Tuesday, May 26, 2009

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Joseph Romm: Memo to media: Don't be suckered by bad analyses from the Breakthrough Institute Top
I can't imagine why any serious journalist would cite the work of The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) -- except to debunk it. As we'll see once again, they constantly misstate and misrepresent what others say, and generally put out very bad analysis designed to push their anti-climate-action, anti-environmental agenda. So why do major media outlets like Time , WSJ , NPR, and The New Republic have already been duped keep citing them? Simple -- the media love contrarians. So if you convince the media you are, say, part of the progressive environmental movement, you can get all the media attention you want by then trashing your supposed allies. I would ignore TBI if the media did, but because they don't, I can't. In just the last few months, TBI, and its founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have gone on a disinformation rampage with the help of the media: They attacked President Obama's cap-and-trade climate plan as political suicide and doomed to fail, 18 months after endorsing the plan -- heck, they said it was their plan all along (see Salon debunking here ). They attacked Henry Waxman, the green groups, Tom Friedman, and Al Gore (for the umpteenth time) while utterly missrepresenting the findings of the International Energy Agency, McKinsey, and the Stern Review (see " The dynamic duo of disinformation and doubletalk return .") They launched a lengthy attack against Al Gore that completely misstates his positions (see " Shellenberger and Nordhaus smear Gore by making stuff up "). The New Republic let them publish a string of factually untrue, egregious statements in an essay titled: " The Green Bubble: Why environmentalist keeps imploding ." The biggest whopper: "It has become an article of faith among many greens that the global poor are happier with less and must be shielded from the horrors of overconsumption and economic development--never mind the realities of infant mortality, treatable disease, short life expectancies, and grinding agrarian poverty." No one in the environmental movement believes that, but it is a right-wing fantasy of the "greens." Robert J. Brulle , Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Drexel University utterly debunks this essay (see below) and writes of this quote, "Who or what environmental group has ever said anything of this nature? This statement is an out-and-out fabrication . One wonders if there are any fact-checkers at The New Republic. " The key point everyone in the media must understand is that Shellenberger and Nordhaus need for Waxman-Markey to fail. Otherwise all their claims that the environmental movement keeps imploding would be seen by everyone as the sham that it is. So it is perhaps not surprising that 18 months after I got them to strongly and publicly endorse Obama's cap-and-trade plan, they have launched a series of attacks on it -- attacks based on misrepresentation and misanalysis. What is surprising is that the media keeps treating them as if they were credible sources -- or even worse, as credible sources who are part of the environmental movement. They are not. They are non-credible sources whose core arguments and analsyses are indistinguishable from the anti-climate disinformation campaign driven by fossil fuel companies and conservative media, politicians and think tanks. TBI has recently written two attacks on Waxman-Markey, " The Flawed Logic of The Cap-and-Trade Debate ," which attacks any effort to significantly raise the price of carbon pollution through a tax or a cap (which Yale e360 bizarrely posted, tarnishing their brand), and " Waxman-Markey Climate Bill's Emissions 'Cap' May Let U.S. Emissions Continue to Rise Through 2030 ," which attacks the offsets provisions in the bill, asserting "If fully utilized, the emissions "offset" provisions in the American Clean Energy and Security Act would allow continued business as usual growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions until 2030." The latter piece has gotten a lot of media attention, including in Time magazine, the WSJ , and NPR, so you'd never know that the TBI analysis is devoid of any analysis -- or understanding -- of the offset market . I am certainly one of the biggest critics of the offset market as it is currently constituted, having coined the term rip-offsets . And I have previously worried that federal climate legislation would be significantly weakened by allowing domestic emitters to substitute substantial domestic and international offsets for their own emissions reductions. I have, however, spent the past few months analyzing the offset market and talking to leading experts on it. It is clear that the offset provisions in Waxman-Markey do not vitiate the targets. Indeed, I have previously explained why the supply of domestic offsets provision does not undermine the target (see here ). In a regulated market with a cap, many of the domestic offsets will represent real reductions of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the total supply of cheap domestic offsets will be limited for a long time. A recent EPA analysis of Waxman-Markey came to precisely the same conclusion. TBI's analysis never mentions this at all. After the holiday weekend, I will blog at length on why the international offsets don't threaten the overall integrity of the bill. The bottom line is that the vast amounts of moderate-cost near-term domestic emissions reductions strategies -- energy efficiency, conservation, replacing coal power with natural gas-fired power, wind power, biomass cofiring, concentrated solar thermal power, recycled energy, geothermal, and hydro power (see " An introduction to the core climate solutions ") -- will be cheaper (in quantity) than most of the offsets will be in 2020 and beyond. Let me end this post by showing just what kind of bad analysis and misrepresentation TBI continues to do. As but one example in " The Flawed Logic of The Cap-and-Trade Debate ," Shellenberger and Nordhaus wrote: "If the price of carbon dioxide is only $5 per ton -- a level Waxman-Markey supporters like the Center for American Progress's Joe Romm says it could reach -- there would be just $3 billion for energy technology and just $250 million for R&D." It "could reach" $5? Here is what I wrote : The price of one ton of carbon dioxide is going to be very low at first maybe around $5 to $10 a ton in the first few years, and then no more than, say, $15 a ton in 2020. Yeah, the price will START around $5 to $10 in the first few years, maybe 2012 to 2015. As I explained, "We are cramming vast quantities of renewables into the marketplace" and "We are cramming vast quantities of renewables into the marketplace." And we're coming out of a deep recession. It should also be obvious that the CO2 price will continue to rise quickly after 2020. I subsequently asked for and got a correction from e360 -- too late for Time magazine, though, which repeats the original incorrect number. Worse, like many in the media, Time continues to treat the TBI as if it were part of the "environmental movement," when it would be far more accurate to describe it as part of the anti-environmental movement. That is clear from the TNR essay, " The Green Bubble: Why environmentalist keeps imploding ." The essay is such a disinformation-filled anti-environmental screed, that I am reprinting a response by Robert J. Brulle, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Department of Culture and Communications, Drexel University -- and a widely published expert on the environmental movement: The New Conservatism or Ecological Romanticism: A False Dichotomy In their recent essay, "The Green Bubble", Nordhaus and Shellenberger launch a long attack against the green movement in the U.S. Based on a series of heroic misstatements, revisionist history, and unsubstantiated stereotypes, they construct an image of environmentalism based in liberal elite circles and searching for social redemption in premodern, aesthetic lifestyles. Thus much of what passes for "green" activity comprises little more than symbolic gestures to define an "alternative" lifestyle. Yet at the same time, environmentalists are also portrayed as dabblers in these bohemian lifestyles, floating in and out of aesthetic and consumerist roles. Hence environmentalism takes the form of fads or bubbles that come and go. N&S critique the presumed attachment of environmentalists to romanticist premodernist images of society and celebrate economic modernization, along with the growing affluence, individualization, and freedom that this social process creates. The answer to ecological issues for all, they imply, is to increase economic modernization across the globe. For example, they note that "It is poverty, not rising carbon-dioxide levels, that make them (the poor) more vulnerable than the rest of us." One can easily critique their essay on a factual basis. Note the sparse nature of their data sources and their lack of reference to any existing environmental histories. They can maintain their interpretation of the U.S. environmental movement only by speaking in broad generalities, without citing specifics. The manuscript is rife with historical inaccuracies and fabricated statements. This essay is a political fiction in which facts are created to support their argument. For example, one of the most egregious statements is that "it has become an article of faith among many greens that the global poor are happier with less and must be shielded from the horrors of overconsumption and economic development - never mind the realities of infant mortality, treatable disease, short life expectancies, and grinding agrarian poverty." Who or what environmental group has ever said anything of this nature? This statement is an out-and-out fabrication. One wonders if there are any fact-checkers at The New Republic . While this lack of factual basis is an important critique of N&S's argument, it is not the most central. Essentially, they are attempting to dichotomize the environmental movement between hopeless anti-modern romantic yuppies, engaged in symbolic activities, and the sober modernists (exemplified by themselves) who celebrate and promote economic expansion as the only real way to address environmental degradation. The space created by this dichotomy only allows for "responsible" environmentalism, based on economic modernization, and irresponsible, premodern romanticism, and eliminates all other possibilities. Thus the essay seeks to paint environmentalism with a universal brush, and delegitimate the entire movement. The core problem with this analysis is that we are held between two competing and rigid ideologies. Apparently, in the view of N&S, the modern environmental movement has no ability to reason, or to calculate trade-offs between economic growth and environmental protection. Neither, apparently, do N&S. They are imprisoned within their own ideology of an uncritical and unreflexive modernization, without any corrective capacity based on democratic governance. The idea of the Enlightenment was to subject our institutions, including both the market and the state, to collective democratic control. Our society's capacity to learn, and change is enabled through democratic discussion. While economic modernization is one part of modernization, its uncritical application as the universal solution to whatever ails us is just another form of irrational ideology. Nowhere do we see any critical perspective on the limitations of markets, or the false freedom of consumer choice that N&S celebrate. How can one celebrate "individual choice" in a society permeated by a $300-billion-per-year needs-creation industry in the form of modern advertising? The so-called freedom and individuality lauded by N&S merely amounts to a false choice among consumer lifestyles, not a real and informed participant in our own governance. N&S can only maintain their simplistic dichotomy by basing their argument on typifications, and ignoring the more complex reality of environmentalism in the U.S. Thus this is a false dichotomy. Thus Nordhaus and Schellenberger deny the legacy of the Enlightenment, and revert to a blind faith in the market and a celebration of the status quo. There is a third alternative. Through democratic deliberations, we can define the shape of the world we wish to create, and then act collectively to realize it. Dealing with environmental degradation, poverty, and exploitation is a difficult task. But it will only be solved by looking truthfully at our situation, and rejecting easy and simplistic solution. Ideological diatribes only make a hard task more difficult. We are not trapped in either hopeless romanticism, or at the whim of market dynamics. We can do much better than this. And the media can do better than quoting the bad analyses and misrepresentations of TBI -- and must stop pretending that Nordhaus and Shellenberger are part of the environmental movement. They are as much a part of the environmental movement as I am of the conservative movement [ Note to self and media: But you do promote conserving energy, conserving resources, and conserving a livable climate -- so maybe you are a conservative after all and deserve lots of media attention for being a contrarian or an apostate. ]
 
GOP Frets Over Sotomayor's "Personal Politics, Feelings, And Preferences" Top
Here's the latest news on Sotomayor talking points, people! Let's say you are prepping yourself to oppose Sonia Sotomayor. Or, at the very least, prepping yourself to oppose judicial activism (excepting the sort of judicial activism that would overturn the Kelo decision , of course). Or, alternatively, prepping yourself to oppose EMPATHY (by which we mean: empathy that does not specifically limit itself to empathizing with very brave, test-taking, Connecticut firefighters , WHO ALL MUST EMPATHIZE WITH, LEST THEY BE COMMUNISTS). What are you talking about, at this moment? Well, as one wag points out to me in an email, you are singing a specific refrain, today: Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): "I will focus on determining whether Judge Sotomayor is committed to deciding cases based only on the law as made by the people and their elected representatives, not on personal feelings or politics." Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): "We will thoroughly examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law even-handedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences." Charles Grassley (R-Iowa): "The Judiciary Committee should take time to ensure that the nominee will be true to the Constitution and apply the law, not personal politics, feelings or preferences." John Cornyn (R-Tx.): "She must prove her commitment to impartially deciding cases based on the law, rather than based on her own personal politics, feelings, and preferences." Given the quartet of speakers, I'm guessing that "personal politics, feelings, and preferences" is a JUDICIAL CODE WORD for "menses." Hopefully, Kay Bailey Hutchison can clarify and/or expand on this. Meanwhile, if you are prepping yourself to support Sotomayor, you are probably memorizing this phrase: "compelling personal story." Mind you: compelling personal story basically means "grew up in the Bronx" and achieved success despite having never been a "Fly Girl" on In Living Color . Also! Be on the watch for reports that describe Sotomayor's parents as "immigrants!" As the aforementioned emailing "wag" points out, it's sort of like saying that Meghan McCain's father "immigrated to the United States from the Panama Canal Zone." And don't make the mistake that Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin did (originally) in this post , and call Sotomayor a " Latina single mother ." Remember: to be a single mother, one must actually have children! Anyway, as you can see, your Sonia Sotomayor Drinking Game is already taking shape! If you divine any interesting patterns in the coverage, do let us know! [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 .] Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Sonia Sotomayor
 
John Feffer: Scream 4: Cheney Returns Top
Horror movies usually follow the same script. The monster - whether genetically modified, abused as a child, or flown in from Alpha Centauri - picks off the frightened teenagers one by one. After many thrills and chills, the hero drives a stake through the heart of the beast. Finally, just as we're finishing off the last of our popcorn in relief, the not-quite-dead monster makes one last attempt to dispatch the hero. It fails, but not before we've dumped popcorn all over our laps. If Wes Craven decided to make a horror movie out of the last year of U.S. politics, he would definitely cast Dick Cheney as the monster that can't be silenced. The former vice president is Leatherface, Jason, and Freddie Krueger all rolled into one: lawless, methodical, and unpredictable with firearms. He's had more sequels than Chucky: White House chief of staff, House minority whip, secretary of defense, CEO of Halliburton, vice president, and now rogue pundit. In the last presidential elections, the voters repudiated the Cheney legacy. But like Glenn Close in her final scene in Fatal Attraction , Cheney's not yet down for the ten-count. As the various TV appearances and his speech last week at the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) suggest, he's still got some fight in him. Frankly, Barton Gellman's book Angler should have KO'd the man politically. Here's a guy who not only stage-managed the vice-presidential search for George W. Bush and then took the position himself but also extracted confidential information during the search process that he subsequently used against his potential adversaries. Here's a guy who assembled the crack legal team - or was it a legal team on crack? - that provided the constitutional argument for expanding executive power, upending domestic and international law, and justifying torture. Here's a guy who created a real Secret Team inside the Bush administration that bypassed the State Department, Congress, and all normal procedures. And yet, like Nixon emerging from the grave of Watergate, Cheney has sought to rebuild his reputation as the national security conscience of his party. "On the question of so-called torture, we don't do torture," he argued in a December interview on ABC. "We never have." He defended the intelligence data that the administration cooked in order to persuade the country to go to war against Iraq. He declared the "global war on terror" still on and Guantanamo still indispensable. But last week, he went further. At AEI, he attacked The New York Times for uncovering his secret surveillance program that collected untold amount of information about U.S. citizens and should have outraged every privacy-minded conservative in the country. He argued that "enhanced interrogation techniques" provided critical information that prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He warned the Obama administration of closing Guantanamo and bringing terrorists "inside the United States" as though the president were about to release them on the streets of New York. It was a speech, to quote Cheney himself, that reeked of "recklessness cloaked in righteousness." The AEI speech, like Cheney's performance as vice president, was rife with misstatements and calculated distortions. As journalists Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel point out , the CIA inspector general, FBI director, and director of national intelligence all concur that there is no proof that the information gained through torture thwarted any attacks. The Abu Ghraib abuses were not, as Cheney claimed, the result of a few sadistic guards but the result of orders from top administration officials. Most of those detained in Guantanamo have not been "ruthless enemies of this country" but innocent people or low-level combatants without any valuable intelligence. If you don't believe journalists - because, as Cheney implies, they don't have the best interests of the country at heart - consider the perspective of the chief U.S. interrogator in Iraq, Matthew Alexander. "Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives," Alexander writes . "Our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse. My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques." Of course, Dick Cheney has never been particularly interested in the truth. He wants to achieve his goals. And it appears that he is having some effect. By rallying the conservative forces and putting pressure on invertebrate Democrats, Cheney has influenced national policy. The Senate refused to appropriate money for the closure of Guantanamo and the transfer of the prisoners. The president has refused to support a truth commission. More ominously, the Obama administration is now working out its own policy of "preventive detention" - indefinitely holding people that can't be charged and tried in U.S. courts - that violates fundamental American legal principles. In his speech at the National Archives last week, Obama defended his important departures from Bush-era policy (end of torture, closure of Guantanamo) but also showed the influence of Cheney in his emphasis on war, "taking the fight to the extremists," and military commissions. Liberal commentators have generally been enthusiastic about Obama's caution. Just check out The Washington Post's liberal stable: David Broder praised Obama and Cheney for both opposing a truth commission; "Obama has mostly called it right," observes Ruth Marcus; and E.J. Dionne, Jr. is delighted at the resurrection of cold war liberalism. Cheney makes Obama look good. But he also pulls the president further to the right. Dick Cheney is not just fighting for his principles. He is fighting for his career and those of the team that bent the Constitution to their will. No one expects that the villains in horror movies will observe Marquess of Queensbury rules. The same applies to the former vice president. Expect more down-and-dirty fighting from Dick Cheney. This is one nightmare from which we haven't quite woken up. Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus where you can read the full post. To subscribe to FPIF's e-zine World Beat , click here . More on Guantánamo Bay
 
Evelyn Leopold: THE MANTRA OF 20 NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES.WHY 20? Top
Even one more nuclear-armed nation is too much. But since the 1960s statesmen, officials and politicians have used the number 20 - as in "there may be 10 nuclear powers instead of 4, and by 1975, 15 or 20." ( President John F. Kennedy at a March 12, 1963 press conference). And in 1996, Mikhail Gorbachev , the former Soviet president, said, "There are at least 20 countries which may have nuclear weapons." More recently, Mohamed ElBaradei , the outgoing director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, told The Guardian newspaper: ( www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/14/elbaradei-nuclear-weapons-states-un ). "Pretty soon ... you will have nine weapons states and probably another 10 or 20 virtual weapons states." He pointed to the spread of uranium enrichment technology and was concerned about the Middle East. Today there are eight nuclear weapons states. North Korea, which just tested its second device, makes nine. Why 20? Visual acuity because 20/20 indicates perfect vision? Or because 20 questions is a popular party game? But it seems that a line or two once inserted into a speech can evolve into a cliché and become the foundation for a policy or an international strategy. Between Kennedy in 1963 and ElBaradei in 2009, the "rule of 20" has been repeated on end, according to ia compendium by a former U.S. Senate staffer, who asked that his name not be disclosed. The number 20 is used not just in reference to nuclear-armed states but nations harboring all weapons of destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological arms and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Said the staffer: "I have to assume, and have no reason to believe otherwise, that the 'rule of 20' was cooked up for noble reasons: namely, to snap the public out of their general complaisancy about serious global threats posed by all weapons of mass destruction. Yet it also follows that if this threat is in fact always 'growing', why is it still at only 20 after 40 years ?" "The 'rule of 20' also serves to cheapen the actual value of the various multilateral treaties that exist to eliminate such weapons," he said. "It draws attention away from the abhorrence of the rest of the world for such weapons. Day to day observance of these treaties by the vast majority of states doesn't attract much attention of the media." Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, an expert on nuclear threats, in a June 14, 2007 lecture to the Council on Foreign Relations, was more precise on the spread of nuclear technology. Like ElBaradei after him, Nunn warned of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and Asia. But he too said that "a world with 12 or 20 nuclear weapons states will be immeasurable more dangerous than today's world." The number 20 (and sometimes 25) is also used in reference to weapons of mass destruction in general. "Currently, we believe that as many as 20 countries may be developing chemical weapons..." CIA director William Webster told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1989. Two years later, his successor, Robert Gates , told the House Armed Services Committee: "More than 20 nations have or are acquiring weapons of mass destruction..." And seven years later in 1998, Defense Secretary William Cohen told the National Press Club, "Iraq is one of at least 25 countries that already has, or is in the process of developing, nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, and the means to deliver them. " BREAKDOWN OF NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES There are five recognized nuclear weapon states: the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China. Three other nations - India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons and Israel is widely assumed to have a nuclear arnsenal. Iran is pursuing a uranium enrichment program that may lead to nuclear weapons and North Korea has now tested two nuclear devices. South Africa had developed but then dismantled a small number of nuclear warheads. Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program but no bomb prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War. United Nations inspectors supervised its destruction. Libya voluntarily renounced secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan also shelved nuclear weapons programs. According to the Arms Control Organization, a non-partisan Washington-based group, estimates for nuclear warheads are as follows, with the United States and Russia dwarfing every other country in sheer numbers alone: http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat United States: 5,914 strategic warheads, approximately 1,000 operational tactical weapons, and approximately 3,000 reserve strategic and tactical warheads Russia : 4,237 strategic warheads, approximately 2,000-3,000 operational tactical warheads, and approximately 8,000-10,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads France: Approximately 350 strategic warheads. China: 100-200 warheads United Kingdom : Less than 160 deployed strategic warheads. Israel: Between 75 to 200 nuclear warheads. India: up to 100 warheads Pakistan: Up to 60 nuclear warheads More on North Korea
 
Burris Promised Money To Blagojevich A Month Before Senate Appointment: Sun-Times Top
In a November conversation caught on an FBI wiretap, Roland Burris promised Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother that he'd write the governor a campaign check by mid-December, Burris' lawyer said today. That was about a month before Rod Blagojevich appointed Burris to the U.S. Senate. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Meg White Marries During Nashville Double Wedding Top
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — White Stripes drummer Meg White has married fiance Jackson Smith in Nashville. The 34-year-old rock drummer's publicist said in a statement Tuesday that the ceremony was part of a double wedding Friday in the backyard of White's musical partner, Jack White. Smith is the son of punk singer Patti Smith and the late guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith of the rock band MC5. The younger Smith is also a rock guitarist. The other couple that wed Friday was Jack Lawrence and his girlfriend Jo McCaughey. Jack Lawrence is the bass player in Jack White's other musical projects: the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. The wedding was attended by a small party of close friends and relatives. The White Stripes got their start in Detroit. Though Meg and Jack White have claimed to be siblings, court records have suggested they were married for four years before divorcing in 2000. Meg White and Jackson Smith live in Detroit.
 
Matthew Zachary: The Taking Tree: Late Effects Are Teh Awesome Top
On March 28th, 2007 I went spontaneously deaf in my left ear. Yes. it apparently can happen just like that. It's called Sudden Onset Sensory Neural Healing Loss and it happens every day, mostly to old people. Evidently, the cochlea just wakes up and decides to stop working. It was the general consensus of my entire medical team that this was -- for me -- in fact a late-effect rearing it's ugly head after all that Chernobyl-level head radiation I had when I was being treated for brain cancer in 1996. Two weeks of Prednisone plus three months of recovery and I was fine. Thank God. The experience yielded my first essay, "The Cost Of Living: No Cure For Cancer" which was featured on The Huffington Post . I somehow felt that getting it all down on paper would be karmically cathartic enough to put to rest any remaining fears, apprehensions or frustrations. We all know the saying, "I've been through worse" but apparently the best is always yet to come. Well, it happened again. February 2nd, 2009. Only this time it's my other ear. WTF? So thanks "Late Effects Fairy" for keeping me sane and reminding me I am living on borrowed time and trying to make the most of what I've got right now. You should leave a dime under my pillow. And so, I'm going back on Prednisone and can only pray it works as well this time as it did last time. So here is my as-to-be-expected ensuing rant. Life is about choice. Remission is not a cure. Survivorship is all the rage. Why we fight ... "You're cured, go home!," sayeth the Doctor. "Kiss my ass!", sayeth the me. Man, if I had a dime for every time I've heard that. Well, actually, I've only personally been told that once back in the stone age of 1996 when I was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 21. So congratulations me! I have 10¢ -- and I can't even make a phone call anymore. Hell, even gum is 25¢. However, if I had a dime for every time I heard that from another young adult survivor, well... I'd probably have about $124. Do the math. That's still a hell of a lot of pissed off people. And a tank of gas in your Escalade. So, when I was actually told "You're cured, go home!", it was March 30th, 1996. I was an aspiring concert pianist and composer at the time just six months shy of my college graduation. At the time, however, this fabulous malignant brain tumor crippled my left hand negating 10 years of classical training and rendering my dreams to be a Hollywood film composer crushed, diced, minced, pureed, ingested, digested, and then crapped out into a martini glass. Many people know this part of my story. If you don't, welcome to the party. Apparently "You're cured, go home!," rarely takes into consideration what, precisely, your life after cancer will look like. Just a handful of my then-never-to-be-answered personal questions included "Will I be able to play piano again?", "Will I have children?", "Will I be alive in 5 years?", "Who's going to pay for all this?", "What about my family?" "How will I ever get life insurance now?", "How will I reintegrate myself?", "What the hell does 'new normal' mean anyway?", and the grand daddy of them all, "What now?" Mostly selfish questions but appropriately justified. My favorite was "Where are all the other people who look like me?" (Cuz, frankly, I'm über sick of all those well-meaning geriatrics in the waiting room staring me down with pity.) "Oh, you poor thing. You're too young for this", sayeth the Octogenarian. "Enjoy your gumming, Agnes or Thaddius or Esther or Pappy", sayeth the me. So apparently, from the lack of support I received specifically from the medical community, it seemed that life after cancer must be only about heartbeats and breaths? After all, who cares whether you're missing a ball, a boob, half your brain, pubic hair, your dignity or perhaps several inches of your colon? The point is you're alive, right? And isn't that all that really matters? "We're trying to save your life, Matthew!", sayeth the doctors. "At what cost?", sayeth the me. You see, there's this thing. It's not really anything. Just an afterthought. It's a meaningless term. Barely mentioned. Harmless, actually. It's called quality of life. Apparently the 'Aha! Moment' is that there's more to the 'cure' than just toxic medicine and a placental discharge back into the real world. When your clinical cancerverse runs out and the most frantically panicked day of your treatment is your last day, life does not just magically start anew. There's no magic fairy with a bad 1940s hairstyle to sprinkle pixie dust on you and poof that whole "crying in the shower" thing mystically transmogrifies into a perfectly holistic serenity of "nothing will ever bother me again and all my cares are footloose and fancy free." No, life after cancer is just as -- if not more important than -- life with and through your diagnosis, surgery, radiation, chemo, bone marrow transplants, platelet infusions, port surgeries and stem cell fabulousness. Ah, smell that metallic taste in your mouth. And cancer isn't just about babies, boomers and seniors anymore. It's about young adults too, a population for whom there has been zero improvement in survival rates in 30 years. What makes it worse for young adults is that we actually hope to have a good 60 or 70 years of life left to live and dealing with this crap kind of cramps our style big time. And don't get me started on the "Can't we all just get along?" bent. No, we can't. Not at least until we have a fundamental understanding that we will never be able to truly and directly relate to one another's uniquely generational and individual experiences outside of the whole fear thing. With 99.9% of the focus in this country on the 94% of people who get cancer (10,000 children and 1.4M adults over 40), how is it fair to ask us to get along when we've been ignored? Personally, I didn't want to then and I still don't want to now have my survivorship associated with anything that even remotely stinks of children, boomers or seniors. I like our little niche club. It's like Fight Club with chemo -- only we are allowed to talk about Chemo Club and tag/share/tweet/blog/digg our bitterness, angst, anger, frustration and countercultural resentment right back out to the world. The young adult cancer movement is just awesome. Permission to rebel. Speak our mind and finally have a voice... "This is what matters to us!" Some say I was given a gift. I often see it that way. The gift of surviving cancer. In fact, I once heard someone say that they don't consider their cancer experience a gift because they'd "never want to give it to someone else as a present." Isn't that why they have gift receipts? Could you just imagine a gift receipt for some cancer? Me: "I'd like to return this." Apple Store: "Is something wrong with it?" Me: "Uhm, yeah. It's cancer." Apple Store: "Did it not work with your operating system?" Me: "Dude, it's cancer. I want a refund." Apple Store: "How much RAM do you have installed?" Me: "English dude, it's cancer. I want a refund." Apple Store: "Sorry but we only do exchanges." Me: "Jeez. OK. What does that mean?" Apple Store: "You can get something of equal or lesser value." Me: "F@ck me! Fine. I'll take diphtheria." Apple Store: "I'm sorry sir we're out of that." Me: "Can you suggest something semi-nonlethal?" Apple Store: "We have iAbetes and eBola, our top sellers." Me: "Actually, I'm just going to leave now." Apple Store: "Have a good day sir." I digress. My "gift", like that of so many others, is one that has a tendency to keep on giving. And giving. And giving. In fact, it's been so incredibly generous, that I can safely say that each and every year since I was "cured", cancer's gift has yielded way too many fond memories of said generosity. Thankfully, I should strenuously point out, none of which to date have involved a recurrence. The issue I can't help but continue to shove down society's throat is plain and simple. There's more to curing cancer than just research. Research. Research. Research. Marcia. Marcia. Marcia. See you on the see-saw Cindy! While everyone is relaying, racing, training, frolicking and crocheting for the cure, millions of Americans (and in particular hundreds of thousands of young adults) actually don't die and are faced with the challenge of rebuilding their lives, starting over, often from scratch without any help. And that is not OK -- especially for young adults. Where is the awareness for "what's next?" We live in a society of extremely generous individuals who want to help. They want to make a difference. But it's often just too easy to drink the wrong Kool-aid and find out your good intentions have been subverted by clever branding, peer pressure and colorful marketing strategies that make unicorn promises. I've been saying this for 10 years but "Do you know where your money goes?" What is the transparency and accountability policy of your favorite charity? Have you ever asked to see it? Or their tax returns? Have you ever visited Charity Navigator's website and seen what one of America's #1 nonprofit watchdog groups has to say? How do you know you are actually making a difference? It's rhetorical I suppose. It took 20 years for the word "survivorship" to enter the mainstream of our pseudo-collective consciousness as a survivor community. So the basic concept of "what's next" is beginning to penetrate, thanks, in part, to the Lance Armstrong Foundation along with emphatic passion and commitment of the young adult movement. But for the overwhelming majority of Americans -- and I suppose you truly can't fault them for this -- cancer is still the most feared subject in the country, according to a recent survey by the Tower Cancer Foundation. We fear cancer more than terrorism. That's how bad it is, the irony being that, on the whole, while a pejorative experience, it is a largely survivable experience, unless, of course you're between 15 and 39. There was a time when we feared HIV just as much. But it's not a death sentence in this country anymore. When did that change? Was there a tipping point? An exact moment when the rift tripped? And, more importantly, will we ever get to that same place with cancer? I don't think it's a question of if, but when. My job here isn't to scare people to death with the notion of recurrence, secondary cancers, late effects, post-traumatic stress, etc... but they are grounding realities that are instilled within the very nature of survivorship, inconvenient truths that cling to the inner digestive walls of our psychology. Cancer may actually be a gift. It may give us perspective, a new philosophy, dogmatic reassessment or even grounding purpose.. but it does take. And sometimes what it takes cannot be replaced. Reminders of it's influence, no matter how subtle, influence how we choose to live our lives... as victims or survivors. As sufferers or warriors. As fighters or champions. Challenge is opportunity and, while we're light years from where we came, we still have quite a ways to go. We're not where we were but where not where we'd like to be. The very fact that we are in a position to challenge cancer 'progress', ask hard questions, take on the establishment and hold accountable the government, the insurance industry and major cancer charities is itself a social statement of progress. In fact, if you'd have told me when I was diagnosed that 13 years later there'd be two cancer talk radio shows -- one just about young adults -- I'd have told you to go jump off a bridge. If you'd have told me that there would be a cancer revolution from the youth culture, I'd have thought you were nuts. If you had told me that "the next me" wouldn't have to go through the same crap as I did", I'd have asked you to just leave the room. Yet here we are. And isn't that what cancer advocacy is? Ensuring that the next "you" doesn't have to go through the same crap you did? See, the taking tree does give. Whatever cancer has taken away from me in part or in full has been replaced with passion, energy, commitment and responsibility to roll up the sleeves and give back. This is the virus we want to spread. The disease of social consciousness, personal accountability, self-sacrifice, altruism and both individual and community reward. One in 50 Americans between 18 and 40 and one in 100 American college students is a cancer survivor. Chew on that. They are all around us but you'd never know because we look just like you. It is important to recognize that we have made incredible strides for the majority of people who are affected by cancer each year. But for young adults, we are only just now getting our comeuppance and a global voice to share our own generational grievances, public health disparities and too-often ignored unique survival issues. After all, at the end of the day, the message is "Shit happens but this is how I am going to get busy living, dammit." We want cancer to be a speed bump so we can get back to our derailed plans. How dare this get in my way? Seriously. The taking tree has got nothing on me. On you. On anyone. So if and when you hear the words "You're cured, go home." or "Now get on with the rest of your life." or "What have you got to complain about, you're alive!" or "There are people worse off who didn't go through what you want through.", just remember the young adult social movement has your back like no one else. The rest of the world doesn't have to get it, but we do. So take my ball, boob, brain, hair, hearing, colon and dignity. I will find something equal if not more fabulous to replace it with. Perhaps a Snuggie. After all, if cancer is the worst thing that has ever happened, just think, "Been there. Done that. What could possibly be worse? Bring it on." Then again, if it's a gift, just don't re-gift it. More on Health
 
Can The Dutch Help Us Avoid Another Katrina? Top
AMSTERDAM — The U.S.' chief environmental official said Tuesday that America can learn much from the way the Dutch manage water _ focusing more on living with it than on trying to control it at every turn. "As climate changes and we start seeing more and more rain we have to stop fighting it," said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said. "There's not enough energy in the world to fight it." Jackson is accompanied on the weeklong visit to the Netherlands by a delegation from Louisiana _ a low-lying area, like the Netherlands. Louisiana officials turned to the Netherlands for inspiration in redesigning the state's water defenses after Hurricane Katrina caused levies to fail, flooding New Orleans. The history of the Netherlands, where two-thirds of the 16 million population lives below sea level, has been shaped by its struggle to keep dry. The country is renowned for its hard-won expertise in water management and flood defenses. Recently, policy makers here have adopted a philosophy they term "living with water" _ which means working with nature whenever possible and accepting that simply building dikes higher and hire will lead to disaster. New techniques include pumping sand into strategic offshore locations where currents in the North Sea sweep them into place, bulking up dunes; re-establishing minor waterways and removing pavement to allow the country to absorb sudden influxes of water; and designating zones for intentional flooding in an emergency. Last year the Netherlands announced more than euro100 billion (US$140 billion) in new spending through the year 2100 to prepare for the effects of global warming. Jackson said she was most impressed by "the idea that when it rains, the rush is not to pump out, but to be able to hold an amount of water." "All over the country, especially in densely populated areas, we are fighting the fight of pavement," she said. Too much pavement, she said, increases the volume and speed of water runoff, and leads to increased pollution. She said the U.S. Clean Water Act was "powerful legislation" that could be used to help shape future building projects along Dutch lines _ with a greater ability to absorb sudden influxes of water rather than attempt to prevent them. She said she planned to study Dutch methods of dealing with runoff pollution from the country's intensive agriculture sector _ and from its cities, which are some of the most densely populated in the world. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, was visiting the Netherlands for the third time since Katrina struck. She said her focus this time is on the organizational side, learning how Dutch water districts raise money and work with other governmental bodies and the citizenry to reach consensus on what should be done. "The Dutch approach ... is a more integrated approach. Our approach is very stove-piped in a sense," she said. Since Katrina, Louisiana has been guaranteed some funding for water defenses from the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico, but Landrieu said that wasn't enough. She said Dutch water boards, which are elected and have the power to tax, were an important element in the country's policy mix. "Although it's politically difficult you've got to have some cost or surcharge associated with property that each individual homeowner needs to contribute to the long-term support of being safe in their neighborhood."
 
William Bradley: The Tragedy of California's Prop 8 Top
Whether we like it or not, the proponents of Prop 8 ran a devastatingly effective ad campaign. The California Supreme Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November's successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. California has a long history of initiatives, dating back to the Progressive era efforts to smash special interest corporate stranglehold -- principally in the form of the railroads -- over state government. But, while still a useful tool in many respects, initiatives have become another way to railroad issues in the Golden State, and have also played a major role in the hamstringing of fiscal policy state government. Bringing it back to the example at hand, Californians in 1964 passed an initiative to block landmark "fair housing" legislation to end discrimination by landlords and property owners who refused to rent or sell to African Americans. The initiative, which amended the state constitution to empower discrimination, passed with a whopping 65% of the vote. But it was overturned three years later by the U.S. Supreme Court. Actor Samuel L. Jackson made the case that what the Yes on 8 forces were up to was just an updating of historic opposition to civil rights. Similarly, we know that in the not terribly distant past, some state electorates would have voted in favor of far more overt forms of racial segregation, further enshrining so-called "Jim Crow" laws as their legislators had already done. So let's not kid ourselves about the sort of law we are talking about, nor about the ultimate vectors of history. The right to same-sex marriage will, in the end, win out. It's the getting there that is messy. And it need not have been as messy as the passage of Prop 8, and its expected upholding by the California Supreme Court, has made it. (Fortunately, the 18,000 same-sex marriages legally carried out under the short-lived law will stand.) Ironically, it was this very court that granted the right of same-sex marriage just last year. Overturning an earlier anti-gay marriage initiative, Chief Justice Ron George, a Republican, wrote in his majority opinion: "An individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon an individual's sexual orientation. ... An individual's sexual orientation - like a person's race or gender - does not constitute a legitimate basis to deny or withhold legal rights." The state Supreme Court's decision fueled a right-wing drive to enshrine opposition to same-sex marriage in California's constitution. Gay marriage opponents got a huge gift immediately from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's comments. Newsom had enraged top national Democrats, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by unilaterally declaring same-sex marriage lawful in San Francisco in the midst of the 2004 presidential race. Though it was a move that was predictably easily overturned, national Republican strategists credited the furor it caused with playing a propulsive role in turning out huge numbers of fundamentalist voters in Ohio, the lynchpin of George W. Bush's 2004 re-election. Last spring, Newsom delighted the proponents of what became Proposition 8 by delivering a gloating set of remarks. "By the way, as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation," he said. "It's inevitable. This door's wide open now. It's gonna happen. Whether you like it or not. This is the future. And it's now." The remarks helped galvanize religious conservatives around the country, and they poured millions into the California campaign. It also formed the cornerstone for the Yes on 8 ad campaign. A few weeks before the election, with opponents of Prop 8 fighting back against distracting assertions that the right to same-sex marriage means that "homosexuality" will be promoted in the public schools, Newsom presided over the same-sex wedding of a first grade teacher at San Francisco City Hall. 18 of her students were on hand to toss rose petals and blow bubbles on their just married teacher and her new wife. The Yes on 8 forces had a field day with this, successfully pushing back against new No on 8 ads. A City Hall wedding presided over by Mayor Gavin Newsom was an unexpected bonanza for Yes on 8 forces, as seen in this TV ad. When Yes on 8 adman Frank Schubert swept the top awards in early April of the American Association of Political Consultants, he was asked how the Yes on 8 campaign came from 14 points back to win. He replied that they were disciplined in their messaging (which means they worked hard to keep the overt hatred of many campaign supporters out of view), they had huge support from some big churches, and "We had a gift from God: Gavin Newsom." They also had help from a confused No on 8 campaign. I was much more focused last year on the presidential race around the country. But I followed what No on 8 was doing and watched the ads and wondered why the campaign, in movement style, was more focused on extolling the virtues of the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities and less focused on running a campaign to defeat a mean-spirited initiative that took away human rights. The appropriate frame was ready-made. The state Supreme Court, in an opinion written by a prominent Republican, had determined the right to same-sex marriage to be a fundamental right. The state's attorney general, former Governor Jerry Brown -- in a move that caused Yes on 8 backers to scream bloody murder -- determined the language on the ballot, saying that Prop 8 would take away the right to same-sex marriage. Anything that takes away an existing right is highly suspect to voters. Very late in the day, after the "Whether you like it or not" ads caused the opponents' lead in the polls to vanish, new consultants came in to run a good "No" campaign, shooting down as well the distracting argument that the right to same-sex marriage means lifestyle promotion in the schools. Then came the wedding at San Francisco City Hall, blowing up the issue again. There were other problems. Late in the day, Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized this ad against Prop 8. For his part, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, pro-gay rights throughout his career but a two-time vetoer of gay marriage legislation (citing the anti-gay marriage initiative which passed earlier in the decade), came out against Prop 8. But he didn't campaign up and down the state against it, instead focusing his energies on his second initiative to take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature. His reasoning? He didn't want to turn off Republicans who might vote for his initiative, which did narrowly pass this time. Then there was Barack Obama, who opposed Prop 8 but also, formally at least, opposed same-sex marriage. Making an all-out effort to carry red states, at which he was notably successful, he didn't want to rock the boat of his own electoral strategy. So, even though Obama carried California by a crushing 61% to 37%, he Both Obama and Schwarzenegger authorized their appearances in a last-minute TV ad against Prop 8. Which for a time, with other moves, looked as though it might be enough. But Obama's stated opposition to same-sex marriage showed up heavily in appeals targeted to the African American and Latino communities, which voted heavily for him but had problems with same-sex marriage. And so Prop 8 passed and gay and lesbian rights groups and Brown intervened against it with the California Supreme Court, with differing arguments. The rights groups argued on more technical grounds, that Prop 8 was not a constitutional amendment but a more sweeping constitutional revision, which under California law, can only be placed on the ballot with a two-thirds vote by the legislature. Brown argued that the right to same-sex marriage is derived from inherent individual rights already enshrined in the constitution. Which is essentially the basis upon which the court made its decision last year granting the right of same-sex marriage. Brushing aside the technical arguments, the court didn't see things that way in its new opinion, and instead chose not challenge the initiative power. Who knows what comes next? A few other states have lately legalized same-sex marriage. Polling numbers are generally rising in favor of equality. But it's still a close and messy call. Even in New York, a Quinnipiac poll less than two weeks ago showed a deadlock, with 46% in favor and 46% opposed. More ominously, there was a sharp racial divide. While white voters very narrowly approve of gay marriage, 47% to 45%, African American voters are strongly opposed, 55% to 37%. Predictably, Democrats are strongly in favor and Republicans are strongly opposed. But independents are split, 46-45. The right to same-sex marriage is virtually inevitable. The generational divide on the issue makes this clear. Younger voters are much accepting than are older voters, just as they were much more accepting of the idea of a relatively young and seemingly untried black president. But a great many people are afraid of change, and of a future that does not look like what they have known, even in California, a state that historically has been all about the future. What Prop 8 tells us is how easy it is to use mistakes to block change, no matter how inevitable that change may ultimately prove to be. You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com. More on Barack Obama
 
Obama Visiting Saudi Arabia June 3 Top
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to visit Saudi Arabia next week. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will meet with Saudi's King Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3 to discuss a range of issues, including peace in the Middle East, Iran and terrorism. The president will not have any public events while in the country. The stop in Saudi Arabia has been added to beginning end of Obama's previously announced trip to Egypt, Germany and France. Obama plans to deliver a speech in Egypt on U.S. relations with the Muslim world. He plans to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, and help commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Barack Obama plans to visit Saudi Arabia next week. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will meet with Saudi's King Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3. The president will not have any public events while in the country. The stop in Saudi Arabia has been added to front end of Obama's previously announced trip to Egypt, Germany and France. Obama plans to deliver a speech in Egypt on U.S. relations with the Muslim world. He plans to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, and help commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France. More on Middle East
 
Jesse Berney: Sotomayor's Nomination Reveals Obama's Biggest Mistake Top
Following Sonia Sotomayor's nomination of to the Supreme Court today, two U.S. Senators issued the following statements. First: In Judge Sotomayor, we have a superbly qualified jurist, who understands, respects, and connects with the people whose lives will be affected by the Court. Judge Sotomayor will bring invaluable experience and much needed diversity to our nation's highest court. I look forward to a respectful and swift confirmation process in which Congress and the American people can learn more about Judge Sotomayor's phenomenal qualifications. Second: I applaud the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her confirmation would add needed diversity in two ways: the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court. While her record suggests excellent educational and professional qualifications, now it is up to the Senate to discharge its constitutional duty for a full and fair confirmation process. They're starkly different statements. The first is a full-throated endorsement, filled with enthusiasm. Clearly the senator who issued it stands behind Sotomayor 100 percent. The second is tepid at best. The senator who signed it has no enthusiasm for the coming fight over Sotomayor's nomination. Different as they are, these two statements do have one thing in common: President Obama is working to clear the primary field for both of the Senators who issued them. The first comes from New York's Kirsten Gillibrand, the second from newly minted Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Since he switched parties, Specter has continued his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, opposed highly qualified Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen, and now appears to have no little or no interest in helping President Obama push through his first Supreme Court nominee from his influential seat on the Judiciary Committee. In return, the White House has promised Specter full support in his reelection bid. He has gone from facing near-certain defeat in a Republican primary to having the President of the United States working to ensure he faces no primary opposition. All of which begs the question: isn't supporting Specter the biggest mistake of the Obama presidency so far? Obama has given Specter a second lease on his political life, saving him from ignominous defeat by a member of his own (former) party and delivering him a better than 50-50 chance at a victory in 2010. In return, Specter has not only not promised any votes to go the president's way, but instead seems determined to prove his independence from his new party by bucking Obama at every turn. There's no short-term gain for Obama -- he still has to fight for Specter's vote every time he faces a close vote in the Senate. And the long-term gain for leaving Specter in the GOP was obvious: once Pat Toomey finished him off in the primary, any Democrat could have wiped the floor with the radical founder of the Club for Growth in the increasingly blue Pennsylvania. We would have been assured a real Democrat sitting in Specter's seat come January 2011. Senator Specter will likely vote for Sotomayor. He'll probably even vote for cloture. And her nomination doesn't hinge on his support But his milquetoast statement today makes it clear he has no enthusiasm for Obama's nominee and no intention of using his influence or leadership on her behalf. In his four short months in the White House, President Obama already has amassed a long list of accomplishments and a short list of mistakes. But supporting Arlen Specter's bid for the Democratic nomination must be the biggest error of his presidency yet. It is a major strategic blunder that Democrats could be paying for for years to come. More on Arlen Specter
 
Gavin Newsom: The Road from Here to Marriage Equality Top
Today we must turn anger into action . It's cold comfort to many that history is moving in the right direction, with five states already on their way to marriage equality. But it's our job to make sure history moves faster towards equality here in California. We must redouble our efforts in California to finally win this fight for equal rights. Please, take a moment today and lend your voice to this just cause. Sign our petition for marriage equality. Join the tireless efforts of the Courage Campaign and Equality California . Let's be respectful. But let's be clear. We must start changing minds today. I know many of my fellow Californians may initially agree with this ruling, but I ask them to reserve final judgment until they have discussed this decision with someone who will be affected by it. Please talk to a lesbian or gay family member, neighbor or co-worker and ask them why equality in the eyes of the law is important to every Californian. Please talk to local business leaders who know that this will cost jobs and make California less competitive. Please remember we all know someone who is hurt by this decision today. Please reach out to these friends, family members, co-workers and neighbors and discuss why this decision is wrong for California. California, at its best, is a beacon of equal rights and equal opportunities. If we want to prosper together, we must respect one another. That's why we must resolve to restore marriage equality to all Californians. Let this work start today. Sign our petition and join the efforts of the Courage Campaign and Equality California . More on Gay Marriage
 
Joe Solmonese: Prop 8 Decision: We Won't Back Down Top
The California Supreme Court ruling brings bitter news: Proposition 8 will stand. While we take some solace that the loving couples who did marry in California will stay married, an estimated one million more individuals have been denied that dignity and right. We are heartbroken. But we won't back down. Human Rights Campaign members from around the country have sent in beautiful images and messages of support in recent weeks. A new video we created expresses both our profound hurt and our fierce resolve to fight for equality: Today's decision hurts, but we have known this pain before. Ours is a movement powered by resilience. Once again, we will turn our anger into action. In fact, we have already begun. To secure marriage equality, we know we must broaden, diversify and deepen faith-based support. So with California Faith for Equality , we have been building a coalition of clergy and lay leaders who will lead a long-term campaign of education and action. We will help train them to make equality part of their daily ministries. We'll give them the tools to be effective spokespeople who can speak of their faith and their belief in equality. We will also work with them to expand our volunteer base. It's all about winning hearts and minds so we can repeal this hateful marriage ban, once and for all. And it's not just California. We need to keep the recent momentum for marriage equality alive until every loving couple across the nation has the right to marry.
 
Daley Calls For Investigation Into Hit And Run Cop Breathalyzer Lag Top
The four-hour delay in administering a Breathalyzer test to an-off-duty Chicago Police officer involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident that killed a 13-year-old boy raises questions about whether the officer received preferential treatment, Mayor Daley said Tuesday. The circumstances demand an investigation, he said.
 
Lebanon Election: Hezbollah-Backed Movement Expects Increased Gains Top
The high stakes in Lebanon's upcoming June 7 parliamentary elections -- which will see the Western-backed March 14 coalition and the Hezbollah-backed March 8 alliance go head to head -- is highlighted by a number of recent foreign visits, such as Vice President Joe Biden's surprise stop and meet with President Michel Suleiman there last week. And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's Monday visit a few days later. Biden's visit came on the heels of a stopover by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spurring accusations from Hezbollah that the US is inappropriately "meddling in Lebanese affairs," according to the Wall Street Journal. And though Biden claimed neutrality for the Obama administration, it is generally assumed that Western nations favor a strong showing by the March 14 Alliance -- a coalition of anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian parties led by assassinated Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's son, Saad Hariri. However, unfortunately for March 14 supporters, Hezbollah's current, more-moderate electoral position bodes well for it to win a "slim edge" over its rivals, according to Reuters' Alistair Lyon. Lyon writes: Yet the Shi'ite Hezbollah and Amal factions, which, along with Christian leader Michel Aoun, form the core of the "March 8" alliance, would likely ask their opponents to join another unwieldy national unity government, limiting the chances of any radical shift in Lebanon's political or economic orientation. Though Hezbollah is the only Lebanese political faction to still carry arms, it is not expected to sully the election process with force or violence, according to Lyon's sources. Nevertheless, a parliamentary victory for the March 8 movement would have significant ramifications within Lebanon. According to a Middle East Times analysis: So what would a March 8th victory mean? For the Lebanese it would mean that, although it is not expected that Damascus would dispatch troops into Lebanon once more, nevertheless, it would certainly mean that Damascus' influence over Lebanese politics would increase. One of the first casualties of a victory by the pro-Syrians would undoubtedly mean the demise of the special tribunal meant to judge the suspects implicated in the murder of former Prime Minster Rafik Hariri. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal report points out: Lebanon has long served as a proxy battleground for bigger regional players, who have for decades pumped in cash, guns and fighters. In the current election, both sides have accused the other of using funding from overseas to finance campaigns. Moreover, discounting foreign influences, Lebanon's patchwork domestic political climate is hardly a testament to stability and smooth transitions. Though participating factions agreed at Doha last year to cooperate, the Financial Times reports that adherence to this commitment was short-lived: But it takes only a drive along Beirut's streets and its surroundings to discover just how little reconciliation has taken place over the past year. The lingering tensions, the fear of opponents and the dramatically different visions of Lebanon held by the two main camps - the March 14 alliance of parties that holds the parliamentary majority and their rivals, the March 8 opposition - are on dramatic display at street corners. Seemingly conflicting reports emerged regarding promised US military aid following Biden's visit, with some saying aid is contingent on the electoral outcome and others saying the aid will be unconditional. Consider the following from YNet News: Murr said that the American vice president pledged to have the said weapons delivered to Lebanon, and that the aid package would be given to the country unconditionally, although Biden on Friday said that the aid hinges on the outcome of the upcoming general elections. For her part, like Biden, Clinton and the State Department have endeavored to present the US as a neutral player who wants only that Lebanon's elections be free and fair. From the April 27, 2009 State Department press briefing with Robert Wood: QUESTION: On Lebanon, just looking ahead to elections after the Secretary's trip, are you making any contingency plans in case Hezbollah wins a majority? For example, reviewing military aid to the government and -- MR. WOOD: I think the Secretary spoke to this very clearly when she was in Beirut. I mean, we obviously want to see free elections. We're going to support the Lebanese Government. We certainly want to see, you know, a government that has moderate views in place. We've made that very clear. What's important here is that there not be interference in Lebanese internal affairs. We want to make sure that everyone supports a free election in Lebanon and, as an overall goal, a free, democratic, prosperous Lebanon. And that's going to be our policy going forward. You know, we'll just have to see what happens after the election. But as I said, I think the Secretary was very clear in terms of where we stand with regard to Lebanon and the upcoming election. Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter! More on Lebanon
 
John Marshall: Republicans Get All F*cked Up Over Opposing First Hispanic Supreme Court Choice Top
WASHINGTON - When President Obama announced that he would nominate federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, to become the nation's first Hispanic justice, Republicans didn't know how to react for the first time since Walter Mondale said "I like President Reagan" in 1984. "I know I'm supposed to respond with something stupid like change doesn't come in a teabag, or in a bottle of Bacardi, or some other beverage metaphor," said Michael Steele, the first African-American Republican Party chairman. "But witlessness fails me." Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, publicly said he would carefully go over Sotomayor's record, but privately said he wouldn't. "Just put her in," he said. "If I want to see a grueling choosing process, I'll watch The Bachelorette ." The artist formerly known as the Republican Senator Arlen Specter said that as a hermaphrodemocratite, if he opposed Sotomayor his head would explode. President Obama said he made his decision after "deep reflection and careful deliberation." "Those qualities have no business in government, let alone the Republican Party," said shadow vice president and celebutainer Dick Cheney. Senate Democrats feel confident that Sotomayor will be approved easily, especially since they have a near filibuster-proof majority. However, all of Washington is taking bets as to who will assume office first, Sotomayor or Al Franken (D-Limbo). Prior to the selection there was widespread debate as to whether Obama should choose a female judge, a Hispanic judge or an African-American judge to replace Justice David Souter, the retiring white dullard. "We were hoping for a television judge," said a high-ranking Republican. "We would have liked to see Justice Judy or Justice Joe Brown. Not only would they have been tough, they could have established two constitutional precedents in half an hour." More on Supreme Court
 
Ellen Brown: But Governor, You Can Create Money! Just Form Your Own Bank Top
"I understand that these cuts are very painful and they affect real lives. This is the harsh reality and the reality that we face. Sacramento is not Washington -- we cannot print our own money. We can only spend what we have ." - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted in Time , May 22, 2009 Christmas comes early, Governor. You can print your own money. Fiscally solvent North Dakota is doing it...and so can California. Now! In a May 22 article in Time titled "Billions in the Red: Fiscal Reckoning in CA," Juliet Williams reports that since California voters have now vetoed higher taxes and further state government borrowing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated that he intends to close the budget gap almost entirely through drastic spending cuts. The cutbacks could include laying off thousands of state workers and teachers, ending the state's main welfare program for the poor, eliminating health coverage for about 1.5 million poor children, halting cash grants for about 77,000 college students, slashing money for state parks, and releasing thousands of prisoners before their sentences are finished. Schwarzenegger bemoaned the fact that the state could not print its own money but said it could only spend what it had. But the state can create its own money. After all, banks do this every day. Certified, card-carrying bankers are allowed to do something nobody else can do: they can create "credit" with accounting entries on their books. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains on its website: Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here's how it works: Most of a bank's loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank...holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times. President Obama has also acknowledged that banks create money, through what he calls the "multiplier effect." In a speech at Georgetown University on April 14, he said: [A]lthough there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks -- "where's our bailout?" they ask -- the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth. Money in a government-owned bank could give us the best of both worlds. We could have all the credit-generating advantages of private banks, without the baggage cluttering up the books of the Wall Street giants, including bad derivatives bets, unmarketable collateralized debt obligations, mark to market accounting issues, oversized CEO salaries and bonuses, and shareholders expecting a sizeable cut of the profits. A state could deposit its vast revenues in its own state-owned bank and proceed to fan them into eight to 10 times their face value in loans. Not only would it have its own credit machine, but it would control the loan terms. The state could lend at ½% interest to itself and to municipal governments, rolling the loans over as needed until the revenues had been generated to pay them off. According to Professor Margrit Kennedy in her 1995 book Interest and Inflation-free Money , interest composes, on average, fully half the cost of every public project. Cutting costs by 50% could make currently-unsustainable projects such as low-cost housing, alternative energy development, and infrastructure construction not only sustainable but actually profitable for the government. If all this seems too radical and unprecedented to venture into, consider that one state has had its own bank for 90 years; and it has not only escaped the credit crunch but is doing remarkably well... The Innovative Bank of North Dakota Only three of 50 states are now solvent, meaning they have the revenues to meet their state budgets; and one of them is North Dakota . It is an unlikely candidate for the distinction. It is a sparsely populated state of fewer than 700,000 people, largely located in isolated farming communities afflicted with cold weather. Yet since 2000, the state's GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. The state not only has no funding issues, but this year it actually has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion, the largest it has ever had. North Dakota boasts the only state-owned bank in the nation. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919 specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. The bank's stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, which pays a competitive interest rate to the state treasurer. The state rather than the FDIC guarantees the bank's deposits, which are plowed back into the state in the form of loans. The bank's return on equity is about 25%, and it pays a hefty dividend to the state, which is expected to exceed $60 million this year. In the last decade, the BND has turned back a third of a trillion dollars to the state's general fund, offsetting taxes. The former president of the BND is now the state's governor. The BND avoids rivalry with private banks by partnering with them. Most lending is originated by a local bank. The BND then comes in to participate in the loan, share risk, and buy down the interest rate. The BND provides a secondary market for real estate loans, which it buys from local banks. Its residential loan portfolio is now $500 billion to $600 billion. Guarantees are also provided for entrepreneurial startups, and the BND has ample money to lend to students (over 184,000 outstanding loans). It purchases municipal bonds from public institutions, and it backs loans made to new farmers at 1% interest. The BND also has a well-funded disaster loan program, which helps explain how Fargo, when struck by a disastrous flood recently, managed to avoid the devastation suffered by New Orleans in similar circumstances. North Dakota has also managed to avoid the credit freeze, through the simple expedient of creating its own credit. It has led the nation in establishing state economic sovereignty. In California and other states, workers and factories are sitting idle because the private credit system has failed. An injection of new money from a system of publicly-owned banks on the model of the Bank of North Dakota could thaw the credit freeze and bring spring to the markets once again.
 
U.S. Government Expected To Own 70% Of GM Top
DETROIT -- The government will hold a large share of a restructured General Motors after the company emerges from bankruptcy protection, and will provide G.M. with about $50 billion in financing so that it can reorganize, people with direct knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.
 
Sotomayor An Unknown Quantity On Executive Power Issues Top
Back in the dark ages of, say, yesterday , when I had settled into the (totally wrong) mindset that today's nomination announcement was going the way of Elena Kagan or Diane Wood, I was most interested to see how the choice impacted the executive powers that Obama has largely held over from his predecessor . It is the argument of the Three-Dimensional Chess set that Obama intends to rollback the Bush power-snatching in a permanent -- or at least difficult to reverse way -- the theory being that the courts would establish firmer and lasting parameters for executive power than an executive order or personal decision would. It's not an argument I find terribly convincing, but the choice between Kagan and Wood was definitely a choice between an endorser and a critic of unitary executive power, respectively. The question now is, which way is Sotomayor likely to go? And the answer is: nobody really knows ! Charlie Savage sums it up thusly for the Washington Post : By contrast, one person near the top of Mr. Obama's short list -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit -- has never worked in the federal executive branch and sits on a court that hears few executive power cases. And, as often as executive power controversies intersect with the prosecution of the war on terror, that's really just the tip of the iceberg. As Savage shrewdly points out, "the broad powers Mr. Obama has employed in the economic crisis, like his virtual takeover of the American auto industry, could generate a new category of cases that would turn on how much deference the court gives to the executive branch." [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 Sonia Sotomayor
 
Facebook Valuation At $10 Billion Following $200M Investment Top
NEW YORK — Facebook is getting a $200 million investment from a Russian Internet investor that values the social networking company at $10 billion even though it has yet to turn a profit. The investment gives Digital Sky Technologies a nearly 2 percent stake in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook's preferred stock. Digital Sky won't get a board seat. The $10 billion valuation for Facebook is less than the $15 billion value implied in 2007, when Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company _ even though Facebook has substantially grown since then. However Facebook's own appraisal after the Microsoft deal gave the company a market value of about $3.7 billion, according to details revealed in a legal settlement. The latest investment, in preferred stock, does not necessarily compare with what the company's common shares would be worth on the open market. That would be determined if the company were to go public, which is likely a ways off. During a conference call Tuesday, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said an IPO is "not something we are rushing toward." He called the Digital Sky investment a "good cash buffer" to support its growth. Facebook now counts 200 million users, 70 percent of whom live outside the U.S. As a private company, Facebook does not disclose financial details. It doesn't even have a chief financial officer. Gideon Yu left that post in March and Facebook says it is still searching for a replacement. The company says it has been profitable by one measure _ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA _ for the past five quarters. Zuckerberg reiterated Tuesday that the company expects to generate positive cash flow in 2010. Zuckerberg also repeated his claim that Facebook will grow revenue by 70 percent this year. Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with Internet research firm eMarketer, questions whether that projection is achievable. EMarketer estimates that Facebook's worldwide ad revenue will be $300 million this year, up 20 percent from last year. In other words, to hit 70 percent growth, Facebook might have to ramp up the sale of products or services on the site. The company has experimented with some ideas, such as letting users send each other tiny virtual "gifts" for $1 each. Yuri Milner, Digital Sky's chief executive, said he is "confident that Facebook has the potential to be one of the most valuable Internet companies globally." In addition to the $200 million preferred stock investment, Digital Sky also plans to offer to buy least $100 million of Facebook's common shares from the company's existing shareholders. Based in London and Moscow, Digital Sky also holds a stake in vKontakte, a Russian online social network that is far more popular in that country than Facebook. Its investment brings the total amount that Facebook has raised to more than $600 million since its founding five years ago. More on Facebook
 
Dave Cooper: West Virginia Activists Lock Themselves to Coal Mining Trucks Top
Kayford Mountain Action, May 23, 2009 - Images by antrim caskey On top of West Virginia's Kayford Mountain, eight environmental activists with the groups Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero locked themselves to huge coal mining trucks over Memorial Day weekend to prevent further destruction of Kayford Mountain for coal. Using bicycle locks, chains and cables, the activists placed themselves underneath the 16-foot high tires of trucks that are used to haul away the blasted remains of America's oldest mountains. Even the slightest movement of the trucks would have meant instant death for the activists, who calmly sat until arrested by police. The action was one of three non-violent, peaceful protests against mountaintop removal coal mining that followed the Mountain Justice Summer Camp. Coal companies, using explosive power ten times greater than the Oklahoma City bombing, blast 600 to 800 feet off of the top of biologically diverse, densely forested mountains, dumping the rock and rubble into the mountain streams that provide drinking water for millions of people living downstream along the Ohio River, including Cincinnati, Louisville, and Evansville, IN. The method of mining is more profitable for the coal companies, who use explosives and heavy equipment to do the work formerly done by coal miners. Employment has plummeted in the region due to the mining practice. Simultaneously, two activists floated a kayak with a banner reading "No More Sludge" out on a gigantic lake of toxic coal sludge constructed by Massey Energy , of Richmond Virginia. The Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment, which will eventually hold over 9 billion gallons of coal waste, has been foolishly built over top of abandoned underground coal mines. In October 2000, a similar Massey coal waste impoundment failed suddenly when the bottom of the lake broke into underground mines, allowing 300 million gallons of coal sludge to flow into the underground mines, then out the mine openings into two streams, Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek in Martin County, KY. At the time, the EPA called it the "worst environmental disaster in the southeast United States." Massey, chaired by CEO Don Blankenship , called the disaster "an act of God." "The toxic lake at Brushy Fork dam sits atop a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines, " said Chuck Nelson, a retired coal miner from Raleigh County, W.Va. "Massey wants to blast within 100 feet of that dam." If the dam were to break due to blasting at nearby mountaintop removal mines, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection projects a minimum death toll of 998 citizens. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, who supports Mountaintop Removal mining, has ignored previous efforts by local citizens to bring attention to the dangers of coal waste impoundments. In one case, Massey has built a coal waste impoundment directly above Marsh Fork Elementary School. A March, 2007 protest against Marsh Fork impoundment by Mountain Justice members in the governor's office resulted in 14 arrests. Neither the Governor nor West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall have taken any action to reduce the danger to the Marsh Fork school children. A third group of protesters walked onto a mine property below the mountain, and were arrested for misdemeanor trespassing. Activists are currently jailed, and $18,000 is needed for bail. Contributions can be made online here This action is the first of many in what promises to be a long, hot summer in the mountains of Appalachia. For more information, visit http://www.mountainjustice.org More on Climate Change
 
Irwin Zalkin: States Need to Stop Telling Child Victims They're SOL Top
We can all agree that protecting children from sexual predators is among the highest priorities we have as a free, civilized society. But, I am afraid on that front, there is both good news and bad news to report. First, the bad news. The statistics on the sexual abuse of children are heart-breaking. One in five girls and one in 10 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. Aggravating this already horrific phenomenon is that most of these victims will take years to come to grips with the abuse, by which time they are usually left without criminal and civil recourse. Why? Because the governing statutes of limitations ("SOLs") typically block them from seeking a remedy. And without these avenues of recourse, predators simply move on to their next victim, causing young children tremendous physical and psychological burdens, which require long-term care. These children are not the only ones who suffer. As taxpayers, every one of us foots the bill for decades of untreated child abuse victims including costs of medical care, employment disability, and even criminal processing. In other words, the victims -- as well as governments and their taxpayers who provide support services for them -- are left paying an additional price for these terrible crimes while the predators continue to roam the streets and schoolyards untaxed and unfettered by their deeds. Now, the good news. Brave abuse survivors, activists and legislators are working tirelessly to bring fairness to our judicial system as states across the country are moving to extend or lift the criminal and civil SOLs for sexual abuse. California and Delaware have already done it. New York is debating it now. Many more are sure to follow. But they need your help as these legislative initiatives are being championed in the face of a formidable combination of money, influence and intimidation brought by organizations like the Catholic Church who have a lot to lose if they are held accountable. Organizations like the Catholic Church insist that lifting civil statutes of limitations will raise frivolous law suits bankrupting them and preventing them from carrying out charitable works. But, the lessons of California teach us otherwise: Once the statute of limitations was lifted, the courts were able to provide survivors of sexual abuse relief from -- and care for -- their afflictions based on strong evidence of wrongdoing. And, not a single church or school had to be closed as a result. In fact, one archdiocese attempted to file bankruptcy to avoid paying claims, and their petition was dismissed by the court as "disingenuous," saying: "Chapter 11 is not supposed to be a vehicle or a method to hammer down the claims of the abused." So, having witnessed what happened in California, we know that lifting these SOLs is not a "win-lose" proposition. It is not choosing to side against the Church or some other institution. It is choosing to side with victims. The front line of the battle over SOLs is now in Albany, New York where Assemblywoman Margaret Markey's "Child Victims' Act" ("CVA") is under debate. This bill would extend the current statute of limitations in both criminal and civil cases and allow a one year window for adult victims previously barred by the SOL to seek civil litigation against their predators and the institutions that knowingly harbored them. Opponents of the bill offer the usual tired litany of rationales, focusing on a provision that excludes public schools (and ultimately the governments and taxpayers that fund both the schools and support services to victims) from certain types of litigation. But their arguments are as insincere as they were in California and Delaware. Ultimately, passing this bill, and others like it, is simply a question of accountability for predators, justice for victims, and fairness for the taxpaying public. The choice is clear. So what can you do to make the justice system fair to victims of sexual abuse? Whether you live in New York or a state that has yet to introduce such a bill, send an email, write a letter or make a phone call to your state representative. Let them know you want fairness for child victims of sexual abuse by lifting the SOL. It's a simple act that takes two or three minutes, but it could make our country and its communities a safer -- and fairer -- place.
 
Bob Woodward: NYT's Watergate Tip Irrelevant Since They Didn't Do Reporting Top
Watergate legend Bob Woodward says Monday's revelation by The New York Times that two of its journalists had a tip on the Watergate scandal that he and Carl Bernstein later exposed is not as important as what they would have done with the tip. "Watergate wasn't about a tip," Woodward told E&P Tuesday. "It was about extensive reporting and getting information you can put in the paper. They decided not to do the reporting. We get this idea that this is about one story or one source or one tip, it is not."
 
Jon And Kate Gosselin: We're Navigating A Difficult Time Top
Where do Jon and Kate Gosselin go from here? Even they don't entirely know, according to the couple, who are speaking out about their uncertain future in the wake of the heartbreaking season 5 premiere of their TLC show, Jon & Kate Plus Eight. "As many couples do, we are navigating a very difficult time," the couple said in a statement. "Our current situation brings us together around the children and some times sets us apart. We keep our faith that we will make the right decisions for our family."
 
Shashi Tharoor: Indian Strategic Power: Soft Top
The Indian elections are over. What is all this talk of Indian strategic power? Not so fast... As an Indian, I have become a little concerned about the proliferation of those who speak of India as a future 'world leader' or even as 'the next superpower.' The American publishers of my most recent book, The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone, even added a gratuitous subtitle suggesting that my volume was about "the emerging 21st century power." Now, I appreciate that this is not entirely unreasonable. Many thinkers and writers I respect have spoken of India's geostrategic advantages, its economic dynamism, political stability, proven military capabilities, its nuclear, space and missile programmes, the entrepreneurial energy of India's people, and the country's growing pool of young and skilled manpower as assuring India 'great power' status as a 'world leader' in the new century. And yet I have a problem with that term. The notion of 'world leadership' is a curiously archaic one. The very phrase is redolent of Kipling ballads and James Bondian adventures. What makes a country a world leader? Is it population, in which case India is on course to top the charts, overtaking China as the world's most populous country by 2034? Is it military strength (India's is already the world's fourth-largest army) or nuclear capacity (India's status having been made clear in 1998, and last year formally recognized in the Indo-US nuclear deal)? Is it economic development? There, India has made extraordinary strides in recent years; it is already the world's fifth-largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, and continues to climb, though too many of our people still live destitute, amidst despair and disrepair. Or could it be a combination of all these, allied to something altogether more difficult to define - the 'soft power' of its culture? Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people. So it is not economic growth, military strength or population numbers that I would underscore when I think of India's potential leadership role in the world of the 21st century. Rather, if there is one attribute of independent India to which I think increasing attention should now be paid around the globe, it is the quality which India is already displaying in ample measure today - its 'soft power.' The notion of soft power is relatively new in international discourse. The term was coined by Harvard's Joseph Nye to describe the extraordinary strengths of the US that went well beyond American military dominance. Nye argued that "power is the ability to alter the behaviour of others to get what you want, and there are three ways to do that: coercion (sticks), payments (carrots) and attraction (soft power). If you are able to attract others, you can economize on the sticks and carrots." Traditionally, power in world politics was seen in terms of military power: the side with the larger army was likely to win. But even in the past, this was not enough: after all, the US lost the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, and the US discovered in its first few years in Iraq the wisdom of Talleyrand's adage that the one thing you cannot do with a bayonet is to sit on it. Enter soft power - both as an alternative to hard power, and as a complement to it. To quote Nye again: "the soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)." I would go slightly beyond this: a country's soft power, to me, emerges from the world's perceptions of what that country is all about. The associations and attitudes conjured up in the global imagination by the mere mention of a country's name is often a more accurate gauge of its soft power than a dispassionate analysis of its foreign policies. In my view, hard power is exercised; soft power is evoked. For Nye, the US is the archetypal exponent of soft power. The fact is that the US is the home of Boeing and Intel, Google and the I-Pod, Microsoft and MTV, Hollywood and Disneyland, McDonald's and Starbucks - in short, of most of the major products that dominate daily life around our globe. The attractiveness of these assets, and of the American lifestyle of which they are emblematic, is that they permit the US to persuade others to adopt the agenda of the US, rather than it having to rely purely on the dissuasive or coercive 'hard power' of military force. Of course, this can cut both ways. In a world of instant mass communications enabled by the Internet, countries are increasingly judged by a global public fed on an incessant diet of web news, televised images, videos taken on the cellphones of passers-by, and email gossip. The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians. But this essay is not about the US. In his book, The Paradox of American Power, Nye took the analysis of soft power beyond the US; other nations too, he suggested, could acquire it. In today's information era, he wrote, three types of countries are likely to gain soft power and so succeed: "those whose dominant cultures and ideals are closer to prevailing global norms (which now emphasize liberalism, pluralism, autonomy); those with the most access to multiple channels of communication and thus more influence over how issues are framed; and those whose credibility is enhanced by their domestic and international performance." At first glance, this seems to be a prescription for reaffirming the contemporary reality of US dominance, since it is clear that no country scores more highly on all three categories than the US. But Nye himself admits this is not so: soft power has been pursued with success by other countries over the years. When France lost the war of 1870 to Prussia, one of its most important steps to rebuild the nation's shattered morale and enhance its prestige was to create the Alliance Française to promote French language and literature throughout the world. French culture has remained a major selling point for French diplomacy ever since. The UK has the British Council, the Swiss have Pro Helvetia, and Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal have, respectively, Institutes named for Goethe, Cervantes, Dante Alighieri and Camoes. Today, China has started establishing 'Confucius Institutes' to promote Chinese culture internationally, and the Beijing Olympics have been a sustained exercise in the building up of soft power by an authoritarian state. The US itself has used officially sponsored initiatives, from the Voice of America to the Fulbright scholarships, to promote its soft power around the world. But soft power does not rely merely on governmental action: arguably, for the US, Hollywood and MTV have done more to promote the idea of America as a desirable and admirable society than any US governmental endeavour. Soft power, in other words, is created partly by governments, and partly despite governments; partly by deliberate action, partly by accident. What does this mean for India? It means acknowledging that India's claims to a significant leadership role in the world of the 21st century lie in the aspects and products of Indian society and culture that the world finds attractive. These assets may not directly persuade others to support India, but they go a long way toward enhancing India's intangible standing in the world's eyes. The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims. Jews came to the southwestern Indian coast centuries before Christ, with the destruction by the Babylonians of their First Temple, and they knew no persecution on Indian soil until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century to inflict it. Christianity arrived on Indian soil with St. Thomas the Apostle ('Doubting Thomas'), who came to the Malabar coast some time before 52 A.D. and was welcomed on shore, or so oral legend has it, by a flute-playing Jewish girl. He made many converts, so there are Indians today whose ancestors were Christian well before any Europeans discovered Christianity. In Kerala, where Islam came through traders, travellers and missionaries, rather than by the sword, the Zamorin of Calicut was so impressed by the seafaring skills of this community that he issued a decree obliging each fisherman's family to bring up one son as a Muslim to man his all-Muslim navy! The India where the wail of the Muslim muezzin routinely blends with the chant of mantras at the Hindu temple, and where the tinkling of church bells accompanies the Sikh gurudwara's reading of verses from the Guru Granth Sahib, is an India that fully embraces the world. Indeed, the British historian E.P. Thompson wrote that this heritage of diversity is what makes India "perhaps the most important country for the future of the world. All the convergent influences of the world run through this society.... There is not a thought that is being thought in the West or East that is not active in some Indian mind." That Indian mind has been shaped by remarkably diverse forces: ancient Hindu tradition, myth and scripture; the impact of Islam and Christianity; and two centuries of British colonial rule. The result is unique. Though there are some who think and speak of India as a Hindu country, Indian civilization today is an evolved hybrid. We cannot speak of Indian culture today without qawwali, the poetry of Ghalib, or for that matter the game of cricket, our de facto national sport. When an Indian dons 'national dress' for a formal event, he wears a variant of the sherwani, which did not exist before the Muslim invasions of India. When Indian Hindus voted recently in the cynical and contrived competition to select the 'new seven wonders' of the modern world, they voted for the Taj Mahal constructed by a Mughal king, not for Angkor Wat, the most magnificent architectural product of their religion. In the breadth (and not just the depth) of its cultural heritage lies some of India's soft power. One of the few generalizations that can safely be made about India is that nothing can be taken for granted about the country. Not even its name: for the word India comes from the river Indus, which flows in Pakistan. (That anomaly is easily explained, of course, since what is today Pakistan was hacked off the stooped shoulders of India by the departing British in 1947). Indian nationalism is therefore a rare phenomenon indeed. It is not based on language (since our Constitution recognizes 23, and there are 35, according to the ethnolinguists, that are spoken by more than a million people each - not to mention 22,000 distinct dialects). It is not based on geography (the 'natural' geography of the subcontinent - framed by the mountains and the sea - was hacked by the partition of 1947). It is not based on ethnicity (the 'Indian' accommodates a diversity of racial types, and many Indians have more in common ethnically with foreigners than with other Indians: Indian Punjabis and Bengalis, for instance, are ethnically kin to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, respectively, with whom they have more in common than with Poonawalas or Bangaloreans). And it is not based on religion (we are home to every faith known to mankind, with the possible exception of Shintoism, and Hinduism - a faith without a national organization, no established church or ecclesiastical hierarchy, no Hindu Pope, no Hindu Mecca, no single scared book, no uniform beliefs or modes of worship, not even a Hindu Sunday - exemplifies as much our diversity as it does our common cultural heritage). Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land - emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy. Pluralism is a reality that emerges from the very nature of the country; it is a choice made inevitable by India's geography and reaffirmed by its history. We are a land of rich diversities: I have observed in the past that we are all minorities in India. This land imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing. You can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, cuisine, conviction, costume and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is around the simple principle that, in a democracy, you do not really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. Part of the reason for India being respected in the world is that it has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it - and that led so many to predict its imminent disintegration - by maintaining consensus on how to manage without consensus. The world of the 21st century will increasingly be a world in which the use of hard power carries with it the odium of mass global public disapproval, whereas the blossoming of soft power, which lends itself more easily to the information era, will constitute a country's principal asset. Soft power is not about conquering others, but about being yourself. Increasingly, countries are judged by the soft-power elements they project onto the global consciousness - either deliberately (through the export of cultural products, the cultivation of foreign publics or even international propaganda) or unwittingly (through the ways in which they are perceived as a result of news stories about them in the global mass media). India produces various kinds of culture, notably including the films of Bollywood, now reaching ever-wider international audiences. The triumph of Slumdog Millionaire at the 2009 Oscars both reflects and reinforces this trend. Bollywood is bringing its brand of glitzy entertainment not just to the Indian diaspora in the US, UK or Canada, but around the globe, to the screens of Syrians and Senegalese alike. A Senegalese friend told me of his illiterate mother who takes a bus to Dakar every month to watch a Bollywood film: she does not understand the Hindi dialogue, and cannot read the French subtitles, but these films are made to be understood despite such handicaps; she can still catch their spirit and understand the stories, and people like her look at India with stars in their eyes as a result. An Indian diplomat friend in Damascus a few years ago told me that the only publicly-displayed portraits in that city that were as big as those of then-President Hafez al-Assad were those of the Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Indian art, classical music and dance have a similar effect. So does the work of Indian fashion designers, now striding across the world's catwalks. Indian cuisine, spreading around the world, raises our culture higher in people's reckoning; as the French have long known, the way to foreigners' hearts is through their palates. The proliferation of Indian restaurants around the world has been little short of astonishing. In England today, Indian curry houses employ more people than the iron and steel, coal and shipbuilding industries combined. (So the Empire can strike back.) Globalization has both sparked and allayed many Indians' fears that economic liberalization will bring with it cultural imperialism of a particularly insidious kind - that Baywatch and burgers will supplant Bharatanatyam dances and bhelpuri snacks. Instead, India's recent experience with Western consumer products demonstrates that we can
 
Leah McElrath Renna: CA Supreme Court Cuts the Marriage Equality Baby in Half - and It Hurts Top
I am in my kitchen crying while my 3 year old is parked in front of the television in the other room so she won't see my tears. Earlier today, I wrote a brief post noting that it is a "significant and beautiful day for our nation" because we had a qualified president nominate a qualified jurist for an opening on the Supreme Court -- and they both happen to be people of color. So what changed? The California Supreme Court decided to split the proverbial baby in half with regard to its decision about Proposition 8 -- they upheld the amendment to the California state constitution limiting marriage to opposite sex couples and yet upheld the validity of the marriages between same-sex couples which took place before the Proposition passed with a narrow popular vote margin. As a friend of mine noted, I didn't expect it to hurt this much. I know that the decision by the CA Supreme Court to uphold the 18,000 marriages between same-sex couples already performed is a partial victory for marriage equality. More importantly, I know that the trajectory of history is on the side of marriage equality for same-sex couples -- and that we will, sooner rather than later, look back on these days with disbelief that it was ever even an issue. So I know that the future is bright. But today, right now, I am just a mom who is home sick caring for her also sick child (thank you, group A streptococcus) and a mom who also happens to be a lesbian. And it hurts to see the images on the news of signs that say "Gay = Pervert" (thankfully my daughter is too young to be able to read yet) and to hear the news that yet another group of my fellow Americans has decided that it is okay to declare me and other lesbians and gay men to be second class citizens. It just hurts. There is no other way to put it. No doubt I am more conscious of the hurt today because I am tired and sick -- but I am also mature, educated, safe and greatly privileged in many areas of my life. It breaks my heart to think of all of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people out there who do not have my advantages and of what this must feel like to them. What might appear to others to be some kind of even-handed compromise nevertheless cuts like a knife for many of us. More on Gay Marriage
 
Nicko Margolies: "Survivor Package" Offers to Cut Hotel Costs by Eliminating Amenities Top
This article originally appeared on PSFK.com . Rancho Bernardo Inn , a resort and spa in San Diego, is setting a new precedent for the hotel industry by offering a huge range of prices based on what you need during your stay. For the basic accommodation for two, including breakfast, the price comes to $215. However, the new Surivor Package , allows visitors to control their savings based on the amenities they select. For example, without breakfast, the total is $199 and without the honor bar it goes down to $179. From there, things can get a little more drastic. No AC or heat makes the rate $159, no pillows, it's $139 and without sheets it's only $109. Why stop there? Don't want lights? $89. No towels? $59. No toiletries? $39. And finally, for the coup de grace, you can get your room without a bed and only pay $19, plus fees. It will be interesting to see if other hotels take a hint and offer amenity options. For those that who only require a roof in their travels, be sure to book this deal soon because it expires June 15th. To read more articles by Nicko, please visit PSFK.com . More on The Recession
 
Mark Pasetsky: Big Ratings for Jon & Kate But Are They Faking it? Top
Last night's premiere of Jon and Kate Plus Eight on TLC generated huge ratings. According to reports , the Jon and Kate Plus 8 season 5 premiere on May 25th 2009 achieved 9.8 million total viewers and 4.3 million viewers in the Women 18-49 demographic - TLC's best ratings ever! That's not surprising considering the tabloid media storm surrounding this reality couple's marriage crisis. What is surprising is that everybody believes this story is true - that Jon & Kate are having serious marriage problems. Here's are five reasons why I believe this story is completed fabricated: ONE: Timing is Suspect -- The story broke a little over a month prior to the season premiere. That's convenient! And, I'd say almost too convenient! TWO: Lack of Evidence -- The details provided by the tabloids are inconclusive at best. Sure, Jon was seen with a younger female out a club and sun tanning on a lawn - but he's never been caught in the act of doing anything that serious! Plus, Kate was allegedly getting too close to her bodyguard. Give me a break! THREE: Big Money is at Stake - According to reports, Kate Gosselin makes an estimated 75K per episode. That's a lot of money - especially in this economy. If Jon & Kate lose the show, they lose that income. And, after watching the show, I'm not confident that they could find a way to financially support their family. FOUR: It's Reality TV -- Anybody who would put themselves on a reality TV show is not the same as your average Joe. It's hard to imagine how you could do that to yourself and your family. So, if this couple is willing to put themselves and their 8 children on TV, it would not be far-fetched to conclude that they would conspire to "fake" their marriage drama to boost ratings. FIVE: It's Season Five! Every reality show runs its course (except for MTV's Real World). With Jon & Kate Plus 8 in its fifth season, it really didn't have that much more steam left. But, this marriage drama has given the franchise an entire new life. I'm going on the record and saying that I believe this is the biggest publicity stunt of 2009 and will be remembered as one of the biggest publicity stunts of all time. One person that would disagree with me is People Magazine's deputy managing editor Peter Castro. "If they are acting, they should both win an Emmy for best acting performance. It would be an extraordinary snow job," says Castro. What do you think? Are Jon and Kate marriage problems for real or are they faking it to keep their show alive? Vote HERE and sound off below!
 
Ken Levine: Star Trek Top
What's more implausible, time travel or a summer blockbuster that doesn't disappoint? Star Trek kicked ass -- on both accounts. Okay, some of the rocking in the theater might have been from the 4.7 earthquake but the effects were good too. J.J. Abrams, who understands that the key to a good action flick is the story and not how many explosions you can set off in two hours, does a nifty job in re-energizing the musty Star Trek franchise. Seeing the Enterprise crew when they were young and brash and could fit into their velour uniforms was inspired. Star Trek meets the Muppet Babies . Newcomer Chris Pine was terrific as the young Captain Kirk. I'm sure in forty years he'll make an excellent Denny Crane too. Zachary Quinto did young Mr. Spock proud. There must be some Vulcan in his family somewhere because he brought a real believability to the role. Winona Ryder played his mother, always shrouded in a hood and robe -- all the better to lift props when no one was looking. The young Bones, Chekhov, Sulu, and Uhura were all there and "admirable" but Simon Pegg as Scotty almost stole the movie. Quick aside: We did an episode of Almost Perfect where there was a Star Trek convention and we wanted members of the original cast to guest. We inquired about Nichelle Nichols who played Uhura and she passed saying she didn't "do episodic". What?? We got Walter Koenig and he was great. Again, we thank him for slumming it and doing network television. Leonard Nimoy appeared as the elder Mr. Spock. Vulcan dental work is apparently no better than earth's. But I loved seeing this beloved Star Trek original. I wonder if they asked about Nichelle Nichols and she said she didn't "do prequels". Query (as Spock might say): Do all space villains other than Darth Vader have to look like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon ? Eric Bana's evil Captain Nemo was Ming but after a drunken night in San Diego that resulted in elaborate face tattoos. But he was a worthy adversary and it's the first time I've ever heard a super villain say, "Hi!" Kudos to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman for their thrills & spills screenplay. And thanks for not making Star Trek "dark" like every other super hero/action/adventure franchise. Yeah, Kirk's dad died but it's much more fun to see him raise hell than become goth boy. The pace was great, the action sequences boffo, and all your favorite Star Trek gadgets were there -- phasers, beaming people aboard, heat shields, Vulcan mind melds, even phones. And if you're into having sex with green women, this movie is for YOU!! Star Trek -- I give it 5 stars, 2 galaxies, and 1 1/2 novas (I had to take 1/2 off because Captain Nemo's enormous spacecraft was black. How many fender benders with other spacecraft is that gonna cause because you just can't see it in the dark?) You can sign up for Ken's Twitter here . And read his blog here .
 
"Jon & Kate" Ratings Record: 9.8 Million For Season Five Premiere Top
The tabloid attention to Jon and Kate Gosselin's troubled marriage drove a record audience Monday night to the season five premiere of TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus 8." Broadcasting & Cable's Alex Weprin reports that the show drew its best ratings ever, averaging 9.8 million total viewers and 4.3 million viewers in the Women 18-49 demographic. Further, the premiere delivered the highest ratings in TLC history in three demos (Women 18-34, Men 18-34, and Persons 18-34). Read a summary of the premiere episode here. Kate's sister-in-law Julie had urged viewers not to watch the show Monday night, suggesting that TLC would be stringing along the Gosselins' marriage drama in an effort to boost ratings: They will only show what they think people want to see and it isn't real anyway. They will probably drag this out (J&K's 'relationship') for the entire season. They just string the viewers along hoping that they will come back for more."
 
How To Balance Work And Working Out Top
I want my wrinkles to melt away. I want my belly as flat as the girl in the Google ads. And I certainly want my arms to look as good as Michelle Obama's. But when forced to choose between exercise, work and family, sit-ups and push-ups fall to the bottom of my list. Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy has most of us working more, trying to find a job, or shifting in a new career direction, giving up exercise and fitness the minute it doesn't fit into our schedule. More on The Balanced Life
 
Dambisa Moyo: Aid Ironies: A Response to Jeffrey Sachs Top
Ahead of the publication of my book Dead Aid , an author friend of mine cautioned me about responding to opponents who found it necessary to color their criticism with personal attacks. This, he argued, is a tried and tested way of side-stepping the issues and providing a smoke screen when faced with a valid argument. Jeffrey Sachs's latest posting is just the latest example of using this tactic to obfuscate the facts and avoid addressing the fundamental issues regarding aid's manifest failure to deliver on its promise of generating growth and alleviating poverty in Africa. And though I am responding here in order to refute his arguments, as a fellow economist, I intend to rely on logic and evidence to make my argument and show Mr. Sachs the professional courtesy that he has failed to show to me. Development is not that hard. We now have over 300 years of evidence of what works (and what doesn't) in increasing growth, alleviating poverty and suffering. For example, we know that countries that finance development and create jobs through trade and encouraging foreign (and domestic) investment thrive. We also know that there is no country -- anywhere in the world -- that has meaningfully reduced poverty and spurred significant and sustainable levels of economic growth by relying on aid. If anything, history has shown us that by encouraging corruption, creating dependency, fueling inflation, creating debt burdens and disenfranchising Africans (to name a few), an aid-based strategy hurts more that it helps. It is true that interventions such as the Marshall plan in Europe and the Green Revolution in India played vital roles in economic (re)construction. However, the key and (often ignored) difference between such aid interventions and those plaguing Africa today is that the former were short, sharp and finite, whereas the latter are open-ended commitments with no end in sight. The problem with an open-ended system is, of course, that African governments have no incentive to look for other, better, ways of financing their development. Mr Sachs knows this; how do I know? He taught me while I was studying at Harvard, during which he propounded the view that the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions. Perhaps what I had not gleaned at that time was that Mr. Sachs' development approach was made for countries such as Russia, Poland and Bolivia, whereas the aid- dependency approach, with no accompanying job creation, was reserved for Africa. Mr. Sachs chooses to ignore that relying on aid at a time when the United States is facing 10 percent unemployment rate and Germany (another leading donor) could contract by as much as 6 percent, is a fool hardy strategy. The aid interventions that Mr. Sachs lauds as evidence of success are merely band aid solutions that do nothing to lift Africa out of the mire -- leaving the continent alive but half drowning, still unable to climb out on its own. Yes an aid-funded scholarship will send a girl to school, but we ought not to delude ourselves that such largesse will make her country grow at the requisite growth rates to meaningfully put a dent in poverty. No surprise, then, that Africa is on the whole worse off today than it was 40 years ago. For example in the 1970's less that 10 percent of Africa's population lived in dire poverty -- today over 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than US$2 a day. There is a more fundamental point -- what kind of African society are we building when virtually all public goods -- education, healthcare, infrastructure and even security -- are paid for by Western taxpayers? Under the all encompassing aid system too many places in Africa continue to flounder under inept, corrupt and despotic regimes, who spend their time courting and catering to the demands of the army of aid organizations. Like everywhere else, Africans have the political leadership that we have paid for. Thanks to aid, a distressing number of African leaders care little about what their citizens want or need -- after all it's the reverse of the Boston tea-party -- no representation without taxation. In conclusion let me respond to four of Mr. Sachs' specific points: 1) Regarding Rwanda: It is absolutely true that Rwanda depends on substantial amounts of foreign aid. The point is that President Paul Kagame is working tirelessly to wean his county off of aid dependency (which is precisely the approach to exiting aid that I have been arguing for). To focus on the point that Rwanda relies on aid is to miss the more interesting point: Here in a country where over 70 percent of the government budget is aid supported, the leadership is pushing for less, not more aid -- what is it Mr. Sachs that President Kagame sees that you do not see? Let's face it, the leadership could guilt-trip us all into giving it even more aid after the international community turned its back on the country at its time of need during the 1994 genocide, yet it does not. 2) Mr. Sachs claims that I, alongside the compassionate Bill Easterly, lump all kinds of [aid] programs in one undifferentiated mass. I would point Mr. Sachs to page 7 of my book which explicitly makes a delineation between different types of aid. 3) Regarding the "countless" examples in which countries have benefited from aid then graduated : Here I would point Mr. Sachs to page 37 of my book to a discussion of these countries; The difference again with these success stories is that they did not rely on aid to the degree and length that African countries do today. Moreover, they very quickly adopted the market-based, job-creating strategies outlined in my book, for which Mr. Sachs seems to have an apparent aversion, in favour of the status quo. 4) Finally, with respect to Mr. Sachs' remark that I would see nothing wrong with denying US$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malarial bed net -- even labeling me as cruel; I say, if working towards a sustainable solution where Africans can make their own anti-malaria bed-nets (thereby creating jobs for Africans and a real chance for continents economic prospects) rather than encouraging all and sundry to dump malaria nets across the continent (which incidentally, put Africans out of business), then I am guilty as charged. Don't forget that the over 60 percent of Africans that are under the age of 24 need jobs not sympathy. As a final plea, I urge Mr. Sachs to heed the words of his former boss, Mr. Kofi Annan when he says "The determination of Africans, and genuine partnership between Africa and the rest of the world, is the basis for growth and development." Dambisa Moyo is the author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa (Farrar Straus & Giroux); www.dambisamoyo.com More on Africa
 
Joel B. Schwartzberg: 71% Say Newsom Beating Gallagher in Gay Marriage Debate Top
The California Supreme Court may have just weighed in on gay marriage , but participants in the NOW on PBS gay marriage interactive debate are still having their say. The unique " Issue Clash " pits San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom against National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher and allows users to choose the questions and rebuttals they wish to see, vote for a winner, and add their own arguments on a feedback board.. Currently, 71% of the visitors feel Newsom is winning the gay marriage debate . Excerpts: Gavin Newsom: Gay marriage does not threaten traditional marriage or require churches to perform marriages. This is a scare tactic that has been supported by millions of dollars in ads in California and other states throughout the nation. By allowing gay Americans to get married it in turn makes marriage stronger by affirming their commitment to their each other. Maggie Gallagher: Gay marriage advocates like Gavin sincerely believe that there are no morally relevant differences between same-sex and opposite sex unions and that the people who see a difference are either ignorant or bigoted. So of course civil unions aren't acceptable to gay marriage advocates. Civil unions are an attempt to provide practical benefits to help gay people live their lives without disrupting the meaning of marriage. It's very clear this is not what gay rights advocates want. Join the debate here. More on Gay Marriage
 
Zimbabwe Cholera Cases Reaching 100,000 Top
The cholera infection rate in Zimbabwe is nearing the 100 000 mark in Africa's worst outbreak in 15 years, aid agencies said on Tuesday. More on Zimbabwe
 
Leahy Rips GOP For Blocking Sotomayor -- In 1998 (VIDEO) Top
The conservative effort to keep Sonia Sotomayor off the U.S. Supreme Court is more than a decade old. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, ripped Senate Republicans for blocking Sonia Sotomayor's nomination back in 1998, when President Bill Clinton promoted her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. "Judge Sonia Sotomayor is just such a qualified nominee, and she is one being held up by the Republican majority, apparently because some on the other side of the aisle believe she might one day be considered by President Clinton for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, should a vacancy arise," said Leahy. Vermont's Leahy called for an up or down vote on Sotomayor, who had been originally nominated to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush. Leahy, in his floor speech, also references a Wall Street Journal editorial discussing the strategy to keep Sotomayor off the Supreme Court. "Last week, a lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal discussed this secret basis for the Republican hold against this fine judge. The Journal reveals that these delays are intended to ensure that Sonia Sotomayor not be nominated to the Supreme Court, although it is hard to figure out just how that is logical or sensible," he said. "In fact, how disturbing, how petty, and how shameful: Trying to disqualify an outstanding Hispanic woman judge by an anonymous hold." Leahy had even stronger words for the New York Times about his GOP colleagues. ''What they are saying is that they have a brilliant judge who also happens to be a woman and Hispanic, and they haven't the guts to stand up and argue publicly against her on the floor,'' Leahy said. ''They just want to hide in their cloakrooms and do her in quietly.'' The clip was unearthed by the C-SPAN Video Library. WATCH: Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Sonia Sotomayor
 
Emma Ruby-Sachs: California Supreme Court Thinks Prop 8 Was No Big Deal Top
The overarching conclusion of the California Supreme Court today is that Proposition 8 was no big deal. After all, same-sex couples still have all the rights included in the "marriage bag" and so the actual effect of reserving the term marriage to heterosexual couples is not significant enough to warrant a more extensive constitutional approval process. The main focus of the majority's decision was on the distinction between a constitutional amendment and a constitutional revision. Amendments are small changes requiring only a majority vote and revisions are larger changes, changes to the basic governmental plan or framework, that require a debate and approval process in the California State House as well as amongst the electorate. As the Court writes: "Proposition 8 does not by any means "repeal" or "strip" gay individuals or same-sex couples of the very significant substantive protections afforded by the state equal protection clause either with regard to the fundamental rights of privacy and due process or in any other area, again with the sole exception of access to the designation of "marriage" to describe their relationship." Because the effect of Proposition 8 is so "minor" we don't need to classify it as a revision and it can stand, as is, after a simple majority vote. But the California Court offers no real analysis for its conclusion that simple nomenclature is really a minor matter. This, despite the fact that the offhanded treatment of the term marriage forms the basis of their decision to uphold Proposition 8. Justice Moreno, in his dissent, comes to the opposite conclusion. Enforcing equal protection requires protection for all aspects of the law, including nomenclature. He even quotes the Court's previous conclusions in Re Marriage Cases : "Denying the designation of marriage to same-sex couples cannot fairly be described as a "narrow" or "limited" exception to the requirement of equal protection; the passionate public debate over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, even in a state that offers largely equivalent substantive rights through the alternative of domestic partnership, belies such a description. "[T]he constitutional right to marry . . . has been recognized as one of the basic, inalienable civil rights guaranteed to an individual by the California Constitution . . . ." ( Marriage Cases , 43 Cal.4th at p. 781.) Justice Moreno concludes that upholding Proposition 8 - a ballot measure that concretely denies equal protection and creates a legal distinction between two groups for no other reason than a fear and hatred of a minority by the majority - will "emasculat[e] the equal protection clause of the California Constitution as a provision of independent force and effect. " If one agrees that a legal distinction between two similarly situated groups is nothing to scoff at, it is quite possible that Proposition 8 was a revision. Justice Moreno explains that revisions to the Constitution may be structural, but are not limited to structural changes and may also include amendments that, "substantially alter the substance and integrity of the state Constitution as a document of independent force and effect." Justice Moreno's point - and it is an important one is that if you refuse to dismiss the pain and suffering caused by Proposition 8 and address the legal discrimination it enshrines in the Constitution as being important and dangerous, you cannot consider Proposition 8 a simple amendment. The majority never addresses this point. It calls the ballot measure a minor change that carves out a discreet exception to the equal protection clause and moves on to a detailed description of case law that ceases to be relevant when the court using that case law refuses to engage with the human outrage and controversy surrounding the subject of their decision. Failing to uphold equal protection rights for same-sex couples is one thing, but doing so without engaging in the real debate over the importance of marriage, rather than civil unions, is a disservice to California's people and to the body of jurisprudence that forms the basis of many legal rights and responsibilities enforced in the State. More on Gay Marriage
 
The Progress Report: Honoring America's Veterans Top
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers To receive The Progress Report in your email inbox everyday, click here . Yesterday President Obama observed Memorial Day in the tradition of sitting U.S. presidents, by placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C. Before the ceremony, a number of university professors petitioned the White House, urging Obama "to end a longstanding practice of sending a wreath to a monument to Confederate soldiers on the cemetery grounds." Despite their call to "break this chain of racism," Obama continued the Confederate monument wreath-laying tradition. But he may have started a new one, sending a second wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial honoring more than 200,000 blacks who fought for the North. Speaking before more than 4,000 veterans and family members at the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, Obama paid tribute to the nation's fallen in his first Memorial Day address as commander-in-chief. "I cannot know what it is like to walk into battle," he said. "I'm the father of two young girls -- but I can't imagine what it's like to lose a child. These are things I cannot know. But I do know this: I am humbled to be the commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world." Speaking of those who chose to serve and those who made the ultimate sacrifice, Obama said, "They answered a call; they said 'I'll go.' That is why they are the best of America, and that is what separates them from those of us who have not served in uniform -- their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met." 'WE HAVE FAILED' TO SUPPORT OUR VETS: In his weekly address, Obama acknowledged that "we, as a nation, have failed to live up" to "the responsibility" of serving America's veterans "as well as they serve all of us." "We have failed to give them the support they need or pay them the respect they deserve," he said, adding, "That is a betrayal of the sacred trust that America has with all who wear -- and all who have worn -- the proud uniform of our country...and that is a sacred trust I am committed to keeping as President of the United States." Indeed, according to a recent Center for American Progress (CAP) analysis, "many men and women who have served our country...are still in need of services to improve their quality of life -- before, during, and after deployments." Almost one in five Iraq and Afghanistan vets experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and yet only 53 percent of those suffering from PTSD or major depression have seen a physician. Attempted suicide and substance abuse rates among veterans have skyrocketed since 2003. More than 150,000 vets were homeless on any given night in 2007, with nearly 300,000 being homeless at some point during that year. Moreover, vets make up one-third of homeless Americans, even though only one-tenth of all adults are veterans. The economic downturn has hit vets hard as well. The CAP analysis notes that "foreclosure rates in military towns were increasing at four times the national average" last year. Additionally, "more than 75 percent of veterans report 'an inability to effectively translate their military skills to civilian terms.'" A RENEWED COMMITMENT: During his Senate hearing to become Veterans Affairs Department Secretary last January, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki pledged to transform the department into a "21st-century organization" that meets the needs of a growing population of wounded veterans. "My message would be this: Treat our veterans with respect and dignity," Shinseki said. "They're not here begging for a handout," he added. Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced the VA's 2010 budget, which increases spending by 15.5 percent over 2009, "the largest percentage increase for VA requested by a president in more than 30 years." The centerpiece of the proposal is an 11 percent increase in funding for veterans' health care. Just last week, Shinseki announced a plan to provide $215 million "in competitive funding to improve [medical] services specifically designed for Veterans in rural and highly rural areas." Also last week, Shinseki addressed the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans national conference and announced that the VA is creating a national center on homelessness among veterans. "We have a moral duty to prevent and eliminate homelessness among Veterans," he said. SECTION 60: In his address yesterday, Obama reminded Americans of the servicemen and women who have fallen in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "A quarter of a million marble headstones dot these rolling hills in perfect military order, worthy of the dignity of those who rest here," he said. "Today, some of those stones are found at the bottom of this hill in Section 60, where the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan rest. The wounds of war are fresh in Section 60. A steady stream of visitors leaves reminders of life: photos, teddy bears, favorite magazines. Friends place small stones as a sign they stopped by. Combat units leave bottles of beer or stamp cigarettes into the ground as a salute to those they rode in battle with. Perfect strangers visit in their free time, compelled to tend to these heroes, to leave flowers, to read poetry -- to make sure they don't get lonely." "[I]t doesn't take being Commander-in-Chief to honor the fallen," Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff said yesterday, adding, "This Memorial Day, I hope you add your own words of remembrance for the brave men and women that have heroically served this nation, and perished on the battlefield. It is the duty of every American to ensure that they are never forgotten." More on Afghanistan
 
Beth Borzone: Is the Left Dead? Top
Is the Left dead? Dr. McClaughlin wanted to know. He asked his "token leftie," Eleanor Clift: "How badly has Obama damaged his standing with the Democratic left wing?" The left is not happy, but they're not going anywhere, Ms. Clift responded. "I think the left has a body of decisions that he's made that they're not happy with. But they're still ecstatic that they have him in the White House, so it's not any major damage." Dr. McLaughlin: They're not going to go anywhere. Ms. Clift: No... Monica Crowley of the right, gleefully suggested that the left is outraged and will be increasingly disappointed by President Obama: "Well, I think the left is going bananas, based on what I've seen in the blogosphere on the left, because it looks increasingly like Bush was right on a whole range of counterterrorism initiatives that he put in place. From Guantanamo Bay to military tribunals, warrantless wiretapping, rendition, it really looks like Bush was right. And I think that the left increasingly is going to be very agitated by the course that this president is taking." Nice try, Monica! This absurd dialogue on The McClaughlin Group shows that the talking heads of the mainstream media just don't get that the political landscape has changed in the internet age. In the internet age, it's the people who circulated blogs, texts, and e-mails, using them to recruit family members and friends, to register voters, to canvass in PA, and most importantly, to get out the vote. This generation of citizenry, more than any other, feels invested in their president. They helped get him there and they are going to hold his feet to the fire and get the change they want. Recent events in Washington have only emboldened the left, the grassroots left. As a member of a few local grassroots organizations in my area, here's the scoop from the ground. Yes, most of the people I talk to are disappointed with some of the President's recent decisions, but they still love him. They see him as a person of conviction working within a flawed system dominated by moneyed interests, and he cannot make the change we need without strong support. The grassroots left feels that they are going to have to make their positions known louder than ever to combat the rich and powerful lobbyists seen in Washington. And many grassrooters feel, perhaps optimistically so, that this is exactly what their President, a former community organizer himself, expects of them. They have absorbed the message he espoused upon accepting the Democratic nomination for President: "You have shown what history teaches us, that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens -- change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time. America, this is one of those moments." Yes, this is one of those moments. We've seen this moment recently in the fight for healthcare reform. When an expert on the Single Payer Option was not included in Senate Finance Committee Meetings, every day citizens, doctors, nurses, even community organizers, went to the Senate Finance Committee on their own to make their desire for a Single Payer Plan known. As a result, eight of the activists, including 3 doctors were arrested. Mainstream media barely covered it, but e-mails, and YouTube videos promulgated the internet, and citizens started calling, e-mailing, and faxing their Congresspeople in droves. A group called "Health Justice" claimed in an e-mail last week to have gotten its members to send over 30,000 e-faxes to Congress. "Your nearly 30 thousand faxes as of this morning are overwhelming the Washington fax machines time and time again... We also know your phone calls are getting through because we have heard that Baucus' office simply hangs up whenever anyone says 'single payer." In a later e-mail, the group claimed to have inspired 4,000 calls to the White House. On May 14th, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), the California Nurses Association, and Physicians for a National Health Care Plan organized a rally in Washington D.C. At the rally, a freshman Democratic Congressman from upstate New York, confirmed that the left is going to have to speak loud and strong to get the change they need: "Allow us to get President Obama on the right track. Give him the political cover he needs to make the tough decisions." Well, if political cover means thousands of people showing up in Washington D.C., Donna Smith, and the California Nurses' Association, are ready to oblige. In an interview after the rally, Smith said, " The people still matter. We do matter in this process, and it's the only thing. If we give up, then we do hand it over to the corporate interests. No human rights struggle in the history of this country's been an easy one. This is a human rights struggle. We're going to win it, but we're going to have to keep fighting and struggling and speaking out. There may have to be more people arrested. There may have to be more brave nurses out there speaking out, but we're going to win this." Back in primary season, before Barack Obama had won the Democratic nomination, Michelle Obama gave a speech covered only by C-Span. She talked about change and what a Barack Obama presidency would look like. "Change is hard," she prophesized, "...but in order to embrace this man and a different way of politics, we have to come a little bit of the way... A Barack Obama presidency will be 70% him and 30% us. We have to be ready to be that 30%... We've got to be ready to put down that cynicism... we can't afford it... Everybody has to be engaged in the political process, not just Tuesday, but every single day. If you have any leaders who want you to believe that all you have to do is vote for them and go back to your lives as usual, be suspicious, because you have to be at the table of democracy forever. Because the minute you turn your back and you walk away, somebody is going to come and take your seat and they are going to make decisions about your lives that have nothing to do with you... I'm sorry. It requires work! You're going to have to do this work!" Well, the grassrooters on the Left, are alive and well, and ready to work. And, Ms. Clift, they are going somewhere, to Washington D.C., in fact, on June 25th to demand healthcare reform along with workers, organized through their unions. Get ready, that other 30% is coming! More on Obama Transition
 
Jill Schlesinger: Financial Advice: Five Questions to Ask, Including the F-Word Top
It seems like everybody is in the financial advice-business, but how do you know if someone is qualified to help you? You don't need to grill the financial professional to determine a few key factors that might help you decide whether or not to engage him or her. The responses will help define what kind of relationship you can expect in the future. If you are interviewing new financial pros or working with your existing advisor, print out these five questions -- and don't be shy! You are entitled to have this information! 1) What is your training in this subject matter? I know plenty of stock brokers who are great at what they do, but have never had formal training. Similarly, there are credentialed folks who stink. That said, I would prefer to know up front whether someone has worked hard and diligently to attain a degree or designation and continues to fulfill ongoing continuing education requirements. Designations include: CFP (Certified Financial Planner) CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) or CPA (Certified Public Accountant). The CFP is the one that indicates a holistic approach to planning and personal financial management, but the other two are equally rigorous. 2) How are you licensed? This is a big one because it can determine if the advice-giver is registered with the SEC as a "fiduciary." I like to call this the "F-word" because it's so loaded. In a fiduciary relationship, your interests must come before the advisor's and/or the firm for whom he works. It's all about you and what's best for your financial life. Did you know that most professionals in the financial-advice business aren't required to put you first? They don't have a fiduciary responsibility. In fact, the standard under which most brokerage and insurance firm employees operate is the broader and less rigorous concept of "suitability," which may or may not be in your best interest. That means that your broker does not need to tell you if a cheaper investment alternative exists to the mutual find he is selling or whether the 529 plan in your own state is a better alternative to the one which pays him a commission. This has created tension and a l egal battle between the Financial Planning Association and the SEC . Continue reading and see my appearance on "The CBS Early Show" with Harry Smith, at moneywach.com More on Personal Finance
 
Is Happiness An Experience Of Contemplation? Top
What is happiness? How does one get a grip on this most elusive, intractable and perhaps unanswerable of questions? I teach philosophy for a living, so let me begin with a philosophical answer. For the philosophers of Antiquity, notably Aristotle, it was assumed that the goal of the philosophical life -- the good life, moreover -- was happiness and that the latter could be defined as the bios theoretikos, the solitary life of contemplation. Today, few people would seem to subscribe to this view. Our lives are filled with the endless distractions of cell phones, car alarms, commuter woes and the traffic in Bangalore. The rhythm of modern life is punctuated by beeps, bleeps and a generalized attention deficit disorder. More on Wellness
 
Iran 'US Spy' Cases Remain After Saberi Release Top
By Omid Memarian | Inter Press Service SAN FRANCISCO, May 26 (IPS) - In a case that human rights activists say echoes that of recently released journalist Roxana Saberi, the Iranian government has imprisoned a woman employed by a U.S.-based non-profit organisation working to improve child and maternal health in the country, alleging that she acted as a spy for the United States. Silva Haratounian, an Iranian citizen of Armenian descent, held a modest position with the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), which focuses on international education, academic research, professional training and technical assistance. Her work and life were interrupted on Jun. 26, 2008 when she was detained by Iranian authorities and charged with participating in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government through a ''velvet revolution." On Jan. 19, 2009, she was sentenced to three years in jail. "Haratounian is completely innocent and has not committed any crime," Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer in Tehran who is representing Haratounian, told IPS. "She told me she had lost 11 kilogrammes in one month," he said. "Though she has not been physically hurt, she has had to endure a lot of psychological hardship." On May 11, a three-judge panel announced that the revolutionary court that convicted Roxana Saberi, an American Iranian journalist who was held in Tehran's Evin prison for more than three months, had charged her under the wrong section of Iran's criminal code. Saberi was initially sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of "cooperating with a hostile state", but the appeals court overturned that verdict on the grounds that Iran and the United States cannot be described as states that are hostile to each other in the legal sense of being at war. Haratounian was sentenced under the same section of Iran's penal code, making her family and lawyers hopeful that an appeals court could overturn the verdict. "I believe suspects such as Roxana Saberi and Silva Haratounian and people in other similar cases have not committed any crimes, rather, these are cases which have been reviewed with a very harsh, personal, and unique approach of certain judges and some intelligence operatives based on their interpretation of the laws," said Soltani in a telephone interview. Soltani said that many defendants are perfectly willing to be tried in a public court, "So why don't they do it? If [prosecutors] have evidence, why would they cut the suspects off from the outside world during early interrogation stages, preventing their contact with their attorneys? Why don't they let them contact their families? Why are they isolated and forced to accept whatever the interrogators want them to accept?" In December 2007, Haratounian responded to a newspaper advertisement and was hired as an administrative assistant, working for IREX on a maternal and child health education exchange programme. A few days after Saberi's release earlier this month, Haratounian's mother, Nvart Moradkhan, told IPS by telephone, "This is good news for Silva, right? The two cases are similar, and we should hear some positive news about Silva soon." Haratounian's ailing mother is the only person who can visit her weekly. "Her health is deteriorating," said Moradkhan. "She has lost so much weight. Her hair is all gray, she looks very old. She is very depressed. She has a lot of health problems, [including an] ulcer, and had asked the attorney to ask for doctors." "Silva Haratounian is an innocent victim of the Intelligence Ministry's obsession with finding American spies," Hadi Ghaemi, coordinator of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based group, told IPS. "She was simply an administrator for an American NGO doing a project in Iran and the Iranian government was aware of its activities. She was unfairly prosecuted based on the same indictment that Roxana Saberi received an eight-year sentence for originally, and then the appeals court threw out that indictment." "Standards of justice need to be consistent in Iran and if Saberi's appeals court ruled the U.S. is not an 'enemy government' then Haratounian should be released too because her conviction is based on the same article of the law," Ghaemi said. Paige Alexander, vice president of IREX, told IPS that the government has thus far failed to respond to letter sent by the organisation appealing for Haratounian's release. "We have coordinated with a number of different lawyers on this case and we have been working tirelessly to bring attention to Silva's plight through the formulation of the www.freesilva.org website, press outreach and other public and private religious and diplomatic efforts," Alexander said. "Having had IREX attend meetings in Iran at the government's request before, we believed that this modest programme was a proper vehicle to start reaching out to Iran in a non-controversial way," she noted. "IREX never imagined that anyone could construe this programme to be inconsistent with any interest of the Iranian government and since the purpose of the programme was to have Iranian and American participants enhance their knowledge of best practices in this field, IREX believed this was completely consistent with Iran's national interest," she said. In July 2008, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had declared that "contacts between Iranians and the American people will be a useful step for better understanding of the two nations," according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. "IREX attempted to model the MCHEEP programme on other programmes which we believed had been sanctioned by the Iranian government," explained Alexander. Haratounian's attorneys are now in the last phase of her appeal. "I am hopeful Silva Haratounian's three-year jail term will be reversed in a trial with educated and experienced judges," Soltani said. Read more from Inter Press Service Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter! More on Iran
 
Supreme Court Firsts (SLIDESHOW) Top
President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor could make history - if confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Technically, Sotomayor may not qualify as the first - Justice Benjamin Cardozo was a descendant of Spanish or Portuguese Jews who immigrated to America. Take a look at this slideshow of other Supreme Court firsts: More on Photo Galleries
 
Ralph Peters Calls For Military Killing Of War Journalists Top
The editors behind neo-con spankbook Journal of International Security Affairs have truly outdone themselves, by allowing a piece by conservative military writer Ralph Peters to pass into print that more or less advocates for the indiscriminate murder of war journalists, who Peters refers to as "The Killers Without Guns" : While the essence of warfare never changes--it will always be about killing the enemy until he acquiesces in our desires or is exterminated--its topical manifestations evolve and its dimensions expand. Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight, but one which we not only refrain from attacking but are hesitant to annoy: the media. While this brief essay cannot undertake to analyze the psychological dysfunctions that lead many among the most privileged Westerners to attack their own civilization and those who defend it, we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty). The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the "rights" and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion--were any additional proof required--that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual's dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists' bloody altar. Of course, the media have shaped the outcome of conflicts for centuries, from the European wars of religion through Vietnam. More recently, though, the media have determined the outcomes of conflicts. While journalists and editors ultimately failed to defeat the U.S. government in Iraq, video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza. Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow's conventional wisdom. The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity's interests, while our failures nourish monsters. Writing at Registan, Joshua Foust reacts, appropriately : Yes, yes--victory at any cost is a virtue! Let loose the dogs of war! Murder everyone who gets in our way! Break a few eggs to make the world's most delicious geopolitical omelette! And this is after he brags about how the U.S. is the world's greatest terrorist, since "at present, we are terrorizing the terrorists." Good God. The mind boggles at who would publish this bullshit. Foust takes it even further in a comment on The Stupidest Man On Earth : Actually, Peters is a fan of AMERICA, and because in that essay he argues America can do no wrong, since regardless of methods everything we do is a net-good to the world... well, he has nothing to worry about. Frankly, I'm more disappointed that Peters, who was an intel officer and never served in combat, calls the actual combat veterans in the Obama administration a bunch of "war virgins" because they aren't sufficiently blood-thirsty. And indeed, Foust is right. The whole call to jihad against journalists is really just a sideline issue in an essay that can only be considered as the product of a deep and unholy psychosis, in which American exceptionalism is basically cited again and again as a justification for pure savagery and bloodlust. The whole essay immediately reminded me of the book War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, in which author Chris Hedges -- himself a veteran war correspondent -- documents at length the way the experience of war is too often absorbed by its participants like an intoxicant that collapses moral edifices. I wish there was a single good pull from the book that sums this up, but it probably speaks well of the book that it can't be simply boiled down to a single paragraph. Nevertheless, Hedges' work is ably summarized here : Hedges argues that war is both a deadly addiction -- a drug that offers an unmatchable intoxication, the thrill of being released from the moral strictures of everyday life -- and a unifying force that provides a sense of meaning, purpose, and self-sacrifice that can wash away life's trivial concerns. But the meaningfulness of combat, Hedges suggests, depends upon the myth of war. In reality, no matter what grand cause it is supposed to support, war is simply the basest form of aggression: "organized murder." Once war begins, the moral universe collapses and every manner of atrocity can be justified in the eyes of those who wage it, because the cause is just, the enemy is inhuman, and only war can restore balance to the world. The simplest way I can summarize Peters' essay is to say that it is like the most monstrous form of the pathology Hedges describes has crawled from the pages of his book to defecate upon the pages of JINSA . [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 .] Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!
 
Sotomayor's Baseball Ruling: Conservatives Go To Bat Top
It was destined to come to this. The initial salvos in the Supreme Court confirmation battle for Sonia Sotomayor are being played out on fairly traditional lines. But after the president introduced his pick for the Supreme Court vacancy by praising her work in "saving baseball" following the 1994 strike, conservatives are trotting out some new ammunition: not just that this claim is greatly exaggerated but that it exposes all that is wrong in Obama's judicial philosophy. From the National Review's Ted Frank: We're hearing (from the president of the United States) that Sotomayor "saved baseball." That's nonsense. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor ruled on an NLRB petition seeking an injunction against the Major League Baseball owners' lockout of the players. As I noted at the time, the court hearing the matter would be making a straightforward ruling on labor law, and the owners were plainly in the wrong legally in claiming an impasse in December when there were negotiations going on later in March. Any judge randomly assigned to the case would have made the same ruling. Indeed, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit, in an opinion by conservative Judge Ralph Winter, unanimously upheld Sotomayor's grant of the injunction. To say that the judge in the case saved baseball (or expressed sympathy for highly paid baseball players, as Kathryn snarks below) is making the very mistake that separates conservative viewpoints on the role of the judiciary from Obama's view of the judiciary as activist. A judge acts as an umpire, making the calls of balls and strikes. Neither the judge nor the umpire is supposed to decide that one party is more sympathetic than the other and deserves the benefit of the ruling. Putting aside whether Obama's view of what happened resembles that of someone who firmly believes in an active judiciary, the record seems pretty clear that Sotomayor's ruling did, in fact, get major league baseball operating once more. Whether or not someone else would have made the same decision is debatable. But a Democratic strategist sent over a few clips from that time period that not only praise Sotomayor's work but also note that she was able to accomplish what a federal mediator and White House could not. New York Times, 8/12/04 : "Ten years ago today the players stopped playing, beginning a strike they would end 233 days later after a federal judge issued an injunction that prevented the owners from unilaterally establishing new work rules in the absence of a new collective bargaining agreement. With her ruling, Judge Sonia Sotomayor accomplished what a federal mediator, Bill Usery Jr., and the White House had failed to do as the strike progressed. The Clinton administration asked Usery to become involved in the talks, and after he had been unable to budge the two sides, the White House summoned negotiators to Washington just before Christmas. In thinking that the White House could induce a settlement, President Clinton's advisers were evidently as naive as Ravitch initially was." Roger Abrams, Legal Base, Page 175 : "The surprising hero in this battle of the 1990s was not a player, an owner, or a union official. In April 1995, federal district court judge Sonia Sotomayor, at the behest of the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, stepped up to the plate to enforce the national labor law principle of good father bargaining. Sotomayor bats ninth on our Baseball Law All-Star Team. For now, she has had the final say." New York Times, 4/1/95 : "In her two-and-a-half years on the bench, U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor has earned a reputation as a sharp, outspoken and fearless jurist, someone who does not let powerful interests bully, rush or cow her into a decision. She lived up to that billing Friday morning, when the fate of major league baseball was thrust into her hands. After a two-hour hearing in which she grilled both sides on the fine points of labor law, she took only 15 minutes to issue an injunction that could break the deadlock in the baseball strike. Ruling from the bench, Sotomayor chided baseball owners, saying they had no right to unilaterally eliminate the 20-year-old system of free agents and salary arbitration while bargaining continues...'She's tough and tenacious as well as smart,' said Justice Jose Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, a mentor and former professor of Sotomayor at Yale Law School. 'She is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the eminence or power or prestige of any party, or indeed of the media.'" Claude Lewis column (originally in Philadelphia Inquirer), 4/6/95 : "Sonia Sotomayor, the federal judge whose injunction seems to have saved the season, now is as much a part of baseball lore as Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Mike Schmidt." Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!
 
Jeffrey Rosen: Sotomayor Should Be Confirmed Top
Of course, Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. She obviously wasn't my first choice, for reasons I reported three weeks ago, having mostly to do with concerns about her temperament reported to me by former clerks and New York prosecutors. But I hope and assume the White House wrestled seriously with those questions of temperament and weighed them against Sotomayor's other obvious strengths. More on Sonia Sotomayor
 
Krisztina Holly: What Business Leaders Can Learn From CERN's Collaborative Management Model Top
As a business leader, imagine trying to manage more than 7000 scientists from 85 countries around the world - with their own languages, cultures, and expertise - on a 20-year collaboration to create the most complex system ever built. Now imagine the goal is to recreate the conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. And none of the experts on your team will get personal credit for changing our fundamental understanding of the universe. And oh, by the way, you don't have control of anyone's paycheck. It might seem like an impossible management situation. But that is exactly what is going on at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC has garnered some attention to date: an explosion last September delayed the experiments for a year, myths of black holes still plague the program, and the just-released movie Angels and Demons features a fictitious "anti-matter bomb" from CERN. But these issues distract us from the real story. Beyond the atom-smashing, business leaders have special reason to examine what is going on in Geneva. CERN's remarkable leadership and culture is what makes their extraordinary advancements possible. And most importantly, we all can apply these same lessons to stimulate innovation in our own organizations, no matter how big or how small. The Power of Collective Ownership I visited CERN twice last year, and it is a wonder to behold: a 27-km long circular tunnel and four enormous detectors, buried 100 meters underground. One of the four experiments, called ATLAS, weighs as much as the Eiffel Tower, has about 20 million components, uses 3000km of cables and 1000km of piping, and requires some 5 million lines of computing code to run. You might assume a project this massive requires top-down, authoritative leadership. But, there are no directors. No CEOs or presidents. No corner offices. (In fact, the main building is cylindrical, with every office the same size.) Symbolically, the leader of each experiment is called the "spokesperson," and a "resource coordinator" tracks the allocation of money and people. LHC leaders create the framework for people to share and contribute. Gathering spaces throughout CERN serve as giant "water coolers" for ideas to be shared. Different perspectives are valued, and decisions are made with input from everyone. How does this happen? With week-long summits, held three to four times a year; thousands of lesser meetings, which are optional and open to the collaborators; and an online system that allows participants to browse agendas and watch presentations remotely. To a fast-paced corporate executive, this may sound like overkill, but the investment up front eliminates costly issues that can surface later. Everyone feels ownership and commitment from the beginning. Trust The entire community at CERN operates with a profound sense of trust that comes from a mutual "code of ethics." Everyone is expected to work hard and share. Because their community is close-knit and their most valuable currency is reputation, experimental physicists around the world know who contributes. Conversely, the few who have been too proprietary with their ideas have been ostracized. It's like a crowd-sourced performance review. Notably, CERN promotes the "open access" movement in scientific publishing; anyone can access the results, which are posted to the CERN library site . Experimentation People don't fail, experiments do. At CERN, failure is a valuable learning opportunity, not a cause to point fingers. Remarkably, after an explosion last September delayed experiments for a year, no one was fired. It may seem that on a project of such great scale, there is no room for taking risks. But in truth, the project evolves through a natural process of experimentation and peer review. For example, the ATLAS experiment and its counterpart, CMS, both needed to make a very fundamental design choice in the early 1990's: what technology to use for the magnets. But they did not make a decision, start building it, and hope for the best fifteen years later. Failure at that level would definitely be disastrous. Instead, each experiment provided budget for two or three teams to prototype different technologies in parallel. After numerous iterations, CMS and ATLAS made their final and very different bets based on years of designing, building, testing - and, yes, sometimes failing. Although corporate executives do not always have the luxury to undertake multiple major developments in parallel, leaders can encourage a culture of small experiments and risk-taking early in the development process. Ultimately, this up-front investment begets a better end product - and much less risk of a bigger failure later. Shared Vision The scientists at CERN are unrelentingly dedicated to a singular goal. But surprisingly, because so many have contributed, it would be very difficult for anyone on the team to win the Nobel Prize. Regardless, thousands of experts manage to keep their egos in check and collaborate. They can do so because they share a common yardstick for all decisions: what is the best for the physics? In business, this means having an ambitious yet attainable vision for the organization that is embraced the grassroots and embodied by the leadership. Of course, egos at CERN do clash. And there is spirited competition between ATLAS and CMS to be the first to discover the "Higgs particle." But the leaders cleverly avoid wasting energy on trying to control everything; they instead focus on nurturing the right environment for innovation. As I toured CERN, I was struck by the scale and complexity of their undertaking. But I was also struck by how simple, yet revolutionary, their approach to innovation seems. Simple enough that we could all try it. Thank you to Markus Nordberg, Robert Cousins, and George Brandenburg, who contributed to this column. This article first ran on Businessweek.com .
 
Kadima 'Shadow Government' Formed Under Livni Top
Kadima leader Tzipi Livni finally formed a "government" on Monday, seven months after failing to build a real coalition when she had the opportunity to do so in October. More on Israel
 
China, Taiwan Ruling Party Meet For Economic Cooperation Talks Top
In another sign of thawing relations, Chinese President Hu Jintao Tuesday met with Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party to reaffirm agreements made in 2005 to improve 'cross-Strait relations' and economic development between the two Asian states, China's state news agency Xinhua reports. The two leaders also reaffirmed a 1992 consensus agreement that opposes the notion of full-on Taiwanese independence, according to Taiwan News. The two states, despite a long history of contention, have come together on a number of issues in the past few years, based on the mutual understanding that peace is better for prosperity. In April, China allowed Taiwan to observe the World Health Organization's World Health Assembly for the first time, which some saw as an implicit recognition of the Taiwanese government, according to the New York Times. Also from The Times: The two sides have reached some concrete agreements as well. This year, the first direct air service between Taiwan and mainland China was started, scrapping the traditional subterfuge of routing all traffic through Hong Kong. More recently, Taiwan increased the daily quota of visitors from China to 3,000, a 10-fold increase. Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter! More on China
 

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