Science Friday: Oil & Water

by DarkSyde Fri Jul 14, 2006 at 03:53:44 AM PDT

Last Tuesday on Hardball, former GOP campaign manager and current neocon apologist Terry Jeffrey mentioned several times that [paraphrasing] "There's more oil off the coast of the US than in all the Middle East." Mr. Jeffrey then went on to take a shot at 'flaky environmentalists' for not developing these allegedly vast domestic energy treasures. Perhaps Mr. Jeffrey is simply misinformed or maybe he was too hemmed in by the constraints of commercial television to elaborate. But odds are he was also shilling for the DOER:

The Oil Drum--On June 29th, the House of Representatives passed the Deep Ocean Energy Resources (DOER) act. This bill may be taken up by the Senate soon. The legislation is now in the news and the mudslinging has begun. Conservative organizations and media like the Washington Times are pushing the main agenda, which is to open up areas of the US Outer Continental Shelf to oil & natural gas E&P.

The nearer the oil is to the surface, and the easier it flows through the formation containing it, the cheaper it is to extract. The larger and thicker the formation that contains the oil, the longer that reservoir will produce and thus the more profitable it will be. The largest such reservoir in the world is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia. It is an enormous field, the crown jewel in earth's energy treasure chest. Ghawar has produced several million barrels of oil a day for fifty years. It will continue to produce significantly for many years to come. But there are signs Ghawar may be at or near peak production.

Secret CIA Report: We can't even Disrupt Al-Qaeda AT GITMO!

by Magorn Fri Jul 14, 2006 at 02:31:26 PM PDT

Apparently, if we are bent on disrupting the activities of Al-Qaeda all over the world, we're going to have to start 80 miles off of Key West.

The Smoking Gun isn't known as a major font of investigative journalism, but today they dropped a doozy. Featured on their site is a 12 page Secret CIA report about terrorist organizations in prisons, and specifically how Al-Qaeda has created a highly efficent organization INSIDE CAMP X-RAY ITSELF!

The report, prepared in August 2002 by the CIA Counterterrorist Center's Office of Terrorism Analysis, concluded that while detainees at Guantanamo Bay facilities were organizing and communicating in accordance with al-Qaeda training methods, U.S. officials were hamstrung to counter these moves without the aid of "inside sources."

Little Tip for the fellas at Gitmo? This is going to come as shock to you, but it's awful hard to motivate someone to risk his life to help you when you are hooking electrodes up to his genitalia or "waterboarding" him every day. People seem to resent that for some reason.

A VOICE HAS BEEN SOUNDING! Krugman has heard that same odd chatter about this great economy

FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2006

A VOICE HAS BEEN SOUNDING: All around him, Paul Krugman has heard that voice sounding too—the same strange voice we’ve recorded this week. In this morning’s Times, he records a form of the odd conversation we’ve discussed for the past two days. Here’s how he starts his column:

KRUGMAN (7/14/06): I'd like to say that there's a real dialogue taking place about the state of the U.S. economy, but the discussion leaves a lot to be desired. In general, the conversation sounds like this:

Bush supporter: ''Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias.''

Informed economist: ''But it's not a great economy for most Americans. Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent people are doing really well.''

Bush supporter: ''Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias.”

This conversation differs slightly from the one we’ve recorded. In Krugman’s variant, “Bush supporters” blame the public’s weird negativity on that ol’ debbil, media bias. By way of contrast, we have described Bush supporters (Jack Welch) and millionaire pundits (Chris Matthews) blaming the public’s negativity on something a little bit different. Why do voters rate the economy low? They have the economy confused with Iraq, Welch and Matthews told us on Wednesday (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/13/06). Meanwhile, mainstream reporter (for example, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of Krugman’s own Times) have also seemed completely puzzled by the public’s negative outlook. Why doesn’t Bush get credit for a great economy? Stolberg pretty much couldn’t guess (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/12/06).

Another Stab at the Truth

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 14, 2006; 1:26 PM

There are some hugely important aspects of the Bush presidency that remain insufficiently examined, and the most important are about the run-up to war in Iraq.

Polls show that a majority of Americans believe President Bush and his associates intentionally misled the public in making their case for war. It's a terribly serious charge, if true. In fact, it's hard to imagine a more serious charge against a president.

Public Schools Beat Private Ones in Study

The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.

POLICE STATE: Interview With Greg Palast

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His investigative journalism and television reports are frequently seen in the U.K.’s Observer and BBC’s Newsnight. In the U.S. he is virtually banned from the mainstream media, but can be found in Harper’s Magazine and throughout the Internet. Fresh back from his investigations into Mexico’s recent election, Palast just dropped us a line to fill us in on the news that you won’t hear from Anderson Cooper and the rest of the newsroom hairdo gang.

Interviewed by Dustin Glick

NYI: Do you feel that the U.S. has become a police state?

Greg Palast: Well, if you’re in Guantanamo, it’s a police state for you. Whatever happened to the story about the people being held incommunicado in the United States? What was it, 1,100 the ACLU was trying to uncover? The story just disappeared. So whoever was rotting in jail is still rotting. Now as for the war on terror, hey I have no problem going after Saudi Arabian hijackers, but I don’t see any investigation going in that direction. And by the way, that whole checking the checking accounts thing — believe it or not, Bin Laden doesn’t use his ATM card now. He has a feeling that they’re watching the checking accounts. This is bullshit — that’s not how they move their money and they know it. This is not part of the war on terror, it’s part of the war on democracy.

Crucial Background on Gaza and Lebanon

Here is a short, easy-to-read page, with links to more information, produced by the Institute for Public Accuracy.

What Barack Obama Needs To Learn From Richard Hofstadter, Abraham Lincoln and FDR

(Guest posted by Big Tent Democrat)

Richard Hofstadter was the most perceptive observer of our political history since DeToqueville. So perceptive was Hofstadter that even though he passed away 36 years ago, he still is more clear headed and penetrating than some of our finest current historians. Professor Sean Wilentz, one of our finest living historians and an extremely gifted writer, has written a wonderful quasi-review of a newly released biography of Hofstadter by David S. Brown that demonstrates his gifts while also showing that even the best we have today do not measure up to Hofstadter. Even Wilentz graciously recognizes this:

David S. Brown claims in this illuminating biography, Hofstadter retains an enormous mystique today, thirty-six years after his death from leukemia at the age of fifty-four. Phrases and concepts that Hofstadter invented to describe and to analyze American politics--"status anxiety," "the paranoid style"-- remain in currency among high-end journalists and pundits. His best books, The American Political Tradition and The Age of Reform, remain on graduate reading lists decades after their publication, models of dazzling prose and interpretive acuity. All but one of his half-dozen other major works remain in print.

Digby - 07/14/06

Middle Aged Delinquent

Can't somebody medicate him?

With the world's most perplexing problems weighing on him, President Bush has sought comic relief in a certain pig.

This is the wild game boar that German chef Olaf Micheel bagged for Bush and served Thursday evening at a barbecue in Trinwillershagen, a tiny town on the Baltic Sea.

The Good News

In case you missed it:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombs and mortars struck Shiite and Sunni mosques in the Baghdad area Friday, the latest in a week of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks that have killed more than 250 people.

The deadliest explosion came as worshippers left services at a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding five, police said.

The Wilsons R Us

John Amato has the video of Joe and Valerie Wilson's press conference this morning. It's quite moving seeing Valerie Wilson speak. She is a very impressive person. You can't help but be struck by what a travesty it is that the administration was willing to destroy her career and weaken our national security for political purposes.


He Went Too Far

I wonder what would be happening in Mississippi right now if Trent Lott were more popular among Democrats than Republicans? Do you think the Mississippi Republicans would be happy?


Planning Is For Losers

That commie outfit, the non-partisan Congressional Government Accountability Office, has analyzed the Bush administration plan in Iraq. Naturally, being terrorist lovers, they found that the plan was a complete failure.

The report is worth reading, but it's written in bureaucratese which makes it something of a challenge to those of us whose first language is English.


War Cry

I haven't had the guts to listen to FoxNews this morning, but I've been tuned in to CNN. According to their latest chyron, "the middle east is hurtling out of control." There are breathless teasers: "Were the missiles made in Iran???!!!" They have sent in Anderson Cooper (and he looks just fabulous in his desert gear.) New logos are being designed as we speak. Eric Boehlert notes this oddity in CNN coverage.


You Go First

Here's one of those cases where moral authority really comes in handy:

President Bush told Lebanon's leader on Friday that he would urge Israel to limit civilian casualties as it steps up attacks on its neighbor, a promise that fell short of Beirut's calls for a cease-fire.

Stabbed in the Back!: The past and future of a right-wing myth

Posted on Friday, July 14, 2006. Originally from June 2006. By Kevin Baker.

Sources

First drink, hero, from my horn:
I spiced the draught well for you
To waken your memory clearly
So that the past shall not slip your mind!

—Hagen to Siegfried
Die Götterdämmerung

Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is why, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies.

Paul Krugman: Left Behind Economics

Published: July 14, 2006

I'd like to say that there's a real dialogue taking place about the state of the U.S. economy, but the discussion leaves a lot to be desired. In general, the conversation sounds like this:

Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias."

Informed economist: "But it's not a great economy for most Americans. Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent people are doing really well."

Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias."

Cursor's Media Patrol - 07/14/06

"Nothing is safe" warned Israel's military chief of staff, as Israel continued bombing and blockading Lebanon, and Hezbollah "loosed a hail of rockets" into Israel amid fears that "events in the Middle East are designed to spiral out of control, right into Persia."

Secretary of State Rice is rumored to have been told to "back off," after she asked Israel "to exercise restraint," and Sen. Chuck Hagel tells Larry King that "at the most dangerous time maybe we have seen ever in the Middle East," it's a job for Colin Powell, not Rice. Plus: Noam Chomsky warns of "extreme disaster."

U.N. Ambassador John Bolton casts a lone veto against a resolution condemning Israel for the current violence in Gaza, pronouncing it "unbalanced," and Dan Froomkin catches 'Bush the bystander,' who was in Germany to meet a friend, replying to a question about Lebanon with "I thought you were going to ask me about the pig."

Salon reports that Rumsfeld has until 5 p.m. Friday "to hand over a raft of documents to Congress that could substantiate allegations that U.S. forces have tried to break terror suspects by kidnapping and mistreating their family members."

Sen. Arlen Specter's 'compromise' on warrantless wiretapping leads Glenn Greenwald to object that it "repeals each and every restriction on the President's ability to eavesdrop, all but forecloses judicial challenges, and endorses the very theory of unlimited executive power which Hamdan just days ago rejected." Plus: Monitoring political opponents?

Congress renews the Voting Rights Act without amendment, despite the opposition of 33 Republicans, one of whom is said to have recently drawn an analogy between immigrants and livestock.

In 'Left Behind Economics' Paul Krugman argues that despite the education myth, "it's a great economy if you're a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport."

Billmon: The Oil Card

Oil hit $78 a barrel today, and Bloomberg News is quoting analysts saying it could soon go to $100. As of this writing, the Dow is down 130 points. The Japanese, with their usual exquisite sense of timing, just raised interest rates for the first time in the professional lives of many Wall Street traders. Retail sales are down, consumer confidence is down. In other words, the financial markets are having another very bad, horrible, no good day -- as is the Cheney administration.

This has political as well as economic significance, I think. Also diplomatic. For the first time since I don't know when -- the early '70s, I guess -- something is standing in the way of the customary U.S. kneejerk support for Israel. The higher gas prices go, and the lower the 401(k) portfolios of the masses drop, the dicier it gets for the GOP in its desperate struggle to stave off an eruption of democracy in our Chamber of People's Deputies (i.e. to preserve its death grip on congressional power.)

What's Rove Got to Do With It?

By Robert Parry
July 13, 2006

Right-wing columnist Robert D. Novak’s confirmation that White House political adviser Karl Rove was one of his sources for identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer leaves unresolved two other troubling questions – who passed this sensitive information to Rove and why was Rove cut in on such a discrete intelligence secret.

A key national security principle for dealing with narrow life-or-death secrets, such as the identity of an undercover CIA officer, is compartmentalization. It’s not just whether officials have the appropriate level of security clearance; they also must have a “need to know.”

The 'Times' Is Us

Eric Alterman

Mainstream media coverage conveys the impression that the Administration's attacks on the New York Times were motivated by the paper's 3,550-word story detailing US attempts to track terrorist financing methods, published despite an official request for self-censorship. In fact, they constitute another front in the Bush (& Co.) war on the press. And once again many members of the media have enlisted as apparatchiks in undermining their own putative profession, preferring ideology to independence and access to accountability.

Remember: The Administration has been bragging about its post-9/11 money-tracking efforts for years. The UN Al Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Group discussed it in its December 2002 report to the Security Council, and former State Department official Victor Comras explained that "the information was fairly well known by terrorism financing experts back in 2002." "Quite frankly, I don't think the terrorists were tipped off to anything," said Ron Paul, like Bush a Texas Republican.

'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon

'End times' religious groups want apocalypse sooner than later, and they're relying on high tech -- and red heifers -- to hasten its arrival.

By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer
June 22, 2006

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah.

Baghdad starts to collapse as its people flee a life of death

By James Hider, of The Times, from Baghdad

As I hung up the phone, I wondered if I would ever see my friend Ali alive again. Ali, The Times translator for the past three years, lives in west Baghdad, an area that is now in meltdown as a bitter civil war rages between Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. It is, quite simply, out of control.

I returned to Baghdad on Monday after a break of several months, during which I too was guilty of glazing over every time I read another story of Iraqi violence. But two nights on the telephone, listening to my lost and frightened Iraqi staff facing death at any moment, persuaded me that Baghdad is now verging on total collapse.

NASA explains puzzling impact of polluted skies on climate

NASA scientists have determined that the formation of clouds is affected by the lightness or darkness of air pollution particles. This also impacts Earth's climate.

In a breakthrough study published today in the online edition of Science, scientists explain why aerosols -- tiny particles suspended in air pollution and smoke -- sometimes stop clouds from forming and in other cases increase cloud cover. Clouds not only deliver water around the globe, they also help regulate how much of the sun's warmth the planet holds. The capacity of air pollution to absorb energy from the sun is the key.

President’s Claim That Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves Refuted By Administration’s Own Analysis

By James Horney

In remarks on July 11 touting revised deficit projections in the Mid-Session Review of the Budget, President Bush once again claimed that tax cuts pay for themselves:

“Some in Washington say we had to choose between cutting taxes and cutting the deficit….Today’s numbers show that that was a false choice. The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring. That’s what has happened.”[1]

These remarks mirror previous statements by the President, the Vice-President, and key Congressional leaders that the increase in revenues in 2005 and the increase now projected for 2006 prove that tax cuts “pay for themselves” — that the economy expands so much as a result of tax cuts that it produces the same level of revenue as it would have without the tax cuts.[2]

Paul Krugman: The New York Paradox

The New York Times
Published: July 10, 2006

I live and work in New Jersey, but I've always loved the energy and variety of the city that's just an hour's train ride away. So I was happy to read in The New York Times about a New York success story: the surprising resurgence of Manhattan as a site for corporate headquarters.

What's interesting about the corporate return to Manhattan is that it flies in the face of today's conventional wisdom, which says that modern technology is making geography irrelevant. Since work can now be done anywhere, the story goes, jobs move wherever the wages and other costs of doing business are lowest. And this should mean trouble for a high-wage, high-cost location like New York.

But somebody forgot to tell New York about the new rules: in spite of high costs, the city's economy is thriving.

Glenn Greenwald: Prominent right-wing blogger today calls for the murder of Supreme Court Justices - the Right fails to condemn it

If your only source for news was reading right-wing blogs, you would have thought that the most significant world event in the last few days was that some crazy woman who nobody ever heard of before (someone by the name of "Deb Frisch") left some vile comments on Jeff Goldstein's blog, a venue which itself is devoted to some of the most vile, deranged and psychosexually disturbed commentary that can be found on the Internet. Virtually every right-wing blogger spent the weekend focused on this solemn and grave matter, milking it for all it was worth. Many implied that this unknown commenter was some sort of towering figure of great significance among liberals, and exploited the drama to argue that the "Left" must approve of these comments because they didn't denounce the comments enough times or with enough vigor.

Novak's "tell all" Plame column revealed little new, contained more falsehoods, distortions, and contradictions

Summary: In his latest column, Bob Novak purported to discuss his role in the federal investigation into the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, but instead of providing the answer to perhaps the most enduring mystery in this case -- the identity of his original source -- he repeated a number of false and contradictory statements regarding the investigation and the manner in which he learned of Plame's identity.

In his July 12 nationally syndicated column, Fox News political analyst Robert D. Novak claimed to make good on his promise to discuss his role in the federal investigation into the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. But he did not provide the answer to perhaps the most enduring mystery in this case -- the identity of his original source -- and repeated false and contradictory statements regarding the investigation and the manner in which he learned of Plame's identity. The only discernible new disclosure in Novak's column was that he in fact testified before the grand jury and revealed his sources there.

First Review of Frank Rich Book: "A Savaging Sermon" on Bush Years

By Kirkus Reviews

Published: July 12, 2006 5:55 PM ET

NEW YORK A new book by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina" will be published by Penguin on Sept. 26. In the book, Rich delivers a savaging sermon on the US government's "rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of 'compassionate conservativism,' the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts"—and so much more.

Anyone who knows his work will know that Rich is no fan of either George Bush, a man "not conversant with reality as most Americans had experienced it," or the Bush administration. In this blend of journalism and mentalits-style history—that is, the study of the mindsets that underlie and produce events—Rich looks closely and critically at the White House's greatest hits, from the 2001 defense of gas-guzzling as essential to the American way of life to "Heckuva job, Brownie" to the ongoing morass of Iraq.

The 9/11 Faith Movement

By Terry J. Allen, In These Times. Posted July 12, 2006.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, nearly half of all Americans believe the Bush administration is covering up its involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Americans love a conspiracy. According to a May 17 Zogby poll, 42 percent believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are covering up what really happened on September 11, 2001.

There is something comforting about a world where someone is in charge -- either for good (think gods) or evil (think Bush insiders plotting 9/11). Many people prefer to believe a Procrustean conspiracy rather than accept the alternative: Life can be random, viciously unjust, and meaningless; tragedy and joy alike flow from complex combinations of good and bad intentions, careful plotting, random happenstance and bumbling incompetence.

The Rise and Fall of a War Profiteer

By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet. Posted July 13, 2006.

Just months ago, bulletproof vest-maker David H. Brooks was living large, having raked in millions selling the military body armor. But it was his last hurrah.

In November 2005, bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks made national headlines when he blew a pile of his war windfalls on a celebrity-studded bash in New York City’s Rainbow Room. For Brooks, the highlight of the $10 million gala was a performance by rockers from Aerosmith. So pumped was the middle-aged Long Island businessman that he reportedly donned a hot pink, metal-studded suede pantsuit to cavort onstage with Steven Tyler.

While Brooks was enjoying his rock star fantasy, dark clouds were forming over him and his company, DHB Industries. The stock was in the toilet, the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating him, and then there was the mood-killing matter of the military recalling his company’s bulletproof vests over concerns about their bulletproofness. In hindsight, the pink-suited Brooks showed all the symptoms of a man who feared his partying days were numbered.

No increase in punitive damages awards, study shows

A recent analysis of evidence from thousands of trials over a ten year period and across three data sets refutes the generally held view that (1) the amount of punitive damage awards has increased dramatically; (2) juries award punitive damages more frequently than judges; and (3) punitive damages are wildly out of sync with compensatory damages.

Digby: Moderation In The Pursuit Of Ego Is No Virtue

Neil the Ethical Werewolf, subbing over a Ezra's place yesterday, made some excellent points about the Lieberman challenge:

Criticizing "extremists" in your party and making opponents of the war look like unpatriotic radicals does nothing to help Claire McCaskill and Harold Ford win their Senate races. By painting a picture of unpatriotic extreme antiwar Democrats, Lieberman damages the party's brand and hurts Democrats everywhere.

Digby: Pulitzer Prize Winning Senators

Everybody's talking about the fact that Jon "Box Turtle" Kyl and Huckleberry Graham wrote a little play and tried to insert it into the congressional record as a transcript in the Hamdan case. I mentioned this in passing last week in my post about Bush's "unusual" interpretation of the decision (which when you consider his interpretive signing statements, may be less of a joke than that I originally made it.)

Digby: Change Agents

All this handwringing amongst the cognoscenti about the barbarians at the gates ruining everything for the Democratic party (again) and what do I find in my mailbox but this strategy memo from insider Dem establishment polling outfit, Democracy Corps run by none other than Carville and Stan Greenberg. And lo and behold, here's what they have to say:

The Democrats need to catch up with the country, which wants to vote for outsiders, is demanding change and ready to respond to the Democrats’ message and definition of the election. All things considered, this is not a bad problem to have, but it requires a new intensity and focus to grab ahold of the forces for change and take the Democrats to a new level.

Digby: Norquistian Boogeyman

Jonathan Chait expands upon his Sunday op-ed, noting that I offered up "a fairly cogent and persuasive, albeit profanity-laced, case against Lieberman." (I did say shit and fuck once each. Oops, I did it again.)

Chait reiterates that he dislikes Lieberman but is concerned that if Lieberman loses he will become a martyr. I suppose he probably will. But he will be one without a platform in the US Senate. He will do much less damage as a Fox News analyst or an AEI fellow --- or even Sec Def reporting to his good pal Dick Cheney. (Even I don't think he's worse than Rumsfeld --- who is?) In any event, he will no longer be an elected Democrat from a liberal state deriding his own party and enabling the Republicans. That is its own reward.

Digby: Déjà Vecu

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it. Charles Dickens, "David Copperfield"

I'm honored to offer my readers another exclusive sneak preview of Rick Perlstein's forthcoming book, Nixonland:

The President was glad for a politically useful distraction. On March 29,[1971] after the longest court-martial trial in history, Lieut. William "Rusty" Calley was convicted of murder by a jury of his military peers.

Billmon: Unhealthy Returns

Part of my day job is to prepare quarterly reports for our clients on developments in the stock and bond markets. It's generally a tedious chore (the odd Internet bubble or market crash not withstanding) but every now and again I run across a fact or number that illustrates some larger economic point -- like the time (this was at the height of the late '90s tech stock mania) when I added up the quarterly increase in the market value of the S&P 500 and realized it was bigger than the entire gross domestic product of Canada.

The lesson I learned this quarter is that the health care crisis is now hitting the health care industry where it hurts most -- straight in the wallet. Whether that will will be enough to prod our GOP-run Chamber of People's Deputies into actually doing something about the problem isn't clear, but I think it at least raises the odds. After all, we're not just talking about the sickness and suffering of ordinary human beings. There are large corporations out there in real pain. Something has to be done.

Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that whatever is done will probably make me sick and the uninsured even sicker.

Digby: Presidentin' For Dummies

Q Well, Mr. President, you've known Mr. Prodi for a long time, and you've known Mr. Berlusconi -- you've known both of them. And how would you assess the personal relationship that you had with Mr. Prodi and with Mr. Berlusconi? Is there a difference how comfortable would you feel with one or the other?

THE PRESIDENT: I feel very comfortable with both. The first thing that's important is I feel comfortable with the people of Italy. We've got very close ties.

It's The Conservatism, Stupid

Paul Waldman

July 12, 2006

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the new book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success, just released by John Wiley & Sons. The views expressed here are his own.

Ask a conservative what the biggest problem in America is today, and you’ll get answers like overtaxation, a sexualized culture, lack of respect for authority, insufficient church-going or big government running amok. But if you then asked the conservative what the real source of the problem was—the beating heart pumping blood to each and all of these socio-politico-cultural wounds—you’d get the same answer: liberalism.

On the other hand, you could ask a liberal a hundred questions about the problems facing our country before you’d get to an answer that placed conservatism at the heart of the nation’s ills.

MSNBC’s Star Carves Anti-Fox Niche

By BILL CARTER

Published: July 11, 2006

He is either the leading man of MSNBC or its leading agent provocateur, but Keith Olbermann has no problem embracing either role.

“You can’t spell momentum without Olbermann — or something like that,” he said in a telephone interview, with a typical sprinkle of wry in his voice.

The momentum reference related to MSNBC’s recent aggressive positioning of the program “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” as the centerpiece of this all-news cable network’s latest effort to become more competitive with Fox News Channel and CNN.

Biz Week: MZM Worked Prewar Iraq Intelligence

By Justin Rood - July 11, 2006, 11:45 AM

Buried in this new Business Week article by Eamon Javers and Dawn Kopecki is a startling revelation: MZM Inc., the company once owned by admitted felon Mitchell Wade, worked on assessing Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities during the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"[B]efore the invasion of Iraq," the duo writes, "[MZM's business] included helping with [the] controversial analysis of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities."

Bushopedia: A Comprehensive Alphabetical Guide to George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, Other Aspects of the Far Right, and Related Topics.

by Bill Potts

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

This is one of the best glossaries of the Busheviks that we have come across. It is billed as "a comprehensive alphabetical guide to George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, other aspects of the Far Right, and related topics."

In short, this 333-page book by Bill Potts is a clinical guide to the key players and concepts in the psychotic cult of Bushevism.

Army to end Halliburton deal: report

Wed Jul 12, 8:31 AM ET

The U.S. Army will discontinue its multi-billion dollar contract with oil services giant Halliburton Co. to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has drawn scrutiny for its work in Iraq from auditors, congressional Democrats and the Justice Department, which is investigating potential overcharges for fuel, dining and laundry services.

Texas-based Halliburton is the world's second-largest oil services company and the U.S. military's biggest contractor in Iraq. The logistical support is performed by Halliburton engineering and construction unit Kellogg Brown & Root. Last year, the Army paid the company more than $7 billion under the contract, the Post said.

Enron witness found dead in park

A body found in east London parkland has been identified as banker Neil Coulbeck, sources have told the BBC.

The banker worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland, and had been questioned by the FBI about the Enron fraud case.

Police were keeping an open mind about whether the death was linked to the Enron investigation, which involved RBS subsidiary NatWest.

Molly Ivins: The Politics of American Greed

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted July 11, 2006.

Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers.

I don't get it. What's the percentage in keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour? After nine years? This is such an unnecessary and nasty Republican move. Congress has voted seven times to raise its own wages since last the minimum wage budged. Of course, Congress always raises its own salary in the dark of night, hoping no one will notice. But now it does the same with the minimum wage, quietly killing it.

Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers -- this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.

Would You Eat Lab-Grown Meat?

By Traci Hukill, AlterNet. Posted July 12, 2006.

Scientists growing meat in petri dishes say it's safer, healthier, more humane and less polluting. But can we get past the 'yuck' factor?

As I type these words, men and women of science are growing meat in a laboratory. That's meat grown independently of any animal. It isn't hatched or born. It doesn't graze, walk or breathe. But it is alive. It sits growing in a room where somebody has called it into existence with a pipette and syringe.

"Cultured meat," it's called, and it is supposed to save us from the execrable pollution and guilt of factory farms while still allowing all 6.5 billion of us to stuff our gullets with ham sandwiches whenever we want to. It already exists in ground or chipped form. What Dutch scientists are working on now is a product that costs a few dollars per pound instead of a few thousand. It could be as little as five years away.

Chances of Voting Rights Act renewal dim

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago

A conservative backlash to the massive street demonstrations over immigration is aggravating Republican leaders' carefully orchestrated plans to renew the landmark Voting Rights Act before the fall elections.

After Latinos came out in greater force than they have in decades to protest a House-passed immigration bill, conservatives persuaded Republican leaders not to force a vote last month to extend for 25 years the law that requires bilingual ballots in precincts with large non-English-speaking populations.

They joined with a group of Southern Republicans who object to extending the law's requirement that nine states have federal oversight decades after they quit hindering blacks' access to voting booths through Jim Crow laws.

The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics

By Matthew Yglesias | bio

Up at Cato Unbound you can find Reuel Marc Gerecht's latest argument for bombing Iran. I think I've covered the policy arguments on this score extensively elsewhere, so let me just note something in particular about Gerecht's essay. Like a lot of conservative writing on foreign affairs it puts a huge amount of weight on things like will, resolve, and perceptions of strength and weakness. It's a view of things that reminds me of nothing so much as the Green Lantern comics, which I enjoy a great deal but regard as a poor guide to national security policy.

As you may know, the Green Lantern Corps is a sort of interstellar peacekeeping force set up by the Guardians of Oa to maintain the peace and defend justice. It recruits members from all sorts of different species and equips them with the most powerful weapon in the universe, the power ring.

50 year study says conservatives 'followers'

Is anyone surprised by this?--Dictynna

RAW STORY

Published: Tuesday July 11, 2006

In an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, former Nixon counsel John Dean explained a largely unknown 50 year academic study. The data shows that conservatives are much more likely to follow authoritarian leaders.

Dean discovered the ongoing study while researching his new book, "Conservative Without Conscience."

Act First, Ask Later

Peter Dreier and Kelly Candaele

July 11, 2006

Peter Dreier is professor of public policy at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Kelly Candaele is a trustee of the Los Angeles Community College District.

News reports about three recent court decisions—Texas gerrymandering, labor violations by Ralphs supermarket chain and President George W. Bush's treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo—make it appear that justice prevailed and the wrong-doers got their comeuppance. But the opposite is true.

Instead, these rulings reveal why the Republican Congress, the Bush administration and big business are so effective at getting what they want. They have an “obey when convenient” approach to our laws and judicial system. They break them when it suits their purposes, hoping that either they won't get caught or, if they do, that the punishment will be a slap on the wrist. In other words, they don't ask for permission. They ask for forgiveness.

Take This Job and Count It!

The political squabble over how to measure the size of the work force.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Monday, July 10, 2006, at 5:48 PM ET

The jobs wars are back. A few years ago, the monthly jobs statistics produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suddenly became hot. As job growth failed to materialize when the economy began to expand in the fall of 2001, inquiring minds began to wonder whether Bush would be the first president since Hoover to see payroll jobs decline over a full term. Bush partisans, frustrated with the slow pace of job growth as determined by BLS's "establishment" survey, began to argue that another BLS report, its "household" survey, was a more accurate job gauge.

After the 2004 election, partisan fevers subsided, payroll jobs showed steady (if not impressive) growth, and the BLS data sank back into obscurity—until last week, when the jobs fight re-emerged in a different form. Now, the issue is: Who measures job growth better, a vast public bureaucracy or a joint venture between two successful private-sector organizations?

The Medical Malpractice Myth

Forget tort reform. The Democrats have a better diagnosis.

By Ezra Klein
Posted Tuesday, July 11, 2006, at 6:20 AM ET

The Republican answer to runaway health-care spending is to cap jury awards in medical malpractice suits. For the fifth time in four years, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist tried and failed to cap awards at $250,000 during his self-proclaimed "Health Care Week" in May. But this time, the Democrats put a better idea on the table.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also want to save on health care. But rather than capping jury awards, they hope to cut the number of medical malpractice cases by reducing medical errors, as they explain in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. In other words, to the Republicans, suits and payouts are the ill. To the Democrats, the problem is a slew of medical injuries of which the suits are a symptom. The latest evidence shows the Democrats' diagnosis to be right.

Robyn E. Blumner: The plot to defeat our liberty

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published July 9, 2006

---

For any form of tyranny to succeed, there have to be people who roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Repression doesn't just happen. It has to be organized, arranged, justified and marketed to a willing populace. In other words, it takes a team.

Most tyrannies aren't the epic variety involving a Stalin or a Hussein. They are more subtly subversive, sapping freedom from a fragile system that precariously depends on the integrity of those in charge. It doesn't take much more than a corrupt sheriff, a mayor who helps a developer grab private property with eminent domain or a president who claims that terror suspects have no rights to negate our foundation of liberty and fairness.

West mounts 'secret war' to keep nuclear North Korea in check

Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent

A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime.

Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.

Talking Points Memo on Brutality in Iraq

(July 10, 2006 -- 07:09 PM EDT)

Let me have your attention for a moment.

There's a brutal, astonishing and final dispatch today from Lawrence Kaplan at the New Republic blog, The Plank. Let me reprint it in full ...

Even by the degraded standards of everyday life in Baghdad, this report from CNN's Nic Robertson comes as a shock:

One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.

Bob Richter: Going after the Freedom of Information Act is a slippery slope

Web Posted: 07/09/2006 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

The Express-News reported Friday that St. Mary's University's Center for Terrorism Law has received a $1 million Defense Department grant "to limit the scope of the Freedom of Information Act."

Journalists get slippery-slope worries when we hear the Pentagon wants to alter a law that allows the sun to shine on what politicians and government officials do behind closed doors.

Reclaiming The Issues: "Why Is Bush Spying On Democrats?!?"

by Thom Hartmann

Every time Democrats and progressives speak out about George W. Bush's spying on Americans without mentioning that he may also be spying on Democrats, they're playing into Karl Rove's "National Security Frame" and actually strengthening Republican electoral chances in November.

To short-circuit this, Democrats need to invoke the ghost of Richard Nixon.

If they don't, even Pete Hoekstra's new revelations that there are even more as-yet-unreported secret spying programs that Bush has been hiding from Congress will be used by Rove to say to average voters, "See? We're really looking out for you!"

Far Right Thugs Go Mainstream

By Glenn Greenwald, AlterNet. Posted July 11, 2006.

The recent 'payback' tactics of right-wing bloggers listing the names and addresses of 'leftist' enemies could mark the beginning of incivil politics.

As is true for many lawyers who have defended First Amendment free speech rights, I have represented several groups and individuals with extremist and even despicable viewpoints (in general, and for obvious reasons, it is only groups and individuals who espouse ideas considered repugnant by the majority which have their free speech rights threatened). Included among this group were several White Supremacist groups and their leaders, including one such group -- the World Church of the Creator -- whose individual members had periodically engaged in violence against those whom they considered to be the enemy (comprised of racial and religious minorities along with the "race traitors" who were perceived to defend them).

Health savings accounts are not likely to stem rising health care spending

Health savings accounts (HSAs) coupled with high-deductible health plans sometimes lower consumer cost-sharing compared with many typical health insurance plans, according to a study supported by the Commonwealth Fund published in Health Affairs. Many of the HSA/high-deductible health plans in the market today actually reduce cost-sharing for people who spend the least and the most on health care, while increasing cost- sharing for those who fall in the midrange, according to the study.

An Inconvenient Al

The other night I finally got around to seeing An Inconvenient Truth (I know, I know: frothy Hollywood escapism at its worse. But I needed a break from the gritty, existential realism of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean II and Superman Returns.)

The film taught me a few things I didn't know about global climate change, but I was actually much more interested in what it had to say about Al Gore – or rather, what Al had to say about himself and his 20-year crusade to convince America to accept climate change for what it is: a potentially civilization-ending crisis.

U.S. reaps what the Army sows

Recent headlines from Iraq are ugly: Marines charged with murdering Haditha civilians. A crippled man killed by Americans, who then planted a rifle and shovel near the body as if he had been burying roadside bombs. And a particularly gruesome charge that U.S. soldiers raped and killed an Iraqi woman, killed her family, and burned the bodies to cover the crime.

If these atrocities are carefully investigated, the likely deficiency may be sufficient command leadership and discipline. A recent book (May 2006) speaks to the issue of leader accountability with stunning eloquence. Tiger Force is a documented account of 120 U.S. soldiers who, between May and November of 1967, rotated through an Army special operations platoon. This platoon, Tiger Force, wreaked its vengeance in the vicinity of Duc Pho and Chu Lai in South Vietnam.

Tomgram: Chernus on Karl Rove's Bedtime Stories for Americans

Here's how a Washington Post piece soon after the Supreme Court's smack-down of the Bush administration's Guantanamo policies began:

"Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that they must back President Bush on how to try suspects at Guantanamo Bay or risk being branded as weak on terrorism… As the White House and lawmakers weighed next steps, House GOP leaders signaled they are ready to use this week's turn of events as a political weapon."

So what's new? The single greatest skill of the Bush administration -- and especially of its presiding political strategist Karl Rove -- has been turning potential disasters (of which there have been so many) into successful attacks on the Democrats, while, against all odds, briefly elevating the President's approval ratings.

People more likely to help others they think are 'like them'

Study results reported in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Feelings of empathy lead to actions of helping – but only between members of the same group – according to a recent study in the July issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, an official publication of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, published by SAGE Publications.

The research, led by Stefan Stürmer of the University of Kiel, is presented in the article "Empathy-Motivated Helping: The Moderating Role of Group Membership." The article discusses two different studies, one using a real-world, intercultural scenario and the other using a mixture of people with no obvious differences besides gender. Researchers concluded that, while all the people felt empathy for someone in distress, they only tended to assist if the needy person was viewed as a member of their own "in-group."

Democrats Rip GOP on Social Security Plan

By Mike Wilson
The Associated Press

Saturday 08 July 2006

The Republican plan to privatize Social Security could cause huge debt for decades, a Democratic candidate seeking a House seat in Iowa, a state with a high concentration of elderly residents, said Saturday.

"If the Republican plan is allowed to pass, future generations both here and across the country will be saddled with decades of debt and no guaranteed retirement security," Bruce Braley said in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

Frank Rich: All the News That's Fit to Bully

The New York Times
Published: July 9, 2006

TWO weeks and counting, and the editor of The New York Times still has not been sentenced to the gas chamber. What a bummer for one California radio talk-show host, Melanie Morgan, who pronounced The Times guilty of treason and expressly endorsed that punishment. She and the rest of the get-the-press lynch mob are growing restless, wondering why newspapers haven't been prosecuted under the Espionage Act. "If Bush believes what he is saying," taunted Pat Buchanan, "why does he not do his duty as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States?"

Here's why. First, there is no evidence that the Times article on tracking terrorist finances either breached national security or revealed any "secrets" that had not already been publicized by either the administration or Swift, the Belgian financial clearinghouse enlisted in the effort. Second, the legal bar would be insurmountable: even Gabriel Schoenfeld, who first floated the idea of prosecuting The Times under the Espionage Act in an essay in Commentary, told The Nation this month that the chance of it happening was .05 percent.