Sunday, September 27, 2009

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David Sirota: Denver Post: Obama Aide Messina Caught "Trying to Buy Off" Primary Challenger Top
I've made my position on the Emanuel administration's attempts to crush Democratic primaries pretty plain : Beyond it being a disgusting effort to crush the kind of local democracy Barack Obama used to make Rahm Emanuel president, it also makes Democratic legislative unity even tougher to achieve. Additionally, the aggressiveness of the effort reveals a double-standard: The Emanuel administration that categorically refuses to twist the arms of congresspeople to pass legislation is the same Emanuel administration that is more than happy to break the arms of Democratic primary candidates. As I said in my last column , that's the power-worshiping, incumbent-protecting country-club etiquette at work: Just like, say, Tim Russert, would ask upstart presidential candidate Howard Dean much tougher questions than sitting Vice President Dick Cheney, President Emanuel is willing to punch those outside of D.C., but not those inside. Now, the Denver Post gives us a sense of just how hard those punches are being thrown. The front-page Sunday story details how President Emanuel dispatched former Max Baucus aide and current Vice President Jim Messina to, as the Post says, "try to buy off" former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D) with a job before he announced his primary challenge to appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D). There's probably nothing illegal about this - although you can't really say that for sure. Let's not forget that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was indicted and impeached for allegedly trying to horse-trade jobs for senate seats . But legal questions aside, it shows that while President Emanuel may do nothing to stop insurance and pharmaceutical companies write health care legislation, he's going to do everything he can to make sure that incumbents are not bothered by local primary challenges - even those that might create a dynamic that helps pass President Emanuel's legislative agenda. The danger for President Emanuel, of course, is that the big foot strategy make backfire, especially out here in the West: "It may make the situation worse for Bennet for them to play the game this way," said state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a Gunnison lawmaker who is supporting Romanoff. "People in Colorado have an adverse reaction to the external forces coming down and telling them how to think," she said. The timing of Messina's latest intervention sparked particular concern -- because of the appearance that the administration was trying to buy off a nettlesome opponent , to some; to others, because the timing made the effort appear so ham-handed. As I've said, I have no dog in the primary fight - I just want to see local democracy be allowed to run its course. Like Barack Obama said on the campaign trail, primaries and local democracy strengthen the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, President Emanuel and Vice President Messina don't subscribe to that belief.
 
Taliban's Diverse Funding Might Make It Impossible To Restrict Cash Flow Top
KABUL -- The Taliban-led insurgency has built a fundraising juggernaut that generates cash from such an array of criminal rackets, donations, taxes, shakedowns and other schemes that U.S. and Afghan officials say it may be impossible to choke off the movement's money supply. More on Afghanistan
 
Deane Waldman: "MediCare-for-All" -> No-Care-at-All. Top
People from Nancy Pelosi to daily bloggers are screaming "MediCare-for-All" as the answer to our healthcare crisis. Is MediCare the solution for us all? The answer is clear: no. Unlike MediCaid, MediCare was never intended as an entitlement. MediCare was supposed to be self-sustaining: people would pay in while working and take out as needed after they retired. It was sold as a Program that would pay for itself: no additional funds required. Hah! Inconvenient truth #1: MediCare quickly became a Ponzi scheme just like Social Security. Contributions of the presently employed are not saved for the future but are spent to pay for the expenses of the retired. According to the GAO, Medicare will run out of funds just like the house of cards called Social Security but sooner (2017). The addition of the President Bush's ill-conceived Drug Program For Seniors simply accelerated the slide to bankruptcy by adding another (unpaid for by the contributors) expenditure. When MediCare runs out of money , it will be No Care for All . MediCare tries to contain its costs in two ways: neither works, and neither is what patients want. First, it rations care . Yes, I said it. Many things your doctor would like for you are denied as not "cost effective." Let's just ignore inconvenient truth #2 that there are at present virtually no scientific cost effectiveness studies on which the government denies payment. Denying payment means denying care and thus again, MediCare-for-All is No Care for All. Inconvenient truth #2A: Beware of what President Obama is touting as cost effectiveness studies in the proposed Healthcare Reform Bill. Just like in Great Britain and Australia, what the government defines as effective is often not what patients and doctors want as positive effects. The second "cost saving" method used by MediCare is to reduce reimbursements. Put aside for a moment that this actually increases costs . Current payments to physicians are now below their marginal costs. The more MediCare patients a doctor sees, the quicker she goes broke. That is why fewer and fewer physicians accept MediCare patients: they cannot afford to. Those who still do so make up their losses on the ever-shrinking pool of privately insured patients - the infamous cost- or more correctly revenue-shift. I guarantee that your local hospital engages in money shifting. How do I know? It is still in business. Low payment schedules make it fiscal suicide for doctors to see MediCare patients. So what will Healthcare Reform (HR 3200) do to increase access to doctors for MediCare patients? Answer: it cuts physician reimbursements even further. Perfect! In a recent Letter to the Editor, a local resident complained that at age 65 he thought he had to choose between Medicare and carrying additional, supplemental insurance to cover those things that MediCare does not. The writer was wrong...for now. To add to the Perfect-Program-for-all-Americans called MediCare, Congress is now considering adding that very limitation to their "Healthcare Reform" Bill. Perfection indeed! Final inconvenient truth: Whether we get MediCare-for-All or the infamous "public option," under government payment schedules doctors will be paid less than their costs to stay in business. End result: no doctors. Then for sure, "MediCare-for-All" will be No-Care-For-All. PS. The last paragraph is intended to defend NEITHER the status quo nor the private insurance industry. Both need to change drastically. Okay, both need to...go. We need a totally new system, not tinkering with what we have. We could begin with a discussion of personal responsibility. Oops, I'm sorry. That phrase (I'm whispering) is political cyanide and will never come up for serious national debate.
 
Vivian Norris de Montaigu: Anti-Globalization Is Back! Police vs. the People and the "Pirates" Top
"A single ruler could, by fiat, decide which enemies were legitimate representatives of a state and which, by contrast, were mere 'bandits'..." - Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations In June of 2001, I was in Gothenburg, Sweden, to witness both then President George W. Bush's first European visit, as well as the EU meeting which followed, and the extremely well organized anti-globalization protests which took place over the several days of the events. The photos I have of that time show that journalists were allowed close to the then president, (though questions were few and had been pre-selected), and that there was a great deal of "action" in the streets on the parts of protesters and the police. These clashes grew out of the snowball effect of the anti-globalization movement which began with the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. In Gothenburg, plastic bullets wounded protesters, storage containers encircled a school where many protesters were staying, creating a fire hazard, and locked them in, and, as a result, a fringe group (the same thing happened in Seattle none of the real protesters knew exactly where these "anarchists" came from) changed the tune and banks were attacked, windows broken, fires set, and dogs and police with protective gear confronted both protesters and so-called "anarchists." By the end of that summer of 2001, a young man, Carlo Giuliani, a protester, had been killed in Genoa, Italy, and within a few weeks, the world would experience 9/11 and nothing would ever be the same. The anti-globalization movement would be basically pushed underground, to Porto Allegro, and heightened security at world events where heads of state convened, created a kind of Big Brother control of protesters, would lead to where we are today. More journalists have been killed in the past years since 9/11 than ever before, and the tactics used to police and control any form of dissent have become Orwellian to say the least. Many people have been scared to say, write and broadcast what they really believe and have experienced. But the anti-globalization movement is back, and it is taking forms that extend beyond the left of center radicals, to those who are out of work, out of money, losing what little they have left to the greed of a very few. The walls between "Us" and "Them" are taller than ever before and harder to penetrate, yet people are also angrier than ever before. It is symbolic that "pirates" would be making a comeback, not only on the high seas of the East Coast of Africa (perhaps not so ironically positioned precisely where the oil tankers head out to the rest of the world?), but to the internet, and technology in general. The controllers are trying to control more than ever, punishing those who "pirate," be it a Somalian bandit or a housewife who downloads a film or a simple student in Pittsburgh last week during the G20 meeting. ( See video here .) I would argue that we should be learning from the protesters and "pirates" instead of simply fighting against them. We should be coming up with new models for sharing the wealth, the resources, knowledge and content, as well as all benefiting from the distribution mechanism, so that the few do not only end up controlling the commodities, but also the pipelines through which they reach the rest of us. And it may very well be that in parts of the so-called "developing world" we will continue to see leapfrog technologies that can teach all of us about how to move forward in new directions. Microcredit, made popular by Nobel Peace Prize -winner Muhammad Yunus, can also be applied to legal, shared Content Micro-distribution (and indeed, is, in places like India where cablewallas divide up the neighborhoods to distribute "pirated" cable content). Content can be appropriately priced so that even the poorest people can have access to education and information, for example via the cell phones in rural villages owned by women who then can help villagers access educational and other content. This would mean a true democratization not only of content -- choice of what they and their communities receive -- but also job possibilities that can lift them out of poverty. Add to this content creation, be it local news, documentaries, or even entertainment, and local ownership of telecoms, and you have a situation which will help pull many of these countries out of poverty at an exponential rate. The new financial models need to be inclusive and participatory, not hyper-controlled, and regulations should serve the majority, not a minuscule part of the world's population. It is mostly those who are the elite, in power, and of a mostly older generation who want to adopt more controlling regulations against the "pirates" and protesters. In France, it is the Hadopi law that is slamming down on internet pirates. In the UK, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, and in many countries guards are capable of pulling aside a ten-year-old at a border crossing. The establishment and the wealthy are scared and the gatherings of the elite and heads of state have now become islands so separate from the people that they do not communicate anymore. Exaggerations and lies tend to circulate because there is no or little interaction. Someone needs to listen to the protesters and what they are saying. At least people are standing up for themselves and are getting angry. They should be angry. They feel as if they have been robbed. Those who are not standing up for themselves are the ones taking anti-depressants because anger turned inward is victimization and depression. Anger can bring about constructive results. Remaining vigilant means taking on the responsibility of becoming more aware. Listen to and develop your intuition. Talk to your friends around the country and around the world to hear what is really going on. Don't "buy" what mainstream media is telling you. Learn about other financial models that are working such as Microcredit and Social Business, which are also more sustainable. Look into alternative sources of information about the financial crisis, piracy and new models for media and the economy such as NGO websites, news sites such as www.demotix.com and www.maxkeiser.com . The protesters and the pirates are not menacing enemies, but mirrors reflecting a deeply disturbing society in which inequalities have grown to levels not seen since, well, the last Depression, the 1930s. And look where that brought us. More on India
 
Michael B. Laskoff: Spitzer & Bloomberg - Not again Top
Movie sequels prove that second acts are usually a terrible idea. The clever becomes dross; the dross becomes fetid, and so on and so forth, until all that's left if toxic landfill. What's true of cinema is also true of politics. If you stick around past your expiration date, then you probably stink. For the past couple of weeks, the rumor mill has been grinding out stories that Elliot Spitzer is planning another run for the governor of New York. I assumed that this was all nonsense until Friday night when I watched Spitzer on Real Time. Bill Maher, the host, didn't make a single crack regarding the prostitute, the money transfers, the resignation or the irony of a man who had cracked down on prostitution as New York District Attorney being revealed as a 'john' himself. The worst name that Spitzer was called was "the former governor." That's when it hit me: he's serious about running again. For the record, I agree with a lot of Spitzer's positions; I also don't get too exercised about the adultery - that's a private matter - or prostitution, which should be legal, taxed and regulated. None of that, however, mean's that a megalomaniac hypocrite who got caught with his genitals in the cookie jar should seriously consider running again. Stay on the sidelines. Leave it to others to take up the mantle. If you don't want to do it for the public good, then do it for your family who will have to survive rehashing all of all that political pornography. And then there's Mike Bloomberg, already the two-term mayor of New York. To his mind, the City needs him too much for him to step down. Unfortunately, getting the City Council to lift mayoral term limits allowed them to lift their own. And if there is one thing that America's largest city does not need, it's a mayor and council that can stay in office ad infinitum (or until they caught for something). So to the former Governor Spitzer and the current Mayor of New York: I plead, "Not Again." (The fact that my entreaties will fall entirely on deaf ears is another subject altogether.) Democracy is the best form of government not because of some mystical ideal but because it brings about regular change and, with it, new blood. In order for that to happen, some of the old warhorses need to step aside. In this case, that means you.
 
Lea Lane: "Turning," or, You Don't Have to Be Jewish (or a President) to Atone on Yom Kippur Top
Failure to repent is much worse than sin. One may have sinned for but a moment, but may fail to repent of it moments without number. Chasidic saying, from the book, Day by Day On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews around the world repent for the past year's sins, wiping the slate clean for another year. But you don't have to be Jewish to ask for forgiveness. This Day of Atonement would be a fitting time for non-Jews as well to show some true repentance, more than the standard "I'm sorry," often forced, and mumbled insincerely. Jews in almost all of the 800 or so Reform congregations in the States - almost a million people -- happen to worship using the book my late husband Rabbi Chaim Stern wrote and edited, Gates of Repentance. In 1998 President Clinton had offered a weak apology for the Monica Lewinsky situation. The public didn't buy it. So he offered a stronger, introspective apology at a prayer breakfast in Washington, with an acknowledgment of the need to change, He mentioned that a friend had given him a copy of Gates of Repentance , and mentioned some of his childhood traumas, and then quoted from one of the book's passages: Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. A week later, on September 18, the President sent my husband the manuscript of that speech. As he wrote in the accompanying letter: "I deeply appreciate ... Gates of Repentance . As you know I was very moved by the passage on "turning," and I thank you for your wisdom and spiritual inspiration. (Read more about this in the NYT article here .) True repentance is more than an apology. It does require "turning," a real effort to change bad behavior. As Chaim wrote in the prayer book: "What is genuine repentance? When an opportunity for transgression occurs and we resist it, not out of fear or weakness, but because we have repented." Here are the sins, wrongdoings and transgressions we all commit at some time or another, listed from Gates of Repentance and read at Yom Kippur services: The sins of arrogance, bigotry and cynicism; of deceit and egotism, flattery and greed, injustice and jealousy. Some of us kept grudges, were lustful. Malicious, or narrow-minded. Others were obstinate or possessive, quarrelsome, rancorous, or selfish. There was violence, weakness of will, xenophobia. We yielded to temptation, and showed zeal for bad causes. I can think of many people in the news who have made weak apologies or none at all for wrongdoings this past year. So I suggest they follow President Clinton's lead, and atone in this season of change: --Joe Wilson can write President Obama a sincere note of apology and read it before the House of Representatives -- Kanye West can rap about his boorishness, and the proceeds would provide an annual musical scholarship in Taylor Swift's name. -- Ann Coulter can give the profits from all of her books to homeless shelters, and admit her arrogance on MSNBC. Well, we can dream. I know you can think of other notable transgressors this year, and suggest how then can resist repeating their offenses, by making amends and turning their behavior on this Day of Atonement. More on The Balanced Life
 
Dan Dorfman: Bulls Rule, But Watch Your Back Top
There's an age-old Wall Street saying: Don't fight the trend. For now, at least, the apparent trend is that equity prices are headed even higher after whopping stock gains of 53% in the S&P 500 and 46% in the Dow from their March lows. In this context, meet four bulls who share this sunny view, although some hasten to point out that the investment landscape -- like the bull ring -- is hardly devoid of significant danger. "I would be a buyer and certainly not a seller because the run in the equity market still has farther to go," institutional investment adviser Bill Rhodes says. Rhodes, head of Boston-based Rhodes Analytics, which doles out advice to some of the country's largest banks, mutual funds and hedge funds, offers a number of reasons to support his bullish thesis that the sizzling rally has considerably more staying power. In brief, based on his models, he sees the S&P 500, now at 1044, headed nearly 12% higher to 1067 between now and year-end. Chief among his reasons: A noticeable pickup in the economy, which is turning out to be not as bad as expected. A lot of liquidity on the sidelines, nearly3.6 trillion alone in money market mutual funds. No big rise in interest rates and reasonably low inflation. Ample liquidity in the banking system. A former Merrill Lynch strategist, Rhodes also points to significant plusses on the technical front, each of which, he notes, is indicative of higher stock prices. Noteworthy in this respect are: An improving advance-decline ratio (a reference to the number of advancing stocks, versus those that are declining), indicating the market is maintaining a broad advance. Declining volatility, meaning lower spreads between the bid and asked in stock prices. More than 94% of the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange are trading above their 200-day moving averages. Rhodes wouldn't discuss individual stocks, but he did pinpoint what he viewed as the strongest market sectors, notably consumer discretionary, financials, industrials and materials (such as steel, copper and non-ferrous metals like aluminum). Although gung-ho on the market, Rhodes took note of a number of concerns. One is the possibility the Federal Reserve could reign in liquidity by raising interest rates or pulling liquidity out of the system. Yet other worries: rising inflation down the pike, a further weakening of the dollar (leading to an exit of foreign capital from the U.S. markets), and the ominous implications of the Denver terrorist plot. Money manager Manny Weintraub of Integre Advisors, which runs $280 million of assets, raises another concern. At some point, he says, the Obama stimulus will be gone and the economy will have to stand on its own legs. Still, he's a steadfast bull, noting there's a lot of buying power still to come into the market even though he feels it's overbought. (Some economists argue that without another stimulus, the economic recovery will soon go the way of the black and white TV set). In any event, Weintraub argues "the market trend is up," and he expects another 5% to 10% gain before year end. "If a new client gave me $10 million, I would put 50% of it into the market immediately," he says. Weintraub, who tells me he's up 60% this year in his concentrated portfolio (the firm's 15 top stocks), focuses on out-of-favor names. His current three best bets: Kroger, Bridgeport Education and Yahoo. Geopolitical crises are generally ignored by most market pros. Not so Weintraub, who made a point of citing them as a distinct market risk. In particular, he pointed to the danger related to such countries as Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Another bull, San Francisco money manager Gary Wollin of Gary Wollin & Co., which sports asssets of just above $100 million, has mixed feelings about the market. Near term, he sees about a 5% to 10% pullback, reasoning "the market has come too far too fast." Still, based on an improving economy, he thinks little by little this is a good time to come into the market. There's enormous money out there to fuel a continued rally, he says, and at some point the scared investor will no longer be scared. Wollin sees that fright easing next year as a number of well-publicized problems linger, but begin to diminish in the face of a peppier economy. Chief among those problems: loads of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMS) will be reset at higher rates. Likewise, the recent cash for clunkers initiative should steal a good chunk of next year's auto sales, commercial real estate difficulties will take their economic toll, and unemployment, a lagging economic indicator, should continue to rise for another quarter or two. As these and other problems begin to dissipate, Wollin expects investors to flock back to the stock market. And by the end of next year, he figures, the Dow (now at 9665) should reach the 12,000 level. His three favorite stocks for the next 12 months are Intel, Cisco Systems and ExxonMobil. Joan Lappin, head of Gramercy Capital Management (about $20 million of assets) also sees stocks headed to the upside. Boosting her confidence are growing signs the consumer is willing to shop again, renewed zip in the commodities market, the likelihood of no near-term increase in interest rates and the probability that third-quarter earnings report will not be as terrible as originally expected. Lappin sees a computer upgrade cycle ahead and favors such beneficiaries as Nvidia, a maker of graphic solutions for computers, and Dell. Rounding out her top three picks is Cablevision. Her big worry: "Third-quarter reports will have to show revenue increases; "we have to progress beyond earnings increasing solely on cutting costs or earnings being less terrible than we thought," she says, "or the market will stall and the rally will become suspect." The bottom line from our four bulls: Yes, the economy and the market look better, but keep your eyes open for the land mines. The bleeding could start again at any time. Write to Dan Dorfman at Dandordan@aol.com More on Financial Crisis
 
Raymond J. Learsy: Putting a Stop to Iran's Nuclear Ambitions Without Export Embargoes Top
On June 21st a Huffington Post submission (" Boycott Iran's Oil Immediatley ") called for the immediate boycott of Iran's oil. It was a seemingly draconian suggestion that was met with widespread skepticism. After all, what would happen to oil markets without Iranian oil? Well, on today CNN's State of the Union program, Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind), being interviewed by John King on the timely subject of Iran's nuclear pronouncements (or lack thereof), made a rather startling revelation. According to Senator Bayh, the Russians had informed their American interlocutors that the greatest fear of the current Iranian regime was that they would be denied access to world markets for their oil. Clearly the financial bounty generated by oil sales are key to maintaining their hold on government power and the funding of their nuclear and missile programs, not to speak of buying the loyalty of their goon militias giving them the wherewithal to terrorize their citizenry. Certainly now is the time to establish the kind of international cooperation needed to boycott Iranian oil. With recent revelations about Iran's nuclear deception, the growing and shared concerns of the major European states and a far more amenable Russia and China, the moment for an international boycott has come. The boycott would simply be a refusal to buy Iran's oil, either directly or indirectly (i.e. not lifting oil from Iranian ports nor from offshore storage facilities, nor turning a blind eye to third party exchanges). It would be analogous to boycotting Coca Cola (apologies Coca Cola) because of a nasty dispute with its management. No one buys Coke any longer. Soon their warehouse is full. Then their factories shut down. Then after a while one would hope the workers organize to oust the management so that business can carry on as before. Please recall that although Iran produces some four million barrels of oil a day, only some 2.1 million is exported. It is the one year equivalent to the of 700 million barrels plus being held in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Given the potential national crisis at hand, certainly the SPR should be considered for a strategic role in the current imbroglio. More significant, however, is the fact that currently, Saudi Arabia's excess, unused capacity is approximately 4.5 million barrels/day. That is more than twice the current exports of Iranian oil. It is probably more in the interest of Sunni Saudi Arabia to keep Shia Iran nuclear weapon free than virtually any other nation. Saudi Arabia should welcome the opportunity to play a role in defusing Iran's nuclear ambitions by declaring they will supply any and all oil to world markets caused by a consumers boycott of Iran's oil. A willing Saudi Arabia should be celebrated. An unwilling Saudi Arabia should be placed on notice that the nuclear defense umbrella proffered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (please see " Hillary Clinton's Nuclear Defense Umbrella for the Oil Price Gougers--Who Pays? ") will remain moot and tucked away in an umbrella stand in the halls of Foggy Bottom. By not buying Iran's oil the mullahs understand their sway over Iran's brave citizens will begin to crumble and the petro-potentates of Tehran will eventually have to cede governance to the Iranian masses without a foreign shot having been fired and without a blockade nor an embargo of goods and services having been put into place. More on CNN
 
Bachmann Refuses To Answer Question About Dead Census Worker Top
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) refused to answer a question this weekend on the death of a census worker in Kentucky. Bill Sparkman was found earlier this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. The FBI has been investigating whether the killing was related to his job as a Census worker. Bachmann, who has proclaimed that she will not fill out her Census forms and suggested that the survey could lead to internment camps, did not bring up the issue at the conservative How to Take Back America Conference in St. Louis. David Weigel asked her about it but could not get an answer : I caught up to her as she headed outside and asked if she had any response to the murder of a Kentucky census worker, having noticed that the Census, a constant target for Bachmann, did not figure into her speech. Bachmann recoiled a little at the question and turned to enter her limo. "Thank you so much!" she said. Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Michele Bachmann
 
Michael Shermer: Chill Out: An Economic Triage for Global Climate Change Top
Are you a global warming skeptic, or are you skeptical of the global warming skeptics? Your answer depends on how you answer these five questions: 1. Is the earth getting warmer? 2. Is the cause of global warming human activity? 3. How much warmer is it going to get? 4. What are the consequences of a warmer climate? 5. How much should we invest in altering the climate? Here are my answers. Global warming is real and primarily human caused. With questions 3 and 4, however, estimates include error bars that grow wider the further out we run the models because complex systems like climate are notoriously difficult to predict. I provisionally accept the estimate of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the mean global temperature by 2100 will increase by 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and that sea levels will rise by about one foot (about the same as they have risen since 1860). Moderate warming with moderate changes. Question 4 deserves even more skepticism. In his carefully-reasoned and politically-bipartisan book Cool It (Alfred Knopf, 2008), the "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg notes that if global warming continues unchecked through the end of the century there will be 400,000 more heat-related deaths annually; there will be also be 1.8 million fewer cold-related deaths, for a net gain of 1.4 million lives. This is not to say that global warming is good, only that its consequences must be weighed in the balance. For example, Lomborg sites data from the World Wildlife Fund that at most we will lose 15 polar bears a year due to global warming, but what doesn't get reported is that 49 bears are shot each year. What would be more cost-effective to save polar bear lives -- spend hundreds of billions of dollars to lower CO2 emissions and (maybe) the mean global temperature, or limit hunting permits? This leads to question 5 -- the economics of global climate change -- which I think needs a sound dose of skepticism, particularly since the collapse of our economy. Even if all countries had ratified the Kyoto Protocol and lived up to its standards (which most did not), according to the IPCC, at best it would have postponed the 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit average increase just five years from 2100 to 2105, at a cost of $180 billion a year! By comparison, although global warming may cause an increase of two million deaths due to hunger annually by 2100, the U.N. estimates that for $10 billion a year we could save 229 million people from hunger annually today. It's time for economic triage. Economics is about the efficient allocation of limited resources that have alternative uses. And after the U.S. government allocated a trillion dollars of our limited resources to shore up our flagging financial foundations, those alternative uses have never seemed so pressing. Should we (can we?) really allocate the equivalent of a Manhattan Project to lower CO2 emissions 50 percent by 2050 and 80 percent by 2100, as the IPCC recommends in order to divert disaster? My answer is no. Why? Because the potential benefits for the costs incurred are simply not warranted. If you had, say, $50 billion a year to make the world a better place for more people, how would you spend it? In 2004, Lomborg asked this question to a group of scientists and world leaders, including four Nobel laureates. This "Copenhagen Consensus," as it is called, ranked reduction of CO2 emissions 16th out of 17 challenges. The top four were: controlling HIV/AIDS, micronutrients for fighting malnutrition, free trade to attenuate poverty, and battling malaria. A 2006 Copenhagen Consensus of U.N. ambassadors constructed a similar list, with communicable diseases, clean drinking water, and malnutrition at the top, and climate change at the bottom. A late 2008 meeting that included five Nobel Laureates recommended that President-elect Barack Obama allocate his promised $150 billion in subsidies for new technologies and $50 billion in foreign aid be allocated for research on malnutrition, immunization, and agricultural technologies. For a cool Kyoto $180 billion you can buy a lot of condoms, vitamin tablets, and mosquito nets and rescue hundreds of millions of people from disease, starvation, and impoverishment. If you are skeptical of Lomborg and his branch of environmental skepticism, read the Yale University economist William Nordhaus' technical book A Question of Balance (Yale University Press, 2008). Nordhaus computes the costs-benefits of various recommendations for changing the climate by either 2105 or 2205, primarily focused on the cost of curbing carbon emissions. Economists like to compute future profits and losses based on investments made today, adjusting for the value of a future dollar at an average interest rate of four percent. If we spent a trillion dollars today (the equivalent of the recent bailout or the Iraq war), how much climate change would it buy us in a century at four percent interest? Nordhaus's calculations are compared to doing nothing, where a plus value is better and a minus value worse than doing nothing. Kyoto with the U.S. is plus one and without the U.S. zero, for example, and a gradually increasing global carbon tax is a plus three. That is, a $1 trillion cost today buys us $3 trillion of benefits in a century. Al Gore's proposals, by contrast, score a minus 21, where $1 trillion invested today in Gore's plans would net us a loss of $21 trillion in 2105. Add to these calculations the numerous other crises we face, such as the housing calamity, the financial meltdown, the coming collapse of social security and medicare, two wars, a failing public education system, etc. In my opinion we need to chill out on all extremist plans that entail expenses best described as Brobdingnagian, require our intervention into developing countries best portrayed as imperialistic, or involve state controls best portrayed as fascistic. Give green technologies and free markets a chance.
 
William Safire Dead: Dies Aged 79 Top
NEW YORK — Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist, language expert and former White House speechwriter William Safire died Sunday, his assistant said. Safire, who was 79, had been diagnosed with cancer and died at a hospice in Maryland, assistant Rosemary Shields said. She declined to specify the type of cancer Safire had or say when he had been diagnosed. Safire spent more than 30 years writing on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. In his "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine and 15 books, Safire traced the origins of words and everyday phrases such as "straw-man," "under the bus" and "the proof is in the pudding." Safire penned more than 3,000 columns, aggressively defending civil liberties and Israel while tangling with political figures. Bill Clinton famously wanted to punch the curmudgeonly columnist in the nose after Safire called his wife "a congenital liar." Shields said: "Not only was he brilliant in language and assessing the nuances of politics, he was a kind and funny boss who gave lots of credit to others." As a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, Safire penned Vice President Spiro Agnew's famous phrase, "nattering nabobs of negativism," a tongue-in-cheek alliteration that Safire claimed was directed not at the press but at Vietnam defeatists. Safire also wrote several novels and served as chairman of the Dana Foundation, a philanthropy that supports brain science, immunology and arts education. Along with George Will and William F. Buckley Jr., Safire's smooth prose helped make conservatism respectable in the 1970s, paving the way for the Reagan Revolution. Safire was a pioneer of opinionated reporting. His columns were often filled with sources from Washington and the Middle East, making them must-reads for Beltway insiders. Author Eric Alterman, in his 1999 book "Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy," called Safire an institution unto himself. "Few insiders doubt that William Safire is the most influential and respected pundit alive," Alterman wrote. Safire's scathing columns on the Carter White House budget director Bert Lance's financial affairs won him the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1978; in 1995 Safire was named to the Pulitzer board. ___ Associated Press writer Derek Rose contributed to this story.
 
Roderick Spencer: Outrage from the Middle Top
It's time to carve out an area in between the screeders on the right, and the screamers on the left, in order to express some incautious outrage from here in the middle. With the usual distressed eyeroll re tea-party wingnuts, and downcast 'with friends like these' headshake at Maddow mouthers and Olberman dittoheads, let me remind the rest of us - aka. MOST PEOPLE that we don't have to spend all of our time defending, in no particular order; President Obama, Ted Kennedy's Legacy, the Democratic Party, every Environmentalist with a plan, Medicare, etc. etc. And we especially don't have to spend another minute defending Obama's
 
Daniel Bogden, Fired U.S. Attorney, Returning To Old Job Without Knowing Bush's Reasons Top
LAS VEGAS — Daniel Bogden never really got a good answer why President George W. Bush fired him from his post as U.S. attorney for Nevada in 2006. But it doesn't matter to Bogden anymore. He's got his old job back. "It's my decision to move forward as U.S. attorney and not dwell in the past," Bogden said as he prepares to become the only one of nine federal prosecutors ousted in 2006 to return to his appointed post. He expects to begin before Oct. 10. "I did not do anything wrong that merited my firing without notice," said Bogden, a 53-year-old career criminal prosecutor who measures words and their meaning and calls himself politically nonpartisan. Bush nominated him in 2001 at the suggestion of Republican U.S. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, wanted Bodgen to return to his old post to "right the wrong" of his dismissal, said Reid's spokesman, Jon Summers. President Obama gave his blessing, and the Senate confirmed Bodgen on Sept. 15. A Justice Department inspector general's investigation concluded that the 2006 purge of Bogden and top federal prosecutors in Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Phoenix, Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco was "unsystematic and arbitrary." It blamed then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his top deputy, Paul McNulty. "We find it remarkable that Attorney General Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General McNulty stated that they did not know why Bogden was being removed," the report said, adding that Bogden's ouster "demonstrates the flawed nature of their oversight of the U.S. attorney removal process." Jeffrey Stempel, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Boyd School of Law, called Bogden's reinstatement a positive. "All sorts of people were pretty appalled when they saw what the Bush administration was doing ... injecting political and loyalty considerations on Justice Department appointments," Stempel said. "In law enforcement, the focus should be on quality first, with things like party loyalty or politician loyalty or ideology well down the list," Stempel said. U.S. attorneys are presidential appointees who can be named and fired for any reason, or none at all. But Republicans and Democrats generally agree prosecution decisions should be nonpartisan – not influenced by political pressure. A federal prosecutor is still investigating whether Gonzales, other Bush administration officials, or Republicans in Congress should face criminal charges in the dismissals. The ousted U.S. attorney from New Mexico, David Iglesias, told the Hispanic National Bar Association annual conference in Albuquerque this month that U.S. attorneys could be appointed for six-year terms that overlap administrations to minimize the influence of politics. Iglesias has been reactivated in the Navy as a captain and is a prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions. Bogden has been handling mostly commercial and employment law at a prominent Reno law firm. He said he still has to take the measure of the U.S. attorney staff. He had 38 prosecutors in Las Vegas and Reno when he left in January 2007, but the staff has grown to an all-time high of 52 under the man who replaced him, Gregory Brower. "The office is in very good shape," said Brower, a Republican former state assemblyman and general counsel to the federal Government Printing Office. Bogden said he never felt he had enough resources in the high-profile Las Vegas area, which has grown from about 1.4 million residents in 2000 to more than 2 million today. He termed it "a target-rich environment" for scams. Bogden's office won convictions and prison time for a strip club owner and four former Clark County Commission members in the 2006 "G-sting" political corruption case. The seven-member elected commission oversees the Las Vegas Strip and is considered one of the most powerful political bodies in the state. Bogden also acknowledged mistakes by prosecutors in another 2006 case that led to a mistrial and dismissal of federal racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud charges against three men accused of running a multimillion-dollar securities fraud. A federal appellete court upheld a lower court's ruling that U.S attorneys improperly withheld some 650 pages of documents from defense lawyers, calling it "prosecutorial misconduct in its highest form." Bogden this week noted that a Justice Department investigation concluded the misconduct was not intentional, and said that before he left the job he instituted an automated litigation support unit to assign paralegals and support staffers to cases involving voluminous documents. Bogden earned the ire of top Justice Department officials, according to the inspector general report, when he cited "severe manning and personnel shortages" and declined to assign a prosecutor from the Las Vegas office to head a task force targeting adult obscenity cases. Franny Forsman, who is nearing her 20th year as chief of the federal public defenders in Las Vegas, didn't fault Brower. But said she welcomed Bogden's return. "You need someone in that office who has visited a jail, who understands the role of defense counsel in a case," she said. Before being confirmed for his first U.S. attorney stint in October 2001, Bogden was a judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, a deputy district attorney in Reno and a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Reno. "What was different about Dan is that Dan doesn't appear to be politically ambitious," Forsman said. "I don't believe he ever approached it as a steppingstone to something else. Dan's interest has always been just prosecuting cases."
 
Obama Administration May Have Offered Romanoff A Job To Deter Senate Run: The Denver Post Top
WASHINGTON -- Not long after news leaked last month that Andrew Romanoff was determined to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Michael Bennet, Romanoff received an unexpected communication from one of the most powerful men in Washington.
 
Death Panels By Proxy: Washington Times Spreads New Health Care Lie Top
There they go again. Now that the "death panel" lie has snookered nearly half the country, the Washington Times is going for the other half in an editorial headlined "Death Panels By Proxy." Cue the scary music for this one: More on Health Care
 
We're Cute Too! The Most Underrated Adorable Animals (PHOTOS) Top
Certain animals have a stigma about them and just don't get enough credit. This week, HuffPost Green thought we'd give a little bit of love to the cute underdog. Vote on your favorite underrated but adorable animal. Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter! More on Animals
 
Manila Flooding: How You Can Help Top
Typhoon Ketsana dropped more rain on the Philippines than they'd seen in 40 years. Flooding in Manila has forced hundreds of thousands out of their homes and rescue teams are working around the clock. NOTE: We will be updating this page throughout the day. If you have more information about how people can get involved in relief efforts, leave a comment or e-mail us at impact@huffingtonpost.com The International Red Cross is on the ground, and here's how you can help: •Filipino blogger Manuel L. Quezon III has compiled an impressive list of ways people can help , both locally and internationally. •Plain and simple — donate to the International Red Cross and help them continue to put relief workers on the ground in the Philippines. •If you're in the area and have access to a computer, you can update the interactive Google Map which is dedicated to residents who may still need rescuing. Check it out below. Updates from the ground can be found on IHaveNet , aFilipino news site. If you're in Manila and have photos, you can send them to GMANews , who will post them on their site and on Facebook. More on Refugees
 
WATCH: 10 Funniest Twitter Parody Videos Top
Whether or not Twitter has hit a traffic growth ceiling, the 140 character status update platform has already proved it can permeate past its early adopter audience and attract a more mainstream user-base complete with Twittering athletes, celebrities, and government officials. Along the way, Twitter (Twitter) has also managed to grab a lot of attention as the easy scapegoat in parody videos. We've seen comedic geniuses, late-night talk show hosts, and many video production companies all try to best each other in a battle for the funniest Twitter spoof or satire. Not all are created equal, but the 10 we've included here are some of the sure-fire standouts. Twitter may be the butt of everyone's joke, but after the news of a $1 billion valuation, we have a sneaking suspicion that Twitter will eventually have the last laugh. More on Twitter
 
Germany Election 2009: Angela Merkel Wins Second Term Top
BERLIN — German voters handed conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term and a chance to create new center-right government Sunday, while her center-left rivals suffered a historic defeat in the national election. Merkel succeeded in ending her "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats led by challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current foreign minister, according to television projections. She can now form a government with the pro-business Free Democrats, who performed very strongly. "We have achieved something great," a beaming Merkel told supporters. "We have managed to achieve our election aim of a stable majority in Germany for a new government." She vowed to hold "swift and decisive" coalition talks with the Free Democrats' leader, Guido Westerwelle, who has been widely tipped as Germany's next foreign minister. Merkel has argued that a change of coalition was needed to ensure stronger economic growth as Germany emerges from a deep recession. In joining with the Free Democrats, she hopes to cut taxes and halt a plan to shut down Germany's nuclear power plants by 2021. "I think that tonight we can really celebrate, but I would say that after that there is work waiting for us," Merkel told the crowd at her party's headquarters in Berlin, who chanted "Angie! Angie!" "I would not tell anyone to remain sober, but we don't want to forget that there are many problems in our country to be solved," she added. Projections by the nation's public broadcasters, based on early vote counts and exit polls, put support for Merkel's Christian Democrats at up to 33.8 percent of the vote and for the Social Democrats at 23 percent. The Free Democrats captured nearly 15 percent, the Left Party had more than 12 percent and the Greens were at 10 percent or more. Both ARD and ZDF television channels said that would produce a stable center-right majority in parliament. It was a major shift from the 2005 election, in which Merkel's conservatives squeaked in with 35.2 percent of the vote to the Social Democrats' 34.2 percent. Sunday's election was the worst showing since World War II for the Social Democrats – who head into opposition after 11 years in government. "There is no talking around it: this is a bitter defeat," a subdued Steinmeier said at the party's Berlin headquarters. He vowed to lead a strong opposition. "Our job in the opposition will be to very carefully pay attention to whether they can do it," he said of the incoming government. Merkel made clear that she wants to maintain the consensual approach that has made her popular over the past four years. "My understanding was, and my understanding is, that I want to be the chancellor of all Germans," she said. The Free Democrats have called for far deeper tax cuts than the modest middle-income tax relief Merkel has pledged. Neither has said a date for the proposed cuts, which Steinmeier's party has opposed – arguing that they were unrealistic, in view of big government debt run up to combat the global economic crisis. The Free Democrats leader was eager to join the government. "We are pleased with this exceptional result but we know that above all else, this means responsibility," Westerwelle told supporters. "We are ready to take on this responsibility," he added. "We want to help govern Germany because we need to assure that there is a fair tax system, better chances for education and that citizens' rights will finally be respected again." Germany's three opposition parties appeared to have gained in the past four years, with all of them headed for their best results ever. In 2005, all three parties scored less than 10 percent of the vote each. While the outcome Sunday was particularly painful for the Social Democrats, Merkel's party also performed poorly. The result wasn't much better than their own worst postwar performance – 31 percent, in 1949. Still, Merkel's conservatives were relaxed, seeing the surge in support for the Free Democrats as a vote for their own leader. "Together, they're all Merkel votes," the chancellor's chief of staff, Thomas de Maiziere said of the center-right's support. More on Germany
 
Thomas Friedman: We Need A Partner In Afghanistan (VIDEO) Top
In an interview Sunday, New York Times ' columnist Thomas Friedman said that what really mattered in Afghanistan was having a reliable partner in the country. "I don't really know, you know, where the balance is between the large and the small footprint," Friedman told ABC News' "This Week." "What -- what I personally am focused on is -- is one thing. Do you have an Afghan partner, okay? Because it's -- it's that partner that connects your troops with that ultimate goal. And if that partner is rotten to the core, okay, you -- nothing is going to work." He continued, "And the question I'm asking and I think the administration is asking, in light of the election ... is, do we have a partner that is good enough? ... I think McChrystal was shocked when he got over there at how rotten the Afghan parliament was." "Rotten or weak, or both?" asked host George Stephanpoulos. "I think both," Friedman responded. "I wouldn't -- you know, when the president's brother is accused of being the leading mafia drug-dealer in Kandahar, that's not a good sign." Watch: Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" the same morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it was a mistake to announce an exit strategy for Afghanistan. Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Afghanistan
 

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