Why Now?

The timing of the Guantanamo trials is not an accident.

By Charles Swift
Posted Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at 4:28 PM ET

During the course of my career as a defense lawyer in the military, I've shrugged off many government conspiracy theories. Each time I heard one, I'd smile and say that one should never attribute to a vast government conspiracy acts that can be as readily attributed to mere government incompetence or accident. So, I did not initially assume any concerted plan or purpose behind recent activities at Guantanamo Bay.

But the government's latest moves in the ongoing battle over the legality of its detention policies are anything but incompetent, and they've forced me to reassess my initial conclusion: The decision to try six Guantanamo detainees using military commissions is very clearly part of a concerted effort to use the Guantanamo commissions to subvert the goals of justice and to maintain a veil of secrecy around its questionable interrogation policies.

Study's look at oceans is sobering

Researchers from UNC-CH and elsewhere find that human influences are pervasive and harmful

Wade Rawlins, Staff Writer

Despite the oceans' vast expanse across 70 percent of the Earth, their every reach is affected by human activities, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others says.

The study, published today in the journal Science, says that over 40 percent of the world's oceans are suffering from multiple human influences, including overfishing, pollution, climate change and commercial shipping traffic. And no part of the deep blue sea is entirely unaffected, the scientists found.

The team of scientists from the United States, Great Britain and Canada synthesized global data to see how 17 human functions threaten marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, sea grass beds and continental shelves.

Jihadis throw a wild bash over the Protect America Act

What can one even say about this quote, included in Carl Hulse's NYT article on the Democrats' refusal yesterday to pass the Senate's FISA bill before expiration of the Protect America Act:

"I think there is probably joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world that the United States Congress did not do its duty today," said Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas.

This is the kind of pure, unadulterated idiocy -- childish, cartoonish and creepy -- that Democrats for years have been allowing to bully them into submission, govern our country, and dismantle our Constitution.

Parental intervention boosts education of kids at high risk of failure

An eight-week-long intervention program aimed at parents from low socioeconomic backgrounds reaped significant educational benefits in their preschool-aged children, a University of Oregon research fellow reported today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Can Dean defuse Clinton-Obama delegate feud?

David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: February 15, 2008 11:57:29 AM

WASHINGTON — Howard Dean, at least on paper, should be the power broker best positioned to get the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama people behind closed doors and resolve their fight over contested delegates from Florida and Michigan, which threatens to rupture the party.

But in this tense time, when Democrats are whispering and wondering about whether there's a wise man or woman out there who could step in and break the presidential candidates' deadlock, the Democratic Party chairman isn't being widely considered as a natural for that role.

Gore warns on 'subprime carbon' industry

Gore Warns Major Investors at UN Forum That 'Subprime Carbon Assets' Will Prove Costly

JOHN HEILPRIN, AP News
Feb 14, 2008 18:52 EST

Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy — or prepare for huge losses down the road.

"You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you — as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you — that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets," the former vice president said.

Paul Krugman: A Crisis of Faith

A decade ago, during the last global financial crisis, the word on everyone’s lips was “contagion.” Troubles that began in a far-away country of which most people knew nothing (Thailand) eventually spread to much bigger countries with no obvious connection to Southeast Asia, like Russia and Brazil.

Today, we’re witnessing another kind of contagion, not so much across countries as across markets. Troubles that began a little over a year ago in an obscure corner of the financial system, BBB-minus subprime-mortgage-backed securities, have spread to corporate bonds, auto loans, credit cards and now — the latest casualty — student loans.

US consumer confidence plummets

Confidence among US consumers has fallen to a 16-year low, as fears grow about a recession and job cuts, a closely-watched survey has found.

The University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 69.6 in February, from 78.4 in January.

The report said the index had only been this low during past recessions

Monsanto U: Agribusiness's Takeover of Public Schools

By Nancy Scola, AlterNet
Posted on February 15, 2008, Printed on February 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76804/

I've startled a bug scientist. "Yeah, now I'm nervous," said Mike Hoffmann, a Cornell University entomologist and crop specialist who spends his days with cucumber beetles and small wasps. But he's also in charge of keeping the research funding flowing at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. What have I done to alarm him? I've drawn his attention to the newly released FY 2009 Presidential Budget.

Like more than a hundred public institutions of higher learning, Cornell is what's known as a "land grant." Dotting the United States from Ithaca, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., such schools were established by a Civil War-era act of Congress to provide universities centered around, "the agriculture and mechanic arts." Congress handed each U.S. state a chunk of federal land to be sold for start-up monies, and for the last 150 years, it has funded ground-breaking research on all things agriculture, from dirt to crops to cattle.

Half-a-Loaf Stimulus

by NANCY CLEELAND

[posted online on February 13, 2008]

The $168 billion stimulus package signed by President Bush today will provide a needed boost to a struggling US economy. The size and timing are right. Unfortunately, however, the Administration and its Congressional allies rejected the consensus opinion of economists and insisted on provisions that make the package about half as effective as it could have been. Those shortcomings should be addressed in a follow-up plan built on sound economic reasoning, rather than political favors and ideology.

First, the good news: the bulk of the money will flow directly to low- and middle-income Americans in the spring or early summer. They will receive checks ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on family size and income. Not all of this money will find its way directly into the economy--as much as half may be socked away in savings or used to pay off debt--but what is spent will help preserve jobs and slow the economy's accelerating downward spiral.

Tomgram: Jonathan Schwarz, Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece

As Eric Alterman has written, he's the "journalist" of "perpetual wrongness" (as well as an "apparatchik" of the first order and a "right-wing holy warrior"). And for that, he's perpetually hired or published: Fox News, the Washington Post op-ed page, Time Magazine, and most recently, the New York Times where, in his very first column, he made a goof that had to be corrected at the bottom of column two (and where, with his usual perspicacity when it comes to the future, he predicted an Obama victory in the New Hampshire primary). Liberal websites devote time to listing his many mistakes and mis-predictions. In a roiling mass of neocons, right-wingers, and liberal war hawks, he's certainly been in fierce competition for the title of "wrongest" of all when it came to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. ("Iraq's always been very secular…") I hardly have to spell out the name of He Who Strides Amongst Us, the editor of Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard. But, okay, for the one person on the planet who doesn't know -- it's Bill Kristol. The notorious Mr. Kristol, the man whose crystal ball never works.

US military accused of harboring fundamentalism

The title doesn't accurately describe the point of this article, in my opinion.--Dictynna

by Roland Lloyd Parry
Thu Feb 14, 9:04 AM ET

Since his last combat deployment in Iraq, Jeremy Hall has had a rough time, getting shoved and threatened by his fellow soldiers. The trouble started there when he would not pray in the mess hall.

"A senior ranking staff sergeant told me to leave and sit somewhere else because I refused to pray," Hall, a 23-year-old US army specialist, told AFP.

Later, Hall was confronted by a major for holding an authorized meeting of "atheists and freethinkers" on his base. The officer threatened to discipline him and block his re-enlistment.

"He said: 'You guys are being a problem and problems can be removed,'" Hall said. "He was yelling at us and stuff and at the very end he says, 'I really love you guys, I want you to see the light.'"

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Fed boss warns of weaker economy

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the outlook for the US economy is deteriorating.

He said the housing and credit market turmoil had hit the economy and added that a weak labour market could further undermine consumer spending.

Given the risks facing the economy, Mr Bernanke signalled that additional US interest rate cuts were likely.

How America Can Be a Superpower the World Respects

By Jason Marsh, Greater Good
Posted on February 13, 2008, Printed on February 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76252/

An interview with foreign policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter by Jason Marsh.

"World's only superpower" -- that's the title bestowed on the United States for the last two decades. It has a nice ring to it, but what does it mean today?

"Measured by economic statistics and military might, our power is greater than ever," writes foreign policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter in her recent book, The Idea That Is America. "But measured by the commonsense measure of whether we can get others to do what we want them to do, we have clearly lost ground since the Cold War."

Maude Barlow: The Growing Battle for the Right to Water

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Posted on February 14, 2008, Printed on February 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76819/

From Chile to the Philippines to South Africa to her home country of Canada, Maude Barlow is one of a few people who truly understands the scope of the world's water woes. Her newest book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, details her discoveries around the globe about our diminishing water resources, the increasing privatization trend and the grassroots groups that are fighting back against corporate theft, government mismanagement and a changing climate.

Private RU-486 Confounds Anti-Abortionists: Who Can We Harass Now?

By Sara Robinson, Group News Blog
Posted on February 14, 2008, Printed on February 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75201/

Don't look now, but the front lines of the abortion battle are shifting. Thanks to advances in medical technology and the introduction of the drug mifepristone (aka RU 486), which gives women the option of having safe, early abortions in private locations instead of public clinics, the raving crazies who tape pictures of bloody fetuses to their bodies, stalk Planned Parenthood and howl "murder" at anyone who walks through its doors, may suddenly find themselves all dressed up with nowhere to go -- and no one to terrorize.

Or, at the very least, if this mob of screeching would-be fetus rescuers wants to continue its brand of guerrilla warfare -- a decades-long face-down with abortion providers who have accepted the possibility that they'd be blown up at their desks or taken out by a sniper while sitting at their dinner tables as just another part of the job -- its self-righteous, lunatic members will have to work a lot harder.

U.S. deficient against Muslim insurgents, study says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military is seriously deficient in meeting "the threat of Islamist insurgencies," says a Pentagon-commissioned study released Monday.

The Rand Corp. report characterizes "U.S. military intervention and occupation in the Muslim world" as "at best inadequate, at worst counter-productive, and, on the whole, infeasible." The Pentagon asked the nonprofit research organization to review strategies to thwart insurgents.

Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare, Part II: Debunking the Free Marketeers

SARA ROBINSON

In this follow-up, I'd like to address a few of the larger assumptions that Americans make about health care that are contradicted by the Canadian example. In the process, here is some general thinking, and some talking points, that may be useful in the debates ahead.

American pumps up Third World farmers' income

By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

If there's a limit to what one person can do about Third World poverty, Paul Polak hasn't found it. For 25 years, he's been the Johnny Appleseed of the treadle pump, a simple foot-powered irrigation device that's enabled millions of farmers making $1 a day in places such as Bangladesh and Zambia to produce bigger crops and earn more.

PTSD a medical warning sign for long-term health problems

New Geisinger research finds that post-traumatic stress disorder is an indicator of long-term health problems, similar to biological warning signs such as elevated white blood cell counts. With an in-depth study of Vietnam vets, pioneering PTSD researcher Joseph Boscarino shows that PTSD leaves a distinct biological mark on a person's overall health. Considered a psychological or mental health problem, PTSD should now be viewed as a threat to a person's physical health, Boscarino concludes.

Mortgage Crisis Spreads Past Subprime Loans

By VIKAS BAJAJ and LOUISE STORY

The credit crisis is no longer just a subprime mortgage problem.

As home prices fall and banks tighten lending standards, people with good, or prime, credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace, according to industry data and economists.

The rise in prime delinquencies, while less severe than the one in the subprime market, nonetheless poses a threat to the battered housing market and weakening economy, which some specialists say is in a recession or headed for one.

Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead to Emission-Free Cars

ATLANTA (February 11, 2008) —Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters — automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators).

Bush Justice Department Goes After Another Democratic Lawyer (And Why This is Bad News for Yoo and Bradbury)

It’s beginning to sound like a stuck record. Another strike by the Bush Justice Department, keeping the country safe. Who’s the target this time? A crack dealer? An al Qaeda terrorist? No. It’s a wing-tip shoed Miami lawyer, who served as president of the bar association, is held in universally high esteem (outside, of course, of the political hacks who run the Bush Justice Department) and who advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount battle. According to the Justice Department, the lawyer’s involvement with Democratic politics has nothing to do with his being charged. Quite a few of his contemporaries are having problems buying that, and still bigger problems understanding his supposed “crime.”

How the spooks took over the news

In his controversial new book, Nick Davies argues that shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion – and that the media simply swallow it wholesale

The letter argued that al-Qa'ida, which is a Sunni network, should attack the Shia population of Iraq: "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis."

Later that day, at a regular US press briefing in Baghdad, US General Mark Kimmitt dealt with a string of questions about The New York Times report: "We believe the report and the document is credible, and we take the report seriously... It is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come in to this country and spark civil war, create sectarian violence, try to expose fissures in this society." The story went on to news agency wires and, within 24 hours, it was running around the world.

Paul Krugman: Hate Springs Eternal

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”

The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

AP Scoop: War Veterans Make Up Half of Suicides At Home

Published: February 12, 2008 11:20 AM ET

WASHINGTON National Guard and Reserve troops who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan make up more than half of veterans who committed suicide after returning home from those wars, according to new government data obtained by The Associated Press.

A Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of ongoing research of deaths among veterans of both wars -- obtained exclusively by The AP -- found that Guard or Reserve members were 53 percent of the veteran suicides from 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, through the end of 2005.

Senate Protects Telecom Immunity in Spy Bill

By William Branigin and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; 2:53 PM

The Senate voted today to preserve retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with a government eavesdropping program, decisively rejecting an amendment that would have stripped the provision from a bill to modernize an electronic surveillance law.

Senators voted 67 to 31 to shelve the amendment offered by Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). A filibuster-proof 60 votes had been needed for the amendment to move forward.

Christian Right's Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on February 12, 2008, Printed on February 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76686/

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges -- a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy -- to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world's population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims. Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News, including the Bill O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows, as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called Why We Want to Kill You, promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how "Muslim terrorists" invaded America 30 years ago and how "perseverance, recruitment and hate" have fueled attacks by Muslims.

Frank Rich: Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War

WHAT if a presidential candidate held what she billed as “the largest, most interactive town hall in political history” on national television, and no one noticed?

The untold story in the run-up to Super Tuesday was Hillary Clinton’s elaborate live prime-time special the night before the vote. Presiding from a studio in New York, the candidate took questions from audiences in 21 other cities. She had plugged the event four days earlier in the last gasp of her debate with Barack Obama and paid a small fortune for it: an hour of time on the Hallmark Channel plus satellite TV hookups for the assemblies of supporters stretching from coast to coast.