Monday, September 28, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Steve Parker: Two new books document American racing Top
One of the great enjoyments for car nuts, at least this one, are new and exhaustively detailed books on our favorite topic ... with plenty of photos. When those books are about people and topics we know personally, that makes the books that much more interesting and exciting ... and they better be correct! Recently I interviewed two authors for my Sunday evening www.TalkRadioOne.com show, World Racing Roundup, and their books are first-rate. And they're both about topics I happen to know pretty well. Yeah, I even read the books, too (no Larry King am I). You can download the interviews free from the TalkRadioOne.com site. "Mickey Thompson - The Fast Life and Tragic Death of a Racing Legend" by Erik Arneson, published by MBI and Motorbooks This was a book just begging to be written since that awful day in 1988 when Mickey and his wife Trudy were, as the Los Angeles County Sheriff put it, "assassinated" in their driveway by thugs hired by a former business partner. That "partner" is now serving two life sentences in a California state prison; the actual hired shooters were never found. Thompson defined and often dominated American motorsports from the '50s through the '80s; he operated the first professional ¼-mile drag strip in America, Lions Associated Drag Strip in Los Angeles' harbor area, set more land speed records than anyone else at the Bonneville Salt Flats, was so innovative at developing cars for the Indy 500 that many oldtimers shunned his efforts and, finally, brought the excitement of Baja-style off-road racing to major stadiums across the country. My connection? I knew Thompson well and worked for him between 1978 and 1980, during the time he staged the first major off-road race in the middle of an American city: 1979's Off-Road Championship Grand Prix in the Los Angeles Coliseum. I know the title well because I actually named the event in an office contest --- and got a $1,000 bonus from Mickey (or MT, as we all called him) for coming up with it ... big money for a 25-year old kid back then! His natural enthusiasm, non-stop energy, impressive promotional abilities and some outrageous personal habits (such as setting his plane on 'autopilot' so he could take a nap, or eating his steak with an ice cream desert on the same plate) are all well-documented. MT's dad was a big, tough Irish cop in southern California, where MT was born and raised and lived his life, and the kids in that family learned that running home to avoid a fight was much, much worse than actually getting your ass kicked by some bully. But MT was also a warm and caring person ... something folks who didn't know him well would never guess. Under the obvious gruffness and the anger which would often result in a fistfight between Mick and his latest enemy-of-the-moment, Thompson was a loyal friend, loving husband, son, father and grandfather and would hire people for more money than they ever made after talking with them for five minutes. He was a good boss, too. Mickey and Trudy Thompson Arneson, a former USA TODAY writer and now VP of media relations for SPEED television, wrote a book which covers the major sections of MT's life from teenage street racing to the professional drag strip, Bonneville, Indy and Baja and the stadium racing series; it has many pages of photos to document all those efforts. There's a lot of space devoted to the murders and the subsequent court cases; while this might be a bit dull to readers who don't remember or know the story, the entire affair was so complicated, taking some 20 years from the murders until a conviction, that the details are welcomed to fill-in the blanks. If the book were fiction, it would be unbelievable. That one man could so dominate so many different aspects of one of the roughest sports in the world and for so many years is one of those stories "you couldn't make up." But Arneson didn't have to make up any of it; MT did it all, and then some. "We Were the Ramchargers - Inside Drag Racing's Legendary Team" by Dr. Dave Rockwell; published by the Society of Automotive Engineers/SAE International The 1950s through the '70s were the glory days of drag racing in America. Not only were the amateur sportsman racers still considered an integral part of the sport by the nascent National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), but there were big, well-funded teams representing the Detroit Three ... sometimes officially, sometimes not so officially ... Dave Rockwell's book is about the Ramchargers, the team centered around a small group of engineers who were the basis for the Chrysler/Dodge factory effort in both NHRA drag racing as well as NASCAR and other "circle track" events. I wasn't hanging around drag strips in those days, but a few years ago I ghostwrote a book with Pontiac's lead man in drag racing then, Jim Wangers ("Glory Days - When Horsepower and Passion Ruled Detroit") and feel that I understand what it must have felt like to go to the races in the last '50s and early '60s and who the players were. Incidentally, both Wangers and Mickey Thompson get several mentions in Rockwell's book. The "engineering" angle is what was unique about the Ramchargers; other pro racing teams from Detroit sometimes came from the "boardroom down" with marketing, PR and other executives putting together the engineers necessary to be the center of a race team. The Ramchargers started, literally, from the bottom up. Engineers and other related speed freak-types in the Dodge factory spent their evenings developing high-performance engines and cars not officially sanctioned by the boardroom. Like similar unofficial teams from Chevrolet, Pontiac and Ford, the Ramchargers would compete in the infamous "Stop Light Grand Prixs" held nightly on Detroit's Woodward Avenue ... until the cops came. What began as a secret after-hours club of engineers working with what they considered the "neglected potential" of speed and power around them finally turned into a factory-supported effort which broke the most time barriers in drag racing history and won the most NHRA Super Stock titles during the sport's golden era of factory-vs-factory competition. The Ramchargers also went a long way towards establishing Chrysler and Dodge in the public mind as young, fun, hip and powerful, things the company had never been associated with in the past. With the demographic studies those days showing a coming "bubble" of young drivers and buyers, Chrysler, like Ford, Pontiac and Chevy, used NHRA drag racing to create the image they wanted. Dick Landy's Dodge was the team's lead car on the west coast for the Ramchargers The Ramchargers arguably developed the first Funny Car and perhaps most enduringly the powerful and bulletproof 426 Hemi which Chrysler sells to this day and is used in race cars and trucks around the world. These were the days when highly-funded secret engine programs were being run out of the suburban basements of engineers and drivers, racing parts from the factory would be "unofficially" delivered to certain buyers packed in a cardboard box and hidden in the car's trunk when delivered and "cooperative" dealers like Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, MI, one of the closest dealers to a Pontiac factory, would sell factory-made racing parts out their back doors to "club members" to avoid government and public complaints about the car-makers encouraging speeding. This 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger was helped in its development and sales by the factory drag racing team Rockwell's book has plenty of photos, including two full-page color folio sections, and the author dedicated the tome, "To those who drive American." Like Arneson's book on Mickey Thompson, We Were the Ramchargers is full of interviews with many of the participants, and a goodly amount of technical information so those under 50 can understand where today's high-performance engines came from, and those over 50 may very well remember from their own drag racing experience. More on Cars
 
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Artist Rally Behind Polanski Top
My journal, La Règle du jeu , is working in support of Roman Polanski and mobilizing writers and artists through the following petition: Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings. Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe. We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it. Bernard-Henri Lévy Salman Rushdie Milan Kundera Pascal Bruckner Neil Jordan Isabelle Adjani Arielle Dombasle Isabelle Huppert William Shawcross Yamina Benguigui Mike Nichols Danièle Thompson Diane von Furstenberg Claude Lanzmann Paul Auster
 
AKMuckraker: The Real Story of the "Rogue" in Sarah Palin's New Book Title. Top
"Going Rogue," is the title of Sarah Palin's soon-to-be released memoir. It's cute, it's catchy and it will sell some books. The 400-page tome will hit the shelves on November 17th, with a massive first printing of 1.5 million copies. And each one of those book jackets is another jab at two of the many casualties of the Palin administration in Alaska. Politico reports that the phrase has its roots in an Oct. 20 story by Slate's John Dickerson, with the lead: "Has Sarah Palin "gone rogue"?" But those of us who live in Alaska, and who have been following this story from the beginning know the real root of that phrase, and will understand the ugly irony of Palin's title. During the ethics investigation of Sarah Palin now known as "Troopergate," that phrase became seared into the collective consciousness of Alaskans. Palin's spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton used that word referring not to Palin, but to the former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan. Palin had pressured Monegan to fire her ex-brother in law Trooper Mike Wooten whose nasty divorce from Palin's sister had left bitter feelings. Monegan refused to fire him, and was subsequently dismissed by the governor, leaving the Department of Public Safety without leadership, and leaving many Alaskans with a bad taste in their mouths. In a stinging press conference, Stapleton said that Monegan, a particularly well-liked and respected public servant, former police chief and ex-Marine had displayed "egregious rogue behavior." Stapleton, who had been a respected news anchor before her association with Palin, suffered withering criticism from Alaskans on both sides of the political spectrum. Alaska is a small town. Monegan was no "rogue," everyone knew it, and the use of the term disgraced her. What had Monegan done, according to the governor, that earned him this brand? He had planned a trip to Washington D.C. to seek funding to help combat sexual assault in a state that leads the nation in that category. Rogue, indeed. In September of 2008, Alaskans for Truth held a rally in downtown Anchorage . More than 1500 Alaskans showed up to protest the administration's handling of "Troopergate," the insinuation of the McCain campaign's attorneys into Alaska's Department of Law, and the outrageous behavior of Meg Stapleton, then Attorney General Talis Colberg, and Palin herself. One of the speakers at the rally was Betty Monegan, the mother of Walt Monegan, who carried a sign referencing the outrageous accusations made by the Palin administration. But Monegan was not the only one to stand accused of being a "rogue." Mike Wooten, the infamous ex-brother-in-law was called a "rogue trooper" and Palin said he was a danger to her family and to the public. She made it clear that in no uncertain terms that being a "rogue" was not a good thing. These accusations were soundly refuted by Steven Branchflower, an independent investigator hired by the bipartisan Legislative Council to investigate Troopergate. "I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family reasons," Branchflower wrote. The Branchflower report states Todd Palin used his wife's office and its resources to press for Wooten's removal, and the governor "failed to act" to stop it. But because Todd Palin is not a state employee, the report makes no finding regarding his conduct. The bipartisan Legislative Council, which commissioned the investigation after Monegan was fired, unanimously adopted the 263-page public report... The Branchflower Report was to find Governor Palin guilty of abusing her power as governor under the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Attorney General Talis Colberg would ultimately resign his position , and Todd Palin and several administration officials would be found guilty of contempt of the Legislature for ignoring subpoenas. Trooper Mike Wooten ended up with a desk job because Palin's accusations that he was a "rogue" and a danger to the public had brought about threats that made it impossible for him to work out in the open as a trooper, despite the findings of the Branchflower Report. Walt Monegan was denied a request for a due process hearing before the governor-appointed Alaska Personnel Board to address reputational harm because of the insults he endured from an administration who chose to call him a "rogue." That's the same board to which Palin filed a complaint against herself, and was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing. And now Sarah Palin apparently hopes to make the term "rogue" impish and endearing, and hopes it will help her sell a lot of books. But that term is no such thing to many Alaskans. It wasn't "cute" when it was used as a finely sharpened tool in the Palin toolbox, used to malign the characters of those who stood in the way of her power scramble to become the Vice President of the United States. She may have fooled her ghost writer, and the folks at Harper-Collins, and she may fool many of those in the Lower 48 who will wait on line for their copy of "Going Rogue," but she will not fool Alaskans.
 
Craig Crawford: Get Over Guns, America Top
Once again, Democrats face the vortex of gun rights. They probably lost Congress in 1994 largely because then-President Bill Clinton backed the outlawing of assault weapons. This is so nuts. I grew up learning to shoot critters with my 20-guage shotgun, but I never EVER considered it a constitutional right. As an 11-year-old stripping the skin off squirrels I decided against such a thing. Frankly, it made a bit ill, and I suddenly resolved to give up killing animals, even if it was for food. (Squirrel stew is tasty, by the way.) But I never imagined such a thing as defining my status as an American -- and I still don't. Craig blogs daily on CQ Politics .
 
Public Health Key To Reducing Urban Violence: Kotlowitz Top
According to acclaimed author Alex Kotlowitz, an unlikely tool - public health - can be used to help combat violence in Chicago's impoverished neighborhoods.
 
Obama Chia Plants On Sale Again After Controversy Top
CVS stores have started selling the controversial Barack Obama Chia pottery plant kits that Walgreens dropped last April amid protests. More on Barack Obama
 
Chicagoans For Rio Site Creator Comes Clean Top
A 43-year-old Chicago advertising copywriter told the Chicago Tribune today that he was the creative mind behind ChicagoansForRio.com, ending a weeklong mini-mystery surrounding the satirical Web page that sought to raise questions about Chicago support for the city's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. More on Olympics
 
Stephanie Wei: The (Final) FedEx Cup Breakdown Top
After the first leg, I thought the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour playoffs, really sucked and after the second, I said it was getting kinda interesting . Then, on the eve of the Tour Championship, I mentioned it might return to suck . Now the third edition of the FEC is complete. And the final verdict? The system is still mired in suck -- but this weekend's results saved it this year. Everyone Wins...Especially Commissioner Tim Finchem When the world's number one and two, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, are both hoisting trophies at the end of the day, it's a good day . Tiger and Phil deserve praise for playing in all four events. Until this year, Tiger had only played in 3 of 4 (and skipped the Tour Championship in '06) because, well, he doesn't care about the FedEx Cup; he cares about winning tournaments. But he stepped up to help the Tour. As a favor. It's Still Never Going to Pull the Casual Golf Fan Away From Football TV ratings revealed an 83% increase in Sunday's telecast from last year when Tiger wasn't playing and Vijay Singh had already won the FEC before the Tour Championship began. But did people watch because the winner of the FEC had yet to be determined? No. It was simply because Phil played beautifully and Tiger was in contention. But even if Tiger and Phil were in an 18 hole playoff where the winner gets $10 million dollars and the loser gets tazered on the green and has to sit out the 2010 golf season, it's still never going to beat the NFL in ratings. Finchem Likes to Confuse Players and Fans No doubt this year's FEC culminated on a successful note. But the bottom line is the points system is very flawed. Though the commentators frequently posted "what if" scenarios and tried to explain the system as much as possible, it's doubtful the average fan really cared or understood. And if the players don't get it either, that's a bigger problem. Even Phil, who usually seems to know it all, said : I don't know. I don't know enough about [the FEC]. I know that if you play well, you win. If you play well, you do well, and I think that's important. I don't know, I haven't really invested the time to look at it. Meanwhile, Finchem expects fans to study it : We just have to keep explaining it, I think, and gradually people will want to spend more time, go on line and study it and evaluate the different point configurations in tournaments, three different sections of the season. Aside from losers like myself, no one wants homework to prepare for watching a sporting event. And it's not a system that people can grasp after a 30 minute study sesh. And imagine if Marc Leishman had won the Tour Championship? Even if Tiger still won the FEC, nobody would have cared. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not disappointed by the final results. Phil and Tiger in the winner's circle is a fantastic way to end the season, but that's a rarity. Sadly, this year's perfect ending could hinder the FEC from making the necessary changes it desperately needs if it ever wants a devoted, mainstream golf following. [Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images] This post originally appeared at Wei Under Par.
 
Sun-Times May Have Another Interested Buyer Top
Move over, James Tyree: At least one other investor is considering bidding for Sun-Times Media Group Inc.
 
Michael Rubin, Bob Baer: Better Than 50-50 Chance Israel Strikes Iran Within A Year (VIDEO) Top
Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and Bob Baer, a former CIA officer who now writes an intelligence column for Time.com, joined Chris Matthews on "Hardball" tonight to discuss the possibility that Israel will unilaterally attack Iran after the Islamic nation's recent missile tests. In a lengthy conversation about what such an attack might look like and what the fallout would be, both analysts agreed that there's better than a 50-50 chance that Israel will strike Iran in the next year. Rubin and Baer also agreed that the time frame in which the United States can exercise any influence over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding an airstrike is very limited: Matthews : How long do we have to keep Netanyahu from acting? Rubin : I'd say it's in months, if not weeks. Baer : He's given three months. He's got to see something happening in three months or he's going to start his planning. They've already started their planning. WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Chris Matthews
 
Derrion Albert Beating Death: 3 Teens Charged With Murder Top
CHICAGO — Cell phone footage showing a group of teens viciously kicking and striking a 16-year-old honors student with splintered railroad ties has ramped up pressure on Chicago officials to address chronic violence that has led to dozens of deaths of city teens each year. The graphic video of the afternoon melee emerged on local news stations over the weekend, showed the fatal beating of Derrion Albert, a sophomore honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School. His death was the latest addition to a toll that keeps getting higher: More than 30 students were killed last school year, and the city could exceed that number this year. Prosecutors charged three teenagers on Monday with fatally beating Albert, who was walking to a bus stop when he got caught up in the mob street fighting, authorities said. The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students from different neighborhoods, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. When school ended, members of the two groups began fighting near the Agape Community Center. The attack, captured in part on a bystander's cell phone video, shows Albert being struck on the head by one of several young men wielding wooden planks. After he falls to the ground an appears to try to get up, he is struck again and then kicked. Prosecutors charged Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, with first-degree murder, and they were ordered held without bond on Monday, said Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. The Cook County Public Defender's Office, which represented the three teenagers in court, had no immediate comment Monday. Chicago police said charges are pending against a fourth suspect and that they are looking for at least three more suspects, but would not discuss a possible motive for the attack. Simonton said Albert was a bystander and not part of either group. She said he was knocked unconscious when Carson struck him in the head with a board and the second person punched him in the face. Albert regained consciousness and was trying to get up when he was attacked a second time by five people and was struck in the head with a board by Riley and stomped in the head by Shannon, Simonton said. Desiyan Bacon, Riley's aunt, said her nephew didn't have anything to do with the beating and was a friend of the victim. "They need to stop the crime, but when they do it, they need to get the right person," Bacon said. For Chicago, a sharp rise in violent student deaths over the past three school years – most from shootings off school property – have been a tragedy and an embarrassment. Before 2006, an average of 10-15 students were fatally shot each year. That climbed to 24 fatal shootings in the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year. At a vigil at the school on Monday, some community members said the solution lies with parents. "It is our problem. We have to take control of our children," said Dawn Allen, who attended a vigil at the school Monday, where a group of residents tried to force their way into the school before being turned back by police. This month, the city announced a $30 million project that targets 1,200 high school pupils identified as most at risk to become victims of gun violence, giving them full-time mentors and part-time jobs to keep them off the streets. Some money also will pay for more security guards and to provide safe passage for students forced to travel through areas with active street gangs. Albert's family attended a news conference Monday with school district leaders and police, but did not speak. They wore T-shirts with a picture of him in a cap and gown, with the words, "Gone too soon, too young." But Annette Holt, mother of Blair Holt, a Chicago Public Schools student who was shot on a city bus two years ago, said Albert represented "another promising future, just snuffed out because of violence ... we have to do something different here because obviously we didn't solve the problem." "Someone said he (Derrion) was in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "No, he wasn't. He was in the right place. He was coming from school."
 
Trent Franks: Obama Should Release His Long-Form Birth Certificate (VIDEO) Top
Dave Weigel of The Washington Independent caught up with Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.) at the "How to Take Back America" conference and offered him a chance to put himself firmly outside the 'birther' camp. Franks instead used the opportunity to acknowledge that he had once been presented with information that caused him to question President Obama's citizenship, and that Obama should release his long-form birth certificate to clear up any remaining doubts: There was a time, right before and right after the presidential election where information was brought to me that put Mr. Obama's citizenship in question, in my mind. And I looked through it, we did all kinds of research, and we found material, in papers in Hawaii, newspapers, that I don't think could have been forged, that show he indeed was born in Hawaii about two years after statehood and that solved the issue for me... ...Probably, Barack Obama could solve this problem and make the birthers, you know, back off, by simply showing us his long-form birth certificate. That'd solve the problem. There's some other issue, I don't know what it is, that he doesn't want people to see the birth certificate on. WATCH: One wonders what information could have possibly been presented to Franks to cause him that amount of consternation about Obama's citizenship. Another case of right wing hysteria has to do with conspiracies surrounding the Census, conspiracies that have particularly been promoted by Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann . Weigel was a guest on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" tonight to discuss the horrific case of the Census worker who was found hanged with "FED" carved into his chest. WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.
 
Lee Bycel: New Year: Is There Hope for the Darfuri People, for Us? Top
No one says it ... but the uneasy feeling was palpable.  I  could see the questions in their eyes:  Why are you going to spend Rosh Hashanah in Darfuri refugee camps in Eastern Chad?  Why would a rabbi welcome the Jewish New Year in a place where there are no Jews?  Do you really think going will make a difference?   I understand these questions.  I only regret that they are rarely asked aloud.  I have had lots of time to reflect on these questions on this three day journey to a place that is far more distant from San Francisco than the days of travel to get here. I am here in Eastern Chad, this epicenter of human suffering.  I am here with fellow human beings, reminding them that we do care and we have not forgotten.  I am here listening to their stories and letting them know that I will bring their stories home.  I am here because our worlds are inextricably linked.    I first visited here in 2004 and since then I have returned several times.  The Chadian people are some of the poorest people on the planet.  Here, 275,000 Darfuri refugees have found a fragile safe haven in U.N. tents.  These shelters provide minimal protection from the harsh conditions of sub-Saharan Africa and not much more from the storms of conflict.  The plight of the Darfuri people -- the nearly three million displaced from their homes and the 400,000 dead -- has been well documented.  Our advocacy and diplomacy has had some impact on decelerating this genocide, now in its seventh year.   Our humanitarian aid has saved lives.  Still, the situation on the ground remains dismal. Rosh Hashanah is a holiday that celebrates renewal and creation.  It implores us to care for each other and to care for this planet.  It reminds us that as long as there is life there is hope.  What better place to welcome in the New Year than with the victims of man's brutality to man.  Although we have yet to turn our powerful prayers into a world that is just and humane, I have hope -- and hope is all these refugees have.  It is their lifeblood. As I sit here with new friends and refugees whom I have known for years, I marvel at their ability to survive. The soul of a refugee camp resides in the courageous people who dwell within it. The silent screams that echo through the camp are those of a people who are asking if the world still cares.  My presence, it could be any of us, conveys that we do care and we are doing our best to restore their lives.  These refugees are the victims of horrific events: genocide, climate change, lack of resources and a world that is confused about its humanitarian priorities. It is no longer possible to separate these problems; real solutions will only come when we think and act in integrated ways. Ways which allow people to live with inalienable rights -- to food, shelter, potable water and the absence of violence in their day to day lives.      There is currently much discussion about the role of the United States and what international pressure should be applied to change the situation.  This work is essential and provides hope for long term solutions. Immediate humanitarian needs, however, cannot be overlooked.  My friend Adam cannot wait another year for drinkable water; his daughters cannot wait another day for a life without the constant threat of rape; the elderly and the infants cannot survive another winter without shelter from the torrential desert rain.  Where will the aid come from unless we help to provide it? Is my trip making a difference?  I see a difference in the smiles of the children. I feel it when I hold a refugees hand.  I witness it when I visit the aid clinics. Perhaps the difference isn't quantifiable, but it is profoundly apparent to me. Soon I will be returning home renewed and filled with hope for the New Year, thanks to the brave spirit of the Darfuri people. Experiencing the horrific conditions of their day to day lives brings an indescribable perspective to my own challenges and reminds me that my life will never be full until their suffering is over. Our humanity is defined by our actions -- our ability to show compassion, to empathize with others, and to do something constructive -- and opportunities to help others are present each and every day.  For us, remembering the Darfuri people is a measure of our conscience and humanity. For them, it is their hope for survival. That is why I have returned to Chad.    Lee Bycel is Executive Director of the Redford Center which is based in Berkeley. The Redford Center inspires positive social and environmental change through the arts, education and civil discourse.  For suggestions on actions you can take regarding Darfur please go to the website of the Save Darfur Coalition. More on Refugees
 
Background Check iPhone App: 'Date Check' App Searches Assets, Criminal Records (VIDEO) Top
The soon to be released 'Date Check' is a free app that lets you perform basic background checks on potential mates. While the app itself is free, the checks are not. After entering a person's name or cell phone number, 'Date Check' performs one of several types of searches, like 'Sleaze Detector,' which searches for a criminal background, 'Net Worth' provides details about a person's assets including property, and 'Interests' scours social networking sites for personal details. WATCH: More on iPhone
 
Chris Weigant: Best Government Dollar Spent -- The National Park System Top
[ Note: This column originally ran August 17, 2009. I don't usually re-run columns (and never so soon after their original appearance), but after watching the debut of Ken Burn's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" last night, I had to dig this out. I strongly encourage everyone to watch the rest of Burns' series, which is running all week long on your local PBS station. I also strongly urge everyone to visit our National Parks, as well. This column was written just after a road trip I took this summer, and just after President Obama had visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. ]   Everyone has their own opinion as to what the federal government does best -- which government dollar is the most well-spent, in other words. Some would say the military, or Medicare, or farm subsidies. For me, it's a close tie between the Interstate Highway System and the National Park System, both of which I appreciate whenever I get a chance to use them. Which is why it was heartening to see President Obama taking his family to visit two of the crown jewels of the National Park System -- Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Most presidents don't even get around to visiting a National Park in their first year in office, unless you count the many places in Washington, D.C. which are administered by the National Park Service (technically, even the White House would count, under this designation). And even when most presidents do visit National Parks, it is usually to make a political point or push a specific piece of legislation, with a park as a convenient photo-op backdrop. But Obama and his family weren't pushing any environmental legislation or making any kind of political point this past weekend. They looked like any other tourist family, there to enjoy the spectacular beauty with their kids (except for the Secret Service detail, of course). Barack Obama made a trip West with his own mother and grandmother when he was a young boy, and he obviously was taking the opportunity to do the same with his children. What could be more American and more family-oriented than that? Some in the media didn't agree, and wrote fairly snarky reports of the Obamas in the parks. I chalk this up to the elitism of the coastal set, who sneeringly look down their noses at anything in what they like to call "flyover country" (since you're obviously supposed to fly over it on your way from one coast to the other). Their loss. America has lots to offer, and much of it is hundreds of miles from a coast. Admittedly, there are some pretty boring parts of America (the Great Plains spring to mind), but there are also wonders to behold, tucked away here and there, that you'll never see unless you get in a car and drive there. To be fair, I have to admit my own bias, which you've probably already guessed by now. I am unashamedly and unabashedly pro-park. I just got back from a trip where I visited my thirty-second National Park (Capitol Reef, in Utah). Since there are only 58 parks in all (eight of which are in Alaska, which I have yet to visit), I consider myself well on my way to seeing most of them in my lifetime. Of course, the number of official National Parks changes over time, too. When I was growing up, for instance, there were only 35 National Parks. Some other sites (National Monuments, National Historic Parks, etc.) got upgraded to National Park status, and a few even got downgraded (to National Recreation Areas, for one). National Monuments I've visited have since become National Parks (Great Sand Dunes, in Colorado, for instance). But whatever their official designations, all are encompassed within the National Park System. The Obamas picked a good park to start with, since Yellowstone was the first National Park in not just America but in the whole world. It became a National Park before the National Park Service or System even existed (which took place around 50 years later, in 1916). Yellowstone became a National Park owned by the federal government because there wasn't any state government in the area at the time (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho all became states later). And anyone who has been to see it can easily tell why it had to be protected -- because it is simply spectacular. Beautiful enormous canyons, waterfalls, rivers, and mountains all lie within the park's boundaries, but what makes it truly unique are the hot springs and geysers. Everyone knows "Old Faithful" of course, but there are hundreds of other thermal miracles to see as well, including deep pools of hot water the color of emeralds -- or any other color in the rainbow you'd care to look at. Likewise, the Grand Canyon does not disappoint. Some sights you travel to and kind of shrug your shoulders and say "Eh... it's not as spectacular as I thought it would be." Some things look a lot bigger in photos than they do when you're standing in front of them, leading to a sense of disappointment. The Grand Canyon is not one of these sights. It's big. Really, really big. Stupendously big. Mere words cannot describe its bigness. Even mere photos cannot capture its gargantuan size -- because no lens is that wide. You stand on its rim and look way, way off in the distance, and you can barely see the other side of it, miles away. You look down into it -- down, down, down -- and when you think you've spotted the bottom, you find there are more layers beneath that. You finally focus on the Colorado River (the culprit who carved the thing), and it is hard to believe how far down you're actually seeing. Quite plainly, it is almost too big for human minds to conceive. The word "awesome" is massively overused, mostly because it's just so darn awesome to say. But only very rarely is anything labeled "awesome" truly full of awe, or awe-inspiring. Both Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, however, measure up to the word -- I defy anyone to see either of them and not leave with a sense of awe. In fact, I encourage everyone, no matter what part of these United States you live in (or even if you live elsewhere), to take a "trip out West" at some point in your life. Get in a car, and go explore everything west of Denver. Your choices of what to see along the way are numerous and varied. You can see the most beautiful mountains this country has to offer (my personal choice, as well as every magazine advertisement ever to use a mountainous backdrop, would be the Grand Tetons). You can also see: glaciers, deserts, canyons, natural bridges, giant trees, huge cliffs and waterfalls, cacti, rivers, sand dunes thousands of miles from an ocean, oyster shells on the top of a mountain ridge, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, 282 feet below sea level), the highest point in America (Denali), volcanoes (dormant ones in the continental U.S., active ones in Hawai'i), seashores, lakeshores, landscapes that make you think you're on another planet (White Sands, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree), humongous caverns, balancing rocks, Native American ruins, a rain forest (Olympic), petrified wood, dinosaur bones, hot springs, and (of course) geysers like Old Faithful. That's all just west of Denver, mind you. There's plenty of other stuff to see in the other direction, too. But seeing President Obama and his family take in two of the western parks (just after I got back from seeing some of them myself) prompted me to write this paean to the parks out West, to strongly encourage everyone -- yes, even you! -- to plan on a trip like this at some point. It's worth it. And it's worth every single one of my tax dollars that go to pay for it. Yours, too.   Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com   More on Barack Obama
 
...Or...Keep The Olympics Out Of Chicago! Top
If all the hoopla surrounding Chicago's pitch to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games makes you cringe, you're not alone. Thousands of people have joined a movement protesting the bid and hope to avoid their city plunging any further into debt. In fact, according to website Chicagoans for Rio 2016 , one in six Chicago-area residents doesn't want the Olympics to be held in the city. It's not hard to see why. Economic consulting group Anderson Economic Group LLC expects potential revenue to be far less than initially estimated . So, how can you get involved in the Anti-Olympics movement? Give money to No Games Chicago or follow their instructions for calling President Obama and telling him not to travel to Copenhagen this Thursday. They also want you to contact Senator Dick Durbin, another strong advocate of bringing the Olympics to Chicago. E-mail the International Olympics Committee through Chicagoans For Rio . They have a letter all ready to go expressing how you think Rio de Janeiro would be a far better choice to host the 2016 Olympic Games. If you're in Chicago, go to City Hall tomorrow and participate in a protest against the bid . More on Barack Obama
 
LaRhonda Marie McCall Arrested: Oklahoma Teen Claims He Was Held In Closet For Years By His Mother Top
OKLAHOMA CITY — A woman was arrested after her 14-year-son told authorities he escaped from a home where he'd been kept for 4 1/2 years, spending most of his time locked in a bedroom closet, police said Monday. A security guard at a National Guard facility in Oklahoma City called police on Friday after the teen showed up malnourished and with numerous scars and other signs of abuse, police Sgt. Gary Knight said. "He was hungry. He was dirty. He had numerous scars on his body," Knight said. "It was very sad." The boy was taken to a hospital to be examined and then turned over to the custody of the Department of Human Services, Knight said. After police interviews, officers on Saturday arrested the boy's mother, 37-year-old LaRhonda Marie McCall, and a friend, 38-year-old Steve Vern Hamilton, on 20 complaints each of child abuse and child neglect. Formal charges have not been filed, and both were being held on $400,000 bond, according to jail records. Jail officials were not sure wheter either had retained an attorney, and no one answered the phone at McCall's home. A police report listed McCall as a pharmaceutical company employee and Hamilton as a cab driver. The teen, wearing only a pair of oversized shorts held up by a belt, walked up to a security guard at the Guard facility around 5 p.m. Friday and asked where a police station was located so he could report being abused, according to a police report. He told police that scars on his stomach and torso were from where alcohol had been poured on him and set on fire. Other scars were from being tied up, hit with an extension cord and choked, the boy told police. "He had scars covering most of his body," Knight said. "They were basically from head to foot." The teen told police he moved to the Oklahoma City area from New Jersey about 4 1/2 years ago after his mother was released from jail. Since arriving in Oklahoma, he said, he had never been to school and spent most of his time locked in a bedroom closet. He told police the closet door was mostly blocked with a stepladder or a bed and that he managed to push the door open enough to escape and leave the house. Knight said six other children living at the home were taken into DHS custody, but none showed signs of abuse. McCall had lived at several different addresses in the Oklahoma City area, he said. A DHS spokeswoman said she could not discuss specific cases but generally an investigation would be conducted before any of the children are returned to the home or placed with other family members. "There may be family members, but we do a diligent search, and we're very careful about placing kids in a safe environment," DHS spokeswoman Beth Scott said.
 
Aaron Thompson Convicted Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death Top
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Jurors have found Aaron Thompson guilty of one count of child abuse resulting in death in the disappearance and presumed death of his young daughter. The charge was one of 55 in a verdict delivered by jurors Monday after nine days of deliberation. A mistrial was declared on two other charges. Thompson was charged with fatal child abuse and other crimes in the death of Aarone (AIR'-uh-nay) Thompson. Thompson reported his daughter missing in November 2005, when she would have been 6. Authorities believed she may have died about two years earlier. Her body has not been found.
 
Scott Dodd: Q&A: Ken Burns on Climate Change, Wolf Hunting and Why Yellowstone Isn't "Geyser World" Top
Filmmaker Ken Burns has explored baseball, jazz, the Civil War and more. Now, in a six-part series that premieres Sunday on PBS, he turns his lens on national parks, which Burns calls "America's best idea." He spoke to OnEarth magazine about his motivation for the documentary, what he learned about wolves and other wildlife, and his concern that global warming could destroy some of America's treasures for future generations. The interview has been edited for brevity. Why were you interested in telling the story of America's national parks? I've always been interested in how my country ticks, and that's what I try to explore in my films. The national parks are the first time in human history that land has been set aside -- not for kings or noblemen or the very rich -- but for everybody, and for all time. We invented it. It's an utterly democratic idea. In a way, it's the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape. Did spending so much time in our national parks affect your thinking about preserving nature and the environment? I think it can't help but do that. It's not so much that you suddenly wake up and think, "Now I'm for nature." It's just that your experience again and again and again transforms all levels of your being by spending time in our national parks. These things work on us in very special ways. There are so many paradoxes. You stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon, you look down and you see the patient work of the Colorado, and you feel instantly your insignificance in the face of the eons of time exhibited before you. But that has a strange way of making you feel bigger, connected to everything, a part of everything else. You've said that you hope your film encourages more Americans to have that experience. But do you worry about the tension between encouraging more visitors and at the same time preserving the parks? Absolutely, it's a huge tension -- and a wonderfully democratic one to have. It's built into the act that created the National Park Service in 1916, well after the parks themselves. It says that they're here for the benefit and the enjoyment of the people, but they should also be left unimpaired for future generations. So the great tension of course is that when people flock to the national parks, they are in danger, as one park service director said, of "wearing out the scenery," of "loving them to death." And yet this is an important problem for a democracy to have. Ninety-five percent of the people who visit a national park never go more than a few hundred yards from the road and don't see the vast tracts of wilderness in there. They remain pristine and protected. But if the parks don't have constituents, they run the danger that when the next development idea comes down the pike, they're not going to have someone standing up and saying, "No, you can't do that." One of the things that obviously appeals to park visitors is the opportunity to see wildlife such as wolves and bears and bison -- many of which are threatened or endangered. Did your experience provide you any insight into efforts to preserve those animals? During our filming and research, we "met," in a historical sense, a biologist named George Melendez Wright, who was the park service's first biologist and who insisted that the parks re-arrange their thinking about wildlife. In the early days, the parks were almost resorts. It was about recreation. The bears were fed, the predators were killed, park rangers were directed to the nests of pelicans to stop their eggs from hatching because they thought the pelicans denied fishermen of too many fish. We changed our ideas thanks to George Melendez Wright and evolved our relationship to nature and to wildlife. We no longer feed those bears, we no longer open the garbage dumps, we no longer kill the predators, we reintroduced wolves into Yellowstone. These are important benchmarks of progress of the national park ideal. Speaking of wolves, I know you're aware that they were removed from the endangered species list recently in parts of the northern Rockies, and they're being hunted this month in Idaho and Montana. What are your thoughts about that? As Wright and later Adolph Murie, another biologist, pointed out, the wolves were not responsible for the decline of other animal populations. They were in fact part of a very complex ecosystem that culled and strengthened other wildlife by weeding out the sick and elderly of, say, an elk or sheep population. So they're hugely important to the ecosystem, and therefore thank God that they are protected in our national parks so that we can offset whatever dilatory effect comes from these wolf kills, which to me are just inherited fear. We've hated the wolf for reasons mostly unfair through all of human history. Are there other important insights about wildlife and wilderness preservation that you gained while working on this film? If there had been no national parks, there would be no bison. The most magnificent symbol of our country would be a stuffed animal in a museum like a woolly mammoth -- something prehistoric and long gone. But we've got hundreds and hundreds of bison in Yellowstone and other places that are protected through the National Park Service. Without national parks, the Grand Canyon would be lined with mansions. Without national parks, the Everglades would have long ago been drained and replaced with track housing, and so one of the most diverse environments on the planet, the only place where alligators and crocodiles co-exist with thousands of wading birds, would all be gone. Yosemite and Zion would be gated communities. Yellowstone would be "Geyser World." Do you think that if more Americans visited their national parks or connected with nature in other ways, there would be more concern about environmental issues? Of course. Just as we say that we're shamed by the low turnout at elections and that we wished we had a more engaged citizenry, the same thing applies to our national parks. If more people go, you're building more park protectors, and you're encouraging Congress to give more money to the national parks, as they have at many times in our history when attendance has skyrocketed. The more people who come, the more good citizens you make. Thomas Jefferson didn't think you could be an authentic American unless you had a relationship with nature. He couldn't conceive of a national park, because he thought all of America was a park. But the continent he thought would take 100 generations to fill up was filled up in 100 years, so parks had to be created to offset the fact that we were about to lose it all. Your film will delve into a number of challenges that the national parks have faced over the years. What do you see as the greatest challenges facing them today and in the future? From the very creation of the parks, this is not a story of, "Let's watch Bambi frolic in the forest." This is a story of conflict and drama. Human beings, and Americans in particular, are by nature extractive, some would even say rapacious. It used to be said that American progress could be measured in how much land was "redeemed" from wilderness. So in the 19th century, and even today, we had to go against people who look at a river and think, "dam," or people who look at a beautiful canyon or valley and wonder what mineral wealth can be extracted from it. The history of the national parks is the history of that conflict, of people going against the momentum and tide of human affairs to stop that. As our national parks have grown, they've become much more sensitive bellwethers of the environment, recording even more precisely than other areas of our country the effects of climate change, the adverse effects of power plants and pollution, the introduction of non-native species, a whole host of things. They become laboratories for understanding issues that we're dealing with throughout our whole globe. Are you concerned about the changes that global warming could bring to some of our national parks, such as Yellowstone, where scientists are worried that warmer temperatures could allow pine beetles to wipe out entire forests? Tremendously concerned. I had the privilege, if that's even the right word, to witness first hand the impact of those pine beetles at work in Yellowstone. And I dread the fact that my children or my grandchildren might one day go visit an exquisite national park in northwestern Montana, and it will be called, "The Park Formerly Known as Glacier." This post originally appeared on the OnEarth blog . More on Climate Change
 
Sigourney Weaver: Taking Acid Test, Our New Documentary, To Capitol Hill Top
Our oceans feed the world, provide jobs, and generate most of the planet's oxygen. Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth and contain more than 97 percent of the world's water. Our survival literally depends on their health. And yet few people realize that the oceans are suffering from a grave affliction caused by increased carbon pollution. More than one quarter of the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels enters our oceans, where it makes the water more acidic. Scientists have just recently discovered that this rising acidity is threatening ocean life as we know it. This week, we are joining with Senator Frank Lautenberg on Capitol Hill to host a screening of the groundbreaking documentary, Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification . This will give our lawmakers -- those with the power to limit carbon dioxide pollution -- the opportunity to better understand what is happening to our seas due to our dependence on fossil fuels. Acid Test , which premiered on Discovery Channel Planet Green, was produced by our colleagues at NRDC and narrated by Sigourney. We've been friends since high school and were even shared an apartment as young professionals in New York, heading down our very different career pathways. Now we have come together for one of our most important- and most urgent- collaborations. Acid Test (which you can watch online here ) vividly illustrates what is happening to our oceans, and offers solutions to revitalize them. Excess carbon dioxide is making marine waters more acidic, which causes a drop in carbonate -- the key component in shells. When carbonate levels fall, it is more difficult for organisms to make their shells, which become thinner and more brittle. Ocean acidity has increased an average of 30 percent since the industrial revolution. If we continue to dump carbon dioxide into our seas, ocean acidification could result in a "global osteoporosis," harming not only commercially important shellfish, such as lobster, crabs, and mussels, but also key species in marine food webs such as corals and plankton. That could send shock-waves up the food chain, threatening fish, birds, and mammals. Rising ocean acidity will also hit our economy hard. In the United States alone, ocean-related tourism, recreation and fishing are responsible for over 2 million jobs. Indeed, the U.S. ocean economy creates two and a half times the economic output as the agricultural sector, contributing more than $230 billion to the nation's GDP annually. We don't have to watch these economic opportunities evaporate in the face of acidification. We can take steps to turn back the tide. The first step is for Congress to pass clean energy and climate legislation. This week, Senators Kerry and Boxer will be introducing a comprehensive clean energy bill that we hope will jump-start the Senate to move forward with this vital legislation. Along with policies to drive investment in clean energy and reduce carbon pollution, we hope this bill will include additional adaptation provisions to help make our seas more resilient and better able to withstand the stresses of acidification. The next step in defending our oceans is to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon. The main reason ocean acidification was 'under the radar' for so long is that we have never routinely monitored the impact of rising carbon dioxide pollution on our oceans. The Senate can change that by fully-funding the ocean acidification research bill introduced by Senator Lautenberg. Already, we have seen a dramatic spike in attention around this issue. Now we need our lawmakers to take the necessary steps to restore our oceans. These measures can lead us to a future of more clean energy and less pollution -- a future that is safer and healthier for our people, our planet and our oceans. Save our Oceans from Acidification: Tell your senators to help save our oceans by passing strong climate legislation. This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog. More on Climate Change
 
State Lawmakers Move To Ban Health Insurance Mandates Top
ST. PAUL -- In more than a dozen statehouses across the country, a small but growing group of lawmakers is pressing for state constitutional amendments that would outlaw a crucial element of the health care plans under discussion in Washington: the requirement that everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty. More on Health Care
 
Jose Antonio Vargas: It's Not Facebook, It's the People Who Use Facebook Top
All the Internet does is reflect -- and amplify -- human behavior. It's easy to be anonymous online, as anyone who's ever been a victim of online slander knows. It's also easy to threaten the life of the sitting American president. And the controversial Facebook poll asking users if President Obama should be killed underlines two emerging ethos of the connected, free-wheeling, open-like-an-open-wound Web. First, people do what they do online because they can. A Facebook spokesman said "the offensive poll" was put up on Saturday, drawing some 700 responses ranging from "yes" and "if he cuts my health care" to "no." The poll was created by a third-party application, and Facebookers had previously used the poll to ask questions like "What should I wear on Friday?" and "What do you think about health care?", the Facebook spokesman said. Both the individual poll and the application were taken down when Facebook officials were alerted of them Monday morning. The Secret Service is now investigating the case. Second, because of the relative newness of our social networking era -- in which what you fire off on Twitter may end up on someone's Facebook status page before finding its way to some blog and then becoming the subject of a YouTube video -- there's no agreed upon code of behavior online. There's no censoring hub, no stop light to stop the madmen on the virtual freeway from veering off the lanes. What's acceptable to say in the company of your friends or relatives can go public. And spreads. Then hits a collective nerve. Some HuffPostTech readers are asking others to boycott Facebook for allowing such a poll to possibly exist on its site. A HuffPost reader named "nevergiveup" posted a phone number for Facebook and urged people to call and "leave a message that this is unAmerican and treasonous and they are responsible." In an interview with HuffPostTech, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said: "People are certainly entitled to their opinions, but we argue that we acted responsibly. We took it down as soon as we found out." A quick search on Facebook found that Obama is not the only political target on the popular social networking site, which now has 300 million users . Type "Sarah Palin" and "kill" on Facebook, for example, and an anti-Palin group called "Sarah Palin will Kill us All" pops up. It has 55 members. But Obama, by far, has been the subject of the most persistent and continuous attacks and rumors. During the presidential campaign, a widely debunked rumor that Obama is a Muslim was pervasive. In recent months, Obama's place of birth has been questioned by the so-called "birthers." And here's the third emerging ethos of our social networking era: Online, clinging to their own set of facts, connecting within their own networks, people believe what they want to believe -- one click at a time. "Society has always had extremists. They just haven't had a public venue that we could all see before," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson , an expert on presidential communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "Language is evolving because of the Internet, and people have no sense of what's appropriate or not. But you would expect that anyone who would ask people if the American should be killed is fully aware of how extraordinarily serious that is. You would expect." More on Twitter
 
NYC Terror Plot Accomplices Known: AP Top
NEW YORK — After interrupting what they believed was a terrorist plot on New York City with a series of raids and arrests, authorities have intensified their focus on possible accomplices of the suspected al-Qaida associate at the heart of the case, a law enforcement official said Monday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues, confirmed that investigators know the identities of at least three people believed to be in on a bombing plot they say might have targeted mass transit in the New York area. Authorities released a flurry of terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems even while saying the plot was disrupted before it become an immediate threat. But many questions remain unanswered, including the whereabouts of co-conspirators and whether any may be cooperating with the probe. There also have been no reports that any of the bomb-making materials have been recovered. The accomplices are suspected of traveling from New York City to suburban Denver this summer and using stolen credit cards to help Najibullah Zazi stockpile beauty products containing hydrogen peroxide and acetone, which can be key ingredients for homemade bombs, authorities have said. Before the raids, police detectives showed a source – a Queens imam at a mosque where Zazi had once worshipped – photographs of him and three people considered possible suspects, court papers say. It was unclear whether those three were the same ones suspected of traveling to Denver. The official who spoke to The Associated Press declined to comment further Monday. Spokesmen James Margolin for the FBI, Edward Mullen for the New York Police Department and Robert Nardoza for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn declined to discuss the case. After initially being charged along with his father and the imam with lying to investigators, Zazi was due in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday for an arraignment on charges he conspired to use weapons of mass destruction. The 24-year-old airport van driver has denied any wrongdoing. A letter filed by Brooklyn prosecutors last week argued that that Zazi should be jailed indefinitely because, as an Afghan immigrant with ties to Pakistan, he could flee, and because he "poses a significant danger" to the community. Evidence gathered so far – including bomb-making instructions found on his laptop computer – shows "that Zazi remained committed to detonating an explosive device" until he was arrested, the letter said. Prosecutors allege that Zazi has admitted that while living in Queens, he traveled last year to Pakistan and received explosives training from al-Qaida. Security videos and store receipts show that when he returned and moved to Aurora, Colo., he and three others bought several bottles of beauty products over the course of several weeks, court papers said. On Sept. 6, Zazi took some of his products into a Colorado hotel room outfitted with a stove on which he later left acetone residue, authorities said. He repeatedly sought another person's help cooking up the bomb, "each communication more urgent in tone than the last," the papers said. The FBI was listening to Zazi and becoming increasingly concerned as the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a New York visit by President Barack Obama approached, officials said. They decided to track him on Sept. 9 when he rented a car and drove to New York. On Sept. 10, Zazi told the Queens imam in an intercepted phone call that he feared he was being watched, court papers said. The imam later tipped Zazi off, saying police had come around and asked questions, the papers said. Zazi cut a five-day trip short and flew back to Denver on Sept. 12. He was arrested a week later.
 
Howard Schweber: Three Choices in Afghanistan: Counter-terrorist war, Counter-insurgency, and Containment Top
This week the leaking of Genereal McChrystal's report - and the subsequent release of a redacted version - has led to a general reevaluation of our strategy in Afghanistan. Most of the attention that has been paid to McChrystal's report has focused on his call for additional forces; on Friday, he specified that he wants 40,000 additional troops . In fact, however, the more important theme of the report is McChrystal's specific and relentless critique of the present strategy. He writes , "inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced " (emphasis added). (For the full declassified version of the report, go here .) Largely in response, the Obama administration is undertaking a strategic review. Obama has declared his intention to consider all options in going forward, to the express distress of some of his military commanders. Some people have staked out clear positions: McChrystal's is one, Biden's is another. Meanwhile, public support for the war is crumbling, particularly among Obama's own party and its supporters. Conversely, the Justice Department's decision to press ahead with CIA probe is giving Republicans ammunition to trot out the old accusations about Democrats being weak on security. Condoleeza Rice - not usually considered a wing-nut extremist - provided a taste of what is likely to come in the event Obama decides to withdraw troops from Afghanistan: "if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan." That's the background from the past week. What are Obama's choices going forward? There are basically three strategies: counter-terrorist war, counter-insurgency, and containment. 1. Counter-Terrorist Warfare. This is our current approach. It involves a combination of precision strikes from Predator drones and Special Forces insertion teams, aimed at the leadership of the terrorist organizations, and ground operations aimed at fighting for control of territory. This combination of "clear and hold" and targeted strikes is further combined with development of Afghan forces under the control of the national government, undertaken in the hope of eventually turning control over the operations to the Afghan Army. This is still the current model, and even as Obama is engaging in his strategic review, Secretary of State Clinton and other NATO ministers are reiterating their support for Karzai, (if not particularly enthusiastically). The problems that McChrystal and others have identified with the present approach are daunting: a corrupt and illegitimate central government, insurgents' use of safe havens in Pakistan, recruitment and organization within Afghan prisons (the Israelis have experienced the same thing in the past with their mass internment of Palestinians), and pervasive fear and mistrust of the international forces. McChrystal complains that the Americans and their allies are "pre-occupied with protection of our own forces" and have consequently "operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect." He calls on troops to spend "as little time as possible in armored vehicles or behind the walls of forward operating bases" to "share risk ... with the people." Otherwise, he warns, the cause may be lost. "The insurgents cannot defeat us, but we can defeat ourselves." 2. Counter-insurgency. What McChrystal is calling for is a shift from an anti-terrorism policy to an anti-insurgency policy. Anti-terrorism involves hunting down and taking out leadership of terrorist organizations, depriving them of supplies, and degrading their military capacity. Anti-insurgency is something entirely different, a campaign for the hearts and minds of the people in order to deprive the terrorists of a friendly environment in which to operate and diminish their pool of potential recruits. That, in turn, means making a priority of protecting the local population - that is, minimizing damage to civilians rather than maximizing damage to enemy combatants. It means getting soldiers out into local areas so that they will be viewed as friends rather than occupiers. It also means taking even more casualties, asking soldiers to perform a whole range of tasks for which they are not specifically trained (McChrystal calls for soldiers in the field to learn local languages, for example). There are some problems with this strategy, too. For one thing, as McChrystal himself acknowledges, this strategy makes US and allied soldiers more vulnerable: his recommendations, he frankly acknowledges, are likely to lead to increased casualties "in the short run." The strategy also involves a shift in focus away from the national government toward local leadership. It is not only the case (as it certainly is) that the Karzai government has no legitimacy, it is also the case that the very idea of a centralized national government with control over a single, nationalized military force is a strange one in the Afghan context. And it's not just the national government. Foreign NGO's, private contractors, large-scale development plans, all of that way of thinking would have to be abandoned in favor of thinking on a scale of villages and valleys. Lots and lots of villages and valleys. A counter-insurgency strategy requires successfully delivering support - money, training, weapons, investment -- to local Afghan leaders and leaving it to them to implement the actual distribution. The whole point is to strengthen and coopt local authorities, not to compete with them. But that means understanding those leadership structures and meeting them on their own terms. And the eventual turnover of operations to local forces would also have to take place one village at a time, under local control, a scenario that must sound like a nightmare to military commanders trained in the traditional doctrines of large-scale armed combat. In other words, the whole idea of training Afghans to fight like Americans, equipped like American soldiers, would have to be abandoned. A strategy of this kind takes a great deal of time, and requires a very large investment of manpower. It requires the willingness to absorb casualties, extreme flexibility in defining categories such as "ally" and "enemy" ... in every way, the strategy that McChrystal is recommending is anathema to the conduct of the war in Afghanistan that Bush initiated and that Obama has, thus far, continued. The promise is that with sufficient patience - and we are talking about progress measured in years if not decades, here - the outcome could be a genuine success, a stable Afghanistan whose people are, if not unified in a Western nationalist sense, at least mutually committed to the continued success of the state and unified in their rejection of the alternative of fundamentalist religious rule offered by the Taliban and whoever will be the heirs to that movement. 3. Containment. This is the opposite to counter-insurgency, the move toward minimal rather than maximal engagement, in the hope of accepting smaller risks in return for smaller returns. The idea would be to withdraw the bulk of our forces from Afghanistan and rely on missile strikes and insertion teams to continue to take out terrorist leadership. This is essentially the Biden approach. The idea is to contain Al Qaeda, keeping it bottled up inside Afghanistan - or Afghanistan and Pakistan (more on that in a moment) - ceding control over territory while degrading the organizations' capability of carrying out attacks in the West. There are some questions about our ability to maintain this strategy without a robust presence on ground: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, for example, has expressed doubt about our ability to pull off such an approach on the grounds that we don't have the necessary kind or amount of intelligence. Assuming such a strategy could be carried out successfully, it still raises a lot of troubling questions. For one thing, it is highly plausible that such a strategy really would mean additional attacks on the West. That may not be an excessive price to pay; at some point, the cost of continuing the war is too high for the benefit in security that it is supposed to secure. No one, after all, is talking about walking away from the conflict with terrorist organizations altogether, and no one suggests that tolerating 9/11-style attacks is ever acceptable. But intelligence sources cited by AP say that there has been significant successes lately in reducing Al Qaeda's capabilities through targeted killings of leadership figures. Moreover, over the past few years Al Qaeda and groups like it have lost a great deal of the public support they once enjoyed by virtue of their attacks on local civilian populations. And there have been significant successes in disrupting international financing operations, not to mention significant enhancements of security operations across the board. And in addition to the kinds of strikes I have already mentioned, there would presumably be continued support for and engagement with the regimes in the "Af-Pak" theater and beyond. Moreover, there are plenty of people - including General McChrystal - who point to the fact that to at least some extent, the presence of foreign troops engaged in the current style of operations creates motivation for attacks on the West. In its most recent message, Al Qaeda threatens to bomb Oktoberfest in Munich unless Germany withdraws its troops from Afghanistan. We may take it for granted that Al Qaeda will never lose its hatred of the U.S., but much more immediately vulnerable European allies may have to balance the security gains of continued military involvement with the security gains of a reduction in their target profile. As for the U.S., it can be argued that extensive military engagement in Afghanistan is not actually necessary to protect the U.S., which depends more on a combination of police work here (as in the case of the recent arrests of members of the Zazi network ) and disruption of global terrorist networks and terrorist leadership Over There. Is containment a reasonable strategy? It has some obvious flaws. For one thing, even if it is the case from a cold, actuarial perspective that the price of either the anti-terrorist or anti-insurgency strategies is actually greater than the cost of the kinds of attacks that might get through, that idea as a political proposition is likely to be - to put it mildly - a tough sell. Moreover, we have other concerns. Withdrawal from Afghanistan means increasing the destabilizing pressures on Pakistan, which is already the place where Al Qaeda is essentially based (and which has nuclear weapons). We also have a significant interest in maintaining a presence in the region; take a look at a map and consider the long border between Iran and Afghanistan, for example. That border is one really good reason to renew our post-9/11 cooperative relationship with Iran, if we can. (I have commented on this issue before.) It is also a reason to worry about leaving Afghanistan if, in fact, our relationship with Iran is not going to improve. And there is the drug trade; again, a matter of significant U.S. concern. Nonetheless, some version of containment may ultimately be the only realistic option. Continuing with more of the same seems like an even more dangerous gamble; McChrystal's criticisms on that score are compelling. But are the American people really ready to accept military casualties in the thousands rather than the hundreds ( 783 to date ), and the continuing expenditures of additional hundreds of billions of dollars? There are a lot of reasons people are dusting off the old analogies to Viet Nam; the need for public support to successfully wage a long war is one of them. A mixed approach is possible that tries to combine elements of counter-insurgency with a long-term fallback strategy of containment is a possibility. In fact, this is what I expect to see come out of the Obama administration, with its relentless focus on splitting the difference. Such a mixed approach would likely involve a counter-insurgency-style strategy combined with "benchmarks" for measuring progress, and a goal of shifting to a strategy of containment within a specified period of years. That strategy would have to be accompanied by a lot of other things, starting with intensive engagement with Pakistan - which includes a different kind of engagement with India, whose traditional close ties and current influence in Afghanistan has everything to do with the sometimes mixed attitudes of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment. In other words, it's complicated. To their credit, the current administration appears to understand that fact. McChrystal is surely right that the path to the best plausible outcome is the long, hard, expensive and potentially bloody slog that he seems willing to undertake. But I do not believe that there is either current political will or any sufficient guarantee of future willingness to continue with such an approach. Nor is it clear that the kind of vital U.S. interests that justify such an extended engagement applies. As much as I am horrified by the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women, I would not want to go to war - or send my son to war -- to stop it. If this is not about U.S. security, it is not a serious conversation. The combined counterinsurgency-leading-to-containment strategy is rife with flaws and risks, but it may be the best that we can do. More on Afghanistan
 
Sarah Palin Memoir "Going Rogue" Due November 17 Top
NEW YORK — That was fast. Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, has finished her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced, and the release date has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17, her publisher said. "Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper. "It's her words, her life, and it's all there in full and fascinating detail." Palin's book, her first, will be 400 pages, said Burnham, who called the fall "the best possible time for a major book of this kind." The book now has a title, one fitting for a public figure known for the unexpected – "Going Rogue: An American Life." Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, has commissioned a huge first printing of 1.5 million copies. Sen. Ted Kennedy's "True Compass," published by Twelve soon after his Aug. 25 death, also had a 1.5 million first printing. As with the Kennedy book, the digital edition of Palin's memoir will not be released at the same time as the hardcover. "Going Rogue" will not be available as an e-book until Dec. 26 because "we want to maximize hardcover sales over the holidays," Harper spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Monday. Publishers have been concerned that e-books, rapidly becoming more popular, might take away sales from hardcover editions, which are more expensive. Palin, who abruptly resigned as Alaska governor over the summer with more than a year left in her first term, has been an object of fascination since Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, chose her as his running mate, making an instant celebrity out of a once-obscure public official. Although Democrat Barack Obama easily won the election and Palin was criticized even by some Republicans for being inexperienced, she remains a favorite among conservatives and is a rumored contender for 2012. Interest in her is so high that a fan recently paid $63,500 to have dinner with her, part of an Internet auction for a charity that aids wounded veterans. Palin, 45, spent weeks in San Diego shortly after leaving office and worked on the manuscript with collaborator Lynn Vincent, a person close to her said. She was joined in San Diego by her family and her top aide, Meghan Stapleton, then spent several weeks in New York working around the clock with editors at Harper, said the person, who wasn't authorized to comment and asked not to be identified. More on Books
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

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

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




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

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)