Monday, April 6, 2009

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Nan Aron: Victory! Right Here In River City! Top
The Iowa Supreme Court decision declaring the state's gay marriage ban unconstitutional is undeniably a victory. It's a victory for the LGBT community, a victory for equality and a reminder of the vitally important role judges and the courts play in upholding constitutional principles and defending freedoms. Of course, this is just the sort of decision that ultra-conservatives like to use to gin up their base. But the charges of judicial activism and liberal judges legislating from the bench that they love to trot out--really just code for "decision we don't like"--are particularly absurd in this instance. This was a unanimous decision issued by an ideologically diverse court. The Iowa Court spoke with one voice, fulfilling its most important duty: upholding the state constitution. The role of the judiciary is to review and interpret the laws to determine whether or not they fall within constitutional limitations. The role of the courts is not to take a backseat to the legislature or executive mansion when they are running roughshod over a constitution--the supreme law of the land. Or, to put it in the words of the Iowa Supreme Court itself: These Iowans, believing that the law is inconsistent with certain constitutional mandates, exercised their constitutional right to petition the courts for redress of their grievance. This court, consistent with its role to interpret the law and resolve disputes, now has the responsibility to determine if the law enacted by the legislative branch and enforced by the executive branch violates the Iowa Constitution. The court meticulously analyzed the marriage ban--faithfully applying the Iowa Constitution and many state statutes--and determined that it was fundamentally inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution's promise that "the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens (Iowa Const. art. I, § 6)." Iowa's ruling is in many ways an echo of what is arguably the greatest decision in modern Supreme Court history: Brown v. Board of Education, and not just because Brown was another unanimous decision handed down by an ideologically diverse court. Brown proved that the courts are a place for Americans to stand up for their freedoms. Brown showed us that sometimes the courts need to be the vanguard of upholding constitutional values when societal recognition of basic freedoms and equality lags behind. Once again, Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady says it beautifully: Our responsibility, however, is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time. The framers of the Iowa Constitution knew, as did the drafters of the United States Constitution, that "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," and as our constitution "endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom" and equality. The justices of the Iowa Supreme Court took seriously their obligation to uphold the state constitution and provide equal justice for all. As that court had done many times in the past--outlawing slavery, admitting women to the practice of law, striking down racial segregation--the judges of the Iowa Supreme Court once again "approached a fork in the road toward fulfillment of our constitution's ideals and reaffirmed the 'absolute equality of all' persons before the law as 'the very foundation principle of our government.'" More on Gay Marriage
 
Avital Binshtock: Rolling Stone's Environmental Rock Stars Top
It may not be the cover of Rolling Stone, but the Sierra Club's own Bruce Nilles is nonetheless a rock star for being No. 74 on the iconic rock magazine's " RS 100: Agents of Change " list. Nilles, an environmental lawyer and the director of the Move Beyond Coal campaign , has stopped at least 24 coal plants from being built. Other environmentalists who made the list (which was noticeably lacking in females) include agriculture advocate Wes Jackson (No. 93), Green Collar Economy author Van Jones (No. 89), editor and physicist Joseph Romm (No. 88), mod designer Philippe Starck (No. 87), billionaire electric-car advocate Elon Musk (No. 86), urban planner Mitchell Joachim (No. 83), eco-singer Neil Young (No. 79), electric-car entrepreneur Shai Agassi (No. 77), biofuel pioneer Craig Venter (No. 71), food-ag journalist Michael Pollan (No. 69), governator Arnold Schwarzenegger (No. 61), Walmart green adviser Amory Lovins (No. 56), Bonnaroo planners Rick Farman and Jonathan Mayers (No. 54), climate-change activist Jessy Tolkan (No. 45), bioengineer Jay Keasling (No. 40), geoengineer Ken Caldeira (No. 36), coal fighter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (No. 34), energy secretary Steven Chu (No. 24), Al Gore (No. 18), solar-energy guru Nate Lewis (No. 17), "climate czarina" Carol Browner (No. 16), and Rep. Henry Waxman (No. 6). Oh, and this guy named Barack Obama. He came in first. More on Green Living
 
Bob Dylan On Obama: "He's Like A Fictional Character" Top
Bill Flanagan: In that song Chicago After Dark were you thinking about the new President? Bob Dylan: Not really. It's more about State Street and the wind off Lake Michigan and how sometimes we know people and we are no longer what we used to be to them. I was trying to go with some old time feeling that I had. BF: You liked Barack Obama early on. Why was that? BD: I'd read his book and it intrigued me. More on Barack Obama
 
Jenifer Fox: Use the Recession to Build Your Child's Strengths Top
Here's the good news: this recession will pass by and many children will forget about it by early adulthood even though right now it may hammering your family. You can use the current economic climate to prepare your children for success in times of future financial strife by introducing them at a young age to the financial power of their strengths and passions. Kids need recession endurance for the long haul. They can begin to hone their resourcefulness around what they most enjoy doing now. Here are some simple ideas that may give your child an incentive to make and save money. It begins with a conversation. Sit down with your children and ask them to list ten things they wouldn't mind doing around the house. Break these choices down to component parts. For example, don't simply ask about cleaning the kitchen -- ask which job in the kitchen -- washing dishes, sweeping floors, cooking -- they would most prefer doing. Extend the conversation to activities outside the realm of household chores. Do they like to listen to music? Are they interested in art, animals, acting, and writing? Do they like to organize, take photos? A strength is an activity that energizes a child. Any of these strengths can easily be turned into jobs that can save or make money. Remember, it is very important to let children choose among a variety of activities because they will like doing them and be more likely to keep doing them if they had a role in the decision-making. Once you have identified what they are energized by doing, you can next brainstorm ways to make money using the strength. Here are some ideas to get you started: Ways to Make Money : For the child who likes to draw: How much money do people spend on greeting cards? Your 3-5 year old may be a budding artist. You can take her drawings and make a variety of kinds of cards out of them. You can save money yourself on cards, or have your older child sell these. For the child who is good with technology, likes music or has organizational skills: Too many CDs taking up space and not enough time transfer them to an iPod? If your child can work an iPod, he can offer this service to others. I'd pay someone between $25-30 to put all my CDs on my iPod. Everyone I know has boxes of photos. How about having the child who likes to organize offer to put all your photos in albums for a small fee? I'll do my own dishes, thank you, but I'd gladly pay your "tween" girl to organize my closet once a month. For the child who loves animals: Babysitting is sometimes too risky for younger kids, but pet sitting is not. If you will take my pet into your home, I'd be happy to pay you. If you care to stay at my home, I'd pay more. My dog needs to be bathed, walked, clipped. In these hard economic times, I can't afford to take my pet to the salon. I'll pay your child to care for my pup -- just not as much as the pros. For the child with a sales bent: Forget the lemonade, On Sunday morning sell Starbuck's coffee on the corner for half the price of the store down the street. A child with business strength will take to this. You will know if your child has business strengths if he is always trying to cut a deal with you or negotiate the terms. Have a child with strength in math crunch the numbers for the coffee sales and find the cheapest way to do it. Add an herbal tea selection, and you're in business. If you live in an apartment building, have your child offer to deliver the ready- made coffee to the door in the morning. For the child who loves to film or photograph: Some high school kids are real whizzes at film editing on iMac. Have them advertise they will edit family videos into a show. Better yet, advertise that you will take photos and make a wedding video for a rehearsal dinner. Most teens can scan photos and create this. Children who like to photograph can offer to come to your home, photograph all your belongings and put the photos in an album for insurance purposes. I never have time to do things like this, but would gladly pay someone to do it for me. For the Child who is attracted to plants and nature: Is your child drawn to plants? They can begin a service where they care for people's plants while they are away. Do you need your garden spruced up for spring? These are services we need but many people must cut back on. The small jobs, ideas and creative things that you and your children come up with today may actually inspire your child for a lifetime. You can help your child put their strengths to financial use. Here are some places you can help advertise your child's goods and services: Craigslist, school's teacher's lounge, school parking lot -- fliers on windshields, or in the carpool line, grocery store bulletin board, church bulletin, and the good old fashioned sandwich board. Ways to Save Money: People have grown accustomed to paying for all kinds of luxury services that they are now being forced to reconsider. These simple things may earn a little extra cash in the short term, but long term they may really tap into children's strengths and steer them toward a career. Consider the out the following and then come up with your own: Have a child who likes to fix things? Why pay someone else? How about giving your fix-it child a crack at it? Go out and get a repair book with your child and show her how to help. Dinner out cost too much? You can have your children prepare you a gourmet meal for a fraction of the cost of going out to eat. Did you know that the number one growing profession for boys is a chef? You can inspire the chef in your child when you watch a popular cooking show on television and then pretend your home is a restaurant and the children are the chef's. Middle school kids love to combine imagination with real world work. Is a night out at the theater suddenly off the list? How about getting a play and acting it out with the family? Hold auditions, find costumes, and invite your friends to watch. Sewing used to be a boring home economics class. But now kids are drawn to sewing and the fashion industry ever since shows like Project Runway became hits. You can encourage your daughter to get into sewing, make some of her own clothes and save money in the process. If you want to save money on a housekeeper by having your children pitch in, write all the jobs down and have them choose which one they like. Have them explain why they like it. Hidden in that conversation is a strength that will lead them to the future. The key to all this is getting kids involved in the decision-making and making it hip, cool and relevant for kids. Kids want to know what's in it for them. If you can show how a simple chore like shopping and making dinner can be turned into practicing to be a world-class chef, then you are more likely to get their attention. These are simple suggestions to get you thinking about how help your children learn ways to contribute and use their strengths to keep afloat -- in good and bad times. Do you have ideas you wish to add to this list? More on Careers
 
Michael Jordan, David Robinson, John Stockton Elected To Basketball Hall Of Fame Top
DETROIT — Michael Jordan is in the basketball Hall of Fame. He was elected to the class of 2009 Monday with David Robinson, John Stockton, Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and Rutgers women's coach C. Vivian Stringer. The announcement was made in Detroit, site of the men's Final Four. Induction is Sept. 10-12 in Springfield, Mass., home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Jordan's Hall of Fame selection was a slam dunk after he retired as perhaps the greatest player in history. And he gave much of the credit Monday to his college coach. "There's no way you guys would have got a chance to see Michael Jordan play without Dean Smith," he said. His soaring dunks, Nike commercials and "Air Jordan" nickname helped stamp him as one the most recognizable athletes around the world. He finished a 15-year career with the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards with 32,292 points _ the third-highest total in league history, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. His final career average of 30.12 goes down as the best, just ahead of Wilt Chamberlain's 30.07. The five-time NBA MVP won six championships with the Bulls and another in college with North Carolina. The Tar Heels play Michigan State in the national championship game Monday night. Tar Heels coach Roy Williams was an assistant with Carolina on that 1982 national championship team and was at Monday's induction, where Ty Lawson won the Bob Cousy award, given to the nation's top point guard. Jordan retired twice during his career. He first came back to the Bulls in 1994 and won three more championships before retiring again in 1998. He then had an ill-fated two-year stint with the Washington Wizards before calling it quits for good in 2003. Monday, he joked that when he saw Stockton and Robinson he was ready to put his shorts on again. Jordan won two of his titles in the 1990s against Sloan, Stockton and the Utah Jazz. Stockton spent his entire career with the Jazz and finished with 19,711 points, 15,806 assists and 3,265 steals. He also holds NBA records for most assists in a season (1,164 in 1990-91) and highest assist average in a season (14.5 in 1989-90). "Growing up I never thought about the Hall of Fame," he said. "All I wanted was a chance to go to college." Utah took Stockton in the first round of the 1984 draft, using the No. 16 pick on a relatively unknown player from Gonzaga who became one of the top point guards. "I haven't given this much thought over the course of a lifetime," he said. "I'm not sure it quite strikes home until you're standing here." Robinson, who earned the nickname "The Admiral" from his college career at Navy, joined Stockton and Jordan as members of the NBA's 50th anniversary team. He had a stellar 14-year career with the San Antonio Spurs that included two NBA championships, an MVP season, a rookie of the year award, 10 All-Star selections, a scoring title and two Olympic gold medals. Robinson, too, credited his coaches over the years who "kicked me when I need to be kicked and hugged me when I needed to be hugged." Sloan, who did not attend the ceremony, is the longest tenured head coach in major league sports with a single franchise. A two-time All-Star during his playing days with the Bulls, Sloan is the only NBA coach to win more than 1,000 games with a single team. He has the Jazz in seventh place in the Western Conference standings going into Monday night's games. Stringer has led three separate teams to the Final Four in her 38-year career and has an 825-280 mark spanning four decades. She trails only Pat Summitt and Jody Conradt on the victories list. Stringer guided Rutgers to its fifth straight regional semifinals trip this season. "My knees are weak, and to think I would standing here with these great, great, men of basketball," Stringer said. "It's not ever about me. It's about the players who all make it happen." More on Sports
 
Shelly Palmer: Metamerica: Evolving The Governance Of A Digital Democracy Top
Dateline New York: April 3, 2015 -- The White House issued a statement today urging people to stay calm. The Federal Data Depository Corporation is now saying that people will have access to some of their data as early as next week. "Health records are job one," said the HHS director in a joint statement. "We have back-ups for everyone's dicom files and most of everyone's MRI's and about 100 million x-ray files on near-line storage. It will just take time to reload the data." The FCC issued a similar statement promising that the 4 million hours of user uploaded content stored in the cloud since 2009 and the 26 million hours of professionally produced on-demand content may be available by the end of the year. Sadly there is no word on when the Microsoft Office Cloud or the Adobe CS10 Cloud will be back online. And, to the delight of most citizens, the IRS has lost almost every tax return for the past four years. There is one bit of good news, Verizon's LTE network can support VoIP calls, so at least some of the 165 million households and businesses without voice communication will have a work-around in the next few weeks.http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=4307 With 28 of the nation's 80 major data centers totally down and the rest just holding on, people with netbooks, pda and cloud-based computer applications have been completely crippled by a loss of data that is unprecedented in history. It has caused the biggest financial crisis since 2008. Hundreds of software-as-services companies have lost all of their data and the economic impact will easily reach 10 Trillion Dollars of combined losses. How did it happen? This is a partial representation of me: In Metamerica (the data that describes America), we are all a bunch of ones and zeros. Everything about us, our tax id number, social security number, credit card numbers, contact information, financial data, medical history, entertainment preferences, our computer software, the content we own, everything we are, is described by ones and zeros on a magnetic or optical storage device somewhere. Even today, we live in a world where metadata (data that describes other data) is more important than the data itself. For example: what good is the data on your iPod without the directory that tells you what songs and videos are available and where the computer should go to get them? Similarly, as we enter the super-digital age, we (all of us) will be completely described by the metadata stored in Metamerica. It is the virtual country that describes our physical country and, to be perfectly frank, Metamerica is more valuable and more vulnerable than physical America. After June 12, 2009 all of the communications in the United States will be digital. It is more than a trend; it is a paradigm shift toward the efficiencies and fiscal benefits of storing and manipulating the information in our world digitally. Why pay for a group of IT technicians to patch servers and tend to racks of computers when you can plug into a computing and storage cloud and only pay for the services you use. It is identical to how America transitioned from generating its own electricity to purchasing electricity from the utility grid. The economics are too powerful for anything to stop this shift. It will be complete in a very few years. Want to see it today? Go to Google Apps for Business, salesforce.com, photoshop.com, homestead.com, the list of software as services and subscription software and cloud storage companies is getting longer every day. Now, we live in a world where everything about everyone is stored somewhere. The world is evolving towards a place where access to this data is going to empower all kinds of things -- good and bad. This is not so much a privacy issue (although you could label it that way) as a governance issue. What should the structure of the government of Metamerica look like? There are no geographic restrictions, no towns, no counties, no states, no country -- there are just Metamericans that describe Americans. Because Metamericans are data, they can be sorted anyway an interested party might deem reasonable: by community of interest, by behavioral preferences, by medical issues, by DNA sample, by ... you name it. Metamericans are data, and data can be mined, analyzed and correlated in every imaginable way. Is your DNA covered by copyright law? Are your media or television viewing habits? Are your medical records going to be available on a local storage device, regional server, your doctor's LAN, your HMO's WAN or at the fictitious, but reasonable to imagine, Federal Data Depository Corporation? If every bit of a Metamerican (pun intended), is data, which bits are protected, which are protectable, which are private, which are semi-private and which are public? How many non-technical people with digital medical records will die because there were no paper records of their medical condition or history, and they could not afford, or didn't know how, to back up the data themselves? When my father was transferred by ambulance to a hospital from another medical facility in an emergent situation, they forgot to give his paper records to the EMS technician who was transferring him. I got to the hospital an hour after he did, to find that they were completely mistreating his illness because their broadband connection was down and they didn't have any paper records to base his treatment on. I had stopped by the other medical facility and picked up his charts, but what if I had been unable to do so? To be honest, I'm not too worried about a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb or any other weapon of mass destruction. What I'm worried about is how we are very quickly becoming dependent on explosive amounts of centralized data and, how unprotected, and unprotectable, that data is. Want to create a financial crisis that will make this one look like a trip to Disneyworld? Take out the data warehouse of the IRS, a few banks, a couple of credit reporting agencies, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. If it happened today, it would be hard to recover from. If it were to happen in 2015, we would not be able to recover from it. These are just a few of the myriad issues we are going to have to think about as Metamerica and America evolve together. How will the Great Data Crash of 2015 occur? Maybe it will be cyber-terrorism; maybe it will be an incredibly robust computer virus. Maybe it will be a solar emission that is too powerful for our atmosphere to block. Sadly, there are about a zillion ways for it to happen and only one-way for it not to. What we need is a cross-industry task force that would include experts from the military, IT, healthcare, legal, telecommunications, CE, entertainment, ethics and government to get together and have a serious, Socratic debate on the appropriate way to govern Metamerica. It's not about opt-in and opt-out privacy; it's about our economic sovereignty and our national security. Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press) and the upcoming, Get Digital: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy (2009, Lake House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here . Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars
 
Michele Bachmann Fears Obama "Re-Education Camps" Top
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says she fears the Obama Administration will set up "re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically-correct forums." More on Michele Bachmann
 
Rasumussen Gives 'Political Apology' For Mohammed Cartoons Top
Despite denying it beforehand, Rasmussen issued a - somewhat hidden - apology to 'the Muslim world.' Last weekend, several outlets, including PoliGazette, reported that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Minister had agreed to apologize to "the Islamic world" for the infamous Mohammed cartoons in order to convince Turkey to accept his nomination for NATO secretary general. Earlier today, we reported that Rasmussen himself contradicted these reports saying he could not and would apologize for anything printed by a newspaper. More on Europe
 
Ezra Merkin Charged With Fraud Top
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed civil fraud charges against one of Bernard Madoff's key middlemen Monday for dumping investors' money into a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Cuomo sued fund manager J. Ezra Merkin, former chairman of GMAC and an ex-board member of the giant hedge fund Cerebrus, for operating a huge feeder fund. He also named one of Merkin's firms, Gabriel Capital Corp.
 
Rupert Everett: Graydon Carter Has A "Monster Cock" Top
In an interview with The Daily Beast's Kevin Sessums titled "Rupert Everett Unleashed," Rupert Everett justified the headline with an uncensored, hilarious story about Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and his "monster cock." Everett, who is inexplicably on the magazine's masthead as a contributing editor, asked Sessums, "Who does one have to fuck to get OFF that masthead?" He then proceeded to share this awesome anecdote about the legendary editor: He's such a weird character, that [Vanity Fair Editor in Chief] Graydon [Carter]. He's certainly not the buffoon he looks like. This is the most amazing thing I found out about him. I was once staying at a hotel and I was in the room directly under his. He is an amazing fuck. And you can quote me on this. The screams coming from the woman were some of the purest sounds of pleasure I'd ever heard. And there I was sitting alone in my room unfucked. Suddenly it all made sense. That messy hair of his that I always thought was buffoon hair was buffoon hair hiding a monster cock. The next day I went down to breakfast and Graydon came in and I thought to myself, well, now I understand why you are always acting so entitled and walking on air even though you're rather fat. It's because grazing the grass between your legs is this appendage of yours. I did rather politely tell him that morning that I thought he was a very good fuck. Read the full interview here. Posted by Danny Shea
 
Elephant Seals Equipped With Sensors Help Study Ocean (SLIDESHOW) Top
TROLL RESEARCH STATION, Antarctica - Into the Antarctic enigma, the puzzle of a place with too few researchers chasing too many climate mysteries, slowly waddles the elephant seal. The fat-snouted pinniped, two ugly tons of blubber and roar, is plunging to its usual frigid depths these days in the service of climate science, and of scientists' budgets. "It would take years and millions and millions of dollars for a research ship to do what they're doing," Norwegian scientist Kim Holmen said of the instrument-equipped seals, whose long-distance swims and 1,000-foot (300-meter) dinnertime dives for squid are giving investigators valuable data about a key piece of southern ocean. Climatologists and others say the icy continent has been monitored too thinly for too long in a warming world. Weather stations, glacier movement detectors and research treks over the ice are too few and far between. "We're monitoring routinely a small portion of the continent. I'd say 1 percent," said David Holland, an Antarctic expert at New York University. The reason to worry is clear: If all the land ice here melted, it would raise ocean levels 187 feet (57 meters) worldwide. That theoretical possibility would take many centuries, but "Antarctica is huge, so even a small change would make a big difference," said Jan Gunnar Winther, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute which operates this research station in East Antarctica. Even a 1 percent loss of Antarctic ice would raise sea levels 2 feet (65 centimeters), a slow-motion disaster for global coastlines. Clues to the future emerge in bits and pieces, sometimes in chunks: _In 2002, the floating Larson B ice shelf fringing the West Antarctica peninsula, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island, collapsed into the ocean, and the glaciers behind it began dumping land ice into the sea more quickly. Scientists are now watching for the imminent collapse of another peninsular ice shelf, the Wilkins. _In a new analysis of the sparse data, scientists reported in January that Antarctica warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) between 1957 and 2006, contrary to earlier belief that much of the continent was cooling. _In 2004, grass began growing on the warming West Antarctica peninsula. Just last month, researchers reported on dramatic biological changes under way: a decline in plankton in the nearby sea, in the krill that feed on it, and in the penguins that feed on the krill. "Antarctica is changing rapidly in unpredicted ways," Holmen, the Norwegian institute's research director, told environment ministers and other international officials visiting this outpost in East Antarctica's icebound mountains in February. He said the shelf collapses in the west may eventually be replicated here in the east. Computer models show that warming waters would weaken the 7,000-square-mile (18,000-square-kilometer) Fimbul ice shelf, which reaches 60 miles (100 kilometers) to sea from the coastline north of here, fed by one of Antarctica's largest ice streams, the Jutulstraumen glacier. It's a neighborhood the huge bull elephant seals know well, since they migrate over a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) stretch of ocean between uninhabited Bouvet Island and the Fimbul shelf. "It was a stroke of luck that the seals swim in that area," Holmen told a visiting Associated Press reporter -- a stroke that put the marine mammal with the protuberant proboscis in a position to do "field research." Institute teams captured 20 of the animals on Bouvet's stony shores where they are at their most ungainly, throwing hoods over their heads and gluing small instrument packages to their backs. The devices measure depth, salinity, water temperature and locations via the Global Positioning System. The seals were then set free to do their work. "Capturing elephant seals is not the easiest task," Holmen said, noting that one team member suffered a serious gash when a furious bull bit him. And the institute must find new candidates yearly, since the instruments will fall away with the seals' annual fur molting. But the deep-diving hunters have already come through for science, helping confirm that southern ocean temperatures are rising faster than the global average, the institute said. The seal data is proving "strategically important to climate and ocean modeling," it said. The human-pinniped partnership is one of many ambitious projects mounted in the just-ended International Polar Year of intensified research. Among others, scientists are mapping, via reconnaissance satellite snapshots, the speed with which Antarctica's ice sheets are moving seaward; drilling 2 miles (3,500 meters) deep into the ice to analyze its chemistry and Antarctic climate reaching back 100,000 years; and sending an unmanned minisubmarine miles (kilometers) under a fringing shelf to check its status. New data "confirm that warming in the Antarctic is much more widespread than was thought prior to IPY," said the organizing committee of the International Polar Year. Because the planet's future may hinge on the future of Antarctica, its least studied continent, "the need for polar research" -- human or otherwise -- "has never been greater," it said. More on Photo Galleries
 
Andrew Woods: The Torture Lawyers: Where Are They Now? Top
Over the past few days the blogosphere has been alight with chatter that a Spanish court may investigate six former Bush Administration officials for torture, potentially subjecting these former officials to arrest and extradition. This is the latest bit of bad news for the six (former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Office of Legal Counsel lawyers John C. Yoo and Jay Bybee, former Undersecretary of Defense for policy Douglas J. Feith, chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, David Addington, and former general counsel for the Department of Defense William Haynes II), who have become increasingly radioactive as details regarding their roles in crafting the Bush-administration policies have surfaced. And so I thought I would find out where the six are today. This is what I found: • Alberto Gonzales has not been employed since he resigned after questions were raised about possible political motivations for firing U.S. attorneys. •John Yoo is visiting law professor at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, CA. He is on leave from the University of California-Berkeley. •Jay Bybee is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A confirmation from the senate took place in 2003 before the details of the torture policies came to light. • David Addington is not currently employed. • Douglas Feith taught briefly at Georgetown University before becoming a Senior Fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute. • William "Jim" Haynes II was hired in 2008 as Chief Corporate Counsel at Chevron Corporate Office in San Ramon, CA. Perhaps the most interesting element of that list is that only one of these lawyers, Haynes, has managed to find a cushy corporate job despite the extensive government experience and educational pedigree shared by all. Which raises a significant question: why would Chevron hire Haynes? In today's world, with an Obama administration committing to shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the hiring of Haynes simply seems out of touch. After all, there are literally tens of thousands of highly qualified lawyers out of work who do not include "potential war criminal under indictment in Spain" as part of the baggage they bring to the job. And with a new Democratic sweep to power, Haynes' government ties are severely limited, since his neoconservative cronies have been largely stripped of power. Haynes also has a pending complaint before the California Bar for violating his ethical duties as a lawyer by sanctioning and approving torture. So why would Chevron hand major legal responsibility to such an individual? What we do know is that in recent years Chevron has faced a continually rising tide of human rights problems associated with its operations around the world. The company had to defend itself in an embarrassing and politically-damaging lawsuit in San Francisco for the killing of unarmed Nigerian villagers who were protesting environmental contamination. It was accused of engaging in bribery in Cambodia, supporting the brutal military junta in Burma as the single largest foreign investor in that country, and in 2007 was caught by the Department of Justice for misbehavior in Iraq that cost it a $30 million fine. Chevron now faces a potential $27 billion liability for environmental contamination that is threatening the human rights of tens of thousands of individuals in Ecuador. The latter case alone -- which has been winding its way through various courts for 15 years -- could wipe out a year of company profits. With each of these allegations, the company has refused to take responsibility or to take even the most minimal steps to address complaints, legal or otherwise. For a company running a "Will You Join Us" public relations campaign, Chevron has shown a remarkable failure to take that pledge itself, and join the communities that it operates in. But maybe that's what happens when your company is staffed by people willing to hire someone for a high-profile job suspected of committing torture. Maybe if you have little or no sensitivity to the basic human rights individuals are entitled to even if they come from far-flung places, then a bit of hoopla about torture doesn't bother you much. And maybe if you're Chevron, you think Haynes' apparent willingness to look the other way when it comes to human rights is an outstanding job qualification. More on Terrorism
 
GOP House Members, Staff Leaking Dirt On Other Republicans Top
You know there's serious disarray afoot among a party's Congressional leaders when the principals and their staffs start leaking damaging info about each other, and that now seems to be happening among House GOP leaders.
 
Auren Hoffman: You Think For Yourself but You Act Like Your Friends (on homophily) Top
It is important to understand how homophily changes the way we think Birds of a feather tend to shop together. That we know. They also tend to talk together and walk together; and who their friends are affects more than just what type of jeans they buy. Their friends have the capacity to affect their tastes, activities, and their lives overall. Sociologists call this phenomenon of being affected by one's friends "homophily" -- the tendency to associate with people similar to you and the people you associate with tend to act like you over time (and vice-versa). Humans naturally conform to social influence -- to their surroundings, environment, strangers, peers, friends, and the like. People tend to socially conform or mimic their friends' behaviors, attitudes, etc. Besides the need for information, it is understood that people conform so that they will be liked and accepted by other people. We tend to associate ourselves with those who are similar to us in interests, attitudes, values, background, and personality. The old saying that "opposites attract" doesn't hold much weight; research evidence by Miller McPherson shows that it is similarity that draws people together (imagine starting with another Custom Field 5 on social networks like Custom Field 6 you). The Effect Your Friends Have Over You Your peers are very important. Judith Rich Harris's groundbreaking book, The Nurture Assumption , suggests that peers have a much greater influence on child development than parents or teachers. An immigrant 4-year-old boy from Poland (or China) who just moved to St. Louis is more likely to speak perfect English and love baseball within a year because he wants to fit in with the other kids. He might still like traditional Polish food, but he'll also quickly love hamburgers and pizza. The social psychology phenomenon of "mirroring" -- people that are your friends or people that like you in general, tend to physically mimic or mirror your behavior, vernacular, movements, etc. -- is example of the type of subconscious influence your friends have over you. As a social experiment, try incorporating a new word or phrase into your lexicon and notice how your friends will slowly adopt and use this word or phrase. Or try crossing your arms during a conversation with one of your friends and see if they mimic that behavior. On a gender basis, women are slightly more prone to be influenced by their female friends than men are by their male friends. In her research Sex Differences in Social Behavior , Alice Eagly hypothesizes that this stems from the social roles men and women are taught in our society. How Your Friends Affect Your ... - Health Nick Christakis and James Fowler published a study last year in the New England Journal of Medicine which suggests that your friends greatly affect your health. According to the study: A person's chances of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval. Among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling became obese, the chance that the other would become obese increased by 40%. If one spouse became obese, the likelihood that the other spouse would become obese increased by 37%. These effects were not seen among neighbors in the immediate geographic location. If your friend gets heavier, it becomes more socially acceptable to gain weight. And you start to get a different perspective on what is thin or fat. And because you are friends with this individual that gets heavier, you may likely partake in activities with this friend that are unhealthy, thus increasing your chances that you too will gain weight. Of course, if your friends start to eat healthy, it can be a motivating factor to eat less chocolate cake too. - Music Preferences Birds of feather even sing together. Noah Mark, Assistant Professor at UNC Charlotte, wrote a paper in 1998 that suggests that our music preferences are highly influenced by who we hang out with. This makes complete sense. We are limited in our time and capacity to try everything. So we tend to try out and learn about things that our friends are doing, acting as a filter to all the noise that permeates our ear drums. I suspect this is also true with the type of sports you play, art you like, food you appreciate, etc. -- all your habits, likes, and dislikes are massively influenced by your friends' habits. - Mood And not surprisingly, much of your mood and overall disposition can be heavily influenced by your friends and the type of people around you. Happy friends will make you happier. Sad friends will make you more depressed. Even thoughts of suicide can be contagious. Essentially, mood is virus that is highly contagious. Likewise, when someone out of the blue smiles at you, you usually can't help but smile back. Humans are susceptible of being influenced and we're reciprocal beings at the core. - Political Stance Political leanings is very closely linked to homophily. If you live in an area with more than 65% party registration, you're probably getting massively influenced by your neighbors. Using the Understanding of Homophily for Good Use Homophily can be actively used to positively impact your life. Christakis and Fowler did another study where they found quitting smoking is contagious and targeted interventions are most successful when done within a group. It's analogous to going for a run with a friend and pushing yourself harder and longer than if you were to just run by yourself. Having many people around you can reinforce positive things like community service or negative things like UFO cults. If you are always trying to hack your life, the best thing you can do is systematically eliminate unhappy people from your encounters. Even a reduction of 10% unhappy people will likely have dramatic affects on your mood and disposition. Good-bye complainers, hello smilers. The best way to deal with homophily is to understand how you are impacted by it and to hack your life and make adjustments accordingly. To inoculate yourself politically, for instance, start considering the "other side" of the political isle. If you are in San Francisco (84% Democratic), you might want to read the Wall Street Journal editorials every day. Similarly, if you are in the back countries of Alabama (70% Republican) you should read the editorials of the New York Times every day. Don't let yourself be blindly led by those you know. So the next time you go shopping, be sure to bring along that frugal friend of yours to help curtail your spending spree -- which is definitely not recommended in this economy. More on Relationships
 
James Love: People vs the Authors Guild, don't turn off text to speech in Kindle 2 Top
As has been written about extensively in the press and the blogsphere, the Authors Guild has pressured Amazon to disable the text to speech feature in Kindle 2. This has set of a storm of opposition among groups that see the Guild's actions as harmful to access for persons who are reading disabled. Details are reported by the Reading Rights Coalition( http://www.readingrights.org ) and by others . The Guild has issued this statement , which has been widely criticized by organizations working on accessibility issues. Nothing is more moving than the comments of persons who are signing the "We want to read" petition to the Authors Guild. If you are as outraged as I am, you might want to sign the petition, but also contact directly the members of the Guild Board of Directors: http://www.authorsguild.org/about/board.html who are directly responsible. The following are only a few quotes from the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read Mary Butigan, Florida Have freinds that are going through eye cancer and cannot read. This is a great resource for them to have books to hear while going through chemo and escape the rigors of loosing their sight. Barbara Foyil, California Text to speech is important to me because I have visual limitations and am a community college instructor of students with various disabilities who would also benefit from text to speech electronic book readers. Those of us who have difficulty reading caused by a type of visual impairment should have the right to view the world in any form available. Text to speech is our vehicle to the world of the written word. Judy Marrs, Virginia I have a friend who is almost blind and she wants to have the bible read to her. this is vital for her overall well being. She is 96years old. Denise Smith, Alabama Please reconsider disabling the text to speech function on your ebooks. Many individuals will be excluded from reading your materials if you take this action. Discrimination is still rampant in the disability community and your actions perpetuate this policy. My son is legally blind and has a cognitive disability. He looks forward to engaging in activities with as much independence as possible. Devices such as the Kindle 2 provide him with this opportunity. He is 23 years old and wants to be just like any other 23 year old. By denying this option, you are contributing to his dependence on society rather than his independence. Please allow everyone access to e-books! Timothy Emmons, Alabama Text to Speech is important to me for a variety of reasons, the main one of which, I am totally blind. I rely on it daily to read, perform my duties as a librarian, and get entertainment among other things. Lusi Radford, North Carolina My daughter and I are both blind. If we had twenty/twenty vision, the main use we would find for it is reading. Since this isn't possible, we want to access everything that others are reading. Please make the Kindle 2. Reader total accessible to all who are print impaired. No author will lose any money over this. Tom Shaw, Virginia I have a speech disability which can be frustrating and it has its barriers but it pales in comparison to the loss of sight. I would feel totally compromised if I did not have access to read all that is available to the general public. Robert Hargrave, Canada My daughter Meaghan is blind. She has very limited access to audio books. When we can get them she will listen to them for hours and over and over again. I think what AMAZON IS DOING WOULD BE FANTASTIC FOR HER. Susan Sell, Maryland I really do not think that we want to live in a society that denies access to reading material to the blind. Thomas Bickford, Maryland Because of my blindness I have been reading recorded books since 1948. It has always been hard to get current books because the recording and distribution system takes so long. It has only been in the last few years that really current books have been available thanks to new technology. All I want is to read books when they are new. I don't want to cheat any authors. Barbara Shears, Kentucky Text-to-speech allows my non-reading students to 'read' books they would otherwise never hear. They CANNOT read on their own without this technology added to the books. JACKIE WHITFORD, United Kingdom Because I have a blind daughter who loves reading braille books and listening to books. It would make the latest books equally accessible to her. Sandra Merchant Taboada, Louisiana I have a 16 year old son that is in a gifted program in Louisiana. Access to books is paramount to him being able to compete with his gifted peers and to be able to compete in college. Please do not make this harder than it already is for blind youth and adults to compete in a sighted world. Jason Ewell, Maryland I am blind. I would love to be able to buy books the way any print reader does. This is the first chance I have ever had to do so and the Authors Guild wants to take that opportunity away from me. Chris McNamee, Wisconsin I am blind, why shouldn't I have access to the Kindle 2???? Scott McIntyre, Minnesota As a father of a blind daughter I know first hand the financial disadvantage she faces in the world. Less chances for well paying jobs and expensive equipment to assist her with computer and reading. Adding this cost on top is adding to and is exploiting a group of people with already smaller income and larger expenses than sighted people. Please keep the reading function turned on at no cost. Lisa Farquharson, Canada It is important to me that my blind 8 year son have equal access to the 245,000 books on the Kindle 2. Melanie Cimini, Massachusetts I have a granddaughter with processing problems. I know she is not alone and realize the benefit of having books available by audio. She learns by listening not by reading. Anthony Cobb, Maryland My wife is blind and a voracious reader. To ask that she pay for a downloaded book and then pay again to read it is an insult and is inconsistent with my ability to read it by sight with no extra charge. This requirement is discriminatory on its face. Anonymous, Mississippi My wife and I have a daughter who recently lost her vision. This will be an important factor in our daughter's life and educational career. Thank you and please reconsider. Dylan Krenske, Minnesota I am blind - and I would love to be able to use the new Kindle 2! Please, please help make this happen. It would add so much and help me with college. Elizabeth Whitney, Hawaii As a person who is blind, I was so excited to know that all of the books on the Kindle 2 were going to be available for me to purchase and the unit would speak to me. We are not asking to have the books given to us for free, we are capable of buying them, but to choose to make them only available to people who can read print is sad and discriminatory. And, I don't understand why anyone would object to having them spoken. I can go to my local book store and find books in many languages and some books on audio disks, so why assume that people with challenges to reading print, through no fault of their own, are not deserving of equal treatment? Thank you. Raymond Blanford, Virginia Because I may, some day, not be able to routinely read written text but need to resort to listening to it. Michelle B., New York I am a quadriplegic due to neuromuscular disease, and cannot turn pages for myself. These days I mostly read e-books on my computer, where I can Page Up and Page Down with my voice recognition program. The alternative is propping up a book in a book holder with other books piled underneath to raise it high enough, and asking someone to come over each time I need the page turned. Needless to say, I (and my family) prefer e-books. There are many times when I'd love to be able to read but simply can't use the computer or book stand; waiting rooms, van rides, vacationing, outside in my backyard, lying down. If the Kindle could read to me I would buy it in a heartbeat! Matthew Might, Utah My young son has an incurable neurodegenerative disorder. His vision will soon be too poor to read books. Reading books are one of the few joys in left in life for him. When you take away text-to-speech, you will take away his love. DENNIS DIBona, Florida I am blind and depend on this technology daily. Courtney Schlittenhard, North Dakota I am a blind individual, and such techonology, would enable me to read books, again. Ari Goldberg, Pennsylvania My 13-year old daughter suffers from Mitochondrial Disease and last year suffered a stroke-like event which has caused her to lose her normal reading ability. The Kindle 2 offers her the opportunity to access so many more books than are currently available in audio book format. Please reconsider your decision immediately. Meryl Ater, Virginia My husband is blind, my mom and sister are dyslexic, and I am a teacher of those with learning disabilities. The Kindle, with its speech option, would be wonderful for those that have disabilities. Please do not allow publishers the opportunity to create a negative on a device that offers so many positives to people with disabilities. J. Richard Hunt, Indiana My mother-in-law, avid reader all her life, at 101 could no longer read because of macular degeneration. She would have benefited from this technology. She has since died but there are many people with such issues who need this kind of access to books. Please give them the help that is within your power to provide. Anonymous, Maryland Text to speech is important because my mother sustained a brain injury and used to love to read. As her caregivers, we don't have the time to sit and read to her while cooking, cleaning, taking care of her, etc. This is a perfect way for her to have the books read to her. The Author's shouldn't be selfish!!!! Lorraine Rovig, Maryland I often buy my books from Amazon.com now. If I lose my ability to read when I become one of the elderly I expect I'll continue my love of reading through electronic means. I sure don't want to have my choice of reading materials restricted because the Kindle 2 has its speech function turned off or have to pay more than if I were reading print. If I'm an author, I expect to be paid once when one person buys one copy of my book--whether the reader uses print or OCR speech from the print. Norma Crosby, Louisiana I am blind and love to read. I currently purchase audio books when available, and I would love to buy e-books as well. I urge authors to support equal access for the print disabled by allowing their books to be published in a text-to-speech format that will allow people like me to buy and read them just as others do. Glenn Crosby, Louisiana Access to printed material is critical to blind and other print disabled people if we are to compete effectively with our sighted counterparts, and as someone who reads "talking books" regularly, I would love to have access to a broader variety of materials. Not only that, I feel that since I am willing to pay for books, I should be able to access them just as others do. Mehgan Sidhu, Maryland Equal access to digital books and information by people with disabilities is a fundamental right recognized by the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Forcing people with print disabilities to pay extra or undergo a burdensome registration process to read the same books I can buy for less and enjoy instantly is discrimination. Authors Guild, reverse your stance and let the millions of people with print disabilities who want to be your paying customers buy and read your books! Anonymous, Massachusetts Any hand held, or otherwise, technology should be eqyally accessable to visual perfect and visually impaired persons. Reading is not something that should be segregated! If a book is purchased it can be read alloud by a natural voice. What then is the concern with a terrible computer voice doing this? Denying visually impaired or blind persons access to books is a crime -- or should be. Marc Workman, Canada For a student, access to books is tremendously important. Too much time and too many resources are spent trying to make books accessible. The Author's Guild has an opportunity to make hundreds of thousands of books available to print disabled students. Don't ignore this opportunity. Isaiah Wilcox, Georgia Because I am a college student and reading is my life line. And to have a useful tool such as text to speech is so much easier on my life and allows me to be much more productive. Denice Brown, Pennsylvania as a blind individual, I should be able to read electronic books on the new Kindle. It should be one of the choices that I have. How can it be anything less than discrimination if a sighted person can use their eyes to read, but I can not use my ears? Jackie McBride, Arizona I happen to be blind, & I've pretty much made it a policy not to buy books that aren't accessible to me or which would require a lot of work in order to make them so. I would buy a Kindle II & I would purchase books that use text-to-speech format. It very much seems to me that by allowing individual authors to dictate whether or not their books can be translated via the text-to-speech engine, it denies access to print-disabled people but probably actually also decreases sales of those books. Perhaps those authors who feel they don't wish to allow those of us with print disabilities access to their books should put a blindfold on for a week & see how it feels not to be able to read. It might well give them a much needed perspective. Raymond Foret jjr, Louisiana I strongly urge you, the Author's guild, to reverse your profoundly stupid and absolutely backwards stand on the issue of wishing to prevent access to books via text to speech via any electronic device. What will you do next? Will you attempt to shut down the talking book program; the only source of books for the blind which is free? Will you next target innocent mothers reading bed-time stories to their children? Must everyone who reads allow now fear your wrath? I cannot help but wonder; will you now try to try to bring a lawsuit against me just because I'm blind and use a screen reader to read this very page upon witch I'm signing this petition? After all, it's technically the very same thing to which you object; text read via electronic device. It seems to me y'all have y'all's heads buried in the sand. This is a stupid ass backwards position which y'all have and we're not going to stand by and tolerate you and your ilk even trying to take the right to read away from us. Just who the hell are y'all anyhow? Well, it seems to me that you are not going to when this one; because, you see, we, the blind of the country and all other print disabled citizens of the country will call y'all's asses on the carpet and defeat you on this. We will not be stopped. You will not stop us. Deborah Kent, Illinois As I have been totally blind since birth, I cannot access print directly. Braille and audio versions of books are of critical importance to me, and the number of books in those accessible formats has always been woefully limited. Kindle II, with text to speech capability, would open the gates to equality in the world of the printed word. It would offer a level of easy access which
 
Andy Worthington: Justice Extends To Bagram, Guantanamo's Dark Mirror Top
Since coming to power in a blaze of reforming glory, promising to close Guantanamo within a year, to stop the CIA from running offshore torture prisons, and to restore the Geneva Conventions to prisoners seized in wartime, the Obama administration has proceeded to make a number of poor decisions in relation to its predecessors' reviled "War on Terror" policies. One was the decision to invoke the state secrets privilege to quash a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen for its role as the CIA's travel agent in a case brought by a number of prisoners subjected to "extraordinary rendition," although this was understandable if the floodgates were not to be opened with regard to everyone involved in the Bush administration's lawless policies rather than, say, the senior officials who authorized the crimes. Another, I believe, was the refusal to substantially redefine the terms of reference for "enemy combatants," while the administration was scoring a propaganda point by dropping the use of the term. There are, of course, many challenges to come -- not least, the question of prosecutions for senior officials (from President Bush down), which Obama is clearly unwilling to tackle -- but so far the poorest decision came in February, when, in its first response to habeas corpus claims filed on behalf of four prisoners held in the U.S. prison at Bagram airbase, the Justice Department responded to a request by District Court Judge John D. Bates, asking if the new administration would like to review the position maintained by the Bush administration -- essentially, that the prisoners in Bagram have no rights -- by stating simply, in a one-paragraph response, "This Court's Order of January 22, 2009 invited the Government to inform the Court by February 20, 2009, whether it intends to refine its position on whether the Court has jurisdiction over habeas petitions filed by detainees held at the United States military base in Bagram, Afghanistan. Having considered the matter, the Government adheres to its previously articulated position." What made this decision so poor was that the situation in which these men found themselves was essentially the same as that experienced by the prisoners in Guantanamo. The men in question -- Redha al-Najar, a Tunisian seized in Karachi, Pakistan, Amin al-Bakri, a Yemeni gemstone dealer seized in Bangkok, Thailand, Fadi al-Maqaleh, a Yemeni, and Haji Wazir, an Afghan businessman seized in the United Arab Emirates -- were all captured between five and seven years ago, and transferred to Bagram, where only an administrative accident -- or some as yet unknown decision that involved keeping a handful of foreign prisoners in Bagram, instead of sending them all to Guantanamo -- prevented them from joining the 779 men in the offshore prison in Cuba. Moreover, what made the Bagram prisoners' situation even worse was that, whereas the prisoners in Guantanamo had, over the years, secured habeas corpus rights (the right to challenge the basis of their detention in a court) and the right to meet with and be represented by lawyers, none of these privileges had been extended to the prisoners in Bagram. Their isolation meant that, increasingly, the prison in Afghanistan -- which was, and is, under the complete control of the U.S. military -- was nothing less than Guantanamo's Dark Mirror, or, as Judge Bates suggested in a review of the men's cases in January, "a 'black hole' for detainees in a 'law-free zone.'" At the time, Judge Bates was only hinting that he thought it might be necessary to extend habeas rights to these particular prisoners in Bagram. In February, of course, the Obama administration thought that it had crushed his nascent dissent, when it declared, with an imperiousness that was reminiscent of Dick Cheney and David Addington , that the reach of the law did not extend to Bagram. However, last Thursday, after studying closely the differences between the prisoners held at Bagram -- in other words, between foreigners captured in other countries and "rendered" to Bagram, Afghans captured in other countries and "rendered" to Bagram, and Afghans captured in Afghanistan -- Judge Bates ruled ( PDF ) that the habeas rights granted by the Supreme Court to the Guantanamo prisoners last June in Boumediene v. Bush also extended to the foreign prisoners in Bagram, because, as he explained succinctly, "the detainees themselves as well as the rationale for detention are essentially the same." What this involved, to recap on Boumediene , was that the government had no right to revoke the Suspension Clause of the U.S. Constitution, under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to prevent the prisoners from seeking "the protection of the writ of habeas corpus," because, as the Supreme Court made clear, "At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest." The Supreme Court also noted that "the Judiciary -- not the Executive -- must decide when and where the Suspension Clause applies," and, also drew on a case from 1803, which stated, "The writ of habeas corpus itself is an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers ...The test for determining the scope of [the Suspension Clause] must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain." Judge Bates added that the military's justification for holding the prisoners at Bagram involves a review process that is both "inadequate" and "more error-prone" than the tribunal process used at Guantanamo (which has, of course, been condemned by former officials who worked on it, including, in particular, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham ), and concluded that the U.S. military's control over Bagram "is not appreciably different than at Guantanamo." His precis of the review process was, in fact, genuinely disturbing, as he quoted from a government declaration which stated that the Unlawful Enemy Combatant Review Board (UECRB) at Bagram does not even allow the prisoners to have a "personal representative" from the military in place of a lawyer (as at Guantanamo), and that "Bagram detainees represent themselves." In addition, Detainees cannot even speak for themselves; they are only permitted to submit a written statement. But in submitting that statement, detainees do not know what evidence the United States relies upon to justify an "enemy combatant" designation -- so they lack a meaningful opportunity to rebut that evidence. [The government's] far-reaching and ever-changing definition of enemy combatant, coupled with the uncertain evidentiary standards, further undercut the reliability of the UECRB review. And, unlike the CSRT process, Bagram detainees receive no review beyond the UECRB itself. This Court need not determine how extensive the process must be to stave off the reach of the Suspension Clause to Bagram. It suffices to recognize that the UECRB process at Bagram falls well short of what the Supreme Court found inadequate at Guantanamo. Judge Bates also explained that, although Bagram is "located in an active theater of war," and that this may pose some "practical obstacles" to a court review of their cases, these obstacles "are not as great" as the government suggested, are "not insurmountable," and are, moreover, "largely of the Executive's choosing," because the prisoners were specifically transported to Bagram from other locations. As with the Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene , Judge Bates was also concerned by the length of time that the prisoners have been held without an adequate review of their cases. As he explained, "the Supreme Court's observation in Boumediene is equally powerful here: 'the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody. The detainees in these cases are entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.'" Nevertheless, although Judge Bates ruled that the three foreign prisoners could challenge the basis of their detention, he refused to extend habeas rights to the Afghan prisoners who make up the majority of the 670 or so prisoners held in Bagram, agreeing with the government's claim that to do so would cause "friction" with the Afghan government, because of ongoing negotiations regarding the transfer of Afghan prisoners to the custody of their own government. As a result, he also refused to extend habeas rights to Haji Wazir, even though he was captured outside Afghanistan, although he did not dismiss his claim outright, and wondered whether there was any other mechanism whereby he might seek habeas relief. On SCOTUSblog , Lyle Denniston noted that this part of the ruling "seemed to suggest a potential impact of the ruling for detainees in places other than Bagram," as Judge Bates stated that one possible route, about which he requested further briefing, involved ascertaining whether Congress "usurped" the constitutional authority of the federal courts, in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, when it prohibited habeas claims by any prisoner in U.S. custody, anywhere in the world, who was held as an "enemy combatant." In conclusion, then, this was an extraordinarily important result for those who have been struggling for years to secure rights for the prisoners in Bagram -- in particular, Tina Foster and Barbara Olshansky of the International Justice Network , who first filed the cases in October 2006. Judge Bates gave the government until April 23 to respond to his question about Congress usurping the federal courts' constitutional authority, and gave Haji Wazir's lawyers until May 7 to respond to the government's brief. As for Redha al-Najar, Fadi al-Maqaleh and Amin al-Bakri, their cases now move to a detailed review, with Judge Bates taking the cases of al-Najar and al-Maqaleh, and Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle taking the case of al-Bakri. Expect sparks to fly, as, in addition to being held for up to seven years without charge or trial, it appears that some, if not all of these men passed through a secret prison network in Afghanistan, which involved brutal torture, before they even arrived at Bagram. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and maintains a blog here . More on Barack Obama
 
Green Gondola Considered For Inter-Campus Transit In Colorado Top
The aerial people movers could be decorated with Buffs logos and could zip fans to football games at Folsom Field, he said. A separate line could even help move Williams Village students at 30th Street and Baseline Road to the main campus to ease crowding on cramped Buff Bus shuttles, some CU scholars suggest. But any ideas for a gondola look to be derailed by the administration. Frank Bruno, CU's vice chancellor of administration, said that while the idea is laudable, there are serious engineering challenges and a gondola line isn't in the university's plans. Bruno said the idea of a gondola was floated a few years ago, but leaders at the time researched the idea and found wind and lightning would cause disruptions to the gondola system. CU would then need to spend unnecessary money on a back-up system, he said.
 
Rick Smith: What the World Needs Now is an Anti-Summit Top
The curtain is now closing on a week of pomp and circumstance at the G20 Summit. A flowery communiqué, a few group commitments and a years worth of photo ops were the outcome. But did these leaders make any real progress on their understanding of, and approach toward the issues facing them? Rather than on the record press releases and media feeding, what these leaders really need is some time alone, off the record, to actually help each other. My perspective comes from four years of helping global executives do just that. Earlier in my career I was an executive recruiter, and what always struck me is just how lonely these men and women were. Not Tom Hanks on a desert island lonely - these people were surrounded by people clamoring for their attention. Rather, they were lonely in the sense that they rarely if ever could find a safe place to collaborate with peers around real problems. Their superiors were always looking for the answers, their subordinates were looking for direction. When they were able to interact with those outside of their companies, it was almost always at functions for their industry (i.e. their competitors). Everywhere these executives go, that have to present themselves as if they know the answers, as if they are supremely confident. But guess what? Even the most heralded execs share the same uncertainties as the rest of us. They just aren't allowed to show it. I mean, where can the Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-cola raise his hand and say, "I don't know the answer!" Peer support is critical to any career. But the higher you go in a leadership role, the fewer opportunities you have to lean on peers for deliberation and problem solving. For any leader (yes, including the president), maintaining a trusted support network of true peers is critical. To address this issue, I started World 50, Inc. in 2004, initially bringing together the world's top 50 marketing executives (in a group called Marketing 50). For this small group of executives, it was as if a light was suddenly turned on. These people were STARVED for a safe environment. Their insecurities and frustrations came spilling out as if from a pressure cooker. They immediately jumped in a started to help solve each other's problems. As one member commented, "It was as if I was talking to myself a year from now. How valuable is that!" Our firm quickly launched similar peer groups for nearly every office in the executive suite, with each group addressing this same, basic need. If I were in President Obama's shoes, these are the connections I would be looking for. Not a formal summit where the actual time together together is measured in minutes. But an informal, completely off the record discussion about the reality of what all world leaders are faced with and how we go forward. Staff members cant offer that, nor can those in congress. Is it possible for the President to ever truly have a trusted peer support group? Perhaps not. But for the rest of us, the opportunity is there if we only look for it, and continued success depends on it. Create a personal board of directors. Join an organization like YPO, or even organize your own local group of non-competitive peers. If you have no other agenda than to reciprocally offer help and support, you will be amazed at how receptive others will be. It is lonely at the top, but not for lack of noise. I hope the President is getting the honest and untarnished advice that he needs. For the rest of us, it is our responsibility to go out and find it. This post was originally published at RickSmith.me Friend Rick Smith on Facebook . Follow Rick Smith on Twitter .
 
Accountants: Affairs More Likely In Industry Top
Research by Illicit Encounters.com, an extra-marital dating site with almost 300,000 members, found that 8,746 of all its male members work in accountancy. However, lawyers narrowly beat accountants to the top spot on the affair hierarchy, representing 9,048 of the site's male population.
 
Yvonne R. Davis: The Term "Man Caused Disasters" Sounds Weak, but the "War on Terror" Has Always Been Weaker Top
"The 'war on terror' has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world." --Zbigniew Brzezinski Republican Clerics are at it again. This time they are really mad about the Obama Administration ditching the oxy moronic "War on Terror, Global War on Terrorism" terminology to describe the United States' efforts to protect the "Homeland" to fight terrorism around the world. How can the United States have a war on tactics used in warfare? There are over 100 definitions for the word "Terrorism." The multiplicity of the definitions indicates there is a problem with properly defining what terrorism actually is; thus to have a war on it is problematic. United States International law defines Terrorism as, "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents." A possible reason why the Obama Administration stopped using the "War on Terror" or "Global War on Terrorism" is the complexity and difficulty to realize the efforts to stop terrorism by way of a war. Additionally, the terminology is just extremely alienating in nature connoting "us against them," which is a notion terrorists embrace by the way. This term frankly is the code for Arabs and Muslims and if you are the average and even not so average American in the United States this is what you think, perceive and for many believe. In 2005, then Joints Chief of Staff Chairman Richard Meyers, announced that there was not actually any "War on Terror:" ' He told a National Press Club audience that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." Additionally, if it is a war in the traditional sense there is supposed to be an end in site. For a "War on Terror," there is no end, there are no land masses or boundaries, the enemies are many and can be anyone that fits the U.S. definition at any time. The problem with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano referring to the "War on Terrorism" as now "Man Caused Disasters" (MCDs) is because her term is also quite vague and without form, substance and not macho enough. For Americans to not use the "War on Terror,"does not sound hard-core. MCDs do not contain Testosterone. It does not carry the "Don't' Mess with the U.S." cache that Americans like to feel when their Patriotic ire is up. The term "War on Terror," that became a part of Bush 43's mantra actually helped most Americans from a psychological perspective not feel so fearful, because our military was now going kick Terrorism in the a_ _, kill it and end it once and for all. But the problem is, we didn't. We beat it back, killed a number of persons involved in terrorist acts, but former "Muhuji Freedom Fighter" turned Public Enemy numero uno Terrorist enemy Osama Bin Laden has not been killed yet. Also, he is not the only one out there. President Obama knows for sure this can't be done alone and the continued efforts to fight it into eternity can't be done by the United States lone star style. When U.S. Presidents declare wars on things such as poverty by Lyndon B. Johnson and drugs by Ronald Reagan, it serves more as a giant social marketing campaign tool to get people to believe something is being done about a problem that has spun way out of control. From that standpoint it works. U.S. leadership is proving to its people there are plans being implemented to annihilate what and who is hurting our Nation. However, these wars are invisible, and also served to cement terrible stereotypical perceptions about who the enemies are. In the 1960s, Johnson's 'War on Poverty' was declared at the same time as Civil Right Legislation was passed. The biggest beneficiaries of the legislation were African Americans, but an out growth of this war was labeling poor black folks from the Ghetto as pitiful, lazy and needing handouts. A number of people from the majority viewed them as the enemies to economic progress. The rise of racial profiling and Blacks being labeled as drug dealing thugs and criminals was another stereotypical outcome by Reagan's 80's 'War on Drugs.' Racial Profiling flourished. The enemy was a young black man walking alone or in small groups. The sad thing about both domestic wars is to this day, the United States are losing both wars - poverty is up in nearly every demographic and South of the Border there is a country called Mexico where the drug Cartels's biggest client are U.S. Citizens from all races. I strongly believe President Obama knows the United States has been losing these wars and also knows the terrible impact these wars have had on a group of people when they are labeled and targeted. He just does not want to continue down that road when it comes to terrorism. It is way too risky. I give credit to Obama 44 and his very cerebral administration for having a holistic understanding that to end anything harmful to American citizens and the world such as terrorism, it is a "Contingency Operation," that is situational, strategically multifaceted and inclusive of other nations to achieve the objectives towards either ending terrorism or getting it under control. More on Barack Obama
 
HuffPost Co-Hosting Virginia Governor's Debate April 29 Top
It's time for the big formal announcement. We are teaming up for the first ever Gubernatorial debate sponsored by the netroots in history! Creigh Deeds, Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran have all confirmed their participation and accepted this historic event.
 
Liam Neeson And Sons In London (PHOTOS) Top
Liam Neeson is in London, just two weeks after burying wife Natasha Richardson following her freak ski accident and a week after finishing filming on "Chloe." Liam, sons Michael and Daniel and mother-in-law Vanessa Redgrave went to the Liverpool-Fulham football game on Saturday. His team Liverpool won 1-0. Sunday night Liam dined at the Ivy restaurant, leaving alone. PHOTOS: More on Photo Galleries
 
Steve Clemons: Obama Needs to be Nuanced in North Korea Response Top
The pin-pricks, as Brent Scowcroft calls them , have started. North Korea is testing Obama's resolve and strategic skills. North Korea's ballistic missile test masked as a satellite launch violates agreements that the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan negotiated with North Korea in order to bring it back into compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Set aside for the moment that despite the missile succeeding in covering more than 1,900 miles -- doubling the distances achieved by earlier North Korea tests -- the North Koreans failed to put anything into orbit, though state news agencies are reporting the satellite launch to be a success. My friend Jeffrey Lewis who blogs at Arms Control Wonk wondered out loud on his facebook profile "What happens to North Korean rocket scientists after failed launches?" I wonder if these scientists are really in any jeopardy for failing when the State is calling their work a major success. But Barack Obama in a well-crafted speech in Prague calling for a return to serious work on constraining the spread of weapons of mass destruction has ratcheted up the decibel level of his protest of the North Korea launch -- saying that their must be consequences. The problem is that China and Russia, which actually deployed warships and fighters to the region of the launch, believe that the world must not overreact to North Korea's provocation. These two countries have thus far blocked the issuance of any statement from the United Nations Security Council, which met last evening (Sunday) for an emergency session. North Korea seems to be demanding that it not fall too far down the Obama priority list -- and it has engineered one of the first of many probable global crises designed to test the resolve and strategic course of the Obama administration. Joe Biden warned during the campaign that this would happen, and he was absolutely right. North Korea is already the target of some of the world's most stringent sanctions. And maintaining them -- and even adding some categories of sanctions -- does send a signal, but it is a soft one that the North Koreans may not care about or respect. If this provocation was designed primarily "to get attention," then the Obama administration should be asking what can be done to give North Korea "more" attention. Attention itself is not a strategic commodity -- or something that a great nation should withhold if there is a chance of securing strategically significant successes over the ability of North Korea to further enhance its nuclear weapon systems capacity. Giving North Korea more attention will be pilloried as appeasement by voices such as John Bolton and Frank Gaffney who think that there is little else but expedited regime change and military collision that will change North Korea's course. But what I have learned watching North Korea's engagement with the US over the years is that North Korea does not move behaviorally in straight lines. But after all is said and done, when one looks back, one sees that North Korea is moving generally in a direction that the West may eventually be able to accept. North Korea may be a rogue state -- but it is not the kind of transnational, undeterrable threat that al Qaeda represents. North Korea's leadership is a shrewdly self-interested, rational, calculating tyranny and as awful as dealing with such regimes may be -- there are many options that can move the regime that are short of war. Thus, in my view, Obama should not put himself into a box when it comes to a tough-edged response to North Korea. Give North Korea the attention it craves -- and set up benchmarks for behavior. And some of Obama's responses may indeed have to be harder edged -- but we need to be sure that the US isn't giving the most thuggish part of North Korea's leadership structure the excuses needed to undermine progressive movement inside the country. At the same time, we simply need more alternatives and allies -- and the best I can think of is to work with Japan, South Korea, and China in not calling for withdrawing engagement and toughening sanctions but rather crafting how to strategically enhance engagement with particular forces inside North Korea that we want to cultivate. It's time for a Nixonian approach that would enrich some of North Korea's potential robber barons against the interests of others inside the regime. We need to try to unleash opportunities for some and not others. This is risky and could itself be destabilizing -- but we need a strategic course that ultimately improves the leverage of other of North Korea's neighbors over its conduct. Bluster will not work and is not respected. Force actually is respected by the North Koreans but can easily escalate beyond control. North Korea is not monolithic. It would be prudent to try to generate some leverage on the competing factions around Kim Jong Il. But hitting North Korea hard now may undermine any chance of teasing out these factions and of generating other more promising scenarios. At the minimum, if this was all about "attention" -- then that is something America can give at low cost. If North Korea doesn't get off this new provocative course, then we have to consider some options that change the game. -- Steve Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog , The Washington Note More on Barack Obama
 
FedEx Layoffs Confirmed Top
FedEx Corp. has confirmed that the company has cut 1,000 jobs worldwide, including 500 in its headquarters city of Memphis, Tenn. Company spokesman Jesse Bunn said the employees were "salaried exempt" professionals and managers. The laid off workers will be given severance packages, advance notice of job openings and career counseling.
 
Morgan Tsvangirai's Grandson Dies, One Month After Wife's Death Top
The four-year-old grandson of Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai drowned in a swimming pool at the family's home in Harare at the weekend, his MDC party said in a statement. More on Zimbabwe
 
Dan Dorfman: Posse on Trail of Wall Street Cheats Top
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," French novelist Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849. That's surely the case on Wall Street 160 years later where financial skulduggery, judging from the latest and sharply increasing number of stock trading investigations, is unmistakably on the rise. Given the national uproar over a slew of Ponzi schemes, especially the one engineered by the king of the market cheats, jailed money manager Bernard Madoff, who defrauded investors out of an estimated $65 billion, and widespread demand for greater scrutiny from Wall Street's regulatory watchdogs, one might have expected the bad guys at the very least to take a breather for a while, if not run for cover. No such luck. I have obtained copies of internal documents various regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, sent to the compliance departments of brokerage firms that detail their very latest batch of trading investigations, and the numbers clearly suggest the cheaters are more brazen than ever. For example, in a piece I wrote on this website on February 19 , I reported that the SEC had kicked off a wave of 17 stock trading investigations which included some of the best known names in Corporate America. Now, a little more than two weeks later, an even bigger outburst of such trading probes, at least an additional 27, about a 60% increase, has recently been launched by various securities industry regulatory agencies, including the SEC and NYSE Regulation, the market enforcement arm of the New York Stock Exchange. Clearly, the surge in the number of trading investigations is a flashing signal that the pursuit of suspected stock cheats by regulators is heating up. It should be noted that these investigations are not of the companies themselves, but rather focus on the trading in their securities both here and abroad. Veteran stockbroker Malcolm Lowenthal of Kern, Suslow Securities probably best sums up the current surge in Wall Street investigations, noting "our product is money, and money attracts scum." Once again, some top corporate names are included in the latest round of investigations, among them Wells Fargo, Alcoa and Target. Noteworthy among the latest trading investigations is the inclusion of several giant Wall Street deals, with the regulatory focus on the securities of three mammoth drug companies that were acquired for a total of nearly $156 billion. In brief, the SEC, informed regulatory contacts tell me, is looking at the trading that preceded all three acquisitions. Two of those announced buyouts involve the $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth by Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, and Merck's $41.1 billion takeover of Schering-Plough. The third was the wrap-up of the $46.8 billion buyout of Genentech by Swiss pharmaceutical biggie Hoffman-La Roch Ltd. Roch had owned 55.9% of Genentech and made a bid earlier this month to buy the rest of the stock at $95 a share. In addition, a fourth trading investigation involving another sizable drug company takeover -- notably a $1.4 billion buyout of CV Therapeutics by Gilead Sciences -- has commenced by another watchdog, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA, a Rockville, Md., firm, provides regulatory services to other regulatory agencies and 10 exchanges, including the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Its focus is on potential trading violations connected to insider trading. The thrust of the 27 trading probes, many involving health care companies, is to determine whether any investors illegally profited by trading on privileged or inside information that had not been disclosed to the public at large. Of prime interest to regulators in the inquiries sent to various brokerage firms were the names of the clients who traded in the securities under scrutiny in specified time periods. All three regulatory outfits mentioned in this column -- the SEC, NYSE and FINRA -- declined to comment on the investigations, but two regulatory contacts familiar with the probes confirmed them. "The problem with all of this," as the compliance chief of one brokerage firm sees it, "is that there seems to be a growing number of bad guys on Wall Street who think they can get away with murder. They can't and they won't." Rounding out the 27 investigations, largely undertaken by the SEC and FINRA, are Great Plains Energy; Terra Industries; Health Care REIT; Document Security Services; Marathon Acquisition Corp.; Deerfield Capital Corp.; On2 Technologies; BioMS Medical Corp., InterMune, and AVE BioPharma. Also, ArcelorMittal; Synta Pharmaceuticals; La Jolla Pharmaceutical; SIRF Technology Holdings; Converted Organics; Novelos Therapeutics; Freedom Acquisition Holdings; Advanced Medical Optics; Alfacell Corp., and Future Now Group. Dandordan@aol.com More on Bailout Bandits
 
Phillip Martin: Bank of America When the Camera Lights Go Out Top
When the lights are out politicians often attach to bills various pet projects that would stand little chance of approval if scrutinized in the light of day. With cameras rolling, the accidental statesman, Illinois Senator Roland Burris, swore that everything was above board, only to later admit questionable fundraising attempts on behalf of that state's disgraced governor when no cameras were in sight. And before armies of reporters, Bank of America chief Ken Lewis joined other banking executives in voicing support for the Obama Administration's plan to stem the steady rise in home foreclosures. But when reporters went home, the beneficiary of a massive $45 billion dollar taxpayer bailout has resorted to business as usual. Here's an apt illustration: In late February a lawyer representing a distressed Nashville homeowner named Molly Secours received a call from her mortgage lender, Bank of America-subsidiary First Franklin, notifying them that a planned foreclosure on Secours' home had been called off. You may recall Molly Secours. She is a Nashville based filmmaker responsible for a well-received documentary titled " The Faces of TennCare: Putting a Human Face on Tennessee's Health Care Failure ", which touches on the double calamity that impacts households hit by health and financial crises and the concomitant effect on local communities. A year and a half ago Secours was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Although she was in no position to work, with the generosity of friends and strangers she managed to cobble together monthly mortgage payments on her modest home. It was toward the end of her treatment that Secours began inching behind on expenses. She tried contacting the lender to negotiate for more time, but First Franklin Loan Services' reputation for predation was matched only by a reputation for non-communicativeness and for hiding in the shadows. http://themortgageinsider.net/mortgage-servicing/first-franklin-loan-services-review/ After dozens of emails, telephone calls, hanging on the line and hang ups, Secours says she finally reached a human being. But she was not able to convince the B of A owned lender to refinance her loan at a lower rate. So she was relieved when she got the call from her lawyer, which came in the midst of heightened media attention to the plight of distressed homeowners around the country, who were either upended by the general economic tsunami or were among the millions of non-traditional borrowers who inadvertently helped spark it. Americans were hammering Treasury officials about the double standards of rescuing banks, giant insurance firms and auto companies, while the poor and marginally-middle class were left to sink or swim and clinging precariously to what's let of America's ragged safety nets. Many were already deep underwater. 700,000 foreclosed homes and businesses were on the market from Maine to New Mexico to California. In this atmosphere President Obama announced a program to help 9 million people refinance their mortgages and stay in their homes. Ken Lewis and other titans of the banking community nodded their approval. Many lenders did indeed boost foreclosure-prevention efforts, but not nearly enough for many homeowners, who increasingly have fallen into delinquency. Molly Secours' story was reported by a Nashville television station, local newspapers and by the on-line Wall Street Journal. Bank of America also seemed to have taken notice and put the brakes on the impending foreclosure. But just when she thought it was safe to hope, Molly Secours received a letter on March 27th, notifying her that she had less than 30 days to settle with the bank or face being tossed out of her home. In a subsequent appeal to President Obama, Secours wrote: "I was told to wait to hear from them. And so, I did. Today was the first day I received any communication--a notice of impending foreclosure. No offer to refinance or to modify. Just 30 days to respond to pay the loan in full--and with lawyers' fees attached." That was the same weekend that banking officials met with President Obama at the White House. At the close of that meeting the executives, led by B of A's Ken Lewis, stood before a dozen or more journalists to talk about the outcome. His message was brief: There were positive signs that the mortgage refinance business was improving and that they (the banks) would endeavor to slow the rise in home foreclosures. But across the country millions of middle and working class people are shouting at the top of their lungs that promises from bailed out financial institutions are not translating into real help. The bailout, at least in part, was intended to incentivize banks to help distressed homeowners like Molly Secours. Secours says she can pay the mortgage and is now gainfully employed. But the interest on her mortgage is nearly 10 percent, while the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have dropped to 4.78 percent, a rate that Secours and millions of others could well afford if allowed to refinance. That bears repeating. Thirty year fixed interest rates have dropped to as low as 4.78. So why are capable homeowners like Secours still being asked to pay exorbitant interest, especailly in light of the $45 billion dollars Bank of America has received thus far; the $3.6 billion in bonuses B of A extended surreptitiously to Merrill Lynch executives just before their merger; and the $5.2 billion B of A received from A.I.G, which A.I.G took from its own bag of bailout money? Now Ken Lewis says it is premature to state whether B of A plans to return government funds it received under TARP, because, he says, banks are still undergoing government-administered "stress tests". But many would argue that there could be no worse "stress tests" than the madness of the American economy, which has been exacebated by arbitrary interest rate determinations piled on top of hard working, but down-on-their-luck-home owners. If Bank of America presdient Ken Lewis wants a tangible example of a stress test, it could very well result from the email messages pouring into his in-box: ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com or from the calls to Bank of America Corporate headquarters, 704-386-5681, on behalf of Molly Secours and millions of other American consumers, taxpayers and desperate homeowners, who are fed up with double standards for banks too big to fail and our failure to help people in our nation who are too small to protect. More on Merrill Lynch
 
Craig Newmark: Terrific news: Alec Ross to advise Clinton/State Dept on tech & innovation Top
Hey, I've worked with Alec, he'll really help the US work more effectively with the world. This is for-real. Check out Diplomatic Efforts Get Tech Support Alec Ross arrives today at the State Department, armed with a new set of diplomatic tools including Facebook, text messaging and YouTube. Ross is a senior adviser on innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a role created for the 37-year-old nonprofit leader, who quickly rose within the Obama campaign, helping to craft tech policy under top technology adviser Julius Genachowski. His new job will blend technology with diplomacy in an attempt to help solve some of the globe's most vexing problems on health care, poverty, human rights and ethnic conflicts. And it is emblematic of the expansive approach the administration has taken to the role of technology in advancing its domestic and global agendas. The bottom line, which is my personal experience: ... friends and colleagues who worked on the Obama campaign and transition say Ross has what it takes to pull it off: business savvy and the ability to bring large, disparate groups together.
 
Jay Michaelson: What is the 'Real World', Anyway? Top
Imagine if, like Rip Van Winkle, you fell asleep last fall and awoke, six months later, to find the world in disarray. This is what happened to me. I spent most of the last half year on meditation retreat, partly in the States and partly in Nepal: no phone, no Internet, and no news of the global financial crisis. When I emerged, I knew that I was different; you don't spend six months in silence without undergoing some powerful personal changes. But I had no idea how much the rest of the world had been transformed as well: bank failures, a global recession --you wouldn't have believed it six months ago, and I barely believe it now. Since coming back, some of my friends have asked me what it's like to be back in the "real" world. Short answer: whatever the real world is, this one isn't it. My months of solitude were far more "real" than the abstract complexities of bank bailouts, mortgage crises, stimulus plans, and the endless and contradictory yammering of the pundits. I was not born a Buddhist monk. I went to Yale Law School, and have founded one successful software company and two successful nonprofit organizations. I've been a law professor, raised millions of dollars in venture capital, and worked on capital hill. So I am quite familiar with the ways of the financial and business worlds. But returning from retreat, this so-called "real world" looks to me like a house of cards, none of it as real as the truths I learned on the cushion. (More on that next time.) Of course, real people are really hurting in this financial crisis. But the mass media's conversations, prognostications, and comments on the comments of commentators seem full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The "real world" is air. Coming back to this "real world" has helped me feel better about my own choices. Many times on retreat I wondered how I ended up this way, sitting in silence for hours at a time, while my friends were raising families and making millions. It's not easy being a Yale-trained lawyer and giving it all up to ponder the four noble truths and the meaning of life. Should I have stayed a law professor? My friends are interviewed on network television -- should I have chosen that path instead? Wouldn't that a bit more, well, credible? No. As I emerge from six months of retreat, the phony credibility of the so-called "experts" is more transparent than ever before. These people have no idea what they're talking about; they're doing their best, but most of what they have to say is just guesswork propped up by the phony credibility of money. They dress better, and they earn so much that they've come to believe in their own authority. But our whole system of valuing -- who's knowledgeable, who's not, who's "serious" and who isn't -- has no connection to reality. It's as if the entire world has become one of those ubiquitous HSBC bank ads. First the Man in a Suit is Credible, and the Man in a Robe is a Flake. But now the polarity is reversed. A phalanx of incredibly wealthy and smooth-talking bankers, insurance agents, corporate executives, and lawyers have completely screwed up the system they're meant to be preserving. This isn't a case of a few bad apples; this is an entire system whose fundamental premises seem flawed, unexamined, and now in danger of collapse. To be clear, I'm not sounding any call for any alternate economic system. My point is only that the people we generally regard as the most knowledgeable, the most competent, often have absolutely no idea what's going on. Oddly, I've emerged from my retreat more confident in ever that the true light lies within, and that it's wrongheaded to place trust in the wealthy and powerful people whom all of us assume to have some sort of right answer. They have no answers at all. Another lesson I've learned as I've re-immersed in the "real world" is how much of our time is spent thinking about money, and how much money shapes the way we interact in the world. As soon as I left retreat, money -- which had been utterly meaningless for several months of spiritual life -- defined everything. Where I sat on an airplane, how thick the mattress was at my hotel, how I was treated by airport personnel. And it was everywhere in the media: on the news, of course, but also in commercials, films, entertainment news, everywhere I looked, money defined the terms of engagement. And yet, while most of us would agree that a healthy financial status is necessary for life in the world, surely few would maintain that it is What Really Matters in life -- right? As the so-called real world swirls out of control, many of us find ourselves reaffirming the actually-real values of love, peace of mind, compassion, and wisdom. Personally, I find myself turning inward, not because it's more cozy, but because it's more true. We think that we need that pleasure/car/success/cave/woman/man/ food/pride/land/religion/value/achievement/ bank balance/spiritual attainment/house/dress/ prey/status/superiority/amusement in order to be okay, to be happy, to be complete. We think this because we are bred to think it, because the animals that don't think it don't eat, reproduce, or run away from predators. But we are wrong. We don't need any state of mind, religious salvation, monetary gain, power, or even love to be happy; we need only relinquish the sense of need itself. Think about it: when you get what you want, you stop wanting. So what you really want is not to want. So why not cut out the middle man and just stop wanting these things in the first place? The "real world," of course, tells us the opposite: we should want, and try very hard to get, as much as possible. Now, the bubble of desire has burst, and people are really hurting. Yet maybe there's an opportunity here: to question the "real world" and remember the alternatives. Maybe, amid all the sound and fury of the economic carnival-grotesque, there is a voice -- or perhaps a silence -- which tells a different narrative, usually drowned out by the megaphones of the powerful, yet ultimately one of greater reality.
 
Carolita Johnson: Do Your Part By Signing Up For A Bailout Credit Card Top
 
Nathaniel Frank: The Road to Gays in the Military Runs through Iowa. Top
Last week, just as Iowa decided it was ready to let gay couples marry, Rachel Maddow asked Colin Powell if the nation was ready to let gay patriots serve openly and honestly in the military. Powell was one of a tiny group of powerful men who were single-handedly responsible for preserving the gay ban in 1993 when Bill Clinton sought to end it. As part of his Party-crossing endorsement of Barack Obama for president, Powell said last year it was time to "review" the "don't ask, don't tell" policy but has gone no further. Amazingly, in his answer last week Powell turned the clock back to 1993. Repeating his own shibboleths from that year, Powell said the military is "a unique institution with rules and regulations" that would never pass "constitutional muster if it was in civilian society." Because the military requires "living in close proximity" and soldiers "are told whom you're going to live with," and because it is such an important institution of American power, Powell said, "we have to be careful when we change this policy." Powell's failure of leadership has long disappointed many of us. And it isn't helping his friend Barack Obama on this issue, who is increasingly likely to face a deeply divided military community because of the silence or antagonism of leaders like Powell and over 1000 retired officers who are now urging Obama to continue throwing out mission-critical specialists because they're gay. But more important, Powell's comments make no sense. For starters, if the military gets to tell soldiers who they'll live with, why can't it tell them they have to live with gays? And as Iowa's movement on same-sex marriage shows, the last remaining argument for the military's gay ban--that young men in the nation's heartland could never accept serving alongside gays--has been totally dismantled. Here's how the road to--and out of--"don't ask, don't tell" runs through Iowa. Powell says that the unique nature of the military, and its role in defending America's national security, mean it can trample rights that civilian institutions never could. This is the doctrine known as "judicial deference" to the military, and there are times when it is proper for the courts to defer to military judgment. But "judicial deference" does not give the military a blank check to do whatever it wants. Instead, the courts must determine if a given action has a "rational relationship" to a "compelling governmental interest," and can only defer if they decide it does. So far, federal courts have indeed determined that banning open gays from service is a compelling governmental interest, even though no research has ever shown any detriment whatsoever to the military by openly gay service. Wisely, a court's interpretation of the meaning of "rational" and "compelling" evolves as the culture evolves, allowing the courts to stay in sync with an ever-changing reality. Enter Iowa. In 1988, the state's Republican caucus placed Pat Robertson ahead of George H.W. Bush, even though the Christian Coalition founder blamed natural disasters on gays and spoke in tongues. Twenty years later, the state's high court has unanimously ruled that denying gays equal protection can on longer be seen to further an "important governmental objective" and that such exclusion is "without a constitutionally sufficient justification." Yet the same determination by federal courts in upholding the ban on gay troops rested on a cultural debate where Iowa figured prominently. One colonel, for instance, said in 1993 that he didn't think gays would "ever be openly accepted in the military" by "corn-fed guys from Iowa." In fact, the whole apparatus of anti-gay discrimination in the military is built on the story-line--never proven--that 18-year-olds from Iowa and Kansas are homophobes who can't tolerate serving with gays. Former Senator John Warner said most recruits are "coming out of what are usually small towns, and high school environments" where they are taught by parents and in Sunday School that homosexuality is wrong. "In their own simple way of thinking it through," he said of these idealized small-town men, "they may just be right." Warner used this romantic vision of small-town America, presumably free of the messy burdens of homosexuality, to endorse the intolerance he claimed not to have. But the day Iowa decides that gays are just like everyone else signals an end to the military's rationale that it must exclude gays in order to protect the morale of our heartland youth. This is not just a cultural argument; it's a legal argument: the only Constitutional grounds for denying gays the right to serve is that, given the culture of our heartland, which draws the bulk of our military recruits, national security requires the exclusion of gays. Iowa's unanimous Supreme Court decision only echoes--with grand symbolism--what polls both in and outside the military have said for the last five years: that whatever intolerance the nation used to have toward gays and lesbians has fallen to a sufficiently minimal and contained degree, that there is no longer any basis--if ever there was--for banning gays from service. So what to make of Colin Powell? When the general described last fall why he was endorsing Barack Obama for president, I fought back tears. The son of Jamaican immigrants had become the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and knew something about both racism in America and the power of the American dream to transcend it. Early in his career, he wrote that the military "affords the opportunity for advancement that regrettably is not in every part of our society," but that he hoped would "spread to all parts of our society so that only achievement and performance will be the basis for advancement." In endorsing Obama, Powell praised him as "transformational," "aspirational" and "inclusive." And in response to charges that Obama is a Muslim, Powel spoke out movingly not only against the false charge, but against the implication that somehow being Muslim was the worst thing in the world: "The really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America." In that statement, Powell didn't only defend Obama, he defended all of America, and what it stands for. Powell's experience as an African American surely made him more mindful of the victimization of Muslim Americans. The experience of being black and being Muslim in America are quite different, but as someone who has suffered from racial discrimination, Powell was able to notice and oppose an ugly episode of discrimination against other victims beyond his own group. Not so gay Americans. By repeating ad nauseam that the service of open gays would harm "order and discipline," and would be "difficult to accommodate," Powell, like Senator Warner, legitimized prejudice in the ranks. Unlike his moving comments about Muslim Americans, Powell said it was not for him to "make a moral judgment" about whether being gay was "a correct lifestyle or not." His remarks rationalized his own failure to support equal treatment. It was what Admiral John Hutson, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, has called a "moral passing of the buck." Now imagine what true moral leadership might have looked like. To the question, is someone in the military gay, and is that okay? Powell might have answered this way: "The really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being gay in this country? The answer's no, that's not America." In that statement, which Powell has yet to make, he would have defended not just gay Americans, but all of America, and what it stands for. More on Barack Obama
 
US May Accept Iran's Uranium Pursuit Top
US officials are considering whether to accept Iran's pursuit of uranium enrichment, which has been outlawed by the United Nations and remains at the heart of fears that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability. More on Iran
 
Jeffrey Sachs: The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than We Thought Top
Two weeks ago, I posted an article showing how the Geithner-Summers banking plan could potentially and unnecessarily transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from taxpayers to banks. The same basic arithmetic was later described by Joseph Stiglitz in the New York Times (April 1) and by Peyton Young in the Financial Times (April 1). In fact, the situation is even potentially more disastrous than we wrote. Insiders can easily game the system created by Geithner and Summers to cost up to a trillion dollars or more to the taxpayers. Here's how. Consider a toxic asset held by Citibank with a face value of $1 million, but with zero probability of any payout and therefore with a zero market value. An outside bidder would not pay anything for such an asset. All of the previous articles consider the case of true outside bidders. Suppose, however, that Citibank itself sets up a Citibank Public-Private Investment Fund (CPPIF) under the Geithner-Summers plan. The CPPIF will bid the full face value of $1 million for the worthless asset, because it can borrow $850K from the FDIC, and get $75K from the Treasury, to make the purchase! Citibank will only have to put in $75K of the total. Citibank thereby receives $1 million for the worthless asset, while the CPPIF ends up with an utterly worthless asset against $850K in debt to the FDIC. The CPPIF therefore quietly declares bankruptcy, while Citibank walks away with a cool $1 million. Citibank's net profit on the transaction is $925K (remember that the bank invested $75K in the CPPIF) and the taxpayers lose $925K. Since the total of toxic assets in the banking system exceeds $1 trillion, and perhaps reaches $2-3 trillion, the amount of potential rip-off in the Geithner-Summers plan is unconscionably large. The earlier criticisms of the Geithner-Summers plan showed that even outside bidders generally have the incentive to bid far too much for the toxic assets, since they too get a free ride from the government loans. But once we acknowledge the insider-bidding route, the potential to game the plan at the cost of the taxpayers becomes extraordinary. And the gaming of the system doesn't have to be as crude as Citibank setting up its own CPPIF. There are lots of ways that it can do this indirectly, for example, buying assets of other banks which in turn buy Citi's assets. Or other stakeholders in Citi, such as groups of bondholders and shareholders, could do the same. Several news stories suggest some grounding for these fears. Both Business Week and the Financial Times report that the banks themselves might be invited to bid for the toxic assets, which would seem to set up just the scam outline above. What is incredible is that lack of the most minimal transparency so far about the rules, risks, and procedures of this trillion-dollar plan. Also incredible is the apparent lack of any oversight by Congress, reinforcing the sense that the fix is in or that at best we are all sitting ducks. The sad part of all this is that there are now several much better ideas circulating among experts, but none of these seems to get the time of day from the Treasury. The best ideas are forms of corporate reorganization, in which a bank weighed down with toxic assets is divided into two banks - a "good bank" and a "bad bank" - with the bad bank left holding the toxic assets and the long-term debts, while owning the equity of the good bank. If the bad assets pay off better than is now feared, the bondholders get repaid and the current bank shares keep their value. If the bad assets in fact default heavily as is now expected, the bondholders and shareholders lose their investments. The key point of the good bank - bad bank plans is an orderly process to restore healthy banking functions (in the good bank) while divvying up the losses in a fair way among the banks' existing claimants. The taxpayer is not needed for that, except to cover the insured part of the banks' existing liabilities, specifically the banks' deposits and perhaps other short-term liabilities that are key to financial market liquidity. Cynics believe that the Geithner-Summers Plan is exactly what it seems: a naked grab of taxpayer money for Wall Street interests. Geithner and Summers argue that it's the least bad approach to a messy situation, in which we need to restore banking functions but don't have any perfect ways to do that. If they are serious about their justification, let them come forward to confront their critics and to explain to the American people why the other proposals are not being pursued. Let them explain the hidden and not-so-hidden risks to the American taxpayer of the plan that they have put forward. Let them explain why they are so intent on saving the banks' bondholders, even the long-term unsecured creditors who clearly knew they were taking market risks in buying Citibank bonds. Let them work with their critics to fashion a less risky and less costly plan. So far Geithner and Summers tell us that their plan is the only option, but without a word of further explanation as to why. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Rachel Laser: Conceiving Common Ground Top
Last November, the American people voted in change. For President Obama, common ground in tough debates not only is possible, it is urgently necessary to move America forward. On one of the hardest, most intractable of issues -- abortion -- Obama has signaled his intention to move us beyond the divisiveness of old and into the realm of shared values that can offer real solutions. Unfortunately, some of the soldiers in the abortion wars - including some of my friends in the pro-choice movement -- have not yet adapted to the changing times. We in the pro-choice movement must embrace and not fear common ground on abortion. We do not sacrifice our support for abortion rights. We add to it common ground. Let's understand what common ground on abortion means. As Third Way has always said, common ground on abortion is reducing abortions without criminalization and without coercion. A common ground abortion agenda seeks to address the root causes of abortion and thereby reduce the need for abortion. It has two policy tracks: prevention of unintended pregnancy, because almost half of all unintended pregnancies end in abortion, and support for pregnant women and new families, because one of the top two reasons women say they have abortions is that they cannot afford a child. To be clear, prevention includes contraception, comprehensive sex education, and helping parents communicate with their teens about sex and healthy relationships. Support includes increasing health care coverage for pregnant women and children, providing pregnant and parenting women with additional resources to stay in school, and helping new families pay for food and child care. It also removes obstacles to adoption. This is the exact approach that pro-life Tim Ryan and pro-choice Rosa DeLauro decided to take with us when it was time to craft their common ground abortion legislation -- "The Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act." This approach does not entail abandoning principles for either side. From the pro-choice perspective, it leaves in place the right to an abortion. From the pro-life perspective, it does not expand or codify abortion rights. Former head of Catholics for a Free Choice, Frances Kissling, when endorsing the Ryan-DeLauro bill upon its introduction in 2006, explained how this approach also has the effect of strengthening both sides: "This two-pronged approach avoids an ideological stalemate and bridges the gap between sensible, well-motivated members of Congress who hold differing views on abortion. For those opposed to abortion rights, the recognition that contraception is vital in reducing the need for abortion is critical. For those who support the right to abortion, a stronger commitment to helping women continue pregnancies without sinking deeper in to poverty is a core value of the prochoice community." I would go further and say that the pro-choice community also benefits from the aspect of common ground that acknowledges and respects the moral complexity of abortion. Women in my generation and younger have grown up without the baggage of the fight over the fundamental right to abortion that our mothers faced. We may have vestiges of the warrior mentality, but our outlook is more nuanced than absolutist. In order to fully connect with the values of this generation, the pro-choice movement, in addition to demonstrating its commitment to protecting access to legal and safe abortions, needs to acknowledge the moral complexity of this issue. Another strength of this approach is that it broadens our family planning coalition to include centrist Evangelical Christians. For example, Reverend Joel Hunter, former head of the Christian Coalition, now publicly supports birth control and comprehensive sex education. You can find a list of other new friends like him here. This is a marked change of course for these pro-lifers. It's another sign of the changing times and something to celebrate. We should also be rejoicing that pro-life members of Congress, like Congressman Bart Stupak, co-chair of the congressional pro-life caucus, are now on record supporting family planning as part of common ground on abortion. We all know that the pro-life member of Congress who supports family planning has been a dying breed this whole decade. Thanks to the Ryan-DeLauro bill, pro-lifers who support birth control are coming back into vogue. Many of my generational peers and those willing to embrace change, including the new President of the United States, are moving solidly in this direction, opening eyes and ears to this potentially transformative third way on abortion. Isn't it time to join in this historic moment? Rachel Laser is the Culture Program Director at Third Way, a progressive Washington, DC-based think tank.
 
Dean Baker: A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion? Top
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wants to have the government lend up to a trillion dollars to hedge funds, private equity, funds and the banks themselves to clear their books of toxic assets. The plan implies a substantial subsidy to the banks. It is likely to result in the disposal of these assets at far above market value, with the government picking up the losses. As much as we all want to help out the Wall Street bankers in their hour of need, taxpayers may reasonably ask whether this is the best use of our money. After all, the $1 trillion that is being set aside for this latest TARP variation is equal to 300 million SCHIP kid years. Congress has had heated debates over sums that were a small fraction of this size. To give another useful measuring stick, the Geithner plan could fund 1 million of the Woodstock museums that were the main prop of Senator McCain's presidential campaign. The core problem is that many of our big banks are bankrupt. If they had to acknowledge the losses that they have incurred on their housing related loans (and increasing their loans in commercial real estate) Citigroup, Bank of America, and many other large banks would be insolvent. Thus far, they have avoided reality by keeping these loans on their books at inflated prices. The Geithner plan is an effort to rescue the banks by using government funding to prop up the price of these bad loans to levels that will allow the banks to stay solvent. It is not clear that the plan is big enough to accomplish this goal, but that is the basic intention. If it doesn't work, then presumably Geithner will come out with another TARP permutation that involves giving the banks even more money. There is an alternative. Rather than using government money to keep them alive, we could force the banks to go through a type of managed bankruptcy process like the one that is currently being proposed for General Motors and Chrysler. Geithner has supposedly ruled out the bankruptcy option because when he, along with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, tried letting Lehman Brothers go under last fall, it didn't turn out very well. Of course, it is not necessary to go the route of an uncontrolled bankruptcy that Geithner and Co. pursued with Lehman. The government could set up an arranged bankruptcy under which creditors have accepted conditions in advance. While this may not be easy to negotiate, the government does have enormous bargaining power in pursuing such a deal. The creditors (other than insured deposits, which will be paid in full) of these banks may end up with nothing if the government just let the banks sink. The prospect of even an arranged bankruptcy of a major bank will undoubtedly shake up markets, but many safeguards have been put in place since the Lehman collapse. If the stock market goes down for a few weeks or months, who cares? Running the economy to serve the stock market is a sure recipe for disaster; if President Obama fixes the economy, the stock market will do just fine in the long run. Anyhow, the Geithner crew insists that there are no alternatives to his plan; we have to just keep giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks. Perhaps Geithner is right. But before we throw such huge sums away, further enriching the bankers who wrecked the economy, maybe we should get a second opinion. Suppose that Congress appropriated a modest chunk of money to have independent economists put together teams to construct alternative plans. Why not give M.I.T. professor Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the IMF, $5 million to hire a crew to outline his preferred path? Congress could give Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner and one-time chief economist to President Clinton, who is also a harsh critic of the Geithner plan, a similar sum to put together his own team. These economists could develop their best plans and put them out for public consumption. Geithner's crew can then tell us why their plans are unworkable and we must instead hand over the money to banks. Given how much money Geithner wants to spend - putting it in the hands of the folks that brought on this economic crisis - it would seem appropriate to first examine all the alternatives. After all, we could find out what our options are in this case for the price of just a few A.I.G. executive bonuses. That has to be a good deal in anyone's book. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Madonna Takes The Kids To London, Guy Greets David Top
Madonna kept her head low while deboarding a plane shortly after landing in London. Little David Banda, however, did not. He looked thrilled to be in the arms of pop Guy Ritchie (who, quite possibly, looked even more thrilled himself). More on Celebrity Kids
 
Biden To Throw Ceremonial First Pitch At Orioles Opening Game Top
BALTIMORE — The Orioles say Vice President Joe Biden will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Baltimore's season opening day game against the New York Yankees. The Orioles are scheduled to play the Yankees at Orioles Park at Camden Yards at 4:05 p.m. Monday. The team says Biden will be the first sitting vice president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at the stadium. More on Joe Biden
 
Possible ETA Bomb Factory, Hundreds Of Kilos Of Explosives Found In France Top
French police have found hundreds of kilos of bomb-making ingredients in a garage in the south-eastern city of Grenoble, officials say. More on France
 
Larry Summers' Speaking Fees Targeted By Watchdogs Top
Good government groups took swings this weekend at Larry Summers, along with the White House in general, after it was revealed that the economic adviser accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from banks dependent on taxpayer funds. Calling the revelations yet another strand in a "web of connections between Wall Street and Washington," David Donnelly, the director of Campaign Money Watch, said news of Summers' finances contributed to the "strangling [of] public trust in all the decisions made by the Administration or Congress on the economy." "Most of the companies paying Summers' speaking fees are found at top the list of contributors to politicians from both parties, leaving voters to wonder if there is anyone left who isn't in Wall Street's pocket," Donnelly added. "One major step that Congress ought to take immediately is to remove all questions that their future decisions are the result of favoritism for political contributors by passing the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act." On Friday afternoon, the Obama White House released personal financial disclosure forms for members of the executive office. The one for Summers proved particularly politically problematic. The chief economic adviser to the president had, over the past year, received lavish fees for speaking arrangements from a host of banks involved in the government's asset relief and recovery programs. The list included $67,500 from J.P. Morgan Chase, $99,000 from Citigroup, and $202,000 from Goldman Sachs. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement on Friday, "Dr. Summers has been at the forefront of this administration's work to shore up our nation's financial system and to put in place a regulatory framework that will strengthen the financial system and its oversight." A White House official, meanwhile, said that the "speeches long pre-date Summers' work as an official of the Obama Administration or even the Obama transition." All of which was noted by good-government officials, who nevertheless found the revelations eyebrow-raising, both because of the pass Summers was seemingly offered and the message it sends about the administration's priorities. "The fact that he wasn't a government official at the time makes it much less gross to me," said Danielle Brian, executive director of Project on Government Oversight. "But I do find it the height of irony that he could take hundreds of thousands of dollars last year from companies that were known to be tanking our economy, and still be appointed to one of the key economics positions in the government. And the new Chief of Staff of FEMA turns out to have been a former executive from a Katrina contractor for FEMA. But at the same time we're learning about people like Pam Gilbert, who had registered to represent consumer interests before the [Consumer Product Safety Commission], but then never did lobby them, yet that was too tainting for her to be allowed into the Administration. It sounds like they have things kind of backwards. If President Obama wants to rid Washington of corporate influence, I think these issues need to be a little better thought out." More on Economy
 
Norb Vonnegut: My Money or Acrimoney* Top
This economic crisis is aging like milk. Auto deadlines, Barney and the bailouts, CDOs and other toxic assets. There are problems everywhere. For years I have explored the uncertainty of wealth, both as a financial adviser and as the author of Top Producer , a novel set on Wall Street. Right now, there's one question troubling me. It keeps surfacing in every corner of this crisis. It won't go away, even as cavalries from every branch of the government charge to our rescue. I keep wondering the same thing. When is my money really my money? It's not clear. Let's start with Bernie Madoff. Assume a New York investor pulled capital from Madoff's fund sometime during the last six years. The courts can claim the redemption was preferential, unfairly benefiting some to the detriment of others. They can call for the money's return. Such requests are known as "clawbacks." There's legal precedent on this issue. The Bayou Hedge Fund Group, for example, first hinted at the current spate of Ponzi schemes. Back in 2005, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission alleged fraud and misappropriation by Bayou's principals. The bankruptcy judge later ruled that profits, and even seed capital in some circumstances, were subject to return. Return where? Clawback Capital LLC? In Bayou, Madoff, and other Ponzi schemes, the courts decide who gets what. Judges consider the expenses incurred while unraveling the scams. They review the different percentage ownerships among shareholders. And as reasonably as possible, they distribute recovered money to the victims. It's usually cents on the dollar. The premise here is fairness. Why should new investors -- duped by ponzi schemes -- bear all the pain? Their fresh funds enabled other investors -- duped by ponzi schemes -- to exit with both profits and seed capital. It's like playing hot potato with real money. Enter clawbacks. Through the years, courts wrestled with solutions. They created arbitrary periods, six years in New York, which govern Ponzi schemes and enable the courts to clawback funds. The same concept applies to non-fraudulent bankruptcies. The courts can reclaim money, for example, repaid by a person or entity that later declares bankruptcy. Subject to timing, the transfer may be considered preferential. And that's not fair. Were you thinking, Clawbacks aren't my problem? Don't bet on it. What about that loan to your brother-in-law? Clawbacks may be the only fair way to clean up the muck left by Bernie, Bayou, and other Ponzi schemes like Stanford. Don't forget the non-fraudulent bankruptcies. But clawbacks don't sound fair to people, who redeemed their investments to pay bills or reduce debt. "Let's get this straight, your honor. I used that money to pay tuition. And now you want it back?" There are few winners in bankruptcies. And there are no winners in financial scams. With the possible exception of family members who own million-dollar estates protected by Florida's homestead laws. But that's a different issue. The problem is that my lead question keeps surfacing in other corners of the crisis. When is my money really my money? Consider AIG. Their executives, the ones refusing to return bonuses, may face a 90 percent tax. No doubt, they're asking the same question in some form or another. Unfortunately, the debate, like the underlying assets, has turned...well...toxic. To begin, let's review the ill will. We see "acrimoney" everywhere in this crisis, all the sniping and backbiting and scrounging around for cash. The unhappy union between Merrill Lynch and Bank of America comes to mind. The rancor over pork in the proposed budget is white hot. But let's stick to AIG. The bailout funded bonuses. The bonuses annoyed Brooklynites. The Brooklynites traveled to the headquarters of AIG Financial Products in buses. The buses continued the tour, visiting the homes of executives boiling mad over personal vilification from bonuses. Everybody's angry. It makes me crazy that my tax money rewarded individuals who gave birth to the toxic assets that messed with our lives. Were those AIG bonuses really contractual? The excuse, "legal commitments," smells. Through the years, I worked for big investment houses and finance boutiques. These companies always retained "out clauses." There were always plausible rationales, legal positions that lawyers could snarl over and defend to the death that empowered companies to commandeer their cash. Contractual? I don't buy it. That said, I believe the proposed 90 percent tax on AIG bonuses sets dangerous precedent. It's retroactive. The government is trying to change the past. It's not legislating for future socioeconomic issues. Maybe that's why this legislation is losing steam. Like it or not, the boom and bust of economic cycles are here to stay. I wonder whether there will be another event, which so enrages the public that the government rules retroactively. The 90 percent debate smacks of mob rule. When is my money really my money? Hear me out on the issue of anger and mob justice. We're all hurting from the economic downturn. There's plenty of retroactive legislation that would make us feel better. Let's tax legislators at the 90 percent rate. They approved the funding tied to AIG's bonus fiasco. Don't even need the bus tour of congressional homes. While we're at it, let's tax a few select bureaucrats from the SEC. They were asleep at the switch back in May of 2000, when Harry Markopolis first alerted the SEC to Madoff's hijinks. The AIG bonuses totaled about $165 million. Madoff's Ponzi scheme totaled $65 billion, when I checked last. The math makes it clear which gaffe cost more. Whatever happened to stocks -- the kind used by Pilgrims? Assume, for the moment, the SEC listened to Markopolis and shut down Madoff in 2000. No one would have invested for the last eight or nine years. The six-year clawback would not apply to New Yorkers duped by Bernie as long ago as 2002. That's if the government did its job. Where's the justice? Our money is at risk. Not just from the bear markets and the volatility of securities. Laws contribute to our uncertainty. We've known some of the rules for years. The courts have carefully vetted clawbacks through decades, even centuries, of litigation. The concept of preferential transfers goes way back. Now, the economic crisis is more severe than anything we've seen since the 70s. We learn about bad behavior and poor decisions every day. The government, in response, is exploring powers that violate a cardinal rule of fairness. They're grappling with punishment for past actions, not future behavior. Uh-oh. It feels like a whole new game: hide-and-seek in a really bad neighborhood. We wonder when changes will affect us personally. So many of us have worked hard. We've played by the rules and managed our debt load. Sound decisions didn't stop the recession from finding us, though, and assailing our wealth. The message, the question we each face, is clear. When is my money really my money? Here's the bad news. No single solution keeps your money safe and allows it to compound happily over time. And forget about hiding your money. Somebody will find it eventually. Even Swiss banks, long the guardians of secrecy, are cooperating with foreign governments. On March 13 of this year, Switzerland bowed to international pressure and agreed to relax some of its banking secrecy. Otherwise, the country risked joining a blacklist of uncooperative tax havens. Here's the good news. Incremental solutions, the nuts and bolts of everyday financial planning, help. Diversify your investments. Tweak your estate plans by funding trusts or opening accounts for family members. The more accounts you have -- different names and different entities -- the harder it is to reach all your assets. Keep watching. I will. We never know when acrimoney will visit us personally. *Acrimoney noun Bitterness and ill will about money. It is exacerbated by stress and anxiety during financial crises. Acrimoney also exists when two or more parties fight over the same pot of money. USAGE: A hornet's nest of lawsuits, ultimatums, and acrimoney. ORIGIN: March 29 2009 from French acrimonie or Latin acrimonia, from acer or acri- meaning "pungent, acrid." More on Bernard Madoff
 
Peter Daou: Moral Outrage and the Harsh Tone of Online Discourse Top
Two recent events got me thinking about the online progressive community's achievements since 2000 and how that community is perceived in various quarters of the political and media establishment. The first is Paul Krugman's appearance on the cover of Newsweek -- Krugman is part of the online community insofar as he has been a consistent beacon for progressive bloggers and like many of his media cohorts, is now a blogger himself. The second is news that my friend and former Clinton campaign colleague Judd Legum, founder of the indispensable Think Progress , is running for office in Maryland. The nexus between Krugman and Legum is that they each played a role, albeit a different one, in the web-powered progressive movement that ultimately crushed Bushism and resulted in a stunning reversal of political fortunes: Republicans and conservatives, riding high through the Bush years, are suddenly lost in the political wilderness. I went back and browsed blog archives during the years when the Gang of 500 fawned over Bush's ' firmness ' and the gang of Constitution-bashers in his orbit were running rampant, to remind myself of the pervasive sense of dismay and disgust, the outrage that powered the online progressive movement. It wasn't long ago when Ann Coulter showed up on NBC to gleefully malign 9/11 widows and Bush yucked it up with reporters as the nation came apart at the seams, when Power Line was TIME's blog of the year and outing an American spy was an accepted method of responding to an unfavorable editorial. Needless to say, it's incredibly gratifying to see how far we've come. And at the same time sobering to know how far there is to go . Credit for this turn of events is rightfully shared across the progressive and Democratic universe, from interest groups and think tanks to public officials, strategists and party leaders like Paul Wellstone, who years after his tragic death remains a progressive icon, Howard Dean, who tapped into the online zeitgeist and electrified the netroots, John Kerry, who battled the indomitable combination of Bush and a supplicant press, Hillary Clinton, who, unbeknownst to many, quietly helped build a progressive infrastructure and single-handedly demonstrated that a Democrat could take the full force of the rightwing attack machine and come out stronger, and Barack Obama, who delivered the coup de grâce to Bushism and who, along with Michelle Obama, has restored dignity to the White House. That said, I lament the fact that with all the triumphant talk about an online revolution and unprecedented grassroots involvement in the 2008 campaign, the netroots - a relatively small but highly motivated and dedicated band of web-based progressives - have received far less credit than they deserve for their outsized role in initiating a seismic shift away from rightwing extremism, something I wrote about two weeks before the election: One thing that shouldn't be overlooked [in an Obama victory] is the ragtag group of activists who, from the fear of knowing that America had taken a terrible turn at the dawn of a millennium, embraced a new medium and labored tirelessly, thanklessly, defending the Constitution and the rule of law. Day after day, they congregated on websites, blogs, message boards and any other online forum they could find to write, debate, argue and resist a radical administration and a lockstep Republican Party. ... We should honor the 'ten percenters' who took pride in opposing Bush when his approval rating was near 90%, the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Yoo, Addington, Wolfowitz, Rove and Gonzales holding sway over the nation, with Coulter, Hannity, Savage and Limbaugh spewing hate and liberals labeled traitors. We should acknowledge that the netroots kept hope alive when our system of checks and balances was in mortal danger ... when civil liberties were fast becoming disposable niceties. We should realize that back when Billmon and Bob Somerby and a gentle soul with a sharp pen named Steve Gilliard were required reading, when Digby was a mystery man and Firedoglake was a new blog with an intriguing name, when citizens across the country began logging on and conversing from the heart, there was no glory in political blogging. There still isn't. No one knew if blogs would become quaint artifacts. Many hoped they would. Blogging was about speaking up for America's guiding principles, liberty, justice, equality, opportunity, democracy. Of course, no political group or ideology has a monopoly on liberty, justice, equality, opportunity, and democracy. But in the end, online progressives were just plain right about almost everything they fought for -- and against. Witness this recent Washington Post story, Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots , one of hundreds of articles vindicating and validating progressive activists. And yet, despite being prescient, patriotic (in the non-jingoistic sense), and despite gamely taking the slings and arrows of the establishment, the impression of the online progressive community as an angry, undisciplined and unruly mob - DFH's , in the vernacular - hasn't changed all that much in the past decade, despite Democratic victories. In good measure it's a result of inherent hostility to a new medium and fundamental resistance to progress(ives), but to some degree, it's because of the conflation of genuine moral outrage and the hard-nosed tone of online dialogue with the nasty comments of trolls and miscreants, an unfortunate (and often intentional) misconstrual. In a nutshell, online progressives (and their hubs like Huffington Post and Daily Kos) have borne the brunt of the blame for allegedly poisoning the national discourse, if only because the rise of the online commentariat coincides with the Bush/Cheney presidency. The process of tarnishing a group with the errant actions of a small minority is nothing new. In the Internet age, it occurs whenever the comments of a few intransigent attention-seekers and trouble-makers are used to undermine the entire progressive community. Meanwhile, the stream of venom that emanates from rightwing personalities has been largely overlooked and in the case of Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Hannity and others, embraced by major media outlets. Does it matter how the netroots are viewed? That's a fair question - perhaps progressives are outsiders by definition and this is just a perennial problem or perhaps the inexorable blurring of old and new media lines and the dramatic expansion of the online commentariat will render the issue moot - but it's still worth noting that the negativity (and downright viciousness) permeating comment threads is an intractable problem that goes far beyond politics and shouldn't be confused with either the authentic moral outrage that fuels progressive action or the blunt talk that characterizes online political discourse. Peruse any discussion thread on YouTube, blogs, message boards and major news sites and you're bound to find a handful of personal attacks, racist statements, unwarranted insults and so on. This isn't confined to politics - it occurs everywhere. Mean-spirited, obnoxious and indiscriminately hostile comments are a necessary online evil and will always be a (minor) part of the technology-based global conversation. Seasoned web surfers typically tune them out and counsel others to do the same (" don't feed the trolls " is a longstanding proscription). But it's imperative that we distinguish those comments from real and productive moral outrage and to acknowledge that even though anger as a character flaw is ignoble, anger in a moral cause is essential - and laudable. The netroots possess the latter and for a variety of reasons, some of which I've described above, have been tagged with the former. Paul Waldman elucidated the point in a 2007 piece titled Damn Right, We're Angry : There's no point in hiding it, no point in trying to explain it away. Yes, it's true: We progressives are angry. And we no longer care if the centrist, moderate guardians of the establishment scold us for it. Our anger is not just some vague feeling whose source we can't put our finger on. It isn't based on absurd conspiracy theories and it isn't illogical. We're angry because of what has happened to our country, because of how we've been treated, and because of the innumerable crimes the conservatives have committed. We're angry at the president, we're angry at the Congress, we're angry at the news media. And we have every right to be. It's true, we don't like the fact that the most powerful human being on the planet is such a ridiculous buffoon that he can't put two coherent sentences together without beginning to giggle and shimmy his shoulders. But we're not angry because we think he's stupid; we're angry because he treats us as though we're stupid. We're angry that he lied to us, and lied to us and lied to us again. We're angry that when he lies to us it isn't because he's caught up in scandal or got caught doing something he shouldn't have, it's part of a carefully constructed plan to fool the public. Yes, we're angry about Iraq, and we may be for the rest of our lives. We get angry every day when we open our newspapers and see the photo of another young soldier who died for this, another one maimed for life, another one with a tormented and broken soul. We're angry that America may now be the only country in the world in which torture is an officially sanctioned policy, proclaimed proudly in public. We're angry that in our name prisoners are subjected to sleep deprivation, water boarding and other forms of psychological torture to the point where they are literally driven mad. We're angry that the president has decided, over 750 times, that if Congress passes a law and he doesn't like it, he'll just ignore it. Granted, that was 2007, and this is a different world. Nonetheless, moral outrage among online progressives is alive and well, as it should be. Pundits and analysts may portray it as a rift between Obama and the left, but that's a hopelessly narrow interpretation. A writer, lawyer and activist like Glenn Greenwald continues to fight for core principles regardless of the party in power. Good for him and for those who know that the progressive movement is larger than any one person or any one era, that to make meaningful progress we have to overcome innumerable obstacles, that it will take countless generations to deal with violence, injustice, hunger, greed, inequality, oppression and the myriad causes of human misery. Our brief moment in history means less in the scheme of things than humanity's unending task of civilizing itself and avoiding self-immolation. That process has been powered through the ages by progressive thinkers and activists, almost all of whom were driven by moral outrage and many of whom paid for their beliefs with their lives. Speaking of Glenn Greenwald, here's his take on the virtues of public anger : Only this true, intense, and -- yes -- scary public rage can serve as a check on ongoing pilfering by the narrowed monied factions who control our Government for their own interests and who otherwise have no reason to stop. Who else is going to impose those checks? The bought-and-paid-for, incomparably subservient, impotent and inept Congress? The establishment-loyal, vapid political press? An executive branch run by the very people who are most vested in, dependent on, and loyal to the financial system that produced these disasters? Only a healthy fear of the populace -- exactly what has been missing -- can achieve that. Obviously, mass rage can entail its own excesses and, and if unchecked, can lead to mob rule, a form of majoritarian tyranny (as Armando notes, its isolated, unrepresentative excesses (death threats!) are already being exaggerated to discredit the underlying anger itself). But we are far, far, far away from the point where unchecked public sentiment plays too great of a role in how our political institutions function. Rather: we're a country that, for the last decade, acquiesced meekly and quietly as our Government transferred huge amounts of national wealth to a tiny elite; launched a devastating war based on purely false pretenses; tortured, spied on us and literally claimed the right to invalidate law and the Constitution; and turned itself over to the highest bidders. The overarching question is not: why is there so much public rage? The overarching question is: why has there been so little? Precisely. It's a worthwhile endeavor to remind ourselves what an exceptional thing moral outrage is, how anger spurs action, and how the netroots used righteous anger to lay the groundwork for a Democratic resurgence. Now we need much more of it, directed at those across the globe who control the levers of power. As evidence, I challenge you to read this story without becoming enraged at the cowards who perpetrated it: The video shows a young woman held face down as a Taliban commander whips her repeatedly with a leather strap. "Leave me for the moment -- you can beat me again later," she screams, pleading for a reprieve and writhing in pain. Paying no heed, the commander orders those holding her to tighten their grip and continues the public flogging. A large group of men quietly stands and watches in a circle around her. The woman in the video is a 17-year-old resident of Kabal, in the restive Swat region in northwestern Pakistan. The images, which have been broadcast repeatedly by private television news networks in Pakistan, have caused outrage here and set off bitter condemnation by rights activists and politicians. If we intend to (re)claim our standing as a moral leader among nations, we need to see a much more forceful - i.e. angry - response to these kinds of egregious acts. ===== P.S. If you'd like to support Judd's campaign - and I encourage you to do so - visit his ActBlue page . P.P.S. To follow my updates on Twitter, click here . More on Paul Krugman
 
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