Wampum

Wake up and smell the angst

I can't help myself. This NYTimes headline just did me in.

U.S. Consumer Spending Fell Unexpectedly in August

You've got to be freaking kidding. "Unexpectedly?!" Higher gas prices, even before Katrina played whack a mole with the oil rigs and refineries of the Gulf Coast and Big Oil went on a gouging spree, were taking a big bite out of the US consumer's pocket book. What did these economists expect? People would just head out to the money tree in their backyard and pick a few extra $20s to make up for the cash they were pouring into their gas tanks?

But then, the article gets even better (ugh, worse.)

Americans earned and spent less in August than they did the month before, the government reported this morning, as the economy registered the first significant statistical impact from Hurricane Katrina and the hyper-charged summer auto sales finally fizzled.

Separately, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in almost 13 years this month, according to a survey by the University of Michigan, indicating that higher energy costs and the devastation caused by the last two hurricanes was taking a severe toll on Americans' perceptions about the state of the economy.

Personal incomes fell by 0.1 percent last month, to an annual rate of $10.29 trillion, according to the Commerce Department, partly reflecting $100 billion in estimated uninsured losses to residential and business property from the first hurricane, which pounded the Gulf Coast at the end of August. Incomes rose by 0.3 percent in July and last showed a decrease in January, when they fell 2.6 percent. Analysts had expected incomes to rise by 0.3 percent.

Now, let's be real. These reports are for AUGUST. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29th. August has 31 days. Is the NYTimes actually buying the line that incomes fell a full 0.4% due to actions on the last three days of the month? That all the ails of this summer can be lain at the feet of a storm which, a week later, wouldn't be able to don white shoes without seeming gauche?

This is 9/11 economic scapegoating all over again, when the Bush Administration pinned the 2001 recession, already in six months in bloom in September, on the terrorist attacks.

There is no doubt that Katrina is having, and will continue to have, a huge impact on the US economy for many months, perhaps years, to come. But we really won't know the extent of that impact until next month's numbers are released, numbers for September. Everything we're seeing now has practically nothing to do with Katrina, just as only a portion of next month's numbers can take into consideration Rita's impact. What we're now seeing, therefore, are the seeds of bad policy which were sown over the past half decade of Republican rule. The devastation of the hurricanes will only compound the problems, but let's be clear: Many little old ladies would be found frozen in their homes in New England this winter whether or not Katrina hit NOLA or fizzled out in the Gulf.

Let the Times and reporter Vikas Bajaj know you won't be fooled again at letters@nytimes.com or public@nytimes.com

Update: The Administration talking points made it to the Washington Post's economic reporter as well.

Update2: After reading the WP article cited above in more depth, I came across the actual source of these talking points, a source not disclosed in the Times piece on the subject:

Personal income -- which comes from wages, salaries, rents, interest and other sources -- fell 0.1 percent in August; it would have risen 0.2 percent if not for the hurricane, according to the Commerce Department.

It wasn't just anonymous purportedly independent "analysts" making these assertions. It was Bush Administration hacks, clear and simple.

Lincoln's Generals

On July 25, 1861, four days after the First Battle of Manassas, Lincoln relieved McDowell and appointed McClellan to command the Army of the Potomac. On November 5, 1862, Lincoln relieved McClellan from the command of the Army of the Potomac, placing Burnside in command. Three months later when Lincoln wrote Hooker, appointing him to command the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln noted his comment that "both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator", responding "What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship." Five months latter Lincoln replaced Hooker with Meade. Lincoln wept Lincoln wept in frustration as General Meade let the largest Confederate army escape safely into Virginia.

Richard Myers became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Octover 1, 2001. Today he was relieved by Peter Pace.

Mr. Bush is unaware that his war is being waged by Generals who have not managed to win, and who are unlikely to ever win.

“I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. ... I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, but I had not moral courage enough to resign.”

U.S. Grant

Now there's something to remember.

Maybe some of these House members...

should consider their jobs endangered.

Yesterday, the House passed a bill to gut "reform" the Endangered Species Act, sponsored by none other than Richard "I've Got A National Park to Sell Ya" Pombo. While the bill, HR 3824, still has to pass in the Senate, an uphill battle, its passage in the House was not along pure party lines. The Republicans, perhaps emboldened by the losening of the The Hammer's grip, saw the defection of most Northeastern Republicans, including Shays (CT), Johnson (CT), Simmons (CT), Bass (NH), Bradley (NH), and Wheldon (PA), who voted to save their own skins on an issue which could easily come back to haunt them in their Blue, or better, Green, states. The Dems, however, saw 36 members abandon the one of the principal planks of the Party, environmental protection, to vote to screw that old straw man, er, bird, the Spotted Owl.

With all the discussion in the Lefty Blogosphere these days on Democrats and the Big Tent, I was curious as to how big that tent needs to be to include all Democrats, particularly ones who regularly vote with Republicans on such important issues as the ESA. So below are the Dems voting "aye", along with their latest rating from the League of Conservation Voters. As an added control, I looked at the NARAL rating of these Representatives as well, and those with an asterisk scored below 35%.

Abercrombie (HI) 81
Baca (CA) 61
Barrow (GA) n/a
Berry (AR) 42 *
Bishop (GA) 35 *
Boren (OK) n/a (54% OK Sierra Club)
Boyd (FL) 55
Cardoza (CA) 68 *
Costa (CA) 38
Costello (IL) 68 *
Cramer (AL) 35 *
Cuellar (TX) n/a (0 local Sierra Club)
Davis (AL) 61
Davis (TN) 58 *
Edwards (TX) 35
Ford (TN) 90
Herseth (SD) 56
Hinojosa (TX) 68
Holden (PA) 71 *
Marshall (GA) 58 *
Matheson (UT) 58 *
McIntyre (NC) 68 *
Melancon (LA) n/a
Mollohan (WV) 42 *
Murtha (PA) 55 *
Ortiz (TX) 42 *
Peterson (MN) 19 *
Pomeroy (ND)
Ross (AR) 42 *
Salazar (CO) n/a
Scott (GA) 55 *
Skelton (MO) 61 *
Tanner (TN) 48 *
Taylor (MS) 52 *
Thompson (MS) 74
Wynn (MD) 87

While it's obvious a rogue vote for some of the above (Ford, Wynn, Abercrombie), most ESA-bashers have mediocre, at best, environmental records. But even worse, many of them have outright lousy records on most of the planks which purportedly hold up the Democratic Party.

Let's take Representative Peterson, for example. Not only does he have a rating of 19% from the League of Conservation Voters, he received a 0% rating from NARAL, 29% from US PIRG, 0% from the Human Rights Campaign and 30% from the ACLU. But there are groups which actually think he isn't doing such a bad job, including National Rght to Life (100%), the Eagle Forum (73%), Concerned Women of America (86%), the John Birch Society (70%) and the Family Research Council (75%).

Taylor of Mississippi is just as bad. In fact, the National Journal surmised that only 24% of House members voted less liberally than he did on social issues. That's from both parties, including the darlings of the American Taliban.

Now, some might argue that we're lucky to even have Democrats elected from many of these districts, particularly in the South, and while they may be wingers, they're OUR wingers. That they may vote to make women incubators, gays second-class citizens and condors extinct, but they won't vote for Tom Delay as Majority Leader, and, somehow, that's a win.

Even without those lost DINO votes, Tom Delay is finding his job very much on the endangered list. So just how is keeping them in our big tent a win?

DeLaw

With all of the commentary about the recent indictment of Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, I have not seen any recitations of the actual statutes he is accused of breaking. I thought I might remedy that.

First, pdf copy of the indictment is located here.

As you will note, DeLay is accused of conspiring to violate the Texas Election Code. Here are the relevant sections which I located here.

Sec. 253.003. UNLAWFULLY MAKING OR ACCEPTING CONTRIBUTION.

(a) A person may not knowingly make a political contribution in violation of this chapter.

(b) A person may not knowingly accept a political contribution the person knows to have been made in violation of this chapter.

(c) This section does not apply to a political contribution made or accepted in violation of Subchapter F.

(d) Except as provided by Subsection (e), a person who violates this section commits an offense. An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

(e) A violation of Subsection (a) or (b) is a felony of the third degree if the contribution is made in violation of Subchapter D.

Sec. 253.094. CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES PROHIBITED.

(a) A corporation or labor organization may not make a political contribution or political expenditure that is not authorized by this subchapter.

(b) A corporation or labor organization may not make a political contribution or political expenditure in connection with a recall election, including the circulation and submission of a petition to call an election.

(c) A person who violates this section commits an offense. An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree.

Sec. 253.104. CONTRIBUTION TO POLITICAL PARTY.

(a) A corporation or labor organization may make a contribution from its own property to a political party to be used as provided by Chapter 257.

(b) A corporation or labor organization may not knowingly make a contribution authorized by Subsection (a) during a period beginning on the 60th day before the date of a general election for state and county officers and continuing through the day of the election.

(c) A corporation or labor organization that knowingly makes a contribution in violation of this section commits an offense. An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree.

Violations of those sections constitute a felony of the third degree. The punishment for such crimes is as follows:

Sec. 12.34. THIRD DEGREE FELONY PUNISHMENT.

(a) An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years.

The Texas Criminal Comspiracy statute provides as follows:

§ 15.02. Criminal Conspiracy

(a) A person commits criminal conspiracy if, with intent that a felony be committed:

(1) he agrees with one or more persons that they or one or more of them engage in conduct that would constitute the offense; and

(2) he or one or more of them performs an overt act in pursuance of the agreement.

(b) An agreement constituting a conspiracy may be inferred from acts of the parties.

(c) It is no defense to prosecution for criminal conspiracy that:

(1) one or more of the coconspirators is not criminally responsible for the object offense;

(2) one or more of the coconspirators has been acquitted, so long as two or more coconspirators have not been acquitted;

(3) one or more of the coconspirators has not been prosecuted or convicted, has been convicted of a different offense, or is immune from prosecution;

(4) the actor belongs to a class of persons that by definition of the object offense is legally incapable of committing the object offense in an individual capacity; or

(5) the object offense was actually committed.

(d) An offense under this section is one category lower than the most serious felony that is the object of the conspiracy, and if the most serious felony that is the object of the conspiracy is a state jail felony, the offense is a Class A misdemeanor.

I hope that helps. Please note: This post has been edited to correct an error spotted by Charles Kuffner. Thanks Kuff.

We are homeless & adrift on the sea ice.

In our lifetimes, the high-summer sat image will show no polar sea ice. This September there is only 5.32 million square kilometers of sea ice, the smallest summer ice cap ever recorded.

The title is a quote from Frank Hurley. I trust you all understand why I chose it to frame the sat image.

Forget bake sales. How about a NPS tag sale?

What do these fifteen national parks and monuments have in common?

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Texas
Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska
Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska
Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Alaska
Eugene O'Neill National Historical Site, California
Fort Bowie National Historical Site, Arizona
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historical Site, Massachusetts
Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, District of Columbia
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota
Noatak National Preserve, Alaska
Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, Pennsylvania
Thomas Stone National Historical Site, Maryland
Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska

Very little, other than the fact that Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), a rancher in the San Joaquin Valley and powerful chairman of the House Resources Committee thinks they should be sold to help pay off the US budget deficit.

When confronted with the leaked draft resolution which included the NPS hit list, Pombo admitted that it was "a joke". I have to say I agree. That he would consider some of the most obscure, remote and otherwise inaccessible parks, e.g., Olmstead is open by reservation only, as means to make a dent in our multi-trillion dollar budget is in fact a joke.

Now, if Pombo was serious, he should be looking in his own backyard. And I'm sure he agrees that his constituents in California will be the first to sacrifice their own national treasures for the greater good of Hummer drivers in Georgia.

So, how about these parks instead?

Channel Islands National Park, Ventura, CA
Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, CA
Devils Postpile National Monument, the Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes, CA
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA
Joshua Tree National Park, Southern California between I-10 and Hwy 62
Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mineral, CA
Mojave National Preserve, Barstow, CA
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, CA
Pinnacles National Monument, Paicines, CA (Nope. Its Solidad for the West Side, and Hollister for the East Side. I've only been there about a gazillion times. EBW)
Point Reyes National Seashore, Point Reyes, CA
Redwood National and State Parks, Del Norte & Humboldt counties , CA
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Thousand Oaks, CA
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, In the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare and Fresno counties, CA
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Whiskeytown, CA
Yosemite National Park, the Sierra Nevada, CA

Lots of land to drill on, clear cut and otherwise exploit, all within a day's drive of Rep. Pombo. And, to be sure, we'll get far more than the measly amount projected for his original list.

And his constituents will love him, for who wants all those national parks cluttering up their state.

Terry Neal Invokes the Nixon Postulate

In today’s Washington Post, Terry Neal ivokes a form of the Nixon Postulate. The Nixon Postulate has been restated in many forms since I first encountered it in the early 1970s. In its earliest form, the NP states as follows:

Just because Nixon is paranoid does not mean he is without enemies.

Neal finds application of the Postulate in the Tom DeLay scandal:

In response to the criminal charges he now faces, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has offered up the time-honored defense of Washington politicians: My enemies are out to get me…

It is entirely possible both that your enemies are out to get you and that you did exactly what you are being accused of doing. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

The Post expresses doubt that what DeLay did was a crime:

Nonetheless, at least on the evidence presented so far, the indictment of Mr. DeLay by a state prosecutor in Texas gives us pause. The charge concerns the activities of Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), a political action committee created by Mr. DeLay and his aides to orchestrate the GOP's takeover of the Texas legislature in 2002. The issue is whether Mr. DeLay and his political aides illegally used the group to evade the state's ban on corporate contributions to candidates. The indictment alleges that TRMPAC took $155,000 in corporate contributions and then sent a check for $190,000 to the national Republican Party's "soft money" arm. The national committee then wrote $190,000 in checks from its noncorporate accounts to seven Texas candidates. Perhaps most damning, TRMPAC dictated the precise amount and recipients of those donations.

This was an obvious end run around the corporate contribution rule. The more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run -- or, to be more precise, one so blatantly illegal that it amounts to a criminal felony rather than a civil violation. For Mr. DeLay to be convicted, prosecutors will have to show not only that he took part in the dodge but also that he knew it amounted to a violation of state law -- rather than the kind of clever money-trade that election lawyers engineer all the time.

If that argument it correct, it invokes Michael Kinsley’s observation that the real scandal in campaign finance is not what is legal but rather what is illegal.

One maxim of equity is that one may not do indirectly what one is prohibited from doing directly. I know next to nothing about Texas campaign finance law other than that it prohibits corporate contributions. Surely that prohibition can not be evaded by such a crude money laundering scheme as is described by the Post.

Update: I see that Mark Leon Goldberg at Tapped notes that at least one judge has already ruled that the indirect method of using corporate campaign contributions is illegal.

Mick leaves the following comment:

I know next to nothing about Texas campaign finance law other than that it prohibi[t]s corporate contributions.

The reason you know nothing other than that is because there is nothing other than that. Molly Ivins pointed out months ago that Tommy had managed to break the ONLY campaign financing law on the Texas books.

Note: This post was orginally published by my son, Bobby, in a draft form. I took it down, edited it, and reposted it in its current form.

A Career Move

The Associated Press reports that former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin will plead guilty to having leaked classified information:

A Pentagon analyst charged with providing classified information to an Israeli official and members of a pro-Israeli lobbying group will plead guilty, according to the U.S. District Court clerk's office.

Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., was indicted in June on charges of leaking classified materials -- including information about potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq -- to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and an Israeli official…

The two AIPAC officials who allegedly received the information, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, have been charged with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. defense information. No plea hearings have been scheduled in their cases.

Rosen, a top AIPAC lobbyist for more than 20 years, and Weissman allegedly disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaida, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policy in Iran, according to the indictment against them.

Why did Franklin leak the information? In paragraph 7 of the report, we find the following:

U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said in August that Franklin, Rosen and Weissman were motivated by a desire to advance their own foreign policy agendas and careers.

Franklin thought that violating his trust, betraying his country, violating the law, and potentially compromising the security of the Armed Services of the United States would advance his career.

It turns out that Franklin was mistaken about that, but what does it say about the culture within the Pentagon and the foreign policy establishment that he could possibily believe that selling out his country was a good career move?

Bush Pardons Fourteen

I am a strong supporter of frequent use of the Presidential power of the pardon. That support arises from my legal view that the criminal justice system needs an additional error correction device as well as from my personal belief in both mercy and redemption.

Last December, in No Mercy, I demonstrated that President Bush had been particularly miserly in granting pardons. I was surprised that he had used the pardon power so infrequently because several aspects of his life led me to believe that he might often use the power in "mitigation of the rigor of the law."

From last winter's post:

The six pardons Mr. Bush granted in November raise his first term total to 25. His father granted more than three times as many in his one term. That is remarkable in itself as George Bush, the elder, granted fewer pardons than any president since Zachary Taylor in 1850.

Only four Presidents have issued fewer pardons than George W. Bush. Two of those Presidents, James Garfied and William Henry Harrison, died shortly after taking office and issued no pardons at all.

If we eliminate those two from consideration, we have to go back to John Adams to find a President who granted fewer pardons than George W. Bush.

With the exception of the current President's father, all of the Presidents since 1900 have issued least eight times as many pardons (not adjusting for number of terms) as George W. Bush. Here is the list:

T. Roosevelt 981

Taft 758

Wilson 2480

Harding 800

Coolidge 1545

Hoover 1385

Roosevelt 3687

Truman 2044

Eisenhower 1157

Kennedy 575

Johnson 1187

Nixon 926

Ford 409

Carter 566

Reagan 406

G.H.W. Bush 77

Clinton 456

G.W. Bush 25

Today, Mr. Bush issued fourteen additional pardons. That brings his total to 60.

I object to none of the pardons issued today. Those pardons included four drug dealers (one for selling cocaine, one marijuana, one LSD, and one Quaaludes and marijuana) and a bootlegger.

People convicted of counterfeiting, mail fraud, receipt of a stolen car, making false statements, mailing a threatening letter, embezzlement from a bank, and possession of an unregistered firearm were also pardoned.

I was surprised to see that a United Mine Worker, Jesse Ray Harvey, who set off an explosive in a coal mine that had been the subject of a long strike, received a pardon.

One person receiving a pardon was convicted of “misprision of a felony.” The definition of that crime is as follows:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

I suspect that that may not be the last time you hear of misprision of a felony in connection with the pardon power. Once Patrick Fitzgerald finishes his work on the Valerie Plame matter, there may be several people in Washington who hope that I am right.

Return of the ... One True King (NS) IV

The Majlis just voted on a motion to cease implementation of the (voluntary) additional protocol (snap inspections) of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The vote was 162 to 42 with 15 abstentions.

Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, Speaker of the Majlis, commented that ceasation of implementation of the additional protocol is not withdrawal from the NPT (but look for that in a tabloid near you), and anyway, the bill has to make the rounds of committee and pass muster as being Islamic when reviewed by the Guardian Council -- and my guess is that not allowing snap (foreign, and non-believer) inspections of peaceful muslims engaged in peaceful atomic energy activities may turn out to be not Islamic.

Oh. Keep in mind that Venezuela voted against the EU-proposed resolution that was passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors on Saturday. That's 1.3 million barrels of refined gasoline a day.

Will this season ever end...

Granted, there are still three weeks left in the "peak" hurricane period, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Of course, nothing's carved in stone, but guess who might be coming to a Gulf Coast near you?

Meet so-to-be Stan:

(pic courtesy of Steve Gregory's Weather Underground blog)

Clearance arrived

We learned a few days ago that this had come for us via fax. Today we got the hard copy.

Now the planning begins in earnest. Any and all input welcome as to how to best accomplish what I first discussed on September 4th and again on September 9th.

(Addendum: We realized that FEMA had made a slight error, as we'd requested to be tasked in Hurricane Katrina areas. That additional clearance will be forthcoming.)

(Addenda deux: We get mail: ... this is all the clearance we will need to do anything, anywhere. The name on the letter just changed to Rita after Rita was the new kid in town. :-) That fixes that.

Banned in Paris

The two companies that handle ads in the Paris Metro (trains and buses) accept a staggering assortment of overtly sexual ads -- from perfume to swimsuits, as well as the run-of-the-mill sexualized ads -- from sleek automobiles to bimbo-enhanced beverages. However, they could not accept these -- for Métrobus the ads « risquent de choquer l’ensemble des voyageurs »; as for Insert, its Comité d’éthique » was « unanime contre cette campagne ».

The question « qu’est ce que ça change pour vous ? parce que pour nous, c’est important» is one live-and-let-live Mainers, Republicans included, used to know. The translation is "What does this change for you? (or "What do you care what other consenting adults do in private"?) Because for us, it's important."

I suppose everyone knows that if you use (directly or on a remote and invisible server) the tcp/ip network stack and a modern (post-v7 Richie) UNIX filesystem, which is to say every variety of AIX/HP-UX/Solaris/BSD/... non-Microsoft Operating System Product now existing, a wicked huge fraction of the code, 100% in a lot of places, was the product of some gay men.

I suppose everyone also knows that if you use (directly or on a remote and invisible server) the (overwhelmingly) most common mail transfer agent (sendmail), which is to say every user of every ISP and Campus which is not using a Microsoft Operating System Product for its mail host and relay services, 100% of the code was originally written by a gay man.

I'm not outing anyone, my friends have been out for decades. And don't be fooled if what you have in front of you has a Microsoft Operating System Product on it. If all of the Microsoft product on the net ceased to (mal)function, nothing would be lost except the network loading, much of it just virii chatting to virii.

When you have nothing to write ..

Tell a joke.

I do not have anything interesting to write about at the moment. Accordingly, I thought I would just pass along this snippet from the Borowitz Report:

Elsewhere, recovering from aneurism surgery on his knees, Vice President Dick Cheney said that repair work on his knees would be done by the Halliburton Company at a cost of 12.8 billion dollars.

All Walks of Life

When the phrase “people from all walks of life” is used, I think of a variety of people from different occupations. Indeed, that seems to be the usual meaning. When President Bush uses the phrase, things are not so simple.

Recently, he took a question about the Supreme Court nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor:

Q Mr. President, now that Judge Roberts is heading for confirmation, how close are you to choosing your second nominee for the Supreme Court? And how much of a factor is diversity going to be?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all ... I have interviewed people in the past, and thought about people from all walks of life. And I will put the person in to do the job. But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country.

He has “thought about people” from various different professions to be on the Supreme Court? No non-lawyer has ever served on the United States Supreme Court but some have served on state Supreme Courts. I seem to recall that North Carolina once had a fire alarm salesman with no legal training on the court. If my memory serves, that did not turn out to be a very good idea. Perhaps Mr. Bush really is thinking of nominating a plumber to the Court, but maybe he just has a different idea of what “all walks of life” means.

Sometimes, Mr. Bush seems to use the phrase in its normal sense. When trying to privatize Social Security, Mr. Bush said:

We ought to encourage more people to own their own home, encourage entrepreneurs to be able to take risk and own their own business -- and in this case, encourage Americans from all walks of life, if they so choose, to manage their own retirement account.

That seems like an appropriate use of the phrase.

At other times, though, he seems to think that a “walk of life” is a political affiliation. When miners were rescued in Pennsylvania several years ago, Mr. Bush said:

And that's another part of the spirit of America I want to herald, and that is the prayers that were said by thousands of your citizens -- I mean, people from all walks of life. They didn't say, I'm a Republican, therefore, I get to pray; or I'm a Democrat, I pray...

Those who prayed for the miners were from both walks of life, Democrat and Republican.

On a number of occasions, Mr. Bush seems to use “all walks of life” as code for racial diversity. During the 2000 campaign he was asked about affirmative action:

Q: What about affirmative action?

BUSH: I’ve had a record of bringing people from all walks of life into my administration, and my administration is better off for it.

Of course, he does have such a record. Arabian horse show judges, felons, and lots and lots of political operatives and their friends and kin all found their way into his administration. Veternarians make decisions about women's health. I am sure we can find doctors, lawyers, and and plenty of thieves, but we may have to look harder for an Indian Chief. The only beggar men are begging for political contributions. Whether or not we are better off for I will leave to your judgment.

When asked about then Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft’s record on civil rights:

JEFFREY KAYE: President-elect Bush answered questions regarding Ashcroft's civil rights record. Ashcroft once blocked the nomination of a black judge to the federal bench, and he has been critical of the justice department's civil rights division during the Clinton administration.

PRESIDENT-ELECT GEORGE W. BUSH: There's no question in my mind that he will uphold and enforce the law, the civil rights laws on the books of America. He has had a very good record of reaching out to people from all walks of life.

Is a walk of life inheritable? Children have not yet chosen a profession and although American social mobility is not as great as we sometimes like to think, it is not fixed at birth. Nonetheless, Mr. Bush seems to think that children have a “walk of life”:

And the results for America have been tragic. Men father children and walk away expecting someone else to care for them. Young girls from all walks of life are having more and more babies out of wedlock.

Even younger children have a “walk of life”:

We will not accept rolling back the -- the accountability systems in the No Child Left Behind Act, because I believe the accountability systems are beginning to make a huge difference in the lives of children from all walks of life across this country."

I think in the last few examples, Mr. Bush is using “walk of life” as a stand-in for race. Sometimes, though, I just can’t figure out his use of the term.

For instance, Mr. Bush says “the death tax is good for people from all walks of life!” when he wants to repeal it and it applies only to a very narrow group of people.

Who knows what he means? Maybe it is just a verbal tic.

Riverbend on the (draft) Iraqi Constitution(s) -- Part II

Once again, highly recommended reading link.

Return of the ... One True King (NS) III

The exchange of notes between Juan Cole, University of Michigan and Gilbert Achcar, Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis over the weekend has been illuminating. The protests in Washington and London, which Le Monde reports at 100,000 and 10,000, respectively, are the proximal cause.

Each struggles with the question of what should be done, by the Occupation States (the US and UK primarily), in Occupied Iraq.

I've another concern. The deployment by the US of a significant force structure in West Asia, and the latent risk that the war Jimmy Carter was too wise to start in 1979, will finally be realized.

Cole argues for the withdrawal of a portion of the force structure -- the US/UK infantry from Iraq, and a re-creation of another portion of the force structure -- heavy manuever and artillery battalions, within the militias nominally cooperating with the Occupation, also known as the "Iraqi Army", and the retention of another portion of the force structure -- the US/UK combat air assets. This would yeild a "national" force structure capable of fielding troops, armor, direct and indirect fire artillery against "sub-national" or "non-national" force structure(s), and which would be incapable of engagements with Occupation forces, lacking air defense artillery (ADA), air combat, and air transport capabilities.

It is a neat package, and it could work, for some values of work, and no one has a decent crystal ball, except those who admit that they don't have a crystal ball.

One of the ironies is that, modulo the allowed operation of ADA, air combat, and air transport capabilities within a restricted operating area (bounded by the northern and southern, original and extended, "no fly zones"), and the political composition of the Iraqi state, this is a return to the Intra-Wars (March, 1991 to March 2003) period balance of forces. Operationally, though not politically, whether the political framework is Baghdad-centric or Washington-centric, every call for a cease-fire and disengagement of forces, made from March 2003 to the present moment, is equivalent to this -- a return to the February, 2003 positioning of forces.

The case Juan makes for this is political (Baghdad-centric), and operational -- occupations cause uprisings.

This package leaves 10^^6 troops, armor, artillery, air and naval assets, along with their logistical tail and scheduled rotational and follow-on forces deployed in or deployment-capable to, the Persian Gulf, at least through 2008.

Over the same weekend, India voted for reporting Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear plans which the US and the UK and France (Chirac) and Germany (now without a government for the foreseeable future) say is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. This is a major diplomatic event, and arguably consequent to the July 18, 2005, Indo-US nuclear agreement, in which the US offers a now-NPT-abiding India nuclear energy, obviating any necessity for a trans-Pakistan pipeline to Iran's Fars gas field.

See my "Is Pakistan?" series for some of the details, and my post-Tsunami Andaman Islands series for more details, and ... if you know more than I do please share your data.

Today's Telegraph (Calcutta) praises "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (who) personally cleared the decision to vote with the US and the so-called EU-3, namely Germany, France and the UK, in favour of referring Iran at an unspecified date to the Security Council on suspicions of pursuing a programme to acquire nuclear weapons in the full knowledge that the vote ..." The 'Graph brings this celebratory sentance to a close in the context of Left plus BJP vs Congress domestic politics. The alternative formulations are "the vote ... significantly weakens the Non-Alligned Movement." and "the vote ... clears the way for an American war against Iran in the foreseeable future." But the 'Graph has more.

Top-ranking Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends. In 2002, a year before the US invaded Iraq, high-ranking Americans had similarly shared their definitive vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, making it clear that they would change the regime in Baghdad.

Not to be blind, the Kommersant (Moscow) reports today that Moscow “has stepped up military-technological cooperation with Tehran,” attributing both profit and policy as the motives.

Both Cole and Achcar share a comon perspective -- that if Democratic Party dissent (Cole) or Dissent in a Democracy (Achcar) is sufficient, that Bush can not issue the order to start air operations against Iranian military, political and civilian targets. I think they error. I think that Bush Constitutionally may, and personally intends to, issue the initial ATO authorization. I also think that the current Pentagon (civilian) and CENTCOM (military) leaderships will follow the order, despite the posture of Congress.

I'll give more thought to Achcar's posts and write more on this later.

More Federal campground messiness

Six or so weeks ago, I discussed, either here or on our travel journal, Trip To Wonderful, National Park Services practices overseeing the use of handicapped-accessible campsites at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. To recap, the stated policy was that designated HA sites (at our campground, Twelve Mile Beach, there were two) could not be occupied by non-disabled campers until 6pm, and had to leave before 12 noon (regular checkout time) the next day.

The way in which this was enforced was that both rangers and the campground host (himself disabled) allowed non-disabled campers to occupy the sites starting at around 3pm, with the stipulation that if a disabled camper were to show before 6pm and want the site, they would have to move. Eric and I argued that if a disabled camper were to arrive after the site was occupied, they would either assume the non-disabled occupant was in fact disabled, would not know they had the right to ask the camper to leave, and/or would not want to "put anyone out" by enforcing their right to that campsite. The latter is precisely what occured on our last evening, when a double amputee arrived at Twelve Mile Beach just before 6pm, only to find both handicapped-accessible sites occupied by very able campers. Despite the fact that both sets of campers had set up hours before the 6pm cutoff, the disabled vet did not want to ask the campers to pack up and leave, and instead was forced to drive another 15 miles in the hopes of finding an open, accessible campsite.

Four days ago, we arrived at our favorite National Park campground, Frisco Beach, part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore system. We've camped here the past two years, although in a tent. Because we now travel with a 30' camper, I vigorously checked the rig length requirements for Frisco on the NPS website and found none.

After a few passes through the campground, we found a site which 1) fulfilled our rig requirements, i.e., was at least 30' in lenght, somewhat level and allowed our door to open to the side of the picnic table and grill. We also chose one of the loops farthest from the entrance, knowing traffic would be greatly decreased, very important due to Jonah's current cycling fixation.

After we set up, we realized that although the site would accomodate our trailer, it was 4 feet too short for our tow vehicle as well. So we parked it in the open site across the road, as less than half of the campground's 120+ sites were occupied.

Early this morning, on day four, the campground "hosts" drive up in their official NPS golf cart, to inform us that we have to move our vehicle to the "overflow" parking area. I calmly asked them if there was one within what would be deemed "reasonable" for a handicapped person, as we have a "medically-necessitated" handicapped parking placard due to Jonah's bolting issues, or would they be providing shuttle services for us between our campsite and the main overflow parking lot (located about a 1/4 mile away.) They did not understand, and asked me to "explain". We just said, fine, we'd park in on the grass next to our trailer. "Oh No! That's not allowed!" We were then told that it was our problem we did not pick a campsite which fit our trailer, we should have used the handicapped-accessible site and that we would have to pay for the extra campsite if we wouldn't use the overflow parking.

Of course, this always happens on a weekend, when no one in Park management is available.

So, I went down to the office, paid for the extra campground for tonight (I expect that when all is said and done, we will be credited the amount on our regular campsite.) I did mention that if some camper really desired our truck's site, we would have happily moved it to another one nearby. The response of the park service personnel and "hosts" was that by just parking our car there, we were "discouraging" another camper from occupying it. So, in light of Twelve Mile Beach's policy (also a NPS facility) non-disabled campers are incapable of asking if a site is appropriately occupied, whereas disabled campers should be required to do so.

I then took my measuring tape and camera to the so-called handicapped accessible site, with the results below.

"Handicapped-Accessible" site from road.

A non-accessible picnic table on a non-accessible sand/grass surface (uneven at that.)

The parking pad, 20 feet wide by 25 feet long (at its longest point - 16 feet at its shortest.) Note the inaccessible grill. And where's the tent pad, in case you bring a tent and not a trailer? Why, it's up on the top of that dune to the left.

Just for perspective. Our truck on the long side of the parking pad (it wouldn't fit on the short side.) Obviously, our camper wouldn't fit, with or without our tow vehicle.

According to a NPS accessiblity document entitled "The Director's Order, Number 42",

All reasonable efforts will be made to make NPS facilities, programs, and services accessible to and usable by all people, including those with disabilities. This policy reflects the commitment to provide access to the widest cross section of the public, and to ensure compliance with the intent of the Architectural Barriers Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The Service will also comply with section 507 of the ADA (42 USC 12207), which relates specifically to the operation and management of federal wilderness areas. Specific guidance for implementing these laws is found in the Secretary of the Interior's regulations regarding enforcement of non-discrimination on the basis of disability in Department of the Interior Programs. (43 CFR Part 17, Subpart E).

One primary tenet of disability rights requirements is that, to the highest degree reasonable, people with disabilities should be able to participate in the same programs and activities available to everyone else. In choosing among methods for providing accessibility, higher priority will be given to those methods that offer programs and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate. Special, separate, or alternative facilities, programs, or services will be provided only when existing ones can not reasonably be made accessible. The determination of what is reasonable will be made only after careful consultation with persons with disabilities, or their representatives.. Any decision that would result in "less than equal opportunity" is subject to the filing of an official disability rights complaint under the Departmental regulations cited above.

How utlilizing an accessible site when the designated accessible one is in fact inaccessible seems reasonable to me. That's what I'll be telling the park superintendent tomorrow. I guess we'll see if s/he is reasonable as well.

(Note: This latest "host"-induced parking issue comes on the heels of not one, but two, run-ins with park personnel over our services dog not being on leash. With the first, I had to actually pull out the ADA/Park Service regulations which state a service dog needs to be on leash or "under control", no requirement that the control be physical and not voice. I'm so tired of park personnel and hosts shooting first and asking questions later, if at all.)

Update: When we returned from the beach today, the staff member at the office told us that we would have to move to a longer site by Tuesday. I asked if he knew whether there were in fact sites which would fit us, and, without even inquiring as to our actual combined length (49'), said that there were plenty.

So after returning to our near perfect site, with the exception that it's too short, I headed off with clipboard and measuring tape in hand. No, I didn't not measure all the sites. I stopped after 90. I found two sites which were just under 50 ft., but neither were acceptable for other reasons, ii.e., located on the outer (busy) loop, or the table and grill were located on the opposite side from the trailer door. Other sites which were shorter than 50' had these or other problems. I returned to the office with my findings, to which the staff member then pointed to the map and said that they allow overflow parking at the restrooms, so we should move our campsite next to the bathroom.

Never in any of these discussions did the park service inquire as to what would be the best accomodations for our children. If they did, they'd realize that the bright lights and traffic generated by the bathrooms might not be conducive to the mental health of autistic children. Instead, park employees seem to perserverate on the idea that we would occupy a two sites, one for "free", even in a campground with, as of this evening, fewer than twenty camper units. Is that "reasonable", or just plain stupid?

Buses, Buses, anybody got Buses?

My penalty for pointing out to Michael Anderson that we (Part-15/WISTA/Radio Relay/Community Wireless/...) weren't the only ones suffering from being in the FEFFA ("Front Edge FEMA FUBAR Area", said like FEBA for "Front Edge Battle Area" in milspeak), trying to provide communications infrastructure where FEMA and the ARC haven't hopelessly f*cked things up (and yes, ARC is operating at the same level of non-competence as FEMA), in the Bay St. Louis / Waveland / Long Beach / Pearlington / Diamond Head / Gulfport areas -- and letting him know about the Victor Perra (American Motercoach Assn) and Peter Pantuso (American Bus Assn) attempts to contact FEMA to provide buses to evacuate NOLA -- and the Landstar/RNC/FEMA sweetheart deal that has killed or sickened a whole bunch of people already ...

[Sorry about the comples run-on and run-away sentence structure(s)]

Was that Michael tasked me to contact Victor or Peter and talk them into loaning the project five (5) buses for two (2) months, with the possibility, however remote, that they could be paid after the fact from the vast amount of cash FEMA is swimming in, and doles out to Haliburton, Landstar, and their ilk. Ouch!

P.S. FEMA issued us an access letter for the hurricane affected area(s) on Saturday, September 24th, 22 days after the effort began, and Micahel contacted the FCC, FEMA, and the ARC. We plan to replace Jim and Heather Stacy, who came down from Toronto with a Mobile Learning Labs trailer providing (surprise) VSAT+ WISP + laptops on or about October 10th.

The pre-sales engineer in the foreground is about 3' tall and is present for scale.

Helping Autistic Evacuees

This USA Today story caught my eye.

When evacuees displaced by Hurricane Katrina were sent to shelters, Shelley Hendrix Reynolds knew it would mean trouble for families with autistic kids.

"I was frantic to find these families," says Reynolds, president of Unlocking Autism, a national support organization based in Baton Rouge for families with autistic kids. The group put out a call for shelter workers and others to look out for families of autistic children, who have an array of special needs and behaviors, such as running away, that would make staying in a shelter difficult at best.

So far they have raised $50,000 to give to often cash-strapped families. They have helped 56 families with everything from a $100 gift card to buy food to helping find a donated car, says Reynolds, whose son, 9, is autistic.

People like Ms. Reynolds deserve some sort of special recognition. With a nine year old autistic son, I am sure her dance card is reasonably full just dealing with her own family. That does not stop her from helping other families. If you wish to recognize her efforts with more than words, here is where to send donations.

A distant mirror

Every too often Ben Mieklejohn makes a public utterance that the Maine Green Independent Party should ... get in bed with the Maine Republican Party.

In the last cycle there were some districts were the Democrats weren't even thinking of running candidates. The Green political leadership suggested to their Democratic counterparts that in those legislative races, with a strong Republican incumbant and no apparent Democratic challenger, that Democrats get behind a Green candidate, and that in areas with close races between Republicans and openly progressive Democrats, the Greens would withdraw their candidates. John Eder had been elected to the House from the Downtown/West End in the previous cycle, becoming the first Green nationally to hold a seat in a state legislature. Reapportionment, always a political process, had placed John and Ed Suslovic, the Democrate elected from Rosemont/West End, in a two-incumbants-running-for-one-seat-race for the new West End district. Ed was a decent enough Portland Democrat incumbant,

There were quite a few such districts. In one district the Democratic political leadership put up an apple farmer who had no intention of even campaigning due to the fall harvest coninciding with election season.

The Democrats responded "Sure, we'll do that. We'll let you run candidates in Aroostock County, if you don't run any candidates in Portland."

Portland has few close races between Democrats and Republicans, the close races are between Demcrats and Green. It was an unreasonable counter-offer, but the reasoning was that they didn't trust the Party's number two man -- Zen Ben chaired the Maine Green Independent Party and had been elected to the Portland Schools Committee in the previous cycle, becoming after John Eder, the second highest elected Green in Maine.

The result was three sororicidal races in Portland -- Eder v Suslovic, Adams v Spencer, and Dudley v Cragin, the defeat of a progressive in the Harlow v Trice race, and a large number of unconstested races for seats held by Republicans in districts with 2/3rds non-Republican registration outside of Portland.

This week Reinhard Bütikofer and Claudia Roth, co-presidents of die Grüne, the German Green Party, declined the overtures of the Christian Democratic Union (Conservative), to form a coalition government with neoliberals ideologically and materially hostile to ecology. The European press had been running amok with speculation about a "Jamaican Coaltion", refering to the colors of the flag of that country -- black/yellow/green -- a coalition of conservatives CDU-CSU (black), liberals (warning: European meaning of the word) FDP (yellow) and the Greens (green). Rather than enter into a CDU-lead government, the Greens are going into the opposition.

There are three choices for Maine's Greens in the next cycle:

• Contest all districts


• Contest all progressive/liberal districts


• Contest only those districts held by a non-progressive, or where a Green is the incumbant, or the seat is open

These are the choices. The first exploits Clean Elections, but hasn't won a single seat. The second exploits urban demographics, and has won only one seat (twice) in two cycles, or one seat in four competitive races in the last cycle. The third exploits the DINO vs Progressive tension in the Democratic Party, the similar but smaller split in the RINO vs Wingnut/Corporatist tension in the Republican Party, and the one-voter-in-three who don't associate either with party partianship, or with the Maine Democratic and Republican parties, but who do vote, just not in party primaries.

Now that we're freed from having to run a fratricidal state-wide race to maintain ballot access, and Zen Ben has moved on down the food-chain from Party Chair to "local group organizer", we need to think about how Greens and Progressive Dems talk to, or campaign against, each other, and what we want out of winning.

Google key: Green Party, John Eder, Elizabeth Trice, Maine, Competitive campaigns, campaign strategy

XXV Amendment

The National Enquirer is reporting that President Bush, an untreated alcoholic, is drinking again. Susie Madrak reports that the Enquirer contends that it has 2 sources for the story, that a major newspaper is also working on it, and that the Enquirer stands behind its reporting “150%.” Do I hear 200%? How about 1000%?

Some folks think the Enquirer is credible. Jack Shafer at Slate argues that the Enquirer gets its facts straight as a result of being defamation gun shy.

The Enquirer protects itself from suit, apparently, by paying large sums for dirt on celebrities. The existence of those bought and paid for sources, as opposed to some tabloids' habit of just making stuff up, protects the paper because it can prove that it had a basis for believing the story. That makes the actual malice standard (requiring proof that the defendant published despite knowing the information was false or that it was published with reckless disregard for the truth of falsity) of Times v. Sullivan hard for a defamation plaintiff to prove. Perhaps that makes the Enquirer a little more careful about litigious celebrities like Tom Cruise but Presidents of the United States are not in the habit of suing. The Enquirer has no reason to be gun shy about making stuff up about a President.

I have my doubts as to the truth of the allegation. It will take substantially more than a National Enquirer story for me to sign on to the idea that Mr. Bush is drinking again. I bring the subject up only because I have long felt that the Constitutional provision for dealing with a President who suffers from mental illness, senility, alcohol or drug abuse, or the like is woefully inadequate.

The Constitutional provision is contained in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. It states, in pertinent part, as follows:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

I see a number of potential problems with that provision. First, it gives no guidance on the procedure to be used for Congress to make the determination as to whether or not the President is able to discharge his duties. Will a joint committee be appointed to hold hearings? Can it compel the President to submit to a medical examination? Can the Congress subpoena White House stewards to find out how much the President is drinking and when? Is the Congress empowered to question the President? If so, can he assert his Fifth Amendment privilege (say, as to questions about illegal drug use), or executive privilege, or spousal privilege?

How is Congress to determine if the President is incapacitated? Perhaps Congress should invoke its power under Section 4 to designate a panel of medical experts along with Cabinet members and/or others to assist in making the decision as to incapacitation. As it is, a group of politicians are charged with making what is, to some degree, a medical determination without benefit of medical evidence or advice. Perhaps Bill Frist can view a years old videotape of the President and make a diagnosis, but I would prefer something more formal.

Consider also that the Cabinet serves at the pleasure of the President. Assume some future President, badly afflicted with mental illness, is judged by the Vice President and the entire cabinet to be unable to discharge his duties. They write the letter to the Congress, thereby vesting Presidential power in the Vice President. The President then writes his letter informing Congress that no incapacity exists, thereby reclaiming Presidential power, and proceeds to fire the entire cabinet and their replacements until he finds people who refuse to sign the letter (think Nixon looking for an AG who would fire Archibald Cox).

If the President finds a sufficient number of toadies, are we stuck with a certifiably insane President for the remainder of his term?

New Cabinet members require Senate confirmation. Are we stuck with a crazy President until the Senate can confirm new cabinet Secretaries? What if the crazy president refuses to send up appointments for a long time? Does the requirement of a majority of the Cabinet mean a majority of Cabinet seats or a majority of filled seats? Can a crazy President keep power by making sure that there is never a quorum of the Cabinet?

As noted above, the amendment delegates the decision as to whether or not the President is able to discharge his duties to political actors (the Vice President and the Cabinet in the first instance, followed by the Congress). It will therefore come as no great surprise that the decision is likely to be highly political. That has the potential for great mischief.

Under Article III, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution, in the event that no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representative elects the President and the Senate elects the Vice President. Thus, it is quite possible for the President and Vice President to be from different parties. If that ever happens, it is likely to be at a time of great political polarization, high emotions, and very hard feelings (think of the 2000 election on steroids).

Assume it happens. On inauguration day, the newly elected President may well be from a different party than the outgoing President, the Cabinet officers, the Vice President, and (probably) a majority of the Senate.

If the newly inaugurated Vice President and the outgoing Cabinet wrote the incapacity letter on the first day, and insisted upon it after the newly elected president asserted that he was not incapacitated, the Congress would be required to decide the issue. That is likely to consume the Congress for a time, thereby delaying the formation of a new administration.

If the President was found able, the Vice President and the Cabinet could repeat the process with the Senate refusing to confirm any Cabinet officer who refuses to sign the letter. We would then know what real gridlock is like. The obstructionist party may have to pay a political price but in these days of catering almost exclusively to the base, who is to say that the price would be too high?

That brings me to the Seven Days in May scenario. The current administration claims that the President has the right, unreviewable by any authority, to arrest and indefinately hold incommunicado any American citizen the President deems an “enemy combatant.” In the situation described above, if the Vice President of the opposite party from the new President, together with the outgoing Cabinet, writes the incapacity letter on inauguration day, the twenty-fifth amendment says that “Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.” Those powers are restored to the newly elected President only when he "transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists.”

The new President may find it difficult to transmit that letter from a brig where he is kept under armed guard, provided with no pen or paper, and is not permitted to see or speak to anyone.

None of that is likely to happen. It is all farfetched. In writing the Constitution, though, we should concern ourselves with what is capable of happening, not what is likely to happen. After all, we have to abide by the Constituion even under worst people we shall ever elect.

We really should think through how the XXV Amendment works and plan for the worst case.

If not in DC ...

The Star has been a fixture of Salinas since I was a kid and Salinas was the "big town" we went to to buy sneakers and jeans and whatever else wasn't available from either the Monterey Coop or the general store in Carmel Valley Village.

This is how I remember Salinas ... either going to the Monterey County fair, or the Salinas Rodeo, or just going to the Sears.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24, a women-organized peace demonstration will be held at the corner of South Main Street and Blanco, in the Star Market parking lot. Email sage@redshift.com for more info.

To find where you can go, other than the District, point your browser at this link.

Oh Goodie!

The National Emergency just got extended, because ... Mohammad Atta's gang is apparently still at large, and as capable today as it was on September 12th, 2001.

NORTHCOM via SOCOM is holding GRANITE SHADOW in Washington, DC., because ... Mohammad Atta's gang is apparently threatening to overthrow the civilian government and bring an end to Home Rule, or something, and no one in their right mind would ask the regular Navy, Army, Air Force and Guard career officers and enlisted men and women to play putch.

Who could have known?

This was the phrase we heard time and again from the Bush Administration, including Dear Leader himself, when discussing, after the fact, the disintegration of the levies in New Orleans.

Now, we're beginning to hear the same in Texas, but regarding the current disaster, known as the evacuation of Houston and the Texas Gulf coast.

The observation by Perry and others — that problems were inevitable in any endeavor to move more than a million people over a few routes under an emergency time frame — didn't stop criticism about how officials planned for, and implemented, the exodus.

Chief among the complaints is that officials at all levels didn't appreciate — or at least articulate — just how crowded roads would get.

Add to that the fact that the Texas Department of Transportation seemed flat-footed in effecting a contraflow plan to ease congestion by moving some outbound traffic into inbound lanes.

Why, some asked, didn't the agency time the lane reversals to coincide with the mandatory evacuations of low-lying neighborhoods and areas threatened by storm surge?

"Why wasn't TxDOT on the same page?" asked Houston City Councilman M.J. Khan, stuck for hours trying to get his elderly mother-in-law to the airport. "Yesterday morning, that should have been part of the plan."

TxDOT said its effort was hampered by the complicated nature of the task and a lack of personnel.

Officials also faced criticism because they didn't plan, or didn't plan adequately, for making sure enough gasoline was available for tens of thousands of vehicles crawling through summer heat.

"It has been completely predictable. You try to shove all that traffic onto a freeway system, and it ain't going to work. There's only so much roadway," said Bill King, a lawyer and former Kemah mayor who's long said the region wasn't adequately prepared for a large-scale evacuation.

"All this about the running out of gas? Well, duh," King said.

Well, this wasn't the first time King was quoted by the Chronicle on the subject. As I posted earlier this week, (now-former) Kemah mayor, Bill King, when interviewed last February about the potential problems, expressed his concern in great detail, as did many others. From the same article I referenced earlier:

Enough road capacity?

Local officials also are divided on whether the area's evacuation routes are adequate to handle a full-fledged evacuation of Southeast Texas.

Studies by the Army Corps of Engineers and at Texas A&M University have said the area has enough road capacity to ensure that all endangered residents could be evacuated to safety north of Interstate 10 if they start early enough.

And Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, who is responsible for calling for evacuations in the county, said he believes the evacuation routes could hold the traffic as long as the evacuation begins early enough.

"The key element to that question is `in time,' " Eckels said. "Assuming we have as much notice as they had on the Florida hurricanes ... we could substantially do it. The challenge is coordinating all three counties (Harris, Galveston and Brazoria). It's going to be a massive traffic jam, lots of folks, but I think it can be done."

The state's hurricane planners agree.

Peacock told a group of several hundred emergency officials from the region last month that "the infrastructure will support the evacuation times."

But a large number of those officials from Brazoria, Galveston and Harris counties gathered at the hurricane evacuation workshop said they didn't share that confidence.

They fear evacuation planners have underestimated the difficulty of moving as many as 360,000 vehicles through the congested and flood-prone Houston area in a Category 5 evacuation.

They were concerned about a little over a third of a million cars? There are over 7 million residents of the region now being evacuated.

But, who could have known people would actually take a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane seriously? Who could have known?

Apparently, Bill King did. Last winter.

Bill King has a vision he can't shake.

He sees long lines of vehicles -- family cars with young children in the back, pickups pulling expensive boats, and buses filled with the sick and the old -- trapped in a major traffic jam on Texas 146 or the Gulf Freeway. Behind them, a massive hurricane churns ashore.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

Limited Government

Dan Froomkin relays the Daily Show’s take on President Bush’s belief in limited government:

On Comedy Central's Daily Show last night, satirical correspondent Robb Cordrry insisted to host Jon Stewart that "Everything the president is doing is perfectly in keeping with the conservative ideal of limited government."

Stewart, who had just divulged the possible $200 billion price tag for Bush's proposals for Gulf Coast reconstruction, expressed puzzlement.

So Cordrry explained: "This president believes government should be limited not in size, Jon, but in effectiveness. In terms of effectiveness, this is the most limited administration we've ever had."

This morning's wake-up callers

Between 30 and 40 birds flew over us this morning in a very nice "V". The photo is someone else's (grace a Google) moment of birding joy.

Best wishes to old friends...

Charles Kuff, a long-time friend to all of us here at Wampum, is heading out tomorrow, far from the path of Rita. We want to send our warmest wishes and hope him and his family the best.

A Different Pledge

I like Bud's version of the pledge a lot:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. May we know once again that we are not isolated beings, but connected, in mystery and in miracle, to the universe, to this community, and to each other.

For the context, please visit Mom-NOS. Look around while you are there. She has a lot of good stuff posted.

Vioxx Trial Update – Dr. Lewer’s Testimony

Plaintiff has begun presenting evidence in the Atlantic City Vioxx trial. The first witness called by the plaintiff was Dr. Gregory Lewer. Dr. Lewer is a friend and the personal physician of the plaintiff, Mike Humeston.

Plaintiff seemed to make some headway during direct examination of Dr. Lewer. Dr. Lewer testified that he thought that Vioxx caused plaintiff’s heart attack and that he would not have prescribed Vioxx for Humeston had he known of the cardiac risks it posed:

Humeston's family physician and friend, Gregory Lewer, testified yesterday that he never saw clear information from Merck about the cardiovascular risk from Vioxx when he prescribed it to Humeston in May 2001 for chronic knee pain caused by shrapnel wounds.

Asked by Humeston's attorney, Christopher Seeger, if he would have prescribed Vioxx knowing of its cardiovascular risk, Lewer said, "No."

Lewer said he prescribed Vioxx because evidence showed it did not cause an upset stomach, like several other pain relievers he had tried. But Lewer said it was not until after his patient's heart attack that he became fully aware of unconfirmed concerns about heart-attack risk. "I didn't have enough information that I wish I had at the time of his heart attack," he testified.

Plaintiff’s counsel also used Lewer to begin proving damages as he testified that Humeston and had been much more physically active, hiking and the like, before his heart attack.

Cross examination of Lewer was uneven. Merck’s theory of the case is that Humeston’s heart attack was caused by risk factors other than Vioxx. Those other alleged factors include, age, gender, weight, cholesterol levels, lack of physical activity, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, and stress. I had anticipated that the cross examination of Lewer would elicit information on some of those factors (cholesterol, blood pressure, obesity, and other medical related information). I had not anticipated that Merck would be able to gain significant ground on the issue of stress. Nonetheless, they did so:

In cross-examination by Merck, Lewer revealed that Humeston suffered his heart attack one day after learning that his managers at the U.S. Postal Service had assigned investigators to videotape him to try to prove whether he was really ailing. Humeston had disagreements with his bosses on changing his hours because of his pain.

But Lewer said he did not think the stress of the surveillance triggered the heart attack. However, Merck later showed the jury that Humeston cited "anxiety and home stress" when he was admitted for the heart attack.

If that is the first time the jury has heard about the surveillance and stress, Plaintiff’s counsel has made a serious mistake. The jury will inevitably learn of those sort of damaging facts. It is far better to bring up harmful evidence yourself than to wait for the other side to do so. First, you get some credit for forthrightness if you tell the jury the bad as well as the good. Secondly, by bringing it up yourself, you get to control the context and put your spin on the fact before the other side gets a chance. Third, bringing out the bad news yourself prevents the other side from having a “Perry Mason moment” by reducing the drama of the revelation.

Merck’s use of the stress evidence in Lewer’s examination was great cross on several levels. First, it identifies a specific instance of increased stress immediately prior to the hear attack. The temporal correlation adds credibility to the idea that the heart attack was related to the increased stress.

Secondly, the evidenc can not reasonably be challenged by plaintiff’s counsel, as it came from one of plaintiff’s witnesses who is also a friend of the plaintiff. When plaintiff’s counsel put Lewer on the stand, he implicitly vouched for his credibility. He can not now retract and contend that Lewer is credible when he testifies favorably but not when his testimony is damaging. Finally, the fact that Humeston cited stress when admitted to the hospital for the heart attack makes the inference of causatative link between stress and the heart attack much more credible. As it comes from the plaintiff himself, both the evidence and the inference is very hard to refute or defuse.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the stress evidence relates not to the issue of causation, but to the character of the plaintiff. Plaintiff’s employer, who presumably knows him far better than anyone on the jury, thought Humeston capable of faking pain in order to get a better job assignment. Juries do not like fakers. Juries do not give big awards to people who they dislike.

As a result of the decades long campaign against trial lawyers perpetrated by the political right, the insurance companies, big business, and other tort reformers, plaintiff’s lawyer entered the courtroom on the first day of the trial with some members of the jury highly suspicious of his honesty and motives. Now the plaintiff himself may be under a cloud of suspicion. Those suspicions may color every piece of evidence plaintiff puts forward for the rest of the trial. On such testimony are law suits won and lost.

As I said, that was a great job of cross examination by Merck’s counsel.

Other parts of the cross were less effective. At one point, Merck’s counsel seemed to imply that Lewer should have known of the cardiac risks of Vioxx as a result of a 2000 medical journal article:

On Thursday, the company's lead lawyer, Diane Sullivan, challenged testimony of the first witness, Humeston's physician, suggesting he should have been aware of risks associated with Vioxx because of a 2000 medical journal report.

Dr. Gregory Lewer testified he believed Vioxx caused Humeston's 2001 heart attack and wouldn't have prescribed it if he knew of research linking it to cardiovascular problems.

"The total amount of information is overwhelming. Nobody can keep up on all of it," Lewer said.

That, in my view, is ineffective cross. After all, if Lewer should have known of the risk of Vioxx then surely Merck actually knew of those risks. It was Merck’s responsibility to make sure that prescribing physicians such as Lewer were aware of the data. Merck tries to put the burden on Lewer to have read every single medical journal article but accepts no responsibility to make sure he is aware of the risks of Merck’s drug. It is hard to see how that line of cross could possible discredit Lewer without implicating Merck. After all, if Vioxx did not increase the risk that Humeston wold have a heart attack, Merck would have no cause to imply that Lewer should have known better than to prescribed it.

I am reminded of a case in which we represented a young landscaper who lost an eye when the drive chain of a lawnmower broke and flew into his face. At the beginning of the trial, we heard a lot about how the landscaper was not wearing safety goggles. The implication was that he had contributed to his own injury.

We dealt with that argument on cross in three questions. When the CEO of the mower’s manufacturer was on cross, he was asked if it was his contention that his mower was so poorly designed and manufactured, and was so likely to break, that it would be irresponsible not to wear safety goggles whenever it was used.

If he had answered yes, he would have been handed his operator's manual that made no mention of safety goggles.

When he answered no, he was asked, “So you do not hold it against … (the plaintiff) for not wearing safety goggles, do you?”

When he answered that he did not, he was asked, “and you do not want this jury to hold it against him either, do you?”

We did not hear about safety goggles for the remainder of the trial.

Suggesting that Lewer should have read the 2000 medical journal article and known about the risks of prescribing Vioxx was not Merck’s lawyer’s finest moment. Nonetheless, that is a mere quibble compared to the potential damage done by the inference that the plaintiff is a malingering faker who is not to be trusted.

Plaintiff accomplished a lot of his objectives through Dr. Lewer. Having the doctor who knows Humeston best testify that Vioxx caused the heart attack and that he would not have prescribed Vioxx had he known what Merck knew about the risks is important testimony. Not only may it prove persuasive to the jury, it could be crucial on appeal if the plaintiff gets a verdict (having expert testimony that Vioxx caused the heart attack would insulate a plaintiff’s verdict from a number of attacks on appeal).

It is hard to assess the impact of the stress testimony. I wish I had found a description of the body language of the jury as that information came to light. That testimony has the potential to be devastating to plaintiff but it also has the potential of being completely ignored.

I doubt that Lewer did any unanticipated damage to Merck’s case. I think Merck’s lawyers were probably pretty satisfied as Doctor Lewer left the stand.

This isn't American Iraq

Writing from Erbil (in Iraqi Kurdistan) for Le Monde, Sophie Shihab documents an International Commercial Fair organized by the Iraqi Chambers of Commerce held this week.

Unlike prior events held outside of Iraq, which have been lackluster affairs with few exhibitors and fewer attendees, this event drew 231 exhibitors, Iraqi and Kurdish in particular, and also Americans such as GM with its 4x4s, as well as Arabs, Turks, Germans, etc., and thousands of enthusiastic -- primarily Kurdish -- attendees.

There was no mention of Halliburton, or any of the usual Cheney Cronies -- Bush's America doesn't define or control the venue, hence the economic future of ... Iraqi Kurdistan. Ms. Shihab concludes that the division between Iraq and an eventually independent Kurdistan is a line that separates chaos from prosperity.

Of course, here in the Major Media Markets, the necessity and sufficiency of continued urban combat operations, with all their obvious consequences, is unquestionable -- political lives are lost by the adroit use of cult phrases like "cut and run". It couldn't be true that where Americans aren't, killing and being killed, there is prosperity and freedom for women, and where they are, there isn't.

Google key: Reconstruction, Kurdistan, Partition, Iraq

Some Rita predictions/questions before we hit the road

As Hurricane Rita moves into the Gulf, well on it's way to the NHC's Cat 4 or even Cat 5 status, a few things are certain. Or, at least more certain than the hurricane's eventual path, although most models have it hitting the Texas coast sometime between Friday and Saturday.

1) Nearly all repair work on the thousands of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico will cease. Already, most fixed platforms in the region have been evacuated. Oil prices, already up $4/barrel this week, despite OPEC's increased production, will approach the post-Katrina levels of $70/barrel by Saturday, and gas will top $3/gallon in many areas, once again.

2) The Red Cross and other relief agencies will have to decide if and when to evacuate not only their shelters of Katrina relocatees, but the thousands of relief workers as well. In light of the damaged transportation infrastructure along the Gulf, do they do it now, or wait to see if Rita makes a turn later this week, when the ridge of high pressure over the northern Gulf eases? And since even mere tropical storm force winds canwreak havoc with previously damaged buildings, levies and water/power infrastructure, how far from NOLA do you judge to be the "safe zone", away from the eye's landing?

3) If Rita does hit the Galveston/Houston area, are our National Guard resources, already stretched thin by Katrina due to large Iraq War deployments, now in over their heads. Gov. Perry has already recalled over 1000 national guard troops home to Texas, leaving a gaping hole in the Katrina recovery effort. If troops as far away as New England and the Pacific Northwest are already in Louisiana and Mississippi, who then heads to support the depleted Texas NG forces? Alaska? Hawaii? Canadian Mounties?

Within days after Katrina's wrath was felt, a few lone souls cynically reminded us that, at the time, the 2005 hurricane season had not yet reached it's peak. So, what if? What if it happened again? Florida was hit, not once, but four times last year, twice in the very same area just a few weeks apart. With two months of warm water left in the Atlantic tropics, no one should be taken off guard again, as lightening can, and does, strike twice.

Heading for Hatteras tomorrow...

Eric and I have been a bit AWOL, as we've moved through the Virginia Allegenies and it's dense, VSAT-challenging canopy. So while I did find a hole today, tomorrow, we'll be on our way to Ophelia-battered Outer Banks, for the kids to rest up and for me to finally put to paper (or pixels) my vision of how Progressives need to mesh emerging technologies with basic grassroots organizing. Hopefully, you won't hear much from me as I'll be knee deep in true hackery (actually, prior to Mickey Kaus' betrayal, a complimentary term for one who works as a political operative for a living.) Of course, since there are few trees over 15 feet high along OBX, I expect the VSAT to be fully functional from day one. However, my goal is to ignore all email and comments. Or so I say.

I'll also be working out our plans for deploying the VSAT over the next few months somewhere along the Gulf Coast. A few non-ARC options have presented themselves, and I'll be further investigating those and others.

Most important, however, is our invasion of Greensboro in about two weeks. Fire up the barbie and the trampoline.

Got Culture?

When I went to Beijing (as a guest of the Chinese Academy of Science and its Network Information Center) I called my mom -- she remarked that "we're Asians too" -- meaning us as pre-Europeans in the Americas.

I suppose that it is remotely possible that Jeb Bush's disclosure of his inner Chang is his way of publically abandoning Eurocentricism, though it is more likely that it is delayed symptom of the circa-1988 Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho) phenomena in the pseudo-management literary genre. Everybody in management was a (nyekulturny) samuri or a sagebush disciple of Sun Tsu, or both.

Chang San Feng is inspired to create the Art of Taijiquan as he watches a fight between a snake and a bird.

Would East Texas fair any better than NOLA?

Hopefully, we won't find out. However, with Hurricane Rita strengthening and setting her current sites on the Texas coast, emergency officials may learn if their plans are any better. Unfortunately, many, including the mayor of Kemah (a Houston suburb), Bill King, haven't expressed a great deal of confidence in Governor Perry and his homeland security director, Steve McCraw. In a February, 2005, Houston Chronicle article, King and other expressed their concerns quite openly:

Is Houston ready for the big storm?
Evacuees' delays may bring deadly consequences
By JOE STINEBAKER

Bill King has a vision he can't shake.

He sees long lines of vehicles -- family cars with young children in the back, pickups pulling expensive boats, and buses filled with the sick and the old -- trapped in a major traffic jam on Texas 146 or the Gulf Freeway. Behind them, a massive hurricane churns ashore.

Ahead lie washed-out bridges, flooded roads and thousands of sets of taillights. Their escape has been cut off, and time is running out.

King, Kemah's mayor, is one of many area critics who believe that lackluster evacuation planning and unrealistic expectations by state and local emergency officials could doom thousands of coastal Texans to horrific deaths when a Category 4 or 5 hurricane strikes.

"We have got to have this right, because sooner or later there's going to be a bullet in the chamber," King said. "Sooner or later, we're going to get an event. And if we do not have it right, and if we haven't been out there and practiced (an evacuation) and everybody knows exactly where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do, then we're going to kill a bunch of people."

An upcoming report from Gov. Rick Perry's Office of Emergency Management is expected to reject most of King's doubts. The report, according to area and state emergency officials, likely will say that the Houston-Galveston area is largely prepared for a major hurricane, although a few improvements are needed. The report is a result of nearly four months of meetings and reviews of preparedness plans for Texas coastal areas from Mexico to Louisiana.

Perry's homeland security director, Steve McCraw, headed the review. Although McCraw will not reveal his findings before turning them over to Perry, he said he was "impressed" by local evacuation plans and that he believed those plans were "more coordinated than what's been represented" by critics.

But those looking for definitive answers to whether Texas is ready for a major hurricane are likely to be disappointed. Interviews with more than two dozen hurricane and emergency evacuation experts show that no one really knows whether the Southeast Texas coast could be quickly and safely evacuated in the event of a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane. Key concerns lie in how much time is needed to evacuate, whether Texans would respond quickly enough to recommendations to flee and whether the roads leading to and through Houston could handle the surge in traffic.

In other words, we'll find out when it happens.

In only one area are the experts in agreement, and it's a disconcerting admission. State and local officials have little confidence in their ability to evacuate those without cars, living in group homes or many of the sick and elderly living alone. (Emphasis mine) Plans are in the works, they say, but for now those who are most vulnerable are living on the edge of disaster.

With landfall potentially as early as Friday night (72 hours), it's not too soon to figure out whether these kinks have been worked out since last winter's plans were released. And with tens of thousands of Katrina evacuees living in temporary housing withing striking distance from the Texas coast, those plans had better be flexible.

We now know that Bush was too busy with his vacation to take the increasingly desperate calls of Governor Blanco. I'm curious to know if he's been as cavalier with officials from his own "home" state.

nota bene: It's important to note that the population of Houston metro area is now the forth largest in the US, with 4.75 million residents. That is not including the tens of thousands of evacuees from Katrina stricken areas.

Riverbend on the (draft) Iraqi Constitution(s) -- Part I

Once again, highly recommended reading link.

Judge Not, That You Be Not Judged

In the Book of Matthew, Jesus says:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

Dennis Kozlowski may have learned that lesson the hard way yesterday. Kozlowski, the former Tyco CEO, was sentenced yesterday to a term of 8 and 1/3 to 25 years in prison for defrauding the company out of more than $150 million and other crimes. Mr. Kozlowski will be eligible for work release in six years and will be eligible for parole in eight. Kozlowski was also ordered to pay $167 million in restitution.

New York requires felons with sentences of six years or more to serve their time in a maximum security prison. Mr. Kozlowski may be facing hard time.

It is hard to work up much sympathy for Mr. Kozlowski as his sentence, by his own standards, was light.

In 1995, Girish P. Shah was convicted of embezzling almost a million dollars from Grinell Corporation. Mr. Shah was the Assistant Controller for Grinell which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyco. Mr. Kozlowski wrote a letter(pdf) to the judge in anticipation of Mr. Shah's sentencing. That letter, in part, states the following:

I view Mr. Shah’s crime as particularly egregious and as one which can not be condoned in any manner, either by mitigation of his sentence or otherwise. Not only did he steal from the stockholders of this Fortune 500 company, but he breached the fiduciary duty placed in him by the company and his supervisor(s)….

I know well that your court, like most courts throughout the country, is experiencing the explosion of such violent crimes as killings, mayhem, etc. and that so-called “white collar” crimes may be dealt with less severely because of overcrowding in penal facilities.

However, in this instance, I urge you to impress upon Mr. Shah and those who commit similar crimes that wrongdoing of this nature against society is considered a grave matter by the Texas Court and will not be condoned.

Mr. Shah should be sentenced to incarceration for a maximum term in accordance with the District Attorney’s recommendation and no less than that.

Mr. Shah faced a potential maximum term of thirty years. Mr. Kozlowski’s crime was of the same nature but larger in scope than Mr. Shah’s. The prosecuting attorney in Mr. Kozlowski’s case recommended a sentence of 15 to 30. Mr. Kozlowski was shown more mercy than he recommended for Mr. Shah.

Perhaps Mr. Kozlowski will have time to reflect upon the lack of mercy he showed to Mr. Shah as he spends his time at Rikers Island and, perhaps, Attica.

.cat is finally approved

The first linguistic or cultural domain registry has finally been approved by the ICANN board, for Catalan and Catalonians (France, Italy, Andora, Spain, and elsewhere). Via a note from Amadeu.

Update: I just got the formal announcement. Its in the extended area. I'll correct the Catalan invisibly later.

Benvolgut/a,

L'Associaci puntCAT es plau a comunicar-te que la Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), que s l'entitat responsable de la coordinaci de sistema de noms de domini a Internet, ha aprovat definitivament nostra proposta de domini ".CAT" per a la comunitat lingstica i cultural catalana.

Com veurs en el comunicat que trobars al web de l'Associaci http://www.puntcat.org/, aix significa que properament el domini .CAT existir. A bans de finals d'any ja podrem comenar a registrar els primers dominis .CAT.

Durant el procs de presentaci i avaluaci de la nostra candidatura hem rebut el suport de ms de 68.000 persones, entitats i empreses. s per aix que volem donar 68.000 grcies a cadascun de vosaltres, ja que amb el vostre suport a la campanya pel domini .CAT, heu fet possible properament sigui una realitat.

A mesura que avancem en aquest procs i puguem, finalment, comenar a registrar dominis ".CAT" t'ho farem saber immediatament.

Associaci puntCAT
http://www.puntcat.org

Barcelona, 16 de setembre de 2005

Minimum Wage

I realize that I should be writing about the decision to put Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast or, perhaps, the John Roberts' hearings but, instead, I keep thinking about the minimum wage. I am not quite sure why.

It started when this Body and Soul post got me thinking about what it means to be poor. Then, when the L.A. Times ran the
this story, my focus had shifted to the minimum wage in specific:

Reflecting yet another sharp jump in the cost of health insurance, coverage for a family of four has surpassed the income of a minimum-wage earner for the first time, according to a survey released today.

The study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research Educational Trust, published each fall before open enrollment season begins, is considered the definitive survey of what coverage will cost workers.

This year the survey found that average annual premiums for family coverage grew more than 9% since last year to $10,880. A minimum wage worker earns $10,712 before taxes.

When I started thinking about the minimum wage, I realized how little I knew about it despite the fact that I have earned it ($1.60 per hour in 1969 for cleaning gutters) and paid it ($4.75 per hour in 1995 for answering a phone). I started to look into the topic in an effort to answer the following questions:

1) How many people earn minimum wage, and who are they?

2) How much is the minimum wage and how does that compare to historical norms?

3) Is it true that raising the minimum wage causes the loss of jobs?

What I discovered is below.

How Many and Who Are They?

The first questions were easy to answer as I quickly found this Bureau of Labor Statistics page. In 2002, there were more than 2 million workers whose hourly earnings were at or below the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

The seemingly oxymoronic idea of earning less than the minimum results from the fact the DOL permits such employment if the worker also receives tips (e.g. waiters). Those two million workers amount to about 3% of the workforce. The 3% is constant across racial lines with whites, African Americans and Hispanics all having 3% of workers at the minimum.

Women represent about 2/3 of minimum wage workers. Four percent of women earn the minimum while only 2% of men do.

The popular notion that most minimum wage workers are teenagers is false. Seventy-five percent of minimum wage workers are above age 19. Nonetheless, 25% being teenagers is a pretty large chunk. Older workers (65+) are also over represented. A large portion of minimum wage workers work part time. That may help explain the prevalence of young and old workers in the group.

A majority of minimum wage earners are in the service sector with retail and the fast food industries heavily represented.

The only thing I found surprising in all of that is that “only” 570,000 workers reported being paid exactly the minimum wage. I would have expected a larger number.

How Much?

The Federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour (pdf). A full time minimum wage worker (forty hours per week, fifty-two weeks) earns $10,712 per year.

Let’s try to put that into some perspective. Met Life and others recommend budgeting 25%-30% of income for housing. For a minimum wage worker, that works out to $233 to $267 per month in rent. According to this report, a minimum wage worker better choose carefully where to live if he or she intends to stay within the Met Life guidelines:

In only four of the nation's 3,066 counties can someone working full time and earning federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported Monday.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, over the last six years, Sidney Taurel, CEO of Eli Lilly, has had average yearly compensation of $11,833,000. That works out to about $5,688 per hour. Mr. Taurel earns more than a year’s wages at the minimum before he finishes his second cup of coffee two hours after he arrives at the office the morning of the first working day of the year. In return for the six year total of more than $70 million in CEO compensation (a year’s wages for more than 6500 minimum wage workers), Lilly shareholders enjoyed a total return of negative 7% as Lilly stock underperformed both the broad market and its industry.

The minimum wage was first established in 1938 at the rate of $0.25 per hour. It moved to $0.30 per hour the next year. Thirty cents per hour in 1939 has the buying power of $4.24 per hour today according to the inflation calculator at BLS.

The minimum wage rises when Congress passes, and the President signs, an increase in the rate. It then falls as inflation erodes the buying power until a new increase is enacted. After reaching $4.24 in 1939, the buying power of the minimum wage fell to $3.27 by 1945 before an increase to $0.40 per hour in October of that year restored buying power to $4.36 in today’s dollars.

Inflation whittled that $4.36 down to $3.30 by 1949. An increase to $0.75 in January of 1950 raised the buying power to $6.11, almost a dollar per hour more than the minimum wage stands today. The minimum wage has not had buying power lower than today’s $5.15 per hour since 1949.

The buying power of the minimum wage reached a peak when it was raised to $1.60 in 1968 ($9.03 in today’s dollars). The buying power started a long slide (interrupted by intermittent hikes) until it reached $5.31 in 1990.

An increase to $3.80 in April of that year and another to $4.25 in 1991 moved the buying power back over $6.00 per hour. It then slid to $5.32 by 1996.

Increases in 1996 and 1997 moved the wage to today’s $5.15 and the buying power to $6.30. From there it has fallen to today’s $5.15.

Does increasing the minimum wage result slower job growth?

That is a very difficult question to answer because there are many factors that influence job creation. Nonetheless, in order to try to get a feel for whether the data supports a claim of job loss, I devised a simple, crude, back of the envelop sort of analysis. First, I went to BLS and grabbed the data on percentage change in employment for each year from 1940 through 2004. That gave me 65 data points. I then ordered those years from fastest job growth, 12.9% in 1941, to the lowest, negative 3.6% in 1945.

I divided those 65 data points into quintiles of 13 years each. You can think of the top quintile (12.9%-3.8%) as Excellent Job Growth, the second quintile (3.7%-3.0%) as Good Job Growth, the middle quintile (2.9% - 2.0%) as Fair Job Growth, the fourth quintile (2.0% to 0.5%) as Poor Job Growth, and the bottom quintile (0.3%- -3.6%) as Bad Job Growth.

Once I had all 65 years ordered by job growth rates, I identified the 17 years in which an increase in the minimum wage would have had the largest potential negative effect on job growth. For each increase in the nominal minimum wage, I assigned a year. I chose the first year in which the increase was in effect for at least six months. Thus, when the minimum wage was increased to $4.75 an hour in October of 1996, I looked at 1997 to see if I could discern an effect. Similarly, when wage was increased to $1.60 in February of 1968, I looked to the 1968 data.

If increasing the minimum wage depresses job growth, then we would expect that the years in which the increase has its greatest effect would tend to fall into the lower quintiles. Stated differently, I was testing the hypothesis that the year immediately following an increase in the minimum wage should, in general, be poor or bad years for job growth. Were they? No, they were not.

The following lists the effective date of a minimum wage increase and then notes whether the subsequent year's job growth was excellent, good, etc. Full data available upon request.

10/24/39 Excellent

10/24/45 Good

1/25/50 Good

3/1/56 Good

9/3/61 Fair

2/1/67 Good

2/1/68 Good

5/1/74 Poor

1/1/75 Bad

1/1/76 Good

1/1/78 Excellent

1/1/79 Good

1/1/80 Poor

4/1/90 Poor

4/1/91 Bad

10/1/96 Fair

9/1/97 Fair

I donot see any evidence that increasing the minimum wage supressed job growth in those years. Of the seventeen times the minimum wage was raised, the subsequent year had fair, good, or excellent growth rates twelve times. The frequency of “excellent” or “good” (9 instances) was nearly twice as common as “poor” or “bad (5 instances).

That does not demonstrate that increases in the minimum wage increases job growth. It is evidence arguing against the proposition that it decreases job growth. Many other factors may cause the results seen above. For instance, it may be easier politically to increase the minimum wage in periods of fast job growth. The results may also essentially be random. Be that as it may, if the argument is that the minimum wage should not be increased because it will depress job growth, the data above lends no support for the proposition.

There may be other data sets that are more persuasive. After all, I am no economist. In my day job, if I need a professional economic analysis for a case, I hire a professional economist to do it.

Given the data I looked at, I would need to see a very persuasive professional analysis to convince me that an increase in the minimum wage causes significant depression of job growth.

My current interest in the minimum wage now having been sated, I will now try to return to normal blogging.

Throw Your Speech Away

In reading the coverage of the Atlantic City Vioxx trial, I came across the following in the NY Times:

Also, Ms. Sullivan (Merck’s lawyer) spoke without notes, unlike Merck's Texas lawyers, who read from a lectern and appeared stiff and formal…

Meanwhile, Christopher Seeger, the lead lawyer for Mr. Humeston, was far less smooth than Mr. Lanier had been.

Mr. Seeger read his opening argument from behind a lectern and sometimes appeared to bog down in the complex scientific details about the way that Vioxx affects the cardiovascular system.

So in the two Vioxx trials to date, half of the opening statements to the jury have been read from behind a lectern. I can not too strongly tell you how big a mistake that is.

The purpose of the opening statement is to provide the jurors with a preview of what the evidence will be. It is an early opportunity for the lawyer to establish credibility, create rapport, and persuade the jurors.

Research has suggested that 80% of jurors have made up their minds which side they think should win by the end of opening statement. Opening statement, along with jury selection, are the two most critical portions of a case.

Reading opening statements from behind a lectern is so wrong on so many levels, it is hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start with the lectern itself. It places a barrier between the lawyer and the jury. It prevents the establishment of rapport. The lawyer wants to become a trusted friend of the jurors. Placing a barrier between the jury and the lawyer harms that effort. If I had my choice, I would give my opening statement twelve times, once to each juror, over coffee while sitting at their kitchen table with no notes or anything else. Just friends talking. Reading a script from a lectern is the exact opposite of what an opening statement should be.

Opening statements would be much more persuasive if they were dialogues instead of monologues. Reading from behind a lecture emphasizes that it is not a dialogue. In addition, since jurors are forbidden to speak, their only means of communicating back to the lawyer is through facial expression and body language. Reading the opening statement prevents the lawyer from focusing on that communication and much information that the jury is trying to send will be missed. In addition, by standing behind the lectern and reading, the lawyer prevents herself from using body language and expression to send messages back to the jury. Those messages are part of everyday communication, such as “I note your concern on that point" or “yes, the facts really are that outrageous and you can hold me to my proof of it.”

Next, humor is important to persuasion. Even in a very serious case, it is impossible to ratchet up the emotional content and keep it at a high level for an extended period of time. After an emotional peak, one has to allow the jury to drop the intensity for a while before another peak can be scaled. A brief pause, followed by a bit of humor, is a great way to allow everyone to digest the emotional content just delivered, relieve the intensity for a moment, and help the jury prepare to focus on the next segment of your presentation. It is hard to be funny when reading from behind a lectern. Perhaps Bob Newhart could pull it off but most of us just can not.

Think about the people you have found to be most persuasive. Have you ever seen a really good preacher read an entire sermon from a script? Sure, they may read a biblical passage or two, just to make sure they have it exactly right, but then they stop reading and begin preaching. When you were in college, did the most popular professors read their lectures to the class from behind a podium? Would you have found such a professor interesting or persuasive? Why do politicians use teleprompters when giving speeches? They want to avoid giving the appearance of reading their speeches. There is a reason for that.

Reading from a lectern is boring. Moving around to keep jurors' interest, talking like a normal person, demonstrating that you have complete command of the facts, being comfortable and making the jury comfortable, reacting to the jurors unspoken questions, taking command of the courtroom, and treating everyone, including your counterpart, with respect are all building blocks of credibility and persuasion. It is very hard to accomplish any of that while reading from a lectern.

None of that is to suggest that a lawyer should just wing his or her opening statement in an important case. I think carefully about what I want to say and how I want to say it. I write out a complete opening statement, then edit it, rewrite it, edit it again etc until I have honed to what I hope is perfection. I give my opening statement to my wife, to my client, to my paralegal, to co-counsel, to consultants, to my dog, to the mirror. I time it. Shorter is better. I incorporate the suggestions of all of the above (except the dog and the mirror) and repeat the process. I practice with the visual aides I intend to use, whether low tech stuff like flip charts and photographs, or high tech stuff like Power Point or Elmo displays. Your props hate you and if you do not practice with them, you will be embarrassed.

By the night before I am scheduled to give opening statement, I have it fully prepared, written out and placed in a binder, with highlights, tabs, cues for the visual aides, an index to documents, citations of law to counter possible objections, and other materials.

When my turn comes, I leave that notebook at counsel table and take a single sheet of paper with me to the podium. On that paper, in block letters is written “BE NICE” and “SLOW DOWN” and then a list of three to five major topics I wish to cover. I introduce myself from the lectern and then leave it. I return to the lectern only at the end of each major topic to try to signal an end to that section and the beginning of another. After I introduce the next section, I leave the podium and return only when it is time to signal another transition. I have never needed, or wanted, the notebook.

Of course, my opening statements are never delivered exactly as written. As I receive feedback from the jury, I alter, amend, edit, and change emphasis. If all the jurors are sitting back in their chairs, refusing to make eye contact with me, and have their arms crossed over their chests, I know that I have made a big time error and that corrective action is needed and needed fast.

Besides, I do not wish to sound like I am reading from a script. I want to sound like I am talking among friends. Do your friends talk to you from a script?

If reading opening statements from a lectern is so bad, why have half of the highly paid, highly skilled lawyers in the Vioxx trials chosen to do so? It can not be that they need the speech written out. If those lawyers are not in complete command of the scientific, medical, and personal evidence in the case, as well as their trial themes, strategy, and tactics, they have no business setting foot in the courtroom. It is tempting to suggest that they read because they are “litigators” and not “trial lawyers” as Beldar draws the distinction (actually, I think he sometimes refers to the former as “candy ass litigators”) but I do not think that is the major reason.

I think the major reason is fear of losing control. Trying cases requires one to give up a large measure of control. All kinds of things happen at trial: the judge makes a lousy ruling, your client suddenly become inarticulate on the stand, the other side has a surprise piece of evidence, your expert crumbles on cross examination, the jury focuses on something you thought was trivial and that you did not cover in sufficient detail, your key witness had a kidney stone and doesn’t show up, the damn computer you were going to use for your awesome Power Point display just died. The lawyer has little or no control (other than thorough preparation) over those things. You can control your opening statement and the attraction of having it completely canned is strong. Reading seems like it takes all the risk out of the opening statement but, in truth, it is playing not to lose rather than playing to win. The impulse should be resisted. Throw that speech away. Talk to the jury like you are a normal human being.

I know that the above will be of interest only to a very narrow group of readers. Those who have never and will never give or hear an opening statement will not care a bit. Nonetheless, trial work is my chosen profession. It is my craft. Learning that a lawyer in an important case read the opening statement from a lectern is, to me, like a carpenter watching as someone hammers a screw into a piece of fine hardwood.

A simple soldier

Mr. Kahn taught German. After the war in Europe he was assigned to the International Military Tribunal and took a modest part in the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried twenty-four of the most important captured (or still believed to be alive) leaders of Nazi Germany.

Shown in the photo are 1st row: Goering (death), Hess (perpetual seclusion), von Ribbentrop (death), Keitel (death) 2nd row: Donitz (10 years), Raeder (perpetual seclusion), Schirach (20 years), Sauckel (death), and some US servicemen like Mr. Kahn.

Mr. Kahn was ordered by his superiors, ultimately Mssrs. Eisenhower and Truman, not to torture the accused Major War Criminals, but to provide for their ordinary needs, in custody, as persons who had violated international law and the laws of war.

But suppose Mr. Kahn had been ordered, ultimately by Mssrs. Eisenhower and Truman, to torture or cause the deaths of some person(s) in custody. The Fourth Nuremberg Principle is that the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Had Mr. Kahn followed an order to torture or cause the death of some person(s) in custody, his actions would have attached the same liability as the actions of Mssrs. Goering, von Ribbentrop, Keitel, et alia.

But the Second Nuremberg Principle is as important. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law. Could the internal law (of the United States and its Armed Forces) fail to impose a penalty for an act of torture or which cause the death of some person(s) in custody?

It is the position of the Bush Regime that the internal law (of the United States and its Armed Forces), that would apply in this scenario, are the orders of Mssrs. Eisenhower and Truman, hence that no penalty may be imposed for acts torture or which cause the death of some person(s) in custody, if those acts were ordered by a superior officer or the Executive.

And that brings us to John Roberts and his lack of clarity on the question of whether Congress may interfere with the military orders issued by the Executive. Were Mssrs. Eisenhower and Truman the sole authors of the internal law of the United States and its Armed Forces in Nuremberg in 1946?

The Continental Congress established different oaths for the enlisted men and officers of the Continental Army on 14 June 1775. The oath for the enlisted was simple, the relevant phrase was "I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the said Army." The oath for officers was much more complex, "I _____, do acknowledge the Thirteen United States of America, namely, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, independent, and sovereign states, and declare ... and will serve the said United States in the office of _____, which I now hold, and in any other office which I may hereafter hold by their appointment, or under their authority ..."

The oath for the enlisted was replaced by Section 3, Article 1, of the Articles of War approved by Congress on 20 September 1776, which specified that the oath of enlistment read: "I _____ swear (or affirm as the case may be) to be trued to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies opposers whatsoever; and to observe and obey the orders of the Continental Congress, and the orders of the Generals and officers set over me by them." The oath for officers was revised on 3 February 1778, to read "I, _____ do acknowledge the United States of America to be free, independent and sovereign states ... I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain and defend the said United States ... "

The first oath under the Constitution was approved by Act of Congress 29 September 1789 (Sec. 3, Ch. 25, 1st Congress). It applied to all commissioned officers, noncommissioned officers and privates in the service of the United States. It came in two parts, the first of which read: "I, A.B., do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that I will support the constitution of the United States." The second part read: "I, A.B., do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me." The next section of that chapter specified that "the said troops shall be governed by the rules and articles of war, which have been established by the United States in Congress assembled, or by such rules and articles of war as may hereafter by law be established."

The enlisted oath was unchanged until 1950. However the officers' oath was changed slightly in 1830 to read "I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States."

Under an act of 2 July 1862 the oath became: "I, A.B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatsoever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God."

An act of 13 May 1884 reverted to a simpler formulation: "I, A.B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." This version remained in effect until the 1959 adoption of the present wording.

The Continental Congress, the Thirteen United States, the free, independent and sovereign states, the Constitution, the rules and articles of war, which have been established by the United States in Congress assembled, the President, the Constitution, the Constitution, the Constitution, the Constitution.

When John Roberts answered equivocally Joe Bidden's question on the authority of Congress to interfere with the military orders issued by the Executive, he was engaged in a Constitutonal scholarship that is ignorant of the existence of the Connecticut Navy, the Continental Army, and the Acts of Congress specific to the oaths of enlistment and commission, from the First Congress to the present Congress.

An advocate of any branch of government may say, or write, anything she or he pleases, even that the laws of motion or the Nuremberg Principles have been abolished. A Justice of the Supreme Court may as well, as Justice Rehnquist did in Oliphant, and simply make shit up, but it isn't really that strong of a recommendation.

I'm profoundly glad that Mr. Kahn taught German at the hig school I attended in the 1960s. A personal connection to the Nuremberg Trials was a lasting gift.

I am of course, a Gentleman, by an Act of Congress, and as every commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman knows, that is sufficient in itself to settle the question of Congressional Authority over the Officers and Enlisted men and women in the armed forces of the United States.

Business Ethics Quiz

Test your business ethics with the following quiz.

You are the CEO of a publicly held company. It is a large but not huge company with about $3.7 billion in sales and a workforce of 12,000 employees. The company makes and markets medical devices. About 47% of company revenue comes from the sales of implantable cardiac defibrillators. Those devices are designed to shock to the heart into rhythm as needed. If the defibrillators fail to work properly, people may die.

Question No. 1

You discover that one of your defibrillator products is prone to short circuiting, thereby malfunctioning and not providing a shock to the heart when needed. Should you:

(a) Immediately recall all of the suspect products;

(b) Immediately disclose to all people with one of the implanted defibrillators as well as doctors who do the implantation that a short circuit may occur;

(c) Immediately and clearly disclose the problem to he FDA and then follow their instruction;

(d) Wait more than three years, until a teenage boy dies, to disclose the information to anyone?

Question No. 2

Assume that you chose answer (d) above (you have CEO potential!), should the motto of the company be:

(a) Lifesaving technology for everyone but unlucky teenagers;

(b) Disclosing only information that keeps the stock price high;

(c) Knowing more about the risks of our products than any consumer or doctor could ever discover; or

(d) Pioneering lifesaving technology to give patients another day. Another year. Another lifetime?

Question No. 3

After discovering the tendency of your product to malfunction, your company identifies the problem and creates a new model that you hope will solve it. Should you:

(a) Offer to replace the old model with the new for all customers, including implanted defibrillators and those held by doctors but not yet implanted;

(b) Reveal the defect in the old model before anyone dies as a result of a short circuit but not offer to replace them;

(c) Say nothing but begin selling the new model and discontinue the old; or

(d) Keep on selling the old model and hope that the defect does not come to light?

Question No. 4

You discover that a much larger company is considering acquiring your company. You, personally, own or have options to purchase 2.2 million shares of the company. At the expected sale price, those shares would be worth more than $167 million. The disclosure of the product defect could lower the price paid for the company. Before agreeing to sell the company to the larger suitor, should you:

(a) Fully disclose the problems with the defibrillators to the potential buyer;

(b) Try to quietly settle with all potential plaintiffs before the sale so that the buyer has no potential liability;

(c) Tell the buyer that you once had a problem product but that no one has died and the problem has been fixed in the new model; or

(d) What, are you kidding me? There are 167 million reasons to keep my mouth shut.

Question No. 5

You agree to sell the company for the full price. Two months after that deal is agreed upon, you are required by law to disclose any product malfunctions to the FDA. At that point, you know that one defibrillator per month is malfunctioning. Failing to disclose to the FDA may impact the sale of the company and your $167 million. Should you:

(a) Hold a press conference, fully disclose, institute a recall, and let the chips fall where they may;

(b) Disclose to the FDA and make sure that the buyer also knows about the data. If that lowers the price of the purchase, you will still be rich but not as rich;

(c) Fully disclose to the FDA but say nothing publicly, secure in the knowledge that the FDA will keep the data confidential; or

(d) Bury the information in a table 60 pages into a routine, 90 page FDA disclosure form and hope no one notices.

Question No. 6

After two deaths make the problem public, should you:

(a) Focus public attention on all the defibrillators that did not fail rather than the few that did;

(b) Make sure that your web page brags that you “believe that conducting our business in accordance with high standards of business conduct is fundamental to our ability to succeed in the marketplace” and that you are committed to “continued honest and ethical business conduct.”

(c) Convene a blue ribbon panel to discuss whether or not the company should have disclosed the problem earlier with the promise that you “may” make “portions” of the panel report public.

(d) All of the above.

If you answered (d) to all of the above, your ethical profile would seem to be in line with that of Ronald W. Dollens, President and Chief Executive Officer of Guidant Corporation. Would that make you proud?

Tipping Point II

Last year, when gas prices experienced their first big bump, I opined that we might have reached what I then termed, the "tipping point":

One thing to remember about this Commerce Dept. report is that it doesn't record the number of sales, e.g. consumers bought a thousand more pairs of shoes this month; no, it tracks sales receipt figures, e.g., how much extra money was gained or lost by retailers, as a whole, and in various key areas. Thus, with sharp increases in prices in gasoline over the past couple of months, one would understandably expect to see a similar increase in the sales figures for gas stations. Not loss or profit, just the volume of actual sales.

Hence, my surprise when saw the actual retail sale figure for gas stations actually fell slightly (-0.1%) in February. The price increased, but obviously fewer Americans were filling their tanks. Consumers had reached the "tipping point", where the cost for an item, in this case gasoline, influenced their desire, or ability, to purchase said item.

This morning, the Associated Press (via the NYTimes) seemed shocked! shocked! that retail sales were far less than expected:

Retail Sales Plunge in August
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retail sales plunged in August by the largest amount in nearly four years, evidence that the economy was weakening even before Hurricane Katrina struck.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that total sales fell by 2.1 percent last month, double the decline that analysts had been expecting. The weakness came from a big 12 percent drop in sales of autos. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 1 percent, but much of that strength reflected a rise in gasoline prices.

...

The 2.1 percent drop in total sales last month was the largest decline since a 2.9 percent plunge in November 2001, the period following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Analyst talking heads have been warning that the devastation of Katrina could trim a percentage point or two off of this year's GDP. But what we're now seeing is that rising gas prices were already having an effect, even before Katrina blew into town.

This was not a dissimilar scenario to the economic conditions in the months prior to the 9/11 attacks. The Dot.Com bubble had burst nearly a year before, those it was really more of a continuous slow leak of jobs than a sudden cataclysmic event. However, the Bush Administration and their Republican flunkies in Congress quickly pointed to the fall of the towers as the impetous behind the recession, and used that as an excuse to push through huge tax cuts for the rich, dressed up, of course, as post-catastrophe "economic stimulus."

Look for the Bushies to do the same thing in the wake of Katrina. Rather than blame their own failed tax-cut-into-monumental-deficit policies, they'll blame the already in progress slow down on Katrina.

Americans let them once. Will they again?

Two very small questions

I was amazed at the thoughtless response John Roberts gave to two questions posed by Joe Biden. He couldn't say that Congress has the Constitutional authority to end wars. Start them, yes. Power of the Purse, yes, but stop them, no clear answer. Ditto for Congressional authority over the Military.

We drove through Gettysburg on Monday, and retold Grace, within sight of Little Round Top, the story of the Abenakis -- her ancestors -- who died there, with the 20th Maine. Civil war is the greatest man-made calamity that can befall any polity, and the conflict of 1861-1865 is closer to the present than mere dates might suggest.

Whether you prefer to call that conflict the Civil War, the War Between The States, the War For States Rights, the War of Northern Agression, the War of the Rebellion, or whatever name you deem appropriate, do you imagine that, for the Constitutional government in Washington, only Mr. Lincoln had the authority to bring that conflict to an end?

The exchange of notes between General R. E. Lee and Lieutenant-General U.S. Grant of 7-9 April 1865 set these terms by Grant on the 8th:

... peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely, that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.

The correspondence leading up to the statement of terms of April 9th, and their acceptance, can be found here.

Suppose that Mr. Lincoln was a different kind of man, one who took pleasure in denying stays of execution, one who orated at length on the themes of "freedom" and "democracy" and "free markets", and one who intended to hang every rebel chief and every 10th rebel, as Mr. Lincoln did in December 1862, ordering the execution by hanging of 38 of the 303 "Indians and half-breeds" who were found guilty of taking up arms against the United States (some starving Dakotas took some eggs from a hen house, resulting in armed pursuit and armed resistance) in the so-call "Dakota Uprising" -- more properly called a mass escape from starvation.

Is there anyone in American public life who believes that Mr. Lincoln had the authority to conclude the conflict of 1861-1865 by ordering the execution of every official of the Government of the State of Virginia and every10th man in the Army of Northern Virginia? Is there anyone daft enough to think that the authority to end hostilities lay, not in the Federal Legislature, but in the caprice of the Executive?

Had there been time for public debate, had Congress been informed of the device detonated at Alamagordo on 16 July, 1945, and had Congress been informed that the only "terms" sought by Japan was the preservation of the legal divinity of the Emperor, is there anyone in American public life who believes that Mr. Truman had the authority to extend the Pacific War and order the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, contrary to Congress, simply to humiliate Mr. Hirohito?

How about the War for Neutral Rights (1812 - 1815)? The South and West favored war, New York and New England opposed it because it interfered with their commerce. Had Virginia joined New York and the New England states after Mr. Madison's war began, had it joined the Federalists at the Hartford Convention, forming a majority against Mr. Madison's war, were these States' delegates to the Federal legislature powerless to end Mr. Madison's war, because the Federal legislature itself lacked the Constitutional authority to end war? Had Mr. Madison been captured the night of August 24, 1814, when Washington City was captured and the mansion of the President fired, was the Federal legislature incapable of continuing the war in the event Mr. Madison personally surrendered and as Commander in Chief ordered the surrender of the American Navy and Armies?

It takes a pretty dull mind to hold the view that the authority of Congress to end war is a question that has never been considered in the life of the Republic, and for which no clear answer is possible, and a duller mind not to know what the present import of the question is. Mr. Bush's war was to humiliate Mr. Hussein, and the questions Mr. Roberts could not answer on the authority of Congress to legislate, touching on the exclusive authority claim of the Executive over the armed forces of the United States, and on the authority of Congress to legislate an end to hostilities could arise as early as January, 2006, when the 2nd Session of the 109th Congress sits.

Newly elected Governors could order their Guard units home, and Congress could legislate limits on the authority of the Executive Branch to over-ride that authority, or the the authority of the Executive Branch to over-ride individual enlistment contracts -- the "stop-loss" policy, and Congress could simply decide that the policy goals of the United States, though not those of Mr. Bush and his subordinates, had been met and that no further exercise of American military power in West Asia is currently in the interests of the Republic.

Gettysburg has another meaning. Eventually the series of stolen elections, begun in Florida by the Bush Regime in 2000, and continued by the Bush Regime in Ohio in 2004, must come to an end.

Vioxx Trial Jury

The second Vioxx trial began today in Atlantic City, New Jersey with jury selection. A ten person jury was selected (from which six jurors and 4 alternates will eventually be designated). The jury consists of seven women and three men. Two things stood out about the jury. First, although Atlantic City is about 14% African American, the jury had 9 whites and one Hispanic.

Secondly, both sides must have been quite satisfied with the make up of the jury because they each used just 4 of their 6 preemptory strikes. One side or the other made a mistake in not striking more jurors. Which side that is will not be known until the verdict is rendered.

I keep hearing people comment on how stupid jurors are. All the smart people either avoid jury duty or get struck by some evil trial lawyer who wants stupid people on the jury so that he can get huge verdicts without reference to any evidence. As a result, we are constantly told, juries are left with no one who is not easily bamboozled.

Take a look at the make up of the jury in Atlantic City to see how accurate that myth is.

Combining the two linked stories, it appears that the ten jurors include:

A lawyer (a veteran criminal prosecutor);

the wife of a retired surgeon;

an accountant;

a bank manager;

a middle school teacher;

a bookkeeper at a china manufacturer;

a casino worker; and

a homemaker.

I do not know the occupations of the other two jurors.

Maybe that looks like a jury of fools to you, but to me, it looks like a pretty normal group of people.

Edited for clarity.

Washington Society

There are only two members of the Federal legislature I'd like to meet -- Barbara Lee, who four years ago cast the only vote against allowing the Bush Regime authority to use force, resulting in the war against Afganistan, before the Atta Gang was even completely identified -- and Robert Byrd, who three years ago pleaded against the rush to war against Iraq, before the WMD threat and the rest of the rationals for war were exposed as frauds.

Barbara Lee echos John Edwards' campaign message speaking about Hurricane Katrina -- "If ever anyone doubted that there were two Americas, this disaster has made this division clear. The victims have largely been poor and black."

Robert Byrd reaches through the King James venacular to express the unavoidable -- “For everything there is a season. . .” and the season of madness of King George has run its course. The full text of his speach is here.

This morning I was amazed by a pileated woodpecker, and this evening four deer, two does and two yearlings, walked through our camp and five herrons flew over us. Between these moments I spent the day walking behind a boy who was an alligator between the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. Sammy's interpretative dance is very, very imaginative, and it was Gracie's choice to spend her 9th birthday were Sam would be ... again ... surrounded by reptiles of unusual size.

I may never meet Lee or Byrd, but Sam and Grace did pretty good today.

Second Vioxx Trial Begins Today

The second Vioxx personal injury/wrongful death case begins today in an Atlantic City, New Jersey state court.

The stakes for this case are high. Merck lost the first case (held in Texas). The Texas jury jury returned a verdict of over $250 million, to be reduced to $26.1 million as a result of a Texas tort reform measure that limits punitive damage awards.

Merck needs a win soon to depress the settlement value of the thousands of other cases and to assure the financial markets that Vioxx litigation will not bring Merck down.

There are several hundred Vioxx cases pending in New Jersey. The instant case was selected to go first by mutual agreement of Merck and plaintiff’s counsel (who has a number of Vioxx cases) under the supervision of the trial judge.

Someone made a mistake in choosing Humeston as the first case. We just do not yet know which side it was.

Let’s look at some of the factors that may play a role in the trial.

The Plaintiff

The plaintiff is 60 year old Frederick ("Mike")Humeston of Boise, Idaho. Humeston is a postal worker who, his lawyer claims, was an avid outdoorsman before his heart attack in 2001.

Humeston is married (his wife is also a plaintiff, presumably seeking damages for loss of consortium) and has five kids. Humerston is an ex-Marine who was awarded two Purple Hearts for his service in Viet Nam.

Humerston started taking Vioxx in May of 2001 as a result of pain in his knee resulting from a war injury. He took Vioxx only intermittently until July of 2001 when he suffered a non-fatal heart attack. He was 56 years old at the time of his heart attack and was 6’1” and weighed 231 pounds. In 1988, when Humeston was 43, he weighed 200 pounds.

Humerston contends that his heart attack was caused by Vioxx.

Humerston seems a very sympathetic plaintiff. He is a family man and a injured Marine vet. The pictures I have seen of him make him look distinguished. He may be his own best asset but, of course, cross examination has a way of changing things.

The Judge

The trial judge will be Carol Higbee. All New Jersey Vioxx litigation has been centralized and assigned to Judge Higbee.

Judge Higbee has been on the bench since 1992. Before becoming a Judge she was a medical malpractice plaintiff’s lawyer with the Atlantic City firm of Targan Higbee & Klevit. Higbee as previously presided over mass tort litigation including Hormone Replacement Therapy litigation.

Judge Higbee has issued a number of pre-trial rulings. You can determine for yourself whether or not those rulings have a predictive quality for the trial as a whole. Among her rulings are the following:

-- She denied a Merck motion to delay the trial. Merck argued that publicity from the Texas case warranted delay;

-- She granted a request, over Merck’s objection, to permit television cameras in the courtroom;

-- Judge Higbee prohibited lawyers and witnesses from:

using the words "ethics" or "morality" in discussing complex scientific issues and the liability of drugmaker Merck.

State Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee said the ban was intended to curb "inflammatory comments" and subjective testimony, and generally to "keep the rhetoric down."

"I just don't want the issue of what's ethical -- it's not a legal phrase," the judge said. "That's not to say the trial isn't about what's wrong or right -- that's what the law is about.

"Let's keep it on a scientific and factual level;"

-- Upon Merck’s motion, Judge Higbee prohibited plaintiff from calling a business ethics professor as a witness. The witness, who was a former Merck consultant, was to testify about Merck’s ethics policies;

-- Judge Higbee permitted testimony, over Merck’s objection, about the plaintiff’s military record. Since Humeston was taking Vioxx as a result of pain caused by a war injury, it is hard to see how such testimony could have been excluded;

-- Higbee permitted testimony, over Merck’s objection, of five experts for plaintiff. Those experts include a pharmacologist, a biostatistician, and a cardiologist who testified in the Texas trial;

-- Upon plaintiff’s motion, Higbee barred Merck from presenting evidence that Merck executives and their families took Vioxx;

-- New Jersey.com reports that two issues remain pending:

Still pending is Higbee's decision on the admissibility of a Food and Drug Administration memo that suggests Vioxx is no more dangerous than over-the-counter painkillers.

Also pending is a ruling on whether the plaintiff can introduce testimony about the compensation of Merck executives -- information the company has said would turn the case into a "circus."

It is hard to see how the compensation of Merck executives can shed light on any relevant matter unless plaintiff can make a showing that such compensation was dependent on keeping a link between Vioxx and heart attacks secret. Even then, it seems a bit of a stretch to me.

The Jury

About 250 Atlantic City residents have been called for jury duty. One issue is whether or not those jurors will be sympathetic to Merck as a result of home field advantage. New Jersey is the headquarters of Merck and Merck has more than 8,000 employees in the state. Other large drug companies also have extensive operations in the Garden State. To the extent that publicity from the Texas verdict has given people of New Jersey the idea that Vioxx litigation could be the demise of Merck, there may be a backlash against plaintiff.

How do casino employees feel about the issues? NorthJersey.com notes that casinos pay their employees for time missed as a result of jury duty. That means that casino employees are far less likely to try to avoid jury service. One local lawyer as estimates that about 1/3 of the pool will be casino employees. I wonder whether casino employees will have a greater understanding of, and affinity to, statistical evidence.

The Issues

Judge Higbee has narrowed the issues in the case. The two major ones are reported to be the degree and nature of any scientifically proven connections between the painkiller Vioxx and heart attacks and strokes, and whether Merck knew Vioxx posed those health risks.

On the second issue, I suspect that the internal Merck documents will be just as devastating in New Jersey as they were in Texas. I just do not see how Merck executives can answer the question “Do you think that Mike Humeston had the right to know as much as Merck about the risks of Vioxx before he took the drug?”

The first issue is far more promising for Merck. It appears that Merck will fight the causation battle on two fronts. First, Merck will argue, accurately as far as I know, that no study has ever shown a correlation between Vioxx and heart attacks when the drug was taken for fewer than 18 months. As Mr. Humeston took Vioxx for only two months, that may pose a problem for plaintiffs.

North Jersey.com reports the following:

One question could be whether jurors believe two months of Vioxx use is enough to have caused Humeston's attack.

Jim Fitzpatrick, outside counsel for Merck, noted that the study that prompted Vioxx's withdrawal showed an increased risk of heart problems only after 18 months.

Humeston "used it for a short term and used it intermittently," Fitzpatrick said.
"That kind of Vioxx use is not associated with a heart attack," he said…

Seeger (plaintiff’s counsel) said Merck's own data show heart attacks happened right away. "There's really no dispute in this case that he's taken enough Vioxx to cause a heart attack," Seeger said. "The evidence is just overwhelmingly against Merck on that.”

We shall see.

The other aspect of the causation issue concerns Mr. Humerston’s other heart attack risk factors.

Zwire.com:

In a causation brief, Merck is going to argue that Vioxx had nothing to do with Humeston’s heart attack because coronary artery disease occurs silently over time with the build up cholesterol plaques in vessels supplying blood to the heart. Humeston’s medical profile shows that Humeston had a multiple preexisting risk factors - cholesterol problems, stress, borderline hypertension, obesity and did not exercise - that can contribute toward a heart attack.

Plaintiff’s counsel disputes that Humeston had other risk factors.

Of the risk factors listed above, some will have more salience than others. I have found no data on Mr. Humeston’s blood pressure or cholesterol levels. I suspect that had either been horrible, Merck would have made sure that they were published. Nonetheless, we will just have to await the evidence at trial.

Stress and sedentary lifestyle are hard to document and are, to some degree, matters of perspective. Humeston will argue that he was an avid hiker. I suspect Merck will argue otherwise. Everyone, including all 12 jurors, has stress in their life. I think Merck needs some pretty compelling evidence to get a jury to focus on stress as the cause of the heart attack.

It is hard for me to see how Merck can make much hay out of age and gender as risk factors. Not many people expect otherwise healthy 56 year old men to suffer heart attacks. In addition, it is very hard to blame the plaintiff for being born male and surviving to 56.

The last risk factor is obesity. Humeston was 6’1” and weighed 231 at the time of his heart attack. He had gained 31 pounds in the previous 13 years. His Body Mass Index was 30.5 at the time of his heart attack. 30.0 is the cut off between “overweight” and “obese” according to the CDC. In any event, 231 pounds on a six foot one inch 56 year old man is certainly not grotesquely fat.

Merck is hoping for a jury of young, skinny women who go to the gym a lot. That is a pretty small target.

I am guessing that Merck’s best causation argument is that Humeston took Vioxx only intermittently and only for a couple of months. I am not aware of any studies that show that such usage increases the risk of heart attack, but I am sure that plaintiff’s counsel will try to slice and dice the data to show that such a risk is present and I am surely no expert on the subject.

The stakes in this trial are high for both Merck and the Vioxx plaintiff’s bar. I, for one, will be watching as much of the trial as I can. I’ll try to let you know what happens.

Sources:
NorthJersey.com

New Jersey.com

Law.com

NY Times

Newsday

Bloomberg

Zwire.com

1010WINS

Law.com

Proper Places For Apologies To Appear

Before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, MB noted that many members of the National Guard from the Gulf Coast states had been sent to Iraq. Her post consisted of a map of Katrina’s path as well as the following:

The natural disaster is named Katrina. The man-made one carries the name of Bush, who sent the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama National Guards to Iraq.

So who will provide disaster relief in Katrina's aftermath?

MB’s foresight was confirmed recently. CNN reports:

The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.

Mathew Yglesias points us to a subscription only New Republic piece by Spencer Ackerman who noted that:

Louisiana Guard commanders leaving for Iraq last October took with them high-water vehicles and other equipment that would be needed to deal with the hurricane.

It seems pretty obvious that high-water and communication equipment with those Guard units in Iraq could have been quite useful on the Gulf Coast.

Some conservatives, such as Professor Bainbridge acknowledge the link between the National Guard being in Iraq and the delayed response to Katrina:

Even if Iraq won't prevent us from sustaining the response to Katrina, for a senior military official with Blum's evident experience to admit that it delayed the response is a pretty stunning admission. It's probably going to give the criticism of the administration and the GOP real traction with people of good sense and good will ... as it should.

Some conservatives, however, responded to MB’s post without the “good sense and good will” of which the Professor speaks.

Ace of Spades tried to pretend that MB blamed Bush for the existence of a hurricane in the Gulf:

Just as the unhinged left credited Bill Clinton for the rising of the sun and the flowering of the fields, so too do they blame Bush for natural calamities.

Baseball Crank also climbed aboard that distortion of MB’s post: “people on the left are eagerly blaming Bush for the hurricane…”

Given that MB specifically said that Katrina was a natural disaster, those folks are either being disingenuous or have a problem with reading comprehension.

My favorite conservative response linking to MB’s post comes from Echo9er:

Give me a break. I am not surprised that someone blames the President. After all, the Left is NEVER wrong.

We here at Wampum are wrong our share of the time (particularly the member of Wampum who lives in a Southern State). Now that the Chief of the National Guard Bureau has confirmed the essence of MB’s point, it is reasonably clear that her post was not one of those instances.

Fortunately, MB is a gracious person and I am confident that she will accept apologies from Ace of Spades, Baseball Crank, and Echo9er. In comments to this post, at MB’s original post, or on the front page of their blogs would be appropriate places for those apologies to appear.

Our VSAT plan realized ... with warts

This appeared in today's eWeek. I've reformatted it, and there are some annotations (because I can't help myself from technical annotation).

VOIP to the rescue.
News Analysis: The American Red Cross uses VOIP for all of the same reasons you should, but for the Red Cross, the stakes are vastly higher.

Imagine what it must be like to attempt a phone call in the littered wasteland that was once the central Gulf Coast of the United States. Not only are there no phones, there are no phone lines, no central offices, nothing. While there is cell service—T-Mobile was apparently running at full capacity within a day or two—sites are swamped with high priority calls. Making a phone call can be nearly impossible. Worse, the American Red Cross is taking the lion's share of the responsibility for handling the relief effort. This private charity runs the shelters, helps support survivors, hands out everything from food to blankets, and tries to reunite families. But without phone service, the job is tough indeed.

While the Red Cross makes good use of the hundreds of ham radio operators that are willing to provide weeks of unpaid labor, there are never enough of them. Because of its critical communications needs, the Red Cross has turned to VOIP (voice over IP). But this isn't the VOIP you're thinking of. This is telephony on the edge. This is a phone service that exists in partially ruined Kmart stores, sports stadiums and firehouses. A phone service that must serve the needs of volunteers, managers and thousands of survivors. A phone service that must provide access to the Internet and to the world.

What the writer omits is that to work with the ARC one has to take several classes, a 3-hour Introduction to Disaster Services video course, and one or more of Shelter Operations, etc. While not an onerous requirement in theory, in practice these are an absolute bar to first tech responders, and net out to the exclusion of non-corporate technical service providers. The Part-15 project, 300+ WISP and VOIP volunteer engineers, after 9 days of attempting to coordinate with both FEMA and the ARC, still has no standing with either.

So what do you do when you must communicate but there's no infrastructure? You use a global network of satellites to carry your connections. In this case, the Red Cross uses VSATs (very small aperture terminals) to provide the critical links. Those VSATs are being assembled, tested and prepared for shipment at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross in Falls Church, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

There a team of volunteers made up of ham radio operators and engineers from defense and aerospace companies is building the VSAT equipment by hand from parts donated to the Red Cross. These VSATs then provide a TCP/IP link to the outside world. Of course, you can route nearly any kind of phone call over a VSAT.

I actually haven't noticed [m]any volunteers from the defense and/or aerospace companies, but the academic and commercial companies and network operators and especially the wireless non-commercial and commercial communities are all over the wireless and voice over ip efforts that are coordinated over the net.

The next paras are troubling. The architecture the ARC is on record as fielding is hierarchical, and will completely fail if there is a network partition, and the ARC's HQ and the disaster area are not in the same surviving functional network partitions. Or if WDC is the disaster area. Failure by design, for ease of centralized management. Our VoIP architecture is not so {stupd,ambitious}, communicating shelters, etc., {trust,require} other communicating shelters, etc., to build a local phone book, and exchange them, and "switch in the field" using open source software, not cisco's propriatary CM product. "Doner cost-effectiveness" isn't the only axis for optimization.

The Red Cross chose VOIP because it allowed phones to be set up in advance with a PBX located at the headquarters. In addition, because VOIP phones could share the bandwidth with Internet access and other traffic, it made more efficient use of the VSAT link that other methods might have.

According to David Craig, Senior Engineer for the Response Technology unit of the Red Cross, the organization is currently using Cisco Call Manager to handle its IP voice network. Craig cited the ease of set up and the ease of use as important reasons to use VOIP as well. "There's no switching in the field," Craig said.

He noted that the satellite equipment and the VOIP and networking equipment would frequently be put into operation by people with little formal training, so it had to be something ordinary people could do. This way, everything can be configured before it's shipped, and then simply plugged in when it arrives on-site. Craig said he also likes the fact that the disaster phone system can be managed from anywhere. He said that the Red Cross only has two employees in the network operations center. All of the rest of the staff are volunteers. He said that this way, volunteers can keep an eye on the network and on the voice traffic at all times. This is a plan that the organization has been using since Sept. 11, 2001, when it was first put into operation, Craig said. "We want this to be cost-effective for our donors," Craig noted. He said that the ease of deployment, as well as the effective use of bandwidth, accomplished that.

The deployment of the VSAT systems and the IP phones to Red Cross communications centers in the region impacted by Hurricane Katrina began on Sept. 7. Now volunteers are preparing a hundred more VSATs and hundreds of IP phones for shipment in the next few days. Everywhere they go, VOIP will go with them, providing some of the first reliable phone service since the storm hit.

We'll stop in at the ARC VSAT assembly point. They are duplicating what we've already built, as MB's pointed out, and what we've (P15 vols) have already deployed in Pascagoula three days before the ARC started its VoIP/VSAT work. Our own VoIP team just pulled out of Kelly AFB, our prior ARC tasking, as in the grand chaos of FEMA and the ARC, they didn't know that SBC had provided service to Kelly AFB -- the ARC hasn't given us another tasking.

This is so not right...

We leave Maine today, to spend a couple of days in DC, then on to OBX, to romp in the surf, laze in the sun, and plan the next few months along the Gulf Coast.

Looks like someone else had the same plans.

My worst fear (other than general destruction for all of Cape Hatteras' residents, a la Isabelle) is that NPS will close the campgrounds for the season if they sustain even the slightest damage. That, frankly, would suck.

Guess it's tme to come up with Plan B.

(Note: Last year, after I was hired by K-E04, we rushed down to OBX to try and get our vacation in before I started work. We were accompanied on that trip first by Bonnie, then by Charley. Oh, and a tornado in the day between the two.)

Update 9/12/05: We stopped for the night in Pennsylvania, and when I set up the VSAT this morning and clicked on weather.com, it appears we, and Ophelia, are still in a holding pattern. Arg.

As qualified as Michael Brown ...

FEMA Regions directed by presumptive incompetents:

Region X (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington) -- John Pennington (Bush, Apt. 12/2001), Four-term WA State legislature (Rep., 18th District), major accomplishments: legislation to exempt sales tax on rebuilding or reconstruction following floods in 1996.

Region VIII (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) -- David I. Maurstad (Bush, Apt. 10/2001), (Ex-Lt. Gov., Ex-State Sen., Ex-Beatrice Mayor), major accomplishments: authored Nebraska's ban on partial birth abortion.

Region VII (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska) -- Dick Hainje (Bush, Apt. 10/2001), Three term SD State legislature (Rep., 18th District), major accomplishments: assistant. majority leader. A fire chief in real life, so the presumption of incompetency is less.

Western readers take note. Those are your last best hopes. Party hacks. Unaccomplished party hacks.

MSM Coverage of our work

Our volunteer wireless effort has gotten some MSM coverage. The WaPo has Mac Dearman's group's work as of Wednesday afternoon.

Errors in the article:
1. AOL had nothing to do with getting service to Caprice Butler.
2. R.W. Royall, incident commander of the joint information committee responsible for emergency operations at the Astrodome complex, who is only answerable to Michael Brown or George Bush, denied the radio volunteers' efforts to launch the station -- even if they used self-contained power.
3. There is no mention of the larger ad hoc wireless organization, so Mac stands out as some sort of lone ranger -- we've over 300 people working on this.
4. Mac fractured his leg on Tuesday, he's pretty much tied down to a desk job now while the rest of us push teams into the ARC's relief camp infrastructure.

And it doesn't give a URL or a postal address for readers to send money, analog telephone handsets (we need lots of them), FM radios, batteries, toothbrushes, or billets doux.

For Mac's group please use this URL: http://katrina.cnt.org/wordpress/

For the larger Part-15 volunteer group, which please use this URL: http://www.part-15.org/emergencyrelief/katrina.html. For the Part-15 blog, please see the link on the sidebar.

Note Bene: I offered content and links to Marcos Thursday, but there is just DavidNYC's and MB's diaries on Kos that mention our work.

Silver Lining

Please excuse me for bragging, but I think that the following story is worth telling. Parents of recently diagnosed autistic kids need to know that no matter how dark the cloud, there is at least a sliver of silver lining.

Our recent move from the Atlanta area to Greensboro has caused upheaval for all members of my family. For my older son, now almost 12, the change has been particularly great. Not only has he left behind the only house, neighborhood, and state that he has ever known, he also left behind all of his friends. On top of that, he is making the transition from elementary school to middle school.

A couple of weeks or so into the school year, my son informed me that among his classmates was a high functioning autistic boy. The autistic student has a dedicated aide to help him while at school. In general, that is a very good arrangement as the dedicated aide provides the intensive one-on-one instruction and supervision that may be needed to allow the student to attend mainstream classes.

The only problem was that the aide was female. That presented a problem with regard to PE and the boys’ locker room. The aide and the PE teacher (also female) decided that they would ask for a volunteer to assist the autistic student in the locker room and during PE. That request was dicey because 11 and 12 year old boys are not usually known for their sensitivity and concern for others.

Of the kids in the class, at least one knew how large a responsibility volunteering for such duty would shoulder. One member of the class knew how difficult such duty might be. One member of the class had every reason to regard the hours spent at school as a respite from autism and to keep as far away from autism as possible while at school.

One member of the class volunteered to help his autistic classmate. That made one father very proud.

The Deliberative Process Privilege – No Harm, No Foul

The administration is refusing to provide to the Senate certain documents related to John Roberts’ work with the Solicitor General’s office. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, Ken Starr was the Solicitor General. A major role of the SG’s office is to represent the government before the Supreme Court. John Roberts, now the nominee to be Chief Justice, was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General working under Ken Starr.

In a resume Roberts prepared in 1991, he noted that in the Solicitor General’s office, he had “final responsibility for determining whether the United States would seek further review of adverse decisions in some 380 cases." See here.

Democrats in the Senate assert that they want to see the documents from that period to gain insight into Roberts’ thinking on many issues. The more suspicious view is that Democrats want access to the documents as part of a fishing expedition in which they search for something to use to discredit Roberts. For the purpose of this post, it really does not matter which is true.

The administration has refused to produce the documents from Roberts’ time in the SG office and has asserted three reasons for that refusal: 1) that production of the documents is unprecedented, 2) that the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege, and 3) that the documents are protected by a species of executive privilege, the deliberative process privilege.

As to whether or not the disclosure of documents prepared while working in the office of the SG would be unprecedented, one group of Senators has noted:

Moreover, as you are aware, the Department of Justice has provided similar documents in the consideration of numerous past nominees. When Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court, the last time a Supreme Court nominee had served in the OSG, the Department of Justice provided documents from his time as Solicitor General, including both documents on Watergate-related issues and others concerning substantive matters of interest to Senators. Those documents were provided in a spirit of compromise pursuant to a limited request from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, much like the request we made with respect to Judge Roberts. Similarly, the Committee requested and received internal memoranda drafted by Justice Rehnquist, as well as internal Department of Justice memoranda relating to the nominations of Benjamin Civiletti to be Attorney General and Stephen Trott to be a Ninth Circuit judge, and others...

For a first hand account of the partial disclosure of such papers during the confirmation of William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice, see this John Dean piece.

As to the claim of attorney client privilege, others have discussed it before me. See, for instance, Terry’s post at the NitPicker, Hesiod at the American Street, and this 1998 article in Legal Times.

That leaves the deliberative process privilege which I wish to discuss from a policy, as opposed to a legal, perspective.

First, let’s make sure that we know what the policy issues are surrounding the potential disclosure of Robert’s writings from his time in the SG’s office.

Senator John McCain:

If we’re going to set a precedent that those communications between someone who works for the president and the president of the United States are some day going to be made public, I think it could have a real chilling effect on the kind of candor in communications that people would have with the president.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan:

But McClellan said that providing such documents would … have a chilling effect on the decision-making process in the solicitor general's office.

"Democratic and Republican solicitor generals have said that to make that information available would really stifle their ability to have a candid and independent and honest assessment from attorneys in their office," he said. "These future solicitor generals might as well put up a sign that says `do not apply' if you are thinking about going through a Senate confirmation process."

Wall Street Journal Editorial Report’s Bret Stephens:

Well, the biggest reason is that John Roberts had an obligation when he was deputy solicitor general under the first President Bush to give the solicitor general and the president candid advice. Now if our government is going to function efficiently, if the executive is going to function efficiently lawyers working for the president have to know that they can give candid advice and that this material isn't going to appear 15 years later on the desk of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.

If you allow that, if you allow Congress to see those documents what it's going to do is it's going to send a message to every other lawyer saying be careful about what you say even in closed hall because it's going to come back to bite you and presidents will not get the best advice they can get.

So, there are two harms that are alleged to flow from providing Robert’s SG material to the Senate. First, it might cause lawyers working in the SG’s office to be less than candid in providing advice. That would allegedly prevent the President from getting the very best possible counsel from the SG’s office.

Secondly, it might prevent good people from accepting jobs with the SG’s office because, if their ambition includes any position that requires Senate confirmation, the disclosure of their prior writings may be so embarrassing as to prevent confirmation.

I think that the real world possibility of such harm is very small for five reasons.

First, if the SG is hiring people who would alter their legal analysis and advice in the hope of gaining career advantage years down the line, a policy that deters such people from joining the office is all to the good. Would you like to hire a lawyer who provides advice based on what he or she thinks will be of advantage to him instead of you? The essence of the attorney-client relationship is to place the interests of the client ahead of the lawyer. To do otherwise is unethical. The President does not need any more advice from unethical lawyers. He has plenty already.

Secondly, the argument for the deliberative process privilege assumes that the lawyer providing the advice can know which legal positions will be discredited a decade later. If the lawyer in the SG’s office had that foresight, perhaps he or she could also predict why the position would become discredited and advise the President to avoid embarrassing positions. In fact, the positions advocated in the SG’s office are likely to be those that the lawyer thinks will be vindicated by history. It seems unlikely that a lawyer would fail to advocate a position that he or she thinks will be vindicated by history in the hopes of career advantage.

The third reason the argument for the privilege is weak has to do with the type of documents for which disclosure is sought. John Roberts, as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General, had “responsibility for determining whether the United States would seek further review of adverse decisions...” In other words, he was advising the President on what legal position to take. The President’s legal position is, of course, very public. Everyone knows whether the government did or did not seek further review of those cases.

Thus, to believe that the potential future disclosure of those documents would chill candid advice to the President, one has to assume that Judge Roberts was privately advocating that the President publicly take a legal position that Roberts thought would was personally embarrassing. That seems to me to be very unlikely. In addition, the President might skeptically view a lawyer telling him to take a public position with which the lawyer would not want to be publicly associated.

The fourth reason to doubt the chilling effect of releasing the documents is the assumption that embarrassing positions taken a decade or so ago are a bar to high office. Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, Elliott Abrams, John Poindexter, Robert Byrd, William Rehnquist, and many, many others are examples of the fallacy in that assumption.

The final reason that the production of documents from the SG’s office will not have a chilling effect on candid advice to the President is that it is very hard to chill something that is already cold.

In order to be eligible for Senate confirmation, one has to first be nominated by the President. The President has ready access to all SG files. If a lawyer in the SG’s office is willing to trim his legal analysis in the hopes of career advancement down the line, he or she is much more likely to consider that some future President is viewing the memos in making a nominating decision than to worry about the views of Senators in the confirmation process. To the extent that future career concerns alter the work product of the SG lawyers, the advice has already been chilled by the availability of the documents to future Presidents. The additional disclosure of that work product to the Senate can have only a marginal chilling effect.

The disclosure or non-disclosure of documents written by Judge Robert’s while in the SG’s office is unlikely to change the outcome of his Senate confirmation process. It is overwhelmingly likely that Roberts will be confirmed in any event.

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the disclosure of the SG material is wildly unlikely to cause any harm to the SG’s office, to its work, or to the advice given to the President.

Brainstorming a use for the VSAT

The kindest thing the Portland Press Herald said in their endorsement of my run for the legislature last year was that I was able to come up with creative solutions for difficult problems. Well, I've spent the past 48 hours trying to live up to that remark. I've come up with, and summarily discarded for various reasons a number of ways to put the VSAT to its best use, which I feel must fulfill these three criteria:

1) Its use must not take up resources which would otherwise go to the relief effort;

2) It must directly aid evacuees and survivors; and

3) It must be accessible for bloggers and new media journalists who want to report directly from effected areas.

At this point, I have an idea, but need help fleshing out the possibilities. Within a 200 mile radius of New Orleans and the effected Gulf Coast region, there are a number of national forests (DeSoto, Kisatchie, Conecuh) and the Gulf Island National Seashore. All of these have camping facilites, though all are presently closed at this time. Most will remain closed for two reasons: One, damage to the facilities, and two, lack of Forest Service personnel, as many rangers and administrators have been tasked to help in the recovery efforts.

If these campgrounds were made safe, they could provide living space, including basic facilities such as toilets and water, first to those who have come down to help in or report on the continuing crisis, and then later, as a network of staffed campgrounds open, as a kind of "reverse underground railroad", to try and help those evacuees who have been removed from the area to get back home. Most campgrounds lack phones and electricity, so our VSAT, with its extensive battery power, is really the only means of setting up a communications network, for recovery volunteers, evacuees and alternative media reporters. Other VSATs can be set up as more campgrounds are made inhabitable.

The diaspora issue is one that has been increasingly important to me, as I see more and more people being sent farther and farther away, including here in Maine. While FEMA and private charities are footing the bill for people to leave the area, I have concerns as to whether they will financially assist the evacuees to return home. Recent reports that some of the wealthy in New Orleans would prefer the poor not to return only adds fuel to that worry. I believe that part of any long-term Progressive plan for the region must include financial and logistical assistance to help evacuees return to rebuild their homes, should they so desire.

So I think the first step is evaluating the damage to these national forest campgrounds. Then, a plan can be developed to present to the Forest Service to organize a modern CCC effort to clean up and rebuild those on an ongoing basis. While the effort will be volunteer, I believe with a solid plan, we can get sponsors for equipment and food.

One of the benefits of working away from relief efforts in heavily populated areas is that we can be much more autonomous and independent. The Forest Service, with its trend towards farming out services to concessionaires, who in turn use volunteers to staff their campgrounds, seems a good target for such a plan.

We're heading DC over the weekend and will be there early next week as well. In the meantime, I'd like to hear suggestions, critiques, whatever, about this idea. It would certainly take some organization, but if we start small, as in one campground at a time, it is feasible.

Note: I ran into a friend yesterday who worked in radio for ten years in New Orleans. He believed this Administration would like nothing better than to just mow down the protected forests along the Gulf Coast, to sell off for industrial development.

VSAT arrives in Pascagoula

Denis Wingo's smalll group is deploying the same technology we're deploying. His team reached Pascagoula yesterday.

Hi folks

Just got back from Pascagoula Mississippi and here is what we found.

Power is back up in Jackson county to within 1 mile of the beach. The storm surge from Kat was 25 feet high and reached 5 miles inland at some points. The county seat in Pascagoula lost everything in the first floor of their building, principally the Sheriff's department from water 5 feet deep in the building and it was 4 miles from the beach.

Fairly reliable cell service has been restored to the Pascagoula area and none of their towers went down. Further west service becomes spotty although the Southern Link Walkie Talkie mode works in many places where the cell service does not work.

There is Gas in Pascagoula and it does not seem to be rationed.

The Sheriff's and the City of Pascagoula have lost all of their computers and the phone service. We installed a Wild Blue Internet over satellite (VSAT) dish today for the Sheriff's department although they are critically short of computers. FEMA and the U.S. National Guard have semi-reliable internet and the landlines are working in the command center there.

50% of the Sheriff's have lost their homes and 95% of the City of Pascagoula. Don't believe the crap that is in the media that these folks only need help coordinated through FEMA or the Red Cross. Churches in the area are all taking goods and redistributing them and they will take anything you bring. The government just wants money. The Churches will take money as well.

We are taking our solar generation system to the Northrup Grumman Shipyard tomorrow and installing a second WB dish. Those things rock!

Dennis Wingo, SkyCorp Incorporated

Google key: VSAT, Wildblue, Katerina, FEMA, Red Cross, Pascagoula, Wireless Relief

There is a reason to photograph the dead...

I'm a biological archaeologist by training. I play with dead people's bones. Okay, not play, but handle a lot with the excuse of looking for evidence of past cultural behaviors.

I also can tell the difference between someone who has been dead for ten years floating in flood waters, and someone who has been dead for ten days, also floating in said flood waters.

But most people can't.

We need to be photographing the dead being removed from flooded attics and buildings. We need to document what we term in archaeology, "provenance". If we don't, we run the risk that numbers will be supressed by the Administration claiming that many corpses were already dead before the storm, and merely washed out of New Orleans many above ground cemetaries.

It's not about visually identifying victims before their families know about their fate. The chances of that happening are slim. But how many newly deceased bodies can Bush force into the cemetaries, without acknowledging that they were caused by Katrina, or worse, his FEMA's failures.

We need boots on the ground, and knowledgable people all around. Or we are prime for a white wash, a favorite pasttime of the corrupt well-off in New Orleans, as well as this Administration.

Riverbend is back

Riverbend's updated Baghdad Burning. I'm glad she's writing again.

It's personal...

When Eric and I were in North Carolina last year, I happened to be listening to CSpan on the radio while gathering breakfast. One of the things which frankly shocked me was some caller from some Midwestern/Southern state talking about "homeland security" and the need to stop terrorist from repeating 9/11 and how electing Bush was the only means to do that. The reason this bothered me (still does) is that woman had no real connection to the events on September 11, 2001. She did not live in New York, Virgina or Pennsylvania (or the other generally effected states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, California or Maryland.) Her connection to the events of that day were completely fabricated, and her fear of any future attack, clearly ridiculous.

For me, September 11th meant the loss of our friend and lawyer, Jim Roux (a passenger on AA Flight 11). It also meant the loss of my SIL's cousin and my friend Suzanne's co-worker. It meant an inteview by the FBI for seeing Mohammed Atta at a stop light ten feet from me on September 10th.

Today, I went to visit my dear friends at No on 1/Maine Won't Discriminate, and spent a lovely hour with my friend Karin. She had just learned that a member of her family had perished in Mississippi. They didn't initially evacute, having made it through last year and this year's hurricanes. They thought this would be the same. Then the water started rising. They climbed to the second story, then the attic. The husband said they'd have to swim for it, and for his wife to follow close behind. He jumped into the rising water. When he turned to look for his wife, a 12 foot storm surge consumed their house. She was gone.

When you hear people from Idaho put in their two cents about who's really to blame for Katrina's failures (the survivors (or dead), the mayor, the governor - everyone but FEMA or Bush), remember that for them, it's not personal. For us (as both terrorism and natural disasters in the past century have struck overwhelming in Blue areas), it is just that. It is personal.

Wireless Internet Provider Relief Efforts

The blog documenting the Wireless Internet Provider (WISP) Relief Efforts is now up. I'm one of the three co-editors, as well as one of the remote sysadmins providing follow-the-sun coverage of the ad hoc VoIP servers (that are actually located in San Francisco).

I'll write about the policy issues here on Wampum, and the stories I know are being suppressed. On KatrinaCleanup I won't, as FEMA and the ARC (American Red Cross) have issues with reportage, let alone fact pattern analysis.

On an obscure electrical storage note, we were fortunate yesterday to find four AGM deep-cycle batteries, which doubles our VSAT service hours, before we head for the closest ARC-managed temporary resettlement center. The battery vendor charged us one-third of list, since a) it is end-of-season, and b) the batteries need charging, and c) we're assisting the Hurricane recovery effort. Kudos for Ed's Batteries on Spring Road in Westbrook Maine.

Like Father's FEMA, Like Son's FEMA

Just when I thought Flashback Friday was history...

HURRICANE ANDREW; BUSH SENDING ARMY TO FLORIDA AMID CRITICISM OF RELIEF EFFORT By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
The New York Times
August 28, 1992, Friday, Section A , Page 1 , Column 6

Angry local criticism of the Federal relief effort in South Florida, President Bush said today that he would send troops to help feed residents and rebuild the area after a hurricane that he said might be the worst natural disaster in the nation's ... officials said 2,000 to 5,000..

HURRICANE ANDREW; BREAKDOWN SEEN IN U.S. STORM AID
By ROBERT PEAR
The New York Times
August 29, 1992, Saturday, Section 1 , Page 1 , Column 5

Officials said today that they were prepared to deliver large amounts of emergency aid to victims of Hurricane Andrew on Monday, the day it devastated South Florida. But they did not do so because neither President Bush nor other civilian officials ordered a large-scale Federal response to the devastation...

AFTER THE STORM; Army Has Trouble Building Beachhead in Disaster Zone
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
The New York Times
August 31, 1992, Monday, Section A , Page 10 , Column 5

The Bush Administration fought off accusations that its response to Hurricane Andrew was slow and confused, the Pentagon sent thousands more troops into South Florida today and said more than 20,000 might be in place by ... But the first wave of soldiers has run into problems setting up...

AFTER THE STORM; House Report Cites Appointees as Part Of Relief Problems
Reuters
September 2, 1992, Wednesday, Section A , Page 15 , Column 4

House report says the Federal agency responsible for coordinating disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Andrew is poorly run and "a dumping ground" for political appointees. ... Federal Emergency Management Agency, responsible for coordinating the work of 27 other Federal agencies in responding to disasters, is widely viewed as...

Response to Storm Slow, Head of Agency Admits
Reuters
September 29, 1992, Tuesday Page 14 , Column 5

Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was widely criticized for its response to Hurricane Andrew last month, should have reacted more quickly to help residents of South Florida, its director said ... director, Wallace E. Stickney, said the agency should have been better prepared for the storm, which left 250,000...

HURRICANE ANDREW; Down to the Basics: Hunting For Food, Water and Shelter
By LARRY ROHTER
The New York Times
August 26, 1992, Wednesday, Section A , Page 1 , Column 4

Mounting public impatience, widespread confusion and rising estimates of the hurricane damage inflicted on South Florida, the authorities are struggling to restore water, electricity and other basic services. ... today hundreds of thousands of people ignored warnings to stay off the streets. Instead they roamed metropolitan Miami in cars...

Response to Storm Slow, Head of Agency Admits
Reuters
September 29, 1992, Tuesday, Section A , Page 14 , Column 5

Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was widely criticized for its response to Hurricane Andrew last month, should have reacted more quickly to help residents of South Florida, its director said ... director, Wallace E. Stickney, said the agency should have been better prepared for the storm, which left 250,000...

AFTER THE STORM; As Army Gears Up, Floridians Rely on Private Relief
The New York Times
August 30, 1992, Sunday, Section 1 , Page 1 , Column 6

United States Army units began fanning out across the devastated southern suburbs of Miami today, but the bulk of stepped-up efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Andrew continued to be shouldered by local governments and increasingly efficient private relief ... mid-morning, 24 hours after the first military transport plane...

AFTER THE STORM; In a Migrant Labor Camp, Relief Is Slow and Chaotic
By CATHERINE S. MANEGOLD
The New York Times
September 1, 1992, Tuesday, Section A , Page 12 , Column 1

A week, the migrant workers and field hands in the spartan Everglades Labor Camp four miles west of this farming center found themselves at the end of the relief lines, ignored and isolated as they battled hunger, thirst and then the weekend's ... and again, an ambulance or police...

THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Democrats; Clinton Calls for an Inquiry Into Delays in Storm Relief
By B. DRUMMOND AYRES JR.
New York Times
August 30, 1992, Sunday, Section 1 , Page 30 , Column 1

Bill Clinton said today that an effort should be made to "look into" why problems have plagued the hurricane disaster-relief effort in Florida and ... he pulled up short of blaming President Bush for any of the troubles, saying he did not want to politicize the issue in an...

It's hypothesized that George H.W. Bush lost the 1992 election in part due to his Administration's failures in response to Hurricane Andrew. I guess George Jr. must be thanking his lucky stars this is September, 2005, not September, 2004.

Change of plans

After reading this piece this morning, Eric and I have decided not to head to the Gulf Coast, at least not in the immediate future:

Influx of Relief Workers Spurs Tension Over Housing Priorities

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A17

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The billowing white tent cities sprouting up overnight in and around the city represent a hopeful turn in the housing shortage in areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Portable air-conditioning units create a cooling breeze. Canvas cots are decent, if not luxurious, beds. And caterers offer menus that include rib-eye steak and fresh apples.

But the facilities aren't for those evacuated from their flooded homes. They are for relief workers.

Their appearance in recent days has highlighted what has become a major dilemma for the aid effort across the Gulf Coast: Each worker the Federal Emergency Management Agency brings in creates more competition for housing and other basic necessities for victims of the hurricane.

And it has touched off uncomfortable questions about who should have priority in emergencies.

"I just don't understand it. How can they have air-conditioned tents and trailers so quickly for themselves and nothing for us?" said Linda Harold, a 49-year-old preschool teacher, whose home in New Orleans is underwater and who has been traveling from shelter to shelter with eight of her relatives.

In Biloxi, Miss., where finding a working bathroom has become a daily ordeal, the displaced have grumbled that relief workers have set up a tented complex at the convention hall with rows and rows of portable toilets but that they were not allowed to use them. In Jackson Parish, La., people complain that while utility crews have managed to put the power back on in the New Orleans central business district, where military and search-and-rescue crews are based, many homes remain without electricity.

FEMA and other Department of Homeland Security personnel deployed to the region number nearly 10,000. There are 35,000 National Guard troops, plus 7,200 on their way. In addition, there are tens of thousands of contract repair crews and nonprofit aid workers. The number of displaced, meanwhile, could be as high as 1 million.

While there's some personal satisfaction in the "ride in with the cavalry" ideal, the fact is that relief efforts may be causing more problems than they solve, if not handled properly. And there's little proof that anything FEMA has done so far has been done well.

Although we're completely self-contained in our trailer, the fact is, we'd be taking up badly needed space. So, we're taking a step back and reconsidering our options. We're still willing to deploy the VSAT anywhere outside the disaster zone where it might be needed, so if you have suggestions, let us know.

Update: After a few interested emails from dKos readers (as DavidNYC so kindly pointed out our goals on the front page), I wanted to clarify that we are still interested in going down, just not immediately. Our original plans, even before Katrina hit, had us in that area late this fall, and after Katrina hit, we moved up those plans to early October. When we joined the P-15.org group of deployable techies, we were then willing to head out ASAP, as it looked as though our VSAT was needed. However, between the footdragging by FEMA to utilize P-15.org resources, and evidence that too many relief workers may be causing more problems right now, we've decided to hold off, unless the benefits outweigh the potential negatives.

We've had some success getting even better prepared, as a local battery dealer essentially gave us 4 more deep cycle batteries. We now have over a 1000 amp hours of onboard power, and could easily cycle batteries to shore power for recharging, thus negating our need for a larger generator.

As Dr. FrankLives noted in comments, the relief efforts for Katrina are long-term, and I have no faith that FEMA, unless many layers of leadership are completely overhauled, will get any better. People are going to need help for months, and stories will need to be reported as well. As we see the crackdown on media access continue, we may need to begin to operate more under the radar to get stories out. A small VSAT run by a family in a trailer with four small kids is probably less likely to draw attention than Andrea Mitchell and her large entourage (I only use Ms. Mitchell as I had to drive her and her crew around during a Clinton campaign visit in '92 - she attracted almost as much attention as the then Governor.)

Thus, I strongly urge people who are interested in helping, either to deploy with us to use the satellite (which has DSL speeds, something you won't find in blogging through your cell phone, and while wireless towers are going up, it will be a while before cable is restored), or to help organize people, supplies, funding for more dishes, etc., please contact us at wampum-at-nic-naa.net.

How bad is it (infrastructure)?

Electric power:

Peak outages in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi: 2.7 million meters. Remaining outages as of September 5: 1 million meters

Alabama: 2% customer meters without power
Louisiana: 56% customer meters without power
Mississippi: 30% customer meters without power

New Orleans: restoration to emergency, governmental and special needs customers including portions of the west bank of Jefferson Parish, including West Jefferson Hospital, Entergy's Gretna Control Center, Jefferson Parish EOC, Gretna Police Department, Gretna Fire Station, Gretna Water Works and Jefferson Parish Sewer Plant. On the east bank of Jefferson Parish, power has been restored to East Jefferson General Hospital, Ochsner Clinic Foundation and the Louis Armstrong International Airport.

Natural gas (Entergy):

Extensive damage to gas distribution system in New Orleans. Will need to shut off natural gas service in many areas of New Orleans to make repairs.

Cellular (Verizon, Cingular):

Alabama: majority of service restored with a few areas of limited service
Mississippi: Gulf coast outages and spotty service. Cell on Wheels (COWs) deployed to support relief operations in several areas. Biloxi service partially restored.
Louisiana: Central New Orleans wide spread outages with limited service. Outside of New Orleans, have good service with only a few areas of limited coverage. Rooftop COWs being deployed to locations in New Oreleans.

Roaming service: Evacuees with cell phones with numbers from the affected areas found their service did not work elsewhere in the country because the cell phone could not register on the network.

Cellular carriers have worked to re-deploy new databases and re-route registration messages to provide service to evacuees.

Note: Mobile VOIP services could have the same problem in the future.

Wireline (Bellsouth):

Lousiana: Approximately 54% of the access lines out of service.
Mississippi: Approximately 39% of the access lines out of service.
Alabama: Approximately 5% of the access lines out of service.

Long Distance and Internet:

Sprint Nextel has rerouted long-distance traffic around New Orleans enabling customers to make long-distance calls in the Tallahassee area and in the Florida Panhandle, including Ft. Walton Beach. Sprint Nextel teams continue to work to restore dedicated Internet access to corporate customers in northern Florida.

Qwest fiber optic line along the gulf coast was damaged.

Services for shelters and evacuees in other states

Essentially every service provider is providing emergency and free services to shelters and evacuees as new shelters are being opened througout the country.

Gearing up to go: How readers can help us

One of the things I failed to mention when previously discussing the current uses of mobile satellites (VSATs) in hurricane striken areas was that, due to strict FCC regulations, such dishes are still relatively rare. Prior to just a few months ago, the only way one could legally run a mobile satellite internet system was if it was permanently mounted on a vehicle, either a car/van or an RV. These systems were very expensive, ranging from $5000 - $10,000.

A few rebels started producing and distributing non-sanctioned "tripod" systems. Essentially, they took stationary dishes and made them mobile by adapting the dish to a ordinary folding tripod. While pointing the satellite dish on RV-mounted systems was fully automated (one of the reasons, supposedly, for the expense), tripod systems had to be hand pointed by the individual. As long as the coordinates of the satellite were known, this was not a difficult process, and given the price, about $1500, tripod systems started to proliferate.

However, it's estimated at the Datastorm users board that there are only about 2,000 tripod systems currently in use. Most of these are unsanctioned. As I mentioned, the FCC only very recently relaxed regulations to allow mobile tripod VSAT systems, so most people weren't willing to take the chance that their system might be "decommissioned" by DirecWay or Hughes (I've only heard of that happening once, by someone who consistantly pointed it at the wrong satellite.)

So the fact is, we're rather rare birds with our mobile satellite dish, and judging from information and the map at DatastormUsers, the number of dishes in or around the Gulf Coast right now is pretty pitiful. We've been waiting to hear from a tech group (P15) that is attempting to coordinate the volunteer effort with the FCC and FEMA as to where we can best be used, but the mismanagement and lack of communication is apparently not limited to Director "Brownie" and his immediate lackeys. Eight days out, and the group has gotten no tasking from the Feds, despite hundreds of techies ready and willing to deploy. Recommendations within the group's increasingly impatient membership are now for individuals with VSATs to organize themselves, head South and join up with local efforts. Exactly what I suggested to Eric we do five days ago. Since he now is concerned that P15 is being deliberately stalled (he'll explain in a post later today), he is now on board with our plan to proceed without FEMA tasking.

So what do we need? Primarily, more reliable power (a larger generator or solar, as our 1Kilowatt Honda-knockoff barely fills our personal needs, let alone a bank of computers for an extended amount of time), gas money (our travel budget is very tight these days already, given rising prices) and a group of volunteers willing to either meet us down South, or help coordinate from where they currently are located. We'll take our daily expenses out of our savings.

I'm putting up our PayPal logo again, but if you would prefer to mail a donation, our snail-mail address is 211 Marginal Way, #311, Portland, ME, 04101.

If more interest is shown, we'll also begin fundraising for a second mobile vsat system. But for now, we'll go with what we have, and hope to get it where it can do the most good as soon as we can.

Mobile satellite: What does it take?

Earlier this week, I floated the idea of setting up mobile ISPs via satellite once refugee centers were established. While our plans are to head as close to the Gulf Coast as feasible, it appears that centers are now being set up as far away as Michigan and Colorado. News reports indicate that computers and phones are making their way into the Astrodome, but it's clear from the mobile satellite lists I troll that for millions of displaced in effected regions, it could be weeks before they even have electricity and water, let alone cable and phone service.

So what are the actual logistics of setting up a mobile satellite mini-ISP? It really depends as to whether electricity is available or not.

If electricity is reliable, a basic satellite ISP with wireless capability would include:

1) a tripod satellite dish and modem, available from a DirecWay ($1499) or Starband ($1599) vendor. Monthly business service (12 month commitment) ranges from $99 - $129, depending upon vendor.

2) A wireless router, available at most electronic stores for under $80.

3) 8 - 10 computers, preferably donated. If not, reconditioned models are available off EBay for less than $200.

4) A portable shelter, such as those used by fair vendors, available at most sporting good stores for under $150.

If electricity is not available (and to be honest, these are the people who will most need our help), the set up is a little more complicated, but still easily doable. Add to the list above:

5) a bank of deep cycle batteries, either 4-6 6 volt, or 2-3 12 volt group 31s, at a total cost of $250 - $400.

6) A 2000 to 3000 kilowatt inverter, preferably with a three stage 100 amp charger, for converting the DC in the batteries to 110 volt AC current. Depending upon the model, these run new between $800 and $1500, though I was able to pick up a high-end reconditioned one off of EBay for less than $600.

7) A means of recharging the battery bank, either through a gas-powered generator ($500 to $1000, depending upon decible range and kilowatt output) or solar panels and controller (around $1500 for the amount necessary to keep the battery bank fully charged.) Even with solar, I would recommend a small (1KW) backup generator, in case of inclement weather: $250 - $500.)

With the battery bank and inverter, you need a decent transportation vehicle, as the batteries weigh about 60lbs apiece, as does the inverter. A small (15 - 18 ft) towable trailer with living quarters for the ISP administrators would be the best case scenario, but a rented trailer from UHaul would do just as well.

To be honest, it doesn't take a certified electrician to get this set-up off and running. I installed our inverter and battery bank in an afternoon. Training individuals to set up and point the dish takes a few hours as well. With experience, the time is greatly reduce; I can set up and point our dish in good conditions in fifteen minutes or less.

Since we have all the equipment (we will be investing in a new generator, as our 1KW Honda knock-off can't sustain our battery bank without shore power for more than a few days), we can be guinea pigs with pretty much gas and ISP-upgrade funding. But to get the second set-up off and running (hopefully at the same time we set up the first one) will take between $2000 (with electricity) and $4000 (without electricity), as well as volunteers to man the operation. It would probably take 3-4 weeks to obtain all the equipment and have it delivered to a staging area somewhere in the South, say, to the drive-way of some unsuspecting lawyer in Greensboro.

Eric has offered up his years of tech experience to FEMA and the relief effort, but we're not holding our collective breath. I think we need to take action ourselves. It's also clear that although the US media may be slowly awaking from its previous catatonic state, they're still not willing to fully cover the ineptitute and criminal (or at least, morally bankrupt) behavior of the federal relief organization. Foreign media (via Drum) is currently picking up some of the slack, but we, the people, have the responsibility to do the job ourselves. Just as we saw in last year's election, it's was no longer enough to let the Washington insiders run the campaigns; the grassroots got Kerry to 49%. We can't sit by our keyboards in our comfy living rooms and expect to get out the real story - we have to do it ourselves. For the sake of the hundreds of thousands currently neglected and just as easily abandoned by this Administration, and for the sake of our now-gasping Democracy.

Update on the Tech Draft

0800: The email in the extended area is the best summary of where things are. There is various topical discussion and the usual noise. Updates as they come in.

I'm pleased to see that a professional, not a vacuous political appointee, is now heading the FEMA effort, link.

1000. NOAA updated sat images.

1500. Still no tasking by FEMA to any of the P-15 volunteers. Several tech aid groups have formed, but none have a mission. In fact, FEMA hasn't provided a mission statement to P-15, so everyone is dancing in the dark, solving problems that may not exist, and not solving problems that may.

1700. The CDC posts Hurricane Disaster in the U.S.: Interim Health Recommendations for Relief Workers. P15 asks for volunteers to staff P15 itself. Still no FEMA tasking.

This is a good tech read: link.

P15 UPDATE

Good evening everyone and thank you for your support.

There are many things to discuss so please take the time to read the entire
update before you feel the need to ask for additional information.

First, I would like to clear up as much of the confusion as I can. I fully
appreciate that many of you are sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear
something and getting anxious to be of help. We all very much want to offer
our services in this time of need. One way your support could be used is to
volunteer for some of the projects currently underway. Please ask for
additional informaiton on the discussion list on how you can help.

With that said, I would hope that those that feel the need not to await
further guidance and begin relief efforts on their own, realize that their
actions could actually cause significant hardships to those official and
other unofficial efforts already taking place. Whether intentional or not,
your individual efforts may cause more damage than good. PLEASE TO NOT
ATTEMPT TO PROVIDE UNCOORDINATED ASSISTANCE IN ANY OF THE RELIEF OR SUPPORT
AREAS.

This is surely not the time to make individual decisions. Selection of one
technology over another or one vendor over another or one volunteer over
another or to decide who should receive our support first, is not our goal.
If our efforts are to be successful, they must be coordinated and not add to
the difficulties of others. Please remember, our goal is to provide
assistance to those in need. I assure you that none of us have the
appropriate information to make such difficult decisions that would include
the entire picture. Which brings us to P15's involvement.

It is my understanding that P15 was chosen as the coordinating organization
because we are vendor and technology neutral, and are comprised of thousands
of professional wireless internet service providers who are well versed in
adapting to harsh and remote environments. We have a very large pool of
resources that we continue to gather to offer the relief efforts.

To be of any significant help, we must continue to do what is asked of us
from those that do have the insight into the larger picture. And right now,
we have been asked to provide the following:

(1) A list of personnel who would be available. This list should include
as much detail as possible regarding experience, training, and individual
capabilities such as certified tower climbing, network administration, RF
knowledge, prior military experience and so forth.

(2) A detailed list of assets that could be made available. This list
should include as much detail as possible regarding specific items. The
details required need to be of the make and model type of information. NOTE:
with sufficient details those that need this equipment will not be able to
determine if your item can fulfill their needs. e.g. a generator is needed
but we do not know if the generator you can provide will be sufficient
enough to do the job we need it to.

(3) Coupled with the list of assets mentioned above

(4) A clearly stated and detailed overview of how best to utilize those
available assets.

(5) RF Coordination Assistance for the License Exempt Spectrum.

TASKING - Many of you who volunteered but have requirements to be met before
you can assist (transportation required to support location, official
governmental request sent to your employer, etc). You will have to wait for
official tasking from FEMA or any of the other agencies utilizing P15s
resource data. You could be contacted directly by that agency or that
agencies request could be sent through P15 and we will contact you directly
based on the information you provided on the form you submitted.

FUNDING - Among other types of funding, the two that most apply here are (1)
FEMA funding for those officially tasked to perform relief support, and (2)
those asked by P15 to provide assistance in a non-paid status.

Those that did not indicate any pre-requirements could be asked to deploy
into an unknown status (paid/volunteer). You may or may not receive any
financial assistance for your efforts. P15 will do it's best to help offset
the costs of those providing assistance, however, there are no guarantees
that any of our limited funds could be made available for this.

The P15 Relief Center is also short of personnel and assets. While we would
normally welcome the opportunity to chat industry and relief efforts, we
simply can not be an effective resource if we are consumed with less than
emergency communications. Therefore, please consider the discussion list we've
created as a means to share support efforts among each other and well as to
receive official updates from P15.

Please do not submit emails offering your support. It is very difficult to
obtain all the necessary information needed for the database to be useful.
All interested parties must use the online form.

Please do not call the P15 Relief Center for routine questions. We are
actively conversing with authorities and coordinating significant amounts of
information.

Now onto what many of you have been waiting for.

First and foremost, all volunteers should take this time to reevaluate their
personal preparedness in likelihood of being asked to perform relief
efforts. There is a personal checklist in the archives and I will try to get
it posted to our relief website later tonight or tomorrow morning at the
latest.

Although P15 is continuing its efforts to accumulate available personnel and
assets is it now time to move to identifying the needs for these assets.
With the number of shelter camps growing around the entire U.S. many of
those relief efforts are under the radar of those official agencies tasked
to provide support. Literally thousands of small to medium shelters are
popping up all across America. If those shelter camps are not within
immediate danger of life or limb, it could take additional time for
sufficient governmental relief support to arrive.

Each and every one of you who have volunteered for relief support is
encouraged to locate and identify these camps in your local areas. Once
these camps are located, P15 can begin to provide support relief to these
camps until governmental assistance is made available. P15 will need general
information as well as specific information about these camps in order to
provide meaningful assistance. As a minimum, we will need:

(1) Point of Contact for the person in charge of the camp.

(2) Exact location of the Camp. Most of your have the ability to provide
Lat/Longs, so please do so,

(3) Approximate number of evacuees to be housed.

(4) Specific support needed. What type of support do you think they will
need.

Tomorrow morning, there will be an additional webpage on our site that will
provide a means to submit the information detailed above. Please, I remind
everyone to use the forms and not emails or phone calls.

MOVING FORWARD - Tomorrow morning I will be providing the FCC an updated
personnel and asset list. An overview of the capabilities, and
recommendations with priority suggestions.

NOTE: The Federal Communications Commission should be phrased for it's
ongoing efforts to ease some of the pain America is currently suffering in
the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Their efforts are genuine and from their
hearts.

Tomorrow afternoon, P15 will begin reviewing the needs of those camps
identified for support relief and will begin to ask volunteers to provide
relief efforts.

Folks, this is what we've all been waiting for. I again urge each of you to
check and recheck the personal items you will need to be effective in your
relief efforts.

Sorry everyone, but I have to say it so it is clear and no room for
misunderstanding - inappropriate conduct will not be tolerated. We must all
work together for a common goal setting all our individual differences
aside.

NOTE: I hope I have not offended anyone by what some may feel as harsh. It
is not my intent. My intent however is to be blunt and to the point. If I
have offended anyone, please accept my deepest apologies.

Now, it's late and I still have more work on the FCC updates. Please feel
free to continue to provide each other suggestions on the discussion list.
But please keep in mind there are suggestions.

Get good nights sleep, you may need it and it might be days before you can
sleep in a nice warm, dry bed.

God bless. More tomorrow

Michael

***************************************
For more information on PART-15.ORGs Disaster
Relief Efforts, please see
http://www.part-15.org/emergencyrelief/katrina.html
***************************************

Katrina's side effects may engender risks as well...

Most of us in the autism community, whether you agree or not, are aware of the widespread use of the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, in many vaccines injected into children since the 1930's. In 2000, the CDC, NIH and other recommended that thimerosal be removed from childhood vaccines in the future, althoug they did not recall those vaccines already sitting on doctor's shelves.

Almost all childhood vaccines did see thimerosal removed to mere "trace" amounts. One, more rarely used, the DT, or Diptheria and Tetanus, was still being manufactured with a full 25 mcg/0.5 ml, or 22 times the EPA's recommended dosage for a 20lb infant.

When I took Kezzie in for her last appointment prior to our trip, her pediatrician, as we discussed getting my daughter caught up on the most important shots (Kezzie wasn't immunized at all until 2.5 yrs.), recommended that we go with the DTaP, not the DT, despite the fact that Kez was essentially past the point the pertussis would be problematic. She, a previously poo-pooing critic of the thimerosal crowd, was concerned that DT still contained mercury, given our boys' autistim diagnoses.

There is now talk of epidemics and mass immunizations. A Google new search pulled up quite a few references to tetanus shots, which really means the DT, as there is no such thing as a single tetanus shot for children. This means that many children, their immune systems already weakened by weeks of dehydration, exposure to sewage and toxic waste, will be injected with one of the worst neurotoxins known to man. All because no one ever thought that there would be a disaster large enough to require mass immunizations of children against one of the most common bacterias diseases.

That would be about as believable as the levees in New Orleans being breached during a devasating hurricane.

Standing for the Tech Draft

Filling the water barrels every other day connects me to the routine of my past. Here at Moosealamoo (Abenaki for Moose departs) in the Green Mountains National Forest there is a hand pump, no different from the one I used to fill water barrels three decades ago ... Watering is an extension of my time washing dishes, time spent reflecting on daily life. Water takes work, from the cleaning of containers, to the pumping up, to the hauling back, and the disposal of used water. I have empathy for people who are flooded out, but have no water.

I've been following, but not blogging on, the blow-by-blow of the failure of the communication infrastructure in the West-Florida-to-Central-Lousiana area on the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) list. To give just one example of badness, yesterday over 20 agencies operating in the NOLA were attempting to use a single radio frequency for all their operational comms traffic, because there was just one single radio frequency available for any comms use in the NOLA area. That is an example of link saturation, when broken or "stepped on" transmissions are a large fraction of all transmissions ...

A few hours ago after a conference call (cisco, FCC, ...), someone posted a note to NANOG that P15 was organizing vendor donations, supplies, and personnel ... so I wrote to volunteer... PART-15.ORG Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts (Personnel) ... with the caveat that we're not funded. I figured that "... and all others that can provide even the slightest of assistance to our teams" could include people with clue, but little else to offer.

Maybe I'll get drafted, and maybe I won't. It was disconcerting to get a reply that thanked me for my patriotism. I'd have made the same offer if the affected area was in Canada or Mexico, and I'd still have to ask for costs and living expenses.

Earlier MB posted about going down to work on mobile comms. This is in the same spirit.

"The Real Thing"* speaks out

Anyone who has read this blog for more than two years knows I was one of the earliest, and most ardent, supporters of Senator John Edwards. At a time when most of the Democratic presidential field focused on "testosterone" issues, Sen. Edwards spoke of issues important to American families, particularly working families with children. He was also not afraid to speak about poverty, race, and the continuing divide in this country caused by both. The Two Americas.

When Katrina hit and it was clear that the poorest residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were hit the hardest, and then sorely neglected by our federal government, I thought often about John Edward's vision. Today, I noticed at TPM Cafe that Sen. Edwards had made an encore appearance, to remind us of his previous themes:

During the campaign of 2004, I spoke often of the two Americas: the America of the privileged and the wealthy, and the America of those who lived from paycheck to paycheck. I spoke of the difference in the schools, the difference in the loan rates, the difference in opportunity. All of that pales today. Today - and for many days and weeks and months to follow - we see a harsher example of two Americas. We see the poor and working class of New Orleans who don't own a car and couldn't evacuate to hotels or families far from the target of Katrina. We see the suffering of families who lived from paycheck to paycheck and who followed the advice of officials and went to shelters at the Civic Center or the Superdome or stayed home to protect their possessions.

Now every single resident of New Orleans, regardless of their wealth or status, will have terrible losses and life-altering experiences. Every single resident will know and care about someone who was lost to this hurricane. But some, ranging from the very poorest to the working class unable to accumulate a cushion of assets to rely upon on a very, very rainy day, will suffer the most because they simply didn't have the means to evacuate. They suffered the most from Katrina because they always suffer the most.

Why people can't see the forest for the trees, and recognize a true leader with real vision, I can't comprehend. JFK, RFK, JRE. All recognized the real underlying issues in our nation, one that Katrina had no problem exploiting.

* See my September 2003 post on the subject for the full reference

Made for TV

I'm still searching for the exact wording through NPR's transcript (supposedly available online by 5pm the same day), but I'm willing to paraphrase, as my memory of the event is so great.

This morning, while bustling around the trailer with Vermont Public Radio filtering through the air, a clip of George W. Bush was played, where he asserted that "no one ever imagined the levies would be breached." My shock was so great, I actually turned to Eric, dumbfounded, and asked whether he really said what I'd just heard him say.

See, a few days before the hurricane struck, as it loomed off the coast, growing in intensity and eyeing New Orleans, we sat at our dinner table and tried to explain the situation to Grace, our very intelligent almost nine-year old. We spoke of global warming and more intense hurricanes, but in particular, we spoke of the vulnerability of New Orleans, due to it's dependence on levies keeping out the Gulf, the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. We easily imagined the levies could be breached - so why couldn't Bush?

To be honest, my own ability to visualize the impending disaster was greatly influenced by a made-for-TV movie, The Fire Next Time (no, not to be confused with the late, great Baldwin novel of the same name.) In the Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia thriller, the city of New Orleans is targeted by a category 5 hurricane, which threatens (and makes good on said threat) to flatten the Big Easy. The movie goes into some depth about the problems with NOLA, namely it's dependence on levies and pumps. Even a big flood gate (this is 2017) cannot keep out the super-hurricane.

So if Hollywood had no problem imagining that New Orleans' levies were vulnerable way back in 1993, even before global warming became an everyday term, who failed to send W a clue? I understand he doesn't read newspapers...but to forgo the ABC Movie of the Week? Talk about not being in touch with everyday Americans.

Hastert's Idea of Devastation

Speaker of the House Denny Hastert sees no sense in rebuilding New Orleans. The Post:

It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," the Illinois Republican said in an interview Wednesday with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill.

How did Hastert spend his time since the hurricane hit? Has he focused exclusively on saving lives and property in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama? Has he used his position and power to save the lives and property of people from around the Gulf?

Well, no. Denny has had more important things to do. Just yesterday, Hastert wanted to make sure at least one Cabinet Secretary knew what Hastert considered real devastation:

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns visited John Hohenberger's Leland farm to see the damage from the 2005 drought.

U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Plano, who represents the 14th District, which includes Leland, invited the secretary along with U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Rockford, to tour the farm.

They walked through cornfields where the corn is drying to become grain for animal fields. They went through a soybean field where problems include spider mites. The lack of moisture is affecting the number of pods and the number of beans in pods.

"The story repeats itself over and over throughout the district," Hastert said. "One hundred counties in Illinois are affected by the drought."

Hastert, who grew up in the area, said he has never seen a drought to this extent. "It's devastating," he said.

That drying corn is just devastating. People are dying of dehydration in New Orleans but the real devastation is dry corn in Illinois. The nation's third highest ranking elected official sure has his priorities in order.