Friday, September 16, 2005
STAY OUT OF THE SUN AND, UMMM, DON'T BREATHE AND STUFF
Antarctic hole in ozone layer nears record size
GENEVA (Reuters) - The hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has grown to near record size this year, suggesting 20 years of pollution controls have so far had little effect, the United Nations said on Friday.
In a bulletin on the seasonal depletion of ozone gas, which filters harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer and cataracts, the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the hole would peak within a couple of weeks.
"It will probably not break any records, but it shows that ozone depletion is going on and that the so-called ozone recovery has yet to be confirmed," Geir Braathen, WMO's top ozone expert, told a news briefing.
U.S. scientists reported last month that the ozone layer has stopped shrinking but it will take decades to start recovering.
The hole above the South Pole and Antarctica, which spans about 27 million sq km, was expected to grow another million sq km in a week, bringing it close to the record years of 2000 and 2003, the WMO said.
It had passed over Ushuaia, in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina, "leading to noticeable increases in UV (ultraviolet)" radiation, according to the bulletin, issued on the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) containing chlorine and bromine, have been blamed for thinning the layer because they attack the ozone molecules, causing them to break apart.
Many CFCs, once commonly used in refrigeration, air conditioning and industrial cleaning, were banned by the Vienna Convention, signed exactly 20 years ago, and its Montreal Protocol clinched in 1987.
Most scientists say the hole spanned a record 29 million sq km (11 million sq miles) in September 2003, exposing the southern tip of South America.
"You could say that the ozone situation is stabilizing at a low level. We are approaching the maximum of ozone depletion, it is kind of leveling off, but it is still too early to say that the situation is improving," Braathen said.
In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the 189 states to have ratified the Montreal Protocol had eliminated more than 1.5 million tonnes of annual production of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer.
But developing countries were "only at the half-way point in many of their obligations" under the pact, while in wealthy countries a number of chemicals still needed to be phased out.
"It is essential that we remain alert to this hazard to avoid an increase in skin cancers, cataracts and other health threats," Annan said.Friday, September 16, 2005
TOLDYOUSOTOLDYOUSOTOLDYOUSO
I don't give a shit what the Flat Earthers say - they are getting worse, and it's because we are screwing with the environment. Debate is over, time for worldwide ecological action!
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HURRICANE STRENGTH
Study links global warming to stronger storms
Critics contend the conclusion is based on flawed weather data
Houston Chronicle - Katrina's blunt assault of the upper Gulf Coast has reignited one of the most controversial debates in science today — whether global warming is causing extreme weather like hurricanes to become even more violent.
And now, just days after Katrina struck, new evidence has emerged that supports the view that man-induced warming of the world's oceans may be spawning stronger storms.
After analyzing the strength of hurricanes around the globe between 1970 and 2005, U.S. climate scientists found a steady increase in the number of the most powerful storms, Category 4 and 5 hurricanes.
Katrina hit the coast as a Category 4 storm, but its size, with hurricane winds extending 120 miles from its center, made it the most destructive ever to strike the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.
In 1970, the scientists found, these most powerful storms only made up about one-sixth of all hurricanes. In recent years, they say, the proportion of major storms has risen to one-third of all hurricanes.
During the same time period the average temperature of the world's oceans has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit.
"With some confidence, we can say these two things must be connected," said Judith Curry, a Georgia Institute of Technology researcher and author of the research paper, which appears today in the journal Science.
Warm seas are essential to tropical storms — they cannot form unless surface temperatures reach nearly 80 degrees. Warmer water causes more evaporation, which rises into the atmosphere and condenses, releasing the energy that drives hurricanes.
There are good theoretical reasons, then, to believe that if global warming continues, and seas' temperature rises, hurricanes might become more violent. What the new study provides is some evidence this may already be happening, evidence which hadn't existed until now.
"Of course it's difficult to attribute any particular hurricane or hurricane season to global warming," said Jim Lawrence, an associate professor of geosciences at the University of Houston who studies hurricanes. "But there's reason to believe there may be a trend here, and we ought to study it more."
Some scientists greeted the new study with skepticism. Chris Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said the study is based on flawed data.
He said methods for estimating storm intensity vary widely around the globe. In the Northern Atlantic Ocean planes fly into storms to take measurements. Forecasters in other areas rely on interpretations of satellite observations, a method not widely adopted until the mid 1970s — after the time period the Science paper's measurements began.
Moreover, the researchers did not find any increase in the maximum wind speed of the strongest global storms, Landsea said. Climate models suggest warm seas should also increase the intensity of the very strongest storms.
Landsea said it's unlikely global warming would already be increasing hurricane intensity.
Gregory Holland, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and another author of the new study, defended his group's research. The data is reliable, he said.
The research group studied storms on a worldwide scale because, in individual ocean basins, there are substantial, decades-long ups and down in the number of storms. The Atlantic has experienced such a trend since about 1995, when the number and intensity of storms has increased, following a widely accepted trend known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Between 1970 and 1994 there were an average of 0.8 major storms per year. The decade ending last year saw an average of 2.3 major storms a year
A researcher at Colorado State University's hurricane forecasting program, Phil Klotzbach, said these periodic oscillations may explain the data.
Friday, September 16, 2005
GWB ASKS SITTER FOR POTTY BREAK
Friday, September 16, 2005
PLAY NICE
Scientist: Global Warming Options Exist
BURLINGTON, Vt., Associated Press - Global warming poses a threat to the earth, but humans can probably ease the climate threats brought on by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, global climate specialist Richard Alley told an audience at the University of Vermont.
Alley said his research in Greenland suggested that subtle changes in atmospheric patterns leave parts of the globe susceptible to abrupt and dramatic climate shifts that can last decades or centuries.
Almost all scientists agree that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere created as humans burn fossil fuel is warming the planet. How to respond to the warming is a matter of intense political, scientific and economic debate worldwide.
Alley said he was upbeat about global warming because enough clever people existed in the world to find other reliable energy sources besides fossil fuels.
He said people can get rich finding marketable alternatives to fossil fuel.
"Wouldn't it be useful if the United States were to have a piece of the action. Wouldn't it be useful if some bright students from UVM were to have a piece of the action," Alley said.
Alley said that Europe and parts of eastern North American could in a matter of a few years revert to a cold, windy region, akin to the weather in Siberia. Such shifts have occurred frequently over the millennia, Alley's research shows.
A gradual change in atmospheric temperature, such as global warming, could push the climate to a threshold where such a shift suddenly occurs, he said.
Alley told his audience of about 200 people in a UVM lecture hall Wednesday evening that he couldn't predict if, when or where sudden shifts toward cold, heat, drought or water could occur under global warming, but it is something everyone should consider.
"This is not the biggest problem in the world. The biggest problem in the world is getting along with each other. But it's part of that because we're not going to get along with each other if we're not getting along with the planet," Alley said.Friday, September 16, 2005
TALK IS CHEAP -WHO'S PAYING FOR THESE GRAND SWEEPING PROMISES?
Bush plan a solid start, but key is in the execution
USA TODAY - More than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, President Bush at last seemed to have marshaled an effective response as he addressed the nation from New Orleans Thursday night.
Bush proposed a massive plan - one that comes with huge costs that he disturbingly offered no plan to pay for - but it was, finally, in proportion to the magnitude of the problem.
Most important, he got the order of march right, setting three top priorities:
First, meet the immediate needs of those endangered and uprooted by the storm. As he described the emergency response now in place - electric power restored, gas pipelines operating, levees fixed, pumps running, ships arriving to provide housing - it appeared for the first time that the government was getting a grip on the problem. Also arriving are emergency supplies for evacuees, expedited Social Security checks, unemployment benefits, mail delivery - and more.
Second, help displaced citizens rebuild their communities and lives.
Third, rebuild the communities better and safer than before the storm. This, he promised, would be led by state and local governments, but with major federal financing.
To achieve this, the president proposes a mix of traditional big government programs more commonly associated with Democrats and conservative ideas such as enterprise zones, federally-financed savings accounts for people seeking job training and incentives for home ownership, targeted largely at low-income citizens.
It's a solid start, but one that comes with three unanswered questions:
• Who's in charge? Saying states and localities will have control is sensible, but the federal government can't just dole out money without deciding how it will be spent. Bush stopped short of creating a body to coordinate decision-making among fractious federal, state and local officials.
• Who will pay? Bush ignored the subject, suggesting he will once again indulge his worst habit: expanding government spending at record rates without taking the responsibility to pay for it. With cost estimates running as high as $200 billion, some members of Congress in his own party are already chafing at the idea. Several have suggested reopening Congress' most recent pork-barrel extravaganza, the $286 billion transportation bill that included all manner of projects that could be scrapped in favor of more urgent Gulf Coast needs.
• Will it work? On the most basic level, at least, the chances that it will work in the hurricane zone seem good, if sure to come with problems. The government, once mobilized, is good at this sort of thing, and Bush's plan is creative. He also addressed the most glaring breakdown of the post-Katrina response: its failure to address the problems of the poor.
Far less convincing, though, was Bush's broader national response. He said he has ordered a federal review of emergency response plans in all major cities, as well as instructing all federal departments to review their own response.
It sounded all too much like the initiatives Bush announced four years ago in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Katrina proved those to be a near total failure in their first major test, raising deep suspicions that the administration has bungled terrorism preparations as badly as it bungled the Katrina response. It there's anything good to come from this disaster, it's that those flaws have been exposed. The president noted the need for a stronger federal role, particularly military, in a disaster of this scale. That's a start, as is the broader Bush plan.
Whether it will prove to be effectively managed and responsibly financed, or just good public relations, remains to be seen.Friday, September 16, 2005
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
Nation Hears Bush With Skepticism, Hope
Associated Press - Americans watched President Bush's speech from New Orleans on Thursday with mixed expectations. Some hoped for more contrition for the government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina; others sought inspiration for a devastated Gulf Coast.
So it was hardly surprising that the speech failed to resonate with some viewers. For his part, Karl Kettelhut counseled patience from his seat at a bar inside a Las Vegas American Legion Post.
"Let's see what happens in six months, how much of what he says happens," said Kettelhut, 65, visiting Las Vegas from Kingman, Ariz. "You can say whatever you want. It's what happens down the road that counts."
Speaking from New Orleans' French Quarter, Bush promised the government would pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen.
He acknowledged his administration had failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina, which killed hundreds of people across five states. The government's costs for rebuilding could reach $200 billion or beyond.
In Houston, a few dozen hurricane refugees watched the speech from the shelter where they were staying near the Astrodome.
Samuel Lewis, 31, questioned why Bush did not act faster and said the president's remarks were empty promises. "He is telling me he is going to rebuild my city ... but what about all the stuff I lost? What about jobs?"
Others agreed the speech was too little, too late.
"I've been in Third World countries where situations of this sort were handled better," said New Orleans resident J.J. Smith, 61, a retired communications specialist for telephone companies who watched the speech in a Baton Rouge, La., hotel bar.
In Detroit, Ralph Simpson, 51, said Bush should have made his comments in the first days after the hurricane hit.
"At that point, words alone would have been significant ... But now it's after the fact, so actions are more important," he said.
But Scott Parker, 44, a casino dealer from Ocean Springs, Miss., doesn't blame Bush at all. The marquee at the "Castaways" bar advertised Bush's speech, and the president received applause from those watching.
"He knows what happened here," Parker said. "He's been here. But he's just the middle man. Congress has the say-so."
Ken Sundberg, a night manager at the Hampton Inn motel near the Cincinnati airport, watched the speech with special interest because he expects to be deployed to New Orleans with the Kentucky National Guard.
"It's nice to know they are going to investigate the response," said Sundberg, 38.
He doesn't blame Bush or the federal government.
"The state and city response left a lot to be desired," he said.
The speech left Kevin Melton, 54, a retired Marine from Biloxi, Miss., disgusted and disappointed. He lost his home and car in the storm and is now staying at a Red Cross shelter in Gulfport, Miss.
"I'm constantly seeing on TV that money is being allocated, and we're not seeing it," he said. "There's lots of talk, no action. It just seems to be a showcase now."Thursday, September 15, 2005
BLOOD IS ON HIS HANDS
As New Orleans flooded, Chertoff discussed avian flu in Atlanta
By Shannon McCaffrey, Alison Young and Seth Borenstein1 hour, 55 minutes ago
WASHINGTON, Knight Ridder Newspapers - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the U.S. official with the power to order a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina, flew to Atlanta for a previously scheduled briefing on avian flu on the morning after the storm swept ashore.
Chertoff's decision to fly to Georgia for a business-as-usual briefing even as residents in New Orleans fought for their lives in rising floodwaters raises new questions about how much top officials knew about what was happening on the Gulf Coast and how focused they were on the unfolding tragedy.
In fact, Chertoff didn't know for sure that New Orleans' life-preserving levees had failed until a full day had passed.
Not until Chertoff was returning from Atlanta on Aug. 30 did he begin writing the memo that declared Katrina "an incident of national significance" and put the full force of the federal government behind the relief and rescue efforts.
Critics charge that the delay in making the designation until about 36 hours after the storm may have been one reason why federal help was slow in coming and why no one seemed to be in charge in the disaster zone.
In a first accounting of Chertoff's activities before and after the storm, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke portrayed his boss as deeply involved yet not the man in charge.
As the severity of Katrina became apparent on Aug. 26, Knocke said, Chertoff huddled with his staff at Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington. Katrina, he said, was a major concern, but not the only thing preoccupying Homeland Security officials.
On Saturday, Aug. 27, Chertoff worked from home and on Sunday, Aug. 28 - with
President Bush on vacation in Texas - he spent a long day in his office monitoring the storm's progress, Knocke said. On Monday, Aug. 29, as Katrina made landfall, Chertoff was hobbled by a lack of specific information from officials on the Gulf Coast, Knocke said.
Chertoff's team was unable to confirm until midday on Aug. 30 that the levees had breached even though the flooding was being widely reported on television beginning that morning and officials in Louisiana first reported those breaches in the early morning hours of Monday, Aug. 29.
The Homeland Security chief was "extraordinarily frustrated with some of the scattered information we were getting," Knocke said.
Stung by criticism, Chertoff's aides this week attempted to downplay his importance in managing the disaster relief, saying that former
Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown was in charge. Brown resigned this week amid intense criticism about the sluggish and meager initial response to Katrina.
At the same time, Knocke said, Chertoff was deeply engaged in preparing for and responding to the powerful hurricane - ordering U.S. Customs helicopters to the Gulf Coast on Monday, Aug. 29, as the storm bore down and receiving a steady stream of updates from FEMA. Part of his time in Atlanta was spent at the FEMA operations center there receiving updates on the storm.
"There was a real sense of urgency," Knocke said.
Nonetheless, congressional critics and others are questioning how well Chertoff carried out his responsibilities under the National Response Plan - the blueprint for how the nation responds to disasters.
"There are a lot of questions that ultimately now put more light on the Secretary of Homeland Security," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., the ranking minority member on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Thompson said oversight hearings are needed to resolve them.
FEMA's Brown had arrived in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday, Aug. 28. By Monday night, Aug. 29, he had called Chertoff and either White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card or his deputy Joe Hagin and said that things were spiraling "out of control," according to an interview Brown gave to The New York Times. Knocke said that Chertoff promised Brown "anything he needed."
Despite Brown's phone call, Chertoff went ahead the next day with his previously scheduled visit to the headquarters for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt for a briefing on avian flu. The disease has killed 57 people worldwide.
Afterward, Chertoff went to FEMA headquarters in Atlanta for an update and it appears that that's when he realized the magnitude of the crisis.
Still critics on Thursday questioned Chertoff's judgment in turning his attention elsewhere, even as the storm damage mounted.
"In the relative scheme of things it (avian flu) needed to be put on the back burner while New Orleans was going under water," said John Copenhaver, a southeastern regional FEMA director under the Clinton administration
Copenhaver found it incredible that Chertoff didn't know water was flooding into New Orleans until Tuesday, Aug. 30.
"He is the Cabinet official of the department that's supposed to know things like this," Copenhaver said.
With the spotlight now on Chertoff, officials at the Department of Homeland Security this week have begun issuing new versions of events surrounding his role in the botched federal response to Katrina.
What they are saying this week contradicts many of their previous statements and actions.
Knocke said Thursday that Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo, first obtained by Knight Ridder, created "an administrative paper trail" for an incident of national significance. He said that the department had been acting "under the auspices of an incident of national significance" since President Bush issued an emergency declaration on Aug. 27, the Saturday before the storm.
But the National Response Plan says that it's the Secretary of Homeland Security who designates an event an incident of national significance. When asked if Chertoff had made the designation earlier than Aug. 30, Knocke refused to answer the question directly.
After Chertoff made the designation in his Aug. 30 memo, federal troops began to file into New Orleans, bringing much-needed supplies to residents. But many people remained stranded on their rooftops seeking help from passing helicopters and boats.
Knocke acknowledged on Thursday that the National Response Plan - which was redrawn after the Sept. 11 attacks and became effective just this year - could be in line for an overhaul.
"We're also going to have to step back and take a look at the playbook," he said.Thursday, September 15, 2005
WAS HE ONE OF OURS?
Weldon: Atta Papers Destroyed on Orders
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.
The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to identify the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
Weldon declined to identify the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as "2.5 terabytes" — as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.
A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said the witnesses for Wednesday hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon's comments.
Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman, said officials have been "fact-finding in earnest for quite some time."
"We've interviewed 80 people involved with Able Danger, combed through hundreds of thousands of documents and millions of e-mails and have still found no documentation of Mohamed Atta," Swiergosz said.
He added that certain data had to be destroyed in accordance with existing regulations regarding "intelligence data on U.S. persons."
Weldon has said that Atta, the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and three other hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell.
On Wednesday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the "Able Danger" assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said, "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us."
Weldon responded angrily to Gorton's assertions.
"It's absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn't exist," Weldon said Thursday.
Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, have come forward to support Weldon's claims.Thursday, September 15, 2005
SEXIST PIGS DIE YOUNG - LOVE YER GALS AND LIVE LONG
Sexism May Shorten Men's Lives: Study
THURSDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- In a somewhat unexpected finding, societal male dominance over women -- patriarchy -- may help explain why men have a lower life expectancy than women worldwide.
British researchers analyzed rates of female murders and male death rates from all causes in 51 countries in Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. The prevalence of violence against women was used to indicate the extent of patriarchal control in each of the countries. Socioeconomic factors were also taken into consideration.
The study found that women lived longer than men in all 51 countries. The study also found that those countries with higher rates of female murders (indicating higher levels of patriarchy) also had higher rates for male death and shorter male life expectancies, compared to countries with lower female murder rates, the researchers said.
In fact, statistical analysis showed that variations between countries in rates of violence against women accounted for close to half (49 percent) of the variation in male death rates, the researchers noted.
"Our data suggest that oppression and exploitation harm the oppressors as well as those they oppress," researchers at the University of Liverpool concluded.
They noted that the higher death rate and shorter life expectancy among men is "a preventable social condition, which can potentially be tackled through global social policy."
For example, changes can be made in the way that young males are socialized into patriarchal gender roles, such as the emphasis on risk taking, aggression and suppression of emotions, the researchers said.
The findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.Thursday, September 15, 2005
NOTHING TO FEAR
Let me see now - there's three mice running around Jersey infected with plague. Jersey is crawling with fleas and rodents, and plague is spread by fleas and rodents. Yup, paperwork error, go back to your shopping, citizens...
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Mice Infected With Bubonic Plague Missing
NEWARK, N.J. Associated Press - Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago, and authorities launched a search though health experts said there was scant public risk.
The mice were unaccounted-for at the Public Health Research Institute, which is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government.
Federal official said the mice may never be accounted for. Among other things, the rodents may have been stolen, eaten by other lab animals or just misplaced in a paperwork error.
If the mice got outside the lab, they would have already died from the disease, state Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said.
The possibility of theft prompted the institute to interrogate two dozen of its employees and conduct lie detector tests, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Thursday.
The FBI said it was investigating. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating, the newspaper reported.
University officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday morning.
The mice were injected as part of an inoculation and vaccination experiment, investigators said.
Health officials say 10 to 20 people in the United States contract plague each year, usually through infected fleas or rodents. It can be treated with antibiotics, but about one in seven U.S. cases is fatal. Bubonic plague is not contagious, but left untreated it can transform into pneumonic plague, which can be spread from person to person.
The incident came as federal authorities investigate possible corruption in the school's finances. The FBI is reviewing political donations and millions of dollars in no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected firms.
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On the Net:
Institute: http://www.phri.orgThursday, September 15, 2005
...BUT WE DON'T WANT TO RESTRICT OUR NUKES...
World leaders shake heads as reforms to check nuclear arms spread dumped
This is what the back of Dubya's head looks like.
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Kofi Annan has called it a disgrace and Australian Prime Minister John Howard termed it a major disappointment.
After months of wrangling, world leaders were shaking their heads over the dumping of proposed UN reforms to check nuclear weapons proliferation and disarmament.
Despite increasing concerns over illicit nuclear weapon networks and terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction, negotiators working for months on a reform package to beef up the
United Nations failed to agree on how to revamp global non-proliferation rules.
They adopted a watered-down package of reforms to be endorsed by the leaders of the world attending the 60th anniversary meeting of the global body.
Proposed new rules on nuclear weapons proliferation and disarmament were completely disregarded.
"It's a real disgrace," said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, lamenting the omission, which reportedly came after Washington gave only lukewarm support for the reforms.
He blamed "posturing" for the failure to find a common approach to the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Annan called nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament "our biggest challenge, and our biggest failing," citing a similar failed effort at a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference earlier this year.
Diplomats said the United States had vehemently objected to focusing on disarmament by major powers rather than on the spread of nuclear weapons among rogue states and terrorists.
Norway crafted the proposals and submitted them to the United Nations in July, with Annan backing the initiative as a basis "for a wide-ranging consensus."
The United States initially stayed mum on the proposed reforms.
But only days before the summit, the world's only superpower reluctantly came into the fold, joining about about half the 191 UN member nations led by Britain, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Chile and Romania.
John Bolton, an ex-arms control chief at the US State Department and currently the new US ambassador to the UN, reportedly was against the proposal initially and, some claim, had campaigned against it.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard did not hide his disgust.
"I'm very, very disappointed" by the omission, he said.
"We think issues concerning Iran and North Korea and proliferation issues are the most important item on the disarmament agenda, and if serious progress is to be made then we have to make progress in these areas," he said
Indonesian government spokesman Marty Natalegawa agreed.
He said it was a "matter of concern" that various parties had expressed concern over proliferation and disarmament and yet did not back the much needed reform.
"It is a glaring omission. The absence is disquieting. We find that one of the most deserving aspects of the whole document," he said.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said both the proliferation and the perpetual possession of nuclear weapons posed an "unacceptable global danger."
He called for a "new consensus" to achieve disarmament and non-proliferation.
The lukewarm US support for disarmament efforts stems from concerns relating to issues such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Washington has refused to ratify, one Western diplomat said.
It was the collapse of the NPT review conference, which the United States was again blamed for, that prompted the reforms crafted by Norway together with Britain, Australia, Indonesia, Chile and Romania.Thursday, September 15, 2005
FEMA: LIKE A MARX BROTHERS MOVIE WITHOUT THE FUNNY
Help is on the way, but it's unclear where
USA TODAY - More than 100 tractor-trailers packed with water, ice and other critical hurricane-relief supplies have been sitting at an Air Force base in Montgomery, Ala., for nearly a week while the federal government pays $600 a day for each truck.
The idle trucks, called up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver supplies, are just the latest example of the waste, bureaucratic errors and miscommunication that continue to foul Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
"When somebody gets paid 600 bucks to sit and not burn fuel, that's a pretty good profit margin," said Alabama Food Services President Buck Hamilton, who is being paid by FEMA for about six truckloads of ice.
His shipments waited at similar truck staging areas in Mississippi. "Would you like to get paid $600 a day to sit and do nothing?" he said. "It's hard to criticize."
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., doesn't think so. He said Wednesday that Congress should create a special inspector general for hurricane relief, similar to the position overseeing spending on
Iraq reconstruction. "It is imperative that those most in need receive assistance and that no resources are wasted," Pence said
FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said the agency needs to have plenty of trucks at the ready. Many of those that have been waiting at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base are now headed for Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to "pre-position" for Hurricane Ophelia. "We stage vehicles and equipment and supplies all over the country really any time a disaster is pending," he said.
Other FEMA problems:
• A convoy of 100 trucks full of supplies spent a week traveling to Meridian, Miss., and Selma, Ala., before being sent to Memphis last Saturday night.
The city's emergency chief, Claude Talford, was roused around midnight to find out that the trucks were lining up on one of his city's main streets. He didn't know they were coming, and neither did state officials. "They just showed up on our doorstep," he said.
• In St. Louis, officials were asked by FEMA last week to prepare for up to 2,500 evacuees. After a small city was constructed in an airport hangar, FEMA called and said no evacuees were coming. The city has spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Gary Christmann, chief of the city's emergency management department. "We considered that this was an outstanding drill."
• In Oregon, FEMA requests for assistance changed virtually daily. Holly Armstrong, spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, said FEMA called on Sept. 2 to request shelter in the Portland area for 1,000 evacuees. Officials scrambled, and Nike offered to donate clothes.
Two days later, FEMA said to "hold off." On Sept. 7, FEMA said 500 evacuees would show up Sept. 10. Then FEMA told the state no one was coming.
The governor is now reviewing his own state's readiness. Among the considerations, Armstrong said: "How much do you really want to count on FEMA?"
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
HEEHEEHEEEEE!
The Storm That Ate The GOP
Who will pity the soulless Republican Party now that Katrina is mauling their regime?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Can you hear that? That low scraping moan, that painful scream, that compressed hissing wail like the sound of an angry alligator caught in a vise? Why, it's the GOP, and they're screaming, "No, no it can't be, oh my God, please no, this damnable Katrina thing is just an unstoppable PR disaster for us!" After all (they wail), who woulda thought dissing all those poor black people and letting so many of them die in filth and misery in the Superdome while our pampered CEO president enjoyed yet another vacation would cause such an ugly backlash, such harsh criticism of the glorious, rich-über-alles GOP creed? Who knew it would lay bare our deeply inbred agenda of social injustice and civil neglect, and our systematic abuse of the country? This storm thing is so not the thing we need right now because, oh my God look, just look! We've been so golden! We've had the run of the candy store! We have been gods among swine! Can you hear them? Hastert to DeLay to Frist to Santorum to Rove to Cheney to Bush himself, across the board and all down the snickering party line they keen, "It's not fair! We've been planning this regime, this overthrow for 40 years! We've worked so damn hard to drive a wedge into the culture and an ice pick into the heart of the nation, working like demons on meth to mangle this country's economy and sense of pride so as to boost corporate profits and lock down our wealth and empire!" And now Katrina. And now a furious backlash we never predicted that could very well spell the death of our wanton free-for-all gluttony. Damn you, Mother Nature! Damn you, uppity female! Just listen. Isn't that Dick Cheney, lying awake at night as the leeches drain his soul, muttering his woes to a well-narcotized Lynne? "Dammit, Lynney, what went wrong? We've got the House locked up and the Senate locked up and we can cram through any law or any referendum or toxic Patriot Act we like with next-to-zero outcry and no discussion on the floor ..." We're successfully stuffing the lower courts with hundreds of homophobic neoconservative misogynist appointees and now we even own the Supreme Court -- the Supreme Court, pudding-thighs! -- and even the increasingly impotent California governor is more in our back pocket than we imagined. We've had the whole goddamn country under our thumb for five years, squirming like a stuck rat as we make out like robber barons. What a run we've had! We've threatened major media into numb compliance and we run the FCC the way a pimp runs a cheap hooker and we've got a loudmouth right-wing pundit manning nearly every ideological outpost in every corner of the media globe while millions of stupefied 'Murkins still believe Fox News is a genuine source of integrity and honesty. Look at us go! And don't forget, to back it all up and shore up the base, we've got so many hate-spitting pseudo-religious bonk jobs broadcasting their bile across roughly 1,600 militant Christian Midwestern talk-radio shows it would make Jesus himself cringe in pain, and even that soulless cretin Pat Robertson is comfy enough to start suggesting we assassinate foreign leaders who dare to dis BushCo. Look what we've accomplished! We launched two brutal, devastating, unwinnable wars. We've let Osama bin Laden run happy and free for over four years, and counting. We just passed an obscene $12.3 billion energy bill that ensures our heroin-like dependency on foreign oil for the next two decades while misinformed 'Murkin GIs die in Iraq protecting us from $5 gallons of gas. Damn, we're good! We torture innocent detainees in Iraq and abuse inmates at Guantánamo and chip away at women's rights and demonize homosexuals, and we strip the forests and gut the Clean Air Act and pollute the water and devastate the economy and cut welfare spending (whew!), and still the lemming people think we're gods because we keep them wrapped in fear and a whole pile of carefully orchestrated Rove-ian lies. We are, in short, f--ing geniuses. But now, this. Now BushCo's spineless Katrina response and our party's obvious contempt for lazy poor people who don't own SUVs and Lockheed-Martin portfolios means Dubya's ratings have plummeted below 40, as many of his precious pet agenda items head for the Dumpster, including the gutting of Social Security and the gutting of Medicare and even more tax cuts for his wealthy cronies. Damn you, Mother Nature! Even the media has stepped it up, taken off the kid gloves and begun hurling angry, pointed questions at BushCo for the first time in four years, ever since we muzzled them with one part threat and one part Rove and all parts corporate stranglehold. Hell, the damn media was on the ground in New Orleans within 24 hours of Katrina, beating our untrained monkeys from FEMA by three days. Who the hell do they think they are? Ain't it a bitch? And now there are those who say the impermeable fortress o' pain known as the GOP might just lose the South next election due to its obvious lack of care for the lower classes, unless we can somehow scare them poor people into not voting again, or tell them if they vote Democrat they won't get any health care or food stamps or relief money or any of Barbara Bush's patronizing rich-grandma cookies. Hey, it worked last time. So goes the GOP lament. Of course, it's not all bad (they say). Hell, the oil companies are as giddy as schoolgirls at being able to falsely jack up prices to over whopping 70 bucks a barrel, despite a recent (temporary) glut of supply. Halliburton is squealing like Jenna Bush at a kegger at scoring the contract to help rebuild New Orleans' infrastructure thanks to the fact that the former head of FEMA is now a Halliburton lobbyist, and the GOP plan to decimate FEMA and militarize emergency efforts is going -- pardon the pun -- swimmingly. But something has shifted. Something is ugly and toxic in the water. This is what, I imagine, the GOP overlords are asking each other over cocktails and baby seal kabobs and whale-blood transfusions: Do you think the people are finally beginning to sense it? Are they finally waking up? You think they know that the fact that Bush is finally taking a modicum of responsibility for his administration's failure -- something he never, never does -- is a sign of true GOP desperation? Do you think they recognize that BushCo isn't really spending a dime on Katrina relief, that the $52 billion they just crammed through Congress without any discussion isn't actually going toward repairs and rebuilding at all? You think people sense that all of it, every single dime, is going toward -- you guessed it -- PR? Spin control? You know it's true. Every government truck and every National Guardsman and every aid package and every miserable FEMA agent you see is merely in place to try and shore up Bush's miserable poll numbers, his dwindling support. Hell, it's the only reason Bush -- or his party -- does anything for the "good" of the nation. But holy crap, it sure is expensive. It sure is annoying. It sure takes the GOP off its game of warmongering and finger-pointing and padding the pockets of the rich and pulverizing the economy like a ... like a ... yes, OK, like a hurricane. Damn you, Mother Nature.
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Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
TED RALL IS MAH HERO
CHARITIES ARE FOR SUCKERS
By Ted Rall Tue Sep 13, 8:06 PM ET
Leave Katrina Relief Efforts to Government
NEW YORK--Hurricane Katrina has prompted Americans to donate more than $700 million to charity, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy. So many suckers, so little foresight.
Government has been shirking its basic responsibilities since the '80s, when Ronald Reagan sold us his belief that the sick, poor and unlucky should no longer count on "big government" to help them, but should rather live and die at the whim of contributors to private charities. The Katrina disaster, whose total damage estimate has risen from $100 to $125 billion, marks the culmination of Reagan's privatization of despair.
The American Red Cross leads the post-Katrina sweepstakes, quickly closing in on the $534 million it took in just after 9/11. But Red Cross spokeswoman Sheila Graham told the AP it needs another half billion "to provide emergency relief over the coming weeks for thousands of evacuees who have scattered among 675 of its shelters in 23 states."
Shelley Borysiewicz of Catholic Charities USA, which has raised $7 million thus far, also continues to solicit donations: "We don't want people to lose sight of the fact that this is going to take years of recovery, and we're going to be there to help the people who fall through the cracks."
What "cracks"? Why should New Orleans' dispossessed have to live in private shelters? We live in the United States, not Mali. There's only one reason flood victims aren't getting help from the government: because the government refuses to help them. The Red Cross and its cohorts are letting lazy, incompetent and corrupt politicians off the hook, and so are their donors.
It's ridiculous, but people evidently need to be reminded that the United States is not only the world's wealthiest nation but the wealthiest society that has existed anywhere, ever. The U.S. government can easily pick up the tab for people inconvenienced by bad weather--if helping them is a priority. That goes double for Katrina, a disaster caused by the government's conscious decision to eliminate the $50 million pittance needed to improve New Orleans' levees.
For our leaders the optional war against Iraq is such a priority, which the Congressional Budget Office expects to cost $600 billion by 2010. That's four or five Katrinas right there. (That's also where the levee money went.) Because rich people are always a political priority, their taxes have been slashed by $4 trillion over a decade--the equivalent of 32 Katrinas. So worried are our public servants about the tax burden placed on the rich that they're looking out for rich dead people. This is why they've gutted the estate tax that, at a cost of $75 billion annually, will run half a Katrina a year. Trickle-down economists beginning with Milton Friedman shout "starve the beast," but while the social programs are put on a diet, the mean and powerful pig out more than ever.
Disaster relief is too important to be left to private fundraisers, with their self-sustaining fundraising expenses, administrative overhead (nine percent for the Red Cross) and their parochial, often religious, agendas. It's also way too expensive. In the final analysis, after the floodwaters have receded and the poor neighborhoods of New Orleans have been razed under eminent domain, major charities will be lucky if they've managed to raise one percent of the total cost of Katrina. Congress, recognizing the reality that only the federal government possesses the means to deal with the calamity, has already allocated $58 billion--over 70 times the amount raised by charities--to flood relief along the Gulf of Mexico. As Bush says, that's only a "down payment."
Cutting a check to the Red Cross isn't just a vote for irresponsible government. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what you'll end up paying for Katrina in increased taxes.
Granted, in terms of popularity of likelihood of success, trying to make a case against giving money to charities compares to lobbying against puppies. The impulse to donate, after all, is rooted in our best human traits. As we watched New Orleanians die of thirst, disease and anarchic violence in the face of Bush Administration disinterest and local government incompetence, millions of us did the only thing we thought we could to do to help: cut a check or click a PayPal button. Tragically, that generosity feeds into the mindset of the sinister ideologues who argue that government shouldn't help people--the very mindset that caused the levee break that turned Katrina into a holocaust and led to official unresponsiveness. And it is already setting the stage for the next avoidable disaster.
It's time to "starve the beast": private charities used by the government to justify the abdication of its duties to its citizens.Wednesday, September 14, 2005
IT ALL GOES BACK *DIRECTLY* TO GWB
Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows
WASHINGTON, Knight Ridder Newspapers - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.
Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.
As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.
But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.
But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.
"As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina," Chertoff said in the memo to the secretaries of defense, health and human services and other key federal agencies.
On the day that Chertoff wrote the memo, Bush was in San Diego presiding over a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo for the first time declared Katrina an "Incident of National Significance," a key designation that triggers swift federal coordination. The following afternoon, Bush met with his Cabinet, then appeared before TV cameras in the White House Rose Garden to announce the government's planned action.
That same day, Aug. 31, the Department of Defense, whose troops and equipment are crucial in such large disasters, activated its Task Force Katrina. But active-duty troops didn't begin to arrive in large numbers along the Gulf Coast until Saturday.
White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.
Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster - caused by terrorists or Mother Nature - is too big for local officials to handle.
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, referred most inquiries about the memo and Chertoff's actions to the Department of Homeland Security.
"There will be an after-action report" on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Perino said. She added that "Chertoff had the authority to invoke the Incident of National Significance, and he did it on Tuesday."
Perino said the creation of the White House task force didn't add another bureaucratic layer or delay the response to the devastating hurricane. "Absolutely not," she said. "I think it helped move things along." When asked whether the delay in issuing the Incident of National Significance was to allow Bush time to return to Washington, Perino replied: "Not that I'm aware of."
Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, didn't dispute that the National Response Plan put Chertoff in charge in federal response to a catastrophe. But he disputed that the bureaucracy got in the way of launching the federal response.
"There was a tremendous sense of urgency," Knocke said. "We were mobilizing the greatest response to a disaster in the nation's history."
Knocke noted that members of the Coast Guard were already in New Orleans performing rescues and FEMA personnel and supplies had been deployed to the region.
The Department of Homeland Security has refused repeated requests to provide details about Chertoff's schedule and said it couldn't say specifically when the department requested assistance from the military. Knocke said a military liaison was working with FEMA, but said he didn't know his or her name or rank. FEMA officials said they wouldn't provide information about the liaison.
Knocke said members of almost every federal agency had already been meeting as part of the department's Interagency Incident Management Group, which convened for the first time on the Friday before the hurricane struck. So it would be a mistake, he said, to interpret the memo as meaning that Tuesday, Aug. 30 was the first time that members of the federal government coordinated.
The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.
"It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff," Haddow said. Brown "is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized."
A former FEMA director under President Reagan expressed shock by the inaction that Chertoff's memo suggested. It showed that Chertoff "does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long," said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was FEMA director from 1985-1989.
"Anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives," Becton told Knight Ridder. "I have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... I don't understand why, except that they were inefficient."
Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo came on the heels of a memo from Brown, written several hours after Katrina made landfall, showing that the FEMA director was waiting for Chertoff's permission to get help from others within the massive department. In that memo, first obtained by the Associated Press last week, Brown requested Chertoff's "assistance to make available DHS employees willing to deploy as soon as possible." It asked for another 1,000 homeland security workers within two days and 2,000 within a week.
The four-paragraph memo ended with Brown thanking Chertoff "for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near catastrophic event."
According to the National Response Plan, which was unveiled in January by Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security is supposed to declare an Incident of National Significance when a catastrophic event occurs.
"Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude," according to the plan, which evolved from earlier plans and lessons learned after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "Notification and full coordination with the States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources."
Should Chertoff have declared Katrina an Incident of National Significance sooner - even before the storm struck? Did his delay slow the quick delivery of the massive federal response that was needed? Would it have made a difference?
"You raise good questions," said Frank J. Cilluffo, the director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Planning Institute. It's too early to tell, he said, whether unfamiliarity with or glitches in the new National Response Plan were factors in the poor early response to Katrina.
"Clearly this is the first test. It certainly did not pass with flying colors," Cilluffo said of the National Response Plan.
Mike Byrne, a former senior homeland security official under Ridge who worked on the plan, said he doesn't think the new National Response Plan caused the confusion that plagued the early response to Katrina.
Something else went wrong, he suspects. The new National Response Plan isn't all that different from the previous plan, called the Federal Response Plan.
"Our history of responding to major disasters has been one where we've done it well," Byrne said. "We need to figure out why this one didn't go as well as the others did. It's shocking to me."
Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo is posted at www.krwashington.com
To read the National Response Plan, go to: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP(underscore)FullText.pdf
Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Seth Borenstein and William Douglas contributed to this report.Wednesday, September 14, 2005
GETTING HITCHED IS GOOD FOR FAMILIES
Marriage boosts prosperity - study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stable marriage can increase the financial prosperity of couples and improves the lives of American children, including those being raised by same-sex couples, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report by the Brookings Institution and Princeton University showed that while the poor see lack of money as a barrier to marriage, even when they have children out of wedlock, healthy marriage actually ensures them healthier finances in the long run.
"The decline in two-parent families since 1960 has been closely linked with a rise in child poverty, primarily because poverty rates are far higher in single-mother families than in two-parent families," according to the report.
The proportion of single-parent families doubled to 26 percent in 2003 from 12 percent in 1970, according to the report, "The Future of Children," a series of articles on marriage and children.
Children already being raised by same-sex couples can also benefit when those couples marry, the study suggested.
"First, marriage may increase children's material well-being through such benefits as family leave from work and spousal health insurance eligibility," the report said. "Second, same-sex marriage may benefit children by increasing the durability and stability of their parents' relationship."
The report comes as the Bush administration proposes some $1.5 billion in spending over the next five years on marriage programs and as the debate over same-sex marriage hits a fever pitch.
The study stressed the need for educational initiatives that could help with relationships and parenting, saying this can help reduce divorce, domestic violence and single-parent child-rearing.
At a forum on the report, panelists urged the Bush administration and Congress to direct more funding toward job growth for the poor and minorities.
"Men without jobs do not form families," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Washington, D.C., delegate to the House of Representatives.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
THEY'RE *ALL* ASSHOLES
Meet the Fakers
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, New York Times
The biggest gathering of leaders in history unfolds this week at the United Nations, as they preen and boast about how much they're helping the world's poor. In short, it may be the greatest assembly in history - of hypocrites.
The fact is that with just a few exceptions, the presidents and prime ministers coming to the U.N. summit are doing a disgraceful job in helping the poor. That's one reason the world's richest 500 individuals have the same income as the world's poorest 416 million people.
We Americans set a dreadful example as hosts to the summit. President Bush has been trying to wriggle away from his 2002 endorsement of the principle that rich countries should try to provide 70 cents in official development assistance for every $100 in national income. (Mr. Bush has sharply increased foreign aid from the Clinton years, but it still stood at only 16 cents in 2004 for each $100 of national income.)
The Bush administration also tried to change summit documents to downplay references to the millennium development goals of overcoming poverty. Fortunately, the Bush administration backed off and now grudgingly joins the international consensus against infant mortality.
It's common to hear abroad scathing criticisms of U.S. stinginess, much of it deserved. But Japan is also a cheapskate, giving only a hair more than the U.S., and Italy gives even less.
The new Human Development Report 2005, recently issued by the U.N. Development Program, is blessedly undiplomatic in its willingness to point figures - at just about everybody. It notes that the U.S. and other rich countries seem unwilling to provide a total of $7 billion annually for the next decade to provide 2.6 billion people with access to clean drinking water. That investment would save 4,000 lives a day, and the cost is less than Europeans spend on perfume - or than Americans spend on cosmetic surgery.
Meanwhile, the report adds, AIDS kills three million people a year and devastates countries like nothing since the Black Death in the 14th century. Yet annual world spending to fight AIDS amounts to three days of military expenditures.
This U.N. summit is meant to review the millennium development goals, such as cutting child deaths around the world by two-thirds by 2015. All the goals, adopted with great fanfare five years ago, are feasible, and some countries - from Bangladesh to Indonesia, Brazil to Mongolia - are on track to meet them. Hats off to them. But most of the world appears likely to miss the goals.
Two countries that should be the leaders of the developing world, China and India, are both off track and should be ashamed of their records. In India, among children 1 to 5, girls are 50 percent more likely to die than boys, meaning that each year 130,000 Indian girls are discriminated to death.
Bangladesh has now overtaken India in improving child mortality, and Vietnam has overtaken China. If India had matched Bangladesh's rate of reduction in child mortality over the last decade, according to the U.N.D.P., it would have saved 732,000 children's lives this year.
Likewise, China has largely ignored its poor interior, so it still loses 730,000 children each year. China has also taken diplomatic positions that hurt the world's most vulnerable populations, by supporting Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and by implicitly endorsing Sudan's genocide just as it once endorsed Pol Pot's.
And African leaders? Perhaps this is naïve, but it strikes me as racist for them to have complained about brutal white rule in South Africa or Zimbabwe while excusing black rule that is even more brutal.
Readers often ask if I find it depressing to visit African slums or mud-brick villages. On the contrary, it's exhilarating to see how little it takes to make a difference. Ancient scourges like river blindness and leprosy are being controlled, and a clever initiative by Bill Gates and others to promote vaccinations (the Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunization) saved more than one million lives just between 2001 and 2004.
That makes it maddening to see leaders posturing for the cameras at the U.N. while, as the U.N.D.P. report notes, "the promise to the world's poor is being broken." The report adds that the gap between the current trendline on child mortality and the one the leaders committed themselves to amounts to 41 million children dying before their fifth birthday over the next decade.
Rather than toasting themselves, these leaders should apologize for this continuing holocaust.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
THERE'S A WHOLE BIG WORLD OUT THERE
In other news
USA Today - Hurricane Katrina has overwhelmed all other news in the past two weeks. Some noteworthy other developments you might have missed in recent days if you weren't paying close attention:
Shocking ruling.
Jose Padilla, who was born in New York and grew up in Chicago, landed at O'Hare airport more than three years ago and hasn't been seen since. He disappeared into a succession of jails and military prisons without being charged with a crime, without trial and without even a hearing on the allegations against him.
In a ruling that puts the liberties of every citizen at risk, a federal appeals court said Friday there's nothing wrong with that.
Worse, the ruling - expected to be appealed - isn't limited to O'Hare airport or to Padilla. The court said Congress has given the president authority to order the jailing of anyone anywhere for as long as he wishes, as long as he claims it's connected to the war on terrorism.
That sounds more like the power accorded a dictator than the president of the United States. Repeal of the Constitution's Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments wasn't part of the package when Congress passed that anti-terrorism resolution after the 9/11 attacks.
Padilla might be a threat. In the government's shifting reasons for holding him, he has been accused at various times of plotting to touch off a radioactive "dirty bomb," scheming to blow up apartment buildings or, most recently and vaguely, fighting against U.S. forces in
Afghanistan.
If the government has a case against Padilla, he should be indicted and put on trial.
But if Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil, can be held indefinitely without being charged, then no one's liberty is secure.
Equal treatment.
Ugly posturing, bitter legislative fights and voter backlash greeted the 2003 decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to allow same-sex marriage. Now it's California's turn. The state Legislature last week became the first in the nation to legalize gay and lesbian nuptials. But any rush to the altar is premature.
Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, trying to finesse the issue, said he'll veto the bill even though he believes gay couples shouldn't be discriminated against. His argument: Voters in 2000 approved a measure saying, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The Legislature cannot overturn the people's wishes without another ballot initiative, he said.
A court fight is inevitable, but at least it's in the right venue. States historically have regulated marriage, and Californians - whether through their courts, elected officials or voters - can design their own solutions. That's far preferable to the proposed Constitutional amendment that would impose one answer - banning gay marriage - for all 50 states and pre-empt the debate.
Schwarzenegger and the Legislature might be at loggerheads, but they have the right goal in mind. No one should be punished for his or her sexual orientation. Most of the public opposes gay marriage - as evidenced by votes in 11 states last November to ban it - but polls also show that the public opposes discrimination, favoring civil unions that provide equal legal rights without marriage. Gay couples in long-term relationships have been unfairly prevented from visiting each other in hospitals and have been denied property, inheritance and child-custody protections.
The basic American principle of live and let live is paramount, whether a couple - gay or straight - is married or not. Equal treatment under the law should be the objective, regardless of how it's reached.
Big win.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is charismatic. And a maverick. Both are unusual qualities in a country where old-boy networks and conformity remain entrenched in politics and much else. On Sunday, he used those defining characteristics to win the biggest gamble of his political career.
Koizumi's triumph raises an interesting thought: Perhaps he is setting an example for the USA.
In snap elections, voters endorsed his reason for going to the polls: to privatize the enormous post-office network that manages $3 trillion in household savings and life-insurance deposits from tens of millions of Japanese. It has long been a symbol of the country's crony capitalism.
Koizumi's two-party coalition won big. Many opponents in his own party were swept aside as he put up rival candidates.
The clear message of Koizumi's victory is one that's hardly new in the USA: Challenging entrenched interests takes courage. Such figures have come along from time to time. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, crafted his New Deal by taking on even many in his own party.
Now, with political fundraisers going on in Washington as if Hurricane Katrina never happened, perhaps only a charismatic maverick can wrest the political system back from the lobbyists and special interests.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
NOT POISONING THE CITIZENRY? CAN'T BE JUSTIFIED FROM A 'COST-BENEFIT' POINT OF VIEW
Senate Votes on EPA Mercury Emission Rules
WASHINGTON, Associated Pres - Senators are challenging the Bush administration over its approach to reducing power plant emissions of mercury, a toxic metal that poses serious threats of neurological damage to newborn and young children.
The White House insists its market-based approach to curtailing mercury pollution is effective and founded on sound science, and warned that the president will veto any legislation that would overturn rules on mercury emissions finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency last March.
The Senate votes Tuesday on a measure that would repeal those rules, and the outcome is uncertain. At least three Republicans have said they will join Democrats in moving to strike down the regulations and force the administration to come up with stronger measures to combat the health hazard.
A victory for opponents of the rules could be short-lived: The GOP-dominated House could ignore the Senate action, and the presidential veto threat looms if the House were to go along.
The debate highlights two very different approach to environmental protection. The administration rules, backed by the utility industry, would set a nationwide cap on mercury emissions and put a ceiling on allowable pollution for each state. But individual plants, through a cap-and-trade system, can avoid cleanups by buying pollution credits from plants that are under allowable levels.
The utility industry says this method was successful in reducing acid rain in the 1990s.
But opponents say the rules are too weak and would prolong a health risk that leaves newborns vulnerable to birth defects and mental retardation.
The EPA rules, said Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., violate the Clean Air Act. "The rule is plainly illegal. It is unwise. And it is definitely unhealthy for Americans living downwind of coal-fired power plants, especially mothers and their soon-to-be-born children."
Mercury pollutants work their way up the food chain after being absorbed by fish.
The sponsors of the resolution, Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, turned to a little-used 1996 law that allows Congress to challenge agency rules with a guaranteed floor vote. The law has been successfully invoked only once, when Congress in 2001 repealed Clinton administration workplace ergonomics regulations.
By repealing the EPA rules, the Senate would compel the agency to rewrite the rules. The revisions would be in line with Clean Air Act standards requiring the use of the best available technology to reduce mercury emissions.
Leahy said the Clean Air Act would start reductions in 2008. They would achieve up to 90 percent reductions far sooner than the EPA rules that, according to Leahy, don't begin to cut emissions until 2018 and will not reach the goal of 70 percent reductions until 2030.
But supporters of the EPA rules said repealing the administration approach could have a devastating impact on the economy, forcing power plants to abandon coal for natural gas and driving up natural gas prices. They contended it would cost $358 billion to achieve the 90 percent reduction in three years, as opposed to a cost of $2 billion under the administration plan.
"It just can't be justified from a cost-benefit point of view," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio.
The EPA approach "combines significant reductions in emissions with protection for energy security and consumers," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. "But these senators now seek to disrupt the program."
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The resolution is S.J.Res. 20.
___
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/Tuesday, September 13, 2005
SURPRISE! CITIZENS ACTUALLY EXPECT COMPETENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THEIR GOVERNMENT
Katrina debacle exposed chaotic government
WASHINGTON (AFP) - For a country that likes to polish an image of efficiency, the United States has painfully discovered that hesitation among its federal agencies and bickering and confusion among various layers of government helped elevate Katrina from a bruising hurricane to a national tragedy.
Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans were trapped in rising floodwater, even though hundreds of buses, trains and planes could have brought them to safety before Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast of August 29.
Nightmarish acts of violence took place over several days among evacuees huddled in the city's Superdome and looters roamed downtown unchecked, as the most powerful and well-equipped military in the world remained on stand-by.
And in the world's richest economy, survivors pleaded for water, food and baby milk that could have easily been dropped in by helicopter.
"Confusion reigned at every level of government," The Washington Post said on Sunday in a damning probe into what wrong.
"Compounding the natural catastrophe was a man-made one: the inability of the federal, state and local governments to work together in the face of a disaster long foretold."
Part of the reason for this is historic.
The US constitution carefully limits the power of the federal government to intervene in the affairs of state: the central government cannot simply wade in and take control. And, at state level, a state constitution spells out the division of authority between the governor and at local level.
These principles are cherished and well-tested safeguards of devolved government and individual freedom.
But, when Katrina hit, these multiple layers of government -- each with their fiefdoms of power and with relief plans that were poorly integrated, if at all, with the others' -- helped lay down a fog of confusion.
"When the rubber met the road, it didn't work," said Philip Joyce, professor of public policy and public administration at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
The Pentagon has been keen to ward off criticism that it had been slow or indifferent to the burgeoning crisis in New Orleans, or that its actions had been hogtied by bureaucracy.
"A lot of folks are saying, 'Well, why did it take so long?'" Department of Defense spokesman Major Paul Swiergosz, said on September 2.
"There are a lot of processes that have to take place, and they are not bureaucratic processes either," he said.
State governors have powers to mobilise their state National Guard, and to bring in reinforcements from other states in a crisis.
But the US military is prevented by law from acting in a domestic law-enforcement role unless authorised by the president, and this is an act of extreme rarity.
In its Sunday report, The Washington Post said that on Thursday, September 1, Bush planned to demand that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco hand over control of her National Guard troops in order to take control of the relief effort.
This idea was hashed out further at a White House meeting early the following day, in talks between Bush, his generals, Vice President Dick Cheney and Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security. But it was never implemented.
But the confusion was not just a problem of coordination within the vertical layers of federal-state-local government.
Within the different branches of the federal government, poor communication gave decision-makers an early impression that New Orleans had "dodged" Katrina's bullet -- and it took several days for this misapprehension to clear and realise just how bad the flooding was.
By general consensus, Chertoff's sprawling department flunked in its first test since it was created in the wake of 9/11.
Its disaster troubleshooter, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is not supposed to be a "first responder" -- it has to wait for an invitation in order to act.
But local officials in New Orleans and Louisiana state officials say they made innumerable appeals for help, and often waited in vain for a response. FEMA's boss, Michael Brown, quit on Monday.
Joyce said a dissection of FEMA's problems could reveal that the agency had suffered at being placed under the helm of a political appointee rather than a professional, and at losing its cabinet-level status and direct line to the president when it was taken over by the Department of Homeland Security in 2001.
In the past four years, funding for FEMA's disaster-relief missions had been cut and experienced personnel quit in droves.
"If you're spending time worrying about the next terrorist attacks, maybe you're not worrying enough about the next hurricane strike," Joyce said in an interview with AFP.
He predicted that the Katrina debacle would not necessarily swing the political pendulum towards the creation of a "stronger" central government that would weaken local and state authority.
But, he said, it might breed support for stronger federal government spending when it came to disaster preparedness, making more money available for preparation and coordination.
"A lot of people have been convinced that you can have government without having to pay for it" and this could change, he predicted.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
DON'T EXPECT COMPETENCY FROM BUSHCO
Feds throw money at Gulf, but where's the oversight?
USA Today - With his poll numbers sagging, President Bush made his third trip to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast on Monday. Though the trip had many purposes, one certainly was to burnish an image tattered by his administration's bungling of relief operations after Hurricane Katrina struck, a perception reinforced by the day's anticlimactic resignation of Michael Brown as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Such forays from the White House are an essential part of governing in a democratic society, where politics and policy go hand-in-hand and presidential leadership can provide comfort and cut through bureaucracy.
But Bush's efforts at damage control come with a potential cost. Having been accused of ineffectual leadership during the disaster, he is under enormous pressure not to be seen as parsimonious with funds for aid and recovery. About $62.3 billion has been appropriated. Contracts for rebuilding are being awarded on a "no-bid" basis. And yet the planning for successful rebuilding campaign is nowhere to be found.
Though ample amounts of federal money are needed, a spend-now, plan-later approach isn't the answer, except for urgent needs such as caring for evacuees. It can create the potential for waste and lead to bad decisions on rebuilding.
There's also the question of who will pay. The usual solution of passing the costs along to our children through borrowing would be a further exercise in irresponsibility.
The president has a fine line to walk, as do lawmakers from both parties. On the one hand, they shouldn't encumber federal money with so much red tape that they hamper the recovery. On the other, they must realize that this huge logistical task requires careful planning and competent decision-making.
The federal government's track record on spending after disasters is a disaster in itself.
The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general reported in May that $31 million poured into Miami after Hurricane Frances last year, even though that storm passed well to the north.
The Associated Press uncovered examples of companies as far afield as South Dakota receiving loans for businesses hit on 9/11.
This woeful record argues for the immediate creation of centralized oversight body headed by a reconstruction czar of national stature. This body would decide which tasks are so critical they merit no-bid contracts and which can wait for a more cost-effective and transparent process. It would also have to begin addressing some thorny issues - such as levee improvements, whether the government should help rebuild uninsured facilities, the role of private insurers, and whether parts of New Orleans should be rebuilt at all.
If Bush wants to recover from the political hit he has taken, he would do himself and the Katrina-ravaged region a favor by showing his administration more out in front of these issues than it was on the storm itself.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
BUSHCO HAS SPENT USA INTO THE GROUND
Analysis Sees Deficits Growing Under Bush
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Even before the cost of Hurricane Katrina is added to the federal ledger, a Congressional Budget Office study commissioned by Democrats predicts President Bush will fail to keep his promise to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office.
The study by the nonpartisan CBO assumes that Congress will heed Bush's call for new tax cuts and for making those passed in 2001 and 2003 permanent. It also assumes a big slowdown in spending on the
Iraq war, tight caps on domestic agency budgets and new individual Social Security accounts.
The study was requested by Rep. John M. Spratt (news, bio, voting record) Jr., D-S.C., the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. He says it reflects a likelier budget scenario than CBO's official estimates, which do not foresee new tax cuts.
The study predicts that the $331 billion budget deficit projected for the current budget year would rise to $370 billion by 2009, the year Bush has promised to cut the deficit to at least $260 billion. Bush promised to cut the deficit in half from a projection in February 2004 of a $521 billion deficit for 2009.
By 2015, the deficit would hit $640 billion under CBO's study.
"Under CBO's new analysis of the Bush Administration's policies, every vital sign of the budget grows decidedly worse over the next ten years," said Spratt. "These new deficit figures show that the budget has deteriorated dramatically on this administration's watch."
In response, the White House asked for congressional action instead of rhetoric.
"Instead of complaining about the deficit, how about doing something about it?" said Bush spokesman Trent Duffy, noting that Spratt opposes Republican efforts to trim just $35 billion from federal entitlement programs over the next five years.
The White House Office of Management and Budget predicts the 2009 deficit at $162 billion, about 1 percent of the size of the economy.
"The federal budget picture is ... is steadily declining out over the next five years ... toward the President's goal of cutting the deficit in half," OMB Director Joshua B. Bolten said Wednesday. "I feel confident that we will remain on that path as long as we have continued good economic growth."
Bolten says the cost of Katrina — estimated by some Democrats to top $200 billion — will affect the deficit in the next few years but not make it dramatically worse over the longer term.
Critics like Spratt say the White House underestimates or omits likely costs, such as the Iraq war and reconstruction and annual amendments to the alternative minimum tax so that it does not hit more upper middle-income taxpayers. The Congress invented the AMT — which ensures that wealthy taxpayers pay at least some income tax — in the late 1960s, but it was never tied to inflation, so more taxpayers pay it each year.
The White House says the AMT should be changed, as early as next year, in a big tax reform bill that does not raise taxes overall. That suggests other revenue hikes will have to make up for lost AMT revenue.
Spratt asked CBO to project deficits after incorporating Bush's tax and spending policies into CBO's baseline, extending recent AMT fixes and slowing Iraq spending from $85 billion next year to $35 billion by 2009.
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On the Net:
Congressional Budget Office: http://www.cbo.govTuesday, September 13, 2005
WAY TOO LITTLE, FAR TOO LATE
Bush Takes Responsibility for Blunders
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.
"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.
The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.
"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.
He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.
As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."
He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said.
Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.Monday, September 12, 2005
BUSHCO: NO BLAME GAME
Karl Rove: The Psychology Behind His Katrina Strategy
Van Jones, Huffington Post - A friend forwarded these following quotes from a well-respected book (Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman, M.D.).
I agree with her that these concepts give crucial insight into Karl Rove's media strategy in the aftermath of the Katrina catastrophe: "blame the victims and move on." I thought you would find them interesting:
“The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.”
“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.”
“People who have endured horrible events suffer predictable psychological harm…because traumatic syndromes have basic features in common, the recovery process also follows a common pathway. The fundamental stages of recovery are establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the connection between survivors and their community.”
“When the events are natural disasters or “acts of God,” those who bear witness sympathize readily with the victim. But when the traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.”
“In order to escape the accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrators first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon her [him] self; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”
“To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim the social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered.”
“In the absence of strong political movements for human rights, the active process of bearing witness inevitably gives way to the active process of forgetting.”
... Let's not forget. Or be silent.Monday, September 12, 2005
MUGABE IS NOT JUST A CRIMINAL, BUT A TOTAL NUTTER
Zimbabwe's President Defends Amendments
The report said Mugabe signed the amendments into law Friday, the same day the International Monetary Fund deferred a decision for six months on whether to expel this southern African nation.
The amendments mark "the liberation of our land," Mugabe said Monday during a three-day trip to Cuba. "It's now final, and no one can question it."
The constitutional overhaul strips landowners of their right to appeal expropriation of their property by the state and declares all real estate is now on a 99-year lease from the government.
Domestic opponents intending to attack the government abroad can now be denied a passport to travel, a provision that government officials have openly said could be used to silence critics.
Mugabe's government has allowed the seizure of 5,000 white-owned commercial farms in recent years, wrecking agricultural output and exports and causing widespread food shortages.
He blames U.S. and European Union sanctions — imposed for alleged human rights abuses — for putting the Zimbabwean economy into free fall. Inflation now runs at some 255 percent a year and 80 percent of the work force is idle.
"The Cubans are being punished with sanctions in the same way we are," Mugabe said during his ninth visit to Cuba since 1978, referring to the decades-old U.S. trade embargo against the communist-ruled island.
Opposition leaders said Mugabe delayed signing the constitutional amendments until the IMF put off deciding whether to expel Zimbabwe for being $295 million in arrears on its debts. The IMF executive board postponed the matter after Zimbabwe made a surprise partial payment of $120 million.Monday, September 12, 2005
WE BLOODY WELL HOPE SO
Newsview: Katrina May Change View of Gov't
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The fatally slow response to Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wave of anger that could transform people's expectations of government, the qualities they seek in political leaders and their views of America's class and racial divides.
It's a huge opportunity that neither party seems poised to exploit.
"This could be a moment that changes the political dialogue of the country," said Robert Putnam, the Harvard political scientist whose book, "Bowling Alone," argued that Americans are participating less and less in civic life.
Nowhere is the public's apathy more apparent than in government and politics. From the late-1950s, when three-fourths of Americans said they trusted government most of the time, the public's confidence in their political system has collapsed.
Six of 10 Americans said they trusted government during the Vietnam War. It fell to three of 10 after Watergate, and just two of 10 during the early 1990s economic recession. The Sept. 11 strikes led to a spike in confidence levels that lasted six months.
In June 2005, a Gallup poll revealed that just 30 percent of respondents said they trusted government most of the time.
And then came Katrina.
While the bungling of city, state and federal officials upset Americans, it did not surprise them.
Sadly, this is what people have come to expect from government.
"The only way it could have been worse is if there had been more politicians and governments involved," said Robert Bernstein, a Republican voter from Maryland.
Voters are blaming all levels of government and President Bush in particular for not doing enough to help Katrina's victim. Half say they are angry. Two-thirds said they are depressed.
What will they do about it?
Some Republicans fear the public will demand a high-priced government fix. Or worse, the White House and the GOP-led Congress will throw money at their political problem.
"I hope we don't have a Great Society mind-set because of this disaster," said Republican Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado. "Is this a tidal shift? Is this one of those times when government shifts back to a more interventional, more hands-on approach and away from laissez-faire?"
Democrats hope so. Some are already plotting to shift resources away from Bush's agenda, such as lower taxes, and advance their own priorities.
Neither argument gets to the core of the problem. Americans do not necessarily want bigger or smaller government. They want better government; less bureaucracy, less partisanship and more focus on delivering services that help people thrive in a complex new era.
"When you strip away all the political partisanship, we have to remember that government is all about protecting citizens," said Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, a Democrat. "That didn't happen here."
"It's not the absence of money," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican. "It is a failure of bureaucratic structures."
Next year's elections could be rough on incumbents in both parties. "The heck with all of them," said Richard Dynoske, 65, of Florida, a registered Democrat who voted for Bush in 2004.
The next presidential race may be ripe for a maverick, mold-breaking candidate, perhaps even a third-party ticket. That's how hungry Americans are for leadership traits that seemed lacking during the Katrina crisis.
ACCOUNTABILITY: Nobody in government was willing to take full responsibility for the relief effort. "Public officials are going to have to be more accountable," said Art English, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
AUTHENTICITY: Nobody in government was honest enough to admit a mistake. "If the president had stood up and said, `I screwed up and here's how I'll fix it,' I'd feel a heck of a lot better about him," said Mindy Meadows, 47, a Democratic voter from Clermont, Fla.
EMPATHY: Former President Clinton famously felt voters' pain. In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Bush reflected the passions of Americans — staggered at first, tearful at midweek and defiant on the Friday after the attacks, when he climbed atop a firetruck and vowed vengeance. After Katrina, Bush did not seem to grasp the horror or shame felt by many Americans.
Voters may start demanding better from all levels of government.
"We shouldn't accept mediocrity as the best a politician can do," said West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat.
Putnam said Katrina reminds him of the 1889 flood of Johnstown, Pa., that killed more than 2,000 people, most of them poor, while sparing the vacation homes of the rich.
The Gilded Age disaster brought to boil long-simmering concerns about the widening gap between economic classes.
At the dawn of the technology era, the gap has been growing again, "but nothing had happened to crystalize in human terms how rich folks like me do well while the poor people in society get left behind," Putnam said.
"Then along came Katrina," he said, "and the dominant image is all the well-to-do white folks driving out of town and the black folks left to suffer."Sunday, September 11, 2005
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES
Sunday, September 11, 2005
HOWDY NEIGHBOR
Katrina Diaspora Is Unprecedented
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Sat Sep 10,11:00 PM ET
In a country where movements of tired, poor and huddled masses are an intrinsic part of who we are, the unprecedented mass exodus of people from their homes in the Gulf Region — more than half a million refugees — could unleash changes for years to come.
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"I think we're looking at an event of enormous political and historical importance," said Steven Hahn, a University of Pennsylvania history professor who chronicled other mass movements in his 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning book "A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration."
"We've never faced this type of relocation because of a natural disaster. It's likely to have an enormous impact on our entire country," he said.
While many expect New Orleans to rebuild, it's unlikely that everyone is eventually going to move back. Experts say there are lessons to be drawn from historic moves.
For example, "New Orleans-style" neighborhoods may develop in larger cities with restaurants, music and cultural aspects of home. Racial and social tensions may also emerge, as thousands of people move into less diverse neighborhoods.
"If you have mass numbers going to one place, you're going to have the same tensions you have with any immigrants," said Phillip Gay, sociology professor at San Diego State University. "But if you distribute them in smaller groups, there's a better chance they can settle."
In 1980, at least 125,000 Cubans came to Miami in boats. The resulting social service burden was enormous, and eventually federal government paid Florida $370 million in emergency assistance to help defray the costs of such a large, irregular migration.
This week in Texas, authorities were soon overwhelmed by food stamp applications — 26,000 in four days. Elsewhere in the country, communities taking in Gulf Coast evacuees by the thousands worried about taxing social programs that in many cases already were stretched thin.
To avoid that type of an impact, authorities in 1979 began dispersing a flow of 1.4 million Southeast Asian refugees to all 50 states.
The social experiment was only partially effective. Although some of those immigrants settled in their new homes, many more soon began a secondary migration to communities where their relatives were living, where the climates were warmer and where Asian-American populations were already in place.
When large numbers of people from one culture have moved — by force or by choice — into a new community, there is "real friction and real problems," said Robert Wheelersburg, an anthropology professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
This has happened before — at the turn of the 20th century, when blacks moved North in search of jobs, riots broke out in cities like Springfield, Ill.
While thousands are being welcomed with warm meals and new clothes around the country this week, Wheelersburg said it is only a matter of time before some tensions emerge.
"I think it could create some real cultural problems moving people to different parts of the country," he said. "New Orleans was very unique. There are many places that aren't so diverse."
The size of the migration forced by Katrina is mindboggling. "There's just never been anything like this before, with so many displaced people, and they're going to be displaced for so long," said Judith Owens-Manley, director of community research at Hamilton College's Public Affairs Center in Clinton, N.Y.
For the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, moving this many people has been overwhelming.
"This is the largest relocation of any sort of disaster response in our history," said FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule. "We're essentially relocating most of the city of New Orleans."
But war, economic disaster, religious and social persecution, and natural catastrophes have forced large populations to relocate many times in the nation's history.
In the mid-1850s, 70,000 Mormons traveled in wagons from Nauvoo, Ill., to the Great Salt Lake in Utah to start a new community where they could practice their religion in peace.
And then there was the Great Migration, a movement that began around 1915, when more than a million African Americans moved to Northern cities in about a decade in what was called the Great Migration.
They were forced out by a sudden loss of jobs in the cotton fields which were suffering major boll weevil infestations, and enticed north with offers of industrial and factory jobs that were booming in the wake of World War I.
These black migrants built new large, vibrant communities in Detroit and Cincinnati, Chicago and New York, as well as in smaller neighborhoods around the country
Just as that migration was coming to an end, the Dust Bowl exodus began. This, the largest migration in American history, saw 2.5 million people leave the Midwest and Great Plains, many heading west to California after drought, wind and economic depression destroyed their fields and their livelihood.
Historians point out there were also earlier, and deadlier, migrations — some of them forced. The slave trade forced an estimated 12 million Africans to the United States between the 16th and 19th centuries. And in 1838, more than 16,000 Cherokees were compelled to walk along what would later be known as "The Trail of Tears," a death march from Georgia to Oklahoma in which one out of four people died.
And of course there have often been mass movements of people overseas.
Authorities may find some important lessons in the aftermath of natural disasters abroad, like Hurricane Mitch in Central America and the 2001 earthquakes in
El Salvador, which prompted waves of migration, said Vincent Gawronski, a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.
"Large scale disasters in the developing world have always resulted in poor, desperate, unemployed people moving from rural areas to large cities or even to the United States," he said.
Gawronski, an assistant professor of political science at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Ala., said that it wasn't too long after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 that the apprehension rate of undocumented Hondurans spiked at the US-Mexico border.
"We now have 'internally displaced peoples' in the United States," he said. "And the communities bordering the disaster zone are going to feel the brunt of an influx of these people looking for shelter and for a job. The Hurricane Katrina disaster is beginning to look more and more like a disaster in the developing world."Sunday, September 11, 2005
IT'S THAT PESKY "FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" THING AGAIN
Feds Drop Media Ban on Katrina Recovery
NEW YORK, AP Television - Challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed on Saturday not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.
The government won't, however, permit photographers to join them in boats or helicopters during the mission to recover bodies from flooded homes.
CNN filed suit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency in U.S. District Court in Houston late Friday, concerned about two statements made by government officials that day. The officials said they didn't believe it was right for the news media to show pictures of Katrina victims.
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security director, said the recovery effort would be done with dignity, "meaning that there would be no press allowed." Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore later said there would be zero access to the recovery operation.
In a hearing Saturday before U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison, Army Lt. Col. Christian DeGraff promised that recovery teams would not bar the media from watching. Satisfied, CNN agreed to put its case on hold.
"We believe very strongly in the free flow of information and felt it was necessary to have access to tell the full story," said Jim Walton, CNN Newsgroup president.
He said CNN has proven in this story and others that it doesn't put gratuitous images on the air.
Army Lt. Col. Richard Steele said that DeGraff's statement didn't represent a change in policy. Reporters can watch recovery efforts they come upon, but they won't be embedded with search teams.
"We're not going to bar, impede or prevent" the media from telling the story, he said. "We're just not going to give the media a ride."
Images of Katrina's victims have frequently been part of the story, and The Associated Press offered such pictures to its members on Saturday. None of them showed victims' faces. The AP picture of a dead body in a wheelchair, wrapped in blankets and resting near a wall, is one of most-remembered images of the tragedy.
"Photographs of flood victims' bodies is part of the overall coverage of Hurricane Katrina," said Cliff Schiappa, the AP's regional photo editor for the Midwest. "When choosing an appropriate image, we do not want to be gratuitous, but rather put the image in context of the flood and suffering. The government is very concerned about the recovery efforts being done in a dignified manner, as it should be done. As members of the media, it's our job to show the world that such an effort is being made and carried out."
Some Bush administration opponents are suspicious that there would be efforts to limit pictures of bodies so the public wouldn't be reminded of the government's response to the storm. They likened it to restrictions against taking pictures of bodies returning from the war in Iraq.
But Walton said he didn't think the "zero access" plans in New Orleans had anything to do with politics.Sunday, September 11, 2005
LET'S NUKE IRAN
Plan Envisions Using Nukes on Terrorists
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A Pentagon planning document being updated to reflect the doctrine of pre-emption declared by President Bush in 2002 envisions the use of nuclear weapons to deter terrorists from using weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies.
The "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," which was last updated 10 years ago, makes clear that "the decision to employ nuclear weapons at any level requires explicit orders from the president."
But it says that in a changing environment "terrorists or regional states armed with WMD will likely test U.S. security commitments to its allies and friends."
"In response, the U.S. needs a range of capabilities to assure friend and foe alike of its resolve," says the 69-page document dated March 15.
A Pentagon spokesman said Saturday evening that Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has issued a statement saying the draft is still being circulated among the various services, field commanders, Pentagon lawyers and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office, .
Its existence was initially reported by The Washington Post in Sunday editions, which said the document was posted on a Pentagon Internet site and pointed out to it by a consultant for the Natural Resorces Defense Council.
The file was not available at that site Saturday evening, but a copy was available at http://www.globalsecurity.org.
"A broader array of capability is needed to dissuade states from undertaking ... courses of action that would threaten U.S. and allied security," the draft says. "U.S. forces must pose a credible deterrent to potential adversaries who have access to modern military technology, including WMD and the means to deliver them."
It says "deterrence of potential adversary WMD use requires the potential adversary leadership to believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective."
It says "this will be particularly difficult with nonstate (non-government) actors who employ or attempt to gain use of WMD. Here, deterrence may be directed at states that support their efforts as well as the terrorist organization itself.
"However, the continuing proliferation of WMD along with the means to deliver them increases the probability that someday a state/nonstate actor nation/terrorist may, through miscaluation or by deliberate choice, use those weapons. In such cases, deterrence, even based on the threat of massive destruction, may fail and the United States must be prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary."
It notes that U.S. policy has always been purposely vague with regard to when the United States would use nuclear weapons and that it has never vowed not to be the first to use them in a conflict.
One scenario for a possible nuclear pre-emptive strike in the draft would be in the case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."
The Bush administration is continuing to push for development of an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead, but has yet to obtain congressional approval.
However, the Senate voted in July to revive the "bunker-buster" program that Congress last year decided to kill.
Administration officials have maintained that the U.S. needs to try to develop a nuclear warhead that would be capable of destroying deeply buried targets including bunkers tunneled into solid rock.
But opponents said that its benefits are questionable and that such a warhead would cause extensive radiation fallout above ground killing thousands of people. And they say it may make it easier for a future president to decide to use the nuclear option instead of a conventional weapon.
The Senate voted 53-43 to include $4 million for research into the feasibility of a bunker-buster nuclear warhead. Earlier this year, the House refused to provide the money, so a final decision will have to be worked out between the two chambers.
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On The Net:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/jp3_12fc2.pdf