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"I am not accusing the New York Times of screwing up again by publishing an insufficiently sourced article, then defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn't trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply. I am merely reporting that some people worry that other people might be concerned that the New York Times has created the appearance of screwing up once again."
[there...]
The former commander of Multinational Corps Iraq reflected today on vast improvements made during the past 15 months and said Iraq is approaching the point where no single incident or chain of events will be able to reverse those positive trends.
“We were focused for 15 months in Iraq on improving the security situation, which allowed a window of opportunity for economic development, improved governance and enhancement of the Iraqi security forces,” he said. “The improved security conditions, in part from the surge of 2007, have given the Iraqis an opportunity to choose a better way"
Odierno emphasized that gains made in Iraq have come with big sacrifices in injuries and lives lost.
“Their sacrifices were (not) and will not be in vain,” he said. “And because of them, Iraqis have the right to choose their own destiny. Let us forever remember our noble and gallant warriors who gave everything so others can enjoy life and liberties of a truly free people.”
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[here...]
War-funding delays will become harmful within months if continued, the Pentagon’s second-ranking official said here today ... lawmakers have approved less than half the fiscal 2008 request of $189 billion to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“At some point, that delayed appropriation will be harmful,” ... “We do manage to keep stretching (the appropriated $86.8 billion), but at some point here in a matter of months, we will start to run out of money again.”
The deputy secretary called the appropriations “vital” for funding daily operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.
The request, which marks a $35.9 billion increase over fiscal 2008 funding, accounts for about 4 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product, ... By comparison, defense spending accounted for 11.7 percent of the GDP during the Korean War, and 9 percent during the Vietnam War.
“Fortunately, our economy has grown to support the kind of military we need in this complex (security) environment we have today,” he said. “I view the 4 percent as … the insurance policy to protect our freedom and liberty and frankly it sounds like a pretty reasonable amount of money.”
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After studying and living with the Middle East for a few decades one sees certain patterns endlessly repeated, though always with a new set of details. Understandably, naïve newcomers fall for the carnival con-man's traps. They should learn after one disaster. Veterans have no excuse.
The pattern is this: They say we have been your victims so you must make up for it. Violence arises from our grievances. You must solve the root causes of problems. In short, you owe us big time. Pay up to show you've changed your ways.
A common Western response: In our usual style of self-criticism and trying to do better, we acknowledge fault and do nice things to build credibility with you. Then you will like us better, trust us more, and make a deal.
Proper analysis: Such behavior not only convinces the Middle East side that the West is weak, scared, and surrendering but is also taken as acknowledging the West's guilt and the rightness of their own cause. Grievance and outrage, in this context, are bottomless pits. Playing this game establishes a terrible relationship along the lines of--probably the worst thing Shimon Peres ever said--our task is to give, their job is to take. This pattern never gets broken.
Correct response: If you have grievances, have suffered, and root causes must be resolved then it is in your interest to make and implement an equitable, workable deal. You are not doing us a favor by making peace, stopping terrorism, or being moderate. It is in your interest and you must show credibility, too. If it is true that you are so terribly suffering, then you are the ones with an incentive to compromise. Things are the exact opposite of what you say.
[but the name of the game is victimhood - forever. Recommended > ]
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French MPs have voted in favour of amending their country's constitution to allow adoption of the EU Lisbon Treaty. Prime Minister Francois Fillon called the decision: "a vote that distinguishes the actors of history from the spectators."
The Versailles assembly, bringing together both the French Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, voted 560 to 181. Of the 893 voters present, 741 votes were cast
The opposition Socialists abstained in protest at the decision to "take the parliamentary road" to pass the treaty rather than hold a referendum.
[i.e., the French people voted against it - so the government took away their ability to have a say in it and passed it 'for' them...]
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Sen. Clinton's plan is to use a federal mandate to force every American to buy health insurance. The government will regulate health care, define acceptable health insurance and force every American to buy a plan based on the government established standard. When asked how purchase can be enforced, she told ABC's George Stephanopolous, "we will have an enforcement mechanism . . . you know, going after people's wages."
Indeed, we have a problem in the delivery of health care in our country, says columnist Star Parker. But if we want cheaper and more creatively delivered health care we need less, not more, government. According to Dr. David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute:
• About half of health care expenditures in 1960 were directly controlled by consumers; today, it's about 15 percent.
• Over the same period in which consumers have relinquished control, per capita health care spending has quintupled.
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.
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No amount of energy efficiency will ever do the trick -- the only way to save the planet is to surrender your car altogether. That's the conclusion reached by a group of Australian energy experts from last week's partial release of Professor Ross Garnaut's long-awaited climate change report.
You may recall that this was the very analysis Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told last year's Bali conference he must await before embracing specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Well, the wait is over, the cherry-picked facts are in and the hysteria is in full bloom. As reported by The Age:
"THERE is no doubt that global warming is the world's greatest crisis, the real weapon of mass destruction against which a workable defence strategy must be found, and found soon..."And even though all of these cooling indicators coincide quite neatly with recently diminished solar activity, the Big Green Scare Machine continues its mission to control world economies by fomenting blind hysteria about manmade atmospheric CO2 concentrations...
[yet again]
About 75 percent of the public wants our border secured. I guess that does not include the president -- nor the Democratic Party candidates to replace him. [nor the 'Republican' candidate - that leaves us.]
1) Border control advocates want an actual physical fence. 2) Respectable Bush comprehensivist types like Chertoff want to substitute a sophisticated hi-tech 'virtual fence.' 3) Border control types say the 'virtual fence' won't work. 4) Respectable Bush comprehensivists like Chertoff in fact cut back on actual fencing, choosing the 'virtual fence.' 5) Where it's installed, the actual fence works. 6) Where it's installed, the 'virtual fence' doesn't work."In other words, we've all just been taken for a ride. In order to do whatever possible to avoid building an actual physical fence Bush (et al.) made sure a monumental amount of money was wasted on a fake, untested, unreal fence to placate conservatives."
The Bush administration and the leaders of the Democratic Party both want (for different reasons) no obstruction to the full flood of illegal workers (for the Republicans) and voters (for the Democrats) into the United States, thus their adamantine opposition to a physical obstruction to such passage.
[this will not get done unless we literally force our 'representatives' to do so on pain of termination {metaphorically of course} - ready?]
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Democrats seem unable to stop themselves from promoting higher taxes for the wealthy and lower taxes for the poor. But if the public knew the facts, their rhetoric would have no resonance. The poor in America pay virtually no taxes at the federal level. What taxes they do pay have been falling for decades:
• The total effective federal tax rate -- for income, payroll and excise taxes -- for the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households was halved from 1979 to 2005.
• From 2000, the year before President Bush took office, to 2005, after his tax cuts had fully kicked in, their total effective federal tax rate fell by nearly a third.
• If you look at households with children, the difference is even more stark -- for the top incomes, taxes have risen, while those at the bottom saw a whopping 85.7 percent cut.
Don't think that the poor's tax burden has been passed to the average American family:
• The total effective federal tax rate for the middle quintile has fallen faster than the top two quintiles.
• The effective tax rate for middle-class Americans has fallen since the late 1970s.
• While that was happening, the median after-tax household income jumped by more than a quarter.
With taxes down and incomes up, all quintiles are doing better.
[yeah stats can be filtered to show nearly anything, but beware those comparing current economic circumstance to the whacky 90's (as is routinely done), which were hardly 'average'. What ever happened to the moral aspect of stealing from one person to give to another - is that what we want our democracy to stand for?]
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=289527073199247
California
Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million? Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president's perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled. What's more, the little remodel job that planners first thought would take three months has stretched into more than four years - and will probably mean the supervisors will have to move out of their hallowed hall for five months...
{yeah; where do I sign up to put my health care in these folk's hands? {A: the polls}]
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The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) reported how “McCain's media fortunes have taken a dramatic turn for the worse since early January,” plummeting from “97 percent positive...before the New Hampshire primary” to “just 30 percent positive since.”
Meanwhile, Barack Obama enjoys overwhelmingly positive coverage of 84 percent positive coverage. Hillary Clinton got 53 percent positive. (Factoring in neutral coverage, Clinton earned more good than bad press.)
[I.e., help McCain to become the Republican nominee, once done, back to supporting the Democrats (just like the NYT, which endorsed him prior to running a fabricated hit piece on him. Are we really not supposed to notice this? {rhetorical} ]
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California
SACRAMENTO -- Democratic legislative leaders declared this morning that they are prepared to delay the state budget this year if that's what it takes to get tax increases, which they called the only reasonable solution to California's multibillion-dollar shortfall. "This is going to be the fight of a lifetime," Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) declared at a news conference.
[snip]
Asked how Democrats propose to make up the difference, Perata said: "Raise taxes. That clear enough? Raise taxes."
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said they will not vote for any budget that includes new taxes.
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[what do you think? tell 'em. {I certainly told mine, name of Perata}]
Governor: governor@governor.ca.gov
Your state legislators: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
MSNBC Ad: Hyper Partisan Olbermann Calls to 'Ignore Partisanship'
In an MSNBC "Decision 2008" ad, Olbermann spoke of the need to "ignore partisanship" under inspirational music and prominent American flag displays.
"We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship, not that we may prosper as a nation, but that merely we may function as a nation."Olbermann has called President Bush a "fascist" "engaging in terrorism," a "liar" and "idiot in chief." He even asked if there is an element in the Republican party that wants to re-segregate America.
[HT:MC]
We have a shared history and ideals and a shared future. But beyond that you have so many options that it boggles the mind: Gay ministers are good Americans and conservative gun proponents are good Americans too. We are a nation full of liberty and spectrum. But two general answers come to mind.
First of all, to be an American is to want what is best for America. This sounds like the utterance of a politician, but we have forgotten it. If you violate our laws and only complain about America you may not be a good American. If we need to change our institutions for your cultural group you are probably not a good candidate to be an American.
For example, Muslims are currently challenging our basic holidays – holiday – build footbaths in quasi public institutions; change our photo identification laws and who gets served in markets and taxis. This is a bad sign. People are not fitting in. They are not contributing to what's American they are contesting it. And in the name of multiculturalism we are caving. We have to remember we have a culture and it requires some accommodation. If you are too inflexible to meld to our ways, you are probably a bad candidate for being an American.
Immigration that does not recognize the rule of law is another area of concern. Again, if we need to change our institutions to fit you, it is a bad sign. Many immigrants believe that we need to dismantle our border laws to suit them. When people do not pay taxes once they are here or overuse public services and send money “home” it is not clear that they have America’s best interest at heart. A good American has upholding American law and fiscal stability as a goal.
This gets us to our last category. If you are a businessperson who puts profit above nation, you are a bad American. Divesting from America and running sweatshops domestically undermines our tax base. It enervates the middle class – which is a foundation of liberal democracies. If this country devolves into class hostility and violence – ala Mexico – we will lose liberties. Where will the businessman then live and enjoy a good quality of life? Do you really want to be secluded from America?
Would it not feel better to be a part of an America that is strong free and something you can proud of? When your conscience is so checked out that you think porn on television and gangster rap on radio and no social questions arise, you have forgotten that we are all in this together. And remembering that we are all in this together is a big part of being a good American.
As an American, I speak with people about what I think will make America better. I attend rallies. But more than that, I try to improve myself and be a really good person in order to do credit to my grandfathers and our forefathers and our traditions. I work hard at what I do and take my work and role in America seriously.
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