Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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Bradley Burston: Obama, Netanyahu, and Zionists Against Occupation Top
ROME -- It occurred to me while leaving St. Peter in Chains. I decided to do the very last thing the Jewish People needs: start a new Jewish organization. The inspiration was the unassuming but sublime church of San Pietro in Vincoli [St. Peter in Chains]. Tucked into a back corner of the city, it is home to Michelangelo's monumentally wistful marble of Moses. There is no more perfect representation of the contemporary Zionist enterprise than that of this first of all Zionist ideologues -- the melancholy language of the sculpture's eyes and clenched sinews a simultaneous translation of betrayal, disillusion, ire and the clutch of hope against all better judgment. This is the Basilica of the Displaced Person. No one is more displaced than this prince who cannot feel at home in his native Egypt, but who will forever be denied entry to that promised place he knows he belongs. By the Renaissance, Moses's truncated fate extended to the sculpture itself, stuck here for 500 years in a well-tended purgatory, a permanent Diaspora, far less grand if perhaps far better suited than the much better-known St. Peter's across town, originally offered to, and snatched away from, Michelangelo. What better time, then, to think about promised lands? In particular, what better time to think about what separates Israel from a future of genuine calm and confidence? This is, after all, the bedrock challenge facing Benjamin Netanyahu as he scrambles to cobble together a foreign policy. This is also a key challenge for Barack Obama as he lays the groundwork for an ambitious regional solution to a brace of Arab-Israeli and pan-Muslim conflicts. When the two meet in the coming weeks, the press will watch closely for nuances in terminology, and concessions from one side or another over the nature of a future Palestinian state. So what can a cold marble Moses tell the rest of us about a course of action and a path toward peace? This is what I took away from St. Peter in Chains, and a prophet of Judaism, Islam and Christianity holding tablets close to the vest: Jews have to end the occupation for the sake of Zionism. Herewith, then, a manifesto of one. The founding document of Zionists Against Occupation: 1. Thou Shalt Not Have Other Gods Before Me. 2. Thou Shalt Not Make For Thyself an Idol 3. Thou Shalt Not Bow Down to Them 4. Thou Shalt Not Use the Lord's Name in Vain It is time to acknowledge that the settlements are the Golden Calf of the current generations of believing Jews. The settlements have made much of Orthodoxy delirious with worship of property, even some elements of Orthodoxy who refrain from fully recognizing the legitimacy of the state of Israel. They have tried to make settlement synonymous with Zionism, even when settlement conflicts with Israel's strategic and diplomatic interests. It is time to recognize that settlement of the West Bank is a commandment which came not from God, but from rabbis, which is to say, all too often, from politicians. 5. Thou Shalt Not Steal, Nor Covet That Which Is Your Neighbor's. 6. Thou Shalt Not Murder. 7. Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother, So That Your Days May Be Long in the Land that the Lord your God is Giving You. Both the Jews and the Palestinians have valid claims to the Holy Land. If the Holy Land is to be shared, Israelis and Palestinians both will have to sacrifice legitimate grievances for the sake of a livable future, one which honors ancestors by making it possible for children to grow and thrive. Finally, and most importantly, it is time for Jews to recognize how lethal the occupation is, to the idea of maintaining a Jewish state. When right-wing Jews say that all of the Holy Land, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel proper, belongs to the Jews alone, they are in effect de-legitimizing Israel. They are adding fuel to the arguments of Hamas, which views all of Israel, West Jerusalem, Haifa, and Sderot alike, to be occupied Arab land. In the end, the question of whether Israel will be a Jewish state will not depend on what the Palestinians say, but on what the Jews do. 8. Thou Shalt Not Be Silent. 9. Thou Shalt Not Look Away. 10. Thou Shalt Use the Word Occupation It is time to follow Ariel Sharon's example and call the occupation what it is. It is time for Zionists to stand up and declare strong support for Israel and strong opposition to the occupation. Not for the sake of the Palestinians. For Israel's sake. "Controlling 3.5 million Palestinians cannot go on forever," Sharon told a weekly meeting of stunned Likud leaders, Netanyahu among them, in May, 2003. "You want to remain in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Bethlehem?" "The idea that it is possible to continue keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation -- yes, it is occupation, you might not like the word, but what is happening is occupation -- is bad for Israel, and bad for the Palestinians, and bad for the Israeli economy," Sharon said. If the last 40 years are any indication, the Palestinians will be able to survive the occupation. A healthy state of Israel will not. This piece originally appeared on haaretz.com . More on Barack Obama
 
Mark Weisbrot: More Fiscal Stimulus is Needed to Reverse Economic Decline Top
In February the Congress approved $787 billion of federal spending, in order keep the economy from sinking into a deeper recession. However it is increasingly clear that this is not enough, and a third stimulus (the first was a small stimulus package early last year) will be necessary. About $584 billion of the stimulus package will be spent over the next two years, in order keep the economy from sinking into a deeper recession. This sounds like a lot of money, but it is only about two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next two years. Our economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year; economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal project negative 1.4 percent for 2009, with recovery beginning in the second half. However these forecasts have been over-optimistic in the past -- most economists missed the housing bubble and the disastrous impacts of its inevitable collapse. In short, we really don't know where the bottom of the recession is, or whether a prolonged period of high unemployment and weak growth will follow. There has been a lot of emphasis on curing the ills of the financial system, and this is surely necessary for a sustained recovery to take hold. However it is not sufficient. Even if the U.S. Treasury's latest plan were to restore solvency to the entire financial system -- and this seems very unlikely -- we would still be facing a serious recession in the real economy. Even solvent banks are not going to increase lending if there are no additional credit-worthy borrowers seeking loans. The latest data on home prices reinforces this point. The decline in home prices is still accelerating, with the 20-city Case-Shiller index falling at an annual rate of 26.5 percent over the last quarter. Home prices have further to fall to get back to their pre-bubble trend levels, and they could even overshoot on the down side: people who lose equity in their homes when prices fall cannot afford a down payment (now raised to 20 percent) for a new home when they have to move, and rising unemployment and foreclosures add to the oversupply of housing. The global economic outlook is also worsening, with the OECD now forecasting a phenomenal 2.75 GDP percent decline worldwide. Although the United States is fortunate in this respect to export only about 11 percent of GDP, shrinking global demand and an overvalued dollar do not offer much hope for trade to boost the U.S. recovery. The household savings rate collapsed to zero in 2007, from an average of 8 percent in the post World-War II era. As savings recover to more normal levels, it means that consumption, which is about 70 percent of the economy, must fall. This can also further discourage investment and add to the cycle of declining output and employment, as well as the fear and pessimism that exacerbates it. My colleague Dean Baker has put forth a plan for the government to provide a tax credit to employers for health care and also to increase employees' paid time off - in the form of reduced hours, additional vacation, sick leave, or other days off. This has the advantage of injecting money very quickly into the economy with minimal bureaucracy or waste. If these credits cause employers to reduce average hours per worker by just three percent, this would add 4.2 million jobs at the same level of output. With the collapse of private spending, it is clearly up to the government to rescue the real economy, and ideological prejudices must be swept aside. It is time for our government to consider some fresh ideas that can be implemented quickly. This column was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on April 14, 2009. More on Stimulus Package
 
Charles J. Brown: The Torture Memos: McCain's Tortured Contradictions Top
This is a post I did not want to write. For most of his career, John McCain has been an outspoken advocate against torture.  So you would think that Senator McCain would have cheered the White House's decision to release the torture memos. Unfortunately, you would be wrong ( h/t ): McCain says he wishes that the Bush Administration had abided by the Detainee Treatment Act , of which he was the principal sponsor.  He describes waterboarding as "unacceptable" and "torture, period."  He notes that those tortured will tell an interrogator "whatever they want to hear."  He says that it's a great "recruiting tool" for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.  He says that it doesn't matter whether the Administration got useful intelligence from torture because of the resulting damage to America's reputation around the world. But he also says that the release of the memos "Helps no one."  He says that it "doesn't help America's image."  He says that their release "does not help address the issue."  He believes that "it was a serious mistake to release these memos." So on one hand, Senator McCain believes that torture has hurt America's reputation in the world and that it has encouraged our enemies.  On the other, he believes that offically acknowleging torture will hurt America's reputation in the world and that it will encourage our enemies. I wanted to give Senator McCain the opportunity to clarify his remarks.  I contacted his office, which promptly returned my call.  But despite my repeated efforts to get additional information, his office provided only the following statement, and only on background (meaning that no one was willing to be quoted): Senator McCain's position has been clear, he led the fight on the detainee treatment act, and this sort of conduct shouldn't have happened in the first place. That really doesn't answer the question:  Why has Senator McCain has chosen to criticize the Obama Administration's decision to release the memos as potentially damaging to U.S. interests when he also argues that torture already has damaged American interests? To put it another way, how can acknowledging the truth somehow be worse than the truth itself? Senator McCain's decision to continue to defend the actions of the Bush Administration is especially mystifying given that Administration's past disregard for his opinion. In October 2007, The New York Times obtained two Justice Department memos authorizing waterboarding and other techniques (both of which were among those released by the Obama Administration).  In response, McCain told MSNBC that he was personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law. In a January 2008 statement, McCain said something similar .  It is worth quoting at length: Throughout these debates, I have said that it was not my intent to eliminate the CIA interrogation program, but rather to ensure that the techniques it employs are humane and do not include such extreme techniques as waterboarding. I said on the Senate floor during the debate over the Military Commissions Act, "Let me state this flatly: it was never our purpose to prevent the CIA from detaining and interrogating terrorists. On the contrary, it is important to the war on terror that the CIA have the ability to do so. At the same time, the CIA's interrogation program has to abide by the rules, including the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act." This remains my view today. When, in 2005, the Congress voted to apply the Field Manual to the Department of Defense, it deliberately excluded the CIA. The Field Manual, a public document written for military use, is not always directly translatable to use by intelligence officers. In view of this, the legislation allowed the CIA to retain the capacity to employ alternative interrogation techniques. I'd emphasize that the DTA permits the CIA to use different techniques than the military employs, but that it is not intended to permit the CIA to use unduly coercive techniques - indeed, the same act prohibits the use of any cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. . . . This necessarily brings us to the question of waterboarding. Administration officials have stated in recent days that this technique is no longer in use, but they have declined to say that it is illegal under current law. I believe that it is clearly illegal and that we should publicly recognize this fact. In assessing the legality of waterboarding, the Administration has chosen to apply a "shocks the conscience" analysis to its interpretation of the DTA. I stated during the passage of that law that a fair reading of the prohibition on cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment outlaws waterboarding and other extreme techniques. It is, or should be, beyond dispute that waterboarding "shocks the conscience." It is also incontestable that waterboarding is outlawed by the Military Commissions Act, and it was the clear intent of Congress to prohibit the practice. The MCA enumerates grave breaches of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions that constitute offenses under the War Crimes Act. Among these is an explicit prohibition on acts that inflict "serious and non-transitory mental harm," which the MCA states "need not be prolonged." Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation of this standard. Indeed, during the negotiations, we were personally assured by Administration officials that this language, which applies to all agencies of the U.S. Government, prohibited waterboarding. It is unfortunate that the reluctance of officials to stand by this straightforward conclusion has produced in the Congress such frustration that we are today debating whether to apply a military field manual to non-military intelligence activities. It would be far better, I believe, for the Administration to state forthrightly what is clear in current law - that anyone who engages in waterboarding, on behalf of any U.S. government agency, puts himself at risk of criminal prosecution and civil liability. If we are to believe Senator McCain, Bush Administration officials looked him in the eye.  The first time, in October 2007, they told him that such practices had stopped.  The second time, in early 2008, they told him specifically that they no longer waterboarded -- but continued to regard such practices as legal. Let's not beat around the bush here.  On at least two occasions, the Bush Administration flat-out lied to Senator McCain . They told him they weren't doing what they were doing.  And he not only believed them, he publicly defended them. What makes this even odder is that in April 2008, McCain acknowledged to Time magazine's Michael Scherer that that he did not know the details of the Bush Administration's policies "any more than is available to non-members of the Intelligence Committee."  That means that when he was accepting the Bush Administration's assurances, he had no idea what they were doing. I don't know whether Senator McCain is angry about this. I would hope so.  But given his only public statement (and his office's subsequent unwillingness to answer my questions), we have no way of knowing. In the past, critics of the Senator have suggested that his willingness to accept the Bush Administration's promises was a product of his ambitions -- that he was willing to set aside his principled opposition to torture in order to become President. But that theory doesn't explain why Senator McCain continues to defend the Administration now that he no longer is a candidate. Let me repeat my question.  Why does Senator McCain now believe that acknowledging the facts is somehow more damaging than the facts themselves? One possible answer is that this is not about the torture memos. Senator McCain does not want to acknowledge that he was duped.  He does not want to credit the Obama Administration for achieving what he could not -- an end to the Bush Administration's torture regime.  He does not want to admit that he could not prevent our (and his) worst fears from becoming a harsh reality . I sincerely hope that there is another answer, one that will end the contradiction between John McCain the anti-torture champion and John McCain the Bush Administration apologist.  But until we hear more than platitudes and apologies from the Senator himself, we will have to assume the worst. More on Barack Obama
 
Christopher Wood, Maryland Dad Who Killed Family, Had $450K In Debt Top
FREDERICK, Md. — A sheriff in Maryland says a father who shot his wife and three children to death and then killed himself struggled with depression and had $450,000 in debt. Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins said Tuesday that Christopher Wood, 34, discussed his family's financial problems in six notes he left behind after he killed himself Friday. The bodies were discovered by a relative a day later in Middletown in northwest Maryland. The sheriff also said Wood nearly decapitated the three children after they were dead using a kitchen knife and saw. The sheriff says Wood was making $97,000 a year as an account manager in the sales and marketing group at CSX Corp. in Baltimore, but the family was trying to sell a home in Florida.
 
2010 Prius To Actually Get Cheaper Top
TORRANCE, Calif. — Toyota says the 2010 Prius hybrid will cost the same as the current model when it goes on sale in the U.S. in late May, and will release an even cheaper version later in the year. The Japanese automaker says the third-generation Prius will start at $22,000, the same as the 2009 model. It says a more basic model will be released starting at $21,000 later this year, but did not say what features it will or won't contain. Toyota Motor Corp.'s much-anticipated 2010 Prius is expected to compete head-on with the Honda Insight hybrid. Honda recently reintroduced the Insight and has priced it in the U.S. under $20,000 as it aims to reach economy-minded buyers. More on Cars
 
Helmsley estate: $136M to charity, $1M to dogs Top
NEW YORK — Trustees of real estate baroness Leona Helmsley's estate say they're giving $136 million to charity _ with just $1 million going to the dogs. Helmsley's estate announced 53 charitable grants Tuesday, the bulk of which went to New York City hospitals and medical research. The largest grant, $40 million, went to a digestive diseases center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, while $35 million went to start two research facilities in Helmsley's name at Mount Sinai Medical Center. The estate for Helmsley _ who died in 2007 at age 87 _ divided $1 million equally to 10 animal rights charities, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and several groups that train guide dogs for the blind. Animal rights groups rejoiced last year at public reports that Helmsley specified in her will that her multibillion-dollar hotel and real estate empire should go entirely to dog-releated charities. The hotel queen's will had named her dog, Trouble, as a beneficiary. But a surrogate court judge ruled in February that trustees for the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust had sole authority to decide which charities benefit from her estate. "Throughout their lives, the Helmsleys were committed to helping others through the innovations of medical research of responding to those in need during critical times and in other areas," the trustees said in a statement Tuesday. "We now have the privilege of continuing their good works by providing support where it will make a difference." The grants include $25 million to create a Helmsley Center for Electrophysiology _ the study of electrical properties of cells and tissues _ at Mount Sinai, and $10 million for the Helmsley Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center. More than $15 million was donated to health care systems in South Dakota, including advanced cancer treatment funding at a Mitchell, S.D., hospital and hospital pharmacy funding in Sioux Falls, S.D. The foundation gave several $200,000 donations to city homeless and poverty programs such as Citymeals-on-Wheels and Bowery Mission. Helmsley's fortune, with much of the holdings in real estate, had been estimated at $5 billion to $8 billion after her death.
 
Kerry Trueman: Let's Ask Marion: Where's The Outcry Over Our Sickening Food Supply? Top
(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics , What to Eat and Food Politics :) Kat: The NY Times ran a story the other day exposing a stunning indifference on the part of public health officials in some states to outbreaks of life-threatening food-borne illnesses. The article included some astounding statistics: One-quarter of the nation's population is sickened every year by contaminated food, 300,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die... Presumably, if terrorists were poisoning our food supply and killing 5,000 Americans annually we'd be up in arms about it--if not dropping bombs. Where's the outrage? Dr. Nestle: Outrage? There really isn't much but much can't be expected, urgent as it may be. This, as I discuss in early chapters of my book, Safe Food , has to do with the way humans perceive risk. As far as I can tell from the evidence, we are hard wired to be most frightened of food dangers that seem foreign, alien, technological, and under someone else's control. That's why it's pretty easy to generate fear and outrage about genetically modified foods, bovine growth hormone, irradiation, and bisphenol A, for example, but much harder to get people worked up about microbial illness. The CDC says Americans experience 76 million episodes of food poisoning a year, along with those 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Pretty much everyone has experienced foodborne illness and most of us survive to tell the tale. Such things may be unpleasant--sometimes VERY unpleasant--but they are familiar. And we share some of the responsibility: if only we had washed our hands, not eaten that egg salad, cooked foods to the right temperature, and so forth. Much as we might like to, we can't blame faceless corporations like Monsanto for what we shouldn't have eaten last night. Even so, it is beyond me why people aren't taking to the streets to complain about the lack of reliable food safety oversight. We could do so much better a job of ensuring safe food if we had better rules in place and an agency required, willing, and able to enforce those rules. As I wrote recently in the San Francisco Chronicle , we have two sets of bills before Congress now, some aimed at fixing the FDA and some aimed at fixing the system. I think the entire system needs a fix but I will gladly settle for fixing the FDA if that's the best we can get right now. But nothing will happen without enormous public pressure. Outrage! We need you now!
 
House Judiciary Committee To Hold Hearings On Torture Memos, Lawyers Top
The torture memos released last week by the Obama administration will soon get a full hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. So, too, will the involvement of the lawyers who drafted those memos, committee chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said in a statement released Tuesday. Conyers hopes to have a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility concerning those Bush lawyers before holding his hearing, but said that, if it was "delayed further, we will have hearings in the near term in any event." For Conyers, "the fact that these memos were authored and approved by senior lawyers of the Department of Justice challenges the very notion that we adhere to the Rule of Law in this country." His full statement: Recently disclosed legal memoranda from the former Bush Administration raise grave legal, ethical, and constitutional questions. The use of tactics described in these memos runs counter not only to basic notions of decency, but places our own prisoners of war at risk and weakens our national security. And the fact that these memos were authored and approved by senior lawyers of the Department of Justice challenges the very notion that we adhere to the Rule of Law in this country. The Office of Professional Responsibility will soon complete a report concerning the former Justice Department lawyers who wrote these memos. The Judiciary Committee will subsequently hold hearings and investigate these matters. If the OPR report is delayed further, we will have hearings in the near term in any event. Critical questions remain concerning how these memos came into existence and were approved, which our committee is uniquely situated to consider. The President's comments today on possible approaches to a fuller accounting of these matters are exactly right - further comprehensive review of the Bush Administration anti-terror policies will be most valuable and successful if done in a truly apolitical and bipartisan manner. Having introduced legislation to establish just such a non-partisan truth-telling Commission on the very first day of this Congress, that is the approach I have long favored. It has already won bipartisan endorsement and support both within and outside of government. Get HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter .
 
Sunil Adam: Pakistan: Obama's Achilles' Heel Top
If we set aside the celebretology that passes for media coverage of the Obama administration, the new president's performance in the first 100 days would still earn a very high grade. On the foreign policy front in particular, President Obama has breathtakingly departed from the old script, setting the stage for dramatic changes in the way the United States deals with the world and the surfeit of crises facing it. If the media were not so preoccupied with the adoring masses that greeted the president and how he greeted the Queen of England and the King of Saudi Arabia, not to mention the stylistic differences between first ladies Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni, it would have highlighted the significance of the president's historic assertion in Prague. Addressing the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons, Obama said, "As a nuclear power -- as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon -- the United States has a moral responsibility to act." This is the first time that an American president -- since Harry Truman dropped the bombs on Japan -- has sought to secure the moral high ground in the nonproliferation debate with a tacit admission of American guilt. Perhaps Obama could have gone a little further and mentioned that the U.S. is also the only nuclear-weapons power that refuses to renounce the first-use option, which is a doctrinal ruse for some "rogue" powers to acquire nuclear weapon capability. Nevertheless, Obama's concession lends credence to his call for the strategic goal of total global disarmament, not just selective arms control measures for the weapons powers and denial of any nuclear deterrence to others. Equally groundbreaking were Obama's conciliatory overtures toward Muslim countries, including the recalcitrant Iran, which will have a salubrious impact in the psychological context of the conflict between Islam and the West. His first bilateral visit to Turkey is a tactical triumph in winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people in the Muslim countries, a feat he will possibly repeat even more spectacularly when, later this year, he visits Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood. Obama also made good on his campaign pledge to refurbish America's image in the world, when he reached out to our southern bête noirs Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua at the Summit of the Americas and altered the tenor and tone of U.S. policy toward Cuba. He is clearly playing to the global galleries and that will stand America in good stead even if its actual policy changes will be incremental and cautious. The name of Obama's game seems to be public relations and prudence. Now to the bad news. Obama's recently unveiled policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, or what the State Department calls the Afpak policy, is nothing but old vinegar in a new vial. His decision to augment multinational forces in Afghanistan with additional three American brigades and his failure to persuade NATO countries to contribute more combat troops merely ensures that the limited war in that country will remain protracted and inconclusive. Neither his conditional multibillion-dollar aid to Pakistan (with added emphasis on entirely impractical human and infrastructure development) nor his pledge to continue unmanned attacks against Taliban holdouts on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border will bring the U.S. anywhere close to, as Obama termed it, "disrupt, deflect and defeat" al-Qaida and its radical allies. At best, it betrays that the policy was crafted by the same State Department bureaucrat(s) who, during the Clinton administration, came up with the policy to "cap, rollback and eliminate" India's nuclear weapon program. We know how that ended. But most of all, the success of Obama's policy is precluded by the perilous state of the Pakistani polity and society. Today, Pakistan is not in the grips of the traditional Troika -- landed gentry, military brass and the bureaucratic elite -- but is being torn asunder by a disparate Quartet. The consensus of the Pakistani establishment that held the country together for the first 30-odd years of its existence has collapsed with the induction of Islamists into the rank and file. These Islamists, who beneath the surface are actually the alienated poor without class consciousness, were systematically patronized by the Zia ul-Haq regime during the heydays of the U.S.-armed and financed proxy war against Soviet infidels (Charlie did it, indeed). In other words, unlike in the past, American arms and currency can only go so far. Alongside, the internecine struggle for power and purse between the newly emergent Punjabi petty bourgeois and the rest of the disunited ethnic minorities -- including the Sindhis, Baluchs and Pushtuns -- militates against the stability of the center, a situation that the Islamists, with the help of al-Qaida and the Taliban, are systematically taking advantage of. This is the kind of ethnic and political cauldron into which only fools rush in while angels fear to tread. It is not without reason that even the customarily cavalier Bush administration kept a safe distance from Pakistan, involving itself only so far as to secure its interests vis-à-vis the war in Afghanistan, which, too, had limited strategic and tactical goals. Whereas candidate Obama, in his bid to balance his visceral opposition to the Iraq war with a national security cause célèbre, has locked himself into taking on the Afpak crisis and has now come to own it all by himself. And this could prove to be his Achilles' heel, imperiling his ambitious and inescapable agenda at home and abroad. It is not too late for him to change course -- hands off Pakistan, follow a containment policy in Afghanistan and secure the homeland. Tacitly, this amounts to not propping up the Pakistani establishment through any form of aid -- arms or developmental -- and letting it sink or sail by its own volition. A collapsed Pakistani state is better than a toxic state precariously perched. Only the likelihood of collapse will galvanize the democratic and modernizing forces within Pakistani society and culminate in a popular revolution. On the flip side, by taking itself out as a political, economic and military factor in the existence of Pakistan, America will probably help Pakistanis to have an objective national debate about the identity, direction and destiny of their country. Thanks to American influence on the one hand and the avowed threat of India on the other, Pakistan never really had a chance to introspect. Meanwhile, the most effective policy President Obama could pursue would be to insulate the U.S. and its democratic allies from the likely fallouts of a collapsed Pakistan, including the possibility of Islamists laying their hands on nuclear weapons. In other words, his approach has to be the exact reverse of President Bush's -- making the homeland secure so that "they" can't follow us home. This would involve, among a multitude of things, making American and European visa regimes stricter to prevent dangerous Pakistani elements from slipping in; forging alliances with Afpak neighbors, particularly Iran and China, to physically, politically and militarily isolate Pakistan and developing technologies to neutralize any nuclear threat emanating from there. Pakistan is an unconventional problem that demands an unorthodox response from an unassuming president. More on Cuba
 
Laura J. Mitchell: Elections in South Africa Top
Democracy in Africa: one man, one vote­one time. This cutting joke is an all too cruel reality in many post-independence African nations. The cartoonish stereotype of charismatic strong-men, one-party rule, and uneven economic development directed by corrupt kleptocracies (with the tacit support of western donor nations) persists because it has elements of truth. With national elections looming in South Africa, many are asking if the country can avoid this cliché. South Africa has long held itself as an exception. It was a different kind of colony, independent early in the twentieth century, and a stronghold of white minority rule. The race-based exclusions of Apartheid eventually earned South Africa the opprobrium of international opinion, yet it remained an economic powerhouse. Meanwhile, the struggle to end legal discrimination earned the Nobel Peace Prize for four South Africans: Albert Lutuli (1960), Desmond Tutu (1984), Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk (1993). The world watched intently as, from 1991 to 1994, South Africans negotiated their way to a non-racial constitution and their first truly democratic elections. Since then, no head of state has secured permanent sinecure, opposition parties mount viable campaigns, while a lively press reports and critiques. Sadly, this rosy analysis seems increasingly fragile in the run-up to the fourth post-Apartheid balloting for president. With violent crime increasing, repeated allegations of government corruption, the HIV/AIDS crisis spiraling, and collapse immanent in neighboring Zimbabwe, the stakes are high. South Africa needs policies, not the standoffs that have become politics as usual. The African National Congress' party head, Jacob Zuma, likely will win the election, despite scandal. Variously charged with graft, money-laundering, racketeering, and rape, Zuma's court-room victories seem to be the result of politics rather than due process. The strong suggestion of tampering in a case against Zuma prompted President Thabo Mbeki's resignation last September, a clear admission of defeat from a political rival. Zuma remains popular with broad swaths of the electorate despite being dogged for eight years by allegations stemming from a dicey arms deal. He appeals to voters who saw the older leadership as entrenched; he commands the support of the labor movement and Communists, which bristled under Mbeki. South Africa desperately needs change. The official unemployment rate tops 20 percent, the unofficial rate is much higher. The government struggles to provide adequate schools and health clinics, and the housing backlog remains overwhelming. Overcoming a half-century of state-directed, purposely unequal development remains a monumental task, one the current government has partially addressed. The international financial community continues to praise South Africa's delicate balance between sound fiscal policy and spending to meet pressing social need. For many South Africans, however, the circumstances of their daily lives are more meager than under Apartheid, when influx control limited the numbers of people in cities while payoffs to "tribal homelands" sent some funds to the countryside. Citizens want an alternative to a government slow to deliver the material changes they anticipated would accompany political change. Agitation for Zimbabwe-style land reforms is growing, despite the misery currently flowing across the border. Although Zuma's critics point out his shortcomings, he offers an alternative within the ANC, reaching beyond the small black middle class that has benefited greatly from post-1994 changes while workers have not. As Ronald Reagan reminded US voters in 1980, we should not be surprised when a majority that feels underserved opts for change. It is, however, disturbing when the fruits of that change seem decidedly undemocratic. Zuma's disregard for the rule of law is evident. His admitted disregard for safer sex in a country where HIV/AIDS remains epidemic is more telling. Zuma has populist appeal, but believing himself to be immune from a virus indicates the degree to which he thinks himself different from ordinary folk. Also worrisome, Zuma takes umbrage at public critiques. Last year he sued a political cartoonist. Recently the ANC denounced mock election posters as "desperate attempts by mischievous forces of darkness." Name-calling is an old democratic tradition, but invoking sorcery is a chilling reminder of justifications that served to sustain dictators. If South Africa is to remain an exception to the stereotypes of African politics, we must hope for more honesty, rationality, and genuine commitment to democratic process ­all in the service of more tangible economic development across the country. Too much is at stake for South Africans ­indeed for the rest of the continent ­to blithely dismiss "forces of darkness" in this current election. More on South Africa
 
Tom Vander Ark: Bloomberg and Urban Mayors Should Control Schools Top
School districts are a strange American anachronism--no other country delivers public education through strong local authorities. This strange historical remnant is not crippling in all cases but has been proven to be completely ineffective in urban America. We are no longer able to elect and sustain effective urban school boards. Secretary Duncan recently reiterated his support for mayoral control of urban schools. I agree; mayors are generally better than school boards at providing courageous and effective leadership. Districts that had great school boards and showed the potential to be models of achievement--Houston, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle--have all reverted to the disastrous mean. Districts where sustained progress has been made--Chicago, New York, Boston--share mayoral control. The primary reasons for districts to exist--taxes, employment, and policy--have been become obsolete or even destructive. Locally funding schools led to gross inequities. The people that care the most about school board elections--employees--spend the most time and money, get their colleagues elected, and then cut lucrative employment agreements entwined with district policy. State and federal standards and accountability systems have replaced the primary quality assurance role of districts--specifically because most districts failed to faithfully exercise this obligation. Mayoral control is a hot topic in New York because the 2002 law giving Bloomberg ultimate control sunsets in June. The state assembly commissioned a report on the subject which, as you can imagine, is tepid. In a recent commentary, Joseph Viteritti, the Executive Director of the Commission correctly pointed out that, "The most significant impact of mayoral control is to create a greater institutional capacity for change." But he goes on to discuss the risk including disrupting the "safe balance of power"--that's not a risk, it's a primary benefit! It's the safe balance of power that led to the enormous and persistent gaps in achievement highlighted in a McKinsey study released today. Viteritti goes to argue for an Independent Budget Office to publish results. The state and a variety of private groups do that quite well. The most outrageous claim he makes is that "Putting city hall in control of the schools increases the risk of politicizing education." And union controlled school boards haven't done so? The whole system is more concerned with adult employment than student outcomes. The Commission clings to the notion of "administrative decentralization so that decisions concerning particular schools are made at the community level." We're a long way from that ideal. In America, schools are buildings where district, state, and federal programs are administered. We cling to the ideal of local control, but ceded control long ago to the bureaucrats. What most parents want is quality and choice--a good neighborhood school and options if that doesn't fit the bill. The best way to deliver on the Good School Promise is 1) a clear and simple set of national standards, 2) a strong accountability system that ensures quality and prevents chronic failure, and 3) the ability for parents to seek or create options that work best for their children. Bloomberg, Menino, and Daley have done a good job "disrupting the safe balance" of school politics and deserve continued support. In Louisiana, Paul Pastorek is extending the reach of the Recovery School District to man-made disasters as well as storm relief. Rhode Island took a bold step by empowering its mayor with the ability to grant charters. What we need is courageous leadership willing to attack inequity and chronic failure by closing bad schools and opening good schools. Mayors are more likely to provide stronger leadership than school boards. But more important, American families deserve high expectations, the assurance of quality, and choice when it comes to education.
 
Chuck Todd Depicts Support For Torture Investigations As Fringe Phenomenon Top
I really have to object with the way Chuck Todd is characterizing the underlying public pressure that's being brought to bear on President Obama and the White House to investigate and potentially prosecute the authors and the agents of the previous administration's torture regime. The whole thing is knit up in political process tropes and infused with the pointless melodrama of the day, when a serious and substantive look at this issue is called for. MITCHELL: They clearly are responding to the letter from Diane Feinstein...and the whole question of whether - in the liberal blogosphere whether they have been too quick to shut down any prosecutions. TODD: There does seem to be a little bit of a reaction to how this was received on the left. And the president, when he went on in those comments, Andrea, to suggest that he'd be open to some sort of special commission that was bipartisan, you know, he said, on one hand said he's worried about the process getting politicized, and frankly this feels like a political food fight now. Vice President Cheney on one side, President Obama on the other. The hard left, the hard right, fighting over this in the blogosphere. When he talks about - he fears the politicization - that may be too late, so the compromise might be, and the president basically comes out and endorses it in that photo op, questioning that he got there, which is a special commission to look into this but it opens up all sorts of doors on when legal opinions matter and all that. That is just -- this is some touchy situation, issues having to do with legal opinions, the constitution, it's a real tightrope. And the political pressure on both sides is intense. In the first place, Todd and his fellows need to move off of this Dick Cheney versus Barack Obama storyline. The two men are not, as Todd depicts, on opposite "sides." One is the duly elected President of the United States. The other is a retired man who holds no political power and who plays no role in policy making. The two men are not equals, any more than they were a year ago this time when Cheney was Vice President and Obama was the junior Senator from Illinois. But more to the point, to suggest that public support for torture prosecutions is a struggle the "hard left" or the blogosphere is to miss the point entirely. There is strong, active, mainstream support for prosecutions. Period. As you can see, the last time Gallup polled this issue , a plurality of respondents specifically favor a criminal investigation into the possible use of torture in terror investigations. A substantial majority want an investigation of some kind. Of course, Gallup concludes, "No Mandate for Criminal Probes of Bush Administration," but I'd point out that this poll was taken prior to the release of the torture memos. Regardless, to call the desire to investigate the use of torture an obsession of the "hard left" is just not true. Viewing these responses by party affiliation bears this out, as well. That two-in-ten Republicans favor a criminal probe is nothing at which to scoff. I'd daresay it's significant that only 54% of Republicans want to simply walk away from the issue is significant as well. That's no slam dunk support for letting sleeping dogs lie. I gather that the invocation of the "blogosphere" here is meant as a further means of belittling this issue, but Todd should check himself. Those poll numbers indicate that the blogosphere is but a small part of the broad support for investigations. Furthermore, those bloggers are doing the work on the issue that the traditional press can't seem to be bothered to do. Check out this New York Times article , published over the weekend, that documents the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. All of the enterprise reporting for the article was done by blogger Marcy Wheeler, of Emptywheel . Good thing, too! It's not like the Times , in possession of the same memos, noticed the story. You know what is, chiefly, an obsession unique to bloggers? The campaign to install Chuck Todd as the host of Meet The Press ! This can easily be corrected. [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Video
 
Psoriasis Linked To DIABETES, HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE Top
Women with psoriasis run a higher risk of diabetes and high blood pressure, perhaps because of the underlying inflammation that causes the skin condition, researchers said on Monday. Psoriasis should be considered "a systemic disorder, rather than simply a skin disease," Dr. Abrar Qureshi of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston wrote in a study in the April issue of Archives of Dermatology.
 
Michael Emerson Reads "Little Boy Blue" (VIDEO) Top
Michael Emerson went on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" recently to promote the two-hour finale of "Lost" that airs on May 13. While there, Fallon asked the actor to read a nursery rhyme in his typical creepy-as-all-hell demeanor. It was awesome. Emerson, best known for his Emmy-nominated role as Benjamin Linus on "Lost," certainly plays the chill-inducing character with skill enough to make the audience suspect he might really be evil. This video will do little to assuage those fears. "Little Boy Blue" was an inspired choice due to it's vaguely threatening nature, and short-enough-not-to-make-you-wet-your-pants length. WATCH: (via Buzzfeed) More on Funny Videos
 
Matthew DeBord: Attention Celebrities! Stop Making Fun of Charles Barkley! Top
Have you been watching The Golf Channel's wonderful series "The Haney Project: Charles Barkley"? If you haven't, you should be. It's great stuff. A little background. Hank Haney is Tiger Woods' coach and a highly regarded guru of the golf swing. (To get technical, he's a strong advocate of developing a good swing plane, as a way to increase consistency.) Charles Barkley is the legendary pro basketball great, the "Round Mound of Rebound," who played for the Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, and Houston Rockets in the 1980s and '90s. Sadly, he never won an NBA Championship. But he's gone on to a provocative broadcast career, is beloved by millions, doesn't hold back his opinions, and occasionally gets himself in a bit of trouble. He also has, most would agree, the worst golf swing in the world. It didn't used to be this way; at one time, he evidently played golf pretty well. But as anyone who has witnessed him struggle through a celebrity pro-am can attest, his swing for a decade now has been a bizarre, halting, hitching motion that creates horrible shot after horrible shot. According to Haney, Woods asked him to help Charles fix his swing. Haney has taken to the task with the kind of fervor and deliberation that Montgomery brought to the North Africa campaign in World War II. You can see why Woods likes Hank: he's a focused disciplinarian who's fun to be around but who can stick to business. This contrasts with Woods' former coach, Butch Harmon, who's also very good but more of a cheerful backslapping motormouth (who's probably getting along great with current star pupil Phil Mickelson). There's always been an element of pathos to Barkley, a lovable (if outspoken) man and a stupendous competitor who fell just short of greatness in the Michael Jordan Era. He'd made us all forget this as he morphed into a jolly entertainer, a sort of willing clown for Generation SportsCenter. He also takes the ribbing of others in graceful stride. A good thing, as everyone and his cousin seems to have developed an impersonation of Sir Charles' golf swing. Or at least an opinion about why it's such a mess. Haney thinks it's a sequence of correctable, or at least manageable, flaws. Irish pro golfer Padraig Harrington thinks it's all in Charles' head and says he "needs a shrink." Watching Barkley work on his swing with Haney is like watching a person commit to meticulously organized torture. Barkley is a fun-loving dude, but he was also an elite athlete, and he knows what its takes to improve in sports: hard work. He's not lacking in golf talent: his grip always looks good, and his putting stroke and short game are solid. It's just that his full swing has become horrific. So he hits thousands of balls, sweating like he's in the fourth quarter, under Haney's steely gaze. He commits to new workout, diet, and flexibility regimes. Yes, it's reality TV. But there's more realty to it than most examples of the genre. He makes progress, then he falls back intro struggle. It's agonizing to watch. You get the sense that Barkley decided one day that he'd had enough, and that he really would give up the game and rob the fans of what for him was becoming a depressing spectacle if he couldn't fix his swing and make golf enjoyable again. What he needs now is our support. It's not often we get to witness an old pro, someone whose ups and down we once followed assiduously, challenge himself anew. And this is why a moratorium on making fun of his swing must be declared. Even at this late date, numerous episodes into the Barkley project, we continue to make sport of his anguish. Barkley's friend, the comedian George Lopez--a decent person who loves golf--should have thought twice before he jumped into his Charles imitation at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am this last weekend. It got laughs, but in the current context, it was awkwardly opportunistic. We must let Barkley be! He has given us much over his colorful career, And now in his moment of need, we have to stop laughing and start admiring how difficult the Haney Project has been for him, how far he has come, and what he still has left to do. It was funny to needle him once. But by doing so now, we ridicule and embarrass a champion who isn't afraid to cure his faults in front of the world.
 
Battle Of The Bulge: Members Of Congress Say They're Struggling With Weight Top
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) recently lamented his own weight during a painfully slow bailout hearing on Capitol Hill last month. "I wish I didn't have the five-minute rule. And I wish we didn't have so many members. And I wish I could lose weight without dieting," Frank said. Members say endless lunchtime meetings, heavy travel schedules and late-night hours have caused traffic to pick up both in the Senate gym and at the cafeteria salad bar.
 
Detroit Lions NEW UNIFORM Features Fiercer Lion Top
Detroit has added teeth to its new Lions logo. Only time will tell if the product on the field also has teeth. The franchise revealed subtle changes to the logo and how the word "Lions" is spelled out during a news conference Monday attended by dozens of fans.
 
WATCH: Donna Karan Talks Unplugging, Recharging, And Her Hopes For Urban Zen Top
Last week, Donna Karan's Urban Zen Foundation hosted it's Nutrition Speaker Series, part of Urban Zen's ongoing initiative committed to educating America about key healthcare issues. Speakers included fellow HuffPost contributor Kathy Freston , as well as Dr. Mehmet Oz (of Oprah fame), while the Living page sent it's resident yogi and video blogger, Tara Stiles, to see what nutritional nuggets she could glean from the masters. Her full coverage will come this Saturday, so keep an eye out for that, but in the meantime, check out her exclusive interview with Donna Karan. More on The Giving Life
 
Tom Pappalardo: Bankers Balk at Fees Top
The latest twist in our financial fiasco has more irony than a Woody Allen movie. Those fine institutions that have made passing fees along to its customers for the slightest of transgressions an art form, are now whining when something similar is being asked of them. These fines in the form of fees from banks have become one of the more insidious forms of torture in our lifetime. This irony starts with some banks who have concluded they do not want to keep TARP money from the government. The government rightfully questions just how solvent these banks are and whether the money they have taken will be needed later for their survival. The rules and regs attached to the Tarp money is apparently more than their poor little banker hearts can stand. This has led to the beginning of quite the brouhaha between the feds and the banks that want to give the TARP money back. Not only are these banks trying to run as far away as possible from the government oversight brought upon by taking TARP dough but the feds are now asking these champions of the early withdrawal fee for something similar to an early withdrawal fee. This is where the irony kicks in big time as these banks are squealing like pigs about how unfair this is. Imagine all the times you got nicked for minor transgressions to your bank and they stuck it to you with an unrelenting fervor, it does appear payback time has arrived. Not only are they up in arms about this early payback fee but this fight could get really ugly regarding the governments plans for the forced sale of bad mortgages. Turns out these bankers are having nightmares over having to swallow a bad deal for them. Of course this bad deal meaning they lose some significant money is the feds way of minimizing their pain within reason. However reason and fairness in regards to doing business do not appear to be concepts these bankers care to acknowledge applies to them. On the other hand unfettered greed, taking insanely bad gambles, and the willingness to send lots of pain far beyond their walls if the decisions they make don't work out, are all in their wheelhouse. It appears these banks want to give back the TARP money back with no strings attached. Of course if an individual or a business borrowed money from a bank and with some luck it turned out that they didn't need it and they told the bank that they want to pay the money back without any of those nasty strings attached then the banks would look at them like they were telling them a bad joke. Apparently an element in the banking community lives in this parallel universe where they play by different rules than everyone else and can do whatever the hell they want without any consequences. For example a big sticking point in this latest tussle is that the executives of these banks can t quite accept the limitations put on their executive pay when TARP money is in play. Kind of like people that lose their jobs can't quite accept having no income. The other big point and this is where the rubber really hits the road, those gazillions of dollars in bad debt that caused civilization to almost come to a standstill, well banks want more money back than the feds arranged for them to get when selling off these nasty toxic debts. As fate would have it, the market for these very toxic debts at the moment isn't quite to their liking and they want to sit it out until that market improves. On top of this, I believe its entirely possible the banks that don't want to keep TARP money are doing this with the idea that it buys them time to handle their business free of TARP restrictions and oversight knowing that the feds will step in and save them if down the road they need to be saved. These masters of disaster are also the wizards of greed. Timmy Two-Shoes Geithner the fed's financial tap dancer must really have his knickers in a twist after hearing this load of blarney. Timmy the spy planted inside the Obama administration to protect the financial status quo did the financial equivalent of twisting together a gigantic pretzel in order to avoid the nationalization of banks and maintain the status quo yet his yeoman efforts are not enough for his financial brothers. To fully appreciate all this it's important to really understand what nationalization of banks really entails. It's fairly simple. The government would take over banks that are unable to weather this economic storm on their own but only until the bank can stand on its own two feet. During this interim period the feds are their lord and master and know all their secrets. The feds take the positive assets of the bank and create a new bank known as the good bank. They also take the banks current negative assets and create what is known as the bad bank. This stops a bank's positive assets from being gobbled up by the bad assets that resulted from the rank stupidity of the players who rolled the dice with the banks money and came up snake eyes. For a period of time these two banks co-exist side by side but separate until these nasty toxic assets lose enough of their toxicity to the point where they can be sold off for less of a loss than they are worth as of today. When the degree of these nasty ugly assets as a whole get to the point where they can be absorbed by the good asset bank and not threaten its solvency then the bankers get their get out of federal bureaucracy hell for free card and can resume life as they formerly new it. It should be noted that a number of brilliant economists such as the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in economics Paul Krugman believe that the sooner nationalization of zombie banks takes place the sooner we all get out of economic hell. However the banking community sees this solution as comparable to water boarding, telling a five year old Santa Claus doesn't exist, and a root canal all rolled into one. Here is a link for the grimy details of the latest tug of war between the banks and the feds. This complicated and probably convoluted plan Timmy Two-Shoes and his pals have concocted has the government using taxpayer's money to make it more appealing for buyers to buy these toxic debts by offering cheap money they can borrow from the government. However, these business men for some reason still want to make money off their investment and apparently the bankers see too much profit for these buyers and not enough for their greedy selves in the government's latest plan. Specifically you have on one hand the banks who want to run away from the restrictions of TARP money as soon as possible and you have the government trying to fix the disaster created by these banks who are hesitant to allow early repayment until the a bank can show it can take the blow of more losses and keep on lending money which is the lifeblood to everyone's economic recovery. Reading between the lines the banks priority is not the economies fastest possible recovery but covering their own ugly backsides and maintaining the status quo. A fine example of this dilemma is embodied in Douglas Leech CEO of Centra Bank, a small West Virginia bank that took TARP money but later returned the money. When the feds later added new conditions for taking TARP money back Mr. Leech took exception to this. These new conditions presumably arose from the outcry of Americans who were appalled at how banks saved by their taxpayer money were giving that money to shareholders and executives among other shady moves by the banks. The feds said it was cool to return the money early but you still have to make repayments of the special warrants which in effect was like an early withdrawal penalty. According to Mr. Leech, that effectively raised the interest rate he paid on a $15 million loan to an annual rate of about 60 percent. Big Doug went as far as playing the un-American card. He said, "What they did is wrong and fundamentally un-American. Even though the government told us to take this money to increase our lending, the extra charge meant we had less money to lend. It was the equivalent of a penalty for early withdrawal." Oh the pain, oh the irony oh the end of civilization as we know it because a bank has to pay a penalty for early payment of a loan. However, our pal Doug skips over an important point. If he kept the TARP money and those dastardly restrictions on his executive pay among other things he would not have to pay the equivalent of an early withdrawal penalty. By keeping the TARP dough he would not only get to keep the penalty money for lending purposes but he would also have another cool 15MM to borrow to the good folks of West Virginia. However, Doug and others of his ilk apparently go by the code of its better to keep bankers in their comfort zone doing whatever they damn well please, than have more credit money flowing into the system regardless of how helpful this lending could be to the nation's economic recovery. What a bunch of babies these bankers are. Once again the banks have put the feds in a tough position. Regulators are reluctant to approve the early repayments until banks can show that they have the capital to take the hit if there is a continued downturn in the economy and that a continued downturn will not slow down their lending efforts. This lending is of course crucial to getting the economy moving forward. So it sure appears the banks are willing to risk a slower recovery if it means they don't have to deal with TARP conditions. What's a government to do with these head strong greedy children/bankers. I say to Mr. Leech not only is it un-American of him and his bank not to make some sacrifices to do all his bank can do to keep credit flowing to those that need it but it is also un-American of his brethren banks to double interest rates and lower credit limits to those customers that have a long history of paying their bills on time to these banks. For a long time it has been un-American how banks force unethical fees and conditions on their borrowers. Bnet reports that banks which took TARP money are being investigated because since October when TARP money was doled out, banks jacked up charges on a variety of routine transactions and credit card rates. The selfish hypocrisy over how banks conduct their business in general and how they want this TARP money handled could choke a dinosaur. Here is the link to Reuters report . One last detail on this irony/hypocrisy alert, the 800 pound gorilla in the house in regards to turning around this mess is how to relieve banks especially the weaker ones of these toxic mortgages and mortgage backed securities. Goldman Sachs projected that banks are currently valuing their oh so toxic debts at 91 cents on the dollar. Seems a bit high for a toxic debt to me and it turns out that this is far more probably laughably more than investors are willing to pay for them. This asking price is so beyond the pale investors are unwilling to bite even though with our taxpayer money the feds are offering these potential investors' cut-rate loans to get the ball rolling. According to the New York Times , Frank Pallotta, a former mortgage trader at Morgan Stanley, now a consultant to institutional investors is quoting as saying, "The gap is still very wide. If every bank was forced to sell at the market-clearing price, you'd have only five banks left in the market." Which brings us full circle, to nationalize banks or not to nationalize banks, that is still the question. Obama and Timmy Two-Shoes are doing their best to avoid this yet again the banks are taking the my way or the highway stance in spite of having little leverage other than acting like spoiled brats who do not want to take punishment for their misdeeds as well as not do what is right for everyone else. It bears repeating that this latest tussle in the financial world once stripped down to its bare parts appears to reveal that the banks that took money from the government to both ensure their survival and supposedly participate in the speeding up of the recovery of the economic system as a whole are willing to slow down this recovery in order to avoid like the plague any and all restrictions placed on them by the government. With team players like this who needs enemies. Can you imagine being stuck on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with these bankers and suddenly you get ill and need more water than what has been allotted to everyone? Based on their behavior during this crisis, I would fully expect the banker's response to this request for some extra water because of your illness would be to shove you over board. If Obama and his people don't do something major to change this super frigging duper privileged culture elite bankers live in once this mess is over these masters of disaster and wizards of greed will no doubt create another mess to be fixed and endured. The S&L crisis, the sub prime crisis, the elite bankers suck again crisis. Another possible irony in this ironically monstrous mess is nationalizing the zombie banks could kill two birds with one stone. It would be the cleanest and simplest way to unload to toxic debts as this method worked very well for Sweden in the 90's albeit on a smaller scale. It could also be the teleport machine that magically transports the minds and hearts of bankers who feel that they can do whatever they want whenever they want into everyone else's universe where there are consequences often hard consequences to our mistakes. With that in mind I say Obama's response to the banks request that the government change how they want the early repayment of TARP money handled, be clear and simple. That would be for him to tell them in a nice way of course to kiss his butt. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Supreme Court Limits Warrantless Vehicle Searches Top
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers. The court's 5-4 decision in a case from Arizona puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect, particularly when the alleged offense is nothing more serious than a traffic violation. Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence will be found of the crime that led to the arrest. "When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant," Stevens said. Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, complained that the decision upsets police practice that has developed since the court, 28 years ago, first authorized warrantless searches of cars immediately following an arrest. "There are cases in which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or evidence," Alito said. Even more confusing, he said, is asking police to determine whether the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. "What this rule permits in a variety of situations is entirely unclear," Alito said. Stevens conceded that police academies teach the more permissive practice and that law enforcement officers have relied on it. Yet, he said, "Countless individuals guilty of nothing more serious than a traffic violation have had their constitutional right to the security of their private effects violated as a result." Fordham University law professor Dan Capra said the ruling "will have a major impact when the driver is arrested for a traffic offense." When police have probable cause to arrest someone for drug crimes, Capra said, they ordinarily will be able to search a car in pursuit of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors and police instructors were generally disappointed with the decision. Tom Hammarstrom, executive director of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, said training for law officers would be adjusted to conform to the high court's ruling. Devallis Rutledge, special counsel to the Los Angeles County district attorney, said he was working on formulating advice for prosecutors on how to apply the court's decision. "It's not the kind of clear-cut guidance that police officers, lawyers and judges need. It substantially overrules a 28-year-old precedent that we've all relied on," Rutledge said. Police officers have been "doing the safe thing" by searching vehicles after securing suspects to make sure they aren't a safety threat. "That's been the way they've been taught and the way they've been trained," Rutledge said. "Now, we will lose the evidence they obtained" in some cases. He said the new rules might even make it harder to catch criminals, noting that evidence found during a vehicle search when someone is arrested for a relatively minor crime can lead to greater charges, such as drug offenses or even murder. The decision backs an Arizona high court ruling in favor of Rodney Joseph Gant, who was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car. They found cocaine and drug paraphernalia. The trial court said the evidence could be used against Gant, but Arizona appeals courts overturned the convictions because the officers already had secured the scene and thus faced no threat to their safety or concern about evidence being preserved. Gant was placed under arrest for driving on a suspended license and he already was at least 8 feet away from his car when he was arrested. Arizona, backed by the Bush administration and 25 other states, complained that a decision in favor of Gant would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law enforcement officers. But civil liberties groups argued that police routinely invade suspects' privacy by conducting warrantless searches when there is no chance suspects could have access to their vehicles. The groups also suggested that police would not increase the danger to themselves by leaving suspects unrestrained and near their cars just to justify a search in the absence of a warrant. The justices divided in an unusual fashion. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy were in dissent along with Alito. Scalia said in a separate opinion that he would allow warrantless searches only to look for "evidence of the crime for which the arrest was made, or of another crime that the officer has probable cause to believe occurred." He said he joined Stevens' opinion anyway because there otherwise would not have been a majority for that view and Alito's desire to maintain current police practice "is the greater evil." The case is Arizona v. Gant, 07-542. ___ Staff writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Arthur H. Rotstein in Tucson, Ariz., contributed to this report. More on Supreme Court
 
Janice Taylor: United Airlines: Double Your Fat, Double Their Pleasure Top
United Airlines is the latest airline to jump on the anti-fat bandwagon and penalize their overweight passengers by charging them for two seats should they not fit "comfortably" into one. They say that they are doing this because they received 700 complaints last year about overweight passengers. In my capacity as someone who knows the "overweight" landscape well as an "ex-fatty" (50 pounds permanently removed eight years ago), author of two best-selling weight loss books, seminar leader and Life & Wellness Coach, I have a few questions for United Airlines and the other carriers who have adopted this two-seats/two-faced policy. What other complaints have you received in the past year, and how many? Has no one mentioned the delays, cramped seating (no matter your size), or poor food choices? I'd like to see a full report on complaints. You say that your criteria for double charging is, "if a passenger cannot close the arm rest, or cannot fasten the seat belt with an extension." Given that 34% of Americans are obese, might you consider making the seats larger? What if you still receive complaints about those who manage to "fit in" their seats, but nevertheless, a bulge or a ripple of fat undulates across the divide? Where will you draw the line or the tape measure? Will you have a "model" at the gate, as you have a display/image of what size luggage constitutes a carry-on? You penalize overweight people yet you offer no real healthy choices when distributing your peanuts, snack bars, and cookies. Why not offer fresh fruit? Instead of adding to the problem, creating even more of a stigma for those who are overweight, why not become a part of the solution? Partner with Life & Wellness Coaches, fitness centers, nutritionists alike. Offer frequent flyer miles to those who create healthy lifestyles. Dedicate a section of your flight magazines to health education. Step up to the healthy plate and make a real difference. Spread the healthy word...NOT the icing. Janice Taylor is the author of Our Lady of Weight Loss and All Is Forgiven, Move On. Visit Janice Taylor , Beliefnet Blog . "Janice Taylor is a certain kind of kooky genius." ~ O, the Oprah Magazine "mindful eating in humorous yet earnest style . . . ." ~ the New York Times.
 
Bob Herbert: A Fair Shake for Those Who are Not Already Rich and Powerful Top
The following are my remarks on the occasion of my acceptance of the 6th Annual Ridenhour Courage Prize. For more information about the Ridenhour Prizes see nationinstitute.org and ridenhour.org . I want to talk for just a few minutes about two wrong-headed ideas that are held by a very large percentage, and maybe a majority, of Americans. I've noticed over the past few years, along with many other reporters, that many people feel a sense of powerlessness when it comes to the government policies and corporate practices that have such a great effect on their lives. This is a feeling that is both disheartening and self-fulfilling. Right now, in the midst of a terrible recession, a lot of people are hoping that President Obama will be able to do something to turn things around. But they don't feel that there is anything that they themselves can do. People vote, but they don't have a real sense that they have clout, that they can affect the decisions made in the White House or on Capitol Hill or in the boardrooms of the great corporations. During the presidential campaign, I asked a woman in a Detroit suburb if she had any thoughts about what might help bolster the economy and create jobs. "Get rid of Bush," she said. When I persisted, she said, "Are you kidding? Who would listen to me?" I believe that this notion that ordinary people are powerless is wrong, but it's widely held. The other widely-held idea that I think is wrong is the widespread belief among ordinary people that they bear no responsibility for the policies and events that often have such a dramatic effect on the society and on their lives. According to this view, they were in no way responsible for the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the crazy doings on Wall Street and in the corporate sector that wrecked the economy. They weren't responsible for the egregious failures of this society to develop a first rate public school system for all of its kids, or for the sorry state of the nation's infrastructure. All of that was somebody else's doing. Both of these notions -- that Americans are basically powerless to intervene in their own fate, and that they bear no responsibility for the important events of their time -- are wrong. And not only are they wrong, they're dangerous. They're wrong because ordinary Americans actually have tremendous power to shape the policies and practices that affect their lives -- if they are willing to make the big effort and take the risks inherent in trying to make substantial changes in the society. We've seen it. We saw it most dramatically in the civil rights movement, which changed the face of this nation, and again in the women's movement. We saw it long ago in the labor movement, and later in the fight for a cleaner environment. It's tough. It can be dangerous. It requires courage. It can take a long, long time. But it can be done. It's also wrong for ordinary people to fall back on the comforting illusion that they bear no responsibility for the events swirling all around them. My response to that kind of thinking is, 'Where were you for the past 30 years?' Either you bought into the greed and the excessive tax cuts and the trickle-down absurdities and the labor-bashing and the election hijacking and the curtailment of civil liberties and the exportation of jobs and the market mania and torture policies and shock and awe and wars without end... Either you bought into all of that stuff that had such a deleterious effect on people across the board in this country, or you didn't raise your voice loudly enough against it. One way or another you had some responsibility. If you didn't understand during the fight over welfare reform - when millionaires on the Senate floor stood up and cheered the withdrawal of benefits from poor children - if you didn't understand then that when they finished tearing up the safety net for the poor that they would soon be coming after the middle class, you bear some responsibility. It wasn't long before they were homing in on social security. We're all responsible for the state of our society. But the point I want to stress here is that these two notions of powerlessness and failure to acknowledge responsibility are particularly dangerous because they prevent ordinary people from seeing the landscapes of their lives clearly, and from taking the steps necessary to improve that landscape. The society's problems are always seen as somebody else's fault, and the person who feels powerless looks to somebody else -- most often a president -- to come along and fix them. That turns the average American into some kind of helpless, hapless figure -- the polar opposite of an informed, involved citizen. If you don't think you can do anything about the conditions of the society, then you won't even make the effort to clearly understand the issues. What would be the point? And we've seen what happens. You start to think crazy thoughts, like there may be something to this trickle down, after all. And the logical next step is to believe that the best thing for you and your family is to make sure that the people at the top have lots and lots of money so there'll be plenty to eventually trickle down to you. Suddenly you feel strongly about getting rid of the inheritance tax. You don't mind those payroll taxes, but that death tax has to go. After a while, with the imbalance of wealth and power increasing step by step, year after year, you don't even have a good sense of how unfair the system has become. You're anxious, maybe even frightened. But you have no clear idea of what is going on. All you want to do is keep your job. Protect your little bit of mortgaged turf. Just survive. Now, of course, even that's a problem. For all the talk of change in the last election -- and obviously the Obama era is a big change from the Bush years -- but for all the talk of change, and for all the silly howling about socialism from the republicans, we are not even close to making the kind of fundamental changes in this society that I think are necessary. What we need, of course, are steps taken to bring about a fairer apportionment of the nation's wealth and resources. And that won't happen without a sustained demand, amounting to a campaign, by ordinary Americans that the government and corporate elites stop stomping all over the interests of working people and the poor and begin to seriously address their concerns. Full employment. A world-class education system. Health coverage for all Americans. Protection of the environment. If the United States -- with all its wealth and freedoms and technological genius -- is not capable of bringing those things about, then it means that this great experiment in democracy that we claim to be so proud of has failed. For 30 years or more, working people -- and when I talk about working people, I'm including the so-called broad middle class, everybody who has to work in order to make it from month to month -- for 30 years working people have been ceding wealth and power to the people at the top. Men who are now in their 30's -- the prime age for raising families -- earn less money than members of their fathers' generation did at the same age. The median income for men in their 30's in 1974, using today's inflation-adjusted dollars, was about $40,000. Now it's approximately $35,000. If you adjust for inflation, from 1980 -- when Ronald Reagan was elected President -- to the midpoint of the current decade, the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined. The peak income year for most individual American taxpayers, believe it or not, was way back in 1973. Standards of living for most American families were maintained or improved over the decades since then because women went into the workplace in droves. And because we mortgaged ourselves up to our eyeballs. So a realignment of the wealth and resources of our society is in order. But that won't come from the White House or Congress, not even with the Democrats in control. The banks and the great corporations are always pressing their case in the corridors of power. But who is pounding the table for working people, day in and day out? Who's their advocate? I love the quote from Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union, who said, 'Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards.' A fairer, more just, more equitable distribution of the nation's resources won't come about unless and until the ordinary working men and women of this society become less passive, less quiescent -- until they realize that they have to raise their voices and take much more direct responsibility for bringing about the changes necessary to improve their lives and the lives of their children. A fair shake is all I'm talking about. A fair shake for those who are not already rich and powerful. The media's role in this effort is the same as it always is -- to dig out the stories and provide accurate information and informed commentary about what is really going on in the society. But what the progressive media especially could do that would be helpful would be to encourage greater participation by everybody in the civic and political life of the nation. Today's version of Plato's cave is the American living room where so many sit, with remote in hand, watching the flickering images of a flat-screen TV. We won't get the kind of change that I'm talking about, a transformative change to a more just and equitable society, until ordinary Americans step away from their televisions and look outside the door at the real world, to see clearly and unmistakably the unfairness in the way they've been treated. And even then they'd have to marshal the courage to take big risks, as so many did in the early days of labor, and in the civil rights movement, to fight for their interests, which I contend are identical to the national interest. They'd have to demand that we stop fighting debilitating, unwinnable wars. That we make employment a true top priority, give it more than lip service. That we stop squandering the potential of the young and instead go to the mat to see that they are given a first-class education. And so on. If such a movement were to get started, trust me, leaders would emerge. The talent and the intelligence are out there. But without that kind of commitment, the most we can look forward to is the eventual passing of this recession and then a long period of what will most likely be a lower standard of living and an expansion of the ranks of the poor. Do I think that this kind of real change, transformational change, is possible? I know it's possible. Time and again during the course of my life, I've seen what was believed to have been impossible come to pass. Not to be flip, but a black man has been elected president of the United States. And I'm standing here the recipient of this wonderful award, when my father could not have held any of the jobs that I've had in my career. Not one of them. So that's a big change in just one generation. When I came into the newspaper business, we worked with typewriters and carbon paper and everybody in the newsroom smoked. And a fair number of them drank. And women reporters, for the most part, were confined to the feature pages. So change is possible. But Frederick Douglass knew way back in 1857 that power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, he said. And it never will. Bob Herbert is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. More on Afghanistan
 
Capitol File Expands White House Correspondents' Dinner Party Lineup With Friday Night Movie Premiere Top
So far, the news coming out of the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner party-circuit has all been bleak: People has traded in its after-party in favor of a joint cocktail party with Time magazine the night before the event, and Bloomberg and Vanity Fair — traditionally two of the big power players on Saturday night — announced that they are merging their parties . But Niche Media's Capitol File magazine is about to buck that trend with the announcement of an entire weekend slate of events. In addition to their annual Saturday night after-party on May 9, the magazine is teaming up with the Creative Coalition on Friday night for a screening of the Creative Coalition's "PoliWood" documentary (directed by Barry Levinson). Sting and Anne Hathaway are among the stars expected to join the movie's co-producers (and co-founders of the Creative Coalition) Tim Daly and Robin Bronk. The next night, the magazine will host an after-party at the Corcoran Gallery of Art with a power guest list that includes President Obama's Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. Jarrett and Rogers appear on the cover of Capitol File 's summer issue, which comes out the same day as the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Other guests expected at that after-party include Hathaway and the Dinner's official emcee, Wanda Sykes.
 
John Feffer: Great Neighbor Policy Top
It's a time of war and depression, and the left is surging in Latin America. Populist leaders have emerged in the region. The U.S. president declares a new era of friendship and equality. The Monroe Doctrine appears to be on its last legs. Take your pick: the 1930s or today. In yet another parallel between Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the two presidents are serving at a time of a populist shift in Latin America. FDR responded to the earlier one with a "Good Neighbor Policy" that sharply broke with the policies of past administrations. He removed U.S. marines from Haiti, abrogated the Platt amendment that gave Washington a say over Cuban affairs, and declared that "the definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention." It wasn't altruism: FDR needed Latin America's help in World War II and to pull the global economy out of the trashcan. Similarly, Barack Obama is repairing fences with points south at a time when the United States could use all the friends it can get. Obama even declared the unthinkable: that the United States could learn something from Cuba. At the recent Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad, Obama noted that Cuba had generated a great deal of good will in the region by sending out medical missions, which (surprise, surprise) has proven more popular than lopsided trade agreements or failed drug wars. This modest nod in the direction of Havana came on the heels of the administration's easing of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans to visit the island. A r ecent poll suggests that a majority of Americans favor a new policy toward Cuba that includes a complete lift of the travel ban and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. The headline-maker from Trinidad was, of course, Obama's decision to shake hands with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Such is the depth to which U.S. foreign policy had fallen during the Bush years that a handshake could cause such a splash -- and ritual fulminations from the right. "I think we'd be a lot better off drilling offshore in the United States and getting American energy, rather than being nice to dictators," frothed Newt Gingrich on Fox News. At the summit, Chávez gave Obama a book: Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America. It's an excellent gift for a book-reading president. "I know I can be accused of sacrilege in writing about political economy in the style of a novel about love or pirates," Galeano writes in his afterward. But this explains why, 36 years after it was published, Galeano's book is still being read (and hit number one on Amazon after Chavez's endorsement). That's quite an achievement for a book whose essential message is that "underdevelopment in Latin America is a consequence of development elsewhere." Once he's worked his way through Galeano -- whose poem Window on the Body , by the way, gives our Fiesta! section its name -- Obama should turn to current challenges and recommendations. He couldn't do better than to read the advice of 14 civil society leaders from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries that Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Manuel Pérez-Rocha collected on the eve of the Trinidad summit. "The U.S. government must respect and attempt to comprehend political developments occurring in Latin America," urges Jorge Carpio, an Argentine human rights activist. "No sane person could seriously interpret these trends as a threat to U.S. security or the establishment of democracy in the region." Other participants recommend the overhaul of U.S. trade policies, U.S.-Latin American cooperation on sustainable energy, and the end of the drug war. Obama, the renowned listener, should also heed the collective voices of Latin Americans. "In country after country they have elected new leaders with mandates to break with the international financial institutions and to pursue new economic policies," writes FPIF senior analyst Mark Engler in his contribution to our strategic focus on empire . "As a result, even before the current crisis, countries such as Bolivia, which has one of the poorest populations in the hemisphere, have been devising more equitable ways of distributing natural resource wealth -- and more democratic ways of involving historically marginalized indigenous populations in the political process. Countries like Argentina, which suffered tremendously under Washington-backed neoliberalism, have worked to develop alternative, regional financial structures to allow for greater independence." The Obama administration can begin its new policy toward Latin America by applying Galeano's insights and popular demands for change to U.S. policy toward Peru. FDR stood up to the oil companies that had been robbing Mexico blind. Obama should do the same with extraction companies looting Peru. "The indigenous peoples of Peru's Northern Amazon have endured over 30 years of oil production and pollution," writes FPIF contributor James Polk in Time to Strengthen Ties to Peru . "Instead of prosperity, it has resulted in malnutrition, disease, and social disruption. For instance, since 1971, U.S.-based oil company Occidental Petroleum has employed practices outlawed in the United States and elsewhere for the purpose of maintaining lower production costs and maximizing revenues." The Good Neighbor Policy came and went. U.S. interventions in Latin America didn't stop at the end of World War II. Dictators returned to the region in force. Wealth remained concentrated in a few hands. "Good" was simply not good enough. From Venezuela and Peru to Cuba and Bolivia, it's time for the Obama administration to go one step further than FDR and pursue a Great Neighbor Policy that can change U.S.-Latin American relations for good. Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus . To subscribe to FPIF's World Beat, click here .
 
Iraq Sees Marriage Boom Due To Less Violence Top
BAGHDAD — Three cars bedecked in flowers and ribbons swerve around blast walls and honk through police checkpoints, before screeching to a halt outside a Baghdad hotel. A brass band runs up to a shining sedan as the bride, struggling with her gown, emerges. Confetti and rosebuds are showered over Maysa Monem and her new husband as women ululate _ while inside the Sheraton's ballroom, 300 friends and family wait, along with a luxurious, 10-layer wedding cake. The long stretch of relative calm in Baghdad is sparking a marriage boom. Couples who put their lives on hold amid Iraq's turmoil are rushing to make up for lost time. Not only do more people appear to be hitching up, newlyweds are throwing lavish wedding parties like those that were once a mainstay of the Baghdad social scene. During the darkest days of Iraq's sectarian violence in 2006-07, when Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents were killing members of the rival sects, many couples put off marriages. Families were too busy mourning deaths or just dealing with the worries of day-to-day life in a war zone. And with Baghdad people hunkered down in fear, just finding a potential spouse became more difficult. Weddings did go on, but they were small, quiet affairs to avoid notice. Wedding parties were a favorite target for suicide bombers. Now with violence down 70 percent from a year ago, the freeze on personal lives is thawing. While comprehensive statistics aren't available, reports from a few local authorities suggest weddings have jumped dramatically. Shiite imam Ahmed Hirz Al-Yasiri says he certifies marriages for up to 20 couples a day in the Shiite district of Sadr City, twice the rate over the past three years. Ali al-Ukaili, a judge in a Baghdad municipal court, says he gets up to 100 marriage applications a day, compared to 70 only a short time ago, an increase he attributes to the greater security. And newlyweds again want to make a splash. Hotel and social club owners are rushing to meet demand, and ballrooms are booked months in advance, at up to $6,900 a night _ a fortune in Iraq. Sheraton manager Mustafa Abdullah says the hotel now hosts about 20 weddings a month. Big weddings are just one of many signs of life on the rebound in Baghdad amid the calm. People no longer cower at home after nightfall. Restaurants stay open later and nightclubs have sprouted in more secular districts. Couples hold hands on Abu Nawas Street, a popular promenade along the Tigris River that had been abandoned amid the violence after the 2003 U.S. invasion. At the Sheraton, Abdullah recalls a newlywed couple scrambling out of their honeymoon suite, wrapped only in bedsheets, when the hotel and the next-door Palestine Hotel were attacked in a suicide bombing in 2005. Security remains a concern. With U.S. troops set to pull out of Baghdad and other cities by the end of June, the blast walls zigzagging through the capital will come down, leaving hotels like the Sheraton more exposed. There has also been a series of deadly blasts in Iraq recently, most targeting security forces north of Baghdad. "But war or peace, the young are young, they want to get married," said Monem Abdul-Rahim, the father of the newly married Maysa. "We have been able to invite people from all over Baghdad to come. This wasn't possible before," he said, referring to the days when moving about in the capital was a risky venture. "Life is good today. Tomorrow it could get bad again." In the Sheraton ballroom last week, Maysa, a 24-year-old government clerk, and her husband, Rahim Nouri, a 23-year-old technician at a newspaper, sat on fake Louis XV armchairs on a stage before a huge heart-shaped wreath. The reception's climactic moment was the cake, done up with papier-mache gold flowers and plastic swans and slathered in white-and-pink icing _ courtesy of one of Baghdad's best-known pastry shops. The couple cut the cake with a ceremonial sword, then toasted each other with champagne glasses filled with Pepsi, in line with Islam's ban on alcohol. Of course, Baghdad's troubles intruded: The lights suddenly went out during the bride and groom's solo dance, one of daily power outages that plague the capital. The couple paused until the hotel generator kicked in. Then the music came back on, and the male guests intertwined their arms and broke into a chobee, a traditional Iraqi dance. Weddings are even more elaborate farther down the street at the Alawiya Club, the social club for Iraq's top elite _ or what is left of it. Membership plummeted from 50,000 before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to 5,000 as members fled the country and the club shut down. It reopened last year, at first only for a few hours in the afternoon. Now it's open until 11 p.m. and plans to extend to midnight by year's end. And weddings have resumed at the club. Here, receptions are smaller than at Baghdad's hotels _ but classier. The flowers and lace on the wedding decorations are real, and the three-course meal includes trays of Iraqi delicacies along with an array of grilled meats. But even for the Alawiya, with its grass lawn and terraced patio, the dangers of Baghdad are only a mortar away. On Saturday night, suspected militants fired mortar shells into the protected Green Zone, just across the Tigris from Alawiya. The back-to-back explosions reverberated across the river and abruptly scuttled a wedding party at the club as guests hurried home. More on War Wire
 
Don Tapscott: Some advice for Aneesh Chopra, Obama's New CTO Top
President Obama has announced the long awaited choice for his Chief Technology Officer -- Aneesh Chopra. Says Tim O'Reilly "Aneesh Chopra is a rock star. He's a brilliant, thoughtful change-maker. He knows technology, he knows government, and he knows how to put the two together to solve real problems. We couldn't do better." http://www.technology.virginia.gov/OfficeInfo/chopraBio.cfm To form your own opinion see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfoBMNhjHU8 Chopra will join his former colleague Vivek Kundra, the national Chief Information Officer, on a team tasked with using information technology and the Internet to improve government and the country as a whole. While Kundra will focus on government operations Chopra will have a broader role. Obama said in his Saturday radio address that "Aneesh and Jeffrey [Zients, the newly appointed Chief Innovation Officer] will work closely with our Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, who is responsible for setting technology policy across the government, and using technology to improve security, ensure transparency, and lower costs," he said. There has been much discussion about the creation of a Chief Technology Officer. I believe this is a very appropriate and necessary position that can make a stronger and better America. Most smart people share my view that Chopra is a good choice. http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/aneesh-chopra-great-federal-cto.html This job has a very broad and I believe critical mandate, Indeed, according to a white house description of the job the CTO needs to develop "national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn." So, Chopra will need a framework to tackle how technology can achieve its potential. This should comprise five elements: 1. Ensuring Access A new technology strategy should ensure universal access to digital technologies, not just in the US but globally. President elect Obama emphasized that many communities in the US are underserved and market forces alone will not solve this problem. While market forces should drive expansion of the web, governments can help. Urgent action and new partnerships are required and Obama's proposed infrastructure plan is a step in the right direction. Infrastructure is more than roads and bridges. Moreover, the US would be a much more prosperous country if most of the world weren't lagging so far behind. Technological advancement in other countries improves the human condition, creates new wealth and expands the marketplace for our products. We need a digital equivalent of the post WWII Marshall Plan, where the US helped rebuild countries whose economies had been pummeled by the war. Today's world leaders should launch a global initiative to take broadband to every corner of the planet. The costs are minor when compared to the benefits. This infrastructure can enable the adoption of collaborative innovation and new business models required for economic growth and development. If you're a young person in India, China, Brazil or any one of a number of emerging Eastern European countries, technological advancements mean that you can join the global economy on an equal footing. Global production networks, increasing literacy and numeracy, information technologies, and falling trade barriers would make the world smaller, flatter, and open. 2. Creating the conditions for a vibrant technology industry. To restore job growth, America needs a vibrant, innovative and growing technology sector. The IT industry is converging with the biotechnology and energy industries and is at the heart of the American economy. We need laws and taxes that reward creativity and ingenuity, and focus the energies of the technology industry itself toward projects that will yield maximum benefit. Further, technology is unlike other sectors of production in that it provides the foundation for growth for all other sectors. We've seen how recent low-cost business infrastructures (from free Internet telephony to global outsourcing platforms) enable thousands upon thousands of small producers to create products, access markets, and delight customers in ways that only large corporations could manage in the past. Because of advancements in information technologies, individuals can now share knowledge, computing power, bandwidth and other resources to create a wide array of goods and services that make everybody more productive. A vibrant technology industry is critical to this, and barriers to entry for new technologies should be reduced as much as possible. Among other things, government can be a model user of IT, in turn stimulating growth of the industry. 3. Fostering collaboration We need to catalyze initiatives in areas such as science, the environment, education and health care so that the benefits of technology are brought to all citizens. Science is changing due to the Web 2.0 and new models of collaboration. Scientific breakthroughs are beginning to occur as the capability for invention on a global scale is brought to bear on the world's biggest problems. We are in the early days of the first-ever global movement to solve a problem -- global warming as tens of millions are becoming engaged on the Internet. Sophisticated use of technology in education would boost student achievements and reduce the drop out rate. The digital media enables students to be treated as individuals -- to have highly customized learning experiences based on their background, individual talents, age level, cognitive style, interpersonal preferences, and so on. Software programs would structure and tailor the learning experience for the child. Students would be more active, discussing, debating, researching, and collaborating on projects. Students would find education more stimulating and rewarding. Technology will be the foundation of a universal, cost-effective health care sector as well. We can similarly introduce new technologies to the health care sector, with the goal of increasing access to good health care, raising the quality of health care, and reducing costs. 4. Ensuring that technology serves people. Much legislation is due for a re-write to make it appropriate for the digital age. Copyright laws should reward creative artists but also allow fair use of content by the purchaser. Consumers should be encouraged to sample new creative work and share their findings with friends. Patent laws should discourage frivolous patents and be designed to ensure that new ideas are brought to market and not used as impediments to innovation by others. Privacy laws should protect people who want to be selective in how much information they share with others, particularly corporations. The neutrality of the Internet needs to be protected. 5. The Web-enabled Transformation of Government and Democracy Chopra will need to cooperate with Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO in his challenge of using information technology to dramatically modernize government and bring it into the digital era. Reinvention of government is an idea whose time has come. One aspect is to improve service to citizens as customers of government. The goal is to identify breakthrough strategies that rethink the core value of key government services, dramatically improve service delivery, reduce costs, and renew administrative processes. Another is to change the role of the citizen as a shareholder in government. We should re-examine the nature of democratic institutions, the role of the private sector, the relationship between the citizen and the state, the future of the nation-state, and new requirements for governance in a global, networked economy. At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum, a working group on government recommended digital brainstorm to kickstart Democracy 2.0. Each government leader should create a bold citizen engagement initiative, beginning with a three day citizen jam inviting all citizens to participate in a discussion of an important issue. This will lead to other initiatives to engage citizens in solving important economic crisis, climate change. President Obama should be at the forefront of such efforts. As the first President of the Internet Age he needs to harness the web not just for elections but to govern. Don Tapscott is the Chaiman of the Texas-based think tank nGenera Insight. He has worked with government leaders around the world and is currently leading a $4 million syndicated program called "Government 2.0: Wikinomics Government and Democracy." He has written 13 widely read books on the impact of the Internet on society, including Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy and Wikinomics. His 1996 book Growing Up Digital defined the Net Generation and the sequel, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World , was published in November 2008. He is also an adjunct professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
 
Ali A. Rizvi: How We All Bow to the Saudi King Top
When I was in fifth grade at the American International School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, our teacher had us make paper snowflakes as an art assignment. Brimming with excitement, we all folded up our pieces of paper, cut into them, opened them up, used glue and glitter to decorate them, and labeled them with our names. They would be displayed on the bulletin board in the hall, after which we'd get to take them home to show our parents. Unfortunately, that was the day that an officer from the Saudi Ministry of Education was visiting the school for a routine inspection. He saw our snowflakes on the bulletin board, slightly frowning, and turned around to briefly speak to our teacher, who at his request handed him a pair of scissors. He then proceeded to snip one of the six points off each of the paper snowflakes, leaving the disfigured, asymmetrical five-pointed figures on the board, not even bothering to pick up the amputated scraps of paper that had fallen to the floor. At the time, the school consisted of about 2,000 students, exclusively children belonging to expatriate families of over 80 nationalities, mostly American and Canadian. Saudis were not allowed by law to attend the school -- more or less consistent with the generally minimal interaction that foreigners had with the native people. Consequently, our familiarity with local Saudi culture and customs was limited. Needless to say, we were confused about what we had seen, and I didn't envy my teacher, who now had to struggle to answer our questions. What was wrong with a six-pointed paper snowflake? What was the Star of David, and what was so bad about it? Aside from the trauma of having my creativity mauled, I had been given my first introduction to the Jews -- and that it wasn't a very good thing to be according to the Saudi government. I'm pretty certain that many of us went home that day to ask our parents about the Jews and what they were all about. My father, a geography and history whiz, asked me to get my inflatable plastic globe of the world, and pulled out an atlas to show me Israel. He didn't seem surprised that Israel didn't appear on either map. Both items, which had been bought in Riyadh, showed Israel as a blue, nameless notch in the Middle East, a part of the Mediterranean Sea. As a 10-year-old who was suddenly coming across all of this in one day, I remember secretly wondering what was so horrible about these people. I was traumatized significantly enough by this to be able to remember it vividly today, over two decades later. In retrospect, I think it took away some of my innocence. Until that point, I hadn't been exposed to the idea that for some people, being good or bad often means something beyond actions and deeds; it can actually be based on where you're from or what your parents happen to believe. My trauma, however, has to be placed in context in a country like Saudi Arabia. It is virtually insignificant compared to that of the eight-year-old girl whose marriage to a 47-year-old man was upheld for the second time last week by a Saudi court. Child marriages were fairly common in the country while my family was living there, and still are -- in this case, it just happened to make international news, which has now prompted the country's justice minister to move towards "regulating" them. Although we still don't know what that means, it's certainly a step beyond the attitude of acceptance and resignation that most people have adopted towards the Saudi cultural status quo. After we left Saudi Arabia, I was surprised at how little the rest of the world really knows about the country. Most recently, this was evidenced by the international outrage sparked in response to the now infamous video of a 17-year-old girl being flogged in public at the hands of the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The practice of flogging both women and men as punishment has long been -- and still is -- routine, legal practice in Saudi Arabia. Last month, a 75-year-old woman Khamisa Sawadi was sentenced to 40 lashes, imprisonment, and deportation for simply being in the company of two unrelated men, one of whom was aged 24. Shortly prior to that, a 23-year-old woman was sentenced to 100 lashes and a year's imprisonment for trying to abort a fetus that was conceived as a result of her being kidnapped and assaulted by five men. These sentences, among others, are being doled out regularly despite the international furor over the case of a 19-year-old gang-rape victim who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months' imprisonment in 2007 by Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council. As horrific as the flogging video from Swat is, there is a gross discordance between the world's reaction to it and the relatively milder reaction to the same abuses being carried out as legal, state-sanctioned punishment in Saudi Arabia, a country that remains one of the United States' staunchest allies. Until recently, most people I met in the United States weren't aware that Saudi Arabia still doesn't allow women to drive, or that public beheadings are still carried out at " Chop-Chop Square " for crimes ranging from alcohol consumption to pornography to murder. When a beheading is about to occur and a crowd gathers, Westerners who may be present in the area are often pushed to the front for a closer view. Limb amputation for offenses such as shoplifting are also carried out frequently in public squares. When I was in eighth grade, I also witnessed the imprisonment and deportation of a Sri Lankan-English classmate and his family for having converted their small powder room into a shrine with statues of Buddha in it. Saudi Arabia's dismal record on religious freedom is well known. There are no temples or churches allowed in the country. Crosses and other non-Muslim symbols cannot be worn in public, and as recently as March 1, 2004 , an official government website stated unequivocally that Jews were forbidden from entering the country. Shia Muslim families such as my own faced state-sanctioned social and economic discrimination, and despite the government's claims to the outside world that non-Muslims are allowed religious freedom in the privacy of their homes, these homes are still frequently raided -- as in the case of my Buddhist friend -- just as Jews are still forbidden in the country well after that March 1 statement was taken down. At Christmas time, flyers and posters are put up warning the public not to wish their Christian friends a Merry Christmas. Last year, all things red, including roses, were banned during the Valentine's Day season for fear of "encouraging immoral relations" between unmarried men and women. The strict Saudi version of Wahhabist/Salaafi Islam was exported to Pakistan and Afghanistan via madrassahs and mosques soon after Saudi Arabia began rolling in oil money in the 1970s. The contribution of United States to this radicalization is well-documented. This was at the time when the Mujahideen (meaning those who wage jihad ) were fighting the Soviets, and religion-fueled jihadism against the godless Communists was in America's national interest. That is when Ronald Reagan bowed to the Saudi king. And as bizarre as Barack Obama's bowing to King Abdullah is, it certainly isn't unique for any US president. George Bush Sr.'s close relationship with the Saudis is widely acknowledged, and pictures of his son George W. kissing and holding hands with Abdullah made headlines for weeks when they surfaced. Most of all -- as many have pointed out -- we all bow to the Saudis every time we fill our vehicles with gas. Hardly a week goes by where I don't hear someone complaining about America's bipartisan, unconditional support for Israel, and this message seems to have gotten across. The US is showing some signs of "getting tough" with Israel, specially now with Likud at the helm. But where are the calls for getting tough with Saudi Arabia, that "other" country that has now enjoyed virtually unconditional, bipartisan support from the United States for decades? Aside from being a country that stands out for its egregious human rights abuses against women, minorities, children, and non-Muslims, the state is the most relevant and prominent exporter of Islamist ideology in existence. As we know, Osama bin Laden was a Saudi citizen -- not a disenfranchised, poor one -- but a member of one of the country's wealthiest and most respected families, which owns the Bin Ladin Group , a multinational construction conglomerate founded by his father in the 1950s. Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers were also Saudi citizens -- again, mostly from educated, well-off families. In the American media, Saudi Arabia has largely been portrayed as a "moderate" state when in reality, it is more closely analogous to a Taliban-style country with lots of money. On the other hand, secular dictatorships like Iraq -- where Saddam's right-hand man Tareq Aziz was a Catholic -- were portrayed as extremist states. Symbolism can be telling, as the Education Minister made clear in his desecration of our six-pointed paper snowflakes. This is why -- as Americans continue to maintain their warm alliance with Saudi Arabia -- they should take another look at the Saudi flag if they ever come across pages like this from the Saudi Ministry of Education website proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace, or when they hear King Abdullah say the same: The Arabic script states, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." Underneath that statement...is a sword. Think about what this means, and why the Saudis chose to place it under the Islamic declaration of belief (the Shahada ) on their national flag. Think about what values the secular West shares with Saudi Arabia. Think about the fact that the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were all the products of indigenous and exported Saudi Islamist ideology and support. And then, ask yourself why American presidents -- whether it's Barack Obama or George W. Bush -- continue to hold hands with or bow to the Saudi king, and what it really means when you put those "Support Our Troops" stickers on your gas-guzzling SUV. More on Barack Obama
 
Hamas Opens First Bank In Gaza Top
The first bank affiliated with the Hamas movement running Gaza opened on Tuesday in the Israeli-blockaded coastal strip which lies outside the Palestinian Authority's control. "We are opening the bank today and are beginning to offer our services to the public," Alaa al-Rafati, head of the National Islamic Bank, told AFP. More on Hamas
 
WATCH: Allen Stanford, Alleged Ponzi Schemer, Talks To CNBC Top
Allen Stanford, the financier who has been accused of an $8 billion ponzi scheme by the Securities and Exchange Commission. After remaining mum on the allegations for some time, he is now making the media rounds. He spoke to CNBC , telling them: "I did not run the bank, I'm the chairman." He also said that his firm, Stanford Financial, had a $400,000 exposure to Bernard Madoff's firm. WATCH:
 
Obama To Invite Mideast Leaders To White House For Separate Talks Top
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to invite the Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to the White House in the coming weeks for separate talks on moving forward with the Middle East peace process. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the president hoped to build on talks he held earlier in the day with Jordan's King Abdullah II. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be asked to sit down with the president in the coming weeks, Gibbs said. No dates were set. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Barack Obama said Tuesday he expects Israelis and Palestinians to make "gestures of good faith" within months to revive the languishing Mideast peace process. In remarks to reporters after a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Obama said he remained committed to pushing for a two-state solution: separate Israeli and Palestinian states existing side-by-side in peace. Former President George W. Bush also had sought a framework for such a deal, but it did not happen before the end of his presidency. Obama said that his administration and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell had not finished listening to both sides and wanted to give the new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more time to formulate policy. But he said all sides in the conflict must overcome the grip of cynicism. "I agree that we can't talk forever, that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground. And that will be something that we will expect to take place in the coming months," Obama said. "Unfortunately, right now what we've seen not just in Israel, but within the Palestinian territories, among the Arab states, worldwide, is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever." In his attempt to break the impasse in negotiations, Obama said Netanyahu would be visiting the United States. "I expect to have meetings with him." Netanyahu is a hard-liner when it comes to negotiating and has routinely opposed giving up territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war or sharing Jerusalem as a capital for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Both issues are critical to a settlement. "My hope would be," Obama said, "that over the next several months, that you start seeing gestures of good faith on all sides. I don't want to get into the details of what those gestures might be, but I think that the parties in the region probably have a pretty good recognition of what intermediate steps could be taken as confidence-building measures." Since former President Jimmy Carter shepherded a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt to reality nearly three decades ago, the United States has been working to no avail to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. More on Middle East
 
Richard Branson And A Naked Denni Parkinson (NSFW PHOTOS) Top
New pictures are online of Richard Branson cavorting around his private island Necker with a naked supermodel. Branson was posing for photographer Stephane Gautronneau when he asked Branson if model Denni Parkinson, Gautronneau's girlfriend who was present at the time, could get in some pictures. She clung to the billionaire's back while he kite surfed and also lolled around on the sand as Branson stood on the shore in a white linen shirt. Branson told the Mail on Sunday 'What can you say if you are asked to pose with a naked lady? I only wish I had eyes in the back of my head.' The paper added Branson's wife and two grown children watched the shoot from the shore. PHOTOS: More on Photo Galleries
 
Joe Lieberman: Release Of Torture Memos Helps "Our Enemies" Top
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman has been a good Democratic soldier since Barack Obama covered his back during the kick-him-out-of-the-caucus imbroglio earlier this year. More on Joe Lieberman
 
Official: Cheney Hasn't Requested Release Of Torture Intel Top
This is getting downright Kafkaesque: I just reached a spokesperson for former Veep Dick Cheney, and she categorically refused to explain what Cheney meant when he claimed on Fox News that he had "formally asked" the CIA to release intelligence allegedly proving that torture works. More on Dick Cheney
 
Michael D. Intriligator: Health Care Reform by Medicare Expansion Top
By Michael D. Intriligator and Eric W. Fonkalsrud, M.D. Exploding costs, limited accessibility, and uneven quality of basic health care in the United States have been highlighted as a top priority for early correction by the Obama administration. The cost of health care represents a significantly higher proportion of the U.S. national income than that of any other industrialized nation, most of which cover basic health care costs for all citizens. Medical expenses currently consume almost 17% of the U.S. GDP, and now is the most rapidly escalating expenditure in the federal budget. At the same time almost 1/6 of the U.S. population is uninsured, with the remainder underinsured. Recent enormous financial losses posted by General Motors and many other major U.S. corporations have been attributed in part to the costs of covering long-term health benefits for active and retired employees, which is not the case in other countries with a national health system. When the accelerating costs of private health care insurance, estimated to be approximately $14,000 annually to cover a family of 4, are passed on to the employer, large companies are at a significant disadvantage in an international competitive market, while small employers with marginal profit can face bankruptcy. The number of uninsured citizens is increasing rapidly as unemployment figures escalate in the current financial and economic crisis, with companies engaging in restructuring layoffs, spendable family incomes decreasing, and health insurance premiums continuing a rising upward spiral. The burden for underinsured health care is placed increasingly on county, city, and charity hospitals, which are already overcrowded, understaffed and increasingly underfinanced. Currently over 40% of the hospitals in the state of California are financially in the red. Furthermore, routine health care, as well as the treatment of severe disease and critical emergencies are being funneled through busy emergency rooms, where the average wait before being seen by a physician may be as long as 6-8 hours. Almost all citizens over age 65 have been covered by the federal Medicare program since 1965, and additionally most children with congenital malformations and many other children's disorders are covered by state managed health programs, with low reimbursement. For low-income families, the combined federal and state managed Medicaid program, with very restrictive compensation to care givers, is available for the majority of medical disorders that are not primarily cosmetic. During the past three decades there has been a progressive transition of private health care insurance into a for-profit business activity with shareholders, extensive marketing expenses and increasing executive compensation, which has increased the overhead costs to well over 25% of consumer-provided revenues. The various marketed private health care options are so complex that even the well trained physician often has great difficulty in interpreting the differences in patient coverage from the extensive brochures from each company, which are intended to indicate what is and is not covered. Some private health insurance companies have followed the pattern of the auto industry, which commonly raises the premium if the policyholder is involved in an accident that is reported to the company. Similarly, a patient who develops certain diseases, which may be expensive to treat, may be assessed increased premium charges, and in some cases be discontinued from the plan. It is increasingly apparent that all Americans should be provided with a standard medical benefit package regardless of income, employment status, health status, age, or where they reside. Increasing numbers of Americans who seek health care, just can't afford it. Indeed medical expenses have become the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. With the rapidly escalating costs of medical care in the U.S. and the great disparity in the health care provided to its citizens, President Obama has wisely and clearly stated that health costs must be reduced considerably while basic health care should be provided to all Americans as one of our leading priorities for the future. It is therefore discouraging that the major providers of medical care including hospitals, physicians, nurses, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical and special equipment companies, and insurance companies have all requested, and in most cases received increasing compensation despite the current economic crisis. Nationalization of health care with complete coverage in one step would be prohibitively expensive, and unacceptable to many who are fully satisfied with their present private health coverage. The only effective way to correct the many problems of cost and delivery of universal health care in the U.S. is likely to be by a fundamental restructuring of the entire system, with prioritization of the most essential and important types of care to be delivered. Our proposed reorganization, Medicare Expansion, would build a national care system by expanding on the existing Medicare program for citizens over the age of 65 years, with a gradual phasing out of state administered Medicaid programs. This restructuring would involve gradual changes in the age of eligibility into the Medicare system to include the most needy first, until eventually the entire population is covered. The first step in the Medicare Expansion program would be to enroll children under 5 years of age and pregnant women by the end of 2010. The remainder of the population would be phased in gradually, taking the most needy age groups first, until all persons are covered by the end of the decade. In 2011, those between 5 and 15 would be enrolled and in 2012 those from 15-25 would be included. Those between 15 and 30, as well as those from 60-65 would be added in 2013, while those between 30 and 40 as well as those from 55-60 would be included in 2014. Finally by the end of the year 2015, by adding the remaining population between 40 and 55, the entire U.S. population would be covered by Medicare, so there would be Medicare for all. There would be no limitations based on preexisting conditions, as is common in private insurance plans. The changes we are proposing under the Medicare Expansion program would be relatively easy to make from an administrative standpoint since age is easily verified and the basic system is in place and functioning. The Medicare program has established an effective track record during the past 43 years, covering almost 20% of the population, primarily the elderly and the disabled who utilize medical resources much more than any other age group. Physicians, community hospitals, and major academic centers have adjusted to this program and continue to provide high quality care on a fee-for-service basis. Physicians as well as patients strongly desire a fundamental change in the present overall system of health care delivery that involves multiple providers, unclear and diverse policies regarding coverage, and excessive paperwork. Both groups consider Medicare to provide easy access, and see it as cost effective and successful. Medicare permits patients a choice of physicians and hospitals, but places a cap on reimbursement for both. This phased expansion of Medicare into a system of national health care would be the basis for rationalizing the allocation of health resources, including greater use of preventive medicine, widespread use of electronic records, more emphasis on primary care, and limits on the treatment of patients who have conditions with a hopeless prognosis. The program would utilize existing hospital facilities with emphasis on more efficient administration. It would involve a single payor and it would provide for care in rural as well as urban areas. Its costs of marketing and middle management would be minimal as compared with the present system. Only slightly over 3% of current health care expenditures for the Medicare program are spent for administrative costs, whereas this figure is over 25% for private indemnity insurance companies. Medicare expansion thereby has the likelihood of reducing the overall cost of health care, while at the same time providing greater access to care. Just shifting people from private health care plans to Medicare would generate significant immediate savings. The extensive overhead costs of physician and hospital billing would be reduced markedly, and the patients would have a much better understanding of what is and is not covered in their health care benefits. Medications provided under the Medicare program should in most cases be generic, with the government negotiating for the lowest price with competing pharmaceutical companies. The Medicare program should in most cases encourage the use of hospitals that have more than one patient per room, unless there are specific indications for isolation or intensive care, in order to lower hospital and nursing costs. With the expanded Medicare system, all citizens would be covered regardless of preexisting conditions and would have complete portability of care and medical records throughout the entire country. Those persons who desire more extensive coverage, e.g. cosmetic surgery, and many other conditions for which very expensive care of occasionally questionable benefit, or self-inflicted disorders are placed lower on the list of covered disorders, with all citizens having the option of purchasing supplemental private insurance for these conditions, as now exists in the current Medicare program. Further expansion of the national quality and assessment programs together with outcomes research studies will play an important role in eliminating unnecessary and ineffective services and treatments, and standardize health care delivery throughout the nation. The very erratic and incomplete employer provided health insurance could be gradually phased out to reduce costs and to make businesses more competitive with those in other nations. The Medicare Expansion program has some similarities with the Canadian health care program, however it differs in a few major aspects. There would be no governmental limitation of total physicians produced or of entry into specialty training programs in the U.S. and the government would not own the hospitals. The Canadian single payer system has been efficient, entailing minimal paperwork and middle management, while providing rapid and predictable reimbursement. Physicians are generally busier with direct patient care than their counterparts in the U.S., while their incomes, in many specialties, are currently very similar. In designing a package of basic health care benefits, the Administration must not only strike a balance between high-powered competing interest groups, but also guard against offering too much - or too little. Too extensive a package of benefits could bankrupt the system that is already heavily committed. Conversely, too skimpy a package without adequate coverage of medical disorders may lead to delays in seeking care until illnesses require much more extensive and expensive therapy. Considerable attention needs to be directed to what physicians and the government consider to be "basic care," with reduction of excessive expensive testing and services, based on professional rather than primarily economic or legal considerations, the latter including defensive medicine. Multiple payer health insurance programs, regardless of how administered, would not eliminate the majority of problems with the present system. By contrast, Medicare Expansion builds around an efficient and well-established one payer system, and the incentive driven but controlled fee for service mechanism supplemented by a private partnership for nonbasic supplementary care. Medicare Expansion would thus establish a system of national health care in the United States, which would both control costs and provide quality basic health care to all Americans. Michael D. Intriligator is a Professor of Economics, Political Science, and Public Policy at UCLA. Eric W. Fonkalsrud, M.D. was formerly the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at UCLA.
 
Lara M. Gardner: Torture is Treason Top
The human rights abuse in torture is inherent and obvious, but its implications to our society are ultimately worse. In the context of terror, when our country tortures those accused of terrorist crimes, we create a climate where others sympathize with the torture victim, taking the focus away from the victims of the terrorist act. Whether the tortured committed the crime or not becomes secondary to the sympathy felt for the torture victim. In addition, the fact alone that someone was tortured, even if the confession is coincidentally true, harms any reputation we have of democracy or rule of law and motivates others to retaliation. Worse, torture confounds the state's ability to prosecute those who have harmed it. If we end up freeing someone because they confessed to a crime under torture, it is possible we are allowing someone guilty, someone who genuinely sought to harm us, to go free. If we prosecute them based on the elicited confessions, we could be punishing the innocent. We never really know the truth. In the end, torture makes the original crime against us secondary. I followed the Daniel Pearl case, then I watched the movie of his wife's story, A Mighty Heart . It was brilliantly done. The filmmakers managed to capture the complexity of the various agencies, organizations, and governments working to find Daniel Pearl. After Pearl's death, several people were arrested and one man, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, has been sentenced to death, although with his multiple appeals, it is questionable whether he will ever suffer his sentence. One aspect of his appeals has been the confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the actual killings. Seems a reasonable explanation. Except what is true? Did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed really kill Daniel Pearl? How could we ever know considering we now have the torture memos released by the CIA detailing the atrocities against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, including his being waterboarded 183 times in one month? It leaves me wondering whether he really committed any of the crimes and whether his confessions were valid. Maybe he did it. Maybe he didn't. We can't know because the confessions were tortured out of him. Daniel Pearl's murder wasn't the only crime to which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed. He also apparently oversaw the 9/11 attacks, the shoe bomb attack, the Bali nightclub attack, the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, as well as others. His under-torture confessions to such a long list of infamous crimes make the likelihood seem even more dubious. Yet the possibility is there -- it is the torture that causes interference. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's case is a brilliant example of the dangers of torture to a free and just society. Not only does it call into question just how free and just we really are, it leaves us wondering who really did what. We can't trust anyone, least of all ourselves. I have heard the primary arguments on both sides regarding whether or not to convict the agents and members of the Bush administration responsible for carrying out the torture. All of these arguments have centered on whether the actions were justified, as well as on the repugnance of the acts themselves. I would argue we need to take the discussion a step further. While torture clearly constitutes human rights abuse, I would argue that it is also a form of treason. In the United States, treason is the giving of aid and comfort to our enemies. If torture keeps us from fully prosecuting those enemies, then the torturers themselves are in conspiracy with them, thereby giving them aid and comfort. Torture policies as a whole put our entire country in jeopardy. It is a form of disloyalty to us inasmuch as we are left even more unsafe, not only from those who would harm us, but also from our inability to discover the truth and prosecute the criminals. It creates a disintegration of our most fundamental values. If a person actually commits an act of terror and is then tortured to extract a confession, his guilt will be questioned because of the torture and he may be allowed free. This person is then free to terrorize us again, but this time he is likely angrier because of the torture he has suffered, leaving us in even greater danger. Torture, those who ordered it and those who carried it out, caused this. Allowing torture as an accepted policy of the United States and our failure to prosecute those responsible for it renders our democracy and our rule of law meaningless. More on Terrorism
 
Fed Governor Hoenig: Let Failing Banks Die Top
Wall Street may have thought the third man to testify before the congressional Joint Economic Committee Tuesday morning would be on their side, but Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig bluntly rejected the argument that any troubled banks are "too big to fail." "I believe that failure is an option," Hoenig said in his prepared remarks. "I think it is the best solution for getting our financial system and economy on the road to recovery." Hoenig declined to specify which banks he was referring to. "I won't say who of the four are insolvent/should be taken in, but I will say if any of the four have insufficient capital to manage their circumstance," he said, "then the government should take a supervisory position." With the Obama economic team preparing legislation that would expand the government's power over financial institutions in crisis, the Joint Economic Committee sought advice from top economists who have been critical of the moves made by both the Bush and Obama administrations since the banking sector cratered last fall. Nearly all of their recommendations were more ambitious and less generous toward Wall Street than any the Treasury Department has put forward so far, but the testimony of Hoenig, a key central banker, may have been the most shocking. Hoenig, who is a nonvoting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates, joined Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel winner and preeminent progressive economist who was notably excluded from the broad Obama economic advisory panels during the transition period, and Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Johnson's recent essay in The Atlantic Monthly compared the United States to a banana republic in terms of the government's domination by narrow financial interests at the expense of the broader population. All three men proposed breakups of some financial institutions and conservatorship of others -- though none would name individual firms deserving of either action -- in tandem with varying degrees of new regulation and oversight authorities. All three also criticized the federal government's response to date as both inefficient and further corruptive of the financial markets. "With the bailout of AIG, we have officially announced that any institution which is systemically significant will be bailed out," Stiglitz said. "The decisions of both the Obama and Bush Administrations to extend unnecessarily the corporate safety net have meant not only that incentives are more distorted but also that our national debt will be massively larger than it otherwise would have been. Going forward, I think it is imperative that Congress narrow the breadth of this new corporate welfare state. It is people that we should be protecting, not corporations." Drawing on the substance of his Atlantic essay, Johnson focused on the explicit links between government and the financial industry that he believes have limited the effectiveness of the federal response, calling for invocation of federal antitrust laws to break up banks as a complement to Stiglitz's public-utility model. In prefacing his prepared remarks, Johnson said new calculations indicate that current policy would ultimately increase government debt to 80 percent of GDP, double what the Congressional Budget Office has estimated. The relatively few assembled members of the Joint Economic Committee seemed to have come into the hearing largely in agreement with the experts they had assembled, and used the question and answer period following the economists' prepared remarks mainly to recapitulate certain elements of their testimony. In her opening remarks, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee chair, cited the September collapse of Lehman Brothers as evidence that further bank failures would have brought the U.S. economy lower than its current ebb, but expressed the committee's skepticism that Troubled Asset Relief Program recipients can be trusted not to abuse government aid. "Implicit guarantees give firms incentives to take bigger risks," Maloney said, foreshadowing later testimony by Hoenig, Stiglitz and Johnson. "Allowing firms to escape the consequences of bad business decisions could prompt even riskier behavior." Maloney later asked the panel whether the protection of large banks over small ones constitutes a double standard, a contention that all three men affirmed. They also agreed, in response to prompting from ranking committee member Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), that large banks should be treated the same as smaller ones in order to speed economic recovery, and that this could be done without interruption in consumer bank account or credit card use. The assembled economists also cited the "revolving door" between financial institutions and government jobs as both damaging to public confidence and to the breadth of solutions conceived of in Washington. In response to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who complained about the continued dearth of loans from banks receiving TARP money, Stiglitz said, "You're absolutely right that what is good for Wall Street may not be good for the rest of the country." Arriving near the end of the question-and-answer session, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) prefaced her questions about future regulation with an apology. "Sorry I missed your testimony," she said. "I've been pretty busy lately. I've got this 'only senator from Minnesota' thing going." Meanwhile, Stiglitz's discussion of new regulatory agencies leaned on common-sense judgments. "You can't sell it in your markets if you can't explain it," he offered, not far off from the kind of policies comedian Lewis Black has described. "If you have a company and it can't explain in one sentence what it does, it's illegal," said Black.
 
Greg Lukianoff: The Campus Culture Wars in Two Videos Top
Two weeks ago, I was working as a staff member at a Buddhist retreat in New York City. On the way to lunch, I was discussing with our instructor for the weekend the passions and anger often ignited when fighting for free speech on campus. He was surprised to hear that sometimes my work is poorly received by my fellow New Yorkers. In his words, "everyone must just assume you're a white hat," meaning the good guy in a Western movie. (Not much a Western fan myself, I needed that one explained.) But I told him that was not always the case. In fighting free speech battles on campus, I have been caught up on the front lines of our country's bizarre and cantankerous culture wars. I have found that if I'm doing my job correctly, someone is always angry at me for something. Let's take two examples. First, watch this video. It involves my organization's ( the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) ) defense of former Valdosta State University student Hayden Barnes. Barnes is not just a student - he's a decorated Emergency Medical Technician. In other words, he's a "white hat." But when Hayden protested the imminent construction of a $30 million parking garage on campus for environmental reasons, this is what happened: Everyone seems to "get" this case. It's easy to see why it is outrageous, and the patent absurdity of quarantining free speech to a single stage for two hours a day is readily apparent. That's a good thing. If folks didn't get the problem with Hayden's treatment, I would be seriously worried for the Republic. But take a look at this video: As the video makes clear, the issue here was the violation of freedom of conscience promulgated by the shockingly unconstitutional program (actually called a "treatment" in their own materials) imposed upon all 7,000 students in the University of Delaware dormitories. The program's many objectionable aspects include compelled speech, invasion of privacy, a speech code, mandatory pseudo-psychological counseling, and mandatory activities designed to out and ostracize people with the "wrong" political points of view. You can read even more about the University of Delaware's stunning Residence Life program in my colleague Adam Kissel's article "Please Report to Your Resident Assistant to Discuss Your Sexual Identity--It's Mandatory!," which won first prize this year from the Education Writers Association in the "Magazines" category. Disappointingly, when FIRE brought this crazy program to the world's attention, some people scrambled to defend it, dismiss it, or pretend it was some other kind of program entirely. It was amazing--and depressing--to watch. The arguments (at least the ones worth repeating) were along the lines of But it was implemented with noble intentions! This is something that I think people rarely understand when it comes to invasions of basic rights, particularly censorship: it's almost always done by someone who thinks they are, to a greater or lesser degree, saving the world, their country, or humanity's eternal soul. The Victorians thought they were saving us from damnation, the hawks of the red scares thought they were saving us from revolution and then, later, nuclear annihilation, and even the Senators who investigated the comic book industry in the 1950s thought they were saving the psyches of a whole generation. Indeed, it seems that someone in every generation of Americans comes up with their own argument or cause that they believe is so important that the Bill of Rights should not stand in its way. Fortunately, our history has shown the wisdom of not giving in to those impulses. Attempts to achieve liberal ends by illiberal means often do--and, indeed, should--meet with failure. Far from encouraging tolerance, as was presumably the intent, the program at the University of Delaware engendered resistance, resentment and distrust. But even if the program was "successful" in some way, it still would have been hostile to the basic moral ground rules of our society: you can disagree, you can argue, but you cannot coercively use power to make your fellow citizens adopt your worldview. This should be obvious, but in the culture wars many of us tend to break down the world to an "us versus them" dichotomy, with anything used to attack "them" being, at the very least, "understandable." I spoke at the University of Delaware shortly after the school abandoned this invasive program and some resident assistants were absolutely furious, despite my attempts to explain that nobody should want to live in a country where agents of the state have the power to quiz you on sexual identity and practices or political beliefs with the goal of browbeating you into changing them. I tried to explain that just a few decades ago, such a program would doubtless have been used to rout out suspected homosexuals and communists. But having once again given in to the passions ignited by the culture wars, those who truly believed in this program wanted to hear none of it. That is why you can rest assured that this is not the last time we will see resident life officials taking it upon themselves to turn the dormitories into reeducation centers. I have much more to say from my peculiar vantage point for the culture wars, but I will save that for future posts.
 
Dave Johnson: Don't Blame Me, I Didn't Vote For Anything Top
In California, the Republicans in Sacramento refused to vote for any budget, saying each budget didn't cut spending enough, while also refusing to specify what items they wanted to cut and by how much.  The result was that the Democrats in the legislature had to vote to dramatically cut the school budget -- along with everything else the state does.  And then after the legislature came up with those cuts, the Republicans voted against them, too .  Now citizens are weighing in expressing their anger over these massive budget cuts, and the same Republicans are sending letters saying "don't blame me, I didn't vote for the cuts."  A recent letter to constituents from State Senator Tony Strickland is most likely a standardized "boilerplate" budget statement that has been provided to Republicans to send out.  Let's see if we can translate it into English: As your Senator, I voted against the budget and the education cuts included in the proposal.  To answer your questions, I would like to share my reasons for opposing the budget and education cuts as well as why the Legislature decreased spending on K-14 education.  Translation: don't blame me for budget cuts, I voted against them.  I voted against everything you don't like, and will claim to support everything you did like.  Whatever it was.  I can do that because I didn't vote for anything. In order to ease the impact of the funding decreases, the budget has granted local educational agencies unprecedented funding flexibility, which is the authority to move state funding for most categorical (special-purpose, such as principal training, English learner programs, and the arts) programs to supporting the highest locally-determined priorities through 2010-2011.  The spending flexibility should provide local agencies significant relief during this economic downturn.  However, if the agencies abuse the funding, then they have missed the opportunity to demonstrate that local communities are superior to managing their education funds than the bureaucrats in Sacramento.  Sorry, I can't figure out what this means.  Leave a comment if you can figure out what it says. I will continue to support protecting education and providing local communities the flexibility to determine how to invest in their children.  Please be assured I will continue to oppose cuts to education because the state's greatest asset - our children - will be the future workforce essential in reviving our economy.  Thank you, again, for contacting my office and sharing your concerns.  It is citizens like you who make the difference. Translation: While voting against every budget, and being against any form of revenues -- especially if they would be collected from the large corporations that funded my campaign -- I now claim to support not cutting the education budget.  This is an interesting strategy: Just vote against everything, and leave it to the responsible people to come up with ways to get around this obstruction.  And then, when citizens are angry about the huge mess this creates, send them letters saying you supported whatever spending they wanted, and that's why you voted against everything.  Meanwhile, you collect your state paycheck, and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate "contributions."  Nice work, if you can get it. This is a dilemma for responsible legislators.  When you face an extremist group with just enough votes to block everything, how can you keep the kids in schools, provide oxygen tanks and other necessities to the elderly, provide police and fire protection and continue other essential government services?  When the state's major media just won't inform the public of the facts and makes this budget standoff seem as though government is little more than children squabbling over some cookies, with "both sides" refusing to compromise, the state slides toward becoming ungovernable. What you you do about this?  There will be a ballot initiative tp roll back the rule that any revenue increases require a 2/3 majority to pass.  This initiative is currently named Restore Majority Rule, and you can visit the early website at ca. restoremajorityrule .com . Please sign up to help pass this initiative, and tell your legislators, friends and family that you support this change. Visit Speak Out California and leave a comment. More on Taxes
 
Exotic Dancer Stabbed With Stiletto By Jealous Rival: Cops Top
AKRON, Ohio — Ohio police say a 52-year-old woman was attacked on her first day as an exotic dancer by a jealous co-worker wielding a stiletto heel. Akron police Lt. Rick Edwards says the woman was assailed Friday night by a co-worker who didn't think the club needed more dancers. Police say one of the dancers took her stiletto and repeatedly struck the woman in the face as she walked into the basement dressing room. The woman was treated at a hospital and received seven staples. She has declined to press charges against her assailant. Police say the woman took the job because she needed the extra money. She has refused to talk to police about what happened. ___ On the Net: Akron Beacon Journal, http://www.ohio.com
 
Telmah Parsa: The Day I Met The Supreme Leader Top
Obama's new approach, the intention to engage in a direct dialogue with the Iranian leaders, would be a more realistic attempt in dealing with a country that escapes every definition. However, there is one epithet that can be justifiably applied to this country at anytime: Iran has always been the land of "supreme leaders". The present time is no exception. It is impossible to reach an understanding with the Iranian leaders without keeping an eye on how Iranians perceive Khamenei, their Supreme Leader. One of course cannot generalize about the attitudes of tens of millions of Iranians, but the following anecdote provides some perspective: I met Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, when I was ten years old. It happened in a chic mosque, equipped with a closed-circuit system and furnished with a sliding roof, during a religious ceremony. At the entrance were several sherbet containers around which stood dozens of people holding plastic cups filled with lemonade. Not surprisingly, by the time we were frisked and let inside, I was drunk on lemonade. We knew that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be there that day. Inside, holding our shoes in plastic bags, we surveyed the carpet covered terrain to find a decent commanding view. The top left of the seating area, where a large guard in white civilian clothes sat, looked ideal. With his creasy nape and a spiraling wire hanging from his ear, the guard had a foreboding presence. I tried my best to keep him out of focus and enjoy the front row view. Hundreds of people began pouring into the mosque. Soon the light projectors at our back were turned on. Though they were placed yards behind us, I imagined I could feel the intensity of their incandescent light passing through my backbones and burning my ribs. A blue curtain divided the courtyard, where we sat, from the interiors of the mosque. So every time its smooth surface ruffled, everybody held his breath anticipating the entrance of Khamenei. The atmosphere was so tense. Finally Khamenei entered. Suddenly all rose to their feet and started shouting slogans and chanting religious verses in a deafening and slightly frightening disharmony. But gradually as the initial excitement subsided, the cacophony unified into a few distinct phrases that rose above the others: "O Free Leader! We're ready. We're ready." "Friends with your friends, enemies with your enemies." "Khomeini's spirit has come." Now and then, you could hear someone sob in a big manly voice, hardly the most pleasing sound. As the leader sat between some ayatollahs, the crowd calmed at last and we sat down. Finally. But right then a young man from the crowd rose up. "Let me talk to my beloved!" He shouted with a voice hoarse from crying too much. "Let me talk to my Master!" Despite his emphatic pleas to be heard, I really cannot recall what the affectionate heckler said that day after all. But I do remember my father's reaction to it. In Farsi there's no synonym for the word irony, but I definitely felt something like that when I noticed my father's tearful eyes as he made the following comment: "Great! Here we go again! Another cornball!" As the ceremony resumed its usual course, I found ample time to survey Khamenei's features. He looked so radiant. Actually many believe there is a spiritual aura surrounding him. But back then with those projectors at my back I was not very sure about that. He seemed simply to reflect the light thrown at him. I saw his walking stick lying in front of him on the carpet. Then I noticed his disabled right arm: a trophy of the upheavals of the 1980s, when bombs and terrors used to sweep the country. Despite all these ruminations inside and those clamorous loudspeakers out, nature's voice managed to reassert its sovereignty over me. It was high time I paid the price of having drunk too much lemonade. I had to get out. However, there were so many people crammed in the courtyard that the only way for me to move outside was to use their limbs as stepping stones. During my clumsy retreat to the outside world, I don't think my feet ever touched the ground as I traversed a sprawling mass of humanity. Later in the evening, the state-run TV broadcast a few minutes of the ceremony we had attended. I caught a glimpse of my father sitting behind the foreboding man in white , staring sideways at the supreme leader. But there was no trace of me. I was disappointed. Not simply because I did not make the telecast, but because I had found the supreme leader too much like a man. In Iran, the man's iconic image is plastered everywhere. Book covers, posters, murals, buses, classrooms, your father's wallet, your aunt's key chain etc. - all are places where the man's visage offers a stark reminder of where you live and who runs the place. The immediate experience of seeing such an unearthly omnipresent person walk on earth was bound to disappoint. Alas, I cannot know how many of my fellow young Iranians have had their own such moments of revelation -- or whether Obama will be similarly disillusioned if and when he comes to face with Khamenei. More on Iran
 
Ryan Haydon and Stefani Piermattei: The Real Housewives of New York City Liveblog - Unfashionably Late Top
Dress as your favorite Housewife for tonight's costume party episode and join us for all the realtime commentary! 10 pm ET. Real Housewives - April 21 More on Reality TV
 
Charles Karel Bouley: Dear Perez: Miss California Gave The Right Answer For The Moment Top
I am an openly gay man and a supporter of same sex marriage and I wish Perez Hilton would shut up. This is a person who is famous for smearing snarky and crude things over celebrity photos and following Brittney's every move. He lives for controversy and is only famous for it: not his overwhelming political activism, not his witty insights into the psyche of America or even the gay community, not even thought provoking conversations; no, he's a fame whore and he does it very, very well. That's why he asked Miss California a no-win question in the recent Miss USA Pageant which may or may not have cost her the win (since only women and gay men basically care about these things). That, and the enormous press he and his blog are getting; a blog whose popularity relies upon scandal and changing out a demographic that ages as the country's economy falls. So he gets his shot on national TV to ask a finalist a question and he asks if she thinks or feels, in light of less than 1/10th of United States allowing it, if gay marriage should be legal in all states and if so, why or why not? The root of her answer was no, marriage should be between a man and a woman "according to how she was raised." It's a question with no right answer for a pageant contestant and one that also insults every person out there that is gay or lesbian -- not her answer, the question. If she answered the way the blogger wanted she would have had the religious right wanting her crown (given the answer allegedly cost her such) and moderates asking if politics is proper in the pageant. Remember, ever since Vanessa Williams showed the world real women can do hot photos no pageant wants controversy. And, well, we see what happened when she answered to the contrary of the question: she loses, is denounced and called a "bitch" and the "c" word by the blogger on national TV and print. Well, there's a great representation of my community. "Why did this guy feel a need to put this back on the national debate table in this way, in such a divisive and ridiculous way," Steve from Oakland called and asked on my Monday, April 20th broadcast of my syndicated radio show, The Karel Show. "I'm gay and I think what she said is wrong, but this is not a productive way to be discussing the issue. Also, he asked what she felt, not what she would make law, she's entitled to an opinion, even a wrong one..." And there's the danger, blogger. You set her up to be the patron saint of those who are launching such campaigns as "The Storm" and 2 M4M (no lie, Two Million for Marriage); campaigns that paint those that do not agree with same sex marriage as victims. You just gave them a powder-puffed-coiffed-to-the-teeth statuesque martyr in the form of Miss California. And as to the question, sorry, blogger, your state, the state you sit in and promote and pay tax dollars to, my state, has said "no" to same sex marriage by a majority vote and its State Supreme Court is about to uphold that ban. 11 states in 2004 after Gavin Newsom granted marriage licenses voted to outlaw same sex marriage and some domestic partnerships as well. There is still a Defense of Marriage Act allowing states to not recognize any same sex marriages performed in the few states that allow them. Barack Obama has said he "was against Propostion 8 but believes marriage is between a man and a woman" and no leading Democrat from Nancy Pelosi to Dianne Feinstein has made marriage equality for all a major platform or cause. Even openly gay Barney Frank said three weeks ago that he wishes the community would "wait" to wage this battle until the "homophobic" Scalia is off the U.S. Supreme Court. In other words, if MIss California who wants to be Miss USA is to reflect the mood of her state and country, her answer was right on, blogger. The country, by law, statute and vote still believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. Now that is unpopular in the gay community, the younger demographics (30 and below) and with progressives or those that champion civil rights. It's unpopular with those that study state and federal constitutions that have equal protections clauses knowing they are going unapplied to millions. But it is the current law of most of this land, the land that she wanted to represent. If you don't like the law of your land move. If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out, as the delusional often say. Miss California said in four states you have the option to get married. You want to get married, go there. Otherwise, she, and the rest of the nation feel (by law alone) that discrimination is fine. Sadly, Regis Philbin would have to say to her, "Final answer? You're right!" No, she wouldn't' be asked if two people of different races should be able to marry, or of two different faiths, both of which were illegal at one time. It is true the only group on which it is still fully acceptable to unload is the gay community (in the name of morals or God) but oh well, that's the sad fact. And no, it's not pleasant. But stop throwing a hissy fit. In the time since the incident she's come off as a classy and charming mannequin with an uninformed bigot underneath and you a loud angry hissy fit homo who again misses the point. Don't rail on her, rail on the policy. If you were so concerned about same-sex marriage, why aren't you using your website (and all its traffic) and TV appearances to sign a petition to repeal the amendment process in California, putting it back in legislative hands and out of voter's so blondes like her from the state (can you say Orange County?) can't vote on the topic in campaigns funded by this or that special interest or religion? In fact, stop asking people questions in public how they feel about equality, a fundamental civil right like it's up for debate, so more people can vote one side or the other on the topic. Civil rights are not up for debate. The Constitution guarantees that equal equals equal so I know one day marriage will be legal for all couples that want it. Fight that fight in a way that works and leave someone whose job it is to model dresses and be objectified by men alone, even if it's for your own advantage. Technically, she gave the POPULAR and CORRECT answer in her country like it or not. Change that and you make her look stupid and irrelevant. Attack the message, not the messenger. I disagree with Miss California, whose name I do not use on purpose, but I support her right to have her opinions. I support her right to rally people to keep marriage between a man and a woman -- it's America. She is ill informed or brainwashed by religion or some other force. Don't ask a scorpion why it stung you, it's a scorpion, that's what it does, Ask why its sting hurts so much and why its attack is still condoned. The answer to those questions, and changing of those situations is how you, we, us, Americans that believe in equality win. Those that seek legal oppression should not have their voice codified in law, but the First Amendment gives them a voice. And truthfully, who the hell cares what a pageant winner thinks about social policies? SHE'S A PAGEANT BEAUTY QUEEN, not running for public office. Her job will be to attend corporate events and speak all around the country. IF she won and IF she went on a anti-marriage campaign, then, in America it would be your right to launch some sort of campaign against her. Chances are, she would have stayed away from that topic for an entire year. Quickly, off the top of the head, name one political stance of one past MIss USA? War in Iraq? Abortion? Economy? The Bush Years? Exactly. The Founding Fathers drafted the only ammunition needed in the fight for marriage equality. Equal equals Equal. Shoot at those things that matter and don't waste that ammo on those that don't matter in the battle. Collateral damage. Miss California gave an answer from her heart that reflects the legal and prevalent political mood in the country; it's a shame, and it's fundamentally wrong, but for her, it was the absolute right answer. More on Gay Marriage
 
Margaret Ruth: Intuitive Scanning for Health: An Interview with Medical Intuitives Top
Intuitive body scanning is a technique that can be used to determine medical or health blockages in people and animals. Medical intuitives, professionals who seek to complement traditional medical procedures with this technique, locate body parts that are blocked or in turmoil in order to expedite the healing process. There are as many different variations of the scanning technique as there are practitioners, but there are some basic approaches that you can try for yourself. Just as an X-ray machine scans a body in order to gain specific medical details, an intuitive scan works to provide an energetic portrait of the client. The premise is that the physical body has an energy blueprint and so the intuitive scan will look for energy blockages and areas of stress. Good health is, in general, considered to be clear flows of energy between all the chakras and easy, free functioning of all organs and body systems. Because this is an intuitive technique, scans can be done in person or from a distance with equal accuracy. Of course, none of this is meant to substitute for traditional medical professional consultations and advice. Basic Technique The first step is to be relaxed, centered and quiet. Many intuitives close their eyes to perform the scan. Have a clear, open mind. It is important that you free yourself from preconceived notions about the health of the person involved or about what you may or may not see. It is important to be open to all possible sources of information. The next step is perform a scan using inner vision. There are many techniques for this. One popular technique is start with a blank slate, or blackboard in your inner vision. Then, hold the person's body there and slowly go down the body three times from top to bottom. Another technique is to imagine that you are stepping into the person's body and then scan your own body for sources of stress or blockages. This technique can be highly accurate, but a bit uncomfortable for anyone who is highly empathic, which is the ability to feel what others are feeling and sensing. Look for knots, dark spots, tension, pain or any area that seems to stand out to you during the scan. Note the spot and then go back and zero in for more detail if you are able. At this point, people who have some medical training can have an advantage because they can sometimes more accurately interpret what organ or system is blocked. The most difficult part of the scan is staying open to the various types of information that may come to your attention. The information may come kinetically (you sense something), empathically (you feel something), visually via color or symbols or even audibly via sounds or words. Many professional medical intuitives will record what they are sensing from the scan. They might color in a body chart in front of them. Some of them tape their impressions or write down notes of what is coming through. Once an open scan is done, the client will know more about where the energy is blocked or knotted. Many medical intuitives and alternative healers use this energetic information to develop a holistic plan for healing that can comprise not only physical dimension, but also the mental and emotional as well. _____________________________________________________________________________ My Interview: Two Nurses Talk about Medical Intuition Bridging the gap between traditional medicine and alternative medicine. I interviewed two extremely talented medical intuitives, Sharon and Deb, who also have professional nursing backgrounds and education. What specific techniques/tools do you use for body scanning? Sharon: I use a combination of Silva techniques and some stuff of my own devising. Part of it is to tune into my own physical empathy. Part is to look. Another part -- one I use almost exclusively to scan energy "awakening"-- is to scan the chakras and note blockages of the patterns, color, and see what's open and what's closed. Often, usually, there is a correlation between the energy blocks and the physical problem. When I casework, I close my eyes and "put the person" on my mental screen. I scan the person from the front from head to toe three times, and then mentally "turn" them on my screen and scan down their back three times. When I come across an area, or areas, that attract my attention, I "zoom" in and take a closer look. I also use a modification of these techniques when I check the energy status of someone. I use it to check the chakras and whether or not they are open or appear to be blocked. This is useful for not only physical conditions, but also for emotional states. Deb: My favorite is the Helmet technique. You get a name, city, age, and place a "helmet" of their head on your own. It is a quickie way inside their body. From there, I scan. I can see it in light contrast. I can feel the pain inside me, or the anxiety, or whatever. I can very quickly (I hate feeling their stuff in me) clear it with breath induced energy spurts. When I feel the release, I know they do. I then remove the helmet, give it back to their body, and physically clear the space around me..especially my head...to regain my Self. I will also use a technique where I hold a major chakra, usually foot, to connect (either in person or from a distance) and send a flow of energy from my hands. I follow it through the body, and find the blocks. I can also work outside the body, using hands to feel the energy flow around the body...feeling where there is excess/lack/whatever. I can do this in person or by distant healing. I can also do an auric reading which is picking up the change in colors or intensity in a person's aura. I can also run thru the chakras in person, from a distance, using tools such as sound, (free notes), or chakra testing (using kinesiology), or tuning fork. I can do this in person or in distant healing. Doesn't matter, all the same. Do you "see" or "feel"? Deb: Yes, both. I see (including third eye) blockages or colors or energy. I feel energy. Sharon: Both. What type of information do you get and how do you work with it? Sharon: Usually, when I do these scans, I see the person as if I am looking at a black and white movie. I have no idea why this occurs in black and white instead of color. Sometimes colors are evident, but they seem more to be overlaid on black and white rather than "technicolor." Since I am an empath, I often feel pain, pressure, or discomfort in my own body which corresponds with the area of distress in the individual I'm working on. Often this kicks in without my "working on" the person, and quite often this is felt in encounters in chat programs over the internet. In those cases, I have learned to ask if the person involved is feeling this or that in this or that area. I have learned that if I can help the person to release it, then I get relief right away, so there is an element of selfishness here. I also at times see symbols which are relevant to the person I'm working on, and which may or may not be interpreted correctly by me. The symbols are always correct, but the interpretation of them may vary. Deb: Most important, in my opinion, is figuring out the source of the block. Releasing it is nice, but it will return if one does not recognize what is causing it,usually emotional or old baggage. Sometimes I can see what that old baggage is; sometimes a whole story/vignette plays out. I hit the "hot spot"and ask them to see what comes up. I may see them being afraid one cold night,or being physically abused, or feel their emotional pain from kids laughing at them (ok..yes..I am looking at a few examples), or seeing them at a funeral in childhood. Sometimes just seeing that, feeling the pain, going thru the tears, and reframing it, can release the physical symptoms all by themselves. Then, most importantly, is to replace that with a "different ending" or adult feelings or choosing to fill it with light or joy or whatever works for them. Does a nursing background help or hinder your medical intuitive work? Deb: I think it helps. I can make sense of what it is because of my nursing background. For example, if I feel/see something in the kidney area, I can ask the person kidney questions concerning any pain with urination, any burning, any fever. Sharon: In general, nursing helps this sort of work, primarily because of the nurse's training in anatomy and physiology. In other words, the nurse is more likely to recognize which organs and systems are involved in the illness. On the other side of the coin, it may be a bit of a drawback, because of the emphasis on western medicine that nursing training involves. As you know, western medicine is usually the last to accept alternative methods of healing. More on Health
 
Porterhouse Crowned Most Beautiful Bulldog Top
DES MOINES, Iowa — For three years, Porterhouse was so close to the title he could drool on it. Now, the Beautiful Bulldog crown is his to slobber on for the rest of the year. After two runner-up finishes and one "Mr. Congeniality" title, Porterhouse finally nabbed "top dog" honors Monday when he was crowned the winner of Drake University's annual Beautiful Bulldog Contest in downtown Des Moines. Porterhouse, a 4-year-old brown and white bulldog from Des Moines, beat out 49 other dogs from eight states to claim the title. The event coincides with the Drake Relays, hosted for the 100th time this week by the Drake University Bulldogs. The judges weren't looking for the prettiest mutt in the mix. No, they wanted to see drool, bloodshot eyes and bowed legs _ and costumes don't hurt either. Owners slapped tutus, blonde wigs, goggles and all kinds of wacky hats on their precious pups. Porterhouse, who finished second in 2006 and 2007, sported camouflage and an army helmet for the occasion. "They're not looking for pedigree," Dolph Pulliam, the master of ceremonies for the event, said of the judging. "You use your own imagination." The tongue-in-cheek contest has grown in popularity in recent years. Pulliam said the 50 slots for this year's pageant filled up faster than ever before and that Drake could have had 100 bulldogs in the competition if it had the room. "The people love it," Pulliam said. "They call us year-round, so they love this contest." Porterhouse beat out Maxxis, another Des Moines bulldog, to claim top honors. Porterhouse's owner, Erin Bell, said her dog is a sweet, friendly guy who always makes people laugh. She and her husband, Kevin Bell, had a feeling Monday morning that, after three years of coming so close, Porterhouse would finally break through this time. "He's handsome _ we think anyway," Bell said. "He's got the look, I think, of the Drake bulldog." More on Animals
 
Matt Petersen: Support Non-Profits on Earth Day Top
In this weekend's New York Times Magazine Jon Gertner (" Why Isn't the Brain Green ?") evokes the Pew Research Center poll taken in late January that ranked concern about climate change in last place of the top 20 concerns Americans have. This is alarming, since scientists are repeatedly discovering that global warming impacts are accelerating at a pace more quickly than initially expected. Hence our need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever. From all corners of our society -- whether it is over 3000 scientists that make up the IPCC or President Obama, Al Gore, business leaders, or even notable personalities -- we are hearing the call to action. Further, I and others posit if we merge the solutions to meeting our economic and environmental crises, we can create a long term sustainable economy while stemming the worst potential consequences of climate change (and economic collapse). As Earth Day approaches, we are seeing lots of appeals and reminders that Earth Day is every day in order to amplify the voices of scientists and environmentalists trying to raise the alarm bells and advance solutions to our climate crisis. One such person who is joining the call and shining the light on science and solutions is actor, activist, and Global Green board member Leonardo DiCaprio. As part of announcing a unique eBay auction he agreed to participate in, Leonardo recently joined those reminding us of the need to act by saying "as science continues to point for the need to urgently act on climate change, we need everyone -- individuals, nonprofits, politicians, and business -- to take action. We must urge our leaders to take the next step and arrive at the Copenhagen Climate meeting later this year with the next agreement in hand. President Obama and our leaders in Congress need all of our help to overcome the special interests that continually fight climate and clean energy legislation." With the economic and environmental crises converging, we must find ways to address them together. For example, we spend more money in this nation on energy bills for schools than textbooks and computers combined -- every school in every neighborhood in America can be part of solving global warming, and help put more money into classrooms. We need governments to urgently address the environmental and economic crises together by shifting subsidies for oil, gas and coal -- estimated at $300 billion USD annually -- toward solar and renewable technologies to create jobs, improve the lives of those in need, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This Earth Day, remember that we need to take action to protect our environment every day...and of course making donations to worthy, green charities who advocate on our collective behalf is one critical way to take action. Like all nonprofits, Global Green is finding creative ways to raise money in this economic climate, and are grateful that Leonardo agreed to participate in our Earth Day eBay auction. There are many items he donated to help raise funds for Global Green, but the most unique is the chance to walk the red carpet and meet Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere of his next film. The auction runs through 7pm pacific on Earth Day and can be found at www.ebay.com/globalgreen . The green auction not only raises funds for Global Green's National Green Schools and Climate Solutions initiatives, it is also a reminder for the need to take action on climate change now. More on Earth Day
 
SEC's Pay-to-Play Rules To Be Revisted, Schapiro Says Top
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering rules to restrict money managers from paying to win state business as regulators ratchet up inquiries into kickbacks paid to a New York political adviser. The agency is re-evaluating a 1999 proposal that would have barred investment advisers from managing state pension funds if they donated to elected officials involved in awarding adviser contracts, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said today in an interview. Schapiro said the SEC is "looking at everything related to municipal markets" as it considers new rules.
 

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