Drat

The entire morning was consumed by firewall/ISP hell. I have major reconfig issues to perform with the computer and God only knows how much longer this is going to take. Technology is a mixed blessing, very mixed.

Planning Ahead

I've decided to go out to my favorite french place, a neighborhood restaurant, for my birthday, because they have excellent escargot. Yes, I love snails, and, yes, you can make them at home. Williams-Sonoma and all of the predictable outlets have all the tools.

Here's the dirty little secret: snails and the accompanying toast points are nothing more than fancy ways to get garlic butter into your mouth. Since that, and some oysters, are I'll I'm looking for, I think the evening will be a great success.

I'm really a very simple person.

Too Hot to Cook

I went to graduate school (round one) at New England Conservatory in Boston. It was a great experience for a naive Minnesotan who was really from the sticks and I learned as much outside of school as I did in it. One of my growing edges in those years was the roomate of my second year, a first gen Ukrainian immigrant violinist, Natalie. I knew no one when I first got to Boston and lived alone my first year. Nat was also a Minnesota expat, but her upbringing was very different from my Prairie Home Companion white bread one and she introduced me to a lot of very new experiences.

We lived in Brookline, a first ring suburb of Boston and a short T ride to school. I don't know what it is like these days, but back in the late 1970's it was an upper crust 'burb with a heavily Jewish population, recently augmented by a lot of Russian Jewish emigrees who had recently been allowed to leave the then-Soviet Union. Nat's upbringing was Eastern Orthodox, but the ethnic Ukrainian community in the Twin Cities hung together over ethnicity more than religion and she knew a lot of Jews and knew Jewish food. Our neighborhood, Coolidge Corner in Brookline, had lots of kosher delis/restaurants and we took to hanging out in some of them when we could scrape together enough coin between the two of us for a meal out of the house. When we'd both had a particularly tough day, we went out for beet borscht, a food to which she introduced me. As you know, I love soups, and this one, with its dollop of sour cream, is particularly satisfying and easy to make.

COLD BORSCHT (BEET SOUP)

2 bunches fresh beets
9 c. cold water
6 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
Juice of 2 med. lemons
4 egg yolks
Sour cream

Wash, trim and peel the beets. Shred them into a saucepan and add the water. Bring to a boil, skim off foam that will form, and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes or until the beets are very tender. Strain the liquid and reserve the shredded beets or puree the beets in your processor or blender, whichever you prefer.

Stir the sugar, lemon juice and salt into the liquid. Add the beets. Cool slightly. Beat the egg yolks well and pour 2 cups of the partially cooled beet soup gradually into the yolks, stirring constantly. This is to prevent eggs from curdling. Add remaining soup and blend. Adjust seasonings. Chill. When ready to serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream. Serves 8-10.

This is probably Russia's best known soup. There are as many variations of this beet soup (hot, cold, with or without meat, etc.) as there are cooks. This recipe is perfect for a summer brunch, luncheon or dinner.

The weather here is classic July in DC and it is too bloody hot to turn on the stove. Cold soups are a perfect antidote for the lousy weather. The air outside is even too rotten to breath, so stay indoors and make some cold soup.

Comfort Food Fast

I've been known to make dinner out of a perfectly made twice-baked potato and a salad. Here is an approach to the humble spud which elevates it to centerpiece status:

Serves 4

* Four very large russet potatoes
* 1 teaspoon minced fresh or frozen chives
* 3 tablespoons butter
* 2 tablespoons sour cream
* 1 egg
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* dash pepper
* paprika, optional
* I container Alouette garlic and herb cheese spread

PREPARATION:
Scrub potatoes well; grease lightly with shortening and pierce with a fork two or three times. Bake in 400° oven for 1 hour or until fork tender. When cool enough to handle, split potatoes lengthwise and scoop out potato into electric mixer bowl. Add remaining ingredients, except egg, and beat well. Add egg and beat until smooth. Fill potato shells; sprinkle with additional cheese and paprika, if desired. Bake at 375° until puffed and lightly browned.
Serves 4.

As a salad with this Iike a 1950's plain wedge of iceberg lettuce with some slices of tomato and cuke, seasoned with a little salt, pepper and herb de provence and dressed with a simple vinaigrette. Newman's Own is probably the best commercially available vinaigrette and I keep it in the fridge to use for salads and as a last minute marinade for chicken and fish.

Justice

Iraq says to ask U.N. to end US immunity
Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:07pm ET171
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.

In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Human Rights Minister Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces operate in Iraq.

"We're very serious about this," she said, adding a lack of enforcement of U.S. military law in the past had encouraged soldiers to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians.

"We formed a committee last week to prepare reports and put it before the cabinet in three weeks. After that, Maliki will present it to the Security Council. We will ask them to lift the immunity," Michael said.

"If we don't get that, then we'll ask for an effective role in the investigations that are going on. The Iraqi government must have a role."

Analysts say it is improbable the United States would ever make its troops answerable to Iraq's chaotic judicial system.

Asked to respond to Michael's remarks, White House spokesman Tony Snow dismissed that as a "hypothetical game".

But Snow said: "We also understand Prime Minister Maliki's concerns and we want to make sure he's fully informed and also that he is satisfied, regardless of what the treaty situation may be on these issues, that justice truly is being done, and that he can make that demonstration to his people as well."

Ain't gonna happen.

Losing the Right

If W has lost Bill Kristol, it's buh-bye Neocons.

William Kristol: Bush's red line sadly off-colour
What price will the North Korean dictator pay, Mr President, asks William Kristol
July 11, 2006

What was unacceptable to Bush a week ago (a North Korean missile launch) has been accepted. In retrospect, according to a draft Security Council resolution, the missile launch turns out merely to have been regrettable. As the end of last week US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill visited China, where he was rebuffed by Beijing on sanctions for Pyongyang. He settled for an agreement that we should all return to the six-party talks.

China has refused to use its leverage to change Pyongyang's behaviour (North Korea continues to function only because China provides most of its energy). Yet Bush praised China as "a good partner to have at the table with us". Japan, with a ringside seat for the missile launches, looks on in horror, seemingly alone in actually being provoked by the North Korean provocation.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, at the centre of our global war against jihadist terrorists, Iran, perhaps the prime state sponsor of terror, is sitting pretty. The pursuit of nuclear weapons by the clerical regime in Iran has also been deemed unacceptable by the President. Yet, as the Iranian regime has resumed uranium enrichment, threatened to obliterate other nations, and scorned offers to negotiate, it has been rewarded with gestures by us that certainly seem to be concessions.

Now, watching North Korea, the mullahs must be feeling even less intimidated. And despite Syrian and Iranian complicity in killing US soldiers in Iraq - detailed by US generals - neither has paid a price.

The one red line the President seems to be holding to is that we will not cut and run in Iraq. But even there, there seems to be no interest in rethinking a counter-insurgency strategy (or non-strategy) that is not working.

Indeed, the President took pains at his press conference on Friday to reiterate that he would not insist on changes: "General (George) Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there ... I told him, I said: "You decide, General."' So we have a Rumsfeld-Casey decision to plan for a not-too-embarrassing withdrawal from Iraq, rather than a Bush decision to insist on a strategy for victory in Iraq.

But hey, the US is in sync with the EU three (Britain, France and Germany) and the UN 192. And the Secretary of State is more popular abroad than ever. Too bad the cost has been so high: a decline in the President's credibility across the world and sinking support for his foreign policy.

Some commentators say Bush's second-term foreign policy has taken a Clintonian turn. But to be Clintonian in a post-9/11 world is to invite even more danger than Bill Clinton's policies did in the 1990s. The real choice isn't Kim's. It's Bush's.

UPDATEJosh Marshall calls a spade a spade:

Now, the premise of the Bush administration's North Korea policy was that North Korea was a bad acting state that had to be dealt with through force, not negotiation. That didn't necessarily mean going to war. The goal was to intimidate the North Koreans into better behavior if possible and resort to force if necessary.

Yet, when the North Koreans called the White House's bluff and starting reprocessing plutonium, the White House's response was ... well, nothing.

That was three years ago.

Rather than talk softly and carry a big stick it was a policy of talk tough and do nothing.

The bomb making plutonium keeps coming of the conveyor belt. And the White House policy is to say they won't negotiate and also ask the Chinese to get the North Koreans to behave.

The remaining conceit of the Bush administration is that the Clintonites met with the North Koreans in bilateral talks while they insist on multilateral talks.

That's the policy, which is to say, they have no policy. The salient fact is that under Clinton plutonium reprocessing stopped and under Bush it restarted. The Bushies angle was that you don't coddle bad actors like the North Koreans. You deal with them in the language they understand: force. But the NKs called their bluff, they weren't prepared to use force. So they decided to forget about the whole thing.

That's the record. That's the policy. A total failure.

Chattering Class

If you get all your news from CNN, you'd be thinking that the FBI broke up a serious threat. Buzzflash knows better:

Let's go back and look at today's reports about the supposed New York threat. Just like in Miami, the plan was "largely aspirational," consisting only of chats on the internet, and, according to an MSNBC.com report, "not advanced and never moved beyond the discussion stage. According to a counter-terrorism official with knowledge of the plot, the plotters never cased the tunnels, never had any bomb-making materials to pull off the job, and were not even located in the U.S, but rather overseas. Apparently some tunnels are more problematic than others, but according to the official, the alleged terrorists in this case were unaware of which tunnels were problematic and which were not."

Interestingly, most of this information has been removed from the page since this morning. Also questionable is that Bush is all too happy to report on exactly how he apprehended this suspect and those in Miami, but seemed horrified when the New York Times reported the SWIFT financial records monitoring by the NSA, even though it was already widely known.

It must be an election year when so much attention is given to a few terrorist wannabes who, according to Sen. Chuck Schumer, "don't seem to be the brightest bulbs in the terrorist lot." With the facts completely opposed to the Republican agenda, all they can fall back on is an appeal to fear.

The CNN talking heads are functioning as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

Corruption of a Profession

Outlook: Doctors Complicit in Torture

Dr. Steven Miles
Professor, Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota
Monday, July 10, 2006; 12:30 PM

Dr. Steven Miles , professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, was online Monday, July 10, at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss his Sunday Outlook article on medics that allowed the abuse of Guantanamo Bay detainees ( Medical Oaths Betrayed , ( Post, July 9, 2006 )). Miles says that "there were enough clinicians who were willing to be culpably ignorant, silent, or actively complicit to allow the abuses to continue without medical challenge." He is author of "Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror."

Arlington, Va.: I have long marveled at the remote statistical odds against all these "bad apples" "rouging" in such parallel ways in geographically disparate places (Cuba, Afghanistan and several sites in Iraq). The stories of physicians being routinely in the loop during our country's torture of those opposing our military incursions pretty much puts the final lie to the ridiculous notion that these actions were not sanctioned by the higher-ups. Why has our domestic(ated) media done such a nonexistent job of tracing all this stuff upward?

Dr. Steven Miles: When the Abu Ghraib prison investigation was announced in January 04, the US media and Congress was in an uproar over a wardrobe malfunction at a football game
....
Fairfax, Va.: Is the culpability of medical personnel something new in America? If so, could it have similar origins as does the complicit behavior of those in the media who enable political leaders to do equally bad things by looking the other way or by actively participating in the perpetuation of misinformation?

Dr. Steven Miles: Although the US has a trouble history of collaborating with torturing regimes such as in El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Batista's Cuba, our own military treatment of POWs has set the standard since WWII.

It is particularly distressing to me to see the good reputation of military medicine tarnished by civilian leaders at the Dept of Justice and Defense and by Commanders when this reputation was entrusted to them for temporary safe keeping and stewardship. General Colin Powell warned of this as the administration embarked on this policy.

The MSM is utterly missing in action on anything other than happy news from Iraq. I'm very concerned about the fact that CNN is positively slobbering over a possible war with Iran.

Devolution

Desperately Seeking Doctrine

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 10, 2006; 1:26 PM

All those previous Bush Doctrines guiding American foreign policy are now inoperative, it would appear, leaving the obvious question: What is operative?

Bush foreign policy has morphed dramatically over time. It started off humble and opposed to nation-building. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the president boldly declared his doctrine of preventative war, vowing to pre-emptively attack emerging threats.

But after the invasion of Iraq failed to reveal any weapons of mass destruction there, the focus shifted to Bush's lofty pledge to fight terror by spreading democracy.

That hasn't worked very well either, however. And now the White House faces an inordinate number of new or growing challenges across the globe without anything remotely like a consistent approach -- or, for that matter, a good sense of who's in charge.

I'd settle for competence. I thought the grownups were in charge now.

Media Missing in Action

Seven Questions: Covering Iraq

Posted July 5, 2006
Reporting from Iraq has become one of journalism’s most difficult and dangerous jobs. FP spoke recently with Rod Nordland, who served as Newsweek’s Baghdad bureau chief for two years, about the challenge of getting out of the Green Zone to get the scoop.

FOREIGN POLICY: Are Americans getting an accurate picture of what’s going on in Iraq?

Rod Nordland: It’s a lot worse over here [in Iraq] than is reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news. Just an example: There was a press conference here about [Abu Musab al] Zarqawi’s death, and somebody asked what role [U.S.] Special Forces played in finding Zarqawi. [The official] either denied any role or didn’t answer the question. Somebody pointed out that the president, half an hour earlier, had already acknowledged and thanked the Special Forces for their involvement. They are just not giving very much information here.

FP: The Bush administration often complains that the reporting out of Iraq is too negative, yet you say they are managing the news. What’s the real story?

RN: You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that’s not true.

FP: How often do you travel outside of the Green Zone?

RN: The restrictions on [journalists’] movements are very severe. It is extremely dangerous to move around anywhere in Iraq, but we do. We all have Iraqi staff who get around, and we go on trips arranged by the U.S. State Department as frequently as we can.

But the military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story—they use the word slant—what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don’t like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed. But we get out among the Iraqi public a whole lot more than almost any American official, certainly more than military officials do.

FP: What other challenges do journalists in Iraq face besides security?

RN: Iraqi officials, now that they have their own government, have become extremely bureaucratic and difficult about giving interviews. They want you to do the interview request in a very formal way. In many cases, they ask for your questions in advance. It takes a very long time for them to agree to see people. Add to that the problems of movement and curfews, and it makes getting things done that much more difficult.

FP: The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad recently sent a cable to Washington detailing the dangerous situation under which its Iraqi employees work. Is the situation in the Green Zone as bad as the cable made it out to be?

RN: Yes, it is that bad. [The cable] didn’t come as a surprise to me, except that somebody in the embassy was courageous enough to outline the hardships in very frank detail, and the ambassador was honest enough to put his name to it. It is exactly what our own Iraqi staff has gone through for years now. As early as 2003, the Iraqis who work for us were not telling their family or friends that they worked for Americans. At the time, we thought it was a ridiculous precaution—a throwback to the Saddam era—but as time went on, they proved that they knew their society a lot better than we did.

Of course, with CNN feeling the need to cover local stories like missing white women and building fires there just aren't enough hours in the news cycle to cover what's really going on in Iraq. At a billion dollars a week and an untold amount of blood, the costs of this disaster are being hidden from the people who are paying for it.

The Deal

The Air and Space Museum is falling
Why is Congress ignoring neglect at the Smithsonian Institution?

By Tyler Green, TYLER GREEN writes and edits Modern Art Notes, a blog about art at www.artsjournal.com/man.
July 10, 2006

THE SMITHSONIAN Institution, our national museum and also a scientific research complex, is at a crisis point. Many of its 20 venues, such as the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum, need tens of millions of dollars in work. Desperate for funds, the Smithsonian has made arguably improper arrangements with big business, and it has accepted funding from corporations with an all-too-obvious interest in what goes on view in the institution's museums. But the real crisis is this: Congress seems to have barely noticed.

How bad is the situation? Last year, the Government Accountability Office, a bureaucracy not given to hyperbole, found "major structural deterioration" in Smithsonian buildings and "chronic leaks." At least two historic aircraft at the Air and Space Museum have been water-damaged. Several buildings are rife with mold. Water has flowed into at least four museums, well before last month's rains.

The Smithsonian recently reopened its American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery after a $283-million renovation. That's a good start, but nearly every other Smithsonian museum requires some level of attention. According to the GAO, the Smithsonian will need at least $2.3 billion for building costs, anti-terrorism protection and scheduled and deferred maintenance by 2013. The problems extend beyond capital improvements to the day-to-day as well: In an attempt to lower energy costs, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden recently restricted hot-water use in its building.

The budget pressures have apparently weakened the Smithsonian's ethical foundations too. The Smithsonian's leaders and their congressional overseers are allowing too much of our national museum to be transformed into a series of pavilions where, in exchange for sponsorship money and other deals, corporations may determine what parts of the American story should be told.

Two recent examples are particularly egregious: The Smithsonian sold to CBS Corp.'s Showtime network what amounts to the right of first refusal for all documentaries dependent on Smithsonian archives or staff time. Independent historians and filmmakers howled. Congress held a hearing, threw a public tantrum, but then effectively shrugged. The deal remains intact.

One of the problems with corporate involvement is the appearance of influence in exhibition programming. Recently the National Museum of American History removed the pioneering EV1 electric car from an exhibit. Perhaps not surprisingly, the museum's new transportation wing is being sponsored by General Motors, the same GM that has been excoriated for discontinuing the EV1 despite consumer demand for the car.

I guess Tyler didn't get the memo. Selling off the stuff we paid for with tax dollars IS the Republican program. They may not be able to privatize Social Security but they will sell off our patrimony and any thing else they can get their hands on.

The Gap Widens

Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes
Trend Is Pronounced In Washington Area

By Neil Irwin and Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 10, 2006; Page A01

Wages are rising more than twice as fast for highly paid workers in the Washington area as they are for low-paid workers, an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post shows.

That means the spoils of the region's economic expansion are going disproportionately to workers who are already well-paid, widening a gap between rich and poor in a place where it is already wider than in most of the country.

Businesspeople cite shifts in the world economy that give educated workers leverage to negotiate for higher wages but make low-paid workers replaceable -- a disparity that is especially pronounced in a service economy like Washington's.

The region's economy is strong and businesses are expanding, hiring more software engineers, financial analysts, salespeople and other skilled workers, thus bidding up their pay. But companies are simultaneously finding ways to automate clerical tasks, move call centers to cheaper places and handle business online, weakening demand for less-skilled workers.

If you aren't in a high wage profession, you probably won't be able to buy a house here, however.

Red Morning

Blast Kills 10 as Violence Flares in Baghdad

By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: July 10, 2006

BAGHDAD, July 10 — A mob of gunmen went on a brazen daytime rampage through a predominantly Sunni Arab district of western Baghdad on Sunday, pulling people from their cars and homes and killing them in what officials and residents called a spasm of revenge by Shiite militias for the bombing of a Shiite mosque on Saturday. Hours later, two car bombs exploded beside a Shiite mosque in another Baghdad neighborhood in a deadly act of what appeared to be retaliation.

Violence continued in Baghdad today, as a bomb killed 10 people and wounded at least 49 in the Sadr City section, a Shiite stronghold. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responded with a plea for Iraqis to "unite as brothers," Reuters reported.

"Our destiny is to work together in brotherhood to defeat terrorism and insurgency," he told the Kurdish regional parliament in northern Iraq,

While Baghdad has been ravaged by Sunni-Shiite bloodletting in recent months, even by recent standards the violence here on Sunday was frightening, delivered with impunity by gun-wielding vigilantes on the street. In the culture of revenge that has seized Iraq, residents all over the city braced for an escalation in the cycle of retributive mayhem between the Shiites and Sunnis that has threatened to expand into civil war.

The violence coincided with an announcement by American military officials that they had formally accused four more American soldiers of rape and murder, and a fifth soldier of "dereliction of duty" for failing to report the crimes, in connection with the deaths of a teenage Iraqi girl and three members of her family.

With movement in Baghdad difficult after a military cordon was established to suppress the violence, facts were hard to ascertain. The death toll from the shootings alone ranged from fewer than a dozen, according to the American military, to more than 40 reported by some news services. The bombing near the mosque later claimed at least 19 lives and left 59 wounded, officials said.

The military's announcement about the soldiers brought to six the number implicated in the rape-murder, one more than previously disclosed. The case has enraged Mr. Maliki and led to apologies by the highest American military and civilian officials in Iraq. A photograph of the girl's passport distributed by news agencies on Sunday showed that she was 14.

Juan Cole uses Arabic language sources to demonstrate that the weekend was a bloodbath. If this is not civil war in fact, I can't imagine what one looks like.

The Non-Periel

Herbs de provence is a traditional herb mixture that I use in nearly everything which is savory and don't talk about enough. You can buy it by the canister in the gourmet markets, but I make my own. It is a French traditional seasoning for poultry, eggs, soups and stews and easy to build:

3 Tbsp dried marjoram
3 Tbsp dried thyme
3 Tbsp dried savory
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp fennel seeds

Instructions
Combine all ingredients. Mix well and spoon into a tightly-lidded jar. Store in a cool, dark place up to four months.

This recipe will give you about 3/4 cup. If you hang onto those old Pommery Moutarde pots, they are perfect for storing your Herbs mixture.

Try this with scrambled eggs. It's a natural in the lemon butter you use on your aspargus. Sprinkle into the butter on your baked potato. Add it to the salt and pepper you use on your grilled steak, and build it into your burgers. It goes with the mayonaisse you use to bind your summer potato salad. It will elevate your tuna salad and every soup you choose to make this summer. It is one of the ten things I want to take with me onto a desert island.

The Elemental Omelette

Making Omelettes.

Secrets of Success. For omelettes to be perfection, they should be 'thought of', made and eaten within a few minutes. This, of course, is not always possible, but aim at quickness in preparation and readiness for eating directly they are cooked. Otherwise they will be tough. To make a perfect omelette a clean frying pan is absolutely necessary, and if they are required often it is best to use the pan for nothing else. I do keep a sequestered omelette pan.

Try this way of making an omelette. It is so light, that it almost melts in your mouth. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs. Add a pinch of salt to the whites and beat until very stiff and frothy. Heat the pan. Dissolve a large piece of butter in it, and pour in the beaten whites. A second after pour the beaten yolks on to the centre. The mixture will rise high with it lightness. It cooks in a second or two. Turn over to brown on both sides. Lose no time in removing from the fire and serving. A little finely minced parsley sprinkled on top is an improvement.
Ingredients

2 Eggs

1 oz Butter

1 oz minced Ham

Shallots

Method

Beat eggs, add minced ham and tongue (or kidneys), and season with pepper and salt if necessary. Prepare pan, then melt butter and pour in eggs, and stir over fire till it begins to set. When lightly browned underneath turn over and cook till brown on the other side. Serve at once.

Remarks
One teaspoon of finely chopped parsley and half a teaspoon of sweet herbs may be used instead of meat.

Multitasking

Duxelles - A Simple Spread

Makes 2 cups

Duxelles, named for the seventeenth-century French Marquis d¿Uxelles, is an adaptable, delectable mixture of finely chopped mushrooms, shallots, and herbs. It may have been fancy enough for a nobleman, but it¿s easy for anyone to prepare and enjoy. Serve duxelles on toast points with whipped goat cheese and fresh parsley, as shown, or use it as a filling for ravioli or omelets. The mix also freezes beautifully so prepare some now while mushrooms are at their peak, and you'll be able to feast on it for up to a month.


2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup finely chopped shallot
1 garlic clove, minced
1 pound assorted mushrooms (such as shiitake, white button, and cremini), stem ends trimmed, finely chopped
Coarse salt
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add shallot and garlic; cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and 1/4 teaspoon salt; cook, stirring, until mushrooms have softened and released their liquid, about 7 minutes. Raise heat to medium-high; cook until liquid has evaporated, about 3 minutes more. Stir in parsley, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the pepper. Let cool completely.

Triple this recipe and, after the duxelles have cooled, spoon them into icecube trays. Freeze them and put them in zip bags to use as one-tablespoon additions to soups and sauces straight from the freezer. This is kicking it up a notch. Your dining companions will be in awe.

I cube in a batch of scrambled eggs will elevate your breakfast, one cube each in bowls of soup will net you high fives. In a prime rib au jus, your dinner's eyes will get wide and ask "what did you do to this?"

You can also use it as a stuffing for cornish game hens and continue to amaze your friends. All that from this one easy recipe. Imagine that.

Busted Blogger

I'm having repetative stress issues with my arms again, so I'm under doctor's orders to take the rest of the day off.

Y'all will manage fine without me.

Sunday Surprise

A City on a Hill, or a Looting Opportunity

By BEN STEIN
Published: July 9, 2006

When I was a lad, the chief executive of a major public company was paid about 30 or 40 times what a line worker was paid. Now the multiple is about 180. What did they do in the executive suite to become so great? Upon what meat do they feed? Why, as we are being killed by foreign competition, do we need to pay our executives so much?

We have investigators looking into whether some corporations paid their executives with stock options whose strike price was retroactively determined to be the lowest price of the quarter, so that the options were "in the money" from Day One. After opening investigations into the remarkable timing of some of their own option grants, several companies restated their financial reports, which makes it straight-up fraud in my book. Not one person has been charged with any crime, while young black men and women who sell a tiny amount of drugs on a street corner do hard time. How can this be right?

We have immense corporations that cry the blues all day long about how their pension costs are ruining them and how they have to freeze pensions or lay off workers or end pensions altogether (can you say "Friendly Skies?") and turn over the pension liabilities to the taxpayers. And the same corporations set aside many millions for the superpensions of the top executives.

Even at my own beloved General Motors, whose Cadillacs I love so much — precisely because I think of them being made by the sons and grandsons of men who fought in Vietnam and at Peleliu and other bloody World War II battlefields — there is severe action to have workers quit and to lower their pensions.

At the same time, however, spectacularly large executive pensions, coming straight out of profits, keep G.M.'s retired top dogs happily playing golf at the Vintage, while the men who actually made the cars are saying: "Welcome to Wal-Mart. How can I help you?"

As I endlessly point out, taxes for the rich are lower than they have ever been in my lifetime. (To be fair, taxes for the nonrich taxes are very low as well.) And this is occurring as we accumulate government liabilities that will kill us in the long run. (And cutting spending will not work. Most federal and state spending is for items that are untouchable, like Medicare, education, the military — and, most cruelly of all, interest on the national debt. Every president promises to cut spending and not one of them does it unless a war comes to an end.)

We are mortgaging ourselves to foreigners on a scale that would make George Washington cry. Every day — every single day — we borrow a billion dollars from foreigners to buy petroleum from abroad, often from countries that hate us. We are the beggars of the world, financing our lavish lifestyle by selling our family heirlooms and by enslaving our progeny with the need to service the debt.

I don't see this — except for the taxes — as a Republican thing or a Democratic thing. It's just the way we live today. Drunken sailors from the Capitol to the freeways. Heirs living on their inheritance and spending it fast. The titans of corporate America getting as much as they can get away with and hiring lawyers and public-relations people if there is a problem. It is later than anyone dares to think.

Is this America, where far too many of the rich endlessly loot their stockholders and kick the employees in the teeth, the America that our soldiers in Ramadi and Kirkuk and Anbar Province and Afghanistan are fighting for? Is this America, where we will end up so far behind the financial eight ball we won't be able to see because of mismanagement by both parties, the America that our men and women are losing limbs for, coming home in boxes for?

The Saturday before Memorial Day, I spoke at a gathering of widows and widowers, parents and children of men and women in uniform who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The person who spoke before me was a beautiful woman named Joanna Wroblewski, whose husband of less than two years — after four years dating at Rutgers — had been killed in Iraq.

She cried as she spoke, and she was right to cry, but she said she tried to keep love and trust in her heart. She spoke of her devotion to her country and her husband's pride in the flag. There was not a dry eye in the room, nor should there have been.

ARE we keeping the faith with Joanna Wroblewski? Are we keeping the faith with her husband? Are we maintaining an America that is not just a financial neighborhood, but also a brotherhood and a sisterhood worth losing your young husband for?

Is this still a community of the heart, or a looting opportunity? Will there even be a free America for Mrs. Wroblewski's descendants, or will we be a colony of the people to whom we have sold our soul? Are we keeping the faith with this young widow? That is the question I ask about this beloved and glorious America for which her husband, Lt. John Thomas Wroblewski, died. If we are, we should be proud. If we are not, we'd better change, and soon.

Holy crap! This is Ben Stein - Faux News regular on those Saturday AM stock touting shows and son of Herb Stein, Nixon economic policy guru. A vestige of humanity! Who'da thunk it?

Regime Change

Police Abuses in Iraq Detailed
Confidential documents cover more than 400 investigations. Brutality, bribery and cooperation with militia fighters are common, a report says.

By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2006

BAGHDAD — Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.

Officers also have beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.

The documents, which cover part of 2005 and 2006, were obtained by The Times and authenticated by current and former police officials.

The alleged offenses span dozens of police units and hundreds of officers, including beat cops, generals and police chiefs. Officers were punished in some instances, but the vast majority of cases are either under investigation or were dropped because of lack of evidence or witness testimony.

A fish rots from the head down.

Starting the Day

This is a charmingly different weekend breakfast dish and a quick and easy variation on your Sunday morning eggs. Serve with a fruit salad that has macerated over night in champagne with nutmeg and cinnamon.

Herbed-Baked Eggs

1/4 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan
6 extra-large eggs
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Toasted brioche, for serving

Preheat the broiler for 5 minutes and place the oven rack 6 inches below the heat.

Combine the garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley, and Parmesan and set aside. Carefully crack 3 eggs into each of 2 small bowls or teacups (you won't be baking them in these) without breaking the yolks. (It's very important to have all the eggs ready to go before you start cooking.)

Place 2 individual gratin dishes on a baking sheet. Place 1 tablespoon of cream and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish and place under the broiler for about 3 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Quickly, but carefully, pour 3 eggs into each gratin dish and sprinkle evenly with the herb mixture, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Place back under the broiler for 5 to 6 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are almost cooked. (Rotate the baking sheet once if they aren't cooking evenly.) The eggs will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Allow to set for 60 seconds and serve hot with toasted bread.

If you must have meat with your eggs, this is an excellent time to introduce your family to the charms of pancetta. In a heatproof glass cassarole dish, add a lining of paper towel. Layer the sliced pancetta in a single layer and cover completely with more paper towel. Depending on the strength of your microwave, 6-8 pieces will need 4-5 minutes to wilt and melt out some of the fat. Pancetta should be served crunchy like bacon, just wilted a little.

Army of One

Recruiting Hatred

Ari Berman

The world's greatest military is no longer what it once was.

Soldiers in Iraq are being charged with rape, premeditated murder and cold-blooded massacres. Troops with severe mental illness are being sent back into battle. And the Army keeps lowering recruiting standards, roping in high-school drop-outs and now, skinheads and neo-Nazis.

According to a shocking new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, neo-Nazis and skinheads are infiltrating the military, perhaps in the thousands, as a result of lax recruiting enforcement.

"Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members," says Defense Department investigator Scott Barfield.

Barfield presented the military with evidence of 320 extremists in the past year, but only two have been discharged.

"We've got Aryan Nation graffiti in Baghdad."

Is that what the Bush Administration means by spreading freedom and democracy?

If the kids of the rich and privileged won't fight this war, I guess skinheads will.

Not Just Another Abuse Scandal

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, July 8, 2006; Page A15

Please don't lump what happened in Mahmudiyah with the alleged attacks by U.S. troops on unarmed Iraqi civilians in Fallujah, Haditha, Qaim or Salahuddin province. True, the murders of innocent noncombatants, and the humiliation and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, are deplorable acts deserving condemnation and swift and severe punishment. But the event that occurred in Mahmudiyah, a village south of Baghdad, deserves a category all to itself.

Mahmudiyah wasn't a case of soldiers exceeding their orders or authority in the interrogation of prisoners -- or an example of war-weary, stressed-out troops mistakenly assuming a villager was a member of the insurgency. Neither was it a situation in which U.S. service members, grief-stricken over the loss of a comrade, decided to take out their anguish on people who looked like the enemy.

Mahmudiyah, if the charges are true, was a case of something else; a vile event made all the more disgusting because a soldier, afforded the opportunity to serve his country, chose instead to indulge his private need to hurt, degrade and murder.
....
Green and other soldiers, it has been reported, went to the young woman's house with the intent to rape her. That, if true, represents a premeditated use of power and intimidation to achieve gratification.

That's not a tactic of war; that is an act of tyranny.

Newspaper Morality

Not-so-golden years

Many Americans won't have enough money for retirement.
July 8, 2006

ABOUT RETIREMENT, IT'S BEEN said that it's nice to get out of the rat race … but you have to learn to get along with less cheese. That's a dilemma a lot more people are going to be facing pretty soon.

According to a string of recent gloomy studies, most people are kidding themselves if they think they'll have enough gold during their golden years.

Depending on how close they are to retirement, the news goes from bad to worse. Up to 35% of baby boomers, who start retiring in two years, haven't saved enough to maintain their standard of living once they stop punching the clock. As many as half of employees in their 30s and 40s are expected to have too teeny a nest egg to fall back on.

The main problem is that Americans continue to spend like sailors on shore leave rather than socking away even a small amount of cash. Indeed, last year the nation's savings rate dipped into negative territory for the first time since World War II.

This is horseshit. I don't know anyone who makes enough money to be saving. Everybody I know is making it paycheck to paycheck, and barely that. We aren't "spending like sailors on shore leave," we're picking which bills not to pay each month. The LAT partakes of some Republican mythology that we have all this cash we're spending on wide screen TVs instead of investing in the market. That's crap.

News Clutter

Plot to Attack N.Y. Foiled
Transit Tunnels to N.J. Called Targets

By Spencer S. Hsu and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 8, 2006; A01

A terrorist plot to attack transit tunnels under New York's Hudson River was broken up in its early planning stages, U.S. authorities said yesterday, with three suspects arrested overseas, including a Lebanese man the FBI said was an al-Qaeda follower.

FBI assistant director for New York Mark J. Mershon said investigators had disrupted the plot before the suspects could come to the United States and begin to gather intelligence and explosives for the attack. He said there was no threat now to the PATH commuter lines, which carry tens of thousands of people between New York and New Jersey each day.

The FBI uncovered the alleged plot last summer and intercepted e-mails and chat-room postings on Web sites used to recruit Islamic terrorists. U.S. authorities turned in April to Lebanese officials for help in tracking one of the suspects, Assem Hammoud. The 31-year-old man, who the FBI said was the group's leader, was arrested in Beirut on April 27 and has confessed, officials said.

"This is a plot that would have involved martyrdom, explosives and certain of the tubes that connect New Jersey with Lower Manhattan," Mershon said. He called the threat "the real deal."

Hammoud was arrested before leaving for four months of training in Pakistan, and Lebanese investigators discovered details of a terrorist "project" on his computer that included a map "with a lot of details about New York," Lebanon's acting Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat said in a telephone interview.

But authorities said there was no evidence that the plotters had taken any actions, such as buying explosives or sending money. They cast doubt on the feasibility of initial reports, which first appeared in the New York Daily News, that terrorists sought to flood Lower Manhattan and the Financial District by bombing tunnels.

There were conflicting assessments among U.S. counterterrorism officials about the significance of the alleged plot.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on the condition that their names and agencies not be identified because the FBI is the government's lead agency, discounted the ability of the conspirators to carry out an attack.

One said the alleged plot was "not as far along" as described and was "more aspirational in nature." The other described the threat as "jihadi bravado," adding "somebody talks about tunnels, it lights people up," but that there was little activity to back up the talk.

Speaking to reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, "It was never a concern that this would actually be executed. We were . . . all over this."

Authorities provided few details on two of the suspects who were arrested, declining to say where they had been apprehended. An FBI official said one was Canadian but was not being held in Canada. Mershon said officials had not planned to announce the arrests yesterday and criticized the leak to the media, saying it upset cooperation between the United States and six foreign governments assisting in the investigation.

Authorities said Hammoud, who also used the name Amir Andalousli, told investigators that he had planned the attacks for October or November and had sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

His family insisted he had no connection to al-Qaeda. His mother, Nabila Qotob, told the Associated Press in Beirut that Hammoud taught economics at a local university. "His morale is high because he is confident he is innocent," she told the AP.

Fatfat said Hammoud appeared to reaching out to al-Qaeda and did not appear to have been assigned a specific mission by the group. "It seems to us they are working as an independent group," the Lebanese official said. "It seems it was his idea. He contacted many others by Internet."

Fatfat said Hammoud, a Sunni Muslim, lived in Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp. Al-Qaeda members are reported to be active in the camp, according to the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.

The alleged plotters appear to reflect the ad hoc, self-organizing nature of many alleged terrorist groups. Connecting suspects directly to known terrorist organizers is often difficult, and many recent arrests have been of people who were allegedly at the beginning of their planning. Sorting bravado from real treachery can be difficult, according to terrorism experts.

Last month, the FBI arrested seven Miami men and charged them with terrorism. They had allegedly planned to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago. But the men had no contact with al-Qaeda, other than an FBI informant who was posing as a representative of the terrorist organization. And the group had neither money nor equipment before its members were arrested.

Like the plot announced yesterday, the Miami group's plans were described by investigators as "aspirational."

I wonder what we might be missing while we pick up the playground plotters.

Running the Numbers

Jobs Data Indicates Economy Is Slowing
By EDUARDO PORTER

Employers added only 121,000 jobs in June, the government reported yesterday, indicating that the economy was slowing under the combined weight of high energy prices and rising interest rates.

But the government also reported that hourly wages rose at their fastest pace in five years, while the unemployment rate remained at 4.6 percent. This suggests that the labor market remains tight and may yet spur higher inflation.

The disparate data underscored the uncertain economic situation facing the Federal Reserve as it ponders whether to continue raising interest rates over the summer to cool the economy further or whether it is time to pause. Over the last two years, the Fed has steadily increased the benchmark federal funds rate from 1 percent to 5.25 percent.

"Today's numbers only tighten the vise the Fed finds itself in," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist of LaSalle Bank in Chicago. "The challenge is not to be overly restrictive as growth slows and still attentive to inflation risk."

Financial markets' reaction to the news was mixed, underscoring the difficulty in parsing an uncertain situation that seems poised between a cooling and an overheating economy.

Stocks slid, weighed down by concerns about the implications for inflation of the rising wages recorded in the employment report as well as an earnings warning from 3M and lower-than-forecast sales from Advanced Micro Devices. Both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite index were down more than 1 percent. [Page B6.]

Most Wall Street economists had been expecting considerably higher payroll growth. So, the price of Treasury bonds rose and the dollar fell against major currencies as the weaker job growth supported the view held by some investors that a slowing economy would allow the Fed to pause in its monetary tightening.

Noting that the data suggested both that demand would slow and that the forces pushing inflation could intensify, Mr. Tannenbaum said, "There's a fine line between stagflation and a soft landing."

With consumer prices rising at an uncomfortable rate of around 4 percent, the Fed and its chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, have been expecting the economy to slow from the torrid pace of 5.6 percent growth recorded in the first quarter. A slowdown would help damp the inflationary pressures that have been strengthened by rising energy prices.

The weak payroll growth recorded in June by employers surveyed by the Labor Department appears consistent with this view, pointing to a cooling economy, weighed down by a slower housing market and moderating consumer borrowing and spending.

Wage growth remains flat. This has been an economic "recovery" for millionaires, not for the rest of us.

Quick Hit

Think you have no time for breakfast? Think again: here's the 40 second omelette:

* 2 eggs
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1 tablespoon butter -- or 1 teaspoon oil

Beat together eggs and water until blended. In a 10-inch omelet pan heat butter until just hot enough to sizzle a drop of water. Pour in egg mixture.

Mixture should set immediately at edges. With an inverted pancake turner, carefully push cooked portions at edges toward center so uncooked portions can reach hot pan surface, tilting pan and moving as necessary. Continue until the egg is set and will not flow.

Fill the omelet with 1/2 cup of desired mixture. With a pancake turner, fold omelet in half. Invert onto plate and serve immediately. Reserved heat will finish the cooking.

You'll need a bag of shredded cheese in the fridge or some left overs from last night, but, yeah, this can be constructed in 40 seconds.

While the Coals Heat

For your summer barbecue pleasure, these may be the best baked beans I've ever eaten. This recipe makes enough for a small army but it is easy to cut down for a smaller household.

6 bacon slices
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 1/4 cups purchased barbecue sauce
3/4 cup Guinness stout
1/4 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
4 to 6 teaspoons minced canned chipotle chilies
6 15- to 16-ounce cans Great Northern beans, drained

Chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook bacon in large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer to paper towels and drain. Transfer 2 1/2 tablespoons bacon drippings from skillet to large bowl. Saute the onions in the reserved bacon drippings. Finely chop bacon; add to bowl. Add onion and next 7 ingredients to bowl and whisk to blend. Whisk in 4 to 6 teaspoons chipotle chilies, depending on spiciness desired. Stir in beans. Transfer bean mixture to 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Bake uncovered until liquid bubbles and thickens slightly, about 1 hour. Cool 10 minutes.

Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Serves 8 to 10.

Glorious Tomatoes

I'm heading to the farmers' market in the morning to look for the early tomatoes and artisanal mozzarella. The big ones won't be ready yet, but some of the smaller varieties should be for sale. I want to make this for dinner tomorrow night:

Pomodoro Glorioso

2 cups canola oil, for frying
4 to 6 assorted heirloom tomatoes, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup Banyuls vinegar or white balsamic vinegar
2 medium to large balls fresh mozzarella, sliced
1 large Vidalia onion, very thinly sliced
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 fresh basil leaves, chiffonade
4 to 6 tablespoons basil oil

In a deep pot, preheat the oil to 375 degrees F.

On each of 4 to 6 appetizer plates, place 4 assorted slices of tomato, and season lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of vinegar over each plate of tomato slices and then place 1 slice of mozzarella on each tomato slice.
Toss the onions in the buttermilk and drain. Dredge in the flour, shaking off any excess. Carefully drop the onions into the hot oil and fry until golden brown, around 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels and season with salt immediately. Top the cheese with the fried onions and chiffonade of basil. Drizzle a tablespoon of basil oil on each plate.

Revealing

Laura Bush Complains "Good Polls" Never Show Up on the Front Page

By E&P; Staff

Published: July 06, 2006 20:05 PM ET

NEW YORK Intrerviewed with her husband on "Larry King Live" on Thursday night, Laura Bush once again charged that "good polls" for the president never end up on the front page.

She also said that she did not trust the polls at all, because polls that reveal the president's low approval rating "are not what we we when we travel around the country." She added: "As I told you before, you don't see good polls on the front page."

Just recently, newspapers gave wide play to the president's positive "bounce" following the killing of al-Zaragawi. That bounce has since faded and, in any case, there have been no truly "good polls" for the president for the past year.

President Bush said he doesn't make decisions according to polls and said, when King suggested that he was "not popular," that this didn't bother him at all. Asked again about bad polls, he said flatly that they did not bother him emotionally.

He also denied that he had singled out The New York Times for blame in the recent banking records surveillance controversy -- when other papers also printed a story -- and said he hadn't even mentioned the paper by name, which King contested.

He said it bothered him greatly that "people go to newspapers with state secrets" which reveal the government's "game plan" to the enemy.

Asked if the U.S. was ready to shoot down one of the rockets launched by North Korea on July, Bush said, to the surprise, no doubt, of many, "Yes, we have a missile defense system to protect our country."

Interesting. Laura lies with as much ease as W.

Whither the Jobs?

Whither the Women?
After Decades on Rise, Labor Participation Rate Is Down

By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 7, 2006; D01

The trend was clear and consistent. Since the end of World War II and stretching to the start of the current millennium, the percentage of American women entering the labor force rose steadily, at a rate so fast that it offset the steady decline in participation by men.

The influx of fresh workers buoyed economic growth. As companies expanded and demand rose, there were plenty of hands to get the job done.

But women's rush to employment stopped in 2000 and started to decline, as they began to join their male counterparts in retirement, go out on disability and delay paid employment to get more education. Some economists think the high-water mark of female participation in the labor force was in 2000, when it hit 60.3 percent.

"The enormous rise in [the] women's labor force participation rate was destined to run its course," wrote demographer Cheryl Russell in a recent analysis. "Most women who want or need to work are now in the labor force."

This flattening of the women's rate, combined with a continuing decline in the men's rate, has helped tighten the job market and could slow U.S. economic growth in coming years, economists say.

A paper by four Federal Reserve economists to be published this month by the Brookings Institution puts it this way: The decisions recently of so many Americans to opt out of the workforce are "nearly unprecedented in the post-war economic experience" and "seems large and unusually protracted by historical standards."

Contrary to popular theory, Labor Department data do not show a rising proportion of women dropping out of the workforce to spend time with their families. Indeed, the participation rate has fallen since 2000 for both women with children and women without children.

While nonworking women are still much more likely than men to cite "home responsibilities" as their reason for not holding or seeking a job, that's actually less true now than it was in the past. The share of women aged 25 to 54, considered to be in their "prime" working years, who gave that reason for not seeking employment has shrunk for more than a decade. The share of men citing that reason has edged up over the same period, according to a Labor Department analysis of census survey figures from 1990 to 2003.

I haven't checked the unemployment rate, also out this morning (which has been jiggered to be bullshit) but the fact of the matter is that jobs are going away, period, and everybody's participation in the labor market is off as a result.

Moon Over the Indian Ocean

Dal are a form of lentils common to the cuisines of south Asia. You can find them, well spiced, on the menus of Indian, Pakistani and Tibetan restaurants as side dishes. Here is how to make them at home and this is very easy:

Spiced Dal

1-1/2 cups moong or urhad dal (or yellow split peas or red lentils)
4 cups water
1-1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbl. butter or Ghee
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1/2-inch stick cinnamon ( or use a bit of ground cinnamon)
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
6 whole cloves

Wash the dal or split peas (or red lentils) and boil in the salted water
until it is all very soft and most of the water absorbed. Stir often.
Heat the ghee or butter in a saucepan, and add the spices to it. Stir
them around for a few minutes, then remove from the heat. Pour the dal
into the butter and spices, being careful to protect yourself from the
spattering which is likely to occur. Return to the heat, stirring often,
and let it simmer until it has the consistency of a fairly thick sauce.
Serve very hot. 6 servings.

Serve with curries, bhasmati rice and coriander chutney. Papadums help you pick up the flavor and provide a little ballast.

Serve over rice and with indian condiments on the side of curries and tandoori dishes as tummy fillers and your guests will go home very happy.

A Classic for Company

Chicken Cordon Bleu is a terrific company meal that has the virtues of being able to be prepared a day in advance, quick to prepare and fills the house with wonderful smells. I like to serve it with linguine with herb butter and a salad of torn romaine, grape tomatoes, peeled and seeded cukes and dressed with an herbed citrus vinaigrette. I particularly like this presentation, which is non-traditional.

4 double chicken breasts (about 7-ounces each), skinless and boneless
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 thin slices deli ham, or a half pound of thinly sliced prosciutto or pancetta
16 thin slices Emmenthaler cheese
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
1/4 cup flour
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 eggs
2 teaspoons water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lay the chicken between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Using the flat side of a meat mallet, gently pound the chicken to 1/4-inch thickness. Take care not to pound too hard because the meat may tear or create holes. Lay 2 slices of cheese on each breast, followed by 2 slices of ham, and 2 more of cheese; leaving a 1/2-inch margin on all sides to help seal the roll. Tuck in the sides of the breast and roll up tight like a jellyroll. Squeeze the log gently to seal. Use toothpicks if you have to but remove them before you slice the finished product.

Season the flour with salt and pepper; spread out on waxed paper or in a flat dish. Mix the breadcrumbs with thyme, kosher salt, pepper, and oil. The oil will help the crust brown. Beat together the eggs and water, the mixture should be fluid. Lightly dust the chicken with flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Gently coat in the bread crumbs and then let the coated chicken rest and dry for ten minutes before putting in the oven for a stabler, less fragile coat. Carefully transfer the roulades to a baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and cooked through. Let rest for ten minutes before carving. Cut into pinwheels before serving.

I like to pour a white wine buerre blanc over the slices before serving.

All About Joe

Being Joe Lieberman

By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist | July 6, 2006

IT'S ALL ABOUT Joe -- and not just about war.

US Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, announced that he will run as an independent if he loses his party's primary nomination in August.

The three-term senator is billing his decision as a commitment to principle. Mostly, it feels like a commitment to Lieberman.

Lieberman is entitled to his opinion about war in Iraq, which he supports.

Lieberman is also entitled to run as an independent if Democratic primary voters reject his opinion on war. But, if he does run as a prowar independent, his party is entitled to support the actual primary winner -- not Lieberman.

Lieberman's primary fight against millionaire businessman Ned Lamont illustrates the schism in the Democratic Party over Iraq. Lamont's campaign is fueled and financed by the antiwar left. His website salutes US Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania and the proposition that ``stay the course is not a winning strategy." Lieberman supports Bush administration policy regarding Iraq and insists the war is still necessary and justified. But war is not the only issue on the primary ballot, even though Lieberman prefers to paint it that way. This isn't simply ``Profiles in Courage," starring Joe Lieberman. It is ``Profiles in Lieberman," starring a politician who irritated his party via sanctimony and loyalty to self, and must live with the political consequences. Al Gore, his running mate in 2000, is declining to endorse him in the primary and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York said she will not back Lieberman if he loses their party primary.

Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to chastise Bill Clinton for his Oval Office escapades with Monica Lewinsky. In 1998, he called Clinton's actions ``immoral" and ``inappropriate" and railed against the president for ``willfully deceiving the nation about his conduct." At the time, he took the public praise for taking on a president of his own party; now Lieberman has to accept the latent party ill-will. It would also be nice to hear him express some similar moral outrage over the Bush administration's deceptions involving the case for war.

This is the first thought that occurred to me after Lieberman's announcement, too. Not that this makes him an unusual member of the Senate.

Out of Touch

Froomkin:

Spare a Dime?

Bush went to Dunkin' Donuts yesterday to pitch his immigration plan, but he forgot to bring any money.

Tabassum Zakaria writes for Reuters that he bought coffee with dollars borrowed from an aide.

What is it with the Bushies? This reminds me of his dad marveling at the use of check out scanners in a department store.

Realpolitik

A Driven President Faces a World of Crises

By Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 6, 2006; A01

From deteriorating security in Afghanistan and Somalia to mayhem in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran and eroding relations with Russia, the White House suddenly sees crisis in every direction.

North Korea's long-range missile test Tuesday, although unsuccessful, was another reminder of the bleak foreign policy landscape that faces President Bush even outside of Iraq. Few foreign policy experts foresee the reclusive Stalinist state giving up the nuclear weapons it appears to have acquired, making it another in a long list of world problems that threaten to cloud the closing years of the Bush administration, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.

"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times where there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard N. Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."

White House officials emphatically reject such pessimism, and yesterday leading figures in both parties saw some diplomatic opportunity for the United States out of the missile failure. But the events on the Korean Peninsula underscored how the administration has lost the initiative it once possessed on foreign policy in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, leaving at risk the central Bush aspiration of democracy-building around the world.

They also showed how the huge commitment of resources and time on Iraq -- and the attendant falloff in international support for the United States -- has limited the administration's flexibility in handling new world crises. "This is a distracted government that has to take care of too many things at the same time and has been consumed by the war on Iraq," said Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said in an interview yesterday that such criticism is misplaced, adding that victory in Iraq is crucial to success in fighting terrorists and in creating a new democracy that could serve as a beacon to other Middle Eastern countries. "Is it a major investment? Yes," he said. "The stakes are high [in Iraq], but we think the rewards are commensurate to the effort, and the consequences of lack of success are sobering."

Hadley agreed that there are "a lot of issues in motion right now" on the international front. "In some sense, it was destined to be, because we have a president that wants to take on the big issues and see if he could solve them on his watch."

Even in the context of a post-Sept. 11, 2001, world, the array of tough, seemingly intractable foreign problems is spreading. Renewed violence has expanded to major cities throughout Afghanistan, as Afghan rebels adopt tactics of Iraqi insurgents and as President Hamid Karzai's popularity has plummeted. Iran is balking at demands to come clean or compromise on its nuclear program, despite new U.S. and European incentives. Palestinians launched longer-range missiles into Israel, while Israel has authorized its army to invade part of northern Gaza.

Meanwhile, an Islamist militia in Somalia seized control of the capital, Mogadishu. Mexico's future is uncertain after a close and disputed presidential election. And yesterday, the price of oil hit a new high of $75.19 a barrel.

Concern about such developments is cutting across the normal fault lines in American politics, with critiques being expressed by conservative realists such as Haass and liberal internationalists such as former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright. Albright said yesterday that the United States now faces the "perfect storm" in foreign policy. "The U.S. is not as unilateral as it is uni-dimensional," she said in an interview. "We have not been paying attention to a lot of these issues. . . . Afghanistan is out of control because not enough attention was paid to it."

Even neoconservative hawks who have been generally supportive of the administration on Iraq and other issues said they are worried about the direction of American foreign policy, and hope for a muscular response from the Bush administration toward the latest North Korean provocation.

"North Korea is firing missiles. Iran is going nuclear. Somalia is controlled by radical Islamists. Iraq isn't getting better, and Afghanistan is getting worse," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a leading conservative commentator. "I give the president a lot of credit for hanging tough on Iraq. But I am worried that it has made them too passive in confronting the other threats."

C'mon, Bill. You can say it: Bush is a nincompoop. Anybody who is "feeling safer" these days ain't paying attention.

Getting Around

Gas prices pass $3 a gallon threshold in areas across region

By BOB BLAKE
419-993-2077
07/06/2006
[email protected]

LIMA — Myriad factors from high demand for oil products to political fallout from the recent missile tests by North Korea are helping to drive crude oil prices to record highs and as a result prices at the pump locally are on the rise.

Prices across the region began trickling near or above $3 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline Wednesday, though some areas were still holding steady between $2.77 a gallon and $2.89 a gallon.

A high travel volume Fourth of July holiday weekend, along with political tensions from North Korea and Iran’s nuclear ambitions all combined to help drive the price of crude oil to more than $74 a barrel at the start of trading Wednesday, Joanna Herncane, a spokeswoman for AAA Ohio Auto Club, said.

“Oil prices are back above $74 a barrel. This is something we’re keeping a very close eye on,” Herncane said. “A lot of this is that backlash from the increase in demand from the holiday weekend. On top of that, the U.S. National Hurricane Center announced a tropical storm could be forming near Florida and that’s another thing to help drive prices up.”

The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $2.93 at the start of the day Wednesday with the statewide average slightly lower at $2.88, Herncane said. The national average is at its highest peak since May 16, she said.

“The oil market is extremely volatile right now. Increasing tensions over North Korea’s missile launches is at the top of the list,” she said. “There are all sorts of factors boosting these prices. Iran’s nuclear ambitions are also creating market instability.”

We're over $3.00/gallon here, $3.03 at the Exxon on my corner. How is it in your neighborhood?

The Savory Morning

If you never think of savory quick breads to serve with your egg dishes on Sunday morning, here is a reason to think again. Have room temperature cream cheese ready to spread on these savory delights with your eggs and ham.

Cheesy Herb Muffins
These delicious little muffins are best eaten warm or reheated in the microwave, so the tiny bits of cheese melt. The topping of minced onion and herbs is really delicious too.
INGREDIENTS:

* 1/4 cup minced onion
* 1/4 cup minced parsley
* 1-1/2 tsp. dill seed
* 2 tsp. minced cilantro
* 2 cups flour
* 1 Tbsp. sugar
* 1 Tbsp. baking powder
* 1/4 tsp. salt
* 1/8 tsp. white pepper
* 1/4 cup butter, chilled
* 4 oz. Muenster cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes
* 3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 cup milk
* 1 egg

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease 12 muffin cups and set aside. Combine onion, parsley, dill seed, and cilantro in small bowl; set aside.

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix. With pastry blender or two knives, cut in 1/4 cup butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in cheeses.

In small bowl, combine milk and egg and beat well to blend. Pour into dry ingredients and stir just until blended. Some lumps are okay. Fill prepared muffin cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle each muffin with topping and lightly press topping into batter.

Bake at 400 degrees for 19-21 minutes until muffins are firm and light golden brown. Cool 1 minute in pan, then remove from pans and cool on wire rack. 12 muffins

The Mystery Writer's Favorite

Got leftover turkey from your last grill experiment? Here's a recipe for a classic "hot brown" with cheese. I make these after Thanksgiving and Christmas with the leftover bird. I like salt and pepper in the roux.

INGREDIENTS:

* 4 slices of toast
* sliced of cooked turkey for 4 sandwiches
* 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
* 1/8 teaspoon pepper
* 1 cup milk
* 1 cup shredded mild Cheddar cheese

PREPARATION:
Arrange toast in shallow baking dish; top with turkey slices. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat; stir in flour, salt and pepper. Add milk gradually and cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Add cheese and cook until melted and smooth. Pour sauce over turkey; place pan under broiler; broil until browned.

If you have leftover gravy and cranberries, don't hesitate to add them on top or on the side.

* This recipe approximates the "hot brown" sandwich served at Martin's Tavern, a DC landmark featured in many of the mystery novels of George Pelecanos, one of my favorite writers.

Soup and Sandwich to Die For

Here's another cold soup using some of my favorite flavors. Avocados are ripe when you can leave a mark with a slight squeeze of your thumb. Halve them, use a knife to flip out the pits and spoon the meat out of the peels. This will serve four and benefits from sitting covered in the fridge overnight.

INGREDIENTS:

* 4 avocados - peeled, pitted and diced
* 1 shallot, finely chopped
* 3 1/2 cups cold chicken broth
* 2 tablespoons tomato paste
* 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (e.g. Tabasco™)
* 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, or to taste
* 1 tablespoon tequila (optional)
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 tablespoons sour cream

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large food processor, combine the avocado, shallot, chicken broth, tomato paste, hot pepper sauce, lime juice and tequila. Reserve a little bit of cilantro for garnish, then put the rest into the processor. Process until smooth. If you have an immersion blender, you may do this in a pot or large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.
2. To serve, divide the soup between four chilled bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream and a scattering of chopped cilantro.

Serve these with fresh potato rolls, split and topped with a little emmenthaler cheese melted in the toaster oven or on the grill, and a spread of Pommery mustard. Heaven.

Summer Grill

You can serve this as a side with poultry, fish, pork or beef, but this makes a great entree for veggie guests. As a main course, I'd serve it with a side salad and a very dry chardonnay.

Parmesan Crusted Portobello Mushrooms

1/3 cup grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper
4 portobello mushrooms and stems removed, cleaned, trimmed and coarsely chopped
Olive oil, for brushing
4 teaspoons white truffle oil
1 cup oyster mushrooms with the cleaned, trimmed portobello stems, coarsely chopped
Olive oil, for cooking

Heat grill to medium-low. Combine Parmesan, thyme and salt and pepper in a small bowl.

Brush mushrooms with oil on both sides and season with salt and pepper to taste. Place the mushrooms, cap side down and cook until golden, about 4 to 5 minutes. Turn over and continue grilling until soft, about 5 to 6 minutes longer. When the mushrooms are cooked through, carefully divide the cheese mixture over the top of the mushrooms. Close the cover of the grill and cook until the cheese has melted. Remove from the grill and drizzle each mushroom with a teaspoon of white truffle oil.

In a saute pan, drizzle olive oil and saute the oyster mushrooms and portobello stems until golden brown and tender. Season with salt and pepper, to taste

Place on top of portobellos and serve.

Yes, truffle oil is expensive, but once you have experienced it you'll start putting away a little egg money once a week to buy more. Oh, yes.

Staff of Life

I like to use rosemary for this bread, but you can fill in with your own favorite herb; oregano and basil both work well. This bread will transform your understanding of the humble plastic packaged cold cuts and packaged cheese sandwich. Serve it hot out of the oven at dinner with herbed olive oil.

Herb/Olive Bread

From The Notchland Inn, Harts Location, NH

Sponge:

* 2 cups warm water
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 3 tablespoons dry yeast
* 2 cups bread flour
* 1/3 cup chopped herbs

Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl. Let sponge rise until it has doubled in bulk, about 30 to 60 minutes.

Dough:

* 3-1/2 cups bread flour
* 1 tablespoon salt
* 1/2 to 3/4 cup green and Kalamata olives, drained well, pitted and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixer bowl, swirl the ingredients with a dough hook. Add sponge and mix 8 to 10 minutes on very low speed, or knead by hand.

Let dough rise again until it has doubled in bulk, punch it down, and turn out onto a counter or large cutting board.

Grease a cookie sheet. Shape dough into two long baguettes the length of your cookie sheet, about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Slash and let rise again, 15 to 30 minutes. Bake about 30 minutes.

Using this bread for welsh rabbit is just good sense. It will elevate your leftovers to heavenly sandwiches.

Wallet Woe

Gas prices won't be going down any time soon:

Oil Touches Record $75.40/Bbl After North Korea Tests Missiles

July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil touched a record $75.40 a barrel in New York after North Korea fired missiles into the Sea of Japan, raising concern that supplies to Asia, the fastest- growing energy consumer, could be disrupted by conflict in the region.

Prices peaked today 5 cents above the high set in April as the dispute over Iran's nuclear program escalated. The missile tests deepen concern that geopolitical conflicts might interrupt the free flow of crude oil, analysts said. Speculation that U.S. gasoline inventories are falling also gave the oil market a boost.

``The current woes around the world all have the potential to threaten oil supplies,'' said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president of energy risk management at Fimat USA in New York. ``The higher gasoline prices didn't slow driving over the weekend. Demand is a big problem.''

Crude oil for August delivery rose $1.22, or 1.7 percent, to $75.15 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. If the futures settle there it will be the highest close since April 21. Earlier crude touched $75.40 the highest since oil futures began trading in New York in 1983.

Brent crude oil for August settlement gained on the ICE Futures exchange in London, halting two days of declines. It was up $1.50, or 2.1 percent at $74.01 a barrel.

``The most important news is the missile test overnight,'' which also has implications in Iran, said Rob Laughlin, a senior broker at Man Financial Ltd. in London. ``Some people in Iran had a big smile this morning. Now they will wait for how President George W. Bush is going to react.''

I drive a very small car with a small tank. I went into shock a year ago when it took me $20 to fill it. My last fill, last week, was $40. Needless to say, I ain't doing a lot of driving.'

Talking Sense

David Remnick has a killer piece in this week's issue of The New Yorker on Bushco's manipulation of the media. It's a fairly long piece and excerpting it won't do it justice, so just click on the link and read the whole thing. It's refreshing to see a journo kick ass and take names. No faux attempts at "balance" in this one.

Weather Alert

I had a boatload of problems yesterday afternoon related to our latest batch of severe thunderstorms: dropped ISP connections, power outages, the usual stuff. We are going to have another afternoon of strong storms (for the, what? tenth or so day in a row) so I anticipate more problems.

We're Back

Did you miss me? My host server doesn't notify me of such things in advance, but my domain registration expired last night and it took several rounds of email to figure that out this morning.

At any rate, the domain has been renewed for a couple of years. Your regularly scheduled blogging will resume as soon as I can get the sources set up in the browser windows and clean up the data base.

Shrimp on the Barbie

I serve this as a first course, but it could be a side if you want to do a "different" surf and turf. It's a classic recipe and I don't mess with it much except to increase the cilantro, because I'm a cilantro head. The recipe is courtesy of Bobby Flay, king of the grill, and I don't ever need to "correct" his recipes much. Like everybody else on Food TV, he overdoes the salt for my palate, but everyone does on that channel. I want to taste the ingredients, not salt. "Escabeche" is a style of cooking which uses spices and acids to "cook" foods, and a "ceviche" is an "escabeche."

Grilled Shrimp Escabeche

Serves 8

1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp (21 to 25 per pound), peeled and deveined
1/3 cup olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large red onion, peeled, halved, and thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 cups white wine vinegar
2 bay leaves
8 sprigs cilantro
1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes
3 tablespoons torn cilantro leaves (I use 6 tablespoons)

Heat your grill to high. Toss the shrimp in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Grill the shrimp for 1 to 2 minutes per side or until just cooked through. Transfer shrimp to a clean medium bowl.

Heat 1/3 cup olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, and serrano chiles and cook until soft. Add the cumin and mustard seeds and cook for 1 minute. Add the vinegar, bay leaves, and cilantro and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and immediately pour over the shrimp and stir to coat. Let cool to room temperature, cover, and then refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight, stirring a few times during that time. Transfer the escabeche, with a slotted spoon, to a platter and garnish with sliced radishes and torn cilantro.

A French pinot gris is a nearly perfect partner for this course. I also like to serve it on a leaf of butter lettuce to get the perfect partnership of smoke and cool.

Independence Day

WWFFD? Who cares?
Let's stop fussing about what America's founders thought, and let our minds run free.

By Mark Kurlansky, MARK KURLANSKY is the author of many books, including, most recently, "The Big Oyster: History On a Half Shell."
July 4, 2006

SOMEONE HAS TO SAY IT or we are never going to get out of this rut: I am sick and tired of the founding fathers and all their intents.

The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West. The U.S. offers the worst healthcare program, one of the worst public school systems and the worst benefits for workers. The margin between rich and poor has been growing precipitously while it has been decreasing in Europe. Among the great democracies, we use military might less cautiously, show less respect for international law and are the stumbling block in international environmental cooperation. Few informed people look to the United States anymore for progressive ideas.

We ought to do something. Instead, we keep worrying about the vision of a bunch of sexist, slave-owning 18th century white men in wigs and breeches. Even in the 18th century, the founding fathers were not the most enlightened thinkers available. They were the ones whose ideas prevailed. Those who favored independence but were not in favor of war are not called founding fathers. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania — with whom John Adams bitterly fought in the Constitutional Congress of 1776 because Dickinson did not believe it was necessary to engage in bloody warfare in order to achieve independence — is not a founding father. You could speak out against slavery and still be a founding father, as long as you did not insist on its abolition, as many did who aren't in the pantheon.

The Constitution produced by the founding fathers lacked the enlightenment of some of the colonial charters of several generations earlier, most notably the laws of Pennsylvania that barred slavery, refused to raise militias and insisted on fair-minded treaties with Indians. Benjamin Franklin despised these "Quaker laws" of his colony and even published a pamphlet denouncing the Pennsylvania Assembly for not sending young men to fight the French and Indians.

To be honest, the U.S. was never as good as it was supposed to be. Perhaps no nation is. Henry David Thoreau wrote of nations, "The historian strives in vain to make them memorable." Even in the first few decades, most Europeans who came to see the great new experiment were disappointed. Writer after writer, from British novelist Charles Dickens to the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, arrived to discover less than they imagined. Tocqueville observed of American character: "They unceasingly harass you to extort praise and if you resist their entreaties, they fall to praising themselves."

Fanny Trollope, the English writer, made a similar observation in 1832: "A slight word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood." I have no doubt the response to this article will show an America still unwilling to be criticized. But it is difficult for a society that accepts no criticism to progress.
....
But the founding fathers, unlike the Americans of today, understood their own shortcomings. Thomas Jefferson warned against a slavish worship of their work, which he referred to as "sanctimonious reverence" for the Constitution. Jefferson believed in the ability of humans to grow wiser, of humankind to make progress, and he believed that the Constitution should be rewritten in every generation.

"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind," Jefferson wrote in 1816. "As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstance, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

It is surprising that these words are not more often quoted in Washington because they are literally carved in stone — on a wall of the Jefferson Memorial to be exact.

So let us stop worshiping the founding fathers and allow our minds to progress and try to build a nation of great new ideas. That is, after all, the intent of the founding fathers.

The phrase which brings any working group to its knees is "that's the way we've always done it."

Judicial Temperament

Judicial Audacity, Well-Founded

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; A15

A minority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems not to have been living in America for the past several years. The three -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- not only dissented from the majority's opinion that George W. Bush had confused himself with a monarch in establishing military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, they also accused the other justices of "audacity" in second-guessing the president. Have these eminent jurists never heard of weapons of mass destruction?

If ever there was a president who begged to be second-guessed, it is the one we unaccountably now have. History will record him as the president who responded to a terrorist attack launched from Afghanistan by also going to war against Iraq. It will remember him as the one who insisted this be done so as to rid that foul nation of chemical, biological and atomic weapons, of which, when the smoke had cleared and the country was conquered, none could be found. It does not take audacity to second-guess Bush. It takes prudence.

It was Thomas, for once, who had the more interesting language. "We are not engaged in a traditional battle with a nation-state," he said of terrorism, "but with a worldwide, hydra-headed enemy, who lurks in the shadows conspiring to reproduce the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001." The prose is purple. The point, though, is well worth debating.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I doubt that there are some pretty bad people lurking in the shadows Thomas mentioned. The events of Sept. 11, not to mention the previous bombing of the World Trade Center and attacks elsewhere in the world, proved that bad guys exist, and they can be lethal.

But we have to be careful here. After all, the reason some in the Bush administration (and elsewhere) were so convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD is that he once possessed WMD. If the weapons could not be found, it was because they were being cleverly and diabolically hidden -- not because they no longer existed. And when United Nations inspectors returned from Iraq with empty hands, they were vilified as fools and dismissed with contempt by such clear thinkers as Dick Cheney. The proof that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was the very fact that he would not turn them over.

Can something similar be happening with the threat of domestic terrorism? After all, some of the same reasoning is being employed. If you want to know why the president must take extreme action, must encroach on this or that civil liberty, it's because of terrorism. And the proof of the success of his approach is that since Sept. 11 there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States. Can it be an accident? No. What you can't see, what you don't know, is proof of what you have been told.

Straw men and logical fallacies included, Thomas, Alito and Scalia are carving out an ideological position rather than a constitutional or legal one.

The Queen of Summer Soup

Vichysoisse can be served hot or cold, but it really shows its stuff as a summer cold soup.

2/3 cup leeks, thinly sliced, white portion only
1 small onion, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 1/2 cups potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 cups chicken broth
Kosher salt to taste
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Snipped fresh chives for garnish

In a medium saucepan cook leeks and onion in butter until vegetables are tender but not brown. Stir in sliced potatoes, chicken broth and salt. Increase heat and bring just to a boil; reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes or until potatoes are very tender. Remove from heat.

In a food processor, puree half the mixture until smooth. Pour into a large saucepan. Repeat with remaining mixture. (The soup can be refrigerated at this point and completed the next day).

When ready to serve, add milk and cream to the soup mixture. If serving hot, heat gently over medium heat stirring constantly. Ladle into individual serving bowls, garnish with fresh snipped chives and serve.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Serve this with hot, fresh baguettes and an antipasto platter and dinner is done. Dipping oil for the baguettes can be found here. This is simple elegance.

Crunch Starter

I've made this recipe for parties and friends are floored to learn that you can make crackers at home. These are:

Beer Crackers Topped with Garlic and Three Cheese

This will serve 12 to 16 passed as an hors d'ouevre before dinner or as part of a cocktail party. The garlic is optional, the cheese is center stage. This is a fair amount of work for what seems like an inconsequential part of an appetizer buffet: the bang for the buck you'll get for it from your guests' reactions will make it worthwhile.

1 1/4 cups warm water (105* to 115*F / 40* to 45*C)
2 (0.25) envelopes dry yeast
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup white cornmeal
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 teaspoons minced garlic
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
4 tablespoons chopped green onions

1. Place 1 1/4 cups warm water in large bowl. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over; stir to blend. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 10 minutes. Mix in cornmeal, oil and salt.
2. Add 3 cups flour to yeast mixture; stir until dough forms. Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Add remaining 1/4 cup flour; knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 2 minutes.
3. Lightly oil clean large bowl. Add dough; turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap, then kitchen towel. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 45 minutes.
4. Punch dough down. Turn out onto floured surface; knead briefly until smooth. Return to oiled bowl; turn to coat. Cover with plastic, then kitchen towel. Let dough rise 40 minutes. Punch dough down. Turn out onto floured surface. Divide into 4 pieces. Cover with plastic; chill at least 1 hour or overnight.
5. Preheat oven to 450*F (230*C). Oil 11 x 15-inch baking sheet. Roll out 1 dough piece to 1/8-inch-thick rectangle. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Using fingers, gently stretch dough to edges of baking sheet. Bake until golden, puffed and crisp, about 8 minutes. Remove from oven. Top with 1/2 cup mozzarella, 1/4 cup Gorgonzola, 1/4 cup Parmesan and 1 teaspoon garlic. Return cracker to oven; bake until cheese melts and bubbles, about 4 minutes. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon each of parsley and green onions. Remove cracker from baking sheet. Cool baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, cheeses, garlic, parsley and onions. Break warm crackers into pieces.

You can also serve the sheets whole and let your guests break off their own pieces; I'm always a fan of food as play. Count on having crumbs ground into the rugs the next day, however. You can run the recipe through step 4 on the day before your event and I recommend it.

These are spectacular with the soup recipe below.

Moroccan Lentil Soup

There is a little mediterranean restaurant near me that features the foods of the entire mediterranean basin, including North Africa, and I've become deeply enamored of Moroccan food. Here is a lentil soup which is hearty, satisfying and quite complex. I finish the dish with Moroccan harissa, a spice derived from African sumac which is smoky and interesting. I can buy it in the Middle Eastern markets, which are abundant where I live. You can order it here or make your own.

This will serve six as a main course with bread and a little salad. Peel and slice some cukes, segment some tomatoes and thinly slice a red onion. Put everything into a deep bowl and cover with vinegar, salt and pepper. Let marinate in the fridge for at least an hour while the soup is cooking. Toss with good olive oil before serving. Garnish with finely chopped parsely.

* 2 onions, chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
* 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
* 1 cup red lentils
* 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
* 1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans
* 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
* 1/2 cup diced carrots
* 1/2 cup chopped celery
* 1 teaspoon garam masala
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon harissa

DIRECTIONS:

1. In large pot saute; the onions, garlic, and ginger in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the water, lentils, chick peas, white kidney beans, diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, garam masala, cardamom, cayenne pepper and cumin. Bring to a boil for a few minutes then simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or longer, until the lentils are soft.
3. Puree half the soup in a food processor or blender. Return the pureed soup to the pot, stir in harrisa and enjoy!

A spoonful of plain yoghurt in each serving bowl will not be out of place and a chiffonade of cilantro and/or chives sprinkled across the top is something I like.

To freshen and soften store bought pitas or lavash, wrap them completely in a paper towel that has been spritzed with water and nuke them for about 10 seconds.

Across the Pond

Britons see US as vulgar empire builder
By Ben Fenton
(Filed: 03/07/2006)

Britons have never had such a low opinion of the leadership of the United States, a YouGov poll shows.

As Americans prepare to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence tomorrow, the poll found that only 12 per cent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.

Most Britons see America as a cruel, vulgar, arrogant society, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden, obsessed with money and led by an incompetent hypocrite.

American troops are failing either to win "hearts and minds" in Iraq or bring democracy to that country.

More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.

Let's Go to the Tape

Postie Al Kamen has the dish:

Speaking of Legitimate Elections . . .

More from the now-famous taped luncheon chat between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week in Moscow. All very cordial, we were assured -- until the tape proved completely otherwise.

During the talk, Rice, speaking of Iraq, said: "This is the only legitimately elected government in the Middle East with a possible exception of Lebanon, which was a peculiar election."

Not sure what she means by Lebanon, but what about the Palestinian territories? Because Hamas won, it's not legitimately elected? What about Israel?

The Fink

THE HIDDEN POWER
The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror.
by JANE MAYER
Issue of 2006-07-03
Posted 2006-06-26

On December 18th, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, joined other prominent Washington figures at FedEx Field, the Redskins’ stadium, in a skybox belonging to the team’s owner. During the game, between the Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, Powell spoke of a recent report in the Times which revealed that President Bush, in his pursuit of terrorists, had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without first obtaining a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by federal law. This requirement, which was instituted by Congress in 1978, after the Watergate scandal, was designed to protect civil liberties and curb abuses of executive power, such as Nixon’s secret monitoring of political opponents and the F.B.I.’s eavesdropping on Martin Luther King, Jr. Nixon had claimed that as President he had the “inherent authority” to spy on people his Administration deemed enemies, such as the anti-Vietnam War activist Daniel Ellsberg. Both Nixon and the institution of the Presidency had paid a high price for this assumption. But, according to the Times, since 2002 the legal checks that Congress constructed to insure that no President would repeat Nixon’s actions had been secretly ignored.

According to someone who knows Powell, his comment about the article was terse. “It’s Addington,” he said. “He doesn’t care about the Constitution.” Powell was referring to David S. Addington, Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and his longtime principal legal adviser. Powell’s office says that he does not recall making the statement. But his former top aide, Lawrence Wilkerson, confirms that he and Powell shared this opinion of Addington.

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, “all Addington.” Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was “an unopposable force.”

The overarching intent of the New Paradigm, which was put in place after the attacks of September 11th, was to allow the Pentagon to bring terrorists to justice as swiftly as possible. Criminal courts and military courts, with their exacting standards of evidence and emphasis on protecting defendants’ rights, were deemed too cumbersome. Instead, the President authorized a system of detention and interrogation that operated outside the international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war established by the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Terror suspects would be tried in a system of military commissions, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, devised by the executive branch. The Administration designated these suspects not as criminals or as prisoners of war but as “illegal enemy combatants,” whose treatment would be ultimately decided by the President. By emphasizing interrogation over due process, the government intended to preëmpt future attacks before they materialized. In November, 2001, Cheney said of the military commissions, “We think it guarantees that we’ll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve.”

Yet, almost five years later, this improvised military model, which Addington was instrumental in creating, has achieved very limited results. Not a single terror suspect has been tried before a military commission. Only ten of the more than seven hundred men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo have been formally charged with any wrongdoing. Earlier this month, three detainees committed suicide in the camp. Germany and Denmark, along with the European Union and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, have called for the prison to be closed, accusing the United States of violating internationally accepted standards for humane treatment and due process. The New Paradigm has also come under serious challenge from the judicial branch. Two years ago, in Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled against the Administration’s contention that the Guantánamo prisoners were beyond the reach of the U.S. court system and could not challenge their detention. And this week the Court is expected to deliver a decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a case that questions the legality of the military commissions.

For years, Addington has carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket; taped onto the back are photocopies of extra statutes that detail the legal procedures for Presidential succession in times of national emergency. Many constitutional experts, however, question his interpretation of the document, especially his views on Presidential power. Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School, and the head of the New York Bar Association’s International Law committee, said that Addington and a small group of Administration lawyers who share his views had attempted to “overturn two centuries of jurisprudence defining the limits of the executive branch. They’ve made war a matter of dictatorial power.” The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who defined Nixon as the extreme example of Presidential overreaching in his book “The Imperial Presidency” (1973), said he believes that Bush “is more grandiose than Nixon.” As for the Administration’s legal defense of torture, which Addington played a central role in formulating, Schlesinger said, “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world—ever.”

Bruce Fein, a Republican legal activist, who voted for Bush in both Presidential elections, and who served as associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, said that Addington and other Presidential legal advisers had “staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He’s said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President’s reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world’s a battlefield—according to this view, he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It’s got the sense of Louis XIV: ‘I am the State.’ ” Richard A. Epstein, a prominent libertarian law professor at the University of Chicago, said, “The President doesn’t have the power of a king, or even that of state governors. He’s subject to the laws of Congress! The Administration’s lawyers are nuts on this issue.” He warned of an impending “constitutional crisis,” because “their talk of the inherent power of the Presidency seems to be saying that the courts can’t stop them, and neither can Congress.”

The former high-ranking lawyer for the Administration, who worked closely with Addington, and who shares his political conservatism, said that, in the aftermath of September 11th, “Addington was more like Cheney’s agent than like a lawyer. A lawyer sometimes says no.” He noted, “Addington never said, ‘There is a line you can’t cross.’ ” Although the lawyer supported the President, he felt that his Administration had been led astray. “George W. Bush has been damaged by incredibly bad legal advice,” he said.

Trashing the Constitution doesn't appear to work, but no one appears to be very exercised about it, least of all the American voter.

Nixonian

Via Suze:

Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T; Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T;, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.''

The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists.

``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T; may neither confirm nor deny AT&T;'s participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T; spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail.

U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment.

Bushco were imperialist assholes well before "911 changed everything." The Mayberry Machiavellis have been very consistent. I see the fine hand of Dick Cheney in this.

Nixonian

Via Suze:

Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T; Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T;, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.''

The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists.

``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T; may neither confirm nor deny AT&T;'s participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T; spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail.

U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment.

Bushco were imperialist assholes well before "911 changed everything." The Mayberry Machiavellis have been very consistent. I see the fine hand of Dick Cheney in this.

Your Reccomendations

I'm researching places to take myself out for my birthday this month. I prefer not to drive or Metro too far, but if you have a stunning review of a restaurant in Northern Virginia or the District, I'm willing to be convinced.

DC's turning into a great restaurant city and I don't get out much into it, prefering to cook at home. It is time to go exploring.

Revising a Classic

Here's an update of the traditional grilled cheese sandwich that uses cheddar cheese's natural affinity for Granny Smith apples. (Guilty pleasure: I've been known to make breakfast out of a hunk of aged cheddar and a Granny thinly sliced. With a cup of coffee and a glass of juice, it is a great way to start the day.)

Cheddar, Apple, and Bacon Sandwiches
Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Makes 4 sandwiches

8 slices bacon, preferably applewood-smoked
6 ounces grated Cheddar (about 1 1/2 cups total)
8 slices country bread, 1/2 inch thick
1/2 Granny Smith apple — peeled, seeded, and very thinly sliced
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Microwave the bacon in a microwave bacon dish, following the recommendations of your manufacturer. 8 slices will take 4-5 minutes to get crispy in a 1000 watt oven.

Place 4 slices of the bread on a work surface. Top with half the Cheddar, the apple slices, bacon, then the remaining Cheddar. Sandwich with the remaining bread. Spread 1/2 tablespoon of butter on the outsides of each sandwich. Heat a large, preferably nonstick, skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sandwiches and cook until the bread is golden brown and the Cheddar has melted, 2 to 3 minutes per side, pressing gently with a spatula to flatten.

You can also finish this sandwich on the grill very nicely and it is a welcome change from burgers and dogs. One of these with a bowl of gazpacho will revive an apetite on even the hottest of days.

Earmarks

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm

By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 2, 2006; A01

EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.

"I don't agree with the government's policy," said Matthews, who wanted to give the money back but was told it would just go to other landowners. "They give all of this money to landowners who don't even farm, while real farmers can't afford to get started. It's wrong."

The checks to Matthews and other landowners were intended 10 years ago as a first step toward eventually eliminating costly, decades-old farm subsidies. Instead, the payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers.

Can somebody tell me where to apply for this program?

Career Pathing

Gitmo win likely cost Navy lawyer his career

'Fearless' defense of detainee a stinging loss for Bush
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER
Saturday, July 1, 2006

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift -- the Navy lawyer who beat the president of the United States in a pivotal Supreme Court battle over trying alleged terrorists -- figures he'll probably have to find a new job. Swift Zoom AP Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift first represented Hamdan two years ago in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Of course, it's always risky to compare your boss to King George III.

Swift made the analogy to the court, saying President Bush had overstepped his authority when he bypassed Congress and set up illegal military tribunals to try Guantanamo detainees such as Swift's alleged al-Qaida client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

The justices agreed, ruling 5-3 Thursday in favor of dismantling the current tribunal system.

Despite his spectacular success, with the assistance of attorneys from the Seattle firm Perkins Coie, Swift thinks his military career is coming to an end. The 44-year-old Judge Advocate General officer, who was recently named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the country by The National Law Journal, was passed over for promotion last year as the high-profile case was making headlines around the world.

"I may be one of the most influential lawyers in America," the Seattle University Law School graduate said, "but I won't be in the military much longer. That irony did strike me."

Swift's future in the Navy now rests with another promotion board that is expected to render its decision in the next couple of weeks. Under the military's system, officers need to be promoted at regularly scheduled intervals or their service careers are essentially over.

"The way it works, the die was cast some months ago," he said. "The decision has been made. I don't know what it is yet." But he thinks his chances are slim.

Asked if he believes he was passed over for promotion last year for political reasons, Swift would not speculate.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not going to worry about it. I didn't volunteer for this. I got nominated for it. When I got it, I just decided to do the best I could."

Swift has worked under two officers as a member of the small team of lawyers defending "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo Bay. Both of them spoke highly of Swift Friday and said they gave him very high ratings on his annual review, called a fitness report.

"He's doing a fantastic job," said Swift's current boss at the Office of Military Commissions (tribunals), Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan.

Sullivan spoke of the crucial importance of the case decided Thursday by the Supreme Court. "It's a fundamental constitutional question about the powers of the president," Sullivan said. Asked about Swift's aggressive legal challenge of the commander in chief, Sullivan saluted Swift's "moral courage."

"He has been absolutely fearless is pursuing his client's interests. And also he has exhibited an extraordinary level of legal skill. His legal strategy has been brilliant.

"We all take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and he has certainly done that, literally."

This is how we "reward" talent, skill, tenacity and moral courage?

For a Hot Summer Night

Because of early heat and late rains, I'm already hearing that the neighbors have zucchini to shed. Here's a quick recipe that's great on the grill this grillin' weekend.

Baby zucchini squash, halved, cut sides slathered with minced garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper, broiled for five minutes (this is an old Lebanese recipe, the name translates "the pleasure of the chef.")

Add cold, minted iced tea and heritage tomatoes sliced thin and covered with olive oil, a chiffonade of basil, salt and pepper and some artisanal mozarella and artisanal bread with herbed olive oil for dipping and this is a banquet for a hot night. Going to be nearly 100F here tomorrow.

Devolution

Parliament member kidnapped

Kidnappers abducted a female member of the Iraqi parliament elsewhere in Baghdad on Saturday morning, police and an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party told CNN.

Gunmen hijacked the convoy of Tayseer Mashhadani, a Sunni, who was traveling with eight bodyguards from Diyala province to the capital, Iraqi police said.

She was attacked about 1,600 feet (500 meters) from a police checkpoint in the Sha'ab area of northeastern Baghdad, a mixed middle-class neighborhood.

Mashhadani is a member of the Iraqi National Accord, the largest party in the minority Sunni bloc of parliament.

She's an engineer by profession and is on the reconstruction committee in parliament.

"It is difficult to determine at this point who is behind this, but we have appealed to the kidnappers and made a humanitarian plea they set her free, because she is a woman and an Iraqi serving the Iraqi people," said Ala'a Makki, another member of the Iraqi National Accord.

Eight bodyguards? Contrary to all of CNN's happy talk about how all the amputees from our Army and Marines are going to be competing in the Olympics in 2008, the situation in Iraq is obviously continuing to deteriorate.

Other Bad Bugs

Business Joins African Effort to Cut Malaria
By SHARON LaFRANIERE

BELULUANE, Mozambique — With malaria spread across southern Mozambique, executives at the international mining company Billiton expected some workers to call in sick as it began building a massive new aluminum smelter amid the cornfields here.

What they did not expect was that nearly one in three employees would fall ill — 6,600 cases in just two years. And they certainly did not expect 13 deaths, not after the company had built a medical clinic, doused the construction site with pesticides and handed out bed nets to thwart malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

"You can imagine, it was a huge disaster," said Carlos Mesquita, the general manager. "We could not deal with that level of absenteeism, and we would have had more fatalities. If we didn't treat malaria we could not operate."

But confining measures to the plant, executives realized, would not protect their 1,100 employees, or their $1.3 billion investment, so long as malaria raged all around it, including in the capital, Maputo, just 10 miles up the highway.

And so one of the world's biggest aluminum producers joined in an exceptional partnership with the governments of three countries and with other businesses to take on malaria systematically across a broad region. Six years later, the scorecard is in. Amazingly, malaria is losing.

Billiton's experience with high absenteeism is instructive in planning for a possible pandemic influenza--lots of businesses will have the same experience.

The last graph, however, is misleading. Whether or not malaria is "losing" is very much an open question. The anopheles mosquito which is the carrier for the infection is expanding its range into the southern US, making the prospect of malaria as an ordinary infection in the mainland a real prospect. The range of drugs which treat the infection is also narrowing.

Tell the people in Africa who are working to quell the spread of the disease that it is "losing," and I suspect you will get some very cross looks.

Site News

Yes, it's a late start today because the morning was spent in a conference call with the Flu Wiki colleagues; we conference about once a month. I think of it as hanging with my homies.

I've got a few things to say today and not all of them are news related, some are flu related, but this will be another light posting day while I continue to rest sore arms and hands. The time off yesterday helped, but I can tell from the tightness I feel already today that I'm going to have to be careful.