A REFRESHINGLY STRAIGHTFORWARD STATEMENT OF THE FACTS:

The GM-UAW contract: Pace car for the U.S.?: If approved, this deal sets big tasks for GM and the UAW that can help the US stay competitive and healthy. (CS Monitor, 10/01/07)

For the UAW, the task ahead is to run a new type of healthcare enterprise, called a "voluntary employee beneficiary association"(VEBA). GM's initial contribution of $30 billion to VEBA will keep it going for a while. But some VEBAs in other industries have failed. The UAW must show that a consumer-driven healthcare system can work by restraining costs, such as providing incentives for preventive healthcare.

Any success with this type of private healthcare could alter the debate over government versus private systems. The current dispute over increased federal funding for children's health in Washington would take the US further toward government-run care. But major Democratic presidential candidates have shifted to emphasizing private systems.

Rare enough for the mainstream to get the implications of either SHIP or the UAW VEBA right, nevermind both.

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IN FAIRNESS TO THE METS...:

Florida 8, NY Mets 1 (AP, 9/30/07)

The collapse is complete. When the New York Mets needed a big game, Tom Glavine pitched one of his worst.

After blowing a big September lead in the NL East, the Mets missed the playoffs Sunday when Glavine was tagged for seven runs during the first inning of a season-ending 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins.

New York's loss coupled with Philadelphia's 6-1 win over Washington gave the division title to the Phillies and sent the stunned Mets home for the winter wondering how they squandered a seven-game cushion over the final 18 days of an excruciating season.

Now, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez and the rest of this talented team will forever be remembered alongside the 1964 Phillies and other famous failures for skidding to one of baseball's most monumental collapses.

They didn't so much collapse as settle at the level appropriate to their pitching staff. Omar Minaya has to carry the bag for their record.

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60-40 NATION:

Local Democrats in West fear impact of unpopular ticket leader: Party officials in the Rocky Mountain region worry their congressional candidates' chances may be hurt by unfavorable presidential hopefuls, such as Hillary Clinton. (Noam N. Levey, 9/30/07, Los Angeles Times)

[A]s he prepares to run for a fifth term next year, [Max] Baucus is entering treacherous territory. Despite recent gains by Democrats in the Rocky Mountain West, party officials across the region are increasingly anxious that their congressional candidates may get dragged under by Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.

The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was by a wide margin the most unpopular of 13 potential presidential candidates in Montana, according to a June survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Billings Gazette; 61% said they would not consider voting for her, compared with 49% who would not vote for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45% who would not vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. The most unpopular Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was rejected by 51%.

The GOP basically starts with a natural 30 states and 60 Senators.

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SO FORMALIZE THE DE FACTO:

After losses, Palestinian zeal for intifadah flags:
Many are asking whether revolt has helped them (Mohammed Daraghmeh, September 30, 2007, Associated Press)

[T]he vastly outgunned Palestinians have been exhausted by the armed confrontation. A total of 4,453 Palestinians have been killed, along with 1,114 Israelis.

Israel has built a West Bank barrier, which it says was designed to keep out attacks. But the enclosure dips into the West Bank at various points, putting 8.5 percent of the territory on the Israeli side. In Palestinian eyes, it is a thinly veiled land grab.

Israel has reoccupied West Bank towns and cities, sharply restricted Palestinian movement within the West Bank, and banned traffic between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian dependence on foreign aid has grown, and most Gazans survive on less than $2 a day.

The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, meanwhile, has soared, from about 1,650 to 11,000.

"Everything came to a standstill for seven years," said Adnan Attari, a 30-year-old merchant from a village near the West Bank town of Ramallah. "We didn't move forward but backward."

But the lack of commemoration reflects more than the uprising's setbacks. With the Hamas and Fatah factions locked in a battle for power, Palestinians are more concerned about their internal security than their conflict with Israel, polls show.

Which is exactly what treating them like a state and forcing elections was supposed to do. Now Israel and the US just have to allow the internal political process to play out.

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LOW HANGING FRUIT:

China Communist elder issues bold call for democracy (Chris Buckley, September 30, 2007, Reuters)

In a bold jab before a key meeting of China's Communists, a 90-year-old former secretary to Mao Zedong has urged the Party to embrace democracy, saying that only political freedom can end instability and corruption.

Li Rui issued his demand for citizens' rights and legal shackles on Party power in a Beijing magazine, China Across the Ages (Yanhuang Chunqiu), just over two weeks before President Hu Jintao opens the 17th Party Congress, which is set to give him five more years in power.

Hu cautiously has signaled modest political adjustments under strict one-party limits. But in a sign that liberal reformers may feel emboldened to press for bigger steps, Li argued that tinkering was not enough.

In the October edition of the outspoken magazine, Li said his country could be dragged back into past decades of chaos unless long-delayed democratization catches up with three decades of market reforms, ending the Party's "privileged status."

"I believe that reforming our Party is the crux that will decide the success or failure of all of China's reforms," wrote Li.

Ferment in Hong Kong, Burma, Taiwan, and the PRC provides a perfect opportunity to give the whole region a good hard shake.

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A MATTER OF FACE[BOOK]:

Backpacker turns activist, with boost from Facebook (David Fox, September 30, 2007, Reuters)

A chance encounter in a Burman coffee shop turned Canadian backpacker Alex Bookbinder into a political activist at the forefront of an Internet campaign that has attracted tens of thousands of supporters.

Bookbinder, 19, is the creator of the "Support the Monks' Protest in Burma" campaign on the Internet social networking site Facebook.

The campaign seeks to draw attention to the violent crackdown by Burma's military rulers against prodemocracy protests led by the country's revered Buddhist monks. It has attracted nearly 140,000 members since being launched on Sept. 19, and thousands more are joining each day.

"I'm overwhelmed by the response," Bookbinder said in an interview conducted, appropriately, over the Internet.

Gotta turn that attention to a single achievable purpose though, like demanding a US boycott of the Beijing Olympics if China doesn't help isolate the junta.

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THERE IS NO CHINA:

Taiwan Party Asserts Separate Identity (ANNIE HUANG, 9/30/07, AP)

Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party passed a resolution Sunday asserting the island's separate identity from rival China and calling for a referendum on Taiwan's sovereignty.

The resolution for a "normal country" — passed after heated debate at a boisterous party congress — calls for general use of "Taiwan" as the island's name, without specifically abolishing its current formal name, the Republic of China. It also calls for the enactment of a new constitution, but gives no specific deadline for either that or the referendum.

The resolution, which passed 250-73, could rile China, which has repeatedly threatened war if Taiwan formalizes its de facto independence.

"We should rectify our name to Taiwan and enact a new constitution as soon as possible," the resolution says. "A public referendum should be held at an appropriate time to underscore Taiwan as a sovereign state."

Taiwan can probably defeat China even without our help, which they'll get anyway.

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CRANK THE TORQUE:

UN Envoy Meets With Suu Kyi, Junta (AP, 9/30/07)

A U.N. envoy met Sunday with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after meeting with Myanmar's military rulers as he sought a peaceful solution to the government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

The separate talks occurred as thousands of troops locked down Myanmar's largest cities Sunday. Scores of people were arrested overnight, further weakening an uprising that sought to end 45 years of military dictatorship.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, went to the remote bunker-like capital Naypyitaw on Saturday to meet with the junta and stayed overnight, foreign Asian diplomats said.

On Sunday, he returned to Yangon and was whisked to the State Guest House to meet Suu Kyi, who was brought out of house arrest to see the U.N. envoy in what appeared to be an unexpected concession by the junta.

Burma protesters call for help from outside world (Denis D. Gray, 9/30/07, Associated Press)

Watching soldiers firing their guns and beating determined protesters with clubs in the streets of Burma, a distraught man decried the violent crackdown and pleaded for American intervention.

With the streets mostly quiet yesterday after the military's brutal suppression of three days of demonstrations, many protesters were losing hope and falling back on such familiar pleas for help from the outside world.

It's a call made every time the prodemocracy movement has dared stand up against Burma's 45 years of harsh military rule, only to be crushed.

Some of those challenging the regime in the most forceful demonstrations in nearly two decades still hope such help - even in the form of US bombing - may arrive.

About 300 protesters marched down a street in the Chinatown section of Burma's main city, Rangoon, yesterday, waving the peacock-emblazoned flags of the democracy movement. They dispersed when soldiers arrived.

Aung San Suu Kyi has tremendous moral cache which she has to use to put pressure on the West if this rebellion is to go any further.

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SO NICE TO COME HOME TO:

Bond star Lois Maxwell dies at 80 (BBC, 9/30/07)

Actress Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in a string of James Bond movies, has died aged 80.

Maxwell starred alongside Sir Sean Connery in Bond's first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962.

She played the role until 1985's A View To A Kill with Sir Roger Moore, who told the BBC she had been a "great asset" to the early Bond movies. [...]

She appeared in more movies than any of the actors who played the lead role in the spy series, including Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore.

Only Desmond Llewelyn, who played gadget man Q 17 times before his death in 1999, starred in more films.

[Said Roger Moore,] "I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M."

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THE ONE BAD THING ABOUT TIMES SELECT...:

9/11 Is Over (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, 9/30/07, NY Times)

You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

...was that it denied bloggers a target rich environment. For instance, Mr. Friedman's insistence that we ought to govern ourselves in order to please our enemies can't help but remind one of a German Jew in the '30s who thought he could act in a way that the Nazis would like him.

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BETTER NOT DROP THE GOAL POST REPLACEMENT FUND:

Underdogs deliver multiple hard-to-believe moments (Pat Forde, 9/29/07, ESPN.com)

Underdog campuses were fired up all over America on Insanity Saturday. They were also fired up in Auburn, Ala. And in Manhattan, Kan. And College Park, Md. And Tampa, Fla., too.

The students in those locales had reason to party after their teams upset top-10 teams this weekend. Down went No. 3 Oklahoma to Colorado, No. 4 Florida to Auburn, No. 7 Texas to Kansas State, No. 10 Rutgers to Maryland, and on Friday, No. 5 West Virginia to South Florida.

Throw in upset losses by No. 13 Clemson and No. 21 Penn State and even first-half deficits for big dogs USC and LSU against Washington and Tulane, respectively, and you have Insanity Saturday.

Just that fast, the college football landscape shifted seismically beneath our feet.

Just that fast, the Red River Shootout game Saturday between Oklahoma and Texas was dropped to undercard status. For the first time in years, it's not the marquee game in the Big 12. And for the first time in years, the league's maligned North looks more compelling than the South. If you can believe it, the biggest game in that league next week might be unbeaten Kansas at 3-1 Kansas State -- either that or 4-1 Nebraska at unbeaten Missouri.

Just that fast, the upcoming LSU-Florida showdown Saturday in Baton Rouge lost half its helium when the Gators were shocked in The Swamp by an Auburn team that had lost at home to South Florida and Mississippi State on consecutive weekends.

Just that fast, the three Big East teams that began the season in the Top 25 all have at least one loss. Louisville went down first, then West Virginia, now Rutgers. Suddenly South Florida, Connecticut and Cincinnati are the unbeaten teams in the Big East. Honk if you foresaw that in August.

Just that fast, Illinois is 4-1 and tied for first in the Big Ten at 2-0. That's the same Illinois that went 2-10 last year, with only one victory over I-A competition.

Just that fast, we have an ACC plot twist that leaves Virginia and Boston College well out in front in their respective divisions at 3-0 in league play. Virginia was left for dead after a Week 1 blowout loss to Wyoming. Boston College was picked last in its division by at least one preseason magazine.

And just that fast, USC and LSU put that much more distance between themselves and what's left of the pack.

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AN ACTUAL BLACK SWAN:

Tylenol Tampering Case Unsolved at 25 (DON BABWIN, 9/28/07, AP)

Helen Jensen can still picture the bottle of Tylenol perched in the medicine cabinet. She feels the receipt she pulled from the wastebasket. She hears the pills she poured onto the kitchen table.

And she recalls the absolute certainty, even before she finished counting, that pills from the bottle in her hand killed the 27-year-old man who lived there, as well as two of his relatives.

"Six capsules were missing, and there were three people dead," she recalled thinking.

It has been exactly 25 years since Jensen, then a nurse for the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights who accompanied investigators to the home, played her role in a story that sent shock waves all over the country.

In a space of three days beginning Sept. 29, 1982, seven people who took cyanide-laced Tylenol in Chicago and four suburbs died. That triggered a national scare that prompted an untold number of people to throw medicine away and stores nationwide to pull Tylenol from their shelves.

If the scare has faded from memory, pushed aside by terrorist attacks and natural disasters, reminders of what happened are as close as the drug store and the corner market.

"Every time you open a bottle or package (of medicine, food or drink) that has tamper evidence features, a band around the lid or an interior seal, it is because of the Tylenol case," said Pan Demetrakakes, executive editor of Food & Drug Packaging magazine.

Jeffrey Leebaw, a spokesman for Tylenol maker Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J., declined to comment Friday.

For those who lost loved ones or investigated the case, pain, anger and frustration remain. Part of the reason is that nobody was ever charged, much less convicted of the crime.

While the incident might never have been repeated, it makes good marketing sense to be seen to be making it hard for it to happen to your product.

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THERE IS NO CHINA:

George W Bush to meet Dalai Lama in US first (Richard Spencer, 29/09/2007, Daily Telegraph)

President George W Bush is to become the first American president to meet the Dalai Lama in a gesture of recognition for the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism that risks infuriating the Chinese government.

Mr Bush will meet the Dalai next month at a ceremony in front of the symbol of American democracy, the Capitol building, where the Tibetan leader will be presented with the Congressional Gold Medal.

The Chinese government reacts with fury to any gesture of recognition given to the Dalai who fled the country into exile in 1959 and whom it regularly accuses of trying to "split" Tibet from the rest of China.

Rising up for freedom (The Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 2007)

The battle between freedom and bondage has its moments of clarity, when walls come down, when people rise up, when the world can't look away. This week in Burma has been one of those moments.
[...]

The Burmese regime depends on the support of China and, to a lesser extent, India. China is in an awkward position: it is itself an anti-democratic regime, and it put down a major uprising in the same era as the 8888 Revolution and the Suu Kyi election. The parallels are obvious. Besides, China benefits from a cozy economic relationship with Burma.

But as the host of the Beijing Olympics -- which will open next Aug. 8, the 20th anniversary of the 8888 uprising -- China has to at least appear to be concerned about this crisis in its neighbourhood. And while China publicly insists that Burma is not a threat to international security, the health, refugee and drug crises on Burma's borders should worry all its neighbours.

The Chinese government has begun to acknowledge its international responsibilities, and to be held to account for enabling the likes of North Korea and Sudan. The uprising in Burma will be a test of China's ability to pick the right side in global affairs. It should also be a test for democratic India, which has been engaging in a dangerous rapprochement with Burma.

The violence in Burma must end, but a return to the status quo ante would not be any kind of resolution. The people would still be poor and unfree. Democratization must come to Burma, and all nations must work toward that goal.

In securing the Olympics the Chinese handed us a sword which it would be shameful not to use against these regimes on behalf of their peoples.

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DEFINE THE CONTRIBUTION AND THE BENEFIT CAN BE MASSIVE:

The UAW's Awakening: A union shows a new awareness of global competition. (Opinion Journal, September 29, 2007)

This week's deal between General Motors and the United Auto Workers is being hailed as a new era for Detroit, and for once that advertising may be justified. The UAW in particular made historic concessions that show a new awareness of global competition. What's less encouraging is how much this reality-based compromise still contrasts with the policies that unions and their political friends are promoting in the unreal world of Washington, D.C. [...]

In what seems to be the most creative stroke, GM will pay some $35 billion toward a new health-care trust fund to be administered by the union. That's a big initial cash flow, but it means the company can divest itself of some $50 billion in long-term liabilities, which would only have grown as health-care costs rose and retirees lived longer. Investors loved it, driving up GM stock by around 7% for the week.

The UAW now gains ownership of its members' health-care resources, in effect becoming a financial manager of a giant Health Savings Account for auto workers.

Indeed, you have to wonder if EJ Dionne even understood that he was praising the Ownership Society yesterday

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COUGHLIN CORNER:

Father Dobbs: Assaulting CNN audiences with bossy harangues, Lou Dobbs has remained unruffled by conflict and become a major weight on public opinion (James Wolcott, September 28, 2007, Vanity Fair)

If Lou Dobbs were any more full of himself, the tub would overflow. In the autumn resplendence of his telecasting career, Dobbs's self-regard, never meek or slender, has ripened into the pompatus of love. I am Lou, hear me moo, in numbers too big to eschew. It isn't just that the ratings for CNN's starship enterprise Lou Dobbs Tonight have been climbing while those of other cable news shows are being intubated, but that his force of personality and power of persuasion have elevated him to the status of a major public-opinion shaper—a heavy-lumber political slugger. If he were a Robert Ludlum hero, this chapter of his life could be called "The Dobbs Supremacy." It was Dobbs more than any other tongue flapper who put the kibosh on the Dubai-ports deal by flogging it as a risk to national security and economic sovereignty, not to mention a rude slap in the honest face of every hardworking American, which leaves out a few people I happen to know, including me. "For fifteen evenings," Ken Auletta wrote in The New Yorker, "Dobbs spoke about 'the outrage' of allowing a Middle Eastern country 'with ties to the September 11 terrorists' to operate six American ports. Dobbs certainly was not the only person to raise questions, but the resulting furor eventually prompted Dubai to abandon the plan." The scuttling of the Dubai-ports deal was a warm-up bout to Dobbs's biggest feat of strength so far, his duel in the dust with the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was the darling dream baby of President Bush—his last big domestic achievement before returning to Crawford, Texas, to enter that long night of the iguana. As we know, the bill croaked after one of those cloture votes that lend such cliff-hanging suspense to the legislative process. Although the conservative bloggers and talk-radio caterwaulers, tweaking their nipples and twirling their jockstraps, indulged in yet another orgy of triumphalism as they inflated the magnitude of their heroic role in murdering this bill in its cradle (overcome with vapors, National Review Online contributor Mark Krikorian compared the bill's defeat to General Washington's staunch performance at the Battle of Monmouth, in 1778), it was the anti-Establishment establishmentarians of the mainstream media, in the persons of Dobbs and MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan, who were the true picadors, pricking this bipartisan package as an "amnesty" bill to the frustration of its advocates and drawing first blood. "Pitchfork Pat" Buchanan's nativism has always been a niche product, however. Dobbs commands a higher, wider seat of authority, no pun intended. Presiding over the recurring segment "Broken Borders" (cue night-vision footage of Mexicans climbing over and under fences, crossing ravines, running in a crouch), Dobbs has been the chief architect in constructing the ominous, dystopian specter of illegal immigration as home invasion on an epic scale, tracking crime, disease, and rampant illiteracy across our clean floors.

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WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER HAT RACK:

Amazing night sets today's stage (Mark Newman, 9/29/07, MLB.com)

Now what?

People around Major League Baseball are still recovering from the most unbelievable final Friday of any regular season. Did you see that? Of course you did. You saw everything. You were locked in like it was a Halo 3 all-nighter. Your head was spinning like Brandon Webb's breaking ball from trying to watch up to a dozen games at once.

Mets' meltdown almost complete (Toronto Star, Sep 29, 2007)

The New York Mets' meltdown reached the absurd last night. Out of first place and nearly out of time, they're going to need help just to make the playoffs. All-star third baseman David Wright forgot he had an easy force play, Oliver Perez hit a pair of batters with the bases loaded and the Mets stumbled out of the NL East lead with a 7-4 loss to the last-place Florida Marlins. New York has lost five straight and 11 of 15 to fall one game back of surging Philadelphia, which beat Washington 6-0. The Mets' eighth straight home loss dropped them out of first place for the first time since May 15. Everything looked rosy for the Amazin's when they held a seven-game lead on Sept. 12 with 17 games left, but it's been mostly downhill from there. They're on the brink now of an unthinkable collapse: No major league team has blown such a big lead in such a short time at the end of a season.

Bubbling over: Red Sox clinch first division title in 12 years (Gordon Edes, September 29, 2007, Boston Globe)

Theo Epstein trusted that the Red Sox would hold up their end of a championship bargain, but thought it was a good idea to send a text message to Kevin Millar, exhorting the former Sox partymeister to help put an end last night to Yankee aspirations in Baltimore.

"I told him, 'You own [Yankees pitcher Mike] Mussina. I said, 'You owe us one,' " Epstein said. "You've got to win at least one game for us singlehandedly. And tell [Orioles manager Dave] Trembley I don't want to see [Triple A] Ottawa out there."

"He wrote back, 'We'll see what we can do. I'll do my best for you.' "

It was the prelude to a made-for-TV experience. The Red Sox, whose 5-2 win over the Minnesota Twins ended at 9:39 p.m., became champions of the American League East an hour and 17 minutes later, at 10:56, when Millar and the Orioles beat the Yankees, 10-9, in 10 innings, a comeback win the Sox watched from inside their clubhouse while several thousand fans watched on the Fenway Park video scoreboard.

Millar did his part, getting hit by a pitch by Yankees closer Mariano Rivera in the ninth, when the Orioles rallied from three runs down to tie the score on a bases-loaded triple by former Sox outfielder Jay Payton. A third ex-Sox player, Chad Bradford, was the winning pitcher after escaping a bases-loaded jam in the 10th, and Melvin Mora dropped a two-out squeeze bunt to bring home the winning run after Millar looked at a called third strike.

Naturally, the irrepressible Millar was heard from in the midst of a wild Sox celebration that reached its apex when Alex Cora took command of the Fenway Park sound system, blasting "Sweet Caroline" while Jonathan Papelbon, wearing sliding shorts and a T-shirt, did a mad Irish jig on the mound.

"He texted me back and said, 'I told you I'd come through for you,' " Epstein said. "He said, 'I'm still sitting on that changeup, by the way. Congratulations.' "

How can the two NY teams spend $600 million and not at least accidentally acquire a worthwhile pitcher between them?

MORE:
NL Notes: Philadelphia Phillies (Houston Chronicle, 9/29/07)

Shortstop Jimmy Rollins got his 706th at-bat Friday to set the single-season major league record. Rollins flied out off the Nationals' Tim Redding in the third inning to break the mark set in 1980 by Willie Wilson of the Royals.

Biggio will put on catcher's mask one more time (BRIAN McTAGGART, 9/29/07, Houston Chronicle

For the first time since Oct. 5, 1991, Craig Biggio will catch in a game tonight as the Astros host the Atlanta Braves. Biggio is scheduled to catch one or two innings before moving to his normal position of second base.

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"ACCESSIBLE AS HE WAS ERUDITE":

Professor Norman Cohn: Historian and linguist of rare erudition whose masterpiece was 'The Pursuit of the Millennium' (Independent, 29 September 2007)

Norman Cohn wrote three great histories, each thematically related to the other. His first book, The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), showed how apocalyptic beliefs fuelled medieval heresies and, in the 20th century, Nazi and Communist orthodoxies. His second, Warrant for Genocide (1967), exposed that arsenal for anti-Semites The Protocol of the Elders of Zion for the forgery that it was. His third, Europe's Inner Demons (1976), showed how the idea of the satanic pact was at the heart of the European witch-craze. In 1948 the great Annales scholar Lucien Febvre had written his (then) startling essay, "Witchcraft: nonsense or a mental revolution?" Cohn's published writings would provide the most satisfying answer to that question.

But first the nonsense had to be got out of the way. Not just the history – Nazi reliance on a dodgy document. But the historiography: credulous readers' reliance on Margaret Murray's fiction of witchcraft as Christianity's ancient religious rival. Cohn, the most modest and gentle of men, swept her 1921 romance The Witch-Cult in Western Europe into the dustbin. His weapons were, as in all his inquiries, patience, scrupulous testing of evidence and empathy into minds of very different cultures, all backed with formidable linguistic skills.

It was as a linguist, not a historian, that he had begun his academic career. [...]

Cohn was as accessible as he was erudite. Generations of undergraduates thrilled to The Pursuit of the Millennium. Scholars continue to raid his works for fresh insights. In the current Journal of Ecclesiastical History there is a review of a new French book on witchcraft, which grapples with the great question: where was the link between witchcraft as attested in early medieval folklore and the apparently sudden and unprecedented emergence, at some point after 1400, of a belief in a conspiracy between witches and the devil? The reviewer likes the book, but his final message is: go back to Cohn!

Sometimes the very boldness of the presentation leads to a failure in his readers to appreciate the subtleties behind it. Cohn never said – although he has been credited with saying it – that millenarianism inevitably produces revolutions. But his brilliant evocations of John of Leyden's reign of terror in Munster – and those flagellants who seem to have walked straight out of The Seventh Seal – once encountered by the reader stay in the mind. Cohn intended them to do so, but not at the price of failing to realise that millenarian speculations could have stabilising effects as well as destabilising ones.

He was particularly sensitive to the power of belief in a Last World Emperor as a secular companion figure to the Angelic Pope. There are 31 entries on the Emperor cult in The Pursuit of the Millennium index, which will surprise only those who accept a simplified reading of the Cohn thesis.

Norman Cohn, Historian, Dies at 92 (DOUGLAS MARTIN, 8/27/07, NY Times)

In highly detailed, laboriously researched studies that depended on his knowledge of many ancient languages, Mr. Cohn reached far back into history to illuminate subjects of compelling current interest from totalitarianism to anti-Semitism to repression of minorities.

His gift for seeing old stories with new eyes shone in his book on the development and interpretation of the biblical story of Noah, “Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought.” His crisp writing drew praise.

He was an unusual historian in that as a student he did not study history, but was trained as a linguist; he then put his knowledge of medieval Latin, Greek, Old French and High and Low German to work in his famously meticulous research. He also brought passion to his search for the roots of hatred: he had lost relatives in the Holocaust.

The Times Literary Supplement included his seminal 1957 book, “The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages,” in a 1995 list of the 100 nonfiction works with the greatest influence on how postwar Europeans perceive themselves. Other books on the list were by Camus, Sartre and Foucault.

Beginning with the Crusades and concluding with 16th-century Anabaptists, Mr. Cohn showed in this book how the desire of the poor to improve their lot merged with prophecies of a final struggle between Christ and Antichrist, to be followed by the emergence of a new paradise.

“In situations of mass disorientation and anxiety, traditional beliefs about a future golden age or messianic kingdom came to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities,” he wrote.

This vision, he suggested, passed among cultures and languages and from religious to secular discourse without losing its coherence or power to jolt the downtrodden to rise up. Messianic leaders like Stalin and Hitler appealed to the deep, biblically inspired belief that after intense struggle history would end, and an elect of believers would inherit paradise.

“The old religious idiom has been replaced by a secular one, and this tends to obscure what otherwise would be obvious,” he wrote. “For it is the simple truth that, stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism are with us still.”

Mr. Cohn’s theory emerged from a decade of research into millennial movements like the Flagellants who massacred the Jews of Frankfurt in 1349, the 16th-century Anabaptist theocracy of Münster, Germany, and the Ranters of the English Civil War.

Anthony Storr, a psychoanalyst who has written on historical figures, once called Mr. Cohn “the historian of important parts of history that other historians do not reach.”

Norman Cohn (Paul Lay, August 9, 2007, The Guardian)
-ARCHIVES: Norman Cohn - The New York Review of Books

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HOLY HARSH STAT, BATMAN:

The Brewers have lost the last 21 games in which Chris Capuano, their starter tonight, has appeared.

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NOW THERE'S A WORTHWHILE GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD:

Radical Syrian cleric 'shot dead' (BBC, 9/28/07)

A Syrian cleric suspected of recruiting foreign militants to fight in Iraq has been shot dead in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, his aides have said.

Sheikh Mahmoud Abu al-Qaqaa was shot several times by a gunman as he left the Imam Mosque after Friday prayers. [...]

After the shooting, one aide to the cleric told the Associated Press that "terrorists" had killed the sheikh, whose real name was Mahmoud al-Aghassi, for his "nationalist positions".

The one who carried out the assassination was a prisoner of the American forces in Iraq and had been released some time ago
Sheikh Samir Abu Khashbeh

Another aide, Sheikh Samir Abu Khashbeh, said the gunman had told him that he had killed the cleric "because he was an agent of the Americans".

"The one who carried out the assassination was a prisoner of the American forces in Iraq and had been released some time ago," Abu Khashbeh said. "He is known to us."

It's not terrorism when we do it.

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JUST AS REAGAN FINISHED WITH A TRIP TO MOSCOW STATE...:

Iran invites Bush to speak at university (NASSER KARIMI, 9/28/07, Associated Press)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited President Bush to speak at an Iranian university if the American leader ever traveled to the Islamic Republic, state-run television reported Friday.

Ahmadinejad caused an uproar during his visit to New York this week when he spoke at Columbia University. He faced tough questioning and the university's president introduced him by saying Ahmadinejad exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

"If their president plans to travel to Iran, we will allow him to make a speech" at a university, Ahmadinejad told state TV earlier this week before leaving New York to travel to South America. He was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

...this would be the ideal capstone to W's presidency. He could almost give the same speech, though Iran is much further advanced towards the End than Russia was, Ronald Reagan at Moscow State University (May 31, 1988)

Before I left Washington, I received many heartfelt letters and telegrams asking me to carry here a simple message, perhaps, but also some of the most important business of this summit. It is a message of peace and goodwill and hope for a growing friendship and closeness between our two peoples.

First, I want to take a little time to talk to you much as I would to any group of university students in the United States. I want to talk not just of the realities of today, but of the possibilities of tomorrow.

You know, one of the first contacts between your country and mine took place between Russian and American explorers. The Americans were members of Cook's last voyage on an expedition searching for an Arctic passage; on the island of Unalaska, they came upon the Russians, who took them in, and together, with the native inhabitants, held a prayer service on the ice.

The explorers of the modern era are the entrepreneurs, men with vision, with the courage to take risks and faith enough to brave the unknown. These entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States. They are the prime movers of the technological revolution. In fact, one of the largest personal computer firms in the United States was started by two college students, no older than you, in the garage behind their home.

Some people, even in my own country, look at the riot of experiment that is the free market and see only waste. What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones. Often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they'll tell you it's all that they learned in their struggles along the way — yes, it's what they learned from failing. Like an athlete in competition, or a scholar in pursuit of the truth, experience is the greatest teacher.

We are seeing the power of economic freedom spreading around the world — places such as the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have vaulted into the technological era, barely pausing in the industrial age along the way. Low-tax agricultural policies in the sub-continent mean that in some years India is now a net exporter of food. Perhaps most exciting are the winds of change that are blowing over the People's republic of China, where one-quarter of the world's population is now getting its first taste of economic freedom.

At the same time, the growth of democracy has become one of the most powerful political movements of our age. In Latin America in the 1970's, only a third of the population lived under democratic government. Today over 90 percent does. In the Philippines, in the Republic of Korea, free, contested, democratic elections are the order of the day. Throughout the world, free markets are the model for growth. Democracy is the standard by which governments are measured.

We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom. In fact, it's something of a national pastime. Every four years the American people choose a new president, and 1988 is one of those years. At one point there were 13 major candidates running in the two major parties, not to mention all the others, including the Socialist and Libertarian candidates — all trying to get my job.

About 1,000 local television stations, 8,500 radio stations, and 1,700 daily newspapers, each one an independent, private enterprise, fiercely independent of the government, report on the candidates, grill them in interviews, and bring them together for debates. In the end, the people vote — they decide who will be the next president.

But freedom doesn't begin or end with elections. Go to any American town, to take just an example, and you'll see dozens of synagogues and mosques — and you'll see families of every conceivable nationality, worshipping together.

Go into any schoolroom, and there you will see children being taught the Declaration of Independence, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that no government can justly deny — the guarantees in their Constitution for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.

Go into any courtroom and there will preside an independent judge, beholden to no government power. There every defendant has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers, usually 12 men and women — common citizens, they are the ones, the only ones, who weigh the evidence and decide on guilt or innocence. In that court, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the word of a policeman, or any official, has no greater legal standing than the word of the accused.

Go to any university campus, and there you'll find an open, sometimes heated discussion of the problems in American society and what can be done to correct them. Turn on the television, and you'll see the legislature conducting the business of government right there before the camera, debating and voting on the legislation that will become the law of the land. March in any demonstrations, and there are many of them — the people's right of assembly is guaranteed in the Constitution and protected by the police.

But freedom is more even than this: Freedom is the right to question, and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to stick - to dream - to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience, even if you're the only one in a sea of doubters.

Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority of government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.

America is a nation made up of hundreds of nationalities. Our ties to you are more than ones of good feeling; they're ties of kinship. In America, you'll find Russians, Armenians, Ukrainians, peoples from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They come from every part of this vast continent, from every continent, to live in harmony, seeking a place where each cultural heritage is respected, each is valued for its diverse strengths and beauties and the richness it brings to our lives.

Recently, a few individuals and families have been allowed to visit relatives in the West. We can only hope that it won't be long before all are allowed to do so, and Ukrainian-Americans, Baltic-Americans, Armenian-Americans, can freely visit their homelands, just as this Irish-American visits his.

Freedom, it has been said, makes people selfish and materialistic, but Americans are one of the most religious peoples on Earth. Because they know that liberty, just as life itself, is not earned, but a gift from God, they seek to share that gift with the world. "Reason and experience," said George Washington in his farewell address, "both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. And it is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."

Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive: A system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.

I have often said, nations do not distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other. If this globe is to live in peace and prosper, if it is to embrace all the possibilities of the technological revolution, then nations must renounce, once and for all, the right to an expansionist foreign policy. Peace between nations must be an enduring goal — not a tactical stage in a continuing conflict.

I've been told that there's a popular song in your country — perhaps you know it — whose evocative refrain asks the question, "Do the Russians want a war?" In answer it says, "Go ask that silence lingering in the air, above the birch and poplar there; beneath those trees the soldiers lie. Go ask my mother, ask my wife; then you will have to ask no more, 'Do the Russians want a war?'"

But what of your one-time allies? What of those who embraced you on the Elbe? What if we were to ask the watery graves of the Pacific, or the European battlefields where America's fallen were buried far from home? What if we were to ask their mothers, sisters, and sons, do Americans want war? Ask us, too, and you'll find the same answer, the same longing in every heart. People do not make wars, governments do — and no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology. A people free to choose will always choose peace.

Americans seek always to make friends of old antagonists. After a colonial revolution with Britain we have cemented for all ages the ties of kinship between our nations. After a terrible civil war between North and South, we healed our wounds and found true unity as a nation. We fought two world wars in my lifetime against Germany and one with Japan, but now the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan are two of our closest allies and friends.

Some people point to the trade disputes between us as a sign of strain, but they're the frictions of all families, and the family of free nations is a big and vital and sometimes boisterous one. I can tell you that nothing would please my heart more than in my lifetime to see American and Soviet diplomats grappling with the problem of trade disputes between America and a growing, exuberant, exporting Soviet Union that had opened up to economic freedom and growth.

Is this just a dream? Perhaps. But it is a dream that is our responsibility to have come true.

Your generation is living in one of the most exciting, hopeful times in Soviet history. It is a time when the first breath of freedom stirs the air and the heart beats to the accelerated rhythm of hope, when the accumulated spiritual energies of a long silence yearn to break free.

We do not know what the conclusion of this journey will be, but we're hopeful that the promise of reform will be fulfilled. In this Moscow spring, this May 1988, we may be allowed that hope — that freedom, like the fresh green sapling planted over Tolstoy's grave, will blossom forth at least in the rich fertile soil of your people and culture. We may be allowed to hope that the marvelous sound of a new openness will keep rising through, ringing through, leading to a new world of reconciliation, friendship, and peace.

Thank you all very much and da blagoslovit vas gospod! God bless you.

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WHEN YOU PLAN FOR THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, YOU SACRIFICE THE PROBABLE:

CHAPTER ONE: ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’ By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and, I am told, quite ugly) black bird.

I push one step beyond this philosophical-logical question into an empirical reality, and one that has obsessed me since childhood. What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives. Ever since we left the Pleistocene, some ten millennia ago, the effect of these Black Swans has been increasing. It started accelerating during the industrial revolution, as the world started getting more complicated, while ordinary events, the ones we study and discuss and try to predict from reading the newspapers, have become increasingly inconsequential.

Just imagine how little your understanding of the world on the eve of the events of 1914 would have helped you guess what was to happen next. (Don't cheat by using the explanations drilled into your cranium by your dull high school teacher). How about the rise of Hitler and the subsequent war? How about the precipitous demise of the Soviet bloc? How about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? How about the spread of the Internet? How about the market crash of 1987 (and the more unexpected recovery)? Fads, epidemics, fashion, ideas, the emergence of art genres and schools. All follow these Black Swan dynamics. Literally, just about everything of significance around you might qualify.

This combination of low predictability and large impact makes the Black Swan a great puzzle; but that is not yet the core concern of this book. Add to this phenomenon the fact that we tend to act as if it does not exist! I don't mean just you, your cousin Joey, and me, but almost all "social scientists" who, for over a century, have operated under the false belief that their tools could measure uncertainty. For the applications of the sciences of uncertainty to real-world problems has had ridiculous effects; I have been privileged to see it in finance and economics. Go ask your portfolio manager for his definition of "risk," and odds are that he will supply you with a measure that excludes the possibility of the Black Swan-hence one that has no better predictive value for assessing the total risks than astrology (we will see how they dress up the intellectual fraud with mathematics). This problem is endemic in social matters.

The central idea of this book concerns our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly the large deviations: Why do we, scientists or nonscientists, hotshots or regular Joes, tend to see the pennies instead of the dollars? Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading the newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?

It is easy to see that life is the cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks. It is not so hard to identify the role of Black Swans, from your armchair (or bar stool). Go through the following exercise. Look into your own existence. Count the significant events, the technological changes, and the inventions that have taken place in our environment since you were born and compare them to what was expected before their advent. How many of them came on a schedule? Look into your own personal life, to your choice of profession, say, or meeting your mate, your exile from your country of origin, the betrayals you faced, your sudden enrichment or impoverishment. How often did these things occur according to plan?

Black Swan logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many Black Swans can be caused and exacerbated by their being unexpected.

Think of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001: had the risk been reasonably conceivable on September 10, it would not have happened. If such a possibility were deemed worthy of attention, fighter planes would have circled the sky above the twin towers, airplanes would have had locked bulletproof doors, and the attack would not have taken place, period. Something else might have taken place. What? I don't know. Isn't it strange to see an event happening precisely because it was not supposed to happen? What kind of defense do we have against that? Whatever you come to know (that New York is an easy terrorist target, for instance) may become inconsequential if your enemy knows that you know it. It may be odd to realize that, in such a strategic game, what you know can be truly inconsequential.

This is so silly on so many levels that you can hardly pick it all apart, but let's try:

(1) There are doves and ravens, Caucasians and Negroes, white sheep and black sheep, yet it is outside the realm of expectations that there are black swans to match our white ones? No, Mr. Taleb's central metaphor actually disproves his entire case (we need hardly point out that the fact of black swans has no impact whatsoever). It would be somewhat more accurate to say that if one considers a flock of white swans in the abstract, to the exclusion of all other human knowledge, then a black swan will be surprising. This makes for the perfect ivory tower intellectual exercise, but has nothing to do with human life as it is lived.

(2) As if black swans weren't trivial enough in their own right, the notion that it is the fact that the "significant shocks" in your life may not occur on precisely the schedule you imagined ahead of time that makes them "shocks" is truly inane. Remember the old apocryphal tale about the college president who addresses the incoming class and tells them to look at the student to the left and to the right and recognize that one of the three of you won't finish. Well, he could also tell you that most of you will marry, most have kids, most lose jobs, most move several times, all lose loved ones, many divorce, etc., etc., etc. Is the utter predictability of these life events really outweighed by the shock effect of their not happening at precisely predictable times? Is it not instead the case that the generally predictable and easily anticipated is just shocking to each of us in the particular?

(3) Not only was a terrorist attack along the lines of 9-11 predictable, but was frequently predicted, a staple of fiction, and had even been attempted already. In fact, the most shocking thing about 9-11 in retrospect is just how few people died. Cast yourself back to that day or to discussions of the earlier truck bomb attack and the casualty estimates were in the tens of thousands. It does not in any way cheapen the loss of life to note that we got off pretty easy compared to what we expected.

This raises a set of questions quite different from the ones the author intends:

Examining our actual losses to terrorism(*)--rather than our emotional reactions--might we not say that our level of preparation was reasonable? Mr. Taleb suggests that if we were serious about the risks we'd have hardened the doors of cockpits and, thus, prevented any attacks on 9-11. It's worth noting, first off, that there hadn't been a successful hijacking of an American flight in twenty years, so existing precautions had worked rather well. But, even if we fall with him into the trap of believing that by taking discrete actions we've anticipated the unexpected, we have to ask why he'd stop there. Given that terrorists have more typically attacked with car bombs, truck bombs, explosive belts, etc., what are the similarly basic steps he'd take to protect against the entirely predictable threat of common motor vehicles and ordinary pedestrians? Obviously if he proposed banning motor vehicles we'd grant that he takes the threat of their being used as weapons seriously and following where black swan logic leads him. However, isn't that the problem with the black swan, that it becomes the be all and end all of existence? The existence of the black swan, in this way of thinking, clouds the mind to the far greater prevalence of white swans. One becomes so focussed on a risk that it can never be assessed in relation to the benefits that accrue from treating it as an outlier.

It would be useful here to consider the black swan that never honked. For forty years people anticipated, with various degrees of hysteria, the possibility or even likelihood that the United States and the USSR would engage in a thermonuclear exchange of some intensity or another. And yet, at no time during those years was anyone even minimally prepared for the event. Sure, preparing even inadequately would have required trillions of dollars and untold man hours and material and so on. In retrospect, we have to be thankful that the black swan was largely ignored, because as it turned out, the damage we'd have done ourselves by taking it would have been catastrophic in its own right. It would have made us the sort of military resource-sink that Paul Kennedy fretted about in Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Instead we mostly went about our lives and the swans kept coming up white.

They usually do. When they don't, we figure out how to deal with the black one, often with little difficulty.

(*) Indeed, does 9-11 even meet the second part of Mr. Taleb's tripartite test? The US economy didn't skip a beat. We fought two rather desultory wars in the Middle East at minimal cost. They're building at the WTC site. The skies are filled with planes. Cory Lidle was able to fly a plane into a NYC building without anyone batting an eyelash. Etc. Where is the extreme impact?

Likewise, we're rebuilding New Orleans, despite Katrina, and the Pacific Rim is populated again. What long term impact do these swans really have?

Here are two really easily imagined black swans that we're all willfully ignoring and it's worth thinking about what you'd do to avoid them: a major earthquake in Los Angeles and a bit of space debris crashing into the Earth.

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"SPIRITUAL HARDBALL":

Myanmar intensifies efforts to break up protests: Soldiers club and drag away activists, occupy Buddhist monasteries and cut the Internet. (Associated Press, September 28, 2007)

Soldiers clubbed and dragged away activists while firing tear gas and warning shots to break up demonstrations Friday before they could grow, and the government cut Internet access, raising fears that a deadly crackdown was set to intensify.

Troops also occupied Buddhist monasteries in a bid to clear the streets of Myanmar's revered monks, who have spearheaded the demonstrations.

The government said 10 people have been killed since the violence began earlier this week, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he believed the loss of life in Myanmar was "far greater" than is being reported. Dissident groups have put the number as high as 200, although that number could not be verified.

Witnesses said security forces aggressively broke up a rally of about 2,000 people near the Sule Pagoda in the largest city, Yangon. About 20 trucks packed with soldiers arrived and announced over loudspeakers, "We give you 10 minutes to move out from the road. Otherwise we will fire."

A group of about 10 people broke away from the main crowd and rushed toward a line of soldiers, who were dressed in green uniforms with red bandanas around their necks, holding shields and automatic weapons. The people were beaten up, and five were seen being hauled away in a truck.

Soldiers dispersed the other protesters, beating them with clubs and firing shots in the air.

"People in this country are gentle and calm. (But) people are very angry now and they dare to do anything," said a shopkeeper, who witnessed the clash and did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.

MORE:
Burma's Revolt of The Spirit (Michael Gerson, September 28, 2007, Washington Post)

The great virtue of Buddhism is serene courage in the face of inevitable affliction. That courage is on display now in Burma -- a nation caught upon the wheel of suffering.

The sight of young, barefoot monks in cinnamon robes quietly marching for democracy, amid crowds carrying banners reading "love and kindness," is already a symbol of conscience for a young century. On closer examination, these protests have also shown that nonviolence need not be tame or toothless. The upside-down bowls carried by some of the monks signal that they will not accept alms from the leaders of the regime, denying them the ability to atone for bad deeds or to honor their ancestors. These chanting monks are playing spiritual hardball.

Once again -- as in the American civil rights struggle and the end of communism in Eastern Europe -- religion is proving to be an uncontrollable force in an oppressive society. Religious dissidents have the ability not only to organize opposition to tyrants but also to shame them. Political revolutions often begin as revolutions of the spirit.

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THE RATIONALISTS' LONG WAR AGAINST HUMAN NATURE:

REVIEW: of 'Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life ' by Robert B. Reich: The former Labor secretary discusses how capitalism on steroids shapes our lives today. (Terry Burnham, 9/28/07, LA Times)

Reich, a former secretary of Labor for the Clinton administration and now a professor at UC Berkeley, identifies human nature as a central cause for these woes. Borrowing a line from the comic strip "Pogo," he writes that "we have met the enemy and it is us." Throughout the book, he laments the decline in unionization and the increased variability of income in the United States. Finding the culprit in our greed, he writes, "consumers get great deals largely because workers get shafted."

Reich's view that our own human nature lies at the root of modern woes stands in refreshing contrast to standard left-right rhetoric. On the left, liberals assert a benign and blank-slate human nature manipulated by evil corporations. The right is even sillier, particularly when it propagates the hyper-rational view of neoclassical economics. For example, Nobel laureate Gary Becker published a famous academic article arguing that heroin addicts "maximize utility" when they inject themselves. Reich, however, threads an important distinction between leftist human innocence and libertarian human infallibility. As he notes in the book's strongest chapter, we are "of two minds" about modernity.

Other aspects of "Supercapitalism" are less satisfying. These include bad history, bad politics, bad economics and bad policy.

Imagine being in the economics seminar where Professor Reich tries explaining the difference between a worker and a consumer? Henry Ford had figured out there was none 80 years ago, which is where we got the weekend.

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SAFE AS AMERICAN HOUSES:

Capitalism does work (Chan Akya, 9/29/07, Asia Times)

The most recent episode in US financial markets will be mulled and studied for a long time after all Asian banks - commercial and central - fess up to their losses. While the average Western newspaper appears to blame Wall Street investment banks for the mess, they are barking up the wrong tree as usual. It is not the rapacious capitalists on Wall Street who are to blame, but rather the currency-manipulating Asian central banks. The fault lines of the current crisis thus lie in the antiquated policies of Asian central banks that defy the basic principles of capitalism or even enlightened self-interest.

By stoutly defending their currency pegs to the US dollar well past the intended turnaround in current-account surpluses at the end of the 1990s, Asian economies in effect assumed a subsidiary role to US requirements. A ready supply of investments from Asia meant that pretty much "acceptable" security could be sold down, often well below the returns that prudent economic agents would demand.

Asian central banks invested primarily in debt, and were bound by historically inspired mandates of asset quality that relied much on the rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's. Profit-seeking agents (or normal human beings to you and me), in this case Wall Street bankers, rightly then provided the service of combining the willing lender with those that America's own banks would not touch with a barge pole, namely the subprime borrowers. Long considered too risky by mainline banks, the borrowers suddenly presented other market folks with exactly the right opportunity, namely the generation of new mortgages, securities on which could be sold to Asian (and European) banks.

I am under no illusion that it was Asia's voracious appetite for such debt instruments that lies at the heart of the mess. Look at the deal that the average burger-flipper in America's heartland got: with a minimum-wage job or two, you could qualify for a largish mortgage that could buy the house of your dreams. True, you had to make mortgage payments (which the government deemed tax-deductible, in yet another assault on the free market) but there was always the chance of selling your house to the next chap for a big profit. The stories of many such new millionaires inspired millions to join the grand scheme. As market returns always fall when trades get crowded, so too did this little scam end, with house prices tumbling across the United States and people facing foreclosure.

Two pretty basic realities make this a phenomena that won't end anytime soon: (1) much of the world's population lives in countries with fairly dismal futures, so it makes good economic sense for them to invest their money in America, not at home; (2) even setting aside the brighter future generally in America, when you consider only the housing market you bump up against the fact that we need to find places for another 200 million people to live over the next 40 years and borrow the money to build and buy those homes. It's a win/win situation and those are more impervious to change than the valetudinarians care to recognize.

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WHEREAS, THEY HAVE TO BE LUCKY EVERY DAY:

US Iraq strike 'kills senior al-Qaida leader' (Fred Attewill and agencies, September 28, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Brigadier General Joseph Anderson said Abu Usama al Tunisi had been instrumental in bringing foreign fighters into Iraq.

"Abu Usama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders ... the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle," he said.

Brig Gen Anderson also described al-Tunisi, a Tunisian, as a close associate of and likely successor to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian believed to head al-Qaida in Iraq.

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IT'S LIKE THE FED IS OTHELLO... (via mc):

Spending, construction both rise (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP)

Consumers shrugged off a rash of bad news to spend more than expected in August while a key measure of inflation eased to the slowest pace in 3 1/2 years. Construction activity also rose above expectations.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending rose by 0.6 percent in August, the best showing in four months and better than the 0.4 percent increase that had been expected. Incomes rose by 0.3 percent, slightly lower than had been expected.

A closely watched gauge of inflation was up just 1.8 percent in August, compared to the same period a year ago, the smallest increase since a similar rise in February 2004.

...but America has a steel throat.

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MAKE HIM TIMES SELECT AGAIN, PLEASE:

Hired Gun Fetish (Paul Krugman, 9/28/07, Der Spiegel)

Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it's a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we've learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.

Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies. Tax farming - giving individuals the right to collect taxes, in return for a share of the take - went out with the French Revolution; now the tax farmers are back.

And so are mercenaries, whom Machiavelli described as "useless and dangerous" more than four centuries ago.

Private Security Contractors and the American Tradition (Michael Waller, 9/28/07, Real Clear Politics)

In the wake of the recent shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis in Baghdad, many critics are now claiming that allowing private contractors to operate in Iraq is inconsistent with American tradition. This is demonstrably untrue.

Private security contractors, or PSCs, have been part of building the civilization that became the United States for 400 years. They are a founding part of the American entrepreneurial tradition of risk-taking and civic duty.

The first PSC on our shores was little more popular than his descendants today. Captain John Smith, a professional soldier who was paid to protect the interests of the Virginia Company of London in 1607, was accused of conspiring to subvert legal authority and locked in irons during the voyage to America, only to be exonerated and made chief of the expedition that founded the colony at Jamestown.

A few years later, English refugees seeking freedom of worship set off for America to establish their own shining city. They contracted the services of Captain Myles Standish to defend them, loaded a small arsenal of weapons in the lower hold, and sailed the Mayflower to make history at Plymouth Colony.

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JOINT OPS:

Defecting Iranian official gave info before alleged Syrian foray (JPost.com, Sep 28, 2007)

Iranian former deputy defense minister Ali Rheze Asgari supplied intelligence sources in the West with information regarding the sites that Israeli jets allegedly attacked on September 6, the Kuweiti Al Jareeda reported Friday. [...]

In related news, the Saudi paper Al Watan reported Friday that American jets were hovering in Iraqi airspace close to the Syrian border during the raid. Reportedly, the USAF jets were meant to give aerial backup to Israel in case IAF warplanes would come to any harm.

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IT SHOULD BE EASY TO GET IN, HARD TO VOTE:

New citizenship test is unveiled: The 100 questions are more abstract, relying less on rote memory. Some say they're also harder. (Nicole Gaouette, 9/28/07, Los Angeles Times)

The Bush administration unveiled a revamped citizenship test Thursday intended to promote assimilation and patriotism -- a redesign some critics contend erects a higher hurdle for immigrants who want to become citizens.

The 100 new civics questions -- which test knowledge of American government, history and civics and take effect Oct. 1, 2008 -- will require less rote memorization and are meant to focus more on fostering identification with American values.

For example, applicants may currently be asked, "What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?" But starting next year, applicants could be asked to explain why the colonists fought the British. They may also have to describe what the "rule of law" is and outline one constitutional amendment concerning the right to vote. (Applicants are asked 10 questions and must answer at least six correctly to pass.)

"This is a naturalization test which genuinely captures the applicant's knowledge of what it is he's about ready to be, a United States citizen," said Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "It's no longer a test about how many stars are on the flag or how many stripes; it's a test that genuinely talks about those things that make America what it is."

All voters ought to have to pass a test and be net taxpayers.

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BUYING OFF THE BLOWHARDS:

Why No Outrage From Washington: To fend off fiascos like last year's failed Dubai Ports World deal, the emirate called in the big guns: The lobbyists (Business Week, 9/27/07)

Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—the loose federation of states to which Dubai belongs—also learned a hard lesson from the collapse of the earlier bid. And over the past 18 months they've launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying push to boost their image in the states and prevent another fiasco.

Those efforts went into overdrive in the days leading up to the NASDAQ deal, as a handful of Washington lobbyists led by George Salem, a senior adviser to the law firm DLA Piper and a past president of the National Association of Arab Americans, scrambled to ensure a smoother reception. Dubai executives believe that a big reason the ports deal ran aground was that they didn't give lawmakers advance warning or explain their perspective on the deal early enough. So this time, they made sure they got to key members of the Administration and Congress before the news broke and attitudes hardened.

In the days before the deal was disclosed, for example, a high-ranking Dubai official flew to Washington for a series of confidential briefings. And as soon as the markets closed on Sept. 19, Salem and his team hit the phones. According to a Capitol Hill source, NASDAQ Chief Executive Robert Greifeld personally called Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who had been a ringleader in the fight over the ports deal. The basic message, says one Dubai lobbyist: This deal is good for U.S. financial markets because it will give NASDAQ access to rich Mideast pockets. To counter terrorism fears, the lobbyists argue that the UAE and Dubai are among America's strongest allies in the region. All told, they rang up some 120 Beltway power players in the first 24 hours.

The rapid-fire round of diplomacy came against a backdrop of intense effort to bolster ties to Washington. Dubai alone has paid more than $3 million to three different lobbying firms, which have spent much of the past year talking up the tiny nation in meetings with aides to everyone from Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Vice-President Dick Cheney. And earlier this year, the UAE budgeted an additional $5 million to lobbying firm Harbour Group to launch a new body, the U.S.-Emirates Alliance, to help shape public opinion. The alliance has quietly contributed more than $100,000 to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a foreign policy think tank, to support Mideast programs—though Jon B. Alterman, who heads the center's Middle East research, says its programs aren't influenced by funding. The alliance has also sent Reem Al-Hashimy, the UAE's Boston University-educated deputy chief of mission, to a dozen U.S. cities since July to meet with civic and business leaders.

Such moves appear to be working.

Just slip Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and a few other talk show hosts some money and there's no one to whip up the wahoos.

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SOMETIMES 162 GAMES JUST DOESN'T TELL YOU MUCH:

NL could face 4 days of playoff tiebreakers: 5 teams could end with same record (From wire reports, September 28, 2007)

Here's a scenario that could mess up baseball's postseason schedule: Imagine if the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres finish with the same record.

That would create ties in the National League East, National League West and wild-card race, necessitating four days of tiebreaker games to determine postseason berths.

The Devil Rays would have won 90 in the NL.

MORE:
The Mystical Collapse of a Bullpen (TIM MARCHMAN, September 28, 2007, NY Sun)

For the Mets and their fans, the last two weeks have been less like a late season collapse and more like a mystical experience in which science and religion have converged and become one. Many baseball teams have lost a lead down the stretch, but few, if any, have become the center of a temporal dislocation in which the precise same thing happens at the precise same moment, every single day. Were a theologian and a quantum physicist inclined, they could no doubt plumb the mysteries of reason and faith simply by examining these two weeks minutely; those of us who do not contemplate the meaning of existence for a living can just stare on in horror.

The full blame for the disaster rests with the Mets' bullpen, and with the men who run it. This doesn't mean that the starting pitchers or position players have played perfectly, but they've given the bullpen lead after lead only to see them squandered. It takes more than the odd booted ball, vacuous base running play, or lousy start to sink a team as the Mets have been sunk. It takes the full force of a relief corps that has, from top to bottom, simply imploded.

Between the beginning of the series against the Phillies and the start of last night's game, the Mets' seven key relievers threw 41.1 innings, in which they gave up 30 earned runs for a 6.54 ERA. This is actually the kindest possible light in which to put their struggles, because this doesn't count unearned runs (usually at least as much the fault of the pitcher as they are of the defense) or inherited runners who have been allowed to score. Nor does it account for the soul-deadening timing displayed by Mets relievers, who have managed to give up their runs just when they counted most

Teams with five inning starters always kill their bullpens.

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THERE IS NO CHINA:

Democracy Debate Transforms Hong Kong Election Contest (JONATHAN CHENG, September 28, 2007, Wall Street Journal)

A by-election for a Hong Kong legislative seat is turning into a face-off between two well-known former government officials who represent different approaches toward shaping this former British colony's political future.

In 2003, Regina Ip's unflinching support for an antitreason law as secretary for security made her a symbol of fears that China would curtail Hong Kong's political freedom. Yesterday, she announced plans to contest a vacant legislative seat -- and work with Beijing to bring democratic ideals to Hong Kong.

"Democracy is the only way forward for Hong Kong," Mrs. Ip said.

That pits Mrs. Ip, 57 years old, against her former boss, Anson Chan, once Hong Kong's second-ranking official and one of the city's more popular political figures. In recent months, she, too, has been burnishing her credentials as a champion of democracy. Mrs. Chan, 67, announced her candidacy for the vacant seat earlier this month, vowing to put pressure on the government to introduce direct elections by 2012.

While the two candidates seem to espouse the same goals, their approaches differ sharply. Mrs. Ip, running as the establishment candidate, boasts support from the two major Beijing- and business-backed political parties, the chairmen of which flanked her as she announced her entry into elected politics. Her track record supporting Beijing's policies in Hong Kong is expected to make her a more acceptable candidate to China.

Mrs. Chan has taken a more confrontational approach and courted the support of pro-democracy politicians who have openly criticized Beijing's policies and its influence over Hong Kong affairs, although she promises to act as a "bridge" to China. She is predicted to win a primary election set up by the pro-democratic camp that would then make her its approved candidate.

The contest is a new twist in the long-running battle over the lack of full direct elections in Hong Kong, which has separate political, legal and financial systems from the rest of China.

What matters is that they have to espouse the same goals.

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PEER TO PEER:

Iraq rejects Turkish demands in anti-terror deal (The Associated Press, September 28, 2007)

Iraq refused to accept a key Turkish demand to send its troops into the neighboring country in pursuit of fleeing separatist Kurdish rebels, officials said Friday.

Both sides, however, signed a counterterrorism pact as a first step of cooperation on the issue. In Iraq, Kurdish authorities signaled they might agree to the deal after Ankara's demand to send troops into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK rebels was dropped.

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INSTITUTIONALIZING THE AXIS OF GOOD:

McCain Refreshes a Plan for League of Democracies (NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT, September 28, 2007, NY Sun)

In a week in which the U.N. Security Council once again demonstrated its impotence by failing to halt the massacre of monks in Burma and the U.N. General Assembly became a pretext for a strutting performance by the Iranian president, Senator McCain refreshed his ideas for a more effective international body: what he calls "the League of Democracies." [...]

To Mr. McCain, the days of the United Nations as anything other than a refugee and humanitarian emergency organization are numbered. "There are some things they do very well," he said, but he went on to deride "the so-called U.N. Human Rights Commission," which he said is made up of regimes that perpetrate some of the most flagrant human rights abuses in the world.

He told members of the Hudson Institute meeting at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York yesterday that he believes the only reason the United Nations has any value at all — as the gambler said when explaining why he played in a poker school, knowing it was crooked — "because it is the only game in town."

Instead, he told a questioner, America should champion a new League of Democracies, a notion he first proposed earlier this year in a little-noticed address to members of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He described his League of Democracies as "like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace."

"It could act where the U.N. fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment," he told the Hoover audience. "It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy."

"This League of Democracies would not supplant the United Nations or other international organizations," he said. "It would complement them. But it would be the one organization where the world's democracies could come together to discuss problems and solutions on the basis of shared principles and a common vision of the future."

Mr. McCain has promised that if he is elected president, within his first year he will call a summit of the world's democracies "to seek the views of my democratic counterparts and begin exploring the practical steps necessary to realize this vision."

And he's just petulant enough to do it.

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THE BELIEF IN MATERIALISM ENDS AT THE TIP OF ONE'S NOSE:

Free will is not an illusion: The Enlightenment idea of conscious, freely acting individuals is worth defending against those who would reduce freedom to neuroscience. (This article is an edited version of a talk given by Raymond Tallis at a dinner held by the Manifesto Club in London on 13 September 2007)

Particularly in the century that has passed, there has been a counter-Enlightenment denial of the centrality of individual consciousness in human affairs. We do not walk, we sleepwalk; we do not act, we react, scarcely aware of that to which we are reacting.

Humanist intellectuals have argued that, far from being ‘independent points of departure’, we are in the grip of forces that are largely hidden from us. The historical unconscious of Marxists and their descendents; the psychological unconscious of Freudian and a dozen other psycho-analytical and deep psychological theorists; the social unconscious of various schools of sociology and anthropology; the linguistic unconscious of post-Saussurean schools of thought (structuralist, post-structuralist, and deconstructionist) – these are just some of the tributaries to the great river of anti-humanist pessimism that has flown through the collective conscious of academe in recent history. As for selves, they are either opaque at their heart, or misread themselves, or are fictions, overlooking that in reality, they are dissolved in a sea of symbols, of unchosen customs and practices, of unconscious habits.

From a huge variety of backgrounds, academics and popular writers tell the same monotonous story: we do not know what we are doing, we do not know why we are doing it, and disaster is waiting to happen. Civilisations, which are based upon the notion of humans as rational agents, are in fact pathological: rationality is an illusion, or unnatural and unbearable, and rational planning will lead to unforeseen consequences. All civilisation – usually referred to as ‘a veneer’ and a thin one at that – is headed for destruction.

While most of the counter-Enlightenment thought I have alluded to arises from the humanities, which seem to take pride in being anti-humanity, there is an increasingly prominent input from the very hope of the Enlightenment – the sciences. This is not perhaps as surprising as it sounds. Science has always been committed to identifying the general patterns of causation in the universe. Its standpoint is fundamentally materialist. The laws of nature are a secular version of moira, fate. Laplace, who completed the formalisation of Newton’s mechanistic universe, though he did so without Newton’s God, argued that a combination of the knowledge of the initial conditions and of the laws that governed the behaviour of the mechanical particles would enable every event in the universe, including human actions, to be predictable. As Einstein said in his address to the Spinoza Society in 1932: ‘Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.’ However, a recent spin on scientific determinism has brought it nearer home. Neuroscience has been invoked in support of kulturpessimismus.

There is now a significant population of neuroscientists, along with philosophers and others, who accept not only their findings but also the interpretations they place on them, who argue that because of advances in brain science ‘we now know’ that free will is an illusion. The attacks on free will from this direction are particularly powerful because they encompass both material and cultural determinism; for the brain is not only a piece of matter causally wired into the material world, it is also brain-washed in a laundry made of a collective of other brains. This is a powerful double whammy for our notions of freedom and of the self as an independent point of departure.

There are several strands of thought woven into neuro-determinism. The first is that we are essentially our brains: our consciousness, our belief in ourselves as free agents, and so on, is neural activity in certain parts of the brain. Secondly, these brains have evolved in such a way as to maximise the likelihood of our genetic material being able to replicate. Brains are about somatic survival to the point where genetic replication is possible. This is not something on our conscious agenda but it is the true and only business of the brain. Thirdly, for a brain to work effectively, it is not necessary for us to be aware of what it is doing. Cognitive psychologists have, over the last few decades, particularly since the advent of neuro-imaging which reveals activity in the living brain, shown how we are unconscious of many things that influence what is going on in our brain and, it is inferred, the perceptions we form and the decisions we make. Our consciousness has, it seems, a huge black hole at its centre. What price freedom, then, which at the very least depends on consciousness?

Another strand of the neuro-determinism story underlines how, given that nerve impulses are material events, our consciousness, even at its most self-conscious and deliberative, is wired into the material world: it is simply part of a boundless causal nexus that stretches from the Big Bang at the beginning of time to the Big Crunch at the end. Another strand notes that there is no privileged place within the nervous system corresponding to the freedom of the will, or even a point of initiation or a new departure. There are inputs of activity, throughputs of activity, and outputs activity but no points corresponding to where, say, action could be considered as starting. The brain, the body, our life – these are just conduits, like any other loci in the universe, for causes as inputs and effects as outputs.

Colin Blakemore, an eminent neuroscientist, captures all of these views in the claim: ‘The human brain is a machine which alone accounts for all our actions, our most private thoughts, our beliefs… All our actions are products of the activity of our brains. It makes no sense (in scientific terms) to try to distinguish sharply between acts that result from conscious attention and those that result from our reflexes or are caused by disease or damage to the brain.’

These very general arguments have been supplemented by millions of specific observations, the greater bulk of which may be summarised in two lines as follows: that experiments, and natural disasters such as head injuries, have shown that holes in the brain are closely correlated with holes in the mind and in our capabilities. In summary, you are the activity in your brain; your brain has evolved to optimise the chances of survival; and the brain is wired biologically, materially, causally into the biosphere, the material world, and the causal nexus. We now have a neuro-Laplacean universe in which the laws of nature operate undeflected by agency through your life. Or, as former CIA boss George Tenet said about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: ‘It’s a slam dunk.’

I choose my words carefully. Tenet’s slam dunk was self-evident and wrong. Neuro-determinism, though seemingly self-evident, is also wrong.

Mr. Tallis is, of course, actually arguing against the Enlightenment, as he recognizes between the lines.

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THE GAMED:

Hamas To Accept Anything Accepted By Palestinians In A Pblebiscite (Khalid Mish’al & Zafarul-Islam Khan, 28 September, 2007, Milli Gazette)

In an exclusive interview with the Delhi-based The Milli Gazette, Hamas supremo Khalid Mish’al said that “things are moving in our favour. It is true that we are badly suffering. The siege is harsh. But the fact remains that Israel too is no longer able to settle things against us.”

The interview was conducted with the Hamas leader in Damascus by the Gazette editor Zafarul-Islam Khan. The full text will appear in the 1 October issue of the paper. [...]

Mish’al rejected that Hamas is ready to accept Oslo. “[Hamas] adheres to all the rights of the Palestinian people. It adheres to Jerusalem, right to return, liberation of the Palestinian land. Hamas rejects the legality of occupation. These are permanent positions of Hamas Movement.” Yet, he indicated that Hamas position is not rigid. It is ready to accept a common minimum programme acceptable to all Palestinians. “We felt that it is beneficial that Palestinians of all political and ideological hues should meet and subscribe to a common programme. We agreed on a common denominator acceptable to all Palestinian factions… [they] all agree on the following: to establish the Palestinian state within the areas of 1967 on the borders prevailing on the 4th of June 1967 including Jerusalem, right to return - not right to return to the Palestinian State as some in the region explain it but the right to return to the towns and villages taken away from the Palestinian people.”

He hastened to say that this common minimum programme to some is “their final aim” but it is not the final aim of Hamas. “Our stand in Hamas is that we will offer truce to Israel instead of recognition. This is the perspective of Hamas. It has not changed. We support a state within the 1967 borders including Jerusalem, right of return [of the refugees], no [Israeli] settlements in our territory, total sovereignty of all 1967 lands. In return we offer only truce instead of recognition of Israel. There are rights of the Palestinian people which must be taken into account,” said explaining the position of Hamas.

He said that any other solution will be unacceptable even if agreed to by the Palestinian Authority. But, he added. “We accept what the Palestinian people accept. We have accepted the democratic game and we accept the democratic results. We have faith in our people to whom belong the rights and options.”

The discipline of democracy is harsh on the dreams of ideologues.

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PARTIALLY RIGHT:

President who can't see history: The botched invasion of Iraq has no credible parallels at all with the Korean War, Mr Bush (Ian Buruma, 9/28/07, The Australian)

Bush is right to claim that people in the Middle East would like to be as prosperous and free as the South Koreans, but his notion that the war in Iraq is simply a continuation of US policies in Asia could not be more mistaken. In Asia, as in the Middle East, US strategy was to prop up dictators against communism until their own people toppled them. In the Middle East today, it is reckless and radical: invading a country, wrecking its institutions and expecting that freedom will grow in the ensuing state of anarchy.

To confuse these different enterprises and pretend that they are the same is not only wrong but dangerous and deeply disappointing to those of us who still regard the US as a force for good.

Mr. Buruma is right that Iraq isn't comparable to Korea, but for the wrong reasons. George H. W. Bush's Iraq War, which liberated Kuwait and Kurdistan but left a totalitarian dictatorship in power in Baghdad more closely resembles the Korean War. What W did was, essentially, topple the North and liberate the whole country. Which we should now do for the Koreans as well.

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A BIT PALTRY, BUT THE RIGHT DIRECTION:

Clinton talks ‘baby bonds’ (Athena Jones, 9/28/07, NBC: First Read)

Every baby born in America should receive money that can later be used to pay for college, Clinton told the crowd at the Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conference in Washington on Friday.

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college," Clinton said, calling it one way to give young people a chance to save money tax free.

Too little money, for too small a purpose, in too conservative an investment instrument. She should go at least as far as Paul O'Neill, A new idea for Social Security (Paul O'Neill, February 23, 2005, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

If we decided as a society that we were going to put $2,000 a year into a savings account from the day each child was born until he or she reached age 18 -- and if we assume a 6 percent annual interest rate -- each child would have $65,520 at age 18. (The worst return for a 25-year investor in the stock market from 1929 before the crash to 2004 was an average of 6 percent a year.) With no further contributions, again with a 6 percent interest rate, those savings would grow to $1,013,326 at age 65.

If we began to do this now, the first-year cost would be $8 billion; that is $2,000 times the roughly 4 million children born each year. The second year would cost $16 billion and so on until we were contributing $2,000 per year to a savings account for every child from birth until age 18. When fully implemented, the cost would be $144 billion per year. To put this $144 billion per year into context, this year's combined spending for Social Security and Medicare will exceed $750 billion.

What this plan would do is "pre-fund" for the needs of old age. It solves the long-term financing problem for both Social Security and Medicare, allowing for the gradual replacement of programs like Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid and food stamps and housing aid for those over age 65. To make this work, the savings account money would need to be invested -- my suggestion would be through so-called index funds. The administrative costs would be practically nothing because there's no need for a huge separate tax collection bureaucracy; the money would come from the general revenues of the U.S. government.

Likewise, if he's serious here, let's see EJ Dionne get on the Ownership Society bandwagon, Detroit's Creative Bargain (E. J. Dionne, 9/28/07, Real Clear Politics)

The General Motors contract with the United Auto Workers shows how companies and workers can come together when both understand the economic threat facing American manufacturing, and when workers have a place at the table to protect their most important interests. [...]

The UAW is taking a risk, since health care costs could rise faster than the trust fund grows, and since the contract includes fewer protections for non-production workers. But the bigger risk was GM going under or moving yet more jobs overseas. The lesson of The New Treaty of Detroit is that in the face of globalization's challenges, risks and rewards can be shared if there's a will to negotiate them.

Now it's the turn of Democratic candidates to explain how they will be as creative as GM and the UAW.

I don't recall him embracing W's similarly creative solutions.

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WELL, HE IS TANNED, RESTED & READY:

Learning From Bush's Mistakes: How a prewar conversation can help us pick the next president. (Fred Kaplan, Sept. 27, 2007, Slate)

The crucial exchange, in this respect, comes toward the end of the conversation, when the two leaders are discussing the magnitude of changing Saddam Hussein's regime by force.

AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

BUSH: I'm an optimist because I believe that I'm right. I'm a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.

Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don't pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.

Hardly surprising that Mr. Kaplan's perfect president--a pessimist who doesn't believe in what he's doing; is at odds with himself; and wants to dodge responsibility for dealing decisively with the evil of his age--is Richard Nixon.

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STILL THE PROTESTS CONTINUE:

Defiance, fear and brutality as the junta turns on the people: It was a day of terror and confusion, with hundreds of monks rounded up by military police and at least nine people killed. But still the protests continue. (Rosalind Russell reports from Rangoon, 28 September 2007, Independent)

I was half a mile from the Sule pagoda when I saw the people running, fear and panic written on their faces. Drivers were making hasty U-turns and speeding back on the wrong side of the street. The driver of my battered Toyota taxi refused to go any further, so I stepped out into the hot, humid street.

Stallholders were hurriedly bundling away their vegetables, DVDs and rails of childrens' clothes. Two boys, postcard-sellers, aged no more than eight or nine, ran up to me, still clutching their gaudy pictures of tourist scenes. "Madam it is dangerous for you," one said, offering to lead me away to safety.

Rounding the corner of Rangoon's main avenue, the gleaming temple can be seen at the other end.

But we met a cloud of tear gas. Crowds were retreating, scurrying from the golden stupa towards us, and lines of soldiers were advancing towards them. The crackle of gunfire came then, the sound was unmistakable. That's when I darted into a doorway, joining a group of people watching the drama of this bloody crackdown from the sanctuary of a five-star hotel lobby.

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REIGNING KINGS OF AUSSIE POP:

-AUDIO: Augie March performs in the Current studio (Steve Seel, September 27, 2007, Minnesota Public Radio: The Current)

MORE:
-BAND SITE: Augie March
-MYSPACE: Augie March
-WIKIPEDIA: Augie March
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Moo, You Bloody Choir (Dan Raper, PopMatters)
-REVIEW: of Moo (Jeff Swindoll, Monsters & Critics)
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Moo, You Bloody Choir (Jeff Tangari, Pitchfork)
-REVIEW: of Moo (Derek Miller, Stylus)
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Strange Bird (Zeth Lundy, PopMatters)

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JUST ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL REGIME CHANGE:

Haiti's President Says Nation No Longer Deserves Failed State Stigma: Haitian President Rene Preval told the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday the Caribbean country is on its way to escaping the stigma of being labeled a failed state because of its recent economic and security gains. Mr. Preval got a show of political support from senior U.S., European and Latin American diplomats on the sidelines of the U.N. debate. (David Gollust, 9/26/07, VOA News)

Delivering his country's policy speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Mr. Preval said Haiti has all too often been on the U.N.'s agenda because of chronic problems. But, he said the unwelcome characterization of the country as a failed state no longer applies.

"Haiti is on the way to bidding farewell to that state slowly, patiently, but with determination," he said. "Organized armed gangs who are responsible for violence directed against innocent populations have been dismantled. And there is no longer any no-go zone for peaceful citizens in any area of our territory. The governance of our economy has greatly improved. The money printer was put away, and this has reduced inflation below the 10 percent line, which had been rampant for a number of years, and just a few months ago had reached the dizzying heights of 40 percent."

The threshold for improving Haiti is admittedly pretty low, but considering the far Right's hysteria over W's intervention there, it's gone rather well.

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THUS THE END OF HISTORY:

Economics at the root of Myanmar protests (Asia Times, 9/28/07)

The first sign of the protests now escalating in Myanmar occurred in a rare display of public outrage over economic conditions in February. A small group calling itself the Myanmar Development Committee called on the military rulers to address consumer prices, health care, education, and the poor electricity infrastructure.

Normally unseen in Myanmar, the protest was broken up in 30 minutes. Likely in response to the protests, the ruling military junta appointed Brigadier-General Than Han of the Myanmar

police to handle civil unrest in Yangon.

On August 15, the government made significant cuts to national fuel subsidies, which had an immediate effect of increasing the price of diesel fuel by a reported 100%, causing a fivefold increase in the price of compressed natural gas, and placing additional inflationary pressure on an economy already facing estimated inflation levels of 17.7% in 2005 and 21.4% in 2006.

Similarly to the event in February, people took to the streets in a rare display of public anger.

Rotten regimes end up being destroyed by a virtuous cycle: you can't have a competitive economy in the global marketplace without making market-oriented reforms and if you aren't successful your people eventually get rebellious; once you get your economy right and start making your citizens affluent they start demanding a say in how they're governed; once you've got a market economy and a political democracy you become just another success story for those living under rotten regimes to compare themselves to unfavorably--as, for instance, the PRC to Taiwan, North Korea to South and France to England.

MORE:
The saffron revolution: If the world acts in concert, the violence should be the last spasm of a vicious regime in its death throes (the Economist, 9/27/07)

here are two reasons why China might now see its own interests as best served by assisting a peaceful transition in Myanmar. The first is that China wants stability on its borders, and it is becoming obvious that the junta cannot provide it. The generals' economic mismanagement has helped reduce a country blessed with rich resources to crippling poverty. Fleeing economic misery as much as political oppression, up to 2m migrants from Myanmar are in Thailand. And it was an economic grievance—a big, abrupt rise in fuel prices—that sparked the present unrest. [...]

China must also be wondering nervously how all this will affect next year's Olympic games in Beijing. Already, protests about China's support for the government of Sudan, larded with comparisons to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, have shown that its foreign policy as well as its human-rights record at home is under scrutiny. Myanmar is justifiably a popular cause in the West. If China proves actively obstructive to international efforts to bring the junta to book, it may provoke calls for a boycott of the games.

On the brink: How Myanmar's people rose up against its regime—and the regime rose up against its people (the Economist, 9/27/07)

If there are any cracks in the junta's unity, nobody outside knows about them. General Than Shwe, the 74-year-old paramount leader, is rumoured to be gravely ill but it is assumed that, when he goes, his replacement will be just as thuggish. Taking account both of the expanded army and of the sizeable ethnic militias, Myanmar is one of the world's most militarised countries, notes Martin Smith, a writer on the place. The junta's leaders, pointing to the country's chaotic period of parliamentary democracy between independence in 1948 and the military takeover in 1962, sincerely believe the army is the only institution capable of holding Myanmar together. They are determined to cling to power whatever the cost.

It is just possible, however, that the regime may match violence with concessions. Earlier this month, it wrapped up, after 14 years, a national convention to draft the guidelines for a new and supposedly democratic constitution. In fact, the new charter would leave the army in charge and political rights severely curtailed. But its precise wording has not yet been decided and the next steps towards implementing it are uncertain. This leaves scope for promises of progress, in the hope that this will weaken the protests.

A bloody dawn?

Few demonstrators would trust such promises. But, combined with a stranglehold on the monasteries, and other repressive measures aimed at whittling down the numbers of protesters, they might be enough to show, once again, that resistance is futile. Back in 1988, at the peak of the protests, even as soldiers were mowing down the crowds, many Burmese felt sure the rotten regime was ready to collapse under the unstoppable force of “people power”, as the Marcos regime in the Philippines had two years earlier.

Even if the regime does crumble and the junta stuffs its bags with gemstones and heads for exile, Myanmar's troubles would still be daunting. Many of the ethnic minorities continue to distrust the majority “Burmans”, even including the democrats. And the NLD has been gutted by years of oppression. Miss Suu Kyi, inspiring figure though she is, is an untested leader who has perforce been woefully out of touch with events.

As in 1988 and 1990 the Burmese people have shown they want to choose their own leaders. In the past they did not fully reckon on the ruthlessness of the people they were up against. One day, as with all tyrannies, Myanmar's will fall. But much blood may flow before that day dawns.

Burma's Dictators and the Fear of Purgatory (Jürgen Kremb, 9/27/07, Der Spiegel)

Since 1962, Burma has been ruled by brutal generals who have sought the salvation of the country in "the Burmese path to Socialism." Yet in no other country in East and Southeast Asia is spiritual and superstitious belief so much a part of everyday life. After the closed-off Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Burma is probably the most Buddhist country in the world.

At least once in his life, each man must spend weeks if not months in a monastery. Burma expert Bertil Lintner believes that out of the 53 million population, more than 400,000 men are currently saffron-clad monks, equalling the number of soldiers. Other estimates put the number of monks at as high as 800,000.

But faith is not just a thing for the ordinary people. The otherwise unscrupulous military regime seeks the blessings of the gods, Buddha and the 36 "Nats," as Burma's own spirits are called.

Burma's hour of need (Sholto Byrnes, 27 September 2007, New Statesman)

President Bush has announced new sanctions. Gordon Brown has written to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, calling for "concerted international action" to discourage the regime from perpetrating violence on its citizens, and has urged the Security Council to meet immediately. These fine words may not be enough. The global community has offered an abundance of sympathy for Burma over the years - and precious little in the way of real help. As Desmond Tutu wrote in our special issue: "Protracted hand-wringing, the counter economic interests of some countries, and an absence of courage and vision over the years, have meant that there has been no coherent international government strategy on how to tackle Burma's intransigent rulers."

Some believe the regime must be isolated, starved of trade until it collapses. Others think the international community must swallow its repugnance for the generals and encourage reform through engagement with the outside world. The key is China, not only the regional superpower but also one of Burma's biggest trading partners and a major supporter of the junta. Only in January, China used its UN Security Council veto to block criticism of the regime. China's interest in democracy is minimal. What is definitely in its interests, however, is a stable Burma. The military has kept a lid on Burma's internal ethnic tensions through brutal suppression. If China suspects that, in the long term, the courage and defiance of the freedom movement must overwhelm a government that can only maintain its position through violence - displays of which Beijing most certainly wishes to avoid in the run-up to its Olympics - it could play an invaluable role in the future of a country that has suffered so grievously for so long.

Burmese Blood on China's Hands (Der Spiegel, 9/27/07)

The situation in Burma seems to be getting more serious by the day. Violence on Thursday continued to escalate with government security forces firing on protesters in Yangon. There are reports that a number of people have been killed, including a Japanese journalist.

Meanwhile, the international community is continuing to call for restraint with China on Thursday finally breaking its silence and urging all parties to exercise self-control. China is Burma's closest large ally and has close economic relations with the military dictatorship.

But for many observers, China's comments have come too late. Both the US and the European Union are boosting sanctions against the Burmese military junta, but China is unlikely to support similar measures at the United Nations.

German commentators are concerned about the developments in Burma and agree that China is the only international actor that can put a stop to the violence.

Destructive engagement: The outside world shares responsibility for the unfolding tragedy in Myanmar (The Economist, 9/27/07)

[I]solation has never really been on the cards. Any gap is eagerly filled by Myanmar's neighbours—not just China, but also India and Thailand and other members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Even in the Western camp there have been differences in approach between the three most important members, America, the EU and Japan.

American leaders have insisted the junta honour the 1990 election result and step aside. To this end, they have imposed wide-ranging sanctions. The most important of these block foreign aid and lending to Myanmar by the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank. Official aid flows to Myanmar are among the lowest of any poor country in the world—around $2.50 a head each year, compared with, for example, $63 in next-door Laos.

The EU has been more equivocal, demanding greater respect for human rights and a transition to civilian democracy, but appearing to accept fresh elections as the way to get there. Its sanctions have been correspondingly milder. Japan has been softer still. Burma's biggest aid donor until 1988, it has continued to provide small-scale help, apparently hoping to retain a smidgen of influence.

These days, however, if any countries can sway the junta they are the regional ones: ASEAN, especially Thailand; India; and above all China. When ASEAN controversially admitted Myanmar in 1997, on the organisation's 30th anniversary, it said membership would be an engine for positive change through “constructive engagement”. ASEAN's culturally sympathetic but fast-growing founder members would show Myanmar the way. This was guff.

Viewed most cynically, Myanmar's accession was part of a bid by ASEAN members to secure access to the country's rich resources: timber, oil, gas and minerals. Using more sophisticated (but no less cynical) geopolitical arguments, ASEAN diplomats justified admitting the unsavoury bunch as a way to prevent Myanmar becoming an arena in which China and India would vie for influence.

But this is happening anyway. China had a head start, and is maintaining its lead comfortably. Itself responsible for quelling an uprising with a massacre in 1989, China's government had few qualms about expanding ties with Myanmar during the 1990s. It supplied weaponry, including multiple-rocket launchers, fighter aircraft and guided-missile attack craft.

Western and Indian analysts worry that China sees Myanmar as part of its so-called “string of pearls” policy of building naval and intelligence bases around the Indian Ocean. There were reports that China was delivering signals equipment for monitoring stations on various coastal sites, and had a permanent presence on Great Coco Island (see map). Such talk has fuelled Indian paranoia, though Western analysts dismiss it.

The role of the sons of Lord Buddha: Academic Maung Zarni explains the role of the Buddhist monks in the Burma uprising and explains how for years foreign countries have helped propped up the brutal military regime (New Statesman, 9/27/07)

In Burmese politics since independence from Britain in 1948 soldiers, monks and student activists have been the three most important elite categories. Over the past 45 years monks and student activists have continued to enjoy respect and influence in Burmese society because they are seen as a collective conscience of society. The soldiers have become the object of popular, if concealed hatred, disgust and fear, owing to the latter’s deeply paternalistic, incompetent and corrupt rule.

The world must act for Burma: Zoya Phan, who spent 10 years in a Thai refugee camp after the Burmese military attacked her village, explains the emergence of the democracy movement and calls on the world to act (Zoya Phan, 27 September 2007, New Statesman)

The regime, increasingly out of touch in its new capital, Nay-Pyi-Daw, miscalculated the mood of the people. They also failed to realise the extent to which democracy activists have developed networks to circumvent controls on the flow of information, and were able to get news out to the international community.

Nor did they anticipate the level of organisation that the monks alliance had built, how they had learnt from previous uprisings. The leadership has remained largely anonymous and under cover, stopping the regime from ‘beheading’ the movement by imprisoning the organisers.

This, combined with an international community that finally seems willing to take on the regime with UN action and targeted sanctions, gives Burmese exiles like myself hope that our suffering may soon be over. But much still depends on how the international community responds. They must translate words into action, providing maximum support to those risking their lives on the streets of Burma.

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SINCE WHEN DO FACTS QUIET HYSTERIA?:

No link between vaccine mercury, neurological woes, study says (Alicia Chang, September 27, 2007, Associated Press)

A mercury-based preservative once used in many vaccines does not raise the risk of neurological problems in children, concludes a large federal study that researchers say should reassure parents about the safety of shots their children received a decade or more ago.

Bet?

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UNEXPECTED?:

Jobless Claims Make Surprise Fall (Reuters, September 27, 2007)

The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the jobs market. [...]

The four-week average for claims, which smooths out some of the volatility, also showed an improvement, falling to 320,750 from 324,250 the previous week.

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IT'S SUCH BAD POLITICS YOU HAVE TO ASSUME IT'S HEARTFELT:

Clinton backs off support for torture (Ben Smith, Sep 27, 2007, Politico)

Senator Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) ended her support for legalized torture at a debate in New Hampshire Wednesday night, splitting with her husband – and with her own recent stance on the charged issue.

"Senator Clinton, this is the number three man in Al Qaeda. We know there's a bomb about to go off, and we have three days, and we know this guy knows where it is. Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?" moderator Tim Russert of NBC asked during the debate held at Dartmouth College.

"As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period," Clinton responded, seconding the clear positions of Senators Barack Obama (Ill.)and Joe Biden (Del.).

But in a pair of interviews with the New York Daily News last October, Clinton outlined the same narrow exception that Russert described, and which had also been floated by former President Bill Clinton in an interview last year with National Public Radio.

Doesn't make political sense to diverge from the vast majority of the public, especially when national security is inevitably going to be her weak spot. And it's hard to make the moral argument when your husband--a former president--disagrees.

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WAIT'LL YOU SEE THE ESCAPE CLAUSES:

British Airways Can't Save Airbus (Lionel Laurent, 09.27.07, Forbes)

Airbus' notoriously delay-stricken super-jumbo A380 got a new customer for the first time in two years on Thursday, after British Airways snapped up 12 of the planes in a deal worth nearly $4 billion. But the good news will not dispel worries over profitability at the European plane-maker, as well as the ascendancy of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. [...]

"It consolidates the 787's position as the future transatlantic plane of choice," said Doug McVitie, Managing Director of consultancy firm Arran Aerospace.

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GETTING IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR:

GOP can win with health care, Rove says (Jack Markowitz, September 27, 2007, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

[A]mericans who want no more government intrusion in their lives can still win the health care debate, says Rove.

Politically, what he said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece was that Republicans can win it if they stand up for that old winner, competition. The free market. In health care, it would unleash greater access, lower costs, more innovation.

First, says Rove, level the tax playing field. If you get health insurance through your job, recognize that you're getting a tax break on that "income." Shouldn't we give the same break to any small-business worker, farmer or self-employed person who buys his or her own insurance?

A related idea: pay routine health costs, such as doctor visits, out of tax-free savings. And use high-deductible insurance for the really big bills: a hospital stay, cancer or heart attack. Rove says 4.5 million families have set up Health Savings Accounts in the past three years, but some Democrats don't like them. Because they liberate the insured from government control.

Healthcare startup thinking big: Company plans to hire 200 workers in Springs during the next 5 years (WAYNE HEILMAN, September 27, 2007, THE GAZETTE)

A Colorado Springs-based startup company hopes to benefit from the growth of a new type of account that helps workers save for health expenses.

Ron Diegelman, president of My-HealthFunds Inc., said he thinks health savings accounts will “catch on like 401k plans did” during the 1980s. [...]

“They are a high-growth company headquartered here. They have so much growth potential,” EDC President Mike Kazmierski said about My-HealthFunds. “If you talk about cutting health care costs, they are in the sweet spot for the entire country.”

Health savings accounts are designed to be used with highdeductible health plans — averaging about $3,500 per family compared with a $250 deductible for traditional health plans. High-deductible plans typically carry much lower monthly premiums.

Employers typically put those premium savings savings into workers’ health savings accounts to pay for deductibles, if needed, Diegelman said. Even after making that contribution, employers can save up to 22 percent on health care spending, he said.

“For a 200-employee company that could mean between $200,000 and $300,000,” Diegelman said. “We target companies with between 100 and 500 employees because they are struggling the most with health care costs and can feel the most benefit from this.”

Workers and their employers put an average of about $4,000 a year into such accounts. The accounts are exempt from federal income taxes and unspent funds can be rolled over into the following year.

There are decades of political benefit for the GOP in being seen as the party that gave us HSAs against the wishes of the Democrats/

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WE'RE NOT THAT HYSTERICAL YET:

Congressman John Dingell Proposes 50-cent Gas Tax Hike to Fight Global Warming (Fox News, September 27, 2007)

Dealing with global warming will be painful, says one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. To back up his claim he is proposing a recipe many people won't like — a 50-cent gasoline tax, a carbon tax and scaling back tax breaks for some home owners.

"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Dingell will offer a "discussion draft" outlining his tax proposals on Thursday, the same day that President Bush holds a two-day conference to discuss voluntary efforts to combat climate change.

But Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that will craft climate legislation, is making it clear that he believes tackling global warming will require a lot more if it is to be taken seriously.

All you have to do is listen to the reactions to see no one takes it seriously. However, gasoline and carbon taxes offset by income tax cuts would be economically, as well as environmentally, sensible.

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SLOPPY JOSES:

Cuban recipes: BEEF PICADILLO (Robin Rombach, September 27, 2007, Post-Gazette)

Picadillo is a spicy, but not hot, ground meat dish that falls somewhere between hash and minced meat. In Cuba, it is often served over rice, with beans and plantains or used as a filling for empanadas. [...]

* 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
* 3/4 cup diced onion
* 3/4 cup chopped bell pepper
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic (2 to 3 cloves)
* 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
* 2/3 cup tomato sauce
* 1/3 cup pimiento-stuffed green olives, sliced
* 1/3 cup raisins
* 1 1/2 tablespoons brine-packed capers, drained
* 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar or dry sherry
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
* 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon sugar
* Salt to taste

In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the oil. Add the onion and bell pepper and saute until the onion is translucent and softened, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more.

Add the beef and saute until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato sauce, olives, raisins, capers, vinegar, cumin, oregano, sugar and salt. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the mixture's consistency is like that of a sloppy joe. Serve hot or use as a filling.

With rice, serves 4 to 6.

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STEEL TARIFFS?:

Securing the Future (JAMES LILLEY, September 27, 2007, NY Sun)

For more than 50 years, America's political and economic commitment to Asia has contributed to the region's stability and prosperity. Nowhere has our engagement been more positive than with the Republic of Korea. Since the Korean War, the world has witnessed Korea's dramatic rise from war-torn economy to a vibrant democracy supported by a world-class economy. The KORUS FTA will strengthen America's relationship with a longtime ally and enhance our presence and influence in the region.

In dollar terms, the scale of this agreement is enormous. With two-way trade totaling $78 billion last year, Korea is our seventh-largest trading partner. The KORUS FTA will effectively become the third largest free trade area in the world — exceeded only by the European Union and NAFTA — and sets high new benchmarks for bilateral trade agreements.

Under the KORUS FTA, nearly 95% of bilateral trade in consumer and industrial goods will become duty-free in three years, and two-thirds of all U.S. agricultural exports will enter Korea duty-free immediately. The agreement also gives important new market access, rights, and protections to American investors and service industries.

Only his allies understand W less well than his foes.

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MAKING A MAUCHERY OF THE METS:

Mets' NL East lead down to a game: New York blows five-run edge in third consecutive loss to Nationals (Associated Press, 9/27/067)

With their pitching staff in tatters, the free-falling New York Mets blew a five-run lead Wednesday night and lost again to Washington.

Now they're in danger of blowing the whole NL East race.

It's a bad time of year for the massive holes in the Mets pitching staff to have shown up. And they're ridiculously fortunate that the ancient Moises Alou is red hot right now. Were he on the DL, as they'd every reason to expect he would be by now, they'd have already squandered the lead.

MORE:
Gutsy Mr. Metsie: Of What Indestructible Alloy Could Willie Randolph’s Innards Be Made? As His Team Stumbles Forward, the Mets Manager Merely Smiles: ‘It’s a Little Bit Stressful,’ He Says, ‘But I Kinda Like the Stress’ (John Koblin, September 25, 2007, NY Observer)

On Sunday, Sept. 23, Willie Randolph was standing alone in the visitors dugout on another unbearably muggy Miami morning—already 85 degrees, with 75 percent humidity. The New York beat reporters had just finished their 155th pregame briefing of the season in which, once again, they battered Randolph with questions about injuries and pitching problems.

Nine days earlier Randolph’s Mets were 6.5 games ahead of the Phillies. After a series of agonizing losses, the lead had withered away to 1.5 games.

Randolph, in his third year managing the Mets, was weathering the biggest crisis of his tenure.

“It’s nerve-wracking at times,” he told The Observer, the bags under his eyes more visible than ever.

He finished tearing off a label on a water bottle that he’d been picking at for the previous few minutes.

“It’s a little bit stressful,” he said. “But in a weird kinda way, I kinda like the stress. It’s always been like that in my career—as a player, as a coach. It’s like an adrenaline rush, really.”

During the slump, Randolph has appeared on TV and in the clubhouse as unflappable and even-tempered—even at the risk of looking like a “lifeless chump,” as a Daily News columnist put it. I asked if he had made any adjustments in the clubhouse during this slump—challenged players, or tried to tweak anything to force the team out of it.

“No,” he said. “I’ve been pretty consistent. I don’t think you have to change anything—you know who you are, you know how to handle it, and you know that you have to prepare yourself to get your players ready to play.

“For me, I don’t want to change anything,” he continued. “I just have to be myself, really. And that’s really all I have.”

The question now is whether that’s enough.

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WHO ASKED YOU?:

Is GM's Health Plan Contagious?: The UAW's deal to assume retiree benefits may become a model for others. But it's not an easy path (David Welch and Nanette Byrnes , 9/27/07, Business Week)

Soaring health-care costs have prompted companies and unions in a slew of troubled industries to set up the trusts. The latest, and by far the largest, is the tentative deal between General Motors and the UAW that would create a roughly $35 billion trust—$16 billion less than current liabilities—to fund and administer benefits for the company's retirees and dependents. But others, including Ford (F) and Chrysler, are expected to follow. "This [will] set a precedent," says Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. "There will be other funds like this created."

For employers with aging workers and lots of retirees, a VEBA may be the only way, short of an elusive national health-care plan, to strip crushing liabilities from their books. While GM will take a big one-time hit, the ongoing drain of retiree health care, which now costs $1,400 per car, will finally end. For unions, a trust can provide an opportunity to safeguard members from losing benefits in the event of a corporate bankruptcy. [...]

Government employers are also interested in VEBAs—about 80% have retiree health plans. Paying those benefits out of ever-tighter budgets looks perilous (especially in the wake of a new accounting rule requiring health liabilities to be valued accurately). So many are now using VEBAs to help employees save for medical costs tax-free. "Public employers are saying 'Uh-oh, we need to do something about this,' " says Mark Wilkerson, senior consultant with VEBA Service Group, a Spokane (Wash.)-based benefit consultancy that has worked on such trusts with governments in Washington and Montana.

Still, few expect public employees to let their employers off the hook by accepting a proposal like GM's, which funds only 70% of the long-term promise.

Their employers are us and there's no reason we should ask them to accept when we can just dictate terms.

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IF WE AREN'T WE TO YOU AREN'T YOU OBJECTIVELY UNAMERICAN?:

Katie’s World (Peter Wehner, 9.26.2007, Commentary)

At her National Press Club event yesterday, we heard this from CBS News anchor Katie Couric:

The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying “we” when referring to the United States and, even the “shock and awe” of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the “Today” show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, “Will anybody put the brakes on this?” And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.

There is a lot to unpack in these few sentences. For one thing, Couric’s aversion to using the word “we” when referring to her own country is both weird and revealing. After all, she is part of the United States, a citizen of America, and so she is part of “we.” Hers is an example of a certain journalistic sensibility that feels as if members of the media are compromising their objectivity by referring to their country as if they were a part of it. And I suppose in The World According To Katie, it would be a gross violation of journalistic ethics to hope for America to prevail in a war to depose Saddam Hussein and bring liberty to his broken land. Hence, I suppose, her discomfort with how well the initial stages of the Iraq war went.

This is unfortunate enough stuff from the media, but it seems even worse that Nancy Pelosi thinks only Republicans are at war.

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HOW'S THAT ANTI-GOP AD WORKIN' OUT FOR YA?:

Romney slips in new NH poll (Domenico Montanaro, September 26, 2007, NBC First Look)

Romney slipped, Giuliani is now within the margin of error for the top spot and McCain has gained ground in the new Granite State poll out tonight, which was conducted by the University of New Hampshire and sponsored by CNN/WMUR. [...]

Romney's support dropped 10 percentage points since last month when he held a 14-point lead.

The more the party sees of Mitt and the Mayor the better Maverick looks.

MORE (via Bryan Francoeur):
Giuliani fundraiser costs $9.11 per person (AP, 9/26/07)

A spokeswoman for Rudy Giuliani says it is unfortunate that a supporter throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign is asking for that amount.

9-11 is all the Mayor had going for him and he'll even manage to make referring to it make your flesh crawl by the time he's done.

---

THE IRON LADDIES:

Labour's new crime drive: zero tolerance: Review of self-defence laws and money for neighbourhood patrols (Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis, September 27, 2007, The Guardian)

Labour will today launch a new "zero tolerance" criminal justice drive, including an urgent review of the law of self-defence to ensure it backs "have-a-go heroes".

The moves by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, and Jack Straw, the justice secretary, are designed to outflank the Tories' renewed push on law and order based on David Cameron's claim that British society is "broken".

Amid concerns from some Labour strategists that the party has ceded too much ground on crime, the home secretary will also announce a new fund worth tens of millions of pounds to support neighbourhood patrol teams, including the issuing of mobile fingerprint machines to officers who will target low-level crime in every community.

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THE KEY QUESTION NOW...:

Burma: Inside the saffron revolution: Death, confusion and worldwide outrage as the crackdown begins (Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent and Peter Popham in Bangkok, 27 September 2007, Independent)

The inevitable happened sometime before noon.

Close to the Shwedagon pagoda, the golden gleaming monument in central Rangoon that has been the focus of protest for nine days, at least 10 monks were beaten up by police as thousands once again defied the authorities and tried to enter the holy shrine. Next, the police fired tear gas at them, and scores of the men in saffron robes were arrested and dragged away. From then on things only got worse.

By last night up to eight monks and civilians had, according to differing reports, been killed as the military regime finally resorted to violence to put down the soaring challenge to its rule. [...]

Despite the calls for restraint, yesterday's violent turn of events was, many believed, bound to happen. If anything they appeared all the more awful because of the slow, sliding inevitability. Overnight the authorities had moved in to arrest key democracy activists, among them a Burmese comedian called Zaganar and U Win Naing, a veteran opposition member. The comedian had been part of a group providing food and supplies to the monks.

But if anything there was even more defiance and determination as the demonstrators marched for the ninth successive day – once again with at least 100,000 people taking to the streets. In Mandalay, at least 10,000 people marched and reports from the city of Sitwe, on Burma's western seaboard, also suggested 10,000 people turned out to protest.

"They are marching down the streets, with the monks in the middle and ordinary people either side. They are shielding them, forming a human chain," said one observer in Rangoon.

...is are enough ready to give their lives to shame the West into action?

MORE:
Bloodshed in Burma as soldiers open fire (Exclusive report by Graeme Jenkins in Rangoon, 27/09/2007, Daily Telegraph)

When the trucks carrying soldiers passed through the crowd, people applauded and shouted "hero!" in mockery. [...]

All day, gunfire crackled over Rangoon and tear gas hung over the city's holiest Buddhist sites. Despite the presence of soldiers outside the main monasteries, tens of thousands of monks and their supporters marched through the city. Tens of thousands more milled about on the crowded pavements offering tacit support.

Similar peaceful protests took place elsewhere in the country including Mandalay and Sittwe.

The Sule Pagoda in Rangoon, the scene of a massacre during similar demonstrations in 1988, was the main focus for yesterday's protests.

Soldiers armed with automatic weapons were lined up along the roads leading to the huge gold dome which sits at an intersection in the city centre. From a nearby rooftop long processions of protesters could be seen approaching from the north.

The red robes of the monks made a broad stripe down the middle of their mostly white-shirted supporters, walking at their side to offer symbolic protection against the bullets. Bystanders bowed down at the monks' feet.

The protesters passed under the noses of the soldiers guarding the pagoda.

A witness described how one monk stood alone in the open space before the troops and persuaded some followers to sit with him on the ground, in open contempt of the guns.

Others played cat and mouse, dashing from one side of the road to the other across the line of fire.

Later, another large group of protesters approached the pagoda from the south and advanced to within 30 yards of the soldiers.

No one here doubts that a massacre could happen at any moment. But in their anger, and their love for the monks, thousands of people have overcome all fear.

Burma's internet ban fails to halt bloggers (Daily Telegraph, 27/09/2007)

Despite an almost total internet ban, Burmese citizens are breaking through the junta's censorship to tell the outside world of their plight.

Scores of photographs and videos have streamed out of the country, with internet users finding ways of circumventing blocks on news and email sites.

The role of the bloggers and "citizen journalists" has been crucial, with only a handful of Western journalists managing to remain undercover within the country.

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THE TANCREDISTS COULDN'T STOP THEM EITHER:

Korean migration to U.S. honored with nat’l shrine image dedication (Sherri A. Watkins and Gretchen R. Crowe, 9/26/2007, Catholic News Service)

Commemorating 100 years of their ancestors' migration, Korean-American Catholic pilgrims filled the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the Sept. 22 dedication of two bas-reliefs that symbolize the permanence of their place in the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Nicolas Cheong Jin-suk of Seoul, South Korea, joined Archbishop Wuerl, Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington Va., and Msgr. Walter Rossi, basilica rector, along with nearly 50 priest concelebrants for the afternoon Mass.

"It is significant that the Korean immigrants have endeavored to dedicate these art pieces here in this most American church," said Cardinal Cheong. "I understand this as a sign of the fact that Korean-Americans are no longer outsiders but have become active members of the American Catholic Church." [...]

Korean-American Catholics contributed to the sculpture project, which took four years and cost about $1 million. A gift to the national shrine, the bas-reliefs symbolize the faith and love of the Korean Catholic family and serve as a sign of gratitude for the heroic examples of faith witnessed by their ancestors and passed down to them.

During the Mass, a prayer was offered for the Korean Martyrs who gave their lives for the Catholic Church, which was established in overwhelmingly Buddhist Korea in 1784.

The tradition of martyrdom began almost immediately and claimed more than 10,000 lives over the next 100 years. In 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 martyrs in Seoul.

In 2002, Father Lee petitioned the shrine's rector for a place where Mary could be honored by Koreans.

The following year, with the initiative of the North American Conference of Priests for Korean Ministry, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops proclaimed Sept. 23, 2003, to be Korean-American Catholic Day to commemorate the centenary of Korean immigration to the U.S. The proclamation came during a Mass attended by nearly 6,000 Korean-American Catholics.

America, it's just one pack of freeloaders after another...

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Q--WHAT'S THE BEST INDICATOR WE'VE WON THE WAR?

Iraqi oil exports to north rise: Attacks fall sharply on oil pipeline to Turkey thanks to new security measures. (Leslie Sabbagh and Tom A. Peter, 9/27/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

Iraq's state oil company now has 15 million barrels of crude for sale at the Turkish port of Ceyhan this month, the biggest amount at least since the war began. And foreign oil investors are taking notice.

When measured against Iraq's vast oil reserves (the world's second largest), the precious crude flowing north these days is modest. But the ability to sell – and generate revenues for the nation – is directly connected to the ability to secure the pipelines. In the first three months of this year, the pipeline from the central Iraqi refinery at Bayji (one of three in Iraq) suffered 30 attacks that caused "significant" financial loses, Iraqi officials say. But in the past six months, there have been fewer than 10 attacks.

A--the eagerness of the Left and far Right to surrender.

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PAYING LESS THAN HALF OF WHAT YOU'RE MAKING IN YOUR 401K:

Bush's fiscal legacy: bigger debt (Peter Grier, 9/27/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

During his time in office, federal debt held by the public – Washington's equivalent of a credit-card balance – will have increased by more than 50 percent, to about $5.5 trillion. Uncle Sam will be paying interest on that sum for years to come.

Much of that borrowed money paid for military expenses after the 9/11 attacks – spending unanticipated when Mr. Bush took office. Measured against the size of the US economy, the public debt isn't far outside historical norms.

Except that it obviously shouldn't be measured against historic norms but against similar periods of world war. For example, British debt hit 250% of GDP by the time they'd defeated Napoleon and American debt was 150% of GDP by the time WWII ended. Or, consider that American household net worth under President Bush has hit $55 trillion--that number coming after debt (government and consumer) is deducted.

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EXCEPT THAT IT'S NOT THE MASK THAT'S IRONIC...:

The Man in the Irony Mask: Like Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, Stephen Colbert so completely inhabits his creation—the arch-conservative blowhard host of The Colbert Report, his Daily Show spin-off hit—that he rarely breaks character. As Colbert's new book, I Am America (And So Can You!), is published, Vanity Fair gets a revealing interview with the real thing: a master comedian, forever altered by family tragedy. (Seth Mnookin, October 2007, Vanity Fair)

The show's set is designed to emphasize the notion of Colbert as the supreme master of this self-created, enthusiastically narcissistic universe. Behind his desk, a faint, almost subliminal outline of a star frames Colbert's head. A series of lines that bisect a ring of concentric circles on the floor converge where Colbert is seated, as if he were a black hole toward which all matter and energy are drawn. His anchor desk is shaped like a giant C, and the colbert report is plastered on more than a dozen places on the set.

The Report (pronounced with a soft t, as is Colbert) debuted in the fall of 2005 as a spin-off of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, the critical and popular success that's often referred to by its host, Jon Stewart, as a "fake news" show. Stewart has turned The Daily Show into a cultural touchstone in the eight years he's been there, and has become such an icon that he hosted the Academy Awards in 2006. But The Colbert Report couldn't take a page from its forebearer's playbook. Stewart plays himself on TV—a smart, witty, liberal Jew who's alternately amused and enraged by the political realities of our time—and a large part of The Daily Show's popularity stems from his personal appeal.

Colbert's character, which grew out of his role as the most noxious and ill-informed of Stewart's on-air correspondents, is most definitely not the type of guy you'd want to share a beer with after work. If Colbert's show were to succeed, it would need its fans to embrace the type of grating know-it-all they would normally disdain. One of the ways the show attempted to do this was by having its audience affect the mob mentality from which Colbert's character drew his power. That way, viewers weren't just in on the joke, they were part of it.

"This show is not about me," Colbert explained his first night on the air. "No, this program is dedicated to you, the heroes.… On this show your voice will be heard, in the form of my voice." Colbert went on to define the show's ruling ethos as "truthiness," an almost Nietzschean philosophy inspired by President Bush's faith in those that "know with their heart" as opposed to those who "think with their head." If one part of the subtext here was how terrifying "truthiness" was in a world leader, another was that having the will to bend reality to reflect your every desire actually sounded pretty cool—as Colbert's id-driven character promised to demonstrate night after night.

This conceit has worked far better than anyone expected. Almost immediately, the Report attracted an audience of more than a million viewers a night.

...but the face beneath.

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MRS. JONES GOT A THING GOIN' ON:

The 35-Year Plan for Soul Superstardom: Sharon Jones, Darondo, and other soul sensations hit it big after decades on the outskirts (Indrani Sen, September 25th, 2007, Village Voice)

Sharon Jones always knew she was put on this earth to sing soul music. But she soon realized she'd never be a star. "In the '80s, they told me I needed to bleach my skin," she recalls. "They told me I was too dark-skinned, too fat, too short. And once I passed twentysomething, I was too old."

Still, Jones, who was born in Augusta, Georgia, and now lives in Far Rockaway, sang where she could—her church choir, talent shows, wedding gigs. She picked up session work here and there and worked as a correction officer on Rikers Island. " 'God gave me a gift, and one day people are going to accept me for that gift'—that's what I put in my head," Jones recalls. "And it took another 20-something years to happen."

Now, at the age of 51, Jones has finally found her place: up onstage in a shimmery dress, singing her heart out. A tiny black woman with a mischievous sense of humor and a deep, expressive voice, Jones has toured the world with her band, the Dap-Kings, delivering their pure pre-Parliament funk to eager crowds of sweating, dancing fans. "I don't feel embarrassed because I can't dance like Beyoncé or what's-her-name, Shakira," Jones says, giggling and shimmying in her seat at Daptone Records, the Brooklyn soul label that has nurtured her career. "I'm just so glad I can sing something and get on that stage and jump around."

Jones has toured with Lou Reed, and appears in the upcoming Denzel Washington movie The Great Debaters. British soul ingénue Amy Winehouse borrowed the Dap-Kings to record her breakthrough, Back to Black. And in October, Daptone is releasing Sharon's third album, 100 Days, 100 Nights, a collection of gospel-tinged soul laments that she'll celebrate with a date at the Apollo Theater.

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JUST MAKE SURE THE DOBERMAN DOESN'T CHOKE ON THEM:

First came the legend, then the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe (WALTRINA STOVALL, September 26, 2007, The Dallas Morning News)

If you've been in touch with the outside world during the past 20 years – have received any mail more personal than a utility bill or a flier addressed to "Current Resident" – you know that what the woman found was that the charge for the cookie recipe was not $2.50, as she expected. It was a whopping $250.

Incensed, she had 1,000 copies of the recipe made. She began mailing it to friends, relatives and casual acquaintances. She handed it out at a day spa and to people she bumped into at crowded cocktail parties. The daughter took it for show and tell at her exclusive girls' school.

Recipients were asked to pass the recipe on because the greedy store must be stopped from charging an unconscionable amount for a cookie recipe.

The story began circulating in the late '80s and spread quickly.

Although Neiman's denied the story – in fact, the company said it had never served cookies in its restaurants – it kept gaining momentum. Finally, with the help of the Internet and e-mail, it became The Urban Legend That Would Not Die.

Inquiries about the costly recipe kept coming in until, finally, the store tasked its bakers to come up with a recipe worthy of the NM reputation. It was perfected in 1995 by Kevin Garvin and is on the company Web site, www.neimanmarcus.com. Free. It also is in the Neiman Marcus Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, $45) by Mr. Garvin and John Harrisson. [...]

NEIMAN MARCUS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
½ cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 F. Cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy using an electric mixer on medium speed (approximately 30 seconds).

Beat in the egg and vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.

In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda and beat into the butter at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and the chocolate chips.

Using a 1-ounce scoop or 2-tablespoon measure, drop cookies onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2-inch circle.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispy cookie.

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AT LEAST HE DIDN'T PLAGIARIZE JOE BIDEN...

Gordon Brown and his ‘copycat’ speech (Times of London, 9/26/07)

Gordon Brown was accused tonight of rehashing old phrases from Bill Clinton and Al Gore without attribution in his first speech to a Labour conference as Prime Minister.

An analysis by The Times has found strong similarities in both words and structure between Monday’s address and speeches made by the two Americans – both clients of Mr Brown’s close adviser Bob Shrum.

It suggests that Mr Brown’s recent attempts to appeal as a prime minister who rejects spin have been crafted, at least in part, by one of America’s highest paid political advertising and speech consultants.

The study by The Times Online’s Comment Central shows a marked similarity between parts of Mr Brown’s speech and big set-piece speeches of Democrat leaders.

...which would have been a tad too incestuous.

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WE STILL EAGERLY AWAIT ANY EVIDENCE...:

House Panel Approves a Trade Pact With Peru (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 9/26/07, NY Times)

A trade pact between the United States and Peru won bipartisan support in a crucial Congressional committee Tuesday, signaling that some Democrats will be receptive to new trade deals as long as they call on other nations to adhere to international labor and environmental standards.

The action, a voice vote in the House Ways and Means Committee, clears the way for approval of the Peru deal by Congress this fall, with most Republicans and perhaps a minority of the Democrats supporting it, Congressional aides said. The Senate Finance Committee approved the pact on Friday.

The vote Tuesday was a victory for the Bush administration and Representative Charles B. Rangel, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means panel.

...that the midterm election mattered.

MORE:
House condemns MoveOn.org's Petraeus ad (ANDREW TAYLOR, 9/26/07, Associated Press)

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org for a recent advertisement attacking the top U.S. general in Iraq.

By a 341-79 vote, the House passed a resolution praising the patriotism Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and condemning a MoveOn.org ad that referred to Petraeus as "General Betray Us."

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THE GREATER ONE:

How good can 'The Kid' get?: The Kid, we no doubt all agree, is good. No, make that great. So, about the only questions left are how much better can he get and what is he hoping for next? (SCOTT MORRISON | Sep 26, 2007, MacLeans)

Two years into his professional career, [Sidney] Crosby has lived up to the hype and the expectations and perhaps even exceeded both. After scoring 102 points in his rookie season, he was even better in his second. He finished with 120 points to win the scoring title, all the while helping his team improve by 47 points - the fourth biggest turnaround in National Hockey League history - and return to the playoffs for the first time since 2001. He was named a First Team All-Star and, in addition to winning the Art Ross Trophy for scoring, he also won the Hart Trophy, as most valuable player as selected by the media, and the Lester B. Pearson award, as the MVP as selected by his peers.

Now the perspective. He became the youngest player (at 19 years, eight months, younger even than Crosby admirer Wayne Gretzky was when he won his first a few months past his 20th birthday) to reach 200 points. He is the youngest player – in any professional sport - to win a scoring title. After the season, he became the youngest player to ever be named a full-time captain. He also is one of just five players to record 100 points in each of their first two seasons in the NHL. Last season, the Pittsburgh Penguins were 41-10-9 in games in which he earned a point, 6-13-0 in games he didn't. In fact, it is likely there would no longer even be a team in Pittsburgh, with a new arena in the works, if not for Crosby.

All that accomplished before his 20th birthday, which makes one wonder just how much better can the future get because the present is already pretty darn good.

Gretzky says he thinks the kid may be better than him.

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KONCEALED KOSTS:

Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants (KEN BELSON and JILL P. CAPUZZO, 9/26/07, NY Times)

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

Only the sorts of folks who hate immigrants didn't anticipate the effects. Of course, Tom Tankredo would rather shutter the country than accept immigrants.

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WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE:

Dartmouth Debate: Gunning for Clinton (SETH GITELL, September 26, 2007, NY Sun)

When Senator Clinton strides onto the Dartmouth Green tonight for a Democratic presidential debate, she will do so with a bullseye on her back.

Until very recently, Senator Obama's cache of support among liberal activists made him the focus of criticisms at presidential debates. Think of the three-way pounding Mr. Obama took at the AFL-CIO forum at Chicago's Soldier Field for suggesting that America take military action in Pakistan without the approval of that country's president. Tonight will be different. Liberals will likely turn their sights on Mrs. Clinton.

Some four months ahead of the first presidential primary, Mrs. Clinton stands on top in the polls in New Hampshire. A recent Franklin Pierce College/ WBZ survey had her leading Mr. Obama, 36% to 18%; a Rasmusen poll found her lead to be even greater, 40% to17%. Washington Post reporter Dan Balz captured the prevailing sentiment in a blog entry yesterday: "She now sits atop the Democratic field, in a tier by herself."

While the debate will be broadcast nationally on MSNBC, it will air locally on New Hampshire Public Radio and New England Cable News, a regional 24-hour news network reaching 360,000 of New Hampshire's households. The heavily watched Boston Red Sox will play early, at 5 p.m., permitting those who want to see the debate, to do so.

Downtown Hanover has been a zoo for a couple days now, with Security riding around on Segways, network satellite trucks lining the Green, and reporters doing their stand-up shots with Baker Library in the background. Meanwhile, no one can get a ticket nor figure out why which profs got one and there's a massive lawn-sign battle going on, with Senator Obama seemingly in the lead. If you don't have a dog in the fight it's rather amusing.

MORE:
Debate-related frenzy consumes campus (Jennifer Gaudette, 9/26/07, The Dartmouth

Campus life will likely be disrupted for the first day of classes, as the Green is taken over by the Campaign Visibility Area, also known as the “free speech zone” — the only area where ralliers are allowed to demonstrate or display signs. Also surrounding the Green will be several television network satellite trucks, many of which arrived Tuesday, and the news program “MSNBC Hardball with Chris Matthews,” which will run from 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM from the Green. Matthews will also be joining the post-debate discussion hosted by Keith Olbermann, who will broadcast from Secaucus, N.J.

Olbermann and Matthews will be just two of about 300 credentialed media swarming the campus, whicih will also be covered by Secret Service agents and blanked by over 100 student volunteers, as Spaulding Auditorium is transformed into the set of the nationally televised debate.

Director of Dartmouth Media Relations Roland Adams said students can count on noticing the media-fueled commotion.

“Any time we host an event of this magnitude, students and others are going to be aware that we have a lot of visitors here and a lot of them are media,” Adams said.

Adams was not concerned about the impact of such an event on campus, noting that Dartmouth has hosted presidential candidate debates many times before, in 1984, 1988 and 2004. The College also hosted a “New Hampshire Town Meeting” held in 1999 that was attended by both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Hanover Police Chief Nicholas Giaccone said he was confident that the town would be able to handle the flood of visitors.

“We handle more traffic for Homecoming night when the streets are blocked, so we don’t anticipate any problems,” Giaccone said.

Hard Work Behind the Stage: College Strives to Prepare For Tonight's Debate (Peter Jamison, 9/26/07, Valley News)

For a sign that big things were afoot yesterday at Dartmouth, one needed look no farther than campus security officer Teddy Willey. If you saw him up close, however, chances are you were looking up: Willey was standing on a Segway Personal Transporter.

Through a deal secured by Dartmouth sophomore Beau Trudel, who has worked two summers at Segway, the company loaned two transporters -- motorized chariots that bestow upon riders a peculiar resemblance to wheeled robots -- to college officials for the event.

Willey, who ordinarily works on Dartmouth Safety and Security bike patrol, beamed from his idling Segway in front of the Hopkins Center, which houses Spaulding Auditorium.

“It's going to be a nightmare tomorrow getting around,” he said. “So this” -- Willey paused to show off a pirouette -- “is nice.”

The debate runs from 9 to 11 p.m. before a live audience of about 700. But the logistical complexities of hosting a spate of high-profile politicians on a small college campus will cast a shadow well beyond the Hopkins Center.

College officials expect about 300 journalists to be on hand tomorrow. Parking near the auditorium will be prohibited to members of the public. Willey said that about 35 security officers will be deployed on campus tomorrow -- Willey himself anticipates working from 7 a.m. to 2 or 3 in the morning -- in addition to Hanover Police Department officers and a Secret Service complement for some of the candidates.

One might expect students to be a bit put out at so much hubbub on the first day of class, but those interviewed yesterday said the debate buzz has only added to the thrill of starting the fall term. No classes have been canceled as a result of the activity, Haas said.

Lauren Lesser, a sophomore, said, “It's a lot of excitement in the air, on top of the usual starting-school excitement.” From her bench on the green, she could see an MSNBC crew setting up the stage for tomorrow night's episode of Chris Matthews’ Hardball. Like most students, Lesser didn't get a ticket into the auditorium but plans to watch with others from Leede Arena.

---

A TWO-FER:

Freedom for Burma: China is propping up another despotic regime (JODY WILLIAMS, September 26, 2007, Opinion Journal)

China's relationship with Burma is the closest of any it has in Southeast Asia. It views that nation as a strategic ally, coveting the potential use of its ports on the Indian Ocean and easier access to oil from Africa and the Middle East. China has provided economic support key to keeping the dismal economy afloat, and has built roads, bridges, airport facilities, power stations, factories and telecommunications networks. It has also modernized Burma's army, including an infusion of weaponry valued at over $1.4 billion when the junta took power. [...]

Against this backdrop, and for nearly two decades, Ms. Suu Kyi and other activists have repeatedly called for international support to bring the military to the negotiating table and begin the transfer of power that should have taken place after the NLD's 1990 electoral victory. Tragically, Ms. Suu Kyi-- known to millions simply as "The Lady"--has spent 12 of the past 18 years as a political prisoner. Her most recent house arrest began in May 2003 after her convoy was attacked while she was traveling around Burma speaking at large public rallies.

Just a few months before her arrest I managed to enter Burma and meet with Ms. Suu Kyi in her Rangoon home, to discuss what the international community should do to help her people. She was quite clear that her party's call for the strengthening of economic sanctions against the military junta remained unchanged; that all investment in Burma should cease; and that tourists should not spend their money or provide some sense of legitimacy to the regime by visiting her country until democracy is established.

Unfortunately, the international community in general--and China in particular--has largely ignored her call for support.

The most recent protests against the regime began in mid-August, after the government doubled fuel prices. They quickly grew into mass, nonviolent protests for freedom and democracy. By the end of August, thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns had begun to join the protests, even as the junta cracked down and arrested untold numbers of protesters and activists.

Less known is that, on Sept. 18, as the protests grew in numbers, Burmese activists (many now in hiding because of the crackdown) managed to deliver a letter to the government of China. Along with protesters outside Chinese embassies and consulates in 15 cities in 10 countries around the world, they asked that Beijing publicly end its support for the junta and instead help achieve reconciliation and democratization in Burma.

If China won't change its policies toward Burma on its own, it must be pressured to do so. Just as there has been public outrage over Beijing's support for the Sudanese government and its ongoing war in Darfur, there should be similar outrage at its involvement with Burmese military junta.

While it's not easy to get folks to help the Burmese just because it's morally right to do so, the fact that it will cripple China strategically makes it an easier sell, kind of like "Saddam's WMD."

MORE:
Burma hits new low in corruption (BBC, 9/26/07)

Burma and Somalia have been jointly ranked by Transparency International as the world's most corrupt countries.

The index is based on perceptions of public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories.

Saffron revolution (Sian Powell, September 27, 2007, The Australian)

A democracy activist in Rangoon says protesters want to encourage political change and avoid bloodshed.

"Definitely there are a lot of people who are very moved and who are very emotional," she says. Still, she adds, the people of Burma are worried about the consequences of the uprising, consequences that could easily involve mass arrests, assault and slaughter.

"But this is a time which is very critical, and they will understand that this is the case and they will need to do something."

Resting its back against the might of China to the north, the SPDC regime has long ignored the polemic from notables such as one-time Czech president Vaclav Havel, South African archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, and more recently US first lady Laura Bush.

For years Russia and China have staunchly resisted any efforts to discuss Burma in the Security Council. Now, though, it appears China -- mindful of its international image and sensitive to criticism as the 2008 Beijing Olympics loom nearer -- has advised the Burma regime to refrain from the brutal oppression at which it has become so adept.

Refusing to accept alms from anyone in the military and thereby imperilling soldiers' important religious observances, the rebel monks set the scene for a showdown. There are more than 400,000 monks in Burma, and only a small percentage have marched through the streets, but many senior abbots have so far declined to block their efforts.

Yesterday, the regime declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Rangoon and Mandalay, and used truck-mounted loudspeakers to warn that meetings of more than five people were illegal. Burma's Religious Affairs Minister, Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung, has publicly accused the monks of being manipulated by the Government's domestic and foreign enemies, and warned that if senior abbots failed to restrain their disciples, the Government would act.

Burma has groaned under a military dictatorship since 1962 and the last big uprising, in 1988, was swiftly and brutally crushed, leaving as many as 3000 people dead.

Aung Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy news magazine based in northern Thailand's Chiang Mai, was a student dissident in the famous 1988 protests. He was imprisoned in Rangoon's notorious Insein jail and tortured. He finally fled to Thailand.

"The monks have been on the streets again; I think it's the moment of truth," Zaw says. The sheer size of the protests amazes him; the crowds of monks, nuns and civilians willing to brave the worst the junta can bowl up, from indiscriminate killings to long terms in prison.

Monks vs. Police in Burma (With foreign journalists locked out of the country by Burma's military government, this dispatch was written by TIME staff based on eyewitness reports, 9/26/07)

The battle for Shwedagon began in ferocious noonday heat. The authorities had locked the gates of the pagoda, Rangoon's most famous landmark, by mid-morning to prevent the monks who had led the weeklong demonstrations against Burma's military rulers from gathering. Police and soldiers guarded the entrances. The eastern gate of Shwedagon is where thousands of monks would otherwise exit to start their march into downtown Rangoon. But today, hundreds of soldiers and riot police blocked their way.

By 12:30 p.m., hundreds of monks, students, and other Rangoon residents approached the police, stood in the road and began to pray. Then the soldiers and police began pulling monks from the crowd, targeting the leaders, striking both monks and ordinary people with canes. Several smoke bombs exploded and the riot police charged. The monks and others fought back with sticks and rocks. Many others ran, perhaps four or five of them bleeding from minor head wounds. A car was set alight — by the soldiers, some protesters claimed — and then there was the unmistakable crack of live ammunition: the soldiers were shooting into the air.

"They are not Buddhists," cried one student, who clutched half a brick in his hand, running from the smoke. "They are not humans. We were praying peacefully and they beat us. They beat the monks, even the old ones." An 80-year old monk stood with the student, bleeding from a baton gash on his shaven head.

However, after this confrontation, the monks regrouped and surged forward again.

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WHICH MAKES IT ALL THE ODDER...:

Tebbit praises PM's Thatcher move (BBC, 9/26/07)

Lord Tebbit has said Gordon Brown's move to be seen as "heir to Thatcher" shows his "political nous".

...that none of the presidential candidates have sense enough to similarly cast themselves as heirs of Thatcher/Clinton/Blair/Bush.

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165 TO 1:

165 'militants' killed in Afghan battles (Fred Attewill and agencies, September 26, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

More than 165 Taliban militants have been killed in fierce fighting with coalition forces in southern Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, Nato said today.

The fighters died in two separate clashes after they attacked Nato-led troops armed with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. [...]

Nato said more than 100 Taliban fighters were killed while one coalition soldier was killed and four were wounded.

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AND YOU WONDER WHY THEY DIDN'T WANT TO LISTEN TO W YESTERDAY?:

The Real Che Was No T-Shirt Idol, As Cuban-American Author Finds (INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, 7/10/2007)

Cuban-American author Humberto Fontova researched the man behind the image, exploring why pop culture seems so enamored of Che Guevara. Speaking to dozens of Cubans who knew and fought with Guevara (1928-1967), Fontova pieced together a very different picture of Guevara for his book, "Exposing The Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him."

We spoke with Fontova about the real Che, one of history's most undeservedly idolized mass murderers. [...]

IBD: You mention that the regime imprisoned people. What kinds of figures are you talking about?

Fontova: Cuba in 1961 had 6.3 million people. According to Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans have passed through Cuba's prison systems, proportionately more than went through Stalin's Gulag. At one time in 1961, 350,000 Cubans (were) jailed for political crimes and 1 out of 18 Cubans was a political prisoner. These were people who were overheard talking badly against regime. It's very difficult for people to visualize what a totalitarian regime is — after all, doesn't Latin America always have dictatorship?. Yeah, but Latin America does not have totalitarian Stalinist dictatorships, except in Cuba.

IBD: How did Che create this?

Fontova: It wasn't two weeks after Castro entered Havana that Soviet agents entered. Che was the main conduit with Soviet intelligence agencies.

The Cuban regime executed more people proportionately in its first three years in power than Hitler did in six. Think about that execution rate and then think about that slogan associated with Che — "resist oppression." The ironies are so rich, comparing what Cuban-Americans read and what they experienced.

IBD: Guevara bragged from the podium of the United Nations that "we do executions."

Fontova: And he said "we will continue to do executions" in 1964. According to the Black Book of Communism, published in Paris, 14,000 men and boys were executed in Cuba by that stage, that would be the equivalent of 3 million executions in the U.S., and yet that man who carried them out was hailed by Jesse Jackson, who wrote a book condemning capital punishment.

IBD: Speaking of communist chic, Cameron Diaz got into trouble for toting a Mao bag in Peru, where people knew Maoist terror.

Fontova: But you will notice that Cameron Diaz apologized, so I attribute 80% of the Che paraphernalia seen on people to ignorance. Especially when I am in a generous mood. I hate to think people are that dumb. With ignorance, it's different, they just don't know.

Podcast of Interview

---

THE FOLKS WHO FAIL TO GRASP THIS...:

Mission accomplished: With most Sunni factions now seeking a deal, the big questions in Iraq have been resolved positively. The country remains one, it has embraced democracy and avoided all-out civil war. What violence remains is largely local and criminal (Bartle Bull, October 2007, Prospect)

Understanding this expensive victory is a matter of understanding the remaining violence. Now that Iraq's big questions have been resolved—break-up? No. Shia victory? Yes. Will violence make the Americans go home? No. Do Iraqis like voting? Yes. Do they like Iraq? Yes—Iraq's violence has largely become local and criminal. The biggest fact about Iraq today is that the violence, while tragic, has ceased being political, and is therefore no longer nearly as important as it was.

Some of the violence—that paid for by foreigners or motivated by Islam's crazed fringes—will not recede in a hurry. Iraq has a lot of Islam and long, soft borders. But the rest of Iraq's violence is local: factionalism, revenge cycles, crime, power plays. It will largely cease once Iraq has had a few more years to build up its security apparatus.

There have been four main sources of political violence in Iraq since the invasion. The "insurgency," which means the Sunni violence, comprised three of these four elements: Baathists, Sunni religious fundamentalists (whom we will call Wahhabis after the most important of their closely related strains), and Sunni tribes. (The fourth source of violence is Shia, about which more later.) Baathism, modelled from its birth in the 1940s on German national socialism, is a secular movement. Wahhabism, fighting for a return to the pure days of Islam in the 7th century, is the opposite. It was clear from the beginning that these two tendencies, which today are fighting each other in much of Sunni Iraq, would not get along forever.

Equally clear was that neither could win in their battle for Iraq. The Baathists wanted a return to the privileges they enjoyed under Saddam. The Wahhabis wanted a return to the days of the prophet. Neither was going to happen; for the 85 per cent of the country that is not Sunni Arab, these forms of Sunni Arab totalitarianism were the ultimate non-starter. Sunni power was broken by the invasion: Iraq, finally recognising a group three times as numerous as the Sunnis, had become a Shia country; Baghdad, the dowager capital of Islam, is today a Shia city for the first time since 1534.

All this was foreseen in the first phase of the violence, from the insurgency's start in spring 2004 until the Samarra mosque bombing in February 2006. The Baathists, thugs but rational actors, would eventually give up and sit down to bargain for as much as they could get from the mess they had made. And the Wahhabis, answering to a higher power and mostly foreigners anyway, would keep blowing themselves up. All sides acknowledge that this is what is happening today: the Wahhabis continue to cross the border in search of their 72 virgins in paradise, and the Baathists are negotiating with the Shias and the Americans to come inside the tent.

A third element of the Sunni violence was tribal. This was particularly prevalent in Anbar province in western Iraq, where Sunni tribes have traditionally prospered from banditry on the Damascus road and where even Saddam was not fully in control. Fighting outsiders is an old habit in Iraq's Sunni bandit country. So is making money. Thus the Sunni tribes, like the Baathists, have done precisely what non-ideological observers predicted at the beginning of the violence. Once the victory of the Shias and the resolve of the US administration became clear, the Sunni tribes decided their interest lay in milking what they could from the new dispensation. Thus it is that Anbar today is one of the safer places in Iraq. (Until the pacification of Anbar, about 80 per cent of Iraq's violence happened in four of its 18 provinces: Anbar, Salah ad Din, Nineveh and Baghdad. In nine of the 18 provinces, there is basically no violence.) The importance of the achievement in Anbar cannot be overemphasised: pacifying the heartland of the Sunni insurgency was considered unachievable as recently as this spring. (The assassination in September of Abu Risha—head of the "Anbar Awakening," an organisation of 25 Sunni tribes fighting al Qaeda in Anbar—while unfortunate, will not be material.)

It was always clear that Iraq's Sunni tribes would eventually take up arms against the Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians in their midst who were banning smoking, killing whisky vendors, executing sheikhs of ancient tribes and forcibly marrying local girls to "emirs" of the soi-disant "Islamic state of Iraq." Of course, Anbar's tribal leaders and Baathists could be bought off either directly or by the indirect promise of owning a chunk of what will be a very rich country now that the basic question of who owns Baghdad has been resolved. At least 14,000 Anbari young men have joined the state security services since the surge began in February and the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, started reaching out to the chiefs.

The tribes and the Baathists also noticed what happened in Fallujah and Ramadi: when those cities ran out of control, America doubled up. In November 2004, the marines surrounded Fallujah, killed every insurgent (and plenty of civilians), started rebuilding the place and left an effective security cordon around it. Ramadi, on a smaller scale, was next. Now the insurgency has decamped to other provinces, where it does not want to be. Beating them there will be even easier, as is proving to be the case in Diyala.

The Sunni insurgents have recognised that there is little point fighting a strong and increasingly skilled enemy—the US—that is on the right side of Iraq's historical destiny and which—unlike the British in Basra—responds to setbacks by trying harder. (That is essentially the Petraeus doctrine: more resources more intelligently applied further forward.) There is even less point doing so when you are a discredited minority, as the Sunnis are after 35 years of Baathism followed by their disastrous insurgency, and the enemy is in fact your main guarantor of a fair place at the national table.

Iraq's Sunnis would not be needing the help of the US today had the Sunni leadership not made a historic miscalculation back in 2004. Saddam, a rational man, made an understandable but fatal misjudgement about the people he was up against, and paid for it with his throne and his neck. His Sunni supporters did not learn from this. Thinking they were dealing with the post-Vietnam America of Carter, Reagan and Clinton, they took up arms to prevent the Americans from delivering on their promise of an Iraq that could freely choose its leaders. The habit of centuries of overlordship also fed the Sunni miscalculation: to them, Shia control was unthinkable and so the insurgency was sure to succeed.

By the second half of 2004, the insurgency had had six months to show what it was capable of, and it became clear that its goal could not be the military defeat of the Americans. The Sunnis were now fighting not for a military victory but a political one, to win in the US congress and the newsrooms of CNN and the New York Times the war they could not win in the alleys and date palm groves of Mesopotamia.

With regard to violence against their fellow Iraqis, the Sunni strategy revealed itself quickly to be an effort to provoke the Shias into full-fledged communal violence and civil war. Such a conflagration would be so hot that even Bush's Americans would run for home. The key moment in this strategy was the bombing of the Shia mosque in Samarra. Until then, the Shias had shown great restraint at the stream of Sunni provocations. Shia cells targeted Wahhabis and Baathists, but mostly left the Sunni populace alone. Under the steadying influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, their religious leader, the Shias endured mass slaughters in markets, buses and schools throughout 2004, 2005 and early 2006 without large-scale retaliation. As the main beneficiaries from the new Iraq, the Shias could only lose from a prolonged civil war.

The Samarra bombing seemed briefly to be the final straw. The Shia death squads, most associated with the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army, long chafing under Sistani's restraining hand, were let slip. Neighbourhood cleansing began in much of Baghdad and went on for a year until Petraeus's surge began in February. It continues in many places where his troops are not present.

The world held its breath after Samarra: here, we thought, comes the cataclysm, the civil war that many had feared and that others had sought for three years. But it never happened. The Shia backlash in parts of Baghdad was vicious, and the Sunnis were more or less kicked out of much of the city. But over 18 months later, it is clear that the Shias were too sensible to go all the way. It was never a civil war: no battle lines or uniforms, no secession, no attempt to seize power or impose constitutional change, no parallel governments, not even any public leaders or aims. The Sunnis rolled the dice, launched the battle of Baghdad and lost. Now they are begging for an accommodation with Shia Iraq.

...are those who hate the Shi'a.

---

THE DOG WAGS THE "OWNER":

The Perfect Pooch for You (Jennifer Viegas, 9/26/07, Discovery News)

The new study — one of the first to apply methods used to analyze human relationships to human/dog pairs — also reveals clues as to what makes the best pooch-to-person match.

One surprising find is that a dog's personality helps shape the relationship more than the person's does.

Lead author Lisa Cavanaugh explained to Discovery News that "unlike human relationships, the partner's personality — in our case the canine personality — contributes measurably to relationship satisfaction" while the person's character seems to take a backseat.

---

THEY JUST KNOW SOCIALISM WILL WORK THIS TIME...:

Will Bush veto his own priority?: The president once sang the praises of expanding children's insurance; his tone has changed now that Democrats are sending him a bill. (Ronald Brownstein, September 26, 2007, LA Times)

The tragedy in Washington's escalating confrontation on children's healthcare is that the legislation Congress is on track to approve this week with substantial bipartisan support advances precisely the goal President Bush claims as his priority.

Bush says he wants the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a state-federal partnership up for renewal this year, to more narrowly target the poorest children. He's threatened to veto the bill Congress is completing because he charges it directs too much aid toward middle-income families and would prompt too many of them to drop private insurance and enroll in SCHIP.

If Mr. Brownstein thinks that increasing dependence on the Second Way is a W priority he hasn't learned anything the past 8 years. Consider only that he'd support a bill, and Democrats oppose, that gave these kids HSAs and it becomes clear that the central issue isn't healthcare for kids but whether the state or the poor should be empowered.

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THERE IS NO CHINA:

Teenagers Held for Pro-Independence Slogans (KEITH BRADSHER, 9/26/07, NY Times)

Eight boys ages 14 and 15 have been detained in the Tibetan town of Xiahe since Sept. 7 for writing graffiti and distributing pamphlets praising the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, and for calling for independence from China, according to Human Rights in China, which called for their release.

Time for the Dalai Lama to return home.

MORE:
China makes contingency plans for junta's fall (David Lague, September 26, 2007, NY Times)

As China publicly calls for stability and reconciliation in Myanmar, it is also preparing for the possibility that the current protests could lead to the downfall of the military junta leading its resource-rich neighbor, political experts said on Wednesday.

Although China is Myanmar's most important trading partner, investor and strategic ally, Beijing has also maintained discreet links with opponents of its military rulers and tolerates the activity of some of exiled critics on Chinese soil, these experts said.

And as Myanmar's strongest international supporter, China wants to avoid any damage to its reputation from Myanmar's handling of political dissent, particularly with the approach of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The PRC needs to plan for its own fall, which could easily follow a Chinese Chernobyl, China warns of catastrophe from Three Gorges Dam (Reuters, 9/26/07)

China's huge Three Gorges Dam hydro-power project could spark "catastrophe" unless accumulating environmental threats are quickly defused, senior officials and experts have warned, according to state media.

The dam in southwest China, the world's biggest hydro-electric project, has begun generating electricity and has served as a barrier against seasonal flooding threatening lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday, citing a forum of experts and officials.

But even senior dam officials who have often defended the project as an engineering wonder and ecological boon now warned that areas around the dam were paying a heavy, potentially calamitous environmental cost.

---

RUDY AT THE RIVER'S EDGE:

Calling Rudy: For Mr. Giuliani, it's more than his wife that's on the line (Online Journal, September 26, 2007)

This was no emergency call. His cell phone rang in his pocket during his speech, which is itself unusual; most public officials turn theirs off during events, if only out of courtesy for the audience. [...]

"That was just weird," one NRA audience member told the New York Post about the phone interruption. Mr. Giuliani doesn't need more weird.

It does demonstrate exactly how little he cares about the audiences.

---

SAVING MAHMOUD:

Iranians angered by treatment of leader (The Associated Press, September 25, 2007)

Many Iranians reacted angrily Tuesday to the combative introduction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the president of Columbia University, calling it "shameful" and saying the harsh words only added to their image of the United States as a bully.

In a part of the world where the tradition of hospitality outweighs personal opinions toward a person, many here thought Lee Bollinger's aggressive tone before Ahmadinejad's appearance - including saying that he exhibited the signs of a "petty and cruel dictator" - was over the top.

The danger of holding a people in contempt is that you assume they're contemptuous of themselves as well.

---

IMPOSE COSTS:

Moment of truth for Myanmar's military (Brian McCartan, 9/26/07, Asia Times)

Myanmar's military has made good on its threat to use force against mounting demonstrations that have now involved more than 100,000 people in the old capital Yangon, increasingly resembling the mass pro-democracy movement on which soldiers tragically opened fire in 1988.

Troops outside Sule Pagoda opened fire at 2pm on Wednesday on Buddhist monks marching to the shrine. Reports conflict, but at least one monk was killed and another two either injured or killed. Other preliminary reports say that another three monks were shot and killed in Ahlone, a suburb of Yangon.

Riot police also beat monks and protesters with batons, fired tear gas into crowds and let off warning shots over the heads of protesters, symbolically in front of Yangon's famed Shwedagon Pagoda. Dozens of protesters were reportedly arrested and dragged away into military trucks.

Should the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) call on the army for further deadly action against protesters, the moment of truth will have come. Only with a split and revolt in the army will the monks and their swelling civilian supporters achieve their apparent goal of unseating the military dictatorship.

Brown urges UN meeting on Burma (BBC, 9/26/07)0

Gordon Brown has called for a UN security council meeting on Wednesday on the crisis in Burma, saying that "the whole world is now watching".

The comments come amid reports that police have beaten and arrested demonstrators and have fired warning shots on the ninth day of protests.

The prime minister said: "The EU is going to look at a whole range of sanctions that could be imposed."

Mr Brown said the Burmese authorities would be "held to account".

The account a military understands is if you destroy their might.

---

IT'S NOT ENTIRELY ACCURATE...:

Spain's "Downing Street Memo": Bush was Set on Attacking Iraq (Middle East Online, September 26, 2007)

Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, Washington unsuccessfully lobbied the 15 members of the UN Security Council for a second resolution paving the way for military action against Iraq if Saddam Hussein failed to comply with demands to disarm.

But during the meeting with Aznar, Bush made it clear the US would invade Iraq by the end of March 2003 whether or not there was a UN resolution to authorize it, El Pais reported.

"We have to get rid of Saddam. There are two weeks left. In two weeks we will be ready militarily. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March," Bush said in the transcript which was translated into Spanish by the newspaper.

...to say that no diplomatic resolution to the crIraq War was possible, though it's close. Had Saddam accepted the enforcement of all prior UN resolutions, there'd have been no need for war. This is the case, of course, because the resolutions themselves required regime change.

---

AND HASN'T BEEN SINCE TORA BORA:

Osama bin Laden's recent video a fake, says son (Rediff, September 26, 2007)

Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's recently released video, in which he urged Americans to convert to Islam, has reportedly been branded as a 'fake' by his son in Britain.

According to 27-year-old Omar bin Laden's former British wife Jane Felix-Browne, her husband had told her, "that's not my dad."

---

IN CASE YOU THOUGHT OUR MEDIA UNIQUE:

Swedish journalists 'more left-wing than public' (The Local, 26th September 2007)

Swedish journalists' views diverge wildly from those of their readers, with the average journalist well to the left of the public as a whole, according to a new survey. While normal Swedes want tax cuts and favour retaining nuclear power, Swedish journalists reject both ideas.

The findings are presented in a book published on Wednesday by researchers at Gothenburg University. The book, 'Den Svenska Journalistkåren' ('The Swedish Press Corps'), is based on the results of a number of research projects.

---

GIRL POWER:

Saudi Religious Police Attacked by Girls (Sultan al-Kholaif, 9/24/07, Asharq Al-Awsat)

Head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Eastern province Dr. Mohamed bin Marshood al-Marshood, told Asharq Al Awsat that two of the Commission's employees were verbally insulted and attacked by two inappropriately-dressed females, in the old market in Prince Bandar street, an area usually crowded with shoppers during the month of Ramadan.

According to Dr. Al-Marshood, the two commission members approached the girls in order to "politely" advise and guide them regarding their inappropriate clothing.

Consequently, the two girls started verbally abusing the commission members, which then lead to one of the girls pepper-spraying them in the face as the other girl filmed the incident on her mobile phone, while continuing to hurl insults at them.

---

MARCHERS NEVER CHANT, "STABILITY!":

Myanmar monks chant democracy, troops move in (Reuters, 9/26/07)

Chanting “democracy, democracy”, thousands of monks marched through the heart of Myanmar’s main city on Tuesday in defiance of a threat by the ruling generals to send in troops to end the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years.

“The streets are lined with people clapping and cheering them on,” a witness said. There were no signs of soldiers around the Sule pagoda in central Yangon, the destination of a week of marches by the deeply revered maroon-robed monks.

However, one Yangon-based diplomat said five army trucks, each capable of carrying up to 50 soldiers, lurked less than a kilometre away from the pagoda and City Hall next door. That area was the scene of the worst bloodshed during a crackdown on nationwide pro-democracy protests in 1988 in which up to 3,000 people are thought to have been killed.

“The people are not afraid,” another witness said. “They are helping the monks and offering them drinking water.”

---

ANOTHER HANDY PRETEXT:

Germans reveal bomb details (RANDALL MIKKELSEN, 9/26/07, The Scotsman)

FUSES intended for use in a suspected plot to bomb US installations in Germany came from Syria through Turkey, the German interior minister said yesterday.

---

WILL ALL THE TYRANTS PLEASE STAND UP:

Cuba walks out at UN as Bush attacks dictatorships (David Usborne, 26 September 2007, Independent)

President George Bush has criticised a series of countries at the United Nations for denying their citizens basic political freedoms, prompting the delegation of Cuba to walk out of the General Assembly calling him a "criminal" and his address an "infamous tirade".

Urging member nations of the UN to join what he called a "mission of liberation", Mr Bush pointed a finger at countries that included not just Cuba, but also Burma, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Iran. "When whole societies are cut off from the prosperity of the global economy, we are all worse off," he said.

He had barely finished speaking of Cuba when its delegation rose from its seats in protest. Referring to the long illness of Fidel Castro, who in past years has attended the assembly, Mr Bush said , "the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end. The Cuban people are ready for their freedom".

The UN would be worthwhile if they refused the Cuba readmittance to the the General Assembly.

---

SADLY, ISRAEL IS REALIST:

Seeds of Anti-Semitism (Michael Gerson, September 21, 2007, Washington Post)

Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago] have argued that the "Israeli government and pro-Israel groups" have shaped President Bush's "grand scheme for reordering the Middle East."

In fact, Israeli officials have been consistently skeptical about the main policy innovation of the Bush era: the democracy agenda. One senior Bush administration official recently told me, "The Israelis are generally convinced that Arab cultures are particularly resistant to democracy; that democracy is likely to lead to victories by the Muslim Brotherhood."

A friend recalls visiting a prominent Israeli general in 2003 and making the case for democracy promotion. "What is the alternative?" the American asked. "Propping up the next generation of Mubaraks, Assads and the House of Saud for the next 25 years?" The general responded: "Why not?"

President Bush's emphasis on democracy has been driven not by outside pressure but by a strategic insight. He is convinced that the status quo of tyranny, stagnation and extremism in the Middle East is not sustainable -- that the rage and ideologies it produces will cause increasing carnage in the world. The eventual solution to this problem, in his view, is the proliferation of hopeful, representative societies in the Middle East.

This argument is debatable. But it is at least as likely as Walt and Mearsheimer's naive belief that "the U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel" -- the equivalent of arguing that Britain had a Nazi problem in the 1930s because it was so closely allied with Czechoslovakia.

---

OR, AS THE NEPHEWS CALL IT, "THE WHISTLING SONG":

Peter Bjorn and John perform in the Current studio (Mark Wheat, Minnesota Public Radio, September 24, 2007, The Current)

The gentlemen stopped by The Current studios before their First Ave gig and played a few live songs including an acoustic version of their "anthem."

Songs performed: "Paris 2004," "Let's Call It Off," and "Young Folks."

---

ONLY A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT COULD MAKE MAHMOUD LOOK GOOD:

Iranian University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions (Fars News Agency, 9/25/07)

Seven chancellors and presidents of Iranian universities and research centers, in a letter addressed to their counterpart in the US Colombia University, denounced Lee Bollinger's insulting words against the Iranian nation and president and invited him to provide responses for 10 questions of the Iranian academicians and intellectuals.

Mr. Lee Bollinger
Columbia University President

We, the professors and heads of universities and research institutions in Tehran , hereby announce our displeasure and protest at your impolite remarks prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech at Columbia University.

We would like to inform you that President Ahmadinejad was elected directly by the Iranian people through an enthusiastic two-round poll in which almost all of the country's political parties and groups participated. To assess the quality and nature of these elections you may refer to US news reports on the poll dated June 2005.

Your insult, in a scholarly atmosphere, to the president of a country with a population of 72 million and a recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization and culture is deeply shameful.

Your comments, filled with hate and disgust, may well have been influenced by extreme pressure from the media, but it is regrettable that media policy-makers can determine the stance a university president adopts in his speech.

It's not just that Mr. Bollinger was rude but that he betrayed such obvious contempt for the Iranian people. Imagine how outraged Americans would be if a foreigner invited one of our leaders to a speaking engagement and then treated him similarly? There was no reason to invite him, but having done so there was no reason not to extend basic courtesy.

MORE:
Bollinger Forgot to Stand Up for the U.S. (Ed Koch, 9/25/07, Real Clear Politics)

President Lee C. Bollinger of Columbia University and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran met Monday on a field of rhetorical battle at Columbia.

Bollinger opened the proceedings, to which he had invited Ahmadinejad, by presenting a series of sharply-worded questions. Bollinger, normally a genial, soft spoken man who is always courteous and deferential to his guests, was in a totally different mode. His voice was hectoring and bullying. He included in his litany of questions provocative and insulting statements about his guest.

Bollinger's change of style was, I believe, to blunt the enormous criticism that ensued following Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad to speak there.

---

WHEN GOD HANDS YOU GROUND BEEF, MAKE A BURGER:

Cajun Meatloaf (Seattle PI, 9/25/07)

1 pound ground beef

1/2 pound andouille sausage, casings removed, crumbled

1/2 cup chopped yellow onion

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup dried bread crumbs

1/2 cup whole milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco or other hot-pepper sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well. Turn the mixture into a lightly sprayed or oiled 9-by-5-inch loaf pan and gently pat down.

Bake until the loaf is firm and the top is lightly browned, about an hour. Let stand in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Remove the loaf from the pan and slice to serve.

---

SPEAKING OF THE TRANSGENDERED:

Deep-voiced men 'have more kids' (BBC, 9/25/07)

Males who hit the lower notes as they talked had about two more children on average than squeaky speakers.

It fits with observations that women find baritones more attractive, the team reports in Biology Letters.

Bigger hat sizes too.

---

NO WONDER THE IVIES WELCOMED HIM:

Sex changes and a draconian legal code: gay life in Iran (Robert Tait, September 25, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Iran has between 15,000 and 20,000 transsexuals, according to official statistics, although unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 150,000. Iran carries out more gender change operations than any other country in the world besides Thailand.

Sex changes have been legal since the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution passed a fatwa authorising them nearly 25 years ago. While homosexuality is considered a sin, transsexuality is categorised as an illness subject to cure.

The government seeks to keep its approval quiet in line with its strait-laced stance on sexuality, but state support has actually increased since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

His government has begun providing grants of £2,250 for operations and further funding for hormone therapy. It is also proposing loans of up to £2,750 to allow those undergoing surgery to start their own businesses.

Maryam Khatoon Molkara, leader of the country's main transsexual organisation, said some of those undergoing operations were gay rather than out-and-out transsexuals.

"In Iran, transsexuals are part of the homosexual family. Is it possible that a phenomenon exists in the world but not in Iran?"she told the Guardian.

"Transsexuality is a real disaster. It's a one-way street. But if somebody wants to study, have a future and live like others they should go through this surgery."

You'd think, if nothing else, the clerics would have more respect for God's handiwork.

---

NOTHING TOO HEAVY:

Song of the Day: For Stars, An Impersonal Message Gets 'Personal': Stars' members make fizzy pop that plays out alongside dark snapshots of relationships in distress. (Stephen Thompson, September 24, 2007, NPR.org)

Opening with the text of Campbell's blandly clinical, notably impersonal personals ad ("Wanted: single F / Under 33 / Must enjoy the sun / Must enjoy the sea"), "Personal" unfolds as a revealing exchange between strangers. Millan's nakedly revealing replies tend to say more in six words ("28 and bored / Grieving over loss") than Campbell's anonymous cad says in two verses; her guarded expectations surge to the surface with a similarly powerful economy of phrasing: "Your voice, it sounded kind / I hope that you like me."

The message here, housed in an uncommonly sensitive piano-and-guitar arrangement, isn't as ambiguous as it may seem. For all its innocuous vagueness, Campbell's ad still leads Millan to the same pitfalls that make real-time relationships scary: judgment, insecurity, risk. In "Personal," Campbell and Millan never meet, but they don't have to in order for her hurt to feel real. With punishing efficiency, the song captures the harshest downside of the personals, examining the way they can distill relationships down to Cliffs Notes that let users skip directly from anxiety and doubt to rejection and despair.

That one's gonna leave a mark....

---

THE CRISPIN GLOVER FACTOR:

Call Him an Oddball if You Must, but Do Call (CLYDE HABERMAN, 9/25/07, NY Times)

New Yorkers are well acquainted with at least one other version. That would be Rudy the loopy. The weirdness factor, as some have called it, is as much a part of the Giuliani package as 9/11, banished squeegee men and shuttered porn parlors.

Non-New Yorkers got a taste of it the other day when Mr. Giuliani interrupted his speech — a very important speech — to the National Rifle Association in Washington. His cellphone rang. It was his wife, Judith. Smack in the middle of his talk, he whipped out the phone. [...]

The cellphone routine was not Mr. Giuliani’s sole icky moment last week.

While rattling the cup in London, he told reporters that he was “probably one of the four or five best-known Americans in the world.” Oh? And who, someone asked, also makes that rarefied list? “Bill Clinton, Hillary,” he replied before aides hustled him away.

Offhand, we can think of any number of Americans who might be more famous worldwide. President Bush, anyone? How about Muhammad Ali, Madonna, Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey?

The real revelation was Mr. Giuliani’s sense of his own importance. It was on display again in his N.R.A. speech. Freshly returned from London, he told the audience, “It’s nice to be here in England.” Then, seeing an American flag, he said, “Ah, America.”

He meant it as a joke about the mental scrambling that the rigors of campaigning can cause. But the underlying assumption was that people were so focused on him that they knew his travel schedule by heart. Many in the audience didn’t get it.

They found it weird, just as some New Yorkers did when Mr. Giuliani used to begin speeches with raspy imitations of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone — as if everyone knew “The Godfather” as well as he did. Often enough, people wondered if he had a sore throat.

The weirdness factor has a long history.

It kicked in hard several times with the mayor’s cross-dressing skits, including one time when he squealed in delight as Donald Trump nuzzled his fake breasts. It turned up in 1999 when he joked to a black audience, of all groups, about the hard time he had getting a New York taxi to stop for him.

It emerged when he told reporters that he was leaving his wife — his second wife — before he bothered to tell her. It resurfaced a few months ago when wife No. 3 allowed that this was her third marriage and not her second, as she had let everyone believe for years.

Other incidents could be cited, up to and including the eeeww-inducing cellphone schmooze at the lectern.

The Mayor's brief front-runner status was completely dependent on no one knowing anything about him but what they saw on 9-11.

---

AN INCONVENIENT MAN (via Gene Brown):

Run, Al, Run: If Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize, will he run for president? (Christopher Hitchens, Sept. 24, 2007, Slate)

[I]f I am right, the former vice president will then complete a year in which An Inconvenient Truth has been awarded an Oscar and he has authored a best seller. Roll it round your tongue again: an Oscar, a best seller, and a Nobel Prize in the space of 12 months or so. Not bad. And meanwhile, the field of Democratic candidates looks—how shall one put it?—a trifle etiolated. Sen. Clinton may have succeeded in getting people to call her "Hillary" and to have made them feel resigned to her front-runnership, but what kind of achievement is that? Sen. Obama cannot possibly believe, and doesn't even act as if he believes, that he can be elected president of the United States next year. John Edwards is a good man who is in politics for good reasons, but there is something about his populism that doesn't quite—what's the word?—translate.

Apart from the awards, not only could Gore claim that he had been a fairly effective senator and a reasonably competent vice president, he could also present himself in zeitgeist terms as the candidate who was on the right side of the two great overarching questions: the climate crisis and the war in Mesopotamia. Should I add that, whether or not he really won the Electoral College in 2000, he did manage to collect the majority of the popular vote? Several people, some of them well-informed, have been saying to me that Gore will wait until the Nobel committee's announcement before he makes up his mind. Should he make up his mind to run, he could alter the entire equation.

Should he make up his mind not to run, he would retrospectively abolish all the credit he has acquired so far. It would mean in effect that he never had the stuff to do the job and that those who worked and voted for him were wasting their time. Given his age and his stature, can he really want that to be the conclusion that history draws?

I am only guessing here, but I think that when Gore wakes up early and upset, he isn't whimpering about the time that the Supreme Court finally ruled against him in 2000. He is whimpering about the time in 1992 when he left the field open to Bill Clinton, a man he secretly despised. Can he really stand to watch yet another Clinton walk away with a nomination that could have been, or could still be, his? To move, then, from a consideration of elevated politics to a reflection upon the baser motives, we have to ask if Gore can possibly be content to be a "citizen" when he could still be a contender.

And if we accept him at face value and believe that he's personally affronted by the influence of special interests and the lack of concern for the environment displayed by both parties, doesn't he have to run as a Green or Independent?

---

THE LIBERATING MISSION:

President Bush Addresses The United Nations General Assembly (George W. Bush, The United Nations Headquarters, New York, New York, 9/25/07)

Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the opportunity to address the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Sixty years ago, representatives from 16 nations gathered to begin deliberations on a new international bill of rights. The document they produced is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- and it stands as a landmark achievement in the history of human liberty. It opens by recognizing "the inherent dignity" and the "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" as "the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." And as we gather for this 62nd General Assembly, the standards of the Declaration must guide our work in this world.

Achieving the promise of the Declaration requires confronting long-term threats; it also requires answering the immediate needs of today. The nations in this chamber have our differences, yet there are some areas where we can all agree. When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the Declaration is not being upheld. When millions of children starve to death or perish from a mosquito bite, we're not doing our duty in the world. When whole societies are cut off from the prosperity of the global economy, we're all worse off. Changing these underlying conditions is what the Declaration calls the work of "larger freedom" -- and it must be the work of every nation in this assembly.

This great institution must work for great purposes -- to free people from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair. Every member of the United Nations must join in this mission of liberation.

First, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from tyranny and violence. The first article of the Universal Declaration begins, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." The truth is denied by terrorists and extremists who kill the innocent with the aim of imposing their hateful vision on humanity. The followers of this violent ideology are a threat to civilized people everywhere. All civilized nations must work together to stop them -- by sharing intelligence about their networks, and choking their -- off their finances, and bringing to justice their operatives.

In the long run, the best way to defeat extremists is to defeat their dark ideology with a more hopeful vision -- the vision of liberty that founded this body. The United States salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty -- including Ukraine and Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and Mauritania and Liberia, Sierra Leone and Morocco. The Palestinian Territories have moderate leaders, mainstream leaders that are working to build free institutions that fight terror, and enforce the law, and respond to the needs of their people. The international community must support these leaders, so that we can advance the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security.

Brave citizens in Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have made the choice for democracy -- yet the extremists have responded by targeting them for murder. This is not a show of strength -- it is evidence of fear. And the extremists are doing everything in their power to bring down these young democracies. The people of Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have asked for our help. And every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them.

Every civilized nation also has a responsibility to stand up for the people suffering under dictatorship. In Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear. Basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship are severely restricted. Ethnic minorities are persecuted. Forced child labor, human trafficking, and rape are common. The regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners -- including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party was elected overwhelmingly by the Burmese people in 1990.

The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people's desire for freedom is unmistakable. This morning, I'm announcing a series of steps to help bring peaceful change to Burma. The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members. We'll continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma. And I urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom.

In Cuba, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end. The Cuban people are ready for their freedom. And as that nation enters a period of transition, the United Nations must insist on free speech, free assembly, and ultimately, free and competitive elections.

In Zimbabwe, ordinary citizens suffer under a tyrannical regime. The government has cracked down on peaceful calls for reform, and forced millions to flee their homeland. The behavior of the Mugabe regime is an assault on its people -- and an affront to the principles of the Universal Declaration. The United Nations must insist on change in Harare -- and must insist for the freedom of the people of Zimbabwe.

In Sudan, innocent civilians are suffering repression -- and in the Darfur region, many are losing their lives to genocide. America has responded with tough sanctions against those responsible for the violence. We've provided more than $2 billion in humanitarian and peacekeeping aid. I look forward to attending a Security Council meeting that will focus on Darfur, chaired by the French President. I appreciate France's leadership in helping to stabilize Sudan's neighbors. And the United Nations must answer this challenge to conscience, and live up to its promise to promptly deploy peacekeeping forces to Darfur.

Second, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from hunger and disease. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food and clothing and housing and medical care." Around the world, the United Nations is carrying out noble efforts to live up to these words.

Feeding the hungry has long been a special calling for my nation. Today, more than half the world's food assistance comes from America. We send emergency food stocks to starving people from camps in Sudan to slums in -- around the world. I've proposed an innovative initiative to alleviate hunger under which America would purchase the crops of local farmers in Africa and elsewhere, rather than shipping in food from the developed world. This would help build up local agriculture and break the cycle of famine in the developing world -- and I urge our United States Congress to support this initiative.

Many in this hall are bringing the spirit of generosity to fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria. Five years ago, in Sub-Saharan Africa, an AIDS diagnosis was widely considered a death sentence, and fewer than 50,000 people infected with the virus were receiving treatment. The world responded by creating the Global Fund, which is working with governments and the private sector to fight the disease around the world. The United States decided to take these steps a little further by launching the $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Since 2003, this effort has helped bring cutting-edge medicines to more than a million people in sub-Sahara Africa. It's a good start. So earlier this year, I proposed to double our initial commitment to $30 billion. By coming together, the world can turn the tide against HIV/AIDS -- once and for all.

Malaria is another common killer. In some countries, malaria takes as many lives as HIV/AIDS -- the vast majority of them children under the age of five years old. Every one of these deaths is unnecessary, because the disease is preventable and treatable. The world knows what it takes to stop malaria -- bed nets and indoor spraying and medicine to treat the disease. Two years ago, America launched a $1.2 billion malaria initiative. Other nations and the private sector are making vital contributions, as well. I call on every member state to maintain its focus, find new ways to join this cause, and bring us closer to the day when malaria deaths are no more.

Third, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from the chains of illiteracy and ignorance. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration states: "Everyone has the right to education." And when nations make the investments needed to educate their people, the whole world benefits. Better education unleashes the talent and potential of its citizens, and adds to the prosperity of all of us. Better education promotes better health and greater independence. Better education increases the strength of democracy, and weakens the appeal of violent ideologies. So the United States is joining with nations around the world to help them provide a better education for their people.

A good education starts with good teachers. In partnership with other nations, America has helped train more than 600,000 teachers and administrators. A good education requires good textbooks. So in partnership with other nations, America has distributed tens of millions of textbooks. A good education requires access to good schools. So in partnership with other nations, America is helping nations raise standards in their schools at home, and providing scholarships to help students come to schools in the United States. In all our education efforts, our nation is working to expand access for women and girls, so that the opportunity to get a decent education is open to all.

Finally, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from poverty and despair. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration states: "Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, [and] to just and favorable conditions of work." In the 21st century, this requires ensuring that people in poor countries have the same opportunity to benefit from the global economy that citizens of wealthy countries have.

The United Nations provides vital economic assistance designed to help developing nations grow their economies and reach their potential. The United States agrees with that position; we've dramatically increased our own development assistance -- and we're delivering that aid in innovative ways. We started the Millennium Challenge Account to reward nations that govern justly, fight corruption, invest in their people, and promote economic freedom. With this aid, we're reaching out to developing nations in partnership, not paternalism. And we're ensuring that our aid dollars reach those who need them -- and achieve results.

In the long run, the best way to lift people out of poverty is through trade and investment. A nation that is open and trading with the world will create economic rewards that far exceed anything they could get through foreign aid. During the 1990s, developing nations that significantly lowered tariffs saw their per capita income grow about three times faster than other developing countries. Open markets ignite growth, encourage investment, increase transparency, strengthen the rule of law, and help countries help themselves.

The international community now has an historic chance to open markets around the world by concluding a successful Doha Round of trade talks. A successful Doha outcome would mean real and substantial openings in agriculture, goods, and services -- and real and substantial reductions in trade-distorting subsidies. The world's largest trading nations, including major developing countries, have a special responsibility to make the tough political decisions to reduce trade barriers. America has the will and flexibility to make those necessary decisions. Our negotiators are demonstrating that spirit in Geneva. I urge other leaders to direct their negotiators to do the same. And I'm optimistic that we can reach a good Doha agreement -- and seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

In the meantime, America will continue to pursue agreements that open trade and investment wherever we can. We recently signed free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. These agreements embody the values of open markets -- transparent and fair regulation, respect for private property, and resolving disputes under international law rules. These are good agreements, and they're now ready for a congressional vote, and I urge the Congress to approve them as soon as possible.

As America works with the United Nations to alleviate immediate needs, we're also coming together to address longer-term challenges. Together, we're preparing for pandemics that could cause death and suffering on a global scale. Together, we're working to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Together, we're confronting the challenges of energy security, and environmental quality, and climate change. I appreciate the discussions on climate change led by the Secretary General last night. I look forward to further discussions at the meeting of major economies in Washington later this week.

The goals I've outlined today cannot be achieved overnight -- and they cannot be achieved without reform in this vital institution. The United States is committed to a strong and vibrant United Nations. Yet the American people are disappointed by the failures of the Human Rights Council. This body has been silent on repression by regimes from Havana to Caracas to Pyongyang and Tehran -- while focusing its criticism excessively on Israel. To be credible on human rights in the world, the United Nations must reform its own Human Rights Council.

Some have also called for reform to the structure of the Security Council, including an expansion of its membership. The United States is open to this prospect. We believe that Japan is well-qualified for permanent membership on the Security Council, and that other nations should be considered, as well. The United States will listen to all good ideas, and we will support changes to the Security Council as part of broader U.N. reform. And in all we do, I call on member states to work for an institution that adheres to strict ethical standards, and lives up to the high principles of the Universal Declaration.

With the commitment and courage of this chamber, we can build a world where people are free to speak, assemble, and worship as they wish; a world where children in every nation grow up healthy, get a decent education, and look to the future with hope; a world where opportunity crosses every border. America will lead toward this vision where all are created equal, and free to pursue their dreams. This is the founding conviction of my country. It is the promise that established this body. And with our determination, it can be the future of our world.

Thank you, and God bless.

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COME BACK, HATCHET MAN, ALL IS FORGIVEN:

Pelosi faults GOP in Iraq war: Says efforts to chart new course were blocked (Scott Helman, September 25, 2007, Boston Globe)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed frustration yesterday at the public perception that Democrats in Congress had failed to end the war in Iraq, saying the blame lies with congressional Republicans who have blocked all efforts to chart a new course. [...]

"We have to make it very clear to the American people that it was George Bush's war [but] it is now the Republicans in Congress's war," she said.

The idea that the Reformation of the Middle East is fundamentally a project of George W. Bush and the faith-based Party seems fairly unobjectionable, though it requires a rather sketchy understanding of republican government to think of these as Republican wars rather than American wars. At any rate, does anyone expect the media and the Left to respond to her comments with the same fury they directed at Bob Dole when he referred to the "Democrat wars" of the Twentieth century?

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IS THEIR LOGO A PHOTO OF DAVID BRODER?:

Slacker Finds His Calling, and It’s a Devil of a Job (ALESSANDRA STANLEY, 9/25/07, NY Times)

When Sam Oliver dropped out of college after one month, his parents were supportive. “We’re very proud of him for trying,” his mother says on the first episode of “Reaper,” on the CW network tonight. “It’s just that college made him sleepy.”

Sam (Bret Harrison) lives with his parents and works at a Home Depot-like megastore called the Work Bench. He has few prospects and even less ambition, which suits his best friend and fellow loser, Sock Wysocki (Tyler Labine), just fine. The universe has plans for Sam, however, and those include sending evildoers to perdition.

It turns out that the Devil makes him do it.

“Reaper” is a hybrid of the movie “Clerks” and NBC’s hit series “Heroes,” and, like “Chuck” on NBC, it defies all the cautionary rules against crossbreeding. Comedy is hard to sustain in an hourlong episode, but “Reaper” mixes supernatural derring-do with deadpan slacker humor. It works, in large part thanks to Mr. Labine, who steals every scene he is in as a Seth Rogen-like sidekick.

Has anyone ever even heard of something called the CW network?

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NO HAIR, SO NOT HEIR:

Indiana gets OK for novel health plan (Daniel C. Vock, 9/26/07, Stateline.org)

In a novel plan, low-income adults in Indiana who can’t afford health insurance will be able to tap into as much as $300,000 in coverage by contributing to health savings accounts.

The plan, which won federal approval last week, will make Indiana the 13th state to cover childless adults under Medicaid, a federal-state program created in 1965 primarily to cover families and the elderly, blind and disabled. Even more unique is the plan’s requirement that poor applicants pay into a health savings account before getting access to taxpayer-funded medical care. [...]

Advocates for the poor are critical of Indiana’s attempt to use health savings accounts to put Medicaid patients in control of their own medical spending.

Because Welfare should make the poor dependents of the State, not give them control of their lives.

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NOTHING COSTS MORE THAN IT USED TO:

10 Brilliant Complete Movies Online (List Universe)

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EXCEPT THAT TIBET IS AN EXTERNAL MATTER:

Beijing Furious with Berlin over Dalai Lama Visit (Andreas Lorenz, 9/25/07, Der Spiegel)

Relations between China and Germany are the worst they have been in years after Chancellor Angela Merkel received the Dalai Lama in the chancellery last Sunday.

The visit "grossly interferes with the internal affairs of China," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu announced during a routine press conference in Beijing on Monday.

An ideal moment for other leaders from the Axis of Good to meet with the Dalai Lama as well and for him to call upon Tibetan monks to imitate Burmese.

MORE:
Myanmar: Time for Urgent Action (Crisis Group, 25 September 2007)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should hold urgent talks with the foreign ministers of China, India and Singapore, the current ASEAN chair, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and lead a joint attempt to encourage peaceful dialogue in Myanmar/Burma. China, India, and ASEAN should back Ban Ki-moon’s call on the authorities in Myanmar to exercise restraint in the face of growing peaceful protests and put their full weight behind UN efforts to find a solution to the country’s political crisis.

“The regime has a long history of violent reactions to peaceful demonstrations,” said Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group. “If serious loss of life is to be averted, those UN members with influence over the government are going to have to come together fast.”

Only China, India, and, to a lesser degree, ASEAN have any influence on the military regime.

Bet the capacity of our military to strike at their military with impunity would have some influence? That is, if you're serious about it being "urgent"?
Brown calls for immediate action on Burma (Deborah Summers and Hélène Mulholland, September 25, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Gordon Brown today called for "immediate international action" to stave off a threatened military crackdown on protesters in Burma.

The prime minister called on the ruling junta in Rangoon to "exercise restraint" in its response to demonstrations which have brought tens of thousands of monks on to the streets, demanding democracy.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, also told delegates at the Labour party conference in Bournemouth that countries like Burma should play by "global rules".

Our rules.

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AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN:

The light's on, but is anybody home?: An extraordinary brain study concludes that a woman in a vegetative state is aware of herself. It's a dangerous claim that could throw families and physicians into turmoil. (Robert Burton, Sept. 25, 2007, Salon)

In a recent article in the Archives of Neurology, a team of British and Belgian neuroscientists describe a clinically unconscious accident victim who can, on command, imagine herself playing tennis and walking around her house. By showing that her functional brain imaging studies (fMRI) are indistinguishable from those of healthy volunteers performing the same mental tasks, the researchers claim that the young woman's fMRI "confirmed beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of herself and her surroundings, and was willfully following instructions given to her, despite her diagnosis of a vegetative state."

Their extraordinary conclusions are beyond provocative; they raise profound questions about the very notion of consciousness. What's more, they could throw thousands of families and doctors into utter turmoil. As with the Terri Schiavo controversy, patient advocacy groups, self-serving lawyers and politicians with personal agendas could use the study's stamp of certainty as a given.

Which takes into consideration everyone but the proposed victim.

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LABOR HAS NO VALUE:

Outsourcing Works, So India Is Exporting Jobs (ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, 9/25/07, NY Times)

India is outsourcing outsourcing.

One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks — and jobs — to India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India’s success as a back office — including China, Morocco and Mexico — are challenging that model.

Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is “to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world.”

To fight on the shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals, Indian companies are hiring workers and opening offices in developing countries themselves, before their clients do.

One of the great delusions of those who think China has a future is that it can retain the easy jobs we hired them to do cheap.

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INCREASINGLY SPHERICAL THOUGH THE COMMIES ARE HYSTERICAL:

India in pact with US to upgrade public transport (Express News Service, September 25, 2007)

In a bid to boost the urban transport infrastructure, the Government on Monday signed an agreement with the United States for sharing latest knowhow and systems on public transport. This comes in the wake of Urban Development Ministry putting the urban transport policy as a key element in the building of urban infrastructure.

The new memorandum of cooperation with the US will span the fields of public transport, inter-modal transportation, safety in transport, transport for persons with disabilities, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Traffic Information Centre, capacity building and training in public transportation and other fields of mutual interest.

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TAKE FIFTY...PLUS:

Dave Brubeck keeps the flame alive: Performing At Age 86 (Adam Tanner, 9/25/07, Reuters)

With his 1950s preppy appearance of khaki pants, jacket and tie and horn-rimmed glasses, Brubeck has long served as a jazz ambassador, popularizing concerts on college campuses but also playing black clubs in the then-segregated South.

Brubeck's huge popularity opened doors to befriend Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and meet world figures like Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. He attended one of the more unlikely White House dinners when Richard Nixon hosted Duke Ellington on his 70th birthday in 1969.

"That was one of the few times I admired Nixon," he said. "But he didn't like my playing."

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THE BIG LIMIT:

OT Israel: Constitutional Monarchy? (Jordan J. Ballor , September 21. 2007, Acton: PowerBlog)

[How should we] characterize the rule of the kings in Old Testament Israel. Clearly it’s a monarchy, but what sort?

We see the protection of private property, and a king who is subject to the rule of law and is specifically held accountable to Torah, when necessary by its public expositors the prophets. Calvin noted the intimate relationship between the prophets and Torah. Speaking about understanding the prophetic books, he writes, “the shortest way of treating this subject is to trace the Prophets to the Law, from which they derived their doctrine, like streams from a fountain; for they placed it before them as their rule, so that they may be justly held and declared to be its interpreters, who utter nothing but what is connected with the Law.”

While the prophets lacked the direct relationship with the executive power such that they could enforce Torah adherence, they certainly represented the divine perspective on Torah violation and its consequences (no doubt they were strict constructionists). In that sense they functioned as a sort of judicial check on the monarch’s power, similar to the way our Supreme Court is supposed to function.

If we view Torah as a sort of constitution, then in OT Israel we have an ancient kind of constitutional, and therefore limited, monarchy.

Separation extremists/secularists fail to recognize that America is likewise derived from the same sort of holy constitution that precedes the U.S. Constitution:

Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

John Adams: "You have Rights antecedent to all Earthly Governments; Rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by Human Laws; Right derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."

Thomas Jefferson: "The God that gave us Life, gave us Liberty at the same time; the hand of Force may Destroy, but it cannot Disjoin them."

This Foundation is important not just to our understanding of our own government, but in its universality to what sort of regimes we can tolerate abroad. We accept the possibility that various forms may vindicate men's God-given rights and provide them with liberty, but any form which fails to do so and/or is non-consensual is, by definition, illegitimate.

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GAS IS THE NEW BREAD:

Over 1,00,000 protest against ruling generals on Myanmar streets (Agence France Presse, September 25, 2007)

More than 1,00,000 people flooded the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city on Monday, joining Buddhist monks in the strongest show of dissent against the ruling generals in nearly two decades.

In swelling tides of humanity, two major marches snaked their way through the nation’s commercial capital led by robed monks chanting prayers of peace and compassion, witnesses said.

Some of the people marched under a banner reading: “This is a peaceful mass movement.” Others had tears in their eyes. The generals have normally been tough on dissent, and their 1988 crackdown left hundreds dead. But Monday’s rally was the latest in more than a month of growing demonstrations against the junta since a massive fuel price hike triggered public anger.

Which has to scare the bejeebies out of Ahmedinejad.

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GETTING FROM ANCIENT TO AT LEAST MEDIEVAL:

Will Quran limit growth of Muslim nations? (Samuel Gregg, 9/25/07, Detroit News)

Christianity once had a usury issue. Christianity began resolving this matter in the medieval period.

Scholastic theologians established that, under certain conditions (such as free exchange economies), money was not simply a means of exchange, but also "capital": that is, a productive good whose owners could legitimately charge others for its use.

Not all interest-charging, the scholastics concluded, constituted usury. [...]

A graver question is whether Islam's money problem is symptomatic of what some regard as Islam's apparent inability to generate the foundations any free society requires.

The West's resolution of its usury question showed that it could settle conflicts about an economic issue in ways consistent with its dominant moral traditions -- a process that gave rise to new conceptual possibilities for economic creativity. Likewise, medieval debates about the state's powers provided important intellectual foundations for concepts of rule of law and constitutionally limited government.

The importance of the moral tradition was evident in the fact that usury laws were retained, with usury understood as not just charging interest whatsoever but charging an unjust rate.

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ONLY GUYS WITH SMALL HAT SIZES...:

Men more intelligent and more stupid than women: study (Press Trust Of India, September 25, 2007)

[T]he study carried out by scientists in the United Kingdom has revealed that men are actually more intelligent than the fairer sex but they are more stupid as well, the Daily Mail reported on Monday. [...]

The researchers came to the conclusion after measuring the intelligence of over 2,500 brothers and sisters by testing them on science, maths, English and mechanical abilities — they found a disproportionate number of men in both the top two per cent and the bottom two per cent.

According to the findings, there were twice as many men as women in the smartest group. But there were also twice as many men among the dunces.

...will be bothered by the notion that dumb guys are even dumber than women.

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THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS:

If It’s Hip, Fast and Furious, Is It Cricket? (SOMINI SENGUPTA, 9/25/07, NY Times)

Its members played fast and furious. They danced victoriously on the cricket pitch. At news conferences, they spoke Hinglish, a mongrel of Hindi and English that has become the lingua franca of the young small-town Indian.

The captain, a long-haired 26-year-old wicketkeeper named Mahendra Singh Dhoni, boldly told his teammates to shake off the burden of history, and they did.

Fans and pundits seized on the team’s success in the first tournament of Twenty20, a radically compressed new cricket format, to celebrate the ascendance of a brash and confident new generation, rising from far-flung small-town India, free of pedigree and custom.

“The young and the restless,” is how Rajdeep Sardesai, the son of a professional cricketer and editor in chief of CNN-IBN, a news channel, described the new face of Indian cricket. One of its gifts to the nation, he and other cricket watchers say, is to present, for the first time, a powerfully athletic presence on the pitch. Athleticism has never been associated with Indian cricket, nor with Indians in general, and that has been a chip on the shoulder of Indian manhood.

Indian cricket’s new face — and physique — emerged in the inaugural world tournament of Twenty20, which ended Monday in Johannesburg.

Where gentleman players once distinguished themselves in white trousers and knit vests, Twenty20 was accompanied by cheerleaders wearing what resembled sports bras. Restraint was out. Music was in. The games, 27 in all, involving 12 countries, each took about three hours, in sharp contrast to the customary five-day test match.

Think of Twenty20 as cricket on Red Bull. Or as the historian Mukul Kesavan put it, “kamikaze cricket.”

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SMELLING BLOOD:

Bush to impose new sanctions on Myanmar (BEN FELLER, 9/24/07, Associated Press)

President Bush on Tuesday will announce additional sanctions against the military dictatorship in Myanmar to support the push for democracy in that Asian country, the White House said Monday.

Bush, in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, will announce financial sanctions against key members of the regime and those who provide them financial aid, said Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser.

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CHANNELING W:

A restless Sarkozy vows to lead Europe into a new era (Elaine Sciolino and Alison Smale, September 23, 2007, NY Times)

He stumbled twice on the word "multilateralism," laughing at himself the second time and turning to his national security adviser, Jean-David Levitte, to finish the word for him.

Just another term facing extinction...

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OBLIGATORY NAZI REFERENCE:

Why Does Everyone Bow Down to the Health Insurance Industry? (Barbara Ehrenreich, September 24, 2007, AlterNet)

Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront -- the American private health insurance industry.

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PINK POWER:

Record numbers join Burmese protests (Ian MacKinnon, September 24, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

As many as 100,000 demonstrators protesting against the Burmese military regime took to the streets of Rangoon today in the biggest show of dissent in almost two decades.

Tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and pink-robed nuns led the marchers, who snaked for several kilometres through the former capital, slowing traffic to a crawl and prompting the closures of shops and schools.

The monks carried flags and banners proclaiming the peaceful nature of the demonstration. Flanking them were even greater numbers of people clapping and chanting, in what many described as a carnival atmosphere.

The mood of elation in the ranks, which swelled to unprecedented numbers on the sixth straight day of marches sparked by fuel price rises, reflected surprise that the generals have shown restraint and not crushed the anti-government movement.

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WE THOUGHT ONLY AMERICANS CALLED IT THAT:

Gay football World Cup kicks off (Daniel Schweimler, 9/24/07, BBC News)

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SONGS OF ZION:

Desert Storm: Understanding the capricious God of the Psalms: a review of The Book of Psalms translated by Robert Alter (James Wood October 1, 2007, The New Yorker)

Alter’s translation is especially helpful in these cases, because he is determined to remind his readers that they are reading ancient texts with hybrid origins, not Christian prayers with dedicated destinations. The Psalms (like the Book of Job) were relentlessly Christianized by the King James translators. Nefesh, meaning “life breath” and, by extension, “life,” was translated by Jerome in the Latin Vulgate as anima and then as “soul” in the K.J.V., even though, as Alter points out, soul “strongly suggests a body-soul split—with implications of an afterlife—that is alien to the Hebrew Bible and to Psalms in particular.” The ancient Hebrew word for the shadowy underworld where the dead go, Sheol, was Christianized as “Hell,” even though there is no such concept in the Hebrew Bible. Alter prefers the words “victory” and “rescue” as translations of yeshu‘ah, and eschews the Christian version, which is the heavily loaded “salvation.” And so on. Stripping his English of these artificial cleansers, Alter takes us back to the essence of the meaning. Suddenly, in a world without Heaven, Hell, the soul, and eternal salvation or redemption, the theological stakes seem more local and temporal: “So teach us to number our days.” Psalm 23, again, is greatly refreshed by translation. Everything is clearer, seeming to have been rinsed not in the baptismal water of the New Testament but in the life-giving water of the desert. Verse 3 of the K.J.V. has “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” Alter offers “my life He brings back. / He leads me on pathways of justice / for His name’s sake.” God saves not our souls but our lives, in Alter’s version. And instead of God anointing our heads with oil, as in the K.J.V., in Alter’s English “You moisten my head with oil.” A footnote points out that the Hebrew verb is not one used for anointment, “and its associations are sensual rather than sacramental.” By its end, the psalm is no longer an extended Christian analogy (Christ as the Good Shepherd, anointing his flock) but the giving of thanks by a vulnerable tribe to a deity for its protection. The K.J.V. has the last half line of the psalm as “and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” Alter slaps a term limit on the eternal, and suggests “And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD / for many long days.” Again, a footnote anchors the decision: “The viewpoint of the poem is in and of the here and now and is in no way eschatological. The speaker hopes for a happy fate all his born days.”

But Alter is musically and poetically sensitive, too, and when the King James translators get something right he lets it be. Psalm 137, my favorite in the book, was written during or after the Babylonian exile of the sixth century B.C.E., when Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians and the Judeans deported. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion,” as the K.J.V. has it. The psalmist goes on to say that their captors taunted them: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” But the exiles had hung their harps on trees rather than “sing the LORD’s song in a strange land.” It is an exceptionally beautiful and complex lament, in which the poet pledges never to forget Jerusalem (“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning”) even as he claims to find it impossible to sing of Jerusalem while in exile. And, in a further twist, the psalm itself represents just such a song of Jerusalem, a remembrance. These paradoxes combine in an electrifying moment in verse 7, when the poet reminds his readers of the awful day when the Babylonians, the enemies of the Jews, razed Jerusalem to the ground:

Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

A few months ago, I was reading this psalm, in the King James Version, and wondering about the powerful repetition of “Rase it, rase it,” and as I said the words out loud I was struck by the genius of the Jacobean translators, who knew, working in the age of Shakespeare, a thing or two about puns and double meanings. “Raze it, raze it” is also, in English, “Raise it, raise it.” It is inconceivable that the seventeenth-century translators did not intuit this doubleness, which is what the poem is about, anyway: even as we remind ourselves that Jerusalem was razed, we are raising it up. Even as we refuse to sing a song of Zion, we are singing a song of Zion. Even as we stay silent, we are making music. There is a splendid anthem by William Byrd, written in the fifteen-eighties, which sets to music a Latin text, later translated into English: “Bow thine ear, O Lord, and hear us: let thine anger cease from us. Sion is wasted and brought low, Jerusalem desolate and void.” The anthem proceeds by repeating a downward series of five notes, and this series creates a falling, dirgelike effect, as it is taken up by all five parts. (The five notes are attached to the words “Bow thine ear, O Lord.”) But when the music reaches the word “Jerusalem” the soprano part lunges upward, an interval of a perfect fifth between “Je” and “rusalem.” The anthem goes down and up at the same time, exactly as the psalm both laments the loss of Jerusalem and finds Jerusalem impossible to lose.

The translator of the Anchor Bible edition of the Psalms exchanges “Rase it, rase it” for the simpler, more brutal “Strip her, strip her,” but Alter, without explaining why, retains “Raze it, raze it, / to its foundation.” I can’t be sure, but I have an idea that this fine literary scholar, with one ear perfectly cocked for English poetry and the other for Hebrew poetry, instinctively understood the verbal power of “Raze it, raze it.”

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NO ONE SPEAKS CRO-MAGNON ANYMORE EITHER:

National extinction and natural law (Spengler, 9/25/07, Asia Times)

National Geographic made headlines last week out of my favorite object lesson in human frailty, namely the extinction of half the world's languages by the end of the century (some other estimates are even more alarming). But it is not just the Nivkh of the Siberian tundra or the Kapayo of the Amazon rain forest who will disappear. At present fertility rates so will the Russians, Japanese, Germans and Italians, not to mention the Persians.

The death of a culture is an uncanny event, for it erases not only the future but also the past, that is, the hopes and fears, the sweat and sacrifice of countless generations whose lives no longer can be remembered, for no living being will sing their songs or tell their stories.

When nations go willingly into that dark night, what should we conclude about human nature? Unlike extinctions of the past, today's cultures are dying of their own apathy rather than by the swords of their enemies. People of dying cultures kill themselves at a frightful rate, as in the case of Brazil's Guarani Indians, who after their displacement from traditional life have the world's highest suicide rate. I long have argued, for that matter, that the Arab suicide bomber is the spiritual cousin of the despondent aboriginal of the Amazon rain forest (Live and let die, Asia Times Online, April 13, 2002).

What was most interesting about the hysteria over dying languages last week was how unDarwinian it was. After all, these peoples aren't going to stop speaking altogether or disappear entirely from the Earth--their inferior languages are simply being replaced by our superior one, just as the process of globalization (The End of History) has seen their inferior cultures replaced by ours. Just as we made the Germans, French, Russians, Italians, Persians, etc. into liberal protestant capitalist democrats, so too are they being made English-Speaking. What could be more Natural?

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BIG UPS:

Nerds After Our Hearts, and Maybe Even Our Respect (ALESSANDRA STANLEY, 9/24/07, NY Times)

“Chuck,” a very funny new comedy on NBC tonight about a computer salesman inadvertently turned secret agent, could not have happened without Bill Gates and Sergey Brin. Or Steve Wozniak, Konrad Zuse, Alan Turing and any of those other smart, spindly men in glasses and short-sleeve shirts who developed the first computers and made it possible for brainy nerds to become billionaire tycoons. [...]

Chuck (Zachary Levi) leads “the nerd herd,” a team of computer technicians who work for a discount megastore called Buy More and make house calls in a red-and-white nerd-herd mobile. He’s not unattractive; he’s certainly less repulsive than his short, hairy and unctuous best friend, Morgan (Joshua Gomez). But Chuck hasn’t had a girlfriend since his college love dumped him for his handsome, athletic roommate. He spends his free time moping and playing computer games.

By the end of the first episode Chuck has stumbled on the most top secret of secrets in the national intelligence community, gone on a date with a gorgeous blond spy and defused a bomb by sending it a computer virus attached to the Web site of a Serbian porn star.

The series is part spy spoof, part workplace comedy, and it is a genuinely engaging homage to the nerd hero.

It is funny, though completely dependent on Chuck's goofy likability and his comic interplay with Morgan in particular. It's a series you can easily see running out of steam after a handful of episodes and it seems to have been named by an executive who doesn't want it to last that long.

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LAST YEAR'S LEAVES:

Tall, majestic, hardy – the British beechis the king of the forest, argues our leading naturalist (Richard Mabey, Rob Sharp, 24 September 2007, Independent)

The most striking piece of trivia about the Queen beech, a gnarled, knotted old tree in an ancient Hertfordshire woodland, is that it was once a character in a Harry Potter film. The landmark at Frithsden Beeches, just outside London, took a turn as the sometimes violent Whomping Willow in The Prisoner of Azkaban. You can see why the film-makers were struck by it: it looks good for a 350-year-old. Regal limbs creep out from its centre; it has the grandeur of a seen-it-all veteran that has lived since before the Great Fire of London, and taken in plenty more besides.

If one could pick the ideal companion with which to encounter this majestic and spooky scene, it would surely be Richard Mabey. Softly-spoken, intense and erudite, he is one of the "wild bunch" of lyrical writers currently riding a wave of interest in man's relationship with the landscape. His drinking buddies include Crow Country scribe Mark Cocker and Cambridge University don Robert Macfarlane, author of the recent hit The Wild Places. Among his peers, Mabey's name is uttered with a hushed reverence. In the world of the green-fingered literary gurus, he is king.

The beech is Mabey's favourite tree. He spent much of his childhood playing in the beech woods of the Chilterns, and once owned a beech wood himself. He admires the tree's amazing ability to respond to catastrophe. Today, beech woods criss-cross southern England, from Burnham Beeches to the New Forest and the Chilterns.

Unlike the high-profile oak, Mabey calls beeches the "workhorses of the forest". They provide firewood and furniture, and epitomise nature's capacity to respond to change. They also play host to many organisms, from hawks in their branches to toadstools on the ground. The Wild Wood in The Wind in the Willows is, inevitably, a beech wood.

All this is chronicled in Mabey's eagerly-awaited new book, Beechcombings, the Narratives of Trees. Released next month, it describes the beech's characteristics, habitat and mythology, and explores what we, as humans, can learn from the world of trees.

Most people, of course, take beeches for granted. They are viewed as biological barriers to motorway construction. But throughout history, natural selection has provided them with a long-standing ability to adapt to day-to-day environments (an adaptability that makes humans look like sallow, spluttering wrecks in comparison).

Yet, while the whomping capability of trees is imaginary, the chainsaw is a reality.

MORE:
Beechcombings: The Narratives of Trees: 'I see the tree through a mist, astonished I could be so moved' (Richard Mabey, 24 September 2007, Independent)

Back in Burnham, I'm looking at a spectacularly tilted beech, a high-wire balancing act. It's sloping away from me at an almost impossible angle, about 40 degrees to the vertical – as far as it could go, I'd say, without collapsing under its own weight. Hard to guess how it got into this position. First tilted in a gale maybe, then slowly sinking as it tried to grow itself back to uprightness. The whole core of the tree is missing, maybe discarded as useless ballast, so that the trunk is like a trough. The rims of the trough are massive tension-wood muscles, hauling it back. There is a twisting mesh of crooked branches at the top end pulling it the other way, down towards the ground, so the tree has responded with flaring root hawsers and a long single branch, both growing against the direction of the tilt. The trunk has become a lever, perfectly balancing weight with muscular tension.

I try it myself. I lean forward at the same angle as the tree, imagining my feet pinned down by straps, and trying to pick up a huge weight with my hands. It's a ludicrous posture, and I know it would break my back if I tried it for real. Unless I had tension wood up my spine, doing the pulling.

Burnham is full of humanoid trees like this Weightlifters' beech. A League of Health and Beauty tree, doing an elegant midriff twist. A Stilt-walkers' tree. A beech with a wooden Zimmer frame. All of them are exercised, like us, with the business of keeping a rather disorderly mass of tissue upright in a turbulent world. You are beyond anthropomorphism in Burnham, into a place of more mutual metaphors.

But a few of the pollards have picked up names because of another kind of human association. Gray's beech, supposedly the subject of one of the final stanzas of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", went down in the 1930s. The remains of a tree called Jenny Lind, on whose roots the Swedish Nightingale used to perch when she was staying at East Burnham Cottage, is surrounded by a safety fence. Mendelssohn's tree, whose dappled shade is said to have inspired him while he was writing the incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, had its top blown off in the gale of January 1990.

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CHUMP CHANGE:

What Is Iraq Costing You? (Larry Beinhart, September 24, 2007, AlterNet)

The War in Iraq has cost about $453,000,000,000 (four hundred and fifty-three billion dollars) to date.

That's pretty hard to grasp. Especially on my income and probably on yours.

Mr. Beinhart's math must be worse than mine or he'd presumably not be arguing that a total of less than 1/28th of one year's GDP is too high a price to pay for liberating the Iraqis from a genocidal tyrant. Indeed, the war was so inexpensive that it raises questions about how we can justify tolerating other evil regimes--like Burma's, Cuba's, Zimbabwe's, Syria's, etc..

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MITT'S MOVEON MOMENT:

Romney keeps distance from Bush: Unlike other GOP hopefuls, he offers no words of support for the president. It's a risky strategy. (Cathleen Decker, September 24, 2007, Los Angeles Times)

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney stepped further Sunday down a potentially treacherous path -- distancing himself from a Republican president who, though generally unpopular, retains the overwhelming support of most of those who will vote in the party's primaries.

In a nationally broadcast television ad and in comments Sunday at Chapman University in Orange, Romney implicitly suggested that the party had gone off course in the years President Bush had been in office and when Republicans controlled Congress.

When one questioner from the Chapman audience described Bush as "one of the most divisive presidents that we've had in a long, long time," the president got no words of support from Romney.

"In Washington, somehow we seem broken," the former Massachusetts governor said. "Washington is a mess."

In the ad, Romney strikes the same note.

"It's time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans," he says, echoing remarks from recent campaign events. "It's time for a change, and change begins with us."

While Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment was that you should never badmouth another Republican, Mr. Romney's ad--which ran in NH during the Patriot's game yesterday -- sells out the entire Party and the Commander-in Chief.

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SAMPLE BEFORE BUYING:

The AOL Full CD Listening Party is currently making the previously-mentioned disc 100 Days, 100 Nights, by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, available.

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JUST ONE MORE THING THE LITTLE HEAD PEOPLE HADN'T FIGURED OUT:

Head Size and IQ: Is There a Link? (Jennifer Viegas, Sept. 24, 2007, Discovery News)

Big-headed people could be brainier too, according to a new analysis of a 1939 study comparing head size and intelligence in a group of male prisoners.

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IF THERE'S ONE THING WE KNOW ABOUT DEMOCRACY...:

Land of the rising geriatrics: In any other country, 100th birthdays are a cause for celebration. Not so in Japan, where extraordinary life expectancy is creating a timebomb for the nation's health and social security systems. (Jeremy Laurance, 24 September 2007, Independent)

Japan is facing an ageing crisis as its elderly population grows. It is the fastest ageing society in the world and one in five Japanese people is over 65. By 2015, that proportion will have grown to a quarter – 33.8 million people – and it is projected to rise to 40 per cent by 2055. At the same time, the birth rate is falling because of the same social pressures facing western nations – later marriages, more women going to work and the trend for having smaller families. In 1949, Japanese women had an average of 4.32 children in their lifetime but this had halved by 1971. The birth rate has plunged further to 1.26 today, well below the replacement rate. As a result, Japan's population is projected to fall from its current 127 million to 90 million by 2055.

No country in the world has faced a challenge on this scale. As its elderly population grows, medical and pensions costs are surging but the number in the labour force who pay taxes to support the country's welfare system is falling. Thanks to Japan's long economic recession, which began with a stock market crash in 1989, the government debt is already the highest among developed nations. Today, there are three people of working age to support each person 65 but that number will have fallen to 1.2 by 2055.

Ed Wright, the First Secretary for Science and Health at the British Embassy in Tokyo, said: "It's a tough time to be 50 in Japan. People sold themselves to their companies in the 1970s in anticipation of a comfortable retirement. Now they have fears about job security, house prices which are worth a quarter of what they were. The stock market, which peaked at 40,000 points in 1989, now stands at 16,000, having been down to 7,000. They also worry about health insurance."

The ageing juggernaut about to hit Japan is heading down the tracks in all developed countries, and threatens social and economic meltdown on a global scale. That is why the world is watching closely to see how the Japanese cope. The government has responded on three fronts – with a new insurance scheme for the elderly, a strategy to stem the rise of obesity and other lifestyle diseases, and the introduction of hefty patient contributions to curb demand for healthcare. Will it be enough? [...]

The government is struggling to tackle a triple threat from the growing number of elderly, the incursion of western lifestyles and the increasing demands on the health system – with mixed results. In 2000, a long-term care insurance scheme was launched to which everyone over 40 is required to contribute an average of £20 a month. The fund is used to pay for care for the elderly, whose needs are ranked on a scale, either in their own homes or in care homes such as the one occupied by Mrs Matsumara. But the scheme has already run into difficulty as demand has vastly exceeded supply. Hence, the premium has been raised 40 per cent in five years and elderly applicants have been re-classified to a lower dependency level in order to reduce their benefits. The changes have raised doubts about the viability of the scheme and heightened the sense of insecurity about the future.

Dr Testuro Ichida, the head physician at his privately-run Ichida Hospital, said: "Many of us in the field feel the long-term care system is collapsing. There is not enough to pay decent wages to care assistants. We already have four patients over 100 in our hospital, and there will be many more."

In a further effort to restrain costs, the government has announced that, from next year, health insurers will be required to offer medical checks to anyone over 40. The aim is to reduce the burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes, which affects almost 20 million Japanese. A target to reduce diabetes by 25 per cent by 2015 has been set. In Britain, such a scheme would be unlikely to change people's behaviour on the scale required but in the more conformist society of Japan, it is already paying dividends. Staff health checks introduced by the car-maker Mitsubishi are claimed to have reduced risk factors by 30 per cent after lifestyle problems were identified.

On a third front, the government has massively increased the level of patient contributions – called "co-payments" – to the costs of healthcare.

...it is that the growing majority of consumers won't dun themselves ever more for the services when they can just tax the providers more heavily.

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KOOK IS AS KOOK DOES:

Death of an Innocent: How Christopher McCandless lost his way in the wilds (Jon Krakauer, January 1993, Outside magazine)

James Gallien had driven five miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in the gray Alaskan dawn. A rifle protruded from the young man's pack, but he looked friendly enough; a hitchhiker with a Remington semiautomatic isn't the sort of thing that gives motorists pause in the 49th state. Gallien steered his four-by-four onto the shoulder and told him to climb in.

The hitchhiker introduced himself as Alex. "Alex?" Gallien responded, fishing for a last name.

"Just Alex," the young man replied, pointedly rejecting the bait. He explained that he wanted a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intended to walk deep into the bush and "live off the land for a few months." Alex's backpack appeared to weigh only 25 or 30 pounds, which struck Gallien, an accomplished outdoorsman, as an improbably light load for a three-month sojourn in the backcountry, especially so early in the spring. Immediately Gallien began to wonder if he'd picked up one of those crackpots from the Lower 48 who come north to live out their ill-considered Jack London fantasies. Alaska has long been a magnet for unbalanced souls, often outfitted with little more than innocence and desire, who hope to find their footing in the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier. The bush, however, is a harsh place and cares nothing for hope or longing. More than a few such dreamers have met predictably unpleasant ends.

As they got to talking during the three-hour drive, though, Alex didn't strike Gallien as your typical misfit. He was congenial, seemed well educated, and peppered Gallien with sensible questions about "what kind of small game lived in the country, what kind of berries he could eat, that kind of thing."

Still, Gallien was concerned: Alex's gear seemed excessively slight for the rugged conditions of the interior bush, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack. He admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. He had no compass; the only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered road map he'd scrounged at a gas station, and when they arrived where Alex asked to be dropped off, he left the map in Gallien's truck, along with his watch, his comb, and all his money, which amounted to 85 cents. "I don't want to know what time it is," Alex declared cheerfully. "I don't want to know what day it is, or where I am. None of that matters."

During the drive south toward the mountains, Gallien had tried repeatedly to dissuade Alex from his plan, to no avail. He even offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage so he could at least buy the kid some decent gear. "No, thanks anyway," Alex replied. "I'll be fine with what I've got." When Gallien asked whether his parents or some friend knew what he was up to--anyone who could sound the alarm if he got into trouble and was overdue--Alex answered calmly that, no, nobody knew of his plans, that in fact he hadn't spoken to his family in nearly three years. "I'm absolutely positive," he assured Gallien, "I won't run into anything I can't deal with on my own."

"There was just no talking the guy out of it," Gallien recalls. "He was determined. He couldn't wait to head out there and get started." So Gallien drove Alex to the head of the Stampede Trail, an old mining track that begins ten miles west of the town of Healy, convinced him to accept a tuna melt and a pair of rubber boots to keep his feet dry, and wished him good luck. Alex pulled a camera from his backpack and asked Gallien to snap a picture of him. Then, smiling broadly, he disappeared down the snow-covered trail. The date was Tuesday, April 28, 1992.

More than four months passed before Gallien heard anything more of the hitchhiker. His real name turned out to be Christopher J. McCandless. He was the product of a happy family from an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. And although he wasn't burdened with a surfeit of common sense and possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not readily mesh with the realities of modern life, he was no psychopath. McCandless was in fact an honors graduate of Emory University, an accomplished athlete, and a veteran of several solo excursions into wild, inhospitable terrain.

An extremely intense young man, McCandless had been captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy. He particularly admired the fact that the great novelist had forsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute. For several years he had been emulating the count's asceticism and moral rigor to a degree that astonished and occasionally alarmed those who knew him well. When he took leave of James Gallien, McCandless entertained no illusions that he was trekking into Club Med; peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan renunciation were what he was seeking. And that is precisely what he found on the Stampede Trail, in spades.

For most of 16 weeks McCandless more than held his own. Indeed, were it not for one or two innocent and seemingly insignificant blunders he would have walked out of the Alaskan woods in July or August as anonymously as he walked into them in April. Instead, the name of Chris McCandless has become the stuff of tabloid headlines, and his bewildered family is left clutching the shards of a fierce and painful love.

On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking escarpments of Denali and its satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain, a series of lesser ridges known as the Outer Ranges sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed. Between the flinty crests of the two outermost Outer Ranges runs an east-west trough, maybe five miles across, carpeted in a boggy amalgam of muskeg, alder thickets, and scrawny spruce. Meandering through this tangled, rolling bottomland is the Stampede Trail, the route Chris McCandless followed into the wilderness.

Twenty or so miles due west of Healy, not far from the boundary of Denali National Park, a derelict bus--a blue and white, 1940s-vintage International from the Fairbanks City Transit System--rusts incongruously in the fireweed beside the Stampede Trail. Many winters ago the bus was fitted with bedding and a crude barrel stove, then skidded into the bush by enterprising hunters to serve as a backcountry shelter. These days it isn't unusual for nine or ten months to pass without the bus seeing a human visitor, but on September 6, 1992, six people in three separate parties happened to visit it on the same afternoon, including Ken Thompson, Gordon Samel, and Ferdie Swanson, moose hunters who drove in on all-terrain vehicles.

When they arrived at the bus, says Thompson, they found "a guy and a girl from Anchorage standing 50 feet away, looking kinda spooked. A real bad smell was coming from inside the bus, and there was this weird note tacked by the door." The note, written in neat block letters on a page torn from a novel by Gogol, read: "S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?"

The Anchorage couple had been too upset by the implications of the note to examine the bus's interior, so Thompson and Samel steeled themselves to take a look. A peek through a window revealed a .22-caliber rifle, a box of shells, some books and clothing, a backpack, and, on a makeshift bunk in the rear of the vehicle, a blue sleeping bag that appeared to have something or someone inside it.

"It was hard to be absolutely sure," says Samel. "I stood on a stump, reached through a back window, and gave the bag a shake. There was definitely something in it, but whatever it was didn't weigh much. It wasn't until I walked around to the other side and saw a head sticking out that I knew for certain what it was." Chris McCandless had been dead for some two and a half weeks. [...]

When news of McCandless's fate came to light, most Alaskans were quick to dismiss him as a nut case. According to the conventional wisdom he was simply one more dreamy, half-cocked greenhorn who went into the bush expecting to find answers to all his problems and instead found nothing but mosquitoes and a lonely death.

Dozens of marginal characters have gone into the Alaskan backcountry over the years, never to reappear. A few have lodged firmly in the state's collective memory. There is, for example, the sad tale of John Mallon Waterman, a visionary climber much celebrated for making one of the most astonishing first ascents in the history of North American mountaineering--an extremely dangerous 145-day solo climb of Mount Hunter's Southeast Spur. Upon completing this epic deed in 1979, though, he found that instead of putting his demons to rest, success merely agitated them.

In the years that followed, Waterman's mind unraveled. He took to prancing around Fairbanks in a black cape and announced he was running for president under the banner of the Feed the Starving Party, the main priority of which was to ensure that nobody on the planet died of hunger. To publicize his campaign he laid plans to make a solo ascent of Denali, in winter, with a minimum of food.

After his first attempt on the mountain was aborted prematurely, Waterman committed himself to the Anchorage Psychiatric Institute but checked out after two weeks, convinced that there was a conspiracy afoot to put him away permanently. Then, in the winter of 1981, he launched another solo attempt on Denali. He was last placed on the upper Ruth Glacier, heading unroped through the middle of a deadly crevasse field en route to the mountain's difficult East Buttress, carrying neither sleeping bag nor tent. He was never seen after that, but a note was later found atop some of his gear in a nearby shelter. It read, "3-13-81 My last kiss 1:42 PM."

Perhaps inevitably, parallels have been drawn between John Waterman and Chris McCandless. Comparisons have also been made between McCandless and Carl McCunn, a likable, absentminded Texan who in 1981 paid a bush pilot to drop him at a lake deep in the Brooks Range to photograph wildlife. He flew in with 500 rolls of film and 1,400 pounds of provisions but forgot to arrange for the pilot to pick him up again. Nobody realized he was missing until state troopers came across his body a year later, lying beside a 100-page diary that documented his demise. Rather than starve, McCunn had reclined in his tent and shot himself in the head.

There are similarities among Waterman, McCunn, and McCandless, most notably a certain dreaminess and a paucity of common sense. But unlike Waterman, McCandless was not mentally unbalanced. And unlike McCunn, he didn't go into the bush assuming that someone would magically appear to bring him out again before he came to grief.

McCandless doesn't really conform to the common bush-casualty stereotype: He wasn't a kook, he wasn't an outcast, and although he was rash and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he was hardly incompetent or he would never have lasted 113 days.

In what sens is someone so foolhardy as to make his own death at least not unlikely not a kook?

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HIS VALUES AREN'T THEIRS:

The Public Editor: Betraying Its Own Best Interests (CLARK HOYT, 9/23/07, NY Times)

FOR nearly two weeks, The New York Times has been defending a political advertisement that critics say was an unfair shot at the American commander in Iraq.

But I think the ad violated The Times’s own written standards, and the paper now says that the advertiser got a price break it was not entitled to. [...]

Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?

The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.

The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.

By the end of last week the ad appeared to have backfired on both MoveOn.org and fellow opponents of the war in Iraq — and on The Times. It gave the Bush administration and its allies an opportunity to change the subject from questions about an unpopular war to defense of a respected general with nine rows of ribbons on his chest, including a Bronze Star with a V for valor. And it gave fresh ammunition to a cottage industry that loves to bash The Times as a bastion of the “liberal media.” [...]

For me, two values collided here: the right of free speech — even if it’s abusive speech — and a strong personal revulsion toward the name-calling and personal attacks that now pass for political dialogue, obscuring rather than illuminating important policy issues. For The Times, there is another value: the protection of its brand as a newspaper that sets a high standard for civility.

Has he ever read their editorial page?

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HE FIT THE BATTLE:

The Day Louis Armstrong Made Noise (DAVID MARGOLICK, 9/23/07, NY Times)

With the connivance of the bell captain, [Larry Lubenow] snuck into Mr. Armstrong’s suite with a room service lobster dinner. And Mr. Armstrong, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, agreed to talk. Mr. Lubenow stuck initially to his editor’s script, asking Mr. Armstrong to name his favorite musician. (Bing Crosby, it turned out.) But soon he brought up Little Rock, and he could not believe what he heard. “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” a furious Mr. Armstrong told him. President Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced,” and had “no guts.” For Governor Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print. The two settled on something safer: “uneducated plow boy.” The euphemism, Mr. Lubenow says, was far more his than Mr. Armstrong’s.

Mr. Armstrong bitterly recounted some of his experiences touring in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening bar of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” inserting obscenities into the lyrics and prompting Velma Middleton, the vocalist who toured with Mr. Armstrong and who had joined them in the room, to hush him up.

Mr. Armstrong had been contemplating a good-will tour to the Soviet Union for the State Department. “They ain’t so cold but what we couldn’t bruise them with happy music,” he had said. Now, though, he confessed to having second thoughts. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell,” he said, offering further choice words about the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. “The people over there ask me what’s wrong with my country. What am I supposed to say?”

Mr. Lubenow, who came from a small North Dakota farming community, was shocked by what he heard, but he also knew he had a story; he skipped the concert and went back to the paper to write it up. It was too late to get it in his own paper; nor would the Associated Press editor in Minneapolis, dubious that Mr. Armstrong could have said such things, put it on the national wire, at least until Mr. Lubenow could prove he hadn’t made it all up. So the next morning Mr. Lubenow returned to the Dakota Hotel and, as Mr. Armstrong shaved, had the Herald photographer take their picture together. Then Mr. Lubenow showed Mr. Armstrong what he’d written. “Don’t take nothing out of that story,” Mr. Armstrong declared. “That’s just what I said, and still say.” He then wrote “solid” on the bottom of the yellow copy paper, and signed his name.

The article ran all over the country.

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BETTER A JAIL CELL WITH NEWMAN THAN DINNER WITH ROSS:

When Harry Met Sal: The birth of the man-crush romantic comedy (Justin Shubow, 9/21/07, National Review)

As movie genres go, the romantic comedy should be dead. Born in the fast-talking screwball comedies of the 1930s, the simple formula of “meet-lose-get” has been followed in so many films, and in so many permutations, that its possibilities should be exhausted. Hollywood has even strip-mined the genre’s name, with “rom com” being the stubby remains. But new life has recently come from surprising sources: Superbad and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, two movies that, while middling in themselves, should be seen as following and expanding upon an innovative precedent first set by Wedding Crashers, that of the man-crush romantic comedy.

Although it seems to have gone unnoticed, the secret to Wedding Crashers success was that it was a romantic comedy in which the two buddies are the real couple. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey, divorce mediators by day who are the ultimate pick-up-artist team on the wedding circuit. They are such best friends that every year for John’s birthday, Jeremy brings over his sleeping bag for a mini slumber party. But when John discovers that Jeremy is dating a woman behind his back, the friends fight and break up, with John going so far as to call Jeremy a hillbilly and white trash, the same exact insults they heard from a divorcing couple at the beginning of the movie.

Attempting to patch things up, Jeremy shows up unannounced with his sleeping bag on John’s birthday. He confesses, “I miss seeing ya’…You know I love you.” But though that bold move fails, John later succeeds with his own grand gesture when he makes a surprise entrance at Jeremy’s wedding. Happily reunited, the pair return to their wedding-crashing ways at the end of the movie, though now with their female love-interests in tow.

Seen in this light, the arc of their friendship is straight out of a romantic comedy: the courtship/relationship, the breakup, and the grand gesture leading to permanent reconciliation.

This doesn't seem an especially new phenomenon. All buddy flicks are in good part romances, but none moreso than Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid. There, not only is the relationship between the two magnetic leads far too strong for a competing one of either with any woman to be plausible, but the female lead is such a cipher that no viewer can be more attracted to her than to the men. You have to go back to the Myrna Loys and Katherine Hepburns of the world to find leading leaders who had enough character--rather than the mere good looks of most modern actresses--to present serious rivals to male bonding.

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IF KARL ROVE WERE DRAWING IT UP ON A CHART...:

In Swing Districts, Democratic Enthusiasm Is Harder to Come By (Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray, September 23, 2007, Washington Post)

Conventional wisdom dictates that Democratic voters are thrilled with their choices for president, bursting at the seams to rally behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or whoever gets the party's nod next year.

A recent survey by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, however, showed Clinton and Obama trailing former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) in the 31 Democratic-held House districts regarded as most imperiled in 2008, and even potentially serving as a drag on those lawmakers' reelection chances.

The poll was conducted in August but has not been previously reported. It paints a "sobering picture" for Democrats, according to a memo by Lake and Daniel Gotoff that accompanies the poll report.

Giuliani takes 49 percent to Clinton's 39 percent, while the former mayor's lead over Obama is far smaller, 41 percent to 40 percent. "Despite Obama's relative advantage over Clinton, both candidates are significantly underperforming against the generic Democratic edge in the presidential and even against party identification," Lake and Gotoff wrote.

The news gets worse for Obama and Clinton as one delves deeper into the survey.

While the average lead of Democratic House members stands at 19 percentage points in the 31 vulnerable districts -- all but two of which are part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's incumbent-protection program known as Frontline -- that number sinks considerably when the lawmakers are linked to either front-runner.

Obama finds 'beer voters' hard to tap John McCormick, September 23, 2007 , Chicago Tribune)

A former Harvard Law Review president and constitutional law lecturer at the University of Chicago, Obama can sometimes seem professorial. It is one of the reasons he sometimes fails to connect with working-class voters.

Pollsters call Bren and those like her "beer-track" voters, while those with higher incomes and more education are dubbed "wine-track" voters. The first group tends to care more about pocketbook issues. The second places greater value on more global matters.

Wine-track voters can provide money, votes and other important resources for a campaign, but it is the beer-track voters who have proved critical for winning the Democratic nomination.

Intellectual liberals with outsider messages who fail to connect with this demographic group have often failed. Think Bill Bradley in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004.

So far, Obama has done well attracting the Chardonnay crowd, but he has had less success winning over Joe Sixpack.

...he'd have the Democrats nominate a liberal woman from New York or a black Senator.

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IN THE VERNACULAR...:

North Korean Official Meets Syrian Delegation (AP, 9/23/07)

Kim Yong Nam, head of the North's rubber-stamp legislature and titular head of state, had ''a friendly talk'' with the Syrian delegation, led by Saaeed Eleia Dawood, director of the organizational department of Syria's Baath Arab Socialist Party, the North's Korean Central News Agency reported.

...that's called a target rich environment.

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FROM TV TO TAGGING:

Frustrations Drive Saudi Youth to the Graffiti Wall: Young Men Protest Cultural Strictures (Faiza Saleh Ambah, 9/23/07, Washington Post)

Like many of his generation, Alwani, a slight 20-year-old with an Afro tinted volcano red, is buffeted between the Western culture piped into his life via satellite television and the Internet and the strict religious culture prevalent around him.

"I want graffiti walls like they have in the West. We need soccer fields and basketball courts in every neighborhood," said Alwani, who prefers low-riding jeans to the traditional white robe commonly worn here. "And I want to dress the way I want without people making fun of me."

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy and one of the world's most socially repressive societies, also has one of the world's youngest populations, with more than 50 percent of its 22 million citizens younger than 21.

A strict form of Islam implemented by powerful clerics forces stores to close during the five daily prayers and forbids unrelated men and women to mingle in public. The result is that cinemas and theaters are banned, public schools are segregated beginning in first grade, women are not allowed to drive, and single men without female family members cannot enter most shopping malls.

Abo-Umara, the municipality official and a father of four, was criticized by colleagues for turning Alwani into a local celebrity instead of making an example out of him for vandals who have cost the city close to $1 million in graffiti cleanup.

But Abo-Umara, 45, said young men like Alwani should not be held accountable until officials are sure they've done right by local youth.

"What have we done for young people? Have we asked them what they need or want?" said Abo-Umara, wearing a flowing white head scarf and long robe. "Until I talk to them and find out why they are scribbling all over Jiddah and do my part in offering them the services we're supposed to provide, then I can't punish or criticize them."

True to his word, Abo-Umara held a two-day workshop called "What Do Youth Want From Jiddah?" in July, shortly after his meeting with Alwani. More than 200 young men and women attended, on separate days, and their list of demands included cinemas, public libraries, and music and art centers.

The young women asked for private beaches for women and girls, for at least widows and divorced women to be permitted to drive, and for boys who harass them to be fined.

Both groups requested sports facilities, of which there are very few in Saudi Arabia.

Abo-Umara was able to implement one demand immediately: walls dedicated to graffiti.

Al Qaeda isn't wrong that their enemy is the penetration of their lands by our culture. They're just wrong to think they can resist it.

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EXPONENTIAL NEGATIVE GROWTH?:

Falling German birthrate dispels baby miracle myth (Nicholas Kulish, September 23, 2007, IHT)

A United Nations report this year called this global aging "a process without parallel in the history of humanity" and predicted that people older than 60 would outnumber those under 15 for the first time in 2047. The twin forces of rising life expectancy and falling birthrates have accelerated the process.

Although the German government has begun to address the issue, it was particularly slow out of the blocks in dealing with its low birthrate, and, since 2003, the contraction of its population, in that first year by just 5,000 people, but in 2006 by 130,000. The German population stands at 82.4 million people. [...]

According to European Union statistics, the crude birthrate - defined as births per thousand inhabitants - has declined in Germany in each of the last nine years, from 9.9 in 1997 to 8.2 in 2006. Even after factoring in immigration, the German population is experiencing "exponential negative growth," Klingholz said.

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HOW'D THAT SEPARATION WORK OUT FOR YA?:

Welcome or Not, Orthodoxy Is Back in Russia’s Public Schools (CLIFFORD J. LEVY, 9/23/07, NY Times)

Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the return of religion to public life, localities in Russia are increasingly decreeing that to receive a proper public school education, children should be steeped in the ways of the Russian Orthodox Church, including its traditions, liturgy and historic figures.

The lessons are typically introduced at the urging of church leaders, who say the enforced atheism of Communism left Russians out of touch with a faith that was once at the core of their identity.

The new curriculum reflects the nation’s continuing struggle to define what it means to be Russian in the post-Communist era and what role religion should play after being brutally suppressed under Soviet rule. Yet the drive by a revitalized church to weave its tenets into the education system has prompted a backlash, and not only from the remains of the Communist Party.

Opponents assert that the Russian Orthodox leadership is weakening the constitutional separation of church and state by proselytizing in public schools. They say Russia is a multiethnic, pluralistic nation and risks alienating its large Muslim minority if Russian Orthodoxy takes on the trappings of a state religion.

The church calls those accusations unfounded, maintaining that the courses are cultural, not religious.

In Ms. Donshina’s class at least, the children seem to have their own understanding of a primary theme of the course. “One has to love God,” said Kristina Posobilova. “We should believe in God only.”

The dispute came to a head recently when 10 prominent Russian scientists, including two Nobel laureates, sent a letter to President Vladimir V. Putin, protesting what they termed the “growing clericalization” of Russian society. In addition to criticizing religious teachings in public schools, the scientists attacked church efforts to obtain recognition of degrees in theology, and the presence of Russian Orthodox chaplains in the military.

Note that the scientists would disapprove of America as well.

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SUFFICIENT PRETEXT:

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid (Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter, 9/23/07, Times of London)

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. [...]

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.

Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.

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OH, NO, THE DREADED WINTER APPROACHES...:

Operation Groundhog Day: the final assault on a stubborn enemy: 'If Operation Palk Wahel fails, many other things will fail.' (Raymond Whitaker, 23 September 2007, Independent)

British forces are spearheading an offensive this weekend aimed at driving the Taliban out of a strategically vital area of southern Afghanistan. The battle could also decide whether other Nato members are willing to continue fighting in the country.

Some 2,000 British troops, including Gurkhas, are taking part in Operation Palk Wahel ("sledgehammer blow") in Helmand province, the largest for several months. The assault began on Wednesday with a bridge being thrown across the Helmand river to get at Taliban strongholds close to the Kajaki dam, which could supply hydro-electricity and irrigation water to a large area of southern Afghanistan if it is restored. Another 500 American, Estonian, Czech, Danish and Afghan soldiers have joined the offensive, supported by helicopters, attack aircraft and the first large-scale use of Warrior armoured vehicles.

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Eaton, the spokesman for Task Force Helmand, told The Independent on Sunday that Palk Wahel continued a series of operations since early summer which aimed to free areas from Taliban interference, supply security and create the conditions for governance and development. But Christopher Langton, an Afghanistan expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the latest offensive was the most significant.

"With winter approaching, there are only another three to four weeks to secure the area," said Mr Langton, a retired colonel.

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UNDERMINING HUGO:

A Resilient Leader Trumpets Brazil’s Potential in Agriculture and Biofuels (ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, 9/23/07, NY Times)

Fresh from a trip to Europe, where he stirred interest in Brazil’s sugar-based ethanol fuel and won billions of dollars in investment pledges, Mr. da Silva was instead focused on the economy.

Exports of Brazil’s raw commodities like soybeans and iron ore are booming as a result of high global prices and insatiable demand from Asia. In one sign of Brazil’s economic health, as the subprime credit crisis was roiling the United States a few weeks ago, Brazil’s bonds were raised to just below investment grade.

He said that Latin America as a whole was at a critical moment, when it needed to seize the opportunity to shore up its economies, notorious for mismanagement and corruption.

At the same time, he shrugged off suggestions that he should seek to be a hemispheric force and a stronger counterweight to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who has aggressively seized the spotlight in the region with his energy deal-making and political maneuvering in favor of left-wing candidates.

“We in Latin America are not trying to look for a leader,” Mr. da Silva said. “We don’t need a leader. What we need to do is build political harmony because South America and Latin America need to learn the lesson of the 20th century. We had the opportunity to grow, we had the opportunity to develop ourselves, and we lost that opportunity. So we still continue to be poor countries.

“What I want is to govern my country well.”

As Mr. da Silva heads to New York on Sunday for a United Nations meeting, he is relentlessly pitching Brazil’s agricultural potential and energy experience, especially in ethanol, which Brazil makes from sugar cane, a source more efficient than corn.

With ample arable land that is the envy of the world, and a 20-year head start on developing a biofuels industry, Brazil is the only country exporting ethanol in any significant quantities.

Mr. da Silva predicted that within 15 years a global biofuels industry would be developed, with the commodity being shipped around the world on tankers for a global price.

“I believe that the world will yield to biofuels,” he said.

He found a receptive audience recently in Sweden, where he rode in an all-ethanol-powered bus in Stockholm, one of 600 buses, he said, that the Swedish government had retrofitted for use with biofuels. Sweden wants every new car on the road to run on renewable fuels by 2020. The European Union has recommended its countries add 5.7 percent ethanol to the gasoline supply by 2010.

“We will democratize energy access,” he said. “Instead of 10 countries producing oil, we could have 120 countries producing biofuels.”

In other words, provide a counterweight to VZ, no?

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SUU KYI AND THE BURMESE:

Dissident reveals his hand in Burma protests (Anuj Chopra in Ragoon and Colin Freeman, 23/09/2007, Sunday Telegraph)

A pro-democracy leader who tops the "wanted" list of Burma's military rulers has revealed to The Sunday Telegraph how his movement has helped orchestrate the escalating street protests against the country's dictatorship.

In a rare interview granted while on the run from the secret police, a veteran of the "1988 generation" – the student group whose last rebellion was brutally crushed – said his members had been secretly liaising with the Buddhist monks who have taken to the streets in recent days.

While the monks have so far been the public face of the protest – the biggest and boldest in more than a decade – the campaigner's comments are the first public confirmation that the two groups are working to form a joint challenge to the regime.

During a secret meeting in Burma's former capital, Rangoon, the activist, speaking under the pseudonym of "Mr Saw", told of his hopes that, this time, the country's generals might lose their nerve rather than respond with force.

Up to 3,000 people died in the suppression of the 1988 uprising, but such is the dire state of Burma's economy now that many of its 53 million people feel they have little left to lose.

Suu Kyi lends support as thousands march in Burmese capital: Burgeoning alliance of protesting monks and civilians poses biggest challenge to military regime in 20 years (Andrew Buncombe, 23 September 2007, Independent)

Burma's imprisoned democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, made a rare public appearance yesterday when thousands of Burmese monks, marching in protest against the military regime, passed the Rangoon property where she is under house arrest.

Ms Suu Kyi, hardly seen during her most recent term of confinement, which began four years ago, came to her gate and greeted the monks. She looked "fit and well", according to one protester who saw her. "The monks just walked past, chanting holy scriptures peacefully," one young man who had been following the procession told Reuters. "I saw 'Auntie Suu' inside the compound."

In the Burmese city of Mandalay, meanwhile, between 5,000 and 10,000 people marched in the largest of the protests that have electrified Burma over the past five days.

The alliance of Ms Suu Kyi and the Buddhist clergy could be crucial as the Burmese regime confronts its most sustained challenge in two decades.

"Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since 30 May 2003, when her convoy was attacked by [government-sponsored] thugs," said Mark Farmaner, of Burma Campaign UK. "By visiting her the monks are putting their spiritual authority behind the democracy movement. It is a strong message of unity."

Burma poised for junta to strike (MICHAEL CASEY, 9/23/07, Scotland on Sunday)

THE crunch may come as early as this evening. At 8pm, across the troubled country still known to most as Burma, citizens have been urged to pray outside their homes in support of the monks peacefully challenging the brutal military junta which has been in power for more than 40 years.

If they turn out in their thousands, the junta in Myanmar will know that the rebelling monks have the wider community behind them. The dilemma for the ruling elite will be whether to allow the protests to continue to escalate - revealing the leadership's weakness - or whether to revert to type.

Aung Zaw, a Myanmarese editor of a current affairs magazine safely published in neighbouring Thailand, expects the latter as the military leadership has always resolved such challenges by force.

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WHAT DO THEY HAVE AGAINST STEINS:

Fans in a Froth for the Mug in Which Bernie Brewer Bathed (VINCENT M. MALLOZZI, 9/23/07, NY Times)

The controversy over Bernie Brewer’s beer mug has come to a head in Milwaukee.

Todd Achtner, a lifelong Brewers fan, is leading an online charge to bring back the beer barrel, mug and chalet belonging to Bernie Brewer. They were a fixture at County Stadium but did not move with the team to Miller Park in 2001.

“It’s a tradition that fans love and want back at the ballpark,” said Achtner, a 27-year-old security guard from Appleton, Wis. “Bernie Brewer’s old routine was one of the best home run celebrations ever.”

Through Friday, the petition had 260 signatures on the Web site truebrewcrew.com. The Brewers’ front office is aware of it.

“We’re considering the possibility of bringing back Bernie’s beer mug, but we haven’t made any determinations yet,” said Rick Schlesinger, the executive vice president for business operations with the Brewers. “Quite frankly, we have a lot of other projects that have a higher priority.”

When The Wife was in med school in Chicago I coaxed her up to County Stadium for a game on the basis of four attractions: the classic A&W drive-in that's halfway between the two cities; the brewery tours; Bernie Brewer; & the sausage race. Unfortunately, Pabst Brewery was closed, there was no race, and the Brewers were so bad no one hit a homerun. Only the rootbeer float and the tiny mugs got me off the hook.

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THE PHILOSOPHICALLY GODLY:

Velvet Revolutionary: TO THE CASTLE AND BACK By Vaclav Havel. Translated by Paul Wilson (Paul Berman, NY Times Book Review)

[M]ostly the flickering anecdotes and commentaries illuminate the implausible incongruities that make up Havel’s strange and appealing personality. Self-effacement is his first instinct. He insists that he has never entertained political ambitions. And yet, as if to show that his modesty is never false, and that self-effacement is not his only instinct, he goes on to remark that most of the historic statements and documents of the anti-Communist dissident movement in his corner of the world were written by himself, and that his rise to leadership followed simply from his superior talent for cool and orderly thinking. He began as a playwright and a man of the arts, and his earliest friends in the non-Communist West, back in cold war times, leaned in pacifist and anticapitalist directions, artsy-style. Yet those were not his own leanings. He never doubted, for instance, that military action was a good idea against the Serbian nationalism of Slobodan Milosevic.

He worries about what he calls “the old European disease, which is the tendency to make compromises with evil, to close one’s eyes to dictatorship, to practice a politics of appeasement.” He disapproves of every single aspect of George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq crisis, except for the part about getting rid of Saddam Hussein, which Havel still thinks was a legitimate thing to do. His sense of right and wrong on the largest of political questions seems to be absolute, as if based on religious convictions — possibly on Christianity in some vague fashion, to judge by some of his remarks. He invokes a philosophical God called Being. Yet he never clarifies or explains these religious and philosophical hints — not in this book, nor in any of his other writings translated into English, nor in his interviews. Ten years ago I had the opportunity to interview Havel, and I did my best to get him to plumb the depths of Being for my benefit and the world’s. He plumbed the depths of NATO instead, and in “To the Castle and Back” he still natters on about NATO, and he still leaves an impression that Being undergirds his faith in it. Even his political ideals are hard to define, beyond the fundamentals of liberal democracy. Post-Communist society disappoints him. He would like to move along to a post-post-Communism. Yet he says nothing at all, not in this book, anyway, about the possible shapes that a new and better post-post society might take.

He is inscrutable, and this may be his genius.

Address by Vaclav Havel President of the Czech Republic to the Senate and the House of Commons of the Parliament of Canada (Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 29 April 1999)

[T]here is a value which ranks higher than the State. This value is humanity. The State, as is well known, is here to serve the people, not the other way round. If a person serves his or her state such service should go only as far as is necessary for the state to do a good service to all its citizens. Human rights rank above the rights of states. Human liberties constitute a higher value than State sovereignty. In terms of international law, the provisions that protect the unique human being should take precedence over the provisions that protect the State.

If, in the world of today, our fates are merged into one single destiny, and if every one of us is responsible for the future of all, nobody - not even the State - should be allowed to restrict the right of the people to exercise this responsibility. I think that the foreign policies of individual states should gradually sever the category that has, until now, most often constituted their axis, that is, the category of "interests", "our national interests" or "the foreign policy interests of our state". The category of "interests" tends to divide rather than to bring us together. It is true that each of us has some specific interests. This is entirely natural and there is no reason why we should abandon our legitimate concerns. But there is something that ranks higher than our interests: it is the principles that we espouse. Principles unite us rather than divide us. Moreover, they are the yardstick for measuring the legitimacy or illegitimacy of our interests. I do not think it is valid when various state doctrines say that it is in the interest of the state to uphold such and such a principle. Principles must be respected and upheld for their own sake - so to speak, as a matter of principle - and interests should be derived from them. [...]

Dear friends,

Many times in the past, I have pondered on the question of why humanity has the prerogative to any rights at all. Inevitably, I have always come to the conclusion that human rights, human liberties and human dignity have their deepest roots outside of this earthly world. They become what they are only because, under certain circumstances, they can mean to humanity a value that people place - without being forced to - higher than even their own lives. Thus, these notions have meaning only against the background of the infinite and of eternity. It is my profound conviction that the true worth of all our actions - whether or not they are in harmony with our conscience, the ambassador of eternity in our soul - is finally tested somewhere beyond our sight. If we did not sense this, or subconsciously surmise it, certain things could never get done.

Let me conclude my remarks on the State and on the role it will probably play in the future with the following statement: While the State is a human creation, humanity is a creation of God.

There seems at least a possibility that Mr. Havel escaped the intellectual trap that ensnared Orwell & Camus.

MORE:
A SENSE OF THE TRANSCENDENT (Václav Havel)

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WHY DID THE DESIGNER FEEL COMPELLED TO CONTINUE AFTER CREATING THE PIG?:

Bacon Improvement: A simple glaze of brown sugar and orange juice can take this breakfast favorite to sublime heights. (Adam Ried, September 23, 2007, Boston Globe)

Bacon may just be as good as it gets. It's rich, meaty, fatty, smoky, and faintly sweet - in short, right on the doorstep of decadence. With a profile like that, is there room for improvement? Surprisingly, yes. All it takes is a bit of brown sugar, a few drops of orange juice, and a turn in the oven. This magical combination yields lacquered bacon, a.k.a. glazed or candied or sugared bacon, an unexpected case of gilding the lily. [...]

BROWN SUGAR LACQUERED BACON
SERVES 8 (2 OR 3 STRIPS PER PERSON)

1 pound bacon
3 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons orange juice

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and set a large wire rack in the pan. Arrange the bacon slices on the rack and roast until the bacon renders some of its fat and the slices shrink significantly, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and orange juice. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven. Using a pastry brush, lightly swab the slices with about half of the brown sugar mixture, return to the oven, and continue roasting until the sugar mixture adheres to the bacon and appears glossy, about 8 minutes. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven and use tongs to turn over the slices. Lightly brush the slices with the remaining sugar mixture, return to the oven, and continue roasting until the sugar mixture adheres to the bacon and appears glossy, about 8 minutes longer. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven, transfer the bacon slices to a serving plate, and serve hot.

VARIATIONS

Spicy Chili Lacquered Bacon Add 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, and a pinch of cayenne to the brown sugar and orange juice mixture.

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WHO HAS TO BREAK IT TO MICHAEL MOORE?:

Helped by Generics, Inflation of Drug Costs Slows (Stephanie Saul, 9/21/2007, NY Times)

As overall health care costs continue to rise sharply, prescription drugs have emerged as a surprising exception.

Annual inflation in drug costs is at the lowest rate in the three decades since the Labor Department began using its current method of tracking prescription prices. The rate over the last 12 months is 1 percent, according to the government’s latest data, released Wednesday.

“The way the index is going, it looks like drug price increases are not going to be very painful this year,” said Daniel H. Ginsburg, a supervisory economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where he is involved in compiling the Consumer Price Index.

As recently as 2005, inflation in drug prices was running at an annual rate of 4.4 percent.

Economists say the slowdown has come about because more people are turning to generics and because generic versions of some of the most common drugs have recently come on the market.

In the past year and a half alone, generic equivalents have become available for the cholesterol treatment Zocor, the sleeping pill Ambien and the blood pressure drug Norvasc.

Another factor could be the so-called Wal-Mart effect. Last fall, Wal-Mart began offering many generic prescriptions at $4 a month. Target quickly announced a similar plan, and Kmart expanded its program, which offers a 90-day supply of generic drugs for $15. Other retailers have followed with their variations. Publix, a grocery store chain with 684 pharmacies in five states in the Southeast, announced last month that it would not charge for prescriptions for seven commonly used antibiotics.

While they claim to want to make healthcare more affordable, if there's anything the Left hates it's markets generally and supermarkets, like Walmart, specifically. Thus, as so often, their ideologies and pathologies put them at war with reality.

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THERE IS NO GEORGIA:

Strange parade in a strange land (Matthew Collin, 9/22/07, BBC News)

The tiny region of South Ossetia on the border with Russia has been struggling to break away from Georgia since the fall of the Soviet Union. South Ossetian separatists have been celebrating what they call "independence day" this week in their capital, Tskhinvali. [...]

[S]outh Ossetia is a strange place. This tiny, impoverished region claims that it's independent. But it actually wants to join the Russian Federation, while the rest of the world still recognises it as being part of Georgia.

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NEVER AGAIN TIANANMEN:

Burma anti-junta protests spread (BBC, 9/22/07)

Thousands of monks have taken to the streets of Burma in a sixth day of anti-military government protests.

Two thousand monks went on the march in Mandalay, while at least 1,000 rallied in Rangoon. Protests were also taking place in five townships across Burma.

It comes a day after the leaders of the demonstrations vowed to continue until the military government collapsed.

Suu Kyi greets Burma protesters (BBC, 9/22/07)
Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has greeted Buddhist monks protesting against the military junta.

Apparently unable to hold her tears, Aung San Suu Kyi came out of the house she has been detained in since 2003 as the monks were let through a roadblock. [...]

Ms Suu Kyi has spent 11 of the last 18 years in detention.

In 1990 her party won national elections, but these were annulled by the army and she was never allowed to take office.

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IN ESSENCE...:

To 'Save the Children' Capitalism is the Answer (Rich Lowry, 9/22/07, Real Clear Politics)

It is no coincidence that as UNICEF was reporting the drop in child mortality, the World Bank was reporting global poverty rates had fallen as part of an extraordinary worldwide economic boom. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calls it "far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime."

The global economy is growing at a 5 percent clip, higher than the 3 percent of the period from 1960 to 1980 and the 4.7 percent from 1960 to 1980. As U.S. News & World Report points out, "Gross global product is three times as big as it was in 1970 so the global economy is not only growing faster, but there's more to grow.

In a worldwide instance of trickle-down economics, the growth is diminishing the ranks of the poor. According to the World Bank, developing countries have averaged 3.9 percent growth since 2000, contributing "to rapidly falling poverty rates in all developing regions over the past few years." In 1990, 1.25 billion people lived on less than $1 a day. In 2004, less than a billion did, even though world population increased 20 percent in the interim.

When a developing country gets richer, it means that people living there are less likely to be malnourished and - as infrastructure improves - more likely to have access to clean water and to sanitation. This is a boon to health.

...pretty nearly the whole world is America in the '90s.

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THE BROWNING OF AMERICA:

The World Comes to Georgia, and an Old Church Adapts (WARREN ST. JOHN, 9/22/07, NY Times)

When the Rev. Phil Kitchin steps into the pulpit of the Clarkston International Bible Church on Sunday mornings, he stands eye to eye with the changing face of America. In the pews before him, alongside white-haired Southern women in their Sunday best, sit immigrants from the Philippines and Togo, refugees from war-scarred Liberia, Ethiopia and Sudan, even a convert from Afghanistan.

“Jesus said heaven is a place for people of all nations,” Mr. Kitchin likes to say. “So if you don’t like Clarkston, you won’t like heaven.”

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once noted that 11 a.m. on Sunday was the beginning of the most segregated hour of the week in America, and for the better part of 120 years, that certainly applied to this church. From 1883 until a few years ago, anyone on the pulpit would have gazed out at a congregation that was exclusively white. The church is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, a group that in 1995 renounced its racist past.

But an influx of immigrants and refugees transformed this town in a little over a decade, and in the process sparked a battle within this church over its identity and its faithfulness to the Bible, one that led it to change not just its name but its mission.

The Clarkston International Bible Church, which sits along an active freight rail line down the road from the former Ku Klux Klan bastion of Stone Mountain, is now home to parishioners from more than 15 countries. The church also houses congregations of Ethiopians, Sudanese, Liberians and French West Africans who worship separately, according to their own traditions. The church’s Sunday potluck lunch features African stews and Asian vegetable dishes alongside hot dogs, sweet tea and homemade cherry pie.

The transformation of what was long known as the Clarkston Baptist Church speaks to a broader change among other American churches. Many evangelical Christians who have long believed in spreading their religion in faraway lands have found that immigrants offer an opportunity for church work within one’s own community. And many immigrants and refugees are drawn by the warm welcome they get from the parishioners, which can stand in stark contrast to the more competitive and alienating nature of workaday America.

Indeed, evangelical churches have begun to stand out as rare centers of ethnic mixing in a country that researchers say has become more culturally fragmented, in part because of immigration.

Bush holds the record on Hispanic federal judges: Latino advocacy groups are pleased; DNC stays mum (KEN HERMAN, 9/21/07, Cox News Service)

President Bush has had more Hispanics confirmed for federal judgeships than any president in U.S. history, a record that earns him praise from Hispanic organizations but is downplayed by the Democratic National Committee.

Of the 282 Bush judicial appointees confirmed by the Senate, 27 — almost 10 percent — have been Hispanics. President Clinton held the previous record, having appointed 23 Hispanics (just over 6 percent of his 367 appointees) who won confirmation.

On New England's dairy farms, foreign workers find a home (Jenna Russell, September 22, 2007, Boston Globe)

It looks like the quintessential Vermont dairy farm, like a page out of a storybook, with its red barns, rolling green fields, and black-and-white cows. And this farm is also typical in another way: Inside the barns, the men milking cows are from Mexico and Guatemala.

Some have documents that allow them to work in this country. Others do not, said the farmer who employs them. Legal or not, he said, they have improved his life.

"Before, labor was the biggest headache we had," said the farmer, who spoke on the condition that his name and location not be published to protect the farm from investigation by immigration authorities. "Now our life is so much better."

The dairy farms that define the northern New England countryside have come to depend on foreign workers in the past five to 10 years. Farmers say they have faced a crippling shortage of Americans willing to do the physically demanding, round-the-clock job of milking cows and cleaning barns. To fill the burgeoning gap, many farms have hired workers from Mexico and Central America, who often speak little English and lack proper documents but show up on time, learn quickly, and work tirelessly, farmers say.

The nation that nativists are trying to "preserve" exists only in their heads. It's not America.

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IF YOU MEET HOMO ECONOMICUS IN THE ROAD, KILL HIM:

Surprise: 'Toxic' Mortgages Are the Best: A new study from professors at Columbia and NYU finds that the "optimal" mortgage in a perfect world is an option ARM (Peter Coy, 99/21/07, Business Week)

[A]ccording to a new study by professors from Columbia and New York universities, the "optimal" mortgage in a perfect world is precisely that kind of loan—an adjustable-rate mortgage with an option for negative amortization and a ban (or at least severe restriction) on prepayment.

Crazy? Not as crazy as you might think. The key, according to professors Tomasz Piskorski of Columbia Business School and Alexei Tchistyi of New York University's Stern School of Business, is that this kind of mortgage is optimal only in a perfect world—namely, one in which borrowers are fully rational and always do what's in their own best interest. [...]

[H]ere's a quick, intuitive feel for the three parts of the concept:

• The option to pay less than the minimum monthly interest owed on the loan is valuable for people with good self-control whose income fluctuates a lot. They can pay just a little in lean months and catch up in fat months. It's good for lenders, too, because they don't have to foreclose on people who fall behind, which is an expensive process. People with steady incomes don't need this feature, but having it doesn't hurt them.

• The fact that the loan is an ARM—namely, its rate fluctuates with market interest rates—is especially valuable to lenders. This is a subtler notion, but the idea is that if there are going to be a certain number of defaults in a pool of mortgages because of random bits of bad luck like a job loss or a divorce, the lender would prefer that they be concentrated during periods of high interest rates. Why? Because when market interest rates are high, the lender that forecloses and gets back (most of) its money can redeploy the cash in high-yielding alternatives. The lender would prefer not to foreclose and get its money back when rates are low and other options are unattractive. An ARM loan achieves what the lender wants. Borrowers, meanwhile, are neutral about whether they default in periods of high or low market interest rates.

• Finally, the economists say the optimal loan contract would outright ban getting a new loan from a different lender. There are no such bans. But they say that the prepayment penalties that are common in subprime loans are a good second best. How could that be? Because lenders will offer more favorable terms if they know that they'll be able to hang onto the loan long enough for it to be profitable. If they fear that the borrower will refinance at the drop of a hat, they'll give less favorable terms.

One neat twist is that the paper demonstrates that an interest-only loan coupled with a home equity line of credit is also optimal because it's the functional equivalent of an option ARM. Think about why: Someone with an IO loan and a line of credit is equally able to tap into home equity (i.e., add to the principal owed) from month to month.

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CAVES AREN'T COUNTRIES:

What does Osama want? (Victor Davis Hanson, September 22, 2007, Washington Times)

The truth is that bin Laden and al Qaeda want power for themselves, and use religious grievances and shifting political demands to try to achieve it.

In their worldview, Islam's chance for a renewed united Muslim caliphate was shattered into impotent warring nations by sneaky 19th century European colonists. They now want to reunite modern Arab nations into an Islamic empire run by the likes of bin Laden and his sidekick, Ayman al-Zawahri. [...]

Bin Laden's problem then is not really tiny Israel or global warming or mortgage interest rates, but an all-powerful and free West led by the United States. It alone has the military and economic power to stop radical Islamists. Plus, we bring the more powerful message of political freedom. And American popular culture, with its informality and egalitarianism, is sweeping the globe, seducing far more adherents than does rote memorization of the Koran.

So, despite bin Laden's bragging, America remains the big stumbling block, the stronger horse. The United States alone ensures that bin Laden stays a sick man babbling in a cave — and not a Muslim caliph in flowing robes, with billions of dollars in oil under his feet and weapons merchants lined up at his palace door.

Heck, even Ethiopia had little trouble toppling an Islamist government they didn't approve of. The reality is that the one end the al Qaedists can never achieve is sovereign governance. People who can't show their faces in public can't wield national power.

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IN THE CITY OF YELLOW STAR:

'We need a new metaphor' (JACKIE McGLONE, 9/22/07, The Scotsman)

RUMOURS HAVE BEEN RIFE IN THE chattering classes over the last five years as to why it was taking Yann Martel, author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, so long to produce his next novel. There were whispers about a severe case of writer's block, as well as murmurings about a doomed love affair.

None of these tales about the Canadian writer - who won the 2002 Man Booker prize for his dazzling magical realist novel about an Indian boy stranded at sea with a Bengal tiger - were true, even the ones about him having made so much money from the sale of the film rights that he need never write another word again.

Martel had indeed fallen in love - of which more later - but he was also taking all the time he needed to write his next book, his fourth work of fiction. It promises to be just as unusual as the lyrical Life of Pi, which, after being published in more than 40 countries, has sold six million copies and now ranks as a modern classic.

"Certainly this new book will be very different, since it combines both fiction and non-fiction in one volume," says Martel, 44, when we meet over afternoon tea in Edinburgh before his sell-out event at the International Book Festival, where he launched a gorgeously illustrated edition of Life of Pi.

He had already embarked on his next novel, an allegory on the Holocaust, when he won the Booker, a seismic event that changed his life and which led to him spending two years globetrotting to promote it. "My writing life was interrupted, but I didn't mind," explains Martel. "I really enjoyed the ride; it was a wonderful vacation. I got to stay in nice hotels and I got to meet my readers and to hear what the book has meant to them - such as the Swiss woman who insisted that Life of Pi was actually a metaphor for marriage and the Canadian man who told me it was really a novel about stamp collecting. But I was always thinking about my writing, about my next novel.

His explanation of the plot always did sound interesting.

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MORE ANGLO, FASTER, PLEASE:

French ministers study British government (Henry Samuel, 22/09/2007, Daily Telegraph)

After years of spurning British political methods as incompatible with the French social model, Gallic ministers are flocking to London to seek inspiration on how to modernise their government.

At least six French ministers have crossed the channel since Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in May.

The most recent was Eric Besson, the state secretary for prospectives and evaluation of public policies, who spent two days this week observing Gordon Brown's strategy unit and the national audit office.
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"When you decide to get inspiration from good practice in foreign countries, the British example springs to mind," he told Le Figaro upon his return.

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IT'S GOOD TO BE THE QUEEN:

Thatcher's call for tax cuts rocks Cameron (Ben Russell, 22 September 2007, Independent)

David Cameron is facing renewed pressure over his economic policy as it emerged that Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven has called for tax cuts.

According to a blog on The Spectator magazine's website by its political editor, Fraser Nelson, the former prime minister told him "a few months ago" that "you can't have stability without tax cuts".

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SWISS MISS?:

Doors to open on scandalous Victorian trial (SHÂN ROSS, 9/22/07, scotsman.com)

In the 1857 Edinburgh trial, Miss Smith, 22, the product of a Swiss finishing school, was accused of murdering working-class Emile l'Angelier after he threatened to show her father hundreds of passionate love letters written during their secret two-year relationship, after her family found her a wealthy suitor. She continued the relationship for six weeks before l'Angelier was found dead in March 1857.

L'Angelier kept diaries recording passionate visits from "Mimi", but entries began to appear saying he had fallen ill after she made him drinks of cocoa. The prosecution focused on Miss Smith buying arsenic several times, but her defence claimed it was for cosmetic purposes.

Suspicion then fell on l'Angelier, who had boasted of taking small doses of arsenic for health reasons, as being a manipulative blackmailer who tried to fake his poisoning on 22 March, 1857. Some believe the pretence went wrong when the friend who was meant to find him in time was delayed.

After the trial, Miss Smith moved to London and then to the US.

One of the cases covered in Rick Geary's great Treasury of Victorian Murder:

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THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS SPECIES:

Study: Catalina Bison Aren't Purebred (ALICIA CHANG, 9/21/07, AP)

Long thought to be purebred, the wild bison of Santa Catalina Island in fact have a little bit of cow in them, the first DNA analysis of the animals found. Nearly half of the 98 American bison shipped off the island in 2004 have cattle genes that were passed on through the mother. Catalina bison were believed to be purer than those on the mainland because they lived in isolation on the island since the 1920s.

"We were surprised because there's nothing cattle about them. They look like bison," said biologist Dennis Hedgecock of the University of Southern California, who co-authored the study.

They're totally different fat brown herd animals that stand around munching grass....

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IS IT REALLY A "FIERCE CLASH"...?:

Fighting Leads to Deaths in Southern Afghanistan (KIRK SEMPLE, September 21, 2007, NY Times)

About 40 Taliban fighters and at least four civilians have been killed in fierce clashes in southern Afghanistan...

In Helmand Province today, a combined team of Afghan and NATO security forces encountered a Taliban hideout and called in an airstrike that killed about 40 insurgents, military officials said. On Wednesday, NATO forces killed “more than three dozen insurgents” during a 14-hour gunbattle in western Uruzgan Province, the NATO command said. The military’s reported death tolls were not immediately verifiable.

...when the kill ratio is 0-40?

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SLIM TO ONE:

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SAT & B. & E. (via The Mother Judd):

School cheating scandal divides N.H. town: Criminal charges too harsh, some say (Sarah Schweitzer, September 19, 2007, Boston Globe)

HANOVER, N.H. - Academics is serious business in this well-to-do town, where life revolves around Dartmouth College. Ivy League credentials rank alongside Subaru wagons and restored farmhouses as status symbols, and high school students are expected to excel and land acceptances to prestigious universities.

So, as final exams loomed and pressure built last June at Hanover High School, some students hatched a scheme for acing the tests: One evening after school was out, a group of students entered the school building, authorities say. While some stood sentry in hallways, others entered a classroom and used stolen keys to break into a teacher's filing cabinet and steal exams for advanced math honors, advanced math, Algebra II, and calculus. Five days later, another group stole chemistry finals. In total, some 50 students are suspected of participating in the thefts, either helping to plan them or receiving answers from stolen exams.

Rather than issuing suspensions or grade demotions, school officials notified police. And after a seven-week investigation, the police prosecutor handling the case brought criminal charges against nine students. Last week, the prosecutor notified the nine students' parents that if they chose to take the cases to trial, he could raise misdemeanor charges to felonies, which carry possible prison terms of 3 1/2 to seven years.

Parents of the accused are furious and frantically trying to reduce charges to violations that carry no criminal penalties, penalties they say could harm their children's chances of attending college or securing employment. The scandal has divided the community, with some residents laying blame squarely on the nine accused students - dubbed "the Notorious Nine" - while others have questioned whether the intense competitiveness of 750-student Hanover High forced students into positions of having to cheat.

Some have also questioned the motives of police, suggesting they are using the incident to show that children of privilege - the parents of the accused include a physician, a business school professor, a hospital president, and a columnist at a local newspaper - are not above the law.

Note that the counterargument is essentially that they are above the law and that the criminality is just a product of the "highly competitive academic environment." You don't hear a whole lot of sympathy for them though, outside of the parents of kids who are involved.

MORE:
Reading, writing, and cheating (Joan Vennochi, September 20, 2007, Boston Globe)

[T]hose parents who are angry that school administrators in Hanover turned a case of breaking and entering over to police also seem extreme in their defense of their children's alleged wrongdoing.

As Superintendent of Schools Wayne Gersen told the Globe, "We have never called the police for a cheating incident. But there is never a time when we would not call the police when someone breaks into our building."

The parents are trying to get the charges reduced to violations that carry no criminal penalties. Such penalties could jeopardize their child's chances of attending college or getting hired for a job.

"What's frightening as a parent is that a 17-year-old makes one little mistake and he's going to have a potential prison sentence," said Jim Kenyon, a columnist for The Valley News based in Lebanon, N.H.

As the mother of two teenagers, I agree. The prospect of jail and a promising future derailed is frightening. But it is also scary to hear a parent equate an allegation of breaking and entering into a school for the purpose of stealing exams as "one little mistake." This is, at minimum, a very big mistake.

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YAWN:

Lost at Sea (ROBERT D. KAPLAN, 9/21/07, NY Times)

The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the private policy group Strategic Forecasting, Americans will not to the same extent be the prime deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships will share the waters (and the prestige) with new “big decks” from Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Then there is China, whose production and acquisition of submarines is now five times that of America’s. Many military analysts feel it is mounting a quantitative advantage in naval technology that could erode our qualitative one.

So we're getting help from our allies--to whom, in that region, you have to add India, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philipines, etc. (maybe even Vietnam in the not too distant future)--and the Chinese are responding with the old Soviet tactic of wasting tons of money on lots of crap to try and counterbalance the quality of our force? And this is a worry?

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COMING FROM MATTEL, JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS... (via Glenn Dryfoos)

Mattel apologizes to China over recall (Associated Press, September 21, 2007)

U.S.-based toy giant Mattel Inc. issued an extraordinary apology to China today over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.

The gesture by Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, came in a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, at which Li upbraided the company for maintaining weak safety controls.

...the Step-n-fetchit doll.

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A RADICAL NAZI, NOT THE REGULAR KIND?:

A Song for Hitler: The sordid murder of Horst Wessel, a young Nazi storm troop leader in Berlin in early 1930, might have passed almost unnoticed. Just one more death amid the chaotic political violence that marked the years before the Nazi seizure of power. However, in the hands of the propaganda genius Joseph Goebbels, Wessel’s killing became emblematic of the Nazi struggle to ‘save’ Germany from Communism, and Wessel himself – thanks to a few lines of doggerel he had written – the leading martyr of Hitler’s movement. On the centenary of Wessel’s birth Nigel Jones recalls his death and the black legend that sprang from it. (Nigel Jones, October 2007, History Today)

There is no doubt that Wessel – like his later mentor Goebbels – was one of those radical Nazis who took the word ‘Socialist’ in the party’s name seriously. ‘The parties of the right … called us National Bolsheviks or National Marxists because of our socialist posture’, Wessel wrote:

... They were correct, for the National Socialists in general had more sympathy for the [Communist] Red Front Fighters’ League than for the [Conservative] Stahlhelm. … In the red camp there were just as many – perhaps even more, fanatical idealists ripe for martyrdom than on the other side. Added to that was the whole shocking realization of the unbelievable delusion and abuse of the entire working class. And that’s how I became a socialist.

Aware that the son of a pastor might lack proletarian credentials, he refused to practice law and earned his living as a labourer and taxi driver; determined to live in the same conditions as the men of Sturm 5, the Berlin branch of the SA that he swiftly rose to command. Wessel, who clearly had charisma, intellgence and courage, relished a challenge, and in basing himself in the Friederichshain quarter, a Communist bastion with a population of some 350,000, he was provocatively pushing his head into the Communist lion’s jaws.

The brawling Nazis and Communists in late 1920s Berlin had, despite their bitter and bloody battles, a grudging mutual respect born of their shared working-class origins, and aped each other’s uniforms, organization, propaganda and militarized mindset.

Ever since the bloody suppression of the Spartacist revolts in 1919 – with the Freikorps’ murder of the KPD’s founding leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg – Berlin had been considered a Red citadel. The vast working-class quarters in the east, such as Friederichshain and Wedding, with their ill-lit, swarming tenement blocks, smoking factories and subterranean drinking dens, were Communist strongholds. Any attempt by the Nazis to break this iron grip was fiercely – and violently – resisted in the same way as Al Capone saw off the attempts to encroach on his territory by the Bugs Moran gang in contemporary Chicago.

Even in Weimar Germany’s most prosperous and ‘peaceful’ period of 1924-30 around thirty Nazis and ninety Communists were killed in political violence; along with twenty-six Stahlhelm nationalists; and eighteen Reichsbanner socialists. Far left and extreme right infiltrated each other’s meetings; attacked each other’s marches; disrupted each other’s funerals and routinely trashed the bars where their members met. All the time, however, another battle – one for hearts and minds – was in progress as the two sides struggled to win over and convert Communists to Nazis and vice versa. [...]

Returning from Vienna in early 1929, Wessel continued his work in Berlin and in March wrote the words of the song that would later bear his name. In August he led his men in a parade at the annual Parteitag or national rally at Nuremberg. After returning to the capital, Wessel was passing the Café Mexico off Alexanderplatz, in the heart of east Berlin one night, when he saw a young woman being attacked. He intervened to save her and soon discovered that the girl, Erna Jaenicke, was a prostitute, and that the man assailing her had been a client who had turned nasty.

Wessel fell in love with Erna and in September rented a small room at 62 Grosse Frankfurter Strasse where they could live together. His choice of landlady might seem strange. Elizabeth Salm’s recently deceased husband had been a Communist militant and she had shared his political leanings. But given the intimacy with which Communists and Nazis frequented the same shops and streets such domestic arrangements were not uncommon. Neither Wessel’s mother and sister, nor his party bosses, approved his choice of lover, especially as Horst’s party work appeared to slacken off the more he enjoyed the delights of home life with Erna, who, he claimed, had given up her former profession. [...]

Meanwhile, Wessel’s unhappy relationship with his landlady was reaching crisis point. Frau Salm, herself only a tenant, was worried that she would lose her lodgings if Wessel continued to hold political meetings in the flat, or if Erna reverted to her old profession and used the place for immoral purposes. There were also squabbles over the kitchen, which Wessel, Erna and Frau Salm shared – and the rent, which, Salm claimed, was in arrears. By mid-January, she had had enough of her troublesome tenants and decided that they needed to be taught a lesson.

Her thoughts turned to her late husband’s old comrades in the local 2 Bereitschaft [‘Readiness-squad’] of the Red Front Fighters’ League. Despite a minor clash over her insistence on giving Herr Salm a Christian, rather than a Marxist, funeral, the party was the only organization ruthless and strong enough to give Wessel the drubbing she felt he deserved. At The Bear, Salm outlined her problem to Erwin Ruckert, the twenty-six-year-old leader of the 2 Bereitschaft. Learning that Wessel was alone in the apartment with Erna, Ruckert swiftly summoned reinforcements from the nearby 3 Bereitschaft. Ruckert and his deputy, a thirty-one-year-old tattooed thug and career criminal with sixteen convictions for violence and pimping, named ‘Ali’ (Albrecht) Hohler, led a dozen Communists off to Wessel’s home to administer what one of their number, Max Jambrowski, assured Salm would be a good ‘Proletarian hiding’.

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PHONY:

Meanwhile, the Mayor is reduced to not just a stunt but a recycled one to make it seem like he's a normal married guy.

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ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, IT'S NOT VENEZUELA...:

Another Democratic Iraq amendment goes down (The Crypt, 9/21/07)

The Senate will adjourn for the weekend after a long week of tense debate over Iraq in which Democrats failed to move the ball and Republicans decided to stick with the White House in backing an unpopular war.

...so they can still only lose 52 weeks a year.

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JUSTIFIABLE FEARS:

'The Surge Was Absolutely Necessary': An Interview with Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie (Urs Gehriger | 21 Sep 2007, World Politics Review)

Next week will be a crucial moment for Iraq. General Petraeus will be providing the Congress in Washington an assessment of the effects of the "surge." What will his report look like?

The general trend will be positive. In military terms, the progress is palpable. Thanks to the additional 30,000 troops, the security situation of the population has improved in the last few months in many parts of the country. There is also positive news concerning the economy. A lot of money that we have taken in as revenue has not yet been spent. Purchasing power has increased. But we are still facing major challenges.

Your government is the target of harsh criticisms. The De-Baathification Law has yet to be modified and the plan for the distribution of oil revenues is constantly being put off. What is holding things up?

I think it has to do with fear. Every part of Iraqi society has justifiable fears about the uncertainty that any possible change represents for it. People have built up psychological barriers.

But you also bear responsibility. Iraqi security forces are evidently not fulfilling the demands made by the U.S.A.

Let's look back at how things were three years ago. In June 2004, we had no army, no police force, no border controls. Now we have ten divisions, 250,000 soldiers, and the same number of police. This has happened quickly. It is to be expected that the process has not been without problems. We recruit, train, and arm our troops, while terrorists are attacking us and neighboring countries are plotting against us. It is as if one had to tie one's shoes while constantly being shot at. One of the most important problems is the infiltration of our security forces by terrorists and religious militias. An additional problem is the composition of the troops. Some divisions are exclusively Kurdish, others exclusively Shia. We have to find a balance between the different groups also in the military.

When will you have gotten there? When will the Iraqi troops be capable of controlling the country themselves, so that the U.S. troops can begin the withdrawal?

Thanks to the "surge," we have made important progress. The number of terrorist attacks fell significantly, the number of terrorists captured or killed increased, we have discovered more weapons caches than ever before. We are doing this hand in hand with American troops. We cannot yet do it alone. We will still need their help for some time.

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IN MAVERICK'S SIGHTS:

Protesters give McCain best line at NRA gathering (Christi Parsons, 9/20/07, The Swamp)

Anti-war protesters barged into a speech Sen. John McCain was giving at the Capital Hilton this morning, but the interruption ended up giving McCain the high moment of his address to the National Rifle Association.

McCain was right in the middle of talking about the war in Iraq and how he and fellow Republicans are fighting to keep Democrats in Congress from forcing a change in strategy.

Suddenly, a young woman in a t-shirt reading "Troops Home Now" waded into the middle of the gun rights group, shouting "Bring the troops home!" and forcing McCain to stop speaking while she addressed the television cameras.

After a few seconds of camera time, a woman got up from her table at the NRA breakfast, wrapped the protester in an embrace and pushed her out of the limelight. A second protester was also lead out first by NRA members and then by security guards.

As the protesters left the room, McCain leaned into the microphone for the most emphatic thing he said all morning.

"Well, my friends, we beat you yesterday," he said. "We'll beat you today . . . And we'll beat you tomorrow!"

The crowd rose in an enthusiastic standing ovation, setting aside for the moment any past differences they may be holding against McCain.

The Deranged Left is the gift that just keeps on giving.

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A SOCCER GAME IS THE WRONG PLACE TO BE CHECKING FOR DUNSTONS:

Referee Forced to Check Gender of Female Soccer Player (Short News, 9/21/07)

The referee in a Ghana v. South Africa women's Olympic soccer qualifier has been forced to carry out an inspection in the South African dressing room after allegations were made by the Ghanan camp that one of the strikers was male.

If any of the players had one they'd play a sport where you throw overhand, not soccer.

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GOT THAT ONE BACKWARDS:

US questions India-Iran ties: Relations could imperil nuclear energy agreement (Rama Lakshmi, September 21, 2007, The Washington Post)

India's longstanding ties with Iran appear to be threatening the beleaguered nuclear energy deal between Washington and New Delhi and, more broadly, their growing strategic alliance. [...]

On Wednesday, reacting to Boucher's statement, India's defense minister, A.K. Antony, said India's relations with the United States and Iran were independent of each other. "India has very friendly relations with Iran. It will continue to do so," he said.

Two weeks ago, Antony informed Parliament that the Indian Navy was training five Iranian sailors in its facilities. India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, recently said that Iran had "every right to pursue its nuclear program for peaceful purposes" and that India favors a "noninterventionist policy in Iran."

Such a policy would run contrary to the hopes of the Bush administration. The legislation that made the US-India nuclear deal possible contains a nonbinding provision stating that India should work with the United States to dissuade Iran from developing its nuclear program and help contain it.

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mehdi Safari, traveled to New Delhi last week to brief the Indian government about developments related to nuclear issues in Tehran.

Israel to launch satellite in Indian spacecraft (Rediff News, September 21, 2007)

The satellite, developed and manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, will be the first from that country with Synthetic Aperture Radar capabilities, which will permit the cameras to take pictures under the cloudiest, most foggy conditions.

The Post reports that this will be the first time Israel launches a satellite piggybacking on Indian facilities, in keeping with a decision made three years ago during a visit to India by Israel's then defense ministry director-general Amos Yaron.

The 300-kilogram satellite will be taken into space aboard India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in what industry experts say is a further step in India's attempt to grab a slice of the $2.5 billion global launch market. As with outsourcing, an attraction India offers for potential customers in this market is that it charges considerably less than space-capable Western nations.

Officials in India and Israel have declined to provide the date and time of the launch.

Instead of dividing India and the U.S., the alliance will draw together the U.S. and Iran over the next few years.

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FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF SELF PARODY:

Why Can't the U.S. Have the Debate about Naomi Klein's Book That Europe Has? (Jan Frel, 9/21/07, AlterNet)

Frel: It's often times the case that books that make powerful and damning claims with complete accuracy still don't break into public debate or hit the audience that ought to confront them. Isn't there something else that prevents radical interpretations of society and economics and buried history from reaching public debate?

Klein: I think that's true -- it's certainly true in this country. I wasn't talking about the problem my book would have getting into the mainstream, it's more about the debates around it. My books do get into the mainstream -- outside the US. That doesn't mean they aren't contested, but in Canada for example, The Shock Doctrine is already at #3 on Amazon. [Currently at #43 in the U.S.]

Another book I did, No Logo was a mainstream book, in most of the countries where it was published, except for the US. In the U.S. it never was. The context I talked about the need for support for my arguments is in cases where my book is being debated and argued. So in the U.S., I totally agree that having solid footnotes are no guarantee that you can start a mainstream debate. I don't have any confidence that this book will be in the mainstream debate in the United States.

Frel: A lot of what you're taking on in The Shock Doctrine, is a concept that is fused in deep into a big part of the American psyche -- that "the free market" and "free enterprise," which we don't typically debate or condemn in the mainstream but are to blame for a lot of the things the public does discern as problems, like our health care system. But how do you get people to see that they are being screwed by their own dominant economic beliefs?

Klein: It's actually not that hard. The hard part is getting past the media wall.

Frel: At your U.S. book launch on Monday you talked about getting past the "intellectual police lines" that prevent discussion.

Klein: That's a different kind of situation. In Britain, it's a mainstream book, being debated on the BBC, the Times of London, the Guardian and so on. It's being dismissed in part -- part of the discussion is an attempt to dismiss it. When I was talking about "intellectual police lines" it was in reference to the kinds of questions I was getting from mainstream journalists in Europe and in Canada. But in the U.S., I would say that's not this is not really the issue -- it's whether you get access at all.

Frel: Do you think that it's because in the States, there isn't really any debate about alternatives to our economic system in any form? In Europe, where your book has already been released, there is at least the residue of a public debate that is willing to debate fundamental questions on economic systems and the social contract.

Klein: In most parts of the world, it's easier to even identify the radical policies of capitalism as contested territory, as something to debate. Whereas in the United States, these policies are the air we breathe; they are invisible almost because they are so hegemonic. For example, when I talk about privatization in Canada, people understand what that means -- it's about the drive to privatize our health care system and our education system, and there is a very clear grasp in the public mind about what the public sphere actually is. People understand there that this is something to defend against -- that there is something to privatize, while in the U.S., the agenda to privatize has succeeded so fully that these ideas seem more abstract because the idea of the public sphere is almost abstract.

When I'm talking about these ideas in France or the U.K., people know what "public" is. There are large parts of their life that exist within a non-market space.

At the point where you're sitting around complaining about the media conspiracy that keeps Americans from paying attention to intellectuals the way pre-Sarkozy France did, you're more or less a Monty Python skit.

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ALL THAT'S CHANGED IS THAT THEY INFORM US FIRST NOW:

Israel, U.S. Shared Data On Suspected Nuclear Site: Bush Was Told of North Korean Presence in Syria, Sources Say (Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright, September 21, 2007, Washington Post)

Israel's decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said.

The Bush administration has not commented on the Israeli raid or the underlying intelligence. Although the administration was deeply troubled by Israel's assertion that North Korea was assisting the nuclear ambitions of a country closely linked with Iran, sources said, the White House opted against an immediate response because of concerns it would undermine long-running negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Ultimately, however, the United States is believed to have provided Israel with some corroboration of the original intelligence before Israel proceeded with the raid, which hit the Syrian facility in the dead of night to minimize possible casualties, the sources said.

Memo to Senator Obama: the tail wags the dog.

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DIVISION OF LABOR:

France is now more gung-ho than America: As he threatens war on Iran, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner is living up to spiked’s warning that he is ‘the most dangerous man in Europe’ (David Chandler, 9/18/07, spiked))

[T]he foreign policy pronouncements of the new French government of Kouchner and Sarkozy have striking parallels to that of Blair and his foreign minister Robin Cook’s incoming Labour government in 1997. Kouchner, like Blair before him, is able to make grand statements of foreign policy mission in the knowledge that responsibility will have to be taken by someone else – the United States. [...]

Like Blair’s approach to the Kosovo crisis in 1999, this activist foreign policy depends on the fact that the US has already talked up the threat and is the only country with the capacity to carry out the threats that are made by others.

Over Kosovo, the Blair government was free to up the stakes against Belgrade - calling for intervention and, once the war had started, calling for ground troops - because there was little to lose. Blair could sound principled and take the world stage knowing that final policy responsibility would rest with Washington, and if intervention failed to meet the high moral aspirations then the US could always be blamed for policy failings. For many commentators, the biggest success of the Blair government was the 1999 Kosovo war, where Blair could bask in the reflective glory of the US bombing campaign.

Kouchner’s confidence in taking a warlike stance over Iran stems from irresponsibility rather than responsibility. Free from any final decision-making - or any substantial military role if there is a conflict - Kouchner’s warmongering rhetoric can only increase the tensions in the region, further destabilising the relationship between the US and Tehran. Rather than a moral or ethical stand, Kouchner’s position seems both craven and parasitical, both exploiting the US position and willing to risk thousands more lives in a region already torn apart by Western grandstanding.

If all Sarko's France does is provide the same cover for the Crusader State that Thatcher/Blair's Britain has, it will be playing a useful role internationally...for once.

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FREE MONEY FOR THE GREENWICH 7 FIGURE EARNERS:

Hedging on Race (EDWARD BLUM, September 21, 2007, NY Sun)

Just when you think there can't be any innovative ways left to play the race card, someone pulls an ace from their sleeve. A recently-formed consortium of investment professionals who are minorities and women is now claiming that if Congress increases the taxes on hedge-fund operators, which it is presently considering, it will adversely affect — yep, you got it — women and minorities.

In 40 years, civil rights goals have gone from integrating lunch counters in Greensboro, N.C., to sheltering hedge-fund operators from tax increases in Greenwich, Conn. [...]

This race-gender tactic is repellent. Reasonable people can have a reasonable debate about whether Congress should raise taxes on "carried interest," a slice of the profits that go to the managers of these pooled funds. Persuasive arguments have been offered by those who want to maintain the current system and those who don't. But it is simply ludicrous — pathetic, really — to claim that women- and minority-owned investment firms will suffer more than their similarly-situated counterparts if taxes are raised.

All small firms may suffer, or not, if saddled with higher taxes, regardless of the race or gender of its principals. This kind of "disparate impact" rationale has been fought tooth and nail by business interests in their employment practices for over three decades.

Some observers speculate there are two reasons behind the formation of the Access to Capital Coalition. The first is to peel away black and Hispanic members of Congress who have been vocal in supporting legislation to end the lower rate. Specifically targeted is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, an African-American who sponsored legislation, along with 22 other Democrats, to raise this tax.

The other reason is to give cover to Democrats in the Senate like Charles Schumer and Christopher Dodd whose constituents and donors greatly benefit from the status quo.

Whatever the reasons, it is sad that this race ploy is being embraced by the very investment firms that should know better — the same ones, in fact, that have had it played against them for years.

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PAPIST R. C.:

China appoints pro-Vatican bishop (Peter Walker, September 21, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

China took a significant step towards improving its traditionally turbulent links with the Vatican today with the consecration of a new bishop of Beijing who is widely believed to have the formal support of the Pope. [...]

Bishop Li made no reference to the Vatican or Pope Benedict at today's ceremony, vowing instead to lead the Beijing diocese "in adhering to the nation's constitution, maintaining national unification and social stability".

However, unlike his predecessor - the fiercely anti-Vatican Fu Tieshan, who died in April - Bishop Li is known to have the approval of papal officials, who praised his appointment when it was announced.

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USE SHAME AS A WEAPON:

Chinese dissident urges boycott of Olympics (Bill Gertz, September 21, 2007, Washington Times)

A leading Chinese dissident called on Congress yesterday to lead an international boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics because of China's human rights abuses and support for rogue regimes.

Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer under house arrest in China, wrote in a Sept. 13 letter to Congress made public yesterday that "more and more Chinese people are speaking out against the coming Olympic Games in China, which they often refer to as 'the bloody Olympics,' and 'the handcuff Olympics.' "

Given the trouble the GOP candidates have had identifying themselves with the Religious Right, you'd think a Mike Huckabee might take up this issue.

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WOULDN'T HER WEBSITE BE KRALL SPACE?:

Jazz Sessions: The Sumptuous Voice of Diana Krall (Marian McPartland, 9/20/07, NPR.org)

Canadian pianist, singer and songwriter Diana Krall grew up in a town called Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Both her father, who collected jazz records and played a bit of stride piano, and her mother (also a pianist) encouraged her interest in jazz and exposed her to all of the great players. She began studying the piano at age 4 and had several small jazz groups while in high school. When she was 17, she played at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and won a scholarship to Boston's Berklee School of Music.

The legendary bassist Ray Brown had heard Krall in Canada, and he encouraged her to move to Los Angeles to study with him. While there, she also began studying with Jimmy Rowles, who encouraged her to sing as well as play piano.

In 1990, Krall moved to New York and began performing regularly with her own trio. Three years later, she recorded her first album. In 1994, she signed with GRP records, beginning a long association with producer Tommy LiPuma, who produced the 1995 release Only Trust Your Heart. It featured an all-star group backing Krall, including her mentor Brown, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Lewis Nash and saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

Each of Krall's subsequent recordings has met with critical acclaim and commercial success, including When I Look in Your Eyes, which won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

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FURTHER BACK THAN THE 1930s?:

Confusion reigns as timelord Chavez turns back clocks in Venezuela (David Usborne 21 September 2007, Independent)

"Welcome to Caracas and thank you for flying Chavez Air. The time is... (pause, chuckle, clearing of throat)... the time is... We are not quite sure. Please move your watches half an hour forward. Actually, no, sorry, move them half an hour back. Thank you."

So far President Hugo Chavez has not named an airline after himself. This could, however, be the scene on board airliners arriving in the Venezuelan capital next Monday, when, in theory at least, the country will have adopted a new time zone. Whether it will actually happen is still a matter of confused conjecture.

News that Mr Chavez was pondering the time shift first surfaced at the end of August. Only now is he telling his citizens to be ready for the one-off shift on Monday, meaning that they must put their clocks back by 30 minutes at midnight on Sunday.

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ROGUE ELEPHANT:

NPR Live Concert Series: The Apples in Stereo in Concert (NPR.org, September 19, 2007)

The Apples in Stereo first emerged in the early '90s as part of the Elephant 6 collective, a group of musicians with a shared love of lo-fi, neo-psychedelic rock. Fifteen years later, the collective has disbanded, and flagship bands like Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel have stopped releasing new work. But The Apples in Stereo's members play on, returning with one of 2007's most inspired and ambitious recordings. The band showcased selections from New Magnetic Wonder in a full concert, webcast live on NPR.org Sept. 19, 2007.

MORE:
SXSW Sessions: The Apples in Stereo (Recorded Live on March 15, 2007, Presented by KEXP)

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GIGGLY GOOGLY:

India's innings: A new form of cricket sparks a fight over a lucrative market in India (The Economist, 9/20/07)

SNEERING cricket purists call it “hit and giggle”. But “Twenty20”, a new three-hour version of the elegant and at times seemingly interminable game, is serious business. In South Africa the inaugural Twenty20 world tournament, at which the top 12 cricket-playing countries are represented, is playing to sell-out crowds. It is accompanied by American-style razzmatazz previously unseen in cricket: feverish commentary, drumming dance music, scantily clad cheerleaders and all. And away from the stadiums, another contest is raging—to bring Twenty20 cricket to India, the world's biggest cricket market.

On September 13th the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which claims a monopoly on the game in the country, unveiled plans for a Twenty20 cricket league, the India Premier League (IPL). Modelled on England's football league, it will involve eight teams, based in big cities and privately owned through a franchise agreement with the BCCI. This was the BCCI's response to the formation of a rebel Twenty20 league, the India Cricket League (ICL), by the Essel Group, an Indian conglomerate, earlier this year.

There is much to fight over. Cricket is the single shared passion of over a billion people in India, and another 350m across South Asia. Games between India's and Pakistan's national teams draw 400m television viewers in India alone. This brings in vast revenues. In 2005 the BCCI generated around $50m, mostly from broadcasting rights. This year it will turn over some $300m. And that is before it feels the effects of Twenty20, which could be seismic.

The new format is a revolution in brevity, designed for television.

Three hours only gets you to the 6th inning of a Yankees/Sox game.

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AND MITCH GOT TO DRIVE THE BUS:

Democrats Throw Their Base Under the Bus; Cave to Wing-Nuts on MoveOn Resolution (Joshua Holland, AlterNet)

On the eve of the Petraeus hearings, I wrote that if the Democrats didn't call out the general on his partisan, politically motivated spin of the events unfolding in Iraq, they would prove their irrelevance on the issue of the ongoing occupation once and for all.

In the end, it was much worse than that. Today, Senate Democrats took the time to join their Republican colleagues in condemning an ad produced by MoveOn.org that -- accurately -- pointed out Petraeus' previous spin about progress in Iraq and warned that the general would "Betray Us." The resolution passed by a vote of 72-25. [...]

The fact that 25 Democratic Senators voted for the resolution is an indication of how deeply disconnected they are from the values that most Americans share. After all, polls taken after General Petraeus' testimony revealed that his show had barely changed public opinion on Iraq. Before he testified, a majority expected him to paint a rosier picture than reality -- to lie before Congress about the effectiveness of the surge, just as the MoveOn ad accused him of doing.

Tactically, rolling over on this one was profoundly stupid. In condemning MoveOn, Senate democrats effectively condemned themselves -- Democrats and MoveOn will be tied together by Republicans at every opportunity. MoveOn rolled out a new ad attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the McConnell campaign responded by saying, "MoveOn.org is an extremist organization that advocated pacifism in response to 9/11, ran ads on its website equating George W. Bush to Hitler, and most recently called our commander on the ground in Iraq, General David Petraeus, a traitor in a newspaper advertisement ... That ad and this group's actions were condemned today in a bipartisan 72-25 vote in the U.S. Senate."

Democrats just helped the Right marginalize the largest progressive grassroots organization in America.

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THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON:

The Teenage Prayers perform in the Current studio (Jill Riley, Minnesota Public Radio, September 20, 2007, The Current)

With musical influences such as David Bowie, Solomon Burke, Iggy Pop, Otis Redding, and the Clark sisters, you realize their sound is most definitely soulful rock. The Teenage Prayers formed in New York City in 2001 and their style quickly caught the ear of Solomon Burke who produced the final track on their debut record, Ten Songs.

For their follow-up record, the band enlisted the help of the legendary founder of the Dream Syndicate, Steve Wynn.

Songs performed: "No Sex," "Center of the World," "Is My Living in Vain?" (Cark Sisters Cover) and "Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)" (Solomon Burke Cover - Web Exclusive)

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THE GOLDEN YEARS:

The silence of Sibelius: Why did Sibelius produce nothing in his last 30 years? On the 50th anniversary of the great composer's death, Tom Service travels to Finland to unravel one of classical music's biggest mysteries (Tom Service, September 20, 2007, Guardian)

In Jean Sibelius's house, about half an hour north of Helsinki and within sight of haunting Lake Tuusula, there is a massive green fireplace, the height of the dining room. Every brick has been carefully glazed, reflecting the light that streams in through the front windows like an evergreen glimpsed in a wintry woodland. For any visitor to Ainola today - the house is named after Sibelius's wife, Aino - the fireplace is a colourful interloper in an interior otherwise completely made of pine.

Such is the clarity of the design of the house, the restrained chic of the textiles, even the crockery, that Ainola feels strangely contemporary. You half expect Sibelius himself to come out from his office and greet you, then sit down at his piano and wave you to a seat. Everything in the house has been left almost as it was when he died, 50 years ago today: his white suit, in which he was often photographed in the last years of his life, hangs from the door of his study; his pens lie on his desk; and the phonograph sits in the library, where he spent much of his last years listening to recordings of his music by conductors such as Thomas Beecham and Leopold Stokowski.

But that fireplace holds the secret to one of the great mysteries in the history of music. For the last 30 years of his life, Sibelius - the father of Finnish music and, at that time, the most famous Finn alive, celebrated the world over with performances of his orchestral music, and one of the few living composers to be almost universally loved - did not produce any major works. It's a creative silence all but unparalleled in music. How can it be explained?

In fact, that silence may not have been as total as we think. Sibelius premiered seven symphonies in his lifetime, pieces that are among the most popular yet misunderstood of any composer, the last coming in 1924. But there was another. An Eighth Symphony was promised to Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in the early 1930s, and its British premiere was even announced for 1933. The piece never appeared, despite letters Sibelius wrote to his friends discussing its structure. In 1933, he told Georg Schneevoigt, the conductor who was supposed to lead the symphony's world premiere in Helsinki: "You have no idea how brilliant it is." Later that year, he explained to a journalist that the Eighth "will be the reckoning of my whole existence - 68 years. It will probably be my last. Eight symphonies and 100 songs. It has to be enough." But all that remains of it today is one sheet of paper, a first page with a key signature and a list of instruments - but not a single note.

Yet the work did exist. It's just that Sibelius, probably some time in 1945, held a "burning party" at Ainola, in which he destroyed the manuscripts, sketches and finished copies of pieces he was working on - including everything to do with the new symphony. Only the inside of the fireplace at Ainola has any direct experience of what the symphony contained: a musical enigma that for decades has obsessed Sibelius scholars, who have tried vainly to look for traces of the score wherever he travelled; it has even inspired a novel, William Trotter's second world war thriller, Winter Fire. According to Aino, Sibelius was a happier man after he had burnt these scores, as if this act of seemingly incomprehensible creative vandalism had somehow released his spirit.

However, the real explanation for that 30-year silence at Ainola is more surprising - and more revealing - than the fruits of any hunt for the lost Eighth could ever be. And it is staring you in the face, or at least it is to anyone familiar with Sibelius's final works. Once you understand those shattering, unprecedented pieces, then the silence strikes you as not just understandable - but inevitable.

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TOO AFFLUENT TO REVOLT:

The Myth of Stagnant Wages (James Pethokoukis, 9/20/07, US News)

If the standard of living of the average American really had not improved for more than three decades, wouldn't there have been a tremendous political backlash by now? Wouldn't the Democratic Party have fully mutated into a full-scale social democratic party—nationalized healthcare, a return to superhigh tax rates—rather than moving right over the past three decades? Would centrist or right-wing candidates (Reagan I, Reagan II, Bush I, Clinton II, Bush I, Bush II) have won six of the past seven elections? I think not. Anyway, here are the real numbers:

1) According to the Labor Department, median weekly earnings in the second quarter were a full 2 percent higher than they were in the second quarter of 2006. What's more, economist Brian Wesbury of First Trust Advisors points out that earnings for workers at the 10th percentile of earners (where 90 percent of workers earn more than they do) rose 1.1 percent faster than inflation as measured by the consumer price index. Workers at the 25th percentile enjoyed wage gains of 2.3 percent above inflation, the fastest increase for any point along the income distribution, even faster than for those at the 75th percentile and 90th percentile.

2) Men who go to college are making more than they did in 1973. Men who don't have any college make less. That's according to data from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But those numbers are all adjusted for inflation, and many economists think government numbers overstate inflation. If so, then all Americans, on average, are substantially wealthier than they were back then. Here is what Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon E-mailed me earlier this year:

The correct statement is that correcting the upward bias of the official CPI adds more than 1 percent per year to official estimates of the growth in median and mean wages. Cumulatively since 1977, my best estimate of the upward bias in the CPI cumulates to 38 percent between 1977 and 2006. Thus, if someone came along and said the male median wage adjusted for CPI inflation has been stagnant since 1977, I would translate this into a true 38 percent increase. [...]

5) All these wage data ignore that benefits are an important part of compensation and have been rising faster than inflation for some time. Why does access to our increasingly technologically sophisticated healthcare system not count as improving our standard of living?

Go tell your grandmother how much harder you have it than she did when she was young and the mark her slap leaves on your cheek may be permanent.

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REFORMATION WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO REVOLUTION:

The Next Iranian Revolution: How armed exiles are working to topple Tehran's Islamic Government (Michael J. Totten, October 2007, Reason)

Opposition to the regime is widespread, deep, and open—an unthinkable situation in Saddam’s Iraq. It’s impossible for the Iranian government to crack down on everyone. The police don’t even try anymore.

“You can complain about the government,” Mohtadi said. “You can insult them. But America is a red line. Khomeini himself is a red line. The Israelis are a red line, absolutely.” Iranians can’t buck the party line on certain topics, but they are brave enough, or just barely free enough, to protest the government to its face. “When [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad spoke to students,” Mohtadi pointed out, “hundreds of students stood up and called him a fascist and burned his picture.”

Iran’s Genocide of Islam
Sealing the rugged Iran-Iraq border is all but impossible in the north, where like-minded Kurds live on both sides of it. People, as well as goods, cross every hour. Alcohol is smuggled into Iran. Gasoline and drugs are smuggled out. Komala’s location in the area makes it the perfect place for a vast, sprawling safe house. Activists, underground party members, and dissidents from Iran—the Persian heartland as well as from Iranian Kurdistan—slip through the mountains to visit every day.

I’ve stood on the border myself and contemplated walking undetected into Iran. Komala leaders even offered to take me across and embed me themselves. “We can get you inside Iran and leave you for weeks, if you want, among our supporters and among our people,” Mohtadi said. “It is very easy.”

If I were caught in Iran without a visa or an entry stamp in my passport, I would almost surely be jailed as a spy. Tempting as the offer was, I had to pass. Anyway, I could speak to Iranian dissidents, if not necessarily ordinary Iranians, in the Komala camp just as easily as I could have inside Iran. As it happened, a famous Persian writer and dissident had arrived there just before I did.

Kianoosh Sanjari is a member of the United Student Front in Tehran. At 23, he has been imprisoned and tortured many times. His last arrest was on October 7, 2006, after he wrote about clashes between the Revolutionary Guards and supporters of the liberal cleric Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi. Charged with “acting against state security” and “propaganda against the system,” he was released on $100,000 bail last December. Some months later, he fled to Iraq and moved to the Komala camp.

Unlike most Iranian visitors who use Komala as a safe house, Sanjari didn’t bother remaining anonymous. He told me his real name and said I could publish his picture. If you can read Farsi, you can read his blog at ks61.blogspot.com. “I’m just now coming out of Iran,” he said. “It’s a hell there. I know the sufferings. I am inclined to accept any tactic that helps overthrow this regime.”

“Does that include an American invasion of Iran?” I asked.

“Maybe intellectuals who just talk about things are not in favor of that kind of military attack,” he said. “But I have spoken to people in taxis, in public places. They are praying for an external outside power to do something for them and get rid of the mullahs. Personally, it’s not acceptable for me if the United States crosses the Iranian border. I like the independence of Iran and respect the independence of my country. But my generation doesn’t care about this.”

Sanjari has fierce and intimidating eyes, the eyes not of a fanatic but of a deadly serious person who is not to be messed with. He spoke slowly and with great force. “They repress people in the name of religion,” he said. “They torture people in the name of religion. They kill people in the name of religion. The young generation now wants to distance themselves from religion itself.”

Islamists seem to fail wherever they succeed. Perhaps Islamic law looks good on paper to Muslims who live in oppressive secular states, but few seem to think so after they actually have to put up with it.

More than 100,000 Algerians were killed during the 1990s in a horrific civil war between religious insurgents and the secular police state. As a consequence, Islamists are more hated now in Algeria than at any time since they rose up. Al Qaeda is trying to reignite the war there, and it is failing spectacularly.

Iraqis are turning against Al Qaeda faster and harder than Iranians turned against the Islamic Republic. Harsh as the Islamic Republic may be, Al Qaeda is worse by an order of magnitude. Its now infamous warnings to street vendors in Iraq’s Anbar Province not to place cucumbers next to tomatoes in the market because the vegetables are “different genders” is one of myriad reasons why most Sunni Arab tribes in that region recently flipped to the side of the hated Americans.

Islamist law is so widely detested and flouted in Iran that it’s a wonder the regime even bothers to keep up the pretense. In June 2005 Christopher Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair that every person he visited there, with the exception of one single imam, offered him alcohol, which is banned.

Everyone I met at the Komala compound said the Iranian regime itself wallows deep in the post-ideological torpor that inevitably follows radical revolutions. Except for the most fanatic officials, the government cares only about money and power. “Followers of the regime are not ideological anymore,” Sanjari said. “They are bribed by the government. They will no longer support it in the case that it is overthrown. Even among the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards, there are so many people dissatisfied with the policies of the regime. Fortunately there aren’t religious conflicts between Shias, Sunnis, and different nationalities.”

Mohtadi concurred. “The next revolution and government will be explicitly anti-religious,” he said.

The Iranian writer Reza Zarabi says the regime has all but destroyed religion itself. “The name Iran, which used to be equated with such things as luxury, fine wine, and the arts, has become synonymous with terrorism,” he wrote. “When the Islamic Republic government of Iran finally meets its demise, they will have many symbols and slogans as testaments of their rule, yet the most profound will be their genocide of Islam, the black stain that they have put on this faith for many generations to come.”

It’s certainly possible to be overoptimistic. Iranian dissidents have been predicting an imminent revolution for several years running. Michael Hirsh wrote recently in Newsweek that women in Tehran have “gone defiantly chic” in style and that the men are looking “less and less menacing and more and more metrosexual,” which makes the place sound more like freewheeling Beirut than an Islamist theocracy. But the state, he added, could still endure for some time. “It is an old, familiar umbrella of oppression that now stays just distant enough to be tolerated, even if it is little loved,” he wrote. “The success of this oppressive but subtly effective system should give the regime-change advocates in Washington some pause.”

Whom to believe? Hirsh’s analysis has been the correct one so far, but Iran is notoriously unpredictable even for those who are supposed to be experts. The 1979 Revolution shocked even CIA agents who lived in Iran while it was brewing. They insisted the Shah was firmly entrenched and could not possibly fall.

The Middle East is so rife with conflict, factions, murky alliances, foreign interventions, multisided civil wars, and wild-card variables that trying to predict its future is like trying to forecast the weather on a particular day three years in advance. There’s a reason the phrase shifting sands has become a cliché.

If the Islamic Republic is overthrown, almost anything might happen. Iran could become a modern liberal democracy, as most Eastern European states did after the fall of the Soviet Empire. It could revert to a milder form of authoritarian rule, as Russia has. It could, like Iraq, face chronic instability and insurgent attacks. Or its various “nationalities” could tear the country to pieces and go the way of the Yugoslavs. Optimists like Sanjari and Mohtadi may have a better sense of what to expect than those of us in the West, but still they do not know.

The only thing that seems likely is that a showdown of some kind is coming, either between factions in Iran or between Iran and the rest of the world. Predictions of the regime’s imminent demise have been staples of Iranian expat and activist discourse for years, so it’s hard to take the latest predictions seriously. But authoritarian regimes increasingly seem to have limited shelf lives. As Francis Fukuyama’s flawed but compelling book The End of History points out, there has been a worldwide explosion of liberal democracies since the 18th century, from three in 1790 to 36 in 1960 to 61 in 1990. (In 2006 Freedom House classified 148 nations as free or partly free.) History isn’t over and never will be, but it hasn’t been kind to dictatorships lately.

The Iranian state is soft and vulnerable compared with the worst abusers out there, and it constantly faces resistance from citizens. Something will give.

The very softness makes it unlikely that the successor will be actually anti-religious and if Ayatollah Khhamenei and Rafsanjani lead an economic liberalization they could even preserve the Islamic Republic. But the region has hardly been characterized by the moderation of its revolutions.

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KONSERVATIVE PARTY:

Is GOP Determined to Avoid Minority Voters? (Carl Leubsdorf, 9/20/07, Real Clear Politics)

Not only is the GOP field all white and male – in a year that Democratic contenders include an African-American senator, a Hispanic governor and a woman – but its candidates seem determined to avoid many of the nation's more diverse groups.

So far, most Republicans have bypassed three chances to woo the fastest-growing, most tempting minority, Hispanics. They also turned down a chance to appear before a leading group of gays and lesbians and have avoided some unions, where Republicans poll a significant minority.

And next week, the top GOP hopefuls will pass up a debate designed to spotlight issues of special interest to African-Americans.

Their actions defy warnings that their party needs to expand its share of minority votes or doom itself to minority status. After 2000, President Bush's strategists said he'd lose in 2004 unless he increased his share of the Hispanic vote to 40 percent.

He did – and he won.

Last year, after most leading Republicans denounced his immigration plan providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here, the party's share of the Hispanic vote dropped sharply.

Compounding the GOP's problem with its wahoo wing is that the natural successor to President Bush and the one guy in the Party likely to appeal even more to Latinos is not running for dynastic reasons. But adding Jeb to the ticket in '08 and running on his own will begin to heal some of these self-inflicted wounds.

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THE RECEDING SURGE FREES UP RESOURCES, NO?:

Source: Syria Has Nuclear Program (BENNY AVNI, September 19, 2007, NY Sun)

Recent reports of cooperation between Syria and North Korea on weapons development, including in the nuclear field, are chilling earlier enthusiasm in Washington about the prospect of North Korean disarmament through diplomacy.

A person identifying himself as a former Syrian military officer who has had access to sensitive military information in Damascus confirmed to The New York Sun yesterday that Syria has been working on a clandestine nuclear program at least since 1986. The former officer added that many North Korean nationals are in Syria in relation to that program. Syrian and North Korean officials have dismissed reports in several press outlets claiming that the target of a September 6 Israeli air raid over Syria was a nascent Syrian nuclear program heavily aided by North Korea.

If Israel indeed hit a target related to such a program, and if, as the Washington Post first reported, the air raid was scheduled several days after a suspicious North Korean delivery arrived in Syria, this would put Pyongyang, which of late has promised to verifiably disarm its nuclear program, in an awkward position. It also may explain the abrupt suspension of a meeting in Beijing, scheduled for today, of six countries involved in the North Korean disarmament diplomacy.

"The North Koreans don't want to be in the glare in Beijing, explaining what they are doing in Syria," a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said. Mr. Bolton, who has led the charge against an inclination by some in the State Department to invest enough trust in Pyongyang to offer it incentives in exchange for disarmament, warned about ties between the regimes of Kim Jong-Il and President al-Assad as long as four years ago.

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TOOK LONG ENOUGH TO NOTICE:

An up-and-coming force in Libyan politics (Elisabeth Rosenthal, September 20, 2007, IHT)

The thin man with a shaved head smiled slightly as he made his way to a podium erected amid Greek ruins, a serious presence in a boisterous crowd that gathered last week to celebrate plans for an eco-development region near the town of Cyrene, in the deserts of Eastern Libya.

In a skull cap and long white tunic with a gold-trimmed vest, he talked slowly, deliberately - even a bit nervously - presenting data in English about desertification, oil supplies and carbon emissions. He corrected even the smallest grammatical errors in the printed speech he was reading.

"Climate change is a global problem, but global solutions start with local solutions," he said in faintly accented English. "We must build societies in a way that allow us to reduce greenhouse gases. The day will come when oil will run out and if we wait for that it will be too late."

The man - part scholar, part monk, part model, part policy wonk - was Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the powerful 33-year-old son of Libya's extroverted and impulsive president, Muammar el-Qaddafi. He is, in short, the un-Qaddafi. [...]

He emerged on the world stage in 2000, when he helped negotiate the release of hostages taken by Islamic terrorists at a Philippine diving resort. He has spoken out against Libya's Revolutionary Committees, which exist in schools, businesses and offices to enforce political orthodoxy.

Perhaps as a sign of his growing importance, his security detail has greatly increased in the past year, say those who know him.

"He doesn't have an official position but it's clear he has influence and power - Saif is right in the heart of it all," said Rajeev Singh-Molares of the business consultancy the Monitor Group in London. He has advised Qaddafi for three years, working on a strategy for Libya's economic development. Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, also talks with Qaddafi.

Westerners who have worked with him say he is smart, well-read and quick to pick up the telephone to call the prime minister or his father. But "he understands that there are red lines that he cannot cross," said an associate who asked to speak anonymously about the political forces within Libya.

The Qaddafi Foundation he runs "was certainly helpful in the nurses' case," said Richard Roberts, who led a group of Nobel Prize winners in petitioning Libya for their release. "At this point one would like to believe the best about them."

Qaddafi has recently made some extraordinary admissions: He said the medics were tortured with electricity while in prison and that the infection of children with AIDS in Benghazi resulted from poor sanitary conditions at the city's hospital and was not - as his father and the prosecutors contended - a plot by the nurses to infect them.

Also this year, in a televised speech, he said that Libya should adopt a proper constitution that would guarantee freedom of the press. Qaddafi has opened two private newspapers in Libya and this summer he addressed a gathering of more than 100,000 young Libyans.

He is the president's second-born son, the first child of his second wife, Safiyya. His siblings are Muhammad, a businessman; Saadi, a professional soccer player; and Aysha, his sister, who is a lawyer.

Qaddafi is, experts say, clearly an emerging force for liberalization.

Time for Gamal Mubarak to step up to the plate.

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SO HELP YOU, YOU? (via Matt Murphy):

Nebraska State Senator Sues God (NATE JENKINS, 9/17/07, AP)

The defendant in a state senator's lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He's everywhere.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

The Omaha senator, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, also says God has caused "fearsome floods ... horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes."

He's seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty.

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SHOWERED & BLUE-BLAZERED:

Deaf Indie Elephants has posted The National’s performance at Austin City Limits 2007.

And here they are on The Current, The National perform in the Current studio (Steve Seel, Minnesota Public Radio, September 20, 2007, The Current)

Before their show at the Fine Line Music Cafe, they spoke with Steve Seel about how politics fits, or doesn't, into their music as well as their experience at Austin City Limits and at the David Letterman show.

Songs performed: "Racing Like a Pro," "Apartment Story," and "Fake Empire."

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NOTHING COSTS MORE THAN IT USED TO...:

Sony's Plan to Cut PS3 Costs: By letting Toshiba make the game console's chip, Sony can focus on core operations—and boosting PlayStation sales (Kenji Hall, 9/19/07, Business Week)

In the video-game industry, it's the oldest trick in the book. To keep a console from collecting dust on store shelves, game console makers will periodically cut prices and watch as buyers flock. Since the PlayStation 3's global launch last November, Sony (SNE) has already dropped the price of its two models, originally $599 and $499, by $100 apiece. But with PS3 sales growing at a slower-than-expected pace and trailing Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii, Sony could be mulling over another price reduction in the coming weeks. Some observers think an announcement might come as soon as this week's Tokyo Game Show.

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12ERNOMICS ISN'T WORKING:

Petrol Rationing - Bumpy Ride (Kimia Sanati, 9/20/07, IPS)

Two months after the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began rationing petrol to ‘’vaccinate’’ itself against possible sanctions, critics say the plan has failed to cut down gasoline consumption. Instead it has hurt the agriculture, tourism, transportation and other sectors of the economy. [...]

Extra rations for various government organisations, groups of individuals with special needs and some businesses, as well as a bonus 100 lt ‘summer travelling ration’ allocated by the government have reversed the initial drop in consumption. Gasoline consumers under 45 different categories are now receiving additional gasoline rations, a member of Parliament Economic Committee was quoted by the ‘Aftab Yazd’ daily as saying.

"During the early stages of the implementation of the plan, traffic was reduced, gasoline consumption went down, there was less pollution and people accepted to learn to change their fuel consumption patterns... but creation of extra rations has destroyed all the initial achievements," the hard line ‘Jomhuri Eslami’ daily wrote.

In c ase you wondered why Khamenei is shoving Rafsanjani down their throats.

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BLAME W:

Unemployment Claims Make Surprise Drop (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, 9/20/07, AP)

The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the jobs market. [...]

The four-week average for claims, which smooths out some of the volatility, also showed an improvement, falling to 320,750 from 324,250 the previous week.

Do such minor fluctuations really matter anyway in a full-employment economy?

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CONVERSATION PIECE:

A Reunion of Giants, 50 Years On (FRED KAPLAN, 9/20/07, NY Times)

Sonny Rollins’s concert at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night was billed as the 50th anniversary of his first performance there. More significant, it was the first time since 1958 — nearly a 50th anniversary — that he’s played with Roy Haynes. The greatest living tenor saxophone player, teamed again with arguably the greatest living drummer — now that’s historic.

The concert’s first half, when the two were joined by the young bassist Christian McBride, lived up to the fanfare, in unexpected ways. The high points of Mr. Rollins’s concerts are usually the extended solos: sinuous improvisations, going on for dozens of choruses, no two alike, in which he explores every chord, theme or counterpoint a song seems to offer, then taps some uncharted crevice and digs or soars on to blow more. This set wasn’t like that. Perhaps because he was playing with peers (a rarity in recent decades), he held back, simmered where he usually boiled, and played as one of three equals.

The unlikely highlight was “Some Enchanted Evening,” which Mr. Rollins opened by reciting the melody with his lush and husky tone, while Mr. Haynes flapped brushes in triple time, and Mr. McBride plucked whole notes that anchored the chords without confining his band mates. When they got to the part where most musicians take solos, Mr. Rollins instead tossed out a fragment of the melody, then Mr. Haynes filled in the rest, and on the interplay went, bar after bar, the two sometimes overlapping, sometimes not.

It felt like an ambling, elegant conversation between old friends, which in fact it was. It set off a goose-bump sensation, a shared intimacy one rarely encounters in a jazz concert. And the full house gave it the night’s lustiest applause.

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HASn"T EVEN BROKEN OUT THE RED TRUCK YET:

Most Down-to-Earth Presidential Candidates (David A. Andelman, 09.18.07, Forbes)

Fred Thompson has spent the last five years of his public life cultivating an image of an avuncular, low-key leader of a group of high-energy public prosecutors as the Manhattan district attorney on NBC's Law & Order.

So it's perhaps not too surprising that the newest declared Republican candidate has emerged as the most "down-to-earth" among 15 that are tracked in the September edition of our presidential poll, the Forbes '08 Tracker.

A close second in this category is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Perhaps not surprisingly, Thompson and Obama also came in first and second as the most appealing candidates--the broadest measure of voter interest and the closest to a conventional political poll. In terms of down-to-earth, 20% of those polled in our sample identified Thompson with this trait, and 19% attributed it to Obama.

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BLABBERMOUTH:

Netanyahu 'admits Israeli strike' (BBC, 9/20/07)

The Israeli opposition leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, has made the first apparent admission of Israel's involvement in an alleged air strike against Syria.

In a live interview on Israeli TV, Mr Netanyahu said he had congratulated Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the raid.

"I was a partner in the issue from the start, and I gave my backing," he said.

His resemblance to Newt Gingrich just now occurs to me.

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THANKS, AQ:

Bin Laden video to declare war on Musharraf: site (Reuters, 9/20/07)

An Islamist Web site said on Thursday it would carry a new video from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he declares war on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani army.

The biggest challenge in Pakistan is getting them to fight al Qaeda--giving them no choice in the matter is extremely helpful.

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THE BOYS IN THE BUND:

Lack of Women in Eastern Germany Feeds Neo-Nazis: A new study has found that many more women are leaving economically moribund Eastern Germany. The result is a new, frustrated and largely male underclass. And many of them find succor in the neo-Nazi scene. (Der Spiegel, 9/20/07)

The problem has been well known for years: Ever since the mid-1990s, young Eastern Germans have been fleeing the region due to a lack of economic opportunity, hoping to find jobs in the western part of the country. Some 1.5 million have already left the region -- roughly 10 percent of the population of East Germany when the Berlin Wall fell. Even worse, most of those who leave are under 35 and many of them have above average education or training.

But according to a new study released by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, there is another problem that accompanies the migration. Since 1991, more than two-thirds of all those who have left Eastern Germany have been women. The result is that in many towns in the region, there are simply not enough to go around -- some places are missing up to 25 percent of their young women. Even worse, the young men who stay behind are often poorly educated, unemployed and frustrated -- perfect fodder for neo-Nazi groups looking for members.

Hoffer again: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business." Hardly surprising that men who can't find women find their own lives meaningless.

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DUMBING UP:

The French Revolution: As President Nicolas Sarkozy assumes the role of Europe's most dynamic leader, smashing taboos has stripped away paralyzing French hypocrisy. (Roger Cohen, 9/19/07, Der Spiegel)

The French Revolution of 2007 has not seen heads roll but has involved the destruction of 10 taboos as President Nicolas Sarkozy assumes the role of Europe's most dynamic leader.

THE AMERICAN TABOO

Enthusiasm for the United States was unacceptable for a French political leader because it was always interpreted as an embrace of "Wild West" capitalism, "Anglo-Saxon" hegemony and vulgarity. De rigueur attitudes held sway: patronizing contempt in Paris met macho derision in Washington. Communication suffered. Sarko's New Hampshire vacation, enthused American dreaming, iPod-accompanied jogging and in-your-face style cleared the air. [...]

THE CULTURAL TABOO

To run France, you had to be cultu