February 27, 2004

hat tip to Mr. Willis

Soldier for the Truth - Exposing Bush's talking-points war
Fri Feb 20, 6:27 PM ET
By Marc Cooper LA Weekly Writer

After two decades in the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, now 43, knew her career as a regional analyst was coming to an end when in the months leading up to the war in Iraq she felt she was being propagandized by her own bosses.

With masters degrees from Harvard in government and zoology and two books on Saharan Africa to her credit, she found herself transferred in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Departments office for Near East South Asia (NESA), a policy arm of the Pentagon.

Kwiatkowski got there just as war fever was spreading, or being spread as she would later argue, through the halls of Washington. Indeed, shortly after her arrival, a piece of NESA was broken off, expanded and re-dubbed with the Orwellian name of the Office of Special Plans. The OSPs task was, ostensibly, to help the Pentagon develop policy around the Iraq crisis.

She would soon conclude that the OSP a pet project of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld was more akin to a nerve center for what she now calls a neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon.

Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq.

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Dean Urges Supporters Not to Leave the Party
By ROBERT F. WORTH

NEW HAVEN, Feb. 26 — In his first public appearance since dropping out of the presidential race last week, Howard Dean thanked his supporters here on Thursday night and urged them to stay with the Democratic Party and "not to be tempted by independent or third-party candidates."

Dr. Dean spoke in a packed hotel ballroom to an audience of whooping, clapping supporters who often acted as though their candidate were still in the race.

He did not mention Ralph Nader, who entered the presidential race a few days ago, but a number of those in the audience said they considered his remark about third-party candidates to be a clear reference to Mr. Nader.

Dr. Dean also did not say anything about endorsing another Democrat for president, but he did say, in a characteristic aside, "My staff is absolutely terrified about what I might announce tonight."

Instead, he urged his supporters to back the eventual Democratic nominee, and described his plans to continue influencing the race from the outside.

"Those of you who wish to support another candidate, I encourage that," he said, adding that he would also be happy to have his supporters vote for him in the Connecticut primary on Tuesday. "But remember," he added, "we must all stand together in the end."

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One Producer of U.S. Beef Wants to Test All Its Cattle
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

A beef producer in Kansas has proposed testing all its cattle for mad cow disease so it can resume exports to Japan, but it is encountering resistance from the Agriculture Department and other beef producers.

American beef exports have plummeted since Dec. 23 when a cow in Washington State was diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or B.S.E., a fatal disease that can be passed to humans who eat infected cattle tissue.

To assure the safety of its meat, the company, Creekstone Farms of Arkansas City, Kan., a subsidiary of the Enterprise Management Group, wants to use rapid diagnostic tests that are routinely used in Japan and many European nations.

But no rapid tests have been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture, and department officials pointed out yesterday that it was against the law for any company to sell or market any unapproved diagnostic test. They said they would not respond to Creekstone's request until they evaluated the legal, regulatory and trade implications raised.

Other meat producers are upset by the company's request, saying it has broken ranks in an industry besieged by bad news. Dan Murphy, vice president for public affairs at the American Meat Industry, said American beef was so safe that widescale testing was unnecessary.

"Everybody is hurting from the export ban," Mr. Murphy said, "but their solution is not the right one."

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U.S. Plan for Mideast Reform Draws Ire of Arab Leaders
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — An American proposal for the world's wealthiest nations to press for economic, political and cultural changes in the Middle East has drawn harsh criticism from Arab leaders and European officials, who say the Bush administration did not consult the countries it seeks to transform.

In addition, a Bush administration official said Thursday that some European officials had suggested they might block the initiative if there was no progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The administration, seeking to overcome anti-Western and anti-American sentiments in the Arab world, is circulating a draft of what it calls a "Greater Middle East initiative." It hopes the idea will be adopted at the summit meeting of the eight leading industrial nations in June.

The draft has not been officially released, but after a copy was published earlier this month in Al Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, and an English-language version was posted on its Web site, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia criticized it as an attempt to dictate change.

"Whoever imagines that it is possible to impose solutions or reform from abroad on any society or region is delusional," Mr. Mubarak said on Wednesday. "All peoples by their nature reject whoever tries to impose ideas on them."

Egypt's three semiofficial dailies — Al Ahram, Al Akhbar and Al Gumhuriya — all reported Mr. Mubarak's remarks, including another pointed statement that the Bush administration was behaving "as if the region and its states do not exist, as if they have no people or societies, as if they have no sovereignty over their land, no ownership."

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Please check out this Mark Fiore animation. I don't want to be laughing alone because people think you're crazy.

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Boy. First teachers are terrorists. Now Haitians are hijackers.

Florida politicians debated how the Haitian refugees should be treated. Gov. Jeb Bush called one boatload "hijackers" and said the United States must be careful not to signal desperate Haitians that they should take to "rickety boats or to hijack commercial vessels."

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via BlackGayBlogger

You're A People's History of the United States!
by Howard Zinn
After years of listening to other peoples' lies, you decided you've had enough. Now you're out to tell it like it is, with all the gory details and nothing left out. Instead of respecting leaders, you want to know what the common people have to offer. But this revolution still has a long way to go, and you're not against making a little profit while you wait. Honesty is your best policy.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

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Calpundit thinks she should apologize and mean it. Since I can't remember the last sincere public apology I heard, I think that's an unfair double standard.

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Brown rips into Bush administration official

KEN THOMAS
Associated Press

MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown verbally attacked a top Bush administration official during a briefing on the Haiti crisis Wednesday, calling the President's policy on the beleaguered nation "racist" and his representatives "a bunch of white men."

Her outburst was directed at Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. Noriega, a Mexican-American, is the State Department's top official for Latin America.

"I think it was an emotional response of her frustration with the administration," said David Simon, a spokesman for the Jacksonville Democrat. He noted that Brown, who is black, is "very passionate about Haiti."

Brown sat directly across the table from Noriega and yelled into a microphone. Her comments sent a hush over the hourlong meeting, which was attended by about 30 people, including several members of Congress and Bush administration officials.

Noriega later told Brown: "As a Mexican-American, I deeply resent being called a racist and branded a white man," according to three participants.

Brown then told him "you all look alike to me," the participants said.

During the meeting, Brown criticized the administration's response to the escalating violence in Haiti, where rebels opposing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government have seized control of large parts of the country.

After her comments about white men, Noriega said he would "relay that to (Secretary of State) Colin Powell and (national security adviser) Condoleezza Rice the next time I run into them," participants said. Powell and Rice are black.

A State department spokesman did not return a phone message.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who organized the meeting, called the comments "disappointing."

"To sit there and browbeat this man who is a Mexican-American and call him names, it was inappropriate," Foley said.

Brown has criticized the detention of Haitian migrants fleeing their country and the freezing of millions of dollars in aid over flawed 2000 legislative elections in the impoverished Caribbean nation. In a statement Wednesday, she made parallels to the disputed 2000 election in Florida.

"It simply mystifies me how President Bush, a president who was selected by the Supreme Court under more than questionable circumstances (in my district alone 27,000 votes were thrown out), is telling another country that their elections were not fair and that they are therefore undeserving of aid or international recognition," Brown said.

Participants at the meeting included eight members of Florida's congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; John Maisto, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, and Adolfo Franco, an assistant administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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Quote of note:

As recently as the 1960s, a prominent black physician bought a home in the Peyton Forest area and white homeowners were so inflamed that Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen agreed to erect a permanent wooden barrier around the neighborhood, said Andy Ambrose, deputy director of the Atlanta History Center. The Peyton Forest Wall, as it was called, stood about 4 feet tall. It was designed to prevent the entrance of moving vans.

When he takes newcomers to look at houses in southern DeKalb County, real estate attorney Robert Burroughs offers them a powerful counter-narrative.

Usually, he drives them to Hunt Valley Estates in Lithonia, where mansions priced at $500,000 and more sit among tall pines, with iron gates and topiary hedges reminiscent of English manors.

He points out his own home. And then he waits for it to sink in.

"They say, 'This is a community of all black folks?' It's inconceivable to them," Burroughs said. "They want to pack up and come here, job or no job."

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Atlanta Suburbs Bloom for Blacks
Affluent new arrivals are finding the good life -- and issues that whites in similar communities have to confront, such as weak public schools.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer

February 27, 2004

LITHONIA, Ga. — When she first turned down the road into Sandstone Estates, with its velour-soft swells of lawn, Italianate fountains and circular driveways, Diana Clarkson asked the question that newcomers always ask: Are these really all owned by black people?

Clarkson, 41, had lived in suburbs most of her life. One thing all those communities had in common — other than good public schools and high-end grocery stores — was that very few black families lived there. Clarkson's last home was in Westchester County, N.Y., where the IBM executive with a six-figure salary was frequently mistaken for a nanny.

Here, suddenly, was a land populated almost entirely by people like herself: African American judges, doctors and college professors. It was a place, the first Clarkson had seen, where her son could grow up middle-class without being reminded that he is an outsider.

She was moved. The subdivision of Lionshead, where she bought land, had no history — much of it was still open red clay — but she could close her eyes and envision the brick homes and backyard barbecues, and a vibrant network of neighbors who had chosen each other.

Clarkson had enrolled in a kind of social experiment — one that, 5 1/2 years later, has had mixed results for her.

Over the last decade, affluent, professional African Americans have poured into the Atlanta metropolitan area faster than any other region in the country, and many are settling in predominantly black suburbs, such as Lithonia, in southern DeKalb County.

As they grow, Atlanta's black suburbs have begun to accumulate both social cachet and political power. Populating freshly built neighborhoods, middle-class blacks can recognize "something really new, really different is going on here," said Roderick Harrison, a demographer.

"The entire black suburban experience in the north has involved urban pioneers integrating white neighborhoods," said Harrison, of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "Here, you're moving into territory that's essentially virgin. You're there, you come in, you enjoy your new status. This is real arrival. This is living large."

As black home-buyers venture into Georgia from other parts of the country, they are stalked by memories.

As recently as the 1960s, a prominent black physician bought a home in the Peyton Forest area and white homeowners were so inflamed that Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen agreed to erect a permanent wooden barrier around the neighborhood, said Andy Ambrose, deputy director of the Atlanta History Center. The Peyton Forest Wall, as it was called, stood about 4 feet tall. It was designed to prevent the entrance of moving vans.

When he takes newcomers to look at houses in southern DeKalb County, real estate attorney Robert Burroughs offers them a powerful counter-narrative.

Usually, he drives them to Hunt Valley Estates in Lithonia, where mansions priced at $500,000 and more sit among tall pines, with iron gates and topiary hedges reminiscent of English manors.

He points out his own home. And then he waits for it to sink in.

"They say, 'This is a community of all black folks?' It's inconceivable to them," Burroughs said. "They want to pack up and come here, job or no job."

Most buyers head for "luscious upscale communities," as one real estate agent describes them, in the towns of Stone Mountain and Lithonia, where spacious houses on large plots of land begin at $200,000. White home-buyers are scarce. Although agents are prohibited by law from telling prospective buyers about the neighborhoods' racial makeup, customers are free to make assessments, said Carmen Johnson.

"I tell them, 'Come back on a Saturday and see who's playing,' " said Johnson, who has been selling houses in the Atlanta area since 1990. "It's not going to be an accident if they buy here."

For the most part, blacks are buying into the same dream that swept over America's farmlands after World War II, when whites began flocking to the suburbs from the cities.

Between 1995 and 2000, Atlanta's metropolitan area took in a larger number of Northern college-educated blacks than any city in America, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Frey's study shows that many newcomers end up in the Atlanta suburbs, which are now more than 25% black, compared with a national average of a little less than 9%.

There, the new arrivals are thriving financially. The black college graduates who moved to the Atlanta suburbs have seen remarkably fast income growth, Frey said — 22.6% between 1995 and 2000, compared with 13.4% in the rest of the country.

At times, the newcomers have displayed political muscle. The voters of southern DeKalb are often credited with voting outspoken liberal Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney — a five-term incumbent — out of office in favor of a more mainstream Democrat, a Yale-educated former judge named Denise L. Majette.

The transplants are wealthier and politically more conservative than Atlanta's old-line black Democrats, said William Boone, a professor of political science at Clark Atlanta University. "The population is different over there," he said. "It is going to exert itself."

Newcomers say they slide effortlessly into a vigorous network of black professionals. Alan Peterson, 47, a dentist who moved to Lithonia's Hunt Valley subdivision in 1997, said that within two weeks of his arrival, people started calling him to offer jobs, although he had one.

He looks back on many years in St. Louis — its biting winter wind, its impenetrable old-boy network — without nostalgia.

"People ask me if I have any regrets about leaving St. Louis," said Peterson. "I tell them I do. The only regret I have is that I probably should have left 17 years earlier."

To those who study income and migration patterns, the history of all-black suburbs is not encouraging. The county most frequently compared to DeKalb is Prince George's County, Md., in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Prince George's has the highest African American median income in the country; DeKalb has the second highest.

Prince George's offers a story of wasted potential, Harrison said. Once a white, rural county, it became more wealthy and more educated as black families moved in.

But attracting malls and department stores has been a challenge, and — more importantly — the county's public school students routinely rank near the bottom of Maryland's school systems on standardized tests.

Harrison, a former Prince George's County resident, said the schools suffered a twofold challenge: Even with blacks earning relatively high incomes, the median income in Prince George's County stood at $55,000, far below the $72,000 median income for neighboring Montgomery County, which is predominantly white.

Second, blacks had moved into a county where schools were weak to begin with, Harrison said. Faced with the uphill battle of substantially improving the schools, black families in Prince George's have had "few dramatic successes," Harrison said.

Another former resident had a blunter explanation: Parents took their children out of public schools, abandoning the system to the "lowest common denominator."

"They began to behave in ways similar to affluent white people," said Sam Fulwood III, a newspaper columnist and former Los Angeles Times reporter who scrutinized his suburban experience in his book "Waking From the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class."

"They put their kids in private schools, and in doing so, they were eating their seed corn," he said. "They were taking away from their property values."

Atlanta suburbs stand a chance of rewriting that story, Harrison said, but it's too early to tell. "That's a question that will be answered in the next 10 or 20 years, and the answer will be critical to issues of black political power," Harrison said. "If you can't do it there, it's very difficult to imagine it being done anywhere else."

In the time since Clarkson chose Lionshead, 80 handsome homes have risen to line its quiet streets. The Mall at Stonecrest opened in Lithonia three years ago, offering quick access to shops such as Ann Taylor and Victoria's Secret.

Inside Clarkson's home, copper-color raw silk drapes hang from her windows, and a 100-inch screen projection TV descends from the ceiling at the push of a button. At night, passing motorists can see a chandelier twinkling in a grand entrance hall.

And at age 10, her son Sam is both cultivated and protected. He studies German and Spanish and plays the double-bass. He shuttles from soccer practice to Cub Scouts, but does not go past the subdivision's gate without his nanny, a Jamaican woman he calls Miss Yvette.

Although he lives near Stone Mountain, a symbolic rallying point of the Ku Klux Klan, most of what Sam knows about racism he learned on the highway, speeding by cars with Confederate flags.

"I would see this flag with the X and the stars. They told me that means no blacks," he said. "I guess that means Martin Luther King's speeches didn't really influence them."

Clarkson laughed fondly when this comment was repeated to her. That was the whole point of moving to a place like southern DeKalb.

"My son has been so sheltered. When I look at him, he's like a kid who grew up on the north side of town," she said. "I think it's wonderful. I wish I had grown up that way."

Lately, though, Clarkson has begun to see problems with the experiment. She still drives to another neighborhood when she wants to eat at a nice restaurant. Most of her neighbors are hard-working two-career families, with little time or energy to spend on neighborhood initiatives such as the Lawn of the Month.

But the main reason is Sam: As he grew, his future began to worry her — average standardized test scores at the middle school he was likely to attend were at the 40th percentile nationally.

Although Clarkson recalls "naively" criticizing other parents for removing their children from under-performing public schools in other places she has lived, she felt differently when it came to Sam.

"I wanted him to be able to compete," she said. "Are you going to take a chance with your child's education?"

Since last September, when he entered fourth grade, Clarkson has been waking her son before dawn to board a bus to North Druid Hills in the older, predominantly white section of DeKalb County, where he attends a magnet school for high achievers.

Waiting outside with him in the freezing dark, she began to wonder about the promised land.

She is planning to move before Sam enters high school.

Although Clarkson is an exception in her community, her conflict speaks volumes about the challenges that face the new black suburbs, said political scientist Boone, who himself lives in a southern DeKalb subdivision. Having received streams of new money, these neighborhoods must now produce the quality of life wealthy Americans expect from the suburbs.

"The romance of having the first black CEO has got to pass away. The romance of having black folks who are very influential has to pass away," he said. "Once you get beyond the romance — 'I'm in a good black community' — other questions come to mind."

In the meantime, new dreamers rush in to DeKalb County.

Two weeks ago, Clarkson's best friend from junior high school pulled up to the house with all her possessions in a rented truck. Cynthia Odum said Clarkson had been badgering her to move to Atlanta for five years.

"I saw her stagnating. She wasn't progressing," Clarkson said. "Here, she could see what the possibilities are."

Odum decided six months ago to leave San Diego, and quit her job at Federal Express Corp. In Atlanta, she plans to start a business sewing white satin dresses for little girls. She looks forward to buying a home here.

For now, it is a giddy experience. As they drove nearly 2,000 miles across the United States, Odum and her teenage daughter sang aloud to the radio, confident that they were on their way to the center of the universe.

"It's funny, because when we first drove up, I said, 'Oh, my God,' "Odum said. "The first thing I asked her is, 'All black people live here?' I said, 'You're kidding.' "

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No further comment until the details of the agreement are released.

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Union, Stores Reach a Deal to End Strike
The rank and file, out since October, will vote this weekend. A two-tier system for wages and health benefits appears to be central to the contract.
By James F. Peltz, Melinda Fulmer and Ronald D. White
Times Staff Writers

February 27, 2004

Negotiators reached a deal Thursday night that could end the California supermarket strike and lockout, a bitter fight that highlighted the national debate over how much companies should pay for workers' healthcare coverage.

After 16 straight days of bargaining, the deal was struck in a conference room at a hotel in Orange County. Neither side would provide details.

People close to the talks said the supermarkets scored victories in their bid to cut labor costs and curtail spending on health benefits — in large part through a two-tier system under which new hires would earn less per hour and receive skimpier health benefits than veterans — but the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said the proposed contract "preserves affordable healthcare" and job security for its members.

Pickets won't immediately drop their signs and return to their old jobs. The pact must be ratified by the tens of thousands of UFCW members who until last October had worked at 852 Vons, Pavilions, Ralphs and Albertsons stores in Central and Southern California.

The voting is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, and the results probably will be tallied by Sunday night, according to the joint statement by the seven UFCW locals in the dispute.

UFCW leaders have agreed to recommend that the contract be ratified, and approval is expected, the supermarkets said in a joint statement. As the word swiftly spread on picket lines, members, living on strike pay for nearly five months, indicated they were ready to do just that.

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A direct vote by year-end is NOT part of the U.S. transition plan.

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Shiite Leader Reluctantly Backs U.S. Transition Plan
The cleric, who helped derail two proposals, wants U.N. guarantee of a direct vote by year-end.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
Times Staff Writer

February 27, 2004

BAGHDAD — In a boost for the Bush administration, Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, signaled his reluctant support Thursday for a U.S.-backed blueprint to create an Iraqi caretaker government until direct elections can be held.

But the man considered to be one of the most influential in Iraq also called for a United Nations guarantee of elections by the end of the year and appeared to warn that he would not tolerate further delays. Shiites are the largest group in the country, accounting for more than 60% of the population.

The pointed declaration from a powerful leader who has twice helped scuttle plans for the transfer of power in Iraq helps open the way for Washington to end its official occupation by June 30.

Plans call for political power to be turned over on that date to a still-undetermined body of Iraqis who would govern until direct elections are held. However, U.S. troops are expected to remain in the country for at least another year under terms of an agreement to be negotiated with a new Iraqi administration.

From his base in the holy city of Najaf, the reclusive Sistani has pushed for direct elections, which presumably would lead to a government dominated by Iraq's long-repressed Shiite majority. Shiite protesters routinely hoist his image aloft in marches to demand such balloting.

"It is vital to understand that this [provisional] government is going to be valid for a short period of time and that it should be replaced as soon as possible by a democratically elected and fully recognized" body, said a statement issued by Sistani's office in Najaf, south of Baghdad

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Scalia Took Trip Set Up by Lawyer in Two Cases
Kansas visit in 2001 came within weeks of the Supreme Court hearing arguments.
By Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage
Times Staff Writers

February 27, 2004

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the guest of a Kansas law school two years ago and went pheasant hunting on a trip arranged by the school's dean, all within weeks of hearing two cases in which the dean was a lead attorney.

The cases involved issues of public policy important to Kansas officials. Accompanying Scalia on the November 2001 hunting trip were the Kansas governor and the recently retired state Senate president, who flew with Scalia to the hunting camp aboard a state plane.

Two weeks before the trip, University of Kansas School of Law Dean Stephen R. McAllister, along with the state's attorney general, had appeared before the Supreme Court to defend a Kansas law to confine sex offenders after they complete their prison terms.

Two weeks after the trip, the dean was before the high court to lead the state's defense of a Kansas prison program for treating sex criminals.

Scalia was hosted by McAllister, who also served as Kansas state solicitor, when he visited the law school to speak to students. At Scalia's request, McAllister arranged for the justice to go pheasant hunting after the law school event. And the dean enlisted then-Gov. Bill Graves and former state Senate President Dick Bond, both Republicans, to go as well.

During the weekend of hunting in north-central Kansas, Graves and Bond said in separate interviews recently, they did not talk about the cases with Scalia, nor did they view the trip as a way to win his favor.

Scalia later sided with Kansas in both cases.

In a written statement, Scalia said: "I do not think that spending time at a law school in which the counsel in pending cases was the dean could reasonably cause my impartiality to be questioned. Nor could spending time with the governor of a state that had matters before the court."

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that Scalia had been a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on Air Force Two when they went duck hunting in southern Louisiana. That trip came shortly after the high court had agreed to hear Cheney's appeal seeking to keep secret his national energy policy task force.

The details of the Louisiana hunting trip, coupled with the visit to Kansas, provide a rare look at a Supreme Court justice who has socialized with government officials at times when legal matters important to them were before the high court.

Federal law says that "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned." By tradition and court policy, justices are free to determine for themselves what constitutes a conflict.

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US lifts Libya travel ban, encourages deeper ties

By Terence Hunt, Associated Press, 2/27/2004

WASHINGTON -- The United States lifted a longstanding ban on travel to Libya yesterday and invited American companies to begin planning their return, after Moammar Khadafy's government affirmed that it was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

The administration also encouraged Libya to establish an official presence in Washington by opening an "interests section," a diplomatic office a classification beneath an embassy. And Washington will expand its diplomatic presence in Tripoli.

The White House announcement rescinded travel restrictions that have been in place for 23 years against Libya, which the United States had long branded a sponsor of state terrorism.

Allowing US travel to Libya would give American companies an opportunity to do lucrative business legally in Libya's rich oil fields. It also would help Khadafy emerge from semi-isolation.

US firms that had holdings in Libya before sanctions were imposed were authorized to negotiate the terms of renewing their operations, the White House said. But the companies will be required to obtain US approval of any agreement, if economic sanctions remain.

The Treasury Department said the prohibition on flights to Libya by US carriers remained for now, even though the travel ban was lifted.

The United States has been moving toward improved relations with Tripoli since Khadafy renounced the development of weapons of mass destruction and allowed weapons inspectors to verify that his country was abandoning nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. "While more remains to be done, Libya's actions have been serious, credible, and consistent with Colonel Khadafy's public declaration that Libya seeks to play a role in `building a new world free from [weapons of mass destruction] and from all forms of terrorism,' " a White House statement said.

The easing of restrictions was cheered in Tripoli.

"The Americans are welcome here anytime," said Abdul Tahar, a student selling carpets and prayer rugs in Tripoli in the old Medina district. "American tourists and American dollars. Anything that will improve the situation here is welcome."

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Top query to also-rans: Why?
Sharpton, Kucinich defend campaigns
By Kirsten Scharnberg
Tribune national correspondent

February 27, 2004

LOS ANGELES -- In the opening minutes of Thursday night's debate, Larry King zoned in on the two candidates sitting at the far end of the table and asked them each a pointed question.

"Rev. Sharpton," he said, "why are you in this race?"

"Congressman Kucinich," the CNN host asked a few moments later, "why are you here?"

The two long-shot Democratic presidential candidates had ready answers: That they each added alternative voices to the public debate, that they represented constituencies not traditionally represented, that both hailed from outside the political establishment. Dennis Kucinich, ever the optimist, went so far as to answer, "I'm here to be the next president of the United States."

But King's question--though perhaps annoying to two men who have campaigned exhaustively for the past several months--addressed exactly what many viewers at home may have been wondering: Why are debates at this stage in the race still including candidates who seem to have no realistic chance at ever winning their party's nomination?

Kucinich's campaign seemed to try to answer those questions earlier this week, sending an e-mail pointing out that the Ohio congressman had placed second in Hawaii's caucuses, with more than double the vote count of Sen. John Edwards.

Regardless of how realistic their bids for the White House may be, Al Sharpton and Kucinich raised new issues--and added plenty of levity--to Thursday's discussion.

Almost every answer Sharpton gave drew laughter, such as when he suggested affirmative action be used to determine how many questions each candidate got to answer and, later, when King ribbed him for staying in the best hotels on the campaign trail.

Sharpton, whose campaign has raised less than $300,000 in recent months, has made news in the past week for spending $7,000 for three nights at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles and for paying $3,200 for one night at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.

Lighthearted moments aside, Sharpton and Kucinich addressed the issues with answers sharply different from those given by the front-runners.

Kucinich vowed that his first act as president would be to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade deal that Sen. John Kerry and Edwards criticize but stop short of saying they would dismantle.

"I think the American people will be well-served if we can describe why, for example, Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards are not for canceling NAFTA and the WTO [World Trade Organization], as I would do, because that is how you save the manufacturing jobs," he said.

For his part, Sharpton questioned whether either of the top candidates had "urban agendas" that would deal with problems in the large cities in California, New York and Ohio, states that will vote on Super Tuesday.

And, at one point, the New York civil rights activist turned questioner, asking Edwards about his position on the death penalty.

"Sen. Edwards," he asked, "are you saying, since you agree that there's a lot of problems in the death penalty--and no one has mentioned the racial disparity about those on Death Row--that, therefore, you would suspend your support of capital punishment until we dealt with those problems?"

Throughout, the tone of questions posed to Sharpton and Kucinich was notably different than of those directed at either Edwards or Kerry. King routinely addressed the underdog candidates as "Al" and "Dennis," while beginning questions to the senators with a polite "Sen. Edwards" or "Sen. Kerry."

When Sharpton or Kucinich seemed to be taking too much time with their answers, King grew visibly impatient, once interrupting with an exasperated, "Al ... Al ... Al ..."

Hard to get a word in

One exchange went like this: King: "Al and Dennis want to comment..." Sharpton: "What I think ..." King interrupts Sharpton almost immediately: "Sen. Kerry wants to respond." Kucinich at one point raised his hand in an attempt to get a chance to answer a question posed to another candidate. Later he seemed to subtly point out the differing treatment he was getting from King. As Kucinich was replying to a question, when King's eyes began to wander around the room, the congressman stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, "Larry?"

"I'm paying attention to you, Dennis," King replied. "Dennis, I can hear you and look over there at the same time."

In the end, one statement by Sharpton may have said all there was to say about why he and Kucinich remain insistent that they be included in such debates.

Sharpton has said for weeks that he hopes his candidacy--at minimum--will have gained enough national attention to influence the party's platform at the Democratic National Convention in July.

"I think that's why we have to have a convention and delegates," he said. "We have to keep these guys honest."

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Data-mining schemes

Friday, February 27, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

WHEN RETIRED Adm. John Poindexter left government service last year, it was widely believed that his misguided scheme to collect private data on U. S. citizens was gone for good, too.

It was a bad assumption. The Poindexter-inspired drive to electronically surveil and compile dossiers on millions of Americans is apparently still in gear.

It turns out that the federal government, this time with congressional sanction, has been pressing ahead with plans to create the machinery to mine millions of public and private records, ostensively for information about foreign terrorists.

This unsettling revelation comes months after Congress' much publicized elimination of the Pentagon office that was creating the same technology that, aside from pursuing terrorists, could invade personal privacy and cause irreparable harm to the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.

Known as Total Information Awareness, the Pentagon project was engineered by Poindexter, President Reagan's national security adviser, who was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress and more in the Iran-Contra scandal. Poindexter resurfaced in the Bush White House, but was dismissed again in August after public outrage over his terrorist futures marketing idea.

Total Information Awareness endeavored to screen out terrorist acts by cataloging individuals' traits: securing their travel plans, arrest records, passport applications, work permits, driver's licenses, credit-card purchases, choice of books, medical records or anything else.

The implications of the government compiling such vast dossiers on Americans -- with great potential for abuse -- were harrowing. So, again spurred by public uproar, Congress shut it down -- or so we thought.

It was an illusion. The work persists, only now Congress farms it out to various government agencies.

It's time for further congressional action to shut down this data-mining idea once and for all.

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Though I keep it on the low, I'm a digital music freak. I've been using Winamp 2.something for it's Shoutcast list, which let me look up Shoutcast stations by genre. I found some really good stations, tried (and enjoyed) new genres I'd have never tried if I had to pay for stuff I never heard before…life was good until the Shoutcast list stopped working.

Last time that happened, it was to support the current 2.something version of Winamp. The function originally belonged to version 3, which sucked pretty bad. So I head over to www.winamp.com and find they've skipped version 4 altogether and released version 5.

Well, it's cuter, sounds the same and gives you the option of NOT polluting your desktop with AOL install icons, but the damn Shoutcast list still isn't working. If it's not working by Sunday night I may uninstall it put version 2.something back.

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I can't say I actively approve of any weapon that removes the mano-a-mano aspect of combat. That said, timed self-deactivation is a huge improvement on old land mines and a reasonable compromise.

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Bush Shifts U.S. Stance On Use of Land Mines
Policy Slated for 2010 Won't Ban All Devices Designed to Kill Troops

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 27, 2004; Page A01

President Bush will bar the U.S. military from using certain types of land mines after 2010 but will allow forces to continue to employ more sophisticated mines that the administration argues pose little threat to civilians, officials said yesterday.

The new policy, due to be announced today, represents a departure from the previous U.S. goal of banning all land mines designed to kill troops. That plan, established by President Bill Clinton, set a target of 2006 for giving up antipersonnel mines, depending on the success of Pentagon efforts to develop alternatives.

Bush, however, has decided to impose no limits on the use of "smart" land mines, which have timing devices to automatically defuse the explosives within hours or days, officials said.

His ban will apply only to "dumb" mines -- those without self-destruct features. But it will cover devices not only aimed at people but also meant to destroy vehicles. In that way, Bush's policy will extend to a category of mines not included in Clinton's plan, which was limited to antipersonnel devices.

Bush will also propose a 50 percent jump in spending, up to $70 million in fiscal 2005, for a State Department program that provides mine-removal assistance in more than 40 countries, officials said. The program also funds mine-awareness programs abroad and offers some aid to survivors of mine explosions.

A senior State Department official, who disclosed Bush's decision on the condition that he not be named, said the new policy aims at striking a balance between the Pentagon's desire to retain effective weapons and humanitarian concerns about civilian casualties caused by unexploded bombs, which can remain hidden long after combat ends and battlefields return to peaceful use.

The safety problem stems from dumb bombs, which kill as many as 10,000 civilians a year, the official said. Smart bombs, he added, "are not contributors to this humanitarian crisis."

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From the Sphinx to King Tut, a Feast for Budding Egyptologists
By CHRIS LARSON

Seven millenniums of Egyptian culture and history are now available in a most modern way: through a new Web site called Eternal Egypt. A result of three years of cooperation between I.B.M. and Egypt's government and major museums, Eternal Egypt is intended to encourage preservation while providing an immense amount of data that could formerly be absorbed only by visiting Egypt. And of course, the Egyptian government hopes that some of the virtual tourists will be persuaded to make the actual trip.

With 3-D scanners and other hardware donated by I.B.M., the country's considerable museum collections were digitized and loaded onto www.eternalegypt.org.

The site offers high-resolution 360-degree views of artifacts, with written and oral explanations in English, French and Arabic. Also available are interactive maps and timelines; views from live Webcams in Egypt; virtual reconstructions of the Sphinx as it looked 2,000 years ago; and, as shown above, the treasure-filled tomb of King Tutankhamen as it looked when it was discovered in 1922.

The material at the Web site is also available on hand-held guides that visitors can use at Egypt's museums, and through text and picture displays that can be received by cellphone at the museums and historic sites.

Eternal Egypt went live on Tuesday. Thousands more artifacts are to be added over time, and Egypt hopes the site will eventually include items that are no longer in Egypt, like the Rosetta stone. I.B.M. expects the concept and the scanning and database technologies developed for the project to be applied at other museums and cultural collections worldwide. Chris Larson

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Private accounts alone can't bail out Social Security
Tue Feb 24, 6:40 AM ET

After putting Social Security (news - web sites) reform on the back burner for several years, President Bush (news - web sites) is making a new push for a plan that would let workers divert part of their payroll taxes into personal savings accounts. Bush touted the proposal in his State of the Union address and again in his economic report to Congress this month.

From the way supporters describe it, the concept is simple and appealing. Workers would invest a portion of their Social Security taxes into stocks and bonds that typically yield higher returns than the current government-managed system. What's more, they say, the step is crucial in saving Social Security from insolvency as 75 million baby boomers retire during the coming years.

But much like a miracle weight-loss plan that promises stunning results without diet or exercise, the proposals to create private accounts avoid the difficult reforms required to ensure Social Security's long-term financial health: reduced benefits, higher taxes or a combination of the two.

Certainly, personal savings accounts can be part of a broader debate on reforming the national retirement system, particularly if young workers are willing to give up some traditional Social Security benefits in exchange for the opportunity to save on their own. Pretending, however, that the mere introduction of personal savings accounts will solve Social Security's problems is not only dishonest, it also misleads the public about the hard choices that will be required to put the nation's retirement program on sound financial footing.

Among the problems personal accounts don't address:

•Demographics. Social Security faces a financial crisis because the number of retirees collecting benefits in 20 years is expected to increase 60%, while the number of workers paying taxes to support those benefits is projected to increase a mere 14%. In addition, those retirees are likely to live and collect benefits longer than previous generations of retirees. Bush's own commission on Social Security reform concluded in 2001 that private accounts would not close the projected gap between taxes coming in and benefits going out.

•Costs. In the short term, personal accounts would worsen Social Security's financial condition. The reason: Some of the taxes now needed to guarantee traditional benefits to current retirees would be tapped to set up the accounts.

The Social Security Administration estimates that, depending on how the new accounts are structured, the government could have to borrow roughly $1.5 trillion during the next decade to cover the loss of taxes diverted into private accounts. That would be the equivalent of charging $8,800 to every worker's credit card.

As recently as 2001, Congress and the administration promised to reserve the government's annual budget surpluses to repair Social Security or finance the transition costs of moving to a system of personal savings accounts. Since then, they have broken their pledge by going on a spending and tax-cutting spree that has squandered $475 billion in Social Security surpluses on other purposes and has put the nation $1.1 trillion deeper into debt.

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There is no better title.

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Problems of uninsured directly affect all Americans
Tue Feb 24, 6:40 AM ET
By Mary Sue Coleman

…If you have a good health insurance plan, you may think the problems of the uninsured do not affect you directly. Think again. One of the most insidious effects of the large uninsured population in our nation is that it wears down the medical system's ability to provide health care services to all Americans, even those with insurance.

More people, less access

Cities with large populations of uninsured residents, such as Atlanta and Detroit, risk losing doctors, on-call coverage by specialists and health facilities and hospitals because of the uncompensated costs of caring for the uninsured. Big urban areas are especially at risk: A quarter of Los Angeles' 10 million people are uninsured. As a result, one of six public hospitals has shut its doors, as have 11 of 18 public health clinics. [P6: emphasis added]

Our committee devoted three years to preparing its study of the full costs and consequences of the uninsured. We based our findings and recommendations on the best research available.

About 43 million Americans, the vast majority of whom are working, go without health insurance for at least an entire year. This number has continued to increase during the past 25 years. In addition, more and more employers are limiting their offerings of coverage or shifting premium increases to their employees.

Poor health's high costs

The story of the family dealing with a son's motorcycle accident illustrates that, as a society, we have not accounted for the substantial costs of failing to provide health insurance for all Americans. If the uninsured had the same health care as their insured fellow citizens, the nation's total health bill of nearly $1.2 trillion likely would increase only 3%-6%, or approximately $34 billion to $69 billion annually. But without some form of universal health coverage, the nation's economic losses due to poorer health, impaired child development, earlier deaths, lost job productivity and financial stress on families ranges from $65 billion to $130 billion annually, our committee estimates. [P6: emphasis added]

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Reverse brain drain threatens U.S. economy
Tue Feb 24, 6:40 AM ET
By Alan M. Webber

Until recently, if Americans heard the words "brain drain," they knew clearly what that meant: Bright, talented scientists, engineers and other techies from all over the world were migrating to the United States. They were drawn here by the world's best universities, the most dynamic companies, the freest economic and social environment and the highest standard of living.

Today, while many of these conditions still apply, Americans are starting to hear a new term: "reverse brain drain." What it suggests is the United States is pursuing government and private-sector policies that, over the long run, could lead to a significant shift in the world's balance of brainpower.

Recently, President Bush's chief economic adviser, Gregory Mankiw, touted the advantages for U.S. firms of outsourcing jobs overseas. But that trend, if left unattended, could have serious implications for this country's economic competitiveness.

For its part, the federal government seems intent on letting "controversial" scientists - for example, those dealing with research that touches on the issue of abortion - go to other countries and keeping foreign talent out. U.S. companies are happy to outsource knowledge work while, at the same time, buying out the contracts of their most experienced workers - all in the name of reducing costs. And the one sure way to grow new brains - a high-quality educational system - has failed to produce enough homegrown talent.

As the economy globalizes, and as first-class creative minds go abroad, stay abroad or are produced abroad, other nations may challenge the United States' role as the leader in innovation and creativity. The prospect of that challenge tomorrow - more than the loss of jobs today - is what the debate over America's economic future ought to be about.

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Rebels Preparing to Attack Haiti Capital
Rebels Say They Are Preparing to Attack Port-Au-Prince As Foreigners and Haitians Flee

The Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Feb. 26 — Haiti's rebel leader said his fighters were advancing on the capital Thursday, awaiting an order to attack unless President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns. The United States questioned whether Aristide could "effectively continue" in office.
With Haiti's ill-equipped police force not expected to put up much resistance against a rebel assault, government loyalists began building defenses in front of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Haiti, Caribbean nations called for a multinational force to end the violence. But the United States and France said they want a political settlement first.

In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell openly questioned whether Aristide can continue to serve effectively as Haiti's leader the closest Powell has come to suggesting that Aristide bow out as president before his elected term ends in February 2006.

"Whether or not he is able to effectively continue as president is something he will have to examine carefully in the interests of the Haitian people," Powell told reporters.

Powell's comments came a day after French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called on Aristide to resign.

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European Union to Impose Trade Sanctions on U.S.
By REUTERS

Filed at 2:14 p.m. ET

by Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said on Thursday the EU would impose $200 million in economic sanctions on the United States beginning on Monday because of Congress' failure to repeal tax breaks declared illegal by the World Trade Organization.

``The picture is now quite clear. Countermeasures will go into effect by next Monday,'' Lamy told the European American Business Council after meeting with the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.

The retaliation will hit a wide array of agricultural and manufactured goods ranging from buckwheat to nuclear reactor parts. Lamy said the sanctions would remain in effect until Congress passes legislation to repeal the tax breaks.

Lamy said it remained unclear how long it would take Congress to do that but he said ``the sooner, the better'' for U.S.-EU business relations.

The sanctions begin with a 5 percent duty on more than $4 billion worth of U.S. exports to Europe. That duty will increase by 1 percentage point each month up to a cap of 17 percent. However, Lamy said the sanctions will be dropped ``the day Congress passes the new legislation'' to repeal the tax breaks.

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Senate Panel Presses Bush on War's Plan
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Faced with a refusal by the Bush administration to provide certain documents related to prewar intelligence on Iraq, the Senate intelligence committee voted in a closed session on Thursday to move toward a possible subpoena, according to senior Congressional officials.

The bipartisan vote on the Republican-led panel sets a three-week deadline for a voluntary handover by the administration, after which the committee would employ unspecified "further action," which could only mean a subpoena, the officials said.

In a brief telephone interview, the top Democrat on the panel said that "there's no other interpretation" of the committee's action if the White House fails to turn over the documents by late March.

"We need these things, we want them, and if we don't get them, we will resort to other means," said the Democrat, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, who declined to discuss the committee's deliberations in detail.

The plan approved by the panel calls for Senator Rockefeller and Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the top Republican, to issue an explicit warning in a letter to President Bush if the documents are not received, Congressional officials said.

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Cell Protein Gives Monkeys Innate Immunity to H.I.V., Researchers Discover
By GINA KOLATA

Published: February 26, 2004

Scientists have discovered that monkey cells have innate protection against infection with the human AIDS virus, a clue that may help explain why some people are susceptible to certain viral infections while others are not.

The finding, reported in today's issue of the journal Nature, offers one of the first concrete examples of what researchers call an intracellular system of innate immunity and may open the door to the development of new antiviral therapies, the scientists said.

The monkeys were protected from the virus by a mechanism that resides within cells and that is independent of the antibodies and white blood cells of the immune system. The mechanism appears to have evolved to protect animals from specific viruses.

In the case of AIDS, the researchers found, the monkeys blocked the human immunodeficiency virus, or H.I.V., as soon as it slipped into cells, using a protein that prevented the virus from shedding the hard casing around its genes. The protein, called TRIM5-alpha, apparently floats inside the monkey cells, looking for H.I.V.

"This is really telling us about a system of natural immunity to viruses," said Dr. Joseph Sodroski, a professor of pathology at Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who was the lead author of the study. He described the protective mechanism used by the cells as "very specific, very potent and very targeted to particular viruses."

Dr. Nathaniel R. Landau, an AIDS researcher at the Salk Institute in San Diego, called the study "excellent," and predicted, "I think it's going to open up a new avenue of research."

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Decline Seen in Science Applications From Overseas
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: February 26, 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — Bucking a trend that dates to the end of World War II, the number of foreign students applying to graduate and doctoral programs in science at American universities is declining broadly, according to a survey of 130 such programs released here today.

The findings came as the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that foreign students and scholars hoping to study science or certain technologies at universities in the United States must wait an average of 67 days to receive a visa. For some of them, the delays extend up to a year, the report said.

"It's really what we've been fearing all along," said Vic Johnson, associate director for public policy at the Association of International Educators. "It's the accumulation of a lot of things that is just causing a change in the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for students and scholars."

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February 26, 2004

I'm pretty much standing down today. No biggie, no drama, and I'll still be looking at comments.

By the way, I'm thinking in terms of a community site in addition to P6 (which I've grown rather fond of as it is). That won't be mentioned directly again for a while, but that's why I've been testing portals, discussion board and blog software.

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February 25, 2004

If you were interested you've probably already gone to The Civil Rights Project at Harvard to check out their report on what they're calling a Graduation Rate crisis, and The Education Trust's response to it. But I promised links and press releases and I am, if nothing else, a man of my word (anyone who say which word gets their mouth washed out with soap).

I slipped the links to their respective press releases in up there already. The press releases follow (and wouldn't it be nice if everyone who just published a press release without analysis would tell you so?).

The Harvard report is issued jointly by Harvard, Civil Society Institute’s Results for America (RFA) project and Advocates for Children of New York. The report is a 98 page pdf, so I'll be writing an opinion of the abstract to submit to OSP.

The Education trust has their own, eight page, pdf on this issue. If you read it, you'll see why I think highly of an organization that supports a policy I oppose…because they seem to be holding the feds accountable for the promises they made.

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It's long. Real long.

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Press Release

For Immediate Release

The Civil Rights Project, The Urban Institute, Advocates for Children of New York and Results for America
STUDY: ONLY "50-50" CHANCE OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION FOR U.S. MINORITY STUDENTS, WEAK ACCOUNTABILITY RULES FOUND

Washington, DC--February 25, 2004-- Half or more of Black, Hispanic and Native American youth in the United States are getting left behind before high school graduation in a "hidden crisis" that is obscured by U.S. Department of Education regulations issued under the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act that "allow schools, districts, and states to all but eliminate graduation rate accountability for minority subgroups," according to a new report from two nonpartisan groups, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard and The Urban Institute.

The new report, also issued by the Civil Society Institute's Results for America (RFA) project and Advocates for Children of New York, notes that the minority high school graduation rate crisis is masked by the widespread circulation of "misleading and inaccurate reporting of dropout and graduation rates." According to the report, while 75 percent of white students graduated from high school in 2001, only 50 percent of all Black students, 51 percent of Native American students, and 53 percent of all Hispanic students got a high school diploma in the same year. The study found that the problem was even worse for Black, Native American, and Hispanic young men at 43 percent, 47 percent, and 48 percent, respectively. [P6: emphasis added]

The Civil Rights Project at Harvard/Urban Institute report finds: "The national (graduation rate) gap for Blacks is 25 percent; for Hispanics 22 percent; for Native Americans 24 percent. Despite wide ranges within some states, nearly every state shows a large and negative gap between Whites and at least one minority group." According to the data, the 10 worst states overall for Black and Hispanic minority graduation rates are: New York; Wisconsin; Pennsylvania; Michigan; Iowa; Massachusetts; Nebraska; Ohio; Illinois; and Connecticut. The report defines the "graduation rate gap" as the difference between its calculations for graduation rates of Whites and minorities.

The Civil Rights Project of Harvard Co-Director Christopher Edley, Jr. said: “We have a tragic situation today under which high school graduation in America is now literally a ‘50-50 proposition’ for minority students. What is driving this problem? Recently, Congress took a first step in recognizing the severity of the dropout problem by including graduation rate accountability provisions under NCLB. However, the Department of Education then issued regulations that allow schools, districts, and states to all but eliminate graduation rate accountability for minority subgroups. By doing so, Department officials have rendered these accountability measures virtually meaningless.”

The Urban Institute Research Associate Dr. Christopher Swanson said: “The dropout data in use today misleads the public into thinking that most students are earning diplomas. The reality is that there is little, or no, state or federal oversight of dropout and graduation rate reports for accuracy. Incredibly, some states report a 5 percent dropout rate for African Americans, when, in reality, only half of their young adult African Americans are graduating with diplomas. How is such a state of affairs possible? It happens when only nine states report on minority graduation rates and 39 states have no true ‘floor’ for graduation rates that must be met by schools. For example, California sets a goal of 100 percent graduation and yet acknowledges ‘progress’ for ‘any improvement’ — even a tenth of a single percentage point. Given current graduation rates for Native Americans, Blacks, and Latinos in that state, California’s 100 percent goal literally could take over 500 years to achieve for its minority students.”

Advocates for Children of New York Executive Director Jill Chaifetz said: “The implications of the hidden minority dropout crisis in America is far-reaching and devastating for individuals, communities and the economic vitality of this country. High school dropouts are far more likely to be unemployed, in prison, and living in poverty. Many studies estimate significant losses in earnings and taxes with economic and societal effects that can last generations. We are deeply troubled by anecdotal information from across the United States suggesting that many low-achieving minority high school students feel that they are being ‘pushed out’ of school by schools and districts seeking to keep up their overall scores under the high-stakes testing environment of NCLB.”

Civil Society Institute President Pam Solo said: “This report highlights key information for communities to consider as the cost and benefits of NCLB are being debated. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard and The Urban Institute have put forth hard data, which when combined with the stories of students and parents who are feeling the brunt of this crisis, can sharpen the focus on the important national debate on education.”

REPORT OVERVIEW

The new report, “Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis,” exposes inaccurate and misleading official data now in use and suggests sounder statistical methods for accurate calculation of actual high school graduation rates. Study co-author Dr. Christopher Swanson of The Urban Institute calculated the graduation rates using what he refers to as a “Cumulative Promotion Index” (CPI), a method developed and tested independently to provide more accurate graduation rate estimates. The report combines the findings of a comprehensive review of state graduation rate accountability standards and interviews with state education officials.

In addition to those cited above, the key findings of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard/Urban Institute report are as follows:

* The United States Department of Education has taken steps that effectively weaken the graduation rate accountability provision of NCLB. In a controversial decision, Secretary of Education Rodney Paige issued regulations that allow schools and districts to all but eliminate graduation rate accountability for minority subgroups. As a result, 39 states now set a “soft” Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goal for graduation rates, meaning they can avoid sanctions simply by exhibiting even the smallest degree of improvement from one year to the next. Only nine states hold schools and districts accountable for the low graduation rates of minority students despite congressional intent. If there were a minimum graduation rate requirement of 66 percent and the reports CPI approach was used, 46 states and the District of Columbia would fail to meet this benchmark for the basic education of its student population as a whole or for at least one major racial or ethnic student subgroup.
* Most official graduation rates are estimates based on inaccurate data. Both of the two most commonly used measures — the modified National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) formula and the Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) data — produce data that often dramatically underestimate the numbers of students who leave school without high school diplomas. The NCES method is what most states use to calculate their graduation rates for NCLB. However, large numbers of students that leave school without a diploma and are unaccounted for are often left out of the NCES calculations. The same also can be said for states that use the supposed “gold standard” of longitudinal data. The Texas state tracking system systematically excludes GED enrollees from graduation rate calculations for NCLB and treats them as if they never enrolled in high school, thereby inflating the diploma-completion rate for the state.
* Low minority graduation rates are found in all parts of the U.S. The four lowest graduation rates for Black students were: New York (35 percent); Ohio (40 percent); Nevada (41 percent); and Florida (41 percent). The four lowest graduation rates for Hispanic students were: New York (32 percent); Massachusetts (36 percent); Michigan (36 percent); and Nevada (38 percent). By contrast, the four lowest graduation rates for White students were: Florida (58 percent); Nevada (62 percent); Georgia (62 percent); and Mississippi (41 percent).
* Separate schools for whites and Blacks fuel the low graduation rate problem. Low graduation rates are correlated to school segregation. Low graduation rates show a strong relationship with indicators of school segregation and this relationship is independent of poverty. Moreover, in every state, districts with high minority concentrations had lower graduation rates than districts where whites were the majority. In Ohio, for example, the minority composition difference is pronounced even among the state’s largest districts, with a graduation rate gap of over 50 points between the majority white district of Westerville (81) and the majority minority district of Cleveland (30). This suggests that the growing segregation in public schools will likely contribute further to even lower minority graduation rates.

The report also recommends six action steps, including a reversal of the U.S. Department of Education regulation under NCLB that permits schools, districts and states to obscure the minority graduation rate crisis. For the full text of the report, go to http://www.ResultsForAmerica.org on Web.

ABOUT THE GROUPS

The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University (CRP) was founded in 1996 by Professors Christopher Edley, Jr. of Harvard Law School and Gary Orfield of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Its central mission is to help renew the civil rights movement by bridging the worlds of ideas and action, and by becoming a preeminent source of intellectual capital and a forum for building consensus within that movement. We achieve this by interweaving strategies of research and policy analysis, and by building strong collaborations between researchers, community organizations, and policy makers. Our dual objectives are to: (1) raise the visibility of, and attention to, racial justice national policy debates; and (2) arm local and national civil rights and educational organizations with credible research to inform their legal, political and public education efforts. CRP wrote the narrative and worked closely with the Urban Institute to analyze the data contained in the report.

The Urban Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization, examines America's social, economic, and governance problems. It provides information, analyses, and perspectives to public and private decisionmakers to help them address these problems and strives to deepen citizens' understanding of the issues and trade-offs that policymakers face. Its Education Policy Center conducts research on education reforms involving accountability, school vouchers, standards, after-school programs, technology, teacher quality, and the new increased flexibility in using federal funds. The Urban Institute created the indicator for graduation rates used in this study (the Cumulative Promotion Index), conducted all data analysis contained in this report, and contributed to preparation of the narrative.

Founded in 1971, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) is New York's leading educational advocacy and legal services organization. Our mission is to make sure that New York's children get access to a quality and appropriate education. AFC does this work through direct service, training, policy reports, impact advocacy and information dissemination. In the past 33 years, we have helped hundreds of thousands of New York City children obtain the resources they need to succeed in school. For this report AFC reached out nationally to document the individual and systemic stories about why children are being pushed out or dropped out of school.

Results for America is a project of the nonprofit Civil Society Institute (CSI), which is based in Newton, Massachusetts. The mission of the Institute is to serve as a catalyst for change by creating problem-solving interactions among people, and between communities, government and business, that can help to improve society. A key goal of Results for America is to shape and tap the tremendous amount of community-level knowledge, experience and innovative action that could solve America's problems in education under its “Great Kids, Great Schools, Great Communities” initiative. Results for America supports investing in public schools, making sure parents have more of a say in their schools and creating conditions that will lead to learning and success for every child. CSI is supporting the efforts to disseminate this report in order to bring more voices and perspectives, particularly those of students, into the debate about the costs and benefits of the No Child Left Behind legislation.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of a related news event will be available on the Web – along with The Civil Rights Project at Harvard/Urban Institute study and this news release – as of 5 p.m. EST on February 25, 2004.

For Media Inquiries:

Christine Kraly or Stephanie Kendall
(703) 276-3258
[email protected]

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 25, 2004
Contact: Jeanne Brennan, 202-293-1217 ext 328, Kimberly Holmes ext 292, or Nicolle Grayson, ext 351

Statement of Kati Haycock, Director of the Education Trust, on the Harvard Civil Rights Project and Urban Institute Report on High School Graduation Rates and NCLB

(Washington, DC) -- There’s no question that high school graduation rates across the country are abysmal, and that the shocking racial disparities in graduation rates are unconscionable. That's why the Education Trust released last December a report documenting the fact that many states shamelessly inflate their high school graduation rates and minimize their graduation gaps. And why, at that time, we called on the U.S. Department of Education to take a much stronger role in the implementation of the high school graduation rate accountability provisions in No Child Left Behind.

“Last year, the Department sent clear signals that graduation data was not an issue about which it cared -- including sending out data-reporting directions that were at odds with the law and the Department's own regulations -- and states cynically took advantage of the Department's inattention by publishing data that obfuscates and obscures the problem rather than addresses it. The Department has belatedly appointed an advisory commission to look at the issue, and we are hopeful that more accurate data will be reported in the future. Meaningful accountability in public education has to measure both student learning and whether students are still in school to learn.

“But any suggestion that high school dropouts are somehow caused by accountability is absolutely incorrect. Indeed, to suggest that accountability forces educators to harm children actually rewards irresponsibility and bad behavior. Worse still, it lets educators and the education system off the hook.

“Make no mistake, this is about adult choices -- professional and ethical choices. When professionals in other fields act in bad faith, no one calls for less accountability. In fact, they often call for more.

“Would anyone claim that corporate scandals are the result of too much accountability? Would anyone -- other than perhaps his defense attorneys – claim that former Enron chief Jeffrey Skilling was forced into cheating and that the SEC is at fault for requiring the disclosure of information and enforcing securities laws? Would anyone claim that the proper response to such unethical and unprofessional behavior would be to stop holding corporations accountable?

“Absolutely not.

“Choosing to break the rules and take actions that harm children is just that: a choice. When we explain away such choices with euphemisms like “forced” or “unintended consequence,” we excuse educators from their professional and ethical obligations. We send a message to our Nation's young people that irresponsibility will be met with impunity. That is simply unacceptable.”

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As I mentioned before, The Education Trust is a pretty fair-minded pro NCLB organization. I follow them because even though I believe NCLB as implemented is bad, I also believe the ideas that sold the legislation are pretty close to the guides we need to improve the public school systems.

I got a press release from them today responding to a report released today by The Civil Right Project at Harvard University that is apparently very critical of NCLB. The report focuses on a "Graduation Rate Crisis" among Black, Hispanic/Latino and Native American people that it says provisions of NCLB obscures.

Now, I haven't read the report nor the response yet, but both organizations get some respect in my view. So. I'm finally going to go get my damn printer and keyboard. When I get back I'll read both and post the press releases and links to reports…I think I'll save my opinion for my first OSP post of the year. And both organizations get added to the Reality Checks link box.

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Quote of note:

In addition to a code of standards, benchmarks and institutions endorsed in March last year as a roadmap to the review process, the Kigali Summit agreed on the meaning of "good governance" in the African context, which is in itself a critical step.

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Despotic Leaders Beware, Peer Review is Here
The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
February 23, 2004
Posted to the web February 25, 2004

By Peter Mwangi Kagwanja
Nairobi

The recent African leaders' summit in Rwanda finally adopted a unique peer-review system that has the potential of irreversibly changing the face of governance in Africa.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) sanctioned by nine heads of state and several ministerial delegations meeting in Kigali from February 13-14, will serve as the linchpin of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), itself a grand recovery project launched by African leaders in 2001.

The APRM is a collective response to bad governance, mismanagement of public funds, graft and conflict, poverty, disease and Africa's marginal status in the world economy. The African peer-review is designed to reverse this trend by moving Africa to a culture of good governance as a precondition for recovery and growth.

In addition to a code of standards, benchmarks and institutions endorsed in March last year as a roadmap to the review process, the Kigali Summit agreed on the meaning of "good governance" in the African context, which is in itself a critical step.

The peer-review obliges countries to open up their social, political and economic books for audit by fellow members (peers). The system not only allows countries to voluntarily submit to collective scrutiny, but also to take part in judging the behaviour of fellow African states.

In a continent previously crowded with despotic leaders, the idea of peer review is a remarkable innovation of the "new generation of progressive African leaders."

The novelty of the APRM, however, lies in the fact that it is a comprehensive audit of the performance of a country by other countries on issues, spelt out in Nepad's 2001Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance.

While all the 53 members of the African Union are welcome to join the APRM, only 16 have so far acceded to the mechanism. These are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda. Angola is ready to join the review club as its 17th member.

Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda and Mauritius will be the first to face the peer audit, according to the calendar approved by the summit. After the first evaluation, which consists of five intricate stages, each country is expected to face a second appraisal in 18 months. Reports of these voluntary assessments will be made public after each mission, opening the countries to non-peer pressure from the media, civil society and other non-state forces to implement the recommendations of reviewers. Appraisal of countries that have joined the review club is planned to be complete before March 2006.

The Summit appointed the Senegalese academic, Marie Angelique Savane, to chair the seven-member Panel of Eminent Persons steering the review process. Also on this panel are Professor Adebayo Adedeji (Nigeria), Bethwell Kiplagat (Kenya), Dorothy Njeuma (Cameroon), Chris Stals (South Africa) and Dr Graca Machel.

In conducting the reviews, this team will be supported by a powerful APRM Secretariat based in Pretoria, and assisted by experts drawn from a spectrum of institutions, including some in the African Union.

Meanwhile, Senegal and Burkina Faso have unveiled a plan to back up the review process by jointly launching a Pan-African Institute of Good Governance to "train Africans from all levels of the private and public sectors in good governance."

The Kigali Summit resolved that countries under review would bear the cost of in-country review. However, given the weight donors have attached to the review system, the Pretoria-based Nepad Secretariat will have little difficulty in mobilising resources.

The Group of Eight industrialised countries, during their June 2002 Summit in Canada, acclaimed the peer-review as "an innovative and potentially decisive element in the attainment of Nepad objectives." In fact, many donors consider the peer review as an acid test for Nepad itself.

Already, some leaders have voiced their misgivings regarding pressure from the West to hasten the review process. President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, in talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin in September 2003, suggested that: "Reviewing and rating how African leaders perform should be left to fellow Africans. The African peer review, he cautioned," will take longer - but the results will be more lasting."

The suspicion of external pressure carries eerie echoes of the frightful governance conditions that the International Monetary Fund prescribed to African countries in return for balance of payments aid. Tanzania is, instructively, one of 37 African states yet to accede to the peer review process.

The peer-review is seen in some circles as a strategy by African leaders to institute good governance in return for foreign investment and relief of the huge debts Africa owes external creditors. Beyond the donor factor, however, African citizens and civil society have concertedly brought moral and political pressure to bear on leaders to expand the scope of issues and range of participants in the peer appraisals.

Critics of the review mechanism point to its lack of punitive sanctions. Experts counter that peer reviews are "non-adversarial, relying on the trust and understanding between the country being reviewed and the reviewers, as well as their shared confidence in the process."

However, it is widely felt that in the absence of punitive sanctions, the peer review process faces the danger of becoming another cosy club where African leaders pat each other on the back. In spite of this, APRM could come in handy to deal with political mayhem in such countries as Zimbabwe.

It is time to jettison the once-sacrosanct principle of non-interference in the affairs of fellow states, which lay at the heart of Africa's failure to stem poverty and chaos.

Peter Kagwanja is a researcher based in Pretoria, South Africa

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I feel the need to post the last few paragraphs first so no one misinterprets my intent and forces me to rip 'em a new on.

Fortunately, we have too the African Americans with their feet firmly on the ground. Their engagement with Africa dates back to the American civil rights and African liberation movements. They remain true to the values that inspired those movements but know that we are now in a different place. They pick their battles carefully, trying to add value to the work done by African governments and civil society organisations.

Take, for example, actor Danny Glover, who was in town this past week. In his capacity as Goodwill Ambassador with the United Nations Development Programme, he adds his voice to the range of issues relating to fair trade, such as commodity pricing. He was here for a coffee conference, but made time to meet with Kenyan artists and civil society organisations. In that meeting, he talked of his plans to develop a filmmakers" fund to support African productions. As chair of Transafrica Forum, a Washington-based advocacy organisation, he listened carefully to concerns about the US elections and America's hosting of this year's Group of Eight summit.

Maybe there is some hope for the relationship after all.

Now the whole article.

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Help, Here Comes the Back-to-Africa Crowd

The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
February 23, 2004
Posted to the web February 25, 2004

By L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Nairobi

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network

My tolerance for the back-to-Africa fantasies of African Americans broke on the back of several things.

First, the conservative, distorted and unabashedly patriarchal version of Islam followed by African American groups such as the Nation of Islam. Second, the reverence accorded to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie by followers of Marcus Garvey.

Yes, the Ethiopians kicked the Italians out, thus achieving for Ethiopia the status of being the only African state never to have been colonised. But the Emperor represented a feudal system in which power relations were arguably as damaging as those of colonial systems elsewhere in Africa.

And third, a bizarre discussion I once found myself in during which some African American women - dutifully head-wrapped and beaded - were comparing notes on their respective trips back to the "motherland." When they began to assess the "authenticity" of "traditional spiritual practices" in African states as diverse as Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe, I walked away, too angry to speak.

Now, of course, there are new back-to-Africa variants. Those unashamedly being capitalised on by states such as Ghana and Senegal who, with their forts and other remnants of the transatlantic slave trade, target African Americans as a niche tourism market. Or those heralded by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, which sees the Diaspora as a source of finance for the continent.

Thus the latest troops back to the "motherland." But this time, it is not the dreadlocked African nationalists draped in African fabric, clutching worn copies of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. No. This time, the troops are clean-cut, wear crisp suits and head start-up firms, venture capital outfits or African branches of American multinationals, particularly in South Africa. They have no time for nationalist fervour, let alone "traditional spiritual practices." No. They supply those intangibles of foreign direct investment - contacts, an "international standard" of professionalism, technology. In return, their companies make money off us - it's all about the Benjamins.

Then, of course, there are the super rich African Americans with liberal inclinations. Some own beachfront property around the Western Cape. They love South Africa - partly because they dutifully poured money into the anti-apartheid cause but also because South Africa is "a Third World country with First World amenities." Where else could one base oneself for those occasional forays into the rest of the not-so-civilised continent?

Of course, South Africa also continues to provide causes for those with sensitive souls. Children orphaned as a result of Aids, for example - throwing a Christmas party for them is just the thing! Or land redistribution - but contributing to land reform efforts is too complicated. Solution? Buy land! And give it away again.

Fortunately, we have too the African Americans with their feet firmly on the ground. Their engagement with Africa dates back to the American civil rights and African liberation movements. They remain true to the values that inspired those movements but know that we are now in a different place. They pick their battles carefully, trying to add value to the work done by African governments and civil society organisations.

Take, for example, actor Danny Glover, who was in town this past week. In his capacity as Goodwill Ambassador with the United Nations Development Programme, he adds his voice to the range of issues relating to fair trade, such as commodity pricing. He was here for a coffee conference, but made time to meet with Kenyan artists and civil society organisations. In that meeting, he talked of his plans to develop a filmmakers" fund to support African productions. As chair of Transafrica Forum, a Washington-based advocacy organisation, he listened carefully to concerns about the US elections and America's hosting of this year's Group of Eight summit.

Maybe there is some hope for the relationship after all.

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Quote of note:

Today, the Senate plans to take up a House-passed bill to protect gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits brought by victims of gun violence. A proposal to curb class-action lawsuits is also pending for Senate action soon.

Gun-control advocates plan to use the firearms liability measure, which is backed by the National Rifle Association, as a vehicle for votes on two of their top priorities: reauthorization of the 1994 ban on assault weapons, which expires later this year, and legislation to require unlicensed dealers to conduct speedy background checks at gun shows.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who voted against the assault weapons ban 10 years ago, is among three Republicans co-sponsoring the bill with Democrats this year. Warner said he believes the law has helped reduce crime while protecting gun owners more than he anticipated in 1994.

The outcome of the struggle over guns is unclear, according to senators on both sides of the issue.

Why should it be noted? Because it's buried in the middle of an article about a medical liability bill.

Medical Liability Curbs Blocked
Senate GOP's Bill Targeted OB-GYNs

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 25, 2004; Page A04

Senate Republicans failed again yesterday to win approval for legislation limiting damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, even after adopting an approach that targeted only litigation involving obstetricians and gynecologists.

The largely party-line vote was 48 to 45 in favor of considering the legislation, 12 short of the 60 votes needed to cut off a Democratic-led filibuster against the measure. A broader measure that would have limited damages in all medical malpractice cases fell 11 votes short in July.

The bill is part of a broader drive by President Bush and other Republicans to overhaul the civil liability system, limiting the damage awards that trial lawyers can win against businesses. Today, the Senate plans to take up a House-passed bill to protect gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits brought by victims of gun violence. A proposal to curb class-action lawsuits is also pending for Senate action soon.

Gun-control advocates plan to use the firearms liability measure, which is backed by the National Rifle Association, as a vehicle for votes on two of their top priorities: reauthorization of the 1994 ban on assault weapons, which expires later this year, and legislation to require unlicensed dealers to conduct speedy background checks at gun shows.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who voted against the assault weapons ban 10 years ago, is among three Republicans co-sponsoring the bill with Democrats this year. Warner said he believes the law has helped reduce crime while protecting gun owners more than he anticipated in 1994.

The outcome of the struggle over guns is unclear, according to senators on both sides of the issue.

The malpractice issue also remained an open one, at least for Republicans, who planned to keep pounding on the subject for political as well as legislative reasons, even if they continue to lose.

Republicans made it clear they intend to keep bringing up the issue -- broadening the bill to include emergency room physicians and probably other specialties -- in the hope of building public pressure for approval of constraints on court-ordered damages.

They also said they intend to raise it as an issue in this fall's campaigns in an effort to portray Democrats as beholden to trial lawyers, an argument that could gain prominence if Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), a successful trial lawyer before being elected to the Senate, winds up on the Democrats' national ticket.

The malpractice bill, sponsored by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), with strong backing from Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician, called for a $250,000 cap on damages for pain and suffering in cases involving obstetricians and gynecologists. In addition, it would have limited punitive damages to $250,000 or twice the amount of damages for wages, medical costs and other economic costs, whichever is greater. Liability for manufacturers of drugs and medical devices would be capped. Fees for lawyers who take cases on a contingency basis would also be limited.

In two days of debate on the bill, Republicans argued that malpractice awards are pushing up malpractice insurance premiums to the point where physicians are leaving their practices, endangering patients and driving up health care costs.

But Democrats argued that insurance companies are more responsible than malpractice awards for rising premiums and said women would be penalized more than anyone else by the damage limits.

In yesterday's vote, Maryland's senators voted to continue the filibuster while Virginia's senators voted to end it.

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Not that I ever thought badly of him.

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Senators Threaten to Stall Nomination
McCain and Dorgan Seek Explanation of McClellan's Drug Importation Stand

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 25, 2004; Page A23

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) threatened yesterday to hold up the nomination of Mark McClellan to run the federal Medicare program because they are frustrated by his refusal as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration to permit importation of lower-cost medicines from Canada.

Speaking to governors at a meeting on Capitol Hill, McCain said the pair will stall McClellan's nomination to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services "until there's a full and complete explanation of why he will not make prescription drugs from Canada available to Americans." He and congressional allies also intend to use parliamentary maneuvers to force votes in the Senate on the volatile issue, he said.

Also yesterday, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) announced that his state -- in defiance of the FDA -- will launch an Internet site this week to steer residents to a limited number of Canadian mail-order pharmacies that Wisconsin officials deem safe and reliable.

At a separate meeting, FDA Associate Commissioner Peter Pitts said the agency has no intention of backing off its aggressive pursuit of cities and states that promote illegal drug importation. "We're not going to go away," he said.

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Its utility is undeniable. But it's a very sharp blade with a very small handle. Our concern needs to be about who uses it and how.

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Anti-Terrorism Network Launched
System Allows Agencies Across Country to Share Data Instantaneously

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 25, 2004; Page B01

Hundreds of federal, state and local intelligence and law enforcement agencies will be able to share threat reports, investigative leads and potential evidence instantaneously under a new counter-terrorism computer system announced yesterday by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

Developed since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the Homeland Security Information Network is part of a sweeping data-sharing policy adapted by federal authorities. The network, created in response to presidential priorities, is designed to prevent acts of terror and to give local police chiefs, mayors and governors greater access to federal intelligence.

Ridge announced the launch of the system in the Joint Operations Command Center at Washington's police headquarters, where he was joined by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and officials from New York City and California, who developed the system with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"In this new post-9/11 era, a new philosophy is required -- a philosophy of shared responsibility, shared leadership and shared accountability," Ridge said. "The federal government cannot micromanage the protection of America."

The Internet-based secure network marks a dramatic expansion of U.S. law enforcement agencies' ability to simultaneously share time-sensitive information. The development has been eagerly anticipated by thousands of users and closely monitored by civil liberties groups that track the impact of technology on personal privacy.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hammit25feb25,1,641848.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
COMMENTARY
Balancing Lives Against Lucre
Risk analysis is no soulless monster of science. It's a valuable way to make choices that help the most people at the least cost.
By James K. Hammitt and Milton C. Weinstein
James K. Hammitt is the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Milton C. Weinstein is the director of the Harvard Program on Economic Evaluation of Medical Technology.

February 25, 2004

A risk that kills thousands of Americans every year surely seems like something the government should regulate. But what if that risk also comes with a benefit, providing people with a service that improves their lives?

Take the case of cellphones and driving. Drivers using cellphones cause 2,600 deaths and 330,000 injuries in the United States a year, according to our estimates. But Americans are deeply attached to their cellphones and are willing to spend billions of dollars for the convenience and business and social contact that cellphones provide when they are driving. A ban would save lives but deprive people of a benefit they badly want.

The decision is not as obvious as it seems. If you were in charge, what would you do?

…money and time are limited, even when it comes to saving lives. And a million dollars spent protecting against one risk might save more lives if spent protecting against another.

Here's a simple example of how risk analysis can work. Some women who get Pap smears are told that their results are uncertain and that they should get follow-up tests every year. Totaled across all the women tested, annual follow-ups cost about $800,000 per year of life saved, according to our analysis. On the other hand, if those women got follow-up tests every two years, the reduction in cervical cancer rates would be almost the same — while the cost per year of life saved would decline to about $200,000. That means that the healthcare system would save tens of millions of dollars per year that could be used to screen more women or to provide other health benefits.

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Again, an Assault on Alaska

February 25, 2004

If at first you don't succeed in despoiling an environmental treasure, try, try again. That's apparently the White House motto for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Senate should stop President Bush again, as it has for two years now.

The Bush administration has been no friend to the Alaskan environment in recent months. In December, the Forest Service announced it would strip protections from the Tongass National Forest, allowing loggers to build roads to choice stands of old-growth trees. In January, the president's budget brought back his twice-defeated proposal to sell oil leases in the wildlife refuge, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a plan to open millions of acres of the North Slope to drilling and loosen requirements for environmental safeguards.

Of these, the annual presidential assault on the 19-million-acre wildlife refuge is hardest to fathom. It would take eight to 10 years to get at the oil, which, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, would meet the nation's energy needs for only six months. A very modest increase in the fuel efficiency of the nation's cars would save more oil than that.

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Justices Find No Age Bias in Benefits Case
Court says firms can't be sued if they adopt plans that favor older workers over younger ones.
By David G. Savage
Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2004

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected claims of reverse bias in the area of age discrimination, ruling that employers could not be sued for adopting benefit plans that favored older workers over younger ones.

Age "means 'old age' when teamed with 'discrimination' " in the employment laws, the high court said in a 6-3 decision. It threw out a lawsuit brought by workers in their 40s who sued after a division of General Dynamics Corp. decided that only employees who were then over age 50 would be promised health benefits in their retirement.

Tuesday's ruling, which maintains widespread employment practices, was seen as an important victory for corporate America. Employers feared the prospect of being sued by middle-aged workers if they offered buyouts or other retirement incentives to older workers, an increasingly common occurrence.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee "because of an individual's age." Congress said it was intended to protect older workers from being pushed aside or denied opportunities because of their age.

But the wording of the law applied to all employees over age 40, and it could be read to forbid discrimination against middle-aged workers as well as their elders. Two years ago, a federal appeals court in Ohio set off alarms among corporate lawyers when it ruled in this case that the law prohibited all age discrimination among employees, even when younger workers were complaining about preferences for their older colleagues.

Employment law experts said this was the first successful "reverse discrimination" claim in the area of age bias.

But it did not stand for long. The Supreme Court took up the employer's appeal and ruled that the law was indeed intended to protect older workers, and not the younger ones who complained about advantages given to their elders. The law "does not mean to stop an employer from favoring an older employee over a young one," said Justice David H. Souter in General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. vs. Cline.

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Cursed Ball About to Get Whacked
Cub fans hope a 58-year jinx can be lifted by sacrificing a most-foul baseball.
By P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2004

CHICAGO — At Harry Caray's sports bar, surrounded by mementos of baseball legends, The Ball sits safely inside a display case — watched over by 13 surveillance cameras, two anti-theft alarms and 24-hour security guards.

All this to protect, at least until Thursday night, what superstitious Cub fans see as the ultimate symbol of bad luck. For this is the baseball that Steve Bartman, the hapless yet loyal Cub fan, inadvertently knocked away from outfielder Moises Alou in last year's National League championship series.

Alou didn't catch the foul ball, this ball, and the Florida Marlins rallied to win the game. The Cubs then lost the next game, as well as their chance to get to the World Series, where they haven't been since 1945.

"If we destroy that ball, it'll finally be all right," said Jeremy Dougherty, 38, a construction worker who dropped by the downtown bar and restaurant for a last peek before the ball is obliterated. "The curse on the Cubs will be lifted."

Dougherty is among the nearly 30,000 Cubs fans who have sent eager e-mails, made pleading phone calls and scrawled desperate notes on the bar's cocktail napkins to Grant DePorter.

Managing partner of the Harry Caray's Restaurant Group, which was founded by and named after the beloved longtime announcer for the Cubs, DePorter bought the ball in December for $113,824.16.

The Cubbies' faithful all want one thing: to destroy The Ball.

They have suggested DePorter roast it, incinerate it, crush it, drown it, drop it into a bucket of acid, split it into two with an ax, put it in front of a firing squad, launch it into outer space, shove it into a shredder, scatter its remains at sea, even freeze it in liquid nitrogen and shatter it into a million pieces.

Some way, any way, get rid of it.

On Thursday night, their pleas will be heeded. Only the method remains a mystery.

"This ball is baseball's anti-trophy," DePorter said. "I had a pit in my stomach, for sure, because it was so expensive. But what would happen if we didn't destroy it and some Marlins fan got ahold of it? What if someone used it to psych out the Cubs next year? No, it's got to go."

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Stores Facing Hard Sell to Refill Aisles
By James F. Peltz
Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2004

When the supermarket strike ends, another headache will begin for the major grocery chains in Central and Southern California. They'll have to deal with the likes of Ronnie Bertrand.

The 69-year-old Bakersfield resident, a self-described "person who doesn't like change," was a longtime Vons patron until picket lines sent her to check out alternative aisles. At some point after the strike began 4½ months ago, Vons lost her to a Foods Co. store in her neighborhood.

"As time went on, I found I was spending less money," Bertrand said. Once the pickets are gone, she might visit Vons to buy fresh vegetables, she added, but "I really think I'm going to continue shopping at Foods Co."

Luring back once-loyal customers will be a major task for Vons, Pavilions, Ralphs and Albertsons. A new Los Angeles Times poll indicates they have their work cut out: Among people who shopped at the three chains before the labor dispute, 59% said they had stopped shopping there during the picketing. And 14% of the chains' total pre-strike customers said they would continue to shop elsewhere after a settlement.

In the competitive supermarket business, that is a big percentage. As negotiations with the United Food and Commercial Workers union wrapped up their 14th straight day Tuesday, fueling hope in some quarters that the labor dispute may soon end, the markets were already plotting to regain the allegiance of customers they've lost.

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Cheney's unprecedented power

By Robert Kuttner, 2/25/2004

DICK CHENEY is the most powerful vice president in US history. Indeed, there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that Cheney, not Bush, is the real power at the White House and Bush the figurehead.

The true role of the shadowy Cheney is finally becoming an issue in the election, and it deserves to be. A recent piece in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer lays out in devastating detail how Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, created the blueprint for shifting much of the military's support role from the armed services to private contractors. The leading contractor, of course, is Halliburton. When Cheney became vice president, Halliburton was perfectly positioned to make out like a bandit.

Cheney, whose prior career was in politics, became a very rich man as Halliburton's chief executive, earning $45 million in just five years, with $18 million still available in stock options. Cheney also went to extraordinary lengths to keep secret the meetings of the Bush energy task force, which included primarily private companies positioned to profit from public decisions. The press treated all this as newsworthy for a time but then backed off.

What is significant about Mayer's New Yorker piece is that it was pieced together mainly from the public record. Cheney's unprecedented role and dubious history are mostly hidden in plain view, just like Bush's. The press needs only to decide that it's a story.

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I'm going to actually start studying PHP today. The initial program I want to write will be something of a blogroll manager because I want to do a couple of specific things specific ways. Okay, I want to assign each site a category and generate include files for each one that I can use as a blogroll. The files will be unordered lists of hyperlinks so the appropriate CSS will turn it into amount any kind of menu or rollover you'd like. And I want to be able to rate each one, pluses for great articles, minuses for sucky statements, because I want to sort on their aggregate score as well.

When I get this done, I'm sure you'll see John Cole's Balloon-Juice up near the top of the Righties on a fairly consistent basis. Sebastian linked to this post, an eloquent visual response to Rod Paige's incredibly stupid "teachers are terrorists" comment. But then I found this post and this one and I'm pretty much convinced I need to keep him in site with the rest of the guys in the Conservatives box. I need all them as constant reminders that one can be Conservative, intelligent and sane at the same time. Wrong, too.

Until I get my little program done I'll just stick the link in the appropriate template module.

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February 24, 2004

Andrew Sullivan is taking stuff personally. As well he should.

I hope that doesn't mean I have to read him now.

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Bush To Cut Deficit From Federal Budget

WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush proposed a $2.4 trillion election-year budget Monday that would boost defense spending, redistribute funds among government programs, and cross out the $477 billion deficit entirely.

"Nobody likes making cuts, but the nation's current rate of spending and the decreased tax revenues we've seen since implementing my tax cuts have created a deficit that we can't afford to carry," Bush said in a nationally televised address. "Someone had to have the vision, leadership, and courage to go in and erase that line altogether, no matter how unpopular and impossible that may be."

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the $477 billion deficit is the country's largest ever, easily topping the previous record of $290 billion in 1992. If the budget is approved, however, the deficit will roll down to $0.0 billion.

In the past, critics have accused the Bush Administration of responding to a mounting deficit and the ongoing recession with unsound fiscal policies like cutting taxes for the wealthy. Bush supporters say the deficit cut proves the wisdom of the president's economic plan.

"Bush has taken a brave step, one that was long overdue," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said. "He has taken charge of the budget problem once and for all, simply by saying 'The deficit stops here.'"

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Online economics glossaries:

Microeconomics: Dr. T.'s Econolinks Glossary
Macroeconomics: John B. Taylor's Macroeconomics Glossary

(And for when I grow up: Peter B. Meyer's Online Glossary of Research Economics)

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I need a new keyboard and printer. My keyboard is wireless (Logitech). So is my networking (Netgear). They don't always get along. And my printer just died.

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Reparations proponents take note. That much of the Black community has no housing value to mitigate their debt with is directly traceable to local, state and federal government policies.

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Greenspan Says Personal Debt Is Mitigated by Housing Value

The Associated Press

The finances of American households are in generally good shape even though consumers have increased their debt and bankruptcy filings have surged, the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, said yesterday.

In a speech to the Credit Union National Association in Washington, Mr. Greenspan said that an extended period of low interest rates and extra cash from mortgage refinancing had given borrowers flexibility to better manage their debts.

Consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of economic activity in the United States, and a widespread deterioration in households' balance sheets could significantly cut spending. Consumer debt reached a record $2 trillion in December, according to the most recent figures from the Federal Reserve. That includes credit cards and car loans, but not mortgages.

More than 1.6 million people filed for bankruptcy protection in the 2003 fiscal year, ended Sept. 30. Continuing the record-setting pace of recent years, personal bankruptcies rose 7.8 percent, according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Mr. Greenspan said that while elevated bankruptcy filing rates in the last few years were troubling because they underlined the difficulties that some households experience during economic slowdowns, "bankruptcy rates are not a reliable measure of the overall health of the household sector because they do not tend to forecast general economic conditions and they can be significantly influenced over time by changes in laws and lender practices."

He said that American households own more than $14 trillion in real estate assets and that mortgage refinancing and the rise in home values have helped to bolster consumer spending in economic hard times as well as better periods.

"Over the past two years, " he said, "significant increases in the value of real estate assets have, for some households, mitigated stock market losses and supported consumption."

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William Jelani Cobb:

That Paul Robeson is being honored with a stamp in the current era of repression and political paranoia is the height of historical irony. The catalogue of Robeson's achievements is incredible, but his demise, amid allegations of being a communist in the 1950s, is almost a metaphor for the experience of black heroes who have been enstamped by the US Postal Service. Robeson was born in 1898 to parents who were both former slaves. His mother died in a fire when he was six years old. His father served as minister at a number of churches in New Jersey (being pushed out of at least one post due to racial factors) and settled in as the pastor of St. Luke A.M.E.-Zion church in Westfield. Paul Robeson entered Rutgers College in 1915 as only the third black student to be accepted by the school. He went on to earn 15 letters in sports during his time there, joined in the debate team and graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1919. He went on to Columbia University Law School, graduated in 1922 and practiced law briefly before becoming disillusioned with the racism practiced by New York law firms. He decided to embark upon a career as an actor and vocalist.

After landing theatrical roles in Shuffle Along, Black Boy and The Emperor Jones, he appeared in a 1930 production of Shakespeare's Othello, eventually being recognized as the definitive enactor of the tragic Moor. Robeson had graduated to film in 1924 and starred in Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul, but abandoned the genre because of the limited roles available to black actors. He traveled extensively, visiting Africa in the 1930s and becoming friends with a number of African students, including the Kenyan Jomo Kenyatta, who were actively fighting against European colonialism. He would eventually learn to speak over a half-dozen languages. Radicalized by his exposure to African struggles, Robeson began to articulate an increasingly critical perspective about racism and American politics. By the beginning of World War II, he was widely acclaimed as a vocalist, actor, athlete and intellectual. Paul Robeson was possibly the best known American artist in the world.

By 1949, however, the Cold War had begun to heat up and the lines between dissent and treason were deliberately blurred. Robeson's comments at a 1949 peace conference were deliberately misinterpreted to say that African Americans would never fight in a war against the Soviet Union. The denunciations came with fury and swiftness: Walter White, Jackie Robinson and Mary McLeod Bethune lined up to distance themselves from him. He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950, where he refused to state whether or not he was a member of the Communist Party. Robeson, though he had a number of friends who were Communists and had himself visited the Soviet Union more than once, had never been a member of the Communist Party. His issue with the McCarthy inquisition was a moral one: he objected to any form of political expression being criminalized and saw McCarthy as a greater threat to the Constitution than Communism was. Asked by a committee member why he didn't simply move permanently to the Soviet Union, Robeson famously replied: "Because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country and no fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?"

There would be consequences for this kind of democratic audacity. Robeson was refused permission to perform in venues across the country and his passport was revoked, making it impossible for him to tour abroad. His alma mater, Rutgers University, omitted his name from its list of football greats and all but dismissed his significance as an alumnus of the institution. A planned concert in Peekskill, New York, devolved into a riot when local residents began throwing bricks through the car windows of Robeson's entourage. Within a decade, the most famous black person in the world had quite simply disappeared.

Robeson could have ended his internal exile by simply stating that he was not a Communist, but to do so ran counter to his deep belief in intellectual freedom. He fell into financial ruin. The accumulated strains — along with his discovery of the horrors of Stalin's tyranny in the USSR — took their toll; he suffered a series of nervous breakdowns. The Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that it was illegal to deny a passport to a citizen on the basis of political beliefs and Robeson was allowed to travel abroad later that year. He performed internationally, but never came close to his former prominence. He died in 1976, a legend who had been quietly forgotten.

With a sitting President who tells the world, "you are either with us or against us," endorses secret military tribunals, and condones eavesdropping on confidential discussions between a person and his or her attorney, it's almost impossible to ask whether the Robeson stamp is tribute or hypocrisy. These days, presidents visit Martin Luther King's tomb — before appointing former segregationists to the federal bench. And a defamed icon is given accolades a half-century after his life was ruined by an overzealous government that had declared Communism its primary threat and told him that he was either with us or against us. With history as an alibi, you can't expect anyone to plead guilty.

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White House Forecasts Often Miss The Mark
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 24, 2004; Page A01

President Bush last week caused a stir when he declined to endorse a projection, made by his own Council of Economic Advisers, that the economy would add 2.6 million jobs this year. But that forecast, derided as wildly optimistic, was one of the more modest predictions the administration has made about the economy over the past three years.

Two years ago, the administration forecast that there would be 3.4 million more jobs in 2003 than there were in 2000. And it predicted a budget deficit for fiscal 2004 of $14 billion. The economy ended up losing 1.7 million jobs over that period, and the budget deficit for this year is on course to be $521 billion.

These are not isolated cases. Over three years, the administration has repeatedly and significantly overstated the government's fiscal health and the number of jobs the economy would create, but economists and politicians disagree about why.

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Bush Assertion on Tax Cuts Is at Odds With IRS Data
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 24, 2004; Page A04

President Bush defended his tax cuts yesterday as economic fuel for the small-business sector in response to mounting criticism from Democratic presidential candidates that the cuts chiefly benefited the wealthiest Americans.

But the president's contention that upper-income tax cuts primarily benefit entrepreneurs conflicts with some of the government's own data.

Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) have pledged to restore the top two income tax rates to a maximum of 39.6 percent if elected president, but Bush and Republican allies say such a move would disproportionately punish small businesses, most of which pay individual income tax rates on their profits.

"If you're worried about job growth, it seems like it makes sense to give a little fuel to those who create jobs, the small-business sector," Bush told a gathering of the nation's governors at the White House. "So I'll vigorously defend the permanency of the tax cuts, not only for the sake of the economy, but for the sake of the entrepreneurial spirit."

Internal Revenue Service statistics cited by a Democratic senator this month show that the vast majority of small businesses do not earn nearly enough money to fall into the highest income tax bracket. According to IRS data from the 2001 tax year, 3.8 percent of the 18.2 million business tax returns filed that year reported taxable income of $200,000 or more. The top tax bracket last year kicked in at $311,950 of taxable income.

In contrast, 62 percent of business filers reported incomes of less than $50,000, putting them at most in the 15 percent tax bracket, the second lowest. Nearly 88 percent of business filers reported income of less than $100,000, keeping them comfortably below the top two tax brackets of 33 percent and 35 percent, which Kerry and Edwards propose to raise.

Republicans point to a different statistic: Of the 750,000 tax filers that pay the top rate, more than two-thirds receive some small-business income from sole proprietorships, partnerships or small businesses incorporated as S corporations, according to the Treasury Department and the Republican staff of the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

Last week, the Republican National Committee cited that statistic in charging that Kerry "doesn't realize tax increases would hurt small businesses and farmers." Treasury officials asserted yesterday that about 75 percent of top-bracket tax returns are from "small-business owners." One official said the IRS was limiting its definition of small businesses to sole proprietorships, leaving out huge numbers of S corporations and partnerships.

But under Treasury's definition, both Bush and Vice President Cheney are members of the entrepreneurial class. In his 2002 tax return, the president reported $1,549 from rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations and trusts, including income from GWB Rangers Corp., a remnant of his days as co-owner of the Texas Rangers. Of the Cheney household's $1.2 million income, $238,682 was from business ventures within the White House's definition of small business.

Economists say the broad Republican definition of "small-business man" includes not only doctors, lawyers and management consultants but also chief executives who earn $3,000 renting out their chalets in Aspen or report $10,000 in speaking fees. An aide on the Joint Economic Committee conceded that the definition includes the army of accountants and consultants at such giant partnerships as KPMG LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, not the firms that "small business" brings to mind.

The aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said committee economists are debating whether to update the statistics to trim out such behemoths. A Treasury official, who formerly worked for one of the accounting giants, defended their inclusion, saying the partners of the major accounting firms are entrepreneurs.

If the definition is revised to stipulate that more than half a small-business person's income has to be from small-business activities, then only one-quarter of filers in the top income tax brackets would be considered entrepreneurs, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

The contrasting claims came out this month when Treasury Secretary John W. Snow appeared before the Senate Finance Committee.

"Less than 4 percent, as a matter of fact, of the small businesses and the farm returns in America are bringing in $200,000 or more," Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Snow, confronting him with a chart on the tax rates paid by small businesses.

Pressed to respond, Snow replied: "You are asking me to comment on it, and I would like to think about it before I comment on it. The statistics we have -- I am trying to figure out how to reconcile them with the statistics you have."

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Jobs Expected to Continue to Lag Economy
By EDUARDO PORTER

Job growth is likely to remain tepid even as the economy moves ahead, according to a survey of professional forecasters by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Indeed, the bank said yesterday, the economists' outlook for employment has grown gloomier even as their predictions of economic expansion are becoming more robust.

The 32 economists polled by the Philadelphia Fed, drawn from private business and academia, increased their forecast for economic growth this year to 4.6 percent, on average, from a previous projection of 4.3 percent. Yet at the same time, they trimmed their 2004 forecast of job creation to 1.1 million jobs, from 1.25 million.

Economists have been puzzled for months by the sluggishness of the employment market. The new forecast suggests that they have come to terms with the pattern established in this recovery: fast economic growth being driven by even faster expansion in productivity, with businesses meeting demand by squeezing more output from their current employees instead of hiring more workers.

"The economy has a greater capacity to grow because of stronger productivity growth," said James Glassman, an economist at J. P. Morgan Chase, who participated in the survey. "So we need stronger growth to get everybody employed."

Mr. Glassman estimated that the nation's output needs to grow some 5 percent a year for several years if the economy is to create jobs for the 2.5 million people who have lost employment since the start of 2001 as well as absorb new workers coming into the job market.

The forecast is at odds with an estimate this month by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which said that the economy would generate more than 2.5 million jobs this year. The forecast, ridiculed by Democrats as being out of touch with the real world, was swiftly disowned by some administration officials, including Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

The economy has lost some 2.3 million jobs since President Bush took office, with little evidence of job creation despite economic growth. Since July, the economy has added only 42,000 jobs a month, on average, while expanding at an 8.2 percent annual pace in the third quarter of 2003 and a 4 percent pace in the fourth.

The new forecast points to similar developments in 2004, with employment growth around 91,000 new jobs a month, substantially less than the 150,000 or so needed to keep up with the growth in the work force.

Though a weak job market is a potential problem for the president as he begins the November election campaign, there are not many policy levers left to pull in hopes of encouraging businesses to hire more. "The federal funds rate is as low as you can get it, and fiscal policy is already extremely accommodative," said Joseph T. Abate, an economist at Lehman Brothers, who took part in the Fed survey. "It's really more of a confidence issue on the part of businesses."

Ultimately, economists say, hiring will recover because companies can squeeze only so much productivity from their workers. Productivity growth fell from a 9.5 percent pace in the third quarter to 2.7 percent in the fourth.

The economists in the survey forecast that yearly productivity growth over the next decade will average 2.5 percent. Next year, they project, the economy will add 2.25 million jobs - or 188,000 a month - even as growth in overall output runs 3.8 percent.

But having forecast employment rebounds before, economists seem more uncertain now. "There is some point where job growth turns around," said Ed McKelvey of Goldman, Sachs, who participated in the survey. "We're just not good at forecasting it."

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REALLY INTERESTING Quote of note:

The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a parliamentary statement about the position.

"Despite our view on the illegalities of the fence, we argued against this question being referred to the International Court of Justice.

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Israel's barrier and the world court
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

The case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the barrier Israel is constructing in the West Bank opened with mutual accusations between Israelis and Palestinians and a sense among many countries linked to the peace process that a ruling from the court would not help their task.

It is shaping up to be every bit as contentious as the General Assembly resolution of 1975, which declared Zionism a form of racism. That resolution was revoked in 1991 for the opening of peace talks in Madrid.

Public hearings opened on 23 February. Forty-four governments sent in written opinions, along with the UN itself, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Israel has also sent a submission but it is boycotting the oral sessions on the grounds that it is all a propaganda exercise. Palestine, with observer status at the UN, sent a written argument and opened the oral hearings.

Broadly, western countries opposed a role for the ICJ while and Muslim states argued for it.

Three-way argument:
There is basically a three-way argument. The Palestinians want a ruling that the "wall" (and what you call it defines your position) is illegal where it crosses into occupied land in the West Bank.

The Israelis say that the "fence" is a vital measure of self-defence. The Europeans and Americans argue that, whatever the arguments about the line of the "barrier" itself, the ICJ should not get involved in such a contentious political issue.

Palestinians: The Palestinians argue that all the land captured by Israel in the 1967 war is occupied territory which cannot be annexed under the terms of the 1907 Hague regulations on the Laws and Customs of War. The population must also be protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Palestinians say that the withdrawal of a claim to the land by Jordan is not relevant and that the Palestinians should be considered the rightful owners.

Accordingly, to build the barrier anywhere inside this territory, especially around East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital, implies eventual annexation and also violates the day-to-day rights of the population whose lives are affected.

The Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei has described the barrier as an "apartheid wall" that would "put the Palestinians in cantons". He says that it endangers "the two-state solution and the creation of an independent Palestinian state".

At the very least, the Palestinians hope that pressure will force Israel to change the route of the barrier in places. They also hope that a ruling favourable to them might help the case for sanctions against Israel.

Israel: Israel rejects the claim that the land it captured in 1967 is occupied territory. It argues that in 1967, Jordan controlled the West Bank and with very limited international recognition. Jordan has since given up its claim and, therefore, the status of the territory is undetermined. Israel says that The Hague and Geneva agreements do not strictly apply, therefore, though it implements them in many ways.

As for the barrier itself, it says that it is a fence in all but short sections open to sniper fire. Israel accepts that the fence crosses the 1967 "green line" in places but that is for topographical and local reasons. It is a self-defence device, which has no political significance because it could be moved in the event of a political settlement. Israel summed up its position with a statement from its foreign ministry:

"Regrettably, the Palestinians have embarked upon a cynical political manoeuvre against Israel in the international arena rather than trying to resolve the issues through direct negotiations," the statement read.

Europe and the US: The EU voted in favour of a General Assembly resolution last October condemning the line of the barrier into the West Bank but feels that it is wrong and divisive to take the issue to the ICJ.

The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a parliamentary statement about the position.

"Despite our view on the illegalities of the fence, we argued against this question being referred to the International Court of Justice.

"This approach is one shared by all members of the European Union including all accession states... The UK has also submitted a detailed written statement to the court arguing that the court ought to exercise its discretion to decline to give an opinion.

"We believe that it is inappropriate to embroil the court in a heavily political bilateral dispute. We also believe the court should not be engaged where the consent of both parties has not been given."

The United States takes an even firmer view that the ICJ has no place in this issue. It says that the road map, the plan for a Middle East settlement, is the way forward.

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The West Bank barrier has been highly controversial ever since the Israeli government decided to build it in 2002.
Now it is being challenged in court, both in Israel and at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

BBC News Online answers questions about the plan.

Wall? Fence? What exactly is this structure?

"The Thing", as one commentator has drolly called it, is in fact part-wall, part-fence. Most of its 700-kilometre (440-mile) length is made up of a concrete base with a five-metre-high wire-and-mesh superstructure. Rolls of razor wire and a four-metre-deep ditch are placed on one side. In addition, the structure is fitted with electronic sensors and has an earth-covered "trace road" beside it where footprints of anyone crossing can be seen.

Parts of the structure consist of an eight-metre-high solid concrete wall, complete with massive watchtowers. The solid section around the Palestinian town of Qalqilya is conceived as a "sniper wall" to prevent gun attacks against Israeli motorists on the nearby Trans-Israel Highway.

Work started in June 2002 and contractors have now completed about a quarter of the planned barrier: a long segment on the north-west edge of the West Bank; two sections either side of Jerusalem; and a section in the Jordan Valley.

But construction has been slowed with the Israelis announcing some changes to the route - for instance around the town of Baka al-Sharqiya, where eight km (5-mile) of fence is to be removed.

Why is Israel building it?

After initial hesitation, the government adopted the plan saying it was essential to prevent Palestinian would-be suicide bombers from entering Israel and attacking Israeli civilians, as has happened many times during the Palestinian intifada.

The initial hesitation can be explained by reluctance among ministers and their hardline supporters to build any structure which might be construed as a future Israeli-Palestinian border which left Jewish settlements stranded in Palestinian land.

Pro-settlement objections have been largely assuaged by the fact that the structure is not being built on Israel's pre-1967 boundary, but snakes several kilometres into the West Bank to link settlements up to Israel.

What are the main objections to the plan?

For Israel's critics, the plan epitomises everything that is wrong with Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and its approach to making peace with its Arab neighbours.

Palestinian land is confiscated to build the barrier; hundreds of Palestinian farmers and traders are cut off from their land and means of economic survival. Most significantly, it creates "facts on the ground" and imposes unilateral solutions which preclude negotiated agreements in the future.

The impact of the plan has been felt most acutely in Qalqilya itself, once known as the West Bank's "fruit basket", which lies within a tight loop in the wall. It is cut off on three sides - from the farms which supply its markets and the region's second-largest water sources in the region. Access to the 40,000-inhabitant town will pass through a single Israeli checkpoint.

Two separate court challenges are being made to the barrier, one in The Hague and the other in Israel itself.

In an Israeli Supreme Court hearing beginning on 9 February 2004, the Hamoked Centre for the Defence of the Individual and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel questioned the principle of building the barrier on occupied land and the restrictions it imposes on the Palestinians in the West Bank.

If the court rules in favour of their petition, correspondents say a lengthy legal process could follow.

Two weeks later, the International Court of Justice in The Hague began hearings into the barrier's legality.

But the court's decision is non-binding, and some countries have argued the ICJ should not be ruling on such a highly-charged case.

Why didn't Israel build it along the old 1967 boundary?

Palestinians say a fence around the entire West Bank might have shown the Israeli government was serious about ending the occupation - the minimum requirement for a fair resolution of the conflict as far as Palestinians are concerned.

As it is, the Palestinians argue, the current plan looks suspiciously like the precursor to a structure which will hem them into 42% of the West Bank - something they believe Mr Sharon has been planning all along.

But Israel argues that the fence is purely a security obstacle, definitely not a part of a future border. Israeli officials argue there is nothing to prevent the fence - erected at a cost of $2m a kilometre - from being moved after a negotiated settlement.

Where does America stand?

Washington, still keen to keep alive the roadmap peace plan, views Israel's "security fence" as problematic because of its capacity to poison the atmosphere between the two sides.

The US has exerted mild pressure on Israel. In July President George W Bush, on the podium with then Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, said: "It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and the Israelis... with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

A few days later, with Mr Sharon, Mr Bush said: "The prime minister made it very clear to me that it was a sensitive issue and my promise to him was we will continue to discuss how to make sure that the fence sends the right signal [to the Palestinians]."

In September, the US raised objections to the proposed extension of the fence. Washington was considering withholding loan guarantees to Israel to the value of the cost of any sections of wall the US considered unnecessary.

But Israel is planning to make some concessions to Washington over the barrier.

Some changes are now likely, amounting to a shortening of the barrier by around 100 km. Plans to loop it around Jewish settlements will be dropped.

The modifications are expected to be presented to US officials due in Israel this month.

What is the UN's position on the barrier?

In late September, the UN issued a report which condemned the barrier as illegal and tantamount to "an unlawful act of annexation".

Then, in December, the General Assembly called on the ICJ to give its opinion.

The resolution was supported by 90 member countries, opposed by eight (Australia, Ethiopia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States) and 74 abstained.

In his report for the UN Commission on Human Rights, John Dugard, a South African law professor, warned that about 210,000 Palestinians living in the area between the wall and Israel would be cut off from social services, schools and places of work.

"This is likely to lead to a new generation of refugees or internally displaced people," he said.

Israel has dismissed the UN report as "one-sided, highly politicised and biased".

But at the court proceedings in The Hague, 44 countries have filed opinions on the barrier.

Israel, the US, the European Union and others argue that the international court is not the proper forum to discuss the issue.

Another group of countries are urging judges to denounce the barrier as illegal.

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Bush goes on anti-Democrat attack
President Bush has warned Americans against handing over power to the Democrats in November's election.

In a speech to Republican governors, he said his rivals would leave the US "uncertain in the face of danger".

Voters will decide "between two visions of government - one that encourages enterprise and one that raises taxes".

Mr Bush's approval rating has slumped in recent weeks amid fierce attacks from Democratic contenders over the war in Iraq and the economy.

The Democrats have not yet chosen their presidential candidate - but front-runner John Kerry has capitalised on strong anti-Bush feelings among party voters.

The BBC's Katty Kay in Washington says the president would not be lashing out at potential rivals this long before the election if the White House was not worried.

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US launches anti-Aids programme
The United States has officially launched its emergency anti-AIDS programme with the release of its first funds.

The $15bn programme targets countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

It is hoped the money will help speed up prevention, treatment and care services in some of the world's most badly affected countries.

The five year plan was announced by President Bush during his 2003 State of the Union address.

Where the money goes

Under the programme, $9bn is to go to 14 most affected countries in Africa and the Caribbean, representing about 50% of HIV infections worldwide.

The US anti-Aids /HIV coordinator Randall Tobias, said "the money will go to programmes that are providing anti-retroviral treatment, preventions programmes including those targeted to youth and safe medical practices programmes."

He said also included are, "programmes to provide care for orphans and vulnerable children".

Another $5bn will be devoted to ongoing bilateral projects in more than 100 countries while $1bn has been set aside for

United Nations anti-Aids campaigns.

But critics have attacked what they say have been continuous delays to the funding process.

The Aids Health Care Foundation, the largest US-based organisation with clinics in the US, Africa and Central America, said it was disappointed with the announcement.

The head of the foundation, Michael Weinstein, said, "in a funding process marked by continuous delays, today's results are leaving many experts in the field of Aids treatment how decisions are made."

It is estimated that 40m people worldwide are infected with Aids/HIV and that each day 14,000 are added to that number.

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Because he's let too many things of too great importance to people go by the wayside.

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AP Poll: Drugs Costly for U.S. Families
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

2:27 AM PST, February 24, 2004

WASHINGTON — Almost a third of Americans say paying for prescription drugs is a problem in their families, and many are cutting dosages to deal with the crunch, according to a poll by The Associated Press.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said the government should make it easier to buy cheaper drugs from Canada or other countries.

The poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs found most Americans either take prescription drugs or someone in their family does. Of those, 33 percent said their families have trouble paying at times. For people having trouble paying their medicine bills, three-fourths say the solution often is to cut back on the dosage.

The high cost of prescription drugs will be an important issue in the presidential campaign, said eight in 10 in the poll. Almost half said it will be "very important."

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Bush Replays Themes That Worked in 2000 Election
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer

February 24, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush, in sharpening on Monday his case for reelection, signaled his determination to return to arguments that worked against Al Gore in 2000.

At the heart of Bush's speech at a Republican fundraiser was a determined effort to frame the 2004 election as a stark choice between more government and more individual freedom — the same contrast he used with success against Gore in the final two months of their razor-tight race.

"The American people will decide between two visions of government: a government that encourages ownership and opportunity and responsibility, or a government that takes your money and makes your choices," Bush said.

That formulation echoed Bush's insistence in 2000 that he wanted "to empower the American people" while Gore wanted "to empower the federal government."

Many Democrats agree that assertion hurt Gore in the closing weeks of the campaign. Bush's return to the argument suggests that a key question in this year's campaign could be whether Americans are more worried about big government or the powerful corporate interests that Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina — the two remaining major Democratic presidential candidates — promise to confront.

The choice between big government and small government "obviously worked to a large extent for Bush in 2000, and could well do that again in 2004," said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. "But I think we are in a very different context in 2004, where the public is much more attuned to the need for government to play an active role in policing excessive corporate power."

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I think the reviews are all I'll ever know about this flick.

Quote of note:

…it shouldn't be surprising that what's immediately most evident about "The Passion" is its complete sincerity. This is Gibson's personal vision of the greatest story ever told, a look inside his heart and soul. Gibson even personally provided, according to composer John Debney, the despairing wail that accompanies Judas' suicide. When the director writes in the introduction to the film's coffee-table book that he wanted his work "to be a testament to the infinite love of Jesus the Christ," there is no reason to doubt him. Which makes it even sadder that "The Passion of the Christ" does not play that way.

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A narrow vision and staggering violence
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer

February 24 2004

Combining the built-in audience of the Bible, the incendiary potential of "The Birth of a Nation" and the marketing genius of "The Blair Witch Project," the arrival of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" feels like a milestone in modern culture. It's a nexus of religion, celebrity, cinema and mass communication that tells us more about the way our world works than we may want to know.

The film left me in the grip of a profound despair, and not for reasons I would have thought. It wasn't simply because of "The Passion's" overwhelming level of on-screen violence, a litany of tortures ending in a beyond-graphic crucifixion.

And it wasn't because of the treatment of the high priest Caiphas and the Hebrew power elite of Jesus' time — a disturbing portrait likely to give, I feel sure unintentionally, comfort to anti-Semites.

Instead, what is profoundly disheartening is that people of goodwill will see this film in completely different ways. Where I see almost sadistic violence, they will see transcendence; where I see blame, they will see truth.

In effect, aspects of Gibson's creative makeup — his career-long interest in martyrdom and the yearning for dramatic conflict that make him an excellent actor, coupled with his belief in the Gospels' literal truth — have sideswiped this film. What is left is a film so narrowly focused as to be inaccessible for all but the devout.

Those factors have made "The Passion" a film that will separate people rather than bring them together. Normally these kinds of disagreements don't matter, but with a film like this, "You just don't get it" confrontations have sad echoes of savage conflicts that have lasted for centuries. It has the potential to foster divisiveness because of the way it exposes and accentuates the fissures in belief that otherwise might go unnoticed. We all know where the road paved with good intentions leads, and it is not to the gates of heaven.

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Court Deals Blow on Budget
The state could sink $650 million more into the hole after a decision on corporate taxes.
By Marc Lifsher and Evan Halper
Times Staff Writers

February 24, 2004

SACRAMENTO — California's budget deficit appeared to grow by about $650 million Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a ruling that state corporate tax laws impede interstate commerce.

The move was more bad budget news for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers, coming less than a week after nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill warned that the state's economy is improving more slowly than expected, causing revenue projections to drop by more than $1 billion.

"Not the way you want to start your workweek," said state Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer. "There is no question this is a substantial hit."

The latest setback is the result of a state law that allowed corporations to deduct from their taxes dividends received from other corporations, as long as those dividends were paid from corporate income that was taxed by California.

The deduction originally was created to provide an incentive for California firms to invest in other companies in the state without being penalized with double taxation.

State courts ruled that the provision violated federal laws regulating interstate commerce. The ruling will force California to provide refunds and interest to affected corporations.

According to the Franchise Tax Board, the state will have to pay $800 million in refunds to between 1,000 and 2,000 corporate taxpayers with dividend income from out of state. [P6: ]

That would include some of the largest corporations doing business in California, such as Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

But because the board is considering jettisoning the dividend tax break, the revenue loss could be offset by $150 million in new taxes the state could collect from companies that had been receiving the break since 2000, said board spokeswoman Denise Azimi. Those same companies could in the future face a new, ongoing obligation of about $35 million a year, she added.

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The new ongoing obligation of $35 million would take 18 or so years to fill the hole that's just been dug.

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SFGate.com

…The governor has taken to calling himself the "collectinator,'' a well-connected GOP officeholder who he says will help California out of its deep budget hole by bringing home more federal dollars.

So perhaps the most important visit of his trip to Washington came Monday afternoon in the Capitol, where he met with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which parcels out federal money.

Schwarzenegger said he particularly appealed to Stevens for more money to help the state pay for the upkeep of illegal immigrants imprisoned in the state. This issue has been a thorny one for California and other border states for years, and Bush has proposed eliminating the federal government's share of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

"I expect to get a lot'' of the money that California is due for the immigrant jail costs, homeland security and other programs, Schwarzenegger said. Of course, every other governor in town is making similar appeals, and with the federal budget deficit ballooning and Bush calling for restraint in spending, it's unclear how much money California can get.

Schwarzenegger vowed to be relentless.

"I'm like a tick that holds on,'' he said. "I will come back to Washington as many times as possible.''

Schwarzenegger said he felt optimistic in his meeting with Stevens.

"I judged Sen. Stevens' facial expressions,'' he said. "It indicated to me, 'You should get the money.' ''

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I got no idea whether or not you'll see this. Side effect of using individual archives as my primary archive type.

Derek, I do not believe academic labs produce drugs. But if a commercial entity did the work an academic lab did, they'd apply for a patent and get it. Take a look at how intellectual property works in any other field. People get patents for well defined but unimplemented ideas regularly And if you later independently define and implement that idea, well too bad you still owe royalties. I suspect government funding of the research is the reason more of these compounds aren't patented by academic labs in the first place.

Look at Coca-Cola and Amazon.com and you'll see the law covering trade secrets and process patents gives as much protection and they currently have…the makers of Prilosec might argue Coca-Cola's protection is stronger. A competitor would have to develop an in dependant process to produce any drug under consideration and so no one gets a free ride. The drug being in the public domain would be a spur to innovation and competition, though (what's sauce for the schools is sauce for the pharma). If the results of any such research went into the public domain, I actually see no loss to big Pharma.

And as for whether or not One Of Us Is Hallucinating all can say is, dude—YOU'RE the one that works with drugs.

It's not that you in the pharmaceutical industry have let perception get out of hand. It's that I have different issues than "big Pharma." Also I consider the world to be like a ball of yarn…lift a thread and the whole ball comes with it.

Also, I don't think you have to worry much about the virulence of my opinion being wide spread. Frankly, if health care costs were such they didn't scare the bejeezus out of your average person I wouldn't much care who owned what.

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You know you can host Atom feeds on your site, right? Terry?

Just like the RDF/RSS stuff MT, pMachine, Wordpress etc. have, just a different format. In fact, I added my first Atom feed to Feed Demon today, a Typepad blog, and you know what? If I didn't know, I'd have never known, you know?

Anyway, if you're on Blogger and my blog roll, would you consider enabling your Atom feed and dropping me a line?

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February 23, 2004

Some time this week, Wednesday I think, I'll get my 10,000^th visitor of the month. That includes about 1,500 extra folks the day after the Super Bowl. I may actually see 10,000 legitimate visitors by the 29^th.

That's pretty wild.

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Ampersand at Alas, A Blog posted this.

Here's what King said interviewed in Playboy (January 1965):

Question: Do you feel it's fair to request a multi-billion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group?

King: I do indeed. Within common law, we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs, which are regarded as settlements. American Indians are still being paid for land in a settlement manner. Is not two centuries of labor, which helped to build this country, a real commodity?

I knew Dr. King's position but never saw that particular quote (I was only seven years old. It was another year or two before I got my first Playboy.) Keep it on file to hurl forcefully at anyone who claims Dr. King would be against affirmative action programs.

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He did say it would be the year of sharp elbows and quick tomgues, after all.

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Education Secretary Calls Teachers Union a 'Terrorist Organization'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 23, 2004
Filed at 3:15 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization'' during a private White House meeting with governors on Monday.

Democratic and Republican governors confirmed Paige's remarks about the National Education Association.

"These were the words, 'The NEA is a terrorist organization,''' said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin.

"He was making a joke, probably not a very good one,'' said Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. ``Of course he immediately divorced the NEA from ordinary teachers, who he said he supports.''

"I don't think the NEA is a terrorist organization,'' said Rendell, who has butted heads with the group as well. "They're not a terrorist organization any more than the National Business Organization is a terrorist organization.

Neither the Education Department nor NEA had an immediate comment on Paige's comments. Both indicated that statements were forthcoming.

Education has been a top issue for governors, who have sought more flexibility from the administration on President Bush's "No Child Left Behind'' law, which seeks to improve school performance in part by allowing parents to move their children from poorly performing schools.

Democrats have said Bush has failed to fully fund the law, giving the states greater burdens but not the resources to handle them.

Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, said Paige's remarks startled the governors, who met for nearly two hours with Bush and several Cabinet officials.

"He is, I guess, very concerned about anybody that questions what the president is doing,'' Holden said. [P6: I guess he's gunning for Powell's spot.]

"He was implying that the NEA has not been one of the organizations that has been working with the administration to try to solve 'No Child Left Behind,''' he said.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, said of Paige's comments: "Somebody asked him about the NEA's role and he offered his perspective on it.''

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The major difference between building this particular fence this particular way and Saddam Hussein draining that swamp the Marsh Arabs lived in is you got one guy you can blame for the swamp.

And don't give me any moral equivalence crap. Neither side has had a leader that actually wanted peace in a long, long time.

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In Hague, Israeli Barrier Proves Divisive Issue
By GREGORY CROUCH

THE HAGUE, Feb. 23 — The Israelis sent grieving parents and the singed shell of a bombed bus. The Palestinians sent farmers cut off from their land.

They have come for an International Court of Justice hearing that started today on a planned 450-mile barrier of ditches, watch posts and concrete walls that Israel is erecting in and around the West Bank. The hearing, expected to last three days, was requested by the United Nations General Assembly, which sought an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of the barrier.

The Israeli government calls the barrier a defense against suicide bombers, an argument it repeated on Sunday when a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bus in Jerusalem, killing at least eight other passengers. The Palestinian Authority calls it a deceptive land grab, a violation of international law and a new form of apartheid that further oppresses Palestinians on the West Bank.

"This wall, if completed, will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous, walled enclaves," Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinians' permanent observer to the United Nations, told the 15-judge panel today, according to Reuters.

Officially, Israel contends that the court has no jurisdiction. But symbolically, the hearing has become an important variable that could complicate the stalled Middle East peace talks. A ruling that the barrier is illegal, while nonbinding, could be a public relations disaster for Israel.

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No Iraq Election Until End of 2004 at Earliest, Annan Says
By WARREN HOGE

Published: February 23, 2004

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 23 — Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that credible elections could not be held in Iraq before the end of this year or the early part of 2005, and then only if planning a framework for them began immediately.

In a report to the Security Council, Mr. Annan said that his special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and a team of United Nations elections experts had determined during an emergency one-week trip to Iraq that it would take until May to set up that framework and then eight months from that point to hold elections.

His report said that the first task was establishing an independent election commission to come up with the technical and legal rules and structure for a national vote. The current American plan had envisioned full elections by the end of 2005.

"If the work was started immediately and the required political consensus was reached fairly rapidly, it would be possible to hold elections by the end of 2004," Mr. Annan said. "At least eight months are required to prepare a credible election in Iraq, once the legal framework is agreed upon."

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Vatican Report Calls U.S. Abuse Policy Too Strict
By FRANK BRUNI

VATICAN CITY, Feb. 23 — A report on child sexual abuse that the Vatican released today found fault with and challenged American bishops' zero tolerance policy of seeking to remove from ministry any Roman Catholic priest who has abused a child.

The 219-page report, titled "Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: Scientific and Legal Perspectives," cast that policy as an overreaction by Catholic leaders in the United States to a public outcry and as a potentially counterproductive way to keep children safe from sexual abuse.

The report included expressions of concern that sexually abusive priests who are cast out of ministry and pushed away from the Roman Catholic Church might be more likely to abuse again, due to their isolation and a lack of monitoring of their behavior.

"Although until now the phenomenon of abuse was not always taken seriously enough, at present there is a tendency to overreact and rob accused priests of even legitimate support," wrote one of the editors of the report, Dr. Manfred Lütz, in its conclusion. Dr. Lütz, a German psychiatrist, is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity here.

The other two editors are not connected to the Vatican, and the report mainly presents the perspectives of those two scientists and six others. None of the eight scientists are Catholic; all are experts in the study or treatment of sexual abuse.

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Read the whole thing.

His Teeth Were There: Was He?

Are you as weary of gutter politics as we are here at the Town Hall? Then whatever you do, don't click here. Instead, help us flush out an authoritative witness to President Bush's tour of duty defending the skies over Alabama -- and put this tired, recycled AWOL story to rest once and for all.

For the past twelve years, George W. Bush has had to endure charges that he didn't take the final two years of his Guard service as seriously as duty required. (For updated timeline, click here.) And the two witnesses who have come forward in support so far haven't exactly cleared things up. We at the Town Hall believe that with everything he has on his plate, Mr. Bush shouldn't have to contend with attacks on the National Guard, which is serving so bravely in Iraq. And we're willing to back up our support with cold, hard cash.

His teeth were there.

Granted, this has been tried before. In 2000, concerned veterans in both Texas and Alabama offered cash rewards to lure former guardmates of Mr. Bush into stepping forward, to no avail. The problem, in our view, was that these enticements weren't serious enough, that the sums offered were insulting. In contrast, we at the DTH&WP respect how inconvenient it can be to subject yourself to worldwide media scrutiny in general, and Fox News in particular, and are thus prepared to sweeten previous offers by a factor of five. That's right, we're offering $10,000 cash! Yours to either spend or invest in job creation. All you have to do is definitively prove that George W. Bush fulfilled his duty to country.

So don't let the smear artists define the president. If you personally witnessed George W. Bush reporting for drills at Dannelly Air National Guard Base between the months of May and November of 1972 we want to hear about it. Help Mr. Bush put this partisan assault on his character behind him, so he can focus on more serious issues like jobs, the deficit and the coming civil war in Iraq. Just contact us below with the salient details. If we think you're a possible winner, we'll get back to you pronto. Good luck to all contestants!

Q: Isn't this just a publicity stunt?
A: If by a publicity stunt, you mean an attempt to draw attention to the problem of gutter politics, trolling-for-trash, and cheap smear tactics, then sure, guilty as charged.

Q: What if I saw Bush, but I can't prove it? Can I get some of the money?
A: No, but if your story's entertaining enough, you may qualify for our consolation prize, an original Doonesbury strip personally signed by a top studio intern.

Q: The DTH&WP is a media content web site, which means you're broke. Who's paying the reward?
A: The reward is being generously underwritten by Doonesbury creator G. B. Trudeau. The money has been put in escrow and is being administered by Universal Press Syndicate.

Q: It's really in escrow?
A: No, but we're good for it. Thanks to Bush's massive tax cuts for people who don't need them, GBT is flush.

Q: Are employees of Universal Press Syndicate, Slate or Microsoft eligible for the contest?
A: Only if no one else comes forward.

Q: Is there some sort of hitch?
A: Well, yes, but it's a hitch for a good cause. The winner won't actually receive the reward for himself; instead we'll be donating $10,000 in his name to the USO. That way everyone's a winner, including GBT's tax accountant.

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Little did I suspect when I linked to Greg Easterbrook's op-ed in the LA Times this morning that a bunch of other folks would be talking it up as well. Kevin Drum essentially says, "Duh. Ya think?" And I found Matt Yglesias' question is cogent, especially in combination with Kieran Healy's observation:

Meanwhile — sorry, I’m not even going to pretend to link these comments — Matt Yglesias makes the following observation about Greg Easterbrook’s The Progress Paradox:

The real progress paradox isn’t “why doesn’t all our stuff make us happy” but rather, given that all our stuff pretty clearly doesn’t make us happy, how do we come to have all this stuff.

Which seems about right. An unwillingness to distinguish these two questions — or rather, the decision, for technical purposes, to treat them as if they were the same question — is a hallmark of modern economics. Robert E. Lane has a book that argues this point. Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer have a solid rejoinder from the economist’s point of view, arguing that money can indeed go a long way towards making you happy — but not as far, surprisingly, as democratic institutions and local political autonomy can.

LATER: Oops. Just noticed Kerim at Keywords has another view:

I would like to argue that this is not such a confusing stance for an American to take, as I discussed before, when Thomas Jefferson demanded the freedom to pursue "happiness" he was really arguing for the freedom to own private property. No, what really bothers me about Easterbrook's Op-Ed isn't his definition of happiness, but his definition of progress. What arguments about "material progress" inevitably overlook a very important issue: inequality.

Over the same period that Easterbrook discusses, inequality has been increasing, and social mobility has been decreasing. As Nobel Prize winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argues, it doesn't matter if the total bundle of goods received by the poorest is getting larger if, at the same time, social inequality is increasing. That is to say, it is harder to function as a poor person in a rich society than a poor one, even if you have more material possessions. An argument borne out by the fact of lower life expectancies amongst poor and minority populations in industrialized nations when compared with materially poorer populations in developing nations.

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Is It Time for New Black Leadership? A View from the Left
Date: Monday, February 23, 2004
Author: Raymond Winbush

We need more Jegnas.

I first heard the term a couple of years ago from Marimba Ani, the author of “Yurugu” and “Let the Circle Be Unbroken.”

Jegna is an Ethiopian (Amharic) word that means "a very brave person who is a protector of a culture, the rights of his or her people and their land."

A Jegna is more than a "leader." She or he is someone who is not afraid to speak truth to power, is uncompromised, full of integrity and at the very core of his or her being sees the welfare and protection of their people as paramount. They are literally prepared to die for the community they represent.

Denmark Vesey was a Jegna. So was Harriet Tubman. Yaa Asantewa. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

Where are today’s black Jegnas? They are few and far between.

In a recent article in the Village Voice, columnist Thulani Davis writes, "The problem of black leadership is not [Al] Sharpton, but a lack of other voices outside of the presidential contests who could exert enough influence on the Democratic Party to stem the rightward drift that has sacrificed our interests. It's time to throw out some of these cult-of-celebrity tactics and go back to organizing around the real needs in our communities."

She’s right. I have always been suspicious since the death of Martin Luther King about "national black leaders" who appear on the scene and never saw a camera they didn’t like. Many of them invoke the name of King but neglect King’s least written about but most important talent -- organizing at the local level for social change.

I once attended an event where Jesse Jackson said that there are "tree shakers and jelly makers" and then proudly described himself as the former.

The idea of "jelly maker," I suppose, is a long-term commitment to a cause that sees tangible results -- a Jegna if you please. That's opposed to a person who moves swiftly from one issue to the next (tree shaker), draws media attention in large part to him or herself then moves on to the next "cause."

Though the audience around me loudly applauded Jackson’s self-description, I winced at it, and thought that drive-by organizing should never replace long-term community involvement.

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I'm linking to an article on BlackAmericaWeb on the possible need for "New Black Leadership" by _{Armstrong Williams}. I'm entering it now:

Is it Time for New Black Leadership? A View from the Right Date: Monday, February 23, 2004 Author: Armstrong Williams

Is it time for new black leadership? Well, let's look at what we've got.

This election season has seen two black Americans toss their hats in the ring: Rev. Al Sharpton and former Senator Carole Mosley Braun.

Sharpton is an insular, Northeastern, New York-style politician with a controversial history and a track record of voting Republican (He's endorsed Republicans for most of his career).

Braun offers the historical legacy of having become the first black female U.S. Senator. That alone is quite a feat. Just one thing: In her six years in the senate, Braun essentially failed to produce any worthwhile legislation, and lost her last election bid after allegations surfaced that she misappropriated campaign donations and took an ill-advised personal trip to Nigeria. Prior to dropping out of the race, Braun 's only significant policy announcement was a call for universal healthcare.

Together, these racial prophets, these torch lights in the darkness, managed to raise little money and produced no coherent plan to help the American people.

When young children see Sharpton on television and ask their parents how they can be a part of the campaign, they find out quickly that there is no mechanism for them to help, because there is no real campaign. The election bid is a farce. It's not about making America better (where's the plan to do that?), it's about self-aggrandizement.

Which leads to the inevitable question: is this the best the blacks in the Democratic Party have to offer? If so, then plainly new blood is needed, as evidenced not only by the poor quality of our current leadership, but by generational shifts in black public opinion.

…because the View From The Left counterpoint is by Ray Winbush, and I wanted you to see that first.

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Surf at random sometimes. It's amazing what you find.

Guess which one was to be invited to do a presentation in China?

Guess which one got the invitation and bluffed his way through with a first year textbook?

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Strikes me like Judge Roy Bean for President, but…

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Forget Nader. Draft Moore.
How Democrats can win back the White House.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004, at 11:01 PM PT

Ralph Nader is running for president again. The media blitz is underway. So is the backlash. Many news outlets have been quoting a Jan. 29 editorial in The Nation urging Nader not to run. Chatterbox's own view is that if Nader wants to run, that's Nader's business; and if a teeny-tiny number of potential Kerry or Edwards voters pull the lever for Nader, that's their business. It's a free country.

The more urgent question Democrats need to ask is whether former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will run for president. In a column posted Feb. 22 on The Nation's Web site, John Nichols points out that Nader isn't the potential third-party contender to watch in 2004:

Roy Moore, the Alabama jurist whose fight to display the Ten Commandments on state property drew national attention last year, is being courted by the right-wing Constitution Party as a potential presidential candidate. (The Constitution Party was on the ballot in 41 states in 2000, and retains a solid network of activist supporters nationwide.)

This is, of course, the very scenario Chatterbox fantasized about in his Jan. 19 column, "A Republican Nader?" The fundamentalist whom Chatterbox envisioned running for president (and stealing votes from Bush) was James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family. But Moore would be an even better rabble-rouser. Apparently his possible third-party candidacy is no mere fantasy on the left; at the very worst, it's a fantasy on the left and the right. John Fund wrote about it Feb. 2 in his online column for the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

Last Saturday, Mr. Moore was a featured speaker at the Christian Coalition's "Family and Freedom" rally in Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported he was "treated like a rock star, signing autographs and getting thunderous standing ovations." The week before that, Mr. Moore was the speaker at a dinner in Lancaster, Pa., sponsored by the Constitution Party, which has the third-largest number of registered voters in the U.S. ...

During a question-and-answer period, Mr. Moore was asked if he would run for president. "Not right now," he said, noting he is still appealing his dismissal from office for violating a federal court's order to remove the monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building. "I have to wait till all these things are done to decide my future." His friends say he is undecided about whether to run for president or to wait two years and seek Alabama's governorship.

Bush's recess appointment of William H. Pryor to the 11th Circuit, though generally a disaster for liberals, is a great boon in one largely overlooked respect. It has very likely enraged Roy Moore. It was Pryor who, as Alabama's attorney general, helped give Moore the boot when Moore refused to remove his famous monument to the Ten Commandments from his courtroom. (Pryor's conservative detractors say Pryor did it to shore up support for his judgeship in the Senate.)

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Even though they don't know they're my teachers.

Theory vs. Reality
By BOB HERBERT

Welcome to the 21st century. The landscape has changed. We're in a new hypercompetitive worldwide economy, driven by breathtaking advances in technology. Men and women are being added to the global work force by the hundreds of millions.

In this dynamic, potentially very treacherous labor market, few people are looking out for the interests of the American worker. The very concept of the traditional high-paid American job, with its generous health and pension benefits and paid vacations, is at risk.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York sees the economic changes as a paradigm shift. In an era of high-bandwith communications and the free flow of capital, most goods and services can be produced or performed anywhere in the world. And with highly educated workers in countries like China and India ready and able to perform sophisticated tasks at a fraction of the pay earned by Americans, there are fewer and fewer reasons for those American jobs not to take flight.

In light of these changes, said Senator Schumer, we should at least be asking some tough questions about the real-world effects of free trade as we've known it.

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Bush to Revisit Changes in Medicaid Rules
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 — After strenuous protests from governors of both parties, the Bush administration said Sunday that it would reconsider tough new rules on the financing of Medicaid that could limit the states' ability to provide health care for millions of poor people.

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, conveyed the administration's decision to governors here for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

Though formal sessions of the association focused on issues that cut across party lines, like Medicaid, education and highway construction, presidential politics dominated many conversations among governors.

Democratic governors expressed alarm at the loss of jobs, especially those in manufacturing, and the growth of the federal budget deficit in the past three years, while Republicans insisted that the economy was bouncing back.

"President Bush does not appear to have an understanding of the pain caused by unemployment," said Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, a Democrat, said Mr. Bush's tax cuts were not producing new jobs in her state.

Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said: "Consumer confidence is up. The stock market is up. All economic indicators are moving in the right direction." Another Republican, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, tried to dispel the perception that his party saw the shift of service jobs from the United States to other countries as part of some global economic strategy. "We are concerned any time any job leaves our shores and goes somewhere else," Mr. Romney said.

State officials say soaring Medicaid costs have put them in a fiscal vise, as revenue collections have been stagnant in recent years.

Federal officials did not withdraw the proposed Medicaid rules but promised to consult governors and to solicit public comment for 60 days before enacting the restrictions.

The restrictions would give federal officials sweeping new power to review state decisions on Medicaid spending and the sources of revenue used by states to pay their share of Medicaid costs.

Medicaid provides health benefits to 50 million people a year and is financed jointly by the federal government and the states. But federal officials say states have used creative bookkeeping and other ploys to obtain large amounts of federal Medicaid money without paying their share.

The proposed changes have touched off an uproar among state officials. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association, said the federal government was imposing "new administrative requirements and new costs on the states."

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U.S. Pressing for High-Tech Spy Tools

Sun Feb 22, 2:27 PM ET
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Despite an outcry over privacy implications, the government is pressing ahead with research to create powerful tools to mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists.

Congress eliminated a Pentagon (news - web sites) office that had been developing this terrorist-tracking technology because of fears it might ensnare innocent Americans.

Still, some projects from retired Adm. John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness effort were transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials told The Associated Press.

In addition, Congress left undisturbed a separate but similar $64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity, or ARDA, that has used some of the same researchers as Poindexter's program.

"The whole congressional action looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."

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Rumsfeld warns of disruption in US plans
Iraqi insurgents pose potential threat, he says

By Sewell Chan, Washington Post, 2/23/2004

KUWAIT -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cautioned yesterday that plans to shift the US military presence in Iraqi cities to outlying areas could be disrupted by the continuing insurgency, which he attributed to "terrorist networks" and Al Qaeda guerrillas that he said were trying to fracture Iraqi society.

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Up to 192 killed in Uganda as rebels torch civilian camp
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 2/23/2004

KAMPALA, Uganda -- A rebel attack on a camp of displaced people in northern Uganda killed as many as 192 civilians over the weekend, according to witnesses, in a dramatic escalation of the 18-year civil war here.

Monica De Castellarnau, country director for Medecins Sans Frontieres, said she talked with someone at the scene at the Barlonya camp yesterday who counted 192 bodies. A hospital in Lira, about 16 miles to the south, had admitted 51 injured people from the camp, most with severe burns, by midday yesterday, she said.

A Roman Catholic priest, Sebhat Ayele, told reporters that he visited the burned-down camp of grass huts yesterday. He said he counted 121 bodies and was told that 51 others had been buried.

The rebel group that carried out the attack, the Lord's Resistance Army, has been battling the government of Uganda for 18 years, mostly in guerrilla-type attacks.

Its leader, Joseph Kony, has built a militia of about 12,000 fighters; an estimated 80 percent are children whom his troops abducted from villages in the north. Often, according to fighters who have escaped from the LRA, he has forced the children to kill their parents or relatives so that their family will not want them back. Kony, who has said he has spiritual powers, aims to overthrow President Yoweri Museni and run Uganda according to his own interpretation of the Ten Commandments.

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Kerry rumor shows how scandal travels in the media

By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 2/23/2004

Like a steaming geyser bubbling up from the netherworld, rumors of infidelity involving Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry forced their way through the journalism hierarchy. While much of the media exercised well-founded caution in handling the story earlier this month, the episode became the latest example of a pattern in which scandal and rumor travel through a fragmented media universe, starting with the bottom feeders and often ending up on the pages of major newspapers and on the lips of network anchors.

The speculation originated in a Feb. 12 report by online gossipmonger Matt Drudge, best known for "breaking" the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair six years ago by reporting on Newsweek's investigation into their relationship. From there, it leapt to the talk radio microphones of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. On Feb. 13, Kerry chatted with talk show host Don Imus to say "there's nothing to talk about." But the rumor also surfaced in the British press and generated mentions in political tipsheets such as The Hotline and ABC's "The Note." By Feb. 14, the New York Post was trumpeting the tale on Page 1, while publications such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe were noting Kerry's denials inside broader stories on the campaign. On Feb. 16, when the woman allegedly involved issued a firm denial, the story subsided, at least for now.

"In the grammar of sleazy scandals, a categorical denial by the two principals will stop the scandal, except if there is documentary evidence to contradict them or a legal investigation," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an organization designed to raise journalistic standards.

But if the Kerry rumor failed to turn into a major news event -- primarily because no one produced evidence that it was true -- it did serve to highlight the divergent standards, practices, and priorities of the players in an increasingly diverse and unwieldy media landscape.

"There definitely is a media food chain," Rosenstiel says. "What you get is . . . the bad journalism driving out the good."

The lowest link of that food chain is usually

occupied by outlets with the most interest in the salacious -- websites (most notably Drudge's) and the supermarket tabloids. Talk radio, which thrives on controversy and ideology, is an eager conduit for these kinds of stories. At that point, the big tabloids, particularly the New York Post, may jump into the fray, funneling the story from nontraditional media toward the mainstream. The pressure builds on the cable news networks, with their unlimited appetite for news and infotainment, to weigh in. Finally, at the top of the food chain are the pillars of the mainstream media -- major papers and broadcast network newscasts -- that are torn between the reality that many people have already learned of the scandal and the real concern that the story does not meet their standards.

"It's somebody lighting a fuse on the Internet, [and] the smoke and the fire is potentially seen by millions of people," says Bob Steele, senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank. "The means of dissemination have changed, and what is really significant, of course, is that anybody can own the printing press."

A look at recent political scandals illustrates how the food chain functions. Six years ago, word of the mother of all political scandals -- the Clinton/Lewinsky tryst -- jumped from Drudge's keyboard to an ABC talk show to The Washington Post and Newsweek in a matter of four days. When The National Enquirer broke the story about the Rev. Jesse Jackson's "love child" three years ago, it forced media outlets that had ignored rumors about that subject to pick up the tabloid's story.

The Gennifer Flowers affair that nearly destroyed Clinton's 1992 presidential bid was revealed in the Star supermarket tabloid. That news quickly rippled through the media universe, forcing the Clintons to make a remarkable damage-control appearance on "60 Minutes." Also in that campaign, an old rumor about an extramarital affair involving then president George H. W. Bush resurfaced on the pages of the New York Post. The same day, a CNN reporter quizzed Bush about it, and by that evening the unproven allegation had made it onto the network news shows.

In the 1988 campaign, a rumor that Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis had suffered from depression was fueled by supporters of perennial fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche. That allegation burrowed its way into the mainstream press, eventually forcing Dukakis's doctor to hold a press conference to give him a clean bill of health. In 1998, it was porn publisher Larry Flynt -- offering up to $1 million in reward money for evidence of philandering pols and threatening to name names -- who helped force the resignation of US House Speaker elect Robert Livingston.

For media organizations uncomfortable with tales of sexual peccadilloes and wary of giving credence to rumors, the pressure from the bottom up can become intense. But Steele says these outlets are better off vetting these stories than hiding from them.

"In many ways, you're dealing with a messy piece of meat, and you're bound to get some grease on your fingers," he says. "I'm increasingly of the mind that responsible news organizations must and should weigh in on these issues with factual, textural reporting to clarify when there is confusion."

Larry Sabato, coauthor of "Peepshow: Media and Politics in an Age of Scandal," says the mainstream media acted responsibly in treating the Kerry rumor with chilly skepticism. "To me, it's a reestablishment of judgment," he says. "If something is unproven, don't print it until it's proven."

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Palestinians Open Case Against Barrier
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
Associated Press Writer

5:34 AM PST, February 23, 2004

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Palestinians opened their case against Israel's West Bank barrier in the world court on Monday, a landmark hearing that brings Israel's policies before an international tribunal for the first time.

Nasser Al-Kidwa, chief of the Palestinian delegation, the first to address the tribunal, argued against the barrier and in favor of the court's authority to render an opinion on its legality.

"This wall is not about security. It is about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of the Palestinian land," Al-Kidwa told the tribunal.

The 15-judge International Court of Justice planned three days of hearings into the barrier starting Monday, with all of the participants expected to harshly criticize the fence. Israel, the United States and the European countries that oppose the court's intervention, refused to attend.

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A Paradox of Progress: Stepped-Up Stress
Even as the modern world has dramatically improved our material lives, many of us are feeling increasingly worse.
By Gregg Easterbrook
Gregg Easterbrook's new book is "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse" (Random House).

February 23, 2004

By practically every objective measure, American life has been getting better for decades.

Standards of living keep rising, with the typical house now more than twice as large as a generation ago; middle-class income keeps rising, though more slowly than income at the very top; more Americans graduate from college every year; longevity keeps rising; almost all forms of disease, including most cancers, are in decline; crime has dropped spectacularly; pollution, except for greenhouse gases, are in long-term decline; discrimination is down substantially. Yet despite all these positive indicators, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as "happy" has not increased since the early 1950s, while incidence of depression keeps rising — and was doing so long before the morning of Sept. 11.

This is the progress paradox: Life gets better while people feel worse. Many explanations suggest themselves. One is the depressing effect of excess materialism, which I call "the revenge of the credit card." Another is fear that Western society will break down, which might be called "collapse anxiety." A third is the uneasy feeling that accompanies actually getting what you dreamed of. Today, tens of millions of Americans have things their parents or grandparents could only dream of — nice houses, college educations. Though that is obviously good, Americans are finding that merely possessing the good life does not ensure happiness. This may tell us there is a "revolution of satisfied expectations" — that general prosperity brings with it an empty feeling.

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Sharpton Debts Top $485,000, FEC Says
Monday, February 23, 2004; Page A07

Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton, who has billed his campaign for hotel stays of more than $1,000 a night, has campaign debts totaling $485,696, including unpaid staff salaries dating to last May, finance reports show.

As of Jan. 31, Sharpton's campaign had just $1,039 in the bank, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Among those to whom he owes money is Frank Watkins, his former campaign manager. The report said Watkins had not been paid salary and expenses from last May to September, for a total of $55,000.

In addition, Sharpton owes $38,000 to Kevin Gray, who ran his South Carolina campaign

"There was no focus and discipline as it relates to raising money, and that's not the way you run a campaign," Gray told the Associated Press.

Sharpton's current manager, Charles Halloran, said, "I have no current plans to pay Kevin Gray. . . . I can't see any value for what he was allegedly doing over there in South Carolina."

The Sharpton campaign is carrying a $150,000 loan owed to the Amalgamated Bank in New York.

Sharpton himself is on the list of those waiting to get paid. The report lists $81,780 owed Sharpton for "Reimbursement Services Rendered," "AMEX Reimbursement" and "Reimbursement Expense." Sharpton also loaned his campaign $20,000.

Halloran, who is owed $52,500 by the campaign, said Sharpton's bid for the Democratic nomination will continue "as long as Reverend Sharpton is standing and speaking." Despite running in the red, Halloran said, "it's a campaign built on faith and trust and commitment."

Halloran defended the use of "nice hotels," saying that they were important for holding fundraising events and for security reasons. In the future, he said, Sharpton will be reimbursed $200 a night for hotel stays and will loan the campaign the rest. Sharpton will not be paid back until all other bills are paid, Halloran said.

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Can we admit that Sarah Jessica Parker

…ain't all that?

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Bush Campaign Denies Kerry Accusation
2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

George W. Bush's presidential campaign told John Kerry (news - web sites) it "does not condone" any effort to impugn his patriotism but asserted that senator's voting record on national security and defense issues is a valid target of political scrutiny.

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Job cuts 'harm those left behind'
Axing staff can worsen the health of fellow employees left behind, researchers have warned.

A Finnish study of local government personnel found those whose departments suffered major cuts doubled their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Major downsizing - cutting more than 18% of staff - was also linked to an increase in workers taking sick leave.

The study in the British Medical Journal said employers and occupational health staff should recognise the risk.

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Remember Daniel Davies' request for documentation of the vast number of Iraqis whose murders Saddam Hussein is personally responsible for?

Fugeddaboudit. Folks started talking about how you have to add in the deaths from the first Iraq war, how you have to count everyone who ever, and the discussion just ceased to be about the atrocities that are the justification now that the first two or three sets of justifications turned up hollow.

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February 22, 2004

I don't even read The Rittenhouse Review very often. I have minimal social skills and frankly minimal desire to expand those skills. I was invited to Orkut, joined, and now I don't know what the hell to do with it.

This is all to let you know this is an unusual case.

I'm doing okay now but last year I wasn't. So when a respected associate posted this and suggested it would be a good thing to pass along, I reviewed my personal grief from illness and such. I'm passing this along for much the same reason Kevin wrote it.

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As regards drug development or anything else.

Note: "It isn't something that costs you money. It is a way of talking about who chooses to invest in what."

Since it isn't something that costs you money, including it in one's costs is…inaccurate.

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1:15 - Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is stupid. he just said on Late Edition "Jobs are important but leadership is more important," and "This president has kept his word," and other lies.

1:30 - Huckabee just blamed American consumers for outsourcing.

1:34 - Gov. Bill Owen (R) says tax cuts on corporations is the way to make US corporations competitive.

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Rise of the Off-the-Books Workforce
Native-born workers are being displaced by new immigrants.
By Andrew M. Sum and Paul E. Harrington
Andrew M. Sum is director and Paul E. Harrington is associate director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

February 22, 2004

BOSTON — If you scrutinize the U.S. labor market numbers from the last two years of economic recovery, you're left with what seems to be a paradox. Since the recession's low point, in November 2001, the number of employed people 16 and older has risen, but the number of jobs on the formal payrolls of employers remains below recessionary levels.

The different numbers have conveniently provided politicians with a choice, depending on which points they wanted to make, but they've perplexed economists.

Some analysts have concluded that this gap must represent the different ways in which statistics are kept by the two main sources of national data on employment developments.

But here's a more likely explanation. The number of people on formal payrolls remains low because new jobs tend to be ones that don't show up on payrolls. Employment gains are among the self-employed and contract workers, or in the informal "gray" and "black" labor markets. People are doing temporary day work or contracting that's kept off the books. These don't tend to be highly paid jobs or jobs with benefits like health insurance, and they are often performed by immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants.

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Don't Mess With Head Start's Success
The program isn't broken, so Republicans shouldn't "fix" it with misguided changes.
By Kay Mills
Kay Mills is the author of "Something Better for My Children: The History and People of Head Start."

February 22, 2004

Head Start works. A government study in 2001 showed that the federal preschool program for children from low-income families improved participants' vocabulary and writing skills and narrowed the gap between them and more affluent youngsters. Last year, a San Bernardino County study found that kindergarten students who had gone through Head Start scored 9% better in literacy than students from similar backgrounds who had not participated in the program. They were also 9.6% better in language skills and 7.3% better in math skills. And they were absent from school 4.5 fewer days than their peers who hadn't gone through the program. Other research has shown that Head Start children are less likely to need special education services, less likely to repeat grades and more likely to graduate from high school.

Most experts agree that Head Start, which this year served 905,000 children, 104,000 of them in California, prepares needy kids for school. So why do some House Republicans and the Bush administration want to start experimenting with the program?

Head Start has always been an unusual combination. On the one hand, each classroom must conform to strict federal standards governing everything from the child-teacher ratio to the involvement of parents in program decision-making. But local control is also one of the bedrock principles of Head Start. When the Johnson administration started the program in 1965, it bypassed state governments, knowing that some, such as those in Alabama and Mississippi, would not run integrated programs. Instead, the administration worked with local, nonprofit civic organizations, school systems and tribal groups.

This local control has continued, and today 1,570 organizations nationwide adapt Head Start to the needs of their own communities, in cities, suburbs, small towns and farming communities and on Indian reservations.

All that would change if the House version of the current reauthorization bill for Head Start, passed last summer, is ultimately signed into law. New rules would allow for block grants to as many as eight states, which would then be able to manage the programs within their borders as pilot projects. Such grants, which the legislation calls "demonstration projects," could remove both the local control so integral to the program and the federal oversight that's key to its ongoing quality. And all with a program that is highly successful as is.

According to analysis by the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, the legislation "does not require that state demonstration programs follow the federal Head Start program performance standards that currently govern the nature, quality and intensity of services provided to low-income children." These performance standards cover not only student-teacher ratios and parent involvement but also teacher training, health screening and other aspects of the program. Instead, the House bill is vague on which services state-run Head Starts should provide. Head Start advocates repeatedly asked that the language be clarified, said Mark Greenberg, the center's policy director. The fact that the sponsors were not willing to make the bill's language explicit on this point suggested to him that they weren't willing to commit to requiring states to follow the federal standards. That's a step backward.

Another reason to be nervous is that block grants have a problematic history. Take the case of welfare-to-work programs. In 1996, Congress put money to support child-care programs for mothers trying to return to the workforce into block grants under the program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Last year, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington reported that more than 35 states had made cuts in programs financed by these funds. Louisiana, for example, increased the amount parents must pay as their share of child care under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Michigan cut payments to child-care providers. There is language, of course, in the Head Start bill that says the money must go for its intended purposes, but there's no meaningful enforcement procedure.

Head Start advocates are particularly worried that, with state budgets increasingly tight, legislatures would find ways to redirect Head Start funds from the block grants. Thirty states are projecting a combined total of about $40 billion in budget shortfalls, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, with $15 billion of that amount in California alone. Head Start's supporters also worry because, in the past, Congress has tended to lose interest in programs it no longer controlled and consequently reduced their funding.

The shift to block grants was not included in the Senate committee version of a bill sent to the floor last fall. But it still could be introduced as an amendment when the bill is considered by the full Senate this spring or when the House and Senate versions are resolved before being sent to the president. The administration is known to strongly favor state control of poverty dollars as well as to advocate shrinking the federal role in providing services to the poor. All of which makes Head Start's supporters nervous.

None of this is to suggest that the preschool program couldn't be improved. Mark Real, who heads KidsOhio.org, notes that Head Start "needs to provide better-trained teachers and align its curriculum with local standards." But he doesn't think block grants are the way to accomplish this. "School readiness is a national program which requires a nationwide initiative. Simply providing more flexibility to states with budget problems will not prepare more children to do well in school."

On its face, the new legislation addresses the need for better Head Start teachers: The House bill mandates that half would need to have baccalaureate degrees by 2008; the Senate deadline is 2010. These are fine goals, but unless enough money is put into Head Start to increase pay for teachers, those who earn degrees will take them down the street to the local elementary school, where they will be better rewarded.

The House bill would authorize increasing the current Head Start budget of $6.7 billion to $6.98 billion for the 2005 fiscal year, and the Senate measure calls for $7.2 billion in fiscal 2005. But these figures are only authorizations - that is, approval for Congress to allocate this much money - not actual appropriations, which come later and are not certain as the federal deficit climbs. Nor is the increase enough to make basic improvements to the program.

Today, Head Start serves only about 60% of the children who are eligible. If President Bush really wants no child left behind, as he insists, his goal should be to find ways to serve more youngsters and pay Head Start teachers higher salaries rather than trying to slough control of the program off to the states, which may well not be up to the job.

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I mean, besides the fact that it's, like, California.

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Rifts Show at State GOP Event
Anger over illegal immigration and high spending shakes up the convention. Bush and Schwarzenegger are heavily criticized.
By Michael Finnegan
Times Staff Writer

February 22, 2004

BURLINGAME, Calif. — An uproar over illegal immigration roiled the state Republican convention on Saturday as party leaders struggled to keep the rank and file united behind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Bush.

Hundreds of GOP loyalists booed the president at a rally where U.S. Senate hopeful Howard Kaloogian and his allies denounced Bush's plan to give temporary legal status to undocumented workers.

"Enough is enough!" the crowd shouted. "Enough is enough!"

A Kaloogian supporter, Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, told the crowd he knew a gynecologist who surveyed patients about the plan and found it rated "right below genital herpes."

Schwarzenegger fared no better than Bush. Even staunch allies of the governor distanced themselves from his effort to strike a deal with Democrats on a bill to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista warned that the move would "empower criminal aliens."

"If we find an illegal, we have an obligation to deport them; it's that simple," said the San Diego County car-alarm tycoon, who bankrolled the recall petition effort that led to Schwarzenegger's victory. "As long as people are here illegally, to give them the ability to further cover their status is to empower Al Qaeda."

And Mike Spence, leader of one of the party's biggest conservative activist groups, the California Republican Assembly, shouted, "Resist the compromise, and let your legislators and the governor know they'll end up with Gray Davis: Out of work and starring on sitcoms," alluding to the ousted governor's cameo next week on the CBS show "Yes, Dear."

Also sparking dissent at the state GOP convention here beside San Francisco Bay was Schwarzenegger's plan to borrow $15 billion to balance the state budget, a measure that appears on the March 2 ballot as Proposition 57.

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Outspoken, Outgunned, Outsourced

By Norman Ornstein
Sunday, February 22, 2004; Page B03

President Bush's top economist said yesterday that the outsourcing of U.S. service jobs to workers overseas is good for the nation's economy. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in releasing the annual Economic Report of the President that the "offshoring" of service jobs is only "the latest manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about" for centuries. "Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," Mankiw said. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past and that's a good thing."

-- news reports, Feb. 11, 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 30 -- The White House announced today that it is outsourcing the work of the president's Council of Economic Advisers to India. Ramindar Prabhakesh, an economist who teaches Introductory Economics and Macroeconomics at Bangalore University, will take over as chairman. He will earn one-sixth the salary of his outsourced predecessor, N. Gregory Mankiw.

"This is all part of our new way of handling government business," said presidential spokeswoman Mairéad O'Connor during her daily briefing via teleconference from Dublin. "These are the kinds of gains that economists like Greg have been touting for years."

Moving the council to India will save more than $30 million, O'Connor said, while demonstrating the administration's commitment to reducing the deficit and holding down spending. "Outsourcing Mankiw's job alone will save nearly $200,000 in salary, benefits and what economists call 'fixed costs,' " she said. "For Prabhakesh, this is a net gain -- and we don't have to offer him health insurance. He's also more than willing to work out of his university office. It's a win-win."

The CEA's professional staff -- several dozen economists, as well as secretaries, research assistants and someone who writes talking points for Mankiw -- would be eligible for job training under the initiative announced by the president in his State of the Union message, said Emma Smythe-Hawkes of the Office of Personnel Management in Melbourne. "We are confident that all the staff members can find other jobs, many of them as good as or even better than the ones they have had here," Smythe-Hawkes wrote in an e-mail from Australia. "This is a vibrant economy, and we have put them all at the front of the line for the job training program, so they are likely to be retrained before their unemployment benefits run out."

The new CEA members will communicate with the president and other administration officials via wireless networking or through an 800 number leased through American Express. "We have a lot of experience in offshoring," said Amex senior vice president Martin Macintosh from a secure outpost in northern British Columbia, where he handles telecommunication needs for the Executive Office of the President. "We already have hundreds of people in Bangalore and Singapore handling billing inquiries for dozens of U.S. companies, and the White House can save a bundle by piggybacking on our phone lines."

Mankiw declined comment as he left his office, but later issued a statement praising the president for his "admirable consistency" on economic policy. "He believed what we told him about the value of outsourcing white-collar jobs when they can be done more cheaply in another country," Mankiw said. "I will return to Harvard, where at least I have tenure."

White House spokeswoman O'Connor said there are no immediate plans for additional outsourcing. But an extremely senior official in the vice president's office confided to reporters that the State Department's Middle Eastern desk and a part of the congressional liaison operation would be next to move -- with Guangzhou, China, the most likely destination.

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Nice Try, Reverend, But We're Past That Brand of Politics

By Jonetta Rose Barras
Sunday, February 22, 2004; Page B01

When the Rev. Al Sharpton launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, no one thought he could actually win. But there were those who expected him to reconstitute the posse the Rev. Jesse Jackson left behind after his 1988 bid for the nomination, and use it to gain influence in the party.

In '88, Jackson turned in a spectacular performance, winning nearly 7 million votes and 30 percent of the delegates to the Democratic Party's convention. With stats like those, he was able to leverage himself into a position of power within the party and give African Americans an unprecedented voice in the organization, setting the stage for black voters' role as the kingfish of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.

Sharpton may well have thought he could replicate those results to become the new leader of black America. After all, he reigns over a nonprofit organization -- the National Action Network -- with 22 chapters across the country that could serve as bases for organizing. He has a record as a formidable strategist from his work in New York politics, and he made substantive inroads into the Hispanic community when he involved himself in the fight against the U.S. Navy's practice bombing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

But a Jacksonesque showing has eluded Sharpton. When he arrives at the Democratic National Convention this summer, it is not likely to be as any newly crowned prince of blackness, but merely as a highly entertaining pol who barely made it to the finish line. What's more, his campaign may become the definitive historical marker for the end of "black politics."

Sharpton's poor showing reflects the evolution of a new kind of black electorate. This is a constituency that no longer views itself as separate from the broader political dynamics of the country, constantly needing to play the victim in order to gain entrance. These new, savvy voters are more discerning of candidates, and they are more deliberately assessing the role they can and should play in the democratic drama. In the Democratic Party, they see themselves as principal players, crucial to any candidate's victory.

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Disenchanted Bush Voters Consider Crossing Over
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

BEACHWOOD, Ohio — In the 2000 presidential election, Bill Flanagan a semiretired newspaper worker, happily voted for George W. Bush. But now, shaking his head, he vows, "Never again."

"The combination of lies and boys coming home in body bags is just too awful," Mr. Flanagan said, drinking coffee and reading newspapers at the local mall. "I could vote for Kerry. I could vote for any Democrat unless he's a real dummy."

Mr. Flanagan is hardly alone, even though polls show that the overwhelming majority of Republicans who supported Mr. Bush in 2000 will do so again in November. In dozens of random interviews around the country, independents and Republicans who said they voted for Mr. Bush in 2000 say they intend to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate this year. Some polls are beginning to bolster the idea of those kind of stirrings among Republicans and independents.

…In the interviews, many of those potential "crossover" voters said they supported the invasion of Iraq but had come to see the continuing involvement there as too costly and without clear objectives.

Many also said they believed that the Bush administration had not been honest about its reasons for invading Iraq and were concerned about the failure to find unconventional weapons. Some of these people described themselves as fiscal conservatives who were alarmed by deficit spending, combined with job losses at home. Many are shocked to find themselves switching sides.

…"I feel like a complete traitor, and if you'd asked me four months ago, the answer would have been different," said the judge, after assurances of anonymity. "But we are really disgusted. It's the lies, the war, the economy. We have very good friends who are staunch Republicans, who don't even want to hear the name George Bush anymore."

…George Meagher, a Republican who founded and now runs the American Military Museum in Charleston, S.C., said he threw his "heart and soul" into the Bush campaign four years ago. He organized veterans to attend campaign events, including the campaign's kickoff speech at the Citadel. He even has photographs of himself and his wife with Mr. Bush.

"Given the outcome and how dissatisfied I am with the administration, it's hard to think about now," he said. "People like me, we're all choking a bit at not supporting the president. But when I think about 500 people killed and what we've done to Iraq. And what we've done to our country. I mean, we're already $2 trillion in debt again."

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You can't blame the CIA for this one.

You know, there's a reason someone felt it was a good idea to spin this report, and it has to do with expectations created by the general environment. Like when Amadou Diallo was assaulted and the disgusting police officer walked around bragging about what he had done. On the one hand, you can't blame anyone except the guilty for the specific deed. On the other hand, you have to admit something is wrong when he could walk around bragging, fully expecting not only acceptance but a pat on the back.

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Taking Spin Out of Report That Made Bad Into Good Health
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — The Bush administration says it improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but it will soon publish the full, unexpurgated document.

"There was a mistake made," Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, told Congress last week. "It's going to be rectified."

Mr. Thompson said that "some individuals took it upon themselves" to make the report sound more positive than was justified by the data.

The reversal comes in response to concerns of Democrats and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee. They are pushing separate bills to improve care for members of minorities.

"African-Americans and Native Americans die younger than any other racial or ethnic group," Dr. Frist said. "African-Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans are at least twice as likely to suffer from diabetes and experience serious complications. These gaps are unacceptable."

President Bush's budget would cut spending for the training of health professionals and would eliminate a $34 million program that recruits blacks and Hispanics for careers as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

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Israel Says It Will Dismantle Barrier at Palestinian Town
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Feb. 21 — Israel plans to begin dismantling a small section of its separation barrier on Sunday, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. The move to take down about five miles of fencing that has isolated a Palestinian town will take place a day before an international court hearing on the barrier is scheduled to begin in the Netherlands.

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Two Tales of American Jobs
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Washington

FOR more than a year, Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress have seized on an intriguing statistical puzzle to suggest that job creation in the United States may be much stronger than it appears at first glance.

The puzzle is the enormous divergence between the two surveys that are used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to measure job creation and unemployment. The payroll survey, which is based on a monthly poll of 400,000 employers, shows a loss of more than two million jobs since 2001. The household survey, based on questions posed to people in 50,000 households, shows an increase of more than 500,000 jobs over the same period.

If the payroll survey is correct, Mr. Bush is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to complete a term in office with fewer jobs than when he started. If the household survey is correct, Mr. Bush can claim credit for creating jobs despite the blows of a recession, terrorist attacks and two wars.

The household survey also seems to support a political theory: that many people dropped from the company payrolls are not unemployed but rather self-employed. While the payroll survey suggests economic malaise, the household survey implies entrepreneurial energy.

"The household survey shows that we're at an all-time high in employment,'' said Senator Don Nickles, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, at a hearing this month. "It shows that, at least if you look at this trend, the employment situation has improved rather substantially.''

Administration officials are more cautious.

"At this point, the gap between the payroll and the household data continues to be a puzzle,'' said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, in a speech this month. But, he added, the number of self-employed workers has risen by 326,000 in the last three years and the "extent of self-employment has changed as the economy has changed.''

Unfortunately for the optimists, the Federal Reserve has just thrown cold water on the household data. It concludes that the gloomy payroll data is essentially accurate and that the household survey is probably off base.

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Bush Education Officials Find New Law a Tough Sell
By SAM DILLON

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 20 — It was 8 p.m., and Ken Meyer was smiling gamely from a gloomy high school stage at an audience of disgruntled teachers and parents to whom he had been introduced as "a bigwig from Washington," come to Utah to explain President Bush's centerpiece education law.

A former math teacher was at a microphone, arguing that it would cost $1 billion for the state to carry out the law's requirements, while the federal government gives Utah only about $100 million.

"That's like sending a child for $10 worth of groceries and giving him just $1 to buy them," the former teacher said.

"Let me correct that," Mr. Meyer interrupted wearily, wading in as if with a fire extinguisher, spraying official statistics on behalf of the Department of Education, where he is a deputy assistant secretary. "Believe me, I've traveled to 40 states to talk about this law, and I've done the math. It's very well funded."

As he campaigns for re-election, President Bush hopes to capitalize on the law, known as No Child Left Behind, as one of the pillars of his domestic agenda. But the Democratic presidential candidates have made it a frequent target of criticism and ridicule. And things are not going that well even in this, one of the most Republican of states.

Not only the law's financing, but provisions that expand standardized testing to raise achievement and that label schools as underperforming when even small groups of students miss proficiency targets have stirred discontent nationwide among educators and local politicians. So Mr. Meyer's job is to barnstorm the country, part good-will diplomat, part flak-catcher, calming emotions and clarifying misunderstandings.

He is one of many Bush administration officials traveling to explain the 700-page law. Since Feb. 8, at least 10 other department and White House officials have spoken in nine states, although Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the pace of travel had been consistent for the last year.

"I've been in some, I don't want to say hostile, but very contentious environments" in recent months, Mr. Meyer said. "Places where I wondered whether I'd get out of there with my skin intact. This law is largely misunderstood by the public because of its enormity, so people get emotional about it, and you've got pent-up frustrations."

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