Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

The biggest threat to America in 1800: outgoing conservative President John Adams' attempt to revoke the Bill of Rights before the ink was dry with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and anti-disestablishmentarianism. 

And here, Morambar, you have painted yourself into a quite interesting corner, with your depiction of John Adams as a CONSERVATIVE!

And I wonder, truly, and for the continued sake of this thread, how you have arrived at this juncture, that you can have John Adams pegged as a "conservative"!

John Adams was a revolutionary!

He saw a nation born!

He attended to that birth, in order to throw off something malign!

There is no "conservatism" to John Adams, that I can see, and I would like to hear you develop this point, Morambar, for the sake of future discussion, because right now, I am engaged in an extensive study of that period of time, and John Adams is, of necessity, one of those who I am studying.

John Adams was a man who could see and comprehend much of human nature, I think, anyway, and so, he had great concerns about this nation's future, if left in the hands of people like Sam Adams, who were good at tearing down the old order, but no good at all at building up a new nation to replace it.

And so to me, in this thread, anyway, the jury is still out on exactly what was going on back there, and it is not an idle matter with me, since I am involved in real life with an appeal that is going to the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Constitutional grounds, and so, my history has to be precise!

And so, back to you, if you please, Mr. Morambar!

[Livyjr]

After reading Morambar's post in here this morning, I was caused to have to think one more time about my own thoughts on this thread, and this forum, and to me, as I have said many times before, this is the purest form of democracy that there can ever be, and it is something, for me, an older American, to be there at its very advent, which in many ways is now, AFTER the election, when it is more just plain people in here, than it was before the elections, when many people indeed were skimming the precurser forum to this one, as I think of it anyway, in terms of organizational structure, people were skimming the John Kerry Forum, AS AN EXERCISE IN SELF-EMPOWERMENT, AND SELF-EDUCATION, to make themselves into better citizens, AS THEY THEMSELVES WOULD HAVE THAT TERM DEFINED!

DIVERSITY!

The TRUE STRENGTH of democracy in action!

POLITICS as a marketplace!

This is what I believe, and why!

Filters are removed in here, for once, and for all!

No "SPOKESBOYS" and "SPOKESGIRLS", or if there are, they stand out like a sore thumb, because they cannot discuss, they can only sling party ideology, and what would be an effective tactic in a room full of people becomes very transparent in here, and therefore, useless as a "tool of persuasion".

SO!

"Tools of persuasion!"

This "dialogue" in here has now been going on since just after the 2004 elections, and in that time, we have managed to not only keep alive this dialogue which involves a diverse population spead across the American "map", in many ways, but certainly, stir me, anyway, as an American citizen with respect to my own citizen duties and responsibilities, to strive at all times for the highest and best level of thought and consideration that I am capable of achieving in here, at any given time.

Are we solving anything in here?

As for me, I don't even think about it, nor do I worry about it, as things solve themselves when it is their time to do so, and so, to me, at least, it is more important that we continue to observe this world of OURS, from all of OUR varied vantage points, and that we simply keep the conversation going, to report on life in OUR America, as it continues, like the thousand-petal lotus, to unfold all around us, in the days of OUR lives past, and the days yet to come, as well!

[Livyjr]

And here, I want to "put in a plug", I guess it would be called, for the Albany, New York Police Honor Guard who went to Washington, D.C. this past weekend to participate in the ceremonies down there for fallen police officers in the line of duty!

As I understand from speaking to one of them upon their return Monday, they were honored with a trip through the West Wing of the White House, and the young man that I was speaking to about this trip down to Washington felt himself to have been honored by the opportunity to be a part of this ceremony, and I have to agree with him, as I am one of those who had an opportunity to mentor this young man as he was growing up, and my advice to him was to always strive for the highest and best that you personally can do, and to always make the best impression that you can on other people, and so, I am personally glad to see this young man on the Albany, New York Police Honor Guard, as I think those young men put forth a very professional positive appearance ON BEHALF OF THE POLICE, and in this day and age, or in any day and age, I think that is a very important thing, to know that YOUR POLICE are so professional as these young men are trained to be.

I know these young men on this Honor Guard see duty as duty, and so do not expect to have their praises being sung every time they fulfill that duty by appearing in public on behalf of the Albany, New York Police Department, but I think that this trip at least deserves a word of mention, and so, I have made it!

[Livyjr]

And from these fine young men representing Albany, New York's "finest" down there in Washington, D.C. this weekend just gone by, we go to the world, where an iceberg right now is apparently running rampant, just to put into perspective just how much real control over things on this earth we puny humans really do, or do not have:

"Iceberg Tears up Antarctica"

Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Senior Writer, LiveScience.com

Tue May 17, 4:15 PM ET

A huge wandering iceberg is tearing up the Antarctic like a slow-moving bull in a frozen China shop.

The roaving destructor, named B-15A, slammed into the Drygalski ice tongue a month ago and broke off at least two city-sized chunks.

Now it is poised to strike another feature sticking out from the continent.

At 71 miles (115 kilometers) long, B-15A is the largest free-floating object in the world.

It is expected to lumber into the Aviator Glacier any day now, scientists with the European Space Agency said Tuesday.

The researchers released a satellite image taken May 16.

Aviator was discovered in 1955 and named for flyers who helped open up the continent for exploration.

The floating structure is attached to the continent and protrudes about 15 miles (25 kilometers) into Lady Newnes Bay within the Ross Sea.

If B-15A gets stuck, as it has before, researchers fear it could block sea ice behind it, thwarting animals that need to move from shore to the open sea.

B-15A is the largest chunk left of a bigger iceberg, known as B-15, that broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000.

That initial frozen hunk was about the size of Jamaica.

After B-15 broke apart, the chunk named B-15A drifted into McMurdo Sound, where it blocked ocean currents and caused other sea ice to build up, threatening wildlife.

Scientists predicted an imminent collision back in January this year.

Instead, the iceberg ran aground and stalled out.

Then it broke free in March.

On the move again, it collided with the Drygalski ice tongue in April, forcing the redraw of Antarctica maps.

[Livyjr]

And from George Pataki's corrupt Empire State of New York, we whisk ourselves some 3500 miles, give or take, to the westward, to America's second largest city, and LE VOILA!

The Mayor's race, which we have adopted as OUR race of the moment in here, precisely because of the "corruption" element similar to New York State's that is present therein!

Does corruption in government really matter to people, or are we all so jaded that it is just HO HUM, business as usual; gotta go along to get along, as they say down there with all of their various snouts in George Pataki's capital city of Albany, New York?

Stay tuned:

Top Stories - AP

"L.A. Mayor, Councilman Head to Runoff Race"

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Incumbent Mayor James Hahn survived a close call, making it into a May runoff against a Hispanic city councilman after the third-place candidate conceded defeat Wednesday.
 
The outcome of Tuesday's primary election sets up a rematch of the 2001 runoff, pitting Hahn, who has been weakened by corruption and other problems, against councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who is seeking to become the first Hispanic to win the mayoralty in the nation's second-largest city in more than a century.

And from rampant ice in Anarctica, through the miracle of modern science and technology, we whisk ourselves back northwards, to sunny Los Angeles, California, where Mayor Hahn, weakened by CORRUPTION, and other problems, has just been given the BOOT by the citizens of that city, and HOORAY to that say I:

HAIL THE POWER OF DEMOCRACY IN OUR AMERICA!

Politics

Antonio Villaraigosa acknowledges cheering supporters Tuesday.

"Villaraigosa wins L.A. mayor’s race - Councilman becomes city’s first Hispanic mayor in 133 years"

The Associated Press
Updated: 3:57 a.m. ET May 18, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa unseated Mayor James Hahn on Tuesday to become the city’s first Hispanic mayor in more than a century, confirming the rising political power of Latinos in the nation’s second-largest city.

After a lackluster term tainted by corruption allegations at City Hall, Hahn was turned out of office in favor of a high school dropout and son of the barrio who turned his life around to become speaker of the California Assembly and then a member of the Los Angeles City Council.

With 82 percent of precincts reporting, Villaraigosa had 225,328 votes, or 59 percent, to 158,732 votes for Hahn, or 41 percent.

'Tonight I really love L.A.'

Striding to the podium at his victory party amid chants of “Si, se puede,” Spanish for “Yes, we can,” Villaraigosa thanked his family and the people who had inspired him over the years, and promised to “bring this great city together.”

“You all know I love L.A., but tonight I really love L.A.,” an exuberant Villaraigosa told supporters.

Villaraigosa will become the first Hispanic mayor of Los Angeles since 1872, back when the city was merely a dusty outpost of only about 5,000 residents on the edge of the Western frontier.

Hahn, the scion of a prominent political family, becomes the first Los Angeles mayor in 32 years to be bounced from office.

Villaraigosa, 52, positioned himself as a unity candidate who would bridge racial and ethnic groups in a city that is 48 percent Hispanic, 31 percent white, 11 percent Asian and 10 percent black.

The Democrat lined up marquee endorsements from John Kerry to basketball legend Magic Johnson.

The bruising runoff between the two Democrats was a rematch of the 2001 election, in which Hahn rallied to defeat Villaraigosa and win his first term.

Villaraigosa came back strong this year, nearly ousting Hahn in the March primary.

Elsewhere, Pittsburgh held a primary for mayor with the city mired in worst financial crisis since the collapse of the steel industry during the 1980s.

And voters in Dover, Pa., picked their candidates for the school board in a community that has been roiled by a new and apparently first-in-the-nation policy requiring that students learn about the “intelligent design” theory of creation.

Hahn's base of support crumbles

Hahn’s family has been active in Los Angeles politics for decades; his father, Kenneth, was a beloved county supervisor.

He touted Los Angeles’ dropping crime and argued that he is the man to cure such urban ills such as failing schools and gridlock.

But the coalition of blacks and moderate-to-conservative San Fernando Valley voters that put him in office four years ago broke apart this time.

He lost black support because he backed the ouster of Police Chief Bernard Parks, who is black, and he suffered fallout from allegations that his administration exchanged city contracts for campaign donations.

And Hahn’s lawyerly — some say drab — image left him open to criticism that he isn’t up to being the public face of star-studded L.A.

“People want substance rather than style."

"I think they want results rather than rhetoric,” Hahn, 54, said after voting early Tuesday.

“You know, maybe I have a charisma deficit disorder, but I’ve done the job people have elected me to do.”

Hahn left his own party shortly before Villaraigosa declared victory Tuesday night.

Before bidding his supporters goodnight, Hahn praised his administration and said he had accomplished much of what he set out to do.

Villaraigosa promised to bring a fresh start to the city.

“I will never forget where I came from."

"And I will always believe in the people of Los Angeles,” he said Tuesday night.

In other races Tuesday:

Former City Councilman Bob O’Connor beat a crowded field of Democrats in the Pittsburgh mayoral primary.

O’Connor will be heavily favored to win in November because Pittsburgh is predominantly Democratic.

Mayor Tom Murphy is not seeking a fourth term.

In Dover, Pa., a party-line split emerged in a school board primary that has made national headlines because of the board’s October decision to require that ninth-grade students be told about “intelligent design” when they learn about evolution in biology class.

Republicans picked seven incumbent school board members who support the policy, while Democrats favored a slate of seven challengers who say intelligent design doesn’t belong in science class.

Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex, it must have been created by some kind of guiding force.

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, once called “America’s Deadliest D.A.” for her pursuit of the death penalty, took a big step toward winning a full fourth term by cruising to victory in the Democratic primary.

The 64-year-old prosecutor defeated a 38-year-old lawyer who accused Abraham of being soft on City Hall corruption.

In Erie, Pa., Mayor Rick Filippi, who is under indictment on charges of using insider information to try to profit from real estate deals, lost his re-election bid in the Democratic primary.

The primary came a day before he faced a preliminary hearing in the corruption case.

[jeffmoskin]

Politics

Antonio Villaraigosa acknowledges cheering supporters Tuesday. 

"Villaraigosa wins L.A. mayor’s race - Councilman becomes city’s first Hispanic mayor in 133 years"

Attention John Kerry!

Four years ago, Antonio Villaraigosa lost to Jim Hahn in the same race for mayor. The reason? Simple.

Hahn ran smear ads against Antonio Villaraigosa during the last week of the campaign. Antonio Villaraigosa was too much of a gentleman to even acknowledge them, much less counter them.

Years ago, I learned (in court) that " AN UNREFUTED LIE BECOMES ACCEPTED AS THE TRUTH"

This year, Antonio Villaraigosa cried "BULLSH*T" at all of Hahn's smears.

The result? Antonio Villaraigosa won with 60 percent of the vote.

Elections work when:

a: people vote.

b: the votes are counted (fairly)

c: BULLSH*T is vigorously opposed.

Attention John Kerry!

Did you copy that?

[Livyjr]

Attention John Kerry!

Four years ago, Antonio Villaraigosa lost to Jim Hahn in the same race for mayor.

The reason?

Simple.

Hahn ran smear ads against Antonio Villaraigosa during the last week of the campaign.

Antonio Villaraigosa was too much of a gentleman to even acknowledge them, much less counter them.

Years ago, I learned (in court) that " AN UNREFUTED LIE BECOMES ACCEPTED AS THE TRUTH"!

This year, Antonio Villaraigosa cried "BULLSH*T" at all of Hahn's smears.

The result?

Antonio Villaraigosa won with 60 percent of the vote.

Elections work when:

a: people vote.

b: the votes are counted (fairly)

c: BULLSH*T is vigorously opposed.

Attention John Kerry!

Did you copy that?

BRAVO, jeffmoskin, well said!

As a veteran who supported John Kerry, I could not believe that he let that Swift Boat B** S*** go on for more than five minutes, let alone as long as it did, COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNREFUTED, AND UNCHALLENGED, and I think that a lot of people lost a great deal of respect for him, because of that!

You are right on the money, jeffmoskin, when you say that unrefuted lies become the truth!

Do they ever!

John Kerry let a bunch of howling fools make him into the epitome of a flaming coward, with innuendo, and outright crap, like that Navy doctor who was running down John Kerry's wounds in the most unprofessional manner possible, and he never even said boo!

What a bunch of crap!

Excellent analysis too, jeffmoskin, on Villaraigosa, then and now!

We need to hear more of that "grass-roots" type of analysis from the "field", is what I think, and certainly, whoever ran that losing campaign for John kerry should certainly be taking a tutorial from you, jeffmoskin!

And it's too bad for all of us that they didn't take that tutorial long before the Kerry campaign even began!

BUT .......

Ah, well!

[Livyjr]

"Earthly Empires

By William C. Symonds, with Brian Grow in Atlanta and John Cady in New York
BusinessWeek Online

There's no shortage of churches in Houston, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt.

So it's surprising that the largest one in the city -- and in the entire country -- is tucked away in a depressed corner most Houstonians would never dream of visiting.

Yet 30,000 people endure punishing traffic on the narrow roads leading to Lakewood Church every weekend to hear Pastor Joel Osteen deliver upbeat messages of hope.

A youthful-looking 42-year-old with a ready smile, he reassures the thousands who show up at each of his five weekend services that "God has a great future in store for you."

His services are rousing affairs that often include his wife, Victoria, leading prayers and his mother, Dodie, discussing passages from the Bible.

Osteen is so popular that he has nearly quadrupled attendance since taking over the pulpit from his late father in 1999, winning over believers from other churches as well as throngs of the "unsaved."

Many are drawn first by his ubiquitous presence on television.

Each week 7 million people catch the slickly produced broadcast of his Sunday sermons on national cable and network channels, for which Lakewood shells out $15 million a year.

Adherents often come clutching a copy of Osteen's best-seller, Your Best Life Now, which has sold 2.5 million copies since its publication last fall.

To keep them coming back, Lakewood offers free financial counseling, low-cost bulk food, even a "fidelity group" for men with "sexual addictions."

Demand is brisk for the self-help sessions.

Angie Mosqueda, 34, who was brought up a Catholic, says she and her husband, Mark, first went to Lakewood in 2000 when they were on the brink of a divorce.

Mark even threw her out of the house after she confessed to infidelity.

But over time, Lakewood counselors "really helped us to forgive one another and start all over again," she says.

Disney Look

Osteen's flourishing Lakewood enterprise brought in $55 million in contributions last year, four times the 1999 amount, church officials say.

Flush with success, Osteen is laying out $90 million to transform the massive Compaq Center in downtown Houston -- former home of the NBA's Houston Rockets -- into a church that will seat 16,000, complete with a high-tech stage for his TV shows and Sunday School for 5,000 children.

After it opens in July, he predicts weekend attendance will rocket to 100,000.

Says Osteen: "Other churches have not kept up, and they lose people by not changing with the times."

Pastor Joel is one of a new generation of evangelical entrepreneurs transforming their branch of Protestantism into one of the fastest-growing and most influential religious groups in America.

Their runaway success is modeled unabashedly on business.

They borrow tools ranging from niche marketing to MBA hiring to lift their share of U.S. churchgoers.

Like Osteen, many evangelical pastors focus intently on a huge potential market -- the millions of Americans who have drifted away from mainline Protestant denominations or simply never joined a church in the first place.

To reach these untapped masses, savvy leaders are creating Sunday Schools that look like Disney World and church cafés with the appeal of Starbucks.

Although most hold strict religious views, they scrap staid hymns in favor of multimedia worship and tailor a panoply of services to meet all kinds of consumer needs, from divorce counseling to help for parents of autistic kids.

Like Osteen, many offer an upbeat message intertwined with a religious one.

To make newcomers feel at home, some do away with standard religious symbolism -- even basics like crosses and pews -- and design churches to look more like modern entertainment halls than traditional places of worship.

Branding Whiz

So successful are some evangelicals that they're opening up branches like so many new Home Depots or Subways.

This year, the 16.4 million-member Southern Baptist Convention plans to "plant" 1,800 new churches using by-the-book niche-marketing tactics.

"We have cowboy churches for people working on ranches, country music churches, even several motorcycle churches aimed at bikers," says Martin King, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists' North American Mission Board.

Branding whizzes that they are, the new church leaders are spreading their ideas through every available outlet.

A line of "Biblezines" packages the New Testament in glossy magazines aimed at different market segments -- there's a hip-hop version and one aimed at teen girls.

Christian music appeals to millions of youths, some of whom otherwise might never give church a second thought, serving up everything from alternative rock to punk and even "screamo" (they scream religious lyrics).

California megachurch pastor Rick Warren's 2002 book, The Purpose-Driven Life, has become the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time, with more than 23 million copies sold, in part through a novel "pyro marketing" strategy.

Then there's the Left Behind phenomenon, a series of action-packed, apocalyptic page-turners about those left on earth after Christ's second coming, selling more than 60 million copies since 1995.

Evangelicals' eager embrace of corporate-style growth strategies is giving them a tremendous advantage in the battle for religious market share, says Roger Finke, a Pennsylvania State University sociology professor and co-author of a new book, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy.

A new Pope has given Catholicism a burst of global publicity, but its nominal membership growth in the U.S. stems largely from the influx of Mexican immigrants.

Overall, the Catholic Church's long-term decline in U.S. attendance accelerated after the recent sex-abuse scandals, there's a severe priest shortage, and parish churches and schools are closing in the wake of a financial crisis.

Similarly, the so-called mainline Protestants who dominated 20th century America have become the religious equivalent of General Motors Corp.

The large denominations -- including the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church -- have been shrinking for decades and have lost more than 1 million members in the past 10 years alone.

Today, mainline Protestants account for just 16% of the U.S. population, says University of Akron political scientist John C. Green.

In contrast, evangelicalism's theological flexibility gives it the freedom to adapt to contemporary culture.

With no overarching authority like the Vatican, leaders don't need to wrestle with a bureaucratic hierarchy that dictates acceptable behavior.

"If you have a vision for ministry, you just do it, which makes it far easier to respond to market demand," says University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sociology professor Christian Smith.

With such low barriers to entry, the number of evangelical megachurches -- defined as those that attract at least 2,000 weekly worshippers -- has shot up to 880 from 50 in 1980, figures John N. Vaughan, founder of research outfit Church Growth Today in Bolivar, Mo.

He calculates that a new megachurch emerges in the U.S. an average of every two days.

Overall, white evangelicals make up more than a quarter of Americans today, experts estimate.

The figures are fuzzy because there's no common definition of evangelical, which typically refers to Christians who believe the Bible is the literal work of God.

They may include many Southern Baptists, nondenominational churches, and some Lutherans and Methodists.

There are also nearly 25 million black Protestants who consider themselves evangelicals but largely don't share the conservative politics of most white ones.

Says pollster George Gallup, who has studied religious trends for decades: "The evangelicals are the most vibrant branch of Christianity."

The triumph of evangelical Christianity is profoundly reshaping many aspects of American politics and society.

Historically, much of the U.S. political and business elite has been mainline Protestant.

Today, President George W. Bush and more than a dozen members of Congress, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, are evangelicals.

More important, the Republican Right has been fueled by the swelling ranks of evangelicals, whose leaders tend to be conservative politically despite their progressive marketing methods.

In the 1960s and '70s, prominent evangelicals like Billy Graham kept a careful separation of pulpit and politics -- even though he served as a spiritual adviser to President Richard M. Nixon.

That began to change in the early 1980s, when Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority to express evangelicals' political views.

Many of today's evangelicals hope to expand their clout even further.

They're also gaining by taking their views into Corporate America.

Exhibit A: the recent clash at software giant Microsoft.

As they thrive, though, there are growing tensions, with some mainline Protestants offended by their conservative politics and brazen marketing.

"Jesus was not a capitalist; check out what [He] says about how hard it is to get into heaven if you're a rich man," says the Reverend Robert W. Edgar, general secretary of the liberal National Council of Churches.

Especially controversial are leaders like Osteen and the flamboyant Creflo A. Dollar, pastor of World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga., who preach "the prosperity gospel."

They endorse material wealth and tell followers that God wants them to be prosperous.

In his book, Osteen talks about how his wife, Victoria, a striking blonde who dresses fashionably, wanted to buy a fancy house some years ago, before the money rolled in.

He thought it wasn't possible.

"But Victoria had more faith," he wrote.

"She convinced me we could live in an elegant home...and several years later, it did come to pass."

Dollar, too, defends materialistic success.

Dubbed "Pass-the-Dollar" by critics, he owns two Rolls Royces and travels in a Gulfstream 3 jet.

"I practice what I preach, and the Bible says...that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants," says Dollar, 43, nattily attired in French cuffs and a pinstriped suit.

Hucksters?

Some evangelical leaders acknowledge that flagrant materialism can raise the specter of religious hucksterism à la Sinclair Lewis' fictional Elmer Gantry or Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

"Our goal is not to turn the church into a business," insists Warren, the founder of Saddleback megachurch in Lake Forest, Calif.

After The Purpose-Driven Life made him millions, he repaid Saddleback all the salary he had taken over the years and still lives modestly.

Cautions Kurt Frederickson, a director of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.:

"We have to be careful when a pastor moves into the CEO mode and becomes too market-oriented, or there might be a reaction against megachurches just as there is against Wal-Mart."

Many evangelicals say they're just trying to satisfy demands not met by traditional churches.

Craig Groeschel, who launched Life Church in Edmond, Okla., in 1996, started out doing market research with non-churchgoers in the area -- and got an earful.

"They said churches were full of hypocrites and were boring," he recalls.

So he designed Life Church to counter those preconceptions, with lively, multimedia-filled services in a setting that's something between a rock concert and a coffee shop.

Once established, some ambitious churches are making a big business out of spreading their expertise.

Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., formed a consulting arm called Willow Creek Assn.

It earned $17 million last year, partly by selling marketing and management advice to 10,500 member churches from 90 denominations.

Jim Mellado, the hard-charging Harvard MBA who runs it, last year brought an astonishing 110,000 church and lay leaders to conferences on topics such as effective leadership.

"Our entrepreneurial impulse comes from the Biblical mandate to get the message out," says Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels, who hired Stanford MBA Greg Hawkins, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant, to handle the church's day-to-day management.

Willow Creek's methods have even been lauded in a Harvard Business School case study.

Hybel's consumer-driven approach is evident at Willow Creek, where he shunned stained glass, Bibles, or even a cross for the 7,200-seat, $72 million sanctuary he recently built.

The reason?

Market research suggested that such traditional symbols would scare away non-churchgoers.

He also gives practical advice.

On a recent Wednesday evening, one of his four "teaching" pastors gave a service that started with 20 minutes of music, followed by a lengthy sermon about the Christian approach to personal finances.

He told the 5,000 listeners about resisting advertising aimed at getting people to buy things they don't need and suggested they follow up at home by e-mailing questions.

Like Osteen, Hybel packages self-help programs with a positive message intended to make people feel good about themselves.

"When I walk out of a service, I feel completely relieved of any stress I walked in with," says Phil Earnest, 38, a sales manager who in 2003 switched to Willow Creek from the Methodist Church he found too stodgy.

So adept at the sell are some evangelicals that it can be difficult to distinguish between their religious aims and the secular style they mimic.

Last December, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Tex., staged a spectacular Christmas festival, including a 500-person choir, that attracted 70,000 people even though the cheapest ticket was $20.

Throughout the year, some 16,000 people take part in its sports program, which uses eight playing fields and six gyms on its $100 million, 140-acre campus.

The teams, coached by church members, bring in converts, many of them children, says Executive Pastor Mike Buster.

Gushers of Cash

Kids are often a prime target audience for megachurches.

The main campus of Groeschel's Life Church in Edmond, Okla., includes a "Toon Town" of 3D buildings, a 16-foot high slide, and an animatronic police chief who recites rules.

All the razzmatazz has helped Life Church quadruple its Sunday school attendance to more than 2,500 a week.

"The kids are bringing their parents to church," says children's pastor Scott Werner.

Such marketing and services help to create brand loyalty any CEO would envy. Willow Creek ranks in the top 5% of 250 major brands, right up with Nike and John Deere, says Eric Arnson.

He helped develop a consumer-brand practice that McKinsey then bought and recently did a pro bono study for Willow Creek using that methodology.

Other megachurches are franchising their good name.

Life Church now has five campuses in Oklahoma and will expand into Phoenix this fall.

Pastor Groeschel jumped the 1,000 miles to Arizona after market research pinpointed Phoenix as an area with a large population but few effective churches.

Atlanta's Dollar, who is African American, has pushed into five countries, including Nigeria and South Africa.

All this growth, plus the tithing many evangelicals encourage, is generating gushers of cash.

A traditional U.S. church typically has fewer than 200 members and an annual budget of around $100,000.

The average megachurch pulls in $4.8 million, according to a 1999 study by the Hartford Seminary, one of the few surveys on the topic.

The money is also fueling a megachurch building boom.

First Baptist Church of Woodstock, near Atlanta, for example, has just finished a $62 million, 7,000-seat sanctuary.

Megachurch business ventures sometimes grow beyond the bounds of the church itself.

In the mid-1990s, Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Wharton MBA who sold bonds for First Boston before he enrolled in seminary, formed an economic development corporation that revived a depressed neighborhood near Houston's 14,000-member Windsor Village United Methodist Church, which he heads.

A former Kmart now houses a mix of church and private businesses employing 270 people, including a Christian school and a bank.

New plans call for a massive center with senior housing, retailing, and a public school.

For all their seemingly unstoppable success, evangelicals must contend with powerful forces in U.S. society.

The ranks of Americans who express no religious preference have quadrupled since 1991, to 14%, according to a recent poll.

Despite the megachurch surge, overall church attendance has remained fairly flat.

And if anything, popular culture has become more vulgar in recent years.

Still, experts like pollster Gallup see clear signs of a rising fascination with spirituality in the U.S.

The September 11 attacks are one reason.

So is the aging of the culturally influential Baby Boom, since spirituality tends to increase with age, he says.

If so, no one is better poised than evangelicals to capitalize on the trend.

end quotes

Sing HALLELUJAH, say AMEN, right, Karl Rove?

And keep that money just pouring on in, 'cause GOD just loves George W. Bush and that REPUBLICAN PARTY of his so, so much that he can't stand it!

[Livyjr]

"Earthly Empires

By William C. Symonds, with Brian Grow in Atlanta and John Cady in New York
BusinessWeek Online

There's no shortage of churches in Houston, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt.

So it's surprising that the largest one in the city -- and in the entire country -- is tucked away in a depressed corner most Houstonians would never dream of visiting.

Yet 30,000 people endure punishing traffic on the narrow roads leading to Lakewood Church every weekend to hear Pastor Joel Osteen deliver upbeat messages of hope.

A youthful-looking 42-year-old with a ready smile, he reassures the thousands who show up at each of his five weekend services that "God has a great future in store for you."

And what does that future look like?

"Diabetes out of control in U.S., survey finds"

2 hours, 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two out of three Americans with type-2 diabetes do not have their disease under control and risk early deaths from stroke, heart attack or kidney failure as well as blindness and limb loss, according to a report published on Wednesday.

Doctors and patients alike need to do more to test for diabetes and then to control it with diet, exercise and, if necessary, drugs, the report said.

"Diabetes management actually worsened in the past 10 years," Dr. Jaime Davidson, a diabetes expert at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, told a news conference.

"We have the tools but we are not doing better."

Unlike juvenile or type-1 diabetes, type-2 diabetes is almost exclusively caused by poor diet and a lack of exercise, although it may involve a genetic susceptibility.

As many as 18 million Americans now have it, including a growing number of children and young adults.

Type-2 diabetes can be prevented with improved diet and exercise.

It can also be controlled with diet and exercise but many people also need medications to control it and some may eventually need insulin.

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and the American College of Endocrinologists commissioned a survey of 157,000 people with type-2, or so-called adult-onset diabetes.

They looked at a blood sugar reading called A1C, and found 67 percent of the patients did not have an adequate A1C level.

"Two out of every three people analyzed in this study were not in control of their blood sugar," said Dr. Lawrence Blonde of the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, a member of the American College of Endocrinologists.

In every state, 50 percent or fewer patients had adequate blood sugar control, they found.

The A1C test indicates average blood sugar levels over the past two months or so by measuring how much glucose is attached to red blood cells.

KEEPING TRACK OF GLUCOSE

The average lean, healthy young American adult has an A1C of about 5.1 percent and the highest desirable level is 6.5 percent.

An A1C reading of 6 percent correlates to an average daily blood sugar reading of 135, while 7 percent indicates an average of 170 over the preceding weeks.

Blood sugar should be below 110 before eating and no higher than 140 after eating.

A separate, Harris Interactive survey of 501 adults with diabetes showed that more than 60 percent did not know what A1C was.

And 84 percent believed they were doing a good job of controlling their blood sugar.

When glucose levels are too high, they can damage the insides of the blood vessels, leading to heart attacks and stroke.

They can damage the tiny capillaries inside the eyes and kidneys, causing blindness and kidney failure.

"Diabetes doesn't necessarily hurt," said singer and actress Della Reese, who has type-2 diabetes.

"If you have a backache, the backache will make you take your medication."

"But this will slip up on you."

She said people need to do more to make sure they are screened for diabetes, and to take care of themselves if they have it.

"The doctors mean well but they are not going to be with you 24 hours a day," Reese told the news conference.

Surgeon-General Dr. Richard Carmona said 40 percent of Americans aged 40 to 74 now have pre-diabetes.

They still have a chance to prevent diabetes itself if they begin to exercise and eat more healthily.

"We must do something about this now," Carmona said.

"Every single year we add 1.2 million Americans with this problem," Davidson said.

"It cost us in 2002 about $132 billion."

And drugs can help manage diabetes but cannot cure it.

"Once complications have set in, you cannot magically reverse it," said Dr. Paul Jellinger, president of the American College of Endocrinologists.

end quotes

Sounds like another business niche here for these Evangelicals, if you ask me, getting people to take care of their diabetes!

And what with their organizational skills, why, maybe what we should do is to turn the whole United States government over to these Evangelicals to run for us, sub-contract it out to them, kind of, or would it be sub-let?

Anyway, with the big bucks they would bring in, why, I bet we would all be getting tax refunds from the overflowing treasury they would have built up in no time, and that is not a bad thing, anyway!

SO!

Who's for it?

Raise your hands, America, and make your choice known!

[jeffmoskin]

We need to hear more of that "grass-roots" type of analysis from the "field", is what I think, and certainly, whoever ran that losing campaign for John kerry should certainly be taking a tutorial from you, jeffmoskin!

And it's too bad for all of us that they didn't take that tutorial long before the Kerry campaign even began!

I believe it was Mary Beth Cahill who "ran" Kerry's campaign.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know whether it was her fault or his fault that no lies were refuted. I don't know whose idea it was to be "above all that."

All I know is that George W Bush is STILL THERE, when he should have been back in Crawford, shovelling for free what he now shovels on our dime.

[Livyjr]

And what does that future look like?

"Rebels Seize Control of Uzbekistan Town"

By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA, Associated Press Writer
Wed May 18, 3:15 PM ET

KORASUV, Uzbekistan - Rebels cherishing the prospect of a strict Islamic state were firmly in control of this border town Wednesday, throwing up a new challenge to the government as it tried to prove to skeptical diplomats that its troops didn't fire on innocent civilians.

"We will be building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Quran," rebel leader Bakhtiyor Rakhimov told The Associated Press in Korasuv, a town of 20,000.

"People are tired of slavery."

The government of President Islam Karimov dismissed those claims as "nonsense," but Rakhimov said he has 5,000 followers ready to fight any troops that try to crush the rebellion.

There was no sign of Uzbek officials in Korasuv on Wednesday.

The officials apparently fled the town when rioters attacked police and government offices Saturday, a day after the violent confrontation in the nearby city of Andijan.

The rebels in Korasuv did not appear to be armed.

"We don't have weapons, but if they come and attack us we will fight even with knives," Rakhimov said.

Regardless of officials' attempt to shrug it off, the insurgency in Korasuv ratchets up the stakes for Uzbekistan, a U.S. ally in the war against terrorism.

Observers of the impoverished Central Asia region have long feared that any social unrest could be used by Islamic groups to promote their own goals.

The uprising in Andijan that set off the violence Friday focused largely on social and economic demands.

But it may have provided the opening Islamic militants have craved.

"While one cannot call Uzbekistan an Islamic country, and other sources of the conflict in Uzbekistan are social and clan-based, Islam as a very strong ideology, a strong factor, will be ready to fill the ideological voids created by the regime of Islam Karimov," Russian analyst Stanislav Belkovsky said in Moscow.

"So I consider that in the coming two to three years, an Islamic revolution and the Islamization of Uzbekistan is unavoidable."

"Of course this will be accompanied by bloodshed," he said.

Karimov's government has blamed the unrest on militants and has denied that troops fired on any civilians, though an AP reporter saw troops opening fire on protesters in Andijan on Friday.

The government cites 169 dead in Andijan, but opposition activists say more than 700 were killed — more than 500 in Andijan and about 200 in Pakhtabad — most of them civilians.

Interior Minister Zakir Almatov on Wednesday vehemently dismissed allegations of a crackdown by troops in Pakhtabad.

Judging by Friday's shooting, the government's first response was to crush the Andijan uprising before it could spread farther.

But the emergence of a second hotspot in Korasuv, 20 miles to the southeast on the border with Kyrgyzstan, has coincided with an intense international focus on Uzbekistan — attention that may be staying Karimov's hand.

Uzbek officials took foreign diplomats and journalists on a lightning-quick tour of Andijan on Wednesday, showing them a prison and the local administration building and arranging meetings with local officials, as the top U.N. human rights official called for an independent investigation.

The delegation was kept blocks away from the people of Andijan, leaving little chance for an objective assessment of Friday's violence.

"We blocked a few roads for your security," Almatov told the delegation as it was bused along streets lined with cordons of troops and police.

Inside the gutted administration building, a local official pointed at signs of looting and described how militants allegedly executed local officials whom they took hostage and used civilians as a shield as they tried to flee.

Almatov ignored a reporter's request to visit to a school where a prominent doctor had said 500 bodies were stored after the violence.

The doctor spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for her safety.

After three hours in Andijan, the delegation was treated to a lavish lunch of the national lamb-and-rice dish, plov, and flown back to the capital, Tashkent.

Some diplomats complained the trip was too short and that there was no opportunity to speak to residents.

"I think we need to be realistic about how much can be achieved in a whistle-stop tour of ambassadors in a large delegation format over such a short period," said British Ambassador David Moran.

"I think what we need now is a systematic process of openness that will enable the international community to make an authoritative assessment of the scale and nature of what happened here."

It was equally difficult to assess just how great a force — and whom — Rakhimov and his Islamic followers in Korasuv represent.

One of Rakhimov's aides, Arab-Polvon Badanboyev, rode a horse back and forth before a crowd of 600 to 700 refugees jostling at the Kyrgyz border on Wednesday morning.

Kyrgyz border guards had closed the bridge spanning the river border, but the crowd was demanding they reopen it so they could reach a market on the other side.

"If you don't open the border, all these people will sweep you away," Badanboyev threatened — and the Kyrgyz guards obliged.

Rakhimov's men, clad in traditional V-necked white shirts and embroidered skull caps, could be seen scattered around the town.

"All decisions will be taken by people at a mosque."

"There will be rule of Shariah law," Rakhimov said.

"Thieves and other criminals will be tried by the people themselves."

Among the groups that promote such ideas, the one that probably has the most followers in formerly Soviet Central Asia is the Hizb-ut-Tarir party, which Uzbek authorities accuse of inspiring terror attacks in Tashkent and the central city of Bukhara last year that killed more than 50.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which claims to reject violence, denied responsibility for those attacks.

Rakhimov said he and his supporters did not belong to any specific Islamic organization.

"We are just people," he said.

"We just follow the Quran."

Ikbol Mirsaitov, a Kyrgyz expert on Islam, speculated that some of the rebels may have been people who escaped from prison in Andijan on Friday, because they had very short beards — indicating they had grown them in the past few days.

Asked if he feared soldiers would try to regain control of Korasuv by force, Rakhimov said:

"They came here today, a few military people."

"I turned them back."

___

Associated Press Writer Kadyr Toktogulov in Andijan contributed to this report.

end quotes

Karimov?

That's the thug that George W. Bush is in bed with over there, isn't he?

Another Saddam Hussein in a long line of Saddam Hussein's for America!

And people say God is blessing America!

With friends like that, however, I must wonder!

[Livyjr]

I believe it was Mary Beth Cahill who "ran" Kerry's campaign.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know whether it was her fault or his fault that no lies were refuted.

I don't know whose idea it was to be "above all that."

All I know is that George W Bush is STILL THERE, when he should have been back in Crawford, shovelling for free what he now shovels on our dime.

It was the "School Marm" Mary Beth Cahill, jeffmoskin, and however that decision was made, it was a damn poor one, for John Kerry, and for OUR America!

Presidential Elections - AP

"Kerry Campaign Head Admits Miscalculations"

By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Mary Beth Cahill, who spoke at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government with Ken Mehlman, President Bush's campaign manager, said the Massachusetts senator's campaign initially thought there would be "no reach" to the ad from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Instead, the ad, which initially aired in just three states, became a central issue of the campaign, eventually forcing Kerry to personally deny the group's allegations that he did not deserve his combat medals.

"This is the best $40,000 investment made by any political group, but it was only because of the news coverage that it got where it did," she said.

"In hindsight, maybe we should have put Senator Kerry out earlier, perhaps we could have cut it off earlier."

Mehlman said that it was natural that the ad had the reach and impact it did, because Kerry decided to make his Vietnam record a central part of his campaign.

"Because Senator Kerry was so focused on that part of his biography, it came out as an issue," he said.

Mehlman acknowledged that Democrats scored points against Bush, such as raising the specter of a draft reinstatement, which got the attention of young voters.

"I think that was something that worked."

"It wasn't true, but it worked," he said.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Republican-funded Vietnam War veterans who patrolled the same Mekong Delta in Swift boats similar to the ones piloted by Navy Lt. John Kerry, challenged Kerry's accounts of his medal-winning service and anti-war protests.

In the first ad, former sailors who served on boats near Kerry's in Vietnam said he lied about his war record.

In a second, veterans criticized his subsequent anti-war activities.

A third attacked Kerry for throwing away the medals he earned in Vietnam.

Cahill said the Swift boat ads show the power of news coverage, particularly cable news stations, which she said amplified the ads by running them repeatedly.

She said it was frustrating that the first ad continued to eat up so much air time even after the central allegations were debunked.

"For me, this was a very big change."

"The fact that it was disproved and it was still shown every day as part of the (campaign) coverage," she said.

Cahill said if she could change one thing about the campaign it would be the timing of the conventions.

By scheduling their convention about five weeks after the Democrats, the Republicans gained a fund-raising advantage and dominated the news going into the final stretch.

"That was a huge hill to get over," she said.

Both sides agreed the debates were a crucial moment in the campaign.

Mehlman said he felt Bush was comfortable because he had gone through similar debates in 2000 and had gained confidence as president.

Cahill said Kerry practiced "mock debate after mock debate" and tried to avoid political zingers given the seriousness of the debates while the country was at war.

"This was not an election where 'You're no John Kennedy' was going to turn a debate," she said referring to a quip used by Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen against Republican Dan Quayle in a 1988 debate.

Both sides also agreed that the Internet and other emerging news technologies have transformed the political process by making it more democratic and encouraging more people to become involved.

[jeffmoskin]

Mehlman said that it was natural that the ad had the reach and impact it did, because Kerry decided to make his Vietnam record a central part of his campaign...

Why did he make a 35 year old war the "central part of his campaign?" Why not the IRAQ WAR???

Cahill said Kerry practiced "mock debate after mock debate" and tried to avoid political zingers given the seriousness of the debates while the country was at war...

WOW. What a bad decision. WAR IS VERY SERIOUS. PEOPLE DIE. Kerry never called Bush on it.

"This was not an election where 'You're no John Kennedy' was going to turn a debate," she said referring to a quip used by Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen against Republican Dan Quayle in a 1988 debate...

Looking for the quip, but missing the whole point. The Quayle quip was for VICE PRESIDENT - - - An experienced senator against an idiot - - - not the same thing.

On second thought...

[Livyjr]

"Sen. Byrd's Nazi Comments Draw GOP Heat"

By Alan Fram
Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2005; 3:50 AM

Sen. Robert Byrd's description of Adolf Hitler's rise to power was meant as a warning to heed the past and not as a comparison to Republicans, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat says.

Byrd's comments, which he made Tuesday in the Senate, came during his speech criticizing a Republican plan to block Democrats from filibustering President Bush's judicial nominees.

"Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated," said Tom Gavin, spokesman for Byrd.

"All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority."

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's No. 3 Republican, called for Byrd to retract his comments, saying they "lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate."

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the remarks "poisonous rhetoric" that are "reprehensible and beyond the pale."

The storm was the latest twist in the battle over Senate GOP efforts to free 10 nominated judges that the chamber's minority Democrats have blocked during Bush's first term.

The Senate confirmed 204 others.

In his comments Tuesday, Byrd had defended the right senators have to use filibusters -- procedural delays that can kill an item unless 60 of the 100 senators vote to move ahead.

He is a long-standing defender of the chamber's rules and traditions, many of which help the Senate's minority party.

Byrd cited Hitler's 1930s rise to power by, in part, pushing legislation through the German parliament that seemed to legitimize his ascension.

"We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men," Byrd said.

"But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends."

Byrd then quoted historian Alan Bullock, saying Hitler "turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

Byrd added, "That is what the 'nuclear option' seeks to do."

The nuclear option is the nickname for the proposal to end filibusters of judicial nominations because of the devastating effect the plan, if enacted, would have on relations between Democrats and Republicans.

"Senate battle begins on judicial nomination - Democrat leader throws first monkey wrench to delay business"

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC

Updated: 7:28 p.m. ET May 18, 2005

WASHINGTON - While the Senate conducted a day-long floor debate Wednesday on appeals court nominee Priscilla Owen, a bipartisan group of senators working behind closed doors tried to engineer a deal that would head off a showdown vote on changing the filibuster rule.

After a series of meetings, the bipartisan conclave was unable to devise an agreement and called it quits until Thursday.

The group seeking compromise is headed on the GOP side by Arizona Sen. John McCain, Virginia Sen. John Warner, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, and on the Democratic side by Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

A bipartisan deal could undercut the effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to lower the number of votes needed to stop debate on a judicial nominee from 60 to 51.

Democrats have used filibuster threats to block 10 of 46, or about 20 percent of Bush’s appeals court nominees.

The battle over judicial filibusters could be the most consequential one of George Bush's presidency.

At stake: Bush's ability to steer the courts in a more conservative direction.

With the likelihood that the president will have an opportunity to fill one or more vacancies expected next month on the Supreme Court, the issue takes on even greater importance.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, is ailing with thyroid cancer.

"The problem now is that the issue has escalated," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., one of the leading conservatives in the Senate.

"This has escalated into a question of: do you need a super-majority to get a Supreme Court nominee confirmed?'"

And Democratic senators have repeatedly said they would be unwilling to give up the chance to use the filibuster to scuttle a Supreme Court nominee they deemed unacceptable.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Democratic Leader Harry Reid immediately objected to the Senate debating Owen's nomination.

Would it not be better, Reid asked Frist, if senators considered other administration nominees such as Thomas Griffith whom Democrats would not filibuster, instead of trying to vote on Owen?

The first monkey wrench

Reid then threw the first parliamentary monkey wrench — invoking the rarely-used Senate rule that prevents Senate committees from meeting for more than two hours once the Senate has begun its day's proceedings.

In his debate-opening speech, Frist said that traditionally judicial nominees were confirmed by a majority vote.

But "in the last Congress the minority party radically increased that threshold to 60, and that is wrong," Frist said.

But Reid replied, “If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check on their power."

"The radical right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want.”

And Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin criticized Frist for saying in his speech that Democrats had used filibusters "to kill, to defeat, to assassinate" Bush appeals court nominees.

Senate Democrats have said that if the filibuster rule is changed, they will use parliamentary devices to delay bills and to “wrest control of the agenda” from Republicans.

Reid was living up to that promise on Wednesday.

The essence of a potential accord to avert the filibuster showdown remains as it has been for weeks: Republicans would have to agree to "throw overboard" two, three or perhaps more of Bush's appeals court nominees.

Graham said told reporters before heading to one meeting of the bipartisan senators, "if you voted on all these (nominees), some of them wouldn't make it," in other words, if the Democrats would permit up-or-down votes on all of Bush appeals court nominees, some of them would be defeated, with a few Republican senators joining Democrats to vote "no."

But he also said, "I'm not going to agree to vote 'no' on somebody just to get a deal."

A Democratic participant in the negotiations, Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Graham.

"There is some realistic expectation that a couple of the nominees would be voted down on an up-or-down vote," he said.

Specter decries deal-making

Pouring cold water on talk of a deal in which a few Bush nominees were abandoned, Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R- Pa., told the Senate, "Such a deal on confirmations would only confirm public cynicism about what goes on in Washington behind closed doors."

As part of a deal, Democrats would have to agree to not filibuster the remainder of the seven contentious nominees from last year, and would have to refrain from filibustering nominees for the rest of the 109th Congress (until January of 2007) — except under "extraordinary circumstances."

One roadblock: the difficulty of reaching a consensus on what "extraordinary circumstances" means.

As part of any deal, at least six Republicans would promise to vote against any attempt by Frist to lower the threshold for ending filibusters of nominees.

A leading liberal activist on judicial nominations , Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, was in the Senate lobby Wednesday morning to urge senators to reject any deal that allowed some Bush nominees to go through without being filibustered.

"The Alliance for justice is categorically opposed to any deal, any deal," she told MSNBC.com.

"We have communicated that message to all the offices of the Democrats."

"It would be bad for the federal judiciary.... We are working very hard to dissuade them from agreeing to a deal."

A Frist aide said that the debate on Owen would most likely continue until next Tuesday.

At that point Frist would seek a ruling of the presiding officer that further debate was dilatory.

If the Senate sustained by majority vote a ruling that further debate was dilatory, then the filibuster-ending threshold would be lowered from 60 to 51.

President Bush first nominated Owen to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on May 9, 2001, but Democrats defeated four attempts by Frist to bring her nomination to a vote.

[Livyjr]

This "dialogue" in here has now been going on since just after the 2004 elections, and in that time, we have managed to not only keep alive this dialogue which involves a diverse population spead across the American "map", in many ways, but certainly, stir me, anyway, as an American citizen with respect to my own citizen duties and responsibilities, to strive at all times for the highest and best level of thought and consideration that I am capable of achieving in here, at any given time.

Are we solving anything in here?

As for me, I don't even think about it, nor do I worry about it, as things solve themselves when it is their time to do so, and so, to me, at least, it is more important that we continue to observe this world of OURS, from all of OUR varied vantage points, and that we simply keep the conversation going, to report on life in OUR America, as it continues, like the thousand-petal lotus, to unfold all around us, in the days of OUR lives past, and the days yet to come, as well!

And speaking of the "thousand petal lotus opening", just who in the hell is this Donald Rumsfeld, and what game is he really playing at here with respect to OUR military forces?

Whose "side" is he on here, BESIDES HIS OWN?

"Donnie, what's you game?"

"Pentagon Aims to Disperse Facilities - Rumsfeld's Strategy For Capital Region Embedded in Report"

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2005; Page A01

The Pentagon's recommendation to move more than 20,000 defense jobs from sites in the Washington area is based in part on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's goal of shifting operations out of the capital region, according to the base realignment and closure plan released last week.

The dispersal strategy, which had not been announced previously, is mentioned numerous times in the base-closings report as a justification for abandoning leased office space in Northern Virginia and transferring some facilities from Maryland and the District.

The report does not explain why Rumsfeld wants to reduce the concentration of Defense Department activities in and near Washington, and Pentagon officials declined to elaborate yesterday.

Several local members of Congress said the policy appears to be an effort to make the department less vulnerable in the event of another terror attack or a natural disaster in the nation's capital.

Several of the lawmakers, including John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed concern about Rumsfeld's goal.

A Warner spokesman said yesterday that the senator questions the security standards the Pentagon has developed both for buildings and for the metropolitan area.

He also said the guidelines could increase defense costs by requiring new construction elsewhere.

"Senator Warner is very concerned about the proposed closures."

"He has not seen a justification from DOD for the savings that these closures are expected to produce," Warner spokesman John Ullyot said.

"He intends to very closely scrutinize the standards -- the force-protection standards and the savings rationale for the closure of leased office space."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D), who represents Arlington County and Alexandria, called the decision to move defense jobs outside the region "arbitrary" and said the dispersal goal was not included in the criteria the Pentagon had said would guide the new round of base closings.

"What do they accomplish by moving away from the very center of decision-making they have to be a part of?" Moran asked, noting that the Defense Department's headquarters -- the Pentagon -- is not moving.

The plan released Friday would eliminate or reduce forces at more than 800 military installations across the country, with the aim of consolidating far-flung operations and saving $49 billion over 20 years.

A nine-member commission is reviewing the plan and has until Sept. 8 to produce a final list that President Bush must accept or reject in its entirety and forward to Congress.

The Washington area would have a net loss of 14,459 defense jobs, more than any other metropolitan region in the country, according to the Pentagon's calculations.

Its definition of the D.C. area, however, does not include some outer counties that would gain employment, such as Anne Arundel, where Fort Meade would get an additional 5,361 military and civilian jobs.

Arlington and Alexandria would be the hardest-hit jurisdictions, losing almost 23,000 defense workers now housed in leased office space.

Northern Virginia officials had expected job losses because those office buildings do not meet new Pentagon requirements that structures be set back at least 82 feet from traffic to protect against truck bombs.

But the Pentagon's broader goal of moving jobs outside the region presents local officials with an additional obstacle as they lobby against the loss of the leases.

Moran and Northern Virginia Reps. Thomas M. Davis III ® and Frank R. Wolf ® said the military risks a brain drain because many of its skilled technical workers would take other jobs rather than leave the area.

They also argued that moving defense operations out of the region would decrease coordination with other federal agencies involved in security and homeland defense.

The 754-page report on base realignment and closure invokes the goal of dispersing Washington area facilities to help justify scores of moves by defense agencies that would affect thousands of jobs.

For instance, in recommending the transfer of the Defense Contract Management Agency headquarters from Alexandria to Fort Lee, Va., which is south of Richmond, the report cites a desire to achieve "a dispersion of DOD activities away from a dense concentration within the National Capital Region."

The same justification is given for moving the Air Force Real Property Administration from Arlington to Lackland Air Force Base, near San Antonio.

The report says that transferring the Air Force Flight Standards Agency and two C-21 aircraft from Andrews Air Force Base to Will Rogers Air National Guard Base in Oklahoma City "moves federal assets out of the National Capital Region, reducing the nation's vulnerability."

And it says that moving defense intelligence analysts from Bolling Air Force Base in Washington to Rivanna Station near Charlottesville "meets the spirit of the Secretary of Defense's guidelines for relocation outside the National Capital Region."

In an interview yesterday, Philip W. Grone, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, would not elaborate on the guidelines mentioned in the document.

But he said the recommendations involving Washington area operations were based not only on security considerations but also on such factors as cost savings -- achieved by moving from leased to department-owned facilities -- consolidation of related activities and better use of vacant space.

"No recommendation . . . was based solely on anti-terrorism, force-protection arguments," Grone said.

"There is no one-size-fits-all approach."

In fall 2002, Rumsfeld issued what has become known as the "100-mile memo," in which he reserved authority over any real estate purchase, construction or leasing action greater than $500,000 within a 100-mile radius of the Pentagon.

The department also has given jurisdiction over real estate issues in that area to its Washington Headquarters Service.

[Livyjr]

And speaking of the "thousand petal lotus opening", just who in the hell is this Donald Rumsfeld, and what game is he really playing at here with respect to OUR military forces?

Whose "side" is he on here, BESIDES HIS OWN?

"Donnie, what's you game?"

"Pentagon Aims to Disperse Facilities - Rumsfeld's Strategy For Capital Region Embedded in Report"

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2005; Page A01

The Pentagon's recommendation to move more than 20,000 defense jobs from sites in the Washington area is based in part on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's goal of shifting operations out of the capital region, according to the base realignment and closure plan released last week.

The dispersal strategy, which had not been announced previously, is mentioned numerous times in the base-closings report as a justification for abandoning leased office space in Northern Virginia and transferring some facilities from Maryland and the District.

The report does not explain why Rumsfeld wants to reduce the concentration of Defense Department activities in and near Washington, and Pentagon officials declined to elaborate yesterday.

As one of America's many veterans, I have to wonder at what is going on here with this Donald Rumsfeld character, and exactly what is his goal for OUR American military, which he is supposed to be in charge of, although as a disabled veteran, I truly have to wonder at his qualifications for the task, which seem to be none at all, other than that he is a powerful REPUBLICAN with an alleged huge "portfolio" of corporate stock holdings that makes his personal involvement with OUR military very suspect to me, ESPECIALLY SINCE OUR AMERICA NOW SEEMS TO BE WEAKER MILITARILY THAN AT ANY TIME IN ITS PRIOR HISTORY, or in my lifetime anyway, which includes the Korean debacle, where OUR military forces were not very prepared at all, for seemingly anything, especially armed conflict in a foreign land like Korea!

Old Donnie Rumsfeld keeps talking about making OUR military "leaner", but what does that really mean?

No answers forthcoming!

And he talks about these supposed "conflicts of the future" that we are supposed to be engaged in, and here, as a combat veteran, I have to wonder exactly what he is at, since my thoughts are that old Donnie is planning further war, for "CORPORATE PROFIT", I would say, as opposed to preparing for defense of OUR America, and believe me, there is a huge difference between the two, as every other civilization on the face of this earth before us has learned, mostly to its chagrin and detriment, since those nations are no longer here on the face of the earth as nations, but as ruins instead!

Is there going to be an "attack" on Washington, D.C., for partisan REPUBLICAN purposes, timed to coincide with the next presidential election?

Is that "attack" in the "planning stages" right now, which is why old Donnie wants to pull people out of the Washington, D.C. area?

And would the REPUBLICANS, or their financial benefactors, really stage an attack on Washington, D.C. for their own gain, so as to continue THEIR STATED GOAL of consolidating their power not only over all of OUR America, but all the wide world as well?

Stay tuned!

Let's find out together, as a nation, and as a world, just what the future is going to bring!

And what part old Donnie Rumsfeld and his crowd are going to play in making that "future" a reality!

[Livyjr]

SO?

I wonder what Donald Trump thinks of class, and I wonder if he wishes he had some, instead of just a lot of money?

It was the "School Marm" Mary Beth Cahill, jeffmoskin, and however that decision was made, it was a damn poor one, for John Kerry, and for OUR America!

Presidential Elections - AP

"Kerry Campaign Head Admits Miscalculations"

By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Mary Beth Cahill, who spoke at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government with Ken Mehlman, President Bush's campaign manager, said the Massachusetts senator's campaign initially thought there would be "no reach" to the ad from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Instead, the ad, which initially aired in just three states, became a central issue of the campaign, eventually forcing Kerry to personally deny the group's allegations that he did not deserve his combat medals.

"This is the best $40,000 investment made by any political group, but it was only because of the news coverage that it got where it did," she said.

"In hindsight, maybe we should have put Senator Kerry out earlier, perhaps we could have cut it off earlier."

Both sides also agreed that the Internet and other emerging news technologies have transformed the political process by making it more democratic and encouraging more people to become involved.

And speaking of the transformational power of the internet in action:

"Bikini-clad beauty queens offend Thais"

By Sasithorn Simaporn
Thu May 19,11:40 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Miss Universe organizers scrambled on Thursday to calm a furor over photos of bikini-clad contestants posing near an ancient Buddhist temple in pageant host Thailand after the images infuriated religious leaders.

The photos, which showed beauty queens on a Bangkok river cruise with the famed Wat Arun, or "Temple of Dawn," in the background, were swiftly removed from the pageant Web site.

But religious leaders and culture watchdogs are still upset, saying the episode violated traditional values and morality just days before a key Buddhist holiday.

"This is the time of Visakha Bucha when we are reminded of Lord Buddha's teachings."

"But we have allowed this thing which will mark the country with sin for a long time," Phra Thep Dilok, head of the National Center for Buddhism Promotion, told Reuters.

The chair of the Senate tourism committee, Suradech Yasawat, said the photos, which were splashed on the front pages of most Thai newspapers, had hurt the country's image.

"It is completely inappropriate."

"When a contest is being held in Thailand, Thai traditions and culture should be respected," he told the Thai News Agency.

About 90 percent of Thailand's 63 million people are Buddhist and any slight against the religion can trigger a public outcry.

Last year, the director of the U.S. movie "Hollywood Buddha" apologized for offending Thais by sitting on the head of a Buddha image for an advertising poster.

Thai Buddhists consider the head the most sacred part of the body and it is not to be touched.

And despite Bangkok's hundreds of go-go bars and its racy reputation as the "anything goes" sex capital of Southeast Asia, many Thais are uncomfortable with public nudity.

FOOTAGE VETTED

Pageant president Paula Shugart said the temple incident was unfortunate and would not happen again.

"We knew that if we had any visits to the temple, we knew how the women had to dress."

"This happened to be out on the river and unfortunately it appeared in the background," she told Reuters.

"We would never, ever do anything to intentionally offend anyone here."

The Miss Universe franchise is a partnership between real-estate mogul Donald Trump and U.S. television network NBC.

Shugart said video footage of the 81 Miss Universe hopefuls -- who have rode elephants, toured temples and frolicked on beaches since arriving last week -- would be vetted by the pageant's Thai partners before the May 31 grand finale is broadcast worldwide.

It screens in the United States on May 30.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who hopes the pageant will give Thailand's tsunami-hit tourist industry a badly-needed boost, has urged Thais not to overreact.

Thailand has spent 265 million baht ($6.7 million) on hosting the event and expects to earn 3.2 billion baht ($80.4 million) in revenue from the pageant and other activities.

"I think they did not intend to insult Thai culture."

"They just wanted to shoot pictures of beautiful places but did not realize that the temple is sacred for Thais," he said.

Some Thais are also wondering what the fuss is all about.

"We wanted to promote our tourism industry, right?"

"If we want tourists to come to Thailand, then let them see it," said a university student on an Internet chat site.

($1=39.82 Baht)

[Livyjr]

And speaking of the transformational power of the internet in action:

"Bikini-clad beauty queens offend Thais"

By Sasithorn Simaporn
Thu May 19,11:40 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Miss Universe organizers scrambled on Thursday to calm a furor over photos of bikini-clad contestants posing near an ancient Buddhist temple in pageant host Thailand after the images infuriated religious leaders.

The photos, which showed beauty queens on a Bangkok river cruise with the famed Wat Arun, or "Temple of Dawn," in the background, were swiftly removed from the pageant Web site.

But religious leaders and culture watchdogs are still upset, saying the episode violated traditional values and morality just days before a key Buddhist holiday.

"This is the time of Visakha Bucha when we are reminded of Lord Buddha's teachings."

"But we have allowed this thing which will mark the country with sin for a long time," Phra Thep Dilok, head of the National Center for Buddhism Promotion, told Reuters.

Pageant president Paula Shugart said the temple incident was unfortunate and would not happen again.

"We knew that if we had any visits to the temple, we knew how the women had to dress."

"This happened to be out on the river and unfortunately it appeared in the background," she told Reuters.

"We would never, ever do anything to intentionally offend anyone here."

The Miss Universe franchise is a partnership between real-estate mogul Donald Trump and U.S. television network NBC.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who hopes the pageant will give Thailand's tsunami-hit tourist industry a badly-needed boost, has urged Thais not to overreact.

Thailand has spent 265 million baht ($6.7 million) on hosting the event and expects to earn 3.2 billion baht ($80.4 million) in revenue from the pageant and other activities.

($1=39.82 Baht)

And since we are on the "economy" here, let's see if we still have one:

"Reports Offer Mixed Signals for Economy"

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer

42 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The economy offered conflicting signs of growth on Thursday.

While a closely watched gauge of future business activity fell for the fourth month in a row in April, job hunters got an encouraging cue when the number of new people signing up for unemployment insurance dropped sharply last week.

The Conference Board said its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.2 percent last month to 114.5, though economists pegged the economy as still solid.

The decline was in line with what analysts expected for the indicator, which is closely followed because it is meant to forecast the economy's health over the coming three to six months.

The April drop followed a revised 0.6 percent decline in March and a 0.1 loss in February.

Also Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the number of new people signing up for jobless benefits dropped sharply last week.

New applications filed for unemployment insurance declined by a seasonally adjusted 20,000 to 321,000 for the week ending May 14.

The decline, larger than expected, was the biggest drop in claims seen in a month.

Investors appeared to respond positively to the job claims report, as stocks were mostly higher Thursday though blue chip issues struggled.

"The Leading Economic Indicators show continued economic growth, but a definite loss of forward momentum," said Ken Goldstein, economist at The Conference Board, a non-profit business research group.

Economists were not worried about the fourth consecutive decline in the index because the components that offered positive signs — such as manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials and average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance — are the most critical barometers.

Also, there were plenty of special factors such as an early Easter — which hurt consumer spending — and turmoil in Iraq that hobbled the economy.

Given higher interest rates, "we are going to see slower growth in the second half, but if it weren't for those special factors I would have been more concerned," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C.

"There is clearly underlying strength in the economy," he said, adding that the components that are strengthening "tend to give consistent readings about the direction of the economy."

"The ones weakening have given a lot of false signals."

Vitner said there is a chance the Federal Reserve will "take pause" and won't push up the federal funds rate as high as 4 percent because the economy is slowing.

But most economists like Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, expect more rate increases throughout this year.

"Until the (Federal Reserve) sees that the upward creep in inflation has stopped, they will continue to keep tightening," Naroff said.

He added, "Right now, I am not worried ... The economy is moderating, but growth is still solid."

The five of the 10 components of the leading index that also strengthened in April included building permits, average weekly manufacturing hours and manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods.

The components that fell were the index of consumer expectations, real money supply, interest rate spread, stock prices and vendor performances.

The index of coincident indicators, which measures the current economy, rose 0.2 percent in April to 119.6.

The gain followed a 0.2 percent increase in March and a 0.1 percent increase in February.

Three of the four components that make up the index rose in April.

The one component that declined was industrial production.

The index of lagging indicators, which looks back at the past six months, rose 0.4 percent in April to 99.7.

That was followed by a 0.2 percent decrease in March, and a 0.3 percent increase in February.

Six of the seven components advanced, led by commercial and industrial loans outstanding.

The negative contributor was average duration of unemployment.

In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.78 to 10,468.23.

The barometer of 30 major companies has advanced more than 300 points this week, including a 132-point jump on Wednesday.

Broader stock indicators rose modestly.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.19 to 1,188.75 and the Nasdaq composite index was up 9.35 to 2,040.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.96 to 609.84.

[jeffmoskin]

In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.78 to 10,468.23.

The barometer of 30 major companies has advanced more than 300 points this week, including a 132-point jump on Wednesday.

Broader stock indicators rose modestly.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.19 to 1,188.75 and the Nasdaq composite index was up 9.35 to 2,040.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.96 to 609.84.

It is entirely possible that the gains in stock prices is due more to the influx of petrodollars (OUR stolen gas money) being recycled than to so-called "investor optimism." After all, with manufacturing jobs disappearing, what's the cause for optimism?

[Livyjr]

And since we are on the "economy" here, let's see if we still have one:

"Reports Offer Mixed Signals for Economy"

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - The economy offered conflicting signs of growth on Thursday.

While a closely watched gauge of future business activity fell for the fourth month in a row in April, job hunters got an encouraging cue when the number of new people signing up for unemployment insurance dropped sharply last week.

The Conference Board said its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.2 percent last month to 114.5, though economists pegged the economy as still solid.

The decline was in line with what analysts expected for the indicator, which is closely followed because it is meant to forecast the economy's health over the coming three to six months.

The April drop followed a revised 0.6 percent decline in March and a 0.1 loss in February.

"The Leading Economic Indicators show continued economic growth, but a definite loss of forward momentum," said Ken Goldstein, economist at The Conference Board, a non-profit business research group.

Economists were not worried about the fourth consecutive decline in the index because the components that offered positive signs — such as manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials and average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance — are the most critical barometers.

Also, there were plenty of special factors such as an early Easter — which hurt consumer spending — and turmoil in Iraq that hobbled the economy.

And speaking of George W. Bush's lack of foresight and vision in connection with the Iraq Holy War to take over Iraq's oil deposits, hobbling the economy over here, which makes us weaker and weaker as a nation, what do we have here, besides chaos, and a bunch of people who, as usual, seem to not have the slightest idea of what they are about, going to "war" as they have, without a plan, without a strategy, without tactics, without a clue, actually:

"The rising economic cost of the Iraq war - One estimate of the military pricetag: $5 billion each month."

By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Fighting in Iraq has been prolonged and remains intense enough that it has pushed the total cost of US military operations since Sept. 11, 2001, close to that of the Korean War.

Despite the yawning federal deficit, Congress hasn't blinked at this price.

And while annual defense spending is now as high as it ever was during the Reagan buildup, the US economy as a whole is much larger, making it easier, in economic terms, for the nation to shoulder the bill.

Yet the costs for Pentagon operations are likely to pile up in years ahead.

By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Much depends on when - and how many - US military personnel can be withdrawn from the Iraqi theater of operations.

"We can't be any more certain about the trend of the defense budget than we can be about the number of troops that will be deployed overseas," says Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The demands and unpredictability of war have, in essence, turned the defense budget into a two-part allocation.

First is the regular budget request, which contains acquisition and research and development funds as well as personnel and operations costs, and which Congress considers in its normal appropriations process.

Second is the supplemental appropriations - the add-on emergency spending requested by the administration later in the year.

Congress gave final passage to a 2005 supplemental defense bill just last week.

Of the $82 billion contained in the bill, all but $76 billion will pay for Defense Department operations costs.

The cost of the US military in Iraq is running about $5 billion a month, estimated the former Pentagon comptroller earlier this year.

Fighting in Iraq "is lasting longer, and is more intense, and the cost to keep troops in the theater of operations is proving to be much greater than anyone anticipated," wrote Rep. John Spratt (D) of South Carolina, ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, in a recent Democratic report on war costs.

Overall, Congress has approved about $192 billion for the Iraq war itself, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service.

Another $58 billion has been allocated for Afghanistan, and some $20 billion has gone for enhanced air security and other Pentagon preparedness measures in the US.

That totals $270 billion for all military operations since 2001, according to the CRS analysis.

The cost of war in Iraq by itself has already far exceeded the $85 billion inflation-adjusted price tag of the 1991 Gulf War, notes Mr. Kosiak.

Plus, that war was largely paid for by contributions from US allies.

As for all military operations combined, add in the $50 billion in war spending the Senate Armed Services Committee last week added to the fiscal 2006 defense budget bill, and the total will surpass $320 billion in US funds.

"That's close to the Korean war level of $350 billion [in today's dollars]," says Kosiak.

Unsurprisingly, operations and maintenance constitute the single largest extra expense of the Iraq war.

Almost half of the just-passed emergency spending bill's defense funds went for ground operations, flying hours, fuel, and travel.

Iraq fighting has been particularly grinding, noted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a Senate budget hearing in February.

On average, combat vehicles are experiencing four and a half years of peacetime wear in one year.

"A bradley fighting vehicle that usually runs about 800 miles a year - that's in peacetime training - now sometimes is being driven in the range of 4,000 miles in Iraq," said Secretary Rumsfeld.

About half of the remaining emergency defense funds was devoted to personnel.

This means not basic pay but incremental costs: the extra money paid reserve troops when they are called to active duty, for instance, as well as hazard pay and other special compensation.

The rest went largely to weapons procurement, such as replacement of six National Guard UH-60 helicopters lost in Iraqi and Afghan operations.

More spending on the war is sure to come - even if the US begins to draw down troops levels.

While it is difficult to estimate precisely, it is sure to be in the hundreds of billions, experts say.

The Congressional Research Service pegs the cost of US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at an additional $458 billion through 2014.

This is hardly cheap, but given the overall size of the US economy, and the levels of defense spending maintained during the cold war, it is well within the bounds of recent experience, according to Center for Strategic and International Studies military expert Anthony Cordesman.

Total defense spending in 2006 will probably be around 4 percent of gross national product, notes Mr. Cordesman.

The average since 1992 for this measure has been 3.6 percent.

"When it does come to economic and federal 'overstretch,' defense is unlikely to be the cause," Cordesman argues in a recent report.