Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the subject of IRAQINAM ....

And pure goose fools .....

And SYCOPHANTS .....

Meaning servile, self-seeking flatterers, or parasites .....

"Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size"

By Eric Schmitt, New York Times
February 28, 2003

In a contentious exchange over the costs of war with Iraq, the Pentagon's second-ranking official today disparaged a top Army general's assessment of the number of troops needed to secure postwar Iraq.

House Democrats then accused the Pentagon official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, of concealing internal administration estimates on the cost of fighting and rebuilding the country.

Mr. Wolfowitz, with Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller, at his side, tried to mollify the Democratic lawmakers, promising to fill them in eventually on the administration's internal cost estimates.

"There will be an appropriate moment," he said, when the Pentagon would provide Congress with cost ranges.

"We're not in a position to do that right now."

At a Pentagon news conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Mr. Rumsfeld echoed his deputy's comments.

Neither Mr. Rumsfeld nor Mr. Wolfowitz mentioned General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, by name.

But both men were clearly irritated at the general's suggestion that a postwar Iraq might require many more forces than the 100,000 American troops and the tens of thousands of allied forces that are also expected to join a reconstruction effort.

"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq.

He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo.

He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force.

And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it.

"I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, many nations agreed in advance of hostilities to help pay for a conflict that eventually cost about $61 billion.

Mr. Wolfowitz said that this time around the administration was dealing with "countries that are quite frightened of their own shadows" in assembling a coalition to force President Saddam Hussein to disarm.

Enlisting countries to help to pay for this war and its aftermath would take more time, he said.

"I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables.

Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion.

"To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.

At the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld said the factors influencing cost estimates made even ranges imperfect.

Asked whether he would release such ranges to permit a useful public debate on the subject, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I've already decided that."

"It's not useful."

Back in 1991 ....

When Richard Bruce Cheney ....

A.K.A. "THE SPHINX" ....

Had the job that Rumsfeld is bungling so badly now ....

With his arcane ideas of what America's military should look like in the 21st Century .....

And as to TROOP STRENGTH ....

Back in BIG BUSH'S WAR ...

THE SPHINX himself was on the record ....

As saying many more troops .....

Were needed ....

Just to invade Kuwait .....

And so ...

What did we have for that?

600,000?

Versus 145,000 to invade the whole of Iraq?

And as the REPUBLICAN/CONSERVATIVE BUSHCOS continue to leave their tell-tale "FINGERPRINTS" of incompetence, ineptness and CORRUPTION all over this world of OURS ....

Where they have made IRAQINAM into a MODEL of what they will TRANSFORM the rest of the world into ...

IF WE WILL JUST KEEP THEM IN POWER LONG ENOUGH .....

"Iraq corruption slows reconstruction efforts - Report says money from country's oil industry may be aiding insurgency"

By ERIC ROSENBERG, Washington bureau
First published: Monday, May 1, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A new government report released Sunday says corruption in Iraq's oil and gas industry threatens to smother the country's nascent democracy, although the study also notes the United States is making slow progress rebuilding Iraq's basic services.

Corruption in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and throughout the oil and gas sector "could have devastating effects on both the progress of sector reconstruction and on the overall status of the reconstruction and democracy-building effort in Iraq," according to the report by Stuart Bowen, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Bowen answers to Congress.

His report, which tracks how over $18.4 billion in U.S.-appropriated reconstruction funds are being spent, also will be sent to all congressional offices.

Citing findings from the U.S. Iraq reconstruction office in Baghdad, the report said corruption in the oil and gas sector "is particularly troubling ... because of oil's economic significance."

The report said the oil industry lacks an effective metering system to measure how much oil "is being pumped relative to what is getting to market."

The report said that the insurgency in Iraq "has reportedly been partly funded by corrupt activities within Iraq and from skimming profits from black marketers."

Before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration had predicted that revenues from Iraqi oil exports would provide the funds to revive the country's battered economy.

One week after the attack, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that those revenues would easily underwrite the reconstruction.

"We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," Wolfowitz said at the time.

That claim turned out to be an embarrassing mistake by the administration.

The Bowen report said that oil and gas production has yet to return to pre-war levels, despite the U.S. investment of $1.7 billion in the industry.

The reasons include corruption, stepped up insurgent attacks that slow production and sabotage of oil production facilities, he said.

During Saddam Hussein's reign, Iraq produced 2.58 million barrels of oil a day, while it now produces 2.18 million barrels daily -- far below the U.S. goal of 2.8 million barrels per day, according to the report.

The inspector general's focus on Iraqi corruption echoes recent statements by some key members of Congress, where lawmakers are increasingly concerned that corruption is fueling the insurgency and taxing U.S. forces.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, lamented that widespread corruption and criminality were "pushing Iraq down into a morass."

Despite the corruption, Bowen's report to Congress concludes that American forces and contractors are making strides rebuilding Iraq.

"Although the story of Iraq reconstruction has been punctuated by shortfalls and deficiencies," he said, the U.S. has made "significant progress."

Of 13,119 planned reconstruction projects, 10,962 -- or 83.5 percent -- have been completed, 1,986 are ongoing, and 171 have yet to be started.

But within the categories of projects that are ongoing or yet to be started are a significant portion of oil-industry related and electricity projects; both are crucial to restoring basic services and filling the county's treasury with oil export revenue.

[Livyjr]

And as the REPUBLICAN/CONSERVATIVE BUSHCOS continue to leave their tell-tale "FINGERPRINTS" of incompetence, ineptness and CORRUPTION all over this world of OURS ....

Where they have made IRAQINAM into a MODEL of what they will TRANSFORM the rest of the world into ...

IF WE WILL JUST KEEP THEM IN POWER LONG ENOUGH .....

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 28, 2006

The U.S. government is being stalked by an invisible bandit, the Crony Fairy, who visits key agencies by dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees.

There's no way to catch or stop the Crony Fairy, so our only hope is to change the agencies' names.

That way she might get confused, and leave our government able to function.

That, at least, is how I interpret the report on responses to Hurricane Katrina that was just released by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The report points out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency "had been operating at a more than 15 percent staff-vacancy rate for over a year before Katrina struck" — that means many of the people who knew what they were doing had left.

And it adds that "FEMA's senior political appointees ... had little or no prior relevant emergency-management experience."

But the report says nothing about what caused the qualified people to leave and who appointed unqualified people to take their place.

There's no hint that, say, President Bush might have had any role.

So those political appointees must have been installed by the Crony Fairy.

Rather than trying to fix FEMA, the report calls for replacing it with a new organization, the National Preparedness and Response Agency.

As far as I can tell, the new agency would have exactly the same responsibilities as FEMA.

But "senior N.P.R.A. officials would be selected from the ranks of professionals with experience in crisis management."

I guess it's impossible to select qualified people to run FEMA; if you try, the Crony Fairy will spirit them away and replace them with Michael Brown.

But she might not know her way to N.P.R.A.

O.K., enough sarcasm.

Let's talk about the history of FEMA.

In the early 1990's, FEMA's reputation was as bad as it is today.

It was a dumping ground for political cronies, headed by a man whose only apparent qualification for the job was that he was a close friend of the first President Bush's chief of staff.

FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 perfectly foreshadowed Katrina: the agency took three days to arrive on the scene, and when it did, it proved utterly incompetent.

Many people thought that FEMA was a lost cause.

But Bill Clinton proved them wrong.

He appointed qualified people to lead the agency and gave them leeway to hire other qualified people, and within a year FEMA's morale and performance had soared.

For the rest of the Clinton years, FEMA was among the most highly regarded agencies in the federal government.

What happened to that reputation?

The answer, of course, is that the second President Bush returned to his father's practices.

Once again, FEMA became a dumping ground for cronies, and many of the good people who had come in during the Clinton years left.

It took only a few years to transform one of the best agencies in the U.S. government into what Senator Susan Collins calls "a shambles and beyond repair."

In other words, the Crony Fairy is named George W. Bush.

So what's the point of creating a new agency to replace FEMA?

The history of FEMA and other agencies during the Clinton years shows that a president who is serious about governing can rebuild effective government without renaming the boxes on the organizational chart.

On the other hand, the history of the Bush administration, from the botched reconstruction of Iraq to the botched start-up of the prescription drug program, shows that a president who isn't serious about governing, who prizes loyalty and personal connections over competence, can quickly reduce the government of the world's most powerful nation to third-world levels of ineffectiveness.

And bear in mind that Mr. Bush's pattern of cronyism didn't change after Katrina.

For example, he appointed Julie Myers, the inexperienced niece of Gen. Richard Myers, to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement — an agency that, like FEMA, is supposed to protect us against terrorism as well as other threats.

Even at the C.I.A., the administration seems more interested in purging Democrats than in improving the quality of intelligence.

So let's skip the name change for FEMA, O.K.?

The United States will regain effective government if and when it gets a president who cares more about serving the nation than about rewarding his friends and scoring political points.

That's at least a thousand days away.

Meanwhile, don't count on FEMA, or on any other government agency, to do its job.

[Livyjr]

These days up here where I am ...

The days are long ....

As the sun rises higher and higher in the sky ....

And as is my way ...

I am outside ....

Doing those things which need to be done up here ...

In the spring ....

So that come next fall ...

I am once again ready for winter ....

And so ...

Some days ...

Like this one ...

I will be in here .....

For just a flash ....

And then ...

Back out again ....

Because I am getting here late ....

Having been outside all day ...

And so ....

[jeffmoskin]

These days up here where I am ...

The days are long ....

As the sun rises higher and higher in the sky ....

Out here in Kah-Lee-FAWN-Yah, which is less extreme in Latitude (but more extreme politically) than the great Empire State, the seasons and sunlight change much more gradually.

Having spent (served?) more than my share of time in the Empire State, I am quite happy to be where I am.

Physically.

If it were not a part of BushWorld...

a parallel Universe.

[Livyjr]

Good morning, jeffmoskin ....

And yes ...

Regardless of latitude ....

And attitude ....

The SUN OF BUSHWORLD "shines" down on all of us equally .....

Turning hope to dismay ....

Cheerfulness to dreariness ....

And rationality ....

Into something, anyway ...

That is so irrational ...

That it totally defies RATIONAL ANALYSIS ....

And so ...

I guess ...

WE ARE ALL REPUBLICANS NOW ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

And by way of reply .....

From WE, THE PEOPLE of Rensselaer County .........

In the State of New York .....

Where Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer is clearly "DA MAN" .....

As originally posted in ....

http://commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/...php/t24721.html

We have ....

And this is catchy CAMPAIGN RHETORIC by New York State Attorney General and GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL Eliot Spitzer, right above here, of course .....

Which the Albany, New York Times Union editorial staff will never question ....

But as the record above here clearly demonstrates ....

IT IS PATENTLY FALSE .....

Because ...

Jeffrey Pelletier of Poestenkill, New York is VERY CLEARLY so powerful that he is above the reach of the law .....

Not only in the State of New York .....

Where Eliot Spitzer clearly is "THE POWER" .....

But in the federal Northern District of New York, as well .....

Where Spitzer flexed his muscles ...

And exercised his CLOUT ...

On behalf of Jeffrey Pelletier .....

Who is clearly so powerful ...

Thanks to Eliot Spitzer ....

That he is and remains above the reach of the law ...

In the State of New York ...

And the federal Northern District of New York ....

As is alleged New York State Veterans' Counselor and "political operative" William "BUCK" Shea ....

Who was Eliot Spitzer's CLIENT in this above matter ...

Who made patently false statements to the VA Police ....

And allegedly ...

The Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York ....

On Pelletier's behalf ....

As well as the New York State Police .....

Who are also "clients" of Eliot Spitzer .....

In the 8/22/01 combined Rensselaer County/State of New York effort to have PLAINTIFF locked away and "TREATED" by "Dr. Adrian" in the Northeast Health, Inc. "GULAG", or "political re-conditioning facility" in Troy, New York as an alleged dangerous "mental patient" ......

So as to DESTROY his mind, forever ....

Make him "cross-eyed" and drooling a lot ....

WITH ELIOT SPITZER'S BLESSINGS ....

And thus, to render him totally incapable .....

Of ever being an expert witness ...

Against corrupt practices ...

In the State of New York ...

Involving administrative agencies in the State of New York ...

Like the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ....

The New York State Department of Health ....

And the Office of Professional Discipline ...

Of the New York State Department of Education ....

Which "agency" upheld the position taken by REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Personnel Director Felix "Iron Felix" Pugliese above here on March 13, 1989 ....

That in the State of New York ...

New York State licensed professional engineers serving THE PUBLIC in the capacity of associate public health engineers in county health departments in the State of New York .....

ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ENGAGE IN "INDEPENDENT THINKING" .....

But instead ...

MUST DO WHAT THE "POLITICAL BOSSES" WANT DONE ....

Even if it constitutes PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT ....

And misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance .....

And so ....

And just as clearly .....

PLAINTIFF herein .....

And us along with him ....

ARE SO POWERLESS .....

That WE, THE PEOPLE are beneath the protection of the law .....

Not only in the State of New York ...

But in the federal Northern District of New York, as well .....

And so .....

Some "truth in advertising" here ...

Even if in the State of New York ...

The truth is no longer in vogue ...

Thanks in large part to the ambitious and self-serving New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer .....

And so .....

And while we are on the subject of RANK HYPOCRISY in here this morning .....

And Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer, the "DANCER" who wants to be the next GOVERNOR of the corrupt EMPIRE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

Before he is the next president of the United States of America ...

We have ....

"Spitzer remarks draw fire - Election foes criticize his criticism of Scalia at Law Day ceremony"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, May 2, 2006

ALBANY -- Eliot Spitzer advocated a flexible approach to the U.S. Constitution on Monday, evoking the example of Thurgood Marshall and saying that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia sees the 200-plus-year-old document as "a dead piece of paper."

Comparisons of the renowned U.S. Supreme Court associate justices came during a Law Day ceremony on the steps of the state Court of Appeals.

There, the state's attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial favorite, along with Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, celebrated the heritage of liberty under the law with dozens of other lawyers, judges and observers.

"Understanding what the framers meant can help us," Spitzer said.

"But alone it cannot be enough."

Without constitutional interpretation, there would be no Roe vs. Wade and subsequent abortion rights, he said.

Birth control would be illegal.

Women would be banned from serving on juries.

Segregation would be alive.

And children as young as 7 could be executed for felonies, he said.

"A flexible Constitution allows us to consider not merely how the world was, but how it ought to be," he said.

"It retains its legitimacy, not shackled to the mores of men long gone, but the enduring legacy of the framers."

Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Faso criticized Spitzer's comments.

"I think that it's very unfortunate that an attorney general would attack by name a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," he said.

"It's one thing to question a judicial philosophy, but I think this shows a certain lack of respect for the court."

Faso said Spitzer didn't accurately characterize Scalia's views.

Andrea Tantaros, spokeswoman for Republican gubernatorial candidate William Weld, called Spitzer's comments "hairsplitting obscure theories of jurisprudence."

She said Weld, a former federal prosecutor, is instead "focused on creating jobs, keeping New Yorkers safe, and changing the culture in Albany."

The idea for Law Day was floated in 1957 as a way to contrast the United States' reliance on the rule of law with the Soviet Union's Cold War-era rule by force.

The American Bar Association wanted to shift the focus from war-making to peace-keeping.

A year later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower permanently established the day as a tribute to the nation's commitment to a fair legal system.

Ceremonies endure, almost 50 years later, and are always held on May 1.

This year's theme, "Liberty Under Law: Separate Branches, Balanced Powers" was timely, given Kaye's push this year to establish an independent commission to determine whether annual cost-of-living adjustments are warranted for all three branches of government.

State Bar Association President A. Vincent Buzard pushed for those raises during his address.

He also praised the evolution of the separation of power and the standard of judicial review, even though they are not mentioned in the Constitution.

"As a result, no one that governs, nor those who are governed, are beyond the rule of law," Buzard said.

Kaye emphasized the need for an independent court system, "even in the face of controversy, criticism and outright condemnation."

"We are passionate about assuring that the prized American justice system is more than a paper promise, that it remains truly accessible to the public," she said.

But she also lauded the way the state's judicial, executive and legislative branches have succeeded in working together: in the Child Welfare Roundtable and the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children.

Future projects include work on probation and indigent defense, she said.

"Justice thrives on passions born of shared values and common dreams entrusted to us by our founders," Kaye said.

In the end, she said, "what I am most passionate about is the opportunity I have had all these precious, treasured years as chief judge to join with all of you and enlarge the circle of dreamers and doers in the service of justice."

Kaye is entering her term's last year.

Law Day commemorations were also held in county bar associations across the state and, locally, at Albany Law School.

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at 434-2403 or by e-mail at mbolton@timesunion.com. The Associated Press contributed to this article.

[Livyjr]

Boy ...

Old "Oncle Eliot" Spitzer sure is in the "cat-bird" seat up here ...

Where he serves as the State of New York's top lawyer ...

At the same time ....

That he is running for governor ....

Taking money from special interests ....

That are regulated ....

Through "Old Oncle Eliot's" clients .....

Which are the administrative agencies ...

Of the State of New York .....

And so ....

But, hey ...

That is enough about "Old Oncle Eliot" .....

Who has his press people out there writing songs ....

And paeans ....

And odes ....

And hymns ...

To "Old Oncle Eliot", everyone's "Dutch uncle" ....

And so ....

If we are sicker up here in the State of New York ....

Than the English are in England ....

It might well be because we are breathing filthy air ...

And drinking chemically-contaminated water ....

THANKS TO ELIOT SPITZER ....

And the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ...

And the New York State Department of Health ....

Both of which are "Old Oncle Eliot's" clients ....

And so ....

"Study shows Americans sicker than English"

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:26 p.m., Tuesday, May 2, 2006

CHICAGO -- White, middle-aged Americans -- even those who are rich -- are far less healthy than their peers in England, according to stunning new research that erases misconceptions and has experts scratching their heads.

Americans had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer -- findings that held true no matter what income or education level.

Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens.

"Everybody should be discussing it: Why isn't the richest country in the world the healthiest country in the world?" asks study co-author Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at University College London in England.

The study, based on government statistics in both countries, adds context to the already-known fact that the United States spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation, yet trails in rankings of life expectancy.

The United States spends about $5,200 per person on health care while England spends about half that in adjusted dollars.

Even experts familiar with the weaknesses in the U.S. health system seemed stunned by the study's conclusions.

"I knew we were less healthy, but I didn't know the magnitude of the disparities," said Gerard Anderson, an expert in chronic disease and international health at Johns Hopkins University who had no role in the research.

Just why the United States fared so miserably wasn't clear.

Answers ranging from too little exercise to too little money and too much stress were offered.

Even the U.S. obesity epidemic couldn't solve the mystery.

The researchers crunched numbers to create a hypothetical statistical world in which the English had American lifestyle risk factors, including being as fat as Americans.

In that model, Americans were still sicker.

Smoking rates are about the same on both sides of the pond.

The English have a higher rate of heavy drinking.

Only non-Hispanic whites were included in the study to eliminate the influence of racial disparities.

The researchers looked only at people ages 55 through 64, and the average age of the samples was the same.

Americans reported twice the rate of diabetes compared to the English, 12.5 percent versus 6 percent.

For high blood pressure, it was 42 percent for Americans versus 34 percent for the English; cancer showed up in 9.5 percent of Americans compared to 5.5 percent of the English.

The upper crust in both countries was healthier than middle-class and low-income people in the same country.

But richer Americans' health status resembled the health of the low-income English.

"It's something of a mystery," said Richard Suzman of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the study.

Health experts have known the U.S. population is less healthy than that of other industrialized nations, according to several important measurements, including life expectancy.

The U.S. ranks behind about two dozen other countries, according to the World Health Organization.

Some have believed the United States has lagged because it is more ethnically diverse, said Suzman, who heads the National Institute on Aging's Behavioral and Social Research Program.

"Minority health in general is worse than white health," he said.

But the new study showed that when minorities are removed from the equation, and adjustments are made to control for education and income, white people in England are still healthier than white people in the United States.

"As far as I know, this is the first study showing this," said Suzman.

The study, supported by grants from government agencies in both countries, was published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Other studies have measured the United States against other countries in terms of health care spending, use of medical care and availability of health care services.

But this is the first to focus on prevalence of chronic conditions, said Anderson, the Johns Hopkins professor.

Differences in exercise might partly explain the gap, he suggested.

One of the study's authors, Jim Smith, said the English exercise somewhat more than Americans.

But physical activity differences won't fully explain the study's results, he added.

Marmot offered a different explanation for the gap: Americans' financial insecurity.

Improvements in household income have eluded all but the top fifth of Americans since the mid-1970s.

Meanwhile, the English saw their incomes improve, he said.

Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, said the stress of striving for the American dream may account for Americans' lousy health.

"The opportunity to go both up and down the socioeconomic scale in America may create stress," Blendon said.

Americans don't have a reliable government safety net like the English enjoy, Blendon said.

However, Britain's universal health-care system shouldn't get credit for better health, Marmot and Blendon agreed.

Both said it might explain better health for low-income citizens, but can't account for better health of Britain's more affluent residents.

Marmot cautioned against looking for explanations in the two countries' health-care systems.

"It's not just how we treat people when they get ill, but why they get ill in the first place," Marmot said.

------

EDITOR'S NOTE: Carla K. Johnson reported from Chicago, and Mike Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

------

On the Net:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

[Livyjr]

I wonder if Californians are more sick ....

Or less sick ....

Than New Yorkers .....

Both of whom ...

Are sicker than people in England .....

And I wonder if high gas prices and fuel oil prices have anything to do with it?

"Saudi Minister Says Oil Prices Too High"

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

Tue May 2, 12:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia's oil minister said Tuesday that currently high crude oil prices are of no long-term benefit to either producers or consumers and contribute to market instability.

"Energy security cannot be sustained when prices are extreme — too high or too low," Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in remarks to an energy conference.

He said Saudi Arabia is committed to working with the United States to keep oil markets stable, including plans to increase production to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009.

But he said that producing adequate supplies must involve other suppliers and conservation.

Oil prices went above $74 a barrel Tuesday, flirting with their record high of just above $75 reached last month.

Al-Naimi, who was joined in a panel discussion by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, sought to dispel the notion that U.S. energy independence could drive down prices, although he did not specifically refer to the phrase frequently use by the Bush administration and members of Congress as an answer to America's energy problems.

It is "a myth" that countries can lower prices by reducing their oil imports or that they can achieve greater energy security by blocking imports from a region of the world, said al-Naimi.

He said oil is traded on the global markets, and even if a country has no imports it will cost whatever the international market dictates.

President Bush in his State of the Union Address pledged to increase development of alternative fuels with a goal of reducing U.S. oil imports from the Middle East by 75 percent.

Bodman reiterated that goal.

During a question-and-answer period, the Saudi official was asked if he viewed that as unwise protectionism.

"I don't call it anything," he replied.

But in his speech, al-Naimi cautioned against a country "backsliding into protectionism" by seeking to block imports from any region.

"Not only is a country worse off when it builds walls around itself and slips into protectionism, but the global system as a whole suffers," he said.

Bodman said the United States views Saudi Arabia as a leading ally not only in the war against terrorism, but also in efforts to stabilize global oil prices.

He noted that Saudi Arabia, which produces about 9 million barrels a day, is the only producer with significant spare production capacity and the United States has the largest emergency government oil reserve.

Both officials agreed there are adequate oil supplies.

Bodman said the market is worried about a supply disruption — in part because of the standoff with Iran over nuclear issues and the war in Iraq — and "there's no doubt a (fear) premium" is reflected in today's prices.

"Political tensions, tight petroleum product market, and talk of the world running out of oil are fostering an environmental of fear and uncertainty in oil markets and among consumers," said al-Naimi.

He pledged in the long run that Saudi Arabia will be able to substantially expand production using new technologies and he discounted that global oil supplies have, or will soon peak.

Asked if he and executives of Saudi Aramco, the government-owned oil company, "live in fear" that the United States might one day become energy independent, he replied, "The answer is no."

"We welcome conservation."

The panel discussion, moderated by former Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, was sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Bodman and al-Naimi were to meet privately later in the day.

[Snuffysmith]

Bush in ‘ceaseless push for power’:

President George W. Bush had shown disdain and indifference for the US constitution by adopting an “astonishingly broad” view of presidential powers, a leading libertarian think-tank said on Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/ptjo9

[Snuffysmith]

Endgame for the Constitution

By Paul Craig Roberts

Unless Bush is impeached and turned over to the war crimes court in the Hague, Americans will never reclaim their liberties from an executive branch that has established itself as the sole judge of the limits of its powers.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12916.htm

[Livyjr]

Good morning, Snuffysmith ......

Good to see you around the place ...

And I would say ...

That the Constitution is in danger ....

Because of the rank apathy of the American people ...

Who seemingly do not care about constitutional government .....

Or the Constitution .....

What you either don't know about ...

Or care about ...

Is hard to defend ....

So ...

George W. Bush is merely taking away the last vestiges of what the American people had already put out in the trash can, anyway .....

And so .....

BUT .....

Assuming there are some Americans who do care ...

This underscores the importance of tossing the CORRUPT AND INEPT REPUBLICAN PARTY from power ...

Here in OUR America ...

Come November of this year ....

And if that does not happen ...

If America returns the REPUBLICAN PARTY to power .....

Then kiss RULE BY LAW good-bye ....

And hello WHIMS .....

What the EXECUTIVE wants ....

Is what the "law" shall be ...

For that moment, anyway ....

Until the next WHIM comes along ...

And so .....

[Livyjr]

And speaking opf PRESIDENTIAL WHIMS ...

Here in OUR America ...

Where one of George W. Bush's many, many WHIMS ...

Is that there is no global warming .....

Because if there was ...

His CROWD would have to change their piratical ways ...

Which would reduce THEIR profits ....

Which THE GEORGE OF AMERICA AND THE WORLD ...

Is not going to allow to happen ....

And so ....

There is no global warming .....

Even if there is ....

And so ...

"Hurricane destruction powers global warming debate"

By Jim Loney

Tue May 2, 10:22 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - For a brief time in October, the pressure inside 185-mph (298 kph) Hurricane Wilma dropped to an astonishing low, making it the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic and Caribbean.

That historic cyclone happened during a record-shattering hurricane season that produced 28 storms and occurred only weeks after Katrina swamped New Orleans, causing $80 billion in damage.

The ferocity of last year's season gave ammunition to a growing chorus of voices that says humans and their greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories could be making hurricanes more destructive.

But it did nothing to convince a hard core of hurricane researchers who insist there's no evidence that people are responsible for the recent intensity, and growing numbers, of tropical cyclones.

The stakes are high.

An estimated 50 million people live along the hurricane-vulnerable U.S. east and Gulf coasts.

Millions more live in flood-prone mountains in Haiti and Central America, where hurricanes take thousands of lives.

The U.S. hurricane tab last year was more than $100 billion.

Major storms in the 2004 season caused another $45 billion in damage.

"The coastal regions are in jeopardy."

"The Miami area and the New Orleans area are very much at risk."

"We have a 10-year window to do something about greenhouse gases," said Prof. Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"STUNNING INCREASES"

Curry said leading scientists with published research have compelling evidence that human-induced global warming is heating the seas from which hurricanes draw their strength.

In the North Atlantic -- as the Atlanic north of the equator is called -- that has increased both the number and intensity of hurricanes in the last decade, she said.

"They are stunning increases that are way outside the bounds of natural variability," she said.

Tropical ocean temperatures have risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1970, said Curry.

"This 1 degree is playing havoc with hurricanes."

"It's a lot of extra energy for these storms."

When Wilma's internal pressure hit 882 millibars, beating a record held by 1988's Gilbert, climatologists took notice.

It was the first time a single season had produced four Category 5 hurricanes, the highest stage on the 5-step Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity.

The 28 tropical storms and hurricanes crushed the old mark of 21, set in 1933.

While some hurricane researchers accept that the sea is warming, they believe it's part of a natural cycle, rather than human-caused.

They say the Atlantic entered a period of heightened hurricane activity around 1995 and may not settle down for another 20 or 30 years due to a cycle called the "Atlantic multidecadal oscillation."

With hurricane records for only 150 years, some say there isn't enough historical data to blame the greenhouse effect.

"We don't have any facts because we don't have any long-term records," said Neil Frank, a former director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

The debate has taken center-stage among hurricane and climate scientists in the United States, where President George W. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto agreement to cut greenhouse gases enraged environmental groups and foreign nations.

Some U.S. scientists say Washington has stifled dissenters.

Others deny it.

"No one has put any pressure on me, from the White House or anywhere else," U.S. National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield said.

GROWING EVIDENCE

After two of the worst seasons on record -- 2004 produced 15 storms -- U.S. researchers are speaking more boldly.

At an American Meteorological Society conference in Monterey, California, last week, a U.S. government researcher blamed last year's record season on global warming.

On the web site of the government's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the subject is broached frankly.

"The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases....," it says.

Kerry Emanuel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in Nature magazine last August that the power dissipated by hurricanes in the North Atlantic has doubled in the last 30 years, possibly because storms have been more intense for longer periods of time.

"My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential," he wrote.

A study by Curry and her colleagues published in Science magazine last fall found the proportion of hurricanes reaching Category 4 and 5 has nearly doubled in the last 35 years.

But Frank, the former hurricane center director who now is a weatherman for KHOU television in Houston, said he does not believe hurricanes are more frequent or more intense than they were in the last warming period, in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.

Only since the 1970s have researchers had satellites that allow them to look directly at hurricanes.

As a result, he believes, storms that might have escaped detection in mid-ocean decades ago are now tracked from birth to death.

Scientists who believe human-induced global warming is linked to hurricane formation and strength rely too heavily on numerical models, Frank said.

"These same numerical models that I can't put faith in for a two-week forecast, we're told can be accurate out 200 years," he said.

"Ridiculous."

Whatever the outcome of the debate, forecasters say the damaging seasons of 2004 and 2005 could be just the beginning.

"I'm here to tell you it can get worse," Mayfield said.

[Snuffysmith]

Hi All - This one is for Jeffmoskin


http://www.aljazeerah.info/3%20o/The%20Ine...e%20Whitney.htm

The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback

By Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, May 3, 2006

“The ultimate financial impact of trading oil in Euros rather than dollars is a complex one, but according to many experts, such a move could lead to a collapse in value for the American currency, potentially putting the U.S. economy in its greatest crisis since the depression era of the 1930s.” “Petro-euro: a reality or distant nightmare for the US?” Al Jazeera

Today, Iran fired the first shot in a battle that will ultimately change the global economic system. Mehr News Agency announced that the long-anticipated Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on Kish Island competing head-on with the US dollar. Currently, all oil transactions are denominated exclusively in greenbacks (via the London and New York oil exchanges) giving the US a virtual monopoly on the oil trade and maintaining the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency. This privilege has allowed the US to generate massive deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of economic collapse but, the “time’s they are a-changin’”. If Iran proceeds with its plan, the central banks around the world will convert some of their reserves into euros sending billions of dollars back to the America. This will result in either recession or depression.

The notion that the bourse poses a serious threat to the US economy has been widely dismissed as a left-wing, internet-conspiracy theory. In fact, there is nothing conspiratorial about it, unless the fundamental law of “supply and demand” no longer applies.

If fewer people want the greenback it becomes worthless. Is that conspiratorial?

Articles about the bourse have magically disappeared from the internet. The more reputable accounts of the potential disaster have slipped into a cyber black-hole.

No matter. If the bourse opens next week then gold will shoot into the stratosphere while jittery currency traders continue to edge away from the shaky greenback.

The Bush administration has done irreparable damage to our currency. Under the guidance of the Federal Reserve, Bush has increased government spending by 35% while raising the national debt a whopping $3 trillion. The only thing keeping the dollar on its lofty perch is the oil trade and that may soon change.

The dollar fell steadily during Bush’s first years in office as currency traders recognized Bush’s intention to enshrine deficit spending as a permanent function of government. The greenback has managed to keep its head above water due to shaky lending practices in the mortgage industry (which sluiced trillions into domestic housing) and because of the estimated $2.3 trillion circulating in oil transactions. The increase in oil prices has allowed the Fed to keep the printing presses going at full-tilt while Bush’s friends were making off with hundreds of billions in lavish tax cuts.

Now, it appears that the game is over. Oil thirsty nations will be free to purchase petroleum in a stable currency leaving Uncle Sam to flail away in ocean of red ink.

Nearly 70% of the reserves in the world’s central banks are currently denominated in US dollars. This monopoly allows the US to purchase valuable resources with fiat currency and maintain enormous deficits without hyper-inflation. It is the perfect rip-off. The administration has shown its willingness to go to war and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people to defend this global extortion-racket. However, forces are in play now that will make it impossible to maintain the present system. If the Fed increases interest rates much more the $9 trillion housing bubble will burst, and if it doesn’t raise rates, the $2 billion of cash inflows the government needs each day to cover its trade deficit will evaporate.

It is a “lose-lose” situation.

The opening of Iran’s bourse will only hasten the inevitable decline of the dollar and a death-spiral for the American economy; that is why Congress passed the Iran Freedom Support Act last week (even before the Security Council had made its recommendations!) Hidden in the small print of the legislation is a clue that reveals Congress’ real intentions:

“The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States to deny Iran the ability to support acts of international terrorism….by limiting the development of Iran’s ability to explore for, extract, refine, or transport by pipeline petroleum resources.”

Yes indeed; Iran’s plan to sell oil in euros is now tantamount to an act of “international terrorism”, a clear sign of the importance that Washington attaches to the coming bourse.

The fate of the greenback is entirely the result of Bush’s enormous tax cuts, profligate spending, and a deeply-flawed foreign policy agenda. By now, Bush and co. had expected to topple regimes in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. If his “5 year campaign” had been successful then Washington would control enough of the world’s oil to force the other nations to continue using the dollar even while the gargantuan debt kept piling up. This explains why the oil giants linked arms with the 12 central banks to dupe the American people into the apocryphal war on terror. Terrorism is simply a public relations scam that conceals the ongoing global resource war.

America is now facing a slow-motion meltdown that could escalate into a widespread run on the dollar. Attacking Iran will only aggravate the situation and push tenuous states towards new alliances. (China, India, Venezuela and Russia have already expressed support for the new bourse)

If the bourse opens as scheduled they’ll be no turning back. The Bush administration is loaded with hawks who still believe the issue can be resolved through force. They have learned nothing from Iraq.

Military action will do nothing to relieve America’s enormous account imbalances or lessen the vulnerability of the ailing greenback. The dollar is teetering on the brink and it’s about to get a big shove from behind.

Big changes are coming whether we want them or not.

[Snuffysmith]

Its all about hubris.


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HE04Aa01.html
Peddling democracy the US way
By Chalmers Johnson

There is something absurd and inherently false about one country trying to impose its system of government or its economic institutions on another. Such an enterprise amounts to a dictionary definition of imperialism. When what's at issue is "democracy", you have the fallacy of using the end to justify the means (making war on those to be democratized), and in the process the leaders of the missionary country are invariably infected with the sins of hubris, racism and arrogance.

We Americans have long been guilty of these crimes. On the eve of our entry into World War I, William Jennings Bryan, president Woodrow Wilson's first secretary of state, described the United States as "the supreme moral factor in the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes".

If there is one historical generalization that the passage of time has validated, it is that the world could not help being better off if the American president had not believed such nonsense and if the United States had minded its own business in the war between the British and German empires. We might well have avoided Nazism, the Bolshevik Revolution, and another 30 to 40 years of the exploitation of India, Indonesia, Indochina, Algeria, Korea, the Philippines, Malaya and virtually all of Africa by European, American and Japanese imperialists.

We Americans have never outgrown the narcissistic notion that the rest of the world wants (or should want) to emulate us. In Iraq, bringing democracy became the default excuse for our warmongers - it would be perfectly plausible to call them "crusaders", if Osama bin Laden had not already appropriated the term - once the George W Bush lies about Iraq's alleged nuclear, chemical and biological threats and its support for al-Qaeda melted away.

The president and his neo-con supporters have prattled on endlessly about how "the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East", but the reality is much closer to what Noam Chomsky dubbed "deterring democracy" in a notable 1992 book of that name. We have done everything in our power to see that the Iraqis did not get a "free and fair election", one in which the Shi'ite majority could come to power and ally Iraq with Iran. As Noah Feldman, the Coalition Provisional Authority's law advisor, put it in November 2003, "If you move too fast the wrong people could get elected".

In the election of January 30, 2005, the US military tried to engineer the outcome it wanted (Operation Founding Fathers), but the Shi'ites won anyway. Nearly a year later in the December 15 elections for the national assembly, the Shi'ites won again, but Sunni, Kurdish and American pressure has delayed the formation of a government to this moment. After a compromise candidate for prime minister was finally selected, two of the most ominous condottiere of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, flew into Baghdad to tell him what he had to do for "democracy" - leaving the unmistakable impression that the new prime minister is a puppet of the United States.

Hold the economic advice
After Latin America, East Asia is the area of the world longest under America's imperialist tutelage. If you want to know something about the US record in exporting its economic and political institutions, it's a good place to look. But first, some definitions.

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt once argued that democracy is such an abused concept we should dismiss as a charlatan anyone who uses it in serious discourse without first clarifying what he or she means by it. Therefore, let me indicate what I mean by democracy. First, the acceptance within a society of the principle that public opinion matters. If it doesn't, as for example in Joseph Stalin's Russia, or present-day Saudi Arabia, or the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa under American military domination, then it hardly matters what rituals of American democracy, such as elections, may be practiced.

Second, there must be some internal balance of power or separation of powers, so that it is impossible for an individual leader to become a dictator. If power is concentrated in a single position and its occupant claims to be beyond legal restraints, as is true today with our president, then democracy becomes attenuated or only pro forma. In particular, I look for the existence and practice of administrative law - in other words, an independent, constitutional court with powers to declare null and void laws that contravene democratic safeguards.

Third, there must be some agreed-upon procedure for getting rid of unsatisfactory leaders. Periodic elections, parliamentary votes of no confidence, term limits and impeachment are various well-known ways to do this, but the emphasis should be on shared institutions.

With that in mind, let's consider the export of the American economic, and then democratic "model" to Asia. The countries stretching from Japan to Indonesia, with the exception of the former American colony of the Philippines, make up one of the richest regions on earth today. They include the second most productive country in the world, Japan, with a per capita income well in excess of that of the United States, as well as the world's fastest growing large economy, China's, which has been expanding at a rate of more than 9.5% per annum for the past two decades. These countries achieved their economic well-being by ignoring virtually every item of wisdom preached in American economics departments and business schools or propounded by various American administrations.

Japan established the regional model for East Asia. In no case did the other high-growth Asian economies follow Japan's path precisely, but they have all been inspired by the overarching characteristic of the Japanese economic system - namely, the combining of the private ownership of property as a genuine right, defensible in law and inheritable, with state control of economic goals, markets and outcomes.

I am referring to what the Japanese call "industrial policy" (sangyo seisaku). In American economic theory (if not in practice), industrial policy is anathema. It contradicts the idea of an unconstrained market guided by laissez faire. Nonetheless, the American military-industrial complex and our elaborate system of "military Keynesianism" rely on a Pentagon-run industrial policy - even as American theory denies that either the military-industrial complex or economic dependence on arms manufacturing are significant factors in our economic life. We continue to underestimate the high-growth economies of East Asia because of the power of our ideological blinders.

One particular form of American economic influence did greatly affect East Asian economic practice - namely, protectionism and the control of competition through high tariffs and other forms of state discrimination against foreign imports. This was the primary economic policy of the United States from its founding until 1940. Without it, American economic wealth of the sort to which we have become accustomed would have been inconceivable. The East Asian countries have emulated the US in this respect. They are interested in what the US does, not what it preaches. That is one of the ways they all got rich. China is today pursuing a variant of the basic Japanese development strategy, even though it does not, of course, acknowledge this.

Marketing democracy
The gap between preaching and self-deception in the way we promote democracy abroad is even greater than in selling our economic ideology. Our record is one of continuous (sometimes unintended) failure, although most establishment pundits try to camouflage this fact.

The Federation of American Scientists has compiled a list of more than 201 overseas military operations from the end of World War II until September 11, 2001, in which we were involved and normally struck the first blow. (The list is reprinted by Gore Vidal in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated, p 22-41.) The current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included. In no instance did democratic governments come about as a direct result of any of these military activities.

The United States holds the unenviable record of having helped install and then supported such dictators as the Shah of Iran, General Suharto in Indonesia, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Sese Seko Mobutu in Congo-Zaire, not to mention a series of American-backed militarists in Vietnam and Cambodia until we were finally expelled from Indochina. In addition, we ran among the most extensive international terrorist operations in history against Cuba and Nicaragua because their struggles for national independence produced outcomes the US did not like.

On the other hand, democracy did develop in some important cases as a result of opposition to our interference - for example, after the collapse of the Central Intelligence Agency-installed Greek colonels in 1974; in both Portugal in 1974 and Spain in 1975 after the end of the US-supported fascist dictatorships; after the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986; following the ouster of General Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea in 1987; and following the ending of 38 years of martial law on the island of Taiwan in the same year.

One might well ask, however: what about the case of Japan? Bush has repeatedly cited our allegedly successful installation of democracy there after World War II as evidence of our skill in this kind of activity. What this experience proved, he contended, was that we would have little difficulty implanting democracy in Iraq. As it happens though, General Douglas MacArthur, who headed the American occupation of defeated Japan from 1945 to 1951, was himself essentially a dictator, primarily concerned with blocking genuine democracy from below in favor of hand-picked puppets and collaborators from the pre-war Japanese establishment.

When a country loses a war as crushingly as Japan did the war in the Pacific, it can expect a domestic revolution against its wartime leaders. In accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, which Japan accepted in surrendering, the State Department instructed MacArthur not to stand in the way of a popular revolution, but when it began to materialize he did so anyway.

He chose to keep Hirohito, the wartime emperor, on the throne (where he remained until his death in 1989) and helped bring officials from the industrial and militarist classes that ruled wartime Japan back to power. Except for a few months in 1993 and 1994, those conservatives and their successors have ruled Japan continuously since 1949. Japan and China are today among the longest-lived single-party regimes on earth, both parties - the nucleus of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Chinese Communist Party - having come to power in the same year.

Equally important in the Japanese case, MacArthur's headquarters actually wrote the quite democratic constitution of 1947 and bestowed it on the Japanese people under circumstances in which they had no alternative but to accept it. In her 1963 book On Revolution, Hannah Arendt stresses "the enormous difference in power and authority between a constitution imposed by a government upon a people and the constitution by which a people constitutes its own government." She notes that, in post-World War I Europe, virtually every case of an imposed constitution led to dictatorship or to a lack of power, authority and stability.

Although public opinion certainly matters in Japan, its democratic institutions have never been fully tested. The Japanese public knows that its constitution was bestowed by its conqueror, not generated from below by popular action. Japan's stability depends greatly on the ubiquitous presence of the United States, which supplies the national defense - and so, implicitly, the fairly evenly distributed wealth - that gives the public a stake in the regime. But the Japanese people, as well as those of the rest of East Asia, remain fearful of Japan's ever again being on its own in the world.

While more benign than the norm, Japan's government is typical of the US record abroad in one major respect. Successive American administrations have consistently favored oligarchies that stand in the way of broad popular aspirations - or movements toward nationalist independence from American control.

In Asia, in the post-World War II period, we pursued such anti-democratic policies in South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), and Japan. In Japan, in order to prevent the Socialist Party from coming to power through the polls, which seemed likely during the 1950s, we secretly supplied funds to the representatives of the old order in the Liberal Democratic Party.

We helped bring wartime minister of munitions Nobusuke Kishi to power as prime minister in 1957; split the Socialist Party by promoting and financing a rival Democratic Socialist Party; and, in 1960, backed the conservatives in a period of vast popular demonstrations against the renewal of the Japanese-American Security Treaty. Rather than developing as an independent democracy, Japan became a docile Cold War satellite of the United States - and one with an extremely inflexible political system at that.

The Korean case
In South Korea, the United States resorted to far sterner measures. From the outset, we favored those who had collaborated with Japan, whereas North Korea built its regime on the foundation of former guerrilla fighters against Japanese rule. During the 1950s, we backed the aged exile Syngman Rhee as our puppet dictator. (He had actually been a student of Woodrow Wilson's at Princeton early in the century.) When, in 1960, a student movement overthrew Rhee's corrupt regime and attempted to introduce democracy, we instead supported the seizure of power by General Park Chung-hee.

Educated at the Japanese military academy in Manchuria during the colonial period, Park had been an officer in the Japanese army of occupation until 1945. He ruled Korea from 1961 until October 16, 1979, when the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency shot him to death over dinner. The South Korean public believed that the KCIA chief, known to be "close" to the Americans, had assassinated Park on US orders because he was attempting to develop a nuclear-weapons program the US opposed. (Does this sound familiar?) After Park's death, Major General Chun Doo-hwan seized power and instituted yet another military dictatorship that lasted until 1987.

In 1980, a year after the Park assassination, Chun smashed a popular movement for democracy that broke out in the southwestern city of Kwangju and among students in Seoul. Backing Chun's policies, the US ambassador argued that "firm anti-riot measures were necessary". The American military then released to Chun's control South Korean troops assigned to the United Nations command to defend the country against a North Korean attack, and he used them to crush the movement in Kwangju. Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were killed. In 1981, Chun would be the first foreign visitor welcomed to the White House by the newly elected Ronald Reagan.

After more than 30 post-war years, democracy finally began to come to South Korea in 1987 via a popular revolution from below. Chun made a strategic mistake by winning the right to hold the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. In the lead-up to the games, students from the many universities in Seoul, now openly backed by an increasingly prosperous middle-class, began to protest American-backed military rule. Chun would normally have used his army to arrest, imprison and probably shoot such demonstrators as he had done in Kwangju seven years earlier, but he was held back by the knowledge that, if he did so, the International Olympic Committee would move the games to some other country.

In order to avoid such a national humiliation, Chun turned over power to his co-conspirator of 1979-80, General Roh Tae-woo. To allow the Olympics to go ahead, Roh instituted a measure of democratic reform, which led in 1993 to the holding of national elections and the victory of a civilian president, Kim Young-sam.

In December 1995, in one of the clearest signs of South Korea's maturing democracy, the government arrested Chun and Roh and charged them with having shaken down South Korean big business for bribes - Chun allegedly took US$1.2 billion and Roh $630 million. Kim then made a very popular decision, letting them be indicted for their military seizure of power in 1979 and for the Kwangju massacre as well.

In August 1996, a South Korean court found both Chun and Roh guilty of sedition. Chun was sentenced to death and Roh to 22-and-a-half years in prison. In April 1997, the Korean Supreme Court upheld slightly less severe sentences, something that would have been simply unimaginable for the pro forma Japanese Supreme Court. In December 1997, after peace activist Kim Dae-jung was elected president, he pardoned them both despite the fact that Chun had repeatedly tried to have Kim killed.

The United States was always deeply involved in these events. In 1989, when the Korean National Assembly sought to investigate what happened at Kwangju on its own, the US government refused to cooperate and prohibited the former American ambassador to Seoul and the former general in command of US Forces Korea from testifying. The American media avoided reporting on these events (while focusing on the suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing in June 1989), and most Americans knew next to nothing about them. This coverup of the costs of military rule and the suppression of democracy in South Korea, in turn, has contributed to the present growing hostility of South Koreans toward the United States.

Unlike American-installed or supported "democracies" elsewhere, South Korea has developed into a genuine democracy. Public opinion is a vital force in the society. A separation of powers has been institutionalized and is honored. Electoral competition for all political offices is intense, with high levels of participation by voters. These achievements came from below, from the South Korean people themselves, who liberated their country from American-backed military dictatorship.

Perhaps most important, the Korean National Assembly - the parliament - is a genuine forum for democratic debate. I have visited it often and find the contrast with the scripted and empty procedures encountered in the Japanese Diet or the Chinese National People's Congress striking indeed. Perhaps its only rival in terms of democratic vitality in East Asia is the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan. On some occasions, the Korean National Assembly is rowdy; fist fights are not uncommon. It is, however, a true school of democracy, one that came into being despite the resistance of the United States.

The democracy peddlers
Given this history, why should we be surprised that in Baghdad, such figures as former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority L Paul Bremer, former ambassador John Negroponte and current Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, as well as a continuously changing cohort of American major-generals fresh from power-point lectures at the American Enterprise Institute, should have produced chaos and probable civil war? None of them has any qualifications at all for trying to "introduce democracy" or American-style capitalism in a highly nationalistic Muslim nation, and even if they did, they could not escape the onus of having terrorized the country through the use of unrestricted military force.

Bremer is a former assistant and employee of former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig. Negroponte was American ambassador to Honduras, 1981-85, when it had the world's largest Central Intelligence Agency station and actively participated in the dirty war to suppress Nicaraguan democracy.

Khalilzad, the most prominent official of Afghan ancestry in the Bush administration, is a member of the Project for a New American Century, the neo-con pressure group that lobbied for a war of aggression against Iraq. The role of the American military in our war there has been an unmitigated disaster on every front, including the deployment of undisciplined, brutal troops at places such as the Abu Ghraib prison.

All the United States has achieved is to guarantee that Iraqis will hate it for years to come. The situation in Iraq today is worse than it was in Japan or Korea and comparable to the US tenure in Vietnam. Perhaps it is worth reconsidering what exactly the US is so intent on exporting to the world.

Chalmers Johnson is, most recently, the author of The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, as well as of MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1982) and Japan: Who Governs? (1995) among other works. This piece originated as "remarks" presented at the East Asia panel of a workshop on "Transplanting Institutions" sponsored by the Department of Sociology of the University of California, San Diego, held on April 21. The chairman of the workshop was Professor Richard Madsen.

(Copyright 2006 Chalmers Johnson)
(Used by permission Tomdispatch )

[Livyjr]

HUBRIS is its own reward, Snuf .....

[Livyjr]

And speaking of George W. Bush ...

And HUBRIS .....

"Taliban Steps Up Attacks in Afghanistan"

By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 27 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants and their allies have launched an intensified campaign against thousands of NATO troops deploying to southern Afghanistan, where the multinational force is taking over from U.S. soldiers.

Whether ambushing Afghan police from mountain passes or detonating bombs on lonely highways, remnants of the ousted Islamic regime have stepped up attacks, causing havoc and insecurity across a cluster of provinces.

Military officials and analysts said Wednesday the Taliban threat is the No. 1 challenge facing more than 7,000 U.S., Canadian, British and Dutch troops that by September will be fighting under the NATO flag in four southern provinces.

"This is counterinsurgency warfare (and) there will be casualties on both sides," said British Col. Chris Vernon, chief of staff for NATO forces operating in southern Afghanistan.

"This is not the north or west of the country."

"This is a counterinsurgency war zone."

Taliban chiefs like Mullah Omar hail from southern Afghanistan.

Its deserts and mountain ranges provide good cover for militants hiding or planning for attacks.

Protecting opium poppy fields — and the illicit funds they earn — is another reason to fight.

Mountains running through the northern districts of the neighboring Helmand and Kandahar provinces, and Zabul and Uruzgan to the north offer sanctuaries for militants, Vernon said.

The porous Pakistani border runs along the southern and eastern edge of the provinces, providing another base where militants replenish funds and weapons before sneaking back in to launch attacks.

Ordinary Afghans and foreign analysts are critical that militants can still pose such a threat, more than four years after the late 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban government for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorists, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The situation would have been a lot easier if we got troops down there four years ago," said Joanna Nathan, the Kabul-based senior analyst for the International Crisis Group.

"Security has gotten much worse."

"Four years ago they would have been welcomed, but things have been allowed to fester."

NATO officials believe the militancy will subside in regions such as Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan once foreign forces consolidate their presence.

Only 1,000 British troops are in Helmand, where no coalition forces have been before, but that number will rise to 2,500 by July.

Another 1,500 Dutch troops are due to boost security in Uruzgan by August or September.

They are part of an expansion of a NATO-led security force, which is gradually assuming command of all foreign troops in Afghanistan.

"Helmand has been a free zone for the Taliban and the narco-traffickers, but now as coalition-UK capability moves in there, things will improve," Vernon said.

"But it is going to take a good year or so to get that sorted."

Extremists are also launching attacks to protect their massive opium poppy plantations from coalition and government efforts to eradicate the crops, which produce 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin.

Tribal disputes, criminal rivalries and anti-Western militants crossing from sanctuaries in Pakistan are also fanning the violence.

Afghanistan has 27,000 new soldiers and another 60,000 lesser-equipped police, many of whom are based in the south.

But they still aren't enough to counter strengthening Taliban forces and the more violent tactics, such as suicide attackers and roadside bombs.

"We are afraid when we increase our security presence in the community, we become targets for these terrorists," a Kandahar-based Afghan army commander said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Despite the brazen nature of the Taliban attacks, many of the reported casualties have been on the militant side.

At least 30 militants died in a bold attack in late March on a remote coalition forward operating base in Kandahar.

One Canadian soldier was also killed.

Canadian forces killed 20 militants planning an ambush in Helmand province's Sangin district the past weekend.

Four Taliban militants were killed Wednesday by police in another foiled Helmand ambush.

But Taliban militants have still been able to inflict casualties, killing four Canadian soldiers April 22 in a village north of Kandahar city.

Militants also kidnapped and beheaded an Indian engineer this week in Zabul province, where some 1,500 U.S. soldiers are based.

"We are seeing small cells of never more than 15 to 20 fighting men, occasionally up to 30, operating with local leaders dispersed across the south without great coherence," said Vernon.

"This makes them difficult to track."

Key to NATO efforts is its three-pronged approach to supporting security, reconstruction and improved governance.

"If we can get these three lines together, eventually the people will say that they would rather have us than the Taliban," he said.

Kandahar clothing shopkeeper Haji Din Mohammed, 45, said Afghans are desperate for increased coalition support to confront the growing Taliban influence in southern villages and towns.

Militants demand housekeepers give them food and shelter at night.

"Outside of the city, everywhere you can easily find the Taliban," Mohammed said.

"The government and coalition forces promised us security and an improved economy, but instead the security is bad."

"I can't go to my nearby village after 5 p.m."

___

Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And enough ...

Of George W. Bush ....

Here is a story ....

That to me ...

Speaks of hope ....

For OUR future ....

As living, breathing entities ....

Down here ...

On this earth ....

Of OURS ....

Especially if you have ever seen one of these birds fly .....

I personally am from that time in OUR America ...

When DDT was widely used as a pesticide .....

And I remember birds up here like the Baltimore Oriole ....

Simply disappearing ...

As though they had never even been here ...

Because of the effects that DDT had on the shells of their eggs ...

And so ....

"Soaring rebirth for birds - Webcam offers bird's-eye view of hatchlings as the once-rare peregrine falcon flourishes"

By COLIN McDONALD, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, May 3, 2006

RENSSELAER -- Beneath the Dunn Memorial Bridge, a kingfisher frantically crashes into the Hudson River.

Overhead, a peregrine falcon, talons extended, hovers and waits for the fist-sized bird to re-emerge.

Then, for one of the longest minutes in its life, the kingfisher flies erratically between the air and water, trying to escape to the shore.

With a few sweeps of its wings, the falcon gains on its prey and comes in for the kill.

The kingfisher twists in the air.

The peregrine misses.

And the kingfisher flies skyward into the safety of the bridge's steel trusses.

Peregrines can dive at speeds in excess of 200 mph, but they can't elevate nearly that fast.

That shortcoming saved the kingfisher.

"That was either a very lucky kingfisher or a not very hungry peregrine," said Barbara Loucks, a peregrine specialist for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

"I really thought that kingfisher was doomed."

After being extirpated from the wild in the Northeast and most of North America in the 1950s because of the DDT pesticide, peregrine falcons are back in record numbers.

And the cities of Rensselaer and Albany have the best view in the state of their recovery.

This year, the pair nesting in the box underneath the Dunn Memorial Bridge laid five eggs, which started to hatch Tuesday morning.

For the first two to three weeks, their parents will share the job of sitting on top of the chicks to keep them warm and of feeding them tidbits of meat.

The brooding will be easy to watch, thanks to a camera placed in the nest box streaming live video to a monitor at the Empire State Plaza Concourse and still images to the DEC's Web site.

"There is no excuse if you live in Albany not to see a peregrine," Loucks said.

After three weeks, the chicks will begin to lose their fluffy white down as dark feathers begin to grow.

The chicks will be big enough to keep themselves warm while the parents undertake a constant hunt to provide their young with four meals a day.

Soon they will be strong enough to walk and will move from the back of the nesting box to the front, where they will be able to look down at the river.

They will start exploring the bridge supports and flapping their wings in preparation for flight.

During this time, the best viewing will be from the picnic tables underneath the span on the Rensselaer side of the river, since the Webcam is aimed at the back of the nest box and the birds will have moved out of its view.

Even before DDT, the peregrine falcon was one of the rarest birds of prey on the continent.

Then the pesticide, which caused falcons and other birds to lay thin-shelled eggs, reduced the wild population to a handful of breeding pairs scattered across the western United States.

Researchers made the connection between the fragile eggs, declining population and powerful chemical spray in 1965.

By 1970, captive breeding programs had begun, and in 1972 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT.

Two decades later, and thanks to several million dollars in public and private funds along with partnerships between state agencies and nonprofit organizations, New York had 10 wild breeding pairs.

Now 55 breeding pairs are spread across the state from the man-made canyons of Manhattan to the remote cliffs of the Adirondacks.

The DEC estimated a record 114 young peregrines took flight in 2005.

If its recovery continues, Loucks said, the peregrine falcon may be taken off the state's endangered species list in a few years.

Six weeks from now, the chicks born under the Dunn Memorial Bridge will make their first attempts at flight.

It's the most awkward stage in the birds' young lives and will provide the most entertaining viewing as the fledglings make short forays away from the nest and then try to get back.

Soon the young will start chasing butterflies, and then other birds, Loucks said.

When it is time for the young to find their own homes, the parents will abandon the nest until next year.

About half of the chicks born each spring make it through their first winter.

This next generation of peregrines faces a new challenge.

All of the bridge nest sites have been taken, as have the best cliffs in the Adirondacks.

For the first time in more than 50 years, New York is poised to become crowded with peregrines.

Colin McDonald can be reached at 454-5441 or by e-mail at cmcdonald@timesunion.com.

Watch the birdies

-- The peregrine falcon's nest box is easy to spot on the south side of the Dunn Memorial Bridge from Riverfront Park in Rensselaer. The box is the size of a large dog house and sits on top of the second concrete support column out from the shore.

The live video feed from the nest box can be viewed on a monitor set up in the Concourse of the Empire Plaza between the McDonald's and the doors to the bus turn-around.

-- On the Internet, go to www.dec.state.ny.us/, search for peregrine and follow the links to the Web cam. The DEC Web site also has links to Web cams of nesting boxes in Buffalo, Rochester and New York City.

-- In the box: Every baby needs a name, even a peregrine chick. E-mail us your suggestion at TUcitydesk@timesunion.com and we'll print a list of the most popular ones in Saturday's editions.

[Snuffysmith]

This was emailed to me by a friend of mine in California. Sorry its political, but its quite good.


"I'm the Decider"
by Roddy McCorley

"Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the decider"
reminds me of. It sounds like something a character in a Dr. Seuss book
might say.

"So with apologies to the late Mr. Geisel, here is some idle
speculation as to what else such a character might say:"

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided
As"just goddam paper"
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away.

Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider -
Like Jesus decreed.

Yes, I'm the Decider
The finest alive
And I'm nuking Iran.
Now watch this drive!

"Now that I think about it, Dr. Seuss anticipated this administration
pretty well when he wrote Yertle the Turtle..."

[Livyjr]

"The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback" 

By Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, May 3, 2006

The Bush administration is loaded with hawks who still believe the issue can be resolved through force.

They have learned nothing from Iraq.

Military action will do nothing to relieve America’s enormous account imbalances or lessen the vulnerability of the ailing greenback.

The dollar is teetering on the brink and it’s about to get a big shove from behind.

Big changes are coming whether we want them or not.

The less a leader does and says ....

The happier his people ....

THE MORE A LEADER STRUTS AND BRAGS ......

THE SORRIER HIS PEOPLE ....

- Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching

[Livyjr]

"Peddling democracy the US way"

By Chalmers Johnson

There is something absurd and inherently false about one country trying to impose its system of government or its economic institutions on another.

The situation in Iraq today is worse than it was in Japan or Korea and comparable to the US tenure in Vietnam.

Perhaps it is worth reconsidering what exactly the US is so intent on exporting to the world.

The "United States" have become another Barbary Coast "pirate state" ......

In my estimation, anyway ....

Or maybe we have become Great Britain ....

Which would probably be worse .....