Democrats Abroad New Zealand
2.26.2006
Osama, Saddam and the Ports (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 24, 2006
The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new — the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports.
So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation.
Let's go back to the beginning. At 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld gave military commanders their marching orders. "Judge whether good enough hit S. H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time — not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]," read an aide's handwritten notes about his instructions. The notes were recently released after a Freedom of Information Act request. "Hard to get a good case," the notes acknowledge. Nonetheless, they say: "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
So it literally began on Day 1. When terrorists attacked the United States, the Bush administration immediately looked for ways it could exploit the atrocity to pursue unrelated goals — especially, but not exclusively, a war with Iraq.
(More ... Osama, Saddam and the Ports - New York Times) ¶ 21:22 6 comments
Published: February 24, 2006
The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new — the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports.
So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation.
Let's go back to the beginning. At 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld gave military commanders their marching orders. "Judge whether good enough hit S. H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time — not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]," read an aide's handwritten notes about his instructions. The notes were recently released after a Freedom of Information Act request. "Hard to get a good case," the notes acknowledge. Nonetheless, they say: "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
So it literally began on Day 1. When terrorists attacked the United States, the Bush administration immediately looked for ways it could exploit the atrocity to pursue unrelated goals — especially, but not exclusively, a war with Iraq.
(More ... Osama, Saddam and the Ports - New York Times) ¶ 21:22 6 comments
A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo (NYTimes.com)
By TIM GOLDEN and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: February 26, 2006
While an international debate rages over the future of the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges.
Pentagon officials have often described the detention site at Bagram, a cavernous former machine shop on an American air base 40 miles north of Kabul, as a screening center. They said most of the detainees were Afghans who might eventually be released under an amnesty program or transferred to an Afghan prison that is to be built with American aid.
But some of the detainees have already been held at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantánamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.
Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantánamo to challenge their detention in United States courts.
While Guantánamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the International Red Cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.
From the accounts of former detainees, military officials and soldiers who served there, a picture emerges of a place that is in many ways rougher and more bleak than its counterpart in Cuba. Men are held by the dozen in large wire cages, the detainees and military sources said, sleeping on the floor on foam mats and, until about a year ago, often using plastic buckets for latrines. Before recent renovations, they rarely saw daylight except for brief visits to a small exercise yard.
(More ... A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo - New York Times) ¶ 21:19 0 comments
Published: February 26, 2006
While an international debate rages over the future of the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges.
Pentagon officials have often described the detention site at Bagram, a cavernous former machine shop on an American air base 40 miles north of Kabul, as a screening center. They said most of the detainees were Afghans who might eventually be released under an amnesty program or transferred to an Afghan prison that is to be built with American aid.
But some of the detainees have already been held at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantánamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.
Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantánamo to challenge their detention in United States courts.
While Guantánamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the International Red Cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.
From the accounts of former detainees, military officials and soldiers who served there, a picture emerges of a place that is in many ways rougher and more bleak than its counterpart in Cuba. Men are held by the dozen in large wire cages, the detainees and military sources said, sleeping on the floor on foam mats and, until about a year ago, often using plastic buckets for latrines. Before recent renovations, they rarely saw daylight except for brief visits to a small exercise yard.
(More ... A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo - New York Times) ¶ 21:19 0 comments
Democrats See Hope of Winning Governors' Seats (NYTimes.com)
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: February 26, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — At a time when considerable political attention is focused on the Democrats' uphill struggle to recapture Congress, leaders of both parties say Democrats appear to be in a much stronger position on another pivotal battlefield this November, the contests for governors.
Democrats have a strong chance to pick up a number of seats held by Republicans while keeping seats even in states that President Bush won in 2004, potentially allowing Democrats to put their view of government on display across a bigger swath of the country and strengthening their position for the 2008 presidential race, party officials said.
Among the states that could flip to the Democratic column are Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio, all general election battlegrounds carried by Mr. Bush, as well as New York and perhaps California.
"From a math standpoint, we've got a tough row to hoe this year," Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the head of the Republican Governors Association, said as the National Governors Association gathered here this weekend for its annual Washington meeting.
Mr. Romney, whose decision not to seek re-election as he explores a run for president has put his own state in play for Democrats, said Republicans could suffer a net loss of as many as four governorships if the political environment for his party did not improve.
(More ... Democrats See Hope of Winning Governors' Seats - New York Times) ¶ 21:16 0 comments
Published: February 26, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — At a time when considerable political attention is focused on the Democrats' uphill struggle to recapture Congress, leaders of both parties say Democrats appear to be in a much stronger position on another pivotal battlefield this November, the contests for governors.
Democrats have a strong chance to pick up a number of seats held by Republicans while keeping seats even in states that President Bush won in 2004, potentially allowing Democrats to put their view of government on display across a bigger swath of the country and strengthening their position for the 2008 presidential race, party officials said.
Among the states that could flip to the Democratic column are Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio, all general election battlegrounds carried by Mr. Bush, as well as New York and perhaps California.
"From a math standpoint, we've got a tough row to hoe this year," Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the head of the Republican Governors Association, said as the National Governors Association gathered here this weekend for its annual Washington meeting.
Mr. Romney, whose decision not to seek re-election as he explores a run for president has put his own state in play for Democrats, said Republicans could suffer a net loss of as many as four governorships if the political environment for his party did not improve.
(More ... Democrats See Hope of Winning Governors' Seats - New York Times) ¶ 21:16 0 comments
2.25.2006
Saving Democracy (CommonDreams.org)
By Bill Moyers
I will leave to Jon Stewart the rich threads of humor to pluck from the hunting incident in Texas. All of us are relieved that the Vice President’s friend has survived. I can accept Dick Cheney’s word that the accident was one of the worst moments of his life. What intrigues me as a journalist now is the rare glimpse we have serendipitously been offered into the tightly knit world of the elites who govern today.
The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)
The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 millions of acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come “at the expense of ‘The Deer Hunter’ crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west.” Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits. The magazine (hardly a Marxist rag, remember) describes Mr. Cheney’s own expedition as “a lot closer to ‘Gosford Park’ than ‘The Deer Hunter’ – a group of fat old toffs waiting for wildlife to be flushed towards them at huge expense.”
At the heart of this story is a metaphor of power. The Vice President turned his host, the lobbyist who is also the ranch owner, into his de facto news manager. She would disclose the shooting only when Cheney was ready and only on his terms. Sure enough, nothing was made public for almost 20 hours until she finally leaked the authorized version to the local newspaper. Ms. Armstrong suggested the blame lay with the victim, who, she indicated, had failed to inform the Vice President of his whereabouts and walked into a hail of friendly fire. Three days later Cheney revised the story and apologized. Don’t you wonder what went back and forth with the White House that long night of trying to agree on the official line?
(More ... Saving Democracy) ¶ 21:37 0 comments
I will leave to Jon Stewart the rich threads of humor to pluck from the hunting incident in Texas. All of us are relieved that the Vice President’s friend has survived. I can accept Dick Cheney’s word that the accident was one of the worst moments of his life. What intrigues me as a journalist now is the rare glimpse we have serendipitously been offered into the tightly knit world of the elites who govern today.
The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)
The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 millions of acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come “at the expense of ‘The Deer Hunter’ crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west.” Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits. The magazine (hardly a Marxist rag, remember) describes Mr. Cheney’s own expedition as “a lot closer to ‘Gosford Park’ than ‘The Deer Hunter’ – a group of fat old toffs waiting for wildlife to be flushed towards them at huge expense.”
At the heart of this story is a metaphor of power. The Vice President turned his host, the lobbyist who is also the ranch owner, into his de facto news manager. She would disclose the shooting only when Cheney was ready and only on his terms. Sure enough, nothing was made public for almost 20 hours until she finally leaked the authorized version to the local newspaper. Ms. Armstrong suggested the blame lay with the victim, who, she indicated, had failed to inform the Vice President of his whereabouts and walked into a hail of friendly fire. Three days later Cheney revised the story and apologized. Don’t you wonder what went back and forth with the White House that long night of trying to agree on the official line?
(More ... Saving Democracy) ¶ 21:37 0 comments
2.24.2006
Annals of the Pentagon (NewYorker.com-->CommonDreams.org)
The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.
By Jane Mayer
One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers’ Club at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument, Alberto J. Mora, the outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, stood next to a podium in the club’s ballroom. A handsome gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, he listened with a mixture of embarrassment and pride as his colleagues toasted his impending departure. Amid the usual tributes were some more pointed comments.
“Never has there been a counsel with more intellectual courage or personal integrity,” David Brant, the former head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said. Brant added somewhat cryptically, “He surprised us into doing the right thing.” Conspicuous for his silence that night was Mora’s boss, William J. Haynes II, the general counsel of the Department of Defense.
Back in Haynes’s office, on the third floor of the Pentagon, there was a stack of papers chronicling a private battle that Mora had waged against Haynes and other top Administration officials, challenging their tactics in fighting terrorism. Some of the documents are classified and, despite repeated requests from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, have not been released. One document, which is marked “secret” but is not classified, is a twenty-two-page memo written by Mora. It shows that three years ago Mora tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects.
The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7, 2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that Mora’s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and persistent. Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, in April, 2004, Mora warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the consequences of President Bush’s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” He argued that a refusal to outlaw cruelty toward U.S.-held terrorist suspects was an implicit invitation to abuse. Mora also challenged the legal framework that the Bush Administration has constructed to justify an expansion of executive power, in matters ranging from interrogations to wiretapping. He described as “unlawful,” “dangerous,” and “erroneous” novel legal theories granting the President the right to authorize abuse. Mora warned that these precepts could leave U.S. personnel open to criminal prosecution.
(More ... Annals of the Pentagon) ¶ 07:53 0 comments
By Jane Mayer
One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers’ Club at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument, Alberto J. Mora, the outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, stood next to a podium in the club’s ballroom. A handsome gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, he listened with a mixture of embarrassment and pride as his colleagues toasted his impending departure. Amid the usual tributes were some more pointed comments.
“Never has there been a counsel with more intellectual courage or personal integrity,” David Brant, the former head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said. Brant added somewhat cryptically, “He surprised us into doing the right thing.” Conspicuous for his silence that night was Mora’s boss, William J. Haynes II, the general counsel of the Department of Defense.
Back in Haynes’s office, on the third floor of the Pentagon, there was a stack of papers chronicling a private battle that Mora had waged against Haynes and other top Administration officials, challenging their tactics in fighting terrorism. Some of the documents are classified and, despite repeated requests from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, have not been released. One document, which is marked “secret” but is not classified, is a twenty-two-page memo written by Mora. It shows that three years ago Mora tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects.
The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7, 2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that Mora’s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and persistent. Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, in April, 2004, Mora warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the consequences of President Bush’s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” He argued that a refusal to outlaw cruelty toward U.S.-held terrorist suspects was an implicit invitation to abuse. Mora also challenged the legal framework that the Bush Administration has constructed to justify an expansion of executive power, in matters ranging from interrogations to wiretapping. He described as “unlawful,” “dangerous,” and “erroneous” novel legal theories granting the President the right to authorize abuse. Mora warned that these precepts could leave U.S. personnel open to criminal prosecution.
(More ... Annals of the Pentagon) ¶ 07:53 0 comments
2.21.2006
The Mensch Gap (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 20, 2006
"Be a mensch," my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.
The people now running America aren't mensches.
Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most characteristic moment was the final act — the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr. Cheney, more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very intelligence agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.
Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and sidelined State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about "unknown unknowns" and going to war with "the army you have," ducking responsibility for the failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory — for Iran.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, isn't a mensch. Remember his excuse for failing to respond to the drowning of New Orleans? "I remember on Tuesday morning," he said on "Meet the Press," "picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' " We now know that by Tuesday morning, he had received — and ignored — many warnings about the unfolding disaster.
Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, isn't a mensch. He insists that the prescription drug plan's catastrophic start doesn't reflect poorly on his department, that "no logical person" would have expected "a transition happening that is so large without some problems." In fact, Medicare's 1966 startup went very smoothly. That didn't happen this time because his department ignored outside experts who warned, months in advance, about exactly the disaster that has taken place.
I could go on. Officials in this administration never take responsibility for their actions. When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault.
(More ... The Mensch Gap - New York Times) ¶ 18:42 0 comments
Published: February 20, 2006
"Be a mensch," my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.
The people now running America aren't mensches.
Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most characteristic moment was the final act — the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr. Cheney, more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very intelligence agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.
Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and sidelined State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about "unknown unknowns" and going to war with "the army you have," ducking responsibility for the failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory — for Iran.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, isn't a mensch. Remember his excuse for failing to respond to the drowning of New Orleans? "I remember on Tuesday morning," he said on "Meet the Press," "picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' " We now know that by Tuesday morning, he had received — and ignored — many warnings about the unfolding disaster.
Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, isn't a mensch. He insists that the prescription drug plan's catastrophic start doesn't reflect poorly on his department, that "no logical person" would have expected "a transition happening that is so large without some problems." In fact, Medicare's 1966 startup went very smoothly. That didn't happen this time because his department ignored outside experts who warned, months in advance, about exactly the disaster that has taken place.
I could go on. Officials in this administration never take responsibility for their actions. When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault.
(More ... The Mensch Gap - New York Times) ¶ 18:42 0 comments
2.20.2006
'The Americans are Breaking International Law (Independent.co.uk)
It is a Society Heading Towards Animal Farm' - Archbishop Sentamu on Guantanamo
By Ian Herbert and Ben Russell
Published: 18 February 2006
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate attack on President George Bush, saying his administration's refusal to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected "a society that is heading towards George Orwell's Animal Farm".
Dr Sentamu, the Church of England's second in command, urged the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to take legal action against the US - through the US courts or the International Court of Justice at The Hague - should it fail to respond to a report, by five UN inspectors, advising that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately because prisoners there are being tortured.
The report was published on Thursday, as a senior High Court judge, Mr Justice Collins, stated that American actions over Guantanamo's Camp Delta do not "appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations". As a result of his ruling, three of eight British inmates held in the camp are to appeal to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to intervene with the Bush administration on their behalf.
Archbishop Sentamu's comments will strengthen the increasingly insistent international pressure for Guantanamo to be closed. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for its closure, after similar appeals by Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and the UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
Dr Sentamu said the UNHRC should seek a writ of habeas corpus, compelling the US to bring those being detained at Guantanamo to court, to establish whether they are imprisoned lawfully and if they should be released.
(More ... Independent Online Edition > Americas) ¶ 20:05 0 comments
By Ian Herbert and Ben Russell
Published: 18 February 2006
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate attack on President George Bush, saying his administration's refusal to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected "a society that is heading towards George Orwell's Animal Farm".
Dr Sentamu, the Church of England's second in command, urged the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to take legal action against the US - through the US courts or the International Court of Justice at The Hague - should it fail to respond to a report, by five UN inspectors, advising that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately because prisoners there are being tortured.
The report was published on Thursday, as a senior High Court judge, Mr Justice Collins, stated that American actions over Guantanamo's Camp Delta do not "appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations". As a result of his ruling, three of eight British inmates held in the camp are to appeal to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to intervene with the Bush administration on their behalf.
Archbishop Sentamu's comments will strengthen the increasingly insistent international pressure for Guantanamo to be closed. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for its closure, after similar appeals by Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and the UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
Dr Sentamu said the UNHRC should seek a writ of habeas corpus, compelling the US to bring those being detained at Guantanamo to court, to establish whether they are imprisoned lawfully and if they should be released.
(More ... Independent Online Edition > Americas) ¶ 20:05 0 comments
37 million Poor Hidden in the Land of Plenty (Observer.Guardian.co.uk)
Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening
By Paul Harris
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Observer
The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.
The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
(More ... Observer | 37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty) ¶ 20:00 0 comments
By Paul Harris
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Observer
The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.
The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
(More ... Observer | 37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty) ¶ 20:00 0 comments
2.19.2006
At a Scientific Gathering, U.S. Policies Are Lamented (NYTimes.com)
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: February 19, 2006
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 18 — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, "I shrug and say, 'What do you expect?' "
But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration's embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.
"It's no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom," he said. "It's part of the theory of government now, and it's a theory we need to vociferously oppose." Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be "the guardian of intellectual freedom."
Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation's research pre-eminence.
The session was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization that has been highly critical of the Bush administration.
(More ... At a Scientific Gathering, U.S. Policies Are Lamented - New York Times) ¶ 20:06 0 comments
Published: February 19, 2006
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 18 — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, "I shrug and say, 'What do you expect?' "
But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration's embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.
"It's no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom," he said. "It's part of the theory of government now, and it's a theory we need to vociferously oppose." Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be "the guardian of intellectual freedom."
Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation's research pre-eminence.
The session was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization that has been highly critical of the Bush administration.
(More ... At a Scientific Gathering, U.S. Policies Are Lamented - New York Times) ¶ 20:06 0 comments
Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program (NYTimes.com)
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: February 18, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday that he wanted the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program brought under the authority of a special intelligence court, a move President Bush has argued is not necessary.
The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said he had some concerns that the court could not issue warrants quickly enough to keep up with the needs of the eavesdropping program. But he said he would like to see those details worked out.
Mr. Roberts also said he did not believe that exempting the program from the purview of the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "would be met with much support" on Capitol Hill. Yet that is exactly the approach the Bush administration is pursuing.
"I think it should come before the FISA court, but I don't know how it works," Mr. Roberts said. "You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit. So we have to solve that problem."
Mr. Roberts spoke in an interview a day after announcing that the White House, in a turnabout, had agreed to open discussions about changing surveillance law. By Friday, with Mr. Roberts apparently stung by accusations that he had caved to White House pressure not to investigate the eavesdropping without warrants, it appeared the talks could put the White House and Congress on a collision course.
(More ... Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program - New York Times) ¶ 13:49 0 comments
Published: February 18, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday that he wanted the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program brought under the authority of a special intelligence court, a move President Bush has argued is not necessary.
The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said he had some concerns that the court could not issue warrants quickly enough to keep up with the needs of the eavesdropping program. But he said he would like to see those details worked out.
Mr. Roberts also said he did not believe that exempting the program from the purview of the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "would be met with much support" on Capitol Hill. Yet that is exactly the approach the Bush administration is pursuing.
"I think it should come before the FISA court, but I don't know how it works," Mr. Roberts said. "You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit. So we have to solve that problem."
Mr. Roberts spoke in an interview a day after announcing that the White House, in a turnabout, had agreed to open discussions about changing surveillance law. By Friday, with Mr. Roberts apparently stung by accusations that he had caved to White House pressure not to investigate the eavesdropping without warrants, it appeared the talks could put the White House and Congress on a collision course.
(More ... Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program - New York Times) ¶ 13:49 0 comments
2.18.2006
Trapped in a Legal No-man's Land (Telegraph.co.uk)
(Filed: 17/02/2006)
Blair favours closing Guantanamo, claims minister
In a rare visit by a British journalist, Con Coughlin reports on the changes that have taken place at Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
They are the lost souls of the war on terror. Four years after they were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan, the hundreds of al-Qa'eda and Taliban fighters held at America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre find themselves trapped in a legal no-man's land.
During a rare visit this week to Camp Delta, the sprawling, heavily-guarded network of buildings where the inmates are held, I found a variety of detainees of varying ages and backgrounds still trying to come to terms with their incongruous surroundings on a Caribbean island.
I came across an elderly Pashtun tribesman with an immaculately groomed long, white beard and fierce, brown eyes, standing proudly outside his prison cell. There was a group of young Pakistani men in their early twenties engaged in a highly competitive game of football. And sitting in a quiet corner, under a metal shelter protecting them from the fierce midday sun, I found a group of middle-aged Afghan men engaged in soft-spoken conversation as they shared a communal meal.
These, according to American officials, are some of the most dangerous men on earth (there are no women detainees at Guantanamo). Of the estimated 70,000 fighters captured during the American-led coalition's war in Afghanistan, the 750 detainees that have been held at Guantanamo, the 45-square mile US Naval Base the American government leases from Cuba, have been identified, following security and intelligence checks, as key figures in the al-Qa'eda and Taliban terror networks who can provide information about terror campaigns against the West.
(More ... Telegraph | News | Trapped in a legal no-man's land) ¶ 18:47 0 comments
Blair favours closing Guantanamo, claims minister
In a rare visit by a British journalist, Con Coughlin reports on the changes that have taken place at Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
They are the lost souls of the war on terror. Four years after they were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan, the hundreds of al-Qa'eda and Taliban fighters held at America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre find themselves trapped in a legal no-man's land.
During a rare visit this week to Camp Delta, the sprawling, heavily-guarded network of buildings where the inmates are held, I found a variety of detainees of varying ages and backgrounds still trying to come to terms with their incongruous surroundings on a Caribbean island.
I came across an elderly Pashtun tribesman with an immaculately groomed long, white beard and fierce, brown eyes, standing proudly outside his prison cell. There was a group of young Pakistani men in their early twenties engaged in a highly competitive game of football. And sitting in a quiet corner, under a metal shelter protecting them from the fierce midday sun, I found a group of middle-aged Afghan men engaged in soft-spoken conversation as they shared a communal meal.
These, according to American officials, are some of the most dangerous men on earth (there are no women detainees at Guantanamo). Of the estimated 70,000 fighters captured during the American-led coalition's war in Afghanistan, the 750 detainees that have been held at Guantanamo, the 45-square mile US Naval Base the American government leases from Cuba, have been identified, following security and intelligence checks, as key figures in the al-Qa'eda and Taliban terror networks who can provide information about terror campaigns against the West.
(More ... Telegraph | News | Trapped in a legal no-man's land) ¶ 18:47 0 comments
Defiant US Presses on with Construction of Maximum-Security Prison Complex (Telegraph.co.uk)
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 17/02/2006)
America is pressing ahead with the construction of a complex of high-security jails at Guantanamo Bay despite calls from the United Nations for the prison camp to be closed.
The US military has just finished building a $16 million (£9 million) 100-bed maximum-security prison, and a second jail capable of holding 200 prisoners is due to be completed this summer.
Senior officers at Guantanamo say they aim to have all of the 500 detainees currently held at the US Naval base housed in the maximum security prisons, which are based on a state-of-the-art jail in Idaho.
Work on the jails is continuing despite a call from the authors of a UN human rights report for the immediate closure of Guantanamo and prosecution of American officials found guilty of torturing the inmates.
The White House last night dismissed the report as a "discredit to the UN". "They haven't even looked into the facts, all they've done is look at the allegations," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "We know that al-Qa'eda terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."
(More ... Telegraph | News | Defiant US presses on with construction of maximum-security prison complex) ¶ 18:41 0 comments
(Filed: 17/02/2006)
America is pressing ahead with the construction of a complex of high-security jails at Guantanamo Bay despite calls from the United Nations for the prison camp to be closed.
The US military has just finished building a $16 million (£9 million) 100-bed maximum-security prison, and a second jail capable of holding 200 prisoners is due to be completed this summer.
Senior officers at Guantanamo say they aim to have all of the 500 detainees currently held at the US Naval base housed in the maximum security prisons, which are based on a state-of-the-art jail in Idaho.
Work on the jails is continuing despite a call from the authors of a UN human rights report for the immediate closure of Guantanamo and prosecution of American officials found guilty of torturing the inmates.
The White House last night dismissed the report as a "discredit to the UN". "They haven't even looked into the facts, all they've done is look at the allegations," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "We know that al-Qa'eda terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."
(More ... Telegraph | News | Defiant US presses on with construction of maximum-security prison complex) ¶ 18:41 0 comments
Debt and Denial (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 13, 2006
Last year America spent 57 percent more than it earned on world markets. That is, our imports were 57 percent larger than our exports.
How did we manage to live so far beyond our means? By running up debts to Japan, China and Middle Eastern oil producers. We're as addicted to imported money as we are to imported oil.
Sometimes large-scale foreign borrowing makes sense. In the 19th century the United States borrowed vast sums from Europe, using the funds to build railroads and other industrial infrastructure. That debt-financed wave of investment left America stronger, not weaker.
But this time our overseas borrowing isn't financing an investment boom: adjusted for the size of the economy, business investment is actually low by historical standards. Instead, we're using borrowed money to build houses, buy consumer goods and, of course, finance the federal budget deficit.
In 2005 spending on home construction as a percentage of G.D.P. reached its highest level in more than 50 years. People who already own houses are treating them like A.T.M.'s, converting home equity into spending money: last year the personal savings rate fell below zero for the first time since 1933. And it's a sign of our degraded fiscal state that the Bush administration actually boasted about a 2005 budget deficit of more than $300 billion, because it was a bit lower than the 2004 deficit.
It all sounds unsustainable. And it is.
(More ... Debt and Denial - New York Times) ¶ 09:45 0 comments
Published: February 13, 2006
Last year America spent 57 percent more than it earned on world markets. That is, our imports were 57 percent larger than our exports.
How did we manage to live so far beyond our means? By running up debts to Japan, China and Middle Eastern oil producers. We're as addicted to imported money as we are to imported oil.
Sometimes large-scale foreign borrowing makes sense. In the 19th century the United States borrowed vast sums from Europe, using the funds to build railroads and other industrial infrastructure. That debt-financed wave of investment left America stronger, not weaker.
But this time our overseas borrowing isn't financing an investment boom: adjusted for the size of the economy, business investment is actually low by historical standards. Instead, we're using borrowed money to build houses, buy consumer goods and, of course, finance the federal budget deficit.
In 2005 spending on home construction as a percentage of G.D.P. reached its highest level in more than 50 years. People who already own houses are treating them like A.T.M.'s, converting home equity into spending money: last year the personal savings rate fell below zero for the first time since 1933. And it's a sign of our degraded fiscal state that the Bush administration actually boasted about a 2005 budget deficit of more than $300 billion, because it was a bit lower than the 2004 deficit.
It all sounds unsustainable. And it is.
(More ... Debt and Denial - New York Times) ¶ 09:45 0 comments
2.16.2006
At a Fast Food Bastion, Bush Sells Health Plan (LATimes.com)
He says special savings accounts, like those offered to Wendy's workers, will cut costs.
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
DUBLIN, Ohio — President Bush talked on Wednesday about good health, and his plan to help America pay for it, at the home office of the nation's third-largest purveyor of hamburgers and French fries.
Speaking in the lobby at the headquarters of Wendy's International, Bush urged Americans concerned about healthcare costs to consider a fledgling government program built around high-deductible insurance for catastrophic illness or accidents and tax-free personal savings accounts to pay for routine medical needs.
The health savings accounts, or HSAs, offer participants choices in healthcare while holding down costs because the payments will come from a patient's savings account, Bush said. If patients shop for the lowest prices, doctors and others will yield to competitive pressure, he added.
The plan's critics have argued that the program would attract the healthiest Americans, who would be able to put aside savings tax-free and spend little for healthcare, while traditional employer-provided plans would be filled with people whose health costs are the highest.
"If patients control how their healthcare dollars are spent, the result is better treatment at lower cost," Bush said.
(More ... At a Fast Food Bastion, Bush Sells Health Plan - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 21:43 0 comments
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
DUBLIN, Ohio — President Bush talked on Wednesday about good health, and his plan to help America pay for it, at the home office of the nation's third-largest purveyor of hamburgers and French fries.
Speaking in the lobby at the headquarters of Wendy's International, Bush urged Americans concerned about healthcare costs to consider a fledgling government program built around high-deductible insurance for catastrophic illness or accidents and tax-free personal savings accounts to pay for routine medical needs.
The health savings accounts, or HSAs, offer participants choices in healthcare while holding down costs because the payments will come from a patient's savings account, Bush said. If patients shop for the lowest prices, doctors and others will yield to competitive pressure, he added.
The plan's critics have argued that the program would attract the healthiest Americans, who would be able to put aside savings tax-free and spend little for healthcare, while traditional employer-provided plans would be filled with people whose health costs are the highest.
"If patients control how their healthcare dollars are spent, the result is better treatment at lower cost," Bush said.
(More ... At a Fast Food Bastion, Bush Sells Health Plan - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 21:43 0 comments
US Sinks to New Low in Eyes of Australians (SMH.com.au)
By Louise Williams
February 16, 2006
AUSTRALIANS are more hostile than ever towards the United States and view China's global influence more favourably than that of Canberra's key ally, a new global poll has found.
The poll, released yesterday in the influential US magazine Foreign Policy, describes America as globally "red, white and booed", noting: "The United States's standing dropped sharply as a result of the Iraq war, and it hasn't hit rock bottom yet."
In interviews conducted between last October and January, only 29 per cent of Australians had a "mainly positive" attitude towards the US, while 60 per cent were "mainly negative" and 11 per cent undecided. This is down on last year, when 40 per cent of Australians were positive about the US.
America's popularity also fell, but less sharply, among allies such as Britain and South Korea. Only the French and Germans, opponents of the invasion of war in Iraq, are less enthusiastic about the US than Australians.
"The Bush Administration is a very difficult export for the US … and you can see the same responses in other liberal democracies," said Allan Gyngell, executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
A big poll by the Lowy Institute last year revealed similarly critical views of the US and a more benign attitude to China.
(More ... SMH >> Home >> World >> Article >> US sinks to new low in eyes of Australians) ¶ 12:45 0 comments
February 16, 2006
AUSTRALIANS are more hostile than ever towards the United States and view China's global influence more favourably than that of Canberra's key ally, a new global poll has found.
The poll, released yesterday in the influential US magazine Foreign Policy, describes America as globally "red, white and booed", noting: "The United States's standing dropped sharply as a result of the Iraq war, and it hasn't hit rock bottom yet."
In interviews conducted between last October and January, only 29 per cent of Australians had a "mainly positive" attitude towards the US, while 60 per cent were "mainly negative" and 11 per cent undecided. This is down on last year, when 40 per cent of Australians were positive about the US.
America's popularity also fell, but less sharply, among allies such as Britain and South Korea. Only the French and Germans, opponents of the invasion of war in Iraq, are less enthusiastic about the US than Australians.
"The Bush Administration is a very difficult export for the US … and you can see the same responses in other liberal democracies," said Allan Gyngell, executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
A big poll by the Lowy Institute last year revealed similarly critical views of the US and a more benign attitude to China.
(More ... SMH >> Home >> World >> Article >> US sinks to new low in eyes of Australians) ¶ 12:45 0 comments
New Abu Ghraib Photos Revealed (SBS.com.au)
15.2.2006. 20:25:24
Graphic new photographs have emerged of prisoners being abused by US soldiers inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which apparently reveal a greater extent of mistreatment in the 2003 prisoner abuse scandal.
The images, which have been shown on SBS’s Dateline program Wednesday, were taken at the same time as the infamous photographs of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners inside Abu Ghraib, which sparked international outrage after they were leaked in 2004.
While some of the photographs are similar to the images made public two years ago, the latest photographs reveal further abuse including new incidents of killing, torture and sexual humiliation, the program’s producers said.
Dateline said the photos are the subject of a legal battle in the United States.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been granted access to the photographs under Freedom of Information provisions, but the US government is currently appealing the decision.
View Photos
(More ... SBS - The World News) ¶ 08:02 0 comments
Graphic new photographs have emerged of prisoners being abused by US soldiers inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which apparently reveal a greater extent of mistreatment in the 2003 prisoner abuse scandal.
The images, which have been shown on SBS’s Dateline program Wednesday, were taken at the same time as the infamous photographs of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners inside Abu Ghraib, which sparked international outrage after they were leaked in 2004.
While some of the photographs are similar to the images made public two years ago, the latest photographs reveal further abuse including new incidents of killing, torture and sexual humiliation, the program’s producers said.
Dateline said the photos are the subject of a legal battle in the United States.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been granted access to the photographs under Freedom of Information provisions, but the US government is currently appealing the decision.
View Photos
(More ... SBS - The World News) ¶ 08:02 0 comments
Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House (NYTimes.com)
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: February 15, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — When the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, came to the press room just before 10 a.m. Tuesday and suggested he was wearing an orange tie to avoid a stray shot from Vice President Dick Cheney, it seemed to signal an effort to defuse the accidental-shooting story with a laugh.
But by midday, it was clear that the staffs of the president and the vice president had failed to communicate. Just after arriving at work around 7:45 a.m., Mr. Cheney learned that the man he had shot, Harry M. Whittington, was about to undergo a medical procedure on his heart because his injuries were more serious than earlier believed, Mr. Cheney's spokeswoman said.
No one in Mr. Cheney's office passed the word to Mr. McClellan, senior officials at the White House said, adding that the press secretary would never have joked about the shooting accident if he had known about the turn of events involving Mr. Whittington.
It was the latest example of the degree to which Mr. Cheney's habit of living in his own world in the Bush White House — surrounded by his own staff, relying on his own instincts, saying as little as possible — had backfired since the accident in Texas on Saturday. Mr. Cheney's staff members have kept their comments to chronological details and to repeating the vice president's written statements.
The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how they tried to handle the news of the shooting differently. Mr. McClellan, while being careful not to cross Mr. Cheney or his aides directly, has made a point of reminding reporters of how he dealt with Mr. Bush's bicycle accident last summer, when the president collided with a Scottish policeman at the G-8 summit.
"I immediately briefed the press on how the accident had happened, and the condition of the police officer," who was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, Mr. McClellan said.
(More ... Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House - New York Times) ¶ 07:54 0 comments
Published: February 15, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — When the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, came to the press room just before 10 a.m. Tuesday and suggested he was wearing an orange tie to avoid a stray shot from Vice President Dick Cheney, it seemed to signal an effort to defuse the accidental-shooting story with a laugh.
But by midday, it was clear that the staffs of the president and the vice president had failed to communicate. Just after arriving at work around 7:45 a.m., Mr. Cheney learned that the man he had shot, Harry M. Whittington, was about to undergo a medical procedure on his heart because his injuries were more serious than earlier believed, Mr. Cheney's spokeswoman said.
No one in Mr. Cheney's office passed the word to Mr. McClellan, senior officials at the White House said, adding that the press secretary would never have joked about the shooting accident if he had known about the turn of events involving Mr. Whittington.
It was the latest example of the degree to which Mr. Cheney's habit of living in his own world in the Bush White House — surrounded by his own staff, relying on his own instincts, saying as little as possible — had backfired since the accident in Texas on Saturday. Mr. Cheney's staff members have kept their comments to chronological details and to repeating the vice president's written statements.
The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how they tried to handle the news of the shooting differently. Mr. McClellan, while being careful not to cross Mr. Cheney or his aides directly, has made a point of reminding reporters of how he dealt with Mr. Bush's bicycle accident last summer, when the president collided with a Scottish policeman at the G-8 summit.
"I immediately briefed the press on how the accident had happened, and the condition of the police officer," who was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, Mr. McClellan said.
(More ... Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House - New York Times) ¶ 07:54 0 comments
2.15.2006
U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies (NYTimes.com)
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: February 14, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.
New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.
Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.
Administration officials say that the benefits are dictated by laws and regulations that date back to 1996, when energy prices were relatively low and Congress wanted to encourage more exploration and drilling in the high-cost, high-risk deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"We need to remember the primary reason that incentives are given," said Johnnie M. Burton, director of the federal Minerals Management Service. "It's not to make more money, necessarily. It's to make more oil, more gas, because production of fuel for our nation is essential to our economy and essential to our people."
(More ... U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 0 comments
Published: February 14, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.
New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.
Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.
Administration officials say that the benefits are dictated by laws and regulations that date back to 1996, when energy prices were relatively low and Congress wanted to encourage more exploration and drilling in the high-cost, high-risk deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"We need to remember the primary reason that incentives are given," said Johnnie M. Burton, director of the federal Minerals Management Service. "It's not to make more money, necessarily. It's to make more oil, more gas, because production of fuel for our nation is essential to our economy and essential to our people."
(More ... U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 0 comments
At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution (NYTimes.com)
By NEELA BANERJEE and ANNE BERRYMAN
Published: February 13, 2006
On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.
At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."
In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.
"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."
(More ... At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution - New York Times) ¶ 07:57 0 comments
Published: February 13, 2006
On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.
At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."
In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.
"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."
(More ... At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution - New York Times) ¶ 07:57 0 comments
Hunter Shot by Cheney Suffered Minor Heart Attack (NYTimes.com)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 14, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man shot by Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a minor heart attack after birdshot moved into his heart, hospital officials said Tuesday, and was moved back to the intensive care unit for further treatment.
Texas attorney Harry Whittington was recovering and will be monitored for seven days to make sure more bird shot doesn't move to other organs or move to other part of his body, hospital officials said.
"However some of the bird shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart in what we would say is a minor heart attack," said Peter Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
(More ... Hunter Shot by Cheney Suffered Minor Heart Attack - New York Times) ¶ 07:56 0 comments
Published: February 14, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man shot by Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a minor heart attack after birdshot moved into his heart, hospital officials said Tuesday, and was moved back to the intensive care unit for further treatment.
Texas attorney Harry Whittington was recovering and will be monitored for seven days to make sure more bird shot doesn't move to other organs or move to other part of his body, hospital officials said.
"However some of the bird shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart in what we would say is a minor heart attack," said Peter Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
(More ... Hunter Shot by Cheney Suffered Minor Heart Attack - New York Times) ¶ 07:56 0 comments
2.14.2006
Abortion will lead to Muslim nation: MP - National - smh.com.au (SMH.com.au)
By Stephanie Peatling
February 14, 2006
AUSTRALIA could become a Muslim nation within 50 years because "we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence", a Government backbencher says.
The former minister Danna Vale is one of five Coalition women proposing an amendment to the private member's bill that seeks to remove ministerial veto over abortion drugs such as RU486. At a news conference called by the five yesterday, she said it was important politicians considered the ramifications "for the community and the nation we become in the future".
"I have read … comments by a certain imam from the Lakemba Mosque [who] actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time," said Mrs Vale, MP for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes.
"I didn't believe him at the time. But … look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every year … You multiply that by 50 years. That's 5 million potential Australians we won't have here."
(More ... Abortion will lead to Muslim nation: MP - National - smh.com.au) ¶ 21:13 0 comments
February 14, 2006
AUSTRALIA could become a Muslim nation within 50 years because "we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence", a Government backbencher says.
The former minister Danna Vale is one of five Coalition women proposing an amendment to the private member's bill that seeks to remove ministerial veto over abortion drugs such as RU486. At a news conference called by the five yesterday, she said it was important politicians considered the ramifications "for the community and the nation we become in the future".
"I have read … comments by a certain imam from the Lakemba Mosque [who] actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time," said Mrs Vale, MP for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes.
"I didn't believe him at the time. But … look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every year … You multiply that by 50 years. That's 5 million potential Australians we won't have here."
(More ... Abortion will lead to Muslim nation: MP - National - smh.com.au) ¶ 21:13 0 comments
Proposed Indiana Law Says Life Begins at Conception (CNN.com)
Saturday, February 11, 2006; Posted: 1:33 p.m. EST (18:33 GMT)
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Indiana women seeking an abortion would be told life begins at conception under a proposal that would give the state one of the furthest-reaching abortion consent laws in the country.
Only one state -- South Dakota -- has gone so far in what it orders doctors to tell women before they can get abortions, and that law has been blocked by a court.
Supporters say the legislation would provide women key information before making an irreversible decision, but critics argue it blurs the line between church and state and could infringe on doctors' First Amendment rights.
"To put our religion or faithful beliefs into a statute that's going to be law, without being able to back it up scientifically, I have real hard questions about doing that," said Indiana Rep. John Ulmer, a Republican who voted against the bill.
Indiana is one of 29 states with "informed consent" laws that require women seeking an abortion to receive information about the procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization in New York and Washington, D.C., that researches and tracks state abortion legislation.
Most tell women assistance is available for prenatal care, childbirth and infant care if they decide to carry their pregnancy to term. Three states -- Arkansas, Nevada and Wisconsin -- provide information about the possible psychological effects of an abortion.
(More ... CNN.com - Proposed Indiana law says life begins at conception - Feb 11, 2006) ¶ 21:07 0 comments
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Indiana women seeking an abortion would be told life begins at conception under a proposal that would give the state one of the furthest-reaching abortion consent laws in the country.
Only one state -- South Dakota -- has gone so far in what it orders doctors to tell women before they can get abortions, and that law has been blocked by a court.
Supporters say the legislation would provide women key information before making an irreversible decision, but critics argue it blurs the line between church and state and could infringe on doctors' First Amendment rights.
"To put our religion or faithful beliefs into a statute that's going to be law, without being able to back it up scientifically, I have real hard questions about doing that," said Indiana Rep. John Ulmer, a Republican who voted against the bill.
Indiana is one of 29 states with "informed consent" laws that require women seeking an abortion to receive information about the procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization in New York and Washington, D.C., that researches and tracks state abortion legislation.
Most tell women assistance is available for prenatal care, childbirth and infant care if they decide to carry their pregnancy to term. Three states -- Arkansas, Nevada and Wisconsin -- provide information about the possible psychological effects of an abortion.
(More ... CNN.com - Proposed Indiana law says life begins at conception - Feb 11, 2006) ¶ 21:07 0 comments
Bush Flickers Out, Republicans Face Mass Hibernation (Observer.com)
By Chris Lehmann
History and polling are two things the Bush administration professes to scorn. But as the 2006 elections speed toward us, both appear to be overtaking the Republican Party, and the Republicans are hardly in position to take on more bad news.
Just before last week’s vote designating John A. Boehner as House Majority Leader, the Club for Growth—one of the Hill’s biggest low-tax, pro-business political-action committees—released an opinion survey covering 20 key House races.
The survey supplies an advance view of what it could take for Democrats to turn around their present 30-vote deficit in the House. Fourteen of the races involve Republican incumbents facing tough re-election fights, five are open seats, and one is an open district—the one formerly belonging to the stunningly corrupt, indicted and since-departed House member Randy (Duke) Cunningham.
Now President Bush’s terse verdict on the political past—“History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead”—is looking just a little too vivid for G.O.P. candidates and consultants trying to avoid becoming history themselves.
(More ... NYO - News Story 2) ¶ 19:58 0 comments
History and polling are two things the Bush administration professes to scorn. But as the 2006 elections speed toward us, both appear to be overtaking the Republican Party, and the Republicans are hardly in position to take on more bad news.
Just before last week’s vote designating John A. Boehner as House Majority Leader, the Club for Growth—one of the Hill’s biggest low-tax, pro-business political-action committees—released an opinion survey covering 20 key House races.
The survey supplies an advance view of what it could take for Democrats to turn around their present 30-vote deficit in the House. Fourteen of the races involve Republican incumbents facing tough re-election fights, five are open seats, and one is an open district—the one formerly belonging to the stunningly corrupt, indicted and since-departed House member Randy (Duke) Cunningham.
Now President Bush’s terse verdict on the political past—“History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead”—is looking just a little too vivid for G.O.P. candidates and consultants trying to avoid becoming history themselves.
(More ... NYO - News Story 2) ¶ 19:58 0 comments
Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident (TIME.com)
Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident
Word of the mishap took 20 hours to get out as the Vice President insisted on telling a local newspaper before everyone else, sources say
By MIKE ALLEN/WASHINGTON
Posted Monday, Feb. 13, 2006
The Vice President was the press strategist, and Karl Rove was the investigative reporter. Vice President Cheney overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff and insisted on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident, according to several Republican sources.
"This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who is close to the White House and has rarely been critical of the Administration in the past five years. "Karl was constrained, as was the entire communications operation, because the Vice President had arranged for how this was to come out."
As described by the White House spokesman at a pair of rowdy briefings and in a follow-up e-mail to reporters, Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old hunting companion on a ranch near Corpus Christi on Saturday at about 5:30 p.m. local time, or 6:30 p.m. in Washington. A traveling aide to the Vice President gave what one official privately called a "heads up" to the staff at the White House Situation Room, who notified White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. He called President Bush around 7:30 p.m. "to inform him that there was a hunting accident" in the Vice President's group, a spokesman said, but Card "did not know the Vice President was involved at that time," according to an e-mail to White House reporters. Rove, a deputy chief of staff, later spoke to the ranch owner, who is a longtime friend, and discovered that the Vice President had acccidentally shot someone. Rove called Bush shortly before 8 p.m. to tell him, according to the e-mail. Press Secretary Scott McClellan was not told until 6 the next morning. At that time, he began "pushing to get the information out," according to an official who learned about the conversations from someone besides McClellan.
But that did not happen right away. Cheney insisted on carrying out a strategy he had worked out with the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, in which she was to call a trusted reporter at the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, to disclose the news. Caller-Times Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told TIME that the newspaper had done its usual nightly checks with local law enforcement agents on Saturday and had been told nothing was going on. Armstrong started leaving messages at the newspaper at 8 a.m., reached a reporter by 11 a.m. and the newspaper posted its story on the Web at 1:48 p.m. local time Sunday. At 3:34 p.m. eastern time, The Associated Press finally flashed the news: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a hunting trip in Texas." Fitzgerald said he is "mystified" about the chain of events and that the public should have been notified much earlier, even if the shooter had been some random guy. Even on Monday, the newspaper struggled to get a copy of the accident report. "I think it has become a bigger deal than Mr. Cheney and/or the White House anticipated," the editor said.
(More ... TIME.com: Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident -- Page 1) ¶ 19:11 0 comments
Word of the mishap took 20 hours to get out as the Vice President insisted on telling a local newspaper before everyone else, sources say
By MIKE ALLEN/WASHINGTON
Posted Monday, Feb. 13, 2006
The Vice President was the press strategist, and Karl Rove was the investigative reporter. Vice President Cheney overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff and insisted on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident, according to several Republican sources.
"This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who is close to the White House and has rarely been critical of the Administration in the past five years. "Karl was constrained, as was the entire communications operation, because the Vice President had arranged for how this was to come out."
As described by the White House spokesman at a pair of rowdy briefings and in a follow-up e-mail to reporters, Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old hunting companion on a ranch near Corpus Christi on Saturday at about 5:30 p.m. local time, or 6:30 p.m. in Washington. A traveling aide to the Vice President gave what one official privately called a "heads up" to the staff at the White House Situation Room, who notified White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. He called President Bush around 7:30 p.m. "to inform him that there was a hunting accident" in the Vice President's group, a spokesman said, but Card "did not know the Vice President was involved at that time," according to an e-mail to White House reporters. Rove, a deputy chief of staff, later spoke to the ranch owner, who is a longtime friend, and discovered that the Vice President had acccidentally shot someone. Rove called Bush shortly before 8 p.m. to tell him, according to the e-mail. Press Secretary Scott McClellan was not told until 6 the next morning. At that time, he began "pushing to get the information out," according to an official who learned about the conversations from someone besides McClellan.
But that did not happen right away. Cheney insisted on carrying out a strategy he had worked out with the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, in which she was to call a trusted reporter at the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, to disclose the news. Caller-Times Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told TIME that the newspaper had done its usual nightly checks with local law enforcement agents on Saturday and had been told nothing was going on. Armstrong started leaving messages at the newspaper at 8 a.m., reached a reporter by 11 a.m. and the newspaper posted its story on the Web at 1:48 p.m. local time Sunday. At 3:34 p.m. eastern time, The Associated Press finally flashed the news: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a hunting trip in Texas." Fitzgerald said he is "mystified" about the chain of events and that the public should have been notified much earlier, even if the shooter had been some random guy. Even on Monday, the newspaper struggled to get a copy of the accident report. "I think it has become a bigger deal than Mr. Cheney and/or the White House anticipated," the editor said.
(More ... TIME.com: Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident -- Page 1) ¶ 19:11 0 comments
Cheney Lacked Proper Hunting Credentials (LATimes.com)
9:46 PM PST, February 13, 2006
By Nicholas Riccardi and James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- Although he broke no laws, Vice President Dick Cheney did not have proper hunting credentials when he accidentally shot a fellow hunter at a private ranch last weekend, authorities said Monday.
Cheney, an experienced outdoorsman who had a valid out-of-state hunting license, will receive a warning citation for failing to purchase the required $7 stamp for bird hunting, the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife said in a statement. The stamp is a new requirement, and the department has issued verbal warnings to many hunters who were unaware they needed it.
In a statement Monday night, Cheney's office said his staffers had not known about the stamp requirement and that Cheney had sent a $7 check to Texas to cover the cost.
The accident occurred Saturday when the vice president wheeled to shoot at a covey of quail and accidentally sprayed his hunting partner, 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington, with bird shot, authorities said. Whittington was moved out of the intensive care unit at a hospital here Monday and reported to be in good spirits.
"This was a hunting accident," said Gilbert San Miguel, chief deputy of the Kenedy County Sheriff's office. "There was no alcohol or misconduct."
But the incident has reverberated worldwide: "Cheney bags a lawyer," was the headline in the Glasgow, Scotland-based Herald.
(More ... Cheney Lacked Proper Hunting Credentials - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 19:06 0 comments
By Nicholas Riccardi and James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- Although he broke no laws, Vice President Dick Cheney did not have proper hunting credentials when he accidentally shot a fellow hunter at a private ranch last weekend, authorities said Monday.
Cheney, an experienced outdoorsman who had a valid out-of-state hunting license, will receive a warning citation for failing to purchase the required $7 stamp for bird hunting, the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife said in a statement. The stamp is a new requirement, and the department has issued verbal warnings to many hunters who were unaware they needed it.
In a statement Monday night, Cheney's office said his staffers had not known about the stamp requirement and that Cheney had sent a $7 check to Texas to cover the cost.
The accident occurred Saturday when the vice president wheeled to shoot at a covey of quail and accidentally sprayed his hunting partner, 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington, with bird shot, authorities said. Whittington was moved out of the intensive care unit at a hospital here Monday and reported to be in good spirits.
"This was a hunting accident," said Gilbert San Miguel, chief deputy of the Kenedy County Sheriff's office. "There was no alcohol or misconduct."
But the incident has reverberated worldwide: "Cheney bags a lawyer," was the headline in the Glasgow, Scotland-based Herald.
(More ... Cheney Lacked Proper Hunting Credentials - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 19:06 0 comments
Starving Polar Bears Shame Bush to Act (Independent.co.uk)
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 12 February 2006
Starving polar bears are presenting an unprecedented challenge to George Bush's refusal to take action over global warming - and may succeed where environmentalists and other governments have failed in getting him to curb pollution.
Despite the President's obdurate stance on climate change, the US administration last week took the first steps towards officially listing the bear as an endangered species. The Arctic ice on which the iconic animal lives is melting away as the world heats up and, if the listing is finalised, the Bush administration will be obliged to modify its pollution policies to try to save the bear.
The move comes as the President faces attack for the first time over global warming from some of his strongest allies. Evangelical Christian leaders last week took out TV ads urging action, while, in Britain, Tony Blair has warned that the world has less than seven years to get to grips with climate change.
The Prime Minister made his statement on Tuesday, the same day the US Fish and Wildlife Service started the process of listing the polar bear in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups to get government protection for the species. It said the groups had presented "substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that listing the polar bear may be warranted".
The bears are vulnerable to climate change because they depend entirely on the polar ice to catch seals, their main prey. The seals swim too fast in open water, and so bears have to lie in wait for them to surface for air through holes and cracks in the ice. The seals congregate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, and the bears can reach them only when the sea is frozen. But the ice now recedes far out to sea every summer.
A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme concludes that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than a quarter in the past half-century. The US government's official National Snow and Ice Data Center adds that a "stunning" reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years. Last summer an area twice the size of Texas disappeared.
The centre believes that the rate of retreat is accelerating. Worse still for the bears, the melting is starting earlier, depriving them of seals in the spring, when they have always stocked up on food to see them through the summer.
(More ... Independent Online Edition > Environment) ¶ 19:02 0 comments
Published: 12 February 2006
Starving polar bears are presenting an unprecedented challenge to George Bush's refusal to take action over global warming - and may succeed where environmentalists and other governments have failed in getting him to curb pollution.
Despite the President's obdurate stance on climate change, the US administration last week took the first steps towards officially listing the bear as an endangered species. The Arctic ice on which the iconic animal lives is melting away as the world heats up and, if the listing is finalised, the Bush administration will be obliged to modify its pollution policies to try to save the bear.
The move comes as the President faces attack for the first time over global warming from some of his strongest allies. Evangelical Christian leaders last week took out TV ads urging action, while, in Britain, Tony Blair has warned that the world has less than seven years to get to grips with climate change.
The Prime Minister made his statement on Tuesday, the same day the US Fish and Wildlife Service started the process of listing the polar bear in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups to get government protection for the species. It said the groups had presented "substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that listing the polar bear may be warranted".
The bears are vulnerable to climate change because they depend entirely on the polar ice to catch seals, their main prey. The seals swim too fast in open water, and so bears have to lie in wait for them to surface for air through holes and cracks in the ice. The seals congregate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, and the bears can reach them only when the sea is frozen. But the ice now recedes far out to sea every summer.
A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme concludes that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than a quarter in the past half-century. The US government's official National Snow and Ice Data Center adds that a "stunning" reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years. Last summer an area twice the size of Texas disappeared.
The centre believes that the rate of retreat is accelerating. Worse still for the bears, the melting is starting earlier, depriving them of seals in the spring, when they have always stocked up on food to see them through the summer.
(More ... Independent Online Edition > Environment) ¶ 19:02 0 comments
New Name, Same Conflict (TheStar.com)
Remember the `War on Terror'? The Bush administration has subtly redubbed it `The Long War'
Some analysts see the name change as part of a battle to widen presidential powers
by Tim Harper
WASHINGTON — Deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, some of the country's finest military minds met recently, synthesizing ideas, debating proposals and trading strategies.
Their goal — a rebranding for the history books.
When they emerged, they had completed their semantic sleight-of-hand.
They had simply changed wars, consigning the "War on Terror" to the recycling bin and launching "The Long War."
In a George W. Bush White House well-schooled in the art of propaganda, an administration re-elected for its steely determination to stay on message, renaming a war is a new triumph of marketing.
"The War on Terror brand had gone sour," says Christopher Simpson, an expert on political communications at Washington's American University.
"It connoted abuse of power, an indiscriminate use of violence as much by the U.S. as its opponents; it barely had the support of 50 per cent of Americans and was opposed by a large percentage of the international population.
"So you rebrand. You rename to try to get rid of the past perceptions. You find a new bumper sticker."
(More ... TheStar.com - New name, same conflict) ¶ 18:54 0 comments
Some analysts see the name change as part of a battle to widen presidential powers
by Tim Harper
WASHINGTON — Deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, some of the country's finest military minds met recently, synthesizing ideas, debating proposals and trading strategies.
Their goal — a rebranding for the history books.
When they emerged, they had completed their semantic sleight-of-hand.
They had simply changed wars, consigning the "War on Terror" to the recycling bin and launching "The Long War."
In a George W. Bush White House well-schooled in the art of propaganda, an administration re-elected for its steely determination to stay on message, renaming a war is a new triumph of marketing.
"The War on Terror brand had gone sour," says Christopher Simpson, an expert on political communications at Washington's American University.
"It connoted abuse of power, an indiscriminate use of violence as much by the U.S. as its opponents; it barely had the support of 50 per cent of Americans and was opposed by a large percentage of the international population.
"So you rebrand. You rename to try to get rid of the past perceptions. You find a new bumper sticker."
(More ... TheStar.com - New name, same conflict) ¶ 18:54 0 comments
U.N. Draft Decries U.S. On Detainee Treatment (WashingtonPost.com)
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; Page A09
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 13 -- The Bush administration's treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, violates international law and in some cases constitutes a form of torture, according to a draft report by a group of U.N. human rights investigators.
Five U.N. human rights rapporteurs appealed to the administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and try detainees in the United States. "The U.S. government should either expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial . . . or release them without further delay," the draft report recommended.
The findings emerged from an 18-month investigation that included interviews with former U.S. prisoners in France, Spain and Britain and lawyers and relatives of detainees. The report concluded that some practices -- including the force-feeding of hunger strikers -- "must be assessed as amounting to torture."
President Bush voiced concern about the panel's findings -- which were first reported in the Los Angeles Times -- during a meeting Monday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan responded that he had not seen the report and that the U.N. investigators who authored the report were independent from his office, according to a senior official who attended the meeting.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack challenged the veracity of the findings and pointed out that "no one who wrote this report actually went to Guantanamo." The U.N. investigators, known as special rapporteurs, declined in November to accept an offer from the United States to make a one-day visit to the facility on the grounds that they could not speak privately with the prisoners.
"They are taking assertions by individuals who have left Guantanamo, as well as their lawyers, as fact," McCormack told reporters. "And, as we have seen over the past year, there have been a number of baseless claims about what went on at Guantanamo."
(More ... U.N. Draft Decries U.S. On Detainee Treatment) ¶ 18:09 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; Page A09
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 13 -- The Bush administration's treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, violates international law and in some cases constitutes a form of torture, according to a draft report by a group of U.N. human rights investigators.
Five U.N. human rights rapporteurs appealed to the administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and try detainees in the United States. "The U.S. government should either expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial . . . or release them without further delay," the draft report recommended.
The findings emerged from an 18-month investigation that included interviews with former U.S. prisoners in France, Spain and Britain and lawyers and relatives of detainees. The report concluded that some practices -- including the force-feeding of hunger strikers -- "must be assessed as amounting to torture."
President Bush voiced concern about the panel's findings -- which were first reported in the Los Angeles Times -- during a meeting Monday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan responded that he had not seen the report and that the U.N. investigators who authored the report were independent from his office, according to a senior official who attended the meeting.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack challenged the veracity of the findings and pointed out that "no one who wrote this report actually went to Guantanamo." The U.N. investigators, known as special rapporteurs, declined in November to accept an offer from the United States to make a one-day visit to the facility on the grounds that they could not speak privately with the prisoners.
"They are taking assertions by individuals who have left Guantanamo, as well as their lawyers, as fact," McCormack told reporters. "And, as we have seen over the past year, there have been a number of baseless claims about what went on at Guantanamo."
(More ... U.N. Draft Decries U.S. On Detainee Treatment) ¶ 18:09 0 comments
Beyond Recycling (SFGate.com)
Out of the retail rat race
Consumer group doesn't buy notion that new is better
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 13, 2006
While many people will spend countless hours this year lining up at Wal-Mart and maxing out their credit cards at Nordstrom, a small Bay Area group has declared it will do just the opposite.
About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear.
"We're people for whom recycling is no longer enough," said one of the members of the fledgling movement, John Perry, who works in marketing at a high-tech company. "We're trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, because consumer culture is destroying the world."
They call themselves the Compact. They have a blog, a Yahoo group and monthly meetings to reaffirm their commitment to the rule, which is to never buy anything new. "I didn't buy a pair of shoes today," said Compacter Shawn Rosenmoss, an engineer and a San Francisco resident of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. "They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable, and I haven't bought new shoes for a while. But I didn't buy them. That's a big part of the Compact -- we show that we're not powerless over our purchasing."
Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, Craigslist, freecycle.org, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand. And when they're in doubt, they turn to their fellow Compacters for guidance.
(More ... BAY AREA / Out of the retail rat race / Consumer group doesn't buy notion that new is better) ¶ 18:04 0 comments
Consumer group doesn't buy notion that new is better
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 13, 2006
While many people will spend countless hours this year lining up at Wal-Mart and maxing out their credit cards at Nordstrom, a small Bay Area group has declared it will do just the opposite.
About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear.
"We're people for whom recycling is no longer enough," said one of the members of the fledgling movement, John Perry, who works in marketing at a high-tech company. "We're trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, because consumer culture is destroying the world."
They call themselves the Compact. They have a blog, a Yahoo group and monthly meetings to reaffirm their commitment to the rule, which is to never buy anything new. "I didn't buy a pair of shoes today," said Compacter Shawn Rosenmoss, an engineer and a San Francisco resident of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. "They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable, and I haven't bought new shoes for a while. But I didn't buy them. That's a big part of the Compact -- we show that we're not powerless over our purchasing."
Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, Craigslist, freecycle.org, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand. And when they're in doubt, they turn to their fellow Compacters for guidance.
(More ... BAY AREA / Out of the retail rat race / Consumer group doesn't buy notion that new is better) ¶ 18:04 0 comments
2.12.2006
Blowback Revisited (ForeignAffairs.org)
TODAY'S INSURGENTS IN IRAQ ARE TOMORROW'S TERRORISTS
Peter Bergen and Alec Reynolds
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
When the United States started sending guns and money to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, it had a clearly defined Cold War purpose: helping expel the Soviet army, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. And so it made sense that once the Afghan jihad forced a Soviet withdrawal a decade later, Washington would lose interest in the rebels. For the international mujahideen drawn to the Afghan conflict, however, the fight was just beginning. They opened new fronts in the name of global jihad and became the spearhead of Islamist terrorism. The seriousness of the blowback became clear to the United States with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center: all of the attack's participants either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad that was later revealed to be al Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters. The blowback, evident in other countries as well, continued to increase in intensity throughout the rest of the decade, culminating on September 11, 2001.
The current war in Iraq will generate a ferocious blowback of its own, which -- as a recent classified CIA assessment predicts -- could be longer and more powerful than that from Afghanistan. Foreign volunteers fighting U.S. troops in Iraq today will find new targets around the world after the war ends. Yet the Bush administration, consumed with managing countless crises in Iraq, has devoted little time to preparing for such long-term consequences. Lieutenant General James Conway, the director of operations on the Joint Staff, admitted as much when he said in June that blowback "is a concern, but there's not much we can do about it at this point in time." Judging from the experience of Afghanistan, such thinking is both mistaken and dangerously complacent.
(More ... Foreign Affairs - Blowback Revisited - Peter Bergen and Alec Reynolds) ¶ 17:23 0 comments
Peter Bergen and Alec Reynolds
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
When the United States started sending guns and money to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, it had a clearly defined Cold War purpose: helping expel the Soviet army, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. And so it made sense that once the Afghan jihad forced a Soviet withdrawal a decade later, Washington would lose interest in the rebels. For the international mujahideen drawn to the Afghan conflict, however, the fight was just beginning. They opened new fronts in the name of global jihad and became the spearhead of Islamist terrorism. The seriousness of the blowback became clear to the United States with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center: all of the attack's participants either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad that was later revealed to be al Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters. The blowback, evident in other countries as well, continued to increase in intensity throughout the rest of the decade, culminating on September 11, 2001.
The current war in Iraq will generate a ferocious blowback of its own, which -- as a recent classified CIA assessment predicts -- could be longer and more powerful than that from Afghanistan. Foreign volunteers fighting U.S. troops in Iraq today will find new targets around the world after the war ends. Yet the Bush administration, consumed with managing countless crises in Iraq, has devoted little time to preparing for such long-term consequences. Lieutenant General James Conway, the director of operations on the Joint Staff, admitted as much when he said in June that blowback "is a concern, but there's not much we can do about it at this point in time." Judging from the experience of Afghanistan, such thinking is both mistaken and dangerously complacent.
(More ... Foreign Affairs - Blowback Revisited - Peter Bergen and Alec Reynolds) ¶ 17:23 0 comments
Ex-CIA Official: Bush Administration Misused Iraq Intelligence (CNN.com)
Friday, February 10, 2006; Posted: 11:28 a.m. EST (16:28 GMT)
(CNN) -- The Bush administration disregarded the expertise of the intelligence community, politicized the intelligence process and used unrepresentative data in making the case for war, a former CIA senior analyst alleged.
In an article published on Friday in the journal Foreign Affairs, Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, called the relationship between U.S. intelligence and policymaking "broken."
"In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made," Pillar wrote.
Although the Clinton administration and other countries' governments also believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, they supported sanctions and weapons inspections as means to contain the threat, he said.
The Bush administration's decision to go to war indicates other motivations, Pillar wrote, namely a power shake-up in the Middle East and a hastened "spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region."
The Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," Pillar wrote. "It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."
Though Pillar himself was responsible for coordinating intelligence assessments on Iraq, "the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war," he wrote.
(More ... CNN.com - Ex-CIA official: Bush administration misused Iraq intelligence - Feb 10, 2006) ¶ 16:52 0 comments
(CNN) -- The Bush administration disregarded the expertise of the intelligence community, politicized the intelligence process and used unrepresentative data in making the case for war, a former CIA senior analyst alleged.
In an article published on Friday in the journal Foreign Affairs, Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, called the relationship between U.S. intelligence and policymaking "broken."
"In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made," Pillar wrote.
Although the Clinton administration and other countries' governments also believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, they supported sanctions and weapons inspections as means to contain the threat, he said.
The Bush administration's decision to go to war indicates other motivations, Pillar wrote, namely a power shake-up in the Middle East and a hastened "spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region."
The Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," Pillar wrote. "It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."
Though Pillar himself was responsible for coordinating intelligence assessments on Iraq, "the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war," he wrote.
(More ... CNN.com - Ex-CIA official: Bush administration misused Iraq intelligence - Feb 10, 2006) ¶ 16:52 0 comments
2.09.2006
U.S. Plans Massive Data Sweep (USATODAY.com)
Posted 2/8/2006 6:19 PM
By Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.
The system — parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development — is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.
"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots — analyzing and aggregating them — in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."
The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.
DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."
(More ... USATODAY.com - U.S. plans massive data sweep) ¶ 19:50 0 comments
By Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.
The system — parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development — is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.
"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots — analyzing and aggregating them — in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."
The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.
DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."
(More ... USATODAY.com - U.S. plans massive data sweep) ¶ 19:50 0 comments
Democrats Urge Action on Soaring Trade Gap (Reuters.com)
Wed Feb 8, 2006 7:25 PM ET15
By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers blamed the Bush administration on Wednesday for the skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit and called for the creation of a "Congressional Trade Enforcer" to make sure the United States prosecutes other countries that cheat on their trade obligations.
A government report due out on Friday is expected to show the U.S. trade deficit set a record in 2005 at about $725 billion. That would be about double the level it was in 2001, the year that President George W. Bush took office.
Wall Street analysts also expect the deficit for just the month of December to total about $65 billion -- or more than twice the entire annual deficit in 1991.
"Enough's enough," Rep. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters. "It's not sustainable. We can't continue to have these kind of trade imbalances and continue to have the standard of living that Americans expect and enjoy and the jobs that we need here in America."
Cardin and other Democrats on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee said the Bush administration has contributed to the record trade gap by filing few cases against other countries at the World Trade Organization for alleged violations of trade rules.
(More ... Politics News Article | Reuters.com) ¶ 19:44 0 comments
By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers blamed the Bush administration on Wednesday for the skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit and called for the creation of a "Congressional Trade Enforcer" to make sure the United States prosecutes other countries that cheat on their trade obligations.
A government report due out on Friday is expected to show the U.S. trade deficit set a record in 2005 at about $725 billion. That would be about double the level it was in 2001, the year that President George W. Bush took office.
Wall Street analysts also expect the deficit for just the month of December to total about $65 billion -- or more than twice the entire annual deficit in 1991.
"Enough's enough," Rep. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters. "It's not sustainable. We can't continue to have these kind of trade imbalances and continue to have the standard of living that Americans expect and enjoy and the jobs that we need here in America."
Cardin and other Democrats on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee said the Bush administration has contributed to the record trade gap by filing few cases against other countries at the World Trade Organization for alleged violations of trade rules.
(More ... Politics News Article | Reuters.com) ¶ 19:44 0 comments
Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy (Guardian.co.uk)
· 15-year limit set for switch to renewable energy
· Biofuels favoured over further nuclear power
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday February 8, 2006
The Guardian
Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.
The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."
According to the energy committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there is growing concern that global oil supplies are peaking and will shortly dwindle, and that a global economic recession could result from high oil prices.
Ms Sahlin has described oil dependency as one of the greatest problems facing the world. "A Sweden free of fossil fuels would give us enormous advantages, not least by reducing the impact from fluctuations in oil prices," she said. "The price of oil has tripled since 1996."
A government official said: "We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil."
(More ... Guardian Unlimited Business | Business latest | Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy) ¶ 19:39 0 comments
· Biofuels favoured over further nuclear power
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday February 8, 2006
The Guardian
Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.
The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."
According to the energy committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there is growing concern that global oil supplies are peaking and will shortly dwindle, and that a global economic recession could result from high oil prices.
Ms Sahlin has described oil dependency as one of the greatest problems facing the world. "A Sweden free of fossil fuels would give us enormous advantages, not least by reducing the impact from fluctuations in oil prices," she said. "The price of oil has tripled since 1996."
A government official said: "We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil."
(More ... Guardian Unlimited Business | Business latest | Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy) ¶ 19:39 0 comments
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA (NYTimes.com)
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 8, 2006
George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.
Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.
Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.
"Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters," said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch's boss.
The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming.
"As we have stated in the past, NASA is in the process of revising our public affairs policies across the agency to ensure our commitment to open and full communications," the statement from Mr. Acosta said.
The statement said the resignation of Mr. Deutsch was "a separate matter."
(More ... A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 1 comments
Published: February 8, 2006
George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.
Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.
Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.
"Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters," said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch's boss.
The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming.
"As we have stated in the past, NASA is in the process of revising our public affairs policies across the agency to ensure our commitment to open and full communications," the statement from Mr. Acosta said.
The statement said the resignation of Mr. Deutsch was "a separate matter."
(More ... A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 1 comments
Bush: Stop Violence Over Cartoons (Reuters.com)
Wed Feb 8, 2006 11:50 AM ET172
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday said governments around the world should protect the lives and property of diplomats against the violence that has erupted over published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
Bush said he and Jordan's King Abdullah discussed the Muslim reaction to the cartoons that he called "a topic that requires a lot of discussion and a lot of sensitive thought."
"We believe in a free press, and also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others," Bush said.
But, he added: "We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press."
(More ... Politics News Article | Reuters.com ¶ 07:56 0 comments
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday said governments around the world should protect the lives and property of diplomats against the violence that has erupted over published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
Bush said he and Jordan's King Abdullah discussed the Muslim reaction to the cartoons that he called "a topic that requires a lot of discussion and a lot of sensitive thought."
"We believe in a free press, and also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others," Bush said.
But, he added: "We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press."
(More ... Politics News Article | Reuters.com ¶ 07:56 0 comments
2.07.2006
US General Maps Out Strategic Refit for Iraq, Middle East and Asia (Guardian.co.uk)
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday February 7, 2006
The Guardian
A senior US officer admitted yesterday that the presence of more than 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a "contributory factor" to instability in the region.
The admission was made by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - a key strategist in the US central command covering the Middle East - as he spelled out the American military's plan to "reposture" its forces over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Uganda in the south.
The US would "not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq" he said in a major speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Our position is when we leave we will not have any bases there."
He did not speculate when that might be, though he said the US could not stay in the region for as long as its forces have remained in Germany or Japan. American troops are still deployed there 60 years after the end of the second world war.
Nor did he say what would happen to four large air bases that the US is building around Baghdad. The implication behind his remarks is that the bases would be handed over to the Iraqis.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US general maps out strategic refit for Iraq, Middle East and Asia) ¶ 19:06 0 comments
Tuesday February 7, 2006
The Guardian
A senior US officer admitted yesterday that the presence of more than 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a "contributory factor" to instability in the region.
The admission was made by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - a key strategist in the US central command covering the Middle East - as he spelled out the American military's plan to "reposture" its forces over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Uganda in the south.
The US would "not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq" he said in a major speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Our position is when we leave we will not have any bases there."
He did not speculate when that might be, though he said the US could not stay in the region for as long as its forces have remained in Germany or Japan. American troops are still deployed there 60 years after the end of the second world war.
Nor did he say what would happen to four large air bases that the US is building around Baghdad. The implication behind his remarks is that the bases would be handed over to the Iraqis.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US general maps out strategic refit for Iraq, Middle East and Asia) ¶ 19:06 0 comments
Gonzales Defends Legality of Surveillance (WashingtonPost.com)
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; 1:42 PM
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told a Senate committee today that a controversial surveillance program is "lawful in all respects" and that President Bush launched it under authority from both the Constitution and U.S. law.
But he said he could not give the panel "absolute assurance" that no one other than people linked to terrorists are being spied upon.
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on what the administration calls a "terrorist surveillance program" run by the super-secret National Security Agency, Gonzales came under fire from committee Democrats, who characterized the program as illegal.
The committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), also challenged the attorney general, saying he was "skeptical" of the administration's assertion that Congress authorized the eavesdropping program when it approved a resolution on the use of force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), told Gonzales, "We all agree that if you have al Qaeda terrorists calling, we should be wiretapping them." However, he added, "instead of doing what the president has the authority to do legally, he decided to do it illegally without safeguards."
Leahy also noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 1978 to regulate eavesdropping on foreign agents in the United States, has been amended five times since the Sept. 11 attacks "to give it more flexibility."
(More ... Gonzales Defends Legality of Surveillance) ¶ 08:06 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; 1:42 PM
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told a Senate committee today that a controversial surveillance program is "lawful in all respects" and that President Bush launched it under authority from both the Constitution and U.S. law.
But he said he could not give the panel "absolute assurance" that no one other than people linked to terrorists are being spied upon.
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on what the administration calls a "terrorist surveillance program" run by the super-secret National Security Agency, Gonzales came under fire from committee Democrats, who characterized the program as illegal.
The committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), also challenged the attorney general, saying he was "skeptical" of the administration's assertion that Congress authorized the eavesdropping program when it approved a resolution on the use of force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), told Gonzales, "We all agree that if you have al Qaeda terrorists calling, we should be wiretapping them." However, he added, "instead of doing what the president has the authority to do legally, he decided to do it illegally without safeguards."
Leahy also noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 1978 to regulate eavesdropping on foreign agents in the United States, has been amended five times since the Sept. 11 attacks "to give it more flexibility."
(More ... Gonzales Defends Legality of Surveillance) ¶ 08:06 0 comments
Bush's $2.8 Trillion Budget Proposal Cuts Domestic Programs (WashingtonPost.com)
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; 11:36 AM
President Bush today proposed a $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 that would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control, while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date.
Under the plan, a budget deficit -- expected to reach $423 billion this year -- would fall to $183 billion by 2010, more than meeting his goal to cut the deficit in half by 2009. But it would rise again to $205 billion in 2011, reflecting the cost of the extensions in the president's tax cuts.
"We have set clear priorities that meet the most pressing needs of the American people while addressing the long-term challenges that lie ahead," Bush said in his budget message. "The 2007 Budget will ensure that future generations of Americans have the opportunity to live in a Nation that is more prosperous and more secure."
The budget, for the fiscal year that begins in October, is a tall order for a Congress facing a difficult election year. Defense spending would rise 6.9 percent, from $411 billion to $439 billion. Homeland security spending would rise by 3.3 percent.
But all other operations of government would fall by $2.2 billion, or 0.5 percent.
To accommodate increased spending in the president's favored non-security programs such as diplomacy and foreign aid, veterans health care and energy, other programs would face significant cuts. Agriculture spending would fall 6.5 percent, education spending $3.8 percent. The Department of Transportation would lose 9.4 percent of its discretionary budget. The Army Corps of Engineers -- a congressional favorite that was highly criticized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina -- would be cut 11.2 percent.
But the biggest savings would come from entitlement programs, in which spending rises and falls according to complex formulas that Congress would have to change to meet Bush's demands. The president proposed cutting Medicare by $36 billion over five years, and $105 billion over a decade -- mainly by cutting payments to providers such as hospitals. Federal child support enforcement payments would fall slightly, while Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program would lose $5 billion over five years and $12 billion over 10 years.
(More ... Bush's $2.8 Trillion Budget Proposal Cuts Domestic Programs) ¶ 08:04 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; 11:36 AM
President Bush today proposed a $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 that would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control, while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date.
Under the plan, a budget deficit -- expected to reach $423 billion this year -- would fall to $183 billion by 2010, more than meeting his goal to cut the deficit in half by 2009. But it would rise again to $205 billion in 2011, reflecting the cost of the extensions in the president's tax cuts.
"We have set clear priorities that meet the most pressing needs of the American people while addressing the long-term challenges that lie ahead," Bush said in his budget message. "The 2007 Budget will ensure that future generations of Americans have the opportunity to live in a Nation that is more prosperous and more secure."
The budget, for the fiscal year that begins in October, is a tall order for a Congress facing a difficult election year. Defense spending would rise 6.9 percent, from $411 billion to $439 billion. Homeland security spending would rise by 3.3 percent.
But all other operations of government would fall by $2.2 billion, or 0.5 percent.
To accommodate increased spending in the president's favored non-security programs such as diplomacy and foreign aid, veterans health care and energy, other programs would face significant cuts. Agriculture spending would fall 6.5 percent, education spending $3.8 percent. The Department of Transportation would lose 9.4 percent of its discretionary budget. The Army Corps of Engineers -- a congressional favorite that was highly criticized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina -- would be cut 11.2 percent.
But the biggest savings would come from entitlement programs, in which spending rises and falls according to complex formulas that Congress would have to change to meet Bush's demands. The president proposed cutting Medicare by $36 billion over five years, and $105 billion over a decade -- mainly by cutting payments to providers such as hospitals. Federal child support enforcement payments would fall slightly, while Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program would lose $5 billion over five years and $12 billion over 10 years.
(More ... Bush's $2.8 Trillion Budget Proposal Cuts Domestic Programs) ¶ 08:04 0 comments
The Effectiveness Thing (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 6, 2006
We are ruled by bunglers. Every major venture by the Bush administration, from the occupation of Iraq to the Medicare drug program, has turned into an epic saga of incompetence. In retrospect, the Clinton years look like a golden era of good government.
Given the Bush administration's evident inability to govern, Democratic electoral victories should be a sure thing. But they aren't. Why?
Before I try to answer that question, let me justify my assertion — which is sure to generate a lot of angry mail — that Bill Clinton knew how to govern, while George W. Bush doesn't. All you have to do is consider the rise and fall of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Under the elder George Bush, FEMA was used as a dumping ground for political cronies, with predictable results. Descriptions of FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 sound just like the response to Katrina: for three days FEMA was nowhere to be found, and when it finally arrived its relief efforts were utterly incompetent.
Bill Clinton changed all that by choosing James Lee Witt, who knew a lot about disaster management, to run FEMA, and encouraging him to run the agency professionally. The result was a spectacular improvement in performance. FEMA, formerly considered one of the worst agencies in the federal government, won praise for its quick and effective responses to events like the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
But George W. Bush restored the practice of stuffing FEMA with cronies; the ludicrous Michael Brown is gone, but others remain. And the agency has reverted to impotence and incompetence.
As FEMA went, so went government as a whole.
(More ... The Effectiveness Thing - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 0 comments
Published: February 6, 2006
We are ruled by bunglers. Every major venture by the Bush administration, from the occupation of Iraq to the Medicare drug program, has turned into an epic saga of incompetence. In retrospect, the Clinton years look like a golden era of good government.
Given the Bush administration's evident inability to govern, Democratic electoral victories should be a sure thing. But they aren't. Why?
Before I try to answer that question, let me justify my assertion — which is sure to generate a lot of angry mail — that Bill Clinton knew how to govern, while George W. Bush doesn't. All you have to do is consider the rise and fall of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Under the elder George Bush, FEMA was used as a dumping ground for political cronies, with predictable results. Descriptions of FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 sound just like the response to Katrina: for three days FEMA was nowhere to be found, and when it finally arrived its relief efforts were utterly incompetent.
Bill Clinton changed all that by choosing James Lee Witt, who knew a lot about disaster management, to run FEMA, and encouraging him to run the agency professionally. The result was a spectacular improvement in performance. FEMA, formerly considered one of the worst agencies in the federal government, won praise for its quick and effective responses to events like the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
But George W. Bush restored the practice of stuffing FEMA with cronies; the ludicrous Michael Brown is gone, but others remain. And the agency has reverted to impotence and incompetence.
As FEMA went, so went government as a whole.
(More ... The Effectiveness Thing - New York Times) ¶ 07:59 0 comments
