What Government Minders Don't Understand

In response to the Empire post below, the Government Minder assigned to Hullabaloo made this comment regarding Arab reaction to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict :

"The assertion that Americans are turning isolationist, as evidenced by this poll on the Israel/Lebanon conflict, is an overly broad interpretation. Look at the recent emergency meeting of the Arab League; half its member nations were critical of Hezzbollah instead of a uniform condemnation of Israel. That split is historic and unprecedented."

Is it?

Here are some additional scraps from that Chicago Trib op-ed piece written in 2005 by E.W. Chamberlain III, a retired Army colonel. It provides some elucidation on the topic. The title of the op-ed was Prediction.

The toll of the war in both lives and treasure are going well beyond what we were promised. The elections in Iraq already are proving themselves to have been merely a vote of the majority for the majority with no room for any meaningful minority voice in the emerging government.

Our goal of bringing democracy to Iraq, while worthy, is unattainable. The Shiite clerics won't stand for it.

Digby: I'm Not Ready To Make Nice

Rush:

The Democratic Party today is assumed to be -- well, it's not assumed to be. The Democratic Party today is oriented around one thing -- aside from its hatred of Bush -- oriented around its anti-war position. The Democrat base is pure anti-war, and that's why Lieberman is in trouble. It is such a powerful base or perceived to be by other Democrats, that Democrats like Hillary and others, John Kerry said, (paraphrasing) "If Lieberman loses, I'm not supporting him. I must support my party. My party stood behind me. I always be a Democrat," and Hillary has pretty much said the same thing. Barbara Boxer however is in trouble, so-called.

There is a little tremor in Rush's description of the "powerful" Democratic base (he realizes it and tries to amend his statement.)The opposition actually has him rattled for the first time in recent memory.

Digby: ReElect The Fighters

Last week I wrote regarding the mid-east crisis:

Karl Rove must be very happy this morning. He is convinced that "war" (it doesn't matter who or why) always accrues to the Republican party's benefit. And the media agree that when things heat up, they really want the guys with the big swinging members in charge. (For some reason, they are under the misapprehension that the group of chickenhawks running the US government have such endowments.)

I realize that it is somewhat distasteful to discuss this issue with domestic politics in mind. But I can guarantee that the white house is. They view everything through the lens of domestic politics.

There was some disagreement among readers who thought that it is ridiculous to think a widening war could benefit the failed Republicans. I certainly hope that's true.

Digby: Political Capital

Ezra wonders why war president Bush killed off compassionate conservative president Bush.

I've never been entirely convinced by the explanations for why that happened. Bush's record in Texas and his rhetoric on the campaign trail never suggested the sort of leader that would emerge. September 11 changed him, but it's not precisely clear why it enabled such an abandonment of the domestic realm. I will, in the interest of debate, offer this thesis, which I find interesting if not convincing. I've adapted it from something Grover Norquist said at the Prospect breakfast: He argued that the high poll numbers of 9-11 straitjacketed the administration, leaving them terrified of downward drift. So in their efforts to retain 80 percent approval ratings, they refused to engage in the sort of divisive, unpopular fights needed to actualize their agenda. They just went with the interest groups as the path of least resistance. And by the time they were ready for domestic policies again, they couldn't afford to split the coalition. Compassionate conservatism died because Bush became popular and wasn't willing to sacrifice that support for issues beneath War and Peace.

I would argue that there never was a "compassionate conservative" Bush, but a political slogan that was adopted when the face of the party was the slavering beasts of the Gingrich years who shut down the government and impeached a popular president against the will of the people.

Digby: Another Moment of Clarity

The conflict in the mideast has always had a certain kabuki element. In the past when these situations would flare up, Israel would take an agrressive action to demonstrate that it wasn't a pushover and the US would step in like a Dutch uncle and reluctantly pull the pissed off Israelis back. In a dangerous part of the world, these face-saving kabukis can prevent things from hurtling out of control while allowing each side to stage a little bloodletting. It's an ugly, ugly business, but ultimately it has managed to help keep this volatile region from hurtling out of control. The "honest broker" thing may have always been phony, but sometimes a phony "honest broker" is all you need.

Digby: Heckuva Job Neggie

So apparently John "Death Squad" Negroponte has decided that rather than take the risk of information being leaked, the CIA just won't compile National Intelligence Estimates anymore. Ken Silverstein at Harper's blog reports that ever since the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration back in 2004 (for being "too negative") they haven't bothered to write another one.

Apparently, they want to keep the president from having to deal with bad news:

“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.”

Digby: Moral Boundaries

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it."

Jesus H. Christ.

BAGHDAD, 20 July (IRIN) - The Iraqi government says it is worried about increasing sectarian violence in the country, following statistics released by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) stating that nearly 6,000 civilians were killed in May and June alone.

Digby: So Much For The Indispensible Nation

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the United States should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, according to a CNN poll conducted and released Wednesday by Opinion Research Corp.

Sixty-five percent of 633 American adults responding to the telephone poll said the United States should not play an active role in attempting to solve the issue.

Digby: To The Right Of Trent Lott

Ben Adler over at TAPPED asks why Ben Nelson is being given a pass on his morally repugnant vote against stem cell research today. I honestly can't answer that. I and others often make the argument that Red State Senators have to answer to their conservative constituents, so they must be given latitude. But this vote is odd because, as Adler points out, even Trent Lott voted for it. And according to this article, 70% of Nebraskans are in favor of stem cell research:

Statewide poll shows support for fetal cell research
courtesy of Nebraskans for Research

Findings of a statewide poll released today shows more than two-thirds (70 percent) of Nebraska registered voters support fetal cell research at UNMC. Nearly three-quarters of the registered voters contacted also indicated support for embryonic stem cell research should it be conducted in the future at the University of Nebraska. The poll was commissioned by Nebraskans for Research (NFR).

Digby: Heckuva Job Karen

Isn't Karen Hughes the undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy? Wouldn't you think someone in that position would at least appear in public once in a while? Or at least when the midle east is blowing up and public diplomacy might be called for?

From John Brown:

In recent days, Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to explain US policy abroad, has remained silent. The Spinstress of the Decider, known for her garrulity and love of being in front of a camera, has chosen to be out of the media limelight. With many in the Arab world blaming the United States for the situation in the Middle East, she has said nothing about American goals in the region. Gone, at least for now, are her vapid proclamations about US "transformational public diplomacy." Nor has she uttered another saccharine word about the need to foster common interests and values throughout the world. And - surprise! - she has not gone on another so-called "listening tour" in the Middle East.

Digby: Blogosphere Day

July 19th is blogosphere day in which bloggers are asking their readers to contribute to Ned Lamont (and other worthy candidates.) Chris Bowers at MYDD explains, here, what it's all about:

Our message is simple. No longer will candidates be considered unelectable for holding progressive views. No longer will the establishment take its supporters for granted. No longer will Democrats get away with boosting their own national image by facilitating the conservative movement and distancing themselves from their own party.

Digby: Huckleberry Howler

How can the paper of record write a lengthy puff piece about the brave, maverick integrity of Senator Huckleberry Graham and make no metion of the fact that he and his pal Jon Kyl inserted a fraudulent 12,000 word colloquey into the congressional record to fool the US Supreme Court and were caught red-handed. The Supreme Court merely noted this in the footnotes of the Hamdan decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an unusual order rejecting their amicus brief alone, although they accepted five others. As John Dean wrote: "No one familiar with this remarkable behavior by Graham and Kyl can doubt why the court did not want to hear from these senators."

Digby: Hovering And Wheedling

Modo has an entertaining column on Georgie's Big G8 Adventure. I thought this was particularly good:

He treated Tony “As It Were” Blair like the servant in “The Remains of the Day,’’ blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: “Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you.’’ Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: “I know you picked it out yourself.”

Digby: Ralphie, We Hardly Knew Ye

So Ralph Reed, the darling prince of the Christian Right, top Bush administration advisor,ratfucker extraordinaire, coveted election night analyst and infamous college Republican couldn't win the Republican primary for Lt Governor of Georgia. Wow. How the mighty have fallen. This was supposed to be his first step toward the presidency.

Reed has always been a phony and his criminal association with Abramoff finally brought him low. His Christian Right fans weren't impressed with the fact that he was making millions promoting gambling and forced abortions. And they particularly didn't like the fact that he refused to repent. (There's a lesson in that, strategists, if you care to look.)

Digby: It Could be Worse

Tristero calls the bonafides of this foreign affairs roundtable into question in the post below. I'm not sure I can wholly endorse his criticisms as long as great thinkers like Newt Gingrich and Jonah Goldberg are out there pontificating to larger audiences and with much greater influence. Gingrich, you'll recall, is a great intimate of Donald Rumsfeld and worked hand in glove with him on the military strategy for Iraq. He is considered a leading conservative intellectual:

James Wolcott leads us through Newties latest foreign policy advice:

'This is World War III,' Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:

"'Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts.'

Digby: Oh Those Guys

If you're in the mood for dark speculation there's nobody better or smarter than Billmon. Tonight's post on the mid-east will keep me awake for awhile.

He asks an obvious question: What about al Qaeda?

Digby: Frat Boy Prick

I guess he thought she was just another one of his office wives.

Check out the look on his face. Does he look like he's "just having fun" or does he look like he's putting the uppity bitch in her place?

Digby: Personal Conviction

Adding to my post below about Joe Lieberman's views of "life" issues, reader Dover Bitch sent this for us to think about:

I must pass this one along to you because I think it really shows what's in Lieberman's mind and why Alito got a free pass from the Gang of 14. It also shows why Planned Parenthood and NARAL are clueless.

Here's what Lieberman said on the Senate floor back on Oct. 20, 1999:

"I remember I first dealt with these issues when I was a State senator in Connecticut in the 1970s, after the Roe v. Wade decision was first passed down by the Supreme Court, and the swelter of conflicting questions: What is the appropriate place for my convictions about abortion, my personal conviction that potential life begins at conception and, therefore, my personal conviction that all abortions are unacceptable? How do I relate that to my role as a lawmaker, to the limits of the law, to the right of privacy that the Supreme Court found in Roe v. Wade?"

Daily Kos: History lesson: Failures of US interventions abroad

by Sharon Jumper
Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 06:38:06 PM PDT

With all of the diaries of late about "What the US should do" with respect to other countries' problems, especially in the Middle East, where so few even bother to consider cultural and societal differences, I decided to post a chunk of my research on the history of US interventions abroad.

Yes, it's lengthy. Yes, it's highly referenced. Students - consider this a gift bibliography...but be warned, the paper WILL show up in TURNITIN, so if you use any of my actual words, so be sure to cite me!

Introduction

There are several paradigms through which the level and nature of American intervention abroad can be viewed: isolationism, capitalism, multilateralism, militarism, nationalism, and determinism. Isolationist nations seek to insulate themselves from revolution and other failures suffered outside its contiguous borders (Graebner, 1956, p. 19). Capitalist nations seek expansion and growth through private ownership, free enterprise, competition, investment, and acquisition of resources (Dowd, 1993, p. 58). Multilateralist nations seek mutual cooperative agreements for defense, trade, legal, political, and economic transactions (Aviel, Muldoon, Reitano, & Sullivan, 1999, p. 1).

Nations that are militaristic display "an attitude of belligerency and an act of hostility towards other nations" (Winslow, 1948, p. 3). Imperialistic nations not only possess the "ability and willingness to use military power, but also identify the territories on and against which such power must be employed" (Winslow, p. 3).

Daily Kos: Take Newt Seriously

by eugene
Fri Jul 21, 2006 at 09:17:47 AM PDT

[From the Diaries - promoted by Meteor Blades]

I'm sure you all heard that last week, Newt Gingrich argued the U.S. was facing World War III as a result of developments in the Middle East. I'm sure that most of you reacted as I did to this - with a bit of annoyance and disdain; "there goes Newt again," content to believe he is simply making a lame effort to rally flagging support for Republican policies.

But today, I have been reconsidering this. I think that what Newt has been saying is incredibly significant, and we ought to be paying it a great deal more attention than we have been.

Daily Kos: With a Holy Land Like This World Has, Who Needs Hell?

by Rusty1776
Thu Jul 20, 2006 at 10:10:00 PM PDT

Fires everywhere? Check. Misery? Check. Screams of agony? Check. Hatred reigns supreme? Check. No hope for salvation? Check.

Put your Bibles and Qu'rans and Torahs away, Christians and Muslims and Jews, what you need to learn about life and death and judgment is all around you. The scribbling of self-appointed prophets is not going to save you from the madness of your leaders. Going to a church, mosque, or synagogue to pray is not going to save you from their lunacy. Your own ignorance, apathy, and selfishness have elevated them to power, and now you are reaping what you have sown.

I have news for you, Hell is not awaiting the wicked at the hour of their death, it's taking a fiery road trip through that Holy Land you all keep talking about. Hell is here on earth, raging among us, and you are the ones who invited it to drop in and say hello. Your intolerance and self-righteousness have beckoned it, and it's leaving its flaming footprints all over that sacred Holy Land soil you say you cherish so much.

Daily Kos: You're Doing a Heckuva Job, Maggie

by SusanG
Fri Jul 21, 2006 at 04:25:52 PM PDT

Margaret Spellings, head of the U.S. Department of Education, won't be getting a gold star anytime soon for doing her homework.

Showing up this past Tuesday to pitch a $100 million school voucher program to Congress that would allow students in underachieving public schools to transfer their bodies - and taxpayer-provided $4,000 per pupil - to private schools, Spellings admitted she hadn't read a report issued by her own department the previous Friday that found little difference between student performance in public versus private schools.

According to USA Today:

She also would not comment on the long-awaited public/private study, saying she hadn't read the report in full and only learned of its release by reading about it in newspapers Saturday. The department on Friday morning had sent the results to about 11,000 people who subscribe to an Internet e-mail list.

Haifa Rocket attack Wounds 5 Israeli Civilians; Israel Bombs Numerous Lebanese Towns Again; Wave of Protests in Muslim, Western Capitals

A wave of protests swept the Middle East and Europe on Friday against the Israeli war on Lebanon. Thousands rallied in Sanaa in Yemen; in Amman, Jordan; in Cairo, Egypt; in Tripoli, Libya; and in Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia, etc. Also Berlin, with more European and N. American demonstrations planned for this weekend. The big Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in Amman would not have been allowed by the Jordanian authorities if they were not even more afraid that if they did not let the public blow off steam on the issue, the consequences in public turmoil would be even worse.

The estimates for the size of the crowds in these reports are in my view too low. I saw some of the demonstrations on Arab satellite television and they were enormous.

Billmon: Useless Idiots

One of [Glenn Greenwald’s] commenters again brings up my infamous sentence a few days after 9/11 when I predicted that small enclaves of leftists might blame America for the attack and become what amounts to a "fifth column." I regret that rhetoric, expressed my regret days after the piece was published, and only ever applied it to those who immediately sympathized with al Qaeda in September 2001. As for my later comments about opponents of the Iraq war being "objectively pro-Saddam," that seems to me to be indisputable.

Andrew Sullivan
July 18, 2006

So now reality-based conservatives are "in a way worse than Chomskyite America-haters"? Later on, Hewitt calls former war supporter Jon Chait a "blind pig." This is what he's reduced to, when he isn't ascribing my entire worldview to my sexual orientation.

Andrew Sullivan
July 19, 2006

Randy Andy still seems to be having trouble figuring out if he's Roy Cohn or Oscar Wilde -- persecutor or persecuted. He's not alone: These days it seems like half of Right Blogistan is busy hurling accusations of betrayal and cowardice at the other half, while that other half is trying hard to ignore the many times it fired those same charges across the DMZ into Left Blogistan.

Well, let me help you out, Andy. To paraphrase Grady, the ghostly caretaker from The Shining: You're Roy Cohn. You've always been Roy Cohn. You may have managed to stuff your slime down your own memory hole, but you can't erase the electronic traces of it, which reveal that you aimed your little Wildean bon mot at Susan Sontag, Nom Chomsky, Michael Moore and Eric Alterman -- none of whom sympathized, immediately or later, with Al Qaeda, except in the diseased tissue of your own shrunken brain.

Power plants are major influence in regional mercury emissions

New Haven, Conn. -- The amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere in the Northeast fluctuates annually depending on activity in the electric power industry, according to researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Xuhui Lee, professor of meteorology, and Jeffrey Sigler, a recent Yale Ph.D. and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New Hampshire, co-authored the Yale study "Recent Trends in Anthropogenic Mercury Emission in the Northeast United States." They found that between 2000 and 2002 the emission rate of mercury decreased by 50 percent, but between 2002 and 2004 the rate increased between 50 and 75 percent. During that five-year period, overall emissions declined by 20 percent.

US intelligence chief blocks analysis of Iraq civil war

RAW STORY
Published: Friday July 21, 2006

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte is preventing a thorough examination by intelligence analysts of the civil war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

A report at Washington Babylon, the blog of Harper's Magazine's Washington Editor Ken Silverstein, indicates that Iraq analysts at the CIA have been pushing to complete a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the political situation in the country. NIE's are the most authoritative intelligence documents produced by the CIA, and the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration for being too negative.

Scientists Measure Decline in Bees and Flowering Plants

By David McAlary
Washington
20 July 2006

Scientists report that the diversity of bees and the flowering plants they pollinate has declined in Britain and the Netherlands, a possible indicator of the problem worldwide. Other scientists worried about species extinction call for the formation of an international body to monitor such threats to biological diversity, similar to one that now tracks global warming.

Bees and other insects are essential to the reproduction of many agricultural crops and wild plants. At the University of Leeds in Britain, researcher William Kunin explains. "Pollinators are intrinsically tied to interactions with plant species, and so the pollination of crop plants and wild plants is of both ecological value and economic value. Estimates go up to about 150-billion dollars a year in economic value that is provided by wild pollinators," he said.

Army Cuts Expenses Not Essential to War

Friday July 21, 2006 5:01 PM

By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army, bearing most of the cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Thursday its money crunch has gotten so bad it is clamping down on spending for travel, civilian hiring and other expenses not essential to the war mission.

A statement outlining the cutbacks did not say how much money the Army expects to save, but senior officials have said the cost of replacing worn equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is rising at a quickening pace.

Truck Carrying Tomahawk Missile Overturns

Friday July 21, 2006 3:46 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - A tractor-trailer carrying a test missile collided with another truck during the morning rush hour Friday, sparking a call to the bomb squad before authorities determined the missile was inert.

No injuries were reported. Authorities said it was a Tomahawk test missile.

Scientists Group Fears More Pollution

Friday July 21, 2006 4:01 PM

By JOHN HEILPRIN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bush administration plans to ease clean air rules for thousands of aging industrial plants might increase air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences said Friday.

Those Clean Air Act rules are under review by the Supreme Court, which is due to receive legal briefs on the administration's attempts to rewrite the rules in 2002 and 2003.

An NAS report requested by Congress said the possibility of emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide ``increases in some locations and decreases in others. However, the magnitude of the changes and the number of georespiratory ailments.

A New War Frenzy

By Robert Parry
July 20, 2006

Americans are being whipped into a new war frenzy with simplistic visions of evil villains, much like occurred four years ago before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Just as Saddam Hussein was cast as the monster whose elimination would transform Iraq into a democratic oasis, Hezbollah and its allies in Syria and Iran are presented now as the crux of all evil in the Middle East whose military defeat will bring a new day.

Inside the United States, many of the same politicians and pundits who stampeded the nation into Iraq are back again urging the application of even more violence. While George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers may be leading the herd, influential Democrats – like Hillary Clinton and Alan Dershowitz – are running with this pack, too.

Tough hurdles for CBN project

The Virginian-Pilot
© July 21, 2006

There's a reason 500 acres stand vacant on the border between Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. To develop them would bring tons more traffic to an already groaning road system, including Interstate 64, a primary artery for both cities.

That the parcel now stands a chance of being filled with a shopping mall, hotels, a gated community and high-end condos may have something to do with the land's best use. But it undoubtedly has everything to do with the user. His name is Pat Robertson, and he would like to use $100 million in tax dollars to help secure his Christian empire.

Evangelical leader pushing 'End Times' war with Iran

Posted by Joshua Holland on July 20, 2006 at 9:11 AM.

My friend Sarah Posner has been all over televangelist John Hagee in The American Prospect. In June, she wrote a lengthy exposé of Hagee, who preaches that an apocalyptic war with Iran "is foretold in the Bible as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming."

Hagee founded an outfit called Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and has been lobbying hard for a big Middle East conflagration in rightwing evangelical circles.

RFK Jr. Blows the Whistle on Diebold

By John Ireland, In These Times. Posted July 21, 2006.

The environmental lawyer-turned voting-rights advocate has found Diebold employees who may link the company to election fraud.

On July 13, the Pensacola, Fla.-based law firm of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a "qui tam" lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that Diebold and other electronic voting machine (EVM) companies fraudulently represented to state election boards and the federal government that their products were "unhackable."

Kennedy claims to have witnesses "centrally located, deep within the corporations," who will confirm that company officials withheld their knowledge of problems with accuracy, reliability and security of EVMs in order to procure government contracts. Since going into service, many of these machines have been linked to allegations of election fraud.

A Protracted Colonial War

With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon

by Tariq Ali Published on Thursday, July 20, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest." Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: "The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'." In Israel's actions today we can detect many of the elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.

Paying for Being Poor

Posted on Jul 19, 2006

A new study by the Brookings Institution found that the urban poor pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars a year in extra costs for necessities, such as car insurance, home appliances, banking fees and other basics. (NYT link)

NYT:
Study Documents ‘Ghetto Tax’ Being Paid by the Urban Poor
By ERIK ECKHOLM

WASHINGTON, July 18 — Drivers from low-income neighborhoods of New York, Hartford and Baltimore, insuring identical cars and with the same driving records as those from middle-class neighborhoods, paid $400 more on average for a year’s insurance.

FEMA muzzling La. trailer-park residents

By The Associated Press
07.20.06

MORGAN CITY, La. — Residents of trailer parks set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house hurricane victims in Louisiana aren't allowed to talk to the press without an official escort, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reported.

In one instance, a security guard ordered an Advocate reporter out of a trailer during an interview in Morgan City. Similar FEMA rules were enforced in Davant, in Plaquemines Parish.

FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi wouldn't say whether the security guards' actions complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the news media to speak alone to residents in their trailers.

David Sirota: REPORT: Oman Trade Pact Permits Foreign Ownership of U.S. Nat’l Security Assets

In an explosive report tonight, top House Democrats discovered provisions in the controversial Oman Free Trade Agreement that would permit foreign ownership of U.S. ports and other key national security assets. Three Democrats and one Republican held an emergency press conference today to expose the provisions just before the House is scheduled to vote on the Oman pact on Thursday. As Reuters reports, "Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said the pact would allow companies such as Dubai Ports World to acquire U.S. port operations by establishing a shell company in Oman." Those provisions might also allow foreign ownership of other key national security assets, considering just after the recent Dubai Ports controversy, that country went ahead with plans to purchase a major U.S. defense contractor.

ACLU suggests US may be spying on three other financial services

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday July 19, 2006

The New York-based American Civil Liberties Union has fired another salvo in its ongoing battle with the Bush Administration over domestic surveillance, all but accusing the Administration of spying on three additional financial service systems.

According to a release, "ACLU research indicates" that the three named systems are "likely targets." The group said Wednesday they had filed new requests under the Freedom of Information Act to ascertain whether the systems were being surveilled.

Terror database tracks UC protests

U.S. agent reported on '05 rallies against military recruitment

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

A federal Department of Homeland Security agent passed along information about student protests against military recruiters at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, landing the demonstrations on a database tracking foreign terrorism, according to government documents released Tuesday.

The documents were released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of student groups that protested against recruiters who visited their campuses in April 2005.

James Carroll Concludes the Pentagon Is Our Out-of-Control 'House of War'

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 07/20/2006 - 2:32am. Interviews

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

It isn’t that the United States shouldn’t exercise power in the world. It’s that it only knows how to exercise one kind of power -- the hard brutal power of military force.

We’ve totally neglected the soft power of diplomacy. The State Department should be at the center of American government expenditure and energy. It isn’t.

... And we neglect what really threatens us.

* * *

Author James Carroll is a winner of the National Book Award and an astute columnist for The Boston Globe. He talks here with BuzzFlash about his newest book, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power. He connects the dots, gets the big picture, and provides insights that can help us all grasp the reasons for war -- and see how we can find alternatives.

* * *

BuzzFlash: Your latest book is House of War. In our previous interview with you about the book Crusade, we touched upon something that seems to us significant to your narrative in House of War, which is, you have a personal connection to the Pentagon.

James Carroll: I was raised in Washington. My father worked at the Pentagon as an Air Force officer, and I went there with him as a child. In some large way, it’s a building that shaped my imagination of the public realm. I confess that, when the Pentagon was struck on 9/11, I recognized, in a way I never have before, almost the mythic power of that building in my own imagination -- and I think in the imagination of our nation. The building is very much a personal metaphor in my life.

Cover-Up Exposed?

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; 1:00 PM

Amid all the other news yesterday, the attorney general's startling revelation that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation into the administration's controversial secret domestic spying programs hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

Bush's move -- denying the requisite security clearances to attorneys from the department's ethics office -- is unprecedented in that office's history. It also comes in stark contrast to the enthusiastic way in which security clearances were dished out to a different group of attorneys: Those charged with finding out who leaked information about the program to the press.

Mississippi's Last Clinic Still Standing, Barely

By Sunsara Taylor, Truthdig. Posted July 20, 2006.

An extremist pro-life organization is mobilizing a protest to shutter the last abortion clinic in Mississippi.

After years of violently blockading abortion clinics, terrorizing women and doctors, and agitating for biblical rule, there is a smug sense of triumphalism coming from the pro-life organization Operation Save America/Operation Rescue.

From July 15 to 20, OSA/OR has been staging an extended protest in Jackson, Miss., aimed at closing the state's last abortion clinic -- a move the group hopes will "send a message" to abortion providers and lawmakers throughout the country.

Links for Middle East info.

A long and excellent piece by Jews for Justice in the Middle East.

Israel at War: Analysis of Goals, from the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Jewish Voice for Peace In-Depth: Israel's Attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, also quite long.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 07/19/06

Marveling at Bush's ability to "make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger," Maureen Dowd finds that "the really weird thing is his sense of victimization. He's strangely resentful about the actual core of his job."

Bush reportedly sees an appearance at the NAACP's annual meeting as an opportunity to "tout his civil rights record," but the Eugene Register-Guard urges Bush to "note that the U.S. Department of Justice has had to invoke the Voting Rights Act hundreds of times since it was last reauthorized in 1982."

The Progressive's Matthew Rothschild reports on the ACLU's documentation of the role of Homeland Security in helping the Pentagon spy on student antiwar groups in California.

"The vote shepherd of Southern evangelicals" lost his Georgia primary race to "a no-name state senator," proving to one Georgia voter's satisfaction that "despite what some people may think, we are not all crazy down here." Plus: 'Reed vs. Lieberman.'

Rep. Cynthia McKinney was forced into a run-off election by an opponent who boasted of his national media coverage, although some of McKinney's supporters reportedly saw their "votes flipped before their very eyes on Diebold machines."

A USA Today report explores who the Christian Right might back in 2008, as a new Gallup poll turns up trouble for Sen. John McCain.

Paul Krugman: March of Folly

The New York Times
Published: July 17, 2006

Since those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it — and since the cast of characters making pronouncements on the crisis in the Middle East is very much the same as it was three or four years ago — it seems like a good idea to travel down memory lane. Here's what they said and when they said it:

"The greatest thing to come out of [invading Iraq] for the world economy ... would be $20 a barrel for oil." Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation (which owns Fox News), February 2003

"Oil Touches Record $78 on Mideast Conflict." Headline on www.foxnews.com, July 14, 2006

"The administration's top budget official estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion," saying that "earlier estimates of $100 billion to $200 billion in Iraq war costs by Lawrence B. Lindsey, Mr. Bush's former chief economic adviser, were too high." The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2002

"According to C.B.O.'s estimates, from the time U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, $290 billion has been allocated for activities in Iraq. ... Additional costs over the 2007-2016 period would total an estimated $202 billion under the first [optimistic] scenario, and $406 billion under the second one." Congressional Budget Office, July 13, 2006

How To Pre-empt a "November Surprise"

by MARK CRISPIN MILLER

JULY 17, 2006--If the GOP should lose the House and/or the Senate on Election Day, they will pick out a handful of the "closest" races--as many as they need to hang on to majority control--and start to scream like hell about ELECTION FRAUD.

That's right: the major perpetrators of such fraud will cast themselves as victims of the very crime that put them where they are, and charge the Democrats with having used the very tactics that the Bush Republicans have now perfected: legal/bureaucratic disenfranchisement, e-voting manipulation, hostile challenges to would-be voters, covert efforts at disinformation, countless ballots thrown away, and so on.

Corn waste potentially more than ethanol

After the corn harvest, whether for cattle feed or corn on the cob, farmers usually leave the stalks and stems in the field, but now, a team of Penn State researchers think corn stover can be used not only to manufacture ethanol, but to generate electricity directly.

"People are looking at using cellulose to make ethanol," says Dr. Bruce E. Logan, the Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. "You can make ethanol from exploded corn stover, but once you have the sugars, you can make electricity directly."

The Growing Threat of Right-Wing Christians

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet. Posted July 19, 2006.

Michelle Goldberg says progressives need to wake up and pay attention to the enormous -- and growing -- influence of the radical Christian right.

"I don't want to be alarmist, but this is actually quite alarming," Michelle Goldberg said. She was referring to the subject of her new book, "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism," which chronicles the steady rise of the neocons of Christianity.

Whether she's attending a Ten Commandments conference or joining Tony Perkins' conference calls to listen in on what D.C. agenda will be passed on to congregations, Goldberg's reporting offers insight into a movement that has reshaped the nation's political and cultural landscape. Goldberg did not go undercover, nor wear any disguise. Rather, she simply showed up, listened and learned. And what she has learned is definitely alarming.

From Lebanon...

Another page of resources for more information on the topic, again from the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Billmon: Double Plus Ungood

Wittingly or unwittingly, David Brooks really captures the Orwellian spirit of the neocon approach to history. This is him on the News Hour last Friday, trying out the he-who-controls-the-past-controls-the-future gambit:

DAVID BROOKS: If you look at the jihadists, they had a victory in '79 by pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan. They pushed the U.S. out of Lebanon. The pushed the Israelis out of Gaza and out of Lebanon. They're probably pushing the U.S. out of Iraq. They are on the march.

It's not that the things Brooks says are completely untrue (except for the '79 date, which is when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, not when they left.) It's that each of them contradicts -- some blatantly; others more subtly -- both the actual context of those events and the official party line at the time, as expounded by official sources and regurgitated in the paper Brooks works for.

A Strange History

Gregory Rodriguez praises Barak Obama's speech (a speech I actually liked as well), but in doing so he asserts a history of the Democratic party that misses a lot:

That was not always the case. Some scholars point to the Democratic National Convention of 1972 as not only the moment Democrats edged toward secularism but the event that created the religious rift in American politics. Before 1972, both major parties were essentially indistinguishable in their approach to religion. The activist cores of both were dominated by members of mainstream religious groups: the GOP by mainline Protestants and the Democratic Party by Catholics and Jews.

But the Democratic delegation that nominated South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for president at the '72 convention represented a profound shift from what had been the cultural consensus in American politics

Pregnancy Centers Found to Give False Information on Abortion

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; A08

Federally funded "pregnancy resource centers" are incorrectly telling women that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma, a minority congressional report charged yesterday.

The report said that 20 of 23 federally funded centers contacted by staff investigators requesting information about an unintended pregnancy were told false or misleading information about the potential risks of an abortion.

Gay Rights Group: Dobson Manipulated Data

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:05 p.m. ET

DENVER (AP) -- Members of a group supporting parental rights for gays and lesbians accused Focus on the Family founder James Dobson of manipulating research data to say gays and lesbians are not good parents, and began a 65-mile march Monday to confront him at his Colorado Springs headquarters.

A Focus on the Family official denied the allegation.

Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes said Dobson's statements have brought rejection and ridicule on gay and lesbian parents, and the group wants him to stop.

A Windfall From Shifts to Medicare

By MILT FREUDENHEIM

The pharmaceutical industry is beginning to reap a windfall from a surprisingly lucrative niche market: drugs for poor people.

And analysts expect the benefits to show up in many of the quarterly financial results that drug makers will begin posting this week.

The windfall, which by some estimates could be $2 billion or more this year, is a result of the transfer of millions of low-income people into the new Medicare Part D drug program that went into effect in January. Under that program, as it turns out, the prices paid by insurers, and eventually the taxpayer, for the medications given to those transferred are likely to be higher than what was paid under the federal-state Medicaid programs for the poor.

Senator George Allen on the hot seat

Facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from Jim Webb in the Virginia Senate race, Sen. Allen hires Scott Howell, the hardball playing 'Hitler' media guy, to craft his campaign advertising

It is no deep secret that Virginia's junior Republican Senator George Allen -- who is up for re-election this November -- is interested in the GOP's 2008 presidential nomination. Over the past several months, Allen has been out raising money, boosting his public profile through a number of appearances on television's talking head programs, courted the GOP's base -- which included an appearance at a gathering sponsored by the ultra-conservative and ultra-secretive Council for National Policy, and put together a hardball playing dream team of political advisors, strategists, and media consultants.

The Return of the Draft

With the army desperate for recruits, should college students be packing their bags for Canada?

Uncle Sam wants you. He needs you. He'll bribe you to sign up. He'll strong-arm you to re-enlist. And if that's not enough, he's got a plan to draft you.

In the three decades since the Vietnam War, the "all-volunteer Army" has become a bedrock principle of the American military. "It's a magnificent force," Vice President Dick Cheney declared during the election campaign last fall, "because those serving are ones who signed up to serve." But with the Army and Marines perilously overextended by the war in Iraq, that volunteer foundation is starting to crack. The "weekend warriors" of the Army Reserve and the National Guard now make up almost half the fighting force on the front lines, and young officers in the Reserve are retiring in droves. The Pentagon, which can barely attract enough recruits to maintain current troop levels, has involuntarily extended the enlistments of as many as 100,000 soldiers. Desperate for troops, the Army has lowered its standards to let in twenty-five percent more high school dropouts, and the Marines are now offering as much as $30,000 to anyone who re-enlists. To understand the scope of the crisis, consider this: The United States is pouring nearly as much money into incentives for new recruits -- almost $300 million -- as it is into international tsunami relief.

Hezbollah

Once again, brief bits of information and links to more, from the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Digby: Crazed Secular Base

Democrats are held hostage by their secular base and need to distance themselves from it in order to win over all the religious southerners who left the Democrats when the atheists took over. Happy birthday Karl.

Stung by their loss in the 2004 presidential election, a growing number of prominent Democrats are, well, finding religion in religion. And with polls saying that 70% of Americans want their president to have "strong religious beliefs," it's not hard to deduce that they just might be on to something.

Digby: In Plain Sight

When are Americans going to take the neocons seriously?

I'm not talking about the Republican party here or the movement conservatives. I'm speaking specifically of the group that can be called the true neocons of the era: The PNAC signatories and their supporters throughout the rightwing think tank intelligensia.

I've been writing about these guys online from practically the first moment I went online back in the 90's. My friends thought I was a tin-foil nutter and at times, I thought I was too. The sheer grandiosity of their scheme was awesome.

Digby: Personal Conviction

Adding to my post below about Joe Lieberman's views of "life" issues, reader Dover Bitch sent this for us to think about:

I must pass this one along to you because I think it really shows what's in Lieberman's mind and why Alito got a free pass from the Gang of 14. It also shows why Planned Parenthood and NARAL are clueless.

Here's what Lieberman said on the Senate floor back on Oct. 20, 1999:

"I remember I first dealt with these issues when I was a State senator in Connecticut in the 1970s, after the Roe v. Wade decision was first passed down by the Supreme Court, and the swelter of conflicting questions: What is the appropriate place for my convictions about abortion, my personal conviction that potential life begins at conception and, therefore, my personal conviction that all abortions are unacceptable? How do I relate that to my role as a lawmaker, to the limits of the law, to the right of privacy that the Supreme Court found in Roe v. Wade?"

Billmon: The Wish is Father to the Deed

The BBC has posted a transcript of the chat between Bush and Blair that was accidently captured on tape. The completely non-surprising thing about it is how inarticulate and scatter brained both Bush and Blair sound -- like a couple of dopeheads discussing their favorite recipes for hash brownies, instead of two world leaders trying to deal with a serious Middle East crisis.

I find this particularly inexcusable on Blair's part -- after all, English is his mother tongue.

Desire Controls What We Perceive, Study Finds

Posted on Jul 16, 2006

From Live Science: “Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.”

This may explain, for example, why people on different sides of an argument remember wildly different aspects of the confrontation.

Live Science:

Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.

“There is an age old hypothesis in psychology that a person’s wishes, hopes and desires can influence what they see,” said David Dunning, Cornell University psychologist and co-author of the study. “This theory had lay dormant for about 40 years, though, without any supporting evidence. We wanted to test the murky waters again.”

Bush Administration Plans Medicare Changes

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: July 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 16 — The Bush administration says it plans sweeping changes in Medicare payments to hospitals that could cut payments by 20 percent to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies.

The changes, the biggest since the current payment system was adopted in 1983, are meant to improve the accuracy of payment rates. But doctors, hospitals and patient groups say the effects could be devastating.

Executives given cut-price stock options in weeks after 9/11

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Monday July 17, 2006
The Guardian

Executives at leading US companies could make millions through the award of stock options issued in the weeks after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

Nearly 200 US companies awarded options to their board members in the wake of the attacks when share prices were at historic lows, giving executives the chance to make millions of dollars later as values returned to normal levels.

The Loom: Dodos In Kansas

Randy Olson visited the Loom a few months ago in connection with his movie about our national fun and games with evolution and intelligent design, Flock of Dodos. He provoked a lot of discussion with his main point, that biologists were doing a poor job of reaching out to the public. Some skeptics wondered whether accepting Olson's argument would lead to dumbing science down and engaging in the same bogus PR as creationists. This morning Randy dropped me an email note to point out what he considers a depressing confirmation of his thesis.

Kansas--where the science standards have been softened up for the supernatural and are now considered the worst in the nation--is getting ready for their primaries in August. To support the board members who rewrote the standards, the Discovery Institute--which promotes Intelligent Design, a k a "the progeny of creationism"--has rolled out a big campaign, "Stand Up for Science, Stand Up for Kansas." They're all over the place in Kansas, apparently, with ads, meetings, and other activities. This all must cost some serious coin.

Frank Rich: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You 'Axis of Evil'

The New York Times
Published: July 16, 2006

AS American foreign policy lies in ruins from Pyongyang to Baghdad to Beirut, its epitaph is already being written in Washington. Last week's Time cover, "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy," lays out the conventional wisdom: the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war, upended by chaos in Iraq and the nuclear intransigence of North Korea and Iran, is now officially kaput. In its stead, a sadder but more patient White House, under the sway of Condi Rice, is embracing the fine art of multilateral diplomacy and dumping the "bring 'em on" gun-slinging that got the world into this jam.

The only flaw in this narrative — a big one — is that it understates the administration's failure by assuming that President Bush actually had a grand, if misguided, vision in the first place. Would that this were so. But in truth this presidency never had a vision for the world. It instead had an idée fixe about one country, Iraq, and in pursuit of that obsession recklessly harnessed American power to gut-driven improvisation and P.R. strategies, not doctrine. This has not changed, even now.

Clinton Economists: A Storm Is Coming

By William Greider, The Nation. Posted July 17, 2006.

Economists from the Clinton era were once the biggest cheerleaders for free trade and pro-business policies -- but now economic uncertainties have them singing a different cheer.

When Robert Rubin speaks his mind, his thoughts on economic policy are the gold standard for the Democratic Party. The former Treasury Secretary, now executive co-chair of Citigroup, captured the party's allegiance in the 1990s as principal architect of Bill Clinton's governing strategy, the conservative approach known as "Rubinomics" (or less often "Clintonomics"). Balancing the budget and aggressively pushing trade liberalization went hard against liberal intentions and the party's working-class base. But when Clinton's second term ended in booming prosperity, full employment and rising wages, most Democrats told themselves, Listen to Bob Rubin and good things happen.

So it's a big deal when Robert Rubin changes the subject and begins to talk about income inequality as "a deeply troubling fact of American economic life" that threatens the trading system, even the stability of "capitalist, democratic society." More startling, Rubin now freely acknowledges what the American establishment for many years denied or dismissed as inconsequential--globalization's role in generating the thirty-year stagnation of US wages, squeezing middle-class families and below, while directing income growth mainly to the upper brackets. A lot of Americans already knew this. Critics of "free trade" have been saying as much for years. But when Bob Rubin says it, his words can move politicians, if not financial markets.

Glenn Greenwald: Journalists: It's time for some articles on the pro-Bush blogosphere

(updated below - updated again)

Media Matters has compiled a long list of just some of the violence-inciting rhetoric and hate-mongering which has become a staple of the right-wing blogosphere. It cites examples from bloggers such as Dean Esmay, Misha, Megan McCardle (a/k/a Jane Galt), and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, along with the pundits and bloggers, led by David Horowitz, who were responsible for the recent publication of the addresses, telephone numbers, and satellite photographs of the homes of employees of The New York Times.

The important point here is that the liberal blogosphere has received substantial -- really, endless -- media attention over the past few months, coverage which has included everything from the upsetting use of bad words to petty bickering to rank Internet gossip. But the pro-Bush blogosphere is all but ignored by the media, and it is long past time for a substantive, thorough examination of the extremist rhetoric and violence-drenched imagery which composes the backbone of their dialogue.

Digby: Paper Heroes

James Wolcott makes an observation that in a sane world would not be necessary. In this world it cannot be made enough. He quotes wingnut historian Victor Davis Hanson:

"But we shouldn’t forget that the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane [sic: Kane] is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can’t or won’t save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone’s relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town."

Digby: More Rightwing Rapture

Jesus' General posted some excerpts from a freeper thread celebrating the deaths of Lebanese children. The posts are as disturbing as you might imagine. I clicked over to see if there were any protests of this callousness. Surprisingly enough, there are sometimes a few freepers with a slight conscience who step into these psycho-threads and try to pull people back from the brink.

Not this time. It's one sick comment after the other.

Secret court may end up hearing AT&T illegal surveillance lawsuit; Legislation backed by White House would allow transfer

- Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, July 15, 2006

A lawsuit in San Francisco federal court accusing AT&T of illegally collaborating with the Bush administration's electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens would be transferred to a secret court accessible only to the government under new legislation backed by the White House.

A provision of the bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, would allow the government to move the AT&T case and all other lawsuits involving the surveillance program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in Washington.

NYT Editorial: The Real Agenda

Published: July 16, 2006

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

He Wants No Good Deed to Go Unpaid

The Social Security bureaucrat has been lauded for spotting payment errors. Now he's seeking a reward.

By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer
July 16, 2006

PHILADELPHIA — Traditionally, Americans like their heroes on the modest side, fearless and undaunted by adversity but generous and self-effacing in victory. Abraham Lincoln is the model, or Jimmy Stewart.

Ronald Cooley is a hero — but not that kind. He's the sort who launches lonely crusades against the odds, risks his future to help thousands of people he does not even know, and receives high honors for his work. But instead of expressing modest gratitude, he goes to court demanding a big financial reward too.