This, remember, is all in Chicago, with a nationwide reputation as a very good news town. Here, Ted Koppel's "Nightline" routinely beats Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show."
[...]
Probably the most striking fact in this set of statistics is the illustration of a complaint that television networks have been making for years: that we in the media write way too much about cable news.
At 6 p.m. weekdays in the Chicago area, the audience for all the national cable news programs combined can't equal the viewership of PBS' stodgy old "NewsHour." Way up ahead, like an Olympic miler facing a Sunday jogger, are the numbers that the local news stations draw at the same time, or that the national newscasts do in the preceding half-hour.
The same is true at 7 p.m., where [PBS] WTTW-Ch. 11's newsmagazine "Chicago Tonight" not only kicks Bill O'Reilly's booty but that of all the national cable channels combined.
The most popular evening cable program is O'Reilly's hour of argument at 7 p.m., with 36,250 average viewers over the last four major sweeps months. By contrast, the least popular broadcast news program after 6 p.m. is WMAQ-Ch. 5's "NBC 5 Chicago News at 6," with 186,000 viewers.
Most popular cable show: 36,250 viewers. Least popular broadcast show: 186,000 viewers.
Note to O'Reilly: Shut up!
For confused readers on the east and west coasts — Chicago is Central Time, meaning that our eleven o'clock news is shown at ten. Adjust all showtimes accordingly.
One out of every four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest percentage of uninsured residents in any state in the nation, according to new Census Bureau figures.
The findings are part of a report that shows the ranks of the uninsured nationwide swelled by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage.
[...]
Analysts say numerous factors contribute to the high numbers in Texas, including the state's lack of organized labor and a high percentage of Hispanics, some of whom are immigrants and less likely to hold jobs that offer health insurance.
"They have jobs, but they have jobs at the very bottom of the totem pole that provide no benefits whatsoever," said Stephen Klineberg, a sociology professor at Rice University.
But the lagging economy has also taken its toll.
The bureau report shows significant increases in uninsured rates occurred among whites, blacks, people 18 to 24, and middle- and higher-income earners nationwide.
"You have more unemployed people," said E. Dale Wortham, a board member at the Harris County Hospital District. "The other thing is you have people that are employed but cannot afford health insurance."
But Texas, home of Dubya's fake ranch, isn't the only symptom of what's wrong with bogus approaches to healthcare.
Presidential brother and eventual White House candidate Jeb Bush, using the state of Florida as a test case, has a simplistic one-size-fits-all answer to the insurance crisis: tort reform.
An internal assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that most of the information provided by Iraqi defectors who were made available by the Iraqi National Congress was of little or no value, according to federal officials briefed on the arrangement.
In addition, several Iraqi defectors introduced to American intelligence agents by the exile organization and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi, invented or exaggerated their credentials as people with direct knowledge of the Iraqi government and its suspected unconventional weapons program, the officials said.
The arrangement, paid for with taxpayer funds supplied to the exile group under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, involved extensive debriefing of at least half a dozen defectors by defense intelligence agents in European capitals and at a base in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil in late 2002 and early 2003, the officials said. But a review early this year by the defense agency concluded that no more than one-third of the information was potentially useful, and efforts to explore those leads since have generally failed to pan out, the officials said.
Mr. Chalabi has defended the arrangement, saying that his organization had helped just three defectors provide information to American intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons program, and that two of them had been judged to be credible.
But several federal officials said the arrangement had wasted more than $1 million in taxpayers' money and had prompted them to question the credibility of Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Both have enjoyed powerful backing from civilian officials at the Pentagon and are playing a significant role in the provisional government in Baghdad.
Intelligence provided by the defectors that could not be substantiated included information about Iraq's suspected program for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as other information about the Iraqi government, the officials said. They said they would not speculate on whether the defectors had knowingly provided false information and, if so, what their motivation might have been. One Defense Department official said that some of the people were not who they said they were and that the money for the program could have been better spent.
Will we ever discover an end to the ways Dick Cheney has wasted taxpayer money, national credibility, and the blood of thousands of innocents, including our own soldiers?
"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."
Dare we say it — treason! In his own dynasty!
But wait, there's more! He preceded those remarks with this:
We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. (Applause)
For an overview of the Plame Affair, see Body & Soul.
Federal investigators have concluded President Bush's former telecommunications policy chief committed three ethics violations by allowing industry lobbyists to throw her a party. The Justice Department, however, is declining to prosecute her.
[...]
Ten days after the catered party in her honor in October 2001, Victory urged a policy change benefiting telecommunications companies that helped pay for the catered $3,000 event with 60 to 80 guests at her home in Great Falls, Va.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, released the findings from the IG's probe, which was triggered by stories last January by The Associated Press.
The party's six hosts were from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, Cingular Wireless, SBC Communications, Intelsat Global Service Corp., Motorola Corp. and Victory's former law firm, Wiley, Rein & Fielding.
[...]
By accepting the gift, Victory also violated the ethics standard that requires employees to avoid any actions that create an appearance that they are violating the law, the IG said.
On Oct. 24, 2001, Victory asked the Federal Communications Commission to immediately repeal restrictions that SBC, Cingular Wireless and other major cellular companies had long complained about.
The FCC voted two weeks later to phase out by Jan. 1, 2003, the limits on how much of the spectrum individual carriers could own in a geographic area. The agency had put the limits in place in the early 1990s to promote competition.
So the person in charge of Bush's telecommunications policy has a catered party thrown in her house by six of the industry's biggest lobbyists. Less than two weeks later she is repealing the "restrictions" they don't like and phasing out limits that promote competition.
Shouldn't these conflicts warrant the attention of federal prosecutors?
Not in this administration, which lied when it set high ethical standards for itself. But those promises were made back in a more innocent time, months before Osama bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans and gave Dubya his undeserved and temporary 90 percent approval rating — a confidence, born out of fear, that his administration and its deep ties to various industries interpreted as a license to pillage the US Treasury.
The Nancy Victory violations, those long-vanished ethical standards, and even the continuing existence of Osama bin Laden are forgotten now. Federal prosecutors have opted to spend their time and our resources chasing a 65-year-old bong dealer.
September 24, 2003 -- Sam Waksal is working out, making friends and working as a janitor at the Schuylkill federal prison in Minersville, Pa. — and he's completely miserable, according to a fellow inmate.
"All in all, his days here are very long and sad. The general consensus seems to be that he won't last long here," Robert C. Lawrence, 39, wrote to PAGE SIX last week, the day before he was released.
"There seems to be a deal in the works that he will be cut loose once he turns over the 'correct' information regarding his dear friend Martha Stewart. If not, he will definitely end up being someone's meal ticket or jail bitch," Lawrence said in a neatly typed two-page letter.
Lawrence, convicted in Maryland of credit card fraud, served a 33-month sentence. Waksal is doing seven years for insider trading of shares in his ImClone cancer drug company.
"I thought I would write you this letter just to give you and your concerned readers a bit of inside information on the daily routine of our institution's new celebrity inmate, Mr. Sam Waksal," Lawrence begins.
"He starts out his day by engaging in a rigorous workout planned by his personal trainer/bodyguard... a steroid-head from New Jersey who fancies himself as a Steven Seagal/Sylvester Stallone/Soprano wannabe, complete with ponytail and unbelievable mob stories.
"This is usually followed by a quick shower, and then he makes his way back to the common area where he can be found watching the morning news with two gay guys. One of them happens to be an obnoxious fashion designer from New York who struts around like he is a supermodel or something.
"Some inmates say they have seen the three of them watching old Martha Stewart [TV] episodes... If so, that is just wrong.
"But now comes the best part of Mr. Waksal's day, his job. He works as a housing orderly... a janitor. He mops, sweeps and waxes the floors, and the ultimate degradation... he cleans the toilets. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
"Finally... he spends his time putzing around... 'making nice' if you know what I mean. He can be seen chatting to any number of brutal morons on one subject or another that always seems to leave the listener with a glazed look on his face."
No toilet brush for Ken Lay — not only a free man but a very wealthy one who still manages to fly first class, despite having overseen the bankruptcy of his company and the eradication of his employees' retirement savings while he stuffed his pockets and bought millions in Aspen real estate.
Before 2nd Lt. Ben Shumaker arrived in Iraq in late April, he expected to be protecting soldiers against chemical and biological weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein's army.
There were no such attacks, so Shumaker and his team were put to work looking for hidden weapons of mass destruction - the primary reason given by the Bush administration for the war in Iraq.
When no such weapons were found, Shumaker, a 23-year-old chemical officer with the 101st Airborne Division, found himself with no mission.
Then he was offered a job he had never imagined - assistant to the division commander's accountant.
"I was supposed to find weapons of mass destruction," said Shumaker, of Clarksville, Tenn. Instead, they made him an accountant, "because I was doing nothing."
With all those mammoth financial interests hovering around the place, it's only logical that an accountant would have more value in post-invasion Iraq than a weapons officer.
Houston's Robert E. McKee III, a former ConocoPhillips executive, has been appointed the new senior adviser to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
He will replace Philip J. Carroll, the one-time head of Shell Oil Co. who has overseen the often tumultuous effort to jump-start Iraq's oil sector for less than five months.
His selection as the Bush administration's energy czar in Iraq already is drawing fire from Capitol Hill because of his ties to the prime contractor in the Iraqi oil fields, Houston-based Halliburton Co. He's the chairman of a venture partitioned by the giant Houston oil well service and engineering firm.
[...]
McKee's appointment already is coming under scrutiny because of his role as chairman of Houston-based Enventure Global Technology, an oil-field joint venture owned by Shell and Halliburton.
Halliburton's role in Iraq has been highly controversial, since the Corps of Engineers chose the firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney for the job of repairing Iraq's energy infrastructure without seeking bids from competing companies.
"The administration continues to create the impression that the fox is in charge of the hen house," said Rep. Henry Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a persistent critic of the Halliburton contract.
"Given Mr. McKee's close relationship with Halliburton, he's an odd choice to hold them accountable for the billions of dollars they are charging American taxpayers."
$26.2 million is chump change. McKee can expect to see a sweet payday, given that the US expects to pay over $20 billion for Iraqi ZIP codes and an atrocity museum.
U.S. Army hero Jessica Lynch is Canadian, snipers loyal to Saddam Hussein crouch on a roof flanked by the skyscraper that was home to television's J.R. Ewing and the streets of the Iraqi city of Nassiriya are near downtown Dallas.
Welcome to the world of NBC's made-for-television movie "Saving Jessica Lynch" where Iraq meets Texas in the telling of the 20-year-old Army private's ordeal in Iraq.
[...]
When production officials looked at what they quickly needed to do to get the movie on TV in time for its November airing, Texas emerged as the best locale.
To create the illusion of Iraq, several blocks of warehouses in south Dallas were transformed into Nassiriya by spraying sand-color concrete onto buildings destined to be condemned and creating removable facades for other buildings.
[...]
"I felt this movie should be shot on American soil because the film is about an American icon," [Executive Producer Dan] Paulson said.
The American icon is played by Canadian actor Laura Regan, who said it is an honor for her to portray Lynch.
[...]
The Iraqi street scene in Dallas will remain intact after the movie is aired, and some country music stars indicated they may use it for patriotic music videos that celebrate the war.
Texas and not Hollywood is apparently the best place to go for "removable facades."
Here is Dan Paulson's filmography, a list desperately in need of some cynical publicity.
This will be the second fake TV movie dramatization in three months intended to mythologize the Bush administration — i.e., tell new lies about the previous lies.
So Jessica Lynch will be played by a Canadian. French-Canadian?
And what is it about the intimate connection between country music and blind war-support?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When NBC's White House drama "The West Wing" returns next week for its fifth year, the most obvious difference from last season will be that John Goodman, not Martin Sheen, is calling the shots in the Oval Office as the famously liberal show gets more bipartisan.
[...]
To represent the Republican point of view, Wells has recruited former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein, along with John Podhoretz, a conservative columnist who wrote speeches for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior. Wells said Podhoretz has been one of the show's "staunchest critics" in recent years.
There goes a good show. Partisan maniac and non-artist Podhoretz will not have a clue that it was West Wing's creative execution and not its politics that made it great.
"I don't know about you, but frankly, I don't need any lessons on theology, destiny, public service, job creation, pay equity, or conservative ideology from a crack addict," he said of show creator Aaron Sorkin.
Here's a point that sometimes gets lost in conversations about growing income inequality in America as represented by gargantuan pay packages like Grasso's. Although liberals like me generally support limited government actions like progressive taxation as a way to ameliorate income inequality, most of us understand that there's a limit to how much government can and should do about this.
However, even if you don't believe the government should be involved in arguments over executive pay, there's nothing to prevent shareholders and public figures from trying to shame our nation's plutocrats into more responsible behavior. That's largely what happened here and I applaud it. Incestuous compensation committees will continue to expand executive paychecks far beyond anything that a free market would ever deliver until society simply makes this unacceptable. If people like Grasso are shunned and embarrassed over this kind of legalized thievery often enough, maybe we can put an end to it and redirect some of that money back to shareholders, to whom it properly belongs in the first place.
The advocates of the free market traditionally operate in markets that are anything but free: the tightly-controlled, interlocking circles of influence known as boards of directors. "More responsible behavior" from the people who consistently argue for self-regulation would help their arguments a great deal.
Until then, let's shame and regulate the bastards. The entire concept of public equity and individual shareholders is in danger of falling apart if the plutocrats successfully return to robber-baron tactics.
Kevin is right — the money stolen by maneuvers such as Grasso's properly belongs to shareholders. Shame alone won't get it back.
The Bush money machine relies primarily on a corps of "bundlers" -- chief executive officers, contractors, investment bankers and others primarily from the business, legal and medical communities. They tend to have extensive networks of employees, suppliers, subcontractors, clients and others who are receptive* to their pitch for campaign donations.
For example, one Bush bundler is E. Stanley O'Neal, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. The Center for Responsive Politics recently reported that Merrill Lynch employees and their immediate relatives already have given the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign $264,750.
*So if you are a supplier or subcontractor of Merrill Lynch's, you would undoubtedly be "receptive" to Merrill Lynch's suggestion that you donate to Bush-Cheney 2004 in the same way that any supplier of Tony Soprano's would be to a request for contributions to his pet political cause. They call it "bundling" — we call it "extortion."
It's only 2003, and already Merrill Lynch has loosened $265,000 from its network. Imagine what they'll come up with next year.
Of course it's the right of the fine people of Merrill Lynch to donate to whatever political causes they choose — but not when their efforts are supported by organized criminal activity. Yesterday's indictments were explicitly due to the fact that "Merrill Lynch knew that the [Enron barge] 'purchase' was not real" (today's Wall Street Journal, sub. req'd):
Prosecutors said the bankers engaged in a sham transaction in late 1999 in which Merrill appeared to buy an interest in Nigerian barges from Enron that allowed Enron, now operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection, to record $12 million in earnings. In reality, the indictment states, Mr. Bayly got an oral assurance from then-Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow that Merrill would get its money back with interest within six months.
"Merrill Lynch knew that the 'purchase' was not real," the indictment states.
[...]
The deal [to indict individuals and not the firm of Merrill Lynch] appeared to be aimed at preventing Merrill "from being Andersenized," said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and SEC attorney.
Wednesday, Justice Department officials seemed to be trying to play up the differences between Andersen and Merrill. "This is the kind of response that the DOJ encourages and frankly expects from companies in the course of a criminal investigation," said Christopher Wray, assistant attorney general for the criminal division, who later added, "There's a right way and a wrong way to respond when the government comes knocking at your door."
The problem with this is that Merrill Lynch was involved at the firm level with this grand deception, and both they and their client Enron are responsible for and beneficiaries of the administration that is dragging the United States into a horrific fiscal crisis.
And why does the Justice Department view its role in the matter as "trying to play up the differences between Andersen and Merrill"? Shouldn't the Justice Department be slightly more interested in, oh, I don't know, justice?
We also wrote about Merrill Lynch, the #1 wealth manager in the United States, yesterday.
(Associated Press) HOUSTON -- Three former Merrill Lynch executives were charged with fraud Wednesday for allegedly helping Enron Corp. inflate earnings with a loan the energy trader disguised as a sale.
Daniel Bayly, Robert Furst and James Brown were named in a three-count federal indictment unsealed Wednesday in Houston. They were scheduled to appear before a judge later in the day. All three were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and falsifying books and records.
Mr. Brown was named in two additional counts accusing him of committing perjury before a grand-jury investigating the Enron scandal and of obstruction before the same grand jury.
The charges stem from a scheme in which Enron, with Merrill's knowledge, allegedly booked a short-term investment from the brokerage firm as profit from the sale of Nigerian barges. The income was then used to make Enron appear to have met earnings targets.
The three agreed to buy the Nigerian barges only because Merrill Lynch "knew the 'purchase' was not real," according to the indictment.
Neither is the "administration" real, based as it is on the whims of the Supreme Court and lavish campaign contributions from fraudulent Enron profits, facilitated by Merrill Lynch.
So who is Merrill Lynch? According to a 2003 survey by Barron's, Merrill Lynch is the #1 wealth manager in the United States, with private client assets of $630 billion, more than the Bush deficit for this year. With a minimum account balance of $1 million, these are the people who benefit most — by a long shot — from the Bush tax cuts. It was in Merrill Lynch's best interest to help create the fraud that was Enron because Enron helped create the fraud that is Bush who helped create the fraud that is current fiscal policy.
With full knowledge of what it was doing, the largest wealth manager in the US facilitates the deceptions of the largest energy trader in the US who contributes mightily to the Bush campaign and who directly recommends energy policy to the vice president, himself the CEO of the largest oil services corporation, and still on six-figure annual deferred compensation from Halliburton while he occupies the office of vice president.
What boggles the mind is the scale and coordination of this national hoax — to drain the US Treasury into the grasping hands of the rich.
Hello, special prosecutor? Can you hear me?
UPDATE: Merrill Lynch has cut a deal that ensures it will not meet the same fate as the scapegoat firm of Arthur Andersen, which acted not only as Enron's auditor, but also Halliburton's while Dick Cheney was CEO. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were. Under the politico-plutocratic logic of the Bush administration, Andersen the auditor was dispensable; Merrill Lynch the wealth manager is not.
A Democratic crowd in the gallery pelted the Republican leadership with jeers of "Nazis" as the Senate adjourned quickly to deny boycotting senators a chance to re-enter the Senate triumphantly while it was in session.
[...]
The other 10 boycotting Democrats walked into the Senate chamber at 12:07 p.m. A ring of television cameras and boom microphones surrounded them. The gallery crowd cheered wildly.
"Thank you, Texas!" Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, shouted back to the crowd.
Van de Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the boycott was about more than partisan politics. She said the Democrats wanted to make certain the Republicans did not stifle the voices of rural Texans and minorities with redistricting plans harmful to their interests.
Sen. Mario Gallegos made fun of the Republicans for adjourning so quickly.
"If they were so eager for us to come back to work, where are they?" said Gallegos, D-Houston. "If they were so eager for us to make a quorum and make the issues on the floor, where are they?"
At the center of the storm is Republican Texas Speaker Tom Craddick who, with Tom DeLay, was a conspirator in the craven illegal abuse of the federal Department of Homeland Security just to shore up Craddick's petty fiefdom in Midland, West Texas.
Darleen Druyun, enemy combatant in the war against US taxpayers
Darleen's $5.7 billion surprise. Darleen Druyun, an Air Force acquisitions officer, apparently notified Boeing that a competitor had underbid them by several billion dollars.
She's no longer with the Air Force. Guess where she works now...
[Forbes/Reuters:] Boeing Co. rejected published reports on Friday that it might have obtained rival bidder Airbus SAS's proprietary information en route to a proposed $22.5 billion refueling tanker lease-purchase agreement with the U.S. Air Force.
Darleen Druyun, hired by Boeing after leaving her job as a top Air Force acquisition official last year, told the Chicago-based company "several times" that Airbus's price was $5 million to $17 million less than Boeing's, an internal Boeing e-mail published on Friday said.
[...]
The lease of 100 tankers based on the Boeing 767 would cost as much as $5.7 billion more than an outright purchase, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office said in an Aug. 26 report.
HOUSTON -- Halliburton Corp.'s (HAL) U.S. government contracts to restore Iraqi oil production and provide support services to troops will cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion and are expected to rise further, Army spokesmen said Wednesday.
An Army Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate the country's oil fields is now valued at $948 million, more than $200 million above the level projected last month. Halliburton's Army Field Support Command contract is now estimated to cost $1 billion in Iraq alone, up more than $400 million from the level in late May.
Although only a small fraction of the value of the contracts will end up as Halliburton profits, the higher price tag could pose political challenges for the Bush administration because Vice President Dick Cheney was previously the company's chief executive.
As with the cost of the overall U.S. effort in Iraq, the Halliburton contracts have escalated in value as Iraqi infrastructure continues to be plagued by looting and sabotage.
[...]
Halliburton reported $292 million in Iraq-related revenues for the quarter ended June 30. Analysts said the Iraq work added two or three cents per share. Halliburton reported second-quarter net income of $26 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $498 million, or $1.15 a share, in the same period the year before.
A Halliburton spokeswoman said the company wouldn't comment on the future earnings impact of its Iraq-related work.
What a difference an invasion makes: a net loss of $498 million versus a quarterly profit of $26 million. That's over a half billion dollar swing to the plus side for Halliburton in a single quarter, comparing 2003 to 2002. And it's in the exact opposite direction of the swing our federal budget has taken from the plus to the minus column. Coincidence, or chicanery?
Did you catch that other detail? Looting and sabotage increase the value of the Halliburton contracts.
Now we know why there's so much chaos in Iraq since the invasion — it's so fucking profitable.
The September 11, 2001, attacks drew immediate attention to the key role of our "first responders" -- the police, firefighters and emergency medical teams who are the first on any crisis scene.
Subsequently, the nation's attention has also focused on the deficiencies in information sharing within our federal government, notably the FBI, CIA and other intelligence community agencies.
These two crucial elements of homeland security are inextricably linked, because information about an attack that reaches the front lines of local authorities could potentially reduce its impact if not stop it entirely.
In the two years since the September 11 attacks, the focus on first responders has increased awareness that federal money isn't reaching them where it is needed. But while much of the discussion has focused simplistically on calls for ever-higher spending, an even greater problem is that information gathered by counterterrorism experts at significant taxpayer expense is ignored in the disbursement process.
[...]
All sides agree this takes money. And Congress has responded. Since that terrible day in September two years ago, Congress has spent more than $20 billion on first responders -- an increase of more than 1,000 percent. Even for Washington, this is an incredible amount of money.
But the involvement of such large sums only accentuates the importance of spending wisely. That means all funds should be disbursed on the basis of hard-nosed threat assessment. However, current federal funding for first responders is parceled out among the states with a guaranteed minimum for every state (presumably, because every state has two senators). One obvious distortion is that California receives less than $5 per person in first responder grants, while Wyoming receives more than $35. The same result obtains in other large states, including New York.
Dick Cheney's home state is financially buffered against the threat of terrorists, while California and New York are left dangling in the wind.
Wyoming is to states as Halliburton is to corporations.
The inquiry continues: Why the [hateful] feelings toward Bush? The answer, as agreed upon in this improvised study, was: 1) He is not legitimately president of the United States. The other guy got more votes. Bush slipped in because of capricious conduct by the courts. 2) Bush is a Christer. He takes every opportunity to inform the American people that he is in touch with the Lord and therefore that, by deduction, what he does is the Lord's work. 3) He gravely miscalculated the onus of what he set out to do in Iraq. The consequences of that miscalculation are deaths unending, and more money spent than King Solomon dreamed of. 4) The economy lacks the kind of resiliency it might have shown if more resourcefully tended. 5) His truckling to the rich in his tax cuts shows a callous disregard of civil adjudications between America's poor and America's rich. And finally, 6) He is a liar. He specifically informed the public that Iraq had in hand instantly deployable weapons of mass destruction. These, it proved, did not exist.
I especially like the passive, tortured double-conditional construction of #4.
Knopf announced last Tuesday that it had signed a book deal with recently discharged Private Jessica Lynch concerning her rescue from an Iraqi medical facility, with the book to be written by recently discharged New York Times writer Rick Bragg. A Publishers Weekly report by Charlotte Abbott says, "Called I'm a Soldier Too: The Jessica Lynch Story and set for publication on Veteran's Day, November 11, it has become one of the fall's most anticipated books almost overnight." But as Abbott points out, the publisher will also have to deal with "lingering questions" about Lynch's rescue — subsequent reports showed she was under little threat and her wounds were perhaps exaggerated — and "Bragg's reputation in the wake of his resignation from the Times on May 28" for having filed reports lifted largely from the work of an assistant. Says Knopf publicity v.p. Paul Bogaards, "People in the wider world don't care."
Regarding Bragg's recent troubles: "In bylining a story that he did not witness, and writing vivid descriptions of things he did not see, Bragg comes perilously close to the techniques of Jayson Blair," says Jack Shafer in Slate.
Rick Bragg couldn't write the "vivid descriptions of things he did not see" in Showtime's "DC 9/11" because that job was already taken, not because the things he purports to describe existed.
What propagandists who call themselves journalists write cannot even disparagingly be called "fiction" — it's just deception, pure and simple. But, as we're constantly reminded, "People in the wider world don't care."
BP Solar provides this calculator for determining how much you'd pay/save if you were install a solar power system to generate electricity for your home. It supposedly works by zip code, figuring your area's capacity for sunlight into the mix.
Acres of newspapers — 273 front pages from 37 countries presented alphabetically, courtesy of Newseum. Refreshed daily.
Via Cryptome, a civil action: The Estate of John O'Neill v. The Republic of Iraq. John P. O'Neill, Sr. was a former top FBI counter-terrorism official who had become director of security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shortly before September 11, 2001. He died in the World Trade Center. We've written about him before.
His willingness to orphan his own sacred progeny reveals an irrational derangement that destroys whatever message his actions were supposed to impart to those of us who disagree with him.
But his message is nevertheless clear: he wants all women not to have dominion over their own bodies, and he wants his own children not to have a father.
The problem with education, says Neil Bush, is that we create prison-like environments that suppress many students' natural gifts and bore them with useless facts.
The president's brother is speaking on a panel at Whitney High, a Southern California academic powerhouse, where his company's social studies software is being tested by eighth-graders. But Bush quickly finds himself alone, pitted against several bright-as-lights Whitney students who like calculus. They think the problem isn't that school is boring, but that educators, parents and kids set their expectations too low.
"I hear students say, 'Oh, math is boring, or that subject is boring, so I don't want to do it.' I say, that's an excuse, a crutch. A student should want to learn everything. That's what we're here for," notes one.
Fortunately, today's crutch-free eighth-graders — the ones who appreciate the finer things in life, like calculus, or anything factual — will be writing the educational software of the future.
In the meanwhile, California kids will be hobbled by the software equivalent of Billy Beer.
