Weed Garden

Balancing the budget? Easy

2010-11-23T09:29:00.000-08:00

1. Stop all wars. Declare victory and come home. It worked in Vietnam. Yes, Vietnam fell to the Communists, but so what? The world didn't come to an end. Yes, Iraq and Afghanistan might fall to the terrorists, but so what? People are only terrorists when they've got nothing to lose. Once in power, they don't want to risk being obliterated. And with no outside threat, they will in time grow more moderate. Besides, if we stop meddling in the Middle East, terrorists will go back to blowing up each other instead of trying to blow us up.

2. Let the tax cuts expire. It's as simple as that. Before the tax cuts, we had a thriving economy. After the tax cuts, we had a decade of the slowest growth in 30 years. Past history shows that the higher the taxes on the rich, the more likely they are to Let them expire. Then introduce a bill to give a new tax break to the under-$250,000 income group if you want.

Common sense about mosques and Muslims

2010-08-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

I'm dumbfounded by this whole "ground zero mosque" controversy. Insensitive to the feelings of families of 9/11 victims? What about the families of 9/11 victims who were Muslims? Wouldn't NOT building a mosque be insensitive to THEIR feelings? If it's sacred ground, it should be sacred for everyone who suffered grief on that day.

I'm for building the mosque right next door to the WTC. What a wonderful gesture of healing between moderate Islam and America. Muslims all over the world would look at the mosque and say, America is a good country. The only Muslims who wouldn't like it would be Muslim extremists. The last thing they want would be for America to look like a tolerant country to mainstream Muslims.

Go out and make friends with your Muslim neighbor, storekeeper, mechanic, or computer technician. They have no more interest in terrorism than moderate Christians have in killing abortion doctors in the name of Christ.

Let's remember that right after 9/11, thousands held a candlelight vigil for America--in Iran! Islam did not bring down the WTC. A bunch of extremists with their own issues did it.

Science VS. Religion? Not!

2010-04-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

Science and religion are not opposites. Science is a system for studying reality. Religion is a kind of belief system. Not all belief systems are religious—the view of Dawkins and Hitchens and others that religion is a fraud is a sort of belief system but not a religious one. Religion is a deep experience of one’s place in the universe. It actually has nothing to do with god; god is just our anthropomorphic attempt to ascribe a reason for this deep experience.

The experience is so sweet and profound—and fleeting—that people who have it tend to cling to it and want to replicate it and extend it. They turn to the people who run their religion in the hope that if they follow instructions, however fanatical, they will regain the experience.

I like Buddhism because it acknowledges this trap and has devised a technique—meditation—for transcending it. This, of course, is only my religious truth. Yours may vary.

Rain

2010-01-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

At last! The long, soaking rain the weatherman promised for the last four or five storms but did not deliver. We've had an inch and a half since nightfall, washing the dust from the road, the sparrows' feathers and the leaves of the trees. And the downpour continues.

Rain has been predicted for the rest of the week. Odds are small that we'll catch up to normal, but we can dream. Rain has been fickle for the last three years, and when it rains, we Californians count our blessings.

Rain keeps the frost at bay, something my garden will appreciate after a couple of weeks of really cold weather that killed the potatoes and stopped the beets and turnips in their tracks. Maybe I'll go ahead and put the cabbage and broccoli starts in the ground. Should have done it in September, but who knows where the time goes?

Water catchment, ancient Bolivian style

2009-12-10T08:47:00.001-08:00

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bolivians look to ancient farming

Bolivians look to ancient farming

By James Painter
BBC News, Trinidad, Bolivia

Poor farmers in the heart of Bolivia's Amazon are being encouraged to embrace the annual floods - by using a centuries-old irrigation system for their crops.

They are experimenting with a sustainable way of growing food crops that their ancestors used.

It could provide them with better protection against the extremes of climate change, reduce deforestation, improve food security and even promise a better diet.

These are the bold aims of a two-year-old project being carried out by a non-governmental organisation near Trinidad, the capital of the department of Beni.

The system is based on building "camellones" - raised earth platforms of anything up to 2m high, surrounded by canals.

Constructed above the height of flood waters, the camellones can protect seeds and crops from being washed away.

The water in the canals provide irrigation and nutrients during the dry season.

Pre-Columbian cultures in Beni from about 1000BC to AD1400 used a similar system.

“ We are only just now learning how our ancestors lived and survived ”
Maira Salas Copacabana farmer

"One of the many extraordinary aspects of our camellones project is that poor communities living in the Beni today are using a similar technology to that developed by indigenous pre-Columbian cultures in the same region to solve a similar range of problems," says Oscar Saavedra, the director of the Kenneth Lee foundation.

He experimented for six years in his own garden to develop the complex system of hydrology.

Ancient and modern communities face the same problems - regular flooding followed by drought.

"The floods were the basis for development and the flourishing of a great civilisation," says Mr Saavedra.

There were bad floods in 2006 and 2007, but last year the region saw the worst flooding in at least 50 years.

The floods affected some 120,000 people - a quarter of Beni's population - and caused more than $200m (£119m) of damage.

That experience prompted many local women to enlist in the camellones project.

"I had planted rice, maize, bananas and onions on my plot of land. But the water left nothing," explains Dunia Rivero Mayaco, a 44-year-old mother of three from Puerto Almacen near Trinidad.

"I lost my house too. We had to live three months in temporary accommodation on the main road. The children got ill there.

"So that's why I am working here on the camellones. I didn't want to lose everything again."

About 400 families are now enrolled in the project in five locations, growing mainly maize, cassava and rice.

Many of the sites are still in an experimental phase, but the early signs are promising. Productivity appears to be on the increase.

"These camellones will help us when the floods come," says Maira Salas from the village of Copacabana, a 20-minute boat ride down the river Ibare.

"Crops like bananas that die easily have a better chance of survival. We are only just now learning how our ancestors lived and survived.

"They did not have tractors to build the camellones, and they survived for years. It's incredible."

Villagers are encouraged to embrace the floods and see them as a blessing, not a curse.

During the rainy season, large expanses of land in Beni are under water for several months - except for the raised areas.

When the water recedes into the tributaries that run into the Amazon, it takes nutrients with it leaving a sandy brown soil in which it is difficult to grow crops.

But in the camellones project, the water left by the floods is harnessed to bring fertility to the soil and irrigation during times of drought.

In short, from being victims of the floods, poor people could become masters by turning the excess water to their advantage.

Extreme weather events

International charity Oxfam is supporting the project in part because it offers poor people the possibility of adapting to climate change.

If, as predicted by many experts, the cycles of El Nino/La Nina are going to increase in intensity and frequency, then the project has the capacity to help poor families cope better with the extreme weather events and unpredictable rainfall that are to come.

"It should not matter when the rains come as the water can still be managed at whatever time of the year," says Mr Saavedra.

Other potential advantages of the scheme include:

The system uses natural fertilizers, and in particular an aquatic plant in the canals called tarope which both purifies the water and acts as a fertilizer when spread over the soil
The canals can also provide fish stock, animal fodder and nutrients for the soil
The camellones can act as a natural seed bank which can survive flooding
The system can reduce the need to cut down the forested areas around the communities. This is because the soil on traditional plots of land is often exhausted after two to three years. This forces the farmers to clear more land for planting by cutting down the forest.

All this seems too good to be true.

Some of the women say the real test will come when there is a bad year of flooding or a severe drought. So far, 2009 has not been one of the worst.

There are other huge challenges ahead. One is to try to provide the families with an income from tomatoes or garden produce.

Another is to overcome the scepticism from some local people about the time and physical effort invested in the camellones compared to other sources of local employment.

Mr Saavedra is convinced the camellones project can be expanded, even to other countries.

"This process could be repeated in various parts of the world with similar conditions to the Beni like parts of Bangladesh, India and China.

"It could help to reduce world hunger and combat climate change," he says.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8187866.stm

Published: 2009/08/18 09:11:16 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Friedman finally says something true

2009-11-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Advice From Grandma - NYTimes.com:

"Money in politics has become so pervasive that lawmakers have to spend most of their time raising it, selling their souls to those who have it or defending themselves from the smallest interest groups with deep pockets that can trump the national interest."

Honor our fallen soldiers

2009-11-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

Just keep in mind that most of them died not on the battlefield, but from lack of health insurance.

Study: Over 2,200 US Veterans Died in 2008 Due to Lack of Health Insurance | Physicians for a National Health Program: "On Veterans Day, a new study estimates four times as many US Army veterans died last year because they lacked health insurance than the total number of US soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period. A research team at Harvard Medical School says 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they were uninsured. We speak to the report’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program."

But veterans get free health coverage, right?

Nope. You may be surprised to learn that only veterans who were injured on the battlefield get free health coverage for their war-related injuries. Not that the Veterans Administration wouldn't like to cover them. It's just that there's not enough funding. Plenty of money for war, but nothing for its American victims--our soldiers.

Support the troops, my ass.

Homeland security?

2009-11-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed Columnist - America’s Defining Choice - NYTimes.com

Every three weeks, 3,000 Americans die from lack of health insurance. How many die from terrorist attacks? Shouldn't this be a homeland security issue?

Obama's unheralded successes

2009-10-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Juan Cole gives Obama an A for Iran policy and a B for Pakistan and Iraq. Then he asks, why can't Obama do a better job of publicizing his foreign-policy successes?

Obama's foreign policy report card - NewsTrust.net

by Juan Cole

Oct. 26, 2009 | Why can't the administration of President Barack Obama get the word out about its policy successes? President Obama campaigned on an ambitious platform of withdrawing from Iraq, engaging Iran on its nuclear program and persuading the Pakistani government to take on the Taliban and al-Qaida. Despite the charge by critics from both the right and the left in the wake of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize that he has accomplished little so far, in fact he has already set in motion significant change on several of these fronts -- despite the enormous domestic tasks that have inevitably preoccupied his administration. Yet you'd never hear about these successes from the mainstream media.

More...

Safety Nets for the Rich

2009-10-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Safety Nets for the Rich

By BOB HERBERT
New York Times

The headlines that ran side by side on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times summed up, inadvertently, the terrible fix that we’ve allowed our country to fall into.

The lead headline, in the upper right-hand corner, said: “U.S. Deficit Rises to $1.4 Trillion; Biggest Since ’45.”

The headline next to it said: “Bailout Helps Revive Banks, And Bonuses.”

We’ve spent the last few decades shoveling money at the rich like there was no tomorrow. We abandoned the poor, put an economic stranglehold on the middle class and all but bankrupted the federal government — while giving the banks and megacorporations and the rest of the swells at the top of the economic pyramid just about everything they’ve wanted.

And we still don’t seem to have learned the proper lessons. We’ve allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one — not the Obama administration, not the labor unions and most certainly no one in the Republican Party — has a clue about how to put them back to work.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is living it up. I’m amazed at how passive the population has remained in the face of this sustained outrage.

Even as tens of millions of working Americans are struggling to hang onto their jobs and keep a roof over their families’ heads, the wise guys of Wall Street are licking their fat-cat chops over yet another round of obscene multibillion-dollar bonuses — this time thanks to the bailout billions that were sent their way by Uncle Sam, with very little in the way of strings attached.

Nevermind that the economy remains deeply troubled. As The Times pointed out on Saturday, much of Wall Street “is minting money.”

Call it déjà voodoo. I wrote a column that ran three days before Christmas in 2007 that focused on the deeply disturbing disconnect between Wall Streeters harvesting a record crop of bonuses — billions on top of billions — while working families were having a very hard time making ends meet.

We would later learn that December 2007 was the very month that the Great Recession began. I wrote in that column: “Even as the Wall Streeters are high-fiving and ordering up record shipments of Champagne and caviar, the American dream is on life support.”

So we had an orgy of bonuses just as the recession was taking hold and now another orgy (with taxpayers as the enablers) that is nothing short of an arrogantly pointed finger in the eye of everyone who suffered, and continues to suffer, in this downturn.

Whether P.T. Barnum actually said it or not, there is a sucker born every minute. American taxpayers might want to take a look in the mirror. If the epithet fits...

We need to make some fundamental changes in the way we do things in this country. The gamblers and con artists of the financial sector, the very same clowns who did so much to bring the economy down in the first place, are howling self-righteously over the prospect of regulations aimed at curbing the worst aspects of their excessively risky behavior and preventing them from causing yet another economic meltdown.

We should be going even further. We’ve institutionalized the idea that there are firms that are too big to fail and, therefore, “we, the people” are obliged to see that they don’t — even if that means bankrupting the national treasury and undermining the living standards of ordinary people. What sense does that make?

If some company is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. Break it up.

Why should the general public have to constantly worry that a misstep by the high-wire artists at Goldman Sachs (to take the most obvious example) would put the entire economy in peril? These financial acrobats get the extraordinary benefits of their outlandish risk-taking — multimillion-dollar paychecks, homes the size of castles — but the public has to be there to absorb the worst of the pain when they take a terrible fall.

Enough! Goldman Sachs is thriving while the combined rates of unemployment and underemployment are creeping toward a mind-boggling 20 percent. Two-thirds of all the income gains from the years 2002 to 2007 — two-thirds! — went to the top 1 percent of Americans.

We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid — which is what we have been doing for the past three decades or so — while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.

That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.

Is Van Jones a communist?

2009-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

PolitiFact | Glenn Beck says Van Jones is an avowed communist

Here's what Politifact, a fact-check site that takes on both the left and the right, has to say. Click the link above to read the whole article, which also quotes Jones about his disillusionment with the revolutionary approach.

...This, from [Jones's] book, The Green Collar Economy, released in October 2008:

"There will surely be an important role for nonprofit voluntary, cooperative, and community-based solutions," Jones writes on page 86. "But the reality is that we are entering an era during which our very survival will demand invention and innovation on a scale never before seen in the history of human civilization. Only the business community has the requisite skills, experience, and capital to meet that need. On that score, neither the government nor the nonprofit and voluntary sectors can compete, not even remotely.

"So in the end, our success and survival as a species are largely and directly tied to the new eco-entrepreneurs — and the success and survival of their enterprises. Since almost all of the needed eco-technologies are likely to come from the private sector, civic leaders and voters should do all that can be done to help green business leaders succeed. That means, in large part, electing leaders who will pass bills to aid them. We cannot realistically proceed without a strong alliance between the best of the business world — and everyone else."

Or how about this, from an address before the Center for American Progress on Nov. 19, 2008 (well before Jones was brought into the Obama administration):

"Everything that is good for the environment, everything that's needed to beat global warming, is a job," Jones said. "Solar panels don't manufacture themselves. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Homes don't weatherize themselves. Every single thing that we need to beat global warming will also beat the recession. And the challenge is, how do we get the government to be a smart, and limited, catalyst in getting the private sector to take on this challenge?"
Beck would have been on solid ground if he said Jones used to be a communist. Jones has been up front about that.

Healthcare Town Hall

2009-09-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

Our Congresswoman, Lynn Woolsey, held a town hall meeting last week in Petaluma, within walking distance of our house. Knowing the tea-baggers would be out in force, even in our liberal town, I had to attend. It was astonishing. My daughter, a born writer, describes it so much better than I could:

It was everything I expected - and more! People would come up to the mike and ask Lynn Woolsey whether she had read the Constitution (a devastating rhetorical blow that was repeated multiple times!) Then there would be a bunch of whooping and hollering. Then Lynn Woolsey would say "yes!" Then there would be a rousing chorus of "Liar! Liar!" Then the guy at the microphone would ask Lynn Woolsey why she was trying to ram a government takeover of health care down the throats of honest Americans. Lynn Woolsey would explain that there is in fact no government health care takeover being proposed - merely the *option* of a government-run insurance policy. Then there would be another rousing chorus of "Liar! Liar!" Then someone else would come up to the microphone and ask Lynn Woolsey why she hated AMERICA!!! (Seriously. They did.) And Lynn Woolsey would give some sort of non-answer to this non-question. (Her best response all night, in my opinion? "I assume that's a rhetorical question.")

Sometimes this varied, in two major ways. Sometimes someone would come up to the microphone and explain how they'd had cancer and now couldn't afford health care anymore, which had them a little troubled given that cancer can be a recurrent disease, and they really hoped the public option would provide an option for them. Then there would be a bunch of booing and calls of "Communist!" Abusing cancer survivors and people in wheelchairs: classy. [ETA for scrupulous accuracy - I don't want to imply that there was as much abuse of sick people as there was of Lynn Woolsey and the public option. This was definitely a smaller subset of the group.]

Alternately, several times during the evening, people came up and told this story:
1) They had been trying to contact Lynn Woolsey for weeks! months! and her office had refused to tell them anything about her position on [issue x].
2) Finally, they had gotten through to someone who answered them.
3) That someone told them Lynn Woolsey didn't care about their opinions and that she would vote how she wanted to because she knew what was best for them.

So apparently, there's someone in Lynn Woolsey's phone-answering staff who is not only stupid enough to make that last statement, but is making it to every single conservative who calls! Amazing! Or perhaps, by the rules of civil debate favored by these groups, that would have been my cue to shout "Liar! Liar!"

I really wish I were exaggerating this for liberal humor effect. Sometimes it was actually pretty funny. But I'm not. I'm relaying stuff as near to verbatim as I can remember it, though there were interludes of saner questioning (from both sides, though honestly, more from the pro-reform side than from the anti-) that I haven't relayed.

Lynn Woolsey looked pretty uncomfortable up there, and frankly I would have too. Aside from the fact that having a room peppering you with vaguely insane questions and then screaming abuse at you while you try to talk isn't fun, I have to assume the congresspeople doing these meetings are wondering who's going to be the first to have a shot taken at them by the people who have been making such a show of bringing their guns to meetings (I'm actually pretty gun-friendly for a liberal, but I think all sane people can agree that guns have no place at crowded events with public figures and tempers running high).

I would say coverage of these meetings has in no way oversold the hysteria and craziness at these things. And this was in one of the most liberal areas of the country! Interestingly, the pro-reform people didn't jump up and yell all that often (though they clapped and sometimes cheered for stuff that excited them), but the few times they really did respond all-out, they were louder. Based on noise volume and how many people jumped up and cheered around me for the anti-reform rabble-rousing stuff, I would guess the audience was actually split roughly 70-30 or 60-40 pro-reform vs. anti-. But most of the time you wouldn't have known it from the volume.

Good times, good times.

Obama: Read this!

2009-09-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Roosevelt: The Great Divider

By JEAN EDWARD SMITH

Published: September 2, 2009
New York Times

When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers.

***

Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

Read the whole thing and weep for our lost Democratic spine.

Harvest

2009-09-03T14:47:00.001-07:00

Tomatoes (Dante's saucers, Principe borghese, pear), green beans, tomatillos, Sungold cherry tomatos, Macintosh apples. Not shown: potatoes onions.

Tomatillos and roasted peppers for salsa verde.

What is a sense of community?

2009-09-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is totally based on my own conjecture.

My conservative relative once complained about the inefficient low-flow toilet in her new home, built after the government began mandating low-flow toilets in all new construction. It was one of the first such homes, and perhaps the low-flow technology wasn't as good as it is now. She wished she could rip it out and put in an old-fashioned toilet. What she should have done is rip it out and put in a newer low-flow toilet, since the newer ones work just fine, but she objected to having to make such a choice.

My impression is that conservatives have a pretty good sense of community. Many are active in their schools, churches, business and fraternal organizations and neighborhoods. They are generous in helping friends who are undergoing difficulties.

But the sense of community doesn't extend beyond sharing with these groups. For instance, it doesn't extend to strangers who depend on shared resources such as water and energy. Conservatives seem less likely to be concerned about whether people beyond their immediate community have enough water, for instance.

It seems like the difference between the conservative sense of community and the liberal one is that a conservative community is heavily weighted toward people conservatives know personally. When it comes to community, liberals are more abstract thinkers.

The conservative view is probably the more natural one. Think back to our primitive origins, when people lived in small groups, and most people personally knew everyone they saw in their daily life, and probably were somewhat familiar with the people the nearest outside community that they might meet with during gatherings to trade resources or find marriage partners. Anyone else was a stranger, the "other."

Unfortunately, we no longer live in such groups. We know nothing about the people two blocks away from us, or many of the people who work in the same building as we do. We're surrounded by strangers. There are two ways to respond to this: the primitive, natural way, which is to exclude strangers from our sense of community; or the adaptive way, which is to extend our sense of community to include people nearby, even though we don't personally know them. (Note: humans are highly adaptable creatures.) Once we've made that adaptation, it's relatively easy to extend the community outwards, to the region, the nation, the world.

Just my thought. Probably horribly over-generalized, but I think there's a grain of truth to it.

Why we won't get real healthcare reform until we reform our campaign funding system

2009-07-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sickening Amounts of Healthcare Lobbying | Center for Media and Democracy

Source: Washington Post, July 6, 2009

The healthcare industry is waging a "record-breaking influence campaign," spending "more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying," reports the Washington Post. "The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million" spent in just three months. Among the lobbyists are many former Congressional staffers and even former members of Congress, including Dick Armey and Richard Gephardt. The impact is illustrated by a recent meeting in the office of Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, which "included two former Baucus chiefs of staff: David Castagnetti, whose clients include PhRMA and America's Health Insurance Plans, and Jeffrey A. Forbes, who represents PhRMA, Amgen, Genentech, Merck and others." The Post "identified more than 350 former government aides, each representing an average of four firms or trade groups." PhRMA leads "the pack in spending and employs 49 former government staff members among its 136 lobbyists." Many of the major lobbyists "remain opposed to the public-insurance option" supported by the Obama administration. PhRMA's head, former Congressman Billy Tauzin, finds the Congress-drug industry revolving door "pretty normal." He asked, "Is it a distortion of baseball to hire coaches who have played baseball?"

Yikes! Coming soon to your neighborhood: a dust bowl

2009-06-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Climate Progress � Blog Archive � Energy and Global Warming News for June 27th: Dust-Bowl-ification spreads to southern Italy; Clean energy by Nobel Prize-wining Grameen Bank; DC Metro crash symptom of crumbling infrastructure

Dust-Bowlification is predicted to happen all over the world — see NOAA stunner: humanity faces permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe. But it’s happening some places now:

Deserts crossing Mediterranean

The Sahara Desert is crossing the Mediterranean, according to Italian environmental protection group Legambiente which warns that the livelihoods of 6.5 million people living along its shores could be at risk.

”Desertification isn’t limited to Africa,” said Legambiente Vice President Sebastiano Venneri.

”Without a serious change of direction in economic and environmental policies, the risk will become concrete and irreversible.” A recent report by Legambiente estimated that 74 million acres of fertile land along the Mediterranean were turning to desert as the result of overexploited land and water resources.

Legambiente said that southern Italy was at severe risk in addition to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia where 11% of all arable land showed signs of drying up. ”Semi-arid coastal regions like southern Italy are prone to the effects of desertification due to farmers’ dependence on water from underground aquifers instead of rainfall,” said Legambiente spokesman Giorgio Zampetti. According to Zampetti, pumping too much fresh water out of these underground deposits can result in seawater leaking in to replace it, effectively poisoning the groundwater.

As an example of the long-term consequences, Legambiente pointed to Egypt where it said brackish groundwater had compromised half the country’s farmland.

“The south of Italy isn’t the only part of the country at risk,” added Zampetti. ”Aquifers around the Po Delta in northern Italy have also begun showing signs of saltwater contamination.” Experts said that the Po River, which is Italy’s longest waterway and nearly dries up in parts when industrial consumption peaks, is one of the most visible examples of desertifying climate change in Italy. Italy is not the only country in Europe losing fertile land.

Legambiente estimated that desertification affects more than a fifth of the Iberian Peninsula with early indicators also present along the French Riviera.

Across the Mediterranean, Legambiente said that countries like Libya, Tunisia and Morocco were losing 1,000 square kilometers of fertile land every year.

Legambiente experts predict that between 1997 and 2020, desertification will have forced over 60 million people in sub-Saharan Africa to leave their homes, many of whom will head north to Europe.

These are the people who are going to fix our healthcare system?

2009-06-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

Many in Congress Hold Stakes in Health Industry - NYTimes.com

June 14, 2009

Many in Congress Hold Stakes in Health Industry

By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — As President Obama and Congress intensify the push to overhaul health care in the coming week, the political and economic force of that industry is well represented in the financial holdings of many lawmakers and others with a say on the legislation, according to new disclosure forms.

The personal financial reports, due late last week from members of Congress, show that many lawmakers hold investments in insurance, pharmaceutical and prescription-benefit companies and in hospital interests, all of which would be affected by the administration’s overhaul of health care.

Read the rest.

Why I hate Memorial Day

2009-05-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day honors the tragedy of those who died for their country. All over the nation, ceremonies take place at cemeteries of the fallen. Volunteers place flags on graves; taps is played; flags are furled; and stern-faced members of veterans' organizations attend in solemn rows in their caps and insignia.

It's not a time for cynicism. And yet, that's just what I feel. As a nation, our feelings are manipulated on what should be a day of sorrow and regret.

Let me be clear--we should justly honor the sacrifice of those who died in war. But the way we do it glorifies war to yet another generation. It deludes our youth into believing it's their duty to enlist in the next crusade to benefit politicians and the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. The martial music and stirring speeches perpetuate the lie that the fallen "died for our freedom." They did not.

Did our soldiers die heroically? Often they did. But for the most part, they died uselessly.

War is a failure of diplomacy. Instead of flags and martial music, we should offer apologies to the dead for yet again failing to avert the catastrophe of war. Our vow to the dead should be to redouble our efforts to find peaceful ways of settling disputes. On this day we should mourn not just those who perished in war, but our repeated failure to move beyond the barbaric practice of officially killing strangers just because someone in power who stands to gain from war convinced us that it's in our best interest to do so.

The message of Memorial Day should be "Never again! We will not send yet another generation of youth to the killing fields."

***

Eisenhower on war:

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." (Press conference: 1953)

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing." (Speech: Ottawa, Canada, January 10, 1946)

Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States
(1953-1961)

(Courtesy of West Point Graduates Against the War)

Don't eat processed foods!

2009-05-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

May 15, 2009

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers

by MICHAEL MOSS

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

The pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.

So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

In addition to ConAgra, other food giants like Nestlé and the Blackstone Group, a New York firm that acquired the Swanson and Hungry-Man brands two years ago, concede that they cannot ensure the safety of items — from frozen vegetables to pizzas — and that they are shifting the burden to the consumer. General Mills, which recalled about five million frozen pizzas in 2007 after an E. coli outbreak, now advises consumers to avoid microwaves and cook only with conventional ovens. ConAgra has also added food safety instructions to its other frozen meals, including the Healthy Choice brand.

Peanuts were considered unlikely culprits for pathogens until earlier this year when a processing plant in Georgia was blamed for salmonella poisoning that is estimated to have killed nine people and sickened 27,000. Now, white pepper is being blamed for dozens of salmonella illnesses on the West Coast, where a widening recall includes other spices and six tons of frozen egg rolls.

The problem is particularly acute with frozen foods, in which unwitting consumers who buy these products for their convenience mistakenly think that their cooking is a matter of taste and not safety.

Federal regulators have pushed companies to beef up their cooking instructions with the detailed “food safety” guides. But the response has been varied, as a review of packaging showed. Some manufacturers fail to list explicit instructions; others include abbreviated guidelines on the side of their boxes in tiny print. A Hungry-Man pot pie asks consumers to ensure that the pie reaches a temperature that is 11 degrees short of the government-established threshold for killing pathogens. Questioned about the discrepancy, Blackstone acknowledged it was using an older industry standard that it would rectify when it printed new cartons.

Government food safety officials also point to efforts by the Partnership for Food Safety Education, a nonprofit group founded by the Clinton administration. But the partnership consists of a two-person staff and an annual budget of $300,000. Its director, Shelley Feist, said she has wanted to start a campaign to advise consumers about frozen foods, but lacks the money.

Estimating the risk to consumers is difficult. The industry says that it is acting with an abundance of caution, and that big outbreaks of food-borne illness are rare. At the same time, a vast majority of the estimated 76 million cases of food-borne illness every year go unreported or are not traced to the source.

Home Cooking

Some food safety experts say they do not think the solution should rest with the consumer. Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said companies like ConAgra were asking too much. “I do not believe that it is fair to put this responsibility on the back of the consumer, when there is substantial confusion about what it means to prepare that product,” Dr. Osterholm said.

And the ingredient chain for frozen and other processed foods is poised to get more convoluted, industry insiders say. While the global market for ingredients is projected to reach $34 billion next year, the pressure to keep food prices down in a recession is forcing food companies to look for ways to cut costs.

Ensuring the safety of ingredients has been further complicated as food companies subcontract processing work to save money: smaller companies prepare flavor mixes and dough that a big manufacturer then assembles. “There is talk of having passports for ingredients,” said Jamie Rice, the marketing director of RTS Resource, a research firm based in England. “At each stage they are signed off on for quality and safety. That would help companies, if there is a scare, in tracing back.”

But government efforts to impose tougher trace-back requirements for ingredients have met with resistance from food industry groups including the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which complained to the Food and Drug Administration: “This information is not reasonably needed and it is often not practical or possible to provide it.”

Now, in the wake of polls that show food poisoning incidents are shaking shopper confidence, the group is re-evaluating its position. A new industry guide produced by the group urges companies to test for salmonella and cites recent outbreaks from cereal, children’s snacks and other dry foods that companies have mistakenly considered immune to pathogens.

Research on raw ingredients, the guide notes, has found salmonella in 0.14 percent to 1.3 percent of the wheat flour sampled, and up to 8 percent of the raw spices tested.

ConAgra’s pot pie outbreak began on Feb. 20, 2007, and by the time it trailed off nine months later 401 cases of salmonella infection had been identified in 41 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimates that for every reported case, an additional 38 are not detected or reported.

It took until June 2007 for health officials to discover the illnesses were connected, and in October they traced the salmonella to Banquet pot pies made at ConAgra’s plant in Marshall, Mo.

While investigators who went to the plant were never able to pinpoint the salmonella source, inspectors for the United States Department of Agriculture focused on the vegetables, a federal inspection document shows.

ConAgra had not been requiring its suppliers to test the vegetables for pathogens, even though some were being shipped from Latin America. Nor was ConAgra conducting its own pathogen tests.

The company says the outbreak and management changes prompted it to undertake a broad range of safety initiatives, including testing for microbes in all of the pie ingredients. ConAgra said it was also trying to apply the kill step to as many ingredients as possible, but had not yet found a way to accomplish it without making the pies “unpalatable.”

Its Banquet pies now have some of the most graphic food safety instructions, complete with a depiction of a thermometer piercing the crust.

Pressed to say whether the meals are safe to eat if consumers disregard the instructions or make an error, Stephanie Childs, a company spokeswoman, said, “Our goal is to provide the consumer with as safe a product as possible, and we are doing everything within our ability to provide a safe product to them.”

“We are always improving food safety,” Ms. Childs said. “This is a long ongoing process.”

The U.S.D.A. said it required companies to show that their cooking instructions, when properly followed, would kill any pathogens. ConAgra says it has done such testing to validate its instructions.

Getting to ‘Kill Step’

But attempts by The New York Times to follow the directions on several brands of frozen meals, including ConAgra’s Banquet pot pies, failed to achieve the required 165-degree temperature. Some spots in the pies heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt.

A ConAgra consumer hotline operator said the claims by microwave-oven manufacturers about their wattage power could not be trusted, and that any pies not heated enough should not be eaten. “We definitely want it to reach that 165-degree temperature,” she said. “It’s a safety issue.”

In 2007, the U.S.D.A.’s inspection of the ConAgra plant in Missouri found records that showed some of ConAgra’s own testing of its directions failed to achieve “an adequate lethality” in several products, including its Chicken Fried Beef Steak dinner. Even 18 minutes in a large conventional oven brought the pudding in a Kid Cuisine Chicken Breast Nuggets meal to only 142 degrees, the federal agency found.

Besides improving its own cooking directions, ConAgra says it has alerted other frozen food manufacturers to the food safety issues.

But in the absence of meaningful federal rules, other frozen-dinner makers that face the same problem with ingredients are taking varied steps, some less rigorous. Jim Seiple, a food safety official with the Blackstone unit that makes Swanson and Hungry-Man pot pies, said the company tested for pathogens, but only after preliminary tests for bacteria that were considered indicators of pathogens — a method that ConAgra abandoned after its salmonella outbreak.

The pot pie instructions have built-in margins of error, Mr. Seiple said, and the risk to consumers depended on “how badly they followed our directions.”

Some frozen food companies are taking different approaches to pathogens. Amy’s Kitchen, a California company that specializes in natural frozen foods, says it precooks its ingredients to kill any potential pathogens before its pot pies and other products leave the factory.

Using a bacteriological testing laboratory, The Times checked several pot pies made by Amy’s and the three leading brands, and while none contained salmonella or E. coli, one pie each of two brands — Banquet, and the Stouffer’s brand made by Nestlé — had significant levels of T. coliform.

These bacteria are common in many foods and are not considered harmful. But their presence in these products include raw ingredients and leave open “a potential for contamination,” said Harvey Klein, the director of Garden State Laboratories in New Jersey.

A Nestlé spokeswoman said the company enhanced its food safety instructions in the wake of ConAgra’s salmonella outbreak.

Danger in the Fridge

ConAgra’s episode has raised its visibility among victims like Ryan Warren, a 25-year-old law school student in Washington. A Seattle lawyer, Bill Marler, brought suit against ConAgra on behalf of Mr. Warren’s daughter Zoë, who had just turned 1 year old when she was fed a pot pie that he says put her in the hospital for a terrifying weekend of high fever and racing pulse.

“You don’t assume these dangers to be right in your freezer,” said Mr. Warren, who settled with ConAgra. He does not own a food thermometer and was not certain his microwave oven met the minimum 1,100-wattage requirement in the new pot pie instructions. “I do think that consumers bear responsibility to reasonably look out for their well-being, but the entire reason for this product to exist is for its convenience.”

Public health officials who interviewed the Warrens and other victims of the pot-pie contamination found that fewer than one in three knew the wattage of their microwave ovens, according to the C.D.C. report on the outbreak. The report notes, however, that nearly one in four of the victims reported cooking their pies in conventional ovens.

For more than a decade, the U.S.D.A. has also sought to encourage consumers to use food thermometers. But the agency’s statistics on how many Americans do so are discouraging. According to its Web site, not quite half the population has one, and only 3 percent use it when cooking high-risk foods like hamburgers. No data was available on how many people use thermometers on pot pies.

Andrew Martin contributed reporting.

Marcus Aurelius on the afterlife

2009-04-29T18:22:00.001-07:00

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” —Marcus Aurelius

How we can all become energy suppliers

2009-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

One reason solar energy is such a small part of our energy mix is that energy companies won't pay for any excess power you generate from your rooftop solar panels beyond what you use yourself. Ending that restriction could do more for our economy and the outlook for global climate than all the technology of the next ten years.

Green Growth: Are Feed-in Tariffs the Answer? | The New America Foundation

President Barack Obama has touted a robust green energy sector as our best chance of jumpstarting the economy, putting Americans back to work, and securing our nation's standing in a post-carbon world. Yet the renewable energy industry has been among the hardest hit by the current downturn.

How can America revive this vital sector, transforming it into an engine of economic growth? The Washington Monthly has found a promising answer in an unlikely place: Gainesville, Florida, which is in the midst of a solar-power boom, thanks to a bold incentive known as a feed-in tariff. Under this policy, the local power company is required to buy renewable energy from all producers, no matter how small, at above-market rates. This means anyone with a cluster of solar cells on their roof can sell the power they produce at a profit.

While Gainesville is the first to take the leap, other U.S. cities and at least eleven U.S. states are moving toward adopting the policy. There is also a bill for a nationwide feed-in tariff before Congress. The surge of interest stems from the dramatic results the policy has delivered in other countries, most notably Germany, where it has given rise to the world’s most vibrant green energy sector. In America, however, an aging electrical grid and fractured utility market could make feed-in tariffs problematic.

Afghanistan is the new Iraq

2009-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Informed Comment: Top Ten Ways the US is Turning Afghanistan into Iraq

A fascinating new take on transportation by car

2009-04-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

Daimler to Bring Car-Sharing to Texas - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com

Daimler to Bring Car-Sharing to Texas

By Azadeh Ensha

Daimler’s Car2go program, to be started in Austin, Tex., will allow members to share Smart Fortwos.

When it comes to creating a successful car-sharing service, Daimler is hoping that what works in Europe will also work in America.

After introducing its Car2go program in Ulm, Germany, last week, the automaker is looking to begin a similar service in Austin, Tex.

“The car-sharing services that exist now require you to pick up and deliver the car, and you can’t drive per minute,” said Han Tjan, a spokesman for Daimler North America, about what separates Car2go from the other car-sharing services, like Zipcar, already on the market. “With this one, if you have to go 10 blocks in Manhattan and it starts raining, you can look for a car and take it.”

Specifically, the Austin service will offer drivers shared access to 200 Smart Fortwos 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To confirm a car’s availability, customers hold a member card over a card reader on the car’s windshield. If the car is available, the door will unlock. The driver can then access the keys from the glove compartment using a PIN. If the car is not available, the customer will be directed to the nearest available Car2go. The service also lets you prebook your vehicle and locate a car by phone or the Web.

When you’re done using Car2go, you can park at any legal parking spot or at Car2go-only parking spaces throughout the city. Cars are locked by holding up the Car2go member card to the reader. Daimler’s goal is to have a Car2go car available within a three-minute walk.

Though prices in the United States have not be announced, the Ulm Car2go program costs 0.19 euros (about 25 cents) a minute. Drivers are charged 9.90 euros ($13.25) an hour after the first hour of use. Flat day rates of 49 euros ($65.60) are also available. These prices include fuel costs. (A service team helps ensure that cars are properly fueled and maintained.) Membership is free.

Daimler’s Car2go Austin service will first be tested by city employees this fall before eventually becoming available to the public.

Electric Cars for All! (No, Really This Time)---and by 2011

2009-03-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

From the Desk of David Pogue - Electric Cars for All! (No, Really This Time) - NYTimes.com

We started from the infrastructure. We came up with an electric car that would have two features that nobody had before. 1) The battery is removable. So if you wanted to go a long distance, you could switch your battery instead of waiting for it to charge for a very long time.

And 2) It was cheaper than gasoline car, not more expensive. Because you didn't buy the battery. You paid just for the miles and for the car.

DP: So what will you guys make? What will you do?

SA: We sell miles, the way that AT&T sells you minutes. They buy bandwidth and they translate into minutes. We buy batteries and clean electrons--we only buy electrons that come from renewable sources--and we translate that into miles.

DP: What are we talking about here? What's the infrastructure you're building?

SA: We have two pieces of infrastructure. 1) Charge spots. And they will be everywhere, like parking meters, only instead of taking money from you when you park, they give you electrons. And they will be at home, they'll be at work, they'll be at downtown and retail centers. As if you have a magic contract with Chevron or Exxon that every time you stop your car and go away, they fill it up.

Now, that gives us the ability to drive most of our drives, sort of a 100-mile radius. And that's most of the drives we do. But we also take care of the exceptional drive. You want to go from Boston to New York. And so on the way, we have what we call switch stations: lanes inside gas stations. You go into the switch station, your depleted battery comes out, a full battery comes in, and you keep driving. It takes you about two, three minutes--less than filling with gasoline--and you can keep on going.

Read the whole amazing story...

Watch the David Pogue video:

In the dark...

2009-03-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover. —Wendell Berry

Earmarks

2009-03-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Miracles Take Time - NYTimes.com: "Freaking out over earmarks is like watching a neighborhood that is being consumed by flames and complaining that there is crabgrass on some of the lawns."

Still more on Canada's financial wisdom

2009-03-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed Contributor - The Great Solvent North - NYTimes.com
by Theresa Tedesco
February 27, 2009

HAS the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities.

The Canadian banking system, which proved resilient in the global economic crisis, is finally getting its day in the sun. A recent World Economic Forum report ranked it the soundest in the world, mostly as the result of its conservative practices. (The United States ranked 40th).

Read the rest...

The Gulf War--the true story

2009-03-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

Why the Dark Secrets of the First Gulf War Are Still Haunting Us

By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet.
February 27, 2009

Barack Obama, an early and ardent enemy of the Iraq War, quickly declared his affinity for a war in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan. And like so many Democratic leaders, he has commended Bush 41's Gulf War over Bush 43's, for its justifiable cause, clear goals, quick execution and admirable leadership.

It's difficult to determine the proportion of expedience to ignorance that allows politicians and pundits to advance the theory of the good and trouble-free Gulf War. What's clear, though, is that for close to 20 years, the 42-day war, in which we dropped more bombs than were dropped in all wars combined in the history of the world, maintains a special place in American hearts.

But as John R. MacArthur amply demonstrates in The Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, the real 1991 war was kept from the American public. This week, as we commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Gulf War's end, and opportunities for new hostilities beckon, Americans, and our leaders, would do well to take a hard look at the war that we continue to love only because we never got to see it.

Despite our inability to detect it at the time, U.S. prosecution of the 1991 war with Iraq relied on all the now-familiar and discredited strategies used to promote the present war -- with equally disastrous and far-reaching results. More...

More on Canada. Obama, are you listening?

2009-02-21T06:56:00.000-08:00

In Canada, Obama gets warm welcome--and tips on managing an economy

The country has seen no major banks fail. Debt levels are low and foreclosures pale in comparison with those of the US.

By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the February 21, 2009 edition

TORONTO - For his first foreign visit as president, Barack Obama chose a country where no major banks have failed, home foreclosures pale by comparison with those in the United States, corporate and consumer debt is low, and citizens enjoy universal health care.

Canada often gets short shrift from its southern neighbor, despite its stature as the largest trading partner of the US and a staunch ally. But now, amid global economic turmoil, the financial moderation practiced by this nation of some 33 million people is being celebrated.

"These days, boring is beautiful. Prudency is a big hit," says Stephen Foerster, finance professor at the Ivy School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London. "You might say Canada has suddenly become sexy, even if it's in an unsexy way."

President Obama acknowledged his affection for Canada during a six-hour visit Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The trip offered balm to a relationship rocked in recent years by differences over the Iraq war and, more recently, worries over protectionism. "I love this country," he said during a press conference after euphoric Canadians greeted his arrival in the capital, Ottawa, by singing Bob Marley's reggae classic "One Love" and chanting "Yes We Can."

Two days earlier, Mr. Obama hinted at the reason for his admiration. "One of the things that I think has been striking about Canada is that in the midst of this enormous economic crisis.... [It's] shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system in the economy in ways that we haven't always been here in the United States."

Among industrialized countries, Canada is the only one not to have seen a major bank fail. The World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system as the healthiest in the world in 2008, while the US took the 40th spot. And while Canada's largest five banks reaped profits of $8.2 billion, the top five US banks lost a combined total of $8.3 billion last year.

Stronger federal regulations and lower leverage ratios borne by Canadian banks have allowed them to weather the global banking storm. Canadian financial institutions didn't engage in the subprime mortgage lending that sideswiped the US banking industry and forced millions of American homeowners into foreclosure.

"The difference with Canadian banks is that they never succumbed to the temptation of huge profits. It also allowed them to avoid the downside of more aggressive behavior," says David Haglund, a professor of international politics at Queen's University in Kingston. "It speaks to the more conservative nature of Canadian society in general. Canadians are simply more risk averse."

Canada has not escaped the global economic crisis. Its economy tipped into recession in the last quarter of 2008. In January alone, 129,000 jobs disappeared – the biggest one-month increase in years – pushing the unemployment rate to 7.2 percent. And this week brought more bad news: Alberta, Canada's cash cow, which has led the national economy over the past several years, is also in recession, hit by a slowdown in oil prices and sales. To combat the downturn, Prime Minister Harper's Conservative government introduced a $39 billion (about $31 billion US) stimulus package, to be rolled out over two years.

But analysts believe Canada's strong balance sheet will position it better than other embattled countries to weather this recessionary storm. For 12 consecutive years, Canada has posted budgetary surpluses, compared with the $1 trillion US federal deficit – a figure that doesn't include the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law this week.

To hear the analysts tell the story, Canada appears to have been getting a number of other things right. For example, even the most ardent proponents of big business are fans of the universal healthcare system. As Professor Haglund points out, the Big Three automakers have been able to produce cars more cheaply in their Canadian plants because the government absorbs the cost of healthcare.

And healthcare costs are lower in Canada, accounting for 9.7 percent of the GDP, compared with 15.2 percent in the US.

Higher taxes or regulation and a vibrant economy aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, Haglund says. "If Barack Obama can take away any lesson from the Canadian experience, it's that things can be changed while preserving what's best in North American life."

Regulation works. Single-payer healthcare works

2009-02-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

Canada and the Recession: Angles of Deflection - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com

As Fareed Zakaria points out in a recent Newsweek article, Canada is weathering the financial crisis better than we are. Canadian banks are more old-fashioned (that is, centrally regulated) than our own. Stricter leverage requirements have been enforced. Subprime mortgages have not been encouraged. Prohibitions against foreign bank takeovers have protected Canadian institutions from competition from the United States, but also buffered them against financial contagion.

Mr. Zakaria overstates the case when he claims that no government bailout has taken place there. The Canadian government has provided substantial assistance to the financial sector. But its efforts to increase available credit remain far less costly than our trillion-dollar subsidies. A more serious concern for Canadians is the likelihood that the sinking American and global economy will pull them down.

If unemployment continues to rise over the next few months in the United States, as predicted, many families will lose their health insurance coverage or struggle to pay premiums they can ill afford. By contrast, increased unemployment won’t reduce Canadian access to health care.

As the economist (and fellow Economix blogger) Uwe Reinhardt explains, the single-payer Canadian health care system delivers very good results for about half the per-person cost of ours — with huge savings from reduced paperwork. Economic disparities in access to health care are significantly lower there. More...

Ah, how the times have changed

2009-02-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

In support of the "nuclear option." Note the date. Harry Reid, are you listening?

The Filibuster:

by Ronald D. Rotunda, Cato Institute
July 7, 2003

"The filibuster has a long history, but its pedigree should not make us proud. It prevented civil rights legislation from being adopted for nearly a century. Now a minority of senators is using it to prevent the Senate from voting on judicial nominees even though a majority of the senators from both parties would vote to confirm if they only could vote.

The modern filibuster is much more powerful than its historical predecessor because it is invisible: The Senate rules do not require any senator to actually hold the floor to filibuster. Instead, a minority of 41 senators simply notifies the Senate leadership of its intent to filibuster. Other Senate business goes on, but a vote on a particular issue -- a nomination -- cannot be brought to a vote. The present Senate rules that create the filibuster also do not allow the Senate to change the filibuster rules unless 67 senators agree. However, these rules should not bind the present Senate any more than a statute that says that it cannot be repealed until 67 percent of the Senate votes to repeal the statute. An earlier Senate cannot bind a present Senate on this issue." (the rest...)

Friday baby blogging

2008-10-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

Test drives can be so tiring!

Claire the pilot.

That French fruit fly research earmark--the back story

2008-10-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

This story is of particular interest to me because for the last few years we haven't been able to produce our wonderful home-cured olives, because Steve's olive crop has been a total loss, thanks to the olive fruit fly invasion.

Read it here: Sarah Palin Science | Salon

This is one earmark that will directly benefit California agriculture, so we don't have to import olive oil from foreign countries.

Image from Cornell University.

What kind of stimulus actually helps the economy?

2008-10-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Surprise! The top three most beneficial economic stimulus provisions are food stamps, extending unemployment benefits and spending on the infrastructure--rebuilding our decrepit roads, bridges, and so forth.

Three of the four worst ones just happen to be the ones McCain is pushing.

Click on the image to the right to enlarge it.

Read the accompanying story from the Economic Policy Institute:

A meaningful stimulus for Main Street

$13 million! Purged voters

2008-10-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

While the Republican Acorn hoax is distracting the country, millions of real people are being purged from the rolls.

From the Independent (UK):
Open House: The Vote Grab: Voter purge could swing result to McCain
From the Brennan Center for Justice: Voter Suppression Incidents 2008
From U.S. Politics Today: Making sure every vote ISN'T counted

It's hard to find good news these days, but. . . Rwanda??

2008-10-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

Who would have imagined that the most war-torn country in Africa would be the site of the world's first women-majority parliament?

Women Run the Show In a Recovering Rwanda

KIGALI, Rwanda -- On a continent that has been dominated by the rule of men, this tiny East African nation is trying something new.
Here, women are not only driving the economy -- working on construction sites, in factories and as truck and taxi drivers -- they are also filling the ranks of government.
Women hold a third of all cabinet positions, including foreign minister, education minister, Supreme Court chief and police commissioner general. And Rwanda's parliament last month became the first in the world where women claim the majority -- 56 percent, including the speaker's chair.
One result is that Rwanda has banished archaic patriarchal laws that are still enforced in many African societies, such as those that prevent women from inheriting land. The legislature has passed bills aimed at ending domestic violence and child abuse, while a committee is now combing through the legal code to purge it of discriminatory laws.
. . . .

Though profound tensions and scars from the genocide still exist here, so does a strong sense of national purpose tinged with unapologetic political correctness.
It is taboo to speak of Hutus or Tutsis these days; everyone is Rwandan. The last Saturday of every month is community work day, when neighbors gather for six hours to help with a collective project -- clearing brush, or repairing a less-fortunate neighbor's house.
"We are doing this for ourselves -- not because it's a law," said Beatrice Namyonga, who was clearing weeds with her neighbors.
When it comes to the role of women, a similar attitude prevails.
In general, men here seem to have accepted and even embraced the policy of promoting women in government, even if their endorsement at times carries a dutiful tone.
"It was the government's aim to promote women, and the biggest proportion of Rwandans are women," said Jean Muhikira, 49, a driver who said he notices many more women in his line of work these days. "Women can contribute a lot in ideas."
In some quarters of Rwandan society -- particularly among older men and Hutu men who harbor some mistrust of Kagame's government -- the policy is viewed with faint suspicion.
"Maybe now that women have more than 50 percent in parliament, it could be a big problem," said Thomas Habumuisha, 29, who was out shopping with a friend on Saturday. "Maybe women could take advantage and oppress men."
His friend, Muhire Bitorwa, whose wife, a teacher, is helping pay his way through Kigali University, nodded politely, but disagreed.
"In my view, women are more reasonable, more merciful and less corrupt than men," he offered. "And culturally, women have not been recognized."

Read the whole thing.

Granddaughter of the year

2008-10-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

An old friend once remarked that when you kiss a baby, your lips buzz. That is, in fact, true.

I never envisioned my curmudgeon of a son kissing a baby. I am so impressed with Ben and Christine. They have the good fortune to both be available to Claire during her first three months, and they share all the care right down the middle. Christine gets up for the before-midnight feeding shifts, and Ben gets up for the early morning ones. This is possible because Christine pumps her milk. Ah, the blessings of technology.

The cooking and cleaning are also a mutual effort.

I have talked to other men who have been able to participate in their children's infancy, and they consider themselves to be among the truly blessed.

My mother and I had a lovely and relaxed four days with Ben, Christine and Claire--my first grandchild and my mother's first great grandchild. May you all be so lucky.

Here's Claire with her great grandmother, my mother:

Okay, only family will be interested in this; here are a few more pictures of Claire, the wonder baby.

Visualizing $1 trillion

2008-09-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/26/2008 | Economists say House GOP plan would be ineffective, costly

...it wouldn't reduce the crush of homes in or near foreclosure, said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That's a problem that will surely grow worse if the U.S. economy enters recession, leading to greater job losses, which feed a vicious downward spiral of even more foreclosures and defaults on car loans and credit-card debt.
Americans are spooked by talk that financial Armageddon awaits.
The global financial system nearly melted down last week when investors pulled out en masse from money market funds and the short-term debt markets that help corporate America fund its day-to-day needs.
These traditionally have been viewed as safe investments for ordinary Americans, so the flight from them struck fear in the hearts of policymakers.
Few economists, including Galbraith, are willing to discount completely the chance of a financial collapse, given the turmoil in credit markets and banking.
"My sense is it will delay a disaster, given that you only have three months left in this administration. But it will not cure the problem in the (financial) industry or prevent the shakeout and downsizing of the industry," Galbraith said.
Many lawmakers also expressed skepticism.
Coming out of the White House on Thursday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Alabama's Richard Shelby, held up what he said was a five-page list of economists opposing the rescue plan.
"This is not me. This is economists at Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Chicago, our leading universities," an exasperated Shelby told reporters. He called the administration plan "flawed from the beginning."

Read it all from good old McClatchy, the best mainstream news service left standing. Click on the graphic for a bigger version.

There's a lot of lies going around in the presidential campaigns

2008-09-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here are two resources for sorting out the truth. They scold both candidates for lies and distortions.

FactCheck.org
Politifact.com

By the way, FactCheck.org has disavowed claims made by the McCain campaign about FactCheck's findings.

Bailout is a scam

2008-09-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

More treasonous legislation by unelected officials. Will the public care?

Text of Draft Proposal for Bailout Plan - Text - NYTimes.com

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Walk this way

2008-09-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

It turns out that walking is not so simple. If you change any aspect of the way you walk, everything gets messed up.

After my accident, I spent some time scooting around the house in my office chair. Then I got hold of a cane, and was able to walk by not putting weight on my injured side. Walking got gradually easier to do, and my right leg was hurting less and less. A few weeks into the cane, though, my LEFT leg began hurting. And it got worse. Soon, even though my right leg wasn't bothering me anymore, I could barely walk at all.

Enter the physical therapist. "Stop using the cane," he ordered, "and walk normally."

That meant no limping, no shuffling, no walking slowly. He gave me some exercises to help the process along. It turns out, with walking, that if you favor the injured side, you'll injure the other side and end up having to go to a physical therapist.

The first few days were pretty painful. On my LEFT side. But it got gradually easier. Two weeks later I returned to the therapist walking smoothly without limping--if I concentrated. There's a tendency to limp if I'm not paying attention, and as he pointed out, if you keep limping, it will become a habit.

I wonder how many people you see limping from old injuries really wouldn't have to limp if they practiced walking normally?

Pathetic...

2008-09-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

So Kevin Drum is saying Sarah Palin can reveal utter ignorance about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and still gain support because it sounds so good.

Further, that Democrats don't dare point out her mistake because we'll be derided as picking on her.

Why are we such cowards? The Republicans warn people about what we're going to do, so we're afraid to do it, even if it's the right thing to do.

I say, come out fighting. As it is, we're doing exactly what the right wing wants.

Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Gaffe Watch

GAFFE WATCH....Sarah Palin, peeking out from a thicket of pre-scripted talking points in Colorado Springs, goes off message briefly and explains what went wrong in the home mortgage market:
The fact is, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they've gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.
A gaffe! But how does it measure up? On a technical basis, I'd say it's impressive. Until now, Fannie and Freddie haven't cost the taxpayers a dime and their current problems aren't really related to their size either. This leaves only a few conjunctions and proper names as sensible parts of this sentence.

On artistic merit, however, the judges have to score this one for Palin. Nobody cares about the minutiae of how GSEs work, after all, and liberal attacks on this score are almost certain to backfire because (a) we're obviously harrassing her unfairly over trivia because she's a small town mom and (b) we're just trying to show off how smart we are. Besides, as Palin said, John McCain is in favor of "reforming things," so he's obviously the right guy to tackle whatever problem it is that Fannie and Freddie suffer from. For liberal critics, then, there's no there there.

Actually, what's really impressive about this is that even though Palin obviously didn't know what she was talking about, she managed to dig smoothly into the standard movement conservative playbook to say something pleasing to the base anyway. Got a problem? It must be government's fault! Something somewhere got too big and too expensive and conservatives need to rein it in. Nice work.

Let's hope the price of gas doesn't drop too much

2008-09-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

Americans try to see the bright side of high gas prices

"I found that a permanent one-dollar rise in gas prices is associated with a seven percent drop in overweight and a nine percent drop in obesity," he said.

In poundage terms, a one-dollar rise in gas prices was associated with about four to five pounds (1.8 to 2.3 kilograms) in lost weight across the population, his research showed. More...

Wow! There's more...

High gas prices have also raised a call for car-makers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, and that would create tens of thousands of jobs, enhance US energy security, and boost local economies, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said.

"Achieving just the minimum 35 miles-per-gallon fleet-wide average by 2020 ... would cut oil use by 1.1 million barrels a day," UCS senior engineer Jim Kliesch said in a statement.

Using less oil would translate into "cutting the cost of gasoline at today's prices by more than a dollar per gallon," he said.

And that would mean that, rather than pumping their disposable income into the oil industry when they fill up their cars, Americans would probably spend the money saved locally, thus boosting local economies, he said.

"Further... achieving a 35-mpg fleet-wide average would create 149,000 new jobs nationwide in 2020," added Kliesch.

And say! Isn't it great not to have your gas-sipping compact surrounded by skyscrapers on wheels that completely block your view of the road?

Of course, I am still recovering from my bicycle accident. If my collarbone would just finish putting itself back together, I could get back on my bike.

If you're rich and you want to get richer, vote Republican

2008-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

Economic View - Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan? - NYTimes.com

My synopsis:

Under Democratic presidents, the economy has grown faster and income inequality--the difference between earnings for the rich and the poor is slightly lower, that is, more favorable for the poor.

Under Republican presidents, the economy has grown more slowly, but income inequality has massively favored the rich.

So the question is, if you're not rich, why on earth would you vote Republican????

I'm a grandmother!

2008-08-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

She arrived a week or so ahead of schedule on August 23, leaving her parents unprepared with a name. So for now she's Baby Girl Palmer. Of course, her daddy was Bay Boy Palmer for a couple of weeks, so it's a family tradition.

And here are the proud and very photogenic parents.

Today's fresh catch

2008-08-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

I went out to the garden to get a tomato for a tomato and cheese sandwich. Came back with a mini-harvest of
4 tomatoes
3 potatoes
1 pepper
38 tomatillos
3 onions
5 beets
41 green beans

The 38 tomatillos mean there will be some salsa verde in the near future.

My kitchen is fragrant with another bumper crop of white nectarines. One of the small blessings of global-warming-induced spring drought.

If you have a garden, be sure to get out there once a day and get your hands dirty. Pull some weeds, search for potatoes, or just sift through the soil. Soil microbes have been shown to stimulate production of serotonin, the body's natural anti-depressant. All you have to do is get them on your skin, and they do the rest.

Why can't we be a little more like Denmark?

2008-08-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

I don't usually agree with Thomas "Flat Earth" Friedman, but he's right on with this description of how Denmark used energy taxes to create wealth and energy independence.

Denmark, by the way, is one of the most economically successful states in the world.

Op-Ed Columnist - Flush With Energy - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.)

What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent.

And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power? In one word, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy: “No.” It just forced them to innovate more — like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water, or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating. (There are virtually no landfills here.)

There is little whining here about Denmark having $10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes. The shaping of the market with high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had “a positive impact on job creation,” added Hedegaard. “For example, the wind industry — it was nothing in the 1970s. Today, one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world come from Denmark.” In the last 10 years, Denmark’s exports of energy efficiency products have tripled. Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $10.5 billion in 2006, compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole.

“It is one of our fastest-growing export areas,” said Hedegaard. It is one reason that unemployment in Denmark today is 1.6 percent. In 1973, said Hedegaard, “we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East. Today it is zero.”

Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic.

“I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,” Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me. “The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy.”

Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate, Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America.

Why should you care?

“We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

Of issues and arugula

2008-08-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

From Andrew Sullivan, that notorious former conservative:

Here you have the current message of the McCain campaign from no less an authority than Rick Davis:

"Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand ‘MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew—Black Forest Berry Honest Tea’ and worry about the price of arugula."

They really played the arugula card? For all McCain's personal qualities, we're learning that the machine behind the GOP simply re-makes the campaign in its own Coulterite image. Instead of actually fighting on the core questions - how do we get out of Iraq with the least damage? how do we get past carbon-based energy? how do we tackle al Qaeda's new base in Pakistan and within the nuclear-armed Pakistani government? how will we reduce the massive debt bequeathed us by the Bush-Rove GOP? how do we restore the Geneva Conventions? - we are debating people's cultural insecurities and food choices.

The slow collapse of conservatism as a coherent governing philosophy is not unrelated to this. If you never want to fight campaigns on policy, why bother crafting any?

I'm walking again

2008-08-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

The salient characteristic of all canes: they fall on the floor. Repeatedly.

Steve can tell where I am in the house at any given time by the clatter of the cane, falling yet again. Fortunately, my injuries are such that I have no trouble bending down and picking up the cane.

The cane belongs to my mother, who has several. It is decorated with exotic symbols such as a compass rose, Mayan calendar and various flags and banners. I've seen it in my mother's hands many times, and I feel a special bond with my mother when I'm using it.

My mother sent me flowers, with the note, "I know you are trying to save the atmosphere by riding a bike, but first take care of my little girl till she is well. Can I help? Love, Mama."

(Said "little girl" being 61 years old.)

Yes, Mama, you can lend me one of your canes.

For the first few days after the accident, I could walk okay. Then it got harder and harder. Since my last post about it, I've had more X-rays and found that I have a broken collarbone and a small fracture in my pelvis. I suspect a couple more cracks in areas that were not X-rayed: my upper left arm and right thigh.

Five days after the accident, I could not walk at all. That's when I started getting around the house on my office chair, propelled--backwards--by my one good limb. Here I am, getting a cup of coffee. Fortunately, I could stand up with no trouble, because reaching above mid-chest height with either hand was a chore I could not manage.

But I'm getting better. I've gradually added skills: getting in and out of bed without excruciating pain, taking a shower by myself and then drying myself off, cleaning out the cat box, doing laundry, washing dishes, watering the garden. All these chores had devolved to my dear Steve, with some help from my daughter.

A week ago I started driving again.

Yesterday I overdid it. We went to some garage sales and the farmers market and picked up various heavy things, with which I put more strain than I should have on my collarbone. I did too much walking. Today I will pay the price. Thank goodness that ibuprofen now covers the pain, so I'm out from under the befuddling narcotics.

I'll need to get lots of rest today, because tomorrow I'm off to Sacramento to lobby for publicly funded elections, to get the special interest money out of California politics. A long shot, since most politicians are not sure they want to get that money out of politics even if it means they can work for the voters instead of the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the prison industry, the oil industry, big unions, and on and on. Name your pet special interest.

It will involve a lot of walking down crowded corridors, not to mention from a distant parking garage. Wish me luck.

Too skinny, lack of experience

2008-08-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

No, not Barack Obama. Abraham Lincoln.

At 6'4", Lincoln weighed 160 to 180 pounds when he was elected president. He lost weight while in office.

Lincoln's political background consisted of four terms in the Illinois state legislature, one term in the U.S. House, and a failed run for the Senate. He had not served in office for 12 years when he was elected president.

Oh, and he was a lawyer.

Photo from the Wikimedia Commons.

Wanta know what we lost when our spineless Congress approved the FISA law?

2008-07-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Read what Chris Hedges has to say, via Kevin Drum:

This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours.

....The reach of such surveillance has already hampered my work. I was once told about a showdown between a U.S. warship and the Iranian navy that had the potential to escalate into a military conflict. I contacted someone who was on the ship at the time of the alleged incident and who reportedly had photos. His first question was whether my phone and e-mails were being monitored.

What could I say? How could I know? I offered to travel to see him but, frightened of retribution, he refused. I do not know if the man's story is true. I only know that the fear of surveillance made it impossible for me to determine its veracity.

Read more.

People, how much are we willing to give up to feel safe from terrorism? What will there be left to defend when we become just like the repressive governments we so proudly differentiate ourselves from?

"But we've never been attacked on our own soil before!"

Baloney. In the War of 1812, the British went so far as to burn down the White House. No one felt the need to bypass the constitution then. That's because it was still clear to Americans that what we had fought for in the first place was to be free from invasion of their privacy. The 4th Amendment was still fresh in their minds:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonably search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Now we've allowed the government to not only invade our privacy without permission, but to do it without even telling us. They don't have to show probable cause, because it might help the terrorists. This means that right now, the government can wiretap the Obama campaign and find out everything that's going on there. (They already did this during the Kerry campaign, but now they can do it legally, so no one has to go to jail for it.)

Of course, if Obama is elected, he can also post government spies on his Republican opponents in the next election. This is not a partisan issue! This is about what it means to be an American.

We need to get a sense of perspective. For instance, five times as many people die each year from lack of health insurance (18,000) as did from terrorist attacks in the U.S. in the last decade. Where's the panicked rush to provide universal healthcare even if it means riding roughshod over our constitution?

According to experts, global warming is causing an extra 150,000 to 160,000 deaths a year worldwide already.

There's an easy cure for terrorism. It doesn't involve stripping U.S. citizens of their rights. No wars are necessary. No tougher immigration policies need to be enacted. All we have to do is behave honorably in the world.

When we stop supporting evil regimes (think Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, China, Burma, etc.) and stop overthrowing or meddling with popularly elected regimes (Venezuela, Iran in 1952, Guatemala in 1954 to name just a few) and stop supporting and arming terrorists when it's convenient for us (the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, contras in Nicaragua, even anti-Saddam terrorists in Iraq who later became anti-U.S. terrorists), our terrorism problems will vanish.

There are no terrorist attacks in Norway. That's because Norway sees its main international goal as making the world a better place. They use their vast oil wealth to better the lives of others, not support attacks against them.

Finally, when we throw the billions of dollars that now subsidize the oil and biofuels industries into a Manhattan-style research program for renewable energy, we will no longer need to compromise our principles to secure our oil supply. And it may help reduce the 150,000 to 160,000 deaths a year worldwide from global warming.

Instead of spying on our citizens, let's do something that will actually make a difference and show what a great country we are. This is what morality is all about.

Bike ride, interrupted

2008-07-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Last week a disconnect occurred in my life. One moment I was riding my bike to a Petaluma Progressives meeting and the next--actually a whole universe away--I was observing the inside of an ambulance from a supine position.My first thought: I'd better remember what this is like, in case I want to write something about it. My second: Whaaaah....?

I asked a question. Where are we going? The paramedic's answer was, "We're taking you to the trauma center at Memorial Hospital, because you have a head injury. Otherwise you wouldn't have asked this question five times.

"He asked me various questions about who I was, where I lived, how old and the like, all of which I answered correctly. For my own research purposes, I wiggled my toes and turned my head. Everything seemed to be linked up. I felt strangely optimistic and relaxed.My clothes had been scissored off--brand new union-made t-shirt!--and I had been hooked up to all the things that trauma patients get hooked up to.Later, it took me a couple of days to find and remove all the adhesive pads with electrode leads from various parts of my body.

At the hospital I gave them Steve's phone number and they called him, but failed to inform him that I was conscious and stable, so Steve had an anxious 40-minute drive from Napa. I knew he had arrived when I heard him make some sort of quip outside my cubicle, followed by an outburst of laughter from the entire emergency staff. Humor is wonderful for stress.

I was given CT scans and X-rays, which revealed that my head was fine (hurray for helmets) and I had a hairline crack in my collarbone. My left shoulder and right hip were also pretty banged up, making me a sort of temporary "tri-plegic."The condition continues today. Moving any of those three limbs is discouragingly painful. Getting out of bed--or just sitting up in bed--is the hardest part.

No, actually, the hardest part is the pain medication. Thoughts ooze from my mind like drops of blackstrap molasses, and frequently drip onto the floor rather than into whatever logical maneuver I'm attempting to make. This is like my normal state on steroids. It is one thing to go into a room and forget why you went in there and have to go back where the thought began to remember it. It is quite another to hobble painfully in a particular direction and forget where you were going and have to hobble to all rooms to see if one of them jogs your memory. Or you give up and ease yourself painfully onto a chair, arrange your limbs for the least stress, and THEN remember the important task you must get up and perform. Just making small talk to my two wonderful attendants is nearly beyond my compass. I will never be a good pain-pill addict. Deliberately making myself feel really stupid is not my idea of a recreational high. I'll leave that sort of thing to Rush Limbaugh.

Steve has been my constant nurse and unflappable companion. Then Nina came up on the 4th, since Petaluma is one of the few municipalities that still allow fireworks. She also brought three movies, which we watched on my laptop, until it was dark enough to light fireworks. We drove to the school--yes, that's a first for me at one-half block from my home--and lit them off on the asphalt playground. We got to enjoy the fireworks of several other groups that had the same idea. Steve started off shaking his head over the idea of anyone wanting to light fireworks while over a thousand wildfires were burning out of control in California, but I think he got into the spirit of it.

Yesterday Nina drove me to the police department to pick up my bicycle, which had not a scratch on it. I was relieved. I think I would have grieved more if my bicycle was destroyed and I got off scot-free. They don't make bikes like mine anymore.I WILL need to get a new helmet.

Blue Sky at Last

2008-06-30T17:20:00.000-07:00

You can't imagine how monochromatic the past week has been. You can't imagine what it's like to spend a summer day shut up in your house with all the doors and windows closed against the smog and smoke.

Today the air is sparkling clear, and the sky is strangely blue. To celebrate, I set up the solar oven and baked a loaf of bread.

It's not that the fires are out--123 fires are still burning in Mendocino County. I think it's just that the wind has shifted. Last week's offshore winds came from the North and East. Now the wind is coming from the ocean, blowing the smoke into the central valley instead of south to Sonoma County. The lightning strikes that were expected on Saturday and Sunday were postponed until today, but apparently have hit mainly in the Sierra, where there are new fires today.

And here in the North Bay, today's 89-percent humidity (compared with last week's 13 percent) have made it a lot harder for new fires to get started. Unfortunately, there's a long, hot, dry summer ahead of us, with dry lightning becoming even more likely in July and August.

Hot & Smoky

2008-06-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

No, it's not some kind of spicy barbecued meat by-product. It's the weather in Sonoma County this week.

With ~~over a hundred~~ 131 fires raging in Mendocino County just upwind of us, we are enveloped in a sort of brown fog with a watery orange disc in place of the sun.

Of course, there are the wags who suggest that not everyone will want to avoid inhaling the smoke from Mendocino.

Click on the picture for the credit and story in the Santa Rosa newspaper.

There are more than ~~800~~ 1,000 fires in Northern California. One of them is threatening Shingletown, east of Redding, where my sister and her husband have had to evacuate their newly built log cabin retirement home. Thank goodness, that fire seems to have been brought under containment.

After a week of staying indoors with the doors and windows closed, I couldn't stand it anymore and opened things up this afternoon. The air seems to be freshening a bit and is forecast to get better tomorrow.

BUT: Lightning is forecast for Mendocino County tomorrow and Sunday, which could start another round of wildfires. And many of this week's fires in remote areas are still growing because there aren't enough firefighters to go around.

It's early in the fire season, but thanks to a total failure of rain in March and April, California is bone dry already. I can only imagine what the rest of the summer will be like. I can only wonder if this condition is going to be permanent--this is the second extremely dry summer in a row, a condition predicted by the global warming experts, just like the Midwest floods were predicted.

If things get hot and dry enough that we no longer have a Sierra snow pack to draw on in the summer, we are going to be SOS. Bye-bye swimming pools. Bye-bye golf courses. Bye-bye landscaping. Bye-bye daily showers? Will we have to stop flushing our toilets and dig outhouses in the back yard? At best, will we have to ration water and pay gasoline prices for desalinated water from the ocean?

The Long Hiatus

2008-06-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

My nose is getting raw. No, it's not allergies; it's that grindstone. I've been inordinately busy.

I just finished a long article on community choice aggregation in Marin County. What is community choice aggregation, you say? It's a way that communities can take power back from the big utilities that supply our energy. In our case that would be Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

Communities can form their own energy-buying consortium and buy energy directly from the suppliers. This comes in handy if you want to add more renewable energy to the mix than PG&E can give you. Making the change is a several-year process, and since the law (AB 117) that allowed CCAs in California only went into effect in 2003, Marin is only the second community to seek a CCA.

I've never been invited to write a 2,400-word article. Mostly I have to squeeze the details--however complicated--into 800 words or less.

A few months ago I joined BNI--Business Networking International. Each local chapter includes one person from each business category. They didn't have a writer, so I joined. It's expensive, but I've gotten nearly enough business from them to pay back my fees, with some big jobs in the offing. All this has made my free time very scarce, however. Tomorrow I have to work on a brochure for a client, arrange interviews for the next Sonoma Seniors Today, and prepare a 10-minute presentation for my BNI chapter--something that each member does once a year or so. Tuesday I'm meeting with a woman who wants help writing her book proposal. I have to call another lady about her book.

I'm not complaining. I just took out the last of my savings to pay living expenses. I need the money. It just takes some getting used to. And there's so much to do--my Web page, my writing blog, my own brochure. All that "business" stuff I've been avoiding all my life.

But today....

I went out in my bathrobe to set up the solar oven for the bread I'm planning to bake today and water the corn and squash seedlings in my new garden bed in the back yard. Later I will make tortillas and put together a batch of burritos using the beans I cooked yesterday in the solar oven. Why do I make my own tortillas? So I can add the forbidden ingredient--lard!--that is now omitted from all commercial tortillas in favor of some flavorless vegetable shortening concoction. Don't tell my clean-living friends.

Tomatoes have sat too long in their containers and must be planted today. The compost that's been sitting in the driveway for weeks has to be moved to the back yard for another new garden bed. My own compost heap awaits turning.

I have a knitting project to finish before a June 7 baby shower. A solar oven workshop to plan for June 22.

These are the things I crave to do much more than sitting before my computer churning out marketing copy. But life is about compromise.

Okay, I'm still in my bathrobe, writing in bed. Time to get up and get the bread started.

Liberals are the new Cassandra

2008-06-01T08:26:00.001-07:00

We all know the story of Cassandra. In the Greek myth, Cassandra was the daughter of Trojan king Priam. She was loved by Apollo, who taught her prophecy, and tried to seduce her. When she refused, he placed a curse on her: no one would believe her prophecies, even though she was always right.

It was Cassandra who warned the Trojans not to let that big wooden horse through the walls.

Liberals are the new Cassandra. So reviled are our prophecies that we are often ashamed of ourselves. Most of us can't even stomach the word "liberal." No, we are "progressives," a Republican term borrowed from the era of Teddy Roosevelt.

Yet time after time, our prophecies come true. We predicted the disaster in Iraq, the economic meltdown we're now experiencing, the petroleum shortage, the resurgence of Al Qaeda-like extremism in the Middle East, and the ravages of global warming that are already impacting low-lying areas in the Pacific and the polar ice caps.

We are the new Cassandra. Long after our prophecies have come true, we are ignored and even reviled in favor of those pundits on the right who were wrong and yet are still consulted on all the news programs. Those are the "prophets" who predicted a cakewalk in Iraq, the fanciful idea that lower taxes increase tax revenue, the "liberal hoax" theory of global warming, the notion that we could wipe out extremism by military force abroad and by limiting our civil rights at home. With a track record like that, why are these people still being consulted?

Like Cassandra, liberals continue to be branded as crazy or even malevolent. Yet our predictions come true, with monotonous regularity. The next time you scoff at a crazy liberal prediction, take notes. Knowing the future can come in handy.

Say it ain't so, Hillary...

2008-05-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

Clinton, Nixon; Nixon, Clinton
Posted by:

Economist.com | NEW YORK

SIX days ahead of the North Carolina primary comes a story of real sleaze—not Jeremiah Wright-style buffoonery, but Nixon-style illegality designed to dupe and disenfranchise voters—that should surprise precisely nobody who has been following and covering this campaign. A group called Women's Voices Women's Vote (WVWV), which claims to have been "created to activate unmarried Americans in their government and in our democracy" has been placing robocalls to voters across North Carolina that seem designed to fool them into thinking they have not yet registered to vote. Many of the voters who received those calls are black. Voters in 11 states have complained about similarly deceptive calls and mailings that have been traced back to WVWV this primary season.
Guess which Democratic candidate WVWV's founder and president, Page Gardner, has donated $6,700 to (hint: it's not Barack Obama). Guess whose election campaign Joe Goode, WVWV's executive director, worked for (hint: it was in 1992, and it was a winning campaign). Guess whose chief of staff sits on WVWV's board of directors (hint: it was the president who served between two Bushes). And guess whose campaign manager was a member of WVWV's leadership team (hint: it's Hillary Clinton). More...

Obscene

2008-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

"Only" 17 percent! The second biggest U.S. quarterly profit ever. Even though production fell 5.6 percent. Even though the rest of the economy is reeling from the recession.

But a double digit profit increase wasn't enough. Wall Street wanted more, so Exxon's share price fell.

Exxon Mobil 1Q profit up 17 pct, Wall Street expected more

Washington Post

By JOHN PORRETTO

The Associated Press
Thursday, May 1, 2008; 1:00 PM

HOUSTON -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that record crude prices helped its first-quarter profit climb 17 percent to $10.9 billion --the second-biggest U.S. quarterly corporate profit ever.

But the results still fell short of Wall Street's lofty forecasts, and Exxon Mobil shares fell more than 4 percent in early afternoon trading.

The company's refining operations limited its overall earnings growth, because prices for crude oil rose even faster than the increase drivers see at the gasoline pump.

Lower production to start the year hurt too.

Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Texas, said earnings for the first three months of the year came to $2.03 per share, up from $9.3 billion, or $1.62 per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for $2.13 per share.

But at $10.9 billion, the profit still ranks as the second-biggest for a U.S. company _ the only larger result in a three-month period was the $11.7 billion Exxon Mobil posted in the final three months of 2007.

Revenue rose to $116.8 billion from $87.2 billion a year earlier. Analysts were looking for revenue of about $124 billion.

"In an environment of high commodity prices, Exxon Mobil's outstanding portfolio of integrated businesses performed well, allowing us to deliver record first-quarter results," Henry Hubble, the company's vice president of investor relations, said on a conference call.

Investors, however, didn't seem overly impressed, as Exxon Mobil shares fell $4.19, or 4.5 percent, to $88.88. They've traded in a range of $77.55 to $95.27 in the past year.

The company, which produces 3 percent of the world's oil, said earnings at its exploration and output, or upstream, business rose 45 percent to $8.8 billion with help from higher oil and natural gas prices. Increased natural gas production was more than offset by lower crude volumes.

Overall production fell 5.6 percent from a year ago, in part from natural field declines and maintenance.

It could happen here

2008-04-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

Dying For Coverage

2008-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Calitics: Dying For Coverage

Among other revelations in this Calitics review of a Families USA report:

In 2006, more than 3,000 people (one 9/11 unit of death) died in California as a direct result of not having health insurance. That's eight people a day. Imagine if a serial killer went on a spree and killed eight people a day for a whole year. What would our response be?

The trend holds true for the preceding years since 2000: more than six 9/11 units of death (19,900) because of no health insurance. And that's just in California.

Across the United States, twice as many people died from lack of health insurance as from homicide, a total of 22,000 people.

Shouldn't there be a "three strikes" law for our healthcare system?

If some event or series of events had caused 22,000 deaths, what kind of outcry would there have been? How many Congressional hearings and emergency funds? How many countries invaded?

Terrorists killed 3,000 Americans during the same six years. To prevent more if this, we have spent $1,000,000,000,000 on war, squandered the lives of 4,000 Americans and 400,000 Iraqis, and cheerfully given up rights guaranteed for over 200 years by our constitution.

What would we be willing to give up to win the War on Health Insurance Terrorism?

All this has a personal reverberation for me. Nationwide, "uninsurance" is the third leading cause of death in my age group, following heart disease and cancer.

As you get older, you pay, on top of across-the-board annual increases, a near-catastrophic penalty for increasing age. My health insurance cost has now reached the point where I'm not sure I can continue to pay it.

What do you know about Bhutan?

2008-04-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

Watch this fascinating video from Current TV.

It raises many questions about modernization, protecting cultures, and what happiness is composed of. Bhutan's benevolent king has decided to give up monarchy because you cannot guarantee a future king will be so benevolent. Bhutan held its first democratic election in March.

Many Bhutanese believe the introduction of TV ten years ago is tearing the culture apart, and that democratization will hasten its demise. But trying to keep a culture in ignorance of the outside also has its perils. What is the path forward for a protected traditional culture as it inevitably meets the modern world?

Mukasey's shameful lie about 9/11 prevention

2008-04-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

A shocking story--not just because Mukasey lied, not just because he shed crocodile tears while lying, not just because he's using a lie to drum up support for illegal wiretapping when wiretapping in the case he describes was already legal, not just because it reveals that the Bush administration pointedly and deliberately ignored 9/11 warning signs--but above all because the story's not a screaming headline in the mainstream news. So here it is for my known readership of three.

Published on Thursday, April 3, 2008 by Salon.com

Why Doesn’t the 9/11 Commission Know About Mukasey’s 9/11 Story?--CommonDreams.org

by Glenn Greenwald

Last week, during a question-and-answer session following a speech he delivered San Francisco, Attorney General Michael Mukasey revealed a startling and extremely newsworthy fact. As I wrote last Saturday, Mukasey claimed that, prior to 9/11, the Bush administration was aware of a telephone call being made by an Al Qaeda Terrorist from what he called a “safe house in Afghanistan” into the U.S., but failed to eavesdrop on that call. Some help is needed from readers here to generate the attention for this story that it requires.

In that speech, Mukasey blamed FISA’s warrant requirement for the failure to eavesdrop on that call — an assertion which is, for multiple reasons that I detailed in that post, completely false. He then tearfully claimed that FISA therefore caused the deaths of “three thousand people who went to work that day.” For obvious reasons, the Attorney Geenral’s FISA falsehoods themselves are extremely newsworthy, but it is the story he told about the pre-9/11-planning call from Afghanistan itself that is truly new, and truly extraordinary.

Critically, the 9/11 Commission Report — intended to be a comprehensive account of all relevant pre-9/11 activities — makes no mention whatsoever of the episode Mukasey described. What has been long publicly reported in great detail are multiple calls that were made between a global communications hub in Yemen and the U.S. — calls which the NSA did intercept without warrants (because, contrary to Mukasey’s lie, FISA does not and never did require a warrant for eavesdropping on foreign targets) but which, for some unknown reason, the NSA failed to share with the FBI and other agencies. But the critical pre-9/11 episode Mukasey described last week is nowhere to be found in the 9/11 Report or anywhere else. It just does not exist.

Yesterday, I contacted Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman, to ask him whether the Commission was ever told about Mukasey’s alleged Afghan Terrorist 9/11-planning telephone calls and/or the Bush administration’s failure/inability to eavesdrop on such calls. Hamilton refused to comment, first claiming that he was in meetings all day yesterday and had no time to talk to me. When asked if he would comment today or whenever he had time, he said he was not going to comment on this ever, since he had not read Mukasey’s speech. Calls to 9/11 Executive Director Philip Zelikow seeking comment were not returned and 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean could not yet be reached.

It’s unacceptable for Hamilton to refuse to comment on Mukasey’s claims. The whole purpose of the 9/11 Commission was to ensure that there was full-scale investigation and disclosure of all facts relevant to the 9/11 attacks, including the Government’s actions and inactions in preventing that attack from occurring.

If the Attorney General of the United States, out of the blue, makes an extraordinary and new assertion in a public speech about an easy opportunity the Bush administration had to detect those attacks — an opportunity he claims was lost because of eavesdropping laws — Hamilton ought to say whether the Commission was ever told about this incident and/or whether Mukasey is telling the truth. Preventing high government officials from lying about the 9/11 attacks or exposing concealment of key 9/11 facts is his obligation as Vice Chairman of the Commission. Some type of comment from 9/11 Commission officials on Mukasey’s claims is vital for generating further attention to this story and for compelling Mukasey to account for what he said.

Hamilton is currently the President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University. Please email him at the address below, politely set forth the extraordinary claims the Attorney General just made about the 9/11 attacks (with citations to media sources about the speech — including here, here, and here), and urge him to fulfill his obligation as 9/11 Commission Vice Chair by confirming whether Mukasey’s revelations are true and/or were disclosed to the Commission during its investigation: Lee.hamilton@wilsoncenter.org.

This isn’t just a matter of academic and historical interest about the 9/11 attacks, although it is that. One of two things almost certainly happened here, each of which is of great importance. Either Mukasey is lying about the 9/11 attacks in order to manipulate Americans into believing that FISA’s warrant requirements are what prevented discovery of the 9/11 attacks and caused 3,000 American deaths — a completely disgusting act by the Attorney General which obviously cannot be ignored. Or, Mukasey has just revealed the most damning fact yet about the Bush’s administration’s ability and failure to have prevented the attacks — facts that, until now, were apparently concealed from the 9/11 Commission and the public.

Since I wrote about this on Saturday, there has been some slowly evolving media attention paid to it. On Monday, I discussed the story on the radio with Rachel Maddow who, as always, grasped completely its importance. The following night, she was on Countdown with Keith Olbermman, which had a lengthy and detailed segment, highlighting all of the right questions (video below). Raw Story compiled a very thorough article with the key facts, and the top Daily Kos post this morning does the same.

The great significance of this story — that Mukasey either completely fabricated a key 9/11 event or just revealed a heretofore unknown 9/11 bombshell — is self-evident and made clear by these growing accounts. Having Hamilton, Kean and/or Zelikow comment on the veracity of Mukasey’s claims about the 9/11 attacks — as they ought to do — is vital for advancing the story.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book “How Would a Patriot Act?,” a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, “A Tragic Legacy“, examines the Bush legacy.

Home town fruit tree planting

2008-03-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

My home town boasts a growing food-sharing network, thanks to a home-grown nonprofit called Daily Acts.

On March 22, Daily Acts co-hosted a workshop called "Digging, Drumming, Dancing" with Common Vision, a statewide nonprofit composed of mostly beautiful, healthy young people who have been touring the state planting fruit trees at schools, community centers and now the backyards of Petalumans who are willing to share their bounty with the community. Click on the link to see one of their brightly painted "hippie buses."

The Common Visioneers took about an hour to install 10 fruit trees in my backyard--nectarines, early and late peaches, apples and an apricot (my favorite!).

During the day they planted trees in four yards, conducted a grafting workshop (see slide show above), and livened up the digging with traditional African agricultural rhythms on African drums.

Most of us workshop attendees were on the shady side of 40, and one of us commented on the fact that we were the old learning from the young. Hurray for youth! I remember it well.

Many thanks to Common Vision, Daily Acts, and especially Trathen Heckman and Ellen Bicheler, for seeing this project through. Come see me in a couple of summers. I'll have some fruit for you.

My hometown mechanic

2008-03-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

I dropped by my hometown garage last night on the way to dinner. My car had been making some noises, and Maria had already warned me my CV boots were cracked.

Sure enough, the axle was bad. And of course, I was overdue for an oil change.

I wanted to go to San Francisco today to have dinner with my son, and I asked Maria if she kept urgent care appointments open for people, like Kaiser does.

She said yes, but they were all booked. Then she said--as she always does--maybe she could get it done by noon if I brought the car in at 7 am. I said, "Sure!"

Then I remember that I had a meeting this morning from 7 to 9 am--a meeting I needed to drive to. She thought a moment and then said, "No problem. Leave your car here tonight, take my car and bring it back after your meeting," and tossed me the keys to her brand new custom-painted Scion.

Maria likes to walk to work, anyway. She says.

Would YOUR mechanic give you her OWN car to drive while she fixes your car? I think not.

Back when Out West Garage first came to Petaluma, I wrote an article about Maria. She's one of the things I like about living in Petaluma.

Blogging and Beer

2008-03-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

I'm on the couch with my trusty miniature laptop. Cleo is asleep on my foot. Blogging right now is an excuse to sit down and drink a local brew as the setting sun slants through a gap in the storm clouds that actually released three and a half drops of rain before the north wind began ripping them apart.

Questions for Mr. Blogger:

Why is the editing window so tiny? Why can't you insert a picture where you want it, rather than at the top of the post? Have you ever tried dragging a large graphic down to its appropriate place using a window that's only half its size? Why doesn't the preview window look anything like the finished product, meaning that you have to actually publish before you can see a real "preview"?

Odds and ends

2008-03-19T18:10:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain: Primitive Buddhist?

"In Sydney I had a large dream. . . . I dreamed that the visible universe is the physical person of God; that the vast worlds that we see twinkling millions of miles apart in the fields of space are the blood corpuscles in His veins; and that we and the other creatures are the microbes that charge with multitudinous life the corpuscles."--Following the Equator, 1897

Whatever, this is a beautiful vision of the sacred. Some say Buddhists don't believe in God. Some Buddhists say that they don't believe there is anything that is not God. And some say that Following the Equator is a gentle vacation you can take whenever you feel the need to just stop and stare out to sea.

********
Hussein: Common Arabic name. Meaning: Handsome one.

And when it comes to Barack, I gotta agree--the name his daddy gave him was right on. Whatever your politics, the guy is gorgeous, and yes, he can dance!

He can also converse intelligently without coming across like he's promoting himself. All this stuff about how he has no specific policies--I just don't find that to be true. He addresses an issue and then he tells how he would deal with it. It's true that no elected president yet has been able to deliver on even a fourth of what s/he promises, but there are plenty of specifics there.

********
Study finds immigrants commit less California crime (my bold)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) Feb 26, 2008. Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S.-born citizen to commit crime in California, the most populous state in the United States, according to a report issued late on Monday.

People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California's adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California showed.

According to the report's authors the findings suggest that long-standing fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified. The report also noted that U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate more than 2 1/2 times greater than that of foreign-born men.

"Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas, or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety," said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report and associate professor of economics at Wellesley College.

Why torture doesn't work

2008-03-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

No Torture. No Exceptions. - Jack Cloonan

When we speak today of "breaking" a terrorist suspect, many people picture something grim—perhaps a subject curled up in a fetal position and begging for mercy. But it's not what I picture. I worked as a special agent for the FBI's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 2002. During that time, my colleagues and I had the chance to question numerous operatives from al-Qaeda. We broke many terrorists. But we did it the right way: by being intelligent and humane. . . .

***

Intelligence failures had much to do with the atrocity of September 11, but those had nothing to do with a lack of torture. Let me be clear on one crucial point: it is the terrorists whom we won over with humane methods in the 1990s who continue to provide the most reliable intelligence we have in the fight against al-Qaeda. And it is the testimony of terrorists we tortured after 9/11 who have provided the most unreliable information, such as stories about a close connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. I never regret that the FBI didn't abuse its detainees. Had we done so, we would have had much less reliable intelligence, and we would have been morally debased. By instituting a pol-icy of torture in the years following 9/11, we have recruited thousands to al-Qaeda's side. It has been a tragic waste.

Read the rest.

The exaggerated threat of terrorism

2008-03-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Fading Jihadists

By David Ignatius
Thursday, February 28, 2008; A17

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat -- and it's already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign -- should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

Sageman has a résumé that would suit a postmodern John le Carré. He was a case officer running spies in Pakistan and then became a forensic psychiatrist. What distinguishes his new book, "Leaderless Jihad," is that it peels away the emotional, reflexive responses to terrorism that have grown up since Sept. 11, 2001, and looks instead at scientific data Sageman has collected on more than 500 Islamic terrorists -- to understand who they are, why they attack and how to stop them.

The heart of Sageman's message is that we have been scaring ourselves into exaggerating the terrorism threat -- and then by our unwise actions in Iraq making the problem worse. He attacks head-on the central thesis of the Bush administration, echoed increasingly by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, that, as McCain's Web site puts it, the United States is facing "a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists" spawned by al-Qaeda.

The numbers say otherwise, Sageman insists. The first wave of al-Qaeda leaders, who joined Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, is down to a few dozen people on the run in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. The second wave of terrorists, who trained in al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s, has also been devastated, with about 100 hiding out on the Pakistani frontier. These people are genuinely dangerous, says Sageman, and they must be captured or killed. But they do not pose an existential threat to America, much less a "clash of civilizations."

It's the third wave of terrorism that is growing, but what is it? By Sageman's account, it's a leaderless hodgepodge of thousands of what he calls "terrorist wannabes." Unlike the first two waves, whose members were well educated and intensely religious, the new jihadists are a weird species of the Internet culture. Outraged by video images of Americans killing Muslims in Iraq, they gather in password-protected chat rooms and dare each other to take action. Like young people across time and religious boundaries, they are bored and looking for thrills. More...

House of Men, House of Women

2008-03-07T17:25:00.001-08:00

What if men and women had separate but equal roles in government?

I was reading an article in Discover Magazine about whether the impulse toward war was innate and inevitable or not. One group says it is and point to the chimpanzees, who are vicious fighters. One group points to the bonobos, who prefer to work things out and follow up with lots of sex.

One anthropologist, Richard Wrangham, is in the "war is innate" camp. But like those on the other side of the issue, he does think we can overcome our propensity to fight.

Primate violence is not blind and compulsive, he asserts, but rather calculating and responsive to circumstance. Chimpanzees fight "when they think they can get away with it," he says, "but they don't when they can't. And that's the lesson that I draw for humans."

Much depends, he says, on the empowerment of women.

He points out that as female education and economic opportunities rise, birthrates tend to fall. A stablized population lessens demands on governmental and medical services and on natural resources; hence, the likelihood of social unrest also decreases. Ideally, Wrangham says, these trends will propel more women into government.

"My little dream," he confesses, is that all nations give equal decision-making power to two entities, "a House of Men and a House of Women."

What an interesting idea. The trend in civic life has to try to erase distinctions between men and women, to be "gender blind." I don't know if this idea of giving each gender its own co-equal legislature is feasible or not. Any responses?

Did Obama get shafted for something Hillary did?

2008-03-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

'NAFTAgate' began with remark from Harper's chief of staff

by Alexander Panetta
The Canadian Press
March 5, 2008 at 8:53 PM EST

(emphasis mine):

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

CTV News President Robert Hurst said he would not discuss his journalists' sources.

But others said the content of Mr. Brodie's remarks was passed on to CTV's Washington bureau and their White House correspondent set out the next day to pursue the story on Ms. Clinton's apparent hypocrisy on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Although CTV correspondent Tom Clark mentioned Ms. Clinton in passing, the focus of his story was on assurances from the Obama camp.

He went to air on Feb. 27 with a report that the Democratic front-runner had given advance notice to Canadian diplomats that he was about to engage in some anti-NAFTA rhetoric, but not to take it too seriously.

Read the whole story...

Liberal smear campaign

2008-02-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

An anonymous Democrat began circulating this photo to blogs around the country as part of a smear campaign against the Republican establishment:

The photo depicts President Bush dressed in traditional Saudi garb.

"This is truly pathetic," said an anonymous spokesperson. "Anyone who would stoop to releasing such a photo must have been desperate."

What Michelle Obama REALLY said

2008-02-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

The unedited version:

The Fox News version with the word "really" edited out:

Do any Americans still take Fox News seriously? If so, tell me why. Well, maybe because the mainstream media does. Guess which version they're circulating.

Why I don't eat beef

2008-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

USDA Orders Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History - washingtonpost.com

By David Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 18, 2008; Page A01

The Agriculture Department has ordered the largest meat recall in its history -- 143 million pounds of beef, a California meatpacker's entire production for the past two years -- because the company did not prevent ailing animals from entering the U.S. food supply, officials said yesterday.

About 37 million pounds of the meat -- cuts, ground beef and prepared products such as meatballs and burrito filling -- went to school lunch and other public nutrition programs, and "almost all of this product is likely to have been consumed," said Ron Vogel, a USDA administrator.

The investigation leading to the recall happened after an employee secretly taped employees giving electric shocks and high pressure water sprays to cows too sick to stand up, and sent the video to the Humane Society.

Repose

2008-02-02T19:20:00.001-08:00

I started this blog as a continuation of my personal journal, but thanks to the magic of BlogThis and other devices to connect one's blog to the rest of the Internet, it has become mostly a compendium of the news I find newsworthy. The personal observations have gotten rarer and rarer.

Tonight I'm sitting here at the table with Steve, who is playing his new guitar. The sweet notes fall like honey on my ears. I'm sipping a local brew--Eye of the Hawk--waiting for the rice to cook and trying to keep the cat, who has just come in from the rain, out of my lap. Unlike most cats, she is indifferent to water, but very much in need of warm, soft laps, regardless of whether she is wet or dry.
She sits on a cushion between me and Steve and complains as only a cat can do. Steve stops to pet her and speak to her in high-pitched tones. "Oh, Cleo! Oh, the kitty!" Then he resumes playing those lovely liquid guitar notes.

Sitting across from Steve, with Cleo in between, I pull out my cell phone and capture him playing and Cleo sitting and email them to my computer.

And here they are, moments later, on my blog. What a new world we live in.

Well, at least Bush has made us safer at home

2008-02-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

Oh, wait. We'll safer some time in the future, but six years after 9/11, we're not there yet.

U.S. Military Unprepared for WMD Strike, Panel Says

Published Friday, Feb. 1 by the NTI's Global Security Newswire

The U.S. military lacks necessary training and equipment to respond to a WMD attack against the United States, an independent commission said in a report released yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10).

In its 400-page report, the panel concludes that the United States “does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available” to respond to an attack involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, “an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk,” the Associated Press reported.

“Right now we don’t have the forces we need, we don't have them trained, we don't have the equipment," said Arnold Punaro, chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. “Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more. … There's a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in — you’re either ready or you’re not.”

Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, head of U.S. Northern Command, said the U.S. Defense Department plans to assemble a 4,000-soldier force over the next year that would be specially trained to handle the aftermath of a WMD strike.

The three-tiered team would include several hundred first-responder troops, a second group of about 1,200 medical and logistics personnel, and a third group for support forces such as engineers and aircraft units, he said.

“The capability for the Defense Department to respond to a chemical, biological event exists now,” Renuart said. “It, today, is not as robust as we would like because of the demand on the forces that we've placed across the country. … I can do it today. It would be harder on the (military) services, but I could respond” (Lolita Baldor, Associated Press/Google News, Feb. 1).

Meanwhile, a Joint Chiefs of Staff panel is conducting a 90-day investigation aimed at pinpointing weaknesses in Pentagon measures now in place to educate and train U.S. troops to respond to WMD attacks, Inside the Pentagon reported yesterday.

“This is well-tilled ground, but the themes keep reoccurring. So the whole thrust out of this was how do we make it better,” said Jean Reed, director of chemical and biological weapon defense programs. Reed noted that the Defense Department last reviewed its preparations for a WMD attack following the 1991 Gulf War.

The steering committee last month briefed two Joint Chiefs of Staff bodies — the Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction committee and the Force Protection and Functional Capabilities Board — on its work, Reed said.

“We took the briefing … in terms of saying, ‘here is the study, here are the sorts of gaps that have been identified,’” he said. The panel expects to submit its full recommendations in April (Carlo Munoz, Inside the Pentagon, Jan. 31).

Blog: Inside Iraq

2008-02-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

A recent post from the fascinating blog, Inside Iraq:

January 29, 2008

method of corruption

Corruption is the disease that corrodes Iraq's body from the inside. I can say that corruption one of the passages to terrorism it is the mold of terrorism. Any terrorist can join to any ministry if he has amount of money and that what made the ministries moan of corruption aches.

Many parties finance their militias by stealing Iraq's fortunes every where in Iraq. If we want to weaken the terrorism we should destroy its mold the corruption. May be you will say that I'm exaggerate of that, but if you live in Iraq you will see this fact.

Ten days ago we knew from newspapers that the integrity commission uncovered the deal of buying cars for the cabinet that amounted millions of Dollars. After week they deposed the head of the commission and declare to Iraqis that the deposition has no relation with the cars deal (I'm trying believe them). MOI decided to prevent Iraqis from traveling without its knowledge to open a new gate for corruption by bribe the employees there (the citizens will be obliged to pay money in order to hurry their travel).

The evidence burned to hide the corruption proofs like what happened in the …….. ministry before three years and like what happened yesterday when the corrupted burned the building of Central Bank with the office of inspector general (according to one MP's statement).

The corruption series has start but has no end in Iraq.

Yesterday my brother was telling me about a girl live in our neighborhood cash 800$ to employ the jobless people. This girl has very good relations with important officials in the government especially in MOD and MOI. They use this girl as a connected ring to gain bribe.

My brother told me that he doesn't want to study any more "am I study to give money to bad women to get a job?"

ABOUT THIS BLOG

"Inside Iraq" is a blog updated by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers. They are based in Baghdad and outlying provinces. These are firsthand accounts of their experiences. Their complete names are withheld for security purposes.

Posted at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Stuff I've been putting off posting

2008-01-31T18:59:00.000-08:00

Just for fun...

"The Illustrated President" by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine):

“Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

That's the title of the illustration here, created in the early 20th century to illustrate a story in the Saturday Evening Post about a fast talking horse thief whose victims are about to catch up with him.

If you zoom in on the horseman's face, he bears an uncanny resemblance to George Bush. Maybe that's why Bush has it on the wall in the oval office and points to it as an example of the Christian Cowboy, leading his followers to the promised land. Bush calls it "A Charge to Keep," referring to the Methodist hymn of the same title.

How fitting, for the cowboy president who yearns to practice horse-thievery on a global scale. Scott Horton says,

So in Bush’s view (or, perhaps I should say, faith) the key figure, with whom he personally identifies, is a missionary spreading the word of the Methodist Christianity in the American West in the late nineteenth century.

You may see a circuit rider in this painting, but most people would see a desperado fleeing his fate.

Of course, the painting was reused several times and once in a more benign setting: a story in "Country Gentleman," about a young man who inherited a beautiful forest. The story was about his struggles to protect it from rapacious loggers. The irony just writes itself.

*****

When you see "contractors," read "mercenaries."

U.S. Cannot Manage Contractors In Wars, Officials Testify on Hill

Problem Is Linked to Lack of Trained Service Personnel

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 25, 2008; A05

With even more U.S. contractors now in Iraq and Afghanistan than U.S. military personnel, government officials told Congress yesterday that the Bush administration is not prepared to manage the contractors' critical involvement in the American war effort.

At the end of last September, there were "over 196,000 contractor personnel working for the Defense Department in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Jack Bell, deputy undersecretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness.

Contractors "have become part of our total force, a concept that DoD [the Defense Department] must manage on an integrated basis with our military forces," he also said in prepared testimony for a hearing yesterday of the Senate homeland security subcommittee. "Frankly," he continued, "we were not adequately prepared to address" what he termed "this unprecedented scale of our dependence on contractors."

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William M. Solis, director of defense capabilities and management for the Government Accountability Office, testified that not enough trained service personnel are available to handle outsourcing to contractors in the wars.

Solis said a military officer with a Stryker brigade deployed in Iraq had told the GAO about a contractor that had mishandled security screenings of Iraqis and foreigners. In the end, Solis said, the officer used his own personnel to accomplish the task, diverting staff from "their primary intelligence gathering responsibilities."

Retired Army Gen. David M. Maddox, who has studied the contracting effort in Iraq as a member of an Army-appointed commission, said in his statement that it "has not fully recognized the impact of a large number of contractors" and "their potential impact to mission success."

Maddox said the Army had five general officer positions for career contracting professionals in 1990 but has none today. The two-star general who runs the Joint Contracting Command for Iraq/Afghanistan, Maddox said, is an Air Force officer.

Maddox added that 3 percent of Army contracting personnel are active-duty and that the acquisition workforce shrunk by 25 percent from 1990 to the end of fiscal 2000. While the contracting workload has increased sevenfold since 2000, he said, about half of the military officers and Army civilians in the contracting field "are certified for their current positions."

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) , the subcommittee's chairman, noted that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has reported that $10 billion of about $57 billion in contracts for services and reconstruction in Iraq "is either questionable or cannot be supported because of a lack of contractor information needed to assess costs." He added that more than 80 separate criminal investigations are underway involving contracts of more than $5 billion.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a subcommittee member who has investigated the contract issue during her trips to Iraq and Kuwait, stressed that "if people are not fired or demoted or if there is not a failure to promote in the military because of massive failure of appropriate oversight and management, things will not change."

But when she asked Bowen and Solis if they knew of anyone who had been fired or denied promotion because of contracting mistakes disclosed in more than 300 reports over five years, they said they knew of none.

*****

We don't torture?

LEBANON: For Iraqis, Treatment for Trauma is Luxury: "A patient of Hamzeh's, Mohammed was a former bodyguard for Saddam Hussein and was later imprisoned by the U.S.-led coalition. 'He suffered torture, unbelievable torture -- they gouged out one of his eyes, and he can't walk properly,' she says. 'He is very, very depressed. Every time I see him I don't know if it's the last, because he's suicidal. But he's also religious and feels that suicide will condemn him to hell, so for this reason he stays alive.' Hamzeh looks down at the ground. 'Every day I think about him.'" (Emphasis mine.)

*****

Here's how we "support our troops":

New Generation of Homeless Vets--New York Times
January 20, 2008

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:17 a.m. ET

LEEDS, Mass. (AP) -- Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.

There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident -- car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends.

And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest.

He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth.

''I don't know what to do anymore,'' his wife, Anna, told him one day. ''You can't be here anymore.''

Peter Mohan never did find a steady job after he left Iraq. He lost his wife -- a judge granted their divorce this fall -- and he lost his friends and he lost his home, and now he is here, in a shelter.

He is 28 years old. ''People come back from war different,'' he offers by way of a summary.

*****

Two from Scientific American:

January 8, 2008

Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn Does

Midwestern farms prove switchgrass could be the right crop for producing ethanol to replace gasoline

By David Biello

GRASS GAS: Turning fields of switchgrass like this one in northeastern Nebraska into ethanol produces 540 percent more energy than the amount consumed growing the native perennial.
COURTESY OF USDA-ARS

Farmers in Nebraska and the Dakotas brought the U.S. closer to becoming a biofuel economy, planting huge tracts of land for the first time with switchgrass—a native North American perennial grass (Panicum virgatum) that often grows on the borders of cropland naturally—and proving that it can deliver more than five times more energy than it takes to grow it.

Working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the farmers tracked the seed used to establish the plant, fertilizer used to boost its growth, fuel used to farm it, overall rainfall and the amount of grass ultimately harvested for five years on fields ranging from seven to 23 acres in size (three to nine hectares).

Once established, the fields yielded from 5.2 to 11.1 metric tons of grass bales per hectare, depending on rainfall, says USDA plant scientist Ken Vogel. "It fluctuates with the timing of the precipitation,'' he says. "Switchgrass needs most of its moisture in spring and midsummer. If you get fall rains, it's not going to do that year's crops much good."

January, 2008
A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
Scientific American Magazine

By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions

By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis

Schott AG/Commercial Handout/EPA/Corbis

A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050.
A vast area of photovoltaic cells would have to be erected in the Southwest. Excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours.
Large solar concentrator power plants would be built as well.
A new direct-current power transmission backbone would deliver solar electricity across the country.
But $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would be required to fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive.

Friday afternoon news

2008-01-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

Because nobody reads the Saturday paper.

Administration Forest Plan Assailed
Proposal Would Allow Logging, Roads in Alaska's Tongass

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 26, 2008; A04

Millions of acres of the country's largest national forest would be open for logging and other development under a Bush administration forest management plan released yesterday, a move critics said will hurt wildlife and destroy pristine lands.

Under the plan, about 2.4 million acres of roadless areas within Alaska's 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest could be used for logging and building roads, critics said. They described the plan, and similar efforts in Idaho and Colorado, as an attempt by the Bush administration to help the timber industry by circumventing federal court rulings protecting roadless areas.

"Time and again, these guys have had to rewrite this plan, and they just keep coming back with the same answer," said Franz Matzner, forest and public lands advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Logging levels are way down, and there is just no demand for this timber. The Bush administration is just dedicated in its last months to go after the roadless rule one forest at a time."

Alaska Regional Forester Denny Bschor said the plan would provide livelihoods for state residents while protecting the health of the forest and ensuring opportunities for recreation and solitude.

"There may be disappointment that the [allowable timber production] hasn't increased or diminished, depending on your viewpoint," Bschor said in a statement. "What is significant in the amended plan, however, is our commitment to the state of Alaska to provide an economic timber sale program which will allow the current industry to stabilize, and for an integrated timber industry to become established."

The dispute is the latest skirmish in a years-long battle between environmentalists and the Bush administration over the Clinton-era "roadless rule," which put nearly a third of the national forests -- about 60 million acres -- off-limits to most development.

Early in the administration, timber companies and several Western states challenged the rule, winning in lower federal courts but losing on appeal. In 2005, the administration issued a new rule that allowed governors to decide which land in national forests is suited for development. But after a series of lawsuits by environmentalists, federal courts overturned the Bush effort and reinstated the Clinton-era rule.

Thanks to GreenPeace for the photo of a Bald Eagle in Tongass National Forest. Used by permission.

Which candidates are in the pockets of the lobbyists?

2008-01-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

(Courtesy of Open Secrets)

2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Contributions from Selected Industries
Lobbyists

Hillary Clinton (D)	$567,950
John McCain (R)	$340,365
Christopher J. Dodd (D)	$233,875
Mitt Romney (R)	$229,475
Rudolph W. Giuliani (R)	$212,100
Bill Richardson (D)	$134,950
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D)	$114,460
Fred Thompson (R)	$90,000
Barack Obama (D)	$76,859
Duncan Hunter (R)	$30,900
John Edwards (D)	$18,900
Sam Brownback (R)	$17,225
Mike Huckabee (R)	$6,964
Tom Tancredo (R)	$250

And which ones will work for the prescription drug industry?

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products

Hillary Clinton (D)	$269,436
Barack Obama (D)	$261,784
Mitt Romney (R)	$260,535
Rudolph W. Giuliani (R)	$138,850
Christopher J. Dodd (D)	$84,400
John McCain (R)	$69,300
Bill Richardson (D)	$28,950
Fred Thompson (R)	$26,900
Ron Paul (R)	$20,568
John Edwards (D)	$15,000
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D)	$13,425
Sam Brownback (R)	$12,750
Dennis J. Kucinich (D)	$5,100
Duncan Hunter (R)	$4,050
Tom Tancredo (R)	$3,250
Mike Gravel (D)	$2,208
Mike Huckabee (R)	$500

Of course, the really big money comes from the lawyers:
Lawyers/Law Firms

Hillary Clinton (D)	$9,596,748
John Edwards (D)	$8,161,150
Barack Obama (D)	$7,940,424
Rudolph W. Giuliani (R)	$3,203,396
John McCain (R)	$2,214,820
Mitt Romney (R)	$2,143,975
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D)	$2,031,848
Bill Richardson (D)	$1,546,715
Christopher J. Dodd (D)	$1,097,750
Fred Thompson (R)	$709,364
Ron Paul (R)	$82,609
Sam Brownback (R)	$72,759
Mike Huckabee (R)	$68,506
Duncan Hunter (R)	$26,300
Dennis J. Kucinich (D)	$19,051
Tom Tancredo (R)	$8,950
Mike Gravel (D)	$2,000

Friday afternoon news

2007-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF - washingtonpost.com

What did our benevolent leaders in Washington do for us while we were busy getting ready for the weekend?

Snippets:

The Bush administration yesterday eliminated about $700 million a year in Medicaid reimbursements to schools, sidestepping an attempt by Congress to block such a move.
The new rule, issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is expected to save the federal government $3.6 billion over five years, transferring those costs to school districts.

(This cost-cutting measure will cover 13 days of war in Iraq.)

A federal judge agreed to let the Bush administration keep secret the lists of visitors to the White House until an appeals court decides whether the documents are public records.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the Secret Service this week to turn over the records under the Freedom of Information Act.
The logs sought by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington involve visits to the White House and Vice President Cheney's residence by nine religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell.

Are people who don't believe in evolution advising our executive branch? We may never know.

Rich Countries Blamed as Greenhouse Gas Emissions Hit Record

2007-12-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

(And who do we send to represent the only major country that hasn't ratified the Kyoto accord?

Mr. I-am-not-gay Larry Craig, who appears to have solicited sex in every airport bathroom in the country.)

Published on Monday, December 3, 2007 by The Independent/UK

Rich Countries Blamed as Greenhouse Gas Emissions Hit Record
Bali conference is the world’s last chance to avoid ‘catastrophic’ global warming, experts warn

by Geoffrey Lean

Rich countries are rapidly increasing the pollution that causes global warming to record levels - despite having solemnly undertaken to reduce it, three devastating new official reports reveal. Emissions of greenhouse gases and their accumulation in the atmosphere are higher than they have ever been, and unless policies are urgently reversed “catastrophic” climate change is inevitable, they warn.

The reports - from three separate UN organisations - form the strongest and most authoritative condemnation of Western climate policies yet.

They are made public as representatives of nearly 200 governments fly into Bali, Indonesia, this weekend for the most crucial negotiations on global warming for years. The talks, which open tomorrow, are to start discussing a successor to the present agreement under the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in five years’ time, having failed to measure up to the escalating climate crisis. Experts say it is the world’s “last chance” to avoid disaster.

And they follow the harshest warning yet from the congenitally cautious official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its latest report predicted that, if present trends continue, harvests in much of Africa could be halved by 2020, the Amazon rainforest will turn to dry savannah, and the Greenland icecap will completely melt, raising sea levels worldwide by over 30ft.

The first of the new reports, by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body organising the Bali conference, shows that total emissions of greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - by the world’s 40 industrialised nations have risen to “to an all-time high”, although they are supposed to be diminishing under the Kyoto Protocol.

Under the 1997 Kyoto treaty, rich nations undertook to cut emissions of the gases by a modest total of about 5 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012. But, 10 years later, the report shows that the Westernised economies that signed up to it have instead increased them by 11 per cent.

Pollution by the former Eastern Bloc countries - whose economies collapsed after the fall of the Berlin Wall - has been steadily increasing. Besides, the US and Australia - the two industrialised countries that rejected the treaty - have both vastly increased emissions and they have also risen sharply in key developing countries such as China and India.

The result is spelled out in the second report, by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which concludes that concentrations of both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere have reached record levels - causing the planet to heat up faster than ever before.

The WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that the amount of carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas, responsible for about two-thirds of man-made global warming, mainly released by burning fossil fuels - jumped by some 2 per cent last year, one of its sharpest-ever rises. The rate of increase has accelerated markedly since the 1990s. Concentrations are now 36 per cent higher than during the 10,000 years leading up to the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Nitrous oxide - which also comes from burning fossil fuels, as well as from fertiliser and some industrial processes - is also at an all-time high, up 19 per cent from pre-industrial times.

Levels of methane - from rubbish tips, cattle and rice paddies as well as fossil fuels - fell slightly - but increased by 250 per cent since the industrial revolution.

Together, the heating of the Earth by greenhouse gases has grown by 22.7 per cent since 1990.

The third report, the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report, says: “If the next 15 years of emissions follow the linear trend of the past 15, dangerous climate change will become unavoidable.

“On the basis of current trends and present policies, concentrations of carbon dioxide could rise by more than 50 per cent over 2005 levels by 2030″.

It goes on: “Political action continues to fall far short of the minimum needed to resolve the climate change problem. The gap between scientific evidence and political response remains large.” It adds that most of the rich countries that have signed up to Kyoto “are off track for achieving their commitments”.

Both it and the UNFCCC report name names. They show, for example, that the two industrialised countries that have abjured the treaty have both massively increased emissions of greenhouse gases. The United States has swelled them by 16 per cent, and Australia by 25 per cent, over 1990 levels.

But some countries that have undertaken to observe Kyoto, such as Ireland, Canada, Greece, Spain and Portugal, have performed even worse. Each party to the treaty was set its own binding target. But only four countries - Germany, France, Sweden and Britain - are on track to meet them.

Even some of those that are on course can thank other factors besides conscious policies. Germany owes four-fifths of its reductions to the restructuring of the east of the country’s economy following reunification, though it has since introduced radical measures to save energy and to promote renewable sources such as solar power.

Britain, which has taken few such steps, comes in for particular criticism in the UNDP report, exploding ministers’ constant claims to be “leading the world” in tackling global warming. The report points out, as frequently argued by The Independent on Sunday, that the UK achieved its cuts by switching away from coal following Mrs Thatcher’s defeat of the miners, and that emissions have actually risen since Labour came to power.

Environmentalists hope that the talks that start tomorrow in Bali will usher in something much better, before it is too late. Philip Clapp, head of the Washington-based National Environment Trust, says: “Fifteen years of international negotiations have not yet produced a comprehensive agreement that will get developed countries to begin serious reductions.”

He adds: “The framework for such an agreement must come out of the Bali meeting. The scientists are telling us that this is the world’s last shot at avoiding the worst consequences of global warming.”

In figures: World heading for carbon saturation

If everyone on Earth emitted as much greenhouse gas as North Americans, we would need nine atmospheres to absorb it all safely.

At the present rate the world will, within the next 25 years, emit the entire amount of carbon dioxide that the atmosphere can safely take over the entire 21st century.

Rich countries are responsible for seven out of every 10 tons of carbon dioxide emitted since the industrial revolution.

What is happening to our country?

2007-11-06T06:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to copy Naomi Wolf's whole article here, because I think it is so important. Not only are we making it difficult and nasty for people to get into the country; soon it may be impossible to get out.

Naomi Wol f: A "Paper Coup," and Blackwater Eyes Midtown Manhattan - Politics on The Huffington Post:

I have argued that in the closing stages of a "fascist shift," events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation's best-know feminist activist, and former adviser to Paul Keating, Anne Summers, who was also at the time this took place Chair of the Board of Greenpeace International. Summers was detained by armed agents for FIVE HOURS each way in LAX on her way to and from the annual meeting of the board of Greenpeace International in Mexico, and her green card was taken away from her. "I want to call a lawyer," she told TSA agents. "Ma'am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,' they replied. `You have not entered the United States."

Apparently a section of LAX just beyond the security line is asserted to be `not in the United States' -- though it is squarely inside the airport -- so the laws of the US do not apply. (This assertion, by the way, should alarm any US citizen who is aware of how the White House argued that Guantanamo is not `in the United States' - is a legal no-man's land -- so the laws of the US do not apply.) Toward the end of her second five-hour detention she asked, `Why am I being detained?' `Lady, this is not detention,' the TSA agent told her. `Detention is when I take you to the cells out back and lock you up.'

Last week in Boston, while attending Bioneers by the Bay, I heard that one of the speakers for our event, an environmentalist named Gunter Pauli, was going to miss the time of his scheduled speech; he had been physically taken OFF THE PLANE by TSA agents and had to take a much later flight. More chillingly, the camerawoman doing my interview said that another well-known environmental writer found that his girlfriend was effectively `disappeared' for three days as she sought to enter the US from Canada. Lisa Fithian, an anti-globalization activist, was denied entry across the Canadian border in 2001 and was offered the choice of turning back or being arrested.

A friend emails me a story from USA Today about a 24-year-old college graduate who testified before Congress about her family of immigrants and the difficulties they face; shortly afterward, the entire family was arrested by immigration agents. Another online piece reports that Blackwater is setting up operations along the US/Mexico border and an insightful post on Daily Kos describes how the TSA list will revert from the airlines to the management of the Department of Homeland Security shortly and that by February we may well face the need to apply to the State for permission to travel. If this proposed regulation goes through, we will move from 1931 to about 1934--when the borders started to close-- with the stroke of a pen. Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long.

Why should Congress impeach and prosecute this instant, not waiting till February? Why should this impeachment and prosecution be solidly bipartisan? After February it is the leaders on both sides of the aisle -- and the people writing these essays -- who are at most risk of being turned back at the border. People who can't leave in a police state are effectively silenced. And history shows that Republicans are at the exact same risk as Democrats of being violently silenced once liberties are lost. I am reading about IBM's close, profitable involvement with Nazi Germany -- much akin to Prescott Bush's well-documented close and profitable involvement with Nazi Germany through German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Right up to the top of the solidly Nazi hierarchy of the IBM affiliate, corporate executives were terrified of taking a wrong step in the eyes of the Party: `There are concentration camps', they would whisper to their US backers. The teenage son of one solid Nazi ally was taken hostage when he resisted Party orders. So alignment with the regime in a police state offers no ultimate protection.

Let us think like business consultants analyzing the decisions of a business that claims it is going to close its door in just a year. What kinds of decisions is it making? Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':

- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?

- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage -- after all, these folks will be gone in a year?

- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?

- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?

- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size -- if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?

- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?

- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?

- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration -- or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?

- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?

Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government. (He also spells out the basis for a rigorously modeled impeachment and criminal prosecution.) Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place. Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency -- noting that those worrying about a coup are no longer so marginal. Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans. And Congress belatedly realizes as if waking from a drugged sleep that it might not be okay for the Attorney General to say the President need not obey the law. Congress may realize why Mukasey CAN'T say that `waterboarding is torture' -- the minute he does so he has laid the grounds for Bush, Cheney and any number of CIA and Blackwater interrogators to be tried and convicted for war crimes. They are so keenly aware that what they have been doing is criminal that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 have been drafted specifically to protect them and the torturers and murderers they have directed from criminal prosecution. That is why insisting that Mukasey say that waterboarding is torture is, in spite of the alarming apparent defection of Feinstein and Schumer, an important tactic and even the perfect opening for the impeachment bid that Kucinich is bringing on November 6th to be followed by Congressional investigations into possible criminality.

This is the "Blackwater Tactical Weekly." (Yes, Blackwater has its own weekly e-newsletter.) Look at "Islamist protest in N.Y. - 'Mushroom cloud on way'" -- it is reasonable to speculate that Blackwater is focusing on becoming more active domestically in managing domestic protests and rallies. (Regarding this particular rally, note the repetition of the White House `Mushroom Cloud' sound-bite and other signs bearing current White House talking points, that are attributed to alleged Muslim protesters in New York City. The US has a long history of using agents provocateurs -- people dressed as those they are targeting, who pose as conveying a more violent or threatening message than that of the real group itself or who commit acts of violence to stigmatize the group. The Cointelpro program of the 1970's discredited many rallies in this way. An alleged or infiltrated violent, threatening Muslim rally would be the perfect defensible trigger for a Blackwater response.)

See also that Blackwater may be exploring the management of private flights in US airports because of a threat or `threat' to private aircraft. ("Extremists may target private US planes: TSA.") This entry point to the air travel system would seem defensible -- after all Blackwater personnel do in fact guard airports around the world, for example in Bosnia. The danger is that a bleeding of Blackwater into US airport security in general would affect a coup in essence -- quite quickly and serenely -- even as a coup in fact need not be declared. It is a short step from managing private plane and private airport security to aiding the TSA -- which is a branch of Homeland Security -- and Homeland Security and Blackwater have already worked in alliance with one another in New Orleans. A TSA agent blogged about having signed up for Blackwater -- at ten thousand a month, which is a lot more than TSA agents make now and a real incentive -- but I have no evidence of reverse movement. The White House recently announced that the Watch List and No-Fly List together have 775,000 citizens and that they are adding 20,000 A MONTH. This trend on both sides, if not confronted, points to an easy slide to a paramilitarized domestic flight experience in the US and a routine aggressive searching of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the growth being exponential enough so that being aggressively searched could easily soon become a common experience at airports. Nothing at present prevents Blackwater agents from being deployed to help or replace the TSA domestically. Or from being deployed at the next New York City rally such as the one that is being featured on their website. And airports being the lifeline of freedom, if you are scared to fly or can be bullied, interrogated, tasered or worse when flying, you are no longer free. History shows that there is no easy retroactive movement toward a free society once travel is truly restricted.

The Mukasey hesitation on torture is our cue to call a halt to these crimes. (By the way, strapping victims to boards to prepare them for torture was common at Buchenwald.)

Congress must ask:

- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?

If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.

Photo from the Palm Beach Times.

America: We've put the welcome mat away

2007-11-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Got back late last night from Washington. Many thanks to my son Ben for making it possible for me to travel anywhere, anytime.

On the morning before I left, I had a long talk with Bianca from Germany. Why, she wanted to know, did America make it so difficult for foreigners to visit? Before Bush, America was the place to go. Everyone wanted to come here, and everyone felt welcome. Why would Americans want to squander all the good will they had abroad?

Bianca said she was detained at the airport as security went through all her things and asked her various offensive questions. It was insulting and humiliating. Others of her acquaintance had had the same sort of experience.

I could not give her a satisfactory answer, except to say that in our essentially isolationist hearts, we don't care a whole lot about what the world thinks about us. We've never experienced the consequences of not getting along with our neighbors, since we have no neighbors that are even remotely threatening to us. Most Americans don't think much about the rest of the world at all.

The day I came home, I found this news article about the appalling treatment a group of Finnish folksingers received at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in Minnesota.

Minnesota's Finnish guests find a rude airport welcome

When three of Finland's most popular musicians, including one described as that country's Bruce Springsteen, arrived for a recent tour in Minnesota, they expected a quick trip through airport customs.
Instead, immigration agents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport subjected them to more than two hours of interrogation that the musicians considered so harsh and demeaning that they filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki.
"It was almost three hours of screaming, door-slamming and accusations, according to the report I received," said Marianne Wargelin, honorary Finnish consul for the Dakotas and most of Minnesota, which has the second largest Finnish-American population in the nation.
Erkki Maattanen, a filmmaker for Finnish Public Television who accompanied the musicians on the September trip, said his questioners seemed to think the entourage was smuggling drugs or intending to work without a permit. "I kept trying to tell them why we were here, but they'd just yell, 'Shut up!"' he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at the airport declined to comment, referring questions to regional press officer Brett Sturgeon.
Read more....

Bianca had mentioned her admiration for the Finns, evidently not one shared by our security apparatus.

Washington itself, however, is a national treasure, free to all to enjoy, and we must keep it in the hands of the people. Don't let the neothugs who now run our country try to privatize it.

I spent Thursday and part of Friday at the Smithsonian. I can't say I covered much ground. I'm the kind of person, if I'm interested in a subject, I can't just skim over it. The two subjects I was most interested in, American History and Arts and Industry, were both closed for remodeling. But I found that there were two special exhibits at the Museum of Natural History:

"Emissaries of Peace," a history of Cherokee-British relations, which I'll write about separately; and

"African Voices," which "examines the diversity and dynamism of this huge continent. Sound stations provide interviews, folk tales, songs and oral epics ... " There is an aqal, a Somali portable dwelling traditionally built and owned by women, next to a video interview of two Somali-Americans who describe their upbringing in an aqal and the traditions they grew up with.

Elsewhere in the exhibit, videos covered the history of slavery and African programs to eradicate childhood disease. There were displays on cooking, traditional dishes and the staples of various African communities, such as wheat, rice, teft, millet and yams. Another display was of ingenious toys that African children had made using discarded objects such as wood and metal scraps and rubber flip-flops.

You got a sense of a coiled energy, waiting to spring forth.

I spent about 3 hours in these two exhibitions.

Here are a few final photos of Washington.

A peaceful garden, one of many adjacent to the National Mall:

A merry-go-round right on the Mall:

And our national symbol, those ubiquitous golden arches:

A multi-national tour

2007-11-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a group of us from the hostel took a walking tour with talented tour guide Larry Amman--the guy in the white cap here. He took us through Lafayette Park, around the outside of the White House, and to several monuments.

Larry is a pro, skillful at weaving in details of interest to the various nationalities in a given group. In this case, we had representatives from Belgium, Germany, India, Hong Kong, Australia, Colombia and South Africa. I think I was the only American in the group.

We passed the Washington Monument, and some got tickets to go into it later. I was due at the Capitol at 2 pm, so I didn't. Maybe tomorrow. In the remaining monuments, I was surprised at the emphasis on peace, liberty and justice in the quotations chosen for each honoree. I was also surprised at the sheer size of the works. Lincoln was much bigger than I expected, for instance. Here's an excerpt from Lincoln's second inaugural address chiseled on the wall of his monument, on the eve of the Civil War's end:

Both[sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

. . . .

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

A disappointment for me was the Vietnam Memorial. The wall was thronged with tours and tour guides giving talks, and somehow diminished by the bright sun and balmy weather. At the foot of each panel were handwritten and drawn tributes to the soldiers and the ignominy of war. Very touching, until I realized that these were not personal messages, but middle school class exercises, carefully laminated and destined ultimately for the Vietnam Memorial archives.

Don't get me wrong. I think this is a wonderful thing for middle school kids to do, and some were very touching and illuminating. It's just that they didn't embody that sense of personal connection that seems so much a part of a visit to the wall.

The Vietnam Memorial seems like a place to visit on a rainy day, with few people about and the granite polished by the sky's tears. It's meant to be a place of sadness at a misguided, misbegotten war that claimed way too many lives for way too little reason. At least, that's how I see it.

Next week, on the Memorial's 25th anniversary, Larry, a Vietnam vet, will participate in the public reading of all 58,000 names of the dead.

After the Vietnam Memorial was built, the Korean War vets agitated for their own memorial. The resulting memorial, dedicated in 1995, was a surprise to me. Like the forgotten war it represents, it doesn't get much press. I found it fascinating.

The Memorial depicts soldiers emerging from a wooded area through scrub-covered ground. They are wary and frightened, as though expecting an attack in moments. Made of stainless steel, they are almost white, like ghosts.

Next to the statues is a polished granite wall, with photos of actual Korean War personnel etched into the surface. The etchings and the reflections of the statues interact in a ghostly way on the wall. I don't know if this photo quite captures it, but here it is:

Another surprise was the Roosevelt Memorial. It is a very large one, divided into four main areas representing Roosevelt's four terms. Water is present in all of them, as waterfalls and pools. Roosevelt's words are chiseled in the walls of the waterfalls and next to them. Rockwellesque statues of ordinary people, standing in line for jobs or listening to the newfangled radio, are interspersed. A later addition to the memorial shows Roosevelt in his homemade wheelchair, a kitchen chair with bicycle wheels attached. This section also features a wall with scenes carved in relief and Braille inscriptions for the blind.

As it's getting light and I need to do the laundry, I'm going to stop here.

Priorities and more

2007-11-01T03:34:00.000-07:00

A little factoid I overheard:

Cost of SCHIP expansion: $7,000,000,000 a year
Cost of Iraq war: $10,000,000,000 a MONTH

Could we just take a little 3-week vacation from the war and fund children's healthcare?

***

Interesting idea from Kevin Drum: Americans are unhappy with the state of healthcare but worried about any change. So the way to go is extend Medicare to those under 21. As this group grows older, they get to keep their Medicare. Gradually, everyone will be on Medicare and no one will have to make a drastic change in their healthcare program as we evolve to universal healthcare.

I can see the problem here: as 20-somethings gain universal healthcare, the 30-65 age bracket will feel unfairly treated and demand the same. This is actually an advantage, not a problem.

Washington: Sore feet and overpriced beer

2007-10-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

(Previous disclaimer still applies.)

It’s 6:00 and I’m back in Brasserie Beck, enjoying another absurdly overpriced Belgian beer. Even more expensive than yesterday’s, but rather better tasting. Tired and footsore after my political sojourn, I nonetheless did a 4-block circuit looking for a source of cheap alcohol and/or food and/or a bottle of ibuprofen, to no avail. So here I am again. However, I found a $1.50 hotdog at a little wagon on the corner of 12th and K, run by a Pakistani couple. And for tomorrow I have located a purveyer of cheap beer—to be atoned for by the suffrance of ear-splitting hiphop—that I can stop in at on the way home from the Capitol. The joys of addiction.

After I got out of the Senate and House galleries, I stopped to rest my feet, which were feeling worn, and talk to Steve. It is a wonderful world, and we’re very spoiled, to be able to talk to each other at no cost all the way across the country. One thinks about how just 150 years ago, communication across that distance might take months in both directions, with its arrival uncertain.

Somewhat rested, I headed for the Smithsonian, but stopped at the first obstacle I came to, namely the Botanical Gardens. These are enclosed in a 3-story glass house like the hall of flowers in SF. You enter, and suddenly you’re in a quiet forested paradise with Renaissance-era music soothing your way. Raindrops fall here and there. There’s a rainforest area that you can walk around both at ground level and at canopy level. I bet this place is a big hit in the dead of winter.

After exploring the garden and its various sections, I continued on my way, and next encountered the American Indian Museum. The building is reminiscent of an Anasazi cliff dwelling and stunningly decorated but rather sparse inside. The center “rotunda” area has four different indigenous watercraft, a kayak, Hawaiian outrigger, Lake Titicaca reed boat and one other that I can’t remember--and that, plus a pricey gift shop and cafe, is about all. I visited the café in hope of coffee, but the only option was 16 ounces for $3.55—four times as much as I needed at three times the price. The menu was interesting though, from pulled buffalo on frybread to roasted elk with blueberries.

I hauled myself to the second floor, but there was nothing there but an overpriced gift shop. Apparently it started getting real on the third floor. But by then I noticed I was on the edge of exhaustion. My eyes were not focusing. My feet were seriously hurting and I suddenly remembered it was a long way back to the hostel--about a mile and a half of concrete away.

I managed to go part of the way on the “Circulator,” though the trip included an unexpected 10-minute lapse two blocks before my stop, while the driver took a break. I would have gotten out and walked, but the neighborhood looked dicey. When he got started I pushed the button near my appointed stop and moved to the front to chat with him—while he passed my stop and the next one. “Will I be able to get off anytime soon?” I finally ventured, and he said, “Oh, did you want to get off? I’m sorry.” He stopped in mid-block and let me off. It was only another three blocks to the hostel, but by then my feet had gotten a little rest.

More Washington

2007-10-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

(If you’ve navigated here for any reason except that you’re a friend of mine, you might want to move on. The details here are excessively trivial and verbose, of little interest to the wider world. There here largely for the time when I will no longer be able to remember any of this on my own.)

You are not allowed to read OR write in the House Gallery! On the way to the Gallery, there’s a rack of brochures, so I picked one up. Things were a little slow on the floor, so I pulled out my brochure to study. A plainclothes security guy was there in seconds, telling me to put that away. I asked him why, and he said he didn’t know—it seemed odd to him, and the rule doesn’t apply to the Senate gallery. The People’s House, and the people aren’t allowed to take notes. The security guy, who was very nice, said the rule had been in place at least as long as he had been there, six years.

There were approximately a dozen people on the House floor, equally distributed between Dems and Repugs, plus the stand-in for the speaker, the stenographer, and various other officials on the podium. I didn’t recognize any of them. It’s kind of sad that there wouldn’t be more of the people’s lawmakers there, but it was during the lunch hour. I gather that the House is pretty much deserted except when there’s a vote. A vote was about to happen when I got my gallery pass from Woolsey’s office, but by the time I found my way to the right entrance, waited in line, got my bags checked, dropped off my backpack, then went back to drop off my cell phone, the vote was long over. I tagged along with a staff member from the Kucinich office and a couple from Belgium who were there on some sort of business. There was a slight delay as the information guy proudly regaled the couple in fluent Flemish, something I’ll admit the average tour guide can’t do.

Starving for food and caffeine, I found my way to the Capitol basement—and it really is a basement, with water and heating pipes on the ceiling of the narrow brick halls—where the cafeteria is. I hesitated at the entrance, where a sign said, “For Congressional staff only, 11:15-1:00. A cafeteria employee asked me if she could help me, young lady? I told her only people older than me were allowed to call me young lady and she laughed and said age was nothing but a number. She invited me to get some food.

This cafeteria is for the hoi polloi—security guards and food and maintenance workers. There’s a dining room on the main floor, but it’s only for elected politicians.

On my way to Woolsey’s office in the Rayburn building, I saw a crew of some 50 guys in khaki uniforms and blue baseball caps running down the path from the Capitol building. They headed toward the mall, amid lights and sirens of various emergency vehicles. I don’t know what it was all about—maybe a drill or something. Later I saw them in the Capitol building, and they had the word, “Challenge” stitched over their breast pockets. They were all young and most were black. Some sort of paramilitary youth group, I guess. It’s happened before.

In the Rayburn Building, what sounded like a fire alarm went off for several minutes. Nobody seemed to be running for exits, though. This happened again before I left the building. Maybe it meant that there was about to be a vote, and lawmakers better get their ass over to the Capitol.
I wonder if there’s a secret underground passageway between the two buildings? It’s actually kind of a hassle to get from the Rayburn building to the Capitol, because it’s in the middle of the block across a busy street, and you have to walk to a corner and wait for a light, then cross and walk back to the middle of the block. Or you can just take your life in your hands and scoot across, which is what I did.

Later, wandering around in the basement, I found out that there is a secret passageway, and I almost went on it, but decided better and tried to find the floor where the rotunda was. I was stopped by a security guard, who said I shouldn't be in the Capitol unless I was with a tour, and told me to leave.

However, as I was on the way out, another guard asked me if I’d like to go to the Senate gallery, and gave me a pass, so back I went. There was no one in the Senate, however, and no prospects for anyone returning before 2:30 pm, so I left and went back to the House gallery, because I had heard that there was a vote there.

You have to understand that both galleries are a three-story walkup from the ground floor, and that you have to start from the ground for each one. So by the time I had retrieved my bag, gone downstairs, across the Capitol building and back up the stairs, checked my bags in and submitted to the search, the vote was over, and the last of the Reps were on their way out the door. A skeleton crew was left to take turns posturing over some amendment or other.

Washington, continued

2007-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning at 6:30 and staggered (literally) down the narrow, winding stairs four floors to the kitchen to grope for some coffee. There's a big--two gallon!--coffee machine there with lights flashing and knobs and everything.

But no coffee.

I sat down and tried to focus on my email. A lady, Mary Jean from Louisville, offered me some tea and told me that breakfast was at 7:30. So I waited; 7:30 came and went. No coffee. But the dining room was filling up. I talked with a pastor from Alberta about Canadian healthcare (he likes it, and was able to be pretty specific about its strengths and weaknesses), and a German woman who's studying Chinese history at the Library of Congress who was astonished that you could get free wireless in the dining room.

I queried the room on what was the best thing to see in DC.

"Everything!" said Mary Jean, and, being the gregarious sort, "Especially the company." I found her recommendation a little too all-encompassing to be helpful. A man at the next table went into a long dissertation about how with careful planning I could see everything in my four days--enumerating all the sights to be seen. But I'd have to commit to a strict timetable: 30 minutes in the Museum of Natural History, 15 at the Jefferson Memorial, and so forth.

You can do the art museums pretty fast, he said, because all you have to do is glance at each painting. He confessed he wasn't an art connoisseur.

Instead, I'm sitting here writing about what he said, as the minutes tick by. The breakfast lady finally shows up at 8:30, and Mary Jean pitches in and makes the coffee. I have lent my laptop to a young woman from New Delhi who wants to email her husband and tell him about her first trip to the U.S. She's here as a medical student at a conference.

She has a lot to tell him. I excuse myself and call Lynn Woolsey's office. Ordinarily, the staff person says, we ask for a week's notice for a tour. She said to drop by and they'd see if they could arrange something. When? Well, Congress is in session in the evening (!), so any other time. No wonder they don't get anything done.

The hostel's air conditioning system makes a particularly annoying sound--a fluctuating drone that waxes and wanes on about a 5-second interval. I was given a room on the third floor that was quite nice--I had an alcove with a two-bed bunk and it seemed reasonable that I would have it to myself. But the bed was right next to the air conditioner. After 20 minutes, I asked to be moved, and I'm now on the 6th floor in a big open room with a half-dozen other women. The air conditioner has the same problem, but at least it's on the other side of the room. I went to sleep listening to the "Mellow" playlist on my Ipod.

Okay, I'm off to go traipsing around on the Capitol Mall.

My Trip to DC

2007-10-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the lounge of the DC hostel after just having the most expensive, most insipid beer in my life.

The fancy restaurant across the street has a bar, and I figured, how expensive could a beer be? What I didn't count on was the beers were all unpronounceable Belgian imports served in tiny glasses for the price of a fine sherry in reality land. For all their descriptive overload ("blonde with a white head and hints of citrus and coriander"), they are flavorless compared to the earthy California microbrews.

Otherwise, things are great at the hostel. The photo above shows the front desk, and the other one the lounge. The hostel is quiet--there is Wi-Fi in the lounge, as well as pay-per-minute desktops for the less fortunate, and there's a certain camaraderie missing as people stare at their bluish screens or write in notebooks or plug into their Ipods. No international confessions or courtships are going on. Did it use to be like this? A very tall man comes in, sits in a corner and reads a dog-eared Bible for ten minutes, then leaves. I saw him on the airporter earlier, so he must be from out of town like me. A middle aged woman sits down beside me and reads Charlie Brown's Cyclopedia. She too leaves ten minutes later.

Here is what I wrote on the plane from SF:

Ah, the thrills of the flying stand-by! On the bus trip to the airport, I was unexpectedly tranquil, compared to my usual unreasoning anxiety at the beginning of every trip. I guess I'm mellowing out. (Or maybe the meds are finally kicking in.) The bus arrived early and I had a whole hour to relax, drink coffee and read the newspaper.

But as the flight approaches the end of loading, I find myself beginning to fidget, my eyes riveted on the desk, as names are called out that aren't mine. Finally the suspense drags me out of my seat to edge ever closer to the desk and fix whichever attendant glances my way with a fierce stare, as if to force them by brute concentration to call out my name. This always happens. Finally one asks me what I want, and I say I’m just waiting for my name to be called. He smiles and says, “You’ll get on,” and I relax and observe the other passengers.

The man sitting next to me wears a dark blue suit and white shirt. He has a distinguished shock of white hair. Clearly, a government official or lobbyist.

Well, maybe not. It turns out he too is flying standby. He gets called just before I do.
I was hoping for first class, since there were five seats open. Instead I get one of the four economy seats that are, inexplicably, in the business cabin. I was warned that business class services were not included. But apparently the attendants didn’t get the message, and I am offered a parade of free food and drink, hot towels and linen napkins. I had a fruit plate with a croissant for breakfast and I’m now sipping a tomato juice. So I haven’t touched my hoard of food. But I think I will before we land.

You know those little bags of party mix they give out instead of real food? They give the same stuff to the privileged classes. Except that here the mix also contains almonds, and is known as “Supreme Mix.”

They gave me noise-canceling headphones, which turned out not to work with my economy seat. I asked to keep them anyway, because they do cut down on the noise a little. I’m wearing them over my Ipod earbuds; I’ve so far listened to “This American Life,” Rachel Madow and Thom Hartmann. Friday’s news, but since I didn’t read the news on Friday, who cares? While listening, I work the Sudoku puzzles in the airplane magazine—not the easy ones like I usually do, so I was only able to complete one without botching it up beyond repair.

An 82-year-old Filipina lady is sitting by me. When awake, she talks incessantly; but mostly she is asleep, except when the attendant wakes her up every 15 minutes to ply her with more food and drink.

I’ve got a window seat, but precious little good it is. The window is almost behind me, and looks out over the engines and the wing. Still, I did see a little. It’s been mostly clear across the country.

We’re about an hour and a half from landing. With my laptop on its lowest light setting, I still have four and a half hours left on my battery. I think I’ll break out the yogurt and listen to some more Thom Hartmann. He talks to the Code Pink lady who got arrested the other day, and she gives a Web site and pleads for people to come to DC to replace the people who have been arrested and given "stay away" orders. I write down the URL and later, at the hostel, sign up to help out if needed.

We land uneventfully, and it's an easy and fast trip on the Washington Flyer to the nearest underground station, and then on to the Metro station in the heart of DC. A true tourist, I light out on the three block walk to my hostel in the wrong direction. It takes a block and a half for me to get that the sequence of lettered streets is going the wrong way, when I could have simply looked up and noticed which way the sun was setting.

A minor problem with the computer--it wouldn't do anything, despite several reboots!--turned out to be nothing more than a particle from the "Supreme Mix" lodged under my left mouse key.

Now, though my computer refuses so far to acknowledge the time change, I actually feel like it's 8:30 instead of 5:30, and moreover, having slept four and a half hours last night, am just about ready for bed.

Tomorrow I'll call Lynn Woolsey's office and see what I can get for my political contributions!

Cheney Beats the Drums of War - washingtonpost.com

2007-10-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Even Fareed Zakaria thinks Cheney is off the deep end about Iran:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on? . . .
...
We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.
The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Zakaria was quoted in Dan Froomkin's article in the Washington Post about Cheney's latest bellicosity toward Iran: Dan Froomkin - Cheney Beats the Drums of War - washingtonpost.com. It includes a link to Cheney's speech.

U.K.: CRAGS make a personal commitment to reduce carbon footprint

2007-10-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

Groups’ Aim: The Greening of Britain - New York Times

October 21, 2007

Groups’ Aim: The Greening of Britain

By JAMES KANTER

LONDON — Jacqueline Sheedy has turned the former coal barge where she lives into a shrine to energy efficiency: she reads by candlelight in midwinter, converts the waste from her toilet into fertilizer, and hauls fresh water home on a trailer attached to her bicycle.

Now Ms. Sheedy has set herself a new goal: to stop burning coal for heat and instead use wood from renewable sources.

“I’m scared of the cold this winter,” said Ms. Sheedy, 42, who earns her living teaching urban gardeners to grow food. “But it’s going to be difficult for everyone else to cut their carbon footprints, so I should also keep on setting myself personal challenges.”

Ms. Sheedy is in a CRAG, or a Carbon Rationing Action Group, based in Islington, in North London, whose members have pledged to live low-carbon lives.

Like-minded groups are slowly springing up across Britain, with about 160 people active in some 20 CRAGs. While that is not a large number, the craggers, as they are known, are an example of how the phenomenon of low-carbon living is spreading in Britain, where politicians, companies and communities are competing to be the greenest.

Craggers calculate their personal emissions from things like natural gas and electricity bills, car emissions and airplane travel. The Islington CRAG has imposed a yearly limit of nearly 9,000 pounds of carbon emissions on each member.

As an example of the constraints that imposes, a round-trip flight between London and Hong Kong would burn up more than half that allowance, generating 4,800 pounds of carbon emissions, according to an online calculator available through the British Airways Web site.

The group holds its members to account by imposing fines on those who fail to keep their emissions under the yearly limit. Those who emit progressively less each year can earn money from more profligate members, who pay into the system.

The members say they are willing to make personal sacrifices, from turning down the heat to giving up driving to work, to prove that emissions cuts are feasible without expensive new technologies.

“The public perception is that you’ve got to be rich to be green,” said Andy Ross, 39, an engineer in Glasgow, who helped to found one of the first CRAGs last year. “But it’s not the amount of money you’ve got to spend on fancy micro-renewable energy kits,” he said. “It’s identifying the size of your footprint and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly.”

Read the rest...

Don't run, Al!

2007-10-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm probably the lone naysayer in my crowd, but I just don't see Al Gore as a viable candidate. Here's what I wrote to Thom Hartmann about it:

Am I the only progressive in America who thinks an Al Gore nomination would be a disaster?

Gore is doing so much good as a spokesperson on global warming. Why should he shift to a role he neither wants nor is good at? Gore is a terrible public speaker and even worse politician. He comes across as a know-it-all. The press hates him. He loses his bearings in an atmosphere that requires compromise and accommodation--remember the clothing makeovers and all the other attempts to fit the mold?

Many middle of the road voters still see him as a figure of ridicule, the guy who invented the Internet and rolls his eyes in debates.

Yes, "An Inconvenient Truth" is brilliant, but we haven't seen the out-takes. There are no out-takes and no script in a presidential contest.

The fact that no one mentions this makes me wonder if we progressives are the ones living in a bubble. To run Al Gore for president would be to squander a priceless resource. (How ironic.)

Photo from PoliticsOnline

Okay, the stuff in the "drafts" folder is piling up...

2007-10-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

First, my very own article about flu season and precautions:

How to stay healthy during flu season - Get a flu shot, wash your hands frequently, avoid crowds and be careful what you touch

****

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police - washingtonpost.com

Those eternally ungrateful Iraqis are now buying weapons from the Chinese! Don't they know we're the number one weapons merchants in the world?

****

Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII - washingtonpost.com

How we used to "extract information" from detainees back before the War on Terror, when the only threat to the civilized world was Hitler's genocidal marauders.

****

5 Myths About Sick Old Europe

You may be surprised to learn how our estranged transatlantic partner has been faring during these roller-coaster times -- and how successfully it has been knocking down the Europessimist myths about it.

****

Last, and with sorrow, two links on Burma that my friend Gail of Thinking Out Loud emailed to me:

Burma fades from view
Heart of Darkness

Interesting, I wrote back. This morning I searched the entire New York Times Web site and found not a word on Burma.

I was outraged, but Steve pointed out that if no news is allowed out of Burma, it's pretty hard to write an article on it. Still, I think there are a number of issues that ought to keep Burma in the headlines, such as the implications of the Burmese government's total information blackout, and the role other countries and corporations play in the Burmese government's grip on power there.

****
(Does anyone know how to insert a divider in a blog post, so I don't have to use these stupid asterisks? I thought that used to be one of the formatting options, but can't find it.)

This is way too cool

2007-10-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

A laptop you can drop in the lake or use to contact your friends without an Internet!

Auto industry's slow suicide

2007-10-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

In 1985 there were no Ipods, no cell phones, no laptops, no Web sites, very few home computers.

But one thing hasn't changed since 1985.

Auto industry's slow suicide | Santa Rosa Press Democrat // News for California's North Bay and Redwood Empire: "U.S. mileage standards for passenger car fleets have been frozen at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1985. Light trucks are even worse. The Senate energy bill calls for U.S. automakers to achieve a corporate average fuel economy of 35 mpg by 2020."

Think of it! For over 20 years of technological revolution and growing consensus about global warming, our fuel-efficiency standards are stuck in 1985.

Free Burma!

2007-10-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Petaluma's hometown heroes

2007-10-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

Wherever you live, I hope you have people like Bill and Lucy Kortum working to make your community a better place to live. This is an article I wrote for our local paper, the Petaluma Argus Courier. It was because of Bill's efforts to save the Sonoma County coast for the public that every inch of California's coastline is now accessible to you and me.

Kortums honored for a lifetime of service - Conservation group honors couple for their service to community and environment

Bill and Lucy Kortum met while painting fences at the Kortum family ranch on Ely Road. It was an apt beginning for 53 years of hard work together to make the world a better place, on the way imbuing their three children with the same activist drive.

Family connections brought them together. Lucy’s best friend Jean had married Bill’s brother Karl, founder of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. Bill and Lucy cemented the relationship by spending the rest of the summer repairing a sailboat and sailing together.

Today, the couple maintains a finish-each-other’s-sentences kind of intimacy and shared purpose. On Saturday Oct. 6, Sonoma County Conservation Action, which Bill founded in 1991, will honor the two with a special dinner.

The Kortums’ imprint on Sonoma County history is everywhere. Bill has been involved in choosing the location for Sonoma State University, purchasing the land for Salt Point State Park, incorporating the City of Cotati, securing Petaluma’s urban growth boundary and numerous other achievements.

Bill was born and raised in Petaluma, at that time a town of 6,000.

“We had free run of town and the hills around,” said Kortum. “You just felt you owned the place. That sense of freedom has kind of driven me all these years — the sense of ownership, and sense of responsibility to conserve that great resource.”

He was 8 or 9 when his family moved from Western Avenue to the ranch on Ely Road, where Bill and Lucy live today, surrounded by abundant vegetable and fruit gardens. Within sight of the house they helped design is the barn Bill built himself as a high school project. The barn is now the family winery.

Activism was a family tradition. Bill’s grandfather had been a founding member of the Calistoga City Council, and his father and older brother Karl fought to keep Highway 101 from being rerouted through the family ranch. His mother was active in the PTA.

“It was a demonstration that you did not have to accept the status quo,” said Bill.

After a stint in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Bill earned a degree from the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine at Davis and established the Cotati Veterinary Hospital.

Lucy, born to a Navy family in Coronado, went to Pomona College and later Sonoma State University, where she got her master’s degree in history. Through her efforts, both the Sunset Line and Twine building and Petaluma’s Carnegie Library (now the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum) are on the National Historic Buildings Registry.

Later, a government grant enabled her to survey and research Carnegie Libraries all over the state for her master’s thesis. This project sent Bill and Lucy on a series of visits to the small towns of California.

For her work as a historian, Lucy received the Petaluma Good Egg Award in 2006, and in 2005, the Jeanne Thurlow Miller Individual Award from the Sonoma County Historical Society. She still works one day a week each at the Petaluma Museum and the history room of the Petaluma Library.

In 1960, Bill’s veterinary expertise played a significant role in fighting the establishment of a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head. He garnered the support of the conservative Sonoma County dairy industry by showing them tissue samples from cows contaminated with radioactive iodine near the Humboldt reactor and convincing them that no one would want to buy contaminated milk.

Sharing a love of the California coast with his brother Karl, Bill responded to the privatization of Sea Ranch beaches by spearheading an effort to keep Sonoma County’s beaches public. He chaired the California Coastal Alliance of 110 groups that in 1972 sponsored Proposition 20, the initiative that mandated open beaches in California.

The Kortum Trail along the coast near Shell Beach is a tribute to his efforts.

Following the family tradition of politics, Bill served as a Sonoma County Supervisor and as a member of the Petaluma School Board and the Democratic Central Committee. He is founder and current board member of the Sonoma County Conservation Action, and is still arguably its most active member, said fellow boardmember John Kramer.

Bill Kortum achieved his successes by going directly to the people, knocking on doors to ask in simple language if they really wanted their waste water dumped into the Russian River or a nuclear power plant on their doorstep. Thanks to his efforts, SCCA has reached 70,000 households a year, said Kramer.

“Even more than all the great organizations he and Lucy have helped create and build, I think Bill’s great gift to the region has been the legions of younger activists he has patiently mentored,” said Larry Modell, past chair of Petaluma Tomorrow, which gave Bill the Greening of Petaluma Award in 2006 in recognition of his work on Petaluma’s Urban Growth Boundary. “Through all these decades, the hundreds of us who have had the good fortune to work with him have learned volumes about how government works, how to change it, and how to have fun doing so.”

Along the way, Bill said, Lucy’s partnership has been essential. Not much for meetings, she has shaped Bill’s writing, organized papers and photos and maintained computer files.

“He runs around and she organizes it,” said SCCA board member Fran Tanti.

According to Kramer, it was Lucy who, on her Underwood typewriter, typed the telegram to the state commission that brought SSU to where it is.

The Kortum influence has reached far beyond Sonoma County, somewhat to their surprise. As he said, “We protected our coast and the whole coast of California was protected.”

Now, urban growth boundaries are taking shape in California cities.

Israeli military aid to Burmese regime: Jane's | World War 4 Report

2007-10-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

From World War 4 Report
Submitted by David Bloom on Sat, 09/29/2007 - 20:14.

Israeli military aid to Burmese regime: Jane's | World War 4 Report: "The Burmese junta currently shooting unarmed protestors received a cynical plea for restraint from the Israel government on Sept. 29. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, the Israeli foreign ministry announced 'Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and urges the government to demonstrate restraint and refrain from harming demonstrators.' The article ended by pointing out that 'Israel denies selling weapons to Burma or Myanmar.' (Ha'aretz, Sept. 29)

Not true, according to a March 1, 2000 report in the authoritative British publication Jane's Intelligence Review by William Ashton. The article, titled 'Myanmar and Israel develop military pact,' details how Israeli companies and the Israeli government have been supplying and developing weapons for the Burmese regime, and sharing intelligence..."

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My sentiments exactly

2007-09-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/19/2007 | Commentary: Bush fulfills H.L. Mencken's prophecy:

"In one stroke of George W. Bush's pen America went from being a nation that distrusted foreign entanglements and fought wars only when grossly provoked to a nation that attacked first and without credible reason.

That same stroke — and the ensuing five years of war in Iraq — wiped out whatever remained of our reservoir of good will with the rest of the world. The shining city on the hill donned camouflage paint and went to war in the wrong place at the wrong time against the wrong people.

Now George Bush could posture and strut as a wartime president; could style himself The Decider, and could decide which parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights bought so dearly by generations of Americans he would give or take away.

The mills of the military-industrial complex went into high gear, as the defense contractors jostled for their places at a trough filled each year with half a trillion dollars of taxpayer money. The Republican political operatives milked them all like so many Holstein cows and the Republican lobbyists romped over to Capitol Hill buying congressmen by the baker's dozen to keep the pumps primed."

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