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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:
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Buck Fush

Molly Ivins can too say that...

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Texas liberal political wit Ivins dies of cancer

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Molly Ivins, the best-selling author and columnist who aimed her razor-sharp barbs at politicians and dubbedPresident George W. Bush "Shrub," died on Wednesday. She was 62.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, Ivins had been undergoing her third series of treatments when she died at home.

Ivins was one of the most prominent critics of Bush in print -- her columns ran in 400 newspapers twice weekly -- and on the speaking circuit.

"She was sort of a modern Mark Twain," said Jake Bernstein, editor of the liberal journal Texas Observer.

Ivins, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, tempered her strong liberal views with humor.

"I never saw her angry, 'kicking the dog' angry," said longtime friend and writer Kaye Northcott. "She could always find something funny and that was her salvation. She stayed optimistic."

Her newspaper columns and essays were turned into four books, and she co-authored two others about Bush, whom she knew from the time they were both teenagers in Houston.

"Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush" was published in 2000. "Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America" in 2003.

Bush and first lady Laura Bush extended their condolences to Ivins' family and friends.

"Molly Ivins was a Texas original. ... I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment to her beliefs will be missed," the president said in a statement.

Born in California, Ivins moved with her family to Houston as a child and grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, although she rejected her high-toned Republican upbringing.

Ivins graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts, earned a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in New York and studied politics in Paris.

She started her journalism career in the complaint department at the Houston Chronicle, worked as a police reporter at the Minneapolis Tribune in Minnesota and was Denver bureau chief for The New York Times.

But her voice as a writer and speaker was Texan, a physically imposing, salty-tongued but genteel Southerner who could punctuate her sharpest jabs with a sudden smile.

"She always had a love affair with Texas," Bernstein said.

Ivins co-edited the Texas Observer with Northcott from 1970 to 1976, winning the job with a witty letter that complained that Minnesota was short on scandals.

She attained fame at The Dallas Times-Herald and, when that paper folded, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. But she hit her stride at the Observer, a cheeky, muckraking periodical.

White House interfered on global warming reports

Christian Science Monitor - More than 120 scientists across seven federal agencies say they have been pressured to remove references to "climate change" and "global warming" from a range of documents, including press releases and communications with Congress. Roughly the same number say appointees altered the meaning of scientific findings on climate contained in communications related to their research.

These findings, part of a new report compiled by two watchdog groups, shed new light on complaints by a scattering of scientists over the past year who have publicly complained that Bush administration appointees have tried to mute or muzzle what researchers have to say about global warming.

"We are beyond the anecdotal," says Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), one of the two groups, referring to press reports of a dozen instances of interference that have emerged over the past 12 months. "We now have evidence to support the view that this problem goes deeper than just these few high-profile cases."

Global-warming science must be accurately represented to enable lawmakers to craft adequate policies to control the problem and adapt to climate change, Dr. Grifo says. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other agencies working on climate-related issues are doing excellent work. "But it's under threat, and they are struggling to get their results out" to the general public, she says.

Grifo described some of the report's findings during hearings Tuesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and during a press briefing afterward. The two groups say they will release additional material next week, when the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation holds similar hearings.

On the eve of 'consensus' report

The hearings and the new report come as climate scientists from around the world have gathered in Paris to put the finishing touches on a comprehensive "state of the science" report on global warming. The volume is a "consensus" document that summarizes the past five years of peer-reviewed research on the subject and is set for release Friday.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering several pieces of legislation that would impose controls on industrial carbon-dioxide emissions - blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to the noticeable warming effect on the earth's climate.

The question is not so much about federal scientists' ability to publish their results in specialized journals that few but their colleagues read, the report's authors say. Instead, the trouble arises when agencies translate "journalese" into language the general public or lawmakers can grasp for use in official government reports or media releases.

The UCS is an environmental group with a longstanding interest in the politicization of science. The other watchdog group behind the report, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), supports strong protections for whistleblowers.

Their report combines a written survey the UCS gave to 1,600 scientists (of which 279 responded) with in-depth interviews GAP held with some 40 scientists and officials, such as agency press officers. GAP also pored over thousands of pages of documents gathered via the Freedom of Information Act, says Tarek Maassari, a staff attorney with the group.

Sometimes scientists and career public-affairs officers would send press releases related to global warming up the ladder for review, then never hear back. Or appointees changed the wording in ways that scientists felt distorted the results or their implications, and the researchers weren't given a chance to argue their case. One of the most blatant examples focuses on the issue of hurricanes and global warming. According to the report, in 2005, the White House stepped in to block an interview MSNBC sought with NOAA scientist Thomas Knutson, who a year earlier had published a modeling study on the potential link between hurricanes and global warming. The interview was to focus on new research by other scientists that suggested global warming has contributed to trends toward stronger hurricanes.

Documents GAP obtained showed that instead of approving subsequent interviews with Dr. Knutson, high-level public-affairs officers routed interview requests to NOAA scientist Chris Landsea in Miami, who argued, in part, that the quality of global hurricane data was too poor and inconsistent to draw meaningful conclusions. In another instance, reporters interested in interviewing a NOAA scientist who had coauthored a new research paper concluding that modern warming "is dominated by human influences" were sent instead to then-deputy administrator Jim Mahoney.

Details of interference

In all, 150 scientists reported a combined 435 instances of real or perceived "interference" related to global-warming research within the past five years. This has led to self-censorship, Mr. Maassari says,

During Tuesday's hearing, additional evidence came from Rick Piltz, who resigned from his position as senior associate with the administration's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) in 2005 over what he saw as repeated instances of interference in the program's reporting process - often with pressure coming from two conservative think tanks that have spearheaded efforts to debunk global warming. One of their key contacts in the White House, he says, was the chief of staff of the president's Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, who served as an attorney and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute prior to joining the council.

The UCS and GAP offer what they call a model policy that they say would reduce the likelihood of political interference in communicating scientific results on climate. "We respect the idea that policy needs to be coordinated within agencies," Grifo says. "We're not talking about having scientists coming out with policy" but rather with their specific results.

The issue of climate-science politicization reemerged last year following a report in The New York Times about a NASA public affairs officer's attempt to muzzle James Hansen, a noted climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Subsequent stories alluded to similar activities at NOAA.

This led NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and NOAA's chief, retired Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., to issue strongly worded statements in support of scientific openness and the need to communicate federal science to taxpayers accurately, and without political interference. But while some NASA researchers say the climate has improved in their agency, many in NOAA say they are still waiting to see change.

It's unclear whether the hearings this week and next will lead to legislative changes to reduce political interference. Some analysts suggest that in the governmental realm, politics and science are tightly intertwined. Roger Pielke Jr., a science-policy specialist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, noted in testimony before the committee Tuesday that selecting which results to highlight with a press release is by nature a political act.

Yet even Dr. Pielke says that "the Bush administration has engaged in hypercontrolling strategies for controlling information" on global warming.

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How 'ma'amisma' can change politics

By Harriet Rubin, USA Today

Is America ready to elect a female president? Of course we are. The most macho countries - Chile, Liberia, Germany - have recently elected women chief executives as symbols of change. So how can a female candidate in America tap the desire for change and avoid tripping the stereotypes of gender prejudice? Can she appear presidential before we have a model of what female presidential power is?

Even the most powerful woman in politics can't yet hold her own against the most powerful man, it seems: When Bill Clinton and Hillary take a stage together, he makes her disappear, like a magician and his assistant. How then would she look on stage against Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)? She'll have to draw consistently on her "ma'amisma," not machismo. (After all, there are already too many alpha male Democrats in play.) And I'm not talking about machisma or female ferocity. Ma'amisma is femininity defined by mature and maternal qualities. It lets a female candidate make men look like wimps while doing the taboo-dance, enticing people to fall in love with her.

The history of female leaders - queens, presidents, prime ministers - reveals that they sell ma'amisma hard. Israeli's Golda Meir, for example, was no conventional object of desire. She seduced by making her desires plain, like any good mother. In "Munich", Steven Spielberg's historically inspired account of

Israel's plot to avenge the murder of its Olympic athletes, Meir takes five minutes to persuade young man to abandon his pregnant wife and promising career for her own desperate mission. That is ma'amisma.

Take a look at Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) on the occasion of her swearing-in as House speaker earlier this month. She was engulfed by children. Is it accidental that the most famous medieval icons depict a Madonna embracing people whose faces beam with childlike innocence? It's no accident: It's ma'amisma.

The beauty of ma'amisma

Ma'amisma makes a strong woman appear ultimately non-threatening - a quality we have not seen much in our youth-intoxicated culture. But the world is changing. In France, never a bastion of powerful women, presidential candidate Segolene Royal, 53, is selling herself as the mother protector of the nation. She's taking a page from the playbook of great queens and women who behave like them. After their youthful sexuality fades, ma'amisma women stand toe to toe with powerful men. They often refer to love and trust as bold alternatives to the hard edges of powers that be.

Queen Elizabeth I sought her subjects' love; she assumed she had their respect. Eleanor Roosevelt became a saint by insisting that the bottom line of government is love. By contrast, fired Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina wore toughness like a set of dentures; she denied there was anything womanly about her. That is anti-ma'amisma.

Ma'amisma works because after age 50, the laws of power change. Law No. 1: After 50 a woman is praised for what she had been blamed for, as legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead believed. A woman's youthful mistakes may be re-evaluated as signs of her bravery and vision.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid is today hailed for the same weird designs that earlier guaranteed her rejection by potential clients.

Hillary Clinton might remind us that she was an early champion of health care reform and that she suffered attacks from all sides for it. Advisers may warn candidate Clinton to sidestep this chapter in her past. But if she were to forget this advice and follow the rules of ma'amisma, she would promote the fact that surviving the onslaught is her war-hero record. McCain, too, fought in an unpopular and losing war.

The second law of ma'amisma: The differences between Mars and Venus are fading in that sizeable demographic, the baby boomers, who are now starting to turn 50. The sexes don't simply grow older at different speeds; they mature into femininity. While men become more emotional, rounder and softer in physique, women tend to bulk up. They are acknowledged as stronger than men after age 50 because "women age more slowly," says Eric Walsh, a geriatrician at Beth Israel Medical Centering New York. Women also become the primary caretakers.

The right words

This is a new playing field. A ma'amisma woman will gear her message as though to one gender and wrap tough platforms in emotional language: To stand against sending more troops into

Iraq, Pelosi would emotionalize the discussion, noting that Bush is trying not to appear weak, the same criticism his father suffered.

The third law of ma'amisma is that, as University of Chicago scholar Wendy Doniger points out, "Men would marry their mothers if they could." Why? Because they like being reminded that they are great. It's the ultra-maternal message. A female candidate would likewise remind the electorate that a golden future awaits - a message more seductive than better homeland security.

Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th century led a revolt away from her John McCain-like husband, King Henry. While he was out selling people on crusades, Eleanor built a court of love which appealed to the child in everyone, the very opposite of her husband's vision. The youth of Europe joined her in droves. This extremely alternative vision let Eleanor escape the secondary roles as wife and helper, assert her independent sovereignty and dispense her own justice and her own patronage. Eleanor's original ideal of courtly love informs our culture to this day. As in Eleanor's time, there is a constituency that wants to feel the love.

Ma'amisma is anti-Machiavelli: seduction over divisiveness. Is it a good thing? In a world run like a PlayStation war game, maturity would be a nice antidote. After all, who wouldn't want a return to the seriousness and authority of the Founding Fathers … even if this time around, they just happen to be women?

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Experts: Latest climate report too rosy

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures.

But that may be the sugarcoated version.

Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea level rises than were projected in 2001 in the last report. Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations:

They "don't take into account the gorillas — Greenland and Antarctica," said Ohio State University earth sciences professor Lonnie Thompson, a polar ice specialist. "I think there are unpleasant surprises as we move into the 21st century."

Michael MacCracken, who until 2001 coordinated the official U.S. government reviews of the international climate report on global warming, has fired off a letter of protest over the omission.

The melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are a fairly recent development that has taken scientists by surprise. They don't know how to predict its effects in their computer models. But many fear it will mean the world's coastlines are swamped much earlier than most predict.

Others believe the ice melt is temporary and won't play such a dramatic role.

That debate may be the central one as scientists and bureaucrats from around the world gather in Paris to finish the first of four major global warming reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel was created by the United Nations in 1988.

After four days of secret word-by-word editing, the final report will be issued Friday.

The early versions of the report predict that by 2100 the sea level will rise anywhere between 5 and 23 inches. That's far lower than the 20 to 55 inches forecast by 2100 in a study published in the peer-review journal Science this month. Other climate experts, including NASA's James Hansen, predict sea level rise that can be measured by feet more than inches.

The report is also expected to include some kind of proviso that says things could be much worse if ice sheets continue to melt.

The prediction being considered this week by the IPCC is "obviously not the full story because ice sheet decay is something we cannot model right now, but we know it's happening," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate panel lead author from Germany who made the larger prediction of up to 55 inches of sea level rise. "A document like that tends to underestimate the risk," he said.

"This will dominate their discussion because there's so much contentiousness about it," said Bob Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a multinational research effort. "If the IPCC comes out with significantly less than one meter (about 39 inches of sea level rise), there will be people in the science community saying we don't think that's a fair reflection of what we know."

In the past, the climate change panel didn't figure there would be large melt of ice in west Antarctica and Greenland this century and didn't factor it into the predictions. Those forecasts were based only on the sea level rise from melting glaciers (which are different from ice sheets) and the physical expansion of water as it warms.

But in 2002, Antarctica's 1,255-square-mile Larsen B ice shelf broke off and disappeared in just 35 days. And recent NASA data shows that Greenland is losing 53 cubic miles of ice each year — twice the rate it was losing in 1996.

Even so, there are questions about how permanent the melting in Greenland and especially Antarctica are, said panel lead author Kevin Trenberth, chief of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

While he said the melting ice sheets "raise a warning flag," Trenberth said he wonders if "some of this might just be temporary."

University of Alabama at Huntsville professor John Christy said Greenland didn't melt much within the past thousand years when it was warmer than now. Christy, a reviewer of the panel work, is a prominent so-called skeptic. He acknowledges that global warming is real and man-made, but he believes it is not as worrisome as advertised.

Those scientists who say sea level will rise even more are battling a consensus-building structure that routinely issues scientifically cautious global warming reports, scientists say. The IPCC reports have to be unanimous, approved by 154 governments — including the United States and oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia — and already published peer-reviewed research done before mid-2006.

Rahmstorf, a physics and oceanography professor at Potsdam University in Germany, says, "In a way, it is one of the strengths of the IPCC to be very conservative and cautious and not overstate any climate change risk."

___

On the Net:

Ex-Cheney aide shares media manipulation

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff.

For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers.

No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation — under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public.

The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was seen as more susceptible to control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly described. Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun — a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago.

The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby owes its very existence to a news leak, the public disclosure four summers ago of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

A private brainstorm of Plame's in 2002 brought a rain of public attacks on Cheney the following year. Cheney was accused of suppressing intelligence and allowing President Bush to present false information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, started the attack. Her unit at the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to check a report Iraq was buying uranium for nuclear weapons. Cheney and the departments of State and Defense wanted to verify that.

Wilson thought he had debunked the report, but Bush mentioned it anyway in his State of the Union address in 2003. The story helped justify war with Iraq.

Wilson claimed Cheney's questions prompted his trip and Cheney should have received his report long before Bush spoke.

Wilson's charges first surfaced, attributed to an unnamed ex-ambassador, in Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column. But Martin testified she felt no urgency to set him straight because Kristof "attacked us, our administration fairly regularly."

But by July 6, 2003, Wilson wrote his own account in the Times and appeared on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

After that much exposure, Cheney, Libby and Martin spent the next week trying get out word that Cheney did not know Wilson, did not ask for the mission to Niger, never got Wilson's report and only learned about the trip from news stories in 2003.

Cheney personally dictated these points to Martin. She e-mailed them to the White House press secretary for relay to reporters.

When the story did not die, Martin found herself in a bind because Cheney's office was known for disclosing so little.

"Often the press stopped calling our office," Martin testified. "At this point, they weren't calling me asking me for comment."

So she had to call National Security Council and CIA press officers to learn which reporters were still working on stories.

Once Martin got names, Cheney ordered his right-hand man, Libby, rather than lowly press officers, to call — a signal of the topic's importance.

Top levels of the Bush administration decided that CIA Director George Tenet would issue a statement taking the blame for allowing Bush to mention the Niger story. Cheney and Libby worried Tenet would not go far enough to distance the vice president from the affair.

Libby asked Martin to map a media strategy in case Tenet fell short.

A Harvard law school graduate, Martin had succeeded legendary Republican operative Mary Matalin as Cheney's political and public affairs assistant. Matalin had brought Martin to Cheney's office as her deputy and trained her.

Martin offered these options in order:

_Put Cheney on "Meet the Press."

_Leak an exclusive version to a selected reporter or the weekly news magazines.

_Have national security adviser

Condoleezza Rice or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hold a news conference.

_Persuade a third party or columnist to write an opinion piece that would appear in newspapers on the page opposite the editorials.

Not only did Tenet leave unanswered questions about Cheney, his remarks came out late on a Friday, the government's favorite moment to deliver bad news.

Why?

"Fewer people pay attention to it later on Friday," Martin testified. "And in our view, fewer people are paying attention on Saturday, when it's reported."

As Martin rated their options, putting Cheney on "Meet the Press," NBC's Sunday morning talk show, "is our best format." Cheney was their best person for the show and "we control the message a little bit more," according to Martin.

The downside was that Cheney could "get pulled into the weeds and specifics. We like to keep him at a pretty high level," she said. Also, it "looks defensive to rush him out on `Meet the Press.'"

Next they could give an exclusive or leak to one reporter and she considered David Sanger of The New York Times, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek.

Because reporters are competitive, "if you give it to one reporter, they're more likely to write the story," Martin testified.

Plus an official can demand anonymity in return for the favor. "You can give it to them as a senior administration official," she said. "You don't have to say this is coming directly from the White House."

The news weeklies offered a focus on the big picture and opinion-editorial writers and columnists could voice opinions.

Ultimately, Cheney crafted an on-the-record statement to be attributed to Libby by name along with some anonymous background information. Libby personally called Matt Cooper of Time, who had e-mailed questions to Martin earlier.

But when Libby suggested calling Newsweek in fairness, Cheney's aides were at a loss.

"We were scrambling for a number for a reporter that we know there named Evan Thomas," Martin testified. "We were looking around for a number. I didn't have it with me." Eventually, they found a number and left a message.

But Cooper did not use the full quote and Martin called to complain. "I put Scooter on the phone with him, which we didn't do very often on the record with a quote," she testified, "and he took just a piece of it." The result "wasn't helpful" and the story did not fade away.

So the following week, two senior Bush aides — communications director Dan Bartlett and Rice's deputy, Steve Hadley — briefed White House reporters. Cheney invited a group of conservative columnists to lunch at his residence.

___

On the Net:

Documents for the Libby trial may be found at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/index.html

... and if you don't like it, you can fry in hell, which is scheduled to arrive somewhere around 2040 (see the two articles after Bushtrich's head-in-the-sand act) ...

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Bush refuses to yield on global warming

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush refused to back down on his position on tackling global warming as he unveiled a new energy initiative this week that failed to convince environmentalists.

Bush briefly discussed global warming during his annual State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday, proposing a plan to slash America's dependence on foreign oil by using new technologies.

The US leader called for reducing US gasoline consumption by 20 percent over 10 years, mainly by raising the supply of alternative fuels like ethanol.

"America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil," Bush told a Congress now controlled by opposition Democrats.

"And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change," he said.

But environmentalists were unmoved by Bush's speech, saying the United States needed to adopt policies capping emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"The international community should abandon all hope, once and for all, that President Bush will ever really change course on climate change," said Greenpeace USA executive director John Passacantando.

The Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based environmental research organization, said Bush's proposals "left the White House well behind the growing public and business momentum for an overhaul of US energy policy."

"For those who were hoping that President Bush would announce a u-turn in climate policy, his glancing reference to 'the challenge of climate change' was a disappointment," Worldwatch said in a statement.

The independent group noted that his speech came a day after a coalition of US companies, including Alcoa, General Electric and DuPont, urged the government to set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions and trading in carbon emissions permits.

Bush has said he does not support mandatory government emission caps on US industry, and his administration in 2001 withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to curb greenhouse gases. He has called the pact "unrealistic."

On Wednesday, Bush said new technologies were ushering in a "post-Kyoto" era on how to feed energy-hungry economies on a climate-friendly diet of alternatives to oil.

"We can get beyond the pre-Kyoto era with a post-Kyoto strategy, the center of which is new technologies," he said in Wilmington, Delaware.

Bush's State of the Union speech came on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual meeting of global government and business leaders with global warming a central issue.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened the Davos meeting Wednesday, called Bush's plan to reduce gasoline consumption "very sensible," but she pressed Washington to commit to a global pact on curbing carbon emissions.

The Worldwatch Institute said Bush's proposals "lacked both the breadth and the specificity" to cope with global warming and energy security, leaving it up to the US Congress to lead the way.

"It is up to Congress to pass the kind of strong new legislation that will allow the United States to catch up with the policies being enacted by other nations-and by many US states," the group said.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican like Bush, has set targets aimed at slashing the state's carbon-dioxide emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020 and by another 80 percent by 2050.

Democrats, who won control of Congress in November elections against Bush's Republicans, have taken steps to make global warming a top legislative agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who took the lower chamber's gavel in early January, announced last week the creation of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"The science of global warming and its impact is overwhelming and unequivocal," she said last week, adding that the issue was given short shrift during the dozen years that Bush's Republicans controlled Congress.

Jeff Bingaman, the Democratic chairman of the Senate's energy committee, said Tuesday: "By essentially ducking the issue of taking a mandatory, economy-wide approach to the problem, the president has missed a real opportunity."

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Warming to raise seas for 1,000 years: U.N. draft

OSLO (Reuters) - World sea levels will keep rising for more than 1,000 years even if governments manage to slow a projected surge in temperatures this century blamed on greenhouse gases, a draft U.N. climate report says.

The study, by a panel of 2,500 scientists who advise the United Nations, also says that dust from volcanic eruptions and air pollution seems to have braked warming in recent decades by reflecting sunlight back into space, scientific sources said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish its report, the most complete overview of climate change science, in Paris on February 2 after a final review. It will guide policy makers combating global warming.

The draft projects more droughts, rains, shrinking Arctic ice and glaciers and rising sea levels to 2100 and cautions that the effects of a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will last far longer.

"Twenty-first century anthropogenic (human) carbon dioxide emissions will contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas," the sources quoted the report as saying.

Still, the report has good news by quoting six models with central projections of sea level rises this century of between 28 and 43 cm (11 and 16.9 inches) -- compared to a far wider band of 9 to 88 cm (3.5 to 34.6 inches) in a 2001 report, they said.

Sea levels rose by 17 cm (6.7 inches) in the 20th century. Rising seas would threaten low-lying Pacific islands, coasts from Bangladesh to Florida and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

VERY LIKELY

The report says it is "very likely" -- or more than a 90 percent chance -- that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are to blame for warming since 1950.

The previous report in 2001 said the link was "likely," or at least 66 percent. Lingering uncertainties include whether higher temperatures will bring more clouds -- their white tops bounce heat back into space.

In New Delhi, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said he hoped the report would shock governments into action.

"I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work," he told Reuters.

The draft projects temperatures will rise by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels with a "best estimate" of a 3C (5.4 F) rise, assuming carbon dioxide levels are stabilised at about 45 percent above current levels.

That is a narrower range than the 1.4-5.8C (2.5-10.4F) projected in the previous IPCC report in 2001, which did not say which end of the band was most likely. The European Union says any temperature rise above 2C will cause "dangerous" changes.

Stabilising carbon dioxide levels would lead to a further temperature rise of about 0.5C (0.8F), mostly between 2100-2200, and push up sea levels by a further 30 to 80 cm (11 to 31 inches) by 2300 with decreasing rates in later centuries, it said.

It notes that sea levels were probably 4 to 6 metres (13 to 19-1/2 feet) higher when temperatures were 3C higher than the present in a period between Ice Ages 125,000 years ago.

The Gulf Stream, bringing warm waters to the North Atlantic, was likely to slow but not enough to offset an overall warming. And there was scant chance of an abrupt shutdown of the ocean current system by 2100.

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The Arctic region as global warming barometer

TROMSOE, Norway (AFP) - The Arctic Ocean's pack ice is expected to disappear entirely in the coming decades and will bring unforeseeable changes to the region, international experts meeting this week in Norway said.

For many participants at the Arctic Frontiers conference held in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe, 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) south of the North Pole, the pace of global warming is staggering.

"Climate change in the Arctic is not coming. It is here," said Canadian researcher at the University of Manitoba, David Barber.

Barber predicts that between 2030 and 2050, the Arctic's sea ice will have disappeared completely during the summer months.

"Last time something like that happened was a million years ago. It is a tremendous change," Barber added.

Climate models presented by speakers at the conference all tell the same story.

Melting ice sheets -- equivalent to some 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 square miles) a year -- as well as sharp rises in temperatures since the end of the 1990s and the failure of sea ice to recover ground lost during the summer months all characterise changes in the region.

"It is very likely that the ecology of the Arctic will change dramatically over the next decades. These changes will occur and are occurring to an ecosystem that we know very little about," said Richard Bellerby, a researcher at Norway's University of Bergen.

Bellerby studies the increasing acidity of the Arctic Ocean, a relatively new area of research.

The waters of the ocean have become more acidic in line with increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. A development that could, according to Bellerby, lead to the extinction of certain marine organisms, especially plankton, altering the ocean's entire ecosystem.

The steady disappearance of the ocean's ice cover is reported in all regions of the Arctic.

"We are seeing catastrophic changes in sea ice cover in the Pacific section of the Arctic Ocean," said Jackie Grebmeier, professor at the University of Tennessee.

"It can cascade very quickly. Since the late 1990s, ice melt is happening weeks earlier. Ramifications can be exponential," she added.

According to the director of the Norwegian section of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Rasmus Hansson, the change "is happening so extremely fast, much much faster than we have seen in thousands and thousands of years. It could have an unpredictable result."

One consequence of the warming of the Arctic that is already apparent is the movement of fish such as cod ever farther north from previously cooler waters.

For some years, the Nordic countries' indigenous people, the Sami, have reported changes to their way of life caused by milder temperatures.

"The winters are getting warmer, the vegetation is changing and it has consequences for the reindeer that graze in winter ... they cannot reach lichen," the speaker of the Sami parliament Aili Keskitalo said.

"Insects are more numerous, worms are eating the birch leaves, all this because we did not experience in the last winters ... the (typical) temperatures of minus 35 to 40 C (minus 31 to 40 F)," she added.

According to some attending the conference, the warming of the Arctic -- considered a harsh but unspoiled frontier -- could be positive. The changes in the region could serve as a wake-up call for the dangers of global warming.

Housing Bears May Just Have It Right for 2007

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- For economic forecasters divided over the strength of the economy in 2007, the elephant in the room remains the house, or more precisely, housing.

While very few forecasters predict growth of more than 3 percent for next year, and most agree that the cooling of the housing boom may hurt consumers, one major question remains: Is the worst over?

Housing played an outsized role in the most recent recovery. Beyond the surge in residential investment -- which accounts for 5 percent to 6 percent of the economy -- rising home prices and billions of dollars in home-equity extraction fueled household spending at a time of stagnant wages and low private saving.

Few dispute that a slumping housing market will have a depressive effect on consumer spending. What is less clear is whether we can now officially declare a soft landing, or whether we should expect more turbulence from the unraveling of the housing boom.

Some of the smartest economists in the U.S. now say the worst of the housing cycle is over. Indeed, two-thirds of economists in a recent Wall Street Journal survey answered affirmatively that ``the worst of the housing bust is behind us.'' Their case is that even after a 17 percent fall in new-home prices and a significant decline in home-equity withdrawal in the third quarter, consumer spending defied gravity and remained at 3.1 percent.

The Kohn View

These moderate housing bulls argue that construction starts have now fallen to the point where the excesses are being worked off and the demand should soon pick up. No less a wise man than Donald Kohn, the universally respected vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, argued in a recent speech that housing ``starts may be closer to their trough than to their peak'' and that any overbuilding in 2004 and 2005 would be worked off in coming quarters, assuming the current level of housing starts.

Translation: excess inventory is being reduced enough that it will soon be time to get the builders out there again, after barely a pause.

The problem is that none of the bulls seem to have a good answer to the facts being laid out by David Rosenberg, the chief economist for North America at Merrill Lynch & Co. Rosenberg's contention is that when you take a close look at homes for sale, including those being completed and those under construction, the glut in supply seems likely to get worse, not better.

Building Inventory

In a Nov. 27 comment, Rosenberg notes that in addition to the record 4.3 million residential units for sale as of October, there were 1.95 million home completions, the 12th-highest month since 1979. Units under construction were through the roof as well. Rather than seeing supply dwindle and prices start to firm up in early 2007, Rosenberg says ``it could be a year before the reduction in starts begins to put a meaningful dent into the inventory backlog.''

John Mauldin, an investment adviser and frequent contributor to Investors Insight, a financial-data publisher, throws an extra log on the fire. According to Mauldin, even the current projection of housing sales may be overstated and thus the existing supply of homes greater than what is reported in the official data. The reason is that the Census Bureau, one of the Commerce Department's statistical agencies, fails to account for cancellations in home sales contracts. Cancellations ran as high as 40 percent for some major homebuilding firms last quarter.

Triple Threat

If the bearish view on home inventories is true, it poses a triple threat next year.

First, it could mean that residential investment will remain a drag on growth for most of 2007. Second, home prices may fall more -- and home-equity withdrawal will continue to contract -- well into 2007. Third, construction jobs -- previously one of the brightest parts of the labor market -- might take a hit.

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An Economic Pillar on the Verge of Collapse

By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

Wednesday, December 6, 2006; Page D01

It's been more than a year since we've heard from those who denied there was a housing bubble.

Since then, the industry boosters, along with the "soft-landing" crowd over at the Federal Reserve, have coalesced around the idea that maybe the market got a bit frothy after all, but now the correction is almost complete, the unsold inventory's been worked off and the worst is behind us.

But just when you're feeling hopeful again, you get reports like yesterday's Wall Street Journal piece reporting that delinquency rates are suddenly soaring on all those loosey-goosey subprime mortgages. They are starting to cause real heartburn for pension funds and other investors who bought securities backed by those mortgages on the theory that they were no more risky than a Treasury bond.

"We are a bit surprised by how fast this has unraveled," Thomas Zimmerman, head of asset-backed securities research at UBS, told the Journal, removing his head from the sand. Trust me, Tom, you ain't seen nothin' yet. After the subprime loans come the 100 percent, interest-only loans, followed by the meltdown in the overbuilt multi-family housing sector.

Even in 'Nam they never sent a soldier 'down country' more than a year...

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Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.

The day after President Bush announced his plan for a deeper U.S. military commitment in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the change in reserve policy would have been made anyway because active-duty troops already were getting too little time between their combat tours.

The Pentagon also announced it is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.

Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not exceed 24 consecutive months, Pace said.

In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months. In practice, Pace said, the Pentagon intends to limit all future mobilizations to 12 months.

Members of the Guard combat brigades that have served in Iraq in recent years spent 18 months on active duty — about six months in pre-deployment training in the United States, followed by about 12 months in Iraq. Under the old policy, they could not be sent back to Iraq because their cumulative time on active duty would exceed 24 months. Now that cumulative limit has been lifted, giving the Pentagon more flexibility.

The new approach, Pace said, is to squeeze the training, deployment and demobilization into a maximum of 12 months. He called that a "significant planning factor" for Guard and Reserve members and their families.

David Chu, the Pentagon's chief of personnel, said in an interview that he thinks Guard and Reserve members will be cheered by the decision to limit future mobilizations to 12 months. The fact that some with previous Iraq experience will end up spending more than 24 months on active duty is "no big deal," Chu said, because it has been "implicitly understood" by most that they eventually would go beyond 24 months.

A senior U.S. military official who briefed reporters Thursday on Iraq-related developments said that by next January, the Pentagon "probably will be calling again" on National Guard combat brigades that previously served yearlong tours in Iraq. Under Pentagon ground rules, the official could not be further identified.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Pace, announced several other changes in Guard and Reserve policy:

_Although the Pentagon's goal is to mobilize Guard and Reserve units no more frequently than one year out of six, the demands of wartime will require calling up some units more often than that. They provided no details on how many units would be remobilized at the faster pace or when that would begin to happen.

Army officials had been saying for some time that more frequent mobilizations were necessary because the active-duty force is being stretched too thin. Gates' announcement is the first confirmation of the change.

_To allow for more cohesion among Guard and Reserve units sent into combat, they will be deployed as whole units, rather than as partial units or as individuals plugged into a unit they do not normally train with.

_Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra pay. Details were not provided.

_Military commanders will review their administration of a hardship waiver program "to ensure that they have properly taken into account exceptional circumstances facing military families of deployed service members."

As part of Bush's plan for boosting U.S. troop strength in Iraq, a brigade of National Guard soldiers from Minnesota will have its yearlong tour in Iraq extended by 125 days, to the end of July, and a Patriot missile battalion will be sent to the Persian Gulf next month, the Army said Thursday.

Maj. Randy Taylor, a spokesman for the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, at Fort Bliss, Texas, said the Patriot unit was aware of the announced deployment. He said no formal order had been received Thursday.

The dispatching of a Patriot missile battery, capable of defending against shorter-range ballistic missile attacks, appeared linked to Bush's announcement Wednesday that he ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, which would be in easy reach of

Iran, whose nuclear program is a U.S. concern.

Navy officials said the carrier heading to the Gulf region is the USS John C. Stennis, which previously had been in line to deploy to the Pacific. It was not clear Thursday how the Pentagon intended to compensate in the Pacific for the absence of the Stennis in that region, where a chief worry is

North Korea.

The Marines announced that two infantry units — the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment — will stay in Iraq 60 to 90 days longer than scheduled. That will enable the Marines to have a total of eight infantry battalions in western Anbar province, instead of the current six, by February. Once the 60- to 90-day extension is over, an additional two battalions will be sent in early from their U.S. bases.

Also, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which combines infantry with a helicopter squadron and a logistics battalion, totaling about 2,200 Marines, will stay in Anbar for 45 more days.

Those extensions conform with Bush's announcement that he was ordering 4,000 more Marines to Anbar.

Another island lost to global warming

New Delhi, Hindustani Times - The world has apparently lost its first habituated island — Lohachara Island in Sunderbans — thanks to global warming plus human intrusion. Another island, Ghoramora, in the Sunderbans National Park is on the verge of being lost to the Bay of Bengal and 12 more may end similarly by 2020, a report prepared by Jadavpur University has warned.

The alarming aspect of the six-year long study is that the rising sea levels may push about 400 tigers in Sunderbans, a world heritage site, towards Bangladesh and may result in extinction of Sundari, a mangrove species unique to the national park. Experts say the sea there is rising at an annual rate of 3.14 mm as compared to the global rate of 2.2 mm.

According to Dr Sugata Hazra, Director of School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadhavpur University, the rising sea level caused massive soil erosion and finally, the Lohachara submerged into the sea. "The trend first recorded in 2001 but was confirmed in 2006 through satellite imaginary," he told HT. Sunderbans by its physical nature of being low lying is more prone to devastation caused by rising sea levels.

Hazra also blamed human interference for excessive soil erosion. "The mangrove cultivation was extensively damaged till 1990s by humans but not much effort went into its re-plantation," he said. In addition, the upstream dams on Ganga and Bhramaputra reduced enough fresh water to the mangrove wetland and salinity increased in Sunderbans due to excessive sea flooding causing huge damage to the vegetation, said a Greenpeace campaigner.

The National Coastal Authority under the Ministry of Environment and Forests has been informed about the shocking discovery. A ministry official said that they were aware of the situation and soon the government will bring in new guidelines on Coastal Regulation Zones "Saving Sunderbans and olive ridley turtles in Orissa will be prioritised in the new regulations," he said.

The government may have to act fast as Hazra says that Sunderbans may lose 12 more islets by 2020 if corrective steps are not taken soon. Two-thirds of the nearby populated island Ghoramara is submerged. "It is just a matter of years before we lose this island too. Still, it is not too late to start as many more islands can be saved through visible interventions," he said. But, added that so far the government's response has been 'slow'. Already, 10,000 people in Sunderbans have been forced refugees with their land been eaten up by the rising sea.

`Munsters' star Yvonne De Carlo dies

LOS ANGELES, Associated Press - Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.

De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.

De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies."

But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-1966 slapstick horror-movie spoof "The Munsters." The series (the name allegedly derived from "fun-monsters") offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.

Lily, vampire-like in a black gown, presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster).

While it lasted only two years, the series had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, "Munster Go Home!" (1966) and "The Munsters' Revenge." (1981, for TV).

At the series' end, De Carlo commented: "It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn't have had otherwise. It made me `hot' again, which I wasn't for a while."

"I think she will best remembered as the definitive Lily Munster. She was the vampire mom to millions of baby boomers. In that sense, she's iconic," Burns said Wednesday.

"But it would be a shame if that's the only way she is remembered. She was also one of the biggest beauty queens of the `40s and `50s, one of the most beautiful women in the world. This was one of the great glamour queens of Hollywood, one of the last ones."

De Carlo was able to sustain a long career by repeatedly reinventing herself. A longtime student of voice, she sang opera at the Hollywood Bowl. When movie roles became scarce, she ventured into stage musicals.

Her greatest stage triumph came on Broadway in 1971 with "Follies," which won the 1972 Tony award for best original musical score. She belted out Sondheim's showstopping number, "I'm Still Here," a former star's defiant recounting of the highs and lows of her life and career.

Over the years, De Carlo augmented her stardom by shrewd use of publicity. Gossip columnists reported her dates with famous men. In her 1987 book, "Yvonne: An Autobiography," she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an Iranian prince.

The Canadian-born De Carlo began her career with a parade of bit parts in films of the early 1940s, then emerged as a star in 1945 with "Salome — Where She Danced," a routine movie about a dancer from Vienna who becomes a spy in the wild West.

She recalled her entrance in the film: "I came through these beaded curtains, wearing a Japanese kimono and a Japanese headpiece, and then performed a Siamese dance. Nobody seemed to know quite why."

Universal Pictures exploited her slightly exotic looks and a shape that looked ideal in a harem dress in such "sex-and-sand" programmers as "Song of Scheherazade," "Slave Girl," "Casbah" and "Desert Hawk."

The studio also employed her to add zest to Westerns, usually as a dance-hall girl or a gun-toting sharpshooter. Among the titles: "Frontier Gal," "Black Bart" (as Lola Montez), "River Lady," "Calamity Jane and Sam Bass" (as Calamity Jane) and "The Gal Who Took the West."

In 1956 she veered from her former image when Cecil B. DeMille chose her to play Sephora, wife to Charlton Heston's Moses in "The Ten Commandments." The following year she co-starred with Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in "Band of Angels" as Gable's upper-class sweetheart who learns of her black forebears.

Among her later films: "McClintock" (starring John Wayne), "A Global Affair" (Bob Hope), "Hostile Guns" (George Montgomery), "The Power" (George Hamilton), "American Gothic" (Rod Steiger) and "Oscar" (Sylvester Stallone).

De Carlo was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sept. 1, 1922, (some sources say 1924). Abandoned by her father, she was raised by her mother in poor circumstances. The girl took dancing lessons and dropped out of high school to work in night clubs and local theaters. She continued dancing in clubs when she and her mother moved to Los Angeles.

Paramount Pictures signed her to a contract in 1942, and she adopted her middle name and her mother's middle name. Dropped by Paramount after 20 minor roles, she landed at Universal, which cast her as the B-picture version of the studio's sultry star Maria Montez.

In 1955, De Carlo married Bob Morgan, a topflight stunt man, and the marriage produced two sons, Bruce and Michael, as well as much-publicized separations and reconciliations.

During a stunt aboard a moving log train for "How the West Was Won," Morgan was thrown underneath the wheels. The accident cost him a leg, and for a time De Carlo abandoned her career to care for him. They later divorced.

In her late years, De Carlo lived in semiretirement near Solvang, north of Santa Barbara. Her son Michael died in 1997, and she suffered a stroke the following year.

Industry money may bias drink studies

Associated Press - Does milk lower blood pressure? Does juice prevent heart disease? Beverage studies were four to eight times more likely to reach sweet conclusions about health effects when industry was footing the bill, a new report contends.

Its authors claim to have done the first systematic analysis of such studies published from 1999 through 2003 in hundreds of journals around the world.

"We found evidence that's strongly suggestive of bias," said Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Children's Hospital Boston who led the work, which was published Monday in the online science journal PLoS Medicine. The consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest also participated.

Biased science can affect consumer behavior, doctor recommendations and even federal regulation of marketing claims for such products, Ludwig said.

"I don't blame researchers for this problem. I think most are highly ethical and dedicated to science. The problem is that when government underfunds nutrition research, industry money becomes hard to resist," he said.

However, beverage industry folks say the authors have a slant, too.

"This is yet another attack on industry by activists who demonstrate their own biases in their review by looking only at the funding source and not judging the research on its merits," says a statement by Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association. "The science is what matters — nothing else."

Public health experts who promote dietary guidelines are biased toward their own advice, said Greg Miller, a nutrition biochemist who heads research for the National Dairy Council. The council requires its funded researchers to publish results in journals that require review by outside scientists and to disclose who pays for their work.

"Everybody brings a point of view to the table, and in the long run, that's probably a good thing," Miller said.

But the authors say this point of view appears to influence results.

They used Medline, a compendium of scientific literature, to identify 538 studies about soda, milk or juice involving people, not animals. They targeted 206 that made a health claim directly related to the drink being studied — for example, bone fractures related to calcium and milk intake, or immune system benefits from antioxidants in juice.

Of the 206 studies, only 111 gave information on funding: 22 percent were fully funded by industry and 32 percent got some industry money.

One group of reviewers analyzed study conclusions and classified them as favorable, neutral or unfavorable to the beverage in question. Another independent group of reviewers determined whether a study would help, harm or have no effect on the finances of the study sponsor.

For example, a negative finding about soda would harm a soda sponsor but could help a dairy producer.

Overall, studies funded entirely by industry were four to eight times more likely to be favorable to their sponsors.

None of the experiments fully funded by industry that tested beverages with a control group found fault with the drinks.

The authors' work was paid for by a grant from the Charles H. Hood Foundation, which finances research on children's issues at Ludwig's hospital. Co-author Dr. Lenard Lesser also had funding from a fellowship at the Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

The beverage association complained that Ludwig is on the editorial board of the journal that published his study. However, Ludwig noted that the board has more than 100 scientists on it, and said his study went through an independent review.

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On the Net:

Two heartbeats from the presidency

Nancy Pelosi has broken the 'marble ceiling' to become House leader - now she will have to learn to work with George Bush

Guardian Unlimited - For all the talk of the first Democrat leader of the House since Newt Gingrich's Republican revolution 12 years ago, perhaps the bigger landmark is the ascension of a woman to a position that is said to be two heartbeats away from the presidency.

With the so-called "marble ceiling" of Congress shattered by Nancy Pelosi, only two higher positions remain to be conquered by women: the offices of president and vice-president.

"If you can break the marble ceiling in the Capitol of the United States," Ms Pelosi recently told the San Francisco Chronicle, "most anything is possible, in any profession and personally as well."

Ms Pelosi has arrived at the position thanks to a combination of traditional Democratic values, astute tactics, an uncommon determination and a lot of money. The 66-year-old mother of five entered politics late in life, serving as representative for California's 8th district in San Francisco since 1987. She was born into a political family in Baltimore in 1940. Her father was a US Congressman for Maryland and also served as mayor of Baltimore. Ms Pelosi and her six siblings were put into service by their father, stuffing campaign envelopes and maintaining his "favour file", a catalogue of favours given, and favours owed. The training served Ms Pelosi well. On entering politics, with the backing of her husband's $15m fortune, Ms Pelosi put her own children to work. She also maintains a modern equivalent of the "favour file", a database of over 29,000 loyal donors, most of them cultivated personally by the indefatigable Ms Pelosi.

With her own seat in San Francisco a liberal bastion, Ms Pelosi has carefully nurtured support (and punished opponents) by using her money to back other candidates. Since 1999, Ms Pelosi has given $2.8m to other Democrat candidates, more than any other Democrat.

The support has come at a price: she demands discipline and loyalty, two traits that have enabled her to marshal the minority Democrats in the House to win some notable victories. Ms Pelosi, for example, is credited with imposing the discipline that enabled Democrats to defeat George Bush's plan to reform social security.

But her relationship with the president will be key to the fate of her term as speaker of the House. While the two have appeared together at some social functions, their relationship has been marked by mutual disdain. "He is an incompetent leader. In fact, he is not a leader," she said of the president in a 2004 interview. "He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide on."

Mr Bush, for his part, has painted Ms Pelosi has a tax-loving Democrat, although during the midterm campaign he left the mud-slinging to party operatives who attempted to turn Ms Pelosi into public enemy number one by depicting her in TV ads as a stereotypical San Francisco liberal.

But the two will have to learn to live together: any legislation passed by a Democratic House will need Mr Bush's signature; and with Ms Pelosi controlling the House agenda, he will need her agreement to have a subject even raised on the floor of the House.

Ms Pelosi has said that her priorities as speaker will include minimum wage legislation, the promotion of stem cell research and a push to enact the recommendations of the September 11 Congressional report.

Ms Pelosi will be well positioned to exploit the advantages of her new position. She has a suite of offices a few steps away from the floor of the House, a staff of 63 and a budget of $5m. As Republicans have discovered, it is a formidable machine.

The BushCo government can kick your door down in the middle of the night, drag you away, and put you where you will never be found. They can keep you without any charges, without a lawyer, without a trial. They can listen to your phonecalls and pore over your library borrowing list and open your mail, and you will never know until they come get you. The government can do anything it fucking well wants now.

THE FASCISTS HAVE TAKEN OVER WHILE THE NATION WAS WATCHING "AMERICAN IDOL"!

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Statement may allow gov't to open mail

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A signing statement attached to postal legislation by President Bush last month may have opened the way for the government to open mail without a warrant. The White House denies any change in policy.

The law requires government agents to get warrants to open first-class letters. But when he signed the postal reform act, Bush added a statement saying that his administration would construe that provision "in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

"The signing statement raises serious questions whether he is authorizing opening of mail contrary to the Constitution and to laws enacted by Congress," said Ann Beeson, an attorney with the

American Civil Liberties Union. "What is the purpose of the signing statement if it isn't that?"

Beeson said the group is planning to file a request for information on how this exception will be used and to ask whether it has already been used to open mail.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said there was nothing new in the signing statement.

In his daily briefing Snow said: "All this is saying is that there are provisions at law for — in exigent circumstances — for such inspections. It has been thus. This is not a change in law, this is not new."

Postal Vice President Tom Day added: "As has been the long-standing practice, first-class mail is protected from unreasonable search and seizure when in postal custody. Nothing in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act changes this protection. The president is not exerting any new authority."

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, who guided the measure through the Senate, called on Bush to clarify his intent.

The bill, Collins said, "does nothing to alter the protections of privacy and civil liberties provided by the Constitution and other federal laws."

"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and our federal criminal rules require prior judicial approval before domestic sealed mail can be searched," she said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., criticized Bush's action.

"Every American wants foolproof protection against terrorism. But history has shown it can and should be done within the confines of the Constitution. This last-minute, irregular and unauthorized reinterpretation of a duly passed law is the exact type of maneuver that voters so resoundingly rejected in November," Schumer said.

The ACLU's Beeson noted that there has been an exception allowing postal inspectors to open items they believe might contain a bomb.

"His signing statement uses language that's broader than that exception," she said, and noted that Bush used the phrase "exigent circumstances."

"The question is what does that mean and why has he suddenly put this in writing if this isn't a change in policy," she said.

In addition to suspecting a bomb or getting a warrant, postal officials are allowed by law to open letters that can't be delivered as addressed — but only to determine if they can find a correct address or a return address.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, more than all other presidents combined, according to the American Bar Association.

Typically, presidents have used signing statements for such purposes as instructing executive agencies how to carry out new laws.

Bush's statements often reserve the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

"That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," ABA President Michael Greco has said. The practice, he has added, "is harming the separation of powers."

The president's action was first reported by the New York Daily News.

The full signing statement said:

ExxonMobil paid to mislead public

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain's leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the scientific advocacy group's report.

Many scientists say accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks are warming the atmosphere like a greenhouse, melting Arctic sea ice, alpine glaciers and disturbing the lives of animals and plants.

ExxonMobil lists on its Web site nearly $133 million in 2005 contributions globally, including $6.8 million for "public information and policy research" distributed to more than 140 think-tanks, universities, foundations, associations and other groups. Some of those have publicly disputed the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

But in September, the company said in response to the Royal Society that it funded groups which research "significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company." It said the groups do not speak for the company.

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or cherry-picking facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

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On the Net:

Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org

Here it is, straight from the asses' mouth:

Bush quotes on Osama Bin Laden, or as he's now known, Osama Bin Forgotten

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." ? 9/13/01

"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'" ?9/17/01

"...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...."?Crawford TX, 12/28/01

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."?3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."?3/13/02

"I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."?3/13/02

This is not rocket science, you neanderthal retards!

A test for US allies: How they treat women

WASHINGTON, Christian Science Monitor - To win the war on terror, the US needs allies it can trust. Some countries deserve to be considered friends of the US, and some don't. A US ally should share the ideals of liberty and justice - or at least be moving toward the adoption of these values. And it is especially critical for America to know which countries it can depend on in the Muslim world.

The US considers both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be allies in the terror war. But only Pakistan is worthy of this status. A simple look at how each nation treats women reveals why.

There has been much talk about the recent steps Pakistan has taken to ensure that rape victims are able to properly seek justice. According to the former law in Pakistan, a rape victim was obligated to present four male witnesses to corroborate her story. Failure to do so could possibly lead to the victim's execution on charges of adultery. But a change to this law, enacted Dec. 1, was pushed hard by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who has struggled to subdue Islamic extremist movements throughout his country.

There have been times when some have questioned Mr. Musharraf's commitment to the war on terror and ending Islamic extremism as a whole, but this step toward equal rights suggests that Pakistan is on a progressive path.

Unfortunately, these accolades cannot be extended to Saudi Arabia. In mid-November, a Saudi woman who was gang raped by seven men was sentenced to 90 lashes for her participation in "adulterous relations." More telling of Saudi Arabia's justice system is the fact that, as of now, her sentence is harsher than those of some of her attackers. Although the Saudi government is aware of the case, it has made no attempts to intervene.

In fact, the Saudi monarchy's position on rape is much more troubling than its mere act of turning a blind eye to this case.

In June, Colorado resident Homaidan al-Turki was found guilty of sexually abusing an Indonesian maid and holding her as a virtual slave in his home. He was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison, pending an appeal. Soon after the sentencing, the attorney general of Colorado, John Suthers, was flown to Saudi Arabia at the behest of Saudi King Abdullah and with the compliance of the State Department. While in Saudi Arabia, high ranking officials, including the king, questioned Mr. Suthers about whether Mr. Turki - who is from a prominent Saudi family - had been treated fairly. The officials suspected an anti-Muslim bias against Turki.

The Turki case demonstrates that Saudi Arabia doesn't just willfully ignore rape; it seems to tacitly endorse it. To be sure, most Muslims do not believe that rape and slavery are authentic aspects of civilized Islamic culture. That the Saudi government would discount such offenses should insult devout Muslims - and the US.

It is outrageous that the State Department felt it necessary to send the attorney general of Colorado to explain the simple fact that, in the US, when one person rapes another, the assailant goes to prison. It is a bad sign for American democracy when the US government officially allows an absolute monarch to question a US court decision.

On the one hand, there is Pakistan's government, which is dealing with the threat of a popular uprising staged by the country's many extremist militias. Yet in spite of this, the government has had the courage to rebuke Islamic extremism and institute critical reforms dealing with the rights of women.

On the other hand, there is the stable Saudi monarchy, which has faced no serious threat of an extremist uprising in many years. The only entity preventing the emergence of women's rights in Saudi Arabia is the Saudi monarchy itself.

Year after year, the Saudi government has promised to enact reforms to elevate the status of women, but year after year, the State Department reports that the kingdom has made little, if any, progress.

Simply put, Saudi Arabia has not reformed because it does not want to make reforms.

It must be understood that today's war is on two fronts: The first is a battle against terrorism, and the second is a battle against ideology.

Fanatical ideology drives Muslim terrorists - not the other way around. Saudi Arabia's abhorrent position on the rape of women, and women's rights in general, are indicators of the country's general ideology. Until the Saudi monarchy changes its stance on these issues, the US has no good reason to consider Saudi Arabia a true ally.

Conscientious Rejector?

Hot Zone Team - First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. Preliminary hearings are set for Thursday.

First Lt. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. He announced last June his decision not to deploy on the grounds the war is illegal.

Lt. Watada was based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with the Army's 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He has remained on base, thus avoiding charges of desertion.

He does, however, face one count of "missing troop movement" and four counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.

Watada's court martial is on February 5. A pre-trial hearing is set for January 4, with an added scope of controversy: the Army has ordered two freelance journalists, Sarah Olson and Dahr Jamail, to testify against Lt. Watada at the hearing. Both journalists are fighting the subpoenas.

Kevin Sites recently spoke with Lt. Watada about the reasoning behind his decision, the controversy the decision has caused and how he is dealing with the repercussions.

Lt. Watada spoke on the phone from his family's home in Hawaii. Click here to listen to the full audio version of the conversation. A transcript of the interview follows.

KEVIN SITES: Now, you joined the Army right after the US was invading Iraq and now you're refusing to go. Some critics might look at this as somewhat disingenuous. You've taken an oath, received training but now you won't fight. Can you explain your rationale behind this?

EHREN WATADA: Sure. I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent — that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of

Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat.

Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq.

SITES: Tell me how those views evolved. How did you come to that conclusion?

WATADA: I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said that nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link.

And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the

CIA that come out and say, "No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no ties to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear."

SITES: Do you think that you could have determined some of this information prior to joining the military — if a lot of it, as you say, was out there? There were questions going into the war whether WMD existed or not, and you seemingly accepted the administration's explanation for that. Why did you do that at that point?

WATADA: Certainly yeah, there was other information out there that I could have sought out. But I put my trust in our leaders in government.

SITES: Was there a turning point for you when you actually decided that this was definitely an illegal war?

WATADA: Certainly. I think that when we take an oath we, as soldiers and officers, swear to protect the constitution — with our lives as necessary — and those constitutional values and laws that make us free and make us a democracy. And when we have one branch of government that intentionally deceives another branch of government in order to authorize war, and intentionally deceives the people in order to gain that public support, that is a grave breach of our constitutional values, our laws, our checks and balances, and separation of power.

SITES: But Lieutenant, was there one specific incident that happened in Iraq or that the administration had said or done at a certain period that [made you say] "I have to examine this more closely"?

WATADA: No, I think that certainly as the war went on, and it was not going well, doubts came up in my mind, but at that point I still was willing to go. At one point I even volunteered to go to Iraq with any unit that was short of junior officers.

SITES: At what point was that?

WATADA: This was in September of 2005. But as soon as I found out, and as I began to read and research more and more that the administration had intentionally deceived the public and Congress over the reasons for going to Iraq, that's when I told myself "there's something wrong here."

"I saw the pain and agony etched upon the faces of all these families of lost soldiers. And I told myself that this needs to stop."— Lt. Ehren Watada

SITES: Was there any kind of personal conviction as well, I mean in terms of exposure to returning soldiers or Marines — the kinds of wounds they suffered, the kinds of stories that they were bringing back with them — did that have any kind of influence or create any factors for you in coming to this decision?

WATADA: Sure, I felt, well, in a general sense I felt that when we put our trust in the government, when we put our lives in their hands, that is a huge responsibility. And we also say that "when we put our lives in your hands, we ask that you not abuse that trust; that you not take us to war over flimsy or false reasons; that you take us to war when it is absolutely necessary." Because we have so much to lose, you know — the soldiers, our lives, our limbs, our minds and our families — that the government and the people owe that to us.

SITES: Was there a fear that played into that? Did you see returning soldiers with lost limbs? Was there a concern for you that you might lose your life going to Iraq?

WATADA: No, that had nothing to do with the issue. The issue here is that we have thousands of soldiers returning. And what is their sacrifice for? For terrorism or establishing democracy or whatever the other reasons are. And I saw the pain and agony etched upon the faces of all these families of lost soldiers. And I told myself that this needs to stop. We cannot have people in power that are irresponsible and corrupt and that keep on going that way because they're not held accountable to the people.

SITES: You know on that note, Lieutenant, let me read you something from a speech that you gave in August to the Veterans for Peace. You had said at one point, "Many have said this about the World Trade Towers: never again. I agree, never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free. Be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now, the time to stand up and be counted is today." Who were you speaking about when you said that?

WATADA: I was speaking about everybody. The American people. That we all have that duty, that obligation, that responsibility to do something when we see our government perpetrating a crime upon the world, or even upon us. And I think that the American people have lost that, that sense of duty. There is no self-interest in this war for the vast majority of the American people. And because of that the American soldiers have suffered.

There really is a detachment from this war, and many of the American people, because there is no draft, or for whatever reason, because taxes haven't been raised, they don't have anything personally to lose or gain with this war, and so they take little interest.

SITES: Do you think

President Bush and his advisers are guilty of criminal conduct in the prosecution of this war?

WATADA: That's not something for me to determine. I think it's for the newly-elected congress to determine during the investigations that they should hold over this war, and pre-war intelligence.

SITES: But in some ways you have determined that. You're saying this is an illegal war, and an illegal act usually takes prosecution by someone with criminal intent. Is that correct?

WATADA: Right, and they have taken me to court with that, but they have refused — or it will be very unlikely that the prosecution in the military court will allow me to bring in evidence and witnesses to testify on my behalf that the war is illegal. So therefore it becomes the responsibility of Congress, since the military is refusing to do that. It becomes the responsibility of Congress to hold our elected leaders accountable.

SITES: Now this is the same Congress though that in a lot of ways voted for this war initially. Do you think that they're going to turn around and in some ways say that they were wrong? And hold hearings to determine exactly that, that they made a mistake as well? It seems like a long shot.

WATADA: Right, well I think some in Congress are willing to do that, and some aren't. And that's the struggle, and that's the fight that's going to occur over the next year.

SITES: Let me ask you why you decided to go to the press with this. In this particular case you're the first officer — there may have been other officers that have refused these orders, but you're the first one to really do this publicly. Why did you do that?

WATADA: Because I wanted to explain to the American people why I was taking the stand I was taking — that it wasn't for selfish reasons, it wasn't for cowardly reasons.

You know, I think the most important reason here is to raise awareness among the American people that hey — there's a war going on, and American soldiers are dying every day. Hundreds of Iraqis are dying every day. You need to take interest, and ask yourself where you stand, and what you're willing to do, to end this war, if you do believe that it's wrong — that it's illegal, and immoral. And I think I have accomplished that. Many, many people come up to me and say, "because of you, I have taken an active interest in what's going on over in Iraq."

And also, you know, [I want to] give a little hope and inspiration back to a lot of people. For a long time I was really without hope, thinking that there was nothing I could do about something that I saw, that was so wrong, and so tragic. And I think a lot of people who have been trying to end this war felt the same way — that there was just nothing that they could do. And I think by taking my stand publicly, and stating my beliefs and standing on those beliefs, a lot of people have taken encouragement from that.

SITES: You've said that you had a responsibility to your own conscience in this particular situation. Did you also have a responsibility to your unit as well? I just want to read you a quote from Veterans of Foreign Wars communications director Jerry Newbury. He said "[Lt. Watada] has an obligation to fulfill, and it's not up to the individual officer to decide when he's going to deploy or not deploy. Some other officer will have to go in his place. He needs to think about that." Can you react to that quote?

WATADA: You know, what I'm doing is for the soldiers. I'm trying to end something that is criminal, something that should not have been started in the first place and something that is making America less safe — and that is the Iraq war. By just going there and being willing to participate, and doing my job, or whatever I'm told to do — which actually exacerbates the situation and makes it worse — I would not be serving the best interest of this country, nor the soldiers that I'm serving with. What I'm trying to do is end something, as I said, that's illegal, and immoral, so that all the soldiers can come home and this tragedy can come to an end.

It seems like people and critics make this distinction between an order to deploy and any other order, as if the order to deploy is just something that's beyond any other order. Orders have to be determined on whether they're legal or not. And if the order to deploy to a war that is unlawful, if that is given, then that order itself is unlawful.

SITES: How did your peers and your fellow officers react to your decision?

WATADA: I know that there have been some people within the military who won't agree with my stance, and there have been a lot of members of the Army of all ranks who have agreed with what I've done. And I see it almost every other day, where someone in uniform, or a dependent, approaches me in person, or through correspondence, and thanks me for what I have done, and either supports or respects my stand.

SITES: You've remained on base, and that's been a situation that can't be too comfortable for you. Can you fill us in on what that's been like there?

WATADA: I think that for the most part, people that I interact with closely — I have been moved, I'm no longer in the 3rd Striker Brigade, I'm over in 1st Corps — treat me professionally, politely, but keep their distance. I don't think anybody wants to get involved with the position that I've taken, either way. People approach me in private and give me their support.

SITES: Tell me about the repercussions you face in this court martial.

WATADA: Well I think with the charges that have been applied to me and referred over to a general court martial, I'm facing six years maximum confinement, dishonorable discharge from the army, and loss of all pay and allowances.

STES: Are you ready to deal with all those consequences with this decision?

WATADA: Sure, and I think that's the decision that I made almost a year ago, in January, when I submitted my original letter of resignation. I knew that possibly some of the things that I stated in that letter, including my own beliefs, that there were repercussions from that. Yet I felt it was a sacrifice, and it was a necessary sacrifice, to make. And I feel the same today.

I think that there are many supporters out there who feel that I should not be made an example of, that I'm speaking out for what a lot of Americans are increasingly becoming aware of: that the war is illegal and immoral and it must be stopped. And that the military should not make an example or punish me severely for that.

SITES: Do you think that you made a mistake in joining the military? Your mother and father support you in this decision, and your father during the Vietnam War refused to go to Vietnam as well, but instead joined the Peace Corps. He went to his draft board and said, "let me join the Peace Corps and serve in Peru," which is what he did. Do you think in hindsight that that might have been a better decision for you as well?

WATADA: You know I think that John Murtha came out a few months ago in an interview and he was asked if, with all his experience, in Korea, and Vietnam, volunteering for those wars -- he was asked if he would join the military today. And he said absolutely not. And I think that with the knowledge that I have now, I agree. I would not join the military because I would be forced into a position where I would be ordered to do something that is wrong. It is illegal and immoral. And I would be put into a situation as a soldier to be abused and misused by those in power.

STIES: In your speech in front of the Veterans for Peace you said "the oath we take as soldiers swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people." Can you expand upon that a little bit — what did you mean when you said that?

George Bush and his Republican congress, the people who took a SURPLUS and turned it into the LARGEST DEFICIT IN RECORDED HISTORY *dares* to lecture the incoming Democratic congress to limit wasteful spending?!!

Bush: Congress must limit pork spending

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - President Bush said Wednesday he'll submit a proposal to balance the budget in five years and exhorted Congress to "end the dead of night process" of quietly tucking expensive pet projects into spending bills.

"This budget will restrain spending while setting priorities," Bush in a statement he delivered in the Rose Garden after meeting with his Cabinet at the White House.

"It will address the most urgent needs of our nation, in particular the need to protect ourselves from radicals and terrorists, the need to win the war on terror, the need to maintain a strong national defense, and the need to keep this economy growing by making tax relief permanent," Bush said of the budget proposal that he will soon send to Capitol Hill.

Bush, faced with working with an opposition Congress for the first time of his presidency, welcomed new members of Congress and said he's anxious to work with them on the nation's priorities during the remaining two years of his presidency.

"It's time to set aside politics and focus on the future," he said.

"Congress has changed," Bush added. "Our obligations to the country haven't changed."

But, the president, in a newspaper opinion piece published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, also served notice to lawmakers:

"If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate," Bush wrote. "If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation. We can show the American people that Republicans and Democrats can come together to find ways to help make America a more secure, prosperous and hopeful society."

Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Democrats ran in the midterms election on a message of compromise, and want to work with Bush.

"We hope that when the president says compromise, it means more than 'do it my way,' which is what he's meant in the past," Schumer said.

He said fiscal restraint is one area where the executive and legislative branches of government can work together.

"Over the past few years, pro-growth economic policies have generated higher revenues," Bush said. "Together with spending restraint, these policies allowed us to meet our goal of cutting the budget deficit in half three years ahead of schedule."

The president's critics argue that the White House is using sleight of hand when boasting about the deficit.

Bush can rightly state that he has fulfilled his 2004 campaign pledge to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office. In fact, he can say he has done it three years early. But in making that claim, the president is using the administration's original forecast of what the 2004 deficit was expected to be — not what it actually turned out to be.

Back when Bush made his promise, the administration was predicting that the 2004 deficit would be $521 billion. That prediction turned out to be off by $100 billion. To achieve the feat of slicing the actual 2004 deficit number in half, the federal deficit Bush was highlighting would have to have dropped to $206 billion, not $247.7 billion.

The long-term deficit picture remains bleak.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit for the current budget year, which ends next Sept. 30, will rise to $286 billion. Over the next decade, the office forecasts that the deficit will total $1.76 trillion.

Bush called on Congress Wednesday to sharply reduce spending on pet projects prized by lawmakers.

"One important message we all should take from the elections is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to get billions of dollars directed to projects — many of them pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by the Congress," he said.

Democrats have already pledged to cut back on the spending, called "earmarks."

"But we need to do more," Bush said. "Here's my own view to end the dead-of-the-night process: Congress needs to adopt real reform that requires full disclosure of the sponsors, the costs, the recipients and the justifications for every earmark."

He called on Congress to cut the number and cost of earmarks next year by at least half.

Kristol and his ilk should rot in hell. Especially that ratfuck Krauthammer, I REALLY dislike his vile rantings.

----

Kristol Clear at Time

The Nation, David Corn -- The market doesn't work -- not when it comes to conservative commentators.

Before the Iraq war, rightwing (and middle-of-the-road) pundits claimed Saddam Hussein was a dire WMD threat, that he was in cahoots with al Qaeda, that the war was necessary. The neoconservative cheerleaders for war also argued that an invasion of Iraq would bring democracy to that nation and throughout the region. They were wrong. But they have paid no price for their errors. They did not have to serve in Iraq. None, as far as I can tell, have had sons or daughters harmed or killed in the fighting there. They did not have to bear higher taxes, because George W. Bush has charged the costs of this military enterprise to the national credit card. Though they miscalled the number-one issue of the post-9/11 period, they did not lose their influential perches in the commentariat. Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt, Danielle Pletka and others (including non-neocon Thomas Friedman) who blew it on Iraq still regularly appear on op-ed pages and television news shows, pitching their latest notions about Iraq, Iran or other matters.

Foremost among this band is William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and former chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. Kristol, a Fox News regular, has not seen his standing as a go-to conservative pundit suffered. Moreover, he has been rewarded with a plum posting. Time magazine's new managing editor, Richard Stengel, has invited Kristol to become what Stengel calls a "star" columnist for the magazine.

Both Kristol and Stengel are likable fellows. I usually enjoy debating Kristol on television or radio. He's no hater, and he's no autopilot partisan. Stengel is a thoughtful and cerebral person who once was a senior adviser to cerebral Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat. So there's nothing personal when I ask, why in the hell does Stengel believe that what America needs now is more Bill Kristol? (Slate media cop Jack Shafer criticized Stengel's pick of Kristol by noting that "Kristol isn't much of a deviation from Charles Krauthammer, an occasional Time 'Essay' writer." Friendship declared: Shafer is a pal of mine.)

It's too late to affect Stengel's decision, but let's take this occasion to review Kristol's record on Iraq, courtesy of a rather cursory Nexis search. It holds no surprises.

On September 11, 2002, as the Bush administration began its sales campaign for the coming war, Kristol suggested that Saddam Hussein could do more harm to the United States than al Qaeda had: "we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein inflict a worse 9/11 on us in the future."

On September 15, 2002, he claimed that inspection and containment could not work with Saddam: "No one believes the inspections can work." Actually, UN inspectors believed they could work. So, too, did about half of congressional Democrats. They were right.

On September 18, 2002, Kristol opined that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East."

On September 19, 2002, he once again pooh-poohed inspections: "We should not fool ourselves by believing that inspections could make any difference at all." During a debate with me on Fox News Channel, after I noted that the goal of inspections was to prevent Saddam from reaching "the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons, Kristol exclaimed, "He's past that finish line. He's past the finish line."

On November 21, 2002, he maintained, "we can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy."

On February 2, 2003, he claimed that Secretary of State Colin Powell at an upcoming UN speech would "show that there are loaded guns throughout Iraq" regarding weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, everything in Powell's speech was wrong. Kristol was uncritically echoing misleading information handed him by friends and allies within the Bush administration.

On February 20, 2003, he summed up the argument for war against Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use...Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world....France and Germany don't have the courage to face up to the situation. That's too bad. Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated."

On March 1, 2003, Kristol dismissed concerns that sectarian conflict might arise following a US invasion of Iraq: "We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together." He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." And he maintained that the war would be a bargain at $100 to $200 billion. The running tab is now nearing half a trillion dollars.

On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq."

Such vindication never came. Kristol was mistaken about the justification for the war, the costs of the war, the planning for the war, and the consequences of the war. That's a lot for a pundit to miss. In his columns and statements about Iraq, Kristol displayed little judgment or expertise. He was not informing the public; he was whipping it. He turned his wishes into pronouncements and helped move the country to a mismanaged and misguided war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. That's not journalism.

In an effectively functioning market of opinion-trading, Kristol's views would be relegated to the bargain basement. And he ought to be doing penance, not penning columns for Time. But -- fortunate for him -- the world of punditry is a rather imperfect marketplace.

U.S. military deaths in Iraq hit 3,000

Associated Press - As of Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006, at least 3,000 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,397 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is 17 higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EST.

The British military has reported 127 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, one death each.