Tuesday, August 25, 2009

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Andy Borowitz: My Script for "Mad Men" Top
INT. STERLING & COOPER - DAY Roger is fixing a drink. Don sits at his desk, brooding. ROGER Polaroid's come out with a new camera that takes instant pictures. Who'll ever buy that? DON A sucker's born every minute. Dan Ellison at BBDO is actually trying to line up sponsors for a rock 'n' roll band from Liverpool, England. ROGER The world's gone mad, I tell you. How's Betty? DON Oh, you know, complaining about being pregnant. I keep telling her, she's not smoking and drinking enough. ROGER At least she's taking her Thalidomide. Don broods. FADE OUT Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times , and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com .
 
Michelle Kraus: August Madness: Politics, Money and Discontent Top
August Madness strikes in the summer of health care discontent. Economics are running wild despite the "cash for clunkers " program. If they weren't so small, maybe folks could live in their new government subsidized cars. But a Prius just doesn't work for a family of five during the school year. Yet it is the last hurrah for consumer credit card companies before regulation. Interest rates skyrocket, and no one is putting the breaks on because Congress is at summer camp learning hand-to-hand combat, Chelsea is getting married on Martha's Vineyard, and Bernanke is still running the Fed. Set against this backdrop, Arianna is waxing longingly about FDR and encouraging Obama to get tough. We know August is always the time when the loonies come out to howl at the moon and do a jig. And yet here we are again locked into August madness without our talking points as: Republicans kick the shit out of the Democrats, Democrats continue to fight among themselves , folks show up to hear the President bearing arms, Liberals threaten to boycott, and the media morphs into whores for ratings. Emotions run high, it's all about juicy drama, and we were not ready. Even sane (and sometimes boring) David Gregory gave into the pressures two weeks ago. Meet the Press entered the arena of high drama news as people tuned in for the tête-à-tête between Rachel and conservative Dick Armey talking about health care reform. Somehow we are locked into the drama of health insurance reform while so many moving parts are ignored. How did we get here? And more importantly, how do we change the conversation? More on Meet the Press
 
Afghan Bomb Strikes At Foreign Entities Top
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A huge bomb detonated on Tuesday night in a part of Kandahar where international aid agencies and United Nations offices are clustered, in an attack assumed to be by the Taliban on foreigners in the country. More on Afghanistan
 
James Hoggan: New "Grassroots" Pro-Coal Group Backed by K-Street PR Firm Top
"The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (FACES of Coal)." the latest "grassroots" organization to join the public conversation on behalf of the coal industry, appears to be a project of the K-Street public relations firm, the Adfero Group , one of industry's most accommodating voices in Washington, D.C. FACES describes itself as "an alliance of people from all walks of life who are joining forces to educate lawmakers and the general public about the importance of coal and coal mining." But Adfero's client list includes Koch Industries and the US Chamber of Commerce, two leaders in the fight to confuse, distort and deny the science of climate change - and especially to block government action that might affect their bottom line. FACES' coming-out press release claimed the new group consists of, "Some 70 different organizations and individuals representing a broad cross-section of people and communities throughout the Appalachian region are the coalition's first members. Any individual, business or organization can join FACES of Coal." But Adfero doesn't specialize in spontaneous public advocacy. It specializes in crafting a "custom-tailored message" and then recruiting "key contacts" who can slam that message home. Here, from Adfero's own website, is their own version: "At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships.  From policymakers to homemakers, people respond best when the message is delivered by someone they know and trust. "That’s where traditional grassroots outreach comes in.  Adfero is able to tap an impressive network of national, state and local contacts to deliver your custom-tailored message.  We’ll identify and recruit local constituents, opinion leaders, community activists or political operatives to engage in activities designed to get attention and results.  We have access to key contacts on the ground who can conduct intercepts with elected officials at speeches, rallies, local town hall meetings and other events." In addition to the recent manipulations on health care, there has been an unprecendented amount of astroturfing by the oil and coal lobby lately. And there is no reason to believe this is anything but. Certainly Adfero hasn't responded to our numerous inquiries with an alternative explanation. Yet someone is paying for Adfero's "grassroots" services in the creation of the pro-coal FACES group. Is it Koch Industries? The US Chamber of Commerce? Or is it someone not included in their list of clients? Once again, it's time Washington created a legal requirement for these groups to come clean on their funding. The American people deserve to know who's realoly behind this campaign. Phony Astroturf groups manipulate democracy in a way that is pointedly dishonest. They work to convince legislators that "people from all walks of life" - also known as "voters" - are fired up about an issue, when in fact the voters in question are the kind of people Eugene McCarthy used to call "provocateurs," taking money from industry to pretend to hold a paricular opinion. It's a practice that should stop - and, clearly, it won't stop without being banged with a legislative hammer.
 
Water Contamination In Wyoming Could Be From Natural Gas Drilling Top
Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination [1] near the ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., have found that at least three water wells contain a chemical used in the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing. Scientists also found traces of other contaminants, including oil, gas or metals, in 11 of 39 wells tested there since March. The study, which is being conducted under the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program, is the first time the EPA has undertaken its own water analysis in response to complaints of contamination in drilling areas, and it could be pivotal in the national debate [2] over the role of natural gas in America's energy policy.
 
Ed Levine: A Rye We Hope Will Improve With Age Top
Note: Ed Levine is off this week; Carey Jones, editor-in-chief of Serious Eats: New York , fills in here. [Photographs by Robyn Lee] Somewhere in this world is a dog-eared manual inscribed with the title: How To Open A Brooklyn Restaurant: 2008-2009 Edition. I'd like to get my hands on a copy, though it's probably buried under piles of Liquor Authority paperwork in someone's Fort Greene apartment. But there's really no need to flip through. A few meals around town gives one good idea of what it might say. Chapter One: The urban-Prohibition aesthetic . Start with a lofty Brooklyn space, exposed brick and/or rafters. Uncover the stamped-tin ceiling, or install one. Frosted glass, ironwork on the windows. Tile floors, bistro tables, and a long mahogany bar. There will be a wine list, a concession to the dining room traditionalists, but it'll play second fiddle to the cocktail menu. Drinks should be spirit-forward, with housemade syrups and sodas, where used; at least two should have a "muddled" component. Bitters are a plus. So are custom ice cubes. Four to six beers on tap -- at least one Belgian, one stout, and one craft beer produced within a 500-yard radius. The menu. Eschew traditional classifications -- really, why corral your plates in outdated brackets? -- and let the dishes roam freely: small plates and large, sandwiches and sides, starter-sized meats and entree-portioned salads. The diners can dictate their own experience. And, of course, the food. Local, seasonal, and fatty. Short rib. Pork belly. The people want fat -- all the better if it comes from a pig, all the better if it comes from a familiar farm. It goes without saying that Rye , arriving in South Williamsburg several months ago, falls neatly into this mold. Which is not to suggest that it's simply capitalizing on a trend. Owner and chef Cal Elliott has earned his culinary chops, most recently at Dressler and DuMont -- establishments that put Williamsburg on the culinary map and, one could argue, helped sketch the outlines of the very patterns Rye abides by. At their best, the plates emerging from this kitchen are intelligently composed and memorably delicious -- the sort one mulls over on the walk home, imagining how to recreate, plotting when to make a return visit. But Rye is maddeningly inconsistent. One could drop $20 on a phenomenal sandwich and pint of craft beer and escape, full and happy, with change -- or ring up twice that and walk away unimpressed. As much bar as a restaurant -- another sign of the times -- Rye mixes a number of impressive cocktails, some of which justify the $10 price tag. It's a rare cocktail bar that doesn't have a gin-and-cucumber concoction on the summer menu, but the Southside is far better (and far less wimpy) than most, with an appealing bite of lime and mint. The grapefruit and white rum Hemingway daiquiri comes off as a rummy lemonade; the Greater Antilles mixes Goslings with a dry housemade ginger beer. Less successful was the Jack Rose, with grenadine and applejack, a bit too reminiscent of a spiked fruit punch. Rye's menu has few straightforward appetizers and entrees, but the crab croquette ($6), with a spicy charred tomato remoulade, is one of the former. Though as wonderfully crabby as you'd find at a beachside shack, the outside crunch gets a bit in the way. This bacon wrapped quail ($12) didn't look particularly comfortable reclining on the red chard and spoonbread. Though the quail itself was cooked well, its cider vinegar sauce was intensely acidic and a bit cloying. Velvety corn spoonbread, on the other hand: sublime. Macaroni and cheese has become as pervasive as the pulled pork slider , and Rye's baked mac and cheese ($10) combines mascarpone, Fontina, Pecorino, and parmesan, with chunks of pancetta and a bread crumb crust. That blend adds textural excitement, cheese both stringy and creamy--but the subtle mascarpone flavor is lost and the sharper cheeses, muted. The glazed meatloaf sandwich ($14) is guilty of the same overcrowding, with duck, veal, pork, and shortrib in a single massive slab. A tasty meatloaf, to be sure, with perfectly fried buttermilk onions; but it seemed a shame for such fine proteins to be relegated to mystery meat. Far better was the braised short rib sandwich ($8), its sultry flavor lightened by a fresh onion jam. Simplicity is not a hallmark of Rye's kitchen, but it's the more focused dishes that come out on top. That sandwich was easily one of the two best plates on the menu, sharing that title with the sturgeon ($14), house-smoked fish over a delicate bed of potato gratin, enlivened by salty bits of pancetta and a mild horseradish cream. It disappeared from the table in minutes. So quickly, our waiter laughed in surprise. Why the artichoke fricassee comes in two sizes when no other dish does so, I've no idea, but the smaller version ($12) is another excellent starter -- a tender artichoke heart over an uncommonly sweet roasted tomato, kale, and hearty (if slightly tough) flageolet beans. The French sardine fillets ($14) were also a standout. The substantial, fleshy fish rest over preserved tomatoes and a fragrant, garlicy salsa verde -- soaking into the sizeable crostino until it dissolves in an olive oil-soaked puddle. Just as if you'd grabbed a slice of bread to mop up the sauce. There's a correct way to prepare duck confit ($16), and Rye gets it right -- endered fat, crispy skin, morsels of meat that fall from the bone. But the housemade gnocchi were a total flop, closer to bits of mashed potato than a properly light pasta. The surrounding sauce couldn't drown its woes, though it certainly tried. A sheen of duck drippings and brown butter tastes incredible; a sea, less so. There's surely a page or two in that restaurant playbook dedicated to roasted chicken ($21), and Rye's is the textbook ideal -- juicy, crisped skin, liberally seasoned. The kitchen is clearly fond of piling meats on wilted greens. It worked better elsewhere, as these were a bit too salty to love. But it's hard not to love a well-cooked hanger steak ($17), left medium-rare and swimming in a dry bordelaise. Desserts, too, went both ways. What the mac and cheese is to today's appetizer menu, donuts (served here with ice cream, $7) are to the dessert list. It's hard to make a terrible donut, and Rye's are perfectly edible, though dry and somewhat crunchy, almost as if they'd been reheated. Donuts don't usually have crusts. These did. And sadly, a mixed berry shortcake ($7) was a total throwaway -- what could have been a three-day old biscuit with a handful of berries tossed on top. But I'd count the steamed lemon cake ($9) among the best summer desserts I've had, soft as a souffle, but with a citrusy zing and a cake's pleasant heft. Just as appealing was the not-quite-molten chocolate cake ($9), neither fudgy nor crumbly, but somewhere softly in between. Thoughtful dishes and obvious afterthoughts, eight-dollar meals and twelve-dollar bites -- Rye is all over the map. This is a kitchen that can turn out faultless duck confit, but whose gnocchi and donuts fall flat. It's frustrating -- in part, because the skill and ambition at play are so apparent. We couldn't figure out why a meal-sized shortrib sandwich cost only two dollars more than a lonely crab croquette, or why the menu had five sections whose components seemed to have little in common. I'm no three-course stalwart, but headers do serve a purpose -- they give one an idea of size, of preparation, of relative value. At Rye, it's hard to know what you're getting into. The waiters are tremendously well-versed in the dishes, but likely because they have to explain them so often. Rye ends up with plenty to recommend itself -- its elegance, its cocktails, its often refined dishes. Here's hoping that the rest of the menu catches up. As it stands, it's certainly possible to have an excellent meal. But equally possible to leave disappointed. Rye 247 South 1st Street, Brooklyn NY 11211 718-218-8047 Service: Welcoming and professional Compare It To: Dressler, Watty and Meg Must-Haves: Short rib sandwich, smoked sturgeon, grilled sardines, steamed lemon cake Cost: $10 cocktails, small plates $6-$14, larger plates $12-$25 Grade: B/B+
 
Marshall Auerback: We Already Have a "Public Option" -- It's Called Medicare Top
Senator Charles Schumer indicated earlier this week that Democrats were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster. Typically for the party that still seems to suffer from an acute case of "Stockholm Syndrome," the Democrats continue to agonize about using their substantial majorities in Congress to fight for what they really believe in and question whether to use a budget reconciliation procedure to incorporate a public health insurance option in the legislation. We've got a better idea for the Democrats, which will enable them to pass a bill without resorting to controversial parliamentary procedures while still incorporating a public health care option. Expand the provisions of Medicare. In the words of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, let's have "Medicare for all Americans." Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has covered almost all citizens over age 65, and it is one of the most popular government programs existing today. Individual state-managed health programs with low reimbursement to caregivers cover additionally most children with congenital malformations and children with many other disorders. For low-income families, the combined federal and state-managed Medicaid program is available for the majority of medical disorders that are not primarily cosmetic. Why not expand its role to incorporate citizens not covered in any of the existing private health insurance plans? Why not, in fact, allow Medicare to compete against private health insurance companies in order to keep them honest? Health care gets complicated when it's built around profits rather than care . Private insurance companies largely generate profits by carefully screening applicants to identify those with a high risk of needing expensive treatment and either rejecting such applicants or charging them higher premiums. But such screening is itself expensive. Furthermore, it tends to screen out exactly those people who most need insurance . The implicit presumption underlying the arguments of opponents of a public health insurance component is that it will add another layer of complex bureaucracy to an already over-encumbered health care system and offer a "consumer unfriendly" service, vastly inferior to private health insurance plans. That being the case, why do these same people argue that a government run health insurance options will create "unfair competitive advantages" vis-a-vis a private health insurance company? In fact, few Americans rail against Medicare or characterize it as a nefarious "socialistic" takeover of the health care system. As a program, it has great political legitimacy and is as strongly entrenched in the American political landscape as our Social Security system. In 1963, most elderly Americans had no health insurance. Few retirement plans provided any such coverage. The poor had little access to medical treatment until they were in critical condition. Only wealthier Americans could get the finest care, and then only by traveling to a few big cities like Boston, Chicago or New York. By 1966, 19 million were enrolled in Medicare ; in 1998, 39 million. Today, 43 million of Americans are covered by the program, yet seldom does one hear a senior citizen complain about struggling under the burden of "socialistic health care.. The program, while not without its flaws, has displayed significantly less cost inflation than private insurance. At 4 percent per year its administrative costs are less than half of most private insurance companies and polls consistently show very high satisfaction among its participants. So why does Senator Kent Conrad continue to suggest that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass a public option for health insurance?.... For more of Marshall Auerback's argument, including specifics on Medicare expansion, visit NewDeal2.0 . More on Health Care
 
Rinku Sen: Caption Contest: Glenn Beck Exposes Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Top
crossposted to Jack & Jill Politics and RaceWire . In honor of Color of Change's ongoing (and successful!) campaign targeting Glenn Beck's advertisers, our caption contest image this week is the Willed-Fury Doughboy himself, presenting damning evidence via whiteboard that... um... Van Jones... green jobs... social justice? It all looks very scary , is the important thing. You know what to do. Best caption wins a copy of Tram Nguyen's Language Is a Place of Struggle: Great Quotes by People of Color . Winner announced next Tuesday. ---------------------------------------------- AND SPEAKING OF: Last week's winner is (drumroll please) RaceWire commenter tonymacias , with: "Y'all come on outside for a minute... and HL, be ready to hold that young man down... I'm going to cut me a switch in the rose garden- be right back with a world of hurt." Totally reprehensible, Tony! Congratulations! And thanks to everyone who commented on RaceWire , Jack & Jill Politics , and Huffington Post ! As you can see, the competition is fierce, so enter early and often. More on Glenn Beck
 
Chris Brown Ordered Not To Contact Rihanna For 5 Years Top
Chris Brown will spend 1,400 hours removing graffiti and washing cars for assaulting Rihanna. Brown, 20, was formally sentenced in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday to six months of community labor in Virginia after he pleaded guilty in June to one count of felony assault against Rihanna, 21. More on Chris Brown & Rihanna
 
Stephanie Gertler: The Sanford Marriage: Vogue v. Rogue? Top
Who really knows exactly what happened in the Sanford marriage? Probably only that hapless fly on the wall. According to both Mark and Jenny Sanford, difficulties were brewing long before the governor's emotional and public meltdown. Romantics might argue that he really did find his soul mate in Maria Belen Chapur and finally got to a breaking point where neither his marriage nor his political career mattered as much as the woman he truly loved. Publicists and campaign managers who were looking forward to his 2012 run for the presidential nomination might contend that putting romance aside instead of shooting himself in the political aspirations would have been wiser. Religious zealots might say he betrayed God and the Bible and succumbed to temptation. Constituents may feel he betrayed his country (well, certainly the state of South Carolina). Some women might say he's just a cad and how dare he do that to his wife and family. Some men might say that the governor had good reason. Some might say boys will be boys. For sure, many of us would agree that their four young sons are about to come from a broken home, and two people who thought they could make a dream come true woke up to a grim reality for whatever the reasons. Jenny seems to have said a lot of different things in the last month or so since all this has gone down. To her credit, she moved out of the governor's mansion - kids in tow. I applauded her for that: for me, I couldn't understand how Silda Spitzer and Diane McGreevy stood by their husbands in their roles as political wives: What message were they sending to our daughters, never mind to all women who were deceived? Their husbands didn't betray the political wife/first lady of the state - they betrayed the women they married years before. I applauded Jenny for the brave move to pack up the kids and move to their beach house on Sullivan's Island until the Vogue spread hit the stands: My visceral reaction was that she was putting herself and her kids back in the media spotlight just as the sad scenario was fading into the landscape. I questioned how she could say she wanted her family to heal, wanted to protect her children, and stated that her move wasn't an impetuous act, but rather one considered with a great deal of thought and care. Admirable with a touch of gravitas until her intimate revelations in Vogue: that the two never had a spark between them even in the beginning - "we were never madly in love, but compatible and good friends" - to me, that sounds like a bad recipe for a marriage. Jenny goes on to say that her husband's extramarital relationship with Maria was an addiction, an obsession, a mid-life crisis. That's where I began to get more confused, and questioned her motives: If parenting is so important to her, why reveal details of their last 20 years let alone the last year? Mark Sanford was no better. In his most public apology, also rife with way too much information, he apologized not only to his wife and children but to his staff, constituents and friends: As his wife, I would not have wanted to be lumped in with everyone else. As his wife, I would have preferred he said it was a private matter. To make matters worse for both his wife and sons, he made it quite clear that his relationship was far from a fling: He was in love with Maria. A love that started as a "deep deep friendship" and became "much more than just sex." She was, in fact, his soul mate. For those "women scorned" who are not solicited by Vogue, what do we do to retrieve our self-esteem, and get over the humiliation of our husband's infidelity? Given her husband's (mind you, not the governor's, but her husband's) televised confession, my confusion began to lift. I'm thinking now that Jenny's Vogue spread was the equivalent of Carrie Underwood's hit line "I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights:" Rage with dignity. And waffling again, I think of Mark Sanford who, by his own admission, was a repeat offender when it came to marital fidelity. He said he'd "crossed the line" before - but this time it was different. Another hit song? "I fooled around and fell in love?" Does this make him human or a cad? Should he have held himself to higher standards since he was a governor and a presidential wannabe? Or should he and Jenny have dissolved their marriage years before regardless of political goals? Or, based upon Jenny's statement that their marriage was never one of passion, did they both sell their souls to the devil only to find the price was untenable both personally and politically? Can we not have divorced governors, senators, and presidents? Does America really love redemption that much? Would America rather have a bad marriage in The White House than no marriage at all? A psychiatrist once told me two things when it comes to marriage: No one ever completely heals from infidelity and each spouse has their own true version of the truth. As an outsider, the only component I question in the Sanford marriage (disclaimer: of which I really have no knowledge) is whether or not, in that passionless beginning as told according to Jenny Sanford, they both knew some place in their souls that they were doomed from the start. And, at the end of the day, does the American public really have to know what goes on in and out of a politician's bedroom and marriage? Isn't it bad enough for just the couple, the kids, and the extended family? Between his confession and her Vogue glam piece, I'm wondering what purpose either public performance really serves either of them.
 
Carl Pope: The Wizards of "No" Top
Springfield, IL -- This city is most famous as the political launching pad for Abraham Lincoln, a president who famously put serving the Constitution above everything else. But this summer it's seeing politics of a different kind -- Representative John Shimkus, for example, regaled the Illinois State Fair with the battle cry of the current Congressional Republican party: You know there's a chant going on in America right now. And you know, it's really not a Republican chant yet. But it's a Republican chant by the grassroots America that are attending thousands of townhall meetings. And as congressmen enter these townhall meetings, what is the public saying to them? They are saying, "Just say no. Just say no. Just say no." Now, Republicans -- that is going to be our chant from now until Election Day, because we've been saying no for a long time. Lincoln, the father of Republican Party, would have been appalled. But the nation, including the press, is sleeping through a fundamental threat to self-government. An essential principal of democracy is that, while minorities must be respected and their rights guaranteed, governance rests with majorities. But since 1993, the U.S. Senate has turned what was once a historical anomaly -- an occasional days-long filibuster on issues of enormous controversy -- into a routine political tool that has elevated minority rule into perhaps the most important political dynamic in the country. In fact, a minority of forty senators -- enough to block action under the current culture -- might actually represent as little as 20 percent of the nation's population. Combine this with a Republican party that, in Washington at least, has decided that Congress should work on a bitterly partisan basis, and our government has lost its capacity to reflect the basic rules of our Constitution -- that government rests upon the consent of the governed. The American people have not consented to the continued control of our lives, environment, and economy that is currently enjoyed by the coal and oil industries -- polls have consistently shown for two decades that they want energy innovation and transformation. At various times, a majority of Congress that also represents a large majority of the American people has been willing to respect this public will. Since the election of Barack Obama (and for the first time since the early days of the Clinton administration), the White House has agreed. But, because minority rule in the Senate blocks action, the lock that Big Carbon has on our economy has not been broken. It's time to call the current rules of the Senate what they are -- a coup d'état by the minority, enabled by the desire of Democratic senators to hold on to the individual veto power those rules give them. This folly brought Bill Clinton's administration to its knees in 1993 -- and it's on the verge of doing the same thing to Barack Obama's.
 
Stephen Herrington: A Public Conundrum Top
If the public is overwhelmingly for health care reform, 70-80%, then why are they against legislation that attempts to do something about it? In Real Clear Politics David Kuhn offers a reasonable analysis of the polling outcomes in his "The Health Care Reform Paradox." From his work can be gleaned a sense that progressive thinking is swimming against a current of public opinion that was set in motion thirty years ago. Simply, the public wants government to do something but does not trust it to do anything. Mr. Kuhn, not to disparage in any sense, but that is not a paradox, it's a tragedy of conflicted sentiments. With the exception of some rare and well documented psychiatric conditions, what makes people crazy is conflicting goals. Two competing and mutually exclusive goals will melt down even the better brains of the body politic. In health care, the desire for reform is in conflict with the perception of increased personal costs. The entire argument that personal costs will increase due to government involvement is built on a spurious notion. Unfortunately, the spurious notion that government can't do anything right is a notion that is not easily dispelled. After all, it has taken thirty years of right wing propaganda to make the delusional, paralyzing, bed in which we now lie. Congress, now, perfectly reflects the mental status of the nation with regard to health care. Congress is no more or less conflicted, albeit for less honest reasons, than is the public and in roughly the same proportions. Senators and Representatives from districts that have the highest distrust of government are those most likely to be wary of government solutions. They focus the craziness of their constituents on the problem and therefore make it harder to solve. To them I might say that if you do not believe in the efficacy of government action, what are you doing serving in government? Much ink is devoted to the effects of lobbyists and well financed direct ads funded by vested interests. That is certainly a concern. But the fact remains that the public is disposed to listen to the lies that exploit their fear of government. In this and many cases, that fear is used to influence the public to act against their own best interests. In a broader perspective, this is a battle that was won for the right when Ronald Reagan took office. The RNC has fed and nurtured the "government is the problem" meme for two generations now. And that meme was designed to do exactly what it has done, make the public quite crazy with regard to government. The poll numbers, as Mr. Kuhn's raw data show, perfectly reflect this. "Government is the problem" has been around so long that it is never even questioned by a disturbing plurality, both left and right. Is there something special about American government that makes it less trustworthy, or are all governments innately incompetent and corrupt? Is the Constitution, a product of an effort to create a better form of government, also to be distrusted because it is, ultimately, yet just another form of government and all governments are corrupt? Working in and starting up some of America's corporations might lead one to believe that all corporations are corrupt and incompetent. I have been there and done that. Waste and fraud and crime are not an exclusive attribute of government by any means. Poor decisions are made, all day every day, by CEOs and board members and line managers in every company in America. Some are better than others. Some can produce five times the product with a fifth of the staff of others. Some stay in business by means of monopolistic practices. Some businesses exist only by means of cannibalizing others in mergers and acquisitions, wonton destruction more often than not. According to Booz Allen Hamilton, a management consulting firm, two thirds of all mergers fail. One in ten start up businesses succeed. Have two thirds of all government programs failed? Have nine of ten government programs failed? Government and businesses are run and staffed from the same source, us. The 80/20 rule applies no more or less to both. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Corruption and incompetence in either of government or business is simply a reflection of us, our decency and our ethics. So to win the health care debate with the public, the prejudices of thirty years of conditioning must be undone. It is doubtful that this can be accomplished in a fortnight. But what makes the task a bit less onerous is that the election of a Democratic President and Congress reflects a sea change in sentiments about government competence. Ultimately, it is the task of those elected officials to win the hearts and minds of the untrusting public through positive results. There will always be a Republican-like party out there, lying, distorting, twisting and intimidating for profit. There is never enough profit. But to undo their disproportionate influence on society is best served by proving government to be trustworthy, to be at least as trustworthy and competent as private enterprise is falsely vaunted to be. Pass the health care reform bill that honestly will garner the best result for the public in both caring and cost. Pass it and sign it over the objections of a public that is, by way of Republican investment in untruth about government, conflicted and therefore unable to make up their damned minds. It's the right thing to do. More on Health Care
 
Andy Plesser: Video: Msnbc.com Chief Says Video Transcripts Make Editing Scalable with "Minimum Human Intervention" Top
REDMOND, WA -- The transcription of the voice track of video has proven to be a big value by making video more searchable. Now, it is making video editing more effective and scalable, explains Charles Tillinghast, President and Publisher of msnbc.com. A number of technologies are being used by msnbc.com to automatically transcribe and organize raw video and create associated transcripts as part of the production flow. Charlie says that these emerging, automated systems can create edited videos with "minimum human intervention." Msnbc.com has been working closely with technology provider Nexidia to enable this process. We caught up with Charlie last month at the Redmond headquarters of msnbc.com This video was originally published on Beet.TV. Video Transcript Charles Tillinghast: Well the voice to text index is something that we debuted during the presidential debates, where we were able to take the transcripts of the debates, abstract the key words, and then allow people to click on those key words and go straight to the portion of the video. We did it again for the inauguration. That progress on that has continued and so we're now getting to the point where we'll be able to offer that product on almost any video we run. In addition, it provides a big productivity boost for us because we are gradually able to not have to have humans cut each clip, you know, mark the in and mark the out for a particular clip. Instead, we can use this indexing technology to do the automatic cutting and so we can process a vastly greater amount of video without any increase in head count. Jeff Brooks: So, the key to video now, it's really come down to the metatag and the keying and the keywords, that's really where this, the whole shift seems to have come for everybody making money right now? Charles Tillinghast: Yeah, that's really the key to being able to process the video and search for it and to put it...to be able to put it where you want it on the site. But the big problem with metadata has been trying to get human beings to type in what those key words are at the point of production. And that's very difficult because often times you have field producers that are not even aware that their video is going to be used on the web, who are expected to put in the right key words to make it searchable. That's a very long chain of custody, if you will, for a piece of video to maintain integrity for metadata. So that's why our automated system is so important because we're not going to be relying on human beings to type those words in. We're going to take the words that are spoken on the video and be able to abstract out what the metadata, the keywords are, make that the metadata, make it searchable and do it all in a very very productive, low cost, low labor content way. NBC has a vast reservoir of video assets and they are producing fresh video every day more than any other news organization because NBC has msnbc cable, and they have nightly news, Dateline, Meet the Press, The Today Show, and special reports, and local reports, so the quantity of video available to us is unmatched by any of our competitors, but getting all of that into one bucket can be challenging and that's why what we're asking msnbc to do and what they're doing for themselves is that they're getting it all into one place, they're standardizing how all that video is produced and then we're able to grab that video that has made it as far as the television production level and take it an automated way directly into our digital systems and out onto the web. So we're getting very close to the point where there's a minimum amount of human intervention and touching of a video clip once it's shot by the producer. In the old school, or the old method was we had, what I used to euphemistically call, the world's largest TIVO where we would have satellite dishes on the roof of our building, we'd bring in the content, put it into a gigantic database, and then record it there and then go through manually and pick out the videos that we want to put on the web. Now that we're using the automated metadata we're able to drop it into a database inside of NBC, pull it from there directly into our systems, and then make it searchable for our users directly off our site, and then our editors are focused on basically what are the most important videos or the top videos and placing those prominently on the story pages of our site and our cover, but the rest of it is being handled in an automated way so that we can offer a big array of video choices to our users and with our player, the navigation enhancements on our player, what we're finding is that our player is that demand has has shifted significantly from the most popular videos, the top videos, to the tail, and that we're seeing much more take up on tail viewing of video in a way that we have not seen before. Jeff Brooks: And by tail you mean the niche stuff? Charles Tillinghast: The niche stuff. And so it used to be that, in round numbers, that 80% of the videos watched were the top 100 most popular videos, or 80% of the streams were amongst the top 100 videos. Now we're seeing that it's almost shifting so that the majority of the streams viewed, or the videos viewed, the streams that we're aggregating are outside of that top 100. So, interest is being spread across a large set of topics and news stories and it's not as concentrated on just a few stories that we happen to put on the cover. Now the exception, of course, is something like the Michael Jackson story. So you'll have a huge story, but when there's not a huge story we're able to see much more diversity and interest, and that means that we're doing a better job of surfacing this content and making/giving our users the content that is most of interest to them. More on MSNBC
 
Jill Brooke: Celine Dion's Pregnancy News Should Come With A Disclaimer - Not Many Women Can Have Babies Post-40 Top
Banner headlines and breathy stories beamed the news that Celine Dion was pregnant at 41 with another child. Immediately, news outlets paraded a list of other age-defying, fabulous-looking celebrities who had babies post-40, as though this is as easy to do as baking a cherry pie. But the truth is there are many pits buried in the sweetness of this story. The Daily Beast presented a slideshow of celebrities pictured with their dimpled-cheeked children and shared the age at which their bundle of joys were conceived and delivered. Halle Barry did it at 41. Salma Hayek at 40, Brooke Shields at 41, with the help of IVF. Susan Sarandon, who was told she couldn't have kids, had Eva at 39, Jack at 42 and Henry at 45. And Iman, we were told, was able to conceive at 44 after following an African fertility custom of holding someone else's baby for a day -- in her case, Christie Brinkley's, who natch had a baby post-40. Okay, now guess how many women believe that having a baby after 40 is not difficult? "Ninety percent of young women are convinced that they can wait until they're 45 to have a baby," says Sylvia Hewlett, the author of "Creating A Life." "That is a recipe for disaster. And this misinformation seriously distorts the thinking of young women. I think this is a great shame. Women need to know the truth and plan accordingly." Here are some sobering facts. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, almost one in five women seeking infertility treatments are over 40 and two-thirds will not be able to get pregnant on their own. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that a 40 year old woman going through IVF has a 23 percent chance of getting pregnant using her own eggs, and if conception happens, only a 16 percent chance of carrying the pregnancy through birth. Sure, high-tech fertility treatments up the odds. Twice as many women have children after 40 than 20 years ago. One success story is my sister-in-law who became pregnant naturally at 42. But those odds are still small. I know plenty of other friends who didn't and still live with emotional scars. By the age of 44, there's less than a one percent chance that a woman's eggs can produce a child. Years ago, I asked Manhattan specialist Dr. Jonathan Scher how come so many celebrities were having babies way past 40 and simultaneously claiming that these kids came from their eggs. "Not everyone is telling the truth," Dr. Scher told me. "Many use donor eggs and want to keep it private." (Donor eggs up the ante to a 51 percent success rate.) By the age of 37, fertility drops as quickly as the Dow circa October 2008. It is an indisputable fact just like it still takes nine/ten months to have a baby. I was in my mid-30's when I started going through my IVF treatments. I even went to Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, the same specialist who worked magic for Celine Dion. At first, he asked why I hadn't started earlier than 34. "Had to find the right husband which is not easy to do," I quipped. After six failed IVF treatments, Dr. Rosenwaks suggested I consider donor eggs or adoption. Despondent -- and seriously depleted of my savings because of the $15,000 IVF price tag that CNN, my employer, did not cover -- I went away with my husband to just chillax. Sure enough, I got pregnant naturally and was blessed enough to have my son. Upon my pregnancy test, I marched into Dr. Zev Rosenwaks office, elated and confused. How could this have happened when you said my odds were virtually impossible? "Sometimes, the sun, the moon and stars line up inexplicably and it works," he replied. "But this is still very rare." Yes, I was one of the lucky ones, but never one of the smug ones. I couldn't have another baby despite my valiant efforts and more IVFs and operations. And it made me more convinced of what a disservice all these stories about successful pregnancies create for the many women who are visiting those fertility clinics day after day, shooting themselves with stiletto-sized needles and subjecting themselves to the painful daily blood tests in order to get pregnant. It is not their fault that the results are not positive despite their heroic efforts. We need some more stories about the women who don't get pregnant and how they open up the chamber of their hearts for adopted children, stepchildren or become devoted aunts and teachers. So what do I tell my stepdaughter, now in her 20s, who is building a career and independence so essential to a woman's well being? Settle with a guy before 34 or wait until the right one comes even if it's at 40? I know I'll tell her not to believe the news reports that seem to convey that having a baby at any age is possible. As with most contracts, you have to read the fine print for the disclaimers. Complicating matters, I have an expertise in divorce and see every day what happens when couples marry for the wrong reasons. The truth is I am a much better parent because I waited and because I married the right guy who shared the same devotion to family as I do. A previous pregnancy was aborted because I knew it was neither the right time nor the right guy. Deep in my soul, I still believe that 20 years later and have never regretted that decision. Even knowing what I know, I still would tell my stepdaughter not to settle. But instead be informed of all her options. And as for Celine Dion, the second child she is now carrying was from a fertilized egg created eight years ago. Once again, some media scrambled the story because technically the egg is not from a 41 year old woman.
 
Hale "Bonddad" Stewart: Bernanke Has Earned A Second Term Top
Today we learned that the Obama administration is going to re-nominate Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve. This is a very positive development because Bernanke has demonstrated that he is more than capable at the job. There are several reasons why he should be given a second term. First, a bit of history is in order. One of the primary reasons for the Great Depression was the banking crisis of 1929-1933. Over these years, there were three banking crisis which essentially froze the country leading to a mammoth contraction in GDP. This Great Contraction (as labeled by Milton Friendman) was a primary reason for the Great Depression. This lesson was not lost on Bernanke. As a graduate student he studied the Great Depression. In fact, his collection titled "Essays on the Great Depression" is available for purchase. If you were going to write a fictitious resume for a central banker to deal with the situation it would probably read a great deal like Bernanke's. In short, he is literally a near perfect match. Now consider this video from Representative Paul Kanjorski: On September 15 of last year, the US was literally hours away from a financial meltdown. Had this happened, the entire financial system would have fallen apart. The economic ramifications would have been a disaster - as in we would be in the middle of another depression. This is the primary reason why the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was rushed through so quickly. Regardless of the ways the economy got to that point - and there were a number of major contributing factors - curing them at that time would not have been prudent. Think of it this way. If someone gets drunk and drives their car into a pole, lecturing them about alcoholism in the emergency room is not a good idea. At that time, the goal is to keep them alive. And that's exactly what the Federal Reserve proposed and did. But that's not all. Bernanke and the Fed came up with a number of programs to ease the credit crisis and promote liquidity. Most of these names are familiar by now. But the point is that short-term interest rates as measured by the A2/P2 spread are now back to far more normal levels. In addition, a changing of the guard right now would not be a good idea, especially with the economy in a very fragile place. The markets have learned to trust Bernanke; getting traders used to another Federal Reserve head would not be in our best interest. The primary knock against Bernanke is that he didn't see the crisis coming. This is true. In fact, the only people who really got the call right were bloggers. However, once the problem became apparent Bernanke thought outside of the box and worked as quickly as possible to deal with the problem. Simply put, he did a good job. I was originally wary of Bernanke. I was also critical at times. However, the proof is in the pudding. The economy is bottoming and a recovery (albeit a weak one) is in sight. This is not the time to change partners - especially considering Bernanke was instrumental in preventing a complete financial meltdown. He should be appointed for another term. More on The Fed
 
Robert Slayton: Libertarians, Conservatives, and Health Care Top
I'm going to say something nice about libertarians. The fact is, libertarians actually believe in the free market. Unlike pro-business conservatives. And by the way, what does this have to do with the most controversial issue in America, namely the future of health care in this country? First, let's examine the difference between libertarians and pro-business conservatives. Libertarians sincerely are anti-government and hence believe devoutly in the free market. This puts many of them at odds with conservatives, on issues like marijuana use, and even at times, abortion rights. They don't want social conservatives using government to enforce rules on private behavior. Libertarians I know have shared with some liberals opposition to defense spending; in the case of the former, this results from a general distaste for any form of government expansion. And libertarians don't accept government intervention in favor of big business, either. Pro-business conservatives, on the other hand, support the business community, and not necessarily the free market. They rail, for example, at government intervention into business affairs, but fight for government spending in favor of business, in the form of subsidies, rigged contracts, and downright grants. They also endorse, and lobby heavily for, monopolistic and oligopolistic practices that limit or control the market. How many conservatives, for example, objected back in the fifties when the Big 3 auto companies ran the car business, and produced vehicles, no matter how unique the styling, of similar sizes, prices, and safety features? And who in the business community would support efforts to change how the oil companies work? I have always believed that if one really believed in the free market, the only governmental agency worthy of support would be a strong anti-trust program, to prevent these kinds of abuses and instead make sure that competition was open to everyone. Most businessman support the free market when they are starting out, a marketplace they can enter and compete in. If they reach the top, they prefer a closed marketplace that they dominate, in which they can maximize profits. That's pro-business, not pro-free marketplace. What has this to do with the health care debate going on in the country today? One of the most hotly contested issues is the public option. Pro-business conservatives argue vehemently against this idea, on the grounds that, above all, people might actually opt for it. They provide all kinds of arguments for how it might be preferable to many Americans, and how this is bad. This, of course, from the same spokesmen who attack government for being inefficient and incompetent. If this were true, what do they have to worry about? How about, instead, accepting the public option as one alternative among many, then letting the free market work its magic? The fact is, they are worried about profits, not the validity of the marketplace. They want control and limited players, not an open, capitalistic system. Thus it is those advocating the public option, not the pro-business conservatives, who are fighting for a truly competitive program. It is time to let competition into the health care business. Maybe we should listen to the libertarians, and open the contest to everyone.
 
French Bankers Agree To Limits On Bonuses Top
PARIS -- President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on Tuesday announced steps, agreed to by bankers, to curb excessive compensation in the industry as he pledged to push for tighter international rules at a meeting of global leaders next month.
 
Barrett Brown: New Republic Editor Martin Peretz Blasts Someone For Something, Sort Of Top
The following paragraph was written this morning by Martin Peretz , the editor-in-chief of The New Republic , itself formerly revered as one of the best publications in the world: "The New York Post and Reuters both report not exactly that Bernie Madoff has cancer. But that he's told his fellow inmates that he has cancer, pancreatic cancer, at that. Which means that, if the tale is true, he'll be a goner soon, very soon. Unless there's a medical miracle, as sometimes there is even in such terrible afflictions of the pancreas." If sentences were children, these would all be crippled from polio. To understand what Peretz thinks he's getting at, you must first understand that Peretz's entire reign at The New Republic has been marked by a cartoonish brand of hawkishness directed almost entirely against the Arab and Muslim peoples. Under his tenure at TNR, the term "murderous Arabs" has appeared therein , as if characterizing a nationality thusly was the most natural thing in the world for a liberal magazine to do. His own writings are given over largely to accounts of Arab and Muslim perfidy; among other things, he has asserted that Arabs are incapable of maintaining a "truly civil society." In content, approach, and intent, his output is no different from that of the various websites that catalogue the real or imagined crimes of blacks or Jews or both. Not that I am bothered by his or anyone else's racism, which is directed only towards mere people. But why his perpetual assault on grammar? Grammar isn't an Arab, Marty. You're thinking of algebra. Logic, likewise, is no Muslim, and yet Peretz insists on demeaning it as it were on Hajj. The point he approaches today is spelled out more clearly in his blog headline: "Madoff Has Cancer, Too. Why Not Release Him or At Least Send Him Home on House Arrest?" What he means is that the alleged Lockerbie bomber has been released to his home by virtue of having late-stage cancer, and now here's Bernie Madoff, who never even killed anyone, and he's supposedly dying of cancer but has yet to receive the same sweet deal that was given to this murderous Arab. Lest anything be left to chance, Peretz amplifies his insight thusly: "So the master Ponzi schemer is now in the hands of the president as top man in the federal penal system. Since Obama seems to think that Libyan terrorist al-Megrahi, who had 16 years of a 27-year 'life' sentence yet to serve, should be put under house arrest until death, why not do the same kindness for Bernie?" Peretz clearly believes that (1) Barack Obama is the "top man in the federal penal system" and is thus in a position to demote Madoff's sentence to mere house arrest; that (2) Barack Obama wants al-Megrahi to spend his last days at home; and that (3) if Scotland follows its own regulations to the effect that a terminally ill prisoner is released to his home, then the U.S. should follow the same non-existent regulations in respect to a certain prisoner who happens to be wildly famous. If Peretz were someone other than Peretz, he would know that (1) Obama is not the "top man in the federal penal system" and has no power whatsoever to reduce a man's sentence to house arrest; that (2) rather than believing that al-Megrahi "should be put under house arrest until death," Obama has clearly stated that al-Megrahi should have remained in the Scottish prison; and that, contrary to Peretz, (3) it is hardly hypocritical for Obama to refrain from using a power he doesn't have to do something of which he doesn't approve based on a regulation that doesn't apply. In conclusion, I demand that the Constitution be suspended and a state of emergency declared until such time as Martin Peretz can be removed from control of The New Republic , at which, point civilian rule may be restored. More on Barack Obama
 
From Bank of America, Two Different Stories About Tracking Bailout Funds Top
Is Bank of America, the nation's largest bank, tracking how it spends $45 billion in taxpayer funds? That depends on which Bank of America statement you believe. The bank told the Treasury Department in May that it couldn't follow the money it received through the government's $700 billion bailout program because those funds "are part of our operating capital" and "cannot effectively be segregated." Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis made a similar statement in February to the House Financial Services Committee. "As a practical matter, we cannot tell you whether the next loan we make is funded by that $45 billion," Lewis said in his written testimony . But two weeks ago, inside a federal courthouse in Manhattan, the bank had a different story. According to news accounts of the hearing, the bank's lawyers promised Judge Jed S. Rakoff that the financial giant would not use taxpayer dollars to make a $33 million payment to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The commission charged that Bank of America had misled investors about billions of dollars in bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives when the bank acquired Merrill in January. The Bank's promise to the judge leads Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, to ask: How can the bank guarantee that it won't pay the SEC from public funds if it can't track how it spends those funds? "The only question is are they lying now or were they lying then," Grayson said today in an interview with the Investigative Fund. "I'm disgusted that they would so greatly contradict themselves." Grayson said the "simplest way" to find out the truth would be to require Bank of America executives to testify under oath before Congress. Judge Rakoff also could demand a straight answer. In general, if a lawyer makes a "knowing material misrepresentation" to a judge, the lawyer could be held in contempt of court and be sanctioned by state bar authorities or the judge, according to William Sullivan, who was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for more than 10 years. Even lawyers who make an honest mistake are "obliged to correct the record," said Sullivan, now a corporate defense attorney at Winston & Strawn. "You have an obligation as an officer of the court to make truthful statements to the best of your ability." In an interview, bank spokesman Scott Silvestri acknowledged telling reporters after the hearing in New York that taxpayer money would not be used to pay the settlement. He declined to explain how his statement--and the lawyers' statements to the judge--could be reconciled with the bank's earlier claims that the money can't be tracked. As for that $45 billion in public funds, the bank intends to repay the money "as soon as possible," Silvestri said, adding that the funds would eventually be a "good investment" for taxpayers. Silvestri said that the bank has lent $13 for every one dollar it has received from taxpayers, an amount totaling $585 billion. (A breakdown of that lending can be found here. ) Because they are among the largest recipients of bailout money, the Treasury Department requires only Bank of America and Citigroup to produce quarterly accounts of their use of these funds. But answering how the funds are being used, Lewis told Congress, "is tougher than it sometimes seems." Citigroup, however, has not had a problem tracking its spending. This month it produced a 26-page "progress report" detailing how it has used government dollars. "American taxpayers made a significant investment in the financial industry, and Citi believes they have a right to know exactly how their money is being put to work in the economy," said Citi spokeswoman Molly Meiners. Bank of America, meanwhile, submitted to Treasury a general one-page "discussion" on its use of government funds, according to a report by the Treasury Department's special inspector general for the bailout. Now the inspector general's office wants more. "When we know where the money is going, we have transparency and accountability," said Kristine Belisle, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. More immediately, Bank of America is struggling to resolve its dispute with the SEC over the Merrill matter. Judge Rakoff refused to approve the $33 million proposed settlement, which does not require the bank to admit wrongdoing, because he thought it was too small. More on Merrill Lynch
 
From Bank of America, Two Different Stories About Tracking Bailout Funds Top
Is Bank of America, the nation's largest bank, tracking how it spends $45 billion in taxpayer funds? That depends on which Bank of America statement you believe. The bank told the Treasury Department in May that it couldn't follow the money it received through the government's $700 billion bailout program because those funds "are part of our operating capital" and "cannot effectively be segregated." Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis made a similar statement in February to the House Financial Services Committee. "As a practical matter, we cannot tell you whether the next loan we make is funded by that $45 billion," Lewis said in his written testimony . But two weeks ago, inside a federal courthouse in Manhattan, the bank had a different story. According to news accounts of the hearing, the bank's lawyers promised Judge Jed S. Rakoff that the financial giant would not use taxpayer dollars to make a $33 million payment to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The commission charged that Bank of America had misled investors about billions of dollars in bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives when the bank acquired Merrill in January. The Bank's promise to the judge leads Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, to ask: How can the bank guarantee that it won't pay the SEC from public funds if it can't track how it spends those funds? "The only question is are they lying now or were they lying then," Grayson said today in an interview with the Investigative Fund. "I'm disgusted that they would so greatly contradict themselves." Grayson said the "simplest way" to find out the truth would be to require Bank of America executives to testify under oath before Congress. Judge Rakoff also could demand a straight answer. In general, if a lawyer makes a "knowing material misrepresentation" to a judge, the lawyer could be held in contempt of court and be sanctioned by state bar authorities or the judge, according to William Sullivan, who was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for more than 10 years. Even lawyers who make an honest mistake are "obliged to correct the record," said Sullivan, now a corporate defense attorney at Winston & Strawn. "You have an obligation as an officer of the court to make truthful statements to the best of your ability." In an interview, bank spokesman Scott Silvestri acknowledged telling reporters after the hearing in New York that taxpayer money would not be used to pay the settlement. He declined to explain how his statement--and the lawyers' statements to the judge--could be reconciled with the bank's earlier claims that the money can't be tracked. As for that $45 billion in public funds, the bank intends to repay the money "as soon as possible," Silvestri said, adding that the funds would eventually be a "good investment" for taxpayers. Silvestri said that the bank has lent $13 for every one dollar it has received from taxpayers, an amount totaling $585 billion. (A breakdown of that lending can be found here. ) Because they are among the largest recipients of bailout money, the Treasury Department requires only Bank of America and Citigroup to produce quarterly accounts of their use of these funds. But answering how the funds are being used, Lewis told Congress, "is tougher than it sometimes seems." Citigroup, however, has not had a problem tracking its spending. This month it produced a 26-page "progress report" detailing how it has used government dollars. "American taxpayers made a significant investment in the financial industry, and Citi believes they have a right to know exactly how their money is being put to work in the economy," said Citi spokeswoman Molly Meiners. Bank of America, meanwhile, submitted to Treasury a general one-page "discussion" on its use of government funds, according to a report by the Treasury Department's special inspector general for the bailout. Now the inspector general's office wants more. "When we know where the money is going, we have transparency and accountability," said Kristine Belisle, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. More immediately, Bank of America is struggling to resolve its dispute with the SEC over the Merrill matter. Judge Rakoff refused to approve the $33 million proposed settlement, which does not require the bank to admit wrongdoing, because he thought it was too small. More on Merrill Lynch
 
Pics: Dem Party Offices In Denver Vandalized, 11 Windows Broken Top
The Colorado Democratic Party headquarters in Denver was vandalized this past week in what party officials say was a protest against President Obama's health care agenda. Twenty-four-year-old Maurice Schwenkler was arrested on Tuesday morning on suspicion of smashing eleven windows at the party's Denver office. The state party chair, Pat Waak, told local press that the vandalism seemed tied to the ongoing health care debate. Windows that were shattered contained posters that praised Obama's efforts to push through health care. The Denver Post reports on the incident and quotes Waak as estimating the damage at $11,000. A Democratic source, meanwhile, has sent The Huffington Post pictures taken from the scene of the crime that shows the extent of the vandalism. Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Health Care
 
SAT scores dip for high school class of 2009 Top
Through the early 1990s and early 2000s, average scores on the SAT college entrance exam moved steadily upward. Now, for the last five years, they've been drifting back down. The reason? Unlike on the multiple-choice sections of the test itself, there's no one right answer. But a big factor is the larger, more diverse group of students taking the tests, combined with a widening scoring gap between the best-performing groups and those whose numbers are growing fastest. Results released Tuesday show the high school class of 2009 earned a combined score of 1509 on the three sections of the exam, down two points from last year. The average reading and writing scores dropped one point each, while math scores held steady. Experts caution against reading too much into the national average SAT score, given the test-taking pool changes over time and can vary widely among states. Still, the average score is now down nine points since 2006, when the writing section was first included and the test moved to a combined 2400-point scale. Math scores are higher over the last decade, but reading scores are four points below their 1999 level. The College Board, which administers the exam, emphasized the growing diversity of SAT-takers. Minorities made up 40 percent of last year's group, and more than a quarter of the 1.5 million test-takers reported English was not their first language at home. That's good news in that more students aspire to college, but it also weighs down the overall scores because, on average, students from most minority groups score lower. The exception is Asian-Americans, whose average combined score surged 13 points to a combined 1623, while scores for whites fell 2 points to 1581. For black students, average scores dropped 4 points to 1276. Average scores for two of the three categories the College Board uses for identifying Hispanics also declined, and overall ranged from 1345 to 1364. Men also widened their advantage over women by 3 points; men scored 1523 on average compared to 1496 for women. The difference comes mostly from math scores. Students reporting their families earned over $200,000 scored 1702, up 26 points from a year ago. That group is comparatively small, but the sharp increase could fuel further criticism the exam favors students who can afford expensive test-prep tutoring. The SAT remains the most common college entrance exam, though the rival ACT has nearly caught up in popularity. Most colleges accept either, and a growing minority no longer requires either one. Still, fewer than half of high school graduates take the three-hour, 45-minute SAT, and the group is tilted toward higher-achieving, college-bound students. "I just don't think it's a good gauge of what's going on nationally," said Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said the SAT remains a useful tool, when combined with high school GPA, for evaluating how well individual students are prepared for college. Experts generally pay closer attention to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, because, unlike college entrance exams, it represents the entire population of students. On those exams, K-12 black and Hispanic students have made bigger gains than whites since the 1970s. Since 2004, they've made improvements in reading and math at every level or age tested, but the achievement gap between minority and white students has remained wide because whites have also done better. College Board officials don't attribute the widening SAT scoring gap directly to race but to factors that correlate with race, such as the likelihood of exposure to a rigorous high school curriculum. Students taking a core curriculum – including four years of English and three each of science, social science and history – scored 44-46 points higher on each section of the SAT. "Our data suggest the gap is widening as academic preparation widens," said Wayne Camara, the College Board's vice president of research and development. White kids are more likely to have access to advanced college-prep subjects than blacks and Hispanics, and the success of Asian-Americans on the SAT is also probably due in part to their push to enroll in such courses. Whatever Asian-Americans are doing, educators want to bottle it. "For students who are planning to attend college, there's this one group that's outperforming everybody," said Seppy Basili, senior vice president at Kaplan Test Prep. "So what is it about this group? Can we do something to study it?" ___ On the Net: http://www.collegeboard.com
 
Denise Vivaldo: Home Entertaining Without Killing Yourself (or Your Loved Ones) Top
I've been teaching cooking and entertaining classes for the last 25 years. You might say I was born into an entertaining family. No, they didn't dance, sing or tell jokes, but everybody cooked, drank wine, laughed out loud, ate what they wanted and always shared dessert. You must share dessert, it is a commandment and like any commandment, it only makes you more naughty. Almost any meal with my family became an instant party; we simply added guests. Sure, our guests were like layering silly on top of crazy, but it did prepare me for the 10,000 celebrity laden parties I've catered in my career. And yet, it hasn't been enough. I still get excited to plan a menu and throw a party at my own house. I do worry that my unnatural excitement shows a lack of intelligence or that I'm just plain stupid, but it's truly too late to ponder now. I cannot help myself. With the holidays just around corner, I'm gettin' me some colored cocktail napkins, fancy toothpicks, a pound of shrimp, and praisin' the stars because you see a party is plain old fun for this lady, and a host who has fun is highly contagious. I know not everyone feels like me. Most people are afraid to entertain. They even say they hate it! What?! This is like finding out that people don't believe in Santa Claus or don't prefer the original pattern of Louis Vuitton. When the beautifully groomed young women in my cooking class last week raised her hand and said, "How do you give a party without killing yourself or your husband?" I thought, she really needs my help. My authentic self can help her. Ohm. Ten-Step Program for Enjoyable Entertaining : 1. Remember how embarrassing and also sweet it was for Martha Stewart to get out of jail wearing that poncho? Tell your guests to "dress comfortably" on the invitation and you do the same. If you like costumes, wear one (just not that special one...you know what I'm talking about). 2. Real friends and non-toxic family do not care what your home looks like. They came for the wine or the eggnog. Put a dimmer switch on all the lights, place them on lowest setting, and make sure not to vacuum or dust before your party. Take a nap and be rested. A clean house and a cranky host do not a party make. 3. Serve food you like to cook. If your specialty is Parmesan popcorn, get some big bowls and keep it coming. Drizzle the popcorn with Truffle oil. Serve it on your best china. Your friends will be amazed at your creativity and your gravitas. Whatever you serve, make it special, even when it's simple. 4. Forgive your spouse or partner when they only had one job (buying the ice), and they manage to screw it up (bought one three-pound bag). Be the bigger person until tomorrow, and then never, ever, let them forget their mistake. This will give you every reason to keep them alive. 5. Mix up the guests. Make them wear name tags on their backs -- your less brilliant friends will think it's a party game. Crank up the music so it's hard to talk; this will make them drink more and thus make the party more entertaining. 6. Choose to enjoy yourself. Ask yourself what you wanted out of this party: To be a queen, a maid or a hostess? No victims allowed. Try being gracious. Good manners shine longer much longer than polished silver. 7. Introduce everyone to someone else at the party. You are a honey bee, spreading pollen. Honey bees are endangered you know. Our society desperately needs them. 8. Treat yourself with kindness, not contempt. Eat at your own party, even if it's a turkey sandwich before your guests arrive. Don't get too busy and forget to care for yourself. 9. Plan the hours of your party and put it on the invitation. Two hours is a lot for anyone to be charming. Make it short and sweet. 10. Remember the best parties you've been to, and honor your past by enjoying and sharing fun moments. Entertain from the heart. One of my assistants told me that her favorite hostess is a woman who house is covered in dog hair. It is clear that personal cleanliness is not on her radar, but she absolutely loves her friends and her gatherings are always spontaneous and full of genuinely nice people. While my assistant makes sure she never eats sources of protein at these parties, she knows the night will be fabulous. Enough said. Denise Vivaldo is the author of The Entertaining Encyclopedia . Robert Rose Publishing. Available at Amazon.com.
 
Paul E. Barber: My Brain and the Ontario Health Care System Top
You may have seen the stories about the television ad with first person testimony from a woman who claims she had a brain tumor and was unhappy about her care in the Ontario health care system, part of the ongoing assault on "Obamacare." Five years ago I actually had a brain tumor and dealt with the Ontario health care system. The truth about our system is much different than the misinformation spewing forth over the internet and the airwaves. This is my story. I am not the type of person who would be described as a hypochondriac. I am more likely to dismiss aches and pains as of no consequence. Thus when I developed some peculiar head and neck symptoms in early 2004 I did not pay much attention to them at first. Even when I called for an appointment with my GP in March, I was asked by the receptionist if it was urgent and I said no. The GP said he was puzzled by my condition and referred me to a neurologist. I saw him in early April. His assessment included some physical tests, all of which I passed with flying colors. This is perhaps not surprising as throughout this period I was regularly Scottish country dancing , a physically and mentally demanding form of exercise that no doubt kept me in decent shape. I did have some blood pressure abnormality. The neurologist concluded, not inappropriately, that I should see a cardiologist and said he would recommend that my GP refer me. Shortly thereafter I had an appointment for early May. A week or so later we were invited by close friends to a delightful Saturday evening dinner. I didn't think I had drunk too much wine, but my wife was driving, so it didn't matter. When I woke up the next morning, it was Sunday April 17 and I felt quite sick with a headache -- a hangover I thought at the time. However, unlike all previous hangovers, this one did not disappear on Sunday afternoon -- I remained very ill and in bed. By the afternoon of Wednesday April 21, we finally concluded, after consulting my GP on the phone, that I should seek emergency treatment the next day if I showed no improvement. Late that night, unable to sleep because of a splitting headache, I got up to take some strong headache medication. The last thing I remember was reaching up to the cabinet containing the pills. My wife then heard a crash as I hit the floor. I had collapsed and gone into a convulsion. This is the point where we discovered just how fast and effective our health system could be. The complaints you hear directed at Canada's health system about waiting times for treatment are simply without foundation. As you will see from what happened next, my experience says quite the opposite. The next thing I recall I was being carried downstairs by some fire fighters who responded to the 911 call and had made it to our house ahead of the ambulance. I was taken immediately in the ambulance to the Mount Sinai Hospital emergency. I drifted in and out of consciousness and don't remember much from that period but a CAT scan done in the wee hours of Thursday, April 22, 2004 revealed a large mass in my brain. A few hours later I was admitted to the Toronto Western Hospital neurology ward ( which has an international reputation for excellence ). I had a brain tumor and needed surgery. The doctors were optimistic that what they didn't get with surgery could be dealt with by chemotherapy and radiation. They assumed I had brain cancer but they said it would be a few weeks after surgery before tests could determine the exact nature of the tumor. The medical staff could scarcely believe that I had actually been at work the previous Friday. Hooked up to an IV and rehydrated I began to feel a little better. However, I discovered that I had lost considerable sensation on my right hand side. I could not hold a cup of water without dropping it, a very distressing discovery. Early the next morning, Friday, April 23, I had an MRI. This marvelous machine provided a precise three dimensional portrait of the tumor. That evening my neurosurgeon, Dr. Taufik Valiante , came by the hospital room to discuss my case. He felt I needed surgery in the near future, although not necessarily right away (he thought I might have to wait a week). However, he cheerfully went off to check on the availability of the space and personnel needed to do the surgery, and found we could do it the next day. Just 60 hours or so after my collapse, on Saturday, April 24, 2004, I underwent five and a half hours of surgery to remove a large brain tumor. The surgery left a large scar running across the top of my head, now just barely visible through my thinning hair. Twinges in my right hand and stiffness in my lower right leg are the only long-term consequences of my experience. I have an MRI every couple of years (I just had one) to check that the tumor has not returned. Despite the extensive nature of the surgery, it was performed so skilfully that I felt able to leave the hospital and go home the following Tuesday -- April 27, 2004. And the next day Dr. Valiante called with the news that the tumor was benign, a slow growing pilocytic astrocytoma , generally thought of as a brain tumor one sees in children. I would not need any further treatment. In less than a week the system had me on the road to full recovery. My wife recalls this period as a blur of unfolding events. By the way, I did see the cardiologist a week or two later while still recovering from surgery. She did a few tests and pronounced me fine. As you can see from my story, the delays encountered in my care were entirely of my own making, not wait times in the health care system. Once it kicked into gear, I received incredibly fast, world class health care. Apart from my initial ride in the ambulance and my hospital phone, the only other cost to me was the rental of the hospital TV set. A couple of days after the surgery I remember watching a Toronto Blue Jays-Minnesota Twins game, featuring a first rate performance by then Blue Jays starter Ted Lilly. Full value for my money spent on the TV and full value for my tax dollars that pay for our health care system. Our experience with Canada's health care system has been first rate. This includes the cancer care my wife is currently receiving, which has included a sophisticated procedure whereby she successfully received a transplant of her own stem cells at the wonderful Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. She did not have to wait for that complex operation either: it was performed upon completion of the essential preliminary treatment. On another occasion my son dislocated his shoulder playing a pick up game of ice hockey. He called me at work to help him get to the hospital. When we entered emergency the triage nurse gave Alex a quick inspection and then instantly whisked him away for treatment. Once again, no waiting. I think our experience with health care is comparable to that of most Canadians. Our system may not be perfect but we are more than happy with how it has treated us, and, like other Canadians, we would not trade it for the American system. This article was originally published at The Reaction .
 
Joan Blades: Peaceful Revolution: Save Our Mac & Cheese Top
Did you know that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is formulated differently for countries in Europe than for the U.S. ? I didn't either until I read The Unhealthy Truth , a book about the toxicity of America's food supply. The fact is, that in 2008, Kraft removed artificial colorings, like yellow #5, and chemical sweeteners, like aspartame, from the products that they distribute in Europe, Australia, and other developed countries due to consumer concern over scientific studies that link these synthetic ingredients to hyperactivity and asthma in children. But, they haven't done the same thing here in the U.S.! Our voices are needed to make that change here too. We'd love to have you join us in writing to the Kraft CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, a mother of two herself, requesting that Kraft remove these same ingredients from their products here in the U.S. Kraft took these chemicals and additives out of their European products. If we want Kraft to do this for us in the U.S., then Kraft needs to hear from us! Join us in sending Kraft CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, a letter asking that Kraft value the health of our children as highly as they value the children in other countries. And please then share this email with friends and family so that they too can send a letter. The vast majority of American homes have Kraft products . Together, we can affect change and have these ingredients removed from the products that Kraft distributes here in the U.S. Here's that link again to sign on to the letter in case you need it: http://momsrising.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27297 With great appreciation for your time! A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org , read a new post here each week.
 
At Best, A Baby Step Toward Justice For Bush's Torturers Top
When it comes to the Bush torture regime, President Obama famously wants to look forward, not backward. But if the wrong lessons have been learned, the view ahead is bleak. Nothing less than our country's moral standing is at stake. More than 50 years after the Nuremberg Trials, are we really prepared to assert as a nation that "just following orders" is an acceptable defense for gross violations of human rights? And what about accountability for the people who issued those terrible orders - and who fabricated their ostensible legal justifications? Because here's the thing: Should the government's response to the repeated, systemic abuse of detainees after 9/11 end with the excessively circumscribed investigation described by Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday, a terrible precedent will have been set. The message for future federal employees faced with morally suspect orders will be clear: Do what you're told to do, and we'll cover your ass. And the message for future policymakers will be: If you can find someone at the Department of Justice to say it's OK, then anything goes - literally, anything. Generally speaking, some investigation is better than nothing, But the "preliminary review" Holder announced yesterday is extremely limited in its scope, not to mention circumscribed by a bounteous grant of prosecutorial immunity. From Holder's statement : The Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees. I want to reiterate that point today, and to underscore the fact that this preliminary review will not focus on those individuals. Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball report for Newsweek that Holder's new review is limited to "'less than a dozen' cases of alleged abuse by individual CIA operatives and contractors that took place years ago." Human rights activists are justifiably disappointed, not just because of the small scope of the review, but because it aims so low in the chain of command. "If this ends with the prosecution of a few low ranking people who crossed the line of the fine print of the Justice memos" while leaving high ranking officials at the CIA and the White House untouched, "then it will be worse than nothing at all," added Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, a group that has long advocated a more sweeping probe than the one Holder has ordered. Salon's Glenn Greenwald writes: As a practical matter, Holder is consciously establishing as the legal baseline -- he's vesting with sterling legal authority -- those warped, torture-justifying DOJ memos. Worse, his pledge of immunity today for those who complied with those memos went beyond mere interrogators and includes everyone, policymakers and lawyers alike: "the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees." Thus, as long as, say, a White House official shows that (a) the only torture methods they ordered were approved by the OLC and (b) they did not know those methods were criminal, then they would be entitled to full-scale immunity under the standard Holder announced today. This quite likely sets up, at most, a process where a few low-level sacrificial lambs -- some extra-sadistic intelligence versions of Lynndie Englands -- might be investigated and prosecuted where they tortured people the wrong way. Those who tortured "the right way" -- meaning the way the OLC directed -- will receive full-scale immunity. Greenwald also quotes Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who applauded Holder's decision but noted in his statement: I do, however, want to avoid a repeat of the Abu Ghraib experience in which lower-ranking troops who committed abuses were hung out to dry, while the senior officials who bore clear responsibility for the situation got off scot-free. In my mind, it would be wrong to focus solely on punishing individuals who went beyond the Bush Administration's guidance and committed unauthorized abuses, without looking at the senior officials who created an environment in which torture was viewed as not only permissible but necessary. Those who deliberately created an environment in which "anything goes" have no right to be surprised if low level operators exceeded the guidance they were given, and I believe that it is important to hold these senior officials accountable. The latest release of documents, which most notably includes a 2004 report from the CIA inspector general, contains yet more shocking evidence that torture - even at its most extreme -- was explicitly approved by top Bush administration officials. Newsweek's Isikoff and Hosenball write: [S]ome of what CIA inspector general John Helgerson concluded were excesses were endorsed by the highest levels of Justice. Helgerson's report, for example, questioned "the repetitive use" of waterboarding, the controlled drowning technique used on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times. But after Helgerson questioned whether such repetitive waterboarding exceeded what had been authorized by the Justice Department legal memos, he was informed by the CIA general counsel that he was wrong. The attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, "acknowledged he is fully aware of the repetitive use of the waterboard and that CIA is well within the scope of the DOJ opinion and the authority given to CIA by that opinion," the report states. "The Attorney General was informed the waterboard had been used 119 times on a single individual." Indeed, when this blood-curdling report first came to the attention of Bush administration officials, they weren't the least bit disturbed. R. Jeffrey Smith writes in the Washington Post: When an internal CIA report concluded in May 2004 that "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented" interrogation methods had been used on suspected al-Qaeda members, the predominant reaction within the Bush administration was not revulsion but frustration that the agency's efforts inside a network of secret prisons had not been more effective, former senior intelligence and White House officials recall. There's still a chance that what Holder started yesterday will eventually become something much bigger. Carrie Johnson writes in the Washington Post : Legal analysts said the review, while preliminary, could expand beyond its relatively narrow mandate and ensnare a wider cast of characters. They cited U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, which culminated with the criminal conviction of then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney's chief of staff. But even that wouldn't be enough - especially if, as was the case with Fitzgerald, the prosecutor is prevented from going public with his overall findings. What's needed is a full-throated congressional investigation like the one that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has called for - and that Obama's political advisers have stymied. As Leahy said in a statement yesterday , the latest release of document only "underscores why we need to move forward with a Commission of Inquiry, a nonpartisan review of exactly what happened in these areas, so that we can find out what happened and why. Who justified these policies? What was the role of the Bush White House? How can we make sure it never happens again? Information coming out in dribs and drabs will never paint the full picture." There is so much we still don't know about what was done in our name during the Bush era. And the thing that may be the most absent is any visceral sense of how people should have behaved when their government asked them to do things that were immoral, and illegal. The answer, of course, is that they should have resisted - even spoken out. A thorough public investigation won't just expose what we did wrong and bring accountability to those who failed their moral tests, it will also call attention to those who did the right thing. And there were such people - people like Alberto Mora and Steven Kleinman and Anthony Taguba . The more we learn, the more of them we'll find. For instance, R. Jeffrey Smith writes in the Washington Post that the former CIA inspector general who authored the 2004 report "said in an e-mailed comment on Monday that he undertook the study in part because many CIA employees involved in or aware of the program 'expressed to me personally their feelings that what the Agency was doing was fundamentally inconsistent with long-established US Government policy and with American values, and was based on strained legal reasoning.'" The people who did the wrong thing should be punished, or at the very least exposed. And those who did the right thing should be raised up as our heroes, as our role models. Then we can move forward -- in the right direction. More on Eric Holder
 
Katie Halper: Comparing Obama to Hitler Top
Political scientists and historians from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Lyndon LaRouche to that woman with short brown hair who, I deduce, must be a scholar of German history, are comparing Obama to Hitler and his likening his health care plan to Nazism. Liberal bullies and freedom of speech haters like Barney Frank are trying to silence these brave Americans who are speaking truth to Nazi power just as they want to smother our grandmothers. But is it so wrong to compare the Communist-Nazi-Muslim-Jeremiah Wright-following Obama to Hitler? Does comparing health care reform aimed at saving millions of lives to an extermination of millions of lives trivialize the holocaust? I think not! They say those who don't learn their history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. Well, a quick look at the history, the facts and data analysis reveal the frightening and shocking similarities between Obama and Hitler. Will America realize this before its too late? More on Satire
 
Jonathan Weiler: How the Times Legitimizes Propaganda on Health Care Reform Top
The New York Times has a front-screen story this morning about Bob Collier, a 62-year old American from rural Georgia who, according to the Times , was moved to speak out at a recent town hall meeting about his worries concerning health care reform. Here's what appears on the Times' front-screen: Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care By KEVIN SACK In the health care discussion, the respectful questioners like Bob Collier -- those expressing discomfiting fears and legitimate concerns -- may have the most impact. So, the set-up is clear -- Bob Collier is respectable, not like those gun-toting, Nazi name-calling crazies who've been showing up to town hall meetings. And he's got "legitimate concerns" about health care reform. Sack tells us in the opening grafs that Collier was never interested in politics. Instead, he's built a "quiet life" for himself in rural Georgia, involving family, church, hunting and fishing. So, what "legitimate concerns" moved Bob Collier to speak, "to his wife's astonishment," at a recent town hall meeting? Well, his wife of thirty six years, Susan, survived breast cancer through "early detection and treatment" and, in Collier's considered opinion, none of that could happen if health care reform with a public option passed Congress. Instead, Collier's wife would be on a "waiting list." And this calm, considered, thoughtful citizen firmly believes that everything is at stake in the debate about health care reform: "This is about the future of our country as we know it," Mr. Collier warned, "and may mean the end of our country as we know it." It's almost too tiresome to point out that Collier is entirely uninformed about the issues. But because he did not articulate this utter nonsense in a "high decibel rant," the Times saw fit to put his version of health care reform on the front page of its newspaper. You can argue that part of the Times' responsibility to its readers is to provide a panoramic view of public opinion on this, as on other issues. But you cannot argue that that's really what they're doing here. Instead, the main outcome of this article is to portray Bob Collier as the reasoned everyman, offering good old common sense in a plain old vernacular that egghead Washington politicians have a hard time answering. Collier does acknowledge that we need 'some reform," though he's also quick to say that though there should be a safety net, it "shouldn't catch too many people." (Does Collier know what a safety net means?) And, of course, the public option means "rationing." Never mind that the Colliers' own 'direct experience" with the current system demonstrates that rationing is now a pervasive fact of life. Their non-government insurer, in fact, refused to cover more than a fraction of Susan Collier's radiation treatments, deeming them "experimental," and sticking them with a $63,000 bill (they got lucky because their health provider, Emory health care, later wrote off the charge). So, based on this experience with private insurance, Bob Collier is convinced that health reform will do what, exactly? Deny people the freedom to experience the terror of not being able to afford life-saving treatments? What else does the sober-minded Bob Collier worry about? He worries that the government, since Obama took over, is expanding its reach by the week. He worries that Obama is 'centralizing everything." And when Obama says seniors won't have to stand in line behind those with longer life expectancies, well, Bob Collier simply does not believe him. There is, of course, no basis to the claim that seniors are going to be denied life-sustaining treatments under any version of reform now on the table, despite Bob Collier's considered opinion that such assurances are simply not to be trusted. (In a tepid article , whose headline appears in smaller font just below the Sack piece, the Times does interview experts who say that the "rationing fears" are simply unfounded). Sack does inform us, several paragraphs in, that Collier and his wife get most of their news from Drudge and Limbaugh. Given the striking relationship between Collier's own views and standard right-wing talking points -- Collier at one point says that government health care will combine the "efficiency of the post office with the compassion of the IRS" (oh, snap!) - one wonders why Sack didn't simply allow Rush Limbaugh to write this front page article for him. Because, in effect, that's what he's done -- turned over a cherished position in the Times to a man with a series of entirely ill-informed claims and ill-founded fears that serve perfectly to perpetuate the disinformation campaign fronted by Limbaugh, Drudge and the right-wing media more generally. And speaking of rationing -- it's often said that the Times ' famous slogan -- All the News that's fit to Print--would more aptly read, "All the News that Fits." The Times , of course, only has the space and the resources to publish a finite amount of content in a day and this goes doubly and triply for what merits front-page placement. So one has to wonder -- what in this story merited such prominence? Only this -- that it allows the Times to portray itself as attuned to the concerns of an authentic American -- a conservative, Christian, rural Georgian family man. Never mind that, when it comes to these issues, that man is either a propagandist or a moron. Jonathan Weiler's second book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in Contemporary American Politics, co-authored with Marc Hetherington, has just been published by Cambridge University Press. The book can be ordered from Amazon. He blogs daily about sports and politics at www.jonathanweiler.com
 
Mike Miley: Jeanne Dielman Comes to DVD Top
Break out your shoe polish and dishrags, for today, Tuesday, August 25, 2009, one of the greatest films of all time is finally getting its video debut in the United States. The Criterion Collection is releasing Chantal Akerman's epic Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxhelles in a gorgeous 2-DVD set . One of the greatest films ever made? A 201-minute structuralist/feminist film in which nothing happens except a woman cleans her apartment? A film shot almost entirely in medium shots, with no camera movement, few cast members, hardly any exterior shots, and even less dialogue? A film that merely chronicles the tedium of doing chores and running errands, seemingly in real time? What could possibly be so great about that? With all that going for it, it comes as little surprise that Jeanne Dielman is just now getting a proper video release in the United States. It is difficult to explain the greatness of Jeanne Dielman to someone who is not up for the experience. The film is a complete slap in the face to traditional narrative conventions, a combination of Andy Warhol's epic films like Empire and Sleep and the film-essays of Jean-Luc Godard like 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her ( also recently released on DVD by Criterion ) that seems to want to make the audience feel little more than the slow passage of time. But this is what makes the film great: it sticks to its guns, audience expectations be damned, and delivers to the audience the most devastating depiction of the housewife's confined life in cinema (eat it, Revolutionary Road ). If we think watching a housewife work for three hours is boring, try living her life. In that sense, it requires a certain act of will on the part of the American viewer -- or any viewer, for that matter -- to "endure" the film. It requires us to meet Akerman more than halfway, and if you don't buy into her vision, you won't make it past the first 30 minutes. However, once you give yourself to the film and settle into its rhythms, all of that stuff about defying traditional narrative, courting boredom, and all the rest of it falls away. You get sucked into the story and the film becomes an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a ticking time bomb. Even though you feel like you have a pretty good idea of what will happen -- she'll run another errand, she'll clean some more stuff -- you're terrified of what will happen if something breaks Jeanne's rigidly designed pattern. And when that pattern does start to go unravel, the duration of the film serves to make the story all the more uneasy: we see the train wreck coming, but we don't know when, where, or how it will happen. We also can't do anything about it. We can only watch and wonder how it came to this, and as we think back over the events of the film, we can see how inevitable all of it is and how close we are to Jeanne's fate. The film matches Jeanne's obsessively routinized day by being equally constrained in its visual structure. Every shot, literally every single one, is a flat, static shot set up on a perpendicular axis to the action at about five feet off the ground (Akerman's eye level). There are no close-ups and wide shots are saved for the exteriors. So while the camera placement in each scene seems totally arbitrary and "objective," nothing could be further from the truth. Designing a three-hour film around this visual strategy requires a clearly thought-out point of view. It also requires a truckload of determination and artistic restraint. Imagine the temptation to break the design, to make the film more interesting visually, to move the camera, especially when you know that these techniques would make the film more "entertaining." It takes someone with a steel rod for an artistic backbone to make such decisions and stick to them. The fact that Akerman was 25 years old when she made this film -- the same age at which Orson Welles began Citizen Kane -- only serves to make Jeanne Dielman a more tremendous achievement. Jeanne Dielman is a film with the commitment and brashness of youth paired with the wisdom and restraint of old age. It is, in short, perfect, the kind of total work artists dream of making just once. It is a film that swings for the fences, no concessions, no compromises, and it remains true to itself and what it wants to say. Regardless of whether its style and themes are to our liking or not, one must admire such a success. Until this DVD release, Jeanne Dielman was the kind of film you heard about for years before you found a copy of it. My copy was a horrendous fourth-generation bootleg from a VHS tape. I knew the quality was horrible, but until I saw a print of the film at LACMA last April, I had no idea how awful it was. For a film so devoted to small details, a crisp video transfer is essential, and the folks at The Criterion Collection have once again outdone themselves. And while I may mourn the aura the film acquired by being hard to find, it is comforting to know that new viewers can find this film and experience its power immediately.
 
Jadakiss' Yonkers Apartment Found To Have Heroin, Pot Top
YONKERS - Police seized 5 grams of heroin, 6.5 pounds of marijuana and $40,000 in cash from a Van der Donck Street apartment leased to the rapper Jadakiss, officials said today. Jadakiss, whose real name is Jason Phillips, was not in the apartment at the time police executed a search warrant, and he is not wanted at this time in connection with the case, police said.
 
Charlie Rangel's Wealth Jumps After Disclosure Top
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , already beset by a series of ethics investigations, has disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets. Among the new items on Rangel's amended 2007 financial disclosure report were an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands.
 
Mets' Santana to have elbow surgery, out for year Top
NEW YORK — Johan Santana needs surgery for bone chips in his left elbow and the star pitcher is out for the season, the latest blow to a New York Mets team battered by injuries. The team said their 30-year-old ace is expected to be ready for spring training next year. The two-time Cy Young winner was examined Tuesday by Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek in New York. Mets general manager Omar Minaya said Santana was evaluated around the All-Star break, adding the injury worsened in recent weeks, especially after his last start. The GM said "nothing major was there" during the previous checkup. "It's mostly soreness. It's my understanding from the doctors there are bone chips," Minaya said on a conference call. "We all want to see Johan Santana pitching in September. But this is a smart move because we want to see him pitching for the long haul," he said. The Mets had feared a major setback to Santana, who has four seasons left on his $137.5 million, six-year contract. Instead, he will have arthroscopic surgery. Santana was put on the 15-day disabled list and became the 12th Mets player on the DL, joining David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Putz, John Maine and others. The development with Santana came on the same day that the fourth-place Mets traded reliever Billy Wagner to Boston for two players to be named. Lefty pitcher Pat Misch and first baseman-outfielder Nick Evans were recalled from Triple-A Buffalo. What began for the Mets as a season with hopes of reaching the World Series has fallen apart, leaving them out of contention and wondering when the next injury will occur. On Monday, the Mets said Santana would be scratched from his next scheduled start because of his elbow was bothering him. Strong at the start of the season, his stats had dipped noticeably since June – he was 7-2 with a 1.77 ERA and averaged nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings before then, but was 6-7 with a 4.02 ERA and averaged 5 1/2 strikeouts after. "He has not been throwing between starts for quite awhile," manager Jerry Manuel said Monday after the Mets lost 6-2 to Philadelphia. "I would say since before the All-Star break. He has been pitching with this problem, but not with the level of discomfort he has now. Now, it concerns him." Santana is 13-9 with a 3.13 ERA in 25 starts in his second season with the Mets. He was acquired in a February 2008 trade with Minnesota. Santana had arthroscopic surgery on torn cartilage in his left knee last October, after the season ended. He went 16-7 and led the majors with a 2.53 ERA in his first year with the Mets. ___ AP Sports Writer Antonio Gonzalez contributed to this report.
 
Solomon Jackson Jr: $260 Million Powerball Winner Revealed Top
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A retired South Carolina state employee who spent two bucks on the lottery last week is the winner of a $260 million Powerball jackpot. Solomon Jackson Jr. of Columbia refused Tuesday to say much about himself or his plans, including whether he will take his winnings annually over three decades or in a $129 million lump sum. Jackson did reveal he was an assistant supervisor for the state Revenue Department who retired in 2000. He says he is married but would not say how many children he has. Jackson did say he doesn't think the money will change him. He bought his winning ticket and one other at a gas station after shopping at a nearby Walmart in Columbia. Powerball is played in 30 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
 
Mary Duffy Speaks Out At Jackie Speier Town Hall Top
At a town hall event on Sunday in San Mateo County, Calif., Rep. Jackie Speier broke from the question-and-answer format to ask a specially invited guest to stand up and talk. "She speaks to the real life experience of people and I think sometimes we forget what the real life experiences are," the congresswoman said. Mary Duffy then took the microphone to explain why she is passionate about health care reform. "In the past 20 years I've been a small business owner and I've been through breast cancer three times," Duffy said, "and I can tell you right now that the challenge of trying to find insurance was worse than going through any of the cancer treatment that I went through." The Huffington Post interviewed Duffy last week as part of our series on regular people dealing with unemployment and lack of health care. Afterwards, Speier's office, with whom Duffy had previously communicated about her situation, asked her to speak at the town hall. Duffy explained that she was only able to get an insurance policy nine years after her first bout with cancer, and that she'd gone without from 1992 to 1997. Within six months of obtaining a policy, she was diagnosed again. She said her insurance company claimed she'd known she had cancer when she signed up -- and immediately tried to get rid of her (it failed). After her third diagnosis in 2005, Duffy said her treatments left her too exhausted to continue running her small business, which provided food service consulting to colleges and universities. "In 2007 I was really lucky, took a job with a big company in my industry. It was great. My insurance premium went down from $800 a month to $110," she told the crowd. "I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was great until I was laid off. "Now I'm on the end of my COBRA, coming up in December. I haven't been able to find work again. And I'm not even going to try to look for medical insurance when that runs out in December because I simply know I won't be able to get it unless we pass this kind of reform." Duffy said she was swarmed after the event ended. "'Thank you for standing up there and telling your story,'" people told her. "There was a very articulate nurse practitioner and she grabbed me and said, 'I just wanted to thank you, that's all.' I don't know who it was...a lot of people came up and told me about problems with cancers in their family." Duffy said it took an hour and a half to get to her car after the event, even though it was only a block away. "Our nation needs more Mary Duffys -- an entrepreneur, active in her community and willing to tell her intensely personal story to help others," Speier said in a statement. "Now, through no fault of her own, she is faced with the prospect of battling cancer with no job and no health insurance. Mary Duffy is exactly the reason we desperately need health care reform in this country." Watch video of the town hall at www.montarafog.com. Duffy speaks from roughly 51:40 to 56:30 in the video. More on Health Care
 
Brian Levin, J.D.: Not Just Pan Am 103: Justice is Elusive in Many Major Terrorism Cases Top
Outrage over the decision to release on “compassionate grounds,”  Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the convicted bomber of Pan Am flight 103 who killed 270, including 189 Americans in 1998 has hit a nerve about how the worst extremists seemingly outflank justice. As the ailing convicted perpetrator of the second worst terrorist attack in history against U.S. civilians is sunning himself amid cheers, flowers and hugs in Tripoli, an examination of the outcomes of other terrorism cases over the last century, big and small, yields its own pattern of disappointments. Even before Megrahi’s release last week the case presented extreme difficulties for authorities and families alike. The trial, held by agreement in the Netherlands, not Scotland, commenced well over a decade after the attack, and a co-defendant was acquitted. By the time of his release Megrahi would have served about 12 days imprisonment for each life he took.   Of the other top five terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens besides Pan Am 103, only two resulted in the arrest and conviction of a perpetrator. The April 19, 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Murrah federal building that killed 168 resulted in the execution of bomber Timothy McVeigh by lethal injection in 2001. For the other conviction, one has to go back almost a century to the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building which killed 21. For the rest of the most deadly attacks perpetrators escaped the bar of justice either by eluding capture--some permanently, or choosing the method and timing of their own demise. Terrorist Incidents Directed Towards Americans by U.S. Deaths 1. 9/11 Attacks , Incendiary Bombing by Aircraft, NY, DC, PA   2975 killed, 9/11/ 2001 Al Qaeda 2. U.S. Marine Barracks , Truck Bombing , Beirut, Leb., 241killed (US) 10/23/1983 Hizbollah precursor 3. Pan Am Fl. 103 , Aircraft Bombing, Lockerbie, Scotland, 270 killed (189 US), 12/21/ 1988 Libyan Agent 4. Murrah Fed. Bldg ., Truck Bombing, Oklahoma City, OK, 168 killed 4/19/1995 Anti-gov't extremists  5. Bath MI School Bombings , Bombing, 44 killed, 5/18/1927 Disgruntled taxpayer 6. Wall Street Bombing , Horse cart Bomb, NY, 35 killed, 9/16/1920  Socialists/Anarchists Suspected  7. Los Angeles Times Bldg ., Bombing, Los Angeles, CA, 21killed, 10/01/ 1910, Union militants   The 19 perpetrators of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack against Americans which killed over 2970 people, yielded no trial, but tons of conspiracy theorists.  All the direct murderers died in the crashes. The October 1983 truck bomb attack, allegedly by a precursor of Hizbollah, that killed 241 sleeping servicemen on a contentious, but internationally designated peacekeeping mission, never resulted in a criminal trial. Accused mastermind Imad Mughniyah was allegedly involved in a string of brazen kidnappings and fatal bombings against American civilians, as well as government and military officials. He was eventually indicted by American authorities on another charge.  The indictment stemmed from his masterminding of the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985 where a U.S. sailor was murdered and dumped from the rear of the aircraft in Beirut. He was also indicted in Argentina for bombings against Israeli and Jewish targets in incidents that killed the most Jewish civilians since World War II. Mugniyah eluded capture by the U.S. in separate incidents where the French and Saudis thwarted the attempts. He also skirted death along with his spiritual advisor, when a car bomber allegedly tied to the U.S, killed 62 Lebanese civilians instead.  His luck finally ran out decades later when a bomb from an unknown assailant exploded in his car in Syria in February 2008. The September 1920 bombing of Wall Street was the worst terrorist attack in American history at the time. The horse drawn bomb killed over 35 people, but the attack by suspected anarchists was never solved. The Bath School bombings in May 1927, by an anti-tax school board member, who blamed taxation for his financial distress, claimed 44 other Michiganders, the majority of whom were grade school children. The bomber Andrew Kehoe died in one of the blasts.  A smaller, more recent blast at LaGuardia airport in 1975 remains unsolved. This year has seen its own set of heartbreaks. The Palestinian terrorist who in 1985 ruthlessly killed Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American wheelchair bound tourist was released from an Italian prison this April for “good behavior” -seven years short of his thirty-year sentence. Klinghoffer was aboard the hijacked ocean liner, the Achille Lauro, when he was shot in the head and dumped into the sea. The actual mastermind of the attack Abu Abbas was convicted in absentia in Italy, but evaded authorities until his April 2003 capture by U.S. Special Forces. He died less then a year later of natural causes. In a related, but still unsolved domestic terror attack, Alex Odeh, West Coast director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was murdered by a bomb blast in Orange County, California. Jewish extremists, including one deceased and one serving a life sentence, along with others perhaps in Israel, were suspected but never charged. It is believed Odeh was targeted by terrorists for advocating support of the Palestinian cause during the course of the Achille Lauro hijacking. Cases from the racial turmoil of decades ago continue to reverberate today. Two adjudicated cop killers from the Black Liberation Army have apparently outflanked the legal system. The BLA is believed responsible for the death of at least 15 police officers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Herman Bell, already serving a life sentence in a New York prison for murdering two police officers in Harlem in May 1971, was given probation this summer in California for the shotgun killing of a San Francisco police sergeant in August of that year. FBI Most wanted Joanne Chesimard, 61 remains at large in Cuba after armed cohorts sprang her from prison in 1979. She was convicted of the execution style murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foester. Both are regarded as folk heroes by some on the far left. Earlier this month, racist Billy Wayne Posey, a prime suspect in a Klan murder conspiracy died of natural causes at 73. Posey was allegedly involved in the infamous murders of three young civil rights workers, two Jewish and one African-American, near Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964. A grand jury, with a relative of Posey’s on it failed to indict him by one vote. The only person to face state murder charges, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005. Mr. Posey outlived all of the victim’s mothers including Fannie Lee Chaney and Carolyn Goodman who passed at 84 and 91, respectively in 2007. The death comes less than three weeks after a group of civil rights experts conferred with Attorney General Eric Holder about civil rights era “cold cases” including this one. The sometimes-conflicting goals of the American justice system are deterrence (discouraging crime), retribution (proportionate punishment), incapacitation (removing the dangerous offender from society), and rehabilitation (reforming attitudes). These cornerstones of justice are undermined when homicidal extremists from long ago cases kill innocents and evade appropriate punishment. It sends the wrong message to victims’ families today and would be terrorists tomorrow.     More on Crime
 
Terrance Heath: The Tyranny of the Tantrum Top
As the parent of a small child -- who is apparently entering the "terrible twos" a few months early -- I tend to put things in that context sometimes. What we're seeing from the health care town halls, what we've seen from the "birthers" and what we saw during the campaign is essentially what I call "Tyranny of the Tantrum," which many parents encounter at the onset of the "terrible twos." You've been warned about the "terrible twos," but you may be unprepared for this rite of passage if your child has been cooperative up until now. The stage doesn't always begin exactly on your child's second birthday. Development experts say it can strike as early as 18 months and as late as 30 months (though some angelic children never go through this phase). How do you know if you're in the midst of the TTs? Look for new signs of assertiveness from your toddler. Hallmark behaviors to watch for: He may insist on doing exactly what you've told him not to do or throw himself down on the floor in a fit of temper if he doesn't get his way. His demands may alternately frustrate and amuse you. At times, for example, he'll likely ask for something that he doesn't even want, just to see if he has enough power to get it. See, small children like Dylan -- who is just 21 months old -- sometimes have trouble with change. They don't like it. They don't like it when their environment changes; like when it's time get out of the tub, dry off and put pajamas on, or when it's time to stop playing long enough for a diaper change. Put another way, they don't like transitions -- that uncertain period between the end of one thing and the beginning of another, when they're not quite sure what's happening, where they're going or what's next. They just want to either keep doing what they were doing or go back to where they were, because it's what they've gotten accustomed to. Transitions -- putting the brakes on one activity and starting right up with another one -- are tough on toddlers. Bedtime may be one of the hardest, but others, such as leaving the playground, having to stop playing to get in the car for errands, or being left in a babysitter's care as Mom and Dad walk out the door can also elicit tears and tantrums. After all, toddlers live in the moment, don't have a real concept of time, and are only just beginning to understand that separations don't last forever, says Gail Reichlin, executive director of the Parents Resource Network in Chicago. On top of that, they don't have the language skills to say, "I'm right in the middle of something. Just give me five minutes." Instead, they often resort to tears or tantrums when told it's time to stop what they're doing. Temperament also plays a part in how your little one handles transitions. Some children, just like some grown-ups, oppose anyone who wants them to make a change. When they are unable to keep things just as they are, they throw a tantrum. They cry, kick and scream. They go limp, or rigid, making it difficult to move them. They hold on to whatever's handy, and don't let go. Being the adult, the grow-up, the parent, etc., I know we can't stay in the same place indefinitely. I know sooner or later, we have to put the groceries in the car and go home, or stop playing long enough to have dinner. I know that the transition -- whether from the grocery cart to the car, or from the bathtub to the towel -- is a necessary part of moving on to what's next, even if my two-year-old doesn't. As the adult, it's my job to move us forward through the transition, into what's next. Otherwise, I subject myself to the tyranny of the tantrum. That means I allow the two-year-old to dictate what the rest of the family will do, just because he kicked and screamed and carried on. That's what the town halls have devolved into -- the tyranny of the tantrum. The behavior we're seeing is basically the extreme of the Republican base kicking and screaming because they believe that if they throw a big enough tantrum, they can hold off change, turn back the transition period already begun, and keep things the way they are -- or go back to the way they were. What's needed right now are more adults who are not so intimidated or stunned by the tantrum that they attempt to placate the tantrum-throwers by trying to keep thing basically the way they are. What we need are grown-ups who know how to move forward through, and in spite of, the tantrum. I call it the "football carry." It's when we pick up the tantruming toddler under one arm -- in such a way that he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else -- and carry him forward with us. It doesn't mean the tantrum ends right away. It means that we know it will end, because it always does, but we don't wait for it to end before moving on. That's necessary because, as any parent knows, sometimes there's just no reasoning with a tantruming toddler. We can, lovingly, explain that we understand their frustration, but we have to move on. And that's about it. We know what the tantrum thrower doesn't know or care to know -- that the present circumstances are unsustainable. We can no more stay at the playground forever than we can afford a health care system that keeps costing more while helping fewer and fewer people , or pretend that we can continue moving toward a two-track economy , where one track prospers at the expense of the other. Neither can we turn back the clock (nor should we) to a time when the president and most of the Supreme Court (to name two seats of power), were guaranteed to be white -- something many townhall screamers, birthers, and McCain/Palin rally attendees would like to return to, whether they say as much or not. Now, people who don't know that Medicare is a government program probably aren't reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is. That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction. And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers. Does this sound familiar? It should: it's a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites. So, we move forward, through the tantrum, and carry tantrum-thrower with us. Eventually, the two-year-old will adjust to whatever we do and wherever we go next. The kicking and screaming will stop, if only because it's tiring and futile, and perhaps because even a two-year-old eventually realizes that the future he was carried into while kicking and screaming all the way isn't all that bad. In fact, he might even find something to like about it. Until the next transition. Then, we have to be the grow-ups again. The health-care "debate" in town halls across the country desperately needs more grown-ups to carry us forward, to the change that we need. The other option is submitting to the tyranny of the tantrum. [Images via hyperscholar and bobster855 @ Flickr .] More on Health Care
 
Top 10 Reasons Not to Advertise With Glenn Beck (VIDEO) Top
After Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, 36 companies have pulled their advertisements from his program. UPS has even gone as far as to pull advertising on all Fox networks. Looking over these highlights, you have to wonder why they didn't get out sooner. More on Glenn Beck
 
Rick Horowitz: Obama's Beach Books -- and Yours Top
Consider the beach book. Or do you prefer the term "beach book"? Surrounded by quotation marks, that is, like "fast food," or "date movie." "Beach book," with its suggestion that there's one particular type of book -- and only one particular type of book -- that's supposed to accompany you to the summertime house near the large body of water. (Sno-Cones optional.) I don't buy it. Neither, apparently, does the current president of these United States. Much interest from the luxury boxes this week, as the White House disclosed Barack Obama's reading list for his family vacation on Martha's Vineyard: John Adams , by David McCullough. Hot, Flat, and Crowded , by Thomas Friedman. Lush Life , by Richard Price. Plainsong , by Kent Haruf. The Way Home , by George Pelecanos. That's one presidential biography, one pop-wonk call to arms, and three -- count 'em, three! -- novels. So where does it say variety is allowed in a chief executive's reading list? What's the guy trying to do? Enjoy himself?! Or -- alternative reaction: Five books in seven days? Who does he think he's kidding? "That's 2,301 pages of recreational reading in a week," the always-sympathetic Wall Street Journal quickly calculated, "sandwiched between tennis, golf, meetings with friends, and possible calls to Congress. Aides say Obama is a speedy reader..." Aides are missing the point. So is the Wall Street Journal . The thing about beach books -- or even "beach books" -- isn't the total tonnage of the entire pile. It's the glow of the glorious possibilities. When we go to the beach -- to pick a typical American non-presidential vacation cluster at random -- we always bring more books than we can possibly read in the time we'll be there. Hauling the book bag up multiple flights of stairs into a house perched high and wobbly on stilts, emptying this year's carefully selected contents onto the dresser top or the bedside table -- that's all part of the ritual. What's never part of the ritual is thinking we'll actually get through all of them. But this is: Waking up on that first beach morning and saying, "What do I feel like today? A thriller? A tract? A fantasy? A romp?" And then picking exactly the right book to match your mood. It could be Elmore Leonard. It could be Fareed Zakaria. It's all about having the options. I've never been one of those "This is the summer I finally read Proust" types. But I've never been one of those "This is the beach so it has to be mindless" types either. A perfect beach book is whatever feels right -- serious, silly, sappy -- when you're contemplating spending the next unscripted chunk of time on a porch swing. Or on a beach chair, toes in the sand, happily distracted every few minutes by another set of waves nearing the shore. Or curled into a corner of a nook-filled living room, with others in your ragged band every bit as contented in their own nooks, with their own books. A perfect beach book is one that doubles down on the place you're in -- geographically, emotionally. A perfect beach book is one that takes you away from all that. A perfect beach book rewards concentration. A perfect beach book is a dabble. A perfect beach book is one that, forever after, will remind you of how the rain pelted the picture windows that one dark-gray morning, how the sunlight slanted soft and golden that one luscious afternoon. Consider a beach book. Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com. More on Barack Obama
 
Jesse Kornbluth: Norah Jones, Rufus & Martha Wainwright: The Hamptons' Concert of 2009 Is This Saturday Top
One event lures even people who loathe the Hamptons out to Long Island's East End on the last weekend in August --- The Last Song of Summer , a benefit for the Watermill Center. Last summer's concert was a sell-out: Rufus Wainwright and Jessye Norman. This Saturday (August 29), Wainwright will appear with Norah Jones and his sister Martha. Beyond the Rufus-Norah duets, I have another reason to mark the date. The Wainwrights are the offspring of Kate McGarrigle (of the famed duo, the McGarrigle Sisters) and singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Last December, I attended the McGarrigles' annual Carnegie Hall holiday concert, a delightfully informal affair that had Kate, Anna and their kids harmonizing with friends like Emmylou Harris, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Jimmy Fallon as if they were caroling at your front door. That is, until Rufus sang "O Holy Night", with his mother at the piano, and his gorgeous unamplified voice turned Carnegie into a cathedral. And Martha: If you didn't know her work before, you had her in heavy rotation soon after. The holiday concert was on my 10 best list for 2008; I see the Watermill benefit as a contender for this year. "I'll definitely do a piece from my new opera, Prima Donna, in French," Rufus told me. "Norah and I will do a Hoagy Carmichael song. And there's been a request for more uptempo numbers, so we'll do a little Elvis. But don't worry --- there will still be some of the gothic melancholy you expect from me." For her part, Martha won't be performing songs from her extravagantly autobiographical CDs. "Those songs are so personal that, after a while, I get tired of hearing my voice as I sing them," she told me. "Low boredom threshold?" I asked. "No. High excitement threshold." So Martha will singing some Edith Piaf songs (from her forthcoming Piaf tribute CD). Why Piaf? "As a kid, I learned about her from Rufus, who learned about her from my mother's records. He picked out the good stuff, and we played it loud in living room. As a female singer, she became one of my greatest influences." "Will you wear Piaf's signature black dress?" "Possibly." "Will Rufus sing with you?" "Oh, yes --- and my mom." "But Kate's not on the bill." "She doesn't have to be," Martha said. "She's our trump card." "Or our wild card," Rufus said. This will, be added, be very much in the style of the holiday show: "Norah and I will sing together, the three of us will sing together, we'll all sing together..." Why this cause? After all, the East End of Long Island --- which used to be home to fishermen, potato farmers and a small cadre of artists and writers --- is now "The Hamptons," a kaleidoscope of air kisses, houses the size of factories and caterers who charge $100 for a pound of lobster salad. Tickets for this benefit are $125, $250 and $500. Out here? No problem. And this is, after all, the Watermill Center, which opened in 1992 as a laboratory for the performances of Robert Wilson and has evolved into a retreat for as many as 80 emerging artists, musicians and dramatists. Wilson is a Society darling, beloved by the monied art set. Raising money? No problem. "Sorry", Rufus said. "That's last year's thinking. Now it's important to support the arts - the first funding cut is always the arts. I heard a story about Churchill during World War II. He was asked to cut arts funding. He refused: 'What do you think we're fighting for?'" "The Last Song of Summer" kicks off at 5 PM this Saturday, August 29. For tickets, click here
 
Raymond J. Learsy: Peak Oil Agonistes-The NYTimes Finally Comes Around To Where The HuffPo Never Feared To Tread Top
This is a day of deep gloom for the McPeaksters, those preaching the gospel of "Peak Oil". The New York Times, otherwise deeply empathetic to oil patch pseudo science, this day burst one of the most entrenched of the oil patchs' nuggets of disinformation, the theory of "Peak Oil". There it was in the Op-ed section of the hallowed pages of the NYTimes, three columns wide, "Peak Oil Is A Waste of Energy" by Michael Lynch a former director at the Center for International Studies at M.I.T. His tone was unequivocal, "... peak oil theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material." He goes on, "...most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance on how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum." After expanding on these points, he goes on to conclude that "Oil remains abundant and will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa, and Latin America, in East Africa and perhaps the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota". Mr. Lynch's "revelations" in the Times are especially gratifying particularly so in that at last, one of the great misnomers of public disinformation bordering closer to brainwashing has been brought to heel. While others in the media followed the oil industry party line, The Huffington Post braved scorn and derisiveness providing a platform for a series of posts dating back to 2006 questioning the otherwise received truths ministered to a trusting and deceived public by the hierarchy of "Peak Oil." These included: -"Oil is Not Scarce--The Oil Industry Continues To Play Us For Fools", 05.24.06" -"Massive Oil Find In Gulf Of Mexico Brings Gloom To 'Peak Oil' Pranksters", 09.08.06 -"Peak Oil is Snake Oil!", 06.25.07 -"Why Does Abiotic Oil Theory Ignite Peak Oil Theorists' Fulminations ??" 08.14.08 -"President Obama's Pledge to End 'The Tyranny of Oil"; 'Peak Oil' Mutating to "Peak Consumption", 04.20.09 -"The International Energy Agency Shills For OPEC, The Oil Speculators and The Peak Oil Pranksters" 08.16.09 The last post above focuses on Fatih Birol, the IEA's top economist which also serves as the starting point of Mr. Lynch's Op-ed: "...along comes Fatih Birol to insist that we'll reach the peak moment in ten years, a decade sooner than most previous predictions," and then Mr. Lynch proceeds to decimate Mr. Birol's theory. All this may be gloom incarnate for the "Peaksters". For the rest of us it is a breath of fresh air, and as Mr. Lynch clearly puts forward, "This is not to say that we shouldn't keep looking for other cost-effective low pollution energy sources". More on Energy
 
Reporters Uncensored: Mexico's Murdered Journalists Top
--Zach Schubert Last month, Mexican lawmakers quietly slipped a bill into the books that will legalize small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroine and even methamphetamines. This change of formation is the latest in a drug war that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, more than the U.S. casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Among the victims are 46 journalists killed since 2000 and another eight reporters who have disappeared for unknown reasons, making Mexico among the most dangerous places in the world to work in the news business. This year, the US Joint Forces Command published a report listing Mexico just behind Pakistan as the country most likely to become a failed state. Behind the instability, the entrenched battle between rival drug cartels and federal forces offers little promise of a foreseeable end. This week, RUTV will explore its source as well as its wide-ranging effects on life in the country. At their roots, the Mexican cartels are an outgrowth of the Colombian cocaine industry. When the Colombian police, assisted by U.S. operatives, largely neutralized the primary Colombian cartels in the early 1990s, drug trafficking in Mexico exploded as a result of relaxed competition. In response, newly elected Mexican president Felipe Calderón launched 45,000 army troops in a massive anti-drug trafficking war in 2006. The results have been mixed. While record numbers of cartel leaders have been arrested, this has led in part to the splintering of several trafficking groups. These new rivalries have fueled the bloodshed. Although they are armed with the machine guns and grenade launchers of a regular army, the drug traffickers' greatest weapon has been official corruption. Last April, General Sergio Aponte made a staggering list of accusations against police in the state of Baja California. According to Aponte, bribed police units had been acting as bodyguards for local cartels. Such occurrences are common in Mexico, where small time drug arrests are typically only used as opportunities for extortion. Another tactic used by the traffickers has been the intimidation and murder of journalists to encourage censorship by the press. More journalists have been killed in Mexico than in any other country in the Americas. Further, these murders are rarely investigated. Joining us this week will be Mark Read of Friends of Brad Will, an organization founded in the memory of an American journalist who was killed while covering the 2006 teachers' strike in Oaxaca. Also joining us via skype is Jorge Luis Sierra, a Mexican investigative reporter and editor based in McAllen, Texas, at the US-Mexico border. He reports on a range of conflict-related topics such as drug trafficking, organized crime, counterinsurgency, gangs and immigration. Sierra has a 24-year long journalism career working both as an editor and a writer for influential newspapers and magazines in Mexico and the United States. We're live at 6pm (EDT) Wednesday and on demand at www.livestream.com/reportersuncensored. More on Mexico's Drug War
 
Jarvis Coffin: Even if OPA publishers won't listen to Jim Spanfeller, there are many others online that will, if invited. Top
You can say this about Jim Spanfeller, the outgoing CEO of Forbes.com: he's straight-forward. There's very little ambiquity in his piece in Paid Content yesterday, titled "Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing," which concludes by saying "When it's all said and done, there really is no remnant inventory on the web, just as there is little to no real remnant inventory elsewhere." Jim is exhorting web publishers not to give away value by entrusting it to the "invisible" hand of third-parties. Jim is Chair Emeritus of IAB and Treasurer of OPA, and - knowing that -we're conscious that his exhortations are largely directed at the branded media-types with whom he spends most of his time. But his message applies to all serious web publishers, not just OPA publishers, which is why the OPA could help itself and many others by acknowledging the content value that extends deep into the long tail of the Internet. It failed to do this with its recent study, "Improving ad performance online," (about which there has been plenty to say in this space) and Jim slipped past the chance again in his paidContent.org commentary yesterday when he said the OPA study "shows the far greater value in buying ad programs directly from publishers" - a problematic, and somewhat suspicious claim to the vast majority of publishers online without salespeople of their own. Buying directly from publishers is not a media value proposition. Buying the value of content, and the audience it attracts, is a media proposition. Jim Spanfeller is deeply committed to media value and were he invited to speak right at this point he (and possibly also the agents at OPA responsible for their recent study) might hasten to add to his comments that yes, yes, of course, it's about content and the audience it attracts. But, he'd argue, ad networks and other third-parties aren't capable of that for publishers. Indeed, in most cases, they are prevented from doing so because they are restricted from guaranteeing web sites and positions. Many of them are blind. So, selling the value of the web site is actually antithetical to their offering and they, along with participating publishers are "killing web advertising's potential." Indeed, it's a shame, but as it turns out the online system has evolved with a built-in value cap; a governor that keeps the Internet motor from racing. And, it's hard to rail against those market forces as Jim Spanfeller is conscientiously doing in order to remove the governor and change behaviors. To succeed, you need leverage which has been the point in taking aim at the OPA study released two weeks ago that failed to differentiate among ad networks, or other third-parties that sell value, or offer a nod to thousands of independent web publishers who don't have their own salespeople, but surely have their own audiences! These publishers can provide leverage to the media value argument online with their passion - as partners, members of a branded content network, or simply (affordable) dues payers. It's been said here to anybody who will listen: imagine an OPA (or IAB, or party-to-be-named-later) Annual Meeting 10 years from now with 10,000 people attending, mostly publishers. Think MacWorld. Maybe the Javits Center in New York will hold them. All of them excited to be there to talk about publishing issues. All of them with stories to tell about how their web site is different and makes a difference. All of them intimidated by the very big Time Warner booth with an invitation over top that reads "Be Part Of The Biggest Content Network in the World!"; all of them whispering as Tim Armstrong walks by; all of them standing in line at the Google booth ("Why Paid Search Still Works For You!"); all of them sitting with their arms folded across their chest listening critically to the panel of senior ad agency executives talking about partnership and performance. Maybe twenty-five hundred of them in the audience blogging and Tweeting and whatever-elsing as the Global Agency Director General of All Things Bright and Beautiful rumbles on about the importance of partnership and performance "with all of you of who are so closely connected to the audiences online that are our most important customers." That's leverage. Even if OPA publishers won't listen to Jim Spanfeller there are many, many others that will. And they can help, if invited.
 
Julia Stiles Spoofs Celebrity Fashion Lines (VIDEO) Top
Actress Julia Stiles is the next on a long list of celebrities who has set her eyes on fashion. In this video, she introduces her new, all-green, 100% eco-friendly line called Julia Stiles Styles. Although she's never designed anything before, her "Ten Shirts I Love About You," newspaper suit with tissue box shoes and "Save the Last Shants" (shirt and pants equals shants) are inspired representations of her creative spirit. Oh, wait...it's all a joke? It seems sartorial satire is in for fall. WATCH: Follow HuffPost Style on Twitter and become a fan of HuffPost Style on Facebook ! More on Video
 
Killing Chickens At Home: Would You Do It? (PHOTOS) Top
Last night, we had fourteen people over for dinner. And they wanted chicken. Good thing we had some...but they were running around. And so it was--all in the name of well balanced meals--farm life came down to its grittiest. I live and work on a farm in central Vermont, and there's always family around. That means a lot of emotional turmoil (and joy, ehem), a lot of secretly chugging whiskey in the closet (not really, but really), and best of all--extra hands. No one visits without pitching in. And now that it's late August, the farm work is at its peak. Harvesting, preserving food for winter, and chicken killing. While some may balk (bawwwk) at the idea of taking a life on the grounds of a homestead, we do it for the sake of food--not sport--and when it comes down to it, for the sake of the chicken itself. It's not indulging in sadism, nor for power over an animal, nor an image of something hardcore and awesome to impress the neighbors. It's about being connected to the very foundations of self sufficiency, and understanding that meat does not simply fall from the sky, packaged on a shelf in a supermarket; it comes from a living, breathing being. Chicken killing at home is deep. Emotional. Ethical. As Joel Salatin says in his book Pastured Poultry Profit$ , it's necessary : "Animal rights activists, for all their misdirection, are right on target when pushing for animal slaughter as close to the point of production as possible. Not only does it relieve [the chicken's] stress, a direct cause of tough meat, but is far more environmentally sensible." Joel Salatin is at the forefront of the farming movement. His name is becoming household, and his practices are emulated across the country. He's the farmer who changed Michael Pollan's life, in The Omnivore's Dilemma, remember? He's the farmer young farmers want to be; he makes money farming, but he does it right--his animals live according to their "ness", which means closest to their nature. And while most chicken producers send their birds long distances to slaughter houses (which really stresses out the chickens in their final days), like us--and many other small farmers in Vermont--Salatin supports the at-home processing method. To him, it represents the very foundation of his respect for his animals. He says: "We have customers who occasionally like to come out and 'get connected' to their food...If one of our ultimate goals is to reconnect the urban and rural sectors of our culture, on-farm processing affords us a technique to accomplish that goal." My fella's stepmom was intent on killing one of the two broilers for last night's dinner. She's a foodie from Brooklyn, and wanted to honor this chicken by taking its life as sweetly and quickly as possible. She wanted to get more connected to her food. She was nervous, but determined. We all gathered to watch, including Clara, the seven year-old aspiring artist/farmer, whose eyes were glued to the scene. It's not an easy thing to watch a chicken slaughter. While it may be common knowledge there's post-mortem thrashing--ever heard of "like a chicken with it's head cut off"?--seeing it live can be a bit gruesome. But unlike a public prisoner execution, we were there to celebrate the chicken's life, and what it had to offer us. And what better way to experience death for the first time. There was no: "take that, you sucker!" No proving our cultural masculinity, nor prowess. Therese was as careful and as kind as could be as she cooed to the bird, and quick as a wink in her execution with the knife. There was no suffering or stress on the bird, and it died in a habitat it's come to know quite well, with familiar smells and familiar views. Frida the dog sat quietly through it all, and afterward buried her treat: the feet. Were we traumatized? Did we feel sorry for the chicken? Are we dreading this weekend, where (without family around for help) we'll have to kill 150 more? Here's why not. I've been feeding, pasturing, watering, and talking to these guys since the spring. They wander around all day in grass, pecking for bugs. So I know they've had a good life when they make it to that cone; as far as a chicken goes, they've seen the best there is to offer. Of course there's something to say for one being taking another being's life--and to be honest, I'll probably be dealing with that emotionally for the rest of my life. It's not easy . Did we feel more connected to our dinner, because of the kill? Surprisingly, the guests' reaction varied. Clara was ravenous for the meat. Another young woman couldn't touch it: "Too soon!" And Therese didn't wind up feel a closer connection to her food, the opposite of what she thought would happen. Perhaps it was her adrenaline, or maybe the ambiance of "this happens every day" farms tend to have. But maybe feeling connected to her food, in the end, wasn't as important as being connected to the animal during its life and final moments. Which is the nobler goal for us local food eating, small-scale farm supporting folk? I know since moving to a farm, I'm much less concerned with labels like Organic, Local, and Farm-Fresh. I want to know how that animal lived , not just what it ate, or where it came from. Local chicken could come from next door, and been raised in a cage. Organic chicken could have been pumped with feed, and not a blade of grass. Foodie labels don't excite me anymore. I want to know the amount of sun, fresh air and forage that animal got during its life. Organic, shmorganic, in other words. Give me the backstory. I ate up the meat just like any other dinner--I felt no urge to pat myself on the back. It was almost like being numbed, until I realized--farming gets you as close to death as one can get. We see the composting of bodies, of soil, and the process by which an animal is born and leaves the world. We facilitate their birth and their death. We offer our animals a good life, in exchange for their bodies. And in time (the amount of which we'll never know, for we will never be able to control it), we'll offer up our own to the earth. But, at the same time...what if robots descended upon earth and decided to farm us ? I might not like it. Here are some photos of our evening. Guest post by Makenna Goodman, Chelsea Green Publishing More on Local Food
 
Alex Higgins: Take 1 Minute to Help Free Maziar Bahari Top
During the revolutionary tumult earlier this summer, the Iranian authorities jailed a swathe of journalists and filmmakers , among them, the talented documentary maker and playwright Maziar Bahari . A Canadian citizen, he lived with his wife, Paola Gourley in London. She is seven months pregnant with their first child. Beginning with The Voyage of St. Louis -- the story of over 900 German Jewish refugees and their doomed search for asylum in the Americas -- he has made films on diverse topics including AIDS in Iran and Africa, the Iranian revolution, the 1953 coup, the US occupation of Iraq and football. He was reporting on the Iranian elections for Newsweek International when he was arrested and imprisoned on June 21st. Accused of endangering Iranian national security, he has been formally charged with nothing to date and is denied access to a lawyer and contact with his family -- save the briefest conversation with his mother. Following the opening of a mass show-trial of detainees, the Iranian state media have reported that Maziar has confessed to trying to overthrow the government, and you don't need me to speculate how that statement was likely procured. While the Canadian government is pursuing quiet diplomacy, Maziar's family and employers have decided it is in his interest to make their demands public and they are asking people like you to sign a petition for his release. His wife made a particularly poignant and dignified request for help on the Rachel Maddow Show , and I strongly encourage you to watch the clip . So far the petition has just over 8,000 signatures. It's really quick and you can stay anonymous. If hundreds of readers here sign and pass on the word, you can really boost that number and hopefully make a difference, right now. What are you waiting for? More on Rachel Maddow
 
Gordon Brown Breaks Silence On Lockerbie Bomber: "Repulsed" By Libya Welcome Top
LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown broke his silence on the Lockerbie bomber Tuesday, saying he was repulsed by the hero's welcome Libya gave the convicted killer and insisting he played no role in Scotland's much-criticized decision to free him. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 airplane bombing that killed 270 people, was released from a Scottish prison last week on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer. He returned to his native country, where he was greeted by a crowd waving Libyan and Scottish flags and throwing flower petals. The Scottish administration has faced angry criticism from U.S. officials and the families of some Lockerbie victims, most of whom were American. "I was both angry and I was repulsed by the reception of a convicted bomber guilty of a huge terrorist crime," Brown said. But Brown would not say whether he thought it was right or wrong to release the bomber, arguing that it was a matter for Scotland's justice system to decide. Scotland is part of Britain but has its own justice system, and London officials are wary of being seen as interfering in a Scottish decision. They also want to avoid the anger that has been directed at officials in Edinburgh. Brown, who met President Moammar Gadhafi during a G8 meeting in Italy last month, said he had told the Libyan leader "that we had no role in making the decision on (al-) Megrahi's future." "It was a matter in which we could not interfere, and had no control over the final outcome," he said. Brown said he did not think the release would harm Britain's relations with the United States, despite the criticism from President Barack Obama and other senior Washington officials. He said that "whatever decision was made on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government, our resolve to fight terrorism is absolute." "Our determination to work with other countries to fight and to root out terrorism is total," Brown said. On Tuesday the Scottish government said it would release documents in the next few days showing how Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made the decision to release al-Megrahi. They include transcripts of talks between MacAskill and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a copy of MacAskill's prison-cell discussion with al-Megrahi and notes of meetings with U.S. families who urged him to keep the bomber locked up. Scottish government spokeswoman Fiona Wilson said the documents would be made public ahead of a debate in the Scottish Parliament on Sept. 2. Al-Megrahi is the only man convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The explosion of a bomb hidden in the cargo hold killed all 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground in Britain's worst terrorist attack. The bomber's release comes after years of thawing relations between the West and Libya, long treated as a pariah state. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Gadhafi renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya's secret nuclear program, accepted his government's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families. _____ Associated Press Writer Ben McConville contributed to this report from Edinburgh, Scotland. More on England
 
Michael T. Klare: Iran Gas Ban: Step Toward War With Iran? Top
As the Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing with Iran's intransigence on the uranium enrichment issue, it appears to be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on gasoline sales to that country. Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the time the UN General Assembly meets in late September — the deadline given by the White House for a constructive Iranian move. Iran, of course, is a major oil producer, pumping out some 4.3 million barrels per day in 2008. But it is also a major petroleum consumer. And its oil industry has a significant structural weakness: Its refinery capacity is too constricted to satisfy the nation's gasoline requirements. As a result, Iran must import about 40% of its refined products. Government officials are attempting to reduce this dependency through rationing and other measures, but the country remains highly vulnerable to any cutoff in gasoline imports. Many in Washington view Iran's vulnerability as an opportunity to coerce the country into abandoning its nuclear-arms program. Although senior Iranian officials deny that they are seeking nuclear munitions, many Western analysts believe that the enrichment effort now under way at a huge centrifuge facility in Natanz is intended to produce highly enriched uranium for an eventual Iranian bomb. Despite massive pressure from the United States and the European Union, Tehran has refused to cease work at Natanz or to consider a slowdown there as part of a negotiating process. If Iran persists on this course, proponents of a gasoline embargo argue that sanctions should be the next step. Instead of War? Many prominent figures in the United States and Israel favor not economic sanctions but military action if Tehran fails to cease its uranium enrichment. As such, the administration is looking to take a step that gives the impression of forceful action yet falls short of a risky military engagement. Cutting off gasoline deliveries to Iran, it is thought, could provide such an option. President Barack Obama himself touted the appeal of such a move in the final presidential debate, on October 15, 2008. "If we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need, and the refined petroleum products, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis," he declared . "That starts putting the squeeze on them."  Obama has not expressed a similar view since taking office, but many around him are believed to favor this approach. Every action carries grave risks, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) observed at a recent hearing on the topic, "[but] I firmly believe...that using economic pressure is far superior to the extreme alternatives of sanding idly by as Iran goes nuclear, or relying on a military strike, which could have grave consequences and should be contemplated only as a last resort." If Iran fails to come up with a constructive negotiating stance by the time the UN General Assembly meets in September, the White House should develop a playbook with options other than war. Attacking the centrifuge facility at Natanz and other Iranian nuclear facilities might set back the country's nuclear ambitions for a time, but it could also provoke a wider conflict that would severely harm vital U.S. interests. Iran is likely to respond to such an attack by attacking oil facilities and tankers throughout the Persian Gulf area — driving oil prices sky-high again — and sponsoring a fresh round of violent attacks by its proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East. A unilateral U.S. strike on Iran would also provoke the same sort of international condemnation that greeted the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Having options short of war is, therefore, something to be greatly desired. But one must ask: Would a ban on gasoline sales prove a step toward peace, or a step toward war?  That is, would it make armed conflict less likely by forcing the Iranians to return to the bargaining table in a more accommodating mood, or would it prove a stepping-stone to military action? No one can be absolutely sure about this, of course. But there are good reasons to be skeptical about a gasoline ban's effectiveness in promoting peace and cooperation. Why It Might Not Work To be effective, a gas ban would require the acquiescence of Russia, China, India, and other key powers that are reluctant to impose harsh sanctions on Iran. These countries conduct extensive trade with Iran and are not likely to jeopardize their well-established position there by complying with a U.S.-backed measure. China and Russia, with veto rights at the Security Council, are unlikely to approve any UN measure that entailed enforcement of a gasoline ban through a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, an action essential to prevent cheating and smuggling. With the tacit support of its business partners, the Iranians could easily circumvent the embargo through various devious means. A U.S.-imposed embargo on refined products would also allow the Ahmadinejad regime to initiate tougher gasoline rationing, raise energy prices, and push through other unpopular economic moves — all in the name of nationalism and anti-imperialism. Anyone who objected to such moves would be branded as an ally or agent of the "Great Satan," the United States. Under these circumstances, the Iranians would not likely be more inclined to negotiate away its enrichment program than it would absent such a ban. If anything, the conservative mullahs who rule the country may see it as a godsend — as a way of solidifying domestic support at time when many young Iranians appear to be rejecting clerical domination. On the other hand, a gasoline embargo might provoke the Iranians into taking steps that would increase the risk of war, especially if the United States employed military means to enforce the ban. For example, they could encourage their allies in Iraq, such as the more militant followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, to renew their attacks on American soldiers in Baghdad and elsewhere. In recent months the Sadrists have been relatively quiescent, preferring to engage in political rather than military struggle. But they have hardly eschewed their capacity for mischief, and, with the right prodding from Tehran, might again target American personnel and their Iraqi partners, complicating the U.S. withdrawal. Leading to War? More frightening scenarios could unfold if the United States and its closest allies seek to enforce an embargo by establishing a naval blockade in waters off Iran and stopping ships thought to be violating the ban. Given the high likelihood of cheating, such a blockade would probably be necessary for the embargo to prove effective. But such a move could be considered an act of war, and might well invite retaliation by Iran's Revolutionary Guard — which sports its own small-ship navy. An eerie preview of such a scenario occurred in January 2008, when five Iranian speedboats approached several American warships in the Strait of Hormuz and, according to some reports, threatened to blow them up. One U.S. ship, the U.S.S. Hopper , was on the brink of opening fire on the Iranian boats when they veered off, ending the engagement. It is easy to imagine similar scenes — with less benign outcomes —repeating themselves, in the event that American warships attempt to blockade Iranian territory. And once shots are fired, under whatever circumstances, it could prove difficult to avoid escalation to more robust military means, leading to the war scenario the embargo was intended to avert. That a ban on gasoline sales to Iran carries these potential downsides is not a reason to abandon consideration of such a move. As suggested, it is far better to be thinking of economic sanctions if Iran proves intransigent in the months ahead than to opt automatically for military action. But an oil embargo appears especially risky, both because it would strengthen the hand of conservative clerics in Tehran and it could entail a naval blockade, setting off a chain reaction of violent moves. Administration officials should, therefore, scrutinize this option very rigorously before it becomes the preferred response to an Iranian rebuff in September. More on Israel
 
The Sartorialist Discusses Dressing In A Recession Top
How has the Wall Street crash affected you? I think it's helped in a small way; people come to my site to find inspiration and ways to reinterpret the clothing they already have.
 
Andy Ostroy: japaneseMock Executitions, Power Drills to the Head and "We'll Kill Your Mama?" Why Obama Must Fully Prosecute Bush's War Criminals Top
So now we know the CIA went even further than previously thought in interrogating and torturing terror suspects. This includes guns and power-drills pointed at heads; death threats against family members; and mock executions. Democrats are outraged, while hypocritical Republicans are claiming witch hunt . This coming from a party that impeached a U.S president, Bill Clinton, on charges stemming from an adulterous affair. The same party that's now crying foul over a special war crimes investigation. It's good that right-wingers have their priorities straight, huh? As expected, the vicious GOP attack machine kicked into high gear Tuesday, tearing a familiar page from its lies and deception playbook. Right-wing radio's spinheads are literally whipping themselves into a mouth-frothing frenzy , claiming "the Obama administration is creating this CIA scandal to divert attention away from its problems" and how "all the left cares about is protecting the feelings of murderous terrorists" or that "liberals want to destroy our Democracy." This is the sort of reprehensible and irresponsible rhetoric we heard repeatedly during the Bush years. It's what Republicans do best, and Obama and the Democrats better get on the offensive or theyt'll end up having to relentlessly defend themselves from this hateful drivel, which would be a major distraction and undermine their entire agenda. Obama and the Democrats will never succeed in the propaganda war if they simply meet lies with intelligent, rational response. They need to grab the controls and re-frame the debate rather than constantly play defense . And maybe they should even start spreading some lies of their own. Put Republicans on the defensive for a change. Its time to fight fire with fire. Why be swift-boated again? Have Democrats forgotten how the Rovians succeeding in making the war hero John Kerry look weak on national security while turning draft-dodging Bush and Cheney into John Wayne? Is there any doubt they'll exploit the CIA scandal, painting Democrats as unpatriotic in the process? Or that they'll take the recovering economy, and twist reality so that voters think that things are headed in the wrong direction? Just look how they've hijacked the health-care debate, spreading despicable lies about "death panels" and "pulling the plug on Grandma." History can so repeat itself. Now let's address the issue of whether the CIA went beyond the call of duty in its interrogation techniques. Hindsight is indeed a luxury, and to be sure, the threats posed by non-uniformed, suicidal, murderous terrorist butchers are by far more frightening and harder to combat than our traditional enemies of the past. But that's again in the context of history. If we go back 65-70 years, when America battled the Nazis, Mussolini and the Japanese, or during the ensuing decades when the paranoid Communist Russian fear raged out of control, the Unites States military and intelligence apparatus managed to protect the nation while still abiding by international law. Throughout modern U.S. history, each presidential administration viewed its then-enemy as the most dangerous and deadly. But what kind of nation will we become if we suddenly decide that the current enemy is the most deadly, and therefore we no longer must obey international law, the Geneva Conventions, FISA laws, the Constitution or our own rule of law? Where do we draw the line? Once the bar is reset for "acceptable" interrogation and torture, the playbook will be forever changed, and American soldiers' lives will be at stake. What happens to these brave servicemen and women when they are captured if we've committed illegal acts of torture all under the name of national security? What's to stop other armies from doing the same? And if so, what are we left with? When laws are no longer respected you have anarchy . Which is why President Obama must punish these Bush-era criminals under the fullest extent of the law. This isn't a presidential blowjob we're talking about here..... More on Karl Rove
 
Heather Taylor-Miesle: This is Why You Were Elected - Be A Hero Top
This August has been pretty hard on Members of Congress. Elected officials returned home this recess to be greeted by mobs of angry " Astroturf constituents " at every turn; stalked by political-paparazzi praying for a " macaca" moments that could be viewed by the world via YouTube; and generally told that however they vote, they will be wrong. It may seem like I am sympathetic but the thing is - this is part of the job. Governing is hard. The solutions to our very real problems demand more than tweaks. Forging a path towards today's "manifest destiny" - rebuilding a stronger America -- will take elected-officials who are so consumed with finding the right answers to our problems that they aren't thinking about their next elections. Bottom line - we need brave leaders. Congressman Perriello (D-VA) summed it up best when he was attacked for voting to pass important climate legislation: " There's got to be something more important than getting reelected.... If I lose my seat, and that's the worst that happens, I could live with that ." I don't think that Congressman Perriello is going to lose his seat - but I do think he displayed the visionary leadership to help this country make the right decisions. That is why he - and the 219 other Members of the House who voted for the climate bill - are heroes. Was the bill perfect? No. Was it the start of something important? Absolutely. Sometimes the first step is the hardest because it puts us on a different path to real change - and that, my friends, is why these folks were elected in the first place.
 

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