Thursday, January 06, 2005
"This is not about your intelligence, this hearing is not about your competence, it's not about your integrity — it's about your judgment and your candor. We're looking for candor, old buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far." –Joe Biden (D-Del) to Gonzales
Who we are: Mark Danner, in the NYTimes
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. Together, Congress and the courts investigate high-level wrongdoing and place it in a carefully constructed narrative, in which crimes are charted, malfeasance is explicated and punishment is apportioned as the final step in the journey back to order, justice and propriety.
When Alberto Gonzales takes his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee today for hearings to confirm whether he will become attorney general of the United States, Americans will bid farewell to that comforting story line. The senators are likely to give full legitimacy to a path that the Bush administration set the country on more than three years ago, a path that has transformed the United States from a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely. Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Mr. Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land…
At present, our government, controlled largely by one party only intermittently harried by a timorous opposition, is unable to mete out punishment or change policy, let alone adequately investigate its own war crimes. And, as administration officials clearly expect, and senators of both parties well understand, most Americans - the Americans who will not read the reports, who will soon forget the photographs and who will be loath to dwell on a repellent subject - are generally content to take the president at his word. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?oref=login&oref=login
So, we need to do our utmost to curtail the number of intellectually uncurious, passive individuals who require a steadfast “leader” of purported moral clarity.
Social Security Phony Crisis: The Smoking Gun Memo/Email:
In a sane society, this would’ve helped bury the issue- definitively. Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is about ending Social Security.
Here’s some of the text of the White House strategy note:
This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.
The success of President Bush’s push to remake Social Security depends on convincing the public that the system is “heading for an iceberg,”
“We have it within our grasp to move away from dependency on government and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals,” The Democratic Party is the “party of obstruction and opposition. It is the Party of the Past.”
But the administration must “establish an important premise: the current system is heading toward an iceberg.
Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950/
Another Lie Campaign: Lawsuits B.S., in spades: Tort/Malpractice “Reform”
Mr. Bush spoke in front of a large banner that promised "affordable health care," on a stage filled with dozens of doctors in white coats. He noted that he had often talked about malpractice litigation in last year's campaign, and he said he now had a mandate, because "voters made their position clear on Election Day."
Expanding his focus beyond malpractice cases, Mr. Bush said Congress should also establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, which he described as "the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history."
Mr. Bush seemed to relish the prospect of victory in a battle with plaintiffs' lawyers, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates around the country, just as business groups have supported Republicans.
"It's hard work for some in Congress to stand up to the trial lawyers," Mr. Bush said. "I understand that."
"Junk lawsuits are so unpredictable, they drive up insurance costs for all doctors, even for those who have never been sued, even for those who have never had a claim against them," he said.
He asserted that doctors were turning away patients with complicated life-threatening conditions because those cases often carried "the highest risk for a lawsuit."
The House has repeatedly passed bills to limit damages in malpractice cases, but the measures have died in the Senate, where Republicans now hope to prevail after gaining seats in the November elections.
Mr. Bush has strongly supported the House bills, which would protect not only doctors, but also health maintenance organizations, nursing homes and manufacturers of drugs and medical devices.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Wednesday, "The president's medical malpractice plan is nothing but a shameful shield for drug companies and health maintenance organizations that hurt people through negligence." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06bush.html
Makes much sense…except limiting malpractice damages does nothing to stop frivolous lawsuits, and restricting class action lawsuits also does nothing to halt frivolous suits against docs and hospitals. And, what does asbestos litigation do…other than to curb asbestos litigation? Gads. Someone- Blow that whistle!
Gonzales (cont) Amongst others, Barry Scheck (on Al Franken’s program) raised some good questions about Gonzales’ integrity re his facilitating the dubious sentences/ appeals during Bush’s tenure in Texas. More interest is in torture, but the path is greased.
The following was from earlier this week:
A dozen retired generals and admirals said Tuesday they have "deep concern" about Alberto Gonzales' nomination as attorney general because of his role in crafting Bush administration policy on questioning terror suspects.
The high-ranking officers include retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They made their views known in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Mr. Gonzales' nomination later this week.
They urged senators to question Mr. Gonzales aggressively about whether he now believes that torture may be used in some instances and whether anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions apply to anyone captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110489239198917266,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs
Thursday’s Hearing:
Arlen Specter: Do you approve of torture?
Gonzales: "Absolutely not, senator…"
How reassuring!
Torture: More, and more Word keeps leaking out, forcing more “investigations.” The Times and the WaPost report:
When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, officials characterized the abuse as the aberrant acts of a small group of low-ranking reservists, limited to a few weeks in late 2003. But thousands of pages in military reports and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the American Civil Liberties Union in the past few months have demonstrated that the abuse involved multiple service branches in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, beginning in 2002 and continuing after Congress and the military had begun investigating Abu Ghraib.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.
Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51726-2005Jan5.html
Old Buddy: Scott Ritter- Missile Defense!
The Bush administration would do well to reconsider its commitment to a national missile-defense system, and instead reengage in the kind of treaty-based diplomacy that in the past produced arms control results that were both real and lasting. This would not only save billions, it would make America, and the world, a safer place. http://csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p09s02-coop.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: No one’s listening
The Nelson Report, the insider “tip sheet” reports:
"There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news." www.mediachannel.org
Fallujah Toll: Women and Children
"It was really distressing picking up dead bodies from destroyed homes, especially children. It is the most depressing situation I have ever been in since the war started," Dr Rafa'ah al-Iyssaue, director of the main hospital in Fallujah city, some 60 km west of Baghdad, told IRIN.
According to al-Iyssaue, the hospital emergency team has recovered more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood, adding that more than 550 were women and children. He said a very small number of men were found in these places and most were elderly. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/121b671d950efc3ac031b54b55118d85.htm
Assassinations: If the provincial governor of (Greater) Baghdad can be killed along with his 6 bodyguards, it’s hard to be upbeat about the “security” situation. Juan Cole asks the most basic question,
If things go on like this the real question won't be whether you could hold elections but rather whether the members of the new government could be kept alive. http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/baghdad-governor-6-bodyguards.html
Support the War President!-Always!
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), on social security:
“He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war." (Wall Street Journal, 1/6/04)
Horatio Alger Adieu? From the Economist:
A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560
-R
Who we are: Mark Danner, in the NYTimes
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. Together, Congress and the courts investigate high-level wrongdoing and place it in a carefully constructed narrative, in which crimes are charted, malfeasance is explicated and punishment is apportioned as the final step in the journey back to order, justice and propriety.
When Alberto Gonzales takes his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee today for hearings to confirm whether he will become attorney general of the United States, Americans will bid farewell to that comforting story line. The senators are likely to give full legitimacy to a path that the Bush administration set the country on more than three years ago, a path that has transformed the United States from a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely. Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Mr. Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land…
At present, our government, controlled largely by one party only intermittently harried by a timorous opposition, is unable to mete out punishment or change policy, let alone adequately investigate its own war crimes. And, as administration officials clearly expect, and senators of both parties well understand, most Americans - the Americans who will not read the reports, who will soon forget the photographs and who will be loath to dwell on a repellent subject - are generally content to take the president at his word. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?oref=login&oref=login
So, we need to do our utmost to curtail the number of intellectually uncurious, passive individuals who require a steadfast “leader” of purported moral clarity.
Social Security Phony Crisis: The Smoking Gun Memo/Email:
In a sane society, this would’ve helped bury the issue- definitively. Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is about ending Social Security.
Here’s some of the text of the White House strategy note:
This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.
The success of President Bush’s push to remake Social Security depends on convincing the public that the system is “heading for an iceberg,”
“We have it within our grasp to move away from dependency on government and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals,” The Democratic Party is the “party of obstruction and opposition. It is the Party of the Past.”
But the administration must “establish an important premise: the current system is heading toward an iceberg.
Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950/
Another Lie Campaign: Lawsuits B.S., in spades: Tort/Malpractice “Reform”
Mr. Bush spoke in front of a large banner that promised "affordable health care," on a stage filled with dozens of doctors in white coats. He noted that he had often talked about malpractice litigation in last year's campaign, and he said he now had a mandate, because "voters made their position clear on Election Day."
Expanding his focus beyond malpractice cases, Mr. Bush said Congress should also establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, which he described as "the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history."
Mr. Bush seemed to relish the prospect of victory in a battle with plaintiffs' lawyers, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates around the country, just as business groups have supported Republicans.
"It's hard work for some in Congress to stand up to the trial lawyers," Mr. Bush said. "I understand that."
"Junk lawsuits are so unpredictable, they drive up insurance costs for all doctors, even for those who have never been sued, even for those who have never had a claim against them," he said.
He asserted that doctors were turning away patients with complicated life-threatening conditions because those cases often carried "the highest risk for a lawsuit."
The House has repeatedly passed bills to limit damages in malpractice cases, but the measures have died in the Senate, where Republicans now hope to prevail after gaining seats in the November elections.
Mr. Bush has strongly supported the House bills, which would protect not only doctors, but also health maintenance organizations, nursing homes and manufacturers of drugs and medical devices.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Wednesday, "The president's medical malpractice plan is nothing but a shameful shield for drug companies and health maintenance organizations that hurt people through negligence." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06bush.html
Makes much sense…except limiting malpractice damages does nothing to stop frivolous lawsuits, and restricting class action lawsuits also does nothing to halt frivolous suits against docs and hospitals. And, what does asbestos litigation do…other than to curb asbestos litigation? Gads. Someone- Blow that whistle!
Gonzales (cont) Amongst others, Barry Scheck (on Al Franken’s program) raised some good questions about Gonzales’ integrity re his facilitating the dubious sentences/ appeals during Bush’s tenure in Texas. More interest is in torture, but the path is greased.
The following was from earlier this week:
A dozen retired generals and admirals said Tuesday they have "deep concern" about Alberto Gonzales' nomination as attorney general because of his role in crafting Bush administration policy on questioning terror suspects.
The high-ranking officers include retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They made their views known in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Mr. Gonzales' nomination later this week.
They urged senators to question Mr. Gonzales aggressively about whether he now believes that torture may be used in some instances and whether anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions apply to anyone captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110489239198917266,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs
Thursday’s Hearing:
Arlen Specter: Do you approve of torture?
Gonzales: "Absolutely not, senator…"
How reassuring!
Torture: More, and more Word keeps leaking out, forcing more “investigations.” The Times and the WaPost report:
When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, officials characterized the abuse as the aberrant acts of a small group of low-ranking reservists, limited to a few weeks in late 2003. But thousands of pages in military reports and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the American Civil Liberties Union in the past few months have demonstrated that the abuse involved multiple service branches in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, beginning in 2002 and continuing after Congress and the military had begun investigating Abu Ghraib.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.
Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51726-2005Jan5.html
Old Buddy: Scott Ritter- Missile Defense!
The Bush administration would do well to reconsider its commitment to a national missile-defense system, and instead reengage in the kind of treaty-based diplomacy that in the past produced arms control results that were both real and lasting. This would not only save billions, it would make America, and the world, a safer place. http://csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p09s02-coop.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: No one’s listening
The Nelson Report, the insider “tip sheet” reports:
"There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news." www.mediachannel.org
Fallujah Toll: Women and Children
"It was really distressing picking up dead bodies from destroyed homes, especially children. It is the most depressing situation I have ever been in since the war started," Dr Rafa'ah al-Iyssaue, director of the main hospital in Fallujah city, some 60 km west of Baghdad, told IRIN.
According to al-Iyssaue, the hospital emergency team has recovered more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood, adding that more than 550 were women and children. He said a very small number of men were found in these places and most were elderly. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/121b671d950efc3ac031b54b55118d85.htm
Assassinations: If the provincial governor of (Greater) Baghdad can be killed along with his 6 bodyguards, it’s hard to be upbeat about the “security” situation. Juan Cole asks the most basic question,
If things go on like this the real question won't be whether you could hold elections but rather whether the members of the new government could be kept alive. http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/baghdad-governor-6-bodyguards.html
Support the War President!-Always!
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), on social security:
“He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war." (Wall Street Journal, 1/6/04)
Horatio Alger Adieu? From the Economist:
A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560
-R
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
South Asia: Observations
* Embarrassing quotes from Colin about our generosity; absolutely pathetic. Again, the governments of Sweden and England contributed $8.40 per citizen. The government of the wealthiest country on earth, the United States of America, originally offered twelve cents per citizen.
* This crisis again exposes the lazy journalism, the "outside-in" approach to "journalism that gives us Colin and other luminaries, but few interviews with the population, many of whom speak English;
* The disaster is not only a p.r. opening for the U.S., but also an opportunity to bolster bases in the region, in particular the base at Utapao, 90 miles south of Bangkok, Thailand, part of our ‘forward positioning’, i.e. establishing bases literally everywhere.
Ethics and the Republicans They re-thought their position.
The sudden reversal came amid growing indications of dissension within the GOP. Just before House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office announced that the measures were being dropped, the chairman of the House ethics committee issued an unusual statement denouncing the leadership's plan. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45573-2005Jan3.html
House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstating a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury.
The surprise dual decisions were made by Speaker Dennis Hastert and by DeLay - who asked GOP colleagues to undo the extreme act of loyalty they handed him in November. Then, Republicans changed a party rule, so DeLay could have retained his leadership post if indicted by the grand jury in Austin that charged three of the Texas Republican's associates.
When Republicans began their closed-door meeting Monday night, leaders were considering a rules change that would have made it tougher to rebuke a House member for misconduct. The proposal would have required a more specific finding of ethical violations than is now required. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050104/D87CUL581.html
Krispy Kreme: They may be a better product than Dunkin’, but their business practices recall that of Enron et al.
Amid allegations of padded sales figures, Krispy Kreme on Tuesday restated its earnings for fiscal 2004, sending its shares tumbling more than 17 percent and threatening the once-trendy doughnut maker with a cash and credit crunch. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1205&e=2&u=/ap/20050104/ap_on_bi_ge/krispy_kreme_restatement&sid=95609882
Faith Based: Ongoing
Other grant recipients are religious, offering social service programs that the government may have deemed too religious to receive money before President Bush took office.
Visitors to TMM Family Services in Tucson, Ariz., which received $25,000 for housing counseling, are greeted by a picture of Jesus and quotes from the Bible.
"We believe that people being connected to the faith of their choice is important to them having a productive life," said Don Strauch, an ordained minister and executive director of the group, which offers a variety of social services. "Just because we take government money doesn't mean we back down on that philosophy."
All told, faith-based organizations were awarded $1.17 billion in 2003. That is about 12 percent of the $14.5 billion spent on social programs that qualify for faith-based grants in five federal departments. White House officials expect the total to grow.
The list of 2003 grant recipients provided to AP is the first detailed tally of the dollars behind this "faith-based initiative."
Elected with strong support of religious conservatives, Bush came to office promising to open government's checkbook to religious groups that provide social services. Often, Bush says, religious groups do a better job serving the poor.
Civil libertarians fear the government will wind up paying for worship, eroding the constitutional separation between church and state. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&u=/ap/20050102/ap_on_go_ot/federal_faith&printer=1
Hatchet Job on Annan and UN Of course it’s a pack of lies. Good piece in The Nation
Listening to the cable pundits, you would never suspect that there is no proof at this point that Annan, or indeed anyone else at the UN, did anything wrong. Charges of corruption against UN official Benon Sevan are suspect at best, given that they come via Ahmad Chalabi, who was also the source of the discredited information about Iraq's illusory weapons, as well as the assurances that Iraqis would greet US and British forces as liberators. Nor is there any evidence that Annan used his influence to give Cotecna, a company that employed his son, the job of monitoring contracts under the oil-for-food program, and no proof that Cotecna did anything illegal or corrupt. Although Annan's son certainly let his father down by not telling him of Cotecna's continuing "non-compete" payments to him, paternal resignations in response to the sins of prodigal sons have not been a great American tradition--certainly not under the Bush dynasty.
There are real questions about Saddam Hussein's oil sales, both inside and outside the oil-for-food program, but all the serious investigations, such as that by the US Government Accountability Office, make it clear that most of the revenue he raised had nothing to do with the UN, and that the UN did nothing without the explicit or implicit support of the United States acting through the Security Council.
The reality is that the current calls for Annan's head are provoked by his opposition to America's pre-emptive war in Iraq. On December 4 the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the hometown newspaper of Senator Norm Coleman, who has called for Annan's resignation, provided perhaps the most succinct explanation of what lies behind the attacks. Describing Coleman's call as a "sordid move," the editorial explained: "For months before the election, the right-wing constellation of blogs and talk radio was alive with incendiary rhetoric about Annan and the oil-for-food scandal.... This is really all about Annan's refusal to toe the Bush line on Iraq and the administration's generally unilateral approach to foreign affairs. The right-wingers hate Annan and saw in the food-for-oil program a possible chink in his armor. They went after it with a venomous fury." http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050110&s=williams
What’s Happening, Afghanistan. How’s that success doin’? The Taliban has regrouped, Al-Qaeda is recruiting, most of the country is either too dangerous to negotiate or is controlled by local war lords. And, it’s a narco-mafia haven.
Although farmers all over Afghanistan have been turning to poppy cultivation - causing such farming to increase by 60 percent in 2004 - they often remain impoverished, while big profits are being made by the dealers and traffickers, they say. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/international/asia/02afghan.html?oref=login
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Resistance- Growing Those who seek out alternatives to the major U.S. media have noticed this.
Iraq's insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathisers, the country's national intelligence chief told AFP, in the bleakest assessment to date of the armed revolt waged by Sunni Muslims.
"I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people," Iraqi intelligence service director General Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani said in an interview ahead of the January 30 elections.
Shahwani said the number includes at least 40,000 hardcore fighters but rises to more than 200,000 members counting part-time fighters and volunteers who provide rebels everything from intelligence and logistics to shelter. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12332
Funding the Occupation: Fuzzy, Dishonest math:
Congress expects the White House to request as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.
It would be the third and largest Iraq-related budget request from the White House yet, and it could push the war's costs over $200 billion — far above initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
War costs complicate President Bush's plans for initiatives such as overhauling Social Security. They also threaten his pledge to halve the record $413 billion federal budget deficit…
But there is growing annoyance with the White House for refusing to treat the cost of the military operations in Iraq — roughly $5 billion a month, according to the House Appropriations Committee — as part of the annual budget.
"There is a feeling among a lot of members that ... this war has become enough of a routine that they should be able to build it into their annual budgeting and not have to come back to us for supplemental funding of that size," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., head of the House Appropriations panel that oversees spending on foreign operations.
"The annual budget proposal we've been given by the White House falsely portrays the bottom line," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+Congress+expects+%24100+billion+war+request&expire=&urlID=12762604&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Firaq%2F2005-01-03-iraq-costs_x.htm%3FPO
They’re getting annoyed!
Journalistic Justice: Wondered about Robert Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame, whether he’s paid a price?
This topsy-turvy result derives from the still unexplained direction taken in the official investigation into just who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the press back in July, 2003. While the reporter who actually blew her cover was unarguably Robert Novak, who refuses to discuss the matter in public, a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington is currently considering whether or not to uphold sentences of up to 18 months in prison for Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. Their crime? The refusal to disclose the anonymous sources they used in reporting their respective stories; stories they did not even write.
Miller and Cooper are not alone. On December 9th, Jim Taricani, a television reporter in Providence, R.I., was sentenced to six months of house arrest (the judge made a show of telling him only poor health saved him from prison) for refusing to reveal the anonymous source who gave him an F.B.I. videotape of a local official accepting a bribe. According to an AP report of the sentencing, the presiding judge scolded journalists generally for "thinking they have exclusive, unreviewable authority to employ confidential sources." http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=275638
China: Growing Demands of Elderly population The economy may be booming, but some problems loom. Amongst them…
The world’s most populous nation is still growing, with China’s official population expected to hit 1.3 billion tomorrow, despite a quarter-century-old policy of allowing couples to have only one child. The strict rules were intended to put the brakes on growth after Chairman Mao-era exhortations that more children would make China strong. But while they have helped China curb its birth rate from more than 33 per 1,000 population in 1970 to less than eight per 1,000 three decades later, the country faces new demographic challenges over how to support an ageing population. Lou Binbin, of the China Population Information Research Centre, said: "I would say right now we have a 20-25 year golden period to resolve this problem. The numbers of old people haven’t yet reached a serious level. We will have to rely on the speed of our economic development to resolve this problem of old people." http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=10322005
-R
* Embarrassing quotes from Colin about our generosity; absolutely pathetic. Again, the governments of Sweden and England contributed $8.40 per citizen. The government of the wealthiest country on earth, the United States of America, originally offered twelve cents per citizen.
* This crisis again exposes the lazy journalism, the "outside-in" approach to "journalism that gives us Colin and other luminaries, but few interviews with the population, many of whom speak English;
* The disaster is not only a p.r. opening for the U.S., but also an opportunity to bolster bases in the region, in particular the base at Utapao, 90 miles south of Bangkok, Thailand, part of our ‘forward positioning’, i.e. establishing bases literally everywhere.
Ethics and the Republicans They re-thought their position.
The sudden reversal came amid growing indications of dissension within the GOP. Just before House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office announced that the measures were being dropped, the chairman of the House ethics committee issued an unusual statement denouncing the leadership's plan. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45573-2005Jan3.html
House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstating a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury.
The surprise dual decisions were made by Speaker Dennis Hastert and by DeLay - who asked GOP colleagues to undo the extreme act of loyalty they handed him in November. Then, Republicans changed a party rule, so DeLay could have retained his leadership post if indicted by the grand jury in Austin that charged three of the Texas Republican's associates.
When Republicans began their closed-door meeting Monday night, leaders were considering a rules change that would have made it tougher to rebuke a House member for misconduct. The proposal would have required a more specific finding of ethical violations than is now required. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050104/D87CUL581.html
Krispy Kreme: They may be a better product than Dunkin’, but their business practices recall that of Enron et al.
Amid allegations of padded sales figures, Krispy Kreme on Tuesday restated its earnings for fiscal 2004, sending its shares tumbling more than 17 percent and threatening the once-trendy doughnut maker with a cash and credit crunch. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1205&e=2&u=/ap/20050104/ap_on_bi_ge/krispy_kreme_restatement&sid=95609882
Faith Based: Ongoing
Other grant recipients are religious, offering social service programs that the government may have deemed too religious to receive money before President Bush took office.
Visitors to TMM Family Services in Tucson, Ariz., which received $25,000 for housing counseling, are greeted by a picture of Jesus and quotes from the Bible.
"We believe that people being connected to the faith of their choice is important to them having a productive life," said Don Strauch, an ordained minister and executive director of the group, which offers a variety of social services. "Just because we take government money doesn't mean we back down on that philosophy."
All told, faith-based organizations were awarded $1.17 billion in 2003. That is about 12 percent of the $14.5 billion spent on social programs that qualify for faith-based grants in five federal departments. White House officials expect the total to grow.
The list of 2003 grant recipients provided to AP is the first detailed tally of the dollars behind this "faith-based initiative."
Elected with strong support of religious conservatives, Bush came to office promising to open government's checkbook to religious groups that provide social services. Often, Bush says, religious groups do a better job serving the poor.
Civil libertarians fear the government will wind up paying for worship, eroding the constitutional separation between church and state. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&u=/ap/20050102/ap_on_go_ot/federal_faith&printer=1
Hatchet Job on Annan and UN Of course it’s a pack of lies. Good piece in The Nation
Listening to the cable pundits, you would never suspect that there is no proof at this point that Annan, or indeed anyone else at the UN, did anything wrong. Charges of corruption against UN official Benon Sevan are suspect at best, given that they come via Ahmad Chalabi, who was also the source of the discredited information about Iraq's illusory weapons, as well as the assurances that Iraqis would greet US and British forces as liberators. Nor is there any evidence that Annan used his influence to give Cotecna, a company that employed his son, the job of monitoring contracts under the oil-for-food program, and no proof that Cotecna did anything illegal or corrupt. Although Annan's son certainly let his father down by not telling him of Cotecna's continuing "non-compete" payments to him, paternal resignations in response to the sins of prodigal sons have not been a great American tradition--certainly not under the Bush dynasty.
There are real questions about Saddam Hussein's oil sales, both inside and outside the oil-for-food program, but all the serious investigations, such as that by the US Government Accountability Office, make it clear that most of the revenue he raised had nothing to do with the UN, and that the UN did nothing without the explicit or implicit support of the United States acting through the Security Council.
The reality is that the current calls for Annan's head are provoked by his opposition to America's pre-emptive war in Iraq. On December 4 the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the hometown newspaper of Senator Norm Coleman, who has called for Annan's resignation, provided perhaps the most succinct explanation of what lies behind the attacks. Describing Coleman's call as a "sordid move," the editorial explained: "For months before the election, the right-wing constellation of blogs and talk radio was alive with incendiary rhetoric about Annan and the oil-for-food scandal.... This is really all about Annan's refusal to toe the Bush line on Iraq and the administration's generally unilateral approach to foreign affairs. The right-wingers hate Annan and saw in the food-for-oil program a possible chink in his armor. They went after it with a venomous fury." http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050110&s=williams
What’s Happening, Afghanistan. How’s that success doin’? The Taliban has regrouped, Al-Qaeda is recruiting, most of the country is either too dangerous to negotiate or is controlled by local war lords. And, it’s a narco-mafia haven.
Although farmers all over Afghanistan have been turning to poppy cultivation - causing such farming to increase by 60 percent in 2004 - they often remain impoverished, while big profits are being made by the dealers and traffickers, they say. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/international/asia/02afghan.html?oref=login
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Resistance- Growing Those who seek out alternatives to the major U.S. media have noticed this.
Iraq's insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathisers, the country's national intelligence chief told AFP, in the bleakest assessment to date of the armed revolt waged by Sunni Muslims.
"I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people," Iraqi intelligence service director General Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani said in an interview ahead of the January 30 elections.
Shahwani said the number includes at least 40,000 hardcore fighters but rises to more than 200,000 members counting part-time fighters and volunteers who provide rebels everything from intelligence and logistics to shelter. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12332
Funding the Occupation: Fuzzy, Dishonest math:
Congress expects the White House to request as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.
It would be the third and largest Iraq-related budget request from the White House yet, and it could push the war's costs over $200 billion — far above initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
War costs complicate President Bush's plans for initiatives such as overhauling Social Security. They also threaten his pledge to halve the record $413 billion federal budget deficit…
But there is growing annoyance with the White House for refusing to treat the cost of the military operations in Iraq — roughly $5 billion a month, according to the House Appropriations Committee — as part of the annual budget.
"There is a feeling among a lot of members that ... this war has become enough of a routine that they should be able to build it into their annual budgeting and not have to come back to us for supplemental funding of that size," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., head of the House Appropriations panel that oversees spending on foreign operations.
"The annual budget proposal we've been given by the White House falsely portrays the bottom line," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+Congress+expects+%24100+billion+war+request&expire=&urlID=12762604&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Firaq%2F2005-01-03-iraq-costs_x.htm%3FPO
They’re getting annoyed!
Journalistic Justice: Wondered about Robert Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame, whether he’s paid a price?
This topsy-turvy result derives from the still unexplained direction taken in the official investigation into just who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the press back in July, 2003. While the reporter who actually blew her cover was unarguably Robert Novak, who refuses to discuss the matter in public, a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington is currently considering whether or not to uphold sentences of up to 18 months in prison for Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. Their crime? The refusal to disclose the anonymous sources they used in reporting their respective stories; stories they did not even write.
Miller and Cooper are not alone. On December 9th, Jim Taricani, a television reporter in Providence, R.I., was sentenced to six months of house arrest (the judge made a show of telling him only poor health saved him from prison) for refusing to reveal the anonymous source who gave him an F.B.I. videotape of a local official accepting a bribe. According to an AP report of the sentencing, the presiding judge scolded journalists generally for "thinking they have exclusive, unreviewable authority to employ confidential sources." http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=275638
China: Growing Demands of Elderly population The economy may be booming, but some problems loom. Amongst them…
The world’s most populous nation is still growing, with China’s official population expected to hit 1.3 billion tomorrow, despite a quarter-century-old policy of allowing couples to have only one child. The strict rules were intended to put the brakes on growth after Chairman Mao-era exhortations that more children would make China strong. But while they have helped China curb its birth rate from more than 33 per 1,000 population in 1970 to less than eight per 1,000 three decades later, the country faces new demographic challenges over how to support an ageing population. Lou Binbin, of the China Population Information Research Centre, said: "I would say right now we have a 20-25 year golden period to resolve this problem. The numbers of old people haven’t yet reached a serious level. We will have to rely on the speed of our economic development to resolve this problem of old people." http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=10322005
-R
Sunday, January 02, 2005
South Asia: Another pathetic moment, as Colin Powell is put out there to insist “we are a generous people.” Well-spoken by the embarrassed fellas who announced $15 million in aid and were shamed to drastically elevate the figure. Now at least we’re pledging (hopefully giving) the equivalent of 38 hours of the Iraqi occupation.
Frank Rich: Our National Denial
So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, "support our troops" became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet "only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice." Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/arts/02rich.html?oref=login
Social Security: Two takes from writers of the Washington Post and NY Times.
Shill: Jonathan Weissman of the WaPost:
In just 14 years, the nation's Social Security system is projected to reach a day of reckoning: Retiree benefits will exceed payroll tax receipts, and to pay its bills the system will have to begin redeeming billions of dollars in special Treasury bonds that have piled up in its trust fund. To redeem those bonds, which represent money taken in years when Social Security ran a surplus and used for other government operations, the federal government would likely have to cut other programs, raise taxes or borrow more money.
To President Bush, this is a crisis, worth nothing short of dramatic structural changes to a social insurance system that since 1940 has lifted the elderly and disabled from poverty.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41423-2005Jan1.html
Edmund Andrews counters, noting the phony math and budget busting:
(1) To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security.
To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.
By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.
But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/politics/02fiscal.html?pagewanted=print&position=
(2) Arguably, his agenda for revamping the income tax is also an effort to think ahead. Though he has yet to announce a specific plan, White House officials have made it clear their goal is a shift toward a system that essentially taxes consumption - the money people spend - and not the money they save or invest.
In principle, a consumption tax could be forward-looking. Administration officials argue that lower taxes on saving and investment would prompt Americans to increase savings from today's abysmally low level - barely above zero - and would provide more capital to finance growth.
But on closer inspection, much of the agenda follows a familiar path: borrowing today and leaving the bills for future generations to pay.
Start with Social Security. Mr. Bush regularly warns that the system will come up short in future decades, because the total amount paid out in benefits will soar as baby boomers reach retirement age. But the proposed solution often cited by White House officials would put none of the burden on today's taxpayers or retirees. Instead, it would fall on people who retire 40 or 50 or 60 years from now. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/business/02view.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jeb to South Asia: He denies that this indicates his interest in a higher profile, i.e. the presidency. Maybe it is just a good p.r. move for the White House, as they’ve suffered (again) because of their slow response to the Disaster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37916-2004Dec30.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/01/01/a5a_BUSH_0101.html
Changing Job Picture: …About future jobs being of less $ and fewer benefits. So, what’s new?
This new era requires that workers shoulder more responsibility and risk on the way to financial security, economists say. It also demands that they be nimble in an increasingly fluid job market. Those who don't obtain some combination of specialized skills, higher education and professional status that can be constantly adapted will be in danger of sliding down the economic ladder to low-paying service jobs, usually without benefits.
Meanwhile, those who secure the middle-class jobs of the 21st century will have to make $17 an hour stretch further than ever as they pay more for health care or risk doing without insurance and assume much or all of the burden for their retirement.
In the lively debate about the future of U.S. jobs, many economists and scholars acknowledge that the changes wrought by technology and global economic forces will be painful at first. But they say the new structure ultimately will create many kinds of jobs as yet unimagined, in fields such as education, health care and science.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37628-2004Dec30.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Many more deaths. And, demonstrations…in Fallujah. Apparently “thousands” demanded that the U.S. end the Occupation.
Thousands of Fallujans demonstrated on Saturday in front of the main entrance to the largely abandoned city. They demanded that US military forces leave their city and that basic services be restored so that they could return…
Some of the placards announced that Fallujans refused to live under a military occupation. They presented a list of demands, which included the facilitation of their return to the city, speedy return of services, rebuilding of the devastated city, and monetary compensation to its inhabitants. They also protested the US military demand that returnees show identification papers. Many said that such papers got left behind in the city when they fled.Children marched with placards reading "Where is my Father?" or "Where is my house, you supposed Liberators?" http://www.juancole.com/
What’s Happening, Iran: Plane ‘Overflights’
We really shouldn’t provoke; we don’t have the muscle to back it up.
A US warplane has violated Iranian air space, this time a border edge near Afghanistan in the eastern province of Razavi Khorassan, in the latest spate of such overflights reported by the press.
According to the evening daily Kayhan, an American fighter entered Iranian air space Thursday night, flying over the southern border strip at Iran's Mousa-Abad region for several minutes.
The US warplane flew back to Afghanistan, from where it had entered the Iranian airspace, the paper added. http://www.payvand.com/news/05/jan/1004.html
-R
Frank Rich: Our National Denial
So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, "support our troops" became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet "only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice." Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/arts/02rich.html?oref=login
Social Security: Two takes from writers of the Washington Post and NY Times.
Shill: Jonathan Weissman of the WaPost:
In just 14 years, the nation's Social Security system is projected to reach a day of reckoning: Retiree benefits will exceed payroll tax receipts, and to pay its bills the system will have to begin redeeming billions of dollars in special Treasury bonds that have piled up in its trust fund. To redeem those bonds, which represent money taken in years when Social Security ran a surplus and used for other government operations, the federal government would likely have to cut other programs, raise taxes or borrow more money.
To President Bush, this is a crisis, worth nothing short of dramatic structural changes to a social insurance system that since 1940 has lifted the elderly and disabled from poverty.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41423-2005Jan1.html
Edmund Andrews counters, noting the phony math and budget busting:
(1) To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security.
To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.
By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.
But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/politics/02fiscal.html?pagewanted=print&position=
(2) Arguably, his agenda for revamping the income tax is also an effort to think ahead. Though he has yet to announce a specific plan, White House officials have made it clear their goal is a shift toward a system that essentially taxes consumption - the money people spend - and not the money they save or invest.
In principle, a consumption tax could be forward-looking. Administration officials argue that lower taxes on saving and investment would prompt Americans to increase savings from today's abysmally low level - barely above zero - and would provide more capital to finance growth.
But on closer inspection, much of the agenda follows a familiar path: borrowing today and leaving the bills for future generations to pay.
Start with Social Security. Mr. Bush regularly warns that the system will come up short in future decades, because the total amount paid out in benefits will soar as baby boomers reach retirement age. But the proposed solution often cited by White House officials would put none of the burden on today's taxpayers or retirees. Instead, it would fall on people who retire 40 or 50 or 60 years from now. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/business/02view.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jeb to South Asia: He denies that this indicates his interest in a higher profile, i.e. the presidency. Maybe it is just a good p.r. move for the White House, as they’ve suffered (again) because of their slow response to the Disaster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37916-2004Dec30.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/01/01/a5a_BUSH_0101.html
Changing Job Picture: …About future jobs being of less $ and fewer benefits. So, what’s new?
This new era requires that workers shoulder more responsibility and risk on the way to financial security, economists say. It also demands that they be nimble in an increasingly fluid job market. Those who don't obtain some combination of specialized skills, higher education and professional status that can be constantly adapted will be in danger of sliding down the economic ladder to low-paying service jobs, usually without benefits.
Meanwhile, those who secure the middle-class jobs of the 21st century will have to make $17 an hour stretch further than ever as they pay more for health care or risk doing without insurance and assume much or all of the burden for their retirement.
In the lively debate about the future of U.S. jobs, many economists and scholars acknowledge that the changes wrought by technology and global economic forces will be painful at first. But they say the new structure ultimately will create many kinds of jobs as yet unimagined, in fields such as education, health care and science.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37628-2004Dec30.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Many more deaths. And, demonstrations…in Fallujah. Apparently “thousands” demanded that the U.S. end the Occupation.
Thousands of Fallujans demonstrated on Saturday in front of the main entrance to the largely abandoned city. They demanded that US military forces leave their city and that basic services be restored so that they could return…
Some of the placards announced that Fallujans refused to live under a military occupation. They presented a list of demands, which included the facilitation of their return to the city, speedy return of services, rebuilding of the devastated city, and monetary compensation to its inhabitants. They also protested the US military demand that returnees show identification papers. Many said that such papers got left behind in the city when they fled.Children marched with placards reading "Where is my Father?" or "Where is my house, you supposed Liberators?" http://www.juancole.com/
What’s Happening, Iran: Plane ‘Overflights’
We really shouldn’t provoke; we don’t have the muscle to back it up.
A US warplane has violated Iranian air space, this time a border edge near Afghanistan in the eastern province of Razavi Khorassan, in the latest spate of such overflights reported by the press.
According to the evening daily Kayhan, an American fighter entered Iranian air space Thursday night, flying over the southern border strip at Iran's Mousa-Abad region for several minutes.
The US warplane flew back to Afghanistan, from where it had entered the Iranian airspace, the paper added. http://www.payvand.com/news/05/jan/1004.html
-R
