Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Reading the Script


NY TIMES
August 3, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A message to my fellow journalists: check out media watch sites like campaigndesk.org, mediamatters.org and dailyhowler.com. It's good to see ourselves as others see us. I've been finding The Daily Howler's concept of a media "script," a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence, particularly helpful in understanding cable news.

For example, last summer, when growth briefly broke into a gallop, cable news decided that the economy was booming. The gallop soon slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. But judging from the mail I recently got after writing about the slowing economy, the script never changed; many readers angrily insisted that my numbers disagreed with everything they had seen on TV.

If you really want to see cable news scripts in action, look at the coverage of the Democratic convention.

Commercial broadcast TV covered only one hour a night. We'll see whether the Republicans get equal treatment. C-Span, on the other hand, provided comprehensive, commentary-free coverage. But many people watched the convention on cable news channels - and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military.

If that sounds like a script written by the Republicans, it is. As the movie "Outfoxed" makes clear, Fox News is for all practical purposes a G.O.P. propaganda agency. A now-famous poll showed that Fox viewers were more likely than those who get their news elsewhere to believe that evidence of Saddam-Qaeda links has been found, that W.M.D. had been located and that most of the world supported the Iraq war.

CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN "has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks?

Commentators worked hard to spin scenes that didn't fit the script. Some simply saw what they wanted to see. On Fox, Michael Barone asserted that conventioneers cheered when Mr. Kerry criticized President Bush but were silent when he called for military strength. Check out the video clips at Media Matters; there was tumultuous cheering when Mr. Kerry talked about a strong America.

Another technique, pervasive on both Fox and CNN, was to echo Republican claims of an "extreme makeover" - the assertion that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party. (Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.)

It will probably be easier to make a comparable case in New York, where the Republicans are expected to feature an array of moderate, pro-choice speakers and keep Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay under wraps. But in Boston, it took creativity to portray the delegates as being out of the mainstream. For example, Bill Schneider at CNN claimed that according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, 75 percent of the delegates favor "abortion on demand" - which exaggerated the poll's real finding, which is that 75 percent opposed stricter limits than we now have.

But the real power of a script is the way it can retroactively change the story about what happened.

On Thursday night, Mr. Kerry's speech was a palpable hit. A focus group organized by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, found it impressive and persuasive. Even pro-Bush commentators conceded, at first, that it had gone over well.

But a terrorism alert is already blotting out memories of last week. Although there is now a long history of alerts with remarkably convenient political timing, and Tom Ridge politicized the announcement by using the occasion to praise "the president's leadership in the war against terror," this one may be based on real information. Regardless, it gives the usual suspects a breathing space; once calm returns, don't be surprised if some of those same commentators begin describing the ineffective speech they expected (and hoped) to see, not the one they actually saw.

Luckily, in this age of the Internet it's possible to bypass the filter. At c-span.org, you can find transcripts and videos of all the speeches. I'd urge everyone to watch Mr. Kerry and others for yourself, and make your own judgment.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:27 AM

Mr. Bush's Wrong Solution


NY TIMES
August 3, 2004

At a time when Americans need strong leadership and bold action, President Bush offered tired nostrums and bureaucratic half-measures yesterday. He wanted to appear to be embracing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, but he actually rejected the panel's most significant ideas, and thus missed a chance to confront the twin burdens he faces at this late point in his term: the need to get intelligence reform moving whether he's re-elected or not, and the equally urgent need to repair the government's credibility on national security.

Mr. Bush spoke on a day when Americans were still digesting the terrifying warning of possible terrorist attacks against financial institutions in New York, Newark and Washington. The authorities in those cities did the right thing by stepping up security. But it's unfortunate that it is necessary to fight suspicions of political timing, suspicions the administration has sown by misleading the public on security. The Times reports today that much of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political gain.

The 9/11 panel's most important recommendation was to create the post of national intelligence director. Such a director would be confirmed by the Senate and have real power to supervise the 15 disparate intelligence agencies. The director of central intelligence has that charge now, without the power to do it. The commission said the new official should be part of the White House Executive Office, not a cabinet member, to ensure access to the president.

There are a variety of credible ways to construct the job, whether in the cabinet or not, but what Mr. Bush proposed is not one of them. His intelligence director would be in the worst of all worlds: cut out of the president's inner circle and lacking any real power. Andrew Card Jr., Mr. Bush's chief of staff, said the post would not carry real authority over the intelligence agencies' budgets or intelligence jobs in the Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies. The decision bore the unmistakable stamp of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was never going to willingly give up control of appointments or his share of the intelligence budget: $32 billion of the overall $40 billion.

Mr. Bush did embrace the 9/11 commission's suggestion - one that did not challenge his turf - that Congress stop supervising intelligence and homeland security through scores of committees and instead have one committee in each house to oversee intelligence and one for homeland security. And he went beyond the 9/11 panel in one way by proposing a post to coordinate intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. That sounds like a bad idea, especially with the administration's record of fanciful interpretations of that intelligence on Iraq.

Mr. Bush's bureaucratic dodge on the intelligence director's job is the same one he used on the job of director of homeland security. Then he was forced to reverse field, endorse a new cabinet department and claim it as his own idea. We don't care who gets credit. What's important is that Congress reject what Mr. Bush came up with yesterday and do the job right when it returns in September.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:20 AM

Monday, August 02, 2004

IS THIS AMERICA?


Jim Hightower
August 2, 2004

What do Kalamazoo, Evansville, Albuquerque, Stockton, Trenton, Phoenix, Columbia, St. Louis, Knoxville, and Charleston have in common?

All are among the cities where the secret service or police have jailed people for displaying anti-Bush signs during public appearances by his eminence, King George the W. Is this America, The Land of the Free?

That's what Nicole and Jeff Rank asked themselves this July 4th as they were taken away in handcuffs by police in their town of Charleston, West Virginia. What was their heinous crime? They were guilty of not being Bush supporters.

George W's Independence Day trip to Charleston was billed as an official presidential visit, not a campaign rally. Nicole and Jeff––two patriotic, hardworking, taxpaying Americans––were in the crowd, quietly exercising their free-speech rights. They wore T-shirts declaring: "Love America, Hate Bush."

They had proper tickets to the event, they proudly sang the National Anthem with everyone else, they were in no way disorderly––but they were not politically correct, so they were summarily arrested, taken to jail, finger printed...and charged with "trespassing." Others who were there wearing pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush campaign paraphernalia at this public event on public property were not arrested. It seems that the Bushites define "trespassers" by their political beliefs.

Nicole, who worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Charleston, was promptly told that her services were no longer required. Technically, she wasn't fired, but she was "released" from her job and not reassigned––meaning she no longer gets paid.

But Nicole and Jeff are still not bowing to King George. Despite the financial hardship, they're fighting Bush's absurd, un-American assault on their constitutional right to dissent. They're not the only ones being denied their right to speak out––dissenters all across America are being treated like this. To fight this autocratic lockdown, call the ACLU: 212-549-2500.

Sources: "We weren't doing anything wrong." By Tara Tuckwiller, The Charelston Gazette, July 14, 2004.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:48 PM

All the Pretty Words



NY TIMES
August 2, 2004
By BOB HERBERT

They were able to sustain the eloquence for most of the week, which had to be a surprise. Bill Clinton told us that "strength and wisdom are not opposing values." Barack Obama called America "a magical place." John Kerry said, "The high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place."

There was no shortage of pretty words and promises at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week. But there's a big difference between the rigidly crafted reality at the heart of a political campaign and the reality of the rest of the world.

"Practical politics," said Henry Adams, "consists in ignoring facts."

The facts facing the United States as George W. Bush and John Kerry joust for the presidency are too grim to be honestly discussed on the stump. No one wants to tell cheering potential voters that the nation has sunk so deep into a hole that it will take decades to extricate it. So the candidates are trying to outdo one another in expressions of sunny optimism.

President Bush and Dick Cheney deride "the same old pessimism" of the Democrats. Mr. Kerry counters by saying to the president, "Let's be optimists, not just opponents."

The voters deserve better in an era of overwhelming problems. Consider Iraq. Neither the president nor Mr. Kerry knows what to do about this terrible misadventure that has cost more than 900 American and thousands of innocent Iraqi lives. The war is draining the U.S. Treasury and has made the Middle East more, not less, unstable. Dreams of democracy taking root in the garden of Baghdad and then spreading like the flowers of spring throughout the Middle East have given way to the awful reality of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

You won't hear straight talk about this all-important matter from either camp. And you can forget the chatter about an exit strategy for American troops. There isn't one.

Or consider Afghanistan. Not long ago American officials were claiming a decisive victory and the Bush administration was trumpeting the liberation of Afghan women from the clutches of the Taliban. But the proclamations of success were premature. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar are nowhere to be found. Warlords and insurgents are in control of much of the country and the growth industry is the opium trade. The extraordinarily courageous group Doctors Without Borders is packing its bags and withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years because five of its staff members were murdered and the government will not bring the killers to justice. On Friday the U.S. government warned American citizens against traveling to Afghanistan because of the danger of being kidnapped or killed.

Some victory.

Employment here in America is another topic on which the presidential candidates will not tell the voters the cold, hard truth. There are not nearly enough jobs available for the millions upon millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who want and desperately need gainful employment. The population in need of jobs is expanding daily and no one has a viable plan for accommodating it. Families are being squeezed like Florida oranges as good jobs with good benefits - health insurance, paid vacations and retirement security - are going the way of the afternoon newspaper and baseball double-headers.

These are incredibly difficult issues and an honest search for solutions can only come from a sustained effort by the broadest array of America's brightest and wisest men and women. What the U.S. really needs is leadership that could marshal that effort.

Unfortunately, we've become a society addicted to the fantasy of a quick fix. We want our solutions encompassed in a sound bite. We want our leaders to manipulate reality to our liking.

So there was President Bush in a hard-hit industrial region of Ohio over the weekend telling voters, "The economy is strong and it's getting stronger." And the Kerry-Edwards team is assuring one and all that "help is on the way."

The voters may deserve better, but there's a real question about whether they want better. It may well be that candidates can't tell voters the truth and still win. If that's so, then democracy American-style may be a lot more dysfunctional than even the last four years has indicated.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:41 AM

Bush's Biggest Deficit: Consistency


This year's budgetary shortfall will be bigger than ever -- but by White House math, that's a victory.

Read all about it in Business Week.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:33 AM

Sunday, August 01, 2004

The Networks should be ashamed


This is the most important election in our lifetime. The very fabric of our Democracy is at stake. Apparently that didn't phase the major networks. ABC, NBC and CBS provided a whopping three (3) hours of coverage over four (4) days. The local Fox station provided no coverage at all.

PBS provided three (3) hours per night of coverage, although they had too many talking heads and failed to air some excellent speeches and other events that occurred while they were on the air.

For those with cable, the only choice for viewing the entire convention (which began at 4pm on each of the four days of the convention), gavel to gavel, without annoying talking heads, was C-Span.

So sadly, for a significant portion of US citizens, they did not have the chance to see and hear much of the convention, which, if they had, would have provided them with the information the broadcast networks, and much of the so-called cable news networks, don't provide.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 6:44 PM

You be the judge



As Kerry goes up in the polls and Bush goes down in the polls, suddenly, the topic gets changed back to terror alerts. This is such a continuing pattern, that it is getting harder and harder to believe that there truly are new "verifiable" threats.

It is hard to believe that the latest annoucement by Tom Ridge is not really a disguised political event, when, in the heart of his announcement today, he said the following:

"[W]e must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror, the reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan."

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Posted by politicalstuff at 6:21 PM

Bush, with nothing positive to run on, plans excessively negative campaign



According to an article in today's NY Times, "President Bush's campaign plans to use the normally quiet month of August for a vigorous drive to undercut John Kerry" and "Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision."

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Posted by politicalstuff at 6:15 PM

Friday, July 30, 2004

The truth behind the latest Misleading Bush Video



KEY DISTORTIONS CONTAINED IN THE NEW BUSH-CHENEY VIDEO

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Posted by politicalstuff at 3:54 PM

Audit Finds Fraud, Other Abuses in Iraq Contract Awards



By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 30, 2004; Page A10

In its second report to Congress, the inspector general's office for the occupation authority that ruled Iraq until recently found significant cases of mismanagement, fraud, missing paperwork and manipulation in the awarding of contracts using millions of dollars of U.S. and Iraqi funds.

The Coalition Provisional Authority inspector general audit, to be released today, uncovered cases of abuse by officials of the occupation government. The report does not name names, but the inspector general's office said its work has resulted in 69 criminal investigations. Forty-two have been closed or sent to other investigative agencies and an additional 27 are still open.

According to the report, a high-ranking adviser for the CPA manipulated the contract-award system to bypass the bidding process for a security contract. The $7.2 million award was revoked, a $2.3 million advance payment was returned and the CPA official was fired. A Defense Department civilian who was a coach for an Iraqi amateur sports team was advanced $40,000 cash for expenses to take the team to compete in other countries. But the coach gave the funds to his military assistant, who gambled the money and lost some of it. The missing amount was then written off as a legitimate loss.

The inspector general's office also found weaknesses in the monitoring process for work done under CPA contracts. Its staffers went to inspect work for a contract for oil pipeline repair and found that employees were not in the field doing the labor specified by the contract. The contractor was docked $3.4 million for improper charges. Auditors also found that a different contractor providing security for the oil pipeline repair crew overcharged by $20,000.

Full article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25914-2004Jul29.html

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Posted by politicalstuff at 2:14 PM

Governor Pataki's Odd Veto



NY TIMES
July 30, 2004

Gov. George Pataki vetoed a bill yesterday that is the most important piece of legislation passed by New York's Legislature so far this year. It would have provided the lowest-paid workers in the state a gradual increase in the minimum wage, now $5.15, to $7.15 an hour by 2007. Mr. Pataki said he wanted a federal minimum wage bill instead. But that might be a long wait. Legislators from both the Assembly and the Senate need to override the governor's veto in the next few weeks.

What made this particular veto so odd is that last week Mr. Pataki sent the Legislature a "message of necessity'' about this same bill. The message, a shortcut around the normal legislative timetable, allows an immediate vote. Such a stamp of urgency from the governor should mean, at the very least, that the state's chief executive desperately wants that bill to be law. Not, apparently, this time.

The governor's people scoff that giving bills emergency status has become a routine courtesy to the Legislature. But most veterans of Albany's byzantine ways would suspect more than courtesy in this case. It is an election year for legislators, and the minimum wage issue is a tricky one for Republicans. Mainly, residents of New York City generally like the increase. Conservative Party leaders generally don't. So what to do about Republican-backed candidates in New York City who need both Conservatives and other voters? This looks like another case of an old Albany dodge: Republicans vote for the bill and the governor, conveniently, vetoes it. The problem is that a lot of low-wage workers will be the losers unless the Assembly and especially the Senate vote to override the governor.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:30 PM

Triumph of the Trivial



NY TIMES
July 30, 2004

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Under the headline "Voters Want Specifics From Kerry," The Washington Post recently quoted a voter demanding that John Kerry and John Edwards talk about "what they plan on doing about health care for middle-income or lower-income people. I have to face the fact that I will never be able to have health insurance, the way things are now. And these millionaires don't seem to address that."

Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can't say he hasn't addressed the issue. Why hasn't this voter heard about it?

Well, I've been reading 60 days' worth of transcripts from the places four out of five Americans cite as where they usually get their news: the major cable and broadcast TV networks. Never mind the details - I couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured. When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.

On the other hand, everyone knows that Teresa Heinz Kerry told someone to "shove it," though even there, the context was missing. Except for a brief reference on MSNBC, none of the transcripts I've read mention that the target of her ire works for Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire who financed smear campaigns against the Clintons - including accusations of murder. (CNN did mention Mr. Scaife on its Web site, but described him only as a donor to "conservative causes.") And viewers learned nothing about Mr. Scaife's long vendetta against Mrs. Heinz Kerry herself.

There are two issues here, trivialization and bias, but they're related.

Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear about Mr. Kerry's haircuts, not his health care proposals. We hear about George Bush's brush-cutting, not his environmental policies.

Even on its own terms, such reporting often gets it wrong, because journalists aren't especially good at judging character. ("He is, above all, a moralist," wrote George Will about Jack Ryan, the Illinois Senate candidate who dropped out after embarrassing sex-club questions.) And the character issues that dominate today's reporting have historically had no bearing on leadership qualities. While planning D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower had a close, though possibly platonic, relationship with his female driver. Should that have barred him from the White House?

And since campaign coverage as celebrity profiling has no rules, it offers ample scope for biased reporting.

Notice the voter's reference to "these millionaires." A Columbia Journalism Review Web site called campaigndesk.org, says its analysis "reveals a press prone to needlessly introduce Senators Kerry and Edwards and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels for President Bush or Vice President Cheney."

As the site points out, the Bush campaign has been "hammering away with talking points casting Kerry as out of the mainstream because of his wealth, hoping to influence press coverage." The campaign isn't claiming that Mr. Kerry's policies favor the rich - they manifestly don't, while Mr. Bush's manifestly do. Instead, we're supposed to dislike Mr. Kerry simply because he's wealthy (and not notice that his opponent is, too). Republicans, of all people, are practicing the politics of envy, and the media obediently go along.

In short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter. The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to invade Iraq.

P.S.: Another story you may not see on TV: Jeb Bush insists that electronic voting machines are perfectly reliable, but The St. Petersburg Times says the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the machines lack a paper trail and cannot "verify your vote."

P.P.S.: Three weeks ago, The New Republic reported that the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistan to announce a major terrorist capture during the Democratic convention. Hours before Mr. Kerry's acceptance speech, Pakistan announced, several days after the fact, that it had apprehended an important Al Qaeda operative.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:26 PM

Thursday, July 29, 2004

The Republicans have definitely lost their way



On the rnc.org website is the following, which clearly points out what is wrong with the current administration. Guess they are so proud that they want the world to know.

http://rnc.org/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4486

They Said It!

Wednesday, July 28, 2004
They Said It! (John Edwards & Al Sharpton)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (10:27 PM): "Between now and November, you, the American people, you can reject this tired old hateful negative politics of the past and instead you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what's possible, because this is America where everything is possible." (Sen. John Edwards, Remarks At The Democratic National Convention, Boston , MA, 7/28/04 )

AL SHARPTON (8:30 PM): "I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the court in ‘54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school." (Rev. Al Sharpton, Remarks At The Democratic National Convention, Boston , MA, 7/28/04 )

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Posted by politicalstuff at 3:40 PM

Putting E-Voting to Rest



From the Desk of David Pogue

NY TIMES

To the immense credit of this column's readership, not a single person has written to complain that I've spent too much time and space on the topic of computerized voting machines. Still, with today's installment, I hope to wrap up my coverage of this topic, at least for now. It's becoming clear that this issue is just as contentious and polarizing as any other this election season, and few people's minds will be changed by continued discussion. Meanwhile, the more it becomes clear that there's no way to solve the problems in time for this fall's Presidential election, I'm getting a little depressed by the whole thing.

Hundreds of you wrote to share your thoughts. For example, I heard from several readers overseas, who claimed to be disgusted by the entire voting-machine flap. "In a country where fewer than 50 percent of the citizens even bother to cast a vote, you've got a much bigger problem with your democracy than haggling over which kind of voting machine to use," wrote one.

I also heard from readers who derided the belief that, in the face of concerns that voting-machine software might be flawed or rigged, a voter-verified paper trail is the solution. I've written that such a paper record is critical if a recount is needed; otherwise, the only "recount" you can perform is to check the memory card yet again, which is pointless if you questioned its total the first time.

But the paper trail, several of you wrote, is no panacea. Yes, it provides a secure method of performing a recount -- but that's valuable only if it occurs to someone to PERFORM the recount. Trouble is, how will we know whether a recount is necessary? If one candidate wins the election by a 20 percent margin, will anybody realistically demand a recount? Does that mean we'll have to hand-count the results of every
voting machine in America?

The paper trail is certainly better than nothing -- if one paper-trail recount shows evidence of software tampering, then at least a wider investigation can begin -- but it's worthless unless somebody does, in fact, conduct a recount.

I heard from many, many people who felt that the rush to computerized voting machines is an ill-planned overreaction to the Florida hanging-chad episode. They wrote that non-computerized systems, particularly optical-scan and lever machines, have worked well for years--and they're a lot more secure than the new computer programs.

But many others wrote it to say that in the hands of a ruthlessly determined conspiracy, ANY system is, in theory, hackable. "Regarding the lever machines," wrote a voting official from California, "it's not in the final counting, but in the prep. My grandfather was a politician in Brooklyn in the 30's and 40's. The way machines got 'set up' then was to put a toothpick into an opponent's counter on the back of
the machine during set up, breaking off the excess and letting the counters carry the piece into the workings. This will slow down the roll of the numbers. You don't do this in the units line [of the counter], which could be too obvious, but in the tens or hundreds line, where it would be less noticeable. Ingenious, huh?"

Even paper ballots aren't tamper-proof. "Each side used to keep men called 'short pencil' guys at each polling place," that reader went on. "They would keep graphite under their fingernails so that they could run them across opponents' ballots to make them ineligible for counting (since no marks outside the boxes were allowed)."

I heard from a state voting official in Virginia who agreed that, in the end, no system is totally tamper-proof -- and offered some concrete ways for you to get involved. "In the final analysis, you have to trust the process, and to do this you have to know the details of the process. So volunteer to be an election official, get to know about YOUR system, and make sure that it and your election process works."

Lots of you wrote to suggest superior voting-machine technologies. Dan Wallach, for example, is a co-author of the Johns Hopkins study that ripped apart the security practices of Diebold, the largest maker of e-voting machines.

"I think you've missed one of the best technologies we've got for voting," he wrote. "It's called precinct-based optical scanning. The voter fills in a bubble with a pen on a printed paper ballot, then inserts it into the scanner above the ballot box. This sort of system satisfies what computer scientists have been grumbling about (it's voter-verifiable -- voters see the ballot when they mark it up) and it has a low error rate. And, oh by the way, op-scan is much, much cheaper."

There are even devices that combine the best of both worlds, he went on: touch-screen machines that offer the simplicity and accessibility of Diebold-type systems multi-lingual, adjustable type size, software that prevents voting for more than one candidate, and so on) -- but that print out an optical-scan ballot rather than allowing the software to tally the votes.

These are all terrific suggestions. These systems would do a lot to quell voters' fears and restore confidence in our election process.

The problem, of course, is that many states have already spent millions of dollars on self-contained touchscreen machines with no paper trail and no "op-scan" ballots. The states are not about to throw out all that equipment.

When I made this point to one of my correspondents, he wrote back: "A few million dollars? So what? We're spending $5 billion a MONTH trying to build a democracy in Iraq. Why not spend a tiny fraction of that to ensure a working democracy at home?"

-----

Forum: David Pogue's Columns

Share your thoughts on the feedback board.
http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/technology/davidpoguescolumns/index.html?8cir

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:34 PM

Michael Moore Vs. Bill O’Reilly



from airamericaradio.com

It was a showdown on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor on Tuesday night when Michael Moore went head to head against Bill O’Reilly.

Some of the exchange went like this:

Moore: Over 900 of our brave soldiers are dead. What do you say to their parents?

O’Reilly: What do I say to their parents? I say what every patriotic American would say. We are proud of your sons and daughters. They answered the call that their country gave them. We respect them and we feel terrible that they were killed.

Moore: And, but what were they killed for?

O’Reilly: They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of thousands of people

Moore: Um, but that was not the reason that was given to them to go to war, to remove a brutal dictator

O’Reilly: It was a mistake

Moore: Oh, just a mistake, and that’s what you tell all the parents with a deceased child, “We’re sorry.” I don’t think that is good enough.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:09 PM

BUSH UPSTAGES KERRY WITH ALABAMA NATIONAL GUARD REUNION



borowitzreport.com (Political Humor)

Awkward Silences Dominate Rose Garden Visit

As Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry crossed Boston Harbor in
a boat filled with his former Vietnam War comrades, President George W.
Bush attempted to upstage Mr. Kerry by holding a reunion of his Alabama
National Guard unit in the White House Rose Garden.

The former guardsmen arrived at the White House at noon and were
immediately issued "HELLO, MY NAME IS" tags before being reunited with the
President.

"Hi there... Johnny," the President was heard haltingly greeting one of
the veterans before posing with him for a photograph, saying to
another, "Hey, how are you doing... Dan!"

The gathering was marked by a series of increasingly awkward silences
as the guardsmen struggled to summon memories of their training days
with Mr. Bush.

"I'm pretty sure I remember him," said Tracy Conner, 57, of Mobile.
"If I'm not mistaken, he called me late one night and said, 'Sign in for
me tomorrow, willya pal?'"

After the twelve-minute reunion appeared to lose steam, the president
brought the event to a close with a brief prepared statement.

Calling the assembled guardsmen his "band of brothers," Mr. Bush
attempted to draw a sharp contrast between his military service record and
that of Sen. Kerry.

Holding aloft his recently recovered Alabama National Guard payroll
records, "Unlike some people I know, I am proud of my military service -
and I will never throw these records away again."

In other political news, two out of three Kucinich voters say they will
vote for John Kerry, but the other one remains undecided.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:49 PM

Florida Again Faces Disputes Over Elections
Recounts, Missing Records Debated


washingtonpost.com

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 29, 2004; Page A03

MIAMI, July 28 -- Anything sound familiar here?

Voting rights lawyers are in Tallahassee, one of the epicenters of the 2000 presidential election convulsions, arguing about recounts. Florida civil rights advocates are seething about restoring the voting rights of felons. And, in Miami, elections officials now find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why they've lost much of their audit records from the last big statewide election.

"We are no safer than we were in 2000," said Lida Rodriguez-Tasseff, chairman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a voting-rights group. "We may have even bigger problems that we don't even know about."

Rodriguez-Tasseff's organization unearthed the latest in an increasingly lengthy string of embarrassments for the Florida elections system when it filed a public-records request this month with the Miami-Dade County elections office asking for the audits of votes in the 2002 governor's election. The records were supposed to have been collected by the county's new $25 million electronic voting network. The answer the group received has made voter advocates queasy about how the system will perform in the November presidential election: The records were gone.

The group was told that two computer crashes -- the first in May last year and the second in November -- erased the records of the 2002 primary and general elections. The group's request, first reported in the New York Times, also revealed that the lack of a backup system meant that the records could not be recovered.

Full article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22176-2004Jul28.html

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:38 AM

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

The Hypocrisy of Silence



From:
THE PROGRESS REPORT
http://www.progressreport.org

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin

July 26, 2004


House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
and other White House allies, who were in full attack mode
(http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/5463586/) last week against Sandy Berger, were
dead silent this weekend as senior law enforcement officials
acknowledged they were conducting a criminal investigation into possible
intelligence leaks by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5504846/) . The information is related to a
leak of intercepted al Qaeda communications just prior to the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks. Shelby was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at
the time, and the matter has been referred to the Senate Ethics
Committee.

WHERE ARE THE CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS?: After FBI officials
and the 9/11 Commission
(http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/22/ldt.00.html) both played down
the allegations against Berger last week, congressional Republicans
decided they wanted to push the story anyway
(http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/5463586/) , calling for hearings on Capitol
Hill. Similar calls for an investigation into the Shelby matter have not
followed this weekend. And, as a new American Progress backgrounder
(http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=130039)
shows, these same Republicans have also refused to hold hearings on other
pressing national security matters, including the leak of an undercover
CIA agent's name by the Bush administration.

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 12:46 AM

2004 Democratic National Convention



Schedule and speeches

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/shoulders/dnc_fullschedule.html

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 12:17 AM

Monday, July 26, 2004

9/11 Commission Report Confirms Key Fahrenheit 9/11 Facts



The September 11 Commission's 567-page final report has confirmed key facts presented in Fahrenheit 9/11.

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 5:07 PM

'Steadfast' Bush's amazing flip-flops



The Boston Globe
By Dan Payne
June 5, 2004

BUSH-CHENEY team likes to say president is "steadfast." And John Kerry is "flip-flopper." But Senator Kerry is bolted to floor compared to Bush. President Bush is no more steadfast than Tony Soprano is faithful.

Never burdened by reality, Bush says departing CIA chief George Tenet did "superb job." That assumes Tenet's job was to fail miserably to anticipate 9/11 and to goad Bush into going to war under false pretenses. Bush doublespeak is matched only by his amazing flip-flops, which are underreported. Armchair Strategist aims to fix this, with help from Center for American Progress, liberal (There, I said it!) think tank.

Bush can't get enough of Chalabi. Chalabi cons Bush's neocons into toppling Saddam; sits behind Laura Bush at State of Union speech; always looks marvelous in custom-made $1,000 suits. US paid him $335,000 a month for "intelligence."

US troops raid Chalabi's house. US soldiers raided Chalabi's home and seized documents and computers. (Hope they didn't wrinkle his suits.) While on US payroll, told Iran that US had cracked code for Iran's secret communications. Time magazine says, "The US's abandonment of Chalabi may prove to be the most head-snapping reversal of all."

Bush called Osama number one priority. "There's an old poster out West that says, `Wanted: Dead or Alive.' . . . The most important thing is to find Osama bin Laden. It's our Number One priority. We will not rest until we have found him." (Sept. 13 and 16, 2001.)

Now Bush doesn't care about him. "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important." (March 13, 2002.)

Cheney: We will be greeted as liberators. On "Face the Nation" Cheney predicts war in Iraq will "go relatively quickly." On "Meet the Press," says "things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." (March 16, 2003.)

Bush: That's Cheney's story, and I'm sticking with it.

On Feb. 7, 2004, Tim Russert asks: "It's now nearly a year, and we are in a very difficult situation. Did we miscalculate how we would be treated and received in Iraq?"

Bush: "Well, I think we are welcomed in Iraq." (Pentagon reports 820 US troops killed in Iraq and 4,682 injured, June 3, 2004.)

Bush opposes Department of Homeland Security. Former press secretary Ari Fleischer says Bush told Congress, "There does not need to be a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security." (White House press briefing, Oct. 24, 2001.)

Bush supports Department of Homeland Security. "So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America." (June 6, 2002.)

Bush: Al Qaeda and Saddam same. "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." (Sept. 25, 2002.)

Bush: Saddam had no role in 9/11. "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." (Sept. 17, 2003.)

Bush acrobatics on 9/11 commission. Bush was against creating commission, then for it. Against National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testifying, then for it. Against testifying himself, then for it. Said he'd testify only for one hour. Then said no time limit but had to have Cheney along -- to keep their stories straight.

Bush says president should talk OPEC into lower prices. "The president ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots . . . The president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price." (Jan. 26, 2000.)

But not this president. With gas prices soaring, President Bush refuses to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." (Miami Herald, April 1, 2004.)

Bush then: gay marriage is state issue. "The states can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into." ("Larry King Live," Feb. 15, 2000.)

Bush now: for constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. "Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife." (Feb. 24, 2004.)

Flip-flops, ad nauseam. Against nation-building, then for it. Found WMD, then lost them. Against McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, then signed it into law. Tariffs? Not gonna have 'em; puts 'em on steel, then lifts 'em. Mocks Al Gore's idea for hybrid fuel car; calls for $1.3 billion to develop one. For extending ban on assault weapons in 2001; now against it.

Fashion idea for DNC conventioneers: Bush flip-flop shoes. If it flips, wear it.

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 5:06 PM

Where Do They Stand?



By SARAH BINDER, THOMAS MANN, ALAN MURPHY and PAUL SAHRE

NY TIMES
July 26, 2004

Most campaigns feature efforts by the candidates to characterize their opponent as being out of the mainstream - as an extreme liberal or as part of the far right. The current presidential campaign is no exception.

Thus far, most of the ideological fire has been directed at the Kerry-Edwards ticket. The Bush campaign has gotten particularly good mileage out of a National Journal analysis of roll call voting in 2003 that ranked John Kerry of Massachusetts as the No. 1 liberal in the Senate and John Edwards of North Carolina as the fourth-most-liberal senator.

Yet the senators' ratings are misleading because of the large number of votes each man missed. Mr. Kerry, for example, attended so few votes on social and foreign policy that his composite score in 2003 was based only on economic policy. Even then he was not the single most liberal senator on economic issues; it was a distinction he shared with six other senators, including Bob Graham of Florida.

So where do the Democratic nominees really fit along the left-right spectrum? Well, you get a different answer if your calculations are based on nearly all votes cast by the candidates in their Senate careers. Using this measure, we have arrayed Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards from left to right in the above figure based on their voting history in the Senate. For comparison's sake, we also have included Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, John McCain of Arizona, and the parties' median senators. We even have scores for President Bush (from his announced positions on roll call votes while president) and Vice President Dick Cheney (based on the votes he cast when he represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives from 1979 through 1988).

Assertions that the Democrats' presumptive nominees are extreme liberals fall flat. True, Mr. Kerry's voting history places him to the left of today's median Senate Democrat (Tom Daschle of South Dakota). But he is closer to the center of the Democratic Party than he is to the most liberal senators, including Mr. Kennedy. John Edwards falls just to the right of the median Democrat. In fact, he is nearly indistinguishable from Mr. Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000.

On the other side of the partisan divide, Mr. Bush - like Mr. Kerry - is more extreme than his party's median senator (Richard Shelby of Alabama). He is also noticeably more conservative than his primary challenger in 2000, John McCain. So any assertion that the Democratic candidates are out of the mainstream might easily be applied to the Republicans as well. In fact, if any of the four candidates on the national party tickets this year is out of the mainstream, it is Mr. Cheney, who in his last full term in the House was on the right flank of roughly 90 percent of his Republican colleagues.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 2:48 PM

Terror in the Skies, Again?



A detailed first person experience by Annie Jacobsen, a writer for womenswallstreet.com, about a Northwest Airlines flight on June 29, 2004. As you will see if you read the article and the follow-up items, her experience was not an isolated event.

Here are the links:

Terror in the Skies, Again?

Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again?

Update: Terror in the Skies, Again?


Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 10:30 AM

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Copyright Bill to Kill Tech?



By Katie Dean
wired.com

Jul. 22, 2004

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill Thursday that would hold technology companies liable for any product they make that encourages people to steal copyright materials.

Critics say the bill would effectively outlaw peer-to-peer networks and prohibit the development of new technologies, including devices like the iPod. The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (S. 2560) was introduced last month by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The legislation would hold a company liable that "intentionally induces" a person to infringe copyright.

"We think this is a recipe for disaster for the Internet," said Markham Erickson, general counsel for NetCoalition, a public policy group that represents Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Internet service providers. "The bill as it is currently drafted is extremely broad and not entirely clear. It would, at a minimum, undermine the Sony Betamax decision."

In the Betamax decision, the Supreme Court ruled that any technology that people use for legal purposes would be legal -- even if the device could be used for illegal purposes, like content piracy. Because of the ruling, the consumer electronics industry and Hollywood went on to develop a thriving market in home video and DVDs.

Complete article at:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64297,00.html

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 7:41 PM

Friday, July 23, 2004

The 9/11 Commission Report



Both links below are to the Washington Post

Executive Summary (PDF 5.9 MB)

Full Report (PDF 7.4 MB)

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 6:15 PM

For Bush and Kerry, Different Lessons From 9/11 Report



NY TIMES
July 23, 2004
For Bush and Kerry, Different Lessons From 9/11 Report
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY and DAVID M. HALBFINGER

LENVIEW, Ill., July 22 - President Bush staunchly defended his administration's antiterrorism policies on Thursday, the day that a bipartisan panel called for the nation's intelligence apparatus to be restructured, while his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, called such changes "long overdue'' and criticized Mr. Bush for failing to carry out such an overhaul.

"This report carries a very simple message for all of America about the security of all Americans: We can do better," Mr. Kerry said in Detroit after speaking at the National Urban League convention. "We must do better, and there's an urgency to our doing better. We have to act now."

He added, "If I am elected president and there still has not been sufficient progress rapidly in these next months on these issues, then I will lead."

While generally embracing the recommendations of the panel, Mr. Bush used his appearance here at a training facility north of Chicago to underscore one of his major campaign themes, that the nation was better protected as a result of his administration's policies.

One example, he said, was the medical and emergency workers called first responders; he praised several hundred attending his speech at the Northeastern Illinois Public Safety Training Academy.

Mr. Bush congratulated them and strongly defended his actions since the Sept. 11 attacks, saying "Because of these achievements, America and the world are safer."

"If an attack should come," he said, "American will be prepared."

Mr. Bush referred several times to the commission report, characterizing it as an important tool in mapping future strategies to combat terrorist activities. He called it "a serious and comprehensive report with thoughtful recommendations," and said, "We will carefully study all their proposals, of course."

Mr. Bush, who was introduced by Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, also said that the report affirmed many steps his administration had already taken. He used much of his speech to review those steps, recalling military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, disruptions of financial networks used by terrorists and changes that eased the sharing of information by law enforcement agencies.

"I agree with their conclusion that the terrorists were able to exploit deep institutional failings in our nation's defenses that developed over more than a decade," he said. "The commission's recommendations are consistent with the strategy my administration is following to address these failings and to win the war on terror."

"But the job is not done," Mr. Bush said. "This report will help our country identify even more steps we can take to better defend America."

Mr. Kerry used the report to challenge Mr. Bush's leadership and priorities, blaming him for the conflicts among agencies that have been cited as impediments to more efficient intelligence gathering and response.

"Unfortunately, this administration has had an ongoing war between the State Department, the Defense Department, the White House," Mr. Kerry said. "People have been at odds, everybody knows it, they'll deny it, but everybody does know. And the fact is that it has created a struggle that has delayed our ability to move forward."

Mr. Kerry aimed only veiled criticism of former President Bill Clinton, saying some changes in the nation's intelligence-gathering efforts should have been made before Mr. Bush took office. And he said he agreed with the commission's finding that Congress had given terrorism too little attention and had responded slowly and inadequately in the years before the attacks.

But he focused much more of his criticism on Mr. Bush.

"Sure, Congress shares some responsibility," Mr. Kerry said, "But as you know, the watchdog role is a role of proposal, a role of scrutiny."

He added: "The bottom line is, the executive is the implementer. The executive department proposes the budget, the executive department has the ability to lead."

Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, was more circumspect in his response to the report, interrupting a fund-raising trip to Hartford to speak to reporters after telephone conversations with the commission's leaders, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former Democratic representative from Indiana.

Mr. Edwards praised the "bipartisan nature" of the commission's work, then called on Mr. Bush to act immediately on those recommendations that could be accomplished by executive order, and for Congress to work on the rest.

"We had thousands of Americans who lost their lives on Sept. 11,'' Mr. Edwards said, "and it is very important for us, those of us in positions of responsibility, to pay the greatest tribute we can pay to them, which is to take action and reform our intelligence operations."

Mr. Kerry's remarks about the Sept. 11 report came after he addressed the National Urban League, vowing to expand loans, contracting and other business opportunities for minorities and to crack down on gang violence, not just by prosecuting it but by offering alternatives like job training and drug treatment.

President Bush is to address the group on Friday, an appearance the White House scheduled after it rejected an invitation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to speak at its convention last week. A Bush campaign official said Thursday that Mr. Bush would "speak directly to the African-American community" about how his agenda was helping cities. The official said Mr. Bush would also highlight the increases in minority home ownership and drops in drug use and crime under his administration.

Mr. Kerry, who did address the N.A.A.C.P., alluded to the tiff after he was introduced by Vernon Jordan, a former Urban League president who heads his debate negotiation team.

"As president of the United States, I will show up - not just at national meetings during election season," Mr. Kerry said. "I want you at the table with me, in a full partnership to build a stronger America at home and an America more respected in the world again."

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Posted by politicalstuff at 3:09 PM

Thursday, July 22, 2004

The 9/11 Commission Report



According to the 9/11 Commission Report issued July 22, 2004, the U.S. government was not prepared to detect mistakes by al-Qaida plotters and stop the worst terror attacks in American history.

The final report recommends sweeping overhaul of the nation's intelligence services to disrupt future attacks.

The panel determined the "most important failure" leading to the Sept. 11 attacks "was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat."

The commission identified numerous "specific points of vulnerability" in the Sept. 11 plot that might have led to its disruption had the government been better organized and more watchful.

The report concludes that despite these opportunities, "we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated" the 19 hijackers.

The report stopped short of addressing the crucial 7 minutes that the President failed to act -- action which could have stopped the second, third, and fourth planes.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:22 AM

Report Alleges Halliburton Overcharges



NY TIMES
July 21, 2004
Report Alleges Halliburton Overcharges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, charged the government $2.68 per gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq while a U.S. government agency did the same job for $1.57 a gallon, a congressional Democratic report said Wednesday.

Halliburton's oil deliveries cost taxpayers an extra $166.5 million, when the company's per-gallon price is compared with the government agency's price, the report said.

The report by the House Government Reform Committee's Democratic staff was prepared for Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan, two of the leading Democratic critics of the company Cheney led before running for vice president.

The presidential campaign of John Kerry also has made Halliburton's contracts in Iraq and elsewhere a campaign issue, saying the Bush administration has shown favoritism in giving the firm non-competitive contracts.

Cheney has repeatedly denied any current involvement in the company or the contracts it has received.

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in a written statement that the price comparisons are unfair.

She said KBR, the subsidiary that handled the oil deliveries, has repeatedly asked for copies of the successor contract given to the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center.

``If DESC would provide a copy we would be happy to review and make comment. Although we have not seen the contract, we believe the terms are significantly different and could impact the price. Beyond that, it would be imprudent to make conclusions without a thorough examination of both contracts,'' Hall wrote.

Halliburton, which provides services to the U.S. military in numerous countries, received the non-competitive oil delivery work from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in May, 2003, and was replaced by the DESC last April.

Waxman and Dingell often have criticized Halliburton's fuel costs but the latest study compares Halliburton's costs to those of its successor.

The report said the defense agency purchased its gasoline in Kuwait directly, and then hired a Kuwaiti company -- Altanmia -- to transport the fuel to Iraq.

Halliburton, in contrast, used Altanmia to deliver the fuel and also to act as a middleman to purchase the gasoline. This arrangement drove up the costs, the report said.

The report said that Halliburton charged the government more than DESC for all three components of the total price: fuel purchase, transportation and fees/markups.

``The total difference between Halliburton's price and the DESC's price is substantial on a per-gallon basis,'' the report said.

``Halliburton's total cost of $2.68 per gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait was equal to the spot price plus $1.86 per gallon.

``DESC's total cost of $1.57 per gallon ... is equal to the spot price plus 59 cents per gallon.''

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:10 AM

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Outsourcing: An analysis of the current state of offshore outsourcing in New York City based companies


Prepared for New Jobs for New York

Howard A. Rubin, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus City University
of New York, Computer Science
Patricia Jaramillo
CEO and Founder, Magnolia Communications LLC

Background:
At the request of New Jobs for New York, an analysis of the current state of offshore outsourcing in New York City based companies, including near-shore activity in Canada and Mexico, was conducted during the period March 1, 2004 thru May 31, 2004.

The principal finding of the analysis is that the true cost savings associated with outsourcing are not nearly as large as many in the business community believe them to be. Whereas respondents to the survey cite 44% estimated savings, the survey has found that the true savings can sometimes be less than half of that.

This study focused on:

* Use of offshore resources in the areas of Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) today and future plans/trends
* The primary reasons/drivers that companies have engaged in the use of offshore outsourcing
* The complete cost of offshore outsourcing
* The cost competitiveness of New York resources


The study group:
The 100 largest public companies in New York City were the focus of this study. Data was collected via survey or secondary research from 62 of these companies. In general, all included had over $1B in annual revenue, more than 3,000 total employees, and had over 100 IT employees.

Summary of Results
It is clear that New York City continues and will continue to be the "capital" of the world in critical areas of business. The New York City economy is vital and growing. According to a report by the New York City Comptroller, in the first quarter of 2004—the economy grew by 7 percent, adding 21,000 jobs, the largest quarterly growth since the final three-month period of 1999. In the context of maintaining their vitality and economic dominance the trend towards offshore outsourcing is clearly evident in the largest New York City based companies. The results of this study indicate that some sorts of offshore outsourcing are inevitable but with a clear understanding of the true economics of offshore outsourcing there are areas in which companies can competitively and should be performing work onshore with New York itself offering opportunities and possible locations. In particular areas in upstate New York have the skillets available and compensation structure that enable opportunities for companies to have cost-competitive facilities within a few hundred miles of New York City especially in the areas of IT and BPO support.

Finding # 1:
The use of offshore outsourcing in the areas of IT and BPO is growing. The majority of the companies in the study were engaged in offshore activities and that number will continue to grow, as it's the preferred approach for IT and BPO. Of those that were engaged in offshore outsourcing, IT work was the primary focus (80%) and BPO was the secondary focus (36%). Approximately 15% were engaged in both. Primary offshore activity was in India followed by Canada (near shore), Philippines, Ireland, China, and Eastern Europe.

Finding # 2:
The primary drivers ranked by companies going offshore are cost savings (90%), skillset availability (64%), quality (41%), worker productivity (34%), and time zone leverage (18%).

Finding # 3:
The average amount of cost savings cited by companies with offshore IT or BPO is 44% versus their cost structure in New York City.

Coupling findings 2 and 3 it is obvious that cost savings is the dominant driver of offshore strategy. However, savings close to 44% can be attained using labor resources for IT and BPO in cities such as Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Rensselaer, etc. where salaries for IT and BPO jobs are within 10% to 20% of the true cost of offshore equivalents.

Finding # 4:
The true cost of offshore resources is not just the raw salary differential. The myth of ten offshore workers to one onshore worker is simply not true. There are a number of costs that need be added to raw offshore wages to get the complete picture—planning, transition, start-up, technology and communications, remote management and oversight, and, of course, travel and logistics.

Finding # 5:
Companies that are currently going offshore are willing to consider use of equivalent onshore labor with consideration to favorable labor rates, incentives, and skillset availability.

Read More...

Posted by politicalstuff at 9:50 PM

Saturday, July 17, 2004

George W. Bush: The Real Flip-Flopper



George W. Bush: Presidential or Pathological?

by Arianna Huffington

http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=722



That is the highly provocative question being asked in “Bush on the Couch,”
a new book in which psychoanalyst and George Washington University
professor Dr. Justin Frank uses the president’s public pronouncements
and behavior, along with biographical data, to craft a comprehensive
psychological profile of Bush 43.

It’s not a pretty picture,
but it goes a long way in explaining how exactly our country got itself
into the mess we are in: an intractable war, the loss of allies and
international goodwill, a half-trillion-dollar deficit.

Poking around in the presidential psyche, Frank uncovers a man suffering from megalomania, paranoia, a false sense of omnipotence, an inability to manage his emotions, a lifelong need to defy authority, an unresolved love-hate relationship with his father, and the repercussions of a history of untreated alcohol abuse.

Other than that, George Bush is the picture of psychological health.

One of the more compelling sections of the book is Frank’s dissection of what he calls Bush’s “almost pathological aversion to owning up to his infractions” — a mindset common to individuals Freud termed “the Exceptions,” those who feel “entitled to live outside the limitations that apply to ordinary people.”

Limitations like, for instance, not driving while drunk. Or the limitation of having to report for required Air National Guard duty. Or the limitation of having to adhere
to international law.

And it doesn’t help one outgrow this sense of entitlement when Daddy and his pals are always there to rescue you when you get in trouble — whether it’s keeping you out of Vietnam by bumping you to the top of the National Guard waiting list or bailing
you out of lousy business deals with cushy seats on corporate boards or making sure the votes in Florida (just another limitation) aren’t properly counted.

But you don’t make it as far as W. has without some psychological defenses of your own — especially when it comes to insulating yourself against your own fears and insecurities.

Raised in a family steeped in privilege and secrecy, and prone to the intense aversion to introspection and denial of responsibility that are the hallmarks of a so-called dry drunk — one who has kicked the bottle without dealing with the root causes of the addiction — Bush has become a master of the psychological jiu-jitsu known as Freudian Projection.

For those of you who bailed on Psych 101, Freudian Projection is, according
to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a defense mechanism in which “the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by falsely attributing to another his or her own unacceptable feelings, impulses or thoughts.”

In layman’s terms, it’s the soot-stained pot calling the kettle “black.”

On the 2004 campaign trail, it’s the pathologically inconsistent Bush attempting to portray John Kerry as a two-faced flip-flopper.

It’s become the Bush-Cheney campaign mantra. GOP talking points 1 through 100. The president’s go-to laugh and applause line:

“Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue,” chided Bush at a spring fundraiser. “My opponent clearly has strong beliefs, they just don’t last very long.” Ba-da-bum! (Incidentally, how is this consistent with Bush’s other contention, that Kerry is a rock-ribbed liberal?)

Or as Dick “Not Peaches and Cream” Cheney ominously put it at a Republican fundraiser: “These are not times for leaders who shift with the political winds, saying one thing one day and another the next.”

I couldn’t f---ing agree more, Mr. Cheney. But it’s your man George W. who can’t seem to pick a position and stick to it. He’s reversed course more times than Capt. Kirk battling Khan in the midst of the Mutara Nebula. Gone back on his word more times than Tony Blundetto. Flip-flopped more frequently than a blind gymnast with an inner-ear infection.

The list of Bush major policy U-turns is as audacious as it is long. Among the whiplash-inducing lowlights:

In September 2001, Bush said capturing bin Laden was “our number one priority.” By March 2002, he was claiming, “I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care. It’s not that important.”

In October 2001, he was dead-set against the need for a Department of Homeland Security. Seven months later, he thought it was a great idea.

In May 2002, he opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission. Four months later, he supported it.

During the 2000 campaign, he said that gay marriage was a states’ rights issue: “The states can do what they want to do.” During the 2004 campaign, he called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Dizzy yet? No? OK:

Bush supported CO2 caps, then opposed them. He opposed trade tarriffs, then he didn’t. Then he did again. He was against nation building, then he was OK with it. We’d found WMD, then we hadn’t.

Saddam was linked to Osama, then he wasn’t. Then he was … sorta.

Chalabi was in, then he was out.

Way out.

In fact, Bush’s entire Iraq misadventure has been one big costly, deadly flip-flop:

We didn’t need more troops, then we did. We didn’t need more money, then we did. Preemption was a great idea — on to Syria, Iran and North Korea! Then it wasn’t — hello, diplomacy! Baathists were the bad guys, then Baathists were our buds. We didn’t need the U.N., then we did.

And all this from a man who, once upon a time, made “credibility” a key to his appeal.

Now, God knows, I have no problem with changing your mind — so long as you admit that you have and can explain why. But Bush steadfastly — almost comically — refuses to admit that there’s been a change, even when the entire world can plainly see otherwise. He’s got his story and he’s sticking to it. But that darn Kerry, he keeps shifting his positions!

At the end of his analysis, Dr. Frank offers the following prescription: “Having seen the depth and range of President Bush’s psychological flaws … our sole treatment option — for his benefit and for ours — is to remove President Bush from office.”

You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to heartily second that opinion.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:31 AM

Friday, July 16, 2004

Bush's Not-So-Big Tent

NY TIMES
July 16, 2004

By BOB HERBERT

Just as George W. Bush is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs, he is now the first president since Hoover to fail to meet with the N.A.A.C.P. during his entire term in office.

Mr. Bush and the leadership of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization get along about as well as the Hatfields and the McCoys. The president was invited to the group's convention in Philadelphia this week, but he declined.

That Mr. Bush thumbed his nose at N.A.A.C.P. officials is not the significant part of this story. The Julian Bonds and Kweisi Mfumes of the world can take care of themselves at least as well as Mr. Bush in the legalized gang fight called politics.

What is troubling is Mr. Bush's relationship with black Americans in general. He's very good at using blacks as political props. And the props are too often part of an exceedingly cynical production.

Four years ago, on the first night of the Republican convention, a parade of blacks was hauled before the television cameras (and the nearly all-white audience in the convention hall) to sing, to dance, to preach and to praise a party that has been relentlessly hostile to the interests of blacks for half a century.

I wrote at the time that "you couldn't tell whether you were at the Republican National Convention or the Motown Review."

That exercise in modern-day minstrelsy was supposed to show that Mr. Bush was a new kind of Republican, a big-tent guy who would welcome a more diverse crowd into the G.O.P. That was fiction. It wasn't long before black voters would find themselves mugged in Florida, and soon after that Mr. Bush was steering the presidency into a hard-right turn.

Among the most important props of that 2000 campaign were black children. Mr. Bush could be seen hugging them at endless photo-ops. He said a Bush administration would do great things for them. He promised to transform public education in America. He hijacked the trademarked slogan of the Children's Defense Fund, "Leave No Child Behind," and refashioned it for his own purposes. He pasted the new version, "No Child Left Behind," onto one of the signature initiatives of his presidency, a supposedly historic education reform act.

The only problem is that, to date, the act has been underfunded by $26 billion. A lot of those kids the president hugged have been left behind.

And why not? They can't do much for him. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" captured a telling presidential witticism. Mr. Bush, appearing before a well-heeled gathering in New York, says: "This is an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

It wasn't really his base. But the comment spoke volumes.

Mr. Bush said he was a different kind of Republican, but what black voters see are tax cuts for the very wealthy and underfunded public schools. What they see is an economy that sizzles for the haves and the have-mores, but a harrowing employment crisis for struggling blacks, especially black men. (When the Community Service Society looked at the proportion of the working-age population with jobs in New York City it found that nearly half of all black men between the ages of 16 and 64 were not working last year. That's a Depression-era statistic.)

In Florida, where the president's brother is governor, and Texas, where the president once was the governor, state officials have been pulling the plug on health coverage for low-income children. The president could use his considerable clout to put a stop to that sort of thing, but he hasn't.

And now we know that Florida was gearing up for a reprise of the election shenanigans of 2000. It took a court order to get the state to release a list of 48,000 suspected felons that was to be used to purge people from the voting rolls. It turned out that the list contained thousands of names of black people, who tend to vote Democratic, and hardly any names of Hispanics, who in Florida tend to vote Republican.

Once their "mistake" was caught, the officials scrapped the list.

Mr. Bush plans to address the Urban League convention in Detroit next week. That would be an excellent time for him to explain to an understandably skeptical audience why he campaigned one way — as a big-tent compassionate conservative — and governed another.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:28 PM

A Pause for Hindsight

NY TIMES
July 16, 2004

Over the last few months, this page has repeatedly demanded that President Bush acknowledge the mistakes his administration made when it came to the war in Iraq, particularly its role in misleading the American people about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and links with Al Qaeda. If we want Mr. Bush to be candid about his mistakes, we should be equally open about our own.

During the run-up to the war, The Times ran dozens of editorials on Iraq, and our insistence that any invasion be backed by "broad international support" became a kind of mantra. It was the administration's failure to get that kind of consensus that ultimately led us to oppose the war.

But we agreed with the president on one critical point: that Saddam Hussein was concealing a large weapons program that could pose a threat to the United States or its allies. We repeatedly urged the United Nations Security Council to join with Mr. Bush and force Iraq to disarm.

As we've noted in several editorials since the fall of Baghdad, we were wrong about the weapons. And we should have been more aggressive in helping our readers understand that there was always a possibility that no large stockpiles existed.

At the time, we believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding large quantities of chemical and biological weapons because we assumed that he would have behaved differently if he wasn't. If there were no weapons, we thought, Iraq would surely have cooperated fully with weapons inspectors to avoid the pain of years under an international embargo and, in the end, a war that it was certain to lose.

That was a reasonable theory, one almost universally accepted in Washington and widely credited by diplomats all around the world. But it was only a theory. American intelligence had not received any on-the-ground reports from Iraq since the Clinton administration resorted to punitive airstrikes in 1998 and the U.N. weapons inspectors were withdrawn. The weapons inspectors who returned in 2002 found Iraq's records far from transparent, and their job was never made easy. But they did not find any evidence of new weapons programs or stocks of prohibited old ones. When American intelligence agencies began providing them tips on where to look, they came up empty.

It may be that Saddam Hussein destroyed his stockpiles of banned weapons under the assumption that he could restart his program at a later date. His cat-and-mouse game with the weapons inspectors may have been the result of paranoia, or an attempt to flaunt his toughness before the Iraqi people. But we're not blaming ourselves for failing to understand the thought process of an unpredictable dictator. Even if we had been aware before the war of the total bankruptcy of the American intelligence estimates on Iraq, we could not have argued with any certainty that there were no chemical and biological weapons.

But we do fault ourselves for failing to deconstruct the W.M.D. issue with the kind of thoroughness we directed at the question of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, or even tax cuts in time of war. We did not listen carefully to the people who disagreed with us. Our certainty flowed from the fact that such an overwhelming majority of government officials, past and present, top intelligence officials and other experts were sure that the weapons were there. We had a groupthink of our own.

By the time the nation was on the brink of war, we did conclude that whatever the risk of Iraq's weaponry, it was outweighed by the damage that could be done by a pre-emptive strike against a Middle Eastern nation that was carried out in the face of wide international opposition. If we had known that there were probably no unconventional weapons, we would have argued earlier and harder that invading Iraq made no sense.

Saddam Hussein was indisputably a violent and vicious tyrant, but an unprovoked attack that antagonized the Muslim world and fractured the international community of peaceful nations was not the solution. There were, and are, equally brutal and potentially more dangerous dictators in power elsewhere. Saddam Hussein and his rotting army were not a threat even to the region, never mind to the United States.

Now that we are in Iraq, we must do everything possible to see that the country is stabilized before American forces are withdrawn. But that commitment should be based on honesty. Just as we cannot undo the invasion, we cannot pretend that it was a good idea — even if it had been well carried out.

Congress would never have given President Bush a blank check for military action if it had known that there was no real evidence that Iraq was likely to provide aid to terrorists or was capable of inflicting grave damage on our country or our allies. Many politicians who voted to authorize the war still refuse to admit that they made a mistake. But they did. And even though this page came down against the invasion, we regret now that we didn't do more to challenge the president's assumptions.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 1:04 PM

Thursday, July 15, 2004

More Proof They Knew



This morning's Los Angeles Times uncovers an explosive document
(http://images.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2004-07/13418408.pdf) buried at the end of the recent Senate Intelligence report. It shows that before Colin Powell's now-discredited U.N. speech justifying war in Iraq, State Department analysts told Powell and top administration officials about "dozens of factual problems" (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,7897981.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
in the address (which was written by Vice President Cheney's staff (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0609conseq.htm).

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Posted by politicalstuff at 10:20 PM

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Which issue is most important to you in this presidential election?



From the July 14, 2004 Lou Dobbs Tonight program:

Which issue is most important to you in this presidential election?

Here are the results:

Jobs 39%

Health care 30%

Illegal immigration 17%

War on terror 14%

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:00 PM

Release the Bush Records



Washington, DC - Kerry-Edwards campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill today sent the following letter to Bush Cheney ’04 Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman in response to a letter Mehlman sent yesterday:

July 13, 2004
Ken Mehlman
Campaign Manager
BUSH-CHENEY '04, Inc.


Dear Ken:

Over the past several months, allies of the President have questioned John Kerry’s patriotism while your staff has criticized his service in Vietnam. Republicans and their allies have gone so far as to launch attacks against his wife and your campaign has run $80 million in negative ads that have been called baseless, misleading and unfair by several independent observers.

Considering that the President has failed to even come close to keeping his promise to change the tone in Washington, we find your outrage over and paparazzi-like obsession with a fund-raising event to be misplaced. The fact is that the nation has a greater interest in seeing several documents made public relating to the President’s performance in office and personal veracity that the White House has steadfastly refused to release. As such, we will not consider your request until the Bush campaign and White House make public the documents/materials listed below:

● Military records: Any copies of the President’s military records that would actually prove he fulfilled the terms of his military service. For that matter, it would be comforting to the American people if the campaign or the White House could produce more than just a single person to verify that the President was in Alabama when said he was there. Many Americans find it odd that only one person out of an entire squadron can recall seeing Mr. Bush.

● Halliburton: All correspondence between the Defense Department and the White House regarding the no-bid contracts that have gone to the Vice-President’s former company. Some material has already been made public. Why not take a campaign issue off the table by making all of these materials public so the voters can see how Halliburton has benefited from Mr. Cheney serving as Vice-President?

● The Cheney Energy Task Force: For an Administration that claims to hate lawsuits, it’s ironic that the Bush White House is taking up the Courts’ time to keep the fact that Ken Lay and Enron wrote its energy policy in secret behind closed doors. Please release the documents so that the country can learn what lobbyists and special interests wrote the White House energy policy.

● Medicare Bill: Please release all White House correspondence between the pharmaceutical industry and the Administration regarding the Medicare Bill, which gave billions to some of the President’s biggest donors. In addition, please provide all written materials that directed the Medicare actuary to withhold information from Congress about the actual cost of the bill.

● Prison Abuse Documents: A few weeks ago, the White House released a selected number of documents regarding the White House’s involvement in laying the legal foundation for the interrogation methods that were used in Iraq. Please release the remaining documents.

We also wanted to wish you a happy anniversary. As we are sure you and the attorneys representing the President, Vice-President and other White House officials are aware, today marks one year since Administration sources leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent to Bob Novak in an effort to retaliate against a critic of the Administration.

In light of the fact that the Administration began gutting the laws protecting the nation’s forests yesterday, we hope you will accept the paper on which this letter is written as an anniversary gift. (The one year anniversary is known as the “paper anniversary.”)

Sincerely,

Mary Beth Cahill

Campaign Manager

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Posted by politicalstuff at 7:16 PM

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Real Reason for Iraq War:
A Global Show of American Power and Democracy



From ABC News April 25, 2004

To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war -- a global show of American power and democracy.

Complete article at:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/US/globalshow_030425.html

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Posted by politicalstuff at 4:21 PM

Poll: Edwards would make a better president than Cheney



According to a Time magazine poll:

"When asked directly which of the 2 vice presidential candidates would make a better president, 47% pick Edwards and 38% say Cheney. Independent voters, by a 53% to 34% margin, favor Edwards over Cheney."

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Posted by politicalstuff at 4:20 PM

Senate Iraq Report Censored... With a Scanner?



From Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?byCat=8

Senate Iraq Report Censored... With a Scanner?
posted by Simson Garfinkel @ 7/10/2004 12:02:56 PM

Over the past few years there have been numerous cases in which classified information has leaked to the public domain because it was censored using Adobe Acrobat’s "black box" feature.

Well, you won’t be able to find text-under-the-image on the version of the report handed out by the Senate intelligence committee (http://intelligence.senate.gov/). That’s because the report on their home page was scanned and the scan was put up for download!

This is one way to make sure that nobody can recover the underlying material. Unfortunately, it also produces a report that’s 23.4MB in length --- probably 10x longer than it needs to be. And, even worse, the report isn’t searchable.

As a public service, I have OCR’ed the report and put up two versions for download.

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf is a copy of the scan but with OCR applied, with the text underneath the original images. It has all the fidelity of the original report but you can search it. No clue why this version of the report is half the size of the original.

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-ocr.pdf is just the OCR’ed text. It’s 4.3MB in length. There are many random OCR errors, including occasional bold text that should be something else, but it’s pretty reasonable, easy to search. and quick to download.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 4:17 PM

Monday, July 12, 2004

We're Not Ready for A New 9/11



By Stanley I. Greenspan
Washington Post
Monday, July 12, 2004; Page A17

As a psychiatrist who works with both children and adults, I continue to see evidence -- three years after the attacks of Sept. 11 -- that many of us are ignoring the very real dangers posed by terrorists.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence that this is so is the answer to this simple question: Would the average person really know what to do if there were a nuclear, biological or chemical attack in his or her neighborhood? Do people know a great deal more now about what to do than they did before Sept. 11?

The answer is no.

Almost as compelling is a logical follow-up question: Are there fully developed, organized plans between the federal, state and local governments to handle any type of nuclear, biological or chemical attack? If these plans are organized, in place and well-rehearsed, does the general public know about them?

The answer is no.

Have we fully solved the pre-Sept. 11 challenge of agency coordination and response to terrorist threats? It's been three years. Are we treating this challenge as a true emergency and harnessing our best efforts? Have we used every bit of skill, leadership and leverage available to fully engage the international community in preventing terrorism?

It was heartening to hear in Sept. 11 commission testimony that if a rogue airplane flew toward a major U.S. city today, we would be able to respond much more efficiently than we did before Sept. 11. But that information does little to prevent or deal with the consequences of the next attack, unless, of course, we really expect the next one to be an exact replica.

The rationalization that's bandied about is that the government doesn't want to scare anyone by making specific recommendations -- for example, designating schools as places to obtain medical care and issuing instructions on whether to stay put or to exit cities via selected routes. If there's too much open preparation for a nuclear, biological or chemical event, the reasoning goes, panic will ensue. Another rationalization is that too much explicit focus on contingency plans would sap the economic recovery: People would be too worried to shop.

But even if these rationalizations were true, would that be a reason to expose the public to risk? Shouldn't government's first concern be the safety of its citizens?

In all likelihood, a policy of collective ignorance will actually fuel a major economic catastrophe if a terrorist attack occurs, as happened after Sept. 11. In Israel, where there's a hardened acceptance of the reality of terrorist attacks, life goes on. Economic progress continues, and there's very little panic. Panic and economic disruption occur when there is a lack of preparation and a patronizing government policy.

Is there a deeper reason (other than simply the government's desire to pretend the sky isn't falling and the public's wish to hide its head in the sand) for the current policy? Americans may have a very low tolerance for feeling helpless. To our credit, we've been able to use our distaste for helplessness to mobilize through two world wars, a long Cold War and numerous other challenges. But the nature of the terrorist threat is different: Some degree of tolerance for feeling helpless is a part of the new reality. Unless this reality is dealt with, it leads to denial. Denial, in turn, undermines preparation and effective action.

The current denial is broad-based. Most Americans are not clamoring for more guidance on what to do if . . . . The media are more focused on what we are doing than what we are not doing. But when the issue is survival, the news is in what's not being done. Our government is working hard to prevent terrorist attacks, but it has not yet organized a multifaceted, comprehensive plan to protect its citizens.

In order to deal with our denial, the public, the media and the government need to ask tough questions every day, not just periodically. A TV special or news report or this or that government commission won't solve the problem. What's needed is an ongoing focus on the questions raised above. We need to ask the very toughest questions, even at the risk of alarming us all.

Recall that the Sept. 11 commission reported that the original terrorist plan was for 10 airplanes, not just four. Could the next attack involve multiple weapons of mass destruction, for example, nuclear and biological in multiple cities at the same time? Do we have contingency plans for this type of emergency?

We monitor the stock market and weather daily. So far, however, we haven't been monitoring our readiness to survive. It's time to ask why not.

The writer is a professor at the George Washington University Medical Center and co-author, with Stuart Shanker, of "The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans."

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Posted by politicalstuff at 11:04 PM

Republicans want to reschedule Presidential Election!



The presidential election of 1812 took place in the midst of the war with the British.

Despite the Civil War, voting for Congress and governorships went ahead in 1862.

The 1864 presidential election also went forward.

Why, then, is the White House and the Office of Homeland Security looking for ways to delay the election (as reported everywhere today)? Is it because they think they are going to lose? How many other ways do they want to violate the constitution (beyond the ways they already have)?

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:40 PM

Ron Reagan to Address Democrat Delegates



Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Democrats have snagged a high-profile speaker — and a measure of political one-upmanship — for this month's convention: Ron Reagan. The younger son of the late President Reagan will address the Democratic National Convention in Boston about stem cell research.

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Posted by politicalstuff at 12:36 PM

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