Wampum

The best indicator of whether a force can take a city is the degree of isolation the attackers can impose upon the defenders. In a study of 22 battles [1], the attacker won every time the defender was totally isolated, and only 50 percent of the battles in which defenders were not significantly cut off, and those victories came at great cost to the attackers.

The next best indicator of whether a force can take a city is the size of the attack force relative to the defense force. At Khorramshahr, irregular Iranian forces were outnumbered 4:1 by regular Iraqi forces (five armored and mechanized divisions), and they still held the city for approximately 26 days.

CENTCOM attempted to isolate Falluja in March and April. The April Seige of Falluja resulted in stalemate. CENTCOM has attempted to isolate Falluja since October 14th.

The ratio of forces at Falluja is closer to 1:1 than 4:1.

In most cases [in the study of the 22 battles-for-cities] the time required for successful conclusion of an urban battle exceeded the initial estimates by a factor of two to three. Most city battles, if not decided within 30 days, are not won by the attacker. The April Seige of Falluja was just under 30 days.

The question to consider is the liklihood of outcomes that result in the modification of operational or strategic plans. It does not appear that the conditions are present for CENTCOM to control the duration of the fight. Therefore it does not appear that CENTCOM can determine, or stage, the supporting forces and resources critical to the success of an attack -- the logistics push system that runs from Kuwait to Camp Anaconda and then out to the battle staging areas around Falluja. Further, it does not appear that CENTCOM has the supporting forces and resources necessary to the protection of the theater logistics system, at the existing pre-attack loading, and prior to any increase in interdiction attempts by defending forces able to operate in the logistical "rear area".

If there are operational or strategic plans, they probably include the January elections to legitimize some post-caretaker government. The Association of Muslim Scholars has already taken a position on the elections question. They will boycott, removing the urban educated 15% of the population from some post-caretaker government's claim of legitimacy, without firing a shot.

Paul Bremer killed over 100 Americans, maimed another 800 Americans, and killed or maimed thousands of Iraqis, in the April Seige of Falluja. Independent of outcomes, and the outcome of that particular battle was a stalemate, a November Seige of Falluja cannot be presumed to have a high liklihood of being more favorable for the attacker.

The necessity for having no zones of alternate authority prior to holding "free elections" is politically determined. The liklihood of holding "free elections" within 90 days of initiation of a campaign to reduce a major city is also politically determined. The military experience is that the operational and strategic plans are probably compromised by imprudent assault.

[1] Aachen, Arnhem, Ashrafiyef, Ban Me Thout, Beirut Port/Hotel (I), Beirut 1982 (II), Berlin, Cherbourg, Hue, Jerusalem, Khorramshahr, Manila, Ortona, Quang Tri City I, Quang Tri City II, Seoul,
Stalingrad, Suez City, Tel Zaatar, Tyre and Zahle.

Posted by EBW at 09:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Here is a sampling of Presidential election predictions from around the 'sphere:

From Meet The Press:

Charlie Cook: Bush 271 Kerry 269 (sic. I think he means 271-267).

Peter Hart: Kerry 277

Bill McInturff: Bush 278

Atrios: Kerry 284

Slate (as of Sunday Night): Kerry 272

Scott Elliott of Election Projection: Bush 356

Scott Elliot's Election Projection formula: Bush 286

Chris Bowers of Mydd: Kerry 311

Mike Lux, and adpoted by Mark Schmitt: Kerry 334

Jonah Goldberg: Bush 296

DiHinMi at Kos: Kerry 311

Matb25 at Kos: Kerry 311

From the Washington Post:

Tucker Carson: Kerry 278

Ann Coulter: Bush 317

William Kristol: Bush 348

Tony Snow: Bush 280

Wonkette: Kerry 271

Kerry wins with 279 electoral votes. Kerry wins the popular vote by exactly 1,437,871 votes. Or maybe not.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (103) | TrackBacks (1)

Seventeen marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed or maimed somewhere in the area of Falluja or Ramadi today. CENTCOM reports eight KIA and nine maimed.

Brigadier General Denis Hejlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, is talking to the press about "whacking" the entrenched defenders of Falluja and Ramadi. I'm not sure that "whacking" and restricted Rules of Engagement parse in the same sentance. It seems a juvenile turn of phrase for the anticipated Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain that will be comperable to Huê.

Recent Releases (Camp Pendleton news)
10/27/04 Camp Pendleton Marine dies in Iraq (Cpl. Brian Oliveira, 22, of Raynham, Mass.)
10/25/04 Camp Pendleton Marine dies in Iraq (Lance Cpl. Jonathan E. Gadsden, 21, of Charleston, S.C.)
10/22/04 Camp Pendleton Marine dies in Iraq (Sgt. Douglas E. Bascom, 25, of Colorado Springs, Colo.)
10/18/04 Camp Pendleton Marine dies in Iraq (Cpl. William I. Salazar, 26, of Las Vegas, Nev.)

Updates as they come in.

Maj. Clark Watson (IMEF) told the Associated Press that it was a car bomb, and the KIA count is now 9 with 9 maimed. The 9th victim was killed by gunfire.

Major Clark Watson (IMEF) said the engagement occurred when a car bomb detonated next to a truck south-west of Baghdad. The IMEF event casulty report is now 8/10 (KIA/Maimed). In a seperate event today (10.31) three more marines have been maimed in an attack on their convoy in nearby Ramadi.
.

Posted by EBW at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We're wicked busy. JackPineSavage guy just came by to pick up lit for a drop, more lit droppers are coming before 10am. Walking "turfs" with highlighting are getting cut (MB's a wiz with this, Houston, we have a product), and voters are getting ID'd. I expect I'll work like the "auntie" character in MB's favorite meteo-opera -- "Twister" -- filling cold hungrey vols and pros with flapjacks and coffee. I better go buy a cow or something during a lull.

On the Clean Elections can be Gamed front, the Maine State Employees Association dropped a grand for their DINO two weeks ago on a mailing with a Dirigo Health message. The message irony is that the MESA/SEIU members have the State of Maine's employee health plan, so Dirigo -- the plan for the rest of us without employer-provided medical benes -- is about as relevant to their membership as the price of tea in China. Next, the Maine House Democratic Campaign dropped the same dollars (carefully off by two quarters, or four dimes and two nickles) for their DINO, on a mailing with a small business message. The message irony is that the DINO hasn't worked in a small business for longer than our candidate has been alive, and to be blunt, "pro small business" is a Republican theme, and it decodes as anti-regulation (worker saftey and pollution and equal protection and ... stuff).

For more comedy, George Mitchell, who couldn't ID their DINO in a police line-up unless he was told to look for a Bill Schneider look-alike (minus any discernable intelligence, ethics, or political sense other than self-promotion), robo-called for the DINO, for about $150 HDCC dollars. Sort of a Cher-for-Rent-A-Wreck moment.

These were, ugh, "independent expenditures" that just happened to follow the late October MDP canvas that showed the Dem losing to the Green, and tailored to look as if they came from the DINO's campaign. Naturally, timing is everything. The HDCC money is dropped when any campaign that wasn't prepared couldn't get a rapid response out. We were prepared naturally, and more pieces are in the can, waiting for the HDCC to pay for them. Their own stuff is crap, so I'm personally happy with the Maine Dems ripping the Maine Clean Elections Act to shreds, and I can't wait for them to switch into attack mode.

The other shoe will drop after the elections when the Ethics Commission will surprisingly find that no violations took place, and no evidence questions exist.

Posted by EBW at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a comment to this morning piece someone made the following observation: ... as long as the civilians in the Pentagon want to micromanage the war with blinders on ...

This isn't a view I share.

The military isn't a a single static institution, it is many interests, some organic, some external, and all changing over time, all interacting with each other. It isn't organically self-managing.

At some point in time there was a military threat. The threat model was well understood. There were two mutually-exclusive choices how to respond. The "thrusters" wanted an immediate xxxxx-xxxxxx drive, hoping to save forward positions such as xxxxxxxxxxx as a side-effect, while "cautionaries" favored a step-by-step approach, taking into consideration the xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx problems and xxxxxxxxx risks that would be involved, even though forward positions such as xxxxxxxxxxx would (temporarily) be lost.

What fact situation does this describe, and what should the civilians in the Pentagon do?

Its War Plan Orange and the proper course of action was the one taken. Do nothing at first. The "thrusters" course of action would have put the deciding naval action of the Pacific War in the Eastern Pacific in the first half of 1942, with no carrier reserve, against superior forces at a logistical disadvantage. Fortunately, Perl Harbor ruled out a "thrust" by the combined Pacific fleet lead by battleships begun under the Fiscal Year 1906-1919 programs, supported CV 2, CV 3 and CV 6. Caution then prevailed.

Viewed in the context of War Plan Orange, the problem isn't that civilians are micromanaging anything, it is that the "thrusters" won out over the "cautionaries", out of uniform and in uniform, and the United States is now engaged in a "thrust battle", with no reserves, against numerically supperior forces and at a logistical disadvantage.

Posted by EBW at 03:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I agree with person who held the responsibilities of chief civilian authority of the City of New York during the lower Manhattan Island bombing campaign and the subsequent emergency. The units that secured the al Qa'qa Governmental Enterprise facilities should have held that position until relieved, or forced to abandon the position by either hostile forces or logistical failure, and should have prepared for relief or abandonment outcomes using due diligence for units in possession of tactical and strategic war making assets.

To have done so however presents some problems. A group of Brigade-level staff officers[1],[2] would have had to make a situational judgement that voluntary abandonment of the al Qa'qa Governmental Enterprise facilities was not the course of action they were going to take. To make that judgement, the same group of staff officers would have had to have sufficient knowledge to evaluate the risks and rewards of each alternative course of action. They would have had to know that there were risks and rewards outside of the immediate tactical problem, they would have had to consider issues other than the elimination of defensive or counter-offensive capacities of opposing forces along the axis of advance on Baghdad. They would have had to appreciate that the mission requirements had temporal boundaries that extended into the future, and that leaving direct or convertable assets "in the rear area" had consequences for the logistical integrity of the overall mission.

In a nutshell, they would have had to choose an alternative to the rapid advance focused narrative that Dick Cheney sold Tommy Franks, the rapid war of decapitation and victory by light manuverable forces narrative. They would have had to see the necessity of their force "failing to advance", at a time when equivalent grade officers were being relieved of command for exercising equivalent situational judgements.

Colonel Joe Dowdy who commanded the 1st Expeditionary Marine Squadron was relieved of his command on April 4th for "failing to advance" against defensive forces in An-Nasiriy, having chosen to use artillery and air power to preserve the capacity of the 1st EMS.

They would have had to see the consequences of others confronting similar situations, Iraq is full of weapons dumps and strategic assets, and might make equivalent choices, each reducing the forces dedicated to the Cheney/Franks rapid advance on Baghdad plan by a Battalion, and quite possibly compromise that vision, and delay the day when recon units could enter central Baghdad.

To "adapt and overcome" the staff officers would have had to disregard their orders and acted autonomously for a prudent goal -- defensible occupation of terrain taken, the long-term sustainable logistical requirements included, rather than the imprudent goal -- penetration in depth, with long-term sustainable logistical requirements excluded.

They'd be up on charges of course, and ultimately the political government has command authority over the armed services, but the Oath taken is not to Party or to President, and some poor slobs from non-elite units are going to have to throw their flack jackets against moments of high brisance defined by supersonic expanding spheres of shards, after the parade to Baghdad passes by.

Rudi is right, and the officers in the field should have stopped the advance on Baghdad, because CENTCOM and the Pentagon couldn't, and the White House wouldn't. The choice to allow follow-on forces to operationalize the al Qa'qa Governmental Enterprise assets, in particular the RDX, HMX and PETN inventories, was a political choice made by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. Every officer down the line to the OIC of the unit in place supported a political choice.

Nothing adverse could happend in the Chalabi-rose-petals-welcome scenario. It was a no-brainer.

Afterthoughts. Because I'd other things to do today not everything made it into this piece, but I was thinking about the operational concept and doctrinal implications of the Orange Plan from the 30's. That plan set the Navy and Marine Corps goal for a future war with Imperial Japan as a trans-Pacific, island-hopping campaign. The War in the Pacific was understood to be a war of logistics, since the joint Army-Navy ORANGE plan of 1938. Iraq, or rather the CENTCOM AOR is not a series of archipelagoes, major and minor islands, fortifications, airbases, and ports all held together by connecting tissues of surface, air, and submarine transports, and trivially dis-integrated by modest maritime and air policing forces once naval and air superiority has been established.

One of the "lessons learned" from the Pacific campaign was that logistics in the absence of "friendly territory" was manditory to solve, and solutions were found. Iraq is a bit dryer than the Western Central Pacific, but it appears to be just about as easy for US forces to walk around the dry bits of Iraq as it is for them to walk around the wet bits of the Western Central Pacific, so there is a problem to be solved (and convoys of slightly armored bang-and-burns are not the only answer).

[1] 3rd ID, Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commanding.
[2] 2D Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Col. Joseph Anderson commanding.

Posted by EBW at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember when King George and his courtiers went out of their way to snub Spain and Italy and ... the rest of "the Crowned Heads of Europe"? It was only six months ago that the Xtian Jihadis holed up in Washington City were smirking that they could use the Poles and "the Xtian Roots of Europe" gimmick to blow up the European Constition, and keep the Frogs and the Krauts and the other snivilings from complicating the Atlantic Relationship and the Final ... er ... Interim Solution to the Iraqi Oil Problem.

Ink hit paper this morning in Rome. The Treaty of Rome now applies to 25 states. De Gaulle lives. Chalk up another historic accomplishment of the Bush Generations, right up there with the revivial of Indus-to-Atlantic Pan-Arabism.

And here is un lien (ou adresse URL) to the coverage in today's Le Monde voila.

Posted by EBW at 04:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Former chief weapons inspector David Kay appeared on News Night with Aaron Brown on CNN tonight. He leaves little doubt what happened to the high explosives. Here is the entire segment:

DAVID KAY, FMR. U.S. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: I don't know how better to do this than to show you some pictures, have you explain to me what they are or are not, OK? First, I'll just call it the seal and tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker at that munitions dump.

KAY: Aaron, as about as certain as I can be looking at a picture, not physically holding it, which obviously I would have preferred to have been there, that's an IAEA seal. I've never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than an IAEA seal of that shape.

BROWN: And was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal?

KAY: Absolutely nothing. It was he HMX, RDX, the two high explosives.

BROWN: OK. Now, I want to take a look at the barrels here for a second and you can tell me what they tell you. They obviously to us just show us a bunch of barrels. You'll see it somewhat differently.

KAY: Well, it's interesting. There were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980s. One of them used barrels like this and inside the barrel is a bag. HMX is in powdered form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons.

And, particularly on the videotape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips into it that's either HMX or RDX. I don't know of anything else in al Qa Qaa that was in that form.

BROWN: Let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie. In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over?

KAY: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through and there were others there that were sealed, with this one, I think it is game, set and match.

There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken and quite frankly to me the most frightening thing is not only is the seal broken and the lock broken but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean to rephrase the so-called (UNINTELLIGIBLE) rule if you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

BROWN: That raises a number of questions. Let me throw out one. It suggests that maybe they just didn't know what they had.

KAY: I think quite likely they didn't know they had HMX, which speaks to the lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area but they certainly knew they had explosives.

And to put this in context, I think it's important this loss of 360 tons but Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives right now in the hands of insurgents because we did not provide the security when we took over the country.

BROWN: Could you -- I'm trying to stay out of the realm of politics.

KAY: So am I.

BROWN: I'm not sure you can necessarily. I know. It's a little tricky here but is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this and a need to secure them?

KAY: Absolutely not. For example, al Qa Qaa was a site of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) super gun project. It was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991. That was one of the most well documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so major ammunition storage points were also well documented.

Iraq had, and it's a frightening number, two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the U.S. has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp.

BROWN: David, as quickly as you can because this just came up in the last hour, as dangerous as this stuff is, this would not be described as a WMD, correct?

KAY: Oh, absolutely not.

BROWN: Thank you.

KAY: And, in fact, the loss of it is not a proliferation issue.

BROWN: OK. It's just dangerous and it's out there and by your thinking it should have been secured.

KAY: Well, look, it was used to bring the Pan Am flight down. It's a very dangerous explosive, particularly in the hands of terrorists.

BROWN: David, thank you for walking me through this. I appreciate it, David Kay the former head U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mixture of old jewlrey and newer. Large Avon yellow topaz stone ring. Large old style multi stone yellow topaz Broach. Multi stone dove and others. Includes one decorative "IAEA" brooch, shown below. Good luck, good bidding and enjoy.

Available with original containers. Item shipped upong payment receipt. Insurance avalable with payment (strongly recommended) and shipped ASAP. Many similar items available. Good Luck!

Posted by EBW at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The issue of whether or not the high explosives missing from the Al Qaqaa facility in Iraq before American forces arrived is now settled.

KSTP-TV, a Minnesota ABC affiliate who had a camera crew in Iraq during the early stages of the war, has a video tape showing an intact IAEA seal on a locked door at Al Qaqaa. Still photos of the intact seal are here.

Game, set and match (at least on that issue).

Update: More proof.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 05:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Cent mille civils irakiens environ, en majorité des femmes et des enfants, sont morts, pour la plupart de mort violente, à la suite de l'occupation du pays en mars 2003 par l'armée américaine et ses alliés, estiment des spécialistes de santé publique américains dans un article qui sera mis en ligne vendredi par la revue médicale The Lancet.Le Dr Les Roberts, de l'hôpital Johns Hopkins à Baltimore (Etats-Unis), et ses collègues ont comparé la mortalité durant les 14,6 mois précédant l'occupation en mars 2003 et les 17,8 mois suivants.

Does anyone need this translated?

Posted by EBW at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

This appeared (paid) in the Portland Press Herald yesterday, running a quarter page. I contacted the author and am with his permission I'm publishing it today here as well. Regular readers will recognize More terrorists are being created than are being killed. That has been said here and at Juan Cole's Informed Comment and elsewhere for some time.

Terrorism! What do we realy know about terrorism? Except for terrorism in Northern Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, terrorism was not a world problem. So, the question is: "What has caused terrorism to escalate to a world-wide phenomenon now?" Answer: The United States, Russia and England have their bloody fingerprints all over the current terrorist crisis, but we are in total denial.

We need to stop projecting the causes away from ourselves and examine our consciences. We are so self-righteous as we wash our bloody hands and absolve ourselves of any blame. Next, we begin calling the terrorists bad names such as: murderers, cowards, savages, inhuman, diabolical etc. but we are oblivious to the fact that we have caused and triggered the response of the terrorists.

Terrorism arises when people, rightly or wrongly, perceive that they are being treated unjustly and feel helpless to do anything about it. This generates anger which escalates to hate, revenge and terrorist acts.

The nations which have done the most to foster terrorism are England, Russia and the United States.

1. England's role: The terrorism of the Irish Republican Army arose out of the way England treated the Irish people for generations. England opposed the Irish for centuries. Oliver Cromwell brutalized the Irish people. During the potato famines, the Irish starved and migrated while England shipped Ireland's agricultural products to England. The Irish felt an injustice and were helpless to do anything about it. Some of the Irish rebelled and fought for a unified Ireland. This problem still hasn't been fully resolved. And now the British are attacking the Iraqis.

2. Russia's role: It has left its bloody fingerprints both in Afghanistan and in Chechnya. Attention: If the Soviets had not invaded Afghanistan, we would not have had 9/11.

3. The U.S. role: (a) In Afghanistan the CIA, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and bin Laden spent billions in recruiting, training and equipping 35,000 Islamic recruits from 34 Islamic countries to fight the Soviets. Many of these recruits are now fighting against the U.S. in Iraq.

(b) We lulled the Saudis into allowing us to build military bases in the country that gave birth to Islam. This angered many Saudis and as a result they supplied 15 of the 19 terrorists that bombed the Twin Towers.

(c) Iraq provided no 9/11 terrorists, yet we attacked them preemptively. We found no WMD's and no connection to 9/11.

(d) The mess in Afghanistan and Iraq is the end product of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to control the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Afghans and the Iraqis got caught in the middle of a bloody and senseless war.

Concerning our complicity in creating this mess, our President is either in denial or he rejects the facts of history. Either way it is unacceptable. His exit strategy of killing all of the terrorists is simplistic and tyrannical. More terrorists are being created than are being killed. And innocent civilians are being killed as well. What a legacy! The President is befuddled and admits that he doesn't know why the Islamic world hates us. We need a new leader.

Lcdr. Coleman P. Gorham, USN(Ret.)
Cape Elizabeth, ME 04107

Posted by EBW at 10:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So. The Russians took it. Sometime between April 3rd and April 6th, the Russians got 377 tons of "stuff" out of the IAEA sealed areas at the al-Qa'qa' Governmental Enterprise in Yousefiya 30-38 km South of Baghdad, near Iskandariya onto trains of camels, and snuck quietly across the desert, disapearing in the direction of Syria. Or Iran. It would require 40 loads of the Army's 10-ton, heavy expanded mobility tactical truck (HEMTT), or load-equivalent tractor-trailors.

Meanwhile, the Russian embassy in Baghdad was bombed, and the Russian mission to Baghdad ambushed on a highway as it attempted to get out of Iraq, in a couple of staff cars, both by US forces.

Click here to see a large (800 x 680) sat photo of the complex.

I almost expect to see Baghdad Bob, in mufti drag, on today's news shows, shoulder to shoulder with Rumsfeld and whoever else is doing the public face of this misdirection op, pointing in the direction of Damascus (stage left) and Tehran (stage right), and gobbling on about crafty Russians and diabolical Arabo-Persians and/or flying carpets and/or 40 invisible heavy trucks "convoyed" by jubulant Smoky-and-the-Bandit fans (turbans vs Stars and Stripes verison, with subtitles).

For my own research I have copied the Ramzaj group's work product which appeared at the iraqwar.ru website from March 17 to April 8, 2003, and I'm making it available here. I've copied over the Venik Aviation gif, and commented out the webcounterish cruft that delays loading. These are located in the iraqwar.ru directory, and the naming convention is iraqwar_ru_0xx.htm, where "xx" takes on values between "01" (start date) and "28" (end date). They are linked, and starting at the end and working backwards is probably as useful as any approach to work with the best contemporanious data available on the disposition of forces for the dates of interest. Here is the endpoint: link. Enjoy.

Update: Golly Gee! A repeat reader from ...
iaea.org - - [28/Oct/2004:10:19:29 -0400] "GET /iraqwar.ru/iraqwar_ru_028.htm HTTP/1.0" 200 9842

Glad to be of help. Lackland AFB (Associated Command(s)) readers, you already have this stuff. Get back to work.

See archives/001263.html for some other tracking.

Posted by EBW at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I wrote a piece on gerrymandering the Tribal vote in Maine for the Board of the Maine People's Alliance, which wasn't really a Tribal Sovereignty piece, since no part depended on the 1980 (Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Maliseets) or 1994 (Mic'mac) Settlement Acts, or the status of Abenakis (none). It was about gerrymandering. With that inelegant intro, some dancing, via Scott Thorson of KELOLAND TV:

It's one of the most unique areas in the country, and that might cause problems come Election Day. The Standing Rock Indian Reservation is located in both North and South Dakota, which means tribal members claim both states as their own. More than 10% of the people in Corson County have already voted absentee in the 2004 election.

While the county is in South Dakota, Standing Rock Reservation doesn't recognize borders. Now auditors fear reservation members living in North Dakota could sneak through the electoral cracks.

Dorothy Schuh, Corson County Auditor, said, "Well, we have to trust the voters and we train people and expect that they are being honest because if they are voting in both states, it is illegal."

But Schuh says trust alone won't prevent double voting because people living on the reservation could find loopholes on where they live. What further complicates matters is the fact that North Dakota is the only state in the nation that doesn't have a registration process before voting.

Schuh said, "One of the acceptable forms of ID is a tribal ID and it has to have a photo copy, but North Dakota doesn't have voter registration so there's no way of cross referencing, cross checking their list to ours cause they don't have one."

And election officials worry that when it comes to a tight race, people could be influenced to make every vote count, even if it means breaking the law.

Schuh said, "Ya know there is a right to vote, but there's a responsibility with voting too and we have to put some of the responsibility on the voters to do the right thing."

And that's adding to the pressure of coordinating the vote in Corson County.

Schuh said, "I'll be glad when it's over."

The South Dakota Attorney Generals office looked into voting discrepancies on the Standing Rock Reservation during last Junes primary election. So far no one has been arrested on any charges.

Thinking about this made a light bulb go off in an unused corner of my mind. I look forward to writing about Santa Clara Pueblo vs Martinez in the near future.

Posted by EBW at 08:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last night Atrios posted a short teaser touting a forthcoming CBS poll of Florida that supposedly contained some good news for John Kerry.

At about the same time, Chris Bowers at Mydd noted:

Just wait until CBS from Florida tomorrow. It will make any Florida blues you might have disappear...

I then noticed a post a Jerome Armstrong post at Mydd:

Here's a email note I got from an insider pollster:

The word I hear is that NYT/CBS are not going to release their latest FL survey, because it shows Kerry up by 4 points. Apparently, they [CBS & NYT's] think that is an implausible result, so they are suppressing it. Of course, it's not implausible at all. And imagine the reverse: would they have suppressed a poll showing Bush up 4?

Update (Chris): The rumor I heard, from a good source, was that the poll showed Kerry up nine in Florida. Maybe the poll is flawed, but they should at least release it. Include whatever caveats they want. After all, flawed polls never stop Gallup or Mason-Dixon from public release.

The notion of a non-published poll with a 9 point Kerry lead seems more likely. I too heard a rumor of a new poll (it was not indentified as a CBS poll) with Kerry having a 9 point lead in Florida. I heard that independent of either Chris or Atrios. A nine point Kerry lead is far less plausable than a four point Kerry lead.

Let's assume, arguendo, that such a poll was taken, that it showed a 9 point Kerry lead, and that CBS/NYT decided not to release it on the ground that the result is "implausable."

First, regardless of whether or not you share the view that the assummed result is "implausable," the failure to publish the poll is not a big deal. It is only one poll. At this point in the cycle, polls are like subway trains, one comes along every 20 minutes. In addition, the publication or non-publication of the poll does not in any material way change the facts on the ground. If Kerry is up nine before the poll was taken, the failure to publish does not change that delightful fact. If he is not up 9, the publication is not going to move him to that position.

Secondly, if the media outlets think that the release of a poll that they suspect is flawed would mislead rather than enlighten the public, I think that the responsible course is not to release it. The job of the media is to correctly inform the public. Indeed, If the Times and CBS made a decision not to publish the poll because they felt the poll was misleading, I applaud their decision.

Just for fun, imagine that Fox News or the Washington Times commissioned a poll that showed Bush up 9 in Florida. Assume that Fox and/or the Moonie Times knew that the poll was flawed in some way. What are the chances that they would decide not to publish it anyway?

If that is the difference between mainstream journalism and "fair and balanced" journalism, I vote for the mainstream.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A number of people have already commented on the University of Maryland's Program On International Policy Issues (PIPA) poll describing the "Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters.

Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post summarizes the findings:

This past week brought confirmation that Bush and Kerry supporters live in alternate universes.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes, affiliated with the University of Maryland, released a poll finding that supporters of President Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry were divided not just by their views but also by the facts:

A majority of Bush supporters, 72 percent, believed that Iraq possessed prohibited weapons or had a major weapons of mass destruction program, compared with 26 percent of Kerry supporters who held such beliefs. A majority of Bush supporters also believed experts agree that Iraq possessed banned weapons just before the war, and that U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer concluded that Iraq held prohibited arms or ran major programs. In fact, Duelfer and the others who have probed the matter found neither weapons of mass destruction nor major programs for producing them.

On al Qaeda's ties to Iraq, similarly, 75 percent of Bush supporters believed that Iraq either gave al Qaeda "substantial support" or direct involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; 30 percent of Kerry supporters held these views. A majority of Bush supporters believed the 9/11 commission backed them up on these beliefs, although the panel found no cooperation between the two, only some contacts.

Why then is there such a gap in the public's views on such an important issue of fact?

Milbank insinuates that the gap is caused by differences in education levels:

Another polling outfit, SurveyUSA, has found a broad "education gap" between Bush and Kerry supporters. Nationwide, those who attended graduate school are 11 percentage points more Democratic than those who did not attend college.

That is silly. An eleven point gap in graduate school attendence can not even begin to explain the canyon dividing Bush and Kerry supporters on the issues addressed by PIPA.

Others may be tempted to try to explain the gap by assumming that Bush supporters are stupid. My guess is that advocates of that theory live in very blue states and do not have much contact with actual Bush supporters. I can assure you that here in bright red Georgia, there are plently of very smart, well educated Bush supporters.

In conversations with friends, it has been suggested that Bush supporters get fair and balanced news from Fox and as a result they have a skewed view of reality. Once again, that is just silly. Fox can only wish that it had the type of ratings required to produce the PIPA results.

Jay Bookman, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution comes closer to my view:

It's hard to see that as anything but willful self-delusion. Deep in their hearts, many Bush supporters have to know that the pre-war case for invading Iraq has collapsed, leaving us with a looming disaster. But they don't dare to admit that fact, not to themselves, not to others and certainly not to a pollster on the telephone.

They know where that would lead. They know that once they let that little bit of reality penetrate their bubble, they would be forced to confront the even more daunting fact that they had been fooled and misled by the president, a man in whom they placed so much faith. That's particularly difficult for voters who see politics as an extension of the culture war, and Bush as their champion.

Admitting the truth about him seems like disloyalty.

And so, they do what they must.

A few years ago, I was riding in a car with a fellow Duke alum on the afternoon of the Duke-Carolina basketball game. Duke-Carolina basketball is at least as deep a divide as the current culture war. We were listening to the game on the radio. The game was close and the refs called a foul on a Duke player at a critical juncture. My friend did not even hesitate. "Bad call" he screamed as he pounded the dashboard. Being able to actually see the action was no impediment to being able to discern that Duke was getting jobbed again in the Dean Dome.

I think something similar is happening with the supporters of the President. As Bookman notes, the different views of factual reality are really differing positions in the cultutre war. To accept the reality is to provide aid and comfort to the enemy. It is just not done.

If John Kerry is elected President, one of the hardest jobs he will face is to find a way to bridge the gap between the warring factions and unite the country again. I was pleased to see that those planning for a Kerry administration are considering Republicans for some of the most important positions. That might help but it will be insufficient to call a truce. Neither side can afford to unilaterally stand down.

I do not know what the answer is but I do know that it is important to find one.

I fixed some typos.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (1)

The first President Bush used to refer to election years as the "silly season." If you ever doubted that was true, I suspect that an incident from earlier today will convince you.

Kevin Drum reports that earlier today, President Bush said:

A political candidate who jumps to coconclusions without knowing the facts is not who you want as commander in chief.

Tis the season to be silly, fa la la la la....

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Richard Sambrook (BBC) will tell journalists today at the Columbia J-school that even before the Iraq war most US news broadcasters "wrapped themselves in the flag". What a delicious suprise!

And yes, we do know the lyrics to the song.

Posted by EBW at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

From the N. Y. Times:

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit today that challenged the constitutionality of a state ballot proposal seeking to change Colorado's method for awarding its electoral votes for president, clearing the way for a popular vote next week on a measure that politicians and political analysts say could affect the outcome of the presidential race itself....

Chief Judge Lewis T. Babcock of Federal District Court said the lawsuit, brought by a local businessman, Jason Napolitano, had not established Mr. Napolitano's argument that the proposal would diminish the voting rights of people who might vote one way, only to see their votes later apportioned in the Electoral College in a different fashion.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 07:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times recently ran a story about how families with autistic kids cope with everyday sorts of problems such as hair cuts, going out to restaurants, visiting friends' houses, going to church and other activities.

The story is entitled For Families of Autistic, The Fight For Ordinary. Here is a sample:

Lisa Krieger proved herself the equal of any presidential advance team in planning a first communion for her daughter, Gina, who is 8 years old and autistic.

Months in advance, Ms. Krieger recruited other children to rehearse walking down the church aisle with Gina, and videotaped the procession so she could practice at home. She begged the nuns not to change Gina's place in line, because she might scream or wander off if faced with the slightest deviation.

Ms. Krieger made sure Gina's communion dress was not itchy and let her try it on for a few minutes every day so she would not yank it off when the time came. She found a supplier of unconsecrated communion wafers so Gina would learn the taste and not spit the host back at the priest.

And, on the big day in May, she stationed people throughout the church in Washington Township, N.J., to whisper instructions if Gina got confused. "The end result was she did beautifully," Ms. Krieger said. "But you have to think about everything, know what you're walking into and what's going to happen. I can't prepare her for everything, but I try to eliminate as many variables as possible." ...

One Westchester mother survived a 90-minute drive to her mother-in-law's home with her autistic son by promising him a swim in the local pool and then French fries at McDonald's when they arrived. But, the pool she had been told would open at 10 was closed until noon, and McDonald's would not serve fries until 11.

The child, 7 years old and capable of speaking only a few words, tried to climb the fence at the pool in his fury. At the fast food restaurant, at 20 minutes to 11, he threw himself on the counter when no amount of pleading, or a $10 bribe, would get anyone to serve French fries ahead of schedule.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 07:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The American Research Group released three new state polls today. In Florida, a sample of 600 likely voters showed John Kerry ahead in a three way race, 49%-46%-1% with 4% undecided.

With President Bush at 46%, we should remember the incumbent rule. The Florida sample had slightly more Democrats than did exit polling from the 2000 election. When adjusted to 2000 turnout, Kerry leads by a little more than 1%.

ARG's Ohio poll shows Kerry ahead in a two way race, 49% to 47% with 4 percent undecided. The partisan breakdown was very close to the 2000 exit polling (the sample had 39% Democrats, 38% Republicans, and 23% Independents while the 2000 exit polling showed 38% Dems, 37% Reps, and 26% Independent).

In Pennsylvania, ARG found Kerry 50%, Bush 47% with 3% undecided in a two man race.

MOE for all three polls is +-4%.

Very good news indeed.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 01:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

While browsing deep into the comments at the Political Animal, I found a link to a Congressional Quarterly column by Craig Crawford. Crawford captures my sense of the election quite well:

It’s John Kerry’s to lose.

No flip-flopping here. I think the Democratic nominee will win the presidential election on Nov. 2. I don’t even think it will take weeks of recounting to confirm this..

For all of President Bush’s valiant efforts to make this campaign a referendum on his challenger’s character, it is turning into what the nature of politics demands: a referendum on the incumbent’s performance...I am predicting his victory based on the overwhelming mood for change I’ve seen around the country...

I could see this mood in the nods of agreement in an airport lounge recently as a television news clip showed Kerry saying the country needs “a fresh start.” This could be the most powerful phrase in Kerry’s arsenal during the closing days.

Calling for “a fresh start” sounds like a phrase that was poll tested with a battery of focus groups, which is why it works. It is a simple notion conveyed by simple words.

The need for a fresh start is the least provocative argument that Kerry offers for replacing Bush after one term, and yet it might be the most persuasive. Kerry’s more provocative language sets the bar too high for voters to come his way.

When Kerry portrays the president as either deceitful or incompetent, he delights those partisan Democrats who despise Bush. But most voters say they like the president, even if they lean against voting for him. The “fresh start” message gives those voters a reason to vote for Kerry without joining the hate-Bush camp.

No matter what one thinks about the status of Iraq, jobs or health care, who can argue that a “fresh start” would be so bad?

Bush could have blunted this message. He could have signaled his own plans for a new beginning in his second term. And there is still time for him to do so.

The president did not need to admit mistakes to show a willingness to try something new in Iraq, for instance. Hints about changing faces in a second Bush administration would help. The White House could have floated a few popular names, maybe even a Democrat or two, as candidates to replace Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, in particular.

Instead, Bush has stubbornly entrenched himself, refusing to acknowledge any need for change in his policies on any front, domestic or international.

Ceding the change vote to Kerry could end up being the Bush camp’s biggest mistake. It is the dark side of their effective attacks on Kerry as a flip-flopper.

The argument for "more of the same" is a very pessimistic message. Being unable to argue that things are good, President Bush is arguing that under Kerry things could get a lot worse. The pitch is "Do not hope for better, count your meager blessings, and be content with the current moderately lousy situation."

I find it ironic that a President who takes enormous pride in being a bold risk taker is counting on the electorate to be very risk averse. I do not think that argument will make the sale.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

MB went to Riverton School for Sam's PET yesterday. Sam's been home with me since September 13th, when he and I were informed that, unlike any day prior, he could not be accompanied by a parent to his classroom, and he can't be accompanied by a parent in his classroom while he receives ABA. After far too many letters and calls and conferences, the basic requirements for Sam's 1st grade can be met, at least on paper -- except one --he can not be accompanied by a parent to his classroom, and he can't be accompanied by a parent in his classroom while he transitions from ABA-at-home to ABA-at-Riverton.

It is a step forward from no programs documentation, no discreet trial data and no documentation of how many hours of the day are spent on ABA , but it is still "free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. ... " in theory, not in practice.

The Terrorists who hide behind, or who are whipped by, and co-opted into, the phoney cult of pseudo-accountability -- Bush's No Child Let Blossom contribution to public eduction -- those are our Terrorists. Jim Roux bounced Sam on his knee and he and the men who killed him and themselves and about 3,000 others three years ago are memories, good ones and bad ones, but they are just memories. Our problems with our Terrorists are every day.

What Terrorists touch your daily lives? Are they the Bad Booger Men of Bush's Testosterone Revenge? Or are they smaller, closer to home, not quite so hyped, and vastly more harmful? The unpayable bills, the stack of helpless help wanteds, the ... I've been talking to too many Maine voters doing doors the past month.

Is it the economy or am I stupid?

Posted by EBW at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

HMX (C7H6O)
Homocyclonite family; specifically cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine, the U.S name for Octogen, as an acronym for High Melting Explosive, and in the UK as Her Majesty’s Explosive. Octogen

RDX (C3H6N6O6)
Secondary high explosive used extensively by the military.
A high explosive compound, the term RDX originated as an acronym for research development explosive by the U.S. military. In reality RDX is Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine - for short cyclonite and is expressed as the empirical formula C3H6N6O6. Cyclonite is a colorless crystal, with a molecular weight of 222.1, density of 1.82 g/cm3, oxygen balance: -21.6%, nitrogen content: 37.84%, volume of detonation gases: 900 l/kg. Detonation velocity, confined: 8,750 m/s = 28,700 ft/s at r = 1.76 g/cm3. Critical diameter of steel sleeve test: 8mm, impact sensitivity 7.5 N m. RDX is very stable, insoluble in water, sparingly soluble in alcohol, ether and benzene, and soluble in acetone. Cyclohexanone, nitrobenzene and glycol are solvents at elevated temperatures.
RDX is probably the most important high-brisance explosive; its brisant power is owed to its high density and high detonating velocity. It is relatively insensitive (as compared to PETN - an explosive of similar strength). Its performance properties are only slightly inferior to those of the homologous Octogen (HMX).

PETN (C5H8N4O12)
1) An explosive compound, pentaerythritol tetranitrate represented by the empirical formula C5H8N4O12 , it is a colorless crystal, with a molecular weight 316.1 and density of 1.76 g/cm3. Oxygen balance: -10.1%, nitrogen content: 17.72%, volume of detonation gases 823 l/kg. Detonation velocity, confined: 8400 m/s = 27,600 ft/s at r = 1.70 g/cm3. Critical diameter of steel sleeve test: 6mm. Deflagration point: 202 °C = 396 F, impact sensitivity 3 N m. PETN is very stable, insoluble in water, sparingly soluble in alcohol, ether and benzene, and soluble in acetone and methyl acetate.
2) A high explosive of exceptional brisance, pentaerythrite tetranitrate. Used in detonating cord, boosters, detonators, blasting caps and as a constituent of Dentolite. in which it is mixed with TNT

The UN number for HMX is 0226, for RDX the number is 0072 for PETN the number is 0150. All three are HazCat 1.1D, which decodes as Hazard Class 1 (explosive), Division 1 (mass explosion hazard), and Compatibility Group D (secondary blasting explosive).

215 tons of HMX

156 tons of RDX

6.4 tons of PETN

Used prudently, that's three quarters of a million suddenly severed aircraft, completely compromised engineering plants or power turbines, sheered pairs of structural building pillars, HEAT treated main battle tanks, usw. 750,000 units of High Energy Access Tools.

If we're lucky (for a very large value of "we"), most of it will be wasted in spectacularly large IEDs in an already IED-materials-rich enviornment. Maybe we'll all (for a very large value of "we") will be lucky. If we're not lucky, three quarters of a million drops of rain is a lot of raindrops to attempt to dodge.

Update: Readers at Phillips Labs (plk.af.mil) can post corrections.

Posted by EBW at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

While looking over the internals of the Gallup poll, which are posted here, there is some additional bad news for Mr. Bush.

Gallup has Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating at 51% favorable and 46% percent unfavorable. His approval rating tracks almost exactly with the horse race number.

That is to be expected since it is an ancient political axiom that an incumbent's vote share will equal his job approval rating. An incumbent is likely to win with approval ratings above 50% and is likely to lose with ratings below 50%. Since Mr. Bush is at 51% favorable, what is the bad news for him?

Gallup's internals break the states into three group. The first group consists of the states that Mr. Bush won by more than five percentage points. In those states, the red states, Mr. Bush is doing very well with an approval rating of 59% approval and 38% disapproval (as an aside, that is down from 64-34 a week ago).

In the states that Al Gore won by more than 5%, the blue states, Bush has an approval rating of 46-51 (up from 41-58 a week ago).

The bad news for Mr. Bush is that in the 16 battlegound states, the purple states, Mr. Bush's job approval is now exactly the same as in the blue states 46-51 (down from 48-50 last week).

It would be unusual for an incumbent to to win a group of states with an approval rating at 46%. Unless the "battlegound states" that Bush has already conceded (Oregon, Washington, Maine, and, perhaps, New Hampshire) have very poor approval numbers, it is likely that Mr. Bush is trying to pull out a victory in states (Pa., Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa) in which he has an approval rating somewhat below 50%. To win those states, Mr. Bush would have to run significantly ahead of his own approval ratings.

Not impossible, perhaps, but not likely.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have recently adjusted some state polls to reflect 2000 turnout. The purpose of that exercise is to see whether Democrats must win the turnout battle in order to win in 2004.

My technique for determining whether or not the Dems needed to win turnout has been to look at the cross tabs of the polls (the percentage of Democrats, Republicans and Independents selecting each candidate) and then to apply those percentages to the 2000 turnout as shown by the exit polls.

I have not adjusted any of the national polls because the one poll I would have liked to look at, Gallup, has not published its cross tabs for non-subscribers.

Today, CNN/USAT/Gallup released its most recent poll. That poll shows Mr. Bush leading 51%-46% among "likely voters" and 49% to 47% among registered voters.

The indispensable Steve Soto of the LeftCoaster has once again gotten hold of the partisan breakdown of the Gallup sample. He says that the sample included 39% Republicans, 34% Democrats, and 27% Independents.

The correct way to understand the Gallup poll is to say that if Republicans succeed in turning out 39% of the electorate while Democrats turn out only 34%, if the election was held today, there would be a ninety-five percent chance that the result of the election would be 51%-46% +- the margin of error of 3%.

What would the result be if instead of Gallup's implicit turnout assumpton, 2004 turnout mirrored that of 2000?

This time, that question can be answered. A Freeper posted the cross tabs for the Gallup poll (thanks to reader MW for the heads up). Much to my surprise, it turns out that Freepers are good for something after all.

Assuming the Freeper post to be accurate, the Gallup cross tabs of registered voters in a three way race had Mr. Bush getting 93% of Republicans, 9% of Democrats, and 44% of Independents.

John Kerry got 5% of Republicans, 88% of Democrats, and 47% of Independents.

In 2000, national turnout according to the exit polls had 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 27% Independents.

If we apply the Gallup cross tabs to the 2000 exit poll turnout percentages, we get the following:

Bush 47.94 (.93 x .35 + .09 x .39 + .44 x .27)

Kerry 48.76 (.05 x .35 + .88 x .39 + .47 x .27)

Thus, we can say that if turnout in 2004 mirrors turnout in 2000, the Gallup poll suggests that there is a 95% chance of a result of about Kerry 49%, Bush 48% plus or minus the margin of error.

Gallup has consistenty been one of the weakest for John Kerry. The latest Gallup poll shows that if Democrats just hold their own in the turnout battle, John Kerry is even money or better to win the popular vote.

In my opinion, Atrios' prediction is looking pretty good.

Update:

ProfAlan in a Mydd diary has this analysis too. He has slightly different numbers as he uses slightly different 2000 turnout numbers. I got mine from ABC News, link above.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 05:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On May 4th, 1995, Thomas Peter Paul was charged under section 67 of the Provincial Crown Lands and Forests Act for removing from Crown land, without authorization, three bird's eye maple logs. The logs were intended for resale, and not for religious or cerimonial purposes. The Crown eventually prevailed, but R v Paul changed everything, and a defense that incorporated the (some contemporanious with R v Paul) cases [1] before the Supreme Court of Canada that frame Aboriginal and Treaty Rights prevailed, and the "logical evolution" from traditoinal harvesting of spruce trees to build wigwams established Indian commercial logging.

It is worth mention that the 1999 "Report of the Task Force on Aboriginal Issues in New Brunswick", a by-product of R v Paul, found "insitutionalized bigotry" against aboriginals propagated by "deep-rooted narrow-mindedness and negative public attitudes", and "racism" and "intolerance" that existed at a "grassroots level" in New Brunswick, and specific to forestry,

A fact situation similar to R v Paul exists, not in the Aboriginal Law jurisdiction of Canada, nor in the Federal Indian Law jurisdiction of the United States, but in Hawai'i. On October 15th an American Court ordered the eviction of Hawai'ian Kapuna (traditioinal elders) from land "owned" by the Maui Coastal Land Trust.

Writing for the Maui News, staff writer Valerie Monson has this:

Native Hawaiian group laying claim to Waihee coastal parcel

WAILUKU – An unusual case has been unfolding in 2nd Circuit Court where the Maui Coastal Land Trust’s ownership of the 277-acre Waihee preserve has been challenged by members of the Kingdom of Hawaii who have been camping near the shoreline and refuse to leave.

The Kingdom claims it has rights to the land because of a document filed with the state Bureau of Conveyances in 2002 by Majesty Akahi Nui that includes the lands of Maui, Lanai and Molokai. Maui Coastal Land Trust has a deed specific to the property issued by Title Guaranty of Hawaii Inc., along with title insurance.

Last week, Maui Coastal Land Trust obtained temporary restraining orders against more than a dozen campers, some of them couples living in tents with their children.

Since Friday, the nonprofit organization has been before 2nd Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against the defendants. The hearing will continue on Oct. 13.

Attorney Deborah Wright represents Maui Coastal Land Trust while the defendants are representing themselves. Because there are so many defendants, they sit along the bench behind the chair normally occupied by counsel and even spill over into the jury box. All the defendants are allowed to ask questions of the witnesses as if they were lawyers and can raise objections. The defendants will call their witnesses when the hearing resumes.

Dale Bonar, executive director of the trust, told the court that the organization’s insurance carrier could either raise the rates or even cancel coverage if the campers remain on the property.

Bonar also produced a letter written by Dr. Lorrin Pang, Maui District Health officer, less than two months ago after he inspected the area that has no running water or bathroom facilities on the site.

“The presence of toddlers under these conditions is especially worrisome,” wrote Pang. “If this were public lands (government), we would either require the installation of sanitation facilities or restrict access.”

Pang said his office has “seen too many outbreaks of infectious diseases in similar settings,” but the families challenged those statements.

They pointed out that there are bathroom facilities and showers about 100 yards away at the Waihee Beach Park and that no one was tested for any disease.

Before the hearing began last week, Akahi Nui said his document stamped by the Bureau of Conveyances grants “absolute ownership” of the land to the Kingdom of Hawaii, a sovereignty group of Native Hawaiians. Because of the illegal overthrow of Hawaii by the United States in 1893, Akahi Nui said there was never an agreement to turn the land over to the new government.

Bonar said he first became aware of the campers in late June just before the land trust closed on the property.

He said he felt relations with the families have “always been cordial,” even during meetings when campers were told that they would be asked to leave.

While there were concerns about trash, derelict vehicles and drug packets being found in the area, the campers vehemently denied that they were responsible for those problems.

One after another, the defendants claimed they were just as concerned about safety. They said they had cleaned up rubbish left by others, even lining up junk cars to be taken away.

“He (Bonar) is making it look like it’s our opala and it’s not,” said Eddie Alfonso, one of the campers.

During a break, another of the campers, Moana Niles, said the families have chosen to live on the Waihee shoreline.

“The land is our home,” said Niles. “We’re not homeless people, we’re not druggies.”

Maui Coastal Land Trust purchased the land after raising nearly $5 million of public and private funds to protect the region rich in ancient Hawaiian cultural sites, a wetland, the intact sand dune and undeveloped shoreline.

An earlier proposal to turn the area into a resort had sharply divided the community.

Bonar and Scott Fisher, project manager, said no camping is allowed in the preserve, which is open only to foot traffic.

Fisher noted that he didn’t doubt the “sincerity” of the campers in wanting to help out, but he said Waihee needs “to be managed and right now I can’t manage it.”

Valerie Monson can be reached at vmonson@mauinews.com.

A personal note. In 1969 the NPS burned down the cabins of the Ahwahnee still living on 10 acres of unsectioned land in Yosemite Valley, a half mile west of Yosemite Village, and told the Ahwahnee families to relocate outside of the National Park. That village was built during the NRA, and as a kid I played there under the eye of an Auntie when my mom was off walking. The NPS plan of record was that area from then on would be protected as an environmental restoration area.

European pastoralism cannot allow Indians or Hawai'ians to live in paradise. Parks are for Europeans.

[1] R v Sparrow, R v Van der Peet, R v Gladstone, and R v Delgamuukw.

Posted by EBW at 07:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Much of George Bush's political sucess results from his willingness to press any advanatge and his ability to project an air of confidence. Some would call it hubris as I did in my frst ever blog post.

Karl Rove and Mr. Bush are advocates of the bandwagon effect. They believe that that late deciding voters want to vote for the winner. If a candidate acts like a winner and projects the confidence of a winner, he will get those late deciding voters.

That is why Mr. Bush was campaigning in deep blue California in the last week of the 2000 campaign.

After the polls closed in 2000, long before the final vote tallies from New Mexico or Florida were determined, Mr. Bush declared himself he winner. He had no special information suggesting that he would eventually prevail in Florida, but a public display of confidence might improve his chances, regardless of the count.

Mr. Bush took office despite losing the popular vote. He took office after a long post election contest. He took office with the smallest possible margin (5-4 in the Supreme Court). To govern, Mr. Bush again turned to hubris. He decided to act like he had a mandate, govern as if he had a mandate, and hope that others would not notice that he had no mandate. Once again, it worked. His two most important domestic policies, massive tax cuts favoring high income Americans and No Child Left Behind, passed with significant Democratic support.

In the 2002 off-year elections, Mr. Bush again turned to the strategy. The events of 9/11, and Mr. Bush's response to it, had given him a political advantage on national security issues. Mr. Bush pressed that advantage to the limit. He made the off-year elections a referendum on his security policies. He involved himself in campaigning for Congressional and Senate candidates to an unprecedented degree. He insisted on a vote on the Iraq use of force resolution before the election and then attacked Democrats (even those who sided with him on that vote) as being weak on terrorism. It was a risky strategy because had the GOP had lost seats, Mr. Bush would taken a large political hit. It was also the self confident strategy. Once again, the strategy of pressing the advantage and acting in a confident manner paid dividends as Mr. Bush's party gained control of the Senate.

Conventional wisdom this year is that the presidential election will be decided in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Whoever takes two of those three, the CW says, will win. Given that conventional wisdom, and Mr. Bush's history of using confidence as a political tactic, what would we expect Mr. Bush to say about his chances in those states?

Today I read about Bush's interview with ABC News. Listen carefully to the tone Mr. Bush takes:

Conventional wisdom has long held that the key to winning the presidential election is to take Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

President Bush says it's not so simple.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson, airing on "World News Tonight" and "Good Morning America," Bush notes the field of states that could help decide the election may be bigger than casual observers believe.
"I wouldn't discount Michigan," Bush says. "I wouldn't discount the influence of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and New Mexico. I think this race is a non-predictable race. I think people like to boil it down to one or two states. I think you're gonna find there's a lot of interesting states … not considered to be in play."

The confident approach is to say that reelection is a done deal and that weak, liberal, flip flopper from Massachusetts is dead meat. Instead, Mr. Bush says that the the election is "non-predictable."

Why do you suppose he did that?

Listen carefully to Laura Bush:

Despite the busy campaigning schedule, first lady Laura Bush suggests she and her husband do not really worry about losing the election.

"I think we actually both have a peace about it," she tells Gibson. "We're nine days away right now and … we know we've done every single thing we can do... You know, I think we have a certain peace about it."

In fact, the first lady says she and her husband are relaxed enough to have stepped back a bit for some perspective on the current election season and past campaigns.

"This is his last election," she says. "We watched the Democratic primary with some nostalgia, remembering what it was like to be in New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina and all those states four years ago."

Why do you suppose that is?

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 07:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I'm glad to see Hans Blix taking the correct legal line -- that Iran has every right to conduct an enrichment program [1], and the best negotiation and process line to persuade Tehran to give something up it has a right to be do, to abandon its enrichment program, is offering something in exchange such as improved trade relations or a non-aggression pact. Previously link and link, I pointed out that over the next two decades a lot of nuclear power plants are on the plans of record for India and China, and trading away the market for export commercial fuel loads in exchange for the right to acquire domestic commercial fuel loads isn't that attractive.

[1] Interview on Sunday with German broadcaster ARD.

Posted by EBW at 07:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Detroit Free Press has an interesting bit of pdf that contains the name of Ed Seitz, the State Department employee killed this morning at the Baghdad airport. It is the Government's response to the motion by the "Detroit Sleeper Cell" defendants for a new trial. But read the whole text, don't just seek down to the man's name, get a feel for his life and work, and for the details of the Wah on Terrah.

It gets better. Seitz offered "expert testimony" on sneaking a gun to an airliner. He offered "expert testimony" on the quality of government issued identification documents. He offered "expert testimony" on specific intent to harm Israel. He offered "expert testimony" on specific intent to "conduct an economic jihad against the United States". In each instance men were in jepordy of their lives, liberties, and property.

Department of State Special Agent Seitz interrogated John Clarke, an international man of terroristory organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) on February 19th, 2002. Mr. Clarke was in-route to a speaking engagement at Michigan State University, here is his write-up on his meeting with Seitz. Especially touching is the suggestion that Osama bin Laden is hiding in the mountainous Tora Bora region of Ontario, or working at a soup kitchen in Toronto.

Colin Powell waxes predictably on the virtues of a perjurer, but then again, he did doors campaigning for WMDs. In the topsy-turvy world of the embittered right, a man who could step out of the statist bureaucratic nightmare of Kafka's Castle, from a day of pulling the wings off of random civilians, and quote pages of Derrida and mock the intellectual timidity of "a single true narrative" and the fiction of "objective reality" while ... er ... improving on the evidence used to hang men, will be buried as a hero.

Posted by EBW at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There is very good news coming out of Florida today. First, the Orlando Sentinel, a newspaper that has not backed a Democrat for President in since 1964, endorsed John Kerry:

Four years ago, the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president based on our trust in him to unite America. We expected him to forge bipartisan solutions to problems while keeping this nation secure and fiscally sound.

This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations. We turn now to his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, with the belief that he is more likely to meet the hopes we once held for Mr. Bush.

The better news comes from a Miami Herald, Saint Petersburg Times poll. The statewide poll of 800 hundred likely voters (MOE of +-3.5%) has a top line tie of 46%-46%, with Ralph Nader drawing 1% and 7% undecided.

The poll also shows that Kerry has momentum:

Still, within the overall numbers are significant voter shifts in Kerry's favor since the last Times/Herald poll in August:

Independent voters had been evenly split between the president and the senator, but now Kerry has a 9-point lead among independents, 46 percent to 37 percent. Exit polls in 2000 showed Bush and Gore virtually tied among independents.

Among coveted Hispanic voters, the poll shows Kerry leading Bush 54 percent to 34 percent. Though the margin of error is 11 percent, it's a big improvement over August when Bush led Kerry among Hispanics by 24 points.

Voters 65 and older, a group Bush led by 12 points eight weeks ago, favor Kerry, 49 percent to 44 percent. In 2000, seniors split evenly between Bush and Gore.

Kerry narrowly trails Bush among men, 44 percent to 48 percent, after Bush led by 15 points in August.

Kerry two months ago trailed Bush by 13 percentage points in east-central Florida and 5 points in the Tampa Bay area, but now is eight points behind in east-central Florida and one point behind in the bay area.

The very best news, of course, is that with ten days until the polls close, in the one state that Mr. Bush can not afford to lose, the President is polling at 46%. Incumbents polling at 46% near the election do not win. The undecideds would have to break in favor of the incumbent and that just does not happen. Bush has had four years to make the sale to a majority of Florida voters and he has failed.

Combined with the recent Quinnipiac University poll showing Mr. Bush at 45%, among registered voters (48% among likely voters), with only a one point lead, John Kerry is now a favorite to win Florida.

Something's happening here and what it is, is entirely clear.

Update: More good news. A Research 2000 poll of 600 registered voters (MOE +-4) has Kerry in the lead in a three way race, 48%-47%-2%.

Incumbents polling at 47% immediately before the election do not win.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bush campaign has often denied entry to their campaign events to people other than hard core supports. They crossed a line yesterday when they denied entry to an active duty soldier who is about to be shipped out to Iraq. His crime? He stood next to a suspected Kerry supporter.

The Citizen's Voice has the story:

A 27-year-old registered Republican and member of the U.S. Army, along with three other people around him, was forced to leave the arena before getting inside.

The Wyoming Valley man who did not want to be identified by name because of his loyalty to his service members is being deployed to Iraq in two weeks. His Army service and status were verified.

He explained that he was attending the event in hopes of finding the right candidate to vote for on Nov. 2.

"I thought seeing Bush would be enough to sway my opinion one way or the other. After today, it definitely has swayed," he said.

While waiting in line, he noticed a stranger standing alone and invited the person to stand with him.

"I didn't think that would be a problem," he said.

It turned out to be.

Individuals from the Bush campaign spotted the individual with the soldier and identified the person as a Democratic supporter.

The spotters, and eventually police, asked the Democratic supporter to remove a jacket, a sweater and some other articles of clothing in what was described as basically a police search.

The soldier said the Democratic supporter did what was asked without any complaint. The person also provided a ticket to the event.

The soldier said that when he asked why the person was being hassled, the spotters said the Democrat's name wasn't on their "master list."

"So I asked if we could see the master list? They said they didn't have it," he said.

The soldier said he stood up for the supporter, but was in no way hostile, because he was there to see the president and hoped to justify voting for him.

Not long after showing his own ticket and being told he wasn't part of the "master list" either, the police asked the soldier to leave. He was told the event was for Bush supporters or undecided voters only.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

President Bush and many other Republicans are suggesting that flu vaccine shortages are somehow the result of those evil trial lawyers who, through frivolous law suits, have driven manufactures out of the business. Is that true?

Republican Senator Larry Craig from Idaho recently bragged about the bill to expand the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to include adult vaccines as well as childhood vaccines. For the record, I think that VICP coverage for all vaccines is a good idea. In bragging about the bill, Craig tried to link the current flu vaccine shortage to litigation.

What was Craig's evidence that litigation was even partly responsible for the shortage of the flu vaccine? Did he regale us with statistics of the number of suits brought against flu vaccine manufacturers? Did he tell us how much had been paid out in judgments or settlements of such suits? Did he point to a single manufacturer that left the business of making flu vaccine because of litigation concerns or even a single suit against such a manufacturer?

Of course not. I kid you not, the following is the only evidence he provided that liability concerns are related in any way to the flu vaccine shortage:

Critics contend that lawsuits are a minor story when it comes to vaccines. But the untold story is that the other firm which makes flu vaccines for senior citizens declined to appear at our hearing because of concerns about lawsuits. We need to curb our culture of excessive litigation.

Since Senator Craig did not provide us with any evidence that evil trial lawyers are driving firms out of the business of making flu vaccine, let's look for some ourselves.

One manufacturer that has left the business of manufacturing flu vaccines is Wyeth. Its homepage is here.

According to the Washington Post, Wyeth quit making flu vaccine after the 2002-2003 flu season. Was that the result of law suit liability?

The Post does not think so:

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals doesn't make flu shots anymore, and it doesn't miss them one bit.

For two decades, Wyeth made injectable influenza vaccine at a plant in Marietta, Pa. For the winter of 2002-03, it made 21 million doses in a labor-intensive, time-crunched process and shipped them to clinics and doctors' offices early in the fall. But it turned out a lot fewer people wanted it. Flu vaccine can't be saved from year to year. So, sometime the next spring Wyeth threw away 7 million unsold doses, for a loss of $30 million. It then quit making flu shots. It eventually closed the Marietta plant, which once employed 800 people.

But Wyeth wasn't out of the flu vaccine business -- yet.

It was a partner with the Maryland biotech company, MedImmune, in making what they considered the flu shot of the future -- a "live" virus vaccine squirted up the nose. They made 5 million doses of FluMist for last winter, the product's inaugural season. But FluMist never found its market. Only 450,000 doses were sold; the rest were thrown away.

Last April, Wyeth pulled out. It was done with flu vaccine.

I took a look at the Wyeth annual reports for 2002 and 2003. Wyeth had some serious liability issues related to its diet drugs but with regard to other products, including its flu vaccine, it says that:

In the opinion of the company, although the outcome of any legal proceeding can not be predicted with any certainty, the ultimate liability of the Company with regard to its legal proceedings (other than diet drug litigation discussed immediately below) will not have a material adverse effect on the Company's financial position....

If there are serious liability issues involved with manufacturing flu vaccine, then the one American company still in that business should know about it.

Chiron is still in the business of manufacuring flu vaccine (badly, I might add). If litigation over its flu vaccine is a serious problem, surely we can find some mention of it in its annual report. The 2003 annual report is here.

Chiron's SEC 10k filing has a section for legal proceedings. It makes no mention of potential liabilities in product liability suits over its flu vaccine.

Chiron does say that:

We are exposed to product liability and other claims in the event that the use of our products is alleged to have resulted in adverse effects. While we will continue to take precautions, we may not avoid significant product liability exposure. Although we maintain product liability insurance, there is no guarantee that this coverage will be sufficient. It is not feasible to obtain adequate insurance coverage for certain products and we are self-insured in relation to these products. If we are sued for any injury caused by our products, we could suffer a significant financial loss.

As we are a key provider for the blood screening field of nucleic acid testing and immunodiagnostics, we may have product liability in addition to contract exposure, in the event that our difficulties or delays or those of our partners could cause a public health concern for the blood supply.

If liability is not the issue, what has caused the flu manufactures to quit the business?

Perhaps is has to do with the fact that in 2003, those manufacturers lost $120 million dollars by having to throw away lots of unused vaccines.

Snopes.com explains:

Most American pharmaceutical companies got out of the flu vaccine market because a variety of factors (not related to lawsuits) make it an unattractive line of business:

Flu viruses mutate easily, so new flu vaccine formulas have to be made up every year.

Because a different flu vaccine is used each season, unsold doses cannot be saved and end up being destroyed (along with any potential profits).

The production of flu vaccine (and the requirement of meeting Food and Drug Administration standards) is a labor-intensive process. Flu vaccine is made by injecting virus into fertilized chicken eggs — each egg must be hand-inspected and hand-injected and produces only 4 or 5 doses of vaccine.

Because flu vaccine is a commodity (i.e., the same product can be made by many different companies) and much of the available supply is bought up in large orders by the government, the market price of vaccine — and the profit to be made from selling it — has been quite low. (The global market for vaccine is about $6 billion a year, while the global market for drugs is about $340 billion a year. Which of these two markets a pharmaceutical company should concentrate on is a no-brainer.)

Sometime within the next several years, the flu vaccine industry will switch to growing vaccine in cell cultures rather than eggs, a much easier and cheaper process. No new entrant to the flu vaccine market is going to spend several years and millions of dollars investing in a process that will soon become obsolete.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 08:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Europe is inscruitable. Between Romulus and Remus and Beowulf -- Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon -- and the Europe that bumped into us 500 years ago, its basic nature changed. And no Indian knows why.

The Civic Religion during the Puritan period was that Indians, wolves, and forests menaced European settlements.

The Civic Religion since the Georgian period has been that these United States are New Rome, the second of the two images above, imposing order on the whole world, Indians, wolves, and forests included.

Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards? Stalked by wolves or suckled by wolves? Those are distinct choices. It is odd that BC04 chose to run with an image that hasn't been "current" in American political culture since the Salem Witch Trials.

Maybe they are gearing up for Hallow'een.

Posted by EBW at 08:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Sinclair show last night ended with the narrator saying that a number of complaints have been filed with the FCC, and begged viewers to defend Sinclair's broadcast license, either by counter-complaining directly the FCC or contacting the company. It is a surprising twist, now Sinclair is exploiting both the Bitter Namers (the war was winnable, except for those damn politicians, and its all Lt. Kerry's fault), who are a Flat Earth Society on the right, and the RNC's paid media buys, to defend a "broadcast license has no regulatory strings" theory of company valuation.

Our friend over at JackPineSavage hasn't done too shabby. Atta boy Tom!

Posted by EBW at 07:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Writing in today's Le Monde, Rémy Ourdan sees Falluja as a major battle simply waiting. Some new facts. On the order of 1,500 Arab fighters are present in Falluja. On the order of 90% of the women, children and elderly have left Falluja for Baghdad or the towns surrounding Falluja. On the order of 80% of the men of fighting age of Falljua are now under arms.

There are 83 minarets (mosques) and 120,000 residences in Falluja.

Will Bush order the attack before November 2nd, or will he order the attack after November 2nd, and will the outcome of November 2nd matter?

The smart money (Juan Cole) is that Bush will wait until after November 2nd to flatten Falluja. My guess is that Bush won't wait. He just lost Ohio (Nader's off the ballot), and the newest numbers show he's lost Maine too, and he's a high-risk gambler.

Back when MB and the kids and I were enjoying the quiet of Disneyworld the week after 9/11, the radio was alive with chatter about follow-on attacks. I didn't give it a moment's thought. Use or lose, and holding some part of the attack inventory while the feds went non-linear and bagged every Arab under every bed was a recipe for "lose".

I think the same is true of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsford-Wolfowitz-Rice-Feith-Scooter-Hadley-Bolton-Luti-Fowler-(Perle)-Negroponte-(Bremer)-Garner gang of terrorists. The effects, domestic and Iraqi, are certain if the order is given before the end of the month, and uncertain after the third day of next month.

It is use or lose, and use always trumps lose.

Update:
A month ago, the deputy governor of Al-Anbar province, Bassem Mohammed, was assassinated.

Today, the deputy governor of Fallujah, Mahmud al-Jurassi, was arrested.

Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, Dan Murphy has a very good piece on the kidnapping of the Egyptian cell phone crew in western Iraq. There is a telling question: "Is it true the Americans can find me if I use [a cell phone]?" Putting on my ex-Nokia Research hat, my answer is Why yes they are.

Posted by EBW at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

UNICEF just sent Grace this:

NEW YORK (October 15, 2004) — The first comprehensive study on the condition of schools in post-conflict Iraq has confirmed that thousands of school facilities lack the basics necessary to provide children with a decent education.

The school survey, released this week by the Iraq Ministry of Education, shows that one-third of all primary schools in Iraq lack any water supply and almost half are without any sanitation facilities.

The worst affected governorates are Thiqar, Salaheldin and Diala, where more than 70 percent of primary school buildings either lack water service altogether or the existing water system is not working.

The survey reveals that despite the difficulties, overall enrollment surged in the 2003/2004 school year. But it also shows that the number of suitable school facilities has failed to keep pace with demand.

Some 4.3 million children are currently enrolled in primary schools, up from 3.6 million in 2000, the most recent year for which data were available prior to this survey. However, there are not enough desks, chairs, or classrooms. Many schools have had to double up, with a quarter of all primary schools in Iraq running two or three shifts per day — meaning reduced classroom time for each shift of students.

In fact, while there are more than 14,000 named primary schools in Iraq, there are only 11,368 actual schools buildings available to house them. Some 2,700 of these need major rehabilitation.

"Iraq used to have one of the finest school systems in the Middle East," said UNICEF Iraq Representative Roger Wright. "Now we have clear evidence of how far the system has deteriorated. Today millions of children in Iraq are attending schools that lack even basic water or sanitation facilities, have crumbling walls, broken windows and leaking roofs. The system is overwhelmed."

Wright said that the decay is the result of over a decade of neglect and under-funding during the sanctions era, as well as the impact of three wars, starting with the Iran-Iraq war.

The survey states that since March 2003, over 700 primary schools had been damaged by bombing — a third of those in Baghdad — with more than 200 burned and over 3,000 looted.

"The current system is effectively denying children a decent education," said Wright. "The poor quality of the learning environment delivers a major blow to children, and the shortened school day delivers another." According to the survey, primary schools are most overcrowded in Basra governorate, where over 600 primary schools are sharing buildings.

In a statement earlier this week, Iraqi Minister for Education Dr. Sami Al-Mudaffar said that the survey "constitutes the most thorough and reliable source of educational data for Iraq," and will contribute significantly to planning, managing and monitoring of the ongoing reconstruction efforts of the Ministry.

Lower enrollment for girls
The survey, which was conducted by the Iraq Ministry of Education with the help of UNICEF, collected data on students, teachers, and the condition of buildings for every kindergarten, primary, secondary, Yafi'een (alternative) and vocational schools and higher education institutes in the country. In all, the survey covered over 20,000 schools and institutes.

It revealed that of the 4.3 million children registered in Iraq’s primary schools, 2.4 million are boys and 1.9 million are girls, similar to pre-war ratios. The enrollment of girls was lower than boys in every grade and in every governorate. In Wasit governorate, girls accounted for only 39 percent of registered students. Enrollment of girls was highest in the governorates of Baghdad and Sulaimaniya, where they accounted for more than 46 percent of registered students. "Gender equity must be urgently promoted," said Wright.

Overcrowding, insecurity and the lack of water and sanitation facilities in schools are the three main causes of lower enrollment of girls. On a daily basis, teachers, children and their families in Baghdad, and other flash-points of conflict and criminality, have to overcome the fear of bombings, explosions and kidnapping.

Rehabilitation work carried out by private sector companies, UN agencies and NGOs on schools since March 2003 has only partially reduced the challenges. Since the survey was carried out in January 2004, the worsening security situation has slowed down work on improving education facilities.

"The problem is not just delays in improving school buildings," Wright observed. "More importantly, poor security is also holding back improvements in the quality of teaching and learning that are going on inside the classroom."

He added that despite difficulties inside Iraq, UNICEF, the Ministry of Education, and many other partners continue to work to rehabilitate schools and conduct trainings to help ensure Iraqi children get the quality education they deserve.

Background
The Iraq Education Survey was carried out by the Iraqi government in January and February of 2004, and covered every educational institution in the country. The findings are being released in three separate reports, the first covering statistics, the second qualitative analysis, and the third a detailed school-by-school mapping of findings. UNICEF supported the Education Ministry in carrying out the survey as part of its standing brief as lead UN agency for education in Iraq.

When Grace, Sam, Jonah, Kezzie and I go trick-or-treating, we'll be collecting for UNICEF. Water and toilets are on their todo list.

Posted by EBW at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press is reporting that Ralph Nader will not be on the Ohio Presidential ballot:

The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's bid to get on the Ohio ballot.

Nader wanted the court to force local election boards to review their voter registration lists, a process Nader said could have led to the validation of petitions to place him on the ballot.

The court ruled 6-1 against Nader Friday, saying his campaign waited too long to raise its concerns.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An AP/Ipsos poll has Kerry with a three point edge, 49% to 46%, over President Bush among likely voters nationwide. The poll has a MOE of +-3%.

President Bush's job approval rating was 47%. The poll was taken October 18-20.

Other internals:

A majority, 51 percent, support the president's handling of foreign policy and the war on terror. By 7 percentage points, they think he would protect the country better than Kerry. That is similar to the AP-Ipsos poll earlier in the month, but down from a 23-point advantage in March.

Voters are evenly split on who would do the best job on Iraq. They find the candidates equally honest and likable, but Bush is viewed as much more decisive.

By an 18-point margin, Kerry is seen as best suited to create jobs for workers.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I just got more mail from the Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan. It appears that there have been arrests of Hizb members, one in fact from the Lahore Press Club, who was protesting earlier arrests. The arrestees are listed as "Dr.Abdur Rauf, Sajid Naeem, Zahid Iqbal, Ghaos and two brother-in-laws of a member".

See Misha Pozhininsky's piece from a year ago on the Hizb ut-Tahrir. It is worth the read. There is also the piece I ran on the Political Program of the Hizb ut-Tahrir and This morning's mail from Central Asia (which denied any responsibility for bombings in Tashkent) for background.

Posted by EBW at 02:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The more I look at the electoral college map, the more I am convinced of the centrality of Wisconsin. Gore barely eeked out a win in 2000. Gore received 1,240,431 votes while George Bush received 1,235,035. Nader pulled in over 93,000 votes. Nader will again appear on the Wisconsin Presidential ballot.

Wisconsin's eleven electoral votes seem likely to be decisive. A new University of Minnesota poll has Bush +1 at 48%-47% in a three way race.

A CNN/USAT/Gallup poll has Bush ahead by 6 among likely voters and by 8 among registered voters. If that poll is accurate, then Kerry is in big trouble in Wisconsin.

As a result of those polls, Slate has moved Wisconsin into the Bush column saying that "he has taken Wisconsin outright."

What are the implicit turnout assumption of those polls? For the Gallup poll, which I suspect is the one driving Slate to move Wisconsin, I can not say. USA Today does not report the cross tabs or the party ID breakout of their sample.

If anyone has that information, please post a comment. Are you listening Steve Soto?

We can, however look at the turnout assumptions of the U of M poll because it does report the cross tabs. Its sample has Mr. Bush drawing 94% of Republicans, 5% of Democrats, and 35% of Independents in a three way race.

Mr. Kerry gets 92% of Democrats, 5% of Republicans, and 46% of indenpendents.

If we apply those cross tabs to the party identification of the 2000 exit polling from Wisconsin (37% Democrats, 32% Republicans, 31% Independents) we get the following:

Bush 42.8%

Kerry 49.9%

Wow, a one point Kerry deficit turns into a seven point Kerry lead if the 2004 party ID turnout mirrors 2000 party ID turnout.

It is apparent that the U of M poll has an implicit assumption that Republican turnout will be much better than it was in 2000 and that Democratic turnout will not keep pace.

Is that likely? I really could not say. Neither can anybody else as Wisconsin as same day registraton. The Seattle Times does report:

In Wisconsin ... voter registration is up by at least 200,000 this year, estimates Kevin Kennedy, the state elections chief. He says the rise is being driven by the high stakes and close race as much as by activist organizations.

"The municipal clerks are hearing from people who have been gone from the country for 20 years and they want to vote," Kennedy said.

Still, appraising the registration drives is a dicey business, cautions Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

Gans, noting that "registration doesn't necessarily speak to turnout," said voter rolls grew nationally in 1996 and 1998, largely because of motor voter laws, but turnout was down in both years. In 2000 and 2002, by contrast, registration was down but turnout was up.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who many political observers suggest is quietly campaigning to become the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2006, is not sending good signals about his respect for the voters of Wisconsin or this state's electoral system.

Aware of massive increases in voter registration in Milwaukee, and the intense interest in the presidential race among people of color, young people and others who might not be inclined to vote for George W. Bush, Walker pulled one of the most bizarre stunts ever seen in Wisconsin electoral history. When city of Milwaukee officials requested that more ballots be printed in order to accommodate the expected rush of new voters on Nov. 2, Walker refused.

So, registration is up in Milwaukee and interest is high among those unlikely to vote for George Bush but the reported sample has an implicit assumption that turnout will be much less favorable to Kerry than it was to Gore.

I have no idea what Wisconsin turnout will be but if the cross tabs from the U of M poll are remotely accurate, Kerry will win if turnout mirrors the 2000 election.

I will do a similar anaysis if someone can get a hold of the cross tabs from the Gallup survey.

Edited slightly.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 01:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Julia points us to a Washington Post report about mercury levels:

One-fifth of women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their hair that exceed federal health standards, according to interim results of a nationwide survey being conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville...

"There is no other pollutant out there that has anywhere near this high a percentage of the U.S. population with exposure levels above the government's health advisory levels," said Maas, co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute. "Not lead, not arsenic, nothing."

The last major national study of Americans' mercury exposure, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999 and 2000, concluded that about 12 percent of women of childbearing age had mercury levels that exceeded EPA's safety standard.

The new study found excess mercury levels in 21 percent of the 597 women of childbearing age who were tested.

The UNC researchers said they could not explain why their subjects had higher mercury levels, as 80 percent of study participants said they had no reason to think they had high concentrations of mercury in their blood. Men and women in the study had similar mercury levels.

The Sierra Club released a report Tuesday that showed that one of six fish bought at three big grocery chain stores in Atlanta was contaminated with mercury.

Scott Goldstein, a conservation organizer for the Sierra Club in Atlanta, bought a half-pound each of salmon, catfish, tuna and bass from area groceries and brought them to Advanced Chemistry Labs in Atlanta for testing.

Lab results showed that the tuna contained mercury levels that exceeded federal guidelines. When ingested over many years, low levels of mercury can cause neurological and developmental problems in young children and fetuses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one in every six women of childbearing age has enough mercury in her system to put her future children at risk.

While federal and state environmental regulators have long warned anglers against eating too many of the fish they catch in lakes and rivers, Goldstein said his random sample showed that even commercial fish sold in grocery stores can contain unsafe levels of mercury.

As you may recall, Mr. Clinton had a plan in place to reduce mercury levels, but Our Fearless Leader is fighting to replace it with a plan where mercury-emitting plants can, basically, pay off and keep polluting. The government-recommended guidelines for eating mercury-tainted fish are pretty much screwed too.

She also notes that "a child with mercury poisoning takes a lot of quantity time to raise."

And that, my friends, is God's honest truth.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Question #1: Should the conference include members of the Iraqi insurgency?

In Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe the Supreme Court negated tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants who commit crimes in Indian country. In Duro v. Reina the Supreme Court held that tribes lack inherent authority over Indians of other tribes. This series of cases includes Nevada v Hicks and others, and extends to the last term of the Court in US v Lara.

These Rehnquist Court decisions recreated the medieval concept of personal jurisdiction, that persons cannot be subject to the jurisdiction of courts which arise from political processes in which they lack the standing to participate.

In this light, the answer to question #1 is simply yes.

Other than Paul Bremer, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority; Jay Garner, Office of Reconstruction in Iraq, Department of Defense; William Luti, Chief, Near East and South Asia division of the Department of Defense (see also Larry Franklin); Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control; Tillie K. Fowler, Chairwoman, Defense Policy Board (Richard Perle until March 28th, 2003); Dick Cheney, Vice President; Libby Scooter, Chief of Staff to the Vice President; Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser; Condoleeza Rice, National Security Adviser; George W. Bush, President, and Iyad Allawi, "Interim Prime Minister", and Dr. Hussain al-Shahristani, who declined that job, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Envoy who selected Dr. al-Shahristani for that job, no Iraqi, armed or unarmed, has had the standing to participate in the political process that gives rise to any Iraqi jurisdiction, medieval or modern.

A side-effect of inviting Iraqis associated with resistance military operations in Iraq to Cairo is that doing so will decrement the number of military organizations who will view the Conference as a legitimate military target.

Lara was decided in the previous term, and the Federal Indian Law community still ruminating on what issues were ... er ... settled, and what issues are still ... er ... nomadic.

See also: wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/000671.html.

Posted by EBW at 07:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[via triballaw]

The Southern Ute and Colorado Intergovernmental Agreement Implementation Act of 2004 was signed into law yesterday.

The Act contains language without precedent in the history of Federal Indian Law:

The Administrator is authorized to treat the Tribe as a State for the purpose of any air program applications submitted to the Administrator by the Tribe under section 301(d) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7601(d)) ...

Under the Act, the Southern Ute Tribe has the ability to issue air quality standards and to
issue civil enforcement orders for their violation.

The language quoted above is significantly different from the conditional language that is present in the Clean Air Act.

1980 Settlement Act Maine Tribes take notice. This is what you wanted, not jail time for contempt of a Maine court seeking to enforce Maine's FOIA for paper companies seeking to evade the Federal EPA's water quality controls.

In Federal Indian Law, jurisdiction is everything. This is the shape of a workable future.

Posted by EBW at 10:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (3)

Lots of people think that a President's job approval rating polls is the best predictor of reelection success or failure. Matthew Dowd, a senior strategist for the President's campaign has has said "repeatedly that the president's eventual vote percentage will track closely with his approval rating."

Larry Sabato has written :

Unless President Bush's job approval ratings soar solidly above 50 percent by Election Day, he will not win a second term; that much, history teaches without question.

Somehow, almost mysteriously, a president's job-approval ratings ...begin to become predictive during January and February. And each successive month tends to be a more accurate indicator than the previous month of how that president will fare on Election Day.

I decided to do my own average and see how it compared to RCP. I located the job approval number from six of the most recent national polls (excluding tracking polls) that report job approval. Those are as follows (approve/disaprove):

The Economist 44/52;

Pew 44/48;

Democracy Corps 47/50;

NBC/WSJ 49/47;

Fox News 49/44; and

CBS/NYT 44/48.

The average of those six polls is 46.17 approve, 48.17 disapprove.

I think that spells trouble for Mr. Bush unless those numbers improve in the next 13 days.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (3)

Thought I'd drop in and pull back the curtain on how a lowly State House campaign manager spends her second-to-last-Wednesday-before-the-election. Here's tonight's homework - designing, printing and labelling 400 cards for newly registered voters.

No, it's not all guts and glory. It's a lot of lost sleep and papercuts. And faith in an honestly decent candidate.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[Update for the benefit of the ny.cfr.org reader:
see also archives/001292, published, and archives/001389 (unpublished as of this date). ebw]

23 days after the polls close in the US, there will be a conference in Cairo. The attendee list is the usual suspects -- France, Russia, Germany, Japan, the United States and most of the rest of the nations of Europe (the Club of Paris, collectively owed about $21 billion), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (the Gulf Cooperation Council, collecively owned between $55 billion and $85 billion, depending on whether '80s Iran-Iraq war monies were grants or loans), the IMF (estimates Iraq's external debt at $122 billion, willing to make $4.25 billion new loans), the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the UN Secretary General, the Confederation of Independent States (Russia), China, Iran, Israel (by proxy), Palestine (by proxy) and of course the Allawi regime and its creator, the Bush regime.

The governments of France and Egypt want examination of the continued deployment of US-led troops in Iraq to be on the agenda. The government of the United States does not. The "government" of Iraq wants "debt relief", (creditworthiness and access to private capital) to be on the agenda. The government of France has said the conference on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1546 should also include members of the Iraqi insurgency. The government of the United States disagrees.

So why have a call for papers?

Because two goverments will not be present at the Cairo Conference, the goverments with the most at stake.

The legitimate government of Iraq, arising from elections for all Iraqi administrative and political bodies, consistent with the stated preferences of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (the highest authority for the Iraqi Shi�ites) and Mr. Talabani (the leader of the Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan), and others, made to Agence Press France a year before the conference, will be absent.

The legitimate government of the United States, arising from a careful and complete recount of the Florida ballots and elected, rather than the product of the 10pm December 12th 5-4 decision in Gore v. Bush, reversing Florida Supreme Court and ruling that manual recounts could not be conducted in a constitutional manner in the time remaining, will also be absent.

Either the Bush regime will be looking forward to another four more wars, and its clients will confident of their respective roles, or the Bush regime will be trying for the best lame duck "Final Situation" on Iraq it can manage during transition. It will be vapor-ware either way. The part that will matter will be what the Arabs and Persians and Palestinians and Israelies in Cairo hear from the Americans who are not present -- the beginnings of the Kerry/Edwards government policy.

Think of this as an alternate form of the Koufax Awards. If you are a serious foreign policy intellectual, or play one on the net, and Iraq is part of your self-imposed brief, submit. Submit a brief. Submit some part of a plan. Submit.

Posted by EBW at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Two of the most discussed issues of this election cycle are whether or not pollsters should control for party identification and whether or not the fortune being spent to register new voters and for GOTV will have an impact on the election.

The Gallup poll has taken the most flack for not controlling for party identification and that failure is seen by some as being responsible for Gallup's results fluctuating wildly and for being at odds with other polling. Ruy Teixeira of Donkey Rising, Steve Soto of the Leftcoaster and Chris Bowers of Mydd have led the charge suggesting that Gallup's results are unreliable because of large swings in the party identification of its samples.

Are they right? Frankly, I am not qualified to say.

A second issue has been whether or not the money spent registering new voters and GOTV efforts in general will have an impact on the race. With various groups spending in excess of $300 million, one would expect that some impact but questions remain. Will the newly registered voters actually turn out? Are the numbers of newly registered voters reported accurate? Simply increasing the number of Democratic leaning voters will not necessarily change the election. If my car accelerates to 90 mph, I still lose ground if yours is going 95. Have Democtratic efforts significantly exceeded GOP efforts both nationally and in the states that matter? Once again, I can't say.

Those questions, however, prompted me to take a much harder look at some recent polling in a few swing states. What follows is what I found.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a very important swing state. Its 10 electoral votes might well tip the election either way. Gore won Wisconsin by a razor thin margin in 2000 and both parties are competing vigorously there this year.

The American Research Group (ARG) released a Wisconsin poll conducted fron October 16-19. The top line results showed a dead tie with both Bush and Kerry receiving 47% of the vote, Ralph Nader drawing 2% and 5% undecided.

My initial reaction to those numbers was that the Incumbent Rule would cause the undecided to break for Kerry and that Wisconsin, therefore, looked promising. If the five percent undecided broke 3 for Kerry and 2 for Bush, the final result would be a Kerry win, 50%-49%-1%.

Looking closer at the poll, I noticed that ARG reported the party identification of its sample. They report 35% Democrats, 33% Republicans, and 32% independents.

ARG also reports its cross tabs. Kerry drew the support of 7% of Republicans, 86% of Democrats, and 45% of independents.

George Bush drew 88% of Republicans, 8% of Democrats, and 46% of independents.

Given those levels of support, what would the result be if turnout in 2004 mirrored that of 2000?

ABC News provides exit poll data from the 2000 election. In 2000, the Wisconsin electorate was 37% Democrats, 32% Republicans, and 31% Independents.

I then applied the 2000 exit poll party identification information to the cross tabs of the ARG Wisconsin poll. The results are

Bush 45.5%

Kerry 48.0%

Now that is interesting. Kerry moves from an exact tie to a two and a half point lead if the Wisconsin electorate's party identification in 2004 is identical to 2000. Unless the GOP has gained some ground in party identification in Wisconsin since 2000, or does a much better job of turning out its voters, George Bush is in big trouble in Wisconsin.

New Hampshire

The Wisconsin analysis peaked my interest, so I did the same thing with New Hampshire. The ARG New Hampshire poll has Bush at 47%, Kerry at 46%, Nader at 1% with 6% undecided.

The cross tabs showed Bush with 82%, 11%, and 42% among Republicans, Democrats and Independents, respectively. Kerry's cross tabs show 12%, 84%, and 49% among those same groups.

ABC News 2000 exit poll data, shows a New Hampshire electorate of 32% Republicans, 24% Democrats, and 44% Independents.

Applying the ARG cross tabs to the 2000 exist poll data, I get:

Bush 47.4%

Kerry 45.6%.

Applying the 2000 exit poll party ID to the cross tabs increases Bush's lead from one point to almost 2. Democrats need to hope that demographic change, voter registration efforts, GOTV efforts, or the incumbent rule helps them in New Hampshire.

New Mexico

ARG's New Mexico poll shows Kerry with a two point lead, 48%-46%, with Nader drawing 1% and 5% undecided.

In the cross tabs, Bush draws 88% from the GOP, 16% from Dems, and 43% from Independents. Kerry draws 8% from the GOP, 77% from Dems, and 49% from independents.

ABC 2000 exit poll data shows a New Mexico electorate with 43% Dems, 32% Republicans, and 25% Independents.

Applying the ARG cross tabs to the exist poll data results in the following:

Bush 45.8%

Kerry 47.9%

Like Wisconsin, Democrats do not need to win the registration and GOTV battles to win New Mexico. They do need to hold their own in those efforts.

Ohio

All of that is preliminary, of course. What you really want to know is what is happening in Ohio and Florida. Let's take Ohio first. Bush won Ohio in 2000 by three and a half percentage points even with Nader drawing 2.5% and Gore abandoning the state due to a lack of resources. It is ground zero in this year's election.

There have been lots of recent polls in Ohio. Mark Blumentahl, the Mystery Pollster, has a great post on interpreting those polls in light of the Incumbent Rule. The various horse race numbers range from Bush +5 in a Fox poll to Kerry + 3 in the ABC poll (links available at Mystery Pollster). I wanted to use Fox for my analysis but it did not report cross tabs. I then chose the Ohio Poll.

The top line of that poll has Kerry + 2, 48% to 46%.

The cross tabs have Bush pulling 90% of Republican support, 7% of Democratic support, and only 26% of independents.

John Kerry has 7% of Republicans, 88% of Democrats, and 55% of independents.

ABC's exit poll data shows an evenly divided 2000 Ohio electorate of 37% Repubicans, 38% Democrats, and 26% Independents.

Applying the Ohio cross tabs to the 2000 exit poll data we get:

Bush 42.7%

Kerry 50.3%

Wow. Adjusting the Ohio Poll to the party turnout from 2000 ups Kerry's lead from 2% to more than 7%. President Bush needs to greatly increase GOP turnout, find some way to increase his support among independents or find some way to 270 electoral votes without Ohio.

Florida

Florida, with 27 electoral votes, is the big enchillada of swing states. The least favorable to John Kerry of recent Florida polls is the Mason-Dixon poll. It has a top line of Bush + 3 with Bush receiving 48% support, Kerry garnering 45%, others (Nader) drawing 1% and 6% undecided.

Other polls, such as Survey USA (Kerry +1), Insider Advantage (Kerry + 4), and the University of North Florida poll (Kerry + 1) show a Kerry lead. For all Florida polls, see 2.004k.com and scroll down to Florida.

The Mason-Dixon cross tabs show Bush getting 88% of Republicans, 14% of Democrats, and 39% of Independents. Kerry gets 7% of Republicans, 79% of Democrats, and 49% on independents.

ABC's 2000 Florida exit poll shows a Florida electorate of 40% Democrats, 38% Republicans, and 22% Independents.

When we apply the Mason Dixon cross tabs to the party ID of the 2000 exit poll data, we get:

Bush 47.6%

Kerry 45.0%

If Democrats want to win Florida, Kerry needs to increase his vote share among Democrats and Independents, or demographic change since 2000 needs to favor the Democrats, or Democratic voter registration and GOTV efforts need to change the party ID mix, or the indecideds need to break heavily for Kerry.

Of course, by choosing the Mason-Dixon poll, I favored the Republicans. If we choose the Survey USA poll that has a top line of Kerry 50%, Bush 49%, and apply its cross tabs to the 2000 election poll data, we get:

Bush 46.0%

Kerry 52.7%.

The major difference in those two polls is that Survey USA has Kerry solidifying his base, drawing 91% of Democratic support while Mason Dixon has him languishing at 79% of Democrats. That difference translates into a 4.8% bump when applied to the 2000 exit poll data. Who is right? Who knows.

My guess is that the Democrats have some work to do in Florida both in terms of getting out the vote and in terms of persuading soft Democrats.

Conclusion

Conventional wisdom is that Democrats must win new voter registration efforts and must also win the GOTV battle to prevail in this election. My analysis suggests that if Democtrats simply turn out an electorate in 2004 that is identical in party identification to the 2000 electorate, they will win such swing states as Wisconsin, Ohio, New Mexico, and, perhaps, Florida.

That conclusion is premised on the cross tabs of the selected polls being accurate (a huge assumption), the numbers remaining static over the next 13 days (an even larger assumption), and the incorrect assumption that there have been no demographic changes in the swing states since 2000.

Nonetheless, I entered the analysis with the idea that Democrats needed big wins in both registration and GOTV to win swing states. That may not be the case. Simply not losing ground in those areas may be enough. That said, everybody get back to work in those phone banks.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

It should come as little surprise to the readers of wampum that we are involved in the campaign. This video is now available, like MoveOn.org's "Iraq Uncovered" video, and Michael Moore's "9/11" video, and the video biography of Karl Rove ("Bush's Brain"). To order, please go directly to GoingUpRiver.Com.

Posted by EBW at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

We watched Betty Castor and Mel Martinez debate with Tim Russert last night, and it was interesting at several levels. The format and role of the moderator was different, more response demanding and less differential, than the formats of the three John Kerry and George W. Bush, or the John Edwards and Dick Chenney debates. The candidates spent 15 minutes on Professor Sami Al-Arian, who's tour of duty in a Federal facility may not be any longer than any of the other ultra-high-profile "terrorist" prosecutions under Ashcroft (from pre-trial to acquital). I don't have internal polling numbers, but I thought that social security and the economy and hurricane preparedness and response would be more interesting to voters than one University System's "liability" for professorial errantry. Just think if Betty had been Chancellor of the US System, with the Berkeley academic faculty to "explain".

I believe in capping some forms of liability, and that is why I'm giving Mel and his modern muslim McCarthism exactly 60 seconds of my time. Professor Sami Al-Arian has not been convicted of charges relating to "terrorism", and if he isn't there will be hell to pay. Richard Milhouse Nixon ran just this number on Helen Gahagan Douglas, saying that Congresswoman Douglas was "pink right down to her underwear" in his congressional campaign in California in 1950. And that is 60 seconds ladies and gentlemen.

Betty made another mistake when Mel ran the vaccine manufacturer liability protection flag up. She saluted it. She should have said "ugh, they already have it!" and left Mel sputtering.

Vaccine producers in this country have been protected for over a decade, and all vaccine injuries go through the National Vaccine Compensation Fund, and are capped at 300K for non-medical damages, including death. Vaccine shortages have nothing to do with lawsuits. It's about consolidation and how little profit is made from vaccines (which are bought in bulk by governments, and hence subject to "price controls".)

Mel is a trial lawyer, she should know this stuff. She hopes to swim in Bill Frist's pool, and that pool doesn't have a shallow end. John Kerry made the same mistake in the 3rd debate when he let George W. Bush slip the vaccine liability sound-bite by without comment.

Overall I thought that Mel did pretty good, which was not the outcome I was hoping for.

Jerome Armstrong has a press-endorsement summary tagged onto his para-length debate watching notes at mydd.com.

Posted by EBW at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

George Bush apparently thinks he is infallable. John Kerry does not and, as a result, learns from his mistakes. I noted one trivial example tonight.

Local sports is a minefield for any visting politician. It is hard to talk about local sports without offending someone.

For instance, Hesiod reminds us of when John Kerry committed a Wisconsin faux pas by referring to the Green Bay Packers home field as "Lambert Field" instead of "Lambeau Field." That is a rookie error.

Kerry learned from that error (and others). He now knows how to walk the narrow, twisting path between the dangers of local sports. Via Wonkette:

Josh Shkolnik, a Kerry supporter from Akron, wearing a Cleveland Browns' jersey, described himself as a "huge fan of yours.''

"Whose going to win the game today?'' Kerry asked. Shkolnik answered, "The Brownies are,'' to which Kerry added, "I knew you were going to say that. What's the spread on it?''

"I think the Browns are favored by a couple,'' Shkolnik replied.

Another man asked, "Senator are you a Bengals or a Browns' fan?''

"Man, I'm an Ohio vote fan,'' Kerry said. "That's what I am.'' Then he turned to a TV reporter and said, "I want to win Ohio. And I'm going to fight for every vote until the last moment to the last day.''

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 01:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Command will offer quiet, painless general discharges, and reprimands.

You don't have to take their offer.

You can insist on a Court Martial, and put the fact issues on the table.

Traditionally, the active duty component dumps on the reserves, and just as traditionally, the reserves, who are older and who have been there, done that, have lower BS tolerences then ... men and women who haven't yet made it into the reserve component. Traditionally, the active duty component isn't dependent upon the reserves for every drop of gas and every round of ammo they need just to maintain defensive readiness, and traditionally, they aren't stuck wicked deep in Indian Country with an impossible logistics tail to defend.

I urge you all to take your time when considering command's initial negociating offer. You are not responsible for the necessity of running MSR Tampa, either the quiet sections or the hot sections. The impossible situation you are in originates in poor judgement made two years ago, stateside, and your legal situation is really a political situation, which cannot be resolved on your terms anywhere else but stateside, and in the fullest light of day.

You'll get offers. Command will look for the quietest solution. If it isn't to your advantage, you have an alternative.

If you decide you need lawyers, they can be found. If you decide to take the General Discharge, that's your right too under the UCMJ.

I can tell you that from the OSD on down, this little weblog has been the read-of-the-day for the past 36 hours, and that isn't typical for us POAs.

Update:
Writing for Stars and Stripes Eugene Fidell (Harvard Law) had this to say:

... the alleged failure of the reservists to obey a lawful order is “obviously impermissible,” Fidell said. It puts lives at risk, cracks the foundations of military discipline, and can harm morale.

It may have been an unwise order, but you can’t have people refusing orders. It’s hardwired in military life, particularly in combat elements, and that’s not something [leadership] will tolerate."

Where do people come up with ... stuff like this?

Professor Fidell apparently is unaware that people, even units, routinely refuse or creatively improve upon "orders", and in a wide variety of circumstances. Some disputed "orders" turn out to be non-orders, for reasons of illegality or intervening circumstances, and some turn out to be stupid orders which command has to straighten out. Oh well, if Rob WIlliams wasn't a visitor at Harvard Law, it wouldn't be a very good place to learn about Federal Indian Law either.

Its only Stars and Stripes. Here is the fink.

Posted by EBW at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post tracking poll has President Bush leading by three, 50%-47%, among net leaned "likely voters."

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Rasmussen tracking poll tied at 47%.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Zogby's tracking poll has the Presidential race tied at 45%.

When I first learned about politics at my mother's knee, it was accepted that an incumbent polling at 45% two weeks out is in more than a wee bit of trouble.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 10:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I'm votink for W darlink.

International terrorism pursues a goal of causing the maximum possible damage to US President George Bush and preventing him from being reelected for a second term.

If international terrorists achieve this goal, they will celebrate a victory over America and the whole anti-terrorist coalition, which could lead to an increase in international terrorism.

On the plus side Putin also said the Russian government would respect the choice of the American people, so voting for Kerry won't actually be voting for a remake of "The Russians are coming" or "Red Dawn".

Terrorism, organized crime and religious extremism head the CACO agenda. See my piece on the plutonium economy for subtext.

Posted by EBW at 09:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As noted below, John Kerry is charging that the administration has a "January surprise" in store to privatize Social Security:

Kerry said Bush's plan would "blow a $2 trillion hole in Social Security" and, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, translate into a 25% to 45% cut in benefits. He released an ad Sunday making the same points, to run in states his aides declined to name.

Bush outlined the gist of his plan in the pair's final debate last week and said it would be "a vital issue" in his second term. He said older beneficiaries would "continue to get their checks." He did not say whether they would be the same amount or what he would do to make up the shortfall as young workers took their money out of the pool for retirees.

Next line for Kerry: "Bill Clinton put an end to welfare as we know it. George W. Bush plans to end Social Security as we know it. Do you want that?"

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Bush, said Kerry lifted a "made-up" quote from a reporter hostile to Bush "to make a false, baseless attack."

Schmidt said the president never used the word "privatized" because his plan would not privatize the system.

A Knight Ridder story about the admnistration's preparation for post war Iraq includes the following:

"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.

Before Mr. Bush's inkling can be properly characterized as a "plan," a number of queston must be answered.

First, and foremost, Mr. Bush needs to answer how he is going to pay for private accounts. Social Security taxes on the current generation of workers are used to pay the benefits of the current generation of retirees. Diverting two percentage points of Social Security taxes to private accounts would open a gap in Social Security funding of at least one trillion dollars. That figure is from a CBO study conducted three years ago. The current cost is likely to be at least $1.5 trillion and perhaps as high as $2 trillion.

The gap can only be closed in two ways, higher taxes or lower benefits. If we choose to pay as we go, those burdens will be borne by current retirees (in the form of lower benefits) or current workers (in the form of higher taxes).

Alternatively, we could borrow the money to finance the gap in which case the costs, plus interest on the loan, will be borne by future workers (in the form of higher taxes) or future retirees (in the form of lower benefits).

There was a time, only four years ago, in which we had the money to finance such a transition to a system of private accounts. That opportunity evaporated as the current adminstration chose instead to increase spending and to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans. If Mr. Bush believes that reforming Social Security to include private accounts is essential to the interests of the country, he should have proposed them in 2001 and agreed to forego his tax cut for the $300,000 a year crowd to pay for the transition. He did not do so. Now he has a much harder set of financing options. Until he chooses one of those options, he can not be said to have a plan.

Mr. Bush's notion of moving to an "ownership society" involves shifting risks to individuals. He can not be said to have a plan until he clearly states what happens when the risk comes crashing down fall on a specific person. If a person invests his or her private accounts in Enron stock, will society permit that person to simply starve to death in old age? If not, the fiscal argument for private accounts crumbles.

There are risks other than bad stock selection as well. The idea of private accounts is to permit investment in stocks instead of bonds in order to generate greater returns without the government selecting the stocks. Over the long haul, a highly diversified portfolio of stocks does have greater returns than a similar portfolio of government bonds.

The greater returns of stocks in comparison to bonds is generated by assuming greater risk. Stocks may provide greater returns in the long run but retirement is on a date certain. A person who unluckily retires during a bear market may find the greater returns of stocks to be an illusion. Are we going to let such unlucky persons simply starve?

Bonds are different. They are a loan to the government (or a corporation) with a date certain on which the principle will be paid back. If interest rates rise, causing the value of the bond to drop, the lender (the bond holder) can always opt to simply collect his or her interest payments, wait for the bond to mature, and reclaim the loan principle. As an aside, that is one reason not to invest in bond mutual funds. One part of the Tao of Deb is "bond funds are like men, they never mature."

Unless the private Social Security accounts are invested in stocks, there is no greater return than the current arrangement. Until Mr. Bush explains exactly what happens to those who suffer from taking on the greater risk of stocks, he has no plan.

Finally, one part of Social Security is not a retirement plan at all. Social Security provides benefits to widows, orphans, and the disabled. It is a form of social insurance. Until Mr. Bush explains what effect private accounts will have on the social insurance (as opposed to the retirement) aspect of Social Security, he has no plan.

There are other problems associated with private accounts. Those problems include lack of investment sophistication of many Americans, opportunity for fraud, administrative costs, and many, many others. Until those problems are addressed, Mr. Bush has a theory, not a plan. You can see how well his theories play out in practice by watching the news from Iraq.

John Kerry is right to attack Mr. Bush for his stance on Social Security. He is wrong to call it a plan.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinabe from the Makwa Dodaem of the Mississippi Band of the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. She co-founded Women of All Red Nations (WARN), which is how I originally knew of her. In the last cycle she ran with Ralph Nader on the National Green Party ballot,

Sam Lewin has a piece in Native American TImes where he works as Managing Editor. Earlier in the cycle I was on a conference call with Sam and the editors of two other national Indian papers about the meeting between General Wes Clark (ret) and two members of the Swanton Abenaki Band Council in mid-December and the endorsement of Wes Clark by the Swanton Band at the end of that month. The links to his pieces are in a note in Triballaw.

I'll update with links to other National Indian media outlets as I come across them.

Thanks to reader VJ for the note in comments to MB's note that she will be missing in action for the rest of the cycle. MB's candidate, Elizabeth Trice, running as a Maine Independent Green, voted for the Nader/LaDuke ticket in the prior cycle, and when Nader came to Portland last week, went on-record and on-camera that she supports Kerry/Edwards and asked Nader not to seek votes in swing states. [NB. The Democrat in this local race wants to grow Maine's economy by ... (insert drumroll here) ... lowering the top marginal tax rate. Turn your hymnals back to page 1986 and sing "God Rest Ye Merry Ronald Wilson Reagan" in the key of b very flat, then turn your hymnal to the current page and sing "Joy to the Bushes, Let Marginal Rates Sink" in the key of Gee.]

Can you spot when the Dems set tax policy, and when they didn't? In theory (Ralph's) the graph is flat.

Posted by EBW at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As predicted in this space, John Kerry jumped all over the George Bush quote in Ron Suskind's Without a Doubt that suggested Mr. Bush plans to privatize Social Security in a second term. The Washington Post reports:

John F. Kerry accused President Bush of having a secret, second-term plan to privatize Social Security starting in January, telling a church audience Sunday that the idea is "a disaster for America's middle class."

Kerry based this allegation on a secondhand, unattributed account of a private speech Bush reportedly delivered to Republican supporters in September. "I am going to come in strong after my swearing in . . . with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security," Bush was quoted as saying in a Sunday New York Times Magazine article that was highly critical of the president. It was written by Ron Suskind, co-author with former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill of a book condemning the Bush administration...

Kerry and running mate John Edwards repeated the charge during rallies in Florida, where the concerns of retirees can dominate elections and Social Security is always a top concern.

"This might be a good surprise for the wealthy and well-connected, but it's a disaster for the middle class," Kerry told the congregation at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Columbus. "The president's privatization plan for Social Security is another way of saying to our seniors that the promise of security is going to be broken."

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of these days (probably after 11/2) I'll be around here for longer than a day. But for the next 16 days, I'll be once again, mostly absent. I've been hired on as the CM for one of the most competitive House races in the state, and would really like to win this one. Generally, it's just business... This one is personal as well.

Dwight and Eric will hold down the fort, as they have since the primary season. However, please keep an especially close eye (and open your wallet if possible) for the very, very close Senate race of Betty Castor in Florida. One of my dearest friends is senior staff and working her heart out in the Sunshine State.

I also have to remember to mail out some Maine Blueberries for a dear friend. Sadly, the season was one of the worst in recent history, but I managed to score a couple, and I hear they're wonderful.

Posted by MB Williams at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by EBW at 10:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In July I wrote about a political trial in Iran. I thought (and still think) that case was important. Here is the link. Recently Juan Cole has written about a series of arrests that have taken place in Iran. I started to write about the journalists and bloggers arrested, but unpaid life interveaned. Not to be missed however is the stream of clerics from Iraq who go to Qom to consult with Grand Ayatollah Hoseynali Montazeri, who was released from confinement early 2003.

Professor Cole also wrote something that caught my eye, and since I'd been groveling about in Iranian Orbat data circa 1982-1988 apropos of groveling about in Iraqi Orbat data circa 1982-1988 apropos of the military necessity of SCR 687 and the elephant in the KE04 Iraq War Room -- the role of the Democraic administrations and Sanctions after Gulf War I in creating the conditions and actors that define Gulf War II -- I started groveling about current Iranian Orbat data.

I don't have any conclusions to offer, but the 1982 plan (Iraqi) and the latest OPLAN 1002 (US)

The actions in this stage would be focused on Iran’s centers of gravity. These operations would be designed to break the Iranian will to continue fighting and to achieve an early termination of the conflict on terms favorable to the US and its allies. For warfighting operations CENTCOM would: destroy Iranian offensive capability; eliminate Iranian WMD programs; restore pre-conflict international boundaries; eliminate Iranian military alliances; establish regional stability on terms favorable to US interests; and restore free flow of oil. The current Iranian government regime would be replaced.

What really disturbs me is the unsought resonance from the current over-cocao-with-the-children reading, Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems, a thesis by Major Thomas Griffith, Jr. I'm aware I haven't written anything on the subject yet, so the dots aren't there for anyone to try and pencil in. Eventually I'll get something written, even the piece on wilayat-i faqih (overdue).

Posted by EBW at 10:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Ron Suskind's New York Times Magazine article about President Bush, Without a Doubt is now available on-line. It is a very scary portrait of our President's rejection of reality based decision-making with faith based instinct. The article is a must read.

One item in the article suggests a line of attack for John Kerry. Suskind quotes Bush as telling a group of well heeled supporters of his plans for a second term:

''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.''

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Frank Luntz, of all people, syas that it is time for President Bush to get worried:

Step by step, debate-by-debate, John Kerry has addressed and removed many remaining doubts among uncommitted voters. My own polling research after each debate suggests a rather bleak outlook for the Bush candidacy: many who still claim to be “undecided” are in fact leaning to Mr. Kerry and are about ready to commit...

Can Mr. Bush turn the tide in just 18 days? Absolutely, but his candidacy must address voters who still harbour economic and national security concerns. But that requires a fundamental shift in the president’s strategy and message.

Asserting that the economy is strong and Iraq a success is simply not credible to the majority of Americans or to the stubborn 5 per cent who remain uncommitted...[I]f he (Bush) wants to be the speaker rather than spectator at the next presidential inauguration, he will need to turn in a perfect performance every day from now through the election perfection that has eluded him so far.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 11:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[more updates]

17 or 19 soldiers have been read their rights under the UCMJ and have been taken into custody. I'll update this as news comes in. It appears that they disobeyed an illegal order, to conduct routine logistics ops but delivering fuel known to be water contaminated to combat units (sabotage) and doing so without combat support and draw casualties (standing orders on force protection).

The unit was tasked to traverse Main Supply Route Tampa in unarmoured fuel transports with a top speed of 40 mph without gun-truck or rotary-wing escort. Separately, the fuel load is reported to have been water-contaminated and rejected by a combat unit seeking fuel resupply the previous day.

Army Times coverage gives the Oct 15th story above-the-e-fold currently.

AP coverage includes a message from Specialist Amber McClenny, received early Thursday morning by her mother that the unit had been detained and was under armed guard.

"This is a real, real, big emergency," McClenny said in her message. "I need you to contact someone. I mean, raise pure hell. We had broken down trucks, non-armoured vehicles and, um, we were carrying contaminated fuel. They are holding us against our will. We are now prisoners."

Recommended additional reading -- Stephanie Heinatz' series on MSR Tampa in the Hampton Roads Daily Press:

• 11 Oct. lessons-learned.

• 9 Oct. an MSR Tampa run.

• 8 Oct. Traffic jam, Baghdad segment of MSR Tampa.

• 5 Oct. an MSR Tampa run.

• 26 Sept. Gun trucks (.50 cal mounted Hummer).

• 26 Sept. Armoring the logistcs tail (note the Hummer suspension is insufficent to carry 1,000 pounds of armor plate. This is probably something you didn't want to know, that the Hummer is really ... unsafe at any speed).

• 22 Sept. a travelog (softnews).

• 21 Sept. :Trucker's Heaven. She's got one important quote:
  

  
  "Yet it's still the place they bring all the broken-down equipment," Davidson said. "Scania is too small to house it and no one will drive a broken vehicle to Anaconda because it's north of Baghdad."
  

  
  Emphasis added. The squad from the 343rd was ordered to take deadlined M-19 trucks and deadlined tankers north of Baghdad.
  

Grr. Neither Cole nor Black are going to do more than a de minimus. Not their soccer balls.

Update: Cole write-up captures the three elements. Good. Ties to KE04 critique of BC04 too. Also Good.

Update: Stars and Strips reports the squad members are no longer under guard, but are still confined to base. The back-off from charged-with-mutiney seems to have begun. The Merc has the "just released" story also.

Update: The contaminant was diesel, not water, and the fuel was for helicopters. Members of the squad are being demoted and reassigned. I still don't know the details of the rejection of the same load, the prior tasking for the squad. The base tasked and refused (unsafe order, unsafe fuel) was Taji, 27 klicks from central Baghdad. The 5,000 foot runway is visible in the photo. I selected this one to best convay the problem -- a convoy of gas trucks, without escort, personal arms only, with a top speed of 40 mph, in a cell phone rich environment, taking over an hour to transit a metro area to a well-known destination. It isn't the first 450 klicks, though there is some danger there. It is the last 45 klicks, which are profoundly dangerous.

Update: Mary Jacoby's write up from Salon.

Update: The CSM has an interesting piece. There is a blind quote from a 343rd member, paraphrased as: ... the soldiers' training had focused on skills such as testing fuel for contamination and running water-purification systems, rather than combat tasks ... , and a this:

Brig. Gen. James Chambers, COSCOM commander, said the investigation would last 10 to 14 days. He denied assertions reported by families of 343rd soldiers that the convoy in question carried contaminated fuel ...

Update: Greeting .mil readers. In no particular order, and just to bust caches, an update.

kuwait.army.mil obvious
iraq.centcom.mil obvious
korea.army.mil USFK
nipr.mil NIPR Proxy (DISA gateway, cbus playpen)
hqda.pentagon.mil HQ Dept. of Army
usar.army.mil Army Reserve
hood.army.mil Ft. Hood III Corps (TX) where they do have Mozilla
centcom.mil obvious
hoffman.army.mil Human Resources
cnet.navy.mil Chief of Naval Education and Training
gordon.army.mil Signal Center, Ft. Gordon
dcaa.mil Defense Contract Audit Agency
eustis.army.mil Transportation Corps, Ft. Eustis
chs.spawar.navy.mil Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR)
nrl.navy.mil Navel Research Lab
stripes.osd.mil Office of the SecDef
forscom.army.mil Army Forces Command
ngb.army.mil National Guard Bureau
nmci.navy.mil Navy Marine Corps Intranet
redstone.army.mil Redstone Arsenal

Welcome all.

Update: The Seattle PI has a balenced OpEd piece. It misses the fuel contamination question, but otherwise is the best thus far link.

Update (19Oct am EST):
Banerjee and Kifner write an important piece in the NYTimes: Reservists Who Refused Order Tried to Persuade Superiors. This piece is being picked up broadly.

Andy Martin's note appeared briefly yesterday at mediamonitors.net, however the site appears to be down and google caches the spash page, not the article. The original is here The title of Martin's note is "Mississippi Mutiny" is IED aimed at President Bush. I've saved it, and if it vanishes too, I'll post it in the extended entry.

I've put the advice of a career Army officer, who I grew up with, at 001281. In a nutshell it is refuse the easy disciplinary offer and go for the CM. The odds-on outcomes look better for that route, and a career is a terrible thing to waste covering up felony-stupid and illegal orders for a Command that has an overhang problem.

Welcome soc.mil, bragg.army.mil, amedd.army.mil (Walter Reed), grafenwoehr.army.mil, afspc.af.mil (space and missile command), dfas.mil (defense finance and accounting service), irwin.army.mil (ntc), nga.mil (national geospatial-intelligence agency), areur.army.mil, msl.army.mil (redstone again) and peacecorps.gov (joining regular readers opm.gov, house.gov, nih.gov, nasa.gov, usdoj.gov, irs.gov, jccbi.gov, noaa.gov, dhs.gov, epa.gov, sec.gov, llnl.gov, uscourts.gov, usda.gov, lanl.gov and several states.gov).

Update (20Oct am EST):
Welcome mlrnoc.navy.mil (mid-atlantic regional network operations center), sill.army.mil and usma.army.mil, afit.af.mil (wright-patterson), randalph.af.mil.
CENTCOM announces that an officer in the 343rd's COC has been relieved of duty. Not good, but better than the alternative thus far.

Update (21Oct am EST):
Welcome dtra.mil (Defense Threat Reduction Agency, some WMD folks attached to DSC Philly).

Writing for the Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississipi), Jeremy Hudson reports that the identity of the officer who gave the refused order, and who then ordered the arrest of the 17 or 18 or 19 soldiers is Capt. Nancy Daniels of Birmingham. Jeremy gets some rather telling quotes from the families of the soldiers.

Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, director of the Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad went on record that the fuel load in question was not contaminated. Boylan is spinning the issue as confusion between fuel grades (JP8 and DF2), which doesn't jibe with the eye witness accounts of failure to purge tanks between changes of fuel loads, or the same-load-refused-as-contaminated statements. The basis for his expertise in the subject matter area has not been disclosed.

Boylan also went on record that a criminal investigation has begun, and that the scope of that investigation will not include anyone in the chain of command. The basis for a pre-determined investigative scope has not been disclosed.

Col. Darrell Roll, deputy commander of the 13th Corps Support Command will conduct an AR 15-6, (informal command investigation). The AR 15-6 will gather interviews and collect evidence on the conduct of the men and women, not on the fuel question, and not on the deadlined vehicle question, that is, those questions that go to the possibility of a command problem.

The Army TImes is running a "tell us what you think" exploitation in their on-line comments. The general tenor is "fire, aim, ready". The reporting at Stars and Stripes is at about the level. Of course, neither journal really can write about command errors or logistical snafus dispassionately, so the tenor is morality and obedience and regulars-vs-reservists testosterone metrics.

Belated welcome (I had to invert my logfile and do the lookups, listed in network address oreder) to:
DOE-Oak Ridge Operations, National Institutes of Health, Army Information Systems Command (Fort Lee, VA), DoD Network Information Center (Vienna, VA), U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms, US Federal Highway Administration (Washington, DC), General Motors Corporation, and about 110 others, many of whom use technically-challenged-by-DNS ISPs, and companies who, um, are in the same boat.

It is sobering to see the range of personal interest in the men and women of the 343rd, people coming in from work as well as from home, as well as the range of institutional interests that need to track a blog in Maine.

Update (25 Oct):
Welcome 20 CONS/CC (shaw.af.mil), s-tnosc.army.mil ("S" Theater Network Operations and Security Center, Ft. Gordon -- you guys must be bored to be reading blogs, say "hi" to Steve Winterfield) and house, state, and usda dot gov.

Posted by EBW at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

I am getting pretty tired of folks mocking special needs kids. A polical flier that mocks Special Olympic particpants is the latest example.

The incident involves a flier depicting George W. Bush as a child running in a Special Olympic race. The caption says "Voting for George Bush is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded." A copy of the flyer is here.

Either the flyer was being distributed by the campaign office of Democratic Tennessee state representative Craig Fitzhugh, or is part of a dirty trick operation by the GOP. Bill Hobbs thinks it was distributed by the Democrats. Nick Confessore at Tapped thinks it is part of a dirty trick campaign.

AP stories about the flyer are here and here.

Was the flier distributed by the Democrats or was it part of a GOP dirty trick? I think the later for several reasons.

First, the Democrat, Graig Fitzhugh, immediately denied any involvement and immediately provided a witness to support his position:

Fitzhugh's office put AP in touch with a woman named Katie Honey, who said she was one of the two volunteers in the office the day the fliers were delivered last week.

"Someone brought them in and they left. I looked at them and said, 'This is not something we need in here. This goes in the trash,' " she said. "Well, here comes a man up and raising Cain and Mr. (David) Reynolds (the other volunteer) told him they were out in the trash. He went and picked it out of the trash and said, 'Well, this is going in the paper.' "

She said the second man did not come back after picking the flier out of the trash.

Secondly, the Republican challenger, Dave Dahl, who was hyping the story, could not immediately provide AP with the name of a person to whom the flier was distributed. Dahl told AP that the person who could verify the distribution "was out of town and could not immediately be reached."

Dahl, however, contends that the flier was distributed at Fitzhugh's office for at least two weeks. If that is true, one person being out of town should have been no obstacle to providing a witness to the distribution.

The Traditional Values Coalition was also pushing the story. When the TVC finally gave the AP the name of a person, James Mitchell, who it said could verify the distribution, Mr. Mitchell did not do so:

But the man conservative activists promised could finger Fitzhugh told The Associated Press only that ''someone'' got it from ''somebody.'' ...

Andrea Lafferty with the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition adamantly told The AP she knew the man who could implicate the Fitzhugh campaign with the flier. But James Mitchell of Ripley said he has no idea where it came from.

''This should not be a political thing. This is something making fun of special needs children,'' Mitchell said in a phone interview. ''I don't want it pinned on Fitzhugh, I want it pinned on the one who done it. Fitzhugh is a nice man.''

Mitchell said he didn't know who did it.

''I don't feel like talking anymore about this,'' he said.

Finally, conservatives often mock special needs kids. I have previously discussed Michael Savage mocking autistic children. Rush Limbaugh mocks people with Asperger's Syndrome saying that their difficulties with social skills would disappear with the consumption of "copious quantities of adult beverages."

Neal Boortz describes ADHD as a phony disease made up by lazy teachers and bad parents.

For some reason, mocking special needs kids is acceptable in conservative circles. It is not acceptable in polite circles. That makes me think the the dirty trick scenario is more likely.

Whoever chose to mock special needs kids and the Special Olympics should stop. There is nothing funny about it.

Last Tuesday, it was my turn to meet the bus returning my nine year old autistic son, Bobby, home from school. We came into the house and I began to fix his after school snack. Bobby was having none of it and repeatedly pushed his backpack into my hands. That is Bobby's way of making a request as he is not yet verbal.

I opened the backpack and took out the notebook containing the daily report from Bobby's teacher. I read that Bobby's class had attended a Special Olympics bowling event. As I was reading, Bobby was looking through the backpack. He emerged, beaming from ear to ear, holding a yellow ribbon signifying that he had placed third (out of seven) in the Special Olympics bowling event.

He placed the ribbon in my hand and stood beside me expectantly. After a while, Bobby's far too dense father figured out that Bobby was waiting to be "awarded" the ribbon for his accomplishment. I made a production out of it, praising Bobby for his expert bowling (he scored 53 which is not bad even considering that the management had closed the gutters, preventing any turn from scoring zero), and pinning the ribbon to his shirt. He accepted the award proudly, then immediately took off the ribbon and placed it back in my hand.

He was ready for a repeat performance of the award ceremony. We repeated the ceremony several more times, each time with Bobby exhibiting pride in his accomplishment and his award.

When my wife returned home, Bobby insisted on having the ceremony several more times amid lots of praise and fanfare. Bobby kept the ribbon with him until I took it away to put him in the tub. While I was distracted, he got out of the tub, retreived his prize, and reentered the tub. The ribbon did not surive the bath, but the memory of the accomplishment surely will.

Finishing third of seven in a bowling tournament for autistic kids may not seem like much to you, but it meant a lot to my son. It meant a lot to us as well, as we considered it evidence that Bobby is making progress.

Bobby, like many autistics, has trouble recognizing symbolism. To him, a picture is a piece of paper that looks a certain way but he has rarely shown that he makes any connection between the image and the person depicted. Only recently has he become capivated by images in a mirror.

His pride in being awarded the ribbon was a recognition that the ribbon represented something. He was using the ribbon as a symbol of his accomplishment. That is progress and we relished it. We latch onto and savor any and every small indicator of progress. I call that the Jesse Jackson approach. It helps us to "keep hope alive."

What it is about Bobby's pride in his acheivement and our small measure of hope that causes conservative commentators, and perhaps GOP dirty tricksters, to want to mock us, I do not know. I do know that they should stop.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Victor Gonzalez was born in Salinas in 1985. He graduated from Watsonville High School, and joined the Watsonville Police Department as a cadet in 2001. His younger brother Eden is still at WHS, His yougest Oscar is in the 2nd grade at Pajaro Valley Unified, and his sister Myrna will start kindergarden next year. Eden, Oscar and Myrna all live with their parents, Serge and Amalia Gonzalez.

Victor was sent to Iraq on September 2nd and was killed yesterday.

The Monterey County Herald coverage is here.

Marine Lance Corporal Victor A. Gonzalez, a rifleman assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, is the first resident of Monterey County to have been killed in Iraq.

Posted by EBW at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As usual, Charlie Cook has some interesting things to say about the election.

On cherry picking polls:

Unrelated to your question, my advice to people is to not pay too much attention to any one poll, there is a temptation to cherry pick, to focus on the one or two polls that tell you what you want to see happen the most, and ignore all others as methodologically flawed. I would look at the averages of polls that are published in various places, an average of many polls is most likely to give you a truer picture than any one.

On undecideds breaking for the challenger:

I cannot remember ever seeing a race where a well-known, well-defined incumbent won a half or more of the undecided vote. Generally it is at least two-thirds to three-quarters going to the challenger, somebody was throwing a figure around of 85 percent, don't know if that is right. But as a general rule, undecided voters overwhelmingly break toward challengers, unless the incumbent is relatively unknown, undefined, appointed or something.

That's why it is a mistake for people to focus on the spread between the two candidates, the far more relevant figure is the actual vote percentage of the incumbent in a poll (or better, average of polls). If you assume that Nader/others get about two percent of the vote (down from combined 3.1 percent last time), if President Bush is at 46, 47 or maybe 48 percent of the vote going into election day, he probably loses, 49 percent, on the cusp, 50 percent wins.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 11:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

National Organization of Weaklings? No Thanks.

After that, who needs AARP? The same bundle of 55-and-up "non-poor" demographic targeted goods and services is sold by AAA, and the AAA hasn't silently morphed into a club for Hummer owners and other Heavy-SUV wannabies.

When Equality Maine endorsed a white Repbulican heterosexual male over an Indian Democrat lesbian female, it was also profoundly surprising, until one looked at the leadership of Equality Maine. Leadership overlap with Casinos NO! (Indian hating) trumpted party, gender, and orientation.

After that, who needs Equality Maine? The same bundle of incumbant-favoring, crony-preference defective goods and diservices is sold by the Maine Chambers of Commerce, and the MCoC hasn't silently morphed (back) into a club for the paper mills.

Today I learned that the Portland Chapter of the National Organization of Women (ME0275) , via its PAC, endorsed a fetal-rights more-work-requirements-for-general-assistance Democrat MAN over a safe-legal-rare increase-ga-for-single-parents Independent Green WOMAN.

Jennifer Halm-Perazone hung up on me when I didn't listen with the appropriate passivity while she enlightened me on the process that brought about this ... miracle.

After this, who needs Maine's NOW? The same bundle of Party-favoring, reproductive-rights and economic-wrongs blind bunk is sold by Maine's Democratic and Republican Coordinated Campaigns in local races.

Charlie Harlow favors cutting vital social programs including job training, health care, in-home support and early-childhood intervention to balance the budget (Source: MERI Survey). So he's a better NOW endorsement than a woman who said "No" . Charlie Harlow favors "fetal rights" over an unconditional right of choice (Source: Dirago Alliance). So he's a better NOW endorsement than a woman who said "safe, legal and rare".

Just what was the NOW PAC's point about only candidates who support for reproductive rights without restrictions, or economic equality? They were just faking it, neh?

Oh well. Maybe EMILY's List will pick up right-to-life welfare-reform men in the next cycle.

Posted by EBW at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Jack Pine Savage, otherwise known to me as my former field director, Tom, struck gold today, when a number of advertisers, including Lee Auto and Hannaford Bros., pulled their ads from WGME, a Sinclair affiliate which will be airing anti-Kerry propaganda next weekend. Tom, er, Jack, took the initiative and started the anti-Sinclair ball rolling here in P-land. He is truly the clearinghouse for all-things-Sinclair here in Southern Maine.

I'd like to say I taught him everything he knows. But he worked for the real thing, aka Paul Wellstone, before my campaign, so that would obviously be a lie. Sigh. Good work, Tom, er, Jack.

Posted by MB Williams at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As many Wampum readers know, I ran in the primary for a legislative seat here in Portland. After my narrow defeat, (and after reluctantly bailing from a floundering Maine KE04) I began working as "political director" for Elizabeth Trice, a Progressive who entered the race after the paper candidate for the Greens dropped out. Elizabeth had endorsed me prior to the primary, and I think she's just the bees knees. She's currently the only woman running in Portland (now represented by 10 male legislators) who has a real chance of winning. This morning, the odds got just a little bit better:

Elizabeth Trice

Thursday, October 14, 2004

EDITORIAL:

District 116 House race gains new perspective with Trice

In the race for Maine's House District 116, three candidates are vying for a spot that will be vacated by incumbent Democrat Rep. William Norbert.

We endorse Green Party candidate Elizabeth Trice for the seat because of her fresh perspective and passion for issues affecting the public.

Trice hasn't served in public office before, but it's only a matter of time. She won her bid for a seat on the Cumberland County Charter Commission, but didn't get to serve because voters rejected the formation of the com- mission.

She's pursing a master's degree in community planning and development at the Muskie School of Public Service, and she's worked in several government offices on planning projects.

Trice is concerned about land use and sprawl as well as affordable housing, and she wants to make the city more friendly to people who would like to start small businesses. She'd like to make Portland and other places in Maine more attractive places for the state's young people.

She's also concerned about air and water pollution, particularly contamination caused by mercury and lead.

She's got a strong opponent in Democrat Charles Harlow, a well-known political veteran who has served as Portland's mayor and as a city councilor

The Republican candidate, John Linscott, has a wealth of good experiences - he went back to school and became a teacher at age 48 after running his own business, for example.

Trice, however, should be given a chance to put her ideas into practice, and so earns our endorsement.

Elizabeth Trice's campaign site is here. She's a Clean Elections candidate, so can't take funds, but could use all the good press and karma you can muster.

Posted by MB Williams at 06:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Atrios notes the following statement from President Bush in last night's debate:

BUSH: I would. Thank you.

I want to remind people listening tonight that a plan is not a litany of complaints, and a He just said he wants everybody to be able to buy in to the same plan that senators and congressmen get. That costs the government $7,700 per family. If every family in America signed up, like the senator suggested, if would cost us $5 trillion over 10 years.

The $7,700 per family struck Atrios as cheap.

As one of those small business owners Mr. Bush loves so much, I provide health care coverage for myself, my family, and others. I can attest that Arios is correct $7,500 per family is a bargain. Do not take my word for it, though. The Kaiser Family Foundation confirms the point:

In 2004, premiums reached an average of $9,950 annually for family coverage ($829 per month) and $3,695 ($308 per month) for single coverage, according to the new survey. Family premiums for PPOs, which cover most workers, rose to $10,217 annually ($851 per month) in 2004, up significantly from $9,317 annually ($776 per month) in 2003. Since 2000, premiums for family coverage have risen 59%.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mei long

We dropped MoveOn from our list-of-things-that-work (for us) when MoveOn couldn't see the point in refuting the POA-causes-vaccine-shortages-for-troops-endangered-by-Mad-Saddam's-bad-bugs meme two years ago. Maybe KE04 won't be so ... stupid. There really is no other word for it. Giving Frist-Bush free rein over the basic terms of vaccine policy debate is dumb. On par with fluoridation causes communism, homosexuality and sours milk in spotted cows. Fortunately, the old Blogosphere, the one that existed two years ago, back when Bilmon was writing, got behind us and the thimerosal portions of the Midnight Riders to the Homeland Security Act were stripped.

The photo is somewhat more real, and more important, than proving Kerry "won" and Bush "lost" a debate, at least to some kids who look at this blog once in a while. T Rex ancestor. Feathers. Head under wing. Warm blooded. Makes a circle. The size of Kezzie. Those are this morning's talking points.

Posted by EBW at 06:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We have a problem with litigation in the United States of America. Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued, and therefore they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine.

Posted by EBW at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I said to Eric as we watched W talk about his wife and daughters and completely ignored the fact that he didn't spring from the earth fully formed, that John Kerry needs to mention HIS MOTHER! I don't know about most you, but my mother (who passed two years ago from DIABETES, which, when mentioned, W smirked) was one of the quintessential forces in my life.

Kerry remembered. He remembered his dead mother and her influence. Smirking George could not even bring himself to mention his mother, for fear that people would then associate him with her life-long partner, who lost his re-election bid 12 years ago. What a creep.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Somewhere Paul Bremer is grinning. The Allawi regime is working ... just like the Bremer regime.

"Nous avons demandé aux habitants de Fallouja de livrer Zarkaoui et son groupe, et, s'ils ne le font pas, il y aura une opération d'envergure."

Turning from Falluja to Sadr City, Allawi says:

"Le gouvernement commencerait les opérations de recherche d'armes dans les maisons (du quartier) la semaine prochaine".

The cause for an increase in violence before the Iraqi elections, and carefully scheduled to kick-off within the next 20 days, is not some external actor imposing battle upon the Occupation Regime, it is the OR itself, imposing battle upon Falluja and Sadr City.

Posted by EBW at 05:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Let's play a game. I will tell you a story taken from a newspaper report and you guess the place where it occurred. No fair clicking the link before guessing. Ready? Okay, let's go.

The police were called to a VFW hall to assist an Elvis impersonater who was having convultions. When the police arrived, the Elvis impersonator jumped up, shouted "Viva Las Vegas" and began singing show tunes.

The police had to have been disappointed because, in my experience, it is always better to assist a convulsing, early rock and roll Elvis impersonator than a Las Vegas show tune Elvis impersonator.

Any such disappointment quickly disappeared as a women approached the officers to report that a man dressed as Joliet Jake, the John Belushi character from the Blues Brothers movie, had stolen her car.

The police gave chase and, as the women did not own a specially equipped used police car, they were able to catch Joliet Jake, force him to stop, and placing him under arrest. Joliet Jake has been charged with disorderly conduct, fleeing the police, druken driving, and being on a Mission From God without a license.

The police officer was quoted as saying:

"It's one of those things that you stop and scratch your head, and you think that 'Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

The men had been drinking together at the VFW before police arrived. Blood tests will show how much, but (Officer) Oyass said, "I would venture to say quite a bit."

Nope, Crystal, Minnesota.

Was that too easy?

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I confess I can't manage the concentration to watch George Bush for the momentary sprouting of horns or the shorting-out of the controller box on his back, so while the third "debate" is on (C-SPAN, or PBS), I'll be enjoying a nice read -- Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems, a thesis by Major Thomas Griffith, Jr.

Some cocoa too. There are bits I can read to the children. Mike Mulligan and his electrical systems. While the best theme and wedge writers from BC04 and KE04 grapple with each other through their protagonists.

Then its off to bed where sweet dreams await.

Posted by EBW at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Nicholas Lemann writing at the New Yorker on How George W. Bush reinvented himself.

Via Patrick, an article on The Long Tail which is changing the way books, music and film are being sold. It is a hopeful article as my taste in all three areas is distinctly outside of the popular culture.

Mark Schmitt on how the Republican House has easily surpassed even the Democratic House circa 1994 in arrogance and abuse of power.

Joseph Stiglitz, writing in the Guardian on why George Bush is Dead Wrong about his economic record.

A Salon article, worth the trouble of the daily pass, suggesting that Republican Senator and candidate Jim Bunning may be losing his mental compentency. MB may want to consider adding Kentucky to her list of competitive Senate races.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This just had me laughing.

Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington appear to have noticed, the UN nuclear watchdog has said.

Satellite imagery shows entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled.

They once housed high-precision equipment that could produce nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report to the UN Security Council on Monday.

Equipment and materials helpful in making bombs have also been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and have disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite pictures, IAEA Director-General Muhammad al-Baradai said.

It is a hoot. Oceans of ink about Iran, where hordes of swarthy bad guyz in towels and AK47s mill about, and kit just ... er ... corrodes into thin nothingness in Iraq where orderly squads of impecibly commanded good guys and gals maintain an order that Bush and Alawi claim is just there, there just behind the glint on the screen, just off-camera, outside of the minor and isolated momentary unpleasentry the irresponsible media is constantly fixated upon, if not provoking, or heck, even staging.

A box of doughnuts to the first reader who finds the Washington Times has found the missing Iraqi nuclear kit ... in Iran! (They are working themselves up to something, they've trotted out the NRO's pseudo-Ayatollah in Paris to denounce Iranian infiltration into Iraq during Ramadan, when the real story is Iraqi clerics visiting Ayatollah Montezeri in Qom).

Christobol Columbo the Catalan was lost too, but then you knew that.

Posted by EBW at 06:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A number of years ago, I was involved in a law suit that presented a legal question of first impression in Georgia. The issue was destined to be decided by the Supreme Court of Georgia. The stakes in our case were quite high and we were looking forward to the opportunity to convince the Court of the correctness of our position.

As our case wound its way towards the high court, we were dismayed to learn that another case, with much smaller stakes, presenting a very similar, though not quite identical, issue was also on track to be decided by the Supreme Court. Indeed, the other case was postured to be decided before ours.

The lawyer advocating the position we favored was not very experienced in that area of the law, and, when we read his arguments, it became clear that he had not made the strongest possible case for our position. That is perhaps understandable as the stakes in his case were a small fraction of the stakes in ours.

For several months, we lived in fear that the Supreme Court would decide the issue against us before we had an opportunity to present our arguments. The decision in the other case would become precedent applicable in our case that would be very difficult to overcome. Luckily, the other case settled at the last moment, and, a year later, we were able to obtain the Supreme Court decision we sought.

I can not help but recall that experience when I consider the conservative position with regard to media bias and Sinclair Broadcasting.

As I understand the conservative position on media bias, they believe that the large, mainstream media outlets are filled with liberal elitists who will stop at nothing to promote the liberal or Democratic agenda. Sure, the conservatives may have a few media outlets (like a.m. radio, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page), but the media with the largest audiences (network TV, the New York Times, Time Magazine etc.), conservatives believe, have a transparent liberal bias and will do anything within their power to favor liberals and to supress the conservative view.

If that is an accurate assement of the conservative view, it is difficult to see why they are not doing everything in their power to prevent Sinclair from airing the partisan, anti-Kerry documentary. If theconservative media is permitted to air highly partisan material by engaging in the fiction of calling it news, why can the liberal media not do the same from the other perspective?

Sinclair, after all, is pretty small potatos as a media source. It has 62 television stations, mostly with second tier network affiliations (only 15 total on ABC, NBC, and CBS, but 20 on Fox and 19 on WB) in mostly second tier markets (Asheville, Oklahoma City, and Des Moines, for instance but no presence in NY or L.A.). It reaches 24% of all U.S. households.

CBS, on the other hand, is only one part of Viacom which, in turn is only one part of what conservatives believe is the liberal mainstream media. Nonetheless CBS alone dwarfs Sinclair. CBS has:

over 200 owned and affiliated stations reaching virtually every television home in the United States.

Why then are conservatives apparently not concerned about the precedent that Sinclair might set?

There are a number of possible answers.

First, for all of their caterwaulling, perhaps conservatives do not really believe that the main stream media has a liberal bias. That, apparently, is the position of William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. Media critic Eric Alterman references a 1995 story in the New Yorker in which Kristol is quoted as follows:

I admit it. The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.

A third possibility, and by far the most likely in my view, is that conservatives believe that there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media but recognize the qualitative difference in the type of bias portrayed by the networks and the type of bias in play at Sinclair. The mainstream media cares about its journalistic reputation and simply would not stoop to the level of Sinclair. In that case, there is no danger that the liberal media will make conservatives pay a price for the Sinclair precdedent. Conservative media groups are free to engage in any form of propoganda comfortable in the knowledge that the so called liberal media will not resond in kind.

If that is right, then the left needs to develop its own media outlets that are willing to be as openly partisan as the conservative media. That takes a lot of work and a lot of money, but given the right's failure to recognize any voluntary limits, what is the alternative?

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

"During the debate, Bush was asked by a lady to name three mistakes he's made. And Bush responded, this debate, the last debate and the next debate."

-- Bill Maher

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes the only options are to laugh or to cry. Which option do you think was more appropriate when I read the following letter to the editor in the Atlanta Journal Constitution?

Democrats, media put focus on WMD

Although weapons of mass destruction are still of concern, they never were the main reason for going into Iraq. President Bush made this clear as he addressed the nation before the Iraqi war. Our efforts there are part of the war on terrorism and not about chasing elusive WMD.

The strategy of the Democratic National Committee and liberal media is for people to think that this is a war about WMD. Sadly, it's a strategy paid for with a divided nation and needless losses of lives as terrorists are strengthened by our division.

WALT FARMER
McDonough

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The new Gallup/USA Today/CNN poll shows Kerry up one point over President Bush, 49%-48%.

That follows the Zogby tracking poll showing Kerry up three.

I do not think that necessarily means Kerry is ahead as other polls, most notably the Rasumssen tracking poll has Bush up 3.6% while the Washington Post tracking poll has the President up six.

Nonetheless, the Gallup poll is very good news for two reasons. First, the trend is great. The Gallup poll had Bush up 14 in mid September. A fifteen point swing to Kerry in less than a month constitutes Big Mo.

Secondly, Gallup has the President's job approval at 47%. That spells trouble for any incumbent.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

CNN Money reports:

Economists agree that oil prices have already spiked enough to take a bite out of the nation's economic growth. But what they can't agree on is whether this downswing could spiral into a full-blown recession.

Oil futures on Monday hit $53.70 a barrel for U.S. light crude, up 39 cents on the day. On an inflation-adjusted basis, however, recent prices are still below the highest prices of the 1980 oil shock. The $38-a-barrel peak then would be the equivalent of about $79 a barrel in today's world, said Fadel Gheit, Oppenheimer oil analyst. In 1990, oil approached $40 a barrel -- between $60 and $65 in 2004 dollars.

But Gheit holds the minority view that today's oil price levels are already enough to cause an economic contraction.

"We're the walking wounded. We've already been hit, and in the next three or four months is when we'll stumble," he said.

Other economists aren't quite as concerned about contraction, although most say there has been significant impact on the economy from current prices.
"I think energy affects us at every price. As we go marginally higher, growth forecasts get marginally weaker," said Steven Wieting, senior economist at Citigroup. "At roughly $50, oil should be holding back GDP (gross domestic product) growth by a full percentage point in the year to come. Fortunately, we have more than a percentage point to give."

I wonder what happens if oil prices continue to rise.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 04:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jay Bookman has some interesting things to say about campaigns in the internet(s) era:

Politics, too, is becoming a form of netwar, a competition between dueling narratives. And one of the most important questions about that transformation is how strongly a narrative will have to be anchored in reality to be effective. The apparent impact of the Swift Boat ads argues that in some contexts, truthfulness may not matter much. When people can wrap themselves in a media environment that only reinforces what they choose to believe, facts may lose importance. The problem is compounded by media outlets that find it profitable to play to that desire, offering viewers not information but comforting affirmation of their pre-existing beliefs.

In a campaign, the result can be two competing narratives that operate in separate worlds, never intersecting with each other. That may be why people have a hard time discussing issues across party lines anymore. There's no common ground.

Only in debates, the oldest form of political campaigning known to man, have the two narratives been forced to interact directly. John Kerry has prospered in those settings because people could see for themselves that he was not the candidate that the Bush narrative had created. Likewise, Bush has not come across as the heroic, confident leader that voters were led to expect.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 02:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Colorado Luis reports that Amendment 36, which would apportion Colorado's nine electoral votes by the popular vote, is likely to lose. He makes a persuasive case.

As I have previously suggested, I think a defeat of Amendment 36 would be a good thing.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 02:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

With a domestic policy debate scheduled for this week, it may be helpful to rank the performance of the economy under George W. Bush by comparing it to some of its immediate predecessors. I have been putting off this post as it is a lot of work. Fortunately, a real economist, Kash at Angry Bear did lots of the work for me last week. Thanks Kash.

Kash posted a table that ranked the Bush economy against the previous eight presidential terms (from the first Nixon term through the G.W. Bush term) in a number of areas. In Kash's words:

Specifically, let's compare Bush's economic record with that of previous presidents. The following table gives us the total changes (note that I have not annualized these rates of change) in a few important economic variables over the first 3 1/2 years of each president's term since 1968: employment, GDP, compensation (the broadest measure of the income that workers receive), after-tax income, and government spending.

1) GDP growth (I used Kash's rankings);

2) Inflation (I used the inflation calculator at http://www.bls.gov/ BLS and asked it to tell me what $100 in the first year of the presidential term was worth in the last year of the term);

3) Total Employment (I used Kash's ranking);

4) Real After Tax Income (I used Kash's rankings);

5) Discretionary Spending (I used Kash's rankings); and

6) Budget Deficits ( I summed the yearly budget deficits (expressed as a percentage of GDP) with data taken from CBO. I credited each term with the budgets it submitted by lagging one year from the beginning of the term. Thus, the first Clinton "term" for this purpose began with his first budget in FY 1994. I used CBO projections to fill out G.W. Bush's term).

I. GDP

1) Clinton II 15.4%
2) Reagan II 12.9%
3) Clinton I 11.3%
4) Carter 10.3%
5) Reagan I 9.2%
6) Bush II 9.2%
7) Nixon I 9.1%
8) Bush I 5.5%
9) Nixon/Ford 5.2%

II. Inflation

1) Bush II $107.00
2) Clinton II $107.29
3) Clinton I $108.58
4) Reagan II $109.94
5) Bush I $113.15
6) Nixon I $113.90
7) Reagan I $114.30
8) Nixon/Ford $128.15
9) Carter $135.97

III. Total Employment

1) Carter 11.8%
2) Reagan II 9.6%
3) Clinton I 9.4%
4) Clinton II 8.9%
5) Nixon I 7.0%
6) Nixon/Ford 5.6%
7) Reagan I 4.7%
8) Bush I 1.6%
9) Bush II -0.6%

IV. Real After Tax Personal Income

1) Clinton II 16.6%
2) Reagan I 16.3%
3) Carter 14.8%
4) Nixon I 14.0%
5) Reagan II 13.5%
6) Clinton I 11.0%
7) Bush I 9.2%
8) Nixon/Ford 8.4%
9) Bush II 8.1%

V. Real Discretionary Spending

1) Clinton I 2.9%
2) Bush I 7.3%
3) Nixon/Ford 8.7%
4) Carter 10.7%
5) Clinton II 11.7%
6) Nixon I 12.1%
7) Reagan II 12.7%
8) Reagan I 13.0%
9) Bush II 15.4%

VI. Budget Deficits

1) Clinton II +5.9
2) Nixon I -5.5
3) Clinton I -6.8
4) Carter -9.6
5) Nixon/Ford -10.7
6) Bush II -11.4
7) Reagan II -14.1
8) Bush I -17.0
9) Reagan I -19.9

The Bush administration was the best at keeping inflation under control, was in lower half of GDP growth and budget deficits, and trailed the field in employment, income, and discretionary spending.

To rank each presidential term across those economic measures, let's assign one point for each presidential term that ranked lower in each category. In tournament bridge, that is known as "match pointing" (even if no one else follows that, it is nice to know that my fellow bridge player, Charles Kuffner, will get it). For example, the Carter term did better than five other Presidential terms in controlling budget deficits. It therefore receives 5 points in that category.

There are nine administrations and six measures. The maximum number of points an administration can "win" in each category is 8. The maximum score is 48. The minimum score is zero. Average is 24. Ties are awarded a half point.

When we "match point" for each Presidential term across each category, we get the following rankings:

1) Clinton II 40 Points

2) Clinton I 35 points

3) Carter 29 Points

4) Reagan II 28 points

5) Nixon I 24 points

6) Bush I 16 points

7) Reagan I 15.5 points

8) Nixon/Ford 15 points

9) Bush II 13.5 Points

Third, the methodology of match pointing measures whether there is a difference but not the magnitude of the difference. For instance, a 0.2% increase in GDP growth would have added two points to Nixon I's total while a full 3% drop would not have lowered the match point total at all.

Fourth, there is bias in the selection of the measurements. Other measures of economic performance could have been devised (e.g. substitute non-military discretionary spending growth for discretionary spending growth).

Finally, the matchpoint methodology treats each measure as being of equal weight. It is not clear to me, for instance, that ranking last in discretionary spending but first in GDP growth should net to average.

All of those caveats aside, the question is "what has been the economic performance under the G.W. Bush administration?" The analysis above makes clear that the answer is "very poor."

Update: See also this Angry Bear post.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I visited the 2004 Electoral Vote Predictor yesterday. I think that the page is misnamed as it does not purport to predict the electoral vote but rather provides a snap shot of the current state of the electoral college based on the most recent state polls. One nice feature is that by moving one's cursor over any state, the page shows the result of the most recent poll of that state.

Yesterday's snapshot has Kerry with a 270-248 electoral vote lead with Minnesota (10 EVs), New Hampshire (4), and Arkansas (6) exactly tied. In addition, the map notes very slim leads for Kerry in Nevada (5), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (7), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Maine (4). George W. Bush has a very small lead in New Mexico (5).

Those ten states have a total of 92 electoral votes and those states are likely to be decisive in November.

The Bush's poll results for those states are as follows:

Nevada 47%

New Mexico 47%

Minnesota 46%

Iowa 47%

Wisconsin 46%

Arkansas 47%

Ohio 47%

Pennsylvania 46%

NH 47%

Maine 47%

Please note the consistency of those results. In the states likely to decide this election, Mr. Bush doesn't crack 47% in any of the ten states. Those states, plus the ones in which Kerry has a larger lead, total 295 electoral votes with 270 needed for victory.

In addition, Mr. Bush polls below 50% in Florida and Missouri (49% in each).

If the adage that an incumbent is in trouble in any election in which he or she is polling below 50% is true, Mr. Bush appears to be in trouble. He has one debate and just over three weeks to make the sale.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 11:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[via Triballaw]

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor

Contact: Sarah Gegenheimer or Liviya Piccione, 202-712-3019, both of Kerry-Edwards 2004

News Advisory:

Teresa Heinz Kerry will visit Ft. Lauderdale, FL on Monday October 11th to keynote the National Congress of American Indians 61st Annual Convention. Mrs. Heinz Kerry will focus her remarks on issues of vital importance to the Native American community.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry will highlight the fundamental choice Native American voters face in this election. This administration's choices have taken us in the wrong direction and their policies have failed Native Americans time and time again. John Kerry and John Edwards have a comprehensive plan to improve the lives of Native Americans and ensure all Native Americans have the opportunity to realize their full potential. By protecting tribal sovereignty, improving access to quality health care and increasing
educational opportunities for American Indian children, John Kerry and John Edwards will build an America stronger at home and more respected in the world.

The following schedule is for planning purposes only. Press who are interested in covering Teresa Heinz Kerry should contact Liviya Piccione at (202) 712-3019.

Monday, October 11 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL

2 pm EDT -- Teresa Heinz Kerry Keynotes National Congress of American Indians Convention

Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center, Grand Ballroom, 1950 Eisenhower Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL

OPEN PRESS

Media Notes:

Pre Set: 12 pm EDT

Final Access: 1 pm EDT

http://www.usnewswire.com/

-0-

Posted by EBW at 10:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

President Bush lashed out at the nation's doctors during the second Presidential debate charging that doctors routinely violate their Hippocratic Oath and defraud patients and insurers.

During the debate, Mr. Bush said:

[H]e (Senator Kerry) says that medical liability costs only cause a 1 percent increase. That shows a lack of understanding. Doctors practice defensive medicine because of all the frivolous lawsuits that cost our government $28 billion a year.

The practice violates the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath which provides, in part:

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

A spokeperson for the AMA, when informed of the President's remarks, commented:

Hey, wait a minute, I thought he was attacking lawyers.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 10:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A League vis event

The SecDef's visit to a forward area (anywhere north of Bahrain is a "forward area") is a part of the RNC's effort to suppress the FTA (F*** This Awfullness) vote in Indian Country. The footage will be added to the Armed Forces broadcast programming and passed off as "earned media" to corporate American programming outlets.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the LOVPOIV carried out another in a series of structural critiques of Iraqi clients of the Occupation. An intersection shared by four Ministries, including the US-controlled Ministry of Oil and a US-controlled police academy was engaged with explosives. A seperate structural critique was delivered to the US-controlled Ministry of Culture, which was also engaged with explosives.

There are three weeks until the American election, and four months until the planned Iraq election. Both are expected to return their respective incumbants.

In North America the League of Pissed Off Voters (LOPV) maintains a web site that the administration has not shut down (as of this morning).

Posted by EBW at 09:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Madeline Albright is coming to Portland. Someone at KE04 thought that the former Secretary of State and the highest ranking woman in the history of the government of the United States, overlooking Anna Eleanore Roosevelt, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton, would be able to

discuss how John Kerry, John Edwards, and Democrats down the ticket will work to build a safer, more secure America.

It is a famous quote. It motivated a film. Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine featured in a limited-release major motion picture a few years ago -- the recruitement video of Osama Bin Laden.

The figure was the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. Four years later UNICEF came out with the first authoritative report based on a survey of 24,000 households, the total “excess” deaths of children under 5 was about 500,000.

I think I'll pass. Madeline Albright is closer to Condi Rice than Anna Eleanore Roosevelt, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Acute mortalities (radiation, burn and blunt trauma) for the Hiroshima atomic attack for children under the age of five amounted to fewer than 10,000. The questioner simply didn't understand the magnitude of 500,000 preventable early childhood mortalities. The sanctions are two and a half orders of magnitude more preventable early childhood deaths than the Hiroshima age-equivalent mass death, not simply "comperable".

Posted by EBW at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette and Joyce McGreevy of Salon.com diligently provided blow-by-blows of last night's debate. Here are a few brief excerpts, but I heartily recommend you read the entire posts:

First McGreevy (have to watch the ad, but worth it):

9:15 p.m. Woman asks Bush if unjustified invasion of Iraq could possibly be justified, since justification proved not to be justified. Bush expresses bitter unhappiness that weapons capable of destroying large numbers of people did not exist. He then proves that not all U.S. manufacturing has declined when he gives a Carol Merrill wave at the latest excuse to roll off the White House assembly line -- Saddam Hussein was a rambler and a gambler. Bush struts. Damn system gamer! Oddly, he does not mention others involved in this corruption. So no word yet if, when airstrike will be launched against U.S. oil companies. Man asks if Kerry would use Bush plan in Iraq. Kerry quotes senior Republicans calling the plan "incompetent," "beyond pitiful," "beyond embarrassing," "in the zone of dangerous." (So is that a yes or a no?) Bush spits out front teeth. Says the crappy plan is working so well he's going to toss an additional $7 billion on it. Kerry suggests going after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan might have been a good idea. Bush says we're working on it, hard work, working hard, firm resolve, on the hunt, you do the hokeypokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about.

Woman tells Bush, speaking of getting all pissy, my mother and sister caught holy crap during their overseas summer vacation because YOU just had to invade Iraq. Bush jeers, Well, I hate that poncho, so now we're even. Adds: Don't worry, they're just a bunch of dumb foreigners who don't understand my plan. Kerry says there is no plan. Bush says, 'member I was sittin' in the office, the oval one, lookin' at generals? Well, then I went down to the basement, where there was more generals, and I looked at every darn one of 'em. That's what a president does.

9:30 p.m. Woman mentions casually that Iran sponsors terrorism, has long-range missiles, will soon have nuclear weapons -- could this be a problem? Bush looks surprised. Iran? Is that a swing state? Kerry sees Iran, raises one North Korea, and ups the ante with Russia. Makes the case that nuclear weapons buildup plus Bush's inattention does not add up to safer world. Bush yells at audience to simmer down now.

Cox, though a little less verbose, none the less got to the meat of the debate:

9:39 The voice in his ear just told him to speak more quietly.
9:40 BREAKING: Canadians want to kill you with their pretend drugs.
9:41 Even worse: There is a third world (Jupiter?) that wants to kill you with its pretend drugs. However, Bush's plan does let you get a dimebag for just over a buck, if you're old. . .
9:42 A reader explains: "third world" means "people who do not look like me." So we revise our warning: Brown people want to kill you with their pretend drugs.
9:47 Again with the OB-GYNS. Let them practice their love, already. Also: Kerry is the first presidential candidate in history to go out of his way to remind people he's a lawyer.
9:49 Bush just called Kerry "Kennedy." He wishes. (Both of them.) Also: Kerry won an award! Yay Kerry!
9:50 Also: Yelling about OBGYNS, a reader points out, is not showing them much love at all.
9:53 Hey, wait: Bush comes from a "school of thought"? Where to begin. . .
9:54 I THINK I AM LOSING MY HEARING BECAUSE BUSH IS SCREAMING SO LOUD.

I imagine there are others who no longer can even take Bush seriously enough to watch the debate sober (either figuratively or literally.) Send any such links my way, and I'll update with more live-debate-blogging.

Posted by MB Williams at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Jacques Derrida died of pancreatic cancer. The world is smaller by a mind.

Posted by EBW at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As fond as I am of the GEICO gecko, the two moments when John Kerry morphed into the gecko-doing-the-robot were not my most comfortable. I'd have preferred John as the AFLAC duck quacking IRAQ at one oblivious dolt.

But on to things unsaid.

Bush claimed credit for the Afgan elections. OK. Vote for Hamid Karzai or get your house burnt down. Any man who does not vote for Hamid Karzai will not be buried by his family. And he can forget about marrying off his female relatives, too. That sounds like a victory of democracy over the alternative, and the people who've reported it from Kabul and Khost may not live to see another Flashback Friday. John Edwards did mention the 150 poll watchers, but John K let George W take this weekend's tonton macoute election of Hamid Karzai off the table and home to his adoring voters.

I would have been happier if John K had used the word "lied" instead of "mislead", and worked the real history of the regime's policy in Iraq (Chalabi then Bremmer then Infrastructure then Yes-Kurdistan then Chalabi then De-Baathification then No-Kurdistan then Bremmer then No-Chalabi-and-Re-Baathification then Elections-in-04 then Kill-Bill-Sadr then No-Elections-in-04 then No-Kill-Bill-Sadr then No-Infrastructure-till-Security then ...) and pointed out that not one Bushie has lost hair over the shuffled sheaf of "plans of record". There is no accountability, and it goes all the way to the top.

We needed an exasperated duck wicked more than the damn dancing gecko.

As wedded as John K is to the theme that psudo-43 failed to build-ze-coalition, now that we all know that Missouri has fielded the 3rd largest aggressor-state force in Occupied Iraq, and the apparent success of pseudo-43 in selling the "you can't lead and disrespect our allies" meme, tossing all the foreign baggage, the overhead of maintaining the 30+ nation nonsense and all the drag 30 head-of-state-to-head-of-state rounds of telephone calls ever time the plan of record deck gets shuffled or the UN gets pushy or the League of Really Pissed Off Iraqis votes with bombs would simplify things.

Naked unilateralism at the cost of doubling the Missouri and Kansas levies with no foreign "leadership" distractions and executing the nation-building-and-Iraq-exiting strategy seems more attractive than the continuation of the current set of expensive Bush puppets. John K let George W take a reworked League of Nations defense of Ethiopia off the table and again, home to his adoring voters.

Multilateral is more than a pile of flags. It is more than mere drapery. John K could put Tony Blair in front of a bus. And why not?

Posted by EBW at 06:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Register's moniker has always amused me. A few hours ago it picked up the RIPA warrent served on Rackspace UK, resulting in the seizure of two 1U servers from RM's colo facility in London (IXEurope).

link.

Note that seizing the spindles need not have resulted in a denial-of-service attack on the IndyMedia network. Something to watch, for jurisdictional reasons, in addition to the usual what-new-joke-has-Ashcroft-wrot reasons.

Because the target is IndyMedia, this is getting more coverage on the left-hand-side-of-the-blogo-dial than the Elashi brothers when they were targeted.

Posted by EBW at 09:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Currently, Republicans control the Senate, 51 to 48, with 1 D-leaning Independent. With 3 and a half weeks left before the election, here's a look at the 9 races I believe will determine if John Kerry has at least one chamber on the Hill supporting him. A second less favorable, but still acceptable scenario, has John Edwards spending much of his time breaking ties as Senate President. Here are my picks, in no obvious order.

1.) Florida: Betty Castor (D) vs. Mel Martinez (R) (open - D)
2.) South Carolina: Inez Tenenbaum (D) vs. Jim DeMint (R) (open - D)
3.) North Carolina: Erskine Bowles (D) vs. Richard Burr (R) (open - D)
4.) Louisiana: Chris John (D) or John Kennedy (D) vs. David Vitter (R) (open - D)
5.) Oklahoma: Brad Carson (D) vs. Tom Coburn (R) (open - R)
6.) South Dakota: Tom Daschle (D) vs. Jim Thune (R) (incumb - D)
7.) Colorado: Ken Salazar (D) vs. Peter Coors (R) (open - R)
8.) Pennsylvania: Joe Hoeffel (D) vs. Arlen Spector (R) (incumb - R)
9.) Alaska: Tony Knowles (D) vs. Lisa Murkowski (R) (incum - R)

Sadly, unless my co-editor and Georgia resident tells me otherwise, I'm conceding DINO Zell Miller's seat to Johnny Isakson. The latest poll has Denise Majette down by as much as 15%. However, to balance that out, it's rather clear that Barack Obama will be mopping up Alan Keyes, to grab that formerly R seat.

Thus, Democrats need to win five out of these nine races to achieve parity in the Senate, not a terrible spot to be in if Edwards is there to break ensuing ties. Six will provide D's with a clear majority.

In upcoming posts, I'll go into detail on each of these races, but currently it looks as Democrats are slightly favored in four, Republicans in two and three are toss-ups.

Stay tuned.

Posted by MB Williams at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Dennis Kucinich's 58th birthday. Dennis ran a campaign for ideas -- the primacy of law, social and environmental, over transnational capital flight and sweatshops -- the primacy of international treaty law over national and sub-national militaries. Good ideas. Ideas that most Americans support.

Thank you Dennis!

In 1977 Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which is mostly made up of women, and which has planted 30,000,000 tree seedlings. A total of 1.7% of Kenya has been reforested. The UN recommendation is 10%. In December 2002 Ms. Maathai was elected to Parliment as a Green in the first free elections Kenya has held in decades. Today Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thank you Wangari!

Posted by EBW at 11:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend upward in September, increasing by 96,000, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the prior 3 months, payroll employment rose by 103,000 on average.

More in a few minutes

Update1 The number of people who left the labor force jumped by 485,000, continuing the trend of recent months.

The number of persons who were marginally attached to the labor force was 1.6 million in September, about the same as a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. There were 412,000 discouraged workers in September, little changed from a year earlier.

Last September, there were 388K discouraged workers, or more than 6% fewer. I wonder when the term, "little changed" kicks in.

In comparison, the number of new jobs works out to an increase of 0.07%. Guess we should push the meme that employment was "little changed" to counter the even lukewarm spin the Administration attempts to put on this.

Update2 Manufacturing lost 18,000 jobs. The largest gain was in government jobs, with 37K added. Last months job numbers were revised down, from 144K to 128K.

Update3 Here's a comparison of the year prior to the re-election bids of both George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush.

numbers in thousands

Even Bush the Elder was able to eke out 2 million new jobs during his tenure, despite a recession and an anemic recovery. Jr. won't be as fortunate.

Yet another Update So much for Cheney's Ebay economy. The number of self-employed workers dropped by 211,000. Those are workers, btw, who generally do not show up in the new jobless claims numbers.

Posted by MB Williams at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One thing that stands out when looking at the decade after the applications of fission in a foreign policy context, is the re-invention of fission in a domestic policy context. The inventions of the 1914-1918 War, such as poison gas, were not re-invented in a domestic policy context, with the exception of Die Enloesung der Judenfrage. By 1955 the US had even issued a postage stamp with the slogan "Atoms for Peace". The slogan that stuck however, the slogan that pre-existed the "Atoms for Peace" marketing campaign, and that after a half-century of marketing continues to stick, particularly in the North American and Western European markets where the original slogan has lost value due to counter-marketing, is one that originates from a text. A text that was committed to writing between 750 and 735 BCE. I'm not going to bother my partners and friends for whom this is their mother tongue, errors are therefore mine, and corrections are happily accepted.

וְשָׁפַט בֵּין הַגּוֹיִם, וְהוֹכִיח לְעַמִּים רַבִּים; וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבוֹתָם לְאִתִּים, וַחֲנִיתוֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת, לֹא־יִשָּׂא גוֹי אֶל־גּוֹי חֶרֶב, וְלֹא־יִלְמְדוּ עוֹד מִלְחָמָה

LSG (1910) Esaïe 2:4 Il sera le juge des nations, L'arbitre d'un grand nombre de peuples. De leurs glaives ils forgeront des hoyaux, Et de leurs lances des serpes: Une nation ne tirera plus l'épée contre une autre, Et l'on n'apprendra plus la guerre.

KJV (1611) Isaiah 2:4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

But there is another textual tradition, one closer to the reality of plutonium held as state military assets intended for fission-fusion devices and dispersed as commercial fuel. The shattering of swords into scores of sharp shards, the knives of the needy. This textual tradition was committed to writing in about 475 BCE by Pindar in the 4th Pythian Ode.

́ρχει* ναός*, ἐμοὶ τελέσαις ἄφθιτον στρωμνὰν ἀγέσθω, κω̂ας αἰγλα̂εν χρυσέῳ θυσάνω

Let your king, whoever commands the ship, complete this work for me; then let him carry off the immortal coverlet, the fleece gleaming with its golden fringe.

If any think Bush the equal of Herakles, and capable of killing the nine-headed and self-healing Lernean Hydra, in the proximal future, or that even the modern nation state is the equal of King Aeetes, who peers at us from the Late Bronze Age, and held fleece, dragon, and earth-born men, for the rest of the Age of Plutonium (half-life 24,000 years), drop me a line.

If after reading this little note, you are aware that "swords into plowshares" is more at home at the Bob Jones University than at the DoE, then half the author's purpose has been achived. If you find the other half of the author's purpose, keep it and use it.

I learned more researching this note than the writing of it would suggest. And vitrification is the only answer, for a span of time greater than the post-Holocene partition of humanity into its agricultural and free, and domesticant and slave divisions.

Posted by EBW at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As previously noted, this election is about whether the voters want change or more of the same. In making that decision, perhaps they should consider the following headlines and blurbs from today's Washington Post:

Explosions Rip Through Egyptian Resorts

A massive explosion tore off the front of a seaside hotel in the Egyptian resort of Taba late Thursday, killing at least 35 people and injuring more than 100 in what Israeli officials said appeared to be a terrorist attack aimed at visiting Israeli tourists.

Separate insurgent attacks have killed two U.S. soldiers since Wednesday morning, the military announced Thursday.

Also, two rockets hit the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel Thursday evening, a hotel in central Baghdad that houses many contractors and journalists. No casualties were reported, but the attack started a fire in the building, shattered windows and caused damage outside.

AT&T Corp. is cutting 7,400 more jobs and slashing the book value of its assets by $11.4 billion, drastic moves prompted by the company's plan to retreat from the traditional consumer telephone business following a lost court battle.

The company announced Thursday that it now plans to shrink its work force by a fifth, or about 12,320 jobs, during 2004 - up from a previous target of about 4,900 jobs.

Oil prices scaled new heights at $53 for U.S. crude Thursday on concerns over tight winter heating fuel supplies and an unexpected strike at Nigerian oil terminals.

U.S. light crude set a record at $53 a barrel -- marking a surge of $20, or more than 60 percent, this year -- before settling at $52.67 for a gain of 65 cents. London crude also struck a new peak, at $49.20 a barrel, before ending at $48.90 a barrel, up 91 cents.

"Where it ends, who knows?" said Jan Stuart, an analyst with Fimat USA. "What's going to happen when the winter hits? I'd say we have a better than fifty-fifty chance of hitting $60 by year end."

House and Senate negotiators agreed yesterday on an ambitious corporate tax bill that would shower billions of dollars in tax breaks on beneficiaries from old-line manufacturers to Alaskan whalers to gamblers from overseas -- and includes a controversial $10 billion buyout of the nation's tobacco farmers.

Bank of America said Thursday it will cut about 4,500 jobs, or about 2.5 percent of its work force, beginning this month as a result of its merger with FleetBoston Financial Corp.

Tens of thousands of people may have been seriously harmed by the painkiller Vioxx, and many more may be at risk from taking other popular drugs of the same class, known as COX-2 inhibitors, two experts wrote in papers released yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Cleveland Clinic researcher Eric J. Topol wrote that the recently terminated study that led to the recall of Vioxx last week indicates that "it is possible that there are tens of thousands of patients who have had major adverse events attributable to" the drug. In an interview, he estimated the number of people who have had heart problems and strokes as a result of taking Vioxx to be 30,000 to 100,000.

Of course, on the more of the same front we have Furcal Lifts Braves With Home Run.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 08:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Conventional wisdom (CW) holds that economic news in the month leading up to an election generally has little impact on behavior in the voting booth. That may be welcome news for the Bush camp, in light of growing evidence of an extended hiccup in the purported "recovery":

Retailers Report Modest Gains in September
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:56 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- The outlook for the holiday shopping season grew more uncertain Thursday as the nation's largest retailers reported they had a fourth straight month of tepid sales in September.

High gasoline prices and grocery bills and ongoing job insecurity prompted many consumers to again limit their spending. The disappointing results came from retailers across the industry, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Gap Inc., Federated Department Stores Inc., and J.C. Penney Co. Inc.

``There's definitely some anxiety out there on the part of consumers,'' said Ken Perkins, a research analyst at RetailMetrics LLC, a research firm in Cambridge, Mass.

Low- and middle-income Americans in particular have been forced to cut spending on clothing and other non-necessities as gas and food prices rise. They're also nervous about jobs -- last week, the Conference Board reported that job worries helped push consumer confidence down in September for the second month in a row.

There is lots of good news for John Kerry in recent polls. The just released AP/Ipsos poll has four items of good news for Kerry.

First, in the horserace, Kerry leads Bush among likley voters by a four point margin, 50-46. The MOE of that finding is +/- 3%. Among registered voters, the poll found the race tied at 47. The MOE for RV is 2.5%.

The second item of good news is how that poll reflects the Incumbent Rule. Incumbents polling less than 50% are likely to lose and whether one looks to Mr. Bush's 47% among RV or his 46% among LV, the news is bad for President Bush.

The third piece of good news for Kerry is the Job Approval number. Larry Sabato writes that:

Unless President Bush's job approval ratings soar solidly above 50 percent by Election Day, he will not win a second term; that much, history teaches without question.

Finally, the issue internals look good for Kerry:

On the question of who would protect the country, Bush led Kerry 51 percent to 45 percent among likely voters — down from the 20-point lead that Bush held in a Sept. 7-9 poll by AP-Ipsos.

Bush's approval rating on handling foreign policy and the war on terror was 49 percent — down from 55 percent in a Sept. 20-22 poll by AP-Ipsos.

Less than half, 44 percent, of likely voters approve of the commander in chief's handling of the war in Iraq, down from 51 percent in the late-September poll.

Bush did no better than Kerry on the question of who is best suited to handle Iraq. His 49-46 lead was within the poll's margin of error.

Virtually across the board, Bush's approval ratings were as low as they have been since June.

Less than half of likely voters, 47 percent, approve of his performance on the economy and just 43 percent give him good marks for domestic policies such as health care, education, the environment and energy.

Bush and Kerry are considered equally likable, after Bush's ratings went down and Kerry's went up for an 11-point swing.

Slightly more voters consider Kerry honest, a reversal from last month. Far more voters consider Bush decisive (73 percent) than Kerry (43 percent), but the gap closed by 8 points.

Kerry widened his lead on the question of who would create jobs, with 54 percent favoring him and 40 percent Bush.

In seven additional states with 79 EVs, Arkansas (6 EVs, Kerry up 0.2%), Florida (27 EVs, Kerry up 0.4%), Iowa (7 EVs, Kerry up 6.6%), Nevada (5 EVs, Kerry up 1%), New Hampshire (4 Evs, Kerry up 6.6%), Ohio (20 Evs, Kerry up 0.3%), and Wisconsin (10 EVs, Kerry up 2.5%), Kerry has leads within the MOE.

Obviously, with leads at or under 1%, Kerry still has lots of work to do in Florida, Ohio, Arkansas, and Nevada. Wisconsin also makes me very nervous.

President Bush is ahead in three states with a total of 27 EVs. Those states are West Virginia (5 EVs, Bush up 6.1%), Missouri (11 EVs, Bush up 2.2%), and Tennesee (11 EVs, Bush up 0.9%!!!!). All of those are within the MOE.

I do not know enough about the Zogby Interactive methodology to have an opinion as to the reliability of those polls but the results are just stunning.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

During the Vice Presidential debate, it became apparent that Dick Cheney lies a lot. He lied about never having met John Edwards. He lied about his attendance to his duty of presiding over the Senate. He lied about his prior linking of Iraq to 9/11. When John Edwards mentioned that Americans had taken 90% of the coalition casualties, Cheney lied by accusing Edwards of lying. On and on it went.

Upon hearing all that lying, my first thought was, "Where is Jonah?" You see, Jonah Goldberg has made his opinion of candidates for high public office who lie very, very clear.

For instance, Jonah has written that:

No matter what perspective you come from, it seems hard to imagine how anyone can say that the character of the President is irrelevant....

But all of this is such an old and flagrantly obvious argument which misses the simple, old-fashioned point. Presidents should try to tell the truth and be gentlemen.

Goldberg also wrote that:

Lying matters, the truth matters...Americans understand that truth telling matters, I think. I hope. And I thought the press understood this, but I'm changing my mind....

[L]ying goes to the heart of politics and turns it black. It is always relevant... And if the press thinks this isn't an important issue, then to hell with the press....

[A]ll we know is that when he's put in a new, stressful situation, ... (his) first instinct is to lie. And that's why we shouldn't hire him.

So, when Dick Cheney decided to use the debate as a ninety minute opportunity to mislead the American people, where was Jonah?

He was writing a column for National Review about the Vice Presidential debate. That column finds room to mention that Cheney "won in broad brushstrokes. On substance Cheney was an incontrovertible winner on foreign policy." Goldberg also notes that the debate was between "Serious Guy and his amusing sidekick." Cheney came across as "a man of conviction willing to buck politics for principle."

The column, however, did not have room to make even the vaguest mention that Cheney lied through his teeth. Imagine that. Where was Jonah? He was busy demonstrating that his only principle is partisanship.

Update: Title edited based on a comment and a desire to not cause any undue concern.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently noted that I do not think that George W. Bush is stupid. A number of you took me to task for that opinion. I have not changed my mind, but for those of you who disagree, please click this link. I think you will enjoy it (via AmericaBlog).

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In both the first Presidential debate as well as the Vice Presidential debate, the Democratic candidates, John Kerry and John Edwards, charged that the Bush administration allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora. In each instance, the Republican nominee, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, respectively, failed to mount an aggresive defense of the administration's actions. Why is that?

The answer comes from an unlikely source, National Review Online's group blog, The Corner in a Peter Robinson post:

MORE ON TORA BORA

None of the emails I've received so far is able to put a very attractive face on what took place. Here are couple.

From one reader:

The only defense I've seen of the handling of Tora Bora was offered by Tommy Franks when he was interviewed just after the First Debate.

His excuse was, in a nutshell, that intelligence at the time indicated a lot of places where Bin Laden might have been, and surrounding Tora Bora might have meant missing him somewhere else (he mentioned a lake near Kandahar as an alternate report of the time).

This falls short in at least two ways. One, we know that lots of Al Qaeda were at Tora Bora, so even if OBL wasn't it still didn't behoove us to let the hundreds of other AQ get away. Two, even if it was uncertain that OBL was there, it would have been worth trying, wouldn't it? If there were a handful of possible locations, trying all of them makes for a better excuse than trying none of them.

From another:

Flip through Robin Moore's 'The Hunt For Bin Laden' until you find the portion on Tota Bora/bin Laden and you'll see why Bush and Cheney let it pass w/o comment.

As I recall, it was the higher-ups at CENTCOM in Tampa that f'ed the deal up when they asked the SF[Special Forces] guys in the field to 'wait' before whacking OBL so they (who'd been largely cut out of the mission in lieu of an SF-centric expedition by Rummy) could get some folks over there to 'share in the credit glow' of such a major WOT coup.

Badmouthing that crowd [Centcom in Florida] may explain things, but does Bush no good.

Why does neither Bush nor Cheney attempt to refute the charge that we let OBL slip through our fingers? Because, apparently, we did just that.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of [the] Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.

The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."

Vice President Cheney, October 5, 2004

Source: Congressional Record, Vol. 150

I guess he means "most Tuesdays" in years other than 2004. Or 2003, 2002, or 2001.

Update: I couldn't even find a picture of Cheney in his role as President of the Senate. I did however find the previous Senate President:

Source: CSPAN

Update2: Finally found a picture of Cheney acting as Senate President - on May 23, 2003, to cast the deciding vote Friday in the Republican-led Senate, giving final approval to a $350 billion tax package.

Posted by MB Williams at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)

Jim DeMint, a Republican third-term congressman running for the Senate, made the comment about homosexuals during a debate Sunday with his Democratic opponent. Some gay organizations immediately demanded an apology.

On Tuesday, in an interview with the Aiken Standard, DeMint said: "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman, who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend, should be hired to teach my third-grade children. I just think the moral decisions are different with a teacher."

Now, DeMint's comments regarding gays and lesbians were truly horrific, but they were honestly not at all out of character for the anti-gay bigotry of the "Christian" Right. However, DeMint strongly casts himself as "Pro-Life", with life of the mother the only exception he would allow for pregnancy termination. He was one of the strongest proponents for "fetal rights" legislation. Yet it appears DeMint has no problem with removing the gainful employment, even livelihood, of single women who for whatever reasons chose to continue pregnancies outside the institution of civil marriage. Or is the real issue the fact the teacher is co-habitating? Is is alright for single teachers to be pregnant as long as they're not residing with the child's father? That seems to then shoot down the argument that children are raised best in families with two parents of the opposite sex, neh?

Of course, DeMint also supports federal legislation which would deny women welfare benefits if they have additional children.

Over 38% of South Carolina's children are born into unmarried homes. Add the demographic of single parents to gays and lesbians and DeMint is coming close to alienating a majority of the voting population.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

And I don't mean during the evening's Presidential debate.

On Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statitics releases the September Employment Situation, or the "jobs report". According to the market analysis at Briefing.com, a mediocre increase of a 150K jobs is expected. Well, that was what they expected before a report by noted HR consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas indicated that the number of planned layoffs increased a whopping 45% in September. Now analysts don't know what to expect, but most aren't feeling wildy optimistic.

Which is why I was a bit surprised to read this para in yesterday's The Note:

"The Wall Street Journal 's Greg Ip reports that the White House expects Friday's jobs report, the last before the election, will include not only good September numbers but a significant upward revision of older payroll numbers, helping "reduce Mr. Bush's first-term jobs deficit and weaken challenger Sen. John Kerry's attacks on his economic policies."

That report was on "Personal Income and Outlays" (income and spending), which indicated a healthy 0.4% increase in personal income, although spending remained flat. Most media outlets unquestioningly reported the income numbers as a positive for the Administration, buttressing the claims that the "recovery" is alive and well. However, it seems that the reporting journalists failed to read the small print in the BEA press release:

The August estimate of personal income reflects the effects of Hurricane Charley, which hit the southeastern part of the United States in the middle of the month. BEA made largely offsetting adjustments to several components of personal income. Rental income of persons and proprietors' income were reduced by about $11 billion (annual rate) to reflect uninsuredlosses of residential and business property. "Other current transfer receipts from business(net)" was boosted by about $12« billion (annual rate) to reflect net insurance settlements (actual losses less expected losses) paid to persons.Because other effects of the hurricane were embedded in BEA's source data and could not be separately identified, BEA did not attempt to quantify their impact.

Although time and again over the past two years we've seen "adjustments" made in statistics and reports, I'm not claiming that the "estimates" made in the Personal Income reports were inappropriate. My concern is that multi-billion dollar revisions were made in an important economic report, and yet those adjustments went unreported by the media.

Why is this particularly important in regards to the employment report? Over a year and a half ago, I first reported that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had instituted extensive changes in how it was seasonally adjusting employment data. In the past, the seasonal adjustment were established for the year in advance. The Bush Administration revised that policy, allowing for seasonal adjustments to be "adjusted" throughout the year, reflecting meteorological or other unforessen events. This means that, under the guise of adjusting for the impact of September's hurricanes on the US Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, Friday's report has the potential for significant manipulation, which may or may not be investigated with any depth or accuracy by our generally lazy media.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The question posed is this, the agreements between weapons states to reduce their stocks of weapons-grade materials, highly enriched uranium and plutonium, presents an economic choice -- use or dispose the stocks? There are different answers possible for the uranium and plutonium stocks, differences that arise from physics. This post is concerned with the plutonium stocks in the US and Russia.

A few weeks ago 134 kilos of weapons-grade plutonium left Los Alamos and was transported to Charleston. On 20 September the plutonium was loaded onto two vessels operated by British Nuclear Fuels, the Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail, and today those ships are at Cherbourg.

From Cherbourg the plutonium will be taken to the Areva-Cogema nuclear fuels reprocessing complex at La Hague, Normandy, and subsequently to the Cadarache MOX fabrication complex, near Aix en Provence. There the plutonium will be blended with uranium (20/80) into metal oxide mix (MOX), pellatized, and the transport route reversed to the US, where the fuel elements will be burned in a commercial reactor to generate electricity.

The IHT cheerily reports this as "a remarkable display of French-US cooperation" and concludes "if the process goes well, Areva will build a MOX fabrication plant in South Carolina. The entire deal could be worth more than quarter of a billion to Avrea alone."

But the question posed is disposition of surplus weapons plutonium in the United States and Russia, consistent with non-proliferation, and safety. The question not posed was could one shipment of surplus weapons plutonium actually be transhipped in seven transport modes across North America, the North Atlantic, from Normandy to the Alps, and back, without loss to the elements, accident, or theft. Nor was the question posed can the Bush regime "loan" France the equivalent of a third of the Pakistani nuclear weapons inventory in an era of "freedom fries". Nor was the question posed how public resources, the public cost of plutonium, from creation to MOX fuel element delivery at Charleston, are transformed into private wealth, commercial electrical power.

There was a "plutonium economy" fashion in the nuclear power and weapons industry during the 1960s and 1970s. Fast breeder reactors were the rage, of which only one survives in Japan. The original purpose of the La Hague facility was providing plutonium for FBRs, it is a solution for a problem cheap uranium, and the global inventory of down-blend available HEU has solved. The Cadarache MOX facility likewise is build-out made under a set of economic assumptions that are invalid.

The use of MOX fuel for disposition would establish the infrastructure of facilities and financial interests for a long-term plutonium economy and hence pose additional proliferation risks. The US is relinquishing its decades-old policy of not using plutonium in commercial reactors, and aiding Russian plans to build a plutonium economy.

Russia intends to reprocess and recycle spent MOX fuel elements, to recover separated plutonium. The net effect is that the Russian surplus plutonium will not be confined to a highly radioactive matrix so that it cannot again be used in weapons, but only a portion of that surplus will be locked up in MOX form at any point in time, and a MOX fabrication facility could be used for commercial purposes after military plutonium disposition is completed, establishing a plutonium economy in Russia.

The real significance of today's news from Cherbourg is that post-Cold-War disarmament has been hijacked by the Putin and Bush regimes and that stock of weapons-grade plutonium has been converted into a fundamentally more hazardous and weapons-capable stock, to bail-out the nuclear industry. The right answer, if one believes John Kerry that the single greatest threat to the United States is the Soviet-era nuclear weapons arsenal, is vitrification. The US and Russian governments should vitrify their plutonium and store the resulting glass logs. Vitrification followed by secure storage would be a safer, faster, and cheaper way to address the urgent short-term security goal of putting surplus plutonium into non-weapons-usable form and to gain the time needed to arrive at sound agreements on long-term plutonium security issues.

If, one hundred day's after January 20th, you can't lay your hands on the Executive Order that slags-to-glass today's test shipment of US surplus plutonium, and breaks the hearts of the Plutoniam Sect of The International Atom Men, then you've elected George W. Bush, and the single greatest threat to the United States is a WMD presently in possession by a terrorist organization, and disarmament means a marriage of Ready Kilowatt (and investors) and the Peaceful Atom (and investors).

See Will Disposition be the Road to a Plutonium Renaissance? by Arjun Makhijani for some of the policy commentary (December 1997) that today's piece draws upon.

Posted by EBW at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Ken Melhman just asserted that in the three months after 9/11, the US economy lost a million jobs. What he failed to mention was that in the months preceding 9/11, the economy lost over 800K jobs.

So obviously, 9/11 changed everything.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There are, of course, a lot of bad opinion columns written every day. It is impossible to read, much less debunk, all the drivel that gets churned out.

Recently, via Ed Cone, I encountered a September 29 column by Tim Chavez writing in the Tennesseean that is breathtakingly bad. I hereby nominate it for Worst Column of the Year.

Chavez begins with a trite thesis. He thinks that the media fails to report good news coming out of Iraq. The only twist he provides is that he thinks that the failure to report the good news is the result of a conspiracy between the media and John Kerry.

Now, Chavez offers no proof of such a conspiracy. I guess that he just thinks that when a car bomb goes off at ceremony for the opening of a sewer pumping station, any report that focuses on the 34 dead children, the 49 total killed, the 139 injured, or the ten Americans wounded in the blast instead of progress towards provision of clean water is self evidently part of a pro-Kerry/anti-Bush conspiracy.

So far that is just routine wingnuttery, but when it comes time to provide examples of the good news from Iraq that are ignored by the media, Chavez really begins to seperate himself from the pack.

Unlike the reporters risking their lives in Iraq, Chavez gets his information from the inbox on his computer. That inbox informed him that, as of September 29, there were no insurgents in Samarra:

Did you see the big headline or watch the top-of-the-newscast story about the success of our sons and daughters in Samarra, Iraq?

Of course, you didn't...

[i]t took e-mails from Marine officers in Iraq to relay the importance of this positive news - so I could tell you.

''Samarra is a beaming success story over here,'' writes Lt. Col Jim Rose, a Tennessee Marine whose parents live in Old Hickory. ''We were getting ready for a take-down there right after Najaf. We told the locals, 'Hey, see what happened in Najaf? Is that what you want? Cause we're coming.' It took the locals about two days to get the bad guys out.''

Rarely has a report been so quickly disproved. On October 1, two days after Chavez' published his column, the American military, along with Iraqi forces, engaged in a major combat operation to drive the insurgents out of Samarra. How can that be if the locals had already expelled the "bad guys?"

Perhaps Mr. Chavez' email source was a fraud. Perhaps Lt. Col. Rose was just wrong. It is hard to know how far Mr. Chavez' wignuttery goes. Perhaps he thinks that the American military conducted a major combat operation, with the attendant casualties, as part of a conspiracy to elect John Kerry. Regardless of the cause, events on the ground in Iraq disproved Mr. Chavez first example within forty-eight hours.

Chavez's second example is even more egregious. His email friend writes, and Chavez buys (hook, line, and sinker), the following:

''The Najaf shrine - HUNDREDS of dead women and children were brought out after Sadr left,'' Rose wrote. ''They (Sadr's supporters) rounded them up during the battle and brought them in to be executed. Why? Because they anticipated the Americans would eventually enter the shrine and walk into a media ambush. We never went in. The people of Najaf love us right now because of that. They hate Sadr and want him dead.

''Have you heard that one yet (in the media)?''

No we haven't. We just get one side. That's bad journalism - by a news media acting in concert with Kerry.

NY Times reporter Alex Berenson recently wrote Romanesko about Chavez' column:

I covered the battle of Najaf for the New York Times. I was embedded at a Marine base in Najaf and saw the battle from its third day to its finish. I was at the shrine the day the battle ended and a ceasefire was declared. I can tell you firsthand that the report Tim Chavez supposedly received from a Marine lieutenant colonel claiming that "HUNDREDS of dead women and children were brought out after Sadr left" the shrine of Imam Ali is entirely false. Does he really think that the correspondents on the scene would have covered that up, or that the Iraqi government and the American military would not have broadcast that fact around the world?

Tim, let me ask you directly: Have you ever been a reporter? Do you have any idea what makes a good story? The massacre of hundreds of women and children inside a sacred Muslim shrine would have been front-page news worldwide for days. We didn't report it because it never happened...
Tim, your piece is a disgrace. You ought to apologize for it to the correspondents who are risking their lives on the ground in Iraq. I'm back home now, so I can write this in safety and peace. But I'd urge you to head on over. Spend a few weeks on the ground for yourself. And then decide whether the picture we've painted is accurate.

Chavez then offers two examples of "good news" the media refuses to report. The first example is proved false by the actions of the American military within forty-eight hours of the column being published.

The second "example," which does not consist of "good news" in any event, is shot down by an eye witness to the very events.

The confluence of trite and wrong, standing alone, would merit a nomination for "worst column" but there is a clincher. Chavez was apparantly taken in by hoax emails that he believed. He shows no sign of having checked to see if the emails were genuine or if the facts were true. In the very column in which he repeats the substance of the emails without verifying the facts, he, ... wait for it ... attacks Dan Rather as being an exemplar of what is wrong with the media.

Chavez writes:

It shouldn't be this way. Yet journalism in America is broken. It has no foundation of values by which many Americans can relate and depend. The moral of this column is not about one side prevailing in news coverage on the war on terror. It's simply about fairness - about Americans getting both sides with the same prominence.

They're not. And media emphasis on Iraq being in chaos has coincided with John Kerry making the same pitch to voters. It makes you wonder, just as we did on the authenticity of Dan Rather's reporting. And now America knows about Rather's ruse.

Update: Can anyone guess who linked approvingly to the Worst Column of the Year?

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 05:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As the Presidential contest pivots from an exclusive focus on foreign policy to include domestic issues, what is in the news? Today's Washington Post includes each of the following:

Crude Oil Prices Hit $51 Mark:

Oil prices hit a new record of more than $51 a barrel Tuesday as a prolonged U.S. production outage following Hurricane Ivan attracted fresh speculative buying.

U.S. planned job cuts soared to an eight-month high in September while new hiring rose only slightly, a report said on Tuesday.

Employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said employers announced 107,863 layoffs in September, 41 percent more than in September 2003 and 45 percent more than in August of this year, when 74,150 were laid off. The September figure was the largest since January 2004, when employers laid off 117,556 workers.

The September figure brings third-quarter job cuts to 251,585, 19.9 percent more than the 209,895 registered in the previous quarter and 4 percent more than the 241,548 for the third quarter of 2003.

Dozens of dangerous products that violate federal safety standards are finding their way onto retail shelves, while hundreds of other recalled items banned for sale in the United States are being shipped to shoppers abroad, according to an investigation by Consumer Reports magazine.

After an in-depth study of a decade of government product safety records, and shopping at more than a dozen stores, the magazine concluded that weak laws and lax enforcement are allowing some manufacturers and importers to ignore federal and voluntary industry safety standards.

The Bush administration yesterday raised serious objections about congressional efforts to approve a corporate tax-cut bill this week, warning that the Republican-backed legislation risked growing from a narrow effort to help manufacturers into a complex assortment of special-interest tax breaks.

As members of a House-Senate conference committee met last night to begin discussing a final draft of the proposal, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow wrote that the initial House and Senate versions of the legislation had included "a myriad of special interest tax provisions that benefit few taxpayers."

Cities across the country are manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk of drinking more of the contaminant than their suppliers are reporting.

Some cities, including Philadelphia and Boston, have thrown out tests that show high readings or have avoided testing homes most likely to have lead, records show. In New York City, the nation's largest water provider has for the past three years assured its 9.3 million customers that its water was safe because the lead content fell below federal limits. But the city has withheld from regulators hundreds of test results that would have raised lead levels above the safety standard in two of those years, according to records.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

University of Virginia political maven Larry Sabato writes:

Unless President Bush's job approval ratings soar solidly above 50 percent by Election Day, he will not win a second term; that much, history teaches without question. (Bold in original).

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 08:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The new ABC/Washington Post poll has President Bush leading John Kerry 51-46 among likely voters and by a three point margin among registered voters.

We now have four post-first debate polls of likely voters. In those polls, Mr. Bush gets 45% in Newsweeek, 49% in Gallup, 46% in Zogby, and 51% in ABC/Wash. Post. The average of those polls puts Mr. Bush at about 48%.

The Incumbent Rule suggests that the race is very close.

Update: The NY Times/CBS poll of likely voters has Bush and Kerry tied at 47%.

The average of the five polls is Bush 47.8% and Kerry 46.8%.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

[via Triballaw]

This is one of the more interesting cases of the present term.

(1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee an automatic right to appointed appellate counsel for indigent criminal defendants convicted by a guilty plea? (2) Do attorneys who derive part of their income from representing indigent criminal defendants convicted by a guilty plea have third party standing to challenge the constitutionality of a state statute which purportedly violates the due process rights of such defendants?

Posted by EBW at 06:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

During the first Presidential debate, John Kerry was asked about the doctrine of preemption. Kerry, who had previously stated that "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security," replied as follows:

The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for pre-emptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.

No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

In the debate -- in the debate, Senator Kerry also said something revealing when he laid out the Kerry doctrine. He said -- he said that America has to pass a global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves.

That's what he said...Think about this, Senator Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions. I have a different view...When our country is in danger, the President's job is not to take an international poll. The President's job is to defend America. I'll continue to work every day with our friends and allies for the sake of freedom and peace. But our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals...

If Mr. Kerry did not mean that other countries have a veto over our security policy, what did he mean by a global test?

William Selatan says it is a test of policy versus reality:

It's clear from Kerry's first sentence that the "global test" doesn't prevent unilateral action to protect ourselves. But notice what else Kerry says. The test includes convincing "your countrymen" that your reasons are clear and sound. Kerry isn't just talking about satisfying France. He's talking about satisfying Ohio. He's talking about you.

What do you have in common with a Frenchman? Look again at Kerry's words. He says the test is to "prove" that our reasons for attacking were legitimate. In the next sentence, he gives an example of someone failing that test: Colin Powell's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What did Powell apologize for? The inaccuracy of our intelligence. Kerry contrasts this with the trust France once placed in American spy photos.

Proof, intelligence, spy photos. The pattern is obvious. The test isn't moral. It's factual. What you and the Frenchman share is the evidence of your senses. The global test is the measurement of the president's assertions against the real world, the world you and I can see.

Brad DeLong and Mark Kleiman, two great minds thinking alike, note that Kerry's statement is akin to Thomas Jefferson's great phrase in the Declaration of Independence:

When... it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation...

Juan Cole goes to the dictionary to determine the meaning of "global":

What does "global" mean in this sentence? Well, let's work down. It clearly does not mean "spherical," so that is out.

But it clearly also cannot mean "worldwide," which is what the attack ads, and Condi Rice, are implying. The "global test" Kerry speaks of relates in his mind to convincing "your countrymen" of the legitimacy of what you are doing, first and foremost. Convincing your own citizens cannot possibly be a "worldwide" matter. It is only in the last clause of the sentence where the rest of the world comes up. And there, Kerry is not suggesting that it be asked its opinion beforehand. He used the past tense. He is saying that only by first passing the global test with Americans could the US hope, after the fact, to prove to the world that what had been done was legitimate...

So, if "global" here does not mean "spherical" and does not mean "worldwide," then what does it mean? Kerry was obviously using the word in the third sense above, of "complete." Military action has to pass a complete test, in order to gain the entire confidence of the US public, in preparation for making a convincing case in the aftermath of the war to other countries.

Two things. First, Mr. Bush would have taken to the stump to decry the fact that the Kerry Doctrine would turn our security policy over to aliens.

Senator Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give aliens governments veto power over our national security decisions. I have a different view...When