Prometheus 6

Legacy: A Panicked Response To the 'Great Negro Plot'

By George Dewan

Staff Writer

Thirteen black men burned to death at the stake. Seventeen black men hanged. Two white men and two white women also hanged. All thirty-four were executed in New York City between May 11 and August 29, 1741, as part of the episode early New Yorkers called the "Great Negro Plot," or the "New York Conspiracy."
-- Thomas J. Davis, "A Rumor of Revolt"

In the spring and summer of 1741, New York City's white residents panicked over what they saw as an imminent slave insurrection by its growing black population, augmented by "country slaves" from western Long Island. The beginning was low-keyed, without any great portent of things to come. In late February of 1741 there was a middle-of-the-night burglary at the Broad Street shop of merchant Robert Hogg. Taken were a pair of silver candlesticks, some linen and a sack of silver coins. Arrested the next day and charged with the crime was a black slave named Caesar.

At the time, one out of every five residents of the city was a black slave. There were restrictive laws controlling slave activities on the books, but they were loosely enforced. New Yorkers still remembered a slave insurrection in 1712 involving arson and the murder of nine whites that resulted in the execution of 19 black slaves.

Caesar had been arrested at John Hughson's tavern on upper Broadway, where the slave's mistress, a white prostitute named Peggy Kerry, hung out. Hughson and his wife, Sarah, both white, came under immediate suspicion as receivers of the stolen goods. Investigators got lucky when they questioned a 16-year-old, white, indentured servant of the Hughsons named Mary Burton, who claimed to know something about the robbery, but said, "I'll be murdered or poisoned by the Hughsons and the negroes for what I should tell you."

Mary was held in protective custody and her tongue was loosened with promises of getting her released from her indenture. She accused the Hughsons of receiving stolen property from the slaves, and when the goods were found, the Hughsons were in trouble.

A new element was thrust into the escalating tensions when, on March 18, the first of a series of suspicious fires broke out in the city. The city council raised the possibility of a conspiracy of arsonists, and suspicions grew that black slaves were responsible. Four fires were set on April 6. As cries of "The Negroes are rising!" filled the air, mobs of angry white citizens roamed the streets to round up black slaves. Nearly a hundred were hauled off to jail.

Then, out of the blue, came a connection to the February burglary. It was provided to the grand jury by none other than Mary Burton. Now she accused the Hughsons, Kerry, Caesar and other slaves of plotting to burn the city and massacre the whites. "In their common conversations they used to say that when all this was done, Caesar should be governor, and Hughson, my master, king," Mary told the jury.

With her damning testimony, many New Yorkers thought that 1712 was about to repeat itself.

Caesar and another slave named Prince were found guilty of burglary, and on May 11 they were both hanged. Two more slaves, Cuffee and Quack, were hanged on May 30, but not before they had accused dozens of others of being in on a conspiracy. Mary Burton spun wilder and wilder stories, making more accusations. Though her testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, no one seemed to care. Writing it all down, the prosecuting officials cast their net wider and wider.

Scores of alleged conspirators were hauled in and interrogated. Hughson, his wife and Kerry were tried on June 4 and found guilty of conspiracy. They were hanged eight days later.

One of the alleged conspirators was a slave from Brooklyn named Doctor Harry, who was accused of bringing poison to Hughson's tavern for blacks to use on themselves if convicted. He denied ever being at Hughson's, but was burned at the stake on July 18.

Other Long Island slaves were later implicated by testimony of a city slave named Jack, who said he once proposed burning a white man's shed. "In firing the shed, that'll fire the whole town," Jack said. "And then the Negroes in town, with the Negroes that'll come from Long Island, will murder the white people."

The arrests and trials and executions continued through the summer, until, on the last day of August, the paroxysm of fear, anger and suspicion virtually ended with the hanging of a white schoolteacher, John Ury. He was officially found guilty of conspiracy, but he was really tried because he was thought to be a Catholic priest, which he wasn't. Catholics were often discriminated against in the strongly Protestant city. What got Ury in trouble was his ability to read Latin.

Mary Burton got her reward from the city on Sept. 2, 1742. It totaled 100 pounds sterling, enough to pay off her indenture and set herself free, with 81 pounds left over.

Most historians agree that there was no grand slave conspiracy. But there were real racial problems in New York City in 1741, and they exploded in the conspiracy trials, which some have compared to the Salem witch trials of 1692.

"New York's officials indulged themselves and the public in acting out their fears," Davis, a history professor at Arizona State University, wrote recently in his book. "They simply deceived themselves by systematizing real disorders into a single scheme where all the enemies of the English world suddenly surfaced."

Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.

The Rise of Slavery
New York had the most slaves in the North, and Long Island had almost half of them
By George Dewan

Staff Writer

Long Island had the largest slave population of any rural or urban area in the north for most of the colonial era. For almost two centuries, New York was a slave colony and Long Island was a slave island. Beginning with the introduction of 11 black slaves into New Netherlands in 1626, the number of slaves in New York grew to almost 20,000 on the eve of the Revolutionary War a century and a half later.

"Throughout the slave era in the north, New Yorkers held more enslaved Africans than the residents in the combined New England colonies or those in New Jersey or Pennsylvania," writes Richard S. Moss in his 1993 book, "Slavery on Long Island."

In 1698 there were 2,130 blacks in New York, almost all of them slaves, more than in any colony north of Maryland. Almost half of them were on Long Island. And one out of five Suffolk County residents was black, virtually all of them slaves.

Slavery in the New York colony was unlike that on the plantations of the Deep South, where close to a half-million slaves lived in servitude by the time of the Revolution, and would continue to be enslaved until the Civil War. New York State would not ban slavery within its borders until 1827, though two minor exceptions continued until 1841.

On Long Island, slaves were widely scattered about the thinly populated countryside, and although a wealthy 18th Century landowner like William Floyd in Mastic might have a dozen or so slaves, one, two or three was more common. So the daily family life of a Long Island slave was markedly different from his or her counterpart in the South, where large groups of blacks in separate slave quarters could at least share their religion, culture and social life, often with their own family members.

Long Island slavery may have been different, but it was slavery, nonetheless. Black men, and occasionally American Indians, were owned by white men, just as they owned cattle, sheep and farm implements.

Their daily life was regulated, both by the needs of their owners and by laws of the colony. The first major slave law came in 1702, titled "An Act for Regulating Slaves." No person could trade with a slave without permission of the slave's master or mistress. Owners could punish their slaves at their own discretion, though they were not allowed to take a slave's life or sever a body part. Slaves could not carry guns. Except when working for their owners, slaves could not congregate in groups larger than three, with whipping the penalty, up to 40 lashes. Towns could appoint a public whipper, who would be paid up to three shillings for each slave whipped.

Slaves worked in the fields alongside their owners, and many of them worked their way into more skilled jobs as craftsmen, such as shoemakers, blacksmiths and woodworkers. Female slaves also did outside work, but more often were used as household servants.

But because an owner usually had few slaves, married slaves were often forced to live apart, seeing each other only occasionally. They received little education. Many slaves converted to Christianity, and one of their few rewards was being allowed to go to church on Sunday...

U-46 suit first test for new state law
By Tara Malone, Daily Herald Staff Writer
Daily Herald.com

Suburban Chicago, IL USA - The charges of racial discrimination filed by three Latino families this week against Elgin Area School District U-46 will be the first test of the 2-year-old Illinois Civil Rights Act. The outcome could have significant ramifications for civil rights cases in Illinois.

Under the new law, someone claiming they've been discriminated against no longer needs to prove the bias was intended. The law requires only proof that the net effect of a governmental policy hurts one race or ethnic group more than another. The state law sidesteps the burden of intent required by federal law.

That burden was made heavier when a divided U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 weakened Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, ruling only deliberate discrimination could be challenged in court.

"The Supreme Court decision basically ended 30 years of civil rights law at the federal level," said state Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat who sponsored the state law.

The Illinois civil rights law was designed to correct that by allowing lawsuits levied under its banner to be filed in federal court, as was this week's complaint by three Elgin families.

Their lawsuit charged that Latino and bilingual students are denied a fair and equal education as protected by the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution.

The lawsuit claims U-46 illegally segregates bilingual students from native English-speaking students, provides Latino children with less academic stability than white schoolmates, fails to supply adequate special education to bilingual students and buses Latino students more often than white students.

"The district has had issues around how it's been treating minority students, how it's been treating limited-English-proficient students," said Carol Ashley, an attorney with Chicago's Futterman and Howard, representing the parents. "They've been given opportunities to do the right thing and that didn't happen."

District officials mince no words in rejecting the claims.

"We deny the allegations in the complaint," Chief Legal Officer Patrick Broncato said Tuesday.

Wal-Mart settles with government in child labor cases
By Siobhan McDonough, Associated Press Writer  |  February 12, 2005

WASHINGTON --Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, will pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it broke child labor laws in New Hampshire and two other states, the Labor Department said Saturday.

The 24 violations, which occurred at stores in Arkansas, Connecticut and New Hampshire, had to do with teenage workers who used hazardous equipment such as a chain saw, paper bailers and fork lifts.

Wal-Mart denied the allegations but agreed to pay the penalty. A spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark., company said Wal-Mart was preparing a statement Saturday.

Child labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from operating hazardous equipment.

The company also agreed to comply with any provisions they violated -- in this case, child labor laws -- in the future, said Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary for the department's Employment Standard Administration.

Iraq's hard-line Shi'ites vow to resist US agenda
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff  |  February 12, 2005

BAGHDAD -- A vociferous and well-organized faction of extremist Shi'ite Muslims is mobilizing to challenge the new government that emerges from Iraq's recent election and to push for a hard line against the United States.

The religious and political leaders are loosely allied with the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and include supporters of Sadr's uprising in several cities last April. In recent days, including at prayer services yesterday, they vowed to use seats they expect to win in the Transitional National Assembly to demand a timetable for the departure of US forces.

One key leader, Fatah al-Sheikh, seen as Sadr's most direct proxy in the political process, has also pledged to lead the opposition to Iraq's still unwritten new constitution. He also supports military resistance against US forces.

This burgeoning rejectionist wing is already exerting pressure on the United Iraqi Alliance, the mainstream Shi'ite coalition poised to command a majority in the new government. The Alliance has been busy fending off allegations by Iraqi secularists and some US officials that it is influenced by Iran and that it plans to push for an Islamic government. Its leaders are trying to position themselves as moderate modernizers, to assuage such fears.

But the more radical Shi'ite faction is launching a campaign against the Alliance, calling its members American stooges.

''We will be watching in the National Assembly to see who is truly representing the Iraqi people and who is acting as an American agent," Sheikh said this week.

Pregnant woman kills her attacker, police say

February 12, 2005

Kentucky

FORT MITCHELL -- A woman who is nine-months' pregnant fought off and killed a knife-wielding woman who may have been trying to steal the baby, police said yesterday. Police said 26-year-old Sarah Brady acted in self-defense in killing Katherine Smith on Thursday. No charges were filed. Smith, 22, had been falsely telling neighbors for weeks that she was pregnant, and a search of her apartment after her death revealed a full baby nursery, investigators said. Brady, 26, suffered only minor cuts. The coroner's office confirmed yesterday that Smith was not pregnant. (AP) Washington, D.C.

Bush cuts hit Democratic states, analysis finds
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff  |  February 12, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts and other traditionally Democratic states would see their share of federal grant money shrink under President Bush's 2006 budget, compared to Republican states in the South and West, according to a Globe analysis of funding projections compiled by the White House budget office.

Critics and defenders of the president's $2.6 trillion budget say they do not believe the budget proposal represents a deliberate attack on states that voted for Democrat John F. Kerry, but rather that Bush's budget priorities tend to hurt those states that rely more on the health, community development, and housing programs that are targeted for reductions.

...''People will ask me whether I think it's political or not," Corzine said. ''I think it's just the philosophy of this administration not to have the government involved."

Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, said that while the budget may not have been designed to hurt Democratic-leaning ''blue" states, ''they can do it without trying," because many of the budget cuts tend to hit urbanized areas. ''It's not just red state/blue state, but blue communities within the red states," he said. ''Their ideology reflects that."

Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said much of the trend is due to demographics. ''It's not a reflection of any political decision, by and large, because these tend to be mandatory [funding] programs," such as Medicaid, he said.

HIV Superstrain Surfaces in N.Y.
New York Daily News
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A20

NEW YORK, Feb. 12 -- A previously unknown superstrain of the virus that causes AIDS has been diagnosed in a New York man who had unprotected sex with several men in October, sparking fears among health officials and gays.

The strain is drug-resistant and progressed in a matter of months from HIV infection to full-blown AIDS, a process that normally takes 10 or more years.

"I've been living with HIV since 1981, and I was dreading this day, because I knew this day would come when multi-drug-resistant strains of the virus would begin to enter into the community," said Dennis de Leon, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS.

The virus is known technically as a strain of three-class antiretroviral-resistant HIV, or 3-DCR HIV. That means it is resistant to three of the four classes of drugs used to treat HIV. A combination of drugs from the four classes usually is needed to keep the virus in check.

U.S. Firms Losing Health Care Battle, GM Chairman Says
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 11, 2005; Page E01

American manufacturers are losing their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs, General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. said yesterday as he called on corporate and government leaders to find "some serious medicine" for the nation's ailing health system.

In a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago, the auto executive, who is responsible for providing health insurance for more people than any other private employer in the nation, graphically detailed how rising medical bills are eating into his company's bottom line and ultimately threatening the viability of most U.S. firms.

"Failing to address the health care crisis would be the worst kind of procrastination," Wagoner said, "the kind that places our children and our grandchildren at risk and threatens the health and global competitiveness of our nation's economy."

Sounds good so far...

After spending several years on the health policy sidelines, Wagoner is launching a mini media blitz, hoping the competitiveness argument will be the one that finally prompts lawmakers to take on an increasingly expensive system rife with inefficiencies and inequities. Wagoner said he intends to press his case personally in Washington and with the nation's governors.

...But the figure that prompted Wagoner to raise his voice is $1,500. That is the amount of money added to the price of every single vehicle to cover health care, a cost that his foreign competitors do not bear.

"The cost of health care in the U.S. is making American businesses extremely uncompetitive versus our global counterparts," he said. "In the U.S., health care costs have been rising at double-digit rates for many years. In 2003, they were about 15 percent of GDP, at least 30 percent higher than the next-most-expensive country."

Ooh, an appeal based on Competitiveness, one of the Holy Attributes of our secular religion. Most effective. He may have a shot!

So we better see what he's talking about...

Yesterday, Wagoner broke his silence on an idea proposed by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential campaign, saying he supports some type of national catastrophic reinsurance program. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has also endorsed the concept of a separate government-backed insurance pool to cover the most expensive medical cases.

Seeing "also" in connection with Senators Frist and Kerry is a bit jarring...

"If we can create a comprehensive insurance model to better share these catastrophic costs among all consumers, then we can take a big step toward providing affordable health care coverage for all our citizens," Wagoner said.

Hm. Not reduce or control the costs but share them. Consumers must share them.

"Companies, to manage health care costs, are going to have to have employees who understand that this is something you are consuming and you have a responsibility for," Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. said in an interview.

So says the chief executive of a company that would rather close their stores than work with a union. And he makes clear that employees are to absorb these health care costs.

And he's so wrong. Health care is not like your standard market goods...desire plays little part in the affairs that have pushed health care costs to their current obscene levels.

Wagoner and Scott want corporations absolved of responsibility for this very real problem, and I can't blame them...it's not like they created the situation any more than we regular people did. But pushing those costs onto us rather than developing a sane system has real costs to real people. It can break people who have done everything right. I guess if your concern is controlling corporate health care costs, a viable solution to your problem is to make it someone else's problem.

"Nyah, Mr. Liberal! Nyah! You're just complaining! What's your solution?"

Why the very thing the Medicare "drug benefit" forbids...collective negotiation of drug pricing by Medicare.

Even better, let's get to work on the inevitable single payer system. It's cheaper to run...Medicare's administrative costs run at like 2%. Meanwhile on page 21 of this pdf the HHS Office of Inspector General says:

An OIG review analyzed the variances in administrative funds (as a percentage of total funds received from Medicare) among MCOs and found that regardless of the plan or model type, the variations were excessive. Our review of the administrative cost amounts recorded by 232 risk-based MCOs in 1999 on their ACR proposals showed significant disparities among plans. For example, during the 1999 ACR year, the average amount allocated by an MC0 for administration ranged from a high of 32 percent to a low of 3 percent. These disparities were noted in every year of our review regardless of plan model (group, individual practice association, or staff) or tax status (profit or nonprofit). Current criteria allow MCOs to calculate administrative rates with virtually no limits. The same disparity found in our review of ACR proposals for 1996 through 1999 was also noted in the proposals submitted to HCFA for 2000.

Even the most efficient managed care organization (MCO) has administrative costs 50% greater than Medicare.

"Nyah, Mr. Liberal! Nyah! It's not a fair comparison! Medicare doesn't have marketing expenses and such!"

Exactly my point.

And even if every MCO matched Medicare's efficiency somehow maintaining a system with multiple processing channels, each with unique decision points and processing paths drives up administrative costs across the system.

More than that, World Health Organization data shows citizens of Canada and the United Kingdom, which have single payer systems, have longer healthy life expectancies...and if you check here you'll find Great Britain matches and Canada surpasses us in absolute life expectancy as well. Irrespective of Libertarian calculations, a single payer system would not cause a drop in the quality of our health care (unless someone decides to make a point...).

But you will never hear these suggestions from our CEO cohort. The idea of admitting exposing public goods to market forces...our secular religion's equivalent of the Holy Ghost...can destabilize the whole supply of that public good just sets a bad precedent. And collective bargaining for drug prices would revalidate the whole concept underlying unions. Can't have that...especially with Wal-Mart on board. No, though the phrasing may differ the core message of what you hear from Corporate America will be

The CEOs agree that the double-digit premium increases will continue as long as individuals are sheltered from the true cost of health care.

Previously Untargeted Programs at Risk
68 Among Those Bush Seeks to Cut
By Peter Baker and Christopher Lee

Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A04

President Bush's budget plan calls for elimination or drastic reduction 68 federal programs that he has never targeted before, including vocational-education grants, emergency medical services for children and assistance to local law enforcement agencies, according to a list the White House released yesterday.

Brokerage Leaves Coalition
Edward Jones Pressed On Bush Plan Support
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page E01

A large Midwest brokerage abruptly withdrew from a business coalition that backs President Bush's Social Security proposals after the AFL-CIO staged protests at two of the firm's offices and attacked it on the Internet.

Edward D. Jones & Co., which operates under the trade name Edward Jones, resigned from the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, a coalition of corporations and trade associations that has long pressed for the creation of private accounts as part of Social Security. The St. Louis company has been a member of the coalition since 1998, the year of its inception.

The AFL-CIO claimed Edward Jones's decision not to renew its membership in the coalition as a victory in its nationwide lobbying campaign against the president's Social Security proposals. In December, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney sent letters to 46 members of the Securities Industry Association (SIA). In January, he sent similar notes to SIA's board protesting its advocacy of private accounts.

The labor federation trained special attention on Edward Jones, Charles Schwab Corp., Wachovia Corp. and Waddell & Reed Financial Inc., in addition to the SIA, because all were members of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, which represents more than 40 groups and companies. Earlier this week, the coalition removed the names of its members from its Web site.

Hastert Cautions Bush About Social Security Plan

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A05

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has warned the White House that voters are not yet ready to accept fundamental changes to Social Security as wary Republicans are cautioning the president to be as vague as possible about his plan.

White House and congressional GOP tacticians said yesterday that they now see little chance that Bush will issue a detailed plan for partially privatizing Social Security the way he released specific proposals for tax cuts and other major initiatives.

Key leaders including House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) have urged Bush to speak in general terms about altering Social Security and to leave it to Congress to develop specific proposals.

This contrasts with an earlier Capitol Hill strategy of letting the president take the lead -- and take most of the political heat -- in pushing for changes in the politically sensitive Social Security program.

Republicans Eat Their Own on Rule of Law, Gun Issues

In an astonishing display of party discipline and empty headedness, Republicans decided to not only waive all laws so they can build any fence, anywhere, at anytime; but decided its ok if the government uses the new drivers license/ID registry in the bill to serve as a gun registry.

First, the crazy fence vote. Section 102 of the Immigration Bill that passed today provides that "notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws" he determines necessary to construct barriers and fences.

Consider what this means. Not only can the Secretary waive environmental, labor and laws concerning Native American rights in connection with the construction of the 17 mile fence near San Diego, but this allows him to waive all laws concerning the construction of any fence at any time!! This means the Administration can take property without compensation, engage in direct cash payoffs to themselves and their friends, hire child labor, violate the civil rights laws, and even murder people if they think it would help them construct a barrier fence somewhere, anywhere in America. For good order the Republicans even stripped the courts of jurisdiction to review whether or not the law or their actions violate the constitution - the first time in our nation's history we will have totally preempted an independent branch of government's constitutional authority.

With passage of this provision, which is supported by the Administration and headed for the next pass supplemental appropriations bill, the Republicans will truly be turning us into a nation of men, not laws. It is hard to think of how the powers granted under Section 102 vary in any way from the powers one commonly thinks of a dictator as possessing. When Sam Farr (D-CA) sought to strip out this language, his amendment failed by a vote of 179-243.

You should read this post at Crooked Timber. Understanding it will explain why debt relief for Third World countries is appropriate, even moral. And you should see a disturbing echo of our political process as well.

Bush Threatens to Veto Changes in Medicare's Drug Benefit
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - President Bush threatened today to veto any changes Congress might make in Medicare's prescription drug benefit, which becomes available in January 2006 to millions of elderly and disabled people.

New cost estimates have prompted many lawmakers to say they want to revisit the new Medicare law this year. Some conservatives seek cutbacks in benefits and cost controls. Liberals and some centrists want to require the government to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers.

Buttoday, Mr. Bush said, "I signed Medicare reform proudly, and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors and to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto."

The president made the comment at a swearing-in ceremony for Michael O. Leavitt, the new secretary of health and human services.

Krugman:

Until now, the administration has also been able to pretend that the budget deficit isn't an important issue so the role of tax cuts in causing that deficit can be ignored. But Mr. Bush has at last conceded that the deficit is indeed a major problem.

Why shouldn't the affluent, who have done so well from Mr. Bush's policies, pay part of the price of dealing with that problem?

Here's a comparison: the Bush budget proposal would cut domestic discretionary spending, adjusted for inflation, by 16 percent over the next five years. That would mean savage cuts in education, health care, veterans' benefits and environmental protection. Yet these cuts would save only about $66 billion per year, about one-sixth of the budget deficit.

On the other side, a rollback of Mr. Bush's cuts in tax rates for high-income brackets, on capital gains and on dividend income would yield more than $120 billion per year in extra revenue - eliminating almost a third of the budget deficit - yet have hardly any effect on middle-income families. (Estimates from the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution show that such a rollback would cost families with incomes between $25,000 and $80,000 an average of $156.)

Why, then, shouldn't a rollback of high-end tax cuts be on the table?

According to the NY Times there were 13,000 fewer people out of work than they expected (303,000 jobless people is good news, you see).

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell 13,000 last week, to the lowest level in more than four years, the Labor Department reported yesterday.

Jobless claims declined to 303,000, the lowest since Oct. 28, 2000, from 316,000 the week before, according to the report. Claims had been forecast to rise to 325,000 in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

But there were 47,000 more people who did NOT get a job (or give up looking for one...the statistical equivalent) than expected.

Still, the number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits rose to 2.737 million in the week ended Jan. 29 from 2.69 million the week before. The four-week average of continuing claims increased to 2.734 million from 2.712 million. "Continuing claims kind of went in the wrong direction," said Wesley M. Beal, chief United States economist at IDEAglobal in New York.

"Compassionate conservatism," R.I.P.
Bush's budget barely cuts his vast deficit -- and the people it hurts worst are the poorest Americans.
By Joe Conason

Feb. 11, 2005  | "I am a fiscal conservative," declared George W. Bush in 1999, when he first presented himself as a candidate for president of the United States. "And I am a compassionate conservative." The $2.5 trillion budget Bush sent to Congress last week shows once again that he is neither.

In his 2006 budget, the president demands domestic spending cuts that permanently undercut any pretence of "compassion." Exactly how much his cuts would injure the needy, the young and the elderly isn't completely clear because the numbers provided by the White House aren't fully specific -- particularly in the "out years" after 2006. Also missing from the charts and graphs provided by the president are the tens of billions in "supplemental" expenses incurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, the hundreds of billions he wants to spend on privatizing Social Security, and the true trillion-dollar cost of his Medicare prescription-drug program.

What the budget does seem to show, however, is a series of sharp reductions in funding for programs such as housing assistance, veterans health benefits, food stamps and home heating aid. This stinginess toward the least fortunate is highlighted by Bush's insistence on preserving every penny of tax cuts for the fattest and happiest.

It has been said the Social Security discussion isn't as much about economics as ethics and I think that is true. The economics of the situation are clear: means testing and increasing the wage cap on Social Security payments will keep things in balance are far forward as you need to calculate. But if you follow the players in the discussion and compare their rhetoric to their interests you can start to see patterns. And those patterns should help you decide who to trust.

You have to move fast, though. There's this crew, the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, that was mentioned in this L.A. Times piece a couple of weeks ago. This is what AWRS says of themselves:

AWRS is a coalition of over forty organizations whose goal is to reform Social Security so that every American worker has the opportunity to create a secure source of wealth for retirement.

I looked on their members page was was amazed...every member organization was a corporate collective or a lobbying arm of a corporate collective.

Since then they've disabled the membership page. Ashamed? I am...I should have thought to put it in my personal cache. Point being, if you watch you can see these Orwellian organizations forming...it's not like when Conservatives FUDded up the Civil Rights noosphere with its organizational naming patterns. We weren't looking then. This you can watch, it's happening before your eyes.

Business leaders say Bush's pledge to block any increase in the payroll tax to fix the program was key in winning their backing.

"The president deserves the bipartisan support of the Congress and the strong backing of the business community" in addressing Social Security changes, John Engler, president of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said in a recent open letter to members.

The manufacturers group is the principal sponsor of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, a coalition seeking to revamp Social Security. On its website, the alliance lists the creation of private accounts as its No. 1 principle; No. 2 is to oppose a payroll tax increase.

They repeat the same ahistorical arguments, like

Business groups say the payroll tax has over time stifled hiring. Engler of the National Assn. of Manufacturers said the group's research found that payroll tax increases between 1984 and 1997 cost Americans 1 million jobs.

...which you hear every time the minimum wage is discussed. There's always noise about how it will cost jobs and it never has because there no way to become wealthy in this nation except by

1. growing a small business into a large one
2. hitting the lottery

More:

The manufacturers group said it had been joined by more than 40 other organizations and companies in the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security. Members include brokerage firm Edward Jones & Co., technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. and the National Restaurant Assn.

The restaurant association has been roused to action in part because the industry claims the largest U.S. workforce apart from government, said Rob Green, vice president of federal relations for the Washington-based group.

The restaurant association should be ashamed of themselves...McDonalds and its ilk already has the subminimum wage for student-learners, and the others already pay the difference between estimated tips and minimum wage. That's the second largest workforce in the nation getting jerked like that. Does this sound like a group whose primary concern is worker's retirement security?

Then there's the false concern for the wellbeing of Black men. The first direct appeal made to Black folks is made in order to support changes that no Black person ever asked for (Black Conservatives ignored for the moment). To support changes intended, not to improve Black men's health and quality of life, but to match what we receive to our shorter projected life span. Makes sense...America has historically seen Black folks in terms of our economic impact more than our humanity. The Party of Lincoln carries on that noble tradition.

You'll see there's a motivation that will not be named. I'm not pretending I know what it is because they won't tell anyone. But I'm pretty sure it's not anything they've told us because they're totally willing to give up any given explanation so long as they continue toward the effect they believe the changes they champion will bring about. And they know those changes aren't likely to appeal to the majority of us. If if they would, they would tell us, right? The twists and turns of the arguments and positions taken by Republican foot soldiers in the class wars make the answer obvious if you're looking:

Q Scott, just one point of clarification on Social Security. Does the President view lifting that $90,000 cap as a tax increase?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've addressed this issue on a number of occasions. What -- the President made it very clear early on that we're not going to get in the business of ruling things in or ruling things out. He stated his principles. His principles are very clear. One of them is no increase in the payroll taxes. And he said he welcomes all ideas that focus on solving this problem, we should discuss this and work in a bipartisan way to address this issue.

In terms of raising the wage cap -- or raising the cap, we've pointed out that that issue -- that doing that does not solve the problem -- the fiscal problem facing Social Security, it only pushes the date out a few years. But it doesn't address the problem. And so I think that's important to keep in mind.

But those -- we're going to discuss all ideas with members of Congress about the best way to proceed forward. The President has made his views known in terms of how he believes we ought to approach it and solve the problem. And we're -- we will listen to all ideas that are out there, but that doesn't mean we're ruling things in and doesn't mean we're ruling things out.

So we're not ruling out an increase in the wage cap...but it's not on the table(???). Because raising the wage cap, which would directly address the "problem", doesn't solve the problem...but at least partially privatizing Social Security, which they admit will have no impact at best, is a primary goal(???).

The results of this discussion will tell me a lot. Most important, it will tell me if truth, knowledge and reason have any place in the marketplace of ideas.

Quote of note:

Blogger Josh Marshall, who's been rallying the left on Social Security, has no doubt what Bush is saying: "We and many others had predicted that the president's angle here was to default on the Treasury bonds sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund. And now we can be pretty confident that he plans to do just that since today he said that the Trust Fund doesn't even exist."

The Amazing Disappearing Trust Fund
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, February 11, 2005; 12:43 PM

President Bush slipped something new into his Social Security pitch on Wednesday. And it was there again twice yesterday.

He says Social Security's $1.8 trillion trust fund doesn't really exist.

Even in Washington, that's a lot of money to go missing.

Here is Bush, from the transcript of his talk at the Commerce Department on Wednesday:

"Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out. And so, starting in 2018, what's going in -- what's coming out is greater than what's going in. It says we've got a problem. And we'd better start dealing with it now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to fix the problem."

Of, By and For Corporate Lobbyists

The administration is set for a major push of its Orwellian "Clear Skies Act," which the National Academy of Sciences revealed last month would result in more air pollution than under current law. Yesterday, secret documents obtained by the National Resources Defense Counsel revealed the legislation was written by corporate lobbyists representing the industries it supposedly regulates. In April 2003, a group of eight power plant companies reviewed the administration's first draft and submitted a wish list of "essential" changes to further weaken already anemic pollution controls. The administration gave the polluters what they wanted. Now, Congress has to decide if it will join the charade. Apparently, the media can't be bothered to report on corporate control of administration policy. Thus far, this story hasn't been covered by a single major newspaper. Plenty of info, however, on Camilla Parker Bowles.

PRESIDENT BUSH SELLS OUT PUBLIC HEALTH: Why was President Bush willing to take instructions from eight corporations at the expense of public health? Follow the money. All told, the corporations gave nearly $100,000 directly to Bush's presidential campaigns from individual executives and their Political Action Committees (PACs)   including $27,860 from Cinergy and $24,200 from American Electric Power.

ALTERED BILL CREATED INDUSTRY SLUSH FUND: The "Clear Skies Act" works on a "cap-and-trade" model, where the government caps total emissions on certain pollutants and then sells emissions allowances to industry. Under the initial version of the Act, proceeds from the sales of emissions caps would go back to the taxpayers. But corporate lobbyists didn't like that idea. They asked the administration to create "a largely unregulated Department of Energy account to fund industry efforts to develop pollution control technologies." And the lobbyists got exactly what they wanted. In other words, the law would now "pay industry to comply with preexisting laws   at the taxpayers expense."

UNDERMINING THE EPA: The "Clear Skies Act" began as the brainchild of an industry lobbyist. In April 2001, a top utility industry lobbyist, Quin Shea, told coal industry representatives that "he and his colleagues had a plan for the White House to allow coal plants to emit more pollution for much longer than the Environmental Protection Agency had been planning under the Clean Air Act." (You can read the transcript of his presentation here, starting on page 46.) That plan formed the basis of the "Clear Skies Act," which would "delay and dilute cuts in power plants' sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollution that are required by the Clean Air Act." The Act would also "weaken the Clean Air Act's public health safeguards protecting local air quality, curbing pollution from upwind states and restoring visibility in our national parks."

IGNORING GLOBAL WARMING: President Bush has abandoned his campaign promise to place caps on carbon dioxide emissions. The "Clear Skies Act" does nothing to address the global warming problem. The conservative co-sponsors, in fact, don't see it as a problem at all. Sen. James Inhofe recently said that climate change was "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of Church and State." For the facts on global warming and a responsible way to address the problem, check out this American Progress report.

Starting Monday, I'm going to require logins for comments. This "Texas Hold-em" asshole needs to leave an ugly-looking comment every day. I choose to head it off before I get annoyed. LATER: Too late. Dicks decided to try to sneak in some links immediately. And I found out why...I forgot to "rel=nofollow" the homepage link. So you may find anonymous comments impossible for a while.

So Dr. Rice is getting all these props for style during her swing through Europe. I can't help but wonder if the folks she's talking to see her kinder, gentler presentation as a real shift in policy.

I also find it interesting that people are talking about "her" arguments

The heart of Rice's argument goes something like this: The greatest strategic challenge of our time lies in the wider Middle East. It's from there that the terrorists who struck the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, emerged, and it's there that Islamist extremism is still being spawned. Poverty may contribute to the problem and should be tackled, not least in the Palestinian territories, but Osama bin Laden was hardly poor. The root causes are political. Freedom from want matters; more important by far is the want of freedom.

In shock after 9/11, the Bush administration began with a military and police response. It was going to kick butt, even if it sometimes kicked the wrong butt. Now it recognizes that addressing the underlying causes of terrorism requires more and longer-term deployment of economic, political and cultural means. "Even more important than military and indeed economic power," Rice said in Paris on Tuesday, "is the power of ideas."

and "her" thinking

This approach represents a significant development not just in American policy but also in Rice's own thinking.

...when her primary qualification for the job was loyalty to an administration that writes whole books to script everyone's responses.

I also continue to find it annoying that she keeps bringing up the Civil Rights struggle like anyone she works for was on the side of the angels. Bah.

OSSIE DAVIS, BELOVED ACTOR AND HUMANITARIAN, REMEMBERED Visitation and Funeral Service, Open to the Public, Set for Friday and Saturday, February 11 &12 WHAT: Funeral services for the late Ossie Davis, 87, noted writer, actor and activist, have been confirmed. In keeping with the spirit of his life and his concern for humanity, both his visitation and funeral are open to the public. VISITATION: Friday, February 11-5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Abyssinian Baptist Church, 132 W. 138th Street, Manhattan FUNERAL DETAILS: Saturday, February 12 at 12:00pm noon, Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive (120th street), Manhattan The presiding ministers at the ecumenical service will be the Reverend James Forbes, pastor of Riverside Church, and the Reverend Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Davis was a member. FAMILY REQUEST: In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made in Mr. Davis' name to one or more of the following organizations: Oxfam America Sudan Crisis Relief Fund P.O. Box 1211 Albert Lea,Minnesota 56007-1211 EXCEL Institute 2266 25th Place, NE Washington, D.C. 20018, Attn: George Starke WBAI Pacifica Radio, 120 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005 Attn: Mr. Bernard White Today's Students/Tomorrow's Teachers, 3 West Main Street, 2nd Floor Elmsford, NY 10523 Attn: Dr. Betty Perkins MEDIA ADVISORY Contacts: Family Inquiries Carolyn Odom (914) 235-1113 (c) Funeral/Visitation Press Credentials: Andrew Wadium, (212) 886-9598 (o) Additional Information Terrie Williams, (917) 837-0790 (c); Cheryl Duncan, (917) 981-1842 (c)

The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The release of the Douglass Papers, from the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division, contains approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images) relating to Douglass' life as an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches and articles by Douglass and his contemporaries, a draft of his autobiography, financial and legal papers, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous items. These papers reveal Douglass' interest in diverse subjects such as politics, emancipation, racial prejudice, women's suffrage, and prison reform. Included is correspondence with many prominent civil rights reformers of his day, including Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and Russell Lant, and political leaders such as Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Scrapbooks document Douglass' role as minister to Haiti and the controversy surrounding his interracial second marriage. The online release of the Frederick Douglass Papers is made possible through the generous support of the Citigroup Foundation.

When Bush suggested adjusting Social Security to reflect Black men's shorter expected lifespan I just nodded my head in appreciation. Not since Abraham Lincoln himself has the Republican view of Black Americans as tools to attain their own goals been so clearly articulated.

By the way, remember a few years back when everyone was saying Black males had some greater than 50% chance of dying before they were 21 years old? How did that turn out?

Yeah, we got differences in life expectancy but they get hyped for various reasons at various times. In fact, I want to share a little hearsay. This weekend in the discussion of Social Security on The McLaughlin Report, Clarence Page told Pat Robertson that life expectancy figure averages in our higher youth mortality rate and if he's lucky enough to reach 60 he's "likely to live longer than you."

Not vouching for it because I don't know where it came from. But it makes sense.

On the one hand

2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year Ever Recorded
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 10, 2005

Last year was the fourth warmest since systematic temperature measurements began around the world in the 19th century, NASA scientists said yesterday.

Particularly high temperatures were measured over Alaska, the Caspian Sea region of Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula, while the United States was unusually cool. But the global average continued a 30-year rise that is "due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan.

On the other hand

A Climate of Disdain
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A23

Next week will mark an unlikely milestone in modern history: The Kyoto Protocol on global climate change will take effect a week from today, without U.S. participation. A global policy train will be leaving the station, in other words, without the United States even being on board, let alone serving as conductor.

Quote of note:

One of the studies, by researchers at Duke and Stanford universities and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California, estimated that routine one-time testing of everyone would cut new infections each year by slightly more than 20 percent, and that every infected patient identified would gain an average of 18 months of life.

The other study, by Yale and Harvard researchers, found that testing people every three to five years would be cost effective for all but the lowest-risk people, like those who are celibate or are in monogamous heterosexual relationships. And even for those people, one-time testing was found to be cost effective.

Experts Want H.I.V. Testing for All Adults

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By The Associated Press

In what would be a major shift in health policy, some experts are recommending that virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases.

Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's, the government has recommended screening for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, only in big cities, where AIDS rates are high, and among members of high-risk groups, including gay men and drug addicts.

But two large federally financed studies found that the cost of routinely testing nearly all adults would be outweighed by a reduction in new infections and the opportunity to start patients on drug cocktails early, when they work best.

"Given the availability of effective therapy and preventive measures, it is possible to improve care and perhaps influence the course of the epidemic through widespread, effective and cost-effective screening," Dr. Samuel A. Bozzette, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies, which appear today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Quote of note:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called for new hearings on the drug benefit. She said she is especially interested in lifting a provision that bars the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices with the drug industry. The drug industry had insisted on that measure.

And in the spirit of bipartisanship:

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Wednesday that he wants White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten to tell Congress "what the real numbers are," and pronounced himself "very suspect of this program as to its cost."

Gregg later said outside the Senate chamber that while he would like to hold hearings on the drug benefit, "I'm a lone voice on that issue."

Medicare shortfall next on Bush's fix-it list
After new figures forecast that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost taxpayers at least $724 billion, President Bush vowed to make improving the program's financial picture a priority.

By TONY PUGH

WASHINGTON - Stung by criticism of skyrocketing cost estimates for the Medicare prescription drug benefit, President Bush vowed Wednesday to focus more attention on shoring up the new program's finances.

Although it won't pay out its first dollar until next year, the drug benefit that Bush sold to Congress as costing less than $400 billion for its first 10 years comes in at $724 billion in the 2006 budget released Monday.

While Medicare officials contend that the new figures are in line with earlier projections, lawmakers from both parties are fuming over what seems to be its exploding price. To make matters worse, the libertarian Cato Institute released a study Wednesday claiming the drug benefit's costs for 41 million Medicare beneficiaries are likely to double again.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Wednesday that he wants White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten to tell Congress "what the real numbers are," and pronounced himself "very suspect of this program as to its cost."

Gregg later said outside the Senate chamber that while he would like to hold hearings on the drug benefit, "I'm a lone voice on that issue."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called for new hearings on the drug benefit. She said she is especially interested in lifting a provision that bars the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices with the drug industry. The drug industry had insisted on that measure.

"We should move immediately to lower the costs of this bill by requiring the government to use the purchasing power of millions of seniors to negotiate lower drug costs," Pelosi said.

Quote of note:

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.

A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.

"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."

9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 10, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.

But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."

The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Not just (though not least either) because we're overextended militarily. North Korea did not break the agreement they had with the USofA, so in international legal terms we got no leg to stand on.

Anyway...

North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons and Rejects Talks

By JAMES BROOKE

TOKYO, Feb. 10 - In a surprising admission, North Korea's hard-line Communist government declared publicly today for the first time that it has nuclear weapons.

It also said that it will boycott United States-sponsored regional talks designed to end its nuclear program, according to a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement transmitted today by the reclusive nation's wire service.

Pyongyang said it has "manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's undisguised policy to isolate and stifle" North Korea, and that it will "bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal."

The statement, considered a definitive policy pronouncement, said that North Korea, led by the reclusive dictator Kim Jong Il, is pulling out of the talks after concluding that the second Bush administration would pursue the "brazen-faced, double-dealing tactics" of dialogue and "regime change."

Four hours before the official Korean Central News Agency transmitted the pullout statement, a top Bush administration official told reporters here that North Korea's return to the nuclear talks was expected by all other participants -the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China.

"The onus is really on North Korea," said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, noting that the last time the parties met was in June.

Referring to North Korea's bomb making capability, he added: "The absence of progress in six-party talks means they are making further progress toward their increased capability."

Quotes of note:

For local residents, who presumed Katie had been abducted by a stranger, the tragedy deepened with the arrest on murder charges of Charles Hickman, 20, a fixture in front of his family's trailer on Crothersville's main street, just across from the Dollar General and Penn Villa.

"It's changed too late," said Misty Banks, who works at the Butcher Block convenience store, where she gave Reese's peanut butter cups and Popsicles to Katie even when she could not pay. "They've known it's been going on this whole time, and they have to wait until a 10-year-old's dead?"

Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge

By JODI WILGOREN

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 9 - John Neace forces himself to pass by the run-down apartment buildings every day. Inside, the police say, Mr. Neace's 10-year-old daughter stumbled on someone with methamphetamine last month. Her drowned body was found five days later at a nearby creek, small hands tied tightly behind her back.

...Katie's Jan. 25 disappearance, and the Feb. 2 arrest of an unemployed high school dropout, have shaken this small town out of silence about the scourge of methamphetamine.

Like many similar communities across the nation's midsection, Crothersville, 40 miles north of Louisville and with a population of 1,541, has seen methamphetamine steadily seep into its streets.

When the roof of a house behind the funeral home exploded in December, a makeshift meth lab was found in the fire. Another lab, spitball distance from the school, was raided earlier last year. The uncle of the young man now facing charges of killing Katie wrote a letter to the town council two years ago beseeching the members to do something about drugs before someone got killed.

But many residents said they had been scared to report suspicions in a community where everyone seems somehow related. Others complained that the three-man police force too often looks the other way - the man who lived at the house behind the funeral home has yet to face charges, and two complaints about methamphetamine use at the dilapidated Penn Villa apartments in the days before Katie's death yielded no arrests.

Oscar's risks don't end at Chris Rock
In addition to this year's in-your-face host, key changes are expected in the set, format and how some of the Academy Awards are presented.

By Mary McNamara, Times Staff Writer

As if Chris Rock were not enough, this year's Oscar ceremony is shaping up to be hip-hop loose and in-your-face. Or at least as hip-hop loose and in-your-face as a show that revolves around a bunch of film types in evening dress getting awards and making speeches can be.

Ever since the announcement that Rock would host the 77th Academy Awards, the buzz has been as much about how the high-intensity, often blasphemous comic will fit into a traditional ceremony as it has in predicting the winners.

To which producer Gil Cates replies: Who said it would be a traditional Oscar ceremony?

As Cates hinted at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' nominees luncheon Monday, this year's show will be as different in structure from past shows as Rock's style is from previous hosts.

In a separate interview, Cates elaborated further. To accommodate Rock's hip-hop-direct brand of comedy, Cates is breaking open the show. Not only will some awards be announced with the nominees present on stage, others will be presented to winners still seated in the audience. Cates said his goal is to get all nominees on television.

"The concept this year is to minimize the line between people on stage and in the audience," said Cates.

Rock will also be "recognizing" certain members of the audience, Cates said, in the style of "The Ed Sullivan Show."

"Chris is an up-front, right-at-you kind of guy," said Cates, producing his 12th Oscar telecast, "so we needed to format the show to accommodate that."

Strangeness of note:

Foster told authorities she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of Kurt Vomberg, a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. The case ended in a hung jury. The whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial.

Okla. Judge's Career Ended by Allegations
- By JULIE E. BISBEE, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, February 8, 2005

(02-08) 16:32 PST Oklahoma City, OK (AP) --

Jurors and others in Judge Donald Thompson's courtroom kept hearing a strange whooshing noise, like a bicycle pump or maybe a blood pressure cuff. During one trial, Thompson seemed so distracted that some jurors thought he was playing a hand-held video game or tying fly-fishing lures behind the bench.

The explanation, investigators say, is even stranger than some imagined: The judge had a habit of masturbating with a penis pump under his robe during trials.

The lurid allegations have led to criminal charges against Thompson, brought an embarrassing end to a solid career and shocked many of his colleagues. The case could also lead to a wave of appeals from defendants claiming that the judge was not paying attention while presiding over their cases.

Bush Seeks $400 Million to Reward Allies
- By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005

(02-09) 21:31 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

President Bush is asking Congress to set up a $400 million fund to reward nations that have taken political and economic risks to join U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House announced the fund, dubbed the "solidarity initiative," after Bush's meeting Wednesday with Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, a nation that is to receive one-fourth of the money.

The $400 million request is part of the $80 billion supplemental war funding request Bush will send to Congress next week.

"Poland has been a fantastic ally because the president and the people of Poland love freedom," Bush said during his Oval Office meeting with Kwasniewski, a staunch ally in the Iraq war. "I know the people of your country must have been thrilled when the millions of people went to the polls" in Iraq.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the fund is indicative of the administration's inability to attract more well-to-do nations to the coalition at the start of the conflict.

"It's kind of a shame," he said in a telephone interview. "The reason we're having to do this is that we never reached out to those who have the ability and capacity to do this to begin with."

He called the countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq "courageous" but said the administration had no choice but to offer them help because their societies and national budgets can't afford the cost of being in Iraq for extended periods of time.

Quote of note

Since working memory is known to predict many higher-level brain functions, the research calls into question the ability of high-pressure tests such as the SAT, GRE, LSAT, and MCAT to accurately gauge who will succeed in future academic endeavors.

Smart People Choke Under Pressure
By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 09 February, 2005
7:00 a.m. ET

People perceived as the most likely to succeed might also be the most likely to crumble under pressure.

A new study finds that individuals with high working-memory capacity, which normally allows them to excel, crack under pressure and do worse on simple exams than when allowed to work with no constraints. Those with less capacity score low, too, but they tend not to be affected by pressure.

"The pressure causes verbal worries, like 'Oh no, I can t screw up', " said Sian Beilock, assistant professor of psychology at Miami University of Ohio. "These thoughts reside in the working memory." And that takes up space that would otherwise be pondering the task at hand.

"When they begin to worry, then they re in trouble," Beilock told LiveScience. "People with lower working-memory capacities are not using that capacity to begin with, so they re not affected by pressure."

The findings are detailed this week's issue of Psychological Science.

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.
By Julie Cart
Times Staff Writer

February 10, 2005

More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.

The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected.

More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.

Bush administration officials, including Craig Manson, an assistant secretary of the Interior who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, have been critical of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, contending that its implementation has imposed hardships on developers and others while failing to restore healthy populations of wildlife.

Along with Republican leaders in Congress, the administration is pushing to revamp the act. The president's proposed budget calls for a $3-million reduction in funding of Fish and Wildlife's endangered species programs.

"The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has become pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country," said Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Sick and Broke
By Elizabeth Warren
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A23

Nobody's safe. That's the warning from the first large-scale study of medical bankruptcy.

Health insurance? That didn't protect 1 million Americans who were financially ruined by illness or medical bills last year.

A comfortable middle-class lifestyle? Good education? Decent job? No safeguards there. Most of the medically bankrupt were middle-class homeowners who had been to college and had responsible jobs -- until illness struck.

As part of a research study at Harvard University, our researchers interviewed 1,771 Americans in bankruptcy courts across the country. To our surprise, half said that illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy. So each year, 2 million Americans -- those who file and their dependents -- face the double disaster of illness and bankruptcy.

But the bigger surprise was that three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance.

Bush seeks 'major shift' with blacks
By Bob Cusack

In the nearly 100 days since he was reelected, President Bush has launched an aggressive campaign to win African-American and Hispanic voters away from the Democratic Party.

Political strategists say the president s meetings with minority groups and his move to highlight policies important to them is the start of a major effort to court constituencies that have predominantly embraced Democrats. 

Bush attracted 11 percent of the black vote in 2004, up three percentage points from 2000. Initial polls showed Bush attracting 44 percent of the Hispanic vote last year after getting 35 percent in 2000. Democrats have called the 44 percent figure overstated.

What is not in dispute, however, is that the battle for the minority vote will be fierce in 2006 and 2008.

Slavery and the Making of America.

Tonight, 9pm on WNET, if you're in the NYC area.

And Sunday at 2pm too. So none of that crap about ending past your bedtime.

I've been relaxing a bit today, and that involves time away from politics. I've spent some time today reading this week's Tangled Bank entries.

So I like science. Sue me. Or check it out yourself...if I linked everything I thought was cool you'd think my URL got hijacked by a science blog.

I thought this was funny. Still do.

The Nasonex bee
While collapsing on the couch Tuesday night after my first day of teaching (and burning my hand while making dinner), I caught the tail end of an ad for Nasonex, an allergy medicine. The ad caught my attention because it was using an animated honey bee as its spokes-organism, though, of course, it didn't catch my attention for the right reasons: what stood out were the glaring errors in their animated hymenopteran. The first problem is that the bee in the ad was talking with its mouth. This would be very difficult physiologically, as the bee respiratory system (the tracheal system) is not connected to the mouth at all, and thus the bee could not easily pass air over structures in its mouth to make noise.

A quick visit to the Nasonex website found two good images of the bee to critique.

Can't wait for next week:

Coming up next on Rhosgobel: rabbits don't really clamor for sugary cereals.

Quote of note:

When experimenters told white golfers that the quality of their game would reflect "natural athletic ability" instead of their strategic intellectual prowess, their performance was much worse than that of black players. White male students' performance was similarly depressed when they took a math test in which Asian-Americans were said to do better.

Performance without Anxiety
Fear of reinforcing negative stereotypes, Claude Steele finds, hampers the ability to succeed. The idea is now central in affirmative action and job discrimination fights
By Sally Lehrman

In experiments starting in 1939, American social psychologists Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark discovered that black children preferred to play with dolls that were white. Their data helped to convince the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education that separate education was inherently unequal.

Now civil-rights lawyers are turning once again to psychology as a way to reveal the powerful hidden barriers created by modern-day bias. In battles over issues from affirmative action to workplace discrimination, educators, political theorists and activists are relying on Stanford University social psychologist Claude Steele's studies on "stereotype threat" to argue for policies that might make access to jobs and education fair for everyone.

Study Identifies Trade-Off between Motherhood and Longevity

Motherhood is a difficult job. In fact, the results of a new study suggest that, historically, taking on the role early in life was linked to shorter lifespans. A report published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that mothers who gave birth at a young age in the 18th and 19th century also tended to die young. The results suggest that natural selection may have sacrificed a woman's longevity for reproductive success.

Jenni E. Pettay of the University of Turku in Finland and her colleagues analyzed medical records of four generations of Finns born between 1745 and 1903. They found that mothers and daughters tended to share a number of similarities, including the age at which they first gave birth and the number of children they had who survived to adulthood. Across generations, a family's lifespan was relatively consistent, with women who delayed childbirth living longer than women who had their first child at a younger age. In addition, women who waited longer between births lived longer than did mothers who gave birth in quick succession. For males, meanwhile, there was no significant link between the age of first fatherhood and longevity.

Six years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

On February 1, 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. This sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced "snick"), was created on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh two months later to coordinate these sit-ins, support their leaders, and publicize their activities.

Over the next decade, civil rights activism moved beyond lunch counter sit-ins. In this violently changing political climate, SNCC struggled to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came some of today's black leaders, such as former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Together with hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American history.

This site covers the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from its birth in 1960 to 1966, when John Lewis was replaced by Stokely Carmichael as chairman. This event marks a decided change in philosophy for SNCC, and one that warrants an equal amount of attention. However, we have focused on the first six years of the movement, in order to adequately explore such events as sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer.

Quotes of note:

In fact, the worst conflicts on the continent are over control of land and natural resources - the oil, diamonds, copper and silver that have fueled the bloodiest conflicts - and the best means of grasping at those has traditionally been to control the central government.

Indeed, if the colonial nation-state is the black man's burden, it has also been the African despot's best friend, a powerful tool when wielded by crafty hands.

But often enough it is the insurgents themselves who oppose the breakup. Having seen how lucrative centralized power can be, most are reluctant to give it up for what is often paradoxically seen as the lesser goal of independence.

Lands Carved for a Colonial Feast: What of the Borders?

By LYDIA POLGREEN

KHARTOUM, Sudan - It is a truism of Africa that the borders bequeathed by white colonial powers, drawn in the 19th-century scramble for Africa at the convenience of London, Paris and Brussels, became the black man's burden.

Like most truisms, this one holds a large measure of truth: the division of the spoils of African conquest created a continent of malformed states that cross ethnic, religious and tribal lines, an elaborate set of booby traps that have exploded into mayhem over the past 50 years.

The consensus seems to be that those borders have stuck because the alternative - a fractured map of Africa with thousands of tiny states, constantly at war - is even worse. [P6: That was not the only alternative, just the only other one Europe could exploit.]

But that consensus view is being put to the test in Sudan. When the Arab-dominated Sudanese government signed a peace deal with the African and mostly Christian south, ending Africa's longest-running civil war, the agreement included a truly historic concession: If after six years southerners so wish, they may secede from the north by referendum, remaking the map of Africa essentially for the first time since the end of the colonial era.

But few people here really think that will happen, which raises a difficult question: why should breaking a country up - into two or three parts, not a thousand - be so hard to do, even when it seems to make so much sense? [P6: Because entrenched interests don't want to have to find new handles to manipulate the situation whil ethe old handles still work.]

With the long, bitter history between south and north, one that includes centuries of slavery, war and discrimination against African Christians by Arab Muslims, it is perhaps not surprising that many southern Sudanese say they have no plan to stick with the north.

"How can a people who have been subjugated by the north for so long accept unity?" asked Adam Cholong Ohiri, a professor at Juba University, a southern university in exile in Khartoum. "Many will conclude it is better to go our own way."

But many northerners, including the current government of Sudan, aware that a great portion of Sudan's oil is in the south, press for Africa's largest nation to stick together.

"Sudan must remain united," said Adam Mousa Madibo, vice chairman of the opposition Umma Party in Khartoum. "Sudan is at the heart of Africa, and if it split it would send shock waves across the continent."

Indeed, the breakup of Sudan, which is by no means assured, would set a significant precedent.

"This would be the first time there was a real colonial boundary that would be broken to form something entirely new," said Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, an anthropologist at Rhode Island College who has been studying Sudan for three decades, in an interview here.

"This vast country was assembled by the British to control the Nile valley, not because it made any sense for the people living here," Dr. Fluehr-Lobban continued, noting that the north and south were administered separately by the British. "The central question is whether there is any such thing as Sudanese identity that could hold it together now. A national identity needs to be created if Sudan is to remain united."

The same could be said in many nations in Africa, though to a lesser degree, and there may be something to the notion that the precedent set by the Sudanese agreement could add fire to separatist insurgencies elsewhere.

Yet secessionist movements actually form only a fraction of the insurgencies that have racked the continent. In fact, the worst conflicts on the continent are over control of land and natural resources - the oil, diamonds, copper and silver that have fueled the bloodiest conflicts - and the best means of grasping at those has traditionally been to control the central government.

"Most of these insurgencies are striving for power at a national level," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "That is the only thing that matters. If you are out of power you are out of luck."

Indeed, if the colonial nation-state is the black man's burden, it has also been the African despot's best friend, a powerful tool when wielded by crafty hands. The excesses of African dictators, from Mobutu Sese Seko to Robert Mugabe, from Sani Abacha to Charles Taylor, were enabled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the inherent conflicts created by artificial state boundaries that allowed a powerful central government to play tribal, ethnic and religious groups against one another.

In some cases, Mr. Morrison said, the conflicts are simply too deep and complex to be resolved any other way than breaking up. Sudan, which has been at war for much of its 50-year post-colonial history, would seem to be the foremost example of such a case, but there are others.

Congo, a huge, resource-rich country, has been mired in a conflict involving an alphabet soup of rebel group acronyms and several neighboring countries that has killed nearly four million people, mostly with starvation and disease, by a recent estimate. It is sometimes suggested that the Congolese would be better off dropping the pretense that theirs is a functioning state run out of the capital, Kinshasa, and allowing their regions wide autonomy, if not full independence.

But often enough it is the insurgents themselves who oppose the breakup. Having seen how lucrative centralized power can be, most are reluctant to give it up for what is often paradoxically seen as the lesser goal of independence.

In the case of Sudan, John Garang, the leader of the southern rebels, has argued against secession despite its popularity among his followers, pushing instead for a bigger slice of the pie in Khartoum.

In Nigeria, a vast and splintered nation that shares many of Sudan's problems - tribal and religious divides and even greater oil wealth concentrated in one region - violent battles over religion, tribal rivalries and oil have killed thousands in the past decade. But not since the searing Biafran war of the 1960's has the Niger Delta region, with its abundance of oil, made a serious effort to go its own way.

So it seems that the white man's borders will remain the black man's burden for some time to come.

"There is a rational argument for unity, but also a very strong historical and emotional argument for separation," said Dr. Fluehr-Lobban, the anthropologist. "In Sudan it is hard to say which way it will go. But in Africa, history tends to point to sticking together, for better or worse."

Quote of note:

The booklet warns the migrant that if he decides to use the services of a smuggler, he should not hand his children over to him, not carry packages or drive a vehicle for him, as they may contain drugs, and not trust his assurances.

There is better advice that may save your life, the men said.

"Never hire a coyote on the border," said Mr. Castillo, a thickly built man with whiskers and gold teeth, referring to the smugglers who guide illegal migrants into the United States. Have a friend recommend a contractor while you are in your hometown, he advised. "This way, if anything happens to you, your family knows his family."

The Everymigrant's Guide to Crossing the Border Illegally
By CHARLIE LeDUFF and J. EMILIO FLORES

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 - When the desert is cool, as it is now, illegal immigration becomes a flood.

Of the million people who were arrested trying to sneak into the United States over the Mexican border last year, more than half were caught from January to April, the United States Border Patrol says.

To avoid detection, smugglers now lead people through more demanding and dangerous terrain; more than 300 people died trying to cross last year.

To help prevent death and deportation, the Mexican government has published a guide that advises its citizens on the intricacies of sneaking into the United States. It also gives tips on how migrants should conduct themselves after reaching the streets of the promised land.

The 31-page pamphlet, "Guide for the Mexican Migrant," has infuriated some American politicians and citizens who say the Mexican government is effectively encouraging a criminal activity that is fraying the American cultural fabric and draining state and local municipalities.

The Mexican government says it is simply recognizing reality.

Quote of note:

The problems Iowa faces are the very solutions it chose two and three generations ago. The state's demographic dilemma wasn't caused by bad weather or high income taxes or the lack of a body of water larger than Rathbun Lake - an Army Corps of Engineers reservoir sometimes known as "Iowa's ocean." It was caused by the state's wholehearted, uncritical embrace of industrial agriculture, which has depopulated the countryside, destroyed the economic and social texture of small towns, and made certain that ordinary Iowans are defenseless against the pollution of factory farming.

These days, all the entry-level jobs in agriculture - the state's biggest industry - happen to be down at the local slaughterhouse, and most of those jobs were filled by the governor's incentive, a few years ago, to bring 100,000 immigrant workers into the state.

Keeping Iowa's Young Folks at Home After They've Seen Minnesota

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Lately the Iowa Legislature has been trying to find a way to solve a basic problem: how to keep young people from leaving the state. Right now, Iowa's "brain drain" is second only to North Dakota's. The Legislature is toying with a simple idea, getting rid of state income tax for everyone under 30. This proposal was front-page news in California, where most of Iowa moved in the 1960's.

Let me translate the economics of this plan. The State Legislature proposes to offer every young tax-paying Iowan a large delivery pizza - or its cash equivalent, about $12 - every week of the year. But smart young Iowans know this is only an average figure. The more you earn, the more state income tax you save.

If ever there were an incentive to earn your first hundred million by the time you're 30, this would be it. Never mind that South Dakota, right next door, charges no income tax no matter how old you are.

Of course, there are serious questions about financing this tax break, which could cost as much as $200 million a year. The best bet would be to require young people to spend their dole on the Iowa Lottery.

New White House Estimate Lifts Drug Benefit Cost to $720 Billion

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - The Bush administration offered a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit on Tuesday, saying it would cost $720 billion in the next 10 years.

That is much more than the $400 billion Congress assumed when it passed legislation creating the benefit in late 2003.

But administration officials said the numbers were not comparable. The original estimate was for the years 2004 to 2013. The new estimate covers the period from 2006, when the drug benefit becomes available, to 2015. [P6: They're right...estimates that include years prior to the program actually beginning are worthless so the numbers are NOT comparable.]

The higher figure, which provides the first glimpse of the true cost of the drug benefit, could touch off a political uproar in Congress, where conservative Republicans were already expressing alarm about the costs of Medicare, including the drug benefit.

In a recent interview, the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said he wanted to "put the brakes on the growth of entitlements" and take a close look at the new Medicare law.

"Since it was sold as a $400 billion program, that's what we should keep it at," Mr. Gregg said.

Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, asked about the issue on Tuesday when Treasury Secretary John W. Snow was testifying before the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Snow said he did not have detailed figures at hand.

Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said later that the drug benefit would cost $720 billion from 2006 to 2015.

Passage of the Medicare bill was a major political achievement for President Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress. It squeaked through the House by a vote of 220 to 215, and it would probably not have been approved in its current form if lawmakers had thought the cost would exceed a half-trillion dollars.

Proof our priorities are shot to hell. And I LOVE the closing line of the article...really relevant, know what I mean?

Va. Bill Sets Fine for Low-Riding Pants
Wednesday, February 9, 2005

(02-09) 04:05 PST Richmond, VA (AP) --Virginians who wear their pants so low their underwear shows may want to think about investing in a stronger belt.

The state's House of Delegates passed a bill Tuesday authorizing a $50 fine for anyone who displays his or her underpants in a "lewd or indecent manner."

Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., a Democrat who opposed the bill, had pleaded with his colleagues to remember their own youthful fashion follies.

During an extended monologue Monday, he talked about how they dressed or wore their hair in their teens. On Tuesday, he said the measure was an unconstitutional attack on young blacks that would force parents to take off work to accompany their children to court just for making a fashion statement.

"This is a foolish bill, Mr. Speaker, because it will hurt so many," Spruill said before the measure was approved 60-34. It now goes to the state Senate.

The bill's sponsor, Del. Algie T. Howell, has said constituents were offended by the exposed underwear. He did not speak on the floor Tuesday.

Spruill and Howell, also a Democrat, are both black.

Quote of note:

Alongside previously proposed cuts to Section 8 housing assistance, these reductions send a stark message to the country's poor, its elderly and its urban youth: You're no longer our problem.

Bush's Budget Transforms the War on Poverty Into a War on the Poor
By Eric Garcetti
Eric Garcetti, who represents the 13th District on the Los Angeles City Council, chairs the city's Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee.
February 9, 2005

President Bush refers to himself as a wartime president, and he has shown resolve not to back down on the battlefield. But the budget he released this week waves a flag of surrender in another war, the 40-year "war on poverty."

The budget announces cuts of 28%   or $1.4 billion   from our arsenal of critical social programs. The largest and most vital to Los Angeles is the Community Development Block Grant. As more cities draw on poverty-fighting grants each year, Los Angeles' allocation has steadily decreased, from $88.6 million in 2003 to $82.7 million this year. Under the proposed cuts, our allocation would plummet by at least $15 million.

Alongside previously proposed cuts to Section 8 housing assistance, these reductions send a stark message to the country's poor, its elderly and its urban youth: You're no longer our problem.

In Los Angeles, these grants pay for after-school programs, home repairs for the elderly in blighted neighborhoods and intervention programs for youth on the brink of joining or already in gangs. They spur economic development projects and fund outreach to the homeless.

Now the president wants to cut these groups off from the prospects of economic recovery. That represents a radical departure from a nation's commitment to its most vulnerable citizens.

The Enrons of Tomorrow -- Count Me In

... It's winter now. I'm cold, but I'm not mad anymore. A lot can happen in six months. A girl can mellow, can't she? George W. Bush turned me around. I'm not reading these new transcripts as a consumer who was rate-raped and left for dead in the cold and dark. I don't see con-artists-in-training apprenticed to master con artists. No, with the Bush plan to privatize Social Security, I'm reading them as a potential stockholder! Enron isn't them anymore   Enron could be me! Try it yourself.

This week, a witness testified in court that Bernard J. Ebbers, the top dog at WorldCom Inc., faked accounting records to get the kind of profit that Wall Street expected him to get, which is why WorldCom went into an $11-billion belly-up bankruptcy. Six months ago, I would have despised Ebbers as a crook who had earned a confirmed booking at a Graybar Hotel. But now, as someone whose retirement nest egg could have been bound up with WorldCom's fortunes, I realize that this is just a guy who was looking out for folks like me and getting a public dunking for it.

See? Bush is right; an ownership society changes everything.

Quote of note:

Much of the meal break controversy hinges on a single phrase. What does the law mean when it says that a company must "provide an employee a meal period"? Early opinion letters from a commission that monitors wage and hour laws said that meant that employers were responsible for ensuring that workers took their required breaks.

Rice said that interpretation — the basis of hundreds of lawsuits — went too far. He said he looked up the word "provide" in a number of dictionaries and never found an element of responsibility. Under the proposed regulations, an employer would satisfy the law if he or she "makes the meal period available to the employee and affords the opportunity to take it." The worker could opt to waive it.

Proposed Meal-Break Rules Panned by Worker Advocates
A plan would reduce the period when firms could be fined for failing to offer mealtimes and would shift onus to employees.
By Nancy Cleeland
Times Staff Writer

February 9, 2005

Would tinkering with a law on meal breaks amount to a corporate free lunch?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to redefine a state statute requiring that employers provide 30 minutes off for meals has drawn fire from worker advocates who complain that unscrupulous employers might deny employees any lunch break at all.

The proposed changes in state regulations, aggressively promoted by the California Chamber of Commerce, would cut to one year from three the period during which businesses can be fined for failing to give meal breaks. In addition, the responsibility for ensuring that a break is taken would be shifted from the employer to the employee.

The proposed regulations, which are expected to be adopted after hearings this month and next, apply to a law signed by Gov. Gray Davis in 1999. It held employers liable for an hour's wage for each day that a worker didn't take a proper lunch. The law also granted attorney fees for successful lawsuits filed in such cases.

Businesses were hit with investigations and class-action suits, some of which led to multimillion-dollar settlements. The chamber and other business groups complained that the state was interpreting the law too liberally and inconsistently. They pressed for change under the Schwarzenegger administration.

"From the moment we walked in the door in November of 2003, this is all we heard about," said Rick Rice, undersecretary of the state Labor and Workforce Development Agency, who helped craft the proposed regulations.

Rice said they would merely clarify a badly written law.

"I find it offensive that some people are characterizing this as a take-away, because it is not," he said. [P6: I find it offensive that a "public servant" would get offended over this crap]

Proponents of the changes say they reflect efforts by Schwarzenegger to ease onerous regulations on business. Critics say the effort is another administration attack on worker rights.

Big-Ticket Drive Supports Gov.'s Agenda
Invitations are handed out for 'an evening with Schwarzenegger,' with dinners up to $100,000.
By Robert Salladay and Peter Nicholas
Times Staff Writers

February 9, 2005

SACRAMENTO   For $100,000, you can sit at the head table with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, hobnob at a reception beforehand and pose for pictures with the Republican governor.

But there is a limit to what your money can buy at one of several fundraisers: Only two guests per photo, please.

Billed as "An Evening with Governor Schwarzenegger," invitations to four upcoming events were handed out Tuesday to lobbyists and business interests in Sacramento. They showed that proximity to the Republican governor comes in four varieties: $10,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000.

The private meetings with some of California's prominent business interests are scheduled to continue through April   gala dinners at the Sheraton Grand in Sacramento to the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco   as the governor pushes his agenda for changing state government.

I've been thinking about putting together a reading list for the study of white folks. I'm not talking about that weak crap that tries to teach white folks to see their advantaged position...a totally useless field of study for Black folks. No, I want books that explain how white folks act on a day-to-day basis. I've decided this online volume should be in the mix...

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
Author's Preface

This volume pulls together and republishes, with some editing, updating, and additions, articles written during 1978-86 for internal use within the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. Four of the articles also appeared in the Intelligence Community journal Studies in Intelligence during that time frame. The information is relatively timeless and still relevant to the never-ending quest for better analysis.

The articles are based on reviewing cognitive psychology literature concerning how people process information to make judgments on incomplete and ambiguous information. I selected the experiments and findings that seem most relevant to intelligence analysis and most in need of communication to intelligence analysts. I then translated the technical reports into language that intelligence analysts can understand and interpreted the relevance of these findings to the problems intelligence analysts face.

The result is a compromise that may not be wholly satisfactory to either research psychologists or intelligence analysts. Cognitive psychologists and decision analysts may complain of oversimplification, while the non-psychologist reader may have to absorb some new terminology. Unfortunately, mental processes are so complex that discussion of them does require some specialized vocabulary. Intelligence analysts who have read and thought seriously about the nature of their craft should have no difficulty with this book. Those who are plowing virgin ground may require serious effort.

...I just can't decide whether it should be among the first or among the last to be suggested.

via The Colorblind Society

Quote of note:

"White people are calling, and it's primarily white men," said Cindy Weese, YWCA executive director. "A common theme with all the callers - they've been offended by the commercial." Some have called the ads racist, while others insist racism does not exist in Montana.

Racism ads stir debate, YWCA says
By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian

Does racism exist in Montana? It's a question being raised in the first of a series of YWCA-sponsored radio and television ads airing statewide.

The TV ad: "Think racism no longer exists? Think again. If you're Native American, Asian American, Latin American or African American, you know that racism hasn't gone away."

Narrator: "So, if you're a white American living in Montana, what does racism mean to you?"

People of color: "Racism can be subtle ... and none of us are racist ... until we really think about it ... so let's think about it ... because racism hurts everyone."

When the YWCA Racial Task Force created the ad, now airing on stations such as Clear Channel radio and KECI and KPAX television, they figured they'd created a benign ad. Yet response to it has not been good-natured.

There's "Earth Mother of Us All," which buys into the idea of black women as uniquely nurturing, patient, forgiving, supportive, long-suffering -- the notion that the black woman was put on Earth to atone for the sins of all the rest of us. (A subset image is "Nubian Queen.")

You know, I don't know a man that wouldn't benefit from having the right woman assume this position relative to him. And back when such discussions were of personal concern I didn't know any woman that was unwilling to assume that position relative to the right man.

I came by that last conclusion by asking women I knew about it. Women I worked with, women I hung out with. Conflating everyone's answers, it seems women want some sign of good judgment before they run around submitting to a guy's will. Also seems a major sign of good judgment is the ability to see when someone else (i.e., her) has equal or greater expertise in a field.

Kinda rare.

Hot Air in Motown

President Bush heads to Detroit, MI, today as part of his aggressive marketing campaign to sell his deeply flawed —  and very expensive —  Social Security plan. Don't hold your breath waiting for the president to flesh out more details, however; the Detroit Free Press reports "the traditional question and answer period after the speech has been dropped for Bush's visit." (There may be good reason for this: as the New York Times wrote this weekend, when it comes to the Bush plan, "The more we learn, the worse it gets.") Don't believe his hype. Here are the basics to keep in mind when listening to his sales pitch.

IT'S A BENEFIT CUT: The private accounts President Bush wants to create do nothing by themselves to reduce the shortfall. A White House memo to conservative allies which was leaked to the press last month even "acknowledged that individual accounts themselves would do nothing to close the projected Social Security shortfall." What President Bush really is pushing are giant benefit cuts, which he said during his State of the Union Address were "on the table."

IT'S A TAX HIKE: President Bush has resisted raising the payroll tax to pay for Social Security reform. But don't be fooled: his Social Security plan is a tax hike. Here's how it works: President Bush is proposing keeping the Social Security wage tax at the same level while reducing benefits for future retirees. "By keeping the tax the same and reducing future benefits," Newsweek reports, "Bush is like a candymaker that cuts 46 percent off a chocolate bar but charges the same 75 cents for it. In other words, his plan would effectively increase the Social Security tax."

IT INCREASES THE DEBT: The Bush plan also entails "significant new federal borrowing." Vice President Cheney this weekend admitted the government would have to borrow $754 billion over the next decade to set up the private accounts. (That's low-balling the number   most experts agree the first ten years of the Bush tax plan would cost about $2 trillion.) And after that? "Trillions more after that,'' he admitted. Large-scale borrowing carries a huge price for the middle class. When the federal government runs up a large debt, that means less money is available for average Americans to borrow when they want to buy a house or a car or pay for college tuition. That smaller pool of money available for loans translates into higher interest rates   which not only puts a squeeze on individual consumers but also slows the rate of economic growth. That means, in the long run, fewer jobs, low wage growth and less money coming into the federal Treasury.

PRESIDENT BUSH EXPLAINS IT ALL: Confused about how President Bush's Social Security privatization proposal works? Here is his explanation: "Because the — all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those —  changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be —  or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled." (Thanks to Atrios.)

The Washington Post does another puff piece on Condi, Nobody's Archetype, that plays the race card in subtle, almost acceptable fashion. I say almost acceptable because the archetypes they list are female archetypes, not Black female...which is to say that they are valid observations and Condi does indeed step out of them. But the "Black" adjective strikes me as somewhat gratuitous when applied to a partisan of the color-blind Party of Lincoln.

Eugene Robinson, the author of the piece, hit four major sexist stereotypes.

There's "Angry Black Woman," personified by Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, the famous-for-being-famous contestant on Donald Trump's "The Apprentice."

This would be any assertive woman in a competitive hierarchy.

There's "Jezebel," perhaps the oldest and most insulting image of all -- think of Josephine Baker in Paris, dancing in her skirt of bananas.

This would be any woman in the mind of (sorry, guys...) any hetrosexual man that thinks he's in her "class."

There's "Earth Mother of Us All," which buys into the idea of black women as uniquely nurturing, patient, forgiving, supportive, long-suffering -- the notion that the black woman was put on Earth to atone for the sins of all the rest of us. (A subset image is "Nubian Queen.") Rice destroys this one.

My favorite observation. I got some non-Rice commentary on this nurturing woman thing working its way toward my fingertips.

The last one mentioned

There's "Black American Princess," and Rice flirts with this archetype -- the piano lessons in her childhood, the figure skating, the doting parents.

is, again, not specifically Black. In fact, the only stereotype specific to Black women (i.e., isn't a pure fusion of Black and female stereotype) is current in certain Black communities: "Complicit Pawn in the White Man's Campaign to Destroy The Black Male." I mention it only to disparage it thoroughly.

Anyway, all those images are more gendered than racialized...eliminate gender issues and these images would never arise, whereas disregarding race would leave The Bitch, The Harlot, MOMMY and Daddy's Girl. Props for ol' girl not getting caught up in all that. But I am wondering what was the point of the op-ed.

Quote of note:

"When you do something that is extremely harmful to both yourself and others, it's not a privacy issue — it's a matter of exercising some personal responsibility for your behavior," Climes said in the statement. "Michigan businesses, taxpayers and co-workers of smokers have the right to protect themselves from the horrendous damage caused by the self-destructive behavior of a small percentage of employees."

Where There's Smoke, It Wouldn't Lead to Firing
Michigan firm bans all nicotine use by workers. A state lawmaker wants to snuff out such rules.
By P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writer

February 8, 2005

CHICAGO   A Michigan state lawmaker said Monday that he planned to introduce a bill to bar companies from firing employees for smoking on their own time.

The proposed "lifestyle legislation" comes in response to a policy at Weyco Inc., an employee benefits firm in Okemos, Mich., near Lansing. On Jan. 1, Weyco began randomly testing its 200 workers for nicotine use, saying it would fire those who tested positive and refused to quit smoking.

Four Weyco employees have said they were let go under the policy.

"Two of those employees are my constituents, and they came to me asking for help," said state Sen. Virg Bernero, a Democrat from Lansing who plans to introduce his bill in the next three weeks.

If passed, Michigan would become one of the few states with a law expressly stating that employers could not fire or refuse to hire people for engaging in legal activities on their own time.

"I don't like smoking, but what this company is doing is just un-American," Bernero said. "These are things happening off duty . If it's legal to fire someone for smoking at home, what's next? A company that fires employees for having a couple beers during the Super Bowl because the boss is a teetotaler? Firing someone because they wear clothes on the weekend that the boss doesn't like?"

In a statement released Monday, Weyco Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes said smoking was clearly a health hazard, and that Bernero's legislation would make it more difficult for employers to control health costs.

'91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots
By Myron Levin
Times Staff Writer

February 8, 2005

A memo from Merck & Co. shows that, nearly a decade before the first public disclosure, senior executives were concerned that infants were getting an elevated dose of mercury in vaccinations containing a widely used sterilizing agent.

The March 1991 memo, obtained by The Times, said that 6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish.

"When viewed in this way, the mercury load appears rather large," said the memo from Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman, an internationally renowned vaccinologist. It was written to the president of Merck's vaccine division.

The memo was prepared at a time when U.S. health authorities were aggressively expanding their immunization schedule by adding five new shots for children in their first six months. Many of these shots, as well as some previously included on the vaccine schedule, contained thimerosal, an antibacterial compound that is nearly 50% ethyl mercury, a neurotoxin.

Federal health officials disclosed for the first time in 1999 that many infants were being exposed to mercury above health guidelines through routine vaccinations. The announcement followed a review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that was described at the time as a first effort to assess the cumulative mercury dose.

But the Merck memo shows that at least one major manufacturer was aware of the concern much earlier.

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Even with California Republicans confined to minority status in both the legislative and congressional delegations, many members would rather keep the existing lines than gamble on a plan that could plunk them in unfriendly districts where they would have trouble getting reelected.

GOP Fears a Redistricting Backfire
Schwarzenegger plan is seen as jeopardizing control of Congress.
By Peter Nicholas
Times Staff Writer

February 8, 2005

SACRAMENTO   Worried about losing clout in Congress, influential Republicans in Washington are telling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that he should drop his effort to redraw congressional voting districts in time for next year's elections and limit his focus to reshaping the state Legislature.

National Republican Party leaders   even Schwarzenegger's closest ally in the congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas)   are pressing the governor to exempt Congress from his map-making.

The fear is that tinkering with the California congressional boundaries could jeopardize Republican control of the U.S. House. By some estimates, the state's 20-person GOP congressional delegation opposes the governor's effort 4 to 1.

The Republican backlash underscores a reality of redistricting: What's most important to incumbents is ensuring their own survival. Even with California Republicans confined to minority status in both the legislative and congressional delegations, many members would rather keep the existing lines than gamble on a plan that could plunk them in unfriendly districts where they would have trouble getting reelected.

Schwarzenegger has made redistricting a centerpiece of his 2005 agenda, contending that the lines now drawn protect incumbents to such a degree that races are no longer competitive and parties stand virtually no chance of losing seats they control. He would sooner scuttle redistricting altogether than agree to a compromise in which Congress is spared, the governor's aides said recently.

Each Side to Call Truce in Middle East
At summit today, Palestinians are to declare an end to their uprising. Israel is to halt military activities in Gaza and the West Bank.
By Ken Ellingwood
Times Staff Writer

February 8, 2005

JERUSALEM   Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed to declare simultaneous cease-fires during today's summit in Egypt, a breakthrough that could end a bloody, four-year uprising and ease the way for more far-reaching steps toward peace.

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the two sides would not sign a truce but their actions would have the same effect. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is to announce an end to the uprising that began in September 2000, and Israel will halt its military activities if the Palestinian leadership makes good on its promise to crack down on armed militants, said the Sharon aide, Raanan Gissin.

Israel was also expected to formally announce that it would release 900 Palestinian prisoners and pull its troops from five West Bank cities, handing over security to Palestinian forces.

The agreed-upon gestures   and the air of cooperation that produced them   marked the most promising attempts at conciliation since the outbreak of the intifada, which has left more than 4,000 people dead, most of them Palestinians.

...I'll be watching the way comments are used.

Any link entered in the comments in any way (including via trackback) get the rel="nofollow" thing automatically without exception, so the site is of no use to comment spammers. Still, I got one of them. And I always watch conversations that start up in two-week-old posts. Add in one seriously juvenile bit of spew and the thought of allowing only registered folk to comment arises.

We got the Shirley Chisolm documentary, about her run for the Presidency, tonight on Channel 13 in New York.

"The Church in the Southern Black Community" collects autobiographies, biographies, church documents, sermons, histories, encyclopedias, and other published materials. These texts present a collected history of the way Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life. Coverage begins with white churches' conversion efforts, especially in the post-Revolutionary period, and depicts the tensions and contradictions between the egalitarian potential of evangelical Christianity and the realities of slavery. It focuses, through slave narratives and observations by other African American authors, on how the black community adapted evangelical Christianity, making it a metaphor for freedom, community, and personal survival.

So we know now Bush's private accounts will do exactly nothing to address any problem Social Security might have. This brings several questions and suggestions to mind.

1. If we are really concerned about Social Security, shouldn't we drop all discussion of private accounts until the economic issues are resolved?
2. Are George W. Bush's economic advisors so unknowledgeable that they didn't know private accounts wouldn't reduce Social Security's unfunded liabilities?
3. When did George W. Bush find out his suggestion would have no impact on the stability of Social Security?
4. When did George W. Bush's economic advisors find out his suggestion would have no impact on the stability of Social Security?
5. Did George W. Bush talk to his economic advisors before going public with his suggestion?

It seems Bush and Co. are either too unknowledgeable to make good decisions (and you were warned, remember) or they knew the impact of their privatization plan would be nothing like what they claimed (and there is precedent for this possibility as well).

Either they didn't know and should have, or knew and claimed otherwise.

Any other options?

Same day I see the puff piece on Condi's (hey, the title is for serious discussions) love of football, Zenpundit speculates on a presidential run.

Might as well run Alan Keyes.

She'd get the Republican version of the Dean treatment at best. It will be discussed so folks can feel all warm and multiculturally color-blind. But as the primaries progressed they'd realize she "can't win." All those racist Democrats would crawl out of the woodwork to vote against her, you see.

Or worse, everyone would mouth the right words all the way up to election day, like they did in New York when David Dinkins first ran against Rudolph Giuliani. And great hordes of Southerners would just not vote.

from Diminished By Discrimination We Scarcely See

Discrimination isn't a thunderbolt, it isn't an abrupt slap in the face. It's the slow drumbeat of being underappreciated, feeling uncomfortable and encountering roadblocks along the path to success. These subtle distinctions help make women feel out of place.

I'd been told, from graduate school on, that I'd have no trouble getting ahead: I was a woman, people would come after me. When they didn't, I subliminally absorbed the idea that I wasn't good enough. But was it possible that all the women getting physics and astronomy degrees from top institutions weren't good enough? I saw precious few being hired into faculty jobs.

When I told my thesis adviser I was pregnant, he said, "So, you want to have it all!" I smiled but later thought, Wait a minute, isn't that what all you guys have? Why is it "all" for me and "normal" for you?

But feeling out of place over and over again eventually soaks in; it did for me. About a decade ago, frustrated and alienated, I approached the director of my institution to ask about special management training for women: Maybe there were tips that would help me navigate the foreign waters in which I found myself. He didn't seem to understand. I said, "You know, it's like being the red fish in the sea of blue fish -- I want to understand the blue-fish rules." "Oh," he answered. "Maybe it's not your lack of training, Meg, maybe it's just your difficult personality."

They were "good," even "very good" but the men were always better. Some of this was caused by letters of recommendation. Every woman was always compared to other women, as if every woman scientist is female first and a scientist second. Also, women's letters were somehow more pedestrian -- the candidate "works hard" and she "has a nice personality," "gets along well with others." Once you see the patterns, you realize that these evaluations reflect people's expectations more than reality.

Team Rice, Playing Away
Will State's Head Coach Miss Her First Kickoff?
By Dale Russakoff

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 6, 2005; Page D01

Condoleezza Rice's first overseas trip as secretary of state may coincide with a moment of historic opportunity in the Middle East, but the timing couldn't be worse for her inner football fanatic. Since the dawn of the Super Bowl, when Rice was 12, she never has missed a kickoff. For 38 Super Bowl Sundays, she was in the stands or glued to a television, most of them beside her father and football mentor, the late John W. Rice.

But Super Bowl XXXIX will find the new secretary of state in Jerusalem, where it will be 1:30 a.m. Monday at kickoff time. "Unless she can find an all-night sports bar in the West Bank, she may have to miss it," laments Carmen Policy, a close friend and former president of Rice's favorite team, the Cleveland Browns.

Quote of note:

Tax increases -- more accurately, undoing the reckless tax cuts that account for a good portion of the current constraints -- are, unfortunately, off the political table.

That is unacceptable.

Were I arguing the Democratic case I'd remind folks we're at war, and we all much make sacrifices in such times. The middle and lower class are sacrificing their lives and their childrens' lives, their financial well-being...I would go so far as to say their critical intelligence but I don't think that would fly. But we know what the lower and middle classes are sacrificing.

What sacrifice is being offered by the wealthy?

Because they own so much of the USofA they benefit more from its safety and should be willing to pay for that protection.

Anyway...

Remember the Poor
Monday, February 7, 2005; Page A20

BETWEEN 2000 and 2003, the number of people living in poverty rose 14 percent. In 2003, the most recent year for which numbers are available, one out of every eight Americans was poor, a disproportionate number of them children. The number without health insurance was the highest on record; more Americans went hungry. The poorest fell further below the poverty line while the richest took home a greater share of national income than ever.

We recite these depressing numbers today, as President Bush prepares to unveil his fiscal 2006 budget, because budgets are not only dry, fact-choked documents but a measure of the national character. These are the budgetary times that try the nation's soul: tax cuts that have drained the available revenue; a deficit that demands austerity; a war on terrorism, at home and abroad, that requires resources to keep the country safe. In the face of this unhappy fiscal reality, the risk is that the budget ax will fall most heavily on the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, those with the greatest need for government help but the smallest voice in the corridors of power.

U.S. HIV Cases Soaring Among Black Women
Social Factors Make Group Vulnerable
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 7, 2005; Page A01

...That development, epidemiologists say, is attributable to socioeconomic and demographic conditions specific to many African American communities. Black neighborhoods, they say, are more likely to be plagued by joblessness, poverty, drug use and a high ratio of women to men, a significant portion of whom cycle in and out of a prison system where the rate of HIV infection is estimated to be as much as 10 times higher than in the general population.

For black women, the result has been devastating, said Debra Fraser-Howze, founding president and CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.

"We should be very afraid," she said. "We should be afraid and we should be planning. What are we going to do when these women get sick? Most of these women don't even know they're HIV-positive. What are we going to do with these children? When women get sick, there is no one left to take care of the family."

Quote of note:

Four or five other members of the 105th who were spectators received counseling, Johnson said.

I can't imaging what girlie had under her shirt that made four or five people need counceling.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous.

Anyway...

Guard Member Demoted for Mud Wrestling
- By MARTHA WAGGONER, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, February 6, 2005

(02-06) 19:24 PST Raleigh, NC (AP) --

A female member of a National Guard military police unit was demoted for indecent exposure after a mud-wrestling party at the Army-run Camp Bucca detention center in Iraq, a military spokesman said Sunday.

The party occurred Oct. 30, as the 160th Military Police Battalion, an Army Reserve Unit from Tallahassee, Fla., prepared to turn over its duties to the Asheville-based 105th Military Police Battalion, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for detainee operations at Camp Bucca.

In the course of the transfer of duties, "some individuals in their exuberance decided to put together a mud-wrestling thing," Johnson said Sunday by telephone. "There were females involved, and some members of the 105th also became involved, one female soldier in particular."

Following an inquiry, that soldier was demoted and placed on restriction for participating in the event, specifically for indecent exposure, he said.

Actually, it's the same reason.

Anyway...

The Right's Attack on Public Pensions
By Phil Angelides
Phil Angelides is treasurer of the state of California.

February 7, 2005

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says getting rid of public pension plans for California's state and local government workers is about helping to balance the budget. Peel back the budget wrapping on his plan, though, and you will find the governor's real agenda: the California prong of a national attack on the pension funds that have stood up for corporate reform and the interests of ordinary families and investors hurt by the recent wave of corporate scandal.

The governor has proposed privatizing government pension plans and replacing them with individual 401(k)-style private accounts. His proposal strikes at the power of public pension funds, which have used their financial clout to protect the retirement savings of 2 million Californians   teachers, police officers and other public servants.

The governor says his proposal is necessary because pension costs are out of control. Pension costs are certainly worthy of public debate, but his plan requires running two pension systems: one for current workers, a second for new workers. That would cost California taxpayers billions more in years to come   $5.9 billion in the first 10 years in the California State Teachers' Retirement System alone. Tellingly, even four of the governor's own six appointees to the teachers retirement fund oppose his proposal.

Why this proposal then? Because for the right-wing ideologues behind his plan, the issue is not saving money. It is about draining public pension funds of their clout.

As recent news reports explain, the driving force behind the proposed pension ban is the same crew of "anti-tax advocates, free-market enthusiasts and Wall Street interests" that is pushing President Bush's Social Security privatization plan. They include Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, and Stephen Moore, president of the Free Enterprise Fund. They see the governor's proposal as "one of our highest priorities," and the governor agrees. "This is a national battle," he told reporters as he laid out his plans to collect millions of dollars from wealthy out-of-state political contributors.

Across the country, the governor's ideological soul mates are targeting public pension funds for elimination because those funds   with the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System at the forefront   have stood up for ordinary investors against the rampant corporate abuses.

"Just 115 people control $1 trillion in these funds," Norquist said. "We want to take that power and destroy it." What bothers him and others is that these funds have rallied other institutional investors to protect the market from abuses and fraud and to support such corporate reforms as linking executive pay to performance, requiring auditor independence, separating stock analysis from investment banking at financial firms, ending insider trading at mutual funds and opening corporate board elections to shareholders.

Moore calls such actions a "witch hunt against corporate excess and corporate accounting scandals," as if the abuses at companies like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco had never happened. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which also supports the governor's attack on pension funds, denigrates the corporate reform efforts as "straying from bottom line of the benefit of members."

But protecting the bottom line for members is precisely the goal of the corporate reform movement. To ensure long-term returns and reduce risk, large pension funds must invest to mirror markets. When scandal hits those markets, the pension funds   made up of taxpayers, teachers, police and firefighters   get hurt. CalPERS and the teachers retirement fund lost more than $1 billion in the WorldCom and Enron frauds.

In pursuing corporate reform, the pension funds are operating not just in their own self-defense. They are also giving a powerful voice in the boardrooms to the interests of millions of families that have invested their savings in the markets.

That's why the governor and his right-wing ideologues have targeted the pension funds: not because the funds have strayed, but because they are leading the fight on behalf of ordinary shareholders to put transparency and accountability back into American capitalism.

Rumsfeld's Nuclear Genie
February 7, 2005

In his State of the Union speech, President Bush declared that he will contain the budget deficit and pursue peaceful diplomacy to end the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's insistence on reviving a wasteful and dangerous nuclear program undermines both goals.

Last year, at the urging of Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, Congress slashed all funding for Rumsfeld's pet project   studying how to build a nuclear weapon capable of penetrating hardened underground targets. Ever since, administration hawks have been howling that the United States would be imperiled without the "bunker buster" weapons.

As the Pentagon has acknowledged, Rumsfeld sent a memo last month to outgoing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging him to restore funds for the program in next year's budget.

The administration is stressing that the study is a research program and that Congress would have to give the go-ahead for actually building bunker busters. But its efforts make a mockery of U.S. attempts to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the globe. How can the administration plausibly claim that it wants to halt the spread of these weapons even as it seeks to invent new ones and drastically lower the threshold for using them?

Quote of note:

Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force. Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions, including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug.

Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of the medications.

Their drugs of choice
Teens are turning to Vicodin, Ritalin and other easily obtained prescription pills.
By Daniel Costello
Times Staff Writer

February 7, 2005

Ryan Smith remembers the night, during his junior year of high school, when a friend gave him his first Vicodin. "It felt so incredible. I remember thinking, 'I am going to do this for the rest of my life,' " he says.

Over the next year, Smith, now 22, and his friends moved on to other pills   Xanax, Valium, OxyContin and the attention deficit disorder medication Adderall, called "kiddie cocaine" for its ability to be crushed and snorted. "At the time, it felt like I knew more kids who were doing pills than who weren't," he says of his Utah high school days.

Daniel Smith, his younger brother, began using prescription drugs the same way when a friend offered him Vicodin while watching a school football game during his sophomore year. By that summer, he began taking "weak painkillers" such as Lortab and Percocet. Finally, he turned to highly addictive OxyContin, using it several times a week.

Although the brothers eventually went through an addiction program, they never considered themselves "druggies." They were using pills safe enough to be used by millions of Americans, drugs both legal and easy to get. Each generation typically finds a new illicit drug to make its own: LSD in the '70s, cocaine in the '80s and Ecstasy and heroin in the '90s. Today's middle and high school students are experimenting with prescription drugs.

Their drugs of choice are those often preferred by adults. After amphetamines such as Ritalin, they're turning to painkillers such as Vicodin and Percocet, then sedatives and tranquilizers. With illicit use tied to availability, California's share of the problem is considerable. Californians account for both 8% of the nation's population and 8% of the nation's prescription drug use.

Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force. Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions, including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug.

Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of the medications.

As prescription drug sales have soared   up nearly 400% since 1990   prescription medication has become the fastest-growing category of drugs being abused, with the biggest growth of abuse among people ages 12 to 24, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. After marijuana, prescription drugs are the drugs most commonly abused by teenagers, the federal agency says.

Quote of note:

Some board members now are questioning the decision to equip classrooms with the costly Waterford computers. With $50 million, the district could have built three new elementary schools, kept primary grade class sizes at 20 students for a year or refurbished all middle and high school science labs.

Reading Program Didn't Boost Skills
L.A. Unified's nearly $50-million Waterford computer system comes into question.
By Duke Helfand
Times Staff Writer

February 7, 2005

The Los Angeles Unified School District spent nearly $50 million on a computer reading program that failed to improve student reading skills and in some cases hindered achievement because schools did not use it properly, according to records and interviews.

The district bought the Waterford Early Reading Program four years ago to supplement language arts instruction in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms.

Supt. Roy Romer, calling Waterford "the Cadillac of all systems," promoted it as a promising new tool for raising test scores at low-performing elementary schools with large numbers of children who spoke limited English.

But two district evaluations found that teachers didn't have enough time for the demands of the computer program as they struggled to cover a rigorous reading curriculum, introduced by the district only a year before. Teachers were forced to devote most of their mornings, and some afternoons, to those scripted lesson plans.

Many teachers, moreover, did not know how to fully use the Waterford system, which came with computers, videos, booklets and additional materials. Other instructors couldn't use it because the computers froze or headsets broke.

In their 2002 and 2003 reports, the district researchers found that Waterford made no difference for students who used the program, and that it had a "negative impact" on some kindergartners whose teachers were using it in place of their primary reading lessons.

These findings and others were presented to school board members and senior district officials last year. As a result, the district ordered schools to drop Waterford from daily language arts instruction and instead reserve it only for students who needed extra help.

It seems impossible for them to unscrew their lips enough to let the truth pass through.

Bush's Deficit Plan Is All in the Math
The budget strategy to halve the shortfall by 2009 relies on how and what things are counted.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer

February 7, 2005

WASHINGTON   The budget President Bush will present to Congress today will show the federal deficit cut in half by the time he leaves office in four years.

At least technically it will.

... It is the 2004 deficit that Bush is promising to cut in half, but he's not starting with the actual 2004 deficit of $412 billion.

Instead, his benchmark is the projected $521-billion deficit that his Office of Management and Budget estimated a year ago, when the fiscal year was four months old. Using half of that figure, Bush's goal is to reach a deficit of $260.5 billion.

If Bush were to start with the actual 2004 figure, his goal would be a deficit of $206 billion   $54.5 billion more.

There are more twists. Bush proposes to cut the deficit in half not in dollars but as a share of the economy. If the economy grows, as is projected, then the deficit will decline as a share of the economy even if it does not shrink by a single dollar.

The 2004 deficit was 4.5% of the economy. So in fiscal 2009 it must be 2.2% or less. That is exactly the average share of the last 43 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Finally, the budget that the president will send to Congress will, like his past budgets, omit some major deficit-raising items.

Bush's budget axe to fall on poor
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday February 7, 2005
The Guardian

President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early reports of today's White House budget.

In an attempt to keep government spending under control at a time of record deficits, Mr Bush's proposals to Congress will include cuts in public housing subsidies, in health projects aimed at diseases related to poverty, and in food stamps, which help America's poorest buy groceries.

Mr Bush inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton but is now running deficits of over $400bn (£215bn) a year, partly as a result of an economic slump and the September 11 attacks. But the turnaround is also due to huge tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans, and the war in Iraq, for which the administration has asked for another $80bn this year.

Some state governments provide food stamps not only to families on welfare but also to those receiving job-related aid such as for childcare. The new budget would restrict that practice, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

A programme that helps the poor pay heating bills is to be cut by more than 8%, while 18 housing and community programmes will be consolidated with total savings of about 40% - almost $3bn.

The administration has also said it will save $60bn over 10 years on the Medicaid programme, which provides health services to the poor. It argues that the savings will largely come from administrative costs, but there will be severe cuts in several health programmes.

I wonder if the White House sent out a list of issues Rumsfeld must be asked about. I believe Meet the Press not only asked about the same issues, they asked about them in the same order.

Senator McCain ended his interview, which was filled with not-quite-answers about hi sposition on the Social Security thing, with the expected "What's your alternative?"

In my opinion the alternative is reverse the tax cut on the top 1% (or less!) of income earners.

And I like what Congressman Pelosi did in her interview. She would not be driven off her policy positions, and she didn't let herself become the focus...all without being evasive.

Rumsfeld was Rumsfeld.

Quote of note:

When asked what would happen to the people who would not have enough income to avoid poverty, the administration official said, "I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question."

Read the Fine Print

The more we learn, the worse it gets.

Last Wednesday, as President Bush prepped for his State of the Union address, a White House official gave reporters a background briefing on some of the details of Mr. Bush's Social Security privatization plan. Almost point for point, whatever the president said that sounded good sounded bad when the details were filled in.

For instance, Mr. Bush said, "Personal accounts are a better deal," because "your money will grow, over time, at a greater rate than anything the current system can deliver." But the privatized system actually contains hidden costs that could leave retirees with less. Your Social Security benefit would be reduced, dollar for dollar, by the amount of money you deposit into your private account and an additional charge amounting to 3 percent plus the rate of inflation. All the money that is drained off would presumably go to pay for the enormous upfront government borrowing - $4.5 trillion over the next 20 years - that privatization would require.

That means people whose private accounts steadily earned three percentage points over inflation throughout their working lives would wind up with exactly what they would have gotten if Social Security remained untouched. Anyone who earned less than that would end up with less than is offered by the current system. When asked what would happen to the people who would not have enough income to avoid poverty, the administration official said, "I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question."

The benefit cut is only the beginning. There is still the problem of strengthening Social Security's finances. On its own, establishing private accounts does nothing to solve the long-term shortfall in the system. The president alluded to this fact when he said, "We must pass reforms that solve the financial problems of Social Security." He dutifully listed various benefit cuts that would do the trick, without taking the politically risky step of endorsing any of them.

Neither the president nor his aides have been willing to acknowledge the extent of benefit cuts that would be needed. And no wonder: All in all, they would leave the average worker with a government benefit worth only about 10 percent of his or her preretirement earnings. (Currently, Social Security replaces about 35 percent, on average.)

If Profits Grow, How Can the Market Sink?
By MARK HULBERT

Published: February 6, 2005

...The reason that the overall market usually fails to react more favorably to rapidly rising earnings is not that earnings growth is bearish itself. The problem, the professors say, is that such growth usually leads to higher interest rates. When rates rise, the net present value of future earnings, cash flow and dividends automatically falls, and this generally causes the market to decline.

The professors say the Federal Reserve is unlikely to feel pressure to raise rates when just one company reports better-than-expected earnings. So the company's profit growth can be expected to translate into a higher stock price. But the Fed will certainly feel that pressure when aggregate market earnings rise quickly.

To be sure, the professors' findings are based on a long-term average, and exceptions are inevitable. One occurred in the last couple of years, when earnings grew at a double-digit rate and the overall market performed well, too. But Professor Lewellen says that this recent experience is "the exception that proves the rule," because the Fed kept interest rates artificially low over much of this period. That prevented the fast growth of marketwide earnings from having usual negative consequences.

The powerful role of interest rates in the stock market's valuation also explains why the market tends to perform best when aggregate corporate earnings are falling. Ned Davis Research says that since 1927, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has risen at a 28 percent annualized rate - nearly triple its historical average - during quarters in which earnings were 10 to 25 percent lower than where they were in the periods a year earlier.

This bullish effect vanishes, however, when earnings are falling too much. Ned Davis Research found that during those few quarters since 1927 when earnings were more than 25 percent below their year-earlier levels, the S.& P. 500 declined at a rate of 28 percent, annualized. Professor Lewellen says that this is consistent with the results of his research. "The positive effects of lower interest rates, though strong enough to overcome the negative consequences of more modest declines," he said, "are unable to overcome them when earnings are falling by a huge amount."

Business Files Its Objections to State's Hunt for Back Taxes
By Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher
Times Staff Writers

February 6, 2005

SACRAMENTO   Business groups are pushing to scale back a new state law that imposes stiff penalties on taxpayers who do not pay all they owe.

The law parallels an aggressive move by tax officials to collect back taxes from tens of thousands of delinquent California residents and businesses. Under its terms, tougher penalties than any the state has ever imposed will apply to tax dodgers who do not come clean during a two-month amnesty that ends March 31.

Supporters of the program say scaling it back would cost the state too much. The face-off highlights a deep split in Sacramento over how aggressively the state should go after suspected tax cheats.

Corporations and anti-tax groups are promoting emergency legislation to narrow the scope of the law and soften   if not eliminate   some of the fines. The administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in discussions with the business groups about backing the legislation or asking tax officials to make some businesses exempt from penalties.