Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Irene Rosenfeld's Compensation Rose As Company Lost Top
CHICAGO, March 31 (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Inc (KFT.N) CEO Irene Rosenfeld's compensation package rose about 50 percent to $17 million last year, due in large part to increased stock, stock options and annual incentive awards. Rosenfeld's salary was about $1.5 million in 2008, up from $1.4 million the prior year, the largest North American food company said in its annual proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
 
Suz Redfearn: Fallen to Pollen Top
I used to go around secure in the notion that I was hearty farm stock. You could put me out in the fields or on the plains and nothing would go wrong. Nothing! I wouldn't do any work out there or anything, but I wouldn't wilt or get sick, either, because I was strong, healthy, solid of gene, with an ass-kicking constitution. Broken bones? Haven't had one since I was 13, and when I did, I tried to reset it myself. Stomach aches? Not likely! Migraines? Never. Flu? Don't know what you're talking about. As of last week, though? All of that came crashing down when a doctor told me that, at age 42, I suddenly have allergies. Allergies! The very antithesis of hearty farm stock! Sniffly, snotty, whiny, I-can't-go-outside-because-I'm-weak-and-immuno-compromised allergies. This tore at my sense of self like a rabid band of prairie dogs. Allergies were the realm of those brainy, pale, nose-picking girls in middle school who had to run and get shots every time you turned around. But, effluvium in the atmosphere bringing me down, though? Me? Why, that's just not possible. Of course, all the sneezing, sputtering, snorting and wild, rhythmic mashing of my eyes due to the itching and burning should have given it away. But it didn't. It's just lots of back-to-back bouts of pink eye and colds at the same time each year - I can shake 'em off , I told myself. Finally, on a lark, just for grins, because I had extra time, and wasn't doing anything else, I went to the doctor. A sullen staff member took a pen and marked up my arms with what looked like hieroglyphics -- 48 tiny numbers on each arm, arranged in a grid. Then she put little drops of syrup next to the numbers, each containing a festering allergen. Next, right at each drop, she scraped at my skin with something sharp, opening my flesh to let the irritants seep in. Then she drew more numbers on me and used diabetic syringes to shoot me up in a neat pattern all along the grid with 46 allergens. Because of my physical prowess, my scrappy constitution, my iron gut and my nerves of steel, none of this really hurt. Following all the scraping and shooting, I was made to sit there for 20 minutes to see if any mosquito bite-ian bumps formed. If they did, voila, we'd have our answer(s). While I waited, the doctor handed me a big pamphlet - a magazine, really -- on how my life would be ruined should I be allergic to dust mites as well as a few other unfortunate indoor allergens. Via pictures and words, Mite As Well Give Up Daily showed me that my existence would morph from one of happily working, playing with my child, and visiting with friends, to a life of soaking everything in my house in scalding water all day, every day, and sweating and crying. The things I couldn't push into the washing machine with the end of a broom or hand wash in the sink with my shriveled claws I'd have to "encase." The things I couldn't encase would have to go into the garbage. Including my mattress, pillows, drapes, rugs, dog and cat. Holy crap. I looked down, getting ready to start in on some fierce incantations, and saw then that the 3 Across and 4 Down position on my left arm was raised and red, as if a hungry bug had just been by for a samich. Please, dear baby Jesus in your manger, with swaddling clothes all encased, just don't let it be dust mites... The doc swept in. He looked at my arm, stopped short, looked me in the eyes quizzically, then peered down at my arm again. "This is odd. You're only allergic to one thing," he said. "We don't see that very often." I brightened. I like being odd. But more than that, I like knowing what my future entails. "Ok, so what is it?" "It's maple pollen," he said, to which I let out a big gasp of relief. "The season for that is now, ahead of the usual spring allergies. You're probably at your worst in March, right? Keep your windows closed from mid-January to mid-April. And come see me every January for your prescriptions." I was stunned. Maples? Those beautiful trees that turn such an outrageous, screaming shade of crimson in October? The talented headliner in the free outdoor concert that is fall in the Mid-Atlantic? The only tree that has ever made me pull over to the side of the road to stare slack-jawed? That tree is betraying me, sending its sperm into the air to choke me? Maple! You deadly siren in saucy lipstick, getting a jump on the other trees and spreading your toxins just before spring, making me wish I'd be born without eyes. I realized with a jolt that my husband had planted a maple in our front yard a few years back, now just a few feet from our heads as we sleep. The little fledgling, currently the tree equivalent to an 11-year-old boy, is just starting to get peach fuzz and think about sex/pollen. It's the only tree we've planted as a couple. Do we have to cut it down? Because that would be bad, symbolically. "No," said the doc. "There are so many maples here, the air is literally filled with their pollen. Cutting down one tree will do nothing. But your dog is getting covered in it every time he goes out, so do try to wash him before he comes in." Right, I thought, envisioning lots of bladder infections for the dog instead. I left there looking like some sort of scrappy, math-oriented junkie, numbers and scratch marks and needle holes covering each arm, shoulder to wrist. This helped me feel very rock 'n' roll, even if my new diagnosis eroded at that status. I also left there scheming. Was this my opportunity? My chance to move out of northern Virginia to a far more southern clime? Perhaps with shores? Can I now say, "Marty, we have to go - it's for my health ," and not be completely full of it? Maybe I could find out all the varieties of maple, learn where they are in my neighborhood and when Marty is at work, sidle up to them like a shameless hussy, stroking them, touching them to my face, running their leafless winter branches across my eyelids and hoping my head swells to the size of an outboard motor. "See, Marty," I can then say, "I am suffering." And then we will fill our suitcases with flip-flops and juicers and be out of here. Sadly, those dreams died minutes after I got home from the pharmacy. The host of prescriptions I administered through all head orifices (mouth, nose, eye) worked almost instantly, just as the doctor said they would. And now I feel fine, normal almost. Damn you, pharmaceutical industry. My sense of self is intact, too. Here's how: Do maples grow in fields? Like the kind where strong and healthy people work? No, they do not. So I can still go out into that kind of field and nothing will happen, right? Right. For now, then, I get to remain exactly who I thought I was.
 
Sen. Fritz Hollings: "Free Trade" Top
"Free trade" means different things to different people. To economists in the United States, "free trade" means an open market where goods are unfettered or unprotected by tariffs, quotas or subsidies. To one of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, Henry Clay, "free trade" was pure fantasy. Clay thought "free trade" was an oxymoron. In 1832, he cried: "Free trade, free trade ... It never existed ... It never will." Teddy Roosevelt thought "free trade" was dumb economics. He exclaimed in a letter: "Thank God I'm not a free trader." After World War II, Japan took our Marshall Plan money and started globalization or a trade war for market share by closing its domestic market, subsidizing its manufacture, selling its export at near cost, and making up the profit in its closed market. It took over market share in textiles and then globalized by seeking a country cheaper to produce, moving its textile manufacture to Malaysia and changing its trade war from textiles to watches, to cameras, to electronics, to radios, to TVs, to computers, to communications, to automobiles. Hence, "free trade" in the U. S. means an open market for profit; and "free trade" in Japan means a closed market for market share resulting in Toyota being #1 as Ford, GM, and Chrysler struggle. To China "free trade" means for U. S. to continue its open market while China with authoritarian rule closes its market and controls its labor and currency, but fails to control its air and water so as to have the cheapest production in globalization. Thus, globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a country cheaper to produce. Today, "free trade" to Corporate America, Wall Street, and the big banks, means for the U. S. not to compete in globalization. It means for the United States not to trade. "Free trade" means for Corporate America to continue, unfettered by Congress, offshoring its investment, research, technology, development, production, jobs - literally, the U. S. economy. Today, "free trade" means to Corporate America that it be permitted to continue offshoring our economy while it builds the economies of Mexico, China and India. In short, "free trade" means for Corporate America to ruin the economy of the United States as it begs for bailouts and bonuses from the taxpayers. It never used to be this way. Henry Ford doubled the minimum wage and instituted health and retirement benefits, developing the middle class in America. The Ford Foundation developed research and strong communities all over the country. I worked for fifty years in government with Corporate America seeking the government's protection of Corporate America's investment and production in the United States. We passed protectionist measures time and again through both Houses of Congress only to have them vetoed by Presidents of both political parties. At the time, the Presidents were concerned that capitalism defeat communism in the Cold War. While the U. S. sought "free trade" and open markets, it allowed Japan, Korea and China to close their markets and violate "free trade." Now, Corporate America, Wall Street, and the big banks seek protection for their offshored production, calling for "free trade." Their pundits in the press, Tom Friedman, Charles Krauthhammer and Fareed Zakaria call for "free trade," "protectionism," "Don't start a trade war." Money has taken over politics. In my last race for the United States Senate ten years ago I had to raise $8 ½ million to win. This amounts to raising $30,000 a week each and every week for six years. Today it would be substantially more. Russell Long started the check-off on your income tax return to build a fund so that "every mother's son could 'run for President.'" Obama, with the internet, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, means that "every mother's son" has to buy the office. It means for members of Congress interested in reelection that they must spend all of their waking moments raising money. I said on leaving the Senate after thirty-eight years service that there were no longer drunks in the Senate. They don't have time to get drunk. United States Senators are the hardest working crowd, save Congressmen, in the United States. Early morning there are three breakfasts to raise or arrange for money, lunch at fundraisers, cancel policy meetings to fundraise, "window" breaks in the evening to go out and attend fundraisers and come back to vote, midnight sessions on Thursday so that you can catch the early morning flight to California and New York for fundraisers, no work on Mondays and Fridays, and ten-day breaks each month to fundraise. We don't honor Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday any more. We just use their birthdays to be merged into ten days to fundraise. In short, there is no time for the country, only time for the campaign. "Free trade, free trade." We Senators know better. But Wall Street, Corporate America, and the financial community is the crowd with the money. So "free trade" to members of Congress means: "Let somebody else solve that problem. I can keep my mouth shut, get the money, and get reelected." This is why all the candidates in the Presidential election had solutions for every problem but offshoring the economy. Even the New York Times days before the Iowa primary, after the candidates had been campaigning for at least a year, had a double-page spread, one for the Democratic candidates and one for the Republican candidates for President, listing six issues on either page and no mention of the economy. You can't get an offshoring op-ed into the Washington Post or the New York Times. Mum's the word; money controls. Now President Barack Obama has become the leader for "free trade." In the campaign, he had his economists tell the Canadians: "Don't worry. He wasn't serious about jobs." Again, when "Buy America" appeared in the stimulus, he opposed it. And when he found out he couldn't get the votes, he had "Buy America" watered down even though he had given out "Buy America/Obama" buttons in the Pennsylvania campaign. He saw how a draft-dodger could beat a Silver Star recipient by constant campaigning, so he's determined to get the money and constantly campaign, ignoring the loss of jobs and the economy, which has been going on for fifty years. On the economy, President Obama addresses only the recent recession with a stimulus. If there is one thing that we should have learned in the last eight years that stimulation was not working. It took this nation over two hundred years of history paying for all the wars - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and even LBJ's Great Society and we didn't reach a national debt of $1 trillion until 1982. But in the eight Bush years, we have borrowed, spent, added to the debt and stimulated $5 trillion dollars. And we were losing jobs at the end of last year like gangbusters. Two years ago, Allen Blinder, the Princeton economist, estimated in ten years the United States would lose thirty to forty million jobs to offshoring. The President's stimulation continues for the nation to lose more jobs than are stimulated. President Obama gives full attention to the Wall Street bankers' problem trying to stimulate consumption, when he ought to be addressing the offshoring problem with stimulating production. Our troubles couldn't happen at a worse time. We have been losing jobs, production and the economy for over fifty years, stimulating the economies of Mexico, China, India, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, etc. Now we need to rebuild our economy. We sure can't afford "free trade." We've got to compete in globalization by cancelling the subsidies to offshoring, instituting a value added tax, and, at least, start producing those items necessary to our national security. Boeing can't produce a fighter plane without importing parts from India. Our rolling stock in World War II, with Ford producing the tanks and General Motors producing the B24 bombers, is now in jeopardy. In last weeks TV news conference, President Obama concluded: "What I am confident about is that we're moving in the right direction." The President is right on health, energy and climate change But he has the country headed in the wrong direction by continuing to get rid of our economy with "free trade."
 
Heidi Kingstone: Genocide in April Top
APRIL (REALLY) IS THE CRUELEST MONTH At the Kigali Memorial Centre on the outskirts of town, 258,000 people are buried, their bodies exhumed and re interred on the site. Overlooking the capital you see that Rwanda really is the land of a 1000 hills, les mille collines, undulating, green, lush, verdant, a country recovering from madness. You can't go to Kigali without visiting at least one genocide memorial. This April marks the 15th year since that genocidal madness. With that I found myself walking through the museum wandering around the upstairs rooms. The exhibits in those rooms explored other equally horrific genocides in the hope that maybe understanding them will stop them or at least alert the world when they may be about to occur. The signs were there in Rwanda, but the world chose to look away. Man, unfortunately, never learns from history despite not forgetting. Rwanda's holocaust started on the evening of April 6th, 1994. The frenzy continued all night and into the next day, April 7th, as it happens my birthday. Adolf Hitler's birthday is less than two weeks later, though several decades and a previous century earlier than mine - April 20th, 1889 - a terrifying thought. At approximately 8:20 pm on April 6, 1994, the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) Chief of Staff Deogratias Nsabimana, and other prominent figures was shot down as it approached Kigali International Airport. During that night and through to the morning of April 7, General Romeo Dallaire, then commander of UNAMIR, frantically engaged in dialogue with the Forces Armees Rwandaises. UNAMIR served as the military and legal force behind the Prime Minister of Rwanda. Ten blue helmets guarded Premier Agathe Uwiringiyimana. Their murder in Kigali on April 7, 1994, precipitated the withdrawal of Belgian troops and later of other foreign troops. That unleashed 100 days where Hutu hordes massacred Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Between 800,000 and one million people died. Using clubs and machetes up to 10,000 Rwandans were killed each day. People would pay for their murderers to dispatch them swiftly rather then have them hack off an arm, only to return later in order to hack off another limb, until death finally came, slowly, and more, as we know. I mention April because that month kept coming up as I toured room after room in the genocide museum. One by one 20th century genocides, like the stacks of the bodies of their victims, piled up. The killing fields of Cambodia began when the Khmer Rouge took power on April 17, 1975. The third Anfal campaign, which took place between April 7-20, 1988, continued the genocide of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein's government. It was in northern Iraq where 'Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid used mustard gas and chemical weapons. April 24th is the day commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day. In 1915 hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being summoned and gathered. The Siege of Sarajevo began on April 5th 1992 continuing until February 29, 1996. Muslim forces responded to three nights of heavy shelling by launching a counter-offensive to break the nine-week Serbian siege. In Israel, and in Jewish communities around the world, Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom Ha'Shoah, follows the Jewish calendar but usually falls in April, marking the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The heroic uprising began on April 19th 1943 but the destruction of the ghetto signaled the end of hope and the end stage of the final solution of the Jews of Europe. The UK celebrates HMD, commemorating the Holocaust and other genocides, on January 27, the day Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets, but when former Prime Minister Tony Blair was trying to determine the appropriate date, the Aegis Trust, a British NGO that campaigns against genocide, suggested April. "Aside from being close to Yom Hashoah, April 15th 1945 was the date Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British troops and so there was resonance with that period of history with many families of veterans as well as survivors. We noted it would have brought HMD it into a month when other genocides were marked and we were curious why so many dates associated with genocide fell in April" says Chief Executive James Smith, "However other countries in Europe already marked January 27th and as Holocaust Memorial Day is more of an educational event, January was favored as there are no holidays and pupils would not be so close to writing exams." The Rwandan genocide began when school was out for Easter, and children were back in their villages with their families. This would have made it easier for the perpetrators to kill entire families of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, who were identified and betrayed by neighbors. Logistically it was not so convenient as April is the wettest month. That also made it a bad time of year for the victims who were running or hiding. The plan to shoot down the President's plane, if there was one, would not have been planned strategically because of the month but linked to the timing of Arusha Peace Process talks taking place in neighboring Tanzania. What is it about April that makes it, as TS Eliot wrote in The Waste Land, the cruelest month? Had all these people actually read Eliot and taken him at his word? Why is there a genocidal spring clean in April? Is it when testosterone levels soar? Perhaps the stars have the answer. The war-like sign Aries is associated with conflict, connected to the planet Mars, the god of war. Aries are aggressive, determined to get what no matter the price. According to Deike Begg of the Association of Professional Astrologers International, "when one of the outer planets - Uranus, Neptune, Pluto - changes signs, there are disruptions on earth, and each year of the genocide was accompanied by such a shift." In China the symbolic ploughing of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood takes place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to our April. The Finnish called this month Huhtikuu, or 'Burnwood Month', when the wood for beat and burn clearing of farmland was felled. The "days of April" (journees d'avril) is a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the proces d'avril. It certainly stirs the poetic imagination. Seasonal change, especially on his New Hampshire farm, inspired American poet Robert Frost. In his poem, "Two Tramps in Mud Time" he wrote: The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March. Not quite the same rollicking and satirical sentiments as in Mel Brooks classic melody 'Springtime for Hitler' perhaps, though he could no doubt have found inspiration in this grisly series of events. There may be no explanation other than man's continued barbarity. Maybe it's the positioning of the planets. More likely it is the randomness and coincidence of history. More on Israel
 
Paul Armentano: Press Secretary Gibbs Attempts to Defend Obama's Opposition to Taxing and Regulating Pot Top
If you thought President Barack Obama's mocking response to the question of whether "taxing and regulating cannabis would raise revenue and reduce prohibition-associated violence" couldn't be any worse , just listen to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stumble below. Kudos to the reporters who held the White House's feet to the fire on this one. First, Gibbs is asked: "When the President said he doesn't think that legalizing marijuana would give the economy a boost was he giving a political answer or an economic answer? Does he have numbers to back (his position) up?" The pained expression on Gibbs' face says it all as he mumbles that, in fact, he is aware of no economic analyses -- as in zip, nada -- that support the President's dismissive position. Naturally, we have numerous credible economic reports proving just the opposite. Perhaps Mr. Gibbs would like to review them here , here , here , and here . Minutes later, the White House Press Secretary appears even more desperate for a place to hide when a second reporter asked Gibbs to articulate the reasons why the President refuses to consider the issue. Gibbs' response is priceless. "Uh, he, he does not think that, uh, uh, that that is uh, uh, [pause] he opposes it, he doesn't think that that's the, the right plan for America." And there you have it. Wow. Such a vapid response wouldn't cut it if Gibbs was a third-grader standing in front of his classroom, no less the Press Secretary to the White House! Keep in mind, both Obama and his press secretary knew in advance that they were going to publicly respond the question of taxing and regulating cannabis. They had at least 24 hours to prepare an articulate, rational, and substantive response. And yet the best response they could come up with was snickers and "uh." Are the final days of marijuana prohibition upon us? It sure looks that way from here. More on Barack Obama
 
Pope Orders Investigation Into Legionaries After Sex Abuse Scandal Top
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has taken the extraordinary step of ordering an investigation into a conservative Roman Catholic order that recently disclosed that its late founder had fathered a child. The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said investigators would visit all of the institutions run by the Legionaries of Christ, one of the fastest-growing orders in the Roman Catholic church. Bertone said in a letter to the head of the order posted Tuesday on the Legion's Web site that the Vatican was stepping in "so that with truth and transparency, in a climate of fraternal and constructive dialogue, you will overcome the present difficulties." The Legionaries of Christ was much admired by the late Pope John Paul II for its conservative view, strict loyalty to Vatican teaching and success in enrolling recruits. However, its Mexican founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, was long dogged by allegations he sexually abused seminarians. In 2006, a year into Benedict's pontificate, the Vatican disciplined him on the sexual abuse charges, asking that he lead a "reserved life of prayer and penance," and refrain from celebrating Mass in public. Maciel died in 2008 at age 87. Last month, there were fresh revelations about Maciel's sexual life. The Legionaries' head, the Rev. Alvaro Corcuera, has not publicly provided details, but individual Legion leaders have confirmed that Maciel had a relationship with a woman and fathered a daughter who is now in her 20s and living in Spain. While the abuse charges had long cast a cloud over Maciel, the latest disclosures tarnished the Legion's reputation even more. Observers have questioned how it can carry on since the order is so closely affiliated with Maciel's persona. Maciel is held up as a hero whose life is to be emulated; seminarians and members of its lay affiliate study Maciel's writings and they pray that the spirit of the founder lives on in their behavior. Corcuera said the Legionaries welcomed the Vatican investigation "with deep gratitude," saying Benedict was offering his support as the order faces "our present vicissitudes related to the grave facts in our father founder's life." The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the investigation was the way the Vatican can get firsthand information about a problem in the church. In a similar move in 2004, the Vatican sent a team of investigators to an Austrian seminary following revelations that seminarians were hoarding child porn. More recently, the Vatican sent teams of investigators to visit all 229 U.S. seminaries following the church abuse scandal. The team of prelates for the Legionaries investigation will be named by the Vatican and will get under way over the next several months, Lombardi and Corcuera said. Founded in 1941 in Mexico City, the Legion says it has more than 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians worldwide. Its lay branch, Regnum Chrsti, says it has 50,000 members globally. In the U.S. alone, the Legion has a couple of dozen prep schools and has been building a college _ the University of Sacramento _ in California. Pressure had been building in recent weeks for an external review of the Legion, even among some of the group's staunchest defenders, to see if any of its current leaders had covered up Maciel's wrongdoing and to make sure no further misdeeds were taking place. Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O'Brien traveled to Rome in February to question Legion leaders about Maciel's misdeeds, and upon return warned his parishioners not to join the Legion or Regnum Christi. "He was asked to do penance in 2006 and still they were holding him up as their hero, their icon," O'Brien said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "That shows how insensitive they were and I think, right now, unaware of the damage that's being done not coming out and saying things." Although the Legion has made no official statement about the outstanding abuse claims against Maciel, some Legion leaders say the latest revelations about Maciel fathering a child gives credence to the abuse allegations. "There was some validity to those as well," said the Rev. Thomas Williams, a moral theologian who has held leadership positions for the Legion in Rome. "It's really come as a very hard blow to all of us. This is a very very big deal," Williams said in a recent interview with EWTN, the Catholic TV network. Genevieve Kineke, a former Regnum Christi member who now presses the movement to end its secrecy, said the church leaders in charge of the evaluation will have to overcome what she called the "culture of solidarity" inside the order. ___ On the Net: Legionaries of Christ http://www.legionariesofchrist.org ___ AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report from New York. More on The Pope
 
Brian Keane: College Students Heed Warning on Climate Change, Engage in 'America's Greenest Campus' Competition Top
There's certainly been much talk about colleges going green in recent years. In today's world, schools know they need to be committed to environmental sustainability in order to attract the best students and fulfill their mission to improve the world. Now there is a way for ordinary students, faculty and alumni to support the efforts of their campus in their own lives. America's Greenest Campus is the new contest created to find our "greenest" campus community by tracking the personal carbon reductions of college students, faculty, staff and alumni, all through an innovative contest web site. Everyone who enters in the America's Greenest Campus contest will see that it is one of the most compelling and informative energy efficiency campaigns today. Participants use their ".edu" email address to sign up on AmericasGreenestCampus.com and then make specific commitments to reduce their energy use and carbon footprint. Many of these commitments are small, everyday actions that add up to a big impact. To date, contest participants have already saved 1,820 tons of CO2, equivalent to taking 350 cars off the road. (And the contest just launched!) The college that recruits the most members of their campus community to join AmericasGreenestCampus.com will win $5,000 for their school's sustainability projects, as will the school with the most carbon reductions per participant - that means $10,000 for campus communities truly committed to going green. America's Greenest Campus is a partnership between the new web site, ClimateCulture.com , and my non-profit organization, SmartPower . The contest utilizes Climate Culture's unique web site, which hosts an incredible online community (fully integrated into Facebook ), a virtual island that reflects your real carbon footprint and avatars that you get to deck out when you save more carbon. The truly incredible piece to the Climate Culture web site and America's Greenest Campus, though, is that it's powered by an advanced carbon and energy advisor, which helps participants create customized savings plans. There are literally hundreds of actions in home, work, travel, and shopping to choose from. The savings numbers are specific for each person, depending on where someone lives, their lifestyle, and their personal preferences. Green-minded participants can see how much CO2, electricity, gasoline, and many other resources are saved. Then America's Greenest Campus participants can track their school's progress on the leaderboard, comparing member numbers and carbon reductions. And integration with social networking sites like Facebook , Twitter and YouTube enable AGCers to encourage friends and classmates to join the contest, and really compete to be the greenest campus community in the country. Ever thought about the electricity you waste by leaving the television on for hours when no one is watching it? How about the energy your dorm room or office wastes to keep stale coffee warm for hours past its prime? Do you know exactly how much money you would save on your energy bill by adjusting the thermostat when you leave your home? Or how much CO2 you could save if you made all those changes together? The average American has a carbon footprint of 25,000 pounds of CO2, almost 2.3 times an average European or Japanese. Your own carbon footprint may surprise you. For instance, the average person in a rural area uses more than 15% more energy than an average person in an urban area. No kidding. Take a look at this map to see where you stand: America's Greenest Campus now gives the campus communities, the tools and knowledge to reduce their energy use, save money and reverse climate change, all in a way that's easy, fun and effective. Through AGC, the power of social networking, the spirit of competition, and education on how to truly live a greener lifestyle come together for a one-of-a-kind campaign, and at just the right time. And you don't have to be a student to log onto ClimateCulture.com. Anyone can become part of the online community and start living smarter today! I'll keep you updated on the contest - which schools are winning, how many people across the nation have joined, and how much carbon, energy and other resources we're saving. Currently, George Mason University and University of Maryland, College Park have strong leads and are battling for first place. Think your school or alma mater can do better? Log on today, make your energy smart commitments, spread the word and help make your school become America's Greenest Campus. Brian F. Keane is the president of SmartPower, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that promotes clean energy and energy efficiency. www.smartpower.org More on Video
 
McCain: Obama Opened Himself Up To Charges Of Incrementalism In Afghanistan Top
Sen. John McCain largely applauded the Obama administration's approach to Afghanistan on Tuesday. But he said that if he had been elected, he would have done a variety of things differently and, in the process, he claimed that the president had set himself up for charges of "Lyndon Johnson" incrementalism by not devoting the troop levels to that war that will ultimately be necessary. "I would have... went ahead and announced the overall addition of troops," said McCain. Rather than be accused of a Lyndon Johnson style of incrementalism, because it is very clear what General McKiernan asked for even though it may not be right away, I probably would have announced that we intend to do that." In a discussion before the new neoconservative outlet, The Foreign Policy Initiative, and with several members of his 2008 campaign on hand, the Arizona Republican offered more sympathy than criticism for the president's Afghan policy proposal. But it wasn't all formalities and niceties. In addition to warning about an incremental increase in force levels -- the reference to Vietnam not lost on the crowd -- McCain also suggested that Obama did not lay the proper framework for selling the war domestically. "I support this plan," said McCain. "I probably would have done a few things differently. One, and most importantly, is to emphasize, and the president did, but I think you really have to emphasize how difficult this will be. As with the surge there will be an increase in conflict and therefore an increase in casualties as we move south in Afghanistan and try to reassert control in some regions." As for tactical insights, the Arizona Republican insisted that the war in Iraq would be harder than that in that in Afghanistan. "It is not as tough as Iraq, my friends, and don't let anybody tell you that it is," he said. "When we started the surge in Iraq it was virtually in the state of collapse." But he also warned, rather ominously that, "there may not be an Anbar awakening" in Afghanistan, a reference to the clerics who aided the U.S. surge in forces by simultaneously rising up against insurgents and terrorist violence in Iraq. Finally, on the domestic political front, McCain proclaimed that the real threat to Obama would not come from the GOP but rather skittish Democrats who could quickly tire of the war should violence levels rise. "I think it is more problematic among Democratic leadership," McCain said of the potential for waning support. "We all know that the Speaker [Nancy Pelosi] comes from a very liberal district and we all now that Harry Reid has been very nervous about troop levels in Iraq... I guess what I worry about is that most Americans have not been sufficiently alerted to the [issues we are] going to face there." More on John McCain
 
Paula Duffy: Plaxico Burress faces reality of jail for gun charges Top
There he was in a gray suit, walking past the media straight into the standard issue black SUV. His attorney, Ben Brafman spoke with the throngs holding microphones. It was the long awaited day for a pre-trial hearing in Manhattan's criminal court building at which it was expected that New York Giants wide receiver, Plaxico Burress would plead to the charges against him. But late the prior day Brafman announced he had arranged for a postponement of the substance of the hearing while intense negotiations regarding a plea deal continued between him and the Manhattan District Attorney's office. The appearance in court at the appointed time was merely a formality and the judge granted the request for an adjournment until two months hence. Burress is facing second degree felony charges for illegal gun possession and fighting for his ability to stay out of prison. In the course of the last couple of months there were discussions in the sports media about whether he would be welcomed back into the Giants' family after the team suspended him for his transgression. What was striking to me was the lack of acknowledgment that the team might not have to face that issue at all. The charges he's facing could put Burress behind bars although not for the term of 3-4 years which is what a second degree gun charge allows for under the worst of conditions. It's unlikely he'll do a year inside but even that number frightens him as well it should. That is what comes along with having stupidly carried an unlicensed gun into a night club and having it go off unexpectedly. The law had been changed prior to Burress "oops" moment and a strict interpretation makes it irrelevant if he intended to use the weapon. There is a possibility that he might plead to lesser charges or just have his lack of a record and the obvious issue of his stupidity rather than a criminal intent be taken into account in determining the length of any jail sentence. Burress and Brafman are fighting tooth and nail to get him off easy with no time on the inside or at the very worst a sentence that wouldn't interfere with his ability to play football when the 2009 season gets underway in September. Unfortunately for Plaxico, Mayor Bloomberg upped the ante on his case when he publicly rebuked him and appealed to the public's sense of fairness. Bloomberg's point was that a celebrity shouldn't get any special treatment under the new, tougher gun law in the City of New York. What we learned about Burress after this incident is that he has a long history of making a mess, not dealing with it til it blows up and then cuts a check to make it go away. But most of the trouble he gets in stems from his apparent distance from what it takes to live an average life in this country. Things like renewing insurance, obtaining a gun license, sticking to agreements for promotional opportunities and of course showing up to team meetings like the other 52 players on the Giants. Whether he is in that class of citizens with a lot of money who hire people to care for everyday matters is unimportant when those he hires fail him. The buck stops at him. But that is a well worn road to tread on and it seems unlikely he'll learn from this incident absent him paying a stiff price. Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL is still lurking even if Plaxico manages to avoid prison. As the disciplinary king of the league, Goodell will mete out punishment in the form of a suspension. That is what happens after a player in the league is involved in criminality. The Giants could be without him for a couple of months after he gets out of prison or if he serves no time, the clock on a suspension would begin on the day or the first game played. In the meantime, a sober looking Burress now knows that ignoring rules he claims not to understand or even know exist can make him face a tougher reality than he ever dreamed possible.
 
Bill Maher: New Rule: White Collar Crime Top
New Rule: Cocaine is not an aerosol... Check out Real Time with Bill Maher live Fridays at 10PM ET/PT - Only On HBO. More on Bill Maher
 
Stacy Schneider: Law Can't Touch Octomom for Now Top
It seems society can't let go of the Octomom story and its desire to see her punished . With every move Nadia Suleman makes, including the latest of "firing" the free in-home child care services provided by a national charity, a question persists: Can she be arrested and charged with child abuse or neglect for attempting to single-handedly mother 14 children, 8 of them premature infants? Well, she may have broken the taboos of parenting, but she hasn't broken the law, at least for now. Without reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect, the state of California can't remove the Octomom's children, terminate her parental rights, or charge her with a crime. Being on welfare or having no money or giving birth while "crazy" does not constitute child abuse. The law favors that children remain with biological parents unless there is inadequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care or supervision. Any one of these conditions may constitute neglect. And if there is repeated neglect resulting in injury or harm to children, you would have a case of child abuse, which is punishable by jail. Although Octomom had no resources when the babies were born (which can lead to neglect), her circumstances have changed. She probably already has enough money from book deals, interview and TV appearances to provide the minimal support required by law. If the Octomom hires child caretakers/nurses/home health aids to help care for the babies (because no single mother on the planet can do it alone), the law will favor her remaining as the legal parent and guardian. There will be absolutely no reason to place her children into foster care or place her in a courtroom to defend criminal charges. The law only requires that you be an adequate parent. It doesn't require you to be a good parent, a successful parent or provide a preferred standard of living or functional home. As long as your children receive the minimum standard of care for health and safety, you are safe from government interference into your parenting. If the Octomom adequately nourishes and nurtures all of her 14 children, she is guilty of no crime and cannot be prosecuted. The only thing she may be guilty of is being a selfish and reckless parent.
 
Greenest Office Prank: Stapler In Vegan Jello? (VIDEO) Top
Everybody's got advice for greening the office -- print less, drive less -- but nobody closes out their office tips quite like Grist. Grist's Umbra Fisk covers all of the bases we expect, then throws us a bone. Do you have better green prank ideas? Let's hear 'em in the comments. WATCH: More on Green Living
 
Patrick Takahashi: A Solution for the American Auto Industry Top
President Barack Obama took steps to re-invent General Motors and Chrysler for the better, hopefully. The current focus is on survival. Unaddressed was how to regain American leadership in the automobile industry. President Obama earlier this month visited the Edison Electric Vehicle Center located in Pomona, California, where he spoke glowingly of this option and mentioned the availability of large development funds. His stimulus plan, he said, provides $2.4 billion to help Detroit make the transition to hybrid cars. He also talked about a $2 billion battery R&D program to compete with the world, which could well be the same program. A year ago I would have rejoiced at his dedication to EVs. Today, I'm not quite so sure. I've written two posts on this related subject, comparing plug-ins with the fuel cell and suggesting that we develop our own technology for powering cars. The vaunted GM plug-in Volt, for example, will sell beginning in 2010 for $40,000. As an intermediate step, I guess this is the best they can do, but this is no way to reassert American dominance in the field, for the Volt will use a lithium battery from South Korea. Why? It appears that countries from Europe and the Orient have a lock on workable next generation battery patents for lithium. The sad conclusion is that we have no future in battery powered vehicles. The announced American battery consortium of 14 companies with the Argonne National Laboratory (note, particularly, the absence of GM, Ford and Chrysler) is seeking billions to advance our cause. Their announced focus will be on lithium, so one immediately can speculate that all they will be able to do will be to streamline the marketing and importation of these batteries. Why don't they, instead, produce a better battery, you say? Well, it turns out that battery technology has reached the end of the line. There is no future material on the horizon, save for maybe some mysterious super capacitor or blue-sky nanotech pathway. Why then don't we use some American ingenuity to develop a superior way for moving vehicles? Immediately scratch the ICE and lead acid batteries. Heartbreak, but eliminate the nickel hydride battery, an invention of American Stanford Ovshinsky of Detroit. His travails with GM deserve a tragic re-write by the next Shakespeare. Also delete the lithium battery, for we missed the boat here. What else is there? There is a technology that was invented 170 years ago in Wales. It is called a fuel cell and is used on NASA journeys to produce electricity and freshwater for drinking. Being readied for commercialization is the micro fuel cell to run your iPod and portable computer. For the same space as a lithium battery, this device can operate five times longer. The fuel is methanol. Methanol is the simplest alcohol and can be directly fed into a fuel cell without reforming, a very expensive process. Now this is difficult to believe, but one gallon of methanol has 1.4 times more accessible hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen. Today, methanol is produced through the steam reforming of natural gas, but in the future, biomass can be gasified and catalyzed into biomethanol. This is a natural for the farm industry, for all the non-edible portion of any crop can be collected for processing into methanol. Why then don't we do this already? Well, it turns out that the Farm Lobby a decade ago came up with what then was a brilliant idea. Why don't we ferment corn into ethanol, which can be used to reduce oil imports. Then, the price of corn will rise and farmers will be more successful. But prohibit methanol, for it is too cheap and will affect the marketing of ethanol. The ploy worked! Now that people are beginning to wise up to using food for fuel, as the laws are already in place, the Farm Lobby is turning to cellulosic ethanol. While this is technically possible, it will be an economic disaster. If you have any relatively dry biomass, it is much cheaper to produce methanol. As this methanol is the perfect fuel for the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) to power cars, what a match made in heaven between the heartlands of American and Detroit. But we have a problem. There is no DMFC for cars. Our Department of Energy has purposefully banned any methanol R&D. Details on parameters such as politics, safety, energy density, etc., can be found in Simple Solutionts for Planet Earth , one of the book icons in the box on the right. This is then the golden opportunity for our new administration seeking change . As other countries usually watch what we're doing, they also have not done much in this area. The Japanese are on the cusp of commercializing the DMFC for portable applications, but a device for vehicles is a decade away. Rather than spending billions on a next generation battery to nowhere, we have a once in a lifetime chance to take a leadership role in the solution to Peak Oil, Global Warming and Economic Development. We need a Marshall (but call it Obama) Plan for Detroit to develop the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell for vehicles. In time, we will be able to export products, instead of burying ourselves further by quickly converting to plug-in vehicles where the batteries will need to be imported. More on Climate Change
 
"Real Housewives" Alleged Beater In Court: "I'm Really Upset" Top
(Los Angeles - March 31, 2009) - The Real Housewives of New York City star, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, faced a judge this morning resulting from her arrest earlier this month for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend, Nick Stefanov. Only "Extra" spoke with Bensimon and her attorney, Ed Hayes, outside the New York City courthouse and stressed that her children are her main concern. Bensimon exclusively tells "Extra," "I'm really upset by the entire process. My beautiful girls and I are being exposed to a horrible situation. I just think it just unsettling...I support all my friends and my friends have been really amazing with me. It's not really about me. It's about my girls. My girls don't need to be exposed to something like this. It's really inappropriate...I don't want to speak ill of anyone. That's not who I am. I don't want to do that...." Hayes explained what happened in court saying, "He's [Stefanov] not ready. He didn't show up. The guy didn't come. We came. He didn't. What can I tell ya....If he doesn't show up from now till then (June 8th), they'll dismiss the case...It's not a real case. He just wants to make her life uncomfortable..." When asked if he thinks this is just a jilted lover's quarrel, Hayes responds, "I don't even know if I qualify him as lover. How about a jilted moron?" "Extra's" interview with Bensimon and Hayes airs tonight
 
Sally Kohn: How Japan's Other Hybrid Can Save American Jobs Top
Co-written with Sanford M. Jacoby. Original version appeared in Seattle Times , Sun March 29. Today, President Obama announced that the United States government is effectively taking over General Motors and Chrysler and considering bankruptcy. But while Japanese automaker Toyota is also taking a hit as global auto sales slump, analysts expect Toyota to ultimately prevail. It's not just the Prius. Another type of hybrid built into Japan's economic model blends corporate interest with the common good. Japan's cooperative capitalism is the key to Toyota's future -- and ideally America's, too. Promoting his stimulus package, President Obama said, "If you delay acting on an economy of this severity, [it potentially] becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they suffered what was called the 'lost decade.' " Yet while Japan has been used as a cautionary tale, in many ways even at the peak of its recession Japan remained better off than the United States today. Japan did not see its middle class disappear into swelling rates of poverty and unemployment. And Japan was not plagued by growing class resentment. Its inequality remained modest and its large corporations did not have bloated CEO salaries, including at those firms receiving government aid. Why? Despite some changes in recent years, most large Japanese corporations still practice a form of capitalism in which different groups with a stake in the enterprise -- owners, employees, managers, suppliers, creditors -- work together to create value. Cooperation is possible because the various stakeholders have made long-term commitments to the firm. The result is a more holistic corporation, balancing short-term opportunities with long-term needs. A large company in Japan is less likely to lay off thousands of employees simply to help its share price or to gut pension benefits to pay out higher dividends. In other words, Japanese corporations contribute to the common good rather than compete with it. American corporations (including banks), under pressure from speculative investors, prioritize driving up short-term stock prices and dividends. Executives are "aligned" with shareholder interests through stock-based compensation. But this creates an incentive for executives to boost their own compensation by taking excessive risks and by manipulating share prices. Ultimately this harms the long-term health of companies and thus the long-term health of America's economy. Toyota, for instance, refused to line investors' pockets and instead reinvested profits in capital improvements and in research and development, which led to the hybrid. By contrast, through the late 1990s, GM funneled billions of its profits to shareholders -- as dividends and share buybacks -- a fact often overlooked in discussions of what went wrong in Detroit. In stakeholder capitalism, employees participate in corporate decision-making. While unions in both Japan and the United States have declined in recent years, the level of unionization in the United States today is about half that in Japan. And in nonunion Japanese corporations, human capital still is valued more deeply. Senior human-resource executives are far more influential than in comparable American companies, where it is chief financial officers who rule the roost. And when corporations function as teams, fairness becomes an instinctive priority. In the United States in 2006, the average CEO earned more than 364 times the average U.S. worker -- a huge increase from, say, 1980, when the differential was just 40 times more. Japan, on the other hand, has one of the lowest CEO pay gaps in the world, with chief executives earning on average 10 times more than the average worker. Measurements of economic inequality find that wealth, too, is less unequally distributed in Japan. The United States ranks among the worst nations in terms of wealth inequality, at the end of the scale with South Africa and Iran. Of course, Japan is not an economic paradise. About a third of the population works in "atypical" jobs that carry no promise of employment security. These workers, mainly women and young people, don't receive the same benefits the Japanese business model provides others. Just as women and African-American and Latino men face disproportionate discrimination in the U.S. labor market, Japan's inequities, while lower overall, still exist. Nevertheless, lessons from Japan could strengthen the U.S. economy for generations to come. We can cut the gap between CEO and worker pay by giving shareholders a say in executive compensation, an idea that ideally will be ratified now that the SEC is under new management. But we need to go further. For example, we need to revamp corporate charter laws to mandate stakeholder governance and corporate accountability, to adopt laws like the Employee Free Choice Act to strengthen employee representation and to tax unearned income at the same rates applied to wages and salaries. Toyota, like Japan, is not a perfect example. The days of Japan as No. 1 are over. But it's worth noting that the first plank in the Toyota Way is: "Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals." That's a good place to start as we rethink the American corporation. Sanford M. Jacoby is professor of management and public policy in the UCLA Anderson School. He is author of "The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance & Employment Relations in Japan and the United States." Sally Kohn is senior campaign strategist for the Center for Community Change . Sometimes, I twitter. Will you follow me? http://twitter.com/sallykohn More on Barack Obama
 
David Hasselhoff Denies Work, Admits Botox Top
A representative for retro Baywatch star David Hasselhoff insists the nasty-ass Virgin Air folks who surmised that Mr. Hasselhoff had had regrettable plastic surgery are dead wrong. "Maybe a little Botox here and there," snip-snapped Hasselhoff's impressively forthright rep, "but absolutely no face-lift, he hasn't had one! No work at all."
 
Steve Ralls: Lisa Larges & The Reprecussions of Rejection Top
Lisa Larges recently found herself the latest person caught in the untenable Catch-22 of too many churches: How can openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people demonstrate their commitment to their chosen path - and be a positive example to parishioners who need them - when their own denomination labels them as unqualified to be leaders in their communities of faith? Larges, who was poised to become the Presbyterian Church's first openly lesbian minister, had her hopes dashed when, last week, the church blocked her path to ordination. And while church leaders did not specifically cite her sexual orientation as the reason for its decision - instead issuing a very technical ruling that the process used to advance her ordination was flawed - the fact remains that the Presbyterian Church, like too many others, continues to deny its congregants the opportunity to be led by clergy who reflect, from the pulpit, the diversity already evident in their pews. Indeed, LGBT people are part of every tradition of faith, but continue to be unfairly excluded from the leadership of their houses of worship. In most cases, an openly lesbian or gay person who adheres to every tenet of their religion is, nonetheless, blocked from ascending to the title of clergy. The result, unfortunately, is an unacceptable message that lesbian and gay people are somehow "less than" in the eyes of God . . . and that, in turn, has real consequences for families, and especially young people, who worship in houses that still refuse to put out a welcome mat for all spiritual seekers. The truth is that members of the clergy continue to play a monumental role in many people's lives. For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, that role can either be life-saving or heart-wrenchingly painful. And in both cases, the effects can be long-term. At Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians Gays ( PFLAG ), we know, for example, that the first place many parents turn to for help when a child "comes out" is their community of faith. Mothers and fathers look to ministers and rabbis for insight and guidance on how they should handle their child's announcement. And the difference between a message of love, and a message of rejection, can be all the difference in the world. A perfect example is the story of Mary Griffith , a devoutly religious mother who, on the advice of her pastor, tried to "cure" and "change" her son, Bobby, when he told her he was gay. Mary, believing her pastor would never give anything but the most righteous of advice, refused to accept her son and consistently drilled anti-gay theology into his head. Ultimately, Bobby committed suicide. And though Mary now crusades for the rights of young gay people like her son, imagine the difference it might have made if, instead of hearing sermons of hell and damnation, she had been able to turn to someone like Lisa Larges instead. With awesome power comes awesome responsibility, and it is simply irresponsible for church leaders to continue to turn gay clergy away. We now know, thanks to the ground-breaking work of researchers like Caitlin Ryan of the Family Acceptance Project , that the reaction of a young person's family, when they come out, can have long-term consequences on their health, happiness and well-being. And so it stands to reason that the guidance those families receive from their clergy is directly responsible, in many cases, for those young people, too. It is not just important - but imperative - that LGBT people be able to see themselves reflected in their churches and synagogues, too. And until all people of faith are able to serve at the pulpit, we will be doing an enormous disservice to those who are in the pews. Speaking recently to the Los Angeles Times , Larges said the Presbyterian Chuch's ruling would have "deeply personal and painful repercussions" for her, and no doubt it will. But in turning away Larges, the church has also, in symbolism and spirit, turned away Bobby and Mary Griffith and families like them, too. And the repercussions from that are too alarming - and painful - to ignore. The time has come for every community of faith to live up to the one tenet they share across all denomination: That to love one another is surely the greatest act of faith any of us can perform. More on Religion
 
Reform Panel Calls For Campaign Contribution Limits As Part Of Anti-Corruption Plan Top
CHICAGO — The Illinois reform commission launched in response to the corruption scandal surrounding ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY'-uh-vich) has unveiled a sweeping blueprint for change that includes limits on campaign contributions. Illinois is one of the few states with no campaign financing limits. The tentative proposal announced Tuesday would cap individual campaign contributions at $2,400 and those from committees at $5,000. The commission also proposes insulating procurement officials from politics and toughening the state Freedom of Information Act. Chairman Patrick M. Collins said releasing the still tentative blueprint now is timely because an indictment against Blagojevich on corruption charges could be coming soon. Federal prosecutors have until Thursday to obtain an indictment or seek an extension. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
John Feffer: Never Again (Maybe) Top
The elderly gentleman had a remarkable history. He'd worked in the State Department in Latin America and Afghanistan. And, 60 years ago, he served as a translator in Tokyo in connection with the war crimes trial that resulted in 25 guilty verdicts and seven executions of Japanese war criminals just after World War II. Given his background, I was surprised at his viewpoint. The rules from the Tokyo Trials about military aggression and crimes against peace will only be applied to small countries," Cecil Uyehara told me at a recent conference. "When Mai Lai occurred in Vietnam, nothing happened. We didn't apply this justice in Iraq, at Abu Ghraib either." Indeed, one of the U.S. lawyers defending the Japanese accused of war crimes in 1948 tried to argue that, because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States was as guilty as Japan in terms of killing civilians during wartime. This legal gambit failed. "Truman was not tried as a war criminal," historian Alexis Dudden writes in her book Troubled Apologies , "and nuclear weapons came to generate their own de facto legitimacy, standing today as the international community's legal weapon of mass destruction." Today, the rival interpretations of the Tokyo trials — the judgment of civilization or simply justice meted out by the victors — continue to bedevil the international community. Consider the tribunal currently addressing the Cambodian genocide. Although it's been 30 years since the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge period, only last month did the first member of the Pol Pot regime go on trial. Comrade Duch, who presided over the interrogation, torture, and execution of 14,000 people at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, isn't disputing his role in the murderous insanity. But the trial won't likely go beyond five key figures since the current government isn't enthusiastic about charging former Khmer Rouge officials who now serve within it. "Nor will there be an examination of the actions of other countries in the long Cambodian affliction — the American bombing campaign between 1969 and 1973, for example, that claimed anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 lives," writes Richard Bernstein in the New York Review of Books . So, as a human rights supporter, do you endorse the Cambodia tribunal (or the Tokyo tribunal or the ones for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia) as a partial measure of justice or do you withhold support because the whole set up is hopelessly flawed? This argument concerning selective focus extends to the debate over the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the new UN doctrine that argues for multilateral action if a state fails to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. This week at Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), we offer you three distinct takes on R2P from several FPIF contributors. In his brief in favor of R2P, Shaun Randol makes an impassioned plea in favor of the judgment of civilization. "Sixty years ago, the world cried 'never again' when the UN passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," he writes in R2P: No Love in a Time of Cholera . "Since then, however, the international community failed to intervene in Cambodia, Rwanda, and now Sudan to prevent genocide. If states fail to implement R2P in today's life-or-death situations, tomorrow's entreaty may be, 'Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Haiti, Zimbabwe, DRC, Burma, Uganda, Gaza — never again!' Millions hope otherwise." Bridget Moix and Trevor Keck also endorse the doctrine but emphasize its preventive and multilateral character. "Given the strong focus on prevention and a response tailored to each occasion — rather than jumping to military intervention — R2P is a step forward for the international system," they write in R2P: Focus on Prevention . "The Obama administration should endorse this doctrine, increase capacity-building assistance to states facing crises or under stress, and strengthen alliances to manage conflicts peacefully before they reach the point of potential mass violence. If prevention fails, the response — whether non-military or military — to an emerging genocide should be collective and authorized by the UN Security Council." Meanwhile, Steven Fake and Kevin Funk echo the criticism of the Tokyo trials as victors' justice. R2P, they argue, is just another method by which large states exert their will over small states. In all the discussions around the new doctrine, they write in R2P: Disciplining the Mice, Freeing the Lions , "no one asked whether killing 1,300 mostly civilians in the Gaza Strip was Israel's failure in its responsibility to protect Palestinians. [S]hould honest activists be calling for a 'humanitarian intervention' to halt Israeli crimes, and further, to target the individuals and institutions who make them possible? That Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power and other high-octane R2P advocates have not pursued such objectives tells us virtually all we need to know about the doctrine." Our contributors continue their debate in Strategic Dialogue: Responsibility to Protect where they address the flaws, virtues, and practical consequences of a doctrine that aspires to update for the 21st century principles articulated 60 years ago. If you want to know my views on the matter, stay tuned this week at FPIF for our next strategic dialogue on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic and why Yugoslavia still matters. In general, I prefer to look beyond either-or. As challenging as it might be, we must say "never again" to those who commit mass atrocities on the ground and by air, within borders and across borders, and on the winning side as well as the losing one. Let a thousand tribunals bloom. Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus. To subscribe to FPIF's World Beat, click here . More on Japan
 
Steve Chopyak: Unplug and Recharge: Soothing Song and Slideshow Top
"Unplug and Recharge" is a new Living series which aims to give you a quick break from your day -- whether you have as much time as ten minutes or as little as two. We're hoping to provide you with a little cyber-oasis -- a place to escape -- where you can take a moment to unplug, relax, and recharge. In today's installment, we bring to you a soothing slideshow, acompanied by a calming song - both by accomplished musician and sought-after health practitioner Steve Chopyak. So sit back, press play, and prepare to be swept away. More on Photo Galleries
 
Daley Reminds Cops Of His Largesse In Advance Of Olympics Protest Top
Chicago taxpayers have been "very good to public employees," Mayor Daley said Tuesday, advising police officers preparing to embarrass him by picketing when the International Olympic Committee comes to town this week to enter "the real world."
 
Omid Memarian: G20, Obama And His New Brand Foreign Policy Top
When Presiden Obama steps down from Air Force One to join the G20 summit, he might not have much to say about the chaotic situation of economy, but he will be able to show how his administration dramatically differs from his predecessor in foreign policy. Unlike the challenges facing Obama's economic plan, his foreign policy strategy is moving forward fast, much faster than one could expect. It was hard to imagine that in less than two months, the new President assigned three super envoys to the Middle East, Iran and Pakistan, started suggesting regional cooperation to Ayatollahs in Tehran, showed interests in visiting Bashar Asad of Syria and is changing his tone towards Russia and also is indicating a desire to form coalitions in order to solve regional problems. Obama seems to have to this realization that the world does not see the United States in the same way the United States sees itself. It is no surprise that, from the streets of Jakarta to downtown Paris and Istanbul, the United States looks like a declining super power. It aggressively uses military force, assumes an arrogant tone in international rhetoric and fails to overcome its problems domestically. It is a super power that acts irresponsibly in response to major global issues, from the fight fo the environment to the fight against terrorism. This is in addition to a decline in the United States' moral standards, which dramatically collapsed during the tragedies in Abu Ghoreib and Guantanamo, two state-orchestrated cases of torture and abuse. In fact, it doesn't seem there are any realistic reasons to believe the quote from Obama's inauguration speech that "we are ready to lead again". To overcome the challenges facing the United States' moral and legitimate authority, President Obama had to differentiate himself boldly from his predecessor. He called for shutting down the Guantanamo prison and banning torture. His first interview with Al-Arabia also was designed for the same reason. He rejects the "We vs. Them"/"West vs. Islam" philosophy and implementation of Samuel Huntington's theory of Clash of Civilizations in U.S. foreign policy doctrine and repeatedly invokes mutual respect in his speeches; a forgotten term in U.S. relations to the other countries. It's true that since 9/11, there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but plenty of hatred and anger has been generated in Muslim countries and beyond over the past eight years. It is almost unrealistic to say the United States has become more safe and secure; instead, fear and a mild, consistent threat of terrorist attacks have become a part of the American psyche. Although it seems that the situation in Iraq has become more stabilized over the past year, there remains great potential for more violence again. In Afghanistan the situation does not appear better at all. Here, the main strategy seems to be based on damage control and preventing the Afghanistan fiasco from becoming another Vietnam-like war, with the rising power of the Taliban government and the unwillingness of U.S. allies to keeps their troops there. Obama's package diplomacy, or effectively incorporating regional power as a specific resolution to end current stalemates, seems to be the best way to go. This requires engaging Iran to cooperate in making Iraq and Afghanistan more secure, asking moderate elements of Taliban to play a more responsible role, bringing Syria to the negotiation table with Israel and committing to support the outcomes regardless of domestic changes in those countries. The Package Diplomacy will also prompt the United States to give up its ambition to support poorly managed democracies in Russia's neighboring countries in the risk of losing Moscow. At the same time, it will incorporate Iran's nuclear plan as a part of the deal with Kremlin. Last June at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Obama declared, "As President, I will do whatever I can to help Israel succeed in these negotiations." In order to change the course, the President should show the same level of commitment to do whatever he can to make the other negotiations work. Any act of isolating a country - even a hostile one - and forming high-pressure coalitions to bring it to its knees as a part of U.S. foreign policy has not produced many positive changes and seems to be outside of President Obamas' foreign policy agenda. President Obama is fully aware of the fact that differentiating himself from George W. Bush will take more than personal charm and pleasing rhetoric, and it should be followed by adopting a series of policies and tough decisions. That's why he must take responsibility for the wrongdoings during the Bush era. He might have to apologize for the damage Washington has made throughout the world and will need to be ready to compromise and show respect to sovereign states. Acknowledging the misbehaviors of the past increases the Obama administration's capability to be trusted again as a responsible leader. This might include launching independent committees to investigate the way the recent wars were handled, particularly in regards to the mistreatment of prisoners. Obama's foreign policy path is not easy, but it is necessary to put the United States to a new path, though the results might not come soon or always satisfying. If President Obama wants to promote his brand new foreign policy doctrine, the G20 Summit is his best opportunity. More on Barack Obama
 
The Progress Report: Introducing PNAC 2.0 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 . Today in Washington D.C., neoconservatives William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Dan Senor will officially launch their new war incubator -- The Foreign Policy Initiative -- with a half-day conference on "the path to success in Afghanistan" (never mind the fact that Kagan and Kristol declared that "the endgame seems to be in sight in Afghanistan" almost seven years ago). Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, and Kagan, Carnegie Endowment fellow and Washington Post columnist, have long histories of advocating policies that rely heavily on the United States exerting its influence throughout the world by using military force. Senor, who has stayed relatively under the radar, served as Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman in Iraq under L. Paul Bremer. But as the New Yorker's George Packer noted, Senor "slowly lost his credibility in the daily press briefings he gave...during the first year of the occupation of Baghdad." In its initial focus on the war in Afghanistan, FPI chose heavy representation of Iraq war advocates for its panelists and guest speakers. As the Wonk Room's Matt Duss recently wrote, "a far better title" for FPI's maiden voyage would be "Afghanistan: Dealing With The Huge Problems Created By Many Of The People On This Very Stage." 'PNAC=MISSION ACCOMPLISHED': Kristol and Kagan -- with support from Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld -- co-founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the late 1990s with the mission "to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire." Military force was always an option, and often the preferred one. Indeed, the group led the charge to get President Clinton to sign the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, and it served as a key lobby for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But with neoconservatism now all but dead and its principles soundly rejected in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the face of PNAC 2.0 -- The Foreign Policy Initiative -- is less bellicose. Indeed, as Duss recently noted, "this new very innocuous sounding Foreign Policy Institute" indicates that neoconservatives "understand that they have something of an image problem," adding that it is "encouraging" that they "have some relation to reality." Yet there is no reason to believe there will be much of an ideological shift from its its predecessor, as its main founders -- especially Kristol -- are still deeply wedded to neoconservatism. Indeed, Michael Goldfarb, PNAC alum and editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote on Twitter yesterday: "PNAC=Mission Accomplished; New mission begins tomorrow morning with the launch of FPI." ALREADY AT ODDS: Senor told Foreign Policy magazine last week that part of the group's mission is to build "consensus" on major international issues that challenge the current thinking of those who currently hold power in the U.S. government. "We think there needs to be consensus on the other side of these issues," he said. Yet even before the organization's first event, it appears that FPI is having trouble building that "consensus." Kristol called President Obama's recent "historic" message to Iran "an embarrassment" and a "message of weakness," claiming Obama has "no sense of urgency about Iran's nuclear program" and is "kowtowing" to its leaders. However, it appears that Kagan did not get Senor's "consensus" memo. Days later, commenting on Obama's message, Kagan offered a relatively more sensible view. "[T]here is logic to the administration's approach. After all, if the White House is going to give diplomacy and engagement a chance, it might as well do so thoroughly and aggressively," he wrote in the Washington Post. "I honestly can't see the harm in the Obama administration's efforts. I hope they succeed," he said. EXPECT NO ACCOUNTABILITY: Despite the fact that the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has been regarded as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, expect no remorse from the PNAC/FPI crowd. In fact, Kristol has been declaring victory in Iraq at every step of the way, from saying in April 2003 that the "battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably," to claiming last December, "We've won the war" in Iraq. Just last week, a caller on C-SPAN's Washington Journal asked Kristol if he would apologize for hyping the threat from Saddam Hussein before the war, given that no WMD existed and "the fact that there are 4,500 American lives lost there." "No. I think the war was right, and I think we've succeeded in the war," Kristol replied. While Senor thinks the war has been a huge defeat for Iran (it hasn't), Packer noted that Kagan has "written many words about the war, but has never been able to acknowledge his own intellectual failures on Iraq." Despite the failures of neoconservatism, FPI's mission statement contains the neo-neocon buzz words: military engagement in the world, "rogue regimes," "rogue states," "spread...freedom," "strong military" (with a "defense budget" to back it up), "fascism," "communism," and "pre-9/11 tactics." Discussing FPI with Duss last week, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked, "Why is it that people who are catastrophically wrong about big important things like foreign policy and war never, like, flunk out of that as a subject? "There seems to be this special dispensation in American foreign policy that, as long as you are wrong on the side of more military force, then all is forgiven," Duss replied. He added that "the way it works in Washington, if you're arguing for more military intervention which necessitates more military expenditures, you're always going to find someone to fund your think-tank." More on Bill Kristol
 
Daley Slams Quinn's Budget For Shorting Chicago Top
Today, Daley, whose voice is heard by many of the city's state lawmakers, threw cold water on Quinn's plan. "We get no benefit," the mayor said at a news conference at a school on the South Side. "Then why should anybody be for it?"
 
Stuart Shapiro: Use Medicaid stimulus funds to help seniors Top
USE MEDICAID STIMULUS FUNDS TO ENHANCE PENNSYLVANIAN'S HEALTH CARE By Stuart H. Shapiro, MD President and CEO Pennsylvania Health Care Association Pennsylvania will receive nearly $4 billion in additional federal Medicaid funds over the next 22 months as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Inclusion of these funds in the stimulus package is in response to pleas from the National Governors Association, chaired by our own Governor Ed Rendell, calling on Congress to help states preserve access to health care for children, struggling families, the disabled and the elderly. Now that the stimulus funds have begun arriving, Governor Rendell and state lawmakers should use those funds --- as well as already pledged state Medicaid dollars --- to shore up and preserve a fraying safety net that cares for Pennsylvania's neediest residents, starting with the elderly. In trying economic times, limited funding must be targeted where it is needed most, and nothing can be more important than caring for our most vulnerable populations. Some governors have stated that they plan to use state funds originally slated for Medicaid to plug other budget holes instead, now that additional federal Medicaid dollars are on the way. But Pennsylvania cannot afford to follow that lead. Our state is already on the verge of a fiscal tsunami when it comes to caring for the elderly, as we are among the nation's oldest and most rapidly aging states. By the very nature of most social programs, demand for services increases when times are tough. We already know that the number of uninsured adults is rising as hardworking Pennsylvanians are losing their jobs and, hence, their health insurance. The number of people who qualify for Medical Assistance is increasing, and will continue to increase in the months, even years, ahead. Despite the robust growth of home and community care for seniors and the disabled over the past few years, the need for these vital services also continues to grow. As acting Secretary of Aging Mike Hall told a reporter last week, the Governor's flat funding of senior services in his proposed 2009/2010 budget is recognition that demographic shifts are only going to increase the need to assist the older population. But flat funding does not mean these programs are held harmless. The cost for delivering care continues to rise. Nursing homes are in a particularly difficult situation, as they are the health care provider most impacted by the chronic Medicaid under-reimbursements that plague Pennsylvania. Two out of three nursing home residents are on Medicaid, and for each one of them, the cost of care exceeds the cost of reimbursement for that care by $14 a day, or $5,000 a year. And that gap grows wider each year. A report from the Pennsylvania Hospital and Health System Association revealed that between 42 percent and 68 percent of hospitals, depending on their location in the commonwealth, have indicated they are finding "capacity for skilled nursing care an impediment to timely and appropriate discharge of patients to post-acute settings" problematic or very problematic. This is driven, in significant measure, by low Medicaid reimbursement for nursing homes. Since Medicaid is a state and federal match program, the more state money that is invested in health care, the more federal money flows into our commonwealth. And at a time when many hardworking families and seniors are finding themselves in desperate economic situations, it is vital that Pennsylvania preserve access to health care and health services. Our economy will never be strong if our residents are weak. There are still enormous challenges ahead, and we recognize the difficult tasks Governor Rendell and the legislature face. But health-care money should be used for health-care purposes. Anything less puts at risk those who need help the most.
 
Jerry Weissman: Speed Kills in Q&A Top
One of the most important qualities for success in business is the very quality that impedes the effective handling of tough questions: rapid response time. Any business man or woman is expected to react quickly to problems, and to come up with prompt solutions. However, in responding to tough questions, speed can kill. Tough questions are a part of the terrain in business and, given today's tough economy, the terrain is rougher than ever. In every facet of life, people are in search of answers to their problems, and so their questions are loaded with emotion. If a responder answers too rapidly and with equal emotion, be it defensive or contentious, the battle is joined and the exchange heads rapidly downhill--a lose-lose engagement. In preparing for tough questions, a results-driven mindset often involves an approach know as "Rude Q&A," in which a list of anticipated challenging questions is drawn up and then matched with list of appropriate answers. There is a small flaw in this approach: people don't ask questions as written; they usually ask them in a long rambling or convoluted manner. This causes the responder to scramble for the right answer at best, or the wrong answer, at worst. The solution is to slam on the brakes and NOT think of the answer while the question is being asked, instead to listen carefully to the question. What a concept: listen! Listening has become a lost practice in our culture. For those people who still retain a semblance of politeness, it has become waiting for one's turn to speak; for those who no longer bother, it has become not to listen at all, but to talk past the next person. Listening will feel counterintuitive to the results-driven businessperson and be difficult to do, but is absolutely vital. Failure to observe this simple rule can result in failure of the answer, of the presentation, of the meeting, or of the entire business proposition.
 
Khmer Rouge Defendant Admits Guilt, Expresses 'Heartfelt Sorrow' Top
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The man accused of being the Khmer Rouge's chief torturer put down his prepared speech, removed his eyeglasses and gazed at the courtroom audience as he pleaded for forgiveness from the country he helped terrorize three decades ago. "At the beginning I only prayed to ask for forgiveness from my parents, but later I prayed to ask forgiveness from the whole nation," Kaing Guek Eav (pronounced "Gang Geck Ee-uu") _ better known as Duch ("Doik") _ recounted on the second day of his trial before Cambodia's genocide tribunal. The hundreds of spectators seated on the other side of a glass wall in the courtroom _ including relatives of the regime's victims _ listened intently to the gripping testimony. The tribunal's proceedings are the first serious attempt to fix responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution under the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Duch, 66, is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as murder and torture and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty. He commanded the group's main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths. The indictment read out in court Monday contained wrenching descriptions of the torture and executions he allegedly supervised. Duch betrayed no emotion as he listened to allegations that his prisoners were beaten, electrocuted, smothered with plastic bags or had water poured into their noses, and that children were taken from parents and dropped to their deaths or that some prisoners were bled to death. He got his first public opportunity to speak after prosecutors gave opening arguments Tuesday. Duch said he tried to avoid becoming commander of Tuol Sleng, but once in the job, he feared for his family's lives if he did not carry out his duty to extract confessions from supposed enemies of the regime. Nevertheless, he took responsibility "for crimes committed at S-21, especially the tortures and executions of the people there." He said he wanted "to express my deep regretfulness and my heartfelt sorrow" for all the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge. Duch offered apologies to the victim's families, and acknowledged that it may be too much to ask for immediate forgiveness for "serious crimes that cannot be tolerated." "I would like you to please leave an open window for me to seek forgiveness," he pleaded. He vowed to cooperate fully with the tribunal as the only "remedy that can help me to relieve all the sorrow." Speaking after his client, Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth said Duch was a scapegoat and a victim of selective justice while many more suspects with blood on their hands remain uncharged. Duch is the least senior of only five surviving leaders of the regime scheduled to go before the court. Critics allege that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has sought to limit the tribunal's scope because other potential defendants are now his political allies. Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge officer, expressed disdain for the court Tuesday during a speech in Cambodia's southwest, saying that adding defendants could spark renewed warfare and mocking the panel's budget troubles. He said he would prefer the court ran out of money "as soon as possible." At the tribunal, co-prosecutor Chea Leang vowed to pursue justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge. "For 30 years, a generation of Cambodians have been struggling to get answers for their fate," she said. "Justice will be done ... History demands it." Duch has been in detention since he was discovered in 1999 by British journalist Nic Dunlop in the Cambodian countryside, where he had been hiding under an assumed name. Dunlop, who attended Tuesday's hearing, said it was "surreal" to see Duch in a courtroom as victims of the Khmer Rouge watched, but was concerned whether people would learn from the proceedings, which were broadcast on state television. "Whether it resonates beyond these walls is the big question, and if it doesn't, we might as well be on another planet," he said. The majority of Cambodia's 14 million-plus population was born after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, and many struggle daily to make a living in the poverty-stricken country. "I heard about the tribunal but I'm not interested in the trial," said Leang Nalin, 22, a finance student at university. "I'm busy and I don't want to know about that. My parents never talk about it." The trial resumes Wednesday, and is supposed to conclude in early July. ___ Associated Press writers Susan Postlewaite and Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh contributed to this report. More on Genocide
 
Carl Pope: Start Your Engines Top
Washington, D.C. -- As House Speaker Pelosi said this morning, "This is it, the change begins." House Energy Chairman Henry Waxman and his lead subcommittee chair, Ed Markey, this morning introduced a 600-page comprehensive bill to move America simultaneously towards energy independence and a new, low-carbon energy economy. The bill represents a broad outline -- many of the most crucial details will be worked out in legislative negotiations -- but it is an incredibly powerful and hopeful sign. It comes only days after Waxman and Markey were joined by their predecessors as committee leaders, Michigan's John Dingell and Virginia's Rick Boucher, in a letter to President Obama, calling for strong legislative action on energy and climate. It's quite remarkable to see Dingell and Markey joining with Waxman and Markey in saying: Three imperatives -- our energy, environment, and economic needs -- drive our commitment to action. The energy imperative we face is to diversify the nation's energy supplies and reduce our foreign dependence, especially on oil from the Middle East, which imperils our national security. The environmental imperative is to protect the planet from global warming. As scientists learn about the dangers of "tipping points" in the global ecosystem and their potentially disastrous consequences, the need for decisive efforts grows increasingly urgent. And the economic imperative is to provide an engine to drive the nation out of the recession.... And only days earlier, the United Steelworkers of America, the Laborers International Union, the Service Employees Union, and the Communication Workers of America joined the Sierra Club and NRDC in a joint labor-environmental statement of principals on energy and climate change legislation under the aegis of the Blue-Green Alliance originally organized by the Club and the Steelworkers but now expanding into a broader labor-environmental mobilizing effort. The Catholic Church has unveiled plans to send every parish materials on climate and poverty this Earth Day. Other denominations, hunting and angling groups, and business organizations are all coming together to insist that it is time to move forward, time to create a new energy economy, time to end our dependence on dirty fossil-fuel technologies. And support for this effort is coming from all over. The Salt Lake Tribune, for example, said, "If the plan were to meet its ambitious goals of U.S. energy independence, the creation of more than 300,000 jobs and substantial reduction in global warming, it would be a bargain. "The dollar amounts are astonishing, but so are the problems that renewable energy could help solve." Let's be clear: Coal and oil will not go gently into that good night; they are already fighting back viciously, and the ideologues of the reactionary right will join them. But history demands that America act now, and I think America is finally ready to answer that summons.
 
Meghan McCain's Aaron Shock Blog: "He Can Relay A Message In Ways My Father Never Could" Top
Meghan McCain writes on The Daily Beast about a subject near and dear to Huffington Post: GOP Congressman Aaron Shock. Aside from pointing out her surprise that a GOP Congressman could be such a looker (she was sure Shock would be a democrat at first), McCain draws a comparison between him and her much much older father, pointing out that Schock "can relay a message in ways my father never could". Schock's rapid rise to the national level is, if nothing else, interesting, especially given the serious soul-searching the Republican Party is experiencing. My father, had he won, would have been the oldest president in history elected to a first term. He was often criticized because of the generational gap between him and young voters. Schock should play his youth to his advantage, and so should the GOP. In a party stereotyped as one for old, white men, Schock has made a marked impression on my generation's zeitgeist--even if it was unintentional. McCain also believes the 27-year old hottie from Illinois is exactly what the GOP needs right now: Schock's youth allows him to be more attached to my (our) generation, yet he has not oversaturated himself in the media, making him all the more intriguing. With that comes much power; I encourage Schock, and the Republican Party, to embrace his age and his political convictions to continue to communicate conservative ideals to a growing audience. Want more on Aaron Shock? See the poll that confirmed his hotness. Read Shock's "thank you" to HuffPost readers. Watch Shock discuss his abs on TMZ. More on John McCain
 
Chris Dodd: The Moment for Credit Card Reform Top
We all know what an uphill battle reforming abusive credit card practices has been. As a twenty-five year veteran of that fight, I know it as well as anyone. But this morning, the Senate took a big step up that mountain. Today, the Senate Banking Committee passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act - legislation I wrote to stop abusive and deceptive credit card practices once and for all. Indeed, 2009 may well prove a watershed moment for credit card reform. For people like Samantha Moore, a paralegal from Guilford, Connecticut I met a few weeks ago, it couldn't come a moment too soon. In January, she was three days late on a credit card payment - the first late payment in 18 years. For that seemingly minor transgression, she had her interest rate raised from 12% to 27% and her credit limit slashed from $31,400 to $4,500 - told that the reason for the severe penalty was that she hadn't been paying enough to other creditors and that their high credit limit exceeded their income. Samantha was a victim of "universal default" - where credit card companies use unrelated information, like a late utility bill, to increase that family's rates. Universal default is one of countless abusive practices credit card companies regularly engage in today that my legislation would put to an end. Here are a few other practices the Credit C.A.R.D Act ends: "Any Time, Any Reason" interest rate hikes. Issuers often unilaterally change the terms of a credit card contract before the term is up. One issuer "voluntarily" eliminated these hikes after Congress exposed them. They even ran ads stating that "a deal is a deal." But there is nothing binding them to that commitment, and most issuers have already gone back to the practice - one a Pew Charitable Trusts survey found in 93% of 400 cards issued by the country's largest banks and issuers. This bill makes that practice illegal. Penalty Rates With No End. Let's say you've been a customer in good standing, and you have a reasonable interest rate of 12%. You pay your bill three days late, and you get raised to a penalty interest rate of 29.9%. Once that penalty rate increase is triggered, there is no limit on how long it will last. From that point on, you continue to pay your bill on time, but despite that, you continue to pay the penalty rate for the life of that card. The amount and duration of the penalty rate is entirely determined by the card issuer. My bill says that after 6 months of on time payment, your rate has to go back down. Double-Cycle Billing. Say a few months ago, you had a credit card debt of a thousand dollars - and that since then, you've paid off $900 of that debt. It's not uncommon for credit card companies to keep charging interest not on a hundred dollars but on the full $1,000 for another cycle or two. The Credit C.A.R.D Act prevents that practice. Aggressive Marketing to Young People. Recently, my seven year-old daughter received a credit card solicitation in the mail. Jackie and I laughed it off, but it brings up a serious point: young people are faced with an onslaught of credit card offers. And just as we saw in the mortgage crisis with lenders and borrowers, too often, issuers offer cards to young people without verifying any ability to repay whatsoever. This is particularly true for students, who are flooded with offers the second they set foot onto a college campus - in fact, industry officials have testified to Congress that simply being a college student is considered a "positive factor" toward the ability to pay. This bill simply says that credit card companies must take into account a young person's ability to repay before allowing them to take on what is all too often a lifetime's worth of debt. The truth is, I've been working with advocates and consumer groups to reform credit card company practices for 25 years. For much of that time, our efforts have fallen on deaf ears. But I think this time is different. And as we learned in this housing crisis, when companies lure people into deceptive, abusive and predatory financial agreements, it not only means mountains of debt for families, bankruptcy and financial ruin for too many - it can also prove catastrophic for our economy. That is why I have said again and again that consumer protection must be at the forefront of our efforts to modernize our financial regulatory system. There are so many things we must do to make that possible. But none will be more important than reforming the practices of our nation's credit card companies drive so many families deeper and deeper into debt. It is one issue that quite literally touches every family in the country. The moment to act is now. More on Economy
 
Men In Kilts: Mike Myers, Ed Westwick, Sean Connery & More (PHOTOS) Top
Monday in New York was the annual "Dressed to Kilt" fundraiser benefiting the Friends of Scotland organization. Taking a turn on the catwalk were Mike Myers, Andie MacDowell, Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl), Kellie Pickler (American Idol), Dario Franchitti (NASCAR driver and Indy 500 Champion), Damien Woody (New York Jets), Alex McCord (Real Housewives of New York City), Marcus Schenkenberg (model) and more. PHOTOS: More on Photo Galleries
 
Robert Naiman: Why Does Senator Conrad Want to Humiliate President Obama at the G20 Summit? Top
The "One" campaign against global poverty reports : The Senate Budget Committee, chaired by Senator Kent Conrad, wants to cut $4 billion from the president's International Affairs Budget - the part of the budget funding almost all of our anti-poverty work. This would be terrible policy any day of the week. Recall that on February 12, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress that the global economic crisis was the most serious security challenge facing the United States and that it could topple governments and trigger waves of refugees. Cutting the International Affairs budget means directly attacking the Obama Administration's ability to respond to the most serious security challenge facing the United States. In particular, the cut could lead to a freeze in programs that provide life-saving treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. But attacking the International Affairs budget this week is particularly obscene. President Obama is leaving today for the G20 "Economic Crisis Summit" in London. The top agenda item is how to counter the effects of the global economic crisis on countries that don't have the capacity to create their own economic stimulus. Cutting the President's international aid request this week will undercut President Obama at the very moment he will be trying to argue for a coordinated international response. Other countries will say: how can you ask us to do more when your Senate is slashing your proposed increase? As President Obama said last summer : "I know development assistance is not the most popular of programs, but as president, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world and increasing our own security," he said. "That's why I will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012 and use it to support a stable future in failing states and sustainable growth in Africa, to halve global poverty and to roll back disease." Four billion dollars is about 1/40th of the amount of money that would be saved by implementing Rep Barney Frank's proposal to cut the U.S. military budget by 25%. Or, put another way, cutting the U.S. military budget by less than 1% would pay for restoring the President's increase in international development assistance. Fortunately, other Senators are pushing back. Senators Kerry and Lugar have introduced an amendment to restore the President's request. Ask your senators to support the Kerry-Lugar Amendment which would restore the full $4 billion for international development assistance. More on Foreign Policy
 
Bonnie Fuller: Madonna's $2,800 Chanel Sweatsuit Doesn't Make Her A Dastardly Adopter! Top
When Little Orphan Annie is adopted by Daddy Warbucks in the Broadway show "Annie," does anyone in the audience think, "This is an outrage"? Daddy Warbucks lives in a huge, fabulous mansion on Fifth Avenue, is friends with President Roosevelt and when he first brings Annie home for a tryout visit, he assigns his assistant to take charge of her — yet no one in the audience gasps. I don't recall theatergoers telling their children that poor little Annie should have stayed in the orphanage because Daddy Warbucks is too rich, too single, and possibly in too much of a midlife crisis to adopt her. And remember, it's not ascertained until the end of the show that Annie is in fact a true orphan — her parents could still be alive. Well if it's OK for richie rich Daddy Warbucks to become an "adoptive" dad, then why are media and other Big Mouths in a fury that megarich Madonna is about to "steal" another African child from an orphanage? So what that she's rich and is touring the Malawian orphanage in a $2,800 Chanel sweatsuit ? At least she's there and she's spent a portion of her fortune making improvements to that orphanage. Are her critics raising money to improve the lives of the one million Malawian orphans or lining up to adopt them themselves? There's certainly plenty of children desperate for parents in the small African country — one in five of its children are, in fact, orphans. If Madonna can give an opportunity to even one of these poverty-stricken children, why should her wardrobe matter? Has anyone priced out Angelina Jolie's outfits when she went to Vietnam, Ethiopia or Cambodia - the home countries of HER three adopted children? When Angelina dresses for red carpet events, she routinely wears Ralph Lauren, Versace and Max Azria. Should this disqualify her from adopting in the future? Should all wealthy people with designer-laden wardrobes be excluded from adopting? Should Oprah forget her dream of educating poor South African girls because she likes to carry an Hermes purse? The child that Madonna is adopting is reportedly named Mercy and she is 4 years old. I remember hearing that when Madonna adopted David Banda as an infant — he's now a healthy-looking 3-year-old — she had also wanted to adopt a little girl named Mercy. So she's had Mercy in her sight for two years, and never forgot about her. She's hardly returned to Malwai to "shop" for a child. If anything, she's refused to forget about an orphan that, like Annie, desperately needed a home to call her own. According to press reports, Mercy's 18-year old mother died when she was just five days old, her dad is MIA and she has a 61 year-old grandmother Lucy Chekechiwa who has accused Madonna of stealing her granddaughter. Mind you: Mercy lives in the same orphanage where Madonna discovered David Banda. She does not live with her grandmother. Now, I am sympathetic to the feelings of Mercy's grandmother who doesn't want to lose all ties with her granddaughter. But put this in an American perspective. There are hundreds of thousands of children in this country who are ineligible for adoption because a parent or grandparent who can't care for them has refused to release them for adoption. Instead, these children and teenagers are caught in the foster care system for years, and can be shuttled from foster home to foster home to group home, until they are 18. The result: They never have the opportunity to have their own loving, stable home with an adoptive family of their own. Instead, when they are 18 they are thrown out like unwanted animals to fend for themselves in the streets. Rosie O'Donnell just filmed a movie called "America" for Lifetime about this harsh reality. Now imagine being Mercy. She has a chance to escape a place where one in five children doesn't live past the age of five, the average life expectancy is 48, and the average household income is $160 a year. How powerless would you feel if a bunch of muckety mucks that you've never met are trying to ruin your chance for a better life? Wouldn't you want to be special to someone? Have a mom? Have someone to kiss your boo boos? Have a big sister and two brothers? Have a cozy bed? Go to school? Be able to see a doctor when you're sick? Have enough to eat? Go to college? Be able to have a profession that you love when you grow up? Would you really want to be denied these things because your potential mom was rich and wore a $2,800 Chanel sweatsuit? Madonna with her Kabbalah and fitness obsession may not be everyone's cup of tea but by all reports she is a loving mother. Lourdes and Rocco have been photographed playing happily with local kids in Central Park numerous times. They look like completely normal, happy children. Pictures of David Banda show that he's grown into a healthy, smiling three year-old. There's no evidence that the children of rock stars grow up any more or less dysfunctional than other children, at least as long as they aren't featured in a reality show, Ozzy Osbourne- style. So have mercy on Madonna Bigbucks and Mercy. If you're not prepared to go to Africa and adopt a needy child, then don't diss someone who is, even if she is a material girl. For more on Madonna's adoption, follow Bonnie at Twitter at twitter.com/bonniefuller . More on Madonna
 
Netanyahu To Obama: Stop Iran, Or I Will Top
In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons--and quickly--or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran's nuclear facilities itself. More on Israel
 
Scott Diel: Brothel Watch Top
Two years ago, a women's rights organization claimed there were 60 to 100 brothels operating in Tallinn, the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Estonia. The police cracked down, and now it's believed there are fewer than half that number. You can't deny the progress, but if you look at the numbers for very long (old or new, take your pick), you start to see brothels everywhere. You start to think your neighbors are operating bordellos. Which mine actually happen to be. I live in what is supposedly one of the more upscale residential suburbs. It's a small enough neighborhood that I know most foreign residents. At the beginning of last summer I heard English spoken on my neighbor's deck. They were just over the fence, through the hedge. The accents and voices changed daily, and it struck me as a very social family. I wondered if I should I stick my head over the fence and introduce myself? "Hi, I'm Scott. Strange we haven't met before." But for some reason I didn't. Something held me back. "It's probably a brothel," my wife said. "There's one up by the petrol station which they just closed. They're all over." A week later, I ordered a taxi and got a driver who liked to talk. He was 70 years old, had been driving since Soviet time. "Lots of brothels in Estonia?" I asked. Why not ask? He would know. "There were forty up until about a month ago," he answered, as naturally as if I'd asked about a football match. "But the police closed eight." "What about in this neighborhood?" "Oh, you've got two at least." "The one near the petrol station," I said, trying to sound smart. "And the one right behind you." He named the address. "Right," I said. "Of course." A guy can't admit to being too naïve. Later on in the summer, when the apple trees were in full bloom, the brothel workers held a sing-along. Though the girls themselves were masked by the foliage, their voices carried throughout the neighborhood. It was like living next to a Girl Scout camp. And, I have to admit, they were pretty good. Was this a practice to ready them for the workday? A friend suggested this was "the famous Estonian Whores' Choir," rumored to be competing with the Estonian Men's Choir for a shot at a Grammy. Whatever the reason, the ladies of the morning completed only two songs before disbanding to meet the challenges of the day. Usually, though, the music isn't so pleasant. Most days are comprised of a mini Russian rock concert. The girls blast music as they hang red and black underwear out to dry on the balcony. My wife refers to the ritual as "raising the pirate flag." "I wouldn't tolerate a whorehouse in my neighborhood," said a friend visiting from England. He was enjoying a drink in my garden with a group of friends, all of us listening to the cackle of a bleach-blonde and her john through the firs. "I'd be afraid to complain," countered an Estonian. He suggested that the Estonian police--not always sterling examples of law enforcement--would reveal my identity to the hot-blooded types who own the brothel. "You could call from a payphone," the Brit suggested. "Yes, that might work," the Estonian agreed. But I don't intend to call the police. Sure, the girls make too much noise, and maybe they do drive down the property value. But if the prostitutes were driven out, they might be replaced with worse. Like a family with teenagers. Teenagers with a rock band.
 
Rerun: Pelosi Expects Zero GOP Votes For Budget Top
House Republicans are likely to drop another goose egg on the House floor when the budget comes up for a vote this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Tuesday. "I think I can count on not having any Republican votes on the budget," Pelosi told liberal bloggers on a conference call. "Civil as we like to have the debate be, and as it was in the budget committee, [Republicans] offered 50 amendments and the Democrats, right down the line, from right to left in our party, rejected every one of their amendments, because they were not values-based, intellectually driven about the change we need for the future," Pelosi said. Pelosi called on the bloggers to whip support for the package. "The first help that you can provide for us is to insist that people vote for the budget. Because without that, if the budget fails, we're all up the creek in term of education, healthcare and energy," she said. "So it's very, very important that the budget succeed." Pelosi may have spoken too soon: Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-La.), who once referred to himself as a "closet Democrat," told The Hill that he might vote for the president's budget . More on Obama's Budget
 
5 Organic Gardening Tips For The White House Gardeners (and You!) Top
Here are 5 tips from Scott Meyer and Organic Gardening for the White House gardeners, and those who would like to join them: • Heirloom options: Mrs. Obama mentions her interest in heirloom tomatoes in the New York Times article. We're tempted to recommend a well-regarded variety named for the last president to come from Illinois, but our field trials and taste tests have consistently demonstrated that 'Cherokee Purple' is the best tasting and most reliable heirloom. And the President may enjoy pleasant childhood memories when eating the fruity-tasting 'Hawaiian Pineapple' tomato.
 
Gay Ads On The CTA Vandalized Top
The words are carefully carved out, with scissors or a sharp blade. At times, they are covered with tape. The goal of the handiwork, health advocates say, is clear: Take "gay, sexy, healthy" out of public view. More on HIV/AIDS
 
Barofsky To Announce Counterparty Audit Top
Government-appointed TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky said a Senate hearing Tuesday that he plans to review AIG's payments of billions in taxpayer bailout dollars to counterparties in the U.S. and abroad. "We're announcing an audit this week," said Barofksy, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, in response to questionsing from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Last week 27 members of Congress wrote Barofksy to request that he investigate the counterparty payments, which AIG disbursed without first seeking partial settlements. This story will update with video soon as it's available.
 
More Celebrity Names That Are Also Sentences Top
It turns out that there are a lot of celebrities whose names are also sentences. As promised from last week , here are 10 more! 10. Jeremy Irons 9. Britney Spears 8. Tyra Banks 7. George Burns 6. Kathy Bates 5. Mark Spitz 4. Richard Marx 3. Brooke Shields 2. Taye Diggs 1. Cher More on LOL
 
Good News Google: Stock Up On Venture Fund, Disney Deal (VIDEO) Top
Google was the center of a rush of positive news on Monday. Among the news was its announcement of a new $100 million fund that will invest in early-stage start-up firms. Google Ventures, which will be wholly owned by Google, will operated as a separate entity and will be run by Rich Miner, a co-founder of the Android smart phone software that Google acquired in 2005, and Bill Maris. There was also the news that the tech giant, YouTube site struck a deal with Walt Disney Co. to broadcast content from ESPN and ABC. In other good news for the company, its Google's search engine is faster than its competitors, according to PC World . Google's Chrome 2 Beta's load speed for nine test sites was 1.3 seconds, half a second faster than runner-up Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. Safari and Firefox tied for last with an average loading time of 2.12 seconds for each of the test sites, PC World reported. Google's stock was trading up $6.40 to $349.09 in mid-day trading. WATCH: More on Video
 
Former NFL Coach Tony Dungy Joins White House Faith Council Top
The White House has invited recently retired NFL Coach Tony Dungy, whose outspoken Christian faith fueled his 2007 support for a gay marriage ban and has won accolades from evangelical leaders, to join its Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, U.S. News has learned. The invitation is likely to draw praise from conservative evangelical groups and criticism from liberals and gay rights activists.
 
Harry Moroz: What If The Middle-Class Ruled? Top
President Obama is bravely captaining our economic ship. Where the last president balked at an aggregate demand-increasing stimulus and a meaningful overhaul of the automobile industry, Obama steered a $787 billion stimulus through Congress and threw car industry veteran Rick Wagoner overboard. Obama's paradigm-shifting budget is likely to sail, relatively unscathed, through Congress in the next week. Meanwhile, Congress has filled in some rather important details, taking responsibility for successfully expanding children's health insurance and strengthening safeguards for fair pay . But TheMiddleClass.org's 2008 Middle-Class Scorecard , a congressional accountability project sponsored by the Drum Major Institute , shows that several of the more basic protections for middle-class Americans - what I would like to call "low-hanging fruit" - are still unresolved, even as Congress takes on large-scale reform projects like a health care overhaul and climate change legislation. In 2008, legislation imposing stricter regulations on credit card companies and allowing bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of primary mortgages in bankruptcy stalled in Congress, while legislators resisted including improvements to food safety regulations in a bill strengthening the Consumer Product Safety Commission . These legislative failures have had serious consequences for middle-class Americans: interest rate hikes that the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights would have prohibited are instead proliferating ; the 800,000 homes that would have been saved from foreclosure by the bankruptcy provision are still in danger; and Salmonella -tainted peanut butter has killed nine people and infected almost 700. Congress is, indeed, addressing each of these issues. Markups of legislation strengthening credit card regulations are scheduled for this week in both the House and the Senate, the House passed a bill including the mortgage modification provision earlier this month, and proposals for food safety reform are solidifying . Yet, the TheMiddleClass.org Scorecard urges caution. Only 38% of the Senate - and no Senate Republicans - voted in favor of bankruptcy modification; 74% of the House (only 43% of House Republicans) voted for the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights', but the legislation was left to die by the Senate. Other measures that would have benefitted the middle class were subject to similarly chilly receptions, with important l egislation to bail out the auto industry receiving support just above 20% from Senate and House Republicans. Only 60% of all House members voted in favor of legislation that extended unemployment insurance and established a new GI Bill. The complexity of the economic and financial crisis Americans are now experiencing does not make commonsense protections for consumers and homeowners any less important. In fact, as the crisis deepens, such protections become even more important as struggling companies try to squeeze the last pennies from vulnerable consumers. But as TheMiddleClass.org Scorecard demonstrates, protections for middle-class Americans are often talked about in Congress, but never fully addressed. Lawmakers should use the current crisis as an opportunity to usher in a new era of middle-class American rule. Next year's Scorecard should show all legislators voting in favor of strengthened credit card regulations, bankruptcy modification for primary residences, and a food safety overhaul. More on Bankruptcy
 
Philip G. Baker: Detroit: Obama Gets it Right Top
Why can't U.S. auto companies compete with cars from Asian and European companies? It seems to me that it comes down to one thing: the product. Not having the right products at the right time, mediocre execution and lack of innovation. As one who writes about and lives products and technology, I find that it's rare that cars from the Big Three automotive companies can compete effectively. The industry says it can't compete because it costs $2,000 more to build a car that's encumbered with the extra costs of union wages and health benefits that the other car companies don't need to pay. That seems like a lame excuse. I don't hear the Japanese, Korean or European automakers complaining that they have to pay more to ship some of their cars and parts much greater distances. And I can't fault the engineers. Those I've spoken with are as bright and creative as those in Asia and Europe. The problem is due more to management who limit what the engineers can do and who discourage risk-taking. There's a huge bureaucracy with endless layers of approval that stifles creativity. That takes a toll over the years and wears down the engineers who try to innovate. The ones that get along stay and the innovators leave. When it comes to appearance, small things add up. For example, instrumentation, interior trim, coin and cup holders and storage compartments are cruder and not as well finished. While a Japanese or German car may add rubber bumpers or dampening to silence the little doors closing, the U.S. counterpart clinks, sounding like a cheap toy. Parts that make up the dashboard have bigger gaps and adjacent parts don't match in color or texture. Radio controls seem more confusing and the electronic displays have a lower resolution and a more crude appearance. And these are just the things that you can see. Much of this comes from the industry's focus on removing pennies rather than adding smart touches that bring delight to the owner, and delaying improvements that benefit the customer. GM continued to make cars that required two different keys, one for the doors and another for the trunk, years after imported cars went to a single key. Instead of this penny pinching, U.S. auto companies should have figured out by now that many of us are willing to pay more for a product that is better made and that offers special features. Yet time after time, when we see both small and large design improvements, they come from Toyota or BMW, and not from GM, Ford or Chrysler. Why would anyone buy a Chrysler product when none of their cars are recommended by Consumer Reports because of design and reliability issues? Even when they do offer new improvements, the companies seem shy about talking about them, focusing more on abstract issues. Did you know that GM and Ford both produce hybrid cars, some based on Toyota hybrid technology, and that some Ford cars are as reliable as those from Japan? To sell more cars our auto companies should be making sure that you do know this. This is where their advertising dollars need to be spent, not on lobbying Congress to give tax breaks so people will buy the gas guzzling models such as their super-sized SUVs and Hummers. The auto industry spends $6 billion a year in advertising, but gets little value from it. There are some bright spots. Cadillac has excelled with some of its designs and beautifully finished interiors, but not its absurd new Escalade Hybrid that has the worst mileage of any Hybrid with a payback of 218,000 miles. And Ford was the first to offer the Microsoft Sync system that linked your phone and music player to the car. GM developed the OnStar system using a cell phone built into your car. But it never was promoted as that and there's no easy way to dial directly. The companies need new management and a total reorganization, and thanks to Obama, they will be getting it. They need to move from inefficient bureaucracies to nimble and creative organizations, much like IBM did when it set out to invent the personal computer. Companies should be led by product people with vision, much like Honda has been. It understands the importance of the product and the need for constant innovation and reinvention. Customers want to have a relationship with a company they can take pride in. Can you take pride in companies that fight mileage standards and who have opposed every safety innovation from the seatbelt on? Despite all these shortcomings, we need our automobile industry to survive. We need the infrastructure that includes the skilled workers, the subcontractors that build the seats, mold the parts and forge the engine parts. If we abandon the industry, the infrastructure will never come back. The Shenzhen area in China has become the manufacturing center to the world for consumer products. That didn't happen by accident. The Chinese government invested and encouraged companies to locate there. It built industrial parks and provided incentives. In short, China invested for its future. There's no reason why Detroit can't once again become the center of automotive technology and manufacturing. But it will only work with new, enlightened and entrepreneurial management, a total restructuring of the companies that reward innovation, and an entirely new business plan based on building the vehicles people want to buy, not what the companies have pushed them to take. This change will not come by bailing out the current management teams that have had their chance and failed many times over. Their most recent proposals still show they don't get it. With the exception of the Hummer, GM's "restructuring plan" wanted to retain those brands that are the ones that guzzle the most gas and shed the higher mileage brands, Saab and Saturn. These companies need some of the best innovators in the business, they need to shed the bureaucracies and begin the long rebuilding process and they need to respect the consumer and the environment. Only then will their bailout be worth our tax dollars. Based on Baker's column in The San Diego Transcript, December 8, 2008 More on The Bailouts
 
Andy Borowitz: Obama Opens Chevy Dealership on White House Lawn Top
In a move signaling his most direct involvement in the U.S. auto industry to date, President Barack Obama announced today that he was opening a Chevrolet dealership on the White House lawn. As car-carriers dumped hundreds of unsold 2009 Malibus, Silverados and Cobalts onto the grass in front of the President's historic residence, workmen draped a banner in front of the White House portico reading "Buy a Chevrolet from the USA." Another crew of workers were busy erecting a new sign in front of the White House reading "Barry's Auto City," the name of Mr. Obama's dealership. In a new TV ad broadcast nationwide, the president was seen wearing an Uncle Sam costume and telling the American people, "We are slashing prices on 2009 Chevys to make room for the 2010s, if there still are Chevys by then." Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that all Cabinet members were taking turns running the dealership, and that Vice-President Joe Biden was manning the customer service hotline. Customers calling the hotline complained that wait times were as long as thirty minutes and that Mr. Biden was overly chatty, but Mr. Emanuel stressed that the customer service department was "a work in progress." He added that once President's Chevy dealership is up and running, Mr. Obama will open a Chrysler dealership next to it. "This will be your last chance to get a low, low price on a Chrysler before it turns into a Fiat," he said. Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times , and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com . He is performing at the 92nd St. Y on April 30 at 8 PM with special guests Judy Gold, Hendrik Hertzberg, and Jonathan Alter. For tickets, go to 92y.org . More on Barack Obama
 
Jesse Kornbluth: Amadou & Mariam: Not 'World' Music, But Music For The World Top
Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia have climbed to the pinnacle of World Music. But Welcome to Mali , their new CD, is wrongly titled, for with this release, they've made another, more dazzling ascent to an even loftier peak. This isn't World Music, to be filed in the Mali section --- it's music from a very big world, made for everyone in the world. If you buy, download or steal no other music this year, stop right here. This is the one. This is the one because it's the right idea at the right time: a bundle of joy for a hurting planet. It's so all-inclusive --- "an original East Coast-West Coast collaboration", a rapper friend of theirs shouts at the start of a song --- that you'll have a hard time locating this music by geographic origin. It was recorded in Paris, London, Dakar, and Senegal. It uses traditional African instruments and state-of-the art electronics. And Amadou and Mariam sing in French and English --- not that the words much matter. Right here .] As it starts, you might think you're hearing a scratchy radio broadcast from the 1930s. Then comes the plinking of a ukulele (or is it?). And then Mariam floats in --- a birdlike soprano that may not break glass, but certainly clutches your heart and your attention. Entering the room, balancing her, a French horn (or is it?). And now...but what's this? Dance-hall drumming. Synthesizer runs of electronic notes, up and down the scale. This is harmonious, joyous music, totally accessible pop that just happens to be symphonic in its power. Its real genius is its accessibility --- it sounds so simple, so organic, that it's like a song you've always hummed (and danced to) in your private happy moments. The lyrics, for what they're worth, support Amadou and Marian's vision of a beautiful world: "La vie est belle avec toi..... je te fais un gros bisou". But even more, they're just sound. (From the lyric sheet: "La llalallallallallalallaalallaa... sabalabalabala bala bala babla.") And those sounds evoke Motown and Phil Spector as much as they do African tribal chant. But then, Amadou and Mariam have, from the beginning, pushed beyond the music of their country. In their childhood, Mali radio played all kinds of music --- rock, salsa, whatever. After their apprenticeship, they moved to the Ivory Coast, then to Paris, where they recorded with Cubans, Colombians, Indian drummers and "an African playing American-style harmonica". It was probably inevitable that their breakthrough CD, Dimanche a Bamako , would be produced by Manu Chao , the musician and producer who has brilliantly melded the music of the streets with delightfully political reggae. On "Welcome to Mali", there are instruments you've heard on African records --- a kora harp, a Malian violin --- but you'll find a bare minimum of the chicken-scratch guitar and Mississippi Delta blues sound that have defined their homeland's music. And you'll hear none of the street sounds, ambulance sirens and happy children that made "Dimanche a Bamako" such a huge, international hit. "Welcome to Mali" is European, sleek, elegantly produced. It's fun to listen to, and it's even funny --- a song about the African continent describes it like a woman, and Amadou and his rap partner are quite clear they want to explore every inch of her. And, near the end, there's a wonderful joke: the title song. Anyone else might have led off with it. Here it's more like: This is a tour of the entire world, and today, kids, we're in Mali. Like it? I haven't yet said what's usually billboarded as the key thing about Amadou and Mariam, because after three decades of making music, how much does it really matter that they are both blind? Long ago, I bet, they learned how to translate the colors and shapes in their heads into sound; like Stevie Wonder, they hear so well there's almost nothing Amadou can't play on a guitar and Mariam can't sing. Those dark sunglasses? Yes, they serve a purpose. They are also seriously cool, a piece of the superstar uniform. And, no doubt about it, with "Welcome to Mali", Amadou and Mariam qualify as global superstars. [Cross-posted from HeadButler.com ]
 
Lobbyists Fight Back: Accuse Obama Of Demonization, Suggest Lawsuit In The Offing Top
A strange bedfellows coalition of non-governmental organizations is pushing back hard against one of the Obama administration's most stringent ethics policies, declaring it counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American League of Lobbyists (ALL) are hosting a conference call on Tuesday to persuade the president to reverse a rule that bars executive branch officials from having phone or face-to-face conversations with registered lobbyists on matters relating to the stimulus. Officials with the groups have declined to discuss the specific goals of the conference call. But legal observers say that, at least in a court of law, they have a case to make. "My hunch is that they will lose their lawsuits," said Tom Gerety, a constitutional law professor at New York University. "But it is a shrewd move on their part and a constitutionally valid move." Certainly, the Obama administration's policy has touched a sensitive nerve within the lobbying community. In an email sent last week to fellow lobbyists, Dave Wenhold, President of ALL, made the rather dramatic case that he and others were being discriminated against and demonized, illegally. "As you know, over the past two months there has been a constant barrage of attacks on the lobbying community by the new Administration. As President of the American League of Lobbyists, I want to assure you that the Board of ALL is continuously dealing with these issues, analyzing options and responding aggressively to these attacks. The latest Executive memo... strongly limits our rights to not only serve our clients, but also our fundamental right to equally petition the government. We have heard from many concerned members who are outraged about this latest exclusion and feel that the rhetoric and demonization of the profession has simply gone too far. There is an emerging pattern of industry segregation, discrimination, and actions that skirt the boundaries of our Constitutional right to simply "do our jobs." Enough is enough! It is time for the lobbying profession to come together and fight back against these industry-specific attacks and demonstrate that the lobbying profession is an integral part of the solution; not the problem." CREW's participation in the call adds another interesting element. The good government organization, while not rigidly anti-lobbyist, has produced some of the hardest hitting reports about the seedy underside of influence peddling in D.C. In this case, however, it seems that they too believe the White House's ethics policies have gone a bit too far. At issue is an Executive Order issued by Obama's chief counsel, Greg Craig that limits to written communication the ability of executive branch official to communicate with a lobbyist on the stimulus. "An executive department or agency official shall not consider the view of a lobbyist registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, 2 U.S.C 160 et seq., concerning particular projects, applications, or applicants for funding under the Recovery Act unless views are in writing," reads the law. "All written communications from a registered lobbyist concerning the commitment, obligation, or expenditure of funds under the Recovery Act for particular projects, applications, or applicants shall be posted publicly by the receiving agency or governmental entity on its recovery website within 3 business days after receipt of such communication." Lobbyists and others contend that the language is overly restrictive on their ability to petition the government and denies the administration "expert" voices on specific topics. Whether the executive order is unconstitutional is debatable. "There is no question that this is discriminatory, but there is good discrimination and bad discrimination," said Tom Gerety a constitutional law professor at New York University. "The difficult issue here is whether this is necessary and justified or whether it is excessive and an overreaction... So the question in my mind is: is this a kind of imposition on the freedom of lobbyists to have contact with the officer of the government, is it a burden on their free speech? I guess, my own view on that is that it seems that it is an imposition. But it seems like the issue of transparency outweighs it." Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds - Free Legal Forms
 
Washington Post Finally Describes Waterboarding As Torture (When Someone Else Does It) Top
Here's some unique writing from the Washington Post, in an article about a man named Kaing Khek Lev, or "Duch," a notorious genocidaire of the Khmer Rouge, who this week took responsibility for his crimes, namely running "the Khmer Rouge's most notorious torture center, Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh," where an "estimated 16,000 men, women and children died." Now, we've read a lot of descriptions of torture in the Washington Post, but some editor allowed reporter Tim Johnston to file an extraordinary rendition : The prosecution described a chain of death operated by Duch. His victims -- most of whom were either disgraced members of the Khmer Rouge or their families -- were tortured with electric shocks, waterboarding or beating to extract a confession, which would implicate new victims. After confessing, the victims would be killed, most often by a sharp blow to the back of the head. "There were autopsies carried out on live persons, there was medical experimentation, and people were bled to death: These were all crimes against humanity admitted by Duch," the prosecutors charged in the indictment. Among the four forms of torture he officially condoned, they said, was pouring water up victims' noses. Wow. You see what Johnston did there, right? He called waterboarding "torture." He specifically called "pouring water up victims' noses"... torture . It's a break from typical media traditions, obviously. See, when outfits like the WaPo typically talk about waterboarding, it's referred to as " a form of simulated drowning that U.S. officials had previously deemed a crime " or " harsh interrogation tactics " or an " interrogation tactic " or " harsh interrogation practices " or " a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill ." But unless you are in possession of whatever gland produces honesty, like Dan Froomkin , you never, never, ever just come right out and say that waterboarding is torture. I guess it becomes "torture" when it's being done by genocidal Communist madmen, whose political ideology lacks the beautiful exceptionalism that normally transforms an abhorrent and inhumane act into a patriotic gesture. At least I think that's the equation. I'm willing to revisit this position if, say, Ruth Marcus puts on her Inanity Cap and pens a piece about how we should give Duch a break because SURELY, when he was torturing and killing people in Phnom Penh, he was acting " not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government ." This is a painting of the waterboarding that was perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge at Security Prison 21, which is now known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This painting hangs there. We also did this to people. One day, maybe paintings of things that we did to people will also hang in museums. They will probably be called the "Freedom Museum Of Harsh Techniques," and will be celebrated as a whited sepulchre of self-delusion. [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Wash Post
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)