University is negotiating with the Education Department over its use of race as a criterion in its programs.
"They're all trying to minimize their legal exposure," Susan Sturm, a law professor at Columbia University, said about colleges and universities. "The question is how are they doing that, and are they doing that in a way that's going to shut down any effort or any successful effort to diversify the student body?"
Canadians get behind Afghan deployment (MICHAEL DEN TANDT, 3/13/06, Globe and Mail)
Canadians' views have shifted sharply in support of the Afghan military mission even as troop casualties have mounted over the past three weeks, a new poll suggests.A modest but clear majority -- 55 per cent of respondents to a nationwide poll taken for The Globe and Mail and CTV over the past four days -- now broadly support the decision to send troops to Afghanistan. Only 41 per cent oppose the deployment.
In late February, more than 60 per cent said that given a vote in Parliament, they would opt against sending troops to the war-torn country. Only 27 per cent said they would vote in favour.
Building Wealth by the Penny: In Rural India, a Sales Force in Saris Delivers Soap, Social Change (John Lancaster, March 14, 2006, Washington Post)
Consumer culture, spurred by rapid economic growth, is spreading to the vast rural hinterlands where two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion people still live. The trend is creating new opportunities not just for big business, which has long focused on the urban middle class, but also for some of India's poorest citizens.A 30-year-old mother of two, Kadem is part of a novel Hindustan Lever initiative that enlists about 20,000 poor and mostly illiterate women to peddle such products as Lifebuoy soap and Pepsodent toothpaste in villages once considered too small, too destitute and too far from normal distribution channels to warrant attention.
Started in late 2000, Project Shakti has extended Hindustan Lever's reach into 80,000 of India's 638,000 villages, on top of about 100,000 served by conventional distribution methods, according to Dalip Sehgal, the company's director of new ventures. The project accounts for nearly 15 percent of rural sales. The women typically earn between $16 and $22 per month, often doubling their household income, and tend to use the extra money to educate their children.
"At the end of the day, we're in business," Sehgal said in a telephone interview from company headquarters in Bombay. "But if by doing business we can do something positive, it's a great win-win model."
Hindustan Lever is not alone in recognizing the vast potential for profits in rural India. As urban markets become saturated, more businesses are retooling their marketing strategies, and in many cases their products, to target rural consumers with tiny incomes but rising aspirations fueled by the media and other forces, according to experts.
Companies are offering many products, from single-use shampoo packets that sell for less than a penny to $340 motor scooters available for monthly payments as low as $4.50. Banks are targeting first-time customers with $10-minimum-deposit savings accounts. Cellular phone companies are upgrading rural networks while offering monthly plans for as little as $3.40.
"In four to five years the rural market will be a major sector that is well beyond anyone's imagination," said Rajesh Shukla, principal economist for the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. "Nobody was expecting this was going to happen."
Koreans surprise Team USA (Chicago Sun-Times, March 14, 2006)
Former Cubs first baseman Hee-Seop Choi's three-run home run against Dan Wheeler in the fourth inning was the key blow Monday as South Korea beat the United States 7-3 in the second round of the World Baseball Classic in Anaheim, Calif. The game was played before an announced crowd of 21,288 at Angel Stadium.South Korea (2-0) will play its final game of the second round Wednesday against Japan. Japan (0-1) will face Mexico (0-1) today, and Team USA (1-1) will play Mexico on Thursday. The top two teams will meet Saturday in the semifinals at Petco Park in San Diego.
Scientists awed by `human calendar': Stunned by woman's near-perfect ability to recall big events and the tiniest details (FRANCINE KOPUN, Mar. 14, 2006, Toronto Star)
California researchers have uncovered a woman with a memory so detailed and unusual they have quite literally never seen anything like it.Give her a date and she can tell you what took place — whether it was the final episode of the television soap-opera Dallas, the day actor Robert Blake's wife was killed, the day of the Lockerbie plane crash, the Iranian invasion of the U.S. Embassy, the day Proposition 13 passed in California or the day a plane crashed in Chicago. She can tell you what she was doing at the time. She remembers the weather.
Her life is like a movie on an endless loop, full of emotion. She cannot escape any good or bad thing that ever happened to her.
Asked in November 2003 to list every Easter since 1980, the 40-year-old Jewish woman provided researchers with a list of 24 dates that had one single error. She included details of what she was doing on each of the days.
Tehran elite turning on extremist presidency (John R. Bradley, March 14, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Iran's clerical and business establishments, deeply concerned by what they see as reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign policies, are increasingly turning against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Within this context, many see the president's long-running confrontation with the United States and Europe over Tehran's nuclear program as an attempt to demonize the West and distract the Iranian public from pressing domestic problems.
A relatively small group of extremists "at the top of the government around the president" are seeking to benefit from a crisis with the West, because "that way they will be able once again to blame the West for all of their problems," said Mousa Ghaninejad, the editor of Iran's best-selling economics daily newspaper, Dunya Al-Eqtisad. [...]The value of Tehran's stock market had fallen by $10 billion under Mr. Ahmadinejad as of February, the Los Angeles Times reported. Other recent Western news reports say that the nation's vibrant real-estate market has withered and that capital outflows are increasing.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's spending has pushed the inflation rate to an estimated 13.5 percent, and several estimates say it could go as high as 30 percent this year.
Economic analysts note that inflation will be felt most acutely by the poor, undermining the president's support among his most important constituency.
Parliament has challenged the president on other issues, most notably by rejecting three successive candidates for oil minister. Mr. Ahmadinejad declared angrily after the second rejection that "no other president has ever been subject to such negative propaganda and treatment."
Mr. Ahmadinejad's detractors say the broad coalition against him is attracting many of the regime's powerful personalities and may include even the supreme leader himself, despite his superficial statements in support of the president.
They point to a recent decree by Ayatollah Khamenei giving the Expediency Council, headed by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, oversight of the presidency.
The Dangers of Ports (and Politicians) (Robert J. Samuelson, March 14, 2006, Washington Post)
As political theater, the posturing may be harmless. But all the grandstanding -- precisely because the criticisms were overblown -- damages American interests. It's a public relations disaster in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates -- of which Dubai is a part -- has been a strong American ally, permitting the use of its ports and airfields for U.S. ships and military aircraft. Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is trying to integrate his city-state into the world economy. There's been a building boom of offices, malls and luxury hotels. Dubai has also gone on a global investment binge, buying the Essex House in New York, Madame Tussauds wax museum in London and (of course) the port operations of Britain's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.If this isn't what we want from Arab countries, what do we want? Much bitterness is reported in Dubai, especially among those who are pro-Western. They blame racism. That's understandable and perhaps correct. A Post poll last week found that 46 percent of Americans had a negative view of Islam -- a crude proxy for Arabs. (Yes, not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arabs. But the poll is still suggestive of American opinion about Arabs.) The ports furor also hurts the United States in another way. It weakens confidence in the dollar as the major global currency. The U.S. trade deficit now spews more than $700 billion into the world annually. To some extent, global economic stability depends on foreigners' keeping most of those dollars. Mass dollar sales could trigger turmoil on the world's currency, stock and bond markets.
People outside the United States hold dollars because they believe the currency maintains its value and offers a wide menu of investment choices. The message from Congress is that the menu is shorter than people thought. Once any investment is stigmatized -- rightly or wrongly -- as a "security problem," Congress may act against foreigners.
Every country has the right to protect its security interests. But those interests must be defined coherently and not simply as the random expression of political expediency. That's what happened here, as it did last year when Congress pressured a Chinese oil company (China National Offshore Oil Corp.) to withdraw its bid for a U.S. firm (Unocal Corp.). The more this process continues, the more it corrodes confidence in the dollar.
It will be said that other countries are equally nationalistic and political, so their currencies aren't realistic alternatives to the dollar. Not true. If we imitate the French or Malaysians, the dollar will have compromised its special status. The irony is that the people who are creating all these risks are the very same members of Congress who claim to be protecting us.
Bush Sets Target for Transition In Iraq: Country's Troops to Take Lead This Year (Peter Baker, March 14, 2006, Washington Post)
President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.Bush, who until now has resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory. While acknowledging grim developments on the ground, Bush declared "real progress" in standing up Iraqi forces capable of defending their nation.
"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," he said in a speech to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi and his associates."
The president made no commitments about withdrawing U.S. troops, but he repeated his general formula that Americans could come home as Iraqis eventually take over the fight.
Israeli politics reflects desire to end conflict (Matthew Gutman, 3/13/06, USA TODAY)
Kadima's popularity reflects a combination of fatigue stemming from the 5-year-old Palestinian uprising and the relative success of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year. A growing number of Israeli voters want the quickest route to ending the violence and worry that the formal peace process is taking too long, says Asher Cohen, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.This is the first Israeli election in which the question for many voters is not whether to withdraw from the West Bank, "but how fast and where to draw the border," Cohen says.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the top Kadima candidate, has pledged to set Israel's borders with the Palestinians by 2010 by withdrawing from most of the West Bank without a peace treaty. Olmert says Israel will leave areas that are dominated by Palestinians but will keep control of three large Israeli communities. Israel will not wait indefinitely for an agreement, Olmert has said. [...]
Kadima is the first leading Israeli party to explicitly commit itself to evacuating some troops and settlers from the Palestinian territories within a specific timeframe, says Eyal Arad, the party's chief strategist.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon created Kadima in November, weeks before he suffered a stroke Jan. 4 and fell into a coma.
It is no longer Sharon's personality but the "policy of unilateralism that is the source of Kadima's power," says Yaron Ezrahi, a professor of political science at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. Sharon managed to turn a policy of evacuating settlements "that was once considered political suicide into a political gold mine," Ezrahi says.
For Bush's Ex-Aide, Quick Fall After Long Climb (IAN URBINA and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 3/14/06, NY Times)
Claude A. Allen often said his religious upbringing took him from a two-room apartment in a poor neighborhood of Washington to a post at the White House."Probably the vast majority of the kids who grew up in our neighborhood were either strung out on drugs or in jail or dead," Mr. Allen, one of the nation's most prominent African-American Republicans, said in a televised interview. But Mr. Allen said his salvation was the Roman Catholic education "that taught me discipline, taught me hard work, that taught me values that were carried throughout life."
Last week, that life and discipline appeared to have frayed when Mr. Allen, the president's former domestic policy adviser, was arrested in suburban Maryland and charged with stealing thousands of dollars in merchandise from Target and other stores in a scheme to fake returns.
People close to him said they were stunned at the charges. Friends described him as the "goody-two-shoes" of his family who never drank at fraternity parties and went out for ice cream instead. His identical twin, Floyd, a former football player at the Virginia Military Institute, never matched his brother's achievements.
"It's just the darnedest thing," Renee Allen, their stepmother, said from her retirement home in Atlanta. "I actually started to call Floyd to ask him what happened, but then I saw it wasn't him."
The Young Speechwriter Who Captured Rice's Voice (Glenn Kessler, 3/14/06, Washington Post)
Christian D. Brose's rise to the heights of Washington speechwriting could have been scripted in Hollywood.A year ago, Brose was the most junior speechwriter at the State Department. When Condoleezza Rice was nominated to be secretary of state after the 2004 election, the then-national security adviser summoned the State Department speechwriting team to the White House for a discussion of her confirmation hearings.
The team went over, not sure they would hold their jobs for much longer. To their surprise, they were ushered into the White House situation room. The conversation meandered and seemed uninspired, Rice aides said, until the 25-year-old Brose shyly raised his hand and offered a suggestion that, for Rice, crystallized her foreign policy themes.
"Who is that young red-haired kid?" Rice asked one of her senior advisers, Jim Wilkinson, as they left the room. "Let's keep an eye on him."
A star was born.
Brose, now 26, was recently named Rice's chief speechwriter. He is responsible for many of the major speeches she has delivered around the world to advance the administration's message of spreading democracy, earning the admiration of Rice's top aides.
"Chris can write her voice better than anyone," Wilkinson said. "He's become one of her closest advisers on policy and communications." [...]
Rice's speech in Cairo last June stands as one of the defining moments of her tenure. It was the first time a secretary of state had gone to the Middle East and demanded that the region's autocrats open up their political systems. Rice began working on Brose's first draft shortly after the plane took off from Andrews Air Force Base. Her aides squeezed into her cabin on the Boeing 757 and spent two hours going over it word by word. Brose then produced two new drafts each day, until the speech was given three days later.
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Remarks at the American University in Cairo (Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Cairo, Egypt, June 20, 2005)
Thank you very much, Dr. Hala Mustafa, for that really kind and warm introduction and your inspiring thoughts about democracy here in the region. I am honored to be here in the great and ancient city of Cairo.The United States values our strategic relationship and our strengthening economic ties with Egypt. And American presidents since Ronald Reagan have benefited from the wisdom and the counsel of President Mubarak, with whom I had the pleasure of meeting earlier today.
The people of America and Egypt have always desired to visit one another and to learn from one another. And the highest ideals of our partnership are embodied right here, in the American University of Cairo. This great center of learning has endured and thrived -- from the days when our friendship was somewhat rocky, to today, when the relationship is strong. And I am very grateful and honored to address you in the halls of this great center of learning.
Throughout its history, Egypt has always led this region through its moments of greatest decision. In the early 19th century, it was the reform-minded dynasty of Muhammad Ali that distinguished Egypt from the Ottoman Empire and began to transform it into the region’s first modern nation.
In the early 20th century, it was the forward-looking Wafd Party that rose in the aftermath of the First World War and established Cairo as the liberal heart of the "Arab Awakening." And just three decades ago, it was Anwar Sadat who showed the way forward for the entire Middle East -- beginning difficult economic reforms and making peace with Israel. In these periods of historic decision, Egypt’s leadership was as visionary as it was essential for progress. And now in our own time, we are faced with equally momentous choices -- choices that will echo for generations to come.
In this time of great decision, I have come to Cairo not to talk about the past, but to look to the future -- to a future that Egyptians can lead and can define. Ladies and Gentlemen: In our world today, a growing number of men and women are securing their liberty. And as these people gain the power to choose, they are creating democratic governments in order to protect their natural rights.
We should all look to a future when every government respects the will of its citizens -- because the ideal of democracy is universal. For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.
As President Bush said in his Second Inaugural Address: "America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, to attain their own freedom, and to make their own way."
We know these advances will not come easily, or all at once. We know that different societies will find forms of democracy that work for them. When we talk about democracy, though, we are referring to governments that protect certain basic rights for all their citizens -- among these, the right to speak freely. The right to associate. The right to worship as you wish. The freedom to educate your children -- boys and girls. And freedom from the midnight knock of the secret police.
Securing these rights is the hope of every citizen, and the duty of every government. In my own country, the progress of democracy has been long and difficult. And given our history, the United States has no cause for false pride and we have every reason for humility.
After all, America was founded by individuals who knew that all human beings -- and the governments they create -- are inherently imperfect. And the United States was born half free and half slave. And it was only in my lifetime that my government guaranteed the right to vote for all of its people.
Nevertheless, the principles enshrined in our Constitution enable citizens of conviction to move America closer every day to the ideal of democracy. Here in the Middle East, that same long hopeful process of democratic change is now beginning to unfold. Millions of people are demanding freedom for themselves and democracy for their countries.
To these courageous men and women, I say today: All free nations will stand with you as you secure the blessings of your own liberty. I have just come from Jordan, where I met with the King and Queen -- two leaders who have embraced reform for many years. And Jordan’s education reforms are an example for the entire region. That government is moving toward political reforms that will decentralize power and give Jordanians a greater stake in their future.
In Iraq, millions of citizens are refusing to surrender to terror the dream of freedom and democracy. When Baghdad was first designed, over twelve-hundred years ago, it was conceived as the "Round City" -- a city in which no citizen would be closer to the center of justice than any other. Today -- after decades of murder, and tyranny, and injustice -- the citizens of Iraq are again reaching for the ideals of the Round City.
Despite the attacks of violent and evil men, ordinary Iraqis are displaying great personal courage and remarkable resolve. And every step of the way -- from regaining their sovereignty, to holding elections, to now writing a constitution -- the people of Iraq are exceeding all expectations.
The Palestinian people have also spoken. And their freely-elected government is working to seize the best opportunity in years to fulfill their historic dream of statehood. Courageous leaders, both among the Palestinians and the Israelis, are dedicated to seeking that peace. And they are working to build a shared trust.
The Palestinian Authority will soon take control of the Gaza -- a first step toward realizing the vision of two democratic states living side by side in peace and security. As Palestinians fight terror, and as the Israelis fulfill their obligations and responsibilities to help create a viable Palestinian state, the entire world -- especially Egypt and the United States -- will offer full support.
In Lebanon, supporters of democracy are demanding independence from foreign masters. After the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, thousands of Lebanese citizens called for change. And when the murder of journalist Samir Qaseer reminded everyone of the reach and brutality of terror, the Lebanese people were still unafraid.
They mourned their fellow patriot, but they united publicly with pens and pencils held aloft. It is not only the Lebanese people who desire freedom from Syria’s police state. The Syrian people themselves share that aspiration.
One hundred and seventy-nine Syrian academics and human rights activists are calling upon their government to "let the Damascus spring flower, and let its flowers bloom." Syria’s leaders should embrace this call -- and learn to trust their people. The case of Syria is especially serious, because as its neighbors embrace democracy and political reform, Syria continues to harbor or directly support groups committed to violence -- in Lebanon, and in Israel, and Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories. It is time for Syria to make a strategic choice to join the progress that is going on all around it.
In Iran, people are losing patience with an oppressive regime that denies them their liberty and their rights. The appearance of elections does not mask the organized cruelty of Iran’s theocratic state. The Iranian people, ladies and gentlemen, are capable of liberty. They desire liberty. And they deserve liberty. The time has come for the unelected few to release their grip on the aspirations of the proud people of Iran.
In Saudi Arabia, brave citizens are demanding accountable government. And some good first steps toward openness have been taken with recent municipal elections. Yet many people pay an unfair price for exercising their basic rights. Three individuals in particular are currently imprisoned for peacefully petitioning their government. That should not be a crime in any country.
Now, here in Cairo, President Mubarak’s decision to amend the country’s constitution and hold multiparty elections is encouraging. President Mubarak has unlocked the door for change. Now, the Egyptian Government must put its faith in its own people. We are all concerned for the future of Egypt’s reforms when peaceful supporters of democracy -- men and women -- are not free from violence. The day must come when the rule of law replaces emergency decrees -- and when the independent judiciary replaces arbitrary justice.
The Egyptian Government must fulfill the promise it has made to its people -- and to the entire world -- by giving its citizens the freedom to choose. Egypt’s elections, including the Parliamentary elections, must meet objective standards that define every free election.
Opposition groups must be free to assemble, and to participate, and to speak to the media. Voting should occur without violence or intimidation. And international election monitors and observers must have unrestricted access to do their jobs.
Those who would participate in elections, both supporters and opponents of the government, also have responsibilities. They must accept the rule of law, they must reject violence, they must respect the standards of free elections, and they must peacefully accept the results.
Throughout the Middle East, the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty. It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy. There are those who say that democracy is being imposed. In fact, the opposite is true: Democracy is never imposed. It is tyranny that must be imposed.
People choose democracy freely. And successful reform is always homegrown. Just look around the world today. For the first time in history, more people are citizens of democracies than of any other form of government. This is the result of choice, not of coercion.
There are those who say that democracy leads to chaos, or conflict, or terror. In fact, the opposite is true: Freedom and democracy are the only ideas powerful enough to overcome hatred, and division, and violence. For people of diverse races and religions, the inclusive nature of democracy can lift the fear of difference that some believe is a license to kill. But people of goodwill must choose to embrace the challenge of listening, and debating, and cooperating with one another.
For neighboring countries with turbulent histories, democracy can help to build trust and settle old disputes with dignity. But leaders of vision and character must commit themselves to the difficult work that nurtures the hope of peace. And for all citizens with grievances, democracy can be a path to lasting justice. But the democratic system cannot function if certain groups have one foot in the realm of politics and one foot in the camp of terror.
There are those who say that democracy destroys social institution and erodes moral standards. In fact, the opposite is true: The success of democracy depends on public character and private virtue. For democracy to thrive, free citizens must work every day to strengthen their families, to care for their neighbors, and to support their communities.
There are those who say that long-term economic and social progress can be achieved without free minds and free markets. In fact, human potential and creativity are only fully released when governments trust their people’s decisions and invest in their people’s future. And the key investment is in those people's education. Because education -- for men and for women -- transforms their dreams into reality and enables them to overcome poverty.
There are those who say that democracy is for men alone. In fact, the opposite is true: Half a democracy is not a democracy. As one Muslim woman leader has said, "Society is like a bird. It has two wings. And a bird cannot fly if one wing is broken." Across the Middle East, women are inspiring us all.
In Kuwait, women protested to win their right to vote, carrying signs that declared: "Women are Kuwaitis, too." Last month, Kuwait’s legislature voiced its agreement. In Saudi Arabia, the promise of dignity is awakening in some young women. During the recent municipal elections, I saw the image of a father who went to vote with his daughter.
Rather than cast his vote himself, he gave the ballot to his daughter, and she placed it in the ballot box. This small act of hope reveals one man’s dream for his daughter. And he is not alone.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Across the Middle East today, millions of citizens are voicing their aspirations for liberty and for democracy. These men and women are expanding boundaries in ways many thought impossible just one year ago.
They are demonstrating that all great moral achievements begin with individuals who do not accept that the reality of today must also be the reality of tomorrow.
There was a time, not long ago, after all, when liberty was threatened by slavery.
The moral worth of my ancestors, it was thought, should be valued by the demand of the market, not by the dignity of their souls. This practice was sustained through violence. But the crime of human slavery could not withstand the power of human liberty. What seemed impossible in one century became inevitable in the next.
There was a time, even more recently, when liberty was threatened by colonialism. It was believed that certain peoples required foreign masters to rule their lands and run their lives. Like slavery, this ideology of injustice was enforced through oppression.
But when brave people demanded their rights, the truth that freedom is the destiny of every nation rang true throughout the world. What seemed impossible in one decade became inevitable in the next.
Today, liberty is threatened by undemocratic governments. Some believe this is a permanent fact of history. But there are others who know better. These impatient patriots can be found in Baghdad and Beirut, in Riyadh and in Ramallah, in Amman and in Tehran and right here in Cairo.
Together, they are defining a new standard of justice for our time -- a standard that is clear, and powerful, and inspiring: Liberty is the universal longing of every soul, and democracy is the ideal path for every nation.
The day is coming when the promise of a fully free and democratic world, once thought impossible, will also seem inevitable. The people of Egypt should be at the forefront of this great journey, just as you have led this region through the great journeys of the past.
A hopeful future is within the reach of every Egyptian citizen -- and every man and woman in the Middle East. The choice is yours to make. But you are not alone. All free nations are your allies. So together, let us choose liberty and democracy -- for our nations, for our children, and for our shared future.
Thank you.
Dubai not typical Arabia (Greg Dobbs, March 13, 2006, Rocky Mountain News)
Between 20 percent and 40 percent of all cranes in the world are reportedly fastened to skyscrapers sprouting above the flourishing financial powerhouse of Dubai. As if imitating Israel's plucky pioneers who turned the desert green with agriculture, there is an almost feverish crusade here to turn it green with money.But for whom? Or what? The answer is, Dubai is diversifying for life after oil. Thousands of global corporations - more than 800 U.S. companies alone - have moved either regional offices, or major divisions, or global headquarters, to tax-free Dubai.
With far more skyscrapers on the skyline than mosques, these people seem more into income than ideology. This is not your father's Arabia. The ports deal was just part of this country's creed: The business of Dubai is business.
But of course, that didn't mitigate fears in the United States that an Arab country would use financial influence to impose Islamic ideology. So I asked a lot of locals about those fears. What they said was, there are bad apples in every society. Look at Great Britain, where terrorists have proved they can operate in obscurity. Or look at other places where al-Qaida wove its 9/11 plot: Hamburg, Germany, where much of the planning took place; or the U.S., where the hijackers learned to fly airplanes!
But the core of their case was that this nation has become a good friend of the United States. It was one of the very first governments to cooperate with U.S. Customs on new port security procedures for ships heading to the U.S. With the war in Iraq, more American Navy ships are serviced here than in any other port on earth outside the U.S.
Feingold Pushes to Censure President: Some Democrats Wary of Resolution On Wiretapping (Charles Babington, 3/13/06, Washington Post)
[R]epublicans pounced, practically daring Democrats to vote for the measure. "The big question now," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), "is how many of his Democrat colleagues will follow him over the cliff?"In a floor speech introducing his resolution, Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.) said: "When the president of the United States breaks the law, he must be held accountable." Bush, he said, "authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program."
Sensing a Democratic misstep, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) labeled the resolution a "political ploy" and called for an immediate vote, hoping to put Feingold's colleagues in a tough spot. But Democrats invoked Senate rules to postpone action, and it was unclear last night whether Feingold's measure would face a roll call.
Feingold, who is weighing a presidential run in 2008, is among the sharpest critics of Bush's four-year-old decision to direct the National Security Agency, without obtaining warrants, to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of Americans when one of the parties is considered a possible terrorist suspect.
Why this atheist is a Christian (sort of): The answer lies in the conception of faith that anyone can join the church (ROBERT JENSEN, 3/12/06, Houston Chronicle)
I'm a Christian, sort of. A secular Christian. A Christian atheist, perhaps. But, in a deep sense, I would argue, a real Christian.A real Christian who doesn't believe in God? This claim requires some explanation about the reasons I joined, and also opens up a discussion of what the term "Christian" could, or should, mean.
First, whatever my beliefs about the nature of the nonmaterial world or my views on spirituality, I live in a country that is extremely religious, especially compared to other technologically advanced industrial nations. Surveys show that about 80 percent of Americans identify as Christian and 5 percent as some other faith. And beyond self-identification, a 2002 poll showed that 67 percent of all people in the poll agreed that the United States is a "Christian nation"; 48 percent said they believed that the United States has "special protection from God"; 58 percent said that America's strength is based on religious faith; and 47 percent asserted that a belief in God is necessary to be moral.
While 84 percent in that 2002 poll agreed that one can be a "good American" without religious faith, clearly there's an advantage to being able to speak within a religious framework in the contemporary United States.
So, my decision to join a church was more a political than a theological act. As a political organizer interested in a variety of social-justice issues, I look for places to engage people in discussion. In a depoliticized society such as the United States — where ordinary people in everyday spaces do not routinely talk about politics and underlying values — churches are one of the few places where such engagement is possible. Even though many ministers and churchgoers shy away from making church a place for discussion of specific political issues, people there expect to engage fundamental questions about what it means to be human and the obligations we owe each other —questions that are always at the core of politics.
The infrastructure deficit (Neal Peirce, 3/12/06, Seattle Times)
[A]s our attitudes on infrastructure shift from whether to how, a mega-question arises: Where will the multibillions of dollars for the repairs and new facilities come from?Schwarzenegger's bid has been for pure borrowing — general-obligation bonds that have to be paid off by tomorrow's taxpayers. But a state that adds too much new debt may find itself on thin ice.
But what law says that all the money for important new infrastructure needs to come from public treasuries anyway? Mark Pisano, veteran executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), points to the massive Alameda Corridor project, a freight-rail expressway from the ports of Long Beach and San Pedro to transcontinental rail yards in Los Angeles. The $2.4 billion financing package, which SCAG negotiated, depended heavily on $1.8 billion in revenue bonds to be paid back in user fees by shippers sending freight.
"I tell Gov. Schwarzenegger," says Pisano, "that the bonds he wants should be seen as seed money that gets matched by private money — jump starting the investment strategy."
A glance back through U.S. history, notes Pisano, shows that the nation grew across the continent — from building canals and railroads to constructing subways and metro-area urban rail lines — with relatively modest upfront government spending. Instead, private firms paid most of the cost, then collected revenue based on their investment.
The direct government spending that began in the New Deal, and reached its apogee in the interstate highway system with Washington paying 90 percent of the cost, can be seen as an aberration.
Lame ducks can still bite back (Niall Ferguson, March 13, 2006, LA Times)
Members of Congress should beware of underestimating this president, as others have done in the past. They should remember that a second-term president is not necessarily a lame duck — he is also a man with nothing to lose.So my guess is that Bush is going to bite back. And the obvious way for him to do this is over Iran. Last Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney declared: "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." Remind you of anything? It was Cheney who set the pace four years ago as the administration prepared to confront Iraq, insisting that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And the same sequence of events now looks set to replay itself. The U.S. is going to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions if Iran does not halt its program of uranium enrichment. The other permanent members won't agree. And then….
Well, when those missiles slam into the Iranian nuclear facilities, don't say I didn't warn you. In academic politics, the stakes are relatively low. But where the stakes are high — and they don't get any higher than American national security — the presidents are harder to roll over. The next time you hear the word "duck" in Washington, my advice would be to do just that.
Our Opportunity With India (Condoleezza Rice, March 13, 2006, Washington Post)
The week before last President Bush concluded a historic agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, a rising democratic power in a dynamic Asia. This agreement is a strategic achievement: It will strengthen international security. It will enhance energy security and environmental protection. It will foster economic and technological development. And it will help transform the partnership between the world's oldest and the world's largest democracy. [...]Our agreement with India is unique because India is unique. India is a democracy, where citizens of many ethnicities and faiths cooperate in peace and freedom. India's civilian government functions transparently and accountably. It is fighting terrorism and extremism, and it has a 30-year record of responsible behavior on nonproliferation matters.
Aspiring proliferators such as North Korea or Iran may seek to draw connections between themselves and India, but their rhetoric rings hollow. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism that has violated its own commitments and is defying the international community's efforts to contain its nuclear ambitions. North Korea, the least transparent country in the world, threatens its neighbors and proliferates weapons. There is simply no comparison between the Iranian or North Korean regimes and India. [...]
Under the president's leadership, we are beginning to realize the full promise of our relationship with India, in fields as diverse as agriculture and health, commerce and defense, science and technology, and education and exchange. Over 65,000 Americans live in India, attracted by its growing economy and the richness of its culture. There are more than 2 million people of Indian origin in the United States, many of whom are U.S. citizens. More Indians study in our universities than students from any other nation. Our civilian nuclear agreement is a critical contribution to the stronger, more enduring partnership that we are building. [...]
Looking back decades from now, we will recognize this moment as the time when America invested the strategic capital needed to recast its relationship with India. As the nations of Asia continue their dramatic rise in a rapidly changing region, a thriving, democratic India will be a pillar of Asia's progress, shaping its development for decades. This is a future that America wants to share with India, and there is not a moment to lose.
OSU develops tool for manufacturing biodiesel (TERESA BELL, 2/21/06, kgw.com )
Chemical engineering researchers at Oregon State University developed a tiny chemical reactor for manufacturing biodiesel that could help farmers produce a cleaner-burning diesel substitute using their own seed crops.“This could be as important an invention as the mouse for your PC,” said Goran Jovanovic, the OSU professor who led the research team. “If we’re successful with this, nobody will ever make biodiesel any other way.”
Current biodiesel production methods involve dissolving a catalyst, such as sodium hydroxide, in alcohol, then agitating the alcohol mixture with vegetable oil in large vats for two hours. The liquid then sits for 12 to 24 hours while a slow chemical reaction occurs, creating biodiesel and glycerin, a byproduct that is separated. This glycerin can be used to make soaps, but first the catalyst in it must be neutralized and removed using hydrochloric acid, a tedious and costly process.
The microreactor developed at OSU eliminates the mixing, the standing time for separation and potentially the need for a dissolved catalyst.
But more importantly, Jovanovic says, the microreactor, which is about half the size of a thick credit card, could help farmers reduce their dependence on mass-produced petroleum as well as reduce the need to distribute fuel via truck, tanker or pipeline.
“This is all about producing energy in such a way that it liberates people,” Jovanovic said.
WASH POST's Ben Bradlee Claims Plame Leaker Was Richard Armitage (Drudge Report, Mar 13 2006)
In the latest issue of VANITY FAIR: "Woodward was in a tricky position. People close to him believe that he had learned about Plame from his friend Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's former deputy, who has been known to be critical of the administration and who has a blunt way of speaking. 'That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption,' former WASHINGTON POST editor Ben Bradlee said."
How I learned to stop worrying and love chaos (Spengler, 3/14/06, Asia Times)
Unlike my namesake, I am not pessimistic about civilizations in general. I am pessimistic about some and optimistic about others. At it turned out, Pilgrim pessimism about old Europe was well warranted. The United States of America became the world's only superpower not by plan, but by default. Like the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, the other powers consumed each other. A touch of pessimism about the Middle East is required as an antidote to the delusional behavior of the present administration.What compulsion requires the US to wage "holistic and ideological wars of the past", in Hanson's words, "such as those waged against Italians, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese, where we not only sought to defeat entire belief systems, but to stay on and craft a stable government in the hopes of stamping out fascism, Nazism, militarism, or communism"? One can suppress the putrefactive power of chaos, but it will reassert itself. A fifth to a half of the constituent nations of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact will die out by mid-century, about as many as would have died in all-out nuclear war.
Part of America's impulse is Christian. "The West cannot endure without faith that a loving Father dwells beyond the clouds that obscure his throne. Horror - the perception that cruelty has no purpose and no end - is lethal to the West," I wrote in Horror and humiliation in Fallujah (April 27, 2004). By contrast, "The Islamic world cannot endure without confidence in victory, that to 'come to prayer' is the same thing as to 'come to success'. Humiliation - the perception that the ummah cannot reward those who submit to it - is beyond its capacity to endure." The Western god of agape and chesed does not castigate without reason; the Muslim god of sovereignty and power does not withhold reward for service performed without reason.
Christianity, though, calls the individual out of his nation, into a new people of God that knows no nationality, for God counts the nations "as a drop of a bucket, and the small dust of the balance".
Americans evince a generosity of spirit elsewhere unknown, as anyone will discover who travels to the shantytowns of Africa or Latin America. Christian charities funded by middle-class Americans offer help to the truly desperate, whom wealthy locals despise as beasts of burden. President Bush's adventure in nation-building, I have maintained throughout, stems from the same Christian impulses that bring Americans to tend AIDS victims in Soweto (George W Bush, tragic character, November 25, 2003).
But the US is in large measure responsible for the chaos that overstretches the world from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. Trade, information and entrepreneurship have turned the breakdown of traditional society in the Islamic world into a lapsed-time version of the Western experience. The West required the hideous religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Napoleonic Wars of the 18th, the American Civil War, and the two World Wars of the 20th century to make its adjustment. To export a prefabricated democracy to a part of the world whose culture and religion are far less amenable in the first place is an act of narcissistic idiocy.
Now, it seems at least theoretically possible that an Islamic world that shares many traits with the United States -- a strong faith base and a hostility to the claims of Reason chief among them -- could fare better than those other areas, but, at any rate, it seems unlikely to do much worse. And the notion that exporting our ideals is a function of narcissism rather than of generosity requires that we ajudge the quiet comfortable suicides of the peoples of Europe and Asia to be more idiotic than the unpleasant poverty that had characterized their societies previously.
Moreover, one must ask how you would prevent peoples from trying to ape us, no matter how ill equipped their cultures are to do so, when the telecommunications era has made it so easy for them to observe how superior our society is to their own. If, as he correctly states, the backwardness of the ummah imputes a negative judgement of the Islamic world by Allah, while the spectacular success of America suggests, even if counterintuitively, that He is well-pleased with us, then how can they be stopped from longing to try our system? And, if central to our system is the belief that it is universal, how can we be true to ourselves without exporting it?
You can certainly be pessimistic about whether the Middle East will ever do as well as we, but it seems unrealistic to fret over much about its experimenting with liberal democracy and our helping them to do so.
Fukuyama's Pivot: He urged the liberation of Iraq. Now he claims he had misgivings all along (BRET STEPHENS, March 12, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Mr. Fukuyama's more relevant objections are as follows. First, he says, the administration failed to anticipate the extent to which the war would aggravate anti-Americanism and reshape global politics accordingly. Second, it mischaracterized and exaggerated the threat posed by radical Islamism: Jihadism, he writes, is "a byproduct of modernization and globalization, not traditionalism," which is better dealt with by integrating Muslims already living in the West than by " 'fixing' the Middle East." Third, the administration neglected the insight of the founding neoconservatives--intellectuals like Irving Kristol and Daniel Patrick Moynihan who, beginning in the 1960s, wrote critiques of large-scale government programs--that ambitious attempts at social engineering tend to backfire.On the first point, there's no doubt that the war was deeply unpopular around the world. But it plainly wasn't so unpopular as to create the kind of catastrophic backlash Mr. Fukuyama imagines. Since the war, four of the most prominent members of the "Coalition of the Willing"--Britain's Tony Blair, Australia's John Howard, Denmark's Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Japan's Junichiro Koizumi--have been returned to office by large majorities. Canada's Paul Martin and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder have been cashiered in favor of Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel, both of whom campaigned on the explicit promise of better ties with the U.S. France's Jacques Chirac looks to be politically finished; Nicolas Sarkozy, his likeliest successor, is avowedly pro-American. In the Middle East, where we once had enemies in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, we now have pro-American, democratic governments.
Next there is Mr. Fukuyama's view about the nature of jihadism. It is true that Europe's failure to assimilate its Muslims has helped spawn the likes of Mohamed Atta and the London bombers. Then again, Osama bin Laden is not an alienated child of Europe, nor is Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The religious madrassas through which jihadist ideology spreads are funded by Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah's Al-Manar satellite TV station broadcasts its message of hate from Beirut and gets its funding from Tehran. Iran, in turn, also helps to arm groups such as the Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which is a sister organization of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, from which Ayman al Zawahiri sprang. Before 9/11, most of the jihadists got their "military" training in Afghanistan and possibly also in Saddam's Iraq. Mr. Fukuyama may or may not be right that Islamist radicalism is a "byproduct of modernization," but the idea that the heart of the problem is somewhere other than the Middle East is inane.
Hardly more persuasive is Mr. Fukuyama's argument about social engineering, a term he tends to abuse. Properly understood, social engineering isn't simply a matter of instituting radical change per se. What counts is the kind of change. Imposing price controls, for instance, is a form of social engineering because it upsets the natural balance of supply and demand. But it would be absurd to argue that removing price controls is also a kind of social engineering, even if it entails short-term economic dislocations.
The question then becomes whether removing dictators is an example of the former or the latter. Mr. Fukuyama devotes a chapter to the subject and concludes that solid democratic institutions will take root only when there is strong internal demand for them. True enough. But on what basis should we conclude there is no strong internal demand for democracy in Iraq, or Burma, or Iran?
Frist: Ports Deal Could Work Without Buyer (HOPE YEN, 3/12/06, The Associated Press)
Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist, R-Tenn., acknowledged that if an American buyer is not found, and the Bush administration determines there are no security risks, a deal for DP World to manage and operate major U.S. ports still could go through."If everything that the president, the administration has said, and that is that there is absolutely no threatening or jeopardy to our security and safety of the American people ... I don't see how the deal would have to be canceled," Frist said on ABC's "This Week." [...]
Some analysts have suggested finding a U.S. buyer willing to pay the $700 million that DP World wants might be difficult.
Iraq's Sovereignty Vacuum: The Campaign to Pacify Sunni Iraq (Michael Schwartz, March 13 , 2006, Mother Jones)
What the world has come to call the "insurgency "in Iraq is largely located in Baghdad and the Sunni-dominated cities to the north and west of the capital. In the Kurdish north and Shia south, residents have largely been organized into local quasi-governments that are frequently at odds with the American occupation (and therefore with the central government in the capital); but -- despite notable moments of great violence -- none of these localities has mounted a sustained war against the American-led presence as the Sunnis have.While the Sunni insurgency is certainly the focus of Iraqi news coverage, the actual nature of the war in Sunni areas goes largely unreported. Coverage tends to focus on spectacular moments of violence and destruction, especially car bombs and other suicide attacks against civilian targets. Only rarely mentioned are the multitude of small-scale confrontations between resistance fighters and patrolling American troops that account for the majority of violent clashes. As a result, the methods of the American side -- the use of assault weapons, tanks, artillery, and air power -- and so the spreading "collateral" damage to Iraqi civilians is significantly underreported.
A recent James Glanz piece in the New York Times proved an exception to this pattern. Based on U.S. military statistics, Glanz offered strong evidence against the administration portrait of a weakening (or at least stalemated) resistance movement. Guerrilla attacks had, in fact, "steadily grown in the nearly three years since the invasion." Even during a "lull" in December 2005, the 2,500 violent confrontations -- over 80 per day -- were "almost 250 percent [higher than] the number in March 2004," which, in turn was twice the level of August 2003.
The chart that accompanied the article (originally delivered to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee by Joseph A. Christoff of the Government Accountability Office) contained an even more significant fact, almost unknown to the American public: Despite the impression we may have from news reports, Iraqi civilians constitute only a small proportion of resistance targets each month -- never exceeding 20% and typically falling well below 10%. In December 2005, they accounted for just 8% -- about 200 -- of the 2,500 attacks. .
The overwhelming target of such attacks -- in a typical month around 80% of them -- was the American military and its coalition allies, mainly the British. Last December, the figure was a little over 70%; some months it reaches 90%. The Iraqi armed forces (integrated, as they are, into the American command) account for another 5-10% of the targets.
Until now, at least, the war in the Sunni areas of Iraq has largely been between the Americans and the guerrillas. The Iraqi government itself is not a factor in this confrontation, and consequently is rarely mentioned -- even in a pro forma way -- in news accounts of the battles, negotiations, and other elements of the war.
How then, as best we can tell, is the Sunni resistance organized in the many cities in the four provinces in central Iraq and in Baghdad where the war is an ongoing part of life?
Though it is divided into two ideologically contrary groups -- the guerrillas who target the occupation and the jihadists who tend to seek out civilian targets -- and within those divisions into many grouplets, the Sunni resistance is coherent enough to be another contender for sovereignty, at least in its own areas. It has tied down and exhausted the U.S. military, forcing strategic and tactical alterations in American policy. It continues to influence both national and local Iraqi politics, even as its internal contradictions increasingly set jihadists and guerrillas against each other.
The role played by the Sunni resistance can best be understood by briefly reviewing the situation in Falluja before its recapture by American forces in November 2004. In April of that year, after an abortive attempt to seize the city, the U.S. military had withdrawn, leaving it in the hands of the "Falluja Brigade," made up mainly of Baathist army veterans. They were assigned the job of pacifying the city. Instead, the Brigade gave its support to a group of local religious leaders allied with the insurgency that soon evolved into a local government. Borrowing its organizational skeleton from the rich community organizations traditionally connected to Sunni mosques (including their Shari'a courts), it used the resistance fighters as a police force. Perhaps not surprisingly, the structure that developed was similar to those that had already formed in Shia cities like Basra.
During the period from April to November, Falluja had only the most tenuous ties to the national government in Baghdad. Nir Rosen, an independent journalist, produced remarkable descriptions of the city in this period (for the New Yorker and Asia Times). His pieces give a sense of the developing tensions between the jihadists, who wanted to establish Falluja as a safe rear area for their larger operations, and the local resistance, determined to keep the Americans out but uninterested in going on the offensive. The new government also heightened tensions by enforcing cultural customs similar to those adopted in Basra: head scarves for women, facial hair for men, and the abolition of liquor and western music. In these months, street crime disappeared, as did armed confrontations of any sort. They would prove the most peaceful in Falluja since the fall of Saddam's regime.
As this interlude indicated, in the Sunni areas local clerics already constituted a proto-government-in-waiting, quite capable of enforcing "law and order" if not challenged by the occupation military. The fighting in Sunni cities comes and goes with the arrival and departure of the occupation military. When the occupation forces enter a city (or a neighborhood in Baghdad), the IEDs begin to explode, snipers fire away, and hit-and-run attacks start up. As soon as they withdraw to pacify another town, the city in question, in a more battered state, falls back into the hands of local clerics and their allies among the guerrillas.
At no time does the Iraqi government figure significantly into this process. Occasionally, it may appoint a governor or police chief, but these functionaries quickly discover (like their counterparts in Basra and Kirkuk) that they have little choice but to work with the local power structure, resign in protest over their lack of authority, or become assassination targets.
In a sense, the difference between Sunni cities -- most of which have been wracked by fighting -- and their Shia or Kurdish counterparts has been the determination of the American military to pacify them.
MASHED POTATO CASSEROLE (Rick & Nora)
Comments: This dish can be made ahead and set aside in the refrigerator. Just pop it into the oven about 45 minutes before you want to serve it. You can make it lower in fat by omitting the cream cheese, but why bother? Also, you could use chives instead of green onions. Use freshly grated Parmesan cheese –it makes a big difference! I use a deep round baking dish. I like using Yukon Gold potatoes, but any potato you use for mashed potatoes would be fine.
Special Equipment:
2 Quart baking dish, buttered
Ingredients:
2 Pounds Baking potatoes, peeled & cut
6 Cloves Garlic, peeled
1 Cup Chicken broth
2 Cups Water, for boiling potatoes
Butter to prepare pan
4 Ounces Cream cheese, room temperature
2 Tbls. Butter
Salt & pepper, to taste
3 Tbls. Green onions, thinly sliced
½ Cup Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Olive oil as needed
Directions:
· In a large pot, put potatoes, garlic, broth and water (potato water/broth)
· Cover and bring to a boil over high heat
· Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are very tender
· Drain and reserve ¾ cup of the potato water/broth
· Preheat oven to 400°
· Butter baking dish
· Mash or rice the potatoes
· Add cream cheese and butter
· Add a little of the potato water/broth, if necessary; the mixture should be very soft and fluffy
· Season with salt and pepper to taste. Whisk together.
· Stir in the green onions
· Spoon potatoes into the prepare dish
· Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and drizzle the top all over with olive oil
· Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and puffed. Rest for 15 minutes.
· Sprinkle with remaining green onions and serve
Planning for a peaceful world: An interview with Thomas Barnett (Steve Martinovich, March 13, 2006, Enter Stage Right)
With the publication of Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett has once again crafted a strategic vision for the future that is as compelling as his highly-regarded The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. Where in TPNM Barnett identified the key issues he believed were needed to be resolved before we could expect a peaceful global community, that the United States needed to stop thinking of the world in Cold War terms and to craft a new military, political and economic rules to deal with the new reality, in BFA he goes one step further and ambitiously builds on those ideas to create a specific strategic roadmap to reach that world of peace and security. Dr. Barnett recently sat with ESR to discuss his new book and the ideas behind it.ESR: For those readers who may not be familiar with Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, how would you characterize what you are trying to do with it?
Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's New Map constituted my system-level diagnosis of the security world in which we find ourselves post-9/11. It also established my voice/character as someone (hopefully) worth listening to on the subjects of global change and grand strategy. Blueprint for Action attempts to drill down to the level of the nation-state, proposing a slew of strategic choices for our country in terms of the new rules, new organizations and new relationships we'll need to build -- as I like to call it -- a "future worth creating." I define that future as the progressive expansion of the global economy in a deeply connective and sustaining way around the planet, or the shrinking of those regions that currently are poorly or unfairly connected to that economy and thus present us with the most security issues. So, again, PNM gave you the map, while BFA gives you plan for improving that global environment to the point where America gets to declare, as we did in 1989, victory in a global war on terrorism in a way that we can all be proud of.
ESR: In the terminology you use, the nations that are economically and politically connected to each other are the Functioning Core while those disconnected are Non-Integrating Gap. What are some of the bigger issues and problems you foresee in bringing the latter online?
The toughest nut involves improving the security in those countries that need a substantial amount of time to develop their people capital in order to attract foreign direct investment (the precursor being the shift from -- typically -- extreme reliance on the exporting of a couple of raw materials that are easily controlled by small elites or fought over by rival small networks). The most vexing criticism I get from sharp thinkers is, "Okay, I can see how your extension of connectivity works for a bunch of countries in the Gap whose main turn-off for investors are the neighborhood in which they live, but how do you deal with the serious losers that have little to offer once you get rid of the bad actors on top -- you know, the guys who rise up because that's the way it's always been there?"
And that gets to the larger realization, which is both good and bad, that the Gap gets shrunk in chunks. It's not just a matter of declaring Singapore in, but in figuring out how Southeast Asia achieves the critical mass of security, political, network and economic connectivity en masse.
This is Blair's defining moment, but his troops are not behind him (Rachel Sylvester, 13/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
[T]his is a defining political moment. The very fact that the Labour leader has made clear that he is willing to get legislation on such a touchstone issue for his party through with the help of the Conservatives, and in the face of the opposition of dozens of Labour backbenchers, is a sign that the "tectonic plates" at Westminster have shifted.The significant change is that Mr Blair no longer sees himself as a Labour prime minister but as a leader - as Churchill once was - of a national government who will do the best for his country despite, rather than because of, what the members of his own party think. When Frank Field wrote in the Telegraph last month that we are in a "new political world" in which the Government will depend on a coalition, from across the House, to get its business through the Commons, Mr Blair was so intrigued that he discussed the point with him.
This is not just about trust schools, admissions codes and LEAs. On tax and public spending, Iraq and nuclear power, the monarchy and marriage, Mr Blair now has more in common with David Cameron than he has with many members of his own party.
The Tory leader, nearly 100 days after his election, is intent on narrowing the differences, too. As all the parties jostle in the middle ground, the Prime Minister's allies argue - rightly - that the old tribal divides of Left and Right are out of date. Instead, politicians are split (within parties) between, for example, liberals and authoritarians.
And Mr Blair is not convinced that his party really understands the new political dividing lines. Privately, he tells colleagues that the default mechanism of the country is closer to the default mechanism of the Conservative Party than it is to the default mechanism of Labour. This is a man whose aim is, more than ever, to reach out over the heads of his MPs and activists to the voters (or indeed to the Almighty) who are, he hopes, more in tune with his beliefs.
To some extent, this has always been the case. Ever since he became Labour leader in 1994, Mr Blair has defined himself in opposition to his party, zipping Left-wingers and trade unionists firmly out of his big tent. When he set out to abolish Clause 4, he said that Labour needed some "electric shock treatment".
The Right's Man: John McCain isn't a moderate. He's much less of a maverick than you'd think. And he isn't the straight talker he claims to be. (PAUL KRUGMAN, 3/13/06, NY Times)
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/opinion/13krugman.html?th&emc=th
(Available only to TimesSelect subscribers)
Budget Restraint Emerges as G.O.P. Theme for 2008 (ADAM NAGOURNEY, 3/13/06, NY Times)
As prospective Republican presidential candidates search for themes to distinguish their prospective campaigns, and distance themselves from the embattled incumbent in the White House, they appear to be in agreement on what one central issue should be in 2008: Curbing the federal spending that has soared under President Bush.For two days before an audience of Southern Republicans here, the party's potential candidates for 2008 called for cutting or slowing federal spending across the board and retooling bedrock entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — that have become a drain on the federal treasury.
Why black sheep are barred and Humpty can't be cracked (Alexandra Blair, 3/07/06, Times of London)
TRADITIONAL nursery rhymes are being rewritten at nursery schools to avoid causing offence to children.Instead of singing “Baa baa, black sheep” as generations of children have learnt to do, toddlers in Oxfordshire are being taught to sing “Baa baa, rainbow sheep”.
The move, which critics will seize on as an example of political correctness, was made after the nurseries decided to re-evaluate their approach to equal opportunities.
A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism (DAVID E. SANGER, 3/12/06, NY Times)
The president who made pre-emption and going it alone the watchwords of his first term is quietly turning in a new direction, warning at every opportunity of the dangers of turning the nation inward and isolationist, and making the case for international engagement on issues from national security to global economics.
The Wilberforce Republican: Sam Brownback is redefining the Christian right (Lexington, Mar 9th 2006, The Economist)
[T]he more you study Mr Brownback the more surprising he becomes. He may represent a landlocked state in the Midwest, but his biggest interest lies in foreign policy—and in particular in fusing diplomacy and humanitarianism. He is second-to-none in Congress in campaigning against the horrors that have been unfolding in Darfur in western Sudan, and in pleading the case for addressing HIV and malaria; he has been a relentless critic of the North Korean regime (“if hell is the absence of God,” he once said, “I think you can see North Korea is the closest place to that on earth”); and he has sponsored legislation against sex trafficking. And these sermons are based on experience: he is a frequent visitor to some of the world's most troubled places, urging people to take their holidays (or “impact trips”, as he calls them) in Rwanda rather than Europe.Which is not to say that his compassion begins at the ocean's edge. Mr Brownback is a leading campaigner for reforming America's prisons, particularly the rehabilitation of ex-cons (he notes that faith-based programmes are much better at keeping prisoners on the straight and narrow because they are better at providing them with a support network when they leave). He helped sponsor a new museum of African-American history: now he wants an apology for Native Americans. Even some of his most “hard right” positions, such as his support for marriage, have a soft component: he produces reams of social science research about how marriage is “a leading poverty reducer”.
Mr Brownback's politics is rooted in his religious faith. He was raised an evangelical Protestant, a son of Osawatomie, a longstanding hotbed of Kansas evangelism (and a centre of the abolitionist movement before the civil war). But a few years ago a brush with cancer changed his life, persuading him to put religion at the forefront of his political persona. He was particularly moved by reading a biography of William Wilberforce, a British anti-slavery agitator. He also became a Roman Catholic. He now attends two services every Sunday—mass and also one with his family, who remain evangelical Protestants.
Mr Brownback's enthusiasm for mixing God and politics has left him with lots of strange bedfellows. He co-sponsored legislation against sex trafficking with the late (and near socialist) Paul Wellstone and co-sponsored the North Korea Refugee Act with Ted Kennedy. He frequently rubs shoulders with feminists and black activists. Indeed, he is arguably today's champion of liberal internationalism, the baton having been passed from the Clintonites (who are now out of power) and from human-rights groups (who are divided over things like sex trafficking).
Mr Brownback is not the only “Wilberforce Republican”. A growing number of people on the Christian right think that America's role in the world is to go out and slay dragons, whether they be in the form of religious persecution or prostitution. Plenty of young conservatives have turned their attention away from the domestic culture wars that their parents obsess about to more global issues like the environment and poverty.
Tapes reveal WMD plans by Saddam (Rowan Scarborough, 3/13/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and his aides underscore the Bush administration's argument that Baghdad was determined to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction once the international community had tired of inspections and left the Iraqi dictator alone.
In addition to the captured tapes, U.S. officials are analyzing thousands of pages of newly translated Iraqi documents that tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s.
The documents also speak of burying prohibited missiles, according to a government official familiar with the declassification process. [...]
"The factories are present," an Iraqi aide tells Saddam on one of the tapes, made by the dictator in the mid-1990s while U.N. weapons inspectors were searching for Baghdad's remaining stocks of weapons of mass destruction.
"The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period," the aide says, according to the documents. "And [inspectors] take note of the time period, they can't account for our will."
Blair still needs Tory support, says survey (Will Woodward and Saleem Vaillancourt, March 13, 2006, The Guardian)
Ministers have persuaded, flattered and squeezed backbenchers into submission but the government is still struggling to push the education bill through the Commons without relying on Conservative support, a Guardian survey shows.[T]he rival camps agree that at least 45 to 50 Labour MPs are ready to vote against, and more to abstain. The prime minister's working majority is 69, so the rebels need 35 votes against to force a reliance on the Conservatives. One rebel campaigner said this would leave Tony Blair running a "minority administration".
Americans Tag Japan With Loss: United States 4, Japan 3 (Dave Sheinin, 3/13/06, Washington Post)
From a certain spot at the top step of the U.S. team's dugout Sunday afternoon at Angel Stadium, the third base bag was perhaps 30 feet away, with the expanse of left field in the background, green and full of shadows. It was here, in the eighth inning of the opening game of the second round of the World Baseball Classic, where perhaps a dozen U.S. players stood nervously and watched Japan's Tsuyoshi Nishioka -- representing the go-ahead run -- tag up from third base while, in the background, left fielder Randy Winn circled around to catch a lazy fly ball.What happened next before 32,896 fans would create the first on-field controversy of the WBC, leaving the dignified manager of the Japanese team, legendary slugger Sadaharu Oh, in a simmering rage and tainting the outcome of a 4-3 victory by the U.S. team, achieved when designated hitter Alex Rodriguez drove in the winning run with a broken-bat single up the middle in the bottom of the ninth.
"It's just unimaginable," Oh said of the reversed call by the umpiring crew, "that this could have happened."
Turkish toil brings new form of faith (Aasiya Lodhi, 3/12/06, BBC Radio 3)
Kayseri is one of a handful of cities industrialising at an astonishing rate in Anatolia, Turkey's central province and the country's Islamic heartland.Unlike the big urban centres of Ankara and Istanbul, the population is made up of devout, conservative Muslims.
Restaurants rarely serve alcohol, unmarried men and women don't mix on the streets, and there is little in the way of nightlife.
Yet the new entrepreneurialism sweeping across the province is providing an unlikely catalyst for a remarkable religious transformation.
A new form of Turkish Islam is emerging here, one which is pro-business and pro-free market, and it's being called Islamic Calvinism.
One of the first to use this description was the former mayor of Kayseri, Sukru Karatepe.
A softly-spoken man who taught sociology before entering politics, Karatape noticed striking similarities between the changes in Kayseri and the famous thesis of the German economist Max Weber, who argued that the strong work ethic of the Protestant movement gave birth to modern capitalism.
"I had read Weber, who'd written about how Calvinists work hard, save money and then reinvest it into business," he says.
"To me, it seemed very similar to what was happening in Kayseri.
"People in Kayseri also don't spend money unnecessarily. They work hard, they pride themselves on saving money. Then they invest it and make more money.
"In fact, in Kayseri, working hard is a form of worship. For them, religion is all about the here and now, not the next life. Making money is a sign of God's approval, and this is also similar to what Weber said about the Calvinists."
It is a view echoed by Gerald Knaus, director of the think-tank European Stability Initiative, which recently published a report on the Islamic Calvinist phenomenon in Anatolia.
"Those doing business in Kayseri themselves argue that Islam encourages them to be entrepreneurial," he says.
"They quote passages from the Quran and from the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad which read like a business manual. They tell me, it's important to create factories, to create jobs - it's what our religion tells us to do."
The label of Islamic Calvinism, however, has caused a furore in the Turkish press.
Critics say it's a Western conspiracy to Christianise Islam, but others have passionately argued in its favour, holding it up as a model for how Islam and modernity can co-exist.
One of its most prominent defenders has been Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Gul, himself a native of Kayseri and the son of an entrepreneur.
Did Cheney Shoot To Kill? Don't Be A Dopamine ... (WILLIAM WEIR, February 28 2006, The Hartford Courant)
Since the vice president shot one of his hunting buddies a little more than two weeks ago, a number of alternate theories have been bubbling beneath the official version of events.Some have speculated alcohol played a role, while others have even suggested a heated argument could have preceded the shooting. According to a poll by Rasmussen Reports, 27 percent of Americans had "serious questions" about the incident. Even if the White House hadn't waited a few news cycles to tell anyone about the accident, it seems inevitable that the official story would meet with skepticism. [...]
Some research indicates that an excess of dopamine in the brain can cause people to spot patterns where others see only random data. Dopamine is the chemical in our brains most commonly associated with pleasure. Too little of it can lead to attention deficit disorder and Parkinson's disease. Too much, though, leads to schizophrenia and other mental disorders.
Researchers at University Hospital at Zurich found that subjects given a dose of dopamine were more prone to seeing faces and words when scrambled patterns appeared on a screen in front of them. Peter Brugger, the neurologist who led the study, says the results show that dopamine not only plays a role in detecting patterns in visual displays but probably in perceiving patterns - real or not - in events. A tendency to spot patterns and connect the dots is the foundation of conspiracy theorizing.
"If there is too much [dopamine], you begin to develop hallucinations and delusions, including delusional ideas of reference," Brugger says in an e-mail message. [...]
The list of events with alternate theories is endless, as is our fascination. Certainly the excessive dopamine explanation doesn't explain the entire 27 percent cited in the Rasmussen poll. So why are so many - even those with chemically balanced brains - taken by conspiracy theories?
Part of it is a natural tendency to find order in things. Psychologists say we're loath to acknowledge that random events and lone screwballs can fell world leaders and cause so much havoc on our world. Assigning blame to the Mafia and other powerful networks is a way to make sense of it all.
"If people see an event like the assassination of a president or the death of a princess, they're more likely to see that as the result of a major cause," says Patrick Leman, a psychologist at Royal Holloway University of London. "That keeps our view of the world as stable and consistent. It's casting around to find an explanation with what we want to see."
The idea that such elaborate deceptions are being orchestrated at high levels offers a much more satisfying explanation than simply acknowledging that accidents happen.
Straw's direct appeal to Iranians (BBC, 3/13/06)
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the prospect of taking military action against Iran remains inconceivable, telling the BBC: "This is not Iraq."Mr Straw spoke ahead of a speech in which he will appeal to the Iranian people to back a return to negotiation and "normalisation of relationships". [...]
The result of Iran "putting itself beyond the pale" of the international community was serious economic damage.
"It is a proud country with a good civilisation. We want to see a normalisation of relationships with this country and it is still not to late for the Iranians to get back into negotiations with us," he said.
Mr Straw commented that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "a difficult individual to deal with", but added that he was not "the critical decision-maker" in Iran.
MORE:
U.S. Campaign Is Aimed at Iran's Leaders: Uneasy About Tehran's Nuclear Plans, Bush Administration Tries to Build Opposition to Theocracy (Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler, 3/13/06, Washington Post)
The internal administration debate that raged in the first term between those who advocated more engagement with Iran and those who preferred more confrontation appears in the second term to be largely settled in favor of the latter. Although administration officials do not use the term "regime change" in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy."We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Senate testimony last week. "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime."
In private meetings, Bush and his advisers have been more explicit. Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.
"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement.
Candidate for Texas governor caught drinking beer in parade car (The Associated Press, 3/13/06)
An independent candidate for Texas governor rode in a St. Patrick's Day parade car Saturday with his trademark black hat and burning cigar — plus a beer in his hand, an apparent violation of the state's open-container law.Kinky Friedman's spokeswoman acknowledged that he drank from a can of Guinness that was handed to him. Photographs taken by The Dallas Morning News showed Friedman, who wasn't driving, holding the beer and appearing to take a drink.
"Guinness is the drink that kept the Irish from taking over the world. It would be unthinkable not to have a Guinness during a St. Patrick's Day parade. In fact, it would be spiritually wrong," Friedman said in a statement issued by spokeswoman Laura Stromberg.
Ethanol plants see growth bloom (Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
The nation's growing thirst for ethanol is leading to a miniboom in plant construction — even far from the Corn Belt, which has been home to most production. [...]
Thirty-three ethanol plants are under construction, and another eight of the 95 plants in operation are being expanded, the Renewable Fuels Association reports.
About half the new construction began in the year since President Bush signed an energy bill that encourages greater use of ethanol as an ecologically sound fuel additive.
Creative destruction.
Stern caused quite a stir (Chris Snow, March 13, 2006, Boston Globe)
They are Canadian, thus conscribed to enjoy hockey and beer, often together, and for this reason alone it should come as no surprise to learn how Team Canada spent its last night of camp in Dunedin, Fla., earlier this month before leaving for the World Baseball Classic.''We got a cooler of beer and went out and played road hockey," Adam Stern said with pride yesterday, when the Rule 5 outfielder rejoined the Red Sox after 10 days away, having become a Canadian icon for his tour de force in a spellbinding 8-6 upset of Team USA last week. ''We were asking each other: Do other teams do this?"
The format: First to five goals won the game, best two of out three games won the series. The teams were picked before the Canadians arrived at the floor-hockey rink. Minnesota first baseman Justin Morneau, a former junior hockey goalie, captained one team, and built his squad around size and experience. Good plan, until the teams showed up at the rink and happened upon an Olympic-sized surface, 15 feet wider than the standard rink.
''They took the speed," Morneau said of Stern's younger, faster team. ''I didn't realize we were going to play on the big surface."
Stern played forward, on a line with a guy named Orr (Pete, not Bobby) and former Sox slugger Matt Stairs.
''We were having a field day," Stern said. ''Me, Orr, Stairsy. He had the big shot. He had a howitzer."
The only downer: the boys couldn't get the beer they wanted, which would have been either Labatt Blue (made in Stern's hometown of London, Ontario) or Molson.
''We couldn't get it shipped in, coming across the border," Stern said. ''We had Busch Light, Coors Light. For us that's like water. Pretty much we were hydrating with that stuff."
U.S. Military: 8 Elite Law Schools: 0: How did so many professors misunderstand the law? (Peter Berkowitz, 03/20/2006, Weekly Standard)
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS'S UNANIMOUS opinion for the Supreme Court in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Individual Rights, upholding the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment against challenge by a coalition of law schools and law faculties, decisively resolved the essential legal issues presented by the case. The 8-0 decision (Justice Alito did not participate) made matters crystal clear: Congress, without infringing law schools' and law professors' First Amendment rights of speech and association, may condition federal funding to universities on law schools' granting access to military recruiters equal to that provided other employers. The Solomon Amendment leaves law schools perfectly free to keep the military off campus and away from their students--if they can persuade the universities of which they are a part to decline the millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, the universities receive in federal funds.However, Roberts's opinion does give rise to, and leaves unresolved, one nonlegal but rather large and disturbing question: How could so many law professors of such high rank and distinction be so wrong about such straightforward issues of constitutional law? [...]
With their legal arguments publicly and authoritatively eviscerated by Roberts's opinion, what was the response of FAIR's attorneys and the company of distinguished law professors enlisting in the cause? Joshua Rosenkranz, who represented FAIR, told the Washington Post that the law schools always saw the suit as a "scrimmage in a broader war" about equality--a revealing remark from an attorney who had just suffered a dreadful defeat in a high profile First Amendment case.
His view about political motivations was echoed by Dean Harold Koh, who concluded his statement in reaction to the Court's decision on the Yale Law School website by declaring that, "We look forward to the day when the government gives all of our students--without regard to their sexual orientation--an equal opportunity to serve our country by working in our Nation's armed forces." And the decision provoked a defiant response at a website in support of FAIR hosted by Georgetown Law School (SolomonResponse.org): "The Supreme Court's opinion in Rumsfeld v. FAIR is a call to arms to law school administrations across the country to vocally demonstrate their opposition to the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy."
But if their aim all along was to secure the right for homosexuals to serve in the United States armed forces on terms equal to those of heterosexuals, why did the law professors divert attention for almost three years, during wartime, at a cost to the government that likely ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to imaginary infringements of faculty First Amendment rights?
Perhaps the law professors are simply poor advocates, unable to craft compelling constitutional arguments even on an issue--their own free speech--that is near and dear to them. Or perhaps they cynically believed that, there being no major difference between law and politics, the more left-leaning justices would side with their ostensibly progressive cause, however ungrounded in constitutional text, history, structure, or precedent their legal arguments were. Or perhaps, knowing their case was a bad one, they nevertheless sought a symbolic expression of their support for gay rights.
He's a right-wing ideologue, not a true conservative (Jeffrey Hart, March 12, 2006, La Times)
WILLIAM F. Buckley Jr. has defined conservatism as "the politics of reality." Ideology is the enemy of conservatism because it edits, omits or ignores reality. George W. Bush is an ideologue.
Revisitation (David Warren, 3/12/06, Real Clear Politics)
A new book just landed in my mailbox, Redefining Sovereignty, ed. Orrin C. Judd. It contains an essay by me from four years ago, in which I tried to explain President Bush’s Lincolnesque thinking on world order. I think the essay has borne up fairly well, to this short passage of years. I said that Mr Bush was trying to vindicate and uphold the existing national state-system in the world, in exactly the way Lincoln went about upholding the American union. And that, Mr Bush’s commitment to spreading democracy was like Lincoln’s commitment to extinguishing slavery -- not the key point, but necessary to the key point of recovering order. If Lincoln could have preserved the union, and it meant keeping slavery, he would have done that.Ditto, if Mr Bush thought he could restore the status quo ante of a Middle East that was no threat to the West, without pushing democracy down anyone’s throat, he would do that. But as he examined the problem presented to him by the Arab raids on New York and Washington, the morning of Sept. 11th, 2001, he saw that something more would be required. He believes, still, that there can be no lasting peace in the world until the “root cause” of this terrorist violence is removed. Hence, the evangelizing for democracy. Hence, the willingness to kick-start, by taking out two of the most abhorrent regimes known to man, and trying to repeat in Afghanistan and Iraq what the Americans accomplished in Germany, Italy, and Japan after World War II.
In this view -- which I hold to be Mr Bush’s -- we are dealing with what amounts to a planetary civil war, between those who accept the state-system descended from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), and an emergent Islamist ideology that certainly does not. To Mr Bush’s mind, only legitimately-elected governments, presiding over properly-administered secular bureaucracies, can be trusted to deal locally with the kind of mischief an Osama bin Laden can perform, with his hands on contemporary weapons of mass destruction.
Crashing the party: President Bush's policies have reawakened a GOP identity crisis (Daniel Casse, March 12, 2006, LA Times)
Rather than trying to unite his party behind less contentious issues, Bush has been steadily steering the Republican Party into policy areas where it never has never been very confident but that can no longer be ignored: healthcare, immigration, retirement. Coupled with national security, they have become some of the most contentious, pressing and divisive issues the country faces.Most of the loudest Bush critics within the Republican and conservative world believe that the party must return to its Reaganite, shrink-the-government roots. "The Republican Party needs to start a dialogue that will get it back on track as the party of small government before it loses what is left of its principles, reputation and heritage," Bartlett writes in "Impostor."
Bush, however, seems to have recognized that tackling these difficult and long-term issues requires Republican imagination to go beyond "limited government." Replacing our Social Security system with individual, private savings accounts, after all, requires more government spending, at least in the short-term. Increasing border patrols, administering a guest-worker program or hiring more Arab-language linguists at the CIA and FBI requires larger, more expensive government. The much-derided Medicare drug plan actually has, buried within it, the first seeds of means-testing and market competition among health plans, which conservative Republicans have long sought. But to get even this, Bush had to sign on to a very expensive entitlement expansion.
This tension between the modern conservative agenda of promoting accountability, competition and individual choice on the one hand and the Reagan vision of small government on the other is rarely acknowledged by Republican leaders. But it is at the heart of many of the disputes between Bush and his conservative critics.
For his part, Bush has never successfully packaged his ideas as a new vision for the Republican Party. "Compassionate conservatism," the line he used during his first campaign, died an early and much-deserved death.
Nevertheless, the basic framework for a new kind of conservative, Republican politics is out there. In addition to his support for accountability and choice in domestic policies, Bush has indirectly advanced the case for what I have called "strong government" — harnessing the power of the federal government to achieve conservative ends, domestically as well as abroad.
Strong government may in some cases require bigger government. But it is in stark contrast to the large, inept and weak government that characterized Democratic programs for decades. Bush's strong government recognizes that the U.S. has no choice but to lead the fight against Islamic terrorism and to try to promote some form of democratic government in the Middle East. But it also recognizes that laissez faire is an insufficient response if the policy goal is accountability in schools or a transformation of our entitlement programs.
Alas, it is hard to identify anyone in the elected Republican world beyond the White House who has championed a philosophy of this type of strong government. In fact, the most damning critique of the Bush administration is that it has failed to foster political surrogates and intellectual allies. There are few "Bush Republicans" out there. When controversy arises, the White House press spokesman is often the only one making the case for the president.
Democrats ditch pro-choice agenda (Caitriona Palmer, 3/12/06, Sunday Herald)
Voters who in the past would have automatically supported the left-of-centre Democrats see abortion as an overriding issue that trumps any other consideration. Abortion helped Bush carry Catholic voters, a group that once solidly backed the Democrats, by five points in 2004, Sabato said.Republican candidates, including Bush in his re-election campaign, have successfully persuaded voters in rural communities from West Virginia to Wyoming that their values are under siege by liberals who are out to promote abortion and gay marriage and take away their handguns.
In liberal bastions on the east and west coasts, more moderate Republicans tend to cater to “pro-choice” voters and avoid talk of banning all abortions. But elsewhere, especially in the South, Democrats have found themselves at a disadvantage as their support for “reproductive rights” offends religious and even class sensibilities.
Lumped together with other issues such as gun control, gay marriage, prayer in public schools and now the “war on terror”, abortion has been used by the Republicans to portray their rivals as elite, effete, “latte-drinking” leftists, allegedly out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.
A best-selling book published during the last presidential campaign, What’s The Matter With Kansas?, argues that Democrats have failed to connect with working-class whites due to the Republicans’ skilful management of the “culture wars”.
The author, Thomas Frank, argues Republican party policies have damaged the economic interests of blue-collar voters, but that these voters continue to be drawn to right-wing candidates because of issues such as abortion. It is a “working-class movement that has done incalculable, historic harm to working-class people,” Frank writes.
Some strategists on the left have begun to demand that the Democrats wake up to the perspective of the American heartland and adjust their stance on abortion.
The liberal think-tank Third Way has reportedly issued a memo advising Democratic politicians to rephrase their wording on abortion. Instead of talking about a woman’s right to choose, the memo suggests that Democrat candidates should tell voters that they support “personal liberty” but accept a “moral responsibility” to reduce the number of abortions.
Senator Hillary Clinton, apparently grooming herself for a presidential bid in 2008, has dropped her strident pro-choice rhetoric for a more nuanced approach. At a rally in 2005, Clinton spoke of the need for both sides on the issue to work to prevent unwanted pregnancies because abortion represented “a sad, even tragic, choice.”
So, Stew Me: One sturdy cast-iron pot is all you really need to deliver a flavorful, piping-hot dinner right to the table (Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven, March 12, 2006, Boston Globe Magazine)
The idea of putting supper in one pot, setting it in the oven, and walking away until the timer goes off isn't a novel one. But it's a pretty terrific system. We haven't had much luck getting a slow cooker to give us food with any flavor, but now that we both own handsome Le Creuset enameled cast-iron casseroles - Sheryl found them at T.J. Maxx for a bargain price - we've been cooking in them every night. Of course, any heavy-based pot with a tight-fitting lid will do. The juices are locked in, and the food is loaded with flavor. We make a vegetarian dish with whatever market produce looks good that day. Beef stew begins with a chuck roast that cooks to melting tenderness with Dijon mustard and tomatoes. Stewed chicken thighs make a simple dish that relies entirely on the poultry for flavor. Most nights, the pot goes directly to the table. Family members help themselves, and the cleanup crew has it easy. [...]BEEF AND TOMATO STEW
SERVES 4
3 pounds boneless beef chuck roast
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1 large Spanish onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 cups whole peeled canned tomatoes, crushed
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugarSet the oven at 350 degrees. Have on hand a heavy-based casserole (about 4-quart capacity).
Place the beef in the casserole.
In a bowl, stir together the mustard, garlic, oregano, red pepper, salt, and black pepper. Rub the mixture all over the beef.
Tuck the onion and bell pepper around the meat. Pour the wine in at the sides.
In a bowl, combine the chicken stock, tomatoes, Worcestershire, and brown sugar. Pour it over the meat.
Cover and roast the meat and vegetables for 2 hours, turning halfway through cooking, or until a fork inserted in the beef comes out easily. Remove the lid and cook for another 30 minutes.
Remove the meat from the pan and transfer it to a cutting board; cover and keep warm. With a slotted spoon, transfer the onions and peppers to a deep serving platter. Cover the vegetables and keep warm.
With a large spoon, skim off and discard the fat on the surface of the cooking liquid. Set the pan on a burner and bring the liquid to a boil.
Slice the meat and transfer it to the serving platter. Spoon the cooking juices on top and serve at once.
Rocket Redux: Twenty years after Roger Clemens first brought his blazing fastball up from Pawtucket to Boston, the Red Sox are counting on another of their home-grown studs from the South, Jonathan Papelbon, to heat up Fenway Park (Charles P. Pierce, March 12, 2006, Boston Globe Magazine)
PHENOMS HOLD A UNIQUE PLACE in the history and culture of baseball. The image of the cornfed fireballer from parts unknown -- from Walter Johnson to Bob Feller and beyond -- is central in its own way to both Damn Yankees and The Natural. Even though the dark retelling of the myth in the latter is inexcusably brightened up by the movie made from Bernard Malamud's novel, the outline of the story held steady through the years. But it is a less plausible story now than it was before, a tale out of the dim times before ESPN, fantasy leagues, and Baseball America, a saga from a time when the sport still had a hazy frontier made up of rumor and exaggeration.In fact, Roger Clemens may have been the last real phenom. Twenty years ago, he arrived in Boston with some mystery still clinging to him. The only people who truly knew him were those who'd closely followed the University of Texas baseball team and the minor leagues, which ruled out most of that part of the human race that does not live in Peter Gammons's house. Clemens arrived in Boston still pretty much a surprise and completely unformed as a public figure.
It did not end well here, of course. He found himself beset by the newspapers. The Herald carried a near-daily jibe at him under the rubric "The World According to Roger," and the late Will McDonough savaged him in the Globe as the "Texas Con Man," which was certainly an odd appellation to be flung about by an apologist for the Bulger clan. Clemens also found himself beset by his own strange public pronouncements. Then the Red Sox determined that he was over the hill -- in the "twilight of his career," according to Dan Duquette, the general manager at the time -- and Clemens was gone.
That all seems to be beside the point, now that Clemens has gone on to such a towering career. He truly has never left. It was Clemens who came up through the Boston system, who was central to the first team built to break away from what had always been the franchise's signature characteristics. In some ways, it was Clemens who made Pedro Martinez possible. That there now is still an outspoken public desire to have Clemens return, if only for 15 starts this season, is an indication of the mark he left on the franchise. Even if Boston fans won't admit it, there's a part of them that's always been looking for the next Rocket.
It may be Jonathan Papelbon.
In Poland, Twin Leaders Push Nationalist Agenda: The president and his brother say they need to build a strong state. Rights groups say the pair's right-wing policies threaten civil liberties (Jeffrey Fleishman, March 12, 2006, LA Times)
They were precocious childhood actors who once plotted to steal the moon, but these days the silver-haired Kaczynski twins have a new goal: leading Poland to the right.President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, leader of the dominant Law and Justice Party, believe Poland has been weakened by years of liberalism and corruption. They're stoking patriotism and forming alliances with ultraconservative parties.
Their homespun rhetoric resonates in an economically troubled nation that has yet to bury the vestiges of 40 years of communism. The brothers, who oppose gay rights and have chastised a media they view as instigating moral decay, want an education system that emphasizes all things Polish. They also want a new anti-corruption agency to root out communist holdovers. [...]
Human rights groups for years have been concerned by the Kaczynskis' politics, which run counter to the more liberal and secular leanings of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004. In a report last month, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said an "official homophobia" existed in Poland.
Robert Biedron, president of Poland's Campaign Against Homophobia, characterized the Kaczynski brothers' position as "medieval conservative."
"It's actually more clerical than conservative," he said. "It's very much what the Catholic Church says. They're trying to build a Polish nationalist country and bring these values to the European Union."
Many in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation do not think of the brothers, who were prominent Solidarity revolutionaries in the 1980s, as nationalists. Supporters consider them conservatives whose policies are what a proud yet insecure Poland needs to emerge as a strong political voice between Western Europe and the former Soviet states. Much of the Kaczynskis' agenda centers on the political equivalent of tarring and feathering former communists.
After Lech Kaczynski took office in December, the government announced that it would recall 10 Polish ambassadors who had connections with the communist regime that collapsed more than 16 years ago. The government wants to investigate former communist politicians and businessmen linked to scandals involving oil and Russian spies and questionable post-Soviet deals. Some of these officials belong to leftist and social democratic parties that have only recently left power.
"We name streets with the names of heroes, not traitors. So we now have to decide who are the heroes and who are the traitors," said Bronislaw Wildstein, a writer and supporter of Law and Justice. "The Kaczynski government wants deep reforms to the laws and to speak openly about the set of values that exists for much of Poland."
Inflation in Zimbabwe Soars to 782 Pct. (Michael Hartnack, 3/22/06, AP)
Inflation for the 12 months to February soared to an all-time high of 782 percent in Zimbabwe, the Central Statistical Office has announced.
Cameron's 100 days set the stage for a healthy row (Matthew d'Ancona, 12/03/2006, Sunday Telegraph)
So long is it since the Conservative Party has prospered that some Tories often lose sight of (or, in a few cases, actually fear) what Mr Cameron has achieved since December 6. In a Times poll last week, 40 per cent of the public said that they would vote for the Tory leader at the next election, six points ahead of Gordon Brown. In December, the comparable figures were 41 and 35 per cent.The distortion in such polls is that Mr Brown is not yet leader of his party and the impact upon public opinion of his accession to the job cannot be known. The Budget, next week, will be especially gripping as the first occasion on which the two men square up across the Despatch Box. But Mr Cameron has already shown that the Chancellor cannot take ultimate victory for granted.
No less important is the transformation that the Tory leader has achieved in public perception of the Conservative Party's motives. Francis Maude, the Tory chairman, has what he calls his "killer slide" - one he used at last year's party conference - which showed that voters' support for a particular policy halved when they learned it was proposed by the Tories.
In effect, the Conservative Party was holding Right-of-Centre ideas hostage, contaminating them by association. In a remarkable turn-around, Mr Cameron has convinced voters that a policy is more deserving of their support when they learn it is advocated by the Conservatives: a Populus poll in December found that the Tory kitemark yielded an average 4 per cent increase in public support when it was slapped on a policy statement. Not since Perrier escaped the shadow of benzene has a brand been so dramatically reprieved.
Questions for Harvey C. Mansfield: Of Manliness and Men (Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON, 3/12/06, NY Times Magazine)
In your latest book, you bemoan the disappearance of manliness in our "gender neutral" society. How, exactly, would you define manliness?My quick definition is confidence in a situation of risk. A manly man has to know what he is doing.
Hasn't technology lessened the need for risk taking, at least of the physical sort?
It has. But it hasn't removed it. Technology gives you the instruments, and social sciences give you the rules. But manliness is more a quality of the soul.
How does someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up?
I would include him as a manly man.
Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat (MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR, 3/12/06, NY Times)
As American warplanes streaked overhead two weeks after the invasion began, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani drove to Baghdad for a crucial meeting with Iraqi leaders. He pleaded for reinforcements to stiffen the capital's defenses and permission to blow up the Euphrates River bridge south of the city to block the American advance.But Saddam Hussein and his small circle of aides had their own ideas of how to fight the war. Convinced that the main danger to his government came from within, Mr. Hussein had sought to keep Iraq's bridges intact so he could rush troops south if the Shiites got out of line.
General Hamdani got little in the way of additional soldiers, and the grudging permission to blow up the bridge came too late. The Iraqis damaged only one of the two spans, and American soldiers soon began to stream across.
The episode was just one of many incidents, described in a classified United States military report, other documents and in interviews, that demonstrate how Mr. Hussein was so preoccupied about the threat from within his country that he crippled his military in fighting the threat from without.
War: Canadian-style: Bringing the war home (MITCH POTTER, 3/12/06, Toronto Star)
Some of these Canadian soldiers have been to Bosnia, some to Croatia, some also to Kosovo, and many have seen the far more stable face of Afghanistan from the capital, Kabul, where Canadian Forces have contributed handsomely to NATO peacemaking efforts almost since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.But none has seen the modern stone-age family quite the way it presents itself in these distant and deeply tribal mountains north of Kandahar.
Here, mud-walled homes stand in clustered communities that lack virtually everything one associates with modernity. They have no electricity, no teachers, no doctors, no roads worthy of the name, no means with which to rise from the ashes of a quarter century of conflict.
What these villages do have are mosques, with calls to prayer five times a day the only sound that carries apart from the crowing of roosters. And, interspersed among spindly wheat sprouts, one can see the green beginnings of what will become a new poppy harvest — the obvious harbinger of opium-processing drug lords whose interest in reversing any Afghan recovery matches that of remnant Taliban insurgents.
Drugs and medieval religious dogma, an unholy alliance that is filtered further still through the almost inscrutable subtleties of Pashtun tribal rivalries, is what the Canadians find themselves up against.
What these particular Canadian soldiers bring with them, however, is something more substantial than most Canadians realize — actual combat capability. A capability that, despite the Cold War-era teachings of the Canadian military, includes more than a little knowledge of modern counter-insurgency techniques.
It would be unfair to quote them by name, for they hardly deserve the top-down retributions of the Canadian Forces' bloated middle management. But know this: Many of Canada's front-line combat soldiers, who number barely 3,500 in total, view as wholly inadequate the training they receive at home.
"The teaching model is still based on the assumption that when we go to war, that war will be conventional, as in the Godless Russian hordes lined up in tanks coming at us from one direction," a veteran non-commissioned officer at Kandahar Airfield told the Toronto Star.
"It is not the fault of the instructors. That was the environment they came up in. But at the same time, that's not what war is anymore. The reality today is counter-insurgency. The top Canadian brass realize this and so do the front-of-line soldiers. But in between, there is a layer of the army locked in hidebound thinking, basically resistant to change.
"So a lot of us deployed in Afghanistan today have basically had to throw out the book and educate ourselves. It's really not that difficult, because so many armies around the world have been training in counter-insurgency techniques for so long now that there is a substantial library of knowledge available. And we're studying it on our own."
In other words, Canadian soldiers in training are buying and reading books and going online in search of post-Cold War military doctrine, particularly the strategies of dealing with an insurgent or guerrilla-style enemy (who hits and runs, rather than standing and fighting).
Some combat soldiers here say the decayed state of military education in Canada is merely a by-product of overall neglect for the forces as a whole by successive Canadian governments. And that, they say, speaks to Canada's enduring cultural love affair with the notion that our soldiers are simply peacekeepers, nothing more and nothing less.
Railroads back on track for freight, profit (Ronald D. White, 3/12/06, Los Angeles Times)
After years of retrenchment, railroads across North America are reporting record profits and rolling forward with massive expansion projects of the kind that haven't been seen in decades.The growth has been fueled by a continuing flood of cargo containers filled with Asian products, which ended the coal industry's 102-year streak as rail's biggest revenue generator in 2003 and has surged farther since then.
Railroads are gaining ground on the rival trucking industry, which is suffering from sharply higher diesel costs and a shortage of long-haul drivers.
A Sharp Debate Erupts in China Over Ideologies (JOSEPH KAHN, 3/12/06, NY Times)
For the first time in perhaps a decade, the National People's Congress, the Communist Party-run legislature now convened in its annual two-week session, is consumed with an ideological debate over socialism and capitalism that many assumed had been buried by China's long streak of fast economic growth.The controversy has forced the government to shelve a draft law to protect property rights that had been expected to win pro forma passage and highlighted the resurgent influence of a small but vocal group of socialist-leaning scholars and policy advisers. These old-style leftist thinkers have used China's rising income gap and increasing social unrest to raise doubts about what they see as the country's headlong pursuit of private wealth and market-driven economic development.
The roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the Internet last summer. The critique's author, Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University Law School, accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of "copying capitalist civil law like slaves," and offering equal protection to "a rich man's car and a beggar man's stick." Most of all, he protested that the proposed law did not state that "socialist property is inviolable," a once sacred legal concept in China.
Those who dismissed his attack as a throwback to an earlier era underestimated the continued appeal of socialist ideas in a country where glaring disparities between rich and poor, rampant corruption, labor abuses and land seizures offer daily reminders of how far China has strayed from its official ideology.
Repression pays. Until that reality is acknowledged by American companies operating in China, they will have little influence over social and political change in the Middle Kingdom or even over their own operations there.That holds true for members of Congress who are abruptly chastising China's Leninist rulers for cheating on trade and currency pegs, and for an ambivalent Bush White House, which will host China's president next month with a mix of verbal bouquets and velvet brickbats -- without ever mentioning the driving force in China's astonishing 15-year economic rise.
That force is a low-wage, unfair labor system held in place by Communist Party control and military might. Take away that system and replace it with one that has collective bargaining and freely chosen union representatives, and all the rest will change, dramatically and for the better.
McCain Tests New Road to Nomination: 2000's GOP Rebel Incorporates Support for Bush Into Quest for Change (Dan Balzm 3/12/06, Washington Post)
No one stole the show at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference here this weekend, but Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) demonstrated why every other prospective 2008 presidential candidate must figure out how to get around him.More than any of his potential rivals, McCain found a way to balance embracing a weakened President Bush -- at a time when many Republicans are running away from the president -- while appealing to those in and out of his party who believe Bush and other Washington Republicans have lost their way. No other candidate could claim to offer continuity and change almost simultaneously.
The Arizona senator was full-throated in his support for Bush on Iraq, Iran and even the now-defunct Dubai seaports deal. In doing so, he continued to establish his bona fides as the Republican most likely to defend and extend the president's controversial foreign policy record. [...]
"We've learned from our mistakes," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) told reporters, "and if John does run, it's clear he's trying to be the leader of a party, not the leader of a movement, and there's a huge difference between being the leader of a movement and a leader of a party. That means you've got to take folks that disagree with you and bring them into the tent and try to broaden the scope of the party. If he does run, I think he feels very comfortable with the idea that this time around will be to lead the party." [...]
Most of the nearly 2,000 delegates from the South and Midwest this weekend came for 2008 window-shopping -- with the exception perhaps of legions of home-state loyalists bused in by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), who was determined to win a nonbinding straw poll sponsored by the Hotline politics newsletter and avoid embarrassment on his home turf.
The delegates -- many party leaders in their home states and overwhelmingly backers of the president -- were in no mood for Bush-bashing, despite the battering the president has taken in the polls, in the media and from some within his own party. "I want Congress to stick with the president and Republicans to stick with the president," said Judy Batson of Madison, Miss. "We need to stick with the president."
When Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called Bush "one of the great presidents in the history of the United States," the audience rose to applaud and cheer. Former Texas Republican Party chairman Fred Meyer made clear that anyone running for president in 2008 should forget about running against Bush. "Not supporting the president on the high percentage of issues would be a mistake, because people value loyalty."
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McCain looks right for GOP friends (Janet Hook and Mark Z. Barabak, 3/12/06, Los Angeles Times)
Sen. John McCain, who made his name as a Republican maverick, is courting his party's right wing.Six years after the Arizona Republican emerged as George W. Bush's nemesis in the bitterly fought 2000 Republican presidential primary — and, in the view of some, ran against his party's establishment — McCain is taking a different tack as he prepares for a possible second White House bid.
Even as he has picked high-profile fights with Bush over military-interrogation tactics and with colleagues over pork-barrel spending, McCain has been courting Republican power brokers, emphasizing his loyalty to the president and burnishing his conservative credentials.
McCain was nearly alone on Capitol Hill in defending the ports deal involving a Dubai-owned company. He has eased opposition to tax cuts he once complained were excessive.
He recently met with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a leading evangelical conservative he previously had attacked as intolerant. To the delight of Republican partisans, he publicly lambasted Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a rising star among Democrats, over overhauling ethics.
McCain is trying to build bridges to Republican leaders in key states — such as Iowa and South Carolina — that he ignored or lost in 2000. And Friday, he was a featured speaker at a gathering in Memphis of Republican activists from the South, the core of the party's conservative base.
"He's reaching out and trying to repair things," said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist. "He is working very hard at it." [...]
He opposes abortion and has supported big defense budgets, restraints in other government spending and pro-business legislation.
He voted last year for a top priority of the National Rifle Association, a bill to protect gun manufacturers from liability lawsuits. He endorsed teaching theories of intelligent design along with evolution in public schools. He is supporting a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Arizona.
Feminist exploitation at its very best (DOUG ELFMAN, March 12, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times)
Angie Dickinson in "Police Woman" was female liberation in a skirt, breaking down barriers for women on TV, opening doors and blouses.That was how the 1970s worked. Women still didn't wear pants to work. And if there was a heroine cop in a movie or TV show, she had to be the sexy lady who went undercover as a hooker and got rescued by a male.
Such was the role of Dickinson's Pepper Anderson, a quintessential '70s heroine who last week made her debut on DVD ("Police Woman: The Complete First Season," $50, Sony). Pepper sought a job in vice and often had to dress like a prostitute. At least once, she boffed a target she took a liking to.
The Roberts Effect (Terry Eastland, 03/20/2006, Weekly Standard)
JOHN ROBERTS HAS SAT IN the center seat of the Supreme Court a mere five months. Conventional wisdom holds that it takes four or five years for a new justice to hit his stride. Even so, Roberts's work stands out in a Washington whose daily manufacture, it seems, is another fight between an irresponsible Congress and a president with cratering job-approval numbers. If you want to see excellence in government, consider the brief tenure of our new chief justice.Under Roberts the Court has decided 39 cases. Roberts himself has written three opinions. Each was unanimous, the most recent being last week's opinion upholding the access of military recruiters to college campuses (elsewhere in this issue). Each is well-written. Concision and clarity distinguish the opinions. Sentences do not wander about, nor fatten from authorial pomposity. Arguments are fairly addressed, distinctions cleanly drawn, decisions plainly stated. Nor has Roberts retired the dry humor on display during his hearings. The chief justice, and not his clerks, is clearly in charge of his own prose. Finally, and not a small point: His opinions are enormously persuasive.
Slobodan Milosevic found dead in prison cell (ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 11, 2006)
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands-- Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and was on trial for war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell near The Hague, the U.N. tribunal said Saturday.Milosevic, 64, apparently died of natural causes, a tribunal press officer said. He was found dead in his bed at the U.N. detention center.
Open Doors Don't Invite Criminals (ROBERT J. SAMPSON, 3/11/06, NY Times)
[E]vidence points to increased immigration as a major factor associated with the lower crime rate of the 1990's (and its recent leveling off).Consider what sociologists call the "Latino paradox": Hispanic Americans do better on a range of various social indicators — including propensity to violence — than one would expect given their socioeconomic disadvantages. My colleagues and I have completed a study in which we examined violent acts by almost 3,000 males and females, ranging in age from 8 to 25, from 1995 to 2003. The study selected whites, blacks and Hispanics (primarily Mexican-Americans) from 180 Chicago neighborhoods ranging from highly segregated to very integrated. We also analyzed data from police records, the Census and a separate survey of more than 8,000 Chicago residents who were asked about the characteristics of their neighborhoods.
Surprisingly, we found a significantly lower rate of violence among Mexican-Americans than among blacks and whites. A major reason is that more than a quarter of all those of Mexican descent were born abroad and more than half lived in neighborhoods where the majority of residents were also Mexican. Indeed, the first-generation immigrants (those born outside the United States) in our study were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than were third-generation Americans, adjusting for family and neighborhood background. Second-generation immigrants were 22 percent less likely to commit violence than the third generation.
This "protective" pattern among immigrants holds true for non-Hispanic whites and blacks as well. Our study further showed that living in a neighborhood of concentrated immigration is directly associated with lower violence (again, after taking into account a host of factors, including poverty and an individual's immigrant status).
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Immigrants protest bill (DAVE NEWBART AND MONIFA THOMAS, 3/11/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
As many as 100,000 marchers crammed the streets of the Near West Side and the Loop Friday, demanding better treatment for immigrants and opposing a bill that they say would deem many of them criminals.The marchers waved American flags, chanted at deafening levels and snarled traffic for five hours.
The rally turnout was impressive -- as much as 10 times some predictions -- and politicians lined up in support, even though many of the marchers can't or don't vote.
Gentrification Changing Face of New Atlanta (SHAILA DEWAN, 3/11/06, NY Times)
[A]lthough gentrification has expanded the city's tax base and weeded out blight, it has had an unintended effect on Atlanta, long a lure to African-Americans and a symbol of black success. For the first time since the 1920's, the black share of the city's population is declining and the white percentage is on the rise.The change has introduced an element of uncertainty into local politics, which has been dominated by blacks since 1973, when Atlanta became the first major Southern city to elect a black mayor.
Some, like Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is serving her second and final term, play down the significance of the change, saying that the city — now 54 percent black — will remain progressive and that voters here do not strictly adhere to racial lines. Others warn of the dilution, if not the demise, of black power.
"It's certainly affecting local politics," said Billy Linville, a political consultant who has worked for Ms. Franklin. "More white politicians are focusing on possibly becoming mayor and positioning themselves accordingly, whereas in the past they would not have. The next mayor of Atlanta, I believe, will be African-American, but after that it may get very interesting."
Liriano Untouchable for Dominican Republic (MIKE FITZPATRICK, 3/11/06, The Associated Press)
Francisco Liriano flashed the nasty stuff that makes him one of the most prized pitching prospects in baseball, and the Dominican Republic held off Australia 6-4 Friday night to finish 3-0 in Pool D.Also missing Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez, the star-laden Dominicans had already clinched first place in the group and a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the second round. They will open with Angels ace Bartolo Colon on the mound Sunday night against Cuba.
"We'll see what the Dominican Republic can do," winning pitcher Daniel Cabrera of the Baltimore Orioles said.
Michelman May Run For Senate Seat in Pa. (Associated Press, March 11, 2006)
Abortion rights advocate Kate Michelman said she will decide soon whether to enter the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race as an independent, a bid that could cause more of a problem for the Democratic challenger than for Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.Michelman's entrance in the race could erode support for state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., an antiabortion candidate who is expected to easily win the Democratic primary in May. For months Casey has led Santorum, the third-ranking Senate Republican leader, in opinion polls, and national Democrats consider the seat one of their best chances for a pickup.
Michelman, a former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said there is angst in her camp over Casey's endorsement of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. She said Democratic Party leaders promised that Casey, if elected, would not vote to confirm justices opposed to abortion.
Boost in jobs sign of healthy economic pace (Neil Irwin, 3/11/06, The Washington Post)
Employers added jobs rapidly last month, the latest evidence that the U.S. economy began the year on an upswing.The nation gained 243,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, led by hiring in the construction, professional service, and health and education fields. In 2005, the economy added an average of 165,000 new jobs per month.
The new report provides further evidence that the economy is growing at a healthy pace, following a lull at the end of last year. Other data released this month indicates that personal income and consumer spending rose at a healthy pace to begin 2006. The report made investors more confident about the state of the economy, analysts said, helping drive the Dow Jones industrial average up 104 points Friday.
"This is a surprisingly strong start of the year," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia.
Business leaders decry Dubai decision (Dominic Gates, 3/11/06, Seattle Times)
Local free-trade advocates had harsh words Friday for the political tempest that led a Dubai company to back off its bid to manage cargo terminals at six U.S. ports."It is a victory for the bad guys," said Bill Center, president of the Washington Council on International Trade. "I can't imagine anything Osama (bin Laden) would be happier about."
He and others said the outcry over Dubai Ports World's acquisition plans could cause damage to the U.S. position in the Middle East, without doing anything to improve port security.
And while Boeing claims that no airplane orders are at risk, its close and lucrative relationships in the Arab world could suffer if the controversy spurs further moves to restrict foreign investment here.
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Port Deal's Collapse Stirs Fears of Repercussions in Mideast Ties (DAVID S. CLOUD, 3/11/06, NY Times)
In an apparent sign of the new sensitivities, the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, reached what both sides called a "mutual decision" with the Office of the United States Trade Representative to postpone talks on a free trade agreement that had been scheduled to resume next week.Emirates officials said the decision to delay the talks was unrelated to the port controversy. Mr. Bush and his top aides praised the decision of the Dubai company, DP World, to back away from the acquisition, and insisted that it did not signal broad opposition on the part of the United States to investment from Middle East allies.
"I think we are all very grateful that the government of U.A.E. has taken this statesmanlike step," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on her plane traveling to Chile.
The United States will now do "everything that we can to continue to strengthen" ties to the United Arab Emirates, Ms. Rice added.
But even Mr. Bush could not completely dismiss concerns that there could be repercussions in the United Arab Emirates and other Middle East countries over widespread suspicion that anti-Arab bias lay at the center of the Congressional opposition to the ports deal. In a speech to newspaper executives in Washington, he said he was "concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, especially in the Middle East."
Cubans absorb humiliating defeat (KEVIN BAXTER AND FRANCES ROBLES, 3/11/06, Miami Herald)
The only thing Cuba should have protested Friday was the final score.Hours after threatening to pull out of the World Baseball Classic over a protest sign, Cuba was pounded by Puerto Rico 12-2 in a seven-inning game that, at its start, threatened to have a greater impact on politics than on sports.
But with Bernie Williams, Alex Cintron and Carlos Beltran hitting home runs, Puerto Rico quickly gave life -- at least on this night -- to the idea that Cuba could compete with a team of big-league stars, handing the island's powerful national team one of its most one-sided losses ever in a game that was stopped after seven innings by international baseball's mercy rule. [...]
That capped a long and emotional day that started early Friday morning with Cuba threatening to pull out of the 16-team competition after the head of its delegation was ejected from the stadium during a Thursday night game for confronting a spectator holding an anti-Castro sign.
Angel Iglesias, vice president of Cuba's National Institute of Sports, former national team shortstop Germán Mesa and two other delegation officials were escorted out of the ballpark by police after they set upon a protester waving a sign that read Abajo Fidel (Down With Fidel) before TV cameras transmitting the game to Cuba.
The silent protest by a small group of Cubans living in Puerto Ricans threatened to provoke an international incident, with Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma calling it ''a cowardly provocation'' and the island's Revolutionary Sports Movement organizing a demonstration against ''the cynical counterrevolutionary provocations.'' That drew hundreds of people, including star Cuban athletes, into the streets in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana.
Malaysia 'apartheid' row deepens (Jonathan Kent, 3/11/06, BBC News)
There has been an angry reaction in Malaysia to remarks by the daughter of the former PM comparing Muslim women to black South Africans under apartheid.Conservative Muslim women's groups say Marina Mahathir brought shame on the country by saying new Islamic laws have made local women second class citizens.
Her remarks were published with cuts in her regular newspaper column on Friday after being held back for several days.
Marina Mahathir is a prominent campaigner for women's rights. [...]
"In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women," she said.
She has argued vociferously that the changes to the law represent a step backwards for women's rights in Malaysia.
"As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards," Ms Mahathir said.
"We should also note that only in Malaysia are Muslim women regressing; in every other Muslim country in the world, women have been gaining rights, not losing them."
Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.
Former Top Bush Aide Accused of Md. Thefts: Refund Scam Netted $5,000, Police Say (Ernesto Londoño and Michael A. Fletcher, 3/11/06, Washington Post)
Claude A. Allen, who resigned last month as President Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was arrested this week in Montgomery County for allegedly swindling Target and Hecht's stores out of more than $5,000 in a refund scheme, police said.Allen, 45, of Gaithersburg, has been released on his own recognizance and is awaiting trial on two charges, felony theft scheme and theft over $500, said Lt. Eric Burnett, a police spokesman. Each charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. [...]
Allen, a former deputy secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, was nominated in 2003 to a federal appeals court seat. He was appointed the president's top domestic policy adviser last year at the start of Bush's second term. That made him the highest-ranking African American on the White House staff.
Working out of a small office on the second floor of the West Wing, Allen shaped administration policy on such issues as health care, space exploration, housing and education. [...]
This is what police said happened Jan. 2:
Employees at the Target store at 25 Grand Corner Ave. in Gaithersburg spotted Allen putting merchandise in a shopping bag. He then walked over to the guest services desk, produced a receipt and received a refund for the items.
After getting the refund, Allen left the store without paying for additional merchandise in his shopping cart.
A store employee stopped him, and police were called to the store. Officers issued a citation charging him with theft under $500 but did not arrest him. Court records show prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge, which is not unusual in cases in which detectives are considering filing more serious charges.
Detectives from the county's retail crime unit soon learned that the incident was not an isolated event, Burnett said.
He said investigators were able to document 25 fraudulent refunds for items including a Bose home theater system, stereo equipment, clothes, a photo printer and items worth as little as $2.50.
Allen would purchase an item, take it to his car, return to the store, select the same item, take it to the counter and get a refund based on the receipt for the merchandise in his car, Burnett said. "He would get the money back or the credit" on his credit cards.
These M's are long at short (JOHN HICKEY, 3/11/06, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
The Mariners have made a recent practice of drafting, signing and trading for young shortstops.There were five players in Friday's starting lineup who were regular shortstops in the Seattle minor league system during the 2005 season.
Howard's South Park pals: Young voters have flocked to the Prime Minister as the good times continue to roll (Caroline Overington, February 27, 2006, The Australian)
"The man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at 40 he has no head." - Aristide BriandIT is 100 years since Aristide Briand's expulsion from the French Socialist Party prompted him to utter words that have become part of the received wisdom of politics.
Before John Howard, the notion that young people leaned to the left was largely unchallenged. The youth vote was the dominant force that propelled Gough Whitlam into power in the 1972 "It's Time" election and stayed with Labor throughout the Hawke and Keating years.
By 2004, however, when Howard won his fourth election, the ground had shifted dramatically. Less than a third of young people -- 32 per cent -- voted for Mark Latham, while 41 per cent went with Howard.
Even allowing for the 17 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted for the Greens, the uncomfortable truth for the Opposition was that, for the first time since reliable age-specific polling began, less than half of young people were voting for candidates from the Left.
Howard's policies were hardly tailored to young people. He spoke for the middle class, caring more for business than for endangered marsupials. Young people would be expected to work for the dole, and Howard was stridently opposed to student unionism, indeed to all compulsory unionism, and to the republic. Under Howard's Government, HECS fees have doubled. Yet Howard has, over the past 10 years, been utterly transformed in the eyes of the young. To the horror of many baby boomers, Howard's new constituency, the "young fogies", adore him the way their parents loved to smoke dope. [...]
The rise of conservative youth under Howard mirrors a similar movement in the US, where blogger Andrew Sullivan coined the term "South Park Republicans" in 2001 to describe young iconoclasts who "see through the cant and the piety of the Left and cannot help giggling". The term comes from the anti-establishment television cartoon series South Park whose heroes are four, foul-mouthed fourth-graders who gleefully lampoon the sacred values of the Left.
In his US bestseller South Park Conservatives, Brian C. Anderson says the program is "the number-one example of the new anti-liberalism". He notes that the show's single black person is called Token. Anderson describes how the show lampoons the boomers, who championed individual happiness over familial responsibility and promoted no-fault divorce.
In Australia, recent studies have shown Australian young people reacting against the liberal-progressive values of their parents in much the same way. Clemenger BBDO's 2005 survey Tomorrow's Parents Today found that young people were significantly more conservative than their parents. They were more likely to volunteer, to give to charity and to go to church. They were also more likely to marry, and there is already evidence that they plan to have their children earlier.
According to Ian Manning of National Economics: "You do get the feeling that forgoing worldly ambition for the sake of having kids is gradually coming back into favour. In the past, people have said, 'Oh, I can't have a baby yet, I've got to pursue my career'. But maybe it's become socially acceptable to say, 'No, I'd rather have a family'."
The Democrats' 2005 youth poll, based on a survey that is distributed to secondary schools, TAFE, universities, youth, and church and community groups across Australia, found that 64 per cent of students viewed family as the most important issue in their lives, ahead of health, education and money. Compared with earlier polls, there was a substantial drop in the number who had tried marijuana (from 43 to 33 per cent in 10 years) and much less support for the decriminalisation of drugs.
Freedom fighter: Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq has its roots in a long tradition of left anti-totalitarianism, argues Oliver Kamm, March 2006, Progress)
The overthrow of theocratic despotism in Afghanistan and Ba’athist tyranny in Iraq is central to Blair’s record. It is part of a distinctive approach that has marked his premiership. That stance represents continuity with the principles of an earlier anti-totalitarian left, and a shrewd strategic judgement of where Britain’s security interests lie in the early 21st century. [...]Let us start with what was genuinely the biggest blunder in British foreign policy since Suez. This was Britain’s failure, under a Tory government, to prevent Serb aggression against Bosnia in the early 1990s. Policy at that time consisted of what the historian Brendan Simms has termed a conservative pessimism about the limits to the effective exercise of power in the international order. A mix of quietism and condescension resulted in humanitarian disaster. It also sparked a crisis in transatlantic relations, exemplified in defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind’s contemptuous dismissal of one American politician’s concerns with the words: ‘You Americans don’t know the horrors of war.’ (The politician was Senator Bob Dole, who was nearly killed and permanently disabled in the second world war.)
You cannot understand Blair’s policies in Iraq without that background. Long before 9/11, he took a fundamentally different approach from Major, Rifkind and Douglas Hurd, and not only in declaratory policy. In Kosovo, he confronted Serb aggression rather than acquiesced in it. He also sent British troops to preserve Sierra Leone from hand-lopping rebels, aware both of the demands of liberal internationalism and of the potential for a failed state to become far more than a regional problem. He argued his case long before President Bush came to see the urgency of promoting democracy overseas.
Indeed, as a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush had denounced interventionist ‘nation-building’ and proposed the withdrawal of American commitments in the Balkans. The coincidence of view between a Labour prime minister and a conservative president makes many on the left uncomfortable, but there is no reason that it should. In pursuing regime change, Bush has adopted Blairism, not the other way round. [...]
[T]here is a wider issue in the case for regime change. What marked British policy under Major, and was the principal weakness of US foreign policy in the cold war, was a ‘realism’ that took an impossibly narrow view of western strategic interests. In the Balkans in the 1990s, British policymakers allowed a nation to be dismembered by aggressive and genocidal nationalism. In the cold war, American administrations were prone to ally with authoritarian regimes as a bulwark against communism. Both approaches were far from serving the purposes that realism set itself. What overcame communist totalitarianism in eastern Europe was partly collective security involving alliances and military preparedness. But, at root, it was the power of an idea: the appeal of an open and liberal society, as opposed to a closed and sclerotic one. The task of western governments against a new totalitarian threat – though a very old, atavistic totalitarian idea, in Islamist fanaticism – is similarly to implant the notion of freedom.
The Blair-Bush policy (the names should be in that order, as Blair is the policy’s initiator) understands the limits of realism. In the realist model of the international order, states are often compared to billiard balls. A billiard ball’s internal composition is opaque and unimportant; what matters is how the ball interacts with others on the table. It is a model entirely inappropriate to current foreign policy debates, where, if we are to safeguard our security, we need to engage in the battle of ideas. What serves our security is the spread of liberty, not the balancing of power among competing states. No western statesman has better articulated this case than Blair, and he is right.
Internet-Arranged Suicides Surge in Japan (HIROKO TABUCHI, 3/10/06, Associated Press)
Six young Japanese were found dead from asphyxiation in a car Friday, charcoal stoves still smoking beside them — apparently the latest victims of a surge in suicide pacts arranged over the Internet. [...]"Depressed, young people and the Internet — it's a very dangerous mix," said Mafumi Usui, a psychology professor at Niigata Seiryo University.
"Many young people try to kill themselves but can't carry through. But when a group of strangers meet on an Internet suicide site, and someone suggests a specific way to die ... that's the dangerous dynamic behind the recent group suicides," Usui said.
Often designed with an ominous, pitch-black background, the Internet sites host chat rooms spilling over with death wishes and exchanges of ideas on how best to take your own life.
Most sites appear to be frequented largely by young people, some still in their early teens, who are troubled by bullying, romantic breakups or abusive relatives or a disconnect with family.
"When Japan was poor, families did more things together out of necessity, like sharing a bath or eating together, and the community was much more important, especially in rural communities," Usui said.
"But now it's increasingly all about the individual. This leaves people more isolated and likely to contemplate suicide," he said.
Richard Wawro (Daily Telegraph, 11/03/2006)
Richard Wawro, who has died aged 53, was a Scottish artist and autistic savant; although diagnosed as a retarded child, he earned acclaim for his landscapes and seascapes created through the unusual medium of wax oil crayons.He produced highly detailed and dramatic images of intense depth and colour, and his work is admired and owned by people who would not consider themselves art collectors. Notable owners of Wawro originals include Lady Thatcher and the late Pope John Paul II.
Wawro was afflicted by savant syndrome, a rare condition affecting people with serious mental disabilities, including autistic disorder; but he was said to be one of only 25 recognised prodigious savants in the world. When he was three years old, his parents were told he was "moderately to severely retarded". His autistic behaviour was characterised by an obsession for sameness, withdrawal, walking in circles, endlessly spinning objects, and a preoccupation with the piano, striking a single key for hours at a time.
As a child, he needed surgery for cataracts on both eyes, and he was unable to speak normally until the age of 11. A year later, however, Professor Marian Bohusz-Szyszko of the Polish School of Art in London declared himself "thunderstruck" when he was shown the boy's drawings; he described Wawro's works as an "incredible phenomenon rendered with the precision of a mechanic and the vision of a poet".
Sunni insurgents 'have al-Zarqawi running for cover' (Oliver Poole, 11/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Insurgent groups in one of Iraq's most violent provinces claim that they have purged the region of three quarters of al-Qa'eda's supporters after forming an alliance to force out the foreign fighters.If true, it would mark a significant victory in the fight against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'eda in Iraq, and could partly explain the considerable drop in suicide bombings in Iraq recently.
"We have killed a number of the Arabs, including Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians, Kuwaitis and Jordanians," said an insurgent representative in the western province of Anbar.
The claims were partly supported by the defence ministry, which said it had evidence that Zarqawi and his followers were fleeing Anbar to cities and mountains near the Iranian border.
The accelerator has jammed, the brakes have burned out and I'm trapped in my BMW doing 130mph (Nick Britten, 11/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
A motorist was trapped in his car driving at almost 130mph for 60 miles after the accelerator jammed.Kevin Nicolle, 25, was unable to stop the automatic BMW going at top speed after the malfunction on the A1.
His terrifying journey, which was followed by four police cars and a helicopter, ended when he smashed the car into a roundabout, flipping it on its roof.
Amazingly, the former lorry driver walked away from the accident uninjured.
Island cuts back feudal influence (BBC, 3/10/06)
The island with Europe's last feudal system has voted against completely abolishing the role of landowners in its government.After an extraordinary meeting of Sark's parliament, the Chief Pleas, it agreed to reduce the number instead.
Landowners will now be reserved 14 seats in the Chief Pleas, with the total number of seats on the body reduced from 52 to 28.
The other 14 seats will be made up of elected people's deputies.
The public will also vote to decide which landowners are given seats.
The current set-up is that the legislature gives all 40 landowning tenants an automatic seat in Chief Pleas, with a further 12 seats for elected Deputies.
Ya'alon reaffirms West has 'military option' in Iran (Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST, Mar. 10, 2006)
Former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (Res.) Moshe Ya'alon said Friday that Western nations and Israel have the ability to launch a military strike that will set back Iran's nuclear program for many years.Ya'alon, who retired last June after a 37-year military career, told an audience in Washington on Thursday that Israel had the capacity to carry out a military strike against Iran by itself.
Ya'alon told Channel 1 on Friday that he stood by his earlier comments, but he didn't repeat his reported assertion that Israel had the capacity to attack Iran's nuclear program alone.
"I spoke about the military option of the West, whether it's US forces, NATO, also the Israeli army that deal with the Iranian capability," Ya'alon said. "There is a military capability that will set back the program for many years."
As an anti-war candidate, Dixon says he's no 'spoiler' (NEIL MODIE, 3/10/06, Seatle Post-Intelligencer)
"I do not look at myself as a spoiler," Aaron Dixon insisted Thursday as the one-time Seattle Black Panther leader announced his anti-war Green Party candidacy opposing Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.At a news conference at an assisted-living center in the Central Area, the black community activist made clear that his campaign is built around the Iraq war and the one-term senator's votes supporting it as well as her votes for the Patriot Act and a few other Republican military and security initiatives.
"If she was against the war, then I would be a spoiler, stealing her anti-war votes," Dixon told a roomful of supporters and news media. "If both the Republican challenger (businessman Mike McGavick) and Cantwell are in support of this war, then they are competing amongst themselves for the voters who are pro-war. I am the anti-war vote."
President's Statement on Secretary of Interior Gale Norton (George W. Bush, 3/10/06)
Gale Norton has been a strong advocate for the wise use and protection of our Nation's natural resources and a valuable member of my Administration for more than five years. As the first woman Secretary of the Interior, she served the Nation well with her vision for cooperative conservation, protection and improvement of our national parks and public lands, and environmentally responsible energy development on public lands and waters.She was instrumental in establishing my Healthy Forests Initiative that has helped make communities safer from catastrophic fire, while improving wildlife habitat. Gale played an influential role in shaping the Nation's offshore and onshore energy policies to help enhance America's domestic production. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region, she played a leading role in my Administration's efforts to restore badly needed offshore energy production to avoid further supply disruption and higher energy costs for consumers. Because of her leadership and thoughtful attention to management, repairs, and maintenance issues, Americans will be able to better enjoy our great national parks and wildlife refuges for generations to come. I appreciate Gale's dedicated service to our country, and I wish Gale and John all the best.
Perhaps no one person has done more in the past five years to alter the landscape of the rural West than Gale Norton, who resigned Friday as Interior secretary.She opened the Rocky Mountains and much of the North Slope of Alaska to oil and gas development. She all but banned new protected wilderness areas on the federal land under her control. And she urged the Bureau of Land Management to seek more logging on 2.5 million acres in Western Oregon.
Norton, who leaves office at month's end, personally oversaw a messy water war in Oregon's Klamath River basin in 2002 that eventually resulted in irrigation for farmers while more than 60,000 fish died. The river is still in such ill health that chinook fishing may be shut down along vast stretches of the West Coast.
Her Interior Department gave millions of dollars to landowners to deal with endangered species. But her agency also frequently overruled scientists — dramatically paring back Northwest land recommended for habitat for troubled bull trout, and dismissing advice on protecting marbled murrelets.
Timber-industry and oil officials loved her. Many conservationists feel like Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife: "Good riddance."
But in the end, Norton's legacy in the West is more complicated than that.
'Silent Tort Reform' Is Overriding States' Powers (STEPHEN LABATON, 3/10/06, NY Times)
SUPPORTERS and detractors call it the "silent tort reform" movement, and it has quietly and quickly been gaining ground.Across Washington, federal agencies that supervise everything from auto safety to medicine labeling have waged a powerful counterattack against active state prosecutors and trial lawyers. In the last three decades, the state courts and legislatures have been vital avenues for critics of Washington deregulation. Federal policy makers, having caught onto the game, are now striking back.
Using a variety of largely unheralded regulations, officials appointed by President Bush have moved in recent months to neuter the states. At the urging of industry groups, the federal agencies have inserted clauses in new rules that block trial lawyers and state attorneys general from applying both higher standards in state laws and those in state court precedents.
The efforts by the federal regulators may wind up doing more than Congress to change state tort laws.
McCain To Urge Ballots Be Cast For Bush (The Hotline, 3/10/06)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will urge SRLC conference registrants tonight to write in the name of Pres. George W. Bush when they vote in the Hotline's '08 presidential straw poll.McCain, in a copy of his prepared remarks distributed to reporters by a top adviser, says that "straw polls are entertaining, my friends, even extremely early ones." But "I think we have bigger things to worry about. So if any friends here are thinking about voting for me, please don't. Just write in President Bush's name. For the next three years, with the country at war, he's our President, and the only one who must have our support today."
Port Deal: Not a Foreign Idea (Laura Meckler & Daniel Machalaba, 3/10/06, The Wall Street Journal)
Amid the political firestorm surrounding Dubai Ports World, one fact is often lost -- foreign companies already manage most of the terminals at American ports, the result of a longtime dominance of global shipping lines that often run the facilities that handle their cargoes.Today, more than 60% of the container terminals at the nation's 10 busiest ports are at least partly managed by foreign operators, and in some cases, companies controlled by foreign governments. That figure rises to 80% at the biggest ports -- Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland in California and New York/New Jersey, which together handle half of all containers that pass through U.S. ports.
"I don't think Americans have any realization of the global nature of the maritime industry," says Peter Shaef, managing director of New York-based AMA Capital Partners LLC, a merchant bank focusing on the transportation industry.
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The New Protectionists: How to create a real security crisis. (Opinion Journal, March 10, 2006)
What's especially dangerous here is that we're seeing the re-emergence of the "national security" protectionists. They were last seen in the late 1980s, when Japan in particular was the target of a political foreign-investment panic. The Japanese were buying Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center, and so America was soon going to be a colony of Tokyo. A Japanese bid for Fairchild Semiconductor of Silicon Valley was seen as a threat to American defense. Those fears seem laughable now. But here we go again, with new targets of anxiety.
Paris is slamming the gates on Italian energy firms, US senators are railing against an Arab buyout of American ports, Brussels is slapping tariffs on Chinese shoes: across the world, politicians and voters are lashing out against unfettered free trade. Is globalisation under threat from a protectionist backlash? [...]'You have to ask, in the world of economics, what impact does nationality actually have?' says Roger Bootle, economic adviser to Deloitte and Touche. 'It's just irrelevant. What matters here is what's produced where, and who earns the income.' He points to the competitive advantage - and the income - London has gained as a global financial centre by 'throwing open the gates' to foreign financial institutions. He understands, however, the powerful popular appeal of the nationalist, anti-globalising message.
'Protection remains a potent threat because, for large numbers of people adversely affected by international competition... it apparently offers an obvious gain - a no-brainer. Shutting out foreigners from "our" markets is obviously good for "us", although it is bad for "them",' he explained in his recent book, Money for Nothing.
'Trade is often viewed by the man in the street as a competition in which there can be only one winner, whose winnings are exactly balanced by the losses of the losers, or as economists would put it... a zero-sum game. But it isn't a zero-sum game. We all win. More than that, how much we can gain from trade depends on what they have to exchange and how much they can pay for what we have to exchange. In other words, we have a stake in their success.'
A recent book by two World Bank economists, Kym Anderson and Will Martin, found that if politicians used the current 'Doha round' of world trade negotiations to throw open their agricultural markets to competition from overseas, world GDP would be boosted by up to $300bn over the next decade.
History has shown that the most successful economies are those that open themselves to foreign competition. Another World Bank report, from 2001, compared the fortunes of open economies - including China and the Asian Tigers - with countries that have protected their home industries from foreign competition - in general, protectionism was a losing bet.
'Comparative advantage' - the compelling idea that everyone benefits if each country specialises in what it can do better, or more cheaply, than others - was developed by the British economist David Ricardo almost two centuries ago. But for a politician under pressure, the desire to find a foreign scapegoat for economic problems at home, and the clamour of those whose livelihood is being competed away, can outweigh any number of hefty economic textbooks.
Nuclear Pact Launches India Into Uncharted Waters: The historic nuclear deal with the US could have an unpredictable and serious outcome (Pratap Bhanu Mehta, 7 March 2006, YaleGlobal)
On the economic front the interdependence of India’s economy with that of the US is only bound to increase. India now becomes an attractive market for nuclear and advanced technologies worth billions of dollars. Both sides justify the deal in economic terms. India’s ruling classes are convinced that nuclear power is necessary for its energy security. It is the only viable answer to India’s acute power shortages. The US also wants to re-legitimize the worldwide use of nuclear power as the only alternative to burning hydrocarbons. But will dependence on nuclear power really give India the energy security its needs? Although the terms of the deal safeguard the import of uranium, will it be wise for India to base its energy security on imported supplies of uranium? And are the economic arguments in favor of nuclear power over alternative sources so compelling that it becomes the cornerstone of India’s development strategy?While the desirability of India’s energy strategy can be debated in technical terms, the political consequences of this deal are far more uncertain than India acknowledges. The nuclear deal is simply one aspect of an Indo-US relationship that is acquiring unprecedented momentum. For the first time in its history, the fortunes of India’s elites are comprehensively and intimately tied with the fate of America. Can India be so materially and culturally bound with the US and yet resist seeing world geo-politics through American eyes? While formally India acknowledges that it will not always align with the US, there are signs that India is subtly internalizing the terms of discourse through which the US describes the world order. Take for instance, the war on terrorism. India and the US have emphatically reiterated their common interest in defeating terrorism. But it is still not clear that it makes sense for India to buy into the idea that there is a single kind of terrorism or a united war against it. India was a victim of terrorism that had its roots in the geo-politics of South Asia, not in the militant Islam that targets the West. Both are different entities that require different responses. India’s strategy of military self-restraint in the face of terrorism has also been politically prudent, while US military actions have, arguably, given terrorism more aid and succor. Is India now in the danger of being drawn into the confrontation between militant Islam and the West, a confrontation that is not of its making?
Of the foreign policy dilemmas that the deal will produce, the most important one revolves around China.. The US projects India as some sort of counterweight to Chinese power. It is odd not to help build India while the Chinese juggernaut roles on unabated. While not acknowledging it overtly, India is also preoccupied with containing Chinese influence.
Overseas Firms Entrenched in Ports: Despite Dubai Company's Withdrawal, Others Are Likely to Stay Put (Paul Blustein, March 10, 2006, Washington Post )
The decision by Dubai Ports World to abandon its effort to take over terminal operations at six U.S. seaports was a victory for the numerous politicians who have thundered in recent days that foreign companies have no business handling U.S. port operations.But foreign firms remain deeply embedded in nearly every major port in the country. And transferring ownership of those operations to U.S. companies could cause serious problems in an industry in which nearly all of the shipping is controlled by foreign interests. An immense amount of capital from those foreigners will be required to expand the nation's port system in coming years as global commerce continues to burgeon.
For an example of the industry's international nature, consider Inchcape Shipping Services, a London-based company that provides ship agency services -- arranging the smooth arrival and departure of vessels -- at 200 ports around the world, including more than two dozen in the United States. Inchcape was purchased in January by a Dubai company whose chief executive, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, also heads Dubai Ports World.
Bush Was Right (The Right Brothers)
It's as subtle as a train wreck, but pretty funnyMP3.
Privatize the Welfare State (Howard Husock, March 9, 2006, Wall Street Journal)
In the era before passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, whose Title V provided for such spending, privately funded agencies yielded the bulk of U.S. social services, augmented by such local public institutions as poorhouses, asylums and orphanages. Nevertheless, such agencies -- and groups like the Child Welfare League of America -- assumed that government services would be at least as good as their private, often religiously inspired predecessors, as well as more universal in reach and standardized in approach, and thus preferable. They did not oppose government social-service spending, and, indeed, were often among its leading advocates.In any event, greater government social service spending was certainly achieved. In terms of quality, however, it is hard to argue that things have worked out the way reformers intended. Consider services for children. Over the past 10 years, 22 to 36 children have died each year under the watch of New York City's Administration for Children and Families. A recent federal review of state child welfare agencies found that not a single state complied fully with federal standards. Then there's Head Start, whose potent name, and the fact that it provides grants to local organizations in every state, has made it immune to budget cuts. Yet a 2005 federal study involving 383 sites and 4,600 children found it led to no gains in math learning, oral comprehension or motivation to learn.
This record of government-provided services plays out today in a dramatically changing environment for philanthropy. In recognition of the wealth of soon-to-retire boomers, the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy estimates that philanthropic giving will total some $6 trillion between 2003 and 2050. Already, over the past 10 years, there's been an 88% increase in the number of foundations. Over the last decade there has been a 67% growth in the overall number of U.S. nonprofits.
Meanwhile, a wave of capable persons has come forward to establish effective new social service organizations, based on new ideas and with little or no government support. Indeed, it can be argued that we are now in an unprecedented period for the emergence of such people, who have started new types of job training, mentoring and immigrant-assistance efforts. The term "social entrepreneur" -- for those who establish such organizations -- has entered the language and become current on college campuses, where courses and research centers (Harvard, Duke, Stanford) on the topic have been established.
Thus the stars are aligned for nongovernmental organizations to play a much larger role in assisting those in need. To date, however, the Bush administration, in part as a matter of political pragmatism, has seen such groups less as substitutes for the welfare state than as potential new beneficiaries of it -- directing federal resources toward faith-based groups formerly independent of government, in an effort to "level the playing field" with nonreligious contractors. A case can be made, however, that a truly independent, philanthropically supported nonprofit sector can better sidestep the pitfalls that have plagued government. Such a sector would be likely to attract committed employees and volunteers. This was certainly the case pre-New Deal. More to the point, the willingness of Americans to answer a call to service continues to be strong, as reflected by the emergence of major new "brand name" nonprofits such as Teach for America, Prison Fellowship and Habitat for Humanity.
What's more, service organizations which rely on private donations -- whether from individuals or foundations -- might actually prove to be more accountable for their performance than their public or publicly funded counterparts
Puerto Rican Bitter Orange Butt
1/2 pork butt (Boston butt), about 3-3 1/2 #'s
Dry Rub
2 Tbl achiote (annatto seed) paste, found in most larger supermarkets and
specialty stores
2 Tbl ground black pepper
1 Tbl spoon coarse salt
1 Tbl dried oregeno
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne
Marinade
1/2 of a 6oz can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed (I've seen people
not thaw, hence the warning.
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 clup lime juice
1 tsp vegetable oil
Sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
Remaining 1/2 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
2 Tbl rum
1 garlic clove, minced
Other
2 Tbl butter
3 large ripe Haas avocadoes
thin sliced green onion rings
Lime wedges
At least four hours before, and up to the night before you plan to smoke/cook the pork, cut the butt in half lengthwise, forming two long strips.
Put pork in sealable plastic bag.
Combine dry rub ingredients in a small bowl. In another bowl, mix together the marinade ingredients and stir in half of the dry rub.
Pour marinade over pork and leave for the desired time in fridge.
Bring smoker/grill/oven to a temp of 225-250.
Remove pork from fridge and drain. Pat down with remaining rub and let sit at room temp for 1/2 an hour.
Transfer pork to cooking unit and cook until internal temp reaches 165-170.
While pork cooks, make the sauce.
Warm sugar over low heat in a heavy saucepan.
When sugar is melted and golden brown, pour in the vinegar, watching out for the steam. Raise heat to medium and add the lime juice, orange juice, rum and garlic, simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in butter and keep warm.
Remove pork when finished and let sit for 15 minutes or so.
Halve the avocadoes and peel, take a thin slice of bottom if they're not sitting level.
Shred the pork. Spoon a Tbl of sauce on plate put avocado half on it, spoon shredded pork over avocado and spoon additional sauce over the pork.
Scatter green onion rings over pork and garnish with lime wedges.
Thrill to the steam engine, the most radical machine ever built: The train was once a revolutionary force, bringing romance and power to the world through its steel wheels (Simon Jenkins, March 10, 2006, The Guardian)
O let the midnight special shine its everloving light on me. So goes the song. But what, I often wondered, was that midnight special, and why should I want its light to be ever-loving? Now I know. And I know a whole lot more.I am a sucker for enthusiasm. I regard an enthusiast as worth a hundred cynics. Dr Johnson was wrong about money being the root of all innocence. For real harmlessness, for total glorious innocuousness, nothing beats a hobby. And no hobby the world over is as innocently compelling as steam trains.
Sources: Militants change minds, fight al-Qaida (BASSEM MROUE, 3/10/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Residents reported curious declarations hanging from mosque walls and market stalls recently in Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The fliers said Iraqi militants had turned on and were killing foreign al-Qaida fighters, their one-time allies.A local tribal leader and Iraq's Defense Ministry have said followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, have begun fleeing Anbar province and Ramadi, its capital, to cities and mountain ranges near the Iranian border.
''So far we have cleared 75 percent of the province and forced al-Qaida terrorists to flee to nearby areas,'' said Osama al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe. [...]
Relations between residents and the foreign fighters started to sour, however, when the foreigners started killing Iraqis suspected of having links to the Americans or even for holding a government job.
The rift became an outright split four months ago, with a wave of assassinations and bombings that killed scores of Anbar residents.
''We were fed up with the situation,'' said one Ramadi resident, complaining about closed roads, unemployment and a lack of security. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life.
Clearing the Path For Scion of Egypt: Hosni Mubarak's Son Climbs Party Ranks As Country's Leaders Undercut His Rivals (Daniel Williams, 3/10/06, Washington Post )
The son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and a group of close associates have moved into key political positions that put the younger man in line to succeed his aging father at a time when the government has taken steps to block opposition rivals from challenging the heir apparent.Last month, Gamal Mubarak rose in the hierarchy of the governing National Democratic Party, whose grass-roots organization underpins his father's rule. He was named one of three NDP deputy secretaries general, and 20 of his associates took other high-ranking posts in the party. Mubarak had served as head of the party's policies committee, which helped fashion economic reforms.
Mubarak and his backers displaced some, but not all, of the veteran NDP activists known collectively as the old guard. Political observers saw in the move a gradual shift toward putting the NDP at the service of the president's son. [...]
Mubarak, 42, is surrounded by a group of devoted supporters who have taken to what Egyptian analysts call "managed reform." Some call the group a shilla , Arabic for gang. The group includes businessmen, academics and Egyptians with political pedigrees in their families. Most are in their late thirties or early forties; many were educated and worked in the West. English is their second language.
Among the most prominent are Ahmed Ezz, a steel and ceramics magnate who is newly in charge of overseeing membership in the NDP; Rachid Mohamed Rachid, a former chief executive of Unilever Egypt who is now minister of trade and foreign investment; Mahmoud Mohieedin, a former finance professor who heads the NDP economic policy committee and is also investments minister; Finance Minister Yousef Boutros-Ghali, nephew of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former U.N. secretary general; and Mohammed Kamal, a Cairo University political scientist who heads efforts to re-indoctrinate NDP members in a bid to modernize the party.
Kamal, the unofficial spokesman, said the group defined itself as an outward-looking alternative to political Islam. "We don't want to be associated automatically with the West, but we think it is okay to look outside of Egypt for solutions," he said. "New blood means people with fresh ideas as well as the political experience."
Mississippi's Reversal of Fortune (Spencer S. Hsu, 3/10/06, Washington Post)
Six months after Hurricane Katrina smashed through a fragile necklace of Mississippi coastal towns, the region is enjoying a post-storm boom. Fueled by insurance money, federal reconstruction aid and speculative capital, surviving hotels and restaurants are filled to overflowing, beachfront land prices are soaring, and developers are placing billion-dollar bets that shattered antebellum mansions will give rise to condominium resorts.The shared sense here is that Mississippi's recovery, while still in its early stages and reliant on continuing outside help, is moving much faster than Louisiana's. Blessed with less damage, more federal aid and greater political clout -- and know-how from past storms -- Mississippi's lightly populated coastline is emerging from chaos, while large parts of the metropolis next door remain a silent, rotting wasteland. [...]
Brent Warr, mayor of neighboring Gulfport (population 72,000), said the nation's discovery of the area's 26 miles of white-sand beaches has boosted land prices along the devastated shoreline by 50 percent -- between $1 million and $2 million an acre. Investors are also seizing on federal post-storm tax legislation, which lets companies immediately write off half the cost of new investments.
Sales tax revenue has surged 30 percent ahead of last year's total in Gulfport, the largest city on the Mississippi coast. Contractors in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers caps pack bars each night, and displaced families flock to home-improvement stores and auto dealerships on six-lane U.S. 49, the highway that leads north to Jackson. Doctors such as Philip Hage, 75, are coming out of semi-retirement to treat waiting rooms of patients flush with "FEMA cash."
"I'm jampacked now, as a matter of fact," said Hage, who hired a fifth assistant after the storm and plans to start rebuilding his 7,000-square-foot house, the largest on Gulfport's east beach before it was swept away by the waters.
Warr, a developer sworn in seven weeks before Katrina hit, has hired New Urbanist architects from Oakland, Calif., to redesign the local banking and retail center into a pedestrian-friendly Dixie Riviera, combining the residential charm of Charleston, S.C., with the resort life of Palm Beach, Fla.
"We want it to be a city that is uniquely Southern and a city that our residents -- who lived here and built it -- still recognize, like and want to live in after it's been redeveloped," said Warr, 42, who envisions new shopping, dining, museums and an aquarium. "The quality level will step up, but we want to make sure that culturally it addresses what is charming about the South."
Troops push into Taliban area: In biggest operation to date, hundreds of soldiers move to shore up control of volatile rural areas (MITCH POTTER, 3/10/06, Toronto Star)
Canadian Forces today plunged deep into the insurgent heartland of southern Afghanistan in a major show of force designed to shore up the fledgling Afghan regime's tenuous hold on volatile rural areas.The mission, involving hundreds of soldiers from two companies of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, amounts to the largest Canadian mobilization since the arrival of 2,200 troops in Kandahar last month.
Code-named Operation Peacemaker, or Sola Kowel in the language of the ethnic Pashtun, the mission will carry through to the end of March with the insertion of troops by land and by air into isolated pockets of Kandahar province, military officials said.
The operation is expected to be a significantly enlarged version of the dual-purpose strategy pursued by smaller Canadian missions in recent weeks.
UN staff union votes against Annan's reforms (EDITH M. LEDERER, 3/10/06, Associated Press)
The UN Staff Union overwhelmingly voted no confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan Thursday over his proposal to radically overhaul UN operations.The union, representing over 5,000 staff at UN headquarters, said it was dismayed at many proposals in Mr. Annan's blueprint, especially the call to consider outsourcing a variety of UN services from translations to billing.
The disappearance of permanent appointments and a new policy on job mobility without job security implied a “fundamental attack against the international civil service,” it said.
Doctors attack US over Guantanamo (BBC, 3/10/06)
More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.The experts, from seven nations, said physicians at the prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment.
The letter, in the medical journal The Lancet said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies.
Faith-based programs flourishing, Bush says (Richard Benedetto, 3/09/06, USA TODAY)
Over on North Chester Street, in the heart of the inner city here, some 30 African-American boys and girls ages 6-11 leave school every weekday afternoon and noisily dash to a neighborhood center in a former Lutheran church for two hours of after-school reading and math.They are just a handful of the tens of thousands of children and adults being served by federally funded faith-based and community programs that President Bush highlighted in Washington on Thursday. [...]
When Bush first proposed in 2001 to give more federal money to faith-based social-service groups, he provoked a controversy over whether the government should be funding religious activities. Democrats blocked a Senate bill to formalize the program.
Instead, Bush has expanded the program largely by issuing executive orders to change regulations that prevented faith-based groups from receiving federal funds. This week, for example, the president issued an order that lifts barriers that blocked the Federal Emergency Management Agency from making disaster-relief grants to faith-based groups.
Five years after Bush introduced the idea, the grants are routine and have quietly increased to the point where groups affiliated with churches, synagogues, mosques or other faith communities now receive more than $2.1 billion a year from the federal government, or about 11% of the $19.7 billion awarded last year to community groups. The money is used to support programs ranging from job training for former prisoners and recovering addicts to rehabilitating housing for the poor and homeless.
"Government can't fund preaching or proselytizing, but it can fund the good social work being done by religious organizations," says Jim Towey, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
MORE:
Bush Touts Grants to Religious Charities (Alan Cooperman, 3/10/06, Washington Post)
President Bush said yesterday that the federal government gave more than $2.1 billion in grants to religious charities last year -- a 7 percent increase from the prior year and proof, he said, that his administration has made it easier for faith-based groups to obtain taxpayer funds.Speaking to a White House-organized conference of 1,200 charity leaders from across the country, Bush said the administration is creating "a level playing field" for religious organizations to compete with secular groups to run drug treatment programs, homeless shelters and other social services.
Government's role is "to fund, not to micromanage how you run your programs," he said. "I repeat to you, you can't be a faith-based program if you don't practice your faith."
Today, President Bush Addressed The Second White House National Conference On Faith-Based And Community Initiatives, Highlighting The Important Role Corporations And Foundations Play In Funding Social Services.* President Bush Announced There Was An Increase In Competitive Federal Grants To Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) For The Third Straight Year. More than $2.1 billion in grants were awarded to religious organizations in FY2005 by seven Federal agencies.
* This Week, The President Signed An Executive Order Creating The Center For Faith-Based And Community Initiatives In The Department Of Homeland Security (DHS). The Center will coordinate DHS's efforts to remove regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and community organizations in its provision of social and community services, including disaster relief and recovery services.The President's Initiative Is Producing Real Results For Americans In Need
Continued Increase In Federal Dollars To Faith-Based Organizations. Recent data from a review of more than 23,000 grants provided by the U.S. Departments of Heath and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Justice (DOJ), Labor (DOL), Education, and Agriculture, and the U.S. Agency for International Development showed:
* In Fiscal Year 2005, More Than $2.1 Billion In Competitive Grants Across Seven Federal Agencies Were Awarded To Faith-Based Organizations - Nearly 11% Of The Total Funding Awarded Through 130 Programs And 28 Program Areas. This is up from last year when $2.004 billion in grants were awarded to faith-based groups across the same agencies. Since 2003, HHS, HUD, DOJ, DOL, and Education have seen a 38% increase in the number of grants to faith-based groups - an increase of 616 grants over 2003; and a 21% increase in grant money awarded to faith-based organizations - an increase of more than $239 million.
* Faith-Based Organizations Are Consistently Winning A Larger Share Of Competitive Funding. HHS programs represented the majority of available funding included in the report. HHS has seen a 64% increase in the amount of funding to FBOs since FY 2002 - from $477 million to $780 million. To access the full report, go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/data-collection-2005.html.Helping The Poor Access New, Effective Programs. President Bush has created programs that mentor children of prisoners, train re-entering prisoners, treat addicts in the program of their choosing, discourage at-risk youth from gang activity, and provide technical assistance to small organizations seeking to help more people in need. From 2002 to 2006, President Bush requested $1.35 billion for these targeted initiatives, and Congress has appropriated $742 million. The President's 2007 budget calls for an additional $323 million for these programs, including funds for a new effort combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in minority communities.
Victory In The Federal Courts. Two important recent Federal Court decisions upheld President Bush's approach to FBOs and their rights. In American Jewish Congress v. Corporation for National and Community Service, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the right of AmeriCorps grant recipients to teach religious and secular subjects in religiously affiliated schools. In January 2006, the Supreme Court declined review of the decision, leaving the Court of Appeals' ruling intact. In October 2005, in the case of Lown v. Salvation Army, a Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that churches and religious organizations retain their hiring autonomy when they receive Federal financial assistance. The court recognized FBOs do not become an arm of the government merely by receiving funding to provide social services.
Expansion Of Individual Choice. President Bush believes Americans in need should have the right to access services from the program of their choice. To date, Congress has appropriated nearly $300 million for the Access to Recovery drug treatment initiative announced by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address. The President's 2007 budget expands individual choice in job training by proposing $3.4 billion for Career Advancement Accounts; provides $100 million for students in failing schools to find quality education; and built upon the President's Access to Recovery program by providing incentives for states to convert substance abuse block grants to permit individual choice.
Protecting The Rights Of Faith-Based Organizations. In February 2006, President Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which reauthorized welfare reform for another five years. The legislation also extended for five years a policy called Charitable Choice, which allows faith-based groups providing social services to receive Federal funding without altering their religious identities or changing their hiring practices.
* Under The Deficit Reduction Act, Charitable Choice Provisions Will Now Apply To Two New Grant Programs Focusing On Supporting Healthy Marriages And Responsible Fatherhood. Faith-based and community groups are particularly effective in providing services in these areas.
* The President Continues To Seek Congressional Action Providing Charitable Choice Protections To Other Social Service Programs.Ending Discrimination Against Faith-Based Organizations. During the President's first term, Federal agencies promulgated fifteen final rules, including general rules covering funding from seven agencies; three regulations implementing Charitable Choice statutes; a DOL regulation implementing the amendment of EO 11246; and three regulations changing discriminatory language in specific HUD, Veterans' Affairs, and DOL programs. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Commerce published an interim final rule in August 2005 strengthening the Department's commitment to a level playing field for faith-based and community organizations. These regulations all clarify FBOs' eligibility to participate in Federal social service programs on the same basis as any other private organization and prohibits religious discrimination by distributors of Federal funds.
* New Data Suggest Faith-Based Organizations Fare Poorly When State And Local Governments Administer Federal Formula Grants. In a first-ever look at five formula grant programs, FBOs received a small amount of funding, ranging from 1.7% to 5.5% -- a funding level disproportionately low to the number of FBO grant applicants.
* Significant Federal Funding Is Devoted To Programs Operating Under Statutes Limiting Competition, Thereby Maintaining Funding For Providers Regardless Of Their Performance. The three largest competitive grant programs at HHS (with combined funds in excess of $8.3 billion) operate under statutes that limit competition. For example, only 5.9% of Head Start funds went to FBOs in FY2005.Taking The Faith-Based And Community Initiative To The Heartland. President Bush continues working to ensure that equal treatment for faith-based and community organizations extends to the State and local administration of Federal grant programs. Thirty-two Governors (20 Republicans and 12 Democrats) and over 115 Mayors have established an office or liaison for faith-based and community initiatives, and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) has held a series of regional conferences to ensure State and local administrators of Federal funding understand and implement equal-treatment regulations.
* The Administration's Efforts Are Spreading Compassion And Assisting Americans In Need. For example, when the Department of Agriculture and HHS learned State health and human services agencies were routinely denying recovering addicts food stamp benefits because they were receiving rehabilitation services from faith-based recovery centers, these Federal agencies issued a joint letter to the Governors of every State clarifying the rules governing the Food Stamp Program. No recovering addict should be forced to choose between accessing effective treatment and retaining eligibility for food stamps, and guidance to that effect is being sent to all States.
Compassion Following The Gulf Coast Hurricanes. The compassionate response of faith-based and community groups to Gulf Coast hurricane victims is a reminder of the vital importance of these groups and the President's Initiative. The new DHS Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will help integrate faith-based and community organizations into Federal, State, and local emergency response plans, enabling cooperation between these grassroots groups and various levels of government in disaster response efforts.
In Iran, revolution is a presidential priority (Barbara Slavin, 3/09/06, USA TODAY)
Some in Iran's political elite have responded to the country's deepening isolation by trying to curb the president's powers. Khamenei announced last fall that a top-level council would supervise both the executive and legislative branches. The council is headed by Akbhar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cleric, former president and skilled political infighter who was Ahmadinejad's chief rival in last year's presidential election.Iran's parliament rejected Ahmadinejad's first three choices for oil minister. Key members have signaled that they will try to block his budget, which assumes continued high oil prices and allocates big sums for handouts to the poor.
The firebrand president has vowed to roll back the social relaxation that took place during the eight-year tenure of his predecessor, moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami. So far, however, he has had only mixed results.
Young women in Tehran continue to wear Western fashions and flout the law by allowing their hair to peek from beneath headscarves they are required to wear. But book publishing in literature and human sciences "has practically ground to a halt," says Mehdi Khalaji, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The government has also blocked several popular websites, including the Farsi-language service of the BBC.
The threat of new sanctions has dampened investment and the willingness of professionals to stay in the country, says Yahyia Fiuzi, a U.S.-educated architect who returned to Iran eight years ago.
The skyline in Tehran's wealthier north end is dotted with half-finished buildings. Billions of dollars in private funds and potential foreign investment are flowing instead to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, says Bijan Khajepour, a business consultant.
Burning Allies -- and Ourselves (David Ignatius, March 10, 2006, Washington Post)
I suspect America will pay a steep price for Congress's rejection of this deal. It sent a message that for all the U.S. rhetoric about free trade and partnerships with allies, America is basically hostile to Arab investment. And it shouldn't be surprising if Arab investors respond in kind. One could blame it all on craven members of Congress, if the opinion polls didn't show that Americans are overwhelmingly against the deal -- and suspicious of Muslims in general. Those poll numbers tell us that America hasn't gotten over Sept. 11, 2001. If anything, Iraq has deepened the country's anxiety, introspection and foreboding.To appreciate how cockeyed America's Dubai-phobia is, you have to spend a little time here, as I did this week. The truth is, this is one of the few places in the Arab world where things have been going in the right direction -- away from terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism and toward an open, modern economy. That's why congressional opposition came as such a surprise here. People in the UAE think they're America's friends.
The ports deal was part of the UAE's embrace of things Western. Wednesday night, I traveled with the minister of higher education, Sheik Nahayan bin Mubarak, to the dusty city of Al Ain to attend a Mozart festival at which the Vienna Chamber Orchestra performed. And I visited the American University of Sharjah, created nine years ago as a beacon of liberal arts education. On a wall next to the chancellor's office is a photo of the twin towers in New York, taken by one of the students on June 8, 2001. "There are no words strong enough to express how we feel today," reads a statement signed by UAE students.
It's hard to imagine an Arab more pro-American than Sulayem. He earned a degree in economics from Temple University in 1981, and he's still a fanatic about Philadelphia cheese steaks. He described a pilgrimage last New Year's Eve from New York to Pat's King of Steaks in South Philly, only to find the place closed. Before the deal collapsed, Sulayem had a free-trader's conviction that good business judgment would prevail over political rhetoric. "We are businessmen -- we don't understand politics -- but it is a surprise to us. We have been cooperating with the U.S. We are their best friends."
Many of the UAE's political leaders, including the crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, had grown increasingly convinced this week that the wisest course would be to pull out. But that view was resisted until almost the end by the business leadership in Dubai, including Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid.
Arab radicals will be gloating, admonishing the UAE leaders, "We told you so." But officials here recognize that they're in a common fight with us against al-Qaeda. And unlike some Arab nations, the UAE really is fighting -- reforming its education system to block Islamic zealots and taking public stands with the United States despite terrorist threats. They have created one of the best intelligence services in the Arab world, and their special forces will be fighting quietly alongside the United States in Afghanistan tomorrow, and the day after.
Q: Will this make the country more secure?A: Security at all ports is controlled by U.S. Coast Guard and Customs officials, regardless of who operates the terminals. Critics such as Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution say the deal could have compromised security. Randy Larsen, director of the Institute for Homeland Security, says, "It doesn't make any difference who signs the checks."
Q: Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates. How is the U.S. relationship with the UAE?
A: The federation of seven emirates is an ally in the war on terrorism. The U.S. military uses its seaports and airfields. The UAE also recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan and served as a base for some of the 9/11 hijackers.
Q: Is it unusual to have foreign investment in the USA?
A: No. Foreigners invested about $100 billion here in 2004, led by Britain, Japan and Germany.
Q: Do other foreign companies run operations at U.S. ports?
A: In Los Angeles, terminals are run by companies from China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Denmark.
Q: How will this influence other foreign investors?
A: Foreign investments created more than 5 million American jobs in 2004, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Bruce Josten, the chamber's executive vice president for government affairs, worries that the political furor could hamper American ability to promote trade and investment around the globe.
Q: What about U.S. investments overseas?
A: Some worry about repercussions. "If our standard is you can't invest in America, others may find that that policy is equally attractive," says David Heyman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mexico routs Canada, helps U.S. in World Baseball Classic (The Associated Press, 3/10/06)
Jorge Cantu homered and drove in three runs and Esteban Loaiza allowed a run in five-plus innings Thursday night as Mexico defeated Canada 9-1 to leave the U.S. team a win away from reaching the second round. [...]Roger Clemens is set to pitch for Team USA today at Scottsdale Stadium, though most players on the team wished they could play again Thursday and get a chance to bounce back from the demoralizing performance against Canada in an 8-6 loss Wednesday.
Manager Buck Martinez compared the feeling to losing a playoff game in October.
"It was almost worse," said reliever Joe Nathan of the Minnesota Twins said. "It's like this feeling that you just let a whole lot of people down. I know for myself, I don't want to feel that way again."
Our Dissidents And Their Discontents: In America "dissidents" like Lewis H. Lapham are widely published. (BRET STEPHENS, March 10, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Is the Prince of Wales a "dissident"?When the story broke a few weeks back that this is what Prince Charles considers himself to be--"a 'dissident' working against the prevailing political consensus," according to his former private secretary--the tut-tutting could be heard round the world. "Prince Charles is not exactly Aung San Suu Kyi," wrote Mark Oliver in the Guardian, referring to the Burmese opposition leader. "He might burn his tongue on a particularly hot crumpet, but he's hardly likely to be spirited away in the middle of the night and be held under indefinite house arrest."
But here's a question: If by "dissident" we mean a person who, against his wishes, is legally or practically barred from participating freely and fully in the political life of his country, how then is the prince not a dissident? Charles--by many accounts a man of strong political views--cannot vote, cannot join a political party, cannot take sides in political debates and cannot express himself on political subjects except discreetly and with the prior approval of the government. Perhaps he could forgo his titles in favor of ordinary citizenship, as Edward VIII did in 1936. But who, except a dissident, must renounce his inheritance in order to gain his rights?
I don't mean to get weepy for a man whose handcuffs are made of 24-karat gold. Still, the prince looks positively Mandela-esque next to some of America's self-styled "dissenters": people like MIT's Noam Chomsky, Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation and Harper's magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham.
Israel's election season under way (Jeremy Bowen, 3/10/06, BBC)
On polling day voters will be asking themselves which leader is going to be best for their security. The parties will play on the nation's insecurities to take votes away from their rivals.Whoever ends up as the next Israeli prime minister will have to deal with a Middle East that is looking more and more unstable.
The victory of Hamas, the Islamist, nationalist group in the Palestinian elections does not change as much for Israel as some might have expected.
Israel under Ariel Sharon was not negotiating with the Palestinians when the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas was in charge; now that Hamas is forming a government, Israel is still not talking to the Palestinians.
If Ehud Olmert is in power after 28 March, he has said he wants to fix Israel's eastern border with the Palestinians.
It looks as if his idea is to pull as many settlers as possible back behind the separation barrier once it is completed. The problem with that idea is that some of the most fanatical settlers live in places that the barrier will not enclose.
Mr Olmert, if he is prime minister, will have to decide what to do with them.
As the outlines of Mr Olmert's plans emerge, it is looking increasingly clear that they do not leave the Palestinians with much.
Some Jewish settlements that have been built in the occupied West Bank in defiance of international law may go, but Israel will most likely keep its soldiers there, and will also want to keep the occupied sections of the Jordan valley.
It is not a recipe for peace, but Mr Olmert will be hoping that it might be one for quiet.
Republicans say legislative moves by Dems dim GOP election hopes (Ralph Thomas and Andrew Garber, 3/10/06,
Seattle Times)
When majority Democrats wrapped up this year's legislative session Wednesday night, some of their biggest achievements read like a Republican Party wish list.They took steps to resolve long-standing water disputes between farmers and environmentalists in Eastern Washington. They handed sizable tax breaks to farmers and the timber industry. They won a truce in the years-long war between business and labor over unemployment insurance. And they pushed through tougher penalties for sex offenders.
What's going on here?
Republicans say passing those bills was more about politics than policy — a strategic move by Democrats to take away GOP campaign issues ahead of the fall's legislative elections.
City trying to spread a little sunshine (MARY WISNIEWSKI, 3/10/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
The City of Chicago wants to give a few local businesses a piece of the sun.The city's Department of Environment is offering 600 solar thermal collectors to businesses that use a lot of hot water and might be struggling with high gas bills -- such as laundromats, health clubs and affordable housing organizations. [...]
The city will donate the collectors, worth a total of $1 million. Businesses chosen for the program must pay for installation. Applications will be accepted through the end of the month, and grant awards will be announced in May. [...]
By using existing gas or electric hot water heaters only to supplement solar thermal systems, these systems can reduce water-heating costs by up to 70 percent, according to the city.
Syracuse 86, No. 1 Connecticut 84, OT (AP, 3/09/06)
Gerry McNamara waited one day to one-up himself.The senior guard hit a 3-pointer with less than a second to play to give Syracuse a win over Cincinnati in the opening round of the Big East tournament.
On Thursday, his 3 with 5.5 seconds left in regulation tied the game and the ninth-seeded Orange went on to beat No. 1 Connecticut 86-84 in overtime.
``I said yesterday's shot was the best under the circumstances,'' an exhausted McNamara said Thursday. ``I'd have to change that to today's. We needed it.''
The win should help the Orange (21-11) end any talk about whether they deserve an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
``Obviously they're a tournament team,'' Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said. ``I thought they were a tournament team yesterday.''
That was a McNamara highlight show ago.
House (of God) party: The venue is a church but a concert tomorrow is really about presenting the positive side of black youth (CHRISTIAN COTRONEO, 3/10/06, Toronto Star)
"We are the black. We are the white. We are the real Toronto," the poster says. "We do not carry guns, knifes or bats on our backs. We are the positive ones that make Toronto."With those words, 19-year-old Devon Wells introduces the concert he has put together tomorrow, one that presents and promotes the other side of black youth culture in a city that has come to be synonymous, at least in Canada, with all that can go wrong on urban streets.
"There are so many positive people in the city of Toronto," Wells says, "yet when we turn on the TV, the first thing we might see — a black boy got shot, a white boy got shot. ... Why can't we say, `Look at this wonderful thing?'"
So Wells is sending out the word: Come to church. [...]
All proceeds from the concert, dubbed The Real Toronto, will go toward community youth projects created by his own not-for-profit group, Positive Intro, through which he hopes to establish a scholarship program for inner-city youth.
Positive Intro sprang from Wells's volunteer work at the church, where he helped organize youth outreach programs ranging from all-night faith music jams to an expenses-paid trip to Niagara Falls for a contingent of city kids.
He aims to go beyond the theory and rhetoric of the political sphere, where the troubles of the black community have become such a popular issue. [...]
For Wells, this is one way to help create a sense of community that he finds lacking in Toronto. In the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada, where he grew up, "You walk the streets, you say hello to somebody," he recalls. "When you walk the street you must say `good morning' or `good night,' it doesn't matter to who it may be."
But here, "You would not find that connection with people by saying `good morning,'" he says. "Some people just look at you ... and think you're crazy."
Connecting through music and a positive word is one key to changing things.
"We need more of that," he says. "And if we get more of that, it's something that will help change the mind-frame of a lot of young people."
International pastime (STEVEN KRASNER, , August 24, 2003, Providence Journal)
The right fielder was from Japan. So was the center fielder. The first baseman was a native of Puerto Rico, the second baseman of the Dominican Republic. A pitcher from Mexico was throwing to a catcher from Puerto Rico.Baseball is called America's Pastime, the All-American game. Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America, a French philosopher once said, had better know baseball.
But baseball, which long ago burst past the borders of the United States into virtually every corner of the planet, is a world game as never before. The starting lineup for the American League in last month's All-Star Game in Chicago -- the lineup above -- is proof positive.
What the Indian Giver Got (Pat Buchanan, 3/07/06, Real Clear Politics)
Standing beside Pervez Musharraf, an ally in the war on terror, President Bush explained how he told him Pakistan would not be getting the same aid in developing peaceful nuclear power that Bush had just promised to India:"I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories. So as we proceed forward, our strategy will take in effect those well-known differences."
Bush was bluntly saying India is a democracy we can trust not to spread nuclear technology, but we're not sure we trust you. After all, your boy A.Q. Khan was running a Home Depot for A-bomb technology.
Unstated message: We're not sure any nuke technology we give you, Pervez, will not end up in an al-Qaida madrassa. For there is no guarantee you will be around that long, Pervez, given your enemies have tried to kill you four times and elections are to be held in 2007.
If Musharraf feels he was asked to come through the service entrance and given the bum's rush, who can blame him?
While even his greatest admirers do not confuse Bush with Bismarck, what the president did on his Asia tour seems inexplicable.
Listening With: Roy Haynes: Attention Getter, on the Beat and Off (BEN RATLIFF, 3/10/06, NY Times)
ON the wall of his wood-paneled basement in his suburban Long Island home, the drummer Roy Haynes has a large poster of his idol, the Count Basie-band drummer Jo Jones. In the picture, taken in 1940, Jones stands outside of a building in a hat, suit and full-length overcoat, holding a cymbal with his left hand and a brush with his right. The stance is all casual defiance: Jones's feet are spaced apart, his chin and his eyebrows are raised. "He was the man," Mr. Haynes said. "And he carried himself like that."A few summers ago Mr. Haynes invited four other drummers to his house in Baldwin, N.Y., where he lives alone. Mr. Haynes, Eddie Locke, Ben Riley, Louis Hayes and Jackie Williams ended up standing around the picture, drinking Champagne and talking about Papa Jo. More recently, early last month, Mr. Haynes had some visitors over to listen to CD's and talk about what he heard. Inevitably, Jones kept coming up. [...]
Roy Haynes — who will celebrate his 81st birthday by leading his young band at the Village Vanguard from Tuesday to Sunday — never took a lesson from Jones. But Mr. Haynes has a whole area of technique around the high-hat, treating it as an instrument unto itself, building on Jones's principles. Really, he isolates every part of his drum kit in a similar way, letting it sing. He is naturally attention-getting, breaking up time, making his drum set react, hitting hard and then leaving space. [...]
At the top of Mr. Haynes's list was "The World Is Mad" by Count Basie from 1940, with Jones on drums. But since all CD's that include it have gone out of print, I brought instead a Basie box set called "America's No. 1 Band!" since it covers that same period.
We listened to "Swing, Brother, Swing," which is about as good as American music gets. [...]
We listened to Coleman Hawkins's recording of Dizzy Gillespie's "Woody 'n' You," from February 1944, written by Gillespie. It is considered the first bebop recording session. Gillespie is in the group, and Max Roach is the drummer. "I was impressed," he said of Mr. Roach. "It was like he was talking to me."
Mr. Haynes especially identified one detail: as Hawkins finishes his first solo in "Woody 'n You," Mr. Roach makes the final beat of the bar part of a figure that enjoins the bar with the next, and also the next chorus of the song. It breaks up the flow of time; it creates tension, and it stabilizes, too. Later in the song, during a trumpet solo, Mr. Roach thuds the bass drum, creating a single off-beat palpitation in the middle of a bar. "There," Mr. Haynes said. [...]
It has become almost a cliché to compare Mr. Haynes's improvising to the sound of the timbales player in a Latin band, but Mr. Haynes has never talked much about Latin music. He had told me that he used to be friends with Ubaldo Nieto, the timbalero from Machito's orchestra. I suggested that we listen together to Machito's "Tanga," recorded at Birdland in 1951.
This "Tanga" changes its atmosphere several times, through switches of key or tension building from different sections of the bandstand. Then suddenly the entire language alters. Cuban rhythm becomes swing; hear a drum kit and cymbals instead of conga and timbales, and Zoot Sims starts playing a tenor saxophone solo. Mr. Haynes confirmed that it was Nieto, changing over to a drum kit mid-song.
"We were always playing opposite Machito in Birdland in those years," he said. "And I always did like the sound of timbales, the approach. Sometimes when I'd play my solos, I'd approach the traps with that same effect, like when I hit rim shots." (A rim shot means hitting the head and the rim of the drum at the same time.) "Older gentlemen like Chick Webb and Papa Jo, they did rim shots too. But doing it with no snares on, with that tom-tom sort of Afro-Cuban feeling, I always liked that."
Finally we listened to Vaughan singing "Lover Man," from 1945, with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. (The drummer is Sid Catlett.) It is what Mr. Haynes called a walking ballad, not as extravagantly slow as the kind he had in mind, like the version he recorded with Vaughan in 1954.
The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration: Asia has too many boys. They can’t find wives, but they just might find extreme nationalism instead. It’s a dangerous imbalance for a region already on edge. (Martin Walker, March/April 2006, Foreign Policy)
Thanks in large part to the introduction of the ultrasound machine, Mother Nature’s usual preference for about 105 males to 100 females has grown to around 120 male births for every 100 female births in China. The imbalance is even higher in some locales—136 males to 100 females on the island of Hainan, an increasingly prosperous tourist resort, and 135 males to 100 females in central China’s Hubei Province. Similar patterns can be found in Taiwan, with 119 boys to 100 girls; Singapore, 118 boys to 100 girls; South Korea, 112 boys to 100 girls; and parts of India, 120 boys to 100 girls. [...]Many of the excess boys will be poor and rootless, a lumpenproletariat without the consolations of sexual partners and family. Prostitution, sex tourism, and homosexuality may ease their immediate urges, but Asian societies are witnessing far more dramatic solutions. Women now risk being kidnapped and forced not only into prostitution but wedlock. Chinese police statistics recorded 65,236 arrests for female trafficking in 1990–91 alone. Updated numbers are hard to come by, but it’s apparent that the problem remains severe. In September 2002, a Guangxi farmer was executed for abducting and selling more than 100 women for $120 to $360 each. Mass sexual frustration is thus adding a potent ingredient to an increasingly volatile regional cocktail of problems that include surging economic growth, urbanization, drug abuse, and environmental degradation.
Understanding the effect of the testosterone overload may be most important in China, the rising Asian superpower. Prompted by expert warnings, the Chinese authorities are already groping for answers. In 2004, President Hu Jintao asked 250 of the country’s senior demographers to study whether the country’s one-child policy—which sharply accentuates the preference for males—should be revised. Beijing expects that it may have as many as 40 million frustrated bachelors by 2020. The regime, always nervous about social control, fears that they might generate social and political instability.
Brigham Young University political scientist Valerie Hudson—the leading scholar on the phenomenon of male overpopulation in Asia—sees historical evidence for these concerns. In 19th-century northern China, drought, famine, and locust invasions apparently provoked a rash of female infanticide. According to Hudson, the region reached a ratio of 129 men to every 100 women. Roving young men organized themselves into bandit gangs, built forts, and eventually came to rule an area of some 6 million people in what was known as the Nien Rebellion. No modern-day rebellion appears to be on the horizon, but China watchers are already seeing signs of growing criminality.
The state’s response to crime and social unrest could prove to be a defining factor for China’s political future. The CIA asked Hudson to discuss her dramatic suggestion that “in 2020 it may seem to China that it would be worth it to have a very bloody battle in which a lot of their young men could die in some glorious cause.”
Cubicles: The great mistake: Even the designer of the cubicle thinks they were maybe a bad idea, as millions of 'Dilberts' would agree. (Julie Schlosser, March 9, 2006, Fortune Magazine)
Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence.
Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator, it still claims the largest share of office furniture sales--$3 billion or so a year--and has outlived every "office of the future" meant to replace it. It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture.
So will the cubicle always be with us? Probably yes, though in recent years individuals and organizations have finally started to chart productive and economical ways to escape its tyranny.
The cubicle was not born evil, or even square. It began, in fact, as a beautiful vision.
'Lieberman Democrats' Have No Place In an Opposition Party (Ari Melber, March 3, 2006, The Forward)
Politicians of all stripes were outraged when news first broke about the Dubai port deal, but not Senator Joseph Lieberman. Declaring that it was "not yet" time to block the deal, Lieberman distinguished himself as one of the few legislators — and the only prominent Democrat — to support the Bush administration in the firestorm over Dubai Ports World's bid to take over terminal operations at six major American ports.Lieberman's position was roundly condemned in Democratic activist and online communities, where many consider him a turncoat. Some Democrats are even openly supporting a challenger in the August primary for his Senate seat. [...]
Many activists believe that Lieberman's conciliatory approach undercuts the party's unity, consistency and confrontational posture, all of which are essential for an effective opposition party. They resent his style more than they resent his voting record, which is not very different from those of many popular Democrats.
Democrats saw in the Dubai ports debacle an opportunity to catch President Bush on the defensive. They wanted a unified message blasting the administration's failure to handle port security and touting their own solid record on the issue, including the Hollings and Byrd port appropriations amendments that Republicans squelched in 2004. Instead, Lieberman broke ranks to support the outsourcing of port security to a country that housed September 11 hijackers and has a diplomatic policy that recognized the Taliban but not Israel.
This reflexive support of Bush infuriated the Democratic base. The founder of Daily Kos, the top Democratic blog with about 3 million unique visitors a week, charged that the valid port security issues were trumped by "Lieberman's allegiance to Bush." Progressive blogger Jane Hamsher was even harsher, questioning how Lieberman could support the president on a policy that sends the message "Screw Israel."
Such online thrashings have become common for Lieberman, who has experienced a sudden and severe fall. He was the Democrats' widely respected running mate in 2000 and an aspiring national candidate in 2004. Now he faces scorn from the party's activist base and rebellion at home, where businessman Ned Lamont says he will formally declare a primary challenge this month. In case anyone thinks Lieberman is not taking this seriously, last week he held an elaborate press conference to announce endorsements — simply to be his party's nominee.
Lieberman obviously still has incumbency, fund raising, name recognition and good poll numbers on his side. Yet Democrats' enthusiasm for devoting resources to this internal battle, instead of to races that actually could win back Congress, reveals the increasing significance of leadership strategy in the debate over the party's future.
Bias Attacks In France Fuel Concern About Blacks (MARC PERELMAN, March 10, 2006, The Forward)
A string of antisemitic incidents in the aftermath of the torture and murder of a young Jewish vendor is fueling concerns that anti-Jewish feelings are spreading in France's black community.The incidents — three physical attacks allegedly committed by blacks of Muslim descent — occurred in recent days, following the extradition from Ivory Coast last weekend of Youssouf Fofana, the alleged leader of the gang that kidnapped and murdered 21-year-old Ilan Halimi. The alleged involvement of blacks has added a new twist to the wave of antisemitic incidents in recent years, which mostly were the work of young Muslims of North African descent responding to the Palestinian intifada.
A judge charged Fofana for the premeditated murder of Halimi, with the aggravated circumstance that the crime was motivated by race, after evidence surfaced that the gang had targeted Halimi because they believed that Jews are rich and the community would pay a ransom. Fofana has told investigators that the plot was not motivated by ethnicity, but by money, and has denied that he killed Halimi.
"This affair has transformed Fofana into a hero in the eyes of quite a few people," said Sammy Ghozlan, president of the National Office of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, a former police chief who has been criticized by some Jewish groups for what they say is his tendency to exaggerate the antisemitic threat. "The attitude of [black] people has changed in recent years."
Old-School Paranoia: Rewatching Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 wiretap masterpiece. (Benjamin Strong, March 9, 2006, Slate)
What a difference three U.S. presidents in seven years makes. While The Conversation had offered catharsis, Blow Out, which was a box-office failure, suggested that American audiences were now exhausted from their own disillusionment. They had elected Ronald Reagan, a sunny optimist, for their president. No one wanted to hear any more talk of lies and corruption on Pennsylvania Avenue.In Blow Out, B-movie sound editor Jack Terry (John Travolta) is collecting ambient noise for his latest picture, Co-Ed Frenzy, when he witnesses and records the titular car accident. The driver, who drowns when the sedan careens off a bridge, is Pennsylvania's governor and a presidential candidate. In The Conversation, Harry Caul's biggest obstacles to thwarting the conspiracy he discovers were his own mistakes, but Jack runs up against an entire society's indifference when he tries to expose a political assassination and its coverup. "Nobody wants to know," a police detective tells him. "Nobody cares."
Twenty-five years later, the America of Blow Out, with its bleak atmosphere of futility and collective denial, has become distressingly familiar. At the multiplex, you can watch a well-crafted, high-profile conspiracy thriller (Syriana) that ends with an explosion wiping out nearly every character still in possession of a conscience, including the one guy who knows the truth and threatens to make it public. And in Washington, President Bush argues that his administration has the legal power to wiretap anyone without a warrant, taking his surveillance cues (as well as some of his Cabinet members) from Nixon's White House.
After the enemy attacked us, and after I realized that we were not protected by oceans, I asked people that work for you -- work for me, how best can we use information to protect the American people? You might remember there was hijackers here that had made calls outside the country to somebody else, prior to the September the 11th attacks. And I said, is there anything more we can do within the law, within the Constitution, to protect the American people. And they came back with a program, designed a program that I want to describe to you. And I want people here to clearly understand why I made the decision I made.First, I made the decision to do the following things because there's an enemy that still wants to harm the American people. What I'm talking about is the intercept of certain communications emanating between somebody inside the United States and outside the United States; and one of the numbers would be reasonably suspected to be an al Qaeda link or affiliate. In other words, we have ways to determine whether or not someone can be an al Qaeda affiliate or al Qaeda. And if they're making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why.
This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process. We briefed members of the United States Congress, one of whom was Senator Pat Roberts, about this program. You know, it's amazing, when people say to me, well, he was just breaking the law -- if I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress? (Laughter and applause.)
Federal courts have consistently ruled that a President has authority under the Constitution to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance against our enemies. Predecessors of mine have used that same constitutional authority. Recently there was a Supreme Court case called the Hamdi case. It ruled the authorization for the use of military force passed by the Congress in 2001 -- in other words, Congress passed this piece of legislation. And the Court ruled, the Supreme Court ruled that it gave the President additional authority to use what it called "the fundamental incidents of waging war" against al Qaeda.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means. It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It's an -- you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how. And one of the ways to protect the American people is to understand the intentions of the enemy. I told you it's a different kind of war with a different kind of enemy. If they're making phone calls into the United States, we need to know why -- to protect you.
-AUDIO: Author Rebecca Kohn / NH, the Most Liveable State (Shay Zeller, 3/09/06, The Front Porch)
The Story of Exodus is retold in Rebecca Kohn's new book Seven Days to the Sea. The book explores the story of Moses through the eyes of his sister and his wife. We'll talk with the author about her work and the difference between biblical fiction and historical fiction -- and where they overlap.Also in the show -- New Hampshire's been named the most livable state for the third year in a row. We talk to Scott Morgan, of Morgan Quinto Press about the variables and consistencies in New Hampshire's top ranking.
Warner Plans Senate Effort to Rescue Dubai Ports Deal (Bloomberg, 3/09/06)
Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner is planning a last-ditch legislative effort to rescue a state-owned Dubai company's embattled bid to take over some operations at six U.S. ports.
MORE:
Dubai Port Company to Divest Itself of American Holdings (Jonathan Weisman and Daniela Deane, March 9, 2006, Washington Post)
Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) announced on the Senate floor shortly before 2 p.m. that Dubai Ports World would "transfer fully the operations of U.S. ports to a U.S. entity." Warner, who had been trying to broker a compromise on the issue, said DP World would divest itself of U.S. interests "in an orderly fashion" so as not to suffer "economic loss."It was not immediately clear how the divesture would be handled or what U.S. company would take over the operation.
G.O.P. Plan Would Allow Spying Without Warrants (SCOTT SHANE and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 3/09/06, NY Times)
The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise.
Reiner's First 5 Commission to Be Audited (Dan Morain, March 8, 2006, LA Times)
A state commission founded by Hollywood producer Rob Reiner is coming under increased state scrutiny, with lawmakers today approving a broad audit of the $600-million-a-year panel's spending.A committee of state senators and Assembly members directed the Bureau of State Audits to start the investigation.
Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) and Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) requested the audit. Both lawmakers cited press reports that the First 5 California Children and Families Commission spent $23 million in tax money on an ad blitz touting the benefits of preschool at the same time Reiner was launching a preschool ballot initiative.
Additionally, the legislators noted, the commission and its staff awarded $230 million in contracts to public relations and advertising firms that helped Reiner in his political endeavors, including the 1998 campaign for Proposition 10, which created First 5.
Skip the whole milk. Pass on soda. Drink beer? (MSN, March 9th, 2006)
Some prominent nutrition experts put out new guidelines Wednesday urging Americans to cut back on calorie-rich sodas while allowing more leeway for alcohol and lots of room for tea and coffee -- up to 40 ounces a day.That's more than three tall cups at Starbucks, although that might bust suggested limits on caffeine.
They also allow men three times as much beer as sugary soda.
The womenfolk are restricted to sarsaparilla, although they are permitted a small sherry at Christmas.
Wave of Eastern European Workers Hits U.K. (Rob Gifford, 3/09/06, Day to Day)
The sound of Polish, Latvian and Estonian chatter is often heard in London cafes these days -- largely due to the United Kingdom opening its labor markets to countries that have joined the European Union. Rob Gifford reports on how new workers from Eastern Europe are affecting the British economy.
Eastern Europe is facing a double-edged sword: As membership in EU decreases unemployment, it also is creating a new brain drain (TOM HUNDLEY, 3/03/06, Chicago Tribune)
Each month, Poland loses about 30,000 workers, many of them young and well-educated, to Britain, Ireland and Sweden. The three countries were the only members of the European Union that did not impose restrictions on immigration from its 10 new member states .Instead of flooding the market with "Polish plumbers" — the European catchphrase for cheap, low-skilled immigrant labor — the mighty tide of migration from Eastern Europe has fueled impressive economic growth in Britain and Ireland.
In a report last month, the EU said free migration of labor produced more benefits than costs and encouraged members to open their doors.
The hesitance was evident when the European Parliament recently approved a watered-down version of a bill that was supposed to make it easier for service companies to operate across borders.
Bowing to pressure from powerful German and French trade unions, the lawmakers included many exemptions to protect highly paid workers in wealthy countries.
U.S. companies weighed anchor on ports years ago (Simon Romero and Heather Timmons, FEBRUARY 24, 2006, NY Times)
In the outcry over who should run America's seaport terminals, one clear trend appears to have been overlooked: U.S. companies began withdrawing decades ago from the unglamorous business of stevedoring, ceding the now-booming industry to enterprises in Asia and the Middle East.
People in the shipping industry have watched with dismay as their fast-evolving business is sometimes misinterpreted in the uproar over the $6.8 billion sale of a venerable British concern, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, to Dubai Ports World, a rising operator from the emirate.
It is no accident that U.S. companies are not in the top ranks of global terminal operators, which have ridden the coattails of the explosion in world trade. That shift has transferred growing financial clout to a handful of seafaring centers in Hong Kong, Singapore and now Dubai.
Indeed, the takeover of P&O came down to a battle between two foreign, state-backed companies: Dubai Ports World, owned by Dubai's royal Maktoum family, and PSA, the world's second-largest port operator, which is part of the Singapore government's investment arm.
The acquisition price also reflects the advantage that a number of the fastest-growing companies enjoy - their governments' deep pockets.
Modesty (David Warren, 3/05/06, Sunday Spectator)
Am I perhaps a little odd in finding modestly-dressed women attractive? It is hard to tell how odd, for men seldom discuss such things among ourselves. In moments, I’ve suspected this is our best-kept secret -- that we don’t actually like women to be dressed or to behave as tarts. (Not just the clothing, but the vocabulary and demeanour.) Still, few of us would say this aloud, especially in a public forum. For it cannot possibly be “politically correct”.
Chauvinism in the US (Daily Telegraph, 09/03/2006)
The case against the Dubai company is that it is part of the Muslim world, the chief source of global terror. This crude piece of chauvinism fails to distinguish between a hostile Islamic state, such as Iran, and one that is a staunch ally of Washington in a strategically crucial region.Through tourism, transport and business, Dubai is preparing for the day when its oil runs out. Such foresight should be welcomed, not penalised. To block DP World from inheriting P&O assets in the six ports would be highly damaging to America's reputation in a region where it needs all the friends it can get.
Such strategic considerations cut little ice with the likes of Republican House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis and Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, both of whom are seeking re-election in November. They reflect a mindset in America that last year put paid to a Chinese bid for the oil company Unocal, and in 2002 led to tariffs on imported steel and a huge increase in agricultural subsidies.
Rather than explaining the benefits of globalisation - whether Asian purchases of US Treasury bonds or the pre-eminence of Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil or General Motors - these short-sighted politicians are pandering to a protectionist impulse strengthened by bogus security concerns.
Put unglamorous pork shoulder on autopilot, relax and collect applause (Virginia Phillips, March 09, 2006, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
It's cheap. It's fatty. It's ugly as a box of rocks. This part of the pig is insensitively known as the pork butt, and it deserves a better name.Yes, the term "butt" conveys rounded and meaty -- but, no, it has nothing to do with a pig's bum. That's the hind leg, the ham department. A pork butt is in a tasty forward realm, high on the front leg. We are talking about the shoulder.
This homely but sexy roast is waiting to make your reputation. You can't wreck it. It cooks so sl-o-o-o-o-o-w, self-basting as it goes. Its succulence is legendary. A shoulder roast feeds a crowd for a buck or less a person and is often found on sale.
For leftovers, look forward to pulled pork for tacos or barbecue on a bun. [...]
SIX-HOUR PORK ROAST WITH HERB CRUST
This delectable roast pork, slow-roasted uncovered at 275 degrees, is succulent on the inside with a marvelous crust. You will need kitchen string for this recipe.
* 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
* 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
* 10 garlic cloves
* 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
* 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt (use 1 scant tablespoon if using regular salt)
* 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
* 1 tablespoon dry white wine
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 6-pound boneless butt pork shoulder roast (remove net)Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Blend together sage, rosemary, garlic, fennel seeds, salt and pepper in a food processor until a thick paste forms. With motor running, add wine and oil and blend until combined well.
If necessary, trim fat from top of pork, to leave a 1/8-inch-thick layer of fat. Make 3 small incisions, each about 1 inch long and 1 inch deep, in each side of pork with a small sharp knife and fill each with about 1 teaspoon herb paste. Spread remaining herb paste over pork, concentrating on boned side, and tie roast with kitchen string at 2-inch intervals.
Put pork, fat side up, in a roasting pan and roast in middle of oven for 6 hours. Transfer roast to cutting board and let stand 15 minutes.
Discard string and cut pork roast into thick slices.
Serves 12.
Moussaoui turn at defense backfires (Michael J. Sniffen, 3/09/06, Associated Press)
A bizarre legal misstep by confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui came back to haunt him Wednesday as he helped confirm for jurors at his sentencing trial that he had said Osama bin Laden ordered him to fly a plane into the White House.Moussaoui's action emerged on a poor quality videotape shown in federal court, but it produced a gust of laughter from the packed audience, which is normally dead silent under fear of expulsion. [...]
Although he had elicited descriptions that fit known events in Moussaoui's life, Karas rested his direct questioning without having Bafana identify John as Moussaoui. But that government omission was remedied once Moussaoui cross-examined Bafana.
Moussaoui asked Bafana what John looked like.
"He looks exactly like you," Bafana replied.
Moussaoui: "Looks like me or are you certain it's me?"
Bafana: "Certain."
Scrambling to recover, Moussaoui dug himself deeper.
"Maybe somebody looks exactly like me," Moussaoui offered.
"I confirm that it's you," Bafana replied.
Bafana also testified that Moussaoui rejected a flight training school in Malaysia as "too expensive" and asked the group for $10,000 to bankroll his flight training in the United States.
But Jemaah Islamiyah's leader told Bafana to give him only $1,200 and send him back where he came from. The leader thought Moussaoui was cuckoo, Bafana said.
Irish could play role in fight for immigrants' rights (MARK BROWN,
March 9, 2006, Chicago SUN-TIMES)
Billy Lawless moves with the purpose of a man on a mission as he exits his SUV and unlocks the front door of his Wrigleyville pub, not pausing to shake hands until we've made it inside. He's a big man, big enough that you wouldn't want to get in his way, and so I don't, until he smiles, extends a meaty paw and points at a sunlit table in the front.Lawless tells me he's just come from a meeting on the Northwest Side with a Polish-American group, and he needs to hurry downtown for another meeting as soon as we finish.
The topic for both is the same: an immigration reform march that is expected to draw at least 10,000 demonstrators to Chicago on Friday afternoon. Lawless is trying to recruit as many marchers as possible, hoping to put a multi-ethnic face on an issue that is too often seen as only a Hispanic problem.
Lawless, 55, came here eight years ago from Galway, bringing with him not only his family but all the aged oak woodwork and fixtures for the interior of his bar, the Irish Oak. He's had enough success that his son will soon open another bar on Michigan Avenue.
But even though Lawless is here legally with a valid visa, he feels the urgency of those who aren't.
"There's so many people I know who are undocumented," he says, citing estimates of between 5,000 and 7,000 undocumented Irish in Chicago alone.
This awareness has made Lawless sensitive not only to the plight of his Irish countrymen but also to the millions of other illegal immigrants in the U.S. whose fate rests on the outcome of legislation now coming to a head in Congress.
"It's not just a Mexican or Hispanic thing, Mark. We're all in the same boat," says Lawless, chairman of Chicago Celts for Immigration Reform.
Police, soldiers and customs officials from both parts of Ireland launched a dawn raid Thursday on the border home of the Irish Republican Army's alleged chief of staff, Thomas “Slab” Murphy.At least 300 soldiers and officers from the Garda Siochana, Ireland's national police, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland raided about a dozen properties in a borderland area nicknamed "bandit country" because of its history as the IRA's rural power base.
Cheap Hydrogen Fuel: GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology. (David Talbot, 3/08/06, Technology Review)
Among the many daunting challenges to replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is how to make hydrogen cheaply in ways that don't pollute the environment. Splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from energy sources such as wind turbines is one possibility -- but it's still far too expensive to be widely practical.Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a less expensive, easy-to-manufacture apparatus that can directly produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen.
The End of His Story (Douglas Kern, 07 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
Fukuyama's real problem with neoconservative foreign policy has little to do with America's popularity or international consensus, despite his protestations to the contrary. His problem lies in neoconservatism's tacit refutation of his pet theory. In his 1989 magnum opus, The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama argued that liberalism was the final ideology, to which reasonable people could find no superior alternative; history would henceforth consist of individuals and nations struggling to endure the burdens that liberalism places on the human soul. By contrast, neoconservative foreign policy assumes that history is not at an end; that irrationalism and depravity can win anywhere, and may perhaps win everywhere. Neoconservatism demands that righteous nations resist the depredations of evil regimes, by force if necessary and prudent, in order to accelerate the growth of freedom and international security. No disembodied force of History will do our work for us; the world's future is not a straight line pointed at a certain outcome, but rather a jagged and irregular line – the line between good and evil that runs through every human heart. You might think that the events of the last seventeen years would convince nearly anyone that the human heart still has the last word over History. But Fukuyama will not surrender his cherished beliefs without a fight.He writes: "'The End of History,' in other words, presented a kind of Marxist-Hegelian argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution, but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States."
So it's "Leninist" to apply power and will to achieve liberal democracy ahead of History's schedule. Presumably it was also "Leninist" to apply power and will toward making the Soviet Union fall ahead of schedule. In fairness, I believe that Communism was destined to collapse under the weight of its wickedness and economic ineptitude -- given enough time. But the resolve of the West determined how much of the world Communism could defile on its way down -- and how many people had to die in gulags while waiting for History to arrive. If it was "Leninist" to apply power and will toward expediting the rendezvous of the Evil Empire with the dustbin of History, then sign me up for Leninism.
The same analysis applies to any of America's other wars. Nazism was untenable as a political theory, but who regrets the "Leninism" of applying power and will to throttle Nazism in its crib? The South would have abandoned slavery if left alone for a few generations, but were we Yankees insufferably "Leninist" when we sent the Union armies to give History a little kick in the butt? It's true that good intentions don't justify every war, but come on: is every righteous application of military force "Leninist?"
NFL owners accept player union proposal with 30-2 vote (Jarrett Bell, 3/08/06, USA TODAY)
March Madness is not always about college basketball.NFL owners scored a buzzer-beater of their own Wednesday night, finally agreeing to a six-year extension of their collective bargaining agreement with the players union as time was set to expire on their negotiating window.
Snubbed film `too subtle' for Oscar crowd (PETER HOWELL, 3/09/06, Toronto Star)
Opening up yesterday for the first time about his frustrations with the Oscar nominations and awards process, [David Cronenberg,] the veteran Toronto director said he believes politics were at play. Any film that didn't directly challenge the policies of President George W. Bush wasn't going to gain Academy favour this year."I have a feeling there is a lot of `anti-Bushness' in those nominations, for which I can blame nobody because I would be that way, too," Cronenberg told the Star.
"And those movies that were nominated in many ways had a much more obvious anti-Bush, anti-conservative bent to them. Maybe my movie was too ambiguous and disturbing in terms of accepting the sort of exhilaration aspect of violence that is there in us as well. It's hard for me to feel that they didn't get it. Maybe they did get it and they didn't like what they got, you know?"
U.S. Falls in Shocker: Americans Are In Dire Straits : Canada 8, United States 6 (Steve Fainaru, 3/09/06, Washington Post)
The World Baseball Classic emerged from the shadow of Barry Bonds's steroid allegations Wednesday by taking its own shocking turn. Team USA, led by superstars such as Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Ken Griffey Jr., was thumped, 8-6, by a Canadian club led by a Baltimore Orioles lefty who had never pitched above Class A and journeymen such as Stubby Clapp and Pierre-Luc LaForest.The stunning defeat, before 16,993 at Chase Field, threw the WBC into chaos. With one game to play in the opening round, Team USA's fate now hinges largely on Thursday's matchup between Canada and Mexico. If Canada wins, the Americans would still advance to the second round with a win Friday over lowly South Africa.
However, under a bewildering tiebreaker system based on runs allowed, the Americans will be bounced from a tournament of their own creation if Mexico beats Canada but scores two or fewer runs. If Mexico wins and scores at least three runs, the Americans, who plan to start Roger Clemens on Friday against South Africa, would advance with a win.
"So we're cheering for Canada, right?" said Rodriguez as players and sportswriters tried doggedly to sort it out afterward.
MORE:
Miracle on grass: Canada beats U.S. (JEFF BLAIR, 3/08/06, Globe and Mail
When he left for the World Baseball Classic, Adam Stern's Boston Red Sox teammates said they'd be waiting for him to return soon.They thought Canada didn't have much of a chance of advancing to the second round and that the centre fielder from London, Ont., wouldn't be absent very long from the team's spring training in Fort Myers, Fla.
"I guess I have a few phone calls to make tonight now," said Mr. Stern, who turned in a once-in-a-lifetime performance yesterday in a once-in-a-lifetime win for Canadian baseball: a shocking 8-6 defeat of the heavily favoured United States.
My Secret Burden: The abortion-rights movement grapples with repression. (William Saletan, March 9, 2006, Slate)
Friday morning, leaders of pro-choice and feminist groups gathered at the Center for American Progress to debate the movement's future. One of the panelists reported that the latest annual tally of abortions in this country was 1.295 million. The most recent comparative numbers, detailed in an article I brought to the meeting, indicated that our abortion rate exceeds that of every Western European nation. "Raise your hand if you think that number is too high," the conference moderator told the 50 people in the room.I saw one hand go up. The woman next to me said she saw another. The two hand-raisers used to work for pro-choice groups but no longer do.
This is the predicament facing the abortion-rights movement. It's led by three kinds of people: Those who see no problem, those who are afraid to speak up, and those who think it's futile. I'm betting that the denial, fear, and futility will give way. But it'll take time.
I should mention that I didn't raise my hand. I was invited to the meeting, along with my friend Katha Pollitt, to debate the wisdom of declaring a pro-choice war on the abortion rate. Katha and I are on the record on this question. I'm for it; she's against it. Although I'm pro-choice, I can't claim to be part of the movement. I haven't earned it, and as a professional critic, I can't make such a commitment. So I came, I made my case, and then I shut up and listened. It was like preaching to the choir, except that my preaching was Sunni, and the choir was Shiite.
Smoking In U.S. Declines Sharply: Cigarette Sales At a 54-Year Low (Marc Kaufman, March 9, 2006, Washington Post)
Americans smoked fewer cigarettes last year than at any time since 1951, and the nation's per capita consumption of tobacco fell to levels not seen since the early 1930s, the association of state attorneys general reported yesterday.Using data the federal government gathers when it collects taxes on cigarette sales, the group found a 4.2 percent decline in 2005 alone and an overall drop of more than 20 percent since tobacco companies reached a legal settlement with the states in 1998.
Association leaders and other tobacco-control advocates hailed the decline as a sign that sometimes-controversial developments triggered by the $246 billion settlement have been effective. The drop was a result, they said, of factors that include the sharply higher cost of cigarettes, restrictions on cigarette advertising and a shift in public perceptions as the dangers of smoking are more aggressively and widely publicized.
"I think we're reaching a tipping point, where the image of tobacco is that it's unhealthy and dangerous, and not glamorous like years ago or neutral like the cigarette companies say now," said Tom Miller, Iowa's attorney general and co-chairman of the National Association of Attorneys General's tobacco committee.
Bird flu hits weasel-like animal (AP, 3/09/06)
The H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in a stone marten, a German laboratory said Thursday, indicating the disease has spread to another species of mammal.The Friedrich-Loeffler Institute confirmed the presence of the virus in the marten, a weasel-like animal, found on the island of Ruegen in north Germany on March 2.
The animal, sick and apparently dying, was found near the Wittow Ferry area of the island, where cats and birds have been found with the disease.
Irish Potato Farls (The Oklahoman, 3/08/06)
4 medium potatoes, peeled and halved
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tablespoon melted butter
• In a pot, cover potatoes with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Simmer on medium-high heat until the center of the potatoes are tender when pricked with a fork, about 20 minutes. Turn off heat. Drain, return potatoes to pot and allow to completely dry out over remaining heat. Mash with a potato masher until smooth.• Place warm mashed potato in medium bowl. Stir in flour, salt and melted butter. Mix lightly until dough forms.
• On a well floured surface, knead the dough lightly. The dough will be sticky. Use a floured rolling pin to flatten into a 9 inch circle about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into quarters using a floured knife.
• Sprinkle a little flour into the base of the skillet and cook the farls for 3 minutes on each side or until evenly browned. Season with a little salt and serve straight away.
• Makes 4 servings.
Read It and Sleep: A guide to the best alarm clocks. (Dan Crane, March 7, 2006, Slate)
Brookstone iHome Clock Radio for iPod, $99The ubiquitous iPod (and its clean white aesthetic) infests yet more of your world via the iHome Clock Radio. Though it doesn't have an abundance of features (aside from the usual snooze, sleep, and radio functions), the iHome sounds excellent and can easily double as a bedroom stereo. It's fairly simple to master, has three dimmer settings, and charges your iPod while you sleep. The only problem I had was deciding which of my 6,783 songs should awaken me.
Ease of Use: 7
Wakeupability: 8
Features: 9
Looks: 9
Total: 33
The Belief Trap: The evolutionary explanation of religion gets stuck. (Judith Shulevitz, March 8, 2006, Slate)
Evolutionary theory, [Daniel Dennett ] says, can tell us why religion evolved and what it was meant to achieve, which means it can explain why the religious act the way they do. In an age of growing fanaticism, this seems a claim worth paying attention to. And Dennett seems the man to make good on it. A philosopher of mind—he has written acclaimed books on consciousness and evolutionary theory—Dennett knows how to argue about science and how to argue from within it. A militant atheist, he doesn't promise to keep an open mind about religion. But in theory, at least, his frankness adds value to his opinions. [...][I]n the end, Dennett gives up. When it comes to interpreting what people say about religion, he writes, "everybody is an outsider" (his italics), the natives and the anthropologists, the religious and the scientifically minded. Why? "Because religious avowals concern matters that are beyond observation, beyond meaningful test, so the only thing anybody can go on is religious behavior." He closes his chapter and moves on. He does not seem concerned that he has just admitted the impossibility of distinguishing religion from everything else. Nor does he worry that this admission undermines the ambition of his book, which is to explain the biological rationale for religion, not to propose a grand theory of culture.
Dennett is not the first writer to find himself going around in this particular circle.
Still Dubious About Dubai? (Robert M. Green, 09 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
More studied reasons for supposing port security in the U.S. could improve under DP World begin with the company's demonstrated ability to significantly grow its business managing shipping hubs while operating within environs associated with terrorism. In the same period that terrorist Web sites have increasingly advised jihadists on different ways of attacking or infiltrating ports and commercial maritime activities, the port of Dubai in UAE has soared from a mid-level operation to one of the busiest ports in the world.Carved from the Dubai Ports Authority, the company's reputation for technological implementation dates back to its project to automate many of its processes in the 1990s. At that time, Dubai became one of the first ports in the world to implement so-called e-shipping, digitizing most of its planning, scheduling and operations while "building out" a CRM (customer relations management)/Web portal system that was one of the first of its kind used by a port.
According to American e-commerce experts who followed the UAE technology implementation as it has evolved, it was Dubai's willingness to invest in IT that allowed it to offer container shipping and related services at lowered costs for its customers. Last year, a Homeland Security official called the two-terminal Dubai facility "modern and extremely efficient ports."
While the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the implementation of the White House-backed Container Security Initiative (CSI) tested the resilience of port operators both here and abroad, the port of Dubai continued even in that period to grow both in volume and influence in worldwide shipping. In 2004 Dubai made another bold-stroke decision, becoming the first Middle Eastern port (and 35th overall) to agree to the CSI, signing formally last March. CSI gives U.S. Customs personnel a foothold in foreign ports and requires that state-of-the-art security systems such as gamma ray, x-ray and radiological detection systems be implemented for cargo inspection.
Dubai's interest in security has seemingly followed the same upward curve that most critical infrastructure operators have followed. All confront greater threats from terror groups, and particularly from al Qaeda.
BIN LADEN: HOW CLOSE HAVE WE COME? (Michael Smerconish, 3/09/06, Philadelphia Daily News)
RIGHT AFTER 9/11, IT WAS Gary Berntsen's job to get Osama bin Laden.Picture a real-life Jack Bauer. Strong. Focused. Committed. A guy who probably knows how to kill you with his car keys. More than 23 years as an officer in the clandestine service of the CIA. In his new book, "Jawbreaker," he says he stopped dozens of bombings and assassinations. [...]
At Tora Bora, Berntsen had an eight-man team, four CIA, four military from Delta Force.
"These eight men went down into Nangarhar Province, which is several million people in complete chaos, company-size elements of Chechens and Uzbeks and Al Qaeda and Taliban moving around. I was sweating bullets when I send them down there because Special Forces didn't go down with them...
"They linked up with a friendly warlord who we made contact with. And then, with that warlord, they drove down to Tora Bora to get to the foot of the mountains."
Four of them found bin Laden, and our best opportunity since 9/11 to kill him.
"They were able to visually spot his camp at Milawa... And from that... mountaintop, they are able to call in air strikes for 56 hours. There were hundreds of them there... We are able to hear bin Laden. After we took a radio off of a dead fighter, we could hear him. We were very close."
That's when Berntsen called for a Blue 82, a 15,000-pound bomb, the largest explosive in our inventory shy of a nuclear weapon. It has to be dropped off the back of a C-130 because it's too heavy to be suspended from an aircraft.
Alabama Judge Declares War on U.S. Supreme Court (Tony Mauro, 03-03-2006, Legal Times)
Sitting calmly in his impeccably neat office at Alabama's Justice Building, state Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker does not look like a man at war with the U.S. Supreme Court.But even before he says a word, his desk offers hints. Prominently displayed are Mark Levin's conservative attack on the U.S. Supreme Court, "Men in Black," and Phyllis Schlafly's "The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It."
The book Parker refers to the most, however, is a small one he pulls out of his pocket frequently during the conversation with a visiting reporter. It contains the texts of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and is signed by his hero, Justice Clarence Thomas, who swore him into office a year ago.
Last month, Parker wrote an op-ed in The Birmingham News, attacking the high court's "blatant judicial tyranny." The case that had gotten him roaring was the outcome in 2005's Roper v. Simmons, which tossed out the death penalty for inmates who were under 18 at the time of their crimes.
It was a blistering opening salvo in what Parker hopes will be a wide re-examination of the role of the Supreme Court ahead of the fight over the next vacancy. And despite a certain level of nomination fatigue in Washington, in Parker's view that vacancy can't come soon enough.
In the column, Parker called for what could be considered an act of judicial sedition. Because Roper was based, he wrote, on the application of foreign law (a notion its author, Justice Anthony Kennedy, would dispute), it was an "unconstitutional opinion" that his Alabama colleagues should "actively resist." [...]
"State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are precedents," he wrote. "After all, a judge takes an oath to support the Constitution -- not to automatically follow activist judges who believe their own devolving standards of decency trump the text of the Constitution." [...]
In spite of -- or because of -- the controversy, Parker won the election with 56 percent of the vote. Through mutual friends, Parker asked whether Thomas would give him the oath of office in January 2005. Thomas agreed, and Parker traveled to Washington for the private ceremony. A day later, Moore gave him another oath back in Alabama, and Parker said, "I have been doubly blessed to have been sworn into office by two heroes of the judiciary."
As a justice, Parker has sometimes inserted his beliefs on constitutional issues into routine cases. In Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Authority v. City of Birmingham, last year, he asserted that all three branches of government -- not only the judiciary -- have roles in interpreting the Constitution. Marbury v. Madison, he noted, said constitutional interpretation was "emphatically" the role of judges -- but not "exclusively." In a dissent in a 2005 child custody case, Parker said the majority's view was flawed in part because it did not recognize that parental rights flow from God, not the state.
Parker has also issued press releases about legal matters occurring outside Alabama. One attacked the "state-sanctioned killing" of Terri Schiavo as an example of judicial excess, and another criticized the Supreme Court's Ten Commandments rulings last June. Those too were a "judicial power grab," Parker said.
And in his newspaper op-ed, Parker wrote that the "liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court already look down on ... pro-family policies, Southern heritage, [and] evangelical Christianity." (Parker would include Justice Kennedy in that liberal bloc.)
But Parker says this isn't about advancing his Baptist religious views from the bench.
"As a Christian, I do value the sanctity of life," he says. "But that is no different from the inalienable right to life described in the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document of this country." His role model Thomas is one of the few justices who agree on the doctrinal importance of the Declaration.
What, then, is Parker's point? At every turn, he says, he wants the public to understand that "the big social issues are being decided by the Supreme Court rather than Congress" and that the Court is deciding them unmoored from the words of the Constitution as well as religious values. "They are not giving proper deference to the other branches; they are pushing an agenda," Parker says of the Court.
The Three Stooges: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean (Jacob Weisberg, March 8, 2006, Slate)
To understand [Nancy Pelosi's] politics, think Huffington Post without the flashes of wit. Here is a typical Bush-bashing, cliché-ridden quote of hers: "The emperor has no clothes. When are people going to face the reality? Pull this curtain back!" Pelosi dismisses people who disagree as hoodwinked or stupid. She's not exactly Hillary Clinton herself, though. A five-minute interview is usually sufficient to exhaust her knowledge on any subject. And she can flop around like a fish. When Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., proposed a pullout, or "redeployment," of U.S. troops from Iraq in November, Pelosi's first reaction was to isolate him. "Mr. Murtha speaks for himself," she said. But after taking a drubbing from left-wing bloggers and her anti-war constituents, she announced that she supported Murtha after all. This shored up her image as Washington's answer to Barbra Streisand, and set up Dick Cheney to paint the Democrats as defeatist and unsupportive of our troops in Iraq.Reid's flaws are mostly a mirror image of Pelosi's. A Mormon convert who grew up in a working-class family in a small town, he doesn't dabble in Hollywood politics. Reid voted for the Iraq war resolution, and is anti-gun-control, anti-gay marriage, and—most shocking for a Democratic figurehead—anti-abortion. But as a leader, he's colorless and erratic. Most of the time, he's a study in gray, except when he livens it up with a spasm of random aggression. Reid has called Alan Greenspan a "hack," Bush a loser and a liar, and, in one off-the-mark, vaguely racist-sounding rant, charged that Clarence Thomas' opinions were poorly written. (You can criticize Thomas' opinions for lots of things, but Slate's legal correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick, tells me they are quite well written.) After calling for more Supreme Court justices as brilliant as Antonin Scalia, he recommended that Bush nominate his undistinguished flunky Harriet Miers. Moreover, Reid's own pork-barreling and lobbyist-courting suggest that making him majority leader would merely replace the Republican hackocracy in Congress with a Democratic hackocracy. Reid has declined to repudiate contributions from Abramoff-linked Indian tribes, and his own family includes so many lobbyists that after some nasty press coverage, he had to ban them from his office.
Howard Dean is smarter than either Pelosi or Reid and clearly stands for something. Unfortunately, what he stands for in the minds of most people is incandescent rage and upscale socialism. [...]
But more important than what the three stooges do wrong is what they can't seem to do at all, namely articulate a positive agenda for reform and change. Voters have grown disenchanted with Bush's mishandling of the war in Iraq and the country's finances, and with the evangelical tilt of many of his policies. But there remains a baseline mistrust of Democrats on security, the economy, and values issues. For a sweep big enough to recover both houses of Congress, the party will almost certainly need an affirmative message as well as a negative one. Democrats need to demonstrate they won't just cut and run from Iraq, that they see security as more than a civil liberties issue, and that their alternative to tax cuts isn't just more spending on flawed social programs and unchallenged growth in entitlements.
Spacecraft to Slam into the Moon (Leonard David, Space.com, 3/7/06)
Scientists are plotting out a “crash course” in learning what happens when a European lunar probe slams into the Moon.So the European spacecraft is suicidal.The European Space Agency’s (ESA) SMART-1 spacecraft—now circling the Moon—is headed for a planned early September impact with Earth’s celestial neighbor.
Driving under the influence — of sleeping pills: Ambien among top 10 drugs found in impaired drivers (MSNBC, March 8, 2006)
There's a growing hazard on the roadway, the kind of motorist who smashes into parked cars, plows over sidewalks and drives in the wrong direction, all while oblivious to the destruction left behind. These drivers aren't drunk or stoned — they're under the influence of Ambien, the nation's most popular prescription sleeping pill. [...]In Washington state, for example, officials counted 78 impaired-driving arrests in which Ambien was a factor last year, up from 56 in 2004. Some of Washington's zombie-like drivers said they took the sleeping pill while behind the wheel so that it would kick in by bedtime.
"Wow, that's a really bad idea," said sleep specialist Dr. Brooke Judd, an assistant professor of medicine and psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School.
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Some Sleeping Pill Users Range Far Beyond Bed (STEPHANIE SAUL, 3/08/06, NY Times)
With a tendency to stare zombie-like and run into stationary objects, a new species of impaired motorist is hitting the roads: the Ambien driver.Ambien, the nation's best-selling prescription sleeping pill, is showing up with regularity as a factor in traffic arrests, sometimes involving drivers who later say they were sleep-driving and have no memory of taking the wheel after taking the drug.
In some state toxicology laboratories Ambien makes the top 10 list of drugs found in impaired drivers. Wisconsin officials identified Ambien in the bloodstreams of 187 arrested drivers from 1999 to 2004.
And as a more people are taking the drug — 26.5 million prescriptions in this country last year — there are signs that Ambien-related driving arrests are on the rise. In Washington State, for example, officials counted 78 impaired-driving arrests in which Ambien was a factor last year, up from 56 in 2004.
Enough of the D.C. Dems (Molly Ivins, March 2006, The Progressive)
Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton. [...]As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick to:
1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying.
2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington.
3) Single-payer health insurance.
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.
3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires (RICK LYMAN, 3/08/06, NY Times)
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs south of Birmingham, two of them 19 and one 20, were arrested today in the burning of nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month that federal officials say was a prank that spun out of control. [...]The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."
Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists.
Eyeing ’08, Sen. McCain courts K St. (Alexander Bolton, 3/08/06, The Hill)
Good-government advocacy groups working on lobbying reform say their longtime ally Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has played a smaller leadership role on the issue than they had expected.McCain’s lower-than-hoped-for profile on the sensitive subject coincides with what prominent lobbyists describe as a quiet effort by his political team to court inside-the-Beltway donors and fundraisers in preparation for a possible 2008 presidential run.
Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Reject Evolution, Back Bible (E&P Staff, March 08, 2006, Editor & Publisher)
A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."Another 31% says that man did evolve, but "God guided." Only 12% back evolution and say "God had no part."
By more than three to one, voters say that Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it. Approximately seven in ten (69%) side with this view. In contrast, one in five (21%) feels that Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.Not only do a majority of people in virtually every sub-group agree that both sides should be presented when teaching evolution, but people in every sub-group are at least twice as likely to prefer this approach to science education. Among the biggest supporters are 18-29 year-olds (88%), 73% of Republicans, and 74% of independent voters. Others who strongly support this approach include African-Americans (69%), 35-54 year-olds (70%) and 60% of Democrats.
At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic (Dana Milbank, March 8, 2006, Washington Post)
If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations."We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."
Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?
Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."
It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."
Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for "a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."
True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition. But the standing-room-only forum yesterday, where just a single questioner offered even a tepid defense of the president, underscored some deep disillusionment among conservatives over Bush's big-spending answer to Medicare and Hurricane Katrina, his vast claims of executive power, and his handling of postwar Iraq.
The Neutering of the American Male: a review of Manliness by Harvey Mansfield (James Bowman, March 7, 2006, The New York Sun)
[W]hat makes Manliness an exercise in manly assertion is that the book is as much about Professor Mansfield as it is about manliness. His assertion of what manliness is is thrillingly argued and never less than fascinating, but ultimately and inevitably it comes across as somewhat idiosyncratic. We can't help feeling that, by golly, the professor makes a great case, but it is his case. [...]Somewhat surprisingly, Professor Mansfield ends by accepting the gender-neutral society, with all its shortcomings and self-contradictions as inevitable. But in order to realize it, we need "to readopt the distinction between public and private that is characteristic of liberalism . . .Thus citizens should be defined in gender-neutral terms. But in the private sphere, in society, we should think of men and women really, not formally."
The liberal state, Professor Mansfield reminds us, "is neither male nor female." But "the gender-neutral society gives no respect to the liberal distinction between state and society." In other words, the personal should once again cease to be the political, as it was in pre-feminist times, so that "nature" -- and in particular the distinctive natures of men and women -- might be allowed to reassert itself.
I wish he had had more to say about why such an outcome would be more desirable, as well as more logical, than the gender-neutral society's status quo. For instance, though he mentions the threat to our liberal society from "Islamic fascism" and its rampant thumos, he doesn't insist on the need for a revived sense of manliness of our own to stand militarily against it.
Missed Tributes (Ben Stein, 3/6/2006, American Spectator)
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful. [...]
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection.
Former Black Panther Aaron Dixon to run for Senate (NEIL MODIE, 3/08/06, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)
Aaron Dixon, a black community activist and icon of Seattle's political left for nearly 40 years, is running for the U.S. Senate, posing what could be a potent threat to Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell's chances for re-election.Dixon, 57, a co-founder of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, is announcing at a news conference Thursday his candidacy for the Green Party nomination. In a close general election, he conceivably could peel enough liberal votes from Cantwell to help hand the election to Republican businessman Mike McGavick.
In other words, Dixon could do for McGavick what another third-party candidate, Libertarian Jeff Jared, arguably did for Cantwell when she unseated Republican Sen. Slade Gorton in 2000. Cantwell won by 2,229 votes, and many Republicans think the 64,734 votes for Jared cost Gorton the election.
"This has got to be great news for McGavick and bad news for Cantwell," University of Washington political scientist David Olson said of Dixon's candidacy. That's particularly so, he said, because Dixon could pull votes from two reliably Democratic constituencies, environmentalists and African Americans.
Some liberals are angry at Cantwell for having voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution, the USA Patriot Act and the 2005 Central American Free Trade Agreement.
US oil supplies jump to seven-year high: EIA (Reuters, 3/08/06)
U.S. commercial crude supplies shot to the highest level in nearly seven years last week on sluggish refinery use and high imports, the government said on Wednesday.0U.S. oil stocks jumped 6.8 million barrels in the week ended March 3 to 335.1 million barrels, or 10 percent higher than last year, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical arm of the Department of Energy.
"The crude build is huge," said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell more than $1.00 after the report to $60.55 a barrel. In May 1999, the last time supplies were as high, oil futures were less than $17 a barrel.
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OPEC agrees to keep taps open to cool oil prices (Peg Mackey and Barbara Lewis, 3/07/06, Reuters) - OPEC said on Wednesday it will keep oil output close to the limit to bring prices within consumers' comfort zone and fill supply gaps, but a threat by Iran to review its oil exports cast a shadow.
Bush Orders DHS to Create Center for Faith-Based Aid (Spencer S. Hsu, 3/08/06, Washington Post )
President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security yesterday to create a center for faith-based and community initiatives within 45 days to eliminate regulatory, contracting and programmatic barriers to providing federal funds to religious groups to deliver social services, the White House announced last night.Pressed both by churches that have not received privately raised Hurricane Katrina relief funds as promised and by the outpouring of help of religious groups to Gulf Coast storm victims, Bush also called on the department by September "to identify all existing barriers . . . that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation" of such groups in federal programs.
In signing an executive order, Bush asked the department to develop pilot programs, conduct outreach and provide technical assistance to the groups in concert with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
The departments of Justice, Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services have similar centers.
Fire Chief Caught On The Lamb (The Smoking Gun, 3/07/06)
If our mail is any indication, many of you are very interested in the case of the Arizona man who was arrested this weekend after being found in a neighbor's barn with his pants down and a gray lamb at his side.
Oscar Winner Hits Angry Chord: 'Pimp' Song Denounced for Exploiting Negative Stereotypes (Avis Thomas-Lester, 3/07/06, Washington Post )
When Christine Smith heard the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" announced as the Oscar winner for best original song on Sunday night's telecast, she almost fell off the sofa in her Arlington living room.Deborah Veney Robinson of Silver Spring had pretty much the same reaction. So did Juaquin Jessup of Northwest Washington.
"It was just like during the time when all the blaxploitation films were coming out with African Americans being portrayed as pimps and hos and gangsters," said Jessup, 51.
"It was another example of how they pick the worst aspects of black life and reward that. There are more important things in our culture that need focus more than the hardships of a pimp," he said. "The only place many people see our culture is through movies and on television, and at the same time, this country is experiencing an influx of people coming over here from all over the world, and the only thing they see of black America through the media is . . . pimps and gangsters and all of that. It's always some low-down brother or some welfare mother."
Particularly offensive to Robinson, 36, was the performance by hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, featuring men dressed as pimps and women in the hot pants and rabbit furs of streetwalkers. "I have no problem with movies and songs being gritty," she said, "but I have a problem with something that falls just short of a minstrel show."
Funny, He Doesn't Look Jamaican: Chart-Topping Matisyahu Wants to Be More Than Just a Hasidic Reggae Superstar (Teresa Wiltz, 2/19/06, Washington Post )
Backstage at Madison Square Garden, Matisyahu cuts a striking figure, more rabbinical than reggae, 6 feet 3, all Talmudic beard and tzitzit fringe, shaking hands with the men, smiling at the women, saying, yes, yes, hopefully, one day soon, he'll be the one headlining. God willing .Just minutes before, he was onstage, rapping and beatboxing, singing praises, bouncing like Bob Marley. Folks in this mostly white crowd of college kids were standing in their seats, arms in the air, jamming to the beat. Hollering. Not a bad way to debut at the Garden, especially for an opening act with an unusual concept -- a Hasidic reggae singer.
Now Matisyahu's working a different kind of performance: the industry Meet & Greet. He's making his rounds, navigating the terrain between religion and ambition, dodging potholes. For example: He's presented with a preteen fan, her dad wielding a disposable camera. The girl grins hopefully, revealing a mouthful of metal. Would he? Sure. But just before the camera clicks, she slips in closer to Matisyahu -- and he ever so slightly arches his lean frame away from the girl's, carving vital inches of space between their bodies.
The life of a charismatic rapper-singer with crossover dreams and spiritual convictions poses its challenges.
It's America's 'pastime,' but a Latin obsession (GREG COTE, 3/08/06, MiamiHerald.com)
Flags waved, whistles blew, horns honked, maracas shook, cowbells clanged and somebody shot high brass notes from a trumpet into a perfect sky. The people who filled the small stadium bobbed and danced and chanted here Tuesday and this was still three hours before the game because, sometimes, when you love it enough, even the anticipation of baseball is plenty.The map swore this was all happening in the shadow of Walt Disney's Orlando, which is to say Norman Rockwell's America. But it couldn't have been.
This must have been Caracas.
This could have been Santo Domingo.
This might have been heaven, from the vantage of baseball commissioner Bud Selig -- just the right game and just the right atmosphere to launch the controversial, criticized World Baseball Classic in passion and style.
The Dominican Republic would flex its muscles and beat Venezuela 11-5 on a pair of homers each by David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre to offset one (and nearly a second) by the Marlins' Miguel Cabrera. This wasn't so much about the scoreboard, though, especially with both of these Caribbean powers expected to advance to the second round from an Orlando-based pool that includes international baseball weaklings Australia and Italy.
But you weren't going to convince these fans of that. You could argue that no people on Earth hold this game more dearly than do Dominicans and Venezuelans. You can debate whether baseball remains ''America's Pastime.'' You cannot argue it is Latin America's passion. [...]
Dominicans and Venezuelans, more than any other people you can name, are raised on baseball to a degree we no longer are. It is why more than one-third of all players currently in the minor leagues are from those two countries. It is why plenty of people can see a day coming when Major League Baseball's main pipelines begin in the two nations we saw play here Tuesday.
You could say it starts with all of those talented players, but those talented players might argue and say it starts with what you saw and heard in the stands.
''I wasn't surprised at all; that's the way we do it,'' Venezuela pitcher Johan Santana said afterward of the raucous crowd. ``We show today how our passion is for the game. We show today about Latin American baseball.''
Blog Wars (Howard Kurtz, March 8, 2006, Washington Post)
I knew a few days ago that the New York Times was planning a piece on big companies like Wal-Mart using friendly bloggers to get their message out.The reason I knew this, of course, is that some of the bloggers posted preemptive pieces after the paper contacted them for comment. (I have very mixed feelings about that, since no reporter wants to get scooped on his own story because he's trying to be fair by calling people. Welcome to life in the blogosphere.)
More interesting, though, is how Michael Barbaro's Times story paints the practice by Wal-Mart and others as faintly disreputable, when you could argue that it's just classic PR, no different than trying to find the right newspaper reporter (or radio talker or cable host) in an effort to get a fair shake.
It's a very different story, obviously, if a blogger runs the corporate spin verbatim, without disclosing the source, just as it would be for a garden-variety reporter to reprint a handout. Whether bloggers are doing that remains in dispute.
Annan urges overhaul of UN operations (EDITH M. LEDERER, 3/07/06, Associated Press)
United Nations — Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged U.N. member states Tuesday to approve a radical overhaul of the world body's operations that would include a 2,500-member rapid reaction team to help millions facing hunger, violence and terrorism.After decades of piecemeal reform, Mr. Annan told the 191 members a radical overhaul is needed because current United Nations rules and regulations “make it very hard for the organization to conduct its work efficiently or effectively.”
Since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, he said, the United Nations has changed from an organization of conferences and meetings to a global body engaged in peacekeeping, humanitarian relief efforts, electoral assistance and human rights monitoring.
New migration rules will grant residency after just two years (GERRI PEEV , 3/08/06, The Scotsman)
IMMIGRANTS wishing to settle in Scotland will now have to live here for just two years before being granted residency, after the government halved the qualifying time in an effort to boost the population north of the Border - while making it more difficult to settle in England.Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, unveiled a points-based system that allowed Scotland to lure foreign workers by granting them indefinite leave to remain, in less than half the time than if they settled in England or Wales, where the qualifying time for residency is to be raised from four to five years.
Democrats' Data Mining Stirs an Intraparty Battle: With Private Effort on Voter Information, Ickes and Soros Challenge Dean and DNC (Thomas B. Edsall, March 8, 2006, Washington Post)
A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.The effort by Harold Ickes, a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is prompting intense behind-the-scenes debate in Democratic circles. Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party.
Fresh From The Garden: Succulent rhubarb gives sauces and chutney a lovely tang (ANN LOVEJOY, , March 8, 2006, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
To experiment with rhubarb, try it where you might use lemons. Whether red, pink or green, try succulent rhubarb stems in chutneys and savory sauces as well as desserts. Diced or chopped rhubarb adds a lovely sour tang to chicken or hot-and-sour soups.If you love the bright, fresh flavor of rhubarb, you can freeze sliced raw stalks for up to three months. The huge leaves of all rhubarbs contain toxins, so never use them as food. [...]
RHUBARB BROWN BETTY
SERVES 4-6# 1 organic orange, juiced, zest grated
# 8 cups rhubarb, cut in 1-inch pieces
# 1/2 to 1 cup fructose or 1 to 2 cups sugar
# 6 cups fresh bread crumbs
# 2 tablespoons butter, softened
# 2 tablespoons walnut or vegetable oil
# 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
# 1/4 teaspoon coriander
# 1/2 cup brown sugar
# 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
# 1/2 cup hazelnuts, choppedIn a saucepan, combine rhubarb with fructose or sugar and orange zest and juice. Use the lesser amount if you prefer tart desserts and the greater amount for a sweeter one. Sprinkle with just enough water to keep from burning (start with 2 tablespoons). Cover pan and cook over medium heat until barely tender (8-10 minutes).
In a food processor or mixing bowl, blend bread crumbs, butter, oil, spices, brown sugar and nuts. Set aside.
Line a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with half the crumb mix and top with rhubarb mixture. Pat remaining crumb mixture over top of rhubarb. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown (about 45 minutes). Serve hot.
Gordon Parks, a Master of the Camera, Dies at 93 (ANDY GRUNDBERG, 3/08/06, NY Times)
Gordon Parks, the photographer, filmmaker, writer and composer who used his prodigious, largely self-taught talents to chronicle the African-American experience and to retell his own personal history, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.His death was announced by Genevieve Young, his former wife and executor. Gordon Parks was the first African-American to work as a staff photographer for Life magazine and the first black artist to produce and direct a major Hollywood film, "The Learning Tree," in 1969.
He developed a large following as a photographer for Life for more than 20 years, and by the time he was 50 he ranked among the most influential image makers of the postwar years. In the 1960's he began to write memoirs, novels, poems and screenplays, which led him to directing films. In addition to "The Learning Tree," he directed the popular action films "Shaft" and "Shaft's Big Score!" In 1970 he helped found Essence magazine and was its editorial director from 1970 to 1973. [...]
Much of his literary energy was channeled into memoirs, in which he mined incidents from his adolescence and early career in an effort to find deeper meaning in them. His talent for telling vivid stories was used to good effect in "The Learning Tree," which he wrote first as a novel and later converted into a screenplay. This was a coming-of-age story about a young black man whose childhood plainly resembled the author's. It was well received when it was published in 1963 and again in 1969, when Warner Brothers released the film version. Mr. Parks wrote, produced and directed the film and wrote the music for its soundtrack. He was also the cinematographer.
"Gordon Parks was like the Jackie Robinson of film," Donald Faulkner, the director of the New York State Writers Institute, once said. "He broke ground for a lot of people — Spike Lee, John Singleton."
Mr. Parks's subsequent films, "Shaft" (1971) and "Shaft's Big Score!" (1972), were prototypes for what became known as blaxploitation films. Among Mr. Park's other accomplishments were a second novel, four books of memoirs, four volumes of poetry, a ballet and several orchestral scores. As a photographer Mr. Parks combined a devotion to documentary realism with a knack for making his own feelings self-evident. The style he favored was derived from the Depression-era photography project of the Farm Security Administration, which he joined in 1942 at the age of 30.
Perhaps his best-known photograph, which he titled "American Gothic," was taken during his brief time with the agency; it shows a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Mr. Parks wanted the picture to speak to the existence of racial bigotry and inequality in the nation's capital. He was in an angry mood when he asked the woman to pose, having earlier been refused service at a clothing store, a movie theater and a restaurant.
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Gordon Parks, an American legend (Jym Wilson, 3/07/06, USA TODAY)
Gordon Parks' unique American perspective (Maria Puente and Jym Wilson, 3/07/06, USA TODAY)
American Classic: Grant Wood and the meaning of his art. (Paul A. Cantor, 03/06/2006, Weekly Standard)
Rocket scientist plots Mugabe's demise: A brilliant expatriate promises to do everything he can to dislodge the Zimbabwean President - and the 'little Mugabes' within his own opposition party (Christina Lamb, March 06, 2006, The Australian)
A ZIMBABWEAN rocket scientist has swept back into his country after 15 years abroad and set himself up as a radical opposition leader, vowing to bring down President Robert Mugabe and end the misrule that has left millions on the edge of starvation."We can't expect the outside world to bring about change," said Arthur Mutambara, 39, leader of a breakaway faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
"As a Zimbabwean, I've had enough of seeing my fellow citizens suffering. The game's up. I'm going to remove Robert Mugabe, I promise you, with every tool at my disposal."
Zimbabweans have been astonished by the sudden arrival on the political scene of one of the country's most eminent expatriate academics.
Ali Farka Touré (Daily Telegraph, 08/03/2006)
Ali Ibrahim Touré was born in 1939 at Kanau, near Timbuktu in the northern Sahara; like many Africans of his generation, he never knew his exact birthdate. He was his parents' tenth child (none of his nine older brothers survived) and acquired the nickname Farka ("Donkey") as a tribute to his stubbornness and endurance. His father died during the Second World War fighting with the French Army, and the family moved to the village of Niafunke, where young Ali received no formal education, working instead in the fields.From his earliest years, he was interested in music, though since his family was a noble one this enthusiasm was at first discouraged. Malian music was traditionally the preserve of the griot caste, and Ali's mother disliked his passion for the gurkel, a traditional sort of guitar, the njarka, a kind of violin, and the ngoni, a species of lute.
When he was 13 he saw three ghostly girls, and then a black and white snake, which led to nervous attacks which plagued him for a year. But when he started playing, the spirit world was pleased with the results.
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Ali Farka Touré, Grammy-Winning Musician of West Africa, Dies (JON PARELES, 3/08/06, NY Times)
Mr. Touré's deep grounding in Malian traditions made him one of African music's most profound innovators. "Mali is first and foremost a library of the history of African music," he said in a 2005 interview with the world-music magazine Fly. "It is also the sharing of history, legend, biography of Africa."In Mali he was considered a national hero. At the news of his death, government radio stations there suspended regular programming to play his music.
Mr. Touré collaborated widely, winning Grammys for albums he made with the American guitarist Ry Cooder ("Talking Timbuktu" in 1994) and with the Malian griot Toumani Diabaté ("In the Heart of the Moon," 2005). He also recorded with the American bluesman Taj Mahal.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Cooder said: "It's important for a traditional performer to be coming from a place and tradition, and most people who are like that tend to be part of their scene rather than transcendent of their scene. That's what their calling is all about. But Ali was a seeker. There was powerful psychology there. He was not governed by anything. He was free to move about in his mind."
We won't let Iran go nuclear, warns Cheney (Alec Russell in Washington and Anton La Guardia, 08/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
The Bush administration yesterday forced Russia to abandon a compromise proposal over Iran's nuclear programme as it stepped up the pressure on Teheran.In the most hawkish rhetoric from a senior US official in months, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, said Iran would not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and hinted at the use of force if it pressed ahead with its nuclear programme.
"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its current course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences," he said.
"For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Liberals seek $60B in cuts to defense (Josephine Hearn, 3/07/06, The Hill)
In its latest move to draw attention to liberal ideas, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will introduce a plan today to divert $60 billion in defense spending to humanitarian assistance, social programs, energy conservation, homeland security and deficit reduction. [...]Some political observers fear that publicizing a Democratic proposal to cut military spending could open Democrats up to criticism that they are weak on security issues. But Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the other co-chairwoman of the caucus, argued that the defense spending is not crucial to national defense, noting that a panel of military experts had vetted the Democrats’ plan.
“We’re talking about taking 60 billion away from defense programs we don’t even use. To me, that looks like Democrats are making sense,” she said. “If all you do around here is fear that it’s going to look like something you shouldn’t look like rather than something you should look like, then you’re wasting your time.”
Harper's Eleven: Meet The Fixer, The Enforcer, The Beauty, The Brain. There's a new crew of power players in Stephen Harper's Ottawa. (JOHN GEDDES, 3/08/06, Maclean's)
[H]arper's old friends and ideological fellow-travellers are glaringly absent from the roster of his new Parliament Hill elite. Scan the list of Harper's Eleven and you will find not a single name that was prominently linked to him when he was rising in Reform, taking over the Canadian Alliance, and capturing the leadership of the reborn Conservative party. Power in his government is flowing through those he thinks can provide what he needs now, or next -- not as an acknowledgment of past services.In fact, Harper's quest for the right person for the moment can make him quick to acquire and discard aides. He has churned through a succession of media managers and chiefs of staff in the past few years. Most recently, he dumped William Stairs, his communications director -- who had seemed to have won Harper's trust during the election -- over differences about how to handle the uproar following David Emerson's appointment as trade minister. Critics suggest Harper is guilty of a petulant inability to work with those who fail to meekly fall in line; admirers point to his steady rise as evidence he has been proven right most of the time. Most recently, they say, polls showing Canadians weren't really outraged by the Emerson defection vindicate Harper's instinct to largely ignore the media frenzy. "Harper is getting ready for a Throne Speech and a budget in April," said one long-time adviser. "It's logical that he would step back during this period, and not spend two hours a day worrying about the needs of the Parliamentary Press Gallery."
Harper's skepticism about the need to feed the daily -- no, hourly -- hunger of the media is one of his defining traits. As Alliance leader, he kept merger talks with the Progressive Conservatives secret for three months in 2003. In the run-up to the recent election, he resisted constant pressure to announce policies early. Instead, he hoarded them as campaign ammunition -- a tactic that worked brilliantly.
Harper is drawn to those who, like him, are willing to bide their time, and don't seem dazzled by the prospect of media exposure. That's good news for discreet operators like Patrick Muttart, whose post-election aura as a wunderkind campaign architect isn't hurt by the fact that he's been virtually invisible in Ottawa. And it explains why Harper has warmed up to a once harsh critic like Senetor Marjory LeBreton, a former top Mulroney aide, who urges him to "stay out of people's faces" -- the sort of advice he's primed to hear.
Strategic value trumps shared history with Harper every time. Back when he was consolidating his position in opposition, he was seen as close to smart young MPs like B.C.'s James Moore, Alberta's James Rajotte, and Ontario's Scott Reid. Not one of them made it into his first cabinet. Instead, the up-and-comers drafted into the cabinet big leagues include Edmonton's Rona Ambrose and Ontario's John Baird, who have only grown close to him since 2004. Their individual talents matter, but so do the key voter demographics they represent: Ambrose, younger, educated women; Baird, urban Ontario.
A similar pattern holds for more seasoned politicians. Veterans Harper worked with in his Reform and Alliance years, notably Calgary's Diane Ablonczy, were passed over in favour of perhaps more moderate figures, such as Jim Prentice, another Albertan, but one who remained a loyal Progressive Conservative through the nineties -- and only developed a rapport with Harper in the past 18 months.
Harper's willingness to invest trust in such new allies was something few saw coming. Back when he was taking command of the Alliance, and then creating the new Conservative party, conventional wisdom had it that if he ever became PM, he would transplant hard-core Calgary conservatism to Ottawa. University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan was widely seen as a permanent fixture as his most important confidant. But Flanagan has faded into the background.
Rather than elevating Calgary's distinctive neo-conservative culture, Harper's victory has given new life to veterans of Mike Harris's Ontario government, like Treasury Board Minister John Baird and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and resuscitated figures rooted in the Mulroney era, like LeBreton, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, and Michael Wilson, his ambassador to the U.S. The key PMO figures -- Ian Brodie, Mark Cameron and Muttart -- were all Ontario-based before the election, and are all more recent additions to Harper's inner circle than his old Calgary network. (In general, the makeup of Harper's cabinet and Martin's are uncannily similar. Average age, 52 in Harper's, 55 in Martin's; 21 per cent women in Harper's, 28 per cent in Martin's. See a full comparison.)
It's intriguing that Harper, along with Prentice, his unofficial chief operating officer, has been reading historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which explores how Abraham Lincoln elevated into his cabinet former adversaries who had once disdained him, and then let them do their jobs. Harper also seems to be ignoring past differences, and the tempting inference would be that Harper plans to afford strong ministers a lot of leeway. Those who have worked closely with him, though, say not to expect him to function as a hands-off delegator.
His desk tends to be piled high. He reads thoroughly on many issues, fleshes out his thinking in one-on-one sessions with experts, then expects highly informed discussion among officials. "You never just walk in and talk to him about an idea," said one adviser. "You write him a well thought-out memo, that you read over and over again to make sure it makes sense. Then give it to him, and then set up a time to go and see him." Detractors say he too often tries to control too much. But others contend he is learning to be selective. "He will micromanage a number of portfolios and utterly ignore a number of other portfolios," one former aide predicts. Which issues will he want to take the lead on? Another former staffer answers that question simply: "The ones he thinks will get him his majority."
Signs of a tendency to intrude on issues deemed strategically crucial for the next election have already appeared. Health Minister Tony Clement was muzzled early by the PMO when he wanted to talk with reporters on a Quebec plan to allow private delivery of publicly funded medical services. Health wait times is on Harper's short list of five priority policies, and he wanted to study Quebec's approach before his government pronounced. Media-friendly ministers like Clement had better get used to it. In these very early days, Harper appears to be succeeding in instilling his patiently opportunistic style on his regime.
China's Underpopulation Crisis: India has one, too (Ian Bremmer, March 7, 2006, Slate)
Recent reports from researchers at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs suggest that China's workforce may begin to shrink sooner than we thought. According to Deutsche Bank's analysis, the percentage of working-age Chinese in the population (those aged 15 to 64) will peak around 2010 at 72.2 percent. Over the next 40 years, that number will fall steadily to just 60.7 percent, according to U.N. forecasts. The steep drop is due in large part to China's one-child policy, first implemented in 1979. Also, many Chinese retire before they are 64; China's current retirement age is 50 for most women and 60 for most men.There are two reasons this shift will put considerable strain on China's economic performance. First, the country's explosive economic growth over the last several years is due mostly to its plentiful supply of cheap labor. When the working-age population begins to drop five years from now, China's appeal to international investors may begin to fall as well.
Second, by 2050, every 10 Chinese workers will support seven Chinese who are too young or too old to work, according to Goldman Sachs. Even that projection is based on the optimistic assumption that the central government will soon persuade its citizens to work until they are 64. The Deutsche Bank study includes a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the transition from the current pension system to a more sustainable one could cost developing China $100 billion, not including the financial burden on local governments.
The population is aging in Japan and in many European countries, as well, but these states are already wealthy. The financial stresses on China, where the average per-capita income remains a fraction of those of developed states, will be much more difficult to bear. Then there are the health-care costs. No one can forecast with confidence what it will cost China to care for the 265 million citizens who will be over the age of 65 by 2020. The worst of the crunch is many years away. But the new reports suggest that the shrinking of China's labor force will begin by the end of this decade.
Home sales slow a bit, but sellers still see lots of buyers (Melissa Allison, 3/07/06, Seattle Times)
The housing market around Puget Sound has slowed from its blistering pace of a year ago, meaning some sellers don't get multiple offers and some have to lower their prices.But prices remain buoyant, with the median sales price for a single-family home in King County last month climbing to $392,950, up 14.7 percent from February 2005, according to numbers released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. The Kirkland-based group tracks home sales in several Washington counties.
Sellers can no longer count on numerous offers for properties with high price tags, but buyers are not calling the shots either.
"It's more balanced than it was last year, but it's not a buyer's market by any stretch of the imagination," said Mike Grady, president of Coldwell Banker Bain, which has 19 offices around Central Puget Sound.
Illegal immigration in US ‘grows by 500,000 annually’ (Edward Alden, March 7 2006, Financial Times)
US immigrationThe number of illegal immigrants in the US has continued to grow by nearly half a million each year in spite of US efforts to increase security at the country’s borders, according to a survey released on Tuesday.The study, by the Pew Hispanic Center, said that the population of unauthorised migrants reached between 11.5m and 12m last year, accounting for nearly a third of the foreign-born population in the US. That number is up from roughly 8.4m in 2000.
The continued rise was driven primarily by the strong demand for low-skilled work in the US.
Papi, Beltre power Dominican past Venezuela (Associated Press, 3/07/06)
A lively sellout crowd, two All-Star lineups and a couple Cy Young Award winners.This is exactly what commissioner Bud Selig had in mind when he pushed for the World Baseball Classic, and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela made the concept look like a stroke of genius Tuesday.
David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre each homered twice, leading the powerful Dominican Republic to an 11-5 victory in the opening game of Pool D, a tough grouping that also includes Australia and Italy.
Gadget Lets Authors Sign Books From Afar (JILL LAWLESS, 3/05/06, Associated Press)
Margaret Atwood has had enough of long journeys, late nights and writer's cramp. Tired of grueling book tours, the Booker Prize-winning Canadian author on Sunday unveiled her new invention: a remote-controlled pen that allows writers to sign books for fans from thousands of miles away.
Soft Europe: Is the Continent willing to fight for anything, besides a welfare check? (LEON DE WINTER, March 7, 2006, Opinion Journal)
After the horrors of World War II, Western Europe turned to new ideals of radical pacifism and post-nationalism. The Continent had been devastated by war twice in three decades. In the 1950s, the desire to avoid more war led it to a new ideology, permeating society and politics, that viewed national interests and cultural traditions as relative. As a result, people started to believe that peaceful coexistence with communist Eastern Europe was better than emphasizing the differences between East and West.The largest demonstration ever in my own country, the Netherlands, was held in 1983 against the stationing of U.S. cruise missiles on Dutch soil. Anti-American sentiments were popular then as well, since America was a country that was prepared to oppose the Soviets with force, while the demonstrators categorically rejected any use of violence in favor of other means. What these means were remained vague for most people, but that was unimportant as long as the central issue was the growing threat of war implied by the stationing of U.S. missiles.
Little has changed in recent decades. Europe became wealthier and more convinced of its idea that world peace can be achieved by talk alone. Even the West European countries in the American-led coalition in Iraq, apart from the British, are only participating symbolically in order not to offend their main ally. In the Netherlands, the authorities speak of "peace missions" when discussing Dutch military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, avoiding terms like "war" and "violence."
If the threat were limited to the Middle East, the European reluctance to act now that Iran has de facto begun developing nuclear weapons might be almost understandable. But it is clear that the Iranian theocracy has set its sights far beyond its region. The rhetoric of the Iranian regime has been clear for years. As with Germany in the 1930s, anti-Semitism plays a key role in modern Iranian politics. If Iran succeeds, its nuclear weapons will be controlled by people who believe that they should bring the End of Days closer--a notion not dissimilar to Hitler's apocalyptic visions. An Iranian bomb threatens the very existence of Western civilization.
But what does Western civilization mean in and to Europe? In the European welfare state, the system ensures that each individual can rely on maximum social security. Without doubt, the welfare state is the ultimate achievement of European civilization. But it did not come without a philosophy: the welfare state gave birth to a postmodern cultural relativism that underpins the tolerant, liberal, pacifistic and secular European societies of today.
Only the Earth is still a planet on which opposing forces collide. The welfare state, based on its provision of social services and the participation of reasonably acting civilians, is unable to respond to globalization or mass immigration. Its structures work as long as the system is closed. But because of vast changes in demographics and economics, the welfare state has become too expensive. All over Europe its fundaments are cracking.
Bishop won't present award (JEANETTE DeFORGE, March 03, 2006, The Republican)
The St. Patrick's Parade Committee will suspend its long-standing tradition of having the Roman Catholic bishop present its highest award after learning that the honoree supports abortion rights.Thomas J. Ridge, who served from 2001 to 2005 as the nation's first chief of homeland security, still is slated to receive this year's John F. Kennedy Award, which honors someone of Irish heritage for distinguished achievement.
But, when Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell of the Springfield Diocese voiced his objections to Ridge, the parade committee agreed that its president, David J. O'Connor, will make the presentation. [...]
The award to Ridge is not the only Holyoke parade controversy this year.
Another focuses on Northern Ireland political leader Gerry Adams, president of the Sinn Fein party, who is due to march in the parade.
Sinn Fein, the political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, was a key player in talks that brought an end to sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
But British authorities still maintain that Adams also was sercretly a leader of the Irish Republican Army, which waged a decades-long campaign of violence aimed at ending British control of Northern Ireland so it could be united with the Republic of Ireland.
Adams was invited by U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield.
Sen. Clinton Says Wear 'Anger' As Honor (AP, 3/7/2006)
"If [Republicans say we're angry], wear it as a badge of honor, because you know what? There are lots of things that we should be angry and outraged about these days," [Hilary Rodham Clinton] said....It was the latest volley in a rhetorical back-and-forth between Clinton and leading GOP strategists that began last month, when Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Clinton "seems to have a lot of anger" ...
WORST CASE REALITY: Air America Appears To Lose Flagship Station (Brian Maloney, 3/03/06, The Radio Equalizer)
While Air America Radio's loss of two affiliates in Phoenix and Missoula, Montana is generating news this week, the company itself probably hasn't been able to give either city a second thought.Why? In a development sure to rip the heart right out of the liberal radio network's already ailing body, it appears extremely likely their leased New York City flagship station WLIB-AM will soon abandon Air America programming.
Even worse, litigation looks probable over the station's lease.
While the network's last day on WLIB isn't known for certain, an internal source providing backing documentation points to the end of March.
The time-warp family who walk on all fours (BEN FARMER, 3/07/06, Daily Mail)
An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.
The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, 'bear crawl' on their feet and palms.
Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.
Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.
And it could provide invaluable information on how humans evolved from a four-legged hominid into a creature walking on two feet.
Immersed in science, religion (Susan Palmer, February 6, 2006, The Register-Guard)
You would not expect a meticulous researcher such as Charley Dewberry to want to knock science off its cultural pedestal.But there it is.
Dewberry, a stream ecologist, has been studying coastal coho salmon in the Siuslaw watershed for more than 20 years. He's helped create salmon recovery plans and spends weeks each year snorkeling creeks and streams - from shallow riffles to deeper pools - to track the impact of watershed recovery efforts.
His careful work along Knowles Creek has made him an expert on the species that winds through so much of our public and private discourse about the Pacific Northwest and its well-being.
But Dewberry is also the academic dean of Gutenberg College, a little-known liberal arts institute in Eugene dedicated to the careful study of the Bible as well as the world's great books.
In a society torn by extremist debate that often pits science against religion, Dewberry is uniquely positioned to comment on both realms. For him there is no separation between scientific and religious inquiry, no boundaries in his search for the truth.
Neither the robotic researcher rejecting intelligent design, nor the devoted creationist outright refuting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, Dewberry finds strands of truth in both arenas.
Until now, he's stayed out of the public debate, but that's about to change. Next month, Gutenberg will publish a book by Dewberry - still untitled - that will examine the dispute. [...]
[H]e stumbled onto two seminal works critiquing the philosophical underpinnings of science, one by physicist Thomas Kuhn, the other by medical doctor and chemist Michael Polanyi. Both called into question the notion of objectivity in the scientific method. Their writing resonated with Dewberry, who came to agree with them. Values and beliefs can't be completely distilled out of empirical science.
Rather than an amalgam of bias-free facts, science is just one more way of obtaining knowledge.
WORLD But isn't the role of science to provide the facts?DEWBERRY Science plays an important role in providing facts. Those that argue, however, that science has a privileged role because of the greater certainty and objectivity inherent in its method are wrong because human subjectivity is always involved in how we know things.
WORLD So are you opposed to peer-reviewed empirical science?
DEWBERRY No. Good scientific research is valuable information. What I am opposed to is the belief that peer-reviewed empirical science journal articles have inherently greater assurance and objectivity than other forms of knowledge, such as the discovery of a theory, or other forms of inquiry, such as history. It is just not true that a science journal article reviewed by several reviewers has inherently any greater objectivity than, say, a history journal article reviewed by several reviewers.
WORLD You also think the role of statistics is minor compared with that of experience and skill gained in the field.
DEWBERRY If science is viewed as a method that leads to more certain knowledge than other pursuits, then doing science is reduced to carefully following the method which has a mechanical nature; the mechanical method, not the scientist, ensures the outcome. Statistics is the means of reducing human judgment to a mechanical process. Unfortunately, science can never be reduced to this mechanical process. Doing science is an art. It is a human endeavor that takes skill and genius as well as a little luck to be great. Skills are honed by experience. Therefore, statistics play only a small role in the science.
WORLD You're knocking aside just about everything on which the rule by scientists is based. What about the review of manuscripts submitted for publication. Is that "value-free"?
DEWBERRY No. When I am asked to review a manuscript, one question always included with the review instructions is, "Is this paper interesting or significant?" This question screens all manuscripts based on the values of the reviewer. If the paper is not interesting or significant, then it will never be published. Furthermore, reviewers are doing much more than checking the experimental methods, data collection, and the appropriateness of the conclusions, and thus their beliefs and values enter into the process at many points.
WORLD Who, then, wears the robes of authority concerning the truth of science?
DEWBERRY Virtually everyone involved in salmon recovery—and people in general, I believe—assumes that the authority of science rests with the scientific community through the peer-review process. I find this curious and ironic.
At the dawn of modern science, it was the Catholic Church that argued that the authority of science rested with the community of practitioners (theirs, of course). It was the Copernicans, especially Galileo, who argued that the authority of science and truth rested with the individual scientist. Moving the authority of science to the individual scientist was one of the key steps in the Copernican Revolution and the foundation of modern science. We have essentially come full circle. We just replaced one priesthood for another. We have returned to the model of authority of the medieval Catholic Church.
Brazil: Lula's leap (The Economist
Why is he now likely to win? Speaking to The Economist in a rare interview, Lula cited over and over what he regards as his twin triumphs: economic stability plus social progress. “How many countries have achieved what we have: fiscal responsibility and a strong social policy at the same time?” he asks. “Never in the economic history of Brazil have we had the solid fundamentals we have now.” Brazil is ready for “a leap in quality”, he says.Such a leap is what Brazil—a country with a population (186m) equal to that of the whole of the rest of South America and a land area bigger than all 25 EU countries combined—has been waiting for since the early 1970s, when it was one of the world's fastest growing economies. Then its economy stumbled into debt and inflation, while other emerging economies like China and India began to take off, generating more global buzz. In his interview at the presidential ranch, Granja do Torto, Lula defended a slow and steady approach to growth and promised further reform in a possible second term. “The future”, he says, “will be built on strong investment in education and training, with tax relief to encourage new investment, notably in science and technology.” Since becoming president in January 2003, he has achieved much of what he set out to do, but has not yet cleared all obstacles to Brazil's great leap forward. [...]
[L]ula got two big things right: the economy and poverty alleviation. Comparing Brazil's vital indicators when Lula took over with the same ones now “is like looking at two different economies”, says Vinod Thomas, former head of the World Bank in Brazil. In the autumn of 2002, Brazil's currency, the real, plunged, largely because the markets feared Lula's arrival. Inflation, already in double digits, threatened to spike higher and the yield on Brazil's dollar bonds was 25 percentage points above that of American Treasuries. The new government swerved away from disaster. The finance minister, Antonio Palocci, raised the target for the public sector's primary surplus (before interest payments) by half a percentage point to 4.25% of GDP, persuading the markets that Lula could be trusted to pay Brazil's public debt. The central bank steadied the real and raised interest rates to choke inflation.
An economy that swooned every time confidence in emerging markets wobbled now looks steadier. Spurred by a devaluation in 1999 and buoyant demand for commodities, exports have boomed, turning a current-account deficit into surplus. Mr Palocci has used the inflow of dollars to pay off foreign creditors, including the IMF. Soon, Brazil will no longer have to worry about a falling real driving up its debt burden. The risk premium has fallen to a record low of two percentage points.
Much of the grumbling is about the price Brazil has paid for stability. Under Lula, economic growth has averaged just 2.6% a year, barely better than the dismal average of the last 15 years. There are at least three culprits. At around 11%, Brazilian real interest rates are among the highest in the world. Government grabs an estimated 38% of GDP in the form of taxes and contributions, well above the tax take of most other Latin American economies. Even with all that revenue, central government investment has shrunk to a derisory 0.5% of GDP. [...]
The next president should disentangle state sales taxes, restructure trade unions and “update” labour law to make it “less burdensome for an employer to hire a worker”, Lula says.
Poll finds majority favors N.H. smoking ban in restaurants, bars (AP, March 6, 2006)
The poll said New Hampshire residents support a workplace smoking ban by a margin of more than four to one. It reported 79 percent favored a ban; 18 percent did not.Eighty-eight percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans polled supported a ban; 80 percent of undeclared voters also supported a smoking ban, the survey said.
A strong majority of people polled -- 84 percent -- said they were concerned about the health effects of secondhand smoke. Eighty-seven percent said workers should be protected from secondhand smoke.
Of smokers polled, 58 percent said they believed the right of people to breathe clean air in restaurants and bars outweighed their right to smoke in those places.
Nine out of 10 people, 93 percent, said they would enjoy going out more if they didn't end up smelling like smoke after visiting a bar or restaurant. Four percent of people surveyed said a smoking ban would discourage them from going out; 16 percent said it would encourage them, 80 percent said they were indifferent.
Campus Military Enrolling Upheld
High Court Backs Aid-Recruiting Tie (John P. Gregg, 3/07/06, Valley News)
VLS President and Dean Geoffrey Shields said the court's ruling gives “great deference” to congressional powers, under the Constitution, to raise an army but short shrift to VLS and other opponents' arguments that the dispute was both a free speech issue and an important statement about the rights of gays and lesbians. [...]“We think it's a speech issue, but the Supreme Court looks at it differently,” said Shields, who estimated the longstanding policy by VLS to ban military recruiters on campus costs the school about $500,000 in potential grants each year.
Student loans are unaffected.
“There is really no discussion whatsoever about the rights of gays and lesbians, and how that class is treated. They really take a complete pass on that,” Shields added.
Under the “don't ask, don't tell” policy, gays are allowed to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.
Shields also noted that in the ruling, justices said that Congress could directly demand military access on campus, even without the threat of losing federal money.
“If the stakes are raised, if the government passes the law saying ‘you have to do it,' then we'll do it,” Shields said of allowing military recruiters at VLS.
Mideast Investment Up in U.S.: Proposed Ports Deal Is Just Part of Flood of Oil Wealth Spilling Ashore (Paul Blustein, 3/07/06, Washington Post)
Middle Eastern investment in the United States is once again picking up steam, showing big gains since the tense period following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And while some takeovers are triggering alarm -- most famously, the purchase by a Dubai-owned company of a seaports management firm -- others are evoking warm welcomes.Spearheading the trend is Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktum (popularly known as "Sheik Mo"), ruler of the freewheeling city-state, which is part of the United Arab Emirates. The ports deal is just one of a series of recent purchases by companies he controls.
Other acquisitions include a $1 billion portfolio of 21,000 apartments in U.S. Sun Belt cities; a 2.2 percent stake in the automotive giant DaimlerChrysler AG that cost another $1 billion; and a Manhattan landmark building, 230 Park Ave. The emirate also made major purchases in other countries over the past year, notably a $1.5 billion takeover of Britain's Tussauds Group, which owns the famous waxworks, along with theme parks, roller coasters and other entertainment-oriented businesses.
Google Has Plan to Act As Hard Drive for Users' Files (Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2006, p B3)
Google Inc. aims to be able to store on its own computers files that consumers normally keep on their hard drives, according to a document the Internet company inadvertently released on the Web....Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt cryptically told analysts Thursday that Google wants "to be able to store everybody's information all the time." Executive-speaking notes from the analyst-day event, which the company accidentally made available briefly on the Web, reveal intriguing details about its ambitions. Google is moving toward being able to "store 100% of user data," the notes indicate, citing, "emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks" as a few examples.... The internal notes say Google's "store 100%" scenario would be made possible if Google had "infinite storage."
The notes ... refer to what appear to be unannounced Google initiatives including one dubbed "GDrive."... The GDrive name suggests Google might allow users to store their files on Google computers that they can access over the Web from devices such as personal computers and cellphones....
According to the notes, Google believes storing users' data centrally will make the computing device -- such as a PC or phone -- less important. That could undercut the advantage that Microsoft has ...
VIDEO: Adonal Foyle: Founder of Democracy Matters (Brian Lamb, 3/05/06, C-SPAN: Q&A)
Judicious Double Standards (Richard Cohen, March 7, 2006, Washington Post)
Back behind my high school one day, we all assembled to watch a fistfight. To my immense pleasure, a bully was being bested by his victim. Then the bully's friend stepped in and ended matters with a swift kick to the other guy's midsection. It was an unfair ending to what was supposed to be a fair fight, but it taught me a valuable lesson: You treat your friends differently than you do your enemies.This elemental principle of life, love and other matters seems utterly lost on so many critics of George Bush's agreement to provide India with civilian nuclear technology. In doing so, we are told, he has done something truly awful -- established a double standard. Well, duh -- yes. India is our friend and Iran, just to pick an example, is not.
The cry of "double standard" is a bit silly.
IRAQ: THE UNTOLD TRUTHS (RALPH PETERS, 3/06/06, NY Post)
What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army.
AS a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. After all the lies and exaggerations splashed in your direction, the truth is that we're seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge. The media may cling to its image of earlier failures, but last week was a great Iraqi success.
Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity: Amid GOP Troubles, No Unified Message (Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington, March 7, 2006, Washington Post)
Democratic leaders had set a goal of issuing their legislative manifesto by November 2005 to give voters a full year to digest their proposals. But some Democrats protested that the release date was too early, so they put it off until January. The new date slipped twice again, and now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) says the document will be unveiled in "a matter of weeks."Some Democrats fear that the hesitant handling is symbolic of larger problems facing the party in trying to seize control of the House and Senate after more than a decade of almost unbroken minority status. Lawmakers and strategists have complained about erratic or uncertain leadership and repeated delays in resolving important issues.
The conflict goes well beyond Capitol Hill. The failure of congressional leaders to deliver a clear message has left some Democratic governors deeply frustrated and at odds with Washington Democrats over strategy. [...]
Also dividing Democratic strategists is the question of what lessons to take from the Republican landslide of 1994, when the GOP won the Senate and picked up 54 House seats, wiping out 40 years of Democratic rule. Some Democrats associate that breakthrough with the House Republicans' "Contract With America," a list of proposals on policy and government.
"We should take a page from their book" and have "an overarching theme" similar to the 1994 contract, said Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.).
Many of his colleagues agree, but not Reid. "We're not going to do a 'Contract With America,' " Reid said in an interview. He noted that the GOP document received scant attention when it was presented a few weeks before the 1994 election, and political historians say it played a minor role in the outcome. "There's a great mythology about the contract," Reid said.
Even the party's five-word 2006 motto has preoccupied congressional Democrats for months. "We had meetings where senators offered suggestions," Reid said. "We had focus groups. We worked hard on that. . . . It's a long, slow, arduous process."
That slogan -- "Together, America Can Do Better" -- was revived from the 2004 presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry.
MORE:
The Democrats' Real Problem (E. J. Dionne Jr., March 7, 2006, Washington Post)
The false premise is that oppositions win midterm elections by offering a clear program, such as the Republicans' 1994 Contract With America. I've been testing this idea with such architects of the 1994 "Republican revolution" as former representative Vin Weber and Tony Blankley, who was Newt Gingrich's top communications adviser and now edits the Washington Times editorial page.Both said the main contribution of the contract was to give inexperienced Republican candidates something to say once the political tide started moving the GOP's way. But both insisted that it was disaffection with Bill Clinton, not the contract, that created the Republicans' opportunity -- something Bob Dole said at the time.
Behind the baby gap lies a culture of contempt for parenthood: In a society that values consumption, choice and independence above all, it's a wonder that we have as many babies as we do (Madeline Bunting, March 7, 2006, The Guardian)
A seven-month pregnant woman - her belly vast - was at a supper with a friend. He, being of the family type, told her she was very lucky to be expecting a baby. He was the first person who had said such a thing, she told him.It's a jarring anecdote because it so sharply puts into focus how pregnancy has become the occasion not for congratulations, but for anxious questions about childcare, leave and work. Watch how the announcement of a pregnancy among women is followed within minutes by the "What are you going to do?" question. We've replaced the age-old anxiety around life-threatening childbirth with a new - and sometimes it appears just as vast - cargo of anxiety around who is going to care.
This anxiety is the backdrop to the 90,000 baby gap - the number of additional babies that women would like to have had - identified by a recent Institute of Public Policy Research report on how the birth rate is falling below replenishment levels. How is it that in cultures all over the world pregnancies prompt congratulations rather than anxious questions about childcare? How is it that in a culture equipped, materially and medically, to ease child-rearing, we are so reluctant to enjoy new life?
The answer, I would argue, is that a bias against having babies has permeated our culture. This phenomenon needs a new word - anti-natalism - and it is this that prompts a good part of that pregnancy trepidation. [...]
[P]arenthood is against the grain of all the aspirations of our culture. Go back to the point where I started - the pregnancy anxiety around care. That anxiety is provoked by more than just the logistics of childcare availability, despite what the nursery campaigners argue. It's there because pregnancy sabotages three characteristics highly valued by our culture.
First, independence: pregnancy heralds at least one relationship of dependence, and there is often greater dependence on partners, mothers and, eventually, childminders and the like. But you've spent much of the previous 10 years attempting to eradicate any hint of dependence, either of your own or of others on you. Secondly, pregnancy is about a long-term commitment, and having avoided all such (including probably to your partner), you are, at the very least, uneasy about it. Finally, the big bump in your stomach spells out one thing for sure - a huge constraint on many choices, and choice has been integral to your sense of a life worth living.
In other words, the self we are encouraged to develop through much of our education system and early adulthood is of no use whatsoever to a new parent. What use is that sassy, independent, self-assertive, knowing-what-youwant- and-how-to-get-it type when you fast forward five years to the emotional labour of helping a child develop selfconfidence? Once there's a baby in the cot, you need steadiness, loyalty, endurance, patience, sensitivity and even self-denial - all the characteristics that you've spent the previous decade trashing as dull or, even worse, for losers. Forget trying to work out your own feelings - you'll be too busy trying to work out those of your children; ditto self-confidence and self-expression.
Box office blues: Low Oscar ratings reflect lack of blockbuster flicks (Sean L. McCarthy, March 7, 2006, Boston Herald)
Low ratings for an Academy Awards show that touted low-grossing movies could make for another down year at the box office.In what sense can movies that no one sees be said to matter?
And Oscar’s willingness to dote on films with political themes could mean that we’ll be seeing more movies that matter this year.
Iraqi Tribes Strike Back at Insurgents: In Turbulent Areas, Zarqawi's Fighters Are Target of Leaders and a New Militia (John Ward Anderson, March 7, 2006, Washington Post)
Tribal chiefs in Iraq's western Anbar province and in an area near the northern city of Kirkuk, two regions teeming with insurgents, are vowing to strike back at al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni-led group that is waging war against Sunni tribal leaders who are cooperating with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. Anbar tribes have formed a militia that has killed 20 insurgents from al-Qaeda in Iraq, leaders said.Separately, more than 300 tribal chiefs, politicians, clerics, security officials and other community leaders met last week in Hawijah, about 35 miles southwest of Kirkuk, and "declared war" on al-Qaeda in Iraq. In a communique, the participants vowed "the shedding of blood" of anyone involved in "sabotage, killings, kidnappings, targeting police and army, attacking the oil and gas pipelines and their transporters, assassinating the religious and tribal figures, technicians, and doctors."
"Hawijah was never a hideout for terrorists and fugitives," the statement added. "Anyone who provides refuge to terrorists will be considered and dealt with like a criminal and terrorist."
A new twist for Pennsylvania's Senate race? (Tom Curry, March 6, 2006, MSNBC)
Abortion rights leader Kate Michelman is thinking of jumping into the Senate race in Pennsylvania as an independent.Michelman is appalled by Democratic Party leaders’ selection of anti-abortion candidate Bob Casey Jr. as their choice to try to unseat two-term Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
For Michelman and other supporters of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision, the final straw came in late January when Casey endorsed President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
Ruling allows Dubai firm's takeover of port operator (Associated Press, 3/06/06)
The controversial takeover of British shipping company P&O by Dubai's state-owned DP World received the green light today when Britain's Court of Appeal dismissed a Miami firm's objection to the deal.The Court of Appeal declined to hear an appeal from Miami-based Eller & Co., which had tried to have the deal barred on technical grounds, arguing that U.S. concerns about a United Arab Emirates company owning significant operations at six major U.S. seaports could harm its business.
The lower High Court had already approved the 3.9 billion pound ($6.8 billion) acquisition of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. and today's unanimous decision by the three judges of the Court of Appeal means that the deal is now free to proceed through the final regulatory stages.
In a statement following the decision, P&O said the takeover will now become effective on March 8 and that the shipping company's shares will be delisted from the London, Sydney and Tokyo stock exchanges on March 9.
Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in Its P.R. Campaign (MICHAEL BARBARO, 3/07/06, NY Times)
Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.
But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.
Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit.com, one of the oldest blogs on the Web, said that even in the blogosphere, which is renowned for its lack of rules, a basic tenet applies: "If I reprint something, I say where it came from. A blog is about your voice, it seems to me, not somebody else's." [...]
Copies of e-mail messages that a Wal-Mart representative sent to bloggers were made available to The New York Times by Bob Beller, who runs a blog called Crazy Politico's Rantings. Mr. Beller, a regular Wal-Mart shopper who frequently defends the retailer on his blog, said the company never asked that the messages be kept private.
In the messages, Wal-Mart promotes positive news about itself, like the high number of job applications it received at a new store in Illinois, and criticizes opponents, noting for example that a rival, Target, raised "zero" money for the Salvation Army in 2005, because it banned red-kettle collectors from stores.
The author of the e-mail messages is a blogger named Marshall Manson, a senior account supervisor at Edelman who writes for conservative Web sites like Human Events Online, which advocates limited government, and Confirm Them, which has pushed for the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees.
In interviews, bloggers said Mr. Manson contacted them after they wrote postings that either endorsed the retailer or challenged its critics.
Mr. Beller, who runs Crazy Politico's Rantings, for example, said he received an e-mail message from Mr. Manson soon after criticizing the passage of a law in Maryland that requires Wal-Mart to spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care.
Mr. Manson, identifying himself as a "blogger myself" who does "online public affairs for Wal-Mart," began with a bit of flattery: "Just wanted you to know that your post criticizing Maryland's Wal-Mart health care bill was noticed here and at the corporate headquarters in Bentonville," he wrote, referring to the city in Arkansas.
"If you're interested," he continued, "I'd like to drop you the occasional update with some newsworthy info about the company and an occasional nugget that you won't hear about in the M.S.M." — or mainstream media.
Bloggers who agreed to receive the e-mail messages said they were eager to hear Wal-Mart's side of the story, which they said they felt had been drowned out by critics, and were tantalized by the promise of exclusive news that might attract more visitors to their Web sites.
"I am always interested in tips to stories," said one recipient of Mr. Manson's e-mail messages, Bill Nienhuis, who operates a Web site called PunditGuy.com. [...]
In a sign of how eager Wal-Mart is to develop ties to bloggers, the company has invited them to a media conference to be held at its headquarters in April. In e-mail messages, Wal-Mart has polled several bloggers about whether they would make the trip, which the bloggers would have to pay for themselves.
Mr. Reynolds of Instapundit.com said he recently was invited to Wal-Mart's offices but declined. "Bentonville, Arkansas," he said, "is not my idea of a fun destination."
Desperate Feminist Wives: Why wanting equality makes women unhappy. (Meghan O'Rourke, March 6, 2006, Slate)
In The Feminine Mystique, the late Betty Friedan attributed the malaise of married women largely to traditionalist marriages in which wives ran the home and men did the bread-winning. Her book helped spark the sexual revolution of the 1970s and fueled the notion that egalitarian partnerships—where both partners have domestic responsibilities and pursue jobs—would make wives happier. Last week, two sociologists at the University of Virginia published an exhaustive study of marital happiness among women that challenges this assumption. Stay-at-home wives, according to the authors, are more content than their working counterparts. And happiness, they found, has less to do with division of labor than with the level of commitment and "emotional work" men contribute (or are perceived to contribute). But the most interesting data may be that the women who strongly identify as progressive—the 15 percent who agree most with feminist ideals—have a harder time being happy than their peers, according to evidence that has been provided exclusively to Slate. Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women—who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for—are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed.
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The return of the happy housewife (Charlotte Allen, March 5, 2006, Los Angeles Times)
A new study by two University of Virginia sociologists concludes that stay-at-home wives whose husbands are the primary family breadwinners don't suffer from "the problem that has no name," as Friedan famously wrote in 1963. In fact, the majority of full-time homemakers don't experience any kind of special problem, according to professors W. Bradford Wilcox and Stephen L. Nock, who analyzed data from a huge University of Wisconsin survey of families, conducted during the 1990s.Here are the figures, published in this month's issue of the journal Social Forces: 52% of wives who don't work outside the home reported they were "very happy" with their marriages, compared with 41% of wives in the workforce.
The more traditional a marriage is, the sociologists found, the higher the percentage of happy wives. Among couples who have the husband as the primary breadwinner, who worship together regularly and who believe in marriage as an institution that requires a lifelong commitment, 61% of wives said they were "very happy" with their marriages. Among couples whose marriage does not have all these characteristics, the percentage of happy wives dips to an average of 45.
Lest you think the statistics come out this way because tradition-minded women happen to like tradition-minded wedlock — or they're just brainwashed by their churches — you're wrong. In an unpublished second paper, Wilcox sifted through the survey data and discovered that even wives who describe themselves as feminists report being happier with traditional marital arrangements in which they stay home with the kids and their husbands provide for them.
"They might think of themselves as progressives and believe in gender equality, but the same pattern holds for them," Wilcox said.
One more surprise: Even for wives who work full time outside the home, the key to marital happiness isn't splitting household chores and child care down the middle with their husbands. It's much simpler: an affectionate and appreciative husband who believes, along with his wife, that marriage is forever.
Way beyond their age (Justine Ferrari, The Australian, March 7th, 2006)
Half the parents you've met think their little darlings are gifted. It's often a joking remark made between parents: "Of course, my child is terribly advanced, very gifted."Of course, no one seriously considers the child actually might be advanced, which is why gifted-education expert Miraca Gross recoils at the anecdote. "It's a disturbing cliche," she says. "It's one of the reasons why it's so difficult for these children to be recognised.
"A parent trying to explain to a teacher why their child is bored and says they think he is very bright and you can hear the teacher thinking 'here we go again, every parent thinks that'. That's just not true. Most parents are realistic about their child's potential."
When Nadia Bloom was called to her daughter's school in Sydney to be told she should skip two grades, Bloom was initially against the idea. "They were the usual reasons that people always frighten you with," Bloom says. "That she's been hothoused because she's been pushed, that she wouldn't be able to make friends and the really big furphy that she couldn't go drinking with her friends - as if her life depended on that!"
But the principal showed her a long list of pros and a very short list of cons, so after only two weeks in Year 1, Jessica started studying Year 3. Now 14, Jessica will finish her Higher School Certificate next year at the tender age of 16 1/2 and her parents have never regretted advancing her.
With apologies to those few and rare parents of true prodigies, this whole issue has been hopelessly corrupted by the fact that “gifted’ has become the adjective of choice for dysfunctional parents and therapists describing troubled, underachieving children. Few proud, serious parents would describe their accomplished children this way, if only for fear the little nits would get swelled heads and slack off.
Born again?: Looking to regain its base, the Democratic Party is restating its liberal program in religion-friendly terms (Lynn Vincent, 3/11/06, World)
In Georgia, state Sen. Kasim Reed in January introduced a bill authorizing school districts to teach courses derived from The Bible and Its Influence, a textbook released last year by the Bible Literacy Project.In Tennessee, Reps. Rick Nelson and Bob Damron are sponsoring legislation that would allow postings of religious documents such as the Ten Commandments.
In Virginia, Timothy Kaine rode religious campaign themes and Christian radio ads to victory in the governor's race last fall.
All that would be business as usual for the GOP. But these Bible-thumping, faith-stumping pols are all Democrats—and part of their party's emerging effort to reconnect with religious voters.
It's not just a Southern phenomenon. Democrats in the North and West also are becoming more vocal on traditionally Republican issues—from public prayer to traditional marriage. U.S. Senate Democrats in January invited conservative evangelical Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, to speak. Former Vermont governor and current Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who once said his favorite New Testament book is Job and last June slammed the GOP as "pretty much a white, Christian party," now says the Bible should be taught as literature in public schools.
Judy Baar Topinka for GOP nomination for governor (Chicago Sun-Times, March 5, 2006)
When Democrats steamrolled over the Republican slate four years ago, ending the GOP's quarter-century reign over Illinois politics, only one Republican was left standing in statewide office. That was Judy Baar Topinka, a feisty social moderate, fiscal conservative and history maker.In 1994, Topinka became the first woman elected state treasurer and the first Republican to win the post in 32 years. Illinois voters have elected Topinka three times to the office; in 2002, they sent her back despite the George Ryan scandal that crippled other campaigns. Now Topinka has an opportunity to again make history by becoming the first woman elected governor in Illinois. Through her record of keen management skills, proven government performance, enthusiastic political leadership and personal integrity, Topinka has earned the endorsement of the Sun-Times News Group for the GOP nomination for governor. [...]
Topinka is known for keeping a close eye on the money. She told a reporter in 2003 that one thing never found at the bottom of her bag is loose change. "When I get change, it immediately goes into the change purse. I don't move until the change is put away," she said. She has done a commendable job as treasurer. When the state received the $9.1 billion from the tobacco settlement in 1999, Topinka recommended saving 60 percent of the money. She also lobbied for a large contribution to the state's Rainy Day Fund. She continues to be proactive when it comes to state finances, recently challenging the state's taking money collected for special funds for other uses.
Throughout the GOP's trying circumstances, Topinka played a critical role in trying to hold her party together, and her record of honest, professional management gives it a much needed shot of credibility. A measure of her commitment to the race and her belief that Gov. Blagojevich is leading the state toward financial ruin is that Topinka -- not a millionaire like Gidwitz, Oberweis and Brady -- is giving up a job she obviously relishes. We have no doubt that Topinka possesses the skills needed to run an energetic campaign and the qualities needed to be governor.
The second half of the team to face Blagojevich and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn in November should be Steven J. Rauschenberger, a smart, experienced conservative state senator. Although Rauschenberger initially said he would not serve with Topinka should she emerge as the GOP nominee, he has since wisely changed his tune.
Guantanamo better than Belgian prisons-OSCE expert (Reuters, 3/06/06)
Inmates at Guantanamo Bay prison are treated better than in Belgian jails, an expert for Europe's biggest security organization said on Monday after a visit to the controversial U.S. detention center. [...]"At the level of the detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons," said [Alain Grignard, deputy head of Brussels' federal police anti-terrorism unit].
India Giver: Why was Bush so generous in New Delhi? (Fred Kaplan, March 6, 2006, Slate)
As I've written in Slate twice before, it's very much in America's interest to form a grand alliance with India—the world's largest democracy, one of the fastest-growing economies, an Asian counterweight to a rising China, and a vast market already inclined toward the United States. It's also long been clear that an alliance would have to entail some sort of nuclear partnership. India's energy needs are enormous; its energy resources are slender; and, as presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton have realized when they tried to strike a deal, India just isn't going to dismantle its nuclear arsenal or sign the NPT, which would require it to do so. And so the earlier attempts collapsed.George W. Bush's move, at once bold and reckless, was to smash through the barrier and form an alliance anyway. The question back in July, when he and Prime Minister Singh declared their intentions, was how Bush would reconcile the alliance with the NPT. The dumbfounding answer, it turns out, is that he won't. The deal with India, he and his aides have said, is a one-time exception. Other countries may view it differently.
For instance, there's Iran, which faces possible sanctions from the U.N. Security Council for enriching uranium at one of its reactors—a process that, if continued, might violate the NPT. The Iranians will argue that they're victims of a double standard: Why should they be punished while India is rewarded?
Rounds signs SD abortion ban (Chet Brokaw, 03/06/06, Associated Press)
South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds on Monday signed into law a bill banning nearly all abortions, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life. It would make no exception in cases of rape or incest.
Planned Parenthood, which operates the state's only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, has pledged it will challenge the measure in court. About 800 abortions are done each year in South Dakota.
Proposed ethanol plant fuels hopes for cash crop: The facility in Bridgeton, N.J., would create a new market for the region's corn farmers as it produced a gasoline additive. (Edward Colimore, 3/06/06, Inquirer)
They describe the plan as "innovative," "out-of-the-box thinking," "a breakthrough."Farmers across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland are supporting a proposal to build an alternative fuel plant in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, saying it would help prop up falling crop prices.
The facility would allow thousands of them to reap what they sow - more profitably - by providing a new market for millions of bushels of corn to produce ethanol. Demand for ethanol, a gasoline additive also called ethyl alcohol, is surging.
On Friday, the plan moved closer to reality when Garden State Ethanol Corp. signed a letter of intent to buy a former glass bottle factory as the facility's 30-acre site.
Military Wins at U.S. High Court on Campus Recruiting (Bloomberg, 3/06/06)
The Bush administration can demand that universities give military recruiters the same campus access as other employers, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, rejecting free- speech arguments by law schools opposed to the armed services' ban on acknowledged homosexuals.The justices unanimously upheld a government policy of threatening to cut off federal funds, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, from universities that don't provide equal access. The ruling reversed a lower court decision said the policy violated university speech and associational rights.
Why Jon Stewart isn't funny (Michael Kalin, March 3, 2006, Boston Globe)
THE SELECTION of Jon Stewart as the host for Sunday night's 2006 Oscars undoubtedly marks a career milestone for the aspiring king of late-night comedy. Unfortunately, however, the ascension of Stewart and ''The Daily Show" into the public eye is no laughing matter. Stewart's ever-increasing popularity among young viewers directly correlates with the declining influence of progressive thought in America. Coincidence? I think not. Let me explain. [...]Although Stewart's comedic shticks may thus earn him some laughs Sunday at the Oscars, his routine will certainly not match the impact of his greatest irony: Jon Stewart undermines any remaining earnestness that liberals in America might still possess.
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Memo to Jon Stewart: Keep Your 'Daily' Job (Tom Shales, March 6, 2006, Washington Post)
"Crash" was not only the film chosen Best Picture at the 78th Academy Awards last night; it was also the sound made by the show itself as, metaphorically speaking, it drove into a wall.It's hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year's Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by. [...]
Stewart began the show drearily, loping through a monologue that lacked a single hilarious joke with the possible exception of "Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."
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Those big stars just don’t get Jon Stewart (Andy Dehnart, March 6, 2006, MSNBC)
Judging by the Kodak Theatre audience's reception to Jon Stewart, he will find his place in Oscar hosting history alongside Chris Rock and David Letterman, both of whom were judged to be poor hosts, either for their celebrity-bashing jokes (Rock) or their immature antics (Letterman). Despite the fact that Stewart (like Rock and Letterman) did an admirable job, the audience didn't seem to like him.Coming back from one break, Stewart pretended to be in mid-sentence. "And that is why I think Scientology is right, not just for this city, but for the country," he said, clearly mocking some stars' commitment to Scientology. Hollywood sat silent.
An admitted and unashamed progressive himself, Stewart later made fun of the film industry's perceived liberalness, telling viewers the Oscars are a chance to "see all your favorite stars without having to donate any money to the Democratic party." Our favorite stars barely chuckled.
Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century (Al Jazeera, 2/21/06; translation by MEMRI)
Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.The video can be seen here.[...]
Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?
Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.
The liberals' liberal (Nina J. Easton, March 5, 2006, Boston Globe)
National Journal's annual ratings are out, and the most liberal member of the Senate is Edward M. Kennedy. That may come as no surprise, since the venerable Massachusetts Democrat is often called the chamber's ''liberal lion."In fact, Kennedy is still outpaced by his junior colleague, Senator John F. Kerry, who ranked as the eighth most liberal senator in the magazine's survey of key congressional votes in 2005. Kerry has been ranked the Senate's top liberal four times, says Richard E. Cohen, National Journal writer and coauthor of the Almanac of American Politics.
Kennedy has held the top spot three times -- the last time in 1988. But both he and Kerry are far behind the late senator Paul D. Wellstone, whom National Journal named the top liberal a record seven times.
Lambasting Democratic candidates as ''liberal" is a tried-and-true Republican advertising tactic.
In Immigrant Georgia, New Echoes of an Old History (LAWRENCE DOWNES, 3/06/06, NY Times)
The Coke-bottle glasses of hindsight can leave even profound historical miseries all blurry with sentimentality. That's one way to explain the Savannah Irish Festival, a two-day celebration of the Great Famine's great contribution to this lovely Southern city — the migration of thousands of starving laborers who toted barges, lifted bales, dug ditches and cellars, and put down roots here in the mid-1800's.Their descendants crowded the Savannah Civic Center for the festival, eating corned-beef sandwiches, drinking Guinness and applauding the young step dancers who thundered across the stage, tossing their auburn ringlets. Vendors sold teapots and cookbooks and those itchy, kitschy sweaters and scarves that have become the worldwide uniform of warm, fuzzy Irishness.
It is hard to imagine a tubercular immigrant, knee deep in cellar muck, dreaming that his adopted city would one day commemorate his sacrifice with a party. Unskilled Irish immigrants were abused and despised back then, chained to a life of poverty and hard labor that bonded them — at least for a little while — with enslaved African-Americans.
Osama bin Laden's Oscar moment (Charles Krauthammer, 3/06/06, Seattle Times)
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
Home Economics (Jon Gertner, Interview with Edward Glaeser, New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2006)
Glaeser likes to point out ... that cars per capita in 1990 is among the best indicators of how well a city has fared over the past 15 years. The more cars, the better ...
China admits to 'deep-seated conflicts' amid economic boom (Richard Spencer, 06/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
China's prime minister gave a surprisingly gloomy assessment of the state of the country's booming economy and fast-changing society in his annual speech to parliament yesterday.In the face of near-euphoria among governments and businesses in the western world about the pace of its growth, Wen Jiabao said long-term economic health was at risk while society faced "deep-seated conflicts". [...]
"Production gluts are increasingly severe, prices of related goods are falling and inventories are rising," he said. "Profits are shrinking, losses are growing and latent financial risks are increasing." If companies start defaulting on debts it could trigger a crisis in the banking system, which has given out huge loans to fuel the investment.
Mr Wen is under pressure on several fronts. He needs to bring excessive growth under control, but keep it high enough to employ China's vast pool of surplus labour to avoid social unrest.
For President Hu Jintao, the answer to corruption has been to intensify a campaign to revive the teaching of Marxist theory to party cadres. There has also been a shift away from economic reforms such as the privatisation of state-owned industries.
Williams: Cuba camp is setting a dangerous precedent America (Jonathan Petre, 06/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has launched a scathing attack on Guantanamo Bay, condemning the US prison camp as an "extraordinary legal anomaly".Speaking during an eight-day visit to Sudan, Dr Williams said yesterday that detaining people indefinitely when they had not been convicted, and denying them proper legal rights, set a dangerous precedent.
He said that the camp in Cuba had created a "new category of custody", in which detainees were prevented from gaining "the sort of legal access that we would probably assume to be important".
The archbishop said: "Any message given, that any state can just over-ride some of the basic habeas corpus-type provisions, is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.
"What, in 10 years' time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this?"
Why US shapes new global rules (The Monitor's View, 3/06/06, CS Monitor)
The US-India deal, which brings India only partly into the norms of the Non-proliferation Treaty, is really a bilateral pact driven by the US. It's also a US statement about the NPT's failure to block bomb-building efforts by Iran and North Korea.Another current example of the US trying to bend or create global rules is its demand to the United Nations on how to fix that body's Human Rights Commission, which has included such members as Cuba and Sudan. A plan for partial reform pushed by UN leaders, reflecting compromise with the UN's many nondemocratic states, is unacceptable to a White House that doesn't want such a halfway step.
Many other examples add up to a US campaign to define the world in an American image, such as who controls the Internet's protocols, by not putting Saddam Hussein on trial in the new international criminal court, and by forming a group of nations outside the Kyoto treaty to tackle climate change through technical fixes. It's even tried to redefine the Geneva Conventions for the terrorist age by holding "enemy combatants."
Global stopgap for US nurse deficit: Growing labor shortage is fueling recruitment abroad. Even doctors are getting nursing degrees to work in America (Sara Miller Llana, 3/06/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
The joke circulating among doctors in the Philippines goes something like this: What's the new prerequisite for getting into nursing school? An MD.That's because Filipino doctors are indeed heading back to school in great numbers to become nurses. But the punch line speaks more deeply to an unexpected twist in labor shortages a half a world away: Many of them are heading with their new degrees to the United States, where the scarcity of nurses and other healthcare professionals could reach critical levels.
Europe's Muslims divided in wake of cartoon furor (James Brandon, 3/06/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
"We want to use this group to tell ordinary Danes that we are also Danes first and foremost, " says Fathi El-Abed, a spokesman for the group, Democratic Muslims. " We want to [tell them], 'We are democratic just like you - the only thing different is that we come from a Muslim background.' " [...]The new group's leader, Naser Khader, a Syrian-born Social Democrat MP and self-described "cultural Muslim," is already a well-known figure in Danish politics. His fame stems partly from his "Ten Commandments of Democracy," which include a strict separation of religion and politics, unreserved support for freedom of expression, and a rejection of violence.
Singh leads India's three revolutions (Greg Sheridan, March 06, 2006, The Australian)
MANMOHAN Singh is an unlikely revolutionary. Yet as the leader of 1.1 billion people, the world's largest democracy and its second-largest nation, the Indian Prime Minister has already enacted three profound revolutions.As finance minister during the 1991 economic crisis, Singh decisively turned India towards market liberalisation. Then after the last election he became India's first non-Hindu prime minister -- he is a Sikh -- showing the depth of India's secular democracy.
Now, in the nuclear co-operation agreement he has struck with US President George W. Bush, Singh may have marked India's decisive emergence as a global power. [...]
Bush hailed New Delhi last week as a global power and took every step he could to cement a US-India partnership, in trade, economics, politics, defence co-operation, nuclear technology, the war on terror and the promotion of democracy.
While John Howard will operate on a more modest scale this week, the Prime Minister, too, seems to "get" India and understand the profound challenge it poses for Australian policy.
INTERVIEW: Calling All Hombres: A Harvard sage makes the case for manliness. (NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY, March 4, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Mr. Mansfield's contention that women and men are not the same is now widely supported by social scientists. The core of his definition of manliness--"confidence in a risky situation"--is not so far from that of biologists and sociologists, who find men to be more abstract in their thinking and aggressive in their behavior than women, who are more contextual in their thinking and conciliatory in their behavior.Science is good for confirming what "common sense" already tells us, Mr. Mansfield allows, but beyond that, he has little use for it: "Science is a particular enemy of manliness. Manliness asserts something you can't scientifically prove, namely the importance of human beings." Science simply sees people as just another part of the natural world. But what manly men assert, according to Mr. Mansfield, is that "they are important and that their party, their country, their society, their group, whatever it may be, is important." As examples, Mr. Mansfield offers Arnold Schwarzenegger (predictably, since he's no girly-man), Humphrey Bogart, Donald Rumsfeld and Margaret Thatcher--yes, women can occasionally be manly. (Both Clintons are manly in their own ways--Hillary is "formidable," while Bill is the "envy of vulgar men.")
Achilles, though, is Mr. Mansfield's model of a manly man. "He challenged his boss, Agamemnon, who had taken his girlfriend from him. He didn't so much make a complaint against him as to . . . say that what Agamemnon had done was the act of an inferior person, and that only true heroes, the men of virtue like Achilles, are fit to rule." In other words, Achilles raised the stakes and resolved to defend a cause larger than himself--the manly action par excellence.
Sharon's Party Setting Evacuation Plan (Scott Wilson, 3/05/06, Washington Post)
The Kadima party, far ahead in opinion polls before Israel's parliamentary elections later this month, is drawing up a four-year plan to evacuate thousands of Israelis living in scattered West Bank settlements and move them into larger ones that Israel intends to keep under any final peace agreement.Avi Dichter, the former director of Israel's Shin Bet security services and a top Kadima candidate, told a radio station here Sunday that "Israel will have to define, by itself, its final borders, and that will involve the consolidation of smaller settlements into settlement blocs."
With national elections less than a month away, parties that represent Israel's Arab population are struggling to maintain their small foothold in the Israeli parliament. As the parties grapple with new legal barriers, fresh competition and a frustrated constituency, at least one coalition is drawing a lesson from Hamas's recent victory in the Palestinian territories: The solution is Islam.The United Arab List has adopted an explicitly Islamic message in the hopes of inspiring thousands of Arab voters who have boycotted past elections. Using Koranic verse and showcasing religious candidates, Sarsur's party, called the Islamic Movement, and its secular-nationalist partner are seeking to unite Israel's religious Islamic parties, who like their more radical Palestinian counterparts have long disagreed over whether to take part in elections that, in effect, presume the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
By winning a parliamentary majority in its first national elections, Hamas has validated for many members of Israel's religious Islamic parties the virtue of participating in mainstream politics. But the Islamic turn here has alarmed a coalition of Zionist parties, which narrowly failed last week to have the United Arab List disqualified from the March 28 elections for advocating the creation of an Islamic state in Israel.
"Hamas gave the Islamists here an example to follow," said Jafar Farah, director of the Musawa Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. "The Arab parties will never win a majority here, so their position is much different. But Hamas's participation has affected positively the discussion within Israel's Islamic movement."
Boarding Now On Flights of Fancy: Frankfurt to Rome for $19: Cheap Fares Fuel Europe's Passion for Weekend Trips Abroad (Mary Jordan, March 5, 2006, Washington Post)
Flights as cheap as bus fares are changing the rhythm of European life. Growing numbers of Europeans are buying second homes in other countries because they can afford to travel to them frequently, creating building booms along seasides from Croatia to Portugal. Low airfares have also given rise to Euro commuters -- the increasing numbers of people who work in one country and spend weekends with their families in another.Some Britons are flying to Hungary, which has become a hub for good-quality, affordable dental care, and finding the bill for a crown and the airfare is less than a trip to a private dentist at home.
Above all, cheap flights have redefined the European weekend. Some off-peak tickets are now offered for $25 on popular routes such as London to Salzburg, Glasgow to Paris and Dublin to Valencia. Millions of people, especially in Britain, Ireland and Germany, now fly off for what are called weekend "city breaks" in other countries as often as they once drove to the nearest coast or lake.
Ryanair, the largest European low-cost carrier, said it carried 35 million passengers last year, up from 7 million in 2000. Another low-fare giant, easyJet, ferried 30 million people, up from 6 million in 2000.
"It has democratized flying," said Stephen Hogan, spokesman for the Brussels-based Airports Council International, who said a flight from Dublin to Paris in the mid-1990s cost about $600 if booked in advance. It now costs as little as about $50. "It makes the dream of Europe possible -- the free movement of people within countries."
Jobs lure illegal immigrants to state (Karin Rives, 2/26/06, Raleigh News and Observer)
Four hundred thousand strong and they keep coming, drawn by the jobs that North Carolina employers eagerly offer illegal immigrants.Illegal immigrants mow our lawns, paint our homes, watch our children and cook our food for bottom wages. Doing so, they provide consumers with affordable services that people in most other industrialized countries can only dream of. [...]
Businesses are the biggest beneficiary of illegal immigration and are the reason unauthorized foreigners are here in the first place.
Some employers say they have difficulty verifying immigrants' legal status, others that pressing labor demands force them to flout the law.
Few, however, express remorse.
"Let's say they got the National Guard to start pulling everybody over and sending every illegal person they find back home. Then where is your work force going to come from?" asked Paul, owner of a small landscaping and tree-cutting business in Raleigh.
Paul, who has employed two illegal immigrants from Mexico for more than seven years, agreed to speak provided he and his business were not fully identified.
"If we don't want them here, why doesn't the government send them back?" he said. "The government lets them cross the border, so why should we worry about it?"
In North Carolina, as in much of the South, any account of illegal immigration is essentially a story about Hispanics. Today, it's estimated that more than 600,000 Hispanics are in the state, roughly half of them without papers.
Of the estimated 395,000 illegal immigrants who made their home in North Carolina in 2004, 70 percent were Mexican, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington. Taking into account thousands who arrived from Central America and other Latin American countries, the Hispanic portion of the state's illegal immigrant population is probably at least 80 percent. That would put the number of illegal Hispanic residents in the state about 316,000.
Last month, researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill published a study on the economic impact of North Carolina's Hispanic influx. Among their findings:
* Hispanics, legal and illegal, cost state taxpayers $817 million in 2004, with education and health care being the biggest expenses. Meanwhile, Hispanics generated $756 million in tax revenue. According to the report, that averages out to a cost to the state budget of $102 per Hispanic resident.
* More broadly, Hispanic residents contributed about $9 billion to the state economy through purchases and taxes. Their spending has led to creation of 89,600 jobs.
* Because many Latinos work for below-market wages, they also depress North Carolina private-sector payrolls by $1.9 billion annually, the researchers found. In many cases, those lower costs are passed on to consumers as lower prices.
The study was released by UNC's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and was underwritten by the N.C. Bankers Association.
North Carolina businesses are tripping over one another to offer products and services to this growing Hispanic consumer group.
Should liberals leave Catholic Church? (Joan Vennochi, March 5, 2006, Boston Globe)
THE RED CARDINAL'S hat on its way to Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley sends a clear message to liberal Catholics who still hope the Catholic Church will shift their way: It isn't shifting. [...]Liberals raised as Catholics...think we can be prochoice, pro-gay marriage , pro-gay adoption, and in favor of married and female priests and still call ourselves Catholic. The people who make the rules say we don't meet the criteria.
Every pronouncement from Pope Benedict XVI draws another line between official church doctrine and liberal ideology. When do liberals choose one side or the other?
Awaiting the Almighty: Rudy Giuliani may or may not run for president. But he's having a heavenly time thinking about it. (Howard Fineman, March 13, 2006, Newsweek)
The GOP's '08 cycle has barely begun, but it's already produced a cliche: that this is "the most wide-open race since 1952." It's true that, in a party inclined to royal successions, there is no heir apparent—literally, in this case, since Florida Gov. Jeb Bush isn't running to succeed his brother. But it's also true that outlines of a hierarchy are visible, with Sen. John McCain at the top. Ironically, the erstwhile "maverick" is pursuing an insider strategy, hiring George W. Bush's consultants, lining up local party loyalists and shaking the same establishment money tree that, in the 2000 campaign, he complained had given Bush a pampered, rich kid's advantage. [...]The effect of a Rudy run? There are those who think the presence of a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights New Yorker would help McCain by making him seem to be a comparative godsend to evangelicals. But the two men, who are personally close, occupy the same macho shelf space, and the clear hope—and expectation—among McCainanites is that Rudy will ultimately stand down. Some other Republican insiders join them in thinking (hoping) that Giuliani would rather continue raking in piles of cash building his business empire ($100,000-a-gig speeches, security consulting, investment banking and regulatory law). They note that he hasn't made any of the usual groundwork-laying moves, such as lining up a media firm or a coordinator in New Hampshire.
But those who say he'll fold may not know the man, his history—or what he is really up to.
No Iraq Trip for Legislator Who Opposed Deal on Ports (CARL HULSE, 3/04/06, NY Times)
Representative Peter T. King's prominent opposition to a proposal to allow a Dubai company to take over some terminal operations at American ports may have earned him some punishment from the Bush administration: He has been grounded.Mr. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, confirmed Friday that a few days after he first threatened legislation to hold up the port deal, the Pentagon informed him that it could not provide an aircraft for his planned March Congressional delegation to Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Progressive genocide: Less than 100 years ago, America's finest minds were convinced the nation was threatened by sexually insatiable female morons. A new history of the eugenics movement sheds light on a bizarre chapter in U.S. history. (Farhad Manjoo, Mar. 04, 2006, Salon)
Among the many concerns that captivated the American educated class early in the last century, few were thought to be as urgent as the threat posed to the nation by sexually insatiable female morons. This may sound silly; today, our fear of morons is rather abstract, and on a national scale confined mostly to whomever is the current resident of the White House. But a hundred years ago, morons were public enemy No. 1, seen as a drain on the nation's resources and a grave danger to its stability. The situation was most keenly appreciated by progressives -- scientists, businessmen, feminists and liberal politicians -- who, as even the best of us sometimes do, feared that within a short time, the nation would be overrun by simpletons.But how do you solve a problem like the moron? These poor people, for one, weren't easy to spot. "Feeblemindedness," the medical condition from which morons suffered, was chiefly manifested by subtle, difficult-to-diagnose symptoms, such as poor judgment and a susceptibility to deviance. The only way to tell if you were dealing with a certifiable moron -- an actual medical term -- was by administering an intelligence questionnaire (an early version of the IQ test), which scientists believed could accurately assess a patient's "mental age." Unlike idiots and imbeciles (who were characterized by significant, obvious mental defects), morons, who were grown-ups who showed mental ages that were far below their physical maturity, might do well in school, they might hold down jobs, and they might even manage to raise children -- but all this was to be thought of as a ruse, because sooner or later, they'd go astray.
As the journalist Harry Bruinius explains in "Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity," his comprehensive new history of the American eugenics movement, the problem wasn't just that morons were given to crime and poverty; because feeblemindedness was a genetic condition passed on from one generation to the next, their children, and their children's children, and on and on, were similarly suspect as well. Of particular concern were the afflicted women, in whom scientists had found the symptoms of feeblemindedness more pronounced. Female morons gave in to their sexual urges more quickly than feebleminded men, and they sometimes deceived normal men into consorting with them; in addition, they were "hyper-fecund," as doctors termed their apparent tendency to become pregnant easily. Put this all together, as many smart Americans did, and you had a big problem on your hands: an extremely fertile, extremely needy, apparently permanent underclass.
It's lately become fashionable to reckon with growing ignorance among one's countrymen by threatening to emigrate to Canada; for American intellectuals of an earlier generation the more obvious solution was forced sterilization. At the dawn of the medical age, when scientists were just beginning to discover both the evolutionary basis to biology as well as painless, "humane" procedures to render humans infertile, it was the nation's rationalists who hit upon the idea of sterilization as a way to solve the problem of multiplying morons, Bruinius explains; the main opposition to the horrific idea came from religious fundamentalists.
Behind the Baby Bust (Richard Morin, March 13, 2005, Washington Post)
From Japan to Germany to the United States, puzzled demographers are asking the same question: Why are so few people having babies these days?Three University of Minnesota researchers think they've found an unexpected answer. They blame the baby bust on the Social Security system, 401(k)s and similar government old-age pension and savings plans. Those programs, they claim, have reduced the need for forward-thinking couples to produce lots of kids who could take care of Mom and Dad in their old age.
Increases in retirement benefits are inevitably followed by a corresponding drop in the birth rate; the bigger the benefit system, the bigger the decline, according to economists Michele Boldrin, Mariacristina De Nardi and Larry E. Jones.
For more than seven decades, with the notable exception of the baby boom period after World War II, the total fertility rate has fallen dramatically and consistently in virtually every developed country in the world.
Today, the average woman in the world bears half as many children as did her counterpart in 1972, and no industrialized country still produces enough children to sustain its population over time, Phillip Longman noted last summer in an article for Foreign Affairs. In the United States, the total fertility rate has dropped from 3.2 children per woman in 1920 to 2.1 children today. In Europe, fertility declined from 2.8 children per woman to 1.5 between 1970 and 2000.
Boldrin noticed that the decline in fertility in developed countries paralleled the development of state-sponsored pension programs. Coincidence? Boldrin and her research team thought not.
Drawing from surveys and other data collected by previous researchers in the United States and Europe, including a massive cross-cultural study of 104 countries conducted in 1997, they were able to identify the factors that most directly influenced fertility rates. They also charted the growth of the old-age pension systems in each country to determine what impact, if any, they had on fertility. The development of government pension programs accounted for between half and two-thirds of the decline in fertility rates in the United States and developed countries over the last 70 years, they concluded in a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
'Long war' is breaking down into tedium (MARK STEYN, 3/05/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
I had to sign a tedious business contract the other day. They wanted my corporation number -- fair enough -- plus my Social Security number -- well, if you insist -- and also my driver's license number -- hang on, what's the deal with that?Well, we e-mailed over a query...
Is plan to privatize Midway ready for takeoff? (FRAN SPIELMAN AND DAVE MCKINNEY, 3/05/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Sixteen months ago, Mayor Daley raised the possibility of privatizing Midway Airport and other prime city assets to duplicate the $1.83 billion Chicago Skyway deal that has been a cash cow for the financially strapped city budget.Now, City Hall is taking the first step toward making that happen.
A bill quietly moving through the Illinois Legislature would grant blanket property tax exemptions to private investors who lease all or parts of Midway, the 2,180-space Millennium Park garage, smaller city-owned garages, and three transfer stations where recyclables are separated from routine garbage.
That's precisely how Daley got the ball rolling on the Skyway deal that has allowed him to restore Chicago's shaky bond rating and hold the line on property taxes while funding human services programs.
"The Skyway was a cutting-edge transaction. There are fewer federal dollars all the time. If we can somehow supplement them by a transaction such as this, we are obligated from a financial standpoint to explore the possibility," said Chief Financial Officer Dana Levenson.
American World Order: a review of 'The Case for Goliath,' by Michael Mandelbaum (MARTIN WALKER, NY Times Book Review)
MICHAEL MANDELBAUM has taken all the fun out of an ostensibly flippant but fundamentally serious diplomatic parlor game. Usually played late at night when the Americans have gone home to prepare for their puritanically early start to the day, the Europeans, Latin Americans and Asians take a second glass of Cognac and imagine how awful the world could be if someone else were to take the place of the United States as the global hegemon.Eastern Europeans tell sad anecdotes about living under Russian dominance. Western Europeans shudder at the thought of Germans running the benign and virtual empire that the United States has maintained and expanded for the past 60 years. (And they murmur that within the European Union the French are already being difficult enough.) The Latin Americans have their hands full with the arrogance of next-door neighbors like Brazil without wanting to see it become even more dominant. The idea of a Chinese hegemony sends shivers down the backs of all, particularly the Japanese and Indians; somebody usually mentions the mournful example of Tibet. The Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis react equally unhappily to the idea of India as superpower. As the diplomats prattle on, meanwhile, the British smile wryly and say they have been there, done that and are extremely glad to have lost the T-shirt.
Mandelbaum, the Christian A. Herter professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, pulls aside the curtain of diplomatic civility to expose the crude and obvious reality that everyone prefers to ignore, at least in public. He explains coolly and clearly the various ways in which the United States now functions as a global government, offering the planet the services of physical security, commercial regulation, financial stability and legal recourse that are normally provided by national governments to their citizens. Non-Americans naturally do not like to admit this, even as they enjoy the results, and American leaders do not like to spell it out, least of all to the voters who pay for it.
A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds (ANDREA ELLIOTT, 3/05/06, NY Times)
Sheik Reda, as he is called, arrived in Brooklyn one year after Sept. 11. Virtually overnight, he became an Islamic judge and nursery school principal, a matchmaker and marriage counselor, a 24-hour hot line on all things Islamic.Day after day, he must find ways to reconcile Muslim tradition with American life. Little in his rural Egyptian upbringing or years of Islamic scholarship prepared him for the challenge of leading a mosque in America.
The job has worn him down and opened his mind. It has landed him, exhausted, in the hospital and earned him a following far beyond Brooklyn.
"America transformed me from a person of rigidity to flexibility," said Mr. Shata, speaking through an Arabic translator. "I went from a country where a sheik would speak and the people listened to one where the sheik talks and the people talk back."
This is the story of Mr. Shata's journey west: the making of an American imam.
Over the last half-century, the Muslim population in the United States has risen significantly. Immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa have settled across the country, establishing mosques from Boston to Los Angeles, and turning Islam into one of the nation's fastest growing religions. By some estimates, as many as six million Muslims now live in America.
Leading this flock calls for improvisation. Imams must unify diverse congregations with often-clashing Islamic traditions. They must grapple with the threat of terrorism, answering to law enforcement agents without losing the trust of their fellow Muslims. Sometimes they must set aside conservative beliefs that prevail in the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam.
Islam is a legalistic faith: Muslims believe in a divine law that guides their daily lives, including what they should eat, drink and wear. In countries where the religion reigns, this is largely the accepted way.
But in the West, what Islamic law prohibits is everywhere. Alcohol fills chocolates. Women jog in sports bras. For many Muslims in America, life is a daily clash between Islamic mores and material temptation. At the center of this clash stands the imam.
In America, imams evoke a simplistic caricature — of robed, bearded clerics issuing fatwas in foreign lands. Hundreds of imams live in the United States, but their portrait remains flatly one-dimensional. Either they are symbols of diversity, breaking the Ramadan fast with smiling politicians, or zealots, hurrying into their storefront mosques.
Mr. Shata, 37, is neither a firebrand nor a ready advocate of progressive Islam. Some of his views would offend conservative Muslims; other beliefs would repel American liberals. He is in many ways a work in progress, mapping his own middle ground between two different worlds.
The imam's cramped, curtained office can hardly contain the dramas that unfold inside. Women cry. Husbands storm off. Friendships end. Every day brings soap opera plots and pitch.
A Moroccan woman falls to her knees near the imam's Hewlett-Packard printer. "Have mercy on me!" she wails to a friend who has accused her of theft. Another day, it is a man whose Lebanese wife has concealed their marriage and newborn son from her strict father. "I will tell him everything!" the husband screams.
Mr. Shata settles dowries, confronts wife abusers, brokers business deals and tries to arrange marriages. He approaches each problem with an almost scientific certainty that it can be solved. "I try to be more of a doctor than a judge," said Mr. Shata. "A judge sentences. A doctor tries to remedy."
Imams in the United States now serve an estimated 1,200 mosques. Some of their congregants have lived here for generations, assimilating socially and succeeding professionally. But others are recent immigrants, still struggling to find their place in America. Demographers expect their numbers to rise in the coming decades, possibly surpassing those of American Jews.
Like many of their faithful, most imams in the United States come from abroad. They are recruited primarily for their knowledge of the Koran and the language in which it was revealed, Arabic.
But few are prepared for the test that awaits. Like the parish priests who came generations before, imams are called on to lead a community on the margins of American civic life.
Dozens killed in Pakistan clashes (BBC, 3/05/06)
Pakistani troops battled pro-Taleban militants near the Afghan border for a second day on Sunday in clashes which have killed more than 50 people.Pakistani officials said 46 militants and five soldiers died after fighting erupted on Saturday, although some reports put the death toll at over 70.
Hundreds of people are said to have fled the scene in North Waziristan.
Correspondents says it is the fiercest fighting since the army went into the area in 2003 to drive militants out.
Mr. Bush showed strong support for Mr. Musharraf's efforts in combating militants, even though Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, are believed to still be hiding in Pakistan. Without being specific, General Musharraf himself made reference to "slippages" in the past.Mr. Bush said, "Part of my mission today was to determine whether or not the president is as committed as he has been in the past to bringing these terrorists to justice, and he is."
The Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, made clear that the two leaders had had a frank discussion, saying General Musharraf had made a "comprehensive and telling response" to American concerns about Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.
"They had a level of discussion I had not seen before," he said, adding that General Musharraf shared intelligence and documentary evidence with Mr. Bush.
Pakistan had had to deal with 30,000 foreign fighters passing through from Afghanistan over the years, Mr. Kasuri said, had more troops in the border areas than foreign and Afghan forces together on the other side, and had lost 600 soldiers in fighting in Waziristan. That was more casualties than forces had taken across the border, he said.
Mr. Kasuri struggled to answer local journalists who asked if Pakistan had not been left empty-handed after the visit.
MORE:
U.S. Gives India Applause, Pakistan a Pat on the Back (SOMINI SENGUPTA, 3/05/06, NY Times)
President Bush leaves this region having declared India and Pakistan strategic partners. But his declarations spoke just as loudly of the shifting balance of power in the region, and the world.It was India that appeared to come out the biggest winner this week. Pakistan walked away with little more than a mild pat on the back after Mr. Bush's visit on Saturday. While buttressing America's alliances in the region, Mr. Bush also took home a formidable political challenge to sell his nuclear deal with India to a skeptical Congress.
India could hardly be more pleased. "IND-US CIVILIZATION," screamed a front-page headline in The Times of India on Saturday, in joyous praise for what President Bush had bestowed on the nation.
Those gifts included a nuclear deal celebrated by Indian officials, elevation as a global leader, and nary a recriminatory word on the troubles in the disputed province of Kashmir. Indian backers of a United States-India partnership were elated.
"I think we have managed to get a rather good deal," a senior Indian official said, unwilling to disclose his name because the full details of the nuclear agreement had yet to be shared with the Indian Parliament. "This is from our point of view, a hard bargain."
In Pakistan, the difference was discerned. "One thing is very clear: The U.S. is keeping India and Pakistan at two different levels," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an independent political analyst in Lahore.
Changing the rules: a review of Redefining Sovereignty: The Battle for the Moral High Ground in a Changing World By Orrin C. Judd (Steven Martinovich, February 27, 2006, Enter Stage Right)
Liberals aren't likely the only ones who will argue with the conclusions of many of the essays presented in Redefining Sovereignty. While most are hostile to transnationalism and the erosion of sovereignty, many argue American intervention in the internal affairs of other nations as justified. Judd himself argues that George W. Bush's mission to reshape the Middle East in a democratic image isn't at odds with the history of American foreign policy and is indeed necessary to preserve American security. It's doubtless an argument that will have paleoconservatives and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party less than pleased, arguing as they did against interfering in the Balkans and Iraq because they were sovereign nations dealing with internal issues.Not surprisingly it's in between these two camps -- the transnationalists and sovereignty absolutists -- that Judd pitches his tent. Echoing Ayn Rand when she famously wrote that a state was only legitimate when it protected the rights of its citizens, Judd writes that "Americans have moved on to a paradigm that requires that a regime only be recognized as sovereign if it has democratic legitimacy." Where previously the test consisted only of international recognition of sovereignty, the new test includes the nature of the state claiming the sovereignty.
Small wonder that new test has generated no small measure of controversy.
Rick Turley pointed out this amusing looking utility, Frappr, which allows you to map an on-line community. If enough folks want to add their locations we'll post a permanent link to it.
Hamas strength seen in State Department poll (Jonathan S. Landay, 3/03/06, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
The poll found that Hamas had been gaining support in previous months and was running neck-and-neck with the secular Fatah party - 30 percent vs. 32 percent - among likely voters. It was distributed within the State Department on Jan. 19, six days before the elections.The poll found that corruption in the Palestinian Authority was the leading issue among Palestinians, and that 52 percent believed that Hamas was more qualified to clean it up, compared with 35 percent who put their faith in Fatah, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' moderate faction.
The New Presidential Equation (David M. Shribman, 3/04/06, Real Clear Politics)
George W. Bush inspires unusually passionate support and provokes unusually passionate opposition. The gap between the two -- think of it as the presidential passion gap -- suggests that future historians will fight with unusual passion about his legacy and the meaning of Mr. Bush's presidency.But as his presidency progresses -- as he does more and as his earlier actions recede from current events into history -- it is becoming increasingly clear that his decisions and initiatives are being drawn from an increasingly broad palette of precedents and presidents. He is more than an updated version of his father, or the product of the natural maturation of the ideas of Ronald Reagan -- notions that many analysts, including yours truly, have argued.
Now I am not so sure that the simpler explanation works. Now, especially in foreign policy, I think he is an enigmatic admixture of four presidents, two Democrats and two Republicans, two peacetime presidents and two wartime chief executives, two from early in the 20th century and two from the post-war midsection of the 20th century.
His supporters and detractors alike argue that the president is 100 percent George W. Bush. But I am coming to the conclusion that he is one part William Howard Taft, one part Woodrow Wilson, one part John F. Kennedy and one part Richard M. Nixon.
Death penalty retains support (Kiley Russell, 3/03/06, CONTRA COSTA TIMES)
A new Field Poll showing that a majority of Californians support the death penalty is reassuring people on both sides of the debate.Following the executions of Stanley "Tookie" Williams and Clarence Ray Allen in late 2005 and the recent legal wrangling concerning the delayed lethal injection of Michael Morales, the February poll shows 63 percent of all responders favor capital punishment and 32 percent oppose it, continuing a decadeslong trend of strong statewide support.
Among registered voters, 67 percent support capital punishment and 29 percent oppose it.
What America needs now is a mighty blast of fire and Gladstone (Niall Ferguson, 05/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
If President Bush were to run for re-election in 2008 it is not difficult to imagine the kind of devastating indictment that might be made of his foreign policy, not least because the terms of such an indictment were brilliantly anticipated more than a century ago.In 1878, William Ewart Gladstone, the only true genius among 19th century British politicians, came out of retirement to reclaim the leadership of the Liberal Party and unleash a lethal rhetorical assault against his arch-rival, the Conservative prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Gladstone's campaign to win the seat of Midlothian, is often said by historians to have ushered in a new era in modern politics. Never before had a British politician appealed so directly to the sentiments of ordinary voters.
In a series of marathon speeches to crowds numbering tens of thousands, Gladstone eviscerated Disraelian foreign policy as a disastrous mixture of vainglorious imperialism, cynical Realpolitik and fiscal improvidence. His speech of November 27, 1879, in which he set out his six principles of foreign policy, reads amazingly well today.
Gladstone made it clear - in his sixth and most important principle - that he regarded freedom as the foundation of a correct foreign policy. "The foreign policy of England," he declared, "should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle…" That is precisely what a Democratic challenger to President Bush would want to begin by saying: We share your aspiration to spread freedom.
But Gladstone's other five principles can be read today as an ideal first draft of the case against the practice of this administration's foreign policy.
Gladstone's first principle of foreign policy was, paradoxically but rightly, "good government at home" - to be precise, fiscal stability. By that measure, Bush's second term has been an almost unqualified failure. To cut taxes and run deficits in 2001, in the aftermath of a stock market crash, made sense. But to allow the federal government to continue to run deficits even as recovery has strengthened has left the United States dangerously dependent on foreign capital for its economic stability. A net external debt equivalent in magnitude to more than 20 per cent of gross domestic product is no laughing matter...
All British soldiers to be out of Iraq in 12 months (Sean Rayment, 05/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
All British and United States troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within a year in an effort to bring peace and stability to the country.The news came as defence chiefs admitted privately that the British troop commitment in Afghanistan may last for up to 10 years.
The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by London and Washington that the presence of the coalition, mainly composed of British and US troops, is now seen as the main obstacle to peace.
Bush takes a swing at cricket in Pak (Reuters, March 4, 2006)
US President George W Bush, an avid baseball fan, on Saturday tried his hand at a sport hugely popular in parts of the old British empire — cricket — and was pronounced "not bad" for a first-timer.Bush bowled and batted several times on a practice cricket pitch set up on the grounds of the US embassy in the capital of cricket-mad Pakistan, as students from the Islamabad College for Boys and the private school Schola Nova, who included girls, looked on and encouraged him. [...]
Bush, in a blue shirt with sleeves rolled up, played with tennis balls, which are much softer than stone-hard cricket balls.
One student, Asif Raza, said he hoped Bush's foray onto a cricket pitch would promote the sport in America.
The President's first couple of hits went off to the side, but the Pakistani players were charitable.
"Not bad for a first time," one boy said.
But his last hit was better and the ball flew off into some trees. One ball hit him on the back.
He then tried his hand at bowling. "Very nice, very nice," one girl said.
Bush Says Pakistan Cannot Expect Nuclear Deal Like One With India (ELISABETH BUMILLER and CARLOTTA GALL, 3/04/06, NY Times)
President Bush made clear today that Pakistan should not expect anytime soon a civilian nuclear agreement like the one the United States reached only days ago with India, and he bluntly said that the two archrivals on the subcontinent cannot be compared to each other.Mr. Bush said that he and Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, had discussed a civilian nuclear program for Pakistan during talks this morning.
“I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories," Mr. Bush said at a joint outdoor news conference with Mr. Musharraf on the grounds of the presidential palace, Aiwan-e-Sadr. “So as we proceed forward, our strategy will take in effect those well-known differences."
Mr. Bush had never been expected to endorse a nuclear agreement with Pakistan, the country of A.Q Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program who has confessed to running the largest illegal nuclear proliferation network in history. But it was striking that the president spoke so directly as his host, Mr. Musharraf, stood at his side.
AP clarifies story about Katrina, Bush (The State, 3/03/06)
In a Wednesday story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his Homeland Security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing.The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before Katrina, Bush was told there were grave concerns the levees could be overrun.
It wasn’t until the next morning, as the storm made landfall, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had asked about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.
Polish President Compares China to Poland: Offers encouragement for end of communism (Gary Feuerberg, Mar 04, 2006, Epoch Times)
President Lech Kaczynski had just paid his respects to President Bush at the White House on Feb. 9, when he gave a press conference outside on the White House lawn, and answered questions from reporters. One question came from a reporter for The Epoch Times who mentioned that eight million Chinese communists had recently withdrawn from the Party since the publication of the "Nine Commentaries of the Communist Party" in The Epoch Times.The Epoch Times reporter then asked the newly elected president about the parallels between Poland and China and for him to share his wisdom on how Chinese people could be free from communist tyranny.
Presidents may get asked many questions that are intended to embarrass or force a response that they don't want to commit to, but it was clear that this president welcomed the question. His first thoughts were: "This process is something that has already happened to Europe, including Poland. I can only by comparison tell you that at the beginning of the 1980s in Poland, we had 3 million members of the Polish United Workers Party, [interrupted, "the Polish Communist Party"] …the Polish Communist Party. In autumn '81, it was one million less members. So, already that was before martial law was imposed on Poland. Now after martial law was declared [inaudible], even fewer people remained in the Party."
You could see the delight in him of ridding his country of communist power.
Vermont Losing Prized Resource as Young Depart (PAM BELLUCK, 3/04/06, NY Times)
This state of beautiful mountains and popular ski resorts, once a magnet for back-to-the-landers, is losing young people at a precipitous clip.Vermont, with a population of about 620,000, now has the lowest birth rate among states. Three-quarters of its public schools have lost children since 2000.
Vermont also has the highest rate of students attending college out of their home state — 57 percent, up from 36 percent 20 years ago. Many do not move back. The total number of 20- to 34-year-olds in Vermont has shrunk by 19 percent since 1990.
Vermont's governor, Jim Douglas, is treating the situation like a crisis. He proposes making Vermont the "Silicon Valley" of environmental technology companies to lure businesses and workers; giving college scholarships requiring students to stay in Vermont for three years after graduating; relaxing once-sacrosanct environmentally driven building restrictions in some areas to encourage more housing; and campaigning in high schools and elementary schools to encourage students "to focus now on making a plan to stay in Vermont," said Jason Gibbs, a spokesman for Mr. Douglas.
Mr. Douglas said: "There's an exodus of young people. It's dramatic. We need to reverse it. The consequences of not acting are severe."
Chavez prepares his people's army to confront US (Sophie Arie, 04/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Venezuela begins training a vast army of civilian reserves today to fight off the attack its Left-wing president, Hugo Chavez, says the United States is plotting against it.The oil-rich state aims to teach up to two million volunteers, from the unemployed to office workers, shop assistants and housewives, basic military skills such as marching in step or shooting to kill.
If it reaches that size, the force will be the largest civilian reserve army in the Americas, double the size of Washington's reserves. Its creation will further inflame relations between Venezuela and the US, already characterised by insults and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.
Yet two more Ill. hate crimes panel members quit in Nation of Islam dispute (MarathonPundit, 3/03/06)
Christian shrine hit by Israeli intruders (Washington Times, March 4, 2006)
Three Israelis set off firecrackers inside an important Christian shrine in the boyhood home of Jesus yesterday, sparking panic among worshippers and a riot outside.
One police car was torched as a mob tried to surge past police into the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth to attack the intruders, a man and two women disguised as Christian pilgrims.
Sir Menzies in first leader test (BBC, 3/04/06)
Sir Menzies Campbell is facing his first test as the new Lib Dem leader after urging party activists to back the part-privatisation of Royal Mail.The controversial plan was last year rejected by delegates at the party's autumn conference in Blackpool.
N.Y. lawyer arrested in Canada (PHINJO GOMBU, 3/03/06, Toronto Star)
A New York attorney specializing in tax law, under investigation by a U.S. grand jury for renting two underage girls from their mother for sex, was arrested on an immigration warrant last week in Grimsby by Niagara Region police but then released.James Colliton, 42, formerly with top-shelf law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City, was picked up last Friday by local police, the Toronto Fugitive Squad and immigration officials, Niagara Regional Police Detective Sergeant Bob Jackson said yesterday.
But because it was an immigration matter involving him being unlawfully in the country, he was taken into the custody of Canadian immigration officials.
U.S. calculations on savings don't add up, some say (ELLEN SIMON, 3/04/06, The Associated Press)
With retirement looming for the baby-boom generation, the concern is that a dearth of savings now could cause a cutoff in spending later.Some economists say that's far-fetched. They argue the personal savings figures are artificially low, since the numbers don't include increases in assets such as equities and homes.
Yale University economics professor William Nordhaus made that argument in 2002 congressional testimony, saying that once assets were included, the savings rate for the 1990s would have been a robust 25 percent.
European countries count capital gains and home appreciation when they calculate personal savings, said William Hummer, chief economist at Wayne Hummer Investments.
"Our savings rate is understated," he said. "I think it's wrong."
Another argument is that the wealthiest 20 percent of American families account for roughly 40 percent of consumer spending, spending 4.5 times as much as the lowest 20 percent, something Citigroup's chief U.S. equities strategist Tobias Levkovich pointed out in a recent report.
The implication: This group isn't going to run out of money soon. If a healthy economy depends on the wealthiest Americans' continued spending on $200 haircuts and $500 seven-ply cashmere sweaters, we can all rest easy.
His corollary argument is that some of those with the lowest earnings are retirees, who are spending money they've already socked way, so the fact that they spend $18,000 a year but earn only $9,000 should worry no one.
U.S. Plans to Modernize Nuclear Arsenal (Walter Pincus, 3/04/06, Washington Post)
The Bush administration is developing plans to design and deploy refurbished or replacement warheads for the nuclear stockpile, and by 2030 to modernize the production complex so that, if required, it could produce new generations of weapons with different or modified capabilities.Referring to goals established two years ago, Ambassador Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), told the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces Wednesday that "we will revitalize our weapons design community to meet the challenge of being able to adapt an existing weapon within 18 months, and design, develop and begin production of a new design within three to four years of a decision to enter engineering development."
A study by NNSA for restructuring the aging weapons complex, which includes dealing with facilities that dismantle retired weapons, should be sent to Congress this spring, Brooks said. Although there is some updating and modernizing of the present complex, "full infrastructure changes . . . will take a couple of decades," Brooks said.
Amid worldwide worries over the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran and much debate over how to handle it, Barry Posen argues in a New York Times op-ed piece this week that the whole issue is overblown. [...]Posen is not alone in his views. They fall into a school of thought on nuclear deterrence associated with Kenneth Waltz, professor of political science at Columbia University, who in 1981 wrote a monograph titled The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better. Waltz wrote, "In a conventional world, one is uncertain about winning or losing. In a nuclear world, one is uncertain about surviving or being annihilated. … When these are the pertinent questions, we stop thinking about running risks and start worrying about how to avoid them. …The gradual spread of nuclear weapons is more to be welcomed than feared."
Waltz's premise, as stated to one reporter, is that "the only thing a country can do with nuclear weapons is use them for a deterrent. And that makes for internal stability, that makes for peace, and that makes for cautious behavior."
The problem is that, while Waltz and many other reasonable people might think nukes are good only for deterrents, others—including U.S. secretaries of defense and strategic air commanders over the decades—have thought nukes can be effective tools of war-fighting as well. In the United States, their influence has tended to be diluted by politicians and diplomats. In other less open and democratic countries, who knows?
But Waltz's position has been most solidly rebutted, on different grounds, by Scott Sagan, professor of political science at Stanford University. (The two have published a book together, in which they debate their views.) The spread of nukes, Sagan argues, doesn't eliminate human error; it "only makes the inevitable mistakes more deadly."
'God will judge me on Iraq invasion' says Blair (JAMES KIRKUP, 3/04/06, The Scotsman)
[I]n tonight's interview, Mr Blair talks at length about his Christianity, confirming that his faith informs his politics."If you have a religious belief it does, but it's probably best not to take it too far," he says.
Mr Blair explains his interest in politics ultimately stems from his belief in God, a situation he says he first accepted while he was a student at Oxford University.
"I kind of got into religion and politics at the same time," he says. "I began to think about the world differently. And so I got interested in that at the same time as I became interested in politics."
In the interview, Mr Blair ducks most questions put to him about contemporary politics and his plans for life after Downing Street, but he tacitly admits to some friction with his presumed successor, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
"Politics is very hard to have a friendship in," Mr Blair says. "There is only one top job and it's not an ignoble ambition to want it, so there's all those difficulties there."
Last night, news of Mr Blair's comments provoked strong reactions. Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in Basra in 2004, said she was "quite disgusted" at the comments made by the Prime Minister.
The Military Families Against the War campaigner said: "How can he say he is a Christian? A Christian would never put people out there to be killed."
Iran to invest $1 billion in Iraq (Muthana Aidan, March 2, 2006, Azzaman)
Iraq has agreed to invest $1 billion to rehabilitate the country’s industrial sector, said Industry and Minerals Minister Abdulaziz al-Najafi in a statement.The statement, obtained by Azzaman, said the money from Tehran will be invested in several industrial projects and Iraqi entrepreneurs were welcome to make use of it.
It said the money will be in the form of a long-term loan as it is being raised by an Iranian bank set up to encourage Iranian exports.
The statement said the bank has already earmarked up to $400 million for immediate investment and urged Iraqi entrepreneurs to hold talks with the Iranians on the kind of projects they want to participate in.
The Iranian side will cover the whole financing but only own 33% of the projects to be implemented. The other 66% will be owned by the Iraqi side.
Iraqis will start paying their share of investments 10 years after the completion of these projects in addition to only 1% interest.
In Arabic, 'Internet' Means 'Freedom' (Jonathan Rauch, March 2006, National Journal)
Odd though it may sound, somewhere in Baghdad a man is working in secrecy to edit new Arabic versions of Liberalism, by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, and In Defense of Global Capitalism, by the Swedish economist Johan Norberg. He is doing this at some risk of kidnap, beating, and death, because he hopes that a new Arabic-language Web site, called LampofLiberty.org -- MisbahAlHurriyya.org in Arabic -- can change the world by publishing liberal classics.Odder still, he may be right.
Interviewed by e-mail, he asks to be known by a pseudonym, H. Ali Kamil. A Shiite from Iraq's south, he is an accomplished scholar, but he asks that no other personal details be revealed. Two of his friends have been killed in the postwar insurgency and chaos, one shot and the other "slaughtered." Others of his acquaintance are in hiding, visiting their families in secret. He has been threatened for working with an international agency.
Now he is collaborating not with foreign agencies but with foreign ideas. He has made Arabic translations of all or parts of more than two dozen articles and nine books and booklets. "None," he says, "were previously translated, to my knowledge, for the simple reason that they are all on liberalism and democracy, which unfortunately have little audience and advocators in the Middle East, where almost all publishing houses and press outlets are governmental -- i.e., anti-liberal."
Kamil's work is anonymous out of fear, not modesty. Translating Frederic Bastiat's The Law, he says, took 20 days of intense labor. "I am proud of that, especially when I knew that the book has never been translated before. This is one of the works my heart is aching for not having my name in its front page."
Asked how he began this work, he recounts meeting an American who was lecturing in Baghdad on principles of constitutional government. The message struck home. "Yes, you could say I am libertarian," Kamil says. "I believe in liberty for all, equality and human rights, freedom and democracy, free-market ethics, and I hate extremism in everything. I believe in life more than death as being the way to happiness."
The American was Tom G. Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington and a man who cares a lot about books. (So much so, that he always walks around with a satchel full of them.) When the Soviet Union fell, he worked on making key liberal texts available in Russian and the languages of the former Soviet Bloc. How can democracy and markets thrive, after all, without the owner's manual? [...]
Intellectual isolation is a widespread Arab phenomenon, not just an Iraqi one. Some of the statistics are startling. According to the United Nations' 2003 "Arab Human Development Report," five times more books are translated annually into Greek, a language spoken by just 11 million people, than into Arabic. "No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium," says the U.N., "equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year." Authors and publishers must cope with the whims of 22 Arab censors. "As a result," writes a contributor to the report, "books do not move easily through their natural markets." Newspapers are a fifth as common as in the non-Arab developed world; computers, a fourth as common. "Most media institutions in Arab countries remain state-owned," the report says.
No wonder the Arab world and Western-style modernity have collided with a shock. They are virtually strangers, 300 years after the Enlightenment and 200 years after the Industrial Revolution. Much as other regions may be cursed with disease or scarcity, in recent decades the Arab world has been singularly cursed with bad ideas. First came Marxism and its offshoots; then the fascistic nationalism of Nasserism and Baathism; now, radical Islamism. Diverse as those ideologies are, they have in common authoritarianism and the suppression of any true private sphere. Instead of withering as they have done in open competition with liberalism, they flourished in the Arab world's relative isolation.
American Thinker Eric Hoffer (MONICA SHOWALTER, 3/2/2006, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY)
"The True Believer" was published in 1951. Its author, Eric Hoffer, was a self-educated longshoreman born in New York City to a German cabinetmaker and his wife. His keen observations helped him become one of the greatest American philosophers.He wrote 11 terse, thoughtful interpretations of behavior for fanatics, misfits, intellectuals and practical men of action. His work was so powerful that he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan in 1982.
"You need only read one of his classics like 'The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements' to realize that you are seeing the work of an intellectual giant," wrote economist Thomas Sowell in a 2003 essay about Hoffer.
The manner in which a mass movement starts out can also have an effect on the duration and mode of termination of the active phase of the movement. When we see the Reformation, the Puritan, American and French revolutions and many nationalist uprisings terminate, after a relatively short active phase, in a social order marked by increased individual liberty, we are witnessing the realization of moods and examples which characterized the earliest days of the movements. All of them started by defying and overthrowing a long-established authority. The more clear-cut this initial act of defiance and the more vivid its memory in the minds of the people, the more likely is the eventual emergence of individual liberty.
The Pursuit of Democracy: What Bush gets wrong about nation-building (Michael Kinsley, March 3, 2006, Slate)
The case for democracy is "self-evident," as someone once put it. The case for the world's most powerful democracy to take as its mission the spreading of democracy around the world is pretty self-evident, too: What's good for us is good for others. Those others will be grateful. A world full of democracies created or protected with our help ought to be more peaceful and prosperous and favorably disposed toward us. That world will be a better neighborhood for us than a world of snarling dictatorships.There is no valid case against democracy. You used to hear a lot that democracy is not suitable for some classes of foreigners: simply incompatible with the cultures of East Asia (because deference to authority is too ingrained there), or the Arab Middle East (because everybody is a religious fanatic), or Africa (because they're too "tribal," or too predisposed to rule by a "big daddy,"… or something). But this line of argument has gone out of fashion, pushed offstage by free and fair elections in some surprising places. Even those who still harbor doubts about whether democracy is possible in this place or that—and even those who think that any democracy achieved in such places is likely to be a real mess—don't generally oppose the attempt. As someone else once said, "Good government is no substitute for self-government."
But the case against spreading democracy—especially through military force—as a mission of the U.S. government is also pretty self-evident, and lately it's been getting more so. Government, even democratic government, exists for the benefit of its own citizens, not that of foreigners. American blood and treasure should not be spent on democracy for other people.
One interesting thing to consider in this regard is that Mr. Kinsley is speaking for that portion of the West that has become feminized, criticizing George W. Bush who represents the more manly America, as suggested in this passage from Harvey Mansfield's new book:
It's...said that men are rational, women emotional. One can easily imagine a sexist male saying that in exasperation to, or about, a woman. A more refined version of this pairing might say that men are abstract and idealistic, women are empirical and realistic. How is that related to the basic stereotype of aggression and caring? One might suggest that men use their reason to yearn beyond, and to seek to abstract from, the present situation, while women use theirs to study and make the best of the present. Men are more decisive because they can reject what they see before them, and women are more perceptive because they hesitate to do that.
[S]ingle-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Nor do single-child families contribute much to future population. The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. These values include an adherence to traditional, patriarchal religion, and a strong identification with one’s own folk or nation.This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry. It may also help to explain the increasing popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as “world citizens” are also those least likely to have children.
Does this mean that today’s enlightened but slow-breeding societies face extinction? Probably not, but only because they face a dramatic, demographically driven transformation of their cultures. As has happened many times before in history, it is a transformation that occurs as secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce, and as people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default.
At least as long ago as ancient Greek and Roman times, many sophisticated members of society concluded that investing in children brought no advantage. Rather, children came to be seen as a costly impediment to self-fulfillment and worldly achievement. But, though these attitudes led to the extinction of many individual families, they did not lead to the extinction of society as a whole. Instead, through a process of cultural evolution, a set of values and norms that can roughly be described as patriarchy reemerged. [...]
nce a society grows cosmopolitan, fast-paced, and filled with new ideas, new peoples, and new luxuries, this sense of honor and connection to one’s ancestors begins to fade, and with it, any sense of the necessity of reproduction. “When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard ‘having children’ as a question of pro’s and con’s,” Oswald Spengler, the German historian and philosopher, once observed, “the great turning point has come.”
The Return of PatriarchyYet that turning point does not necessarily mean the death of a civilization, only its transformation. Eventually, for example, the sterile, secular, noble families of imperial Rome died off, and with them, their ancestors’ idea of Rome. But what was once the Roman Empire remained populated. Only the composition of the population changed. Nearly by default, it became composed of new, highly patriarchal family units, hostile to the secular world and enjoined by faith either to go forth and multiply or join a monastery. With these changes came a feudal Europe, but not the end of Europe, nor the end of Western Civilization.
We may witness a similar transformation during this century. In Europe today, for example, how many children different people have, and under what circumstances, correlates strongly with their beliefs on a wide range of political and cultural attitudes. For instance, do you distrust the army? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ronny Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids—or ever to get married and have kids—than those who say they have no objection to the military. Or again, do you find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? For whatever reason, people answering affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those who answer negatively.
The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies. Consider the demographics of France, for example. Among French women born in the early 1960s, less than a third have three or more children. But this distinct minority of French women (most of them presumably practicing Catholics and Muslims) produced more than 50 percent of all children born to their generation, in large measure because so many of their contemporaries had one child or none at all.
Many childless, middle-aged people may regret the life choices that are leading to the extinction of their family lines, and yet they have no sons or daughters with whom to share their newfound wisdom. The plurality of citizens who have only one child may be able to invest lavishly in that child’s education, but a single child will only replace one parent, not both. Meanwhile, the descendants of parents who have three or more children will be hugely overrepresented in subsequent generations, and so will the values and ideas that led their parents to have large families.
One could argue that history, and particularly Western history, is full of revolts of children against parents. Couldn’t tomorrow’s Europeans, even if they are disproportionately raised in patriarchal, religiously minded households, turn out to be another generation of ’68?
The key difference is that during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of modern societies married and had children. Some had more than others, but the disparity in family size between the religious and the secular was not so large, and childlessness was rare. Today, by contrast, childlessness is common, and even couples who have children typically have just one. Tomorrow’s children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents’ values, as always happens. But when they look around for fellow secularists and counterculturalists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
Advanced societies are growing more patriarchal, whether they like it or not. In addition to the greater fertility of conservative segments of society, the rollback of the welfare state forced by population aging and decline will give these elements an additional survival advantage, and therefore spur even higher fertility. As governments hand back functions they once appropriated from the family, notably support in old age, people will find that they need more children to insure their golden years, and they will seek to bind their children to them through inculcating traditional religious values akin to the Bible’s injunction to honor thy mother and father.
Perhaps if we bring in Eric Hoffer again we can see why the pursuit of freedom is so distinctly a manly virtue:
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
Cajun Pork Roast (Courtesy of National Pork Producers Council)
Yields 8 servingsIngredients:
2 lb boneless single loin pork roast
3 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp red pepper (cayenne)
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper, ground
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Procedures:
1 Combine all seasonings and rub well over all surfaces of roast.
2 Place roast in shallow pan and roast in 350 degree F. oven for about an hour, until internal temperature is 155 to 160 degrees F.
3 Remove from oven, let rest 5 to 10 minutes before slicing.
Mexican sandwiches find a following north of the border (TINA DANZE, 1/18/06, The Dallas Morning News)
The Mexican torta is made using a bolillo, a torpedo-shaped roll that's a Mexican cousin to French bread. Meat fillings are the same as traditional taco fillings: shredded chicken, beef or pork, and chopped steak. The torta gets its kick from jalapeños, spicy pickled onions, cilantro or salsa. Avocados, lettuce and tomatoes add a fresh component.MEXICAN TORTA
Ingredients:
1 bolillo, split
Mayonnaise to taste
3 to 4 ounces leftover shredded or sliced pork, chopped chicken or thinly sliced steak, warmed in the microwave
Bottled or canned salsa verde (Mexican green sauce), to taste
Avocado slices to taste
2 or 3 slices tomato
Shredded lettuce
1/2 tablespoon chopped cilantro, or to taste
Directions:
Spread the bolillo with mayonnaise. Top bottom half with warmed meat. Drizzle with salsa to taste. Distribute avocado, tomato, lettuce and cilantro evenly over meat and top with remaining bolillo half. Serve immediately. Makes 1 sandwich.
Think Again: Soft Power (Joseph S. Nye Jr., 1 March 2006, Foreign Policy)
“Soft Power Is Cultural Power”Partly. Power is the ability to alter the behavior of others to get what you want. There are basically three ways to do that: coercion (sticks), payments (carrots), and attraction (soft power). British historian Niall Ferguson described soft power as “non-traditional forces such as cultural and commercial goods”—and then promptly dismissed it on the grounds that “it’s, well, soft.” Of course, the fact that a foreigner drinks Coca-Cola or wears a Michael Jordan T-shirt does not in itself mean that America has power over him. This view confuses resources with behavior. Whether power resources produce a favorable outcome depends upon the context. This reality is not unique to soft-power resources: Having a larger tank army may produce military victory if a battle is fought in the desert, but not if it is fought in swampy jungles such as Vietnam.
A country’s soft power can come from three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority). Consider Iran. Western music and videos are anathema to the ruling mullahs, but attractive to many of the younger generation to whom they transmit ideas of freedom and choice.
Hard Work, Furtive Living: Illegal Immigrants in Japan: Japan needs, but does not welcome, migrant help (Sharon Noguchi, 2 March 2006, YaleGlobal)
Martinez (which is not her real name) and her fellow foreign laborers experience the flip side of the polite, safe Japan that Western tourists and foreign business people encounter. Japanese society extends little protection from exploitation for powerless illegal immigrants.Their numbers will undoubtedly swell now that Japan’s birthrate has sunk to 1.29 children per woman, well below the replacement level. In 2005, Japan’s population dropped for the first time since the government began keeping records in 1899, a year ahead of projections; births fell 4.2 percent and deaths increased 5.4 percent. With the population beginning an accelerating decline, factories need assembly-line hands, retirement schemes seek contributors, and producers want consumers.
The government does not issue visas for manual laborers or for immigrants. For decades, Japan had been one of the few countries to industrialize without drawing on immigrant labor, relying instead on rural residents and women. But during the bubble economy of the late 1980s, an acute labor shortage prompted Tokyo to grant long-term visas to Japanese descendants abroad, up to the third generation. The assumption was that such immigrants would easily fit into Japanese society, more so than other foreigners.
Today, more than 350,000 Latin Americans, most of them ethnic Japanese, live with their families in Japan. These legal immigrants do the so-called “3D work,” the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs shunned by middle-class Japanese. They are joined by illegal immigrants, foreign students, and trainees—primarily Asians ostensibly in Japan to learn skills to use back home, but who in reality supply docile low-wage labor.
About 1.9 million foreigners are registered in Japan. Combined with illegal entries, non-Japanese make up 1.5 percent of Japan’s population, a tiny proportion compared to immigrant populations in Europe and North America. The challenges so familiar to officials in the US, Europe and Australia are thus relatively new in Japan.
Official policy has not come to terms with the labor deficit, and without government action, employers will meet the growing demand for workers with illegal immigrants.
Carter Seeks Vote in U.N. Against U.S. (BENNY AVNI, March 3, 2006, NY Sun)
President Carter personally called Secretary of State Rice to try to convince her to reverse her U.N. ambassador's position on changes to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the former president recalled yesterday in a talk in which he also criticized President Bush's Christian bona fides and misstated past American policies on Israel.Mr. Carter said he made a personal promise to ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba on the U.N. change issue that was undermined by America's ambassador, John Bolton. "My hope is that when the vote is taken," he told the Council on Foreign Relations, "the other members will outvote the United States." [...]
Asked yesterday about his views on religion, Mr. Carter said, "The essence of my faith is one of peace." In a clear swipe at Mr. Bush's faith, and to a round of applause, he then added, "We worship the prince of peace, not of pre-emptive war." Mr. Carter then went on to attack American Christians who support Israel.
Colleague or work spouse? (LESLIE BALDACCI, March 3, 2006, Chicago Sun Times)
Do you spend more time working with a certain colleague of the opposite sex than with your own family? On weekends, do you think about sending an e-mail or phoning this person just to "touch base"?Are you secretive about how much time you spend together because you're worried about perceptions -- either at work or at home?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, beware. You probably have a "work spouse" and you need to be aware of the boundaries, warns Tory Johnson, founder and CEO of Women for Hire.
No love on gov's hate panel (DAVE MCKINNEY, 3/03/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Gov. Blagojevich's anti-discrimination panel seethed with acrimony Thursday as two leading Jewish members resigned, refusing to serve alongside a Nation of Islam official who was unwilling to condemn controversial remarks by Minister Louis Farrakhan.
DRAWING THE LINE: Will Tom DeLay’s redistricting in Texas cost him his seat? (JEFFREY TOOBIN, 2006-03-06, The New Yorker)
In cases of extreme partisanship in gerrymandering, it is often difficult to identify the original sin. The current controversy in Texas dates to the period just after the 1990 census, when Democrats still controlled both houses of the Texas legislature. Even though Texas was by that time trending strongly Republican in statewide and Presidential races, the Democrats drew district lines that enabled their party to win twenty-one seats in the House in 1992, compared with just nine for the Republicans. By the time of the next census, in 2000, the Republicans were understandably eager to redress the balance. “Republicans had been on the receiving end of what was known as the shrewdest gerrymander of the nineteen-nineties,” John Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general who is now a U.S. senator, said. “There are those who thought that what happened next was payback.”By 2000, Republicans controlled the governorship and the State Senate, but Democrats still had a majority in the Texas House. A deadlock between the two legislative bodies prevented Texas from adopting any redistricting plan, and the conflict ended up in federal court. The following year, a three-judge panel, ill-disposed to take sides in a political fight, ratified a modified version of the 1991 map, with two new seats awarded to high-growth districts. “The court essentially carried forward the 1991 Democratic gerrymander of Texas, which is increasingly problematic, given the over-all Republican tilt of the state,” Samuel Issacharoff, a professor at New York University School of Law, told me. “The status-quo ante looked like a distortion.”
In the 2002 elections, DeLay set out to give the Texas House a Republican majority and thus remove the last obstacle to full Republican control of the state. That year, he created two PACs, which raised and spent $3.4 million on twenty-two races for the Texas House. The law firm of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist whom DeLay has described as one of his “closest and dearest friends,” contributed twenty-five thousand dollars to the cause. On October 4, 2002, the DeLay PAC known as Texans for a Republican Majority sent a hundred and ninety thousand dollars to seven candidates for the State House. The following month, all seven were elected, and Republicans became the majority party in the Texas House.
“After the 2000 census, we never had a chance to vote on a congressional redistricting plan, because the court did it,” Tom Craddick, a close ally of DeLay’s, who became Speaker of the Texas House after the 2002 election, told me. “When we took over, we decided that we ought to do congressional redistricting. If we hadn’t taken control, we wouldn’t have gone ahead with it. Tom pushed to do it.” It was true that a court, and not the legislature, had drawn the congressional maps after the 2000 census, but that had also occurred in several other states where the political branches couldn’t agree on a plan. DeLay’s and Craddick’s idea—to redistrict in the middle of a census cycle—had never been attempted in any state. As Cornyn put it, “Everybody who knows Tom knows that he’s a fighter and a competitor, and he saw an opportunity to help the Republicans stay in power in Washington.”
In the spring of 2003, Texas Republicans, who were now dominant in both the State House and Senate, proposed a new congressional map that promised to add between five and seven new Republicans to the Texas delegation. At the time, DeLay said that, with fifty-seven per cent of Texas voters backing Republicans for Congress, it was only fair that the G.O.P. control more than fifteen of the thirty-two seats in the U.S. House. If a mid-census redistricting was necessary to align the seats with the popular vote, the Republicans argued, so be it. [...]
Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, in 1965, most legal fights about redistricting have concerned the rights of racial minorities. DeLay expected such a challenge to the 2003 Texas map, and he was ready with a preëmptive defense. “Minority rights have been protected,” he said at a press conference after the plan was ratified. He asserted that the number of Hispanic representatives could grow from six to eight, and the number of African-Americans from two to three. (These predictions were, for the most part, accurate.)
From the beginning, it was evident that the agenda of the Republican mapmakers in Texas was more political than racial. Shortly after the redistricting plan passed, Joby Fortson, an aide to Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, sent a candid e-mail to a group of colleagues that makes this point more clearly than any public statement issued by the participants. The memo, which was disclosed in the course of subsequent litigation, offers a “quick rundown” on each of the seats in the delegation. Fortson begins his description of the district where Martin Frost, the senior Democrat in the state, would have to run with the words “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. . . . His district disappeared.” As for another Democratic incumbent, Nick Lampson, Fortson says, he and a G.O.P. incumbent “are drawn together in a Republican district.” (Lampson lost, too.) “This is the most aggressive map I have ever seen,” Fortson concludes. “This has a real national impact that should assure that Republicans keep the House no matter the national mood.” (Fortson, who now works for Apple Computer, declined to comment.)
On October 14, 2003, Texas Democrats challenged the new congressional districts under the Voting Rights Act, but three months later a three-judge panel ruled that the rejiggering of the lines had not diluted the voting power of African-Americans or Hispanics. Then, in a major surprise, the Supreme Court issued an opinion that may have changed the rules of the redistricting game for good. [...]
In 2004, Democrats in Pennsylvania presented the Supreme Court with a direct challenge to the practice of partisan gerrymandering. Following the 2000 census, Republicans controlled the governorship and both houses of the state legislature, so they essentially had a free hand in shaping congressional districts to their liking. The commonwealth has become more Democratic in recent years, but the G.O.P. gerrymander showed the power of creative line-drawing. In 2002, the first election to reflect district lines, Republicans won twelve of the nineteen congressional seats—even though a Democrat, Ed Rendell, was elected governor. So a group of Democratic voters filed a lawsuit, claiming that such pervasive distortions of the popular will amounted to a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
The case, Vieth v. Jubelirer, reached the Supreme Court, which responded with one of its most significant, and most baffling, decisions in recent history. On April 28, 2004, the Court ruled five to four that the Pennsylvania plan could stand. But in more than a hundred pages of opinions, written by five Justices, there is neither a majority opinion for the Court nor an agreement on the larger issues in the case. As a lower-court judge in the Texas case later wrote of the ruling, “The light offered by Vieth is dim, and the search for a core holding is elusive.”
The lead opinion in the case, by Justice Antonin Scalia, at least has the advantage of clarity. Writing for himself, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Clarence Thomas, Scalia acknowledged that the Pennsylvania plan came about because “prominent national figures in the Republican Party pressured the General Assembly to adopt a partisan redistricting plan as a punitive measure against Democrats for having enacted pro-Democrat redistricting plans elsewhere.” But Scalia said that partisan gerrymandering was not a subject that belonged in federal court; rather, he wrote, the Constitution entrusts the issue to the political branches of government and “involves no judicially enforceable rights.” In other words, the Scalia quartet advised the Pennsylvania Democrats to try harder to win elections instead of running to the courts with their complaints.
Four other Justices dissented, arguing that the Pennsylvania Democrats deserved their day in court. John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth B. Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer said, in effect, that partisan gerrymandering had got so out of hand that it was up to the courts to restore a measure of fairness. In Stevens’s view, the courts should weigh in because “when partisanship is the legislature’s sole motivation—when any pretense of neutrality is forsaken unabashedly and all traditional districting criteria are subverted for partisan advantage—the governing body cannot be said to have acted impartially.” And the problem, Souter wrote in his dissent, keeps getting worse: “The increasing efficiency of partisan redistricting has damaged the democratic process to a degree that our predecessors only began to imagine.”
One Justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, tried to split the difference. Kennedy joined the result of Scalia’s opinion but not his reasoning.
Bush Likely to Face Opposition on Atomic Deal With India (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 3/03/06, NY Times)
Critics of the deal in Congress and abroad are certain to focus on what they maintain is a double standard embraced by the Bush administration: in effect, allowing India to have nuclear weapons and still get international assistance but insisting that Iran, North Korea and other "rogue states" be given no such waiver.But administration officials insisted there was no double standard.
"The comparison between India and Iran is just ludicrous," R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "India is a highly democratic, peaceful, stable state that has not proliferated nuclear weapons. Iran is an autocratic state mistrusted by nearly all countries and that has violated its international commitments."
Schools to ban fizzy drinks and chocolate (Alexandra Blair and Tony Halpin, 3/03/06, Times of London)
SCHOOLS will be banned from selling junk food and told to give pupils seeds and yoghurt drinks in moves to tackle child obesity.Parents will also be issued with guidelines on food high in fat and sugar which should not be included in their children’s packed lunches.
Nuts, seeds and yoghurt drinks will replace crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks in tuck shops, after-school clubs and vending machines, say the draft guidelines issued yesterday by the government-appointed School Food Trust (SFT).
The laws to wean children off sweets and chocolate will be among the toughest in the world and will take fizzy sugary drinks off the menu, as well as diet and sport drinks and flavoured waters.
Channels bloom, and viewers pick: On average, homes receive 96 stations but watch far fewer, a study finds. (Lynn Smith, March 2, 2006, LA Times)
IN the early '90s, according to Bruce Springsteen, there were "57 channels (and nothin' on)." Now, according to Nielsen Media Research, there are 96 channels in the average U.S. home. And though they may have plenty on, the average person watches only 15 of them.
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TV May Be Free but Not That Free: As downloads increase, executives have to figure out how to convince people it's stealing. (Dawn C. Chmielewski and Meg James, March 1, 2006, LA Times)
Amanda Palmer hardly fits the profile of an Internet outlaw, but her obsession with the ABC show "Lost" makes this self-described "bubbly, nutty mum" the television industry's worst nightmare.Like thousands of other British fans, the 30-year-old personal assistant can't bear to wait the nine months it can take for new "Lost" shows to air in England. So, soon after the closing credits roll in America, she downloads each episode off file-sharing networks.
And most alarming to TV industry executives, Palmer admits not a twinge of guilt.
"It's TV, isn't it?" she said. "It would probably be different if it was a movie. If it is free on everybody's TV, why worry about it?"
The $60-billion TV industry has a simple answer to Palmer's question: because the future of free TV may depend on it.
Few are likely to care whom the Oscar goes to (Christian Toto, 3/03/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Forget about the Oscar bump -- this year's batch of Academy Award nominees will be lucky to escape the weekend without dragging down the Oscar telecast ratings to record lows.
Four of the five best picture nominees already have lost out on the ticket-sales boost associated with being a part of the golden five -- the racial drama "Crash" already was on DVD.
"Brokeback Mountain," the film favored to lasso the Best Picture Oscar on Sunday, actually saw its box office take shrink 8 percent the first full weekend after the nominations were announced, according to www.boxofficemojo.com.
Diatribe on Bush taped; teacher placed on leave (Valerie Richardson, 3/03/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
By many accounts, teacher Jay Bennish was notorious for veering off topic to blast President Bush, capitalism and U.S. foreign policy during his social-studies classes here at Overland High School.
Then Sean Allen got an MP3 player for Christmas.
This week, Mr. Bennish was placed on administrative leave pending a school-district investigation after 16-year-old Sean recorded a lecture during his sophomore geography class in which the teacher compared Mr. Bush to Adolf Hitler.
During the 20-minute recording, Mr. Bennish said there were "eerie similarities" between "things that Adolf Hitler used to say" and Mr. Bush's statements during his Jan. 31 State of the Union address.
Mr. Bennish also said that capitalism was "at odds with human rights," and that the United States was "probably the most violent nation on planet Earth."
Jeff Allen, Sean's father, said his son would often complain about his teacher's left-wing rants, but Mr. Allen assumed he was exaggerating -- until he heard Mr. Bennish on the recording.
"I had no idea he was this nuts," said Mr. Allen.
New Lib Dem leader to greet party (BBC, 3/03/06)
New Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell is to make his first appearance in front of his party, a day after his leadership election victory.Sir Menzies, who has vowed to be more than "a safe pair of hands", will address a rally at the start of the party's spring conference in Harrogate.
The 64-year-old says he is ready to take risks to modernise the party.
[S]ir Menzies has an unspun integrity that contrasts well with the slickness we are so used to from Tony Blair, and are becoming used to from David Cameron.But Sir Menzies also said he would be "courageous". Certainly, his distinctly aged appearance and old-world manner do need leavening with youth. We can expect to see more of the "Orange Book" generation - notably the avowedly modern liberals David Laws and Nick Clegg.
It is heartening that these men profess a belief in localism and free markets. Yet they are swimming against a strong current in their party, and it is unclear if the new leader has the strength, or the inclination, to support them.
His election demonstrates that Sir Menzies commands respect on both wings of the party - which is to say, he represents the terminal muddle that is Liberal Democracy.
His campaign slogan ("fairness, freedom and environmental protection") merely strings together three concepts which, to the Lib Dem mind, militate against each other. In the interests of "fairness", for example, he intimated yesterday that he will vote against the "freedom" enshrined in the current Schools Bill.
Bush to hail Indian partnership: US President George W Bush is to outline his vision of a new strategic partnership with India, on the final day of his visit to the country. (BBC, 3/03/06)
In his speech to political and business leaders, Mr Bush will say that India is and will be a key player in the world's most rapidly developing corner, and that a strong relationship is vital for American interests.The White House says the president will focus on shared values, especially the two countries' commitment to democracy.
Earlier, Mr Bush highlighted the importance of economic ties between the US and India with a brief visit to the southern Indian hi-tech city of Hyderabad.
Hyderabad is one of India's most important industrial centres and the headquarters of many US companies on the sub-continent, including the computer software giant Microsoft.
Addressing young business leaders, President Bush said the increasing wealth of cities like Hyderabad presented huge possibilities for US firms.
"The classic opportunity for our American farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses to understand is there is a 300 million-person market of middle class citizens here in India," the president said.
And he said improved trade would compensate for the jobs lost to competition from India's world beating out-sourcing and computer software industries. [...]
The Pentagon used the visit to announce that Washington has offered to sell India advanced fighter aircraft as part of an expanding military partnership.
The Reality Of India-US Nuclear Deal (Binu Mathew, 03 March, 2006, Countercurrents.org)
The deal has come through at a time of soaring petroleum prices and also when the threat of peak oil has come to be accepted as a reality by trade pundits. The last decade saw the growing economies of India and China putting pressure on the global supply of fossil fuels consuming ever larger quantities. As the threat of peak oil lurk in the not so distant future it was imperative for the world’s lone super power to shut the rivals out of the competition. It has been the corner stone of American foreign policy of the recent past, invading Iraq and Afghanistan, pampering the house of Saud’s , threatening Iran and Venezuela, playing murky games in Darfur.The nuclear deal with India is not a benevolent gift from the emperor to a client state. It was a clever move to put India out of the competition for fossil fuels which is getting ever scarcer. Bush spelt it out very cleverly in New Delhi - "It's in our economic interests that India have a civilian nuclear power industry to help take the pressure off the global demand for energy.To the extent that we can reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will help the American consumer."
NeoConservatism vs. NeoFukayama (Michael Brandon McClellan, 03 Mar 2006, Tech Central Station)
[F]ukuyama correctly recognizes the imminent danger of any "realism" that allies the United States with forces that are committed to preventing democratization and liberalization in the Arab world. However, he does so in a way that evidences his fealty to the eminently ineffective Woodrow Wilson. Wilson foolishly believed that peace could be promoted and that freedom could be defended in the absence of force. It is worth remembering that his brainchild, the flaccid League of Nations, demonstrated its non-military peacekeeping worth by permitting Mussolini to crush Ethiopia, Hitler to occupy the Rhineland, and Japan to forcibly steal Manchuria. Wilson leads to Munich.Fukuyama advocates the "demilitarization" of the war on terror, and the augmentation of organizations such as the State Department and multilateral international organizations. Such a sentiment would make Woodrow Wilson proud. However, given the historical record, it is hardly a sufficient prescription. Indeed, it is ominous. A policy that is limited to diplomatic engagement with the very authoritarian beneficiaries of the Middle Eastern status quo cannot reasonably be expected to alter the terror producing status quo.
Let us therefore lay it out clearly -- Fukuyama is merely arguing a nuanced liberal internationalism. His conclusion is as follows:
"Neoconservatism, whatever its complex roots, has become indelibly associated with concepts like coercive regime change, unilateralism and American hegemony. What is needed now are new ideas, neither neoconservative nor realist, for how America is to relate to the rest of the world -- ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about."
Therein rests the difference between neoconservatism, which is democratic realism, and the Wilsonian idealism of Francis Fukuyama. Both groups believe in the essentiality of promoting freedom as a matter of policy. Only one however, recognizes the vital relationship between the promotion and protection of freedom and the wielding of hard power. As I wrote in TCS back in 2004, those who abide by the law of the jungle will not voluntarily accept the rule of law in the absence of force. Make no mistake about it; American withdrawal would leave the Middle East to the control of thugs and terrorists. While America is powerful, it must strive to change the heretofore disastrous Middle Eastern status quo for the better.
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MacBush: The neoconservative tragedy. (Jacob Weisberg, March 1, 2006, Slate)
In Greek tragedy, the hero's fall is often charted in terms of his hamartia, sometimes translated as "tragic flaw." What undid the neoconservatives in the end may have been an instinct left over from their old Trotskyist days, a weakness for categorical Marxist-Hegelian thinking (a pretty good expression of which, come to think of it, is Fukuyama's own most famous work, The End of History and the Last Man). People who should have known better came to believe that one place was like another, and that historic inevitability would do the heavy lifting for them. Now the neoconservative tragedy is ours as well.
Stevens drops oil-tanker bill to give Cantwell's GOP foe an edge in race (Alicia Mundy, 3/03/06, Seattle Times)
In chess, it's a bold gambit. A player sacrifices a valuable piece in order to take down his opponent's queen. This time, the player, Sen. Ted Stevens, is giving up one of his favorite bills in the Senate in an effort to take out his nemesis, Sen. Maria Cantwell.The chessboard is the Washington Senate race, where Cantwell, a freshman Democrat, is facing re-election against Republican Mike McGavick. Stevens, R-Alaska, who has fought Cantwell on several fronts, wants to find ways to help McGavick defeat her.
Yesterday, Stevens handed McGavick a gift. Stevens took to the Senate floor to announce he will withdraw his own bill introduced last November to open up the Puget Sound to more oil tankers at the Cherry Point docks near Bellingham.
In doing so, he credited McGavick for persuading him to undo his legislation. He also gave McGavick an opportunity to claim as his own a corner of Cantwell's election platform of energy and environmental issues.
"I have never in my 38 years in the Senate asked to have any bill I introduced be permanently postponed, but that is my intention now," Stevens said from the Senate floor.
"One letter from a Washingtonian convinced me," he added.
A Royal Pain: Following Kansas City's baseball team ain't easy … but it builds character and perseverance. (Collin Hansen, 03/02/2006, Christianity Today)
[D]edicated fans know they cannot in good conscience ditch their team during the valleys and fully celebrate the peaks that may come. Fans of the last two World Series champions—the Sox Red and White—celebrated with such gusto precisely because their teams hadn't won it all in nearly a century. My mind tells me I can stop caring and wait for the bandwagon some day, but my heart won't let me. The life of a dedicated fan requires loyalty, perseverance, and fortitude.If this is true, being a fan somewhat resembles a relationship with God. Indeed, there is no character without perseverance (Rom. 5:3-4). In my own little sports world, I feel like the baseball Job. Like Job did with God, I yell at the Royals players, and I wish I had never grown up a Royals fan. My wife tells me to give up and turn off the game. My friends blame me, because I could have picked the Twins—the Royals are my own fault. I cry out, "A Royals fan I came from my mother's womb, and a Royals fan I will depart; the Lord giveth and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." I can only hope the Lord will giveth some day, as he eventually did with Job.
India's Olive Branch (Ruth David, 03.01.06, Forbes)
There might be good news for General Motors in India's latest budget--but only if it can think small.In a bid to encourage international carmakers, including GM and Ford Motor, to offer smaller cars, the budget released on Wednesday proposed a 33% cut on the excise duty on smaller vehicles. It was just one of a series of customs and tax breaks outlined for the makers of cars, packaged foods and life-saving drugs. Foreign investors could also get a boost, but software makers will have to reboot their lobbying efforts.
This year's budget focused more on organic growth than on reforms that would draw more foreign firms to India. Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram did not relax labor laws, which multinationals accuse of being archaic, and retained hefty domestic subsidies. Communism lives on in India, and the communist-backed coalition made it difficult to plug such reforms.
Dubai Ports' Decade Of Growth (Forbes.com staff 03.01.06)
Dubai's location at the mouth of the Persian Gulf has made the city-sheikdom a trade crossroads for six centuries. Today, Jebel Ali, one of its two ports, is the largest manmade port in the world and sits next to a huge free-trade zone.The state-owned company that developed and runs Jebel Ali, its associated free-trade zone, which numbers more than 3,800 companies from 100 countries, including Colgate-Palmolive, H.J. Heinz, PB, Sony, Nokia, DaimlerChrysler, among its residents, and Dubai's smaller terminal, Port Rashid, is Dubai Ports. Under its chairman, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, it had two roles; as a port authority, responsible for the regulation and administration of the the ports, and as a business, which develops and operates them.
Until last year, Dubai Ports was loosely separated into two parts, the Dubai Port Authority and DPI Terminals, its ever-further reaching investment arm. Last year, the regulatory functions were spun off as the Dubai Ports and Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority, leaving DP World to handle what had mushroomed into the world's sixth-largest port terminal-operating business, overseeing 22 container terminals in 15 countries. [...]
The P&O deal would make Dubai Ports the world's third-largest ports operator, behind Li Ka-shing's Hutchinson Whampoa's ports business and the Singapore government's PSA (which lost out in the bidding for P&O), and leapfrog it over China's state-run COSCO and over APM Terminals, part of the AP Moller-Maersk transportation group, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Most of them, including the two government-owned operators, already run ports in the U.S., where at least 90 terminals are operated by non-U.S. businesses.
The industry is fast consolidating on a global scale because size offers shippers the opportunity for one global contract, rather than needing to negotiate with a number of ports around the world.
Many port terminals in the United States are operated by foreign companies. One terminal in New York is operated by Orient Overseas Investment Limited, based in Hong Kong. OOIL is closely linked to the Communist party and its army in mainland China.
'BROKEBACK ABUSED SHEEP' (CYNTHIA R. FAGEN, March 2, 2006, NY Post)
The makers of the gay cowboy flick "Brokeback Mountain" were too rough on sheep, an animal-rights group charged yesterday.In a letter to director Ang Lee, The Humane Society also complained about the way the horses and elk were treated.
"The excessively rough handling of the sheep and horses leaves viewers questioning whether anyone was looking out for the safety of those animals," the letter said.
Black Flight: The exodus to charter schools. (KATHERINE KERSTEN, March 2, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Something momentous is happening here in the home of prairie populism: black flight. African-American families from the poorest neighborhoods are rapidly abandoning the district public schools, going to charter schools, and taking advantage of open enrollment at suburban public schools. Today, just around half of students who live in the city attend its district public schools.As a result, Minneapolis schools are losing both raw numbers of students and "market share." In 1999-2000, district enrollment was about 48,000; this year, it's about 38,600. Enrollment projections predict only 33,400 in 2008. A decline in the number of families moving into the district accounts for part of the loss, as does the relocation of some minority families to inner-ring suburbs. Nevertheless, enrollments are relatively stable in the leafy, well-to-do enclave of southwest Minneapolis and the city's white ethnic northeast. But in 2003-04, black enrollment was down 7.8%, or 1,565 students. In 2004-05, black enrollment dropped another 6%.
Black parents have good reasons to look elsewhere. Last year, only 28% of black eighth-graders in the Minneapolis public schools passed the state's basic skills math test; 47% passed the reading test. The black graduation rate hovers around 50%, and the district's racial achievement gap remains distressingly wide. Louis King, a black leader who served on the Minneapolis School Board from 1996 to 2000, puts it bluntly: "Today, I can't recommend in good conscience that an African-American family send their children to the Minneapolis public schools. The facts are irrefutable: These schools are not preparing our children to compete in the world." Mr. King's advice? "The best way to get attention is not to protest, but to shop somewhere else."
They can do so because of the state's longstanding commitment to school choice.
Senate approves Patriot Act renewal (Associated Press, 3/02/06)
The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to renew the USA Patriot Act, after months of pitched debate over legislation that supporters said struck a better balance between privacy rights and the government's power to hunt down terrorists.
LETTER FROM HERNDON, VA.: White Nationalist Conference Ponders Whether Jews and Nazis Can Get Along (JONATHAN TILOVE, March 3, 2006, The Forward)
For the small, hardy band of right-wing Jews who attended this past weekend's American Renaissance Conference, the biennial gathering of white nationalists ended on a sour note.The events Saturday, February 25, passed without major incident. But then, late Sunday morning, none other than former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke approached the microphone on the floor during the question-and-answer session for French writer Guillaume Faye. After congratulating Faye for stirring remarks that "touched my genes," Duke asked if there weren't an even more insidious threat to the West than Islam.
"There is a power in the world that dominates our media, influences our government and that has led to the internal destruction of our will and our spirit," Duke said.
"Tell us, tell us," came a call from the back of the room.
"I'm not going to say it," Duke said to rising laughter.
But Michael Hart, a squat, balding Jewish astrophysicist from Maryland, was not amused. He rose from his seat, strode toward Duke (who loomed over him like an Aryan giant), spit out a curse — "You f...ing Nazi, you've disgraced this meeting" — and exited.
As it happens, only a few minutes earlier Hart, a mainstay of American Renaissance conferences, had been trying to reassure Herschel Elias, a first-time attendee from suburban Philadelphia, that he should not let his observation that the meeting was "infiltrated by Nazis and Holocaust deniers" ruin his impression of American Renaissance.
Rice shows off her fitness regime (AP, 3/02/06)
Condoleezza Rice, the nation's top diplomat, is appearing in a three-part TV interview in which she rides a bike, works on her abs, pumps iron and talks about her weight.Public figures usually do not go public when they work on their figures, though when they do, it can help humanize their images. President George W. Bush is sometimes photographed trying to stay fit on his bike, and President Clinton took some high-profile jogs.
But secretaries of state, a job most people associate with the stiff, inscrutable language of diplomacy? Three days on TV in the gym?
Hard to picture her predecessors Colin Powell or Madeleine Albright doing the same. How about Warren Christopher? Alexander Haig? Not likely.
Samantha von Sperling, a New York-based image consultant whose customers include politicians, was skeptical. She admires Rice, but finds this all to be a bit "Oprah-esque."
"It just strikes me as, what's the point?" she said. "Why do I need to see her in Spandex?"
Telescopes 'worthless' by 2050 (Paul Rincon, BBC, 3/2/06)
Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.It's a little sad that he seems to think that there's a chance we'll choose astronomy.Aircraft condensation trails - known as contrails - can dissipate, becoming indistinguishable from other clouds.
If trends in cheap air travel continue, says Professor Gerry Gilmore, the era of ground astronomy may come to an end much earlier than most had predicted....
"It is already clear that the lifetime of large ground-based telescopes is finite and is set by global warming," Professor Gilmore, from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, told reporters recently in London.
"There are two factors. Climate change is increasing the amount of cloud cover globally. The second factor is cheap air travel....
"You either give up your cheap trips to Majorca, or you give up astronomy. You can't do both."
Bill Clinton advises Dubai as Hillary attacks its US ports deal (AFP, 3/02/06)
Former president Bill Clinton has privately advised Dubai officials how to address US political concerns over a controversial ports deal, as his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, publicly attacks the deal....This is the sort of quality entertainment that the current administration never provides.Senator Clinton has voiced vigorous opposition to the 5.7-billion-euro (6.8-billion-dollar) takeover, saying it threatens US national security....
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported Thursday her husband -- who it said was paid 300,000 dollars in 2002 to address a summit in Dubai -- has advised Dubai officials how to soothe US concerns over the deal.
Black vote no longer a lock for Democrats (Jon Ward, March 2, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Black voters' loyalty to the Democratic Party is no longer a certainty in Maryland, especially among young independent voters, several black leaders say.
"We might be the last generation of unabashed loyalists to the Democratic Party," state Senate Majority Leader Nathaniel J. McFadden of Baltimore says. "The Democratic Party is no longer a monolith for the African-American community."
Rep. Albert R. Wynn of Prince George's County warns his party's leaders that "black voters can no longer be taken for granted."
An Imperial President?: US Presidents and the Making of Foreign Policy (Tim Clancey, History Today)
The Constitution was explicit on presidential control over foreign policy. The President would be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, would negotiate treaties, nominate ambassadors and foreign policy advisers, and receive envoys from foreign governments. Congress, though, could confirm or reject presidential nominees, would have control over raising and financially supporting armies, and – very important to the Constitution’s Founding Fathers – only with Congress’s support could a treaty be ratified or a war declared. The Constitution has hardly changed since then, and a key story of US government since has been a struggle between the Presidency and Congress for control. John F. Kennedy admitted in 1963 ‘When you’re in the White House, Congress looks like the enemy.’In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that ‘the President of the United States possesses almost royal prerogatives which he has no opportunity of exercising … the laws permit him to be strong, circumstances keep him weak.’ The first half of the 20th century, however, provided increasing opportunities as the USA began to operate as a genuine world power. Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency took US involvement in world affairs further than ever before. Roosevelt’s political energy and ambitions for the presidency – Graubard’s view is that ‘an elemental force had entered the White House’ – was at times frustrated in domestic policy by a strong Senate, but his expertise and leadership in foreign policy set the tone for much of the 20th century. Not all of his successors took the same interest in foreign policy, but the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were definitely shapers of their country’s foreign policy to the extent that they were at least temporarily able to take the initiative away from Congress.
Wilson did not match Theodore Roosevelt’s expertise in foreign policy but he did match his ambition. In Wilson’s view, the president was ‘at liberty both in law and conscience to be as big a man as he can’. Once Congress had authorised the USA’s entry into World War I in 1917 Wilson found himself in a position to mobilise the nation. This made the presidency more powerful than ever before. Yet within three years Wilson was humiliated by the Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and join Wilson’s own brainchild, the League of Nations. Even more significant was the growth of ‘isolationism’ that followed. Franklin Roosevelt took an internationalist view of foreign policy in the tradition of Wilson, but Congress’s response to the rise of the dictators in the 1930s was to pass a series of neutrality acts, resolutions and amendments designed to preserve US isolation, and this stance was firmly backed by public opinion. Roosevelt was buoyed by an unprecedented third election victory in 1940 but had to tell Churchill as late as autumn 1941 that Congress would not sanction a declaration of war.
When the USA entered World War II in 1941 there was no long-term tradition of presidential domination of foreign policy. However, the post-1941 period saw successive presidents able to exercise greater control. There was no dispute that the USA was right to enter the war after the unprovoked Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour, and this was a turning point in the role of the president in foreign policy. Roosevelt proved to be a towering war leader, already admired for his presidential record before the war and then pursuing Germany and Japan to unconditional surrender. Congress chose not to object to his arbitrary approach to foreign policy decision-making. Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1945, stated that foreign policy was ‘the prerogative of the Chief Executive’, in other words the President; such a statement in the 1930s would have been unthinkable.
Once Congress had come to terms with the reality of a ‘Cold War’ by the late 1940s, Harry Truman and his successors enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for any strong stance taken by the USA in foreign affairs. Congress might complain, criticise or water down presidential initiatives – the Marshall Plan (a programme of economic aid to Europe) was scaled down to a fraction of its original scope – but outright defiance of Truman’s foreign policy wishes hardly occurred. Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson enjoyed a similar level of bipartisan support. Kennedy blockaded Cuba and placed the US air force on alert in 1962 without consulting, or receiving any objection from, Congress; and, astonishingly, the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution – allowing Johnson freedom to commit as many US troops as he wished in Vietnam (in response to a North Vietnam attack on a US destroyer in the said gulf) – was passed unanimously in the House of Representatives, and with only two votes against in the Senate. When Professor Clinton Rossiter wrote in 1965 that the presidency combined ‘the dignity of a king and the authority of a prime minister in one elective office’, and that ‘one of the true prides of the American people is that none of their presidents has been a scoundrel or a tyrant’, his views would have been far more widely accepted than would be the case today.
The key to understanding the growth of presidential dominance of foreign policy after 1941 lies not just in the consensus over foreign policy but also in the tactics used by presidents to manage Congress. A president would usually consult with congressional leaders beforehand to explain and persuade them not to oppose his plans. Truman and Eisenhower both used this tactic to remarkable effect. Eisenhower was able, in 1955 and 1957, to win the go-ahead to take whatever military action he saw fit in defence of Taiwan and US interests in the Middle East.
Truman, struggling to rouse a Congress unconvinced of cold war and worried by domestic economic problems, repeatedly used dramatic scare tactics to push his policies through Congress. The Truman Doctrine (a mission statement to prevent the spread of communism by whatever means necessary) went through after Truman used apocalyptic anti-communist rhetoric. For the Marshall Plan, Truman made a personal appearance before the House of Representatives, warning that the plan was not enough on its own and more must be done. Truman was able to use external events to persuade Congress; for example the announcement that the USSR had exploded its first atom bomb in 1949 did wonders to persuade Congress to allocate funds to NATO. He could also use the recognised need to act quickly in foreign policy when intervening in Korea in 1950, advising opposition leader Senator Taft that Congress would not be consulted, and then, although publicising Taft’s support for the intervention, ignoring the senator’s objection to the lack of consultation.
Later, Johnson and Nixon and Reagan were all prepared to effectively lie to Congress, or at least deliberately conceal information, in order to have their way in foreign policy.
New Celtic recipes (Brian Duffy, March 02, 2006)
IRISH POTATO BOXTY (PRATAI)This easy-to-make potato dish uses both fresh potatoes and leftover mashed potatoes. It is celebrated in the rhyme: "Boxty on the griddle, boxty in the pan. If you can't make boxty, you'll never get your man."
* 2 Yukon Gold potatoes
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup sour cream
* 1/4 bunch green onions, chopped
* 1/4 bunch chives, chopped
* 1/2 cup mashed potatoes
* Salt and pepperJulienne potatoes or shred on a box grater. Mix with remaining ingredients and season to taste. Form into pancake-sized discs, about 4 inches in diameter.
Sear in a hot pan or griddle for about 4 to 6 minutes on each side, until crisp and golden brown.
Serve with tart apple sauce, a dollop of sour cream or -- for a more upscale treat -- grilled vegetables with mushrooms and goat cheese.
Makes about 8 pancakes.
Kennedy tries to halt windmills (Audrey Hudson, March 2, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
A fight to block alternative fuel development that could replace oil-burning power plants for communities along the Nantucket Sound has created an unusual alliance on Capitol Hill, with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy backing the fight against the green proposal.
Mr. Kennedy, a staunch environmentalist, opposes the Cape Wind project, which will place windmills in the sound's shallows to create electricity for customers in Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Critics say the Massachusetts Democrat doesn't want the Cape Wind project in his own back yard along with 130 windmills that might clutter the water view of the Kennedy clan's vacation home. Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts' junior senator and another key green ally, called attempts to derail the project an "insult."
Blair lowers his sights as schools rebellion grows (David Charter, 3/02/06, Times of London)
TONY BLAIR appeared to concede that he would need Conservative votes to save his school reforms yesterday when he lowered his target for support from his rebellious backbenchers.Accused by a Labour MP of playing Lewis Carroll politics, Mr Blair insisted that more of his own MPs than Conservatives would vote for his Education and Inspections Bill.
But as Labour has 353 MPs compared to the Conservatives’ 196, a difference of 157, that was a significant lowering of Mr Blair’s previous aim of winning enough Labour support to preserve his 64-seat majority.
Hamas may soften stand on Israel, Moscow report says (JUDITH INGRAM, 3/02/06, Associated Press)
The Palestinian ambassador to Russia said Thursday that Hamas might reconsider its stance toward Israel in order to advance the interests of the Palestinian people, a Russian news agency reported.Hamas “ties the question of recognizing Israel as a state with the necessity to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories,” Ambassador Bakir Abdel Munem was quoted as saying in an interview with ITAR-Tass news agency. “At the same time, I think that Hamas may revise its stand in the interests of the entire Palestinian people.”
Klein willing to defy Ottawa (KATHERINE HARDING and GLORIA GALLOWAY, 3/02/06, Globe and Mail)
Alberta's sweeping health-care proposals aren't "written in stone," Premier Ralph Klein said yesterday, but warned he would not shy away from a fight with Ottawa to get what he wants.Mr. Klein said he doesn't know yet how much of his 10-point plan will remain intact after a public consultation period, scheduled to last a month. If the subsequent legislation breaches federal health rules, however, he's ready to do battle with the new Conservative government.
"It may violate the Canada Health Act," he told reporters.
Alito's Note to Evangelist Is Called Just Thanks (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 3/02/06, NY Times)
In his first weeks on the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. sent a note to Dr. James C. Dobson, the influential Christian conservative, thanking him for his support and vowing that "as long as I serve on the Supreme Court, I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me," Dr. Dobson said Wednesday in a radio broadcast.
U.S., India Seal Nuclear Deal (Jim VandeHei, March 2, 2006, Washington Post)
In a break from decades of U.S. policy, President Bush agreed Thursday to provide nuclear energy assistance to India for the first time in exchange for imposing new safeguards on India's civilian weapons facilities. [...]Under the deal, the United States offered India nuclear fuel and technology in return for India agreeing to put a wall between its civilian and military nuclear facilities and place its civilian program under international inspections.
Bush and Singh hailed the deal as an historic breakthrough in U.S.-India relations, less than a decade after the two nations were estranged and bitterly divided over India's nuclear ambitions. "What this agreement says is -- things change, times change, that leadership can make a difference," Bush said at a joint press conference . [...]
"I'm trying to think differently," Bush said, "not to stay stuck in the past, and recognize that by thinking differently, particularly on nuclear power, we can achieve some important objectives," Bush said. [...]
In a lunchtime toast, Singh told Mrs. Bush: "I'm truly sorry that the president is not taking you to Taj Mahal this time. I hope he will be more chivalrous the next time you are here." Bush laughed and promised the would visit the 350-year-old wonder -- next time.
Many skilled immigrants aren't staying (NICHOLAS KEUNG, 3/02/06, Toronto Star)
One in six male immigrants leaves Canada for better opportunities elsewhere within the first year of arrival, and those most likely to emigrate are the cream of the crop: businessmen and skilled workers.Those findings are part of a Statistics Canada report released yesterday, the first national study to get a firm handle on the extent of out-migration and "brain drain" among the country's new arrivals. Anecdotal evidence for several years has suggested immigrants are leaving in droves because they can't land suitable jobs in Canada.
Experts say the findings highlight the need for an integrated approach that focuses not only on selecting the right immigrants but also on keeping them by matching them with suitable opportunities.
"The people who are leaving the country are true migrants. They move by choice for pure economic reasons," said Jean Lock Kunz, associate project director of Policy Research Initiative, an Ottawa-based think-tank.
"In our global economy, there is a greater movement of people and businesses. We are going to see more and more people moving in and out. Every country will be competing for skilled workers. The key to keep them here is to match them up with the needs of the labour market, so they have a reason to stay."
How we pay for cable may be about to change (Leslie Cauley, 3/01/06, USA TODAY)
Cable TV companies have long said the "expanded-basic" package of channels that most viewers choose is a bargain. For about $41 a month, they note, you can see scores of channels, including CNN and ESPN.Most of us, though, typically watch only 15 to 17 channels a month, according to industry estimates. Yet expanded basic continues to swell like a hot-air balloon — and so has its price. A few years ago, expanded basic offered about 35 channels; today, 200 to 300 channels are common. The price of expanded basic has jumped more than 40% in five years. In that time, overall prices for goods and services are up just 12%.
Now, thanks to new technology, shifting sentiment in Washington and deep-pocketed rivals such as AT&T and Verizon, the expanded-basic balloon might be about to pop.
U.S. firms hope for ignited India trade (David J. Lynch, 3/01/06, USA TODAY)
U.S.-India trade has been growing fast in recent years, but commercial ties remain comparatively undeveloped. U.S. exports to India reached $8 billion last year, more than double the 2000 figure. But that's a pittance, given India's population of 1.1 billion. U.S. firms sold almost twice as much last year to Brazil, which has a population less than one-fifth that of India. [...][B]ilateral trade, which totaled less than $27 billion last year, has been hamstrung by India's red tape and disastrous infrastructure. Roads, ports and utilities such as electricity and telephones are in awful shape — especially compared with rising economies such as China.
India maintained a mostly closed economy for decades after independence in 1947. Despite reforms that began in 1991, foreign investment remains limited. This fiscal year, it's expected to total just $5 billion, vs. the $60 billion that flooded into China. "India traditionally has been fairly ... inward looking. That's changing," says Jyoti Narasimhan, an economist at Global Insight.
UBS Securities says inward investment could double in three years. In its first major investment in six decades of sales to India, Boeing plans to spend up to $100 million on a new airplane maintenance facility and up to $75 million on a pilot training center. Both would fill glaring holes in India's booming aviation sector, Keskar says.
Bomber kills U.S. diplomat in Pakistan (AP, 3/01/06)
A suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into a vehicle carrying an American diplomat in Pakistan's largest city, killing four people — including the diplomat — ahead of President Bush's visit to Pakistan. [...]Officials said the bombing could be timed for Bush's visit to Pakistan.
Bush will travel to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, which lies about 1,000 miles north of Karachi, later this week. He made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday before arriving in India.
"All international media are eyeing Pakistan at this time, and terrorists are using this to defame Pakistan and Muslims," said Ishratul Ibab, the provincial governor.
Islamic militants have targeted the U.S. Consulate in Karachi before.
High Court Reviews Texas Redistricting: Hearing Focuses on Constitutional Issues (Charles Lane, March 2, 2006, Washington Post)
[A]fter two hours of a special extended oral argument, the justices seemed likely to let stand all or most of DeLay's handiwork.Opponents argued that the unusual mid-decade redistricting violated the Constitution because it was done with no purpose other than to maximize one party's advantage over another. But the justices reacted coolly to that assertion, which, if accepted by the court, would break new ground in election law.
Perhaps the worst sign for the opponents came in the hostile questioning by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose past opinions on election law issues suggest that he might be the swing voter in the case. Kennedy said it would be "very dangerous" for the court to bar mid-decade redistricting that favors one party because then there would be no way to correct a previous legislature that had "overreached" in favor of another party.
Humanizing Eugenics: A bad idea bred of good intentions (CHRISTINE ROSEN, February 28, 2006, Opinion Journal)
Harry Bruinius takes the title of his book about eugenics, "Better for All the World," from Holmes's now notorious opinion. Eugenics, a term coined by British scientist Francis Galton in 1883, means "good in birth"; its adherents hoped to improve the human race through better breeding. The notion proved particularly appealing to Americans in the early 20th century, as they confronted waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and fretted about the "purity" of the native Anglo-Saxon American population.Many states passed marriage-restriction laws, barring the feeble-minded and epileptic from obtaining marriage licenses, and laws requiring the compulsory sterilization of the feeble-minded residing in state institutions. State fairs even featured "fitter families" contests, where judges assessed each competing family's eugenic merit. In 1924, Congress passed an immigration-restriction law based on eugenic principles, assuming that certain national groups possessed better "germplasm"--or heritable traits--than others. Progressive politicians, intellectuals and religious leaders supported eugenics, seeing in it an enlightened, scientific attempt to cure humanity's ills. [...]
Mr. Bruinius's intention is to humanize the story of eugenics by exploring the "age-old passions and human desires" behind the movement. He offers portraits of men like Aubrey Strode, a progressive-minded state senator from Virginia who sponsored the sterilization law that was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court; Charles Davenport, a biologist who notably secured funds from Mrs. E.H. Harriman, the widow of the railroad magnate, and from the Carnegie Institution to fund eugenics research in the U.S.; and Harry H. Laughlin, the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., who advised Congress during debate over the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act and, as a major supporter of sterilization, assessed Carrie Buck's pedigree and declared her "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless."
Holland is always on the cutting edge of progress in social issues. The age-of-consent (for sexual activity) in that country is 12 (unless an "interested party" files a complaint), euthanasia is practiced, supposedly observing a set of guidelines which require consent of the euthanized, but horror stories do emerge more and more frequently, and the aged, poor, and infirm feel compelled to carry little cards with them that say "Do not euthanize me" for fear some doctor will decide their quality of life is not good enough (for whom?) and compassionately end their life.The latest forward thinking proposal coming out of Holland is mandatory abortion of unwanted children. (Of course, if you have to force the woman to abort a child, one is inclined to question who it is that doesn't want it.) The woman who is proposing this "debate" is Marianne van den Anker, who is the official in charge of Rotterdam's health and security portfolios. The communities she wishes to target are Antilleans and Arubans, She is specifically looking to target teenaged mothers, drug addicts and the mentally handicapped, and has a litany of "compassionate" reasons for her proposal, complete with a worst case scenario (in typical liberal fashion) with which to define the entire debate in order to defend what many of us regard as the reprehensible.
The day storm hit, Bush was worried about levees: Transcript shows gap in concern, action (Bill Walsh, 3/01/06, New Orleans Times Picayune)
On the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, President Bush and a top presidential aide were worried about whether New Orleans' levees had held, according to a transcript of discussions among disaster officials on the front lines of the storm.Those concerns, expressed about midday Aug. 29, are in contrast to an image of a detached president and also to what happened later that night. That's when an official manning the federal emergency operations center held off acting on reports of levee breaches as he waited for confirmation.
The White House was chastised recently by a House committee for not moving more quickly to address the failed levees that ultimately plunged 80 percent of New Orleans under water.
The transcript, obtained by The Times-Picayune, illustrates the gulf at the highest levels of government between concern for the disaster and action.
Saddam admits ordering villagers' death trial (Jim Muir, 02/03/2006, Daily Telegraph)
Saddam Hussein admitted for the first time yesterday that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shia villagers who were executed after being implicated in an assassination attempt against him.The courtroom admission came as the former Iraqi dictator also acknowledged confiscating their land and ordering the destruction of farms and orchards in reprisal for the attempt on his life in Dujail in 1982.
What Is a Bush Republican? (Daniel Casse, March 2006, Commentary)
[Bruce] Bartlett’s analysis is altogether reminiscent of the sky-is-falling tenor of Stockman’s 1986 memoir, The Triumph of Politics, written after he resigned as White House budget director and bearing the subtitle, “How the Reagan Revolution Failed.” Stockman believed that Reagan’s unwillingness to cut spending doomed future generations to fiscal peril. In Impostor, Bartlett makes a similar argument. His own agent of impending calamity is the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, passed by Republicans at the insistence of the President and, by Bartlett’s lights, the “worst legislation in history.”The 2003 bill created, for the first time, a prescription-drug benefit as part of the Medicare entitlement program, which until then had provided reimbursement only for hospital care and doctors’ visits. As a matter of public policy, analysts had long decried the anomaly of a program that paid for expensive bypass surgery but not for the far less costly statin medicines that can help prevent heart attacks in the first place. As a political matter, many also believed that this was an opportunity Republicans could not pass up; Democrats had been successfully exploiting the issue for partisan gain since Reagan’s time.
Dismissing the claims of a political upside to Bush’s move, Bartlett focuses instead on how the initial projections for prescription-drug coverage had vastly underestimated the program’s long-term costs. Since then, the Medicare Trustees, an independent group, has raised its own long-term estimates still further, projecting, over the next 75 years, more than $8 trillion in drug entitlements with no funding source in sight. Hence Bartlett’s view that, absent drastic reductions in benefits, only higher taxes can avert fiscal disaster.
It is certainly true that, so far, the legislation has brought Bush little political benefit. Moreover, implementation of the plan beginning this past January has been so rocky, leaving some of the most financially vulnerable seniors without their prescription medicine, as to overshadow all else. Nor do most health-care actuaries and budget experts disagree with Bartlett that longer-term costs are the real problem.
The same goes for the many conservative activists who have echoed Bartlett’s arguments. Stephen Moore, until recently the head of the Club for Growth, a fundraising organization for free-market political candidates, said that his group could not “in good conscience support [this] largest entitlement expansion in decades.” Former House majority leader Dick Armey declared that “the conservative, free-market base in America is rightly in revolt over” the plan. The Wall Street Journal described the legislation as a “Medicare fiasco.”
And yet it must be said that there is something peculiar about these cries of alarm from veteran Washington observers. The unfunded liability of the entire Medicare program has not exactly been a secret. Although the addition of a drug benefit certainly compounds the problem, it has hardly created a substantially new one.
The liability of the drug benefit over the next 75 years is estimated at $8.7 trillion; the liability of the hospital and doctor-visit components of the Medicare program already in place is nearly three times that figure. In the words of Gail Wilensky, a former head of the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, “this is not a fundamentally different problem.” The real debate concerns how Congress should eventually contain the costs: through regulation and price controls, or through market mechanisms and means testing. It is long past time for that desperately needed debate to begin, and the addition of a prescription-drug benefit—which was bound to occur at some point or other—will surely hasten it.
There is, besides, good news in the drug bill itself. Among its provisions are three significant reforms that conservatives have been advocating for years but that have received scant attention from Bush’s critics. The first is the creation of health savings accounts for seniors, which give individuals far greater control over their spending decisions. The second allows private-sector insurance companies to compete in offering seniors their choice of drug-coverage plans. This has already shown more impressive results than predicted: in late January, the Wall Street Journal reported that the new Medicare benefit had sparked “a competitive scramble in the health-insurance industry,” with companies vying to lower costs.
The third reform is both the most overlooked and the most important. Starting in 2007, high-income seniors will see their Medicare subsidies for doctor visits drop from 75 percent to 20 percent of the bill. That the federal government should have been providing any Medicare subsidy at all to wealthy retirees is a puzzle unto itself, but the short answer is that Democrats in Congress have fiercely resisted any significant reform of the benefit structure of Medicare that might change its status as a universal entitlement. Therein lies precisely the value of this reduction. It advances a long-sought conservative goal—beginning to wean the wealthiest seniors from taxpayer-funded coverage—and sets a precedent for battles yet to come.
If, indeed, conservatives are ever to achieve a fundamental reform of Medicare through means testing and market competition, they will inevitably have to build on the changes introduced in this bill. That many of Bush’s conservative critics have failed to grasp this simple truth is a telling comment on the degree to which their narrow focus on the raw dollar amounts of government spending has blinded them to their own ideological interests.
Introducing incremental conservative reforms into big-government programs has become, in fact, something of a hallmark of George W. Bush’s brand of governance. Two years ago in these pages, I argued that he was, in piecemeal fashion, offering up what amounted to a new version of conservatism.2 Rather than focusing on the sheer size of the federal government, he was focusing on outcomes and how to produce them.
Thus, in education, he supported a costly spending bill in exchange for establishing a hitherto unheard-of emphasis on testing at the state level. To alleviate poverty, he set out to harness the work of the faith community as a complement to, if not a substitute for, the work of welfare bureaucracies. To reform Social Security, he proposed a gradual—and again costly—transition to private retirement-savings accounts. To reform Medicare by encouraging more Americans to choose individual health-savings accounts with high deductibles will likewise be costly, requiring deficit-ballooning tax incentives that, according to the latest budget, are projected to deprive the government of $60 billion in revenue over the next five years.
To be sure, Bush has still not succeeded in delivering on many of his proposals. Nor, despite the use of inadequate slogans like “compassionate conservatism” or “the ownership society,” has he ever presented them as constituent elements of a coherent philosophy. To the contrary, his advocacy of import restrictions on steel, and the Department of Energy spending initiatives announced in his latest State of the Union address, smack more of liberal industrial policy than of any conservative aim. In that sense, it is hardly surprising that some conservatives are as bewildered as they are angry.
In a welcome new book, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard has set out to remedy the lack of a consistent thread to Bush’s proposals while countering the “bickering and grousing” of discontented conservatives. According to Barnes, Bush has achieved something for everyone in the Republican coalition: supply-side tax cuts, an idealistic foreign policy, the concept of private accounts for Social Security, the appointment of strict constructionists to the federal bench, staunch opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Is there a philosophy in this smorgasbord of policies? Barnes argues that there is: “coherence rests with the three words and one institution that sum up Bush conservatism. The words are choice, accountability, and freedom. The institution is a strong national government.”
Barnes’s pithy formulation is unlikely to satisfy the angry conservatives, or to silence calls for small government. But it does convey accurately enough the direction of “Bush conservatism”—and it does undeniably comport with political reality. As unpalatable as it may be for some conservatives, the fact of the matter is that reducing the size of government no longer resonates with Americans as it once did. In 1996, when a Washington Post survey asked respondents if they favored smaller government providing fewer services, 63 percent said yes; by mid-2004, the proportion had fallen to 50 percent.
Does this mean, as Bush’s critics contend, that thanks to him the Reagan revolution really has failed? Hardly: the declining place of “small government” in the list of public priorities needs to be seen in the twin context of conservative triumphs over the past 25 years and the arrival of new anxieties—terrorism, homeland security, retirement, health care—that are unavoidably the province of “strong national government.” Advising Republicans to raise again the fallen banner of small government is thus no recipe for success, ideological or political. “Just as socialism [is] no longer the guiding goal for the Left,” wrote the New York Times columnist David Brooks on the eve of the Republican national convention in 2004, “reducing the size of government cannot be the governing philosophy for the next generation of conservatives.”
There are other pitfalls as well in concentrating on the ways in which Bush falls short of the Reaganite ideal of conservatism. In the first place, it overlooks the many other ways in which he is more conservative than Reagan. Take, for instance, gay marriage, stem-cell research, and cloning—contentious moral issues that never confronted Reagan, that are fraught with political risk, and on which Bush has adopted clear and consistently conservative positions. He has also been arguably more active than Reagan when it comes to proposing and defending conservative nominees to the federal bench. Although they have not yet met with success, his proposals for private accounts in Social Security, a permanent end to the estate tax, and market-oriented health-care reforms as outlined in this year’s State of the Union address bring conservative ideas into policy realms never explored during the Reagan era. In the area of national security, he has expanded the homeland-security apparatus and been unhesitant about using executive-branch powers to track suspected domestic terrorist activities. In foreign policy, his uncompromising determination to defeat global terrorism has led him to be much less sparing in the use of force than Reagan ever was.
Nor, speaking of pitfalls, should one forget that Reagan’s two terms in office were full of contradictions of their own. Reagan’s speeches may have excoriated Congress for its failure to send him balanced budgets, but his (admirable) build-up of defense expenditures made such a balanced budget impossible. His embrace of supply-side tax cuts was countered by the tax increases he signed in 1982—at the time, the largest in American history. Reagan also did not hesitate to spend more to help favored industries like agriculture and timber.
MORE:
Betraying the Reagan Legacy (Bruce Bartlett, 2/28/06, Real Clear Politics)
Ronald Reagan was almost as great a president as his times allowed for, but the simple political reality is that he ran up huge deficits, signed several tax increases, negotiated auto import quotas, traded arms to Iran, negotiated with the Soviets, saved SS and did not reform a single entitlement program, took few steps to reduce abortion, and not only never took the House but turned a GOP majority in the Senate into a ten seat advantage for the Democrats.
Evangelized foreign policy? (Howard LaFranchi, 3/02/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
As Mr. Bush gave his attention to Darfur, one of the world's most high-profile humanitarian crises, he was almost certainly cheered not just by a coterie of evangelical advisers, but also the sizable Christian right constituency. But his focus on a forlorn region of Africa suggests deeper shifts in the forces influencing US foreign policy.Even as many in Washington trumpet the return of realism to US foreign policy and the decline of the neoconservative hawks, the staying power of the evangelicals is likely to blunt what might otherwise have been a steep decline in Wilsonian ideals.
Spanish court looks at Tibetan genocide claims: The case is based on a legal principle under which a Belgian jury tried Rwandans. (Lisa Abend and Geoff Pingree, 3/02/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
Since the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have been killed, arbitrarily imprisoned, or forced to flee their country. But when the victims of what some call genocide finally get their day in court, it probably won't be in China. Instead, Spain - which is conducting a judicial investigation on the issue - is likely to hold the first trial.Although Spain had no citizens affected by the suspected crimes, its National Court decided in January to investigate whether China did indeed commit genocide.
Good news for Bush! Indians are gung-ho on US (Times of India, March 1st, 2006)
While United States favourability ratings have plunged in many countries, Indians are significantly more positive about the US now than they were in the summer of 2002, a new opinion poll has said.The 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that 71 per cent of Indians have a favourable view of the United States and 54 per cent admire President Bush in handling world affairs.
What mostly attracts Indians is that America remains a land of opportunity despite its booming economy today. Asked where they would recommend that a young person move in order to lead a good life, a 38 per cent plurality of Indians choose the United States.
No time to relax though. The enemies of civilization are on the case.
A hilarious (and conservative) video.
Study: More people know about "The Simpsons" than First Amendment rights
Americans' knowledge of "The Simpsons" apparently exceeds what they know about the First Amendment.The number of freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment is zero.Only about one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment -- Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.
But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family.
Study calls for values oath for immigrants (Stewart Bell, National Post, March 1st, 2006)
Canada needs to do more to make sure new immigrants embrace Canadian values, a former diplomat says in a study of counterterrorism policies released yesterday.Former senior Foreign Affairs official Martin Collacott writes that Ottawa should "demand a more explicit commitment to Canada and Canadian values on the part of newcomers."
Special attention must be given to working with the Muslim community because radical Islamic terrorists are currently the greatest danger to Canada's security, says the Fraser Institute paper.
While Canadians are committed to welcoming diverse immigrants from around the world, newcomers must understand that they are expected to accept core Canadian values, it says.
"If they find such acceptance difficult, they should not come here in the first place," Mr. Collacott writes in Canada's Inadequate Response to Terrorism: The Need for Policy Reform.
The paper proposes that those who apply to immigrate to Canada should be told "what is expected of them and that, if they fail to live up to our expectations, they will be removed from Canada."
In addition, before becoming citizens, immigrants should be required to take an oath "swearing that they are not only fully committed to Canadian values and will give their complete allegiance and loyalty to Canada, but that their actions in the future will reflect these commitments."
Mr. Collacott argues like the radical feminist who believes her marriage will succeed if she gets her poor sap of a fiancé to swear endless vows that specifically cover just about every male sin and malfeasance since the dawn of time. What does he think the immigration and security services are for? Forget the impossibility of reaching any consensus on what constitutes “Canadian values” (and the line-up of special interest groups who would demand their cause be included), one wonders what kind of mind imagines potential Muslim terrorists would be dissuaded by prior loyalty oaths to a Western country or what failure “to live up to our expectations” would justify deportation other than committing a crime. An immigrant’s oath of allegiance is an important ceremony. Like marriage vows, it should be short, general, solemn and joyful. To put immigrants under Klieg lights with an oath that screams suspicion of potential subversion based entirely upon nationality or faith is futile, degrading and racist. Indeed, one might say completely contrary to Canadian values.
Federal judge nixes NJ lawsuit against ports deal (JANET FRANKSTON, 3/01/06, Associated Press)
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against a request by New Jersey to order an investigation into a United Arab Emirates-based company's takeover of some U.S. port operations, including Port Newark.U.S. District Judge Jose Linares also said the state will not be privy to documents the company gave to a federal committee reviewing the deal. Linares said the state "needs to show an immediate need for those documents."
Be like the Bonobo (Frans de Waal, National Post, March 1st, 2006)
It's enough to give Charles Darwin a bad name. Any time people or groups are seen to be cruel to one another, commentators chalk it up to "social Darwinism."In fact, evolution teaches creatures a whole range of different behaviours. As a primatologist, I can attest that cruelty is only one of them. As Darwin himself was well aware, many animals rely on each other for survival.[...]
Bonobos are physically as different from chimpanzees as a Concorde is from a Boeing 747. Even chimps would have to admit that the bonobo has more style. Their body is graceful and elegant, with piano-player hands and a relatively small head. Females have breasts, not as prominent as in our species, but definitely A-cup compared to the flat-chests found on other apes. Topping it all off is the bonobo's trademark hairstyle: long black hair neatly parted in the middle.
There is no greater contrast between humankind's two closest relatives than how they behave when tempted by food. When forest chimpanzees are given a pile of bananas, they will fight over it. The males become violent and the females have no choice other than to back off. In bonobos, too, the males are the first to approach a tasty meal. But instead of being aggressive, they hurry and look over their shoulders as they collect as much food as they can. The "weaker sex" then approaches, the group has lots of sex, and everyone happily shares the food. If chimpanzees are from Mars, bonobos are from Venus.[...]
The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to make us happy, but we are not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people commit atrocities, we call them "animals," but when they give to the poor, we praise them for being "humane." We like to claim the latter behaviour for ourselves.
It is important to remember that we don't descend from sharks, which fight over every scrap, but from highly social mammals that know trust and loyalty. To be kind and co-operative is not only civilized, it is natural. Let us not forget that whenever we are tempted -- whether as individuals or societies -- to indulge in what is mistakenly called "social Darwinism."
All of which seems to suggest we are descended from close cousins with diametrically opposite, but equally natural, evolved behaviours and that we have unfettered freedom to choose which one to emulate.
Why Didn’t Anyone Save Nixzmary?: Or Josiah, or Dahquay, or Sierra? Nicole Gelinas, Winter 2006, City Journal)
Gotham’s Administration for Children’s Services will spend nearly $2.2 billion this year. The agency, with nearly 7,000 employees, is run by an experienced professional who reputedly is tops in his field. So nobody can say that New York City isn’t generous when it comes to protecting at-risk children.But ACS and all of its financial and human resources didn’t save seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown, tortured and beaten to death last week, allegedly by her mother’s husband, as her mother ignored her cries for help. [...]
[I]t’s hard to blame ACS exclusively when far too many of the city’s children are born not into two-parent families but into random and temporary groupings of people, often prone to neglect and violence. ACS is no substitute for a stable, two-parent family. Without such a family as a protective cocoon, the world can be a cruel place for kids—and the home is often the locus of that cruelty. Little kids are cute, but they’re also prey—particularly when they resemble mom’s now-detested ex-boyfriend, or when mom’s new boyfriend doesn’t have much fatherly concern toward the products of previous sexual encounters.
Of course, most neglected and abused children survive their childhoods, at least minimally. But that doesn’t mean that neglect and abuse are uncommon in malformed families, if at a less spectacular level. Anyone who doubts that should read Adrian Nicole Leblanc’s 2003 book, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, which tracks the lives of two young mothers and their 10 children over a decade as they scrape their way through life in the borough’s Tremont section. In Leblanc’s book, children are only appendages, and child molestation is common—an unsurprising outcome, when kids are left with casual assortments of male relatives and acquaintances, who come and go as they please, often drunk or on drugs. It doesn’t take a social scientist to know that kids raised in this environment don’t stand much of a chance at doing better themselves.
Since America reformed welfare nearly a decade ago and pushed unmarried mothers to work, the general attitude is that the problem of the single-parent inner-city family is solved. But welfare reform didn’t answer the moral question: Why is it considered normal in some segments of society for mothers, often unwed, to bear children by multiple men? And how much risk does government—which controls the fate of so many of New York’s vulnerable children through ACS—knowingly force upon these children when it ignores this problem?
As the mayor directs ACS to open its Brooklyn cases, he should direct caseworkers to ask: How many of the agency’s little wards—neglected, malnourished, or abused—have two married parents, and full siblings, at home? It’s a good place to start the discussion New York—and the nation—needs to have.
The End of Fukuyama: Why his latest pronouncements miss the mark (Christopher Hitchens, March 1, 2006, Slate)
The three questions that anyone developing second thoughts about the Iraq conflict must answer are these: Was the George H.W. Bush administration right to confirm Saddam Hussein in power after his eviction from Kuwait in 1991? Is it right to say that we had acquired a responsibility for Iraq, given past mistaken interventions and given the great moral question raised by the imposition of sanctions? And is it the case that another confrontation with Saddam was inevitable; those answering "yes" thus being implicitly right in saying that we, not he, should choose the timing of it? Fukuyama does not even mention these considerations. Instead, by his slack use of terms like "magnet," he concedes to the fanatics and beheaders the claim that they are a response to American blunders and excesses.That's why last week was a poor one for him to pick. Surely the huge spasm of Islamist hysteria over caricatures published in Copenhagen shows that there is no possible Western insurance against doing something that will inflame jihadists? The sheer audacity and evil of destroying the shrine of the 12th imam is part of an inter-Muslim civil war that had begun long before the forces of al-Qaida decided to exploit that war and also to export it to non-Muslim soil. Yes, we did indeed underestimate the ferocity and ruthlessness of the jihadists in Iraq. Where, one might inquire, have we not underestimated those forces and their virulence? (We are currently underestimating them in Nigeria, for example, which is plainly next on the Bin Laden hit list and about which I have been boring on ever since Bin Laden was good enough to warn us in the fall of 2004.)
In the face of this global threat and its recent and alarmingly rapid projection onto European and American soil, Fukuyama proposes beefing up "the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National Endowment for Democracy and the like." You might expect a citation from a Pew poll at about this point, and, don't worry, he doesn't leave that out, either. But I have to admire that vague and lazy closing phrase "and the like." Hegel meets Karen Hughes! Perhaps some genius at the CIA is even now preparing to subsidize a new version of Encounter magazine to be circulated among the intellectuals of Kashmir or Kabul or Kazakhstan? Not such a bad idea in itself, perhaps, but no substitute for having a battle-hardened army that has actually learned from fighting in the terrible conditions of rogue-state/failed-state combat. Is anyone so blind as to suppose that we shall not be needing this hard-bought experience in the future?
I have my own criticisms both of my one-time Trotskyist comrades and of my temporary neocon allies, but it can be said of the former that they saw Hitlerism and Stalinism coming—and also saw that the two foes would one day fuse together—and so did what they could to sound the alarm. And it can be said of the latter (which, alas, it can't be said of the former) that they looked at Milosevic and Saddam and the Taliban and realized that they would have to be confronted sooner rather than later. Fukuyama's essay betrays a secret academic wish to be living in "normal" times once more, times that will "restore the authority of foreign policy 'realists' in the tradition of Henry Kissinger." Fat chance, Francis!
The twentieth century saw the developed world descend into a paroxysm of ideological violence, as liberalism contended first with the remnants of absolutism, then bolshevism and fascism, and finally an updated Marxism that threatened to lead to the ultimate apocalypse of nuclear war. But the century that began full of self-confidence in the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy seems at its close to be returning full circle to where it started: not to an "end of ideology" or a convergence between capitalism and socialism, as earlier predicted, but to an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism. In the past decade, there have been unmistakable changes in the intellectual climate of the world's two largest communist countries, and the beginnings of significant reform movements in both. But this phenomenon extends beyond high politics and it can be seen also in the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture in such diverse contexts as the peasants' markets and color television sets now omnipresent throughout China, the cooperative restaurants and clothing stores opened in the past year in Moscow, the Beethoven piped into Japanese department stores, and the rock music enjoyed alike in Prague, Rangoon, and Tehran.
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This is not to say that there will no longer be events to fill the pages of Foreign Affair's yearly summaries of international relations, for the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in the real or material world. But there are powerful reasons for believing that it is the ideal that will govern the material world in the long run.
(1) Is Islamicism appreciably different than Nazism, communism, socialism, etc. were either in terms of ideological structure or likelihood of succeeding as a political system?
(2) If you somehow arrive at affirmative answers to those two questions, then: is Islamicism likely to defeat "economic and political liberalism" as those others failed to do, or at least to achieve a long term modus vivendi, such that we'll be forced to recognize Islamicism as a viable alternative to liberal democracy?
(3) If you somehow arrive at an affirmative response there, then the question is: oughtn't we strangle Islamicism in its crib, as we failed to do to Bolshevism in Russia and Nazism in Germany? If the answer to all these is, more sensibly, in the negative, then: aren't the current events that cause us all so much consternation, just one more chapter in the completion of the victory of liberalism in the material world, exactly the kind of event Mr. Fukuyama acknowledged would continue to fill the pages of Foreign Affairs (and the NY Times Magazine)?
It's hardly surprising that folks aren't enjoying this chapter of the Long War anymore than they did the prior ones, but it is shocking that some are losing confidence in the outcome during what is far and away the easiest and least bloody yet written.
MORE (via Ed Driscoll):
Neoconservatives: The new hippies (Danny Kampf, February 22 2006, The Daily Colonial)
For those of you unfamiliar with Leon Trotsky, he was one of the chief architects of the Russian Revolution. He was an idealist and a militant. Before the revolution, while he was in prison, Trotsky cultivated his famous theory of permanent revolution: a concept which would later provide the impetus for Soviet imperialism.An independent thinker (he was originally a leader of the opposition Mensheviks), Trotsky was single handedly responsible for crafting the Red Army into a machine whose purpose was to forcibly spread his idealistic brand of Marxism across the world. Substitute “Marxism” with “democracy” and the leap from Trotskyism to neoconservatism appears remarkably diminutive.
Small as the gap may have been, neoconservatives certainly didn’t make the jump to democracy overnight. It took years of audacious brutality and cynical ideological manipulation by the Stalinist Regime before they were finally disenchanted with communism.
Left in a political vacuum, they eventually gravitated towards realpolitik. This resulted in what Francis Fukuyama calls a “realistic Wilsonianism.” The philosophy essentially boils down to this: the United States is a benign hegemon with the unique ability to create a democratic world order that respects human dignity. Hegemonic as it may be, however, the early neoconservatives believed it was imperative for the United States to act prudently, by avoiding war when possible and cautiously exercising force when not.
As a liberal, I’d say I agree with that doctrine almost in its entirety. But if that’s the case, why is it that I almost always find myself at odds with the policies of the first neoconservative administration ever: the Bush Administration?
Well, the sad fact of the matter is that neoconservatism has become a grotesque caricature of its once great former self. Gone are the days of academic nuance, realpolitik and judicious analysis of international relations. All that remains is its idealism and a throwback to its morphed Trotskyite heritage: the insufferable notion that democracy in and of itself (much like Marxism) has the power to single-handedly cure all the world’s ails.
MORE/MORE:
Writers slam Islamic 'totalitarianism' (Al Jazeera, 28 February 2006)
The recent violence surrounding the publication in the West of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad illustrate the danger of religious "totalitarianism," Salman Rushdie and a group of other writers have said in a statement.Rushdie, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen were among those putting their names to the statement, to be published on Wednesday in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, one of several French newspapers which reprinted the controversial cartoons.
"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," they wrote.
"We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."
We are not in the business of giving investment advice [THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE!!!] but I've been impressed by Tresury Direct. Treasury Direct is a self-contained US Treasury web site through which individuals can buy Treasury bills, notes, bonds and TIPS (inflation protected securities). You can invest in 2 week Treasuries or 30 year Treasuries, and everything in between. Short term rates are currently hovering around 4.5%, which is a nice competitive return.
Signing up for Treasury Direct is entirely automated. The Treasury will take your money directly out of your bank account, and return it after the bond or note matures. You will need your bank's routing number to sign up. The easiste place to get this number is off your checks but you should be able to get it from your bank with a minimum of hassle or from this website. When you sign up, the Treasury will access your account with a $0 transaction to make sure that all the information is correct. You can use linked accounts to buy Treasury securities for minor children and you can buy Savings Bonds as gifts. You buy in regularly scheduled Treasury auctions, so you don't know exactly what rate you're getting until your order is completed. There are no fees for using Treasury Direct and the minimum amount you can invest is $1000. The web site is easy to navigate and to use, although it is a little short on explanation, so do your research before hand.
A-maize-ing ethanol? Senate is all ears (MARY WISNIEWSKI , 3/01/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
The Illinois Senate passed a bill that would require more ethanol to go into gas tanks, a move some fear could raise gas prices.The Senate voted 52 to 3 Tuesday for a proposal that would require 10 percent of all motor fuels sold in Illinois to be corn-based ethanol beginning in 2008. The bill also provides millions of dollars annually to fund renewable fuels research and plant construction.
Supporters say the bill will encourage economic development, curtail air pollution, and reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. It still has to go to the House.
"We will be giving the consumer a choice at the pump," said the bill's sponsor, Deanna Demuzio, a Democrat from rural Carlinville who's up for re-election this year. Illinois is the second-largest ethanol producer.
Opponents fear the bill could lead to shortages and higher prices.
Blagojevich calls Topinka NRA shill (SCOTT FORNEK, 3/01/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Sketching a likely general election theme, Gov. Blagojevich came out swinging Tuesday against GOP gubernatorial front-runner Judy Baar Topinka, accusing the state treasurer of being a shill for the National Rifle Association and the right wing."The NRA just gave her an A rating -- an A rating -- and if you get an A rating from the NRA, you're basically taking their talking points and doing their bidding," Blagojevich said. "And I would urge her to forget about the NRA, stop pandering to the right wing and join us and help us pass a ban on assault weapons."
The Dark Side of China’s Rise: China’s economic boom has dazzled investors and captivated the world. But beyond the new high-rises and churning factories lie rampant corruption, vast waste, and an elite with little interest in making things better. Forget political reform. China’s future will be decay, not democracy (Minxin Pei, March/April 2006, Foreign Policy)
Behind the glowing headlines are fundamental frailties rooted in the Chinese neo-Leninist state. Unlike Maoism, neo-Leninism blends one-party rule and state control of key sectors of the economy with partial market reforms and an end to self-imposed isolation from the world economy. The Maoist state preached egalitarianism and relied on the loyalty of workers and peasants. The neo-Leninist state practices elitism, draws its support from technocrats, the military, and the police, and co-opts new social elites (professionals and private entrepreneurs) and foreign capital—all vilified under Maoism. Neo-Leninism has rendered the ruling Chinese Communist Party more resilient but has also generated self-destructive forces.To most Western observers, China’s economic success obscures the predatory characteristics of its neo-Leninist state. But Beijing’s brand of authoritarian politics is spawning a dangerous mix of crony capitalism, rampant corruption, and widening inequality. Dreams that the country’s economic liberalization will someday lead to political reform remain distant. Indeed, if current trends continue, China’s political system is more likely to experience decay than democracy. It’s true that China’s recent economic achievements have given the party a new vibrancy. Yet the very policies that the party adopted to generate high economic growth are compounding the political and social ills that threaten its long-term survival. [...]
ptimistic visions tend to ignore the neo-Leninist regime’s desperate need for unfettered access to economic spoils. Few authoritarian regimes can maintain power through coercion alone. Most mix coercion with patronage to secure support from key constituencies, such as the bureaucracy, the military, and business interests. In other words, an authoritarian regime imperils its capacity for political control if it embraces full economic liberalization. Most authoritarian regimes know that much, and none better than Beijing.
Today, Beijing oversees a vast patronage system that secures the loyalty of supporters and allocates privileges to favored groups. The party appoints 81 percent of the chief executives of state-owned enterprises and 56 percent of all senior corporate executives. The corporate reforms implemented since the late 1990s—designed to turn wholly state-owned firms into shareholding companies—haven’t made a dent in patronage. In large- and medium-sized state enterprises (ostensibly converted into shareholding companies, some of which are even traded on overseas stock markets), the Communist Party secretaries and the chairmen of the board were the same person about half the time. In 70 percent of the 6,275 large- and medium-sized state enterprises classified as “corporatized” as of 2001, the members of the party committee were members of the board of directors. All told, 5.3 million party officials—about 8 percent of its total membership and 16 percent of its urban members—held executive positions in state enterprises in 2003, the last year for which figures were available.
An incestuous relationship between the state and major industries can doom developing countries, and China is more susceptible than most. The combination of authoritarian rule and the state’s economic dominance has bred a virulent form of crony capitalism, as the ruling elites convert their political power into economic wealth and privilege at the expense of equity and efficiency. The state’s economic dominance preserves systemic economic inefficiency as scarce resources are funneled to local elites and bureaucratic constituencies. The World Bank estimates that, between 1991 and 2000, almost a third of investment decisions in China were misguided. The Chinese central bank’s research shows that politically directed lending was responsible for 60 percent of bad bank loans in 2001–02. The problem persists today. Chinese economic planners revealed in early 2006 that 11 major capital-intensive manufacturing industries were overproducing. For example, the country’s steel industry, the world’s largest, has 116 million tons (or about 30 percent) of excess capacity.
State enterprises are also miserably unprofitable. In 2003, a boom year, their median rate of return on assets was a measly 1.5 percent. More than 35 percent of state enterprises lose money and 1 in 6 has more debts than assets. China is the only country in history to have simultaneously achieved record economic growth and a record number of nonperforming bank loans.
Party membership and business acumen do not often go together. Because of the party’s fixation with high growth, government officials are rewarded for delivering, or appearing to deliver, precisely that. This incentive structure fuels a massive misallocation of capital to “image projects” (such as new factories, luxury shopping malls, recreational facilities, and unnecessary infrastructure) that burnish local officials’ records and strengthen their chances of promotion. The results of these mistakes—gleaming office complexes, industrial parks, landscaped highways, and public squares—tend to impress Western visitors, who view them as further proof of China’s economic prowess.
The Chinese economy is not merely inefficient; it has also fallen victim to crony capitalism with Chinese characteristics—the marriage between unchecked power and illicit wealth. And corruption is worst where the hand of the state is strongest. The most corrupt sectors in China, such as power generation, tobacco, banking, financial services, and infrastructure, are all state-controlled monopolies. None of that is unprecedented, of course. Tycoons in Russia, after all, have looted the state’s natural resources. China, at least, boasts genuine private entrepreneurs who have built prosperous companies. But China’s politically connected tycoons have cashed in on China’s real estate boom; nearly half of Forbes’ list of the 100 richest individuals in China in 2004 were real estate developers.
Various indicators, pieced together from official sources, suggest endemic graft within the state. The number of “large-sum cases” (those involving monetary amounts greater than $6,000) nearly doubled between 1992 and 2002, indicating that more wealth is being looted by corrupt officials. The rot appears to be spreading up the ranks, as more and more senior officials have been ensnared. The number of officials at the county level and above prosecuted by the government rose from 1,386 in 1992 to 2,925 in 2002.
An optimist might believe that these figures reveal stronger enforcement rather than metastasizing corruption, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Dishonest officials today face little risk of serious punishment. On average, 140,000 party officials and members were caught in corruption scandals each year in the 1990s, and 5.6 percent of these were criminally prosecuted. In 2004, 170,850 party officials and members were implicated, but only 4,915 (or 2.9 percent) were subject to criminal prosecution. The culture of official impunity is thriving in China.
What’s worse, corruption is now assuming forms normally associated with regime decay. Corruption involving large numbers of officials used to be rare. Now it’s rampant. Regional data suggest that large-scale corruption rings account for 30 to 60 percent of all the cases of graft uncovered by authorities. In some of the worst instances, entire provincial, municipal, and county governments were found to be tainted. In Heilongjiang Province, a corruption scandal involved more than 400 local officials, including the former governor, the former organizational chief of the party’s provincial committee, a vice governor, the chief prosecutor, the president of the provincial high court, and eight of the province’s 13 party bosses. According to official reports, in Shenyang (the capital of Liaoning Province), Fuzhou (the capital of Fujian Province), and more than 30 other counties and prefectures, groups of senior local officials, including party chiefs and mayors, have been on the payroll of organized gangs involved in murder, extortion, gambling, and prostitution.
As ominous as the corruption itself is what these scandals are beginning to reveal about the government’s legitimacy. In their confessions, corrupt officials often blame their misdeeds on a loss of faith in communism. There is anecdotal evidence that senior party officials have taken to consulting fortune-tellers about their political careers. The ruling elite in China, it appears, is drifting and insecure. Fearful about what the future may hold, some officials do not want to wait even a few years to turn their power into wealth. In 2002, almost 20 percent of the officials prosecuted for bribery and nearly 30 percent of those punished for abuse of power were younger than 35. In Henan Province in 2003, 43 percent of local party bosses caught up in corruption were between 40 and 50 years old (as compared with 32 percent older than 50). China has seen its future leaders, and a disproportionate number of them are on the take. [...]
China’s neo-Leninist regime has formidable resources—but much more serious defects. State-directed investment, made to secure the political loyalty of key constituencies and advance personal careers, will prevent China from realizing its economic potential. The corruption of the state will likely deepen. The deterioration of the public health infrastructure and education systems will generate social tensions and mass alienation, thus eroding the party’s base of support and increasing its vulnerability to the economic or political shocks that will inevitably come.
China has already paid a heavy price for the flaws of its political system and the corruption it has spawned. Its new leaders, though aware of the depth of the decay, are taking only modest steps to correct it.
A Church-State Schism in Spain: Socialist Leader Backs Policies at Odds With Catholic Doctrine (John Ward Anderson, March 1, 2006, Washington Post)
Shortly after his election in 2004, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ended a quarter-century of cozy church-state relations by blocking mandatory religious classes in public schools. He then took wider aim, saying his government would relax abortion laws, ease restrictions on divorce, legalize gay marriage and permit gay couples to adopt children.In response, the archbishop of Madrid called the Spanish capital "a hotbed of sin." Pope John Paul II accused Zapatero of "promoting disdain towards religion" and said the Catholic Church in Spain would never yield "to the temptation to silence it."
Things got particularly nasty when the media joined the fray. A radio station sent reporters into confessionals with hidden microphones and broadcast unsuspecting priests warning against the evils of birth control, homosexuality and surfing the Internet.
Two months ago, a disc jockey from an anti-government, church-owned radio station in Madrid posed as Zapatero and called Bolivia's socialist president-elect, Evo Morales, to congratulate him for joining the Cuban-Venezuelan leftist "axis." Morales fell for the gag, leading to red faces all around.
Judge Overrules 15 Cubans' Ouster: U.S. Told to Look for Deportees (Darryl Fears, March 1, 2006, Washington Post )
A U.S. judge ruled yesterday that the federal government wrongly deported 15 Cuban refugees who clambered onto a broken bridge in the Florida Straits, thinking they had safely reached the United States.U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno said the government should make a good-faith effort to retrieve the Cubans and bring them back to Florida. There was no indication whether Fidel Castro, the ruler of communist Cuba, would allow the men, women and children who were returned to leave that country.
Yesterday's ruling was met with exuberance in Miami's Cuban exile community. Activists have long questioned how U.S. officials enforce the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, so called because Cuban refugees who are caught at sea in their attempt to enter the country are sent back home and those who make it to land are generally allowed to stay.
Bush praises Afghanistan progress (BBC, 3/01/06)
US President George W Bush has praised the progress of Afghan democracy on his first visit to the country, where the US helped eject the Taleban in 2001.On a surprise first stop of his maiden trip to South Asia, Mr Bush told Afghan President Hamid Karzai his country was "inspiring others".
President Bush, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said Wednesday he remains confident Osama bin Laden "will be brought to justice" despite a so-far futile five-year hunt.
Court rules pro-lifers not racketeers (Joyce Howard Price and Julia Duin, 3/01/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against protesters at abortion clinics, ending a legal battle that has gone on for 20 years.
The high court's 8-0 decision effectively bars efforts by pro-choice groups to bankrupt the pro-life movement by using federal anti-mob laws against protest groups, claiming that such organizations were violent criminal conspiracies.
Klein makes private health care move: Launcheds a major test of medicare rules (BOB WEBER, 3/01/06, CANADIAN PRESS
Alberta has launched a major test of medicare rules, with plans to allow private insurance, let patients pay for faster access to hip and knee replacements and to give doctors the right to work in both the public and for-profit systems.Critical reaction came quickly from Ontario, where Health Minister George Smitherman said Alberta's plans to let people pay cash to get to the front of the line are unfair and undermine medicare.
Smitherman also warned the proposal to let doctors work both in the public and private systems is "going to have very little effect except to leave a lot of abandoned patients behind in the public system."
But in Edmonton yesterday, Health Minister Iris Evans defended Premier Ralph Klein's so-called Third Way on health-care reform, saying it will keep the public system strong.
Cameron's statement of beliefs stresses social responsibility (Julian Glover, March 1, 2006, The Guardian)
David Cameron yesterday insisted that clear blue water remained between Labour and the Conservatives as he launched a statement of beliefs committing his party to reducing poverty, helping the developing world and acting on climate change.Mr Cameron emphasised that the document, Built to Last, backed individual action over state control. "We believe in sharing responsibility; that government doesn't have all the answers; that we're all in this together - individuals, families, business, voluntary organisations and social enterprises, business and government. This is a real battle, with a real prize at stake; the chance to tackle those long-term challenges that are so vital for our future. There's a clear choice between our approach and Gordon Brown's." He was also adamant that the modernisation of the Conservative party did not mean caving in to Labour's agenda.
Although Mr Cameron argued that many "enduring" Tory values were right for the time and for the challenges Britain faces, he insisted the party had to work to improve its image and reputation. "We know we have to change," he said. "I stood for the leadership because I'm fed up with hearing that this party is out of touch, backward-looking and lacks compassion. That's not the Conservative party I'm leading.
"This party voted for change. Now we have to show what that change means. Not just what we're changing from but what we're changing to. We have to show that the change is real, that it means something, that it's built to last. That's why today I'm setting out, in this statement of aims and values, what we stand for and what we're fighting for."
The document will be put to a ballot of party members before the autumn party conference, in an attempt to demonstrate that the Conservative grassroots back Mr Cameron's approach. The signs were that Mr Cameron would win the vote easily, despite concern that the document's lack of controversy could cause many of the party's 250,000 members to abstain.
Leaving no stone unturned to discredit No Child Left Behind (Ruben Navarrette Jr. , 3/01/06, Seattle Times)
It's easy to see why those who prefer the status quo detest No Child Left Behind. Under the law, children in every racial and demographic group in every public school must improve their scores on standardized tests in math and science. No excuses. Schools that fall short of that goal can be shut down, and their students can transfer to another public school.The critics hate requirements like that for one reason — because good tests not only tell you if kids are learning but also if teachers and administrators are holding up their end. If the truth comes out, disgruntled parents might go from demanding accountability from schools to demanding it from the individuals who work in them.
Baroque lends human quality to 'Passion' (WYNNE DELACOMA, 3/01/06, Chicago Sun-Times)
Between its own 35th anniversary season and celebrations for Mozart's 250th birthday, Music of the Baroque has been more preoccupied than usual this season with Salzburg's favorite son. The group's season opened in September with gripping performances of the Requiem; concerts in April and May will feature Mozart's C Minor Mass and the final symphonies, respectively.On Sunday night, however, in Evanston's First United Methodist Church, the ensemble turned its spotlight to that other Baroque-era titan, J.S. Bach. Nicholas Kraemer, the group's principal guest conductor, led the first of three performances of Bach's "The Passion According to St. John,'' the composer's most tightly constructed retelling of the Passion story.
Deploying a set of fine soloists and Music of the Baroque's smallish choir and orchestra like an efficient general, Kraemer gave us an intensely human musical journey. Even in Bach's most meditative, reverent chorales, the ensemble's 25-plus chorus, beautifully prepared by director Edward Zelnis, sounded less like angels basking in God's glory than believers pondering the world-changing implications of Christ's death.
Vermont Campaign Limits Get Cool Reception at Court (LINDA GREENHOUSE, 3/01/06, NY Times)
Vermont's aggressive effort to drive much private money out of politics, through a law it enacted in 1997 that set tight limits on both contributions and expenditures, appeared unlikely to withstand the court's scrutiny after an argument that included a low-key but withering cross-examination by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of Vermont's attorney general, William H. Sorrell.The chief justice challenged the attorney general's assertion that money was a corrupting influence on Vermont's political system, the state's main rationale for its law. "How many prosecutions for political corruption have you brought?" he asked the state official.
"Not any," Mr. Sorrell replied.
"Do you think corruption in Vermont is a serious problem?"
"It is," the attorney general replied, noting that polls showed that most state residents thought corporations and wealthy individuals exerted an undue influence in the state.
The chief justice persisted. "Would you describe your state as clean or corrupt?" he asked.
"We have got a problem in Vermont," Mr. Sorrell repeated.
The chief justice pressed further. If voters think "someone has been bought," he said, "I assume they act accordingly" at the next election and throw the incumbent out.
He also challenged a line from the attorney general's 50-page brief, an assertion that donations from special-interest groups "often determine what positions candidates and officials take on issues." Could the attorney general provide an example of such an issue, Chief Justice Roberts asked. Mr. Sorrell could not, eventually conceding that "influence" would have been a better word than "determine."
By the end of the argument, it appeared clear that Vermont's spending limits would fall, and that its contribution limits, the lowest in the country, were hanging by a thread.
Heavens, Asia's going Christian (Michael Vatikiotis, 3/01/06, Asia Times)
Singapore is one of the fastest-growing Christian communities in Asia, along with Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. In fact, Asia is projected to become one of the largest Christian populations in the world, on pace to eclipse Europe in the next 30 years. The US State Department estimates there could already be as many as 100 million Christians in China, even though the official tally of believers is below 50 million.The US-led "war on terror" has focused worldwide concern on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a precursor to violent militancy. Moderate or secular behavior among Asia's Muslims is considered the long-term antidote to religious fervor. But in the wider context encompassing Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, the trend in Asia is anything but moderate or secular. Across the region, charismatic sects are springing up and drawing young people to religious faith. And new Asian converts to Christianity are arguably outpacing the spread of Islam.
The new believers are often Asia's upwardly mobile, although the dirt-poor and desperate still flock to Christianity's promise of eternal salvation. Far from embracing materialist and consumer values and completely abandoning religion, middle-class Chinese residents of Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong all regularly flock to Pentecostal or charismatic churches.
The houses of worship offer relief from the stress of modern existence to the accompaniment of pop music - and some throw in fresh coffee and broadband Internet for good measure. They are active in social welfare, and sometimes in politics - the Pentecostal Church of Taiwan has advocated independence from China for the island, which Beijing still claims is a renegade province. In Hong Kong, the church backs the movement for democracy. [...]
Anger over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper has been deeply felt in Asia's Muslim communities - but the anger was directed at irreverent Europeans, not local Christians.
In much of Asia, strong traditions of pluralism and accommodation have allowed Islam and Christianity to blossom side by side.
Creation and Evolution in the Schools (Orson Scott Card, January 8, 2006, Rhinoceros Times)
Intelligent design uses the evil "must" word: Well, if random mutation plus natural selection can't account for the existence of this complex system, then it must have been brought into existence by some intelligent designerWhy? Why must that be the only alternative?
Just because the Darwinian model seems to be inadequate at the molecular level does not imply in any way that the only other explanation is purposive causation.
There might be several or even many other hypotheses. To believe in Intelligent Design is still a leap of faith.
But the normal answer of the Darwinists is also a leap of faith. In effect, their arguments boil down to this: We have no idea right now how these complex systems came to be, but we have fervent, absolute faith that when we do figure it out, it will be found to have a completely mechanical, natural cause that requires no "intelligent designer" at all.
If the Darwinists' faith is eventually proved correct, and we find completely natural, mechanical explanations for the evolution of complex biochemical systems, then these matters will remain within the purview of the scientific method. They will still be teachable in science class.
But if the Designists are right, and there is no natural explanation, no process of mechanical causation that can possibly lead to the automatic evolution of complex biochemical systems, then at that moment the subject ceases to be science at all, and becomes either history (what did the Designers do and why did they do it?) or theology (what does God mean by all this?).
That's fine. There are lots of subjects in this world that are worth studying, and in which true and valuable things can be discovered, which are not and cannot be science.
But when you purport to teach science in school, the subject you teach had better be science, and not somebody's religion in disguise.
That's the problem with both sides in this squabble. They are both functioning as religions, and they should stop it at once.
If both sides would behave like scientists, there wouldn't even be a controversy, because everyone would agree on this statement:
Evolution happens and obviously happened in the natural world, and natural selection plays a role in it. But we do not have adequate theories yet to explain completely how evolution works and worked at the biochemical level.
That is a true statement, according to our present state of scientific knowledge.
And when Darwinists scream that we do too know how to explain evolution, and it's natural selection, so just stop talking about it, they are dogmatists demanding that their faith -- the faith that Darwin's model will be found to explain everything when we just understand things better -- be taught in the public schools.
There is no reason for science teachers in the public schools to take a single step beyond that statement I made above. It allows the teaching of every speck of scientific biology; and it makes moot the as-yet-unknowable issue of how each specific complex biochemical system came into existence.
In fact, what every school board in this country should decide is to ignore both sides' demands that the schools teach their faith, and allow the public schools to perform their public service: educating children in our shared culture, including what we have learned through the scientific method.
Real science does not in any way impinge on a belief that God (or some other Intelligent Designer) created the world and everything that dwells in it. At the same time, real science does not -- and never can -- prove or even support the hypothesis.
But real science also does not support a misguided faith in the teachings of a scientist who is now regarded as a prophet, and whose disciples have an emotional commitment to his theories, even when they can be shown to be inadequate to explain the data as we presently have it.
Physicists know this -- they don't get their dander up and demand that non-Einsteinian physics never be taught in the public schools, for instance. They recognize that at the bleeding edge of science we simply don't know stuff yet, and no past genius has authority today, if and when we come up with data that may not support his theories.
Biology is no different.
AUDIO: Travelin' Thru by Dolly Parton
The terrific single is available free at iTunes Music Store.
Well I can't tell you where I'm going, I'm not sure of where I've been
But I know I must keep travelin' till my road comes to an end
I'm out here on my journey, trying to make the most of it
I'm a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fitLike a poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I'm just a weary pilgrim trying to find what feels like home
Where that is no one can tell me, am I doomed to ever roam
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' onQuestions I have many, answers but a few
But we're here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth
We've all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
And when I'm born again, you're gonna see a change in meGod made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus if you're listening, keep me ever close to you
As I'm stumblin', tumblin', wonderin', as I'm travelin' thruI'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thruOh sometimes the road is rugged, and it's hard to travel on
But holdin' to each other, we don't have to walk alone
When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try
We can make a world of difference, if we want to we can flyGoodbye little children, goodnight you handsome men
Farewell to all you ladies and to all who knew me when
And I hope I'll see you down the road, you meant more than I knew
As I was travelin', travelin', travelin', travelin', travelin' thruI'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin'
Drifting like a floating boat and roaming like the wind
Oh give me some direction lord, let me lean on you
As I'm travelin', travelin', travelin', thruI'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thruLike the poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I'm just a weary pilgrim trying to find my own way home
Oh sweet Jesus if you're out there, keep me ever close to you
As I'm travelin', travelin', travelin', as I'm travelin' thru
Open for Business: We’ve had a disaster, but now we have an opportunity. (Congressman Bobby Jindal, 2/28/06, National Review)
As we rebuild, it is crucial we commit to improving our education systems and health-care infrastructure. We need to foster community-based schools that connect needed resources to help young people successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life, and we need to provide financial and regulatory relief to health-care providers. We also need to ensure that Louisianans have access to personalized health-care services. This should include efforts to make private insurance more affordable. Refundable tax credits, new insurance products — including health-reimbursement arrangements, health savings accounts, state-run purchasing pools, and regulatory relief — must be provided to make it easier for individuals to purchase private coverage.One of the quickest and most affordable ways of increasing access to high quality affordable care is to provide families with jobs that provide employer-sponsored health-care benefits. To this end, we need to push for more workforce training, aggressive tax relief, including suspension of capital gains and incomes taxes, regulatory relief — all and all, more economic freedom in the Gulf coast to spur investment in the future.
Before Congress wrapped up last year, we passed legislation that created the "Gulf Opportunity Zone," a set of business tax incentives — such as bonus depreciation for equipment purchases, increased expensing for small businesses, and net-operating-loss carryback for new repairs and investment, which allows companies to "carry back" current losses to earlier, profitable years and obtain tax refunds. These economic incentives will help create the impetus for businesses to stand on solid ground while attracting new investment to the region.
MORE (via mc):
Gulf Coast's home boom (Ron Scherer, 2/28/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
All this is happening even before the US Congress tackles a major funding bill that could give up to $150,000 each to the owners of more than 167,000 homes that were destroyed. All this is also ahead of the Federal Emergency Management Agency issuing new flood-plain maps, expected at the end of next month.Most of these home- building efforts are individual, as people either receive insurance checks or dip into savings. But six months after the hurricane, the need is still so great that large developers, such as KB Homes, have announced they will build major new subdivisions.
