Justices’ Ruling Limits Suits on Pay Disparity

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Published: May 30, 2007

WASHINGTON, May 29 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such cases. The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at the same management level, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority. ...

In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others. ...

Title VII’s prohibition of workplace discrimination applies not just to pay but also to specific actions like refusal to hire or promote, denial of a desired transfer and dismissal. Justice Ginsburg argued in her dissenting opinion that while these “singular discrete acts” are readily apparent to an employee who can then make a timely complaint, pay discrimination often presents a more ambiguous picture. She said the court should treat a pay claim as it treated a claim for a “hostile work environment” in a 2002 decision, permitting a charge to be filed “based on the cumulative effect of individual acts.”

In response, Justice Alito dismissed this as a “policy argument” with “no support in the statute.”

Talk about not caring about the spirit of the law.

Death for corrupt Chinese official

Pallavi Aiyar

Beijing: A Chinese court sentenced the former head of the food and drug agency, Zheng Xiaoyu, to death on Tuesday, a move that comes at a time when Beijing is struggling to quell a wave of scandals pertaining to fake and adulterated medicines and food.

On the same day, China also announced its first ever food recall system for unsafe food products. The two announcements come at a time when China is in the international spotlight after a series of recent investigations revealed several fake and dangerous products to have originated in China, ranging from pet food in the United States to tainted toothpaste in Panama. According to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zheng to death after convicting him of taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than 6.5 million yuan ($832,000) between 1998 and 2005, when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration. Zheng's sentence is open to appeal.

Malpratices condoned

Xinhua said that in exchange for the bribes, Zheng turned a blind eye to malpractices by relatives and subordinate officials, approving the production of untested drugs and lowering the quality standards pharmaceutical companies needed to meet in order to obtain relevant approvals.

China suffered some of its worst food and drug related scandals during Zheng's tenure. The most notorious amongst these was a case in 2004, in which at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province after they were given fake milk powder.

Earlier this year, wheat gluten and rice protein exported from China to the United States and then mixed into pet food were found to contain the chemical melamine, which allegedly caused widespread deaths among cats and dogs, leading to pet food recalls. Beijing has responded to this series of scandals by launching a nationwide campaign of drug safety inspections.

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This is a case of the public needing to do its own job of watching those they elect.

Dec 27, 9:23 PM (ET)

By LARRY MARGASAK

WASHINGTON (AP) - The inspectors general entrusted to unearth waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies are increasingly under attack, as top government officials they scrutinize try to erode the watchdogs' independence and authority.

During 2006, several inspectors general felt the wrath of government bosses or their supporters in Congress after investigations cited agencies for poor performance, excessive spending or wasted money.

For instance:

_The top official of the government's property and supply agency compared its inspector general to a terrorist, hoping to chill audits of General Services Administration regional offices and private businesses.

_Directors of the government's legal aid program discussed firing their inspector general, who investigated how top officials lavishly spent tax dollars for limousine services, ritzy hotels and $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts.

_Administration-friendly Republicans in Congress tried to do away with the special inspector general for Iraq, who repeatedly exposed examples of administration waste that cost billions of dollars. Among the contractors criticized was Halliburton Corp., once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

_The Pentagon has been making its inspector general use lawyers picked by the defense secretary instead of independently hired attorneys.

"It's hard to believe that the government is serious about policing itself when it's whacking the people who are actually minding the store," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that tracks government waste and fraud. "These people are our security officers who help guard tens of billions of dollars. It's ridiculous to prevent them from doing their jobs."

Sean Kevelighan, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the Bush administration counts on "independent and unbiased views" of the watchdogs and is willing to intervene in any disputes.

"If and when there are times where intervention is necessary, the administration will do so to ensure all the parties are educated about one another's roles and the importance of maintaining a productive relationship - and a healthy respect for the responsibilities of all involved," he added.

When GSA Inspector General Brian Miller's team intensively audited the agency's regional offices, he ran into strong resistance from agency administrator Lurita Doan.

A business owner, Doan suggested some auditing functions be taken away from the watchdog and given to small businesses.

"There are two kinds of terrorism in the U.S.: the external kind and internally, the IGs have terrorized the regional administrators," she told Miller and his staff on Aug. 18.

The quotes are from a participant's meeting notes obtained by The Associated Press. Miller aide Robert Samuels attended the meeting and confirmed the comments, as did another attendee.

Doan declined comment.

The jobs of two watchdogs had to be rescued by Congress.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, inserted language in a defense bill to close down the Iraq inspector general by the end of 2007.

That inspector general, Stuart Bowen Jr., has conducted several high-profile investigations of how the Bush administration has spent money during Iraqi reconstruction. He found dramatic examples of missing weapons, wasted billions and excessive overhead costs by Halliburton.

Hunter said he agreed that Bowen's office had been useful but that a termination date was needed so that normal oversight functions could be returned to the Defense and State departments.

Democrats and key Republicans rebelled and saved Bowen's job.

"It is inconceivable that we would remove this aggressive oversight while the American taxpayer is still spending billions of dollars on Iraq reconstruction projects," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said.

Legal Services Corp. Inspector General Kirt West rankled top managers of the federal legal aid program for the poor when he investigated lavish executive expenditures. The agency's board of directors discussed firing him in early 2006.

West "should know that he's got to ... shape up or we will ship him out," board vice chairman Lillian BeVier said, according to one meeting transcript.

Three members of Congress intervened to save West's job.

Congress and the Bush administration also have left open one of the most critical watchdog jobs - the Pentagon inspector general's post. The job has been vacant for 16 months, even as billions of dollars are spent each month in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush's nominee, David Laufman, withdrew recently because he couldn't get a Senate vote.

But while his nomination was alive, he warned Congress of a lack of independence for the Pentagon watchdog.

Laufman brought to senators' attention a directive - renewed in 2004 by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office - that requires the inspector general's legal office to be staffed by lawyers who work for the secretary rather than independently hired attorneys.

Congress created the inspectors general jobs during the post-Watergate era to ensure federal agencies had independent oversight and accountability. The IGs audit how money is spent and also play a critical role in investigating allegations of wrongdoing and protecting federal whistleblowers.

Even amid increasing attacks, inspectors general have made their mark.

Interior Department inspector general Earl Devaney has played a key role investigating the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, by exposing political pressures and shenanigans designed to get favorable treatment inside Interior for Abramoff's tribal clients.

And GSA's Miller has conducted investigations that:

_Led Oracle Corp. to pay $98.5 million to settle charges of inflated computer costs to the government.

_Exposed vendors for offering the government facial tissues priced at $22 more per carton than commercial customers.

_Uncovered portable radios priced $1,473 more to government agencies than to private sector customers.

Most criticism of the watchdogs comes from federal officials "not particularly happy with the messages being delivered," said Gaston Gianni Jr., now retired as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. inspector general.

"I don't think you compromise to get brownie points. You have to report what you find."

---

On the Net:

General Services Administration:

http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/home.do?tabId0

Legal Services Corporation:

http://www.lsc.gov/

Labels: oversight

Michael Savage weighs in on Terri Schiavo controversy: "Deathworshipper" Democrats are "[l]ike Mengele"

I'm not sure this guy is worth a comment, but, stuff like this has to be nipped in the bud.

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. As it is, I consider it sad because the grip on reality is so unhinged.

However, what is pathetic is that the people being slandered seem to have no recourse except to let this stand. There are limits on the lies people can tell about others even if they are public officials or former presidents. I don't believe anyone is exempt from the rights and protections of citizenship nor is lying, slander, or libel covered by the right of free speech.

Got this from Salon.com. You may need to get a day pass to read it there, but I've posted the whole thing below.

My commentary on MoveOn is that they are no longer viable if they are going to pass on doing anything about the Indentured Servitude (Bankruptcy) bill. If you only fight on safe (read win-able) issues, and don't fight on the one's that really matter especially if it is an uphill battle, than what good are you? At this point it stops being about lives and the public interest and starts being about the game.

As for focusing on Social Security instead of the Bankruptcy bill, SS is nowhere near being legislated yet, not to mention of the ton of other organizations ALSO working on it. But the BankBill was in the senate and it sailed right on through going now to the House.

The battle lines in America are getting clearer everyday for me as to which side anyone is on. MoveOn is no longer on the side of the people. They just want to work on things they can win without much effort or fuss or boat rocking. Well, they can sit in the same boat as the DLC. --LotusFawkes


Why MoveOn didn't move on bankruptcy

The passage of the bankruptcy bill by the Senate on Thursday was a dark hour for the Democratic Party. No fewer than 18 Democrats voted for the legislation, which vocal opponent Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts called "a nightmare for the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak." Given the bill's consequences for middle-class families, women and elderly folks forced to declare bankruptcy because of insurmountable credit card debt, often due to job loss or big medical bills, we wondered why grassroots bellwether MoveOn.org didn't ask its members to act on the issue. Or even mention it on its Web site, for that matter.

According to Eli Pariser, MoveOn's executive director, it was because they didn't think it would have made a real impact. "Because of the solid Republican support for the bill, terrible though the bill is, it wasn't something that we could make a difference by weighing in on," Pariser told War Room by phone on Friday. He said that MoveOn's members had chosen to focus on two other "critical fights that we can win" -- namely Bush judicial nominations, and the battle over Social Security.

Back in June 2003 MoveOn turned its attention to the FCC media ownership vote, a fairly obscure issue at the time, generating thousands of phone calls and emails to Capitol Hill, and raising national awareness of the issue. Pariser did acknowledge the possibility that a visible effort on the bankruptcy issue this month by MoveOn could have "changed the calculation" of Democrats who voted for the bill in the Senate. But he reiterated that when faced with the choice of diverting resources from other key, winnable issues to one "which was doomed to fail," MoveOn would choose to be "pragmatic."

Pariser maintained that the group has not narrowed its focus since the presidential election: "We've always been a multi-issue organization and we always will be." But he says that members have indicated that they've been overwhelmed when asked to "track 16 different issues at once, so we've done our best to respect our members' attention and inboxes."

-- Julia Scott

From Bakersfield.com

Posted: Friday February 18th, 2005, 2:45 PM
Last Updated: Friday February 18th, 2005, 2:45 PM

Exxon passes GE to be biggest

KW Associates, Realtors
Exxon Mobil Corp. overtook General Electric Co. as the world's biggest company by market value, underscoring the emergence of energy stocks as leaders amid surging oil prices.

Exxon Mobil, the largest publicly traded oil producer, was valued at $383.3 billion as of Friday's close, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The figure surpassed the $379.3 billion value of GE, whose 11 units include financial services, health care and the NBC television network.

"Exxon mirrors the importance of the energy industry," said Forrest Mervine, who helps manage $1.4 billion at Philadelphia Corp. in Philadelphia. "That's going to be the case for a while until alternate sources of energy come along."

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an alternate source to preserve modern industrial civilization's addiction to oil and save our collective asses. Ain't gonna happen. Get ready to start growing your own food and making do with a whole lot less than you have now.

And for all those with money in the oil market, you better pay very close attention because while you still got a few years to make money on it, eventually, that bubble is going to pop and then you will be holding paper only fit to burn and keep you warm in the winter.

From MSNBC: Clear skies vs clean government:

Congress, as usual, seems asleep at the switch. Years ago, you could always count on dozens of lawmakers, irrespective of their party affiliation, to stand up and make sure the legislative process had "integrity." Now, on both sides of the aisle, it's all about giving your wealthiest campaign contributors as much unfettered access and power as possible, while shutting off any opposing views or arguments. Moderation and open negotiation? Never.

The irony, of course, is that most Americans seem more open-minded and fair these days than our leaders in Washington, D.C...

"Clear skies?" It sounds great. But a "clean" and transparent government would be a better way to start.

Banks, credit card companies and retailers have pushed for this plan since 1997. Consumer and civil rights groups and unions say the legislation is unfair to low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly, and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face mounting medical bills.

Democrats, meanwhile, want the bill to prohibit protesters from using bankruptcy to avoid paying court fines for blocking abortion clinics if the demonstrators knowingly violated the law.

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- New York State can't stop gorging on bonds, which means future taxpayers will be gouged.

In a report released this week, Comptroller Alan Hevesi provides details of how he says the state has misused its credit.

``It has increasingly used debt to pay for the operating expenses of State and local government,'' the report says. ``And, rather than carefully planning how borrowed dollars are used, the State actually increased its debt levels during years of budget surpluses.''

The remarkable 115-page report, titled ``New York State's Debt Policy: A Need for Reform,'' unwittingly also shows what Wall Street does best.

Wall Street can sell your state or locality's bonds.

Boy, can it!

New York has $46.8 billion in state-supported debt, according to the report. Of that amount, only $3.8 billion was general obligation debt, backed by the voters. The vast, mysterious network of more than 700 public authorities sold almost $42 billion of the remainder.

``Public authority or backdoor borrowing has grown from 60 percent in 1985 to a troubling 92 percent of the State's debt today,'' the report says. ``Translation: Taxpayers were denied the opportunity to approve or reject $40 billion in outstanding debt.''

Debt Time Bomb

They are on the hook for it, though. New York has the fourth- highest debt per capita, $2,420, behind Connecticut, Massachusetts and Hawaii, according to Moody's Investors Service. That's 2 1/2 times the national average of $944.

Isn't that wonderful? That's what Wall Street can do. Wall Street can teach politicians to set up authorities by the dozen to sell more and more bonds, and keep it all as secret as possible.

Until the debt time bomb blows up, of course. Then, after an insufficient amount of hand wringing, Wall Street will send in a batch of public finance ``experts,'' who can set up boards overseeing the mess -- and, of course, sell an entire new round of financial recovery bonds.

Infinite Variety

New York is hardly alone. Unless you live in the smallest of towns, your locality probably has dozens of authorities empowered to sell a dizzying array of bonds to help finance everything from housing to hospitals to industrial development.

You don't know it, but you are probably on the hook for dozens of different kinds of bonds. You will probably never be able to figure out how most of them work. You will never be able to calculate how much it's costing you to borrow, and how that compares to how much it cost you last time.

A study of the market by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year put it pretty well, when it concluded that municipal bonds were too complicated for their own good: ``Issuers may be able to raise funds at lower cost by creating simpler bonds.''

Of course, the bankers who design these things will tell you that they custom-design each one with a special buyer in mind, so that you get the lowest borrowing cost.

Satisfying a particular buyer may not translate into the lowest borrowing cost, for one thing. For another, is it such a leap of imagination to think that some bankers wouldn't so complicate a bond that it resists comparison? Because if you can't make a simple comparison of how much it cost you to borrow this time versus last, then the banker is always right. Their handiwork can never be challenged, at least not by the average citizen.

They like it that way.

Wonder of the World

The municipal market, which allows U.S. municipalities to finance their own destinies, is a wonder of the world. It has also become, as Alan Hevesi's report shows, a curse.

Don't blame Wall Street, though. Wall Street sells bonds. It is paid to sell bonds, and that's what it does. Its main ``idea,'' as the Hevesi report demonstrates, is to sell more bonds. If a municipality hires a financial adviser, that adviser isn't going to counsel it against selling bonds. The advice is always going to be ``yes.''

If you want to blame someone for the curse this market has become, blame the politicians, especially those who bought Wall Street's line that all bonds should be sold through negotiation with dealers, rather than at auction. Pols traffic in favoritism and influence, and negotiated finance empowers them. It is no wonder that they have hijacked the entire process, and perverted it.

Morgan Bankers

Those who are concerned with what this market has become should read the interviews conducted with a pair of ex-J.P. Morgan bankers, one of them a managing director, unsealed by a Philadelphia judge last week.

In the course of this astonishing document, the managing director says it is common practice to pay certain people, financial advisers and bond lawyers and the like, who can influence key decision makers, even if they do no work on a particular transaction.

Now, mind you, it was a managing director saying this, one who ran an entire region of the country for the bank. And he worked for J.P. Morgan, one of the top municipal underwriters --not some bucket shop.

His associate said that in large cities, there was a ``go-to guy'' who could be influenced in this way, ``99.9 percent of the time.'' This banker also ``described the public finance process as inherently politicized and dependent upon personal relationships.''

Nobody gets paid unless more bonds are sold. Those looking for what is killing the municipal market and choking the taxpayers with mountains of debt need look no further than the rise of the negotiated sale.

To contact the writer of this column:
Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this column:
Bill Ahearn at bahearn@bloomberg.net.

It is said that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

The Last Twenty-five Years

The Politico-Economic Situation in the United States a Quarter of a Century Ago

The destruction of free government in all but name and the establishment of a plutocracy of privileged wealth masquerading as a republic, was the deadly peril that confronted our people at the dawn of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Angry popular discontent had been in evidence for years, but nothing of a hopeful nature had followed. The "masters of the bread" had always succeeded in gaining their ends. The alarmist cry of grave statesmen and jurists had apparently had little effect either in awakening the thoughtful or intimidating the corruptors and corrupted. Trusts and monopolies continued to multiply with appalling rapidity. The secret agreement, similar to that inaugurated by the Standard Oil Company with the public carriers, had by the closing decade of the last century practically destroyed competition along many lines of trade vital to the life of the people, giving to the trusts a stranglehold on the producing and consuming millions. Even the ominous awakening of the hitherto docile agrarian population and the rapid growth of labor organizations occasioned little uneasiness in the seats of the mighty.

True, social philosophers had been doing much fundamental work. The greatest of these was Henry George, whose "Progress and Poverty," completed in 1879 and published some time later, had enjoyed a phenomenal sale and had started scores of the most fundamental and high-minded patriots to thinking as never before on politico-economic lines. In England, Alfred Russel Wallace and other able and earnest-minded fundamental thinkers vigorously pushed forward the nationalization of the land propaganda, and in America, Edward Bellamy's fascinating social dream, "Looking Backward," instantly appealed to the popular imagination. But for the most part public opinion in the United States, though seething with discontent and unrest, was in a chaotic state, while government continued to respond to the sophistical pleas of privilege.

In the field of religious thought there was much agitation, but of a most profitless kind, being concerned with dogmas and creeds rather than with the great spiritual verities and their relation to the life of men and nations; while such social and economic evils as child labor, the slums, and sweat-shops were only beginning to impress the more thoughtful. Mighty political, economic, scientific, educational, moral, and humanitarian problems which affect the larger life of man and society were conveniently ignored by most of the popular conventional agencies for moulding public opinion.

On the other hand, among those who dared or cared to think, among the idealists who were also practical reasoners, there was a growing determination to search and find remedies for the crying evils, worthy of a free people. The modern critical scientific spirit was abroad among the more fearless and profound thinkers.

Such, in brief, was the general condition when in the closing months of 1889 the first issue of "The Arena" appeared.

by free speech zone via daily kos.

From Yahoo! News:

Lott called six- and seven-figure checks that independent political groups poured into last year's presidential election "sewer money" that must be stopped. The Mississippi Republican said his committee would vote next month on legislation that would put strict new limits on fund-raising and spending by partisan tax-exempt groups active in congressional or presidential races.

Yeah, now that the likes of George Soros is contributing millions for anti-Bush/anti-fascist 527s the Republicans are squealing like stuck pigs about the big money in political campaigning. As long as big money was going into Republican coffers they were quite happy obstructing any attempt at campaign finance reform. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, look at how quickly they have jumped on the "reform" bandwagon. How disingenuous can you get.

Gloria Totten wrote:

It spells trouble in this country if our future is in the hands of one person running for one office. Did we invest too much at the top of the ticket this year while eschewing the hard work of building the base necessary at the local level? Long-term change will only be accomplished by rededicating ourselves to developing a permanent and sophisticated program to recruit candidates.

I believe that unless we begin to change the paradigm of our political mindset from the notion of warring ideological camps ala Sparta/Athens, to a singular notion of humane governance, no plan like this will have long term viability. Just look at the Conservative Movement itself. They planned, worked, and achieved their goals. But what goals did they achieve and what are the consequences of achieving those goals? They've divided the country and now there will be a swing back to the other ideological extreme. At some point reason and reality must take precedence and the reality is that false dichotomies are inherently self-defeating in the face of the concrete facts of existence.

And please be advised that the only planning that matters now is getting ready for the ending of cheap oil and everything that is based on it in our modern industrial way of life. When that hits it won't matter what "label" you go by. All that will matter is getting enough to eat and staying warm. If we are to call ourselves human beings, then we'd better learn to cooperate with each other regardless of label if any of us are to survive to old age.

From Progressive Trail:

"I do solemnly pledge that I will faithfully execute the office of citizen of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, help create a truly democratic world by (1) going beyond mainstream corporate news media to seek out information about important political, economic, and social issues; (2) engaging fellow citizens, including those who disagree with me, in serious discussion and debate about those issues; (3) committing as much time, energy, and money as possible to help build grassroots political organizations that can pressure politicians to put the interests of people over profit and power; and (4) connecting these efforts to global political and social movements fighting the U.S. empire abroad, where it does the most intense damage. And I will continue to resist corporate control of the world, resist militarism, resist the roll-back of civil rights, and resist illegitimate authority in all its forms."

From Asia Times

Jan 26, 2005

When oil peaks ...
By Tony Wesolowsky

PRAGUE - Fertilizer, DVDs, rubber, cheap flights, plastics and metals. None of these things have anything in common, right? Think again. An ingredient in all of them, in one form or another, is oil.

Oil is the precious primer of the world economic engine, making it hum. Oil provides 40% of the world's energy needs, and nearly 90% of all transportation. It's also a building block for many products and goods. Cut supplies of this natural resource and life as we know it could change.

But while some experts say the world runs no risk of running out of oil, others disagree. Sounding the alarm is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Its president is Kjell Aleklett, a physics professor at Sweden's Upsalla University.

"[During] the next 30 years we will find more than 150, maybe 200, but probably not, but 150 billion barrels of oil is roughly what you're going to find," Aleklett said. "And during the same period, we will consume 1,000 [billion barrels of oil]. So that means we are now digging deep into the reserves we have at the moment."

Aleklett is among a group of international experts - ex-oil executives and geologists - who believe there is less oil percolating under the ground than the oil industry acknowledges. They say the world has burned up nearly half of all its oil - an estimated 900 billion barrels of crude.

In industry jargon, that halfway point is the "peak", after which reserves no longer rise but drop. No one denies this will happen eventually. After all, oil is a finite resource. But these oil skeptics - so-called "peak" oil analysts - say the "peak" is coming sooner rather than later, maybe even in 2008. They paint a gloomy picture: falling oil supplies plus rising demand will equal shortages - and perhaps a rising risk of war.

Read the rest of the article here.

US prepares invasion of Venezuela: Venezuelan ambassador

www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-28 10:15:32

BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States is preparing a future invasion of Venezuela to control the petroleum of the South American country as it did in Iraq, said Venezuela's acting ambassador to Paraguay, Elmer Nino.

Nino, cited Thursday by local Paraguayan daily ABC Color, said the present diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia was created by the United States as part of its future plans for an invasion.

The Venezuelan oil reserves have a strategic value as they will last 350 years at the present exploitation level, the diplomat was quoted as saying.

Venezuela is Latin America's second largest oil producer behind Mexico and the principal oil exporter in the region.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez froze his country's diplomatic and commercial ties with Colombia in early January to protest whathe called Colombia's "kidnapping" of a rebel leader in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, which he considered as a violation of Venezuelan national sovereignty.

The government of Colombia rejected Chavez's demand to make apologies to end the dispute.

With respect to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte's position on the Caracas-Bogota crisis, the ambassador said it has been neutral.

Enditem

This blog has been fairly scattered which follows the scatteredness of my thoughts and feelings as I've tried to sort through all that has happened since last year.

This morning I awoke with a sense of clarity. Hearing birds sing on a sunny spring-like day in January in Minnesota was at first a bit like feeling not ready for prime time. But as I woke up, got some coffee in me, and mulled over the events of yesterday, I came to realize that there is nothing more important for me to focus on than Kunstler's coming clusterfuck and its resulting shitstorm that is going to hit America in the next few years.

In conversing about this with my life-pal this morning I have determined we have about 3 years to get ready for it. Anyone with half a brain needs to start organizing, re-building their community, and re-localizing their economy to deal with what is to come.

The way I see it, this year, 2005, will focus attention on cost hikes and income shrinkage and continuing job market losses. The dollar may actually collapse this year but I'm only guessing based on my woman's intuition on this. The war in Iraq will become wholly untenable in terms of lives lost and lives damaged beyond repair as well as the sheer debt it will incur. For me, the cost of the war is not worth any of the oil we could possibly get out of it.

Then, 2006 will begin another election cycle in earnest. Americans' attention deficit disorder created by the media will divert their immediate concerns to the smoke and mirror realm of politics and the lie that everything is just fine and tomorrow will be better.

After the vote in November and the new year ticks over, 2007 will see economic upheaval and increasing social disorder as a result. What trends we'll see is still foggy for me to discern, but I think there will be just enough inertia to keep pretending that the world will continue as we've always known it safely ensconced in our pod in the matrix.

By 2008 even the presidential election won't be able to prop up the illusion that will be so rudely ripped away. No jobs, no money, skyrocketing fuel and energy prices leading to runaway inflation on everything. Food is going to start being a genuine concern as items stop being on the shelf at the grocery store. And THAT is when the shit will hit the fan.

The way I see it, we have only 3 years to get our act together to get a plan worked out and put in place to deal with the popping of the modern industrial widget-making bubble. We will be forced to return to the agrarian, pre-modern old-fashioned quaintness of the nineteenth century.

If there is one good thing about this to look forward to: obesity will cease to be a public health problem.

Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts

By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The White House will seek to drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development (news - web sites)'s $8 billion community branch, purging dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday.

Continue article here:

The proposal in the upcoming 2006 budget would make good on President Bush (news - web sites)'s vow to eliminate or consolidate what he sees as duplicative or ineffective programs. Officials said yesterday that economic development programs are scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD.

Advocates for the poor, however, contended that the White House is trying to gut federal programs for the poorest Americans to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities. Administration officials would not say how much the consolidation would save, but it could lead to steep funding cuts. That is because the HUD programs would have to compete for resources in Commerce and Labor budgets that are not likely to expand to accommodate the shuffle.

"I'm always willing to look at consolidation, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions," said Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record) (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs.

The plan was detailed in a December memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget to HUD. The document provides one of the first concrete examples of the types of cuts in the works as the administration comes to grips with a soaring deficit.

"The purpose of the exercise has nothing to do with achieving or not achieving savings," said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the Feb. 7 release of the president's fiscal 2006 budget request.

"What we are trying to accomplish is to meet our obligation to people living in distressed communities, to hold communities accountable for helping those people and to become more efficient in the process," another official said.

HUD programs to be moved under proposal	Program's annual cost	Destination
Community Development Block Grant	$4.7 billion	Commerce
Youthbuild USA high school dropout outreach	$62 million	Labor
Brownfields Economic Development	$23.8 million	Commerce
Rural Housing and Economic Development	$23.8 million	Eliminated
Empowerment Zones/Renewal Community	$9.9 million	Commerce

SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget | Graphic: The Washington Post

Congressional housing aides say the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program -- the bulk of the community planning budget -- could be cut as much as 50 percent. Cities have become dependent on HUD's development programs, especially the CDBG, which has existed for 30 years,
city officials said. Stanley Jackson, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, said the city has used CDBG grants of $21 million to $22 million a year for clinics, recreation centers, day-care facilities, literacy programs and housing development.

With housing and property values skyrocketing, the need for such programs for low-income families has never been higher, he said.

"If this is a backdoor way of eliminating a program like CDBG, it would have a profoundly negative impact on cities," said Jim Hunt, a vice president of the National League of Cities and a city council member in Clarksburg, W.Va.

Under the plan, the CDBG program -- which provides multipurpose development grants to state and local governments -- would be sent to the Commerce Department (news - web sites). The Urban Empowerment Zones and the Renewal Community programs -- both of which offer tax incentives for development in urban or other troubled areas -- would also go to Commerce,
as would the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, designed to revitalize abandoned industrial sites.

Youthbuild USA, a $62 million program to teach teens home-construction skills, would be sent to the Labor Department (news - web sites). The $24 million rural housing and economic development program would probably be eliminated.

HUD would maintain the Home Investment Partnerships to build or buy affordable housing, homeless assistance programs and housing assistance for AIDS (news - web sites) sufferers. The budget would eliminate $260 million in economic development projects earmarked for this year by lawmakers. HUD could ultimately lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.

White House officials said HUD employees would have to stay on the job to oversee outstanding grants for some time. But with Bush promising an aggressive attack on domestic spending, the 817 HUD community planning and development employees are girding for the worst.

"It's a body blow," said one career employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.

The proposal could face an uphill fight in Congress, said Frank, who called the proposal "just appalling." With budgets tight, vested interests in the Commerce and Labor departments would be expected to favor their programs over the newcomers from HUD. "It wouldn't even be a fair fight," he said.

Moreover, HUD has evolved into an agency designed to support urban interests and low-income citizens, while Commerce and Labor are more receptive to business needs. Indeed, community development programs at HUD are far larger than those at Commerce and Labor, said Saul Ramirez Jr., executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and a former deputy secretary of housing. The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration has a $320 million budget, a fraction of CDBG's allocation.

"If there are any programs in Commerce that encourage direct economic development to some of the most disadvantaged and blighted areas, those programs are dwarfed by these programs," he said. "If [consolidation] is what they want, the reverse should be proposed."

One White House official agreed that HUD programs have more of a community focus, while the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is more interested in economic growth. But, he said, "they're funding a lot of the same things."

HUD's city focus may be why the White House is dismantling the HUD programs, Frank charged. "HUD is the place where mayors and urban interests can put up the strongest fight," he said.

From Salon.com quoting the Washington Post:

"The region has earmarked federal homeland security funds for such priorities as increasing hospital capacity, equipping firefighters with protective gear and building transit system command centers." But now, the Post reports, nearly $12 million will now have to be spent on such essentials as "reviewing stands."

IF the threat of terrorism is real, and IF Bush actually cared about keeping America and its people safe from terrorism, why is it taking Homeland Security funds away from the agencies that really need it? Do they know something the rest of us don't about the "threat" of terrorism? Hm.

Jan 7, 3:17 PM (ET)

LAKE STEVENS, Wash. (AP) - Someone in the Census Bureau may be watching a little too much MTV. Bevis Lake, a 5.7-acre body of water in a forested area about 25 miles northeast of Seattle, is now appearing in Bureau records with a different name: Butthead Lake.

Those two names - Bevis and Butthead - are almost identical to the 1990s MTV cartoon show "Beavis and Butt-head," which featured a pair of slacker teenagers who watch music videos and make bad jokes.

Someone at the Census Bureau must have gotten bored and made a joke out of naming the lake, said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources.

"It's got to be," he said.

It's not unusual for small lakes in out-of-the-way places to have different names because of variations in county, state or other official records, but there are no such indications in this case, Brown said.

"That means someone is playing a joke, I think," Brown said.

ConocoPhillips dropped out of a nonprofit group lobbying the U.S. government to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration.

ConocoPhillips said in a statement that it left Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based group formed in 1992, and will focus on other projects in the state, which accounts for 30 percent of its oil production. The refuge is sometimes referred to by its acronym, ANWR.

Oil Futures: Crude oil futures prices fell Wednesday after the U.S. government reported larger-than-expected increases in winter fuel supplies, sending heating oil prices tumbling.

Light sweet crude for February delivery dipped 52 cents to settle at $43.39 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where heating oil futures fell 2.82 cents to $1.2184 per gallon. Brent crude was down 53 cents at $40.51 a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange.

Bonds of Halliburton Co. may gain after reaching a $4.7 billion settlement of asbestos-damage claims, allowing two units to emerge from bankruptcy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui (news, bio, voting record) of California, a top Democrat in Congress re-elected overwhelmingly in November to a 14th two-year term, has died of a rare blood disorder, his office said on Sunday. He was 63.

Let's not forget Paul Wellstone went down in a plane crash just before the 2002 election, thus clearing the way for Norm (Kofi Annan's a criminal) Coleman.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican leaders are considering a change in House ethics rules that could make it harder to discipline lawmakers.

The proposal being circulated among House Republicans would end a general rule against any behavior that might bring "discredit" on the chamber, according to House Republican and Democratic leadership aides. House members would be held to a narrower standard of behavior in keeping with the law, the House's rules and its ethics guidelines.


MSNBC Ethics and government accountability groups say these events are a sign of weakening ethical restrictions. "We're seeing an easing of ethical standards and disclosure standards," said Charles Lewis, who runs the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity. "They can dress it up any way they want, but they're trying to increase the employment opportunities for their officials."

For example, the Office of Government Ethics has proposed, and Bush supports, legislation to ease financial disclosure requirements for government officials, reducing the amount of conflict-of-interest information that candidates and their families must report. The House recently passed a version of the legislation.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Last month, some Penn Hills School District board members objected that Santorum's children attended the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School at district expense because Santorum's family mostly lives at a $757,000 home in Virginia.

"Taxpayers have enough of a responsibility for trying to educate kids who are bona fide, legitimate residents," he said. "They shouldn't have to be paying for kids who aren't residents of that district."

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Dennis Hastert is considering replacing the chairman of the ethics committee, which admonished Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is the focus of a grand jury probe into his campaign finance practices.

Hastert has not yet made up his mind about whether to replace Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., when Congress reconvenes on Tuesday, his spokesman said.

"The speaker thinks that Chairman Hefley has done a terrific job," Hastert spokesman John Feehery said Thursday. "If he makes that decision, it will be because of the rules, not for any other reason."

Comment: Rules? Oh, only when it's convenient. So much for being the paragons of morality. Rather, they are the exemplars of the double standard.


Mr. Petulance.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House ethics committee will investigate Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., to determine whether he violated standards of conduct when an illegally recorded telephone conversation was leaked to reporters during a committee investigation.

McDermott was ranking Democrat on the ethics committee at the time, and the panel was investigating the conduct of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

Sounds like payback to me. It's also the beginning of "House" cleaning paving the way for Patriot II.

by Will Christensen
National Vice Chair,Independent American Party
http://www.usiap.org

A new Intelligence Bill was passed by Congress this December
which incorporates many of the aspects of the Patriot II Bill.
Our Liberty is being eroded by these Acts which promise security
at the expense of basic Freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
It is time to act to preserve our Freedom

At the following URL is a Bill to rescind the Patriot act, the Bill
that passed Congress in the hysterical aftermath of the 9/11 attack.
When the Patriot Act is rescinded, many of the abrogations
of our Freedom in other Acts will be rescinded as well,
for they rest on the foundation of the Patriot Act.
This Bill chops at the roots of the "Police State Tree"
rather than hacking at the branches.

Please, before Congress convenes on January 4th 2005, do five things:
1. Click on this link:
http://usiap.org/ActionItems/PatriotBill/PatriotBillIntro.html
2. Click on the Bill link
http://usiap.org/ActionItems/PatriotBill/PatriotBillText.html
and read the USA Patriot Act Recission Bill of 2005.
Then print this bill on your printer.

3. Click on the Cover Letter link
http://usiap.org/ActionItems/PatriotBill/PatriotBillCover.html
and copy this to your word processor.
Fill in the date, your Representatives' name and District,
and your name and address. Then print and sign the letter.

4. Mail both the Bill and your letter to your Representative.

5. Send this message to everyone concerned about our personal Freedoms.

If we act quickly, we can head off further inroads on our Freedom
and roll back some of those that are already in place.
The large majority of the American people are opposed to the Patriot Act.

Over 350 cities, towns, counties, and states
have passed resolutions against this act.
We must supply the leadership that will get this monstrous attack
on our Freedom rescinded. Write your Representative today!
Congress is responsive when enough people contact them.
"When they feel the heat, they see the light!"

Will Christensen
National Vice Chair
Independent American Party
http://www.usiap.org

Be a pipeline not a bucket - Please pass this along

Enclosed is a speech by Ron Paul of Texas which discusses recent attacks
on our Freedom. We thank Ron Paul for his consistent courage
and leadership in the struggle to preserve and enhance our Freedom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst122004.htm

It Can't Happen Here
By Ron Paul

December 20, 2004

In 2002 I asked my House colleagues a rhetorical question with regard
to the onslaught of government growth in the post-September 11th era:

Is America becoming a police state?
The question is no longer rhetorical.
We are not yet living in a total police state,but it is fast approaching.

The seeds of future tyranny have been sown, and many of our
basic protections against government have been undermined.

The atmosphere since 2001 has permitted Congress to create
whole new departments and agencies that purport to make us safer
- always at the expense of our liberty.
But security and liberty go hand-in-hand.

Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don't understand
that a society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure.

History proves that societies crumble when their governments
become more powerful than the people and private institutions.

Unfortunately, the new intelligence bill passed by Congress
two weeks ago moves us closer to an encroaching police state
by imposing the precursor to a full-fledged national ID card.

Within two years, every American will need a "conforming" ID
to deal with any federal agency-- including TSA at the airport.

Undoubtedly many Americans and members of Congress don't believe
America is becoming a police state, which is reasonable enough.

They associate the phrase with highly visible symbols
of authoritarianism like
- military patrols,- martial law, and - summary executions.
But we ought to be concerned that we have laid the foundation
for tyranny by making the public more docile, more accustomed
to government bullying, and more accepting of arbitrary authority
- all in the name of security.

Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished
that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy
that would have been abhorred just a few years ago.

We tolerate inconveniences and infringements upon our liberties
in a manner that reflects poorly on our great national character
of rugged individualism. American history, at least in part,
is a history of people who don't like being told what to do.
Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government
and its agents to run our lives.

Terror, fear, and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency
and obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing
they are still a free people. The loss of liberty, we are assured,
will be minimal, short-lived, and necessary.

Many citizens believe that once the war on terror is over,
restrictions on their liberties will be reversed.

But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise enemy
and no expressly stated final goal.
Terrorism will never be eradicated completely;
Does this mean future presidents will assert extraordinary
war powers indefinitely?

Washington DC provides a vivid illustration of what our future
might look like. Visitors to Capitol Hill encounter
- police barricades,
- metal detectors,
- paramilitary officers carrying fully automatic rifles,
- police dogs,
- ID checks,
- and vehicle stops.
The people are totally disarmed;
Only the police and criminals have guns.
Surveillance cameras are everywhere,
-monitoring street activity,-subway travel,-parks,and federal buildings.
There's not much evidence of an open society in Washington, DC,
yet most folks do not complain - anything goes if it's for government
-provided safety and security.

After all, proponents argue, the government is doing all this
to catch the bad guys. If you don't have anything to hide, they ask,
what are you so afraid of? The answer is that I'm afraid of losing
the last vestiges of privacy that a free society should hold dear.

I'm afraid of creating a society where the burden is on citizens
to prove their innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing.
Most of all, I'm afraid of living in a society where a subservient
populace surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government.

It may be true that average Americans do not feel intimidated
by the encroachment of the police state.
Americans remain tolerant of what they see as mere nuisances
because they have been deluded into believing total government
supervision is necessary and helpful, and because they still enjoy
a high level of material comfort.
That tolerance may wane, however, as our standard of living falls
due to spiraling debt, endless deficit spending at home and abroad,
a declining fiat dollar, inflation, higher interest rates,
and failing entitlement programs. At that point attitudes
toward omnipotent government may change, but the trend toward
authoritarianism will be difficult to reverse.

Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students
of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny.
We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst122004.htm

Posted: Monday December 27th, 2004, 2:35 PM
at bakersfield.com | Oil News

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he expects trade with China to more than double to $2.7 billion next year on increased sales of oil products.

Trade between the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and China, the world's second-largest energy market, will grow from $1.2 billion this year and $150 million last year, Chavez said in a speech in Caracas on the state-owned television station after a four-day trip to China.

I went on a journey today which started with this at Washington Monthly which goes like:

And here is William Kristol on the future of our military presence in Iraq:

By Bush Doctrine standards, Syria is a hostile regime....What to do?....We could bomb Syrian military facilities; we could go across the border in force to stop infiltration; we could occupy the town of Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, a few miles from the border, which seems to be the planning and organizing center for Syrian activities in Iraq...

[D]emocracy promoting neocons like Kristol not only don't want U.S. troops to leave, they want to widen the conflict: to Syria right now and eventually to Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia — which "may ultimately be more serious than the Syria problem." But that can't happen unless U.S. troops have a permanent presence in Iraq.

My reaction to Kristol and PNAC has always been one of revulsion, but today it reached a new level of shock and awe at the complete insanity of such a course of action. To me, the whole NeoCon agenda puts America squarely on the suicidal path of militarism and war atrocities that brought down the ancient Assyrian Empire. You think I'm just being chicken little? Well...

Then I found myself at Information Clearing House going through the entries listed below. The entry that finally made me reach the level of total horror was the one about the guy strapped to a gurney and shipped off to Germany for a psyche evaluation. Had a dream that went something like it recently, must be why I'm sensitive to it.

Controversial U.S. Groups Operate Behind Scenes on Iraq Vote: ... in actuality, influential, US-financed agencies describing themselves as "pro-democracy" but viewed by critics as decidedly anti-democratic, have their hands all over Iraq’s transitional process, from the formation of political parties to monitoring the January 30 nationwide polls and possibly conducting exit polls that could be used to evaluate the fairness of the ballot-casting. Two such groups -- the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) -- are part of a consortium of non-governmental organizations to which the United States has provided over $80 million for political and electoral activities in post-Saddam Iraq.

In case you missed it: Why American Christian Fundamentalist's Support the State of Israel: In order for most of today’s Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon. This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement’s support for Israel.

[Note: there's another article at Clearing House that gets into the real guts of Christian Zionism and Dispensationalism.]

Permanent Jail Set for Guantánamo: Even as federal judges weigh whether the U.S. has the authority to detain and try suspects in the war on terror, the Pentagon is quietly planning for permanency at the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, The Herald has learned.

Intel Agent Strapped to Gurney and Flown Out of Iraq by U.S. Army After Reporting Torture of Detainees: A veteran sergeant who told his commanding officers that he witnessed his colleagues torturing Iraqi detainees was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq - even though there was nothing wrong with him. We speak with the reporter - former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent David DeBatto - who broke the story. Audio and transcript.

Then I went looking for:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

This is how it starts. A sound bite here, a policy change there, under the radar movement of putting people in place on school boards or parents doing home schooling to get rid of science and inject theology, overtaking the media to control information, packing legislatures with wolves in sheep's clothing, placing civil servants in key positions, duping a large segment of the population into believing something that is against their self-preservation while reducing the news, entertainment, and advertising to the worst common denominator, and then finding the right person and the right event to galvanize a full-blown doctrine that spells doom for us all. The Niemoller quote is for those who won't believe that such evil is possible in America. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are not aberrations. They are actual doctrine.

Add into this mix the religious fanaticism of the Christian Rapturists and their desire to bring on the holocaust of Revelations through the use of nuclear devices. Read Rachel.org's Fiery Hell on Earth, Part 5: A Marriage Made in Heaven if you think I'm making this up.

The Rapture is the perfect cover for the NeoCons to finally get to wage nuclear war that they were denied during the Cold War. They will finally get to consummate their lust for world domination.

When my thoughts reach this point I get a wave of fear at such insanity. Everything else falls away. All political talk fades into the background as I wonder what sane, life-loving people can do against such suicidal/homocidal insanity. Then I realize that too few have a clue of the coming danger just as the Germans and Europeans did not fully understand the coming horror of Hitler, Naziism, and the Final Solution. At this point, it's not politics anymore. It's life and death just as it was for those who died in the camps and gas chambers. Except that ours will be more like the two bright flashes over Japan. Don't think it can happen? I sincerely hope and pray you are right. Because if you are not, who will be left to speak for you?

From the New York Times Business section (free registration):

The suit, brought in United States District Court in Trenton, said that the pension fund lost about $171 million on Sept. 30, when the company, citing increased heart risks in tests of people who had used Vioxx for more than 18 months, withdrew it from the market. On that day, the price of a share of Merck stock plummeted 27 percent, and it has since drifted lower. Merck shares are down almost 40 percent so far this year, though they closed up 35 cents yesterday, at $28.02.

The suit appears to be the first by a pension fund against Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J. A company spokeswoman, Joan Wainwright, said that about 15 lawsuits had been filed, contending that Merck misled shareholders. Several hundred personal injury lawsuits have also been filed against Merck by people claiming to have been injured by Vioxx.

The company has denied any wrongdoing.

I think this is a good example why putting any social security money into the stock market in a move to privatize it is a bad idea.

I find it interesting that the use of language in America is both appalling and telling. It is appalling because those who truly know how to use language use it to bludgeon their enemies and sucker-punch everyone else using the right buzz word or catch phrase to get elected and then make bad policy for the whole country. Frank Luntz and Karl Rove are cases in point. Extremists of any kind are another.

Unfortunately, the imprecision with which the average American uses words is telling in that the average American mind is highly undisciplined in the use of language to both express itself and to communicate with others. This imprecision and lack of discipline lends itself to easy manipulation thus making most Americans good targets for the likes of Rove and Luntz to shape the entire consciousness, direction, and political agenda of America.

To help correct this by following on the previous post, it is important to understand what is meant by the terms "morals" and "ethics." Both terms involve knowing right and wrong in relation to actions, behavior, volition, and internal motivation (intent). All these things are what determine one's character and integrity.

The expression "moral values" is a corruption of the meaning of "moral." To put this in context, since "morals" involves the distinction between right and wrong in relation to actions, behavior, etc., "moral values" becomes "the distinction between right and wrong behavior values." It looks kinda stupid that way to me. Not to mention that while one's "values" can inform one's behavior, it is one's behavior that is either right or wrong, good or bad. However, behaviors are not themselves "values."

On the other hand, one's behavior will speak volumes about one's values and whether those values rest on the common ones of honesty, fairness, sincerity, good faith, kindess, and treating others with dignity and respect. If these are not seen in a person's behavior you can be sure they are not part of that person's values. In other words, does the person walk their talk. If not, they are a hypocrite (not a hippocrit). And if they impose one standard for themselves and another for everyone else, then they are imposing a double standard and that makes them worse than a simple hypocrite.

Since morals are about right and wrong, we have a serious problem today understanding what is in fact right and wrong. Knowing what is right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Right is that which prevents harm, preserves life, and makes the heart glad. Wrong is that which harms, destroys life, and makes the heart despair. Unfortunately, a segment of the population led by a few very smart but immoral people have managed to put everyone on a false footing about what is right and wrong. The leaders of this movement know the difference but they don't care. The followers of such leaders do care but no longer know which is which. This becomes a case of the blind (eye) leading the blind (sighted).

Another situation are the extremists at both ends of the political and social spectrum becoming their own group and the vast majority in the middle are left scratching their heads trying to make sense of what has and is happening to our country, its people, its founding principles, and the everyday values of honesty and fairness that we grew up with. I blame the "liberal" extremists who pushed moral and cultural relativism down our throats for this one. I can see where the conservatives have a bona fide gripe. (See Hewlett & West's "The War Against Parents" for an explanation.)

On the other hand, the rigidity of the status quo invites smashing for want of some flexibility. The oak is indeed mighty and strong, but when the winds of change come blowing in, the bending willow is the one that remains standing in the end.

Somewhere in here is the path of human beings. The path that acknowledges our individual needs and finds a way to harmonize them all by continually emphasizing the common ground of our humanity and yet, respects each other's limits. Without this kind of acceptance and respecting of limits, there can be no basic sense of human decency and safety whether in our homes, out in public, or on the internet. Nor can there be any genuine appreciation for the variety in life that is the spice of life.

To illustrate the point from an Eastern perspective, the Confucian distinction between an inclusive harmony and an exclusive sameness has an obvious social and political application. There is a passage in the Discourses of the States (Kuo-yü), a collection of historical narratives probably compiled around the fourth century B.C., which underscores the kind of harmony that maximizes difference:

When harmony is fecund, sameness is barren. Things accommodating each other on equal terms is called blending in harmony, and in so doing they are able to flourish and grow, and other things are drawn to them. But when same is added to same, once it is used up, there is no more. Hence, the Former Kings blended earth with metal, wood, fire, and water to make their products. They harmonized the five flavors to satisfy their palate, strengthened the four limbs to protect the body, attuned the six notes to please the ear, integrated their various senses to nourish their hearts and minds, ... and selected ministers and counselors who would express a variety of opinions on issues, and made every effort to bring things into harmony ... There is no music in a single note, no decoration in a single item, no relish in a single taste (Ames, Sun-tzu, 60-61).

To be continued...

Found this nice little ditty laying out the meaning of ethics and morals from Christian Ethics Today.

Ethics and Morals: A Small Lesson

Good and sincere souls have sought in recent years to make a distinction between ethics and morals. A short visit to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most definitive and authoritative dictionary in the English language, should be profitable.

Ethics, we are told, is from the Greek word ethikos which itself is derived from the Greek word ethos, meaning character. Ethics is defined as “manners.... Relating to morals.... Treating of moral questions.... The science of morals.... Concerned with the principles of human duty.... The moral principles by which a person is guided.... The rules of conduct recognized in certain associations or departments of human life.... The whole field of moral science (p. 900).

Morals, we are told, is from the Latin word moralis meaning customs with the Latin word mores being defined as “manners, morals, character.” The Latin word was formed by Cicero

(DeFato IIi) as a rendering of the Greek ethikos (mores being the accepted Latin equivalent of ethe [pronounced ethay]).... Of or pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to the actions, volition, or character of responsible beings; ethical.... Relating to the nature and application of the distinction between right and wrong; moral sense, the power of apprehending the difference between right and wrong.... Treating or concerned with virtue and vice, or the rules of right conduct.... Having the property of being right or wrong.... Capable of moral action.... Habits, conduct.... Pertaining to manners and customs” (p. 1848).

Lesson: Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

Explication of lesson: Ethics equals morals and morals equals ethics.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Learned doctors will no doubt be undeterred in continuing to draw unwarranted distinctions between the two. We salute them for their steadfastness of conviction.

But we tried.

US has failed to explain its actions to the Muslim world: Pentagon report

"America's negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than the failure to implement communications strategies," the report by the Defense Science Board said.

Bushco has failed to explain itself to America let alone anyone else. Unfortunately, it's the rest of the world that's having a harder time swallowing Buchco's codswallop.

-----------------

U.S. Troops Mark End of Bosnia Mission

I wonder if they will be reassigned to Iraq.

-----------------

Duty change

WASHINGTON — The two-star Army general who ran the U.S. military prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later took over the U.S. military prison system in Iraq has been reassigned to a senior job in the Pentagon.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller will be the Army's assistant chief of staff for installation management, with responsibility for the housing, environmental and other support operations at Army bases. Miller ran Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 to March 2004 and has been credited by senior Pentagon officials with improving the amount of useful intelligence gleaned from terror suspects held there.

Things to be thankful for

Thanksgiving's roots are pre-founding, which means it's not a political holiday in any conventional sense. We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system.

Moreover, because there are no gifts, the holiday isn't nearly so vulnerable to materialism and commercialism. It's about things -- primarily family and private accomplishments and blessings -- that don't overlap very much with politics of any kind. We are thankful for the truly important things: our children and their health, for our friends, for the things which make life rich and joyful.

For some bit of fun in all the seriousness see Ben Cohen's animated video at True Majority talking about our federal budget. It gets the point across using oreo cookies and answers a few of the naysayers too.

Military Project

Also check out:
Traveling Soldier

and
Iraq Veterans Against the War

From Wired News: 'Music is not a loaf of bread'

A band that streamed their music and made it to the big time as a result. I think the average American is a far better critter than the slime who run the mega-corpses.

As a follow on to the copyright story at Wired is also this:

"The number of targets this round, we believe, is beside the point," said Matt Grossman, a spokesman for the MPAA. "This is part of an ongoing campaign that is part of a larger effort to protect the business."

The MPAA is following the strategy of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has filed more than 6,000 lawsuits against individuals for allegedly offering copyright material for distribution online. While the RIAA believes the legal action is necessary for label-approved online music services to thrive, critics say the lawsuits have had little effect on file-sharing behavior.

Gee, I wonder why? As Princess Leia said to Grand Moff Tarkin: "The more to tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip your fingers."

Along with the discussion at Musing's musings and by Scooter regarding the force feeding of ads on consumers, to wit:

The bill would also permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to skip commericals or promotional announcements "that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture," like the previews on a DVD. ...

comes this little ditty:

The Recording Industry Association of America vigorously defended the bill, saying it would provide a "common sense set of tools that will help law enforcement better deter and prosecute theft."

It's the Recording Industry Association, not recording artists that are pushing for the legislation. In other words, god forbid that music should be played and heard freely because some shitass middleman publisher has to get rich as the go-between. And now they want to make it a crime to skip commercials on DVDs. Yeah right, and they can sue me for singing Happy Birthday to my daughter too.

If this is the "freedom" America is hoping to spread around the world, no wonder they don't want it.

Diplomatically that is. The visage of the Ugly American rears its ugly head in Lebanon. Read here: Lebanon furious over US envoy's 'interference'.

To put this shoe on the other foot, look at how we treated the French when the Prime Minister in Paris disagreed with our policy to invade Iraq. Now, suppose it was their ambassador in America that held a press conference in D.C. that made such a statement. How gauche is that! Ambassadors are guests, the same is a dinner guest at your house. They have no right to tell you how to run your household. Doesn't mean they can't meet in private and discuss matters as diplomats. But to hold a press conference? That would be like shouting out to the neighbors something the host is doing that the guest doesn't like. That is just plain wrong. Americans have no manners. No wonder we aren't liked.

by kurt nimmo • Wednesday November 17, 2004 at 08:25 PM

It is curious the video of Hassan’s execution surfaced at the same time allegations of civilian mass murder, the execution of wounded prisoners, and other war crimes in Fallujah made the rounds.

I believe—admittedly without any evidence—that the abduction and now apparent murder of Margaret Hassan is a counterinsurgency intelligence operation run by the Americans, the Israelis, or both, as a way to sow chaos and discredit the Iraqi resistance (a resistance the United States cannot possibly hope to crush militarily). Discrediting the resistance is particularly important, as a psychological warfare tactic.

Although I have no direct evidence of this, there are several factors currently in play that make the US/Israeli counterinsurgency operation plausible:

More than 200 college professors since April 30, 2003, according to the Iraqi Union of University Lecturers, have been the targets of assassination. In addition, many intellectuals have disappeared. (See Andrew Rubin’s Bloodbath.)

In December, 2003, Julian Borger of the Guardian reported, “Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders. … US forces in Iraq’s Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories.”

“A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel,” according to Seymour Hersh.
Israel funded Hamas, as the UPI’s Richard Sale reported in 2002.

See full Kurt's full post here.

A Think Tank is an organization that claims to serve as a center for research and/or analysis of important public issues. In reality, many think tanks are little more than public relations fronts, usually headquartered in state or national seats of government and generating self-serving scholarship that serves the advocacy goals of their industry sponsors; in the words of Yellow Times.org columnist John Chuckman, "phony institutes where ideologue~propagandists pose as academics ... [into which] money gushes like blood from opened arteries to support meaningless advertising's suffocation of genuine debate". [1]...

"In 1970, Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National Chamber of Commerce saying that all of our best students are becoming anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that. There are many others, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which date from the 1940s." --George Lakoff [2]

Think tanks are funded primarily by large businesses and major foundations. They devise and promote policies that shape the lives of everyday Americans: Social Security privatization, tax and investment laws, regulation of everything from oil to the Internet. They supply experts to testify on Capitol Hill, write articles for the op-ed pages of newspapers, and appear as TV commentators. They advise presidential aspirants and lead orientation seminars to train incoming members of Congress.

Think tanks have a decided political leaning. There are twice as many conservative think tanks as liberal ones, and the conservative ones generally have more money. This is no accident, as one of the important functions of think tanks is to provide a backdoor way for wealthy business interests to promote their ideas or to support economic and sociological research not taking place elsewhere that they feel may turn out in their favor. Conservative think tanks also offer donors an opportunity to support conservative policies outside academia, which during the 1960s and 1970s was accused of having a strong "collectivist" bias.

"Modern think tanks are nonprofit, tax-exempt, political idea factories where donations can be as big as the donor's checkbook and are seldom publicized," notes Tom Brazaitis, writing for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "Technology companies give to think tanks that promote open access to the internet. Wall Street firms donate to think tanks that espouse private investment of retirement funds." So much money now flows in, that the top 20 conservative think tanks now spend more money than all of the "soft money" contributions to the Republican party.

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See the list of think tanks by clicking on the title of this post. It's a long list.

(AP) - House Republicans approved a party rules change Wednesday that could allow Majority leader Tom DeLay to retain his leadership post if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury on state political corruption charges. By a voice vote, and with a handful of lawmakers voicing opposition, the House Republican Conference decided that a party committee of several dozen members would review any felony indictment of a party leader and recommend at that time whether the leader should step aside. More ...

Read Mother Jones' take on Justice DeLayed

Austin Chronicle

By the Chronicle's count (and the prosecutors'), it adds up to 32 – felony indictments, although other publications have arrived at totals as low as 27 and as high as 44 (the number climbs with apparently multiple transactions among the parties).

Planning for the next midterm election by Eric Sidell:
"This is hardly the time to give up. This is an historic moment to refocus the progressive agenda away from the White House and hone it on the state houses and the Congress..."

This is no time to sulk or leave the country. Now is the time to start planning for 2006—that’s the reality. Important governor races, especially in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, are in play. Progressive candidates need help in the House and Senate. State Legislatures are another important target, because this is where future US Senate candidates are created. This is hardly the time to give up. This is an historic moment to refocus the progressive agenda away from the White House and hone it on the state houses and the Congress.

A Political Veteran Ascendant
Mr. Codey takes over for Mr. McGreevey, the New Jersey Governor, after outing himself as a gay. Apparently Mr. Codey is a Democrat but not too popular with the party.

The acting governor will also remain Senate president, and he has not ruled out seeking the nomination to run for governor next November.


Bush's Big Cabinet Shuffle
Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush, given an opportunity to shake up his presidency after the resignations of six Cabinet members, is likely to use it to re-emphasize rather than change his administration's priorities.

[Amidst all this shuffling is this:]

Walter Russell Mead, an expert on U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said he expects Bush to interpret his Nov. 2 re-election win as an endorsement of his policies around the globe.

[Now that is a scary thought.]

Bayh gets early look for '08 president race
WASHINGTON -- A few days before Sen. John Kerry picked John Edwards as his vice presidential candidate this summer, Republican pollster Frank Luntz was asked by a TV network to test the appeal of seven running mates.

"I think he would make an incredible candidate," Luntz said. "I think he has exactly the attributes that will appeal to swing voters that John Kerry lost this time. A centrist approach. A positive outlook. And a gentle demeanor."
That's right, trust a Republican pollster to pick the Democratic candidate to target the swing voters. In other words, don't let Bayh on any Dimwit tickets in '08. BTW, he's chairman of the DLC, chief Dimwit in congress.

Reid elected Democratic Senate Leader