Sending a Little Bump to Katrina's Survivors

Chris Bowers of MyDD is pulling the Liberal Alliance together on Thursday as our day to blogswarm for the Red Cross. I'll have a special button installed that will allow us to keep track of readers who donate through Bump. I'll be driving to the Northern Virginia Headquarters of the Red Cross tomorrow to write them a check. This is something left and right blogs can get together on. The Red Cross has a secure server. I'll also have an address to which you can mail a check if, like me, you don't use credit cards.

In the face of the sort of dumbfoundedness I feel before this tragedy, I want to do something. As a blogger, this is what I can do. Anything you can give will be much appreciated. The people of the Gulf coast have lost everything, over a million have lost their homes. God knows how many have died: it will be weeks before we can tally the human cost.

As I told you at the beginning of August, the National Tropical Prediction Center in Miami predicted that would be an intense hurricane season, and I told you last winter that climatologists have said since 1995 that we have entered into a predicatable cycle of greater hurricane frequency and intensity. All of this is, of course, exacerbated by global warming: the waters of the Gulf were already two degrees warmer this year than any previous record.

Bushco is responsible for a lot of the damage; his failure to fully fund the needed levee improvements (in order to pay for the Iraq war) and to properly staff and fund FEMA took what would have been catastrophe under the best of circumstances into utter devestation.

Just a reminder that this level of preparedness is what we have to look forward to for an avian influenza pandemic. Hundreds of thousands will die from avian flu, in the US alone. The toll could be a billion world wide.

We all saw the videos of the looting. Yes, these kinds of human tragedies can bring out humanity's worst. Let's show the world humanity's best.

The people of the Gulf are going to need help for a long, long time. Remember to give when the cable channels stop running this story wall to wall. No homes, no businesses, no jobs. It's mindblowing.

Gas Open Thread

Along the 3/4 mile of main drag I traverse to get to the grocery store there are a half-dozen gas stations. Normally, regular unleaded varies not more than a penny or two between them. The place across the street, usually the most expensive, was cheapest at $2.89. The price varies .30, to $3.09.

What do gas prices look like in your part of the world?

The Toll

U.S. declares health emergency
New Orleans mayor: Thousands may be dead

Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Posted: 4:28 p.m. EDT (20:28 GMT)

(CNN) -- The Bush administration declared a public health emergency for the entire Gulf Coast on Wednesday in an effort to stop the spread of disease in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Wednesday after announcing the emergency.

"We are also erecting a network of up to 40 medical shelters," Leavitt said. "They will have the capacity, collectively, of 10,000 beds, and will be staffed by some 4,000 qualified medical personnel." (See the video report of what health assaults the city might face -- 2:18)

Leavitt said the declaration would simplify and speed the relief effort. (Health risks)

Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reportedly said Wednesday that the storm probably killed thousands of people in his city.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and others dead in attics, The Associated Press quoted Nagin as saying. When asked how many, he reportedly said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Nagin and other Louisiana officials had refused to give a casualty count in the past, saying emergency workers were focusing on the rescue effort.

Opportunism

Hands Full, Officials Are Helpless Against Looters

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 31, 2005

Filed at 2:01 p.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- With law officers and National Guardsmen focused on saving lives, looters around the city spent another day brazenly ransacking stores for food, clothing, appliances -- and guns.

Thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass of a pharmacy. The crowd stormed the store, carrying out so much ice, water and food that it dropped from their arms as they ran. The street was littered with packages of ramen noodles and other items.

Looters also chased down a state police truck full of food. The New Orleans police chief ran off looters while city officials themselves were commandeering equipment from a looted Office Depot. During a state of emergency, authorities have broad powers to take private supplies and buildings for their use.

Officials tried to balance security needs with saving lives.

''We're multitasking right now,'' said New Orleans Police Capt. Marlon Defillo. ''Rescue, recovery, stabilization of looting, we're trying to feed the hungry.''

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she has asked the White House to send more people to help with evacuations and rescues, thereby freeing up National Guardsmen to stop looters.

''We need to free up the National Guard to do security in the city,'' Blanco said.

New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert, said looters were breaking into stores all over town and stealing guns. He said there are gangs of armed men moving around the city. At one point, officers stranded on the roof of a hotel were fired at by criminals on the street.

The Times-Picayune newspaper reported that the gun section at a new Wal-Mart had been cleaned out by looters.

Authorities said an officer was shot in the head and a looter was wounded in a shootout. The officer was expected to survive.

Staff members at Children's Hospital huddled with sick youngsters and waited in vain for help to arrive as looters tried to break through the locked door, Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher told the newspaper. Neither the police nor the National Guard arrived.

The Bush Clusterfsck

Since Bush has gutted FEMA, it is going to be up to us to pick up the slack.

Cash donations sought for hurricane victims

WASHINGTON (AP) — While a variety of government and private agencies are en route to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina, federal officials said Monday people wanting to help should not head to the affected area unless directed by an agency.

Instead, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, urged people to make cash contributions to organizations.

Cash donations "allow volunteer agencies to issue cash vouchers to victims so they can meet their needs. Cash donations also allow agencies to avoid the labor-intensive need to store, sort, pack and distribute donated goods. Donated money prevents, too, the prohibitive cost of air or sea transportation that donated goods require."

FEMA listed the following agencies as needing cash to assist hurricane victims:

• American Red Cross, 800-HELP NOW (435-7669) English, 800-257-7575 Spanish.

• Operation Blessing, 800-436-6348.

• America's Second Harvest, 800-344-8070.

• Adventist Community Services, 800-381-7171.

• Catholic Charities, USA, 703-549-1390.

• Christian Disaster Response, 941-956-5183 or 941-551-9554.

• Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, 800-848-5818.

• Church World Service, 800-297-1516.

• Convoy of Hope, 417-823-8998.

• Lutheran Disaster Response, 800-638-3522.

• Mennonite Disaster Service, 717-859-2210.

• Nazarene Disaster Response, 888-256-5886.

• Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, 800-872-3283.

• Salvation Army, 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769).

• Southern Baptist Convention — Disaster Relief, 800-462-8657, ext. 6440.

• United Methodist Committee on Relief. 800-554-8583.

Donations can be made online to most of these organizations through Network for Good.

Federal Demise

This op-ed ran earlier in the WaPo. The writer is the one disaster planner in the country who arranged for a meeting between local businesses and emergency managers to prepare for avian influenza. Given what we've learned from Katrina, FEMA is a disaster. We are on our own, folks.

Disasters keep coming but FEMA phased out
Agency responsible for preparedness absorbed into homeland security

ERIC HOLDEMAN

Washington Post

SEATTLE - In the days to come, as the nation copes with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness?

FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust.

All-hazards preparedness

The creation of the federal agency encouraged states, counties and cities to convert from their civil defense organizations and to establish emergency management agencies to do the requisite planning for disasters. Over time, a philosophy of "all-hazards disaster preparedness" was developed that sought to conserve resources by producing single plans that were applicable to many types of events.But it was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, that really energized FEMA. The year after that catastrophic storm, President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called "Project Impact." FEMA was elevated to a Cabinet-level agency, in recognition of its important responsibilities coordinating efforts across departmental and governmental lines.

Witt fought for federal funding to support the new program. At its height, only $20 million was allocated to the national effort, but it worked wonders. One example: When the Nisqually earthquake struck the Puget Sound area on Feb. 28, 2001, homes had been retrofitted for earthquakes and schools were protected from high-impact structural hazards. Those involved with Project Impact thought it ironic that the day of that quake was also the day that the then-new president chose to announce that Project Impact would be discontinued.

The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The agency's newly appointed leadership showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed.

Agency's death blow

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism. Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.

America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for that. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like Katrina, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic will have to be dealt with. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are weakening our ability to respond to them.

Looking Ahead

Governor: Everyone must leave New Orleans
8/31/2005, 8:58 a.m. CT
By BRETT MARTEL
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers struggled without success to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was worsening and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city. "The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole."

As the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, four Navy ships raced toward the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, and Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region. The Red Cross reported it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area in one of the biggest urban disasters the nation has ever seen.

The death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone, while Louisiana put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.

A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets on Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.

"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."

Blanco said she wanted the Superdome — which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people — evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

At the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana.

The sweltering city of 480,000 people — an estimated 80 percent of whom obeyed orders to evacuate as Katrina closed in over the weekend — also had no drinkable water, the electricity could be out for weeks, and looters were ransacking stores around town.

"The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials."

She gave no details on exactly where the refugees would be taken. But in Houston, Rusty Cornelius, a county emergency official, said at least 25,000 of them would travel in a bus convoy to Houston starting Wednesday and would be sheltered at the 40-year-old Astrodome, which is no longer used for professional sporting events.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories — boats the agency uses to house its own employees.

Everyone in the disaster planning biz has known for decades that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was the nightmare scenario, and this is what we have for disaster planning? Counting on the Feds for a bird flu outbreak is a major joke. We are on our own.

Recession

U.S. Decision to Release Oil Sends Prices Below $70

By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: August 31, 2005

The Energy Department said this morning it would release oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep refineries supplied, prompting a drop in crude oil prices, the first decrease since Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on Monday and severely disrupted the energy infrastructure along the gulf.

Appearing on a series of cable news shows, the Energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, said the decision to release the crude oil was made Tuesday night after several oil refiners asked to borrow from the 700-million barrel reserve.

The price for crude oil for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell almost immediately, by 18 cents a barrel, to $69.63.

$3.00 gas? Check the price at the corner station. Mine is already there.

Downscaling

The new proletariat

By Robert Kuttner | August 31, 2005

THIS LABOR DAY, wage-workers have little to celebrate. Though unemployment is down, job insecurity is up. Health and pension benefits are dwindling. Weakened worker bargaining power is reflected in flat earnings.

According to a new report from the Census Bureau, real wages of fulltime workers fell 2.3 percent for men and 1 percent for women between 2003-04, and median family income declined by $1,669 since 2000. Productivity is up 15 percent, but gains have gone to profits, not wages.

The Economic Policy Institute calculates that the median hourly wage, $16.13 in July 2005, is right where it was in November 2001, when the current recovery began. Adjusted for inflation, the median wage back then was $16.15.

One group of workers is particularly hard-hit by multiple trends -- the young.

The young are less likely to have jobs with decent health insurance. If they have pensions at all, they are typically plans at risk for stock-market fluctuations; they are far less likely to have defined benefit pensions whose payouts are guaranteed.

The young have not just lower wages but lower career horizons. Union workers, who enjoy higher average wages, tend to be in their 40s and 50s. When these workers retire or are laid off, either the jobs vanish or their successors typically get lower wages. Even some union contracts have settled for two-tier wage systems, with much lower pay scales for newcomers performing the same work.

Job prospects of the young are only the beginning of their pocketbook challenges. Today's average four-year college graduate has over $20,000 in loans, whose payments cut into disposable income. That figure has nearly doubled in a decade.

The real estate boom has been great for homeowners, but terrible for young families trying to buy in. Homeownership rates among 25- to 34-year-olds declined from 51.6 percent in 1980 to 45.6 percent in 2000. Hard pressed young people purchasing homes are more likely to reduce payments with adjustable-rate mortgages or interest-only loans. These financing mechanisms, however, put them at grave risk of getting slammed when the housing bubble pops.

Their gamble is that appreciation in the value of the house will allow them to build up equity, as the last generation did. But someone who goes deeply into debt to buy at the peak of the market can be wiped out if the property value declines.

The big exception to this story, of course, is young people with affluent parents. Consider two hypothetical 28-year olds, Smith and Jones, who earn identical paychecks.

Smith is paying $200 a month on college loans. His barebones health insurance policy has a high employee premium contribution and costly co-pays. He is paying $600 a month for a one-third share of an apartment, and has no prospect of buying a home any time soon.

Jones, despite identical earnings, has very different financial prospects. His parents paid his tuition, so he has no college loans. His father is offering a ''loan" to help with a down-payment on a condo. His family is also there in case of unforeseen medical expenses.

America has always celebrated its mobility. When my father, back from World War II, became the first member of his family to buy a home, he did it on a modest paycheck with a GI loan. He managed it on one income while my mother stayed home with me.

Seldom in our history were the economic prospects of the young more determined by their parents' status. Children of the elite have always had a head start, but in the past young people without affluent parents could also afford the two big tickets to the middle class -- a college degree and a home.

This new reality is not just a historical accident. It reflects deliberate policy.

Welcome to the 21st Century. It took me 10 years to pay off my college loans. I defaulted twice and haven't had a credit rating worth discussing since. I make less than my parents did at my age. I'm making my COBRA health insurance payment today, it's nearly $300 a month. It doesn't look like it is going to get any better in this life.

Our Boys in Uniform

Overseas deployments hinder
Guard hurricane presence

By Pete Yost
Associated Press

Some 6,000 National Guard personnel in Louisiana and Mississippi who would be available to help deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are in Iraq, highlighting the changing role of America’s part-time soldiers.

“The juxtaposition of the mission to Iraq and the response to Katrina really demonstrates the new and changing character of the National Guard,” Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute, said Monday.

The war has forced the Guard into becoming an operational force, a far cry from its historic role as a strategic reserve primarily available to governors for disasters and other duties in their home states.

At 1.2 million soldiers, the active duty military is simply too small to carry the load by itself when there is a large sustained deployment like Iraq. Nationally, 78,000 of the 437,000 members of the Guard force are serving overseas.

As part of the transformation during the war effort, the National Guard has promised governors that at least 50 percent of soldiers and airmen will be available for stateside duty at all times. In most cases, the rate is well above 50 percent.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the Gulf states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs, with at least 60 percent of the Guard available in each state.

In Louisiana, which took the brunt of Katrina, some 3,000 members of the 256th Combat Brigade are in Iraq, while 3,500 members of the Guard were deployed to help hurricane victims and another 3,000 were on standby.

In neighboring Mississippi, the Guard had 853 troops on hurricane duty — a small slice of the more than 7,000 Guard troops in the state’s ground and air components. Some 3,000 National Guard troops from Mississippi are in Iraq, another 300 in Afghanistan.

Feeling safer?

A Lighter Note

The Daily Racing Form turns 100 today. I never go to the track without it and I always make money with it. Consider yourself informed.

The New Reality

Much of Gulf Coast Is Crippled; Death Toll Rises After Hurricane

By JOSEPH B. TREASTER and N. R. KLEINFIELD
Published: August 31, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 30 - A day after New Orleans thought it had narrowly escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, water broke through two levees on Tuesday and virtually submerged and isolated the city, causing incalculable destruction and rendering it uninhabitable for weeks to come.

OIL PRICES The cost of a barrel of oil soared above $70 as the damage to offshore platforms became apparent.

PUBLIC HEALTH Officials warned the health consequences were likely to be enormous.

WHITHER NEW ORLEANS People are wondering what will remain of the city, physically and psychologically.

MILITARY RESPONSE Five Navy ships and eight maritime rescue teams were ordered to the Gulf Coast.

HOW TO HELP A partial list of relief organizations and other information available on the Web.
A mother and her daughter made their way toward the Superdome and shelter.

With bridges washed out, highways converted into canals, and power and communications lines inoperable, government officials ordered everyone still remaining out of the city. Officials began planning for the evacuation of the Superdome, where about 10,000 refugees huddled in increasingly grim conditions as water and food were running out and rising water threatened the generators.

The situation was so dire that late in the day the Pentagon ordered five Navy ships and eight Navy maritime rescue teams to the Gulf Coast to bolster relief operations. It also planned to fly in Swift boat rescue teams from California.

As rising water and widespread devastation hobbled rescue and recovery efforts, the authorities could only guess at the death toll in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast. In Mississippi alone, officials raised the official count of the dead to at least 100.

"It looks like Hiroshima is what it looks like," Gov. Haley Barbour said, describing parts of Harrison County, Miss.

Across the region, rescue workers were not even trying to gather up and count the dead, officials said, but pushed them aside for the time being as they tried to find the living.

As the sweep of the devastation became clear, President Bush cut short his monthlong summer vacation on Tuesday and returned to Washington, where he will meet on Wednesday with a task force established to coordinate the efforts of 14 federal agencies that will be involved in responding to the disaster.

The scope of the catastrophe caught New Orleans by surprise. A certain sense of relief that was felt on Monday afternoon, after the eye of the storm swept east of the city, proved cruelly illusory, as the authorities and residents woke up Tuesday to a more horrifying result than had been anticipated. Mayor Ray Nagin lamented that while the city had dodged the worst-case scenario on Monday. Tuesday was "the second-worst-case scenario."

It was not the water from the sky but the water that broke through the city's protective barriers that changed everything for the worse. New Orleans, with a population of nearly 500,000, is protected from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain by levees. North of downtown, breaches in the levees sent the muddy waters of the lake pouring into the city.

Streets that were essentially dry in the hours immediately after the hurricane passed were several feet deep in water on Tuesday morning. Even downtown areas that lie on higher ground were flooded. The mayor said both city airports were underwater.

Mayor Nagin said that one of the levee breaches was two to three blocks long, and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been dropping 3,000-pound sandbags into the opening from helicopters, as well as sea-land containers with sand, to try to seal the break. Late Tuesday night, there were reports that the rising waters had caused a nearby station that pumps water out of the city to fail.

Site Highlights

Read the palamedes posts, I'll have them better organized by the end of the week with a link in the sidebar. You can find them right now by going to the search function on the sidebar and querying "avian influenza+preparation." Rich is doing a brilliant job.

The Flu Wiki is about to burst on the Flu scene as the ultimate resource. I'm getting invited to conferences and things. This is all very flattering and whatnot, but the job is to save lives. That is what I care about, as do the other posters. Self importance is never attractive, less so when other people's lives are at risk. We aim to give you the straight dope. Act on it and help your friends and family survive and help others through what may be the first pandemic in modern times. We are here to help you survive it.

The Least of Us

There are millions of animals stranded on the Gulf coast. They aren't welcome in shelters and they've been left in flooded homes to fend for themselve.

The Humane Society of the US can help. After you've helped the Red Cross, help them.

Rosa, Eddie and I thank you.

The videos make me cry.

Down, Down, Down

Energy Prices Surge on Pipeline Snags

The shutdown of oil platforms, refineries and pipelines along the Gulf Coast drove energy prices to new highs Tuesday, all-but-guaranteeing a surge in pump prices in the days ahead. Oil prices briefly jumped above $70 a barrel.

The trading frenzy on futures markets reflected uncertainty and fear about the full extent of the damage Hurricane Katrina inflicted on key energy infrastructure, as well as the constraints being felt where actual shipments of gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel are bought and sold.

"This is an extremely serious situation," said Tom Kloza, director of the Wall, N.J.-based Oil Price Information Service.

Analysts said that even if Katrina did less harm than feared its effects would nevertheless tighten the availability of already scarce refined products, such as heating oil and gasoline.

In wholesale markets on the Gulf Coast, some gasoline was being priced as high as $2.85 a gallon and in the Midwest, prices were as high as $2.65 a gallon, Kloza said. Retail costs are typically 60 cents higher, meaning motorists in these regions could very well see pump prices in some markets exceed $3 a gallon.

Light sweet crude for October delivery rose $2.15 to $69.35 a barrel by afternoon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had reached as high as $70.85, a new high on Nymex, although still below the inflation-adjusted high of about $90 a barrel that was set in 1980.

September gasoline futures rose 29.94 cents, or 14.5 percent, to $2.36 a gallon on Nymex, where trading was halted briefly after the exchange's 25-cent trading limit was reached. Heating oil futures climbed by 12.12 cents to $2.03 a gallon.

Natural gas futures raced higher as well. Natural gas for October delivery traded at $11.75 per 1,000 cubic feet, an increase of 61.1 cents.

Analysts believe that the operations of natural gas processors and chemical manufacturers, who depend heavily on the natural gas as a feedstock, could be disrupted for days, if not weeks.

The runup in natural gas and heating oil futures may mean sharply higher home-heating bills lie ahead this winter.

In addition to refineries and oil platforms, critical infrastructure that remained out of service included:

- the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the largest oil import terminal in the United States.

- the Colonial Pipeline, which transports refined products such as gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel from Houston to markets as far away as the Northeast.

- the Plantation Pipe Line, which transports fuel from refineries in Mississippi and Louisiana to consuming markets as far away as northern Virginia.

- the Capline pipeline system, which transports crude oil from the Gulf to the Midwest.

"These are pretty challenging circumstances," Kloza said.

Companies are scrambling to assess damage to their platforms, pipelines and refineries - a task easier said than done in some cases because, in addition to flooding, the Gulf Coast has been plagued by power outages.

The economy wasn't so hot before this. Can you say recession? I thought you could.

Catastrophe

Racing to help

President Bush was returning to Washington two days ahead of schedule to help oversee Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, the White House announced. (Full story)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to house "at least tens of thousands of victims ... for literally months on end," the agency's director, Michael Brown, said Monday night.

Veteran FEMA staffers who have surveyed the destruction are reporting some of the worst damage they have ever seen, he said. (Full story)

Louisiana and Mississippi officials urged evacuees as well as those stranded by flooding from the storm to stay put.

"It's too dangerous to come home," said Blanco, who ordered state police to block re-entry routes to all but emergency workers.

The American Red Cross said it is launching the largest relief operation in its history. (Full story)

More than 75,000 people are being housed in nearly 240 shelters across the region, and Red Cross President Marty Evans told CNN, "We expect that to grow" as people who can't return home seek somewhere to stay. (How to help)

More than 1.7 million homes and businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were without electricity, according to utility companies serving the region.

Katrina was downgraded to a tropical depression Tuesday. As of the 11 a.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center, Katrina was about 25 miles south of Clarksville, Tennessee, moving north-northeast at 21 mph.

On Katrina's way north Monday night through Mississippi, its outer bands spawned tornados in Georgia. Three twisters were reported there, one in central Peach County and two in the northwest counties of Carroll and Paulding. One person in Carroll County was critically injured.

You can see the video on the news and the cable channels. I have a thing about overusing superlatives, bit it really is incredible to see. I remember the video from Homestead, Florida, but the scale and scope of the damage Katrina is something I'm having a hard time getting my mind around.

Disaster

CNN is reporting that Dauthen Island, Alabama, has been wiped bare. Jack Cafferty is saying that gas may go up 20-30 cents a gallon. The damage is incredible. Coastal Alabama has been devastated.

I watch CNN So You Don't Have To

I've done television, I've done radio. Can anyone explain to me why Kyra Phillips has a job? She can't complete a coherent English sentence.

Weirdness

This is going to be one of those days. I'm having problems with the cable broadband. My cable company has been remarkable for uptime, but they are having local problems today. This is independent of any severe storms, which haven't gotten here yet. And the host server for JTF and Flu Wiki is down. They should be back up within a couple of hours, at the latest. I've got a bunch of administrative things to do, so posting might be light for the next few hours.

Among the Ordained

Army, Rabbi at Odds Over Departure

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A04

TORONTO -- The U.S. Army has listed Rabbi Jeffrey Goldman as a deserter, making him subject to arrest if he returns to the United States. But he maintains that he was driven out of the military chaplaincy by anti-Semitic harassment from Christian colleagues.

Goldman, 33, left Fort Stewart, Ga., in January 2002 to return to his native Canada after just one year as an Orthodox Jewish military chaplain. He said that he believes he resigned legally from the Army and that the desertion charge was a vindictive response to his allegations.

While he was posted at the Georgia base, Goldman said, he worked in a "poisonous atmosphere" created by three Christian chaplains. One of the men taunted him by displaying Nazi guard uniforms, he said. His supervising chaplain told him, "Rabbi, if you want to survive down here, this is the South, and you'd better forget you are a [expletive] Yankee rabbi from up north," Goldman said.

"It was a very, very harsh environment. I never had any problems with the officers or the soldiers, only the other chaplains," Goldman said in an interview.
....
Goldman's complaints led to an Army inspector general's investigation. Officials at Fort Stewart declined to discuss the case or disclose the results. Goldman said the inspector general's report "was trying to make this look like I was afraid to go on deployment and I fled and used the anti-Semitic allegations to cover it up."

He said Protestant chaplains resented him in part because Jewish, Muslim and Catholic chaplains are courted by the military to relieve a shortage in those faiths -- a charge the Pentagon denies.

The Pentagon may deny it, but I happen to know that it is true, as a recent seminary grad.

Military Wrestles With Disharmony Among Chaplains

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; A01

The growing influence of evangelical Protestants is roiling the military chaplain corps, where their desire to preach their faith more openly is colliding with long-held military traditions of pluralism and diversity.

After accusations this summer that evangelical chaplains, faculty and coaches were pressuring cadets at the Air Force Academy, the Air Force yesterday issued new guidelines on respect for religious minorities. In the Navy, evangelical Protestant chaplains are fighting what they say is a legacy of discrimination in hiring and promotions, and they are bridling at suggestions they not pray publicly "in the name of Jesus."

Much of the conflict is in two areas that, until now, have been nearly invisible to civilians: how the military hires its ministers and how they word their public prayers. Evangelical chaplains -- who are rising in numbers and clout amid a decline in Catholic priests and mainline Protestant ministers -- are challenging the status quo on both questions, causing even some evangelical commanders to worry about the impact on morale.

"There is a polarization that is beginning to set up that I don't think is helpful. Us versus them," said Air Force Col. Richard K. Hum, an Evangelical Free Church minister who is the executive director of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board. "I don't know whether it's an overflow of what's happening in society. But this sort of thing is so detrimental to what we are trying to do in the chaplaincy."

The Rev. MeLinda S. Morton, a Lutheran minister who resigned in June as an Air Force chaplain after criticizing the religious atmosphere at the Air Force Academy, said there has been a palpable rise in evangelical fervor not just among chaplains but also among the officer corps in general since she joined the military in 1982, originally as a launch officer in a nuclear missile silo.

"When we were coneheads -- missile officers -- I would never, ever have engaged in conversations with subordinates aligning my power and position as an officer with my views on faith matters," she said. Today, "I've heard of people being made incredibly uncomfortable by certain wing commanders who engage in sectarian devotions at staff meetings."
Diversity Without Quotas

The tradition of chaplains in the U.S. military goes back to George Washington, who first sought a minister for his Virginia regiment in 1756. In the early days of the republic, commanders simply chose a chaplain who shared their beliefs. But with the expansion of the military in World War II, the armed services set quotas for chaplains of various faiths, attempting to match the proportion of each denomination in the general population.

In a class-action lawsuit -- filed in 1999 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and still in the discovery, or evidence-gathering, stage -- more than 50 Navy chaplains contend that the formula became a rigid and discriminatory "thirds rule": one-third Catholics, one-third mainline Protestants and one-third everybody else.

According to Hum, the military abandoned numerical targets about 20 years ago, partly for legal reasons and partly because the proliferation of religious groups made the system unworkable. Although chaplains are paid by the armed services, they must be ordained and "endorsed," or nominated, by religious organizations. The number of endorsers has grown from about 10 denominations in 1945 to more than 240 groups today, Hum said.

Like college admissions officers, Pentagon officials now say they seek diversity without using quotas.

"We don't actually say we want to have four rabbis this year, or 20 Catholic priests. What we do is, we look at who is sent to us by our endorsers throughout the country and . . . then we bring the best qualified into the chaplain corps," Rear Adm. Louis V. Iasiello, a Catholic priest and the chief of Navy chaplains, said in an interview at the Pentagon's Navy Annex.

Pentagon data analyzed by The Washington Post show a substantial rise in the number of evangelical chaplains in the past decade, along with a modest decline in mainline Protestant ministers and a precipitous drop in Catholic priests, mirroring a nationwide priest shortage.

Of the approximately 1.4 million people on active duty in the military, 21.5 percent list their religion as Roman Catholic. But of the 2,860 active-duty chaplains, 355 -- or 12.4 percent -- are Catholic priests.

I have a friend, a Unitarian minister, who helped draw up the guidelines for what represents an authentic religion for the chaplaincy corps. The Pentagon is pretty broad, they include Wicca.

I've been hearing stories about tension in the chaplaincy corps for a couple of years now. Never expected to see it on the front page of the WaPo.

Disaster

New Orleans Escapes Direct Hit, but Most of City Is Inundated

By JOSEPH B. TREASTER and KATE ZERNIKE
Published: August 30, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 30 - New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast today began to deal with the devastation caused by one of the worst storms ever to hit the United States.

Some people had to be rescued from their rooftops in New Orleans after the storm passed.

Floodwaters from a canal were sending more water into already flooded areas of New Orleans, and Mayor C. Ray Nagin said in a television interview that the city was 80 percent under water, with some of it 20 feet deep.

Hundreds of residents have been rescued from rooftops, and as dawn broke rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for more survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The death toll in just one Mississippi county could be as high as 80, Gov. Haley Barbour said. Preliminary reports on Monday put the toll at 55.

"The devastation down there is just enormous," Mr. Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show. "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life," he added, referring to Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi.

"This is our tsunami," Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi, Miss., told The Biloxi Sun Herald.

A survey team has been sent to inspect an overflowing canal in New Orleans that is adding to already flooded areas, said Lieut. Kevin Cowan of the National Guard, who is attached to the Louisiana emergency operations office. The assumption is that the canal is "simply overflowing," he said, but the team will also look for possible breeches in the levee system.

Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf coast with devastating force at daybreak on Monday, sparing New Orleans the catastrophic hit that had been feared but inundating parts of the city and heaping damage on neighboring Mississippi, where it killed dozens, ripped away roofs and left coastal roads impassable.

Preliminary reports on Monday said 55 people had died, and Jim Pollard, a spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said many of the dead were found in an apartment complex in Biloxi. Seven others were found in the Industrial Seaway.

Packing 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall, the storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center.

The storm was potent enough to rank as one of the most punishing hurricanes ever to hit the United States. Insurance experts said that damage could exceed $9 billion, which would make it one of the costliest storms on record.

In New Orleans, floodwaters rose to rooftops in one neighborhood, and in many areas emergency workers pulled residents from roofs. The hurricane's howling winds stripped 15-foot sections off the roof of the Superdome, where as many as 10,000 evacuees took shelter.

Some of the worst damage reports came from east of New Orleans with an estimated 40,000 homes reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In Gulfport, the storm left three of five hospitals without working emergency rooms, beachfront homes wrecked and major stretches of the coastal highway flooded and unpassable.

"It came on Mississippi like a ton of bricks," Gov. Haley Barbour said at a midday news conference "It's a terrible storm."

President Bush promised extensive assistance for hurricane victims, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was expected to be working in the area for months, assessing damage to properties and allocating what is likely to be billions of dollars in aid to homeowners and businesses.

In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, the governors declared search and rescue their top priority, but they said high waters and strong winds were keeping them from that task, particularly in the hardest-hit areas.

The Red Cross is already on their way, as are teams from my local utilities (which will mean slower hook-ups here if the severe storms materialize later today.) and the famed urban search and rescue team from neighboring Fairfax County, Virginia. This will be a whole lot bigger than a $9 billion disaster when all the damage is added up. You can help by giving to the Red Cross, online or call 1-800-HELP-NOW. The scope of this disaster is almost unbelievable and it is going to take time for the recovery. Local volunteers from the Red Cross are already staging in Atlanta and Little Rock, ready to move in and provide meals and water. Want to volunteer? Call your local Red Cross chapter. I know people here who are taking time off work to go south and help people resettle and provide them two squares a day. There is no better feeling than helping someone who has even less than you do. Many people will have lost everything. You will work to exhaustion and beyond and you will make a difference.

Also consider this: the hurricane season has barely gotten underway. September and October are the busy season for Atlantic hurricanes. Your help is likely to be needed again before the season is over.

Please give what you can, and do what you can do. The need is nearly unbelievable.

Theater of the Absurd

via Juan Cole:

Iraq parl't absentees thwart vote on absenteeism
Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:33 AM BST164
By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament proposed a law on Monday to sack members of the National Assembly who repeatedly failed to turn up for work -- but the decision was put on hold because too many were absent to hold a vote.

The chamber voted 74 in favour and 71 against the legislation, but deputy speaker Hussein al-Shahristani decided to put proceedings on hold because those opposed said the absentees had a right to vote.

It was not clear why the remaining members of the 275-member parliament had missed work.

"We are in a national assembly and we have to obey its rules," said an assembly member.

Iraq's parliament is portrayed by Iraqi officials and their American supporters as a symbol of democracy after decades of iron-fisted rule under Saddam Hussein.

It meets for long hours locked in heated debates on everything from foreign relations to wheat purchases in a conference hall where birthday parties were once held for Saddam.

Just before arguments on absentee members erupted many issues were discussed, including compensation for victims of relentless suicide bombings and shootings that prompted the construction of blast walls around their building complex.

Democracy is hard, dammit.

Service Note

As the remnents of Katrina head north, the local weather service is predicting severe storms here. All of the standard caveats about service outages apply. My local utility goes down if it gets cloudy.

Disaster

CATASTROPHIC
STORM SURGE SWAMPS 9TH WARD, ST. BERNARD
LAKEVIEW LEVEE BREACH THREATENS TO INUNDATE CITY

By Doug MacCash
and James O.Byrne
Staff writers

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new .hurricane proof. Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina's fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.

As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization's history.

Police officers, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard helicopters with searchlights criss-crossed the skies. Officers working on the scene said virtually every home and business between the 17th Street Canal and the Marconi Canal, and between Robert E. Lee Boulevard and City Park Avenue, had water in it. Nobody had confirmed any fatalities as a result of the levee breach, but they conceded that hundreds of homes had not been checked.

As the sun set over a still-roiling Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened.

Dozens of residents evacuated to the dry land of the Filmore Street bridge over the Marconi Canal were stranded between the flooded neighborhood on their right, and the flooded City Park on their left, hours after they had been plucked from rooftops or second-story windows.

Firefighters who saved them tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but realized was no working communications to do so. Ed Gruber, who lives in the 6300 block of Canal Boulevard, said he became desperate when the rising water chased him, his wife, Helen, and their neighbor Mildred K. Harrison to the second floor of their home.

When Gruber saw a boat pass by, he flagged it down with a light, and the three of them escaped from a second- story window.

On the lakefront, pleasure boats were stacked on top of each other like cordwood in the municipal marina and yacht harbor. The Robert E. Lee shopping center was under 7 feet of water. Plantation Coffeehouse on Canal Boulevard was the same. Hynes Elementary School had 8 feet of water inside. Indeed, the entire business district along Harrison Avenue had water to the rooflines in many places. Joshua Bruce, 19, was watching the tide rise from his home on Pontalba Street when he heard a woman crying for help. The woman had apparently tried to wade the surging waters on Canal Boulevard when she was swept beneath the railroad trestle just south of Interstate 610. Bruce said he plunged into the water to pull her to safety. He and friends Gregory Sontag and Joey LaFrance found dry clothes for the woman and she went on her way in search of a second-story refuge downtown.

The effect of the breach was instantly devastating to residents who had survived the fiercest of Katrina's winds and storm surge intact, only to be taken by surprise by the sudden deluge. And it added a vast swath of central New Orleans to those already flooded in eastern New Orleans, the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

Beginning at midday, Lakeview residents watched in horror as the water began to rise, pushed through the levee breach by still-strong residual winds from Katrina. They struggled to elevate furniture and eventually found themselves forced to the refuge of second floors just when most in the neighborhood thought they had been spared.

The CNN bobbleheads are predicting hundreds dead. 80% of the city is under 20 feet of water, according to CNN.

The Red Cross would love to hear from you.

Readaround and Bleg

Here's the morning read-around of the news. Gas is going up. Iraq continues to go south. Very, very south. The death toll on Katrina begins to come in, as waters continue to rise after one levee was breached. Democrats show signs of life. For jounalists, Iraq is more dangerous than Viet Nam..

Today promises to be nutty again, but I'll be here as much as possible.

I desperately need to upgrade this computer. I'm asking it to do way more than the RAM is capable of. If you can help, please hit the PayPal button at the top of the right side-bar. I'm still not employed and have to hang onto every buck I've got in the bank. I'm just grateful to have some bucks in the bank, but I'm watching the pile go down everytime I go to the market. Yes, I'm applying for jobs, but once you are over 50, interviews get increasingly harder to obtain. Entry level jobs are out of the question. If you can help this blogger upgrade her computer, you'll get a higher level of service (with a computer that doesn't lock up twice a day.) Please help if you can. I haven't asked for money in a long time, but the need is both great and real right now and I still don't have an income stream. I just dumped major bucks into this machine for a new battery, which should arrive UPS today, but it means I'm flat for a memory upgrade. If you can help, thanks. If you can't, believe me, I understand.

Moving Into New Space

Sorry for the dearth of posts today, but it was for a good reason. There is a boatload of work going on about avian influenza and, somehow, this little blogger got included. As you know, I'm not a scientist or a doctor or anything, just a concerned citizen who finds this story under reported and badly reported. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been contacted by journalists and scientists who are paying attention and and are organizing conferences and things. I'll be going to some of them this fall, sometimes as part of the spear carrying ranks, sometimes as a presenter. I spent a whole bunch of time today working with a scientist in Berkeley, CA, to set up a major think tank day in the fall and did a brain dump with him, by phone and email. We aren't done yet. I'm working with the national Red Cross (who, you might notice, have their hands a little full right now.)

I spent most of the day on the phone or email with a bunch of people. Pandemic flu is starting to get some notice. The most productive was with Larry Brilliant, a wellknown epidemiologist at UCBerkeley. I daresay we'll be on the phone a lot in coming days. I suspect I'll be on that panel in November with one of the Reveres. The Red Cross has pushed their flu day off, unsurprisingly. They have their hands a little full right now.

Their interest in me is not that I'm a flu scientist, but that I'm the publisher of the The Flu Wiki, they want the social side of things. If you have thoughts about that, I'd like to hear them. Er, read them. Whatever. Every conversation today has been about communication, mutual support. Virtual casseroles don't feed your naighbors, but right now we are working with the ideas that will make real casseroles possible. Everything I learned today is about being smart and conquering fear. The Wiki is about education and empowerment. Wikis encourage humility, so I'm interested on many levels, secular and religious. Tell me what you hope to accomplish as a Wiki participant.

Melanie

Evil Empire

Corps of Engineers Fires Critical Official

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Monday, August 29, 2005; 11:45 AM

WASHINGTON -- A high-ranking Army Corps of Engineers official who publicly criticized the Pentagon's decision to award Halliburton Co. a no-bid contract for work in Iraq has been demoted, officials said Monday.

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, who had been the Corps of Engineers' top procurement official since 1997, was removed, effective Saturday, for what Corps of Engineers officials called a poor job performance. Her lawyer, however, said her removal constitutes "blatant discrimination" and violates an earlier agreement with the Army to suspend her demotion until "a sufficient record" pertaining to her complaints is complete.

"The failure to abide by prior commitments and the circumstances surrounding Ms. Greenhouse's removal are the hallmark of illegal retaliation," her attorney, Michael D. Kohn, wrote in the letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"Her removal will send a message to all concerned that if they dare stand up to corrupting influences within the Army contracting world their careers will be destroyed," he added.

Greenhouse was reassigned to a lesser job in the Corps of Engineers and removed from the Senior Executive Service, the top rank of civilian government employees.

Rumsfeld's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, referred questions about the Greenhouse matter to the Army.

Carol Sanders, a spokeswoman for the Corps of Engineers, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

It's W's Amerika. The rest of us only live here.

In the Tank

Oil Breaches $70 as Hurricane Shuts Gulf of Mexico Production

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil surged, at one point reaching a record $70.80 a barrel in New York, after Hurricane Katrina forced companies to evacuate platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, where 30 percent of U.S. oil is produced.

Oil jumped as much as $4.67, or 7.1 percent, the biggest increase in 29 months. Natural gas, heating oil and gasoline climbed to all-time highs as well.

Investors are concerned Katrina, the fiercest storm to strike the U.S. Gulf coast since 1969, will rupture pipelines, rip rigs from their moorings and disrupt production for weeks. Hurricane Ivan last September cut the region's oil output by as much as 1.4 million barrels a day. The U.S. produces 5.3 million barrels of crude oil a day.

``There is a long list of production and refineries out because of the hurricane,'' said Tom Bentz, an oil broker at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. ``The course is similar to what we saw with Ivan last year, which hit production for a long time.''

Crude oil for October delivery rose $2.57, or 3.9 percent, to $68.70 a barrel at 11:17 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are 59 percent higher than a year ago.

Natural Gas

Nymex declared force majeure on deliveries of natural gas sold under the August futures contract after Katrina forced the Henry Hub in Louisiana to shut. Force majeure allows producers to avoid penalties for failing to deliver supplies because of unforeseen events. Futures contracts settled on the exchange are delivered to the Henry Hub.

Natural gas for September delivery jumped $1.828, or 19 percent, to $11.62 per million British thermal units in New York. Futures touched $12.07, the highest since trading began in 1990. Prices have more than doubled in the past year.

``Natural gas is the real worry,'' said Bill O'Grady, assistant director of market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. ``Unfortunately we can't import the missing production. This is largely a domestic market.''

Going to be a long and expensive winter.

Thunder on the Right

War Supporters Concerned That 'Theocracy' Will Be Final Word in Iraq Saga

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, August 29, 2005; 6:30 AM

With the original security arguments for going to war with Iraq now undermined, President Bush's sole standing justification is the prospect of spreading democracy through the Arab Middle East.

President Bush this weekend hailed the agreement between Shiite and Kurd negotiators for a new Iraqi constitution, even while expressing disappointment that Sunni negotiators rejected the deal. Voters will have an opportunity to accept or reject the constitution in an October referendum, and it remains to be seen what effect the Sunni rejection will have. But even if the constitution is approved by voters, a large question will remain about exactly what type of democracy will take root in that country.
President Bush hailed the constitution as an "inspiration to all those who share the universal values of freedom, democracy and the rule of the law."

But in recent weeks, some civil rights leaders and social conservatives had raised concerns to the White House over language in the proposed constitution calling for Islam to be the official religion of the state. The concern is that a religion is being specifically named. They note that the drafters of the U.S. Constitution did not name Christianity as the official religion of this country, considering religious freedom a basic tenet of democracy.

"Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation," the constitution reads, according to the Associated Press. "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed principles of Islam."

Even though the constitution also demands that "no law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy," some in the United States who have typically supported the president's foreign policies worried that the outcome could be yet another Middle Eastern, pseudo-democracy that tramples on the rights of women and religious minorities, including Christians and Jews.

In an Aug. 18 statement, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote on that group's Web site: "I have sent a letter to President Bush encouraging the Administration to redouble its efforts to ensure that the Iraq Constitution provides genuine religious freedom for all Iraqi citizens. An Iraqi Constitution that does not protect religious liberty will seriously undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and the larger Middle East. The sons and daughters of Americans are not risking their lives to establish a theocratic government that denies its citizens the fundamental right of religious freedom." (Here's an updated Perkins memo.)

Reached by phone on Thursday, Perkins said he wanted to make sure that the end result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq would not be the establishment of an Islamic state. And he questioned whether America's sacrifice would be worth it if it is.

Perkins is part of the Bush "base," so methinks the Preznit has a wee problem.

In Other News

via Juan Cole:

Democracy-lite for Iraq: women's rights not 'critical'

By Luciana Bohne
Online Journal Contributing Writer

August 28, 2005—So now that Iraq's constitution will abolish the Personal Status Law that gave Iraqi women some self-determination, how are the apologists for "liberating" Iraq spinning it? President Bush says that he asked "Condi"—ain't she a woman?—and she says it'll be okay. He was eager to get on his $3,000 bike in Idaho, so he didn't have time to express himself with his customary clarity.

Former C.I.A. Middle East specialist, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said on "Meet the Press," that U.S. democracy in 1900 didn't let women vote. If Iraqi democracy resembled that "we'd all be thrilled," he said. "I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

So why the hell did we go into Afghanistan? We didn't get bin Laden, and the burqa is still the fashion item de rigueur for Afghan women, unless they want to be raped on the spot. What was Laura Bush so excited about, when her husband told her we would be building democracy in Afghanistan by liberating women if it turns out it's not a requirement? It's all too confusing.

But I'm a woman, and I digress.

Yep. The guy really said that. Not critical to the evolution of democracy. Right, because, after all, contrary to what feminists claim, women are not human beings. They haven't got a mind, so society would be better off if they didn't have the "social right" to read and write or speak in public. Societies without women's participation would be ever so much quieter. A president wouldn't have to run away from one vacation spot to another just because some latter-day Joan of Arc decides to liberate the country from an invasion of murderous lies. Little girls should be seen, not heard. Like in Saudi Arabia—another place where the lack of social rights for women is not hindering the evolution of democracy! There, the invisibility of women in the public sphere is probably called "intelligent design." We don't choose our allies at random, after all.

But why stop at women? African Americans are not crucial to the evolution of democracy either. In 1860, there was slavery in the US but we had a "democracy"—though the slaves weren't thrilled. Why not

make the Sunnis the slave class? Then, Iraq can have a civil war just like we did!

We don't want to spare the growing pains of democracy to anyone. We want everyone to come a long way, baby—possibly through pain, humiliation, struggle, and imprisonment. What's a democracy if it doesn't leave casualties behind! I mean, how is one to congratulate oneself on being the best country in the world if one cannot point to the people's blood, sweat, and tears it took to get it.

No, women's social rights may not be crucial to the development of fatuous abstractions of democracy, but their absence is sure instrumental in ramming through this bogus constitution, scoring a quick publicity point for Bush, in a deal with the mullahs and other patriarchs. Regression is a good trade-off, especially if the brunt of it is absorbed by the suffering if irrelevant bodies of women—and foreign ones at that!

I heard Reuel Gerecht on the TV yesterday. It was another of those "throw shoes at the TV" moments. My TV puts up with a lot.

Gulf Oil Platforms

Oil Surges to Briefly Surpass $70 a Barrel

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: August 29, 2005

HOUSTON, Aug. 29 - Energy companies shut down oil rigs and refineries and evacuated employees in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Katrina approached over the weekend, shrinking oil output in the area at a time when markets are already on edge over surging energy prices.

Crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange for October delivery were trading at 69.32 this morning after touching $70.80 overnight Sunday as traders factored in the threat to the most important oil-producing region in the United States. That was up $3.19 from the close on Friday. Oil prices have never risen above $70 a barrel, but when adjusted for inflation they are still lower than they were in the early 1980's.

The evacuations, which were mostly completed by Sunday, cut oil production in the Gulf of Mexico by more than 600,000 barrels a day, or more than a third of the area's normal output of 1.5 million barrels a day. Large refining and oil-shipping installations in southern Louisiana, where the hurricane was expected to make landfall early Monday, also shut down over the weekend.

"The oil market is going to be on fire until we figure out exactly what is going on," David Pursell, a principal with Pickering Energy Partners in Houston, said in a telephone interview on Sunday. "There's fear on several fronts, from the capacity of this storm to tear up pipelines on the ocean floor to doing extreme damage to port infrastructure and platforms."

Speculation about a possible release of oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve led to a drop in oil prices at the end of last week, though traders said talk about such a plan was premature. The Bush administration has been hesitant to release oil from the reserve, which has 700 million barrels of oil, despite calls from Democrats in Congress to do so.

The focus on the reserve is bound to intensify as the hurricane takes its toll. The storm is expected to be the biggest disruption to oil production in the gulf since Hurricane Ivan last year, which reduced the area's yearly output by 7 percent after destroying 7 platforms and damaging more than 100 underwater pipelines. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for about a quarter of the nation's overall domestic oil production.

Gasoline prices for consumers may climb further as refining capacity is stretched by the storm. Chalmette Refinery, which is about 10 miles east of downtown New Orleans and processes 190,000 barrels of oil a day, shut down over the weekend. Calls to officials at Chalmette, a venture between Exxon Mobil and Petróleos de Venezuela, went unanswered on Sunday. Valero Energy said it was shutting down its St. Charles refinery in Louisiana, and Chevron was shutting down a refinery in Pascagoula, Miss., Bloomberg News reported.

Fill your tank. Now.

Gulfport and Biloxi

Dr. Jeff Masters is a meteorologist.

via Weather Underground

Katrina is due south of the Mississippi-Louisiana border, and moving northward at 15 mph. On this course, the western edge of the eyewall will pass some 20 miles to the east of New Orleans, sparing that city a catastrophic hit. As the eye passes east of the city later this morning, north winds of about 100 mph will push waters from Lake Pontchartrain up to the top of the levee protecting the city, and possibly breach the levee and flood the city. This flooding will not cause the kind of catastrophe that a direct hit by the right (east) eyewall would have, with its 140 mph winds and 15-20 foot storm surge. New Orleans will not suffer large loss of life from Katrina.

Biloxi and Gulfport Mississippi will take the full force of Katrina's right eyewall, and a storm surge of 15-20 feet is likely along the central Mississippi coast. Katrina is a strong but weakening Category 4 hurricane, and will probably come ashore about noon CDT near Gulfport as a weak Category 4 hurricane with 135 mph winds. The storm has been slowly weakening the past 12 hours, with the central pressure rising more than 1mb/hour on average. The central pressure measured by the Hurricane Hunters has been oscillating the past three hours, jumping from 918 mb to 925, then back to 920, and now 921 mb at 7:30am EDT. The winds measured at flight level on the east side of the eyewall were 134 kt, which translates to 140 mph at the surface. The cloud pattern in satellite imagery has decreased on the west side due to dry air entrainment, and the eyewall has opened up to the south and southwest in radar imagery. With the center passing over mixed swamplands and water, much of the energy that sustains the hurricane will be cut off, making any further intensification unlikely. Katrina is not hitting at maximum intensity and is sparing New Orleans a direct hit, and although the damage will be incredible, it could have been much, much worse.

Tropical Depression 13
A new tropical depression formed in the mid-Atlantic yesterday, and is headed northwest over open ocean. This is one we definitely do not need to worry about for now. The storm may even dissipate due to hostile wind shear within the next few days.

Dr. Jeff Masters

Grateful for small mercies.

After Katrina

Powerful Hurricane Closes In on Gulf Coast, Threatening Havoc
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 29, 2005

Filed at 5:58 a.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Hurricane Katrina edged slightly to the east early Monday as it bore down on the Gulf Coast, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's 150 mph winds might not directly strike this low-lying city.

Oil and Gas: Approaching Storm Slows Oil Output in Gulf of Mexico (August 29, 2005)

Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a strong Category 4 storm, turned slightly eastward as it closed in on land, which would put the western eyewall -- the weaker side of the strongest winds -- over New Orleans.

''It's not as bad as the eastern side. It'll be plenty bad enough,'' said Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Mayor Ray Nagin said he believed 80 percent of the city's 480,000 residents had heeded an unprecedented mandatory evacuation as Katrina threatened to become the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.

''It's capable of causing catastrophic damage,'' said National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. ''Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.

''New Orleans may never be the same.''

Crude oil futures spiked to more than $70 a barrel in Singapore for the first time Monday as Katrina targeted an area crucial to the country's energy infrastructure. The storm already forced the shutdown of an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity.

Terry Ebbert, New Orleans director of homeland security, said more than 4,000 National Guardsmen were mobilizing in Memphis and will help police New Orleans streets.

The Louisiana Superdome, normally home of professional football's Saints, became the shelter of last resort Sunday for thousands of the area's poor, homeless and frail. Some arrived on crutches, canes and stretchers, while National Guardsmen searched everyone for guns, knives and drugs.

''We just took the necessities,'' said Michael Skipper, who pulled a wagon loaded with bags of clothes and a radio. ''The good stuff -- the television and the furniture -- you just have to hope something's there when you get back. If it's not, you just start over.''

Top up your tank. God knows how high gas will go by the end of the week. Do you really think the Dumbya administration will prevent profiteering?

Katrina, Moving In

It isn't over after Katrina.

My prayers are with those on the Gulf, but we aren't done yet.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

(CAM is short for Complementary & Alternative Medicine – this is a term the medical community uses, so it behooves us as lay people to know it to when or if we have to talk with them.)

I cannot overemphasize how easy it is to “fall down the rabbit hole” on this topic. My daughter is the most important person in my life, and her welfare is paramount. I have to be a little extra careful for her, because she is allergic to most antibiotics, so for my family, secondary infections as a result of H5N1 are as important as the disease itself to beware of.

On the other side of the coin, as you’ll see below, you can find three different sides on every issue regarding what to do or not do in preparation for H5N1 when it comes to meds and alternatives. You must consider the flu itself, then the “cytokine storm”, then secondary infections which could be as deadly as the flu itself, primarily bacterial pneumonia. All of us will be under enormous stress, which will weaken our immune systems in general. It is far, far too easy to lose hope, focus, or your sanity trying to figure out best options on this keystone of your preparations.

I cannot tell what the “best” options are regarding this topic. I can only tell you what I am going to do and provide you with links to make your own analysis from which to take what you consider proper precautions.

I sincerely and strongly warn you to not fall into the trap of becoming obsessive in the process of seeking answers, because much of this will come down to what your common sense says is worthwhile once you’ve heard all sides. And when you’ve hit a reasonable level of preparation, step back and take a breath or three before you do anything else.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Emergencies, Evacuation, Protection

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Entertainment & Acceptance

UPDATE:
RELENZA, LIQUID TAMIFLU, STATINS – There have been some reports that Relenza, which is taken presently as a powder nasal spray, may be a better antiviral than Tamiflu. So far, the Effect Measure website seems to have blown the top off of this idea. Apparently, an injectible form of Relenza was being promoted by a Hong Kong doctor as soething that should be produced in order to have an alternative to relatively expensive Tamiflu, and so he referenced, publicly, old reports, never fully verified, that Tamiflu might be losing its potency against the influenza virus.

That said, you can never have enough antiviral options. If Tamiflu is overused, resistence to the drug will follow eventually. If you have the extra cash, consider Relenza as well as Tamiflu, but I also might recommend two other options as well, since you’re Mr. Moneybags and all that.

One is that Tamiflu is now available as a suspension. I very much want some of this, because my neighborhood has both small children and the “elderly-n-frail” in it, and while I had the presence of mind to buy some pill splitters, I really, really think that a fluid version of Tamiflu will help most at preventing overdosing both children and the frail.

Another is that a type of medication known as statins (Zocor and Lipitor are examples) may be able to reduce the effectiveness of “cytokine storms” in people infected with H5N1. This is still in the preliminary stages of verification, but it’s worth noting.

PURELL – Contact via touch will is probably the most common way for you to catch the flu. Purell is a hand sanitizer that I would recommend as a first line of defense, because it both sanitizes and moisturizes. My father used to alternate between this and Jergens Hand Lotion to counter the effects of working in a steel mill on his hands. (Yes, I also mentioned in the past that he was a high school teacher. He worked three-quarter time as the former, full time as the latter for many years. Yes, Microsoft would have loved him…)

MASKS/FILTERS – I meant 60 filters, not masks, for the nanomasks. And to compliment the nanomasks, I recommend goggles or plastic side-shielded safety glasses, as well as shields like this and this one, escpecially with this option, although I was originally thinking about this one. If I have some free cash, I may a few different ones and will tell you all what seemed to work/fit best for me.

ORIGINAL POST:
Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

I tend to prefer to buy my meds and alternatives from Vitacost.com and House of Nutrition Online, with Now Foods an offbeat option:

http://vitacost.com (through August 31st, 5% discount coupon – WZ54ACC)

http://store.yahoo.com/hono/index.htmll

http://www.nowfoods.com (Frustrating because you have to go to an actual bricks-and-mortar store to get their products, but they have some items that are otherwise hard to find)

One final note – when looking at medications and alternatives, realize that children’s dosages could be markedly different from adult dosages. Please plan accordingly.

TAMIFLU OR NO TAMIFLU?

Also known as oseltamivir.

We’re buying it. I know that there is no proof that it will work, but it’s the closest thing we have to a possibly effective antiviral therapy. Frankly, I expect fear to eliminate availability when the flu strikes here, so better safe than sorry.

Now, there are ethical issues with the use and stockpiling on Tamiflu. If there is a shortage, should it not be reserved for those who are ill? However, I expect the present administration, whether via Health & Human Services or Homeland Security, to have their hands full between inadequate dosages being available in the first place, and an inadequate plan for distribution. If I have extra and friends or neighbors fall ill, then I’ll give them any extra Tamiflu I have on hand beyond the two packs for myself and my daughter, and I’ll help them get it if their doctor can’t provide access to the drug. But I do not trust the Federal Government to do their job well or fairly. They’ve let us down for the past five years – why should this situation be any different? I certainly will not trust them to protect my daughter.

There is talk that Tamiflu has a shelf life not of two years, but of five to seven years. Roche will apparently, with new shipments of the drug, state on packaging that the official shelf life is five years, and that with more data acquired regarding the drug over time, it will expand to seven years. So in other words, if you have Tamiflu with an expiration date of August 2005, for example, your medication may actually be good through August 2008, and possibly through August 2010.

I’m concerned that Dr. Woodson (see below) can’t decide if a one or two week supply is necessary for treatment – the standard recommendation is currently one week. If you need to use it prophylacticly, however, (if you’re a doctor, nurse or first responder dealing directly with flu cases repeatedly) the US Department of Defense recommends using it for six weeks. The FDA does not approve beyond an eight week course of treatment.

I’ll be personally buying one week for myself and my daughter, plus one more as either a barter good or to help any friends or relatives who show up at my door sick.

The following is a source I prefer for purchase because they tell you the expiration date for the product up front:

http://www.drugdelivery.ca/s4632-s-TAMIFLU.aspx

MY CYTOKINE STORM PREPARATIONS

Benadryl – Buy lots of it – at least three 24-pill packs per person (25 mg per pill).

Gammalineoleic Acid (GLA) – My daughter and I will take daily dosages, starting now, of borage oil via capsules. We’ll have black currant and evening primrose oil on standby.

Eicosapenthenoic Acid (EPA) – My daughter and I will take daily dosages, starting now, of flaxseed, cod liver and fish oil via capsules.

All oils, where we can find them, will be cold pressed.

Curcumin – My daughter and I will take daily dosages, starting now, of NSI Tumeric (standardized 95% curcumin).

Scutellaria (Skullcap) – My daughter and I will have on hand scutellaria tea, which we’ll take in the mornings or just before bedtime.

As an extra precaution, I’ll have my daughter drink one cup of green tea a day, and will keep a small stash of Kedem Grape Juice on standby for access to Resveratol.

Make sure you have anti-diarrhea pills and the Basic Fluid Solution listed below or such items as Gatorade powder to restore electrolytes. Consider these two items of equal importance to the stuff listed above – don’t wait until the last second to get them.

MY SECONDARY INFECTION PREPARATIONS

Both my daughter and I, but especially my daughter, will be getting a pneumovax vaccination. (Do not consider this for children under six years of age…)

http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.MedicalTherapy#SecondaryInfections

Make sure that you have, per person, per Dr. Woodson’s recommendations (see below) the following from which to make Basic Fluid Solution to revive sick patients…
1 lb table salt
10 lbs table sugar
6 oz baking soda

I cannot say enough good things about Dr. Woodson’s recommendations in his web-accessible document – I will be buying everything listed in his flu preparation kit - but I really wish he’d change the cover page.

The following are considered either good for dealing with cleaning out the lungs or as “natural antibiotics”:

Guaifensesin (usually found in Robitussin DM, but pills also exist)
Wild Lettuce
Mullein
Pleurisy Root
Slippery Elm
Yerba Santa
Myrrh
Golden Seal
Yucca
Garlic – We take this as pills already, accompanying our daily multivitamin

In addition, saline spray will help kill bacteria in the nasal passages.

I also will be buying two bottles of Sambucol and a half-dozen packs of Schiff ImmunAssure. My logic is that once someone has acquired an immunity to H5N1, there is a chance that they could be hit hard shortly thereafter by a more standard flu virus. Some reports a few months back about a potentially large H5N1 outbreak being reported in Cambodia were later found to actually be a reintroduction of the 1968 “Hong Kong flu” virus. I will not be using these medications against the H5N1 virus.

STRESS

The best thing to do to alleviate stress is to lose yourself in a good book, movie, or the company of friends. Unfortunately, this won’t always be possible, so I recommend the following to help with relieving stress…

Peppermint Oil diluted in water
Ginger tea
Yarrow – Lowers blood pressure, stimulates digestion
Devils Claw – Helps with indigestion and heartburn

MEDICAL ITEMS

Nanomasks are a necessity. Plan on buying at least 60 per person.

http://www.buynanomask.com

Splash shields are a necessary compliment to your nanomasks. I haven’t received a test package yet, but they come 24 to a box, and I suspect that a fresh one every day you are tending someone who is sick is necessary. The same goes for latex or nitrile (if you are allergic to latex) gloves.

I like these folks – Industrial & Safety Supplies…they have other items worth considering.

http://www.labsafety.com

And, of course, you will need a bedpan or equivalent if someone you hold near and dear gets sick. (You, of course, will always make it to the bathroom.) I like these folks for the variety of options…

http://activeforlife.com

OPINIONS/DATA

There is some useful data, but also some arenas for conflict.

1) Flu Wiki primer on “cytokine storms”…
http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Science.PrimerCytokineStorm

2) Flu Wiki notes on medications and alternatives…
http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.MedicalTherapy

http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.ComplementaryAndAlternativeMedicine

3) Resveratol, good and bad…
http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.RedWineAsAntiviral

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/resveratrol.html

4) One person’s views on sambucol…
http://www.med-owl.com/health/H5N1-Virus-Therapy.html

5) And another view, from a personal letter I received from John Hart, creator of one of the first H5N1 preparation booklets…

Rich,
Thanks for asking about cytokine storms.

Thanks,
John Hart

6) Found as a Flu Wiki Forum listing, Dr. Woodson’s recommendations…
http://www.fluwikie.com/uploads/Consequences/Pandemic3Aug2005

7) And last but not least, the Current Events website on Flu preparations (NOTE: Please do not read this until you have a large chunk of time handy, and take it in slowly….)
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17139

Hurricane: The Human Cost

Oh, great, we get soggy humidities with the hurricane.

This storm is a killer in New Orleans, it is going to be a major nuisance here. If you are in the path, do some preparation. Make some preparations if you want to spend some decent time with your family. If you are in the evacuation path, get the fuck out.

I'm ready to post your storm stories here. email me. The weather here is going to suck before the storm gets here. Share.

You Can Help

Katrina is going to be a disaster of epic proportions and spectacular economic damage. It will take greater New Orleans years to recover. If you can, contribute to the Red Cross. The size of the storm means that a huge area will be affected: Katrina is twice the size of Andrew. The remnents will be here on Wednesday, but because the storm is so large (half the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico), we'll be feeling the outer edges by Monday night. This storm is almost unimaginable.

For the Birds

All Things Considered had an honest avian influenza story last night. The audio file is here. Needs Real or WMP. Here's hoping that the American media are beginning to waken from their slumber. Google news gives me substantial American bylines today for the first time.

Site News

I'm still fighting a stomach bug so posting will be light today, at least from me. I'm sure you are all absorbing Rich's enlightening series on pandemic planning. Guest posters, the house is yours today.

The Context

Big Guns For Iraq? Not So Fast.

By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: August 28, 2005

EVEN though President Bush keeps saying American forces won't leave Iraq until its forces can fight on their own, the United States isn't rushing to give the Iraqi military heavy weapons.

There is an official explanation for that - that such things take time.

But there is also another reason to go slow, one that illustrates how tightly American military success is intertwined with the political prospects of Iraq itself. This reason is little discussed in public by military officers, but it was evident last week on the explosion-scarred streets of Baghdad, in the skirmishes between rival Shiite forces in Najaf, and in the confusion of Iraq's struggle to complete a new constitution.

Simply put, Iraq remains too fragile for any planner to know what shape the country will be in six months or a year from now - whether it will reach compromises and hold together or split apart in a civil war.

And that presents a conundrum for American military planners. With those questions up in the air, they have to fear that any heavy arms distributed now could end up aimed at American forces or feeding a growing civil conflict. And the longer Iraq's army has to wait for sophisticated weapons, the longer American forces are likely to be needed in Iraq as a bulwark against chaos.

In public, the commanders cite many reasons for the slow pace of equipping the Iraqis: the supply chain is long, Iraq's soldiers are barely trained and largely untested, and the rebels they face are better fought with rifles than tanks.

In private, some officers acknowledge other concerns, too. "We're worried about civil war or a coup," said a senior American officer in Baghdad charged with outfitting Iraq's new army. He would not agree to be identified because the concerns he was discussing are so sensitive.

Translation: we can't afford to turn the Iraqi Defense Force into a really effective force. It might be used on us. In other words, this is a clusterfuck of truly epic proportions.

Science and Its Discontents

This NYT Op-Ed is so important that I'm tossing "fair use" to the winds and giving you the whole thing.

Show Me the Science
By DANIEL C. DENNETT

Blue Hill, Me.

PRESIDENT BUSH, announcing this month that he was in favor of teaching about "intelligent design" in the schools, said, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought." A couple of weeks later, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, made the same point. Teaching both intelligent design and evolution "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone," Mr. Frist said. "I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."

Is "intelligent design" a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done.

First, imagine how easy it would be for a determined band of naysayers to shake the world's confidence in quantum physics - how weird it is! - or Einsteinian relativity. In spite of a century of instruction and popularization by physicists, few people ever really get their heads around the concepts involved. Most people eventually cobble together a justification for accepting the assurances of the experts: "Well, they pretty much agree with one another, and they claim that it is their understanding of these strange topics that allows them to harness atomic energy, and to make transistors and lasers, which certainly do work..."

Fortunately for physicists, there is no powerful motivation for such a band of mischief-makers to form. They don't have to spend much time persuading people that quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity really have been established beyond all reasonable doubt.

With evolution, however, it is different. The fundamental scientific idea of evolution by natural selection is not just mind-boggling; natural selection, by executing God's traditional task of designing and creating all creatures great and small, also seems to deny one of the best reasons we have for believing in God. So there is plenty of motivation for resisting the assurances of the biologists. Nobody is immune to wishful thinking. It takes scientific discipline to protect ourselves from our own credulity, but we've also found ingenious ways to fool ourselves and others. Some of the methods used to exploit these urges are easy to analyze; others take a little more unpacking.

A creationist pamphlet sent to me some years ago had an amusing page in it, purporting to be part of a simple questionnaire:

Test Two

Do you know of any building that didn't have a builder? [YES] [NO]

Do you know of any painting that didn't have a painter? [YES] [NO]

Do you know of any car that didn't have a maker? [YES] [NO]

If you answered YES for any of the above, give details:

Take that, you Darwinians! The presumed embarrassment of the test-taker when faced with this task perfectly expresses the incredulity many people feel when they confront Darwin's great idea. It seems obvious, doesn't it, that there couldn't be any designs without designers, any such creations without a creator.

Well, yes - until you look at what contemporary biology has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt: that natural selection - the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge - has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs.

Take the development of the eye, which has been one of the favorite challenges of creationists. How on earth, they ask, could that engineering marvel be produced by a series of small, unplanned steps? Only an intelligent designer could have created such a brilliant arrangement of a shape-shifting lens, an aperture-adjusting iris, a light-sensitive image surface of exquisite sensitivity, all housed in a sphere that can shift its aim in a hundredth of a second and send megabytes of information to the visual cortex every second for years on end.

But as we learn more and more about the history of the genes involved, and how they work - all the way back to their predecessor genes in the sightless bacteria from which multicelled animals evolved more than a half-billion years ago - we can begin to tell the story of how photosensitive spots gradually turned into light-sensitive craters that could detect the rough direction from which light came, and then gradually acquired their lenses, improving their information-gathering capacities all the while.

We can't yet say what all the details of this process were, but real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom, and we have detailed computer models to demonstrate that the creative process works just as the theory says.

All it takes is a rare accident that gives one lucky animal a mutation that improves its vision over that of its siblings; if this helps it have more offspring than its rivals, this gives evolution an opportunity to raise the bar and ratchet up the design of the eye by one mindless step. And since these lucky improvements accumulate - this was Darwin's insight - eyes can automatically get better and better and better, without any intelligent designer.

Brilliant as the design of the eye is, it betrays its origin with a tell-tale flaw: the retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry the signals from the eye's rods and cones (which sense light and color) lie on top of them, and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the blind spot. No intelligent designer would put such a clumsy arrangement in a camcorder, and this is just one of hundreds of accidents frozen in evolutionary history that confirm the mindlessness of the historical process.

If you still find Test Two compelling, a sort of cognitive illusion that you can feel even as you discount it, you are like just about everybody else in the world; the idea that natural selection has the power to generate such sophisticated designs is deeply counterintuitive. Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA, once jokingly credited his colleague Leslie Orgel with "Orgel's Second Rule": Evolution is cleverer than you are. Evolutionary biologists are often startled by the power of natural selection to "discover" an "ingenious" solution to a design problem posed in the lab.

This observation lets us address a slightly more sophisticated version of the cognitive illusion presented by Test Two. When evolutionists like Crick marvel at the cleverness of the process of natural selection they are not acknowledging intelligent design. The designs found in nature are nothing short of brilliant, but the process of design that generates them is utterly lacking in intelligence of its own.

Intelligent design advocates, however, exploit the ambiguity between process and product that is built into the word "design." For them, the presence of a finished product (a fully evolved eye, for instance) is evidence of an intelligent design process. But this tempting conclusion is just what evolutionary biology has shown to be mistaken.

Yes, eyes are for seeing, but these and all the other purposes in the natural world can be generated by processes that are themselves without purposes and without intelligence. This is hard to understand, but so is the idea that colored objects in the world are composed of atoms that are not themselves colored, and that heat is not made of tiny hot things.

The focus on intelligent design has, paradoxically, obscured something else: genuine scientific controversies about evolution that abound. In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory - but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view.

To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.

Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach.

Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. "Smith's work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat," you say, misrepresenting Smith's work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: "See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms." And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details.

William Dembski, one of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design, notes that he provoked Thomas Schneider, a biologist, into a response that Dr. Dembski characterizes as "some hair-splitting that could only look ridiculous to outsider observers." What looks to scientists - and is - a knockout objection by Dr. Schneider is portrayed to most everyone else as ridiculous hair-splitting.

In short, no science. Indeed, no intelligent design hypothesis has even been ventured as a rival explanation of any biological phenomenon. This might seem surprising to people who think that intelligent design competes directly with the hypothesis of non-intelligent design by natural selection. But saying, as intelligent design proponents do, "You haven't explained everything yet," is not a competing hypothesis. Evolutionary biology certainly hasn't explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn't yet tried to explain anything.

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications. So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

To see this shortcoming in relief, consider an imaginary hypothesis of intelligent design that could explain the emergence of human beings on this planet:

About six million years ago, intelligent genetic engineers from another galaxy visited Earth and decided that it would be a more interesting planet if there was a language-using, religion-forming species on it, so they sequestered some primates and genetically re-engineered them to give them the language instinct, and enlarged frontal lobes for planning and reflection. It worked.

If some version of this hypothesis were true, it could explain how and why human beings differ from their nearest relatives, and it would disconfirm the competing evolutionary hypotheses that are being pursued.

We'd still have the problem of how these intelligent genetic engineers came to exist on their home planet, but we can safely ignore that complication for the time being, since there is not the slightest shred of evidence in favor of this hypothesis.

But here is something the intelligent design community is reluctant to discuss: no other intelligent-design hypothesis has anything more going for it. In fact, my farfetched hypothesis has the advantage of being testable in principle: we could compare the human and chimpanzee genomes, looking for unmistakable signs of tampering by these genetic engineers from another galaxy. Finding some sort of user's manual neatly embedded in the apparently functionless "junk DNA" that makes up most of the human genome would be a Nobel Prize-winning coup for the intelligent design gang, but if they are looking at all, they haven't come up with anything to report.

It's worth pointing out that there are plenty of substantive scientific controversies in biology that are not yet in the textbooks or the classrooms. The scientific participants in these arguments vie for acceptance among the relevant expert communities in peer-reviewed journals, and the writers and editors of textbooks grapple with judgments about which findings have risen to the level of acceptance - not yet truth - to make them worth serious consideration by undergraduates and high school students.

SO get in line, intelligent designers. Get in line behind the hypothesis that life started on Mars and was blown here by a cosmic impact. Get in line behind the aquatic ape hypothesis, the gestural origin of language hypothesis and the theory that singing came before language, to mention just a few of the enticing hypotheses that are actively defended but still insufficiently supported by hard facts.

The Discovery Institute, the conservative organization that has helped to put intelligent design on the map, complains that its members face hostility from the established scientific journals. But establishment hostility is not the real hurdle to intelligent design. If intelligent design were a scientific idea whose time had come, young scientists would be dashing around their labs, vying to win the Nobel Prizes that surely are in store for anybody who can overturn any significant proposition of contemporary evolutionary biology.

Remember cold fusion? The establishment was incredibly hostile to that hypothesis, but scientists around the world rushed to their labs in the effort to explore the idea, in hopes of sharing in the glory if it turned out to be true.

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrat- ed?

All articles posted under fair use rules in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and are strictly for the educational and informative purposes of our readers.

Posted by Melanie at 10:28 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Hurricane Warning

Cat 5? Headed at NOLA? When I learned disaster planning, this was the nightmare scenario.

Hurricane Heading for Gulf Coast Is Upgraded to Category 5

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 28, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina strengthened to a dangerous Category 5 on Sunday with 160 mph sustained wind as residents of south Louisiana jammed freeways in a rush to get out of the way of the powerful storm.

The National Hurricane Center put out a special advisory on the hurricane's gain in strength just before 8 a.m. EDT. The boost came just hours after Katrina reached Category 4, with wind of 145 mph, as it gathered energy from the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials worried that not enough people were taking the monster Category 5 storm seriously enough.

"People need to take this very seriously and get to a safe area while they can," said State Police Sgt. Frank Coates.

Katrina was expected to hit the Gulf Coast early Monday and a hurricane warning was in effect from Morgan City to the Alabama-Florida line.

If you are in an evacuation zone, pack the car and leave now. Please.

Food Memories

This is from an email I wrote to foody liberal friends who are heading to Italy in a couple of months. I decided to share it with all of you. We need to party a little before the bird flu hits.

If you notice the Wiki and JTF go down for a while tonight, not to worry. The server host is migrating to proprietary servers and they promise everything should be hunky-dory by midnite.

How's your Italian?
http://www.umbriaonline.com/article_263.phtml

I really learned to cook on my first trip to Italy in 1980. I was, at best, an indifferent cook before that, a child of my mother's 1950's kitchen (processed foods, very little fresh, she'd never really learned to cook and I didn't learn much from her.) Italy was a revolution in the way I understood food. I was traveling with a festival orchestra for the summer and eating both in restaurants and in people's homes--part of the time the orchestra put us up with the locals. We were in the festival cities of Spoleto and Assisi and they just don't have the hotel stock, part of the local economy is housing the festival crowds in people's homes. We were eating in the cheap local restaurants where the locals ate. The food was unpretentious but delicious, home cooking done in restaurant quantities. Whether in private homes or restaurants which were little more than that, I always asked for a visit to the kitchen and usually got a lesson in their particular speciality. Home cooks don't tend to use Tartuffi Neri, they are dear even in Italy, but in Spoleto La Pozza della Mensa should not be missed. I spent time in that kitchen.

Bring me back some truffles from your Italy trip and I'll make pasta, fresh pasta, I make my own, with truffle sauce the way I learned to make it in Spoleto. This is heaven on a plate.

Fresh tarfuffi don't keep particularly well, so the ones in jars are perfectly acceptable. If anything, the processing intensifies the flavor. Shaved truffles make carboard taste good. You could eat The Washington Post if it had truffles on it.

I had one of the half-dozen best meals of my life at a restaurant in Turino on a later trip but I'll be damned if I can remember the name of the restaurant. Smoked salmon over fresh pasta in a vodka cream sauce. I ate real slow to make it last as long as possible. I don't even like smoked salmon. But I still dream about that meal. It was a peak experience. Yes, I've been to the legendary Inn at Little Washington. It was fabulous, but I can't tell you what I ate. This one meal from Italy really stuck in my memory. I think that's worth something. The trout at the restaurants around Lago Trasimeno remain in memory and I don't like fish.

Sicilian Pizza on the beach in Taormina. "Tosti," the bar food in all of Italy (which I make to this day), and then there was the bernaise sauce at the now-defunct French place in Arlington, Virginia which was a reason to eat beef. I grew up just south of the stockyards in St. Paul, MN, and we had great beef. I can't find anything like it, in flavor or consistency, around here. Friends tell me to try Wegman's. I eat very little meat because I simply don't trust the system which brings it to us. Whole Food's natural and organic case is a resource, but who can pay those kinds of prices on a regular basis? The meows are meat eaters, of course, but this cook is 90% vegetarian out of necessity. I can't trust the food supply.

In the weeks to come, I'll recommend some cookbooks. Rich Erwin is right, one of the things we need to do is prepare ourselves to cook some special meals. When we're in home quarantine, we are going to need to look forward to something beyond peanut butter sandwiches if we are going to have a reason to get up in the morning. I look forward to bringing you a tasket of simple recipes that will allow you to "kick up" prepared foods and make some things simply when electricity is in short supply and you've got a grill or a propane stove (if you don't have one, kick yourself and go get one with a batch of propane bottles. It got me through the last hurricane.)

Add your stormflu recipies in comments. I'll keep this thread live for as long as seems reasonable.

What I do is feed my friends, it is my way of taking care of them and it is real important to me. Sharing recipes is another way we make community.

This is part of my bird flu preparedness, making sure that you are eating well while you are sheltering in place. If you have something to look forward to at the end of the day, you are unlikely to spread the infection. Or get it.

I'm the foody component at The Flu Wiki.

In Flames

The Fragments of Iraq

Published: August 27, 2005

Hopes that Iraq's parliament might find the wisdom and patriotism to improve significantly on the badly flawed constitutional draft it was handed last week have pretty much evaporated. Provisions that could strip away the legal rights of Iraqi women have been left unchanged. The chances of this language being interpreted benignly by a future legislature dominated by Shiite religious parties or a future Supreme Court packed with senior clerics is less than nil.

Days of discussions with Sunni representatives who had been shut out of the drafting process went predictably nowhere when the Sunnis declined to sign on to divisive designs for federalism and vindictive rules for former Baathist supporters.

A loose federal structure with a weakened central government has an obvious appeal for the Kurdish northeast, which wants as much independence as it can get. It also attracts support from Shiites in the southeast, home to Iraq's most productive oil deposits and its main trading ports. But too much federalism would be little short of a disaster for the Sunni Arabs in the western provinces, which are landlocked and oil-poor. Their fear is that despite language apportioning the oil revenue by population, the Shiites and Kurds will manage to maximize their shares.

A fractured Iraq could dangerously destabilize the broader region. Turkish hostility is guaranteed for any Kurdish statelet, which Ankara worries might set an attractive example for Turkey's own restive and oppressed Kurdish minority. Iran would find it irresistible to manipulate a semiautonomous Shiite region dominated by Iranian-financed parties and Iranian-armed militias, and spiritually guided by an Iranian-born ayatollah.

If Iraq starts to fragment along these lines, no one should be surprised to see the orphaned Sunni west looking for whatever allies it can find in Baathist Syria, in the Islamist opposition circles of Saudi Arabia and among Jordan's Palestinian majority. The threat of civil war is obvious.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Iraq is in a de facto state of civil war.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Water has to be addressed from two points of view. Most North Americans have relatively easy access to water, and we also have relatively efficient means of acquiring potable water. On the other hand, most of us rely on fairly complicated systems, via utilities, to acquire, purify and make accessible that water. Although we are blessed with a great deal of water in North America, a lot of it is harder to get and harder to make potable (or at least acceptable to drink) than you might think. It helps that many systems require few people to operate and are fairly reliable, but it wouldn’t take much of a problem to cause a huge disruption.

Many people will be tempted to just assume that water supplies will be fine and that rainwater or snow will be a valid alternative if necessary. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll have water that’s safe to drink – Giardia is something people are often on the lookout to avoid in my neck of the woods, and that or other water-borne diseases could cause you enough grief, at least via diarrhea, to weaken you enough to become a candidate for other diseases.

So, you can store some beforehand, or have the tools you need to process water as you bring it into your home. I recommend both.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Emergencies, Evacuation, Protection

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Entertainment & Acceptance

UPDATE:
BLEACH – I can’t find 5.25% bleach anymore – Clorox seems to have led everybody to 6% content. The rules for using bleach to treat water that I’ve stated earlier still apply, but use only bleach that has Sodium Hypochlorite in it. Clorox says that it’s addition of sodium hydroxide to their “Clorox Ultra” and other concentrated bleaches won’t make a difference, but until I see otherwise, be safe – don’t use bleach with sodium hydroxide in it.

CONTAINERS - I, in addition to using Crystal Springs and having two Katadyn options available, will be buying some Nitro-Pack 20-gallon containers. It will cost more than 30 or 55-gallon containers, but, while I live in a house now, I want something a bit more mobile if I ever have to move into smaller dwellings. I can see, with minimal help, moving 180 lbs of water in a container without much trouble, but the much larger weight available via the larger containers gives me pause. Since water is so vital to our welfare, I consider a “three layer” option a necessity, and hope you will as well.

ORIGINAL POST:
STORAGE

Storage is tricky for some folks because of space. The Red Cross considers one gallon of water per day per person to be the minimal amount of water that should be kept on hand in the event of a disaster. Half of that is for drinking, half for bathing, cooking, etc… Assuming that we lose access to potable water for one out of every three days in a 90-day scenario, that’s 30 gallons per person as your minimum requirement.

If you want to do things fast, you have outfits like Crystal Springs that rent water dispensers, five-gallon neoprene water containers and six-container racks. For my area, here’s an example of costs – prices and offerings may vary.

If I purchase an initial 12 5-gallon containers, that costs $90. Every time I replace an empty with a full container of water, that’s $7.50. Dispensers come in room temperature ($4 a month), room temperature/cold ($7.50 a month) and hot/cold ($12 a month). As with food, you’ll want to integrate this option into your daily life.

http://www.water.com

These items can also be purchased now from stores such as Target and the larger hardware stores, though supplies for such items can be spotty in some locales. I’ve seen the neoprene containers go for as little as $5 empty, though seals have been hard to find. The dispensers have been anywhere between $100 and $200, and the apparent quality of the product tends to be reflected in the price.

You can also go the “55-gallon drum” route. Now, I don’t mean this literally – do not buy anything that is not a clean, unused barrel or drum. They just aren’t worth the risk or hassle, period. However, I do like the Nitro-Pak water storage units simply because they are something that has been thought through somewhat. I like their Family Water Storage Package #1, but I’d prefer to buy half of what they’re selling – I don’t know if I want four drums when my need may only be for two.

http://www.nitro-pak.com/product_info.php/products_id/435

And yes, there really is no cheap way to store potable water.

FILTERING/PURIFICATION

We have, in our home, two ancient but very serviceable Katadyn pocket filters. They require minimal upkeep and cleaning, though I would recommend buying extra brushes from them for the latter process, if possible, since we are talking about a 90-day quarantine. They aren’t cheap, but for $200, they are worth every penny.

I especially like and will most likely be buying the Katadyn Camp Filter. For $60-$65, it allows you to process up to 5,000 gallons of water, and would be perfect for processing questionable water supplies.

I would always, however, have some household bleach handy for after processing, just in case. Do not use bleach before running water through any filters or purifiers, and use ONLY bleach that has no additives beyond the basic ingredient, 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, such as Regular Clorox Bleach. I would avoid Clorox Ultra, though some think it is safe, because it includes a slightly higher concentration of sodium hypochlorite (6%) and includes sodium hydroxide.

Let any suspended particles settle to the bottom, or strain them through layers of paper towels or clean cloth. Add eight drops (1/4 teaspoon) of bleach per gallon of clear water, or 16 drops (1/2 teaspoon) per gallon of cloudy water. People should mix the water thoroughly and allow it to stand for 30 minutes before using. Sadly, if it tastes like chlorine, that means adequate disinfection has taken place. Otherwise, try a second time – if that also fails, don’t use the water.

As in the Food section, Campmor and Nitro-Pak have a full range of Katadyn items. Nitro-Pak has some of the more exotic options, but both will have what you need.

Oh, and get a Solar Shower or Sun Shower (or whatever they call them now) if you can. You want to minimize the drudgery of being cooped up somewhere, and hot showers plus hot food, for me at least, will two-thirds of the way towards retaining my sanity while being cooped up inside.

Hurricane News

I guess today is disaster day here at Bump. I've been an amateur meteorologist all of my life, with a particular interest in severe weather. Readers on the Gulf coast: follow your local government recommendations. If you are in a mandatory evacuation area, get out. A major hurricane drawing a bead on the New Orleans metro area has been a disaster planners' nightmare for a long time.

Hurricane watch issued as evacuation begins
Plaquemines issues mandatory order; others leaving voluntarily

Saturday, August 27, 2005--As evacuations - mandatory and voluntary - began in parts of the greater New Orleans area Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch from Morgan City to the Pearl River, including metro New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain.

Across the area, residents were holding their breath under the cloud of an ominous projection that shows the path of Hurricane Katrina crossing directly over the metro area. Katrina is currently a major Category 3 hurricane, and is expected to continue strengthening, perhaps even reaching Category 5 before landfall.

Plaqumines Parish President Benny Rousselle has issued a Phase I mandatory evacuation for all of Plaquemines Parish.

St. Bernard Parish has issued a "recommended" evacuation for its residents while St. Charles Parish, like Plaquemines has called for a mandatory pullout.

As of yet, no decision has come from parish officials in St. Tammany, Jefferson or Orleans, though announcements are expected around noon.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he probably would call an evacuation Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. He said he was telling residents to "get their supplies, get their medications in order, clean up storm drains and get ready. Because it looks as if we're going to get hit."

Lafourche Parish has not issued an evacuation order, but is asking residents to prepare in case an order is issued.

The latest forecast track for Hurricane Katrina - issued at 10 a.m. CDT - has the strengthening storm crossing lower Plaquemines, then north on a line directly across the New Orleans metro area.

The storm has intensified and is now a Category 3, with sustained winds of 115 mph and higher gusts. Some major models have it strengthening to a Category 4, or even Category 5 by landfall Monday evening. It is moving to the west near 7 mph and is approximately 430 miles southeast on the mouth of the Mississippi River. A gradual turn to the west-northwest is expected during the next 24 hours.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency late Friday, making it easier to implement emergency procedures, including evacuations, if necessary.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he will make a decision about evacuations and other emergency procedures today about noon.

Katrina, the 11th named storm of a busy season, was upgraded to Category 3 as it moved deeper into the Gulf of Mexico, after crossing Florida yesterday. Homes were flooded, fallen trees blocked roads and utility crews scrambled to restore power to more than 1 million homes and businesses Friday as South Floridians coped with Hurricane Katrina's messy aftermath.

Voluntary evacuations for the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. I've ridden out three category one storms in the last 30 years. I did not enjoy the experience.

Flu Update

Deadly flu: `The only question is when'
Avian's arrival called inevitable
Experts fear global pandemic
Not if, but when for outbreak of disease: Experts

Avian flu virus is possible candidate for global infection

LYNDA HURST
FEATURE WRITER

The deadly avian flu virus is slowly but surely making its way around the world.

It now appears all but inevitable that it will arrive in North America this year or next, via migrating birds or, more likely, unwitting travellers, as with SARS in 2003.

The virus has already ravaged the poultry stocks of Southeast Asia and millions of peoples' livelihoods. It has also begun to kill other animals, including pigs, tigers and civet cats.

More forebodingly, if still only sporadically, it has crossed over into humans.

In the last two years, at least 109 people have caught the respiratory virus after being in close contact with diseased poultry. With little or no immunity — and no vaccine — about 60 of them died. Perhaps more.

China isn't saying, though it was there that this year's outbreak began, in April, with 6,000 dead wild birds.

The threat is now on Europe's doorstep, poised to enter when infected wild geese and other birds start migrating out of Russia.

The virus was detected there this month in regions as far apart as Siberia and the Caspian Sea.

When and how the virus will hit North America is unknown.

But if a global pandemic is in the cards, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

The loss of human life even in a mild pandemic would be devastating; anything more virulent, catastrophic. The cost of a world economy in shambles for several years can only be imagined, say analysts.

Margaret Chan, chief of influenza pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization, no longer talks about if it is going to happen:

"The only question is: When? I don't think anybody has the answer to it. We have to be on the lookout for it any time, any day."

Specifically, scientists have to be on the lookout for human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus, the most lethal of the 16 known strains of bird flu. Once it occurs and is, with luck, detected, the frantic race against time will begin.

It is essential to stop the virus dead in its tracks as soon as it is picked up. Surveillance is key, says Alison Stewart, director of emergency planning at the Ontario Ministry of Health.

"If there's a pandemic, we won't be able to hold it off, so it is really important to contain it to buy time for a vaccine to be developed and distributed."

Still no serious coverage in the American media. This article in the Toronto Star is a real good survey of the topic. This is one to print out and hand to your family and neighbors.

When Dinosaurs Walked the Earth

More incredibly poor reporting about the creationism v. evolution story, this time in the LAT. He said, she said crapola. Why oh why can't we have better science reporting?

Adam, Eve and T. Rex
# Giant roadside dinosaur attractions are used by a new breed of creationists as pulpits to spread their version of Earth's origins.

By Ashley Powers, Times Staff Writer

CABAZON, Calif. — Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion.

The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists.

Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.

Dinny's new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah's Ark. The gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon Dinosaurs, sells toy dinosaurs whose labels warn, "Don't swallow it! The fossil record does not support evolution."

The Cabazon Dinosaurs join at least half a dozen other roadside attractions nationwide that use the giant reptiles' popularity in seeking to win converts to creationism. And more are on the way.

"We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that's already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.

"They're used to teach people that there's no God, and they're used to brainwash people," he said. "Evolutionists get very upset when we use dinosaurs. That's their star."

The nation's top paleontologists find the creation theory preposterous and say children are being misled by dinosaur exhibits that take the Jurassic out of "Jurassic Park."

"Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

Tyrannosaurus rex and his gigantic brethren find themselves on both sides of the nation's renewed debate over the Earth's origins and the continuing fight over whether Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" or Genesis best explains the development of life.

Science holds that dinosaurs were the Earth's royalty for about 160 million years. Their reign ended abruptly, possibly after a meteorite smacked into the planet, but they're considered the forebears of birds.

Unearthing dinosaur bones that are millions of years old "doesn't prove evolution, but it shows the Genesis account doesn't work," said Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the National Center for Science Education.

Drivers who pull off Interstate 10 in Pensacola, Fla., are told a far different story at Dinosaur Adventure Land. Its slogan: "Where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"

The nearly 7-acre museum, low-tech theme park and science center embodies its founder's belief that God created the world in six days. The dinosaurs, even super carnivores such as T. rex, dined as vegetarians in the Garden of Eden until Adam and Eve sinned — and only then did they feast on other creatures, according to the Christian-based young-Earth theory.

About 4,500 years after Adam and Eve arrived, the theory goes, pairs of baby dinosaurs huddled in Noah's Ark, and a colossal flood drowned the rest and scattered their fossils. The ark-borne animals repopulated the planet — meaning that folk tales about fire-breathing beasts are accounts of humans battling dinosaurs, who still roamed the planet.

Kids romping through the $1.5-million Florida theme park can bounce on a "Long Neck Liftasaurus" swing seat; launch water balloons at a T. rex and a stegosaurus, and smooth their own sandbox-size Grand Canyons, whose formation is credited to the flood. A "fossilized" pickle purports to show that dinosaur bones could have hardened quickly. Got an upcoming birthday? Dinosaur Adventure Land does pizza parties.

"Go to Disneyland, they teach evolution. It's subtle; signs that say, 'Millions of years ago' " said evangelist Kent Hovind, the park's founder. "This is a golden opportunity to get our point across."

Carl Baugh opened his Creation Evidence Museum in the 1980s near Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, where some people said fossilized dinosaur tracks and human footprints crisscrossed contemporaneously. The Texas museum sponsors a continuing hunt for living pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea. Baugh said five colleagues have spotted the flying dinosaurs, "but all the sightings were made after dark, and we were not able to capture the creatures."

I'm a theologian, not a scientist, and none of the theology I know requires any of this bulls&*t. Evolution and theology can live quite nicely right next to each other. Every theologian I know looks at these people and rightly sees them as fundamentalist, biblical literalist nuts. That's what the reporters don't understand, this isn't theology, it is bad Bible study.

Gary Farber has more.

Around the 'Sphere

Wayne at PSoTD has an interview with our partner, revere, this morning. Go take a look.

DemfromCT has more, on the dust-up between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services about who takes the lead in a flu pandemic. Frankly, the US Government doesn't seem to have a clue, which means we are on our own, Bumpers. But you knew that.

In the Steppes of Central Asia

Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier, Wounds 4 in Afghanistan

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 27, 2005

Filed at 6:25 a.m. ET

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A bomb killed a U.S. service member and wounded four when it exploded near their armored vehicle in eastern Afghanistan, the military said on Saturday.

The blast occurred Friday in Paktika province near the border with Pakistan. The wounded were rushed to nearby bases for treatment. One was in critical condition, one in stable condition and two have returned to duty, a military statement said.

It said the troops were providing security ahead of landmark legislative elections next month, which Taliban rebels have vowed to subvert.

''Our forces have gained a great deal against the enemy and our actions will ensure a safe and secure election next month,'' said Brig. Gen. James G. Champion, deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition. ''We will honor our fallen comrade by taking the fight to these cowards who are responsible for this attack. They will not be able to rest until they are either captured or killed.''

The death brings to 188 the number of U.S. troops killed in and around Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban 2001.

We're losing that other war, too.

Ignoring the Obvious

via Susie:

Fury over loss of 9/11 heroes' health program

By MICHAEL McAULIFF DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — A program supposed to monitor the health of thousands of federal workers who answered the call of 9/11 has been lost for more than two years, the Daily News has learned. "We seem to have inherited our own Loch Ness monster in terms of being able to find this monitoring," said Jon Adler, vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association.

Programs were developed to check on the health of every other group that rushed to Ground Zero during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, primarily the World Trade Center Medical Screening Program run by the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Officials involved told The News the feds barred their workers from that program because they were setting up their own.

Unfortunately, that program vanished during the bureaucratic shuffle creating the Department of Homeland Security.

After trying for months to find out what happened, Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney's office was able to uncover only that a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services got $3.7 million for the work. But it started and stopped in 2003, seeing fewer than 600 people.

"I was told there was a 'lull,'" said Maloney, who fired off a letter to HHS yesterday seeking explanations. "This is unacceptable, these men and women are certainly not experiencing a lull in the health effects they are suffering from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero."

An HHS spokesman insisted the program had not been lost, but that screeners with the Federal Occupational Health Service ran into more problems than they expected.

"It was put on a temporary hold while we have been fixing those problems," said Bill Hall, an HHS spokesman. He could not explain the problems or why monitoring stopped for more than two years. He said it would resume soon with workers who signed up originally.

But of nearly a dozen federal law enforcers contacted by The News, only one said he ever got a chance to ask for monitoring.

Still waiting on those explanations.

Good Eating

London Broil for your end-of-the-summer weekend

Serve this with classic summer bounty, tomato slices dressed with classic olive oil and basil, corn on the cob with butter and salt. Marinate this overnight and you have a party.

BARBECUED FLANK STEAK OR LONDON BROIL

3/4 c. vegetable oil
1/3 c. soy sauce
3 tbsp. honey
3 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 green onion, chopped
1 lg. garlic cloves, crushed
1 (1 1/2 lb.) flank steak or London broil, trimmed and scored

Combine first 7 ingredients. Place meat in large marinade dish and pour marinade over. Cover and refrigerate overnight, turning steak twice.

Prepare barbecue. Grill meat to desired doneness, 4 to 5 minutes per side for rare (best for London Broil). Slice into thin strips across grain and serve.

Serves six. Bigger flank steaks are easy to find and can easily be frozen in their marinade for singles. They thaw nicely and grill in a broiler pan once they have been broken up into meal-sized pieces.

Stick a Yukon gold potato in the toaster oven and, by God, you have a meal worthy of company if you have a cup of sour cream in the fridge and a little fresh pepper and salt resting on the back of the range.

Steak and a Yukon gold? I'd die happy with that.

Stuff and Morale

I'm going to be really busy this weekend: I've got a boatload of preparation to do for this Red Cross panel, major work to do at The Flu Wiki and more avian flu research to do. Pogge is sending me to school on wiki architecture, finding my responses to his probing questions highly inadequate. Guest posters, the house is yours for the weekend. I'll be around but not so much. I'm bringing dinner (courtesy of DemfromCT) to friends tomorrow night. Dem is vacationing with the family in Maine, I teased him about it (I love Maine) and lobster with all the trimmings arrives by FedEx tomorrow. My Flu Wiki partners are awfully nice guys, and I'm lucky to be working with people I know, respect and genuinely enjoy (I don't know what I'd do without pogge. He's not just responsible for my sites' tech work; he's also responsible for maintaining my sense of humor, a much more fragile quality.)

Enjoy the guest posters over the weekend and keep the discussions going. Hurricane Katrina is probably going to drive gas prices higher. We are going to need all the help we can get to keep our spirits up. There isn't a lot of good news out there; we are going to have to BE the good news for each other.

On Sunday, as always, I'll also be at American Street, as well. Enjoy your weekend.

Site News

Bumpers, a pretty cool thing happened today. The American Red Cross, the national people, contacted me today about participating on a panel next month on disaster communication, social software and The Flu Wiki. Lord knows I've attended plenty of these think-tank panels in the last few years. I got to meet one of the revere's at one of them in May. I never thought I would be on one. I'd love your thoughts about the things you think I should address in the 15 minutes or so that I'll get to speak.

You are the most thoughtful bloggers in the 'sphere, so I look forward to your ideas.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

I am working under the assumption that I want to use minimal energy and minimal water to accomplish providing meals for myself and my daughter. I want to be able to provide food for 90 days for two people under a situation of periodically dicey to nonexistent electrical power and a potable water supply that exists no more than two out of every three days.

The following is a base food supply plan. More will need to be purchased to add variety to the diet, but this is a place to start. Get this done and you can relax a bit by choosing the “extras” that will make planning your food storage plans more fun.

I also want to make it clear that this base food supply plan is one idea out of many possible. This will work for myself and my daughter, but if you have ideas or plans that you think are equally viable for the average person, couple or family to emulate, please do share them here.

Finally, eat this stuff as part of your regular diet, before a pandemic starts. Circulate the food through so none of it goes to waste. If you are implementing something new into your diet in case of an emergency, you want to get comfortable with it's taste and texture now. And if it turns out we were all just worried over nothing, you'll have the pleasure of eating most of your "mistakes".

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Emergencies, Evacuation, Protection

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Entertainment & Acceptance

UPDATE:
DRY ICE – Some grocery store chains are now providing dry ice for sale, usually in the seafood section. This will make acquiring it a lot easier than usual.

TASTYBITE INDIAN MEALS – If you order over $50 at the Tastybite website, you get 10% off of the order total. If you spend over $75 between now and October 31st you’ll get a $5 case rebate. The WEBSWEEP coupon code, which takes you up to a 20% discount, still works.

CANADIAN CANNED MEAT – I have noticed, from frequenting a few of the “dollar stores” like Big Lots and such, that they tend to buy Canadian tinned/canned meats. One benefit I’ve noticed so far is that there is a much lower occurrence of hydrolyzed protein in these products. Possibly more salt, for the sake of preservation, I suspect, but I’d rather deal with something I can flush out my system than something with questionable properties.

MEXICAN JUICE EURO-PACKS – Another thing I’ve noticed is that in many of these same stores you can now buy pretty large vacu-sealed containers of fruit juice from Mexico. It’s not often you can find guava juice at a reasonable price, the juice content isn’t bad, and instead of corn syrup, you get to deal with fructose or sugar. To me, the latter two are not nearly as big a problem as corn syrup. (And granted, this is more of a luxury item, but if you want to have a cheap thrill in your emergency pantry…)

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS – I finally got to one of their food storage facilities, and to be honest, unless you’re a hardcore “meat and potatoes” fan that knows they need soy in their diet, it isn’t much to brag about. I’m past my childhood need for Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, but if you aren’t, look for one of these places.

MORMONS – I haven’t yet had a direct discussion with my local Mormon bishop, but he did tell me via a phone message that many bishop’s storehouses will provide the means for non-Mormons, on request, to preserve any food they wish to take care of with their equipment. I hope to have more information on this front before long, as this is an option we need to be better informed about.

HOT CHOW/DRINKS – The Nuwick option is kinda a bust, as far as I’m concerned. You really can’t cook with it, unless we’re talking water or soups. Trying to use it to cook rice was a no go, in part because it just takes too long to get things hot enough, and when you, you end up, upon cleanup, with a nasty mix of soot and your stove’s protective paint/covering on you and any pots or pans you use.

So, what to do?

It comes down to comfort level and adaptability. How long do you think you might have to do without electric power or natural gas to heat your food? What is your experience with using cooking while camping, if any? How much would you be able to ventilate your place so fumes aren’t an issue, versus letting in the cold?

To keep it simple, I would go with gas container-based camping stoves. I have an old Campingaz Bluet 470, and while the containers are a bit more expensive than other options, they are, I think, a little easier to use. MSR (via the Firefly and the Pocket Rocket) and Coleman also provide what I consider some good options in this arena as well – look for stoves that can use at least two different types of gas containers if possible.

As a backup/alternative, I would check out stoves that can cook using the unleaded fuel in your car. (That means you’d better make sure you get a siphon for removing gas from your car, and pay for the privilege of an automated one that doesn’t require using your mouth to get it started – trust me on this.) Ventilation is even more important than before going this route, and one should consider that the unleaded gas you use cooking is gas that you don’t have if you need to leave the area by vehicle. By the same token, however, if I have to leave my home, I intend to use what’s available, and unleaded gas will be available in one form or another more so than camping gas containers, or white gas, or what have you. I like the Coleman Multi Fuel Stove and 442 Dual-Fuel Stove best.

ORIGINAL POST:
Tastybite (www.tastybite.com) is an excellent source for basic Indian meals that provide the protein you will seek with a minimum of preparation or effort. (They also make some Thai meals which I haven’t tried as yet.) They tend to sell single-course meals or meals which also contain, in a separate pouch, ready-to-eat rice and a container for microwaving the contents of both pouches.

Each single-course meal is in a sealed foil pouch which can last between nine months and one year. They tend toward the mildly-to-moderately spicy, but they also have relatively mellow concoctions such as their Bombay Potatoes. Some of their meals are Vegan if that is your preference, and some have at least a minimal amount of vegetables – I’m checking out their Sprouts and Curry meal presently to see if, given the concentrated nature of sprouts as a food source, it gives enough to make it worth buying.

Tastybite Indian meals can be purchased in individual packs or in six-packs at a slight discount from their website. (Their ready-to-eat meal packs are temporarily not available as six-packs, but probably will be again after the sale mentioned below.)

Right now, through August 31, Tastybite has a special on purchases above $50. On top of that, there is a special coupon code, WEBSWEEP, which will take additional money off the cost of their products. With postage, I’m averaging $1.76 per main course, for a total of around $316, delivered to my door. That covers 180 meals.

But what should go with it? Good question. For me, brown rice will be our family’s anchor for our base food supply. It isn’t hard to buy two 25 pound sacks of brown rice, and I recommend you check out the large grocery store chains first. Where I live, for instance, Fred Meyer has a history of bulk food prices that rival its more well-thought-of food co-ops such as the Puget Consumers Co-op (PCC) and Whole Foods. This will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 for 50 pounds of rice. Brown rice tends to have a shorter shelf life than white rice (the price we pay for something with much higher nutrition), so I recommend going to a bulk food or restaurant supply store and getting some large plastic food containers with lids, some dry ice, and large, very strong garbage bags. Set up the garbage bag in the food container as if it were a trash can, put dry ice in the bottom of the container, and pour the rice in. This can be adjusted to suit – for example, if you just don’t have the time to find large food containers, stores like Target and higher-end hardware stores will have more than adequate containers for the task. Keep in mind that you want to stash the rice in containers that are stackable to minimize the space required to keep all of this food in one small place.

The first backup to the rice will be a case or so of Ak-Mak crackers, which can be bought fairly cheaply from the Trader Joes chain. (Most stores, unfortunately, sell these crackers at a much higher price.) The crackers are 100% whole wheat with sesame seeds on top, and they taste great. A case of 42 boxes of the crackers costs about $50 at Trader Joes. There are 20 crackers in a box, so at four crackers a day, you have more than enough for two people over 90 days.

The second backup to the rice will be the bulk purchase of Cheerios or their equivalent. They are easy to digest, have a distinctive taste, and are a relatively healthy snack. Seal these up like the rice if you buy in bulk, but also have some small sealable bags handy. People will get bored sitting in a house for 90 days, and sometimes boredom leads to snacking. Give them something that’s good for them. I’m pricing generic (possibly organic) Cheerios at around $27 for a 9-pound sack, but I’m also seeing sales of the original General Millls version at five 15 oz. boxes for $10 in this neighborhood, or just over $2 a pound.

Melanie mentioned earlier that citrus can keep for a long time, and I would say that that is absolutely true for lemons and some oranges, but not always for limes – mine, at least, always seem to turn bad sooner than the other two. So make sure you buy an adequate supply of each, and if you lose power, keep them in the coolest part of your home or outside if possible/reasonable. And whatever you do, eat the peelings – don’t just use the fruit. Have a hand juicer at home as well to sparkle up your seltzer or water, or to add some extra flavor to your cooking. I’m figuring $200 for citrus, and have found a sale this week of $10 for 10 pounds of oranges. (My local grocery stores seem to have “X for $10” on the brain of late…)

Meat and veggies will always be desired, but are a tougher row to hoe. Yes, you can get canned stuff, and I know we will do this to some extent, but it’s all too easy to get inferior product, especially where canned vegetables are concerned, so be cautious. Right now I’m seeing cans of carrots (8 oz) and asparagus (14.75 oz) going for around 99 cents a can, not on sale. Figure at least $180 for canned veggies.

The cheapest canned meat is probably canned light tuna in water – it’s on sale around here for as little as 44 cents for an eight-ounce can, but for six cents per can more, you can often add a year to the shelf date. Some will worry about the mercury content in tuna due to recent reports, but the following website…

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article;_id=218392486

….should alleviate these fears somewhat. If you still want an alternative, Keta or pink salmon is going as cheap as $1.50 for a 14.75 ounce can when on sale. (NOTE: Both often still have edible but not pleasant-looking bones in each product. If you have kids, take into account the "ick" factor and plan accoridngly.) I’m also noticing that canned chicken is becoming more common, but to be honest, I’m not comfortable with buying it, since you may be getting disease vectors in a can. Buy 90 cans of tuna and 45 of salmon, and you’re talking around $113. (And consider peanut butter as an alternative or further supplement.)

For women in particular, calcium and soy will need to be considered. Here, Melanie and I are having a discussion over the best path to follow. Melanie recommends buying Parmalat UHF milk – this is milk that has been boiled to kill bacteria and vacuum sealed. It isn’t readily available in my neighborhood, but Amazon.com has it for $1.99 for 32 oz. This can get expensive fast, however - $180 per person. For myself, I’ve drank UHF milk while on a work assignment in Singapore, and my parents used milk powder when my dad juggled going to college full-time with raising a family. Neither experience brings back fond memories, and thus makes it hard for me to say I’d rotate either item into my daily food usage with any enthusiasm. I would suggest trying both in small quantities, preferably with some vanilla extract on hand to adjust the taste, and buying what you think is best. (Forced to choose today, I would personally use milk power and invest the savings in vacu-sealed soups and broths that can last up to seven months.)

And, of course, there is always “soy milk”. Silk tends to have one of the smoother tastes I’ve experienced, but opinions will vary.

With appropriate multivitamins, you have the makings of a good food base supply. You will want to add money for spices and extras – I know that canned button mushrooms will de-grumpify my daughter in a heartbeat, for example. Even so, with thoughtful planning, $700-$900 a head for 90-day coverage, with food that can and should be eaten/rotated as part of the regular routine until the epidemic hits, is possible.

And one area we haven’t touched are the Seventh Day Adventists and the Mormons, both of which take food storage seriously. There is a Seventh Day Adventist food storage facility I’ll be visiting this weekend, and I’ll let you know what I find – much of what will be available will probably be soy-based products. The Mormons tend to have what are known as Bishop’s Storehouses, and I have a call into my area's local Bishop to see if non-members may purchase food at such places.

But, you may ask, what about cooking food? Hot chow can cover a lot of sins in the course of a day, so this must be considered as a vital component of the food supply.

This is something I’ve thought about for a while. I have a few Gaz canisters and related gear to cover cooking food during the aftermath of an earthquake for a few days, but 90 days of white gas or propane doesn’t seem smart to have in your home. A solar-paneled hotplate would be a great idea, or a solar oven for that matter, but I live where cloudy days are the norm.

I’m going to purchase and experiment with Nuwick candles and their folding stove. The candles come in 44-hour and 120-hour versions, they are made so that multiple wicks can be used on the same candle due to their large surface area, and I feel a bit more comfortable with controlling this source for cooking than propane.

These can be purchased fairly reasonable prices via…

htp://www.campmor.com

or

http://www.nitro-pak.com

Both Campmor and Nitro-Pak have been around for a while. Like most such places, Nitro-Pak sometimes wants to “feed your fear” to get you to buy more stuff, but I tend to see them as doing this more by the spoonful rather than in other such places, where it's by the bucketful.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Hi folks - my name is Rich Erwin and I guess I’m “the unflappable list builder”.

Melanie has asked that I make a few comments regarding preparation for the possible flu epidemic we might have visit us within the next few months or less. What I intend to do is offer up my opinions and plans to prepare for the possibility of lack of access to local goods and services during this period.

From there I hope to get a conversation started on each topic via the comments – there are lots of bright, thoughtful folks here at Bump, and I’m certain many of you will have better or at least more fully developed ideas and options than where I’ll start each conversation.

More importantly, for those of us who feel, at times, overwhelmed by all of this, I want to provide an example, by my tappings on the keyboard and the responses in reply, that preparation is doable. I’m a majority-custody single parent with a periodically demanding job, and while it isn’t always easy to do, I’m taking steps. You can too. If this saves at least one life by convincing someone that they can do this, I'll have done what I’ve set out to do.

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Introduction and Framework

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Food

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Water

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Medication and CAM

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Emergencies, Evacuation, Protection

Flu Pandemic Preparation - Entertainment & Acceptance

UPDATE:
This is an excellent page on flu preparedness guides from the Flu Wiki: use it - please.

ORIGINAL POST:
THE FRAMEWORK

First, let me state that you have to work under the assumption you and I simply don’t know when this problem might strike, but it is a certainty that it will come sometime over the next few years, possibly in multiple formats. I think that the shear concentration of people, pigs, birds and development/pollution in rural China is simply going to turn the place into a vortex for nasty potential, but not certain, diseases for at least a fair number of years. I think we can dodge the bullet for a while, but eventually something bad will get to here, where we have our own high concentrations of pigs, chickens, and (though not nearly as bad as in the Third World) people. We may have nothing happen to us this coming flu season. But it will come - and if we're granted a reprieve this year, all the more time to prepare for next year. Or the one after that. Prepare, accept and pray is my personal path on this one. Fear and nonchalance are unacceptable options.

That said, here are some assumptions I’m making to prepare for a flu pandemic…

1) Your neighborhood is one of your best resources. Most people are desperate to know that their neighbor is a pleasant fellow human being. Cultivate that idea by being yourself publicly and including them in the process. An example – my next-door neighbor forgot to put out her trash can on Monday morning. I was in a rush to get mine out, noticed that hers wasn’t (something I hadn’t seen before), checked her can, saw it had trash in it, and took it to the curb. When I came home from work, I knocked on her door, told her what happened, and got two seconds into apologizing if she had other ideas by being broadsided with a lot of Thank-Yous. If your neighbors have faces and lives attached to your home, they will include you in their conversations, or, with your knowledge of the pandemic, you will be the one that might be asked to lead or anchor the conversations.

2) Share, but don’t be showy. Many, if not most, of your neighbors will get caught flat-footed when this happens. They will appreciate whatever help you can give, but might resent it if life looks “too good” over at your home. A gas-powered generator, in once sense, seems like a good idea, but if you have the only one in the neighborhood, be sure that folks are being invited to save their perishables in your refrigerator, for example. Likewise, have extra items you think others will need but that you won’t, but don’t make a big deal about it. (As a side note, this is why I’m against Melanie’s idea of buying liquor as a barter good during a pandemic – do you really want to learn, the hard way, who your neighborhood’s angry drunks are?)

3) Low profile. This is a little different from 2). In short, don’t appear to be an appealing target. When it’s dark, sleep. When it’s light, do stuff. Minimize your need for electricity and activity immediately outside the home. This is more in concern not with your immediate neighbors, but roamers looking for potentially lucrative targets. The only “loud” thing I might consider is a quarantine sign on or beside your front door. Potential looters, if they come to pass, will want to find empty homes, not ones full of potentially living sick people.

4) “Consume your paranoia.” With few exceptions, everything I’m considering for purchase/stockpiling must be useful outside of pandemic conditions. I can’t think of anything sillier, for example, than buying food you wouldn’t touch under almost any other circumstances.

I can say from personal experience that the ability to go into mental “vapor lock” is an easy reaction to this situation. You start to worry about all of the things you need and how to do it, and it can virtually immobilize you. Add to that, as many do, the daily chores of work, family and friends that expect their fair share from you, and it can seem impossible to react adequately.

My response to this is that you compartmentalize the tasks. Deal with food, then water, then keeping yourself and your loved ones entertained, etc… But breaking the task down into smaller ones can provide you with greater focus and allow you to get the larger job done.

Leave It To The Docs

A job for the experts
Federal health agencies, not Homeland Security, should take charge if avian flu epidemic strikes U.S.

Published on: 08/26/05

The Bush administration needs to make it clear — and soon — that federal health agencies will take the lead if the country is hit by a human pandemic from a deadly new strain of avian influenza emerging in southeast Asia.

But on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff claimed that his agency would get that overall responsibility.

Homeland Security would certainly play a critical role in such a response — determining, for instance, whether to suspend travel to and from countries where the flu has infected humans and ensuring that vaccine and anti-viral medicines get to where they're most needed.

But given the gravity and complexity of the health issues that accompany a pandemic, agencies such as the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must take the lead in securing the country's safety.

The CDC, in fact, was created for such a mission. The Atlanta-based agency has worked closely with the World Health Organization to monitor the spread of the bird flu strain, which thus far has infected 112 people and killed 57 in four southeast Asian countries. Moreover, it already has the expertise and framework needed to gather and analyze the most accurate and up-to-date information from public health officials in the 50 states. If and when it comes time to make hard calls about where to muster resources, it will be the CDC's expertise that government calls upon.

Chertoff may simply have overstated Homeland Security's role in a future pandemic. At least one public health expert, Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, thinks that's the case. He believes the secretary of Health and Human Services (parent agency of the CDC) will make the critical decisions in close coordination with Homeland Security "to make sure all the pieces work together."

The nightmare scenario, of course, is that Bush declares martial law and cancels the 2006 elections.

Weather Report

The remnents of Katrina will get here Tuesday night. The last time this happened, we lost power for 24 hours. My brother and his wife were down for a week. Suffice it to say that there might be a "service interruption" in Bump next week. Time to clean out the fridge.

MSM Killing Self

Dan Froomkin doesn't come right out and say it, but this is really troubling:

Bush's Secret Dinner -- With the Press

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, August 26, 2005; 12:00 PM

About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward.

It's something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying thank you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area is anything but a vacation.

And in spite of all the recent press demands for senior administration officials to stay on the record more often, the press corps can't resist an offer of face time with the president, pretty much no matter what the conditions.

Nevertheless, I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last night's event, particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved.

The Associated Press reports: "President Bush played host to the White House press corps Thursday night for a private off-the-record dinner at his ranch.

"The casual affair of fried catfish, potato salad, coleslaw, homemade cheese and chocolate-chip cookies followed a tradition in which Bush and his wife, Laura, have the press covering his annual August vacation out to the their ranch in central Texas as a sort of thank-you.

"The event was not held last year because of the busy campaign season. The invitations to the reporters were issued on the condition that they not discuss conversations at the event."

My sources (in this case, I should point out, not from The Washington Post) provided a few more details.

The president and the first lady greeted everyone personally in an informal receiving line. Both were dressed casually, Bush in jeans.

The dinner itself was held poolside. The reporters and camera crews were invited to bring swimsuits, but no one opted to strip and swim.

The beer, as usual, was a Texas brew: Shiner Bock.

The topics of conversation included the antiwar protests, the twins, sports, and Bush's summer reading list.

Unlike the event two years ago, there was no tour of the property.

Several senior White House aides attended and also spoke to reporters off the record, including deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch II and deputy chief of staff Joseph Hagin.

One Bush touch particularly appreciated by the working media: Invitations were sent out at the last minute, so that only the reporters and photographers already in the area could attend -- preventing any bigfooting by the media elites in Washington or New York, or on vacation themselves.

Does anybody in attendance want to tell me more? E-mail me at [email protected] .

Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post about the 2003 barbeque, saying it represented "the time-honored political tradition of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer."

That event later became notorious for an exchange related by Ken Auletta in his seminal 2004 New Yorker article about how the White House keeps the press under control:

"Bush has let it be known that he's not much of a television-news watcher or a newspaper reader, apart from the sports section; and during a conversation with reporters he explained, perhaps without intending to, why his White House often seems indifferent to the press. 'How do you then know what the public thinks?' a reporter asked, according to Bush aides and reporters who heard the exchange. And Bush replied, 'You're making a huge assumption -- that you represent what the public thinks.' "

Incidentally, Bush isn't the only one holding off-the-record dinners with reporters this summer. I'm told senior adviser Karl Rove has held several in the last month himself.

Protesting Limited Press Access

Meanwhile, Ken Herman of Cox News Service writes in a story not available online: "The White House News Photographers' Association, in a letter to top Bush aides, said the administration increasingly is refusing to allow news photographers into some events. Instead, the White House has been releasing photos shot by its staffers, a process deemed unsatisfactory by the photographers association.

"In a letter to White House Counselor Dan Bartlett and Chief of Staff Andy Card, Susan Walsh, WHNPA president, said her organization 'is troubled by the increasing number of photo releases from events involving the president of the United States. . . .

" 'We are quickly losing our ability to gather the news, especially at the White House.' "

As Walsh explained to Herman: "A White House photo release, no matter how accurate the image, provides only one perspective -- one that is carefully screened and approved."

The press is complicit in the demise of the press. You don't ride bikes with him, you don't socialize with him. He's a subject of reporting and I can't think of any other reporters who would do such a thing with the subject of their reporting. This is a substantial breach of journalistic ethics.

Skunkworks

Pacifica Radio reports this morning:

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts may have been a part of the Iran-contra affair. That’s one of 2,000 papers Democrats are seeking that the White House refuses to release. During Robert’s tenure during the Reagan Administration, he authored a paper about an office that was used to side step the ban on funding militias to overthrow the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Other papers involving Roberts refusing to be released are on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Presidential pardons.

Fascinating. It ain't over yet.

Looking North

Ignatieff coming home to U of T
Speculation on future swirls
Is scholar aiming for Liberal helm?

ANDREW MILLS
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA—Michael Ignatieff is coming home to Canada — leaving his post at Harvard University for a prestigious position at the University of Toronto, sources close to him say.

This news, to be announced by the university today, will undoubtedly fuel speculation the Canadian-born scholar plans to make a bid for the leadership of the federal Liberal party.

Ignatieff, 58, will become the Chancellor Jackman visiting professor in human rights policy and will also become a fellow at the university's Munk Centre for International Studies.

He and his wife have bought a condominium close to the university's downtown campus, according to a friend who wanted to remain anonymous.

They are expected to spend the bulk of this fall in Toronto as Ignatieff takes on duties at U of T and wraps up work as director of Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy in Cambridge, Mass. Ignatieff will take up all his new duties in January.

"His intention is not to make his move back to Canada temporary," the friend said. "His intention is to make it permanent."

Suspicions have swirled through political circles in recent months that Ignatieff has the leadership of the Liberal party in his sights.

Many will see his return to Canada after nearly 30 years abroad as preparation to run for the leadership.

But Ignatieff has denied he has any such plans and his friends say his return to Canada isn't connected to his potential future career here.

"He's been talking about coming back to Canada for a long time," said the friend, who is a member of the Liberal party.

"I think that he is increasingly interested in the public and political debate in Canada, so I think all of these things have led him to make a decision that now is a good time. ... The issue for Michael Ignatieff will be how best for him to make a contribution to public and political debate. That will be a question he asks himself."

Nevertheless, the attractive and charismatic Ignatieff, who is the author of several books, has been quietly circulating in some Liberal circles since March, when he came to Ottawa to deliver the keynote address at the party's policy convention.

In May, according to party insiders, Ignatieff met with prominent Liberals in at least Quebec and Nova Scotia.

And a group of prominent Toronto Liberals — who once supported leadership hopeful John Manley — have surrounded Ignatieff. That group, which includes Toronto lawyer Alfred Apps, has encouraged him to become more involved in the party, which has no obvious heir apparent who will take over when Prime Minister Paul Martin steps down as leader.

Martin, who turns 67 on Sunday, will lead the Liberals into an election expected this winter.

Ignatieff is going to have to build his profile if he wants to succeed Martin. In a poll conducted by SES Research for the Toronto Star this week, only 4 per cent of Canadians said they see Ignatieff as the prime contender to replace Martin.

Since Ignatieff has been a functional Yank for 30 years, I daresay he doesn't have much name recognition above the 49th parallel. That's easy to fix. Prime Minister Ignatieff? That would give Bush nightmares, which suits me fine. Having a real liberal running the show up north might get me to emigrate just yet. [/sarcasm off]

Hey, their flu planning is better than ours.

It is So Over

Before It's Too Late in Iraq

By Wesley K. Clark

Friday, August 26, 2005; Page A21

In the old, familiar fashion, mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq have mobilized increasing public doubts about the war. More than half the American people now believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. They're right. But it would also be a mistake to pull out now, or to start pulling out or to set a date certain for pulling out. Instead we need a strategy to create a stable, democratizing and peaceful state in Iraq -- a strategy the administration has failed to develop and articulate.

From the outset of the U.S. post-invasion efforts, we needed a three-pronged strategy: diplomatic, political and military. Iraq sits geographically on the fault line between Shiite and Sunni Islam; for the mission to succeed we will have to be the catalyst for regional cooperation, not regional conflict.

Unfortunately, the administration didn't see the need for a diplomatic track, and its scattershot diplomacy in the region -- threats, grandiose pronouncements and truncated communications -- has been ill-advised and counterproductive. The U.S. diplomatic failure has magnified the difficulties facing the political and military elements of strategy by contributing to the increasing infiltration of jihadists and the surprising resiliency of the insurgency.

On the political track, aiming for a legitimate, democratic Iraqi government was essential, but the United States was far too slow in mobilizing Iraqi political action. A wasted first year encouraged a rise in sectarian militias and the emergence of strong fractionating forces. Months went by without a U.S. ambassador in Iraq, and today political development among the Iraqis is hampered by the lack not only of security but also of a stable infrastructure program that can reliably deliver gas, electricity and jobs.

Meanwhile, on the military track, security on the ground remains poor at best. U.S. armed forces still haven't received resources, restructuring and guidance adequate for the magnitude of the task. Only in June, over two years into the mission of training Iraqi forces, did the president announce such "new steps" as partnering with Iraqi units, establishing "transition teams" to work with Iraqi units and training Iraqi ministries to conduct antiterrorist operations. But there is nothing new about any of this; it is the same nation-building doctrine that we used in Vietnam. Where are the thousands of trained linguists? Where are the flexible, well-

resourced, military-led infrastructure development programs to win "hearts and minds?" Where are the smart operations and adequate numbers of forces -- U.S., coalition or Iraqi -- to strengthen control over the borders?

With each passing month the difficulties are compounded and the chances for a successful outcome are reduced. Urgent modification of the strategy is required before it is too late to do anything other than simply withdraw our forces.

Adding a diplomatic track to the strategy is a must. The United States should form a standing conference of Iraq's neighbors, complete with committees dealing with all the regional economic and political issues, including trade, travel, cross-border infrastructure projects and, of course, cutting off the infiltration of jihadists. The United States should tone down its raw rhetoric and instead listen more carefully to the many voices within the region. In addition, a public U.S. declaration forswearing permanent bases in Iraq would be a helpful step in engaging both regional and Iraqi support as we implement our plans.

On the political side, the timeline for the agreements on the Constitution is less important than the substance of the document. It is up to American leadership to help engineer, implement and sustain a compromise that will avoid the "red lines" of the respective factions and leave in place a state that both we and Iraq's neighbors can support. So no Kurdish vote on independence, a restricted role for Islam and limited autonomy in the south. And no private militias.

In addition, the United States needs a legal mandate from the government to provide additional civil assistance and advice, along with additional U.S. civilian personnel, to help strengthen the institutions of government. Key ministries must be reinforced, provincial governments made functional, a system of justice established (and its personnel trained) and the rule of law promoted at the local level. There will be a continuing need for assistance in institutional development, leadership training and international monitoring for years to come, and all of this must be made palatable to Iraqis concerned with their nation's sovereignty. Monies promised for reconstruction simply must be committed and projects moved forward, especially in those areas along the border and where the insurgency has the greatest potential.

On the military side, the vast effort underway to train an army must be matched by efforts to train police and local justices. Canada, France and Germany should be engaged to assist. Neighboring states should also provide observers and technical assistance. In military terms, striking at insurgents and terrorists is necessary but insufficient. Military and security operations must return primarily to the tried-and-true methods of counterinsurgency: winning the hearts and minds of the populace through civic action, small-scale economic development and positive daily interactions. Ten thousand Arab Americans with full language proficiency should be recruited to assist as interpreters. A better effort must be made to control jihadist infiltration into the country by a combination of outposts, patrols and reaction forces reinforced by high technology. Over time U.S. forces should be pulled back into reserve roles and phased out.

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops. If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

Um, Wes? I would have thought you were a better student of military history than that. We've already lost Iraq. We don't have enough troops to pacify a country this size. Period. It was over before we went in.

Iraq was a century-sized error from the get-go, and Donald Rumsfeld should be in jail.

The American Schedule

It's Salon, so watch the ad and then read Joe Conason.

Iraq's unhealthy constitution
The Bush administration's desperate insistence on an instant Iraqi constitution hurts both Iraq and our broader national interests. But when your polls are falling and you need to declare victory, who cares?

By Joe Conason

The Iraqi factions, divided by their bitter religious and ethnic history, feel no similarly unifying purpose, as evidenced in the draft document they have produced. Their most powerful impulse is to split apart -- and in the case of the Shiite Islamists, to impose their own version of theocratic law. Nevertheless, the Americans overseeing the development of Iraqi democracy insisted that the new constitution be written in a few months, amid the worst possible circumstances; Iraqis are scheduled to vote Oct. 15 on the proposed constitution.

This timetable accommodates the needs of the Bush White House and its loyal Republican supporters, who would like to declare a triumph for democracy in Iraq and start to reduce the number of U.S. troops there. Those needs intensify with every new poll that shows the president's credibility falling and the public mood souring. As the antiwar movement gains attention and midterm elections approach, claiming any kind of "victory" becomes imperative -- even if it falls far short of the promised triumph for liberty.

It also seems likely to lead to a constitution of dubious legitimacy and to potential disaster for the Iraqis. Whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein could ever have led to the rise of a secular democratic Iraq in the initial postwar period, as envisioned by the proponents of the American invasion, is now unknowable. Few Mideast experts ever considered that outcome likely, to put it politely. (Most considered such visions to be utter fantasy.) As in so many other aspects of American policy, however, the mindless chaos of post-invasion planning and the arrogant incompetence of U.S. officialdom have made matters worse.

It has been obvious for some time that the feuding factions in Baghdad are unready for a successful constitutional process, if not for democracy itself. Lacking the mutual confidence and shared interests that are the necessary elements for this fundamental exercise, the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis needed to live and work together for many months and perhaps years before devising a durable charter. They might never have been able to accomplish that ideal, but they needed much more time than the Bush administration permitted them.

The writing of a democratically legitimate constitution must be genuinely inclusive, which means that all the concerned groups have to be represented. The Sunni boycott of the parliamentary elections last winter made that essential prerequisite unachievable for now -- which ought to have encouraged American and Iraqi leaders to reevaluate the most desirable "path to democracy."

What they should have realized is that there is simply no way to write a real and functional constitution for a democratic state while a third of the population or more is in revolt. The Sunnis should have been persuaded to stop fighting and join in reconstruction before the constitutional process began, even if that meant new elections.

By rushing the constitution, the U.S. may well have foreclosed the most plausible means for ending the ongoing violence in Iraq: namely, a cease-fire and negotiations between the interim government (with its American sponsor) and the indigenous Sunni insurgents -- believed to constitute the majority of the problem -- and their greater network of sympathizers and supporters across Iraq. Those negotiations might have achieved reasonable guarantees to the Sunnis about their own future status and an orderly timetable for withdrawal of American and other foreign military forces.

I listened to NR's Steve Hayes on Dianne Rehm this morning deny that Dick Cheney ever said that Iraq would be a "cakewalk." They just make shit up. It's appalling how easy it is to refute the right, but they make up in volume what they lack in facts.

Those Internets

If you have been trouble getting Bump to render in your browser or to post comments, the problem isn't you. Things are funky here at the moment, and pogge is looking into it. Something ain't right.

Facing the World

Charter Talks in Iraq Reach Breaking Point"

By DEXTER FILKINS and JAMES GLANZ
Published: August 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 25 - Talks over the Iraqi constitution reached a breaking point on Thursday, with a parliamentary session to present the document being canceled and President Bush personally calling one of the country's most powerful Shiite leaders in an effort to broker a last-minute deal.

Mr. Bush intervened when some senior Shiite leaders said they had decided to bypass their Sunni counterparts, as well as Iraqi lawmakers, and send the document directly to Iraqi voters for their approval.

The calls by Shiite leaders to ignore the Sunnis' request for changes to the draft constitution provoked threats from the Sunnis that they would urge their people to reject the document when it goes before voters in a national referendum in October.

At day's end, American officials in Washington declared that the Iraqis had made "substantial and real progress" toward a deal on the constitution. And senior Iraqi leaders said they would make a last-ditch effort on Friday to strike a deal.

But after so many days of fruitless negotiations, some senior political leaders here suggested that time had run out.

"There are still some negotiations, but if we don't have any compromise, then that's it," said Sheik Khalid al-Atiyya, a Shiite negotiator. "We will go to the election to vote on it."

A decision by the Shiites to move ahead without the Sunnis would be a considerable blow to efforts by the Bush administration to bring the leaders of the Sunni minority into the negotiations over the constitution.

Mr. Bush and American officials here have expressed hope that bringing the Sunnis into the drafting of the constitution could help coax them into the political mainstream, and ultimately begin to undercut support for the guerrilla insurgency. The Sunnis largely boycotted the parliamentary elections in January.

In recent weeks, Sunni leaders across north and central Iraq have begun telling their communities to register for and vote in the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution and in the parliamentary elections scheduled for December. That trend could be endangered if Sunni leaders are not part of a deal on the constitution.

Indeed, the events of Thursday raised the prospect that the Sunnis would try to reject the constitution when it goes before the voters. Under the rules agreed to last year, a two-thirds majority voting against the constitution in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces would send the document down to defeat. The Sunnis are thought to constitute a majority in three provinces.

By Thursday night, Sunni leaders were declaring that they had been victimized by the majority Shiites, and they were already making plans to sink the constitution at the polls.

Imposed democracies work so well. Remember that "humble foreign policy" with "no nation building" that Bush ran on in 2000?

No

The Last Best Place?
Entrepreneur's Bid to Trademark Slogan Angers Montanans

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 26, 2005; Page A01

GREENOUGH, Mont. -- Rich guys have come west to shop. They have bought ranches with soul-stirring scenery and settled in -- usually for just a few weeks a year -- to savor what Montanans proudly call "The Last Best Place."

David Letterman has done it, as have Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw and thousands of non-celebrities. These high-net-worth interlopers have raised eyebrows and land values, but for the most part they have not raised hackles -- until this summer.

That's when word got out that David E. Lipson, a multimillionaire entrepreneur who was once chairman of Frederick's of Hollywood, the racy lingerie company, was not content with merely owning a big spread in Montana. He wants to trademark "The Last Best Place."

If Lipson has his way -- and six of his applications have been all but granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -- his various companies would have exclusive commercial use of "The Last Best Place" as a brand name. The phrase could be used to sell anything -- real estate, footwear, maybe a fruit drink.

"It is a normal business practice," Lipson said over lunch at his 37,000-acre ranch, called Paws Up, here in the Blackfoot Valley. "You trademark your brands."

Lipson said he would not try to prevent the state of Montana from using "The Last Best Place" in tourist promotion and was merely seeking to protect his business interests from trademark infringement.

"We were amazed that all the rights to 'The Last Best Place' hadn't been trademarked," he said. "It was shocking."

Shock -- together with shoot-that-varmint anger -- is what many Montanans felt when they heard about Lipson's effort to lock up commercial use of a euphonious and wildly popular slogan he did not invent.

"We just don't like big shots coming from someplace else and claiming they own something they don't," said Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a rancher himself, as well as the first Democratic governor of Montana since 1988. "Who is he? The Wizard of Oz? We don't think he is the Wizard of Oz, and I sure as hell ain't the scarecrow!"

Lipson's reputation in Montana has taken a terrible pounding this summer. Local newspapers keep mentioning the $2.8 million fine he was ordered to pay in 2001 to resolve a Securities and Exchange Commission charge of insider trading in a case involving Supercuts, the nationwide haircut chain of which he was chief executive in the mid-1990s.

Articles also note that Lipson has been sued by a Great Falls contractor for allegedly not paying bills for work done at his ranch. And Lipson generated still more headlines in July when he was fined a record $210,000 by the state for opening a high-end guest resort at his ranch without proper licenses for water.

These public relations problems pale, however, in comparison with the populist rage that Lipson ignited with his maneuvers to corner the market on "The Last Best Place.

These guys are marketing themselves as our "everyman". Maybe it is time to turn off our televisions and tell the marketers, "no."

Bird Flu Day

It's been a bird flu day. Today I wrote the form letter that I'll be sending to friends and relations as we move through the coming weeks. The time to start planning is now. According to my sources, the virus is probably already moving through human populations in Southeast Asia. H2H transmission may not be efficient yet, but it is happening. Revere says:

All previous pandemics have had a subterranean prologue of smoldering human infection, below the radar screen, followed by sudden explosive spread. Given the relative inability most of the countries where the disease is now endemic in poultry to mount effective surveillance efforts, I wouldn't be too confident.

I guess I'm a journalist now because I actually spent the day talking with sources. One of the television producers I spoke with asked me, "How are you sleeping these days?" The answer, "Poorly." The scary conversation I had with the WaPo reporter this morning isn't going to help tonight.

This was a very long day. How was yours?

Same Song, Second Verse

Iraq war woes

Bush can't dodge the sad facts, despite PR spin to rev up support

August 25, 2005

BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

Those of us who are old enough to have seen this movie before were reminded of other presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, who were haunted by another war and dogged by war protesters and a nation that lost confidence in their leadership and wound up divided against itself.

Will history remember this week as the tipping point for George W. Bush and the Republicans who control Congress? Can they stay the course as they head into mid-term elections next year?

One more question: Will our children and grandchildren and their children harvest a bitter crop of budget deficits, higher oil prices, Islamic militancy and a broken Army and Marine Corps that was seeded in Iraq by this president, his vice president and his secretary of defense?

Will that bitter harvest, not a cakewalk, a mission accomplished and a Mesopotamian march of democracy, be Bush's legacy?

Going Backwards

The Equal Rites Awards, 2005
Recognizing those who labored mightily throughout the past year to set back the cause of women

Ellen Goodman

OK, Harvard prez Larry Summers was all set to win the Battle of the Sexes Prize for the brouhaha created by his off-hand and off-the-wall remarks that women might have less "intrinsic aptitude" for science. But what do we give to the Harvard Corporation that saw fit to give him a raise instead of a rap? A grant to study the intrinsic aptitude for male bonding?

Can you advance backward? The Dubious Equality Award for the most unwanted parity goes to the Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks. She proved that women too can be commitment-phobic -- only they get famous for it.

Justice, wherefore are thou? The Blind Justice Award goes this year to Judge Paul Bastine of Spokane, Wash. The good judge refused to give Shawnna Hughes a divorce because she was pregnant and he didn't want her baby born illegitimate. Never mind that husband Carlos was in jail for domestic violence. We simply bench the judge.

But guess who is next at bat? We award John Roberts, nominee for the Supreme Court, the Let's Hope He Grew Out of It Prize. As a teenager, Roberts editorialized against admitting women to his parochial school because he didn't want to study Shakespeare's racy passages with "a blonde giggling and blushing behind me." Ruth Ginsburg, beware!

Finally, our Knight in Shining Armor Prize goes to George Bush for so many reasons, but especially this one. He didn't follow his wife's advice to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, but he did let her appoint the first woman chef to rule the White House kitchen. Who said there wasn't progress?

Devolution

Sectarian Violence in Iraq Precedes Submission of New Constitution
Fighters Believed to be From Saddam Hussein's Former Regime Kill Dozens

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Jonathan Finer and Saad Sarhan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 25, 2005; 12:27 PM

BAGHDAD, Aug. 25 -- Fighters believed to be members of Saddam Hussein's former regime killed 13 Iraqi police, 27 civilians and an American security-force member in a concerted attack in a west Baghdad neighborhood, first luring police within range by slaughtering five members of an Iraqi household, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Thursday.

The Baghdad attack, in which witnesses said up to 40 masked insurgents armed with grenade-launchers and AK-47 assault rifles openly walked the streets, came late Wednesday, as political violence and sectarian tensions flared across Iraq on the eve of a decision on Iraq's new constitution.

Two days of sudden clashes between government-allied Shiite fighters and a rival Shiite militia subsided in the south of Iraq by midday Thursday, after appeals for calm by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and militant Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Laith Kubba, a spokesman for Jafari, said the constitution itself would be submitted to the National Assembly on Thursday in its final form, after three days of final negotiations spurred largely by objections from Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.

"The assembly will then rubber-stamp it" with a vote no later than Sunday, Kubba said, making clear the extent to which faction leaders, rather than parliament members or parliament's constitutional committee, are deciding the charter.

Iraqis then will vote in a referendum to ratify the constitution on Oct. 15. Political leaders' negotiations on the charter had gone as far as far as they could, Kubba said. "They've just exhausted it -- they've spent hours debating this," he said.

The main disputes have been over federalism. A federal system called for in the constitution -- as demanded by members of the Shiite Muslim majority and the Kurdish ethnic minority -- would formalize the self-rule of the Kurdish north and allow the Shiite south and any other areas to also create their own federal regions. Sunni Arabs and followers Sadr, the Shiite cleric and key figure in the Shiite clashes, largely oppose federalism.

Kubba linked both the Sunni Arab insurgent attack in Baghad and the Shiite-on-Shiite violence in the south to the constitution, saying disputes over the charter had aggravated tensions in the south.

The Baghdad attack, Kubba said, was a "stage-managed operation" meant to overshadow progress on the constitution. "They wanted the writing on the wall, that they are still there."

Looks like we're into full-scale civil war now.

The American Media

The Vancouver Sun is on top of avian influenza. You might well ask where are the US papers? I just got off the phone with the WaPo writer who is on the flu beat and he isn't taking any of this seriously. He thinks this will be a 5-6 day event.

Morons.

(Link fixed.)

Black Hat Exploits

via my old friend Lex Alexander:

Hatin'

I'm in a hatin' mood right now, which is not like me. I can't tell whether I'm more hatin' on the fuckwads that write viruses and worms like the 87 variants of Zotob out there or on Microsoft for being so incredibly security unconscious. I sometimes get to hatin' on my own group for being too damn slow to respond to publication of exploits and the patches to secure them, but this time the malware came so fast and furious that it is unreasonable to think that we could have prevented the outbreak that has affected many of our customers, including the one that I support. I personally have only been inconvenienced, but many, maybe most, of the folks in my company have gone through sheer hell the last week, many logging as much as 100 hours in the week, and it ain't over yet.

Every time we go through one of these episodes (and this is turning out to be one of the worst), the question is raised as to whether we should continue to use/support Microsoft products. While I'm still not sure that Linux is ready for prime time as a user platform (I'm fully supportive of it as a server platform), I am thinking that moving from Microsoft applications is something that we could and probably should do today. Very few of my technically-inclined friends run MS browsers or email clients or productivity products at home. I've been running an old free version of StarOffice (the Sun version of OpenOffice) for a couple of years and it is almost indistinguishable from MS Office and does a tremendous job of converting from one to the other. I've been running Firefox and Thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook for months and there are only about 2 websites that I need to visit that don't format properly on Firefox and force me to use IE. So while I'm not quite ready to dump the Windows OS (there's no version of Dungeon Siege for Linux yet that I'm aware of), I'm fully supportive of dumping every other piece of crappy code they sell and will continue to suggest that my company and our customers do the same.

I know for some that it sounds like I'm blaming the victim (if you can imagine Microsoft as a victim) and I really do want to avoid that. The fuckwads (I can think of nothing else to call them) cost the global economy millions of dollars but what's even worse, they cause a lot of good innocent people to work their asses off, cancel vacations, miss their families, get stress-related illnesses and generally be miserable mostly for some dickhead's kicks. When they're caught, they should be punished commensurate with the crime - I'm thinking at least 30 years of hard time. If you just take one of our customers and add up the lost productivity of people who either had an infected PC taken off the network or a server that was critical to their work out of commission and add to that the hours spent remediating the problems caused by the malware or in preventing its further spread, you'd be up to 3.5 years of wasted time. And we had more than one customer affected. So maybe putting them away for life would be more appropriate. And it might save them from the angry mob of my fellows who would be more than willing to rip them apart limb from limb and hang them from butcher hooks in the town square.

Every infosec guy I know feels pretty much the same way. I'm not personally ready to head for Open BSD just yet, but I'm getting there. I hear Open Office is pretty nice stuff.

The Critical Information

Ian Welsh has an excellent post up this morning on avian influenza and economics this morning. Go read him. I missed the BMO presser yesterday with a bad stomach, Ian caught the transcript.

Yes, you are probably going to get a bird flu post a day. As the reveres point out this morning, we are really on day to day status with the birds now.

Time to kick your stockpiling into high gear.

Amerika

American Legion Declares War on Protestors -- Media Next?

By E&P; Staff

Published: August 24, 2005 4:20 PM ET

NEW YORK The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.

The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

In his speech, Cadmus declared: "It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction.”

He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies." This might suggest to some, however, that American freedoms are worth dying for but not exercising.

Without mentioning any current protestor, such as Cindy Sheehan, by name, Cadmus recalled: "For many of us, the visions of Jane Fonda glibly spouting anti-American messages with the North Vietnamese and protestors denouncing our own forces four decades ago is forever etched in our memories. We must never let that happen again….

"We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm's way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies."

Resolution 3, which was passed unanimously by 4,000 delegates to the annual event, states: "The American Legion fully supports the president of the United States, the United States Congress and the men, women and leadership of our armed forces as they are engaged in the global war on terrorism and the troops who are engaged in protecting our values and way of life."

Cadmus advised: "Let's not repeat the mistakes of our past. I urge all Americans to rally around our armed forces and remember our fellow Americans who were viciously murdered on Sept. 11, 2001."

Let's fight for our freedom by not exercising it. Right.

Where do these loonies come from?

The Book Club

The Visual Display of Information by Ed Tufte.

Let's start the Bump Book Club with this one for next month. We'll worry about the time and place later. Those of you out out of town can participate by computer, I'll make sure the venue is wi-fi enabled. I won't be able to order you a mojito at the bar, you'll have to take care if that, but we can use some chat software to have an engaging discussion

Those of you in town, I'm taking nominations for a great location with WiFi. My local Panera is in the mix.

If you don't have chat software, consider downloading Yahoo IM. It works pretty well and isn't a trojan horse for bad exploits by blackhats.

(Link fixed.)

Hiding in Plain Sight

Why we can miss 'obvious' sights

BBC August 24, 2005

Scientists say they have pinpointed the brain region involved in a curious phenomenon called "change blindness".

Most of us know what it is like to look at something but fail to see the obvious, such as a traffic light turning green.

UK researchers at University College London, along with US colleagues from Princeton University, have located the brain's parietal cortex as key.

Switching this area off causes change blindness, Cerebral Cortex reports.

There has been increasing evidence from brain scan studies to suggest that awareness of what we see is not only down to the part of the brain that processes visual information - the visual cortex - but also other brain regions.

Using a process called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which delivers currents to the brain, researchers were able to temporarily switch off the parietal cortex in nine healthy volunteers.

When they did this, the volunteers failed to notice big changes in visual scenes, such as when one of four faces on a video screen was replaced by another face.

The exact critical spot in the parietal cortex lies just a few centimetres above and behind the right ear - the area many people scratch when concentration.

The researchers believe their findings explain change blindness, a phenomenon often exploited by magicians.

Professor Lavie said: "The finding that this region of the brain has both these functions, concentration and visual awareness, explains why we can be so easily deceived by, say, a magicians' trick.

"When we're concentrating so hard on something that our processing capacity is at its limits, the parietal cortex is not available to pay attention to new things and even dramatic changes can go unnoticed.

This is simply fascinating and can easily explain why people who drive while talking on cell phones can completely miss what is going on around them.

Maybe this is why so many smart folks are absent minded.... they are thinking so hard that the rest of the world vanishes.... hmmm....I wonder if my wife will buy that one.....

Being Left Behind

Education Chief Criticizes Connecticut

By DOUG GROSS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 24, 2005

ATLANTA -- Education Secretary Margaret Spellings on Wednesday called claims that the No Child Left Behind Act isn't fully funded "a red herring," and suggested states that are balking may simply fear seeing the test results.

Connecticut filed a lawsuit Monday that claims the federal government has not provided enough money to pay for the testing and programs associated with the 2001 law.

Spellings, speaking to the Atlanta Press Club, said the lawsuit "does trouble me a little bit" and, afterward, suggested states that oppose the law simply fear the results of its accountability measures.

"I just see that as a red herring," she said of Connecticut's claim that this year's federal funds will fall $41.6 million short of paying for staffing, training and tests for No Child Left Behind.

"What are they afraid of knowing, I guess, is one of the things I'd like to know."

Connecticut officials responded sharply to Spellings's comments.

"Three words for federal officials _ read the law," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "Under the law, the federal government must pay for any additional testing. They have not done so."

It really is that simple. If you want to reform the schools, and I mean REFORM them, it's going to cost $$$$ and lots of it. And it's going to tick people off, especially the so-called experts who talk a good talk but won't walk it. More tests aren't the answer and it's nice to see that SOMEONE has gotten that message.

I've spent the last couple of days in multiple meetings and planning sessions about how to reform high schools, instead of being in my classroom getting ready. I really want to ask these "experts" that if they are serious about reducing the drop out rate and reducing violence, then why are 1/4 - 1/3 of our Freshmen reading 1-2 grade levels below what they should despite the fact that the feeder schools do so damn well on the state tests? How do we cover US History in 90 days or less if the textbook and primary sources are too complex for them to read?

How am I going to turn around a 14 year old that's been ignored and suffered from "the soft bigotry of low expectations" when no one has ever expected anything from them or made them face consequences for the actions (or inactions)? The answer I get back from administrators is, "Well you know that in our county, we believe that every child can learn. What kind of teacher are you to question that?"

It's not a question of if they can learn, because they can, it's will they be willing to do what is necessary to learn the information that is taught in the classroom. And the fact of the matter is that many of them have not learned the skills necessary to learn at this level. When will the responsibility to open their textbook or notes fall on them? And if it doesn't, than what kind of lesson have we taught them?

End-of-the-Summer Cooking

The humidity has gone way down and the temperature has dropped to something humane, so my appetite is back. This is on the menu for the weekend. It's time to mix some of that end of the summer vegetable bounty with the herbs in the herb garden. If temperatures are range-top tolerant this weekend, make this and freeze it. You'll serve it as a superb late summer first course now and you'll be so glad that it is in the freezer for that first cold and rainy October day. This is the best Minestrone I've ever eaten and the pesto is what makes it. When the stock pot comes out, it's a sign I'm ready for the season to change.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cups low-salt chicken broth
2 carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
2 celery stalks, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 small red-skinned potatoes, quartered
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 small zucchini, halved lengthwise, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 15-ounce can cannellini (white kidney beans), drained
2 tomatoes, peeled, crushed
2 cups fresh spinach leaves, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
6 tablespoons Classic Pesto
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until soft, about 4 minutes. Add broth and next 7 ingredients. Increase heat to high and bring soup to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover pot, and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in spinach; simmer 3 minutes longer. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into 6 bowls; garnish each with 1 tablespoon pesto. Serve, passing cheese separately.

Pesto

4 cups fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
6 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender. Blend until paste forms, stopping often to push down basil. Add both cheeses and salt; blend until smooth. Transfer to small bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Top with 1/2 inch olive oil and chill.)

Makes about 1 cup.

Harking back to an earlier food post, pesto can be considerd "Melanie Butter." I use it on lots of things (even just spread on bread, or spooned into white lasagna with spinach.) There is no such thing as too much pesto. It's in the fridge at all times. My neighbor wanted to know why I'm letting my basil get so big rather than clipping it for meals: because I need a boatload to make a huge batch of pesto to start the fall. I won't harvest it until just before the freeze, and then the Cuisinart gets put to use. I like a coarse, Ligurian pesto. If you like it smoother, use a blender. Yes, I've done it in a mortar and pestle, but it is hard to get a regular consistency with those, particularly if you are making a large quantity.

Use high quality extra-virgin olive oil for this, the kind that you would never let anywhere near a saute pan, the fruitier the better. Yes, I keep multiple olive oils in the house. I use the Greek stuff for cooking and the Italian for salads and sauces. With those and a bottle each of peanut and canola oils, your cooking needs should be covered.

Minestrone makes a superb first course (serve with a Pinot Grigio) for a transitional summer to fall menu. It will compliment everything from barbequed chicken to flank steak. Or for a light dinner or lunch, serve it with a salad of wild field greens dressed with lemon vinaigrette, crusty bread (more pesto for the bread please) and some fruit and mild cheese. Sliced figs with smoked Gouda are a surprise.

Minestrone is versatile. To the veggies in the recipe above, you can add nearly anything. It's a vegetable soup on a stout chicken stock and takes on a completely new character with the addition of, say, asparagus. Add clams and clam juice and you have a Manhattan clam chowder with decidedly Sicilian feel.

Panda Blogging

Public to Vote on Panda Cub's Name
Five Names Suggested for National Zoo's Special Baby

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; 3:00 PM

The name of the National Zoo's new giant panda cub has come down to a choice of five -- and the general public gets to make the final decision from among those possibilities.

Friends of the National Zoo, the non-profit support organization for the zoo, today released five names suggested by the China Wildlife Conservation Association and National Zoo staff. Panda fans have until Sept. 30 to vote for their favorite one via the zoo/FONZ Web site at www.fonz.org/cubname.htm.

The choices:

# Hua Sheng (pronounced HwaH-SHUng), which means China Washington, and also magnificent, according to FONZ.

# Sheng Hua (pronounced SHUng-HwaH), which means Washington China, and also magnificent.

# Tai Shan (pronounced Tie-SHON), which means peace mountain.

# Long Shan (pronounced lohng-SHON), which means dragon mountain.

# Qiang Qiang (pronounced chee-ONG chee-ONG), which means strong, powerful.

The male cub, the first surviving cub birth in the zoo's history, was born July 9.

FONZ said it will randomly select one voter, who will receive a trip for two to Washington for a "private visit" with the giant panda family and other prizes.

FONZ is also holding a contest for youngsters aged 6 to 14 who create successful campaigns to raise money for the zoo's Giant Panda Conservation Fund. Called "Pennies for Pandas," winning entries will be selected in each of two age groups, 6 to 10 and 11 to 14, based on the campaign that raises the most money and the campaign deemed most creative.

The four winners also will each receive a trip for four to Washington for a private tour of the Panda House as well as other prizes.

An entry form and more information about the fundraising contest can also be found at the zoo/FONZ Web site at www.fonz.org/penniesforpandas.htm.

The cub's name and the winners of both contests will be announced in October.

I thought you'd want to know and maybe enter the contest. I'm up for meeting the panda family

Make Believe

I'm sitting here listening to W give his "greatest force for freedom" speech to the National Guard out in Idaho, while reading Jeff Morley's world press roundup in the WaPo. Dissonance, anyone?

Pessimism Clouds Constitution's Prospects

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; 10:30 AM

As the Iraqi National Assembly considers the latest draft of the country's proposed constitution, Tuesday's headlines in Baghdad suggested a capital city close to meltdown.

The minister of electricity was fired, said Al-Bayyna, a weekly paper published by the Hezbollah movement, because power is off 11 times more often than it is on. The power shortage caused a water shortage and completely halted oil exports from the southern part of the country, according to translations in the Iraqi Press Monitor.

And the independent daily Addustour added that radical cleric Moqtada Sadr has called for a silent protest against the country's poor public services.

About the only good news was Addaawa's report that the first phase of the war crimes investigation against Saddam Hussein is complete. But that was matched by Al Mashriq's story that the National De-Baathification Committee, which is supposed to purge the country of Hussein's influence, has been shut down.

This portrait of Iraq today, compiled by Iraqis, underscores the pessimism, among Iraqi and non-Iraqi observers in Baghdad, that has greeted the news that the National Assembly will vote Thursday on new national charter.

The combination of two missed deadlines, continuing violence, the very visible role of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, and the objections of secular Sunnis and women's rights groups explains why the reaction from Baghdad falls short of the positive statements emanating from Washington.

"There is no doubt the U.S. war on Iraq is still raging and that the boots of foreign troops are running the country rather than a national government," wrote columnist Fatih Abdulsalam Tuesday in Azzaman, one of the city's biggest circulation dailies. "Is it right then to write a constitution under such circumstances?"

"Imagine the Germans or the Japanese writing a new constitution while battles were still raging across their countries and their major cities were under the mercy of violence and insurgent attacks," he wrote.

"But that is exactly what is happening in Iraq. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who invaded the country, realize the war they started is still on but act as if was not."

"The point is how to stop this war and bring peace and stability to the country. We are afraid a constitution written under such circumstances will not do it," he said.

"In that case we will be left with the only alternative: a timetable for a quick departure of U.S. and British occupation troops," Abdulsalam concluded.

Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar complained last week that "the US ambassador to Iraq attends all the constitution meetings and gives the Iraqi stakeholders some printed 'suggestions' to break the deadlock, while the Iraqi resistance's assassinations and attacks are getting stronger and more effective."

"US decision makers are still refusing to face the truth," he wrote from his home in Amman, Jordan. "The premature elections this year were more than enough to convince anyone of the fact that Iraq won't be rebuilt if we continued working on the same path: Bush's path of lies and failure.

"The Iraqi constitution shouldn't be rushed through. Iraqis have the right to take as much time as they need to write their country's constitution," he said.

Keep Him Out

Mary Conroy: Roberts is no friend of working people

By Mary Conroy
August 24, 2005

Let's consider John Roberts as a job candidate. He's applied for a spot on the Supreme Court. Does he qualify?

First comes his experience. Roberts has only been a judge for two years. Not too many workplaces would suddenly propel a manager with that experience to the top echelon. Imagine Madison hiring a school principal with two years' experience to replace the current superintendent. Not too likely.

Besides the length of experience, consider Roberts' type of experience. Nearly all of it has been advocacy work, either for Ronald Reagan or for George H.W. Bush. In both cases, he acted to forward the president's agenda. He has also pushed the agendas of the arch-conservative Republican National Lawyers Association and the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Washington Legal Foundation, groups friendly to corporations and hostile to workers' rights. All of this shows he has the temperament to be an advocate, not a judge.

But those aren't the only reasons we should push our senators to vote against his nomination. If you work for a living, Roberts' nomination should alarm you. Roberts' work shows he thinks civil rights laws are too broad, corporate interests supersede those of individuals, and that companies can fire workers disabled on the job.

Roberts argued against programs for hiring minority contractors (Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Mineta) and (Rothe Dev. Corp. v. United States Dept. of Defense). Roberts also wrote that paying women the same as men for jobs of comparable worth was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist." He also urged the administration not to intervene in a sex discrimination case regarding job training for female prisoners, even though Attorney General William French Smith disagreed. Equal pay and access to job training don't just affect people of color and women; they affect their families as well.
....
If that's not enough to convince you, consider Roberts' supporters. Workforce Management, a publication of Crain's Chicago Business, has already trumpeted Roberts as "a likely ally of employers." It quotes Catherine Fisk, law professor at Duke University and co-editor of Labor Law studies. She reviewed nine cases heard by Roberts on the court of appeals in the last two years. He ruled in favor of a corporation each time.

"He is going to be a fairly reliable vote against workers' rights across the board," the article quotes Fisk. "My suspicion is that the pattern won't change when he joins the Supreme Court. He is a rock-solid conservative."

Besides Workforce Management, keep an eye on Roberts' endorsers. For the first time in its 110-year history, the National Association of Manufacturers, the largest lobbying group supporting industry, has supported the nomination of a Supreme Court justice in backing Roberts.

Anti-woman, anti-worker. Time to call your Senators.

Repub PC

The un-empirical presidency
By Bruce Fuller, BRUCE FULLER is a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S love affair with the scientific community is awkward at best. The White House science advisor, John H. Marburger III, is on record as saying that "in this administration, science strongly informs policy." But where's the romance for scientists if Bush casts a blind eye over evidence of a human role in global warming or the difference between evolution and intelligent design?

Now the administration's propensity to ignore empirical data threatens the search for effective school reforms. The latest case of science snubbed emerged last week and involves the quiet quashing of new findings on the success of bilingual teaching in the nation's classrooms.

Californians understand how important such research is — almost two-fifths of the state's schoolchildren come from non-English speaking homes. And parents and employers everywhere want to know what advances children's reading and language skills. Figuring that out was the charge given, along with 1 million in taxpayer dollars, to Bush's prestigious National Literacy Panel, appointed three years ago.

Panelist Robert Slavin, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University, was asked to review the best-designed experiments, where children were randomly assigned to either bilingual or English-immersion classrooms. The administration, rightfully, wanted to test reforms with the same rigor with which it tests new drugs. Or so it said.

Slavin found that, according to the best data, children's early literacy skills climbed at a faster rate in bilingual classrooms. He wanted to publish his findings immediately; the Education Department said to wait until the panel's full report was done.

"From the perspective of academic freedom, I didn't like the idea of something being held up," Slavin said. He resigned from the panel.

Now the panel's report is finished. Another of its members extended Slavin's research, with the same results: Good bilingual education programs produce faster results than good English-only programs. These findings (and others — for instance, that reading is best taught via basic skills, like phonics) have been peer-reviewed, but Bush's Education Department won't make the report public.

"They said they weren't going to release it," the panel chairman, University of Illinois psychologist Timothy Shanahan, told me last week.

Kathleen Leos, who heads the Office of English Language Acquisition in the Education Department, denies the report is being deep-sixed. "We are in negotiations, it's just not ready," she said. But another panel member, David Francis of the University of Houston, said the negotiations are over getting the government to relinquish copyright, so that the findings may be published independently.

Why would the administration sideline its own report? It's possible that the bilingual education results weren't what it wanted to hear. "English only" is a rallying cry in the culture wars, and evidence that works against it also works against such Bush allies as English First, which has lead the charge against bilingual education.

This is a no-brainer. Anybody who has studied a foreign language knows that it strengthens your English skills.

Cognitive Dissonance

Two extra US battalions to Iraq
From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Washington

August 24, 2005

THE Pentagon plans to deploy two additional battalions to Iraq amid rising insurgent attacks ahead of an anticipated referendum on a constitution, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.

Mr Rumsfeld expressed confidence that public support for the war effort in Iraq will hold despite polls showing growing disenchantment in the United States.

"I think it'll have the support of the American people, and it will be sustained, and we will be successful," he said.

CNN/USAToday Poll results.

"And the alternative would be to turn that country and 25 million people over to terrorists and the kinds of people who have used chemicals on their own people and chemicals on their neighbours," he said. "That would be to turn to darkness."

An unfinished draft of the constitution was presented to the Iraqi parliament late yesterday, but deep differences remain between Sunnis and the Shiites and Kurds.

Mr Rumsfeld discounted concerns that Sunni rejection of the charter could leave US forces caught in the middle of a civil war.

"It hasn't happened yet. It is not happening now," he said.

"And, obviously, it is something that one has to be attentive to and be concerned about. But I haven't seen anything to indicate that the risk is greater today than it was yesterday or the day before," he said.

His comments came on a day in which two more Americans, a soldier and a contractor, died. They were killed in a suicide bombing in Baquba that also claimed the lives of five Iraqis.

Around 60 US troops have been killed so far in August, making it one of the deadliest months of the war for the US military since it invaded Iraq in March 2003.

The US death toll now stands at 1868.

New World Order

Constitution on the Brink

Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A14

WHILE TALKS over the Iraqi constitution continue in Baghdad, the results so far can only be worrisome for those who hoped the process would help consolidate a new democratic political order and alleviate the Sunni insurgency. The completion of a constitution in the coming days would keep Iraq on track toward holding elections and forming a permanent government by early next year, a timetable the Bush administration has made an overriding priority. Yet both the means adopted to complete the draft and some of the language reported to be in the document risk exacerbating the divide between Iraq's majority Shiite and Kurd communities and the minority Sunnis, thereby adding fuel to the insurgency. Iraqis and U.S. officials need to make good use of the brief time between now and the scheduled meeting of the National Assembly tomorrow if that outcome is to be avoided.

After missing the first deadline for completing the constitution, Shiite and Kurd leaders submitted a draft to the National Assembly Monday only after excluding Sunnis from their negotiations. Many Shiite leaders appear to favor ratifying that draft over Sunni objections. In part the sentiment is understandable: The mostly unelected Sunni representatives, who tacitly and sometimes explicitly seek to use the insurgency as leverage, have been uncompromising. They demand a powerful central government that would be incompatible with a democratic and pluralistic Iraq; some no doubt still dream of restoring Sunni dictatorship. Still, the stabilization of Iraq requires Shiite, Kurd and Sunni leaders to compromise on such crucial questions as the degree of federalization and sharing of oil revenue. By forcing through their own solutions, the Shiites and Kurds will merely forestall any compromise, while giving Sunnis a more tangible cause for rebellion than mere nostalgia for Saddam Hussein.

No reliable text of the constitution had been made public by yesterday evening; various drafts, both old and new, were said to be circulating in Baghdad. Much of the language obtained by Iraqi and Western media outlets appeared similar to that of the temporary constitution approved by Iraqi leaders under U.S. supervision in March 2004. In both the temporary constitution and the new draft, Islam is cited as one source of legislation, and they prohibit laws that conflict with Islamic principles, democratic standards or a bill of rights that includes freedom of religion. That's comparable to the new Afghan constitution and more liberal than the charters of most Muslim states, including such U.S. allies as Egypt and Jordan. However, complicated provisions for family law cited in some drafts could restrict rights for women in parts of Iraq; and much could depend on the interpretation of the competing clauses on Islam and human rights by a court that reportedly could be made up at least in part by clerics.

Of even greater concern are some of the provisions for local rule reportedly agreed upon by the Shiites and Kurds. While the temporary constitution already allowed the formation of regional governments, several reports said Monday's draft would allow those governments to form and control their own security forces. By some accounts, they would also obtain revenue from new oil wells. That raises the prospect of Kurdish and Shiite mini-states in the north and south that would eventually control a disproportionate share of Iraq's wealth, at the expense of Baghdad and Sunni areas. A Shiite region in southern Iraq also could move quickly toward de facto Islamic rule, regardless of the constitution's language or decisions by the national government.

Juan Cole warns:

Al-Hayat: President Jalal Talabani began a last push to convince the Sunni Arabs, the Sadr Movement, and the Iraqi National Accord (led by former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi] to accept the new constitution. The government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said it was unlikely that substantial alterations would now be made to the draft.

This, despite the threats of those who oppose it to mount a "popular uprising" (Intifada) and to "set the streets afire." Sunni Arab politician Salih al-Mutlak predicted that the falsity of the consitution would be demonstrated in the October 15 referendum, which he said it would fail.

Muqtada al-Sadr organized crowds to protest the constitution in several Shiite cities. (Crowds in Najaf have come out in favor of the constitution). Muqtada warned that if it looked as though the country were heading toward a break-up, he could not sit idly by, but would have to take action.

I am told that the situation in Latifiyah, a battleground between Sunnis and Shiites, continues to deteriorate.

On the Line

Who Will Say 'No More'?

By Gary Hart

Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."

Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."

At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.

But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.

Who now has the courage to say this?

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was part of a good platoon.
We were on manoeuvers in Louisiana,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain said, "We've got to ford the river",
That's where it all began.
We were knee deep in the Big Muddy,
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, I once crossed this river
Not a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but we'll keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on.

"Captain, sir, with all this gear
No man'll be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Follow me, I'll lead on."
We were neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on.

All of a sudden, the moon clouded over,
All we heard was a gurgling cry.
A second later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place where he'd once been.
For another stream had joined the Muddy
A half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to get out of the Big Muddy
When the damn fool kept yelling to push on.

Well, you might not want to draw conclusions
I'll leave that to yourself
Maybe you're still walking, maybe you're still talking
Maybe you've still got your health.
But every time I hear the news
That old feeling comes back on;
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools kept yelling to push on.

Knee deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on
Waist deep! Neck deep! we'll be drowning before too long
We're neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on

c Pete Seeger

Our Blue Dot

Crisis in the delta

FISH LIFE IN THE SACRAMENTO-SAN JOAQUIN DELTA is declining at crisis levels, and state officials are at a loss to explain why, or what to do about it. The situation has potentially grave implications for an estimated 24 million Californians who get some or all of their water from the Rhode Island-size estuary south of Sacramento and east of San Francisco Bay.

The crisis received little public attention until Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) probed the situation Friday with a hearing of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, which she chairs. Wolk concluded that the state needs a long-range plan to ensure the health of the delta. If such a plan required greater natural flows, that could cut into supplies diverted to farmers and to Southern Californians.

The delta crisis provides a critical test of CalFed, the multibillion-dollar, multi-agency program created by the state and federal governments to end the continual water wars focusing on the delta. The health of the delta depends on leaving sufficient water to wash naturally into San Francisco Bay.

The viability of CalFed is in question because Congress has not come up with the promised federal share of its costs, future state funds are threatened by budget shortfalls and water interests — farmers, urban water districts and environmentalists — can't agree on how future projects should be financed.

Meanwhile, state and federal experts are baffled by the decline in fish life. The populations of striped bass, the endangered delta smelt, the threadfin shad and a variety of plankton are at record lows, and the problem seems to be getting worse. This is all the more puzzling because, unlike previous species declines, this one doesn't appear to be drought-related.

The experts are reluctant to propose changes in delta operations until they know for sure what's wrong. Environmentalists and the sportfishing industry blame too much pumping. The fishermen want to cut off water exports, which is impossible. But there's no question that the pumps have affected the delta over the last 35 years, at times reversing natural stream flows.

Steve Hall, head of the Assn. of California Water Agencies — a coalition of urban and farming districts, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — says that exports have not been a factor even though pumping reached record levels over the last three years. Hall said the decline in fish life is caused by toxic blooms triggered by "alien" algae, possibly introduced by the purging of ship ballast. Water agencies are arguing for even more pumping.

Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A01

BIMINI, Bahamas -- The bulldozers moved slowly at first. Picking up speed, they pressed forward into a patch of dense mangrove trees that buckled and splintered like twigs. As the machines moved on, the pieces drifted out to sea.

Sitting in a small motorboat a few hundred yards offshore on a mid-July afternoon, Samuel H. Gruber -- a University of Miami professor who has devoted more than two decades to studying the lemon sharks that breed here -- plunged into despondency. The mangroves being ripped up to build a new resort provide food and protection that the sharks can't get in the open ocean, and Gruber fears the worst.

"At the end of my career, I get to document the destruction of the species I've been documenting for 20 years," he lamented as he watched the bulldozers. "Wonderful."

Gruber's sentiments have become increasingly common in recent years among a growing number of marine biologists, who find themselves studying species in danger of disappearing. For years, many scientists and regulators believed the oceans were so vast there was little risk of marine species dying out. Now, some suspect the world is on the cusp of what Ellen K. Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, calls "a gathering wave of ocean extinctions." Dozens of biologists believe the seas have reached a tipping point, with scores of species of ocean-dwelling fish, birds and mammals edging toward extinction. In the past 300 years, researchers have documented the global extinction of just 21 marine species -- and 16 have occurred since 1972.

Since the 1700s, another 112 species have died out in particular regions, and that trend, too, has accelerated since the mid-1960s: Nearly two dozen shark species are close to disappearing, according to the World Conservation Union, an international coalition of government and advocacy groups.

"It's been a slow-motion disaster," said Boris Worm, a professor at Canada's Dalhousie University, whose 2003 study that found that 90 percent of the top predator fish have vanished from the oceans. "It's silent and invisible. People don't imagine this. It hasn't captured our imagination, like the rain forest."

Many activists have focused on the plight of creatures such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the grizzly bear, but relatively few have taken up the cause of marine species. Ocean dwellers are harder to track, and some produce so many offspring they can seem invulnerable. And, in the words of Ocean Conservancy shark fisheries expert Sonja Fordham, often "they're not very fuzzy."

Although a number of previous extinctions involved birds and marine mammals, it is the fate of many fish that worries experts. The large-scale industrialization of the fishing industry after World War II, a global boom in oceanfront development and a rise in global temperatures are all causing fish populations to plummet.

"Extinctions happen in the ocean; the fossil record shows that marine species have disappeared since life began in the sea," said Elliott A. Norse, who heads the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond, Wash. "The question is, are humans a major new force causing marine extinctions? The evidence, and projections scientists are making, suggest that the answer is yes."

The WaPo story has some aching photos, click on the link. What kind of planet we are leaving our children?

computers, god and other short topics

The new laptop battery is on the way and I'll be ready to take on the Roberts' fight in all the remote locations where think tank and advocacy organizations will be holding events in DC. Right now is the deadest week of the year in DC. Some of the school systems go back to work with students next week (banking their snow days) but most return after Labor Day. That's going to change dramatically after Congress returns on September 6 and it is going to get really busy. My friend in New York tells me the city is dead and theres no rush hour to speak of. Hmmmm. DC staffers must have stayed around to research the Roberts fight, the traffic is awful as always here.

My friend pogge hasn't had a vacation since he went into business for himself back in the day. Most of the small business people I know can never afford to take them, either. Here in the States, they rarely have health insurance, either. If small business is the thing which made this country great (how many Bush campaign speeches did we hear about that?) why on earth do we kick the hell out of them and their employees? The next presidential campaign has to be about making this country safe for both big and small business. Neither party has a clue about that one.

If you are new to this site, go over to the search function on the right sideboard. It's below the ads. Type in "avian influenza" and you will get most of what you need to know, to date, from the postings there. For more information, thread your way though The Flu Clinic at the CurEvents bulletin board.

Want more information? Visit the Other Resources page at The Flu Wiki and add to it. Together, we are wise.

Now I need to go balance my check book and see if I can afford another month of health insurance. The Reveres may not think much of god or Gods, but they are a fully insured family. My Cobra benefits run out in 12 months. At that point I'll start burning incense to the Monkey God.

At $300 bucks a month, this can't go on forever.

Pain at the Pump

Gasoline Prices Rise 6 Cents to New High

The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; 6:39 AM

NEW YORK -- The retail price of gasoline rose more than 6 cents last week to an average $2.61 a gallon nationwide, a new record, the Energy Department reported Monday.

The previous record high was $2.55 per gallon, established the previous week. Adjusting for inflation, retail gasoline prices peaked above $3 a gallon in March 1980.

Despite soaring fuel prices, AAA expects an increase in the number of Americans taking road trips over the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend.

The Orlando-based travel agency estimates that 34.5 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home, an increase of about 1 percent from last year. More than 80 percent of those trips will be by motor vehicle. AAA said the rise in Labor Day travel was not as large as in previous years because of the higher prices and the increase in the number of school systems that start before the holiday.

The latest weekly government survey said the average price nationwide of regular-grade gasoline rose by 6.2 cents to $2.612 per gallon, or 72.8 cents a gallon higher than the same time a year ago.

The price at my corner Exxon this afternoon was $2.70. I have no memory of the 1979-80 gas shock because I was car-less in graduate school at the time and using public transit in Boston. I have a small, fuel-efficient car (35 city, 40 hiway) and I nearly had a heart attack at my last fill up. Up until a year ago, I could always fill my tank for $20. The last fill cost me nearly $35. I'm re-thinking driving to Toronto in October: it might be cheaper to fly and rent a car.

Getting rid of the car altogether and using Zip Car for those rare occasions when nothing else will do is also an option. I can use the bus and cabs for grocery shopping.

Worm Turning

Jerry Dolittle over at Bad Attitudes caught something I missed on television the other night.

Night before last, Law and Order: Criminal Intent ran an episode in which New York detectives break up a ring of brutal corrections officers. The guards had been torturing American terrorism suspects secretly disappeared by Bush’s agents. Naturally the victims had no lawyers; naturally the agents had no warrants.

Of the “Patriot” Act under which all of this was done, one of the detectives said, “I read it before. It was called 1984.”

Even a year ago, no writer for network television would even have dared to write such a line, or to suggest such a plotline. And if she had, no producer would have given it the green light. We are seeing more and more of this sort of wimpthink on mainstream TV, now that Bush’s tide is moving out.

From the White House point of view, this development isn’t as bad as Walter Cronkite’s public defection from Lyndon Johnson’s war. It’s worse. Nobody much watches the news these days, but everybody watches Law and Order.

Dog Days

You can tell it is the end of August and there is no news when this stupid Pat Robertson story goes wall-to-wall at CNN. It's not like we're sitting here awaiting a pandemic flu or anything.

Thomas Index

My judicial nominations blog, Judging the Future, has been selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress's Minerva Project. I've written to them to get more information about what this will mean and who else will be in the neighborhood. The Minerva Project is the LOC's attempt to capture the information that never shows up on dead trees. I think this is pretty cool.

Here is the list.

Life in Baghdad

WaPo Baghdad Bureau Chief took questions in a live chat earlier today.

Seattle, Wash.: Hi, Ellen!

With all of the conflict and unrest, how dangerous is living in Iraq right now? Are residents able to go out and about? Are they able to work and go to school?

Take care of yourself!

Ellen Knickmeyer: I'd say it's people trying to live their normal lives under the gun, and in threat of bombs and greatly increased crime, and they've had to make a lot of compromises.
The Iraqis I know have to pay to have armed guards on the vans taking their kids to school, for fear of kidnapping. Many parents, for more than a year now, are keeping their children indoors, also for fear of kidnapping and violence. Girls especially are confined almost entirely to the home _ not out of belief they shouldn't be out there in public, but because of fears for their safety. You can imagine what kind of summer kids are having when it's 120 degrees, no electricity or limited electricity, and they can't leave their house.
I talked to one mother at an amusement park earlier this summer, who told her children she was taking them to the candy store, and the children were terrified _ "Won't we be kidnapped?" they asked, she said.
Basically, they're going about their daily lives as much as they can, but all the time they're out they're on the lookout for U.S. convoys that will attract car-bombers, or that might open fire on civilians who got too close...And there's plenty of other armed groups around here that are very quick to fire while they're on the road, including Iraqi police. It seems everyone has stories about close calls, or deaths in their families. And people ignore the sounds of gunshots close-by now, and hardly flinch at the sound of car bombs.
So how dangerous? It's not Sniper Alley in Sarajevo, but it's a hard way to live.

By the Friends You Keep

My old friend and professional colleague Lex Alexander has an absolutely brilliant post up on his Blog on the Run on the psychological and social effects of being made into a killer has on members of our armed forces. As they say, read the whole thing. Lex put a whole lot of research into that one and he is one hell of a writer.

Anti-Virals

Sales of key antiviral drug soar as awareness of flu pandemic potential rises

Helen Branswell
Canadian Press

August 23, 2005

TORONTO (CP) - North American sales of the drug oseltamivir have more than tripled in recent months, a trend public health experts see as evidence individuals are stockpiling the once little-used antiviral as a hedge against a possible flu pandemic.

With similar reports emerging in other countries as well, a leading advocate for pandemic preparedness is concerned public demand could soon outstrip the limited global supply.

"We are on a collision course to panic," warns Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"I think that what's going to happen is . . . that this drug - which has yet to really be demonstrated to have any clinical impact on H5N1 infection - is now going to become the 'I can't get product, therefore I must have it right away product.'

"The reality is going to come through that there is only so much available."

H5N1 is the avian flu strain experts fear may be poised to trigger a pandemic. It has been decimating poultry stocks and infecting small numbers of people in Southeast Asia for the last 20 months and recently spread to parts of Russia.

Swiss drug maker Roche won't say how much oseltamivir - sold as Tamiflu - it can make. But the company insists individuals don't draw from the same pool as the lengthening queue of governments placing stockpile orders.

"We allocate seasonal use product based on forecasted figures and have separate pandemic supply," Roche Canada spokesperson Leigh Funston explained by email.

Canadian Tamiflu sales jumped to more than 76,000 prescriptions in the 12-month period ending in June, compared to 22,000 prescriptions in the entire 2004 calendar year, says IMS Health, which compiles drug sales data.

U.S. sales have surged as well, to nearly 1.7 million prescriptions in the first half of 2005 from just under 500,000 in 2004.

Public health officials are torn over what advice to give on the issue of personal stockpiling. Many are uncomfortable with the notion, but understand that planning for a virulent flu pandemic may mean departing from traditional models of care delivery.

Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief medical health officer, rhymes off a long list of reasons why people should think hard before laying in antivirals.

It's not clear the H5N1 strain will cause a pandemic, or that the drug will be effective if it does. Stockpiled drugs might pass their expiry date before a pandemic starts. People might confuse a cold with the flu and waste irreplaceable drug. There may be side-effects that haven't yet come to light because the drug has not been widely used.

But Butler-Jones stops short of asking Canadians not to stockpile Tamiflu, which costs about $60 for one course of 10 pills.

He admits antiviral experts advising the country's pandemic planning committee are working on a recommendation for the public on stockpiling.

"I think most of us recognize the pluses and minuses. The challenge is: What's the saw-off?" notes Butler-Jones, who says he has not stockpiled Tamiflu for himself or his family.

"My personal recommendation would be: No, I wouldn't rush out and do anything about it. But stay tuned. Things may change."

Andrew and Emma aren't waiting for an official go-ahead. Like many who follow developments with H5N1 through Internet bulletin boards and flu blogs, they fear it's now or never with this drug.

Neither wants to be identified by their real name and Andrew asks that the name of the Prairie community he lives in be withheld.

"I thought it would be best to get in early," says Andrew, 41, who has bought Tamiflu from three separate Internet pharmacies.

"I basically look at it from the point of view that the government is not going to be able to take care of everyone. And so you're on your own."

Canada currently has about 22.5 million pills stockpiled, enough to treat nearly eight per cent of the population. It's estimated between a quarter and a third of people will fall ill if a pandemic hits.

Judging from the numbers above, Americans are beginning to get the message from the Internets, in spite of the crumby coverage by the American media.

The advice of my doc partners at The Flu Wiki: save your money.

Bush the Fantasist

The war of words

PRESIDENT BUSH'S SUNNY DECLARATION on Monday that Baghdad's leaders were "defying the terrorists and pessimists by completing work on a democratic constitution" was unfortunate not only for its timing but for its willfulness. Just hours after Bush's speech, Iraqi leaders announced (again) that they were unable to agree on a draft constitution. Just as disturbing, however, is the continuing disconnect between the president's perspective and Iraq's reality.

In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush again conflated Al Qaeda and Iraq, neglecting to note that Al Qaeda put down roots in Iraq only after the invasion or that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 or Osama bin Laden. His description of Iraq's constitutional negotiations — "a difficult process that involves debate and compromise" — understates the depth of animosity in Iraq. On Monday, representatives submitted an incomplete draft to the National Assembly because of continued disagreement on basic issues such as the strength of a central government and the role of Islam.

The United States has 138,000 troops in Iraq; Bush said Monday that they'd come home when Iraqis "can defend their freedom" by taking more of the fight to the enemy. But he was silent on when that might be.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the U.S. "should start figuring out how we get out of there" because American involvement "has destabilized the Middle East." That's a fair assessment. When Congress returns soon from recess, members who have heard an earful from their constituents about the war can be expected to demand a more coherent strategy. Even former supporters of the war, such as Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), are questioning the administration's plans; Jones has co-sponsored a resolution demanding a plan for withdrawal by the end of the year.

Setting a deadline now would be a mistake, allowing insurgents to wait for the U.S. withdrawal before increasing their suicide bombings. But the American presence cannot be open-ended; we need ways to measure progress. How many Iraqi police and troops must be trained and ready before substantial numbers of U.S. forces can start withdrawing?

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said Saturday that the Pentagon was making contingency plans to keep more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq through 2009. It is a fantasy to think an all-volunteer force that's unable to meet goals for new enlistments can stay in Iraq in such numbers for so long.

I really can't listen to W anymore. He does terrible things to my blood pressure.

An Unbroken Streak

A Purrfect Storm

By Eugene Robinson

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Page A15

Iraq is beset with an insurgency that defies Bush administration attempts to belittle its extent or staying power. Vice President Cheney's smug assertion that the violence was in its "last throes" has become a morbid joke. The insurgents -- mostly Sunni Muslims, Baathist die-hards and foreign jihadists -- are getting more effective at their mayhem, not less. Their roadside bombs are deadlier than ever now that they are somehow getting their hands on higher-quality explosives.

Shiites and Kurds are making progress toward organizing a new Iraq, but it's a far cry from the latter-day Athens envisioned by the neocon architects of the war. It looks as if the new Iraq, or at least the biggest chunk of it, will have an organic relationship with next-door Iran, another charter member of the Axis of Evil. So one result of invading Iraq, which had no weapons of mass destruction, was to drive its Shiite majority closer to Iran, which is doing its best to build a nuclear bomb. Gee, that really worked out.

The new Iraq will also be teeming with terrorists. The nascent Iraqi government is hardly likely to impose order, since 138,000 well-trained and well-equipped American troops can't do the job. The administration never sent enough troops to occupy and pacify the country, but now the U.S. military is stretched so thin that many analysts say the administration will have trouble maintaining the current presence, much less augmenting it.

Sending more troops isn't a real-world option anyway, not with public opinion undergoing a tectonic shift. In a Newsweek poll conducted at the beginning of August, 61 percent of those Americans surveyed disapproved of the way Bush is handling Iraq; when asked whether the Iraq war has made Americans safer from terrorism, 64 percent said no. A full 50 percent said they would not support having "large numbers of U.S. military personnel" in Iraq beyond one more year. Only 26 percent echoed the president's view that U.S. troops should remain "as long as it takes."

We didn't even get any oil out of the deal. Remember how much of the war's cost was going to be repaid by a generous new Athenian-style government from its bountiful oil revenues? Because of the insurgency and the general state of disorganization, the Iraqis can barely keep the oil pumps and ports functioning at a minimal level. How much did you pay the last time you filled up?

The Democratic opposition is in its usual disarray, but even the Democrats can't blow this one -- a Republican president mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight and no real plan for an exit. Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 midterm elections. Keeping U.S. forces at current levels for four more years, as a top Army official predicted recently, would be "complete folly," Hagel said. "It would bog us down. . . . It won't be four years. We need to be out."

And right outside Bush's ranch, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar protest continues in her absence. It's as if the Analogy were stalking the bike-riding president like a hungry bobcat.

Down, kitty.

This is consistent with the rest of Bush's career. He screwed up every job he ever had. Now he's screwing us.

Downplaying Flu

Scientists Race To Head Off Lethal Potential Of Avian Flu

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; A01

Robert G. Webster is watching his 40-year-old hunch about the origin of pandemic influenza play out before his eyes. It would be thrilling if it were not so terrifying.

Four decades ago, Webster was a young microbiologist from New Zealand on a brief sojourn in London. While he was there, he did an experiment that pretty much set the course of his scientific career. In just a few hours, he showed that the microbe that swept the globe in 1957 as "Asian flu" bore an unmistakable resemblance to strains of virus carried by certain birds in the years before.

Webster's observation was a surprise -- and a troubling one. It suggested an origin of the unusually virulent strains of influenza virus that appear two or three times each century. His hunch, that at least some of these pandemic strains were hybrids of bird and human flu viruses, was correct.

Since then, Rob Webster has become arguably the world's most important eye on animal influenza viruses. These days, he is deeply worried about what he's seeing.

Strains of influenza virus known as A/H5N1 have been spreading in wild and domestic birds across Southeast Asia and China since 1996. In recent weeks, the virus has apparently struck poultry in Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Since late 2003, about 100 million domesticated birds -- mostly chickens and ducks -- either have died of the virus or have been intentionally killed to keep the viruses from spreading. But what has Webster and other experts so worried are the 112 people who have been infected with the H5N1 "bird flu," more than half of whom have died. The fatality rate of 55 percent outstrips any human flu epidemic on record, including the epochal Spanish flu of 1918 and 1919 that killed at least 50 million people.

Why this new virus is so deadly is not entirely understood, although scientists have hints.

Influenza viruses invade cells lining the throat and windpipe, where they replicate and cause inflammation but are eventually suppressed by the immune system. In some cases, the microbe invades the lungs and leads to viral or bacterial pneumonia. Some H5N1 strains, however, have two features that make them even more dangerous.

Normally, the flu viruses can replicate only in the throat and lungs. With H5N1, however, the protein that triggers replication can be activated in many other organs, including the liver, intestines and brain. What is usually a respiratory infection can suddenly become a whole-body infection. Simultaneously, a second "defect" in the virus unleashes a storm of immune-system chemicals called cytokines. In normal amounts, cytokines help fight microbial invaders. In excessive amounts, they can cause lethal damage to the body's own tissues.

The trait H5N1 has not acquired is the ability to spread easily from person to person. The 112 human cases since late 2003 may turn out to be simply rare events in a bird epidemic that will eventually subside, as all epidemics do.

What is worrisome, though, is evidence pointing the other way.
Working Full Tilt

Webster's insight about the origins of pandemic flu led to an unavoidable conclusion. If scientists had any hope of preventing the pandemics, they had to keep watch on influenza in many species, not just human beings.

Learning how the virus is changing in birds, and what it may need to get real traction in people, are what keep Webster, 73, working full tilt at an age when many people are slowing down or have retired.

"I probably have more energy than is good for me," he says, sitting in his glass-walled corner office that looks out over green suburbs.

Since 1968, he has been at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, a cancer hospital established by the late actor and comedian Danny Thomas in gratitude to the patron saint of hopeless causes, whom Thomas credited with rescuing his career. It's an unlikely landing spot for Webster, who grew up on a 240-acre farm on New Zealand's South Island. But then, he came to the object of his scientific work mostly by chance, too.

After getting a doctorate in microbiology at the Australian National University in Canberra, he went to work in the laboratory of Frank Fenner, an expert on pox viruses. (Fenner would later help lead the 10-year campaign that successfully eradicated smallpox.) Webster expected to work on that family of microbes.

"On the day I arrived, Frank had me into his office and said so-and-so needs help in influenza virus. That's where you're going to go," he recalled.

Today, Webster heads his own lab of four principal investigators, a dozen graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and a $7 million annual budget. The lab has chambers for handling high-risk pathogens and uses nearly 3,000 fertile chicken eggs a week for growing influenza viruses. Elsewhere on the St. Jude campus is a small plant licensed by the Food and Drug Administration to make experimental vaccines. The "seed strain" of virus used to make an H5N1 vaccine now in human trials in the United States was made at St. Jude by one of Webster's colleagues, Erich Hoffmann.

Since 1997, Webster has also spent three months a year as a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. That gets him closer to the historical breeding ground of new flu strains: China. With H5N1 steadily gaining momentum this year, he has returned to Asia twice since his Hong Kong stint ended in March. One trip was to brief prime ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) about what they can to do to stanch the spread of H5N1.

The World Health Organization "will help in the initial outbreak," he says he told them. "But if it breaks through, guys, you're on your own."

On this day, Webster is back in Memphis. Pointed ears and a puckish smile give him the look of a superannuated pixie, perhaps a character out of "The Lord of the Rings," which was filmed on his native ground. But his words these days are dark, his outlook grim.

He thinks an avian flu pandemic "is just inevitable. One of these is just going to blow."
A Question of Opportunity

H5N1's potential as the next pandemic virus is all a matter of probability and opportunity.

Influenza A is a simple virus. That is one of the things that makes it so adaptable and potentially dangerous. It flourishes in hundreds of animal species with only 10 genes and a genome of 13,600 nucleotides, or "letters." (The human genetic code, in comparison, has about 25,000 genes and 3 billion nucleotides.) Of course, influenza virus needs more than 10 genes to replicate itself and spread. Like all viruses, it gets what it needs from the cells it invades, hijacking their molecular machinery.

Influenza A's adaptability arises, in part, because its genes are carried on eight unconnected strands, called "gene segments."

The segments can be traded like cards in a game of hearts, producing new strains of flu, the equivalent of new hands of cards. But that can happen only if two different viruses find themselves in the same cell, which is a very rare event. However, when millions of people, chickens and pigs -- the last animal can be infected by both human and bird influenza viruses -- live close together, as they do in China, rare events happen.

This gene-trading is called "reassortment." In the 1960s, Webster hypothesized that something like reassortment -- the process had not yet been discovered -- must explain the really big changes that appeared every once in a while in human flu viruses. This is the theory he tested in his London experiment decades ago.

There he asked for a little space at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill and access to the famous lab's collection of human serum and influenza viruses.

He mixed antibody-rich serum from victims of the 1957 flu pandemic with samples of avian flu viruses. In a matter of hours, he saw the human antibodies attack some of the microbes. This showed that the 1957 human virus shared features with some of the bird viruses.

"It's the only paper I've ever done based on just one day of experiments," he recalled recently, still both proud and amazed.

It turns out that of the Asian flu's eight gene segments, three had recently arrived from birds, according to an analysis of the genes' molecular fingerprints that was done much later. Two of the bird genes were for surface proteins that give a flu virus its immunological identity -- hemagglutinin and neuraminidase (denoted "H" and "N").

Something similar happened in 1968, when the Hong Kong flu strain got a new "H" from birds through reassortment, as well as a bird version of another, less important, gene segment. That strain, too, caused a pandemic.
Small Changes Add Up

The other way avian flu viruses can adapt to become human viruses is by slowly acquiring mutations. As small changes pile up, the virus's behavior can evolve. One trait that can appear is the capacity to enter human cells easily. That, and the ability to replicate efficiently once inside, are the two requirements for contagiousness.

Evolution of flu viruses is inevitable because the microbe is prone to making mistakes as it copies its genes. The more times a virus replicates, the more opportunity there is for a new mutation to arise that allows easy person-to-person transmission. For that reason, suppressing H5N1 outbreaks in birds -- where the microbe is replicating trillions of times a day -- is a crucial tool in preventing a human outbreak. China and Indonesia have vaccinated poultry flocks against H5N1, and Vietnam this month is starting a two-year, $35 million campaign to do so, too.

The highly lethal H5N1 viruses isolated from last year's human cases of avian flu were genetically 99 percent identical to each other. The slightly less lethal -- but perhaps more transmissible -- virus taken from patients in northern Vietnam early this year is only 98 percent identical to last year's; more important, it isn't completely inhibited by antibodies to last year's strain. It may be on its way to becoming a new, human-adapted strain.

At least WaPo's noticing, but this story does absolutely nothing to talk about what humans need to do to get ready for quarantine in place, stockpiling or the risks of Tamiflu and Relenza. I may give David Brown a call.

UPDATE: Okay, I've got a call into Mr. Brown. We'll see what happens.

The Right to Be Left Alone

Does privacy still matter?

BY CAROL TOWARNICKY

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT) - Tell me again, what's wrong with "judicial activism"?

In recent years, those have become dirty words, with even liberals attacking conservative judges for being too "activist."

But thank goodness that, 40 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't shrink from what some people call activism when it overturned a Connecticut law that made it a crime for married couples to use contraception - or for others to help them get it.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, the court said that guarantees inferred, although not precisely stated, in several constitutional amendments make up a "right to privacy," a right to be protected from government interference in intimate decisions.

The right was cited in the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, of course, but also in a 1971 decision that said contraception is a private matter for unmarried individuals.

The right to privacy also was the basis for a 2003 decision that overturned a Texas law that outlawed gay sex, and it undergirds decisions affirming an individual's right to refuse medical treatment.

What would this country look like without it?

Many extreme conservatives can't wait to find out.

They have demonized Griswold and the right to privacy as the root of all modern evil.

For example, The American Life League: "In this one decision, the court set the stage for the growth of moral relativism and hedonism in this once great Christian nation."

It's a critically important question right now: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' past writings suggest he doesn't think there is a right to be let alone by government, referring instead to a "so-called right to privacy."

So let's go back to 1965: The law against birth control seemed idiotic even then.

Justice William O. Douglas wondered if, to enforce it, we would allow the police to search bedrooms for signs of contraceptive use.

Apparently so. Although the two minority justices in Griswold agreed that the Connecticut law was "uncommonly silly," they insisted that it couldn't be overturned.

The Constitution, after all, doesn't mention privacy. It doesn't expressly forbid states to mandate bedroom behavior. Their reasoning sounds an awful lot like the speeches of today's conservatives.

If that side had won, would the state Legislature have pushed through a law allowing couples to decide on their own whether to use birth control? I don't think so, either.

Justice Arthur Goldberg's concurrence put it in plain terms: If the government can interfere in a couple's decision on whether to use contraception, couldn't it also tell couples they had to be sterilized after having two kids?

Fast-forward to 2005. If a Roberts confirmation helps create a Court majority to overturn the right to privacy, what then?

While many states would outlaw abortion, they probably wouldn't pass laws forbidding married couples to use condoms. We hope.

After that, who knows?

Just look around: Even with a right to privacy, some states already are on the attack against emergency contraception (high-dose birth control pills) by protecting pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions.

This is what's at stake with "unenumerated rights." Yes, the crazies are attacking your ability to get contraception and they won't stop there. They do it by degrees.

Menu Alert

via Susie:

Beef recalled under mad cow rules
U.S. cites 'minimal chance' for risk from Canadian animal

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 Posted: 1139 GMT (1939 HKT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Beef banned under mad cow disease rules was shipped to wholesalers in a half-dozen states and is now being recalled by a Wisconsin beef plant.

The 1,856 pounds of beef included meat from a Canadian cow that inspectors in Canada determined was eligible for shipment to the United States. A Canadian audit two weeks later found, however that the cow was too old to be allowed entry to the U.S.

"There is a minimal chance, given the age of the animal and the health of the animal, that there was any risk whatsoever" to people, Steven Cohen, spokesman for the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said Monday.

The U.S. restricts shipments to younger animals because infection levels from mad cow disease are believed to rise with age. The cutoff is 30 months of age.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is investigating and has suspended the veterinarian who certified the cow, said Francine Lord, import-export manager for the agency's animal health division. She said the agency finished its audit last week and notified U.S. officials Thursday. The Agriculture Department said Canadian officials verified the cow's age on Friday.

The cow in question was 31 months old. Two other Canadian cows less than 30 months old were processed with the older cow, and USDA recalled meat from all three animals as a precaution.

Green Bay Dressed Beef of Green Bay, Wisconsin, processed the cow on August 4 and distributed the meat to wholesalers in Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The department and the company are trying to find out how much beef wound up in retail stores, Cohen said.

The department issued code numbers for recalled cases of beef sent to distributors, but it was unknown whether beef that reached the retail level would have carried the same numbers.

Consumer groups have criticized the government for not revealing the names of retail stores involved in food recalls.

Small government conservatives like less regulation. This is what it gets you.

Finger Sandwiches for Hot Days

Pass this at a cocktail party or put on crunchier bread for a football party.

AVOCADO AND TURKEY COCKTAIL SANDWICHES

loaves very thin white bread 1 loaf very thin dark bread 1 lb. wafer-thin turkey or chicken slices Wafer thin avocado slices (about 2 lg. or 3 sm. avocados)

Spread white bread with seasoned butter and mayonnaise (softened and mixed). Place turkey slices on white bread.

Spread butter mixture on dark bread and put slices over turkey. Spread butter on upperside of dark bread and place avocado slices on top of dark bread.

Spread butter mixture on white bread slices and trim crusts. Wrap in damp towel and refrigerate a few hours. Cut into small wedges and set upright in tiny pyramids on tray decorated with parsley.

Avocado and turkey will work just fine on good homemade white bread with spicy mustard before the game. On crusty white bread, pass the mustard. Tomato slices and some nice nice leaves of wild field greens turn this into a sandwich for grownups. Add a slice of red onion for some additional fine finish, along with a little corrander from your garden. That's why you planted it, right?

Easy First Course

GRILLED SHRIMP WITH GARLIC AND LIME

1/4 c. fresh lime juice
1/4 c. olive oil
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
1 sm. onion, minced
4 very lg. cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
24 lg. or extra lg. shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 lb. andouille or other smoked sausage

Whisk together juice and oil. Stir in next 4 ingredients. Marinate shrimp in this mixture for 1 hour. Alternately thread shrimp and andouille on skewers. Do not crowd shrimp. Grill over medium coals until shrimp are opaque, about one minute per side. Serve with warmed marinade on side. Yield: 4 servings.

Yumm. And this is fast, a great first course with Pimms cup.

Flu Update

I spent a long time on the phone this morning with a producer for Discovery Canada cable channel. She's pitching a "docu-drama" about avian influenza to her network. That led to a whole bunch of other email interchanges today which took away from posting time. The flu community is beginning to move into high gear as we get closer to a possible start date and the news outlets finally begin to take notice. This producer is pretty new to the story, but the Canadians are 'way ahead of Americans in their awareness of the potential of pandemic flu. Anyway, I got her hooked up with the major players in the flu community (it feels weird to type that, but it is true, we all know each other and keep in touch) which led to other conversations. Canadian Bumpers, if the CBC ever comes off of their strike, they are scheduled to air a documentary on bird flu on October 1. Heads up. Helen Branswell at The Canadian Press learned about it back in April when she was at an infectious disease conference here in DC. As we get closer to the air date, Canadian readers, please keep your eyes peeled for a link so that we can all watch it on-line. Helen's latest article is here. It's about Tamiflu and Relenza. A number of you had questions about the drugs today. Helen's piece is a very good overview. Damn, she's good.

For those of you who are having a hard time getting the attention of your friends and neighbors about the gravity of a possible pandemic, you aren't alone. Helen tells me that her newsroom looks askance at her, and this is one of the best medical reporters in North America. She's their resident "flu nut."

Pogge has now set up RSS feeds on all the major categories at The Flu Wiki, so those of you using aggregators can add it to your feeds. If anyone can tell me how to use one of those things, I'd be grateful. I'm not very geeky.

Add your flu questions in comments. If I don't know the answer, I'll go find it. Other than answering emails, I'm taking the rest of the night off: running a couple of blogs, a wiki and keeping the conventional part of my life going while doing a boatload of research has taken its toll and I'm tired. I want to watch a little TV, have a glass of wine and veg out for the rest of the evening.

Update: It's a lockout, not a strike. Having been on the receiving of those for years, and spat on by fur-clad Republicans, those class acts who have little better to do than hate the working class, I'm sorry for the mistake. Have you been spit on by a Republican in a fur coat? I have. The police tied our arms behind us with plasticuffs and loaded us into the Black Maria after that. I'm sorry for the mistake.

Reading List

WaPo's Froomkin:

Book Notes

Disregard what you may have read about Bush's highbrow reading list. (See my Aug. 16 column.)

Bumiller notes in the New York Times that Bush told a small group of reporters a week ago: "I'm reading an Elmore Leonard book right now."

Behind it All

What boneheaded design guides Dubya's moves?

LINWOOD BARCLAY

How does one explain all the misguided, unwise, sometimes outright boneheaded things the Bush administration has done since taking over nearly five years ago, and continues to do on a pretty much daily basis? How is it possible for a group of supposedly intelligent, experienced individuals to take this many wrong turns? Wouldn't you think that once in a while, even by accident, that George W. Bush and his advisers would make a decision that made sense?

Can this much mismanagement happen totally at random? Would the occupants of the Bush White House have us believe that all these things, these missteps, these miscalculations, these attempts to deceive, that they all, you know, just kind of happened?

I'm not so sure. And I'm not the only one starting to ask questions. More and more, it seems unlikely that mere human beings could make this many mistakes without some sort of misguiding force, a kind of supernatural entity that has trouble remembering where it put its car keys.

That's where unintelligent design comes in.

Once one embraces the concept of unintelligent design — a kind of doofus-like cosmic force — it becomes much easier to get your head around the operations of the Bush administration.

I mean, making executive decisions randomly would still probably result in doing the right thing 50 per cent of the time. So how does one explain such consistent goofiness, like invading a nation based on evidence that the administration knew didn't exist in the first place?

Or exposing a CIA employee's identity just to settle some personal scores?

Ignoring international trade agreements you've signed on to?

Adopting a head-in-the-sand approach to the connection between human activity on the planet Earth and global warming?

Letting the boss be photographed on the ranch, golfing and cutting brush and chilling out and generally having a good ol' time while young Americans die overseas?

Not having the media savvy to have that same boss take a stroll down the driveway and chat with a woman whose son was one of those young Americans?

Doing an end run around the Senate to send a loose cannon to the U.N., while supposedly promoting democracy abroad?

Not firing a defence secretary who totally misjudged how many troops would be needed to secure Iraq?

Giving rich folks back home huge tax cuts while soldiers go without adequate body armour?

You have to read the foreign press, you really do. While I'm cutting and pasting this, CNN is on in the background with Kyra Phillips uncritically reporting all the lies in W's latest speech today. He says all the same shit and CNN doesn't seem to feel the need to do any fact checking at all. Horrendous "reporting."

Bottom Line

Truth in Recruiting

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 22, 2005

Most Americans will tell you that they believe in honest, truthful, straightforward, ethical behavior.

So here's a question: Should people who are being recruited into the armed forces be told the truth about the risks they are likely to face if they agree to sign up and put on a uniform?

Right now, that is not happening. Recruiters desperate for warm bodies to be shipped to Iraq are prowling selected high schools and neighborhoods across the country with sales pitches that touch on everything but the possibility of being maimed or killed in combat.

The recruiters themselves are under enormous pressure from higher-ups who are watching crucial components of the all-volunteer military buckle under the strain of a war that was supposed to have been won in a jiffy, but instead just goes on and on.

So the teenagers who are the prime targets for recruitment are being told just about anything to ward off whatever misgivings they may have. Need money for college? No problem. You want to go to a nice place? Certainly. Maybe even Hawaii.

A young man who recently registered, as required, with the Selective Service System received an upbeat brochure in the mail touting the military's 30 days of annual "paid vacation," its free medical and dental care, its "competitive retirement" benefits and its "home loan program."

There was no mention of combat, or what it's like to walk the corridors and the grounds of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where you'll see a tragic, unending parade of young men and women struggling to move about despite their paralysis, or with one, two or three limbs missing.

I am not at all opposed to the military. I was in the Army for two years, and I've personally known many people who have had long and honorable careers in the service. I've known many men and women who made almost unimaginable sacrifices - including, in some cases, giving up their lives - while in uniform.

But I think it is precisely because the stakes are so high that we should be straight with potential recruits. Instead we present them with a lollipopped, sugarcoated, fantasyland version of what life in the military is like.

In a segment on PBS's "NewsHour" last December, an Army recruiter said: "I joined because I was seeking some adventure, all right? And I've been to a lot of different countries - Athens, Greece, Ireland, Rome. Been to Egypt twice, to the pyramids. All sorts of fun stuff."

The Army actually has an online video game that it likes to brag is one of the "top five" on the Web. Geared to children as young as 13, it has more than five million registered players.

But war is not a game. Getting your face blown off is not fun. The fundamental task of the military is to fight and kill the enemies of the United States, and fighting and killing is a grotesquely brutal experience. Potential recruits should be told the truth about what is expected of them, and what the risks are. And they should be told why it's a good idea for them to take those risks. If that results in too few people signing up for the military, the country is left with a couple of other options:

Stop fighting unnecessary wars, or reinstate the draft.

Seems like a reasonable bottom line to me.

Posted by Melanie at 12:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Foundational Things

Ivo Daalder asks"What's Plan B?"
August 17, 2005

The Iraqi constitution—and presumed election of a constitutional government in December—is turning out to be the key to Bush's exit strategy from Iraq. This explains the air of desperation that wafted through Crawford, Foggy Bottom, and the Green Zone earlier this week as the deadline for agreeing on a constitution came and went. Now, the desperate hope is to get it done by next Monday. But if, as seems likely, the constitution is not agreed, what's Washington's Plan B?

The Bush administration hasn't been very clear on what its exit strategy for Iraq actually is. Bush's general mantra—"We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed and not a day longer"—hasn't been particularly helpful. And when he has been specific, he's set very different objectives. At times, Bush has suggested that we will leave only when democracy in Iraq has been fully established. ("Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.") At other times, he has implied that the insurgency would have to be defeated. ("When that mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will come home.") At yet other times, Bush has argued that the troops would come home when Iraqi security forces have been fully trained. ("Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself.")

It's clear, though, that the insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone—it requires a political process. As Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military public-affairs official in Iraq, said the other day, "this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations. It's going to be settled in the political process." That is why the military, the Pentagon, and the White House are so desperate to get done with writing the constitution, because that, they believe, will start the political process that will defeat the insurgency. The sooner the constitution is done, Rummy said yesterday, "the fewer Iraqis will be killed and the fewer Americans and coalition forces will be killed."

So the constitution, and a government elected under it, are Bush's George Aiken moment—it will allow him to declare victory and go home. It would, conveniently, allow the president to announce troop reductions in an election year. (This also explains why Bush slapped down talk of troop withdrawals earlier this month. It isn't that the withdrawals won't happen as planned, but now is not the time to announce that.)

I have a more fundemental question: will the constitution work? Will people believe in it and live under it?

Time Out

Fight over Roberts memos doesn't end with deadline
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Monday's deadline for the White House to turn over records of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' work for past Republican administrations seems likely to pass without Democrats receiving the documents they requested.

The deadline was set by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to give the panel enough time to read the documents before hearings begin Sept. 6.

The White House has released more than 66,000 pages from Roberts' tenure as a Justice Department and White House lawyer in the Reagan administration. These documents have been made public at the same time they have been given to the committee.

But the Bush administration has refused to give the Senate memos that Roberts wrote when he was deputy solicitor general for the president's father, President George H.W. Bush, from 1989 to 1993.

The White House argues that releasing internal memos from the solicitor general's office — an arm of the Justice Department that represents the government in court — would discourage the kind of honest discussions lawyers must have with one another and their clients before deciding whether to take a case or how to argue it. "If attorneys believe that their communications with each other and with those whom they represent will become public, they cannot help but be chilled from expressing their candid views," Assistant Attorney General William Moschella wrote to Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

That refusal will be an issue in Roberts' confirmation hearings. Leahy accuses the White House of "stonewalling" on "documents that would help illuminate Judge Roberts' views and choices on important issues of concern to all Americans — civil rights, privacy and access to justice."

Leahy insists that the public's need to know more about Roberts' legal philosophy trumps the Justice Department's desire to protect internal communications.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee want documents connected with 16 cases that Roberts either argued himself, or approved the government arguing, as the top deputy for Kenneth Starr, then solicitor general. The cases involve questions about the rights of women, minorities, and defendants.

The White House says nya-nya. What do the Democrats say?

People At Work March On

via Suze:

In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide

Sun Aug 21, 3:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement. ADVERTISEMENT

The Wal-Mart campaign was set to be officially launched at a meeting in Chicago Monday of Union Network International (UNI), a group that includes 900 unions in some 140 countries.

The campaign aims to draw from labor organizations around the world to pressure Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and largest private company in terms of revenues, and a frequent target of unions for driving down wages as well as prices.

Union leaders said they hope to bring collective bargaining or other improvements to the estimated 1.6 million Wal-Mart employees around the world -- possibly even in countries such as China, where western-style unions are non-existent.

"Our message is that unions are adapting to a borderless world," says UNI general secretary Philip Jennings.

UNI said it "wants to stop the Wal-Martization of the world by bringing together unions in different countries to organize the retail giant's workers and bring them the benefits of collective organization."

The global effort on Wal-Mart escalates a longstanding feud with the retailer and the US-based United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has accused the retailer of "union-busting" efforts to keep US stores from unionizing.

Wal-Mart maintains that it has no official ban on unions, but in a statement on its website argues that in the United States, "we simply do not believe that unionization is right for Wal-Mart."

Globally, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Beth Keck said, Wal-Mart "is seen as a model and premier employer in many of the countries around the world."

She added: "Our policy is to operate within regulatory and customary business practices everywhere we operate. Our employees can choose whether they want to be union members or not, and overwhelmingly they have not."

The union gathering comes as UNI is currently presided by UFCW chief Joe Hansen, who has led campaigns against Wal-Mart in the United States.

According to a statement from UFCW, Wal-Mart "pays poverty wages, ships jobs to countries where sweatshops are prevalent and, in the US, shifts enormous health care costs onto taxpayers."

Additionally, the union said that because of its size, Wal-Mart is able to drive down wages and benefits, which "has become the new global economic model" followed by many other firms.

"This meeting is about creating more effective global unionization," UFCW spokesman Jim Papian said earlier. "It's the only answer to meeting the challenges of the global economy."

"We reject the Wal-Mart way and, at Chicago, UNI will be imagining a better future for working people everywhere," added Jennings. "We will work with the UFCW and those unions already established in Wal-Mart in Europe and elsewhere to stop a damaging race to the bottom."

According to UNI, Wal-Mart employees have formed unions in Germany, Japan, Brazil and other countries.

War and Law, V. 3.0

Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War
Activists More Vocal As Leaders Decline To Challenge Bush

By Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 22, 2005; Page A01

Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops.

Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticizing Bush's handling of the war. A growing chorus of Democrats, however, has said this criticism should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy -- something most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer.

The wariness, congressional aides and outside strategists said in interviews last week, reflects a belief among some in the opposition that proposals to force troop drawdowns or otherwise limit Bush's options would be perceived by many voters as defeatist. Some operatives fear such moves would exacerbate the party's traditional vulnerability on national security issues.

The internal schism has become all the more evident in recent weeks even as Americans have soured on Bush and the war in poll after poll. Senate Democrats, according to aides, convened a private meeting in late June to develop a cohesive stance on the war and debated every option -- only to break up with no consensus.

The rejuvenation of the antiwar movement in recent days after the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq set up camp near Bush's Texas ranch has exposed the rift even further.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) broke with his party leadership last week to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline. Feingold proposed Dec. 31, 2006. In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address yesterday, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out."

Although critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who rose to public prominence on an antiwar presidential campaign, said on television a week ago that it was the responsibility of the president, not the opposition, to come up with a plan for Iraq.

"Clearly Democrats are not united in what is the critique of what we're doing there and what is the answer to what we do next," said Steve Elmendorf, a senior party strategist whose former boss, then-House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq. "The difficulty of coming to a unified position is that for a lot of people who voted for it, they have to decide whether they can admit that they were misled."

The internal disarray, according to many Democrats, reflects more than a near-term tactical debate. Some say it reveals a fundamental identity crisis in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world for a party that struggled to move beyond the antiwar legacy of the 1960s and 1970s to reinvent itself as tougher on national security in the 1990s.

But historic fault lines in the party run deep. Along with high gasoline prices, the war has fed public discontent that is expressing itself as members of Congress tour their home districts during the August recess. Democratic officeholders watched carefully last week as peace demonstrators -- inspired by grieving mother-turned-activist Cindy Sheehan outside Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex. -- staged more than 1,000 candlelight vigils across the country.

What part of "why are we in this war" do Democrats not get? Cindy Sheehan asked the question. Democrats, answer this question: "We are in Iraq in order to ______________." Joe Biden please stay home and Hillary, please come up with a better answer than "stay the course." We are in Iraq for no good reason. Killing people and being killed for an illegal war can't be sustained by any candidate. Get a clue, please, about international law.

Answer the Question

Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War
Activists More Vocal As Leaders Decline To Challenge Bush

By Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 22, 2005; Page A01

Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops.

Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticizing Bush's handling of the war. A growing chorus of Democrats, however, has said this criticism should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy -- something most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer.

The wariness, congressional aides and outside strategists said in interviews last week, reflects a belief among some in the opposition that proposals to force troop drawdowns or otherwise limit Bush's options would be perceived by many voters as defeatist. Some operatives fear such moves would exacerbate the party's traditional vulnerability on national security issues.

The internal schism has become all the more evident in recent weeks even as Americans have soured on Bush and the war in poll after poll. Senate Democrats, according to aides, convened a private meeting in late June to develop a cohesive stance on the war and debated every option -- only to break up with no consensus.

The rejuvenation of the antiwar movement in recent days after the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq set up camp near Bush's Texas ranch has exposed the rift even further.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) broke with his party leadership last week to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline. Feingold proposed Dec. 31, 2006. In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address yesterday, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out."

Although critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who rose to public prominence on an antiwar presidential campaign, said on television a week ago that it was the responsibility of the president, not the opposition, to come up with a plan for Iraq.

"Clearly Democrats are not united in what is the critique of what we're doing there and what is the answer to what we do next," said Steve Elmendorf, a senior party strategist whose former boss, then-House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq. "The difficulty of coming to a unified position is that for a lot of people who voted for it, they have to decide whether they can admit that they were misled."

The internal disarray, according to many Democrats, reflects more than a near-term tactical debate. Some say it reveals a fundamental identity crisis in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world for a party that struggled to move beyond the antiwar legacy of the 1960s and 1970s to reinvent itself as tougher on national security in the 1990s.

But historic fault lines in the party run deep. Along with high gasoline prices, the war has fed public discontent that is expressing itself as members of Congress tour their home districts during the August recess. Democratic officeholders watched carefully last week as peace demonstrators -- inspired by grieving mother-turned-activist Cindy Sheehan outside Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex. -- staged more than 1,000 candlelight vigils across the country.

What part of "why are we in this war" do Democrats not get? Cindy Sheehan asked the question. Democrats, answer this question: "We are in Iraq in order to ______________." Joe Biden please stay home and Hillary, please come up with a better answer than "stay the course." We are in Iraq for no good reason. Killing people and being killed for an illegal war can't be sustained by any candidate. Get a clue, please, about international law.

A Little Relief

With so much of the news being so awful, it's nice to take a break now and then. The WaPo has a front page story on the National Zoo's new panda cub. Here's a link to Animal Planet's panda cam. Mother and son are very snuggly, which, if you think about, is the way that pandas should be.

Flu "Planning"

When a Bug Becomes a Monster

By MARC SANTORA
Published: August 21, 2005

Health officials in New York are working with increasing urgency to develop a defense in case a deadly strain of influenza begins to spread widely.

The city and state health departments are concerned about a dangerous strain of avian flu that continues to sweep across Asia, infecting millions of birds. While the virus is not easily transmissible from person to person at this point, scientists are worried about the theoretical possibility that it could combine with a more common form of influenza and become a rapidly spreading killer.

New York City health officials have been meeting every two weeks since February to develop a response plan. They hope to have an updated draft ready in the next few weeks. At about the same time, the state hopes to have its draft plan ready as well.

"It may never happen," said Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, a deputy city health commissioner who is leading the flu planning, referring to the development of the strain. "But on the scale of emergency planning, this is high on the list."

As part of their preparations, the leaders of the frontline forces of New York's disaster preparedness teams will run a "tabletop" simulation involving more than a dozen city and state departments next month that will envision the city facing a situation similar to the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918, which left at least 33,000 dead in the city alone. At least 20 million to 40 million people died worldwide. The exercise is designed to test the emergency response system by challenging leaders to make quick decisions and seeing if and where communication breaks down or resources run out.

If a pandemic similar to the one of 1918 occurred today, as many as 2.8 million New York City residents could be infected within months, sending more than 200,000 to the hospital and clogging the morgues with 400 deaths a day during the peak infection period.

The plans being developed by the city and state are likely to include recommendations on the stockpiling of equipment and drugs. However, those decisions may be delayed as city and state officials wait to see federal plans.

Good luck, New York. The federal plan is going to be a fairy tale, if it is ever developed at all. No vaccine and we're in line behind most of the rest of the developed world for Tamilfu, which can't be manufactured fast enough to do any good.

The End, Not "The Light At The End of the Tunnel"

Militias on the Rise Across Iraq
Shiite and Kurdish Groups Seizing Control, Instilling Fear in North and South

By Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page A01

BASRA, Iraq -- Shiite and Kurdish militias, often operating as part of Iraqi government security forces, have carried out a wave of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation, consolidating their control over territory across northern and southern Iraq and deepening the country's divide along ethnic and sectarian lines, according to political leaders, families of the victims, human rights activists and Iraqi officials.

While Iraqi representatives wrangle over the drafting of a constitution in Baghdad, the militias, and the Shiite and Kurdish parties that control them, are creating their own institutions of authority, unaccountable to elected governments, the activists and officials said. In Basra in the south, dominated by the Shiites, and Mosul in the north, ruled by the Kurds, as well as cities and villages around them, many residents have said they are powerless before the growing sway of the militias, which instill a climate of fear that many see as redolent of the era of former president Saddam Hussein.

The parties and their armed wings sometimes operate independently, and other times as part of Iraqi army and police units trained and equipped by the United States and Britain and controlled by the central government. Their growing authority has enabled them to control territory, confront their perceived enemies and provide patronage to their followers. Their ascendance has come about because of a power vacuum in Baghdad and their own success in the January parliamentary elections.

Since the formation of a government this spring, Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, has witnessed dozens of assassinations, which claimed members of the former ruling Baath Party, Sunni political leaders and officials of competing Shiite parties. Many have been carried out by uniformed men in police vehicles, according to political leaders and families of the victims, with some of the bullet-riddled bodies dumped at night in a trash-strewn parcel known as The Lot. The province's governor said in an interview that Shiite militias have penetrated the police force; an Iraqi official estimated that as many as 90 percent of officers were loyal to religious parties.

Across northern Iraq, Kurdish parties have employed a previously undisclosed network of at least five detention facilities to incarcerate hundreds of Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and other minorities abducted and secretly transferred from Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and from territories stretching to the Iranian border, according to political leaders and detainees' families. Nominally under the authority of the U.S.-backed Iraqi army, the militias have beaten up and threatened government officials and political leaders deemed to be working against Kurdish interests; one bloodied official was paraded through a town in a pickup truck, witnesses said.

"I don't see any difference between Saddam and the way the Kurds are running things here," said Nahrain Toma, who heads a human rights organization, Bethnahrain, which has offices in northern Iraq and has faced several death threats.

Toma said the tactics were eroding what remained of U.S. credibility as the militias operate under what many Iraqis view as the blessing of American and British forces. "Nobody wants anything to do with the Americans anymore," she said. "Why? Because they gave the power to the Kurds and to the Shiites. No one else has any rights."

"Here's the problem," said Majid Sari, an adviser in the Iraqi Defense Ministry in Basra, who travels with a security detail of 25 handpicked Iraqi soldiers. Referring to the militias, he said, "They're taking money from the state, they're taking clothes from the state, they're taking vehicles from the state, but their loyalty is to the parties." Whoever disagrees, he said, "the next day you'll find them dead in the street."

British officials, whose authority runs through Basra and parts of southern Iraq, have called the killings "totally unacceptable."

"We are aware of allegations that men in police uniforms, whether they are genuine policemen or not, are carrying out serious crimes in Basra," said Karen McLuskie, a British diplomat in Basra. "We are raising our concerns with the Iraqi authorities at the highest level."

This war is lost, okay? It doesn't really matter what you think about it anymore. It's over. Getting out with some sort of minimal dignity is about the best we can do now. Leaving the Iraqis in charge of their water and electricity, with which we've done such a shitty job, seems like the best course.

Unanswered Questions

The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan

By FRANK RICH
Published: August 21, 2005

The hope this time was that we'd change the subject to Cindy Sheehan's "wacko" rhetoric and the opportunistic left-wing groups that have attached themselves to her like barnacles. That way we would forget about her dead son. But if much of the 24/7 media has taken the bait, much of the public has not.

The backdrops against which Ms. Sheehan stands - both that of Mr. Bush's what-me-worry vacation and that of Iraq itself - are perfectly synergistic with her message of unequal sacrifice and fruitless carnage. Her point would endure even if the messenger were shot by a gun-waving Crawford hothead or she never returned to Texas from her ailing mother's bedside or the president folded the media circus by actually meeting with her.

The public knows that what matters this time is Casey Sheehan's story, not the mother who symbolizes it. Cindy Sheehan's bashers, you'll notice, almost never tell her son's story. They are afraid to go there because this young man's life and death encapsulate not just the noble intentions of those who went to fight this war but also the hubris, incompetence and recklessness of those who gave the marching orders.

Specialist Sheehan was both literally and figuratively an Eagle Scout: a church group leader and honor student whose desire to serve his country drove him to enlist before 9/11, in 2000. He died with six other soldiers on a rescue mission in Sadr City on April 4, 2004, at the age of 24, the week after four American security workers had been mutilated in Falluja and two weeks after he arrived in Iraq. This was almost a year after the president had declared the end of "major combat operations" from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

The story IS the dead children. Why did they die? For what? What is the "noble cause"?

The Yakkers

Iran 'supplies infra-red bombs' that kill British troops in Iraq
By Toby Harnden, Chief Foreign Correspondent
(Filed: 21/08/2005)

British soldiers in Iraq are being killed by advanced "infra-red" bombs supplied by Iran that defeat jamming equipment, according to military intelligence officials.

The "passive infra-red" devices, whose use in Iraq is revealed for the first time by The Sunday Telegraph, are detonated when the beam is broken, as when an intruder triggers a burglar alarm. They were used by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group against Israel in Lebanon from 1995.

A radio signal is used to arm the bomb as a target vehicle approaches. The next object to break the infra-red beam - the target vehicle - detonates the device.

Coalition officials see the disturbing development as a key part of an aggressive new campaign by Teheran to drive coalition forces out of Iraq so that an Islamic theocracy can be established.

American and British intelligence officials believe that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is training, supplying and funding part of Iraq's insurgent Shia network and that its activities have been stepped up since the spring.

Links between Shia and Sunni Muslim groups, usually via trading by criminal arms dealers, means that expertise quickly spreads across Iraq.

"These guys have picked up in two years what it took the IRA a quarter-century to learn," said an Army bomb disposal officer in Iraq.

The Sunday Show warriors don't have to deal with this.

Human Life

Secular Europe? Guess again.

More Than 1 Million Welcome Pope for Outdoor Mass

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 21, 2005

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) -- More than 1 million Roman Catholic young people who had camped out overnight in an enormous field welcomed Benedict XVI on Sunday for the concluding Mass of his four-day trip to Germany, his first foreign travel as pope.

The pope was driven to the altar overlooking the Marienfeld, or Mary's Field, in his tall, glassed-in popemobile. More Photos >

As he began his homily, calling on the pilgrims and visitors to World Youth Day to make wise use of the freedom God had given them, the sun broke through the thick, gray clouds.

"Freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness so that we ourselves can become true and good," he said.

He said there is a "strange forgetfulness of God," while at same time the sense of frustration and dissatisfaction has led to a "new explosion of religion."

"I have no wish to discredit all the manifestations of this phenomenon. There may be sincere joy in the discovery," he said. "Yet, if it is pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product. People choose what they like, and some are even able to make a profit from it."

"But religion constructed on a 'do-it-youself' basis cannot ultimately help us. Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ."

He urged the youth to take the time to regularly attend Sunday Mass.

"If you make the effort, you will realize that this is what gives a proper focus to your free time," he said.

The crowds listened intently as he spoke in German, English, Italian and French.

As the mass drew to a close, Benedict announced Sydney, Australia, would host the next World Youth Day in 2008, eliciting cheers from the massive crowd.

He ended by urging pilgrims -- speaking in French, English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Swahili, Tagalog and German -- to spread the Church's message of love and forgiveness across the world.

Religious Decline in Europe?
By Andrew M. Greeley

Man bites dog is news. So is the decline of religion. Dog bites man is continuity. So too the persistence of religion. That’s not news. Thus the media are fascinated by allegations of religious decline in Europe, especially because the remnants of modernity expect, even demand, the decline of religion. When someone argues that Europe is a vast and complex place and that there are many different measures of religion, one runs the risk of being mired in qualifications. Nonetheless, religion in Europe, like most other human phenomena, is gray. It has declined in some countries (France, Britain, the Netherlands), has increased in other countries (Russia, Latvia, Slovenia, Hungary), remains high and stable in yet other countries (Ireland, Poland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Cyprus, Austria), stable and diffuse in still other countries (Spain, Italy, Portugal) and stable and low in yet other countries (Scandinavia, the former East Germany, the Czech Republic).

The figures to back up these generalizations, which are too extensive to enumerate in this article, can by found in my new book, Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millenium. The analysis of European religion found there involves 23 nations and four surveys carried out between 1980 and 1998.

Some random evidence of complexity: though Scandinavians are not a religiously devout people, nearly half of Norwegians still assert that Jesus is their savior. More residents of eastern Germany believe in divine miracles than believe in God. (Who is the God in whom they do not believe?) Belief in God increased in Russia from 48 percent to 60 percent during the 1990’s. Superstition is weak in regions where belief in God or atheism is strong (Ireland and regions of eastern Germany) and powerful in countries where doubt is strong (Britain and western Germany).

Such complexities should persuade those who derive their knowledge of European religion from the media to be careful. It will be said, and often has been said: look at Britain, France and the Netherlands; these are the really important countries. To which one might reply: look at Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Latvia. What makes them unimportant? Indeed, in the face of the revival of religion in Russia (perhaps the most dramatic religious revival in human history), how can anyone take seriously the secularization model of religion?

The most striking finding is the dramatic rise in the belief in life after death among the youngest cohorts in all but three countries (Ireland, Cyprus and Britain—in the first two, it was already high). In the whole European sample, 56 percent of the cohorts born before 1930 believe in life after death, 50 percent of those born in the 1950’s, and 60 percent of those born after 1970. Grandparents and grandchildren are more likely to believe than parents. Since belief in life after death is one of the core components of Christian faith (and utterly abhorrent to the patrons of modernity), it can be asserted that Christian faith has increased in Europe as a whole. Only in Great Britain has this revival of faith not occurred. Perhaps the devastation of the war led to a decline in hope among those who were born to the survivors of the war, and then the prosperity of the postwar years influenced those born during those years.

The sociology and anthropology of religion is my beat, even more than theology. Religion is the most complex and interesting human behavior I can think of. Besides politics.

About Damn Time

via Sean-Paul at The Agonist:

Costas Decides He Needs a Fill-In
# The announcer, who has been subbing for Larry King, disapproved of Thursday night's focus: a teen's disappearance in Aruba and BTK.

By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK — The cable news fixation on Natalee Holloway's disappearance in Aruba has at least one high-profile dissenter.

Veteran sports broadcaster Bob Costas declined to fill in as host on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday night because of the program's focus that night on the missing Alabama teenager and on Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer.

Costas — who has been serving as an occasional substitute for King since June — bowed out of the Thursday show after he could not persuade producers to change the program's lineup, which included an interview with Beth Holloway Twitty, the mother of the high school senior who disappeared in Aruba in late May.

"I didn't think the subject matter of Thursday's show was the kind of broadcast that I should be doing," Costas said in a statement, adding that he "respectfully declined to participate."

"There were no hard feelings at all," he added. "It's not a big deal. I'm sure there are countless topics that will be mutually acceptable in the future."

Senior executive producer Wendy Walker said in a statement that Costas "was not comfortable with the subject matter that we were covering on the show" and called it "a mutual decision" for him not to anchor Thursday's program.

Costas' refusal to participate in a show about the Holloway case comes during a summer in which images of the teenager have become a staple of cable news programs, despite a lack of developments in the case. Fox News, in particular, has devoted a substantial amount of time to the story, dispatching "On the Record" host Greta Van Susteren to Aruba for the better part of two months.

Coverage of the Holloway case has yielded strong ratings, but some people have decried the time cable news has spent reporting the disappearance of yet another young white woman, arguing that the media do not put equal resources into Latinos' or blacks' disappearances.

On Thursday's "Larry King Live," substitute anchor Chris Pixley conducted a lengthy live interview with Twitty, who remains in Aruba looking for her daughter. The show came 81 days after Holloway disappeared.

Thank you, Bob Costas, for being such a class act. I wrote a letter of complaint to CNN when on air color commentator complained about CNN going wall-to-wall on the Rader sentencing. Serial killers are not rare, catching them is, but why give him the opportunity to get yet another moment in the spotlight for the bizarre statement he made for the cameras. Commentator Jack Cafferty complained bitterly about it on the air on Blitzer's new show and I wrote to join Cafferty's complaint, grouse about CNN's news judgement, in general, and the "missing white woman" phenomenon.

Oh, Court TV? Greta Susteren+Aruba? She got a paid vacation out of her Holloway show. If I ever had reason to think of Court TV as a credible news outlet, that's all gone.

Flu Planning

Hat-tip to orange at The Coming Influenza Pandemic?:

Internal WHO plan urges stockpiling antiviral drug for staff and dependants

Helen Branswell
Canadian Press

Friday, August 19, 2005

TORONTO (CP) - The World Health Organization's internal pandemic flu plan urges its offices around the world to stockpile enough of the antiviral drug oseltamivir to treat nearly a third of staff and their dependants - a guideline that may be adopted by other UN agencies as well.

The recommendation is contained in a leaked pandemic contingency plan described as "an internal working document" by an agency spokesperson. Its goal is to both ensure the safety of WHO workers and the agency's ability to maintain operations at a point when its guidance may be more desperately needed than ever in its history.

"We've been urging countries to move ahead with their pandemic preparedness plans - and that's exactly what we're doing," Dick Thompson, communications director of the division of communicable diseases, said from Geneva.

Thompson admitted the agency has been struggling to figure out how it could continue to function at a time when a tidal wave of illness and death would be washing over the globe. It is estimated that when a pandemic next occurs, about a third of the world's population could become ill.

"We've been thinking about that for months. What happens if 30 per cent of our staff is down? How do we function? We have to prepare," Thompson said.

The WHO contingency plan may become an outline for pandemic plans for all UN agencies, though he would not comment on whether that means all UN agencies will be urged to stockpile enough of the scarce drug to treat 30 per cent of staff and dependants.

Tamiflu for the WHO but not for thee and me.

Flu Update: The Political Story

Here is Laurie Garrett's latest flu story from the current issue of Foreign Affairs. It is a long and complex piece, as good science reporting should be. Here is one point that bears repeating:

Few members of the U.S. Congress or its legislative counterparts around the world were alive when the great Spanish flu swept the planet. There may be some who lost parents, aunts, or uncles to the 1918-19 pandemic, and perhaps even more have heard the horror stories that were passed down. But politics breeds shortsightedness, and for decades the threat of an influenza pandemic has been easily forgotten, and therefore ignored at budget time. Politicians and health leaders made many serious errors in 1918-19; some historians say that President Wilson sent 43,000 soldiers to their deaths by forcing them aboard crowded ships to join a war he had already won. But in those days, human beings had no understanding of their influenza foe.

In 1971, the great American public health leader Alexander Langmuir likened flu forecasting to trying to predict the weather, arguing that "as with hurricanes, pandemics can be identified and their probable course projected so that warnings can be issued. Epidemics, however, are more variable [than hurricanes], and the best that can be done is to estimate probabilities."

Since Langmuir's time a quarter of a century ago, weather forecasting has gained a stunning level of precision. And although scientists cannot tell political leaders when an influenza pandemic will occur, researchers today are able to guide policymakers with information and analysis exponentially richer than that which informed the decisions of President Ford and the 1976 Congress. Whether or not this particular H5N1 influenza mutates into a human-to-human pandemic form, the scientific evidence points to the potential that such an event will take place, perhaps soon. Those responsible for foreign policy and national security, the world over, cannot afford to ignore the warning.

Reporting here will be light this weekend as I do more research on avian flu and spend some much needed time at The Flu Wiki, which has been languishing without much attention from its purported publisher. Thanks to pogge and DemFromCT for holding down the fort while I've been otherwise occupied.

Hair on Fire

CIA Report on 9/11 Is Complete
Inspector General's Findings Have Yet to Reach Congress

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 20, 2005; Page A07

The CIA inspector general's report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has finally been completed -- nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline -- but has yet to be sent to Capitol Hill because CIA Director Porter J. Goss is still deciding how to respond to its findings, according to administration and congressional sources.

Inspector General John L. Helgerson's voluminous report, triggered in December 2002 by a recommendation of the House-Senate inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, was completed in June and delivered last month to Goss for his review, according to a note sent by the CIA to members of Congress on July 22. It is expected to go to the House and Senate intelligence committees soon, according to one senior administration official.

Under the joint committee mandate, the CIA director is to report back to the House and Senate intelligence committees on the steps taken to assign responsibility for poor performance and to reward excellence.

One reason for the long delay in producing the report, according to present and former agency officials, has been the original requirement by the joint committee that Helgerson "determine whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable for any omission, commission or failure to meet professional standards" in relation to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

When Goss received a draft of the report last October, he sent it back because performance failures were attributed to individuals without giving them the chance to respond to those findings or have the matter adjudicated by an accountability panel, according to an October letter sent by Goss to intelligence committee members. The communication was made available to The Washington Post.

Over the past months, individuals named in the report were given opportunities to respond to the sections that mention them, and a few were allowed to read the entire report, according to present and former intelligence officials.As a result, some changes have been made in the report, the officials said.

Goss, however, has yet to decide what if any steps he will take before he sends the report to the congressional intelligence committees, the officials said. The CIA director could create an internal panel to look at each case and submit recommendations to him. Such a group is typically made up of senior agency officials and chaired by the CIA's executive director, the third-ranking official in the agency.

Officials said Goss could establish additional procedures to deal with any systemic problems uncovered in the report. Or he could send the IG report to the Hill, noting the many changes that have already been made, and indicate that many of the senior officials at the time of the attacks have left the agency.

English translation: looking for ways to limit the political damange.

Unintelligent Reporting

US editor ignites evolution row at Smithsonian over editor institute
Smithsonian engulfed by row over evolution at centre of row over evolution

By David Usborne in New York
Published: 20 August 2005

Scientists at the prestigious Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC have become embroiled in a controversy over the origins of life, a debate which has also aroused the recent interest of President George Bush.

At the heart of the storm is Richard Sternberg, picked by the Smithsonian to edit one of its scientific journals, the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Normally, the journal arouses little non-specialist interest. But Dr Sternberg stepped straight into a controversy gripping America by publishing an article supporting the theory of intelligent design, the idea that an outside agent - God - must have at least lent a hand in creating our universe.

He has reignited a row that began when President Bush managed to appall the US scientific community during a meeting with reporters in Texas. Asked whether the notion of intelligent design should be taught in American schools alongside the theory of evolution he answered that, yes, it should. The appearance of the article, by an outside contributor named Stephen Meyer last August, has triggered an academic and political food-fight of astonishing proportions. Mr Sternberg's colleagues believe that the publication of the piece has all but brought a secular scientific institution into disrepute. "We do stand by evolution; we are a scientific organisation," said Linda St Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, which runs 16 of America's most important museums.

But a federal body, run by a hand-picked appointee of President Bush, has now accused the Smithsonian of waging a vindictive smear campaign against one of their own peers.

The allegation has been made by the Office of Special Counsel set up precisely to investigate cases of federal government employees who feel they have been unfairly treated or dismissed.

Most of the smears against Dr Sternberg, 42, came in the form of a flurry of e-mails. Some alleged that he was a closet priest or that he was an agent for radical conservative groups that peddle intelligent design or even creationism, which accepts almost literally the explanations in the Book of Genesis and views fossils not as scientific evidence but the residue from Noah's Flood.

"They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper-cell operative for the creationists," Mr Sternberg told The Washington Post newspaper. "I was basically run out of there."

The Office of Special Counsel agrees. In a new but still unpublished report, the office said that "retaliation came in many forms ... misinformation was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false".

James McVay, the principal lawyer and Bush appointee involved in studying the Sternberg case, stated in a letter to Dr Sternberg: "The rumour mill became so infected one of your colleagues had to circulate [your résumé] simply to dispel the rumour that you were not a scientist."

Mr McVay does not have the power to punish the Smithsonian. But he can try to embarrass it and some people believe he may have some political motivation in doing so.

Darwinism may be the basis of understanding for our existence in most of the developed world, but America still argues about it. In fact the debate seems only to get more and more passionate.

A recent Gallup poll showed that 45 per cent of Americans subscribe to the Book of Genesis theory of our origins. Only about one-third are ready to accept the evolutionary propositions of Darwin. Among the e-mails Mr Sternberg received after publishing the Meyer article was this one from an anonymous Smithsonian scientist: "We are evolutionary biologists and I am sorry to see us made into the laughing stock of the world, even if this kind of rubbish sells well in backwoods USA."

Dr Sternberg meanwhile insists that he himself is agnostic about intelligent design but defends his decision to publish the article that discussed it.

"I am not convinced by intelligent design but they have brought a lot of difficult questions to the fore," he said. "Science moves forward only on controversy."

Scientists at the prestigious Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC have become embroiled in a controversy over the origins of life, a debate which has also aroused the recent interest of President George Bush.

This isn't a very good article, and I decry the science reporting in the newspapers in general. There are a tiny handful of good science reporters working in English, and the Independent doesn't employ any of them. This is very nearly " he said, she said" journalism. "Intelligent design" may have some attractions as philosophy or poetry, but it isn't science and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as science.

The fact that 45% of Americans don't understand this is no reason to report science incorrectly.

Parsing The Nominee

In 1980s, Roberts Criticized The Court He Hopes to Join

By Jo Becker, R. Jeffrey Smith and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 20, 2005; Page A04

When John G. Roberts Jr. accepted President Bush's nomination to the Supreme Court last month, he spoke with awe about the high court. He had argued 39 cases before the justices, but he said he "always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps."

Two decades earlier though, as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Roberts expressed less reverential comments, repeatedly arguing that the high court was interfering in issues best left to Congress. He even wrote approvingly of an effort to term-limit federal judges instead of giving them lifetime appointments, so they "would not lose all touch with reality through decades of ivory tower existence.

"The federal judiciary today benefits from an insulation from political pressure even as it usurps the role of the political branches," he wrote his boss, White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, on Oct. 3, 1983.

The memo was among more than 50,000 pages of documents made public this week by the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library, covering Roberts's 1982 to 1986 tenure as an associate counsel to the president. Along with other papers covering Roberts's 1981 to 1982 stint as a special assistant at the Justice Department, the documents portray a young conservative whose views were very much in line with the administration he served.

Roberts's writings reflect a steady concern about maintaining an appropriate balance of power, often expressing suspicion that one branch of government was trying to encroach upon another. Much of his trepidation involved his view that the courts were encroaching on issues that Congress never intended with overly broad interpretations of federal law, or by creating rights not stated in the Constitution. That, in turn, informed his views on a host of controversial issues.

He was skeptical of the Supreme Court's legal underpinning for the right to abortion, referring to it as a "so-called right to privacy." He said that a case prohibiting a moment of silent prayer or reflection in public schools "seems indefensible," and criticized other court decisions upholding racial preference programs aimed at remedying past discrimination as "constitutionally impermissible" because the programs themselves were discriminatory.

That strict view also carried over to the executive branch. Asked by White House deputy counsel Richard Hauser to come up with examples of instances when the administration had refused to interpret statutes more broadly than Congress intended, Roberts cited a case involving Bob Jones University. Though the university discriminated against interracial couples, the administration took the position that it could continue to receive a tax break given to religious and charitable organizations.

"Even though we opposed on policy grounds granting tax exemptions to discriminatory schools, we did not feel Congress had given the IRS the authority to withhold exemptions on that basis," Roberts wrote Dec. 5, 1983.

Roberts wrote the memo less than six months after the Supreme Court ruled that the university did not meet the charitable test in the federal law because it discriminated.

Roberts's Hand in Home Rule
Nominee's Memos Shielded Reagan In D.C. Battle

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 20, 2005; Page A04

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. played a backstage role in a landmark home-rule fight in the District in the early 1980s, displaying a keen political sense for shielding his boss, President Ronald Reagan, during a controversial battle to roll back the power of D.C. officials.

In eight memos written during the 1983-84 episode, Roberts, then 28, emerges as a savvy White House associate counsel who helped guide a Justice Department push to limit D.C. officials' ability to change criminal statutes. He lobbied to camouflage White House involvement, softened the administration's rhetoric, headed off confrontation and fretted over leaks to city officials.

During a 15-week debate, Roberts's memos did not make explicit his views on home rule or the era's raw racial politics. His memos also offer no clues about how he might decide the current question of whether the District can obtain a vote in Congress without a constitutional amendment.

The memos were among thousands of pages of documents released in recent weeks from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

A 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Congress's legislative veto powers triggered the District debate. The home-rule charter that established the city's locally elected government in 1973 included such a veto provision, and the Justice Department argued that the charter had to be amended. When Congress moved to fix the problem by loosening its control over the District, the Justice Department intervened with the White House's backing.

The Reagan Justice Department, pushed by Stanley S. Harris, the U.S. attorney for the District, and his principal deputy, Joseph E. diGenova, said that then-Mayor Marion Barry and the D.C. Council could not be relied upon to set criminal standards for the seat of the federal government.

"Stan Harris reacted with understandable horror at the prospect of giving such a free hand to the D.C. Council, particularly in criminal matters," Roberts wrote his boss, White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, in a memo dated Oct. 4, 1983.

You may not be aware of it, but your fellow citizens who reside in the District of Columbia do not have "home rule." They may vote for a mayor and city council, but Congress itself has ultimate legislative authority over the District and final authority over its budget. No other nation's capital is treated in such a manner.

Other Bugs

Soviet Germ Factories Pose New Threat
Once Mined for Pathogens in Bioweapons Program, Labs Lack Security

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 20, 2005; Page A01

ODESSA, Ukraine -- For 50 years under Soviet rule, nearly everything about the Odessa Antiplague Station was a state secret, down to the names of the deadly microbes its white-coated workers collected and stored in a pair of ordinary freezers.

Cloistered in a squat, gray building at the tip of a rusting shipping dock, the station's biologists churned out reports on grave illnesses that were mentioned only in code. Anthrax was Disease No. 123, and plague, which killed thousands here in the 19th century, was No. 127. Each year, researchers added new specimens to their frozen collection and shared test results with sister institutes along a network controlled by Moscow.

The Odessa Antiplague Station handles microbes that cause highly infectious diseases. Facilities such as this unknowingly supplied the Soviet military with virulent strains.
The Odessa Antiplague Station handles microbes that cause highly infectious diseases. Facilities such as this unknowingly supplied the Soviet military with virulent strains. (Center For Nonproliferation Studies)

Today, the Soviets are gone but the lab is still here, in this Black Sea port notorious for its criminal gangs and black markets. It is just one of more than 80 similar "antiplague" labs scattered across the former Soviet Union, from the turbulent Caucasus to Central Asian republics that share borders with Iran and Afghanistan. Each is a repository of knowledge, equipment and lethal pathogens that weapons experts have said could be useful to bioterrorists.

After decades of operating in the shadows, the labs are beginning to shed light on another secret: How the Soviet military co-opted obscure civilian institutes into a powerful biological warfare program that built weapons for spreading plague and anthrax spores. As they ramped up preparations for germ warfare in the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet generals mined the labs for raw materials, including highly lethal strains of viruses and bacteria that were intended for use in bombs and missiles.

The facilities' hidden role is described in a draft report of a major investigation by scholars from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The main conclusions of the report, which was provided to The Washington Post, were echoed in interviews with current and former U.S. officials familiar with the labs. Most scientists who worked in antiplague stations in Soviet times knew nothing of their contributions to the weapons program, the report says.

The labs today are seeking to fill a critical role in preventing epidemics in regions where medical services and sanitation have deteriorated since Soviet times. But an equally pressing challenge is security: How to prevent the germ collections and biological know-how from being sold or stolen.

"They often have culture collections of pathogens that lack biosecurity, and they employ people who are well-versed in investigating and handling deadly pathogens," said Raymond A. Zilinskas, a bioweapons expert and coauthor of the draft report on the antiplague system. "Some are located at sites accessible to terrorist groups and criminal groups. The potential is that terrorists and criminals would have little problem acquiring the resources that reside in these facilities."

Managers of the old antiplague stations are aware of their vulnerabilities but lack the most basic resources for dealing with them, according to the Monterey authors and U.S. officials. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, budgets at the institutes have fallen so steeply that even the simplest security upgrades are out of reach. One facility in a Central Asian capital could not even afford a telephone and had no way of contacting police in the event of a break-in. At least two antiplague centers outside Russia have acknowledged burglaries or break-ins within the past three years, though there are no confirmed reports of stolen pathogens or missing lab equipment, Monterey officials said.

The lack of modern biosafety equipment is also raising concern among U.S. officials about the potential for an accidental release of deadly bacteria and viruses. In Odessa, where 44 scientists and about 140 support staff carry out research in the I.I. Mechnikov Antiplague Scientific and Research Institute, scientists wearing cotton smocks and surgical masks work with lethal microbes that in the West would be locked away in high-containment laboratories and handled only by scientists in spacesuits.

The lab's scientists said their training in handling dangerous materials allowed them to work safely with pathogens without Western-style safety equipment -- which they viewed as unnecessary and which in any case they cannot afford.

"Many of the institutes are located in downtown areas, and some work with pathogens with windows wide open," said Sonia Ben Ouagrham, who coauthored the Monterey study with Zilinskas and Alexander Melikishvili.

As if worrying about avian flu weren't enough....

Interstate Traffic

U.S. Retains Controversial Trucker Rule

Friday August 19, 2005
By LESLIE MILLER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Truckers can still spend six days on the road during the week and drive for 11 hours at a time, thanks to a rule the Bush administration decided to leave intact even though truckers and safety advocates say it's unsafe.

For 60 years, truckers could drive for 10 consecutive hours. On Jan. 1, 2004, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration changed the rule to allow them another hour behind the wheel.

A federal court, however, threw out the changes.

On Friday, the truck-safety agency announced that a revision to the rule would still allow the big rigs to roll for 11 hours, three hours more than safety advocates say they should.

``What reasonable person who has traveled our nation's roads and highways thinks that forcing tired truck drivers to stay behind the wheel even longer is good public policy?'' asked Teamsters Union President James P. Hoffa.

More than a year ago, a federal court struck down the rule, saying it was ``arbitrary and capricious'' and failed to consider truckers' health. The Bush administration was left to revise it.

Annette Sandberg, chief of the truck-safety agency, said the new rule is backed by more research and was designed to reduce the number of crashes caused by fatigued drivers.

``The research shows that this new rule will improve driver health and safety and the safety of our roadways,'' Sandberg said during a press conference.

She said the rule requires drivers to take at least 10 hours off between shifts, two more than before, and reduces the maximum work day from 15 hours to 14.

But Joan Claybrook, president of the safety group Public Citizen, said that drivers can drive 20 percent longer and spend 30 percent more time on duty under the new rule.

She said the agency's own data show that deaths resulting from large truck crashes are up 3.1 percent from 2003 to 2004.

The Bush administration also announced a new set of rules for truck drivers who travel less than 150 miles in a day and don't need a commercial driver's license.

Those drivers, who typically work for retailers and small package-delivery companies, would be partially exempt from the 14-hour workday. For two days a week, they could work 16-hour days, including breaks.

Wal-Mart and other retailers have lobbied Congress to extend the workday for truckers to 16 hours, something labor unions and safety advocates say would make roadways more dangerous for all drivers.

This makes me feel just SO much better as I do my commute on I-40 every morning. It doesn't help that the DOT in North Carolina regularly fails to deal with truck weight and now is ready to maybe make it into law for more and heavier trucks .

Still, maybe it's just the memory of that pipe falling off of a truck 3 years ago as a drove to work and seeing it bounce on my hood and, thankfully, over my car instead of through my window at 75 miles per hour that makes me skittish about all of this.

Justice Texas Style

Jury Calls Merck Liable in Death of Man on Vioxx

By ALEX BERENSON
New York Times
Published: August 20, 2005

ANGLETON, Tex., Aug. 19 - In the first verdict of a personal injury lawsuit involving the pain drug Vioxx, a Texas jury found the drug's maker, Merck, liable and said the widow of a man who died in 2001 after taking the drug should be awarded $253.5 million.

After deliberating for a day and a half, the jury gave Robert C. Ernst's widow, Carol, $24.5 million for mental anguish and economic losses. Jurors also said she should be awarded an additional $229 million in punitive damages after finding that Merck acted recklessly in selling Vioxx despite having knowledge of the drug's heart risks.

Under Texas law capping punitive damages, though, that part of the penalty will automatically be limited to $1.6 million, meaning the overall award would not exceed $26.1 million and could be reduced by Texas appellate courts.

In interviews afterward, jurors said they had made the large punitive award to send a message that drug makers must disclose the risks of their medicines.

"Respect us, that's the message," said Derrick Chizer, a juror. "Respect us."

Ten of the 12 jurors voted for the plaintiff, the minimum number required to make an award under Texas law. Judge Ben Hardin of the Texas District Court announced the verdict at the Brazoria County Courthouse in Angleton, about 40 miles south of downtown Houston.

With a flood of Vioxx lawsuits soon to reach juries, the verdict may have important implications for both Merck and the entire drug industry, lawyers and analysts said. More than 4,000 Vioxx-related cases have already been filed, and lawyers say that they expect 20,000 to 100,000 will eventually be filed.

State trials are scheduled to begin in the next few months in New Jersey and possibly California and Alabama, with the first federal trial planned for November in New Orleans. Lawyers for both sides say the suits will probably be handled individually rather than as class actions.

Merck has said it will fight every Vioxx lawsuit in court rather than settle cases and it reiterated that stance in a statement issued after the verdict was announced.

But Friday's verdict illustrates the dangers of that strategy, especially because Mr. Ernst's case had been viewed as relatively weak, lawyers said. For Merck, the verdict is a severe blow, said Peter Bicks, a defense lawyer with Orrick, Harrington & Sutcliffe, a New York law firm not involved in the case.

"It is a very serious problem, because future plaintiffs' lawyers now have a road map for the case completely laid out for them," Mr. Bicks said. "Apparently, Lanier was successful in painting the company as one that put profits over health and hid information."

Ya think Mr. Bicks? Exactly how many degrees does someone need to notice that? I mean, it's not like they knew about the dangers beforehand... except they did.

No wonder there has been such a push for "tort reform" at the Federal Level. The multinationals would hate to have personal responsibility thrust on them

Friday Afternoon Open Thread

Bumpers, I've got to call it a day right here. This has been a very intense week and I need to get away from the keyboard a little. My hands hurt. I'm meeting a couple of local readers for dinner and need to spend some time getting ready. It's a nice restaurant so I'll need to dress up. Where did this week go? I can't believe it's Friday already.

Guest posters, post at will. I'll be back in the morning.

Denying Reality

Cheney vs. the Peaceniks

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, August 19, 2005; 12:18 PM

With President Bush kicking back at his ranch, the task of nipping a nascent antiwar movement in the bud fell to Vice President Cheney yesterday, and he went at it with his typical gusto.

To the extent that Cindy Sheehan and other supporters of an Iraqi pullout aim to start a national conversation about American options in Iraq, Cheney made it very clear that as far as he's concerned, that conversation only extends this far: Are you with us or are you against us?

The text of Cheney's speech at a convention of veterans in Springfield, Mo., was distributed to the White House press corps in Crawford, lest anyone overlook it.

Casting the war in Iraq as a battle in the same great tradition as the Revolutionary War -- and as a natural response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- Cheney likened any retreat from the administration's current policies to "turn[ing] over the future of mankind to tiny groups of fanatics committing indiscriminate murder, enslaving whole populations, oppressing women, imposing an ideology of hatred on an entire region, and arming to create death and destruction on an unbelievable scale."

And the only thinkable way to honor the wounded and the dead in Iraq is to fight to the end, he said. "Every man and woman who fights and sacrifices in this war is serving a just and noble cause. This nation will always be grateful to them, and we will honor their sacrifice by completing our mission."

It was not, in a nutshell, a detailed, reasoned response to the increasingly forceful call for troop withdrawal.

Cheney, for instance, didn't discuss the administration's current military strategy, or the lessons learned since the invasion. He didn't describe in any detail either the current tactical situation or the mission objective. He certainly didn't discuss the merits and drawbacks of alternative approaches, or acknowledge the desire of many Americans to start bringing the troops home now.

What he did -- very much in keeping with previous White House strategy -- was try to marginalize any opposition to the war as being deeply unpatriotic.

Because that's much easier than arguing for the war on its merits.

Right, Dan. Continuing to support a bankrupt policy is so intellectually consistent.

Content of His Character

Black America Web columnist Tonyaa Weathersbea weighs in on John Roberts:

Commentary: Was Roberts Just Supporting His ‘Client’ While Dissing Civil Rights? I Say No

Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2005
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

I wish I could buy the argument that when Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. was working mightily to weaken civil rights and gender equality laws while a whippersnapper in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, he was acting on behalf of the Gipper and not on his own beliefs.

But I can’t.

I can’t buy it because I know that in the real world, when someone is hiring another to do a job, or to become part of an administration, it makes more sense to hire someone who is not only intellectually fit for the job, but is passionate about it as well. So, given the extreme ideological bent of the Reagan White House, I can’t believe that it would hire lawyers to persuade people toward its ideology if those lawyers weren’t already convinced.

That’s why I can’t blow off Roberts’ hostile writings towards civil rights. Among other things, he described Congress’ decision in 1981 to reject the administration’s notion that the 1965 Voting Rights Act should require remedies based on discriminatory intent rather than discriminatory impact as a serious problem -- as if trying to ensure that everyone gets their voice heard at the polls is something that will disrupt, rather than further, democracy. Can’t blow off the fact that some of Roberts’ writings during that time, including one that basically said that it was all right for the state of Kentucky to deny equal training programs to women inmates because it was too expensive, seem to point to a belief that correcting racial and gender inequality ought to be a matter of convenience, not a matter of justice.

And I really can’t blow off the fact that Roberts’ name appears in the 1997-1998 leadership directory of the Federalist Society.

For his part, Roberts said he doesn’t remember being a member of the society. Maybe somehow, his name magically appeared on the society’s roster. But for those of us who care about civil rights, the Federalist Society is a scary thing. It, along with groups like the anti-affirmative action and anti-civil rights Center for Individual Rights, was incubated during the Reagan years, and it has emerged as the primary legal arm for far-right groups who have always resented the gains made by black people during the civil rights movement -- and who’ve never gotten over it.

Then there’s the empathy thing.

The woman who Roberts has been tapped to replace, retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, graduated from law school at Stanford University only to face discrimination as a woman when she tried to get a job at a private law firm. That experience, I’m sure, lent her a measure of empathy as she pondered cases before the court. Roberts has a fine, all-American, working class story in the fact that he paid for his college education by working summers at a steel mill, but his earlier writings make me wonder whether he, in his readings of the law, will be empathetic to people who, like him, followed all the rules, but like O’Connor, faced discrimination and unfairness after doing so because they weren’t white or male.

I don’t get the feeling that Roberts would be one to relate to that.

Now, I didn’t expect Dubya to pick a liberal for the high court. And it’s possible that Roberts -- who has upset some far-right folks with the revelation that he’s taken pro-bono cases on behalf of gay rights, prisoners and welfare recipients -- might have mellowed over the years.

But anyone would be a fool to ignore what Roberts wrote in his early days in the Reagan years because that administration, one in which the president kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were slain decades earlier, was bent on turning back the clock on civil rights. And even though each day it sounds more and more like Roberts’ ascension to the high court is a done deal, it is my hope that the Senate Judiciary Committee will question him in a way that shines light not only on Roberts’ intellect, which many pundits have praised, but on his soul as well.

As a fellow religious liberal, I concur completely.

House of Bush, House of Saud

Mortgaged to the House of Saud

Robert Scheer

The only evidence you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."

Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.

Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.

"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion [in both countries], that is debatable."

Well, score one for public opinion. It makes sense to distrust the mercenary and distasteful alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. We protect the repressive kingdom that spawned Osama bin Laden, and most of the 9/11 hijackers, in exchange for the Saudis keeping our fecklessly oil-addicted country lubricated.

Yes, it has stuck deep in the craw of many of us Americans that after 9/11, Washington squandered global goodwill and a huge percentage of our resources invading a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, while continuing to pander to this dysfunctional dynasty. After all, Saudi Arabia is believed to have paid bin Laden's murderous gang millions in protection money in the years before 9/11, and it lavishly funds extremist religious schools throughout the region that preach and teach anti-Western jihad.

"Al Qaeda found fertile fundraising ground in the kingdom," noted the 9/11 commission report in one of its many careful understatements. The fact is, without Saudi Arabia, there would be no Al Qaeda today.

Our President loves to use the word "evil" in his speeches, yet throughout his life he and his family have had deep personal, political and financial ties with a country that represents everything the American Revolution stood against: tyranny, religious intolerance, corrupt royalty and popular ignorance. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive and those who show "too much skin" can be beaten in the street by officially sanctioned mobs of fanatics. A medieval land where newspapers routinely publish the most outlandish anti-Semitic rants. A place where executions are held in public, torture is the norm in prison and the most extreme and expansionist version of Islam is the state religion.

It's hard to see how Saddam Hussein's brutal and secular Iraq was worse than the brutal theocracy run by the House of Saud. Yet one nation we raze and the other we fete. Is it any wonder that much of the world sees the United States as the planet's biggest hypocrite?

Think on this when you fill your gas tank this weekend.

Politicians Have Little to Offer To Ease Anguish of Gas Prices

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 19, 2005; Page A01

President Bush and members of Congress are facing an uncomfortable political reality this summer: They have little to offer Americans to ease their pain at the pump.

With gasoline prices nearing or topping $3 per gallon in some cities, Bush and lawmakers would be thrilled to call for steps big and small to quickly take the pressure off motorists financially -- and themselves politically. The president's advisers cite high gasoline prices as one reason for Bush's sagging approval ratings, while lawmakers home for the August break are feeling the heat from anxious constituents.

But the prices are an economic and political problem for which Washington has few, if any, policy remedies that would be effective or practical in the near term, according to many energy experts and elected officials.

"I wish I could say there is a quick fix, but there is not," said Rep. Bob Beauprez, a Colorado Republican who is expected to face a tough reelection campaign next year. "Everybody is feeling the pinch."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) is one of several Democrats who support releasing oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve. He warned this week that the soaring prices are "taking money out of the hands of working families." The idea is to pour U.S. oil into the world market to push down prices. But energy analysts warn that this move would draw down reserves whose stated purpose is to protect national security, not to manipulate prices. In any event, they note, the price drop would be uncertain and would perhaps amount to as little as a few cents per gallon.

"Gas prices are clearly reaching a level where it's a political problem for people," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, but "unless you empty [the reserve], it is a very temporary expedient. It does not affect the basic supply-and-demand problem."

Self-Indulgence

August really is the silly season in DC when purportedly serious reporters like Milbank can allow themselves to write such trash, editors approve it and publishers print it. Puh-leaze.

Newshounds on the Paper Chase

By Dana Milbank
Friday, August 19, 2005; A05

The throng of journalists lined up outside the National Archives yesterday morning made the place look like the Uptown Theater on "Star Wars" opening night, without the storm trooper costumes.

They had come to examine 39,000 pages of the paper trail of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. -- perhaps even to find the smoking gun that would brand him a hard-edged conservative or a closet moderate -- and they vied fiercely for 71 boxes of 20-year-old documents.

"Box 11 is good," said one.

"Nine might be interesting," posited another.

"Box 48 has Sandinista Violations. That's good stuff."

When New York Times reporter Anne Kornblut reached the front of the line, she requested Box 51.

"No," said Archives official James Hastings, checking his list of available files. "But I can give you a nice special on 47."

"Box 34?" she ventured.

"Gone," Hastings said, proposing Box 36.

"Thirty-two?"

"No."

"Twenty-seven?"

"No."

"You're killing me," replied the determined Kornblut, who finally settled for Box 2.

"I had six I wanted, and now I'm getting the Airline Deregulation Act," she lamented.

The Archives staff, accustomed to the calm rhythms of scholarship, handled the document dump -- unprecedented in size and speed -- with good cheer, even as TV cameras hit researchers' heads and journalists clogged passageways.

"I want to welcome all of you to the East Coast opening of the John Roberts files from the Ronald Reagan library," assistant archivist Sharon Fawcett said in front of six TV cameras, four still cameras, two boom microphones and 100 heavily caffeinated reporters, including such brand names as Nina Totenberg, Pete Williams and Jim Angle. "We wish you great luck in searching the files."

In the end, the Roberts researchers needed more than luck. They found plenty of amusing things in the papers, including Roberts's views of the Marine Mammal Coalition and the propriety of President Ronald Reagan's use of the word "keister." ("It may depend on where one was reared," Roberts had joked.) But there wasn't the definitive document that revealed Roberts's views on such charged topics as Roe v. Wade or affirmative action.

Most news outlets brought three readers, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Mike McGough came alone. "I'm a self-taught speed reader," he explained. The overwhelmed readers agreed to share some of their findings with each other -- but the pressure was still intense.

Archivists drew names from a large, yellow suggestion box, as if performing the NFL draft. USA Today, with the first pick in the first round, went with Box 49, "set-aside cases." Reuters, picking second, chose Box 1, "advisory committees." ABC News got Box 6, "briefing materials," and Fox News selected Box 11, "Contra Aid."

The boxes distributed, the room took on the tense, quiet mood of a place where the SAT is being administered. Readers pored over pages and folders, scribbling. Cameras circled. One cameraman, for lack of something better to do, was filming an empty box; to his right, a sign on the wall proclaimed: "This is your heritage."

The mood soon turned again to disappointment. USA Today's Joan Biskupic returns her first-round draft pick, Box 49, after just a few minutes. Anything good? "I'm bringing it back, aren't I?" she replied. The New York Sun's Josh Gerstein returned Box 7 with equal speed. "The body was decent, but the finish left something to be desired," he judged. And the others found the same thing. NBC? "Nothing." Fox? "Nah." Boston Globe? "Nothing."

Just a tiny bit self-indulgent? Ya think?

Feeling Shrill

What They Did Last Fall

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 19, 2005

In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.

Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.

And what about 2004?

Mr. Gumbel throws cold water on those who take the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result as evidence of a stolen election. (I told you it's a judicious book.) He also seems, on first reading, to play down what happened in Ohio. But the theme of his book is that America has a long, bipartisan history of dirty elections.

He told me that he wasn't brushing off the serious problems in Ohio, but that "this is what American democracy typically looks like, especially in a presidential election in a battleground state that is controlled substantially by one party."

So what does U.S. democracy look like? There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.

The D.N.C. report is very cautious: "The purpose of this investigation," it declares, "was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way." It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry - but it does suggest that many potential Kerry votes were suppressed. Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio's electoral votes.

But both reports show that votes were suppressed by long lines at polling places - lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines - and that these lines occurred disproportionately in areas likely to vote Democratic. Both reports also point to problems involving voters who were improperly forced to cast provisional votes, many of which were discarded.

The Conyers report goes further, highlighting the blatant partisanship of election officials. In particular, the behavior of Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell - who supervised the election while serving as co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio - makes Ms. Harris's actions in 2000 seem mild by comparison.

And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.

We aren't going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.

I've nothing to add.

Evil

I guess what I find "staggeringly pernicious" are Judge Roberts legal memos. Perhaps Justice Thomas will welcome another racist and sexist justice on the Court. I won't.

Roberts Resisted Women's Rights
1982-86 Memos Detail Skepticism

By Amy Goldstein, R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 19, 2005; Page A01

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

Roberts's thoughts on what he called "perceived problems" of gender bias are contained in a vast batch of documents, released yesterday, that provide the clearest, most detailed mosaic so far of his political views on dozens of social and legal issues. Senators have said they plan to mine his past views on such topics, which could come before the high court, when his confirmation hearings begin the day after Labor Day.

Covering a period from 1982 to 1986 -- during his tenure as associate counsel to Reagan -- the memos, letters and other writings show that Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not affirmative action programs.

In October 1983, Roberts said that he favored the creation of a national identity card to prove American citizenship, even though the White House counsel's office was officially opposed to the idea. He wrote that such measures were needed in response to the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."

He also, the documents illustrate, played a bit role in the Reagan administration's efforts in Nicaragua to funnel assistance to CIA-supported "contras" who were trying overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.

In one instance, Roberts had a direct disagreement with the senator who now wields great influence over his confirmation prospects, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). In a 1983 memo, Roberts was dismissive of a "white paper" on violent crime that had been drafted by one of Specter's aides. Noting that the paper proposed new expenditures of $8 billion to $10 billion a year, Roberts wrote: "The proposals are the epitome of the 'throw the money at the problem' approach repeatedly rejected by Administration spokesmen."

President Bush nominated Roberts, now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, four weeks ago.

Yesterday's deluge of more than 38,000 pages of documents has particular political significance -- because of their content and their timing. The papers, held in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, are likely to be the last major set of written material from Roberts's past to become public before his confirmation hearings.

Senate Democrats have been pressing the Bush administration to release Roberts's files from the highest-ranking position he has held in the executive branch, as the Justice Department's deputy solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. But administration officials have asserted that those records should remain private on the grounds of attorney-client privilege.

Previously released documents, from slightly earlier in the Reagan era, when Roberts was a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, have established that the young lawyer was immersed in the civil rights issues of the time, including school desegregation, voting rights and bias in hiring and housing. The new batch provides the most extensive insight into Roberts's views of efforts to expand opportunity for women in the workplace and in higher education.

His remark on whether homemakers should become lawyers came in 1985 in reply to a suggestion from Linda Chavez, then the White House's director of public liaison. Chavez had proposed entering her deputy, Linda Arey, in a contest sponsored by the Clairol shampoo company to honor women who had changed their lives after age 30. Arey had been a schoolteacher who decided to change careers and went to law school.

I'll let that just stand on its own. Roberts isn't a conservative. He's a Neanderthal. I've been living in a country governed by these people for 50 years and I'm fucking sick of it. Paying me 60 cent on the dime because I might get pregnent (I'm 51, it's unlikely) keeps us in the last century.

Fucking morons.

Site News

I spent most of the day researching avian influenza things and corresponding with the writers who are paying attention (reveres, DemfromCT and Declan Butler are out of town on vacation and off the Web. Good for them. The Web is likely to be an intense experience for us, going forward.)

The news is not good, but if you read Bump regularly, you already know that. I'm investigating ways to copy the site on other hosts in case this one goes down. This is harder than it looks.

With several readers, I've been compiling lists of things to do to get ready to quarantine in place and not go nuts in the process. By the end of this month, we'll be adding some new guest posters who have been making thoughtful and unpanicked preparations. Remember to add pet food to your prep if you have animals. The pet stores won't be open, either. Me? I'm already doubling up on all the non-perishables I buy when I go to the grocery. I have a spare bedroom where I can collect things, if you have a cool basement you are in great shape. If you need to hire one of the storage space places, you need to be thinking abot temp, either too hot or having things freeze. You'll need temp controlled space.

Rich Erwin, frequent commentor and regular correspondent, and unflappable list builder, will be among the new voices. When we are all quarantined in our houses, we are still going to need community, man is a pack animal, so I'm consciously working to build it here. This will be the community meeting space for religious liberals and their sympathizers when it won't be safe to meet in our churches or our homes. I'll try to make sure I have the sofa cushions plumped, the tea and wine chilled or heated, depending on the season.

If there is a php developer out there who can help me port this site to Expression Engine, I'd love to hear from you.

BTW, if I do that, the ads aren't going to cut the expenses. There is a Paypal link up top. Any help would be appreciated. EE isn't cheap, but it will give us Scoop like capabilities and diaries for you along with news feeds. When we get to the point of home quarantines, we are going to need each other like never before. And you are going to need to vent. Trust me.

My conversation with Dr. Niman shook me up, a lot. Nerves cut into my posting total today. I hope you don't feel shortchanged. I'm hoping that, by adding additional voices we can cover each other when we are sick or freaked out and just need to go be alone for a while.

I spent part of the day that way today. I expected that the avian flu was somewhere down the road. Now I have to fall back and start planning immediately if I don't want to get caught in the panic buying zone. It's time to buckle up and start putting your family emergancy plan into play. I kid thee not.

Melanie

Passing of a Leader

Ecumenical Leader Slain in Church
# The 90-year-old founder of the Taize community is stabbed during a service. 'We won't forget his message,' France's interior minister says.

By Sebastian Rotella and Larry Stammer, Times Staff Writers

PARIS — Church leaders and politicians joined an outpouring of sorrow Wednesday for the slaying of Brother Roger, the renowned founder of a French ecumenical community who died after a woman stabbed him during evening prayers.

The frail 90-year-old monk died shortly after the attack Tuesday night at the headquarters of the community in Taize in the south of the Burgundy region. His assailant was a 36-year-old Romanian who had tried to join the community this month, authorities said Wednesday.

"He was a man of peace," French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said. "He had managed to establish a spiritual dialogue between the [Roman] Catholic Church and other churches. We won't forget his message."

The news reached Pope Benedict XVI at his retreat at Castel Gandolfo on the eve of his departure for World Youth Day ceremonies in Cologne, Germany. Expressing sorrow and horror, the pope said that only a day earlier he had received a "very moving and very friendly letter" from Brother Roger saying that although his health would not permit him to attend the event, "with all his heart he would be with the pope and all others who were in Cologne."

Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said, "Brother Roger was one of the best-loved Christian leaders of our time."

Brother Roger, whose surname was Schutz, became an icon of reconciliation in the lives of individuals and among often competing churches.

When he founded the Taize ecumenical community in 1940, he was 25 and the world was in the throes of war. He and his brothers committed their lives to practicing celibacy, sharing their worldly goods and taking spiritual walks, emphasizing the simplicity of life.

The community grew to international prominence for its work of reconciliation, particularly in reaching out to youths and young adults. The late Pope John Paul II, who placed great importance on working with other churches and faiths, visited the Taize community in October 1986.

The entire Taize community has demonstrated leadership in the ecumenical and interfaith movements. It is one of the places I hope to visit some day.

Looming Disaster

TomGram: The monster at our door
Mike Davis on the coming avian flu pandemic

"Follow that chicken" is not one of the more inspiring lines in the history of detective fiction, nor one of the more frightening in the genre of horror. It's perhaps on the level of that classic grade-Z sci-fi film, Night of the Lepus, in which the giant, rampaging, mutant rabbits were just... well, big bunnies. And yet, don't be fooled, the chicken, probably first domesticated in Southeast Asia some 8,000 years ago, might prove the death of many of us, and for its possible depredations, we are painfully unprepared.

In 1918, a flu epidemic emerged from the trenches of World War I's Western Front -- essentially the war‘s equivalent of the slums -- and swept across the world (twice) ridding it of somewhere between 25 million and 100 million human beings (the equivalent in today's population terms of possibly upwards of a billion people). There have been flu pandemics since, but none faintly on such a scale. For nearly a decade, epidemiologists, public health officials, and veterinary researchers -- by now, in fact just about the whole global medical/scientific community -- have been warning that such a new pandemic is a frightening possibility, if not a near certainty. At the same time, some of them have been performing prodigious genetic detective work as a mutant flu virus, H5N1, has lodged in the systems of wild fowl in southern China, moved into massed domestic fowl populations nearby, and begun to spread to human beings; all the while still genetically evolving in birds (domestic and wild), swine, and even perhaps people, "looking for" the means to leap not just from bird to bird, or bird to swine, or even from bird to human, but from human to human at a staggering rate.

Nothing could more quickly remind us that we humans are part of nature than a flu pandemic; yet three quite unnatural changes in our world have drastically increased the danger of such a pandemic. A livestock revolution has gathered domestic birds together -- think Tyson chickens -- onto giant corporate farms in prodigious numbers, clustering them into what are essentially giant bird slums, where any new disease is guaranteed to spread more easily. Meanwhile, throughout the third world, impoverished human beings have been gathering in far greater urban concentrations than anything imaginable a century ago, and any of these are potential hatcheries for a pandemic. Finally, globalization and global air travel have made the spread of a pandemic, once started, almost instantaneous. In the meantime, H5N1, spreads by an older set of air paths -- avian migration routes -- having just made it to Russia. And we wait.

What makes this an especially dangerous situation in the U.S. is that the Bush administration has largely chosen to redirect its public-health budget to preparations for "biowar" possibilities -- smallpox, Ebola Fever, and the like -- which may never endanger us, while scanting the kind of biowar (think Hitchcock's The Birds, not Osama bin Laden) that is actually likely to do so. Between the administration's priorities and Big Pharma's urge to go for the profits -- flu shots are unprofitable products -- America's public health structure is in increasingly woeful shape and certainly, despite endless warnings about what might come, in no shape at all to deal with a nationwide flu pandemic

We've known about this bug since 1997. While the rest of the world has been getting in line in front of us for the scant supplies of Tamiflu, the Bushies have been screwing around.

Go to The Flu Wiki to learn what you can do to prepare. We are going to be on our own because the government has abandoned us.

Bug Research

There will be a little break in the action while I research the avian influenza situation. There is a lot of new information out there right now and I want to get you the newest information I can find. I had an interchange with Henry Niman over the weekend and he thinks we are running out of time to prepare. It's time to begin stockpiling.

Who Serves?

Blood Runs Red, Not Blue

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 18, 2005

The president has never been clear about why we're in Iraq. There's no plan, no strategy. In one of the many tragic echoes of Vietnam, U.S. troops have been fighting hellacious battles to seize areas controlled by insurgents, only to retreat and allow the insurgents to return.

If Mr. Bush were willing to do something he has refused to do so far - speak plainly and honestly to the American people about this war - he might be able to explain why U.S. troops should continue with an effort that is, in large part at least, benefiting Iraqi factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women. If by some chance he could make that case, the next appropriate step would be to ask all Americans to do their part for the war effort.

College kids in the U.S. are playing video games and looking forward to frat parties while their less fortunate peers are rattling around like moving targets in Baghdad and Mosul, trying to dodge improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades.

There is something very, very wrong with this picture.

If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home.

If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying.

Dream on, Bob. It's always been the lower classes who did the fighting and dying. Getting out of the draft was never that hard, if you had the connections. Remember Dick Cheney's "other priorities?" Remember W's checkered TANG service?

No Wonder Things Go Wrong

U.S. Diplomat Is Named in Secrets Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: August 18, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.

David M. Satterfield, deputy chief of the United States mission in Baghdad, is accused of giving classified information to a pro-Israel lobbyist.

The diplomat, David M. Satterfield, was identified in the indictment as a United States government official, "USGO-2," the people briefed on the matter said. In early 2002, USGO-2 discussed secret national security matters in two meetings with Steven J. Rosen, who has since been dismissed as a top lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, who has been charged in the case.

The indictment said that Mr. Rosen met USGO-2 on Jan. 18, 2002, and March 12, 2002, but provides few details about the encounters. The indictment does not describe Mr. Satterfield's activities in detail nor does it specify what classified information the diplomat discussed with the lobbyist. The meetings were also confirmed by documents, people who have been briefed said. These people asked not to be identified because many of the matters related to the case are classified.

The indictment does not accuse USGO-2 of any wrongdoing, nor does it indicate whether he might have been authorized to talk with the lobbyist. Mr. Satterfield is not believed to be the subject of a continuing investigation. He is the first higher-ranking government official to be caught up in the criminal inquiry.

Mr. Satterfield's role in the inquiry has been known within a small circle at the State Department. Before he was sent to Baghdad, officials at the State Department asked the Justice Department whether the investigation posed any impediment to his assignment in Iraq, someone who has been officially briefed said. Officials at the State Department were advised that he could take the job.

Mr. Satterfield is one of the department's rising stars. Before his assignment as deputy chief of mission in Baghdad, Mr. Satterfield, 50, held several jobs in the Clinton and Bush administrations as a Middle East expert. He was ambassador to Lebanon from 1998 to 2001, and was confirmed by the Senate as ambassador to Jordan in 2004, although he never served in that position.

Current and former colleagues say that Mr. Satterfield, who went to Iraq earlier this year, chose the Baghdad post because it posed a bigger professional challenge than Jordan. The United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has strong political credentials but, colleagues said, Mr. Satterfield was brought in to provide managerial strength.

Rising star=no indictment? Very strange doing at the State Department.

Safer?

Police chief tried to intervene on fatal shooting inquiry
Officers must face murder charge, says family. Suspect was 'pinned down' before being shot
By Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent
Published: 18 August 2005

Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, tried to halt an independent inquiry into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes just hours after the innocent Brazilian's death, it emerged last night.

Scotland Yard said Sir Ian wrote to the Home Office permanent secretary, John Gieve, to ensure the terrorist investigation took precedence over any Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation.

Later the same day, the Metropolitan Police agreed to hand over the investigation to the IPCC.

Scotland Yard said last night that the letter, which was also sent to the IPCC, was "to clarify the role of IPCC if, as it then appeared, the shooting at Stockwell tube station involved a suicide bomber who had been involved in the previous day's incidents".

It was reported last night that Sir Ian was concerned about the possible security risk posed by an independent inquiry.

Mr de Menezes' legal team accused police of breaching their statutory duty yesterday by not immediately inviting the IPPC to start its inquiry. The family's lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, called for Sir Ian to resign. She is meeting IPCC representatives for the first time today.

With pressure growing for a public inquiry into the shooting after further details emerged of blunders in the police operation, Scotland Yard is also facing increasing criticism over their "shoot-to-kill" policy.

Former Cabinet minister Frank Dobson last night said that Sir Ian's position was "very difficult" because he was partly responsible for people being misled, including Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The public and everyone had been misled by the police not correcting the story that first came out," he told BBC2's Newsnight.

Leaked documents, believed to be from the IPCC inquiry suggest Mr de Menezes was sitting calmly in the Tube carriage, surrounded by surveillance officers, moments before police stormed in and fired eight bullets into him.

According to the documents, an officer grabbed Mr de Menezes, pinned his arms down, and pushed him back on a seat before he was shot. Mr de Menezes's cousin, Alex Alvez Pereira, said: "The officers who have done this have to be sent to jail for life because it's murder and the people who gave them the order to shoot must be punished."

According to a statement in the leaked report, one of the surveillance officers, codenamed Hotel Three, saw four firearms officers approaching the suspect at Stockwell station.

The witness statement said at least three surveillance officers were positioned. "I immediately identified these men as police [firearms] officers probably from SO19 and decided to identify the male in the denim jacket who I followed on to the Tube to them as they appeared to be looking into the carriage as if searching for someone."

Hotel Three stood up and walked to the carriage doors. "I placed my left foot against the open carriage door to prevent it shutting ... I shouted 'He's here' and indicated to the male in the denim jacket with my right hand. I then heard shouting which included the word 'police' and turned to face the male in the denim jacket."

The officer said Mr de Menezes then stood up and walked to within a few feet of him. "I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso pinning his arms to his side. I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had previously been sitting ... I then heard a gunshot very close to my ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage." Mr de Menezes was shot eight times, seven times in the head, once in the shoulder. Three bullets missed him.

Statements from witnesses had said earlier that Mr de Menezes was followed from his flat in Tulse Hill on to the bus that took him to Stockwell station.

Mr de Menezes was mistakenly believed to be linked to the men who tried to detonate bombs in the failed July 21 attacks. Contrary to earlier police and witness statements he was not wearing a heavy jacket and did not run on to the platform.

The documents also reveal details of what officers describe as a " training camp" in north Wales linked to a suspected bomber. The " training camp" in the Cambrian mountains in north Wales is understood to have been used by some of the July 21 suspects for "bonding" sessions.

According to the material, obtained by ITV News, officers are investigating a possible link between the camp and Lampeter University. The university has an Islamic studies centre.

Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, tried to halt an independent inquiry into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes just hours after the innocent Brazilian's death, it emerged last night.

Scotland Yard said Sir Ian wrote to the Home Office permanent secretary, John Gieve, to ensure the terrorist investigation took precedence over any Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation.

Later the same day, the Metropolitan Police agreed to hand over the investigation to the IPCC.

Scotland Yard said last night that the letter, which was also sent to the IPCC, was "to clarify the role of IPCC if, as it then appeared, the shooting at Stockwell tube station involved a suicide bomber who had been involved in the previous day's incidents".

It was reported last night that Sir Ian was concerned about the possible security risk posed by an independent inquiry.

Mr de Menezes' legal team accused police of breaching their statutory duty yesterday by not immediately inviting the IPPC to start its inquiry. The family's lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, called for Sir Ian to resign. She is meeting IPCC representatives for the first time today.

With pressure growing for a public inquiry into the shooting after further details emerged of blunders in the police operation, Scotland Yard is also facing increasing criticism over their "shoot-to-kill" policy.

Former Cabinet minister Frank Dobson last night said that Sir Ian's position was "very difficult" because he was partly responsible for people being misled, including Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The public and everyone had been misled by the police not correcting the story that first came out," he told BBC2's Newsnight.

Leaked documents, believed to be from the IPCC inquiry suggest Mr de Menezes was sitting calmly in the Tube carriage, surrounded by surveillance officers, moments before police stormed in and fired eight bullets into him.

According to the documents, an officer grabbed Mr de Menezes, pinned his arms down, and pushed him back on a seat before he was shot. Mr de Menezes's cousin, Alex Alvez Pereira, said: "The officers who have done this have to be sent to jail for life because it's murder and the people who gave them the order to shoot must be punished."

I'm sure that those of you who, like me, use public transit to commute, will find it oh, so soothing to know that our local jurisdictions have adopted the UK's "shoot to kill" policy. Here on the DC Metro, I don't find those troops with M-16s on the subway platforms all that comforting.

Gaps

Prewar Memo Warned of Gaps in Iraq Plans
State Dept. Officials Voiced Concerns About Post-Invasion Security, Humanitarian Aid

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 18, 2005; Page A13

One month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, three State Department bureau chiefs warned of "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance" in a secret memorandum prepared for a superior.

The State Department officials, who had been discussing the issues with top military officers at the Central Command, noted that the military was reluctant "to take on 'policing' roles" in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The three officials warned that "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally."

The Feb. 7, 2003, memo, addressed to Paula J. Dobriansky, undersecretary for democracy and global affairs, came at a time when the Pentagon was increasingly taking over control of post-invasion planning from the State Department. It reflected the growing tensions between State Department and Pentagon officials and their disparate assessments about the challenges looming in post-invasion Iraq.

The question of whether the United States planned adequately for the post-invasion occupation echoes today, as the insurgency continues to challenge U.S. policy in Iraq. Many senior State Department officials are still bitter about what they see as the Pentagon's failure to take seriously their planning efforts, particularly in the "Future of Iraq" project.

The memo was one of several documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and made public yesterday by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research group. Other documents detail the specifics of the Future of Iraq project, which brought together Iraqi exiles and U.S. experts in an attempt to plan for such things as a new banking system, a new military and a new constitution.

In the memo, the three bureau chiefs offered to provide technical assistance to help the Central Command develop new plans to ensure law and order as well as humanitarian aid after the invasion. They said they had also raised the potential problems with retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, who was the first U.S. official to take charge of post-invasion Iraq.

The memo was submitted by Lorne W. Craner, then the assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, who is now at the International Republican Institute; Arthur E. Dewey, assistant secretary for population, refugees and migration; and Paul E. Simons, then acting assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs and now deputy assistant secretary for energy, sanctions and commodities.

The three senior officials said it was "crucial" that the State Department leadership become "strong advocates" for the issues in planning discussions within the administration. "Responsibility must remain with coalition military forces until these functions can be turned over to an international public security force or other mechanism to be defined," the memo said.

But the specific gaps in planning that they identified in the memo were not declassified.

But there is no tension between State and DoD. No way.

Bumping the Beltway

I have an event to cover tomorrow, a press conference. Can any of my DC area readers tell me where to get an IBM Thinkpad battery without going into hock to the refinance company? The thing started to fail two days ago and I don't have time for one of the on-line places.

Thanks for your help.

Standing with Cindy

My experience was a lot like Susie's. I'm just not ready to write about it yet. It was too painful. I'll tell you more later when I'm better recollected.

Dinner, Dine well

Dinner
Scroll down to see more beef burgundy and beef recipes with red wine.

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
* 1 to 1 1/4 pounds lean stew beef
* 1 tablespoon butter
* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup sliced carrots
* 1/2 cup dry red or burgundy wine
* 1 1/2 cups beef broth
* 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced (about 2 cups)
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 1 jar (14 to 16 ounces) whole onions, drained, or 1 1/2 cups frozen
* 12 ounces egg noodles, uncooked

PREPARATION:
Directions for Beef Burgundy with Noodles.
Combine flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl. If desired, cut stew beef into smaller pieces; dredge in the seasoned flour, coating all sides thoroughly

Melt butter and oil in a Dutch oven; add half of the meat. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until meat is browned. Repeat with remaining meat.

Return all meat to the Dutch oven; add carrots, wine, bouillon, mushrooms, and garlic. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 1 hour, or until meat is tender. Add onions and continue cooking until heated through. Cook noodles according to package directions; drain well. To serve, arrange meat mixture over noodles on a large platter or in individual shallow bowls.
Beef Burgundy Recipe serves 4

Reality-Based Community

Get Ready for World War III

By Paul Craig Roberts

08/17/05 "LewRockwell" --

Cindy Sheehan has the right question for Bush: What noble cause is being served by all this suffering and destruction?

Bush is in hiding from Mrs. Sheehan, because he knows only ignoble causes are being served. According to the CIA, the main beneficiary of the war is Osama bin Laden’s recruitment drives. While America’s military recruitment falters and US generals announce that the war has broken the Reserves and National Guard, the cause of Islamic extremism basks in the Iraqi war.

Gentle reader, do you realize the danger of having a president so disconnected from reality that he plots to attack Iran – a country three times the size of Iraq – when he lacks sufficient forces to occupy Baghdad and to protect the road from Baghdad to the airport?

Despite all the high profile "sweeps" of US forces through insurgent strongholds, US commanders report a doubling of insurgent attacks.

The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else.

Miserable Failure

Iraq on the Brink

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A13

Indeed, the Bush presidency is perilously close to one of the greatest, and surely the strangest, foreign and military policy failures in American history. We lost in Vietnam, to be sure, but Vietnam would have gone to the Communists whether or not we intervened. The dissolution of Iraq, however, should it proceed further, is the direct consequence of Bush's decision to intervene unilaterally and of the particular kind of occupation that he mandated. And that dissolution, we should recall, goes well beyond the political. Unemployment in Iraq exceeds 50 percent. Electrical power is on, in midsummer Baghdad, for four hours a day.

At great expense in resources and human life, we have substituted one living hell for another in Iraq. Things may yet turn out better than I fear they will. But right now there's a sickeningly good prospect that we will have set in motion a predictable chain of events culminating in the creation of both a sphere of terrorist activity and a sub-state allied with the mullahs of Iran.

Last week U.S. forces in Iraq discovered what looked to be a cache of chemical weapons, but determined that the arsenal had been assembled by the insurgent thugs who emerged after Hussein's fall. We have created the very dangers we intervened to prevent. Some policy. Some president.

My, Harold Meyerson is getting a little shrill.

Stand With Cindy

Battle fatigue is setting in

By Robert Kuttner | August 17, 2005

Bush's inept response to Cindy Sheehan's encampment outside his ranch has begun to catalyze the administration's worst nightmare -- a revived antiwar movement led by the loved ones of GIs killed and Iraq veterans themselves.

But now what? Many legislators of both parties, such as Democratic Senator Joe Biden and Republican John McCain, who have been scathingly critical of the war but can't quite bring themselves to discuss withdrawal, also insist that America must ''stay the course,"

This is muddled thinking. There are exit strategies more likely to produce tolerable stability than the present course.

One approach, promoted by the former minister of electricity in Iraq's interim government, Aiham al-Sammarae, would pursue a political solution to what is plainly becoming a civil war. Sammarae, long a prominent opponent of Saddam Hussein, has conferred with a range of US officials. He proposes bringing in most excluded groups that now fuel the armed insurgency.

Sammarae ties this process to a phased US withdrawal, a reduction of Iranian influence, and a political settlement, with major armed resistance groups participating, except the minority of foreign Jihaddists and terrorists of the al-Zarkawi network, who would then be politically isolated.

As part of a stabilization process, US troops could be replaced by a multinational constabulary and reconstruction force. The US occupiers, now a resented lightning rod, would exit Iraq, sparing thousands of young Americans likely to be killed or maimed, and reducing the level of daily violence menacing Iraqis.

In the meantime, there is growing independence among GOP members of Congress who got a wakeup call last month when Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran highly critical of Bush, nearly won an upset special election in Ohio's most Republican congressional district. Republican Jean Schmidt won, 52-48, down from a 72 percent win in 2004 by incumbent Rob Portman, who stepped down to become US trade representative.

As Bush becomes a lamer duck by the day, Republicans now worry more about saving their own seats in 2006. Unlike Bush, they must listen to public opinion.

As support for withdrawal grows, so it grows in Congress. In May, five House Republicans, along with 123 Democrats, supported Representative Lynn Woolsey's amendment to the defense authorization bill calling on Bush to submit a withdrawal plan -- up from last January, when only 35 members of Congress, all Democrats, supported Woolsey's similar resolution. Woolsey plans hearings next month.

In the Senate, Republicans such as John McCain and Chuck Hagel have become more effective opponents of the Bush policy than their Democratic counterparts. The most prominent Democratic foreign policy spokesmen are fearful of seeming irresolute, and reluctant to embrace anything smacking of withdrawal.

A June op-ed column in The New York Times by Senator John Kerry criticized Bush, but proposed mainly better planning and training of Iraqis, and creation of a multinational force to secure Iraq's borders -- all smart variants on Bush's policy, but none likely to hasten America's withdrawal.

Public opinion is fast outflanking Bush's war. It remains to be seen which party will lead in cleaning up his mess.

I'll be standing with Cindy tonight at Move-On's candle-lit peace vigil tonight. Find one near you.

Stuck

Biking Toward Nowhere

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 17, 2005

As W.'s neighbors get in scraps with the antiwar forces coalescing around the ranch; as the Pentagon tries to rustle up updated armor for our soldiers, who are still sitting ducks in the third year of the war; as the Iraqi police we train keep getting blown up by terrorists, who come right back every time U.S. troops beat them up; as Shiites working on the Iraqi constitution conspire with Iran about turning Iraq into an Islamic state that represses women; and as Iraq hurtles toward a possible civil war, W. seems far more oblivious than his father was with his Persian Gulf crisis.

This president is in a truly scary place in Iraq. Americans can't get out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance Armstrong on Saturday.

The son wanted to go into Iraq to best his daddy in the history books, by finishing what Bush senior started. He swept aside the warnings of Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell and didn't bother to ask his father's advice. Now he is caught in the very trap his father said he feared: that America would get bogged down as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," facing a possibly "barren" outcome.

It turns out that the people of Iraq have ethnic and religious identities, not a national identity. Shiites and Kurds want to suppress the Sunnis who once repressed them and break off into their own states, smashing the Bush model kitchen of democracy.

At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official told The Washington Post.

They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute to democracy."

The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere.

He's entitled to his own point of view but not his own facts. CNN is ignoring the situation, but we're losing Iraq, and there is no price for him.

Ideology

Key Democrat rips Roberts on ideology
White House says Leahy distorts Supreme Court nominee's record

WASHINGTON - Sen. Patrick Leahy, who will lead the Democratic questioning at John Roberts’ confirmation hearings, criticized the Supreme Court nominee Tuesday as an “eager, aggressive advocate” for policies of the Republican far right wing.

While stopping short of announcing his opposition to the appointment, the Vermont Democrat’s written statement was by far the most critical he has made since President Bush nominated Roberts.

Firing his broadside one day after the release of 5,000 pages of Reagan-era records, Leahy said Roberts’ views were “among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, privacy and access to justice.”
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said Leahy’s remarks were part of a Democratic strategy — predating Roberts’ nomination — of trying to depict Bush’s nominees as ideologically extreme.

“The ease with which Sen. Leahy distorts Judge Roberts’ record is troubling and may indicate that the Democrats are not yet done trying to make that argument, although it has already been discredited,” Schmidt said.

Missing documents sought
Leahy and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., both expressed concern about documents that were not released on Monday, asking for investigations into a few that were reported missing.

Nearly 500 were kept private in their entirety on grounds of national security or privacy, according to Allen Weinstein, head of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Additionally, a folder of material relating to affirmative action was misplaced by library officials after being reviewed by administration officials, Weinstein wrote. He said he believed the material had been reconstructed without the originals and made public.

Leahy’s declaration came in advance of what is likely to be a string of announcements from groups going on the record opposing Roberts’ confirmation.
....
Leahy sees far right ideology
In material released Monday, Roberts emerged as an attorney serving in the Reagan White House who held views generally in line with those of other conservatives. He was sympathetic to prayer in public schools, dismissive of “comparable worth,” referred to the “tragedy of abortion” and took a swipe at the Supreme Court for being too willing to hear multiple appeals from death row inmates.

“Those papers that we have paint a picture of John Roberts as an eager and aggressive advocate of policies that are deeply tinged with the ideology of the far right wing of his party, then and now,” Leahy said in his statement.

He also pressed the Democrats’ prior demand for records from Roberts’ time as principal deputy solicitor general during the administration of President George H.W. Bush. The White House has refused to make those papers available, and Leahy wrote that in doing so, “they raise the inference that there is much to hide.”

When you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing, says Dr. Phil.

Reading List

Just read John Barry's The Great Influenza. Don't argue, just read it, okay?

First Causes

'Hard Slog' for Bush

By David Ignatius

Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A13

President Bush is saying the right thing about Iraq, which is that there is no easy fix for a war that his defense secretary correctly termed "a long, hard slog." But Bush is conveying this message in a detached way that upsets and angers growing numbers of Americans. The evaporation of political support at home is palpable. If the administration can't explain its war aims better, it may soon face a Vietnam-style tipping point.

First, let's look at what the president is doing right: At a time when anguished Americans are calling for a quick withdrawal from Iraq, Bush is telling them a painful truth.

"Pulling the troops out [now] would send a terrible signal to the enemy," he said last Thursday in Crawford, Tex. And Bush was right to avoid confirming any big reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year. Such a bring-the-troops-home message might buy him a respite in the public opinion polls, but it would undermine a fragile Iraqi government at a crucial time.

The administration's Micawberesque approach to the Iraqi constitution also seems correct, if somewhat disconnected from reality. Nobody knows if Iraq's fractious political leaders can agree, but the president was right to praise "the heroic efforts of Iraqi negotiators," even as they missed their Monday deadline for completing the constitution. Looking at the sunken, sleepless eyes of Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, on television last weekend, it was obvious how hard he has been working to squeeze an agreement out of people who would otherwise be trying to kill each other.

Finally, I credit the spirit of realpolitik that undergirds the administration's upbeat talk. Last Sunday's story in The Post headlined "U.S. Lowers Sights on What Can Be Achieved in Iraq" mirrored what you hear privately from generals and senior officials. They know the war is going badly, and they have been crafting a strategy that puts more responsibility on Iraqis and less on U.S. troops. That doesn't mean an American withdrawal, but it does mean a lower U.S. profile, and a mission focused on training and advising Iraqi security forces.

A senior U.S. official in Baghdad explained the strategy to me this way: The most critical element in what lies ahead is Iraqi leadership. "We have now done enough for them in most areas, and it is increasingly up to them to carry this effort forward. . . . The pendulum is shifting from what we provide to what they do with it."

Now, let's look at what Bush is doing wrong. In speaking about Iraq to the nation, the president often seems tone deaf. Taking a nearly five-week vacation when U.S. troops are experiencing a living hell is a mistake. It reinforces what's cruelest about this war, which is that the soldiers in Iraq are doing all the suffering. Meanwhile, people back home go about their business. The president doesn't ask the country to sacrifice with taxes to pay for the war, or with an energy policy that would reduce our vulnerability to Mideast turmoil.

I have no doubt that Bush grieves for every fallen soldier. But he undercuts his leadership role with his seeming insensitivity to Cindy Sheehan. Whatever her personal quirks, this grieving mother has become a symbol for the families who are paying the real cost of the war. Once she began her vigil in Crawford, a presidential listening mission would have seemed like a no-brainer -- except at this White House, which appears to regard any concession to a critic as a mistake. Bush reinforced this appearance of insensitivity in a comment Saturday that was quoted by Cox News Service. He said that while he wants to be "thoughtful and sensitive" to people who want to talk to him, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life."

David, since you are willing to give Bush the shadow of a doubt, remind me again why it is that we are in Iraq in the first place? How much is this little mistake costing us? You forgot, you can't explain? Ya, right.

Black August

Series of Car Bombings Kill at Least 43 People in Iraqi Capital

By EDWARD WONG
Published: August 17, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 17 - At least 43 people were killed and 76 were wounded when a series of car bombs exploded at a crowded bus station in central Baghdad today, sending debris and body parts flying across the scene and horrified survivors fleeing on foot, police and hospital officials said.

The attack was by far the worst in recent weeks. The number of car bombings in the capital had dropped in the last month, as insurgents seemed to be concentrating their assaults on cities in the provinces. Even then, none of the attacks had a death toll approaching today's.

The attacks may have been timed to coincide with continuing negotiations over a draft of the new constitution, which is due next Monday, after the Parliament had voted to push back the original deadline. The three major ethnic and sectarian groups in Iraq - the Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds - remain deadlocked on issues that will shape the future of the country. These include the legal role of Islam, the rights of provinces to form autonomous regions and the powers of the top Shiite clerics.

The first explosions today took place at about 8 a.m., as two car bombs went off at the Nadha bus terminal, near central Baghdad. Iraqis generally catch long-distance buses here to travel to the provinces. Fifteen minutes later, a third car bomb detonated between the bus terminal and Al Kindi Hospital, perhaps in an attempt to foil medical help trying to get to the scene, an Interior Ministry official said.

The American military gave its own details on the series of bombs: a suicide car bomber detonated near a police station in the area, while a stationary car loaded with explosives detonated at a car park by the bus terminal. A third bomb seemed to explode inside the terminal itself, the military said in a written statement.

The Americans have been trying to dampen attacks by suicide bombers by carrying out offensives in Anbar Province, in parched western Iraq. Commanders say they believe many of the bombings are carried out by foreign fighters who stream in from the Syrian border and make their way to Baghdad and other cities via a series of Sunni Arab towns on the Euphrates River corridor. Though the offensives have involved heavy armor, air strikes and thousands of troops, insurgents often fled into hiding before the operations began.

This morning, insurgents also ambushed a vehicle carrying six Iraqi soldiers to Kirkuk, killing all of them, the Interior Ministry official said. The soldiers had been assigned to protect the northern oil pipeline, which is the target of frequent attacks. The soldiers had been returning from a training camp.

The last throes?

Those birds

The redoubtable Helen Branswell is on the case at The Canada Press:

Flu pandemic could trigger second Great Depression, brokerage warns clients

HELEN BRANSWELL 2 hours, 6 minutes ago

TORONTO (CP) - A major Canadian brokerage firm has added its voice to those warning of the potential global impact of an influenza pandemic, suggesting it could trigger a crisis similar to that of the Great Depression.

Real estate values would be slashed, bankruptcies would soar and the insurance industry would be decimated, a newly released investor guide on avian influenza warns clients of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

"It's quite analogous to the Great Depression in many ways, although obviously caused by very different reasons," co-author Sherry Cooper, chief economist of the firm and executive vice-president of the BMO Financial Group, said in an interview Tuesday.

"We won't have 30-per-cent unemployment because frankly, many people will die. And there will be excess demand for labour and yet, at the same time, it will absolutely crunch the economy worldwide."

A leading voice for pandemic preparedness said the report is evidence the financial and business sectors - which have been slow to twig to the implications of a flu pandemic - are finally realizing why public health and infectious disease experts have been sounding the alarm.

"I think that this particular report really signifies the first time that anyone from within the financial world, when looking at this issue, kind of had one of those 'Oh my God' moments," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"The financial world is finally waking up to the fact that this could be the boulder in the gear of the global economy," he said, suggesting a pandemic could trigger an implosion of international trade unlike anything seen in modern history.

"All the other catastrophes we've had in the world in recent years at the very most put screen doors on our borders. This would seal shut a six-inch steel door," Osterholm said.

Cooper, a highly influential figure in the Canadian financial sector, wrote the report with Donald Coxe, a global portfolio strategist for BMO Financial Group.

They warn investors the economic fallout out of a pandemic would inflict pain across sectors and around the globe.

Airlines would be grounded, transport of goods would cease, the tourism and hospitality sectors would evaporate and the impact on exports would be devastating, Cooper wrote.

"This would trigger foreclosures and bankruptcies, credit restrictions and financial panic," she warned, suggesting investors reduce debt and risk in their portfolios to be on the safe side.

The World Health Organization and public health leaders have been warning for some time that the world may be on the verge of a pandemic, the first since 1968. Adding considerably to their concern is the fact that the strain they fear will trigger a pandemic, the H5N1 avian flu ravaging poultry flocks of Southeast Asia, is highly virulent.

Even if a pandemic were mild, it is estimated that about a third of the world's population would fall sick over a period of months and millions would die. If the strain is virulent, the toll could mount to scores of millions of deaths, over a period of only 18 to 24 months.

Cooper reminded investors of the economic devastation
SARS wreaked on affected cities or countries, including Toronto. But even with that fresh experience to draw from, she admitted it was hard to envisage how widespread the implications of a flu pandemic might be.

"It is a big, big issue. I mean, it's almost imponderable," she said. "I have to admit: the more research I did, the more frightened I became."

Yes, my family thinks I'm a nut and so does Helen's newsroom think of her. If you are an epidemiologist, you might be wondering why I haven't changed to all red text and sounded the alarm that way.

It is very difficult to get your mind around the idea that a "radical discontinuity" in our way of life is lurking. Most people just go into denial. That's not going to help you, your family and your neighbors. Planning for home quarantine will. And you need to start now.

Worm Alert

Here are Symantec's notes on the Zotob worm. They take you step by step through the process to diagnose your machine and fix it, if necessary. Now, would you please do something about your firewall and update your A/V software? If you haven't updated your windows patches, it is time.

War Illustrated

Judge Rules Some Arguments in Abu Ghraib Prison Photo Case Must Be Divulged

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

Published: August 16, 2005 10:40 AM ET

NEW YORK (AP) A judge said he generally ruled in favor of public disclosure when he ordered the government on Monday to reveal some redacted parts of its argument for blocking the release of pictures and videotapes of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein made the statement in open court after meeting in a closed session with lawyers for the government and the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking release of the pictures and tapes.

Hellerstein said his rulings pertained to arguments by Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Ronald Schlicher, deputy assistant secretary and coordinator for Iraq in the Department of State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

"By and large, I ruled in favor of public disclosure," he said.

He gave U.S. Attorney David Kelley, who argued the case, time to appeal the rulings.

Myers and Schlicher had submitted declarations describing why they thought releasing the photographs would threaten national security. Myers wrote that releasing the photographs would aid al-Qaida recruitment, weaken the Afghan and Iraqi governments, and incite riots against U.S. troops.

The judge has said he believes photographs "are the best evidence the public can have of what occurred" at the prison.

The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.

These are the pictures and films Sy Hersh talked about in the New Yorker, the ones including sodomy of young boys. I think impeachment hearing will need to be scheduled once these get out.

Told Ya

Is Bush Out of Control?
By DOUG THOMPSON
Aug 15, 2005, 05:46

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”

In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.

“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.

A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations that the President’s wide mood swings led some administration staffers to doubt his sanity.

Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and “untreated alcoholic” whose “lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad” showcase Bush’s instabilities.

“I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed,” Dr. Frank said. “He fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated.”

Feeling safer?

Spine Implant Needed

Roberts Unlikely To Face Big Fight
Many Democrats See Battle as Futile

By Mike Allen and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Page A01

Democrats have decided that unless there is an unexpected development in the weeks ahead, they will not launch a major fight to block the Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts Jr., according to legislators, Senate aides and party strategists.

In a series of interviews in recent days, more than a dozen Democratic senators and aides who are intimately involved in deliberations about strategy said that they see no evidence that most Democratic senators are prepared to expend political capital in what is widely seen as a futile effort to derail the nomination.

Although they expect to subject President Bush's nominee to tough questioning at confirmation hearings next month, members of the minority party said they do not plan to marshal any concerted campaign against Roberts because they have concluded that he is likely to get at least 70 votes -- enough to overrule parliamentary tactics such as a filibuster that could block the nominee.

"No one's planning all-out warfare," said a Senate Democratic aide closely involved in caucus strategy on Roberts. For now, the aide said, Democratic strategy is to make it clear Roberts is subject to fair scrutiny while avoiding a pointless conflagration that could backfire on the party. "We're going to come out of this looking dignified and will show we took the constitutional process seriously," the aide said.

"This was a smart political choice from the White House," said one prominent Democratic lawmaker, who like several others interviewed for this article requested anonymity because they were departing from the Democrats' public position. "I don't think people see a close vote here."

In a reflection of the mildness of the Democrats' message, a set of party talking points circulated last week to Senate offices included no specific criticism of the nominee but simply called for "an honest look at John Roberts's record" -- which they say is made harder by the Bush administration's refusal to release some documents from the nominee's work as a government lawyer in GOP administrations.

"A thorough review of Roberts's record is required to guarantee that Judge Roberts will support the rights and freedoms of all Americans if he is confirmed," the memo says. "The Bush Administration must stop playing games over the release of documents; a lifetime appointment to the highest court is too important."

The Democrats' plan is not without risk. Outside strategists working with the White House said that if an overwhelming majority of Democrats vote for Roberts, Republicans will be able to argue in future confirmation fights that the opposition has taken ideology off the table as a relevant factor. In addition, many party activists outside Washington are eager for senators to show more backbone against President Bush.

The Democrats' decision to hold their fire -- less a formal strategy than an emerging consensus -- has allowed conservatives to husband their resources for future battles. Progress for America, a political group working closely with the White House, had planned to spend $18 million to promote the confirmation of Roberts but now may spend less than half that, according to Republican aides.

We need an opposition party that, ya know, acts like an opposition party. There are plenty of good, solid reasons to oppose Roberts, as I've been documenting in recent days. Make the Repubs have to work for this, don't hand it to them. Make them spend money and capital.

Deja Vu

Andrew Greeley--
Neck deep in the Big Muddy

July 29, 2005

BY ANDREW GREELEY

The Big Muddy is deeper and darker. Two Pentagon reports this week show just how muddy. In a survey of the morale of soldiers in Iraq, the Pentagon found that more than half said that morale in their units was either "low" or "very low." Morale was especially low, as one would have expected, among the National Guard and Reserve units. Only half of them said they had "real confidence" in their ability to carry out their mission, probably because they were not trained for the kind of war in which they are involved.

Another report raises questions about the development of the Iraqi fighting units. Half of the police units are still in training and cannot conduct combat operations. The other half, and two-thirds of the army battalions, are only partially capable of combat and then only with the help of Americans.

The American military, representing the combat power of the world's "Only Superpower," is patently unable to stop the murderous suicide bombers and seems clueless about a strategy that might stop them. Would-be "martyrs" have paralyzed our forces. One cannot use tanks or jets or predator planes or artillery, much less nuclear weapons, against a stream of dedicated young fanatics sneaking across a porous border.

In the meantime, the Iraqi parliament, working erratically on their constitution, has decided to abrogate most of the rights of women in their preliminary constitution and to subject them to "Religious Law." That means in the new "democracy" that we are supporting in Iraq women will be more subject to male oppression than they were under Saddam Hussein. This is what our young men and women are dying for in Iraq?

People with yellow ribbons say we must support our troops. I agree completely. The best way to support them is to get them out of a war justified by falsehoods and carried out by incompetents who have tried to do it on the cheap with no idea of what they would have to face after Saddam's regime was knocked over. We must stay the course, President Bush says, but he won't specify what the course is.

One hears from the media military experts there will be a drawing down of troop numbers next summer. That would just in time for the November election. The administration may then have decided to follow the Warren Austin advice during the Vietnam war -- proclaim victory and go home. They had better have a large supply of helicopters available around the U.S. embassy so we don't have photographs of large numbers of our allies desperately trying to climb on when the last copter takes off -- as they did in Saigon.

File this under "here we go again."

Bully Boy

Don't Make Hollow Threats
With 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tehran has many ways to retaliate against an American military strike.

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

Aug. 22, 2005 issue - Two things are very expensive in international politics, the game-theorist Thomas Schelling once observed: threats when they fail and promises when they succeed. President Bush appears to be headed on a path that could teach him this lesson. Last week he responded to Iran's decision to resume work on its nuclear program by asserting that "all options are on the table" to stop Iran's nuclear development. He also implied that were Israel to strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, the United States would support it. Unfortunately, these are hollow threats, unlikely to have much effect other than to cheapen America's credibility around the world. (Within hours of Bush's statement, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder made clear that he would not support any such action against Iran.)

Airstrikes against Iran would be extremely unwise. They would have minimal military effect: the facilities are scattered, are reasonably well hidden and could be repaired within months. With oil at $66 a barrel, the mullahs are swimming in money. (The high price of oil and Iran's boldness are directly related.) More important, a foreign military attack would strengthen local support for the nuclear program and bolster an unpopular regime. Iran is a country with a strong tradition of nationalism—it is one of the oldest nations in the world.

With 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tehran has many ways to retaliate against an American strike. Last week Donald Rumsfeld was listing conditions that would allow U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq. High on his list was the question of whether Iranian officials would be more helpful in creating stability there. My guess is that dropping bombs on them is unlikely to produce a helpful attitude.

Economic sanctions are the other weapon of choice. The United States already has them in place against Tehran—with little effect—and the chances of widening them are low. To get comprehensive sanctions against Iran, Russia and China would have to agree. But Moscow is helping build one of Iran's reactors, and China is busy signing deals to buy oil and natural gas from it. Both countries will condemn Iran's actions, but they will not shut down their economic ties with it.

As I said over the weekend, some Americans might find toothless threats to be satisfying, but they are damn poor diplomacy. If that's all you've got, George, what are you actually going to do if the mullahs say "bring it on?"

Pastoral Care

Memo Cited 'Abortion Tragedy'
Roberts Backed Service for Fetuses

By Amy Goldstein and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Page A01

As a senior legal adviser to President Reagan, John G. Roberts Jr. concluded that a controversial memorial service for aborted fetuses, organized by a group of California doctors who opposed Roe v. Wade , was "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy."

The words of the Supreme Court nominee, contained in a 1985 memo in which he approved a telegram from Reagan supporting the service, provide the clearest insight to date into Roberts's personal views on abortion at a time when both proponents and opponents of Roe have a keen interest in whether he would tip the court's balance on one of the nation's most volatile social issues.

Legal experts on the right and the left cautioned against interpreting Roberts's writing from that era as a certain predictor of how he would vote on abortion cases that might come before him today. Still, the memo, among 5,393 government documents released yesterday from the four years Roberts worked as associate White House counsel, is consistent with subtler clues to Roberts's stance on the landmark abortion case that have been emerging since his nomination by President Bush last month.

In 1981, while working at the Justice Department, Roberts had referred to the legal underpinnings of a woman's right to an abortion as the "so-called 'right to privacy.' " Later, as a deputy solicitor general in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Roberts would co-author an administration Supreme Court brief arguing that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned.

The memo about the Los Angeles service for aborted fetuses is part of a pattern in the documents issued yesterday by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: During his tenure from 1982 to 1986 in the Reagan White House, Roberts staked out conservative positions on a broader array of issues than has previously been known.

He called a federal court decision that sought to guarantee women equal pay to men "a radical redistributive concept." He wrote that a Supreme Court case prohibiting silent prayer in public school "seems indefensible."

And he once advised two Methodist ministers how to skirt the U.S. Flag Code in order to display religious flags and insignia above the American flag, writing, "If some church gives its flag the place of prominence over the Stars and Stripes, the pastor is hardly going to be sent up the river."

Ed Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, said of the new files that "those who try to paint Judge Roberts as a squishy moderate will not find any supporting evidence in these documents."

Yes, abortion is a tragedy. Ask any women who has had one. Ask any woman who couldn't get one. Roe is "settled law" in this country, whether Judge Roberts likes it or not, as is the principal of same pay for same work. He might want to talk to his lawyer wife about that.

Back in the Day

Roberts's Files From 80's Recall Big Debates of Era

By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: August 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - Only an indistinct portrait of the young John G. Roberts Jr. emerged in thousands of pages released on Monday by the National Archives from the Supreme Court nominee's years in the Reagan White House. But the documents do provide a vivid reminder of the debates that consumed official Washington in those days.

Some of the issues remain pertinent, while others are long forgotten. Anyone expecting the nearly 5,400 pages of documents, dating from late 1982 to mid-1986, to contain the key to the kind of Supreme Court justice that Judge Roberts would be is likely to be disappointed.

Whether abortion opponents should be permitted to bury thousands of fetuses in Arlington National Cemetery (no); whether a new appeals court should be created to ease the Supreme Court's workload (also no); whether the administration should endorse a new approach to raising the wages of women who work in heavily female occupations (emphatically no, with caustic commentary by Mr. Roberts) - these are only a few of the topics that documents in the files address.

Mr. Roberts, then in his 20's and serving as an associate White House counsel, did not actively work on all of the subjects. Many of the files consist of little more than newspaper clippings and judicial decisions.

His analyses of recent Supreme Court decisions was careful, precise and largely devoid of his own opinions. He clearly endeavored to convey the administration's views on the subjects that landed on his desk, only occasionally indicating whether the views were his own.

In some instances, the paper trail is nuanced to the point of ambiguity. For example, on May 6, 1985, he advised his boss, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, on how to respond to a request for the administration's views on proposed legislation to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear cases concerning prayer in the schools.

This was not a new issue. Mr. Roberts recalled that he had earlier opposed such a bill as "bad policy," although he believed that it would be constitutional. He noted that his advice had been rejected, and that the administration had opposed the earlier measure on constitutional grounds. Now, he said, "I think I would recommend that we adhere to the old misguided opinion and let sleeping dogs (an apt reference, given my view of the opinion) lie."

Less than a month later, on June 4, 1985, the Supreme Court addressed a narrower slice of the school prayer issue, ruling in Wallace v. Jaffree that an Alabama law providing a period of silence for meditation or prayer in the public schools was unconstitutional.

Later that day, Mr. Roberts analyzed the decision for Mr. Fielding. He parsed the individual justices' opinions, including a dissenting opinion by William H. Rehnquist, for whom Mr. Roberts had clerked four years earlier, and concluded that there would be a majority on the court to uphold a statute that simply provided for a moment of silence if it did not identify a moment as an opportunity to pray.

Six months later, addressing a proposed constitutional amendment to permit silent prayer, Mr. Roberts told Mr. Fielding that he would have no objection. He noted that many people who did not support prayer in the schools did support a moment of silence.

In a statement that appears to conflict with his earlier appraisal of the recent Supreme Court case, he wrote that the conclusion in the Wallace case "that the Constitution prohibits such a moment of silent reflection - or even silent 'prayer' - seems indefensible."

The documents released by the National Archives on Monday came from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (A far larger batch of papers is expected to be released early next week.)

The National Archives was responding on Monday to a request last month from the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They had asked for expedited release of White House counsel files on 34 "particular matters of interest," topics as broadly defined as abortion and as specific as "Reagan-Bush rallies guidance."

Greenhouse isn't responsible for the headline, but it does indicate something about the weakness of the Times editing staff. The "big debates of the era" remain the big Constitutional questions of our times, but you wouldn't know that from reading the Times hed with your coffee. The lede is not just buried, it doesn't exist.

Patient or Product?

In the Hospital, a Degrading Shift From Person to Patient

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: August 16, 2005

Mary Duffy was lying in bed half-asleep on the morning after her breast cancer surgery in February when a group of white-coated strangers filed into her hospital room.

Weak from the surgery, Ms. Duffy, 55, still managed to exclaim, "Well, good morning," a quiver of sarcasm in her voice.

But the doctor ignored her. He talked about carcinomas and circled her bed like a presenter at a lawnmower trade show, while his audience, a half-dozen medical students in their 20's, stared at Ms. Duffy's naked body with detached curiosity, she said.

After what seemed an eternity, the doctor abruptly turned to face her.

"Have you passed gas yet?" he asked.

"Those are his first words to me, in front of everyone," said Ms. Duffy, who runs a food service business near San Jose, Calif.

"I tell him, 'No, I don't do that until the third date,' " she said. "And he looks at me like he's offended, like I'm not holding up my end of the bargain."

Entering the medical system, whether a hospital, a nursing home or a clinic, is often degrading. At the hospital where Ms. Duffy was a patient and at many others the small courtesies that help lubricate and dignify civil society are neglected precisely when they are needed most, when people are feeling acutely cut off from others and betrayed by their own bodies.

Larger trends in medicine have made it increasingly difficult to deliver such social niceties, experts say. Many hospital budgets are tight, and nurses are spread thin: shortages are running at 15 percent to 20 percent in some areas of the country. Average hospital stays have also shortened in recent years, making it harder for patients to build any rapport with staff, or vice versa.

Some hospitals have worked to address patients' most serious grievances. But in interviews and surveys, people who have recently received medical care say that even when they benefit from the expertise of first-rate doctors, they often feel resentful, helpless and dehumanized in the process.

In a nationwide survey of more than 2,000 adults published last fall, 55 percent of those surveyed said they were dissatisfied with the quality of health care, up from 44 percent in 2000; and 40 percent said the quality of care had gotten worse in the last five years. The survey was conducted by Harvard University, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent nonprofit health care research group.

"The point is that when they talk about quality of health care, patients mean something entirely different than experts do," said Dr. Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation. "They're not talking about numbers or outcomes but about their own human experience, which is a combination of cost, paperwork and what I'll call the hassle factor, the impersonal nature of the care."

I haven't needed a hospital in more than a dozen years, but back then I think that I and my insurance company added a wing to some orthopod's home after a series of bad accidents. If you are sick and have some choice about the hospital you go to, avoid teaching hospitals like the plague. The last time I was in one of those, I was awakened one morning by a hospital round of would-be ob-gyns giving me a pelvic exam while I was being treated for a very serious (and painful) kidney infection. My personal doc was a urologist, I wasn't an ob-gyn case. In a teaching hospital, none of that matters, you are a piece of meat for morning rounds.

Ass Covering

FRIST CALLS FOR MANHATTAN PROJECT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Speech makes the case for immediate and in-depth research to protect against future epidemics

Take the virus that is today the gravest threat -- avian flu. A vaccine would not become available, at best, until six to nine months after the outbreak of a pandemic. Even then, the vaccine would not be available in mass quantities. And even then, we do not know if that vaccine would work. It’s still experimental.

So, in essence, we have no vaccine for avian flu. Nor do we have enough of the only effective anti-viral agent Tamiflu stockpiled to treat more than one percent of our population for avian flu.

*

It’s true that neither Avian flu nor these other viruses have yet spread geometrically -- instantly and irrevocably overcoming health care systems and pulling us backward across thresholds of darkness that we long hoped we would never cross again. And yet this they might do -- either entirely on their own in nature or as a result of deliberate, purposeful human intervention.
....
So I ask again how it is that we are so unprepared either for naturally occurring epidemics of newly emergent diseases or those that will be deliberately and purposefully induced?

I propose that we take the measure of this threat and make preparations today to engage it with the force and knowledge adequate to throw it back wherever and however it may strike.

It need not be invincible and we need not fall to our knees before it. Means adequate to the success of a defensive plan are present in great profusion. Whereas the approaching biological shift is gathering force like a massing army, providence has massed an army to meet it.

Having themselves expanded geometrically, the life sciences have come to the threshold of a great age, and to cross it they need only encouragement and a signal from the body politic to put their resources in play.
....
I propose an unprecedented effort -- a “Manhattan Project for the 21st Century” -- not with the goal of creating a destructive new weapon, but to defend against destruction wreaked by infectious disease and biological weapons.

I speak of substantial increases in support for fundamental research, medical education, emergency capacity, and public health infrastructure. I speak of an unleashing of the private sector and unprecedented collaboration between government and industry and academia. I speak of the creation of secure stores of treatments and vaccines and vast networks of distribution.

Above all, I speak not of the creation of a forest of bureaucratic organization charts and the repetition of a hundred million Latinate words in a hundred million meetings that substitute for action, but action itself -- without excuses, without exceptions -- with the goal of protecting every American and the capability to help protect the people of the world.

I call for the creation of the ability to detect, identify, and model any emerging or newly emerging infection, present or future, natural or otherwise -- for the ability to engineer the immunization and cure, and to manufacture, distribute, and administer what we need to get it done and to get it done in time.

Nice speech, Senator. Too bad that it is too damn late to do anything about the avian influenza pandemic staring us in the face because we won't have a vaccine and I don't notice that you've got a plan to deal with the social sequelae of a pandemic. There's nothing on your website, so these are all just pretty words to cover your ass when the thing hits.

If you are such a hot scientist, how come you haven't been following this bug since it emerged in 1997 with pandemic potential? I have. Where the f*** have you been?

This is a political speech, not a scientific one, by a man with Presidential ambitions. I'm disgusted. As Henry Niman says, this is scandalous.

Truth-Telling

Papers Increasingly Note Antiwar Views in Covering Funerals of the Fallen

By E&P; Staff

Published: August 14, 2005 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK In a departure from past policies, newspapers around the country, with the U.S. death toll in Iraq again soaring, increasingly are reporting the antiwar sentiments of family members of the deceased in their coverage of funerals. The latest example comes from the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader on Sunday.

It concerns the funeral of Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley. The story notes that “in a departure from the norm in Kentucky -- one of the reddest of red states -- some of Comley's relatives, including a few sitting in the front pews, have spoken out strongly against the Bush administration and the war that took the 21-year-old Marine's life.”

Comley's grandmother, 80-year-old Geraldine Comley of Versailles, described herself as a former Republican stalwart who is "on a rampage" against the president and the war.

"When someone gets up and says 'My son died for our freedom,' or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it," Geraldine Comley said. She added that she would like nothing better than to join Cindy Sheehan, who has been holding a protest outside President Bush's ranch in Texas.

Note: I'm not seeing this in the WaPo or the NYT.

Blood for Oil

Lowering expectations -- again -- on Iraq

It's just about sundown now in Baghdad.

Iraq, do you know where your constitution is?

George W. Bush said last week that the United States has "made it clear" to the Iraqis that their new constitution "can be and should be agreed upon by August 15th." The clock is ticking. According to a Reuters report, the Iraqi National Assembly was to meet beginning at 6 p.m. Baghdad time today to consider the draft constitution, but that meeting has been pushed back by two hours amid discussions about the possibility of extending the Aug. 15 deadline.

If the National Assembly doesn't approve the constitution by the end of the night, it will be another blow for a U.S. administration already reeling from setbacks in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported over the weekend, the White House is finally starting to reassess what's possible in Iraq -- and to admit, at least quietly, that its vision for Iraq's future was probably never realistic. "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion told the Post. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

The president still talks of building a "democratic Iraq," but a U.S. official tells the Post that his administration is "slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic" instead.

The White House has also had to reassess its expectations about the kind of force -- and the number of U.S. casualties -- it would take to achieve whatever its goal in Iraq ends up being. Before the war began, Tim Russert asked Dick Cheney if the American people were prepared for "a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties." Cheney insisted that the war wasn't going to "unfold" that way, that U.S. troops would be "greeted as liberators." He told others that the war would probably last "weeks rather than months."

On Sunday, nearly two-and-a-half years after the war began, six more U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq, taking the U.S. death toll past the 1,850 mark. The latest deaths came amid reports back home that, a year after the Pentagon started working to provide U.S. troops with better body armor, tens of thousands of soldiers still lack the equipment because of delays in the Pentagon's procurement process.

Flakking the War

From a Post chat last hour:

blockquote>Arlington, Va.: Why is The Washington Post sponsoring a pro-war rally? Please spare us the corporate side v. the newsroom side memo. The rally is being "officially sponsored" by the Department of Defense. And, to top it off, participants must register with their name, address and telephone number. Sounds to me like the Pentagon is trolling for bodies to send off to Iraq.

Howard Kurtz: I wouldn't call it a "pro-war rally"; that's your characterization. It is supposed to be about remembering the victims of 9/11. But I wish The Washington Post were not co-sponsoring this event. It is an operation by the Pentagon -- a place that we devote substantial resources to covering -- and therefore subject to all kinds of interpretations. It is not the same, in my view, as the corporate side of The Post handing out awards to the best teachers or other kinds of nonpartisan civic activities.

Oil Shocks

Global: Beneath the Surface

Stephen Roach (New York)

I don’t know where oil prices are going. But I do feel strongly that an important macro threshold has now been breached -- one that adds unmistakable tension to the world economy’s greatest imbalances. At the current level of oil prices, I suspect one of two things will happen -- either the over-extended American consumer will finally cave or the long-awaited US current account adjustment will finally unfold. Courtesy of a full-blown energy shock, the venting of global imbalances can no longer be deferred indefinitely. If consumers remain unflinching in the face of sky-high oil prices, a plunging saving rate will push an already outsize current account deficit to the flash point.

As always, duration matters. If oil prices fall back quickly and sharply, all will be forgotten and the consequences will be minimal. Unfortunately, that’s a bet the financial market consensus has been making for far too long. All this points to what could be the biggest macro call that any of us will have to make for a long time -- the capitulation of the unflinching American consumer. Needless to say, this would have profound implications for the rest of the global economy -- largely a US-centric world that is utterly lacking in support from autonomous domestic consumption.

Over the years, I’ve learned to be wary of betting against the American consumer. But the history of energy shocks argues to the contrary. Moreover, today’s saving-short, asset-dependent, overly-indebted consumer is far more vulnerable than in the past. After years of such warnings, investors, of course, have all but given up on that possibility. That’s precisely the time to worry the most.

Of course, none of the economists are taking in the possible effects of avian influenza.

Clueless MSM

Social Security Lessons

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 15, 2005

Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.

In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."

Meanwhile, the administration politicized the Social Security Administration and used taxpayer money to promote a partisan agenda. Social Security officials participated in what were in effect taxpayer- financed political rallies, from which skeptical members of the public were excluded.

I'm writing about this in the past tense, but some of it is still going on. Last week Jo Anne Barnhart, the commissioner of Social Security, published an op-ed article claiming that Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits. "The number of older Americans living now," wrote Ms. Barnhart, "is greater than anyone could have imagined in 1935."

Now, it turns out that an article on the Social Security Administration's Web site, "Life Expectancy for Social Security," specifically rejects the idea the Social Security was originally "designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits," and the related idea that the system faces problems from "a supposed dramatic increase in life expectancy in recent years."

And the current number of older Americans as a share of the population is just about what the founders of Social Security expected. The 1934 report of F.D.R.'s Commission on Economic Security, which laid the groundwork for the Social Security Act, projected that 12.7 percent of Americans would be 65 or older by the year 2000. The actual number was 12.4 percent.

Despite Ms. Barnhart's efforts, however, privatization seems to be dead for the time being. The Democratic leadership in Congress defied the punditocracy - which was very much in favor of privatization - by refusing to cave in, and the American people made it clear that they like Social Security the way it is.

But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war.

And there are two reasons to study that lesson. One is to be prepared for whatever comes next on Mr. Bush's agenda. Despite the tough talk about Iran, I don't think he can propose another war - there aren't enough troops to fight the wars we already have. But there's still room for another big domestic initiative, probably tax reform.

Forewarned is forearmed: the real goals of reform won't be as advertised, the administration will say things about the current system that aren't true, and the Treasury Department will function in a purely partisan capacity.

The other is that the public's visceral rejection of privatization, together with growing dismay over the debacle in Iraq, offers Democrats an opportunity to make an issue of the administration's pattern of deception. The question is whether they will dare to seize that opportunity, when for some of them it means admitting that they, too, were fooled.

Well, first of all, the Dems have to act like the opposition and have a plan. We aren't there yet.

On the Wing

Scientists check for arrival of avian flu from Asia
Virus may kill 60,000 in California despite new drug, study says

By DAVID WHITNEY
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU
Last Updated: August 14, 2005, 04:26:59 AM PDT

WASHINGTON — They know it's coming. Hospitals already are monitoring for its arrival with every patient who checks in. Now scientists are swabbing wild bird bottoms in California and elsewhere in a hunt for the first signs of the deadly virus.

What has scientists worried is not the fact that the avian flu virus H5N1 already has killed at least 60 people overseas. Or that it has spread from Southeast Asia to China and Russia.

What has them convinced about the diminishing odds of escaping a worldwide health catastrophe — one study estimates that fatalities in California could top 60,000 — is that wild birds overseas no longer seem to be dying.

That means the virus is mutating, and scientists fear it has now adapted so that it can survive the annual migration of wild birds from Asia to North America without killing its hosts.

"That's a real danger sign," said veterinarian Carol Cardona of the University of California at Davis.

Cardona is part of the growing army of scientists and health care professionals gearing up to fight what could become the first flu pandemic since 1918, when a Spanish flu virus — also believed to have been spread by birds — killed between 20 million and 40 million people around the world.

More Americans died in that outbreak than were killed in World War I. And already the projections are that the next pandemic, perhaps just months away, will kill similar numbers of people.

So far, the virus has not mutated or combined with other influenza viruses so that it can spread from human to human.

"The great fear is that we will see a version of H5N1 that will spread very easily from person to person," said David Daigle of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Migrating birds may bring flu

"Most experts believe it is not a question of if, but when," he said.

According to a recent report by the Trust for America's Health, the U.S. toll could surpass 540,000.

In California, the report said, deaths could top 60,000 and hospitalizations could exceed 273,000 — unfathomable given that number is four times the amount of hospital beds in the state, according to the California Hospital Association.

Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Health Services, said that if the nightmare scenario develops, mass quarantine of infected patients and other mandatory steps to stop the virus' spread could be inevitable.

"We could face asking the public to take some extraordinary measures," August warned.

Already, he said, hospitals throughout the state have been asked to begin monitoring for patients reporting unexplained respiratory illness and who have traveled recently to Southeast Asia.

"What we're concerned about is the flu virus mutating into something that no one has experienced and that would cause severe illness and death," he said.

While scientists and health officials stress that there is no evidence of an Asian variety of the H5N1 virus in the United States now, it could arrive at almost any time with passengers unloading from an overseas flight from Thailand, China or Russia.

Or it could arrive on the wings of an infected bird.

Over at H5N1 Blog, Crawford says:

The story says the scientists are alarmed because "wild birds overseas no longer seem to be dying." This is taken to mean the virus is mutating so that it no longer kills its bird hosts—who are therefore capable of long migration flights that could bring H5N1 into North America via Siberia.

Uh huh. I talked about planning yesterday. We don't have unlimited amounts of time.

Get a Life

Bush will `go on with life'
Defends refusal to meet protester
Sunday, August 14, 2005
KEN HERMAN
Cox News Service

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush, noting that lots of people want to talk to the president and "it's also important for me to go on with my life," on Saturday defended his decision not to meet with the grieving mom of a soldier killed in Iraq.

Bush said he is aware of the anti-war sentiments of Cindy Sheehan and others who have joined her protest near the Bush ranch.

"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say."

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

In the second week of his five week vacation and his 50th trip to the Crawford White House, I'm sure he understands the lives of ordinary Americans. Yeah, right.

Sacrifices

Lives Blown Apart

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 15, 2005

Sema Olson was in the living room watching television when the phone rang. It was the Department of the Army calling. A voice asked if she'd heard from her son in the past 24 hours. Skip to next paragraph

Ms. Olson tried to ward off the panic. "Is he still alive?" she asked.

After verifying her identity, the man on the phone assured her that her son, Bobby Rosendahl, who was stationed in Iraq, was still alive. But he'd been badly wounded.

With that Saturday night phone call, life as Ms. Olson had known it came to an end. Her family's long, long period of overwhelming sacrifice was under way.

Bobby Rosendahl, a 24-year-old Army corporal (and avid golfer) from Tacoma, Wash., was literally blown into the air last March 12 when an improvised explosive device detonated beneath his Stryker armored vehicle. He remembers landing on his back, with fuel spilling all around him and insurgents firing at him from the roof of a mosque.

Ms. Olson, during an interview in Washington, D.C., where Corporal Rosendahl is being treated at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, quietly cataloged her son's wounds:

"Both of his heels and ankles were crushed. He had a compound fracture of his femur in two places. Three-quarters of his kneecap was missing. His thigh was blown away. He had many, many open wounds, which all have closed except four right now."

She paused, sighed, then went on: "His left leg was amputated three weeks after he arrived here. He's not willing to give up his right leg. He's hoping to save it. All he wants to do is golf again. But we don't know. He's had 36 surgeries so far."

When you talk to close relatives of men and women who have been wounded in the war, it's impossible not to notice the strain that is always evident in their faces. Their immediate concern is with the wounded soldier or marine. But just behind that immediate concern, in most cases, is the frightening awareness that they have to try and rebuild a way of life that was also blown apart when their loved one was wounded.

Ms. Olson, who is 45 and divorced, gave up everything - her work, her rented townhouse, her car - and moved from Tacoma to a hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed to be with her son and assist in his recovery.

"He was still in a coma when I got here," she said. "He didn't have his eyes open, and he was hooked up to all the machines. When he did open his eyes a couple of days later, he didn't respond. His eyes didn't follow me. That was a scary moment. But the following day his eyes started following me."

Corporal Rosendahl has improved a great deal since those days and recently has been allowed to go with his mother on brief excursions away from the hospital. "It's difficult for him," Ms. Olson said. "But in those first weeks here he couldn't move a finger. So this gives me so much hope."

Ms. Olson is a paralegal who did work for several lawyers in Tacoma. She also worked as a claims analyst for the city's transit system. With that work gone, she is now living on the $48 per diem she receives from the Army for food and lodging, along with money that she has reluctantly been drawing from her son's Army pay, and assistance she is receiving from another son, Keith, who is 27.

As I recall, the rest of us were told to go shopping.

Fantasy

Juan Cole says this morning:

So this is the time Bush chooses, as he is mired in an intractable conflict in Iraq in which its Shiites are moving close to Iran, to intimate that he could take military action against Iran over its nuclear program -- in an interview broadcast from Israel (which rejected the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and made hundreds of atomic bombs with British help). The Rove theory of looking active and carrying the fight to the enemy isn't working as well in the Middle East as it did against poor John Kerry.

Juan doesn't say that this beyond nuts, but you can read that between the lines. With which Army and which Air Force does Bush intend to threaten Iran? He's just making shit up.

The Spoils of Empire

Iraqis Consider Bypassing Sunnis on Constitution

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: August 15, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 14 - Iraqi leaders remained deadlocked Sunday over major issues in the country's new constitution, raising the possibility they would fail to meet the Monday deadline and push the country toward a political crisis.

With several questions unresolved, Shiite leaders said Sunday that they were considering asking the National Assembly to approve the document without the agreement of the country's Sunni leaders. Such a move would probably provoke the Sunnis, whose participation in the political process is seen as crucial in the effort to marginalize the Sunni-dominated guerrilla insurgency.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders said they were also considering giving themselves more time to reach a deal, though it was by no means certain that they could without amending the interim constitution, the law currently in force. That would require a three-fourths majority of the 275-member National Assembly.

If the deadline is not met nor the interim constitution successfully amended, the law appears to require dissolving the National Assembly and holding new elections. Shiite and Kurdish leaders said late Sunday that they were discussing that possibility, but said that they hoped to avoid it.

"That is the worst option, and we want to avoid it all costs," said Ali al-Dabbagh, one of the Shiite leaders charged with writing the new constitution.

The negotiations were stalled on a number of issues, including the role of Islam in the state, the rights of women and the distribution of power between central and regional governments. Issues that had seemed to have been settled, like the sharing of oil revenues, came unraveled.

American officials here have been pushing the Iraqis to meet the Aug. 15 deadline, arguing that any delay in the political process, devised to culminate in democratic elections in December, could risk strengthening the insurgency. A stalemate could also stall the Bush administration's plans to begin reducing the number of troops here as early as next spring.

The deadlock reflected a lack of consensus on basic questions underlying the nation's identity, a consensus which has largely eluded this country since it was carved from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

The disagreements run almost entirely along ethnic and sectarian lines, reflecting the deep divisions among Iraq's majority Shiites and the Kurdish and Sunni minorities.

The principal unresolved issue is whether to grant to the country's Shiite majority an autonomous region in the south. Shiite leaders are demanding that nine provinces in southern Iraq - half of the provinces in the country - be allowed to form a largely self-governing region akin to the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.

The leaders of Iraq's Sunni population staunchly oppose the Shiite demands, contending that if the Shiites and the Kurds were both granted wide powers of self-rule, there would be little left of the Iraqi state. The issue of Shiite autonomy is especially significant because the richest oil fields are situated in the extreme south of the country.

Indeed, some Sunni leaders say the Shiite demand for self-rule is largely a cover for hoarding the bulk of Iraq's oil revenues. On Sunday, an agreement on sharing oil revenues between the central and regional governments fell apart, with the Shiites demanding more control.

I don't see this ending well. If you do, place your facts in "comments."

Endgame

Iraqi Leaders Rush to Finish Charter; 6 U.S. Soldiers Killed

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 14, 2005

Filed at 8:09 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- With one day left to finish Iraq's new constitution, Sunni Arabs asked Sunday that the divisive issue of federalism be put off until next year so the draft can be completed on time, warning they would not accept provisions for federated states. Skip to next paragraph

In violence, five U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bombs over the weekend and another died in a shooting, the U.S. military announced. At least 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in attacks across the country, police said.

Ahead of Monday's deadline for parliament to adopt the constitution, American officials applied pressure to resolve differences on federalism and other issues, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he was convinced the Iraqis would succeed.

Some politicians said the draft could be presented to the Shiite- and Kurdish-led parliament Monday over Sunni Arab objections. But that would further alienate that disaffected minority, undercutting the U.S. goal of using the political process to take the steam out of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

''It looks like all the agreements are being made only by the Kurds and the Shiites without even asking our opinion,'' Sunni Arab official Saleh al-Mutlaq said Sunday. ''I believe the draft is going to be presented tomorrow even if it is not finished, with or without our approval.''

Parliament scheduled a meeting for 6 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT) Monday to allow as much time as possible for negotiators to agree on a draft.

The main obstacle was the argument over federalism, which the formerly dominant Sunni Arabs fear could lead to Kurdish and Shiite Muslim regions splitting away from Iraq. But al-Mutlaq said there also was no agreement on 17 other issues, including the distribution of oil wealth.

Another Sunni official voiced objections over a Shiite-Kurdish deal to grant special status to the clerical hierarchy of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.

Sunni Arab politicians asked that federalism be left out of the constitution until a new parliament is elected during a meeting with President Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leaders of the two major Kurdish parties and proponents of a federal system to protect the self-rule Kurds have had since 1991.

''We made a proposal to transfer federalism and the process of forming federal regions to the next National Assembly,'' Sunni politician Kamal Hamdoun said. ''Legislation could be drafted on these two matters and a referendum could be held on them.''

Hamdoun said the Sunnis received no response to their proposal, which the Kurds have rejected in the past.

My, this is going all so well, and on the front page of the the Sunday Times where any idiot can see what a piece of idiot propaganda it is.

Have a lovely war, hawks; see you when it is over and there is nothing in the bank to solve our very real economic problems. Oh, you didn't factor those in? Never mind, the nuts at The Corner will continue to avoid reality until they've driven us into the ground.

The Fahrenheit Game

Complete the sentence: How hot is it?

This is a little contest, just for fun. Complete a sentence:

It is so hot that...

New Staff

White House Chooses First Female Chef

By Candy Sagon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 14, 2005; 4:23 PM

After a six-month search for a new White House executive chef, first lady Laura Bush announced Sunday that she had chosen Cristeta Comerford  the first woman to hold the position.

In a prepared statement, Mrs. Bush said, "I am delighted that Cris Comerford has accepted the position of White House Executive Chef. Her passion for cooking can be tasted in every bite of her delicious creations."

Comerford, 42, who has worked as an assistant chef at the White House for 10 years, succeeds Walter Scheib III, who left in February. Scheib had been hired in 1994 by the Clintons.
....
Other chefs who had been on the short list for the head chef job included Texas chef Chris Ward of Dallas' Mercury Grill, and Richard Hamilton, formerly with the Spiced Pear at the Chanler Hotel in Newport, R.I.

Comerford received her bachelor's degree in food technology from the University of the Philippines and has worked in Europe, as well as The Westin Hotel and the ANA Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Well, I covered Walter Scheib's firing in February, so I figured I should cover the hiring of his replacement. I had actually eaten some of Scheib's cooking: my former orchestra played a State dinner at the White House in 2000, and the staff put together some of the food for us in our set up room. It was spectacular.

Avian Influenza - Plan Now

I'm having a back and forth by email this afternoon with one of the scientists whose opinions I take very seriously. I asked him if he had a timeline for the final recombination/mutation of H5N1 avian influenza to efficient transmissibility between humans. He said, this fall at the earliest, next spring at the latest. Folks, we are coming up against a hard deadline here and we may not have a lot of time to make preparations. There are things you need to be thinking about and doing now. Once the press uncovers the first couple of North American or European cases, there will be mass panic to try to get medication and public calls for an effective vaccine (which we are nowhere near having.)

It is time NOW to begin to prepare. You need to be thinking about food, water, entertainment and so forth for a quarantine which could last anywhere from 6 weeks to three months. It is like planning for a natural disaster: imagine grocery stores, drug stores closed, mass gatherings like churches and public meetings forbidden, schools and many employers closed (with the financial/economic consequences which flow from such things). Do your financial planning now, and begin laying in the food and water your household will need.

A Reading List

This is an interesting essay for lit'rary types:

A Literary Guide to Britain's Terrorists

By Helen Rumbelow
Sunday, August 14, 2005; B03

And the past few decades has seen a proliferation of books about deracination from such literary descendants of the Nobel prize winner V.S. Naipaul as Pico Iyer, Ben Okri and Caryl Phillips. All understand the complicated status of the new nomads who live worlds away from their ancestral roots.

But more recently Britain has benefited from a literary boom among second-generation immigrants, telling us, before we knew we needed to listen, what was going wrong.

First, and most acute, is "My Son the Fanatic," a short story by Hanif Kureishi that was first published in the New Yorker in 1993 and turned into a well-received film in 1997. To read it now is to find its prescience chilling.

Kureishi's story is set in a town in the north of England, similar to the places where the four successful London suicide bombers had made their homes. Born in Britain to Pakistani parents, the young protagonist, Ali, grows up as a "good son" -- by which his father means a happy, cricket-loving accountancy student. This is the typical path for second-generation immigrants: successful, integrated children who make their parents proud.

But in Kureishi's story Ali starts acting strangely. His parents worry that he might have turned to drugs, but are even more appalled by the truth: He has become a jihad-hungry Muslim fundamentalist, and thus a stranger to them.

"What has made you like this?" his taxi-driving father, Parvez, asks in horror, and Ali replies: "Living in this country."

Parvez is shocked. "But I love England," he says, "they let you do almost anything here."

"That," replies Ali, "is the problem."

The film version, by the way, ends with an image that has a horrible resonance following London's fatal attacks. When Ali is cast out by his father, he sets off with a loaded backpack on his back, echoing the now-iconic photos of the four suicide bombers entering the train network, looking for all the world as if they were setting off on a hiking expedition.

Seven years after Kureishi, Zadie Smith drew on an uncannily similar conflict as a central theme of "White Teeth," her bestselling debut novel. Samad, a Bangladeshi immigrant working in an Indian restaurant is, like Parvez, slightly cowed as well as uncomprehending of his son Millat's conversion to an extremist Muslim sect. The teenage Millat would be immediately recognizable on the fashionable streets of north London: charismatic, good at football, popular with the girls. But inside he seethes with a macho "righteous anger."

"If the game was God, if the game was a fight against the West . . . he was determined to win it," Smith writes.

Many of the same issues were revived again in 2003 when Monica Ali's "Brick Lane" was published in Britain to wide acclaim. Unlike the first two books, the conflict is not between father and son, with the elders trying desperately to quell the extremism of their offspring. (In "White Teeth," when Millat gets involved in burning books that are banned by Islamic fundamentalists, his parents burn his own books to see how he likes it.) In Ali's novel the conflict is between the two lovers of Nazneen, a naive Bangladeshi girl. She and her husband, a first-generation immigrant also from Bangladesh, settle in one of London's most ethnically mixed neighborhoods and try to make a success of their lives.

But pretty soon Nazneen acquires a lover, Karim, a British Muslim, and she realizes that her two men's attitudes could not be more different. When her husband gets an extremist leaflet through the door asking for money for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, he is furious. He came to Britain to live on Western terms, to fit in, and he fears this kind of agitprop will turn the natives against him.

"What is all this mumbo-jumbos? Are they mad? Poking these mad letters through white people's doors. Do they want to set flame to the whole place?"

By contrast, Karim has all the natural-born confidence of a handsome Londoner. He is not grateful for what he has got and wants what he thinks he has not got -- equality. Karim is made militant by what he sees as British prejudice and persecution of Muslims (a strong theme, too, of "White Teeth"). At one point Nazneen tells him that Allah forbids suicide bombing. Karim replies: "It's not suicide, yeah. It's war."

When Blair was asked at his news conference whether the threat to Britain was "home-grown," he came to the conclusion that "obviously the inspiration for it, as it were, comes from outside this country."

These writers -- all black or Asian, all either born or brought up in the West -- are trying to tell us something different. Their work reveals exactly how this terrorism was home-grown. Less escapism than reportage, these books show why the rage of the second-generation immigrant can be greater than that of the first. The fictional young men who turn against their fellow citizens draw their ire from their experience of Western society, not from their isolation from it.

Clueless Tony needs to widen his reading.

The Other War

U.S., Afghan Troops Launch Major Offensive
Operation Designed to Seize Valley From Rebels Tied to Deadly Attack on Americans

By Daniel Cooney
Associated Press
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A17

KANDAGAL, Afghanistan, Aug. 13 -- U.S. Marines and Afghan troops launched an offensive Saturday to seize control of a remote mountain valley from insurgents tied to the deadliest attack on American forces since the Taliban was ousted nearly four years ago.

The operation is the biggest yet aimed at rebels believed to be responsible for twin attacks that killed 19 U.S. troops in June. Three Navy SEALs were killed in an ambush, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them died when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

U.S. Marines load mortar shells into containers as they set up positions in Kandagal to attack militants suspected of ambushing U.S. troops.
U.S. Marines load mortar shells into containers as they set up positions in Kandagal, in east Afghanistan, to attack militants suspected of ambushing U.S. troops. (By Tomas Munita -- Associated Press)

The offensive came at the end of a deadly week in Afghanistan. Seven Americans were killed along with dozens of rebels and civilians, reinforcing concerns that crucial legislative elections next month could be threatened by a surge in violence.

U.S. and Afghan commanders said fighters in the Korengal Valley, in northeastern Konar province near the Pakistani border, were intent on disrupting voting. They said hundreds of Afghan rebels, as well as extremists from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, were operating in the valley.

Read between the lines: we're losing this one, too. The Soviets had a quarter of a million troops and they lost, we've got 20,000. "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history...."

East Coast Swelters

Roadwork, Residents Buckle Under Heat

By David Nakamura and Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page C01

Hot enough for you?

B.V. Reddy, a crew member working yesterday on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, held an electronic device over the recently poured asphalt and looked at the temperature reading: 262 degrees.

That was too hot. As the air around Reddy reached 95 degrees and the humidity made it feel even hotter, this was not an ideal day to lay asphalt, which was in danger of melting and separating, possibly resulting in potholes.

"The heat doesn't help" the asphalt cool, said project inspector Jimmy Hamrick as he gulped from a bottle of water. "It holds and retains the temperature."

Across the Washington area, workers, residents and travelers endured the year's 28th day of temperatures in the 90s -- in what experts said is the hottest summer in the past few years. Today's temperature is predicted to reach the mid-90s.

DC is famous for the August hot-muggies, but this is the worst year I can remember in my 20 here. I woke up this morning craving, not my usual coffee, but a can of cold seltzer. I can't remember that ever happening before.

The End of the American Century

Frank Rich is both right AND missing the point.

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

By FRANK RICH
Published: August 14, 2005

LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.

But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's über-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush.

Rich continues to see Iraq as merely domestic political problem when it is a hell of a lot more than that. Iraq is a terminal diplomatic fuck up which will haunt us for a generation as well as a military disaster which will take decades to remedy. Our Army and Marines, "the point of the lance" for any sort of genuine defense issue, are hobbled for the foreseeable future. Darfur can go sit and spin because we don't have the horses. We aren't just morally bankrupt, we are financially and militarily bankrupt to be an actor on the world stage. No one trusts us and no one wants us, which is just as well, since we really can't afford to do anything anymore. In five years, whatever capital we had with the world is gone, squandered by this nasty little "likeable" man from Crawford, Texas. Booblican Americans elected one of their own and foisted ignominy on the rest of us.

Defining Incompetency Down

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A01

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

The remains of a bombed barber shop in Baghdad, where three people were killed, draw the interest of Iraqis in June. Islamic extremists, some of whom believe beards reflect religious piety, have been targeting the shops for attack and killing barbers. In response, barbers are posting signs stating that they do not shave men.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in October. The political transition would be completed in December by elections for a permanent government.

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

And Cindy Sheehan remains camped in the dust outside Crawford, still waiting to have her question answered. And the answer remains the same now as it was then: oil and petrodollars.

IOKIYAAR*

U.S. Struggling to Get Soldiers Updated Armor

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: August 14, 2005

For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents.

The ceramic plates in vests worn by most personnel cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use. But more than a year after military officials initiated an effort to replace the armor with thicker, more resistant plates, tens of thousands of soldiers are still without the stronger protection because of a string of delays in the Pentagon's procurement system.

The effort to replace the armor began in May 2004, just months after the Pentagon finished supplying troops with the original plates - a process also plagued by delays. The officials disclosed the new armor effort Wednesday after questioning by The New York Times, and acknowledged that it would take several more months or longer to complete.

Citing security concerns, the officials declined to say exactly how many more of the stronger plates were needed, or how much armor had already been shipped to Iraq.

"We are working as fast as we can to complete it as soon as we can," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson, the Army's deputy for acquisition and systems management, said Wednesday in an interview at the Pentagon.

While much of the focus on casualties in Iraq has been on soldiers killed by explosive devices aimed at vehicles, body armor remains critical to the military's goals in Iraq. Gunfire has killed at least 325 troops, about half the number killed by bombs, according to the Pentagon.

Among the problems contributing to the delays in getting the stronger body armor, the Pentagon is relying on a cottage industry of small armor makers with limited production capacity. In addition, each company must independently come up with its own design for the plates, which then undergo military testing. Just four vendors have begun making the enhanced armor, according to military and industry officials. Two more companies are expected to receive contracts by next month, while 20 or more others have plates that are still being tested.

An important material that strengthens the ceramic plates also remains in short supply despite a federal initiative aimed at prodding private industry into meeting the growing demand, military officials said.

"Nobody is happy we haven't been able to do it faster," Maj. Gen. William D. Catto, head of the Marine Corps Systems Command, said Wednesday in the interview.

"If I had the capability, I'd like to see everybody that needs enhanced SAPI to have it and at the rate we have now, we're going to have months before we get the kind of aggregate numbers we want to have," General Catto said, referring to the thicker plates, known as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert. "That's just a fact of life because of the raw materials paucity and the industrial base."

Throughout the war, the military's procurement system has struggled to stay ahead of the insurgency. Most notably, efforts by the Defense Department to add armor to the Humvee - a vehicle never intended for combat - often have been undermined by the insurgents' relentless ability to build more powerful bombs.

Military officials say they have kept the effort to supply troops with the stronger body armor quiet to avoid alerting the insurgency, which they say is adept at mining news media reports for any evidence of weaknesses in the American force. At the request of the Pentagon, The Times has omitted from this article details that would expose vulnerabilities in the original armor and the types of munitions that the original plates cannot repel.

You go to war with the Army you have....and you treat them like human hamburger because you don't really give a shit about them.

Let's use a little simple logic here, shall we? Iraq was a war of choice and Rummy expected it would be a cakewalk and none of this complicated armor and whatnot would be necessary. This is prima facia evidence that Mr. Secretary is an idiot and should be fired, is it not? But, for the Bush Administration, fightin' and dyin' is "nobel work" so they don't have to fix it.

My head hurts. Planning is what I have to do to keep from getting fired. None of that applies to Republicans.

*It's Okay If You Are A Republican

Where is My Country?

It is not only Iraq that is occupied. America is too

My country is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits

Howard Zinn
Friday August 12, 2005
The Guardian

We have all read reports of US soldiers angry at being kept in Iraq. Such sentiments are becoming known to the US public, as are the feelings of many deserters who are refusing to return to Iraq after home leave. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on June 17, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush's handling of the situation.

But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.

More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism", ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less.

The Bush administration, unable to capture the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, invaded Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Yet it still does not know where the criminals are. Not knowing what weapons Saddam Hussein was hiding, it invaded and bombed Iraq in March 2003, disregarding the UN, killing thousands of civilians and soldiers and terrorising the population; and not knowing who was and was not a terrorist, the US government confined hundreds of people in Guantánamo under such conditions that 18 have tried to commit suicide.

The Amnesty International Report 2005 notes: "Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times ... When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity".

The "war on terrorism" is not only a war on innocent people in other countries; it is a war on the people of the US: on our liberties, on our standard of living. The country's wealth is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of the young are being stolen.

The Iraq war will undoubtedly claim many more victims, not only abroad but also on US territory. The Bush administration maintains that, unlike the Vietnam war, this conflict is not causing many casualties. True enough, fewer than 2,000 service men and women have lost their lives in the fighting. But when the war finally ends, the number of its indirect victims, through disease or mental disorders, will increase steadily. After the Vietnam war, veterans reported congenital malformations in their children, caused by Agent Orange.

Officially there were only a few hundred losses in the Gulf war of 1991, but the US Gulf War Veterans Association has reported 8,000 deaths in the past 10 years. Some 200,000 veterans, out of 600,000 who took part, have registered a range of complaints due to the weapons and munitions used in combat. We have yet to see the long-term effects of depleted uranium on those currently stationed in Iraq.

Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

The last paragraph of Zinn's piece is worth holding onto.

Hot Air

Bush raises option of using force against Iran

Reuters
Saturday, August 13, 2005; 12:18 PM

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told an election rally on Saturday the threat of force was not acceptable.

In what appeared to be a reference to Bush's remarks that "all options are on the table," Schroeder told the crowd in his home city of Hanover:

" ... let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

Iran angered the European Union and the United States by resuming uranium conversion at the Isfahan plant last Monday after rejecting an EU offer of political and economic incentives in return for giving up its nuclear program.

Tehran says it aims only to produce electricity and denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear bomb.

The EU -- represented by Britain, France and Germany -- has been trying to find a compromise for two years between arch foes Iran and the United States.

Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was asked in the interview broadcast on Saturday whether possible options included the use of force.

"As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he told state-owned Israel Channel One television.

With what, W? All of your forces are in the sands of Mesopotamia. You squandered your stock of bombs there, too, so you can't even soften them up using the Air Force. This is an idle threat and Iran knows it.

Small Victories

Judge Blocks New Homeland Security Rules

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 13, 2005

Filed at 1:54 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has blocked the Bush administration's plans to overhaul personnel and pay rules at the Department of Homeland Security, saying the government-wide change of labor rules fails to protect workers' right to bargain collectively.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer is a victory for the National Treasury Employees Union and other labor groups. They argued the proposal, which was set to be implemented Monday, would have taken away their bargaining rights on issues such as assigning employees and technology use.

Labor groups have filed similar challenges to a Pentagon plan to revise Defense Department labor rules.

This is ''enormous and critically important win for the rights of federal employees not only in DHS but in all federal agencies,'' said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the NTEU.

In the ruling, Collyer said the new rules exceeded the scope of federal law, citing in particular provisions giving an agency official unchecked authority to change negotiated positions in a collective-bargaining agreement.

''The regulations fail because any collective bargaining negotiations pursuant to its terms are illusory: the secretary retains numerous avenues by which s/he can unilaterally declare contract terms null and void, without prior notice to the unions or employees and without bargaining or recourse,'' Collyer wrote.

This is great news. Bushco has been working like mad to undo decades of civil service protection, as part of their overall goal of reducing working people to peon status.

Torture

Guantanamo Detainee Says Beating Injured Spine
Now in Wheelchair, Egyptian-Born Teacher Objects to Plan to Send Him to Native Land

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 13, 2005; Page A18

An Egyptian-born teacher imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the past 3 1/2 years recently convinced the U.S. military that he is not an enemy combatant, but rather what he said he was: a pro-democracy English teacher swept up when the military seized fighters and suspected terrorists from the battlefields of Afghanistan.

In newly declassified records of statements to his attorney, Sami Al-Laithi said that as a result of his detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, he is now confined to a wheelchair with two broken vertebrae. He said military personnel and interrogators stomped on his back, dropped him on the floor and repeatedly forced his neck forward soon after his arrival at the prison.

He said he has been denied an operation that could save him from permanent paralysis and is being held at Camp V, a maximum-security wing of isolation cells reserved for the most uncooperative and high-value inmates, while he awaits transfer.

Al-Laithi's account of his treatment comes as the Bush administration moves to downsize the military prison, negotiating agreements to transfer as many as 400 of the 510 Guantanamo detainees to other countries. A small number of those to be transferred are detainees whom the military has found not to be enemy combatants. Others were judged to be enemies who tried to harm the United States but are of little current danger -- or intelligence value -- to the military as it tries to combat terrorism.

Military interrogators have told Al-Laithi they may return him to Egypt, the birth country he fled 17 years ago, where he believes he will be imprisoned and tortured for his past criticism of rigged elections there. Al-Laithi, 49, would prefer to be sent elsewhere, including Pakistan or Afghanistan, where he lived for most of his adult life.

A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo, declined to discuss Al-Laithi's case and said the Defense Department does not discuss transfers until they are completed. He said the department "operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation" and provides state-of-the-art medical care.

"Each detainee receives expert medical attention and treatment, if necessary, throughout detention," said Lt. Col. James Marshall, deputy director of public affairs. "This medical care is often better than what detainees would receive in their home countries."

You know, you can't believe a word they say.

Slowing Down

In Praise of a Snail's Pace

By Ellen Goodman

Saturday, August 13, 2005; Page A21

CASCO BAY, Maine -- I arrive at the island post office carrying an artifact from another age. It's a square envelope, handwritten, with a return address that can be found on a map. Inside is a condolence note, a few words of memory and sympathy to a wife who has become a widow. I could have sent these words far more efficiently through e-mail than through this "snail mail." But I am among those who still believe that sympathy is diluted by two-thirds when it arrives over the Internet transom.

I would no more send an e-condolence than an e-thank you or an e-wedding invitation. There are rituals you cannot speed up without destroying them. It would be like serving Thanksgiving dinner at a fast-food restaurant.

My note goes into the old blue mailbox and I walk home wondering if slowness isn't the only way we pay attention now in a world of hyperactive technology.

Weeks ago, a friend lamented the trouble she had communicating with her grown son. It wasn't that her son was out of touch. Hardly. They were connected across miles through e-mail and cell phone, instant-messaging and text-messaging. But she had something serious to say and feared that an e-mail would elicit a reply that said: I M GR8. Was there no way to get undivided attention in the full in-box of his life? She finally chose a letter, a pen on paper, a stamp on envelope.

How do you describe the times we live in, so connected and yet fractured? Linda Stone, a former Microsoft techie, characterizes ours as an era of "continuous partial attention." At the extreme end are teenagers instant-messaging while they are talking on the cell phone, downloading music and doing homework. But adults too live with all systems go, interrupted and distracted, scanning everything, multi-technological-tasking everywhere.

We suffer from the illusion, Stone says, that we can expand our personal bandwidth, connecting to more and more. Instead, we end up overstimulated, overwhelmed and, she adds, unfulfilled. Continuous partial attention inevitably feels like a lack of full attention.

But there are signs of people searching for ways to slow down and listen up. We are told that experienced e-mail users are taking longer to answer, freeing themselves from the tyranny of the reply button. Caller ID is used to find out who we don't have to talk to. And the next "killer ap," they say, will be e-mail software that can triage the important from the trivial.

Meanwhile, at companies where technology interrupts creativity and online contact prevents face-to-face contact, there are now e-mail-free Fridays. At others, there are bosses who require that you check your BlackBerry at the meeting door.

If a ringing cell phone once signaled your importance to a client, now that client is impressed when you turn off the cell phone. People who stayed connected 10 ways, 24-7, now pride themselves on "going dark."

"People hunger for more attention," says Stone, whose message has been welcomed even at a conference of bloggers. "Full attention will be the aphrodisiac of the future."

Indeed, at the height of our romance with e-mail, "You've Got Mail" was the cinematic love story. Now e-mail brings less thrill -- "who will be there?" And more dread -- "how many are out there?" Today's romantics are couples who leave their laptops behind on the honeymoon.

As for text-message flirtation, a young woman ended hers with a man who wrote, "C U L8R." He didn't have enough time to spell out Y-O-U?

One of the things I try to do regularly is write in a journal, and I do it longhand, in ink. I can't quite describe it, but the thinking process for cursive writing is different from keyboarding. A brain scientist I worked with once says that, for optimal brain health, you should devote some time everyday to some cursive writing, learn to play a musical instrument or study a foreign language and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. One of the things I do on vacations is work out the first draft of poems longhand, my bookshelves are filled with notebooks of drafts which I then take home to finish over the winter.

We need to make time for slowness so that our bodies and nervous systems can get caught up with our lives. I also think that a dedication to a certain amount of personal Ludditism: there are some technologies I will not adopt. I use a paper and pencil appointment calendar and address book, a PDA will never find a home here, nor will a Blackberry. I use my cell phone rarely, most of what I have to do isn't so important as to need instantaneous communication.

At the Airport

I lost my Swiss Army Knife and my Leatherman on the last trip. Maybe it is time to notice that this diminuitive blue-eyed blonde is not a terrorist?

Airline Security Changes Planned
Threats Reassessed To Make Travel Easier for Public

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 13, 2005; Page A01

The new head of the Transportation Security Administration has called for a broad review of the nation's air security system to update the agency's approach to threats and reduce checkpoint hassles for passengers.

Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley, an assistant secretary of homeland security, directed his staff to propose changes in how the agency screens 2 million passengers a day. The staff's first set of recommendations, detailed in an Aug. 5 document, includes proposals to lift the ban on various carry-on items such as scissors, razor blades and knives less than five inches long. It also proposes that passengers no longer routinely be required to remove their shoes at security checkpoints.

Agency officials plan to meet this month to consider the proposals, which would require Hawley's approval to go into effect.

Since his confirmation in June, Hawley has told his staff that he would reevaluate security measures put in place since the terrorist attacks in 2001 and ensure that they make sense, given today's threats. The TSA is struggling with new cuts in the screener workforce imposed by Congress while its new leaders hope to improve the agency's poor reputation among air travelers by introducing more customer-friendly measures. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signaled the effort when he announced that the agency would eliminate a requirement that forced passengers to remain in their seats during the first and last 30 minutes of flights using Reagan National Airport.

"The process is designed to stimulate creative thinking and challenge conventional beliefs," said TSA spokesman Mark O. Hatfield Jr. "In the end, it will allow us to work smarter and better as we secure America's transportation system."

The TSA memo proposes to minimize the number of passengers who must be patted down at checkpoints. It also recommends that certain categories of passengers be exempt from airport security screening, such as members of Congress, airline pilots, Cabinet members, state governors, federal judges, high-ranking military officers and people with top-secret security clearances.

The proposal also would allow ice picks, throwing stars and bows and arrows on flights. Allowing those items was suggested after a risk evaluation was conducted about which items posed the most danger.

If approved, only passengers who set off walk-through metal detectors or are flagged by a computer screening system will have to remove their shoes at security checkpoints. The proposal also would give security screeners the discretion to ask certain passengers "presenting reasonably suspicious behavior or threat characteristics" to remove their shoes.

And those pat down searches, the ones I've gotten on every trip?

The proposal also would give screeners discretion in determining whether to pat down passengers. For example, screeners would not have to pat down "those persons whose outermost garments closely conform to the natural contour of the body."

The memo also calls for a new formula to replace the set of computer-screening rules that select passengers for more scrutiny. Currently, the system commonly flags passengers who book one-way tickets or modify travel plans at the last minute. The new TSA plan would give TSA managers assigned to each major airport the authority to de-select a passenger who has been picked out by a computer system.

Some security analysts praised the agency's proposal, saying that security screeners spend too much time trying to find nail scissors and not enough time focused on today's biggest threat: a suicide bomber boarding an airplane. The TSA has very limited capability to detect explosives under a person's clothing, for example, and is trying to roll out more high-tech machines that can protect against such threats.

Jeebus, three years on and the "homeland security" honchos have just figured this out? We are a nation governed by dingos with a collective IQ of about 12.

The American Inclination

G.I.'s Deployed in Iraq Desert With Lots of American Stuff

By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: August 13, 2005

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - First Lt. Taysha Deaton of the Louisiana National Guard went to war expecting a gritty yearlong deployment of sand, heat and duress, but ended up spending her nights in a king-size bed beneath imported sheets and a fluffy down comforter.

She bought the bed from a departing soldier to replace the twin-size metal frame that came with her air-conditioned trailer on this base in western Baghdad. She also acquired a refrigerator, television, cellphone, microwave oven, boom box and DVD player, and signed up for a high-speed Internet connection.

"We had no idea conditions were going to be this great!" said Lieutenant Deaton, 25, the public affairs officer of the 256th Brigade Combat Team and an ambassador of the exclamation mark. "My first thought was, oh my God! This is good!"

As much as modern warfare has changed in recent decades, so has the lifestyle of the modern warrior - at least the modern American warrior on base.

Camp Liberty, one of the best-appointed compounds in the constellation of American military bases in Iraq, has the vague feel of a college campus, albeit with sand underfoot, Black Hawks overhead and the occasional random mortar attack.

The soldiers live in trailers on a grid of neat gravel pathways, and the chow hall offers a vast selection of food and beverages, ethnic cuisine nights, an ice cream parlor and, occasionally, a live jazz combo. Camp Liberty, like many other bases, also has Internet cafes, an impressively stocked store, gymnasiums with modern equipment, air-conditioning everywhere and extracurricular activities like language and martial arts lessons.

Not that life is this comfortable for everyone. Small outposts in the rural hinterlands can be crude, at best, with nothing beyond the very basic amenities and soldiers required to wear their full "battle rattle" - body armor and helmet - all day because insurgent attacks are so frequent.

And for those soldiers whose jobs require them to leave base, there is no escape from the cruel realities of war in Iraq.

Wrapped in body armor and the ubiquitous threat of death, they choke on dust and heat and make do with Meals Ready to Eat. On long combat missions, they may go weeks without a shower and sleep wherever they can: on the ground, in empty buildings, in their cramped vehicles. Beyond that, the Pentagon's program to provide them with stronger, safer vehicles has suffered delays.

But wherever possible, the current generation of young soldiers - like its predecessors in Vietnam and other conflicts - has sought the succor of the familiar, and resourceful soldiers in this war have taken this quest to astonishing levels, accumulating all the accouterments of home: personal electronics, bed linens, furniture, household appliances and beauty products.

Gadgetry, in particular, proliferates among the 138,000 troops stationed in Iraq: laptop computers, MP3 and DVD players, digital cameras, televisions and video game consoles. On bases in greater Baghdad, many soldiers have cellphones and some have satellite dishes that pull in scores of stations. Personal DVD collections numbering several hundred are not uncommon; the legendary ones top 1,000.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much stuff been acquired by so many soldiers in so little time.

Pillage, then burn, has been the rule of human warfare for as long as we've had written records. Is it any wonder that occupiers have been so uniformly hated throughout human history?

If this NYT report is even remotely correct, our young soldiers have collections of stuff that make my own humble life look pretty pale. I don't want or need that much stuff and find it a little alarming that they will have to re-deploy home using pallets from the State Department.

The Big Muddy and the Damn Fool Says to Push On

In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line
Timing Is Muddy For U.S. Pullout

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; A01

The Bush administration has sent seemingly conflicting signals in recent days over the duration of the U.S. deployment to Iraq, openly discussing contingency plans to withdraw as many as 30,000 of 138,000 troops by spring, then cautioning against expectations of any early pullout. Finally yesterday, President Bush dismissed talk of a drawdown as just "speculation and rumors" and warned against "withdrawing before the mission is complete."

If the public was left confused, it may be no more unsure than the administration itself, as some government officials involved in Iraq policy privately acknowledge.

The shifting scenarios reflect the uncertain nature of the mission and the ambiguity of what would constitute its successful completion. For all the clarity of Bush's vow to stay not one day longer than needed, the muddled reality is that no one can say exactly when that will be.

The events of the past week have brought home once again the difficulties confronting the president as he prosecutes what polls suggest is an increasingly unpopular war. With surging violence claiming more U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq and the angry mother of a dead soldier camping out near his ranch in Texas, Bush plainly cannot count on indefinite public patience.

Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves. At the same time, they believe that the mission depends on building a new political infrastructure, a project facing its most decisive test in the next three days as deeply divided Iraqis struggle to draft a constitution by a Monday deadline.

Um, Viet Nam, any one?

Bird Flu: Your Nightmare

This is cool, very cool. Need to improve your kitchen knife technique? The Food Network has the (WMP) online videos (needs broadband.) My brother taught me how to do most of this decades ago, but it isn't a bad refresher course. If you haven't seen what a professional chef can do with a 9" chef's knife, it's worth a look. Better still, look for a cooking course with a knife class. Knowing how to use the tools well just saves so much time. Some of the best community colleges have a night program for a professional cooking certificate. If yours does, ask if they have a knife class and ask if you can pay to sit in on it.

If bird flu comes, you are going to be left to your own devices for crafting meals for your family with limited resources. If you aren't much of a cook, one of the best ways you can prepare yourself is to become a better cook. If you think that being trapped in quarantine with a couple of months of Kraft Mac and Cheese is a vacation, think again. If you have a supply of good rice, a stash of Yukon Gold potatoes and some thoughtfully chosen canned foods, you might not dine like Marie Antoinette, but you don't need to live like Bob Cratchett, either. Hormel makes an excellent tinned beef stroganoff, tho' it is hard to find. Keep cans of good sockeye salmon and water packed tuna on hand. You can do lots of things with them. If you have herbs in the garden, you can dress them up nicely. Citrus keeps forever in the fridge. If the virus holds off for another season, look at ways that you can garden to get at least some fresh produce for yourself and to barter. Start thinking about this now. If, like me, you rarely go to the fancy markets, start casing them now. Having some rare goods in the pantry might keep your household sane and deliver some barterables that you can use to get more basic supplies down the road. You might think this sounds crass, but the best barterables will always be the sins, lay in booze and cigarettes. Those will always get you something.

If you have storage space, lay in a supply of flour and yeast in damage and rat proof containers. If you know how to make bread, you'll be the toast of the neighborhood (the pun's intended.) Yes, I bake. It's not hard to learn to make a good loaf and they'll be prized, since most people are too lazy to learn. Yes, I'm laying in industrial sized quantities. I have a reflector oven for the propane stove or grill if the power goes out.

Lay in candles, lamps and lamp oil, three times what you think you will need for yourself so that you'll have some for sale or barter. I didn't do this before the last hurricane and I could have kicked myself. Batteries for lamps and flashlights can be stored in the fridge NOT the freezer, okay? They'll explode in the freezer. Candle lanterns are available at better camping stores and one, with a reflector, gives enough light to read by, if your bifocals are the correct prescription. Candle lanterns keep candles quite safe. It doesn't make much sense to have our houses piled high with supplies if we then burn them down. Buy extras. You'll use them in the next severe storm.

Nanomasks. Charles and revere are having a discussion about these right now, the bridge of the nose piece of the mask seems to gap. I'll let the two of them work that out and get back to us. An N95 mask is going to be very little protection, the flu bug is much smaller than the holes in this mask. If there is a mask that offers decent protection (with gloves and goggles, by the way) we'll let you know. Until then, stay skeptical.

The information this site provides doesn't pretend to be medically authoritative, but I'm in constant conversation with some of the most thoughtful scientists on several continents. Since Bump went live in November of 2003, I've sought to tell you the truth as I can find it. That's the thought I've woken up with every morning and the one that has put me to bed at the end of the day. Bird flu is a real threat and one you won't hear about on other liberal political sites. I don't know why this is, since it is another very serious indictment of the Bushies. But my Flu Wiki partners and I are determined to let the Web know that "Houston, we have a problem" and no one but the flu sites are telling you about a very serious problem that you can prepare for IF YOU HAVE THE INFORMATION. DKos isn't telling you, Eschaton isn't telling you. One of the pandemic planning sites I visited earlier today said, "This is so horrific that we can't cover it. People will put their hands over their ears and sing "la-la-la I can't hear you" because it is too hard to think about." That is what is going on. We can plan our way out of it, if it happens, or we can be left in the rubble. I'd rather have a couple of cases of food in the basement locker and not need it. I'll happily live with being the chicken little with pallet of soup that wasn't needed. You can point and mock later if I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong and mocked. Point at me, just smile when you do.

Me, I trust Mike Osterholm at the Centers for For Infectious Diseases at the U of Minn and Declan Butler's Connotea. You can chose who you listen to. If this bug gets loose, you can't choose your truth.

Melanie

Unknown Unknowns

When will the troops come home? Your guess is as good as mine

Well, this is comforting: It turns out that the American public may know just as much as the Bush administration does about the plan for getting U.S. troops home from Iraq.

That's the disturbing conclusion you'll apparently hear -- privately, of course -- from some administration officials. In an analysis in Friday's Washington Post, Peter Baker says that government officials involved in Iraq policy "privately acknowledge" that,if the public is confused by conflicting statements about the possibility of a troop drawdown, "it may be no more unsure than the administration itself."

So if the administration doesn't know any more than the public knows, and we know what the public knows, then we know what the administration knows, right? Here's what the public knows, or at least what it has been told over the last few weeks. In late July, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. military official in Iraq, said the U.S. could make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troop levels in the spring and summer. At the beginning of this month, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said he had formed a committee with Iraqis to come up with a detailed plan that would involve withdrawing U.S. troops from specific regions in Iraq. Last weekend, the public learned that Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, has outlined a plan that could bring 20,000 or 30,000 U.S. troops home by the spring. Earlier this week, a top U.S. military official in Baghdad said while such a drawdown is "still possible," people have to start getting more realistic about their expectations. And Thursday in Crawford, Texas, George W. Bush said that any talk of a troop drawdown is "kind of what we call speculation."

Confused? The administration is right there with you, Baker says. "The shifting scenarios reflect the uncertain nature of the mission and the ambiguity of what would constitute its successful completion," he writes. "For all the clarity of Bush's vow to stay not one day longer than needed, the muddled reality is that no one can say exactly when that will be."

Open Thread

We haven't had one in a while. It's hot, I'm feeling sleepy and can't seem to get interested in anything. I've got a couple of books to read this weekend that I promised the publishers I'd review next week and need a little down time. How about you? Have you got plans for the weekend?

The Ides

Thousands Stranded at London's Airport

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 12, 2005

LONDON (AP) -- At least 70,000 travelers were stranded Friday after British Airways canceled all flights to and from Heathrow Airport because of an industrial dispute, an airline spokesman said.

Overnight, about 1,000 people slept at Heathrow's terminals on floors and in seating areas, said BA spokesman Tony Cane.

With almost 100 BA aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew out of position around the world because of the strike, Heathrow management warned that disruption at one of the world's busiest international airport could last for days.

Problems for British Airways' flights started Thursday after baggage handlers and other ground staff joined an industrial dispute between the airline's caterer, Gate Gourmet, and its work force.

Overnight, about 1,000 people slept at Heathrow's terminals on floors and in seating areas, said BA spokesman Tony Cane. He said the airline had been able to put up about 4,000 others in hotels near the airport, the airline's main hub, although most of the stranded travelers had opted to return home.

Cane said about 500 BA flights had to be canceled -- 250 in and another 250 out of Heathrow. The suspension would last until 1 p.m. EDT on Friday at the earliest, he said.

"We've requested that staff come back to work and we're now waiting to be advised of their plans," Cane said.

Qantas and Sri Lankan Airlines, which use BA ground staff, also canceled their flights from Heathrow Friday.

BA appealed to customers booked on Friday's flights not to come to Heathrow but to check on their status online or by calling the airline.

While back at home:

HEAT ADVISORY...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 8 PM EDT
THIS EVENING.

HIGH TEMPERATURES THIS AFTERNOON ARE FORECAST INTO THE MID 90S. COMBINED WITH HIGH HUMIDITY...THIS WILL CREATE HEAT INDEX VALUES AROUND 100 DEGREES.

HEAT RELATED INJURIES WILL BE POSSIBLE IF APPROPRIATE ACTION IS
NOT TAKEN. REDUCE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY...ESPECIALLY DURING THE
HOTTEST PART OF THE DAY. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS...WATER IS YOUR
BEST CHOICE. STAY OUT OF THE SUN FOR PROLONGED PERIODS.

THE ELDERLY AND THE YOUNG ARE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO HEAT RELATED
INJURIES...SO BE SURE TO CHECK ON ELDERLY RELATIVES AND
NEIGHBORS. DO NOT KEEP CHILDREN OR PETS IN CARS WITH WINDOWS
ROLLED UP...EVEN PARTIALLY. TEMPERATURES INSIDE A CAR WITH
WINDOWS UP CAN REACH OVER 150 DEGREES QUICKLY...RESULTING IN HEAT
STROKE AND DEATH.

August means that you can't catch a break.

The Nose Under the Tent

Abramoff Indicted in Casino Boat Purchase
Lobbyist, Associate Charged With Fraud

By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page A01

MIAMI, Aug. 11 -- Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a business partner were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy in their purchase of a fleet of Florida gambling boats from a businessman who was later killed in a gangland-style hit.

Abramoff, 46, was arrested in Los Angeles in the late afternoon and was expected to be taken before a U.S. magistrate there on Friday. He was indicted along with Adam Kidan, the former owner of the Dial-a-Mattress franchise in Washington. Kidan, 41, of New York City, will surrender to the FBI here by Friday morning, his attorney, Martin I. Jaffe, said in a written statement.

Five years ago, while he was still one of the capital's most prominent Republican lobbyists, Abramoff, with Kidan and former Reagan administration official Ben Waldman of Springfield, Va., took over SunCruz Casinos. The company operated a fleet of gambling boats from as many as 11 ports in Florida. Although the indictment does not detail the effort, Abramoff leveraged his connections with members of Congress to advance the SunCruz deal, according to interviews and thousands of documents, court records and e-mails filed in related bankruptcy cases.

Abramoff's spokesman in New York, Andrew Blum, declined to comment, referring calls to Abramoff's Miami attorney, Neal Sonnett, who did not return calls. Kidan said in a statement that he had cooperated with investigators, adding: "I did nothing wrong and these allegations are totally unfounded."

Each of the six counts in the indictment could bring a punishment of as much as five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Federal authorities are also seeking $60 million from Abramoff and Kidan, the money lost by a lender they had sought out to help finance the casino ships' purchase.

The indictment marks the first formal charges against Abramoff, who has been at the center of a Washington controversy this year involving the large sums of money he collected from Indian casino interests and the influence he exerted on their behalf.

Josh Marshallhas some thoughts about who else might be in play, and that this might be the tip of a stinky Texas iceberg.

Your Tax Dollar at Work

Audit: Fraud drained $1 billion from Iraq's defense efforts

By Hannah Allam

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi investigators have uncovered widespread fraud and waste in more than $1 billion worth of weapons deals arranged by middlemen who reneged or took huge kickbacks on contracts to arm Iraq's fledgling military, according to a confidential report and interviews with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, in a report reviewed by Knight Ridder, describes transactions suggesting that senior U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials in the Defense Ministry used three intermediary companies to hide the kickbacks they received from contracts involving unnecessary, overpriced or outdated equipment.

Knight Ridder reported last month that $300 million in defense funds had been lost. But the report indicates that the audit board uncovered a much larger scandal, with losses likely to exceed $500 million, that's roiling the ministry as it struggles to build up its armed forces.

The episode deprives Iraq's military of essential gear that could help prepare the way for U.S. forces to withdraw. It also raises questions about the new government's ability to provide an effective defense against an entrenched insurgency and win broad acceptance among Iraqis.

The audit board's investigators looked at 89 contracts of the past year and discovered a pattern of deception and sloppiness that squandered more than half the Defense Ministry's annual budget aimed at standing up a self-sufficient force, according to a copy of the 33-page report.

Its revelations offer the most comprehensive look to date at corruption that allegedly thrived for eight months or longer even with about 20 American civilian advisers working alongside Iraqi defense chiefs, including those now under investigation. The report does not suggest that U.S. advisers were involved in any corruption.

"If one dinar is misspent, I ache for it, so just imagine how it feels for such huge sums," Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said in an interview Wednesday. "We need it to build the country and, even if we reach the level to where we don't need it, we aren't about to give our money over to corruption."

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which oversees civilian advisers to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, didn't consent to on-the-record interviews about the investigation. In response to a request for comment, it issued a statement that said embassy officials were aware of the allegations and that, even before they became public, "we were advising the Iraqis about our concerns relating to MoD decisions on procurement and the possibility of corruption."

Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi confirmed most of audit board report's findings in an interview last Sunday, saying that at least $500 million in Iraqi money essentially has disappeared. He's removed nine senior officials so far - he fired the ministry's procurement chief and placed his own deputy minister, Bruska Shaways, on leave - and said he was working through a list of other employees who faced dismissal and possible criminal charges.

"This is not only the Defense Ministry's problem. It affects the image of the new Iraq," al-Dulaimi said. "If we really spent that money in the right way, maybe it would have given us more capabilities to face terrorists."

The Board of Supreme Audit, led by former Human Rights Minister Abdel Baset al-Turki, examined defense contracts that had been signed starting with the transfer of sovereignty June 28, 2004, through Feb. 28, 2005. The investigation's results, supported by bank statements, receipts and internal Defense Ministry memos, were delivered to al-Jaafari's office May 16.

Among the findings:

-Multimillion-dollar contracts were awarded to favored weapons suppliers without a bidding process and without the required approval from the prime minister's office. Investigators wrote that the chief procurer went "beyond his authority" in purchasing equipment.

-Senior Iraqi officials kept little or no record of major purchases, sometimes noting lucrative deals in "undated and unnumbered" memos. Nearly all purchases contained a clause - unusual in international contracting of this magnitude - that required the contract's full value to be paid up front in cash.

-Instead of buying directly from a foreign company or government, Iraqi arms procurers hired third-party companies to negotiate the contracts. When Iraqi leaders later complained about unfulfilled contracts, they discovered they had no recourse to demand a refund because the payments were made to Iraqi middlemen who vanished after receiving the millions. "The undertakings make no obligation ... toward the Iraqi Ministry of Defense," according to the report.

-The sole beneficiary on 43 of the 89 contracts was a former currency-exchange operator, Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, whose name doesn't even appear on the contracts. At least $759 million in Iraqi money was deposited into his personal account at a bank in Baghdad, according to the report. Internal records incorrectly "indicated that the Ministry of Defense signed contracts with Poland, Arab countries, the United States and Europe, but we discovered that all contracts were signed and executed with Iraqi suppliers," the report said.

The contracts under scrutiny total $1.27 billion, nearly equal to the estimated $1.3 billion allocated for the Defense Ministry's budget this year. The money came solely from Iraqi coffers, not from the training budget of the U.S. military or from NATO and foreign donations to Iraq's military.

"There's no rebuilding, no weapons, nothing," said retired Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abdul Aziz al-Yaseri, who worked in the Defense Ministry at the height of the alleged corruption. "There are no real contracts, even. They just signed papers and took the money."

Here is your Iraq war, it is all about the fraud and kickbacks. Feeling safer? Show me one thing that Bushco has been competent at and I'll vote Republican in the next election.

Commander in Chief

Death toll among part-time troops in Iraq soars.

By Robert Burns; AP Military writer
August 11, 2005

The National Guard and Reserve suffered more combat deaths in Iraq during the first 10 days of August at least 32, according to a Pentagon count than in any full month of the war.

More broadly, Pentagon casualty reports show that the number of deaths among Guard and Reserve forces has been trending upward for much of this year, totaling more than 100 since May 1. That ranks as the deadliest stretch of the war for the Guard and Reserve, whose members perform both combat and support missions.

There is little evidence to suggest that part-time troops are being specifically targeted by the insurgents, since Guard and Reserve troops are mostly indistinguishable from and interchangeable with active-duty regulars.

The 42nd Infantry Division of the New York Army National Guard is commanding a combat force in north-central Iraq that includes two brigades from the active-duty 3rd Infantry Division, and a brigade from the Mississippi Army National Guard is operating with the Marine Corps.

The Pentagon rejects any suggestion that the Guard and Reserve are more vulnerable in combat because they are part-timers.

"We will not deploy a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who is not fully trained and prepared for the mission," said Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman. "Combat operations are inherently dangerous, and despite the best training and the best equipment, we will unfortunately have service members killed and wounded in action."

Some see it differently. Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution think tank, said Thursday that while the performance of reservists has been generally excellent, some are shortchanged on training prior to arriving in Iraq.

"If we really believe that military personnel need months of intensive training before being at their best, as logic suggests and other evidence would seem to prove, it is hard to believe that most reservists in Iraq are really as strong as active-duty troops, especially when they first arrive in-country," O'Hanlon said.

The 32 combat deaths in the first 10 days of August are in addition to one death classified as noncombat.

The previous highest monthly killed-in-action total for the Guard and Reserve was 27 in May, with four other noncombat deaths. In August 2004, there were six Guard and Reserve combat deaths and eight including accidents.

The increasing death toll among reserve forces in recent months reflects, at least in part, their more prominent role in Iraq. They represent about half the U.S. combat forces there, or double the share in early 2004.

By this time next year, if the Pentagon's plan holds up, the number of National Guard brigades in Iraq would fall to two, as the regular active-duty Army redeploys two newly enlarged divisions, the 101st Airborne and the 4th Infantry.

The recent surge in Guard and Reserve combat deaths comes as the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are stuck in a prolonged recruiting slump that some attribute in large measure to young people's fear of being sent to Iraq. More than 1,840 U.S. service members, active and reserve, have died since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Remind me again why we are having a war with Iraq?

Remember that 30 years ago, one of the sales slogans they gave us for 'Nam was "to make the world safe for democracy." President Moonbat, who skipped his Nam tour, seems to have sorta remembered that one. The coke didn't completely mess up his memory.

Lunch or Dinner, but the leftovers make great juice for breakfast

Cold Melon Soup

(total time: 15 minutes)

2 ripe cantaloupes, about 2 pounds each
1/4 cup dry sherry
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup creme fraiche
6 springs fresh tarragon

1. Split melons in half, root end down. Put juice and seed in
a find sieve set over a bowl. There should be about 1/3 cup of
juice. Set aside.

2. Using a melon-ball scoop, cut out 12 balls from each melon
half. Set aside. Using a large spoon, remove remaining flesh,
and place it in the container of a blender. Add reserved juice
and dry sherry. Puree until very fine. Place mixture in a bowl,
and season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. To serve, stack 12 melon balls in the center of each of four
soup plates, forming a pyramid. Divide soup evenly around melon
balls. Place a sprig of tarragon on top. Chop remaining
tarragon, and sprinkle around edges of soup. With a spoon, draw a squiggle of creme fraiche on the surface of the soup on each plate.

Yield: 4 servings

Hint: use the empty melon shells as soup bowls. No washing and they look cool on the table.

If you'd like to print out single recipes/posts, just click on the permanent link in the time stamp at the bottom of the post. It will render the single post in your browser, rather than the whole front page of the blog. Your browser software will tell you how to print.

Sleeping Around

Could be that dad is not real father, report shows
Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:47 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Perhaps one out of every 25 dads could unknowingly be raising another man's child, a finding that has huge health and social implications, according to report released Wednesday.

Exposing so-called paternal discrepancy -- when a child is identified as being biologically fathered by someone other than the man who believes he is the father -- could lead to family violence and the breakup of many families. On the other hand, leaving paternal discrepancy hidden means having the wrong genetic information, which could have health consequences.

A UK-based research team reviewed scientific research dealing with paternity published between 1950 and 2004 and reports that rates of paternal discrepancy range from less than 1 percent to as much as 30 percent.

The investigation also showed that becoming pregnant at a younger age, low socioeconomic status, and being in a long-term relationship rather than being married seem to be linked to greater likelihood of paternal discrepancy.

It is generally believed that rates of paternal discrepancy are less than 10 percent. A paternal discrepancy rate of 4 percent means that one in 25 families could be affected.

However, soaring rates of paternity testing in North America and Europe means more cases of paternal discrepancy will be identified in the years ahead, Professor Mark A. Bellis, from the Center for Public Health at the Liverpool John Moores University, and colleagues point out in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

In the United States, for example, rates of paternity testing more than doubled between 1991 and 2001. The increasing use of genetic testing for diagnosis and treatment of disease as well as in judicial procedures will also yield more opportunities to uncover cases where a father, unbeknownst to him, is not the biological parent.

"Modern genetic techniques continue to open a Pandora's box on hitherto hidden aspects of human sexual behavior," the investigators write.

People are promiscuous. Imagine that, but don't imagine it too hard.

If I weren't the spitting image of my father, I'd be in the disputed class.

"Modern genetic techniques continue to open a Pandora's box on hitherto hidden aspects of human sexual behavior," the investigators write." Hidden from whom? This has been a well-documented aspect of human behavior since writing was invented. These "investigators" must not know much about humans.

Freud said a century ago, " humans are polymorphously perverse."

Talking with the Best

Laurie Garrett: Are We Prepared for Avian Flu?

August 11, 2005 — By Jim Motavalli, E - The Environmental Magazine

Laurie Garrett, the only reporter to win all three of journalism’s big “P” awards (the Peabody, the Polk and the Pulitzer) is extraordinarily well positioned to tell the frightening and emerging story of avian flu. The author of two major public health books, Betrayal of Trust and The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance, she was a science correspondent at National Public Radio before joining the science-writing staff of Newsday in 1988.

Today, Garrett is Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her story “The Next Pandemic?” was published in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, the Council’s bi-monthly magazine. In it, Garrett traces the history of U.S. pandemics, including the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans. Avian flu could be even worse. “If the relentlessly evolving virus becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, develops a power of contagion typical of human influenzas, and maintains its extraordinary virulence,” she writes, “humanity could well face a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed. Or nothing at all could happen.” According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an H5N1 avian influenza that is transmittable from human to human could sicken 80 million people and kill 16 million.

Influenza comes from aquatic birds, including migratory ducks, geese and herons. As Garrett explains, the loss of these birds’ migratory routes in China has brought them into direct contact with humans in farms and parks. In this way, influenza is spread from migrating birds to domestic birds, then to pigs and ultimately to humans. This chain of events involves veterinary science, ecology and medicine, the triumvirate studied by the science of conservation medicine.

Click on the link to read the interview. Before she headed to CFR, she was the number one science journalist in the country.

Strange Bedfellows

And we're fighting in Iraq because?

Let's see if we have this right. We're fighting in Iraq because al Qaida attacked us on 9/11. And the Pentagon is going to have a big party in Washington on the anniversary of 9/11 -- your invitation is waiting here --- to tell the troops in Iraq how in Iraq just how much we appreciate what they're doing there.

It all makes perfectly good sense to us. But then, how do we explain this? According to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, U.S. law enforcement officials say that a man the United States has accused of being an "American contact" for an Osama bin Laden "front organization" is now working for the new Iraqi government the United States is trying so hard to prop up.

Newsweek says an American-born Iraqi citizen named Tariq A. Hamdi -- who the U.S. government says delivered a satellite-telephone battery to bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 -- is working at the Iraqi Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. Hamdi was indicted last May in Virginia on charges of immigration and mortgage fraud, Newsweek says, but an affidavit filed in the case makes it clear that the government has bigger concerns about him. In that affidavit, Newseek repots, a U.S. custom agent accuses Hamdi of providing "material support" to bin Laden and al Qaida. Among other things, the agent says that Hamdi traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 and delivered a satellite-phone battery to bin Laden. Hamdi made the trip, the agent says, while helping arrange for an ABC News reporter to interview bin Laden.

It Must Be August

Antagonist of the Left Expresses Righteous Indignation About Roberts

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A02

Conservative activist Eugene Delgaudio knows how to seize a political moment when he sees one.

To mark the anniversary of Chappaquiddick, Delgaudio, a Loudoun County supervisor by day, hosted a march on Capitol Hill of people in bathing suits calling themselves the "Ted Kennedy Swim Team."

At a gay rights march in Washington, he set aside a "Sodomy Free Zone" and, at the Democratic convention, he hosted a "Man-Donkey Mock Wedding Ceremony."

Way back in 1987, in support of Robert H. Bork's Supreme Court nomination, he sponsored "Criminals Against Bork," a group of actors dressed as thugs who cheered Democrats for opposing the nominee.

But in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, Delgaudio turned his flamboyant protest on one of his own: John G. Roberts Jr., a conservative judge tapped by a conservative president for the high court.

"Judge Roberts assisted the forces that would criminalize Christianity," Delgaudio shouted toward a clump of two dozen journalists and a similar number of tourists, many wearing orange "Old Town Trolley" stickers. Calling on President Bush to withdraw the nomination, Delgaudio, president of a group called Public Advocate of the United States, demanded: "How can you assist the forces that we consider anti-morality and still claim to be on the side of God?"

This performance by Delgaudio can mean one of two things for nominee Roberts: either that conservative opposition to him is coalescing after it was learned last week that he gave pro bono legal advice to gay-rights advocates; or, that conservative support for Roberts is so strong that only a fringe character such as Delgaudio would oppose him.
....
Delgaudio recited his conservative credentials for the cameras -- he supported both Bork and Clarence Thomas -- but said he could not support a man who volunteered to help gay-rights advocates. "Mr. Roberts's actions cast doubt on his support of the American family," Delgaudio said, almost shouting.

But his questioners were skeptical. A reporter from the Christian publication Family News told Delgaudio that there have been "rumblings" of discontent but no defections among conservatives. "The first person is always the hardest," he replied. Pressed again about the lack of support for his position, Delgaudio allowed that "some people say I talk too much." But, he predicted, "I think others will join me in the days ahead."

A few feet away, one already had -- but not the sort of ally Delgaudio was seeking. Robert Boston, a spokesman for the liberal group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was giving interviews about why his organization opposes Roberts for entirely different reasons.

Boston welcomed Delgaudio's defection -- to a point. Asked if the two might join forces against Roberts, Boston smiled at the notion. "I don't think so," he said.

Clueless Carlson

Margaret Carlson:
A grieving mother waits for an answer

Even hardened reporters can be flummoxed by Bush. It's not hard to picture Sheehan dazed by him as he mixed up his styles — guy next door, president, the "mission accomplished" commander in chief — with that of a somber undertaker invoking the "loved one" a few too many times. You can picture Sheehan, a small-town mom with good manners, not wanting to disappoint the folks back home with too much candor.

That time is gone, as Sheehan taps into a growing majority of Americans who wonder if the president gets it. That majority now has its own song (the Rolling Stones' "Sweet Neo Con"), its own candidate (Iraq war veteran and Democrat Paul Hackett, who nearly upset the favorite in a Republican stronghold in a special House election in Ohio) and a concession by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (the "war on terror" has become "the global struggle against violent extremism").

Sheehan and others trying to get to Bush's ranch were forced by county police to walk in a three-foot-deep ditch along the side of road and stop five miles short. She ended up pitching a small tent in a tiny patch of shade.

Sheehan has two great advantages: It's the August dog days of news, and she didn't set up in front of the White House. There she would be competing with anti-nuclear, anti-fluoride and anti-globalism protesters. All around her sit satellite uplinks and reporters, finally with something worthier of their attention than Rafael Palmeiro's steroids and Katherine Harris' makeup.

Sheehan is part of a small group of parents who have lost children in Iraq and hate the war. There is a much larger group of parents who believe that Bush is doing everything he can and that he couldn't have anticipated an insurgency whose bombs and members would grow more sophisticated and deadly by the day. For them, their children's deaths were not in vain and most have disdain for all who hold the other view.

Members of Sheehan's tiny Gold Star Families for Peace believe that the president was wrong and is now clueless about what to do. They have stepped into the abyss of regret and senselessness that comes with knowing a child died for a mistake.

Sheehan reminds me of Lila Lipscomb, the Flint, Mich., mother who lost a son and got lost amid less compelling material in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." Lipscomb was an ardent supporter of the military who was devastated because she had encouraged her son to join up to get the education she couldn't afford to give him.

After a "9/11" screening for press and politicians in Washington, Lipscomb said a few words. When the lights came up, the audience spent a long time picking up its things. No one wanted to be seen crying, especially when our privileged positions protect us from ever having to endure what Lipscomb had.

On Friday, Bush will have to pass by Sheehan in his climate-controlled car with its tinted windows, or forgo a fundraiser nearby. He lives in a bubble — his prescreened audiences applaud him for platitudes and for his resolve. He goes nowhere alone. He took Dick Cheney to his interview with the 9/11 commission.

He isn't refusing to see Sheehan because he's callous but because he's like those of us listening to Lipscomb. Alone with Sheehan, he might find himself crying over something his privileged position means he will never have to endure.

"Hardened" reporter Carlson may be "flummoxed" by Bush, but the rest of us aren't: arrogant bubble boy doesn't have a clue about anything outside of the concerns of his privileged social set, nor does he care. We have Cindy Sheehan's own testimony that he's a sociopath incapable of empathy. Yes, there is a nut in a bowl of them running the country, and the rest of the world knows it.

Hypocrisy All Around

An Army Affair

Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A22

DESPITE MYRIAD hearings, investigations and prominent trials of privates and specialists, no commissioned officer has received serious punishment for any of the many confirmed cases of prisoner mistreatment in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two of those involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal have received letters of reprimand. One was demoted. None has been court-martialed.

By contrast, Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, 55, a four-star general who served 36 years in the Army, was abruptly relieved of his command on Tuesday. According to his attorney, Gen. Byrnes, who is now divorced, stands accused of having had an extramarital affair with a civilian who is not his colleague, is not his subordinate and has no connection to the military. An officer familiar with the case told The Post that despite the apparent irrelevance of the affair, the harsh verdict -- apparently the only such demotion of a four-star general in modern times -- was justified: "We all swear to serve by the highest ideals, and no matter what rank, when you violate them, you are dealt with appropriately."

From this incident, it is possible to draw only one conclusion: It's okay for officers to oversee units that torture civilians and thereby damage the reputation of the United States around the world, do terrible harm to the ideological war on terrorism and inspire more Iraqis to become insurgents. Having an affair with a civilian, on the other hand, is completely unacceptable and will end your career.

This is positively Rumsfeldian. It is astonishing how tone-deaf this DoD is. Every paper in the country has carried the same riff on this story. But, then again, the hallmark of the Bush administration is that we're the aristocrats and we don't have to answer to your petty concerns, you silly plebes.

Commentor Bryan at Susie's place notes:

What he did was write the book on adultery in the military about 15 years ago.

Byrnes, Kevin P. Professional Ethics: Leader’s Business. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1990.

He knew the rules because he essentially wrote them and annoyed a lot of people in the process. Everyone affected by his book was laying in wait for him.

Payback time.

The Dog Days of War

Americans get mixed signals on future of war in Iraq

By Joseph L. Galloway, Knight Ridder Newspapers Wed Aug 10, 5:45 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The dog days of summer are upon us, and the signals for the future in our war in Iraq are deeply mixed, deeply confused and confusing, depending on who you listen to and what you read.

Gen. George Casey, the ground commander in Iraq, says we will begin drawing down American forces in Iraq as soon as the dawn of the New Year 2006.

Surely it is no coincidence that 2006 will bring us midterm elections for a new Congress, while the polls show the American people beginning to turn against
President Bush's war and his management of same. Only 38 percent of those surveyed in an AP-IPSOS poll now say they support the way the president is managing the war.

So we have a president who continues at every opportunity to say that he - and we - will "stay the course" in Iraq, while his political advisers look at the polling numbers and break out in cold sweat. What to do?

Send out the general to suggest the draw-down is imminent, even as the
Pentagon is announcing that between now and the end of the year we will actually increase the number of American troops on the ground in Iraq to secure the ratification of Iraq's new constitution and election of its new parliament.

Some divisions nearing the end of their latest 12 months in Hell will find they are being extended for another month or two or three. Some divisions preparing to rotate back into Iraq for the second or even third time may find their departures moved up correspondingly. The overlap is the buildup.

It amounts to a stealth increase of forces in Iraq, done on the cheap, while simultaneously sending a signal to American voters that a reduction in U.S. forces -especially all those National Guard and Reserve troops who have borne a heavy and deadly burden in this war and whose families back home are voters - is just around the corner.

It's enough to make a cynic of Mother Teresa.

Yup.

Idiots of History

No End in Sight in Iraq

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 10, 2005

The news coming out of Iraq yesterday was that several more American soldiers had been killed. August's toll so far has been mind-numbing. For American troops, it's been one of the worst periods of the war. And yet there's still no sense of urgency within the Bush administration.

The president is on vacation. He's down at the ranch riding his bicycle and clearing brush. The death toll for Americans has streaked past the 1,800 mark. The Iraqi dead are counted by the tens of thousands. But if Mr. Bush has experienced any regret about the carnage he set in motion when he launched the war, he's not showing it.

Writing about Vietnam in the foreword to David Halberstam's book "The Best and the Brightest," Senator John McCain said:

"It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn't support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay."

That point is no less relevant now. The administration is not willing to commit to an all-out effort to defeat the insurgents in Iraq, and is equally unwilling to reverse course and bring the troops home. Most Americans are abandoning the idea that the war can be "won." Polls are showing that they're tired of the conflict and its relentlessly mounting toll. It's hard to imagine that the population at large will be willing to sacrifice thousands of additional American lives over several more years in pursuit of goals that remain as murky as ever.

Ask a thousand different suits in Washington why we're in Iraq and you'll get a thousand different answers. Ask how we plan to win the war, and you'll get a blank stare.

Administration types and high-ranking members of the military have recently been teasing the media and the public with comments that are designed to give the impression that substantial numbers of American troops could be brought home next year.

Not only are these comments hedged with every imaginable caveat - if the transition to a permanent government goes smoothly, and if the Iraqis prove capable of providing their own security - but they are coming at a time when the U.S. is planning to increase American troop strength in Iraq in anticipation of elections scheduled for December.

I wouldn't schedule any homecoming rallies just yet, not with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warning that the current horrific violence may well escalate as the elections approach. And no one believes that the Iraqi security forces will be up to the task of securing the country any time soon.

When asked on Tuesday about a possible exit strategy for American troops, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters it depended on many "variables," including:

"What are the Iranians doing? Are they going to be helpful or unhelpful? And if they're increasingly unhelpful, then obviously the conditions on the ground are less advantageous. Same thing with the Syrians."

Got that?

When Lyndon Johnson sent American troops into the flaming disaster of Vietnam he had no real strategy, no plan for winning the war. The idea, more or less, was that our boys, tougher and much better equipped, would beat their boys. Case closed. Fifty-eight thousand American troops succumbed to this schoolyard fantasy.

So, which "schoolyard fantasy" are we living this time? Does every generation have to go through some sort of hormone induced mistake? Do we never learn from the mistakes of the past?

Good Food and Politics

This is huge. I gave up all trans fats and most fats a while back.

Hold That Fat, New York Asks All Restaurants

By MARC SANTORA
Published: August 11, 2005

The New York City health department urged all city restaurants yesterday to stop serving food containing trans fats, chemically modified ingredients that health officials say significantly increase the risk of heart disease and should not be part of any healthy diet.

The request, the first of its kind by any large American city, is the latest salvo in the battle against trans fats, components of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which three decades ago were promoted as a healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter.

Today, most scientists and nutrition experts agree that trans fat is America's most dangerous fat and recommend the use of alternatives like olive and sunflower oils.

"To help combat heart disease, the No. 1 killer in New York City, we are asking restaurants to voluntarily make an oil change and remove artificial trans fat from their kitchens," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city's health commissioner, who compared trans fats to asbestos and lead as public health threats. "We are also urging food suppliers to provide products that are trans-fat free."

It is far from clear how many restaurants will heed the call of Dr. Frieden, one of the city's most activist public health commissioners in a generation.

A survey by the department's food inspectors found that from 30 to 60 percent of the city's 20,000 restaurants use partially hydrogenated oil in food preparation, meaning that thousands of cooks and chefs might need to change their cooking and purchasing habits to meet the request. Trans fats are particularly prominent in baked goods, frying oils, and breading, and can be hard to replace without raising costs or changing the taste of familiar foods like cookies and French fries.

While the health department will not seek to ban the ingredient outright, it has begun an educational campaign among restaurateurs, their suppliers and the public denouncing trans fats. In a letter sent to all food suppliers in the city last week, Dr. Frieden wrote: "Consumers want healthier choices when eating out. Our campaign will increase consumer demand for meals without trans fat."

Many of the city's higher-priced restaurants already avoid using the fats, and Dr. Frieden said he had received a positive response from other restaurants and suppliers who will try to get on board.

"Working together to reduce trans fat from our kitchens will be one more way to ensure an enjoyable and healthy experience," said E. Charles Hunt, the executive vice president for the New York State Restaurant Association, which represents 7,000 restaurants across the state.

Public health officials contend that trans fat not only has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but also reduces the "good" cholesterol that works to clear arteries.

Denmark imposed a ban in 2003 on all processed foods containing more than 2 percent of trans fat for every 100 grams of fat. Canada is considering a similar ban.

Government agencies in the United States have been less interventionist, largely relying on the industry to police itself. Outside of New York, the only effort of note was a campaign in Tiburon, a small town in Marin County, Calif., that led to 18 local restaurants ending the use of trans fats.

New York's campaign comes on the heels of the Food and Drug Administration's finding that there is no safe level of trans fats in a healthy diet. As a result of that finding, all food companies must include trans fat levels in labeling information starting Jan. 1.

One could see this as nanny-ism, or a concession to the fact that Americans are clueless eaters who basically don't have the foggiest idea of what they are putting in their bodies. The latter concept would be the correct one. It would be lovely if the public health authorities in this country actually responded to the fact that avian flu is a more immediate and dangerous threat than the long term challenge of getting people to eat more healthily, but yer takes whut yer can gets.

Most prepared meats contain some level of trans-fats, this is going to drive the deli owners into the arms of the halal and kosher meat preparers. That's a good thing.

Get rid of the trans fats in your diet by looking at what oils and prepared foods you are eating. Margarine is a stinker. Use butter, just use less, and bust the salt out of your food and your butter. Once you stop using it, it will take a couple of weeks before you start really tasting what food tastes like, but you will, once your tastebuds lose their addiction to salt. Eat the Meditarranean Diet for better food and a healthier life. More fruits and veg, less meat, less prepared food. A pound of butter lasts me three months.

Heart disease is at epidemic levels in this country. We have an epidemic of diabetes, caused by bad diets. Changing the way we eat will help lower the national health insurance bill. I'm surprised to see this on the front page of the Times, who are normally in the pocket of the pushers of America's bad diet, Archer, Daniels, Midland and the rest, who benefit from our wide asses.

Baskin Robbins wants you even more than the Military does. If you aren't an actual soldier, be a good corporate soldier and go do what you are told: eat too much. Get addicted to the national lousy diet so that Burger King can keep running the White House.

Eating "good food," the stuff which is actually good for you, is a political act. It is turning your back on all the crap you've been sold by Bushco and acting like a sensible human instead of turning more bucks over to his corporate shills. It is striking a blow for independence, good health and good sense to refuse that package of salt-laden Hormel Beef Stew in the cold case at the Giant, or Publix or Shopco, or where ever you buy your food.

Be a good liberal: shop locally, buy organic and, above all, cook up a storm! feeding the people you love. You'll have a great time. And that's the point.

Where is the "Oil IN Food" corruption story? Hmmm?

Things That Go Together

Grilled Provoleta

This Argentine classic is a natural with steaks, but I think it would be a great side to the Ratatouille below. Pick up some crusty baguette at the market.

1/2 pound provolone, in 1 whole round slice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
Bread slices
Chimichurri, recipe follows

Heat grill to 400 degrees F.

Combine the oil and spices in a flat dish. Coat each size of the cheese with the marinade. Place cheese on the grill for 45 seconds. Flip the cheese and grill for another 45 seconds. Transfer cheese to a small round baking dish. Serve immediately, using small knives to spread the cheese mixture onto bread slices. Drizzle Chimichurri sauce over.

Chimichurri:
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon aji molido (Argentine ground pepper), or ground sweet pepper
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley leaves
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
Pinch coarse sea salt
1/4 cup malt vinegar, or white vinegar
1 cup canola/olive oil blend

Place garlic, aji molido, parsley, chili flakes, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and puree until well ground. With the machine running, add vinegar and slowly pour in oil; process until emulsified. Transfer to a deep jar. The sauce can be kept, covered, for up to 3 months in the refrigerator.

Chimichurri is called "the butter of Argentina" and it is used on everything. If you are, like me, a garlic hound, you'll use it on everything. I put it on huevos rancheros for breakfast, less cholesterol than guacamole. The proportions above will serve four. This is the pesto of South America and goes with nearly anything. Try it on grilled shrimp as a first course.

Instead of using chili flakes in all these recipes, use fresh chilis, finely chopped. Most years, I grow my own, but I got heavily into the herbs this year and didn't have room. Fortunately, I can easily get them at the farmers' market and even the grocery down the street most of the year. They are very easy to grow in only a half day of sun, have "compact habit" (as the gardeners say=don't need much room) so I can grow them in my little condo garden. For a spectacularly successful gardening experience, use Miracle-Gro in the watering can once a week according to the package directions. This stuff really works. You can have a couple of containers on your balcony if you have one and have a satisfying gardening experience. If you are an apartment dweller, find out if your town or city has a community garden. It is incredibly satisfying to grow and eat your own food, and to know that you are feeding the people you love ingredients that you yourself have tended and can serve with the pride of your own care. I've been gardening, one way or another, since my crunchy granola hippy days back in the 1970's. My style has changed a lot (lost the granny glasses and the low rise jeans as a concession to middle age) but I've only gotten more curious and adventurous as a cook and eater.

Summer Cooking

This was in the WaPo today (I like reading about food as much as I love cooking it and eating it.) Here's my agenda for shopping at the farmers' market this Saturday. I haven't made this in ages.

A Laid-Back Ratatouille

By Angus Phillips

Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page F02

An occasional series in which staff members share a recipe that we turn to time and again:

Like many men who cook, I love to make wonderful things in the kitchen. But I don't want to spend a lot of time there or much money on the fixings. I learned to cook in Spain, where the only immutable rule is that ingredients must be fresh and that garlic and olive oil grace just about everything. That's about all the culinary education I got or ever felt the need for.

July and August are prime months for folks like me, when fresh vegetables are cheap and abundant. One of my favorite concoctions is an aromatic and delicious summer ratatouille that takes little time, skill or money to make.

Recently, we stopped at the Saturday morning farmers market in Annapolis and picked up the basic ingredients for about $2. The final result was, as usual, good enough even for the kids, who when they were little used to call this dish "Daddy's red stuff" and gobble it enthusiastically.

The basic ingredients are eggplant, yellow and green summer squash, an onion, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to make, followed by an hour or so of simmering. At every stage, this dish fills the house with an ever-changing aroma that would be worth the trouble even if you never ate any of it.

You need a large, deep frying pan, preferably cast iron. Start by peeling and slicing as many cloves of fresh garlic as you dare -- five or six large cloves seem like a fair number. Pour more olive oil than you should into the pan -- as much as half a cup -- and get it hot, but not sizzling. Scrape the thin-sliced garlic in and let it cook three or four minutes, stirring to keep the slices from getting brown.

Meantime, peel two small eggplant and cut them into bite-size chunks or slices, cut two or three summer squashes -- you can use green or yellow or a combination -- into similar-sized disks, and peel and chop an onion. I always sauté the eggplant first and watch in horror as it absorbs most or all of the olive oil. (My ex-wife, an Italian, used to say that in Italy only kings ate eggplant because only they could afford so much olive oil.)

Stir the eggplant chunks to cook them on both sides. When they start picking up color, add the squash and the onion. If the pan looks dry, add more olive oil. It won't hurt you! The squash will nearly fill most pans, but it soon cooks down. You must stir the ingredients every few minutes for the first 15 or 20 minutes to get everything in contact with the hot surface.

Once most of the squash starts turning opaque, it's time to add tomatoes. I confess I usually use a 16-ounce can of diced tomatoes here, thickening it with a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, but you can use any favorite sauce or fresh Roma tomatoes. Toss in a glass of good red wine (about 8 ounces), a handful of Italian herbs (basil and oregano, basically), some salt, freshly ground black pepper and a liberal dose of any good hot pepper sauce. Put the cover on and let it simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. If you happen to have kernels of fresh, sweet corn around, throw them in toward the end.

You can serve this ratatouille as a side dish or as a main course over rice or couscous. We generally make it the main course, since it's robust and filling but not heavy on a hot day, as meat is. Treat yourself to the rest of the red wine to wash it down and say a prayer of thanks to summertime, when the living is rich and easy.****

This is a terrific recipe for singles because it freezes well and is even better if the flavors marry for a couple of days. It's a great food for company, particularly if you are entertaining guests whose dietary propensities you don't know. It's great with Arborio rice and a cold summer fruit soup, like a mixed melon with a little creme fraiche.

Angus Phillips is the Post outdoors reporter (fishing reports, camping and hike in Friday weekend section) and he's as poetic about the out of doors as he is about garlic, a terrific writer.

Record Today

Crude Takes Wind Out of Market

By Jerry Knight
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; 5:36 PM

Crude oil prices swept to another new high today, wiping out what looked like it was going to be another big day for Wall Street.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 100 points in early trading, buoyed by traders' confidence that the latest interest rate hike will not hurt the economy.
But rising oil prices are another matter. Wall Street has been worrying for weeks that high-priced petroleum will cramp consumer spending and erode business profits. And as crude oil keeps climbing, those fears worsen.

Today crude oil jumped $1.93 a barrel to $64.90 in futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The latest all-time record was set after government reports showed Americans have not cut back their driving in response to soaring gasoline prices.

Gasoline inventories continued to shrink the reports showed, although the nation's stockpile of unrefined crude oil grew a little.

The tanks of oil companies today hold about 4 percent less gasoline than they had a year ago, and consumption continues unabated, the weekly stockpiles report showed.

While drivers haven't cut back on total gasoline purchases, they have switched from premium to lower grades, industry groups reported. And purchases of gas with credit cards is way up -- a hint that some people may not have the cash to fill up their tanks, which could bode badly for consumer spending in the months ahead.

I'm pretty much public transit only these days. I don't use a tank of gas a month.

Fleeing

Baghdad elite flees Iraq and the daily threat of death
By Thomas Harding in Baghdad
(Filed: 10/08/2005)

Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.

Iraq is losing the educated elite of doctors, lawyers, academics and businessmen who are vital to securing a stable future. There is also fear that their departure will leave a vacuum to be filled by religious extremists.

Suicide bombing in Baghdad
The latest suicide bombing in Baghdad killed at least 3 people

Outside the shelter of the Green Zone, home to the American and Iraqi political leadership, lawlessness has overtaken the capital.

Prof Abdul Sattar Jawad, the head of English literature at Baghdad University, will leave next month to take up a post in Jordan. Two of his colleagues left recently after being intimidated.

At his home in east Baghdad the professor answered the door with an outstretched hand. In the other hand he carried a loaded revolver "because I don't trust anybody nowadays".

While the lack of basic needs and a barely functioning infrastructure are considerable hardships, it is the daily threat of death that was the catalyst for his decision. Since the new government came to power in April there have been up to 3,000 civilian deaths, about half attributed to criminal activity.

"I love my country but I am unable to do any service for the people because it is overrun by fanatics and extremists," Prof Jawad said. "The streets are ruled by gangs, looters and goons."

Last month he resigned a position as dean of arts after "religious animals" surrounded his office and shouted "war-like slogans".

The threats have also forced him to close down two English newspapers he ran because "it now is anti-religious to have free speech, liberal minds and civilisation in this country".
....
Baghdad's doctors suffer most of all. They are now authorised to carry firearms after some were killed by angry relatives of dead patients and after threats by police officers demanding immediate treatment for injured colleagues.

Dr Tariq Bahjat, who became a hospital director in Baghdad after his predecessor was killed and where a radiologist was recently shot dead, said: "No one can provide doctors with protection. I am afraid the same will happen to me; that is why I will go abroad."

A spokesman for the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said: "It is a worry, of course, and they are going to be difficult to replace.

"Many people are getting jobs abroad and in terms of what the government can do about it? Very little."

The only question left is how complete a disaster this is going to be.

Backbone

Selling out the environment
Senate Democrats say they want to save the planet. So why did more than half of them vote for the Bush administration's pork-riddled, Earth-hating new energy bill?

By Amanda Griscom Little

Aug. 9, 2005 | Four years, two failed conference attempts, and one filibuster after the Republican leadership first introduced the Bush-backed energy bill into Congress, the controversial legislation was signed into law Monday by the president, yielding a major victory for the White House -- and exposing the continued inability of Democrats to rally around a unified vision and stay on message.

When House and Senate negotiators met to hammer out a compromise version of the bill in conference committee last month, it was predictably stripped of nearly all its environmentally ambitious provisions, including one requiring utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. What's left is a dizzying $14.5 billion in energy-industry subsidies, only about 20 percent of which will go to renewable-energy development.

As expected, the legislation has been trounced as pork at its worst by everyone from enviros to fiscal conservatives, even as it's been hailed by most energy-industry players and Republicans as an unqualified triumph. Less predictably, the bill garnered votes and accolades from a number of Senate Democrats.

Senate Energy Committee ranking member Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., beamed that the post-conference bill has "many more bright spots than flaws and deserves passage by the Senate and signature by the president."

Harder for progressives and enviros to swallow was the support it got from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who expressed disappointment that the bill wasn't more bold but still went so far as to call the legislation "a first step toward decreasing America's dependence on foreign oil." It could more credibly be described as yet another step toward subsidizing Illinois corn farmers for ethanol production that will be of dubious environmental benefit.

Bingaman and Obama were far from alone: Over half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted for the bill. Most of these yea votes came from senators whose states stood to benefit markedly from the subsidies, while most of the nay votes were cast by senators from non-energy-producing states.

Critics argue that this split among Dems wasn't just a practical failure that gave way to shoddy energy policy; it was also a symbolic failure for the Democratic Party at large.

"The final language in the bill fell considerably short of the standards [Minority Leader Harry] Reid, D-Nev., outlined as the Democratic plan for energy independence," said Ana Unruh Cohen, associate director for environmental policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

In order to get the attention of centrist/moderate voters, it might be nice if the Democrats, you know, stood for something.

Flu News

My colleague at The Flu Wiki, Declan Butler, has an important article in Nature News today:

The world is not enough

If the entire US vaccine production system, which can produce 180 million seasonal flu vaccines, was devoted entirely to making pandemic vaccine at this concentration, it could make enough for 15 million people: barely 5% of the US population.

The US government plans to stockpile the vaccine to protect first-responders in the immediate aftermath of a pandemic. It has bought 2 million H5N1 vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, and says it intends to buy 20 million more. But given the test results, these would only protect 330,000 to 3.4 million people, far short of the 20 million US goal.

Len Latevan, a spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur, says the company will double its capacity to produce flu vaccine in the United States and France in three or four years time. But that would not be enough to produce sufficient vaccines unless the dose was 15 µg or less.

We are on our own, people. This virus emerged in 1997, we've known that it has the potential to be the next pandemic flu virus since at least 1999, and we've done nothing at the Federal level to prepare for it. It amazes me that Congress has done nothing, they've held five or so committee hearings in the last year and you'd think they'd realize that all of their asses will be grass if we have a pandemic before the 2006 midterms.

Information, Please

A back-chatter email conversation between the editors of The Flu Wiki this morning raised a question that none of us are capable of answering. Perhaps one of you can.

With the fall migration season, avian flu begins migrating out of China and the "stans" into Europe. The chances of keeping it out of North American populations are slim and none. Let's say, for the sake of argument and distraction, that H5N1 never makes the fatal evolution/recombination to efficient human to human transmission but remains a highly pathogenic disease in poultry. What would be the effect on the economies of the US and our primary trading partners? Because of the high-density way we "farm" poultry in the US, the bug will spread like wildfire.

Anybody with a background in economics and the poultry industry willing to make a contribution to the "Economics" section of The Flu Wiki, be our guests.

What Kind of Humanity?

Perhaps I'm simply very niave, but I find this very disturbing.

20 years After 1984

Big Brother On and Off the Job

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A17

On June 7 the three Republican appointees on the five-member board that regulates employer-employee relations in the United States handed down a remarkable ruling that expands the rights of employers to muck around in their workers' lives when they're off the job. They upheld the legality of a regulation for uniformed employees at Guardsmark, a security guard company, that reads, "[Y]ou must NOT . . . fraternize on duty or off duty, date or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." The board majority held that the guards probably would interpret this to be a no-dating rule, pure and simple. In her dissent, member Wilma Liebman wrote that the rule plainly specifies both dating and fraternizing, a term that covers a range of activities that go well beyond (or fall well short of) dating. That certainly was the reason that a San Francisco security guard local of the Service Employees International Union brought the case to the NLRB in the first place: The rule as written could preclude any attempt by the guards to meet to form a union, or even to talk about work-related issues.

Guardsmark General Counsel Gary Leviton says that the company rule isn't as restrictive as it may sound, that it applies only to guards working for the same client, lest their judgment of who may constitute a threat be compromised. He adds that the company hasn't invoked the rule to thwart its workers' attempts to unionize, and, indeed, Guardsmark and the SEIU have reached an accord on unionizing its San Francisco employees since the complaint was first filed. (Guardsmark also provides security guards at The Post.)

But the NLRB ruling mentions none of the caveats that applied at Guardsmark; it is now a precedent that can be applied to a far wider range of workers in a far wider range of situations. Indeed, as the precedent for this ruling, the board cited an earlier decision upholding the right of a hotel to ban its employees from fraternizing with guests. That hardly seems a parallel set of circumstances -- closer to perpendicular, if you ask me -- and it sure doesn't inspire any confidence that the current board will seek to limit the impact of its Guardsmark ruling.

So are there any off-duty activities that an employer can't proscribe? A number of companies have anti-dating rules, of course, and rules against sexual harassment have rightly become de rigueur. But by the language of this decision, what about meeting up in a neighborhood bar after work? Going over to Ed and Joanie's for dinner and some poker? Just how much control over our personal lives do the citizens of the land of the free want to accord to our employers?

Drug habits off the job clearly can affect performance on the job. But I've somehow missed the body of literature that documents how employees' joint attendance at picnics can cause dangerous lapses at work. There is quite a body of literature that documents the superior performance of companies whose employees are encouraged to share their ideas with co-workers and management. But if a company elects to deny itself that benefit by denying its workers the right to fraternize, that's perfectly fine with the NLRB.

There's a word for the kind of employer-employee relationship that the NLRB has just sanctioned. It's "feudal." The brave new world that emerges from this ruling looks a lot like the bad old world where earls and dukes had the power to control the lives of their serfs -- not just when the serfs were out tilling the fields but when they retired in the evening to the comfort of their hovels. But then the Bill of Rights in America has never reached very far into the workplace. And now, the strictures on workers' rights within the workplace are being extended without.

We Americans largely believe we live in a country that cherishes, or at minimum strives to cherish, the rights of the individual. This is one of our foremost mass delusions. As employees and consumers, our rights are routinely subordinated to those of business. The reason that personal information on 50 million consumers has been compromised, stolen or lost is that we have no effective laws -- indeed, no federal laws at all -- protecting the privacy of our data; the opposition from big business has doomed all serious attempts to ensure consumers' privacy.

Here's your limited-government conservatism. Right here on the barstool in your after-work beer.

Orwell was right.

Crowing American Exceptionalism

Pentagon announces September 11 concert

Washington
August 10, 2005 - 1:36PM

The Pentagon would hold a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an announcement tucked into an Iraq war briefing today.

"This year the Department of Defence will initiate an America Supports Your Freedom Walk," Rumsfeld said, adding that the march would remind people of "the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation".

The march will start at the Pentagon, where nearly 200 people died on September 11, 2001, and end at the National Mall with a show by country star Clint Black.

Word of the event startled some observers.

"I've never heard of such a thing," said John Pike, who has been a defence analyst in Washington for 25 years and runs GlobalSecurity.org.

I heard this on the news last night (note: I'm not seeing it in the US papers today, add the links as you find them in Comments) and had the same reaction as Suzie Madrak: Maybe this will go down in history as the first American Nuremberg rally.

The news also reignited debate and anger over linking September 11 with the war in Iraq.

"That piece of it is disturbing since we all know now there was no connection," said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq veteran who heads Operation Truth, an anti-administration military booster.

Rieckhoff suggested the event was an ill-conceived publicity stunt.

"I think it's clear that their public opinion polls are in the toilet," he said.

Rumsfeld's march had some relatives of September 11 victims fuming.

"How about telling Mr Rumsfeld to leave the memories of September 11 victims to the families?" said Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband in the attacks.

Pretty freakin' ghoulish.

UPDATE: Salon adds We're gonna party like it's ... 9/11?

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced yesterday that the Pentagon will celebrate -- and really, there's no other word for it -- the fourth anniversary of 9/11 with a country music concert and an "America Supports You Freedom Walk."

We are not making this up.

You might think that the secretary of defense could come up with a more tasteful way to reflect on 9/11. And you might think that the Bush administration would be able to refrain, just this once, from linking the war in Iraq back to the attacks on 9/11. You'd be wrong on both counts. As the New York Daily News reports, Rumsfeld is planning a Fourth of July-style "support the troops" extravaganza for Sept. 11, 2005. The day will start with a march from the Pentagon to the National Mall, and it will culminate with a concert by Clint Black.

Black is the man behind "I Raq and Roll," a country ditty that conflates Saddam Hussein with "the devil" who attacked the United States on 9/11: "We can't ignore the devil, he'll keep coming back for more ... If they won't show us their weapons, we might have to show them ours. It might be a smart bomb -- they find stupid people, too. And if you stand with the likes of Saddam, one just might find you."

Did we mention that we're not making this up?

If Rumsfeld really wants to commemorate the attacks of 9/11 in some kind of meaningful way, we've got an idea for him: He could tell the truth to the 9/11 Commission about a report that the U.S. military had identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as potential threats more than a year before the attacks.

Ahead

Roberts Papers Being Delayed
Bush Aides Screen Pages for Surprises

By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A01

Thrown on the defensive by recent revelations about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s legal work, White House aides are delaying the release of tens of thousands of documents from the Reagan administration to give themselves time to find any new surprises before they are turned into political ammunition by Democrats.

Before Roberts's July 19 selection by President Bush, there was no comprehensive effort to examine the voluminous paper trail from his previous tours as an important legal and political hand under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, administration officials said.

Three weeks later, these officials say they recognize that Roberts's record is going to be central to Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Sept. 6, and lawyers and political aides are urgently reviewing more than 50,000 pages -- at the same time denying requests from Democrats for an immediate release.

While the White House plays catch-up in studying Roberts's past, it is facing complaints from some of its conservative supporters about what they feel has been a stumbling campaign for the nominee.

Sean Rushton, director of the conservative Committee for Justice, said in the days after the nomination "there was a drop-off of message and focus."

"Merely saying 'He's a lawyer's lawyer' isn't enough," Rushton said. "This is the moment to explain why so many of us feel so strongly about the judicial system in ways that can change hearts and minds of swing voters who could be added to the Republican column."

While Rushton said the White House has belatedly begun to "ramp up" its campaign, his complaint was echoed by several other conservative activists. They think Bush aides have reacted defensively about revelations highlighting Roberts's role as an advocate for conservative causes rather than making an unapologetic argument that he was on the right side of these issues.

While serving in the Reagan and Bush administrations, for instance, Roberts argued against affirmative-action quotas and other civil rights remedies that conservatives regarded as reverse discrimination, and he expressed deep skepticism about what he called the "so-called right to privacy" that underpins the constitutional right to abortion.

"They should be embracing those memos," said Bruce Fein, who worked with Roberts in the Reagan Justice Department. "They are squandering the opportunity to move public perception."

The administration had little control over the release of most of the documents that have come to light so far from Roberts's time as a special assistant to then-Attorney General William French Smith and later as an associate counsel to the president. That's because these papers had either already been made public by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library before the nomination or been cleared for release by the National Archives by previous administrations.

But White House aides are exerting full control over the documents still under their authority. Under an executive order signed by President Bush in 2001, the White House has the right to review, and in some cases block, the release of presidential papers from previous administrations. White House lawyers have been dispatched to the Reagan library in Simi Valley, Calif., where they are combing through documents that have not been released.

This is not going to be as simple as it looked to Bushco back in July.

Too hot to cook

Since it is too freakin' hot to cook indoors and we're using our grills, here is something grillwise:

MARINADE FOR FLANK STEAK OR LONDON
BROIL

1 c. salad oil
1/2 c. vinegar
1 lemon juice
1/4 c. or portion of onion that has been minced or blended until is like mush
1/2 oz. sugar
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
Pinch paprika (lg. pinch)
Pinch celery seed (sm. pinch)
Pinch dry mustard (sm. pinch)

Combine all dry and liquid ingredients except the salad oil and let set for a few minutes to combine flavors. Add salad oil and mix thoroughly. This can be done in a blender. Makes 2 cups.

This is good for about 2 lbs of meat.

When it is time to cook the beast, drain and pat dry on paper towels. You want to roast it, not parboil it. Brown on both sides and then use the reserved marinade to flavor the meat with continual basting. Cook 10 minutes over the grill on each side and then put it over to the side to use reserve heat to finish it while you cook the corn and other sides that go with it. The meat should be medium rare when sliced, and served with corn on the cob and baked potatoes like this.

If you want to offer your guests something unusual, consider a baked potato bar, with a range from sour cream and fresh chives to prepackaged chili. Let them snip their own herbs from your garden, if you have one.

Tomato Days

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho
with Avocado-Tomato Salsa
by Stu Stein, chef/owner, The Peerless Restaurant, Oregon

One bright August morning Steve Florin of Dancing Bear Farm dropped off the season's first heirloom tomatoes. As brilliant in color as sunshine, not only were these tomatoes exploding with true tomato flavor, they inspired a welcome diversion when the thermometer outside was pushing 100° F. How fast can a chef think “cold soup?” Traditional gazpacho is a Spanish chilled soup from Andalusia using red tomatoes and soaked bread. Our version uses Yellow Taxi tomatoes and omits the bread. A Yellow Taxi tomato is a low-acid, meaty, sweet heirloom slicing tomato, with a lemon-yellow skin. It is fairly easy to grow in cooler climates.

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho

6 Yellow Taxi tomatoes or other yellow heirloom tomatoes, ripe
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 English or regular waxy cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into large pieces
1 yellow pepper, seeded and cut into large pieces
1 red onion, cut into large pieces
½ small hot red chili, seeded, cut into large pieces or to taste
¼ cup red wine vinegar
3 ounces extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt and white pepper, to taste
4 each - red and yellow cherry tomatoes, cut in half, for garnish

Avocado-Tomato Salsa

2 avocados, preferably Haas, flesh cut into small dice
1 small hot red chili, seeded, cut into small dice
1 small red onion, cut into small dice
1 red heirloom slicing tomato, peeled, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped
juice of one lime
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

To Prepare the Soup : Working in batches, purée all ingredients, except for the cherry tomatoes, in a blender until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer into another bowl by pressing the solids with a wooden spoon in order to extract as much liquid as possible. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate two hours or overnight.

Before serving, taste and adjust seasoning.

To Prepare the Salsa : Combine all ingredients in a stainless steel bowl and refrigerate at least 20 minutes.

To Serve: Place salsa in the center of chilled soup bowls. Ladle soup around the salsa and garnish with red and yellow cherry tomato halves.

Advance Preparation: We recommend making this soup a day ahead. The flavors are better and more complex given a day of rest in the refrigerator.

Substitutions and Options: This soup can be made with either red or yellow tomatoes as long as they are ripe. The flavor of the soup depends entirely on the taste of the tomatoes.

Ripe tomatillos can be substituted for the heirloom tomatoes in the salsa. They will add a citrus flavor element that will balance the richness of the avocado.

Makes 4 appetizer servings, approximately 3 cups

Used with permission from: The Sustainable Kitchen : Passionate Cooking Inspired by Farms, Forests and Oceans, Stu Stein with Mary Hinds and Judith H. Dern, New Society Publishers, June 2003, $22.95.

Eat this and die, it is that good.

The Summer Knows

Good things for hot days

Salade Nicoise

Serving Size: 4
Preparation Time: 0:30

* 8 oz Tuna in oil -- or Smoked or Grilled
* 1/2 head lettuce red leaf
* 8 oz green beans -- cut 1 inch long
* 8 oz new potatoes
* 2 each eggs large -- hard boiled
* 16 each olives black
* 8 each anchovy fillets
* 1 each tomato beefsteak -- cut into 8 wedges
* 1 cup Sauce Vinaigrette

Preparation

1. Steam green beans about 1-1/2 min. Chill. They should be crisp. Marinate with vinaigrette.

2. Boil new potatoes in jackets. When done, slice and marinate with vinaigrette.

3. Hardboil, chill and quarter the eggs.

4. Flake and marinate the tuna in vinaigrette

5. You can lay this out as a single dish or as individual salads.

On a bed of washed and spun dry lettuce leaves, arrange piles of flaked tuna, green bean salad and potato salad. Garnish with black olives, tomato and egg wedges. Decorate with anchovy strips. Sprinkle remaining Sauce Vinaigrette over.

nb: Please refer to my vinaigrette sauce recipe. It has the ingredients needed to make this taste right. Any old "French Dressing" won't be as good.

If sweet Vidalia onions are in season, a slice or two per salad is a welcome addition.

Notes: If you can find the tiny black Nicoise olives, use a bunch of them, otherwise just use a few. A good crusty bread should be served with this salad.

MM remarks, there is no substitute for Nicoise Olives, but you can make this recipe anyway.

A Decent Cucumber Sandwich

Few Americans have eaten one. Here is what I learned from my trip to Buckingham Palace in 1971.

CUCUMBER PARTY SANDWICHES

1 1/2 c. cucumber, finely chopped
1/2 c. celery
1 (3 oz.) softened cream cheese
1/2 c. mayonnaise
1 tsp. onion, grated
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. chopped parsley
32 slices white sandwich bread, crusts cut off

Partially peel cucumber. Remove seeds, chop pulp and drain well by squeezing in cheese cloth.

In bowl, combine and blend all ingredients except bread. Lightly butter 16 slices of bread. Place 2 tablespoons cucumber mixture on each slice and cover with remaining slices. Cut diagonally across sandwiches to make 4 triangular sandwiches. Yield: 64 triangles.

For "finger sandwiches" this is ideal.

Small plates

This is a cool bite to pass while the days are hot.

Cucumber Goat Cheese Spread

Recipe By : Cooking Live Show #CL8932
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Cooking Live Import

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 seedless cucumber -- peeled, seeded,
-- and chopped fine
-- (about 1 1/2 cups)
8 ounces soft mild goat cheese -- at room temperature 1
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest 1 1/2 teaspoon
fresh lemon juice 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh dill 2
tablespoons finely chopped red onion
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
accompaniment:
toasted french bread slices or crackers

In a food processor puree 1/2 cup cucumber with goat cheese, zest, and
lemon juice until almost smooth. In a bowl stir together cucumber
mixture, remaining cucumber, dill, 1 tablespoon onion, and pepper.
Spread may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered. Let spread
soften and stir it before serving. Sprinkle spread with remaining
tablespoon onion. Serve spread with toasts or crackers.

Yield: 1 1/4 cups

serve this around the room with a decent Pinot and you'll be the toast of the town.

President Roadblock

Courting secrecy above reason

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

THE BUSH administration's penchant for secrecy has been well- documented over the years, but recent events suggest that the White House has become overly dependent on its policy of stealth.

The administration is stubbornly withholding critical documents on the government's antiterrorism programs as well as information on numerous cases that U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. handled during his years in the government. The decision is an affront to the members of the Sept. 11 Commission, who worked so hard to investigate the failings of the nation's intelligence community, as well as to the senators who must judge Roberts on a scant public record.

As Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the independent commission on the Sept. 11 attacks noted, one of the reasons the government failed to stop the terrorist assaults was numerous intelligence agencies failed to share information with each other and the public. That lesson seems to be lost on an administration that equates secrecy and spin with power and control.

Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, is one of the 10 members of the disbanded commission that has sought updated reports from several agencies and individuals involved in antiterrorism programs to assess their progress. The administration's response seems counterintuitive -- you'd think the White House should be doing all it can to address the problems outlined by the original report.

The same goes for the balking on behalf of Roberts, who so far has enjoyed a remarkably smooth confirmation process. There is no reasonable explanation for withholding information on the official memos written by a Supreme Court nominee. The impasse between the White House and the Senate will only sour the atmosphere and give the public reason to wonder why it would be denied such basic information.

When people want to hide things, there is usually a reason for it.

Commerce Clause

One sentence in Constitution could be key to Roberts' role
Some see in his writings peril to basic protections

By Jonathan D. Rockoff
Sun National Staff
Originally published August 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - Amid intense scrutiny into the judicial record of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., perhaps nothing seems as curious as the hubbub surrounding his brief remarks two years ago about a striped toad in California.

The judge's four-paragraph argument that the endangered toad should not be protected by federal environmental laws strikes at the heart of many rights that Americans enjoy, including such basics as a minimum wage and clean drinking water. And it will become a focal point for tough questioning during Roberts' confirmation hearing next month, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said yesterday.

"This is much bigger than abortion or affirmative action," said Roger Pilon, a court watcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "It's the main issue: How much power did we give the federal government?"

At issue is the Constitution's commerce clause, which, the court has determined, gives the federal government broad regulatory powers.

Roberts' government writings have raised questions about whether he might seek, under the clause, to narrow federal laws on issues involving equal opportunities for women to play college sports and voting rights for minorities.

In the case of the arroyo toad, Roberts argued that because the toad was found only in one state, interstate commerce was not affected and the toad should not qualify for federal protection under the clause.

Such a view, if applied widely, could undermine a range of protections established by Congress. Roberts' writings have raised questions about whether he would seek to narrow use of the clause to scale back laws giving women equal opportunity to play college sports and minorities the right to vote freely.

Thus it is no small matter to liberals and conservatives concerned about how Roberts would interpret the clause.

"People are really concerned," said Neil Richards, a Washington University law professor who, like Roberts, was a Supreme Court clerk for William H. Rehnquist.

"The civil rights laws," Richards said, "have a relatively tenuous link to interstate commerce. If the court says the commerce clause only regulates commerce, then what does that mean for civil rights laws? It starts to look scary."

At least one member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat, has asked Roberts for his views on the clause, his spokesman said. Two other committee members, Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrat Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, say they will ask for Roberts' views during confirmation hearings.

Yesterday, Specter, chairman of the committee, sent Roberts a letter saying members of Congress were "irate" that the Supreme Court had in recent years rejected some federal laws citing the commerce clause. He said he intends to ask Roberts for his view on the matter.

"It's going to be an appropriate area" for questioning, Kennedy said recently. The commerce clause carries "enormous importance to everyday life," he said.

Roberts has been a federal judge since 2003. Democrats in Congress haven't opposed his selection to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor but have raised concerns, including Roberts' willingness to answer questions, access to his writings and, lately, his views on civil rights.

Democratic senators have asked the White House for memos that Roberts wrote about civil rights and certain other cases while he was deputy solicitor general under the first President Bush.

"Is Judge Roberts going to be part of the sense of progress that we've made or will he be someone that wants us to move back?" Kennedy asked. "That, I think, is the real key issue. Basically, whose side is he going to be on?"

That'd be my question, Senator.

Bi-Polar Economy

Snow Concedes Economic Surge Is Not Benefiting People Equally

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; Page A03

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow acknowledged yesterday that the fruits of strong economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans, as he and the rest of President Bush's economic team prepared to meet today to discuss wages and income distribution in an otherwise surging economy.

The meeting at the president's ranch near Crawford, Tex., will be convened amid evidence that the economy is gaining steam and that voters are dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the economy. Snow and other administration officials say strong consumer demand for housing, cars and other big-ticket items indicates that the negative message voters are giving pollsters on the economy is belied by their open wallets.

But Snow diverged yesterday from his positive economic message to raise questions about lingering economic misgivings. And he hinted at new policy initiatives.

"The idea there is to explore the things that produce broad-based prosperity," he said of the meeting's purpose. "One of the things we know is that less educated people have seen their incomes and wages grow more slowly. That's what the numbers tell us.

"So that points you in the direction of greater emphasis on education," he told reporters, adding that savings rates among low-income Americans are also lagging.

White House officials have launched a push to win credit for the rash of positive economic news. The Labor Department announced Friday that payrolls rose by 207,000 jobs in July. Factory orders are climbing, and businesses are investing more in new equipment and software. Inflation is tame except for energy costs, and interest rates remain low. The economy expanded at a 3.4 percent annual rate in the spring, and analysts see the pace quickening this summer.

Yet last week, a CBS News poll found that 52 percent of respondents disapproved of Bush's handling of the economy, while 42 percent approved. In part, Bush is suffering from a "reverse halo effect," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. Concerns over the war in Iraq are coloring voters' opinions about Bush's policies in other arenas.

But Mellman and other analysts say dissatisfaction with the economy is real. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said a participant in a focus group two weeks ago was happy to offer his opinions of the economy, because "the economists don't know what they're talking about."

"People are feeling vulnerable to global economic conditions," said Stanley Greenberg, another Democratic pollster. "The difficult labor market continues. There's a sense that they lack clout, an ability to command higher wages."

A study released yesterday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office focuses on "unprecedented" declines in the workforce in the wake of the 2001 recession that continued through early 2005. Job growth in this economic recovery has been substantially slower than previous recoveries, the CBO said.

Administration officials now acknowledge they have a problem, at least with voters' perceptions. Bush will huddle with his Treasury, agriculture, labor and commerce secretaries, his budget director and his two top economic advisers to review the farm economy, overall economic growth, wages, income levels, income distribution and trade, Snow said.

Bullshit. Education has nothing to do with it, this economy is about class. The rich are getting richer, and the rest of us are struggling, and have been for a couple of decades. Dr. De Long has the graphics. As Brad would say, "Why, oh, why, can't we have better economic reporting?"

The Final Frontier

It's a big deal when somebody comes out of the sky at Mach 25, said the NPR announcer.

Shuttle Discovery Lands, Safe and Sound

By Amy Argetsinger, Guy Gugliotta and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; 8:18 AM

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. Aug. 9 -- Safe and sound, the Space Shuttle Discovery touched down smoothly at 8:12 a.m. EDT Tuesday at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a glowing re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere followed by a 5000 mile glide through the still-darkened dawn sky.

The uneventful descent and picture-perfect landing in the Mojave Desert concluded an eventful 14 day journey, a voyage of 5.8 million miles, 214 sunsets, a rendezvous with the International Space Station and lots of worries about tiles and filler and a first-ever spacewalk repair.

Mission controllers had diverted Discovery and its seven-member crew from the preferred landing site at Kennedy Space Center earlier Tuesday because of unstable weather in Florida. That will cost NASA more than a million dollars, but nobody was worrying about that Tuesday.

"How do you feel about a beautiful clear night with a breeze down the runway in the high desert of California?" Mission Control radioed.

"We are ready for whatever we need to do," replied commander Eileen Collins.

Discovery is the first shuttle to return to orbit since Columbia's catastrophic re-entry in 2003. So its journey was watched with unusual intensity across the globe.

At 5:06 EDT, over the Indian Ocean, Discovery fired the engines that liberated it from orbit for exactly two minutes and forty-two seconds.

"Discovery is on its way home," said Mission Control.

I'm happy this bird is home safe. As a member of the first generation who could actually dream of being an astronaut, the space program has always occupied a special place in both my heart and my imagination. I woke up early to listen to the trip home. This safe landing brought tears to my eyes.

Farewell, Colleague

Jazz Master's Final Chord

By Eugene Robinson

Tuesday, August 9, 2005; Page A17

A great jazz number doesn't fade out like a mere pop song or rock anthem. A great jazz number has an ending -- often abrupt, sometimes even in a different key, but always an ending that fits what has come before. So it was on Saturday with one of the great careers in the history of this surpassing American art form.

If you've never heard of Keter Betts, who was found dead at 77 in his apartment near Washington, you're not alone. Betts played upright bass, not one of the glamorous solo instruments. But you've heard of some of the people he toured, jammed and recorded with: Dinah Washington. Ella Fitzgerald. Oscar Peterson. Nat Adderley. Stan Getz. Charlie Byrd.

No fade-out: Betts was working at his craft until the very end. He was scheduled to play at the Kennedy Center next month; later this week he was supposed to participate in a jam session with local musicians.

I mark the passing of this man who never achieved the fame he deserved because the story of his life and work is so quintessentially American. Born William Thomas Betts in Port Chester, N.Y., to a single mother -- that's two strikes already, black and poor -- he bootstrapped his way to the top of his profession through talent, persistence and luck. He haunted stage doors until the musicians he idolized would come out to talk and offer advice, maybe even listen to him play. He took advantage of every opportunity and never came to a gig with anything other than his best.

And his life spanned the glory years of jazz, decades when American musicians were combining European melodies and African rhythms to create a new kind of music unlike anything the world had ever heard. It was music of exceptional rigor, grounded in the most advanced theories of composition. Betts played with many of the greats of jazz and was a friend or passing acquaintance of all the rest -- jazz is a small world, steadily getting smaller. It was Betts who became enchanted with Brazilian rhythms during a trip to South America and shared his new enthusiasm with saxophonist Getz and guitarist Byrd. Betts played bass on the two stars' seminal 1962 album "Jazz Samba," which introduced America to the bossa nova.

Best of all, at least for those of us who met him late in his life, Betts had a near-photographic memory. He could sit and spin his wonderful stories for hours on end. He'd be talking about the time he ran into "Diz" at some European festival, "Diz" being Dizzy Gillespie, and he could remember the hotel where he stayed, the venue where he played, what the two men talked about over dinner, what they ate. And, of course, what songs he played that night and who else was on the bandstand.

So many jazz legends had their lives shortened by drugs, like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, or illness, like John Coltrane. Others sacrificed brain cells and hepatic function to alcohol; once, in the late '70s, I went to see Getz perform in a club in San Francisco, but the show was canceled after he proved to be too drunk to assemble his saxophone. Betts was a counterexample -- stable, happily married, immune to the depredations of the sporting life.

As a result, he reached old age with all his faculties intact. He could still flat-out play -- driving be-bop, soulful ballads, smooth Brazilian samba. He had a lifetime of experience to draw from, and the young musicians who learned from him could have had no better teacher.

Musicians don't get eulogized on the op-ed pages of a national daily very often. This piece is warranted: Keter was a colleague and one of the great ones who played a supporting instrument, not one of the people who played in the spotlight. He was a consummate musician and one of the classiest people I ever worked with. When I learned of his death over the weekend, my world got a little smaller. If you are a jazz lover, so did yours.

Flu and the Economy: Ignore at Your Peril

If you are crazy enough to look at what the pandemic flu community is doing right now, here are three links. None of them will make you feel better. These are snapshots of a world in fast change, just snapshots. There is a lot going on, very little of it will make you feel better, but there is a world of (too late) action in response to the bug.

The USG is on that link. Don't love it. Here is the Longini model that the Reveres deconstructed last week. Lastly, , the Models of Infectious Disease studies out of the CDC.

As I've said before, where ever you see happy talk associated with avian influenza, run in the opposite direction to your local Costco and pickup another pallet of coffee. Even if you don't drink the stuff, it will make a fine bartarable. I'm not a serious student of this subject but Ian Welsh is, a financial planner in Toronto who knows a whole lot more than I do.

Oops, that is more than three links. I lied. So sue me. Go ahead, you have the extra cash.

From the Left Religious Side of the Page

Christian Groups Press Bush About North Korea

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: August 9, 2005

MIDLAND, Tex., Aug. 8 - Tens of thousands of fans of all ages gathered over the weekend for the annual three-day Rock the Desert Christian music festival screamed for hit bands like Mercy Me and Pillar and kicked Hacky Sacks by a creek renamed the Jordan River and a small pond called the

Between the Prayer Tent and an abstinence-promotion booth, however, worshipful revelers also stumbled into a more sobering pavilion, the North Korea Genocide Exhibit.

Inside, Kang Chol Hwan, a North Korean defector recently summoned to meet President Bush, signed copies of his memoir of 10 years in a prison camp. Drawings by defectors depicted the torture of North Korean Christians. A video, available free on DVD, showed shaky, grainy footage of two public executions.

In another exhibition, based on a defector's account of a deadly medical experiment, a bloody mannequin and baby doll leaned against the walls of a mock gas chamber made from a shower stall that at one point was filled with sulfurous yellow gas.

The displays were part of a growing movement by conservative Christian groups to press the White House on human rights in North Korea, much the way they drew attention to the civil war in Sudan and kept pressure on Mr. Bush after his first days in office.

Many of the speakers and exhibitions will travel to churches, campuses and events in the United States and Europe.

"God has picked us to be their voice," Deborah Fikes, executive director of the Midland Ministerial Alliance and the main organizer of the Korean display, told a cluster of children gawking at the gas chamber figures. "Christ commands us to be their voice."

Last month, Ms. Fikes joined dozens of other people from the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and groups like the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism for a meeting in Washington, where they signed a declaration of principles that laid out their goals.

Their aim is to goad the administration to block trade or unrestricted aid to North Korea until it opens its borders and begins to reform human rights, no matter how much that demand might complicate the talks to stop Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program or irk China or American allies like South Korea that favor a less confrontational approach. Although Japan has raised the question of the North Korean abduction of several Japanese decades ago, a broader discussion of North Korean human rights has not been a part of the talks.

Um, Darfur? Or are black people's struggles not as interesting to the megachurches, who are having so much success in Seoul??

When I was in seminary, I wrote a bunch of ecclesiastical history papers which I captioned "follow the money," the lesson we learned at Watergate. If you want to know what a bunch of people are doing which is essentially against their own socio-economic interest follow the money. It pissed off my conservative prof, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I did not get my best grades in this course.

It turns out that the churches have the same path of money and corruption as every other human institution. Who'da thunk that? Guess who is running those churches? You'd be right if you guessed humans.

We screw up in fairly predictable patterns which may or may not have anything to do with God, real or imagined, Fred Phelps, hurricanes and natural disasters. Deal with it.

Tears of a Clown

via Juan Cole:Joke of the Day:

CONSTITUTION

"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore."

RIP

Joel Achenbach speaks for me:

Peter Jennings

We focus so much on style when we talk about the famous TV journalists. This one is too much of a cowboy, that one's too pompous. She's too icy. No one watches him anymore. She's the queen of mean. There are some who seem to be performing a role, vividly drawn if not entirely convincing. But what we forget when we do the style review is how much work it took to get to the top, and to stay at the top; how much shoe leather they wore out; how many times, long before they sat in a studio chair, they rode with a camera crew down a dusty road into the loneliest village on Earth. How many cigarettes they burned through waiting for the live shot at 3 in the morning.

When you read the obituary today of Peter Jennings, note the passage about his stint in Beruit:

"He was sent to the Middle East in 1969 to establish the first American television news bureau in the Arab world, and there he found his niche. For seven years, based in Beirut, he traveled to virtually every Arab country and built up a store of knowledge he would draw upon for years."

Seven years in Beirut is not a drive-by posting. This was a serious reporter. On ABC this morning, there's a kind of "family gathering" of ABC luminaries, paying tribute to Jennings, and what jumps out is just the sheer energy of the man. Jennings may not have been everyone's favorite, but he was a class act and a true journalistic thoroughbred. He had the energy to go all day and night through the terrors of 9/11 and its aftermatch. He worked around the clock on New Year's Eve 1999 to track the rollover to 2000 in each time zone in the world. Everyone in the industry seemed to know, back in April, that his prognosis offered no hope, that we'd never see him again on the air. Inevitably people will talk of the end of an era, though that era (three dominant evening newscasts) probably ended a long time ago. At the least we should acknowledge that we've lost a star reporter, and be grateful for his hard work.

He was the gold standard.

Still Clueless

Americans Beginning to Oppose Iraq War, but For the Wrong Reason
by Stan Moore
(Sunday August 07 2005)

"America can bomb the world to pieces, but it cannot bomb the world to peace."

The deaths of U.S. Marine reservists from Ohio this week have stirred up an already-building resentment to the Iraq War by some Americans. More and more politicians are calling for the Administration to bring the troops home. And the Bush Administration is seeking to mollify the public by claiming to be prepared to bring some troops home. Is this the response needed to heal the international wounds caused by this war, or to protect America from future terrorist assaults? Unfortunately, the opposite may be the case.

Americans are turning against the war, but for the wrong reason. Americans are starting to feel the pain of war based on U.S. losses and expenses, not for reasons of morality and of principle. Americans are not saying that the war was illegal and immoral and wrong. Americas are saying that the war was unnecessary and painful and hard to endure. This self-serving and insensitive response will likely not produce sympathy from many of the world's populations, who have suffered far more than Americans have or ever will.

A lot of people around the world are beginning to think that Americans "can dish it out, but they cannot take it." Americans who did not oppose the war when it seemed to be going well, now oppose it because the war has turned into a "tough slog" as Donald Rumsfeld said many months ago, but hardly believed himself. Imagine what the public mood would be right now if the Iraq resistance had not emerged and gasoline prices in the States had dropped to under $1.00 per gallon! Americans would be delirious with joy and have no regret over the invasion and occupation and destruction of a sovereign nation. Americans are still not concerned over damage to Iraqi lives and Iraqi babies and Iraqi families, but only for their own losses.

This lack of empathy by Americans is a terrible motivator for terrorists around the world. It teaches victims of American aggression that there is value in resistance. It teaches terrorists that American tolerance of pain is limited, and that inflicting pain on Americans gets results.

Americans need to find some empathy for victims of American injustice and violence, before pleading for relief from our own pain. America has inflicted infinitely more pain that she has received. Like the fiscal balance of payments, America's accounting in pain infliction runs an enormous deficit.

One of the regular readers wrote in last week from business meetings in Paris and Geneva. He said that two years ago, the US government was unpopular abroad. This year Americans in general are hated. We, of course, are clueless about this.

By the way, DC area Bumpers, I'll be at the Northern Virginia Drinking Liberally this evening at Rhodeside Grill, 1836 Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, 6:30-8:30 in their downstairs room. Come and join us if you can!

Right-Wing Recidivism

Stevens Cites 'Serious Flaws' In Use of the Death Penalty

Associated Press
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A04

CHICAGO -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens issued an unusually stinging criticism of capital punishment Saturday evening, telling the American Bar Association that he is disturbed by "serious flaws."

Stevens stopped short of calling for an end to the death penalty, but he said there are many problems in the way it is used.

Stevens said DNA evidence has shown "that a substantial number of death sentences have been imposed erroneously. . . . It indicates that there must be serious flaws in our administration of criminal justice," he said.

Death penalty cases dominate the work of the high court. Week after week justices deal with final emergency appeals, sometimes filed late at night.

In their last term, which ended in June, justices overturned the death sentences of four inmates, ruled that states cannot put to death killers who were not at least 18 years old at the time of the crime and held that it is unconstitutional to force defendants to appear before juries in chains during a trial's penalty phase.

Justices have four capital cases on their docket when they return to work in October, including a potentially significant issue of letting inmates have a new chance to prove their innocence with DNA evidence.

Other Supreme Court justices have also spoken out about concerns that defendants in murder cases are not adequately represented. But Stevens made a much harsher condemnation.

He said Supreme Court cases have revealed that "a significant number of defendants in capital cases have not been provided with fully competent legal representation at trial."

In addition, Stevens said he had reviewed records that showed "special risks of unfairness" in capital punishment.

Juries might not be balanced because people who have qualms about capital punishment can be excluded by prosecutors, he said. He questioned whether potential jurors are distracted by extensive questions about their death penalty views.

A statement from a victim's family, Stevens said, sometimes "serves no purpose other than to encourage jurors to decide in favor of death rather than life on the basis of their emotions rather than their reason."

I find this impressive, Stevens covers my objections to the death penalty. We demonstrate on a regular basis that we are openly contemptuous of the legal standards accepted by the rest of the western world. The death penalty is a particularly odious part of our right-wing culture. Any penalty under law which cannot be undone is, by definition, cruel and unusual.

Bill of Rights Patrol

Civil Liberties Panel Is Off to a Sluggish Start
Critics Decry Administration's Lack of Urgency

By Caroline Drees
Reuters
Monday, August 8, 2005; A13

A civil liberties board ordered by Congress last year has never met to discuss its job of protecting rights in the fight against terrorism, and critics say it is a toothless, under-funded shell with inadequate support from President Bush.

Lawmakers including some Republicans, civil rights advocates, a member of the Sept. 11 commission and a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have expressed concerns.

Lanny Davis, the only well-known liberal among the five people Bush nominated after a six-month delay, said he had not received a call from anyone related to the board since it was formally announced in June. Davis said he could not comment on specifics because the members had not yet met.

All four other panel members declined to comment.

The inactivity comes as Congress is about to reauthorize several provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which gave the government new powers to go after suspected terrorists.

Asked why it was taking so long to set the board up, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said, "It's not a priority for the administration."

The intelligence reform law of December 2004 called for the oversight board in response to a recommendation from the Sept. 11 commission, which feared that increased governmental powers needed to fight terrorism could erode civil liberties.

Top White House officials have said the board would address those concerns, and get the resources needed to do the job.

But almost eight months after its inception, critics say the panel still exists only on paper, and lacks the money, power and presidential backing to ensure the entire government respects Americans' rights.

The Bush-appointed panel "is a very watered-down board without the kinds of powers which I believe are necessary to provide credibility and authority, such as independent subpoena power . . . and a bipartisan process in selection," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Sept. 11 commission.

"We don't think the board serves as a credible watchdog," said Tim Edgar, national security policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

One frequent complaint concerns the board's budget. Bush requested $750,000, which Congress doubled to $1.5 million.

The Department of Homeland Security's privacy office, with a similar mission limited to that department, has about a $13 million budget, said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.

"I don't think you can do it for a million and a half," Shays said.

Critics, including Thompson, also ask why it took Bush half a year to nominate the five board members when the administration acted much faster to implement other, more complex parts of the 2004 law. The Senate must still confirm the chairman and vice chairman after it returns from its summer recess.

This is one of the reasons why free and independent judges are so important: you can't count on the executive and legislative branches to police each other. All that is at stake here is our civil liberties under the Patriot Act.

Condi/Hilary 2008?

Al Kamen's "In the Loop" in this morning's WaPo:

Positive and Well-Circulated

And there, on the cover of the latest issue of AARP magazine, which features fine articles for the geezer set about reinventing yourself "at 50-plus," and "15 Ways to See, Hear and Feel Better," and how to "Retire Rich" or "Boost Brain Power" is none other than a smiling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice . She's 50.

The article is headlined "What Makes Condi Run," naturally raising the perpetual question of a Rice presidential, or perhaps California senatorial, run in the next few years.

The very, very, very positive piece, written by Ann Reilly Dowd , quotes Rice's "Aunt G." saying: "I don't think she'll run for office." Rice herself, though interviewed by Dowd a few years back, doesn't appear to have talked for the latest article.

But there are nice tidbits. We're told that when Rice met President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, "the two talked politics, sports and the Christian faith they share. They jogged, played tennis and worked out. (At that point, she could bench-press 145 pounds 45 times.)"

So why the AARP magazine? Well, it bills itself as the "world's largest circulation magazine," at more than 22 million copies. That's more than twice Reader's Digest, triple that of Better Homes and Gardens and way more than the 5.4 million circulation of Time, the largest of the three big national newsweeklies.

Nah, not running.

Now, there's something to look forward to.

Signs of the Times

One feature of Metro Seattle residential streets is little signs by the roadside, about two feet off of the ground. If it's not an election year, these are used to advertise highly dubious goods and services, rather than highly dubious candidates.

"$5000 a month working at home" is a popular pitch. So is credit repair. And then there are the everpresent ads for pyramid schemes built around stop-smoking plans or wieght reduction plans or whatever the con men who run these fly-by-night operations think the proles will be most likely to fall for this season.

I call them "scamsigns", a nice generic term that seems to cut to the heart of the matter.

Recently, there's been a new one, popping up all through the residential neighborhoods, like shelf fungi growing from the piles of rotting timber that were once stands of trees.

We Buy Houses

(800) 670-5503

www.rainydayhomes.com

There is a housing bubble.

However, unlike the last mentioned three of us, these folks are no doubt good little Rethugs. For them, there is money to be made in its deflation, and thats' the important thing.

So the call of the Halliburton boardroom muezzins, "Let us prey", now echoes through suburbia as it does across the Capitol Beltway.

Give Them the Country

This makes my blood run cold, but, God knows, it is something I've thought about, so I have to think that others, with motives less disinterested than mine, have, as well. Chilling.

War Plans Drafted To Counter Terror Attacks in U.S.
Domestic Effort Is Big Shift for Military

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A01

COLORADO SPRINGS -- The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.

The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively modest crowd-control missions to "high-end," full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said.

Some of the worst-case scenarios involve three attacks at the same time, in keeping with a Pentagon directive earlier this year ordering Northcom, as the command is called, to plan for multiple simultaneous attacks.

The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Indeed, defense officials continue to stress that they intend for the troops to play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups.

But the new plans provide for what several senior officers acknowledged is the likelihood that the military will have to take charge in some situations, especially when dealing with mass-casualty attacks that could quickly overwhelm civilian resources.

"In my estimation, [in the event of] a biological, a chemical or nuclear attack in any of the 50 states, the Department of Defense is best positioned -- of the various eight federal agencies that would be involved -- to take the lead," said Adm. Timothy J. Keating, the head of Northcom, which coordinates military involvement in homeland security operations.

The plans present the Pentagon with a clearer idea of the kinds and numbers of troops and the training that may be required to build a more credible homeland defense force. They come at a time when senior Pentagon officials are engaged in an internal, year-long review of force levels and weapons systems, attempting to balance the heightened requirements of homeland defense against the heavy demands of overseas deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Now that we've all seen how competent the DOD is at running things, I'm sure that this news will give us all boundless confidence in the Pentagon.

The Bubble and the Hiss

That Hissing Sound

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 8, 2005

This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.

Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust.

So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started.

Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong.

One piece of evidence is the sense of frenzy about real estate, which irresistibly brings to mind the stock frenzy of 1999. Even some of the players are the same. The authors of the 1999 best seller "Dow 36,000" are now among the most vocal proponents of the view that there is no housing bubble.

Then there are the numbers. Many bubble deniers point to average prices for the country as a whole, which look worrisome but not totally crazy. When it comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone.

In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas, which don't really have traditional downtowns, just sprawl some more. As a result, housing prices are basically determined by the cost of construction. In Flatland, a housing bubble can't even get started.

But in the Zoned Zone, which lies along the coasts, a combination of high population density and land-use restrictions - hence "zoned" - makes it hard to build new houses. So when people become willing to spend more on houses, say because of a fall in mortgage rates, some houses get built, but the prices of existing houses also go up. And if people think that prices will continue to rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.

And Zoned Zone housing prices, which have risen much faster than the national average, clearly point to a bubble.

In the nation as a whole, housing prices rose about 50 percent between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2005. But that average blends results from Flatland metropolitan areas like Houston and Atlanta, where prices rose 26 and 29 percent respectively, with results from Zoned Zone areas like New York, Miami and San Diego, where prices rose 77, 96 and 118 percent.

Nobody would pay San Diego prices without believing that prices will continue to rise. Rents rose much more slowly than prices: the Bureau of Labor Statistics index of "owners' equivalent rent" rose only 27 percent from late 1999 to late 2004. Business Week reports that by 2004 the cost of renting a house in San Diego was only 40 percent of the cost of owning a similar house - even taking into account low interest rates on mortgages. So it makes sense to buy in San Diego only if you believe that prices will keep rising rapidly, generating big capital gains. That's pretty much the definition of a bubble.

Bubbles end when people stop believing that big capital gains are a sure thing. That's what happened in San Diego at the end of its last housing bubble: after a rapid rise, house prices peaked in 1990. Soon there was a glut of houses on the market, and prices began falling. By 1996, they had declined about 25 percent after adjusting for inflation.

And that's what's happening in San Diego right now, after a rise in house prices that dwarfs the boom of the 1980's. The number of single-family houses and condos on the market has doubled over the past year. "Homes that a year or two ago sold virtually overnight - in many cases triggering bidding wars - are on the market for weeks," reports The Los Angeles Times. The same thing is happening in other formerly hot markets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has become deeply dependent on the housing bubble. The economic recovery since 2001 has been disappointing in many ways, but it wouldn't have happened at all without soaring spending on residential construction, plus a surge in consumer spending largely based on mortgage refinancing. Did I mention that the personal savings rate has fallen to zero?

Krugman and I are paying attention to the same news. You should, too.

Critical Reading

Be sure to check in with revere at Effect Measure and Henry Niman at Recombinomics for a full and fair fisking (scientifically!) of today's spate of articles on the flu vaccine hype in all of the national dailies. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease head Tony Fauci adds much to his rep as a DC spin doctor and loses a lot of cred as a scientist with this one. Revere comes very close to using the "l" word, Niman is scornfully dismissive.

I had a lot of back and forth with revere and DemfromCT overnight and into the morning about Larry Altman, the NYT science reporter and an MD with a pedigree. They are in a position to judge if he's a good scientist; he's a lousy reporter, however. That story is the one that started all the others when it got picked up by Reuters. It's nothing more than a press release for Tony Fauci, with no critical commentary. For Altman to be an MD and allow himself to be a mouthpiece for the crap Fauci is spewing is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

UPDATE: AP is still moving this story this afternoon.

As a general rule, if you read happy-talk stories about avian influenza, discount them. Almost all the decent science in flu says that we really don't have a lot of wiggle room if the disease becomes efficiently transmissible between humans. There isn't going to be any silver bullet (unless Niman comes up with one. Could happen.) The cytokine storm phenomenon means that the healthy young are going to be abnormally affected.

Go read more at the Flu Wiki.

Advancing the Story

You've been hearing me talk about the coming economic shock for over a year now: the combination of housing bubble and risky financing with high debt margins and low liquidity could create a "perfect storm" which pulls the rug out from underneath this fragile recovery. The LAT today picks up all the signs:

All Eyes on Home Market in San Diego
# As the city's real estate upsurge begins to slow, the question is whether it signals a downturn that could spread or just a return to normal.

By Annette Haddad, Times Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO — When the housing market here was red-hot 18 months ago, Alex Flores could buy a downtown condominium with as little as $5,000 down and sell it six months later for a tidy profit of $200,000.

Now, Flores says, those easy-money days are over.

Flores, a self-described real estate "flipper," is trying to sell two condos. But neither has drawn an offer after being on the market for more than a month, even though he's willing to break even on one and reduce the price on the other.

"It's getting trickier now," said Flores, 30, who became a full-time property investor three years ago after a short career as a senior financial analyst for a movie studio. "Everyone thinks this has peaked."

Once Southern California's hottest real estate market, San Diego is feeling a real estate slowdown. It's a trend also starting to be seen in other regions, such as Las Vegas, Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Dramatic rises in home prices, particularly on the West and East coasts, have sparked a nationwide debate about whether the housing market is engulfed in a bubble that is about to burst.

San Diego has become a focal point of that discussion. Those who believe the market is about to implode say San Diego's cooling could be among the first signs of a pronounced downturn or even a possible crash in California. But housing industry leaders say the slowing in San Diego reflects the normal damping of a sizzling market that made millionaires out of many homeowners and investors. Because San Diego was the region's hottest market, it's not surprising that it's one of the first to simmer down and return to more normal conditions, they say.

John Karevoll, chief analyst at DataQuick Information Services in La Jolla, which tracks home prices, called San Diego "our statistical canary in the mine shaft."

"It is further along in the current cycle, and what happens there could predict what will happen elsewhere," he said.

After more than doubling in the last five years, jumping almost 30% in one 12-month period, San Diego-area home prices are rising more modestly — 6.3% on a year-over-year basis as of June.

Amid concern that prices may be peaking, more homeowners are selling, doubling the number of single-family houses and condos on the market from a year ago. Yet fewer are finding takers. Homes that a year or two ago sold virtually overnight — in many cases triggering bidding wars — are on the market for weeks.
....
Other once-torrid markets are also catching a slight chill. The pace of home price increases in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties is becoming more sluggish, although not as much as in San Diego. Housing activity and price appreciation have moved from "hot" to "normal" in Boston, the tight Washington, D.C., market is starting to see home inventories rise, and Manhattan's condo market "was less frenzied" in the most recent quarter compared with the spring, according to a Federal Reserve report last week.
....
Another worry is the high level of risky loans. San Diego has been a standout in the use of unconventional lending. It ranks No. 1 in the use of so-called piggyback loans, which let borrowers with low down payments finance a home purchase without paying for mortgage insurance. And the majority of buyers in San Diego still use loans with an "interest only" option, a type of adjustable rate mortgage in which borrowers need only pay interest in the first few years before the monthly payment mushrooms.

"In order to purchase a home, a lot of people have to resort to risky mortgages," said Celia Chen, an economist with the national research firm Economy .com in West Chester, Pa.

Yet another risk stems from the higher than normal level of activity by investors. They accounted for 14% of all San Diego-area home buyers in June, versus the historical average of 11%, according to DataQuick.

All of this unnerves many economists, who see a recipe for possible price declines in San Diego and elsewhere. They expect investors will start unloading properties when they see their returns diminish. Many holders of riskier mortgages, already stretching to meet their monthly payments, could default when their loans reset at higher rates in the next few years. Mortgage rates started rising recently.

Get out of equities; be in cash. Paydown your debt as fast as you can. (All things you should be doing to prepare for avian influenza anyway.) Join Costco and start stocking up in non-perishables and water. Lay in a supply of barterables. (Booze and cigarettes are good bets.)

Neither bird flu or an economic downturn may happen, in which case you'll simply be in better economic and physical health. But another pin in the lock for each of these stores just fell into place this weekend.

Roberts' Record

Portrait of Nominee as a Young Lawyer
# Civil rights groups question some of John Roberts' work under Reagan, such as memos opposing Voting Rights Act amendments.

August 7, 2005
By David G. Savage and Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — The civil rights record of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. is coming under scrutiny amid evidence that, as a young lawyer, he sought to restrict the Voting Rights Act and to limit laws on sex discrimination, school desegregation and affirmative action.

"I've been surprised by what we have seen so far. It suggests a very disturbing and very different picture of Roberts' record" compared with how President Bush's nominee was initially portrayed, said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Henderson referred to a series of memos Roberts wrote while working in the Reagan administration, as well as Supreme Court briefs he wrote during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

For example, Roberts said that if Congress gave judges the power to weigh the impact on black voters before approving changes in electoral districts it "would establish a quota system for electoral politics."

He also described court-ordered busing for school desegregation as a "failed experiment" that should be ended, and said the landmark law against sex bias in schools and colleges should be limited to those university departments that receive federal funds.

"These are not smoking guns, but they do call for looking further," said Henderson, whose coalition represents 180 national organizations that are concerned with civil rights.

Roberts' defenders point out he was young then — just 26 years old when he became an assistant to Atty. Gen. William French Smith. They also say it should not be surprising that Roberts agreed with views of senior Reagan administration officials.

"It is not a secret that John Roberts is a political conservative, and it should not surprise people that, when working for a conservative administration, he provided advice that seems to be on the conservative end of the political spectrum," said Jennifer Braceras, a recent Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

"But he is also a strong proponent of judicial restraint, and that should give political liberals great comfort. Irrespective of his political views on Title IX or affirmative action or any of these hot-button issues, he is not going to try to impose his views on the nation from his post in the judiciary," Braceras said.

One word: filibuster.

Vom Krieg

Bombs Becoming Biggest Killers in Iraq

Saturday August 6, 2005 6:46 PM

By ROBERT H. REID and JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Bombs like the titanic roadside blast that killed 14 Marines last week are becoming the biggest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq, surpassing bullets, rockets and mortars, as insurgents wage an unconventional war that has boosted the American death toll beyond 1,820.

This isn't a conflict like the World Wars or Vietnam, where waves of enemy ground troops backed by artillery attacked American firebases. Gone too are the intense street battles waged last year in cities like Najaf, Karbala and Fallujah, or in Nasiriyah during the 2003 invasion.

Americans still die in mortar strikes and gunfights, like the six Marine snipers killed Aug. 1 in a rebel ambush. But surprise blasts - when the road erupts without warning or an explosives-packed car disintegrates into a fireball - have become the hallmarks of the Iraq war.

Since the end of May, more than 65 percent of U.S. military deaths in Iraq have resulted from insurgent bombings, compared to nearly 23 percent in conventional combat and 12 percent in accidents, according to figures complied by The Associated Press.

In recent weeks, rebel bombs have been responsible for 70 percent to 80 percent of American soldiers killed or wounded, command spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan said this week.

Of the 54 American troops who died in Iraq in July, 42 were killed either by roadside bombs, car bombs or in one case a land mine. So far this month, 29 soldiers and Marines have died - all but nine from bombs.

These figures document an evolution in rebel tactics. Looking back to the start of the U.S.-led war in March 2003, about 32 percent of American military deaths have been from improvised explosions, suicide bombs or other such blasts - compared to about 48 percent in firefights and other combat. Just over 19 percent died in accidents.

The insurgent bomb strategy is frustrating for American troops, who watch their comrades die without being able to retaliate as they've been trained: with punishing return fire.

This is assymetrical "fourth generation" war, and using third generation tactics against it won't work. The Army War College knows this, but the commanders on the ground don't. The goal of warfare isn't to "retaliate," it is to win. This is idiocy.

Hiding Idiocy

Via the redoubtable Susie Madrak:

9/11 Group Says White House Has Not Provided Files

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: August 7, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - The White House has failed to turn over any of the information requested by the 10 members of the disbanded Sept. 11 commission in their renewed, unofficial investigation into whether the government is doing enough to prevent terrorist attacks on American soil, commission members said.

The members said that the Bush administration's lack of cooperation was hindering a project that was otherwise nearly complete.

Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, said he was surprised and disappointed that the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and several other executive branch agencies had failed to respond to requests made two months ago for updated information on the government's antiterrorism programs.

The requests came not from the disbanded commission, which was created by Congress, and had subpoena powers, but from its shadow group, which the members call the 9/11 Public Discourse Project. It was established by the members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel formally went out of business last August, shortly after releasing a unanimous report that called for an overhaul of the nation's counterterrorism agencies.

"It's very disappointing," Mr. Kean said of the administration's failure to cooperate with the group. "All we're trying to do is make the public safer."

Mr. Kean said there had been no response of any sort to interview requests for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director; Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, among others.

A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, would not answer directly when asked if the administration intended to respond to the project's requests for information before next month, when the group is scheduled to publish an updated report that assesses the progress of the government's counterterrorism.

Ms. Perino said that much of the information sought by the private group was available from public sources.

"We welcome their interest in seeing their recommendations implemented," Ms. Perino said. "There is ample public information available for them to review about all of the actions we continue to take to better protect the American people."

She said that the administration had provided "unprecedented" cooperation to the commission during the official investigation, including access to more than two million documents.

Several executive branch agencies had no immediate comment when asked Friday whether they intended to provide additional information to the project, but the Department of Homeland Security said it intended to provide a package of information.

In telephone interviews in which he repeatedly expressed his frustration with the White House, Mr. Kean said the Public Discourse Project intended to publish its "report card" next month with or without the administration's assistance, although he said that "obviously it's most helpful to have the information from the agencies that are trying to implement the reforms."

"Honestly, I thought they would want to cooperate," he said of the White House and the agencies. "I thought it would give them a chance to tell their story. They have made some progress."

Mr. Kean would not forecast the conclusions of the new report, except to say it would be "tough but fair" in assessing the work of government agencies involved in counterterrorism.

Does anyone in their right mind think that Bushco wants you to know what actually happened? You might as well subpeona a copy of "My Pet Goat." The level of incompetence of this administration is so thorough-going as to boggle the imagination. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't need the level of secrecy they so constantly demand. Secrecy is the last dominion of scoundrels.

Death of a Statesman

Fierce debater who quit over Iraq

Sunday, August 7, 2005 Posted: 1011 GMT (1811 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary for the first four years of Tony Blair's Labour government in Britain and the man who damagingly resigned on the eve of the war in Iraq, died of a heart attack while hill-walking in Scotland at the start of Britain's parliamentary holidays. He was 59.

CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley says that Iraq loomed large in the parliamentary career of a man who died awaiting what many saw as a return call to front-line politics.

Sometimes described by colleagues in his ministerial days as the cleverest man in the Cabinet, Cook had remained in the House of Commons after resigning as Leader of the House of Commons.

Colleagues say he had hopes of figuring in a future Labour administration once Prime Minister Tony Blair had quit -- as Blair has promised to do before the next British election.

During his years as Foreign Secretary, Cook was friendly with then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

He also worked hard at establishing good relations with fellow foreign ministers in Europe from 1997 to 2001. But after being moved to a different Cabinet post he fell out with the Prime Minister over Iraq.

It was then he won plaudits for one of the most effective resignation speeches in British parliamentary history.

He told a hushed House of Commons in March 2003: "The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the leading international bodies in which we are a leading power. Not NATO. Not the EU. And now not the Security Council."

He also made this prescient prediction: "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood use of the term."

He was the most courageous politician on two continents, a man I genuinely admired. His death shocks and grieves me. He was willing to tell his country that we were about to embark on a mission which would make us both fools and criminals, and to resign his office to underscore the point. The US produced no one like him.

The headline is egregious. He quit over his own honor and refusal to be a stooge to George W. Bush. Tony Blair is a moral midget by comparison.

Reality Bites

Military Plans Gradual Cuts in Iraq Forces

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 7, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - In a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce American forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring, three senior military officers and Defense Department officials said Saturday.

The assessment by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the military's Central Command, tracks with a statement made last week by the top American general in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the Pentagon could make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring and summer if the political process in Iraq remained on track and Iraqi forces assumed more responsibility for securing the country.

Together, the generals' appraisals offer some of the most concrete indications yet that the Pentagon is moving toward reducing American forces in Iraq. They also reflect the Bush administration's growing concerns over how the country's involvement in Iraq is influencing domestic considerations.

But in his assessment, given as part of a larger regional analysis, General Abizaid has also warned that it is possible that the Pentagon might have to keep the current levels of about 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq throughout 2006 if security and political trends are unfavorable for a withdrawal. The number of troops will temporarily increase this December to provide security for Iraqi elections. And some troops leaving Iraq could be held in Kuwait as a reserve force.

Senior administration and Pentagon officials, as well as political leaders in both parties, say there is mounting anxiety over the $5 billion-a-month cost of the war, an overtaxed military, dismal recruiting in the Army and National Guard, dwindling public support for the operation, and a steadily growing number of casualties, punctuated this week by the death of 20 marines in two separate attacks in western Iraq.

This is called "cut and run." There is no tactical reason why we are in Iraq in the first place so there is no tactical strategy to get us out. Failure is assured.

Americans who love chest-thumping wars for the sake of war, which is all this current campaign is, are going to have to get over it. The campaign in Afghanistan has better cover in international law, as a strike back against Al-Qaeda for 9-11, but we are losing there, too, as has every country who has tried a war in that sink of a place. Those mountains have resisted every occupier who has tried in the last 100 years, and we are making a more feeble attempt than the last three. The Soviets pumped a quarter million troops into the Hindu Kush and left with their tail between their legs. We have less then a tenth of that.

Rummy likes to fight cheap wars. The fact that life doesn't work this way hasn't really penetrated his consciousness. And, by the way, where is Osama bin Laden?

Bird Flu and Not Trusting The USG

Avian Flu Vaccine Called Effective in Human Testing
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - Government scientists say they have successfully tested in people a vaccine that they believe can protect against the strain of avian influenza that is spreading in birds through Asia and Russia.

Health officials have been racing to develop a vaccine because they worry that if that strain mutated and combined with a human influenza virus to create a new virus, it could spread rapidly through the world. (The vaccine cannot lead to such a situation because it is made from killed virus.)

Tens of millions of birds have died from infection with the virus and culling to prevent the spread of the virus. About 100 people have been infected, and about 50 have died from this strain of the avian influenza virus, called A(H5N1). So far there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, but that is what health officials fear, because it could cause a pandemic. And that fear has driven the intense research to develop a vaccine.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, said that although the vaccine that had undergone preliminary tests could be used on an emergency basis if a pandemic developed, it would still be several months before that vaccine was tested further and, if licensed, offered to the public.

"It's good news," Dr. Fauci said. "We have a vaccine."

But he cautioned: "We don't have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is, can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine?"

An earlier human vaccine against the A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in the world, in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then.

In interviews over recent days, Dr. Fauci has said that tests so far had shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick.

Further tests are expected to be conducted among two groups - people 65 and older, and children - over the next several months. Dr. Fauci expressed confidence that they would confirm the success of the first tests and answer remaining scientific questions.

Because the vaccine is made in chicken eggs, "a potential major stumbling block" to successful mass production is the number of eggs farmers can supply manufacturers, Dr. Fauci said.

If manufacturers can overcome such hurdles, the new vaccine could go far in averting a possible pandemic of human influenza, Dr. Fauci said.

Only a small number of human cases of A(H5N1) influenza have been found. Although a few cases may have been transmitted from person to person in Asia, the A(H5N1) strain has not garnered enough strength to spread widely among humans anywhere.

As of Friday night, according to the World Health Organization in Geneva, the avian strain has killed 57 of the 112 people it has been known to infect in four countries. They are Cambodia (4 cases), Indonesia (one case), Thailand (17 cases) and Vietnam (90 cases).

The additional tests are needed in part to determine the optimal dose of vaccine; how many shots people will need for protection; and whether adding another ingredient called an adjuvant to the vaccine could raise the potency of lower doses, stretching the number of people that could be protected. Even when these tests are completed, more time will be needed before the Food and Drug Administration can license the human vaccine and before policy makers determine when and how it should be administered.

Government researchers and others developed the vaccine, which is produced by Sanofi-Pasteur, a French vaccine company that is now part of Aventis. The government could decide to release the product under emergency conditions if an A(H5N1) influenza pandemic struck before the testing process was completed.

Although cautioning that the vaccine had not been fully tested, Dr. Fauci said that the initial test findings had given the federal government enough confidence to start the process of adding millions more doses of the vaccine to the 2 million it had bought. The present supply is stored in bulk form, and "we cannot put it in vials until we find out what the right dose is," Dr. Fauci said.

Fauci is a government whore. If this vaccine works (a big IF), the USG has ordered 2 million doses, enough to protect 1 million of the a tiny fraction of our citzens. This is a scandal. The peasants with pitchforks should be in the streets.

Go North

It's a slow Saturday night here at Harmony Hall, mostly because I need it to be. The last week wore me out. There was a lot of news and I need to mentally join all of you who are at Rehobeth, at least for the evening. There are serious storms in the area, so I may be basking by candle light before the evening is out.

Me? I'm headed to Lake Simcoe in Ontario, for the birdsong, the plash of fishtails against the surface of a lake, and a little canoing. Along with a little time downtown in The Best City in North America, if livability and great ethnic restaurants are high on your list.

Lemesee, I'm listening to "Inside Washington." Chris, Krauthammer lies through his teeth and he isn't shy about it. And W takes monumental vacations. Crawford, Texas, in August? I deeply don't get this. I'm headed for Ontario. In August, Go North. This isn't that hard to figure out if you know some of the basics of climatology in North America. Manly men go canoing in the Boundary Waters and carry a bunch of canoe on their portage pads.

This year, I'm headed for Northern Ontario, "cottage country," and it's lakes.

Speak, Memory

For Hiroshima Day:

Editor and Publisher's expose of how the USG suppressed the newsreel footage of the destruction.

Corruption, Top to Bottom

Military Says Troops Demanded 'Rent' From Iraqi Vendors
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer

California Army National Guard troops charged unauthorized, off-the-books "rent" to Iraqi-owned businesses inside Baghdad's Green Zone in Iraq to raise money for a "soldier's fund," military officials and sources within the troops' battalion said Friday.

The disclosure is the latest to emerge from a wide-ranging investigation into the conduct of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment of the Guard, which is headquartered in Modesto, Calif.

Military officials had confirmed previously that the battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, had been suspended and that one of the battalion's companies, based in Fullerton, Calif., had been removed from patrol duties and restricted to an Army base south of Baghdad, the capital.

According to military officials and members of the battalion, soldiers from the battalion's Bravo Company, which is based in Dublin, an East Bay suburb of San Francisco, approached several businesses earlier this year that were owned and operated by Iraqi nationals.

The businesses -- a dry cleaner, a convenience store and the like -- catered to U.S. soldiers and were located on the fringe of the U.S. military's operating base inside the Green Zone, the fortified hub of the Iraqi government, U.S. occupation officials, embassies and contractor headquarters. The businesses were asked to pay the soldiers "rent."

Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, confirmed Friday that two vendors agreed to pay.

The money was used to create a "soldier's fund," said one member of the battalion, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Such funds are used by troops for a wide variety of purposes, such as small loans to repay bills back home or buying commemorative so-called "challenge coins" -- often specially minted to foster morale inside a unit. Kent said the fund created from the rent money also was used to buy T-shirts, patches and a safe.

Kent declined to discuss the incident further, stating in an e-mail from Iraq: "Specific details are part of the informal investigation which is administrative in nature and protected by privacy rules."

There is considerable dispute about the financial arrangement -- how much money was raised, how many soldiers were involved and how important the allegations are.

Army officials say the total amount was $4,000, but troops in the battalion have said the scheme raised more than $30,000. The investigation resulted in disciplinary action against one officer from the battalion's Bravo Company. Army officials declined to disclose the officer's name, and his identity could not be confirmed independently.

Army officials say they have no evidence that anyone else was involved beyond the disciplined officer. But members of the battalion, including one who has been briefed directly on the investigation, said that at least six soldiers played some role in the arrangement.

One member of the battalion said the consensus in the ranks was that, "This is not the kind of thing that you do alone." Battalion members who discussed the matter did so on condition that their names not be used because they have been told by superiors not to talk about the subject with reporters.

Paying Attention

Bush down in Iraq poll

WASHINGTON President Bush has fallen to a new low in a new A-P-Ipsos poll on his handing of Iraq. The poll taken Monday through Wednesday indicates that just 38 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the war and its aftermath.

A year ago, the public was evenly divided on Iraq, and Bush's stance on the war and terrorism helped him to election victory.

Bush has lost support most dramatically among younger women, especially those who live in the suburbs, and among men with a high school education or less.

The number of Americans who trust the president has also fallen, from 53 to 48 percent, according to a poll conducted this week.

About 55 percent disapprove of the job he's doing overall.

Even though it is August, the public is noticing that enormous, expensive quagmire in Iraq. Fancy that.

Childhood

Children, Start Your Engines
Competitive Go-Karting Picks Up Speed

By Dan Steinberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 6, 2005; Page A01

Like any self-respecting 5-year-old, Christian Elder has started whittling down his career options. He might want to be a professional baseball player, which is why this spring he played T-ball once or twice a week near his Charles County home. He also might want to be a professional NASCAR driver, which is why after the Saturday morning T-ball games Christian and his father, Richie Elder, headed to a paved oval in King George County, Va., where Christian climbed into his $2,000 go-kart and piloted it around the 1/5 -mile track at speeds in excess of 30 mph.

"Like NASCAR, kind of," the 3-foot-6, 43-pound Christian said while sipping a can of soda after a recent race, "but not really as fast."

As NASCAR has driven motorsports toward the front of the sports lineup over the past decade, with 75 million fans and television ratings topped only by the NFL, the stock-car series and its open-wheel cousins are spawning younger fans like Christian Elder who unleash their exhaust-filled dreams every weekend in organized and competitive go-kart races.

While exponentially more grade schoolers still play organized soccer or baseball than race go-karts, the sport appears to be booming. The World Karting Association, go-karting's largest sanctioning body, estimates there are between 125,000 and 150,000 karters of all ages in the United States, up from 100,000 in 1994.

Demographic information is spotty in a decentralized sport in which anyone can show up with a go-kart at a track, but industry veterans estimate that 25-35 percent of participants are aged 21 or under, for a total of between 31,000 and 52,000 young karters. By comparison, the United States Youth Soccer Association has seen its participation numbers hover at just more than 3 million over the past four years, while Little League, which has seen its numbers decline about one percent annually since 1997, has 2.1 million American participants.

World Karting Association officials, who now set up a promotional booth at nearly every NASCAR event, attribute the growth largely to stock-car racing's increasing popularity, and track operators agree.

"If you talk to every one of these kids, the one thing they want to do is be a NASCAR driver," said Patty Pool, owner of King George Speedway, which is about halfway between Washington and Richmond. "Every one of them, that's their dream."

Great, new and informative ways to fuck up our kids. I'm sure that laying these kinds of expectations on 5 year olds will fuel another generation of psychiatrists.

They're All Sand Niggers

US may deny visa for Iran leader's UN address
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: August 5 2005 06:10 | Last updated: August 5 2005 08:40

The Bush administration is considering taking the unprecedented step of preventing a visting head of state from addressing the United Nations in New York by denying a visa to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran's new elected conservative president.

Officials said a decision rested on investigations into whether Mr Ahmadi-Nejad was involved in the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis and the killing of an Iranian-Kurdish dissident leader in Vienna in 1989. Iran denies his involvement in either event.

A top Iranian official confirmed Thursday that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who took office on Wednesday, planned to address the UN Millennium Summit and its annual General Assembly next month. Ahmadi-Nejad’s visa application was submitted on Thursday, the Iranian official said.

The trip would be “mutually beneficial to the US and Iran”, the official added.

A White House official said that visa applications were confidential under US law and therefore he could not comment on the outcome. Asked if the president’s alleged involvement in the 444-day-long embassy hostage crisis, if proven, would be sufficient reason to deny him a visa, the US official replied: “That is something we are looking at.”

The small-minded act in small-minded ways. This used to be a great country, lately it is acting like a tin-horn dictatorship. It is instructive to look at the way we treated Tariq Ramadan, a noted Islamic scholar, last year.

GAYGAYGAYGAYGAY

In Private Practice, Roberts's Record Is Mixed
Some Cases Run Counter to Conservative Image, but Activists on the Right Say His Past Is Irrelevant

By Jo Becker and Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 5, 2005; Page A02

As a private lawyer, John G. Roberts Jr. represented homeless Washingtonians who had lost their government benefits because of city budget cuts. He advocated environmental protections for Lake Tahoe, Glacier Bay and the Grand Canyon. He spent 25 hours assisting a convicted murderer with a death penalty appeal. He even helped gay rights activists win a landmark Supreme Court anti-discrimination case.

At first blush, these cases would seem to complicate any image of the Supreme Court nominee as a down-the-line conservative. But as details have emerged in recent days, conservative groups have been busy spreading the word to their members and the broader public about what they should think of Roberts's work in private practice: Pay it no mind.

At second blush, Roberts's role is hardly surprising, say people who have worked with him or studied his career. For more than a decade, he practiced appellate law at the Washington firm Hogan & Hartson in a distinctly non-ideological fashion. Now, as liberal and conservative activists pick over his career for evidence of his political and legal philosophy, neither side seems to attach much importance to his diverse practice. And some activists on both sides remain secure in their conviction that he is an emphatic conservative who will move the high court to the right -- never mind his client list.

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that in 1996, as part of his firm's pro bono program, Roberts offered limited aid to opponents of a Colorado referendum that allowed discrimination against gays. The case led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling that protects people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

But Nan Aron of the liberal Alliance for Justice said that Roberts's involvement "doesn't say anything about his judicial philosophy." And Sean Rushton of the conservative Committee for Justice called the Colorado case "a red herring meant to divide the right."

"I don't think this is serious," said Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. "Most conservatives are very pleased. . . . He has a long record, and has been very consistent."

The prevailing view of Roberts as a reliable conservative initially emerged from his résumé as a clerk to then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, aide to President Ronald Reagan, deputy to then-Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr and nominee of President Bush. That view was solidified by the release of forceful memos he wrote while serving in the Reagan administration, during which he helped shape policies opposing affirmative-action quotas and busing of schoolchildren to achieve desegregation. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, he signed a brief that called Roe v. Wade "wrongly decided."

The best part of the LATimes story was the way it reduced Rush Limaugh to sputtering incoherence yesterday. Here's the transcript. I can't listen to him anymore so maybe he's always this nonsensical. I just found this excerpt to be particularly idiotic. If this is the quality of work cranked out by one of the Right's premiere attack dogs, they are in a world of hurt and don't even know it.

Hope is Not Preparation

Still Not Ready in The ER

By Arthur Kellerman

Friday, August 5, 2005; Page A15

One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to coolly and dispassionately assess health threats against the populace and take decisive action to counter these threats.

Faced with the twin specters of mass casualties from international terrorism and emerging biological threats, our government has failed to take effective action on either front.

International terrorism's weapon of choice is explosives -- improvised and otherwise. The London attacks and the devastating Madrid bombings are only some of the more recent examples. Over the past decade terrorist bombings have caused many civilian deaths and injuries in Israel, Russia, Bali, Colombia, Iraq, Spain, Egypt, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, Argentina, Afghanistan, the Philippines and other places, including two U.S. embassies in Africa.

But unfortunately, rather than strengthen our nation's beleaguered emergency and trauma care system to meet this threat, the federal government has turned a blind eye to the problem. Across the United States, underfunded emergency rooms and trauma centers lack sufficient beds to meet their daily mission, much less absorb large numbers of victims from a terrorist attack. Few ambulance personnel know how to assess a blast scene or properly evaluate multiple casualties from a bombing. The tiny amount of federal funding ($3.5 million) devoted to trauma systems planning and development is being targeted for elimination by the House.

One reason we are so ill-prepared is that the bulk of federal preparedness funds have been poured into bioterrorism, a frightening but less likely threat. Over the past three years, billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent to purchase "sniffer stations," mount an ill-fated and ultimately unsuccessful vaccination campaign against smallpox, and stockpile antibiotics. There are 17 federally funded Centers for Public Health Preparedness in the United States that focus exclusively on biological and other exotic weapons of mass destruction. There is not one focused on civilian injuries from explosives.

But at least we are safer from biological agents, right? Well, no. Two years after SARS had a devastating impact in Southeast Asia and in Toronto -- arguably one of the most medically sophisticated cities in the world -- we are woefully unprepared to handle a recurrence of severe acute respiratory syndrome. We are even less capable of meeting a far more deadly threat: the emergence of a pandemic strain of influenza from Southeast Asia.

In 1918-19 the Spanish flu killed 20 million to 40 million people worldwide -- more than 500,000 in the United States alone. Many of the victims were young, healthy adults. Despite knowledge that pandemic strains occur every 10 to 50 years, and despite increasingly worrisome reports from Southeast Asia, we are woefully unprepared to protect the United States from an outbreak of pandemic flu. Federal officials are "meeting," but a national plan for countering pandemic flu has not progressed beyond the draft stage. State-level planning and preparedness efforts vary widely; no specific deadline exists for their completion. Despite overwhelming evidence that many hospitals are already diverting ambulances because of overcrowding, the Health Resources and Services Administration does not plan a meeting to discuss the lack of hospital "surge capacity" before next fall.

A year after the flu vaccine debacle, the United States still lacks sufficient production to meet its needs. Six to eight months of lead time are required to create a new vaccine. The virulence of the avian strain emerging in Southeast Asia is posing huge technical challenges to vaccine makers. Our approach to distributing vaccine and antiviral agents is woefully inadequate. Front-line paramedics, nurses and ER doctors lack adequate protective equipment for respiratory pathogens. Many cannot even get a shot of flu vaccine. America's most mission-critical hospital resources are struggling to meet daily demands, much less the additional burden of an epidemic.

It is ironic that our government's single-minded focus on "bioterrorism" has left us less well prepared to handle either an emerging biological threat (such as SARS or avian influenza) or a terrorist strike (which will most likely involve the use of explosives). Unless we quickly rethink our priorities and broadly allocate resources to meet the most plausible threats to the U.S. population, our only option will be a "faith-based initiative."

Pray that nothing happens.

I heard Revere give an absolutely spectacular rant on this topic at a think tank even here in DC a couple of months ago. Our public health infrastructure has been in decline for decades. Under Bushco, the decline has been precipitous. The Dems haven't been much better: Lieberman's "Biohazard II" bill is a big wet kiss to Big PHarma. We're in a world of hurt and the only people who are noticing are the scientists. The media are criminally negligent in failing to tell people what to do to prepare for a pandemic.

Corporate Whoring

FCC Eases Broadband Service Rules
By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer

The nation's telephone companies today won the right to kick off rival providers of high-speed Internet service from their networks in a move some industry observers fear will limit competition and raise prices for consumers.

The Federal Communications Commission effectively deregulated DSL service, lifting the rules that require regional phone companies, such as SBC Communications, to lease high-speed lines to rivals, such as Earthlink. The FCC adopted the new rule 4 to 0, according to the Associated Press.

The decision is likely to eventually limit most of the choices residential customers have for high-speed Internet access to their local phone company and their local cable company.

The regional phone companies, or Baby Bells, stepped up their campaign to lift the regulations on DSL service after the Supreme Court in June said that cable television companies were not subject to the same rules requiring access to their high-speed lines.

The court decision supported a 2002 FCC proceeding to give phone companies the same sort of exclusive control over their digital subscriber line, or DSL, service. The agency had put the action on hold pending a final court ruling.

About half the households with Internet access use high-speed connections, and about 98% of those connections are supplied by cable and phone companies. Six of 10 broadband customers use cable modems.

Today's FCC decision treats DSL operations as an information service, which is not subject to the extensive regulations that apply to traditional telephone and communication service.

However, the FCC will require the phone companies to share their high-speed networks for at least one year.

Internet service providers without their own high-speed lines, such as Earthlink, will now be forced to pay much more to access telephone networks or develop alternatives, such as wireless high-speed service.

"We are confident that we will extend our existing commercial agreements with the Bells so that we can continue to deliver DSL service," said Dave Baker, legal chief for Atlanta-based Earthlink, in a statement.

Utterly predictable: whatever best serves the interests of the corporate masters. This is the Repubs throwing the Baby Bells a big thank you for their campaign support. You and I get to pay for it.

Ungraceful Loser

Military Planners Tell Bush Iraq War 'Cannot be Won'
By Staff and Wire Reports
Aug 5, 2005, 05:51

With American deaths climbing and public support falling, President Bush stubbornly says the U.S. will "stay the course" and American troops will remain in the dangerous, war-ravaged country, fighting a war that many military experts say cannot be won.

An AP-Ipsos poll taken early this week showed public support of Bush's handling of the war had dropped to 38 percent, the lowest since Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

But Bush, facing a grim and growing death toll, also said new threats of even more violence from al-Qaida's second-in-command would not intimidate the United States into retreat.

Yet while Bush remains stubbornly committed to the war, sources within the Pentagon say military planners tell the President the war cannot be won and the U.S. may have to look for a Vietnam-style withdrawal that will leave Iraq vulnerable to forces even more dangerous than the previous dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

"Our present scenarios do not provide a successful outcome," admits a senior military planner. "We are not adequately equipped to prevail in this conflict."

At the same time Thursday, the U.S. military announced in Iraq that four more service members had been killed in action but the "official" military line is that American troops were making progress against insurgents.

"We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq," Bush said in Texas as a videotape by Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No.2, was broadcast around the world.
....
Still, there has been few obvious signs of progress in U.S.-led efforts to defeat the insurgency and to improve the Iraqi army and police so they can take over security responsibilities and allow the U.S. forces to leave.

And while the military tries to keep an optimistic public face the story told behind the scenes at the Pentagon is far less rosy.

"We're losing and we have no contingency plan in place to turn this conflict around," the senior military planner said. "At the present time, we are engaged in a no-win scenario."

The high recent death toll of American troops have dominated the news back home -- no help for the already-eroding public support for Bush's Iraq policy.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that only 38 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, the low point so far. A year ago, the public was evenly divided on Iraq, and confidence in Bush's stance on the war and terrorism helped him to election victory.

We told you so, back before we went into Mesopotamia. This is all perfectly predictable. I don't know how the war planners in the Pentagon couldn't see it.

News of the Wierd

Incarcerated gang founder wins award

By Kim Curtis

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO - Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America."

Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs.

The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues to fight his conviction. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds that racial bias may have influenced jury selection.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to comment when asked if the president's award would help a bid for clemency. No formal petition has been submitted.

It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature.

Puppet

Iraq is in 'a state of war', admits Jaafari

BASSEM MROUE
IN BAGHDAD

IRAQ is in "a state of war" as it struggles to overcome the insurgency that has claimed hundreds of lives since the swearing in of a new government earlier this year, the country's prime minister admitted yesterday.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari said a new plan was being put in place to combat militants in an effort to reassure citizens in the embattled country.

He gave few details of the plan but said it was divided into 12 points and included steps to improve intelligence, protect infrastructure and prevent foreign fighters from infiltrating Iraq.

Mr Jaafari said the United States and its coalition partners were trying to help Iraqi forces to take over security from multinational forces. "The people believe that they should depend on themselves, and it is a matter of time. Iraq is now taking major steps in training its forces," he said.

His comments came in the wake of the US suffering heavy casualties while fighting in the north-west of the country. The Iraqi insurgent group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said yesterday its fighters were behind the roadside bombing that killed 14 US marines on Wednesday.

If you watch carefully, Condi Rice's lips hardly move.

Your Web, Your Freedom

FBI’s "National Security Letters" Threaten Online Speech and Privacy

EFF Urges Appeals Court to Find Secret Subpoena Power Unconstitutional

New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by several civil liberties organizations and online service providers, filed a friend-of-the-court brief yesterday in the case of Doe v. Gonzales arguing that National Security Letters (NSLs) are unconstitutional. NSLs are secret subpoenas for communications logs, issued directly by the FBI without any judicial oversight. These secret subpoenas allow the FBI to demand that online service providers produce records of where their customers go on the Web, as well as what they read and with whom they exchange email. The FBI can even issue NSLs for information about people who haven't committed any crimes.

A federal district court has already found NSLs unconstitutional, and the government is now appealing the case. In its brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, EFF argues that these secret subpoenas imperil free speech by allowing the FBI to track people's online activities. In addition, NSLs violate the First and Fourth Amendment rights of the service providers who receive the secret government demands. EFF and its cosigners argue that NSLs for Internet logs should be subject to the same strict judicial scrutiny applied to other subpoenas that may reveal information about the identities of anonymous speakers – or their private reading habits and personal associations.

Yet NSLs are practically immune to judicial review. They are accompanied by gag orders that allow no exception for talking to lawyers and provide no effective opportunity for the recipients to challenge them in court. This secret subpoena authority, which was expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act, could be applied to nearly any online service provider for practically any type of record, without a court ever knowing.

"The Constitution does not allow the FBI to secretly demand logs about Internet users' Web browsing and email history based on vague claims of national security," said EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow Kevin Bankston. "The district court's decision that National Security Letters are unconstitutional should have been a wake-up call to the House of Representatives, which just voted to renew the PATRIOT Act without adding new checks against abuse."

Although such protections are lacking in the PATRIOT renewal bill that the House of Representatives recently passed, they are included in the Senate bill. It is not yet clear whether those protections will be included in the final bill when it reaches the President's desk.

EFF was joined on the brief by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Online Policy Group, Salon Media Group, Inc., Six Apart, Ltd., the US Internet Industry Association, and ZipLip, Inc.

Judging the Future will be joining this suit later today as soon as we find suitable counsel.

The American Character Flaw

Design for Confusion

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 5, 2005

I'd like to nominate Irving Kristol, the neoconservative former editor of The Public Interest, as the father of "intelligent design." No, he didn't play any role in developing the doctrine. But he is the father of the political strategy that lies behind the intelligent design movement - a strategy that has been used with great success by the economic right and has now been adopted by the religious right.

Back in 1978 Mr. Kristol urged corporations to make "philanthropic contributions to scholars and institutions who are likely to advocate preservation of a strong private sector." That was delicately worded, but the clear implication was that corporations that didn't like the results of academic research, however valid, should support people willing to say something more to their liking.

Mr. Kristol led by example, using The Public Interest to promote supply-side economics, a doctrine whose central claim - that tax cuts have such miraculous positive effects on the economy that they pay for themselves - has never been backed by evidence. He would later concede, or perhaps boast, that he had a "cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit."

"Political effectiveness was the priority," he wrote in 1995, "not the accounting deficiencies of government."

Corporations followed his lead, pouring a steady stream of money into think tanks that created a sort of parallel intellectual universe, a world of "scholars" whose careers are based on toeing an ideological line, rather than on doing research that stands up to scrutiny by their peers.

You might have thought that a strategy of creating doubt about inconvenient research results could work only in soft fields like economics. But it turns out that the strategy works equally well when deployed against the hard sciences.

The most spectacular example is the campaign to discredit research on global warming. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, many people have the impression that the issue is still unresolved. This impression reflects the assiduous work of conservative think tanks, which produce and promote skeptical reports that look like peer-reviewed research, but aren't. And behind it all lies lavish financing from the energy industry, especially ExxonMobil.

There are several reasons why fake research is so effective. One is that nonscientists sometimes find it hard to tell the difference between research and advocacy - if it's got numbers and charts in it, doesn't that make it science?

Even when reporters do know the difference, the conventions of he-said-she-said journalism get in the way of conveying that knowledge to readers. I once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." The headlines on many articles about the intelligent design controversy come pretty close.

Finally, the self-policing nature of science - scientific truth is determined by peer review, not public opinion - can be exploited by skilled purveyors of cultural resentment. Do virtually all biologists agree that Darwin was right? Well, that just shows that they're elitists who think they're smarter than the rest of us.

I tried to call in to Dianne Rehm's "intelligent design" discussion yesterday on NPR, but got only a busy signal. This isn't a debate. Among scientists, there is no conflict. Staging a "debate" between some stooge from the "Discovery Institute" and a biologist is like asking a physicist to "debate" quantum mechanics with a novelist. The playing field doesn't exist, the non-scientist doesn't have standing to discuss the question.

This is a quintessentially American problem, and it isn't a discussion question elsewhere in the Western World. Only in the US does your quondam asshole get to have an opinion which is every bit as important as someone with an actual PhD in the subject. In the US, personal opinion trumps fact, science and education.

No Vision

Niger's Anguish Is Reflected in Its Dying Children

By MICHAEL WINES
Published: August 5, 2005

ELKOKIYA, Niger, Aug. 3 - At sunset Wednesday, in an unmarked grave in a cemetery rimmed by millet fields, the men of this mud-walled village buried Baby Boy Saminou, the latest casualty of the hunger ravaging 3.6 million farmers and herders in this destitute nation.

After Baby Boy Saminou, 16 months old, died of malnutrition at Maradi, a hospital worker lifted his body from the back of Mariama, his mother.

At Maradi, infants, some near death, and their mothers await aid provided by Doctors Without Borders. Some experts blame primitive farming and health care for the high death rate among children.

At 16 months, he was little bigger than some newborns, with the matchstick limbs and skeletal ribs of the severely malnourished. He had died three hours earlier in the intensive care unit of a field hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, where 30 others like him still lie with their mothers on metal cots.

One in five is dying - the result, many say, of a belated response by the outside world to a disaster predicted in detail nine months ago.

Niger's latest hunger problem, like Baby Boy Saminou's tragedy, is more complex than it first appears. As aid begins to trickle into some of the nearly 4,000 villages across southern Niger that need help - the vanguard of a flood of food brought forth by television images of shrunken babies - the rich world's response to Niger's worst nutrition crisis since the 1985 famine is, in fact, proving too late for many.

Unseen on television, however, are the shrunken infants who die all but unnoticed even in so-called normal years. Of each 1,000 children born alive in this, the world's second-poorest nation, a staggering 262 fail to reach their fifth birthdays.

Five of Baby Boy Saminou's seven brothers and sisters were among them. The longest-surviving of those who died reached 4 years of age. Asked what killed the last three, Saminou's father, Saidou Ida, said simply, "Malnutrition."

We've known about this for months, but it sure didn't figure into anything W did with the G8, did it?

Naughty Man

CNN suspends Novak after he walks off set

By DAVID BAUDER
AP TELEVISION WRITER

NEW YORK -- CNN suspended commentator Robert Novak indefinitely after he swore and walked off the set Thursday during a debate with Democratic operative James Carville.

The live exchange during CNN's "Inside Politics" came during a discussion of Florida's Senate campaign. CNN correspondent Ed Henry noted when it was over that he had been about to ask Novak about his role in the investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity.

A CNN spokeswoman, Edie Emery, called Novak's behavior "inexcusable and unacceptable." Novak apologized to CNN, and CNN was apologizing to viewers, she said.

"We've asked Mr. Novak to take some time off," she said.

A telephone message at Novak's office was not immediately returned Thursday.

Carville and Novak were both trying to speak while they were handicapping the GOP candidacy of Katherine Harris. Novak said the opposition of the Republican establishment in Florida might not be fatal for her.

"Let me just finish, James, please," Novak continued. "I know you hate to hear me, but you have to."

Carville, addressing the camera, said: "He's got to show these right wingers that he's got a backbone, you know. It's why the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em that you're tough."

"Well, I think that's bull---- and I hate that," Novak replied. "Just let it go."

As moderator Henry stepped in to ask Carville a question, Novak walked off the set.

Only two weeks ago, CNN executives defended their decision to keep Novak on the air during the ongoing probe into the revelation of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity. In a July 2003 newspaper column, Novak identified Plame, the wife of administration critic and former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative.

Wilson has said the leak of his wife's name was an attempt by the administration to discredit him. Two other reporters connected to the case openly fought the revelation of their sources, and Judith Miller of The New York Times has been jailed for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors.

Novak has repeatedly refused to comment about his role in the federal investigation.

After Novak walked off on Thursday, Henry said that Novak had been told before the segment that he was going to be asked on air about the CIA case.

"I'm hoping that we will be able to ask him about that in the future," Henry said.

Novak has been a longtime contributor to CNN, taking the conservative point of view during the just-canceled "Crossfire" show.

Crooks and Liars (as always) has the video. I saw it live, with my tongue hanging out. It was surreal. I haven't seen anything like it since that moment at the Democratic Convention in 1968 when Bill Buckley reached across the table and said to Gore Vidal, " You fag."

At least CNN had the good judgement to suspend Novak. That's about the only good judgement they've had since they became part of the corporate Time Warner empire. They still employ Howie "Mr. Conflict of Interest" Kurtz. When they stop acting like news whores, I'll be the first to let you know.

To The Naked Eye

Environmental damage on Earth seen from shuttle

By Jeff Franks Thu Aug 4,10:12 AM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources.

Her comments came as NASA pondered whether to send astronauts out on an extra spacewalk to repair additional heat-protection damage on the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Discovery is linked with the International Space Station and orbiting 220 miles above the Earth.

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.

Collins, flying her fourth shuttle mission, said the view from space made clear that Earth's atmosphere must be protected, too.

"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."

And we aren't doing a damn thing about it as temperatures rise and hurricanes and typhoons get bigger, fiercer and longer lasting. It seems to me like the insurance industry might have something to say about this. The east coast of the US has become very heavily built up on the coast and the barrier islands since the last serious hurricane cycle.

In Our Name

US torturing detainees in secret locations: Amnesty

By David Mark for 'AM'

Amnesty International has accused the United States of complicity in the torture and detention of terrorism suspects in secret locations around the world.

In a report to be released later today, Amnesty International details the stories of two Yemeni men who were both tortured for four days in Jordan before spending 18 months in secret detention.

Amnesty says the men are still being held in prison in Yemen at the behest of US authorities, without being charged.

Amnesty believes the men's stories are part of a broader picture of US secret detentions centres around the world.

London-based Amnesty International secretariat researcher Sharon Critoph interviewed the two Yemeni prisoners - Muhammad Bashmilah and Salah Nasser Salim 'Ali - in June this year.

She met the two after asking Yemeni officials to see any prisoners who had recently been transferred from the US prison at Guanatamo Bay.

"As we interviewed them, it did become clear to us that the story they were telling was not a story of Guantanamo," she said.

Both men are originally from Yemen, but had been living in Indonesia with their Indonesian wives.

Both had spent some time in Afghanistan.
Torture

Salah Nasser Salim 'Ali was detained in Indonesia in August 2003.

After a week he was taken to Jordan and says he was tortured for four days.

"He was subject to beating, vocal intimidation, he was threatened with electric shocks, he was threatened with sexual abuse," Ms Critoph said.

"The guards would surround him in a circle and they would make him run round and round and round and round until he was completely exhausted, and then each of these guards would basically take their own turns to beat him in whatever way they chose."

Two months later Muhammad Bashmilah was visiting his sick mother in Jordan to when he was detained.

Like his countryman he says he was subjected to four days of torture.

Ms Critoph says the men's experiences are consistent with a broader pattern.

"It's clear, yes, that the US authorities have been, and continue to be, complicit in torture of suspects," she said.
Secret locations

The two were then transferred to other locations where they say there were held and interrogated daily by American guards, who Muhammad Bashmilah described as being fully covered "like Ninjas."

"They were held in solitary confinement, that whole time they say they didn't see any other detainees, no outside access at all," Ms Critoph said.

"The men did not know where they were held.

"We would certainly conclude by the descriptions given by the men and from other descriptions of Guantanamo, that the places seemed very, very different."

Here's the link to Amnesty's press release.

Badly Used

Iraq Army crippled by logistic problems
By David S. Cloud The New York Times
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2005

BAGHDAD The reorganized Iraqi Ministry of Defense, a crucial element of any U.S. plan to withdraw troops, is riddled with crippling problems that have raised concerns about its ability to keep Iraqi units paid, fed and equipped once it assumes full responsibility for its army, American and Iraqi commanders say. The shortcomings of the ministry, which was reorganized by American occupation officials last year, are a growing concern to the U.S. authorities. The U.S. plan to withdraw large numbers of the 135,000 American combat troops next year will hinge on a functioning ministry, these commanders said. If American troops leave without one in place, they said, the Iraqi Army could quickly collapse. "What are lacking are the systems that pay people, that supply people, that recruit people, that replace the wounded and AWOL, and systems that promote people and provide spare parts," said a top U.S. commander in Iraq, who asked not to be identified because his assessment of the Iraqi capabilities went beyond the military's public descriptions. "If they don't have that capability, we won't be able to take the training wheels off and let them operate independently," he said. Because of the problems, if U.S. combat troops do leave over the next year, military planners are preparing to keep large numbers of support troops and supplies in Iraq or in nearby countries, ready to be used to assist Iraqi units fighting insurgents if problems arise, according to the American commander. "If their life support and their combat support fails, we have got to make sure they are still able to accomplish the mission," the officer said. Building the new army is a vast undertaking, one made all the more difficult by the need to fight a violent insurgency at the same time. Iraqi soldiers complain that they lack some crucial equipment for fighting the insurgents, especially armored vehicles.

ThinkProgress says that it isn't just the Iraqi army which is ill-equiped:

The deadly roadside attack by insurgents yesterday in Iraq leaving 14 U.S. Marines dead identified a persisting weakness in the Bush administration’s post-war Iraq efforts: the inability to provide up-armored vehicles to all our troops in Iraq.

The AP reports that the 14 Marines were riding in a “lightly armored vehicle.” This description indicates the Marines were not equipped with the many varieties of up-armored vehicles which were specifically designed to provide the best protection available against roadside bombs. The Marine Corps Inspector General recently concluded that “a quarter of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force’s Humvees lack sufficient armor to protect troops against roadside bombings.”

In June, the New York Times reported that one of the most heavily equipped humvees, the M1117 (the so-called “Rhino Runner”), lost its funding prior to the invasion of Iraq, and the Defense Department has been excruciatingly slow to reallocate the necessary funding. While Secretary Rumsfeld was equipped with the Rhino on a recent trip to Iraq, soldiers are still driving around in largely-unprotected vehicles. As proof of the Rhino’s abilities, the Times wrote:

Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a six-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. “I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle,” wrote an Army captain, the lone military passenger, “the results would have been catastrophically different.“

A reserve guard unit in Hawaii recently experienced first-hand the improvement of riding around in an up-armored humvee:

Spc. Nick Tuiolosega, 29, a reservist from American Samoa, was injured April 21 in an older Humvee when a land mine tore through the bottom of the vehicle. He suffered a leg injury, and was medevaced to Hawai’i.

Since then, the battalion has had several similar strikes on up-armored Humvees with better results.

“Hit the same place, the same spot, and they suffered minor injuries,” said Maj. Mike Peeters, the executive officer for the battalion. “Words can’t describe how happy we are to have (the new up-armored Humvees).”

Regardless of his vacation plans, providing all units in Iraq with the best equipment possible must be an urgent priority for President Bush.

Keeps on Giving

The Iraq Infection
Matthew Herper, 08.02.05, 6:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - Military doctors are fighting to contain an outbreak of a potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria that apparently originated in the Iraqi soil. So far at least 280 people, mostly soldiers returning from the battlefield, have been infected, a number of whom contracted the illness while in U.S. military hospitals.

Most of the victims are relatively young troops who were injured by the land mines, mortars and suicide bombs that have permeated the Iraq conflict. No active-duty soldiers have died from the infections, but five extremely sick patients who were in the same hospitals as the injured soldiers have died after being infected with the bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii.

"This a very large outbreak," says Arjun Srinivasan, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. public health service and a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control.

Breaking This Threat Down To Numbers.
Acinetobacter was the second most prevalent infection for soldiers in Vietnam, but the military did not expect to see it as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Researchers are still working to understand where it came from and how patients were infected. (See: "Military Chases Mystery Infection.")

Doctors worry not only about soldiers who are already infected but also those who are carrying Acinetobacter on their skin even though they themselves are not infected. Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Petersen, an infectious disease specialist at National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda, Md.,says his hospital treated 396 patients who had been wounded in Iraq between May 2003 and February 2005. About 10% were infected and another 20% were found to have Acinetobacter bacteria on their skin but were not infected. The rate of appearance of the bacteria has "been flat-out steady," says Petersen.

The same has been true at Army hospitals that include Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Tripler Medical Center inHawaii and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where there has been a total of about 240 cases of patients infected, while another 500 have carried the bacteria, according to Col. Bruno Petrucelli, director of epidemiology and disease surveillance for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

Petrucelli says the five patients who died were at Army hospitals—most of them at Walter Reed. They were already suffering from serious health problems before they contracted the bacteria. "These were the sickest of the sick," says Petrucelli. The infections are split evenly among wound infections, respiratory infections and a mix of bloodstream and other infections.

Preventing the bacteria's spread has required doctors to take extreme care, putting all patients who are returning from the theater of war into isolation. "It's one of those pathogens that once it gets into a population and a chain of care, it can set up shop. Trying to contain the spread of this infection to other people is very difficult," says Andrew Shorr, a doctor who recently left Walter Reed for Washington Hospital Center. "What has happened over the past 18 months is every patient who shows up,

You can get away from the IEDs, but you don't get away from the threats once you leave Iraq. This is a spectacularly scarey bug and I'm not particularly happy about having it show up in my community.

Executive Abuse

Poll on Court Cites Detainee Rights as Concern

By Briefly
Thursday, August 4, 2005; A21

Americans seem as interested in the Supreme Court's approach to the rights of detained terrorists as they are in abortion, according to polling released yesterday. Both are considered very important issues facing the high court.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that almost two-thirds of those surveyed (63 percent), said Supreme Court decisions on abortion are very important, and 62 percent said the court's decisions about detained terrorists' rights are very important. Fifty-five percent cited the issue of whether to allow religious displays on government property as very important for the court.

The polling was conducted just before President Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to serve on the Supreme Court.

The results show that the public's concerns about the Supreme Court extend far beyond abortion. Much of the early media coverage of Roberts has focused on his possible views of the court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

"This important question of the trade-off of civil liberties and protection is one the public takes very seriously," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "The public has been reminded recently of the ongoing threat of terrorism and what we should or should not have to sacrifice for our safety." He did note that, until now, the question of detainees' rights "has not been one of the issues at the forefront of debate about the Supreme Court."

A case about parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion is on the court's agenda for the term beginning in October, but cases regarding such issues as the rights of foreign terrorist suspects at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are working their way through the lower courts.

Roberts recently joined a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholding the administration's approach to military trials for Guantanamo detainees.

When American citizens can be called "enemy combatants" on the sole authority of the president and have their civil rights under the Constitution suspended, I'd guess that Americans might just be interested in that. If Bush can do it to Jose Padilla, he can do it to you. Given this administration's prediliction for political vendettas, being in the opposition carries higher risk than usual.

Hey, Big Spender

In Congress, the GOP Embraces Its Spending Side

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 4, 2005; Page A01

GOP leaders this week sent House Republicans home for the summer with some political tips, helpfully laid out in 12 "Ideas for August Recess Events." Drop by a military reserve center to highlight increased benefits, the talking points suggest. Visit a bridge or highway that will receive additional funding, or talk up the new prescription drug benefit for seniors.

Having skirted budget restraints and approved nearly $300 billion in new spending and tax breaks before leaving town, Republican lawmakers are now determined to claim full credit for the congressional spending. Far from shying away from their accomplishments, lawmakers are embracing the pork, including graffiti eradication in the Bronx, $277 million in road projects for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and a $200,000 deer-avoidance system in New York.

When the year started, President Bush made spending restraint a mantra, laying out an austere budget that would freeze non-security discretionary spending for five years and setting firm cost limits on transportation and energy bills. But now, as Congress fills in the details of the budget plan, there is little interest in making deep cuts and enormous pressure to spend.

Lawmakers have seen little to fear from a political backlash, some acknowledge, and Bush has yet to wield his veto pen. In fact, the White House has proved itself largely unable to overcome the institutional forces that have long driven lawmakers to ply their parochial interests with cash.

When lawmakers return in the fall, they are almost certain to vote for more tax cuts. They also will vote on a huge new defense spending bill. But proposals for cutting entitlement programs including Medicaid have yet to pick up much support.

"If you look at fiscal conservatism these days, it's in a sorry state," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of only eight House members to vote against the $286.5 billion transportation bill that was passed the day before the recess. "Republicans don't even pretend anymore."

Last week, Congress approved transportation and energy bills that burst through the president's cost limits. Annual spending bills are inching above caps set by Congress itself in its budget plan for 2006. And a massive water projects bill passed by the House last month authorizes spending that would exceed current levels by 173 percent.

"You have to be courageous to not spend money," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), "and we don't have many people who have that courage."

Indeed, Congress has exceeded the allocations or assumptions in its budget resolution four times -- and the year's legislative work is far from complete. According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, those budget violations have raised spending through 2010 by roughly $2.2 billion above Congress's limits and tacked $115 billion onto the federal budget deficit through the end of decade, including $33 billion in 2006 alone.

The party of limited government and spending has abandoned its roots and turned into the bloated and hateful creature of late corruption. As history as our guide, this was all predictable. Time to turn them out.

The Corruption Chronicle

Iraq Army crippled by logistic problems"
By David S. Cloud The New York Times
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2005

BAGHDAD The reorganized Iraqi Ministry of Defense, a crucial element of any U.S. plan to withdraw troops, is riddled with crippling problems that have raised concerns about its ability to keep Iraqi units paid, fed and equipped once it assumes full responsibility for its army, American and Iraqi commanders say. The shortcomings of the ministry, which was reorganized by American occupation officials last year, are a growing concern to the U.S. authorities. The U.S. plan to withdraw large numbers of the 135,000 American combat troops next year will hinge on a functioning ministry, these commanders said. If American troops leave without one in place, they said, the Iraqi Army could quickly collapse. "What are lacking are the systems that pay people, that supply people, that recruit people, that replace the wounded and AWOL, and systems that promote people and provide spare parts," said a top U.S. commander in Iraq, who asked not to be identified because his assessment of the Iraqi capabilities went beyond the military's public descriptions. "If they don't have that capability, we won't be able to take the training wheels off and let them operate independently," he said. Because of the problems, if U.S. combat troops do leave over the next year, military planners are preparing to keep large numbers of support troops and supplies in Iraq or in nearby countries, ready to be used to assist Iraqi units fighting insurgents if problems arise, according to the American commander. "If their life support and their combat support fails, we have got to make sure they are still able to accomplish the mission," the officer said. Building the new army is a vast undertaking, one made all the more difficult by the need to fight a violent insurgency at the same time. Iraqi soldiers complain that they lack some crucial equipment for fighting the insurgents, especially armored vehicles. While much of the equipment for the new army is provided by American and other foreign governments, the ministry is nominally in charge of distributing it to troops from supply depots being established around the country. Even routine equipment and supply requests are supposed to be cleared by ministry officials, but there are not enough personnel to handle the job or procedures in place to get it done smoothly. Instead, American trainers embedded with each Iraqi unit often have to step in to ensure the necessary equipment is delivered, several U.S. officers said. The ministry has the responsibility for feeding troops and for operating the growing number of bases where soldiers are stationed around the country, but those jobs are handled largely by Iraqi contractors, many of whom came close to shutting down their operations in July after not being paid for months, American officials said. There are also indications of widespread corruption involving the ministry's purchases of equipment using its own money. The Iraqi authorities said they were investigating possible kickbacks in more than $300 million in purchases of defective and outdated helicopters, machine guns and armored personnel carriers by the department's former procurement chief.

Anybody who had done a half year in the Quartermaster corps could have figured this out a long time ago. Bushco are trashy idiots, but we knew that, right?

A Little Upscale

From a Reader:
Spicy Lemon Lime Shrimp

My husband, who is Indian, has introduced me to many new spices, and "fusion" is frequently the name of the game in our kitchen. This recipe is no exception. These shrimp go well with paneer paratha, a semi-spicy Indian bread, or over rice with leftover marinade. They're also excellent right off a campfire, taken with a cold bottle of beer!

6 large cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fresh ginger
2 large shallots
2 green chilies
12 stems fresh cilantro
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mustard seed
juice of one lemon
juice of one lime
1 lb peeled and de-veined shrimp
4-8 skewers, depending on the size of the shrimp

Cut the garlic, ginger, shallots, green chilies, and cilantro into pieces. Throw them all into a food processor with the olive oil and grind to a paste.

Move the paste to a medium-sized bowl and add the red chili powder, salt, mustard seed, and lemon and lime juices. Stir to mix.

Mix the shrimp into the paste and allow it to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 90 minutes.

After marinating, thread shrimp onto skewers and grill over medium heat until shrimp are cooked through and bits of garlic and ginger begin to brown.

For less heat, omit the green chilies.

Makes 2-4 servings

Quick and Cheap

I haven't done any recipes in a week. When lightening is blasting airplanes out of the sky in Toronto, we need some lighter fare. And it is hotter than the hinges of Hell where I live, so I'm not cooking indoors.

While your tuna is cooking on the grill, make this as a side:
Sweet-and-Sour Cucumbers with Fresh Dill

This refreshing dish can be prepared and chilled two hours before serving.

2 English hothouse cucumbers (1 1/2 pounds total), unpeeled, very thinly sliced
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt

1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh dill
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place cucumber slices in colander. Sprinkle with salt; toss to coat. Let stand 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, for dressing, stir vinegar, dill, sugar, and pepper in large bowl until sugar is dissolved.

Drain cucumbers well; pat dry. Add cucumbers to dressing and stir to blend. Refrigerate at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours; serve cold.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

This is a super side with fish or chicken, but you can convert it to the red meat side by using red wine vinegar and a handful of chervil and skip the sugar. Ripe cukes are sweet enough.

This whole procedure works nicely with zukes, marinate in the sauce and cook halves of small cukes on the grill with a little olive oil and fresh minced garlic. Yum. Use tongs to turn them and get some nice grill marks on the sweet side of the flesh. Add fresh mint, and you are serving Emily's.

If you are in range of the restaurant and can buy the cook book, do so. It is far better and more authentic than the food in the resaurant, although I lived on its combination of vegetables and beans for years, and use the cookbook weekly to this day.

Mediterranean food is better than the Atkin's diet. Psst. Pass it on. And cheaper and less boring.

Day is Done, Gone the Sun...

This was one of those impossible days. Every connection got missed, unplanned emergencies screwed up everything, none of it was serious it was all just...odd. It was one of those days which reminded me that control is an illusion. The heat and humidity returned in impressive fashion. The hour I spent in it waiting for the cab that never showed up was an important feature of the day. I have to find a more reliable local hack company. This is the second time they left me high and sweating in the last couple of months.

I'm heading for greater NYC in a week or so (with an Internet connection, if all the stars align properly) to get caught up on the Apple and meet some new people. Readers in the area, I'd love to meet you for a drink or coffee or something. I think I'll be staying across the river in Jersey City near a PATH stop. Recommend a meeting place near public transit and let's see if we can get a little event together. I haven't been up in years and I've got a boatload of catching up to do with the City and a new person to meet, so I'll let you recommend a schedule. Looks like it will be a Friday night to Wednesday morning visit. I'm vacationeering this month.

Here's Animal Planet's pandacam (needs RealPlayer and worth it) so that you can see what the today's definition of snuggling looks like. The little guy is not a passive part of this. The WaPo reports, "Giant panda mothers dote on their cubs regardless of their gender. Mei Xiang cuddles her bundle of black-and-white fur almost 24 hours a day." Yes, she does. If you had a baby giant panda, wouldn't you do the same? This is serious snuggling. Baby pandas are born with out the resources that even a human child (who could not survive without its parents) has. This is worth thinking about while we contemplate what the society and the individual owe each other.

Weeping for America

A Young Man's Death in Iraq
by Tom Engelhardt and Chris Christensen
Tom Dispatch

His head was already filled with a lot of crud from the recruiter about being a scout, riding a 4-wheeler ATV around – big fun! (Christopher was an Eagle Scout.) He had an acquaintance who had been doing that (not in Iraq), and I got the sense that this acquaintance was giving him the hard sell too. I wonder if the Army has a referral bonus system. Do you know?

Christopher also had this inexplicable desire to "go shoot some 'Raqis." Some latent desire maybe from too much video gaming. I heard that in the weeks before his death, he was involved in a brief fire-fight and froze in terror. No doubt reality caught up to him at the speed of a 7.62. Too bad his recruiter or buddy had not told him about the fear he would experience when he realized someone wanted to really hurt him or kill him.

When I learned of Christopher's death, I was sitting at a PC in a hotel lounge in Manhattan. (I'm an airline pilot and was on a layover in New York.) I broke down and cried. There were lots of others around and I'm sure they were wondering… but none asked. I found I was crying not so much for the senseless loss of a young life, or even the grief our friends would bear. As I thought about it, I was crying for our country. What have we come to?

As I mentioned, there is not much for a young man to do in small towns like ours after high school. Christopher had mentioned to me when we talked last, before his enlistment, about riding that 4-wheeler ATV around as an Army scout and having a good time. His recruiter had him hooked. He also mentioned going to shoot some "'Raqis."

This is my sadness. Our children are being weaned on hatred and violence in this country. It starts with television, gets reinforced and is refined with violent video games (one, in particular, produced and distributed by the U.S. Army), and finally the infection spreads through violent team sports in high school. Football in the South is the battlefield training ground for the next generation of cannon fodder. Kids are told to go out there and "hurt 'em, tear 'em up, kill 'em." It is ingrained.

(Careful now, don't get me confused with the liberal Left. I own guns and support the Right. There is a huge difference between defense of home and property and exporting violence to other countries.)

As I travel in other countries I see no parallel. There are of course team sports, but violence and undercurrents of hatred that lurk within are, as much as I can tell, not there.

Christopher didn't know it, but as a small town Southerner he was being trained for his death since early childhood.

Our little town votes mostly Democrat on local elections, but typically Republican in presidential races. Discussion or debate about policy in public is seldom heard and somewhat discouraged. What a shame. Most people around here take a passing interest in national or foreign policy for a week or two prior to an election, then just turn back to football, or whatever is covered on the sports page that day.

The notion of death or dismemberment at the hands of an enemy is so foreign as to be incomprehensible to most American youth. Our media does such a precise job of keeping images and details of such things out of the public eye. Not so for many foreign presses. Our schools would never consider teaching children about anything so morbid or unpleasant.

The thought that a boy like Christopher would so lightly desire to kill some people he knew nothing about is very distressing to me. On the one hand, Christopher was a pretty gentle and easygoing kid. If someone said to him, "Hey let's go shoot some kids from Sealy," a rival school, he would obviously have said, "You're crazy – get lost!" But Iraqis, why it's open season.

He only saw the differences. He had somehow developed enough hatred to override his sense of right and wrong, and any teaching of love of fellow man. He went to the Southern Baptist church here, and I know it was taught to him. On the other hand, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention declared this a "just war." A little hypocrisy there and probably confusing for Christopher. We left that church, by the way.

I know of a few men and women who knew Christopher, who have been supporting the occupation, and are beginning to change their minds. His death is the second our rural county has experienced in the last few months. It is beginning to change some attitudes here – but too late I'm afraid.

I hope that we learn sooner than we did in Vietnam that we can't successfully force our ideals on another society unwilling to adopt them or defend them for themselves.

There just aren't enough Christophers to go around.

Chris Christensen

Posted by Melanie at 03:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

At Long Last, Some Good News

Bird flu pandemic 'is stoppable'

A global pandemic of bird flu claiming millions of lives could be stopped if governments work together, say experts.

UK and US teams used computer models to work out the possible scenarios if the virus H5N1 mutated and became capable of spreading from human to human.

The result could be deaths on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu which claimed between 20 and 40 million lives.

However surveillance, plus targeted use of anti-viral drugs, could halt it, they told Nature and Science journals.

he models used by both teams looked at Thailand, one of the places at highest risk from avian flu.

More than 50 people have died from bird flu in south east Asia since the first human cases were reported in 1997.

At present, H5N1 flu strain poses only a limited threat to humans as it cannot be easily spread from person to person.

But experts fear the strain will might acquire this ability, causing a flu pandemic which could kill as many as 50,000 people in the UK.

Looking at this scenario, Professor Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, and his colleagues found two key conditions would have to be met to limit an outbreak of human-transmissible bird flu to fewer than 200 cases.

Firstly, the virus would have to be identified while confined to about 30 people, they told Nature.

Quick action

In addition, antiviral drugs would have to be distributed rapidly to the 20,000 individuals nearest those infected.

They estimate an international stockpile of three million courses of the treatment would be enough to contain an outbreak.

But it would mean having to deploy the drug anywhere in the world at short notice.

It's an enormous undertaking and will require cooperation among governments on a large scale
Researcher Professor Neil Ferguson

Another team from Emory University in Atlanta, the US, led by Dr Ira Longini, simulated an outbreak in a population of 500,000 in rural Thailand, where people mixed in a variety of settings, including households, schools, workplaces and a hospital.

Provided targeted use of antiviral drugs was adopted within 21 days it would be possible to contain an outbreak, they found, as long as each infected person was not likely to infect more than an average of 1.6 people.

If it was more infective than this, household quarantines would also be necessary, they said.

Co-researcher Elizabeth Halloran said: "Our findings indicate that we have reason to be somewhat hopeful.

"If - or, more likely, when - an outbreak occurs in humans, there is a chance of containing it and preventing a pandemic.

She told Science journal early intervention could at least slow the pandemic, helping to reduce mortality until a well-matched vaccine could be produced.

Professor Ferguson said: "It's an enormous undertaking and will require cooperation among governments on a large scale."

This will require unprecedented cooperation, nimbleness and few other things that bureaucrats aren't known for. Still, this is the one piece of hopeful news on the avian flu front that I've heard. And I'm grateful to the reader who sent me the link.

Stare Decisis, Anyone?

Top Court Nominee's Memos Questioned Right to Privacy (Update2)

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Memos U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts wrote two decades ago questioning whether there is a constitutional right to privacy will likely draw scrutiny at his Senate confirmation hearings.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they want to explore Roberts's views on those and other topics including state-federal relations and the scope of Congress's power to regulate business.

In a Dec. 11, 1981, memo to his boss, Attorney General William French Smith, Roberts referred to a comment by former Solicitor General Erwin Griswold that derided the ``so-called `right to privacy''' that formed the basis of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide.

Griswold, also a former dean of Harvard Law School, was ``arguing as we have that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution,'' Roberts wrote in the memo, among papers released by the National Archives and Records Administration in advance of his Senate confirmation hearings set to begin Sept. 6.

Griswold ``specifically criticizes Roe v. Wade,'' Roberts wrote.

Roberts, then a special assistant to Smith, attached a draft thank-you letter that he recommended the attorney general send praising Griswold for sounding ``some of the themes I have been addressing recently'' about courts ``restricting themselves to the proper judicial function.''

President George W. Bush nominated Roberts, 50, on July 19 to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the nation's highest court.

Bloomberg goes on to say that this represents the policy view of the Reagan administration rather than Roberts personal view, but it enforces the need for the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask the nominee some pointed questions when the hearings start in September.

Fabricated Controversy

I've generally stayed away from this topic, but it got featured every hour on the hour on CNN yesterday (with their trademark sloppy coverage) and the WaPo piece today isn't much better.

Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate

By Peter Baker and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A01

President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about "intelligent design," a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.

Although he said that curriculum decisions should be made by school districts rather than the federal government, Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories.

"Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

These comments drew sharp criticism yesterday from opponents of the theory, who said there is no scientific evidence to support it and no educational basis for teaching it.

Much of the scientific establishment says that intelligent design is not a tested scientific theory but a cleverly marketed effort to introduce religious -- especially Christian -- thinking to students. Opponents say that church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels instead of first building support through traditional scientific review.

The White House said yesterday that Bush's comments were in keeping with positions dating to his Texas governorship, but aides say they could not recall him addressing the issue before as president. His remarks heartened conservatives who have been asking school boards and legislatures to teach students that there are gaps in evolutionary theory and explain that life's complexity is evidence of a guiding hand.

"With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase," said Gary L. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. "It's not some backwater view. It's a view held by the majority of Americans."

John G. West, an executive with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank supporting intelligent design, issued a written statement welcoming Bush's remarks. "President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution, and supporting the right of students to hear about different scientific views about evolution," he said.

Opponents of intelligent design, which a Kansas professor once called "creationism in a cheap tuxedo," say there is no legitimate debate. They see the case increasingly as a political battle that threatens to weaken science teaching in a nation whose students already are lagging.

"It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a leading liberal lawmaker. Noting Bush's Ivy League education, Frank said, "People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education."

Bush's comments were "irresponsible," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He said the president, by suggesting that students hear two viewpoints, "doesn't understand that one is a religious viewpoint and one is a scientific viewpoint." Lynn said Bush showed a "low level of understanding of science," adding that he worries that Bush's comments could be followed by a directive to the Justice Department to support legal efforts to change curricula.

There is no debate. Intelligent design is not even good systematic philosophy. It's unneccesary.

Freedom. Democracy and Sexy to Come Later

14 Marines, interpreter killed in western Iraq
Deadly incident comes after Marine sniper teams ambushed in same town

Updated: 7:42 a.m. ET Aug. 3, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fourteen U.S. Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed Wednesday in western Iraq, the U.S. command said.

The Marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action early Wednesday when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, the military said. One Marine was wounded.

The incident occurred during combat operations just outside of Haditha, which is 140 miles northwest of Baghdad and along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.

The Marines were in an amphibious assault vehicle, which are used in Iraq to cross bodies of water like the Euphrates.

Names of those killed are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.

6 killed in earlier incident
News of Wednesday's attack follows the U.S. military's announcement Tuesday that six Marines had been killed in action in a separate incident in Haditha on Monday. The Marines were also assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division.

Masked gunmen showed up in Haditha's public market Monday afternoon displaying helmets, flak jackets and other equipment they said were taken from the bodies of the dead Marines.

A seventh Marine was killed by a car bomb in Hit, 50 miles southeast of Haditha.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in Haditha, Hit and other dusty towns along the Euphrates River as American forces step up efforts to seal off the approaches to the Syrian border and prevent foreign fighters from entering the country.

Haditha is in Iraq's Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and has been one of the deadliest regions for U.S. forces since they invaded in March 2003. The towns of Fallujah and Ramadi are also in Anbar.

American journalist found shot dead in Basra Steven Vincent had been critical of Islamic radicalism’s rise in southern Iraq
Updated: 2:27 a.m. ET Aug. 3, 2005

Hacking Expands

Infrared exploits open the door to hotel hacking
By John Leyden
Published Tuesday 2nd August 2005 10:34 GMT

Insecure hotel infra-red systems create a means for hackers to read other guest's emails, watch porno films for free and put false charges onto other guest's accounts. Adam Laurie, technical director at secure hosting outfit The Bunker, was able to demonstrate the attacks to Wired prior to giving a talk on the vulnerabilities at last week's DefCon conference in Las Vegas.

Using only a laptop and a USB TV tuner, Laurie was able to use an infrared connection to a hotel's web-enabled TV to tune into data that the backend system is broadcasting but he shouldn't be able to receive. In this way he was able to view premium content, access backend billing systems and view emails of guests who accessed web mail services via their TV. He was also able to access the desktop of backend computers and launch applications. "No one thinks about the security risks of infrared because they think it's used for minor things like garage doors and TV remotes," Laurie said. "But infrared uses really simple codes, and they don't put any kind of authentication (in it)... If the system was designed properly, I shouldn't be able to do what I can do."

"As far as the hotel is concerned, you're the only person who can see (your bill). But they're sending your confidential data over the air through a broadcast system. It's the equivalent of running an open wireless access point. If I tune my TV to your channel, then I get to see what you're doing," Laurie told Wired.

Infrared systems are used throughout hotels in air conditioning systems, vending machines and many other pieces of equipment but it's their use in hotel TV systems that connect to backend and billing systems that represent the greatest scope for mischief. Laurie said that many hotel infrared systems are rolled out with password controls or back-end authentication that would frustrate exploitation. Data is commonly stored and transmitted in the clear without protection from encryption. Because most hotel use similar systems from a small number of suppliers, Laurie has been able to replicate the attack across the world over the last two years.

Laurie discovered the security loophole when he was "mucking about with hotel TVs to get the porn channel without paying for it". Tuning into content that's been broadcast but a hotel TV is not configured to receive is one thing - and might be carried out by tuning in a VCR - but Laurie was able to take this further by deciphering the codes transmitted from a remote control device to a TV. Laurie has created a program to analyse and map the codes and a script to test out their effect when sent to his TV. He did this for research purposes and doesn't plan to release the tools.

As more devices become network enabled the scope for hacking increases. Laurie's work shows the issue is not just confined to devices connected to the web. Infra-red (and conceivably Bluetooth) connected systems might also be exploited.

Charles? Chime in!

Sometimes I'm glad that most of my life remains firmly low tech.

A Few Bad Apples

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs
Interrogated General's Sleeping-Bag Death, CIA's Use of Secret Iraqi Squad Are Among Details

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A01

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.

It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.

The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.

The circumstances that led up to Mowhoush's death paint a vivid example of how the pressure to produce intelligence for anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Iraq led U.S. military interrogators to improvise and develop abusive measures, not just at Abu Ghraib but in detention centers elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mowhoush's ordeal in Qaim, over 16 days in November 2003, also reflects U.S. government secrecy surrounding some abuse cases and gives a glimpse into a covert CIA unit that was set up to foment rebellion before the war and took part in some interrogations during the insurgency.

The sleeping-bag interrogation and beatings were taking place in Qaim about the same time that soldiers at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, were using dogs to intimidate detainees, putting women's underwear on their heads, forcing them to strip in front of female soldiers and attaching at least one to a leash. It was a time when U.S. interrogators were coming up with their own tactics to get detainees to talk, many of which they considered logical interpretations of broad-brush categories in the Army Field Manual, with labels such as "fear up" or "pride and ego down" or "futility."

Other tactics, such as some of those seen at Abu Ghraib, had been approved for one detainee at Guantanamo Bay and found their way to Iraq. Still others have been linked to official Pentagon guidance on specific techniques, such as the use of dogs.

I smell a cover-up. These guys didn't think this up on their own.

In the Family

American Street's Kevin Hayden lost a couple of family members in the last week. I'll be heading over there to help out for the next week. If you are in the habit of prayer, that family could use some.

I'm normally a Sunday poster at AS, but I'll join the rest of the crew to help out while Kev is away. The link is over on the right on the blogroll.

Legal Fiction

Court Nominee Prizes 'Modesty,' He Tells the Senate
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
Published: August 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - In his first written response to questions from the lawmakers who will review his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge John G. Roberts Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that judges must possess "a degree of modesty and humility," must be respectful of legal precedent and must be willing to change their minds.

The remarks, contained in a brief essay on judicial activism, expand on private conversations Judge Roberts has had with senators, in which he has said he places a high emphasis on "'modesty" and "stability."

The essay, which provides the public the first glimpse of Judge Roberts's philosophy in his own words, was part of his response to a wide-ranging questionnaire the Senate Judiciary Committee sent him a week ago. In it, the nominee seeks to cast himself as a proponent of judicial restraint, a quality prized by senators at a time when conservative critics of the judiciary are bemoaning activist judges.

"Judges must be constantly aware that their role, while important, is limited," Judge Roberts wrote. "They do not have a commission to solve society's problems, as they see them, but simply to decide cases before them according to the rule of law."

The 10-page questionnaire yielded 83 pages of response. It included information about Judge Roberts's financial assets and net worth - nearly $5.3 million, including a stock portfolio worth more than $1.6 million; his work during Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 election in President Bush's favor; and his membership, or lack thereof, in the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. Other documents, released earlier Tuesday by the National Archives, offered new information about his work for the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.

In the questionnaire, Judge Roberts also provided fresh details about the White House interview process that led to Judge Roberts's nomination after the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Judge Roberts said it began April 1 when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales interviewed him for a potential Supreme Court vacancy. At that time the administration had expected that the first opening on the court would come when the ailing chief justice, William H. Rehnquist, stepped down.

That interview was followed by a second, on May 3, with an especially high-powered cast of characters: Vice President Dick Cheney; Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff; Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political strategist; Harriet Miers, the White House legal counsel; and Mr. Gonzales. After another session with Ms. Miers and several telephone conversations with her deputy, Judge Roberts met with Mr. Bush on July 15.

Though much has been made of his participation in the Federalist Society, Judge Roberts repeated that he had no memory of being a member, despite recent news accounts that in 1997 he was listed in society brochures as a member of the society's Washington Lawyers Steering Committee. "I have no recollection of serving on that committee, or being a member of the society," he wrote.

In response to a question about any services he rendered to an election committee, Judge Roberts said he went to Tallahassee, Fla., in November 2000 to assist lawyers working on behalf of Mr. Bush.

"My recollection is that I stayed less than one week," he wrote, adding that he recalled participating in a preparation session for another lawyer scheduled to appear before the Florida Supreme Court. He said he left, and then returned to Tallahassee "at some later point" to meet with Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the president's brother, "to discuss in a general way the constitutional and statutory provisions implicated by the litigation."

He thinks that Roe v. Wade was a bad finding but he doesn't have much memory of his experience on Bush v. Gore? I'm sorry, that isn't believable. Bush was one of the worst pieces of case law ever given cert before the high court and he doesn't remember. Huh. Sure, I buy that, and there is this bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you....

The New Kid

Zoo Announces: It's a Boy!

By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005; 3:15 PM

The National Zoo's giant panda cub is male, weighs just under two pounds and is a foot long, according to a veterinarian who examined the newborn this morning.

The cub's heart and respiratory rates indicate that he is in good health, zoo associate veterinarian Sharon Deem said in a statement. He weighs 1.82 pounds, nearly four times what he probably weighed at birth.

Until today, zoo staff had only been able to view the cub on a camera in the birthing den that is also connected to the Internet for the world to see. But this morning, when mother Mei Xiang left the birthing den to eat bamboo in a neighboring room at the Panda House, Deem, assistant curator Lisa Stevens and panda keeper Laurie Perry gave the cub a nine-minute exam.

Zoo staff have been waiting until the mother left the cub regularly for several minutes at a time so they could close the door to the birthing area and examine the young panda without causing Mei Xiang undue stress. Despite that, the mother panda was anxious during the exam, standing up at the door, pawing it, and attempting to open the window between the two rooms, according to a description on the zoo's Web site. The cub squawked once, when its mouth was examined.

When the exam was over, and Mei Xiang was let back into the birthing den, she immediately retrieved the cub and examined it, then curled up with her newborn and went to sleep.

The cub was born July 9, and immediately began squealing to make his needs known. He is much quieter now. Born without fur, he has developed the distinctive striped back, eye patches, and dark ears and legs of his species. He also appears to be trying to crawl. Although Mei Xiang carefully shielded him with her giant paw during his first days of life, the cub now frequently can be seen poking his head out or nursing on her chest.

The cub was born blind and vulnerable to infection, so was entirely dependent on his mother's care. By now, zoo staff say the cub has acquired antibodies from his mother's milk, and is better able to regulate his temperature as his fur has begun to grow in. Panda cubs' eyes typically begin to open when they are a month old.

Mei Xiang did not leave the birthing den for a drink of water until five days after the cub was born and did not have her first bite of bamboo after the birth until July 25.

The Panda House will be closed until at least early October to give mother and cub time to bond, but the outdoor yard is open and the cub's father, Tian Tian, can sometimes be seen there. Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated in March.

The cub is her first, and is the longest-lived of any cub born at the National Zoo. The facility's previous pair of pandas had five cubs during the 1980s but none lived more than a few days.

I may play a hard-nosed liberal blogger on the Internets, but I'm an absolute fool for cute baby animals, and it doesn't hardly get any cuter than this. Check on the photo album at the WaPo site. Awwww.....

Here's Animal Planet's pandacam (needs Real, the WaPo's WMP pandacams are overwhelmed.) Mei Xiang is sleepy.

One of the big perks of living in the DC metro area is the National Zoo. When the dog days of February have me down, a subway ride to the Zoo is in order. When it is cold and drizzly outside, I head for Amazonia with a book and sit and read on the low walls around the pedestrian paths that snake through the enclosed exhibition. In the heat and humidity of this transplanted rain forest, brilliant tropical hummingbirds dart through the elegant flowers and plants. The sky may be lead gray outside, but the beauty and warm restore my spirit. I stop to buy a dog and a drink at the Park service snack bar and feel like I've just had a weekend away. The local delicacy is called a "half-smoke," slightly spicier than the national brands. With enough mustard, onions and pickle relish, I can eat damn near anything.

I identify with our new little visitor. I usually squawk when my mouth is being examined. My dentist calls me a "fear biter."

Process

New ad challenges Bush's choice for Supreme Court

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

A coalition of liberal groups is airing the first TV ad challenging President Bush's nomination of federal Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

The ad, sponsored by IndependentCourt.org, calls for a review of John Roberts' record.
IndependentCourt.org

Called "Right to Know," the 30-second spot airs on CNN, Fox News and the local NBC affiliate in Washington.

The ad calls for a "thorough review" of the nominee's record and says, "We need the facts before the Senate votes to give John Roberts a lifetime appointment." It's part of an effort by critics of Bush's choice to push for wider release of records related to Roberts' work as a lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

The ad's sponsor is IndependentCourt.org, a coalition of 70 groups including People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, another coalition partner, would not discuss how much is being spent to broadcast the ad or how long it will be on the air. "We haven't focused on those issues," he said. "What we're focused on is saying that Americans have a right to know more about Judge Roberts."

And the more I find out, the less I like.

Upping the Ante

Government boosts hurricane forecast
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The government today sharply boosted its forecast for hurricanes this season, predicting 18 to 21 tropical storms by the end of November.

That's up from a forecast in May of 12 to 15 tropical storms, seven to nine of them becoming hurricanes.

There have already been seven named storms this year, two of them hurricanes. That means the remainder of the year could see 11 to 14 more storms, including seven to nine more hurricanes, Weather Service Director David L. Johnson said at a briefing.

Hurricane forecaster Gerry Bell the combination of warmer waters, low wind shear and low pressure, as well as the jet stream, favor storm formation.

Hurricanes derive their energy from warm water. The sea surface is two to three degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, Bell noted.

Wind shear, a change in wind direction with altitude, can suppress these storms and lack of shear allows them to form. The jet stream is in place to guide disturbances moving off the coast of Africa, he added.

Weather Service officials urged preparedness on the part of people living in hurricane-prone areas.

But there is no global warming....

Faith, Morals and Law

Catholic Justice
Quit tiptoeing around John Roberts' faith.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 1, 2005, at 1:27 PM PT

It is already being insinuated, by those who want this thorny question de-thorned, that there is an element of discrimination involved. Why should this question be asked only of Catholics? Well, that's easy. The Roman Catholic Church claims the right to legislate on morals for all its members and to excommunicate them if they don't conform. The church is also a foreign state, which has diplomatic relations with Washington. In the very recent past, this church and this state gave asylum to Cardinal Bernard Law, who should have been indicted for his role in the systematic rape and torture of thousands of American children. (Not that child abuse is condemned in the Ten Commandments, any more than slavery or genocide or rape.) More recently still, the newly installed Pope Benedict XVI (who will always be Ratzinger to me) has ruled that Catholic politicians who endorse the right to abortion should be denied the sacraments: no light matter for believers of the sincerity that Judge Roberts and his wife are said to exhibit. And just last month, one of Ratzinger's closest allies, Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, wrote an essay in which he announced that evolution was "ideology, not science."

Thus, quite apart from the scandalous obstruction of American justice in which the church took part in the matter of Cardinal Law, we have increasingly firm papal dogmas on two issues that are bound to come before the court: abortion and the teaching of Darwin in schools. So, please do not accuse me of suggesting a "dual loyalty" among American Catholics. It is their own church, and its conduct and its teachings, that raise this question.

If Roberts is confirmed there will be quite a bloc of Catholics on the court. Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas are strong in the faith. Is it kosher to mention these things? The Constitution rightly forbids any religious test for public office, but what happens when a religious affiliation conflicts with a judge's oath to uphold the Constitution? Some religious organizations are also explicitly political and vice versa—the Ku Klux Klan was founded partly to defend Protestantism—and if it is true that Scalia is a member of Opus Dei then even many Catholics would consider him to have made a political rather than a theological choice. The Church of Scientology is now a member of the American Council of Churches, and good luck to both of them say I, but are we ready for a Scientologist on the court rather than having him or her subjected to the equivalent of a religious test? I merely ask.

Another smart conservative friend invites me to take comfort from Justice Scalia's statement that a believer who finds his conscience in conflict with the law should forthwith resign from the bench. I wish I found this more comforting than it actually is. In the first place, Scalia's remarks had to do with a possible reluctance, on the part of a Catholic, to impose the death penalty. The church's teaching on this is not absolute and is not enforced by the threat of excommunication, though it's nice to know that Scalia regards weakness about executions as a "litmus." In the second place, it is not at all clear that Scalia admits the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution in the first place. In oral argument in March this year, on cases dealing with religious displays on public property (Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky), he described the display of the Ten Commandments as "a symbol of the fact that government comes—derives its authority from God. And that is, it seems to me, an appropriate symbol to be on State grounds." At another point, he opined that "the moral order is ordained by God. … And to say that that's the basis for the Declaration of Independence and our institutions is entirely realistic." Display of the Ten Commandments, he went on to write, affirms that "the principle of laws being ordained by God is the foundation of the laws of this state and the foundation of our legal system."

To the extent that this gibberish can be decoded at all, it is in flat contradiction to the Declaration of Independence, which is unique precisely because it locates the just powers of government in the consent of the governed, and with the Constitution, which deliberately does not mention God at any point. The Constitution was carefully drafted and designed to guard against majoritarianism, another consideration ignored by Scalia when he opines that "the minority has to be tolerant of the majority's ability to express its belief that government comes from God." (Sandra Day O'Connor, in her last written opinion, phrased it much better when she said, "We do not count heads when deciding to uphold the First Amendment.") Speaking to the Knights of Columbus in Baton Rouge, La., in January, Scalia implored them to "have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world." Whether for "Christ" or not, Scalia is certainly a fool. He should have fewer allies and emulators on the court, not more. And perhaps secular America could one day have just one representative on that august body. Or would that be heresy?

You won't find me quoting Chris Hitchens very often, but most of his argument is correct and the reason why I find Scalia and his ilk to be very scary. I'm a religious lefty and practicing lay minister who knows far better than to think I know the mind of God. The religious right is planning another of their "Justice Sunday" events in two weeks. They are so smart that they do know the mind of God.

Hitch is guilty of one error, however. Thomas, while raised in Catholic schools, is a practicing Episcopalian.

Goodbye, Bullshft

Carb Supporters Rejoice as Atkins Goes Belly Up
# Pasta makers and potato farmers are happy to see the weight-loss firm's bankruptcy filing.

By Jerry Hirsch, Times Staff Writer

In Boise, staff members of the Idaho Potato Commission gave one another gleeful high-fives when they heard the news. In Houston, the folks at the U.S. Rice Producers' Assn. declared "good riddance." And fruit farmers in California's Central Valley said they were "happy to see them go."

Across the nation, producers of carbohydrate-laden food exulted at the decision by Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based designer of the once-popular low-carbohydrate weight-loss program, to file for bankruptcy protection.

The company said it planned to reorganize and focus mainly on selling nutrition bars and shakes. But analysts and nutritionists said Atkins' bankruptcy filing effectively signaled the demise of the low-carb lifestyle and an era when tens of millions of Americans embraced high-protein diets rich in meat and cheese while eschewing carbohydrates and sugars in grains, fruits and vegetables.

"It just proves that what Atkins was trying to do was just too extreme," said Jeff Yankellow, a South San Francisco baking instructor and winner of the World Cup of Baking in Paris in April. "Bread has survived as a nutritional food for thousands of years, and Atkins isn't going to kill it."

In court papers, the company indicated that it was a victim of fierce competition from large food companies such as Unilever, Kraft Foods Inc. and General Mills Inc., which in the last few years rolled out their own lines of low-carb food.

When the diet was at its peak, fast-food chain Carl's Jr. pushed its lettuce-wrapped Low Carb Six Dollar Burger, Round Table Pizza developed a low-carb crust, Kraft came out with low-carb Oreos and Frito-Lay pitched low-carb Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos. Many companies, even winemakers, changed their packaging to tout the low-carb content of their products.

The diet was first outlined in a book, "Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution," developed by weight-loss guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins in 1972. Atkins claimed that his diet prompted "ketosis," a metabolic state in which fat is burned more efficiently. Atkins died two years ago after falling and hitting his head on a New York sidewalk.

His books have sold more than 20 million copies in more than 20 languages. Apart from the book, Atkins Nutritionals peddles chocolate shakes and energy bars on its website.

Many Americans — and dieters across the world — loved the program's decadent appeal. No longer would they have to obsess about cutting high-fat foods for so-called lean cuisine. They could feast on meat and fats without guilt if they followed the Atkins diet. Pork rinds, prime rib and Camembert cheese were in; oranges, whole wheat bread and pasta were out.

Dieters who stuck to the regimen said they lost weight rapidly even as nutritionists warned about the negative long-term effects of eating high-fat foods.

The counterintuitive nature of the diet caught the public's imagination, said Barbara Rolls, a professor of nutritional science at Pennsylvania State University. "It just flew in the face of what we thought we knew," Rolls said.

But that didn't stop millions of Americans from embracing Atkins' principles. Up to 17% of the population reports having tried a low-carb diet at some point, according to NPD Group, a market research firm that tracks Americans' eating habits.

Americans hate history and love junk science, which is the only way this fad could ever have taken off. Eat less, practice portion control, get more exercise. You'll lose weight. Every thing else is a fairy tale.

Public Commitments

Why It's Right to Ask About Roberts's Faith

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, August 2, 2005; Page A13

Few topics arouse more hypocrisy and inconsistency than the relationship between religion and politics. Standard practice is to welcome religion into politics when it helps your side and to denounce religious voices when they help the other side. Conservatives typically praise religious activism on abortion and homosexuality but dismiss liberal clerics who offer theological insights on economics or social spending. Liberals love preachers to speak out for civil rights and economic justice. But they see "a church-state problem" the instant anyone in the clergy speaks out for vouchers or against abortion and stem cell research.

In the case of Roberts, Republicans appreciate the intense lobbying on his behalf by conservative Christian groups and see the nominee's faith as part of his appealing personality. But when Sen. Richard Durbin took Roberts's religious commitments seriously enough to ask him how they might affect the judge's court rulings, the Illinois Democrat was accused of . . . dragging religion into politics.

"We have no religious tests for public office in this country," declared an indignant Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). "And I think anyone would find that sort of inquiry, if it were actually made, offensive. And so I hope we don't go down that road."

But just four days earlier, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was unabashed in hoping that Roberts's religious convictions would influence his decisions on the court. Coburn told reporters he and Roberts had discussed the nominee's faith. "If you have somebody first of all who has that connection with their personal faith and their allegiance to the law, you don't get into the Roe v. Wade situation," Coburn said, according to the Associated Press. "I am looking for somebody who is not going to make that mistake again in any other area of life."

It cannot be wrong for Durbin to raise the religious issue but just fine for Coburn to do the same thing. I'm inclined to defend both senators because I respect Roberts as someone who takes his faith seriously. As an intellectually engaged believer, Roberts must have given considerable thought to Catholic teaching on public issues. Why is it wrong to ask him to share his reflections with the public?

Yes, any inquiry related to a nominee's religion risks being seen as a form of bigotry, and of course there should be no "religious tests." This nomination will properly be settled on other issues, particularly Roberts's views on the court's right to void economic, labor and environmental laws. Most Democrats will, in any event, run far away from any religious questions.

But why are we so afraid of acknowledging the obvious? At this moment in our history, religion is playing an important part in our public debates. If Roberts's religious views are important to him, why should they be off-limits to honest discussion?

It's also disingenuous for Republicans who have profited from the rise of issues related to religion and "moral values" to discover a sudden squeamishness about even mentioning them. Recall John Kerry's battle during the 2004 campaign with conservative bishops who proposed to deny him Communion because of his stand on abortion rights. If there was a mass movement of Republican politicians insisting that Kerry's religion should not be part of the public debate, I must have missed it.

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo is, like Kerry, a Catholic Democrat who has tangled with his church's leaders on the politics of abortion. Cuomo wondered during a recent phone conversation how those bishops who tormented Kerry would react if Roberts said that his religious views would not affect his rulings on abortion cases. To defend such a stance by Roberts, Cuomo said, "the bishops who went after Kerry would have to say that it's different for a judge, but that would be very hard to explain." Indeed.

Conservatives have long argued, correctly, that religiously inspired voices have a legitimate place in the public square. Limiting religion to the private sphere relegates it to what the theologian David Tracy has called the "harmless reservations of the spirit."

But if religion is to play a serious role in politics, believers have to accept the obligation to explain themselves publicly. That's why it would be helpful if Roberts gave an account of how (and whether) his religious convictions would affect his decisions as a justice. President Bush has spoken about the political implications of his faith. His nominee should not be afraid to do the same.

This is the topic which got me blogging in the first place, because liberals are so poor at taking it on. It was John Kerry's reluctance to use the language of religion which cost him the election last year (along with massive voter fraud in Ohio.) Howard Dean needs to learn to use it to give national Dems the credibility they've lost in the last decade. E. J. is a public Catholic and educated in his faith. I welcome his thoughts on the subject.

Rights Talk

Privilege at Stake With Nominees
Bush Aims to Reassert Presidential Power in Debate Over Roberts, Bolton

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005; Page A06

At the heart of battles over President Bush's nominations to the Supreme Court and United Nations is a broader -- and largely successful -- campaign to reassert executive prerogatives lost under his predecessor and limit public access to the internal workings of government.

In the case of both nominations, Democratic senators demanded documents from executive branch deliberations to help them evaluate Bush's choices, and he refused. The president got around Democratic opposition to John R. Bolton yesterday by giving him a 17-month recess appointment as ambassador to the United Nations. Now the two sides face a weeks-long stare-down over John G. Roberts Jr. heading into confirmation hearings after Labor Day.

The principle at stake is one that has been a source of friction over the limits of presidential power since George Washington. Under President Bill Clinton, multiple clashes with Congress, the judiciary and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr chipped away at attorney-client and executive privileges on sensitive documents and conversations. But since coming to power, Bush has doggedly reclaimed turf that eroded under Clinton, asserting the power of his office to shield everything from energy policy deliberations to the papers of past presidents.

"For better or worse, the Bush administration has done a much more effective job than we did of protecting privileges," said Ronald A. Klain, a lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore.

Clinton waged many battles over privileges but lost some of them in court and surrendered others in the interest of damage control. In a showdown with the Senate opposition over something like the Roberts papers, Klain recalled, a politically and legally weakened Clinton White House often would find a compromise to end the dispute.

"I have no doubt that if that had been us, we would have turned over the papers," Klain said. "I'm not saying that's a good thing; I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But whenever we walked up to the brink, we blinked. And these guys don't, and they're prepared to pay the price for it."

And what would that price be? I'm not seeing it.

More of the Same

Bully for you
With Capitol Hill freshly vacated, Bush installed U.N.-hating John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N. If Democrats really were partisan hacks, they'd rejoice that the president chose this incompetent ideologue to sell his foreign policies.

By Ian Williams

Aug. 2, 2005 | This week is the 60th anniversary of the Enola Gay dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, so perhaps it is entirely appropriate that George W. Bush has gone for the nuclear option and dropped John Bolton on the United Nations in New York. Bolton's diplomatic talents are such that he could start a shouting match in a Trappist monastery. He should make things at the U.N. go with a bang.

It almost counts as tact on the part of the White House that it waited until Monday to announce Bolton's recess appointment, instead of making the announcement on Friday as soon as the limos speeding senators to Ronald Reagan airport on their ways home had left the U.S. Capitol.

President Bush tried to justify the recess appointment by the urgent need to have a permanent representative in place at the United Nations for another 60th anniversary -- the summit to commemorate the founding of the international governing institution in 1945. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has tried to put forward a reform package that will guarantee a new lease on life for the organization. Bolton has repeatedly made it plain that he wants it pensioned off. His notorious pre-retirement package for the organization famously included knocking 10 floors off the U.N. headquarters building. His like-minded colleagues in Congress, like Henry Hyde and Norm Coleman, are already trying to bilk the U.N. of half the dues the United States owes. Out of loyalty to the White House, Bolton has not publicly supported the call, but he has hardly repudiated it either, since it is in line with his lifetime's prejudices. If there is an urgent need to reinvigorate the U.N., then the last person who is "needed" there is Bolton.

There has been loose talk about a Democratic filibuster of his appointment, but that is inaccurate. A filibuster in its strict sense is an attempt to hold off a decision procedurally. The Democrats in the Senate have been raising serious and substantial questions about Bolton's behavior and suitability for the job -- and it is in fact the administration that has been stalling, refusing to release information that, one can only assume, is damning for Bolton, for instance, about his rough ways with anyone who disagrees with his idiosyncratic views of the world.

There is credible evidence that he has commissioned intelligence reports on people in the State Department, and indeed he seems to have at least been in the vicinity of the Valerie Plame leak. In 2003, the State Department's inspector general questioned Bolton as part of an investigation into the Niger-uranium controversy that led to Plame's outing -- a fact that Bolton conveniently "forgot" when he came before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year. If he treats "dissident" civil servants, and indeed his own party colleagues in the administration, as if they were foreign agents when they show insufficient enthusiasm for his obsessions, what does it say about how he will treat actual foreigners when they have the temerity to demur?

If the Democrats were really as partisan as Bush says, and put party affiliation above national interest, they should be overjoyed that as incompetent a diplomat as Bolton would be at the U.N., provoking even greater resistance to Bush's foreign policies by other nations.

For example, to work successfully on the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. envoy has to, at the very least, win over the other permanent members, let alone any new ones that may be added as a result of Annan's proposed reforms. Bolton is on record as thinking there should only be one permanent member with a veto: the United States. He has dismissed Europe -- which of course includes veto-holders Britain and France -- as having had a free lunch at Washington's expense. And China is unlikely to be impressed that his résumé includes a recent spell as a paid consultant for Taiwan. He may actually have been right about the issue -- there are good arguments for U.N. membership for the island nation -- but an American ambassador to the U.N. has to spend a lot of time persuading China not to veto resolutions. There may be people better qualified for the task, not least since Bolton, as he once said, does not "do carrots." Diplomacy is about horse-trading. All stick and no carrot leads to rapid stalemate.

In other words, welcome to more foreign policy incompetence by the same team that brought you the Iraq fiasco. Here is more of the same and we're sure you'll enjoy it!

By the time these stupid sods are done, I hope there will be something for a Democratic president to represent, but I'm not at all sure.

Bump: The Book Group

I just heard this on BookTV. I know what I'm reading next.

Welcome to a growing effort to make American politics fit for grownups. We hope you enjoyed reading As if We Were Grownups, or that you will soon.

Because you’re here it’s likely you agree with us that Grownups puts forward a powerful premise: we can do more than just imagine authentic, respectful and effective politics in America. In fact, and astonishingly enough, we can have those politics...if we can break the cycle whereby we keep rewarding political leaders for treating us like self-absorbed spoiled children.

How can we do that? The aim of this website is to harness our collective experiences and inspiration to answer that question.

(If you're feeling a little lost because you haven't yet read Grownups, you
can start with its introduction and a descriptive Table of Contents.)

The conversation begins on the Your Turn page.

As we begin, let's not make the common mistake of overlooking the fine work that is already being done. If you're ready to become involved, visit our Allies page to check out other organizations and sites that are pushing America towards democracy and representative government.
Copies of As if We Were Grownups are available at our ORDER PAGE, with
discounts for discussion groups and college or university classrooms.

Have you got a book group? This would be a great project, it goes beyond partisanship to talk about the basic issue of how we treat each other (and it seems to me that this is THE problem right now.)

Hey, here's a project: DC area Bumpers, would you like a book group? We could meet at an Olssen's for coffee or an inexpensive restaurant and talk about this stuff. I'm interested, are you? Increasingly, publishers are supporting "issue" books with discussion guides (free!) I know all the good, cheap ethnic restaurants in Northern Virginia, and I'm willing to be educated on others. Do you want to give this a shot?

I'm going to leave this post at the top of the site through Monday. New content will scroll below. Follow the link, this writer makes sense to me.

Moral Hazard

Who's Paying for Our Patriotism?

By Uwe E. Reinhardt

Monday, August 1, 2005; Page A17

The strategic shielding of most voters from any emotional or financial sacrifice for these wars cannot but trigger the analogue of what is called "moral hazard" in the context of health insurance, a field in which I've done a lot of scholarly work. There, moral hazard refers to the tendency of well-insured patients to use health care with complete indifference to the cost they visit on others. It has prompted President Bush to advocate health insurance with very high deductibles. But if all but a handful of Americans are completely insulated against the emotional -- and financial -- cost of war, is it not natural to suspect moral hazard will be at work in that context as well?

A policymaking elite whose families and purses are shielded from the sacrifices war entails may rush into it hastily and ill prepared, as surely was the case of the Iraq war. Moral hazard in this context can explain why a nation that once built a Liberty Ship every two weeks and thousands of newly designed airplanes in the span of a few years now takes years merely to properly arm and armor its troops with conventional equipment. Moral hazard can explain why, in wartime, the TV anchors on the morning and evening shows barely make time to report on the wars, lest the reports displace the silly banter with which they seek to humor their viewers. Do they ever wonder how military families with loved ones in the fray might feel after hearing ever so briefly of mayhem in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Moral hazard also can explain why the general public is so noticeably indifferent to the plight of our troops and their families. To be sure, we paste cheap magnetic ribbons on our cars to proclaim our support for the troops. But at the same time, we allow families of reservists and National Guard members to slide into deep financial distress as their loved ones stand tall for us on lethal battlefields and the family is deprived of these troops' typically higher civilian salaries. We offer a pittance in disability pay to seriously wounded soldiers who have not served the full 20 years that entitles them to a regular pension. And our legislative representatives make a disgraceful spectacle of themselves bickering over a mere $1 billion or so in added health care spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in a nation with a $13 trillion economy!

Last year kind-hearted folks in New Jersey collected $12,000 at a pancake feed to help stock pantries for financially hard-pressed families of the National Guard. Food pantries for American military families? The state of Illinois now allows taxpayers to donate their tax refunds to such families. For the entire year 2004, slightly more than $400,000 was collected in this way, or 3 cents per capita. It is the equivalent of about 100,000 cups of Starbucks coffee. With a similar program Rhode Island collected about 1 cent per capita. Is this what we mean by "supporting our troops"?

When our son, then a recent Princeton graduate, decided to join the Marine Corps in 2001, I advised him thus: "Do what you must, but be advised that, flourishing rhetoric notwithstanding, this nation will never truly honor your service, and it will condemn you to the bottom of the economic scrap heap should you ever get seriously wounded." The intervening years have not changed my views; they have reaffirmed them.

Unlike the editors of the nation's newspapers, I am not at all impressed by people who resolve to have others stay the course in Iraq and in Afghanistan. At zero sacrifice, who would not have that resolve?

Reinhardt gets to the essence of what really enrages me about the Iraq war (and Afghanistan): the cavalier treatment of our troops and vets. All hat no cattle should be impeached for that alone.

Bumps in the Road

Wanna scare yourself to death? Go read Ian Welsh at BOPnews. Unfortunately, I think Ian is right; my only question is what catches us first: the recession or avian influenza?

Raised Middle Digit

Bush to Name Bolton to U.N. Post Today

By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frustrated by Democrats, President Bush will circumvent the Senate on Monday and install embattled nominee John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, the White House said.

Bush has the power to fill vacancies without Senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the Constitution, a recess appointment during the lawmakers' August break would last until the next session of Congress, which begins in January 2007.

In advance of Bush's announcement, Democrats said Bolton would start his new job on the wrong foot in a recess appointment.

"He's damaged goods. This is a person who lacks credibility," Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday." Bush, he said, should think again before using a recess appointment to place Bolton at the United Nations while the Senate is on its traditional August break.

But Republicans appearing on Sunday's news shows said Bolton is the man the White House wants and he's the right person to represent the United States at the world body.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan brushed off Democrats' objections and accused them of using stalling tactics. He said Bolton has the complete confidence of the president and that the United States needs an ambassador at the UN at a critical time when the war on terror is ongoing.

McClellan said Bush believes strongly that Bolton "is the right person for the job."

Bolton's appointment ends a five-month impasse between the administration and Senate Democrats.

NPR just told me the deed is done. Bushco: working hard to make sure that the world sees us as arrogant, ignorant bullies since 2001.

Against Him

Molly Ivins: More research needed into Roberts' past

By MOLLY IVINS, Creators Syndicate
August 1, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas — Sheesh, all I knew about John Roberts was that everyone says he has lovely manners — and already I was prepared to be against him. Knee-jerk liberal? No, congratulations to the White House, Sen. John Cornyn, Fred Thompson and everyone else involved in "managing" Roberts' confirmation process. Can't these people do anything without being devious about it?

My first reaction to Roberts was: "Sounds like that's about as good as we can get. Quick, affirm him before they nominate Bork, Bolton or Pinochet." A conservative with good manners and no known nutball decisions or statements on his record? Hey, take him. At least he's not (whew!) a member of the Federalist Society.

No such luck. Cornyn, who I would have sworn is not this stupid, apparently signed off on having the nominee "forget" he was a member of the Federalist Society, and Roberts obliged, which is strange considering his reputation for brilliance and a spectacular memory.

Turns out the guy is listed in the society's 1997-98 "Leadership Directory" as a member of its steering committee in Washington. How many steering committees have you been on that you've forgotten about?

The reason that matters is that the Federalist Society is the ur-alpha-primo ultraconservative legal group in the whole country. Since we have only two years worth of Roberts' decisions on the bench (in itself unheard of for nominations to the Supremes), the information about how this society plans to steer the country can be very revealing of his positions.

So Roberts already looks disingenuous at best, and then the White House ups and decides it's entirely too risky to let the public in on his record as a government lawyer and refuses to release documents requested.

Excuuuuuse me, that is public record. Roberts worked for us, he was paid by the taxpayers, this is not a matter of national security. Where does this White House get off pulling this kind of stuff? Right away, it looks like they're trying to cover something up. Lawyer-client privilege? Are they nuts? Everyone's first reaction is, so what's he guilty of?

As Jay Leno notes, this is an important job — these are the people who pick the president. Of course we're entitled to know what the man's public record is.

So, now all we know about John Roberts is that he has nice manners and is being managed by a bunch of morons — and he's willing to say what they spin for him. Then we start getting the record. He's defended the often violent Operation Rescue. He went to Florida to advise Jeb Bush during the 2000 election recount. Other Federalists, Timothy Flanigan (who's now in confirmation hearings for deputy attorney general) and Ted Olson (who became solicitor general of the United States) signed onto the brief to convince the Supremes to stop the count in Florida and install Bush. It's all classic, right-wing judicial activism — the very "activism" they complain bitterly about if it doesn't fit their radical agenda.

Restrict the right of courts to end school segregation, slow down on enforcing laws against discrimination, divest lower courts of jurisdiction over school prayer cases, go easy on Title IX for women and so on. All that was when Roberts was a junior White House lawyer and the records were opened during the Clinton administration. The records from his time as assistant solicitor general during Bush I are what they're trying to keep under wraps.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page (the People Who Don't Read Their Own Paper) tried to describe the Federalist Society as an anodyne debating society. No, it is not — it is a radical right organization, which explains why the White House made calls to national media to deny that Roberts was a member.

Jerome Shestack, president of the American Bar Association in 1998, said, "So much of the society's leadership consists of active politicians and others whose slouching toward extremism is self-proclaimed."

The society is funded by millions of dollars from right-wing and libertarian foundations. It attempts to influence legal education and works with right-wing legal advocacy and litigation organizations.

Alfred Ross, of the Institute of Democracy Studies, explains that "through its own 15 practice groups, the society is busy developing new legal theories for every area of American jurisprudence, from civil rights law to national security law, international law, securities regulations law and so on. And if one goes through the publications of their practice groups, one can only gasp not only at the breadth of their agenda, but the extremism of their ideology."

Molly Ivins, national treasure.

Nosy

What It Pays to Work in the West Wing

By Al Kamen

Monday, August 1, 2005; Page A15

So why did it seem so difficult last week to get anyone at the White House to answer the phone? Most likely it's because they were all reading the National Journal's listing of exactly what their colleagues are getting paid.

The magazine's Web site recorded 6,000 hits on the paycheck listing the first day it was posted, which is considered heavy volume. (Doubtless 99 percent of those hits came from within or very near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.) The list showed that the highest-ranking -- those titled "assistant to the president," folks like Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. , Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers -- received the top pay of $161,000. The list reflects no flexibility. Thus press secretary Scott McClellan , who's out there getting hammered daily, gets no additional combat pay.

An eyebrow or two were raised that Barry S. Jackson , Rove's respected right-hand man, was at the third tier, or $133,000, instead of the second-level salary of $141,000 a year. Also, Susan Whitson , press secretary to first lady Laura Bush , is paid but $70,000, even though her boss is much more visible these days opining about Supreme Court choices, traveling the globe and so on.

The lowest salaries are $30,000.

Those would be pages and such. Enough to get you into a group house with a bunch of other young Hill rats. But even in DC, you can live pretty well on $161K a year, or so I've been told.

Love v. Things

Gadgets Include User Attachment
# Designer's of today's electronic devices try to push consumers' buttons. The objective is set the products apart and create emotional bonds.

By Alex Pham, Times Staff Writer

Scott Rose is gaga for his iPod.

"Imagine being in a romance so perfect, you wonder how you ever managed to survive before this person came into your life," said Rose, a 33-year-old Los Angeles computer consultant. "That's how I feel about my iPod."

Rose's passion for his digital music player stems less from the mysterious chemistry of human devotion than from the calculating precision of Apple Computer Inc. engineers, who designed the iPod to elicit the same sort of warm, gooey feelings most people associate with love.

The tiny player's curves, for instance, are baby smooth.

"It really begs to be caressed," said Apple's Greg Joswiak.

Its reflective stainless steel back demands constant polishing.

"People use it as a mirror," Joswiak said. "It becomes a reflection of them and their unique taste in music."

Its white plastic case is "pure."

All that rhapsody for something that is essentially an unromantic hard drive and a few silicon chips?

Across the consumer electronics industry, traditionally geeky manufacturers are embracing their sensitive side to develop products that evoke feelings, including joy, desire, comfort and nostalgia.

"Technology used to be sold primarily on the basis of functional needs," said Tim Brown, chief executive of Ideo, a design firm in Palo Alto. "But things that are functional are too easy to copy because companies are all getting access to the same technologies. That's when meeting emotional needs becomes steadily more important."

That's what Hannspree Inc. concluded three years ago when the Taiwanese display manufacturer decided to make its own branded TVs. But instead of churning out cheap LCD screens, Hannspree took a different tack. Last year, it launched a line of 100 TVs, each aimed at different emotional targets. One is shaped like a plush puppy, another like a baseball that is actually made of hand-stitched leather.

"If you saw a TV that looked like a baseball, you'd think it's fun," said Michael Galvin, a marketing manager for Hannspree. "And you'd know it's a gimmick. But when you touch it, it's both surprising and reassuring. You don't expect it to be the real thing. But it is, and you remember what it felt like when you held a baseball, you remember when you went to a ballpark. You connect it with whatever baseball means to you. The TV is both visual and tactile, so it's a much stronger impact."

In addition to differentiating technologically identical products, emotional design can be a hedge against user frustration. It's no secret that the novelty of a gadget often is inversely related to its reliability. But when users feel bonded to their devices, they are more likely to consider malfunctions as quirks rather than defects.

When do MY malfunctions get considered "as quirks rather than defects?" All this emo strikes me as weird, strange and sad. We should treat each other so well.

FUBAR v. 3.0

Spy's Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says

By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 1, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 31 - The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase.

The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.

In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports questioning the agency's assumptions on a series of weapons-related matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency's intelligence conclusions.

Michelle Neff, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the agency would not comment on the lawsuit.

It was not possible to verify independently the former officer's allegations concerning his reporting on illicit weapons.

His information on the Iraqi nuclear program, described as coming from a significant source, would have arrived at a time when the C.I.A. was starting to reconsider whether Iraq had revived its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The agency's conclusion that this was happening, eventually made public by the Bush administration in 2002 as part of its rationale for war, has since been found to be incorrect.

While the existence of the lawsuit has previously been reported, details of the case have not been made public because the documents in his suit have been heavily censored by the government and the substance of the claims are classified. The officer's name remains secret, in part because disclosing it might jeopardize the agency's sources or operations.

Several people with detailed knowledge of the case provided information to The New York Times about his allegations, but insisted on anonymity because the matter is classified.

The former officer's lawyer, Roy W. Krieger, said he could not discuss his client's claims. He likened his client's situation to that of Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, the clandestine C.I.A. officer whose role was leaked to the press after her husband publicly challenged some administration conclusions about Iraq's nuclear ambitions. (The former officer and Ms. Wilson worked in the same unit of the agency.)

"In both cases, officials brought unwelcome information on W.M.D. in the period prior to the Iraq invasion, and retribution followed," said Mr. Krieger, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

In court documents, the former officer says that he learned in 2003 that he was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation and accused of having sex with a female contact, a charge he denies. Eight months after learning of the investigation, he said in the court documents, the agency's inspector general's office informed him that he was under investigation for diverting to his own use money earmarked for payments to informants. He denies that, too.

The former officer's claims concerning his reporting on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program were not addressed in a report issued in March by the presidential commission that examined intelligence regarding such weapons in Iraq. He did not testify before the commission, Mr. Krieger said.

A former senior staff member of the commission said the panel was not aware of the officer's allegations. The claims were also not included in the 2004 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on prewar intelligence. He and his lawyer met with staff members of that Senate committee in a closed-door session last December, months after the report was issued.)

Your government, at work for you. You are free to speculate on what your fate would be like if you were this incompetent. I believe this is called "mission critical" information.

The Painting of Schools, etc.

Power shortages and black market drive Baghdad to consider oil rationing
Most citizens face power cuts and long gas lines in the oil-rich country

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Monday, August 01, 2005

Power shortages and black market drive Baghdad to consider oil rationing

BAGHDAD: Iraq may have the world's second largest oil reserves, but top government officials here are looking into creating a coupon program to ration fuel for next winter. Rationing aims to put a dent into the black market sale of oil products "and lead to more equitable distribution for all Iraqis," Petroleum Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

Since the April 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime the supply of oil products, especially gasoline, has been effectively - if not officially - rationed.

Iraqis have been forced to stand in lines of up to two hours at the pump to get fuel.

The alternative: buy gas on the black market at dramatically higher prices.

While the liter of gas at the pump is 20 dinars ($0.01), on the black market it sells for 500 dinars.

Petroleum Ministry officials have formed a committee aimed at creating a system of coupons to ration petroleum products, especially gasoil and kerosene used for heating and running power generators.

"We expect that system to be ready before next October," Jihad said. Jihad added that a coupon system has been used successfully in the Kurdish semi-autonomous region.

The demand for fuel, especially gasoline, has been aggravated by the import of more than one million cars after the fall of Saddam, Jihad said.

Aside from difficulties getting fuel and water, Iraqis also have to put up with long periods without electricity, which in turn aggravates the fuel shortage.

In Baghdad, power blackouts last up to 20 hours a day - all at the height of summer - with temperatures around 38 degrees Celsius even after sunset.

Legislators have raised the issue in Parliament, but often their complaints run so long that Speaker Hajem al-Hassani has to interrupt and demand that they adhere to their allotted three-minute limit.

Oh, right, we are supposed to be talking about what a freakin' success this all is. Sorry, I forgot.

Costs of War

Editor and Publisher moved this interview last night.

Media Bias in Iraq
Claims that reporters ignore positive news "do not carry much weight," says Reuters' Baghdad bureau chief Andrew Marshall, after two years in the war zone. Yes, there has been some progress, but the civilian carnage continues. And he predicts: more reporters will die as well.

By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK (July 31, 2005) -- Andrew Marshall, Reuters' bureau chief in Baghdad for two years, came to the United States in July, having survived the war, unlike more than 48 other journalists in the past three years, including four from his own news service. Even before arriving in Iraq in 2003, Marshall, 34, who has worked for Reuters since 1994, had seen plenty of bloodshed in East Timor, Afghanistan, and other hot spots. Now he's en route to what he probably once thought was a peaceful posting--in London.

What does he think about his Baghdad years, now that he has made it out of there in one piece?

"I don't agree with those who say it is inappropriate to criticize the work of journalists in Iraq -- just because we were working in very dangerous conditions does not mean that we should be immune from criticism," he told me in mid-July. "But I regard the charge that journalists in Iraq are skewing their reporting and focusing 'too much on bad news' as ill-informed, and a great insult to the Iraqi people. Many of those who criticize Iraq coverage seem to be suggesting that the media should somehow play down or ignore the fact that so many Iraqi civilians are being killed. It's an attitude that implies that Iraqis are not entitled to the level of safety and security enjoyed by people elsewhere in the world.

"Of course, some progress is being made in Iraq. Many people in Iraq, including U.S. soldiers, are doing their best to rebuild the country and improve security. But taken in isolation, the renovation of a power plant or the opening of a new school are not a story unless placed in the wider context, and the wider context is that reconstruction is proceeding much more slowly than had been expected. If anybody knows of an example of a 'positive development' that has been intentionally underreported or ignored by the international media in Iraq, I'd be very interested to hear it. In the absence of such evidence, complaints about media bias in Iraq do not carry much weight."

Excerpts from the rest of our interview:

E&P;: What do you think about the general level of threat to reporters in Iraq now?

The threat level is as bad as it has ever been. The risk comes from so many sources -- you could be targeted by insurgents, captured by kidnappers, shot at by U.S. troops, caught up in a suicide bomb attack or hit by a stray mortar. Too many journalists have already lost their lives in Iraq, and I fear many more will be killed. Foreign journalists travel much less often these days, usually in heavily protected convoys, so most of the risk is faced by Iraqi journalists. In recent months Iraqi journalists have been shot dead by U.S. soldiers, arrested and beaten up by Iraqi security forces, and attacked and threatened by insurgents. It is a tribute to the courage of Iraqi journalists that they are still working. No foreign news organization in Iraq could function without the work of their Iraqi staff.

E&P;: Are our Iraqi allies more dangerous to journalists than American soldiers?

Considerably more journalists have been killed or wounded by U.S. troops than by Iraqi security forces over the past two years. But there is an increasing problem of journalists being beaten or detained by Iraqi soldiers and police.

E&P;: What do you think of charges that the United States may "target" journalists?

I don't believe that U.S. forces in Iraq are deliberately targeting journalists. But many journalists, including at least two working for Reuters, have been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq. The issue is part of a wider problem: the killing of civilians by U.S. forces.

A great number of Iraqis have been killed at U.S. checkpoints in Iraq or shot dead by soldiers in the aftermath of roadside bomb explosions or suicide attacks. We do not know the number, as the American military and the Iraqi government do not release figures, and often these incidents go unreported, with journalists never finding out about them. It is only when the victims are foreigners or when they are Iraqis working for foreign organizations such as media companies, that we find out about these incidents. But anecdotal evidence suggests these kinds of incidents are common.

It is easy to understand why U.S. soldiers are sometimes quick to open fire. With suicide attacks extremely common, every approaching vehicle is a potential threat. But the killing of so many civilians has caused anger and resentment amongst Iraqis. The recent killing of the brave Knight Ridder correspondent Yasser Salihee -- and the terrible irony that he was killed on his day off -- illustrates the problem with tragic clarity. All civilians in Iraq, not just journalists, face the risk of being killed by U.S. troops, along with all the other risks they face.

This is a serious and important issue, and it may be one of the key factors in determining whether the insurgency is defeated over the long term.

E&P;: Bring us up to date on the current status of official probes into any of your Reuters people who have been killed, wounded, or abused.

We're still waiting for the results of the U.S. military investigation into the death of freelance Iraqi cameraman Dhia Najim, shot dead in Ramadi last year. Initial comments from U.S. Marines suggested that they shot Dhia, but the military has since said he may have been shot by insurgents during a firefight. I will be at the Pentagon next week and will try to find out when we can expect the results of the investigation -- it is already more than eight months since Dhia was killed.

The military and Pentagon regard all the other probes relating to the death or abuse of Reuters staff in Iraq as closed. Reuters does not agree. In particular, we want the military to conduct a new, objective and thorough investigation into the torture and sexual humiliation of three Iraqis working for Reuters who were detained for three days near Falluja in January 2004. Despite the fact that the initial investigation report was riddled with inconsistencies and was written without the military even bothering to interview the Iraqis, and despite the fact that the abuse they suffered was strikingly similar to abuse uncovered later at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has repeatedly insisted the investigation was thorough and the matter is closed.

This is simply not good enough, and it is an affront to the principles of the U.S. military. We have requested all military and government documents related to the case under the Freedom of Information Act, and we hope that once we receive these documents they will contain enough material to help us prove that the military investigation was inadequate and needs to be reopened.

E&P;: What do you think of overall Iraq coverage in recent months? Is the public getting a real idea of what is going on there, despite the lack of mobility by journos?

I think the outside media in Iraq do a good job considering the extremely hazardous conditions. But of course, we would like to do more. In particular, it would be very useful to travel to more areas of the country -- places like Falluja, Najaf, Kerbala, Basra, Kirkuk -- to report on what life is like for Iraqis there. Although embedding is an extremely useful aid to reporters in Iraq, and I salute the U.S. military for giving such excellent access to journalists, it is also essential to report independently of the military to get the full picture of what is happening around Iraq.

Reporters are getting around the country to some degree -- Reuters recently had a very productive reporting trip to Kirkuk -- and all major media organisations also have a network of stringers around the country. But if security allowed it, we would like to send experienced reporters to different parts of the country much more often.

E&P;: What is the state of the overall conflict?

The fact the most Sunni Arab groups have reconsidered their boycott of the political process is a very positive development. The main danger is the rise in sectarian tensions, and particularly mistrust between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs. In my last months in Iraq, sectarian strife became significantly more noticable and more worrying. The threat of civil war is a real concern. But most Iraqis are tired of violence, and determined to promote peaceful cooperation.

E&P;: Any suggestions for better coverage?

I think the international media in Iraq may have to examine closer cooperation, to try to overcome the hurdles we face in reporting from Iraq. Already there are several pool arrangements in place that have helped keep journalists as safe as possible while still getting the news. But there are areas where we could cooperate more -- for example, chartering helicopters to allow reporters to be more mobile and get around the country with less reliance on the U.S. military. Reporting safely in Iraq is an increasingly costly exercise, and by cooperating and sharing costs, media companies can do more than they could if they were acting alone.