Pandagon has had some good back and forth this week (here, later here) about Gov. Howard Dean's recent 700 Club appearance, at which he mistakenly asserted that the Democratic Party platform asserts that marriage is and ought to be defined as a one man, one woman institution. Although he's since corrected the record, his comments in that ultra-socially conservative venue have understandably been regarded as a disgraceful and pointless act of pandering.

So where is the figure who in 2003 fired up the grassroots of his party by saying the way to win is not by being Republican lite, who shouted that he's tired of listening to "the fundamentalist preachers"? In my opinion, the answer relates to an assumption Dean shares with so many of the same establishment Democrats who disdain his reform project: the idea that economic and good-government appeals will be adequate to win over the mainstream, and that the Democratic pitch must at all costs obscure and soft-pedal cultural issues rather than incorporate them into the party's message. The Democratic Party needs to learn that a focus on economic needs and against corruption are necessary but not sufficient for becoming a heavyweight in America's political conversation.

We will be on the defensive about culture in the news media, in red states and counties and neighborhoods, and even in aspects of the relatively liberal popular culture for just as long as we let our party's leadership get away with portryaing social equality and lifestyle decisional freedom as an albatross of interest group commitments and an example of moral relativism. In fact progressive social values are fundamentally neither of these things, but a passionate and well-reasoned moral commitment to core American ideals and to moral intuitions that run deeper still, all the way, in fact, into common sense that only a deeply alienated culture would regard differently. Only the unnecessary habit of collapsing into panic rather than thinking strategically about <b>how </b> to stick up for our convictions allows us to scurry into the corner to avoid cultural debate when we anticipate conservatives' deployment of pungent but vapid slogans (like 1972's famous invocation of acid, amnesty, and abortion) or one or another Karl Rove dirty trick about "God, guns, and gays", or abortion or contraception or sex education and family planning.

One of the secrets of President Clinton's political genius, and I draw this point from his own account of his electoral success, was his willingness to talk to anyone. How, he said, can we appeal to a broad cross-section of people if we won't talk to people who disagree with us? So Gov. Dean is right to be impatient with the polarization that automatically keeps us out of right-wing venues. (Many people ask, Why would anyone voluntarily go on Fox News?) And although I'm thankful the netroots are keeping the pressure on the DNC Chair to make him more responsive to the moral demands of gay civil rights and similar issues, I'm a little unimpressed with some of the progressive bloggers who merely write, Why would you go on a show in which the audience feel they wouldn't vote for you if hell froze over? My answer to this question is that opening avenues of communication begins the long process of humanizing Democrats and getting us a more thoughtful hearing. Of course this effort won't bear fruit right away. That's all the more reason we need to begin. An apt analogy is to progressive complaints about media consolidation. Why, after all, do we complain about the narrowing of news and culture sources in the mass media? Surely one reason is that our opponents and potential opponents in political matters will receive poorer information on bland corporate soundbite-dominated airwaves, just as we will, and with loss of communication and real discourse comes loss of the potential for serious political and cultural change. The same principle obtains when we refuse to participate in media opportunities because the audience is ill-disposed to agree with us. As long as the right-wing media remains an echo chamber by our default, in a sense we'll have no right to complain about the results.

To be fair, I don't think the Pat Robertson vehicle is necessarily the best place to begin a bridge-building project, although I'm sure it's not the only place Dean has or will seek to bring the Democratic message. On the other hand, as I've argued, I can see the case for wanting to partake of this enormously popular show and mix up its poor viewers' usual diet of God knows what. Whatever the merits of his appearance in that venue, his selling out on a matter of civil rights is of a piece with a timidity about cultural politics that he shares with so many Democrats, including liberals. We must challenge two disastrous premises: first, that what we believe to be good in matters of cultural contention, namely freedom and equality, are necessarily a political liability; and second, its flip side, a cavalier advocacy of social libertarianism that is shocked and helpless when some measure of conservative demagogy finds an audience, because culture is not an academic exercise and it never was, even though some of our views are rooted in reasoning about what's fair. Culture evokes passion because it is where we live and where we formulate our most intimate hopes. Until both premises, each in its way an evasion of mature politics, are transcended, we will have a hard time sticking by our convictions when the spotlight is on us, or else we will only do so weakly. In that failure, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy, discrediting the notion of a richly embodied liberal vision rather than a mere call for income redistribution, which has its place. but only inspires up to a point. As someone said, we do not live by bread alone.

When Dr. Dean realizes this point, and I don't think it's beneath his intellectual capacity to do so if we in the netroots think out the case and make an argument, I have little doubt he will get his fire back, which in its best manifestations, I submit, we sorely need. I'm fairly disgusted by his behavior in this episode, and now we all can learn from it. I think we need to learn that finding our voice for freedom is a worthy and urgent goal, more useful in the short run than people think.

Coffee!  Yuban Colombian coffee.  Good.  I am also fond of Community  & Luzianne brands from Louisiana, especially their Dark Roasts & New Orleans coffee & chicory.  Eight o'Clock Coffee from Montvale, NJ, roasts some delicious beans, as well. 

(This is mostly a test, but I do love to drink coffee.)

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17693

 Reporters Without Borders expressed shock and dismay after a brutal raid on a Christian radio station in Nairobi, Radio Hope, left one person dead and three injured overnight on 12 May 2006. The editorial management of the Pentacostal Church-owned radio blamed the raid on Muslim extremists. It immediately followed a Swahili-language broadcast entitled “Jesus is the way”, advocating conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Witnesses, cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP) said the attack on Radio Hope was carried out by a gang of about nine. Two of them opened fire on a night guard, killing him instantly and injuring another member of the security staff and a presenter before setting fire to the studios by throwing petrol bombs and taking the station off air. A passer-by was also injured as the band of attackers fled after the raid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060513/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc_2

KABUL

(Reuters) - Afghan police were hunting on Saturday for attackers who fired rocket-propelled grenades at a U.N. vehicle, killing a U.N. driver and a doctor from a German aid agency and seriously wounding a U.N. staffer. The chief U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, said he was deeply saddened by Friday's attack on the U.N. Children's Fund vehicle in the western province of Herat, and said he would do everything in his power to bring the perpetrators to justice. The three casualties were all Afghan. A security official in Herat said the attackers fired two rocket-propelled grenades, one of which hit the UNICEF vehicle. Four policemen who had been traveling in an escort vehicle were unaccounted for, he said. ... The UNICEF vehicle was on a routine health mission, traveling from Badghis province to Herat, when it was attacked. ... Koenigs said the United Nations had no idea why the UNICEF vehicle was attacked. "We know of no reasons why this attack should have occurred, nor can there be reason to justify murder and maiming," he said.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1147470612103&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

 Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistani intelligence officer and Osama bin Laden associate, says there is no quit in the Islamic principles that inspire the Taliban. "We play only a win-win game," he says. "For this reason, you cannot win from us. You fight to live; live a comfortable life. We fight to die. You love to live. We love to die."

And Lying to Investigators!

He's Going Down!
---
May 13, 2006

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

More

Today's News wire

As an editor I live for that special blogger posting to come along.

I believe the following is one.

Some nerve in the collective psyche has been pinched.

A cry has been raised, begging the question, "What are we to do?"

Will you join the discussion following the photoessay?

We need your input.

We need to act and soon.

What must we do?

I've had enough.

An article in Friday's NYTimes on the failures of the French university system struck me as something that might actually be very helpful.

Higher Learning in France Clings to Its Old Ways by Elaine Sciolino, May 12, 2006

Whether "spot-on" or lacking nuance or totally inaccurate as to reality of the situation in France, it struck American me as chock full of virtually all the classic reasons I have heard over decades from those who have prejudice against what are labeled "big government" solutions. The litanies there are almost like a laundry list of the problems that make people in the U.S. anti-central-government programs and pro-local control if not whole hog pro-privatization. I would think it would be very instructive for people trying to argue "common good" to study the plaints and problems presented in the article and develop counter-arguments as to why government control of certain things doesn't necessarily have to turn out this way. I kind of got a kick out of the quote at the end, it's almost as if it could have been written by an old time GOP operative about the dangers of socialism, but at the same time, it's too eloquent:

...." We are caught in a world of limits where there's no such thing as the self-made man," said Claire de la Vigne, a graduate of Nanterre who is now doing graduate work at the much more prestigious Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. "We are never taught the idea of the American dream, where everything is possible. Our guide is fear."....

I'd rather trust AT&T given only those choices.  But the question insinuates itself into practically every policy issue that we face at home or abroad.

Should New Orleans trust Bush? Should the EU? China? Iran? Iraq? Should Americans trust Bush?

Most don't and the number grows with good reason

Ex-WMD Inspector: Politics Quashed Facts

A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi "bioweapons trailers" were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, says a senior member of the CIA-led Iraq inspection team.


At one point, former U.N. arms inspector Rod Barton says, a CIA officer told him it was "politically not possible" to report that the White House claims were untrue. In the end, Barton says, he felt "complicit in deceit."

Barton, an Australian biological weapons specialist, discusses the 2004 events in "The Weapons Detective," a memoir of his years as an arms inspector, being published Monday in Australia by Black Inc. Agenda

 USA TODAY Editorial: NSA has your phone records; 'trust us' isn't good enough

The government is secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans.

Stop and think for a moment about the meaning of that simple, startling fact, exposed Thursday in a remarkable report by USA TODAY's Leslie Cauley.

In the narrowest interpretation, of course, it is benign. Possibly even helpful. It means that the National Security Agency (NSA) — the Pentagon-run spy agency that monitors communications — is using a new tool to hunt terrorists: Monitor phone traffic to identify threats and stop them.

This is all it means, President Bush told the public Thursday in a brief appearance aimed at quelling the instant outrage provoked by the story. He assured Americans that their civil liberties were being "fiercely protected" and that the government was "not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

In other words, never mind appearances. Trust us.

Well, that is not all it means. ....

Creating a huge, secret database of Americans' phone records does far more than threaten terrorists. It is a deeply troubling act that undermines U.S. freedoms and threatens us all.

The White House declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial.

 

Ever since 2002, when I watched an old US CIA trick being played on the people of Venezuela, I've followed the ongoing war of words between Hugo Chavez on the one hand and George Bush and numerous members of his Administration on the other.

In 2002, as we might remember, Chavez was overthrown in a coup that was wished for, initiated by and presumably financed by the Bush Administration through its foreign swat team, the CIA, and any number of governmental and right-wing non-governmental organizations (NGO's). To the Administration's dismay, however, the coup only lasted a few days, during which the official US position was basically good riddance.

This did little to endear Mr. Chavez to our leaders and only brought back bad memories of another South American nation, Chile, and another Socialist leader, Salvador Allende.

In both instances, those leaders had the affrontery to attack the foreign corporations that were exploiting the resources of the land while offering little to the people whose land and resources it was. Epidemic poverty continued while islands of obscene wealth and exploitation of the indigent population were the visual byproducts of the corporatocracy that really control most of the nations in Central and South America.

In 1972, the CIA and corporations like ITT and Anaconda Copper were instrumental in fomenting civic unrest, and in the coup that eventually resulted, President Allende was assassinated. This led to a nearly 30 year reign of brutal right-wing dictator--but US corporation-friendly-- Augusto Pinochet.

Since, 2002, I've expected the same thing to happen to Chavez--a man who has brought real change to the poor of Venezuela for the first time-- just because of the constant public demonization by an Administration that breathes, eats and shits corporate greed.

Four years later, however, Chavez is still alive and has become a hero to millions in South America, where country after country are turning left because of his example. As a result, the man has become a real threat to world corporatism.

This week Chavez and the latest Chavez-like leader in South America, Evo Morales of Bolivia, strode into Europe with their brand of South American machismo and are fucking freaking out the EU leaders, who all live by the Western corporate code. In their world--as in ours--there is no room for any other system but free-market capitalism.

Democracy, as we have found out all too well in the last 6 years, has little to do with what our world is really about. Capitalism is the true game and we should give some degree of gratitude to the Bushies and their larcenous Republican foot soldiers for showing us the real underbelly of American politics; corporate money, unbridled greed and lawlessness.

In their attempts to shake-up the corporations (in the guise of political governments) that have run roughshod though third-world nation after third-world nation since the end of colonialism, I commend their bold efforts.

In their desire to pioneer real change in a part of the world that has known little but greedy exploitation by outsiders, I wish them success.

In their need to stay alive, I can only hope that they stay out of the line of fire from those entities they really threaten.

This could be problematic:

A Democratic candidate for Alabama attorney general denies the Holocaust occurred and said Friday he will speak this weekend in New Jersey to a "pro-white" organization that is widely viewed as being racist.

Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to "reawaken white racial awareness" with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson.

Check out the whole story at http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--alabamaattorneyge0512may12,0,3823208.story?coll=sns-ap-health-headlines&track=mostemailedlink

Luckily this doesn't seem to be indicative of a larger trend among Democrats, unlike Republicans, who over the past 10 years seem to have trended more and more toward exacerbating racial tensions, though in their case most specifically between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, as demonstrated by the phenomenal growth of Tom Tancredo's immigration caucus.

And if we keep using that term (wrongly), we undermine our cause.

"Data mining" is a technical term for the sophisticated (or even brute-force) analyses of large collections of data, looking for patterns that might give rise to actionable strategies.

Data mining is rarely if ever applied to the original data directly. Before being "data mined", the data are gathered into something called a data warehouse, and massaged a bit to optimize for mining.

The word "mining" may be a source of the confusion. It suggests "pulling data out of their original, natural locations," for later use (or misuse). But that isn't what it means.

In truth, the "mining" in the term really means "mining for patterns," and presumes that the data have already been pulled out of their natural locations and gathered together, ready to be analyzed.

Why am I making this seemingly obscure technical distinction? Because data mining isn't illegal.

If we continue to call what the NSA is doing "data mining," we are falling into a bad trap. It's an argument we are bound to lose. I repeat: Data mining isn't illegal, unconstitutional, or even unethical.

What's illegal (or so we believe or hope) is the gathering of the data, not the analysis.

It doesn't matter whether the NSA "data mines" our call records, or merely keeps them around to be handy for lookups, say to check out a political enemy, or to track a leak.

What we don't want is for the NSA to gather the data in the first place, nor to keep it around if they happen to have gathered it "accidentally". That - the "gathering" - is the real issue.

"Data mining" is a serious misframing of the issue. It is a trap, probably set by Karl Rove. Once we've stipulated that what the NSA is doing is "data mining," we have lost our argument, simply because data mining isn't illegal.

Look at it another way: Suppose the FBI comes into your home while you are away and without a proper warrant. Suppose they photograph everything with high resolution digital cameras, then leave. Then, back at their labs, they use sophisticated image-processing techniques to discover everything about you, including possible evidence of a crime.

Data mining is analogous to the image-processing the FBI did back at the lab. It wasn't illegal. But what was illegal was for them to enter your home and take the photographs in the first place.

[Click for NSA Link Analysis Example Image]

The latest revelation that the National Security Agency has gathered phone records of millions of ordinary Americans has generated outrage and controversy across the political spectrum. The NSA has gathered phone records apparently without court orders in violation of existing statutes. It appears that the NSA is attempting to use this vast database of phone records to connect the dots between known terrorists by using software to look for links and patterns in the records. Unfortunately, the fact that the phone records contain the phone numbers of millions of ordinary and innocent Americans opens the door to abuse of the database and guilt by association.

The NSA is likely using link analysis techniques in an attempt to connect known targets separated by multiple degrees of separation. Link analysis is a simple yet powerful tool that can be used very effectively on structured relational data. Link analysis is nothing but the high tech equivalent of the "Kevin Bacon Game".

The image above shows an example of how NSA would connect Bad Guy #1 with Bad Guy #2. To do so, NSA would need the phone records of Bad Guy #1, Person A, Person D, Person G and Bad Guy #2. By traversing the phone record tree from both directions the NSA could connect Bad Guy #1 and Bad Guy #2 by finding that they both are connected to intermediate Persons A, D or G.

In order for the NSA to do link analysis with a court order, the NSA would have to first get a warrant for the phone records of Bad Guy #1. It would then have to get a warrant for phone records for each person on Bad Guy #1's phone record (i.e., persons A and B) and then get warrants for the persons on the phone records of the next set of people and so on. At some point, the NSA would have a difficult case to make that one of these intervening people was legitimately connected to an ongoing investigation. Even if it succeeded in making the case for the warrant, the logistics of getting a warrant at every step of the process would make this kind of link analysis cumbersome and nearly impossible to perform in real time. I suspect that is why the NSA and the President decided to go around the law. When faced with a question of law, instead of asking Congress to update the law, the Government chose to ignore the law.

The problem in this approach for the NSA was that getting the phone records of intervening persons between two known bad guys requires court orders. There is perhaps a simple way to achieve the goals of the NSA without the court orders and the violations of privacy that results if the court orders are not sought. I propose that instead of seeking the actual phone numbers from the phone companies, the NSA should seek secure hashed equivalents of the phone numbers. That is, all phone records handed over to the NSA should contain secure hashed ids instead of the actual phone numbers of American citizens. The phone company would keep the actual phone records and the mappings between the phone numbers and their hashed equivalents. This will ensure that the NSA does not have a database of phone numbers of ordinary Americans. I also believe there is no law that would be violated by the phone companies turning over this data to the NSA.

Briefly, secure hashing is a technique that is commonly used to store passwords and to digitally sign electronic messages. The power of secure hashing lies in that when a number or string is hashed to produce a message digest, there is no way to get back to the original number or string. However, the same number, if secure hashed repeatedly will result in the same message digest. This feature allows one to store data, a password or phone record for example, in a database without the original password or phone record being compromised. Given the original phone number or password, one can secure hash it and then compare it to data in the database to find its matching hash. SHA-1, the most commonly used secure hashing algorithm was designed by none other than the National Security Agency.

This new database maintained at the NSA, using secure hashed ids in lieu of phone numbers, would be just as effective for data mining and link analysis. If the NSA knows the phone number(s) of a known target or targets, they can simply convert the phone number to its secure hashed equivalent (or "message digest" ). These message digests then can be used to perform link analysis on the database. Using the example in the image, the NSA would secure hash the phone number of Bad Guy #1 and look up the phone record equivalents in the database. They would find the hashed message digests representing Persons A and B. When they look up the records for the message digest of person A, they would similarly find the message digest of Person D. Similarly, coming from the other side, the NSA would secure hash the actual number for Bad Guy #2 and find the message digest of Person G. In looking at the records of Person G, the NSA would find the message digest of Person D. Then, Voila!, the NSA will have connected Bad Guy #1 to Bad Guy #2 without knowing the phone numbers of Persons A, D and G. Armed with the message digests of Persons A, D and G, the NSA can now approach the court for a warrant based on probable cause. The phone companies can then provide the NSA with the actual numbers and identities of Persons A, D and G by mapping the message digests to their original phone numbers that the companies would keep in their own databases. The phone records of all other persons not involved between Bad Guy #1 and Bad Guy #2 will remain unknown to the NSA.

This simple use of existing cryptography techniques may eliminate the need for the massive intrusion into the privacy of ordinary Americans that is currently occurring. This solution allows the NSA to troll and mine to their hearts content in an attempt to keep us safe without violating our hard earned civil liberties. Who knows, with any luck it will come to light that the NSA is already doing this and all this fuss will have been about nothing. However, the fact that Qwest balked at handing over phone records to the NSA suggests to me that the NSA is not using this simple but effective technique.

Also posted at my web site.

63% of Americans said they had no objection to being probed anally by government sniffer machines if it meant the security of the United States would be ensured, including 44% who said they would volunteer for surgical castration to prevent terrorists from watching American TV.

A slightly larger majority--66%--said that allowing National Security agents to slowly roast their first-born children in front of their eyes was an acceptable way to prevent terrorism, and 65% said it was more important to let George Bush burn the Declaration of Independence and shove the Constitution up John Conyers' butt "for just a little while" than to selfishly hang on to their pitiful last shreds of privacy and freedom, "even if it intrudes on privacy."

51% said that Bush was such a scary guy that they would gladly agree to live under the interstate overpass and let Alberto Gonzales have their homes to house shock troops in, as long as they were allowed to have a bathroom break once a day.

Only 28% said they would rather breathe in ricin fumes than to give George Bush one more undeserved day of occupation in the Oval Office, and less than 17% could remember the definition of the word "democracy".

A total of 502 randomly selected brain-damaged adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey.

Friday 12 May 2006

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources. MORE

 HALLELLUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over fifty Congressmen have signed a letter requesting appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the NSA domestic surveillance program. See http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/More_than_50_in_Congress_write_0512.html.

My Representative, John Salazar, is one of them. I thanked him today. You are all encouraged to contact your Representatives and Senators.

Friday, May 12, 2006
by Greg Palast

I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.

This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

More: THE SPIES WHO SHAG US

That's right folks, the Sovietization of America is at hand.
US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies       JULY/04

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity”         
SEE: http://www.citizencorps.gov/

Ex-Stasi Spy(KGB) To Head Homeland Security    DEC 6/04
Political analyst Al Martin, who has in the past proven accurate in getting ahead of the news curve, is reporting that Homeland Security have hired former Stasi head, the 'Silver Fox' Markus Wolf.   “That is his specialty, is taking a population, constructing the various state divisions, mechanisms of control, in order to organize informants within the population. That is his real specialty. And that is precisely, as Primakov has intimated, why Wolf is being brought in.”
 

Bush Admin Hiring of Ex-KGB Chiefs to Develop Internal Passport   JAN 9/05
KGB Chiefs (Generals) Yvgeny Primakov and Alexander Karpov to assist Homeland Security and DARPA in the design of an internal passport for Americans.   Maine citizens also should know that both Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Sen. Collins are aware of, but unwilling to discuss, the hiring in 2003 by the Bush administration's Department of Homeland Security, Office of Information Awareness, of two ex-KGB chiefs (secret police in the Soviet Union) by the names of Gen. Alexander Karpov and Gen. Yvgeny Primakov. 
Primakov was also Premier of Russia in the late nineties, is a close associate of Saddam Hussein, and was in Baghdad one month prior to the U.S. invasion, advising Hussein on how to deal with the United States! 
Ex-KGB and STASI Chiefs To Work Under Chertoff    JAN 16/05

Hat tip to Bracewell .

Godwin's Law teaches us to apply our opponents' greatest fear against them, in this case a Red Scare. "The Commies are comin'!", is guaranteed to fill  a Red Stater's drawers. Frame the DHS/NSA as the KGB.

The NSA, the Database and YOU: Talking Points

Inspired by a recent post by Laurie David, and the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth I got inspired to put a little quantitative heft behind the comparison of climate skeptics to the mainstream climate scientists for whom there is an overwhelming consensus that global warming due to us is going on and must be attended to soon if we want to change things.

The basic issue is that you have order 2-3000 climate scientists of repute worldwide who are behind the global warming consensus, and a literal handful (Richard Lindzen of MIT, Robert Balling of Arizona State, Sallie Baliunas of Harvard, S. Fred Singer of Virginia and George Mason, Pat Michaels of Virginia) who the media has consistently sought out for ``balance'' over the years. To a person, these folks have fossil fuel based funding. You can say that need not bias them, but it is eerily reminiscent of the way big tobacco funded health research.

Now, there is no question that Lindzen has stature-he is, deservedly for the body of work, a member of the National Academy of Science. Baliunas also has stature-but primarily in astronomy research, not climate research.

How to compare to people like Ben Santer and Tom Wigley of Lawrence Livermore Labs, or Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric research in Boulder, who are three of the most notable mainstream climate scientists? A quick pass is provided by the WEb of Science/Citation Index. This counts citations to papers written by given authors, which is an imperfect but legitimate measure of impact. The more a paper is cited, the more that is evidence that this paper has been important. This idea is similar to the way Google ranks sites based upon links. The first pass searching here may miss some citations and papers, but with the same methodology for all the systematic bias should be similar.

This is a well known database in the scientific community, and any good science journalist can and should use it. I have no idea if they do.

What do you measure? Well, total numbers of papers indicates overall productivity. Typical strong scientists in any field produce a minimum of 3-5 per year. A really good scientist should have had at least one or more hits--papers that got several hundred citations a piece. But you can get lucky-sustained impact is measured by the citations per paper, which should be in the 20-30 range at minimum for a strong scientist, and the number of citations per year. This will grow for older scientists if they remain impactful.

Here are some results:

Mainstream side:

Santer: Total papers on Web of Science: 49

Highest cited: 321

Total citations: 1302

Cites per year since PhD (1988): 72

Cites per paper 27

Wigley: Total papers on Web of Science: 160

Highest cited single paper: 420

Total citations: 5129

Cites per year since PhD (1967) 131

Cites per paper 32

Trenberth: Total papers on Web of Science 147

Highest Cited single paper 669

Total citations 5155

Cites per year since Phd (1972) 152

Cites per paper 35

Now, on the skeptic side:

Lindzen: Total papers on Web of Science 187

Highest Cited single paper 860

Total citations 4878

Cites per year since Phd (1972) 116

Cites per paper 26

Michaels : Total papers on Web of Science 52

Highest Cited single paper 24

Total citations 280

Cites per year since Phd (1973) 8

Cites per paper 5

Singer: Total papers on Web of Science 263

Highest Cited single paper 88

Total citations 1401

Cites per year since Phd (1948) 24

Cites per paper 5

Balling: Total papers on Web of Science 118

Highest Cited single paper 59

Total citations 760

Cites per year since Phd (1972) 28

Cites per paper 6

Baliunas: Total papers on Web of Science 79

Highest Cited single paper 535

Total citations 2463

Cites per year since Phd (1979) 91

Cites per paper 31

Climate papers only-9 total, highest

cited-32, total cites 116.

So what do we take from this?

Well, just taking three of the better known but in no way atypical mainstream climate scientists worried about warming, we see that they are al really good by these measures. Remember, these are three of some three thousand worldwide.

On the skeptic side, Singer, Balling, Michaels, have, frankly, not very impressive scientific records by these measures. Lindzen does, and Baliunas does overall, but not for the climate work. Why does this matter? BECAUSE THE MEDIA FOR YEARS HAS BEEN PUTTING PEOPLE LIKE MICHAELS, SINGER, AND BALLING ON THE SAME LEVEL AS SANTER, TRENBERTH, and WIGLEY WHEN IT COMES TO CLIMATE SCIENCE!!!!

The ONLY one of the skeptics who has a credibly strong record in the area is Lindzen, and I must say that the revelations that he has taken fossil fuel money concern me. It suggests that his mainstream funding may have dried up. Whether that is the case or not, when you look at

RICHARD LINDZEN vs. 2-3000 CREDIBLE SCIENTISTS tell me, oh media, WHY DO YOU CALL THAT BALANCE??????

I don't want to seem continually to be ragging on the Moose, but...

What a lie. I'd like nothing better than to rag on The Moose every day, but (a) I don't have the time and/or no one will pay me to and (b) calling attention to his goofier-and-goofier observations is counterproductive. (Notice how no one seems to link to anything the Moose says any more?)

One can predict what the Moose will support with great precision these days; he's for anything that pushes his paranoia button. He's for strikes on Iran, he's for the latest unbelievably invasive phone records database. Sees nothing wrong with it. We're fighting a war, people.

I've figured out the pattern. He will be for anything that even vaguely counters things that scare him, and virtually everything scares The Moose. Scares the PANTS off him, to the point where he will surrender ANYTHING. Want my phone records? Fine, says the Moose. Take my bank records while you're at it.

Moose is incapable of looking at it any other way because his is a binary world. He's as bad as the worst of the pee-their-pants right: Are you for terrorism, or are you for security? Choose!

In my book one has to display a more-than-nodding acquaintance with the institutions and protections that make America what she is in order to be perceived as ANY sort of progressive. I've never seent the Moose display any such thing.

Here's a real question: If your criteria for "what's OK" is anything that appears to counter terrorism in any possible way (I say appears because, as Moosie of course doesn't know because he doesn't think this hard, the results of this intelligence excercise aren't a mystery; they were worthless), then what will you NOT surrender to the Gestapo? Where DO you draw the line?

Apparently, the Moose doesn't draw the line anywhere at all. Sounds more like a sheep to me.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0510/p01s04-wome.html

"In Europe they tell Muslims that they have to create parallel societies and that they should not follow European laws," says Ms. Baran. "If this happens it will impossible for people like me to argue that Islam can be democratic."...

...Hizb ut-Tahrir takes a more gradual, long-term strategy for spreading the territory under Muslim rule.

"Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate - I would not say terrorize - the enemies of Islam," says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist. "In the beginning, the Caliphate would strengthen itself internally and it wouldn't initiate jihad."

"But after that we would carry Islam as an intellectual call to all the world," says Abu Mohammed, a pseudonym. "And we will make people bordering the Caliphate believe in Islam. Or if they refuse then we'll ask them to be ruled by Islam."

And after that? Abu Mohammed pauses and fiddles with his Pepsi before replying.

"And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam," he says, smiling. "This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light."

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=15851

“I have lost hope for Islam and I think it’s the duty of all thinkers to be blunt and straightforward to change the minds of Muslims,” she said confidently, flanked by two bodyguards, to a receptive audience of about 150 at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. ... The daughter of devout Muslims, Sultan first began to question Islam as a medical student at the University of Aleppo, where she witnessed members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood political group shoot dead her professor while shouting “Allah is great.” She and her husband immigrated to the United States in 1989. She describes her mission as educating the world about what she calls the dangers of Islam and fostering an intellectual rebellion among “oppressed” and “brainwashed” Muslims. “There is no moderate Islam at all because Islam is different from any other religion,” Sultan said. “They believe the Quran is the absolute word of God and we’re not supposed to play with it or change it.” In addition, she said, in Islam religion and politics are intertwined, making state enforcement of Islam a religious goal among devout Muslims in any country. Islam, she said, “shouldn’t be classified as just a religion but a policy which applies its teachings violently.” Sultan didn’t reserve her criticism for Islam alone. She faulted President George W. Bush for referring to Islam as a religion of peace. She said that America has the responsibility and right to lead the ideological change that needs to occur among Muslims, to liberate them, but through “books — not only tanks.”

Greed, fraud, and corruption, how many more poster-boys for these three basic 'evils' in politics does the GOP have to yield up before it finally sheds its' last 5 supporters? Payola, bay-bee, it was true of the record industry, and it's true in Washington, today. "Physician, heal thyself", right? Um, not so fast. When the 'fox' guards the 'henhouse', the chickens ain't safe. Plainly put, we're the chickens, the people too a-skeered of calling a spade a spade, a pile of BS a pile of BS, because if we do, they'll go'n cut off our social s'kurrity, medi-scare, or the forces of evil will sneak in under cover of darkness and steal our first-born etc. I guess the moral of BushCo is, 'Don't believe the hype', and when someone says 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help', RUN the other way! LOLOL

Seriously though, can they be THAT bad? Well, the potential is sure there, and I think the voters need to ACT, not just on election day in november, but long before.

If the mexicans can march in our streets, by golly we can, and it's time to put some of these porkers on notice that it's OUR country they're messing with, and they can be put OUT of business, too. Which business am I referring to? Why, none other than dear old Standard Oil, of course, AKA BP or whatever flag they're flying these days, but Big Oil nonetheless.

Kids, america's got troubles. There's something wrong with our eyes, like the man said, I don't know if we're livin' on the edge, but we're living in the dark, that's for sure...CBS etc. sure aren't going to stick their precious necks out and put this administration(and their crafty and equally unethical, corrupt, and manipulative predecessors) on the carpet, hey as long as there's scandals THEY get paid, right? Right? But, every so often, you get stuff that comes along that rises(or falls, more accurately) to the general level of J. Edgar Hoover(there's a citizen, by golly), or evokes memories of McCarthy, and you feel compelled to speak, well at least I do. Apparently, by the polls, if you believe in those things, an increasing number of people feel the way I do, which is encouraging, I guess, but the guys up there are still in office, laughing all the way to the bank. Show of hands, how many people think social security's going to be around in 20 years? Anyone? Anyone? And, that's just one issue.

This country's deep in debt. They wanna drive us harder onto that 'spike', hold down the american people, and basically drink our blood, as it were. Kind of a gruesome visualization, but more or less on target, I believe. And, it's not just 'them', as it were, it's all their buddies from overseas, their oil-pals, well soon-to-be-former-oil-pals, at this rate,

they're all gonna bolt for china 'cause at the end of the day, We, The People still run america, whether 'they' like it or not.

It's time to get out and make up your signs, copy the hippies, learn from the hippies, 'they' are running the same game they were 30 years ago, read about Vietnam(including the OIL), and see what you think of what's going on today. There's a major lesson to be learned from all of this, be a shame if we missed it, don'tcha think?

Nuff said.

Joel Barkin, the Executive Director of the Progressive States Network, has a column today in (of all places) the New Hampshire Union Leader about cleaning up the on-going stench in government/politics. What struck me the most in Barkin's writing was the absence of Republican or, to be fairer, conservative organizations sponsoring or taking part in a scheduled meetup to discuss the situation. Here a paragraph late in the column:

"...Tomorrow, legislators from across New England will meet with citizens and non-profit advocates in Concord to discuss the best ideas for cleaning up state governments. Already, people from all over the Northeast (and even a few from across the country) have registered for this event that is open to the public. The conference is being co-sponsored by the Progressive States Network, Public Campaign, Common Cause, the Center for American Progress, Americans for Campaign Reform, MoveOn Civic Action, NH PIRG, New Hampshire Citizens Alliance, and Democracy for New Hampshire..."

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch receives a positive mention, as does Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Where are the supposed civic-minded conservatives or Republicans? Is it simply a matter of the GOP being in charge nationally and nobody daring to ruffle the slimy underbelly of Karl Rove? That existing power translates into we-don't-need-no-stinking-change?

To be fair, if the current Democratic 'powerbrokers' were suddenly in all the top national positions, I'm not so sure the reaction would be any different from that of the current cabal. See Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer...

And that's where a dynamic difference lies: many in the progressive netroots want the Democrats back in power but also desire fundamental changes in election funding, lobbying, contributions and the like. Back in power, YES. But back in power demonstrating a dramatic difference in politics as no longer usual. Demonstrating to the cynical American public that the Democrats are fundamentally different. That K Street won't be able to simply switch to kissing Democratic financial ass if a change in power takes place.

But, oh, that's right. The Progressive States Network, Public Campaign, Common Cause, the Center for American Progress, Americans for Campaign Reform, MoveOn Civic Action, NH PIRG, New Hampshire Citizens Alliance, and Democracy for New Hampshire are all made up of wild-eyed, radical, fringe liberals and directly responsible for the string of Democratic losses in national elections of late.

There's also a fundamental difference between the progressive and the conservative netroots. The latter, with few exceptions, only wishes to hammer those deemed 'enemies' and 'traitors,' plus consolidate power at any cost. Reform? Hah! Calling out their own debauched practioners? Yeah, right.

Yes, I desperately want the Democratic back in power across this country. But I won't settle for a slick paint job, a thin veneer of 'newness' that has no real meaning and alters little in how the corporate business world directs American politics. We must close the Republican/Democratic revolving door, the one that produces no discernible difference in operations, just interchangeable names on the checks written by the corporate lobbyists.

To read Barkin's entire column, go here:

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Joel+Barkin%3A+Now+is+the+time+to+tackle+corruption+in+government&articleId=89b8f239-2492-41b1-ba63-0014de3331e3

 

Posted by Don from The Ward Report

Earlier, I pointed to the WaPo follow-up on yesterday's USATD story about Bush's domestic spying.

The WaPo quotes an anonymous source that seeks to justify their monitoring mine and your phone calls with a red herring the size of Delaware,

"Let's say lots comes in and we don't see anything interesting," said a source who helped develop the technology. "Tomorrow we find out someone is communicating with a known terrorist. When you go back and look at the past data, there may be information that you missed. A pattern that was meaningless suddenly makes sense."

Federal law has always allowed law enforcement to not only monitor numbers called, but record the content of calls, bug homes and businesses, etc. of "known terrorists". Some from St. Louis may recall that several years ago a murder of a young Palestinian girl living with her family here in Saint Louis was solved because the FBI had their house lawfully bugged and recorded the murder. Modification to laws since 9/11 were designed to make this even easier to do -- lawfully -- by the Federal Gov't.

Law enforcement has no problems listening to and recording the conduct of "known terrorist" as well as everyone who has contact with said "known terrorist".

Make no mistake. This program has nothing to do with listening to "known terrorists" and everything to do with listening to you and me.

And if your naive enough to believe we now know all there is to know about this program, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

 

 

No person who cares even a little about preserving the Constitution and the rule of law can help but be outraged about the most recently disclosed NSA abuse - the collection of call logs for all Americans, except those lucky enough to use Qwest. It is outrageous on its face. As described, it may not violate the Fourth Amendment proscriptions against unreasonable searches and seizures, but it clearly violates several statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Telecommunications Act.

But the key phrase is "as described." They say they are only analyzing the data for patterns. They are not recording calls or collecting names and addresses. BALONEY. Who do they think they are fooling? There would be no point to "looking at patterns" unless you did something once the patterns are detected.

Before this is over, if we ever get to the bottom, we will find out that this is only the first step in a process of listening in on phone calls. Not just for the previously disclosed NSA wiretaps of foreign to domestic calls, but also purely domestic calls. That means you and me, not just the guy behind the tree.

Given this administration's track recording in detaining innocent people, they have been eavesdropping on thousands of innocent Americans for every one they identify who is even remotely connected to terrorism. We should not forget that of the approximately five thousand people arrested after 9/11 not one was prosecuted for anything related to terrorism. Of the five hundred plus cycled through Gitmo, the worst of the worst according to our esteemed and knowledgeable Vice President, hundreds have been release, only a few have actually been found by the Gitmo court to be enemy combatants and none have been tried for terrorism.

This administration has been conducting warrantless surveillance since 9/11 with precious little to show for it. Remember that Richard Reed was apprehended by the passengers on his flight rather than the NSA or the FBI. Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested before 9/11. The few other so called "terrorism" cases have involved a doctor wrongly accused of involvement in the Madrid bombing, people from Lebanon or Palestine who have raised funds for Hamas, which has never declared itself our enemy and is now the elected government of Palestine, and a few pathetic morons who may have gone to an al Qaeda training camp but who were never shown to have been planning anything in this country.

We are turning the Constitution and laws of our nation inside out for what. Because there are some radical Islamists in the middle east who were outraged by our stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia after the First Gulf War and acted on that anger by committing a heinous crime. We started to wipe them out in Afghanistan but let them off the hook so that we could invade Iraq. This only gave them a new recruiting tool.

These Islamists have declared themselves our enemy. But their enmity is not grounded in abstract principles. It is based on their opposition to our policies and actions in the Middle East. Instead of trying to address some of the underlying problems, we only make them worse.

The islamists have clearly demonstrated a capacity to cause us harm. But as horrific as 9/11 was for the victims, families and our nation as a whole it was not a threat to our nation's survival or our way of life. Only we can do that. And we do it by shredding the Constitution in the name of security.

This is not the threat of nuclear annihilation we faced in forty five years of the cold war. Why do we behave as if it is? We know why the Administration tries to convince us that it is WWIII. Fear is a potent governing tool. They have used it very successfully. But now it is time for the American people to say "enough."

First published on - september1787.blogspot.com

Ask them.

Verizon 'Ethics' Line: 800 856-1885 or 800 968-4586 TTY and 800 488-7900 for Verizon Wireless.

Ask:

Did you sell my private information to the NSA as reported in USA Today?(Tens of millions of terr-ists in America)

Did you do so without a warrant?

Why did you not notify me that you had done so?

Did you violate the law in doing so?

Recording the call is suggested. After all,  the NSA will.

Crossposted at 'Why did Verizon sell us out to the NSA?'.

Well, on this Friday, the embarrassing news for the administration just keeps coming. However, as each story breaks, new questions are raised, old ones remained unanswered. With that in mind, I'd like to offer a few more questions, ones I'd love to know the answer to.

1. A few months ago, the administration's excuse for its warrantless wiretapping was that they weren't simply spying on everyday Americans. This assertion, of course, was proven inoperative Thursday. Despite the news, President Bush soldiered on, saying, "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." If yesterday's revelation was the other shoe dropping on the earlier story, how long do you think it will take for the other shoe to drop on this scandal? How long do you think it will take before we find the president defending the legality of mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans? Six months? Three?

2. Taking Question No. 1 in another direction, how long until the administration panics and attempts to change the story by, say, attacking Iran? I mean, we know they won't try to fight off criticism by tackling the most pressing issues. But I'm afraid that their usual tactics - flag-burning legislation, gay-marriage bans, immigration crack-downs - won't work this time. Nor will renewed rhetoric to combat high gas prices despite never following through. Nope, none of that will do. And, unfortunately, I'm afraid Bush has some shock-and-awe up his sleeve.

3. If the government is so interested in my calls for Chinese delivery, why, then, can't we obtain complete logs of Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House? Or details about the now-infamous Vice President Cheney energy policy meeting? Or who was originally responsible for the Valerie Plame leak? Disclosure for me but not for thee? Buy the way, President Bush, the General Tso's Chicken was fabulous, but I'd equally recommend the Chicken Lo Mein.

4. How long will Bush's claims that each new revelation further threatens our ability to fight the war on terror fly? Can you honestly tell me that, until yesterday or until a few months ago, those hoping to attack us didn't know they would, in one way or another, be surveilled? Will the president keep up this line of reasoning until the Bill of Rights is a "quaint" relic of the past better left to history classes? I'd like to know, because the double-standard regarding leaks from this administration is staggering. Especially considering that Plame's job was to track the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iran. But that's a good leak compared to this one? Please.

5. Bill O'Reilly has quickly jumped to the defense of the administration in the wake of Thursday's revelation. If he's so unconcerned about a spy agency maintaining a history of everyone's phone calls, why was he so concerned about his phone calls to Andrea Mackris seeing the light of day? I'd be interested to see how O'Reilly would bloviate about this blatant hypocrisy. I'll even give you the final word, Bill.

6. Care to guess what Tony Snow's first question will be? Think it will be about how he's settling into his new job? Or, more to the point, if he's not grilled about Thursday's news, then we'll know the media has completely abdicated its responsibility to the American people. That unless, of course, something worse happens before next week. Given the course of events, that's a 50/50 proposition at the very least.

7. The latest polling has the president at 29 percent. How low do you think he can go before talk of impeachment isn't scuttled any longer and instead becomes widespread activity? Many Republicans have clearly begun abandoning Bush's ship, a trend I expect to continue. How long until one of them calls for the president's resignation?

8. Anyone think that Qwest's stock won't be up today? Better get it now, people!

President just five points away from Nixon's mark

Special to The WitList
12 May 2006

WASHINGTON, DC -- According to Harris Interactive, President Bush's approval rating now stands at 29 percent. It is the first time the president's popularity has dropped below the 'magic 30 percent' figure in any poll.

Mr. Bush's new low puts him just five percentage points away from the all-time leader, Richard M. Nixon. The legendary Sultan of Sleaze registered an approval rating of just 24 percent in August 1974, days before he resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Anxious fans are now following the president's every appearance, waiting for history to happen. With a new domestic spying scandal in full swing and Rove indictments on the way, supporters are confident Bush will break the record some time this summer.

However, critics say Mr. Bush's record-breaking effort is tainted by his use of controlled substances in the 1970s and 1980s, which rendered him as simple-minded as a child.

"It's hard to be totally corrupt when you can't even spell 'corrupt'," says one aide, who declined to be named.

Critics also note the president has enjoyed advantages not available to Mr. Nixon. Though both men presided over an unpopular war and a scandal-plagued administration, Bush's quest for the record was aided by his disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, a trigger-happy vice president, and the most corrupt GOP-lead Congress in more than 100 years.

Officials at Harris Interactive have stated that if the president does surpass Mr. Nixon's mark, there will be no asterisk next to his name in the record books.

"A record is a record, no matter how deplorable," said the spokesman.

Does anyone wonder if the news on the widespread warrentless NSA phone record snooping was intentionally leaked at this time so that any discusssion of the 70 billion dollar tax cut for the wealthy would slide to the back pages of the newspaper?

I have the sneaking suspicion that it is not a coincidence that this story broke while these tax cuts were quietly being passed in the senate and the house.

I think that fighting the tax cuts for the wealthy is a much better fight for the democrats at this time and I would do everything I could to get that on the front page. I find the snooping quite worrisome, but many Americans don't seem to have a problem with Big Brother as long as they think it is keeping them safe. The republicans use democratic objection to the spying as a "you care more about the terrorists than you do about America" stick.

This smells like Karl Rove to me.

A family will go a long way to protect itself from being identified as "dysfuntional." Fathers who beat their wives and children, alcoholic relatives, and crazy uncles are among those whom families, (through denial and false smiles) try to hide the truth from the world.

The decision to forego the latest investigation into the NSA wiretapping because those being investigated won't grant the status needed to the investigators brought the absurdity to light for me.

Then, I woke up to hear that just about everyone in the good old US of A has had their mundane; their private; their business; and whatever kind of phone calls we make--->noted by Uncle Dubya Sam.

Then, I read Sid Blumenthol's amazing take on what Bush has done to the CIA:

I have to admit, I am of two minds:

On the one hand George Bush is a crazy uncle that the Congress is too emabarrassed to go after, because to admit his lunacy would so profoundly weaken our country that the price of truth is just too high. Since most of their friends and contributors are doing ok, they have just decided to keep it in the family for now.... I mean, how much more damage can he do?

On the other hand, I have to ask myself, how has he managed to gut the CIA, castrate the Congress, declare an undeclared war, break laws without having to answer for it; and on and on. But most of all, how did he manage to bask in the GLORY? of the (predicted) worst attack on the United States, EVER? How did he manage to turn this to his advantage when he ignored the warnings and continued to clear brush?

Is this a crazy uncle, or the most nefarious enemy our country has every known?

Like all Americans who believe in the Constitution, my outrage at the recent revelations regarding NSA gaining access to the customer call logs of three of the major phone companies leaves me fuming.

As luck would have it, I am a Qwest customer. Qwest, and more specifically its lawyers, refused to release its customer information. Upon hearing this I immediatly called Qwest to thank them for standing up for the Constitution. I urge all Qwest customers to do the same.

Congress doesn't seem able to stand up to this Administration's abuses of power and precious few private institutions display much courage either. I am gratified that Qwest is an exception.

The Da Vinci Goad

Nothing will send a novel to the top of the best seller list faster than a controversy. Tell the masses not to buy a book and they will immediately wipe out the inventory of every major bookseller outlet. So I am sure nothing made The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown more happy than when he read the latest criticism of his novel on the news wire:

The Greek Orthodox Church reportedly criticized the best selling Da Vinci Code thriller, the film of which comes out in the coming days, as offensive and mistaken.

-SNIP-

"The work attacks and undermines in a treacherous manner religious knowledge," said the leaflet, produced by the church's supreme body, the holy synod.(Breitbart.com)

Who are they kidding? Does this organization or the Catholic Church in general really believe that their calls for boycotts and legal action will sway followers from reading the book or seeing the film? If anything the opposite is most likely to occur:

Commentators say such pronouncements, and the stories they generate, are bound to backfire by generating extra interest in the film and lending weight to the argument that the church has something to hide.(Scotsman.com)

Brown’s novel is now being credited as one of the most popular books of all time with 40 million copies sold worldwide. My bet is that with each demand made by church leaders, Brown’s book sales get a nice little boost.

I thought The Da Vinci Code was a good read (Angels & Demons was better in my opinion) and it obviously presents an interesting perspective on the history of the Christian faith. But I think the church leaders protesting this publication failed to recognize a very important detail. The Da Vinci Code is sold as… FICTION!

Fiction is defined as “an imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.”

It almost seems that church leaders are afraid that large numbers of people will unquestionably believe the premise of The Da Vinci Code and see its popularity as a confirmation of its validity. Nah… What historical evidence do they have to believe that?

Ignorant Electorate + Arrogant Politicians = Our Current Situation

With President Bush’s approval ratings hovering in the low 30s right now you would think that along with the disapproval would come some introspection by the electorate who voted him into office… Twice. But it seems that the ignorance and arrogance permeating the Executive branch is simply a reflection of the people who assisted in creating it.

The American public’s ignorance is demonstrated by its lack of knowledge of the Constitution, public policy and basic government. We laugh whenever President Bush stumbles over his words or improvises new ones, but is it funny when the following comes to light?

Americans know more about The Simpsons TV show than the US Constitution's First Amendment, an opinion poll says.

Only one in four could name more than one of the five freedoms it upholds but more than half could name at least two members of the cartoon family.

About one in five thought the right to own a pet was one of the freedoms.(BBC)

We fail to learn, understand and put into practice the “supreme law of the land” while simultaneously scoffing our representatives, stereotyping them as “corrupt” and giving them even LESS approval than the President! And here is the best part, we will vote them back into office! As Benjamin Franklin once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Personally, I believe that an educated electorate will recognize that we are given a “Hobson’s Choice” every presidential election. Remember, choosing the lesser of two evils still gives you evil. Learn your rights. Know your government. Express your opinion!

UPDATE: Oscar winner and star of "The Da Vinci Code" movie Tom Hanks came out with a statement responding to Catholic critics:

"We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown.

"But the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense.

"If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake.

"It's a damn good story and a lot of fun... all it is is dialogue. That never hurts." (ThisIsLondon.com)

In response to Josh's post entitled "Knocking around Michelle", I add my 2 and a half cents below. Oh, and I didn't get her line of reasoning either. Go figure. I suppose it's hard not to knock someone who makes every opportunity to put themselves into the position to be knocked. Anyway, here was my post:

If you doubt that poli-blogging has arrived, atleast in the U.S. States, then this thread is a must read. Should you not know who Michelle Malkin is, she's one of a legion of "Conservative" lest I say "Right-Wing" blogging/journalists. With a large following, reflected in a strong Google rating, she's much more than your average "Joe Pundit". This is why, her outright declaration that the Mexican government is corrupt, is a reason to take note. In her post entitled "Snitching & Spying for Mexico" she's picked up on a article made by:

Sara Carter, a reporter with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, reports today that she found documentation on Mexican government websites that show higher ups in the United States Border Patrol have been tipping off the corrupt Mexican government as to the locations of the Minutemen along the border.

Her conclusion:

If the ACLU weren't so busy demonizing the Minutemen, you would think they might be on the side of law-abiding Americans being surveilled by their government. Where are the privocrats now?

I'm not so sure how and even why she's out to cast stones at the ACLU. What exactly did they do?

At the risk of sounding arrogant, Michelle dear, your spin here, is rather flimsy at best. The villain, in this instance, isn't the ACLU at all, rather the Government that you enthusiastically support... daily. This is the very reason, why your Minutemen pals and their fences, won't work. Think about it. Your post and continuing updates do nothing but make the point for those you seem to despise so much, the Democrats. I am, however, rather stupified at how you arrive at the conclusion that the entire Mexican Government is corrupt due to this. Under this logic, could one not conclude that the entire U.S. government is also corrupt? Mind you, I'm not saying this, but you seem to be. You know, using Aristotle's Processes' of Conclusion and all.

Confucious say: He who live in glass house, should undress in the basement.

Last year, I had a minor revalation. In those parts of New York state where the voters pass judgement on the school budget, there is always a contingency budget, per state law, which presupposes a fixed, inflation derived increase. If the budget proposed by the school board fails twice, the contingency budget automagically goes into effect.

Last year in Averill Park (the district I live in*), the school board actually accomplished the remarkable feat of proposing a budget which was lower than the state prescribed contingency budget. 25% of the voters still voted no, which might mean they wanted to spend more, but which probably simply meant that 25% of the voters were going to vote against any school budget on general principals, probably without bothering to read it first.

So when I see Bush approval numbers below 30% (see recent Harris poll), I start to wonder just when we'll get down to the point where the only ones left who like Bush are the ones who are simply never going to actually pay attention -- and it's depressing that the number is as large as it is.

* This, by the way, is John Sweeny's district, Sweeny being one of the congressmen who hired his wife as a fundraising consultant on a commission basis. The story hasn't really sunk in around here yet.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22415

One might be led to think that if international law enforcement authorities and Western intelligence agencies had discovered a twenty-year old document revealing a top-secret plan developed by the oldest Islamist organization with one of the most extensive terror networks in the world to launch a program of “cultural invasion” and eventual conquest of the West that virtually mirrors the tactics used by Islamists for more than two decades, that such news would scream from headlines published on the front pages and above the fold of the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, Bild, and La Repubblica.

 

If that’s what you might think, you would be wrong.

 

In fact, such a document was recovered in a raid by Swiss authorities in November 2001, two months after the horror of 9/11. Since that time information about this document, known in counterterrorism circles as “The Project”, and discussion regarding its content has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson of Le Temps, and his book published in October 2005 in France, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (The Conquest of the West: The Islamists' Secret Project), has information regarding The Project finally been made public. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as “a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies.”

Well, its pretty clear that George Bush will not yield on this NSA program. He will not turn over information to Justice or Congressional investigators. He refuses to lead a public discussion on the need for intrusive domestic surveillance, thereby depriving even legitimate programs of political sustainability (despite the fact that he thinks they're vital national security programs). He won't even shut off the programs that have caused so much controversy (this is, after all, a mere repackaging of everything forbidden after the Poindexter/TIA scandal).

It might be time for Congress (or at least filibustering Democrats) to deploy its last remaining nuclear option-- closing the national purse.

What about shutting down the government until Bush yields? Refuse to pass appropriations (especially for NSA). Shut down the government like in the mid 1990s.

This might be good politics for the Democrats as well as good policy for the Republic. We stand up for the bedrock principles in the Constitution, while sticking it to a vastly unpopular president. The more this stays in the news, the more we win. And it might just make a president determined to shred the constitution blink.

Any thoughts?

I was just reading this story (AP, linked through my local paper, ironically the Durham Herald-Sun) about a new non-smoking aid. Just Tuesday, I got a chance to catch Thank You For Smoking, a very clever picture about a tobacco lobbiest. Both brought to mind the same thought: why does the FDA still not have the authority to regulate tobacco as a drug?

I happen to remember Durham when the cigarette factories were still open. (Durham, once known as the City of Tobacco, now makes no cigarettes.) I marveled then how that wonderful, sweet yet sour, rich, tangy aroma could be so badly corrupted to the foul stench that most cigarettes emit. I own a pipe, and although I've probably smoked it a total of four times, I think there are ways that tobacco could be enjoyed, if not safely, then without the risk of a handcuffing, 20% chance of escape, slow-death addiction.

All that said, I'd be a lot more comfortable if the FDA were monitoring and publishing the nicotine levels as we went. The old tobacco block in the U.S. Congress is largely a thing of the past -- tobacco is rapidly becoming an afterthought (or a historical footnote) in North Carolina's economy. It still plays a larger role in Virginia's and Kentucky's, but even there the influence is falling rapidly.

What's the problem here? Regulate the stuff.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles_print.php?article_id=5483

 Excerpts: A cursory examination of the following documents would have provided diplomats with a better grasp of the problem: • The PLO Charter [1], originally written in 1964 and later amended in 1968 is adamant: there is no room or justification in “Palestine” for a Jewish State and the internationally recognized documents of the 1920s and beyond are all null and void (q.v. Art. 2, 19, 20, 22); • The PLO Phased Strategy [2] dated June 1974, urges the Palestinians to grab whatever territory Israel is prepared to relinquish to them and use it as a launching pad for additional land concessions until the “complete liberation of Palestine” is attained. • The Hamas Covenant, adopted in 1988, calls for a holy war against Zionists and Jews in general (q.v. Art. 7, 14, 28, 32, 35). • The Fatah Constitution, written in 1964, three years before any so-called “occupation of Palestinian territories,” is the official document of Fatah, the “mainstream” party of Mahmud Abbas, and is also quite eloquent in its opposition to Israel. It calls for the eradication of the “Zionist presence” in Palestine, which is presented as an imperialist, colonial entity to be destroyed by armed struggle (q.v. Art. 8, 12, 19, 22). This is not merely an ideological exposé: the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades – a military offshoot of Fatah – carried out some of the most gruesome terrorist attacks against Israel in the past few years. Negotiating with a party vowed to your destruction is insane. The true intentions of the Palestinian Arabs could not be more specific. It is inconceivable that high ranking diplomats, including Israelis, are not aware of the above. Why did they, knowingly, dismiss these warnings? We can have serious doubts about the true intentions of those who favor the pursuit of a “peace process” with such a partner. Even assuming that all the stumbling blocks of “level B” had been properly addressed and resolved; that the Palestinians agreed to live “side by side with Israel in a new, peaceful and viable state”; and that Islamic radicalism had no longer any claims on Israel, politicians and legal experts should still pause and think about the legality of the whole process...

...Unfortunately, these crucial issues seem to have been buried deep under the thick Arabian rugs of international conference rooms. But they should soon resurface and be presented to the whole world with the supporting data that constitute the founding documents of the Jewish Nation in Palestine: • The Balfour Declaration (1917): The British government favored the creation of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. • The Covenant of the League of Nations (1919, with later amendments), as part of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI and the dismemberment of the Ottoman and other empires: Article 22 of the Covenant recognized the existence of “peoples not yet able to stand by themselves”, and established “the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization.” It further states that “tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations … who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League.” • The San Remo Resolution (April 1920) included Palestine in the Mandatory system and incorporated the provisions of the Balfour Declaration, thus recognizing Palestine as a “Jewish national home” with the imprimatur of the international community. This was later spelled out in Article 95 of the Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920). Even though Turkey did not ratify the Treaty of Sèvres, Article 95 maintains its specific validity in international law. • The Franco-British Boundary Convention (December 1920) established the northern boundaries between Palestine and Syria-Lebanon, thus officially rectifying the previous Sykes-Picot secret agreement of 1916. • The Mandate for Palestine (July 1922) was officially conferred to Britain as the Mandatory Power. The preamble of this document declares that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” This Mandate, approved by 52 states, unambiguously assigns Palestine to the Jews and “encourage[s] …close settlement by Jews, on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” (Article 6). In what could be seen as a violation of previous agreements, the British carved the exclusively Arab Emirate of Transjordan out of Palestine and inserted Article 25, thus “postpon[ing] or withhold[ing] application of such provisions of this mandate” as they applied to the Palestine portion located to the east of the Jordan River. • The Anglo-American Convention (December 1924) further strengthened the international position with regard to Palestine, as established by the community of nations, and recognized Britain as the Mandatory Power. It can be argued that the American government later failed in its obligations to uphold the provisions of the Mandate by not opposing the several British White Papers issued in the 1930s which limited the immigration of Jews to Palestine, in violation of Britain’s Mandatory commitments. • The United Nations Charter (1945): Article 80 is quite clear in maintaining the national rights acquired through a Mandate voted by the then defunct League of Nations. Thus, the national rights of the Jewish people to “Palestine” have not been abrogated to this day. How often do we hear of the above documents? Were it not for the indefatigable effort of a few legal experts such as Howard Grief and Eli Hertz, truths would still be mostly hidden. In light of the above, one may seriously question the integrity of most diplomats and analysts who, along with the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the U.S. government (all members of the Quartet) consistently peddle the Arab line and blur or erase the history of the region prior to 1967. We can understand why the Arabs seek to ignore the pre-1967 history of the region, but why should everyone else follow the same distortions? All inquisitive analyses of these issues are strangely absent in the mainstream media. It all looks like a concerted effort in non-disclosure. Is there a name for this willful blindness? The failure of the “peace process” since its inception in 1993 (Declaration of Principles and Oslo Accords) and all the way through the present Roadmap is too obvious to deny. A telltale of a failed process is the short lifespan of its underlying expectations. Take any paper written just a year ago by a proponent of the “peace process”, and the incompatibilities with current conditions become glaring. Look at what was written about the withdrawal of Israeli forces from “Area A”; the “disengagement” from Gaza; the foreign observers at the Rafah crossing and at the Jericho jail; the transfer to the Palestinians of the greenhouses of Gush Katif, etc., and compare it with today’s reality. Nothing stood the test of time for more than a year...

The latest comments from Montana State Auditor John Morrison suggest a delusional understanding of how his ethics scandal will impact the 2006 Senate general election if Democrats are unfortunate enough to be saddled with a disgraced nominee. Since the Montana press (especially Lee Newspapers) has refused to bring up the ethics issues before the primary election, voters will be stuck hearing about this in the general and Senator Conrad Burns will be able to paint Morrison as also unethical.

The hubris of the Morrison campaign is shocking, Morrison seems to think he can both attack Burns on ethics, but his liability on ethics won't be a factor. From CBS News:

U-S Senate candidate Jon Tester went after State Auditor John Morrison, the other leading Democratic candidate, on ethics issues tonight during a debate in Helena.

Tester says he's the only one who could go -- quote -- "belly to belly" on the issue against Republican incumbent Conrad Burns.

Tester says Morrison is tainted because of news stories about the auditor's handling of a securities investigation close to a woman he once had an affair with.

Morrison dismisses the allegation, and says he's perfectly capable of pushing Burns on the senator's alleged ties to a brewing Washington, D-C, lobbying scandal.

Even before the Missoula Independent broke the real story on John Morrison anyone who was paying attention realized that Morrison lacked contrast with Burns on ethics.

Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia Center for Politics said, "But it's hard to believe the Democrats would nominate him now. ... He's blown it." And, "Burns has got to be pleased. There were not many national analysts who didn't say Burns was cooked. Morrison may have just pulled Burns out of the oven."

And Craig Wilson of Montana State University-Billings said, "If Morrison gets through the primary, it's going to be tremendously difficult to use ethics against Conrad and get any tread on it."

The Cook Report's managing editor Jennifer Duffy said Morrison will lose female voters:

"They're angry at him for putting her there," she said.

Morrison's wife of 15 years, Catherine Wright, accompanied him to the Bar Association lunch at the Montana Club on Thursday.

After the lunch, she stood silently beside her husband as he instructed waiting television reporters to make sure his wife was in the camera shot with him.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that a vote for John Morrison is a vote for Conrad Burns.

This ethics scandal will only get worse. John Morrison didn't treat Tacke typically and people want to know why Morrison didn't recuse himself. Most of all, Morrison needs to stop evading questions of impropriety and answer the questions raised -- before the primary.

In the comments of a Left in the West post, Montana Dem summed it up best:

As James Carville said,”If we say 50 + 50 = 104 and they say 50 + 50 = 104,000, they say, ‘They are both fudging the numbers.” The degree of wrong doing doesn’t matter to voters, it’s that there is wrong doing at all. Morrison looks like hypocrite, and we are left on the issue.

Let’s be fully honest: Democrats will not win this election on the issues by themselves. A poll taken early this year said if Democrats had to run against Rehberg for the senate seat, both Morrison and Tester would get pummeled. That means that ethics is the meal ticket and Morrison just can’t do it.

The more that comes to the light clearer it becomes that a vote for John Morrison is a vote for Conrad Burns.

It just occured to me: Despite Bush's low poll numbers, the corruption, and the lawlessness, the Republicans will retain control of Congress this November - with the eager help of the major television networks.

Bush won't even have to invade Iran to do it (although that would help).

Think about it. September 2006 - the 11th precisely - is going to be the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That's two months before the election.

The networks will oblige by furnishing saturation coverage of the memorials and endless retrospectives and recreations of the event. Every talk show will schedule days of guests to re-hash the whole thing. Network logos will be draped in black and portrayed against images of burning buildings. No American voter will be able to avoid being vividly reminded of the horror.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will spend the summer branding the Democrats as friends and coddlers of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

America's fears will be stoked to a frenzy. Democrats will be associated with their worst fears.

Need I say more?

Does Al Qaeda really exsist, or is it a ploy by the Bush administration to turn our country into something other then a democracy, with all the power in the hands of the rich and mighty.

Did Al Qaeda exsist?

Why is everything apparently illegal being done in the name of saving us from Al Qaeda?

Hummm saving/been saved/you must be saved

Enough.

This is a question that's been on my mind for some time. As it happens, it is also the title of a 2003 book I just finished reading, published by the pro-free trade DC think tank, the Institute for International Economics, headed by the oft-quoted C. Fred Bergsten. It was written by Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman, writers long established as sympathetic to the plight of workers in the US and abroad.

I'll give away the ending by noting that the authors' answer to the question posed in the title is: yes. The book is about presenting facts, evidence and arguments supporting that conclusion, along with their recommendations on how more progress might be made more rapidly on improving labor standards* (see definition below) in less developed countries. At 138 pages it is a concise and, I found (starting with a limited knowledge base), fairly dense but non-technical read. It strikes me as an excellent primer on this issue.

They argue that the "globalization vs. labor standards debate" poses the issue incorrectly. They argue both are necessary to raise living standards in developing countries. Globalization in this context includes the lowering of developed country trade barriers which make it difficult for developing countries to export. Labor standards will help to make sure more of the benefits of economic growth are shared by workers. They reject the view of some globalization enthusiasts that advocacy of labor standards is generally a stalking horse for protectionism, which they reject.

Necessarily--due to the widespread lack of freedom to associate and bargain collectively for workers in developing countries--much of the leadership so far on anti-sweatshop campaigns in particular has come from activists based in developed countries. These groups have had some successes in getting multinationals to adopt codes of conduct which address some labor issues, and somewhat less success so far in ensuring that these codes are enforced. The extent of information and number of organizations who are monitoring implementation of these codes has increased over the past decade in particular.

Their recommendations follow:

1) Credit firms for improved conditions.

2) Increase cooperation among monitors of labor standards. Competition has helped in this area, they maintain.

3) Broaden the targets of antisweatshop campaigns. Antisweatshop activists should join with Oxfam America and the Jubilee movement to press for debt relief for poor countries, more open developed country markets for less developed country exports, and--working with pro-globalization enthusiasts on this issue--reduced subsidies to agriculture in developed countries which harms farmers in less developed countries.

4) Bring about social audits for development bank projects (such as the World Bank). This can help ensure that the World Bank and other regional development banks play a stronger role in supporting improved labor standards.

5) Turn Export Processing Zones (EPZs--areas of countries given reduced tariffs and other incentives to produce for the global market) into globalization at its best. EPZs have weak records on labor standards. This could start with a joint World Trade Organization-International Labor Organization baseline survey of standards in EPZs.

6) Target trade-related violations of core labor standards in the WTO. Violations of core labor standards to attract foreign investment or promote exports are a trade distortion as much as subsidies or other forms of aid to traded sectors.

7) Strengthen the International Labor Organization in the Internet Age. They suggest ways to use internet technology to empower workers, activists and consumers to raise labor standards in the global economy.

I am in neither the uncritical pro-globalization camp nor the protectionist camp, but rather have tried to keep my eyes and ears open for alternatives which address the key problems with these more polar positions. This book has done more to help me learn about an alternative agenda which seems sensible to me than anything else I have read to date.

I am trying to learn from my experience at tpmcafe by posting this as a "blog" entry rather than as a discussion post. I am glad to discuss with anyone who wants to but acknowledge up front my limited knowledge base on the issue. I am thinking of this mainly as an information item for people interested in this issue at the cafe who might welcome practical suggestions on how to learn more. There seem to be a goodly number of folks interested in this issue at the cafe.

*There are four "fundamental principles and rights at work" identified in a 1998 agreement signed by 175 member countries of the International Labor Organization. These are in some contexts treated as synonomous with the term "core labor standards". They are:

i) freedom from forced labor

ii) nondiscrimination in the workplace

iii) the effective abolition of child labor; and

iv) freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively

This is a long one. The government is using pen registers on all of us, which is governed by the following language in 18 USC 3121:

 

(a) In General.— Except as provided in this section, no person may install or use a pen register or a trap and trace device without first obtaining a court order under section 3123 of this title or under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.).

 

(b) Exception.— The prohibition of subsection (a) does not apply with respect to the use of a pen register or a trap and trace device ***by a provider of electronic or wire communication service***—

 

(1) relating to the operation, maintenance, and testing of a wire or electronic communication service or to the protection of the rights or property of such provider, or to the protection of users of that service from abuse of service or unlawful use of service;

or (2) to record the fact that a wire or electronic communication was initiated or completed in order to protect such provider, another provider furnishing service toward the completion of the wire communication, or a user of that service, from fraudulent, unlawful or abusive use of service;

or (3) where the consent of the user of that service has been obtained.

(c) Limitation.— A government agency authorized to install and use a pen register or trap and trace device under this chapter or under State law shall use technology reasonably available to it that restricts the recording or decoding of electronic or other impulses to the dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information utilized in the processing and transmitting of wire or electronic communications so as not to include the contents of any wire or electronic communications.

(d) Penalty.— Whoever knowingly violates subsection (a) shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

 

The reason that the NSA didn't want to have to talk to a judge is that they'd have to convince them that the taps related to the "unlawful use of service." The law does not permit them to run those taps without the telco's consent. If the telco doesn't consent, they're back in FISA. And we all know how that one reads.

Do we need any more evidence that this is blatantly illegal? Every time I think that I cannot be surprised again by the mendacity and overreaching of this administration, I'm absolutely amazed.

 

Update:

This explains a lot, though, including why General Gonzales would not testify under oath and why they fought like hell to prevent certain questions from being asked.  It also brings the cravenness of Arlen Specter into an even more unflattering light.

Another problem with this is that the "patterns" of phone calls could support a FISA warrant.  Thank you, ATT. Good for Qwest.

I realize that starting a thought with "Last night, Glenn Beck said ..." is the intellectual equivalent of saying "Watch this ..." before you abuse some inhalants, so bear with me. Because, before too long, it will all make sense. On Wednesday's episode of Glenn Beck's new television show, the host was in the middle of a rapid-fire rant and said under his breath and about college professors, "Weasels."

Curious, I decided to look into Beck's obviously rich college experience. I wondered: Did Beck, during his undergraduate and possibly graduate years, come to dislike certain professors he encountered along the way? Perhaps an advisor rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe he took that one bad class we all ran into. Could Beck have been the victim of an overzealous campus disciplinary system?

Well, any of these three things could have happened to Beck while studying theology at Yale. Or all three. One thing is for sure. If they did happen, they happened in a very, very short period of time. Because Beck, that professor-hating right-winger, was only around them for one semester. So where was he getting his hatred of academia?

From the horse's mouth, here's the relevant portion of Beck's official biography: "At the age of 30, Glenn lost his passion for radio - and everything else - as alcoholism and drug addiction took him over. Struggling to find some answers to his problem, Glenn pursued higher education. Though he was accepted by Yale as a Theology major, he lasted only one semester, faced with a divorce from his first wife and separation from his two daughters - the oldest with Cerebral Palsy. He was emotionally and financially decimated and relegated to one of the smallest radio markets. The shooting radio star had fallen to earth." Wow. Sounds like it.

So Beck, mired in addiction and faced with a crumbling private life, was only at Yale for one semester. But it must have been one hell of a semester, because Beck, like many conservatives, seems to have a hatred for higher education. A hatred that has manifested itself recently in such attention-grabbing right-wingers as David Horowitz, whose recent book is titled "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America". On a smaller, yet equally harmful, scale, groups like Chris Flickinger's seek to fight what he considers a liberal bias on America's college campuses.

To right-wingers, "college eduction" means "liberal education". Why? Because, on the right, there's not only a distrust of knowledge, but there's also an unhealthy fear of it. As you know, fear is how the Republican Party operates. Without fear, without distrust, without panic, Americans would see right through the rather transparent Republican platform and realize that the party's agenda clearly isn't theirs. The more informed you are, the more likely you'll be able to separate fact from fiction. If your entire political ideology was steeped in fiction, wouldn't you run from a well-informed public?

It makes perfect sense for educational also-rans like Beck to dislike academia. Republicans often succeed by fostering a sense of "they think they're smarter than us" in their base. Without that distrust of education, how else could Republicans push such ludicrously incompetent ideas as intelligent design? And, as I said before, "If they can't control it, preach to it, hop it up on Ritalin or stick it in middle management, they always marginalize it. Happens every time. If they don't quite understand something - cultural diversity, homosexuality, science - they relegate it to the smelly, hacky-sack playing grassy field of the bizarre."

While we were busy watching reality television, we've missed a trend that corresponds quite well with the Republican ascendancy: That ignorance now trumps intelligence. Thanks to the Becks of the world, it's in style to be a complete moron. In fact, everywhere you turn, moronity is championed, while intelligence is given short shrift. A country that used to ask something from its citizens now asks us to be ourselves. We're more interested in having a beer with our presidents than trusting them to know what they're doing. Moreover, people like Beck encourage stupidity, because, if they didn't, no one would pay attention to them.

While opinion makers and those in power seek to keep Americans in the dark, it takes two to tango. Without a portion of the electorate unwilling to show any intellectual curiosity, Republicans wouldn't have a dance partner at the ballot box. Again, returning to something I wrote earlier, the thinking among many rank-and-file right-wingers goes like this: Why think for ourselves when our church or political party can do it for us? Why base things in reality when we can live our lives in a fantasy world populated by Godless baby killers, activist judges and walking, talking Terri Schiavos?

Thinking like that, coupled with a distrust of intelligence, has many Americans embracing idiocy. No one is happier to witness this public display of affection than the Republican Party. The longer the relationship lasts, the longer they'll stay in power. And the longer people like Beck pollute our airwaves, the harder we'll have to fight. But fight we will, because the truth is on our side. And if that makes me a weasel, so be it.

A few weeks ago the Federal Reserve minutes were released, and the plain language was instantly interpreted as something very simple: that the Federal Reserve was going to end its rate raising campaign, and keep the world awash with liquidity. Oil and commodities shot up to long term highs, in some cases inflation adjusted all time peaks. Ripples flowed through the body politic, suddenly slumbering politicians were urged to do "do something" about higher gasoline prices. Even though, hamstrung by their own profligate fiscal policies and absurd invasion of Iraq, there was nothing to be done. Since then the Federal Reserve has ceased to give any guidance, and the oil markets have begun marching back up again.

Not long after Bernanke's first announcment the IMF stated that it was going to seek immediate negotiations to produce normalization of currency rates, a cryptic statement which is fraught with deeper meaning in the back drop of something else which came out of the IMF recently: namely that "globalization" could no longer be counted on to hold inflation in check. While this statement received little attention, it is, in fact, a nail hammered into the coffin of what was once the great consuming narrative of political elites around the world for the last twenty years, and of economics for the last thirty years – namely, neo-liberalism.

It is a strange sight, a line of mourners for an idea. It is an idea that, simultaneously, was beloved of elites, and loathed by the dispossessed – and ignored by the broad range of people who lived under it. Not since the divine right of kings has their been an idea which seemed so obvious to those who benefited from it, and so opaque to almost the entire rest of humanity. The paeans to neo-liberalism that have gushed forth from various pens read far more like the paeans to absolutism in The True Law of Free Monarchy, than anything else. Neo-liberalism is not, merely, globalization, or free trade, or even free movement of capital, but instead, it is a story, a story of how the world should work

Neo-liberalism, Free Trade and Globalization are often confused – because those who advocate for one often slurry their arguments into one of the others, as if one factor proved all the others. This isn't the case. Globalization is, ultimately, the realization that all of human activity is interconnected. FDR's Four Freedom's speech globalized the idea of rights, in the midst of a global struggle against the darkness. If you believe in combating global warming, then you too, are an advocate for globalization, in that there is one atmosphere, one vast ocean, and we are all connected to both. Even Free Trade and Neo-liberalism are not the same thing. It is entirely possible to have free trade, without free capital movement, in fact, the original theory of comparative advantage assumes just that, that capital is immobile and must accept the returns of where ever it is located..

But all of these words are inconsequential, because neo-liberalism is being buried. And this past weekend one of the most unexpected of attendees to its funeral threw a handful of dirt on its coffin: The International Monetary Fund. To understand why, a bit of history.

It was after the second world war that three institutions were supposed to be set up, the International Monetary Fund to stabilize currencies, the World Bank to fund development, and the International Trade Organization to harmonize trade rules and lower barriers to commerce. The United States, in all irony, torpedoed the creation of the ITO, fearing that it would act against American business. America, having the only large industrialized economy untouched by war, did not want any restrictions. One history professor of mine quipped that in 1945 there was an ITO, it was called the US Congress.

But there was the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, set in motion in 1947 as a provisional organization, producing a series of "rounds", which created agreements on lowering tariff barriers and a host of other issues. But it would be the "Uruguay Round" which would create the "World Trade Organization", which was intended to be the place where trade differences were ironed out, but with the teeth to back and force agreements.

Reading the WTO treaty, it does not sound like an instrument for rampant Thatcherization, it does not have a ringing mandate for free trade at all cost, in fact, its charter mission seems to include the idea that trade rules must make room for the needs of developing as well as developed nations. Where then, if not in the WTO charter, was the heart of neo-liberalism.

The person to ask is Joseph Stiglitz, whose book "Fair Trade for All" dissects how developing nations are often given take it or leave it deals that have little to do with either economic ideas or economic realities. In the chapter "Trade can be good for development" he writes:

"But many of the developed countries' negotiators have turned this argument on its head, they suggest that the reduction of one's own tariffs is beneficial, and hence the developing countries would be helping themselves by liberalizing in the WTO, irrespective of the actions of the developed countries. On this basis they argue that the developing countries should accept almost any offer that is put on the table."

He then says that "matters are not so easy", and summarizes the argument in the chapter "Trade Liberalization and Costs of Adjustment":

"Trade Liberalization creates adjustment costs as resources move from one sector to another. This chapter has described several sources of adjustment costs (broadly defined) and concludes that adjustment to a post-Doha trading regime will be disproportionately costly and difficult for developing countries because of the loss of preference margins, the loss of revenue from trade taxes, institutional weaknesses including the absence of adequate safety nets, large implementation costs, lack of the finance required to restructure the economy, and the limited ability of poor populations to manage short-term unemployment."

And remember, this is from someone who believes trade can help development. But it takes him only to page two of his book to introduce the villain of the work: the Washington Consensus, which he notes, is a series of policies advocated particularly in the 1990's, which amounted to having developed countries open their markets unilaterally, and impose fiscal discipline and market reforms. It is in the Washington Consensus that neo-liberalism found embodiment, and institutions such as IMF, World Bank, WTO and the trade negotiation rounds were merely instruments to advancing the ideas behind this consensus.

Thus if there is a gospel to neo-liberalism, it is in the Washington Consensus as it came to be implemented.

::

On pages 20 and 21, Stiglitz outlines the narrative behind neo-liberalism. In the 1980's Latin American growth foundered, and inflation, even hyper-inflation, entered the picture. At the same time the "Tiger" economies of east Asia – which promoted exporting – grew rapidly. Thus, declares the neo-liberal, it is import substitution and state intervention that causes inefficiency, inefficiency that causes government spending, and government spending that drives an economy to zero growth and high inflation. In short, what Latin America needed, was Reaganomics.

This much Stiglitz can tell us, but what his book does not talk about is the reverse side of the coin, that neo-liberalism is what scholar Jennifer Mercieca would call "a tragic narrative" of the world. Tragic in that it views the public with suspicion, and fears above all the exercise of the public will as the source of disasters. Not merely in the developing world, but in the developed world as well. The medicine offered to Latin America, was the medicine that developed countries were prescribed: slash social spending, allow people to fall through the safety net, and let the free market do everything. Guided by such voices as Milton Friedman who stamp their rhetorical feet and declare that the private sector can do anything for half the cost of the government, neo-liberal ideas fundamentally view the people as the source of the wrong turns that lead to fiscal and eventually macroëconomic catastrophe. The same yoke put on the developing world, must also be on the electorates in the developed world as well.

And it is this feature which has lead to the death of neo-liberalism as a vital force in geopolitics.

Neo-liberalism believes that left to their own devices, electorates will vote to protect their jobs and subsidies, and grow lazy and inefficient. Thus only the heavy hand of market discipline, budget discipline and monetary discipline can prevent inflation without growth, which free market fundamentalism views as the inevitable result of government intervention in the economy. Only with these weights on their back could electorates be trusted to make choices about which marginal benefits they could have: slightly lower taxes, or slightly better services. At the same time, developed countries had to place their monetary policy in the hands of the developed nations, pegging their currencies to the dollar, or even promising to have a "dollar board", where one local note could be issued for each dollar the government held.

Neo-liberalism then, imposed its tragic weight on both the developing world, and the developed world. Paradoxically, this child of free market conservative economics, Reaganomics and Thaterism brought to power Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder, parties of the left in the very nations that had formed the core of the conservative consensus of the 1980's.

The believers in "the third way", as it came to be called, had a burning passion for neo-liberal trade regimes, in no small part, because they believed the tragic narrative more powerfully than their political right did. They really believed that if not for free market liberalization, then the developed world would plunge into stagnation, and they really believed that if developed world electorates did not impose fiscal self-discipline, then there would be more painful cuts in services and the social safety net.

Perhaps the creepiest testimony to this is the documentary Our Brand is Crisis which follows an American political consulting firm as it aids the election of a neo-liberal Presidential candidate in Bolivia, one who passed a social security law and promised more public works and education, who was then driven from power because of his ham handed handling of the very economic crisis which was used as his main campaign theme. The firm in question was not a Republican one, but, on the contrary, one headed by Democratic guru James Carville. At the end of the film consultant Jeremy Rosner looks into the camer soulfully, and shrugs that perhaps Democracy needs more help in the beginning. A message that he could have learned from Stiglitz.

::

Thus neo-liberalism is a narrative of the world that says that developing nations must restrain their impulses to nationalism and socialism, while developed nations must maintain fiscal discipline. The 1990's saw the world placed on a diet, with "do more with less" being the mantra in civilian and military circles alike. The US created a dollar shortage, which kept its own budget restrained, and other nations were forced to trade with the developed core to get the hard currency they needed to buy oil and technology. The gain was the continued constriction of inflation, and the continuation of "the Great Commodities Depression".

It also sparked a huge wave of investment – but in the wrong direction. The theory of neo-liberalism was that since developing nations were cheaper than developed ones, that free capital flows would make investment flow from developed nations to less developed ones. Developed nations would get lower prices for goods, and developed nations more and more incentive to hew closely to the market oriented export path.

Instead, money, fearful of the effects of financial crisis, fled to the US. In retrospect there is an obvious mesoëconomic reason for this. Consider the wealthy individual in a developing nation under neo-liberalism's open capital movement, dollar drought situation. If he stays in his home country, then he suffers a large risk: that there will be, through no fault of his own countries policies, a currency crisis. The stock market in his own country will plunge, and foreign investors will snap up shares quickly, taking advantage of the short term cash crunch. He will be skinned alive, and there is little he can do to stop it, because free capital movement is the cornerstone of the neo-liberal order. Elites in South Korea experienced this first hand. Instead he will put his money out of the country, which he can do, because of free capital movement, and hold only enough in country to maintain economic advantages. And if everything goes wrong, he will make sure that any IMF bail out package will be a life raft for the rest of his assets.

For people who need a demonstration of this, Russia makes an excellent case study – a vast IMF bailout did little but allow wealth to flee the country. As one colleague of mine says "Russia is a rich nation, it just happens to be a hundred guys who all live in Moscow." Think on how that city now has more billionaires living in it than New York.

But it was not the details or the peripheral nations which laid law the neo-liberal idea, but the flaw in the basic narrative itself. Neo-liberalism, remember, believes that elites are better to be trusted to come to the right decisions than volatile and easily deceived masses. In a very Leo Straussian way, it believed in marketing its ideas to the public, even if that meant a certain amount of deception of that public. In the final analysis, elites would be shown to be more disciplined than the electorates that they governed. Because that is what the system required: elites willing to live within the constrictions of a monetary order with little room to maneuver.

And in from April 2000 to somewhere in late 2002, that very thesis, of the disciplined nature of elites, was tested and found wanting.

::

What ended neo-liberalism was not the protests in Seattle against the WTO, nor even a concerted political push from the left. On the contrary, parties of the right won a string of victories after the turn of the millennium, and enacted policies which have dramatically changed the trade and international financial landscape. It was the response of elites to the fears of 2000, the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and the final crash of 2002 which would unravel the underpinnings of a disciplined fiscal order. To put it bluntly, faced with economic difficulties, and a chance to seize control of a country in the heart of the Middle East, George W. Bush spent like a drunken sailor. The dollar drought was dead, and in came a dollar glut.

The world of the dollar glut reversed the polarity of the trade order. Instead of other nations begging the US and the institutions it dominated for bail outs, it was the US that counted on other nations, particularly the Asian central banks, to soak up the dollar glut to keep their own currencies from appreciating too much. Instead of relying on the cooperation of other free trade states, the US came to see its future as cooperating with mercantile states that were locked in a vicious battle with each other to supply the lowest cost labor and land.

Out went the US as the world's investment banker, and in came a United States policy that was the world's designated loser in the trade game. Whatever the theory behind the move, the result has been to shift the global trade order from a multi-lateral, to a unilateral one. No one can stop the US from simply printing dollars, without suffering the consequences.

::

The sound of wind rattling through the rotten branches of neo-liberalism began before any elections had taken place. When in 1997-98 a major fiscal crisis rolled through the world and roiled markets, the response from the American Federal Reserve was to flood the world with liquidity, intending to "sanitize" the operation later when the troubles had passed. If the US had been disciplined, its Congress and President would have found a way to increase taxes, pay off more of the national debt, and thus keep people from overspending. But the motto of the age was "laissez les bons temps rouler."

The resulting bubble, for a short time, made people lose sight of the very underpinnings of value, and of ethical values in general. It seemed so clear that there would never be such an era of loose money again, and executives at Computer Associates, WorldCom, Adelphia and others engaged in freelance law bending to make sure that some of it slopped onto their own plates.

But it was the response to the popping of that bubble which was fatal to the Washington Consensus, both as an ideology, and as a pragmatic reality of government. Instead of doing the minimum required, and keeping the pressure on commodities producers, the first act of a newly seated Congress and newly sworn in executive, was to slash revenues dramatically. The ideology of "always cut taxes" trumped the ideology of "always restrain deficits." It had worked the previous fiscal crisis, why not this one?

What it led to however was a vast change in the structure of world trade and world currencies. Instead of neo-liberalism's structure of the developed center mediating between emerging nations that were seen as needing to liberalize, and the resource rich nations, which were seen as needing to be kept from political instability and strategic threat. The first invasion of Iraq was a typical neo-liberal war – restoring the balance of power, and preventing one nation with an unstable leader from becoming a threat. The new structure was that of triangular trade – between the United States, OPEC, and China acting as the point of assembly for the tiger economies that had been hammered by the financial crisis of the late 1990's and the crash of 2000-2002.

This change also brought another change – the long standing lid on gasoline prices was blown off, and China accelerated into high gear to produce its own consumer economy. While OPEC fed America with oil, China fed it with cheap goods, and both propped up its dollar. The rest of the world was dragged along in this new direction.

And a new direction it was. Neo-liberalism, remember, is a narrative that says that it is discipline that holds the world economy together. The new narrative was one of profligacy – American could have both guns and caviar, OPEC could pump at full speed, and China could run the factories as hot as possible. It was no longer about efficiency and working smarter, but about brute force. China's growth comes despite not being transparent, open, or neo-liberal. Despite its having low value add in its products, despite having terrible efficiency of GDP per barrel of oil. It is, in many respects, the 1980's and 1990's in reverse.

Under this new structure, "Old Europe" as Rumsfeld derisively called it, has suffered mightly – with high unemployment and linger recession. This despite being staunchly free trade, open, and neo-liberal. As England showed, it is all about the oil. While Germany, France and Italy felt the weight on their backs of higher energy prices and a world that was moving towards cheap goods – England and Norway, no paragons of fiscal virtue themselves, grew rapidly.

Thus neo-liberalism's end is not the end of globalization, nor the end of "free trade," or what is often called free trade, but of the layer that sits on top of this, and promises prosperity. But the next wall to crack is globalization as it has been known. Globalization rests, ultimately, on supply chains being internationalized, and each country being willing to sell at the border what is most inflation effective for that supply chain. With the seizures of the gas fields in Bolivia, and the growing import substitution policies of China, the cracks in this wall are now becoming gaping holes. With the accelerating demand for prosperity, "globalization" can no longer be counted on for restraining inflation, because now those who toil in China are going to push up the prices of resources by as much as they reduce them in the manufacturing phase. What used to be labor arbitrage that lowered resource prices, is now labor arbitrage that raises them.

Internally in the US, perhaps the most signal moment of the end of neo-liberalism comes from where it began: the regulation of gasoline prices. When in the 1970's federal gasoline price regulation caused misallocations of gasoline itself, and along with it gas lines and shortages, the free marketers interpreted this as the crucial sign that government could not regulate price in a market effectively. In Joseph Kalt's classic study The Economics and Politics of Oil Price Regulation, it was determined that billions went from domestic oil production, to consumers and refiners, and that the result was bad for the market place. MacAvoy and Breyer mad the same argument in Energy Regulation by the Federal Power Commission for natural gas shortages.

And yet now, if you listen to right wing talk radio, the increase in gasoline prices is a great threat to the American Republic. The reality is that de-regulation as a regime has not faced a gas crisis of the scale that rocked American in the late 1960's and early 1970's – and it is already losing political credibility when faced with the first waves of what is a growing stormfront. Matters have indeed, come full circle – with the very people who are the political heirs of the deregulators, marketers and anti-government philosophers, acting first in manner which disrupted the free trade world economy, and now facing growing pressure to reregulate or ameliorate the price of the very commodity that they road to power.

If this is not the end of an idea, then what is? After all, it was the libertarian icon Hayek who theorized that governments create booms by falsely creating demand for goods that does not exist. What, exactly, is Bill Frist's proposal to hand out $100 dollar checks for gasoline, than doing just this?

Thus the tragic narrative has foundered on one of its own assumptions. Tragic narratives rest, ultimately, argue that the populace is undisciplined, and will wantonly vote itself a subsidy out of the pockets of those who have been industrious and cautious. Only elites who have been insulated from this mob can think clearly, and behave with the sober discipline required. Neo-liberalism argued that if the core nations disciplined themselves – Maastricht, the treaty that forms the basis for the Euro requires that budget deficits be kept in check – then they could impose this discipline on emerging nations, forcing them to become industrial democracies, with transparent laws and institutions. This narrative did not take into account that elites are not superior beings, but merely people who have risen to power. The have fears and appetites, and are as prone to trampling like a mob when the see either a chance for great profit, or the fear of great loss.

The very people who neo-liberalism as a narrative, placed its faith in, betrayed it by making a reckless gamble on a new structure. This new structure, where multi-lateralism is trying to rein in the excesses of neo-mercantilism, is producing hope in unexpected quarters, long time bearish economist Stephen Roach says he believes the world will normalize without a currency crisis. He notes the last time he was so enthusiastically bullish, was in 1999.

We may have another funeral for an elite affection before long.

Ho hum...nothing to see here.

Keep it moving, people.

Nothing here to see.

 

Talkleft has some of the text of a statement relating to the EFF wire tapping case Here. The statement refers to "Peering Links".

There are two definitions of peer.

One is more of a sales/marketing/legal definition: any major network with whom your network is doing an even-up or near even traffic exchange.

The other, more technical one, is any network that you talk to using BGP (Border Gateway Protocol); the usual circumstances where BGP is used are that you talk to more than one autonomous network, and your BGP peer also talks to more than one autonomous network. Your BGP peer could be your customer, your "equal" for some definition of equal, or your vendor. If a customer of yours, that means he's buying transit from you and at least one other vendor.

So monitoring peering links means that you're collecting data which is transitioning across multiple, mostly fairly large, networks.

So how would you go about securing data in such an environment, where someone is sitting on the side cherry picking data? Well, by using properly encrypted data streams, you can at least to some degree protect your data, but it'd be difficult to prevent basic traffic analysis, as you can hardly hide the source and destination addresses without completely breaking things.

One more quick, sure to increase stomach acid note -- not all VPNs ("Virtual Private Networks") are actually encrypted. Cheers!

There have been some frightening experiences recently for the supposedly center left world. For me, it began when The New Republic suggested purging anti-Iraq War Democrats from the party. At that point, those of us who opposed the war were not quite in the majority but we had perceived the possibility of a tipping point. The nation was turning against the war and this call for a purge was the reaction.

Luckily, the tipping point was at hand and the call went nowhere. Pro-war Democrats from all over began to admit their mistakes or, at least, change their minds. There was another, much stronger call for a purge but it came from the left as personified by David Sirota at the moment.

This call for a purge is equally scary and equally unlikely to work. What bothers me about it is the lesser punishment inflicted upon pro-war Democrats returning to the fold as personified by the DLC. Those of us whose views are closely expressed by David Sirota want those DLC people to return crawling the last mile on their hands and knees through broken glass, etc.

For the moment, let's set aside the fact that the much maligned DLC is not the boogeyman its foes believe it to be. Yes, there were some Democrats who voted for the war resolution. Some of those did so out of a desire for coercive diplomacy and some did so out of cowardice. (Please stop hitting me, Mister Rove. I'll vote for anything!)

Purging those cowardly Reps and Senators or forcing them to abase themselves publicly will not help us. We need a unified party to win in November 2006 and/or November 2008. Think of the story of the prodigal son. I'm not familiar with the Biblical version of it so I'm talking about the one where the runaway son sends a letter asking his parents to tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree if he's welcome to come home. When the son makes his recon past the home, he finds a yellow ribbon around every tree.

We need to stop printing screeds about how different we are so we can print up all the yellow ribbons we can lay our hands on. Ed Kilgore found 80% agreement with a list published by Atrios and forwarded by Kevin Drum.

There are things we'll find much harder to work out. For instance, how do we pull out of Iraq and do the least damage to our foreign policy? How do we support the troops, get them out of the shooting gallery and save the all-volunteer military? We can work all of this out among ourselves before, during and after the next election so we are ready to govern.

Let's gather up all the (pick your favorite durable material) we can find and show everyone who the original big tent party is.

Bushies logging all, repeat ALL, telephone calls...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country.

 

Get mad and do something.

Howard Beale

Mad as Hell

 

Richard Cohen's Hillary Clinton column is a transparant attempt to win favor with the "netroots" who've been bombarding him for the last two days. I suggest Richard start a blog and call it the WaPo Wanker.

I have been wondering for years why our foreign policy was so attached to Israel.  And why the USA is so bent on maintaining security in the Middle East for Israel to the tune of 300Billion dollars annually and the even  greater cost of American lives.

One aspect of the Middle East conflict was for the oil. I could understand how the USA was attempting to maintain its geopolitical power by monopolizing the oil. Yet, It was clear to me that America was not as dependent on the oil in the Middle East as were our banker's China & Japan.  I presumed then that our national foreign policy intent was to use the Oil as leverage against the debt that China and Japan hold. This would ensure continued geopolitical dominance.

This was seemingly the neo-con strategic plan.  Then the Bush administration utterly destroyed any chance of success in the Middle East with their piss poor execution of the war  plans also known as  the Wolfwitz Doctrine. Developed when Cheney was Sec of Defense (surprise! surpise!)..

Now the news is even worse...the rest of the world is aligning against America.  America has probably seen her last days as a superpower.  It certainly makes sense that Asia, Latin America and Africa would align forces against US hegemony. Together they have oil, nukes and money. While America becomes an Empire of Debt. Trillions spent on war, with no end in sight.

This article below goes in to much greater detail.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HE09Ad01.html

In an email exchange with Scott Jaschik of insidehighered.com, David Horowitz writes:

there is still not a single attempt by my opponents to actually respond to the 15,000 word analysis in the introduction and final two chapters

If there weren’t already plenty of evidence of Horowitz’s inability to be completely honest, this one should be enough.

Let me just take my own case (there are plenty of others). I don’t care about whether or not there are 100 or 101 or 102 professors “profiled” in the book (Horowitz complains about Free Echange on Campus’s Facts Count little bit of snarkiness on this “count” in that same email—rather than really addressing the issues the study raises), but have not only debunked Horowitz’s claim he is using a legitimate research model called “prosopography’ but have shown what a real research project on college professors and politics might look like.

Horowitz can’t even claim to be unaware of my debunking of his ‘prosopography’ claim: he wrote about it on his own blog, claiming to have contacted a “Professor X” who says that “What you [Horowitz] did was look at your 100 subjects and see if there were patterns in careers,” thus making the attempt ‘prosopography.’ Thing is, that’s not what Horowitz did: he looked a 100 selected subjects, thus negating any possible intellectual value to the exercise. You can’t draw conclusions about a whole that way. What Horowitz has done would be the same as selecting young black men as a basis for studying incarceration rates and then applying your results to all young men. Ridiculous. In addition, there is no data compiled in Horowitz’s book, no aggregation at all. No patterns are established, which there would have to be, for ‘prosopography.’ Finally, Horowitz’s conclusions were reached with out any collating of the data—an intellectual no-no.

There are ways, as I have shown, that a reasonable study could have been conducted. And, like many others, I have demonstrated the weaknesses of Horowitz’s introduction and last two chapters (the parts he claims no one has responded to). Go look at my posts (there are more, even, than the one’s linked above). You will see quite clearly that Horowitz’s study is in no way reasonable. That is has zero viability or value.

And for him to be saying, at this point, that no one has responding to his chapters just reinforces the current image of him as a dishonest and intellectually bankrupt man.

Well, well.  USAToday - a front page story on the domestic spying the president said we were not doing - without a warrant.

The Q and A that follows the long piece is of little reassurance.  But the best part of the article has to to with the only major communications company that has refused to participate, QUEST.  BellSouth, Verizon and ATT have all agreed to cough up their customers calling records - domestic and international- despite potential liability (that's a laugh).  The FCC an independent governmental agency and the Congress, a dysfunctional governmental entity are worthless with respect to oversight of this activity that has been underway since  2001.

It's deja vu all over again.  This administration is trying mightily to outdo the Nixon administration.

For your convenience the part on QUEST follows:

One company differs

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as "product" in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

The response of the United States to the letter sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amounts to the Superpower version of "Talk to the hand". In my previous post on the subject I had suggested that perhaps a better approach might be to actually talk to the Iranians. But the Bush Administration seems to never miss an opportunity to look monumentally incompetent on the international stage. Thus, with characteristic bravado the Administration dismissed the Iranian letter (the first of its kind from Iran since 1979). I am sure that the chicken hawks in the Administration are patting themselves on the back for their machoness in rubbing the noses of the Iranians in the dirt. The rest of the world however saw the Iranian letter and its rejection by the United States as a missed opportunity. From the Administration's point of view there is really only one thing left to do: Bomb Iran.

It wasn't always like this. Back in 1998 the Clinton Administration sent a similar letter to Iran through the Swiss Government in an attempt to begin direct talks with the Government of Iran. CNN reported at the time:

The Clinton administration recently sought to open a government-to-government dialogue with Iran, sources said, sending a secret letter to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami through diplomatic channels in the second week of August.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Iran did not reply through those same channels, but U.S. officials viewed Khatami's moderate statements about respect for the American people, made last month and again in a CNN interview this week, as the answer to the U.S. overture.

...

The letter to Iran, sources said, contained no provisos and simply asked the Iranians if they were ready to conduct talks with the United States.

The sources said such a letter would have been signed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was written, they said, after a long administration debate in which one camp argued that Washington should wait for Iran to make the first approach.

In the world of diplomacy events can sometimes move at a glacial pace. With that in mind, the letter from Ahmadinejad may actually have been a reply to the 1998 letter. There may also have been back channel talks between Iran and the United States during the Clinton years:

Contrary to a Washington Post report Friday, sources said, the Swiss channel has been much used for practical communication, not just angry ideological exchanges.

The Swiss government represents U.S. interests with the Iranians. The sources said the Swiss Embassy in Washington regularly spends up to 20 percent of its time on Iranian contact on behalf of the United States. [Emphasis added by me.]

I am probably not in much danger of being incorrect if I believe that these back channel contacts with the Iranians ceased when George W. Bush became President of the United States. The new Administration apparently treats diplomacy as if it's an unwanted stepchild. They pay lip service to diplomacy being the first option while they are busy undermining it. Secretary Rice, our chief diplomat, had this to say about talking with Iran:

Rice asserted yesterday that "the absence of communication is not a problem with the Iranians" because there have been plenty of proposals advanced through the Europeans and the Russians. But, alluding to Iran's alleged failure to respond constructively to those proposals, she asked: "What is to be gained if Iran is not prepared to show that it is ready to accede to the demands of the international community?" [Emphasis added by me]

The chief diplomat of the United States is not doing her job. Instead, she has out-sourced U.S. foreign policy to the Europeans and Russians. This Administration wants us to believe that we are in the midst of a dangerous nuclear standoff with Iran and yet it is not even willing to communicate with Iran. Mr. Bush's assertions that the United States considers diplomacy the primary option vis-à-vis Iran rings kind of hollow in light of Dr. Rice's bizarre statements.

The Washington Post reports today that Foreign Policy experts from both sides of the aisle as well as foreign diplomats are speaking out and urging the United States to resume direct talks with Iran. The Germans, one of the Europeans who Dr. Rice is relying on, are venting their frustration with Washington:

Germany is one of the three European Union countries that have jointly held inconclusive talks with Tehran. German officials have made little secret of their belief that diplomacy will not succeed without direct U.S. intervention. Ruprecht Polenz, the influential chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German parliament and an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, lashed out last Friday against the administration's policy after returning from a two-day visit to Iran. "Washington's refusal to join direct talks with Iran won't make it any easier to achieve a diplomatic solution to the current nuclear dispute," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who last month wrote an opinion piece jointly with 5 former European foreign ministers urging President Bush to open direct talks with Iran, explained rather succinctly how diplomacy should be practiced:

But Albright said yesterday that the letter, despite its invective and religious musings, should be viewed as an opportunity both for a dialogue with Iran and to influence world opinion. She likened it to President John F. Kennedy's choosing to selectively respond to -- and ignore -- conflicting messages from his Soviet counterpart during the Cuban missile crisis.

"In diplomacy, you make your opportunities," Albright said. "Acting in a dismissive way doesn't get you anywhere." [Emphasis added by me.]

I find Madam Albright's comparison to President Kennedy's deft handling of Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis to be very appropriate and instructive here. The Administration would do well to heed these calls for dialogue.

The Bush Administration however does not respond well to good advice. The Bush Administration is likely to dig in further on its hardline stance against Iran. In doing so it is likely to further isolate itself in the diplomatic dance with Iran. The military option, for the Bush Administration, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. War with Iran is the likely outcome as long as this Administration and its policy of petulant diplomacy continue.

Also posted at my web site.

With his reckless adventure in Iraq, George W. Bush has brought this country the Greatest Strategic Disaster in its history, a history which most certainly has not ended but has only just entered a period of sharp decline in the country's post-war world hegemony.  At the center of this decline stands the hyper-kinetic perpetual war strategy of the Bush regime, a policy which, predictably, has brought a return to balance of power international politics.

The world system is balancing comrade Wolf.

Russia Aims to Counter U.S. With Bigger Arsenal

Putin speech compares America to a wolf that 'swallows without listening to anyone.'

To build under a forest, or to remove the forest and to bring it back at a later time is what is included in a book I wrote. Any botany experts that want to work on forest regeneration should try to contact me as I am interested in such a project.

udcengineering@yahoo.com

www.geocities.com/muzic50/undergrounddevelopment

All I can say is thank God for American Friends of Peace Now (and Brit Tzedek and Israel Policy Forum). They're leading the charge against The Palestinian Anti Terrorism Act of 2006 ((HR 4681), a piece of draconian anti-Palestinian legislation that would further erode the already miserable quality of life for average Palestinians. It will tie Pres. Bush's hands if he wishes to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. It will prohibit paying the salaries of the 160,000 Palestinians who work for the Palestinian Authority, effectively starving them if not to death, then to a state of perpetual want.

According to the Jerusalem Post, all three Jewish groups are directly taking on the behemoth of American Jewish organizations, Aipac, which is the 800 lb. gorilla behind this legislation. Aipac distributed an FAQ memo in the run up to the legislative vote on the bill, which contained specious arguments and erroneous interpretations of its language. Aipac would have you believe that the bill isn't intended to penalize Palestinians for voting for Hamas in the last election. Even if you give the group the benefit of the doubt (which you shouldn't) and say they don't INTEND to penalize them, the net effect of the legislation will be to do precisely that. And thank God, APN issued an immediate rebuttal refuting Aipac's distortions point by point. The group organized messages of opposition sent to 300 members of Congress in only 12 hours! Now that's organizing.

Over 50% of Gazans live below the international poverty standard of $2 a day. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. says Israel Radio reports four Gaza hospital deaths already because kidney dialysis treatments have been reduced by one-third due to running out of necessary medicines, supplies and equipment. Imagine what's to come once the crisis deepens. Here's what one dialysis patient had to say to a NY Times reporter:

In the dialysis ward of Shifa Hospital, Ahmed Shabat, 51, sits in fraying clothes. He must come every other day. "This is my work," he says, then shows the swollen veins on his arms caused by a lack of mineral supplements normally provided. "What is the relationship between humanitarian and political aims here?" he asked. "The United States is the mother of democracy. What is political about salaries to teachers and nurses? Please," he said, "please don't mix humanitarian help with politics. Please separate the two."

Malnutrition is rampant. IDF shelling is incessant. And Aipac proposes ratcheting up the pressure even further with this poison pill of a bill. Someone should tell these people that our Jewish God is one of mercy, not of blind justice. And besides, what's just (or merciful) about the bill or the Israeli punishment policy it represents?

The world already sees America as a heartless bully due to our militaristic forays into the Mideast. Is this legislation the face we really need to show the world? That we would willingly stand by while Palestinians drop dead in the streets and hospitals from conditions that would be easily curable in any modern society? Do we want to stand by while Israel and Aipac turn the screws ever tighter on an already debilitated people and society?

PLEASE, write your Congressmember asking that he or she opposes HR 4681. It is bad for America. It is bad for the Palestinians. It is even bad for Israel because it will draw us farther from a reasonable solution to the conflict. This bill is a worrisome distraction from the real issues confronting the parties--their need to sit down face to face and negotiate for peace. In other words, it's a big fat waste of time for our elected representatives.

UPDATE: APN reports that Congress has delayed action on the bill, a victory for forces opposing it. This gives Congress further opportunity to amend the bill and make it more consonant with the milder Senate version.

Markos Moulitsas, better known as Kos, has taken to the pages of the Washington Post to tell the world why Hillary Clinton is a dud of a presidential candidate. After reading his column, I have to say that I share an intense dislike of Hillary as a candidate and will not vote for her in any Democratic primary. However, I think Kos' reasoning in dissing her is all wet.

He seems to have a bug up his tush on a few matters that seem mostly irrelevant to the matter at hand. Why in attacking Hillary is it necessary to attack Bill as well? I'm sorry but I don't see his presidency as a failure (except for his sexual peccadilloes) and see no reason to fault him for not being liberal enough. I'm not one who believes that a Democratic president must be a dyed in the wool liberal.

One of Kos' primary arguments against her seems to be that as a candidate she's not Howard Dean. And why does Kos use Howard Dean as the benchmark of what a presidential campaign should be? At one point, he even makes this odd claim:

Had Kerry not lent himself millions to reach the Iowa caucuses, and had Dean not been so green a candidate, Dean probably would have been the nominee.

Wasn't that the entire reason why his campaign imploded? It's like saying: "If I'd only learned to drive I wouldn't have had that terrible accident." Sure, you would've gotten where you were going safely if you knew how to drive. But why were you driving in the first place?

Kos attacks Hillary for being dim about the potential of the internet to move political campaigns. Naturally, he'd take this as a personal affront since he sees himself as the doyenne of web politics. I too feel that candidates must absorb the lessons of Howard Dean in future electoral campaigns. But at this early date--to say that her lack of a sophisticated internet campaign is a crucial factor in evaluating how effective she'd be as a candidate--seems way premature.

He claims that two crucial features Clinton lacks are outsider status and leadership. I, for one, don't feel that being an outsider gives any Democrat a leg up in the campaign. We have an outsider in the White House right now. Look how well he's done. A Democratic insider could do quite well as a candidate and president as long as he or she maintained a fierce independent streak. And as for the issue of leadership, here I agree with Kos. Hillary's leadership, such as it is, has led in the wrong direction. She's an Iraq hawk, a xenophobic opponent of the Dubai ports deal, a hardline supporter of Israel who shows no concern or consideration for the Palestinians, and she's shown no leadership around issues of civil liberties, spying and torture. That's why I won't support her.

And as if we didn't need another reason to oppose her, she's provided one more. MSNBC reports that Rupert Murdoch is hosting a big bash for her senate re-election campaign. The news site notes:

A poll from the [Murdoch's New York] Post website during [her previous] campaign identified her as the sixth "most evil" person of the millennium, ahead of Benito Mussolini and Vlad the Impaler. Her husband ranked second.

I certainly believe it's important for any Democratic candidate to reach out to those to our right. But shouldn't this stick in Hilary's craw a bit? Shouldn't she be blushing a bit before she runs into the arms of someone like Rupert? I'm of two minds on this. Sure it's only right as a candidate to accept money where you can find it. After all, what's important is to win--not just to be pure and right. But what troubles me about the embrace of Murdoch is that it is part of a pattern of turning hard right in order to win this nomination.

The NY Times also covers the same story with some added background information.

Frankly, I just don't see it as a strategy. How is it different from Joe Lieberman's 2004 strategy? Look how well that went over. Who now looks to Joe Lieberman to provide any leadership or motivation for the party? Admittedly, a hawkish Hilary might appeal more in a general election in which she'd be fighting her former image as a lefty. But how's she going to win the nomination first?

Some people were having trouble accessing the letter from The Islamic Republic News Agency or formatting it. I didn't blockquote the whole letter hoping it would help save space.

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush

Tehran, May 9, IRNA --

Iran-US-Ahmadinenejad's Letter

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to the US President George W. Bush.

"The letter to US President George Bush carries the Iranian nation's views and comments on international issues as well as suggestions for resolving the many problems facing humanity," said the Iranian president here Tuesday.

The president made the remark at Tehran Mehrabad International Airport before his departure for Indonesia to attend a meeting of the D-8 (Group of eight developing Muslim states).

The letter was submitted to President Bush via the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which takes care of the US interest section in Iran.

Earlier, Ahmadinejad had told reporters he had decided to send letters to leaders of certain countries on the occasion of Year of Great Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

The following is the full text of Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush:

"In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Mr George Bush,

President of the United States of America,

For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hope that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make "War on Terror" his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy (are) set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women - as occupation troops - put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 2

On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.

Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.

Mr. President,

You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness?

There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.

European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values.

Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.

Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.

Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.

I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.

Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 3

Mr. President,

I am sure you know how - and at what cost - Israel was established:

-Many thousands were killed in the process.

-Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.

-Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.

This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now.

A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique - or at the very least extremely rare - in recent memory.

Another big question asked by the people is "why is this regime being supported?"

Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH) or Moses (PBUH) or liberal values?

Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands - inside and outside Palestine -- whether they are Christian, Moslem or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?

The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observers have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognize the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government.

If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also asking "Why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?"

Mr. President,

As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them -- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.

It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well.

Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations?

You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.

Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 4

Mr. President,

Don't Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, Why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?

The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don't they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth - including minerals - is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?

Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?

The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d'etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country's progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.

Mr. President,

September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.

All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems - and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services - or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?

All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbors of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people -- who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks -- some Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity - some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?

American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?

Some believe that the hype paved the way -- and was the justification --for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media.

In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly -- for the public to finally believe -- and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.

Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate?

Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 5

Mr. President,

In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them.

The question here is "what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?"

As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist - to a larger or lesser extent -- in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign - paid from the public treasury - be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?

What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention - which I am hoping you will agree to some of it - is:

Those in power have a specific time in office and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.

The people will scrutinize our presidencies.

Did we mange to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment?

Did we intend to establish justice or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful -- thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs'?

Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them?

Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them?

Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats?

Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it?

Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors?

Did our administrations set out to promote rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns, intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights?

And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office - to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets -- or not?

Mr. President,

How much longer can the world tolerate this situation?

Where will this trend lead the world to?

How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers?

How much longer will the specter of insecurity - raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction -- hunt the people of the world?

How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people's houses destroyed over their heads?

Are you pleased with the current condition of the world?

Do you think present policies can continue?

If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states, and extinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts, were would the world be today? Would not your government and people be justifiably proud?

Would not your administration's political and economic standing have been stronger?

And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American government?

Mr. President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.

If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (PBUH) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ (PBUH) will be present? Will they even accept us?

My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Muslims and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses (PBUH). All divine religions share and respect one word and that is "monotheism" or belief in a single God and no other in the world.

The Holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on all followers of divine religions and says: [3.64] Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught with Him, and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah; but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran)

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 6

Mr. President,

According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets.

"To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases." "The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds."

"The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court" "planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins" "He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors" "He is the Compassionate, the Merciful" "He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness" "He is witness to the actions of His servants" "He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast" "Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds" "A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants" and "A good end and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves."

We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.

We also believe that Jesus Christ (PBUH) was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus (PBUH) has been quoted in Koran as well: [19.36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serve Him; this is the right path. Marium

Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers.

The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.

We again read in the Holy Book: "The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purify them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious".

All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well.

Divine prophets have promised:

The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by our actions.

All prophets, speak of peace and tranquility for man -- based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.

Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world -- that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets - and improve our performance?

Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice?

Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected?

Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush- Part 7

Mr. President,

History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted the fate of men to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices.

Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.

Can one deny the signs of change in the world today?

Is the situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace.

The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the world feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies.

The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries.

The people are disgusted with increasing corruption.

The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because their rights are not advocated by these organizations.

Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.

We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point -- that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: "Do you not want to join them?"

Mr. President,

Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.

Vasalam Ala Man Ataba'al hoda

Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran "