Why I Left the New York Times

It's all about the ads.

I gave up the Times over a year ago, weighted down with glossy advertising "special reports" loaded with smelly samples that just gave me the sneezes. I read it on-line now, where my sinuses and allergies aren't at risk. Are they going to notice that a bunch of us have retreated in the same fashion (yo-hoo WashPo and LAT!), I got tired of paying for advertising, which is what the bulk of the book has become.

I want news, thanks. I'll get it online, where I don't have to deal with the constant assault.

I'm sure that the ad people will one day find a way to spritz "egoiste" fragrance into my living room in a way I will not be able to prevent because they will piggy-back it onto some other technology that I can't live without. It is only a matter of time. But you dead tree people, you are so out of here. If you want me to pay for subscriptions, you are going to have to give me a product superior to what you printed before: with open source technology, so much of the world is already open to me that you are going to have to give a big leg up before I'm going to send a buck your way. My emailers already know more than you do, for heaven's sake.

Far beneath your radar is an entire economy of information you've not even thought of yet, much less surveyed. We've been in the newsgroups for decades and we've documented everything you've gotten wrong. We have history, and you totally don't know about us. You are both fools and knaves, and we've been telling the world for a long time.

With the blogs, we have an audience. Go ahead and shut your sites down tight to subscribers. One of us will get around that and share the crack with the world.

There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen)

And you are not the exception.(Me)

That's my final contribution for the day, I've got laundry to do and the trash and recycling to take to the curb before I can hit the sheets. Wait, I can't hit the sheets until I've washed them, too. Damn. Can't do that on the computer. Yet.

It Gets Worse

I've commented earlier that with each new pass by the press, the news about this possible Avian Flu pandemic gets worse. This one is the worst so far, but take with a grain of salt: this paper has a reputation for being somewhat sensationalist.

Avian flu lurks as possible pandemic

By Mike Wereschagin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

A monster lurks in Asia.

Epidemiologists who have seen the worst natural biological menaces of the late 20th century suddenly can't seem to get to sleep at night, as their thoughts swirl fearfully around two letters and two numbers: H5N1.

Avian flu, it's more commonly called.

The virus has infected at least 44 people in the past year. Thirty-two of them died. The human immune system has never seen this particular bug before, so it doesn't know how to fight back.

Isolated infections happen all the time, but they stay isolated because most viruses can't jump easily between species. H5N1 can. Right now, its genetics let it move from a bird to a person, but it can't easily jump from one person to another. Scientists worry that because it's so widespread among Asian animals, it's only a matter of time before it picks up the gene that will let it spread between people like any other flu virus.

If that happens, up to one-third of the world's 6.2 billion people could catch it. About 1 percent of those infected would die, according to World Health Organization estimates.

With tens of millions of deaths, a panicked population would be afraid to go outside, let alone overseas. Global trade would slow. Hospitals would be overwhelmed. Basic services such as food delivery and law enforcement could run low on workers.

This nightmare scenario isn't the stuff of wild-eyed doom-sayers.

"In my public health career, in 39 years, I've been involved in some horrible epidemics," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "This is the one thing that keeps me awake at night. The potential number of cases we could see is almost beyond comprehension."

Osterholm has earned recognition for his work in the macabre world of biological terrorism research.

Scientists and drug companies are working frantically to develop and produce the anti-virals and vaccines to combat the H5N1 virus.

For all of the fretting this year over the shortage of vaccine to keep less exotic flu viruses in check, people aren't influenza's main victims, said Julius Youngner, professor emeritus of molecular genetics and biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Youngner was on the research team that created the polio vaccine.

"Man is just a secondary species for influenza," Youngner said. "It's really a virus carried by aquatic birds. Man is just an incidental host."

In reality, all flu strains are avian -- birds are infected first by the viruses. H5N1 is different in that it's a new strain we now are defenseless against. Like other viruses, H5N1 is evolving and ultimately could mutate into a bug that can be passed easily from person to person.

Actually, the epidemiological profile of the virus so far would make predictions of 1 billion deaths within the realm of statistical probabilities. Chances are that it will lose some of its lethality if the virus mutates to human to human transmissibility. It's current lethality is above 70%. If we drop that to 50%, times 2 billion infected, such a number is in the realm of the possible (if not the thinkable.) A virus as lethal as the 1918 Spanish Flu (2-5%) would still cost 150,000,000.

Keep in mind, none of this may happen. We are paying attention because of the known propensity for influenza viruses to mutate and do so easily.

There is some excellent science reporting in this article--click on the link and get an education on how the virus works and how it causes illness.

Canada Blog

CBC Online Ottawa journalist Paddy Moore is reporting live by Blackberry from the demonstrations. The blog is here.
President Bush on the reception he received while the motorcade drove from the airport:
"I'd like to thank the Canadians who came out to greet us, waving - with all five fingers."

Happy Holidays

Dollar Dips to New All - Time Low Vs. Euro

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 30, 2004
Filed at 1:13 p.m. ET

BERLIN (AP) -- The U.S. dollar dropped to a new all-time low Tuesday against the euro, which rose to $1.3335 even as new figures showed that U.S. economic growth in the third quarter was stronger than previously estimated.
The dollar's persistent slide has been fueled by concern over the U.S. trade and budget deficits, and analysts say markets are paying only limited attention to other economic data against that background.

The weak dollar also makes life tougher for Americans living abroad, and the U.S. military announced this week that troops stationed in Europe would receive a significant cost of living increase to help provide some relief.

Stocks Slip Despite Positive G.D.P. Report
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 30, 2004
Filed at 1:30 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks sagged Tuesday as sliding consumer confidence trumped the latest report on the nation's gross domestic product, which grew at a faster pace than expected.

Economists keep a close watch on consumer confidence measures because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.
One of the factors analysts are keeping an eye on is the impact high energy prices are having on economic activity. Oil prices hit a record high of just over $55 a barrel in late October, but skidded recently. Crude futures lately have been hovering near $50 a barrel.
Crude Oil Prices Hover Near $50 a Barrel
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 30, 2004
Filed at 10:01 a.m. ET
LONDON (AP) -- Crude oil futures prices hovered near $50 a barrel Tuesday as the market weighed the effects of production outages in the North Sea and an expected rise in U.S. distillate fuel inventories.

In London, Brent for January delivery was up 35 cents at $46.10 on the International Petroleum Exchange.

Above the 49th Parallel

Bush visit, new relationship with U.S. fraught with political risk for Martin

Bruce Cheadle
Canadian Press

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Whether it be war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism, missile defence, American trade protectionism, border security, same-sex marriage or marijuana laws, pollsters say there's a continental divide in mainstream public opinion that breaks along the 49th parallel.

For Prime Minister Paul Martin, that divide represents a political knife edge.

If he stands too close to Bush this week, Martin could get tarred by the anti-Republican sentiment that pervades even his own Liberal party. If the prime minister is too cool, he'll be accused of neglecting Canada's most vital economic partner and of abandoning a campaign promise to improve cross-border relations.

Paul Nesbitt-Larking, a politics professor at the University of Western, Ont., says the Bush visit presents 50-50 odds of burnishing Martin's prime ministerial credentials or burying them.

"He's rolling the dice, as a former prime minister used to say.

"There's a possibility it could work well for him, but it really has to be very carefully stage-managed. He has to hope against all hope that the protests are not too loud or vociferous or detracting of media attention."

Those protesters cover the waterfront of special interests, from secular environmentalists and anti-globalization advocates to religion-based peaceniks, Muslim groups inflamed by U.S. aggression in the Middle East and the social left, including pro-choice and gay rights advocates. Thousands are expected to hit the streets in Ottawa and Halifax.

Working in favour of a seamless presidential visit are the deeply vested interests of both the Bush and Martin administrations.

The president is using Canada as a test run for a post-Iraq, goodwill tour that will take him to Europe in the new year. An ugly international incident in Bush's northern backyard would not auger well.

I'll be posting links through the day as I can find them. I have one browser window open that already has a dozen tabs in it. Big demonstrations are planned for Parliament Hill in Ottawa at noon and 5 PM today, along with others all over the country. Another will greet Bush in Halifax tomorrow.

That Other War Heads South

'I had soldiers break into tears'

BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA - Canada's troops patrolling war-torn Kabul have sent a sobering message home — "we are overtasked, overburdened and worn out."

The messenger, military ombudsman André Marin, is adding his voice to the alarm after spending two days with the soldiers last week.

"In the short period I was there I saw them very focused, motivated to do their job but they're just plain exhausted and overrun by the burden," Marin told the Toronto Star in his first interview following his visit.

Cutbacks to the Canadian contingent have meant that the soldiers are doing double duty and working flat-out, Marin said.

Marin said everyone is feeling the load. However two Edmonton-based units in particular are feeling the pinch — the Lord Strathcona's Horse regiment, which is doing reconnaissance, and the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, which provides the force protection.

Troops call it the "plug and play soldier" — working 10 hours in one job and then being "plugged" in somewhere else for another shift to fill in the staffing gaps.

"It's taking its toll on these people. I saw it first-hand," said Marin, who has served as ombudsman since 1998.

"I had two soldiers break into tears as they were explaining what they were doing. I had never seen that before.

``One of my jobs is to be a voice for the soldiers and what I heard very loudly is ... this is a red flag that they wanted me to carry back."

The situation is so serious that Marin says it's essential that commanders consider a "formal decompression" period for this rotation of troops to give them time to unwind before they're returned home to Canada and their families in February.

Canada cut its troop strength in Afghanistan to 700 from 2,000 in August to give the overstretched army a breather, Gen. Ray Henault, chief of defence staff, said at the time.

But Marin suggested those cuts went too far and says that while the rest of the army recuperates, the soldiers in Afghanistan are paying the price.

"They've gone too far into the withdrawal and they feel that they're left to carry an enormous load," Marin said.

3 die as aid agency is raided in Afghanistan

By Carlotta Gall The New York Times

A large group of suspected Taliban fighters stormed the offices of an aid agency in southwestern Afghanistan, killing three Afghan workers and wounding three security guards, in the heaviest attack since October's elections. A seventh man, also believed wounded, is missing and may have been kidnapped.
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The police said that at about 5 a.m. Sunday, 20 to 30 gunmen raided the office of the Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan in Dilaram, which lies on the main road across southwestern Afghanistan. The gunmen entered the building and shot six of the group's employees, including a cook, who is now missing, as they slept, said Najmuddin Mojadeddi, executive director of the group.
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He added that an Indian company building a road from Dilaram to Zaranj, on the Iranian border, was sharing the compound with his agency. Another man killed in the attack was working as a cook for the Indian company.

Aid Group Threatens Afghanistan Pullout

An aid group in Afghanistan said it was considering pulling out of part of the country after Taliban militants attacked its compound in a southern town yesterday, killing three people and engaging authorities in a gun battle.

The raid was the latest in a series of attacks on relief organisations that militants say are enemies because they have the backing of US military forces in Afghanistan.

More than 40 aid and reconstruction workers have been killed in attacks this year.

Good Listening

NPR's daily talker, Tavis Smiley, is running a series on the values, morals and religion issue this week. You can catch him live at 9 AM on WNYC or listen to the audio cache at Tavis Smiley Show. Tavis is one of the most literate talk show hosts out there, and I was impressed with the way he handled the show yesterday: those were not softball questions.

The audio cache goes up around noon.

On WNYC, Tavis is followed by WNYC's local talkers Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate. As a former public radio talking head myself, I know quality when I hear it.

UPDATE: Oops. The MSNBC story:

Heading North

President Bush is off to Canada today. He will hold high-level trade talks with Prime Minister Paul Martin--we've got a batch of issues. Since American media will probably play down what are likely to be large protests, I'll be tracking the Canadian media and I suggest that you visit with our friend pogge for longer thoughts from a citizen of the greater Toronto metropolitan area. In addition to meeting with Martin in Ottawa, Bush will travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to thank the citizens who took in and cared for so many stranded travelers when the jets were pulled out of the sky on Sept. 11, 2001

pogge has links to The Toronto Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and the CBC, in case you don't already have them in your bookmarks. He also links to a lot of other Canadian blogs, so you can find eye on the ground reports. I use Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh? as my portal to all things Canadian.

Iraq'd

Iraq health care 'in deep crisis'
Hospitals are unable to cope with Iraq's relentless violence

Iraq's health system is in a far worse condition than before the war, a British medical charity says.

It also says health relief and reconstruction efforts have been bungled through mismanagement and corruption.

The Guardian contributes this:

Iraq is not Bush's Vietnam. But it is becoming Blair's

Public wrath is growing, and the prime minister can do nothing about it

Max Hastings
Monday November 15, 2004
The Guardian

There is a long-standing British belief that we are more robust about war, and its human cost, than are Americans. Yet compare and contrast current national attitudes to what is happening in Iraq. A reverse image is apparent. The British people are very unhappy. Many Americans think everything is going fine.

Falluja is now in US hands, with very modest losses to the assault forces. In addition to an unknown number of civilian casualties, more than a thousand insurgents are allegedly dead. President Bush has achieved extraordinary success in persuading his people that Iraq is a stadium in which the War Against Terror is being decided. In consequence, there is a widespread American belief that every insurgent killed in Falluja represents one fewer prospective assailant of Washington DC or Sioux City, Iowa.

Bushies are proud of what they perceive as a military success story. Recruitment to the armed forces is booming. The Pentagon highlights the fact that, in the most recent troop rotation to and from the combat zone, 250,000 men and women were seamlessly shuttled between continents, while Iraq's embryo security forces grow daily.

Look at the US department of defence website, a study in exuberant patriotism. Here are some headings: "Operation Military Pride"; "Defend America/ Thank You to The Troops"; "Have A Heart/ Adopt a Soldier"; "Salute America's Heroes"...

The US media trumpets a host of little stories such as this one: "About 50 military veterans in California's San Quentin State Prison joined forces with volunteers from 'Operation Mom' over the weekend, to wrap 430 care packages for service members abroad."

A couple of months ago, a senior British officer in Baghdad said to me: "I have been surprised to perceive the moral strength of the Americans here. Before I came, and remembering Vietnam, I thought that by now they would be cracking. Yet I have not met a single American officer or soldier who questions ... what they are doing".

In short, many Americans, including most of those in the armed forces, think that they are doing a great job in the war zone, and are winning - a sharp contrast with the British mood towards Iraq, which grows ever more fractious and cynical. Every death provokes a spasm of anger, driven by disbelief in the value of the sacrifice.

Tony Blair recognises this. How else to explain his maudlin gesture in attending Ken Bigley's funeral in Liverpool? Public dismay is bipartisan. Retired colonels and home counties matrons, usually counted on to stand foursquare behind our boys on the battlefield, regard what is happening as Bush's private folly. They admire our boys as much as ever, but they are as disgusted by the British national role, harnessed haplessly to Washington's chariot wheels, as any Labour backbencher.

A critical question for British politics is whether public wrath will grow in the months ahead and influence the general election. No one seriously supposes that it could cause Labour to lose. But might it cost the 100-plus majority the party wants?

Most of the answer lies in Iraq. Events on the battlefield, together with the outcome of the January elections, will be critical. Blair is at the mercy of decisions made by the Bush administration. He had little choice but to stand shoulder to shoulder with the president at Friday's press conference in Washington, because the two men stand or fall together on this issue.

Iraq's elections will take place as scheduled, because everybody involved has such a powerful stake in them: the Iraqi people, the Americans, the British, even the United Nations. Polling will be impossible in some areas controlled by insurgents, and turnout will be low by international standards. But we should all hope that the outcome possesses credibility.

Whoever is the nominal victor, the most powerful figure in the country will be the Shia cleric Ali al-Sistani, if his health holds out. Most of what happens thereafter is likely to depend on whether Sistani can persuade a majority of Iraqis to rally behind a new government. Let us consider a benign scenario. By early spring, Iraqis and Americans agree that the occupiers should leave. Bush declares victory, announces that democracy has been established and starts bringing the boys home.

I think that last graf wanders off into hopelessly optimistic territory.

Phishing Report

I got phished again last night. My ISP's spam blocker usually catches these, but a couple of times a month they get through to my email. The supposed entity this time was something calling itself TCF Bank.

In Comments over the last few days, several of you have noted that you aren't particularly computer literate. I hope all of you are Net-literate enough to know that you never, ever respond to an email which asks for any of your credit or bank account information.

If you have other phishing reports, add them in Comments.

What is it Worth?

My, this is going well.

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Nears Record

One factor that drove up combat casualties was fierce fighting in Fallujah. Combat injuries also have increased this month due to the Fallujah battle. Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington reported Monday that it received 32 additional battle casualties from Iraq over the past two weeks. One was in critical condition. All 32 had been treated earlier at the Army's main hospital in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Some of the most severe injuries — and many of the deaths — among U.S. troops in Iraq are inflicted by the insurgents' homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

U.S. forces have put extraordinary effort into countering the IED threat, yet it persists. U.S. troops in Fallujah reported finding nearly as many homemade explosives over the past three weeks as had been uncovered throughout Iraq in the previous four months combined.

We are losing to the "insurgents"(stupid word, these are plain Iraqis who are tired and angry over the "group punishments" and other war crimes by the occupiers=us) and they are winning a classic Fourth Gen war.

What I want to ask my Republican friends is: how many souls are you willing to lose before you decide this is a disaster? Anyone who knew anything about military history and tactics knew this was going to be a disaster from the get-go. We tried to warn you.

When are you going to end this expensive and dangerous experiment?

Still Radio After All These Years

At XM, Boldly Going
Under Hugh Panero, Satellite Radio Is a Hit. Just Ask Howard Stern And Mel Karmazin.

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page E01

Hugh Panero has never had much patience for naysayers.

As a young man, after being turned down for a job reporting on the cable industry for a trade journal, Panero created his own version of the publication, complete with original stories and a mock cover. He sent it in and was hired, said Doug Panero, one of three younger brothers.

XM Satellite Radio chief executive Hugh Panero, who joined the company in 1998, keeps his office door open, shouting over to Chairman Gary M. Parsons during the work day. (Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

As one of the early pioneers in pay-per-view TV, Panero overcame doubts that consumers would ever pick pay-per-view over the video store.

Six and a half years ago, he believed in subscription radio service when few others did. Secure in that belief, Panero turned a staff of fewer than a dozen working out of a windowless basement office in downtown Washington into the leading satellite radio service, with more than 500 employees and 2.5 million subscribers. Its only direct competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. of New York, has 800,000 subscribers.

Satellite radio has now come into its own, and competition is sizzling.

XM Satellite Radio Inc. offers more than 100 channels for a $9.95 monthly fee, with highlights that include popular newscaster Bob Edwards from National Public Radio. In the works for the spring is a 24-hour baseball channel -- the result of a broadcasting and marketing deal worth up to $650 million over 11 years that XM signed with Major League Baseball in October. The District-based company last month introduced the first wearable satellite radio receiver, called the MyFi, expanding its service to outside of the car and home.

Sirius this fall lured shock jock Howard Stern away from FM radio with a $500 million, five-year deal. That was after it agreed in December 2003 to pay $220 million in cash and stock to the National Football League to broadcast its games and related content on a new, 24-hour channel. Sirius, which offers listeners more than 100 channels for $12.95 a month, capped its headline-making announcements on Nov. 18 with the news that former Viacom Inc. chief operating officer Mel Karmazin was joining as chief executive, effective immediately.

Analysts called Karmazin's jump to Sirius a blessing for satellite radio. "We believe this news is good for the satellite radio industry overall because it involves the hiring of one of the most respected managers in the entire media industry," Legg Mason media analyst Sean P. Butson wrote in a Nov. 19 research note.

Following the announcement, Sirius's share price rose 38 percent, to $6.51. XM's stock closed Friday at $37.61, up 8.5 percent over the same period.

Panero's reaction to his new official nemesis was more sanguine.

"A short time ago, [Karmazin] was telling anyone who would listen that satellite radio would never amount to anything. All I can say is [Karmazin's appointment] an interesting confirmation of the validity of satellite radio," he said. "We set the groundwork for people realizing this is the new platform for entertainment. I'm glad we could provide Mr. Karmazin with gainful employment."

It's a very long article and frontpaged at the WaPo tomorrow. I am one of those "early adopters" of new technology, but I do my homework before I buy. I'd be interested in Sirius or XM to listen to Bob Edwards, the best radioman working today, and to hear Air America in the car and at work (I listen to the radio at work, the rest of the kids in the office have music on their iPods, while I'm scanning NPR and C-Span radio on a plain old FM.)

Have any of you got experience in this technology and these services before I take myself down to Best Buy to tinker with it? I'd like to know what I'm looking at.

An Ounce of Prevention

Could a Spray Stop the Spread of Flu, TB, SARS?

2 hours, 27 minutes ago

Health - Reuters

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Simply inhaling a saltwater spray could help prevent the spread of diseases including flu and tuberculosis, U.S. and German researchers reported on Monday.

They found a saline spray, administered using a device called a jet nebulizer, reduced the number of germ-spreading droplets by as much as 70 percent for six hours.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites), could provide a way to help control epidemics such as the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that spread globally and killed many health care workers trying to help patients.

The findings might also help control any global influenza pandemic, which almost all health experts believe is coming and which could kill millions.

The researchers noted much more study was needed before a saline spray device could be marketed to prevent the spread of diseases.

Gerhard Scheuch of Harvard University and colleagues there and at biotechnology firms Pulmatrix and Inamed tested 11 volunteers, giving them the oral spray and then measuring how many particles they released when coughing.

"Viruses known to spread from humans and/or animals through breathing, sneezing, and coughing include measles, influenza virus, adenovirus, African swine fever virus, foot and mouth disease virus, Varicella zoster virus (chickenpox), infectious bronchitis virus and smallpox, among others," they wrote.

Bacteria spread in airborne droplets include anthrax, Escherichia coli and tuberculosis.

Scheuch's team noted some people produced many more little droplets or bioaerosols than others -- something also seen by investigators of the SARS (news - web sites) outbreak that spread from China to cities around the world, killing 800 people.

Such "super-spreaders" were responsible for several clusters of the often deadly viral infection.

That may mean that about half the population generally may produce more than 98 percent of all disease-spreading droplets, the researchers said.

"We found a sharp demarcation between individuals who are 'high' and 'low' producers of bioaerosols, small droplets of fluid exhaled from the lungs that may carry airborne pathogens," said David Edwards, a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard, who worked on the study.

"Roughly half our subjects exhaled tens of bioaerosol particles per liter, while the other half exhaled thousands of these particles. The number of exhaled particles varied dramatically over time and among subjects, ranging from a low of one particle per liter to a high of more than 10,000."

Given the Avian flu story below, this is the first piece of good news I've heard all day.

I'll tell you a little trick I learned from a co-worker while I was an undergrad: I suffer from chronic sinus trouble because of bi-lateral temporal mandibular joint dysfunction--in lay terms, my jaw is dislocated on both sides, and it causes chronic irritation to my facial muscles and underlying sinuses. I was suffering from my third sinus infection of the winter one October, when my colleague noticed my distess. He showed me how to make a saline solution and use it to rinse out my nasal passages. He was a Hindu business student from India and practiced ayurvedic medicine. It worked and the number of sinus infections and colds and flus I get per year has been dramatically cut back. You can buy the little "neti" pots that ayurvedic practitioners use at health food stores. I've seen them at Whole Foods.

If you don't want to make your own saline solution, buy the unpreserved kind that's used for contact lenses. The small bottles are the best because they'll get used up before the lack of preservatives becomes an issue. While you are in the shower in the morning, let the bottle heat up in a sink of hot water. When you are dried after your shower, open the bottle and pierce the tip (the bottles come with a top that does this) then stick the tip in one nostril and fill your nasal passages with with the warmed solution until it runs out the other nostril. Use a lot. Repeat on the other side. I know this sounds gross, but it appears that this is going to be some of the best protection you can offer your neighbors and it will also cut down on the severity of any flu you might get.

The flu bug is already among us this year. Start this procedure now.

It's Here

WHO aide warns of avian flu pandemic

By Keith Bradsher The New York Times

A global pandemic of avian influenza is "very, very likely" and could kill tens of millions of people around the world, a top World Health Organization official said Monday.
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Governments should be prepared to close schools, office buildings and factories in case of a pandemic, and should work out emergency staffing to prevent a breakdown in basic public services like electricity and transport, said Dr. Shigeru Omi, the organization's regional director for Asia and the Pacific.
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Such arrangements may be needed if the disease infects 25 to 30 percent of the world's population, Omi said. That is the WHO's estimate for what could happen if the disease - currently found mainly in chickens, ducks and other birds - develops the ability to spread easily from person to person.
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Deaths associated with the rapid spread of a new form of influenza would be high, he said.
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"We are talking at least 2 to 7 million, maybe more - 20 million or 50 million, or in the worst case, 100" million, he said.
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While many influenza experts have discussed similar figures privately, Omi's remarks represented the first time a top public health official had given such an estimate in public. But his remarks on the likelihood that the disease would start spreading easily went beyond the assessment of many scientists, who say that too little is known about the virus to gauge the odds that it will become readily transmissible.
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Dr. Malik Peiris, a top influenza researcher at Hong Kong University, said that Omi's range of potential fatalities was realistic and consistent with current research into the A(H5N1) avian influenza virus. The biggest questions, he said, were whether the disease would develop the ability to spread easily from person to person and, if it did, whether it would retain its current deadliness.
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"H5N1 in its present form has a pretty lethal effect on humans," he said.
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A few analysts have suggested that the death toll could be considerably higher. Dr. Henry Niman, a medical researcher in Pittsburgh critical of WHO as too conservative, said that with more than 70 percent of the human victims of the disease dying so far, the death toll could, in theory, exceed one billion if the disease were to spread rapidly among people, with little if any reduction in the current mortality rates.
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But Omi and Peiris each pointed out that the high death rate recorded so far might be overstated, because people with less severe cases of the disease might not be diagnosed as having it.
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Peiris also pointed out that one likely way for the disease to acquire the ability to pass easily from person to person - the acquisition of human influenza genetic material by the virus - could also reduce the death rate to the range described by Omi.

I guess the WHO has decided that it is here, we are just awaiting that final mutation. I, for one, will be buying an respirator as soon as I can find one. Follow the link to buy it on the web.

Holey Browser

Is Microsoft creating tomorrow's IE security holes today?

By Mark Burnett, SecurityFocus.com
Published Monday 29th November 2004 16:16 GMT

As a security consultant, I constantly see others planting the seeds for future disasters. I see people making the very same mistakes over and over. Up to now, it has been somewhat excusable: much of the software codebase we use every day was written long before we trained developers about things like buffer overflows and canonicalization. Much of the software we have now grew from the extremely competitive environment of an explosive decade of growth where killer apps were the killer app.

One might ask, how do you code for these future threats if you don't even know what they are. The answer is simple: you follow basic best practices for security and never, ever divert from them. In all the history of security vulnerabilities, many issues were foreseeable and could have been avoided by following basic best practices. Follow the fundamentals and you worry less about the major threats. You worry about them less because you have so many layers of protection they either don't exist, or their impact is small.

Bottom line: move to open source. I use and recommend Mozilla.org I would move my entire home box to Open Office if I weren't stuck with Win at work.

Planless, Clueless

Duct Tape Won't Cover This

By William Raspberry
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page A19

I don't have a plan.

I know Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says everyone should have one, and I think Ridge really does want me to be safe in the event of a major terrorist attack.

Last week would have been a good time to start working on a plan. My children were home for Thanksgiving, and we surely could have set aside a few minutes between turkey and football to make at least a rudimentary one.

But this is as far as we got: If we're separated when the terrorists strike, and if the local phone service is not working, we'll all call Aunt Jackie in Fort Wayne, Ind. She doesn't know this yet, but her job will be to relay messages, reassuring each of us that the others are okay. Or not. The assumptions are (1) that while we might not be able to phone each other, even on our cell phones, we will be able to get long-distance, and (2) the terrorists won't hit Fort Wayne.
....
I may as well spill the whole thing: I never laid in my supply of duct tape and plastic, never sealed off a "safe room" at my house. I read the instructions, back when they were issued, but I kept thinking: What is the likelihood that I'll be at home when the terrorists hit? What are the odds that if I hear something weird going on outside I'll herd my family into the safe room instead of going out to see what the devil is going on? How long do I stay in the safe room? Is there any chance that the manufacturers of duct tape are major Republican contributors?

Oh, and Ridge says we should talk to our children about terrorism and how to prepare for it. Well, my kids are all grown-ups, so this doesn't apply to them, but isn't talking to young children about terrorist threats less likely to make them feel safer than to frighten them silly?

I remember back in the 1980s, when half of adult America watched the movie "The Day After," and Brown University students hung "We Are Scared" banners out their dorm windows, and young children had nightmares about the bomb. I wondered at the time: What was the point of scaring everybody?

In the case of the bomb, I suppose the point was to convince the Soviets of our determination not to be blackmailed. If we behaved as though nuclear war was unthinkable, how could they take seriously our nuclear deterrence capability? So we built bomb shelters and stocked apartment house basements with saltines and water (Eisenhower) and had the Federal Emergency Management Agency plot escape routes out of the cities (Reagan). With this latest one (Bush) I don't know what the point is. All I know is we're supposed to make ourselves a plan.

Several plans, actually, since the plan for biological terrorism won't be much help against suicidal airline hijackers or dirty bombs.

What, by the way, would have been the plan if we had known al Qaeda was determined, on a date unknown, to hijack several planes and fly them into tall buildings? Would we have emptied all the buildings? Closed down commercial aviation? Interned all the Arabs? Had everybody call Aunt Jackie?

I'm with Bill Raspberry. The fact of the matter is that Bushco has no plan, and that's what frightens me.

Bumpy Road Ahead

COMEX Gold Rises Above $450 to Over 16 - Year Peak
By REUTERS

Published: November 29, 2004

Filed at 9:59 a.m. ET
A corrected version follows.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold futures in New York opened above $450 an ounce, their highest in more than 16 years, after the dollar's fall on Friday to a record low against the euro.

December delivery gold (GCZ4) on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division was up 80 cents at $450.10 an ounce by 8:23 a.m. EST (1323 GMT), after earlier rising as high as $452.10 which marked the loftiest for futures since July 1988. February 2005 gold (GCG5) gained $1.70 to $453.20.

Spot gold (XAU-) was worth $450.65/451.40 an ounce, versus its 16-1/4-year peak of $455 scaled on Friday when U.S. markets were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. The euro's rise to an all-time high of $1.3329 on Friday made dollar-priced gold cheaper for non-U.S. buyers.

Consider this the gold bug's votes on the economy. Gold is frequently used as a disaster hedge; the rest of the time, it isn't a particularly productive investment.

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley writes this morning:

Long ago, I learned that most of the time it doesn’t pay to bet against the American consumer. There are rare occasions, however, when that rule doesn’t apply. That was the case in the early 1970s in the aftermath of the first oil shock. Back then, as a young staffer at the Federal Reserve Board, I was chastised by Fed Chairman Arthur Burns for being too negative on the US consumer. He argued that I didn’t appreciate the unflinching cyclical resilience of the US consumer -- a resilience that, ironically, was about to give way to America’s first consumer-led recession. A lot has changed in the ensuing 30 years. But for very different reasons, I now believe that another exception is in the offing. The American consumer is an accident waiting to happen. The sooner the world comes to grips with this problem, the better the chances of a successful rebalancing.

Add these reports to the AP story about week early-season holiday buying and we are beginning to see warning signs of trouble ahead.

As I noted yesterday, Bush's new budget team is notably light on real economists. CAP's Assistant Director for Tax and Budget Policy notices, as well.

Holly Jolly

Tepid start to holiday shopping season

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The start of the holiday season was respectable but unimpressive for many of the nation's retailers, with consumers jamming stores and malls on Friday and pulling back as the weekend wore on.

Big chains including J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. were pleased with their sales. But Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was less fortunate - the industry leader said its sales in the seven days that ended Friday were disappointing, and the company lowered its sales forecasts for November.

"Friday overall was strong, but Saturday was weak and disappointing, so together it was only a modest two-day performance," said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at International Council of Shopping Centers. "Still, I continue to believe that this is not a bellwether for how the season will end up."

Wally Brewster, spokesman at Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which operates 224 malls in 44 states, said sales and traffic were strong on Friday, but "stabilized" the rest of the weekend. As a result, he expects sales for the weekend to increase in the low single digits, in line with modest expectations.

Wal-Mart's holiday weekend sales suffered because it didn't offer the deep discounts it did in past years, hoping to boost profits, analysts said. Penney and Sears did better by wooing customers with two days of big price breaks.

"Wal-Mart was a big loser because they didn't get the same numbers of early bird shoppers as they did a year ago," said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, based in Charleston, S.C. "The retailers that won this weekend were the ones that were super aggressive in special purchases and special pricing."

Wal-Mart said Saturday it now expects same-store sales in November to be up only 0.7 percent, instead of the projected 2 percent to 4 percent.

Because I have family in retail small business I have every reason to hope for a strong shopping season, but I don't think the economics are there. Luxury goods sellers are going to be fine, but the mid-level retailers are going to have a tough year, I think.

Another Crappy Headline

Federal Plan to Keep Data on Students Worries Some
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: November 29, 2004

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - A proposal by the federal government to create a vast new database of enrollment records on all college and university students is raising concerns that the move will erode the privacy rights of students.

Until now, universities have provided individual student information to the federal government only in connection with federally financed student aid. Otherwise, colleges and universities submit information about overall enrollment, graduation, prices and financial aid without identifying particular students.

For the first time, however, colleges and universities would have to give the government data on all students individually, whether or not they received financial assistance, with their Social Security numbers.

The bid arises from efforts in Congress and elsewhere to extend the growing emphasis on school accountability in elementary and high schools to postsecondary education. Supporters say that government oversight of individual student data will make it easier for taxpayers and policy makers to judge the quality of colleges and universities through more reliable statistics on graduation, transfers and retention.

The change would also allow federal officials to track individual students as they journey through the higher education system. In recent years, increasing numbers of students have been attending more than one university, dropping out or taking longer than the traditional four years to graduate. Current reporting practices cannot capture such trends; a mobile student is recorded as a new student at each institution.

Under the proposal, the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education would receive, analyze and guard the data. In making its case for the change, the center points to a history of working with student information and says it has never been forced to share it with law enforcement or other agencies. The proposal, first reported in the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, is supported by the American Council on Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, but opposed by other education organizations, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

A department overview of the proposal insisted that data would not be shared with other agencies and that outsiders could not gain access. By law, the summary says in capitals, "Information about individuals may NEVER leave N.C.E.S.," the National Center for Education Statistics.

But Jasmine L. Harris, legislative director at the United States Student Association, an advocacy group for students, said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the balance between privacy and the public interest had been shifting. "We're in a different time now, a very different climate," Ms. Harris said. "There's the huge possibility that the database could be misused, and there are no protections for student privacy."

She pointed to the National Directory of New Hires, a register of people who re-enter the workforce, which began as an effort to track job trends. Since its creation, however, the database has also been used to track parents who fail to pay child support or who owe the federal government non-tax debt, she said. "The door is wide open," Ms. Harris said.

Luke Swarthout, higher education associate at the State PIRG for Higher Education, said his civic group, which has always monitored consumer issues and privacy rights, was of two minds about the plan. Improving the available data was important for Congress, policymakers and the public, who finance higher education through government loans and grants, Mr. Swarthout said. "But any time you're compiling a list of millions and millions of students, as they go through college, move and have Social Security numbers, we get concerns from a privacy perspective."

For colleges to hand over information on individual students, Congress would have to create an exemption to existing federal privacy laws, said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

"The concept that you enter a federal registry by the act of enrolling in a college in this country is frightening to us," Ms. Flanagan said.

"Worries Some"? If this doesn't scare the crap out of you, you aren't paying attention. There is absolutely no reason for doing this, other than to begin surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Post-secondary schools are already accountable to the public through their track records. There is no reason on earth to apply "No Child Left Behind" type standards to them.

That the Feds are demonstrably incompetent to do anything with these large data collection projects is very little comfort. This supposedly "conservative" government sure doesn't think much of privacy rights.

ID

William F. Buckley will hardly be quoted often on this page, but today he asks a reasonable question, and I think that reasonable questions are good things. On my most recent flight, I was treated to three security searches and two pat-down searches on the return trip. I am an unprepossessing 5'5", 50 year old blue-eyed blonde of mixed Northern European ancestry.

I don't know what the correct answer to this conundrum is, but if hassling people who are obviously no threat is supposed to make us feel safer, it isn't working.

JUST SAY NO

Sun Nov 28,11:47 PM ET

By William F. Buckley Jr.

I have cited before a wonderful passage from a book by Ann Coulter: "In early December 2001, '60 Minutes' host Steve Kroft interviewed (Transportation Secretary Norman) Mineta about his approach to securing the airlines from terrorist attack. Kroft observed that of 22 men currently on the FBI (news - web sites)'s most-wanted list, 'all but one of them has complexion listed as olive. They all have dark hair and brown eyes. And more than half of them have the name Mohammed.' Thus, he asks Mineta if airport security should give more scrutiny to someone named Mohammed -- 'just going down a passenger manifest list: Bob, Paul, John, Frank, Steven, Mohammed.'

"The secretary of transportation said, 'No.' In fact, Mineta was mystified by Kroft's question, asking him: 'Why should Mohammed be singled out?' The Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) had a computer profiling system on passengers, but it actually excluded mention of passengers' race, ethnicity, national origin or religion." One wonders: What DOES the profiling system include?

The objective has to be to reduce reasonably the number of people who are searched, and perhaps the scope of the search. Our computer banks are surely up to the challenge of coming up with a scale from 0 to 100 on the likelihood that a particular traveler is mischievous. Already, our system is disposed to make certain negative inferences. If you buy a one-way ticket, you are suspicious, on the assumption that the reason you didn't buy the round-trip ticket is that you might as well save the money, since you intend to destroy the airliner on the first leg.

But if we are accumulating negative inferences, why not list the name "Mohammed" among them? Answer: Because this would be resented by the 99.99 percent of Mohammeds who have no desire to engage in terrorism.

But the question here becomes, surely, Why not go ahead and offend the Mohammeds -- for reasons absolutely unmotivated by religious or ethnic animus? And the positive inferences: Can we reasonably assume that a passenger who is more than 50 years old edges up in the direction of unlikelihood as a saboteur?

The point is not dismissed by simply finding some 75-year-old who once tried to blow up an airplane. We are talking about likelihood. If the passenger has a clean police record, a family, a job, retirement savings -- add these up, one at a time, as the needle on the dial inches asymptotically toward zero likelihood, and you have accomplished something that translates into fewer strip searches for women -- or, for that matter, men. One passenger stopped in the Midwest a few months ago and searched turns out to have been the same man who ran for president on the Democratic ticket in the year 2000. Al Gore (news - web sites) was a very good sport about it.

An inspiriting contrast was the late Warren Burger, who, even before the nonsense engendered by 9/11, flatly refused to travel on any airline that insisted on probing his crotch. His point was that as former chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he should not be treated as a possible terrorist, never mind what some people have said about Earl Warren.

But progress of any kind here requires the application of intelligence, and this is what the feds are afraid to engage in.

Banning the Professionals

House GOP Resistance Presents Bush a Clear Test of Leadership
Ron Brownstein
November 29, 2004

The sweeping legislation to restructure America's intelligence community didn't collapse this month because it lacked enough support to pass.

The dirty secret is it derailed because it lacked the right kind of support — at least in the eyes of the House Republican leadership. And that sets a precedent with ominous implications for bipartisan cooperation on issues like immigration and Social Security reform during President Bush's second term.

Almost everyone involved agrees that the bill to reorganize the intelligence agencies and centralize authority in a new national intelligence director has enough votes to pass the House and Senate. Today. Without changing a word in the legislation, which implements the principal intelligence-related recommendations of the widely praised independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Yet the bill has little chance of reaching the desk of Bush, who says he supports and would sign it.

"It's highly frustrating when you know you have the votes and you can't get it done," says Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Why has a bill with majority support in both chambers and the president's blessing fallen into limbo? Because House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has decided he will not bring it to a vote while it faces substantial resistance among House Republicans.

As speaker, Hastert has placed the highest priority on maintaining unity in his caucus. One of his guiding principles has been that no bill should pass the House unless it has support not only from an overall majority but from a majority of Republicans. Call it the Hastert Rule.

In this case, Hastert can't even say for sure that a majority of House Republicans would oppose the intelligence reform bill if it came to a vote. He pulled the plug after a compromise reached by House and Senate negotiators drew opposition from House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) and other critics at a Nov. 20 party meeting.

To a point, Hastert's reluctance to advance legislation that divides House Republicans is understandable. Any legislative leader who routinely pushes bills opposed by many of his members probably won't be a legislative leader for long. The question Hastert should face is whether there is no room for exception within that general rule — no legislation where the national interest demands that he accept some fraternal tension.

The same question applies even more pointedly to Bush. No president relishes legislative fights within his own party. But for any president, one of the clearest tests of leadership is the willingness to stare down his own supporters to protect the national interest.

Bill Clinton promoted and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement even though 60% of House Democrats voted against it in 1993. He promoted and signed welfare reform, even though exactly half of House Democrats (and nearly half of Senate Democrats) voted against it in 1996. Even the 1997 legislation Clinton signed that balanced the federal budget drew opposition from a quarter of House Democrats — including Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

Bush, in his first term, signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law and legislation requiring annual tests for students in reading and math despite opposition from many congressional Republicans. Mostly, though, he has advanced ideas only with broad Republican support. That explains why his first instinct in the intelligence standoff has been to pursue a compromise aimed at soothing House Republicans while holding enough Senate support to avoid a lethal filibuster.

But such a deal is unlikely. And that means Bush could face a stark choice: Pressure the House Republicans to allow a vote on the existing compromise, or permit the failure of security reforms that passed the Senate on a 96-2 vote and have been endorsed by the Sept. 11 commission, by the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and, officially at least, by the president himself.

Cracks in the Elephant House. One of the hazards of one-party rule is the highlighting of cracks in the party. Attempting to tamp down on other opinions,
Bush is canning his economic team:

Bush to Change Economic Team
Candidates Likely To Be From Outside The Administration

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page A01

President Bush plans to overhaul his economic team for the second time in two years and wants to tap some prominent replacements from outside the administration to help sell rewrites of Social Security and the tax laws to Congress and the country, White House aides and advisers said over the weekend.

Aides said changing four of the five top economic officials -- including the Treasury and Commerce secretaries, with only budget director Joshua B. Bolten likely to remain -- is part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda.

Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and chief economic adviser Stephen Friedman have announced their resignations, and officials had signaled they would move gradually to replace the team. But the White House is now indicating it may move more quickly to convey a fresh start. Aides also said Bush is considering reaching beyond the kind of administration loyalists who will staff key national security posts in the second term.

Republican officials said Bush's economic team has been weaker than his national security advisers, and that the president believes he needs aides who can relate better to Congress and the markets. A more skilled team is essential, the aides said, because of the complex and politically challenging agenda of overhauling Social Security to add private investment accounts and simplifying the tax code.

"The president knows that he doesn't have the strength in that stable, and he's going to another corral to find it," said a member of Bush's political team who asked not to be identified because it is not his job to talk to reporters.

One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long. He might stay as long as six months into the term, officials said. Friends say Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. is one possibility to replace him. Bolten also could move over.

The article fails to mention that Card has no economic credentials whatsoever, and that Josh Bolten is a lawyer, not an economist.

What matters is loyalty, not competence.

Aye, Aye, Sir

This is your Individual Ready Reserve.

Ready Reserve calls up single mom,
Tonya Stewart, 43, of Hellam Township doesn't know where she'll serve her 18-month tour of duty.
By JOSEPH MALDONADO
For the Daily Record/Sunday News
Saturday, November 27, 2004

In 1992, Tonya Stewart left the Army after serving 13 years in uniform, believing her service to her country was over.

Now, 12 years later, she's been recalled to active duty.

"I leave for an 18-month tour of duty in two weeks," the 43-year-old Hellam Township resident said. "And that's about all I really know."

Stewart, visiting her sister's family for Thanksgiving dinner along with her boyfriend and 9-year-old daughter, said she had received letters and phone calls from the military since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 warning her that she may be recalled.

"But to be honest, I never really thought they'd do it," Stewart, who works for Susquehanna Communications, said with a laugh. "I'm a little too old to be running around diving in the sand."

She was recalled from the Army's Individual Ready Reserve, composed of men and women who, even though they have completed their tours of duty, are still obligated to return to service if the government calls for them.

Some former active duty soldiers are required to serve in the ready reserve. For Stewart, when she left the service as part of the military's mid-90s downsizing, she was required to remain on the ready reserve list. She had a choice of accepting a lump sum or an annuity when she volunteered to leave the service. The annuity paid more but also had a greater commitment to the ready reserve.

"If I would have taken the lump sum, they wouldn't have called me," she said.

She's not the oldest former soldier among the 100 ready reservists in her unit recalled to active duty. Currently serving in her unit, the 844th Engineering Battalion, which works out of the Army's Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, Ind., is one man in his 70s.

"He was an officer who apparently didn't sign his retirement paperwork when he left the Army," Stewart said. "So as far as the military is concerned, he never really retired."

Stewart said she could sense that the military was becoming more serious about recalling the ready reservists. Each letter she received from the Army, each call, sounded more serious and urgent.

With the military calling up single moms in their 40s and senior citizens, Stewart speculated that a draft can't be too far behind.

"I've been saying this for a while that a real draft is coming," she said.

‘Fort Living Room’ soldiers face challenges

By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER

The Associated Press

THE U.S. AND IRAQ

FORT JACKSON — Chief Warrant Officer Margaret Murray, who describes herself as “over 50,” says her small frame and some old back pain made it difficult to fire her M-16 in a marksmanship refresher course.

“With my stature, it was a challenge,” said the 4-foot-10, 95-pound, gray-haired personnel specialist from Schenectady, N.Y. “But I can hit the target now.”

Murray is one of about 4,400 Army soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve who completed their active-duty service but have been notified they must get back in uniform. Most likely, they are headed for Iraq or Afghanistan.

Ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s, the returning soldiers bring valuable experience to the Army. But their advanced ages, weakened eyes and expanded waistlines mean doing things a bit differently.

“Old is the operative word. I joke my contingent just came from Fort Living Room,” said Lt. Col. Douglas Snyder, commander of the training unit here. “They haven’t run in two, four, six, maybe 10 years or more. And that goes for push-ups, too.”

One lieutenant colonel with bifocals had to switch from an M-16 rifle to a 9 mm pistol to qualify. The petite Murray learned to adjust her stance to fire her weapon.

“We don’t give up on them. We haven’t failed to qualify a single person,” said Staff Sgt. Kenneth Calloway, a 29-year-old Army Reserve instructor. “We just give each individual a lot of time — and lots of ammunition.”

Still, of the 1,100 ready reservists who have reported so far to Fort Jackson, the nation’s largest training base, 325 were released from active duty, many for medical grounds, such as bad knees, back pain or irregular heartbeats.

And not all the reservists have returned peacefully. Last month, the Army reported that more than 800 of the former soldiers had failed to comply with Army orders to report for duty.

News reports of ambushed convoys and roadside bombs in Iraq are woven into the daily instruction here, sometimes accompanied by graphic photos of injured soldiers.

Members of the Individual Ready Reserve were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty tours — usually four to six years — but remained in the IRR for the rest of the eight-year commitment they made when they joined the Army.

The Army's long arm
Sunday, November 14, 2004
By Dennis Roddy

GREENVILLE, Pa. -- Three years after he was honorably discharged from the Army, Frederick Pistorius was surprised to learn he was a deserter.

But there it was, on his doorstep: a letter from Barry W. Kimmons, Deputy Chief, Deserter Information Point Extension Office of the Army Reserve Personnel Command.

"On 12 July 2004 you were involuntarily mobilized to active duty in the United States Army," the letter says. "To date you have not reported to your mobilization station as required by your orders." Possibly Pistorius had not responded for two reasons. The Pistorius family had moved from the address in Sharon, Pa., to which the Army had sent its first letter. More saliently, having served honorably in not one but two branches of the U.S. military, with no additional obligation showing on his discharge papers, Pistorius would have had no reason to think he was subject to anything but his civilian job at a local steel plant.

Wendy Pistorius opened the letter and immediately telephoned an official at the Army reserve command in St. Louis.

"I told him there must be a mistake, because my husband had fulfilled his obligation," she said. "He basically told me that the Army does not make mistakes and that the orders were valid and if he did not show up as per the orders he would be prosecuted and taken to jail."

So began a two-month journey through the Army of Franz Kafka.

The paper trail is fairly straightforward on this one. Pistorius joined the Marine Corps in 1993. When he left the corps, he had a reserve obligation that expired June 25, 2000. The pool into which he would have gone is called the Individual Ready Reserve -- essentially former military available for service in times of emergency. After a few months of knocking around for work, Pistorius decided to go back into the military, get more training in his specialty -- cook -- and complete his reserve obligation with full-time duty. The Marines weren't taking back departed members who'd been out for a year, so, in 1998, he joined the Army, signing a three-year contract.

Pistorius was honorably discharged from the Army in July 20, 2001. His certificate of release attests to his accomplishments: Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Sharpshooter qualification. The upper corner is the spot in which the military lists a departing member's reserve obligation, the amount of time discharged soldiers, sailors and Marines remain subject to recall. For Pistorius, the boxes contain a succession of zeroes.

Because he was discharged well after his prior reserve obligation had passed, the Army laid no further claim to him, until someone in St. Louis ignored those zeroes and went hunting for a fresh body to fill a manpower shortage that grows more painful with every Iraqi sunset.

"They basically told me that my Marine Corps time doesn't count as military service," Pistorius said. Faced with a threat of AWOL charges, and worried that a spotless military record was about to be stained, Pistorius headed last month to Camp McGrady in South Carolina.

"The first thing they did was thank us for showing up," Pistorius said. "They had 150 that were supposed to show up and about 75 did. Of those 75 maybe only 40 or 50 are medically fit."

Here, Pistorius's Army recruitment contract comes into play. It was the one document he says he had not kept, figuring his military days were over. The Army public affairs office did not return phone calls asking about the matter so we have only Pistorius' version. He said he asked for a copy, but was always told the thing was "in transit" from St. Louis. The contract would settle any questions about whether he might have, inadvertently, signed up for another round of reserve duty, but it seems implausible.

Equally implausible were the men who turned up at Camp McGrady last month.

When I first spoke to Pistorius, by telephone from the camp, he said nobody had been given a physical. He told his Army commanders that he had a permanent back injury from a car crash. They were unimpressed by a letter from his chiropractor. His pre-deployment health assessment lists him in this word: "Deployable."

Pistorius spoke with his captain.

"He said everybody here's going to Iraq," Pistorius said. "It's unbelievable some of the guys they're bringing down there."

One man arrived with a hospital identification band still on his wrist. He'd just had knee surgery. One 48-year-old from Alabama had a hip replacement and fused vertebrae in his back.

"He showed them the documents, but they still made him come down to be examined by their doctors," Pistorius said. Pistorius spoke of a man called back from upstate New York.

"He had no teeth and he had arthritis in his leg," he said.

Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and now a professor at Boston University, wasn't surprised at the report.

"The Individual Ready Reserve -- that title is a misnomer. They're not ready," Bacevich said. "It's the equivalent of me walking out here on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and taking the first 5,000 people I meet and saying 'you're now in the military.' "

Tours of Duty

Multiple combat tours strain a third of troops

By Bryan Bender The Boston Globe

The breakdown indicates that as of Sept. 30, there were 955,609 members of the armed forces, including active-duty and reserve personnel, who had been deployed for operations in Afghanistan or the Gulf region since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Of those, 303,987 had been sent overseas more than once.
.
The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps have carried much of the load abroad. Of about 500,000 members in the active army, 279,393, or more than half, have been sent overseas in the past three years. And of those, 34.6 percent have served multiple tours, some for a year or more and others several months at a time.
.
For the corps, the percentage of the total force dispatched to Afghanistan or the Gulf is greater: 98,979 of about 120,000 marines. Of those, 27.6 percent have done multiple tours, according to the Pentagon's count. The corps will be adding about 3,000 marines to reduce the burden.
.
For part-time soldiers who leave jobs as well as families behind, the percentage serving multiple tours is even higher. Of the 90,649 Army National Guard soldiers deployed, 35.9 percent have been called up more than once.
.
For the U.S. Army Reserve, 34.6 percent of the 64,978 that have served since the Sept. 11 attacks have returned home, only to be redeployed within months.

I knew the situation was bad but I had no idea that it was this bad. Y'all don't need me to interpret these numbers for you; we've been following this story for the entire history of this blog and you know the drill. I just had no ideas the numbers were this bad.

The story reports that Army Guard recruitment numbers were down by 30% in October. As we all know, we are approaching a crisis in troop strength.

Fake Issues

NYT's Frank Rich is at it again, knocking over the shibboleths of the Right:

The Great Indecency Hoax

OH, the poor, suffering little children.

If we are to believe the outcry of the past two weeks, America's youth have been defiled en masse - again. This time the dirty deed was done by the actress Nicollette Sheridan, who dropped her towel in the cheesy promotional spot for the runaway hit "Desperate Housewives" that kicked off "Monday Night Football" on ABC. "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud," said Michael Powell, the Federal Communications Commission chairman who increasingly fashions himself a commissar of all things cultural, from nipple rings to "Son of Flubber."

It's beginning to look a lot like "Groundhog Day." Ever since 22 percent of the country's voters said on Nov. 2 that they cared most about "moral values," opportunistic ayatollahs on the right have been working overtime to inflate this nonmandate into a landslide by ginning up cultural controversies that might induce censorship by a compliant F.C.C. and, failing that, self-censorship by TV networks. Seizing on a single overhyped poll result, they exaggerate their clout, hoping to grab power over the culture.

The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties. It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).

It looks to me like that whole "culture war" business can be relegated to the unlamented last century.

Frank, you might want to talk to the news side of your operation.

Facing North

Contrary to the whiney, narcissistic opinion piece in today's WaPo, my experience of Canadians is that they display greater ability to be self-critical about the American-Canadian relationship than do we. The Op-Ed in today's left-leaning Toronto Star is a case in point and worth considering as Bush heads north this week for his first visit to Canada since the election of Paul Martin.

Colour us blue, but partners still

RICK ANDERSON

Politically, the Canada-U.S. relationship is at an uneasy pass. Canada has long been plagued by juvenile bipolar disorder in our U.S. relations, as colleague Richard Gwyn so well described in The 49th Paradox: We cherish America's approval, wish to have our views sought, but wouldn't be caught dead caring. There are signs this may be changing. Three years of post-9/11 Bushism, culminating in this month's U.S. election, may be provoking something of a watershed among Canadians.

Without resorting to Parrishism, Canadians may be less certain they entirely recognize themselves in the face of today's America.

Certainly, we are allies and neighbours, and each other's biggest trade partners — but we are not quite identical. We're not so sure that economic prosperity requires a grossly unequal sharing of wealth.

Not so sure that guns in the glove compartment make for safer streets. Not so sure that leaving 40 million people without health insurance makes for a better place. Or that unilateralism is the best approach to the war on terror.

All this may not matter as much as once thought. We may finally be getting comfortable with the idea that differing approaches and priorities are not the end of the world.

In America's so-called culture wars, more Canadians identify with Blue States than with the Bush-friendly Red States, putting us closer to the minority 48 per cent of Americans, and the majority of world opinion. So be it.

We should understand though — and hopefully this, too, is sinking in — that Red State Americans, including one George W., no more appreciate puffed-up moral superiority when it drifts in from north of the border than when delivered by their own fellow citizens.Which gets to the matter of personality, the wild card in this week's visit. Jean Chrétien left Canada-U.S. relations in a chillier mode than he found them.

But he also struck chords with Canadian opinion when famously observing that, when fishing with American presidents, the key thing is not to be the fish. As did Brian Mulroney, who retorted that when golfing with U.S. presidents, it's best not to fall into the role of caddy.

When the books of state are opened years from now, few will be surprised if they show Chrétien and Bush talked less than just about any pair of North American leaders since Trudeau and Nixon, and to no better effect whether they talked or didn't.

While Martin and Bush have the opportunity to warm things up a bit, and it may well be helpful if they do, it's not clear they can. Canada hasn't had as multilateralist a prime minister since Pearson, and Americans as unilateralist a president since before World War WII.

The warmth or not of leaders' relations may matter less with a more assured Canada entering an era of lessened preoccupation with America's approval. Similarly, on the U.S. side, we need to appreciate how little regard Bush's America has for the attitudes of Canadians and other world "wets."

So there seems little likelihood of an outbreak of fishing or golf, regardless of who is caddy or fish.

Sports aside, it would be good to see the two countries and the two leaders working more closely together. Many matters of mutual concern need resolution, a host of world problems demand attention. These are better addressed collaboratively, regardless of politics and personality.

In the news pages of the Star, there is an interesting article on Bush's diplomatic "style" (or lack there-of) which has quite a few telling details I've never seen in the American press:
Diplomacy's just not his style

TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - When George W. Bush brings his second-term diplomatic tour to Ottawa and Halifax next week, Canadians will see a change in tone, but will observe a man for whom diplomacy will never come naturally.

A quick check of his efforts since re-election earlier this month shows a style of diplomacy that sometimes has all the subtlety of a bulldozer and features a president who still carries grudges.

Just ask Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The socialist leader of Spain called Bush hours after his victory was confirmed on Nov. 3, but the president was too busy to take the call from a man who pulled his troops out of Iraq. Zapatero is still waiting for that return call. White House aides cite "scheduling problems."

Just to ram home a point to the government in Madrid, Bush had Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia out to the ranch in Crawford, Tex., last week, for a little Thanksgiving lunch; free-range turkey, giblet gravy, prairie chapel bass, mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and chipotles and pan-roasted root vegetables stuffing, topped off with pecan and pumpkin pie and washed down with a 2002 Chardonnay.

Zapatero reportedly passed a message to Bush through the king, who holds no political power in Spain, and Bush did finally dash off a written note to the Spanish prime minister. But the White House has nothing to say about the two men actually chatting by phone.

The souring on Spain is reminiscent here of Bush's cold shoulder to Mexican President Vicente Fox, refusing to acknowledge the Cinco de Mayo national holiday in Mexico, a sign of their differences over Iraq, and Bush's cancellation of a May, 2003, trip to Ottawa for the same reason.
....
Santiago, Chile, was the site of a now famously shrunken state dinner last weekend when Bush's security contingent refused to back down on its insistence that all guests — Chilean legislators and Supreme Court justices among them — be put through metal detectors before being allowed to sit down for dinner at La Moneda, the presidential palace.

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos said he would have to withdraw invitations to 200 people if the White House didn't back down. The dinner was cancelled. This came a day after Bush waded into the crowd to stare down a Chilean security officer who was in a standoff with a presidential Secret Service officer. Bush grabbed his man from the melee, dragged him out, then strode over for a photo with Lagos, flashing a self-satisfied grin and a wink to the White House press corps.

That won him the moniker "The Gringo Sheriff" in one Chilean daily. Another dubbed the Secret Service "Bush's Gorillas."

Still, the Bush tone was conciliatory. He told a Chilean reporter that even though Lagos did not agree with his decision to invade Iraq, "I respect that, he's still my friend."

But when Bush was asked about the state dinner fiasco a couple of days later in Colombia, he made no attempt to mask his contempt for the question. He told his startled host, President Alvaro Uribe, that that would be just enough, thank you, after a mere four questions at a joint news conference.

"Do you want to take one more?" Uribe asked Bush.

"That's plenty. No, thank you," Bush replied.

Gasbag Line-up

The Talk Shows

Sunday, November 28, 2004; Page A05

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG), 9 a.m.: Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.).

THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA), 9 a.m.: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.); Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.); Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values; Tony Campolo, professor emeritus at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pa.; Floyd H. Flake, president of Wilberforce University, Ohio; and author George Weigel.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC), 10:30 a.m.: Former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R), chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), vice chairman of the commission, Jerry Falwell, founder, Faith and Values Coalition; Richard Land, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Al Sharpton, founder, National Action Network; and Jim Wallis, convener, Call to Renewal.

FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA), 10:30 a.m.: Authors Ron Chernow, Joseph J. Ellis and Bob Woodward.

LATE EDITION (CNN), Noon: Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.); Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the United States; David Manning, British ambassador; Jean-David Levitte, French ambassador; Robert Gallucci, former U.N. weapons inspector; Wendy R. Sherman, former assistant secretary of state; and Richard N. Perle, former assistant secretary of defense.

Press the Meat looks to be the most interesting of the batch. I'll toggle back and forth between that and Deface the Nation, or catch it on the C-Span Radio replay later in the day.

The three national daily papers are having a serious case of the stupids today, so I'm going to go check the foreign press.

Winners and losers

I'm sure that the Sabbath Gasbags will just tell us "this is all so confusing" that they can't provide any context or analysis which goes beyond today's RNC spin-points.

Shiites Reject Election Delay
The majority sect's political and religious leaders say the Iraqi election must be held Jan. 30, despite Sunni and Kurd objections.

By Ashraf Khalil, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — Shiite Muslim political and religious leaders insisted Saturday that Iraq's parliamentary election must be held as scheduled in January, rejecting calls from Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to postpone the landmark vote six months.

The Shiites' position bolsters the interim government and U.N.-appointed electoral commission, which said Saturday they intended to proceed with balloting on Jan. 30.

The deepening debate over the election date is threatening to aggravate sectarian tensions in a nation already fractured by a raging insurgency that has killed more than 1,230 U.S. troops and many more Iraqis.

The prospect of a delay has outraged leaders of Iraq's Shiite majority, who view the vote as a decisive means of political empowerment after decades of repression by the long-dominant Sunni minority.

Jawad Maliki, a senior official with the Dawa Party, one of the principal Shiite groups, said any postponement would violate the country's interim constitution and diminish the credibility of the political process. It would also embolden insurgents, he said.

"It is a message to the terrorists that they are victorious," Maliki said. "This will encourage them."

A joint statement released Saturday by 42 parties, including Dawa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, another key Shiite party, said any delay would be illegal.

A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said Hakim, one of the nation's most prominent clerics and a member of the Shiite religious leadership headed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, also said a delay was unacceptable.

Groups Call for Delay in Iraqi Elections

By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD — Leading Iraqi politicians called Friday for a six-month delay in the Jan. 30 election because of the spiraling violence as U.S. forces uncovered more bodies in the northern city of Mosul, apparent victims of an intimidation campaign by insurgents against Iraq's fledgling security forces.

Asked about the demand for the election to be postponed, President Bush, at his vacation home in Texas, said, "The Iraqi Election Commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would hope they'd go forward in January."

But the country's deputy prime minister told an audience Friday in Wales that sticking to the timetable would be difficult because of the security crisis.

In Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, U.S. officials said six bodies were found Friday, bringing the number discovered there over the last two days to 21. In all, 41 bodies have been discovered in the last week.

On Friday, 17 political parties representing Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Christians and secular groups demanded postponing the vote for at least six months until the government is capable of securing polling places.

However, the clerical leadership of the majority Shiite community has insisted that the government stick to the Jan. 30 date.

Even if you haven't been reading Juan Cole every day, it isn't that hard to figure out what is going on here. At least not for a grown-up with a tiny exposure to the human political process.

But will the Sabbath Gasbags treat you like a grown-up? I think not.

Can't Buy Me Love

We've Gotta Have It
But We Don't Need It, and It's Consuming Us

By Patricia Dalton
Sunday, November 28, 2004; Page B01

On the biggest shopping weekend of the year, many of us are beset by a dilemma: what to buy for the person who has everything. It makes me think of the teenager I heard about in my psychotherapy office, who opened a gift from his 90-year-old great-aunt, tossed it aside and said, "I already have that."

Many of us already "have that." We have become, to borrow a phrase President Bush used while addressing his donors, "the haves and the have mores." That explains why some of us are left feeling spiritually empty during this season of feasting and giving.

There have always been the few who live lavishly, with estates, servants and multiple homes, just as there have always been some who struggle to get by with very little. But having a lot is no longer the province of the few. Acquisition -- and its close companion, acquisition envy -- is a problem not just for the elite but also for the average person. I see the impact day after day among the people who come to my office for counseling. Relationships among family members and between friends are suffering. We've become materially richer but interpersonally poorer.

My colleagues and I talk about the repetitive patterns of acquisitive behavior we observe on a daily basis. We see high school girls carrying Prada bags that are not knockoffs and competing with one another through their apparel. We hear from adolescents who get caught shoplifting and others who get away with it (and these are kids who have disposable money and don't need new clothes). We listen to adults describing patterns of what I call "comfort shopping" -- buying clothes they don't need and never wear and that sit in their closets with the tags on. We hear from single people whose spending habits put them so deeply into credit card debt that they end up declaring bankruptcy. Members of one family told me that they can identify at least three successive generations of compulsive shoppers and still find it hard to resist the siren song of the mall.

There's a change I've witnessed in the 20-plus years I've been in practice. People used to buy things when they needed them; now they buy things when they want them or want their children to have them. Adolescents in the past were rarely presented with new cars on their 16th birthdays, but it's not uncommon today. Kids used to buy cars when they could afford them -- usually of the beat-up, secondhand variety. Now, at a time in their lives when they are both vulnerable and easily influenced, teenagers find themselves behind the wheels of powerful, expensive machines, ill-prepared to handle the repercussions of a fender bender, much less a serious accident.

If there were evidence that increasing affluence made people happier, there might be occasion to rejoice. Even though GDP per capita has tripled since World II, and houses have grown bigger, cars more luxurious, clothing and food easier to afford, we seem to be working mindlessly to acquire more. In fact, there is ample evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, that once people attain a reasonably good standard of living, making more money and buying more has no appreciable positive effect and in some cases has negative effects.

The biggest cost I see is intergenerational. Materialism is taking a drastic toll at home. There is considerable strain involved in generating the money needed to acquire so much. Many of the parents who come to my office describe living on the earn-and-spend, earn-and-spend treadmill that Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild describes. Parents are exhausted. Children are neglected. Marriages get put on hold. One professional woman reported to me that she felt so overwhelmed that she came home one evening and started breaking plates on the floor in front of her three little kids. Stories like this make me realize we are allowing ourselves to be robbed of what is most precious and counts the most: free time.
....
So here we are: a generation of fashionistas and Samurai shoppers with full closets and empty hearts. Instead of listening to our souls, we have fallen for a new field of retail anthropology that advises businesses on how to get people in the mood to buy, buy, buy. I saw a catchy phrase that headlined an article in this newspaper's business section several months ago: Appliance Lust. It referred to hunger for eight-burner Viking ranges, built-in woks and Sub-Zero refrigerators with custom wood paneling and door alarms. Those of us who lived through the '60s seem to have forgotten the warning that everything you buy owns you.

In our increasingly materialistic culture, needs and wants have become one and the same. When I see people in my office who are struggling to figure out what is most important to them, I often ask them to imagine being on their deathbed, looking back over their lives. What will they rejoice in? What will fall in the neutral category? And what will they regret? Does all this stuff make people more contented with their lives? Apparently not. And after all, as the saying goes, you can't take it with you.

Dalton misses quite a lot because she's a therapist, not a spiritual director. Our value, our meaning, as humans doesn't come from things, but psychotherapy doesn't have the language to talk about the transcendent.

The entire New York Times Magazine today is all about how the marketers are turning our kids into machines, consumers rather than human beings. It is extremely distressing reading, and also a must-read. This is Bushworld: the place where national tragedy is met with a presidential prescription to "go shop."

Consumer culture tells us that "you are what you own." As if you could buy love...

The Blogger's Life Gets A Little Balance

I had a lovely evening meeting new people. It's always fun to get together with liberals I haven't met before, who are feeling just as beleaguered as I, but don't know the same stuff as I, and to bring them the news they need to know to protect themselves.

It was a merry lot, for all the bad news we have to live with right now. The food and company were excellent, the dogs were all over everything, and very sweet and friendly.

It's always interesting when a friend you know from one particular part of his life opens up a new part of his life to you. And then you get to admire his good taste again. Thanks, Kenn. (He's going to be on the road Sunday and won't see this picture, so this will be our own little secret.) If you live in the Ft. Myers area and are looking for a religious home and some religious education for your kids, check his church out.

Mandatory Disclaimer: I don't endorse any particular religious tradition. All of them are capable of wondrous good and terrible damage. Your mileage will vary. I simply vouch for this guy and his ministerial skills.

I'll be down to this area later in the winter for some workshops and preaching. The details are still being worked out, email me if you want more.

It was good to step away from the monitor for a few hours, and I'm starting to get conscious of the fact that I haven't taken a day off the blog since early September. I'm going to have to schedule one around Christmas, this is a heads up. Doing this every day in concert with a better-than-full-time job is very taxing and I need to recharge the batteries. Once I figure out the best way to do this (the holiday shopping season is here, and I need time for that, too) I'll keep you in the loop as we negotiate the busy days ahead.

We'll get through it better if we do it together. And I sense a small plate of holiday recipes coming on.

Let's see if we can't make this year's Advent/Hannukah/Diwali a time of preparation, like a good fast should be, instead of one of complete distraction. When it is time for the candles to be lit, and the fireplaces to be decorated, let's make sure we have time to stop and pay attention.

One more ad-fueled frenzy before the apocalypse staring us in the face doesn't seem to have much point, does it?

I'm making as many gifts as I can this year, and what I can't make I'm purchasing from small businesses and avoiding the chains, which will do fine without me. Consider it part of the "shop local" movement, the "eat slow" movement, the "keep the dollars in my community" movement. Once you get away from the big box stores and start scanning the side streets, you begin to notice how much creativity there is in your own town. Local entrepreneurs are doing amazing things. Patronize them.

Unsurprisingly, I give a lot of books at Christmas. Chapters will get that business this year.

What are you up to?

Open Thread

So, what's your holiday weekend like? Did you travel? I've actually got a social engagement this evening, so use this as an open thread.

Even the Good News is Bad News

Joyce Marcel interviews Seymour Hersh for The American Reporter:

PRESIDENT BUSH 'OUT OF TOUCH' WITH REALITY, HERSH SAYS
by Joyce Marcel
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.

"We have put ourselves in an enormous hole," he said. "There's no magic story to get us out. The market will crash. Maybe people will come to their senses. Maybe some Democrat will step forward to do the right thing. And maybe the Easter bunny will turn out to be real."

Well, we've just seen the beginning of the rules changes in both houses of Congress, and the filibuster rule change has already been discussed in the press.

I'm afraid that Hersh's dark vision represents our new reality, and I foresee the same disasters down the road.

Islamic Attitudes

Paul Woodward, at The War in Context, captures a key insight in the report of the Defense Science Task Force on Strategic Communication. The Task Force took up the project of attitudes toward the US in the Muslim world, but this key idea applies to views of the US by darn near everyone on the planet, to one degree or another. Paul sums up:

Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic -- namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is -- for Americans -- really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.

Given the poor coverage of the war by US media outlets, I daresay that Americans could hardly have any different view, since this is the way the war is presented to them. That said, however, the media sell the myth of American exceptionalism because that's what the American consumer is buying. Our mass culture is anti-intellectual, incurious, insular and somewhat xenophobic. Rather like our emblematic chief executive, now that I think of it.

Congressional Imperialism

Thought you lived in a representative democracy? Guess again: only if you live in the reddest of the red states.

Hastert Launches a Partisan Policy

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 27, 2004; Page A01

In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.

Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them.

Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party.

That is what Democrats did in 1993, when most House Democrats opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Bill Clinton backed NAFTA, and leaders of the Democratic-controlled House allowed it to come to a vote. The trade pact passed because of heavy GOP support, with 102 Democrats voting for it and 156 voting against. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House GOP leader at the time, declared: "This is a vote for history, larger than politics . . . larger than personal ego."

Such bipartisan spirit in the Capitol now seems a faint echo. Citing the increased marginalization of Democrats as House bills are drafted and brought to the floor, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) said, "It's a set of rules and practices which the Republicans have taken to new extremes."

Price, a former Duke University political scientist and the author of "The Congressional Experience," acknowledged that past congressional leaders, including Democrats, had sometimes scuttled measures opposed by most of their party's colleagues. But he said the practice should not apply to far-reaching, high-stakes legislation such as NAFTA and the intelligence package, which were backed by the White House and most of Congress's 535 members.

Other House Democrats agree. Republicans "like to talk about bipartisanship," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "But when the opportunity came to pass a truly bipartisan bill -- one that would have passed both the House and Senate overwhelmingly and would have made the American people safer -- they failed to do it."

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a White House aide when NAFTA passed, said this week, "What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?"

Some scholars say Hastert's decision should not come as a surprise. In a little-noticed speech in the Capitol a year ago, Hastert said one of his principles as speaker is "to please the majority of the majority."

"On occasion, a particular issue might excite a majority made up mostly of the minority," he continued. "Campaign finance is a particularly good example of this phenomenon. The job of speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs counter to the wishes of the majority of his majority."

I seem to recall much discussion in The Federalist Papers about protecting the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Bush may want "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court, but historical principles have gone by the wayside in Congress.

UPDATE: If you think the last four years have been ugly, you ain't seen nothing yet. Over in the world's greatest deliberative body:

Senator Frist Tightens the Screws

Published: November 27, 2004

Flexing their new muscles, Congressional Republicans seem intent on reigning as a dissent-smothering monolith. First, House G.O.P. members slavishly obeyed the maneuver by Tom DeLay, the majority leader, to render his control of the caucus ethics-proof by making it possible for a party leader to keep his post even if he is under indictment. His counterpart in the Senate, Bill Frist, was more discreet but no less ham-handed. He has engineered a rules change designed to cow the few Republican moderates who may still be willing to nip back at demands for party fealty.

The rule undercuts members' independence by giving Dr. Frist the power to fill the first two vacancies on all committees. This hobbles seniority, which has been the traditional path to power. The leader now has a cudgel for shaping the "world's greatest deliberative body" into a chorus line. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, chronic Republican maverick, got to the heart of the matter in skewering her leader's accomplishment: "There is only one reason for that change, and it is to punish people."

In the Dark Midwinter

As we head into the darkest weeks in the calendar year, here is something to do with all that dark time. My local astronomy group makes themoses of cocoa and hot cider and heads out of town to Sky Meadow to set up their telescopes at night. If you live in the country, you can use your back yard.

All of these sky features can be seen clearly with binoculars, you don't need a scope. I plan a drive to the country over the next couple of weeks to do a little sky watching.

A Planetary Panorama To Unfurl in December Skies

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 27, 2004; Page B08

There are so many planets with which to dance and so little sky.

Venus fills its planetary dance card as it sashays through the early morning southeastern heavens with the red planet Mars early in December.

Now Venus ascends the horizon about 6 a.m. and Mars trails by about 15 minutes. The two planets, with Venus the brightest, move closer each morning over the next several days. On Dec. 5, Venus and Mars conjunct.

On Dec. 8 and 9, the slim sliver of a waning crescent moon will be seen hanging over the Venus-Mars dancing duo. Still effervescent at negative fourth magnitude (very bright), Venus appears to move lower in the sky than Mars (first magnitude, bright enough to see in a dark, urban sky).

While Venus pranced with Jupiter in November and waltzes with Mars now, the bright planet still has dance-card space. Mercury rises in the southeast and will provide a nice jitterbug partner for Venus. The fleet Mercury meets Venus on Dec. 27.

Jupiter rises about 4 a.m. now in the east-southeast. Find the large, gassy planet in the constellation Virgo. By 6 a.m., Jupiter should be easy to spot in the east-southeastern heavens, about 28 degrees above the horizon. We get more Jupiter with each day as the giant planet climbs the horizon about 2:30 a.m. It is a negative second-magnitude object (very bright) at the end of the month.

Ringing out the old year, Saturn climbs the east-northeast about 10 p.m. now, near the constellation Gemini. Heading west, the ringed planet crosses the sky the rest of the night. Saturn is a respectable zero magnitude object, bright enough to see in light-polluted urban skies. By mid-December, Saturn rises at 9 p.m., and by year's end, you can find it as early as 8 p.m.

If you are looking for more daylight, your wait is short. The winter solstice -- on the first official day of winter -- occurs at 7:42 a.m. Dec. 21, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That is the moment when the sun meets the Tropic of Capricorn and appears to head back north. (Really, it is the tilted Earth that moves and gives the illusion of a moving sun. The sun remains stationary.) In any case, we'll start to see more noticeable sunlight after the new year.

Someday Catblogging

Someone gave me a webcam. I have cats. I would like to take part in Friday Cat blogging.

Can any of you help me hook the pieces together? I know how to take still photos with the webcam software, but posting them to the site is another matter. I'm told that I need some html and a way to plunk the photo on my server so that my home computer doesn't get hammered.

Can you help me out? I promise you the kitties are gorgeous. We have a week to sort this out.

Awaiting the Twitch of a Protein

This is a Reuters' story. I note that, over the months I've been following this story, the tone has moved from concerned but detached to downright alarmed.

Flu Pandemic Inevitable, Plans Needed Urgently -WHO

Fri Nov 26, 7:24 AM ET

By Vissuta Pothong

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Every country in the world must come up urgently with a plan to deal with an inevitable influenza pandemic likely to be triggered by the bird flu virus that hit Asia this year, a top global health expert said on Friday.

"I believe we are closer now to a pandemic than at any time in recent years," said Shigeru Omi, regional director for the Western Region of the World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO).

"No country will be spared once it becomes a pandemic," he told a news conference.

"History has taught us that influenza pandemics occur on a regular cycle, with one appearing every 20 to 30 years. On this basis, the next one is overdue," he said at a conference of 13 Asian health ministers trying to figure out how to avoid one.

"We believe a pandemic is highly likely unless intensified international efforts are made to take control of the situation," he said of the H5N1 avian flu virus, which has defied efforts to eradicate it in several Asian countries, including Thailand.

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919 killed upwards of 20 million people and WHO experts say the next could infect up to 30 percent of the world's more than 6 billion people and kill up to 7 million of them.

Omi said that to stave that off, the world would have to cooperate closely by sharing information promptly and openly on the virus -- such as how it spreads, why it hits children more easily than adults and how quickly it is mutating.

This is very sloppy reporting. First, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 killed 50 million people. The population of the planet was a fraction of what it is now, about 1.8 billion. The lethality (mortality) rate of the 1918 virus was between 2-5%. By contrast, 75% of the people who have contracted this year's Avian virus (that can be identified, always a sketch business this early) have died. That's a stunning rate. The 1918 pandemic did it's lethal business in a mere 8 weeks. Given how much more mobile the world is now, it is chilling to contemplate how much damage this year's bug could do in next to no time.

What the article doesn't make clear (among a number of things that it doesn't make clear) is that the none of these scary scenarios come to pass until the virus has mutated to become transmissable between humans. As far as we know right now, that fatal mutation has not occurred. However, influenza virii are known for their mutability and adaptability. H5N1, this year's variation, demonstrates that it has this disposition, having been found already in pigs and tigers in addition to waterfowl and chickens. Should the mutation occur, and none of the other characteristics of the disease as it now exists be altered by the mutation, it would be out of control very quickly and impossible to stop.

The Reuters writer, then, took at face value the 7 million deaths from a possible Avian flu pandemic from the "expert" with which he spoke. In 1918, more than half of the world's population was infected by the flu. Actual numbers of deaths by this Avian flu would be catastrophic. So, the tone of this article, while a little hysterical, actually understates the amount of danger that this potential represents.

In earlier bulletins, WHO was already calling for public health authorities all over the world to begin to prepare for vaccinating their entire populations. If this bug is as bad as it looks, that's not an outrageous demand. Unfortunately, the earliest estimate for the vaccine to begin to be available is March, and I think that even if we put all of the vaccine makers in the world to the task of manufacturing it, we'll have a little difficulty cranking out 5 billion doses in time to do a lot of good.

Right now, our defensive strategy is to hope that the mutation doesn't occur before we are ready for it. I'm not liking those odds.

The Coming Trainwreck

As you know, I use a wide variety of sources for the digest that I bring you here. One of my required reads a couple of times a week is Soldiers for the Truth, a project of Col. David Hackworth. Hack's interest is in the well-being and functionality of the military, and he and his editors are busy digging up the truth, the facts of the situation on the ground for our troops, stateside or foreign deployed. There is so much good stuff up there today that the entire site is worth a read. Here is the most recent post. It speaks volumes about the kind of shape we are in, and it isn't a good thing.

More Signs of a Military Unraveling

By Ed Offley

When I first heard about the bedsheet cutbacks a couple of months ago, I thought it was some weird practical joke: To save money, a local Navy base planned to end a longstanding practice where staff housekeepers washed and replaced the sheets and pillowcases in the Bachelor Officers Quarters. Henceforth, a bunch of single ensigns and lieutenants were being banished to the local laundromat.

Nearly four years ago, defense analyst Dan Goure – one of the unheralded Cassandras of the looming defense train wreck – said this: “Everybody hits the wall about 2005-2006. The derailment is in sight.”

Interestingly, that time frame is about the same one for the economic trainwreck that's staring us in the face.

Grim Assessments

The State of Iraq: An Update
By ADRIANA LINS de ALBUQUERQUE, MICHAEL O'HANLON and AMY UNIKEWICZ

Published: November 26, 2004

Two months before Iraq is scheduled to hold its nationwide elections, how are things going? After the bloody assault on Falluja, in which some 50 United States troops and many times that number of insurgents died, no American needs to be reminded that the situation is very difficult. In fact, while the Falluja operation could have some eventual benefits, we cannot yet identify any objective measure of sustained progress in increasing Iraqi security.

Other recent trends are somewhat more encouraging: foreign aid is beginning to be spent more quickly, even if much of it is being directed toward security rather than rebuilding cities and towns; Iraqi security forces are now being trained more rigorously - and they're beginning to perform better on the battlefield; the overall quality of public services may finally be inching ahead of late-Saddam Hussein levels; the transfer of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government has continued to deflect some of the anti-American anger on the street; and Iraqis are for the most part bullish on their future.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's popularity has fallen in recent months, unemployment rates remain far too high, insurgents continue to attack oil pipelines and police stations, and Iraqi security forces still cannot begin to take the major responsibility for combating the insurgents.

On balance, the data show that security trends in Iraq are generally poor, economic trends are promising but glacial in pace, and political trends are hopeful but fragile.

Playing the Course:

Iraq’s health care system has rapidly declined in the last few months, and Iraqis are losing confidence that the approaching elections will be free and fair, according to an updated CSIS report. “Recent polls have indicated that many Iraqis are becoming less confident that fair and secure elections, scheduled for January, will be able to take place,” the report states. “Although 58 percent still believe Iraq will hold elections in January, fewer are planning to vote than a few months ago.” The report also found that efforts to rebuild Iraq’s economy, establish security, strengthen governance and provide services remain stalled. Frederick Barton (l) and Bathsheba Crocker, codirectors of the CSIS Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, wrote the report.
Iraq Reconstruction: Poll of Polls
Read the Updated Report
Read the Original Report
PCR Project

And here are links to radio interviews with the Brookings principals who wrote the NYT Op-Ed. None of these folks are screaming liberals, by the way.

Not Just Your Computer...

Cell Phones Increasingly Attractive To Hackers

By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 26, 2004; Page A01

Early this month, several Web sites began offering software promising ringtones and screensavers for certain cell phones. But those who downloaded the software found that it turned every icon on their cell phones' screens into a skull-and-crossbones and disabled their phones, so they could no longer send or receive text messages or access contact lists or calendars.

Security experts named the malicious software "Skulls" and consider it an early warning of the damage hackers could do as they turn their malevolent talents to cell phones from computers.

Mobile phones are a tempting target because they have become a part of everyday life. In addition, consumers are buying more sophisticated "smart phones" with Internet connections that provide an easier pathway for cell phone infections. Few phones come equipped with protection against malicious software, though some companies are starting to install it. Most cell phone users aren't on guard for attacks like those that periodically bring down computers worldwide, and at this point there is little they can do to protect themselves.

"The impact is potentially larger on the phone because we're not savvy about that," said Victor Kouznetsov, senior vice president of mobile solutions at McAfee Inc., a security software firm. "Also, the profile of a mobile society is a cross-section of society who are potentially less [technically] savvy than computer users."
....
Experts have tried to anticipate how big a problem malicious software might be by simulating attacks on cell phones in software labs. They have found that e-mail viruses can multiply by sending messages through a cell phone's address book. Viruses can allow unauthorized users into a phone to access passwords or corporate data stored on the device. And they can be used to manipulate the phone to make calls or send messages at the phone owner's expense.

"The nightmare scenario with cell phones is a virus that would delete the contents of your phone, or start calling [a toll number] on its own from the phone or recording every single one of your conversations and sending the recorded conversation somewhere," said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research at F-Secure Corp., a Finnish security firm.
....
Companies are beginning to respond. Nokia Oyj plans to introduce two phones in coming months with built-in anti-virus software. "As an industry, it's our responsibility to react very quickly," said Laurie Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the Finnish cell phone maker.

DoCoMo, Japan's main cell phone carrier, launched a McAfee program that can send software over the cell phone network to combat problems with malicious software on its phones. Dozens of smaller companies are also jumping into the mix. Companies such as Trust Digital of McLean and Baltimore-based Bluefire Security Technologies Inc., which is backed by Motorola Inc., are designing software to help companies protect their wireless phones from hackers. Last year, Texas Instruments Inc. started using security technology made by Belcamp, Md.-based SafeNet Inc. in the chips implanted in Nokia cell phones.

"The industry recognizes that today we're in a sheltered environment," said Mark Desautels, vice president for wireless Internet development at CTIA, "but that's not where we're going to stay."

I've been thinking about upgrading my cell phone for a while. I think I'll wait until this new generation of Nokias is released. Connectivity is no longer cheap nor hazard-free.

Friday Econblogging

My main econ man, Stephen Roach, gets space on the NYT Op-ed page today (remember that Boston Herald article from Monday? The one that predicted "economic Armaggedon"? Yeah, that Stephen Roach.)

When Weakness Is a Strength
By STEPHEN S. ROACH

Published: November 26, 2004

Suddenly all eyes are on a weakening dollar. In recent days, the American currency has fallen against the euro, the yen and most other currencies around the world. The renminbi is a notable exception; China has kept its currency firmly pegged to the dollar for a decade.

The fall of the dollar is not a surprise. It is the logical outgrowth of an unbalanced world economy, and America's gaping current account deficit - the difference between foreign trade and investment in the United States and American trade and investment abroad - is just the most visible manifestation of these imbalances. The deficit ran at a record annual rate of $665 billion, or 5.7 percent of gross domestic product, in the second quarter of 2004.

While a decline in the dollar is not a cure-all for what ails the world, it should go a long way toward bringing about a sorely needed rebalancing. With a weaker dollar, economic and even political tensions among nations would be relieved, helping to promote more sustainable growth in the global economy.

Still, a debate persists as to the wisdom of allowing the dollar to decline. The Bush administration seems to have given its tacit assent, and Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is finally on board. But outside the United States, where policymakers have long been vocal in their displeasure over America's deficits, officials are now objecting to America's cure. Europeans have referred to the dollar's recent decline as brutal. The Japanese have threatened to intervene again in foreign exchange markets. And Chinese officials have argued that global imbalances are "made in America."

In this blame game, it's always the other guy. Yet global imbalances are a shared responsibility. America is guilty of excess consumption, whereas the rest of the world suffers from insufficient consumption. Consumer demand in the United States grew at an average of 3.9 percent (in real terms) from 1995 to 2003, nearly double the 2.2 percent average elsewhere in the industrial world.

Meanwhile, Americans fail to save enough - whereas the rest of the world saves too much. American consumers have borrowed against the future by squandering their savings. The personal savings rate was just 0.2 percent of disposable personal income in September - down from 7.7 percent as recently as 1992. Moreover, large federal budget deficits mean the government's savings rate is negative.

Lacking in domestic savings, the United States must import foreign savings to finance the growth of its economy. And it runs huge current-account and trade deficits to attract such capital from overseas.

America's consumption binge has its mirror image in excess savings elsewhere in the world - especially in Asia and Europe. For now, America draws freely on this reservoir, absorbing about 80 percent of the world's surplus savings. Just as the United States has moved production and labor offshore in recent years, it is now outsourcing its savings.
....
What's certain is that a lopsided world needs to be put back into balance. The dollar is the world's most widely used currency, but its fall affects more than just foreign-exchange rates. A weakening dollar is an encouraging sign that the world's relative price structure - essentially the value of one economy versus another - is becoming more sensible. If the world can manage the dollar's decline wisely, there is more reason for hope than despair.

You can make a start on getting the world rebalanced: Buy Nothing Day is the antidote to the consumerism of the holiday shopping mania.

Here's the morning news, and it is worrisome:

Intervention lows

Hope that the central bank will intervene to support the dollar helped the currency off its lows.

"The Chinese are losing money because they have so much of their reserves in dollars. They are going to have to at some time diversify. The Question is timing and by how much," he said.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Via Tom at Information Clearing House:

20,802 US Soldiers Heavily Wounded

believe it or not...
Can anyone believe how dirty and dishonorable the US administration is?

The small bush administration is re-identifying the meaning of "lies".

The Estripes article linked to above is really disturbing. Vet Affairs Secretary Principi spent almost a whole hour learning about the needs of injured vets on his way to a celebratory tour of Afghanistan (think of the photo ops!) to serve some turkee. Nice to know he could make a little space in his calendar for the neediest.

The Black Hats

A lot of my conversation with the bro, and a lot of what you'll find Charles posting about here, is this, and I have as much work to do as any of you do:

Breaking, Entering Your PC
Spyware, the newest and nastiest online plague, can paralyze or commandeer a computer. Help is hard to find, but it's out there.

By Terry McDermott, Times Staff Writer

It can, and often does, start something like this:

You're online, maybe searching for a specific piece of information, maybe just cruising the Web. I was investigating new search technologies that were advertised as useful in dealing with variations in the spelling of names and had read that Lycos, a pre-Google Internet portal and search engine, had developed some.

I found links for Lycos and clicked on one. That was the beginning. Within minutes, my computer was swamped with advertisements — pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-all-overs. There were so many I couldn't close them before others started appearing. I had to shut the computer down.

When it restarted, my Web browser had a new pornographic home page, and soon another flood of advertisements was underway. This time, I was able to get rid of most of it and resume working.

It went on for days. The blizzard of ads sometimes thinned, sometimes thickened. At times, there were so many that the computer couldn't process them all and froze. Every time I restarted, my home page was reset to the pornographic site. Every time I tried to do a Google search, a Lycos search engine appeared instead. New items for services called Bargain Buddies and Deal Helper were added to my Web favorites list.

I deleted these entries, but they would mysteriously reappear. Once, when I was being buried yet again by ads, I heard my computer modem dialing a telephone number. My computer is connected to a broadband Internet access service, so the only time I ever used the modem was to send and receive faxes. I couldn't imagine why the modem was dialing. More to the point, I couldn't stop it.

I have been using PCs since 1985 and have installed hard drives, operating systems, memory, CD-ROM drives and countless software programs. I've written some rudimentary programs to automate common word-processing tasks. I vainly considered myself a computer sophisticate.

So what did I do? I cursed and screamed. I tried to turn the modem off with software switches. Finally, I did what any sophisticated computer user would do — I yanked the telephone cord out of the wall, then began wildly deleting every suspicious file I could find on my system.

That worked to a limited extent. I installed a pop-up ad blocker and downloaded free programs that were supposed to rid me of the plague that had descended.

Most days, I was able to slog along and there were even times I thought the fixes had worked. But the computer was still agonizingly slow, and the ads and the hijacked Web searches invariably reappeared. Then a month later, I received a bill for $25 from some company I had never heard of. It was for the telephone call my computer had made, to Britain it turned out.

And this is just the stuff you can see. There are hackers, crackers, script kiddies and bots out there who are using open ports and other exploitable holes in your computer to do all kinds of things, including running their own computational needs. None of the commercial virus programs or "firewalls" has remained un-hacked and the chances are that your computer is being used by someone else. If you are running Windows, every weakness in that platform is exploited every minute of every day.

I got a bunch of info from the bro yesterday on some of the things we can do to cut down on the vulnerabilities (you are browsing with Mozilla or Firefox, aren't you?) and Charles promises a series of posts on building a hardware firewall, don't trust the commercial software,) on the cheap. Trust me, I'll be building right along with you. It's entirely possible that my weekend troubles accessing my site were due to spy ware. (Everything is working normally now, thanks, and it might have been just a computer burp, who knows.)

Anyone with a computer hooked up to the Internet no longer has the luxury of being naive. You really can't just say, "I don't care how it works, I just want to run my applications." The Black Hats out there just love people like this. The pirates will use you. When it comes to computer security, we are all going to have to get a little geekier than we ever planned on. I will be spending part of the morning uninstalling and removing my Yahoo IM client, the thing leaks like a sieve. God knows what I let in here back in the day when I was IMing a lot.

This stuff is not benign. Anyone who has this kind of access to your computer can alter your files, access your financial information, reformat your hard drive. Ever hear of "identity theft?" Yup, without ever buying anything on line, it can happen right from your hard drive.

Read the LAT article, and be prepared to get to work.

UPDATE: In comments below, pogge contributes links to some free anti-spyware software and more information. This is a valuable community service.

Hollow Victory

Juan Cole posts a letter from his colleague Mark Fisher, which is more trenchant than anything in the papers today:

The ostensible "victory" of US forces in Falluja marks a strategic turning point for the United States, but not because it has come close to destroying the insurgency. Rather, it has revealed a lack of solidarity between Shi‘i and Sunni Iraqis that is the United States’ only hope for maintaining a long-term presence in the country after the elections. Such lack of solidarity is in contrast to the mutual aid and support displayed during the Falluja and Najaf invasions of last spring. Had it been translated into coordinated Sunni-Shi‘i resistance--Sadr City exploding along with Falluja-- the occupation would have quickly become untenable.

Since November 2 I have often heard it said that in an environment where the majority of Americans are divided, cynical and distrustful of their fellow citizens and government it was natural for them to choose a strong, conservatively religious and politically narrow-minded President to lead them. If true, this dynamic does not augur well for the Iraq that will emerge after January 30.

Evening Benediction

I'm stuffed. I hope you are, too. Stuffed with good food, too much conversation and the great affection of family and friends.

My bro is a techie, and I spent the day soaking up as much as I could learn from him (while soaking up his fabulous gravy and dressing) about aspects of my new job that aren't obvious to the casual observer. My S-I-L asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I looked the bro square in the eye and said, "O'Reilly." They have the best after-market manuals in the IT business.

Our family get togethers are the marriage of good people who disagree, and this is the way it should be. We have radically different political and social views, and that is okay. Good people should be able to honestly disagree without vilifying each other, and that is how my family has gotten along for a long time. We just don't talk about it, there really isn't any point.

What we do is cooperate in the kitchen and at the table, and talk about the wide range of interests we all have. I'm a birder, they are interested in that. They are learning to train their dogs, I'm interested in that (so interested that I'm planning to learn to post images before this long weekend is done, we'll have dog and cat blogging, by damn, with two of the most beautiful cats {mine} and Golden Retrievers {theirs} on the Internets.)

Love is meta-rational. It goes beyond argument, beyond rhetoric, to a basic recognition of the pure beauty of the other person. And it is my great good fortune to have some truly beautiful people in my gene pool. Spending time with these two (and the associated Blonde menagerie) is better than vitamins.

Go poke around the site and look for the dog pix. The comely canines insisted on being the center of attention, and we took good orders from our masters. We tossed, we caught, we slavered when they brought the toy back. Who is the golden retriever, in a family of blondes?

This old dog learned a new trick and caught the train, via the subway, and skipped the whole I95 commute hassle. I arrived there and returned home serene without having dodged the commute of death. Driving 95 is taking your life in your teeth and swallowing hard every couple of minutes. Instead, I read my book. My adrenal glands have returned to their normal size. My tummy will take a couple of more days to do likewise and the fridge is filled with good eating. Thank God for those little "Servin' Saver" containers.

When I boarded the train this evening, the conductor said the fare was a ticket or a turkey dinner. I had both in my hands. I'm no fool, I gave him the ticket.

How was your holiday?

Bro and SIL,

Thanks for loving me. I'll try to do likewise. You make it so darn easy.

New Toys

I just found this at The Agonist. Here's the description:

Making notes in browser

The first browser-making-notes tool is E-QUILL reported by CNN, and it was very popular, later it's bought by Microsoft and no longer available for the general public. Soon after that, IMARKUP turned up as "a leading provider of collaboration and workflow solutions for digital content and document management". Both E-QUILL and IMARKUP only work on Internet Explorer - That Is Boring. So I made a clean, free, and cross-browser tool: Editive. With Editive, Mozilla guys can make notes in their beloved browser now.

I don't have time to play with this now, I've got to get out the door to my brother's superb cooking, but this is going to be very fun to fiddle with later.

I'll leave the link to the download over at Sean-Paul's place. Warning: if you click the link there, it downloads directly.

I'm going to go download a new copy of Firefox now, so I'll see you later today.

Error messages

I'm undergoing a very strange situation here at Harmony Hall: since late yesterday afternoon, I've been able to post to Bump, but not see it. When I try to call up Bump in Mozilla, I'm getting a "file/cannot be found" error message. I've cleaned out the task-bar and re-booted a half-dozen times. pogge thinks it is a browser problem and I need to download a newer version of Moz or Firefox. Since that is the only thing I haven't tried yet, I'll do it just before I leave the house for dinner with the bro and S-I-L, as downloading on this dial-up is, um, a project.

If any of you have other solutions, I'm game.

Rummy's Dreams

Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained
Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that's short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.

By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer

DOÑA ANA RANGE, N.M. — Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

They said they believed their treatment and training reflected an institutional bias against National Guard troops by commanders in the active-duty Army, an allegation that Army commanders denied.

The 680 soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment were activated in August and are preparing for deployment at Doña Ana, a former World War II prisoner-of-war camp 20 miles west of its large parent base, Ft. Bliss, Texas.

Members of the battalion, headquartered in Modesto, said in two dozen interviews that they were allowed no visitors or travel passes, had scant contact with their families and that morale was terrible.

"I feel like an inmate with a weapon," said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.

Several soldiers have fled Doña Ana by vaulting over rolls of barbed wire that surround the small camp, the soldiers interviewed said. Others, they said, are contemplating going AWOL, at least temporarily, to reunite with their families for Thanksgiving.

Army commanders said the concerns were an inevitable result of the decision to shore up the strained military by turning "citizen soldiers" into fully integrated, front-line combat troops. About 40% of the troops in Iraq are either reservists or National Guard troops.

Notice that the C-I-C isn't heading to Baghdad today.

And while you peruse the article above, consider Iran. Whatever the neo-cons dreams, which Army are they intending to use? The situation outlined above is a symptom of the facts on the ground: we've basically ruined the Army and reserve system for the foreseeable future. Absent a draft, the all-volunteer military is going to need to be re-built from scratch.

Convertible Type

NPR was hinting around about this yesterday, and I couldn't get a single other source to confirm. WaPo's Doug Jehl is still being very coy about it. Sometimes the press are guilty of playing the "we're smarter than you are" game, and real journalism suffers when they do.

2 Top Officials Are Reported to Quit C.I.A.
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: November 25, 2004

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 - Two more senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service are stepping down, intelligence officials said Wednesday, in the latest sign of upheaval in the agency under its new chief, Porter J. Goss.

As the chiefs of the Europe and Far East divisions, the two officials have headed spying operations in some of the most important regions of the world and were among a group known as the barons in the highest level of clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations.

The directorate has been the main target of an overhaul effort by Mr. Goss and his staff. Its chief, Stephen R. Kappes, and his deputy resigned this month after a dispute with the new management team.

An intelligence official said that the two division chiefs were retiring from the agency and that there would be no public announcement. Neither could be named, the official said, because they are working under cover.

A former intelligence official described the two as "very senior guys" who werestepping down because they did not feel comfortable with new management.

In a memorandum to agency employees last week, Mr. Goss warned that more personnel changes were coming as part of what he described as an effort to rebuild the ability of the agency to perform its core mission of stealing secrets.

Last week, President Bush directed Mr. Goss to draw up detailed plans in 90 days for a major overhaul of the agency, to address shortcomings that have become evident with intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and prewar assessments of Iraq.

The directive included a call for 50 percent increases in crucial operations and analytical personnel, a goal that the agency had already set in a five-year strategic plan drafted in December under George J. Tenet, the previous director of central intelligence. Many of the agency's top officials, including John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director, and A. B. Krongard, the No. 3 official, have stepped down or announced plans to do so since Mr. Goss took office in September. The upheaval has been most extensive in the operations directorate, made up of spies and spymasters who have made careers out of stealing secrets.

The clandestine service is a proud closed fraternity and one that sees itself as fiercely loyal and not risk-averse. It is also a group that has recoiled in recent weeks at the criticisms leveled at the agency, including comments this month from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who accused the agency of acting "almost as a rogue" institution.

Mr. Goss is a former spy and a member of the clandestine service who worked in Latin America in the 60's. More recently, he was a Republican congressman and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and he has made plain his view that the current crop of case officers is not bold enough.

What is playing out in the agency headquarters is no less than a clash of cultures on a scale not seen there. since the Carter administration, when Stansfield Turner, a retired admiral, took a half-dozen Navy officers with him to the agency in 1977.

Maybe the CIA needs reforming. As I recall, according to the documents we have from the time, Richard Clarke's "hair was on fire" before 9-11, so maybe these guys were already doing their jobs.

It appears to me that what needs fixing is an executive branch that came into power with a pre-conceived idea, and with a very good read on the American appetite for war.

Next book up in my stack, Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire. I know enough of his material to be very afraid of what comes next.

It was Dwight David Eisenhower who warned us about the military-industrial complex 50 years ago, and we still haven't learned.

Doug, do these folks have names and something to say, or are they going to fold themselves back into the military-industrial complex and start picking up six-figure salaries at SAIC? That's what most of them do.

Gross Mismanagement

I still haven't located a dose, and I'm an asthmatic, high risk. Fortunately, my mom got one.

U.S. Knew Last Year of Flu Vaccine Plant's Woes

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 18, 2004; Page A01

The Food and Drug Administration found serious problems of bacterial contamination at an influenza vaccine plant in England in 2003, 16 months before British regulators effectively closed the site and impounded its flu shots because of fears they were tainted.

Those earlier problems were among many revelations in about 100 pages of documents released yesterday by a House committee looking into how the United States lost about half this winter's flu vaccine supply just as the season for giving the shots began.

CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding and Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testify on the flu vaccine shortage.
The documents, which include FDA inspection reports, letters and e-mails, also revealed that the agency was nine months late in giving Chiron Corp., the owner of the plant, a detailed report of the problems it found and then rebuffed the company's efforts to learn more about what it could do to fix things. At the same time, FDA managers overruled its inspection team and made its fixes voluntary rather than mandatory.

The new information appears to undercut the agency's assertions that it had no reason to suspect that past safety problems at the plant had persisted and might threaten its huge production capacity.

About 48 million doses of vaccine from Chiron's plant outside Liverpool were withheld from the U.S. market early last month after the British equivalent of the FDA denied the company a license to sell them.

The United States expected to have about 100 million doses of flu vaccine this winter. Instead there will be 61 million doses, with some not arriving until January. The shortage has caused widespread public anxiety and has forced health departments nationwide to laboriously reallocate vaccine after much of it already had been distributed.

Yesterday's revelations drew distinctly partisan responses at a congressional hearing.

"FDA's laxity has had a heavy cost. If FDA had ensured that the problems identified in June 2003 were fixed, this year's flu crisis might never have happened," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.

In contrast, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the chairman, twice elicited from acting FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford statements that no protocols had been violated in the agency's response to the problems at the Liverpool plant, which has had three owners in the past decade.

"If protocols need to be tweaked, then let's talk about tweaking them," Davis said.

Gentlemen, I am not a tweak, I'm a vulnerable person. You seem to have forgotten that, all of you nice Christians in our Management Team.

Tell me where I go to get my flu shot or stop bothering me with your blather. It's about delivery. Any sales manager knows that and you guys are coming up against some hard targets. The flu season is upon us and you've failed; how many Americans will die because of that is in your box score.

Thanksgiving and Open Thread

Well, well, well. It turns out that heading to the local mega-grocery to pick up a few things at 5 PM on the evening before Thanksgiving is a really, really bad idea. Couldn't even get into the parking lot. Thank heaven the 7-11 sells wine.

Like many of you, I'm sure, I'll be on the road tomorrow. Judging from my site meter, a lot of you are already on your way to wherever you are going. Share? Where are you off to, or, if you're the cook for dinner tomorrow, what's going to be on the groaning board tomorrow?

If you don't celebrate this holiday--and plenty of people of non-white descent do opt out--or you aren't an American, can you recommend a good book you are reading now or one you've read lately that left a lasting impression. I'm working on Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs and Steel right now and recommend it highly.

Or, if you've got something else on your mind, this is an open thread.

On the nonuniqueness of John Ashcroft

Just so I can console myself that the U.S. does not have a total monopoly on complete raving insanity in the corridors of power .. I give you the David Blunkett Policy Generator.

Outside the Beltway

There are days when Al Kamen's In the Loop in the WaPo is an embarrassment of riches:

Some Secret: Open House, Open Bar

Remember a while back when it came out that intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency -- the supersecret spy crowd -- did not have the resources to keep up with the flood of intercepts to be able to translate terrorists' chatter on a timely basis?

This naturally caused a big fuss, and Congress pledged big bucks to get the spooks up to speed. Seems to have worked out fine, judging from an invite we got to attend an open house Dec. 7 at the National Cryptologic Museum behind the Shell station at Fort Meade.

Lots of fine finger food to be had, including a "brie encrote with brown sugar and pecans," some "Swiss cheese and chablis stuffed mushroom caps," a bit of roast turkey with cranberry mayo and "mini pumpkin cheesecakes."

Our very fine invite with the NSA gold-embossed seal notes "Open bar."

Must have passed some kinda big supplemental.

You can't make this stuff up. I love when the government makes my job easier.

Inside the Beltway

Round-Trip or One-Way Tickets?

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A19

Seems that folks at the Agency for International Development are not rushing to fill 23 excellent jobs in garden spots such as Iraq and Afghanistan. And if no one volunteers soon, AID Administrator Andrew S. Natsios said in an agency-wide e-mail Friday, the agency will order people to fill those posts.

"I am calling for . . . employees to consider serving in one of the positions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan listed," Natsios said in his e-mail, adding that he was "extremely hopeful" enough volunteers would be found.

Several hundred AID folks went to a meeting yesterday in which Natsios exhorted the troops to sign up, stressing the importance of foreign aid and good works and all that. The American Foreign Service Association, the employee union, is on board for now, hoping the volunteer approach works. If it doesn't . . . well, they'll get to that question if they have to.

As it stands, though, if not enough volunteers come forward, some AID personnel could be required to sign up for duty in Iraq, probably for a year. Those in the at-risk category are the several hundred AID workers who are ending their tours in the next few months and looking for their next assignments.

Employees lucky enough to snag a posting in Geneva or Rome -- or, given the alternatives, even Mongolia or the Bolivian Altiplano -- will not be drafted.

Those who have not secured new assignments, Natsios said, "will be required" to volunteer for the unfilled jobs in those four countries, and one of the two positions they bid for must be in Iraq.

Not to despair, this could still work out all right if you know how to game the system. Eighteen of the 23 jobs are in Iraq, but some areas obviously are much safer than others.

For example, three "regional coordinators" are needed in Iraq. One is central, in Hillah. Don't go there. Another is in the south, in Basra. Dicier but pretty good as long as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani keeps Moqtada Sadr under wraps. The third is in Erbil, in the Kurdish area, or what might be called eventually the Former Iraqi Republic of Kurdistan, or FIROK.

Erbil had its scary moments a while back, but surely the most needy area for AID is in the heart of the Kurdish region in Sulaymaniyah. You will naturally discover massive development projects to be undertaken there, and these will require you to spend most of your time in that very lovely, peaceful area.

That failing, go for the legal adviser job. Stay behind the desk.

Looking for a little civil service work?

Medicinal Purposes

At last, some good news, while we are all coming down with colds.

Chocolate: the ultimate cough medicine

19:22 2004-11-23

It turns out, chocolate can in fact sooth throat and ease coughing, as a new study suggests.

Researchers gave 10 healthy volunteers tablets containing theobromine - a constituent of cocoa - codeine, or a placebo.

The volunteers were asked to inhale a gas containing capsaicin - a derivative of chilli peppers - which induces coughing and is used as an indicator to test the effectiveness of cough medicines, reports News24.

According to Food Navigator, in order to compare the effectiveness of each they measured the levels of capsaicin in the volunteers and compared these after giving the three options. Scientists use capsaicin, a chemical compound found chillies used in clinical research to provoke coughing, as an indicator to test the effectiveness of cough medicines.

When the volunteers were given theobromine, the concentration of capsaicin required to produce a cough was around one third higher when compared with the group receiving a placebo.

When the group received codeine they needed only marginally higher levels of capsaicin to produce coughing, compared with the placebo.

The scientists say the theobromine suppresses the vagus nerve activity. Vagus nerve activity is responsible for making you cough.

Another benefit of theobromine was that it had no side effects. Many cough medicines cause drowsiness, informs Medical News Today.

The Liberal Conscience

Via Philocrites, this by Leon Wieseltier at The New Republic, who is reason enough to get the magazine:

I will not be God-whipped. For a start, it is not at all clear that the "values" analysis of George W. Bush's reelection is correct . . . Moreover, the "faith" that is being praised as the road to political salvation, the Bush ideal of religion, is a zealous ignorance, a complacent renunciation of proof and evidence and logic and argument, as if the techniques of reason were merely liberal tools. . . .

The faith fetish, the belief in belief, is an insult not only to the mind, but also to the soul. For there are many varieties of faith, and the "faith" of the Republicans, which does not grasp the old distinction between fideism and faith, represents only one of those varieties. Not all religion in America is as superstitious and chiliastic and emotional and dogmatic and political as this. And not all religion in America is as Christian as this. When the spokesmen for Bush's holy base call for the restoration of religion to a central position in public life—for the repeal of the grand tradition of mutually beneficial separation that began with Roger Williams's heroic alienation from the theocracy of Massachusetts—they are usually calling for the restoration of their religion.

. . .

The liberal conscience is not a human failing. It is another kind of conscience. It has reasons. It is a thing of principle, not a thing of taste. The religious right complains of liberal condescension, and often properly; but then it condescends to liberalism by reducing it to class or to culture, and by regarding it not as a moral creed but as a moral corruption. The offense that religious conservatives regularly take from secular liberals is a little ridiculous. Why do they care so much about our disapproval? They are also in the business of disapproval. The truth is that this kind of conservatism is sustained by its feeling of victimization. Grievance makes it glad. It allows the right to combine the power of a majority with the pity of a minority.

. . .

The belief in God does not guarantee the knowledge of God's wishes. This is the most elementary lesson of the history of religious faith. The believer lives in the darkness more than he lives in the light. He does not wallow in God's guidance, he thirsts for it. And when God's guidance comes, it does not take the form of policy recommendations, unless he has created his God in the image of his desire. What deity is this, that has opinions about preemption and taxation and Quentin Tarantino? In this regard, there is no more ringing refutation of the religion of George W. Bush than the religion of Abraham Lincoln. "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other," Lincoln proclaimed at the beginning of his second term, and in the middle of a war. "The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully." For Lincoln, his party was not God's party; or rather, the other party was as much God's party as his party was. And he explained this repudiation of human certainty this way: "The Almighty has his own purposes." He did not know what they were, he knew only that they were. Beware the politicians, and the politics, that know more.

That Bushco needs to repeal the Enlightenment in order to govern says a great deal about them. That such a large block of the voters is willing to have it repealed says something even more frightening.

Savories

One of the most useful emergency entertaining supplies you can keep in your freezer is phyllo dough. You can make everything from canapes to entrees to desserts with it. Beyond the standard spanakopita filling (always welcome to this delighted eater, either as dinner or small bites with drinks) here are some alternative ways of packing the crunchy, buttery sheets for either dessert or appetizers:

chopped walnuts, pears and blue cheese
goat cheese with herbs and garlic
sun-dried tomatoes, basil and black olive tapenade (feta optional, but good)
artichoke hearts, spinach and cream cheese mixed with parmesan and herbs

CYA

Bush Wants to Bolster CIA but Doesn't Offer Specifics
He seeks a 50% increase in spies and analysts. No time frame or funding is set. Many are skeptical.

By Greg Miller and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — President Bush has ordered what may be a major expansion of the CIA, calling for the beleaguered agency to add thousands of analysts and spies as part of an ongoing buildup in the war on terrorism, according to a White House memorandum released Tuesday.

But the directive set no timetable for the changes and offered no indication that the White House intended to ask Congress for the massive funding increase such a plan would require.

The proposal was outlined in a memorandum delivered to CIA Director Porter J. Goss last week. Bush instructed the intelligence chief to increase the number of analysts and spies at the CIA by 50%. The figure stunned current and former intelligence officials, several of whom said the CIA had not charted such an aggressive course of growth since its inception after World War II.

The CIA is thought to have an annual budget of about $5 billion and employ more than 17,000 people, although the figures are classified. Sources said the agency's clandestine service employed several thousand people, and that its analytic branch — known as the directorate of intelligence — was even larger.

The Bush memo said the increases were to take place "as soon as feasible," and would be "subject to the availability of appropriations." Bush gave the agency 90 days to develop a budget and a plan.

Because of the caveats contained in the document and the manner in which it was released by the White House, the memo was greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism in the intelligence community.

"I wouldn't overreach" in attaching significance to the document, a U.S. intelligence official said. "The way it's being looked at is a codification of some of the things the agency has been doing before. It builds on some of those measures and adds to them."
....
Under former CIA Director George J. Tenet, the agency stepped up its recruiting efforts significantly — going from graduating about two dozen case officers a year in the mid-1990s to 10 times that many in recent years, according to a former senior CIA official.

Boosting the agency's analytic and spying ranks by 50% would take years and a massive infusion of money — hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more — the former CIA official said.

"There is a finite number of people you can recruit unless you want to lower qualifications," he said, adding that there was such a shortage of analysts that several intelligence agencies struggled to fill key slots.

NPR's Morning Edition is claiming two more resignations of senior staff this morning, but I'm unable to find a link yet. The Agency is clearly in turmoil, in a period when I'd prefer it be hunting Al Qaeda.

The LAT piece, above, is loaded with skepticism, as this looks like nothing more than the appearance of doing something: no time or money are being spent on it.

Lumbering along

The dollar continues to drop. We import most of our oil. Connect the dots. And in other economic news:

Canada warns of looming trade war as Bush prepares to visit

Tue Nov 23, 5:02 PM ET

MARTIN OÂ’HANLON

OTTAWA (CP) - Just a week before George W. Bush arrives for a feel-good visit with Paul Martin, Ottawa is talking tough about a possible trade war with the United States.

The federal government announced Tuesday that it is launching consultations with Canadians on possible retaliation over American duties.

It's all about the Byrd Amendment, which allows American companies to receive anti-dumping and countervailing duties collected from foreign competitors - such as those on softwood lumber.

The U.S. has failed to act on a World Trade Organization (news - web sites) ruling that the amendment is illegal.

"Retaliation is not the preferred course of action, but this is about respecting international trade laws," Trade Minister Jim Peterson said from Brazil, where he is on a trade mission.

"These consultations are an important step in protecting the rights of Canadian industry."

While the sabre-rattling comes a week before Bush's visit, that's just a "sheer coincidence," said a government official.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the government had to make its intentions known in order to be in line with other countries seeking trade retaliation against the U.S. at a WTO hearing Wednesday.

The public consultations, while not required, are part of an effort to include citizens in the process, said the official.

"We're not saying we're going to (retaliate) or not. We're just showing that we're serious."

But a source close to negotiations suggested Ottawa will take action if the U.S. doesn't back off.

"At the end of the day, we're going to protect our industry," said the source.

Bush is coming to Ottawa on Tuesday as part of a second-term effort to mend international relations in the wake of the Iraq (news - web sites) war.

Martin has said he will raise key trade irritants such as softwood lumber and mad cow, but that the big problem lies in the U.S. Congress.

Canadian lumber exports to the U.S., worth about $10 billion annually, have been subject to heavy duties since May 2002.

The U.S. maintains Canadian producers have an unfair advantage over their American counterparts through lower stumpage fees - the fee to cut wood on Crown land.

Canadian producers have paid more than $3 billion US in cash deposits - mostly held in trust - and the Americans want to give that money to U.S. firms.

It will be interesting to see how this one unwinds. Bushco likes to think that we are the sole economic superpower in the world, they have very short attention spans on this score, but the world has become a very interdependent place. As we are a begger on the world stage right now, with skyrocketing trade deficits, you'd expect W to be a bit charry of the way we treat our northern trade partner.

Stockholm Syndrome

I caught this a couple of days ago at Tomdispatch, and provide the link here as a service to readers. Michael Massig has been one of the most searching critics of the press in the coverage of the war and the election campaign. This essay is being combined with some of his earlier pieces at The New York Review of Books into a small paperback, which I intend to pick up at lunch break today (I'd much rather spend my lunch break at Borders than Cosi). The essay is here. An excerpt:

The gingerly approach to civilian casualties in the U.S. press is part of a much larger hole in the coverage, one concerning the day-to-day nature of the U.S. occupation. Most of the soldiers in Iraq are young men who can't speak Arabic and who have rarely traveled outside the United States, and they have suddenly been set down in a hostile environment in which they face constant attack. They are equipped with powerful weapons and have authority over a dark-skinned people with alien customs. The result is constant friction, often leading to chronic abuses that, while not as glaring as those associated with Abu Ghraib, are no less corrosive in their effect on local sentiment.

One reason, he suggests, is that embedded journalists who write negatively about the US military find themselves "blacklisted." It happened to Rosen: a series of stories he wrote for Asia Times about his experience while embedded elicited an angry letter from the commander and the public affairs officer of the unit he accompanied, and he has not been allowed to become embedded since. Other correspondents told me of similar experiences.

Find the time to read the whole thing. What the DoD is doing is a well-thought-out policy which completely co-opts journalists, and they are as successful as the White House has been at doing it. Massig's essay is the first sign that they are finally noticing what is being done to them on a systematic basis.

Something Different

If you are going to be a guest rather than a cook tomorrow, here are some interesting choices of things to bring. My relations don't drink, so I have a different set of hors d'oeuvres for my roadkit to take, but these are intriguing suggestions:

Wines worth inviting
The best way to score points as a guest is to bring something delicious for before or after dinner.

By Jordan Mackay, Special to The Times

Serve with pie

The perfect closure to Thanksgiving dinner is something autumnal, burnished and nutty. For this, two choices stand above the rest: tawny Port and Madeira. These amber-hued wines are often overlooked in the sweet wine category, edged out by the glitz of vintage Port or the flamboyance of Sauternes or ice wines, but they're the perfect complement to pumpkin or pecan pie (especially if the whipped cream is spiked with Cognac or rum).

Tawny Port comes from the same grapes and vineyards that vintage Port does, but it's aged in wooden barrels rather than bottles. Oxidation results, and that's why the wine takes on its amber color and flavors of caramel, hazelnuts and dried fruit, as opposed to the red fruit, mineral and spice characteristics of a bottle-aged Port.

Nor do you need to spend an arm and a leg.

Dow's makes a profound tawny. The 10-year-old is a beaut; it retails for around $30. For $15 more, you can get the 20-year-old, which has the same profile as the younger wine, but with deeper flavors. This is the one to have with pecan pie.

Graham's 10- and 20-year-olds are equally well made, but a touch sweeter than Dow's. Sandeman's basic tawny is on average about four years old, but provides remarkable flavor and complexity for its $12 price tag. Taylor Fladgate, so renowned for its vintage ports, also makes gorgeous tawnies. The 10-year-old is clean and surprisingly refreshing and would even pair nicely with salty cheeses. The 20-year-old is richer and denser, with almond, hazelnut and caramel flavors and a spectacularly long finish. Warre's makes a sleek, elegant tawny called Otima, which has lovely hazelnut and almond flavors as well as a hint of orange peel. These wines are best served slightly chilled.

Madeira has largely been forgotten, except as a cheap cooking wine. However, true Madeira is a gorgeous wine that can resemble tawny Port — the amber color, the caramel taste — though it's made from different grapes on the subtropical island of Madeira, 375 miles west of Morocco.

There are a number of styles; the one called Malmsey is the most appropriate with dessert. The Broadbent 10-year-old Malmsey reliably delivers great richness as well as classic flavors of chocolate and caramel. Blandy's 5-year-old Alvada Madeira is a rare blend of two classic Madeira grapes (Bual and Malmsey, usually kept separate) and, with its razor-like acidity and nutty character, serves as a great introduction to the genre at a fantastic price of $16 for a half bottle (the stuff is so rich that you only need a small amount).

Of course, everyone remembers beginnings and endings even more than middles. So the ultimate advantage in bearing such gifts is that they'll be remembered — and so will you, when the invitations go 'round next year.

Thanksgiving dinner is not a time when I like to introduce innovations, like pears and cheese with port for dessert, for example, so the notion that these wines go nicely with the traditional pies sits well with me.

However, this also seems like a nice excuse to set up an evening's tasting of madeiras, with nuts and cheeses as palate cleansers between flights, for the holiday season. What a lovely way to break the cycle of the normal round of holiday parties.

More Ammunition for the Staatspolizei

Did you know that a Federal judge in Los Angeles has decided that keystroke logging does not constitute wiretapping? The story broke Friday on SecurityFocus.

Judge dismisses keylogger case

By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Nov 19 2004 6:40PM

A federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed charges against a California man who used a keystroke logger to spy on his employer, ruling that use of such a device does not violate federal wiretap law.

Larry Ropp, a former claims adjuster for a U.S. insurance company, was caught last year using a "KEYKatcher" brand surveillance device on a secretary's computer while secretly helping consumer attorneys gather information against his employer, Bristol West Insurance Group. The KEYKatcher attaches inline with a keyboard connector, and stores every keystroke in an internal memory for later retrieval.

Last March a grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Ropp, in what prosecutors trumpeted as the first federal criminal prosecution for the use of a hardware keystroke logger. The indictment charged a violation of the federal wiretap statute, which makes it illegal to covertly intercept electronic communications transmitted "over a system that affects interstate or foreign commerce."

Prosecutors maintained that the tapped PC was covered by the statute because it was connected to Bristol West's national computer network, and the secretary had composed electronic mail messages on it.

But district court judge Gary Feess disagreed, and last month granted a defense motion to dismiss the indictment. Feess ruled that the interception of keystrokes between the keyboard and the computer's CPU did not meet the "interstate or foreign commerce" clause in the federal Wiretap Act, even if some of those keystrokes were banging out e-mail. "[T]his court finds it difficult to conclude that the acquisition of internal computer signals that constitute part of the process of preparing a message for transmission would violate the Act."

"The network connection is irrelevant to the transmissions, which could have been made on a stand-alone computer that had no link at all to the internet or any other external network," Feess wrote. "Thus, although defendant engaged in a gross invasion of privacy ... his conduct did not violate the Wiretap Act. While this may be unfortunate, only Congress can cover bases untouched."

The court based its decision in part on a controversial ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year that threw out wiretapping charges against Branford Councilman, a former vice president of an online bookseller who provided customers with free e-mail accounts, then set up a system that made covert copies of some messages for his later perusal. Feess found that here, as in the Councilman case, the e-mail was not intercepted as it traveled over the network.

Electronic privacy groups have joined with government prosecutors to try and overturn the Councilman ruling, which is now under review by a larger panel of judges.

The court also cited a 2001 case in which a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey ruled that the FBI did not violate the Wiretap Act when it installed a covert keylogger on the computer of organized crime suspect Nicodemo Scarfo. In that case the FBI assured the court that that its keylogger had been configured to stop recording keystrokes when Scarfo connected to the Internet.

In an interview with SecurityFocus following his indictment, Ropp admitted to using the keylogger, which he said he'd purchased off the Internet. But he defended his office skullduggery as a necessary evil to expose improper anti-consumer practices at the company, which had previously been sanctioned for illegally canceling some customers' automobile insurance policies. "The FBI themselves use keyloggers quite a bit," Ropp said. "Here, I'm a whistleblower, and I'm getting the shaft."

Prosecutors filed a motion last week asking the court to reconsider the Ropp ruling. Ropp's attorney, federal public defender Firdaus Dordi, said he couldn't comment on the decision until the judge rules on that motion.

I hope the implications of this decision are lost on none of you. If it is within the bounds of law for a private citizen to use a keystroke logger to perform espionage on his employer, without anything even vaguely resembling a warrant issued previously, how much more lawful is it for the FBI to do the same to you?

Food for thought, not so?

Dragon Lady

Fear of Condi
Apprehensions Exceed Hopes on 'War Lady'

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; 11:45 AM

US war lady appointed secretary of state," declared the Iranian newspaper Etemaad last week, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

London's Daily Telegraph reported Sunday that Rice got her promotion after Powell told "President Bush that he wanted greater power to confront Israel over the stalled Middle East peace process."

If it didn't have such serious repercussions for foreign policy, I would find all of this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth amusing. The foreign press seems to think she is somehow competent, rather than simply a mirror into which Bush looks and sees himself.

Sorry for the light posting today--lots of nit-picky loose ends to get cleaned up at work before the holiday, and I needed to stay out of pogge's way while he was installing the anti-spam software and cleaning out the infestation. More later when I get home tonight.

Gratefulness

Bumpers, as you can see from the comments in a thread below, pogge is in the process of protecting us from another bout of ugliness and cleaning up the mess the last attackers left.

Some of you have written me email to tell me that you like the kind of news and commentary that constitutes this weblog. Of course, I do, too, but what's real special to me is the relationships which have developed here. I said at the beginning of the week that I'll be taking time now and again to comment on gratefulness coming up to the US Thanksgiving Day. Today, we all need to be grateful to pogge, who is doing for us what I simply don't have enough technical skills to do, and doing it as a favor. Friends like this are rare and treasured. If you have time, go over to his place and say thanks, or add your thanks on this thread.

Not Randian At All

When Dionne is at his best, he makes trenchant arguments succinctly, as in today's Post Op-Ed.

Talking Sense On Court Choices

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A29

Conservative politicians, including President Bush, say that they oppose judges who "legislate from the bench" and that they hope to fill the judiciary with "strict constructionists." That sounds good, because we want democratically elected politicians, not judges, making the crucial decisions. Yet, at this moment in our history, it is conservative judges who want to restrict the people's right to govern themselves.

That may sound sweeping, but the current trend among conservatives is to read the Constitution as sharply limiting the ability of Congress and the states to make laws protecting the environment, guaranteeing the rights of the disabled and regulating commerce in the public interest.

This new conservatism is actually a very old conservatism. It marks a return to the time before the mid-1930s when judges struck down all sorts of decent laws -- for example, regulating the number of hours people had to work without overtime pay -- reasoning that such statutes violated contract and property rights. Such rulings denied legislators the ability to resolve social problems and make our society more just. The pre-New Deal judiciary that many conservatives are now trying to restore was the truly "imperial judiciary."

The new conservative judicial activism is a greater threat to our democracy than the prospect of some future court striking down the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. If Roe is lost (and I doubt it will be), states will still be free to pass liberal abortion laws. But if extreme conservative judges limit the authority of Congress and state legislatures to pass environmental, civil rights, labor and consumer laws, our democracy will be less robust, less effective and less just.

Breyer's worries about the new trends are rooted in his criticisms of the courts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He argues that they "underemphasized the constitutional importance of participation by black citizens in our representative democracy and overemphasized the importance of constitutional protections of property."

To boil it down even further, just as the Bush tax philosphy is to privilege investment income over earned income, the judicial philosphy is to privilege property over individual rights, to the benefit of property holders, and to privilege the corporation over the human. The expansion of corporate rights is not a zero sum game against the individual, but it severely limits the individual's ability to act against the corporation. This is an area of rights which has been exploding over the last couple of decades. As Sean-Paul Kelly says, "if you aren't outraged, you're not paying attention.

Site Work

You might notice a bit of weirdness here over the next day or so. Our friend pogge will be adding some anti-spam software. The experience of the last couple of days has been awful, so the big guns are being brought in.

Pill Pushing

Medical Journal Calls for a New Drug Watchdog
By DENISE GRADY

Published: November 23, 2004

The United States needs a better system to detect harmful effects of drugs already on the market, and it should be independent of the Food and Drug Administration and the drug industry, medical researchers and journal editors said yesterday.

Arguing that it was unreasonable to expect the same agency that approves drugs to "also be committed to actively seek evidence to prove itself wrong," the editors of The Journal of the American Medical Association recommended that the nation consider establishing an "independent drug safety board" to track the safety of drugs and medical devices after they were approved and in widespread use.

The idea has been proposed several times, usually after a spectacular drug imbroglio like the recent withdrawal of the popular arthritis drug and painkiller Vioxx after it was linked to heart attacks. But the earlier proposals went nowhere.

This time around, as in the past, the industry and the drug agency reacted by challenging the need for a new safety board.

"It is not at all clear that there is need for change," Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for PhRMA, the trade group for drug makers, said.

Dr. Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the Office of New Drugs at the F.D.A., said a safety board was not necessary because "we consider our office of drug safety independent of the office of new drugs."

But both also left open the possibility of change in the future, depending on the findings of a study to be conducted by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the Congressionally chartered National Academy of Sciences, which conducts scientific reviews for the government.

An act of Congress would most likely be needed to establish an independent board to evaluate the safety of drugs after they reach the market. The recommendation for a new safety board appeared in an editorial and in one of several articles that were scheduled for the Dec. 1 issue of the journal but were published online yesterday at www.jama.com.

The articles were released early because of their relevance to recent events: the Vioxx withdrawal and the addition of a strong warning to antidepressants because of evidence that they may raise the risk of suicidal thinking or suicide attempts in teenagers.

Those actions led to Congressional hearings last week and complaints that the drug agency was not moving quickly enough to get dangerous drugs off the market or to warn consumers about risks that emerged after drugs were approved.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who led the hearings, favors an even stronger separation between the F.D.A.'s offices of new drugs and drug safety, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Mr. Grassley could not be reached for comment on the proposal for a new safety board.

The nation's current system for tracking drug side effects, called Medwatch, is rife with inadequacies, the editors of the journal wrote. The major problem, they said, is that drug makers are the ones who collect and evaluate most of the information on side effects from their own products and then report it to the F.D.A.

The companies "may be tempted to conceal" unfavorable data, the editors wrote, and they and the drug agency may be too slow to order studies to follow up hints of trouble.

Another flaw the editors cited is the system's reliance on voluntary reports from doctors, which means that most adverse effects probably go unreported. In addition, they said, most of the reports are of poor quality and cannot be used to determine how common side effects are or whether particular problems resulted from medicines or from the illnesses they were meant to treat.

The Vioxx incident caught everyone's attention, and that's good. Yes, it is time to figure out how this slid past the FDA and to get Pharma-funded research out of the FDA's shop.

That having been said, to compare Vioxx with the anti-depressant studies is to start comparing apples and vegetables. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, associated with the clinical practice of psychiatry, knows that depressed people are at higher risk of suicide and adolescents are at the highest risk. It has been known for decades that treating depression can itself be a risk of suicide: once the depressed person starts feeling a little more energetic, they can act out the suicidal thoughts they've been having for a while, but were too enervated to do anything about. This is not new news, and why the press decided to treat it as such is simply annoying. The worst risk of all is leaving depression untreated. None of this is new news.

The challenge to the press and to the culture is to learn to treat psychiatric disorders with the same level of dispassion that it treats physical disease, and we sure as hell aren't there yet. Demonizing psychiatric drugs sure as hell doesn't help.

If big Pharma weren't pushing drugs directly at uninformed consumers on the TV, all of this would be less of a problem.

Read the Bill of Rights While You Still Can

Americans Still Concerned About Bush Agenda, Poll Shows
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER

Published: November 22, 2004

After a brutally fought election campaign, Americans are optimistic about the next four years under President Bush, but they have reservations about central elements of the second-term agenda that Mr. Bush presented in defeating Senator John Kerry, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

At a time when the White House has portrayed Mr. Bush's 3.5-million-vote victory as a mandate, the poll found that Americans are at best ambivalent about Mr. Bush's plans to reshape Social Security, rewrite the tax code, cut taxes and appoint conservative judges to the bench. There is continuing disapproval of Mr. Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, with a plurality now saying it was a mistake to invade Baghdad the first place.

While Democrats, not surprisingly, were the staunchest opponents of many elements of Mr. Bush's second-term agenda, the concerns extended across party lines in some cases. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents - including 51 percent of Republicans - said it was more important to reduce federal budget deficits than to cut taxes, a central element of Mr. Bush's economic agenda.

The latest Times/CBS News poll also found pervasive concern about what Americans view as the corrosive effect of Hollywood and popular culture on the nation's values and moral standards. Seventy percent said they were very or somewhat concerned that television, movies and popular music are lowering moral standards in this country.

While this sentiment was voiced by supporters of President Bush and Mr. Kerry, it appears that the concern about a decline in values is becoming another point of polarization in American politics. Mr. Bush's supporters were more likely to cite it than Mr. Kerry's voters, and it was an issue that had particular resonance in the South and among weekly churchgoers, rural voters and women.

In addition, 70 percent of Mr. Kerry's supporters said they were more worried about candidates who "are too close to religion and religious leaders" than political leaders who "don't pay enough attention" to religion, after a campaign in which Mr. Bush repeatedly spoke of God and his faith. By contrast, 52 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said they were more worried about public officials who "don't pay enough attention to religion and religious leaders."

Still, in a telling contrast with the 2000 election, 82 percent of respondents said that Mr. Bush legitimately won on Nov. 2. Just before Election Day, 50 percent of respondents said they considered Mr. Bush's defeat of Al Gore in 2000 a legitimate victory.

And even after this tense and vituperative campaign, 56 percent said they were generally optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Bush. The president's job approval rating has now inched up to 51 percent, the highest it has been since March.

After a campaign that was "Seinfeld" and not about anything, voters are waking up to discover four more years. But they're "optimistic." Hmmm. Massive denial going on.

It would be nice if they'd wake up before all of their civil liberties are gone.

Jus' sayin'.

Spiritual Blogaround

Bumpers, one of my posts at The Village Gate just got picked up by Mick Arran's new effort, The Blog Tower. M*ick has a justified reputation as one of the blogosphere's movers, shakers and innovators, and I'm humbled that he noticed my little collection of pixels.

As an editor, Nick has a rare eye. I'm not saying this to boost myself, but because I read something on his new site that moved me so much I was shaking with sobs. As you probably know if you've been following Bump for a while, I've either heard or been through damn near everything and getting me to tears isn't something easily accomplished. This was beyond tears, it was wild, wracking sobs.

The author is ginmar, who has become justifiably famous in the blogosphere for her LiveJournal of a woman soldier serving in Iraq.

Kevin Hayden, my host at the other place I write, has some suggestions about things you can do for our troops, serving far from home at the holidays. Ya know, they didn't send themselves over there.

One of the things they teach you in Blogs 101 (hint: there is no such thing, yet) is don't send people off the site, keep 'em around to comment. Just go follow the link to ginmar's post. And then figure out what you want to do about it.

The theme this week is gratefulness, the heart of healthy living. If you want to take it on as a full contact sport, you can start by reading Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer by Br. David Steindl-Rast, one of the singular best little books on spirituality I've ever read. I don't keep this one near the toilet, I keep it near the tub.

Around here, hot baths are time for thinking and stuff, showers are for getting to work. Hot baths are therapeutic, showers are medicinal, there is a difference.

*original mis-spelling repaired.

Run on Time

Amtrak Infrastructure on Brink, DOT Warns
Funding Must Address Critical Needs, IG Says

By Michelle Garcia
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, November 22, 2004; Page A17

The national passenger rail service risks a "major point of failure" if infrastructure needs remain unaddressed, the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in a scathing report made public today.

Infrastructure throughout Amtrak's rail system has reached "critical levels," the report concluded, and "no one knows when such a failure will occur."
....
Mead urged Amtrak to consider the "unsustainably large operating losses and poor on-time performance" as a "clarion call" for immediate attention.

The report was released shortly after Congress finished work on a major catch-all appropriations bill that included $1.22 billion for Amtrak for fiscal 2005. The federal government provided slightly more than that for fiscal 2004.

The IG's report noted Amtrak's success in increasing ridership and addressing costs. But for the past two years, Amtrak has bided time, postponing improvements along the tracks with the expectation of increased revenue and funding. But time has run out, according to the report, and Amtrak must maximize its current revenue.

The report also calls on Congress to provide Amtrak with clear direction in crafting a strategy that might include reducing service, investing in heavily traveled routes or increasing overall funding. He proposed that federal funding be tied to Amtrak's restructuring of its operations. Amtrak relies on a combination of passenger fees and state and federal subsidies to finance operating costs.

Without an increase in funding, Amtrak will continue to postpone capital projects to stay within its budget, Amtrak President David Gunn said in a written response to the IG's report.

If the budget remains stable, "we will be able to continue to operate the current system, but we have to make cuts in the capital program," Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.

Cutting service will not produce the payoff to fund capital projects, he said, "because of shutdown costs, labor protection and continuing overhead." Service cuts also would jeopardize overall congressional support of Amtrak, he said, because lawmakers would object to service being discontinued in their regions.

There is a legitimate debate to be had over whether or not we want to have government subsidized train service, but the system now is simply unsafe. For me as a Northeast corridor rider, having an affordable option to navigate around the region's heavy traffic is a god-send, and I use it for travel in preference to driving.

Calling PI/Pro Bono Legal Eagles

I have an interesting research project. If you are a public interest lawyer, law student or other law professional and have a blog, or if you are a reader of such blogs and can identify them for me, shoot me an email at melaniemattson[at]yahoo[dot]com with the URL. This is early days of a project which may come to fruition after the first of the year, so, for those of you staring final exams in the face, not to worry, I'm not going to ask for anything than the opportunity to read your blog.

Thanks for your help.

Smack

New figures show Afghanistan's opium output is rising fast

A DELUGE of sticky brown resin threatens to submerge the new Afghan state. According to figures released on November 18th by the UN's counter-narcotics agency (UNODC), Afghanistan has seen a huge rise in opium production for the third year running. UNODC puts the export value of this year's crop at $2.8 billion—equal to 60% of last year's GDP.

It could be worse. This year, 131,000 hectares of Afghanistan was sown with opium seed, a 64% increase on last year's figure. Yet the harvest, 4,200 tonnes of opium resin, was up only 17%. Western donors might like to put this down to their efforts to destroy the crop; they would be wrong. UNODC says eradication had little effect on yield. Only bad weather and crop disease prevented Afghanistan smashing its record of 4,600 tonnes of opium, produced under the Taliban in 1999. Nonetheless, over 95% of the heroin reaching Europe derives from Afghanistan.

What can be done? First, study the failure of existing efforts. In 2000, the Taliban banned opium production, thereby triggering a rise in the market price of the drug, and increasing the value of their copious stockpiles. The ban was rigorously enforced by savage beatings. The Taliban were then bombed from power, and Britain took charge of counter-narcotics in the new Afghanistan. Its policies have been more palatable, but less successful. To encourage opium farmers to remain abstinent, a British diplomat designed a poster featuring a red opium poppy. Alas, when the poster returned from the printers, the red poppy had become a pink tulip. The posters went out anyway.

Spending around $150m a year, Britain has formed an array of counter-narcotics departments and law enforcement agencies, which began functioning only this year. Money has also been spent on persuading poppy farmers to grow alternative crops, like fruit trees or saffron. The UN development agency meanwhile advocated floriculture—hoping to turn Afghanistan into a bed of roses. But, in the absence of almost any law enforcement, such schemes were hopeless. Even if Afghans could be persuaded to grow saffron, the country has few roads to give them access to markets. In fact, opium cultivation has no financial equivalent. Last year, each hectare under cultivation yielded 45 kilos of opium, which earned farmers $283 a kilo. This year, the price was $92—still not bad, when GDP per head is around $200.

Neither Britain nor the UN can curb the opium explosion. There is only one power in Afghanistan able to enforce the law: America, which has around 18,000 troops in the country, hunting the Taliban. This year, having been persuaded that the Taliban were using opium cash to buy arms, America waded in. At its behest, the government ordered provincial governors to destroy 25% of the poppy crop in their areas. A few did so, including the governor of southern Helmand. Yet his province still grew more opium than any other. In Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, shiny tractors and SUVs mingle with camels and donkey-carts. The marble mansions of drug-dealers have mushroomed among the mud-brick houses. Helmand is ideal drug country: poor, lawless and close to the borders with Pakistan and Iran.

This seems likea prudent moment to remind everyone that the Soviet had well over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at the peak of their occupancy, and they still lost. Usama bin Laden is at large and Rummy isn't really taking this whole Afghan thing very seriously.

Bloggers Make News, Newsers Make Blogs

Kevin Sites, the NBC newser who shot the video of a Marine shooting a wounded "insurgent," tells his own story on his blog. I bookmarked him a while back. He doesn't update often, but he nearly always includes photos.

Chris Allbritton, working for Time, is in Beirut right now, and posts a powerful appreciation of the life and times of Yasser Arafat and his complicated relationship with the Palestinian people.

Pounding the Sand

Iraq Force Is Seen As Likely To Grow
U.S. Plans Require Boost, Officers Say

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- Senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq say it is increasingly likely they will need a further increase in combat forces to put down remaining areas of resistance in the country.

Convinced that the recent battle for Fallujah has significantly weakened insurgent ranks, commanders here have devised plans to press the offensive into neighborhoods where rebels have either taken refuge after fleeing Fallujah or were already deeply entrenched.

But the forces available for these intensified operations have become limited by the demands of securing Fallujah and overseeing the massive reconstruction effort there -- demands that senior U.S. military officers say are likely to tie up a substantial number of Marines and Army troops for weeks.

"What's important is to keep the pressure on these guys now that we've taken Fallujah from them," a high-ranking U.S. military commander said, speaking on condition he not be named because of the sensitivity of the deliberations on adding more troops. "We're in the pursuit phase. We have to stay after these guys so they don't get their feet set."

The possibility that additional troops would be required to battle the insurgency in this critical period preceding the Iraqi elections, scheduled for Jan. 30, has been signaled for weeks. The Pentagon took an initial step in this direction last month, ordering about 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours by up to two months.

With some fresh U.S. forces already arriving in Iraq as part of a long-scheduled rotation, and two newly trained Iraqi brigades due to start operating next month, U.S. military leaders had hoped to avoid further increases.

But over the past week, a closer assessment of the forces needed for the Fallujah recovery effort and future offensive operations revealed a gap in desired troop strength, at least over the next two or three months, according to several officers familiar with the issue.

The officers said the exact number of extra troops needed is still being reviewed but estimated it at the equivalent of several battalions, or about 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq fell to nearly 100,000 last spring before rising to 138,000, where it has stayed since the summer.

To boost the current level, military commanders have considered extending the stay of more troops due to rotate out shortly, or accelerating the deployment of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is scheduled to start in January. But a third option -- drawing all or part of a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division on emergency standby in the United States -- has emerged as increasingly likely.

Hinting at this possibility at a Pentagon news conference on Friday, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, recalled that airborne forces were deployed to Afghanistan on a short-term basis to bolster military operations. Lance noted, however, that the Afghan case was "a little bit different" because "we had a very small number of forces to begin with" there.

If airborne units were rushed to Iraq, commanders here said, they likely would not be used in the offensive actions being planned, given their lack of heavy armor and their unfamiliarity with the targeted neighborhoods. Rather, their purpose would be to take over policing and other functions in Baghdad's International Zone, where American and top Iraqi government officials work. That would free locally seasoned units of the 1st Cavalry Division for such actions.

Much of the division's 2nd Brigade, which had been patrolling Baghdad, was shifted to Fallujah for the battle there earlier this month and remains unavailable for action elsewhere. This situation is the cause of much of the pressure for reinforcements.

Strange that the Pentagon is even willing to talk about this. The number of troops is not significant in a tactical or strategic sense. It would take at least another 150,000 troops to pacify the country, and we don't have a tenth of that available.

UPDATE: I missed this yesterday. John McCain is heading in the direction of the truth:

Up to 50,000 more US troops needed in Iraq: Senator McCain

Sun Nov 21, 5:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Tens of thousands more US troops will be needed in Iraq (news - web sites), if Washington is to subdue the stubborn rebel insurgency there, a top US lawmaker said.

Arizona senator John McCain told NBC television that as many as 50,000 more US soldiers will have to be sent to Iraq.

"We still need more troops. We still need more people there," US Senator John McCain told NBC television Sunday.

When asked how many additional forces would have to be deployed, the maverick Republican senator answered "I would say at least 40,000 or 50,000 more," adding that it will likely also be necessary to increase the size of the army and the marine corps.

"I believe those reports of those young Marines that said, 'Look unless we keep a significant presence here, (the insurgents) are going to filter back in'," McCain said, but acknowledging that finding additional manpower "is an enormous strain."

He made his comments as US and Iraqi troops continued to hunt down insurgents in Baghdad and other parts of the country following a massive operation on the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah where 1,450 suspects have been rounded up.

The Wall Cracks

Pentagon Called Major Factor in Defeat of Intelligence Bill
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

Some legislators said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had made clear his opposition to the proposed overhaul, which would have stripped the Pentagon of some budgetary control over its vast intelligence operations. A Defense Department spokesman denied any such Pentagon involvement.

The Senate intelligence committee chairman, Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, was asked why the Republican-controlled House had been unable to pass a measure sought by President Bush and endorsed by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission and many relatives of victims of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Some of it is turf, quite frankly," Mr. Roberts said on CNN, "some of it is from the Pentagon."

Mr. Roberts said he held little hope that Congress, in a brief session starting Dec. 6, could salvage efforts to address what he called systemic intelligence weaknesses, exposed dramatically by the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the Iraq war.

The landmark bill, which would have created the post of national intelligence director to oversee American spy agencies, with authority over the bulk of their combined budgets, was blocked Saturday after what lawmakers said was practically a rebellion by some conservative House Republicans.

Asked about prospects for passage this year, Mr. Roberts quipped grimly that they were "between slim and none, and Slim just left town." He said on "Fox News Sunday," "Some of us who have been working for reform perhaps underestimated the strong undertow of opposition." A Senate version of the bill had passed with overwhelming support.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said on Fox that some House members "never wanted a bill, they never will want a bill."

Another Democrat, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, told CNN that the bill's failure represented a "real test" for Mr. Bush. "The president's going to have to stand up, both to his own Defense Department and to the hard right," Mr. Schumer said.

And Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" that passage was still possible next month, but that it would "take significant involvement by the president and the vice president."

The turn of events was seen as a surprising embarrassment to the president, who as late as Friday night called on rebellious House Republicans to agree on a bill.

Vice President Dick Cheney, for his part, had personally called the man considered the leader of the House resistance, Representative Duncan Hunter, to urge passage of the compromise legislation. Mr. Hunter is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Democrats, and some Republicans, said the Pentagon was working to block legislation it saw as threatening its budgetary control over intelligence-development, and thus its ability to generate the intelligence needed in war-fighting.

The first crack in the Bush United Front. Rummy's not being a Team Player.

UPDATE: The New York Times has a better version of the story.

Republican Defiance on Intelligence Bill Is Surprising. Or Is It?

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

"I don't think it was only House Republicans," Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the Intelligence Committee, told Fox News on Sunday. Mr. Roberts added: "There's been a lot of opposition to this from the first. Some of it is turf, you know, quite frankly. Some of it is from the Pentagon. Some of it, quite frankly, is from the White House, despite what the president has said."

Mr. Bush, speaking at a news conference in Chile, said he was disappointed that the bill did not pass, adding, "When I get home, I look forward to getting it done.''

Members of both parties, and independent analysts, said Sunday that they had no doubt Congress would have passed the measure had President Bush flexed his muscle, as he did last year for Medicare prescription drug legislation that passed by a narrow margin over conservatives' objections. The intelligence bill had bipartisan support in the Senate.

In the House, the leadership probably could have cobbled together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to muster the 218 votes necessary for passage.

"I am convinced that had the speaker brought the bill to the floor, it would have passed," Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chief author of the measure, said in an interview on Sunday. "That's what's so frustrating. Here we have a bill that's been endorsed by the White House, by the 9/11 commission, by the 9/11 family groups, by the speaker of the House, and we can't get a vote."

But Mr. Hastert did not want to split his caucus and did not want the bill to pass with less than ''a majority of the majority," said his spokesman, John Feehery. "What good is it to pass something," Mr. Feehery said, "where most of our members don't like it?"

Posted by Melanie at 12:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Into the Night

I'm calling it a night on Bump, I've still got laundry to do, and so forth.

This week will offer some reflections on gratefulness as we prepare to give thanks and enter the Advent, Hannukah and Diwali seasons, a time to celebrate light in the dark times. Since we are in a dark time, these reflections seem due.

Sleep well. May flights of angels speed you to your rest.

Elsewhere

I've got a new post up at The Village Gate this evening, and it is something of a surprise. It isn't what I expected to write about at all.

In the realm of the spirit, the only constant is surprise.

Old Europe

I'm listening to a fascinating panel discussion by the three co-authors of Beyond Paradise and Power, American foreign policy in the imperial era. Tod Lindborg, Walter Russell Means and Ivo Daalder are talking about the future of Europe and critiquing the neocons. I just found an interview with Means in Friday's CSM:

Q&A;: Neocons' niche in American history
The Monitor asked a leading US foreign policy expert, Walter Russell Mead, to place neoconservative beliefs in historical context.

Which leaders in US history would be neocons today?

It's possible that Teddy Roosevelt would be a neocon. I think it's almost certain he would have supported the war in Iraq. And he wouldn't have cared about the lack of a UN resolution. I'm not sure who else would be a neocon in foreign policy. In some ways [neocons] are very original.

Is there a particular point in the history of US foreign policy that reminds you of today's foreign policy environment?

In some ways, it reminds me of the period around 1946-47 when we were trying to figure out what the cold war was going to mean. The country realizes we have a challenge on our hands, but we're not quite yet sure how we're going to meet it ultimately.

There's also the period in the early part of the 20th century when it was clear that the British empire was not going to be as strong and the United States was growing. And you had people like Teddy Roosevelt and others beginning to think ... "What if America is going to become an imperial nation? What does that look like?"

What makes neocons unique throughout the history of US foreign policy?

When we think of Wilsonianism now, we tend to think of secular, humanist ideas - building a world government - sort of a Europeanist foreign policy. If you went back a hundred years or so, Wilsonianism was carried out by people like missionaries who thought that the way to make America safe was to make the rest of the world believe the way we do and act the way we do. But they weren't as concerned about the institutional aspect.

The neocons of today have sort of revived this older Wilsonian tradition. They are no longer concerned, say, about the United Nations, which is what we think Wilsonians are mostly thinking about ... or the World Court. In fact, they think that stuff gets in the way to some degree. But they are more concerned about basic American values and spreading those.

So it's a different Wilsonianism from what we've all grown up thinking about. It's non-institutional and it's values-based. To some degree, it's a conservative Christian value base. Even though many conservatives are Jews, the sort of basic values that they are promoting are very much the sort of Protestant, Christian values that were dominant in 19th-century America.

Do you think neoconservatives have had their "moment in the sun" with their successful push for a preemptive war against Iraq? Do you think that the broad support they might enjoy now will wane?

I think they're still in business. The weak spot, obviously, for them, is that ... if we are taking 20 casualties a month in Iraq a year from now, there may not be a lot of people thanking them for this. But, on the other hand, we were in the [Vietnam War] for years before people really turned against it. And even then, I think ... other than elite opinion ... the thing that bothered most ordinary Americans wasn't that we were fighting or that our strategy was too hawkish, but they couldn't see that we had a strategy for victory ... that it looked like it was going to be a deadlock forever.

It may well be that if the American people remain convinced that the war in Iraq is necessary for national security ... and even if the war goes on for a long time ... if they feel that we have a strategy that will win and that is necessary, people may support it for a very long time. It's hard to say. If it goes well, even after a while, the neoconservatives will be strengthened.

What would be some other factors that would put the neoconservatives out of business, or enhance their standing even more?

I think failure is always bad.... If the public judgment is, "We took their advice and we've ended up in a hell hole," then we won't be asking [neocons] for advice for a while. I think it's the public judgment on the success of the policies that they've proposed.

The thesis of the book is that Europe is in decline. I disagree: the economic output of the EU now rivals the US's. Those governments aren't racking up huge deficits. They are developing and adopting new technology faster than we are (read The Register if you want to find out how much ahead they are.) Germany is in some financial trouble, primarily because of the union with the east and all that has flowed from that, but the other economies are vibrant, compared with ours.

It's very odd to find myself in such fundamental disagreement with these scholars. Lost in this discussion are the real and non-trivial economic effects of having American products and brands being shunned by consumers in Europe, one of our largest trading partners.

Since we are talking about Europe, it is appropriate that I've just gotten the first contribution to our World Press review. Eclaire has surveyed what is in Le Monde today and sends this:

Looks pretty much like the Sunday LA Times. Iraq, some EU stuff, and editorial about Chirac's trip to London, and reporting on the APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Council) summit in Chile. Buried in the latter's last paragraph was a report not mentioned in the LAT, about on-going demonstrations, against APEC and President Bush. At least 250 people were arrested in Santiago and near Valparaiso. Two people were wounded on the outskirts of Santiago.

These events may have been reported separately in earlier LAT editions.

Also, there was a prominent article on the visit by Colin Powell, Britain's Jack Straw and Russia's Sergei Lavrov to talk with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. I did not see this mentioned in either Saturday's or Sunday's LAT, although I could have missed it.

LeMonde's tone is pretty measured. I'll try checking in on some other French newspapers.

This is a full-service blog.

Intel Failure at the Top

The purge at CIA

By H.D.S. Greenway | November 19, 2004

But that being said, Goss's admonition that CIA's primary duty is to support the administration's policies rather negates and contradicts the notion that CIA should call it as it sees it. There were simply too many drop-in visits by Vice President Cheney to CIA headquarters, just to make sure CIA wasn't missing any Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connections prior to the Iraq war, to feel sanguine about that. Nine times out of 10 an intelligence failure is really a policy failure.

It is clear now that the administration planned to invade Iraq before 9/11 and took advantage of a national tragedy to push its agenda. It is also clear that intelligence officers saw that their career paths lay in the direction of proving a driven administration right, not wrong, about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Many did try to point out that the evidence simply wasn't there, but they were overruled at the top.

Many of the recent CIA resignations came from clashes between senior CIA officials and the relatively young and inexperienced but ideologically motivated staff that Goss brought with him from Congress. This is reminiscent of the young and ignorant ideologues who were sent to Iraq, not because they knew anything about Iraq but because the were ideologically pure in the pursuit of administration policies.

There is also the haunting echo of outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft complaining that "intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations" were "putting at risk the very security of our nation in time of war." In other words, judges shouldn't question the president's policies either.

And the conventional wisdom concerning Colin Powell's replacement by Condoleezza Rice is that at least now there won't be any back talk and second guessing the president from the State Department. Whatever George Bush wants to hear George Bush will hear.

I am all for a coherent foreign policy, and those who work for the president should carry it out. But the worry is that, flushed with victory, Bush doesn't want to hear dissenting voices from the Powells of this world and doesn't want intelligence to undermine ideology with caution and facts. Bush's second term could be the age of the rubber stamp.

It is also disturbing, and perhaps indicative, that similar purges are not taking place among Pentagon officials whose judgments and decisions were just about as wrong about Iraq as could possibly be. But then, they were on the team.

None of the Sabbath Gasbags are getting the real point of this: by trading in genuine intelligence for party loyalty, we are manifestly less safe.

And all the garbage about intelligence reform is just that: what went wrong prior to 9/11 was the failure of the policy makers, not the intelligence. Remember Richard Clarke? Bushco has been trying to grind his reputation into the ground for telling the truth. Joe Conason explains:

Last March, Frist rose on the Senate floor to demonstrate his fealty to the White House by attacking Richard Clarke in the ugliest and most personal terms. Seeking to discredit the former counter-terrorism chief after his stunning appearance before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Frist essentially accused the former counter-terrorism chief of committing perjury.

His detailed description of those efforts, which explodes Republican attempts to blame Clinton for 9/11 and confirms both his testimony and his book, should be required reading for mythologizers like the Senate majority leader. And when Frist has finished reading the 103 pages, the majority leader ought to be decent enough to apologize publicly for lying about this remarkable public servant.

What WILL We Tell the Children?

Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos
Malnutrition Nearly Double What It Was Before Invasion

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

"These figures clearly indicate the downward trend," said Alexander Malyavin, a child health specialist with the UNICEF mission to Iraq.

The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under American stewardship.

Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

"The people are astonished," said Khalil M. Mehdi, who directs the Nutrition Research Institute at the Health Ministry. The institute has been involved with nutrition surveys for more than a decade; the latest one was conducted in April and May but has not been publicly released.

Mehdi and other analysts attributed the increase in malnutrition to dirty water and to unreliable supplies of the electricity needed to make it safe by boiling. In poorer areas, where people rely on kerosene to fuel their stoves, high prices and an economy crippled by unemployment aggravate poor health.

"Things have been worse for me since the war," said Kasim Said, a day laborer who was at Baghdad's main children's hospital to visit his ailing year-old son, Abdullah. The child, lying on a pillow with a Winnie the Pooh washcloth to keep the flies off his head, weighs just 11 pounds.

"During the previous regime, I used to work on the government projects. Now there are no projects," his father said.

When he finds work, he added, he can bring home $10 to $14 a day. If his wife is fortunate enough to find a can of Isomil, the nutritional supplement that doctors recommend, she pays $7 for it.

"But the lady in the next bed said she just paid $10," said Suad Ahmed, who sat cross-legged on a bed in the same ward, trying to console her skeletal 4-month-old granddaughter, Hiba, who suffers from chronic diarrhea.

Iraqi health officials like to surprise visitors by pointing out that the nutrition issue facing young Iraqis a generation ago was obesity. Malnutrition, they say, appeared in the early 1990s with U.N. trade sanctions championed by Washington to punish the government led by President Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait in 1990.

International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002. But the invasion in March 2003 and the widespread looting in its aftermath severely damaged the basic structures of governance in Iraq, and persistent violence across the country slowed the pace of reconstruction almost to a halt.

In its most recent assessment of five sectors of Iraq's reconstruction, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research group, said health care was worsening at the quickest pace.

"Believe me, we thought a magic thing would happen" with the fall of Hussein and the start of the U.S.-led occupation, said an administrator at Baghdad's Central Teaching Hospital for Pediatrics. "So we're surprised that nothing has been done. And people talk now about how the days of Saddam were very nice," the official said.

The administrator, who would not give his full name for publication, cited security concerns faced by Iraqi doctors, who are widely perceived as rich and well-connected and thus easy targets for thieves, extortionists and the merely envious or vengeful. So many have been assassinated, he said, that the Health Ministry recently mailed out offers to expedite weapon permits for doctors.

It's clear that Bush wants to expand this policy to American children:

More relief for struggling millionaires
If you thought the current Bush tax rate rewarded the wealthy, wait until you get a load of his administration's latest plan.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Michelle Goldberg

Nov. 20, 2004 | Liberal policy wonks -- and even some who aren't so liberal -- did a double take when they read the new tax plan floated by the Bush administration in the Washington Post on Thursday. Was the White House really suggesting eliminating incentives for employers to offer their employees health insurance plans? Was it really proposing to shift the country's tax burden even further onto states that didn't vote for Bush, like New York and Massachusetts?

Press says: "If you quit your job and your health insurance ends, COBRA, a federal law, allows you to buy it [temporarily] from the employer at the employer's rates. I have seen people spending $6,000 a year on COBRA, and when they have to go out and get their own policy, it goes from $6,000 to $25,000."

Ownership society, my a**.

Enlistment Track

Via my colleague echidne of the snakes at The American Street:

That budget the Congress passed yesterday? Here is what is missing:

Head Start cuts by the numbers:

The National Head Start survey also found the following:
* More than half of local Head Start programs have been forced to cut staff or program services over the last two years
* 12 percent were forced to cut the number of children served
* 18 percent laid off teachers
* 27 percent laid off other staff
* 40 percent cut back hours or calendar year
* 52 percent cut training.

In fiscal 2005, the following changes are expected:
* 20 percent will cut the number of children served
* 23 percent will lay off teachers
* 50 percent will lay off other staff
* 46 percent will cut back hours or calendar year
* 65 percent will cut training

This is how we pay for tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cutting programs that work and replacing them with wars without end: a useful strategy since 2000.

Working Abroad

I'll be posting today at The American Street, as well as here at our house, and I may have an essay forThe Village Gate before day is done. The latter has been marinating for days and seems like it is ready for the grill.

Reform as Excuse

It's never been clear to me that the intelligence community needs reforming. The 9-11 commission thinks so, but I'm not clear on the "why." If the White House isn't going to pay attention to someone like Richard Clarke, who are they going to pay attention to?

In 2001, it seems to me that there where plentiful signs that something awful was about to happen, and they were simply ignored. The problem with intel doesn't seem to have anything to do with the FBI or the CIA. The problem seems to be with the people who use it.

The ones who shaped it for a war with Iraq, the ones who ignored it before 9-11.

These failures don't seem to have anything to do with the folks at Langley.

Where Are the Grown Ups?

Revised Terror Report Still Wrong, State Department Finds

By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Five months after embarrassed State Department officials admitted to widespread mistakes in the government's influential annual report on global terrorism, internal investigators have found new and unrelated errors -- as well as broader underlying problems that they say essentially have destroyed the credibility of the statistics it is based on.

In a 28-page report, the State Department's Office of Inspector General blamed the problems on sloppy data collection, inexperienced employees, personnel shortages and lax oversight. Investigators also concluded that the procedures used by the State Department, CIA and other agencies to define terrorism and terrorist attacks are so inconsistent that they can't be relied upon.

The department's independent investigative unit concluded, however, that politics played no role in allowing so many mistakes to be published in the original version of the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report for 2003.

The 2003 report said that terrorist attacks and related deaths had dropped to the lowest levels in three decades, and top Bush administration officials immediately touted it as proof of their success in the global war on terrorism.

But the underlying data actually showed a sharp increase to a 21-year high. The 199-page report, made public on April 29, also omitted any significant terrorist attacks occurring after an early November cut-off date, including bombings in Turkey that killed at least 62 people, and left out some terrorist activity in Chechnya, Iraq and other locations.

Those errors were fixed in a second version of the terrorism report, released on June 22. But six Democratic senators, suggesting the Bush administration was manipulating terror statistics for election-year political gain, asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to find out what had gone wrong, prompting the investigation by the inspector general. A copy of the inspector general's conclusions, marked "sensitive but unclassified", was obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The annual report has been mandated by Congress since 1987 as the government's primary authoritative reference tool on worldwide terrorist activity, trends and groups and the U.S. response to it.

The document is relied on by Congress and U.S. counterterrorism agencies in deciding how to wage the ongoing war on terror, and is translated into at least four languages so the public, academics and foreign governments can use it to assess trends in global terrorism.

The investigators, overseen by the State Department's acting inspector general, Cameron R. Hume, stopped short of calling for a second revision of the widely circulated report. But they concluded that the report, even in its revised form, "cannot be viewed as reliable" because of the questionable statistics on terrorist attacks, casualties and other issues. The report urged better oversight and management of the annual terrorism report card "in order to produce a world-class product."

A State Department spokesman declined to comment publicly on the internal report, but said the department has no plans to review or reissue the 2003 "Patterns" document a second time. The official said the State Department already is moving to overhaul the way it compiles terrorism statistics.

"We think it's best to just move on, and make sure we fix what needs to be fixed," said the official.

I hope that when my six month review comes up, my boss will just "move on, fix what needs to be fixed." Of course, my job is about one little data base in a corner of the world that has much less to do with life and death and terrorism.

File this one under "Accountability, Atlas Shrugged."

Running with the Wolves

It is now very clear to me that the foreign press is going to give us a much better picture of what is going on in the rest of the world, especially Iraq, than we can get domestically in the US. I try to read the English-language foreign press on a daily basis, but I suspect that some of that press may be colored by the fact that all of those nations have treaty and economic relationships with the US which are unique. It's time to branch out into the foreign language press. I'm going to need some help. Here's the deal.

My German is pretty good, so I can put in a review of the German papers once a week. My Dutch is weaker, but serviceable. I'm able to stumble in the Scandavian languages and my vocabulary in the Romance languages is limited to that which is used in opera. I have five words of Russian, two in Pashtun. I can give an Athenian cab driver directions to a restaurant.

Would those of you who have fluency in tongues other than English be willing to contribute a press review--in English--once a week? I could put up an Open Thread-Press Review, and the blog would be in the comments. I know that I'm read in time zones which aren't in the country, and stateside readers aren't necessarily monolinguists. Could you make a little time in your week to take a look at the foreign press and contribute your translation skills?

It will take a little time for this feature to build, but Bush is going to Europe in February and it would be extremely cool to cover it from the local press rather than the US poodles. His policies have huge effects in Latin America, and my Spanish and a couple of bucks will get me a beer.

What day of the week we would do this, what time of day--for you and me--all are up for grabs. Or it might be something that runs a couple of days, as posters chime in from various time zones.

You are, of course, free to do your own reporting on the ground if you are living in one of the countries that Bush is visiting. The rumble I hear here in DC is that the spring is going to be loaded with peace demonstrations, and I hope to cover them live, and will be looking for collaboration with other Bump readers in the area.

I'd also love links to English language editions of the foreign press. I don't have the time to do research like this that I did when I was living in a paycheck-free zone. If you can help me out, it would be a great help to our joint project, this blog. If we get enough links, I'll put up a new category on the blogroll.

Whaddya think? I think we have the chops to take this on. Wanna find out? Respond in comments. Invite your friends.

In the thread on an earlier post, James Emerson suggested that I make time to take time to run with the wolves this weekend. James, I think I just did.

About the porn spam attack earlier today: I'm identifying the resources to cut down on this kind of thing and trying to work out who can best help me implement it. By the end of next week, we should have a couple of layers of protection so we don't have to go through that again. It might be that you'll have to go through a couple more steps to post, if you frequent other blogs that use spam protection you've already seen it. I'm sorry about that, because I know your time is valuable, but I don't think any of us should be put through that again. As yer bloghostess, it felt like an assault on the community. I had to go take a shower after I'd finally gotten all the garbage pushed off the front page. This is our nethome, and shft like that is personal.

This is an open thread for a possible Press Review. You'll get another tomorrow for Thanksgiving plans and recipes. Since Canadian Thanksgiving was at the beginning of the month, you can tell us Yanks what you cooked or where you went.

And I've still got to do laundry....

A River in Egypt

Americans want it all -- now

BY DERRICK Z. JACKSON

Americans are still voting for denial. The SUV forest thickens. The real forest thins. America voted for the asphalt jungle.

That is the moral value that most threatens America. It is consuming itself with consumption. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, even though President Bush is a stunningly convenient symbol. This is the president who, when faced with telling Americans what their responsibilities were in the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, urged Americans to fly to Disney World.

Three thousand Americans were killed by terrorists, we were about to send soldiers off to die in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all a president could ask of civilians was to have a photo taken with Mickey Mouse. You cannot be more escapist than that.

The return of Bush to the White House and the failure of challenger John Kerry to offer a bold, clear alternative is the culmination of a half century in which the early 1960s presidential rhetoric of equality at home and ending poverty abroad faded into an escape from those challenges with Richard Nixon's ''law and order'' campaign in 1968. Pretty much ever since, Americans have sought out leaders who made them feel good about walling themselves off from those left behind or being global gluttons.

The only one who arguably tried, Jimmy Carter, was drummed out of office. His chagrined successors have charted a steady course away from individual responsibility for consumption, no matter how much they preach it to attack mothers on welfare and black prisoners. America has come to be seen as the nation of me, my SUV and eye-popping portions of greasy French fries.

Since the 1970s, our cars, homes and stomachs have become the biggest in the world. The mayor of Washington, D.C., wants a publicly funded $530-million baseball stadium a half year after the city slashed 285 teachers. Little about daily life in the United States has changed after 9/11 except for long lines at airports and allowing fear to become an excuse to cling even more desperately to cash. That must be why Americans cheer for a few hundred dollars out of a trillion-dollar tax cut while public education becomes a fossil.

We went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq saying that we're promoting freedom, democracy and the American way of life. It is a lie to promote the American way of life as it is at this moment.

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson said in his 2002 book, The Future of Life, that if the rest of the world were to actually live like we do, it would take four planet Earths. Our promise is a recipe for mass extinction of animals and plants and massive wars by humans over scare resources. Do we not invite more terrorism against the United States by individuals who will increasingly say that we are stealing their energy, food, air and water?

We all participate in this lie -- Republican, Democrat, and independent; rich, middle class and even a fair number of the poor. Somewhere on the checklist of big car, huge house, thundering television, wasted food, lights left on, pack-rat possessions and paper thrown away, we can pencil in our share of the madness.

Forty-three years ago, John F. Kennedy said, ''We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'' Today we have returned to office a president who tells us that our burden is to go to Disney World.

That is an unsustainable vision for an unsustainable society. The biggest test of America's moral values is whether we and our leaders find the courage to say that liberty for all means liberating ourselves from materialism before it drives us mad and makes us a target for the world's next madman.

The rest of the western world sees us as arrogant, immature and greedy. The views of the third world are even less complimentary. We've taught our kids to give lip-service to "the environment" without doing anything about reigning in their sense of entitlement.

I've linked to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report before. It is a horrifying read. This isn't going to happen in a foggy future, it's happening now and I'm liable to see some of the more severe effects in my life time. We can triangulate and computer model the physical changes. The socio-political and economic effects are off the scale and we have no way to model them.

As I write this, I've been listening to a call-in program on C-Span, one of those things they put on when there is a vote in whichever house of Congress they are broadcasting (I was listening to the end of the debate on the appropriations bill in the House--yeah, I know, I'm a policy wonk and political junke) and the call in was fascinating because of the level of ignorance of the callers, regardless of their political affilitations. No wonder the rest of the world looks on us with such scorn.

Up North

Bush might not address House
Advisers want to stay clear of heckling

Ottawa official vows `utmost respect'

TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON—The White House is leaning against having President George W. Bush address Parliament when he visits Ottawa, citing fears the U.S. president would be heckled during his speech.

No final decision has been made, but those involved with the planning of the visit (Nov. 30 and Dec. 1) want to avoid pictures on U.S. network television of a president being booed or shouted at as he embarks on a second term seeking warmer ties with allies who had cooled toward his administration.

The haggling over a potential speech is a sign of the wariness with which the White House views Ottawa after a series of rebukes from north of the border during the Chrétien years — and the damage done by MP Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga-Erindale), who was expelled from the Liberal caucus this week by Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Parrish has promised to hold her tongue if Bush speaks in the same venue where former New Democrat MP Svend Robinson famously heckled then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1987.

NDP Leader Jack Layton also promised his caucus would be respectful if Bush spoke.

The question of the parliamentary address is expected to be discussed by officials again today as Martin and Bush meet at the APEC Summit in Santiago, Chile.

"We've extended every courtesy and every assurance to the White House that we do not believe that the president will be treated with anything other than the utmost respect,'' an Ottawa official told the Star's Susan Delacourt last night.

"But we respect the president's prerogative to make any decision."

Officially, the White House is calling the Bush visit "substantive" and the trip is unusual in that it is spread over two days.

Bush, during the recently completed election campaign, some days travelled much further than the distance between Ottawa and Washington, yet returned home at night.

Expect demonstrations, which you probably won't see on American TV. Time to add the CBC and The Star to the blogroll.

Noted Without Comment

History of complicity
Did the first President Bush, in 1991, and President Reagan, in the late '80s, cynically choose to ignore Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iraqis?

By Barry Lando

In February 1991, still battling Saddam, President Bush twice called for Iraqis to rise up. "There's another way for the bloodshed to stop," he declared, "and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and to force Saddam Hussein to step aside." The president's message was repeatedly broadcast across Iraq by clandestine CIA-backed stations and by millions of leaflets dropped by U.S. airplanes over southern Iraq. Meanwhile, the Kurds in the north were also rising up. Many in the military joined in the revolt.

Now, to return to the original question: Did the first Bush administration cynically choose to ignore Saddam's use of chemical weapons in March 1991, just as the Reagan administration did in the late 1980s? And has the current Bush administration brushed this history of complicity with real WMD under the rug, while using nonexistent WMD as a reason for war? The indisputable answer is yes.

You may comment, however. I've re-opened them.

Mozilla/Firefox Questions

A number of you have asked questions about Mozilla and Firefox, and what downloading them will mean for the functionality of the rest of your MS Office suite. I'm sure that Charles and pogge will chime in with all of the things I've forgotten to add.

Firefox is Mozilla's stand-alone browser. Mozilla is the combined browser/email client, which I find far superior to Outlook. It also includes an IM client and an HTML page for webdevelopment. If you are using Outlook for scheduling in combination with email, I don't believe that Mozilla yet has functionality for that particular application (but if I'm wrong, Charles or pogge will correct me.) As Charles and I have been telling you for a while, IE is loaded with holes that can be exploited by hackers and used to invade your computer. Any of you who have had an invasion of porn pop-ups know what a pain that is. Both Firefox and Mozilla have a built in pop-up blocker, which you can turn off if you visit specific sites which use pop-ups for comments, for example.

If you have a compelling reason to continue to use Outlook, download Firefox. If you are using Outlook for email only, get Mozilla. Either will automatically import your lists of Favorites (which you can also sort in the Bookmark manager) and Mozilla's email client will import your Outlook address book.

As you can see from the porn spam attack, I'm going to need to close comments for at least a while, until the spam bots have moved on. Email me if you need to bring something to my attention.

UPDATE: pogge sends along the things I forgot, as I knew he would.

For users who prefer a separate email program, Mozilla also offers Thunderbird.

No, it doesn't have the same scheduling and "groupware" capabilities as the full version of Outlook, but that doesn't bother me because I hate Outlook with a passion. What Thunderbird provides is a replacement for Outlook Express which is Microsoft's stand-alone email client and may be the most insecure piece of software on the planet (next to Internet Explorer, of course).

Let me just add that my loathing of Outlook matches pogge's. It's a sentiment that I know Charles shares, as well.

Personal Economies

A Lean Turkey Season for Charities
Some Low on Funds, Donations To Fill Thanksgiving Baskets

By Theola S. Labbe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2004; Page B01

At Food for Others, a nonprofit agency in Fairfax City, the turkeys trickled in this week. Members of a Brownie troop pooled their cookie money and bought 10 birds. Strangers and longtime volunteers brought others.

With the loss of a state grant that enabled them to spend $9,000 last year on Thanksgiving baskets, the agency decided it could give out only 400 turkeys next week, compared with 900 last year.

"We're not able to do this year what we have in the past," Executive Director Roxanne Rice said. "It means that a lot of families will not be receiving holiday assistance."

That is a conclusion repeated across the area this year. The food drives and canned good donations that often embody the Thanksgiving season allow thousands of poor and low-income families to eat a solid holiday meal with all the trimmings. But this year, some agencies and nonprofits have had to limit their Thanksgiving offerings; at the same time, they face more requests for help.

"People are doing less than what they did in the past," said Marian Peele, director of agency relations for the Capital Area Food Bank, the Washington region's largest nonprofit nutrition and food organization with 750 member agencies. The food bank cannot donate turkeys and must charge members the cost. That, Peele said, is "a little bit of a challenge" for some members.

Christine Wiley, co-pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Southwest Washington, said her church wants to keep up the same level of Thanksgiving offerings as in past years, but it has been difficult.

The church, near Bolling Air Force Base, lost a key outreach staff member this year because of budget cuts. That person had years of experience in lining up food donations. The church has relied on volunteers and, she said, missed a deadline with a city nonprofit. All was not lost -- the nonprofit agreed to give the church 10 turkeys despite the deadline. "We're running behind compared to last year," Wiley said. Church workers will try up to the last minute to keep things as they have been. "It's difficult to cut back because there is a real expectation from the community that they will be able to count on the church," she said.

Wiley said the church plans to give out 100 Thanksgiving baskets, about half of them sponsored by the congregation. The rest come from various sources in the community, and Wiley said that this year, "We're not sure if we're going to make it."

Such struggles are complicated by a growing demand for charity. Across the region, government agencies and nonprofit groups reported higher numbers of needy families this year. The District's Department of Human Services plans to give out 250 Thanksgiving baskets, answering more than double last year's requests. And in Montgomery County, Andrea Jolly, director of the Volunteer Center, which coordinates referrals among 600 county agencies and community groups, has received 6,800 Thanksgiving referrals, 800 more than last year.

Fairfax and Montgomery Counties are among the most affluent in the country. This is the wonderful Bush economy we're talking about. The BLS job statistics are mostly bogus and a poor picture of the real economy.

The Road to Hell

Briefing frenzy in Washington over Iran nuclear fear
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 20/11/2004)

A briefing war erupted in Washington yesterday over the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions and how to counter them - a debate reminiscent of the countdown to the invasion of Iraq.

Washington has been thrown into a frenzy following Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks that Iran is studying how to equip a missile with a nuclear bomb.

Colin Powell: a rare stumble or deliberate political manouevre?

Even as officials pondered whether his remarks were a slip or a deliberate attempt to scupper a new initiative by Germany, France and Britain, the debate intensified yesterday over reports that the intelligence had been based on a single, unvetted source.

According to the Washington Post a "walk-in" source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages of documents containing the information that Mr Powell cited.

The suggestion that the information was based on a single source aroused alarm. Many politicians and journalists in Washington are still reeling from their over-reliance on single sources for the misleading pre-war intelligence about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Powell's comments initially fuelled speculation that Washington was seeking to undercut a tentative deal by three European Union states with Teheran for it to freeze its nuclear enrichment programme. Yesterday he played down the impact of his remarks, saying: "This shouldn't be brand new news. . .this shouldn't surprise anybody."

The growing diplomatic consensus, however, was that Mr Powell had made a rare stumble and had been lulled into saying more than he intended.

But the administration has stood by his remarks, which chime conveniently with the dominant view in Washington that the EU's diplomatic overtures are naïve and doomed. But for the moment, the administration seems willing to give the Europeans a chance, not least because it is still mired in Iraq.

Groundhog Day

Published: November 20, 2004

Stop us if you've heard this one before. The Bush administration creates a false sense of urgency about a nuclear menace from a Middle Eastern country. Hard-liners talk about that country's connections to terrorists. They portray European diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions as a feckless attempt to appease a rogue nation whose word can never be trusted anyway. Secretary of State Colin Powell makes ominous-sounding warnings about new intelligence, which turns out to be dubious.

That is how President Bush rushed the country into an unnecessary conflict with Iraq in his first term, and we have been seeing alarming signs of that approach all week on Iran.

Let's be cleareyed about this: Iran has an active nuclear program, has not tried terribly hard to hide it and has been dishonest in its dealings with the West. But nothing we have seen suggests some new, urgent development in Iran that would impel American officials to start talking about "the military option." In fact, the most recent developments have been encouraging. Last week, under the threat of a looming U.N. deadline, Tehran said it would freeze all uranium and plutonium processing and invite back international inspectors.

It was a welcome step, resulting from efforts by Britain, France and Germany, and signaled that even the hard-liners in Tehran are susceptible to economic appeals. If the negotiations over Iran's nuclear programs go well, Europe promises to resume talks on a preferential trade agreement. If they don't, it will be time for international economic sanctions. After meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush went out of his way to praise and endorse the Europeans' efforts.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Powell suddenly offered scary sounding talk about new intelligence that supposedly showed that Iran was not only working on enriching uranium, a big step toward making a bomb, but was also working on ways to attach such a weapon to a missile. His alarmist tone was a bit puzzling, since everyone has already agreed that Iran has nuclear ambitions, and it's hard to imagine a country wanting to own a nuclear bomb without exploring ways to use it. The world has also known for years that Iran was testing guided missiles.

Puzzlement turned to alarm yesterday when The Washington Post reported that Mr. Powell's comments were based on unverified information that had been brought to the United States by a previously unknown source whose reliability and authenticity had not yet been vetted. That certainly did bring back old memories - of Mr. Powell assuring the world that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, based on fanciful intelligence reports about aluminum tubes.

Steven Weisman of The Times reported that administration hawks were also talking about fresh intelligence on Iran's support for Hezbollah, which the world has known about for decades, and Iran's support for insurgents in Iraq, another old story. The hawks seem to be already starting to throw cold water on the prospects for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem while trying to open the door to contemplating a military option. An administration official told The Times that Mr. Powell was trying to avoid meeting with the Iranian foreign minister at a conference both men are to attend in Egypt next week.

Small wonder, then, that the Europeans started to accuse Washington of trying to undermine diplomacy with Iran, just as the Bush administration thwarted their efforts to resume the U.N. inspections of Iraq - inspections that we now know had been highly effective.

Iran has long been a target of the hawks in the administration, who are undoubtedly feeling their oats after the election. But we hope that President Bush has learned enough from the Iraq adventure to understand the dangers of using flawed intelligence to create a false sense of urgency about a national security threat.

Which ever AEI Bush surrogate was seconded to the Newshour last night actually repeated the "intent" argument, Iran has the intent and desire to acquire nuclear weapons. Do they really think anybody is going to fall for that twice?

Capitalism

Protesters Greet Bush In Santiago
President Hopes to Use 'New Capital' at Summit

By Robin Wright and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 20, 2004; Page A10

SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 19 -- In his first overseas trip since his reelection, President Bush arrived in Chile on Friday to use what he calls his "new capital" to press the 21 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to help with North Korea, terrorism and opening up regional trade.

But Bush's Latin American trip sparked a violent backlash before he arrived. Chilean police in armored vehicles used tear gas and water cannons during the day to break up demonstrations against U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush's presence in Chile and a summit that protesters called a rich man's club.

On the fourth day of anti-American and anti-APEC protests, a crowd estimated at 25,000 to 70,000 marched through downtown Santiago. Some hooded demonstrators threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. Many shouted chants or held signs saying "Terrorist Bush" and "Bush: Fascist, thief, murderer."

White House officials said the most important aspect of Bush's attendance at the summit would be separate meetings Saturday with the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, the other members of six-party talks with North Korea.

"We think this meeting is going to be very important for getting these other leaders and their governments on the North Korean case," a senior administration official said after briefing Bush during his nine-hour flight from Texas.

Aides accompanying Bush to the summit aboard Air Force One said that the president believes North Korea resisted arms talks to "buy time" until after the U.S. election and that he will use the trip to prod Asian allies to renew pressure on the country to give up its nuclear weapons.

"Now that we know the results, it's time to get back to business," the senior administration official said. "They've been trying to buy time to see what would happen."

President Stupid thinks he has "capital" with the rest of the planet? Hoo, boy, is this guy dumb. The Canadian press is talking about indicting him for war crimes when he comes to visit next month. Me thinks the Chileans might know a thing or three about them, too.

New Testament

This is it for tonight. I get up really early to read the papers and start the threads. Gilliard is a nightowl. I'm not. He doesn't have a day job. I do. I've got to spend the weekend doing things like making sure I have enough socks to wear next week.

I get two days off per week, like most of you, and I have to be pretty careful about how I'm budgeting my time if I'm going to get the laundry done.

This blog is a burden and a blessing and I'm trying to figure out how to make it less of the former and more of the latter. Your thoughts?

Culture from the Left Side of the Page

I'm watching Jag. I don't watch a lot of TV, but producer David Bellasirius tracks the culture a whole lot better than I do. The media have turned. It will take a while before the news shops get the message.

When a series takes on Gitmo, something new is engaged

I expect to be here through a cold and rainy weekend, seated in front of the monitor, documenting the best days of a better nation.

Payback is Hell

Via Skippy at The American Street (did I mention that I'm colleagues with the most famous bush kangaroo in the whoooole blogosphere?):

Freemans tuesday night the 16th of nov. the bush twins along with 2 massive secret service men tried to have dinner they were told by the maitre 'd that they were full and would be for the next 4 years upon hearing the entire restaurant cheered and did a round of shots it was amazing!!! [Ed: We're hearing that this is actually true.]

The Street does "Friday Funnies," bookmark it. I certainly enjoyed this one.

Fed Chief Finally Admits the Obvious

Now he tells us.

Greenspan Warns That U.S. Deficits Pose Risk to Dollar
By MARK LANDLER

Published: November 19, 2004

FRANKFURT, Nov. 19 - Alan Greenspan came to the home of the euro today and warned anxious Europeans to expect little relief from the relentless decline of the dollar against their currency.

In a speech to a banking congress here, Mr. Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the United States' persistently high current-account deficit in world trade posed a risk to the dollar's value, since foreign investors would eventually resist buying more American assets.

"It seems persuasive that, given the size of the U.S. current-account deficit, a diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point," he said. "But when, through what channels, and from what level of the dollar? Regrettably, no answer to these questions is convincing."

Mr. Greenspan likened predicting the dollar's path to "forecasting the outcome of a coin toss."

But the implication of the speech was clear to this audience of European bankers, who laughed nervously at his metaphor: The dollar, which has fallen to record lows against the euro this week - giving fits to European politicians and business executives - is likely to fall further still.

Currency traders reacted swiftly, driving the dollar down near its record low against the euro and to a four-and-a-half year low against the Japanese yen. The euro was quoted at $1.3019 in New York trading this afternoon, versus $1.2968 late Thursday. The dollar was also trading at 103.08 yen, down from 104.09 yen.

Mr. Greenspan's comments came two days after Treasury Secretary John W. Snow appeared to rule out helping the European Central Bank or any other central bank stem the decline of the dollar. Mr. Snow, speaking in London, prodded European leaders to tackle their home-grown economic problems.

Let's review, class. Bush preaches a "strong dollar" but does nothing to help prop it up. In fact, he can't. Interest has to rise to keep our scrip attractive to the foreign investors who are financing our debt through purchasing T-bonds.

But rising interest rates raise the price of lending on consumers, and most of the weakovery was financed by consumer spending based on acquiring debt, much of it mortage refinancing. The folks who bought ARMs are going to be in a world of hurt, and the interest rate rise is going to kick consumer spending in the nuts. For the sake of all the small businesses out there, I hope Greenspan holds off the next Fed Funds increase until after the holidays. If the dollar slide gets ahead of the (admittedly little) effect of the Fed Funds rate, retailers will have another dismal Christmas. The last three seasons were pretty dismal. My brother and sister in law have a small retail business. They have a raft of employees who depend on their sales. Connect the dots, class.

Religious War

We've elevated war crimes to a whole new level.

Iraqi, U.S. Forces Storm Baghdad Mosque

By Karl Vick and Khalid Jaffar
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 19, 2004; 6:47 PM

BAGHDAD, Nov. 19 -- Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers raided the most revered Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad, setting off stun grenades, arresting dozens and leaving at least two people dead, according to witnesses and a hospital official.

The raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque just after Friday prayers was the latest in a series of moves targeting religious clerics who support the insurgency, which continues to churn violently in the sections of Iraq dominated by the country's minority Sunni population.
....
"In the more than 55 years I have been praying at this mosque, it was hit twice," said Abu Numan, 65. "The first was in April 2003 when the Americans entered Baghdad, and the second was today, again at the hands of the Americans and the National Guard.

"Why? This is a holy place and the tomb of one of Islam's most revered figures. There should be some sanctity and respect for our shrines. This is unacceptable."

Witnesses said U.S. troops set up a perimeter around the mosque complex while uniformed Iraqi security forces disarmed the shrine's guards and swept into the sanctuary. Loud bangs and gunfire followed; afterward, blood stains were visible on the sidewalk outside the main gate.

Boys and girls, we shot people in a prayer service. I guess we decided that the whole "hearts and minds" thing is part of the failed policies of the past, we are going for pure brutality. We are also incredibly stupid.

You do not enter a masjid without removing your shoes and ritual washing. You do not. This is defilement. We've just defiled one of the holiest shrines in the Sunni world. Do you really think we aren't going to pay for this?

The creative imagination of an Osama bin Laden will now turn to places like the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Temple Beth El in New York, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and the like. Good for us.

Effing brilliant.

Lurking Disaster

Sy Hersh is a truthteller. I wish I'd been able to take in this Q&A; at Georgetown on Wednesday.

Journalist Hersh Criticizes Bush Administration, Policies

By Elizabeth Howard
Hoya Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A1

Aaron Terrazas/The Hoya

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh sat down to discuss a range of topics from the Bush administration to the Iraq war with New Yorker editor David Remnick in Gaston Hall Wednesday afternoon.

Hersh, the journalist Remnick called “the best and most aggressive investigative reporter in the United States,” answered questions from Remnick and audience members.

Hersh discussed the resignations of Secretary of State Colin Powell and other government officials, saying that President George W. Bush is promoting the “total loyalists” that support him.

“These are not merit appointments,” Hersh said. “This is a president who puts loyalty above all else. He certainly puts loyalty above competence and respect for the Constitution.”

Hersh added that this will not lead to a substantive change in the way things are run, because Powell lost in every disagreement he had with Bush’s policies. Hersh said there will simply be “no more internal debate about anything.”

Though he has covered several different presidential administrations, Hersh said Bush’s administration is very different from the others.

Hersh said Bush’s disregard for the press makes him different from past American leaders.

“You can’t talk to these guys,” Hersh said. “After 9/11, Bush said, ‘You’re with us or you’re against us.’”

Hersh said those people within the government who disagreed with Bush were replaced by those who were loyal.

“If you agreed with these guys, you were promoted,” he said.

Hersh added that Bush is not willing to receive information.

“My worry about this guy is it’s very hard to get information to him that he doesn’t want to hear,” he said.

He claimed that Bush not only ignores certain facts, but also truly believes what he says.

“This isn’t mendacity,” Hersh said. “It’s what he believes to be the truth, which is what’s scary. He believes he’s doing the right thing.”

Hersh added that the Bush administration is unwilling to cooperate with the press. Though he had a hostile relationship with Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration, Hersh said he always had access to Kissinger. He said Kissinger was always willing to talk with him.

“Now it’s almost impossible to get any kind of response,” he said.

Remnick said the White House’s lack of response is not unique to Hersh.

“It’s not just because it’s Seymour Hersh,” Remnick said. “We’ve noticed this from the start. It’s not unprecedented that there’s hostility from the White House to the press, but it’s a matter of degree.”

Hersh added that the Bush administration does not care what picture the press paints. He said that he thinks Bush was willing to risk his presidency on the Iraq war.

“And the president won’t care when more body bags come back,” he added.

Hersh also said the situation is worsening in Iraq.

“I don’t know how you could have an election,” he said.

Hersh claimed that the only way out of the war, though he added that it is not likely to happen, is for the United States to find a way to communicate with the people who are fighting against them.

“I would say, in a perfect world, let’s find a way to start talking to the leadership,” he said.

Executing Injured Prisoners in Falluja
by Omar Barghouti; November 17, 2004

Coming after the disclosure that more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed as a result of the US war on Iraq, the Abu Ghraib torture case, the wedding massacre -- in which 40 civilians, including 10 children, were killed in cold blood, as confirmed by an Associated Press Television News film -- and the onslaught of consistent, documented evidence of indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods by US forces, this new revelation should necessitate an investigation into the reported war crimes of the occupation forces by a UN-appointed committee with the intention of presenting the findings before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite the fact that the US does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, such an investigation may still present a crucial, indispensable forum that can exert moral and political pressure on the US and its occupation allies to better respect international law and the rules of war stipulated in it. The US armed forces cannot be trusted to conduct a proper investigation on their own. Their impressive record of lies, misinformation and cover-ups should amply explain why.

The majority of humanity, including most Americans, have a lot to lose from the outbreak of such an anarchic, take-no-prisoners type of war. When no moral principles or legal tenets apply anything goes to justify or rationalize heinous crimes against defenceless civilians. Racism and counter-racism, hate, xenophobia and utter callousness may prevail as a result, causing the rift between nations to widen and making peaceful reconciliation -- based on freedom, justice, democracy and the rule of law -- ever more unattainable. A human jungle will emerge, making beast jungles look civil in comparison.

Let's see: a growing moral/humanitarian/terrorism problem, and we're on the verge of a currency collapse (even NPR is reporting it now) and we're sitting awaiting a flu pandemic unprotected. I doubt that was the trifecta Bush wanted to hit, but that what we're going to get more of from the idiot and the circle of incompetents around him. I wonder if it will be enough to change the electorate's mind?

How Much is Enough?

Want to know our quality of life is being graded down by The Economist? This might have a little something to do with it:

Iraq War Topping $5.8 Billion A Month
United Press International
November 18, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is spending more than $5.8 billion a month on the war in Iraq, according to the military's top generals.

That is nearly a 50 percent increase above the $4 billion-a-month benchmark the Pentagon has used to estimate the cost of the war so far.

The Army alone is spending $4.7 million a month while the Air Force is spending $800 million a month transporting soldiers and flying combat missions. The Marine Corps is spending $300 million a month, the four service chiefs told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

Since 2003, the Pentagon has received some $160 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in supplemental funding -- that is, in addition to its annual budget. It will be requesting another multibillion-dollar supplement early next year to cover the continuing cost of the war.

Emigration Opportunity

Via The Agonist:

Forget the USA, Sri Lanka or South Africa, Ireland is the best place to live in the world
By James Sturcke

18 November 2004

For generations, hundreds of thousands left the Emerald Isle fleeing war and famine ­ all clinging to the belief life would be better elsewhere. Now, after two decades of a meteoric rise that has staggered financial gurus, Ireland has topped a poll as the best place to live in the world.

In a report published by The Economist magazine, the Republic won over Switzerland, Australia and Italy. In the process, Ireland trounced the main destinations of its traditional emigration. The US ranked 13th with the UK coming in at a miserable 29th position ­ the lowest of any EU pre-expansion members. Of the countries surveyed, the worst place to live in the world is Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe which came bottom at 111th.
....
Researchers took into account not just income, but other factors considered important to people's satisfaction and well-being.

They included health, freedom, unemployment, family life, climate, political stability and security, gender equality and family and community life.
....
Ireland was followed by Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg in the rankings. All but one of the top 10 were European countries ­ that was Australia, in 6th place.

The Republic has made significant gains from its membership of the EU, earning the soubriquet "Celtic Tiger" for its economic progress. It is widely admired by the EU's newest members, and has become a model for what they hope to achieve.

Since the 1980s, Ireland has been transformed from a glum financial basket case to a vibrant rapidly-changing country. Dan O'Brien, of the Economist Intelligent Unit, said: "Ireland is now one of the richest countries in the world by any measure. It enjoys social calm combined with civil and political liberties, which surveys show, are not bettered anywhere. Thousands of returning emigrants and arriving immigrants who vote with their feet know there are few better places in the world to live."

Although European nations generally do well in the survey, the continent's major industrial powers ­ France, Germany and Britain ­ finished a poor 25th, 26th and 29th respectively.

The researchers said although the UK achieved high income per head, it had high levels of social and family breakdown. Its performance on health, civil liberties, political stability and security was also below the average.

Elsewhere, the survey found the quality of life in the US has plummeted in the past year. Second only to Luxembourg in last year's survey, it has dropped 11 places to 13th this time round. The impact of war is hard to quantify but even harder is Iraq, which has dropped off the scale, with the compilers citing "lack of information".

So, it looks like we should be headed to Ireland, not Canada....

Union News

Good news being very hard to find these days, I'll settle for this:

Pizza drivers' union demands better wages

FLEDGLING LABOR GROUP HAS YET TO ORGANIZE ITS FIRST SHOP

By Matt Gouras

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHVILLE - A fledgling national union for pizza drivers is demanding better wages and training, saying the large chains have been taking advantage of them for years.

It's an effort that has attracted the attention of the Teamsters union, but the Association of Pizza Delivery Driv-ers, based in Hendersonville, has yet to organize its first shop.

A vote at a Domino's franchise in Lincoln, Neb., failed Tuesday night on a 2-2 vote. But organizers expect a better result next week when Pizza Hut drivers vote at a store near Columbus, Ohio.

Tim Lockwood, treasurer of the pizza delivery union, said getting the first vote itself was a huge victory. After all, the union started just a couple of years ago with a few drivers talking in an Internet chat room about unfair working conditions.

"We built a Web site and they came," said Lockwood, a pizza delivery driver who declined to identify the company he works for.

Now they have about 600 drivers from across the country signed up for the free union, and he feels momentum gathering for more unionization votes.

Lockwood said pizza drivers make $5.50 to $6 an hour, plus tips, and get reimbursed 50 to 75 cents a delivery, no matter how far away it is. Even worse, he said, pizza delivery is annually ranked among the most dangerous jobs.

I have a friend who took her bargaining unit independent. It isn't easy but it can be done.

Paying for a Fake

US expected to boost troop levels in Iraq
Some question whether it will be enough to quell the violence and worry about the impact of prolonged tours.
By Ann Scott Tyson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Amid a spike in violence in Iraqi cities coinciding with the Fallujah offensive, the US military is now planning to boost combat forces to secure the country for elections in January.

The US is likely to expand the force by thousands of GIs in coming weeks by delaying the departure of more experienced units from Iraq as fresh troops rotate in, military officials say.

The overlap would create a temporary surge in American forces - which now number 141,000 in Iraq - to cope with an expected wave of insurgent attacks aimed at disrupting the polling. More US troops are required as Iraqi security forces remain highly vulnerable to attacks and intimidation. This was underscored by a rash of insurgent strikes on police stations in Mosul, Baqubah, and other cities in the past week, when attacks nationwide rose to 50 percent higher than the average in recent months.

Some US military officials have long argued that the United States cannot win the war in Iraq without committing tens of thousands more troops. Others contend that more troops would simply present more targets, and the US military should scale back and let Iraqis contend with much of the violence.

In reality, the US cannot substantially increase ground forces in Iraq for the long term without accepting risk in other parts of the world or making Iraq tours longer or closer together - a step sure to lower morale. "I'm committed to providing the troops that are requested, but I can't promise more than I've got," the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told a Congressional hearing Wednesday in which military service chiefs detailed soaring demands on manpower and equipment.

"The demand on the force has increased exponentially," the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, told the House Armed Services Committee, saying Marines now spend about twice as much time deployed as two years ago.

Decisions are expected soon on extending specific units in Iraq, and on the possibility of deploying others early from bases in the US, according to senior military officials. In October, the military ordered some 6,500 troops to delay their departure from Iraq.

"There is ample opportunity" to increase troop levels by overlapping new arrivals with others whose tours would be extended as large units of 20,000 to 30,000 troops rotate, says a senior US military official in Baghdad. But a larger increase could run into constraints - the current limits of basing and support services.

Pressure grows for Iraq election delay

Allawi aide says deadline looks more and more unrealistic
Michael Howard in Dukan
Friday November 19, 2004

The Guardian

The January deadline for Iraq's first post-Saddam elections looked increasingly in doubt yesterday after a senior aide to the interim prime minister predicted a delay.

Leading Sunni Muslim politicians also called for a postponement until there was an improvement in the dire security situation in the country's Sunni Arab heartlands.

"I don't think within the time available we can do everything, so I think a delay or postponing elections is more likely than holding them on time," said Ibrahim Janabi, a senior aide to Ayad Allawi.

Mohsen Abdul Hamid, the head of the mainstream Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic party, said: "I am with the delay. The security situation does not make it possible for the Sunni Arabs to vote. The Sunnis will boycott the elections if the security situation continues as it is now."

The comments came as senior Iraqi politicians convened at the lakeside resort of Dukan, in the Kurdistan region, for two days of crisis talks on how to move towards the country's first free elections in decades.

I'm sure we'll manage to orchestrate some sort of bogus elections at some point. My only question is when is the American public going to wake up to the cost in blood and treasure for bringing this lovely, trumped-up "democracy" project to the ungrateful Iraqi people? How many more cities will we have to flatten in order to create a peaceful and free Iraq?