Thursday, March 19, 2009

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Internet Explorer 8: Microsoft Adds Shortcuts, Security To New Browser Top
SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. released a new version of Internet Explorer Thursday, adding features meant to speed up common Web surfing tasks and bringing the browser's security measures in line with those of major competitors. The number of browsers has grown to a dizzying array, from Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox, the two most popular, to Apple Inc.'s Safari, Google Inc.'s Chrome, the Norwegian entrant Opera and others. Each is using speed, security enhancements and new features to fight for a share of Web surfers' growing time online. Microsoft remains the dominant player, but Firefox's influence is growing. Dean Hachamovitch, the IE group's general manager, said in an interview Wednesday that the free browser is important to Microsoft because the company simply wants PC users to have a "great experience every day" when surfing the Web. For Microsoft, as for Apple and Google, the browser is one more way to build relationships that could sway other decisions, like whether to buy a Macintosh or a Windows computer, or whether to use Google's Gmail instead of Microsoft's Hotmail. Google's entry into the market last year also shows the Web search leader believes owning the browser can help it better understand Web users' behavior and advertise to them more effectively _ an area in which Microsoft is struggling to catch up. Internet Explorer 8, which marks Microsoft's first major browser update since August 2006, takes a stab at fixing many of the small annoyances people encounter every day. For one, IE 8 aims to reduce the need to copy something from one Web page and paste it into another _ mapping a restaurant address, Googling a celebrity name, looking up an unknown word in Wikipedia or sharing a story by e-mail, Twitter or Facebook. A list of those little actions, which Microsoft is calling Accelerators, can be brought up by highlighting the text on a page and clicking on a small blue icon that appears. People can add new Accelerators to reflect their own search, e-mail and other habits. The new version of IE also adds a twist to the built-in toolbar search box. Firefox already lets people switch easily among search providers and sites like Amazon.com, eBay and Wikipedia using a drop-down menu. Microsoft takes this feature a step further. Type a word into the box and a preview of suggested searches or results appears in a drop-down list. Toggle between different search providers by clicking small icons in that window, and the list refreshes. So, search for "Camper shoes," for example. Choosing Live Search calls up a list of suggested search terms. Switch to Amazon.com by simply clicking a small button to see a list of products for sale, complete with photos and prices. Microsoft also has expanded on a feature present on some browsers today _ a toolbar button that opens a menu of the most recent news headlines. IE 8 users can add "Web slices" to keep track of eBay auctions, stock quotes, blog posts, weather forecasts and other information that is frequently updated. Another useful feature _ one that Firefox lacks but Google Inc.'s new Chrome browser employs _ keeps related tabs together. If a user clicks on a link, thereby opening a new tab, Microsoft tucks that tab right next to the original. IE 8 also gives the tabs a common color. And in IE 8, when a Web page in one tab crashes, it doesn't bring down the whole browser. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker added some new privacy features, including a mode for Web browsing that doesn't remember what sites were visited or store small data files called cookies. IE 8 lets people block ads from companies that track their Web surfing habits across a number of sites, a practice known as behavioral targeting. Microsoft also made some much-needed security improvements in Internet Explorer 8, many of which are already employed by competing products. It beefed up protection against malware and known "phishing" scam sites, and built in technology to protect against another kind of threat, "cross-site scripting," in which hackers insert code into legitimate Web pages that compromise peoples' computers without them knowing it. IE 8 disables the bad scripts but in most cases allows others needed for a Web page to run as usual. Firefox already does something similar with an add-on program, but Microsoft argues that only the most sophisticated users know to seek it out and install it. IE 8 also helps people who create Web sites prevent another kind of attack called "click-jacking," in which Web surfers might think they're clicking on a legitimate button when in fact they're activating an invisible, malicious action. Microsoft has been notorious for building Web browsers that only partially follow Web standards, or agreed-upon ways of reading Web designers' code and displaying the page as described. With IE 8, Microsoft has promised to adhere to standards. But since many Web pages, including Microsoft's own corporate sites, were built to work best with IE, the new version may "break" some pages. The fix? A button that reverts to the old, nonstandard way of operating. ___ On the Net: http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 More on Microsoft
 
James Moore: A Second Act for Spitzer? Top
"Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves." - Albert Einstein There is an attorney who can get to the bottom of our current financial crisis and lay the blame and guilt at the foot of the culprits. He has already gone after fraud at AIG, brought down the Gambino family's control of trucking and garment industries in New York City, prosecuted predatory lenders, computer chip price fixing, securities frauds, and sued Richard Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange for not fully disclosing his $140 million deferred compensation package. Eliot Spitzer, phone home. Spitzer would make an ideal federal prosecutor for the government to pursue all of the people who sold the ponzi scheme known as derivatives or Credit Default Obligations or Credit Default Swaps, which were bound to end with the last buyers in line having the pyramid of paper collapse on their heads, and then all the way down the hill to the sellers and investors. The former governor of New York has the resume' as attorney general and serving in the Manhattan District Attorney's office and, in both capacities, he concentrated on white collar crime. Name one person better qualified to get to the bottom of what happened on Wall Street, prosecute the bad actors, and help design laws that prevent a recurrence. There is no one more ably suited for this critical task. Of course, the Obama administration isn't talking about a federal prosecutor but there seems little doubt we are in need of legal scrutiny regarding bonuses, buyouts, salaries, and, indeed, even a deconstruct of the derivatives market and how these contrived instruments were allowed to morph into the hairy monster that ate America. I don't want to hear about Spitzer's moral lapse. I live in a country where my former President showed similar bad judgment, many members of congress conduct themselves poorly with regards to matters sexual, and the entire population has human failings. I don't condone Spitzer's behavior but I also don't believe a man with his education and experience needs to be permanently marginalized by a culture and an economy that needs his insight and skill. American society has made an accommodation that allows, rightly or wrongly, for a distinction between an individual's personal comportment and their professional performance. Washington and most of the corporate offices in this country would be empty structures if we had not made this compromise. We are human beings; we screw up and need redemption. Let's give Spitzer another shot. Put him on this task of getting to the bottom of what went wrong on Wall Street and how our retirements did the amazing disappearing act. As an example of his tenacity and skill, consider what he did regarding mutual fund abuses way back in 2003 when we were all flush with excitement about our thrumming economy. Spitzer knew people were playing games and running scams to make things better than possible with natural market forces. Using arcane practices known as front running, late trading, and market timing, Bank One, Prudential Securities, Putnam, Janus, and Bank of America were providing benefits to some of their big investors using practices considered to be fraudulent and unfair by the SEC. The feds investigated in the wake of the work conducted by Spitzer's team and these fancy fiscal maneuvers were shut down. The heads of several significant mutual funds resigned in disgrace. The man knows what to do and where to start looking. Why would we not put him on point to help taxpayers and the government better understand what has just transpired? Don't we need to know or are we afraid to learn that the pirates are still in control of the high seas? Scott Fitzgerald was wrong about American lives. There are second acts. In fact, life in America is all about second acts. If ever there were a culture that offered redemption and renewal and loved a comeback, it is ours. We enjoy seeing people fall from high places but we seem to be pleased even more when they pick themselves up, mend, and get on with other challenges because we know, as Papa Hemingway wrote, they have become "stronger in their broken places." Eliot Spitzer's broken place is healed. Let's put him back to work. Also at http://www.moorethink.com
 
Ted Haggard, Wife Gayle To Appear On "Divorce Court" Top
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard and his wife are planning another TV appearance, this time to talk about their marriage. The two are in Los Angeles taping an appearance on the syndicated Twentieth Television show "Divorce Court," to be broadcast nationally April 1. The show's presiding judge, Lynn Toler, is interviewing the couple about how their marriage survived after a male prostitute from Denver alleged a cash-for-sex relationship with Ted Haggard in November 2006, executive producer Mark Koberg said. The scandal prompted Haggard to resign as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The Haggards say their marriage and Christian faith are stronger than ever, and they want people to know that divorce is not the answer. "This is part of Ted's journey," Gayle Haggard said. "It's made him a better man. I see what has happened as a divine rescue." She said she was helped through her darkest hours by the biblical principles of forgiveness, compassion and steadfastness, along with her husband's genuine repentance. The couple will be paid an undisclosed amount for the interview, the latest in a series of public appearances that started in January when Ted Haggard began promoting an HBO documentary about his time in exile. He also has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Larry King Live."
 
Mona Ackerman: Coping With Loss Top
Q: I don't really know what my question is, but I do know that I am really hurting. I am almost sure that you will say this is very legitimate pain and that I will soon get over it, and then learn to live with it. In the meantime, though, I'm in pain and need to talk about it. I am taking care of my father who is dying. My siblings and their families don't live near us, so I am the primary caregiver. My father has nursing care, so basically I just go over to his place to keep him company and to make sure everything runs smoothly. The situation isn't too demanding, but I am scared of the moment of the death. I will be alone, there will be no other family member present, and it will be my responsibility to call everyone. I keep replaying that scene in my head so that at least I will not feel that it is so shocking or overly painful. I know I will be able to handle it and I have my list of whom to call, but I still feel that moment of dread every time I enter his home. At the same time, I am helping Beatrice, a very old friend of my parents, to pack up and to move to an assisted living home near her daughter in another state. My mother died two years ago and Beatrice's husband died about five years ago. They were inseparable as couples. I always felt closer to Beatrice than I did to my own mother. Beatrice always made time for me and seemed to understand the depth of my feelings, much more than my mother did. In fact, I always thought that after my mother died, Beatrice and my father would get together and I would then have better parents -the ones I always wanted. Not only didn't that happen, but after their spouses died, they hardly saw each other at all. Only Beatrice and I maintained a relationship. It is probably important for you to know that my husband, Franco, died over ten years ago. We had no children and our love affair was the core of my life. Even though everyone objected to our marriage, his family and mine, Franco and I were one unit, completely intertwined with one another. After his death, I tried to stay in contact with his family but much to my dismay they ended up ignoring me -- as they did before we were married. My own family was little better. They knew I had suffered a loss, but had little appreciation of the depth of my loss. My soul mate was gone -- not just my husband, but the love and lover of my life. I'd like to say that the last ten years have been a period of rediscovering myself, reinterpreting life, or even remarrying, but that has not been the case. Franco is still with me. I talk to him whenever I need to work through an issue or whenever I feel extremely alone. This was especially the case after my mother died. Even now, I dream often about Franco and I know that he is near. I enjoy the company of men, but I really don't think one can ever find substitutes for one's main love in life. I am not unhappy. Instead, I finally feel calm and content, although it did take over five years for the intense loneliness to abate. Now it has returned and I again feel the intense pain of Franco's loss. Will this ever stop? A: You know the answer. Of course you will deal with your father's death and of course you will triumph over yet another loss, but as long as Franco remains the only way to resolve a problem and as long as there is pain in your life, you will feel the repetitive, intense pain of losing Franco. When your mother died you felt the pain of Franco's absence. Whenever you have a painful issue, you turn again to Franco for resolution. You have integrated him into your thinking so that in effect you are still talking to him and he is still around. That incorporation of the cherished characteristics of our deceased loved ones is an effective way of getting past the intense pain of grief. You have done that instinctually by talking to Franco when you are feeling confused or lonely. But, you have also chosen not to move on to another potentially satisfying new life or new lover. That is your choice. However, that choice will always bring up anew the process of mourning as each time you hurt you revert back to the original dynamic between you and Franco in order to feel better. Once again, that is your choice. But the result is that the intense pain of losing Franco will reemerge. And this will occur especially when you experience loss or death, as you are at this moment. So, you talk to Franco and you search out others that you can interact with. I will tell you what you thought I would say. The pain of loss, the agony of bereavement, is legitimate. The pain is appropriate. And you seem to be handling it as well as you can. As you have done before, you wait for a scab to form and for you to feel content and calm again. Aside from the very real loss that you are experiencing, I believe that there are other complications that you need to understand if you are to work out your distress. The situation you are now in mimics other feelings you have that may be unrelated to actually grieving a death -- previous feelings not only of loneliness but of betrayal as well. You do not express any anger, but there are clues that for you, loss and betrayal are closely intertwined. What am I talking about? First of all, your family doesn't seem to be a tight-knit group capable of offering your either support or pleasure. You state that they are not around to take care of your father, and you leave it at that. You don't say if you talked this over with your siblings. Did you ask them for help? Did they turn you down? Did they just expect you to do what they would not? Did you expect to do what they would not? Does any of this make you angry? Do you feel used? Do you feel betrayed? You say your mother didn't understand you as well as Beatrice did. How about your father? Did he understand you? You don't say. I would assume that your enjoyment of Beatrice is part of a search for a family that you could construct for yourself. In fact, you had hoped that Beatrice would become your step-mother. It doesn't sound like you took great pleasure from your own family. As for you and Franco, the two of you kept it to the bare minimum -you, Franco and no children. You constructed your life the way you wanted. You may have wanted Beatrice to begin a new family for you, but that's was only after Franco had died. Before his death, you both had only each other for family. You both only trusted each other. Your present circumstance leaves you alone again. You could always talk to Franco and you also talked to Beatrice. But now she is leaving and so, in a profound way, is your father. You are losing any family you may have enjoyed. Your loneliness now is becoming more acute. You seem to have no one to turn to. The word that comes to mind -the feeling I think you are experiencing -is betrayal. You had hoped to hold onto Franco's family after he died, but they retreated. Your own family gave you no support when you married Franco -or, for that matter, when he died. And now, your father's death and Beatrice's moving away is another betrayal. They are leaving you alone yet again. All of your past painful feelings -not merely grief -- are rising to the surface. You are not only grieving. You are dreading the impending recurrence of intense loneliness, anger, and betrayal. There is no instant remedy for what ails you. You need to find a therapist and work out mourning which, for you, includes intense echoes of the original loss and the reemergence of other unresolved feelings. You hopefully can work through all of this without Franco.
 
The Progress Report: Six Years Of War In Iraq Top
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers To receive The Progress Report in your email inbox everyday, click here . Six years to the day have passed since President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, a preventative war of choice based on "intelligence fixed around the policy." The purpose, according to Bush, was "to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger." Yet of course, there were no weapons to disarm and no "grave danger" to defend against. The war has spawned more terrorists and created deeply rooted resentment of the United States. Even including the billions of dollars Congress has authorized to bail out the nation's troubled financial institutions, this unnecessary war will most likely turn out to be "the largest spending bill in history," as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) called it. Billions have been lost in waste, fraud, and abuse. Private contractors who have raked in billions from the war have established solid records of endangering the lives of Americans and Iraqis in the country. More importantly, al Qaeda -- the main threat to the U.S. when the war was launched -- "has organized to pre-9/11 strength" because Bush turned his back on Afghanistan, a war in which the U.S. and its allies are not currently winning. However, the war in Iraq may be starting to draw to a close. Late last year, the Bush administration negotiated a security agreement -- or "withdrawal accord" -- with the Iraqi government, mandating that all U.S. troops exit the country by 2011. Last month, President Obama announced his own plan to speed up that process, ordering two-thirds of U.S. forces to redeploy by Aug. 31, 2010. The Progress Report has rounded up the significant developments surrounding the Iraq war over the last year -- some good, some bad, and others ugly. THE GOOD: -- Violence in Iraq is down to its lowest level since August 2003. -- A new ABC/BBC/NHK poll suggests that Iraqi civilians are "more upbeat about the future," and for the first time since March 19, 2003, violence and insecurity "are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis." -- U.S. combat deaths are at their lowest level since the initial invasion. -- Iraqi leaders and U.S. troops have offered praise of Obama's plan to speed up the American withdrawal from Iraq. -- Iraqi civilian casualties have been steadily dropping since 2007, and despite a slight uptick in February, January 2009 "set a record for the lowest number of Iraqi civilians killed" since the war began. THE BAD: -- Through last Tuesday, 4,260 U.S. servicemen and women and hundreds more from coalition countries have been killed in Iraq since the war began. Tens of thousands have been physically and mentally wounded. In fact, suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans "may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care." -- According to Iraq Body Count, nearly 100,000 (maybe more) Iraqi civilians have lost their lives because of the war. Nearly 5 million Iraqis have either been internally displaced or left the country. -- A U.N. report released last month found that more than 25 percent of Iraq's young men are out of work, "a situation that is likely to worsen and threatens the country's long-term stability. ... Overall, the country's unemployment rate is 18%, but an additional 10% of the labor force is employed part time and wanting to work more." -- A study released last month found that "Iraq accounts for 1,067 suicide attacks" anywhere since 1981, "a number that accounts for more than half (54.8%) of all suicide attacks" since that time. -- The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate as precious American and allied resources are still being used in Iraq. THE UGLY: -- Being an architect of the war means never having to say you're sorry. Bush blames others for having to launch the war. Vice President Cheney is convinced the life and treasure lost to fight the Iraq war was worth it. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice actually said she is "so proud" the U.S. invaded Iraq. And major war architect Richard Perle now denies the existence of neoconservatism, the ideological basis for the invasion. -- Despite zero evidence, Bush administration officials are still trying to link Saddam to al Qaeda. -- The British government released internal memos and e-mails last week that provide further evidence that the government dossier former UK prime minister Tony Blair used as the basis for which to justify the country's involvement in the invasion was indeed "sexed up" with unsupported claims of an imminent threat from Iraq. -- Last July, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) introduced a resolution praising the success of the "surge" of U.S. forces into Iraq "against enemies who attacked America on 9/11." Rep. Steve King (R-IA) recently introduced a "Victory in Iraq" resolution (despite the fact that Gen. David Petraeus refuses to use the term) "chronicling the success of the troop surge in Iraq and warning the new Commander-in-Chief that if he changes strategy, he takes ownership of whatever happens on his watch." -- The war has engendered so much hostility that during Bush's last press conference in Iraq, Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at the President in an attempt to avenge the humiliation Bush levied on the Iraqi people. "This is a farewell kiss, you dog," al-Zaidi.
 
Colbert Says "Twat" On The Today Show; Makes Meredith Vieira Squirm (VIDEO) Top
Can I just say a small thank god for Videogum ? Without them we would never have known what a Japanese man in blackface dressed as Obama looked like or how a remake of "Cops" for kids would make us feel. Now they've found this video of Stephen Colbert making Meredith Vieira fabulously uncomfortable. Colbert was on the show to discuss his upcoming film, "Monsters and Aliens." He chatted with Vieira for a while doing his usual schtick (hating on Lauer, asking Meredith if she's been paying attention during the interview) until our host tried to make a smooth transition to an upcoming segment on Twitter by asking Colbert if he'd ever tweeted. He responded "I have twatted." Vieira responded by saying, "Oh my gosh. Well, actually, so have I." Which sounds kind of dirty considering she realized his transgression. The folks behind the scenes crack up and you can hear Vieira saying "oh my god" as they go to break. This was cut out of the official online version , but it was too late, the internet already saw it. WATCH: Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Stephen Colbert
 
Craig Newmark: Ask the President Top
Hey, Ask the President launches now! What questions do you think President Obama should be asked at his press conference next week? A broad coalition of new and traditional media are teaming up, including The Nation, The Washington Times and the Personal Democracy Forum, to gather questions from the public. We are calling on Obama to start a new tradition to open up the White House: invite new and independent voices into the East Room by pledging to take a citizen-generated question at presidential press conferences. To ask a question or vote on those already asked, visit communitycounts.com/obama More on Barack Obama
 
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Ask the President Top
Of his many promises during the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the most appealing was Barack Obama's pledge to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history." The democratizing tools mastered at MyBarackObama.com and the inspiring grassroots enthusiasm for the Obama campaign opened the door to a presidency that -- in stark contrast to the eight years before it -- could be an honest conversation with the American people. This week we are launching a new project to continue that effort; more on that in a moment. Like many of the issues that Barack Obama now confronts as President, prioritizing his campaign promise of open government and meaningful dialogue with citizens has proved challenging. After some interesting forays into interaction at change.gov during the transition, The White House itself has not yet found it's way forward on interactivity . As newspapers struggle nationwide, and citizens demand more transparency in the wake of unprecedented government action on the economy, I believe this is a critical moment to advance participatory, bottom-up journalism and citizen engagement. Interest in our new President is at a peak, and instituting an independent and sensible way for the people to have a platform at the highest levels of government is essential to informed debate and progress on the changes many of us hope to see over the next four years. In that spirit The Nation , with several partners, is launching a new initiative, "Ask the President," to advance citizen voices and participatory media at The White House. The idea is simple: at www.communitycounts.com/Obama , anyone can submit a question for President Obama, written or by video. Site visitors then vote on the questions, with the most popular and pressing ones rising to the top. We will then send a credentialed journalist into formal Obama Administration press conferences to ask the leading citizen questions. Presently we are in conversations with the Administration about this effort. Our coalition includes new and traditional media from across the political spectrum, including: The Nation , The Washington Times , Personal Democracy Forum, Change.org, Democrats.com, Care2.com, Citizens for Civil Discourse, Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Professor Larry Lessig; Professor Hugh Hewitt (HughHewitt.com); The Field Blog; Jack and Jill Politics Blog; Culture Kitchen Blog and the Smart Mobs blog, among others. So far, initial conversations about this project with The White House have been encouraging. We see this as an innovation that President Obama should welcome -- an independent, cooperative way to forward the President's promise of transparent government that empowers voices beyond Washington. You can read the proposal in more detail by checking out Ari Melber's article in the current issue of The Nation ; then go and submit your questions now at Ask the President . The technology, of course, is a means to an end: an engaged and excited electorate having a spirited debate with the President. Granted, this is only one question at a semi-regular event, but as journalism transforms and technology shifts, Ask the President could help to democratize the reporting and prioritizing of political news, and encourage the Obama Administration to keep a critical promise. It's just a first step, but one that we believe is well worth taking .
 
Michael Wolff: The Pope Talks and the Church Fails Top
Popes have traditionally looked doctrinaire and absolute. That's how they've gotten away with having a point of view at odds with reality and popular opinion--because they look like popes. We've excused them, in some sense because they've just been doing their job. But the pope exception probably ceases to work when the pope starts looking like a fool. The Vatican, and the Catholic church, is facing a situation potentially more transformative than the death of God: a knuckle-headed pope who can't keep his mouth shut. Infallibility can only survive so many gaffes. From a media perspective, it's really stunning that the popes have, collectively, made it this far. It's been the combination of great ritual and antiquated language and highly negotiated interactions with the press that has kept each modern pope a unique and even charismatic figure--in his own right, a star. Continue reading at newser.com More on Religion
 
Reaction To Natasha Richardson's Death Top
Reaction to the death of actress Natasha Richardson: "She was one of a kind, a magnificent actress. ... She was also an amazing mother, a loyal friend and the greatest and most generous host you could ever hope to meet." _ Sam Mendes, who directed the Broadway musical "Cabaret" for which Richardson won a Tony Award in 1998. ___ "She was a wonderful woman and actress and treated me like I was her own. ... My heart goes out to her family. This is a tragic loss." _ Lindsay Lohan, who co-starred with Richardson in a remake of "The Parent Trap" in 1998. ___ "As a stage actress she was really coming into her own, she was becoming a major star and taken extremely seriously on the stage and also her film work ... was excellent. She had a sort of luminous presence on the stage, but offstage she was a very shy, very easygoing, almost self-deprecating character who didn't like being made a fuss of." _ Tim Walker, theater critic for Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper. ___ "She was quite careful about what she did. But what she did, she went into with a full heart and a passion. She was very discerning, very serious about the film roles she chose. It's absolutely tragic that somebody with so much to offer, and of course from this great acting dynasty, should be taken at this time of her life, and tragic of course for her family." _ British theater critic Michael Coveney. ___ "I just want to say how deeply saddened I am, we all are, by the sudden passing of actress Natasha Richardson yesterday. Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband Liam Neeson, their two sons, the rest of their family and friends. Yet another reminder of how fleeting life can be and how precious. We need to value every moment." _ Oprah Winfrey, on her talk show. ___ "She was a lady. I can't tell you enough what a good person she was, and fun and vivacious and the most full of life." _ Kelly Ripa, co-host with Regis Philbin on the syndicated talk show "Live With Regis and Kelly."
 
Gavin Newsom: Greening Buildings to Create Jobs Top
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "green building?" Sleek new structures with skins of advanced glass and recycled steel that blend into the landscape, facades and roofs draped in a combination of daylight-harvesting windows, wildlife habitat, and photovoltaics? New construction affords the flexibility to build contemporary masterpieces, like the California Academy of Sciences, which will receive its LEED Platinum certification this morning in San Francisco. The museum will be the largest and most visited LEED Platinum building in the world. The Academy of Sciences is a breathtaking example of our city and our citizens' efforts to address the fact that roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions in San Francisco are attributable to our buildings. In August of 2008, I signed a groundbreaking green building ordinance that created the most stringent green building requirements in the nation. This was a big step in the right direction, requiring that all new buildings be subject to an unprecedented level of LEED and green building certifications. However, a comprehensive recipe for our environmental and economic sustainability requires solutions to the challenges posed by existing buildings New construction is essential to the vitality of a city, but it's important to note that most of the San Francisco of the future has already been built. New construction typically represents less than one percent of San Francisco's built environment in any given year. In contrast, more than half of commercial buildings in San Francisco were constructed before 1978, when the state adopted Energy Efficiency Standards - requiring far more energy than those built afterwards. By retrofitting our existing structures there is the potential to create thousands of green jobs. Greening existing buildings is more challenging than new construction. Consider that buildings use two thirds of our state's electricity. While per capita electricity use in California has remained consistent for decades, total energy use continues to increase by 1.5 percent per year. Existing buildings are diverse in their size, vintage, use, and resources available for maintenance and improvements. In a tough economy, vacancy in commercial real estate is increasing nationwide - but the vacancy rate in LEED certified commercial office space in San Francisco is less than half that of standard office space. To address these challenges and opportunities, I've convened an Existing Buildings Efficiency Task Force comprised of members from San Francisco's ownership, developer, financial, architectural, engineering, and construction community. With the aid of this Task Force, the city will partner with the private sector to enable, encourage, and in some cases require that cost-effective opportunities to cut energy consumption 20% to 50%, improve water efficiency, and continue to move toward the elimination of solid waste in our community. The Task Force builds upon a great deal of work we're doing already - taking full advantage of the $7-$11 million provided in Energy Efficiency Block Grants provided by the federal stimulus, leveraging our ongoing $6.7 million a year energy efficiency partnership with PG&E, and working with private partners to create a San Francisco Clean Energy Fund. Each of these efforts creates hundreds of green jobs retrofitting our existing building stock, and in the process reduces utility costs and environmental impacts, making San Francisco a more competitive place to locate a company and raise a family. Listen to Mayor Newsom's Green 960 radio show online or subscribe to his weekly policy discussions on iTunes . Join Mayor Newsom on Facebook . You can also follow him on Twitter . More on Energy
 
Jane Hamsher: Elijah Cummings Knew About $1 Billion in AIG Bonuses for "Months" -- Why Didn't Timothy Geithner? Top
Elijah Cummings shot huge holes through the stories of both Timothy Geithner and Edward Liddy yesterday during the AIG hearing on Capitol Hill. Cummings isn't even on the House Financial Services Committee, he's on House Oversight, but he made a special request to question Liddy. Most of the attention went to subcommittee chair Paul Kanjorski, who dropped the bomb about having known of the AIG bonuses at least 4-6 weeks ago. During his testimony, Liddy confirmed that Ben Bernanke both knew about the bonuses and had approved them. But Cummings' questions, which came late in the day, should have grabbed the headlines. In his opening question to Liddy, he said: The media has been focused on the $165 million installment of the $450 million retention program for AIG Financial Products Division. However, for months, you and I have been going back and forth overall about the one billion dollars retention program that covers thousands of employees throughout AIG. As Marcy Wheeler points ot this morning, Cummings then destroys Liddy's story that he was only given the "distasteful" task of paying out bonuses approved by others that he would never have allowed.  From Liddy's Dec. 5 letter to Cummings: On September 18, 2008 AIG's compensation committee of the Board of Directors approved retention payments for 168 employees. Liddy was very much in charge of AIG on September 18, when those retention payments were approved. Cummings says that he met with Liddy on January 15, and at that time Liddy admitted that under his tenure, he had expanded the retention bonus program to cover 2100 employees. Cummings asked how many retention bonuses Liddy had approved, and Liddy estimated that he approved 4500 to 4700 bonuses. However, he says that number didn't include bonuses agreed to by managers of other divisions, so there were evidently more. I was at the hearings most of the day yesterday, and I believe Cummings was the first one to ask how much money AIG had paid in bonuses in 2008 and how much was scheduled to be paid out in 2009. Liddy said he didn't know. Let's underscore that -- Edward Liddy comes to a subcommittee hearing to answer questions about AIG bonuses, is sworn in and testifying under oath, he answers questions by every single member of the subcommittee for hours, nobody on the subcommittee asks him how much money we're talking about, and he's not prepared to answer the question when someone finally does. The questioning of Liddy by the subcommittee yesterday was thoroughly uninformed and seemed designed to ask no serious questions. They seemed to be more interested in faux outrage, or giving Liddy a foot massage for being a great patriot working in the service of this country. But the bottom line is -- Cummings' statements, if true, mean that many journalists have been fed a bill of goods by their "anonymous" administration sources: Jeff Mason of Reuters says that Geithner found out about the bonuses on March 10 "according to an administration official." Yesterday Kanjorski said, "I'm sick and tired of hearing the administration and the Secretary of the Treasury say "we just found out about it." That's not true." So will Mason do the right thing and get to the bottom of it, and expose the anonymous source who lied to him if it turns out not to be true? Massimo Calabresi now has a "scoop" in Time Magazine. He says that there's now a rift between the Treasury and the Fed, and the Fed is letting him have the goods -- namely, that Geithner knew about the bonuses on February 28. How convenient. Geithner was lobbying heavily at the time of the stimulus bill conference for the insertion of language that made sure the AIG bonuses got paid out in full, on February 11. Which means that if he was doing so with knowledge of the existence of the bonus contracts, he was trying to make sure they got paid.   The "outrage" that caused him to reduce the total by $4.8 million before he approved them was a less than Oscar-worthy performance. But voila! Now we hear that Geithner KNEW NOTHING until February 28, which puts him outside the danger zone. No mention of the fact that Elijah Cummings says he knew about the bonuses for "months." David Cho and Michael D. Shear of the Washington Post don't mention it either, when they print the official administration-dictated pushback to the Fed story: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, a central figure in the decision to bail out AIG last fall as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in an interview yesterday that he had not been aware of the size of the bonuses and the timing of the payments. "I was stunned when I learned how bad this was on Tuesday [March 10]," Geithner said. "I shouldn't have been in that position, but it's my responsibility and I accept that." It's all just crap, of course. Elijah Cummings knew the details, Paul Kanjorski knew the details, Ben Bernanke knew (and approved ) the details. Geithner either doesn't know what is going on right under his nose and is thoroughly unequal to the task of overseeing the bank bailout, or he's lying through his teeth. Cummings' statements call into serious question the assertions being made by Edward Liddy, Timothy Geithner and sources at the Fed this morning. You could fire a cannon through the holes in the stories of Calabresi, Cho and Shear. If their job is just to mindlessly scribble whatever anyone tells them in order to preserve "access," no matter how stupid and nonsensical, they've done their job. But many people reading these stories assume that the reporters are actually knowledgeable about what they're writing about, and have taken time to do a thorough job of research and are asking important questions. That most certainly didn't happen. And as a side note -- when Cho and Shear had the chance to interview Geithner, they apparently didn't think it important to ask him about the deal he approved to pay out $1 billion in AIG bonuses later this year , in July and September, to employees of a company that lost $100 billion last year. Now that the President has said he is "outraged" by these bonuses, does Geithner intend to do anything about it? If you're doing real reporting and not just taking dictation, it's a question you might think to ask. . Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com More on The Bailouts
 
LeAnn Rimes And Eddie Cibrian Kissing Video Posted By Us (VIDEO) Top
Two days after they first reported an affair between married TV-movie costars LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian and a day after Cibrian denied it, Us Magazine posted video of the pair going out to dinner. As seen below, the pair holds hands outside a restaurant, holds hands across the table and kisses. WATCH: More on Video
 
Pelosi Pins AIG Loophole on Senate, White House Top
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spoke with reporters Thursday to make what she sees as a crucial point regarding the stimulus language that ultimately allowed AIG executives to reap $165 million in bonuses: Look to the Senate and the White House, not the House of Representatives. "It was never part of the conference bill," she said. "This never came to the House side. You can talk to any of our conferees. It's a matter of fact and record." The House-passed version of the stimulus did not contain any language about executive compensation. The House passed tough restrictions on executive compensation -- over GOP objections -- as part of Rep. Barney Frank's bill dealing with oversight of the bank bailout. That legislation has not been taken up in the Senate. Pelosi was asked repeatedly about why the House approved the final conference report that included the compensation language. "This was a Senate -- I'm going to cut you off -- this was Senate/White House -- this is Senate-White House language," she said. "That is what we're talking about here, and so, again, we are already on record with even stronger language in legislation we passed." It was the Senate, Pelosi argued, that debated with the White House over what executive compensation language to put into the stimulus. "The language that related to this was in the Senate bill," she said. "Our record is clear on this subject. If you want to talk about what happened in the Senate, go on the Senate side." Pelosi kept the focus on the Senate and White House. Asked about Sen. Chris Dodd's claim that the Treasury Department insisted on watering down the compensation language, she said, "You're going to have to talk to Senator Dodd about that. Let's not take our eye off the ball. We've inherited a terrible mess from the Bush administration." "Next topic," said Pelosi. She also repeatedly brought focus back to the larger economic crisis. "The point is," she asked, "how did we get here in the first place?" More on AIG
 
Tent Cities: An American Tradition Top
A couple weeks ago a reader shared word with the Huffington Post of a tent city in Virginia, about an hour outside of D.C., where tons of middle class people had put up stakes after getting ousted from their homes. The tip was reporter's gold and seemed entirely plausible. Foreclosures are surging, and those people have to live somewhere. But calls to five Virginia counties turned up nothing; the original tipster conceded it might just be a rumor. The five county sheriffs all told the Huffington Post, though, that they'd heard of a tent city in Sacramento, California -- one that had been featured on Oprah Winfrey's show . NBC Nightly News followed up with a "sign of the times" piece on the Sacramento shantytown. Apparently recently-employed people were shown cooking soup in coffee cans and living out of tents along the American River. The report said tent cities were also popping up in Seattle, Reno, and Nashville. Several other news organizations jumped on the story, all linking the tent city phenomenon to the recession. A UK Times Online headline declared that " America faces new Depression misery as financial crisis worsens ." What those reports didn't say is that Sacramento's tent city has been a part of the landscape for years -- at least five, according to a spokesman with the Sacramento mayor's office. Those people weren't all washed onto the banks of the American by a recent wave of foreclosures. On Friday, the Huffington Post asked readers to let us know if there were tent cities in their own areas. Readers responded with tips on over a dozen improvised communities across the country, from Olympia, Washington, to Camden, New Jersey . Our follow-up reporting showed, however, that the camps tend to predate the current foreclosure crisis. There's nothing new about tent cities in the United States. There's nothing new about poverty in America. Some folks will be living in improvised shelters in public space whether we're in a recession or not. And with food stamps, unemployment benefits, and pension funds -- things unavailable at the onset of the Great Depression -- there's a safety net that can catch the unemployed and foreclosed, giving them time to get back on their feet before they're living under the stars. Moreover, a widespread consumer item that wasn't available to our great-grandparents' generation -- the RV -- assures that we'll see waves of people living out of their massive vehicles before communities of middle-class families start sleeping in Wal-Mart tents. "It's a little early for us to get victims of the economy," says Dick Lawrence, pastor of the St. Vincent de Paul church in Baltimore. For now, "people double up, take each other in." Lawrence is intimately familiar with the type of people who wind up in a tent city. His church has been by Baltimore's inner harbor since 1840. As the surrounding neighborhood has revitalized in recent years, the church has stayed the same, and so has its adjacent "Bum Park." "We've had this park beside the church 50 years and it's always had homeless guys during the day," says Lawrence. When Lawrence arrived at the church in 1973, he says, the bums were already here. Maintaining a stable community in the park next to the church is a matter of "staying on the knife edge between compassion and enabling." When the city put the park up for sale in the 1990s, the church bought it to prevent unwanted development, says Lawrence. After the property changed hands, the police department lost its prerogative to clear people off the benches at night. Lawrence says he had no problem with letting people sleep in the park. He's not going to shoo them away, and he figures their presence in downtown Baltimore, just a stone's throw from city hall, gives good visibility to the problem of homelessness. To discourage prostitution and drug-dealing, the church banned actual tents years ago. So denizens of Bum Park (what residents themselves call it) claim a bench, put their stuff under it, drape a tarp across the top, and call it home. On Saturday, the Huffington Post visited Father Lawrence and Bum Park to investigate a reader's tip. Fifteen or so men and women were lying down or sitting on benches during a cold drizzle. About half the park's residents rested prone beneath their tarps, making the barren park seem like an alien landscape filled with bright-blue cocoons. "Everyone gets along," says Reggie, 26, who's been living in the park since last June. "Sometimes people fight over food, especially when it's hot [outside]." There's lots of food at Bum Park. Within a few blocks there are two organizations providing free lunch, and people frequently drive by the park to deliver goods. In the few hours the Huffington Post spent at the park, a man in a pickup truck dropped off several bags full of new clothes and the Salvation Army visited with hot food. Lawrence says St. Vincent de Paul church splits the cost of a portable toilet with a nearby Protestant church. There's no shower or running water, though. The only sanitation service, he said, is a once-monthly "Chinese fire drill" in which parishioners ask park residents to vacate for a few hours and leave behind nothing they want to keep. The rest is scrubbed by the volunteer cleaners. Some in the park are long-term residents, like Johnnie Hardy, 44, who has lived there for five years. Hardy says he's slept in the park under his tarp in ten-below weather. He might be crazy, but you can't tell from talking to him. He says he'd rather sleep under a tarp than stay in a shelter. Pastor Lawrence says 40 percent of the park's residents have alcohol problems, 40 percent have drug problems, and 30 percent are mentally ill. There are no families in Bum Park, but there are in other east coast tent cities. "We have several tent cities here," says Keanna Ralph, a spokeswoman for the Camden, New Jersey mayor's office. Ralph says there a few families living in the "main" tent city, which she says has existed for longer than two years. The city doesn't interact much with the tent dwellers because they're on state property, not city property. On the west coast, tent cities are a movement, and the local government is forced to cooperate. In Olympia, Washington, and some of its surrounding jurisdictions, a tent city called Camp Quixote rotates from church to church every 90 days with the approval of local residents and government. It all started as a protest against a city ordinance to ban people from sitting or lying down on the sidewalk. A group of homeless people and activists set up a tent city on government property. The ensuing fight became a dialogue. Anna Schlecht, the housing program manager for the city of Olympia, says the tent city there rotates from neighborhood to neighborhood, settling on the property of a difference church every three months. "What we came up with is that these camps could be located on church property if as soon as they move, the church holds a neighborhood meeting," says Schlecht. Through the meetings, the neighbors become familiar with the camp residents, and familiarity breeds civility. With each new location, Camp Quixote initiates a new permit process with the local government. After three months the permit process gets prohibitively expensive, Schlecht says, so Camp Quixote moves to a new host site and starts over. "Camp Quixote is an alternative model for communities of poor people to live together in a safe, nurturing environment," says Selena Kilmoyer, a member of the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the first church to host Camp Quixote. She says the tent city model harks back to the shantytowns of the '30s, "safe environments where poor people could be together and not be afraid." There's a very similar setup in Seattle. Since 2002 the city has worked with local nonprofits to maintain a rotating 100-person tent city sanctioned by the actual city, according to a spokesman with the Seattle Department of Human Services. Sacramento hasn't figured out yet what it wants to do with its celebrity tent city. But mayoral spokesman Steve Maviglio says they're trying to form a plan before the utility company that owns the land beneath the tents begins a scheduled development project. Even though the population there "quadrupled in last year," Maviglio says, it's not the economy's fault. Maviglio estimates that 75 percent of the tent dwellers are chronically homeless, unlike the recently middle-class folks featured on Oprah. Maviglio says foreclosure victims "are not the usual suspects." More on Poverty
 
Oil Hits High, Dollar Plunges Top
NEW YORK — Oil prices hit news highs for the year Thursday after a decision by the Federal Reserve to spend billions snapping up U.S. bonds sent the dollar tumbling. Oil is priced in dollars and when the U.S. currency weakens, it essentially makes crude cheaper. Benchmark crude for April delivery surged $3 to $51.14 a barrel in light trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices hit $52.25 earlier in the day, a price last seen on Dec. 1. With the April contract set to expire Friday, most of the trading had shifted to the contract for May delivery. Crude prices on the May contract jumped $2.86 to $51.76 a barrel. Analysts said investors flocked to crude stocks after the Federal Reserve announced late Wednesday it would buy long-term government bonds, a measure that's expected to jolt the economy with lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt. The Fed also said a $1 trillion program to jump-start consumer and small business lending could be expanded to include other financial assets. "You're seeing wild swings in a lot of commodities today," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "The government is basically printing money to buy back all this paper, and it devalues the dollar." The U.S. dollar dropped against other major currencies Thursday morning. The euro traded at $1.3542, up from $1.3424 late Wednesday. Flynn said the rise in oil shouldn't be taken as a sign that the economy in on the mend. The Fed is using all of its powers to prop up American businesses, "and this is one of their last shots," Flynn said. "If this doesn't work, they're out of bullets." The jump in oil comes despite a government report Thursday that said jobless claims set a new record for the eighth straight week. The Labor Department said continuing claims for unemployment insurance jumped 185,000 to a seasonally adjusted 5.47 million, another record-high and more than the roughly 5.33 million that economists expected. However, initial claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 646,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 658,000. That was better than analysts' expectations. Natural gas prices surged Thursday on a government showiing that U.S. stockpiles fell slightly more than expected last week. The Energy Information Administration report said inventories held in underground storage in the lower 48 states fell by 30 billion cubic feet to about 1.65 trillion cubic feet for the week ended March 13. Gas prices increased 1.3 cents a gallon overnight to a new national average of $1.933 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Pump prices are 2.7 cents a gallon cheaper than a month ago and $1.346 a gallon cheaper than last year. In other Nymex trading, gasoline for April delivery jumped by more than 6 cents to $1.4292 a gallon, while heating oil rose more than 9 cents to trade at $1.3574 a gallon. Natural gas for April delivery rose 44 cents to $4.121 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, Brent prices rose $2.62 to $50.28 on the ICE Futures exchange. ___ Associated Press writers Ernest Scheyder in New York, George Jahn in Vienna, Austria and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.
 
Robert S. Eshelman: The Secret War Against American Workers Top
Crossposted with TomDispatch.com The Unemployment Story No One Notices Juanita Borden, 39 and jobless, patiently waits as her résumé methodically works its way, line by line, through a fax machine at a state-run job center in downtown Philadelphia. Lying open before her on a round conference table is a neatly organized folder. "This is my résumé and everywhere I've been faxing to. This is how I keep track of what day I've sent them on, so I can call and check back," she says, leafing through pages of fax cover sheets. "I usually give five business days before I inquire whether or not they've received it and whether or not they're interested." Juanita was fired last October, when her employer found out that her driver's license -- a job requirement -- had expired. "It was only a matter of twenty-six dollars. I was under the impression that it expired in November of '08, but it was actually November of '07, and because I hadn't been driving I wasn't aware of it." The one occasion on which she was required to drive, though, she couldn't, and that was all her employer needed to fire her for failing to fulfill her employment responsibilities. She has since renewed her license and says with an air of futility, "I'd like to have my job back if they would give it to me." She hasn't been asked back and, despite her persistent efforts, she hasn't received a single call from a prospective employer either. "The good thing," she says, remaining remarkably buoyant despite her misfortune, "is that usually when I interview I get the job. So... I'm hoping for an interview soon." Until then, her carefully managed folder serves as a small measure of control over an otherwise steady drift into poverty and homelessness. Juanita isn't the only one at this job center on the precipice of acute need. And she isn't alone in relating a story about being fired for what would seem to many a frivolous reason. Chris Topher, 25 and making his first visit here, was axed in March of last year. The telecommunications company he had been working for sent him packing when, as he tells it, he installed cable equipment a customer hadn't ordered. It didn't matter that the mistake was on the work order Chris was given. "It was the best job I had since I graduated high school and I've had a few: Turnpike Commission, working in a Senator's office. I've had some nice jobs, but that one, I enjoyed it the most." And there was good reason to enjoy it. Chris pulled down $1,200-1,300 every two weeks in addition to receiving a full benefits package. He thought of contesting his termination, but at the time it looked like a long, uphill battle that he wasn't eager to take on. It's a fight that, in hindsight, he thinks he could have won and that his employer probably knew he would win as well. "And that's why I believe I was approved by my employer for unemployment," he says. Under unemployment eligibility requirements, an employer must certify whether an employee committed a "fault" on the job and was therefore terminated. If an employer indicates that no fault was committed and the employee meets several other requirements, including being physically able to work, states grant an unemployment claim. In other words, Chris's former employer granted him a small concession, while otherwise turning his life upside down amid the worst job market since 1983. "Unemployment is the pits pretty much," says Chris, whose unemployment compensation is significantly less than half what he made as a cable installer. Still, he's better off than Juanita, who has applied for unemployment twice and been denied both times. She is now appealing, but her employer is conceding nothing. In a recent arbitration hearing, Juanita says, her former supervisor claimed that, if she had only told them about her expired license, they would have allowed her renewal time. If only. Now, Juanita lives with her brother and his wife, but they, too, have financial problems. "My brother is working part time and it's driving him crazy, because it's causing money problems between him and his wife," she explains. "And with me being there," she hesitates, "...it's a little constrained." Ratcheting Up the Fear The mainstream media has generally sketched a picture of a labor market in which, under the pressure of an economic meltdown, workers succumb to two types of downsizing. In one, a fierce recession forces businesses, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, to lay off workers. They, in turn, face grim prospects for gainful employment elsewhere. In a kinder, gentler version of the same, employers, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, offer -- or sometimes force workers to take -- "furloughs," salary cuts, union give-backs, four-day work weeks, or un-paid holidays rather than axing large numbers of them. In this case, tough as it may be, workers benefit, retaining at least some of their income, while businesses wait out the recession. In both cases, businesses are largely depicted as unenthusiastic dispensers of pink-slips. Managers and bosses are just facing up to an unpalatable reality and unavoidable pressures imposed on them by the worst economic moment in recent memory. A visit to a job center is hardly a scientific survey. The experiences of Juanita and Chris, along with those of other unemployed people I spent time with while in Philadelphia, may be purely anecdotal evidence. But they do raise questions about a subject of no small importance, and it's not one you're likely to read about in your daily paper -- not yet anyway. If a deepening recession weighs down and threatens businesses, some of those businesses are undoubtedly also making convenient use of the times to do things they might have wanted to do, but were unable to do in better conditions. In some cases, under the guise of "recession" pressure, they may be waging a secret war against their own workers, using even the most innocuous transgressions of work-place rules as the trigger for firings -- and so, of course, putting the fear of god into those who remain. In this way, company payrolls are not only being reduced by mass layoffs, but workers are being squeezed for ever greater productivity in return for lower wages, worse hours, and less benefits. The weapon of choice is the specter of unemployment, a kind of death by a thousand (or a million) cuts. Companies stand to gain a lot these days from such small-scale but decisive actions. After all, they reap a double benefit. Not only do they pare down the size of their payroll, often without needing -- as in Juanita's case -- to consent to unemployment compensation, but they also contribute to a climate of intensifying fear. Workers who remain on the job are now not only on edge about lay-offs or scaled-back hours, but also know that a late return from a bathroom or lunch break might mean being shown the door, becoming another member of the legions of unemployed -- now at 12.5 million and rising fast. This dynamic is, of course, hardly new. Countless critics of working conditions have written about it since the dawn of the industrial age. But at the moment, even as the latest unemployment figures make screaming headlines, this is a subject that seldom comes up. Consider, though, that in December, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, settled 63 outstanding class-action lawsuits that alleged massive wage and hours violations. Fearing termination, Wal-Mart workers, according to their testimony in the lawsuits, labored through lunch breaks and past their scheduled hours for just above minimum wage pay, with little hope of getting enough hours to qualify for the company's health benefits. As a condition of the settlement, Wal-Mart will pay out as much as $640 million to those workers. If corporations were able to exert such coercive power when the unemployment rate was around 5%, what can they do in a job market in which 14.8% of the population can't find adequate work? In fact, the world's largest retailer is one of the few American corporations doing well in dark times. While retail sales slid almost everywhere, the company's same-store sales went up 5.1% in February (when compared with February 2008 sales). Yet, in that same month, it announced a move to "realign its corporate structure and reduce costs." It cut 700 to 800 jobs at its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club home offices, in effect acting no differently than any of the companies being battered by the deepening recession. Free-Firing Zone Rodney Green, a soft-spoken 52-year-old, comes to the job center three times a week to search on-line job listings. He describes his decades-long drift from full-time employee with benefits to marginalized temp-worker with no benefits and, finally, to the category of unemployed for an extended period. From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, he worked for Bell Telecommunications, where he earned a good salary and full benefits. Since Bell laid him off, he's worked periodically as a forklift operator for various companies, getting temporary placements through an employment agency. Most recently, he earned $12 an hour working for a deli meat and artisanal cheese producer. No benefits were provided. A year's work, he explained, would mean a week's vacation, "but they don't keep you that long. They lay you off or rotate you into another job before then." Today, as he's discovered, even such temp jobs are becoming scarce. "In the eighties, it wasn't as bad as it is now," he comments from the unemployment heartland of what, in 2009, is a deeply de-industrialized Philadelphia. "The city had jobs, but then the jobs moved to the suburbs. Now they're moving overseas. Back then, say, you applied for a job, maybe fifty others applied, too. Today, that same job, you're going to have hundreds -- I mean, a thousand for that one job. It's hard. It's depressing." For the past year and a half, Rodney has been collecting unemployment periodically, and in that time, he hasn't landed a single interview. Recently, because the Bush administration finally acquiesced to grassroots and Congressional pressure to lengthen unemployment benefits, he received a thirteen-week extension, providing him a little cushion (unlike equally interview-less Juanita). "That helped me a lot. Times are hard right now. I hear there are over four million people collecting unemployment. That's kind of high." If Juanita and Chris are casualties of the intensified war of attrition businesses are quietly waging on workers, Rodney represents a deeper unraveling of jobs and job security, thanks to a globalized economy in which the hard-pressed workers in this country are pitted against cheaper labor pools in Latin America, South Asia, China, and even the American South. In such a job environment, what is one to do? Someone I interviewed prior to my job center visit described her reaction when she heard that her company had recently closed a plant in the Midwest: "The first thing I thought, and I felt bad for thinking it," she recalled, somewhat sheepishly, "was that means more work for us -- at least for the time being." Her comment speaks volumes, as does her request not to be identified. Who needs union busters, patrolling shop-stewards, or legions of high-paid lawyers fighting wage and hours claims when a worker is so anxious about job security that she responds positively to the laying off of those she imagines as potential competitors? When employees police their own behavior for fear of the axe -- monitoring their time checking email or using the bathroom -- bad times distinctly have an upside for management. In this job environment, it's easy to turn not just on others, but on yourself. Reflecting on what she will do without a job and unemployment benefits, Juanita wonders if the problem isn't the economy, but the choices she made in life. "I left home when I was sixteen and lived in my own places, had my children, and got married," she says nervously, continually folding and refolding a local newspaper. "I should have gone to school and did a lot more things to make myself more marketable earlier in life. Now I'm left having to start over again." A look at corporate opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), whose passage in Congress is a central demand of organized labor, offers a glimpse of how persistently companies seek to disadvantage their workers. EFCA would allow workers to form a union when a majority of them sign union cards in a given workplace. "Card check," as it is frequently called, enables them to organize unions without the need for an election. In a November column surveying the business elite's response to the Act, Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist Thomas Frank wrote: "Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don't, and business doesn't want that to change." In Frank's estimation, the current struggle over EFCA is the latest incarnation of a constantly evolving struggle between workers and employers. For the under- or unemployed crowding into this center in Philadelphia, the current recession isn't a time-out from the normal struggle, it's more like a new open season for corporate attacks on them. Right now, for Juanita, Chris, and others at this center, there are actually two wars going on, and only one of them seems to have caught the attention of labor and business reporters. The headlines about the first read: Desperate Companies Forced to Cut Jobs. But many here seem to be experiencing a second war in which businesses are using bad times to act in ways they couldn't in the best of times. Shouldn't reporters be heading out in search of this one-sided, covert struggle? Isn't it time for the second business war of our moment to make a few headlines of its own? More on The Recession
 
Dad Mohammad Khan Killed By Bomb Attack Top
Dad Mohammad Khan, a prominent Afghan politician, has been killed by a roadside bomb, Afghan officials say. More on Afghanistan
 
Lawrence Lessig: AIG: Will we solve the underlying problem? Top
As we all know by now, insurance giant AIG sparked national outrage by paying more than $165 million in executive bonuses after receiving a $170 billion taxpayer bailout. What fewer people know is that AIG gave more than $9 million in campaign contributions to Congress -- making OpenSecrets.org's list of the Top 100 contributors of all time. AIG split its money evenly between those in both parties who could help them the most -- especially those on key congressional committees that the public relied on to regulate financial corporations. The Number 1 lifetime recipient of AIG money? Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, who received $281,000 ( just edging out George W. Bush). Will recouping $165 million solve this AIG problem? No. We need to solve the underlying problem of special interests investing millions of dollars in political campaigns to reap billions in rewards from taxpayers. That's why Change Congress -- the reform group I founded with Joe Trippi -- launched a political "donor strike" this year. Thousands of Americans are pledging not to give congressional candidates a penny more until they support the bipartisan Durbin-Specter bill, which would replace special interest-funded congressional elections with "citizen-funded elections" -- a hybrid of public funding and Obama-style small donations. Together, we have already withdrawn $1.1 million from politicians who aren't yet supporters of reform. Will you add your voice to the call for reform by joining the donor strike today? The idea is clear: The power of small-dollar donors was proven in the 2008 election. But if politicians can count on small-dollar donations flooding in from loyal supporters, and the only variable in the equation is whether special interests will pony up, who will control how politicians vote in Washington? We need to change that equation by forcing a choice: Congress can have our money or special interest money, but not both. The Change Congress donor strike forces that choice. And if ever there were a time to do it, it's now. We need to create a system where, in the midst of national debates over how to regulate Wall Street, members of Congress are not doing "call time" to special interests, begging for $2,400 checks. This reform would actually be very liberating for the many good souls in Washington who are trapped in an inherently corrupt system. (Chris Dodd took on the telecom interests by leading the charge against immunity for lawbreaking phone companies. Does he really want decades of credibility jeopardized by a system that forces him to beg for cash from AIG? Yet, Dodd has yet to co-sponsor the Durbin-Specter reform bill.) Citizen-funded elections are also the essence of fiscal responsibility at a time of deep national debt. Studies show that the money saved in any one year by liberating Congress to slash special-interest handouts would finance over a half-century's worth of citizen-funded elections and save taxpayers billions on top of that. Congress needs to step up and solve the underlying cause of this AIG mess. If you're willing to step up and pressure Congress to do that, please consider joining the Change Congress donor strike today .
 
Pope Holds Massive Mass In Cameroon, His First In Africa Top
YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders on Thursday that true religion rejects violence, and he held up peaceful coexistence between Christianity and Islam in Cameroon as "a beacon to other African nations." In Cameroon's capital, a clapping, swaying crowd of 40,000 faithful from Africa's expanding, vibrant Catholic flock later welcomed him to a football stadium where he celebrated Mass. There, he delivered a message of encouragement for Africa and expressed compassion for the children being forced by paramilitaries to fight in some countries. To these children he said: "God loves you, he has not forgotten you." Child soldiers, often kidnapped, have been used by rebels in eastern Congo and by Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. An estimated 3,500 children are still with armed groups in Congo alone. The open-air Mass was Benedict's first occasion as pope to be among a great crowd of faithful on the continent that is witnessing the church's biggest growth. In the morning meeting with 22 representatives of Cameroon's sizable Muslim minority, Benedict said religion is the basis of human civilization and he returned to one of the key themes of his papacy, saying there is no incompatibility between faith and reason. "Genuine religion ... stands at the base of any authentically human culture," he said. "It rejects all forms of violence and totalitarianism: not only on principles of faith but also of right reason." The pope said that "religion and reason mutually reinforce one another" and urged Catholics and Muslims to work together "to build a civilization of love." Unlike in neighboring Nigeria, where religious strife has often broken into violence, Christians and Muslims largely coexist without problems in Cameroon, a situation that drew Benedict's praise. "May the enthusiastic cooperation of Muslims, Catholics and other Christians in Cameroon, be a beacon to other African nations of the enormous potential of an inter-religious commitment to peace, justice and the common good," he said. The pope has often spoken of the need for religion to shun violence, but has refrained from pointing any finger at specific faiths since a 2006 speech delivered in Germany in which he linked Islam to violence. Amid angry reactions from the Islamic world, Benedict expressed regret for any offense caused by his remarks and has since met several times with Muslim leaders from various countries. Thursday's meeting with Muslim representatives at the Apostolic Nunciature, where Benedict has been lodging on his first African pilgrimage as pope, was closed to the press. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the atmosphere was "cordial and friendly" and that the Muslims issued a "warm greeting to the pope." Lombardi, who was at the meeting, said several of the Muslims leaders told Benedict "you are not alone." Muslims make up about 22 percent of Cameroon's population; Roman Catholics account for 27 percent of the West African nation's people. Animists account for some 27 percent, while Protestants make up 18 percent. Benedict, like his predecessor John Paul II, has set aside time in his foreign pilgrimages to meet with, or at least greet, representatives from various Christian communities as well as non-Christians. After meeting with the Muslims, the pope went on to Yaounde's Amadou Ahidjo stadium to celebrate Mass. He arrived in a bulletproof, glass-topped "pope mobile" and was driven all around the running track, bringing the huge crowd to its feet. While thousands more remained outside the full stadium, inside the crowd clapped and swayed to traditional music and songs, and many wore flowing robes with writing in French that celebrated the pope's visit. In his homily, Benedict urged Africans to "hope against all hope" for their future, to reject materialism and to hold on to traditional values. The pope drew loud cheers when his speech turned to orphans, poor and abused children and to those forced "to join paramilitary forces that are terrorizing some countries." He assured them God had not forgotten them. The Vatican released a document suggesting that Christians on the continent can be agents of change to cure an array of ills, ranging from corruption to "the thirst for power." The document also said that "outside forces" in complicity with Africans fuel wars to sell arms and exploit natural resources. "Globalization, an accepted fact of this century, is tending to marginalize Africa," it says. The document, prepared by the Vatican and African bishops, was drawn up as a working paper for a meeting of the continent's bishops in Rome in October. Before the visit, Benedict said he was traveling in Africa as a pilgrimage of peace, in hopes of inspiring faithful to work for social justice and fight the hunger and disease that afflict millions on the continent. Since stepping off the papal plane on Tuesday, attention to Benedict's pilgrimage has been largely focused on the Vatican's refusal to advocate condoms as a way to help stop the spread of AIDS, which is ravaging Africa in a pandemic that affects millions. Benedict's declaration aboard the papal plane that distributing condoms "increases" the AIDS problem has drawn international criticism from governments and organizations that fight the disease. More on The Pope
 
Robert J. Elisberg: I'm Not a Patriot, But I Still Play One on TV Top
Make no mistake, Lou Dobbs has long credentials as a reporter. It's just that watching him has morphed from journalism into a video game, to see when his head will explode. And hope it happens before yours does. Yet there is something to be said for being in the presence of a true artist. And that is why Lou Dobbs is the gift that keeps on giving. On Tuesday, for instance, Mr. Dobbs pulled out of the hat one of his more virtuosic tirades against, of all things, St. Patrick's Day. Hey, anyone can rant against AIG. But it takes a maestro to have a diatribe against one of the world's most favorite fun holidays. "That's right! I'm against St. Patrick's Day. I'm against St. Columbus Day. St. Joseph's Day. I'm against all of those things. Is there, by the way, is there a Jewish, a Jewish ethnic holiday? Is there one? No? Okay. The Jews have disappointed me. I mean, is there a St. Mauritius? No? A Belize? I don't know...How about an Asian ethnic holiday? Is there one? You know, a St. Jin Tao Wow? Chinese New Year? All right, we can do that - I mean, what is with all of these ethnic holidays? I mean how about an American Day? How about "we're all the same" kind of day?" Come on, admit it. When it comes to bombast, this is the work of a Picasso. And just like that seigneur's finest abstract works, I don't have a clue what Lou Dobbs is actually railing about. Since he's against ethnic holidays, why is Chinese New Year okay? And if celebrating holy Catholics are out, that should also include Christmas and Easter, right? (Question: if "St. Jin Tao Wow" isn't allowed, does that mean all fake holidays with funny-sounding Asian names to ridicule are verbotensplunked?) By the way, one argument against "We're All the Same" American Day is that I'm not sure if I want to be considered the same as Lou Dobbs. But mainly, what's most comforting about Lou Dobbs is his consistency: For all those thinking that his whole Abolish St. Paddy's Day outrage is just the latest of Mr. Dobbs's screeds - nay, not so! Lou Dobbs has been on this creaky bandwagon for years. Indeed, hearing his rant reminded me of something I wrote a full three years ago! Just to show that you can count on Lou Dobbs, because the great ones come through every time, here is an edited-down version of what I wrote way back then. Return with me to the land of Dobbysylvania. Where time and small minds stand still - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "But let's be clear. I don't think there should be a St. Patrick's Day." Honest, Lou Dobbs actually did say it. Here it is - in full - on CNN, March 28, 2006. "I don't think that we should have any flag flying in this country except the flag of the United States. And let me tell you something else, since we're talking about double standards and I think you're right about people who would believe that. "But let's be clear. I don't think there should be a St. Patrick's Day. I don't care who you are. I think we ought to be celebrating what is common about this country, what we enjoy as similarities as people." Impressively, in full, it's even worse. Being conflicted over illegal immigration is understandable. But St. Patrick's Day is hardly even about heritage: tens of millions are simply pretending to be Irish for the pure fun of it, or the chance to get a free beer. To be fair, Lou Dobbs' concept of We Should Only Fly the U.S. Flag does sound incredibly patriotic - except it's not even fake-patriotic. (Before anyone in a patriotic state of mind leaps to argue, those with Confederate flags should put them away first, because the visual wouldn't work for you.) The problem with celebrating "what is common about this country" is that what is common about this country is that we all came from someplace else. Except Native American Indians, of course. (Quick question: can Native American Indians fly flags of their tribe? They were here first.) Here's the reality. as patriotic as it might sound that only the American flag can be waved on U.S. soil, and that no Americans should ever celebrate your families' heritage - it's, in fact, petty, ill-conceived, arrogant, stupid, mean-spirited, thoughtless and contrary to everything America is about. The lesson is simple: use punctuation correctly. Yes, Lou Dobbs said, "I don't think there should be a St. Patrick's Day." But all he had to do was add a period. "I don't think. There should be a St. Patrick's Day." *** *** *** Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go prepare for St. Jin Tao Wow Day. I have 30 people coming over and haven't even wrapped the presents yet.
 
Shawna Vercher: March Madness - Applying the Diane Chambers Law Top
In an infamous episode of Cheers , Diane Chambers placed her bets for the football pool based on which animal/creature would win a fight in real life. (For example, clearly a (Chicago) Bear would beat a (St. Louis) Ram.) The result? She mopped the floor with everyone. I shall attempt the same feat for this March Madness season and see how it goes. The rules are simple. Five on five, who would win in a fight? No consideration to ranking, team performance through the year, star players or any other reasonable measure of play. Strictly speaking I am theoretically matching five of x species with five of y species and surmising the result. I truly hope to stay at least competitive with my brother's "real" bracket or I will never hear the end of this. Now on to the picks... South - First Round North Carolina Tar Heels vs. Radford Highlanders - At first I was excited about the idea of swords and beheading and "There can only be one..." then I found out that the Highlanders are not exactly what I thought they were. Nothing against the rich Scot-Irish heritage of Radford, but your school seal has a bee hive(!). Unless the Tar Heels had allergies that I'm not aware of then the scale tips to those tough civil war veterans. LSU Tigers vs. Butler Bulldogs - Poor pups. Poor, poor pups. Illinois Fighting Illini vs. West Kentucky Hilltoppers - This is not a fight I think I'm going to be able to sell a lot of tickets to. (Nothing against the actual teams of course.) Since I found very little to explain what a Hilltopper is and their mascot quite frankly looks like a red version of Grimace then I'm siding with Chief Illiniwek and his crew. Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. Akron Zips - God bless March Madness for bringing these funky characters into our lives. Zips are actually a particular type of rubber overshoe that used to be stylish. But no worries, folks, Akron beefed up their fear factor by adding a mascot, Zippy, that is a ferocious...kangaroo. Huge ups to Zippy being one of the only female mascots in collegiate play, but Bulldogs have this one. Arizona St. Sun Devils vs. Temple Owls - Well the Sun Devil is actually a fictitious beast crafted in part by a writer and part by a Disney illustrator. So how would Owls do when facing cartoon Sun Devils? Look for the Sun Devils to end up at the bottom of the Owls cage in the morning. Syracuse Orange vs. Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks - Being a person of Cherokee descent, I can appreciate the movement to respect the Native American people but could you actually come up with something besides a color to replace the Saltine Warrior? Unless Syracuse plans on blinding the Lumberjacks with their brightness then Lumberjacks will win. Clemson Tigers vs. Michigan Wolverines - What a fight! Wolverines facing Tigers would be a vicious battle to the death. (Yes, I realize I sounded a bit blood-thirsty there.) While I'm sure that the Wolverines would put up a good fight, they would be facing animals almost ten times their weight (nerd alert) so Tigers win. Oklahoma Sooners vs. Morgan St. Golden Bears - Well the fight is Bears versus "settlers of unknown lands." Technically speaking this fight has been had and clearly won as you don't see pioneers isolated in zoos and state parks. ** Please note that this is speaking strictly from a survival perspective and in no way reflects my conservationist beliefs. Midwest - First Round Louisville Cardinals vs. Morehead Eagles - For the record I am not daft and I have bothered to turn on ESPN this week so I realize that I'm not exactly making my case stronger with this pick. But I'm committed to the cause and the cause clearly dictates that predatory Eagles would take out cute Cardinals. Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Siena Saints - According to my research a Buckeye is a poisonous nut. Clearly the only logical scenario here is that the Saints would be tricked into ingesting these nuts and the victory goes to the Buckeyes. Utah Utes vs. Arizona Wildcats - My thinking is that a Ute (an American Indian that was clever enough to integrate horses into their lifestyle when they met the Spanish) would be able to best a Wildcat in a fight so the edge goes to Utah. Wake Forest Demon Deacons vs. Cleveland St. Vikings - Wikipedia does not even give a straight answer on what a Demon Deacon is but sources agree that it probably dates back to Wake Forest's devilish play. I may take a hit for this in the bracket, but I argue that a set of Vikings would defeat a group of clerics that have gone morally astray. West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Dayton Flyers - Okay there is a bit of nuance that bears observing here. Notice that it's the Dayton Flyers and not the Dayton Bombers, Dayton Gunners, etc. I can find no mention of a weapon of any kind for the Flyers, but several mentions of goggles and a scarf. Based on my research they plan on just circling the mountains indefinitely or going kamikaze. In either case the Mountaineers will win by attrition if nothing else. Kansas Jayhawks vs. North Dakota St. Bison - How in the heck would a bison kill anything? I'm not sure that this team would have been allowed in the tournament at all if Diane had anything to say about it. It's a weak match-up from the Darwinian perspective but I'm going to have to go with the idea that Jayhawks could at least peck you to death. Boston College Eagles vs. USC Trojans - I find this entire tournament to be a bit bird-heavy, but that's a side issue. In general I would hope that a group of Trojans would be able to take out a few Eagles. Again with a codicil that this is not a reflection of my tree-hugger status. Michigan St. Spartans vs. Robert Morris Colonials - Okay, feeling a bit unpatriotic with this pick and the anti-eagle stance, but I just feel that Spartans were a tough breed and that, five on five, they would have decimated a group of Colonials. West - First Round Connecticut Huskies vs. Chattanooga Mocs - I wondered what a Moc was and quickly discovered after my research that the Huskies won't know what bit them. Apparently these tiny bundles of fluff will be facing water moccasin snakes, one of the most poisonous in North America. BYU Cougars vs. Texas A&M Aggies - Animals versus people. It's a vicious match-up as old as time and difficult for me to predict. I'm going to make a few assumptions here and one of them has got to be that these Agricultural gentlemen do not have a vast amount of farm equipment on their person when they face the Cougars. Advantage large claws and sharp teeth. Purdue Boilermakers vs. Northern Iowa Panthers - See above for my answer to the animals versus people match-up, despite the toughness and grit I am quite sure a Boilermaker must have possessed. However, for my slightly cop-out pick I offer you this nugget - Purdue used to be the Pumpkin-Shuckers. That would have made my pick easier but probably not done too much for their street cred. Washington Huskies vs. Mississippi St. Bulldogs - I hate to see dog on dog violence. There is a saying (apparently) that "an aggressive dog is not a team dog". Meaning that Huskies are naturally non-aggressive because of their breeding to pull sleds as a pack. I'm not quite sure I buy that, but I'll take the Bulldogs since I don't know much about Huskies besides, "Cute. Fuzzy." Marquette Golden Eagles vs. Utah St. Aggies - I realize that the Agriculturalists are most likely a peaceful people. However I would assume that they would take down some Eagles once they became rattled or threatened. Another upset pick here. Missouri Tigers vs. Cornell Big Red - I predict a close game between Tigers and Big Red Bears. However, the possession arrow lands squarely at the feet of the Tigers here since technically the Big Red nickname came originally from a song that only referenced color and no bear. In other words, the Bear is a nice addition to the team and will help in a fight, but technically this fight should be Tigers versus a primary color if we're going to be historically accurate. (Or at least Wiki-accurate, which is kinda the same.) California Golden Bears vs. Maryland Terrapins - Shell not withstanding, the Bears have a clear advantage. I smell turtle soup. Memphis Tigers vs. CSU Northridge Matadors - The visual of this actually made me laugh out loud. The idea of five guys with red capes standing around waving Tigers away... I'm pretty confident that it's not a scenario that works out well for the Matadors. East - First Round Pittsburgh Panthers vs. E. Tennessee St. Buccaneers - I have to ask myself how a scenario of Panthers facing Buccaneers would realistically occur (because, you know, this whole bracket has realism painted all over it...) and I'm envisioning Panthers making it on the boat. If that happens, even with a few weapons at hand, I can't imagine any Buccaneers walking away unharmed. Oklahoma St. Cowboys vs. Tennessee Volunteers - My bias as a Texan is probably a factor here and I'll admit that I am still smarting after learning that most the Alamo folklore I grew up with involving Tennessee Volunteers was bogus. That being said, I still side with professional Cowboys over, well, voluntary Volunteers. Florida State Seminoles vs. Wisconsin Badgers - Whew! I dodge a bullet here and get to comfortably place my Alma Mater Seminoles defeating "stinkin'" Badgers. Now I won't come home to changed locks... Xavier Musketeers vs. Portland St. Vikings - Musketeers versus Vikings. Teeny tiny swords versus big giant clubs and axes. I'm going to use skill and footwork versus I'm going to clobber the crap out of you by any means necessary. The Vikings carry this fight but go into the next round a bit cut up. UCLA Bruins vs. VCU Rams - My favorite Yahoo answer to, "What is a Bruin?" = "A wimpy name for a bear." Maybe so, but they can take out horned sheep regardless of the name. Villanova Wildcats vs. American Eagles - Troy and Gabriel will be pleased because I pick a pack of Wildcats to take out a handful of Eagles without batting an eye. Texas Longhorns vs. Minnesota Golden Gophers - This fight will not be pretty. In fact, I predict an actual stomping by the Longhorns over the Gophers. Just don't ask them to come down stairs afterward. (Get it? Because cows can't walk down stairs...never mind.) Duke Blue Devils vs. Binghamton Bearcats - True I gave "devilish" deacons little respect in this bracket, but actual Devils? Props to the minions of Satan should probably be paid. They would surely make sport out of little Bearcats. Side bar -- ultimate props to the people that made the gutsy decision to call a team the Blue Devils in the 1920's when the freakin' Tampa Bay Devil Rays were bullied into dropping the "Devil" out of their name just recently. And there you have it. Assuming that I am not completely out of this thing by the next round I'll update you on my (practically) flawless logic for my later round picks. Shawna Vercher is a Web Publicist and President of The Society of Successful Women. Find her on LinkedIn or look for her pathetically infrequent Tweets. More on March Madness
 
Iranian Blogger Who Insulted Leader Dies In Jail: Lawyer Top
A young Iranian blogger jailed in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died, his lawyer said today. More on Iran
 
Kerry Trueman: Obamas Heed The Grassroots Plea To Give Peas A Chance Top
Faithful followers of Obama Foodorama , the food politics blog whose house specialty is a perfect blend of substance and froth, were treated to an especially tasty scoop yesterday--the news that there will, indeed, be a vegetable garden at the White House. As they say in my native San Fernando Valley, OMG. This turn of events is not just epic, it's biblical : ask, and ye shall receive. I'm not talking about the slacktivists who sit around railing and wailing, "why bother?" I refer, rather, to the ask tivists like Roger Doiron, the founder of Kitchen Gardeners International who looked at that vast expanse of lawn circling the White House like a gaudy green bauble and asked, "why not grow food instead of grass?" Roger's the force of nature behind the Eat The View campaign, started just over a year ago in February, 2008. I first met Roger--a modest, affable fellow from Maine--at Manhattan's Union Square a few years back when he manned a table at the NYC Grows Garden Festival to spread the word about Kitchen Gardeners International. We had a great chat about urban ag and I've been a fan of his work with KGI ever since. A couple of months after Roger started Eat the View, Daniel Bowman Simon, an NYU student who's working towards a Masters in Urban Planning, posted a query on a sustainable ag listserv asking: "Has there ever been a concerted effort to get a President to plant a real food garden on the grounds? Is anybody here interested in participating in the 2008 version? Any thoughts are most welcome. I'm just an average joe with a big idea!" OK, so he wasn't the first average joe with this particular big idea, but just as the 70's punk scene was big enough to accommodate the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, so, too, did the grassroots Victory Garden groundswell welcome these two campaigns. Funnily enough, Union Square is also where I first encountered the WHO farm folks last summer when they parked their trademark topsy turvy bus at the Greenmarket last summer before embarking on their cross-country odyssey to promote the idea of a food garden on the White House lawn. The top of the bus hadn't been planted yet, so I brought them a bag of organic fertilizer to help them get growing. These two endeavors were greeted by many as a quixotic quest, or, worse, a trivial distraction. But the Kitchen Gardener and the WHO Farmers persisted, and today, they're taking a victory lap on behalf of all us victory gardeners. So, yesterday, I asked Roger where he found the resolve to lobby tirelessly for the transformation of the White House landscape, and--proving yet again that if you ask, you'll receive--he kindly emailed me back: Me: You lobbied tirelessly for the WH victory garden despite the cynics who said that (a) it would never happen, and (b) it's just a symbolic gesture that won't really mean anything. What motivated you to keep lobbying for a vegetable garden on the WH lawn in the face of all that skepticism, and what do you think it will mean? Roger: My short answer to your question is that gardeners are good at delayed gratification. I stuck with the White House victory garden campaign for over a year for the same reason I stick with my own garden through fair weather and storms: because I knew the benefits would greatly outweigh the costs. I know how my garden benefits me, my family, and my community and want to see those benefits extended to everyone who is prepared to roll up his or her sleeves and do a bit of digging. In pushing for a new garden at the White House, I knew that I was helping to plant the seeds not just of one garden, but the millions of gardens that one garden would inspire. Gardens, for me, are a way of not only growing healthy children and communities, but also achieving social justice. They represent the democratization of the good food movement. Although the White House garden campaign is winding down, the Eat the View campaign is just getting warmed up. Now that the Obamas are on board, we're going to be reaching out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors' residences, schoolyards, retirement homes, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten. In thinking about my stick-to-itiveness, I also think that coming from Maine has something to do with it. Although Maine gardeners like me are short on frost-free days, we're long on the type of hope and patience that such an extended advocacy campaign requires. As proof of that, I'm about to get my first taste of parsnips I planted late last June, a feast nearly nine months in the making!
 
Ian Millhiser: Big Pharma's Loss is America's Gain: Obama's Outstanding First Choice for the Federal Bench Top
If you were unfortunate enough to read the National Review yesterday , you would think that President Obama has a stealthy plan to turn America in to Gomorrah. Obama's new judge supports abortionists! He's in league with the ACLU! His nomination is payback for ACORN! In other words, the right is dusting off its old playbook. Judge David Hamilton, a federal district judge in Indiana and the President's first nominee to the Court of Appeals, once struck down an Indiana law limiting access to abortion. Prior to becoming a judge, he sat on the Indiana ACLU's board and he even spent a whole month of his early adulthood working as a canvasser for ACORN . Obviously, Judge Hamilton is a dangerous radical who must be stopped. The truth, of course, is that Judge Hamilton is nothing of the sort. Indeed, the reason why conservatives want to dwell on what David Hamilton did for a month when he was fresh out of college is because they know they cannot win their case against him on the merits. At the end of President Bush's term, three decades of irresponsible deregulation culminated in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression; and throughout this era of irresponsibility, the judiciary contributed significantly to the deregulators' campaign to, in Grover Norquist's words , drown government in a bathtub. A few years after Ronald Reagan announced that "government is the problem," the courts began to allow companies to force their customers into a biased, privatized arbitration system that rules in favor of corporations 94% of the time. Three years before Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over, the Supreme Court gave a gift to employer-provided health plans who deny lifesaving care to their customers: total immunity from liability when their illegal denials of coverage injure or kill a patient . Just months before Phil Gramm announced that we are suffering a "mental recession," the Court gave similar immunity to the makers of dangerous medical devices . Earlier this month, however, the Supreme Court broke this cycle. Responding to a drug company's claim that they are immune from state laws so long as their drugs and drug labels are approved by the FDA, the Justices declared the claim to be a bridge too far . The Supreme Court recognized the simple truth that state consumer protection laws play an essential role in protecting consumers from potentially toxic drugs. Yet months before the Supreme Court stopped big pharma's quest for lawsuit immunity in its tracks, a federal district judge named David Hamilton authored a prescient opinion. As Judge Hamilton explained, the FDA can only do its job when it works in partnership with state tort law. No drug can be sold in the United States unless it is approved by the FDA, but the FDA can't catch everything--they frequently approve a drug or a drug label despite as-yet-undiscovered dangers to the consumer. Accordingly, Judge Hamilton recognized, state tort law "can play an important role in filling the gap." Unless drug companies suffer a financial consequence when a previously-undiscovered danger leads to injury or death, they have no incentive to eliminate the danger or at least warn of its existence. In other words, Judge Hamilton's nomination is a marked change from the judges chosen in the Bush era--both of Bush's appointments to the Supreme Court voted with big pharma and against American consumers--and it is exactly the change which Americans voted for last November. Hamilton understands that a judge's job is to apply the law equally to ordinary Americans and powerful interest groups alike, and so he had no trouble determining that drug companies cannot be immune from the law. In the end, conservatives understand that judges who believe in one set of laws for corporations and another for consumers are anathema to the American people. They cannot defend their own deregulatory values, so they distract us with tired scare tactics invoking ACORN and the ACLU. Their tactics may have worked in the past, but they will not work this time. The American people know that we need judges like David Hamilton who refuse to place powerful interest groups above the law.
 
13 Firms Receiving Billions Of Dollars In Federal Bailout Money Owe Back Taxes Top
WASHINGTON — At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. John Lewis, chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece. "This is shameful. It is a disgrace," said Lewis, D-Ga. "We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here." The House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the firms receiving the most money, Lewis said as he opened a hearing on the issue. The committee said it could not legally release the names of those companies owing taxes. It said one recipient had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employment taxes. "If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?" Lewis asked. Banks and other firms receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating they had no unpaid taxes, Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records. Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the hearing that if an executive signed a contract knowing that information about unpaid taxes was false, "that would potentially be a crime." He said his office will look to see if crimes were committed. People will ask, said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Tenn., why there are "large companies getting taxpayer dollars, making false representations, and we can't even name them, much less make them pay the money back, much less prosecute them." Davis continued: "Will they get their day on a billboard, hopefully?" "Absolutely," said Barofsky. If someone lied, he said. "They need to be prosecuted." The revelation is sure to spark outrage on Capitol Hill, where the House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that would impose steep taxes on employee bonuses at firms that have received bailout money. To date, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has paid out more than $300 billion to private companies, with billions more on the way. More on Taxes
 
Charles Manson Jail Photo Released (SLIDESHOW, VIDEO) Top
California corrections officials have released a new photo showing a 74-year old Charles Manson. The infamous murderer's photo was taken for routine updates. Manson is serving a life sentence in California's Corcoran State Prison for conspiring to murder seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate who was married to director Roman Polanski. Click through to see a slideshow of Manson and the people he affected. And check out a 1987 interview with Manson that was aired in the MSNBC special "The Mind of Manson." More on Photo Galleries
 
Ann Handley: The 10 Things I Hate About You Top
So the company I work for, MarketingProfs , is a virtual company, which means that the 25 or so of us on staff are scattered throughout the country, working out of our respective homes. In a practical sense, this means we can shuffle around in our slippers at the "office." But the downside is that our work lives are solitary and can feel a wee bit lonely, and we don't get a lot of time together as a team. But to that last point... well, is that such a bad thing? From what I hear from those who actually work in offices, quarters can get a little cramped at times. Your co-workers leave the kitchen a mess, or they talk too loudly on the phone, or whatever. Recognize any of this? 1. Eating food that belongs to someone else. Or, chowing down on food others bring in to share, but never bringing the donuts yourself. 2. Talking too loud on the phone , especially about non-work stuff. Details of a doctor's appointment, chat with your spouse... Take it outside. 3. Eating stinky food. I have two words for this one: Burnt popcorn. Wait: here's two more: Fast food. 4. "Borrowing" supplies and never returning them. This leads to controlling behavior, like marking things like tape dispensers and staplers with name-tags, as if they are going to sleep-away camp. 5. Playing a radio loud enough for others to hear. Especially: Playing it *just* loud enough, so it presents as a persistent, tinny sound, like a mosquito loitering near your ear. 6. Not keeping cell phones on vibrate , particularly when it's "The Mexican Hat Dance" rendered in ring tone. 7. Using the speakerphone gratuitously. 8. Shouting conversation over cubicles. 9. Playing with iPhones or Blackberrys during meetings. 10. Not taking a hint. Yes, my weekend was fine, thanks, and we've now covered every inch of yours, too. Now go back to your own desk and get work done, okay? Adapted from and inspired by from Mental Floss and Forbes . What else would you add? Ann Handley also writes about work, culture and life at A n n a r c h y .
 
Kathleen Reardon: What Happened To Foresight and Common Sense? Top
Two venture capitalist friends of mine visit now and then, not because I know an ounce of what they study every day, but because anyone who is deeply involved in the vicissitudes of the economy likely lacks the big picture. It reminds me of when I was learning to play golf and a truly accomplished golfer said to me, "I'd love to be where you are now. You can still change your swing and how you play. I'm stuck with habits I can't undo." That describes the supposedly "indispensable" economic experts we've been relying on, and continue to rely on, to pull our country out of a terrible mess. Let's leave the likes of Ben Bernanke to the able Ann Pettifor and Timothy Geithner to the considered thoughts of David Sirota. Both of these men are supposedly among those "indispensable" experts who, though complicit in the economic crisis facing our country, are facile at passing blame or lying low while the reputations of others are tattered. Criticism of Timothy Geithner has been tantamount to an attack on Barack Obama in some quarters, but the truth is our president stuck his neck out for this guy. He spent a lot of favor bank assets to get him on board. And as each day goes by, we learn that he is over his head when his job is to save rather than sink the ship of state. Yesterday was another lesson in politics. You may recall during the primaries when Chris Dodd publicly threw his support to Barack Obama. And now it is the Obama Administration pointing fingers at him - blaming him for removing constraints on executive bonuses that would have prevented the AIG travesty. And if indeed he did do their bidding, as he has admitted , he was wrong. More wrong than those who pressured him? I don't know, but the blame is being passed around as if they're all playing hot potato. Daily those in high places who thought themselves indispensable or owed too many favors to fail are learning quite the contrary. That's when you know something is deeply amiss. Barney Frank is coming on strong about AIG. But he should have known that greed does not respond to fear of shame because greed is already shameless. He and his colleagues should have known that people who live for money and power don't suddenly change and reject huge bonuses. Where are Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? They're very quiet right now - not in front of cameras day and night, despite how visible they were when the bailouts needed support - when there was supposedly no choice but to rush them through. And let's look for a moment at our new president. He might take a lesson or two from all of this even if his popularity remains high. He shouldn't be wasting political chits. As a Harvard graduate, he has come to believe, despite his concern and compassion for average people, that the best answers come from members of the "club." But big shots do indeed put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. Many of them are stellar in their particular areas, but not impressive when it comes to seeing the bigger picture. Few have had to balance checkbooks from the age of sixteen, but have instead learned about economics from books rather than reality. Their understanding of people is wanting. President Obama would be better served with some people experts on his team - psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, communication experts, political scientists and others who know what people do and how they spend under stress - not what they're supposed to do based on some abstract formula on a white board. Change means finding people who have foresight and common sense uncommonly found among the "indispensable". It means not calling in the people who created the problem to fix it. When your stove is on fire, having a conflagration expert around to discuss the likelihood of spread is interesting, but give me a down-to-earth, experienced firefighter any day. Now there's the indispensable guy! That's what we have - a raging firestorm of overqualified incompetence and no experienced firefighters around. We have a plethora of wealthy big shots intending to stay that way. They owe a lot of people and they've paid off many of them at our expense. It's time for all this disingenuous finger pointing to end. No more yelling at each other and deflecting blame. No more "the buck stops here " to cover the many places it stopped on the way up. Forget about hiring anymore of the pedigreed "indispensable" types. Let's get some smart, big picture people for whom foresight and common sense are not, at best, soft science. And let's stop looking for someone to hang so all the other bandits can go free, and, most important, let's get on with saving the country. Dr. Reardon also blogs at bardscove . More on AIG
 
Christopher Brauchli: Taxes and Didactics Top
Draw from others the lesson that may profit yourself. Publius Terentius Afer , The Self-Tormentor 190-159 B.C. Prominent people have, over the past few months, taught us things about taxes for which we should be grateful. Our teachers have gone from the very lowly (see Joe the Plumber) to the very sophisticated (see Tom Daschle). Joe taught us the very simple lesson that the government imposes taxes on people who have income and the tax must be paid. Income is elaborately defined in the Internal Revenue Code but for Joe's purposes it was most likely the modest amount he earned by working. Joe failed to pay those taxes and the county placed a lien on his property to insure it would eventually get its due. Our next instructor was Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury and currently in the news because of his actions with respect to AIG bonuses. What we learned from him has nothing to do with AIG and is not terribly helpful to the average taxpayer. We learned that the International Monetary Fund (for which he worked) does not pay its share of the payroll taxes imposed on employers by the IRS. Instead, it pays the employee the one-half share owed by the employer and tells the employee to file the necessary return and pay the entire tax himself. Mr. Geithner failed to file the return and pay the taxes. When the mistake was discovered, he paid the taxes for the years in which the IRS could compel repayment but did not pay them for the two years for which collection was barred by the statute of limitations until he was nominated as Secretary of Treasury. The only lesson that is useful to readers (since few if any of them will be hired by the IMF) is that if collection of taxes is barred by the statute of limitations and the taxpayer declines to voluntarily pay those taxes until he or she is being considered for a high government position, the taxpayer is in good company and need have no feelings of guilt. Our next instructor was Tom Daschle. As instructors go, he was considerably more sophisticated than Joe the Plumber and was involved in a less exotic area of the tax law than Mr. Geithner. Mr. Daschle taught us two things. One is that in order to have taxable income, it is not necessary that you collect a paycheck. If you raise squirrels and pay a plumber by giving him a bunch of squirrels, the plumber has taxable income equal to the value of the squirrels. I use squirrels in my example because my readers are more apt to be paid in squirrels than to receive the benefit bestowed on Tom Daschle. His employer gave him a car and a driver to drive him around town. Not having the benefit of my squirrel example, Mr. Daschle did not realize that the car and driver were taxable income. That was, however, not the most useful thing Mr. Daschle taught us. He taught us that when you give $5 to someone standing on the corner with a sign asking for money that ends "God Bless," the Lord may indeed look favorably on the donor but the Internal Revenue Service does not. That is because the Lord and the IRS do not bless the same transactions. The $5 cannot be deducted on your income tax return as a charitable contribution. According to a report in the New York Times the Obama team that was vetting Mr. Daschle discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Daschle gave money to a wounded Iraqi war veteran and claimed those gifts as charitable contributions on their federal income tax returns. To claim a charitable deduction the money must be given to a charitable organization that has been recognized as such by the IRS by bestowing on it a 501 (c)(3) designation and not by dropping random bills in beggars' hats. Our final instructor is Nancy Killefer. She was nominated to be the White House chief performance officer. Ms. Killefer had household help for whom she failed to pay unemployment taxes. A $946.69 lien was placed against her house for the taxes and the lien statement said she "neglects and refuses to pay the same". It is not clear why she waited to pay the taxes until there was a lien placed on her house. The lesson she has taught us is that if you have household help you should check with your accountant to learn whether or not you are subject to withholding taxes and paying unemployment taxes. The foregoing are just a few of the people nominated for positions in the Obama administration who have tax problems and they are probably a representative sampling of people, Democrats and Republicans alike, who are so important they don't have time to familiarize themselves with the tax laws. If any of them happens to read this I hope they find it helpful. The rest of my readers, being less important, probably knew everything discussed in this column except the useless bit about the IMF and found the entire thing a waste of time. To them I extend my apologies. More on Taxes
 
Betsy Perry: A Miami State of Mind: My Brain on Spring Break Top
Bernie Madoff should feel guilt. AIG should feel guilt and so should Chris Cox and Dick Fuld and all those other bandits. But should I feel guilty for being on vacation? After almost two weeks in South Beach, my brain cells have hunkered down and gone into hiding and even with CNBC on as background music, nothing seems to matter anymore. Let's put it this way: I'm on a grown up version of Spring Break. In my family, vacations border on sinful, motivated as we are by a highly overrated work ethic. So when my mother called the other day asking if I felt "guilty" about my two weeks of sloth in Miami where even a trip to Walgreens is an effort, I had to think about it. Guilty because I'm missing something in New York? Doubtful unless you love misery, cold weather and scowling faces on the streets. Am I missing work? Nope, I brought it with me virtually and instead of feeling stuck in my apartment in sweats and sweaters, here I wear my recently purchased Target matching $26 aqua blue work out shorts and sports bra. Every morning I trot one block to the park and meet Victoria's Secret trainer-to-the-models, Julian Machuca, and for one hour in the gorgeous weather, he makes me sweat like a little piglet as I run up and down the stadium stairs and do dips and squats, while we focus totally on me, my body and my attitude. Yes, this is seriously painful and though I'll never be on a runway, my brain is not worrying about my next project and I'm outside in the sunshine. Should I feel guilty about getting into good shape instead of sitting in my bed eating boxes of Dots and Raisinets? I spend hours in the park with Frito and Minnie talking to other dog owners about Pedro and Max and Ozzie and Petunia; their names and issues are now more important to me than whether Tim and Ben are dealing with sub prime mortgages. Not my problem and you're the ones getting paid the big bucks to figure it out. While a morning trip to the Aventura Mall was depressing for the lack of shoppers, I focused on the elderly couples happily jitterbugging at 11 a.m. to the live piano music. This could never happen in New York but in Florida where the sun breaks down your resistance and you become born again as a relaxed person, this is what you do shortly before you're transported "Cocoon" style to another galaxy. For the first few days I tried to justify my decision to stay for two weeks without visiting one museum (are there any in South Beach?) or even finishing "Team of Rivals." My DNA hard-wired worry genes and I argued about it but we made it happen and I have had no schedule, no lunch dates, no conference calls, no worry lines, no morning clenched jaw or sinus headaches. Should I feel guilt about achieving this blissful state of mind? How could I — but just don't ask me something that requires an intelligent answer until I detox with a dose of anxiety followed by Xanax and Ambien upon re-entry next week. In the meantime, I'm the tanned one in the bikini on the beach reading People magazine. For now it's all about me, my body and watching CNBC currently on mute. More on Travel
 
Sarah Walker: Coming Clean Top
It's time. I'm not going to make this harder than it already is, so here it goes. I am a recipient of one of the AIG executive bonuses. My conscience has gotten the better of me and I think it's time to come clean and let the healing process begin. First, let me say that I fully intend to return one hundred percent of part of my 6.4 million dollar bonus. I realize now that I would be a monster to accept all of it, so rest assured that I will not take more of your hard-earned money than I absolutely have to in order to sustain my modest lifestyle of international kite surfing and sampling endangered animal flesh. I worked at AIG until last year when I left on my own accord to pursue my true passion of part time blogging. However, my contract stipulated that I would receive my bonus this year, which couldn't have come at a better time, because have you SEEN what's going on with the economy lately? It's ridiculous! I know that technically I may have had a little to do with this economic snafu, but if you look at the percentages my bonus is something like the equivalent of half a cent in the grand scheme of the bailout, so maybe everyone should just cool off. My friend did that math for me, so sue me if it isn't correct. Just kidding! Don't sue me! Anyway, I'm like, really sorry guys. And if it makes you feel any better, after I give back the full amount of a portion of my bonus I will totally leave the country so you don't have to deal with me again. I don't expect you to write, so I won't leave an address or anything. So, yeah. Sorry again and I hope others will have the courage that I have just demonstrated and reveal themselves as well. I already feel like a better person. Did I say feel? No. I am a better person.
 
Feds Take Control Of Hull House Pension Fund Top
The federal government has taken over the pension fund at the Jane Addams Hull House Association, one of Chicago's oldest social-service non-profit organizations, due to financial concerns. More on Economy
 
Eric Margolis: The Writing on the Wall in Kabul, Eric S. Margolis, 17 March 2009 Top
Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was an ardent supporter of George W. Bush and his so-called `war on terror.' Canada contributed 2,500 troops to support the US war effort in southern Afghanistan. But the hard-line Harper just did a remarkable volte face on CNN by admitting the war in Afghanistan cannot be won by military means. Harper's revelation on the road to Kabul echoes what the Secretary General of NATO has been saying since last April: there is no military solution to this eight-year conflict. President Barack Obama, who is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, ought to be asking himself why he is expanding a war in which military victory is unlikely and that threatens to drain America of more lives and billions at a time of national bankruptcy. Americans should think about waging an increasingly bloody war against lightly-armed mountain tribesmen who face the 24/7 lethal fury of the US Air Force's heavy bombers, strike aircraft, helicopter and AC-130 Spectre gunships, killer drones and heavy artillery. Do we really want a test of wills against such men who have the courage to endure cluster bombs, with thousands of sharp fragments, white phosphorus that burns through flesh to the bone, fuel air explosives that burst the lungs and tear apart bodies? Men who if arrested by the US-installed regime in Kabul are subjected to the foulest medieval tortures in government prisons run by members of the old Afghan Communist Party. Our western propaganda brands these Pashtun tribesmen `Taliban terrorists.' Or, `insurgents.' They call themselves warriors fighting occupation by the Western powers and their local Communist, Tajik and Uzbek allies. Al-Qaida's few hundred members long ago vanished. Fatuous claims we occupy Afghanistan to protect women are belied by the continued plight of Afghan females under Western rule, and widespread hunger in that nation. A report in Britain's respected `Lancet' medical journal just concluded 100,000 Indian women are burned alive each year for their dowries. Will we now send troops to India? Admitting the US and NATO cannot bludgeon the Afghan resistance into submission leads to the obvious question: why pursue a war that is turning increasing numbers of Afghans against their western occupiers and encouraging the anti-western violence we term, `terrorism?' Some of our NATO allies have ordered their troops to remain in base and cease aggressive patrolling. The next step is to understand that wars are waged for political objectives, not simply to kill your enemies. The US-led forces in Afghanistan have no coherent political objectives. The US-installed Karzai regime in Kabul has no political legitimacy, and commands no respect or loyalty. The US-engineered `democratic elections' that confirmed Karzai in power were rigged. Today, Afghanistan is engulfed by corruption and massive drug dealing that involves many of the US-backed warlords and members of Karzai's entourage. The Obama administration is casting about for a new puppet, but so far can't find one who could do any better the hapless Karzai. You can't make a puppet into a real national leader. Worse, as Kabul flounders and Taliban and its allies are on the offensive, events in neighboring Pakistan are going from awful to calamitous, as we witnessed in recent days. The West cannot wage war in Afghanistan without the support of Pakistan's army, air bases intelligence service, and logistical infrastructure. That means keeping a government in power in Islamabad responsive to US demands and that will continue renting its army to Washington. But Pakistan is in growing political confusion. After easing former discredited dictator Pervez Musharraf out of power, Washington eased into power People's Party leader, Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto. His popularity ratings are rock bottom. Zardari recently got his stooges on the corrupt Supreme Court to ban Pakistan's most popular democratic opposition leader, Muslim League chief, Nawaz Sharif, from running for office. Nawaz's brother, Shabaz, was also judicially deposed as minister of Punjab, Pakistan's largest state. Violent demonstrations against Zardari's dictatorial ploy and the refusal of some security forces to stop demonstrators forced Zardari to back down and agree to reappoint the deposed senior justices of Pakistan's Supreme Court. The unpopular Zardari and the strongman behind him, Interior Mininster Rehman Malik, are dogged by grave corruption charges, and may be unable to cling to power. But Nawaz also has plenty of skeletons in his closets. The army - Pakistan's other government - is watching the nation's descent into bankruptcy and political chaos with mounting concern. The military fortunes of the US and NATO in South Asia thus rest on political quicksand in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Plans being developed by US South Asian proconsul Gen. David Petraeus to arm tribes on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier and turn them against pro-Taliban tribes are sure to bring even more violence and chaos. Meanwhile, mounting air assassinations by CIA Predator aircraft in the tribal zone are enraging local Pashtuns and driving ever more people into the arms of the extremists. It is into this morass that President Obama plans to send more American troops.
 
Sean Jacobs: Obama Campaigns for South African Ruling Party ... in Zulu Top
More like South Africa's embattled ruling party, the African National Congress is using Barack Obama to attract voters. National and provincial elections are set for next month (April 22). The party has unveiled its new election song: "NjengoBarack Obama owaleth' utshintsho e-America, votelani i-ANC kube nokuthula e-Africa." Translated it means: "Just as Barack Obama brought change to America, vote ANC so that there will be peace in Africa," as South Africa's Sunday Independent reports . Predictions are the ANC will win the election, though by a reduced and tainted by the association of its presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma, with corruption and populism. ANC spokesperson Lindiwe Zulu told the Sunday Independent that the ruling party had been "bitten by the Obama bug." The ANC's open attempt at associating its campaign with Obama seems odd, given the party leaders' refusal to meet with Obama during a 2006 Africa by the then-Senator from Illinois. At that time Obama publicly criticized then-President Thabo Mbeki's wrongheaded AIDS policies . Oppositions parties also play up a supposed link to Obama. The breakaway Congress of the People that split from the ANC late last year, play up "Hope" and "Change" in their party literature, while the largely white Democratic Alliance copied Obama's logo. This is at least not as far-fetched as the Ghanaian opposition candidate who ran posters of himself with Barack Obama that made it appear like Obama was his Vice Presidential running mate in last year's presidential elections. That candidate, John Atta Mills, is now Ghana's President. More on Barack Obama
 
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Red Flags Flew From the Start on Geithner and Company Top
Florida Republican House Rep Connie Mack was the first in the door to demand that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner resign or get the boot. Mack bluntly said what more than a few Democrats and a lot of Republicans have grumbled privately in recent days. President Obama says that Geithner will stay. But things in Beltway politics change, and change fast. There's already the fresh revelation that Geithner and Obama economic advisor Lawrence Summers pressured Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd and Senate lawmakers to scrap the provision that banned fat cat bonuses to failed bank incompetents before February 11 from the bank bailout legislation. And then they clumsily tried to blame Dodd for scratching out the provision. Shelving the ban gave AIG the crack it needed to ladle out the scam executive bonuses. There may be more of what did Geithner and company know and when did they know it embarrassing revelations still to come. That's not the only reason President Obama may have to rethink how Geithner and Summers with their free market, minimal regulations philosophy, and too cozy ties with Wall Street fueled the crisis. Flags flew high on both long before the AIG bonus hustle. There were the questions about whether Geithner helped or hurt the Asian markets and their economies with his IMF authored rescue plan in 1997-1998. That, however, didn't stop some analysts from proclaiming Geithner a financial miracle worker. Then there is Geithner's deep tie to Wall Street. His circle of advisors reads like a who's who of Wall Street's power brokers.--Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase, and a bevy of corporate executives, and banking and commerce officials. The $29 billion loan that Geithner brokered to help grease the wheels for Chase's takeover of Bears Stearns raised an eyebrow or two. It was revealed that a close associate of Geithner who also sat on the New York Fed that Geithner headed ran J.P. Morgan Chase. It got the Bears Stearns liquidation loan. Volumes have been written about how Bush and the Republicans eagerly cut sweetheart deals with financial industry lobbyists to gut lending and stock trading regulations, winked and nodded at the banks and brokerage houses as they engaged in an orgy of dubious stock swapping, buys, and trading, conned millions of homeowners into taking out catastrophic sub prime loans and watered down the oversight powers of government regulatory agencies. Their financial free bootery couldn't have happened without a huge policy change that Summers and another Obama advisor Robert Rubin engineered during the Clinton years. As Clinton's Treasury secretaries Summers and Rubin lobbied Clinton and Congress in the late 1990s to scrap most of the provisions of the decades old Glass-Steagall Act. The Act was the 1930s Great Depression era measure that kept federally insured banks out of the go-go world of stock trading, exotic lending and financial speculation. It also set rigid standards for mortgage lending and strict oversight over banking practices. This was only part of the financial deal cutting between the banks and Clinton and Congress. A year later Summers in tandem with then Texas GOP senator and Chair of the Senate Banking Committee Phil Gramm rammed through another "financial modernization" measure. This one took the wraps off government regulations that checked banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses from dumping billions into financial swaps (speculation) on commodities such as oil and food staples. The rationale was the same as that given for getting rid of Glass-Steagall and that was to keep the financial institutions as full profit centers with minimal to no government oversight accountability or investor, depositor and shareholder accountability. The predictable quickly happened with the regulatory gloves off commercial banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds, institutional investors, pension funds and insurance companies could do whatever they wanted when it came to investing in each others businesses and marching in lock step with each other's financial operations. The implosion of Wall Street directly resulted from the questionable policies that Summers and Rubin rammed through, and Geithner backed. Even in the face of the financial crisis, the troika gives no sign of backing away from their belief that failing financial institutions must be propped up with massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, that the industry can police itself, and that Wall Street still hold the key to economic recovery. The mounting doubts about Geithner and company's prescription for recovery haven't shaken President Obama's resolve to stay their course. Before departing on his California jaunt he again struck his mantra themes of Wall Street greed and mismanagement. It ended with his mea culpa that the buck stops with him. It may not be that simple as long as red flags fly high about Geithner and company. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009) More on Barack Obama
 
House Panel: TARP Firms Have Unpaid Tax Bills Top
A House Ways and Means investigative subcommittee has found that of the 23 largest recipients of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, the majority have unpaid tax bills.
 
Study: Obesity As Bad For Your Health As Smoking Top
LONDON — Being obese can take years off your life and in some cases may be as dangerous as smoking, a new study says. British researchers at the University of Oxford analyzed 57 studies mostly in Europe and North America, following nearly one million people for an average of 10 to 15 years. During that time, about 100,000 of those people died. The studies used Body Mass Index (BMI), a measurement that divides a person's weight in kilograms by their height squared in meters to determine obesity. Researchers found that death rates were lowest in people who had a BMI of 23 to 24, on the high side of the normal range. Health officials generally define overweight people as those with a BMI from 25 to 29, and obese people as those with a BMI above 30. The study was published online Wednesday in the medical journal, Lancet. It was paid for by Britain's Medical Research Council, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and others. "If you are heading towards obesity, it may be a good idea to lose weight," said Sir Richard Peto, the study's main statistician and a professor at Oxford University. Peto and colleagues found that people who were moderately fat, with a BMI from 30 to 35, lost about three years of life. People who were morbidly fat _ those with a BMI above 40 _ lost about 10 years off their expected lifespan, similar to the effect of lifelong smoking. Moderately obese people were 50 percent more likely to die prematurely than normal-weight people, said Gary Whitlock, the Oxford University epidemiologist who led the study. He said that obese people were also two thirds more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke, and up to four times more likely to die of diabetes, kidney or liver problems. They were one sixth more likely to die of cancer. "This really emphasizes the importance of weight gain," said Dr. Arne Astrup, a professor of nutrition at the University of Copenhagen who was not linked to the Lancet study. "Even a small increase in your BMI is enough to increase your risks for cardiovascular disease and cancer." Previous studies have found that death rates increase both above and below a normal BMI score, and that people who are moderately overweight live longer than underweight or normal-weight people. Other experts said that because the papers used in the study mostly started between 1975 and 1985, their conclusions were not as relevant today. Astrup worried that rising obesity rates may reverse the steep drops in heart disease seen in the West. "Obesity is the new dark horse for public health officials," he said. "People need to be aware of the risks they're taking when they gain weight." ___ On the Net: http://www.lancet.com
 
Greg Mitchell: At 6th Anniversary of War: Suicides Skyrocketing Top
More than most in the media, I have followed the disturbing rate of suicides among our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and here at home for nearly six years. Often I have hailed Mark Benjamin, who has kept close tabs on the same issue (and many others related to soldiers and vets) first for UPI and then for Salon. Today, at the sixth anniversary of the start of the war, he does it again with a major piece at Salon on this subject. It follows his multi-part series last month chronicling the upsurge in acts of violence and suicides among vets back in the USA. Thank goodness that someone is following this closely. I feel like I should do a sequel to my book of last year on Iraq and the media titled So Wrong for So Long and call it So GONE for So Long. Last week here, I noted that the military had just reported that in the Army alone, 18 troops committed suicide in February -- down six from January's shocking high but still above what they expected. They say they are continuing to push forward with more and better counseling but, of course, multiple deployments to war zones continue. Mark's piece today opens: The Senate Armed Services Committee hearings Wednesday on the rising suicide rate among U.S. ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan revealed some frightening new data, but did little to investigate the underlying causes of what is emerging as one of the darkest, most disturbing legacies of the wars. Last year the Army had its highest suicide rate on record -- 140 soldiers. But new data from the Army on Wednesday showed the number jumping even higher. Forty-eight soldiers have already killed themselves so far this year. If that rate keeps up, nearly 225 Army soldiers will be dead by their own hand by the end of 2009. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the latest trends "alarming." Army Vice Chief of Staff Peter Chiarelli admitted, "I, and the other senior leaders of our Army, readily acknowledge that these current figures are unacceptable." In an email to me this morning, Mark struck an even more alarmed note. More from his piece, and then follow the link. Meanwhile, healthcare officials at various installations who are struggling to help say they're overwhelmed by huge numbers of troops returning from two, three or even four deployments with acute mental problems from combat. Top brass in the military continue to be evasive about the problem, however. While some admit that combat stress may be a factor, others deny that seven long years of war with multiple deployments has anything to do with escalating suicide rates. Link to full article. * Greg Mitchell's latest book is "Why Obama Won." He is editor of Editor & Publisher. More on Afghanistan
 
Steven Johnson: A Live Chat on Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America -- Join me at 2pm (EST) Top
Steven Johnson is the author of six books, including the national bestsellers Mind Wide Open, Everything Bad Is Good For You , and The Ghost Map . He's also the co-founder of several influential web sites, including FEED, Plastic.com, and currently, the hyperlocal platform outside.in . This month you might have seen him on The Colbert Report , or read his recent essay here on the future of the news ecosystem . He's joining us for a live conversation about his latest bestseller, The Invention of Air: A Story Of Science, Faith, Revolution, And The Birth Of America , which Bill Clinton called "fascinating" in a speech last week . He'll be joining us for a live chat at 2PM (EST) today on this very page; you can contribute questions and comments for Steven by simply entering them in the window below. The Invention of Air tells the story of the network of ideas and collaboration that surrounded the brilliant 18th-century polymath, Joseph Priestley. Priestley was British by birth, but he was nonetheless extremely close with Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, and he played an important, though generally neglected, role in the early history of the United States. He helped create the legend of Franklin the pioneering scientist, and he collaborated with Franklin on one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the age, the discovery that plants create the oxygen in our atmosphere, one of the founding insights of modern ecosystem science. Priestley's writings on Christianity had a defining impact on Jefferson's religious worldview, and after Priestley's controversial writing inspired a mob to burn down his house in Birmingham, he emigrated to America in the 1790s, our first great scientist-exile. Controversy soon followed him, though: by the end of the decade, his old friend John Adams nearly had him deported under the Alien and Sedition acts. To give just one quick statistic that suggests the influence that Priestley had over the founders: in the final Adams/Jefferson correspondence - that most epic of American political conversations -- Priestley is mentioned by name fifty-two times; Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton between them warrant only ten references. Priestley had a fascinating life, and it was great fun as author to get to reconstruct the times he lived in, and the extraordinary - and too long neglected - web of his influence. But I didn't write the book just to correct the historical record or to tell an interesting story. What drew me into this particular story was its direct relevance to our own current moment, because something different happens when you look at the birth of America through the outsider view of Priestley's career--when you take Jefferson at his word that Priestley's life was "one of the few precious to mankind." Perhaps the most important lesson is that Priestley and his American friends refused to compartmentalize science and politics. Quite the opposite, in fact: they believe the new explanations of "natural philosophy" could help shape new political systems, and redefine faith for an Enlightened age. Adopting a know-nothing attitude towards scientific understanding--hiding behind the cloak of piety or political dogma--would have been the gravest offense to Priestley and his comrades. In the popular folklore of American history, there is a sense in which the Founders' various achievements in natural philosophy--Franklin's electrical experiments, Jefferson's botany--serve as a kind of sanctified extra-curricular activity. They were statesmen and political visionaries, who just happened to be hobbyists in science, albeit amazingly successful ones. Their great passions were liberty and freedom and democracy; the experiments were a side project. But the Priestley view suggests that the story has it backwards. Yes, they were hobbyists and amateurs at natural philosophy, but so were all the great minds of Enlightenment-era science. (The importance of amateur intellectuals is another key link to our own time.) What they shared was a fundamental belief that the world could change--that it could improve --if the light of reason was allowed to shine upon it. And that belief emanated from the great ascent of science over the proceeding century. The political possibilities for change were modeled after the change they had all experienced through the advancements in natural philosophy. A few days before I started writing this book, I happened to be watching a debate on CNN in which Mike Huckabee was asked about his belief (or lack thereof) in evolution. He shrugged off the question with an dismissive jab of humor. "It's interesting that that question would even be asked of someone running for president," he said. "I'm not planning on writing the curriculum for an 8th grade science book. I'm asking for the opportunity to be president of the United States." It was a funny line, but the joke only worked in a specific intellectual context. For the statement to make sense, you had to assume that that "science" was some kind of specialized intellectual field, about which political leaders needn't know anything to do their business. Imagine a candidate dismissing a question about his foreign policy experience by saying he was running for president and not writing an International Affairs textbook. The joke wouldn't make sense, because we assume that foreign policy expertise is a central qualification for the Chief Executive. But science? That's for the guys in lab coats. So one of things I hoped to do with Invention of Air was to remind people that when our leaders take these anti-science positions, or when they happily plead ignorance about some of the most important issues of our time - our energy use, global warming, genomics, all the revolutions unleashed by computer science -- they're not just being anti-intellectual. They're also being un-American. The people who founded this country were serious science geeks. We should be celebrating this fact, not running away from it. Hopefully Priestley's life can help us re-connect with those roots. Of course, a life as interesting and diverse as Priestley's has many more connections to today's world. I look forward to getting into all of them in the live discussion at 2PM (EST) today. Enter any questions or comments in the window immediately below: A Live Chat on Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America (Starts at 2pm (EST)
 
Nazca Fontes: Stem Cell Argument Conveniently Avoids Certain Facts Top
We've heard input from all ends of the political, religious, ethical and medical spectrums on last week's announcement that President Obama is lifting restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It's not surprising that each group's agenda drives the discussion deep into an area that benefits its individual perspective and message. And given the incredible complexities surrounding the topic, there are plenty of directions to take this discussion now and into the future. I'd never understate these complexities or the strength of the beliefs that guide this discussion, but I have to admit I'm frustrated that certain facts seem to have been completely overlooked to sell these agendas. There are many examples of this, but to me, two of the most straightforward haven't seen much ink. First, there has been a lot of coverage around the needless creation and destruction of embryos strictly for this research. Clearly, this isn't the only, or even first, option available. By some accounts, there are currently more than 600,000 frozen fertilized eggs sitting in fertility clinics across this country. Many of these have been there for years, abandoned by couples who no longer need them but are unable to make the decision to discard them. So, they simply stop paying for storage, leaving the decision to the clinics and doctors who will likely have to discard them at some point because of the hefty costs associated with maintaining them -- including the cost of facility rental, liquid nitrogen, storage containers, nitrogen delivery and clinicians to tend to the storage process. For the clinics and doctors, the decision then comes down to discarding these leftover embryos or donating them for medical research. Perhaps even more frustrating for me in reading recent coverage is the overlooked fact that the majority of these leftover fertilized eggs are not suitable for donation to other couples. Many concerns have been voiced that lifting restrictions may encourage the destruction of fertilized eggs that could be donated to other infertile couples. What many people don't understand is that most of these excess fertilized eggs are of questionable viability almost by definition. They are created by couples who are already reproductively challenged, many of whom have poor quality sperm and eggs. Once the highest quality and most viable fertilized eggs from the harvest are used by the intended parents, the fertility clinic is generally left with those of inferior quality. In most cases, there is a very low likelihood of these fertilized eggs surviving the thawing and implantation processes to result in a pregnancy. It seems to me that the true argument is completely misplaced. Very few are arguing that there should be restrictions on the number of embryos created per patient in the first place to ensure that fewer are left to this nebulous end. Getting back to the realities of donating leftover fertilized eggs, for arguments sake, let's assume that these parents are completely comfortable with the idea that there could be several children in the world with a genetic connection to them and the children they're raising. Even if these couples were comfortable donating their embryos to strangers, these excess fertilized eggs likely cannot be used based on quality. Meaning, the majority of the more than half million frozen, fertilized eggs currently housed in fertility clinic freezers are simply of no use to other couples faced with infertility. However, it's important to note that this wouldn't necessarily impact their viability for stem cell research, which is yet another of the technical nuances of this process that participants engaged in the ethical debate may not recognize. Again, the options available become discarding the embryos or employing for research. Without restrictions on the number of embryos that can be created per couple, the current reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of embryos sitting frozen in clinics across the country. In most cases the end result is destruction of these fertilized eggs, regardless of the path. So, my question becomes why is leaving a human embryo languishing in liquid nitrogen considered preserving the sanctity of human life? And, in contrast, why is using fertilized eggs inevitably destined for destruction to help potentially find a life-saving cure not? About Nazca Fontes, founder and president In 1992, armed with a biology degree, Nazca entered the laboratory world of infertility. Daily experience with egg donors provided her with valuable insights into the critical need for a higher standard of egg donor recruitment. Her multi-faceted expertise, combined with her own less-than-ideal firsthand experience as an egg donor, became the unique platform upon which Nazca developed and nurtured ConceiveAbilities. Having earned a national reputation over the past decade as a leader in egg donation, one of Nazca's most passionate goals has been to use her own experience as an example to other young professional women that egg donation is a worthwhile endeavor that can be rewarding for both donor and intended parent. The resulting influx of such women has made ConceiveAbilities' donor pool unrivaled.
 
Alden Loury: Blagojevich, Burris and a Few Broken Hands Top
Somebody should pay. Deep down, we've always known that the world of Illinois politics, or more precisely Chicago politics, is a messy place. But we've been able to sufficiently keep a lid on it until former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrest, and things just got worse with the controversy surrounding Sen. Roland Burris. Now the whole world knows our dirty laundry. So who's responsible? We need to find those people and make them pay, severely. Maybe we should handle it like the mob. After all, when the mob teaches lessons they tend to stick. Just to keep it light, we could take a page from Bugsy Calhoun, the fictional mobster from Harlem Nights , an expletive-filled, 1989 comedy featuring Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Della Reese and Michael Lerner. Lerner plays Calhoun, a tough-nosed mobster looking to get rid of Pryor and Murphy because their nightclub routinely took customers and money away from Calhoun's after-hours joints. In one scene, Calhoun talks with Tony, one of his chief henchmen, about the dismal receipts at one of his nightclubs. Calhoun suspects that the club's manager, a character named Tommy Smalls, is pocketing thousands of dollars from the profits, but Tony disagrees: "Smalls wouldn't do that. I hand-picked him myself," he says. But Calhoun is convinced the Smalls is stealing money from him. "You made a mistake with him. A big mistake," Calhoun replies. "You hand-picked him? I guess that makes you kind of responsible." After some conversation about how to deal with Pryor and Murphy, Calhoun calls Tony over to his piano with the lid propped up. He calmly tells Tony to put his hand on the edge. With sweat brimming on his forehead, Tony reluctantly places his hand on the edge of the piano. Calhoun gets in his face: "Nobody steals from me. The next time you bring somebody crooked in, I'm going to f---ing kill you!" He then swipes the prop from under the lid and it crashes down on Tony's hand. If we were playing the part of Calhoun and dishing out punishment to those who brought Blagojevich to power in our state, here's a short list of the folks we'd ask to their hands on the edge of the piano: Gov. Pat Quinn He may have made an impression with his budget address, and he continues to remind us that he's not Blagojevich. But as Lt. Gov. Quinn, he was Blagojevich's "running mate." Those guys held hands together at many a podium on the campaign trail. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan The speaker's disdain for Blagojevich was well known, but he ran the former governor's campaign in 2006--even after the corruption probes had started. If anybody could've deep-sixed Blagojevich, it was Madigan. 33rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell He's Blagojevich's father-in-law and political godfather; it all got started with Mell. But I guess we should've known something was wrong when the rift between Blagojevich and Mell became public. I'm sure there are plenty of fathers who can't stand their sons-in-law. But your son-in-law has to be a real piece of work if he's a congressman-turned-governor and you still don't like him. I certainly don't mean to wish any bodily harm upon anyone, and I don't mean to suggest that key Blagojevich supporters should be held accountable for the former governor's actions. But somebody had to know. I understand party unity and all, but somebody could've dropped us a hint or issued some kind of public apology when it all came crashing down. And Illinois' tarnished reputation is not solely the fault of the Democrats. Keep in mind, our most recent Republican governor is still in prison--which we were routinely reminded of during the Blagojevich fiasco. And somebody in the Republican Party needs a straight-up ass-whuppin' for that whole Alan-Keyes-for-U.S. Senate-thing in 2004. Who in their right mind could've thought that his candidacy would be taken seriously? All I'm sayin' is that we have a long track record of political disasters in this state, and the folks on the inside need to be taught that the people of Illinois have had enough. We don't need more promises of reform. Maybe a few broken hands would do the trick. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Max Bergmann: McCain vs. Petraeus Top
One of the real benefits of last year's election was that it dispelled the myth that McCain was a reasonable foreign policy centrist and exposed the fact that he was actually a reckless neocon. For instance, on North Korea, it was discovered that McCain was actually more extreme than Bush and opposed the administration's efforts - led by Chris Hill - to negotiate. Now Hill has been appointed to replace Ryan Crocker - who departed last month - as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Yet Hill's appointment has been held up by McCain, Lindsay "mini mac" Graham, and Brownback, because... well...Hill didn't want to bomb North Korea - which in McCain's neocon world makes his North Korea legacy "controversial." It was always clear that McCain knew how to hold a grudge. But what makes this all the more interesting is that by blocking Hill, McCain is pissing off Petraeus - a man who McCain could not stop praising last year. Laura Rozen at the Cable writes : Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill's confirmation proceeding swiftly...Since the previous ambassador, Ryan Crocker , left the job Feb. 13, Odierno has complained of doing double duty: serving as the commanding general and the de facto ambassador. The power vacuum in Baghdad comes at a critical juncture in Iraq's transition, sources noted. The U.S. mission is becoming increasingly focused on political stabilization and economic development over military missions; Arab-Kurd tensions are rising in the north; struggles for dominance within and across sectarian groups are heating up in the aftermath of January's provincial elections; the Baghdad government is facing tough budget choices due to declining oil prices; and national elections that will determine whether Iraq can consolidate its democracy are due by year's end. ..."This is all about retribution," said one Senate Democratic foreign-policy staffer. Conservatives blame Hill for nudging Bush's second term North Korea policy towards multi-party talks. "They want to give Hill a black eye." Something has to give here... what will it be: McCain's love for Petraeus or his neocon vindictiveness? More on John McCain
 
Alan Miller: Taxing and Banning: The Only Clear Strategies Our Leaders Seem to Have Top
In these troubled times it seems the one thing that we can be sure of is that bureaucrats and politicians (unfortunately increasingly interchangeable these days) who are bereft of any clear strategies for tackling the big issues of our day are keen to go after the small pleasures of life and hit us where it hurts. Departing London this past Sunday, leading as headline news was the suggestion by the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer that the price of alcohol should be increased significantly, in some case doubling. Of course, we are told this is purely because of the health problems of "binge drinking" . However, It does seem odd that in a world where the big competing political visions have disintegrated, one of the few things leaders seem to be able to take a tough stand on is interfering increasingly in our everyday lives. We all know about the smoking bans that have become the rage in various major cities (and in various states in the US there are "smoking zones" and some bans even in cars!) In addition to this of course has been the banning of trans fats in New York restaurants and I reported some time ago on Huffington Post that I believe the consistent intervention in what we do in our private time is far unhealthier than anything we may eat or drink. Others disagreed of course, as I note some unsavory attitudes to ordinary people in another Huffington Post series of readers comments. Alas, as with all of these banning tendencies, once started, the dynamic seems to be to continue. Thus we find ourselves in the strange world of managing citizens' few pleasures and the continual obsession with food has led to the bizarre promotion of the idea by a doctor at British Medical Association conference in Scotland that chocolates be taxed by 20%. Increasingly, these actions reflect a disdain for ordinary people and the outrageous notion that we should be treated like children and have the most private parts of our lives managed. Whether one believes obesity is a problem or not the idea that we as responsible adults can make our own minds up is increasingly being eroded. So too we have witnessed Governor Paterson's attempt to promote tax on sodas and indeed Mayor Bloomberg, not sufficiently happy with the bans on smoking and trans fats, to target salt in our food. Of course there are many discussions to have about food -- why so many people in the world don't have enough, or how perhaps the world could have the inspiring example of America where food is plentiful, an incredible achievement considering only a few generations ago the only debate about food was not whether it was fast, slow, real or not but just how to get enough of it. As we can see that strategies for dealing with real problems in the world, such as economic recession, war and other big issues are far more difficult, we should beware of the expanding encroaching of our personal lives. Whether it is alcohol or chocolate, carbonated sodas or salt, the debate about food and our behavior in many ways gets to the heart of our current historical moment. Where those in power believe they have the Moral Authority, somewhat akin to the old Temperance Movement, to declare from high above over the contemptuous masses. That is very unsavory -- and a much bigger health hazard than anything else currently.
 
Sara Avant Stover: Unplug and Recharge: Everyday Yoga -- Treat Your Feet Top
When I lived in Thailand I had the good fortune of getting a foot massage at least once a week. There, foot reflexology oases flowered on nearly every city block, and a one-hour session costs a whopping $6. Now that I have moved back to the US, things are different on many levels, the disappearance of my indulgent weekly ritual being one of them! Not to worry. Now I use a simple and effective method that achieves (almost) the same results. Only in this version, napping is dangerous! Your only investment here is a can of tennis balls and five minutes. Not bad. The results: breaking up fascia in your feet (fascia is a web-like sheath of connective tissue that stretches from head to toe, encapsulating and interpenetrating your organs, nerves, muscles, and bones); stretching out your feet and toes which become constricted from wearing shoes and supporting your entire body weight; and stimulating reflex points. The tradition of Chinese Medicine teaches us that reflex points for all the organs, glands, and muscles in the body can be found on the feet. A trained reflexologist can even put pressure on different points on the sole or side of the feet to determine and help alleviate illness. This is why when you press on certain areas of your feet some "talk" to you more than others. Those sensitive spots are good indications that another part of your body needs some TLC. Click here to find a map of reflex points to help you navigate on your own. Our ancestors stimulated their reflex points naturally by walking barefoot over rocks, stones, and rough ground. Today, since most of us spend a good deal of our lives with our feet crammed into shoes and walking on pavement, we need to use devices like tennis balls to exert pressure on and stimulate our feet. So grab your ball, take of your shoes, and join me by watching the instructional video below! More on Unplug And Recharge
 
Steve Rosenbaum: Optimism And Opportunity At SXSW Top
At first I thought it was just the group of people I was spending time with. Among them, the talk was rapid-fire and filled with unbridled enthusiasm. So on the second day at South By Southwest, I ranged further out - into the panels and to the impromptu lunch gatherings that crop up throughout the sprawling interactive conference. To my surprise, each and every person I spoke with was riding a wave driven by the fast moving Social Media explosion that is sweeping across media, advertising, and consumer products. It seems these are good times for the Digital Natives and their technology-driven businesses. But it's not as simple as that. The change is fundamental. The fear and concerns written large across the headlines of the nations daily newspapers aren't lost on the attendees of South By Southwest, it's just they've already adjusted their work styles and their income expectations to fit the job market of the future. They're not afraid of change, they're living it. But, let's start back a bit. What is this gathering? And why is it growing as conferences across the country are experiencing unprecedented decreases in attendance? South By Southwest began way back in 1987 as an indie music festival in the now hip heart of Austin, Texas. As the festival grew, it became a magnet for new sounds and new trends in music. In 1994 the festival added a film component, and the indie film world counts SXSW film as an important place to discover new talent and new films. Finally, (also in 94') the South By Southwest Interactive festival was launched. Catering to indie media, open source developers, and wide range of digital content creators, bloggers, video game makers, and developers. So SXSW has a unique mix of creative talent, a spirit of innovation, and deep rooted commitment to the emerging evolution of the digital economy. While many things have happened at SXSW, it is perhaps best known as the place two years ago when a then unknown social technology called Twitter "Blew Up" (that's hipster talk for, got big fast, and achieved critical mass). So, no surprise then that SXSW is pretty much fueled by Twitter, with attendees counting on Twitter to foster chance meetings, impromptu 'tweet-ups' and a almost overwhelming number of discussion, demos, presentations, and a wild and raucous nightlife that is a huge part of the SXSW experience. When you roll in to SXSW, for me it was both my first time at the Festival and my first time in Austin, your first assumption is that somehow everyone there is on some version of daddy's credit card or trust fund cash. The crowd is young, mobile, and carrying the best and latest in techno gadgets and gear. But those economic assumptions would be wrong. In fact most of the folks have arrived on some mix of discount airlines, bus trips, shared car rides, and there's an underlying conversation about shared hotel rooms, shared house floors, and where the best free food or beer is each night. SXSW and its economic enthusiasm is important. It's real, and its basis is worth a bit of deconstruction. First, unemployment. It's the talk of almost everyone these days, but not at SXSW. Why? Because no-one at SXSW has one. These folks are living in a post-employment economy. Don't get me wrong, they all work - a lot. They're working for multiple companies. One person I talked to had 3 of his own web sites, that each earned $50 or $100 a week in AdSense income, worked as a "Social Media Consultant" for 3 big US brands, had written a "e-book" that was about to be released, and was working with 2 friends on a start up. Another had a full time' consulting gig for an ad agency, and was doing a number of side projects. A third had just quit her job at a newspaper, after getting an offer to join a well known technology company (freelance) and move from Chicago to New York. The stories were all like that. Self-Employed, multiple projects, overlapping in content, ecommerce, PR, media, web, development and programming. These so-called digital natives had created an economic safety net that was driven in part by creating awareness of their work through personal branding and a relentless ability to keep their name and their work front and center among their "Tweeps" (that's the Twitter version of "Peeps"). Next, the stock market. While lots of folks are wringing their hands about the market, the folks at SXSW simply aren't in it They're either too young, or self-employed, or just not willing to bet on other companies when they can bet on themselves. The bottom line is, at SXSW there wasn't anyone checking their blackberry to see if the market was up or down, it just didn't matter. Church and State. While Newspapers and media companies wring their hands about the 'chinese wall' between church and state, these SXSW digitals are working all sides all the time. One of my friends is a well known publisist who is both a blogger, a PR man, an author, and an organizer of media events that large media and technology companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to participate in. While old media institutions agonize about journalistic objectivity, the folks attending SXSW understand that it is more about transparency. Finally - "Brand Me". At SXSW there was a stream of photographs, flickr streams, blog posts, and tweets. Everyone, it seems, wanted to be on-camera at SXSW. For the new class off self-employed media makers and consultants, keeping your personal brand in front of your peers and clients is a daily effort. There's no doubt that the digital generation is making as much media as it's consuming - and it's crucial they keep their story front and center in their community. So, why is the mood so up at SXSW? Because, for the folks who are members of the new era of Digital Natives - everything is indeed coming their way. Brands are beating down their door to learn how to play in the social media space. Technology is making it easier to build businesses and revenue without overhead or investment. Because, even as newspapers, record companies, book publishers, and auto makers are suffering - digital film, news, ebooks, ecommerce, software and social media platforms are all quickly growing. So, why is the mood so up at SXSW? Because, for the folks who are members of the new era of Digital Natives - everything is indeed coming their way. Brands are beating down their door to learn how to play in the social media space. Technology is making it easier to build businesses and revenue without overhead or investment. Because, even as newspapers, record companies, book publishers, and auto makers are suffering - digital film, news, ebooks, ecommerce, software and social media platforms are all quickly growing. Standing amidst one thousand digital media makers and consumers, there's little doubt about the state of their industry. SXSW 2010, sign me up.
 
Dodd, Democrats Targeted For AIG Mess In GOP Talking Points Top
The Republican Party is going to great lengths to tie Democrats -- and Sen. Chris Dodd in particular -- to the lavish bonuses issued by bailed-out insurance giant AIG. The GOP is sending out emails targeting the Connecticut Democrat and passing around talking points painting him and the Democratic Party as stooges of big business. The talking points run down just how insurance giant AIG ended up issuing $165 million in bonuses to senior executives this past week. The culprit for the largess: Democrats who eliminated an amendment from the stimulus that would have taxed those bonuses that exceeded $100,000, and Dodd himself, who folded on his pledge to fully restrict the financial rewards. "Dodd initially denied having anything to do with the provision that allowed AIG bonuses," read one of the talking points. "He recanted yesterday after Treasury officials told CNN on background that they had been aware of the provision and worked with Dodd to insert the language into the legislation. Dodd would not answer questions as to whether Secretary Geithner knew about the bonus language. President Obama yesterday said that Geithner was 'making all the right moves' and that he, the President, was ultimately responsible. The cover of the Hartford Courant leads today with the headline: 'Dodd's Flip-Flop.'" Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out an email Thursday calling attention to the CNN segment that aired on Wednesday, in which Dodd admitted to adjusting his amendment restricting bailout bonuses at the behest of the Treasury Department. "It is no wonder that Senator Dodd received more campaign contributions from A.I.G. than any other politician during the 2008 cycle, including President Obama. As FOX News put it yesterday, 'A.I.G. must be feeling very grateful to Chris Dodd this morning,'" reads the email, which is signed by NRSC executive director Rob Jesmer. "As we watch these Washington politicians simmering with their new-found populist outrage, it is worth noting that some of them are responsible for the very acts they are now so loudly condemning." Dodd finds himself potentially in a surprisingly competitive reelection bid in 2010, owing largely to a scandal over favorable treatment with the financing of his house. The modification of his bonus amendment, while done at the urging of the Treasury Department, doesn't help the frame that he is too close to the financial industry while on the Senate Banking Committee. THE NRSC EMAIL: Dear Republican Friend, Amidst all the outrage being expressed about the bonuses awarded by American International Group (A.I.G.), I wanted to call your attention to this clip from CNN News yesterday. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, placed an amendment in the "stimulus" bill that allowed for banks bailed out with taxpayer money - including A.I.G. - to hand out huge bonuses without any government oversight or regulation, as long as those bonuses were issued before February 11. A.I.G. did just that, paying out $165 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses, including more than $1 million each to 73 people, as well as $33.6 million for 52 people who had already LEFT the company. This came AFTER the company received almost $200 billion in taxpayer funds to stay afloat. It is no wonder that Senator Dodd received more campaign contributions from A.I.G. than any other politician during the 2008 cycle, including President Obama. As FOX News put it yesterday , "A.I.G. must be feeling very grateful to Chris Dodd this morning." As we watch these Washington politicians simmering with their new-found populist outrage, it is worth noting that some of them are responsible for the very acts they are now so loudly condemning. Thanks again for your support, Rob Jesmer Executive Director National Republican Senatorial Committee THE TALKING POINTS ISSUED BY THE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE: All - below are a few basic points on AIG that may be useful. The last bullet is the latest update on Senator Dodd's involvement in the AIG bonus scandal. --Ryan · $170 billion - total amount AIG received in bailout funds [Laurie Kellman, "Analysis: AIG bonuses new cloud over Treasury boss," Associated Press, 3/18/09] · Approximately 400 executives and traders at AIG received $165 million in bonuses. [Laurie Kellman, "Analysis: AIG bonuses new cloud over Treasury boss," Associated Press, 3/18/09] · Average bonus received if $165 million in bonuses split evenly between executives: $412,500 · An amendment to the stimulus sponsored by Senators Snowe and Wyden "would have forced AIG to pay nearly $58 million in taxes on top executive bonuses." [Lisa Lerer and Victoria McGrane, "Fallout: Dems In Disarray Over AIG," Politico, 3/17/09] The amendment passed the Senate by voice vote, but was stripped from the final stimulus bill by Democrats in a closed door meeting. Senator Grassley on the stimulus conference committee: "Being named a conferee to the conference committee for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act meant you were invited to the final, formal meeting late on February 11, where the conference report was announced after it was finalized. This meeting was a photo op that took place hours after Majority Leader Reid announced that the Democrats had reached a deal. Every Republican on the conference committee was left out of the negotiations and consultations entirely. The fact is that the bill the President signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. There was no transparency, so the only way the public will ever know who added the language to protect bailout company bonuses is if someone from the small group of Democrats in the room says so." · After removing the Wyden-Snowe amendment approved in the Senate, Democrats then inserted an amendment similar to one originally proposed by Senator Dodd that provided an "'exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009' -- a provision that exempts the AIG bonuses Congress is now trying to recoup." [Lisa Lerer and Victoria McGrane, "Fallout: Dems In Disarray Over AIG," Politico, 3/17/09] · Democrats did not put the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" online for five days of public review and comment as President Obama pledged to do with legislation during his campaign. · Dodd initially denied having anything to do with the provision that allowed AIG bonuses. He recanted yesterday after Treasury officials told CNN on background that they had been aware of the provision and worked with Dodd to insert the language into the legislation. Dodd would not answer questions as to whether Secretary Geithner knew about the bonus language. President Obama yesterday said that Geithner was "making all the right moves" and that he, the President, was ultimately responsible.. The cover of the Hartford Courant leads today with the headline: "Dodd's Flip-Flop."
 
Jimmy Seidita: Governor Quinn Should Appoint Laurene von Klan to MWRD Vacancy Top
Governor Quinn is off to a good start with the environmental aspects of his administration. He pleased conservation groups with his appointment of Marc Miller as the new head of the state Department of Natural Resources, reversing an 11th hour appointment by former Governor Blagojevich, and he has re-opened the seven state parks that Blagojevich had closed for budgetary reasons. Another important decision that Quinn is expected to announce soon is his appointment to fill a vacancy on the board of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago . MWRD is a little known entity, but it is responsible for handling sewage and stormwater for 5.3 million residents in Chicago and nearby suburbs. It employs 2,300 people and controls an annual budget of $1.6 billion. It operates the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world, and typically handles over 1 billion gallons of water per day, and sometimes as much as 2 billion gallons. As reported in January by Jennifer Slosar in the Chi-Town Daily News , Patricia Young, one of the district's nine elected commissioners, resigned to take a better-paying staff job with the District. Governor Quinn will appoint someone to serve the remainder of her term. A great appointment by Quinn could be one of the environmental highlights of his administration. The Chicago Sanitary District was created in 1889, at the peak of the "Make No Little Plan" era, 18 years after the Chicago Fire and four years before the Chicago World's Fair. In those days, sewage, garbage and horse manure washed into the Chicago River, which flowed into Lake Michigan and then washed back up onto the city's beaches, or occasionally drifted over to the intake pipes for the city's drinking water. After a series of epidemics of infectious diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, the city and the District undertook an audacious solution. In one of the most remarkable feats of civil engineering of the century, the District dug two canals and built a lock where the river meets the lake, reversing the flow of the Chicago River, so that Chicago's sewage now flows away from Lake Michigan, to the Des Plaines River and eventually to the Mississippi River. In 1989, to celebrate its 100th birthday, the Sanitary District built Centennial Fountain , that neat water cannon shooting over the river at McClurg Court, and changed its name to the less icky, but also less descriptive, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Today the MWRD is facing some important decisions and milestones. While the MWRD uses chlorine to disinfect sewage from the suburbs, no such treatment in used for Chicago's sewage, making Chicago the last big city in the U.S. that still routinely dumps sewage untreated for bacteria and other pathogens into public waterways. But the Illinois Pollution Control Board is nearing completion of a long investigation into whether the District should be required to begin disinfecting all sewage. In February, the District approved a program to test ultraviolet radiation to disinfect wastewater, as a possible alternative to disinfecting with chlorine. At the same meeting that the commissioners approved spending $75,000 for the UV study, they also approved spending more than ten times that amount for legal fees in their ongoing effort to convince the Pollution Control Board not to require any further disinfecting. Let's hope that is not an illustration of the District's priorities going forward. Additionally, the colossal Deep Tunnel project may finally be nearing completion. Throughout the history of the city, as more and more areas became paved, rainwater had less surface area to be absorbed into, and therefore flooding in the city increased. In the early 1970s, the city embarked on an ambitious project to address the flooding problem by building and extensive series of tunnels and reservoirs. 35 years and $3 billion later, the District is still digging more and bigger tunnels and reservoirs, yet the city continues to be plagued by flooding after severe rainstorms, perhaps worse than ever. The Deep Tunnel project now consists of over 100 miles of tunnels, up to 30 feet in diameter and 150 to 300 feet underground. (Take the YouTube tour here .) The final 7.7 miles of the planned 109 miles are now in the final design stage. So as we finally can see a light at the end of the Deep Tunnel, advocates are urging the district to take a look at alternatives to endlessly expanding its network of pipes and concrete. They recommend "green infrastructure" solutions, such as green roofs, rain gardens, pocket wetlands, native vegetation, and different surfaces for streets and parking lots. In fact, the recently passed federal stimulus package designates 20% of the funds for water related investments to go to green infrastructure projects. And an Illinois "Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act," sponsored by Representative Elaine Nekritz , and supported by the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology is pending before the General Assembly in Springfield. Finally, the District is beginning to investigate the possibility of turning its waste into a new source of renewable energy . Sludge from the wastewater system can be processed in digester tanks to capture methane gas, which can then be used to heat office buildings or for industrial processes. With these near-term challenges and opportunities facing the MWRD, Laurene von Klan would be an outstanding appointment to the board. Last month, she left her position as CEO of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum , where she transformed what had once been a dusty old science museum into a vibrant, innovative and leading institution for environmental education in the region. Prior to that, she led the Friends of the Chicago River for thirteen years, dramatically growing that organization in terms of membership, resources, and influence. There are other candidates for the spot with green credentials. Mariyana Spyropoulos came up short when she ran for the seat last year, despite an endorsement from the Sierra Club . The Green Party is supporting Nadine Bopp, and offers a platform for greening the MWRD. But Laurene is the "shovel-ready" candidate. No learning curve here. She has quite literally been up to her knees in the Chicago River, and these issues, for more than 20 years. And her expertise in environmental education would be a boon to the vitally important yet poorly understood MWRD. The Governor is expected to announce his choice any day now. Let's hope he picks a board member with a deep experience in the issues facing the district, and a demonstrated commitment to protecting and improving the ecology of Chicago's lake and rivers.
 

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