Our stretch of very welcome hurricane weather here in Arenal is slowly drawing to a close. Yesterday, as was the day before, was brilliantly sunny, dry and very warm, with a high of 86, and today was only slightly cooler, with a high of 85, and an overnight low of a very warm 75. Tomorrow promises to be back to seasonable norms, however, as afternoon showers have reappeared with a brief thunderstorm this afternoon. Looks like the break in the rainy season is now over.
The last two days have been very busy for me. My peon (laborer) finally showed up to do the fence work I have been needing done, and at nine yesterday, went to work, getting the problems with the fence fixed. The first item of business was a fence that was down completely on the North Forty, and getting a gate rebuilt there. Then it was on to the holes in the fence around the end of the pond, and finally, today, the fence between me and my neighbor to the east. It was a hole in that fence that precipitated this whole adventure, when a cow wandered through it and into my garden. All in all, the peon's estimate of five hours was out the window - I was into it thirteen by the time it was all done. There is still some work that needs to be done, but that is going to have to wait for awhile.
In the midst of all that, I needed to get some dental work done, so after my experience on Monday with the new dentist in town, I decided to go ahead and get another cavity filled yesterday, after she advised me that it was rather urgent. So with my peon working away on the fence, I left and submitted myself to the torture of the dentist's chair. As it turned out, she had a gentle touch, and had my jaw well and truly anesthetized, so it was relatively painless. She indicated when it was all done that the decay wasn't as bad as first appeared, and when the anesthetic wore off, there was relatively little pain in my jaw.
In addition, my friend who is just moving here had needed some help with a few things in getting settled. Yesterday, he brought a car he was considering buying, over for me to look at, and after having looked it over, we agreed that it was not a good deal. Today, he needed a local resident to go with him to the bank to arrange an introduction so he could get an account set up at the local bank branch. I went with him to the bank for that purpose, and, as luck would have it, my ex-neighbor was the clerk that waited on us, so there was never even any hesitancy about proceeding with an account. After about an hour of filling out various forms, he had his bank account, and spent the next ten minutes signing traveler's checks to make an initial deposit. We went to a nearby bar for a drink, and enjoyed a nice banana betido while he was waiting for his next appointment - with a lawyer to buy an off-the-shelf corporation.
What he doesn't know yet, is that now that he has a foreign bank account and will have controlling interest in a foreign corporation, he will be enjoying the privilege of filling out and filing (two separate copies, one copy with his income tax returns each year, and the other to an IRS office in Philadelphia, thank you very much) Internal Revenue Service form 5471, Report Of Profit And Losses In A Controlled Foreign Corporation. And then there is the lovely Treasury Department form TDF 90.22, Report Of Interest In A Foreign Bank Or Securities Account. Not to be filed with the taxpayer's income tax return, but to be sent to the Treasury Department office in Detroit, Michigan, to be received not later than June 30 of the current calendar year, every year - both on pain of a felony conviction (and a huge fine) if either form is not properly filed in a timely manner. His taxes just got a lot more complicated, even though he doesn't live in the United States anymore.
I am growing to truly hate being a "United States Person."
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Sen. John Kerry didn't contest the results at the time, but now that he's considering another run for the White House, he's alleging election improprieties by the Ohio Republican who oversaw the deciding vote in 2004. An e-mail will be sent to 100,000 Democratic donors Tuesday asking them to support U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland for governor of Ohio. The bulk of the e-mail criticizes Strickland's opponent, GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for his dual role in 2004 as President Bush's honorary Ohio campaign co-chairman and the state's top election official. "He used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote," said Kerry's e-mail. Kerry, D-Mass., conceded the election when he lost Ohio and its 20 electoral votes. A recount requested by minor-party candidates showed Bush won by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast. But Kerry's e-mail says Blackwell "used his office to abuse our democracy and threaten basic voting rights." Multiple lawsuits by outside groups were unsuccessful in challenging Ohio's 2004 election. One case filed by the League of Women Voters is still in U.S. District Court in Toledo. It claims Ohio's election system discriminates against minority voters.
"Agencies across government are under increasing pressure to sway public opinions -- either to win funding from Congress, to satisfy customers, to recruit new employees, to educate the public about new programs, to minimize fallout from controversial policies," writes Mollie Ziegler. With more U.S. federal agencies "applying sophisticated public relations tools and tactics," government spending on PR and marketing services skyrocketed from $39 million in 2001 to more than $400 million for 2006 to date. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration "hired a PR consultant last year to help it put a more positive face on its decision to outsource 2,500 jobs, the biggest outsourcing deal yet by an agency." The Defense Department hired consultants to survey college students, to improve their branding and recruiting materials. And agencies are still putting out video news releases, though the Government Accountability Office ruled that segments that don't make their government source clear are illegal covert propaganda.
Karl Rove was not "perp-walked" out of the White House in handcuffs as his detractors had hoped, but the past year was certainly a low point for President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist. A criminal investigation put Rove under scrutiny for months, then he was forced to surrender a key policy role in a move that raised questions about his authority in the White House. While Rove fought the allegations and kept a low public profile, he never lost his unparalleled influence on the president, say those close to him. "The history of a lot of folks in these jobs is that they are hired guns," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said. "With Karl, you have someone who has been central to what the president has been doing for decades." Mehlman and others in the White House say Rove gave up his responsibilities as chief policy coordinator in April, but remains heavily involved in all aspects of domestic and international policy. The coordinator role had turned Rove into an internal White House diplomat, trying to coordinate different views into a coherent position while maintaining neutrality. Some felt it stretched the political strategist too thin. The slimmed-down portfolio leaves Rove freer to focus on politics, look at the big picture and provide a gut-check in a White House that has struggled with missteps that may leave Republicans vulnerable in the midterm congressional elections. Rove fell under a legal cloud after a grand jury, starting late in 2003, began investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity to reporters. He learned in June that he would not be indicted. With that threat behind him, Rove is back to his old playful self _ sporting Elvis sideburns on a recent trip to Memphis with the president and traveling around the country for lucrative storytelling to GOP donors.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature in California is on the verge of sending Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would create a state-run universal health care system, testing him on an issue that voters rate as one of their top concerns in this election year. On a largely party-line 43-30 vote, the Assembly approved a bill by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, that would eliminate private medical insurance plans and establish a statewide health insurance system that would provide coverage to all Californians. The state Senate has already approved the plan once and is expected this week to approve changes that the Assembly made to the bill. Schwarzenegger has said he opposes a single-payer plan like the one Kuehl's bill would create, but the governor has not offered his own alternatives for fixing the state's health care system. As many as 7 million people are uninsured in the state, and spiraling costs have put pressure on business and consumers. "We know the health care in place today is teetering on collapse," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles. "We need to do something to improve it, to reform it, and this is what we are bringing to the table."
Hackers have obtained the credit card details of almost 19,000 online shoppers from telecoms giant AT&T. The US company said it had notified shoppers at its online store of the security breach, which affected people buying high-speed DSL internet items. Security was breached at the weekend, the company said, and online stores were quickly shut down in response. AT&T said it would reimburse customers for any fraudulent transactions and pay for any necessary credit services. There were no indications that fraudulent transactions had been carried out before the stolen information came to light, AT&T said.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Saturday described as abusive, abominable and reprehensible the fact that the US has taken advantage of the current sickness suffered by the Cuban President Fidel Castro to increase its aggressive anti-Cuban plans. "That is the very first reason why I signed the intellectuals declaration in defense of Cuba's sovereignty," said the outstanding social fighter to Prensa Latina. "In second place," she asserted, "it is abominable that any government [arrogate to] itself the right to ride roughshod over people's opinions, interests and self determination." Menchu referred to her love for the Cuban people and their spirit of resistance as the third motive encouraging her to join the signatory intellectuals. "Cuba is an example of dignity and Latin American dignity is also brought to mind when it comes to crazy presidents like Bush trying to impose their policies," she stressed.
The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chávez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency. Millions of dollars have been provided in a "pro-democracy programme" that Chávez supporters claim is a covert attempt to bankroll an opposition to defeat the government. The money is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Office of Transition Initiatives. The row follows the recent announcement that the US had made $80m (£42m) available for groups seeking to bring about change in Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is a close ally of Mr Chávez.
Venezuela has launched a probe on US attempts to smuggle fuses and detonators, among other military supplies, into Venezuela under diplomatic immunity. Venezuela on August 23 intercepted twenty packages of "personal effects belonging to a US diplomat" which exceeded the 16 in an officially arranged diplomatic exception. Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon said another box diverted to the US embassy contained missiles for Bronco aircraft which had been requested by the National Air Force of Venezuela under a contract signed before the imposition of an arms embargo imposed by the United States. The incident led to a probe by the Justice and Defense Ministries, and widens the investigations on funds being supplied to the opposition, especially Sumate. Presidential Advisor, Rear Admiral Luis Cabrera Aguirre, and Parliament Chairman Cilia Flores warned of maneuvers to subvert Venezuela and invalidate its candidacy to the UN Security Council.
The presence of North American troops in Paraguay has aggravated the criminalization of peasant organizations by the corrupt right-wing government. According to studies of Serpaj the worst cases of repression against farmers have taken place in areas with the highest concentration of US troops: "The US military is advising the Paraguayan police and military about how to deal with these farmer groups - they are teaching theory as well as technical skills to Paraguayan police and military - the US troops form part of a security plan to repress the social movement in Paraguay."
Islamic fascism is the "greatest threat we'll ever face," and Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are the driving forces behind a movement bent on destroying the United States, Sen. Rick "Sanctimonious" Santorum said Monday. He said America needs to "aggressively provide access to its oil reserves" to decrease reliance on Middle East supplies. In a speech to the Pennsylvania Press Club, the Penn Hills Republican portrayed Iran as a country intent on getting nuclear weapons. "The principal leader of this Islamic fascist movement is Iran," Santorum said. "I believe this is the greatest enemy we will ever face. This is the enemy of our generation. It is the challenge of our time. And yet, we tend to play politics with it here in America - sadly."
What Your Aid-To-Israel Tax Dollars Are Paying For: Israel rejected a call by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon, saying it would end the seven-week-old siege only when all aspects of a ceasefire were in place. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also told Annan he would not withdraw Israeli troops fully from southern Lebanon until the full implementation of the truce, which took effect on August 14 and ended 34 days of conflict with Hizbollah guerrillas. Olmert's statements amounted to a rejection of the two main requests Annan had brought to Jerusalem, but Annan later played down the differences of opinion. "There isn't that much of a difference between Prime Minister Olmert and myself," Annan told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah when asked about his apparent failure to strengthen the ceasefire. Annan, who visited Lebanon on Monday and Tuesday, later left for Amman, where he will meet King Abdullah of Jordan on Thursday. Annan's Middle East tour also includes Syria and Iran. "The blockade should be lifted," Annan told a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the second leg of a tour intended to underpin a UN-brokered truce that ended the 34-day conflict. "It is important not only because of the economic effect it is having on the country but it is important to strengthen the democratic government of Lebanon with which Israel has repeatedly said it had no problems," he said.
Spin Cycle: In an interview Tuesday night on "NBC Nightly News," the president said history would vindicate his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and remove President Saddam Hussein from power. But it would consign him to ignominy if he heeded the calls of critics and much of the public to pull U.S. troops home before democracy could be stabilized in Iraq, he said. "If we lose our nerve and leave the Middle East before the job is finished, the world will be much worse off," Bush told "Nightly News" anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams.
Somewhere, Keith Olbermann is sticking pins in a Bill O'Reilly voodoo doll: Fox News' ratings, TVNewser reports, are down since August of last year. Like, way down. Like down 28 percent in primetime among all viewers, down 20 percent in primetime in the "money demo" (viewers aged 25-54) and down 7 percent in daytime viewership overall. In fact, the only place Fox is up is during the day, when they managed a ratings increase of just 2 percent, and even then only in the money demo. And lest you think this is an industry-wide trend, consider this: over the same time period, CNN and MSNBC are up. CNN's up 35 percent during the day -- 46 percent in the money demographic - and up 21 percent in primetime overall, 25 percent in the money demo. MSNBC's ratings increases aren't quite as impressive -- up 6 percent in primetime overall, 8 percent in the money demo, and up 36 percent in the money demo during the day, 26 percent overall. We, of course, are Fair And Balanced here, so there won't be any celebrating later tonight. Certainly we will not be opening any champagne. Bad for the liver.
The Texas Republican Party establishment has rallied around a single candidate, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, in their unusual write-in campaign to salvage the 22nd Congressional District seat vacated in June by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader. But the extreme rarity of successful write-in campaigns for Congress and the presence of a solid Democratic nominee on the ballot in former Rep. Nick Lampson has prompted CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the 22nd District race to Leans Democratic from No Clear Favorite. The GOP faces a world of trouble in this race because of a serious miscalculation on the part of DeLay and his party colleagues. Party officials initially were encouraged by DeLay's decisions to renounce the nomination he had won in the March 7 primary and to resign from Congress on June 9. Though long one of the most powerful figures in Texas and national politics, DeLay faced a still-pending trial for alleged state campaign finance violations and ethics controversies stemming from his past ties to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Click on Katherine Harris' Senate campaign Web site and look for the blog. "This section will be updated soon," reads a message - dated May 29. A Web site 100 days out of date is hardly the worst of it for Harris, whose political wounds, many of them self-inflicted, make her the poster woman for Senate Republican recruiting woes. Missed opportunities, stumbles and bad breaks in a half-dozen states or more in 2005 have tilted the map toward the Democrats in ways that are still unfolding. "In every single state where they were challenging one of our incumbents they did not get their first choice and in many cases they did not get their second," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, head of the Democratic campaign committee. As a result, he said, "we can spend our time and money challenging their incumbents." Apart from Florida, Republicans failed to get their preferred recruits in North Dakota, a heavily Republican state, as well as Washington, Nebraska, Michigan, West Virginia and Vermont. Several GOP officials concede the party's prospects are hampered as a result. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid open criticism of North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who chairs their campaign committee.
Technological advances in a refurbished White House Press Room open the door (or wall, actually) to daily presidential video news releases, says Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University. "The equivalent of press releases could go out without interruption or analysis," Thompson said of the new "video wall" that likely will be added to the press room when it reopens next year. The Wall Street Journal reports that the new press room will take its design from Defense Department and political convention displays and quotes a senior White House official as saying that the room will have the capability to include everything "from flags waving in the breeze [to] detailed charts and graphs." The White House has also described the refurbishing as a safety matter in a cramped space, with President Bush playing with a line from his predecessor by telling reporters, "We felt your pain." But S. Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Afffairs points out, "These new toys will aid the administration in setting the agenda by giving them more time, more video evidence, and a larger profile."
Conservative Policies Are Building A Strong America: In the world's biggest economy one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the US Census Bureau said on Tuesday, releasing a figure virtually unchanged from 2004. The survey also showed 15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and the fifth increase in a row. It was the first year since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 that the poverty rate did not increase. As in past years, the figures showed poverty especially concentrated among blacks and Hispanics. In all, some 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income below around $10,000 for an individual or $20,000 for a family of four. The last decline in poverty was in 2000, the final year of Bill Clinton's presidency, when it fell to 11.3 percent. "It shows that we are spending more money than ever on anti-poverty programs and we haven't done anything to reduce poverty," he said.
Conservatives Believe In Free, Fair, Honest and Transparent Elections: Ohio officials will soon begin destroying the paper ballots from the 2004 presidential election despite objections from voter rights groups. "Soon after the 2004 presidential election, questions emerged about how votes were tallied in Ohio, a battleground state that delivered the presidency to George W. Bush," Ian Urbina writes in a story slated for the New York Times. "Now, following a routine procedure, state officials are preparing to destroy the paper ballots from the election," writes Urbina. "Critics say the ballots should be preserved for more study," the article continues.
Conservatives Believe In Conserving Natural Resources: Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared after a helicopter tour that drilling will proceed in a North Slope region that has become the focus of a new dispute over Alaska oil drilling. He said the area's wildlife will be protected. Some members of Congress and environmentalists have argued that problems with pipeline spills at Prudhoe Bay and pipeline corrosion 200 miles to the west makes opening an ecologically sensitive area of the North Slope to oil companies especially questionable. But Kempthorne said Tuesday after seeing the region in person from the air that he is more convinced than ever energy production can coincide with environmental protection. "We're set to go forward," said Kempthorne, whose department will sell oil leases to nearly 500,000 acres north and east of Lake Teshekpuk, an area environmentalists maintain should be protected because of its value to caribou and as molting grounds for tens of thousands of geese. In his first trip to Alaska's North Slope, Kempthorne was scheduled to tour the Prudhoe Bay fields on Wednesday and get a briefing on the pipeline corrosion problems on Wednesday. Included on the schedule was a stop at the site where a pipeline leak last March spilled 270,000 gallons of oil onto the Alaska tundra. That spill triggered new requirements from the federal Transportation Department for testing and the discovery of serious corrosion in much of BP Alaska's pipes and a partial shutdown of Prudhoe Bay oil production.
Conservatives Support Free Speech: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is urging the United States government to disconnect an Iranian news site from American Internet servers, charging that the site has ties to terrorist organizations. The allegation is based on a report published by Haaretz last month. According to the Haaretz report, the site, Baztab, published details about a month ago of what it termed "an interrogation" of the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah on July 12. Baztab's report claimed that the soldiers had admitted that Israel planned a military attack on Hezbollah in September or October, and the kidnapping had foiled this plan. Based on this report and other information published on the site, AIPAC concluded that Baztab, which is supported by an American server, has ties with a terrorist organization. It therefore asked the U.S. Treasury Department to order the site shut down.
Conservatives Support Broad Voter Participation: Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio along with the Brennan Center, Lawyers' Committee and the ACLU Voting Rights Project filed a lawsuit challenging a voter intimidation provision in Ohio law that unfairly burdens naturalized U.S. citizens. "This law singles out one group of U.S. citizens and places an unfair extra burden on them to cast their ballot," said ACLU of Ohio cooperating attorney Daniel P. Tokaji. "The principle that every eligible voter should have equal access to the vote is a keystone of democracy." Tokaji said the provision, a section of Ohio House Bill 3, would allow poll workers to inquire whether a voter is a naturalized citizen and require those voters to provide proof of naturalization. If voters cannot provide proof at the polling place, they may cast provisional ballots but must go to the Board of Elections with documentation within 10 days of the election. According to legal papers filed by the groups today, allowing poll workers to challenge someone’s ability to vote based on where they were born will open the door to ethnic and racial profiling and will almost certainly discourage voting by racial minorities and other immigrant groups. Among the plaintiffs in the case are community organizations including the Asian American Bar Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Ohio and the Federation of India Community Associations. The lawsuit also names nearly 20 individuals who represent naturalized U.S. citizens from around the state, including community activists, doctors and lawyers.
Conservatives Are Calm, Reasonable, Rational People: Rush Limbaugh, pioneer of inane right-wing babble, has accused the left, the government, and the United Nations of exacerbating the obesity epidemic in America by attempting to feed the hungry. Limbaugh, in a trail of thought Magellan couldn't have navigated, used as his inspiration a recent study which noted the prevalence of obesity-related health problems in poor communities, ignoring the well-established fact that malnutrition can contribute to obesity. LIMBAUGH: "I think you might then say that the obesity crisis could be the fault of government, liberal government. Food stamps, all those - you know, I'm gonna tell you people a story. I - just, well, the government, you could say, is killing these people because we know obesity kills, and the government’s killing the poor. The Bush administration is killing the poor with too much food... And so, now, we find out that there is obesity and all this amongst the poor more than amongst those who are not poor. It’s sort of a textbook case of what happens when we let liberals have their way. I mean, for decades, all over the world, we’ve been beat about the head that there are hungry people out there, that they are starving. UNICEF - how many of you trick-or-treated for UNICEF? Did you 'Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF,' Brian? We all did - did you? We all trick-or-treated. One of the biggest scams on the face of the earth. It was - the scam was to get everybody loving the United Nations. The scam was to get everybody thinking the United Nations is feeding poor people. Remember all these stories: "A dime a day will feed 20 kids in some outward place around the world"
Conservatives Believe Businesspeople Are Moral Examples To Be Emulated: CEOs of the largest 15 oil companies averaged $32.7 million in compensation in 2005. This sum is more than twice the amount paid out to CEOs at other "large U.S. firms." More on the study released by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy here. Bloomberg: "Rising prices and profits translated into pay packages for oil company chief executive officers that are nearly three times the size of similarly sized businesses, a new study from two watchdog groups said. In 2005, the CEOs of the largest 15 oil companies averaged $32.7 million in compensation, compared with $11.6 million for all large U.S. firms, according to the study, released today by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. Amid reports of multimillion-dollar pay packages, shareholder activists have sponsored resolutions to limit compensation at companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Home Depot Inc. In May, three members of the House of Representatives criticized the retirement benefits of former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond and asked the company to fill a gap in its workers’ pension fund."
In their glossy annual reports, military contractors are typically modest about how much loot they've gotten from a bloody and increasingly unpopular "War on Terror." But read the transcript of virtually any Q&A session with Wall Street and the truth comes out. While millions are suffering from the human and economic costs of the Iraq war, the violence has been very good for the bottom lines of military contractors and their top executives. "Obviously, military was a big bang for us in the post-September 11 period," crowed George David, CEO of United Technologies, in a meeting with analysts last December. UTC makes Black Hawk helicopters and fighter jet engines, along with civilian aircraft and elevators. David went on to boast that UTC had beaten all its competitors because the military side of its business had more than made up for a 25 percent drop in commercial aerospace revenues. Not surprisingly, David's personal rewards haven't been too shabby either. Since 9/11, he has been by far the highest paid defense executive, hauling in a total of more than $200 million. David and other top defense executives are highlighted in a new report, "Executive Excess," by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy
News From Smirkey's Wars: Bombers killed nearly 50 Iraqis on Wednesday, mostly in Baghdad, but the top U.S. commander said a security drive in the capital was making progress and local forces could largely be running Iraq within 12 to 18 months. General George Casey declined to be drawn on what that might mean for how many American troops could go home, and when. He told reporters a fierce battle on Monday in which Shi'ite militiamen in a southern city killed at least 20 Iraqi soldiers - 13 of them "executed" after they ran out of bullets - was not a setback and that continuing operations would show the U.S.-trained Iraqi army had the upper hand in Diwaniya. A bomb in a crowded wholesale market in central Baghdad killed 24 people and wounded 35, the latest of several attacks in recent days that have broken a lull and may be intended by suspected Sunni insurgents to defy a clampdown on Sunni areas that U.S. officers say has halved the death rate this month.
News From The Talibaptist Jihad: Pope Benedict gathers some of his former theology students on Friday for a private weekend debate on evolution and religion, an issue conservative Christians have turned into a political cause in the United States. Benedict, who taught theology at four German universities before rising in the Catholic Church hierarchy, has pondered weighty ideas with his former Ph.D students at annual meetings since the late 1970s without any media fuss. But his election as pope last year and controversies over teaching evolution in the United States have aroused lively interest in this year's reunion on September 1-3 at the papal summer residence of Castel Gondolfo outside Rome. Religion and science blogs are buzzing about whether it means the Vatican will take a more critical view of evolution and possibly embrace "Intelligent Design," which claims to have scientific proof that human life could not have simply evolved.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: Signs that our local forests are stressed by global warming recently struck me while traveling over North Cascades passes in Washington state. The forest is dying near the top on both east and west sides; trees are still partially green but turning red - old trees, young trees, the forest itself. Tents, and campers, in the Lone Fir Campground were surrounded by these dying trees. The same reddening trees can be seen hiking through the Glacier Peak Wilderness on the trail to Spider Meadow in the Chiwawa River watershed of the Wenatchee National Forest. People are reporting that forests are dying near Mt. Rainier, on Chinook and White passes and down to central Oregon. Huge expanses of forest in central British Columbia have died and turned red. A friend living in the Quesnel River watershed of central British Columbia said, "It's all red, and next come the fires." Millions of acres of lodgepole pine have been pushed over the mortality threshold by global warming. There is no longer suitable habitat for the trees that have been growing there. In northern Canada, forests are showing signs of heat stress. Tracking forest changes between 1982 and 2003 using satellite data, Scott Goetz, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, found that a wide swath of the northern forest was getting browner, not greener as he had expected. Goetz believes this is some of the first evidence that high latitude forests may be in decline following an initial growth spurt associated with warming. A massive Alaska yellow cedar die-off on 500,000 acres of land in Southeast Alaska has been documented by the US Forest Service. Scientists investigating the dramatic decline in yellow cedar eliminated all other possible causes except climate change. Yellow cedars live in the higher latitudes and altitudes of the coastal temperate rainforest from Alaska to the Olympic Peninsula. The trees that are dying have been living there for up to 1,000 years, in a climate conducive to life.
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: Beyond "Macaca": Barnstorming around Virginia in the re-election campaign that Republican Senator George Allen hopes will provide the impetus for his 2008 run for the presidency, he has suddenly been forced on the defensive. Time and again, he has felt compelled to explain that his mocking of S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American staff member for his Democratic opponent, as "macaca," or monkey, was an unintentional gaffe. "It was a mistake. I made a mistake," he told a reporter from a local NBC affiliate at a campaign stop on Thursday. Hours later, he told the ABC affiliate, "It was a mistake, I was wrong." On Fox News's Sean Hannity show, he echoed, "It was a mistake." But was it an isolated "mistake"? Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups. You can see a photograph of him here with the leaders of those groups.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist acknowledged Tuesday that he may not have met all the requirements needed to keep his medical license active - even though he gave paperwork to Tennessee officials indicating that he had. In other words, he lied. The state of Tennessee requires its licensed physicians to complete 40 hours of continuing medical education every two years. Frist, a heart-lung surgeon who is considering a 2008 presidential run, submitted a license renewal with the Tennessee Health Department stating he has fulfilled that requirement. Responding Tuesday to repeated requests from The Associated Press, a Frist spokesman said the Republican senator may not have done his continuing education after all.
What splendid weather we are having today! It is hurricane weather - whenever there is a hurricane out in the eastern Caribbean, the weather here in Arenal is truly spectacular. And today is no exception. While Ernesto is churning up the eastern tip of Cuba and making a mess out of Guantanamo (which is well and truly deserved by the people who run that place), those of us in Arenal enjoy bright sunshine, few clouds, light winds - just the sort of weather I moved to the tropics to enjoy, and indeed, with a high today of 85, a low last night of 70, it couldn't be much nicer.
Not that I was in much of a position to enjoy the weather, however. Seems I had a tooth inlay come out on Saturday night (whatever can't be dealt with on a weekend always seems to happen on a Saturday around here), and so I had to wait over the weekend to deal with it. I tried calling the clinic in Fortuna that I had heard about, and the phone was never answered when I called, so I went into town and started asking around. It was suggested that I try the new dentist here in town. She is the daughter of one of the prominent families in town, and, as it turned out, had studied at the best of the private medical schools in the country. One of the other gringos that I know here had been to her, and was satisfied with her work. So I figured I would give her a try, since what I needed done was about the simplest of procedures.
She had no appointments this morning, so I was able to walk right in and get the work done without waiting. The equipment in her office was basic and furnishings spartan, but was spotlessly clean, and the dental instruments were professionally autoclaved and sealed, so no health worries that I could see. I was delighted with how professionally she set about her task, using good hygiene procedures and working with confidence. From what I saw of it, her work was everything I had come to expect. She did her job quickly and efficiently, and when done, adjusted the bite beautifully. All in all, it appears I got a good inlay done. I had her clean my teeth while I was there, and in the process, she discovered two unfilled cavities, one in a wisdom tooth which has been there for years and has never grown, but another in a premolar that is hidden between the teeth and was quite large. It had gotten bad enough that the tooth has begun to discolor, and if unattended, will soon cause trouble, so she advised me to have it filled right away. I made an appointment with her tomorrow to get that cavity done, as it will be a somewhat lengthy procedure done under local anaesthetic. I paid 15,000 colones each for the cleaning and the filling, a total of 30,000, or just under $60. It would have been cheap at twice the price.
So today, I am sitting in my rocking chair on the porch enjoying this truly splendid weather. Tomorrow by this time, I will be in sheer agony.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: A bill to promote government transparency faces an uncertain future because of a far-from-transparent hold placed upon it in the Senate. An unknown number of senators have blocked legislation to create a public, searchable Web site of all federal grants and contracts. Senate rules permit any senator to anonymously block consideration of a bill on the floor, effectively killing the measure. "Hopefully the person or persons blocking it will realize it's important to promote transparency and not secrecy in government," said John Hart, spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the bill's sponsor. Supporters of the measure had hoped to bring it to the Senate floor before lawmakers left Washington for the August recess. Hart noted that the bill has a bipartisan list of prominent co-sponsors including: Senate President Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and possible presidential hopefuls Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The bill was approved July 27 by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The House approved a similar measure in June, but its version of the database would include information only on grants. Hart said sponsors in the Senate are working with House members to iron out this difference. He said they're optimistic an agreement will be reached soon.
The U.S. Army has quietly increased, by nearly half, the rate at which it grants what it terms "moral waivers" to potential recruits. According to the Pentagon, waivers in 2001 totaled 7,640, increasing to 11,018 in 2005. "Moral waivers" permit recruits with criminal records, emotional problems, and weak educational backgrounds to be taught how to use submachine guns and rocket launchers. Afterward, if they survive, they'll be called heroes - and released back into society. (One ex-soldier praising the military for having "properly trained and hardened me" was Timothy McVeigh). The U.S. military is now a mercenary force. In addition to hired militias and "independent contractors," we do have a draft: a poverty draft. That's why the Army is so disproportionately comprised of people of color, seeking education, health care, housing. But the military inflicts other perks: teenage males, hormones surging, are taught to confuse their bodies with weapons, and relish that. One notorious training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The U.S. Air Force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Military manuals are replete with such blatant phrases as "erector launchers," "thrust ratios," "rigid deep earth-penetration," "potent nuclear hardness."
When U.S. News cited "a top insider" describing how Smirkey likes to fart in the presence of junior White House staffers as a joke on them, the item was given the boys-will-be-boys title: "Animal House in the West Wing." But it is really much more than that - it is a way of asserting his superiority. During a presidential debate in 2000, Bush was back to making light of Texas executions. While arguing against the need for hate-crimes laws, Bush said the three men convicted of the racially motivated murder of James Byrd were already facing the death penalty. "It's going to be hard to punish them any worse after they're put to death," Bush said, with an out-of-place smile across his face. Beyond the inaccuracy of his statement - one of the three killers had received life imprisonment - there was that smirk again when discussing people on Death Row. The swelling of Bush's head was apparent in his interview for Bob Woodward's Bush at War, .which took a largely flattering look at Bush's "gut" decision-making but reported some disturbing attitudes within the White House. "I am the commander, see," Bush told Woodward. "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." So, Bush had come to see himself as beyond accountability, much as ancient royalty viewed their own powers as unlimited under the divine right of kings. In the traditional droit du seigneur, a nobleman had the right to deflower the bride of a male subject on their first night of marriage. Now we're told that George W. Bush has another way of demonstrating his supremacy over subordinates: when new White House aides are brought in to be introduced to the President of the United States, the President farts.
The wives of soldiers whose duty in Iraq was extended to add troop strength to Baghdad peppered U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with tough questions, some that he could not answer, at a closed-door meeting in Alaska on Saturday. Rumsfeld, who received a mixed reception from a crowd that offered more applause for the questions asked than the answers provided, praised the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He would not commit to a date for bringing those soldiers home, but told a 12-year-old girl in the audience, "I'd bet your daddy gets home before Christmas." He also told the estimated 700 to 800 family members at the meeting in an Army gymnasium that what the soldiers were doing was necessary to ensure terrorism does not strike the United States. "In five or 10 or 15 years, you'll all be able to look back and appreciate the importance of what's being done and the value of what's being done," he told the crowd. Rumsfeld's meeting with family members was closed to the press, unlike other large events, such as "town hall" sessions with troops. But some wives taped the event and one shared the recording with reporters.
The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi, CA man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. Federal authorities said Friday that the men, both Lodi residents, would not be allowed back into the country unless they agreed to FBI interrogations in Pakistan. An attorney representing the family said agents have asked whether the younger Ismail trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan. The men and three relatives had been in Pakistan for more than four years and tried to return to the United States on April 21 as a federal jury in Sacramento deliberated Hayat's fate. But they were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and told there was a problem with their passports, said Julia Harumi Mass, their attorney. The father and son were forced to pay for a flight back to Islamabad because they were on the government's "no-fly" list, Mass said. Muhammad Ismail's wife, teenage daughter and younger son, who were not on the list, continued on to the United States.
Michael J. O'Keefe, a veteran United States diplomat and the deputy nonimmigrant visa chief at the American Consulate in Toronto, was indicted in Washington on charges that he traded work visas for jewelry, lavish dinners, New York hotel rooms and Las Vegas trips. The indictment describes a scheme in which Mr. O’Keefe fast-tracked applications for employees of an international jewelry manufacturer, STS Jewels, with headquarters in New York, and was lavished with gifts in return. Sunil Agrawal, chief executive of STS, was also charged. Mr. O’Keefe, 59, of Portsmouth, N.H., faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Finding cash to fund TV commercials is "the only thing that matters in American politics now", former US Vice-President Al Gore has said. "The person who has the most money to run the most ads usually wins," he told the Edinburgh TV Festival. It was "astonishing" that the average American devoted nearly five hours a day to TV viewing, he added. And Mr Gore asserted the internet was making TV more accessible and letting people join a "multi-way conversation." He called this an important move because people could find and distribute information, and then watch as it was judged by others in terms of quality.
Coca-Cola Co. was sued Friday as part of an effort to force soft drink makers to eliminate ingredients in their products that can form cancer-causing benzene. The complaint against the soft drink giant came as two smaller companies settled a lawsuit over benzene, which is linked to leukemia. "I think if they understand that consumers, and perhaps courts, expect them to eliminate this problem, they will," said Boston lawyer Andrew Rainer, who represents the parents. A Coca-Cola spokesman said the lawsuit is not about consumer safety but about lining lawyers' pockets. The Food and Drug Administration "has closely reviewed beverages for the presence of benzene in soft drinks several times in the past and each time has found no public health issue," said Coke spokesman Ray A. Crockett. And that's an order!
A group of government dissenters has called out Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for what they see as a lack of principle and unwillingness to stand up for whistleblowers. In an op-ed to be published soon, Sibel Edmonds and William Weaver of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) criticized Senator Clinton for her failure to take a stand on the deaths of two veterans and injuries of others in illegal drug experiments at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany, NY. A number of efforts have been made by NSWBC and other concerned parties to get Sen. Clinton to address the matter, but to no avail. Edmonds and Weaver called Clinton's inaction in the Stratton case "part of a pattern of studious avoidance of principled action in the face of serious government misconduct, and the refusal to come to the aid of those people who expose that misconduct."
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: The US would have to lift decades-old sanctions against Iran and probably give assurances that it has no policy of regime change towards the Islamic republic to settle Iran's nuclear dispute with the west, according to leaks of the Iranian response to the Security Council resolution demanding an end to its nuclear enrichment program. Iran is demanding firmer guarantees on trade and nuclear supplies, a tighter timetable for implementing agreements and clearer security pledges from the west before it decides whether to freeze its uranium enrichment program and explore an offer of a new relationship. Details of its response delivered this week to diplomats, disclosed yesterday by two well-connected Iranian political scientists, claimed moderates in Tehran had won an important power struggle and were offering a negotiated settlement of the nuclear row. If the US spurns the Iranian olive branch and forces through sanctions from the UN security council, "the stage will be set for a full-scale international crisis", the response's authors stated.
Government officials from the United States and this country are intensifying their verbal sparring after Venezuelan customs authorities this week seized diplomatic baggage from the United States that contained military hardware. In what analysts say may be a prelude to worsening relations, Venezuela's attorney general began an investigation on Friday into whether the American Embassy violated customs law when it brought 20 diplomatic bags into the country. The cargo, delivered by a C-17 military transport plane, included ejector seats apparently intended for Venezuelan combat jets, explosive charges and about 180 pounds of chicken that did not pass through sanitary inspection, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon Escamillo said Friday night. Displaying a photo of the lorries for journalists, Mr Chacon said that only four out of 20 packages were considered diplomatic baggage covered by international protocol. The US had bypassed customs and the necessary paperwork with the other 16 which included 80 kilos (176 pounds) of chicken, he said. This latest row occurred amid growing distaste in President Hugo Chavez's government over moves by the United States to step up spying operations in relation to Venezuela, with the creation this month of a post overseeing intelligence gathering and analysis for Venezuela and Cuba. Mr. Chavez regularly claims the United States plans to destabilize his administration and topple him.
A state within the Federal Republic of Germany has ruled that US government monitoring of international wire transfers is not legal. The Data Protection Commission within the German lander (or state) of Schlewsig-Holstein published an analysis of the handing over of transactional data from the agency SWIFT in Brussels to the US government. It found that the practice violates German and European data protection law because there is no legal basis for the transfer of intra-European transactional information to the US SWIFT processing center, and because US-EU transactions do not have their data properly safeguarded by the US. With the Commission finding a lack of legal basis for the SWIFT monitoring, it called for an immediate cessation of the mirroring of European data in the US SWIFT data center.
What Your Aid-To-Israel Tax Dollars Are Paying For: Cluster bomb explosions wounded three children and a man on Sunday, bringing to almost 60 the number of people hurt by the explosives since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah two weeks ago, hospital sources said. The children, aged six to 11 years old, were wounded when one of six bomblets in the town of Blida, near the border with Israel. A 39-year-old man in the bordertown of Houla was also hurt when a cluster bomb exploded in his home, the sources said. Despite a massive public awareness campaign warning people of the thousands of unexploded cluster bombs left over from Israel's month- long blitz against Hezbollah fighters, casualties are reported each day. Since the August 14 ceasefire, 11 people, including three members of a Lebanese army mine-clearing unit, have been killed, along with 47 wounded, according to government figures. More than 280 cluster bomb strikes have been found so far across southern Lebanon, which was heavily bombed and shelled during Israel's offensive. The United States said last week it would probe Israel's use of US-made cluster bombs, after the UN and international rights groups sounded alarms about what they call a growing emergency.
An Israeli air strike hit a Reuters vehicle in Gaza City on Saturday, wounding two journalists and three others as they covered a military incursion, doctors and residents said. One of the Palestinian journalists, who worked for a local media organization, was seriously wounded. A cameraman working for Reuters was knocked unconscious in the air strike, one of several in the area. The Israeli army said the vehicle was hit because it was acting suspiciously in an area of combat and had not been identified as belonging to the media. "During the operation, there was an aerial attack on a suspicious vehicle that drove in a suspicious manner right by the forces and in between the Palestinian militant posts," army spokeswoman Captain Noa Meir said. "This car was not identified by the army as a press vehicle," she said. "If journalists were hurt, we regret it." The missile struck the vehicle after dark. The Reuters armored car was clearly labeled as a media vehicle, with signs on all sides, including the roof. Both journalists were by the doors, covering an Israeli military incursion into the Shijaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, known as a stronghold of militant groups.
Four men, who, according to Israel, were members of a security force of the governing Palestinian movement Hamas have been killed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian officials say the men died in a strike by a pilotless Israeli aircraft on the outskirts of Gaza City. Israeli officials said two men had been killed in an exchange of fire and other gunmen were targeted from the air. The deaths bring to eight the number of Palestinians killed during an Israeli incursion which began on Saturday. Reports say the Hamas militants killed on Monday belonged to a special forces unit of the Palestinian interior ministry, which is controlled by Hamas.
Israeli security forces detained a Palestinian politician from Hamas on Sunday, witnesses and the army said, as part of a two-month dragnet against senior officials from the governing Islamist faction. Witnesses said Mahmoud Musleh was taken into custody at his home in Ramallah, the Palestinians' cultural and political hub in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the detention but declined to say why it was ordered. Israel has detained at least 35 Hamas politicians and cabinet members since Gaza Strip gunmen, some from Hamas, killed two soldiers and abducted a third in a June 25 border raid. The detentions have drawn foreign censure and speculation that Israel was gathering high-level "bargaining chips" to force Corporal Gilad Shalit's return. Palestinian officials accused Israel of trying to topple the Hamas-led government.
A key U.S. legislator said in Israel on Sunday he would block aid Smirkey promised Lebanon and free the funds only when Beirut agreed to the deployment of international troops on the border with Syria. "The international community must use all our available means to stiffen Lebanon's spine and to convince the government of Lebanon to have the new UNIFIL troops on the Syrian border in adequate numbers," said Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives' International Relations Committee. Lantos said he was putting a legislative hold on Bush's proposal to provide $230 million in aid for Lebanon in the aftermath of the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas. Meanwhile, Construction Jihad, the civil engineering arm of Hizbollah, was bombed out of its headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs during the recent 34-day conflict. But within a day of the UN-brokered ceasefire, engineers from Jihad al-Bina’a, to give its Arabic name, were at work in the streets of the suburbs and south Lebanon assessing damage from Israel’s bombardment. Today, Construction Jihad’s makeshift premises in a south Beirut branch of the Mahdi school, the organisation's education association, is a hive of activity. Between pictures of Hizbollah leaders holding children, and the party's yellow flags, a large map of the area is plastered on the wall, dividing neighborhoods into small numbered zones. Engineers huddle along the length of a table strewn with forms detailing damage to individual properties from the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah. Since the ceasefire two weeks ago, Construction Jihad has moved into high gear, dispatching agents to areas affected by the conflict to measure the damage - they estimate 15,000 properties were destroyed or damaged - and send the forms back to this central office. This information is entered into computers, before people are paid compensation from the party itself, or assisted with reconstruction. Construction Jihad is part of a socialnetwork,includingschools, hospitals and a banking institution,that was critical to Hizbollah’s ability to fight Israeli troops during the occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
Spin Cycle: A plurality of voters in each of 32 states agree that the political system in the U.S. is "badly broken." Percentages range from a high of 63% in Vermont to 47% in Nebraska, but all point in the same direction. The Rasmussen Reports surveys were conducted as part of a series of Election 2006 polls on Senate and Governor's races across the nation. An earlier, national, survey found that just 48% of American adults believe that elections are generally fair to voters. That number has been fairly consistent since we began polling on the topic in the mid-90s. The only change has been the partisan details. In the 1990s, with a Democrat in the White House, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to believe that elections are fair. Now, with a Republican in the White House, the partisan perspectives have reversed.
A recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that Americans have a more negative than positive opinion of presidential adviser Karl Rove, a pattern that has been consistent over the last year. Rove's current ratings have recovered somewhat from the low point measured in April, shortly after some of Rove's White House duties were reduced and as reports continued to suggest Rove might be indicted in the CIA leak investigation. His current ratings are roughly in line with his ratings from last October. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say Rove has too much influence over the decisions the Bush administration makes. Views of Rove are predictably divided along partisan lines; Democrats are more critical than Republicans in their overall opinion and a majority of Democrats say he has too much influence over the Bush administration.
The latest state-by-state analysis by the Rothenberg Political Report projects a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives. In the lower house of the legislature, Rothenberg's analysis sees Democrats gaining 15-20 seats - well over the 12 needed for a House majority. Previous analysis had the gap much tighter, with Democrats' prospects for takeover hanging on just a handful of hotly contested seats. Democrats still appear unlikely to re-take the Senate, however, with projected gains of just 3-5 seats. Of the 9 seats ranked as at least somewhat competitive, both of those leaning toward an incumbent ouster and three of the four toss-ups are currently held by Republicans. However, three Democrats are also given just a narrow advantage in their races.
Their confidence shaken by Katrina, most Americans don't believe the nation is ready for another major disaster, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds. Poor people are more likely to fear becoming victims of the next disaster. The survey, conducted one year after the devastating hurricane and with much of New Orleans still in shambles, found diminishing faith in the government's ability to deal with emergencies. It also gave President Bush poor marks for his handling of the storm's aftermath. The region could get an eerily timed test of preparedness with forecasters concerned that a storm system named Ernesto could be at hurricane strength as it crosses over Cuba and heads across the Florida Keys this week.
Joseph Lieberman, who is seeking to return to the US Senate as an independent after losing his bid for re-nomination by the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and who still calls himself a Democrat, will campaign today with two Republicans for office in the state. A message was posted last night at the blog of Democratic challenger Ned Lamont, who bested Lieberman in the August 8 Democratic primary, indicating that Lieberman would campaign today with Republican Governor Jodi Rell and Republican Congressman Rob Simmons, both of whom are up for re-election. Jane Hamsher at the blog Fire Dog Lake added that the campaign event would occur at a submarine base in the city of Groton.
A number of high profile Republican campaigns are facing immediate problems reports MSBC's David Shuster. As recently as Sunday, McCain expressed his approval of Bush's handling of the Iraq war but has since criticized the administration for making statements that misled the public about the war. Shuster also notes that George Allen is still facing blowback about a colorful remark he made towards an American of Indian descent. Shuster also notes the latest New York Time/CBS poll that found Americans who believe that the war on terror is a separate issue from the Iraq war has increased by 10% in the last month. Shuster says, "If public skepticism holds and voters increasingly see Iraq and National Security as seperate, Republican troubles may deepen." Video here.
Wal-Mart, capitalist retailer for the masses, now has its own Communist Party branch. Earlier this month, Communist Party and Communist Youth League branches and a trade union were set up at a Wal-Mart outlet in the northeastern industrial city of Shenyang, a staffer in the store's communications department said Thursday, confirming Chinese media reports. As is typical of many media-shy Chinese, she gave only her surname, Liu. She would not discuss further details. A bastion of private business, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has fought efforts to form unions elsewhere in its worldwide operations. But in recent weeks it said it agreed to work with the state-sanctioned labor federation to allow unions in its outlets in China, where it has 30,000 employees.
Katrina, A Year On: The evacuation plan that was supposed to save the people of New Orleans was written, or supposed to have been written two years ago by a company called, "Innovative Emergency Management." Weird thing about IEM, their founder Madhu Beriwal, had no known experience in hurricane evacuations. She did, however, have a lot of experience in donating to Republicans. IEM and FEMA did begin a draft of a plan. The plan was that, when a hurricane hit, everyone in the Crescent City would simply get the hell out in their cars. Apparently, the IEM/FEMA crew didn’t know that 127,000 people in the city didn’t have cars. But Dr. van Heerden knew that. It was his calculation. LSU knew where these no-car people were - they mapped it - and how to get them out. Dr. van Heerden offered this life-saving info to FEMA. They wouldn’t touch it. Then, a state official told him to shut up, back off or there would be consequences for van Heerden’s position. This official now works for IEM. So Greg Palast asked him what happened as a result of making no plans for those without wheels, a lot of them elderly and most of them poor. "Fifteen-hundred of them drowned. That’s the bottom line." The professor, who’d been talking to me in technicalities, changed to a somber tone. "They're still finding corpses." Van Heerden is supposed to keep his mouth shut. He won't. The deaths weigh on him. "I wasn't going to listen to those sort of threats, to let them shut me down." Van Heerden had other disturbing news. The Hurricane Center's computer models showed the federal government had built the levees around the city a foot-and-a-half too short. After Katrina, the Hurricane Center analyzed the flooding and found that, had the levees had just that extra 18 inches, they would have been 'overtopped' for only an hour and a half, not four hours. In that case, the levees would have held, and the city would have been saved. He had taken the warning about the levees all the way to George Bush’s doorstep. "I myself briefed senior officials including somebody from the White House." The response: the university's trustees threatened his job.
Bari Landry sees signs of life all around her in Lakeview, a neighborhood that was flooded by Hurricane Katrina a year ago. However, Lakeview still is crowded with signs of the disaster: deserted houses, windows and doors standing wide open, and roof-high weeds. City officials have set Tuesday - the storm's first anniversary - as the deadline for homeowners to gut or otherwise clean up their properties. Landry is among those hoping the deadline will spur a cleanup that will lead to more redevelopment and repopulation after the exodus that followed Katrina. "The city needs to do what it needs to do," councilman Arnie Fielkow said Friday at a meeting during which the City Council approved some exemptions to the deadline. People who do not comply with the deadline after being put on notice face a range of possible penalties, from liens being placed on their property to the seizure or destruction of homes. That the city has a long way to go to recover was evident Sunday during various observances for the anniversary. NAACP President and CEO Bruce S. Gordon was among activists who took a walking tour of the still devastated Lower Ninth Ward on Sunday morning. He criticized the slow pace of recovery and said state, local and federal governments were still failing neighborhood residents.
A year ago, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, NEWSWEEK published a cover story called "Poverty, Race and Katrina: Lessons of a National Shame." The article suggested that the disaster was prompting a fresh look at "The Other America" - the 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. "It takes a hurricane," I wrote. "It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye - visible around the world - to help the rest of us begin to see again." I ended on a hopeful note: "What kind of president does George W. Bush want to be? ... If he seizes the moment, he could undertake a midcourse correction that might materially change the lives of millions. Katrina gives Bush an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China opportunity, if he wants it." Some readers told me at the time that this was naive - that the president, if not indifferent to the problems of black people, as the singer Kanye West charged, was not going to do anything significant to help them. At first this seemed too cynical. The week after the article appeared, Bush went to Jackson Square in New Orleans and made televised promises not only for Katrina relief but to address some of the underlying struggles of the poor. He proposed "worker recovery accounts" to help evacuees find work by paying for job training, school and child care; an Urban Homesteading Act that would make empty lots and loans available to the poor to start over, and a Gulf Enterprise Zone to spur business investment in poor areas. Small ideas, perhaps, but good ones. Well, it turned out that the critics were largely right. Not only has the president done much less than he promised on the financing and logistics of Gulf Coast recovery, he has dropped the ball entirely on using the storm and its aftermath as an opportunity to fight poverty. Worker recovery accounts and urban homesteading never got off the ground, and the new enterprise zone is mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans. The mood in Washington continues to be one of not-so-benign neglect of the problems of the poor.
Attorney Vallie Schwartz fell in love with the 130-year-old Victorian shotgun in the French Quarter, which like all grand houses in this former Spanish enclave has tall, cathedral ceilings and brightly painted cypress shutters. A successful personal injury lawyer, she could comfortably afford the mortgage on the half-million-dollar house, so she made an offer - one that was soon accepted. That was before she knew how much it would cost to insure the property: The best quote she got from a private insurer was nearly $10,000 per year, or over $800 a month on top of her monthly mortgage - far more than she had budgeted and enough to price her out of the house. "I’m in the higher income bracket in this city, and I can’t afford that. I just saw my money floating out the window," says Schwartz, who pulled out of the deal and is still living in a rental one year after losing her house to flooding. To a bruised economy still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, add the most recent challenge: Finding affordable insurance. With private insurers retreating from this hurricane-scarred region, residents in New Orleans are facing a new economic reality. Mortgage brokers are penciling in hundreds of extra dollars to the New Orleans loans they’re writing to account for soaring insurance premiums. Those living in condominiums are being slapped with hefty increases in their condo dues, the result of a spike in the buildings' wind and fire coverage. Hotel and inn owners are paying more, too - an especially heavy burden at a time when tourists are scarce. Most affected of all are new home buyers, who are trying to secure insurance in a landscape few insurers will touch.
Land Of Equal Opportunity: Suspicious stares. Physical assaults. Thinner wallets? Post-9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Middle Eastern sentiment hasn't just taken an emotional toll on Muslim and Arab men living in the United States. It has also put a dent in their checkbooks, a study indicates. Arab and Muslim men saw their wages and weekly earnings drop by 10 percent after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the research reveals. The largest decreases, according to the data collected from over 4,000 men between 1997 and 2005, occurred in locations that reported higher rates of ethnic and religious-based hate crimes. Part of the reason pay fell is that these men, mostly from predominantly Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, found fewer opportunities and had to find work in different industries that paid less than the jobs they used to be employed in after 9/11, said the study's co-author, Robert Kaestner, a University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor. In addition, Kaestner said, most Muslim and Arab men, possibly wary of the reception they might receive in another state, curbed their travel within the country after 9/11, which may have kept them from seeking better jobs.
Republicans Believe In Upholding Free Speech: President Clinton’s impeachment nemesis Kenneth Starr is staying busy. Monday, the former Independent Counsel is expected to file a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the suspension of a high school student disciplined for holding a banner across the street from campus reading, "BONG HITS 4 JESUS." The incident occurred in January 2002, as the Olympic torch relay wound through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the winter games in Salt Lake City. As the torch passed by the school, student Joseph Frederick and friends unfurled the banner across the street from campus apparently to attract the attention of television cameras.
Republican Policies Build A Strong America: A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland. None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating. "When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad - if not worse - as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch. The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.
It is difficult to name more than a handful of resource-rich states that are liberal democracies and that are still significantly aligned with the United States. Only Canada and Mexico come immediately to mind, and even Canada is increasingly embracing China and the East in the sphere of strategic energy deals and agreements. Even those resource-rich regimes that are considered to be the most moderate of the globe's producing states are far less closely aligned geopolitically with the US than they were previously. Saudi Arabia, for example, continues its "Look East" policy of diversifying its markets away from the US. It has concluded a range of important deals in the energy sector with China and India and is steadily moving into closer geopolitical alignment with the rising East. A number of other key Middle Eastern regimes are following suit. By and large Latin America is doing the same, as are Africa and Central Asia. Almost none of the world's oil and gas producers wants to be inordinately dependent on the US market any longer. Additionally, the steady rise of the powerful economies of Asia beckons oil and gas producers toward such lucrative markets that are politically cost-free, meaning they do not attach political demands and seek to interfere in the domestic affairs of the producing regimes, as does the US. In virtually all cases, the interests of the West and of its multinational oil companies and big Western financial institutions are being minimized and/or pushed out as the global trend of nationalization, by one means or another, of the oil-and-gas sector picks up speed.
Republicans Believe Businesspeople Are Moral Examples To Be Emulated: A NY Times study finds that 41% of companies receiving buyout bids in the last twelve months show "abnormal and suspicious trading" before the deals became public. "The boom in corporate mergers is creating concern that illicit trading ahead of deal announcements is becoming a systemic problem," writes Gretchen Morgenson for the Times. "It is against the law to trade on inside information about an imminent merger, of course," Morgenson writes. "But an analysis of the nation’s biggest mergers over the last 12 months indicates that the securities of 41 percent of the companies receiving buyout bids exhibited abnormal and suspicious trading in the days and weeks before those deals became public," the article continues. "For those who bought shares during these periods of unusual trading, quick gains of as much as 40 percent were possible."
Republicans Believe In Open, Honest, and Transparent Government: In the wake of an activist's death at the hands of FBI operatives, the agency’s revelation that it may have destroyed records on the independence movement in Puerto Rico has aggravated tensions over the government's presence on the island. In a recent response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Chicago-based legal advocacy group People's Law Office, the FBI admitted that it "could not locate" records relating to the activities of a prominent Puerto Rican nationalist. It also stated that its field office in San Juan, Puerto Rico may have destroyed the documents when purging its files years ago. The subject of the requested records was José Paralitici, leader of the activist group Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques, which opposed US Navy weapons testing on the island of Vieques. The group helped stop the Naval bombardments of the island in 2003, and since then Paralitici has continued to organize around Puerto Rican nationalist issues. In a June 29 letter reviewed by The NewStandard, the FBI's Records Management Division denied the request. The Bureau admitted that "records which may be responsive" to the group's query "were destroyed on February 2, 1989." Claiming that the action was part of the Bureau's routine record-disposal process, Section Chief David Hardy wrote, "Since this material could not be reviewed, it is not known if it actually pertains to your subject."
A scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency has written a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and other members of the New York congressional delegation blasting the EPA for hiding dangerous toxins from Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11. The letter, written by Dr. Cate Jenkins and obtained by RAW STORY, claims that EPA-funded research on the toxicity of breathable alkaline dust at the site "falsified pH results" to make the substance appear benign, when it was, in reality, corrosive enough to cause first responders and other workers in lower Manhattan to later lose pulmonary functions and, in some cases, to die. Jenkins writes: "These falsifications directly contributed not only to emergency personnel and citizens not taking adequate precautions to prevent exposures, but also prevented the subsequent correct diagnosis of the causative agents responsible for the pulmonary symptoms. Thus, appropriate treatment was prevented or misdirected, and loss of life and permanent disability undoubtedly resulted."
Last Throes Of The Insurgency In Iraq: Iraq's most prominent archaeologist has resigned and fled the country, saying the dire security situation, an acute shortage of funds, and the interference of supporters of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had made his position intolerable. Donny George, who was president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, achieved international recognition for his efforts to track down and recover the priceless antiquities looted from Iraq's National Museum in the mayhem that followed the fall of Baghdad in 2003. But this week he revealed that he had resigned and was in hiding with his family in the Syrian capital Damascus. In an interview with the Art Newspaper, Dr George said Baghdad was now so dangerous that the National Museum, which houses a trove of Sumerian and Babylonian artefacts, had been sealed off by concrete walls to protect it from insurgent attacks and further looting. Mr George is said to have told a Baghdad paper the Iraqi state board of antiquities and heritage, which he presided over, had come under the increasing influence of supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, and he had been trying to counter a growing Islamist and anti-Western agenda. He claimed that people had been put into the antiquities department who were interested only in Islamic sites and not in Iraq's rich earlier heritage.
Reuters news agency urged the U.S. military on Sunday to investigate the killing of one of its journalists by American troops in Baghdad a year ago. An independent inquiry commissioned by Reuters concluded that the soldiers' shooting of television soundman Waleed Khaled on August 28 last year appeared "unlawful." But the Pentagon has failed to respond to requests to review the local commander's ruling, which said the firing of shots at the car was "appropriate." In April, Reuters gave the U.S. Defense Department the report, which found the soldiers' own evidence did not support the commander's conclusion. The report also criticized the military for "losing" vital video footage of the incident shot by the Reuters cameraman who was Khaled's passenger. He was wounded and then arrested by troops.
The majority of U.S. service members charged in the unlawful deaths of Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given administrative punishments without trials, according to a Washington Post review of concluded military cases. Charges against some of the troops were dropped completely. Though experts estimate that thousands of Iraqi civilians have died at the hands of U.S. forces, only 39 service members were formally accused in connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year. Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served prison time for any offense.
News From The Talibaptist Jihad: A Bush-funded prison initiative that fast-tracked parole for Christian converts has been swatted down in the federal courts. The day after a federal court struck down a taxpayer-supported evangelical Christian program in an Iowa prison, Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, issued a press statement. He was not pleased. "The courts took God out of America's schools, now they are on the path to take God out of America's prisons," Earley groused. Earley's analysis of judicial decisions dealing with religion and public schools was widely off the mark, but he had good reason to be upset about the recent ruling on public funds for inmate indoctrination. His organization, Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by ex-Watergate felon Charles Colson, has been sponsoring the Iowa program for three years. If the ruling stands up on appeal, not only will Earley's group have to shut down the program, it will be required to repay the state of Iowa more than $1.5 million in public support it has received during that time. The June 2 decision in Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Prison Fellowship Ministries was a staggering loss not just for Earley's group but perhaps for key elements of President George W. Bush's "faith-based" initiative as well. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt didn't mince words. Officials at Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility had become, he wrote, far too entangled with religion by establishing a special wing for Prison Fellowship's InnerChange program. InnerChange, Pratt declared, is suffused with religion.
The Catholic Church is rejecting claims in the United States of new "embryo-safe" stem-cells, pouring cold water on hopes by many scientists of ending ethical uproar over their research. A U.S. company says it has developed a way to create the stem cells without harming the original embryo, which the Vatican holds is a full-fledged human life. The breakthrough technique was meant to answer critics at the papal palace, the White House and beyond, who have long argued that it was ethically reproachable to attempt to save one life by taking another. But the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, told Reuters in an interview that the new method by Advanced Cell Technology Inc. failed to overcome the Church's many moral concerns. Sgreccia said the procedure was wrong footed from the start - experimenting with embryos is reprehensible, as is use of "unnatural" in-vitro embryos created at fertility clinics, like the ones the U.S. scientists employed in their research. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. then made things worse by extracting what could be a "totipotent" cell, Sgreccia said. "This is not just any cell, but a cell capable of reproducing a human embryo," Sgreccia said. He added that, in effect: "a second embryo is being destroyed." "There is no rational reason left to oppose this research," said Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of Advanced Cell Technology and leader of a team that reported the new method in an article published online by the journal Nature.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: An unusually large number of tropical fish have been spotted this summer in Rhode Island waters by divers, fishermen and environmentalists. Among the fish seen so far: juvenile orange filefish, snowy grouper and lookdowns. A local lobsterman pulled up a large trigger fish in one of his traps. "We're always catching tropicals during the summer months, but I mean there are a lot more. Probably about double the amount," Jean Bambara, an aquarist at Save the Bay's Exploration Center in Newport, told The Providence Journal. The fish being seen are normally found in the warm waters off the southern states, just like the Portuguese men-of-war that invaded southern New England waters earlier in the summer and the manatee that was spotted this week in Warwick and North Kingstown. John Torgan, baykeeper with Save the Bay, said the average water temperature of Narragansett Bay has increased three degrees over the past few decades. He said this could cause cold-water species like cod and haddock to move further north and warm-water fish to move in. "What's different is we've seen warmer water and we're seeing an increased sighting of these rare or accidental species in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound," Torgan said.
Scandals Du Jour: If someone is convicted of a crime and dies before exhausting all his appeals, is he innocent? That's the question now challenging federal prosecutors in the latest twist of the Enron case. A legal precedent could clear the record of Enron founder Kenneth Lay, even though he was found guilty of six counts of conspiracy and fraud, because of his sudden death last month. The move could also make tens of millions of dollars in his estate off-limits to creditors. The Justice Department has said it will use all available legal means to reclaim the money related to the criminal charges Mr. Lay was convicted of in May. But those means may be few because of the legal precedent set by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found in 2004 that a person's criminal record is "abated," or wiped out, if he or she dies before having a chance to exhaust all appeals.
The rationale is that someone convicted of a crime should not be denied the right to have the trial's fairness tested, says Brian Wice, a Houston attorney. In this case, it means Lay's conviction, trial, even his indictment will most likely be abated - making him an innocent man. The lawyer handling Lay's estate has already filed a motion with US District Judge Sim Lake, asking him to erase Lay's criminal record, based on the ruling by the Fifth Circuit, which governors federal courts in Texas. That may be hard for the public to take, says Ross Albert, an Atlanta lawyer formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "There is a presumption of innocence that comes before every conviction. But Ken Lay, at the time he died, was not presumed to be innocent," says Mr. Albert, who believes the Fifth Circuit is "zealously" protecting the prerogative of the appeals court even though well over 80 percent of all criminal appeals are denied.
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris said Saturday that she did not intend to exclude Jews and other non-Christians from public office when she told a Baptist magazine that unless "tried and true" Christians were elected, those in power would "legislate sin." But Harris' remarks drew sharp condemnation from her opponents in the Sept. 5 Republican U.S. Senate primary and even from some GOP supporters. Harris said her remarks in last week's edition of the Florida Baptist Witness were intended for Christian voters who mistakenly believe the constitutional separation of church and state prevents them from participating in politics, even voting. "It wasn't my intent to section out Christians at all," Harris said as she attended a gun show here. "My passion is to make sure that people participate in the process. Everyone should vote. Everyone should be engaged, but the problem is a lot of Christians believe they should not participate because of the separation of church and state." Among those critical of her comments was state Rep. Irving Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, who is Jewish. Slosberg demanded an apology. Harris, of Longboat Key near Sarasota, said she has a strong record of supporting Israel. "When I speak in temples, I say, 'Please, I am so passionate about Israel, make certain that you are engaged and involved in the process, because otherwise you're going to have people voting that are not going to be supportive of it.' I have always said in my speeches in churches I stand with Israel."
The usual rainy season weather has continued for the last two days, with gloomy overcast, and just an hour or so of sunny weather this afternoon to relieve the gloom a bit. But that bit of sunny weather brought today's high to a "balmy" 81 degrees, after a low last night of 72. The rain has slowed down a bit, probably in response to the tropical storm building up in the eastern Caribbean. Maybe we'll get a spate of hurricane weather (read: sunny, warm, dry and not a hint of a breeze) if this thing develops into a real hurricane.
My friend who has moved here from the States was by yesterday with a few things he wanted to store in my house while his rental is getting secured with new locks and a couple of better doors. We enjoyed a long chat till almost sunset, and he indicated he was going to come by again today to take care of a few things on the computer, but he didn't make it. I got a phone call instead, advising me that he got a television and a DVD player, and I suspect now he has a reason to stay home. Anyway, it was a very pleasant visit yesterday, and I was looking forward to the same today. But I guess I can't compete with Hollywood.
The gardener came by today instead of his usual day on Friday, as he had to make a trip to Bagaces, and wasn't back till late. But he got things taken care of quite well today, including getting some fertilizer down - it had been some time, and the rain had pretty well washed it out of the soil, so I was happy to get that done. I spent most of my day reading and listening to music, however, and working on a little Excel spreadsheet I am putting together as content for a ham radio page I am planning for this website. Not much happening, just a lazy Saturday.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq. "Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime," the 87-year-old Ferenccz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council. Ferenccz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place. He said the atrocities of the Iraq war--from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs--were highly predictable at the start of the war. Which wars should be prosecuted? "Every war will lead to attacks on civilians," he said. "Crimes against humanity, destruction beyond the needs of military necessity, rape of civilians, plunder--that always happens in wartime. So my answer personally, after working for 60 years on this problem and [as someone] who hates to see all these young people get killed no matter what their nationality, is that you've got to stop using warfare as a means of settling your disputes."
Even before Iran gave its formal counter-offer to ambassadors of the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) Tuesday, the George W. Bush administration had already begun the process of organizing sanctions against Iran. Washington had already held a conference call on sanctions Sunday with French, German and British officials, the Washington Post reported. Thus ends what appeared on the surface to be a genuine multilateral initiative for negotiations with Iran on the terms under which it would give up its nuclear programme. But the history of that P5+1 proposal shows that the Bush administration was determined from the beginning that it would fail, so that could bring to a halt a multilateral diplomacy on Iran's nuclear programme that the hard-liners in the administration had always found a hindrance to their policy. Britain, France and Germany, which had begun negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear issue in October 2003, had concluded very early on that Iran's security concerns would have to be central to any agreement. It is has been generally forgotten that the Nov. 14, 2004 Paris Agreement between the EU and Iran included an assurance by the three European states that the "long-term agreement" they pledged to reach would "provide...firm commitments on security issues." Iran's president launched a new phase in the Arak heavy-water reactor project on Saturday, saying Tehran would not give up its right to nuclear technology despite Western fears it is aimed at producing a bomb.
GOP leaders in the administration and in Congress are angry that US intelligence agencies will not support their arguments that Iran may soon have nuclear weapons and that it is arming Hezbollah. The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday. They echo the tensions that divided the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency during the prelude to the war in Iraq. The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.
The United Nations solution to the Lebanon invasion that Ms. Rice helped to craft is looking shaky, opening her and the Bush administration to criticism that they oversold the strength of the deal to end the war. Some of the sharpest criticism comes from conservatives in Ms. Rice's own party. Critics tick off a list of missteps they claim the administration made after fighting broke out July 12 between Israel and the heavily armed Islamic militia group. Most damaging, they assert, may be how the Bush administration portrayed the war early on as a means to bring long-lasting improvements to Lebanon by dismantling Hezbollah, and then brokered a deal that may end up neither weakening the group nor greatly bolstering either Israel's security or Lebanon's wobbly government. "It's pretty clear that things are going to pan out badly," says Danielle Pletka, a Middle East expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and increasingly vocal administration critic. "Whenever you try to solve something that needs major surgery with a Band-Aid you run a real risk of disaster."
Did criminal insider speculators with informants inside the British intelligence apparatus take advantage of their foreknowledge of the announcement of a foiled terror plot to place put options on airline stocks, reaping the benefits of their subsequent fall? So says the India Daily, claiming strange patterns in airline stocks preceded the announcement - and that carefully placed money was waiting on the sidelines to jump in and buy the stocks as cheaper prices before they rose again in subsequent trading. Airline stocks dropped as much as 28 per cent during morning trading following the announcement of the alleged liquid bomb plot. Though the report can be quantified as nothing more than speculation at this point, it mirrors murmurs we've been receiving from stock brokers who also claim potential foul play. If true it would also dovetail with similar activity prior to the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 bombings in London. 9/11 was preceded by suspicious put options in large quantities placed on American and United Airlines which betrayed advance knowledge of the attack. The investigation as to who was responsible for authorizing the transactions led directly back to former CIA director Buzzy Krongard. In the case of the London bombings, the pound fell 6 per cent against the dollar for no apparent reason in the 10 days before the attack. "Currencies of established countries simply do not fall that fast based upon any kind of economic or financial analysis," said a 35 year veteran economist. "Somebody - somewhere - knew something. Or maybe I should say 'somebodies.'"
A Florida company wants to get under the skin of 1.4 million U.S. servicemen and women. VeriChip Corp, based in Delray Beach, Fla., and described by the D.C. Examiner as "one of the most aggressive marketers of radio frequency identification chips," is hoping to convince the Pentagon to allow them to insert the chips, known as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips under the skin of the right arms of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen. The chips would replace the legendary metal dog tags that have been worn by U.S. military personnel since 1906. The device is usually implanted above the triceps area of an individual’s right arm, but can also by implanted in the hand if scanned at the proper frequency. The VeriChip responds with a unique 16-digit number, which can correlate the user to information stored on a database for identity verification, medical records access, and other uses. The insertion procedure is performed under local anesthetic, and once inserted it is invisible to the naked eye. The company, which the Examiner notes has powerful political connections, is "in discussions" with the Pentagon, VeriChip spokeswoman Nicole Philbin told the Examiner. "The potential for this technology doesn’t just stop at the civilian level," Philbin said. Company officials have touted the chips as versatile, able to be used in a variety of situations such as helping track illegal immigrants or giving doctors immediate access to patient’s medical records.
Karl Rove criticized a federal judge's order for an immediate end to the government's warrantless surveillance program, claiming Wednesday such a program might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Rove said the government should be free to listen if al Qaeda is calling someone within the U.S. "Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome," he said. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit last week became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, ruling it unconstitutional. Rove's comments came as he headlined a fundraiser for Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who is running for governor. About 50 protesters stood outside the country club where the fundraiser was held, some with signs that said "Impeach Bush."
A Republican candidate for a New Hampshire congressional seat said Wednesday that the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In an editorial board interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday, the candidate, Mary Maxwell, said the U.S. government had a role in killing nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, so it could make Americans hate Arabs and allow the military to bomb Muslim nations such as Iraq. Maxwell, 59, seeks the 2nd District congressional seat. The Concord resident opposes the incumbent, Charles Bass of Peterborough, and Berlin Mayor Bob Danderson in the Republican primary Sept. 12. Maxwell would not specify if she holds the opinion that the government stood by while terrorists hijacked four domestic airliners and used them as weapons, or if it had a larger role by sanctioning and carrying out the attacks. But she implicated the government by saying the Sept. 11 attacks were meant "to soften us up . . . to make us more willing to have more stringent laws here, which are totally against the Bill of Rights . . . to make us particularly focus on Arabs and Muslims... and those strange persons who spend all their time creating little bombs," giving Americans a reason "to hate them and fear them and, therefore, bomb them in Iraq for other reasons."
President Bush came to his parent's century-old summer home on the Maine coast for a little relaxation, a distant cousin's wedding and some family time. He got all that, along with a boisterous reminder nearly on his bucolic doorstep of the unpopularity of his Iraq policies. What local police estimated were about 700 anti-war demonstrators marched Saturday to within half a mile of the Bush compound before being turned back at a security checkpoint. Called Walker's Point after the family of former President Bush's mother, the stone-and-shingle retreat covering a craggy promontory is owned by the current president's parents. The protesters sang, chanted, beat drums, waved signs and even played fiddles to call on Bush to bring troops home. "Bush is fiddling while the world burns, just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned," said Pippa Stanley, 15, of Richmond, Maine, who was helping with the backdrop for pair of fiddlers dressed in togas.
Across the nation and around the world, colleges are increasingly creating degree programs and other courses to prepare students for work in "homeland security," the broadly defined realm of protecting communities and businesses against terror attacks and natural disasters. At Wilmington College, a master's degree concentration in the field will begin in September, and has attracted about 25 students. At Delaware Technical & Community College, officials are exploring a two-year degree in homeland security and emergency management. "We saw regional need for homeland security at the master's level," said Chris Trowbridge, an assistant professor and the coordinator of Wilmington College's graduate administration of justice programs. Increasingly, he said, business and law enforcement professionals see the benefit of studying the dynamics of terrorism and the complexities of assessing risk. Many firms and government agencies already have people in place who are working to cope with these security issues, said Bill Esposito, a former deputy director of the FBI who will be teaching two of the four courses included in Wilmington College's yearlong homeland security program. "The question is, how much training do these people really have and how much education do they have in those programs?" he said.
State Farm Insurance supervisors systematically demanded that Hurricane Katrina damage reports be buried or replaced or changed so that the company would not have to pay policyholders' claims in Mississippi, two State Farm insiders tell ABC News. Kerri and Cori Rigsby, independent adjusters who had worked for State Farm exclusively for eight years, say they have turned over thousands of internal company documents and their own detailed statement to the FBI and Mississippi state investigators. In an exclusive interview with ABC news, to be broadcast on 20/20 -- Watch 20/20 tonight at 10 --and World News, the Rigsby sisters say they saw "widespread" fraud at the State Farm offices in Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss. "Katrina was devastating, but so was State Farm," says Cori Rigsby. At one point, they say State Farm brought in a special shredding truck they believe was used to destroy key documents. State Farm says shredding is standard to protect policyholders' privacy. The sisters say they saw supervisors go to great lengths to pressure outside engineers to prepare reports concluding that damage was caused by water, not covered under State Farm policies, rather than by wind. They say reports that concluded that damage was caused by wind, for which State Farm would have to pay, were hidden in a special file and new reports were ordered. Cori Rigsby says she recalls a senior coordinator ordering that an engineering company be told to alter the findings in its report so that State Farm would not have to pay. "Tell them if they don't change their report, we're not paying their invoice," she remembers the supervisor saying.
The government awarded 70 percent of its contracts for Hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process, says a House study released Thursday by Democrats. The report, a comprehensive overview of government audits on Katrina contracting, found that out of $10.6 billion in contracts awarded after the storm last year, more than $7.4 billion were handed out with limited or no competitive bidding. In addition, 19 contracts worth $8.75 billion were found to have wasted taxpayer money at least in part, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report. It cited numerous instances of double-billing by contractors and cases of trailers meant as emergency housing sitting empty in Arkansas. Aaron Walker, a national spokesman for the Homeland Security Department's Federal Emergency Management Agency, the primary agency for awarding hurricane contracts, said FEMA was already working to improve its contracting process based on "previously issued, non-politicized, reports."
Robert Henderson was not fired as a state trooper because he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and another white supremacist group, authorities said. Instead, he was ousted because he could not uphold public trust while participating in such groups, they said. An arbitrator disagreed, ordering the State Patrol to reinstate Henderson within 60 days and pay him back wages. The state went to court Friday to keep him off the force. "The integrity of Nebraska's law enforcement is at risk," Attorney General Jon Bruning said at news conference in Lincoln. "The Constitution does not require law enforcement to employ anyone tied to the KKK."
With immigration reform legislation stalled indefinitely, the congressional hearings on the issue that attracted overflow crowds around the Fourth of July have now fizzled with disinterest leading into Labor Day. Most Americans paid little attention to the two dozen House hearings held around the country during the last two months. Many families have been on vacation, and the news has been dominated by war in the Middle East, the foiled terror plot in London and an arrest in the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation. "People don't pay attention to these things, except the C-SPAN junkies," said Gary Jacobson, an expert in congressional politics at the University of California, San Diego. "It's not surprising that it's fizzled." Democrats and immigrant groups have questioned the need for the hearings because such meetings are typically held before legislation is passed - not after. Critics call the hearings an election-year tactic to delay negotiations on the competing immigration bills passed by the House and Senate. Many House members have shown waning interest in the meetings, preferring to campaign during the August recess or go on vacation, Jacobson said.
Greg Sargent, writing in Talking Points Memo: "I just got off the phone with Hildi Halley, a woman from Maine whose husband is a fallen soldier. Yesterday President Bush met with her privately, and news of their meeting was reported in a local Maine paper, the Kennebec Journal. The paper shared few details of the meeting, saying simply that Halley objected to Bush's policies and that she said Bush responded that there was no point in them having a "philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war." But Halley has just given me a much more detailed account of her meeting with Bush. She told me that she went much farther in her criticism of the President, telling him directly that he was "responsible" for the deaths of American soldiers and that as a "Christian man," he should recognize that he's "made a mistake" and that it was his "responsibility to end this." She recounted to me that she was "very direct," telling Bush: "As President, you're here to serve the people. And the people are not being served with this war."
Americans believe Democrats would do a better job of dealing with the situation in Iraq and handling the economy, but Republicans would do a better job against terrorism, according to a poll released Tuesday. On terrorism, Republicans were favored by 48 percent of respondents, versus 38 percent for Democrats. Eleven percent said there would be no difference and 3 percent offered no opinion. But on the war in Iraq, respondents favored Democrats over Republicans by 47 percent to 41 percent, with 8 percent saying there would be no difference, and 3 percent expressing no opinion. That's a reversal of what national sentiment was in January 2003, when Republicans were favored over Democrats 53 to 29 percent in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: The U.S. government is spending millions of dollars in the name of democracy in Venezuela - bankrolling "human rights seminars," training emerging leaders, advising political parties and giving to "charities." But the money is raising deep suspicions among supporters of President Hugo Chavez, in part because the U.S. has refused to name many of the groups it's supporting. Details of the spending emerge in 1,600 pages of grant contracts obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. The U.S. Agency for International Development released copies of 132 contracts in all, but whited out the names and other identifying details of nearly half the grantees. U.S. officials insist the aid is aboveboard and politically neutral, and say the Chavez government would harass or prosecute the grant recipients if they were identified. Chavez, however, believes the United States is campaigning - overtly and covertly - to undermine his leftist government, which has crusaded against U.S. influence in Latin America and elsewhere. "The empire pays its lackeys, and it pays them well," he said recently, accusing some of his opponents of taking "gringo money." While USAID oversees much of the public U.S. spending on Latin America, President Bush's government also has stepped up covert efforts in the region.
Launching a blistering attack on the US for imposing its culture and value system on other nations, Indian intelligence Chief KS Sudharshan has charged the CIA with funding large-scale conversions in the country. American Baptists were engaged in a grand project of religious conversion, christened as Joshua I, with the patronage of the Bush administration, he alleged, addressing a symposium on Empowerment of Hindu Intelligentsia organised as part of the Golwalkar centenary celebrations at Madurai on Tuesday night. According to him, the project envisaged a church initially in each locality having a post office and then between a cycling distance.
Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela took a bizarre turn this week after Venezuelan authorities confiscated diplomatic cargo headed for the American Embassy in Caracas and accused Washington of smuggling. Included in the shipment were parts for military jet ejector seats not requested by the Venezuelans, and 176 pounds of chicken. The State Department has denied the charge and demanded an explanation: "The impounded cargo consisted of household effects of a U.S. diplomat and a shipment of commissary goods.... We have requested an immediate explanation of the entire incident." Displaying a photo of the trucks for journalists, Mr Chacon said that only four out of 20 packages were considered diplomatic baggage covered by international protocol. The US had bypassed customs and the necessary paperwork with the other 16 which included 80 kilos (176 pounds) of chicken, he said. "They brought in food goods without any health controls, they brought in armaments without any legal control," he told reporters. "It's not the Venezuelan government that is making violations - it's the US embassy that's making them."
What Your Aid-To-Israel Dollars Are Paying For: Lebanon's 15-year economic and social recovery from civil war was wiped out in the recent Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, the UN development agency has said. "The damage is such that the last 15 years of work on reconstruction and rehabilitation, following the previous problems that Lebanon experienced, are now annihilated," said Jean Fabre, a spokesman for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday. Lebanon's relatively healthy progress towards the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, which cover a range of social and economic targets, "have been brought back to zero," he told journalists. "Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month." Fabre estimated that overall economic losses for Lebanon from the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah totalled "at least 15 billion dollars, if not more." Lebanese authorities estimated last week that direct structural damage inflicted by the offensive reached 3.6 billion dollars, including 15,000 housing units, 80 bridges and 94 roads destroyed or damaged. About 35,000 homes and businesses were destroyed in the conflict, while a quarter of the country's road bridges or flyovers were shattered, according to the UNDP's initial estimate. Fabre underlined that Lebanon, which had already added to its debt with post-civil war reconstruction, would find it difficult to foot the bill for even more investment. "The debt of the country was so big already that the capacity to repay it was already insufficent. Now it won't be able to do that," he explained. UN agencies said it would take weeks to assess the full extent of the damage in south Lebanon and southern Beirut. The most urgent issues are the need for clean water and sanitation and to clear unexploded munitions, relief agencies said Tuesday. Underground waterpipes and sewers were destroyed in 10 out of 12 war-struck communities visited by the UN Children's Fund in recent days, and a similar scale of damage was reported elsewhere.
In the wake of the Israeli prime minister’s handling of the Lebanese/Hezbollah war, 63% of Olmert’s countrymen say he should resign</