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Going To Hell In A Very Stylish Handbasket.

we've had this many folks visit so far:

"El diablo sabes mas por viejo que por diablo" - old Mexican proverb

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Achtung! Das machine ist nicht fur gerfingerpoken und mittengraben. Ist easy schnappen der pringenwerk, blowenfusen, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dumkopfen, das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in der pockets, relaxen und watchen der blinkenlights.

links:
Tom Paine
The Nation
Think Progress
Bush or Chimp?
Landover Baptist Church
The White House
The Onion
Ernie's House of Whoop Ass
Project for the New American Century
Project for the Old American Century
Project for the New American Empire
All Hat, No Cattle
Unfairly Balanced
Buck Fush

BURN THE WITCH

Long-time fans will know that I've been biding my time, waiting for the wildly overinflated California real estate market to settle down into something I can afford. My plan is to shop over the winter and get serious by next summer. Welp, looks like I'm right on track....

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In US housing slump, wider concerns rise

New home construction fell 6 percent in August. Talk of 'recession' ensues.

NEW YORK, Christian Science Monitor – These are tough times for the people who use hammers and nails to build the American dream - and those who employ them.

In some markets, buyers have gone missing - glued to their money in the expectation that home prices will fall. Desperate, sellers and developers are trying to sweeten their deals to unload McMansions and houses built on speculation. Now comes the news that new construction on homes has fallen so sharply that some economists use the "R" word when they talk about the housing market - and warn about what that might mean for the economy as a whole.

"Housing's in a recession, there are no two ways about it," says Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust Co. in Chicago. "Typically when we get declines in housing of this magnitude, with a lag, the economy goes into recession. There have been exceptions, but not many."

Tuesday gave economists more cause for concern. The government reported new home starts fell 6 percent in August compared with July.

New home construction is now down about 20 percent compared with last year. There are seven months of unsold homes waiting for buyers - a record number.

The housing slump won't be welcome news in Washington when the Federal Reserve meets Wednesday to set interest-rate policy. Partly because of the problems in the housing sector, economists expect the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged as it did last month.

"Housing is a big worry for the Fed," says Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla. "At the start of the year they expected an orderly decline, but this summer the market started to fall apart."

Despite the drop in the housing market, many economists continue to forecast that the economy as a whole will weather the slump. Retail sales and employment remain healthy. Gasoline prices have fallen almost 50 cents a gallon in the past month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is close to its all-time highs.

"It does not appear the bottom will fall out by any means," says Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business in College Park. "I think lower oil prices - they are now down $15 a barrel - have taken any further slowdown off the table."

Economist Stuart Hoffman echoes this optimistic view. He says business will get a boost from exports as the rest of the world's economy grows. He notes that commercial construction, road work, and new warehouses are improving and will partially offset the drop-off in housing.

"You have to look at where housing is coming from," he says. "We knew it was frenzied in terms of starts and sales. But compared to the last few years, this would be considered a normal year."

However, Mr. Kasriel says, there is no clear sign of a bottom in housing. In July the number of homes for sale rose 35 percent while the number of new homes sold fell 15 percent. "We haven't seen such a wide disparity since 1984, when these data started," he says.

Despite these numbers, some economists are predicting the housing market will start to stabilize. David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, is forecasting new housing construction will fall 25 percent from 2005 levels. He expects some overly hot markets will see prices fall. Nationally, he anticipates home prices will flatten out.

"We're in the stage now where people are beginning to lower their price or take what they can," he says. "The third stage wrings out the excesses. A year from now will be the best time to buy."

To move houses, real estate developers are trying to entice buyers with some unusual efforts. Indianapolis-based Davis Homes is straddling the line between builder and real estate agency. For a fee, Davis will buy a customer's old home if it isn't sold by a certain amount of time. The strategy frees the customer from shouldering two mortgages on two houses - and it helps Davis sweeten its deals for building new homes.

"It's just another avenue to get clients to their new home," says Cathy Epps, director of the company's Guaranteed Sale program. "Whoever thought of it, I think it was a great idea."

...and pray you are never designated an "enemy combatant", because there go your human rights and civil liberties right out the fucking window, sparky!

Detainees compromise: Lose-lose

By Nat Hentoff, USA Today

The rebellion by Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina against the president's proposed legislation to comply with the Supreme Court's June decision on the treatment of enemy combatants (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) has ended - with fanfare - in a "compromise."

McCain, who has insisted that the principles he fought for are more important than his chances for the presidency, declared: "There's no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." He also said, "We got what we wanted."

But the Supreme Court, in rebuking the president for having violated Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (to which the United States is a signatory), made plain both the letter and spirit of this minimal standard of "humane treatment."

Article 3 prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever ... cruel treatment and torture ... (and) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

The president is also pleased with this compromise because, he says, it preserves "the CIA program to question the world's most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets."

The CIA program involved, as the president has said, "alternative techniques" of interrogation - details of which have been revealed by human rights groups, reporters and McCain himself as specifically and vividly violating the letter and spirit of Article 3.

How, then, does this compromise, as McCain says, result in no losers, only winners and winners? The agreement prohibits - under our own 1996 War Crimes Act - such "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions as torture, rape and murder. (These are actual war crimes under that 1996 statute.)

President's role

But, in this three-card-monte game of compromise, it is the president who will have the dominant role in deciding, by executive order, which alternative techniques are grave breaches. How will we know whether the CIA, or any of our interrogators, are committing these war crimes? We won't know all of them, and maybe none.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley points out that "specific techniques" used on terrorism suspects are classified. (We can't let the terrorists know what's in store for them once they're taken into custody.)

As for practitioners of such "coercive" interrogations that could lead to charges of war crimes under American law, the "compromise" protects them from prosecution for past violations. This is known in our lingo as a "get-out-of-jail-free card."

Logically, I would think this amnesty would also include those all the way up the chain of command who authorized "alternative techniques" constituting "grave breaches" of the Conventions.

I'm not surprised that the CIA also agrees with the main belligerents that there are no losers in this agreement. And CIA operatives who have been buying government-funded liability insurance for fear of prosecution under the War Crimes Act need worry no longer.

This pact's most radical failure to adhere not only to the Geneva Conventions but also to a core right in our Constitution is in its allowing the three celebrated senators and the president to revoke habeas corpus petitions on conditions of confinement by any alien detainee - not only those at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - designated, with or without charges, as an "enemy combatant."

This view of The Great Writ as an irritating inconvenience in the war on terrorism - particularly denounced by Graham for "clogging the courts" with detainee petitions - is embedded in the renowned

Senate Armed Services Committee bill generated by McCain, Warner and Graham. It is also included in House legislation dealing with detainees and will be enfolded in the compromise produced by the same three senators applauded by some civil libertarians for standing up to the president.

The result will be that hundreds of detainees, among them many who have never been charged with any crime, will no longer have lawyers to bring their claims of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by guards and interrogators. This is contrary to the Supreme Court having authorized such habeas petitions in the 2004 Rasul v. Bush ruling and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

Despite all the purported obeisance to the Geneva Conventions in this agreement that ended the McCain-Warner-Graham mutiny, there will be no way for Americans or the world to know whether these "enemy combatants" - many of whom might be innocent - have been subjected to the same outrages upon personal dignity that this epic struggle by the three senators presumably prevents.

When a win isn't a win

During a previous "victory" by McCain over the president - much publicized around the world - he secured an amendment in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 banning "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of prisoners.

But in moving that legislation, including the famous McCain amendment, into law, the president added one of his elastic "signing statements" that he would not necessarily implement the amendment if it interfered with national security.

President Bush needn't slip in a signing statement this time around. With the elimination of habeas petitions on conditions of confinement, all of our interrogation centers around the world in which alien detainees are held as enemy combatants will become "black sites" - wholly outside of laws.

There will be losers after all.

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Nat Hentoff is an authority on the U.S. Constitution and author of The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance.

This undated photo provided by the U.S. Army shows Emily Perez, the highest ranking black and Hispanic woman cadet in corps history. Perez, 23, was buried at West Point military academy Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, two weeks after she was killed by a bomb in Iraq. She was a platoon leader at the head of a convoy when a roadside bomb exploded south of Baghdad on Sept. 12 and killed her. (AP Photo/US Army)

White House said to bar hurricane report

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.

The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

Leetmaa, head of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said he had no details of the report.

NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue.

However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements.

The report drew a prompt response from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., who charged that "the administration has effectively declared war on science and truth to advance its anti-environment agenda ... the Bush administration continues to censor scientists who have documented the current impacts of global warming."

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

Not all agree, however, with opponents arguing that many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles.

The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.

In February, a NASA political appointee who worked in the space agency's public relations department resigned after reportedly trying to restrict access to Jim Hansen, a NASA climate scientist who has been active in global warming research.

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On the Net

No wonder we're all going crazy...

Families pack 43 hours of activity into 1 day: study

NEW YORK (Reuters) - While many a parent will lament there are not enough hours in the day, the simultaneous use of several technologies is allowing families to cram in 43 hours worth of activity from one sunrise to the next, a new study claims.

The survey by Yahoo Inc. and media buyer OMD untangled the overlapping use of the Internet, telephones, text messaging, radio and television during work and recreation hours for more than 4,700 adults in 16 countries, from the United States to Argentina and Taiwan.

"While using the Internet, people are also doing two or three other things, often watching TV or talking on the phone," said Mike Hess, global director of research at OMD, part of Omnicom Group.

On average, families said they spent 3.6 hours per day using the Internet, 2.5 hours daily watching television and one hour on instant messaging. Smaller increments of time were spent playing video games, listening to the radio and to digital music players, reading newspapers and Internet blogs, as well as doing household chores.

In the United States, families on average owned about 12 technology and media-related devices. Across the survey 70 percent of respondents said technology allowed them to stay in touch with family members.

Nearly one-third of parents questioned said they use mobile phones to check in with their children throughout the day while a quarter of them claimed that instant messaging improved relationships with their offspring.

Real-time communication also means that children are more involved in family decision-making, from travel plans to major product purchases, bolstering the idea that advertisers need to figure out more closely who in the home could influence a particular shopping trip.

"It's different than saying I'm going to target the head of the household," said Yahoo chief sales officer Wenda Harris Millard.

"Trying to pinpoint the degree of influence of each family member is going to be very important to marketers."

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Never heard of a pothead getting into a barfight...

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Alcoholics Anonymous may prevent murders: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alcoholics Anonymous, the worldwide group that helps addicts stop drinking, may also help drive down the number of murders in a community, Canadian researchers reported on Sunday.

As membership in the group in Ontario, Canada, increased between 1968 and 1991, murders there dropped off, said Robert Mann from the University of Toronto and Mark Asbridge from Dalhousie University.

Research has shown there is a significant relationship between drinking and homicide in Europe, the United States and Canada, they wrote in their report, published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

But they found an increase of one AA member per 100,000 people was followed by a drop of 0.3 to 0.5 percent in Ontario's homicide rate.

The relationship was only apparent when it came to men. They did not find a relationship in the case of women.

"Males drink more often, more heavily and consume more beer and spirits than females," Asbridge said in a statement.

"Moreover, the nature of the link between alcohol consumption and violence is more readily a male experience, for example, drinking heavily in bar settings leads to aggression and violence."

For the study, Mann and Asbridge used Statistics Canada data to calculate per capita total alcohol consumption as well as murders of people aged 15 and older from 1968 to 1991.

Alcoholics Anonymous gave estimated membership data from surveys and mailing lists.

"Our study showed that total and male homicide rates in Ontario were strongly related to average levels of alcohol consumption," Mann said in a statement.

"These observations confirm previous research showing that alcohol is a leading contributor to violence, as well as violence-related mortality."

Asbridge said government officials might want to reduce drinking rates and, presumably, violence by raising taxes.

"Right now, in Canada, beer is typically taxed at a lower level than wine and thus is more economical to purchase with respect to its alcohol content (to) price per volume of alcohol," he said.

"By making beer more costly we might have some aggregate impact on consumption patterns and, in turn, the negative consequences associated with its use."

Iraq war spawned terrorism, radicals: U.S. report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq war gave birth to a new generation of Islamic radicals and the terrorist threat has grown since the September 11 attacks, according to a U.S. intelligence report cited in The New York Times on Saturday.

A National Intelligence Estimate completed in April says Islamic radicalism has mushroomed worldwide and cites the Iraq war as a reason for the spread of jihad ideology, the newspaper reported.

"The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of 'self-generating' cells inspired by al Qaeda's leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants," the newspaper said.

The Times cited more than a dozen U.S. government officials and outside experts with knowledge of the classified document.

It is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by U.S. intelligence agencies since the war began in March 2003 and represents a consensus view of the 16 U.S. spy services.

"According to reports, this intelligence document should put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war," Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts said.

"... The fact that we need a new direction in Iraq to really win the war on terror and make Americans safer could not be clearer or more urgent -- yet this administration stubbornly clings to a failed 'stay-the-course' strategy."

Some of the estimate's conclusions confirm predictions in a January 2003 National Intelligence Council report that said a war in Iraq might increase support for political Islam worldwide, according to the newspaper.

"It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan," the Times said.

EPA's new soot rules tamer than expected

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The government on Thursday announced new limits on how many tiny particles of soot that people safely can breathe each day, rejecting tougher standards recommended by its own experts.

The Environmental Protection Agency kept some of its 1997 standards for soot particles — those smaller than 2.5 micrometers, or one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair — that lodge in the lungs and blood vessels.

Experts advising the agency had said that the science supports tougher standards than EPA chose. Other air pollution experts and advocates complained of political tinkering.

The health-based limits on soot are considered an important part of the Clean Air Act, helping save 15,000 people a year from premature deaths due to heart and lung diseases.

EPA officials expect their decision will cut by roughly half the allowable particulate emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes. The advisory panel said they should be cut slightly more.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson called them "the most health protective national air standards in U.S. history."

"Wherever the science gave us a clear picture, we took clear action," he said. "There was not complete agreement" by the scientific advisory panel.

But 20 of 22 members of the panel said the EPA should set tougher standards, particularly those measured on year-round.

The agency said it was tightening its 24-hour standard for fine particles, which it said would deliver health benefits of $9 billion to $75 billion a year. It retained the annual limit for fine particles that scientists said should be strengthened, but revoked a standard for coarser particles.

Bill Becker, executive director of associations representing state and local air-pollution control officials, said EPA's rule defies the agency's principle of using the best available science.

"For the first time in its 36-year history, EPA has ignored the recommendations of its independent scientific advisers, as well as agency staff experts, in setting health-based air quality standards," Becker said.

"This final action will result in thousands of avoidable premature deaths, and thousands of cases of cardiovascular and lung disease throughout the country," he said.

John Balbus, who directs the health program for the advocacy group Environmental Defense, said the limits will not adequately protect the public because people still will face long-term exposure to soot pollution.

Power plant operators also were unhappy with EPA's action, said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute.

"We think EPA has jumped the gun by adopting a more stringent standard before the existing standards have been given a chance to work," Riedinger said. "Our hope, obviously, is that these reductions will provide a real health benefit, though EPA hasn't adequately made that case."

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On the Net:

The democrats won't speak up against torture because they're afraid they'll lose the next election. Fucking cowardly MORONS.

Democrats sit out detainee debate

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Congressional Democrats are sitting out an explosive debate on how to treat the nation's most dangerous terrorism suspects, bypassing a chance to challenge

President Bush on a proposal that has infuriated international law experts and human rights groups.

The reasons are fraught with politics: They don't have to join in, and they could regret it if they did.

With November elections for control of Congress just weeks away, Democrats are letting a handful of Republican senators battle the Bush administration over the legal fine points of the White House detainee plan in hopes the GOP will bloody itself on the top-tier issue of security.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday that Democrats were "on the sidelines watching the catfights" among Republicans on terrorism legislation. He said they had little choice until the GOP settled on its position.

Democrats may attempt to amend the detainee legislation should it reach the floor of the House or Senate, and they say they will defend their record on national security. But it is unlikely party leaders will make much noise this election season to ensure terror suspects are afforded legal rights.

Influencing their strategy are memories of the 2002 defeat of Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., who was ousted by Republican Saxby Chambliss following a TV ad campaign that attacked Cleland's patriotism. Cleland, a severely wounded Vietnam veteran, had voted against creating the Homeland Security Department.

"Max Cleland — having lost three limbs in Vietnam — thought the voters in Georgia wouldn't fall for" such charges, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Richard Durbin, said Wednesday. "They did and he lost his Senate seat. We're not going to make that same mistake."

While Democrats on Capitol Hill are choosing their words carefully, former President Clinton has shown less such reticence to engage Bush on the issue.

In an interview aired Thursday on National Public Radio, Clinton said "I believe on balance we should strictly adhere to the Geneva Conventions, and we should honor it, and when we violate it we should be prepared to be held accountable and ask people what would you have done under those circumstances."

"But I think you go around passing laws that legitimize a violation of the Geneva Convention, and institutionalize what happened at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, ah we're going to be in real trouble," he added.

Sharing a view expressed last week by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Clinton said, "It'll hurt America, it won't help us in our attempts to, to win the people that we're trying to win over in these hot spots in the world and it will make our own soldiers far more vulnerable to being abused if they are captured."

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are trying to focus voters on the violence in Iraq and the cost of the widely unpopular war.

Reid announced Wednesday that Democrats would conduct their own pre-election hearings on the Iraq war. To be held around the country as voters prepare to head to the polls, the sessions are intended to call attention to what Democrats say are gross missteps in the planning for the war.

Bush has pulled 14 terror suspects out of secret CIA prisons and sent them to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The group includes Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The administration's proposal would give the government wide latitude to detain and interrogate those terror suspects and others.

Republicans have hoped the president's plan would put Democrats in a tough spot. Democrats would have to choose between supporting the president or explaining why they voted not to prosecute hardened terrorists, a position that could make them easy targets for 30-second attack ads charging they are soft on terror.

But Democrats so far have been able to sidestep that minefield. Providing cover is Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and a few other Republicans who have questioned the moral grounds of the president's plan.

McCain and Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., oppose sections of the administration's bill related to classified evidence and interpretation of Geneva Convention standards of prisoner treatment. As of late Wednesday, the two sides remained locked in negotiations, making unclear whether the bill would reach the Senate floor by next week, which is expected to be the final week before lawmakers recess for the midterm elections.

Democrats say they are backing McCain because of his track record on defense issues. Held in captivity by the North Vietnamese for more than five years, McCain last year pushed through Congress a ban on mistreatment of detainees by arguing the prohibition would help protect U.S. troops if captured by the enemy.

Once Democrats do weigh in, their strategy is to show there is no daylight between the two parties on fighting terrorism, Democrats say.

One result of the political maneuvering is that at least one major issue has been omitted from congressional debate. The president's proposal would allow suspects to be held indefinitely without "habeas corpus," the right to protest one's detention in court.

Under the president's plan and agreed to by McCain and other GOP senators, only detainees selected by the

Pentagon for prosecution are granted legal counsel and a day in court.

"If this legislation passes, people like Khaled Sheik Mohammed will get a full trial, while hundreds of detainees who are not charged with any crime will be denied even a hearing to test whether there is any basis to hold them," said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a human rights lawyer.

"This is truly a bizarre result considering that ... the military does not even accuse a majority of the detainees of any involvement in violence," Colangelo-Bryan said.

Scientists shocked as Arctic polar route emerges

PARIS (AFP) - European scientists voiced shock as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.

The satellite images were acquired from August 23 to 25 by instruments aboard Envisat and EOS Aqua, two satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Perennial sea ice -- thick ice that is normally present year-round and is not affected by the Arctic summer -- had disappeared over an area bigger than the British Isles, ESA said.

Vast patches of ice-free sea stretched north of Svalbard, an archipelago lying midway between Norway and the North Ple, and extended deep into the Russian Arctic, all the way to the North Pole, the agency said in a press release.

"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low-ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater of ESA's Oceans/Ice Unit.

"It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty."

Spitzbergen is one of the Svalbard islands, which are Norwegian.

Drinkwater added: "If this anomaly continues, the Northeast Passage, or 'Northern Sea Route' between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10 to 20 years."

The images are for late summer. In the last weeks, what was open water has begun to freeze, as the autumn air temperatures over the Arctic begin to fall, ESA said.

Regular satellite monitoring over the last 25 years shows that the northern polar ice cover has shrunk and thinned as global temperatures have risen.

But this year's images are unprecedented, and fierce storms that fragmented and scattered already thin pack ice may be to blame, the scientists believe.

The images were released less than a week after a paper, published in the US journal Science, found that year-round sea ice in the Arctic shrank by one seventh between 2004 and 2005.

Loss of sea ice does not affect global sea levels. Ice that floats in the water displaces its own volume.

However ice that is on land, as an icesheet, glacier or permanent snowcap, adds to sea level when it melts and runs off.

Retreating ice cover also creates a vicious circle, adding to the warming caused by greenhouse gases -- carbon emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, that trap the Sun's heat.

Ice, being white, reflects the Sun's rays. Less ice therefore means the sea warms, which in turn accelerates the shrinkage.

The shrinkage of the Arctic icecap is viewed with alarm by scientists, as it appears to perturb important ocean currents elsewhere, notably the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe its balmy climate.

It also threaten animals such as polar bears and seals that depend on ice.

There are geopolitical implications, too, as Canada, Russia and the United States jockey to claim rights over transpolar passages that open up within their newly ice-free waters.

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Greenland ice sheet melting faster: study

LONDON (Reuters) - Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting much quicker than scientists had estimated and the pace has accelerated lately, according to research published on Wednesday.

An analysis of satellite observations shows the rate of ice loss rose 250 percent between the periods April 2002 to April 2004 and May 2004 to April 2006, most of it in southern Greenland.

The ice sheet is now shrinking by about 248 cubic kilometers each year which is equivalent to a rise in sea level around the world of 0.5 millimeters.

"There is an increase in mass loss and it is significant," said Isabella Velicogna, of the University of Colorado and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

"Los Angeles County uses about one cubic kilometer a year, so it is a lot of water," she added in an interview.

The findings, based on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite, and published in Nature magazine, are consistent with earlier results showing increased melting due to rising temperatures blamed on global warming.

But Velicogna and her colleague John Wahr go a step further because their analysis is very recent, up to April 2006, and shows the accelerated rate of loss is almost entirely in southern Greenland.

"It was losing quite a bit of mass before 2004 but there is a very strong acceleration, which means things are changing," said Velicogna

"It is more than we have been observing in the last century," she added.

Scientists predict that global average temperatures will rise by between one and six degrees Celsius this century unless urgent action is taken now to cap and reduce carbon emissions.

A rise of three degrees could cause a large rise in sea levels, loss of species and increase famine and disease.

Greenland's ice sheet is so huge that if it melted entirely sea levels across the world would rise by about 7 meters (yards), Tavi Murray of the University of Wales in Swansea said in a commentary on the research.

Murray believes the GRACE results could help scientists re-evaluate the rates of loss that can be expected from global warming.

Crooks, liars, thieves and fascists, and they all have Georgie Porgie's ear...

Papers show Bush allies' inside access

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush White House, according to documents released Wednesday that provide the first official accounting of the access and influence the two presidential allies have enjoyed.

The White House released the Secret Service visit records to settle a lawsuit by the Democratic Party and an ethics watchdog group seeking visitors logs for the two GOP strategists and others who emerged as figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Earlier this month, the White House suggested to the judge in that lawsuit that such records need not be disclosed because the information was privileged and might reveal how Bush and his staff get private advice, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

White House officials said Norquist, who runs the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform, was cleared for 97 visits to the White House complex between 2001 and 2006, including a half-dozen with the president.

Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia earlier this year, got 18 meetings, including two events with Bush.

Officials said they believe all appointments with Bush involved larger group settings, such as Christmas parties or policy briefings for GOP supporters.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, however, it was possible some of Norquist's meetings might have been directly with Karl Rove, the president's longtime confidant and political strategist.

"He is one of a number of individuals who worked to advance fiscal responsibility, which is one of the key aspects of the president's agenda," Perino said.

Both Reed and Norquist became involved with Abramoff, the once high-power GOP lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to fraud and is now cooperating with prosecutors in an influence peddling investigation that has rocked Capitol Hill.

Norquist's group advocates lower taxes and less government and he built it into a major force in the Republican Party. Along the way he became friends with Abramoff and Rove.

E-mails obtained this summer by AP show Norquist facilitated several administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's group. Americans for Tax Reform acknowledged Norquist helped Abramoff but said he did nothing improper.

Reed rose to prominence as an organizer of evangelical Christian groups, including the Christian Coalition, inside the Republican Party before moving into business ventures where he did work for Indian tribes at Abramoff's request.

Documents unearthed by congressional investigators showed Abramoff and business partner Michael Scanlon routed about $4 million from Indian tribes to Reed-controlled entities for grassroots work aimed at blocking rival casinos.

The White House also released records showing White House appointments landed by some of Abramoff's former lobbying associates. Among them:

_Neil Volz, a former aide to Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), had 18 appointments, including one to attend a large event featuring Bush on Sept. 11, 2001, that was canceled because of the terrorist attacks. Volz has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt Ney and others with trips and other largess.

_Lobbyist Shawn Vasell also had 18. Two were Bush events, likely a February bill signing and a Ford's Theatre gala, that occurred this year, when Vasell was no longer working with Abramoff.

_Abramoff business partner Scanlon, a former aide to then-Rep.

Tom DeLay, R-Texas, may have had one appointment; the White House couldn't say for certain whether the name in the Secret Service log was the same person. Scanlon has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials while lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes.

_Former DeLay aide and Abramoff lobbying team member Tony Rudy had 13, none with Bush. Rudy has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Abramoff. Former Abramoff lobbying associate Kevin Ring, a former aide to California Republican Rep. John Doolittle (news, bio, voting record), had 21, none with Bush.

_Two former Abramoff lobbying colleagues who joined Bush's administration, David Safavian and Patrick Pizzella, show up in the appointment logs countless times. Pizzella, an assistant secretary of labor, had 48, none with Bush. Among numerous meetings for Safavian, a former Bush administration procurement official who pleaded guilty to trying to hide his dealings with Abramoff, just one was with Bush, likely an employee holiday reception in 2004.

The release of the visitor records settles lawsuits by the Democratic Party and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In a court filing earlier this month while settlement discussions were ongoing, Justice Department lawyers representing the administration said information about the Norquist and Reed visits should be protected from public disclosure under the doctrine of "deliberative process privilege."

That privilege lets the president and executive branch officials seek advice and deliberate policy decisions in private without having to disclose such information under the Freedom of Information Act.

It is similar to executive privilege, a power made famous by President Nixon, that lets a president keep information secret even from Congress or the courts on the grounds that it would hurt his ability to get candid advice.

Executive privilege was the focal point of major legal battles in the Watergate and Clinton impeachment cases.

Bush administration lawyers wrote that Norquist and Reed were "prominent advocates of particular tax policies and other conservative policies" and that releasing information about their White House visits would "inherently reveal the structure and nature of deliberative processes."

"In making decisions on personnel and policy, and in formulating legislative proposals, the president must be free to seek confidential information from many sources, both inside the government and outside," the lawyers wrote in citing a favorable court ruling from 2005 involving Vice President

Dick Cheney.

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said she saw a pattern of the White House trying to avoid answering legitimate questions.

"By trying to extend a special privilege typically reserved for U.S. government employees, to protect their Abramoff cronies like Grover Norquist, and Ralph Reed, the Bush administration showed just how willing they are to manipulate the law to hide the truth and protect their political interests," Finney said.

The administration lawyers, meanwhile, also argued against releasing information about the White House visits of former federal procurement official David Safavian on the grounds that it would violate Safavian's privacy. Safavian was recently convicted of trying to cover up his dealings with Abramoff.

Administration officials said the Justice Department never invoked the privilege mentioned in the court filings because a settlement was reached.

Exxon Mobil accused of misleading public

LONDON, Associated Press - Britain's leading scientific academy has accused oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. of misleading the public about global warming and funding groups that undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

The Royal Society said Wednesday that it had written to Exxon asking it to halt support for groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change."

The Sept. 4 letter was sent to Esso U.K., Exxon's British arm, by the society's official spokesman, Bob Ward.

The letter said Exxon had given $2.9 million to 39 groups that "have been misinforming the public about the science of climate change."

The groups — among more than 50 listed on Exxon's Web site as receiving funding for "public information and policy research" — include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market advocacy group based in Washington, and the Tempe, Ariz.-based Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which Ward said disputes the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

"It's bizarre that a company like ExxonMobil should be funding an organization that so clearly is putting out information that is at odds with the opinion of the scientific community," Ward told The Associated Press.

ExxonMobil confirmed it had received the letter.

In a statement, the company said it funded "organizations which research significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company."

"These organizations do not speak on our behalf, nor do we control their views and messages," it added.

ExxonMobil said its reports "explain our views openly and honestly on climate change." The company said it accepted that carbon dioxide emissions were "one of the contributing factors to climate change."

BOYS GONE WILD

Pick Your Favorite Homoerotic Torture Technique

By Ted Rall

NEW YORK--Right-wing Republicans are weird. When gays and lesbians want to marry and raise kids in the suburbs, the right-wingers freak out. "Perverts!" they scream at these bland strivers. But when supposedly straight soldiers in the army, marines and CIA engage in male-on-male rape and other acts of homosexual sadism so bizarre and extreme they turn off the average, gay-marriage-craving civilian, Republican legislators think it's the best thing ever.

No one talked about it much at the time, but those now-forgotten photos of torture and humiliation at Abu Ghraib were the kind of extreme homoerotic kink your local porn vendor keeps hidden under the counter. Iraqi inmates of mental asylums led around like dogs on leashes. Iraqi prisoners, almost all later released as innocent, stripped of their clothes and forced to pile on top of each other naked.

Of course, America's state media censored the most disturbing images. Hundreds of photos showed sex acts between and among soldiers and detainees. Male prisoners were videotaped while being forced to masturbate and have sex with one another. They were forced to wear women's underwear. U.S. soldiers, CIA torturers and private mercenaries hired by the Bush Defense Department sodomized them with flashlights and possibly broomsticks. They were kept naked for days at a time. Some were smeared with feces.

The photos, said a spokesman for U.S. military forces in Iraq earlier this year, "do not reflect what is happening at Abu Ghraib now." Because the Red Cross has long been banned from visiting the prison, there's no way to know if that's true. We do know, however, that enforced nudity and other gayer-than-gay torture tactics have become de rigueur at other outposts of Bush's post-9/11 gulag archipelago, including Guantαnamo Bay, Afghanistan's Bagram concentration camp and the secret CIA prisons in Central and South Asia and Eastern Europe.

Moreover, torture has continued at Abu Ghraib since the United States turned over the facility to Iraq's puppet regime about two weeks ago. "Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on [September 6], 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime," reported the British Independent newspaper. "Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning."

The U.S. government's Boys Gone Wild, terrified that the courts could force them to fork over millions of dollars to their victims, buy torture insurance from the Arlington, Virginia-based Wright & Co. for $300 a year. If Americans ever come to their senses, however, our homotorturers could also face prison sentences. That's why George W. Bush wants to legalize the CIA's "alternative interrogation techniques" prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the laws of 192 of the world's 193 nations. (The Pacific island of Nauru, which hasn't gotten around to ratification, might be a good spot to set up another "secret site.")

So what are the "alternative interrogation techniques"?

A well-sourced and repeatedly confirmed ABC News report lists six. In the "Attention Grab," the interrogator shakes a victim by his shirt. (This assumes that he isn't already nude.) The "Attention" and "Belly Slaps" are "aimed at causing pain and triggering fear." Then there's "Long Time Standing," in which victims are forced to stand for more than 40 hours straight. "Water Boarding" is the medieval practice of tying a victim to a board and dunking him under water. "Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."

In order to work in American military intelligence, it seems, you really have to like looking at wet naked men with hard, erect nipples. In particular, it helps to be into wet naked Middle Eastern men. As a guy who looks away from other dudes in locker rooms, I doubt I'd fit in.

Now one right-wing Republican, George W. Bush, is fighting a gang of right-wing Republican senators over homoerotic torture tactics. The debate isn't about whether, but rather what kind, of homoerotic torture ought to be permissible. Bush is pretty much a whatever-it-takes, pro-flashlight-raping freak. Senators John McCain and John Warner are a little more vanilla. They want to set a few limits.

Very few limits.

Jeffrey H. Smith, ex-general counsel for the Clinton-era CIA, says the senators are OK with the current menu of torture. "The senators seem to be prepared to allow some techniques, but not nearly as many as the administration wants," he told The New York Times. Bush, on the other hand, wants to allow just about any form of pain infliction the human mind can conceive.

This, my fellow citizens, is what we've come to. No one, not even the nominally opposition Democrats, dares suggest the obvious--that both sets of gay-torture-loving right-wing Republicans are out of their filthy little minds.

Firms say climate change brings financial risk: survey

LONDON (Reuters) - More and more big companies think climate change could have an impact on their bottom lines, according to a survey backed by major investors, the survey's authors said on Monday.

Eighty-seven percent of FT500 companies responding to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) said climate change represented "commercial risks and/or opportunities," the survey's authors said in a summary.

"(The latest CDP) illustrates that climate change and shareholder value are inextricably linked," the authors said.

The CDP is backed by investors with over $31.5 trillion of assets under management. A total of 360 companies -- 72 percent of the FT500 -- responded to the survey.

The response rate to the CDP, which asks companies about their greenhouse gas emissions, rose by one percent compared with the previous year.

Amen, Brother Oliver. Tell it like it is!

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A Christian view of war

By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas Mon Sep 18, 6:52 AM ET

"Pray for our troops."

Millions of signs and bumper stickers carry the message, and part of me likes it. But part of me keeps waiting for another bumper sticker - the one I still haven't seen. Whether Jesus would drive an SUV, I'm still not sure. Truth is he'd probably ride the bus. Or the subway. But if he had money for a car and didn't give it all away to the hookers and the homeless before he got to the used-car lot, I'm pretty sure that his bumper sticker would say "pray for our enemies."

Before you write me off as a left-wing crackpot, consider what we know. During his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said three things relevant to the subject of war:

• Blessed are the peacemakers.

• Turn the other cheek.

• Pray for your enemies.

Here's something else we know. Three-quarters of the U.S. population consider themselves Christian. That translates into about 224 million Americans.

So why are so few of us taking the teachings of Jesus seriously when it comes to this latest war? Out here in the heartland, only a handful of churches are even talking about it.

Christian obligations

The most plausible explanation is that we're scared. Some things, it seems, may trump religion. Fear is one of them. If Christians are afraid (and who could blame them after 9/11?), it's not surprising that they're listening to other voices besides Jesus' when it comes to the war in

Iraq. So what should the three-fourths of Americans who identify themselves as "Christian" make of the Iraq war?

We could spend a lot of time debating whether St. Augustine's "Just War Theory" can be stretched to accommodate our invasion of Iraq, but at this late date it really doesn't matter. We invaded. And, if the Just War Theory means anything, it means that we shouldn't leave Iraq in a bigger mess than we found it. Americans of faith, it would seem, are obligated to do at least the following:

• Express concern for all suffering, including that of our enemies. That means more than paying lip service. As James, the brother of Jesus, said, it does not suffice to tell a hungry man "God bless you!" or "We will pray for you!" We must address his hunger. The same can be said for the additional food, health care, police and countless other things the Iraqi people need. And, though an immediate withdrawal would be precipitous, we must work diligently to respond to the Iraqis' desire that our troops leave as quickly as possible.

• Recommit ourselves to the fundamental principles of justice and human rights that have been a hallmark of our faith, as well as of our nation. That means no more secret prisons, no more secret trials and no more torture. America cannot resort to the worst practices of the Gulag (where citizens were declared "enemies of the state" and whisked away to Siberian work camps without the benefit of a fair trial or the assistance of counsel) and expect to be an accepted member of the world community, much less a leader of it.

• Repudiate the statements of any religious or political leader who suggests that America has a special claim on God. He may have a special claim on us, but we do not have a special claim on him. Our beloved nation is a civil state, not a religious one. There are no references to God in our Constitution. The only reference to religion - other than in the First Amendment - is found in Article VI, which proclaims that there will be no religious test for public office in the USA. The Founding Fathers gave us a secular state in which all religions are free to flourish or flounder on their own initiative without interference by the government. Those running around claiming we are "in the army of God" or slapping up copies of the Ten Commandments on government buildings threaten to turn us into the very sort of society we are fighting against in this new war.

• Force our elected officials to address the conditions that have given rise to global terrorism in the first place. Terrorism exists for a reason. One of those reasons is that our society has been far too unconcerned about the plight of Muslim people around the world. Why, for example, have we not instituted a mini-Marshall Plan for the millions of Palestinians who have often gone without adequate land, roads, hospitals and schools since the 1967 war with

Israel? Corruption among Palestinian leaders has squandered billions in the past, but responsible partners on the ground can and must be found. Private foundations with a long history of engagement might be a good place to start.

Tackling terrorism's roots

We need not and should not repudiate our long-standing alliance with Israel to accomplish this. It's simply that our religious traditions teach us that to whom much is given, much is required. The irony, of course, is that it's in our best interest to relieve Palestinian suffering. True, some terrorist leaders come from affluent families and cite Western worldliness and decadence as their motivation for jihad, but the economic factor cannot be ignored. There is no better recruiting ground for the troops of terror than the maddening monotony and grinding poverty of a refugee camp.

In ancient times, particular gods were associated with particular nations. "Tribal deities," we call them. Today we know better. God is not the mascot of Republicans, Democrats or, for that matter, Americans. God transcends all national and political affiliations. His precinct is the universe.

America is in the deep woods. Never have we been less popular in the eyes of the world. Never have we faced so unsettling an enemy. But before we circle the wagons, Christians should get serious about following the teachings of the one by whose name we are called. He might just know the way out.

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American Buddhism on the rise

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Christian Science Monitor - That genial face has become familiar across the globe - almost as recognizable when it comes to religious leaders, perhaps, as Pope John Paul II. When in America, the Dalai Lama is a sought-after speaker, sharing his compassionate message and engaging aura well beyond the Buddhist community.

After inaugurating a new Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, B.C., the Tibetan leader this week begins a visit to several US cities for public talks, sessions with young peacemakers, scientists, university faculty, corporate executives, and a California women's conference. But he'll also sit down for teach-ins among the burgeoning American faithful.

Buddhism is growing apace in the United States, and an identifiably American Buddhism is emerging. Teaching centers and sanghas (communities of people who practice together) are spreading here as American-born leaders reframe ancient principles in contemporary Western terms.

Though the religion born in India has been in the US since the 19th century, the number of adherents rose by 170 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the American Religious Identity Survey. An ARIS estimate puts the total in 2004 at 1.5 million, while others have estimated twice that. "The 1.5 million is a low reasonable number," says Richard Seager, author of "Buddhism in America."

That makes Buddhism the country's fourth-largest religion, after Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Immigrants from Asia probably account for two-thirds of the total, and converts about one-third, says Dr. Seager, a professor of religious studies at Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y.

What is drawing people (after that fascination with Zen Buddhism in the '50s and '60s)? The Dalai Lama himself has played a role, some say, and Buddhism's nonmissionizing approach fits well with Americans' search for meaningful spiritual paths.

"People feel that Buddhist figures like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam are contributing something, not trying to convert people," says Lama Surya Das, a highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition. "They are not building big temples, but offering wisdom and ways of reconciliation and peacemaking, which are so much needed."

Even a larger factor, he suggests, is that Buddhism offers spiritual practices that Western religions haven't emphasized.

"People are looking for experiential practices, not just a new belief system or a new set of ethical rules which we already have, and are much the same in all religions," Surya Das says. "It's the transformative practices like meditation which people are really attracted to."

At a sangha "sitting" in Cambridge, Mass., last week, some 20 devotees sat cross-legged on four rows of large burgundy-colored cushions before a small candlelit altar. A practice leader led a quiet hour of meditation interspersed with the chanting of prayers and mantras. The group then gathered in a circle for a half hour of discussion.

Carol Marsh, an architect who served as practice leader for the evening, had an interest in finding a spiritual path for years, but was "resistant to anything nonrationalist," she says afterward in an interview. "Then I read 'Awakening the Buddha Within,' [Surya Das's first book on 'Tibetan wisdom for the Western world'], and it spoke to me directly.... My ultimate aim is liberation."

After eight years of practicing, "I am happier, more grateful, more able to roll with whatever punches or moments of annoyance may present themselves," Ms. Marsh says.

What's so valuable to Jane Moss, who's been practicing 15 years, is learning how "to be in the present moment." And also to accept that reality involves perfection and "to view the world as good and people as basically loving." Each month, the group holds a meditation focused on love and compassion.

The sangha has been meeting since 1991, when Surya Das opened the Dzogchen Center here after decades of training with Tibetan teachers. Before becoming a lama, he was Jeffrey Miller, raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Brooklyn. An anti-Vietnam-War activist while at the University of Buffalo (N.Y.), he was stunned when his good friend Allison Krause was shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970.

"When I graduated in 1972, I was disillusioned with radical politics - I realized fighting for peace was a contradiction in terms, and I wanted to find inner peace," he explains. Instead of graduate school, the young Miller headed off on a search that ended up in the Himalayas, where he spent the rest of the '70s and '80s learning from Buddhist teachers while teaching some of them English.

There were plenty of struggles and moments of doubt, but also illumination, he says. Following a centuries-old path to cultivate awareness, his training included two three-year retreats of intensely focused practice.

"One of the great lessons of that monastic brotherhood was learning to love even those people I didn't like," he says, speaking by phone from a retreat in Texas where he's training others.

There are many schools of Buddhism, but "everyone agrees that the purpose is the individual and collective realization of Enlightenment," Surya Das continues. "That is defined as nirvanic peace, wisdom, and selfless love. It involves a practice path that depends on meditation, ethical behavior, and developing insight and active love."

Buddha means "awakened" in Sanskrit, a language of ancient India, where Siddhartha Gautama founded the faith and an Eightfold Path some 2,500 years ago. Buddhists believe that through that path one awakens to what already is - "the natural great perfection." They do not speak of God, but of the human or ego mind with a small "m," and the Buddha (awakened) Mind with a big "m."

"Healing energy takes place through an agency far greater than, yet immanent in each of us," Surya Das has written. "We are all Buddhas."

One doesn't have to subscribe to a catechism or creed, or be a vegetarian. Nor do people have to give up their religion. That's why some Americans speak of being Jewish Buddhists, for instance.

The Dalai Lama, in fact, often encourages people to stay with the faith of their cultural upbringing, to avoid the confusion that can sometimes result from a mixing of Eastern and Western perspectives.

Yet others are going more fully into Buddhist study, particularly as the writings and training by American-born teachers increase its accessibility.

The Dzogchen Center (Dzogchen means "the innate great completeness"), which has sanghas in several states, teaches an advanced Tibetan practice; annually, it offers numerous retreats, from one-day to two-week gatherings. Surya Das - whose Tibetan teacher gave him his name, which means "follower or disciple of the light" - is the spiritual director.

Thirty devotees are currently cloistered in a 100-day retreat for advanced students at the Dzogchen retreat center outside Austin, Texas. They are in the third of a 12-year cycle of silent retreats - which will likely produce new teachers.

Several Tibetan teachers helped introduce Buddhism in the US, and one, Chogyam Trungpa, founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colo. But the teacher succumbed to excesses that tempt clergy of various faiths - alcoholism and sexual misconduct.

The Dalai Lama has warned, too, of some teachers who seek leadership for financial rather than spiritual reasons. The issue of students and teachers is today one of the most controversial in transmission of teaching from East to West, says Surya Das.

Still, a healthy American Buddhism with its own characteristics is emerging. It is less doctrinal and ritualistic than in the East and more meditation oriented, less hierarchical and more democratic and egalitarian. It is more lay-oriented than monastic, and more socially and ecologically engaged.

Perhaps most noticeably, "the role of women as leaders and teachers is very significant here," Seager says.

The Dalai Lama speaks of Buddhism naturally taking new forms in each culture. As he travels the globe, he also emphasizes building bridges between faiths, as well as finding nonviolent means for resolving differences. This weekend, the Nobel Peace Laureate will spend time with youths in Denver engaged in conflict-resolution projects. He'll bless the Great Stupa, the largest example of Buddhist sacred architecture in the US, located at Colorado's Shambhala Mountain Center.

Next week he'll speak to 20,000 at a football stadium in Buffalo, and at the alma mater of Surya Das, who was one of his attendants for several years. The American lama will also speak.

Military-Industrial Complex Speech

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035 - 1040

Dwight D. Eisenhower

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

* and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

Lawyer says FCC ordered study destroyed

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. received a copy of the report "indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public," according to Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that "every last piece" of the report be destroyed. "The whole project was just stopped — end of discussion," he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC's Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.

In a letter sent to Martin Wednesday, Boxer said she was "dismayed that this report, which was done at taxpayer expense more than two years ago, and which concluded that localism is beneficial to the public, was shoved in a drawer."

Martin said he was not aware of the existence of the report, nor was his staff. His office indicated it had not received Boxer's letter as of midafternoon Thursday.

In the letter, Boxer asked whether any other commissioners "past or present" knew of the report's existence and why it was never made public. She also asked whether it was "shelved because the outcome was not to the liking of some of the commissioners and/or any outside powerful interests?"

The report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, analyzed a database of 4,078 individual news stories broadcast in 1998. The broadcasts were obtained from Danilo Yanich, a professor and researcher at the University of Delaware, and were originally gathered by the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The analysis showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of "on-location" news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. It was part of a broader decision liberalizing ownership rules.

At that time, the agency pointed to evidence that "commonly owned television stations are more likely to carry local news than other stations."

When considering whether to loosen rules on media ownership, the agency is required to examine the impact on localism, competition and diversity. The FCC generally defines localism as the level of responsiveness of a station to the needs of its community.

The 2003 action sparked a backlash among the public and within Congress. In June 2004, a federal appeals court rejected the agency's reasoning on most of the rules and ordered it to try again. The debate has since been reopened, and the FCC has scheduled a public hearing on the matter in Los Angeles on Oct. 3.

The report was begun after then-Chairman Michael Powell ordered the creation of a task force to study localism in broadcasting in August of 2003. Powell stepped down from the commission and was replaced by Martin in March 2005. Powell did not return a call seeking comment.

The authors of the report, Keith Brown and Peter Alexander, both declined to comment. Brown has left public service while Alexander is still at the FCC. Yanich confirmed the two men were the authors. Both have written extensively on media and telecommunications policy.

Yanich said the report was "extremely well done. It should have helped to inform policy."

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards dies

AUSTIN, Texas, Associated Press - Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others — especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.

"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone,'" Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.

Whether or not she succeeded at that, there was no question she cracked open the door.

Her single term as governor had ended in a 1994 defeat to George W. Bush, who went from besting his father's silver-haired critic to the governor's office to the presidency.

"Texas has lost one of its great daughters," President Bush said in statement after learning of Richards' death.

Two years before she was elected governor of Texas, Ann Richards electrified the 1988 Democratic National Convention with a keynote speech in which she joked that the Republican presidential nominee, George H.W. Bush, had been "born with a silver foot in his mouth."

A longtime champion of women and minorities in government who was serving at the time as Texas state treasurer, she won cheers when she reminded delegates that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, "only backwards and in high heels."

As governor, Richards appointed the first black University of Texas regent, the first crime victim on the state Criminal Justice Board, the first disabled person on the human services board and the first teacher to lead the State Board of Education. Under Richards, the fabled Texas Rangers pinned stars on their first black and female officers.

Ron Kirk, the black former mayor of Dallas, said Richards helped him get his first political internship during a state constitutional convention in 1974 and later, as governor, made him secretary of state.

"She set the table so somebody like me could become mayor of Dallas," Kirk said.

She also polished Texas' image, courted movie producers, campaigned for the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, oversaw a doubling of the state prison system and presided over rising student achievement scores and plunging dropout rates.

Throughout her years in office, her popularity remained high. One poll put it at over 60 percent the year she lost her re-election bid to Bush.

Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry described Richards as "the epitome of Texas politics: a figure larger than life who had a gift for captivating the public with her great wit."

"Ann loved Texas, and Texans loved her," President Bush said. "As a public servant, she earned respect and admiration. Ann became a national role model, and her charm, wit and candor brought a refreshing vitality to public life."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, said Richards never lost her zest for life.

"I wrote her a note when I heard about her cancer and she wrote me back a wonderful letter. She was upbeat and positive and I think she was going to go out with guns blazing," Hutchison said Wednesday night.

Richards was diagnosed with cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

Her four adult children spent the day with her before she died Wednesday night at her home in Austin, said Cathy Bonner, a longtime family friend and family spokeswoman.

Born in Lakeview, Texas, in 1933, Richards grew up near Waco, married civil rights lawyer David Richards and spent her early adulthood volunteering in campaigns and raising four children. She often said the hardest job she ever had was as a public school teacher at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin.

In the early 1960s, she helped form the North Dallas Democratic Women, "basically to allow us to have something substantive to do; the regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts."

Richards served on the Travis County Commissioners Court in Austin for six years before jumping to a bigger arena in 1982 when her election as state treasurer made her the first woman elected statewide in nearly 50 years.

But politics took a toll. It cost her a marriage and forced her in 1980 to seek treatment for alcoholism.

"I had seen the very bottom of life," she once recalled. "I was so afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing."

After her re-election defeat, Richards went on to give speeches, work as a commentator for Cable News Network and serve as a senior adviser in the New York office of Public Strategies.

In her last 10 years, Richards worked for many social causes and helped develop the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, scheduled to open in Austin in 2007.

Richards said she never missed being in public office. She grinned when asked what she might have done differently had she known she would be a one-term governor.

"Oh," she said, "I would probably have raised more hell."

2006 Hotter Than Ever So Far in U.S.

LiveScience, Space.com - The first eight months of 2006 was the warmest in the continental United States since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA officials said today.

The period of June through August was the second warmest on record.

Above-average rainfall last month in the central and southwestern parts of the country alleviated drought conditions in some areas, but moderate-to-extreme drought continued to affect 40 percent of the country, according to a statement from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

The average June-August 2006 temperature for the contiguous United States, based on preliminary data, was 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 72.1 degrees. This summer, at an average of 74.5 degrees, was slightly cooler than the record of 74.7 degrees set in 1936 during the Dust Bowl era.

Eight of the past 10 summers have been warmer than the U.S. average for the same period going back to 1895.

Amid scandals, GOP keeps lobbyist machine humming

USAToday - A snapshot of ethics on Capitol Hill this year is not a pretty picture. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader known for hardball tactics and coziness with lobbyists, was indicted and resigned. His pal, superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, is set to report to prison Oct. 2. Ex-representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., is already there.

Numerous laws, meanwhile, have been larded with tax breaks and money earmarked for special interests, thanks in part to a burgeoning lobbying community that views Washington less as a seat of government than as a potential profit center.

With all this, one might think that a sense of shame would prompt Congress to clean up the stench, particularly with the elections a mere eight weeks away. Think again. Virtually nothing has changed.

Nowhere is this clearer than in an organization called the K Street Project. Named for the road that is home to many of Washington's biggest lobbying firms, it is dedicated to the proposition that lobbyists - at least those who represent business interests - can be brought into the Republican coalition to keep the party in the majority.

Despite all that has transpired, the K Street Project lumbers on, keeping tabs on who is hired by major lobbying firms and trade associations. The process enables a broader GOP effort to badger those firms into hiring Republicans, and the firms to go to Capitol Hill to ask for favors in return. On Tuesday, the home page of the Project's websitereported in bold red letters that Pulte Homes' new lobbyist has contributed to the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign, Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., and the Republican National Committee.

The K Street Project, founded by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, is more a symbol than a cause of what's amiss in Washington. But it serves as clear illustration of how badly broken Congress is, how little desire there is to fix it, and how far the GOP has strayed from the principles of limited government and unfettered free enterprise. It forces Republicans to abandon core principles by picking winners and losers among industries, based on how willing they are to play along. Results include:

•Micromanaging business. Several recent laws have rewarded some industries and punished others. The most notorious, a 2004 tax bill, granted lavish tax breaks to Oldsmobile dealers and multinational drug companies, among other businesses, while ignoring the film industry, which had dared to hire a Democrat as its top lobbyist.

•Profligate spending. Federal spending, as a percentage of the economy, has risen faster in the past five years than at any time since the New Deal. Among the reasons are lavish giveaways to powerful lobbies, such as energy and drugs, and billions "earmarked" to clients of well-connected lobbyists.

Many Republicans argue the group does nothing that Democrats didn't do when they controlled Congress, and certainly the Democrats' behavior was tawdry for its time. But the philosophy behind the K Street Project takes this behavior to an extreme. It says a lobbyist's political ideology and donations are more important than his or her ability to marshal facts on behalf of the client.

There goes the plankton....

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Arctic ice melting rapidly, study says

Associated Press - Arctic sea ice in winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the ocean's delicate ecosystem.

Scientists point to the sudden and rapid melting as a sure sign of man-made global warming.

"It has never occurred before in the past," said NASA senior research scientist Josefino Comiso in a phone interview. "It is alarming... This winter ice provides the kind of evidence that it is indeed associated with the greenhouse effect."

Scientists have long worried about melting Arcticsea ice in the summer, but they had not seen a big winter drop in sea ice, even though they expected it.

For more than 25 years Arctic sea ice has slowly diminished in winter by about 1.5 percent per decade. But in the past two years the melting has occurred at rates 10 to 15 times faster. From 2004 to 2005, the amount of ice dropped 2.3 percent; and over the past year, it's declined by another 1.9 percent, according to Comiso.

A second NASA study by other researchers found the winter sea ice melt in one region of the eastern Arctic has shrunk about 40 percent in just the past two years. This is partly because of local weather but also partly because of global warming, Comiso said.

The loss of winter ice is bad news for the ocean because this type of ice, when it melts in summer, provides a crucial breeding ground for plankton, Comiso said. Plankton are the bottom rung of the ocean's food chain.

"If the winter ice melt continues, the effect would be very profound especially for marine mammals," Comiso said in a NASA telephone press conference.

The ice is melting even in subfreezing winter temperatures because the water is warmer and summer ice covers less area and is shorter-lived, Comiso said. Thus, the winter ice season shortens every year and warmer water melts at the edges of the winter ice more every year.

Scientists and climate models have long predicted a drop in winter sea ice, but it has been slow to happen. Global warming skeptics have pointed to the lack of ice melt as a flaw in global warming theory.

The latest findings are "coming more in line with what we expected to find," said Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "We're starting to see a much more coherent and firm picture occurring."

"I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so," he added.

Serreze said only five years ago he was "a fence-sitter" on the issue of whether man-made global warming was happening and a threat, but he said recent evidence in the Arctic has him convinced.

Summer sea ice also has dramatically melted and shrunk over the years, setting a record low last year. This year's measurements are not as bad, but will be close to the record, Serreze said.

Equally disturbing is a large mass of water — melted sea ice — in the interior of a giant patch of ice north of Alaska, Serreze said. It's called a polynya, and while those show up from time to time, this one is large — about the size of the state of Maryland — and in an unexpected place.

"I for one, after having studied this for 20 years, have never seen anything like this before," Serreze said.

The loss of summer sea ice is pushing polar bears more onto land in northern Canada and Alaska, making it seem like there are more polar bears when there are not, said NASA scientist Claire Parkinson, who studies the bears.

The polar bear population in the Hudson Bay area has dropped from 1,200 in 1989 to 950 in 2004 and the bears that are around are 22 percent smaller than they used to be, she said.

___

On the Net:

It's not outside hackers we should be worried about...

------

Princeton prof hacks e-vote machine

TRENTON, N.J., Associated Press - A Princeton University computer science professor added new fuel Wednesday to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

In a paper posted on the university's Web site, Edward Felten and two graduate students described how they had tested a Diebold AccuVote-TS machine they obtained, found ways to quickly upload malicious programs and even developed a computer virus able to spread such programs between machines.

The marketing director for the machine's maker — Diebold Inc.'s Diebold Election Systems of Allen, Texas — blasted the report, saying Felten ignored newer software and security measures that prevent such hacking.

"I'm concerned by the fact we weren't contacted to educate these people on where our current technology stands," Mark Radke said.

Radke also question why Felten hadn't submitted his paper for peer review, as is commonly done before publishing scientific research.

Felten said he and his colleagues felt it necessary to publish the paper as quickly as possible because of the possible implications for the November midterm elections.

About 80 percent of American voters are expected to use some form of electronic voting in the upcoming election, in which the makeup of the U.S. House will be decided, as well as 33 Senate seats and 36 governorships.

The AccuVote-TS is commonly used across the country, along with a newer model, the AccuVote-TSx. While Felten wasn't able to test the new machine, he said he thought much of what he found would still apply.

The machine Felten tested, obtained in May from an undisclosed source, was the same type used across Maryland in its primary election Tuesday, according to Ross Goldstein, a deputy administrator with the state's Board of Elections. Goldstein said he couldn't comment on the report until he read it.

Diebold and other machine manufacturers, including California-based Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. and Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software Inc., have been the subject of lawsuits, claiming the machines are vulnerable to hacking and breakdowns that can assign votes to the wrong candidate.

Election officials in some states have also complained.

Previous studies have claimed hacking vulnerabilities with the machines. But Felten claims his study is the first time that an independent research group has obtained an actual machine and tested it extensively.

Felten and graduate students Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman found that malicious programs could be placed on the Diebold by accessing the memory card slot and power button, both behind a locked door on the side of the machine. One member of the group was able to pick the lock in 10 seconds, and software could be installed in less than a minute, according to the report.

The researchers say they designed software capable of modifying all records, audit logs and counters kept by the voting machine, ensuring that a careful forensic examination would find nothing wrong.

The programs were able to modify vote totals or cause machines to break down, something that could alter the course of an election if machines were located in crucial polling stations.

It was also possible to design a computer virus to spread malicious programs to multiple machines by piggybacking on a new software download or an election information file being transferred from machine to machine, Felten said.

"I think there are many people out there who have the type of technical ability to carry out the sort of attacks we describe here," he said.

Felten said hacking dangers could be mitigated with better software, more restrictions on access to machines and memory cards, and paper receipts verified by the voter.

I'm baffled at how we can collectively continue to just shit where we sleep...

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Climate change seen pushing plants to the brink

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of plant species are being pushed to the brink of extinction by global warming, and those already at the extremes are in the greatest danger, a leading botanist said on Tuesday.

Paul Smith, head of Britain's Millennium Seed Bank, said the drylands of the world which cover 40 percent of the earth's surface and are home to more than one-third of the population faced the bleakest future.

"In the southern hemisphere the plants can either go up or south. But in South Africa's Cape they can't do either, so the 8,000 unique species of fijnbos (indigenous vegetation) there are a real worry," he told Reuters on a visit to London's Kew Gardens.

Smith's team is on target to have sorted and stored seeds from 10 percent of the world's plant species by 2010 in a race against time as global temperatures rise due to burning fossil fuels for transport and power.

"The trouble is that when we started collecting it was generally agreed that there were 242,000 plant species. But now some people believe it could be as high as 400,000.

"We really need to find out just what is out there before it has gone forever," he said, noting that on Robinson Crusoe island off Chile scientists found there had been eight extinctions in just the past decade.

But it is not just in the southern hemisphere that climate change is creating radical changes in the environment as warm weather expends steadily northwards, bringing with it new species and threatening the local vegetation.

In England not only had the climate already changed to favor drought-resistant Mediterranean plant and tree species, it had brought with it insect pests that were previously unknown there because they would not have survived the winter frosts.

Tony Kirkham, tree specialist at the world famous Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in southwest London, noted that the Macedonian Leaf Miner moth had invaded in recent years and was attacking -- and eventually killing -- Horse Chestnut Trees.

While drought stress and pest attack was starting to cripple some indigenous species, dry climate trees like Eucalyptus from Australia, Turkish Hazel and the Sweetgum from the United States were finding the new growing climate very much to their liking.

We are dismantling the foodchains. How long before the monkeys die out as well?

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Risk of bluefin tuna disappearing from Mediterranean: World Wildlife Fund

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Stocks of bluefin tuna are disappearing from the Mediterranean, the environmental group WWF warned.

"There is almost no more bluefin tuna to be fished in some of the oldest fishing grounds, especially in West Mediterranean," the group said in a statement in which it called on the European Union to ban commercial fishing during the breeding season.

The problem is particularly acute around Spain's Balearic Islands, where catches of bluefin are down to only 15 percent of levels a decade ago, the group said.

In 1995 some 14,699 tonnes were caught there, mainly by French and Spanish fleets - while just 2,270 tonnes have been fished in the same waters this year.

Mediterranean bluefin tuna farms have also experienced substantial decline. From this year's catches of wild Mediterranean tuna, some 22,520 tonnes have been put in captivity and farmed, a 25 percent reduction on last year.

Six Spanish tuna ranches have already ceased operating altogether "because there were simply no more tuna".

The WWF prepared its findings for a European Parliament Fisheries Committee special hearing on the bluefin tuna crisis Tuesday.

Fishermen from the traditional tuna trappers' association in Spain, OPP51, joined the WWF in its call for immediate EU action.

"We fear for our jobs", said OPP51 Director General Marta Crespo Marquez. "The EU has still not reacted to repeated warnings from scientists and we are looking to our elected representatives to take their responsibilities seriously".

The findings support WWF's alarm call earlier this year that huge illegal activity is plundering the last remaining bluefin tuna and "provide even more indication that collapse of the species may soon follow," WWF warned.

I am so sick of the BushCo spin machine and the retards who shout their inane obscenities into the echochamber. I am so sick of the lying liars and their lies. I am so sick and tired of the fascists and their bullshit mindfuck...

"We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."

The Nation -- Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to task for comparing critics of the Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. Tonight, broadcasting live from above a desolate and still demolished Ground Zero, Olbermann delivered a stirring eight minute commentary indicting the Bush Administration's shameful and tragic response to 9/11. The entire speech is worth watching and reading, so I'm posting the full text below.

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

This year's mild hurricane season is Mother Nature trying to compensate for the disruptions that brought us the recordbreaker season last year. She can't hold out forever, so get ready for a bumpy, windy ride...

Study ties warming to intense hurricanes

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, says a study that one researcher says "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

And most of that temperature increase can be blamed on global warming caused by human activities such as automobile and industrial pollution, scientists report in Wednesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The work that we've done kind of closes the loop here," said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the paper.

"The important conclusion is that the observed (sea-surface temperature) increases in these hurricane breeding grounds cannot be explained by natural processes alone," said Wigley. "The best explanation for these changes has to include a large human influence."

Benjamin Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif., plus Wigley and their team studied the relationship of climate and hurricanes using 22 different climate models at 15 institutions around the world.

Climate models are complex sets of mathematical equations that high-speed computers use to simulate weather and climate and to forecast changes. The researchers used them to run 80 different simulations analyzing the response of sea-surface temperatures to a variety of factors and then compared the results from the independent models.

While previous studies have looked at entire oceans, this work focused on the smaller areas of the Atlantic and Pacific where tropical storms form.

This study builds a connection between the theoretical foundation of global warming and changes that are being observed in those areas where hurricanes are born, said Robert Corell of the American Meteorological Society, who moderated a briefing on the work.

While they reported the connection between rising ocean temperatures and increasing storm power, the researchers declined to predict future changes.

Asked if they would recommend changes in public policy, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said, "It is important to note that we're not policymakers. Our role is to present the best possible conclusions from the available evidence."

Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added that regardless of global warming, the United States does need to address problems in dealing with hurricanes ranging from insurance to disaster response.

Not so sure of the findings was William M. Gray of Colorado State University, a longtime hurricane expert who issues forecasts each year of the expected number of storms.

Gray said the models do not deal with all necessary ocean processes and called the report "a desperate attempt to keep the bandwagon going. They've kept it going with global warming and now they want to keep it going with hurricanes."

"I am very sure over the test of time it will not hold up," said Gray, who was not part of the research team.

Philip Klotzbach, also of Colorado State, said that "sea-surface temperatures have certainly warmed over the past century, and that there is probably a human-induced component.

"To me, the big challenge is still determining what percentage is natural and what percentage is caused by humans. This paper sheds some light on that question; however, there is still a considerable amount of uncertainty," he said.

Christopher Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division in Miami, praised the new paper as very well thought out.

But, he said, while the paper discusses sea-surface temperature increases, it does not address the sensitivity of hurricanes to ocean temperature changes or questions about hurricane records in prior years.

While studies by Emanuel in Nature and Peter J. Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Science reported increases in the most powerful storms, Klotzbach challenged those findings in Geophysical Research Letters, reporting only a small increase and suggesting that may be due to improved observation technology.

U.S. trade deficit hits all-time high

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Soaring global oil prices sent the U.S. trade deficit to an all-time high, and Democrats hoping to take control of Congress said the figures showed Republican policies have failed.

The trade deficit increased to $68 billion in July as record oil prices pushed America's foreign oil bill to the highest level in history, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

Democrats said the worse-than-expected showing was evidence that President Bush's trade policies were failing to protect American workers from unfair foreign competition that they said had contributed to the loss of nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office.

"These record trade deficits are proof positive that the current trade agenda is not working for America," said Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., who is in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee if Democrats take control of the House.

"America's trade policies are a miserable failure," said Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D. "We are choking on debt, a substantial portion of which we owe to China and Japan."

Through July, the deficit is running at an annual rate of $776 billion, putting the country on course to rack up a record deficit for the fifth straight year.

The Citizens Trade Campaign, a vocal opponent of administration trade policies, said polls show that the huge trade deficits and the loss of good manufacturing jobs are key concerns for voters.

"Voters are seeing the disappearance of good jobs, downward pressure on wages and the erosion of benefits and know that Congress has allowed this to happen," said Chris Slevin of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition of labor, environmental and consumer groups.

For July, U.S. exports, after setting three consecutive monthly records, edged down 1.1 percent to $120 billion — still the second-highest level in history. Sales of American jetliners, computers and industrial machinery slipped.

Imports rose to a record high of $188 billion, an increase of 1 percent from the June level. America's foreign oil bill climbed 4.8 percent to an all-time high of $28.5 billion, reflecting record oil prices in July.

The politically sensitive deficit with China did decline a slight 0.7 percent in July to $19.6 billion but is still on track to exceed last year's $202 billion deficit, the highest ever recorded with a single country.

Analysts said that the deficit with China is likely to rise given that the Chinese reported on Monday that their trade surplus for August set a fourth straight monthly record.

The rising trade gap with China will put pressure on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who leaves Thursday for an Asian trip that will take him to China for his first meetings with Chinese economic officials since he joined the Bush's Cabinet in July.

The administration is pushing China to move more quickly to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar as a way to narrow the yawning trade gap by making American exports cheaper in China and Chinese goods more expensive for U.S. consumers.

Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have warned that if China does not act, they plan to push for a Senate vote before the end of this month on legislation that would impose 27.5 percent penalty tariffs on all Chinese imports.

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business & Industry Council, which represents mainly small American manufacturing companies, said he was not looking for any breakthroughs from Paulson's talks with the Chinese.

"China can't afford to revalue the yuan very much because continuing increases in exports are critical for job creation in China," he said.

The big jump in America's oil bill reflects the sharp rise in global oil prices. The average price for a barrel of imported crude oil rose to a record of $64.84 in July, according to Commerce figures.

However, since hitting a high of $77 per barrel on spot markets in mid-July, prices have come down by about 13 percent, raising hopes that the trade deficit will start to improve in coming months.

The drop in exports in July was led by a $1.2 billion decline in sales of U.S. capital goods, reflecting declines in shipments of civilian aircraft, computers and computer accessories and industrial machinery.

America's trade deficit with Japan rose by 8.1 percent in July to $7.6 billion while the deficit with the 25-nation European Union jumped by 48 percent to $13.4 billion.

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On the Net:

Scientists see new global warming threat

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.

As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.

Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.

Scientists are fretting about a global warming vicious cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.

Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost, and so on.

"The higher the temperature gets, the more permafrost we melt, the more tendency it is to become a more vicious cycle," said Chris Field, director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "That's the thing that is scary about this whole thing. There are lots of mechanisms that tend to be self-perpetuating and relatively few that tends to shut it off."

The effect reported in Nature is seen mostly in Siberia, but also elsewhere, in a type of carbon-rich permafrost, flash frozen about 40,000 years ago. A new more accurate measuring technique was used on the bubbling methane, which is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than the more prevalent carbon dioxide.

"The effects can be huge," said lead author Katey Walter of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "It's coming out a lot and there's a lot more to come out."

Another study earlier this summer in the journal Science found that the amount of carbon trapped in this type of permafrost - called yedoma - is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels.

It won't all come out at once or even over several decades, but the methane and carbon dioxide will escape the soil if temperatures increase, scientists say.

The issue of methane and carbon dioxide released from permafrost has caused concern this summer among climate scientists and geologists. Specialists in Arctic climate are coming up with research plans to study the effect, which is not well understood or observed, said Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a group of 300 scientists.

"It's kind of like a slow-motion time bomb," said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the Science study. "There's these big surprises out there that we don't even know about."

Most of this yedoma is in north and eastern Siberia, areas that until recently had not been studied at length by scientists.

What makes this permafrost special is that during a rapid onset ice age, carbon-rich plants were trapped in the permafrost. As the permafrost thaws, the carbon is released as methane if it's underwater in lakes, like much of the parts of Siberia that Walter studied. If it's dry, it's released into the air as carbon dioxide.

Scientists aren't quite sure which is worse. Methane is far more powerful in trapping heat, but only lasts about a decade before it dissipates into carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Carbon dioxide traps heat for about a century.

"The bottom line is it's better if it stays frozen in the ground," Schuur said. "But we're getting to the point where it's going more and more into the atmosphere."

Vladimir Romanovsky, geophysics professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said he thinks the big methane or carbon dioxide release hasn't started yet, but it's coming. It's closer in Alaska and Canada, which only has a few hundred square miles of yedoma, he said.

In Siberia, the many lakes of melted water make matters worse because the water, although cold, helps warm and thaw the permafrost, Walter said.

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On the Net:

Society gives fat girls more grief and less support, fat girls make less money, and as if that alone wasn't depressing, fat girls are more likely to get horrible diseases and die early. It's enough to drive you straight into the arms of Sara Lee...

Obesity pandemic hurts women more than men

SYDNEY (AFP) - The global obesity pandemic combined with society's anti-fat bias is more damaging to women than to men, an expert has warned at an international conference.

"Being obese and female is as bad as it gets," Berit Heitmann, a nutritional and medical research advisor to the Danish government, told a meeting of world obesity experts gathered in Sydney Wednesday.

Not only were obese women socially stigmatised more than their male counterparts, but their health suffered to a greater degree, delegates at the 10th International Congress on Obesity heard.

Heitmann said that although gender differences in the obesity epidemic were narrowing, the vicious circle of obesity and poverty still had a greater impact on women.

Poverty was well known as both a contributor to and result of obesity, a condition that was five times more common among poor people in the developed world, she said.

A recent Finnish study showed that obese women faced more job discrimination and earned less, not only compared to men, but also to women of normal weight and obese men with a similar education and job.

"Appearance and size seem related to getting and keeping both job and salary," she said.

Prejudice began early in life for obese females, with children as young as three shunning their obese peers, Heitmann said.

Family, teachers and healthcare professionals were also more biased against obese girls and women than boys and men, she said.

"Obese women are deprived of friendships, intimate relationships, social interactions, education, income and respect," Heitmann said.

In the realm of education, with fewer grants and scholarships awarded to obese women, she said.

In addition to social disadvantages, obese women suffered more from diabetes, hypertension and heart disease than men with the same body mass index, Heitmann said.

"The risk of developing diabetes type two for an obese man is about half that of an obese woman," with similar figures for hypertension, she said.

Paradoxically, while obesity appeared to cause more disease in women, death rates were similar among the sexes, she said.

Women's tendency to carry more fat on the backside than on the stomach, where it was more dangerous, may explain this, she said.

Research dedicated to alleviating the burden of obesity on women's health included a study showing women could achieve weight loss more effectively when exercise was augmented by a higher protein diet.

Professor Donald Layman, whose 2005 study was published by the Journal of Nutrition, reported that higher protein diets, when combined with exercise, meant dieters tended to lose fat rather than muscle.

Although Layman was invited to speak by the lobby group Meat and Livestock Australia, Manny Oakes of CSIRO -- Australia's government body for scientific research -- called Layman's results exciting.

The obesity conference, which is held every four years, has drawn more than 2,000 academics and health professionals to seek practical ways of fighting the greatest single contributor to chronic disease worldwide.

Secret trials with secret evidence for secret prisoners sitting in secret prisons on secret charges...

Bush Proposes Using Coerced Evidence in Tribunals

Bloomberg News -- President George W. Bush's proposal for trying suspected terrorists captured overseas would allow the use of evidence obtained by coercion and let judges bar defendants from hearings where classified evidence is discussed, a Senate Republican aide who has been briefed on the plan said.

Bush is scheduled to release details of legislation he's seeking to change U.S. law so that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be brought before military tribunals. The changes are necessary because the Supreme Court ruled on June 29 that Congress didn't authorize the president to set up such trials.

Bush's plan, as outlined to lawmakers, may set up a fight with Congress over the tribunals, with the potentially biggest point of contention being the use of evidence obtained through coercive interrogations. A measure drafted by three Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee -- Chairman John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- would bar such evidence.

``One of the most important tasks for Congress is to recognize that we need the tools necessary to win this war on terror, and we'll continue to discuss with Congress ways to make sure this country is capable if defending itself,'' Bush said after a meeting with his Cabinet at the White House.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said refused to provide any details of what Bush plans to offer in his remarks, scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Washington time today.

He acknowledged differences between the White House and Congress, while playing down the impact. ``Some of the disagreements have been overstated,'' he said. ``It's going to get worked out.''

Guantanamo's Future

Snow said Bush doesn't won't announce plans to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a step Bush has said he wants to take and one being pushed by U.S. allies. The U.S. is holding about 450 detainees at Guantanamo and another 550 in Afghanistan.

The ban on coerced evidence included in the measure proposed by the three Republican senators is intended to prevent the use of evidence that may have been obtained by torture inflicted by interrogations in foreign governments.

Another area of disagreement may be in Bush's proposal to bar defendants from court hearings where classified evidence is discussed. During Senate Armed Services Committee hearings in July, administration witnesses said they favored barring defendants and committee members voiced opposition to the idea.

Bush's proposal would allow defense attorneys who have security clearance to review such material, according to the Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Differences

The legislation from Warner, McCain and Graham, would be offered as a ``stand-alone'' bill for consideration by the Senate this month and doesn't include language sought by the administration, Warner's spokesman John Ullyot said yesterday.

The administration was ``consulted all along in the process'' of developing the legislation, Ullyot said.

Senator Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on Armed Services, was provided a copy of the Republicans' bill. He said both Democrats and Republicans ``on a bipartisan basis'' have ``a lot of problems'' with the administration's proposal, including allowing the use of hearsay and not requiring defendants be present in the courtroom.

The administration's draft proposal ``significantly deviates from what the military lawyers want,'' Levin told reporters yesterday on Capitol Hill.

New York Senator Charles Schumer said today that Democrats are likely to support the Warner, McCain and Graham proposal.

Military Rules

In the court's ruling, the justices also said the tribunals violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which affords such protections as the right to be present at trial, and the Geneva Conventions, which the court said may give detainees the same rights as U.S. citizens facing military trial.

The Defense Department today is scheduled to release a new Army field manual that sets guidelines for the treatment and interrogation of military captives. Congress last year passed legislation requiring the military to follow the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of all detainees.

The 11-page directive formally orders all military personnel to extend to all detainees and prisoners of war protections under Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions that prohibits torture and ``outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.''

It also mandates that military personnel must report ``possible, suspected or alleged violations of the law of war and/or detention operations laws, regulations or policy for which there is credible information.''

Bush acknowledges secret CIA prisons

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged the existence of previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects — including the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks — have been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.

He said the "small number" of detainees that have been kept in CIA custody include people responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to the 2001 attacks.

"The most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves," Bush said in a White House speech with families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks making up part of the audience. "It has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held in secret, questioned by experts and, when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts."

The announcement from Bush is the first time the administration has acknowledged the existence of CIA prisons, which have been a source of friction between Washington and some allies in Europe. The administration has come under criticism for its treatment of terrorism detainees. European Union lawmakers said the CIA was conducting clandestine flights in Europe to take terror suspects to countries where they could face torture.

Bush said the CIA program has involved such suspected terrorists as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, believed to be the No. 3 al-Qaida leader before he was captured in Pakistan in 2003; Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker; Abu Zubaydah, who was believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaida cells before he was also captured in Pakistan, in March 2002.

The list also includes Riduan Isamuddin, known additionally as Hambali, who was suspected of being Jemaah Islamiyah's main link to al-Qaida and the mastermind of a string of deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia until his 2003 arrest in Thailand.

Defending the program, the president said the questioning of these detainees has provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that have enabled officials to prevent attacks not only in the United States, but Europe and other countries. He said the program has been reviewed by administration lawyers and been the subject of strict oversight from within the CIA.

Bush would not detail the type of interrogation techniques that are used through the program, saying they are tough but do not constitute torture.

"This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they have a chance to kill," the president said. "It is invaluable to America and our allies."

The president's announcement, which the White House touted beforehand and asked to be televised live on the networks, comes as Bush has sought with a series of speeches to sharpen the focus on national security two months before high-stakes congressional elections.

The president successfully emphasized the war on terror in his re-election campaign in 2004 and is trying to make it a winning issue again for Republicans this year.

The president said the 14 key terrorist leaders, including Mohammed, Binalshibh, and Zubaydah, that have been transferred to the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay would be afforded some legal protections consistent with the Geneva conventions.

"They will continue to be treated with the humanity that they denied others," Bush said.

Bush also laid out his proposal for how trials of such key suspected terrorists — those transferred to Guantanamo and already there — should be conducted, which must be approved by Congress. Bush's original plan for the type of military trials used in the aftermath of World War II was struck down in June by the Supreme Court, which said the tribunals would violate U.S. and international law.

There is a theory that states that there is a "tipping point number" in nature - somewhere between 5 and 6 billion. 5 billion atoms and certain molecules appear, 5 billion molecules and certain cells appear, 5 billion cells and certain organisms appear, etc etc.

There are now over 6 billion human minds on the planet. What if all those minds were thinking about the same thing at the same time?

hmmmm....

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Telephone telepathy -- I was just thinking about you

NORWICH (Reuters) - Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.

"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."

He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an e-mail before it had landed.

However, his sample was small on both trials -- just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50 for the email -- and only four subjects were actually filmed in the phone study and five in the email, prompting some scepticism.

U.S. says Afghan opium out of control

KABUL, Afghanistan, Associated Press - Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is spiraling out of control, rising 59 percent this year to produce a record 6,100 tons — nearly a third more than the world's drug users consume, the U.N. said Saturday.

Antonio Maria Costa, the U.N. anti-drug chief, said the results from his agency's annual survey of Afghanistan's poppy crop were "very alarming."

"This year's harvest will be around 6,100 tons of opium — a staggering 92 percent of total world supply. It exceeds global consumption by 30 percent," Costa told reporters in Kabul after presenting the survey to President Hamid Karzai. Opium is the raw material of heroin.

In a scathing statement, Costa said the Afghan government should take much stronger action to root out graft, saying governors and police chiefs of opium-growing provinces should be sacked and charged. He accused corrupt administrators of pocketing aid money.

Costa warned that the south of the country was "displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption."

The bulk of the increase was recorded in lawless Helmand province, where cultivation rose 162 percent and accounted for 42 percent of the Afghan crop. The province is facing an upsurge in attacks by Taliban-led militants fighting NATO forces.

"Public opinion is increasingly frustrated by the fact that opium cultivation in Afghanistan is out of control," Costa said. "Afghan opium is fueling insurgency in western Asia, feeding international mafias and causing 100,000 deaths from overdoses every year."

Western officials say militants are implicated in the drug trade, encouraging poppy cultivation and using the proceeds to help fund their insurgency. However, government officials and police, particularly at provincial and district levels, also are deeply involved.

The top U.S. anti-narcotics official in Afghanistan also warned that the illicit trade in opium and heroin threatened the country's fledgling democracy, instituted after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime nearly five years ago by U.S.-led forces.

"This country could be taken down by this whole drugs problem," Doug Wankel told reporters in Kabul — echoing strong rhetoric voiced by Karzai last month. "We have seen what can come from Afghanistan, if you go back to 9/11. Obviously the U.S. does not want to see that again."

"If this thing gets out of hand, you could move from a narco-economy to a narco-state. Then you have a very difficult chance for this country being able to achieve what it needs to as a democracy and a nation representing its people," he said.

Wankel described the drug trade — already estimated to account for at least 35 percent of the country's gross domestic product — as a "national security threat to Afghanistan, the region and the world."

The survey conducted by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime showed the area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan reached a record 407,700 acres in 2006, up from 257,000 acres in 2005. The previous highest 331,360 acres in 2004.

The estimated yield of 6,100 tons of opium resin — enough to make 610 tons of heroin — is up from 4,100 tons in 2005, exceeding the highest ever global output of 5,764 tons recorded in 1999.

Last year, about 450 tons of heroin was consumed worldwide, according to the U.N.

Nightmare Mortgages

Business Week - For cash-strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn't refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super-heated market, didn't even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment.

Those who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so-called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket.

Slide Show

The option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) might be the riskiest and most complicated home loan product ever created. With its temptingly low minimum payments, the option ARM brought a whole new group of buyers into the housing market, extending the boom longer than it could have otherwise lasted, especially in the hottest markets. Suddenly, almost anyone could afford a home -- or so they thought. The option ARM's low payments are only temporary. And the less a borrower chooses to pay now, the more is tacked onto the balance.

The bill is coming due. Many of the option ARMs taken out in 2004 and 2005 are resetting at much higher payment schedules -- often to the astonishment of people who thought the low installments were fixed for at least five years. And because home prices have leveled off, borrowers can't count on rising equity to bail them out. What's more, steep penalties prevent them from refinancing. The most diligent home buyers asked enough questions to know that option ARMs can be fraught with risk. But others, caught up in real estate mania, ignored or failed to appreciate the risk.

There was plenty more going on behind the scenes they didn't know about, either: that their broker was paid more to sell option ARMs than other mortgages; that their lender is allowed to claim the full monthly payment as revenue on its books even when borrowers choose to pay much less; that the loan's interest rates and up-front fees might not have been set by their bank but rather by a hedge fund; and that they'll soon be confronted with the choice of coughing up higher payments or coughing up their home. The option ARM is "like the neutron bomb," says George McCarthy, a housing economist at New York's Ford Foundation. "It's going to kill all the people but leave the houses standing."

Because banks don't have to report how many option ARMs they underwrite, few choose to do so. But the best available estimates show that option ARMs have soared in popularity. They accounted for as little as 0.5% of all mortgages written in 2003, but that shot up to at least 12.3% through the first five months of this year, according to FirstAmerican LoanPerformance, an industry tracker. And while they made up at least 40% of mortgages in Salinas, Calif., and 26% in Naples, Fla., they're not just found in overheated coastal markets: Through Mar. 31 of this year, at least 51% of mortgages in West Virginia and 26% in Wyoming were option ARMs. Stock and bond analysts estimate that as many as 1.3 million borrowers took out as much as $389 billion in option ARMs in 2004 and 2005. And it's not letting up. Despite the housing slump, option ARMs totaling $77.2 billion were written in the second quarter of this year, according to investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.

The First Wave

After prolonging the boom, these exotic mortgages could worsen the bust. They also betray such a lack of due diligence on the part of lenders and borrowers that it raises questions of what other problems may be lurking. And most of the pain will be borne by ordinary people, not the lenders, brokers, or financiers who created the problem.

Gordon Burger is among the first wave of option ARM casualties. The 42-year-old police officer from a suburb of Sacramento, Calif., is stuck in a new mortgage that's making him poorer by the month. Burger, a solid earner with clean credit, has bought and sold several houses in the past. In February he got a flyer from a broker advertising an interest rate of 2.2%. It was an unbeatable opportunity, he thought. If he refinanced the mortgage on his $500,000 home into an option ARM, he could save $14,000 in interest payments over three years. Burger quickly pulled the trigger, switching out of his 5.1% fixed-rate loan. "The payment schedule looked like what we talked about, so I just started signing away," says Burger. He didn't read the fine print.

After two months Burger noticed that the minimum payment of $1,697 was actually adding $1,000 to his balance every month. "I'm not making any ground on this house; it's a loss every month," he says. He says he was told by his lender, Minneapolis-based Homecoming Financial, a unit of Residential Capital, the nation's fifth-largest mortgage shop, that he'd have to pay more than $10,000 in prepayment penalties to refinance out of the loan. If he's unhappy, he should take it up with his broker, the bank said. "They know they're selling crap, and they're doing it in a way that's very deceiving," he says. "Unfortunately, I got sucked into it." In a written statement, Residential said it couldn't comment on Burger's loan but that "each mortgage is designed to meet the specific financial needs of a consumer."

The loans certainly meet the needs of banks. Option ARMs offer several payment choices each month. Among Burger's alternatives were one for $2,524, about what a standard fixed-rate mortgage would be on the new amount, and the $1,697 he pays. Why would his bank make the minimum so low? Thanks to a perfectly legal accounting practice, no matter how little Burger pays each month, the bank gets to record the full amount.

Option ARMs were created in 1981 and for years were marketed to well-heeled home buyers who wanted the option of making low payments most months and then paying off a big chunk all at once. For them, option ARMs offered flexibility.

So how did these unusual loans get into the hands of so many ordinary folks? The sequence of events was orderly and even rational, at least within a flawed system. In the early years of the housing boom, falling interest rates made safe fixed-rate loans attractive to borrowers. As home prices soared, banks pushed adjustable-rate loans with lower initial payments. When those got too pricey, banks hawked loans that required only interest payments for the first few years. And then they flogged option ARMs -- not as financial-planning tools for the wealthy but as affordability tools for the masses. Banks tapped an army of unregulated mortgage brokers to do what needed to be done to keep the money flowing, even if it meant putting dangerous loans in the hands of people who couldn't handle or didn't understand the risk. And Wall Street greased the skids by taking on much of the new risk banks were creating.

Now the signs of excess are crystal clear. Up to 80% of all option ARM borrowers make only the minimum payment each month, according to Fitch Ratings. The rest of the money gets added to the balance of the mortgage, a situation known as negative amortization. And once balances grow to a certain amount, the loans automatically reset at far higher payments. Most of these borrowers aren't paying down their loans; they're underpaying them up.

Yet the banking system has insulated itself reasonably well from the thousands of personal catastrophes to come. For one thing, banks can sell some of their option ARMs off to Wall Street, where they're packaged with other, better loans and re-sold in chunks to investors. Some $182 billion of the option ARMs written in 2004 and 2005 and an additional $83 billion this year have been sold, repackaged, rated by debt-rating agencies, and marketed to investors as mortgage-backed securities, says Bear, Stearns & Co. (NYSE:BSC - News)Banks also sell an unknown amount of them directly to hedge funds and other big investors with appetites for risk.

The rest of the option ARMs remain on lenders' books, where for now they're generating huge phantom profits for some lenders. That's because, according to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, banks can count as revenue the highest amount of an option ARM payment -- the so-called fully amortized amount -- even when borrowers make only the minimum payment. In other words, banks can claim future revenue now, inflating earnings per share.

For many industries, so-called accrual accounting, which lets companies book sales when they contract for them rather than when they receive the cash, makes sense. The revenues will eventually come. But accrual accounting doesn't apply well to option ARMs, since it's more difficult to know if unpaid interest will ever cross a banker's desk. "This is basically an IOU that may never get paid," says Robert Lacoursiere, an analyst at Banc of America Securities. James Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer recently wrote that negative-amortization accounting is "frankly a fraudulent gambit. But what it lacks in morality, it compensates for in ingenuity." The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is responsible for keeping GAAP up to date, stands by its standard but told BusinessWeek in a written statement that it is "concerned that the disclosures associated with these types of loans (are) not providing enough transparency relative to their associated risks."

Camouflaged Losses

Risks or not, the accounting treatment is boosting reported profits sharply. At Santa Monica (Calif.)-based FirstFed Financial Corp. (NYSE:FED - News), "deferred interest" -- what an outsider might call phantom income -- made up 67% of second-quarter pretax profits. FirstFed did not respond to requests for comment. At Oakland (Calif.)-based Golden West Financial Corp. (NYSE:GDW - News), which has been selling option ARMs for two decades, deferred interest made up about 59.6% of the bank's earnings in the first half of 2006. "It's not the loan that's the problem," says Herbert M. Sandler, CEO of World Savings Bank, parent of Golden West. "The problem is with the quality of the underwriting."

In the middle of one of the hottest U.S. markets, Coral Gables (Fla.)-based BankUnited Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:BKUNA - News) posted a $14.8 million loss for the quarter ended June, 2005. Yet it reported record profits of $23.8 million for the quarter ended in June of this year -- $20.9 million of which was earned in deferred interest. Some 92% of its new loans were option ARMs. Humberto L. Lopez, chief financial officer, insists the bank underwrites carefully. "The option ARMs have gotten a bit of a raised eyebrow because we generate and book noncash earnings. But...it's our money, and we do feel comfortable we'll get it back."

Even the loans that blow up can be hidden with fancy bookkeeping. David Hendler of New York-based CreditSights, a bond research shop, predicts that banks in coming quarters will increasingly move weak loans into so-called held-for-sale accounts. There the loans will sit, sequestered from the rest of the portfolio, until they're sold to collection agencies or to investors. In the latter case, a transaction on an ailing loan registers on the books as a trading loss, gets mixed up with other trading activities and -- presto! -- it vanishes from shareholders' sight. "There are a lot of ways to camouflage the actual experience," says Hendler.

There's no way to camouflage what Harold, a former computer technician who asked BusinessWeek not to publish his last name, is about to face. He's disabled and has one source of income: the $1,600 per month he receives in

Social Security disability payments. In September, 2005, Harold refinanced out of a fixed-rate mortgage and into an option ARM for his $150,000 home in Chicago. The minimum monthly payment for the first year is $899, which he can afford. The interest-only payment is $1,329, which he can't. The fully amortized payment is $1,454, which his lender, Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM - News), gets to count on its books. WaMu, no fly-by-night operation, said it couldn't comment on Harold's case, citing confidentiality issues. A spokesman says the bank "accounts for its option ARM product in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles." WaMu has about $12 billion in loans negatively amortizing right now, up from $2.5 billion in 2005, estimates CreditSights' Hen dler. In a written statement, WaMu said "borrowers who request an adjustable loan with payment options should understand those options and potential adjustments throughout the life of the loan. We make detailed disclosures to customers that are designed to develop a more informed consumer of mortgage products and ensure that our customers are comfortable with the loan products they select."

Hard Sell

To get the deals done, banks have turned increasingly to unregulated mortgage brokers, who now account for 80% of all mortgage originations, double what it was 10 years ago, according to the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. In 2004 banks began offering fatter sales commissions on option ARMs to encourage brokers to push them, says Gail McKenzie, assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, who is investigating mortgage brokers for improper practices.

The problem, of course, is that many brokers care more about commissions than customers. They use aggressive sales tactics, harping on the minimum payment on an option ARM and neglecting to mention the future implications. Some even imply verbally that temporary teaser rates of 1% to 2% are permanent, even though the fine print says otherwise. It's easy to confuse borrowers with option ARM numbers. A recent

Federal Reserve study showed that one in four homeowners is mystified by basic adjustable-rate loans. Add multiple payment options into the mix, and the mortgage game can be utterly baffling.

Billy and Carolyn Shaw are among the growing ranks of borrowers who have taken out loans they say they didn't understand. The retired couple from the Salinas (Calif.) area needed to tap about $50,000 in equity from their $385,000 home to cover mounting expenses. Billy, 66, a retired mechanic, has diabetes. Carolyn, 61, has been caring for her grandchildren, 10-year-old twins, since her daughter's death in 2000. The Shaws have a fixed income of $3,000 a month that will fall by about $1,000 in November after Billy's disability benefits run out. Their new loan's minimum payment of about $1,413 is manageable so far, but the fully amortized amount of about $3,329 is out of the question. In a little over a year, they've added some $8,500 to their loan balance and now face a big reset if they continue to pay only the minimum. "We didn't totally understand what was taking place," says Carolyn. "You have to pay attention. We didn't, and we're really stuck here." The Shaws' lender, Golden Wes t, says it routinely calls customers to ask them if they are happy and understand their mortgage loan.

Then there's the illegal stuff. Mortgage fraud is one of the fastest-growing white-collar crimes in the nation, costing $1 billion in 2005, double the year before. A slower housing market could foster more wrongdoing. "With a tighter market, you are going to find there is more incentive to manipulate," says Tim Irvin of Irvin Investigations & Research Services in Spring, Texas. "Brokers are having a harder time getting business, so they're getting creative."

Concerns like these haven't curbed Wall Street's hunger for option ARMS. "At a price, you can originate or sell anything," says Thomas F. Marano, global head of mortgage and asset-backed securities at Bear Stearns. Hedge funds have been particularly active, buying risky loans directly from banks and cutting out the bundlers in the middle. Kathleen C. Engel, an associate professor of law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, says Wall Street and hedge fund money has helped to finance widespread lending abuses, particularly among the most vulnerable borrowers.

Pros Go Unscathed

Why are hedge funds willing to buy risky loans directly? Because they can demand terms that help insulate them from losses. And banks, knowing what the hedge funds want in advance, simply take it out of the hides of borrowers, many of whom qualify for lower rates based on their credit histories. "Even if the loan goes bad, (the hedge funds are) still making money hand over fist," says Engel.

Eventually, some of it will go sour. But the Wall Street pros who buy option ARMs are in the business of managing risk, and no one expects widespread losses. They've taken on billons in iffy option ARMs, but the loans are no shakier than the billions in emerging market debt or derivatives they buy and sell all the time. Blowups are factored into the investing decision.

Banks that hold lots of option ARMs on their books will surely be hit by loan defaults in coming years. "It's certainly reasonable to expect to see some excesses wrung out," says Brad A. Morrice, president and CEO of New Century Financial Corp. But even here the damage will likely be limited. Banks use insurance and other financial instruments to protect their portfolios, and they hold real assets -- homes -- as collateral. Christopher L. Cagan, director of research and analytics at First American Real Estate Solutions, a researcher and unit of title insurer First American, forecasts total defaults of $300 billion across all types of loans, not just option ARMs, over the next five years -- less than 1% of total homeowner equity. (In comparison, JPMorgan Chase & Co. alone has a mortgage portfolio of $182.8 billion.) Cagan estimates that banks will end up losing only $100 billion of it all told.

Most of the pain will be born by ordinary people. And it's already happening. More than a fifth of option ARM loans in 2004 and 2005 are upside down -- meaning borrowers' homes are worth less than their debt. If home prices fall 10%, that number would double. "The number of houses for sale is tripling in some markets, so people are not going to get out of their debt," says the Ford Foundation's McCarthy. "A lot are going to walk."

Jennifer and Eric Hinz of Somerset, Wis., are feeling the squeeze. They refinanced out of a 5.25% fixed-rate, 30-year loan in June, 2005, and into an option ARM with a 1% teaser rate from Indymac Bank. The $1,483 payment for their original mortgage dropped to as low as $747 with the new option ARM. They say they had no idea when they signed up, however, that the low payment adds $600 in deferred interest to their balance every month. Worse, they thought the 1% would last three years, but they're already paying 7.68%. "What reasonable human being would ever knowingly give up a 5.25% fixed-rate for what we're getting now?" says Eric, 36, who works in commercial construction. Refinancing is out because they can't afford the $15,000 or so in fees. "I'm paying more, and the interest is just going up and up and up," says Jennifer, 34, a stay-at-home mom. "I feel like we got totally screwed." They say their mortgage broker has stopped returning their phone calls. Indymac declined to commen t on the loan's specifics.

Stories like these can be found across the socioeconomic spectrum, says Allen J. Fishbein, director of Housing & Credit Policy for the Consumer Federation of America. In a May focus group, the CFA found that option ARM customers at all income levels said the loans were the only way they could afford their homes. While many recognized that their mortgages could increase, "they professed complete surprise that they could increase as much as they could," says Fishbein. That lack of diligence will cost them over time.

Not that all option ARM holders go in blindly. While the loans are marketed aggressively, plenty of holders know exactly what they're getting into. Jon and Meghan Bachman of Portland, Ore., consider them wealth-building tools. "We want to own a bunch of houses," says Meghan. "We're hoping for early retirement."

So far they have stayed out of the fire. The couple, who are in their 30s, bought their first home, a 100-year-old farm house in Portland, Ore., in October, 2005, with a no-money-down loan for $200,000 from GreenPoint Mortgage, a unit of NorthFork Bancorporation Inc. By May, the value of the house had soared to $275,000. Rather than sit tight as their grandparents might have, the Bachmans, with an annual household income of $70,000, took out a home equity loan to put a $30,000 downpayment on an investment property in an up-and-coming neighborhood nearby. They pay a minimum of just $825 on their new $191,000 mortgage, and rent the house out for $100 more than that. Sooner or later, the payment will rise. Then they'll have to raise the rent to stay in the black. If the still-strong Portland housing market tanks, they could find themselves in deep trouble. It's a risk they say they're willing to take.

Public policy has yet to catch up with the new complexities of the lending industry. Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan, the banking industry's main regulator, wants banks to clean up their act. A source inside the federal Office of the Comptroller says Dugan intends to raise lending standards, as he did last year on credit cards, where super-low minimum payments made it improbable that cardholders would ever pay down debts. New guidelines are expected this fall.

Fair-housing pundits suggest that mortgage lenders follow the lead of the securities industry and require that mortgage borrowers be not only eligible for a product but also suitable -- meaning the loan won't impose hardship. Says Consumer Federation of America's Fishbein: Buyers have to have a "reasonable prospect of being able to handle the payments, not at the initial rate, but (assuming) the worst-case scenario."

So far, banks have shown little desire to raise their standards. In February, Golden West announced it would raise its minimum option ARM payment to 2.6% of the loan. In March, Golden West's Sandler wrote a nine-page letter to the Office of Thrift Supervision decrying the lax lending standards he was seeing. "Foolish lenders who eventually stumble under the weight of their missteps will bring down innocent borrowers with them and leave the rest of us to clean up the mess," he wrote. But on May 7, Golden West announced it was selling out to Charlotte (N.C.)-based Wachovia Corp. (NYSE:WB - News). By June it had dropped its option ARM rate back down to 1.50%. Sandler says the rates were changed according to the bank's interest rate outlook.