Hey, where have I heard about "labor camps" before?

"Fifth columnists," detention centers, and prison labor camps on army installations.. (courtesy of The Era)

Excerpt:
There also was another little-noticed item posted at the US Army Web site, about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program "provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations."

The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.

On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the Attorney General to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make available ... the services of United States prisoners" to various government departments, including the Department of Defense.

News of the bizarre

You can't make this stuff up.
Terrorists hijacking school buses?

Another betrayal...

The Democrats shot themselves in the foot again, when they kicked Paul Hackett out of the Ohio Senate race because his opponent Sherrod Brown's "fund-raising abilities made him the better Senate candidate. By the end of last year, Mr. Brown had already amassed $2.37 million, 10 times what Mr. Hackett had raised."

Just in case you wondered what qualities make "a better Senate candidate": in our country, the most important qualification for elective office is not how smart you are, how highly principled you are, your stand on taking care of old folks and children, whether you're pro- or anti-business, nor your position on the new "Cold War," but rather, how skilled you or your consultants are at raising money.

Never mind that Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Charles Schumer were the ones who urged Hackett to get into the race in the first place.

Never mind that when he ran for Congress last year, Hackett came within an eyeblink of winning the race against a Republican in a Republican precinct.

No, the only thing that matters in politics is whether you've got the support of the big spenders.

It doesn't have to be that way. Voluntary publicly funded election campaigns (Clean Money) are available in statewide races in Maine, Arizona and Connecticut. This system allows candidates who have genuine grassroots support to rely on a competitive amount of public funding for their election campaigns.

So you--the candidate--don't have to spend a third of your time and a third of your funds dialing for dollars in a money race that's spiraling out of control.

So the race can be about steps you wish to take to slow global warming. Or about what you think we should do about the coming Medicare crisis. Or whether or not that pristine remnant of wilderness in a corner of your state should be saved in perpetuity for its wildness alone or whether the oil beneath it should be drilled to provide another week's worth of gas for our beloved SUVs.

On January 30 here in California a bill to bring Clean Money public campaign funding to California passed in the Assembly. It didn't pass because the legislators thought it was a good idea. It passed because Assembly leaders received thousands of letters and phone calls in support of Clean Money. Because many of us took time to go to Sacramento to lobby for this bill. Hundreds of us wrote letters to the editor in cities all over California.

The future of this bill is still uncertain. We're gearing up for the fight in the California Senate. Then the governor has to sign it. Then it has to go to a vote of the people. The point is, this legislation depends on the support of the grass roots, not the Democratic establishment. Thanks to our pressure, the California Democratic Party endorsed Clean Money in principle at their state convention last year.

That said, the national Democratic Party is on life support. Unless we rise up to take charge back from the political hacks and moneychangers, there will soon be no Democratic Party left.

Get out your pen. Pick up your phone. Email your legislator, your Congress person, your Senator. We can't leave the fate of our aspirations in the hands of the Democratic Party establishment.

Flowers

My mother brought me flowers for my birthday. Four days after the event, they are just now releasing a jumble of scents--rose, carnation, lily and tropical. The scent of fecundity, perfume for a young girl.

I am hardly in the girl category these days--this was my last birthday as a 50-something. One of the regrets of advancing age is that when we were young we never guessed that old people still felt like giddy youth. Those pastel polyester pantsuits they wore were chosen for comfort and economy, not to announce that they had left girlhood behind.

Now that I know this, of course, I can't go back and change the arrogant assumptions of my youth. And neither can I grab the shoulders of the currently young and impress upon tham that they will feel the same way someday. They do not plan ever to grow old and wear the 2045 equivalent of pink polyester pantsuits.

(My generation, of course, has evolved from polyester to hempen artist smocks, elastic-waist indigo jeans and economical earth-toned cotton turtlenecks from Penney's.)

My son was complaining about how old geezers drive down the freeway oblivious to the fact that their turn signals are on. I pointed out that many can no longer hear the signal and that he himself might be in that state someday. He replied that he wasn't planning to stick around for the event.

When your future is full of years, you can afford to make reckless statements like this. The closer you come to your alloted lifespan, however, the more willing you are to compromise with changed prospects.

Meanwhile, another surprise occurs. The age difference between you and your parents--once a generational chasm--narrows to a mere fraction of your total existence. Your lingering girlhood and your mother's begin to merge. At some point you are just a couple of kids with shared memories of a more carefree time.

Just one question...

Is there any value that takes precedence over the threat of terrorism? Not if you're a suburban man, evangelical Christian, or Republican.

OMGOMGOMGOMG!

That's the subject line my daughter attached to an email she forwarded to me the other night from UC Berkeley's graduate school of Political Science. Simultaneously, she called to tell me that she thought it maybe might be an acceptance. Or at least an indication of strong interest.

Well, of course it was an acceptance (they begged her not to make any choices until they had had a chance to fly her to Berkeley in March and "recruit" her), and only a daughter I had assiduously trained to have extremely low self esteem could have interpreted it otherwise.

(We parents are adept at sending mixed messages to our offspring: "You could go to any college you want if you work hard enough, but you should do what YOU want to do--I don't want to pressure you." or, "You can get straight A's if you work hard, but I'll still love you if you don't.")

Naturally, she felt she would be a complete failure if she didn't go to the best school in the country. Hence, Yale, whence she graduated in 2001. I was present at some of her labors as she applied to graduate schools last month. Since her field of choice represented a 180-degree change of major--from molecular biology to international relations--she assumed that her quest was futile, that no university of any standing would be interested in her, but that she would apply just in case, and include some second-rate schools that she could fall back on when the best schools turned her down.

To sweeten her prospects, she not only took extension courses in international relations at Harvard, but she researched the professors of note at each school she applied to, so her application essay could comment intelligently on why she wanted to work with those professors. This involved a great deal of after-midnight reading of academic publications following her 10-hour workday as a market research analyst.

Understand, Nina shares some of my ADD and procrastination tendencies, so it's not easy for her to perform at the required level. She's sort of the person I might have become if I had learned to be more disciplined. Or--dare I suggest it?--more guilt-tripped by my parents.

Whatever, I am one proud parent.

The Era: 100-M.P.G. Cars: It's a Start

Hydrogen cars? Fuel cells? Fuhgeddaboutit! Here's what we can do right now, with off-the-shelf technology:

100-M.P.G. Cars: It's a Start

There is so much we can do to cut our carbon dioxide emissions. This is just one example. Here's more:

Two years ago I replaced all my incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. Cut my electric bill by 50%! The newer compact fluorescents turn on instantly, don't flicker, and have dropped dramatically in price. They last 5 times as long as incandescent bulbs.

I keep my water heater low and turn it up 10 minutes before I take a shower. Admittedly, I sometimes forget to turn it back down again; a programmable thermostat for the water heater would solve that problem. But then, I'm saving for a tankless water heater, which only heats the water you actually use, when you need it.

I don't have solar panels. Why? Because my small house and energy efficient practices mean that it would be a very long time before my solar system paid for itself. But if I could get one of those plug-in hybrids, solar panels would suddenly make sense.

Okay, the administration is not going to do anything about energy use. Even as the president announced goals for ethanol and alternative energy, he has cut the budget for alternative energy development. It's up to us.

Let's get going! Tell me about your energy-saving ideas.

On national security

Liberals are criticizing the president's warrantless wiretapping, most of which, they say, involves scrutinizing innocent people. But isn't it true that in order to find the real terrorists you "have to go down some blind alleys to find the tips that pay off"? Clearly, the Fourth Amendment is outdated. The founding fathers would never have required searches to be "reasonable" if they had known about Al Qaeda.

To completely prevent a terrorist attack in the U.S., we must do much more. We're only safe if every American is scrutinized. Of course, it's difficult to do this and would require an infrastructure to be developed over a period of several years.

In addition to tracing every phone call, letter and email, we'd need to get more control over people's movements as well. A system of internal passports could accomplish this--if people had to provide identification when leaving their local area as well as reasons for leaving, terrorism would be much harder to organize.

To keep foreign terrorists from acting on our shores we should also seal our borders. No one should be allowed to enter or leave without express permission from United States intelligence officials. Clearly, we have to keep people with unknown motives from coming in. But we must also prevent people with no apparent official business abroad from slipping out of the country with information that would enable terrorists to more accurately pinpoint areas of high value for attacks.

At the same time, we must expel those within our borders whose ties to certain foreign lands make them questionable. Because of the mass deportations required, we'll need a system of temporary detention centers to confine them all while their backgrounds and potential actions are being investigated.

Domestic terrorism would still be a problem. After all, the vast majority of terrorist attacks on our homeland have come from such homegrown phenomena as anti-abortionists, survivalists, polygamists, high school students, postal workers and anti-technologists.

We'll need to create a government commission to address these diverse threats and long-term approaches to preventing them. One possible solution would be a sort of two-way TV screen in every household. This would address terrorism by the lone extremist who might create an explosives belt in the privacy of his or her home. It would also allow us to keep tabs on what people are talking about. We need to have a list of those who might be interested in resisting or thwarting our national security apparatus. Finally, it would serve as a means of keeping Americans informed on the latest threats to their security.

Of course, liberals and other terrorist-excusers will inevitably argue that the occasional terrorist attack is the price of freedom. These people should be watched closely.

Spring

No, it's not spring yet, even though the freshly scoured sky after last night's storm encourages the delusion. But there is a little bit of spring in my heart today.

My three kids have shown no interest in domestic ties. And that's okay with me. Certainly I do not yearn for grandchildren to complete my life. I just want them to make choices that make them happy, whatever those choices are.

Well, my oldest son is 35. He has lived for a number of years with a delightful and very intelligent young woman, but the topic of marriage has long been a taboo subject. So I was astonished when Ben called me last night to announce that he and Christine were getting engaged, and would marry this summer. My son is a bit of a curmudgeon, but I could hear an unaccustomed sweetness in his voice.

And why should this make me feel so springlike? I don't know, I don't know. But I feel sort of giddy, like on the first warm day at college these many years ago, when the only thing to do was cut class and gather on the sweet-smelling campus green to talk and daydream about the many joys and triumphs that surely lay ahead for us.

Why do people...

...leave their cars running while they sit in them? while they wait in line for their take-out order? in the parking lot while they go into the corner store for a pack of cigarettes? Is it really just too tedious to turn off the car and start it up again?

...buy an expensive power mower to mow their patch of lawn so they don't have to work so hard, and buy an expensive membership at the gym so they can work out?

...work 80-hour weeks so they can purchase boats, summer homes, exotic vacations and other leisure aids?

Our priorities

So let me get this straight. The president wants us to get over our oil addiction by cutting our Middle East imports by 75%, but he didn't really mean it.

He's going to do this by improving hybrid batteries and using more ethanol (a red state commodity). But he's not going to increase fuel economy standards, because that would be interfering with the market. Never mind that existing technology could easily produce cars that would completely wean us from foreign oil in five years.

No oil imports equals no meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, which means no more terrorism directed at us, which means we wouldn't need to wiretap our own citizens. Clearly there's a hierarchy of priorities: at the bottom are our civil rights. Next comes national security. At the top is the right of industry to as it damn well pleases without interference from the government.

So government interference with the market is a no-no, but government interference is just fine when it comes to our most sacred rights as Americans.

From those notorious radicals, the American Chemical Society

"Crop yields on farms in developing countries that used sustainable agriculture rose nearly 80 percent in four years, according to a study scheduled for publication in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science &Technology. "

Read more...:

The sticking point on sustainability reform as that "American businesses will suffer." Thus we can't be part of the kyoto protocol, for instance, and we can't stiffen fuel economy requirements for American vehicles. We can't insist on renewable energy or pollution controls on factories.

All these changes have to do with sustainability--of our agriculture and environmont. It turns out that every step we take toward sustainability not only generates jobs, but decreases costs of operation and thus increases profits.

Plants that don't pollute don't have to pay to clean up the pollution. Sustainable farms require less water and fewer pesticides, even as they generate higher yields. Astonishingly, it pays to do the right thing, as even our Governator in California recognizes:

"The good news is that experience shows that reducing carbon emissions is profitable for companies doing business in California. Hundreds of companies have reduced energy consumption, saving money in the process."

(You have to subscribe to read the entire article, but you get his drift.)

When will the president and Congress realize that sustainability is a win-win situation?