"Residents deride Bush plan - Congressman also urged to speak out on issue of Social Security changes"

By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Their congressman may be silent on the issue, but more than 125 Capital Region residents held their own town hall meeting on Social Security Monday, saying they want to keep the program as it is.

A local branch of In This Together, a national grass-roots campaign that opposes privatization of Social Security, has hounded U.S. Congressman John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, for so far refusing to take a stand on President Bush's proposed changes, which would include the creation of private accounts.

On Monday, after challenging Sweeney to attend, the coalition of largely liberal groups held a pro-Social Security rally in the Saratoga Springs Public Library without him.

An empty chair was intended to symbolize Sweeney's absence, and speaker after speaker testified on a tape to be sent to Sweeney.

Speakers described what the federal retirement and disabilities program meant for them.

"It made the difference between getting by and not getting by."

"It is a check I could not do without as I move into my 80s," Betty Gallagher of Wilton said.

Social Security keeps people out of poverty, Geneva Conway said.

"If my money had been tied up in the stock market, I'd probably be at the corner of State and Pearl Street with a patch over one of my eyes," Conway said.

Young people felt the urgency, too.

Kameron Spaulding, a high school junior, told the crowd that members of his generation aren't being offered pensions or retirement plans, which makes the issue of Social Security that much more vital.

Social Security should be fixed by revoking the President's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, supporters said, and by raising its taxable income above $90,000.

They said President Bush's proposed changes would decrease benefits and increase the federal debt over time.

Sweeney has taken no formal position on Bush's plan because no specific legislation has been introduced, spokeswoman Melissa Carlson said.

Sweeney is organizing a local forum on the issue with all sides of the debate, and the public will have a chance to ask questions in a thorough and deliberate manner, Carlson said.

In This Together does not represent the congressman's entire district, she added.

"Their rhetoric really bothers me because they are trying to tell him how to do his job," Carlson said.

Panel speaker Trudi Renwick of Saratoga Springs said Social Security can continue paying full benefits past 2040.

That doesn't constitute a crisis, Jay Sullivan of Mechanicville said.

"Paul Revere didn't ride around Boston saying, 'The British are coming, the British are coming' in 37 years," Sullivan said.

"Officials anxious to see funding"

By DANIELLE T. FURFARO, Staff writerAlnany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, April 20, 2005

NORTH GREENBUSH -- Members of the town Democratic Committee are demanding to know what has become of a promise by state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno to provide nearly $4 million for town projects, including a water tower.

"Last year, the Town Board majority was jumping through hoops to give away taxable land within its boundaries in exchange for $4 million in state taxpayer dollars to be used for various projects in North Greenbush," said Democratic Chairman Daniel Ashley.

"Those projects included a water tower, which the Town Board was forced to bond because the money never materialized."

In August of last year, on the same night that the board voted to cede a 47-acre parcel of land to the city of Rensselaer, Republican town Supervisor Paul Tazbir announced that Bruno had promised state aid for a $2.5 million water tower and a $1 million public safety building, and more than $100,000 for equipment for the Defreestville Fire Department.

On Tuesday, Republican town Councilman Robert Ashe said the money is still on its way.

"We are very confident that the senator is working to fulfill our request," said Ashe.

"The budget had to be worked out, and now that it is all worked out, some attention can be given to this."

But Bruno's office denies that a specific amount of funding was ever promised to the town of North Greenbush.

"We are still waiting for information on the water tower project."

"When we receive it, we will work with the town to see how we can be helpful," said Bruno spokesman Mark Hansen.

"No specific dollar amount was ever committed."

In December, the town voted to bond for the water tower project.

Officials are hoping the tower will open the town up to storing water and selling it to a number of municipalities, including Sand Lake and Poestenkill.

Ah, but there's there and there's there my friend. I don't discount your experiences, or the value of statements you make based on them. But a snippet to illustrate what I meant from the reference of which I spoke:

"March 3, 1955 Went to see Sam Rayburn [former House Speaker whose office AND CHAIR were specificly claimed by the Newt when he got the job.] Expected to be there fifteen minutes but stayed an hour. Sam told how he had gone to see Eisenhower with ten Democrats and ten Republicans and found himself in the room alone with Eisenhower."

"'I told him what I told Harry Truman when he first became President,' said Sam. 'Truman was in my office and had just started to take a drink when he got word to come to the White House immediately. He knew and I knew, though we didn't say so -- Roosevelt had died. Later I went to see Truman and told him: "Now you ain't gonna be Harry to me anymore. You are Mr. President. But as an old friend who has known you a long time I'm gonna give you some advice. You ain't as big a man as some people think you are."'"

"'To this Truman replied: "I sure ain't."'"

"'When I told this to Eisenhower he leaned back and roared.'"

"'Then I told Truman he was going to have two great problems. One with the people around him who find themselves in a high position close to the President for the first time in their lives. They will be afraid to let anyone else get near you, and they will be afraid of superior minds. They won't want to argue with people. They will surround you and, if you are not awfully careful, make you their prisoner.'"

"'The second thing you have got to worry about is the big-business sycophant. Now the fellow from Missouri who is a friend of yours will come to town and will find himself with an hour on his hands and will call up and ask for an appointment; he'll find you booked weeks in advance and will take the Baltimore and Ohio back to St. Louis. He won't hang around.'"

"'But the big-business boys will wait for you. They will make it their job to wait. They will be like the king who waited in the street to see the Pope and couldn't p--s until he saw him. They will hang around Washington until they finally see you, and if you are not careful you are gonna get too much advice from them. And their advice isn't gonna be like the fellows from Missouri.'"

"'Well, I told this to Truman and I told it to Eisenhower,' Rayburn concluded. "Truman made some mistakes along this line, but Eisenhower didn't even understand what I was talking about.'"

"'Sid Richardson called me up the other day from Texas,' Sam continued. 'Sid is a Democrat though he voted for Eisenhower, and I asked him, "What does Eisenhower mean by saying I am irresponsible? When I put through the Reciprocal Trade Treaty on that motion to recommit I was a statesman. When I push the twenty-dollar tax reduction to give the little fellow a break I am irresponsible."'"

"'"The trouble with Eisenhower is, said Sid, "that he probably didn't even know you put the Reciprocal Trade Treaty through. He doesn't know what's happening. He never reads the papers."'"
* * *
"Sam also talked at length about commissions.

"'I was in on the borning of every one of these Commissions except the Interstate Commeerce Commission. I wrote the law that passed the Federal Communications Commission. I wrote the law that passed the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and I was in Congress when we planned the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Power Commission. And I wrote the law for the Civil Aeronautics Board.'"

"'The people don't know that these commissions are an arm of Congress. [Hopefully we do now after all the garbage with the FCC.] They do what we don't have time to do. Yet Eisenhower has taken over and even appoints his friends [Similar to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, son of the former Secy. of State.]'"

"'This fellow Hoover helped him do it. This fellow Hoover is the worst curse that has come to government in years.'"

"'You can take a bad law and make it work if you have good adminstrators. But if you have a good law and appoint bad administrators, you just about kill the law [as with the FCC and SEC, et al.] They haven't changed one of these commissions by law. They haven't amended a thing but they have appointed the worst commissioners this country has seen.'"

"'Take this man McConnaughey [FCC Chairman, 1954-57.] He wasn't even honest enough to admit he worked for telephone companies [today of course this is the rule rather than the exception.] His appointment is going to cost the taxpayers millions. Even if he does his best to be honest he can't be unprejudiced.'"
* * *
"'Some of us tried to tell Ike he should run as a Democrat, in which case he would have had men around him to tell him how to run things. But the people around him now don't want him to know.'" (Drew Pearson Diaries, 1949-1959, pp. 339-341.)

Despite the fact that Eisenhowers claim to fame derives largely from the execution of battle plans created by the masterful General Marshall (whom Ike abandoned when he was attacked by McCarthy) I'm not prepared to say he was a fool. He merely wanted a title without the responsibility, and the people who recrutied him were more than happy to handle the latter.

You were there, but I doubt you received apologetic phone calls from a young Senator Kennedy informing you that, on the advice of his Bishop, he was withdrawing his support for you, or reflected on the implications of such a statement for policy decisions made by the Senator.

The Diaries merely confirmed with significant authority what I'd long suspected: that Ike did a lot of things while President, but run the country wasn't one of them; nonetheless, SOMEONE DID. The verdict of history is that an unscrupulous President is well advised to ACT like Nixon but LOOK like Ike (see Reagan Administration.)

Ah, Morambar!

Now, you are using your intellect in a manner more in fitting with the general tone and tenor of Life in OUR America, which is in part, what lessons can we learn from the past, which some of us, like Mr. A.B., especially, were there to experience for ourselves, or as jeffmoskin and I would say, WHAT LESSONS HAVE WE FAILED TO LEARN, especially about bad leadership!

I myself was alive when Ike was president, and while I won't say he was necessarily a good president, since like the existence of the Illuminati, "good" in a president is hard to either prove or disprove, I actually felt somewhat "comfortable" under Ike, as anyone who was there during those years will tell you that they were sometimes tension-filled, and so, getting a sense of comfort from a man who was in there as president wasn't a bad thing at all!

Today, all I get from George W. Bush is a continual sense of foreboding, and anxiety!

But back to Ike!

I think one real thing in here that we old timers share, myself, at almost sixty, then jeffmoskin and finally, Mr. A.B., who was actually in WWII and so can speak about those times with as much authority as anyone else can; is perhaps a "sense of wonderment" about this thing called "leadership", and what people in America at any given time look for in a leader!

As for me, having been a combat soldier, a "dog of war", what I don't want in someone imposed on me as an alleged "leader" is overt stupidity, and outside of that, I really don't look for much at all, because when I was young in America, we were trained to be self-sufficient, and so this thing of going out and looking for someone to "lead" me just was never on my list of things to do, and still is not.

SO, Morambar, as a younger person, who came into a much different America than I did, well, you have to take that "generational" thing into consideration when considering at least my own comments in here, which are, well, mine!

I have a good friend who was in the United States Army all through WWII, as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, and he and I have talked about Ike quite a bit, and yes, Ike was a bit of a puffed-up man, and he did rely on others for actual war planning, BUT ....

In the sense of understanding war, and in that sense alone, Ike was not totally ignorant, especially about Viet Nam, when Dien Bien Phu was going on.

Much remains classified about OUR plans during that siege, but there was a fear that we would be sucked in, and that was a real fear.

Think on this for a moment!

Dien Bien Phu happened AFTER the Chinese had came across the border into Korea, when McArthur, the American "Caesar" before this present American "caesar", pushed to close to the Chinese border in Korea, and so, people over here, and Ike would be one of them, unless he was totally brain-dead, knew there were problems over in that part of the world that could be a slippery slope.

Dien Bien Phu happened at a time when there was not the mass distraction that there is now, and so, I think that event was more in the foreground then, than it might be today, but in any event, Dien Bien Phu was a real turning point in Viet Nam, and I would say that our involvement there, militarily, can be traced directly to the French loss at Dien Bien Phu!

As to your "greater" argument on how good, or not good, Ike was as a president, there, I will not argue, as I can't, and so, I will consider your information from Sam Rayburn and Drew Pearson as "solid ground" that has to be considered in evaluating those years, and whatever impact, positive or negative, those years might have had on us today!

A point, Morambar, is that each of us in here is unique, yourself, myself, jeffmoskin, Mr. A.B., who is the oldest of us, amy, and perry, and everyone else who might come through the door, and so, we all have unique outlooks, rather than a lock on the "exclusive truth", and so we discuss and debate, perhaps, and your post above is directly in that spirit, and so I welcome it in here, because of that!

What anyone, including myself, "takes" from it is akin to a thirsty horse standing in the middle of a river and just looking around!

There is water there, if you would only deign to drink it.

And that is a point that you must consider, Morambar, for the rest of your life, as us oldsters in here do, as well, that in life, perhaps most people don't care to hear a word you have to say, you being the rhetorical "you", of course, and not you personally, and so, you must always guard against not saying anything at all because no one is listening.

That then takes the water out of the river where the thristy horse is standing!

I guess what I am trying to say, Morambar, is welcome, and continue to endeavor to persevere, and if it don't get you no farther forward than you have already gotten in life, at least it won't put you back, and sometimes, that is about as good as it is going to get, that day, anyway!

And here, Morambar, you are "dead on", with respect to the American "political bible" of today:

Be a chamelion!

That way, nobody will ever know quite what you are, and they certainly likely won't guess what you are about, if you are a politician!

But as the man once said; some man, I think it was, although a woman could have said it too, it's not a secret after all; AS THE MAN ONCE SAID, while America seems able to turn out and produce a huge volume of fools per minute, whose apparent purpose in life is to be like sheep, and so get "sheared", NOT EVERYBODY IN AMERICA IS A FOOL!

Right, TEXAS TOMMY?

Politics - U. S. Congress

"GOP Weighing New Concessions on Ethics"

Wed Apr 27, 2:31 AM ET

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In a standoff shadowed by Rep. Tom DeLay's troubles, House Republican leaders are considering concessions to Democrats that would get the House ethics committee functioning again.

But first they must convince rank-and-file members that retreating from Republican-passed investigative procedures is a good idea.

Republican leaders were expected to discuss changes with their members Wednesday, four months after the GOP shunned bipartisanship to approve the new rules.

Speaker Dennis Hastert has said in recent days he would not rule out changing the rules and a GOP aide, speaking Tuesday on condition of anonymity, said he believes the speaker and other party leaders have concluded the GOP must act to end the stalemate.

While some Republicans may be unhappy with any retreat, they are enduring heightened attacks by Democrats who contend the new rules were written to protect Majority Leader DeLay, R-Texas, from further investigations.

The leader was admonished by the committee last year on three separate matters involving his conduct.

Since then, new questions have been raised about whether a lobbyist — now under federal investigation — paid for some of DeLay's foreign trips in violation of House rules.

DeLay has maintained they were properly paid for by trip sponsors.

Democrats have made clear they won't allow the evenly divided committee to conduct business, including investigations of lawmakers, until the rule changes are reversed and a bipartisan task force writes new procedures.

The chairman of the House ethics committee, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., offered concessions to Democrats last week, including an investigation of DeLay.

Democrats rejected the offer, insisting they wanted the rules overhauled first.

The ethics committee is one of the few places minority Democrats can assert power in the House because it is divided between five Republicans and five Democrats.

The Democrats have refused to provide a sixth vote to allow the committee to operate.

DeLay received a boost from President Bush on Tuesday.

The president gave the Texas Republican a ride on Air Force One back to Washington after the lawmaker appeared with Bush at a Social Security event in Galveston.

The White House denied that DeLay's appearance with Bush was a way for the president to give the House leader a political boost.

"I appreciate the leadership of Congressman Tom DeLay in working on important issues that matter to the country," Bush said before he spoke on the need to revamp Social Security.

The ethics chairman, Hastings, has concluded that his Republican colleagues must allow another vote on the rules passed in January if they have any hope of allowing the committee to function, according to a senior aide who said he wasn't authorized to be quoted by name on GOP discussions.

The aide said "Hastings and Hastert are working to find a solution."

The rules change that upset Democrats the most would require a majority vote to launch an investigation or to prevent automatic dismissal of a case.

For example, the rule would require at least one Republican vote to investigate DeLay.

The GOP aide said that Republicans would continue to defend their changes as necessary to provide more fairness to members under investigation.

Likewise, they would keep asserting the changes had nothing to do with DeLay.

Rather, the argument would be that it's more important to place the ethics committee back in operation than to insist on rules that keep it deadlocked.

Well, that's a pretty good question that jeffmoskin has tossed out to us here, is what I think, anyway!

Who, in fact, does give a damn?

It's a conundrum, alright, but let's see, well, there's Mr. A.B., who I am pretty sure of, and well, yes, there is jeffmoskin, from what I hear anyway and well, let's see .....

World - Reuters

"Several Dead as Urban Warfare Rages Over Togo Poll"

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

By Silvia Aloisi and John Zodzi

LOME (Reuters) - Security forces in Togo fought pitched battles with machete-wielding youths on Wednesday in violence which has killed at least 20 people and caused over 1,000 to flee since the late ruler's son won a disputed poll.

As police and protesters clashed in dirt backstreets of the seaside capital Lome, the losing opposition candidate declared himself president, and called on his supporters to remain mobilized, warning they might have to sacrifice their lives.

"At the moment we've counted nine dead, eight nationals of Niger who were beaten up and burned alive ... and one policeman who was killed with machete blows," acting Interior Minister Katari Foli-Bazi told reporters after touring the capital.

Urban warfare erupted in Lome minutes after officials said on Tuesday that Faure Gnassingbe, son of Gnassingbe Eyadema who ruled the former French colony for nearly four decades until he died in February, had won Sunday's presidential election.

Some 1,200 people have fled to neighboring Benin and Ghana since violence broke out in several towns following the poll results, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said.

"We are hoping that this is not the first sign of a major influx, that calm will be restored and people will return," the UNHCR Africa bureau director, David Lambo, said in a statement.

Relative calm returned late in the day to the main opposition suburb of Be, where security forces had earlier fired rubber bullets at youths dug in behind blazing barricades, though tear gas canisters were still being fired sporadically.

Two doctors at Lome's main hospital said they had heard of about 50 killed, while reports from other staff, aid workers and residents added up to at least 10 dead.

Opposition leaders said 12 of their supporters had been killed.

More than 100 people were wounded, many by gunfire, hospital and aid workers said.

"Armed men and militias are going into courtyards and shooting at people," one doctor, who did not want to be named, said, adding some of the casualties had been shot in the back.

OPPOSITION "PRESIDENT"

Residents in the town of Aneho, some 28 miles east of Lome, said people started fleeing to Benin after youths attacked local government buildings and set cars on fire.

"The security forces retaliated and several people were injured by bullets and people were also killed," the owner of a private radio station in Aneho said by telephone.

Scores of people -- some on foot with their belongings on their heads and others crammed into cars -- could be seen heading along the main road from Lome to Benin.

France's foreign ministry said several French nationals and other foreigners had been victims of violence and vandalism.

Togo spun into chaos when Eyadema died after 38 years in power and army leaders named Gnassingbe to replace him, saying they feared a dangerous political vacuum.

He eventually stepped down under fierce international pressure and called elections.

Sunday's poll was effectively a referendum on nearly four decades of repressive rule by Eyadema, who led a 1963 coup, declared himself president four years later, and eventually became Africa's longest-serving leader.

On Wednesday the main opposition candidate, Emmanuel Akitani-Bob, declared himself president. Akitani-Bob won 38.19 percent of Sunday's vote against Gnassingbe's 60.22 percent.

"We must fight with our lives if necessary ... to force the one who believes he has a divine right over our people to listen to reason," he told reporters.

Gnassingbe, a business-minded 39-year-old, has offered to form a unity government but opposition leaders have rejected that, saying they cannot work with a fraudulent president.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said democratic leaders must abide by the laws of the land.

(Additional reporting by Alain Amontchi, Emmanuel Braun, and Tom Ashby in Lagos)

end quotes

In all honesty, when I read this statement above here about these people in Togo going to fight with their lives to force this "ONE" who believes he has a divine right over their people to listen to reason, I had to wonder, ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT GEORGE W. BUSH?

Is Togo going to war against George W. Bush because they can't work with a fraudulent president?

Is that what I am hearing here?

WOW!

You know, Morambar, of course, that the job of American president is really whatever the incumbent makes of it, and Ike certainly was no exception, there, just as George W. Bush is no exception, right now today!

And that really brings us to one of the core issues in here, which is one of "WHAT IS AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT", anyway?

Myself, jeffmoskin, and Mr. A.B. all lived though a moment in time, however brief, when America had no president, and what ever really did happen as a result of that, that anyone knows about, anyway?

Certainly, I know my thoughts on that day, and likely, jeffmoskin and Mr. A.B. do as well, but I would doubt any of our thoughts were the same!

And how were OUR lives changed by the fact that for a moment in time, America had no president?

And here, of course, I am talking about the day Kennedy died!

What happened in those moments when America had no president?

Did time end?

Did the Martians invade and carry us all off without our being able to defend ourselves against them, because we had no president?

Or did nothing at all happen?

I was there, and I know what I saw!

And I didn't see anything change, or crumble, or doing anything at all, to be truthful, BECAUSE ......

While America might have a president, that president is never America, merely its executive officer, and that is something that I think we as a nation need to take stock of, once again, which is this question of why we bother to have a president!

We don't need one for anything, when it comes down to that, because when Kennedy died, we didn't have one, and nothing happened!

The bureaucracy exists to keep the engine moving and that is that!

And on the day Kennedy died, it did exactly that, without missing a beat, that I could discern, anyway!

No lights flickered!

The earth did not tremble!

Nothing!

The chief executive is really just a figurehead, and always more or less was, and Eisenhower knew that from all his long years in OUR militray, which is both a meritocracy, or I found it to be, anyway, and a very efficient bureaucracy, to boot.

As Commander of all of OUR forces in Europe in WWII, all Eisenhower really had to do was play golf!

His subordinates, including Marshall, existed, as I did a generation later, to know their jobs and to do their jobs, whether there was an Ike or not, and that they did, as I did, as well!

If George W. Bush were to simply start playing golf now, and never go back to Washington, again, nor make public appearances, why, it would be the best thing I think he could do for this nation, like Ike!

And Morambar, to me, the one important thing that I think Ike did for America was to not tolerate discrimination, and therefore to not promote it, but fight it instead!

I was there, Morambar, and if Ike did nothing else, I thought with just that one thing, that stand against discrimination, Ike did what every American president should do, set the tone and tenor of what he, the man, was going to stand for, and hence, the nation, as well!

We could do well in OUR America, in my opinion, anyway, to have that kind of leadership back in OUR White House, in place of this far cry that we have in there today, who certainly is no Ike when it comes to any kind of stand against discrimination!

In fact with regard to discrimination, as I perceive it from my perspective as a disabled person who is on the receiving end of discrimination, and the abject cruelty that usually accompanies it, George W. Bush is a promoter of it, in exact opposite contrast to what I recall of Ike's stand on that same subject!

In fact, if Ike were around today, I have to wonder if he wouldn't up and quit the Republican Party as I did for its real "behind-the-hype" stance on discrimination in OUR America!

Damn!

I had my eye on that corner for MYSELF!

Looks like there is competition everywhere in Bushworld.

Every man for himself.

Every bankrupt for himself.

See!

The old adage is right!

"He who hesitates is lost!"

Or is it really, "the early bird gets the worm?"

Or "DON'T BET ON GEORGE W. BUSH FOR SECURITY IN YOUR FUTURE"?

Hhhhmmmm?

"Defense Contractors Report Strong Earnings"

By Christian Plumb, Reuters Financial

1 hour, 25 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. defense contractors reported strong quarterly earnings on Thursday as the Pentagon put billions into high tech military equipment and services.

Earnings soared 76 percent at Northrop Grumman Corp., 30 percent at Raytheon Co. and 22 percent at Goodrich .

All three aerospace and defense companies beat analysts earnings forecasts, and they raised their earnings outlooks for the rest of the year.

After the news, shares of aircraft part maker Goodrich rose 6.4 percent, while Northrop Grumman stock was up 1.6 percent and Raytheon's shares were 1.9 percent higher.

"Everybody's coming in like gangbusters," said Paul Nisbet, an analyst with independent research firm JSA Research.

"They were all well above expectations, and there is certainly every indication of increased guidance for the year on all three."

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., which reported earnings this week, also beat forecasts and raised guidance for the rest of the year.

However, results from No. 2 defense contractor General Dynamics were seen as being weak.

Demand from the Pentagon as well as the Department of Homeland Security also boosted results at Titan Corp. which provides intelligence and translation services.

Titan said on Thursday its earnings rose sixfold, sending its shares 2.9 percent higher.

Contractors are reaping rewards of a surge in defense spending from a little over $300 billion before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to about $500 billion now, Nisbet said.

'NETWORKED'

"On the military side we've had a strong defense budget for four years ... and it takes a long time for that to get into the bottom line of these companies," Nisbet said.

"We're now beginning to see the impact of these increases."

He added that the Iraq war has created demand for about $8 billion a year in weapons replacement and repairs.

However, President Bush's latest proposed budget aims to reduce funding for aircraft, missile defense and shipbuilding programs.

"We've been saying for quite some time that defense spending is probably going to slow."

"The question is what rate does it slow to," said Nick Fothergill, an analyst at Banc of America.

He said spending on weapons programs could slow to 3 to 4 percent from 7 percent.

"Procurement and R&D will slow down a bit but at least it will still be growing," Fothergill said.

Several contractors are also seeing strong demand for information technology and communications products as the Pentagon tries to build a more "networked" military.

"Sometimes we think of ourselves as a shipbuilder, as an airplane company, but if you stand back and you look at our revenues ... we're driven by information technology, systems integration and electronics," Northrop Chief Executive Ronald Sugar said in a conference call on Thursday.

Increased spending would probably be focused on the U.S. Army to the detriment of the Navy and Air Force, Fothergill said.

He added that General Dynamics and United Defense Industries Inc. -- being taken over by BAE Systems Plc -- would be the prime beneficiaries of such a shift.

Companies in the civilian aircraft market such as Raytheon and Goodrich also benefited from strong demand, both as airlines upgraded old planes and passenger jet makers Boeing Co. and Airbus ramped up production, Nisbet said.

And who can be surprised by this next story?

"Global competition for future energy supplies heats up"

By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Thu Apr 28, 2:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Soaring demand for crude oil in China, India and other developing nations has set off a scramble to secure future energy supplies that could undermine the economic and national security of the United States.

The United States, Europe and Japan increasingly will be forced to compete with developing nations, especially China and India, the world's two fastest growing major economies, which comprise more than a third of the world's population.

"The center of gravity in world oil is shifting," said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and an author of "The Prize," an award-winning history of oil.

"Last year, Asia consumed more oil than North America," Yergin said.

He predicts an oil supply shift, too, as Africa, Russia and former Soviet republics compete with the Middle East to fill the growing demand for oil.

The developing world's growing appetite for oil is one reason gasoline prices have shot up for Americans.

Over time, these emerging economies will also shape not just global oil flows and prices but also world events, said Anne Korin, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, an energy security think tank.

"A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore," she said.

"That has profound geopolitical implications."

China and India already have moved aggressively to strengthen their relations with two oil-rich countries - Sudan and Iran - undermining U.S. sanctions against Sudan's regime and undercutting U.S. efforts to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"We are in a situation right now where the energy consumption of the developing world is having an impact on the foreign policy options of the United States," said Korin.

For now, the United States remains well positioned, at least when it comes to energy supplies.

The proven reserves in the Middle East make it the expected primary global supplier of crude oil.

Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels.

But political instability, increased terrorism and the spread of fundamentalist Islam make it unlikely that today's oil-production map will look the same 20 years from now.

What's clearly changing is demand.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency, a research arm of the world's most developed nations, projected last year that oil demand will grow by 45 million barrels a day to 120 million barrels a day by 2030.

More than $3 trillion will be invested to find and produce that oil, and more than half of that investment will serve the needs of emerging economies.

The scramble to find and develop new oil fields and natural gas wells will occur in places such as eastern Siberia and West Africa, as hungry nations hedge their bets should leading producers such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq falter.

"You need energy to develop an economy, so there's a great strategic value in securing energy assets," said Antoine Halff, an oil expert with the risk-management company Eurasia Group in New York.

One likely winner is Russia, along with some of the now independent states that formerly made up the Soviet Union.

They have proven reserves of 78 billion barrels but the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there may be 171 billion barrels of estimated undiscovered oil in the region.

"Russia is virtually unexplored."

"Their potential is enormous," said Gary Swindell, an independent petroleum engineer in Dallas whose business is estimating reserves.

Africa is another winner.

It's got 87 billion barrels of proven reserves and estimated undiscovered reserves of 125 billion, mainly in West Africa.

Central and South America have roughly the same, but, as in Russia, many are in prohibitively remote areas.

Elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, Canada and Mexico are expected to remain the second and third largest U.S. oil suppliers.

But smaller oil players are courting Washington's competitors.

In Venezuela, the fourth largest U.S. oil supplier, President Hugo Chavez, a self-described protege of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, is trying to rewrite concessions to U.S. oil companies and has invited China and India to participate in oil exploration.

Ecuador and Colombia are negotiating oil deals with China, too.

China, the world's fastest-growing economy, is also making heavy diplomatic and energy investments in Africa.

It needs to: China is projected to consume within 20 years what the U.S. consumes today - 21 million barrels a day.

Although China is the world's second largest oil consumer after the United States, it's only the fifth largest importer because of its own oil reserves.

That's changing, however, because China is rapidly exhausting wells in Manchuria and the South China Sea.

Soon its reliance on foreign oil will rival America's.

China's President Hu Jintao in mid-April cemented a "strategic" partnership with Nigeria during a state visit to Beijing by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Nigeria is West Africa's biggest producer and a major U.S. supplier.

China's already trading development loans for energy development participation in Chad, Gabon and Angola.

In Sudan, China ignored evidence of genocide in the country's long-running civil war to entrench itself.

It also effectively voided unilateral U.S. sanctions imposed because Sudan sheltered Osama bin Laden before he moved on to Afghanistan.

Sudan's widely reported human rights violations also sparked protests in Canada and Sweden that drove oil companies from those countries out of Sudan in 2002 and 2003.

China, which now gets as much as 10 percent of its imported oil from Sudan, has repeatedly blocked U.N. efforts to impose anti-genocide sanctions against its trading partner.

Data from the federal Energy Information Administration help explain China's moves.

The EIA predicts that China will import about two-thirds of the oil it consumes by 2025, up from the current figure of one third.

India, which has almost none of its own oil, is equally hungry.

The EIA expects India to more than double its oil consumption to 5.3 million barrels a day by 2025.

Both China and India are investing billions in Iran despite President Bush's attempt to isolate the Persian Gulf nation because of its nuclear ambitions.

The money is a lifeline for the world's fourth biggest oil producer, which also sits atop the world's second largest natural gas reserves.

Both are off limits to U.S. companies.

Iran - already China's largest oil supplier - earlier this year signed long-term oil and natural gas contracts worth tens of billions of dollars with both China and India.

Iran gave India's state oil company a 20-percent ownership stake in the development of a key Iranian oil field.

In strictly economic terms, it doesn't hurt the United States when developing countries promote oil drilling, extraction and production.

That increases world supply, slakes demand and drives down prices.

But access to ample energy is a prerequisite to world power.

That's a lesson not lost on Russia, the world's second largest exporter of crude oil and holder of the world's largest reserves of natural gas.

The United States, Europe, India and China have each carved out stakes in Russia's energy future, while, for its part, Russia has sought to control strategic pipelines for oil and natural gas flowing from or through former Soviet republics.

President Bush travels to Russia in early May and is expected to lobby President Vladimir Putin for a multi-billion dollar pipeline deal to take natural gas to the Russian seaport of Murmansk.

There, it would be liquefied and transported for sale in the United States.

Putin seems intent on using Russia's energy supplies to boost his influence at home and abroad.

He's meddled in neighboring countries like the Ukraine and Georgia in hopes of securing greater control over how oil flows in and out of the region.

And he has broken apart the country's largest private oil company, OAO Yukos, which had ties to big U.S. oil interests, and is creating a new and massive state oil company from the ruins.

Putin has been friendliest to Western Europe, which now buys from Russia about a quarter of the natural gas it uses to fuel power plants and factories.

Russia's leader favors Western Europe because the dependency it promotes restores some of the international influence that Moscow lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Clifford Gaddy, an expert on the Russian economy at the Brookings Institution.

"Iraq, where the United States has forcefully established a beachhead, has proven oil reserves of between 78 and 112 billion barrels."

Hhhmmm!

Well, it looks like we're finally starting to get some "truth in advertising" from the media about why we really invaded Iraq!

Isn't it just like the media to come out with a story after everybody else in the world already knows the truth of the matter!

And speaking of Iraq, where George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have forcefully established a beachhead, what's the latest?

"Sunni Representation Low in Iraqi Gov't"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 30 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - In the end it was the demands of hard politics that kept most minority Sunnis out of Iraq's new government.

And that could spur an escalation in the country's bloody insurgency.

Despite U.S. pressure and their own recognition that it was a priority, Iraqi politicians failed to name a significant number of Sunni Arabs to the Cabinet.

Those who were selected are not major figures in the Sunni community and none received high-profile portfolios.

The promise to reach out to the Sunnis foundered on political realities: rivalries within the Shiite party that dominates the government, that party's fierce enmity with outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and its insistence that those tainted by ties with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party be excluded.

That meant the two major forces in Iraq today — the Shiites and the Kurds — essentially divvied up the major Cabinet posts among themselves.

The result is a Cabinet of 37 positions — with only four named Sunnis holding relatively low-level posts including, ironically, the Tourism Ministry.

There are still ongoing efforts to draw in more Sunnis: They have been promised a post as one of four deputy prime ministers and also promised the Defense Ministry.

But so far, Shiite Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his coalition partners have been unable to agree on any actual names.

That has potentially big implications for the insurgency, which already finds its core among disgruntled Sunnis, including former members of Saddam's Baathist regime and military.

Seeing no role in the country's politics, Sunnis are likely to be more willing to give money and shelter to guerrillas.

That trend will only worsen if the new Shiite leadership moves to purge former Baathists — largely Sunnis — from the military, adding new disgruntled former soldiers to the fight.

It's the scenario everyone on all sides has been warning about since the Jan. 30 election, when Shiites and Kurds turned out in droves to vote — eager at the chance at power after decades of oppressions.

The Sunni Arab minority stayed away, either angry at the new political situation or intimidated by the Sunni-led insurgency.

The result was a 275-seat parliament with only 17 Sunni Arab members.

Only one of the four Sunnis named to the Cabinet has significant tribal ties in Anbar province, the heartland of the insurgency: Saad Naif, the new state minister for provinces affairs, is a grandson of the head of the al-Hardan tribe and a former captain in Saddam's military.

None of the four Sunnis have strong links to Islamic clerics influential in the Sunni community.

One of the posts that went to the Sunnis was the Tourism Ministry — a particularly ineffectual job in a conflict-torn nation where the closest thing to tourism is the influx of Iranian pilgrims to Shiite holy sites.

During the tortured negotiations over a government, Sunni factions had sought at least seven positions — including major ministries like housing, labor or health.

But while the Kurds showed some willingness to give up one or two positions, the Shiite's al-Jaafari had none to spare, faced with the task of placating sharp divisions among the factions of his own United Iraqi Alliance.

The Shiite party also deadlocked in attempts to bring Allawi's Iraqi List into the government.

That list — which has a mix from all the main communities — could have brought in Sunnis.

But the Shiites rejected anyone with significant Baathist ties.

Both sides were adamant in their positions, and eventually Allawi was rejected.

Ironically, former Baathists are exactly the ones who might be able to convince Sunnis that their future lies with the government and not with the gunmen.
____

EDITOR'S NOTE: Lee Keath covers the Middle East from Cairo, Egypt, and reported from Iraq last year.

April 28, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

"On Abu Ghraib, the Big Shots Walk"

By BOB HERBERT

When soldiers in war are not properly trained and supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable.

This is one reason why the military command structure is so important.

There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were expected to be accountable for the behavior of their subordinates.

That's changed.

Under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, the notion of command accountability has been discarded.

In Mr. Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat.

Punishment is reserved for the people at the bottom.

The people who foul up at the top are promoted.

It was a year ago today that the stories and photos of the shocking abuses at Abu Ghraib prison first came to the public's attention.

It was a scandal that undermined the military's reputation and diminished the standing of the U.S. around the world.

It would soon become clear that the photos of hooded, naked and humiliated detainees were evidence of a much larger problem.

The system for processing, interrogating and detaining prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq was dangerously out of control, and the command structure responsible for it had collapsed.

Detainees were beaten, tortured, sexually abused and, in some instances, killed.

Many detainees should never have been imprisoned at all, as they had committed no offenses.

So what happened?

A handful of grunts were court-martialed, a Marine major was cashiered, and the Army plans to issue a new interrogation manual that bars certain harsh techniques.

There was no wholesale crackdown on criminal behavior.

We learned last week that after a high-level investigation, the Army had cleared four of the five top officers who were responsible for prison policies and operations in Iraq.

The fifth officer, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve, had already been relieved of her command of the military police unit at Abu Ghraib.

(She has complained, and not without reason, that she was a scapegoat for the failures of higher-ranking officers.)

As Eric Schmitt wrote in The Times:

"Barring new evidence, the inquiry by the Army's inspector general effectively closes the Army's book on whether the highest-ranking officers in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal should be held accountable for command failings described in past reviews."

This is the way atrocities are dealt with in Mr. Bush's world of war.

The higher-ups responsible for training, supervising and disciplining the troops - in other words, the big shots who presided over a system that ran shamefully amok -escaped virtually unscathed.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, which seemed mind-boggling at the time, turned out to be symptomatic of the torture, abuse and institutionalized injustice that have permeated the Bush administration's operations in its so-called war against terror.

Euphemisms like rendition, coercive interrogation, sleep adjustment and waterboarding are now widely understood.

Yes, Virginia, it is the policy of the United States to kidnap individuals and send them off to regimes skilled in the art of torture.

Two things are needed.

First, a truly independent commission, along the lines of the bipartisan 9/11 panel, should be set up to thoroughly investigate U.S. interrogation and detention operations, and make recommendations to correct abuses.

Second, the U.S. government should make it clear, beyond any doubt, that torture and any other inhumane treatment of prisoners is wrong, just flat wrong, and will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

"In our contemporary world, torture is like the slave trade or piracy was to people in the 1790's," said Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, which is suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the prisoner abuse issue.

"Torture is a crime against mankind, against humanity."

"It's something that has to be absolutely prohibited."

If the president made it clear that men and women up and down the chain of command would be held responsible for the abuses that occur on their watch, the abuses would plummet.

Instead, the message the administration has sent is that its demands for accountability will be limited to a few hapless, ill-trained grunts.

The big shots who presided over behavior that has shamed America in the eyes of the world can count on this president's embrace.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

Hmmmmmm!

or,,, Hrmphh!

hell, I thought Iraq had 200+ Billion barrels of oil.

Did Arthur Anderson do the accounting on this one too?

In all fairness, General Marshall was Ikes SUPERIOR, and as such, Ike merely executed the carefully constructed battle plans he devised. It's true that the subordinates (Ike included) to know their jobs and do their jobs, but it was Marshalls job to tell them what they were, just as when the war ended. The vast improvement on the Dawes plan embodied in the Marshall plan is probably his greatest legacy; no wonder when he wanted to go to Europe to take personal command FDR told him he was indispensable in DC, thus Ike got the glory for following Marshalls orders. That Ike rose to the position that he did is largely due to his appreciation of the logistical demands of Marshalls strategy and his ability to meet them (with no small help from Omar Bradley.) After Pearl Harbor George Marshall drew up a series of exercises designed to test his officers ability at execution; one of the proudest days of Ikes life was getting one back with a (barely) passing grade.

I agree with you that Ikes stand on segregation was a moment of supreme statesmanship, but sadly the exception rather than the rule. Fact is, his posthumous membership in the Democratic Party would be unsurprising; the only reason he didn't run as Democrat in '48 was because Truman decided to run again. Kinda tells you where the true loyalty was. Of course, noone tried to keep segregation from his attention (that I know of) and it would have been difficult to remain completely ignorant. I never really thought that Ike was either a fiend or incompetent, merely irresponsible and disinterested. There's also a story about Patton arriving at HQ to discuss strategy with Ike and finding Kay Summersby in attendance, which naturally made him somewhat reticent. Ike reportedly said, "We have no secrets from Kay" to which Patton resonded, "Well, I have secrets from her." And since I'm quoting, I might as well give you, as they say, "the rest of the story:"
"[also from March 3, 1955 entry] "She left. Patton tells how Ike wrote to General Marshall when Marshall complained of relations with Summersby. Ike explained that he was a young man, vigorous, etc. Marshall wrote back advising him to 'take a cold bath and have a masseur.'"

"Patton says he knew Ike was going to run for President even when he was in North Africa; said he could tell by the way he talked."

"In Sicily, Patton was court-martialed, though it never leaked out, for the massacre of ninety German prisoners. He was exonerated. What happened was that he had given the American troops a tough dressingdown before going into battle, and while he did not say to take no prisoners, the handful of officers either interpreted his remarks to mean that or else trumped this up as an excuse. At any rate, they shot the Germans in the stockade, and Patton was court-martialed along with the others. [How things have changed.]"

Most significant parts of the Patton diary pertain to the closing days of the war when he was racing across France and could have marched right through Germany. When Eisenhower cut off his gasoline, Patton raided British supplies but couldn't get enough to go much farther. He sat and watched the Germans consolidate their lines, knowing that if he had had the gasoline he could have marched right into Berlin. General Bradley confirms this though his book is not as forthright as Pattons diary."

The noble Patton hath told you Eisenhower was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Patton answer'd it.

Ah, Morambar!

How to respond, without appearing to throw a "wet blanket" over you, to stifle what I will call, and not perjoratively, your "youthful" vigor here to find and know the "truth", as you seek in your own way to dispatch what you view as your own citizenship duties, here in OUR America.

What I have to say is this: BEWARE HEARSAY!

And especially, BEWARE HISTORY BOOKS, and those who write them, and especially BEWARE "TELL-ALL's", since they might not tell anyone much of anything at all, and especially the facts or truth, about anything!

I have an old friend who was with Patton during WWII, who fought first in North Africa, where he and OUR Army were pushed back to what he was sure was Egypt by the quite competent forces of Irwin Rommel, and then Sicily, where he fought not only Germans, but alleged "bandits" as well, who were killed in their caves as they were found, on orders from "higher", and then across Europe and right on into Germany, where he was when the war finally ended.

Being from the time of that war's closing, of course, I grew up with the returning veterans from that war as my "elders", and so, over the years, I have heard much about Patton, who was a "larger-than-life" figure to his soldiers, and Ike as well, who was called by another general, "the best clerk that I have ever had", or words to that effect, if I recall that correctly, and as a result, I have formed my own opinions over the years as to this and that, regardless of what any "book writer" might have to say, and so .....

The problem with all of this, Morambar, is that it is all hearsay!

And hearsay and fifty cents will buy you coffee, maybe!

I was alive, and cognizant of being alive, and cognizant of how I felt being alive, AT SOME OF THESE TIMES IN QUESTION HERE, and so, the very first reliance that I place on anything is from my own memories.

THEN ....

I read books, a lot of them, and I listen to people, and that would be those who were there, as a rule, and then, I digest.

The problem for you, and your generation, Morambar, is that many of these old folks that I had the opportunity to grow up with and absorb information from are now long gone from this earth, and so, all you have access to is memoirs, and that makes a real big difference, to me, anyway, and you must factor that into your "presentations" and expositions in here, and elsewhere, Morambar, and I say this to you to encourage you to become even more discriminating and discerning than you already are in your present young age, because with your intellect, you have much to offer to OUR America, both today, and especially in the future, where intellect will be even more of value than it is right now, and even harder to find, if we continue this decline that has been on-going in OUR America for quite some time now, this "dumbing down" that has left us with alleged pill-heads like RUSH LIMBUAGH as the intellectual pinnacles in "MODRIN AMURKA".

And to me, Morambar, who is a disabled combat veteran, a "volunteer" for military service in OUR America, and not a "conscript", IKE'S loyalty should have been to the United States Constitution, and to NO political party above that!

I, Morambar, see the political parties, the Democrats and Republicans both, but especially the Republicans, as being inimical to true American values, and so, I am a member of neither, nor do I profess loyalty to either, and I do not believe we should have REPUBLICAN presidents, and especially judges, in OUR America, nor should we have Democratic presidents, or judges!

We should have presidents of America who are familiar with its Constitution, and who are true to its Constitution 24/7, regardless of the issue before them at any given time, and to the extent that any faction in America, and this includes both the democrats and republicans, don't like that, why, Morambar, as far as I am concerned, they can go straight to hell, or to Connaught, their choice!

I, Morambar, am an American!

As such, I am for the Constitution!

I am not a christian first, and an American second, nor a "white man" first, and an American second, or a "bigot" first and an American second; I am simply an American.

As a human being here in OUR America, with my liberty intact, I of course can be whatever it is that my path affords me, within the framework of the laws THAT BIND US ALL, and I am entitled to my own private set of beliefs about such things as spirituality, and citizenship, and history!

But that is PRIVATE!

When I come in to here, into what is a public place, then, to me anyway, a different set of "strictures" comes in to play, and so, I try to be circumspect as to what I am stating to the world as alleged "fact", when I myself have no way of verifying the truth or falsity of what I am saying, such as whether Ike was doing the "dirty dog" with anyone named Kay, or not!

It's about personal credibility, Morambar!

It is hard to gain, and easy to lose, for a variety of reasons, most of them, "unfair", but so what, and once gone, credibility might never be regained, and if you have real political "enemies", then that is their goal!

They will play "football", and you will be what they are kicking, and purposefully so!

And that is the way it has been, at least since Jesus was in swaddling clothes, and so ....

Morambar, beware everything, especially the opinions of others, especially historians and bookwriters, and old men like me, too, and why, you'll do fine, is what I think!

And as Mr. A.B. says, don't quit, for all you then are is a quitter, and where does that get any of us, and yourself as well?

Oh that our leaders would read your post, Livyjr. There is room for what used to be called the "Republican" point of view: for the Constitution, for Main Street America, for big business, against progressive taxes.

And the 'Democratic' point of view: for the Constitution, for labor, for progressive taxes, for small farmers, against big business.

Note that BOTH are for the Constitution - which I interpret to mean for the America Way of Governance by the consent of the governed.

But all that has gone the way of rancor and bile on TV, once hailed as the greatest invention of our time, then villified as a "vast wasteland" (those were the GOOD ole days of TV), and now merely a forum for Trash Limbo and the other gasbags of the airwaves.

TV is now a "half-vast wasteland!"

Your posts are good, Morambar. Keep them coming.

To quote Livyjr ---- " I say this to you to encourage you to become even more discriminating and discerning than you already are in your present young age, because with your intellect, you have much to offer to OUR America, both today, and especially in the future, where intellect will be even more of value than it is right now, and even harder to find, if we continue this decline that has been on-going in OUR America for quite some time now. "

Livyjr passes along good advice to you.

Personally, I try to remember two things when I read an article. Whenever possible, I want to know who wrote it because that is a good clue as to where the author is coming from. Second, does the author have his/her own agenda?

Example: If the author is giving a product a high recommendation, and you knew the writer has stock in that company, you would be not be in a hurry to go out and buy the product, because you would suspect the author has reasons which are not visible in the recommendation. That is a very simple and obvious example, many times it is not so obvious.

Your posts do indicate you are an intelligent person and hopefully you have a certain amount of skepticism concerning what others are writing or talking about.

I wish you well.

A.B.

Skepticism!

Discernment!

Qualities which are required to pass from the vigor of youth into a comfortable old age, and here, I mean in terms of health and mental acuity, as Mr. A.B. very admirably demonstrates to us younger folks in here with his quiet wisdom that he expresses in here from time to time!

I myself take that admonishment of Mr. A.B.'s to heart, that he deserves to know sources of information, and accurately described, if he is to make an informed decision as an American citizen, and wishing for his feed-back from the perspective of his long life down here on this earth of ours, I do my utmost to make clear for Mr. A.B. what the alleged issue is, and where it might be coming from.

A point is that of all of us, Mr. A.B. has heard the most, i.e. "large amount of", "devastating" news of all of us, including the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, and so, I never try to "shock" him with "facts", especially alleged "facts" from a time in OUR America when he was alive, and I was not!

More, I am always curious as to how Mr. A.B. does see things, and so, I try to leave some room in here for that exchange to happen!

Like a bunch of rocks slowly being rolled by the current down a mountain stream, and as they go, the sharp corners and rough edges just end up being all worn away!

"Western drought shrinking Big Muddy"

By Patrick O'Driscoll and Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY

Fri Apr 29, 6:36 AM ET

The "Big Muddy" is in big trouble.

The Missouri River, the nation's longest, is struggling in the dry clutches of a multiyear drought.

For six years, the river's three giant reservoirs on the northern Plains have dropped slowly and alarmingly, curbing recreation, hydropower generation and commercial navigation downstream.

While the drought's effects are not irreversible, river managers say it will take years for the waterway and its many users to recover.

"We're kind of in uncharted territory here," says Rose Hargrave, Missouri River program manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the river's six dams and the lakes behind them.

"Reservoir levels have never been so low."

"The Plains snow pack is almost non-existent."

"It's not looking good."

From its roaring headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to its slow, wide confluence with the Mississippi River, the Missouri is a 2,540-mile ribbon of frontier history, world-class fishing, billions of dollars of commerce and drinking water for millions.

But years of sparse snowfall at the river's source have so reduced its flow that disruptions ripple all the way to the Mississippi.

When Fort Peck Lake here is full, it sprawls 134 miles across the prairie of northeastern Montana, drawing thousands of anglers in search of trophy walleye and other game fish.

But now the USA's fifth-largest reservoir is a shrinking pool.

Sixty-five years after it was created by a monster earthen dam across the Missouri, the lake level is 36 feet below average and could fall another 15 feet by this time next year.

Downriver in North Dakota, 231-mile-long Lake Oahe, the nation's fourth-largest reservoir, is so low that it literally has left the state.

From Bismarck to the South Dakota border, more than 60 miles have reverted to a narrow river where the lake was once up to 5 miles wide.

Left behind are weedy mud flats and boat ramps stranded a mile or more from water.

The retreat of Fort Peck, Oahe and even bigger Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota is only the most obvious sign of distress.

The water deficit also threatens farming and ranching, tourism, power production, shipping and the water supply for a 10-state basin.

This year, "we may not be able to place a pump in the river," says farmer Neal Turnbull of Brockton, Mont., whose 550 acres of grain crops are in jeopardy without irrigation.

The drought has even clouded the outlook for this year's bicentennial celebration of the Lewis & Clark expedition, the fabled voyage of American discovery that used the Missouri as its highway through the wilderness.

The Corps of Engineers forecasts this year's flow at 16.7 million acre-feet of water, one-third less than normal.

Storage behind the Missouri's six dams is now almost 21 million acre-feet below normal.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, the amount used annually by two to three families.

About 70% of the Missouri's normal flow comes from melting snow in Montana, where state officials say it would take 350% of normal snowfall to mend the damage.

This winter's yield: about 65%.

'Dry sponges for soil'

Gov. Brian Schweitzer says much of Montana's runoff will soak into the ground before reaching the river because "we have dry sponges for soil."

He has asked the Pentagon to rotate some of Montana's 1,500 National Guard troops home from Iraq this summer to help fight the wildfires expected because the state's forests are so dry.

The drought's litany of effects on the Missouri is long and painful:

•Drinking water.

Riverside towns are spending millions to add or refurbish water intakes so they can reach farther and deeper into the shrinking river.

Fort Yates, N.D., on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, went dry for five days last Thanksgiving when its Lake Oahe pumps clogged with sediment.

It paid $3 million for a temporary fix.

Kansas City, Mo., which draws 200 million gallons a day in summer, has installed new pumps twice as deep as its permanent intakes.

•Hydropower.

The river's dams normally generate about 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, worth about $1.7 billion.

In the drought, annual production is off at least one-third.

This year's forecast is for just 5.8 billion kilowatt-hours.

To make up the difference for its customers, the federal Western Area Power Administration has spent $64 million since October for costlier extra power.

It will spend nearly twice that by the end of September.

After two rate increases, a third is in the works.

• Tourism.

Fishing on the reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas generates hundreds of millions of dollars in a region where farming is the only other major industry.

But traffic at parks, campgrounds and marinas is down because dozens of boat ramps are unreachable.

There is still enough water for boating and world-class walleye fishing.

But as the lakes fall, the water warms, threatening the survival of smelt, a small fish on which the game fish feed.

Recovery from a smelt die-off would take years.

"It's just like someone coming in and shutting down Ford or General Motors in Detroit," says Dick Messerly, manager of Fort Stevenson State Park near Garrison, N.D.

In Montana, renowned for its $350 million sport fishing industry, "we see significant impacts," says Ron Aasheim, a state conservation officer.

Fishing restrictions and even bans have been imposed on gold-medal streams such as the Big Hole, Madison and Blackfoot rivers to protect trout weakened by the warmer, low-flowing water.

•Agriculture.

Some farmers have abandoned irrigation because they can't afford to "chase the river" with longer intake pipes.

Lakefront ranchers, who pen livestock with fences that reach into the reservoirs, must extend fences as the water ebbs so cattle won't stray around them.

In Nebraska, farmers on two Missouri tributaries will be paid not to irrigate up to 100,000 acres of crops for the next 10-15 years in an effort to save water.

"I've seen dry years over my lifetime in the Dakotas, but this is by far the worst," says Emmonds County, N.D., farmer Ken Moser, 64, whose grandparents homesteaded on the Missouri in the 1880s.

He says the family gave up "a lot of" riverfront acreage to the Corps of Engineers when Lake Oahe was filled in the 1960s in return for irrigation water.

"Now we're high and dry."

Moser's irrigation intake is now a mile and a quarter from the river channel.

His $2 million sprinkler system has been idle for two years, and 1,100 acres have been turned from corn back to dryland crops that yield far less.

"It won't be enough."

"It's just going to put us way behind," says Moser, who has asked the corps for permission to dig an emergency trench from the Missouri to his parched fields.

•Shipping.

The barge trade, never huge, has shrunk to 8 million tons a year, a tiny fraction of what is shipped on the Mississippi and other waterways.

MEMCO Barge Line, the largest operator, hasn't run a barge up the Missouri in two years.

•Cooling water.

Nuclear and other non-hydroelectric plants that use river water for cooling must lower its temperature before piping it back into the Missouri.

That's because the current is too low to dilute the return flow of warmer water enough to meet limits that protect fish and the ecosystem.

A plant in Kansas is building a $20 million cooling tower.

•Wildfire.

Several states fear catastrophic summer fires in dry forests and plains.

Grass and timber fires in February and March surprised firefighters in Oregon, Idaho, Montana and South Dakota.

"To be concerned about a fire season in March in this neck of the woods is unheard of," says Richard Opper, head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

•Artifacts.

Indian relics, old homesteads and tribal graves, inundated when the reservoirs were filled, are re-emerging and may become targets for looters.

"They find some of these graves and actually sell the skeletons," says Charles Murphy, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

•Endangered wildlife.

Lack of water has canceled an experimental "spring rise" of the river next year to improve habitat and breeding for a rare fish, the pallid sturgeon.

That artificial "flush" by releasing more water from Fort Peck Dam would mimic the Missouri's natural flow.

But Mike Olson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says unless "biblical rainstorms" come, the surge won't happen until 2010 or 2011 at the earliest.

Shortage of snow the culprit

For nearly a decade, the West's drought has crept across more familiar terrain: Dead forests in California and New Mexico, shrinking desert reservoirs in Arizona, Utah and Nevada, vast wildfires in Alaska, and brown lawns everywhere.

Meanwhile, a less-visible deficit has wilted the Missouri's headwaters region.

This winter, Montana golfers were playing on courses normally buried in white until April or May.

Lack of snow scuttled snowmobile and dog sled events.

The worst has arrived almost exactly 200 years after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark reached the river's source on their westward search for a route to the Pacific.

In July 1805, the explorers stopped at what today is Three Forks, Mont., where three tributaries form the river.

In his journal, Lewis took note, with customary misspelling, of how full the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers were:

"All of them run with great valocity and thow out large bodies of water."

Lewis might not recognize the streams this spring and summer.

An index that measures available water supplies lists 39 of Montana's 52 rivers in "very dry" conditions.

The big reservoirs would be in far better shape, says Gov. Schweitzer, if not for political decisions that favor what he calls "barge traffic that doesn't exist" on the lower river in the state of Missouri.

Shipping has long been a sore point.

States upriver, dependent on tourism, complain that federal managers release too much reservoir water for barge traffic.

States in the lower basin, where the Missouri is a channelized ditch adapted to commercial traffic, claim the feds hold back too much in the lakes, threatening river transport of goods.

Farmers fear if barge traffic is cut off, railroads and trucking companies will charge higher rates and cripple agriculture.

By law, the Corps of Engineers must manage the river for eight different uses in commerce, recreation, ecology and flood control.

In a drought, "we have to try to provide service to each of those, but at a reduced level," says Paul Johnston of the agency's Omaha office.

But if reservoir storage slips below 31 million acre-feet - it is now about 35 million and falling - the corps must cease flows for barge traffic.

Unless the forecast changes, the Missouri will hit that "navigation preclude" next year.

The corps already plans to cut short this year's season by two months.

Even if navigation flows cease, the water savings will be small, Johnston says, because the corps still must supply drinking water downstream.

He says the lakes might only rise a foot or two.

The drought also could muffle a tourism boom expected from the Lewis & Clark bicentennial.

"We're very concerned," says Clint Blackwood, executive director for the observance in Montana, where some of the biggest gatherings are planned.

If Montana has a wildfire season like it did in 2000, when nearly a million acres burned statewide, Blackwood knows what could happen.

"The news media will report that Montana is on fire," he says.

"And it takes only a little bit of that and people then (say), 'I'm not going to Montana this year.' "

But the most visible sign of drought remains on the reservoirs.

Lake Sakakawea, named for the Indian woman who guided and translated for Lewis & Clark (her name often is spelled Sacajawea), is down 50 feet from its high-water mark in 1997.

By summer's end, Lake Oahe could be 54 feet below its record level that same year.

To fish, 'take your own water'

Allan Burke, publisher of the Emmons County Record in Linton, N.D., says many locals have sold their boats.

He recounts a grim joke told in town is that "you can go fishing, but you have to take your own water."

This winter was the first in memory without ice fishing on nearby Beaver Bay, an inlet off Lake Oahe just above the South Dakota line.

That's because Beaver Bay is gone, too.

So is most of the tourist trade at Bosch's Bayside, a small resort there.

"People don't come anymore," laments Randy Bosch, 47, who says he had just four overnight campers in his 40-space RV park in all of 2004.

He may have to close for good this year.

Bosch says he doesn't go down anymore to where the bay used to be, except "when the TV crews come" to shoot drought footage.

"I can't," he explains.

"I get too upset."

"School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon"

2 hours, 13 minutes ago

CLOVIS, N.M. - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.

All over a giant burrito.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," school Principal Diana Russell said.

State police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff's Department arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 a.m.

They searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.

In the meantime, more than 30 parents, alerted by a radio report, descended on the school.

Visibly shaken, they gathered around in a semi-circle, straining their necks, awaiting news.

"There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door," said Heather Black, whose son attends the school.

After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school, Russell said.

Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on.

"The kid was sitting there as I'm describing this (report of a student with a suspicious package) and he's thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, they're talking about my burrito.'"

Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her.

"He said, 'I think I'm the person they saw,'" Russell said.

The burrito was part of Morrissey's extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product.

"We had to make up a product and it could have been anything."

"I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said.

After students heard the description of what police were looking for, he and his friends began to make the connection.

He then took the burrito to the office.

"The police saw it and everyone just started laughing."

"It was a laughter of relief," Morrissey said.

"Oh, and I have a new nickname now."

"It's Burrito Boy."

end quotes

I wonder how many of these people voted for George W. Bush?

Thanks for that post,Livyjr. that is all news to me. It sounds like a terrible situation.

I am not at all familiar with the Missouri River or its dams,, or its tributaries.

I believe a couple of years ago, the Colorado River had the same situation, with the reservoir which was created by the dam which makes up Lake Powell in Northern Arizona, also way down. I do not know if the situation is the same today. Perhaps, if there are any Arizonians on the forum, they could tell us.

In any case that is NOT a good thing, for those on the Missouri River. Hopefully, the snow packs will return and start to replenish the water which is so badly needed.

Many people may be unaware that the Great Lakes are also dependent to a large degree on the amount of snow which falls each winter " up north".
Having fished Lake Erie for about 65 years, I am very aware of the fluctuations in the average depth of the Lake, and what depth is needed for many industries and recreational facilities. Boats of all sizes from 15 foot runabouts to commercial lake freighters are affected. Near shore, rocks are exposed when the lake is down, as it is now. What's even worse, is when rocks which normally might be 5 feet below the surface are just a few inches below the surface and so are out of sight. Naturally, if one does not know the waters, this creates a hazard.

Since I live just a few hundred feet from Lake Erie, I can walk to the shore line and " see " the depth by looking at a pier or a beach and noting where the high water mark might be or how much beach is available.

I really enjoy reading posts such as the one you just entered, Livyjr, which talks about the natural resources here in Our America.

I wish we could see more of these types of posts.

A.B.

Here I am, Mr. A.B., just coming in to here from my "JUDICIAL" thread, where I was talking about a massed concentration of gunfire just to the east south-east of me today, just this afternoon, centered say, on 2:30 P.M., either and both sides, that could have been heard in a one-mile radius at least, and it went on and on and on!

Hundreds of rounds!

Heavier calibers!

.30 and up!

Assault weapons, and not an M-16, which is a much different sound to a Viet Nam infantryman's ear, anyway.

We are still not sure, but I at least would bet that there was at least one fully automatic weapon being fired there today, or else someone working laboriously to be able to fire a semi-automatic rifle as though it were automatic, which can be done in controlled bursts!

HUNDREDS of dollars were expended in rifle ammunition this afternoon, by someone with the money to spend on that kind of massed volley firing!

SO!

OUR guess is that someone is preparing for an assault in the Town of Poestenkill, in the County of Rensselaer, in the State of New York, real soon, and we believe we know the target of that assault.

And we know our own helplessness to do a thing about any of this, and so ......

That's one reason that I personally don't post more about the environment, which is too bad, because that really is my subject!

I am an environmental engineer trained at a respected eastern polytechnic institute on a Fellowship from the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the express purpose of practicing environmental engineering in the State of New York to protect and safeguard life, health and property in the state in accordance with its laws, and state Constitution!

As an engineer in that field, water was my chief responsibility!

Maintaining the surface and groundwaters of the State of New York in a manner protective of the public health of the peoples of the State of New York!

That, Mr. A.B., was my job, and so, I have been studying this thing of "water" now for quite a long time, and this is where we have gotten to, in my opinion as a trained engineer, through the GROSSEST of gross negligence that you can even imagine!

I am trained to be dispassionate, and as a twice-wounded Viet Nam infantry man, I suppose I am somewhat laconic, but even so, the scale of this negligence is to me utterly mind-boggling!

It is as if we had just spent all of OUR money, and all of OUR resources for no other purpose than to blow this whole planet to smithereens, so that we can be absolutely certain that we stand no chance at all of surviving the after-effects!

By any way of looking at it, IT IS INSANE, of course, for a population of a species to do this, and yet, it has been done, and these stories are what symptoms of that INSANITY look like in real life!

And now, what's to be done?

I personally wouldn't be surprised to see George W. Bush out there in the Rose Garden, having "mother nature" flogged, and otherwise abused and humilated, for giving us bad weather, but I don't think that will accomplish much of anything beyond really cementing a view of George W. Bush in my mind that will last quite a time into the future!

So, Mr. A.B., young folks in the world, and those who are yet to come, are all going to find themselves living in some pretty precarious times, vis-a-vis the environmental and ecological changes that are occurring even now that have the power to make this earth of OURS quite openly hostile to human life, and MOD-RIN Science and all the King's Men and George W. Bush, none of them will be able to do diddly-squat about it, and the irony is, they are as much responsible for it, and especially MOD-RIN "don't look, don't tell" science, because of its policy of keeping silent about environmental degradation in OUR America, because that is where the money is:

"TELL THEM IT IS NOT SO!"

There are no problems with the environment, and anyone who says there are is a dangerous mental patient who must be immediately incarcerated in a "modern state"-licensed CORPORATE mental facility, so that MOD-RIN medicine can treat this person's obvious delusions, thus rendering him fit to be put back out among the sheep, er, people of the State of New York, which is what "Life in OUR America" is like up here today!

Heading back to 1850 in a hurry, we are, when there were no Constitutional Amendments to have to worry about, a white man could do as he pleased and thus, all was well with the world!

Amen!

"Nervous Investors Eye Bond Market"

By MEG RICHARDS, AP Business Writer

Sat Apr 30,12:08 PM ET

NEW YORK - Investors are nervous and the stock market shows it; for every step forward, it seems to take three back.

And despite relatively strong corporate earnings, a decent jobs picture and red-hot housing market, investors still worry about the possibility of a prolonged "soft patch."

Meanwhile, analysts are warily watching the yields on Treasury notes and bonds, wondering what signals to read into their range-bound moves as the Federal Reserve is expected to raise overnight borrowing costs again on Tuesday.

If the policy makers act as expected, they'll hike the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.0 percent.

It will be the eighth such increase since the Fed began tightening credit in June 2004.

During that time, yields on long bonds have remained in a stubborn range, essentially going nowhere even as short-term rates rise.

For example, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 4.25 percent at the start of 2004; it ended the year at 4.22 percent, and now stands at 4.20 percent — though just last month it climbed to 4.6 percent.

"Interest rates today are lower than they were when the Fed began this exercise of raising interest rates."

"It's really dumbfounding," said Margie Patel, senior vice president of Pioneer Investments and manager of four fund portfolios.

"Despite people's fondest hopes and wishes for much higher Treasury rates, they've been very disappointed."

To Patel, what that suggests is that despite upswings in commodity prices, the long-term outlook for inflation is fairly muted.

Investors seem quite comfortable with intermediate Treasury yields in the range where they are, and she doesn't think they'll go substantially higher for a while.

To Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist for PNC Financial Services Group in Philadelphia, the message the bond market has been sending is clear:

Economic growth is slowing, and slowing dramatically.

This has alarmed stock investors, whose sense of panic about the state of the economy has grown as negative data points pile higher.

Bonds rose and stocks dropped this past week on news that the nation's gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent during the January-to-March period, a disappointment because economists had forecast a faster 3.5 percent pace.

High energy prices and cutbacks in consumer and business spending were blamed.

Still, analysts, including Patel and Kleintop, note that GDP growth of about 3.0 is considered average.

Of course, that's not the only thing that has made market watchers bearish lately; a number of signs suggested March was the start of a softer period for economic data.

Retail sales were less than stellar.

Auto sales were sluggish.

Orders for durable goods plunged 2.8 percent, the biggest drop in 2 1/2 years, which suggested a strong pullback in business spending.

Analysts attributed the disappointments to soaring fuel costs, chilly weather and, in the case of retail sales, an early Easter holiday.

And yet there was some good news.

Purchases of new single-family homes shot up 12.2 percent in March, the biggest percentage gain in more than a decade.

The surge surprised analysts, who had forecast a decline in sales.

The labor market is somewhat murkier; employers added just 110,000 new jobs in March, the fewest in eight months.

Analysts say the employment report for April, due next week, may show only modestly higher gains.

But some have speculated that the government's numbers don't accurately reflect the strength of the job market.

"Certainly we've had a rough patch of data," Kleintop said.

"It'll be interesting to see from the Fed's perspective if was it just a one month thing ... if they see the trend as one of more solid growth."

"And if the economic data bounces back, yields could go back up."

Such a bifurcation in economic data can be confusing, even for professional investors.

Kleintop, who thinks the bond market has overreacted, said the wording of next week's Fed statement could help reverse the trend.

"It could be enough to turn the bond market around," he said.

"Hopefully it could be a catalyst for stocks as well, to make investors say, 'Yeah, real growth isn't that bad, the economy isn't slowing that much.'"

"And hopefully companies can continue to hit their earnings targets and investors will have better confidence the companies can deliver."

If, for example, the Fed issues a statement saying the pace of economic growth has remained solid through the recent volatility, that would suggest policy makers see the recent data as a short-term blip.

That could lead bonds to sell off, bringing yields higher.

If they maintain language from their February statement that said "longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained," so much the better.

"There's so much volatility in the market," Kleintop said, noting how closely Wall Street examines statements from the Fed.

"A word can move the markets a lot."

For Patel, one of the most important things is for the Fed to clearly telegraph its intentions.

When the Fed is inscrutable, it is difficult for businesses to make long-term decisions, because they don't know what's happening with the economy.

"The reason interest rates move up off their lows is because there's greater demand to borrow because businesses feel more optimistic about the economy."

"And key to that is a Fed that is predictable, moving incrementally," Patel said.

"Slightly higher rates would not be a negative for the economy or for equities."

"It would be a sign that the economy is improving in its health."

"Fine start for Bruno as lobbyist"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, April 25, 2005

There was something for just about everyone in the $106.5 billion state budget -- even the fledgling lobbying firm of Ken Bruno, son of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The horse-trading in the days before the final deal was sealed April 11 included $6 million for the city of Albany that Senate Republicans didn't want but Assembly Democrats did.

There was $5.75 million in discretionary funds for Secretary of State Randy Daniels, at a time he's eyeing a run for governor.

Gov. George Pataki wanted it; Assembly Democrats had to be won over.

And then there was $4.4 million for transportation for Medicaid patients.

Pataki wanted to cut the money to help trim Medicaid costs.

The Legislature had agreed in its March 31 budget.

That same day, Ken Bruno, who started his own lobbying firm, Albany Strategies, about a month ago, got his first contract.

The New York Ambulette Coalition, an association of companies with vans to help people who don't need ambulances get to the hospital, agreed to pay Bruno $60,000 through next March 31.

The $4.4 million came back.

A spokesman for Senate Republicans said the Assembly wanted the money in the budget, and the Senate went along in the final package.

"I worked it fairly hard," said Ken Bruno.

He said he took the ambulette industry's concerns to all sides, arguing Medicaid patients who miss doctor visits would end up costing even more if they turned up sick at an emergency room.

"It ultimately was a three-way agreement," he said.

Clinton challengers line up

It's probably not the best campaign strategy to come out of the starting gate with questionable facts and wild exaggerations.

William Brenner is the second Republican to announce plans to run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Not the first, as he claimed in a March 31 press release declaring "First Candidate Announces Senate Run Against Clinton."

Adam Brecht, a Wall Street public relations executive, had been calling himself a candidate for well over a month before that.

"If he is a candidate and a legitimate candidate, I welcome him to vie for the candidacy," Brenner, 64, of Grahamsville, Sullivan County, said Friday.

Brenner, basking in the afterglow of a cover story in the Village Voice, issued another release Friday calling himself "the top candidate" against Clinton.

The latest poll suggests otherwise.

Brenner wasn't even on the radar in Marist College Institute for Public Opinion's April 4-5 poll.

Brecht polled 29 percent in a matchup against Clinton (she got 61 percent), behind Rudolph Giuliani, Gov. George Pataki and ex-Clinton challenger Rick Lazio, but ahead of Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro and attorney Edward Cox, son-in-law of former President Richard Nixon.

Contributor: Capitol bureau reporter James M. Odato. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

"Aide denies Bruno's son had pull - Group hired Kenneth Bruno to lobby for restoration of ambulette funding"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

ALBANY -- An aide to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno on Monday denied that officials restored $4.4 million in the state budget just because Bruno's son was lobbying for the money on a client's behalf.

The head of the trade group that hired Kenneth Bruno also said he wasn't brought in because he's related to the Republican leader.

The money was for Medicaid funding for ambulette service, which helps people who don't need ambulances get to doctor appointments.

Gov. George Pataki proposed to cut $4.4 million from the more than $100 million annual funding for ambulette service, and the Legislature agreed in the budget it passed March 31.

The money was restored in a deal between the Legislature and Pataki announced on April 12.

The younger Bruno said he worked hard with "both sides of the aisle" in the GOP-led Senate and the Democrat-controlled Assembly to get the Medicaid funding restored.

"We had members who had been advocating for its inclusion, and once we were in a position where we were negotiating additions to the March 31 budget we were able to get both houses and the governor on board," said John McArdle, a top aide to Bruno.

Stephen Solarsh, executive director of the New York Ambulette Coalition, said the younger Bruno was hired not because of his last name, but because an Albany law firm that does business with the coalition said he was "very tenacious."

Bruno has been a lobbyist for about two years and had just opened own his firm, Albany Strategies.

"There was no sense in my mind that this was going to get done because this was Joe Bruno's son," Solarsh said.

When he sought extra lobbying help, Solarsh said, three names were recommended: Bruno, Patricia Lynch and former U.S. Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato.

Solarsh said Lynch, a former top aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was already working for a private ambulette company while "we had heard D'Amato's fee was not less than $100,000."

The coalition hired Bruno March 31 under a $5,000-a-month contract good for one year, or $60,000.

Even that cost "was a stretch for us," Solarsh said.

end quotes

And that is where OUR medicaid money goes up here, which is right into this man's pockets!

And for what?

"High campaign contributions cited - Spending by NYSUT, Service Employees Union renews call for reform by watchdog group"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Saturday, April 30, 2005

ALBANY -- The state's largest teachers' union and a politically powerful health-care workers union led political action committees in 2004 that in total spent more than $13 million in political campaign contributions, government watchdog groups said in a report released Friday.

The spending shows a need to reform how much the amount of interest from politicians that special interests should be allowed to buy, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause of New York, The League of Women Voters, and Citizens Union.

Another $144 million was spent on lobbying lawmakers last year.

The report released Friday shows the political action committee of the New York State United Teachers union gave $1.32 million last year in campaign donations to candidates seeking state or local offices and to state and local political parties.

Second was the PAC of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which spent $775,150.

The union is headed by Dennis Rivera, a powerful Hispanic leader, who helped Gov. George Pataki and legislative leaders strike a multibillion dollar health-care package in the 2002 election year.

The deal was reached in private negotiations hours before lawmakers were told to vote on it.

The spending included money for raises for Rivera's union members and Rivera later endorsed Pataki and other key officials for re-election.

The third highest spending PAC was for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, which spent $711,220, according to the report.

Health-care PACs were also prominent contributors.

Majority party politicians received most of the donations.

"Clearly, when it comes to advocacy in Albany, those with the money speak with a megaphone; and for the public, their voices are expressed through a whisper," said NYPIRG'S Blair Horner.

"Pataki to join 'Contenders' event - Governor, considering a possible GOP presidential run, to speak in California"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, April 28, 2005

ALBANY -- New York's Republican Gov. George Pataki, eyeing a possible run for president, will go to California this week to participate in a moderate GOP group's "2008 Contender Series," aides said Wednesday.

He will also address about 250 Republican activists Saturday in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles.

"We're constantly trying to bring national figures out to motivate our troops and this is part of that effort," said Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh.

Asked if Pataki was a legitimate contender for the party's presidential nomination, Baugh said:

"Of course, of course."

Details of the trip came a day after Pataki said he has had political operatives poking around Iowa, traditional site of the nation's kickoff presidential caucuses.

"Certainly, there's going to be a new candidate for president in our party in 2008 and I want to be a part of the policy debate involved around that," he said.

On running for the White House, Pataki said: "I'm not ruling it out" and adding, after a pause, "Not at all."

The governor has said he will let New Yorkers know within the next several months whether he will seek a fourth term as governor next year.

Pataki is considered a long shot for the GOP presidential nomination -- he trails well back in national polls -- in part because of his support for abortion and gay rights, and his championing of tough gun-control legislation.

That, he says, should not rule him out.

"There are a great many policies and an overriding philosophy that unite Republicans of all different stripes and differentiate us from many on the more liberal side of the Democratic Party," Pataki said Tuesday.

"Spitzer to audit AIG's books - Inquiry to center on alleged improper booking of workers' compensation premiums"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, April 27, 2005

ALBANY -- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Tuesday said he will audit American International Group Inc. over reports that AIG improperly booked workers' compensation premiums, providing an "unlawful benefit" to the company worth tens of millions of dollars.

Spitzer and the state Insurance Department are appointing a consultant to audit the company for conduct that Spitzer said appears to have happened over a decade and is now discontinued.

Spitzer said a 1992 AIG memorandum to top management reported the practice was illegal, a notice that followed similar warnings in previous years.

Spitzer and acting state Insurance Superintendent Howard Mills are looking at whether AIG booked premiums for workers' compensation coverage as premiums for general liability coverage.

The result could be that AIG avoided paying its share into several workers' compensation funds.

AIG has been cooperating with the state officials on the issue, the attorney general's office said.

To date, AIG has provided no evidence it disclosed the practice to regulators or made restitution.

An AIG spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

AIG shares dropped 69 cents to close at $51.07 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

That's at the low end of the $49.91 to $74.98 range of the past year.

The funds at issue are supposed to be used for the operations of the state Workers' Compensation Board and to provide certain other claim benefits for injured workers, Spitzer said.

Connecticut also is looking into overpayments for workers' compensation insurance.

"March factory orders plunge - Drop in demand for durable goods called sign that energy cost rise hurt economy"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, April 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A deep drop in orders for big-ticket manufactured goods provided fresh evidence Wednesday that the economy slowed last month as energy prices rose.

At least for now, the new "soft patch" is being viewed as temporary and not the start of something more serious like a recession.

But analysts warned that anything unexpected, such as a further surge in energy costs, could spell trouble for an economy already facing rising interest rates.

The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods plunged 2.8 percent in March.

It was the biggest drop in 2 years.

It left no doubt, analysts said, that the economy is going through a significant slowdown as consumers and businesses, jolted by a new surge in energy prices, cut back on purchases.

"The economy clearly paused last month and the pause was much broader and more pronounced than we had expected," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.

"March was an awfully bad month."

In addition to weakness in factory orders, payroll employment showed the smallest gain in eight months and retail sales were disappointing.

The stock market has also taken its lumps as investors have grown worried about the possibility, though remote, of a return to the stagflation of the 1970s, where soaring energy costs drive inflation higher as economic growth stalls.

The weakness so far has caused economists to slash their estimates for overall growth in the first quarter to perhaps as low as 3 percent, down sharply from the 4.4 percent increase in the gross domestic product turned in for all of 2004.

"Energy costs hurt growth outlook - Consumers cut back on other spending for 1st quarter as gas prices pinch pocketbooks"

By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press
First published: Friday, April 29, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Pot hole, soft patch, or a plain old slump.

However you describe it, the U.S. economy, which had seemed poised to pick up speed just a month ago, has instead slowed down.

The restraint is coming from high energy prices, which figured prominently in the first-quarter's disappointing economic performance: the slowest growth logged in two years.

Expensive energy made consumers curb their spending and businesses think twice about big capital investments.

Against that backdrop, new questions are being raised about the nation's economic strength and the prospects for better job creation in the months ahead.

Stocks slid.

The broadest measure of the country's economic health, gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the January-to-March period, down from a 3.8 percent pace in the prior quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

The first-quarter GDP reading was the most sluggish since the first quarter of 2003, when the economy limped ahead at a 1.9 percent rate as a nervous country hunkered down in advance of the Iraq war.

GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced in the United States.

"The economy hit a pot hole in early 2005," said Mark Zandi, Economy.com's chief economist.

"Higher energy prices have sapped a lot of the economy's momentum."

Consumers increased their spending at a 3.5 percent rate in the first quarter, the slowest since the second quarter of 2004.

Their spending on cars and other big-ticket goods was flat.

Businesses spending on equipment and software, meanwhile, rose at a 6.9 percent rate, only a fraction of the hot 18.4 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter.

Investment in new plants and other buildings fell.

"Frist rejects judicial nominee deal"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, April 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Tuesday rejected compromise offers that would allow minority Democrats to continue to block judicial nominees, saying all of President Bush's past and future court choices deserve confirmation votes from the GOP-controlled Senate.

"At the end of the day, one will be left standing ... the Constitution, which allows up-or-down votes, or the filibuster," Frist said.

Democrats blocked 10 of Bush's appellate court choices through filibuster threats, which means those nominees would have to get 60 votes before they could be confirmed to lifetime seats on the nation's second highest court.

They have threatened to block again the seven that Bush renominated this year, as well as future ones they consider outside of the mainstream.

Republicans in turn have threatened to use their majority to change senatorial rules to require a simple majority vote for confirmation.

To avoid that showdown, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that he had offered Frist a compromise.

The Nevada Democrat said part of that compromise would require Republicans to back away from attempting to ban judicial filibusters.

Sources said Reid's plan includes allowing confirmation votes for three nominees for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- Richard Griffin, David McKeague and Susan Neilson -- in exchange for Henry Saad's nomination to that court being withdrawn.

Democrats also would not block confirmation of one of the four remaining filibustered nominees: Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, William Myers and William Pryor, although it is not clear which one would be chosen for confirmation.

But Frist, earlier in the day, said he would not accept any deal that keeps his Republican majority from confirming judicial nominees that the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved.

"'Radar anomaly' briefly forces Bush to leave Oval Office"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, April 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President Bush was rushed to a secure underground White House bunker and Vice President Dick Cheney was whisked outside the compound Wednesday because of a "radar anomaly" -- perhaps a flock of birds or pocket of rain -- that was mistaken for a plane flying in restricted airspace.

The late-morning scare was determined within minutes to be a false alarm, and business quickly returned to normal.

Later in the day, security officials sent a robotic device to investigate what turned out to be a harmless bag left along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

There have been similar alarms before, sparked by a blip on a radar screen that looks like an aircraft venturing into the area around the White House that is off-limits to aircraft.

In November 2003, the White House was briefly evacuated while Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to investigate a tripped radar alert that also triggered fears -- also groundless -- of an airspace violation.

Bush was in Britain at the time.

This time, though, Bush was in the Oval Office when radar picked up something.

Helicopters were sent to check it out and found there was no errant aircraft, said Brian Roehrkasse, a Homeland Security Department spokesman.

Before that could be confirmed, though, the Secret Service leaped into action.

Wednesday evening, pedestrians were cleared from Pennsylvania Avenue as authorities investigated a bag that was lying unattended by a fence along the north side of the White House.

A robotic device rolled up to the bag and shook it.

Nothing inside was deemed a security threat.

"Working families finding door closed - Home prices outpace wages as ownership becomes difficult, studies show"

By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press
First published: Friday, April 29, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The American dream of having a job and owning a tidy home is becoming a fantasy for more people.

Housing prices are outstripping wage increases in many areas, meaning more people are either spending above their means or living in dilapidated conditions, according to a pair of studies being released today by the Center for Housing Policy, a coalition pushing for more affordable housing.

It's generally accepted that a family should not spend more than 30 percent of its income on housing to ensure there is enough money for other necessities.

But in a recent six-year period, the number of low- and middle-income working families paying more than half their income for housing has increased 76 percent.

In 2003, 4.2 million working families spent more than half their income on housing, up from 2.4 million in 1997.

The problem is even more acute for immigrant working families: They are 75 percent more likely than native-born working families to pay more than half their income for housing.

Barbara Lipman, the research director for the center, said a full-time job doesn't guarantee families a decent, affordable place to live.

"The problem seems to be impervious to economic conditions because the number of working families in this situation has grown during the boom-boom '90s and early 2000s," she said.

One out of every eight families in the United States -- or 14 million -- had critical housing needs in 2003, defined as either paying more than half of income for housing or living in run-down quarters.

The center found homeowners now are more likely than renters to have critical housing needs -- 55 percent of the 14 million are people who own their homes.

Meanwhile, the median-priced home in 2003 was $176,000, up more than 11 percent from 2001.

During this time, national median salaries went up only 4 percent for licensed practical nurses (to $33,000), 3 percent for elementary schoolteachers ($43,000) and 7 percent for police officers $45,000).

And even though some people buy houses farther out that are more affordable, their commuting costs increase and consume a chunk of their savings.

The group found that for every $1,000 families saved on housing by moving some place cheaper farther out, they're only $225 ahead because their transportation costs go up so much.

For renters, the center found a worker needed to earn $15.21 an hour in 2003 to have a two-bedroom apartment that did not consume more than 30 percent of income.

But the national median wages of retail sales workers and janitors, for example, were under $9 an hour.

The findings indicate that housing problems are far from limited to central cities.

Most homeowners with critical housing needs lived in the suburbs.

For renters, more than half lived in central cities.

Lipman said communities need to allow developers to increase the density for market rate housing.

In exchange, the developers have to allow for a certain amount of houses to be sold at affordable rates.

"30 years later, Vietnam still divides - War resonates in nation's political, military and cultural debates even as personal memories fade"

By MICHAEL TACKETT and TIM JONES, Chicago Tribune
First published: Saturday, April 30, 2005

WASHINGTON -- At one end of the National Mall, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is walking into the Capitol for a vote, with students on the steps instantly recognizing him and calling out his name.

At the other end, in his 18th year of manning a POW-MIA booth, Chris Horstman sits in obscurity.

Between them lies the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the dark, brooding, "V"-shaped wall that begins with Jessie Calba on slab 70E and ends with John H. Anderson on slab 70W, commemorating the more than 58,000 war dead.

The wall descends below street level and stands in contrast to the nearby soaring tribute to World War II service.

Today the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and Vietnam remains a catch-all metaphor for this nation's most troubled period in the last half-century, still evoking anger, ambiguity and resignation.

While memories of the conflict recede, the war continues to affect the nation's politics, military strategy and culture.

Last week, in Kansas City, Mo., 54-year-old Vietnam veteran Michael Smith waited in line 90 minutes for the chance to spit on Jane Fonda.

That is one side of the divide.

Earlier this month, the family of Sheldon Burnett of New Hampshire was able to bury his remains -- found last year in Laos -- at Arlington National Cemetery, after learning of his disappearance 34 years ago.

That is another.

Vietnam sparked huge protests on America's college campuses.

Today's college students can hardly relate.

"I really don't have any connection with it," said 19-year-old University of Minnesota freshman Kelsey Murphy, from Lakeville, Minn.

She also cannot recall whether her parents, who are in their 40s, ever discussed the war.

The mere mention of the word "Vietnam" can still start an argument, and never perhaps as easily as in Washington.

But those strong feelings seem to erode with time and distance.

For most young Americans, in particular, Vietnam is just another grainy montage in the study of U.S. history, known to them more for the student protests and music the era spawned than for what happened on the battlefield.

McCain has lived that ambiguity and triumphed over it.

A veteran celebrated for his heroic role as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, McCain said he had hoped the country had moved on.

But when the issue surfaced so prominently in the 2004 presidential campaign -- particularly with the attacks on Sen. John Kerry's service in the conflict -- he realized that it had not.

"Unfortunately, in the last presidential election we found that we have not moved on at all," McCain said.

"Thirty years, and it still divides us."

"The legacy is that this is still the second-most divisive conflict in the history of our country -- the Civil War being the first -- and unfortunately, I don't think the wounds will heal completely until those of us who fought in that time pass on."

"I hate to sound so pessimistic."

Yet pessimism is one of the clearest and cruelest bequests of the Vietnam era to the United States.

Some experts believe it started a cycle of civic disengagement, leading to a drop-off in voting and in faith in the institutions of government.

The end of the military draft and the Watergate scandal, no doubt, fueled those same trends.

And while Vietnam can still expose raw disagreements, Americans largely share the view that it was a mistake to wage war in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

"The public looking back agrees that the war was a mistake, was not a just war," said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, which has been surveying U.S. attitudes on war for more than 50 years.

"But that doesn't mean there can't be all kinds of debates about who performed honorably or not."

"That is a different question."

As the Democratic presidential nominee, Kerry tried to make his Vietnam combat experience a central part of his personal campaign narrative, as a measure of his credentials to be commander in chief.

Instead, that set off a re-examination of his service record and his role protesting the war when he returned.

Though service in Vietnam helped to launch the political careers of Kerry, McCain and others, it by no means proved a gilded credential with voters.

Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 despite criticism that he avoided service in Vietnam.

Then George W. Bush, who secured a spot in the Texas Air National Guard that almost certainly assured he would not go to Vietnam, defeated Al Gore, who did serve, and Kerry.

Its echoes are felt at the Pentagon.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who served in combat in Vietnam and ascended the military ranks to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, often argued that the United States had to be willing to use overwhelming force before entering an armed conflict and it had to have a clear exit strategy after achieving battlefield victory.

That policy was clearly employed during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the major combat phase of the Iraq war, but critics of the Bush administration question whether officials properly crafted an exit strategy.

To Bob Herman, 68, a professor of genetics at the University of Minnesota, the legacy of Vietnam has been mostly forgotten.

"For me, it's what a big mistake the whole thing was, and I don't think we've learned a thing," Herman said.

"Now, here we are in Iraq."

This morning, on the radio news, I heard just a snippet of the reply on behalf of the Democrats that Mario Cuomo gave, apparently on the radio, to the weekly address of George W. Bush.

In that snippet, Mr. Cuomo cited from James Madison's words to the fledgling nation when the Bill of Rights was added to the United States Constitution, about the need to have protection in OUR America from what Madison called the "TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY".

Now, that is the first time I have heard another person use that phrase publicly in quite some time, and frankly, it was good to hear it said, and on the radio, to boot, presisely because of these times that we are now in, where the tyranny of the REPUBLICAN PARTY is crashing down all around us up here where I am.

I have said this before, and so, I will say it one more time; as an older American, I cannot recall another time in OUR nation's history when OUR rights as citizens in this REPUBLIC were so threatened, AND FROM WITHIN this fine nation of OURS, as opposed to any foreign threats that I can see looming on the horizon, anywhere!

SO!

I can only hope as an older American who is a disabled combat veteran that that speech by Mario Cuomo got wide distribution, although I have not yet seen anything in print about it yet this morning, and so, fear that it may not have been heard by that many common Americans when it was given, which was the case with my self, who did not hear the speech, but only that snippet on the radio news this morning!

THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY!

The scourge of OUR times, here in OUR America!

Stay tuned for further developments, as they happen!

LIVE!

Late-breaking!

LIFE, in OUR America!

"Cuomo warns of 'tyranny of the majority' - Republicans threaten to end judicial filibustering"

CNN
Saturday, April 30, 2005 Posted: 7:58 PM EDT (2358 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- If Republicans rewrite Senate rules to more easily end filibusters, the country will experience "exactly the kind of `tyranny of the majority' that James Madison had in mind," former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said Saturday.

Cuomo, in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, said Senate Republicans "are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies."

"How will they do this?"

"By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate," Cuomo said.

"The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate," he said.

"That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority'."

"It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do," Cuomo said.

Democrats blocked 10 of President Bush's appellate court choices during his last term by filibustering.

Bush re-nominated seven of them this term, and Democrats are threatening to block them again.

They contend those seven are two sharply conservative to fill the lifetime appointments.

Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed in the 100-member body to end a filibuster.

Republicans are threatening to use their majority to change the rules and require only a simple majority vote to end a filibuster.

"The Republican senators should instead start working with the Democrats to address all the serious problems of this country in the proper forums -- in the Congress and in the presidency -- leaving the judges to be judges instead of a third political branch controlled by the whim of the politicians in power," Cuomo said.

Cuomo, who was leading in Democratic polls in late 1991 when he pulled the plug on a possible presidential bid, lost the New York governorship in 1994 as he sought a fourth term against Republican Gov. George Pataki.

He later turned down a chance to be considered by President Clinton for a Supreme Court seat.

On Liberty

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Tyranny of the majority)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

On Liberty is a philosophical work in the English language by 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859.

Composed just after the death of his wife, it is the culmination of part of a plan to record their entire philosophical conclusion.

To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and economic freedom of individuals from the state.

Mill was not opposed to government intervention in economic affairs; as a liberal, he believed that while property owners' rights needed to be protected -- he supported private ownership of the means of production -- he considered himself a socialist, for he believed that the state had a role to play in the redistribution of wealth.

Perhaps the most memorable point made by Mill in this work, and his basis for liberty, is that "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign".

Mill is compelled to say this due to what he calls the "tyranny of the majority", wherein through control of etiquette and morality, society is an unelected power that can do horrific things.

Mill's work could be considered a reaction to this social control by the majority and his advocation of individual decision-making over the self.

On Liberty was an enormously influential work; the ideas presented within it remain the basis of much political thought since.

Aside from the popularity of the ideas themselves, it is quite short and its themes easily accessible to the non-expert reader, even nearly 150 years later.

It has remained in print continuously since its initial publication.

Overview

Mill opens his book with a discussion about the "struggle between authority and liberty" describing the tyranny of government, which needs to be controlled by the liberty of the citizens under said government.

Without such limit to authority, the government has (or is) a "dangerous weapon".

He divides this control of authority into two mechanisms: necessary rights belonging to citizens, and the "establishment of constitutional checks by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power".

As such, Mill suggests that mankind will be happy to be ruled "by a master" if his rule is guaranteed against tyranny.

Mill speaks in the aforementioned section in terms of monarchy.

However, mankind soon developed into democracy where "there was no fear of tyrannizing over self".

"This may seem axiomatic", he says, but "the people who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised".

Further, this can only be by the majority, and if the majority wish to criminalise a section of society that happens to be a minority — whether a race, gender, faith, sexuality, or the like — this may easily be done despite any wishes of the minority to the contrary.

This is in his terms the "tyranny of the majority".

Tyranny of the majority is far worse than tyranny of government simply because it is not limited to political function.

Where one can be protected from a tyrant, it is much harder to be protected "against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling".

As such, people will be subject to what society thinks is suitable — and people will be fashioned as such.

The prevailing opinions within society will be the basis of all rules of conduct within society — as such there can be no safeguard in law against the tyranny of the majority.

Mill soon goes on to prove this as a negative: the majority opinion may not be the correct opinion.

The only justification for a person's preference as to their moral belief is that it is their preference.

On a particular issue people will align themself either for or against this issue; the side of greatest volume will prevail, but is not essentially correct.

As with every rule, there must be an exception:

"That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

This is the first mention in On Liberty of the so-called harm principle.

The only limiting factor of liberty in Mill's view should be harm, although not just any harm, but specifically physical harm.

If a person is harmed then their sovereignty over self no longer exists since sovereignty is after all the foundational position of power; this is Mill's justification of the harm principle.

Children and those who cannot take care of themselves are allowed to be interfered with beyond the harm principle as they may well harm themselves unintentionally; such children and those who cannot take care of themselves do not, and cannot, have sovereignty over self.

Furthermore, Mill states that one may accept despotism over barbarians if the end result is their betterment; this implies that barbarians are of "nonage" and cannot be sovereign over self.

As soon as people are capable of deciding for themselves they should then be given liberty from authority.

To illustrate his point Mill uses Charlemagne and Akbar the Great as examples of such compassionate dictators who happen to control, or even "help", "barbarians".

At this point he divides human liberty when in private into its components or manifestations:

The freedom to think as one wishes, and to feel as one does.

This includes the freedom to opinion, and includes the freedom to publish opinions known as the freedom of speech, the freedom to pursue tastes and pursuits, even if they are deemed "immoral," as long as they do not cause harm, the "freedom to unite" or meet with others, often known as the freedom of assembly.

Without all of these freedoms, one cannot be considered to be truly free.

It is important to note, however, that Mill makes it clear throughout On Liberty that he "regard[s] utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions."

This he inherited from his Utilitarian upbringing under his father James Mill, a follower of Jeremy Bentham.

Because of this, the specific justifications he gives for each of the freedoms listed above rests not on any form of natural rights but rather on the fact that he believed these freedoms would bring positive consequences for society.

He has been criticised on this basis (by, among others, the 20th century political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, famous for his distinction between positive liberty and negative liberty) for not truly valuing liberty, and prizing above it diversity, equality and social progress.

Additional resources

Wikisource has the full text of On Liberty

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty"

Categories: 1859 books | Philosophy books

Tocqueville and the Tyranny of the Majority

http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/980.html

Definition : A phenomenon characterised by a homogenity of public opinion, caused by the peculiar psychological dynamics of public democratic politics.

Tocqueville argues that there is little toleration of difference of opinion in democratic societies.

Unlike in aristocratic societies, public opinion is seen as authentic rather than ascribed, and therefore has a great deal more moral force.

Political and Moral Power of the Majority

In America, the government is exposed to the whims of the majority.

Particularly in the legislature, which is elected at short intervals, representatives must act on public opinion in order to stay in office.

Furthermore, "the moral authority of the majority is partly based on the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of men united than a single individual, and that the number of legislators is more important that their quality".

Yet another principle ensures the moral power of the majority.

It is that "the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few".

Crushing Independence of Thought

A danger of democracy is that it can crush independence of thought:

"I know of no country in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America [...]

As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety "

In Europe, a person at odds with a repressive government can usually find shelter somewhere.

If their opinion is at odds with an aristocratic government, then they can usually find security with the general populace.

If it is at odds with the populace, the opposite is true.

The censure delivered on dissenters is much harsher in democratic societies than in aristocratic societies.

In aristocratic societies one is tortured and punished but one's soul escapes.

In democratic societies, "the body is left free and the soul enslaved":

"The sovereign can no longer say, 'You shall think as I do on pain of death': but he says, 'You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien along your people'."

"You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you solicit their suffrages; and they will affect to scorn you, if you solicit their esteem."

"You will remain among men, but you like an impure being; and those who are mostly persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn."

Yielding Rather than Participating

Given this overwhelming moral power of "majority opinion", its ability to ostracise, and its tendency to enforce conformity, it is possible that the average person may simply abdicate responsibility for taking part in political debate and accept majority opinion as his own.

De Tocqueville argues that this is a fault of democracy in general, rather than democracy in America.

Too Much Power

Tocqueville states that "unlimited power is itself a bad and dangerous thing."

"Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion."

Only God, in his perfection, is fit to exercise such power.

When absolute command is conferred on any power, there is a germ of tyranny.

The main problem with the democratic insitutions of the United States comes their irresistible strength.

"I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny."

If a party is wronged, the only entity that one can turn to is the majority.

The majority controls the legislature, the executive and courts.

Danger of the Tyranny of the Majority

"If the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and oblige them to have recourse to physical force."

Tocqueville cites Madison's Federalist 51, where Madison states his opinion on faction.

He states that it is of paramount importance to protect the weak against the strong, and prevent the oppresion of fractious majorities.

Madison argues that the real danger is the tyranny of the legislature, which is so exposed to the whims of the majority.

An Example of the Tyranny of the Majority

In the chapter "The Unlimited Power of the Majority", De Tocqueville cites two examples of the tyranny of the majority.

During the war of 1812, a newspaper in Baltimore had taken the opinion of the other side, and "excited the indignation of the inhabitants".

The mob attacked printing presses, the militia was called out, but did not respond.

The only way of saving those threatened was to throw them into prison.

The prison was then forced upon and the editors killed.

The guilty were acquitted.

The other example is that of black voters.

The blacks were ostensibly allowed to vote, but De Tocqueville is told that they "volutarily abstain from making their appearance" at the voting booth, because they are afraid of being maltreated.

"The law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support of the majority".

The majority, De Tocqueville concludes, have the right not only to make the laws, but to break them as well.

It is only another instance of the importance of mores and values.

References

Democracy in America, Volume I, Chapter XV.

The Donkey Raffle

A hillbilly, young Kenny, moved to Texas and bought a donkey from Donald, a nearby farmer for $100.00. Farmer Donald agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day he drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died." Kenny replied, "Well, then, just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Kenny said, "OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey."

Farmer Donald asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"

Kenny, "I'm going to raffle him off."

Farmer Donald said, "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"

Kenny said, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."

A month later, Farmer Donald met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"

Kenny said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.00."

Farmer Donald said, "Didn't anyone complain?"

Kenny said, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the CEO of Enron.

Great story!

It's like the saying - " When all you have in your life is lemons - Make lemonade.

A.B.

"White House Challenges DeLay Allegations Ahead of Probe"

1 hour, 21 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House stepped up its defense of embattled Rep. Tom DeLay on Sunday, disputing the merit of ethics allegations against the House majority leader ahead of an expected congressional probe.

While White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said it was "a matter for the House to consider" whether DeLay violated any House rules, he added:

"We have no reason to believe that they (the rules) haven't been followed."

"We have not seen anything that would suggest that those allegations have any merit," Card told NBC's "Meet the Press," going beyond recent statements of support from President Bush.

Card made his comments after the Republican-led House of Representatives dropped new ethics rules opposed by Democrats, clearing the way for another anticipated probe of DeLay.

Admonished by the House ethics committee last year on three separate matters, DeLay, a Texas Republican, has faced new questions in the past several weeks on ties to lobbyists and foreign trips funded by outside groups.

"I don't know anyone who believes that there is necessarily merit to the allegations that have been put forward," Card said.

DeLay, who has denied any wrongdoing, said he would welcome the opportunity to put the matter before the committee and "set the record straight."

Most House Republicans have publicly supported DeLay, but at least two have suggested that he step aside as leader, at least until the ethics questions are resolved.

Bush showed support for DeLay last week by making a rare public appearance with him at a Social Security event in Texas.

They then flew back to Washington together aboard Air Force One.

DeLay, widely admired among Republicans for his skill at rallying votes, has been a key force behind a number of Bush's legislative victories, such as a new prescription drug benefit for older Americans and curbs on class-action lawsuits.

"He's been a strong leader for this president."

"He's been very productive in getting things done," Card said of DeLay.

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, in a recent interview with USA Today, predicted DeLay would keep his job.

Has anyone in OUR America figured out yet that Tommy Delay is nothing but a pip-squeak outside of his congressional district down there in Texas?

Yes, America, that is right!

Tommy Delay is a Congressman for a district in Texas, and that is that!

If you live in Ohio, say, or California, what AUTHORITY does Tommy Delay have over you?

For that matter, IF you live in his congressional district down there in Texas, what AUTHORITY does Tommy Delay have over you?

Any at all?

And if you answered yes, how do you personally work that math, since Tommy Delay, as a congressman, is nothing more than your representative in OUR Congress?

Or is it OUR Congress, any longer?

Is Tommy Delay now something more than merely being the representative of a smallish group of people in some congressional district down there in Texas?

Obviously, he is a "protected" and "beloved" of George W. Bush, but what does that really make him, Tommy Delay, I mean, outside of a danger to our REPUBLIC, and our democratic ideals, here in OUR America?

A question for OUR times!

Think over your answer carefully, then, for the shackles that bind you tomarrow might well be of your own forging, today!

I have to say that I have been struggling with this thing of democrats and republicans in OUR America for probably fifty years now, since say, 1955, or so, and I am only now just becoming to understand what the theoretical difference is between the two, which up here, where I am, in solidly REPUBLICAN-controlled territory, is more than theoretical, at least to the REPUBLICANS, who have control, and who intend to maintain that control through any means necessary, including the infliction of violence on those who would question, or dissent!

To understand REPUBLICANS in OUR America, of course, it is necessary to have a good understanding of human nature, and how human nature has shaped OUR nation since, say, 1766, which is ten years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and may well be one of those years that just was pivotal in the affairs of the world that followed, right on down to OUR present times.

Right now, I am still making my way through "The Glorious Cause" by Robert Middlekauff, which is a well-researched book about OUR nation's founding, and I just came across a sentence in there about how, at the time of OUR split with England, before we had a federal Constitution, about how our state Constitutions did not actually give us DEMOCRACY, so much as alleged safeguards and protections against tyranny, and when I read that statement, in the context in which it was made, which is LIFE in OUR America in the mid-1700's, much became clear to me, as to where we actually are today, in terms of this divide that most certainly does exist in America, WHICH IS NOT A DEMOCRACY AT ALL, in any sense of the word, and in all senses of the word, to boot!

What really is DEMOCRACY, and why don't we have it today?

Stay tuned!

Updates as they happen!

Live!

Late-breaking!

Life, in OUR America!

Ah that this would be true. In fact, the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, which is FAT(HEAD) TOMMY'S full title, carries a lot of weight (sorry) in that legislative body (sorry again).

To add insult to injury, he's 3rd in succession to be KING (er president) if Bush and Cheney both suddenly died.

So be careful what you wish for... you could get it.

Ah, jeffmoskin, you are the KING of SEGUES!

Old TOMMY Delay IS quite the man about town INSIDE the halls of the Congress, and that is a fact!

BUT ......

That is a statement about those people down there, is it not?

And who exactly it is on the face of this earth of OURS that they are representative of, because it sure is not me!

INSIDE CONGRESS HALL down there in Washington, D$C$, old TOMMY is the big man, but back outside, on the street, he is just another American!

We should never forget those basics of citizenship, here in OUR America, is my thought, regardless of who is exerting pressure on us to do exactly that!

"Italy Cites 'Stress' in Agent's Shooting"

By AIDAN LEWIS, Associated Press Writer

1 minute ago

ROME - Italian investigators have concluded that stress, inexperience and fatigue among U.S. soldiers played a role in the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad, according to a report released Monday.

The probe found no evidence that the March 4 killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was deliberate.

Calipari was killed just after he secured the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena from Iraqi militants who held her hostage for a month.

U.S. soldiers fired on the Italians' vehicle as it approached the checkpoint near Baghdad's airport.

Sgrena and another Italian agent were wounded.

Death of agent not deliberate, Italian report concludes
Last Updated Mon, 02 May 2005 20:18:54 EDT
CBC News

ROME - Stress, fatigue and the inexperience of some U.S. soldiers led to the shooting death of an Italian intelligence officer at a Baghdad checkpoint, Italian investigators have concluded in their own report.

But the report found no evidence that the death of Nicola Calipari on March 4 was deliberate.
Nicola Calipari (AP Photo)

Calipari was killed by gunfire coming from U.S. forces as they tried to stop a car carrying him, two other agents and a freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

Calipari died as he shielded Sgrena from the gunfire.

"It is likely that the state of tension stemming from the conditions of time, circumstances and place, as well as possibly some degree of inexperience and stress might have led some soldiers to instinctive and little-controlled reactions," said Italy's report.

* FROM APR. 29, 2005: Italy, U.S. disagree over death of Italian agent

Last Friday, the two countries, which participated in a joint investigation, said in a statement they could not come to any "shared final conclusions." They said they would be issuing separate reports on the incident.

The Italian report criticized how the scene of the shooting was preserved.

It said the car carrying Sgrena and the agents was removed before its position was marked and the soldiers' vehicles also were moved.

"That made it impossible to technically reconstruct the event, to determine the exact position of the vehicles and measure the distances, and to obtain precise data defining the precise trajectory of the bullets, the speed of the car and the stopping distance," the report said.

In a separate U.S. report released Saturday, American investigators cleared the soldiers of wrongdoing, saying they gave adequate warning for the car to stop, and fired warning shots.

The U.S. report stated the soldiers did receive training on "rules of engagement" and how to respond to threats before they came to Iraq, including further training in Kuwait and a refresher course last February.

But the report admitted that the troops, who were "traffic-blocking" when the car approached, did not have training in that prior to their arrival in Iraq. Traffic blocking differs from traffic controlling in that the purpose of blocking is to ensure that no vehicles proceed past a certain point.

The soldiers "learned and practiced" how to run blocking positions from Feb. 5-15, after relocating from Taji.

Copyright ©2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved

A lucky shot to the temple,

Right.

Sort of like when the cleaners forgot to leave clothes for the " detainees " at
Abu Ghraib.

It happens.

A.B.