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Resolved Question: Your thoughts on this?

WASHINGTON -- Dana Perino, President George W. Bush's last White House press secretary, will join Clinton administration adviser Mark Penn at public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller, where she will be "chief issues counselor." Mr. Penn, the firm's CEO, said Ms. Perino's experiences in Mr. Bush's second term make her a valuable addition to the team of battle-tested public-relations veterans he is assembling. Mr. Penn writes a "Microtrends" column for The Wall Street Journal Online. Dana Perino is also now a Fox News contributor as well. What are your thoughts on this?What up Buttercup, Still a douche I see...... Oh how your dad must me so proud......Dr. Granger’s Asbestos Treats: I went there but all I found was naked pix of your mom... Or was that you dad...... :P more

Resolved Question: please help me with us history?

. What was one cause of the Great Depression? (Points: 3) a banking crisis high tariffs overseas limits on farm production government's failure to act 2. Which was a cause of the stock market crash in 1929? (Points: 3) Too many investors tried to get in on buying the best stocks. Too few investors were willing to purchase a wide range of stocks. Investors bought stocks on credit because they thought prices would continue rising. Banks refused to lend investors the money they needed to keep buying stocks. 3. What happened in the farmland of the Great Plains in the 1930s? (Points: 3) The government bought all the farms. Strong winds and drought created a Dust Bowl. Cotton farmers switched to farming barley. Soybean crops were smaller than usual. 4. Who were the Okies and what did they do? (Points: 3) Oklahoma Native Americans that survived the Depression environmentalists anxious to see trees replanted people that okayed government policies to help them survive plains farmers who migrated west to escape the Dust Bowl 5. People lost jobs and suffered from poverty and malnutrition during the Great Depression. What else happened? (Points: 3) More people applied for food stamps. People defaulted on their income taxes. There was a drop in the number of marriages and births. More people began keeping journals. 6. What was one effect of the Great Depression in cities and towns? (Points: 3) soup kitchens more people on welfare drought relief victory gardens 7. Which president thought that the government could not give aid directly to individuals? (Points: 3) Theodore Roosevelt Herbert Hoover Franklin Roosevelt Robert LaFollette 8. What kind of background did Franklin Roosevelt have? (Points: 3) a wealthy family and elite private schools public schools and a poor family a middle class family and public universities home tutoring and experience in the business world 9. Why did President Herbert Hoover lose the election in 1932? (Points: 3) Franklin Roosevelt was known for his humanitarian work. The Hoover administration had not solved the country's economic problems People wanted someone with a broader background in money and finance. Hoover failed to campaign enough because he was working on the financial crisis. 10. How did Franklin Roosevelt maintain contact with the American public? (Points: 3) first president to have a press secretary regular fireside chats on the radio monthly press conferences on television frequent state of the Union addresses 11. Although it is sometimes difficult to explain the goals of the New Deal, what were the key ideas of the legislation? (Points: 3) relief for people in need; recovery for the economy; and reform to prevent future problems assisting failing businesses; buying out the banks; and providing unemployment insurance bailing out the banks; rescuing people's savings; and stabilizing the monetary system restoring faith in the banks; rescuing people in need; and stabilizing the international economy 12. How did the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration benefit people? (Points: 3) Both provided jobs. Both protected the environment. Both helped produce military goods. Both helped the government make money. 13. Which New Deal agencies still exist today? (Points: 3) AAA and WPA TVA and CCC TVA and FDIC CCC and WPA 14. What New Deal legislation still helps retirees, dependent mothers and children, and the disabled? (Points: 3) Social Security Aid to dependent children Medicare Agricultural assistance and recovery 15. Dictators took power in Europe and Asia during the 1930s. What made that possible? (Points: 3) People turned to the military to protect them from invaders. Dictators promised prosperity and order. People believed dictators could prevent war. Dictators offered new political systems that promised peace. 16. What happened in Germany, Italy, and Spain during the 1930s? (Points: 3) Leaders rose to meet the challenges of the times. Parliamentary governments had difficulty forming coalitions. Democracy prevailed with governments struggling to pay off war debts. Fascist dictators assumed power. 17. Which of the following does not correctly match the leader with his cou more

Resolved Question: Possible ethical issues with this drug trial?

Besides the obvious of deliberately infecting humans with the cold virus, which ethically is wrong, what other ethical issues can you find with this experiment? Here's a copy of the newspaper article regarding the study. It's longer, but it's very interesting to see that someone would actually try this! More than two years ago, University of Wisconsin-Madison doctor James Gern approached the pharmaceutical giant Merck with a proposal for an unusual human experiment. The university would find people in the Madison area with asthma, deliberately infect them with cold viruses and give them the Merck asthma drug montelukast to see if it lessened their symptoms. From 2003 through 2007, Gern, a professor of pediatrics and an allergy and asthma specialist, has been a regular speaker and consultant for Merck, putting in 28 days of work and making between $35,000 and $70,000. Gern said he did not personally tell volunteers in the trial about his consulting. In a 10-page consent form provided to volunteers in the ongoing trial, it says "a member of the study research team personally receives money from the company that makes the study medicine," though it does not mention Gern by name, and it does not detail the extent of his work for Merck. Others say that is not enough, noting that simply disclosing a conflict of interest does not eliminate it. Doctors who have consulting deals with drug companies should not be allowed to conduct trials of drugs made by those companies, said Arnold Relman, professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. "Those patients are giving up their bodies as experimental guinea pigs," Relman said. Gern defended the practice of consulting with outside firms. "I think that the collaboration between physician scientists and pharmaceutical companies is beneficial, leads to improved medical research from both perspectives, is in the public interest and should therefore be encouraged," he said. "Because of the possibility of conflict of interest, these relationships need to be carefully regulated." The Food and Drug Administration now is investigating a possible link between montelukast, the drug Gern is using in his study, and suicidal behavior. The review came after Merck said it noticed events including depression, anxiousness, tremors, suicidal thinking and suicide. Gern said that in his study, volunteers are required to take montelukast for only a few weeks. He said the drug has been widely used for asthma, but sometimes rare side effects can occur. He said he will follow the FDA review and abide by any guidance from the agency. more

Resolved Question: History help please ........ no haters please?

Which was not one of the causes of the Great Depression? (Points: 3) excessive income taxes speculative stock purchases a banking crisis severe drought 2. Which was a cause of the stock market crash in 1929? (Points: 3) Investors bought stocks on credit because they thought prices would continue rising. Banks refused to lend investors the money they needed to keep buying stocks. Too many investors tried to get in on buying the best stocks. Too few investors were willing to purchase a wide range of stocks. 3. Why was the ruined farmland of the Great Plains called the Dust Bowl? (Points: 3) Strong winds and drought swept the soil into clouds of dust. Fierce competition for good farmland resulted in contests of skill. Farmers could no longer grow cotton or wheat and turned to country crafts to make a living. A popular novel describing life on the plains called it the Dust Bowl. 4. Who were the Okies and what did they do? (Points: 3) Oklahoma Native Americans that survived the Depression environmentalists anxious to see trees replanted people that okayed government policies to help them survive plains farmers who migrated west to escape the Dust Bowl 5. People lost jobs and suffered from poverty and malnutrition during the Great Depression. What else happened? (Points: 3) There was a drop in the number of marriages and births. More people began keeping journals. More people applied for food stamps. People defaulted on their income taxes. 6. What was one effect of the Great Depression in cities and towns? (Points: 3) soup kitchens more people on welfare drought relief victory gardens 7. Which president thought that the government could not give aid directly to individuals? (Points: 3) Franklin Roosevelt Robert LaFollette Theodore Roosevelt Herbert Hoover 8. What kind of background did Franklin Roosevelt have? (Points: 3) a wealthy family and elite private schools public schools and a poor family a middle class family and public universities home tutoring and experience in the business world 9. Why did President Herbert Hoover lose the election in 1932? (Points: 3) Franklin Roosevelt was known for his humanitarian work. The Hoover administration had not solved the country's economic problems People wanted someone with a broader background in money and finance. Hoover failed to campaign enough because he was working on the financial crisis. 10. How did Franklin Roosevelt maintain contact with the American public? (Points: 3) first president to have a press secretary regular fireside chats on the radio monthly press conferences on television frequent state of the Union addresses more

Resolved Question: Are the tax payers of this country going to get back the money that AIG lobbyist's paid to our congress ?

So, when are President Barack Obama and Senator Chris Dodd and others going to give back the "bonuses" they received from American International Group (AIG)? By now, you know the story. After receiving another $170 billion bailout from the American taxpayer, AIG paid out $165 million in bonuses to its executives. Almost immediately, the Obama Administration and liberals in Congress FEIGNED outrage. They even had the audacity to claim that they knew nothing about these bonuses. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pontificated; "We want our money back now for the taxpayers." Senator Charles Schumer ominously threatened AIG executives; “If you don’t return it on your own, we will do it for you.” And in a matter of hours, the Pelosi-led House of Representatives passed a bill that would (in certain cases) tax 90 percent of the bonus money that is received from any company that has received at least $5 billion in bailout money. Essentially, the Pelosi-led House of Representatives played the American people for fools and used our public outrage to set a dangerous and draconian precedent. Furthering a socialist agenda, liberals in Congress basically asserted their authority to tax any individual (or group)... any amount... at any time... totally at their discretion... no reason need be given... if they don't like you... that's it. And President Obama cheered them on. He called it "a strong signal to the executives who run these firms that such compensation will not be tolerated." But that's not the end of the story. The hypocrisy here is staggering! Brody Mullins and T.W. Farnam with The Wall Street Journal put it rather mildly: "Some of the most vocal critics of American International Group Inc.'s bonus payments are also the biggest recipients of campaign contributions from the company, including President Barack Obama and Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd." It's time to call these elected officials on the carpet for their hypocrisy! Since they claim with such self-righteous indignation that "we want our money back now for the taxpayers," and that "such compensation will not be tolerated," it's time to tell Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer to practice what they so sanctimoniously preach. If they want to lead us down the road to socialism; let's see how they like having to live under the spirit of the laws they pass. President Obama's $110,332.00 in campaign contributions from AIG... we want it back! Senator Dodd's 281,038.00 in campaign contributions from AIG... we want it back! Senator Chuck Schumer’s $111,875.00 in campaign contributions from AIG... we want that back too! We want it ALL back... every thin dime... and not just campaign contributions from AIG. The American people want every single dime of campaign contributions paid by any company presently receiving bailout money! We want it back NOW! We want it back more

Resolved Question: Economists agree: Geithner and Obama get failing grades on their economic policies, Why is that?

You think this is because they don't like Obama (the man), or they think his policies threaten their money?? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090312/pl_nm/us_obama_grades " President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the world's largest economy, according to participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration's economic policies, according to the paper, a stark contrast to Obama's popularity ratings with the general public."So the Wall Street Journal is a "rag".....lol Well I guess when trying to construct a fantasy world you can't take real world criticism. more

Resolved Question: Why did Obama and Treasury Sec Geithner receive failing grades from top economists?

Wall Street Journal reports: "U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. In striking contrast to President Obama's popularity with the public, a new Wall Street Journal survey of economists gives the president and his treasury secretary failing grades. The economists' assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama's popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration's economic policies. On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60. Mr. Geithner received an average grade of 51. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71." Why? But Obama has such a high IQ (doesn't he?), and he promised Hope!http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123671107124286261.html#printMode more

Resolved Question: Is Obama destroying the retirements of most Americans with his Wall Street-demolishing agenda?

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_090303.htm Critics Blame Obama For Stocks' Plunge On its front page, the Washington Post also says that "more than any individual development, the continuing collapse in financial markets around the globe reflected an absence of faith that the trillions of dollars that governments have deployed to try to contain the damage will do the trick." Under the headline "The Obama Economy," the Wall Street Journal editorializes that "From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth." Similarly, CNBC's Jim Cramer said last night, "Until the Obama administration starts listening, until they start paying attention to what you're watching, to the stock market, until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans, then all I can give you is caution. ... I just want some sign that Obama realizes the market is totally falling apart. And that his agenda has a big hand in that happening." ABC World News, in its lead story, reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average "finished the day at levels not seen since 1997." The Wall Street Journal reports on its front page that "US investors joined a world-wide selloff that began in Asia and rippled through industries from financials to consumer durables to technology. The Dow dropped 4.2% to 6763.29, its lowest close since April 1997. It has lost almost one-quarter of its value this year and more than half since its high in October 2007." The Los Angeles Times notes "the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 34.27 points, or 4.7%, to 700.82, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 54.99 points, or 4%, to close at 1,322.85." On its front page, the Financial Times notes "stock markets around the world fell to their lowest levels of the economic crisis on Monday as a spate of dividend cuts and faltering financial companies shook investor confidence," and the Wall Street Journal says "Asian shares fell again Tuesday with worries about the continued bleeding at large financial companies around the globe sending bank shares lower." On its front page, the New York Times says "hopes that the American economy, which led the world into recession, might lead it back out this year have been fading." The AP says that "with each new hard-times headline, most recently an alarming economic contraction of 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter, it seems more likely that the next depression is on its way." Another AP article reports that the Commerce Department "said consumer spending rose 0.6 percent in January, the first increase after a record six straight monthly declines." However, the Institute for Supply Management's "gauge of manufacturing activity showed contraction for a 13th straight month in February. And "construction spending plunged more than twice as much as expected in January." more

Voting Question: How can destructive Talmudic Jews running our country destroy us when they are only 5% of the US population?

Richard Perle One of Bush's foreign policy advisors, he is the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktanks, the AEI. Perle is one of the leading pro-Israeli fanatics leading this Iraq war mongering within the administration and now in the media. Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle's Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz is a close associate of Perle, and reportedly has close ties to the Israeli military. His sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz came from the above mentioned Jewish thinktank, JINSA. Wolfowitz is the number two leader within the administration behind this Iraq war mongering. Douglas Feith Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He is a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel. Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work is representing Israeli interests. His firm's own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith "represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturer." Feith basically represents the Israeli War Machine. Feith also came from the Jewish thinktank JINSA. Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, are campaigning hard for this Israeli proxy war against Iraq. Edward Luttwak Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq. Henry Kissinger One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger's evil past, read Seymour Hersch's book (Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House). Kissinger likely had a part in the Watergate crimes, Southeast Asia mass murders (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), Installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet, Operation Condor's mass killings in South America, and more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor. He consistently advocates going to war against Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Unfortunately, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. It's like picking a bank robber to investigate a fraud scandal. Dov Zakheim Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Defense. He is an ordained rabbi and reportedly holds Israeli citizenship. Kenneth Adelman One of many Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle, and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supports going to war against Iraq. I. Lewis Libby Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. The chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, it helps explains why Cheney is so gun-ho to invade Iraq. Robert Satloff U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Israeli lobby's "think tank," Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Many of the Israeli lobby's "experts" come from this front group, like Martin Indyk. Elliott Abrams National Security Council Advisor. He previously worked at Washington-based "Think Tank" Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Adminstration, Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Marc Grossman Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Richard Haass Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He is also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Robert Zoellick U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He is also one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Bush (Jr) Administration who advocated invading I more

Resolved Question: Bush passing "midnight regulations" do you agree with any of these changes?

Mountaintop Mining: Rule would allow mining companies to dump waste into rivers and streams. Endangered Species Act: Rule would alter implementation of ESA to allow federal land-use managers to approve projects (like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging) without consulting federal habitat managers and biological health experts responsible for species protection. Power plants near National Parks: Environmental Protection Agency rule would ease current restrictions that make it difficult for power plants to operate near national parks and wilderness areas, which could increase air pollution in those areas. Truck Driver Safety: Department of Transportation rule will allow truck drivers to drive up to 11 consecutive hours and to spend seven consecutive days on the road with only a 34-hour break. Public Citizen and other safety advocates have sued successfully two times in the past three years to overturn this Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule. On-the-Job-Risk: Department of Labor rule would change the way federal regulators calculate estimates for on-the-job risks, and add an extra comment period to new worker health standards, creating a delay. Family and Medical Leave: Department of Labor rule would limit employee access to family and medical leave — making it more difficult for workers to use paid vacation or personal time to take leave, and would allow employers to speak directly to an employee's health care provider. Domestic Surveillance: Department of Justice Rule would expand the power of state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate potential criminal activities and report the information to federal agencies. It would broaden the scope of activities authorities could monitor to include organizations as well as individuals, along with non-criminal activities that are deemed "suspicious." http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11212008/profile3.htmlNo robot I can't oh wait I could site Randi Rhodes... more

Resolved Question: what do you think of this email i received?

Here, in September, 2008, we are being told that our economy is in a meltdown, the stock market is reeling, politicians are finger-pointing (what's new?), and we're being asked to support a "bailout" program that will eventually burden the American taxpayer with over a TRILLION dollars in additional debt, or face a financial armageddon. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the following has to be regarded as an example of one of the worst abuses of power in the financial world, ever. It's a short read, but it speaks volumes about how power corrupts when no one cares enough to expose it, and demand that it be corrected. If you're wondering how we got into this mess, you need to read this. Three Men who brought down Wall Street Kevin Bennett Here is a quick look into three former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street. Be sure to read the 'where they are now' at the end!! 1. Franklin Raines headed the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, before he became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae in 2006 when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that 'mistakes were made' and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.' Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. Raines left with a 'golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. Read more here: http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/>http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ The Government noted, 'The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.' These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits. 2.Tim Howard - Howard was a 22-year veteran of Fannie Mae when he became Chief Financial Officer in 1990 and was named Vice Chairman in 2003. Howard was considered 'a stable pattern of earnings' at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, 'Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,' On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million! 3. Jim Johnson - Executive Assistant to Walter Mondale, 1977-81 CEO of Fannie Mae, 1991-98. A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/FNMSPECIALEXAM.PDF Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7million when in fact it was $21 million.' Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? 1. FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor. 2. TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama. 3. JIM JOHNSON? Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee. Observation: IF OBAMA PLANS ON C more

Voting Question: what do you think of this email i received?

Resolved Question: I need you reaction to the Dirty Secret of the Bailout, what do u think?

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable. Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect: The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson — a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. ... The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review. Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization. But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes. Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign. Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concern more

Resolved Question: Why do people think that Obama is the most liberal senator?

The National Journal only looked at 99 out of 442 total roll calls for 2007 senate. Apparently voting for : - Establishing a Senate Office of Public Integrity to handle ethics complaints against senators. - Agreeing to final passage of a bill implementing the 9/11 commission's homeland-security recommendations. - Blocking individuals from serving on Food and Drug Administration drug advisory panels if they have conflicts of interest. makes you a liberal. You can see what 99 votes they looked at on their own site. http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voterating... And honestly, do you think Obama is more liberal than Bernie Sanders (D-VT), who describes himself as a "Democratic Socialist"? An academic study that looks at 388 of the 442 votes came up with different results that make more sense. http://voteview.com/sen110.htm There, Obama is tied for 10th with Biden, and Feingold, Dodd, and Sanders are the top 3 most liberal senators. But I guess that's not as good a sound-bite.Here's a working link to the National Journals vote criteria: http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/votes.htm more

Resolved Question: Does the National Journal's method of finding the "Most Liberal Senator" look sound?

The National Journal only looked at 99 out of 442 total roll calls for 2007 senate. Apparently voting for : - Establishing a Senate Office of Public Integrity to handle ethics complaints against senators. - Agreeing to final passage of a bill implementing the 9/11 commission's homeland-security recommendations. - Blocking individuals from serving on Food and Drug Administration drug advisory panels if they have conflicts of interest. makes you a liberal. You can see what 99 votes they looked at on their own site. http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/votes.htm And honestly, do you think Obama is more liberal than Bernie Sanders (D-VT), who describes himself as a "Democratic Socialist"? An academic study that looks at 388 of the 442 votes came up with different results that make more sense. http://voteview.com/sen110.htm There, Obama is tied for 10th with Biden, and Feingold, Dodd, and Sanders are the top 3 most liberal senators. But I guess that's not as good a sound-bite. more

Resolved Question: Is Obama Disigenuous?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23643866-5013948,00.html The illusion that is Barack Obama * Font Size: Decrease Increase * Print Page: Print Fred Siegel | May 05, 2008 POLITICAL campaigning necessarily produces a wide gap between words and deeds. This is the price of bringing together a broad coalition with disparate interests. All effective politicians are at times authentically insincere or sincerely inauthentic. Exaggeration, embellishment, overstatement, doubletalk, deception and lies presented as metaphorical truths are the order of the day. So, of course, Barack Obama is no different. He exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himself as having had a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done a fair amount of zigzagging. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he presents his minimal accomplishments in the Illinois Senate as proof of his stature. He engages in systematic deception when he says he doesn't take money from lobbyists. He presents a lie as metaphorical truth when he says it was the 1965 bloody Sunday attacks on peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. (They had been married for years already.) All of this is unappealing, but also unexceptional. What makes it different is that there's not just a gap but a chasm between his actions and his professed principles, which would normally kill a candidacy. And because his deeds are so few, the disparity is all the more salient. Obama, far more than the others, is the "judge me by what I say and not what I do" candidate. He wants to be the conscience of the country without necessarily having one himself. The disparity between Obama's rhetoric of transcendence and his conventional Chicago racial and patronage politics is a leitmotiv of his political career. In New York, politicians (Al Sharpton excepted) are usually forced to pay at least passing tribute to universal principles and the ideal of clean government. But Chicago, until recently a city of Lithuanians, blacks and Poles governed by Irishmen on the patronage model of the Italian Christian Democrats, is the city of political and cultural tribalism. Blacks adapted to the tribalism and the corrupt patronage politics that accompanied it. Historically, one of the ironies of Chicago politics is that the clean-government candidates have been the most racist, while those most open to black aspirations have been the most corrupt. When the young Jesse Jackson received his first audience with then mayor Richard Daley Sr - impervious to the universalism of the civil rights movement in its glory - offered him a job as a toll-taker. Jackson thought the offer demeaning but in time adapted. In Chicago, racial reform has meant that the incumbent mayor, Richard M. Daley, has been cutting blacks in on the loot. Louis Farrakhan, Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Obama are all, in part, the expression of that politics. It hasn't always worked for Chicago, which, under the pressure of increasing taxes to pay for bloated government, is losing its middle class. But it has served the city's political class admirably. For all his Camelot-like rhetoric, Obama is a product, in significant measure, of the political culture that Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass described: "We've had our chief of detectives sent to prison for running the Outfit's (the mob's) jewellery-heist ring. And we've had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley ... That's the Chicago way." At no point did Obama, the would-be saviour of US politics, challenge this corruption, except for face-saving gestures as a legislator. He was, in his own Harvard law way, a product of it. Why, you may ask, did the operators of Chicago's political machine support Obama? Part of the answer was given long ago by the then boss of Chicago, Jake Arvey. When asked why he made Adlai Stevenson - a man, as with Obama, more famous for speeches than for accomplishments - his party's gubernatorial candidate in 1948, Arvey is said to have replied that he needed to "perfume the ticket". Obama first played a perfuming role as a state senator. His mentor, Emil Jones, the machine-made president of the Senate, allowed him to sponsor a minor ethics bill. In return, Obama made sure to send plenty of pork to Jones's district. When asked about pork-barrel spending, Jones famously replied: "Some call it pork; I call it steak." Obama repaid the generosity. When he had a chance to back clean Democratic candidates for president of the Cook County board of supervisors and Illinois governor, he stayed with the allies of the Outfit. The gubernatorial candidate he backed, Rod Blagojevich, is under federal investigation, in part because of his relationship with Tony Rezko, the man who helped Obama buy his house. The Chicago way has delivered politically for Obama even this year. Ninety per cent of his popular-vote lead over Hillary Clinton comes from Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90 per cent comes just from Cook County. Some of this advantage came from the efforts of Obama's political ally, the flame-throwing reverend James Meeks, a political force in his own right. Meeks, who mocks black moderates as "niggers", is an Illinois state senator, the pastor of a mega-church and a strong supporter of Jackson's powerful political operation, which has put its vote-pulling muscle squarely behind the Obama campaign. It was only with Obama's remark about bitter, white, working-class, small-town voters that we saw his difficulties appealing beyond the machine's reach. He won his US Senate race in 2004 not only because his opponents self-destructed but also because of the machine's ability to deliver votes. In Pennsylvania, he has lacked such assistance and the campaigning has not gone nearly so well. First, Obama pretended to be a tenpin bowler and scored a 37. Then, appearing before a supposedly closed San Francisco audience, he complained that small-town Pennsylvanians "cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations". This is the man who belongs to a church built on bitterness, rancour and conspiratorial fear. During the Wright affair, Obama not only repeatedly lied about what he knew and when but violated the spirit of the civil rights movement in its mid-1960s glory. When, as a young man, I was on the periphery of the movement, there was an unwritten rule that if people told racist jokes or speakers engaged in defamatory rhetoric, you needed to register your immediate disapproval by confronting the speaker or ostentatiously walking out. Wright's "black theology" is essentially a Christianised version of Malcolm X's ideology of hate. But for 20 years, Obama, who had planned to run for mayor of Chicago, kept silent about the close, if at times competitive, relationship between Wright, whose 8000-member mega-church gave him his political base, and Farrakhan. His ambition overrode his moral integrity. As part of his "black value system", Wright attacked whites for their "middle classism", materialism, and "greed in a world of need". Obama sounded similar notes in his recent address at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, in which he laid the blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis on those who had "embraced an ethic of greed, corner cutting and inside dealing". But that's exactly what Obama did in buying his luxurious house. Given the choice of purchasing a less expensive home or getting into bed with his fundraiser-cum-slumlord-cum-fixer Rezko, Obama chose the latter. Then again, the oppressed of Trinity United Church of Christ are building Wright a $US1.6 million ($1.7million), 960sqm home complete with four-car garage, whirlpool and butler's pantry. This house, which backs on to a golf course, is to sit in Tinley Park, a gated community in southwest Chicago that is 93 per cent white. The Obamas' charitable giving is consistent with Wright's talking Left while living Right. Obama and his wife are quite well off. They had an estimated income of $US1.2 million from 2000 to 2004. But the man who preaches compassion and mutuality gave all of 1 per cent of that income to charity during those years. Most of that went to Wright's church. There is a similar chasm when it comes to Obama's claim to post-partisanship. His achievements in reaching out to moderate voters are largely proleptic. But words are not deeds and, although Obama has few concrete achievements to his name, his voting record hardly suggests an ability to rise above Left v Right. In the Illinois Senate, he made a specialty of voting present, but after his first two years in the US Senate, National Journal's analysis of rollcall votes found that he was more liberal than 86 per cent of his colleagues. His voting record has only moved further Left since then. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gives him a 97.5 per cent rating, while National Journal ranks him the most liberal member of the Senate. By comparison, Clinton, who occasionally votes with the Republicans, ranks 16th. Obama is such a down-the-line partisan that, according to Congressional Quarterly, in the past two years he has voted with the Democrats more often than did the party's majority leader, Harry Reid. Likewise, for all his talk of post-racialism, Obama has played, with the contrivance of the press, traditional South Side Chicago racial politics. The day after his surprise loss in New Hampshire, and in anticipation of the South Carolina primary, with its heavily black electorate, South Side congressman Jesse Jackson Jr - Obama's national co-chairman - appeared on MSNBC to argue, in a prepared statement, that Clinton's teary moment on the campaign trail reflected her deep-seated racism. "Those tears," said Jackson, "have to be analysed ... They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina, where 45 per cent of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest ... We saw tears in response to her appearance, so that her appearance brought her to tears, but not hurricane Katrina, not other issues." In other words, whites who are at odds with, or who haven't delivered for, Chicago politicians can be obliquely accused of racism on the flimsiest basis, but pillars of local black politics such as Wright, with his exclusivist racial theology, are beyond criticism. Liberals love Obama's talk of taking on powerful financial interests. But here , too, he is rather slippery. In his Cooper Union speech, he denounced in no uncertain terms the "special interests" of people on Wall Street (who are well represented among his campaign donors). He, of course, had an opportunity to push for repealing the privileged tax treatment of private equity firms when that question was before Charles Grassley's Senate subcommittee - but he simply made a pro-forma statement in favour of doing so and disappeared. Nationally, as in Chicago, Obama the self-styled reformer never crosses swords with any of his putative foes. To pick another example, he has attacked "predatory" sub-prime lenders while taking roughly $US1.3 million in contributions from companies in that line of business. Obama is the internationalist opposed to free trade. He is the friend of race-baiters who thinks Don Imus deserved to be fired. He is the proponent of courage in the face of powerful interests who lacked the courage to break with Wright (until Wednesday). He is the man who would lead our efforts against terrorism yet was friendly with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant 1960s terrorist. He is the post-racialist supporter of affirmative action. He is the enemy of Big Oil who takes money from executives at Exxon-Mobil, Shell and British Petroleum. Obama has, in a sense, represented a new version of the invisible man, a candidate whose colour obscures his failings. But so far, the wild discrepancy between Obama's words and his deeds, and between his enormous ambitions and his minimal accomplishments, doesn't seem to have fazed his core supporters, who apparently suffer from a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Like cultists who rededicate themselves when the cult's prophecies have been falsified, his fans redouble their delusions in the face of his obvious hypocrisy. That is because Obama, in the imagination of many of his fans in the public and the press, is both a deduction from what was - the failures of the Bush administration and the scandals of the Clintons - and an expression of what should be. The ideal, the aspiration, is so rhetorically appealing that it has been assumed to be true. They remind one of Woodrow Wilson's answer when asked if his plan for a League of Nations was practicable: "If it won't work, it must be made to work." Fred Siegel is a contributing editor of City Journal. He teaches at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. more

Resolved Question: Is Obama Honest?

Resolved Question: Why Did Matt Foreman call AIDS a Gay Disease?

Homosexual Leader Calls AIDS 'a Gay Disease' By Pete Winn CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer February 15, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - In a startling admission, the head of a major homosexual activist group said HIV/AIDS is a "gay disease." The comments were made last Friday at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) national conference in Detroit by Executive Director Matt Foreman. "Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi (sexual), we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease," Foreman told his audience. "We have to own that and face up to that." Conservative organizations that work on the HIV/AIDS issue say they are shocked. "Foreman's comments are a dramatic departure from the long-standing strategic and rhetorical orthodoxy of the homosexual 'rights' movement, which in the past has heatedly objected to any such characterization by critics of its political agenda," said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan. Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America, called the admission "refreshing." For decades, he said, homosexual activists have excoriated anyone who even implied that HIV/AIDS was a disease largely affecting homosexuals. Even the late homosexual journalist Randy Shilts was attacked in the early '80s - when AIDS was first recognized - for referring to the condition as GRID, or "gay-related immune deficiency." "Because of their war on semantics and being in such denial and not focusing on the reality of the dangers of their behaviors, many people have contracted the disease," Barber told Cybercast News Service. "Who knows how many lives could have been saved had homosexual activists been honest about the dangers of the lifestyle they choose to engage in," he added. Indeed, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force lambasted the Bush administration in 2003 for nominating Jerry Thacker to the President's Council on HIV/AIDS. Thacker was forced to withdraw from the nomination, because he supposedly called AIDS "the gay plague." Thacker, who said he never referred to AIDS as "a gay plague," told Cybercast News Service that he was the target of a politically motivated smear campaign by homosexual activists. "We've said for a long time now that HIV in this country is a behavioral disease, that you don't have to get it, that if you do engage in risky activities you run the risk of getting it, and that it really has little to do with your sexual preferences," Thacker said. In fact, HIV is an equal-opportunity disease, he added. "If by saying that the disease is primarily 'a gay disease,' this is an admission that their sexual practices are more likely to get the disease from one person to another. Then homosexuals are owning up to something that we've known for a long time," Thacker said. Ironically, the heterosexual Thacker acquired HIV/AIDS from his wife, who had a blood transfusion in 1984, before the blood supply was safeguarded. Thacker, his wife, and his daughter have HIV/AIDS. The NGLTF's admission, meanwhile, has rocked the homosexual activist community. One homosexual activist, Todd Heywood, told the Lansing State Journal the story was likely to gain traction in coming days and weeks. "When leaders of the right-wing claim HIV/AIDS (is) a gay disease, we all balk at that claim," Heywood said. "But what happens when a national gay leader says it?" Foreman has since clarified that he wasn't saying that AIDS is a gay disease worldwide, but it is in the United States. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, 70 percent of all cases of HIV occur among men who have sex with other men (MSMs), people who are bisexual, or those who inject illegal drugs with infected needles. Conservatives like Barber, meanwhile, are calling on other homosexual groups to publicly acknowledge the truth and for groups like the National Education Association to stop promoting the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.Whether I agree with this or diagree is not the relevant issue. The polticization of a Disease is. AIDS is a very cruel disease. And people are suffering. The question is how much resources can we devote to it? And what is the best way to stop the pandemic from spreading? If certain Sexual practices spread it exclusively among Straight would we argue the Politics or tell the public the truth? I have no desire to see Gays, BiSexual folk, Minorities or anyone else suffer. A civilized nation is defined by how it treats its least citizens. Those who lack power and prestige. more

Resolved Question: I ask Democrates, are we going to stand for the Left wing doing what the are doing?Glenn Greenwald?

Resolved Question: Did the Allies and Jews lie about the Holocaust?

Resolved Question: AP Statistics Help??

Read the brief newspaper article on using a depression pill to help smokers quit. The results of this experiment were significant at the 5% significance level. In your opinion, are the results practically significant? Justify your answer. ----------------------------------------------- Depression Pill Seems to Help Smokers Quit Boston - Taking an antidepression medicine appears to double smokers' chances of kicking the habit, a study found. The Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of this medicine, called Zyban or bupropion, to help smokers in May. The results of several studies with the drug, including one published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, were made public then. The newly published study was conducted on 615 volunteers who wanted to give up smoking and were not outwardly depressed. They took either Zyban or dummy pills for 6 weeks. A year later, 23 percent of those getting Zyban were still off cigarettes, compared with 12 percent in more

Resolved Question: Is it right that Our politicians will vote for Israeli needs while ignoring what the common american wants?

Old Yesterday, 06:10 PM #1 Cartman Remember the Intifada Cartman's Avatar Join Date: May 2007 Location: Dallas, Texas Posts: 1,394 Reputation: points: 4864 / Rep Power: 50 Cartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond reputeCartman has a reputation beyond repute Israeli Lobby In America:Corruption of The American Politician "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture." -- Michael Medved, well-known Jewish author and respected film critic. For decades Israel has violated well established precepts of international law and defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression. Most of the world regards Israel's policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as outrageous and criminal. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities. "The whole world," United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recently said, "is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don't think the whole world ... can be wrong." [note 1] Only in the United States do politicians and the media still fervently support Israel and its policies. For decades the US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid. Why is the U.S. the only remaining bastion of support for Israel? Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has candidly identified the reason: "The Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic," he said. "People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful -- very powerful." [note 2] Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only about three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence -- vastly more than any other ethnic or religious group. As Jewish author and political science professor, Benjamin Ginsberg, has pointed out: [note 3] "Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations." Today, though barely two percent of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times ... The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked. Jews are only two percent of the nation's population yet comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation's elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants. Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the "disproportionate political power" of Jews, which is "pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America." He goes on to explain that "Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry." [note 4] Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: [note 5] "During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals ... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities ... 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington ... 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series." The influence of American Jewry in Washington, notes the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, is "far disproportionate to the size of the community, Jewish leaders and U.S. official acknowledge. But so is the amount of money they contribute to [election] campaigns." One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations "estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign." [note 6] "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture," acknowledges Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. "Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names." [note 7] One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, now editor of the influential Jewish community weekly 'Forward.' In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: [note 8] "In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation ... Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish -- one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films." The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates. Reflecting their role in the American media, Jews are routinely portrayed as high-minded, altruistic, trustworthy, compassionate, and deserving of sympathy and support. While millions of Americans readily accept such stereotyped imagery, not everyone is impressed. "I am very angry with some of the Jews," complained actor Marlon Brando during a 1996 interview. "They know perfectly well what their responsibilities are ... Hollywood is run by Jews. It's owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering." [note 9] A Well-Entrenched Factor The intimidating power of the "Jewish lobby" is not a new phenomenon, but has long been an important factor in American life. In 1941 Charles Lindbergh spoke about the danger of Jewish power in the media and government. The shy 39-year-old -- known around the world for his epic 1927 New York to Paris flight, the first solo trans-Atlantic crossing -- was addressing 7,000 people in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, about the dangers of US involvement in the war then raging in Europe. The three most important groups pressing America into war, he explained, were the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt administration. Of the Jews, he said: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government." Lindbergh went on: "For reasons which are understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, [they] wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction." In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection: [note 10] "How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?... It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power ... In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles." As a result of the Jewish grip on the media, wrote Lilienthal, news coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in American television, newspapers and magazines is relentlessly sympathetic to Israel. This is manifest, for example, in the misleading portrayal of Palestinian "terrorism." As Lilienthal put it: "One-sided reportage on terrorism, in which cause is never related to effect, was assured because the most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control." One-Sided 'Holocaust' History The Jewish hold on cultural and academic life has had a profound impact on how Americans look at the past. Nowhere is the well-entrenched Judeocentric view of history more obvious than in the "Holocaust" media campaign, which focuses on the fate of Jews in Europe during World War II. Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has remarked: [note 11] "Whether presented authentically or inauthentically, in accordance with the historical facts or in contradiction to them, with empathy and understanding or as monumental kitsch, the Holocaust has become a ruling symbol of our culture ... Hardly a month goes by without a new TV production, a new film, a new drama, new books, prose or poetry, dealing with the subject, and the flood is increasing rather than abating." Non-Jewish suffering simply does not merit comparable attention. Overshadowed in the focus on Jewish victimization are, for example, the tens of millions of victims of America's World War II ally, Stalinist Russia, along with the tens of millions of victims of China's Maoist regime, as well as the 12 to 14 million Germans, victims of the flight and expulsion of 1944-1949, of whom some two million lost their lives. The well-financed Holocaust media and "educational" campaign is crucially important to the interests of Israel. Paula Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, has observed: "With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy." [note 12] Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar who has taught political science at City University of New York (Hunter College), says in his book, 'The Holocaust Industry,' that "invoking The Holocaust" is "a ploy to delegitimize all criticism of Jews."[note 13] "By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure. ... Organized Jewry has exploited the Nazi holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel's and its own morally indefensible policies." He writes of the brazen "shakedown" of Germany, Switzerland and other countries by Israel and organized Jewry "to extort billions of dollars." "The Holocaust," Finkelstein predicts, "may yet turn out to be the 'greatest robbery in the history of mankind'." Jews in Israel feel free to act brutally against Arabs, writes Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, "believing with absolute certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate and much of the American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own." [note 14] Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spoken with blunt exasperation about the Jewish-Israeli hold on the United States: [note 15] "I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." Today, the danger is greater than ever. Israel and Jewish organizations, in collaboration with this country's pro-Zionist Christian fundamentalist "amen corner," are prodding the United States -- the world's foremost military and economic power -- into new wars against Israel's enemies. As the French ambassador in London recently acknowledged, Israel -- which he called (a quote which shocked millions -ed) "that ****ty little country" -- is a threat to world peace. "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?," he said. [note 16] In summation: Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish-Zionist distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. Notes 1. Quoted in Forward (New York City), April 19, 2002, p. 11. 2. D. Tutu, "Apartheid in the Holy Land," The Guardian (Britain), April 29, 2002. 3. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103. 4. S. Steinlight, "The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy," Center for Immigration Studies , Nov. 2001. http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back130... 5. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 26-27. 6. Janine Zacharia, "The Unofficial Ambassadors of the Jewish State," The Jerusalem Post (Israel), April 2, 2000. Reprinted in "Other Voices," June 2000, p. OV-4, a supplement to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 7. M. Medved, "Is Hollywood Too Jewish?," Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996), p. 37. 8. Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See also pp. 39-40, 290-291. 9. Interview with Larry King, CNN network, April 5, 1996. "Brando Remarks," Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1996, p. F4 (OC). A short time later, Brando was obliged to apologize for his remarks. 10. A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 218, 219, 229. 11. From a 1992 lecture, published in: David Cesarani, ed., The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 305, 306. 12. Paula E. Hyman, "New Debate on the Holocaust," The New York Times Magazine , Sept. 14, 1980, p. 79. 13. Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (London, New York: Verso, 2000), pp. 130, 138, 139, 149. 14. The New York Times, May 27, 1996. Shavit is identified as a columnist for Ha'aretz, a Hebrew-language Israeli daily newspaper, "from which this article is adapted." 15. Interview with Moorer, Aug. 24, 1983. Quoted in: Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby (Lawrence Hill, 1984 and 1985), p. 161. 16. D. Davis, "French Envoy to UK: Israel Threatens World Peace," Jerusalem Post, Dec. 20, 2001. The French ambassador is Daniel Bernard.6/02 About the author Mark Weber is director of the Institute for Historical Review. He studied history at the University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Munich, Portland State University and Indiana University (M.A., 1977). For nine years he served as editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review. www.ihr.org * 1 hour ago * - Edit * - Delete Source(s): the article was from this site http://www.rense.com/general27/jlobby.ht...strictly militant, exactly, are you a muslim brotherrz, being against the state of israel doesnt make one anti-jew, i can see the media has brainwashd you alreadymy point is not that israel is attacking the US militarily, but that why is it that israeli money is able to buy politicians votes and that takes precedence over the United States citizens more

Resolved Question: Is it good to drink milk? The text is too long but worthwhile read....?

es esta pagina link http://notmilk.com/kradjian.htmlThe most important information dissemination my. Not that, but I can make your text too long jajaja. If I write bad is that I am leading a translator jaja more

Resolved Question: Why do our schools lead children to believe America is evil?

If you want to keep up with what’s happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Michael Rubin performs a public service in National Review Online’s Corner by offering periodic updates. Thursday morning’s post contains, among others, these items: Ahmadinejad tells war veterans and families of martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war: “Development of this country is dependent on us showing the ethos and principles of the martyrs.” . . . “Pressing need for martyrdom culture.” Filmmaker held in Iran after stumbling upon mass grave of prisoners executed by regime. Interior Minister: “Our nation resists imported ideas . . . such as liberalism and moral decay . . . Japan and China have lost their traditional values and have become Westoxifated . . . but Iranian women resist the ugly temptations of liberalism.” Madrasa, a quarterly journal reflecting views of moderate religious intellectuals such as Mojtahed Shabestari and Abdol Karim Soroush, banned. It happens that just after glancing at one of Rubin’s dispatches the other morning, my sixth-grader drew my attention to his homework assignment. He was to read an article about Iran in Junior Scholastic magazine and answer questions about it. You surely recall Junior Scholastic from your own school days. It’s been around for 85 years and reaches about 25 million children. The Oct. 1, 2007, issue featured a cover story titled “Iran: The Other Side of the World?” The piece begins by introducing Mohammad Reza Moqaddam, a 15-year-old resident of Qom, who “speaks quietly and respectfully” and prays five times a day. “A lot of young people these days have distanced themselves from religion,” he relates. “I would like them to be much closer to it.” Mohammad pays close attention to the news though, and offers the view that “Even if Iran wants nuclear weapons, it’s none of the other countries’ business. Some of them have nuclear weapons themselves.” Okay, so when do we get to the part where it is explained that even if young Mohammad wants a neutral take on the news, he cannot get it in Iran where the press is rigidly controlled by the regime? Nowhere. Where does it explain that Iran is the world’s fourth-largest oil supplier and therefore scarcely in need of “peaceful nuclear power”? You won’t find that either. The article (written by Roxana Saberi, a reporter for National Public Radio) explains that Iran has been “at odds” with America since the revolution of 1979, which forced out the “U.S.-backed Shah” and brought to power a government “based on strict Islamic principles.” But she doesn’t mention that Ayatollah Khomeini and his mobs denounced the United States as the “great Satan” and chanted “Death to America.” The hostage crisis, in which armed militants, possibly including the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held 52 American diplomats for 444 days, goes unmentioned until a glancing reference at the end of the article under Iranian history. Omitting the nature of the revolution and vehement America hatred of its leaders, the article then instructs students that “the war in Iraq has further increased those tensions” because the U.S. commanders “claim” that Iran is supporting militias but the Iranian defense minister has labeled these accusations a “sheer lie.” There’s much more along these lines. “Some members of the Bush Administration want to take military action against Iran.” But nary a word on Ahmadinejad’s threat to annihilate Israel or to see a world “without the United States.” Nor is there any mention of the thousands of casualties of the revolution, the public stonings or the virtue police. We meet more Iranian youngsters who defend their regime: “The U.S. thinks we are dangerous. Why shouldn’t we think the U.S. is dangerous?” asks a pretty, scarf-clad 13-year-old. Tania “is devoted to her country. Her wish for her people is that they become wise and well-educated.” She “hopes to help” her nation someday “by becoming a lawyer.” We get the point. Only xenophobes would find this country hostile or frightening. The more we get together the happier we’ll be. I’m not urging that Junior Scholastic gird our kids for war with Iran. But this happy patter is insipid and unworthy of them. more

Resolved Question: French to english translation ? Oh pleeeeeeeeease !!!?

I tried with Babelfish and Altavista, but then a strange smoke of burnt stuff and smoke behind my screen ?????Three words in particular I find difficult : - "la" - "constitution" - "République"Does art.9 refer to hopping Sarkozy ? more

Resolved Question: Why are democrats really upset about the phrase "phony soldiers"?

Senator Reid and the 40 other democrats who are smearing Rush Limbaugh had no problem with William Arkin's calling the troops "mercenaries" Democrats also had no problem with John Kerry's attack on the troops, or Barak Obama's attack on the troops, or Dick Durbin's attack on the troops, or....... Obviously its not for attacking the troops but we do have these two of many examples. Two people familiar with the federal probe said Democrat Atlantic City Mayor Levy is under investigation on suspicion that he lied about his service for financial gain. According to one of the sources, Levy is suspected of lying about having received a Combat Infantryman's Badge, a medal given to soldiers who participate in active ground combat, and about having post-traumatic stress disorder. As a veteran, he was entitled to veteran's payments, but by embellishing his record, he could get more money, the sources said. The total financial benefit gained in this way would be less than $25,000, they said. His current salary is around $101,000, according to the acting mayor. The controversy bubbling around Levy erupted in November 2006, when the Atlantic City paper reported he had "knowingly misrepresented" his military record to family, friends, reporters and the public for years. The newspaper said it began examining Levy's record after a local veteran expressed doubts that Levy had been a Green Beret. The Press examined Levy's claims by contacting the National Archives and Records Administration's National Personnel Records Center, which reported Levy had never been involved with the Special Forces. In Harkin's case, the questions that have lingered longest concern his Navy record. Mr. Harkin did serve in the Navy during the Vietnam era, but exactly what he did, and for how long, remain a matter of some dispute. "After I got out of college," he says in his standard stump speech, "I spent eight years, eight months and eight days as a Navy pilot." His military record, though, shows he served five years on active duty, from Nov. 21, 1962, until Nov. 30, 1967. The senator arrives at the eight-year figure by adding on three years in the ready reserve. Mr. Harkin's military record, acquired by The Wall Street Journal through a Freedom of Information request, shows he remained active in the reserves, ready or not, until Oct. 1, 1989, retiring with the rank of commander. "I'm right," Mr. Harkin says. "I was a Navy flyer for eight years, eight months and eight days. I have a certificate to prove it." What he did while on active duty is even more confusing. In 1979, Mr. Harkin, then a congressman, participated in a round-table discussion arranged by the Congressional Vietnam Veterans' Caucus. "I spent five years as a Navy pilot, starting in November of 1962," Mr. Harkin said at that meeting, in words that were later quoted in a book, Changing of the Guard, by Washington Post political writer David Broder. "One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaissance support missions. I did no bombing." That clearly is not an accurate picture of his Navy service. Though Mr. Harkin stresses he is proud of his Navy record--"I put my ass on the line day after day"--he concedes now he never flew combat air patrols in Vietnam. He was stationed at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Atsugi, Japan. Damaged aircraft were flown into Atsugi for repairs or sometimes flown out of Atsugi to the PhilippinesJohn Kerry: And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the -- of -- the historical customs, religious customs. so Kerry is saying here Bush is terrorizing kids in the dead of night? How can anyone take you seriously when you continually cherry pick or lie and not answer the question. just admit they dont care one lick if Rush really did attack the troops and be done with it. more

Resolved Question: Are officials reponding to public opinion ? Vote of confidence or we need a change ? take a look :?

The American political system has failed. The fabled checks and balances of American politics were no match for a neoconservative administration with a secret agenda. The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard. US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians have radicalized Muslims throughout the world and swelled the ranks of insurgents. Despite the "surge" and an additional 30,000 US troops in Baghdad, the US is unable to protect its own embassy. On July 10, the fortified Green Zone, which contains the US and British embassies and the puppet Iraqi government, came under intense mortar and rocket attack. Within the protected Green Zone, 18 people were wounded and 3 were killed. The US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus said that the US is a decade away from victory in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus could have added another truth and acknowledged that the US military lacks sufficient fresh troops to remain in the conflict. Last year Colin Powell said the US Army is "about broken." The US military is exhausted by the insurgencies and will be driven out if not withdrawn. Gen. Petraeus assumed command in January. Six months later, Petraeus says "the question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the army." In the US Senate, Republican support for Bush’s wars is fading as senators face a hostile public that has had enough of Bush’s pointless and lost wars based on lies and deception. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq never had any valid reason. The US occupations of these countries have failed, and no purpose has been achieved except the enrichment of the military-security complex and the swelling of al-Qaeda’s ranks and credibility. One trillion dollars has been totally squandered. Moreover, Bush’s wars have had to be financed by borrowing abroad. The result has been a reduction in the dollar’s value and an erosion of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar has fallen to a new low against the Euro and has reached a 26-year low against the British pound. The latest comprehensive worldwide Pew poll reveals the complete collapse of America’s standing in the world. This is a huge price to pay for Bush’s childish ego, for the enrichment of Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton and merchants of death, and for Congress’ appeasement of AIPAC. Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and assaults on the US Constitution and American civil liberty, their plans to attack Iran, and the war crimes for which they are responsible provide an open and shut case for their impeachments. The latest polls show that 54% of Americans support impeachment of Vice President Cheney, with only 40% opposed. Bush hangs on by a hair with 45% favoring his impeachment and 46% opposed. But Democrats, like Republicans, have failed the electorate and refuse to do their duty. Congress is a creature of special interests and no longer represents the American people. Obviously, some new method is needed for removing incompetent or dictatorial presidents and vice presidents. Constitutional reform might be next to impossible, but before dismissing the possibility consider that according to British news reports, Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, intends a wide-ranging program of constitutional reform, including giving up the prime minister’s power to declare war. The London Telegraph says: "The measures are intended to restore trust in politics after the by-passing of Parliament and the Cabinet, as well as the culture of spin and media manipulation, that characterized the Blair decade." If America is to remain a democracy, the people need refurbished powers to hold "government of the people, by the people, for the people" accountable. One way of doing this would be a vote of confidence by the people. The question can be put to a national referendum: "Shall the President remain in office?" "Shall the Vice President remain in office?" The state of Florida does this for judges, including Florida’s Supreme Court, so there is precedent for allowing the people to decide whether officials may remain in office. As the American people can no longer rely on elected officials to respond to public opinion, the people must do what they can to gather power back into their hands before they become the subjects of tyrants. July 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail] wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal more

Resolved Question: A reform to restore the peoples power?? Elected officials are not responding to people opinion?

A Reform to Restore the People’s Power by Paul Craig Roberts by Paul Craig Roberts DIGG THIS The American political system has failed. The fabled checks and balances of American politics were no match for a neoconservative administration with a secret agenda. The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard. US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians have radicalized Muslims throughout the world and swelled the ranks of insurgents. Despite the "surge" and an additional 30,000 US troops in Baghdad, the US is unable to protect its own embassy. On July 10, the fortified Green Zone, which contains the US and British embassies and the puppet Iraqi government, came under intense mortar and rocket attack. Within the protected Green Zone, 18 people were wounded and 3 were killed. The US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus said that the US is a decade away from victory in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus could have added another truth and acknowledged that the US military lacks sufficient fresh troops to remain in the conflict. Last year Colin Powell said the US Army is "about broken." The US military is exhausted by the insurgencies and will be driven out if not withdrawn. Gen. Petraeus assumed command in January. Six months later, Petraeus says "the question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the army." In the US Senate, Republican support for Bush’s wars is fading as senators face a hostile public that has had enough of Bush’s pointless and lost wars based on lies and deception. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq never had any valid reason. The US occupations of these countries have failed, and no purpose has been achieved except the enrichment of the military-security complex and the swelling of al-Qaeda’s ranks and credibility. One trillion dollars has been totally squandered. Moreover, Bush’s wars have had to be financed by borrowing abroad. The result has been a reduction in the dollar’s value and an erosion of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar has fallen to a new low against the Euro and has reached a 26-year low against the British pound. The latest comprehensive worldwide Pew poll reveals the complete collapse of America’s standing in the world. This is a huge price to pay for Bush’s childish ego, for the enrichment of Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton and merchants of death, and for Congress’ appeasement of AIPAC. Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and assaults on the US Constitution and American civil liberty, their plans to attack Iran, and the war crimes for which they are responsible provide an open and shut case for their impeachments. The latest polls show that 54% of Americans support impeachment of Vice President Cheney, with only 40% opposed. Bush hangs on by a hair with 45% favoring his impeachment and 46% opposed. But Democrats, like Republicans, have failed the electorate and refuse to do their duty. Congress is a creature of special interests and no longer represents the American people. Obviously, some new method is needed for removing incompetent or dictatorial presidents and vice presidents. Constitutional reform might be next to impossible, but before dismissing the possibility consider that according to British news reports, Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, intends a wide-ranging program of constitutional reform, including giving up the prime minister’s power to declare war. The London Telegraph says: "The measures are intended to restore trust in politics after the by-passing of Parliament and the Cabinet, as well as the culture of spin and media manipulation, that characterized the Blair decade." If America is to remain a democracy, the people need refurbished powers to hold "government of the people, by the people, for the people" accountable. One way of doing this would be a vote of confidence by the people. The question can be put to a national referendum: "Shall the President remain in office?" "Shall the Vice President remain in office?" The state of Florida does this for judges, including Florida’s Supreme Court, so there is precedent for allowing the people to decide whether officials may remain in office. As the American people can no longer rely on elected officials to respond to public opinion, the people must do what they can to gather power back into their hands before they become the subjects of tyrants. July 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail] wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal more

Resolved Question: vicky help ????//??

alleged benefit.” The choice to permit death is a controversial issue in our society. Those against the permission of death believe euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life. Euthanasia should be legalized Of the controversial discussions involving euthanasia, the question of legalization is an often argued one. Whether euthanasia ought to be illegal is different from the question of whether it is immoral. A poll conducted by CBS News claims that a majority of Americans favor assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is someone who provides an individual with the information, guidance, and means to take his or her life with the intention that they will be used for this purpose. However previous polls show the nation is as least split on the issue or opposed to the grisly practice. And what may matter most, actual ballot votes on the subject, have Americans strongly opposed. This particular poll questioned about 1300 Americans on if they thought "a doctor be allowed to assist the person in taking their own life" that "has a disease that will ultimately destroy their mind or body and they want to take their own life." Some 56% said yes, where 37% said no. voters in Oregon twice approved allowing assisted suicide there; other states have shown that assisted suicide is not popular. In 1997, Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act, making it the only state to permit physician assisted suicide. One of the most important public policy debates today surrounds the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The outcome of that debate will profoundly affect family relationships, interaction between doctors and patients, and concepts of basic ethical behavior. Around the world, euthanasia is only legal is some areas. In The Netherlands, euthanasia and assisted suicide had been legalized on April 10th, 2001. The Dutch Parliament approved the “Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act.” The offenses of euthanasia and assisted suicide are not punishable if they have been “committed by a physician who has met the requirements of due care. With the passage of the “Rights of the Terminally Ill Act,” in 1995, Australia became the only jurisdiction in the world with both legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. This law went into effect in July of 2006. It was repealed in 1997. The Australia Medical Association opposed the Northern Territorial legislation while it continues to oppose both euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Belgian Act legalized euthanasia on May 28th, 2002 and went into effect in September of that year. It limits euthanasia to competent adults and emancipated minors. However, two years later, lawmakers introduced a proposal to extend euthanasia to children and individuals suffering from dementia, a disease in the brain. Euthanasia and assisted suicide advocates in the United States will continue to push their agenda throughout the world to make death-on-demand accepted and legal. As of early 2005, no other countries have legalized either euthanasia or assisted suicide. One well-known man best associated with this issue is, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known as, "Dr. Death." He is famous for his quotation, “death is not a crime.” He is a controversial American pathologist. He is most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient’s “right to die” and claims to have assisted over 130 patients to that end. In 1989, Kevorkian invented the Thanatron, which translates from Greek to English as the "Death Machine. The Thanatron was Kevorkian's tool that he used in many physician-assisted suicides. Physician assisted suicide is when it is a doctor who helps another person to kill themselves. The machine operated through the use of intravenous drip to administer various doses of fluids to facilitate the death of a patient. Typically, the first dose, which is administered by the patient, was a drug called thiopental. This drug acts as a sleeping agent that sends the patient's body into a comatose state. He was imprisoned in 1999, serving ten to twenty-five year prison sentence for second degree murder in the 1988 poisoning of Thomas Youlk. He has just recently been released from prison on June 1, 2007 yet isn’t expected to live very long due to his case of hepatitis C. Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo was a woman who suffered brain damage and became dependant on a feeding tube. She had collapsed in her home on February 25th, 1990 being only twenty six years old and experienced respiratory and cardiac arrest, leading to 15 years of institutionalization and a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state (PVS). Terri’s husband, Michael requested and received from Judge George Greer in Clearwater, Florida- the right to dehydrate Terri to death by removing her feeding tube. Terri’s parents have fought for their daughter’s life, but after five years, the courts turned their backs. Despite testimony by credible medical experts that Terri might still be able to relearn to eat by mouth, Judge Greer refused to even allow her that opportunity. Terri’s feeding tube was removed on October 15th, 2003. People who believe that euthanasia should most definitely be illegal are less facts to back up their opinions. Administration of a lethal injection would provide a quick and painless death, whereas letting die maybe neither quick nor painless. Patients are under the illusion that natural death is in general, a painless, dignified slipping away However, it can take a long and unpredictable course. To put things quite clearly, a person who has a deadly illness and seems to be suffering greatly from this illness definitely has the right to end his life. The person's immediate family should have the right to decide to pull the plug and end their family member's life if they believe that this action will be in the best interest of their family member. The government and the courts have no right in deciding who has the right to die or not in the issue of assisted suicide in people with great amount of pain. A suffering person should not have to suffer if he does not want to. Works Cited "Assisted Suicide & Death with Dignity: Past, Present & Future." 16 May 2007 <http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/rpt2005_3.htm#235>. Ertelt, Steven. "Poll Claims Americans Back Assisted Suicide, Votes and Others Say No." Life News. 2 Feb. 2006. 3 June 2007 <http://www.lifenews.com/bio1304.html>. "Euthanasia Defintions." 15 May 2007 <http://www.euthanasia.com/definitions.html>. "Jack Kevorkian." Wikipedia. 12 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian>. Moody, Janis, and Janis Moddy. "Euthanasia: a Need for Reform." (2003): 40-45. "Quotations on Euthanasia." 15 May 2007 <http://www.euthanasia.com/quotationsoneuthanasia.html>. Rudden, Lawrence. "Death and the Law." World Journal (2003): 255-267. Smith, Wesley J. "Saving Terri Schiavo." The Daily Standard (2003). 15 May 2007 <http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/276fpkqk.asp>. more

Resolved Question: Did anyone see this article about Gardasil?

(Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing 1,637 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. Three deaths were related to the vaccine. One physician’s assistant reported that a female patient “died of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gardasil vaccine.” Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting. As of May 11, 2007, the 1,637 adverse vaccination reactions reported to the FDA via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) included 371 serious reactions. Of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to fetal abnormities. Side effects published by Merck & Co. warn the public about potential pain, fever, nausea, dizziness and itching after receiving the vaccine. Indeed, 77% of the adverse reactions reported are typical side effects to vaccinations. But other more serious side effects reported include paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures. “The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Any state or local government now beset by Merck’s lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine for young girls ought to take a look at these adverse health reports. It looks as if an unproven vaccine with dangerous side effects is being pushed as a miracle drug.” Judicial Watch filed its request on May 9, 2007, and received the adverse event reports from the FDA on May 15, 2007. Judicial Watch has posted the adverse event reports below. (A recent study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also questioned the general effectiveness of Gardasil.) http://judicialwatch.org/6299.shtmlThey only tested this vaccine on, what, 2000 girls under the age of 16 (which is who it is aimed at)? They didn't do enough testing in the first place. I dont have to look up the numbers to know that they spent more on promoting the vaccine, than testing its safety and effectivness. We don't even know if it will work... who's to say that another strain of HPV won't take over and start causing cancer? (i could argue the same about prevnar... but that is another topic, entirely) Cervical cancer is very treatable and has a high survival rate... why risk the unknown with this vaccine? And i don't see why the conservatives would, specifically, have a problem with this? Every child receives a Hep B vax at birth... wouldnt that be more of a concern? more

Resolved Question: Rumsfield - Gone but Not Forgotten? Was the U.S. the real al Quaeda?

AP May 5, 2007 Hours after 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld allegedly said, 'My interest is to hit Saddam' According to NBC's chief Pentagon correspondent, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that his "interest is to hit Saddam Hussein" just hours after the attacks on September 11, 2001, "even though all indications pointed at al-Qaida as the guilty party," a Rhode Island newspaper NBC's Jim Miklaszewski "advanced a theme garnering attention since former CIA director George J. Tenet made his public revelations last week," writes Tom Mooney for the Providence Journal. "Some things are right on the mark, when he says the Bush administration appeared predisposed to attack Iraq," Miklaszewski says of Tenet's book .Miklaszewski said, then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld vowing to avenge the terrorist attacks by voicing frustration that attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983 and the attack on the Cole, in 2000, had gone unavenged."Reading from his notes, Miklaszewski quoted Rumsfeld as saying five hours after the terrorist attacks: 'My interest is to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time we go after al-Qaida."Reading from his notes, Miklaszewski quoted Rumsfeld as saying five hours after the terrorist attacks: 'My interest is to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time we go after al-Qaida.Said Miklaszewski: "So there is no question that Tenet got the time wrong [with meeting Perle in the White House] but there is no question in my mind, and with subsequent conversations I had with officials in the Pentagon, that the Bush administration had their sights set on attacking Saddam Hussein and Iraq long before there was even an effort to gather any evidence ... that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attack. And all the evidence says quite the opposite." more

Resolved Question: What is the ultimate absurdity of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories? To believe it you have to believe...?

-The Bush Administration, who failed at everything they ever did. Yet all of them and the people below are helping him cover up the largest mass murder in US history... Some of them like Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neil have come out for less. -The NYC Fire fighters who know more about building collapses than most, if not all, of them. It's their LIFE to know. Literally! Yet they don't call for an investigation into the MASS MURDER of over 300 of their brothers... Why? (The twisting of these peoples’ statements for donations and DVD sales sickens me.) We have uncovered the myth about a gag order imposed on all fire fighters. Only 9/11 conspiracy sites say this. ONE person who sued Bush for not taking action before the event is ordered by the court not to speak to the media about the case. This is not imposing a gag order on the whole fire department as some of these sites claim. They are lying to cover up this mass murder by the government or the building owner. Why? They don't even know... Conspiracy theorists bring up an article in Fire House magazine which says the fire department wanted to stop the steel from being sold in order to test the fire proofing and other non-bomb/controlled demolition related investigations. They twist the article’s context to make it seem like the firefighters questioned the idea that fire brought down the towers. http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section= OnlineArticles&SubSe%20ction=Display&PUBLICATION_ID= 25&ARTICLE_ID=131225 http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles& SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=25&ARTICLE_ID=130026 Many of these men and women come from the military, yet we are to believe they are so afraid they rather die in the government’s next mass murder than come out and expose this. -The courts for imposing a gag order [SEE above] -The NYC Police department who lost over 20 lives. They didn't ask for an investigation. Motive? None... -The NYC port Authority who lost personnel. Motive? -All the people in the Pentagon who have not called for an investigation. Many who are liberal and centrist. They did or said nothing while people supposedly trucked in airplane parts to cover the crime. Why? Again, no answer... -The more than 1,600 widows and widowers of 9/11 who would rather have investigations of the decisions which led to the terrorist getting away with this. They don't want to waste time investigating the mass murder of their loved ones. Even the Jersey Girls. Why? They say it's the money... [note: Whenever killing someone, pay off the relative. They won’t say anything.] -The media (This one I almost believe) who doesn't follow up on the biggest mass murder and conspiracy in American history. It seems no one wants a Nobel prize for journalism. Not only the American media but foreign press like the BBC and Al Jazeera. Why? No answer here either... -The photographers from around the world who took pictures of the towers which clearly show bowing of the perimeter columns. These photos support the NIST hypothesis that the sagging trusses lead to the collapse. Some photos also show the core intact shortly after collapse which also not only support the NIST hypothesis but discredits the "Controlled demolition" account. -Popular Mechanics who debunked these sites are also helping Bush commit the biggest mass murder in history. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html -PBS Nova since they created a documentary explaining in detail how and why the buildings fell. None of it said bomb. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/ -Everyone in the NIST who covers up the largest mass murder in US history. This independent organization doesn't have a moral person in hundreds of employees because not one has come out exposing this so called "Conspiracy". In fact, the hundreds of scientist who signed onto the report are willing to not only lie for Bush but cover up the largest mass murder in American history. Some suggest only a handful can do the job but that's simply impossible. The team in charge of the computer modeling has to be in sync with the team of structural engineers and so on. There are hundreds involved in this investigation and every team has to work with other teams using the same evidence and specifications. -NY Governor Pataki because he sold steel from the WTC for the construction of the USS New York. If the argument is the government sold the steel in order to cover up the crime then Pataki is one of the criminals. -The NY city scrap yards because they also sold steel to China before all of it was tested. Bush would have needed to call them up and tell them to sell it before they could have investigated every beam. A task which would have taken years and years not to mention millions more. Ironically the republican Mayor Bloomberg could not be involved since he asked the scrap yards not to sell the steel on behalf of the firefighters. -EVERY STRUCTURAL ENGINEER IN THE WORLD who doesn't write a paper for a mainstream peer reviewed journal saying the towers were brought down and could not have fallen due to fire. If laymen can prove things just by looking at videos and reading interviews out of context, then all those structural engineers MUST be working for Bush right? Even the ones in other countries. Why? The answer they give is that the engineers don't know about Jones’ work. So in all this time no one has e-mailed Jones' work to any structural engineer? -The liberals who don't believe the towers were brought down. (Like me) They're helping a neo-con cover-up the largest mass murder in this nation’s history. Why? No clue... -The CIA -The FBI -FEMA -The American Society of Civil Engineers who have produced peer reviewed papers showing how what Conspiracy Theorists say is impossible is possible. -NORAD -The FAA who saw planes which conspiracy theorists never existed. -The Silverstein Group who they say got together with Bush to blow up the building for insurance money. -Silverstein's Insurance Company who didn't question the collapse and paid out over 2 billion to Silverstein. Why? Conspiracy Theorists say the insurance company just wants to pass on the bill to the public but they already fought Silverstein in a number of law suits concerning the amount. -American Airlines (Pentagon) -United Airlines (Pentagon) -Logan, Newark and Dulles Airport for losing the planes -Scientists and engineers who developed the remote control plane technology -Installers of the remote control devices in the planes (Pentagon) -Remote controllers of the planes (Pentagon) -Scientists and engineers who developed the new demolition technology and carried out practical tests and computer models to make sure it would work. -Installers of the demolitions devices in the three buildings -People who worked at the company(s) the installers used as cover -Airphone etc employees who said they got calls from passengers (Pentagon) -Faux friends and relatives of the faux passengers or just the faux relatives who claim to have been called by their loved ones or just the psyops who fooled relatives into thinking they really were their loved ones. (Pentagon) -People who detonated the buildings" -anyone who thinks the conspiracy is a diversion to take liberal activist focus off of real crimes. Even conspiracies with a few people are doomed. Look at Enron and Watergate. The more people you involve, the more likely the conspiracy will fall apart. The amount of people needed for this conspiracy could fill one of the towers. It's absurd to think this many people could keep a mass murder for Bush secret for this long. Absurd...Source: http://www.debunking911.comCjvach: You post appears to more of an advertisement for the "9/11 Truth" movement than an honest effort to get at the truth. Citing "conspiracy theory" sites as sources is not only inadequate, it is positively laughable. And in doing so, you, like most "believers" use inuendo, implication and disclaimers to support your "conspiracy". If you want to have an honest debate, great. But an honest debate is based on fact, supported by credible sources. more

Resolved Question: what is THE STATUS OF WOMAN IN ISLAM ?

THE STATUS OF WOMAN IN ISLAM By Jamal A. Badawi CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Women in Ancient Civilization WOMEN IN ISLAM 1. The Spiritual Aspect 2. The Social Aspect (a) As a Child and Adolescent (b) As a Wife (c) As a Mother 3. The Economic Aspect 4. The political Aspect CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PREFACE Family, society and ultimately the whole of mankind is treated by Islam on an ethical basis. Differentiation in sex is neither a credit nor a drawback for the sexes. Therefore, when we talk about status of woman in Islam it should not lead us to think that Islam has no specific guidelines, limitations, responsibilities and obligations for men. What makes one valuable and respectable in the eyes of Allah, the Creator of mankind and the universe, is neither one's prosperity, position, intelligence, physical strength nor beauty, but only one's Allah-consciousness and awareness (taqwa). However, since in the Western culture and in cultures influenced by it, there exists a disparity between men and women there is more need for stating Islam's position on important issues in a clear way. Dr. Jamal Badawi's essay, The Status of Women in Islam, was originally published in our quarterly journal, Al-lttihad, Vol. 8, No. 2, Sha'ban 1391/Sept 1971. Since then it has been one of our most-demanded publications. We thank Br. Jamal for permitting us to reprint his essay. We hope it will clarify many of the misconceptions. Anis Ahmad, Director Dept. of Education and Training MSA of U.S. and Canada P.O. Box 38 Plainfield, IN 46168 USA Jumada al Thani 1400 April 1980 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION The status of women in society is neither a new issue nor is it a fully settled one. The position of Islam on this issue has been among the subjects presented to the Western reader with the least objectivity. This paper is intended to provide a brief and authentic exposition of what Islam stands for in this regard. The teachings of Islam are based essentially on the Qur'an (God's revelation) and Hadeeth (elaboration by Prophet Muhammad). The Qur'an and the Hadeeth, properly and unbiasedly understood, provide the basic source of authentication for any position or view which is attributed to Islam. The paper starts with a brief survey of the status of women in the pre-Islamic era. It then focuses on these major questions: What is the position of Islam regarding the status of woman in society? How similar or different is that position from "the spirit of the time," which was dominant when Islam was revealed? How would this compare with the "rights" which were finally gained by woman in recent decades? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES One major objective of this paper is to provide a fair evaluation of what Islam contributed (or failed to contribute) toward the restoration of woman's dignity and rights. In order to achieve this objective, it may be useful to review briefly how women were treated in general in previous civilizations and religions, especially those which preceded Islam (Pre-610 C.E.). Part of the information provided here, however, describes the status of woman as late as the nineteenth century, more than twelve centuries after Islam. Women in Ancient Civilization Describing the status of the Indian woman, Encyclopedia Britannica states: In India, subjection was a cardinal principle. Day and night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependence says Manu. The rule of inheritance was agnatic, that is descent traced through males to the exclusion of females. In Hindu scriptures, the description of a good wife is as follows: "a woman whose mind, speech and body are kept in subjection, acquires high renown in this world, and, in the next, the same abode with her husband." In Athens, women were not better off than either the Indian or the Roman women. "Athenian women were always minors, subject to some male - to their father, to their brother, or to some of their male kin. Her consent in marriage was not generally thought to be necessary and "she was obliged to submit to the wishes of her parents, and receive from them her husband and her lord, even though he were stranger to her." A Roman wife was described by an historian as: "a babe, a minor, a ward, a person incapable of doing or acting anything according to her own individual taste, a person continually under the tutelage and guardianship of her husband." In the Encyclopedia Britannica, we find a summary of the legal status of women in the Roman civilization: In Roman Law a woman was even in historic times completely dependent. If married she and her property passed into the power of her husband . . . the wife was the purchased property of her husband, and like a slave acquired only for his benefit. A woman could not exercise any civil or public office . could not be a witness, surety, tutor, or curator; she could not adopt or be adopted, or make will or contract. Among the Scandinavian races women were: under perpetual tutelage, whether married or unmarried. As late as the Code of Christian V, at the end of the 17th Century, it was enacted that if a woman married without the consent of her tutor he might have, if he wished, administration and usufruct of her goods during her life. According to the English Common Law: ...all real property which a wife held at the time of a marriage became a possession of her husband. He was entitled to the rent from the land and to any profit which might be made from operating the estate during the joint life of the spouses. As time passed, the English courts devised means to forbid a husband's transferring real property without the consent of his wife, but he still retained the right to manage it and to receive the money which it produced. As to a wife's personal property, the husband's power was complete. He had the right to spend it as he saw fit. Only by the late nineteenth Century did the situation start to improve. "By a series of acts starting with the Married women's Property Act in 1870, amended in 1882 and 1887, married women achieved the right to own property and to enter contracts on a par with spinsters, widows, and divorcees." As late as the Nineteenth Century an authority in ancient law, Sir Henry Maine, wrote: "No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the Middle Roman Law." In his essay The Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill wrote: We are continually told that civilization and Christianity have restored to the woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actual bondservant of her husband; no less so, as far as the legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so called. Before moving on to the Qur'anic decrees concerning the status of woman, a few Biblical decrees may shed more light on the subject, thus providing a better basis for an impartial evaluation. In the Mosaic Law, the wife was betrothed. Explaining this concept, the Encyclopedia Biblica states: "To betroth a wife to oneself meant simply to acquire possession of her by payment of the purchase money; the betrothed is a girl for whom the purchase money has been paid." From the legal point of view, the consent of the girl was not necessary for the validation of her marriage. "The girl's consent is unnecessary and the need for it is nowhere suggested in the Law." As to the right of divorce, we read in the Encyclopedia Biblica: "The woman being man's property, his right to divorce her follows as a matter of course." The right to divorce was held only by man. "In the Mosaic Law divorce was a privilege of the husband only .... " The position of the Christian Church until recent centuries seems to have been influenced by both the Mosaic Law and by the streams of thought that were dominant in its contemporary cultures. In their book, Marriage East and West, David and Vera Mace wrote: Let no one suppose, either, that our Christian heritage is free of such slighting judgments. It would be hard to find anywhere a collection of more degrading references to the female sex than the early Church Fathers provide. Lecky, the famous historian, speaks of (these fierce incentives which form so conspicuous and so grotesque a portion of the writing of the Fathers . . . woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance on account of the curses she has brought upon the world. She should be ashamed of her dress, for it is the memorial of her fall. She should be especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the devil). One of the most scathing of these attacks on woman is that of Tertullian: Do you know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserters of the divine law; you are she who persuades him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert - that is death - even the Sop of God had to die). Not only did the church affirm the inferior status of woman, it deprived her of legal rights she had previously enjoyed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. WOMAN IN ISLAM In the midst of the darkness that engulfed the world, the divine revelation echoed in the wide desert of Arabia with a fresh, noble, and universal message to humanity: "O Mankind, keep your duty to your Lord who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate (of same kind) and from them twain has spread a multitude of men and women" (Qur'an 4: 1). A scholar who pondered about this verse states: "It is believed that there is no text, old or new, that deals with the humanity of the woman from all aspects with such amazing brevity, eloquence, depth, and originality as this divine decree." Stressing this noble and natural conception, them Qur'an states: He (God) it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did create his mate, that he might dwell with her (in love)...(Qur'an 7:189) The Creator of heavens and earth: He has made for you pairs from among yourselves ...Qur'an 42:1 1 And Allah has given you mates of your own nature, and has given you from your mates, children and grandchildren, and has made provision of good things for you. Is it then in vanity that they believe and in the grace of God that they disbelieve? Qur'an 16:72 The rest of this paper outlines the position of Islam regarding the status of woman in society from its various aspects - spiritually, socially, economically and politically. 1. The Spiritual Aspect The Qur'an provides clear-cut evidence that woman iscompletely equated with man in the sight of God interms of her rights and responsibilities. The Qur'an states: "Every soul will be (held) in pledge for its deeds" (Qur'an 74:38). It also states: ...So their Lord accepted their prayers, (saying): I will not suffer to be lost the work of any of you whether male or female. You proceed one from another ...(Qur'an 3: 195). Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has faith, verily to him will We give a new life that is good and pure, and We will bestow on such their reward according to the their actions. (Qur'an 16:97, see also 4:124). Woman according to the Qur'an is not blamed for Adam's first mistake. Both were jointly wrong in their disobedience to God, both repented, and both were forgiven. (Qur'an 2:36, 7:20 - 24). In one verse in fact (20:121), Adam specifically, was blamed. In terms of religious obligations, such as the Daily Prayers, Fasting, Poor-due, and Pilgrimage, woman is no different from man. In some cases indeed, woman has certain advantages over man. For example, the woman is exempted from the daily prayers and from fasting during her menstrual periods and forty days after childbirth. She is also exempted from fasting during her pregnancy and when she is nursing her baby if there is any threat to her health or her baby's. If the missed fasting is obligatory (during the month of Ramadan), she can make up for the missed days whenever she can. She does not have to make up for the prayers missed for any of the above reasons. Although women can and did go into the mosque during the days of the prophet and thereafter attendance et the Friday congregational prayers is optional for them while it is mandatory for men (on Friday). This is clearly a tender touch of the Islamic teachings for they are considerate of the fact that a woman may be nursing her baby or caring for him, and thus may be unable to go out to the mosque at the time of the prayers. They also take into account the physiological and psychological changes associated with her natural female functions. 2. The Social Aspect a) As a child and an adolescent Despite the social acceptance of female infanticide among some Arabian tribes, the Qur'an forbade this custom, and considered it a crime like any other murder. "And when the female (infant) buried alive - is questioned, for what crime she was killed." (Qur'an 81:8-9). Criticizing the attitudes of such parents who reject their female children, the Qur'an states: When news is brought to one of them, of (the Birth of) a female (child), his face darkens and he is filled with inward grief! With shame does he hide himself from his people because of the bad news he has had! Shall he retain her on (sufferance) and contempt, or bury her in the dust? Ah! What an evil (choice) they decide on? (Qur'an 16: 58-59). Far from saving the girl's life so that she may later suffer injustice and inequality, Islam requires kind and just treatment for her. Among the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (P.) in this regard are the following: Whosoever has a daughter and he does not bury her alive, does not insult her, and does not favor his son over her, God will enter him into Paradise. (Ibn Hanbal, No. 1957). Whosoever supports two daughters till they mature, he and I will come in the day of judgment as this (and he pointed with his two fingers held together). A similar Hadeeth deals in like manner with one who supports two sisters. (Ibn-Hanbal, No. 2104). The right of females to seek knowledge is not different from that of males. Prophet Muhammad (P.) said: "Seeking knowledge is mandatory for every Muslim". (AlBayhaqi). Muslim as used here including both males and females. b) As a wife: The Qur'an clearly indicates that marriage is sharing between the two halves of the society, and that its objectives, beside perpetuating human life, are emotional well-being and spiritual harmony. Its bases are love and mercy. Among the most impressive verses in the Qur'an about marriage is the following. "And among His signs is this: That He created mates for you from yourselves that you may find rest, peace of mind in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy. Lo, herein indeed are signs for people who reflect." (Qur'an 30:2 1). According to Islamic Law, women cannot be forced to marry anyone without their consent. Ibn Abbas reported that a girl came to the Messenger of God, Muhammad (P.), and she reported that her father had forced her to marry without her consent. The Messenger of God gave her the choice . . . (between accepting the marriage or invalidating it). (Ibn Hanbal No. 2469). In another version, the girl said: "Actually I accept this marriage but I wanted to let women know that parents have no right (to force a husband on them)" (Ibn Maja, No. 1873). Besides all other provisions for her protection at the time of marriage, it was specifically decreed that woman has the full right to her Mahr, a marriage gift, which is presented to her by her husband and is included in the nuptial contract, and that such ownership does not transfer to her father or husband. The concept of Mahr in Islam is neither an actual or symbolic price for the woman, as was the case in certain cultures, but rather it is a gift symbolizing love and affection. The rules for married life in Islam are clear and in harmony with upright human nature. In consideration of the physiological and psychological make-up of man and woman, both have equal rights and claims on one another, except for one responsibility, that of leadership. This is a matter which is natural in any collective life and which is consistent with the nature of man. The Qur'an thus states: "And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them, and men are a degree above them." (Qur'an 2:228). Such degree is Quiwama (maintenance and protection). This refers to that natural difference between the sexes which entitles the weaker sex to protection. It implies no superiority or advantage before the law. Yet, man's role of leadership in relation to his family does not mean the husband's dictatorship over his wife. Islam emphasizes the importance of taking counsel and mutual agreement in family decisions. The Qur'an gives us an example: "...If they (husband wife) desire to wean the child by mutual consent and (after) consultation, there is no blame on them..." (Qur'an 2: 233). Over and above her basic rights as a wife comes the right which is emphasized by the Qur'an and is strongly recommended by the Prophet (P); kind treatment and companionship. The Qur'an states: "...But consort with them in kindness, for if you hate them it may happen that you hate a thing wherein God has placed much good." (Qur'an 4: l9). Prophet Muhammad. (P) said: The best of you is the best to his family and I am the best among you to my family. The most perfect believers are the best in conduct and best of you are those who are best to their wives. (Ibn-Hanbal, No. 7396) Behold, many women came to Muhammad's wives complaining against their husbands (because they beat them) - - those (husbands) are not the best of you. As the woman's right to decide about her marriage is recognized, so also her right to seek an end for an unsuccessful marriage is recognized. To provide for the stability of the family, however, and in order to protect it from hasty decisions under temporary emotional stress, certain steps and waiting periods should be observed by men and women seeking divorce. Considering the relatively more emotional nature of women, a good reason for asking for divorce should be brought before the judge. Like the man, however, the woman can divorce her husband with out resorting to the court, if the nuptial contract allows that. More specifically, some aspects of Islamic Law concerning marriage and divorce are interesting and are worthy of separate treatment. When the continuation of the marriage relationship is impossible for any reason, men are still taught to seek a gracious end for it. The Qur'an states about such cases: When you divorce women, and they reach their prescribed term, then retain them in kindness and retain them not for injury so that you transgress (the limits). (Qur'an 2:231). (See also Qur'an 2:229 and 33:49). c) As a mother: Islam considered kindness to parents next to the worship of God. "And we have enjoined upon man (to be good) to his parents: His mother bears him in weakness upon weakness..." (Qur'an 31:14) (See also Qur'an 46:15, 29:8). Moreover, the Qur'an has a special recommendation for the good treatment of mothers: "Your Lord has decreed that you worship none save Him, and that you be kind to your parents. . ." (Qur'an 17:23). A man came to Prophet Muhammad (P) asking: O Messenger of God, who among the people is the most worthy of my good company? The Prophet (P) said, Your mother. The man said then who else: The Prophet (P) said, Your mother. The man asked, Then who else? Only then did the Prophet (P) say, Your father. (Al-Bukhari and Muslim). A famous saying of The Prophet is "Paradise is at the feet of mothers." (In Al'Nisa'I, Ibn Majah, Ahmad). "It is the generous (in character) who is good to women, and it is the wicked who insults them." 3. The Economic Aspect Islam decreed a right of which woman was deprived both before Islam and after it (even as late as this century), the right of independent ownership. According to Islamic Law, woman's right to her money, real estate, or other properties is fully acknowledged. This right undergoes no change whether she is single or married. She retains her full rights to buy, sell, mortgage or lease any or all her properties. It is nowhere suggested in the Law that a woman is a minor simply because she is a female. It is also noteworthy that such right applies to her properties before marriage as well as to whatever she acquires thereafter. With regard to the woman's right to seek employment it should be stated first that Islam regards her role in society as a mother and a wife as the most sacred and essential one. Neither maids nor baby-sitters can possibly take the mother's place as the educator of an upright, complex free, and carefully-reared children. Such a noble and vital role, which largely shapes the future of nations, cannot be regarded as "idleness". However, there is no decree in Islam which forbids woman from seeking employment whenever there is a necessity for it, especially in positions which fit her nature and in which society needs her most. Examples of these professions are nursing, teaching (especially for children), and medicine. Moreover, there is no restriction on benefiting from woman's exceptional talent in any field. Even for the position of a judge, where there may be a tendency to doubt the woman's fitness for the post due to her more emotional nature, we find early Muslim scholars such as Abu-Hanifa and Al-Tabary holding there is nothing wrong with it. In addition, Islam restored to woman the right of inheritance, after she herself was an object of inheritance in some cultures. Her share is completely hers and no one can make any claim on it, including her father and her husband. "Unto men (of the family) belongs a share of that which Parents and near kindred leave, and unto women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be a little or much - a determinate share." ((Qur'an 4:7). Her share in most cases is one-half the man's share, with no implication that she is worth half a man! It would seem grossly inconsistent after the overwhelming evidence of woman's equitable treatment in Islam, which was discussed in the preceding pages, to make such an inference. This variation in inheritance rights is only consistent with the variations in financial responsibilities of man and woman according to the Islamic Law. Man in Islam is fully responsible for the maintenance of his wife, his children, and in some cases of his needy relatives, especially the females. This responsibility is neither waived nor reduced because of his wife's wealth or because of her access to any personal income gained from work, rent, profit, or any other legal means. Woman, on the other hand, is far more secure financially and is far less burdened with any claims on her possessions. Her possessions before marriage do not transfer to her husband and she even keeps her maiden name. She has no obligation to spend on her family out of such properties or out of her income after marriage. She is entitled to the "Mahr" which she takes from her husband at the time of marriage. If she is divorced, she may get an alimony from her ex-husband. An examination of the inheritance law within the overall framework of the Islamic Law reveals not only justice but also an abundance of compassion for woman. 4. The Political Aspect Any fair investigation of the teachings of Islam o~ into the history of the Islamic civilization will surely find a clear evidence of woman's equality with man in what we call today "political rights". This includes the right of election as well as the nomination to political offices. It also includes woman's right to participate in public affairs. Both in the Qur'an and in Islamic history we find examples of women who participated in serious discussions and argued even with the Prophet (P) himself, (see Qur'an 58: 14 and 60: 10-12). During the Caliphate of Omar Ibn al-Khattab, a woman argued with him in the mosque, proved her point, and caused him to declare in the presence of people: "A woman is right and Omar is wrong." Although not mentioned in the Qur'an, one Hadeeth of the Prophet is interpreted to make woman ineligible for the position of head of state. The Hadeeth referred to is roughly translated: "A people will not prosper if they let a woman be their leader." This limitation, however, has nothing to do with the dignity of woman or with her rights. It is rather, related to the natural differences in the biological and psychological make-up of men and women. According to Islam, the head of the state is no mere figurehead. He leads people in the prayers, especially on Fridays and festivities; he is continuously engaged in the process of decision-making pertaining to the security and well-being of his people. This demanding position, or any similar one, such as the Commander of the Army, is generally inconsistent with the physiological and psychological make-up of woman in general. It is a medical fact that during their monthly periods and during their pregnancies, women undergo various physiological and psychological changes. Such changes may occur during an emergency situation, thus affecting her decision, without considering the excessive strain which is produced. Moreover, some decisions require a maximum of rationality and a minimum of emotionality - a requirement which does not coincide with the instinctive nature of women. Even in modern times, and in the most developed countries, it is rare to find a woman in the position of a head of state acting as more than a figurehead, a woman commander of the armed services, or even a proportionate number of women representatives in parliaments, or similar bodies. One can not possibly ascribe this to backwardness of various nations or to any constitutional limitation on woman's right to be in such a position as a head of state or as a member of the parliament. It is more logical to explain the present situation in terms of the natural and indisputable differences between man and woman, a difference which does not imply any "supremacy" of one over the other. The difference implies rather the "complementary" roles of both the sexes in life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. CONCLUSION The first part of this paper deals briefly with the position of various religions and cultures on the issue under investigation. Part of this exposition extends to cover the general trend as late as the nineteenth century, nearly 1300 years after the Qur'an set forth the Islamic teachings. In the second part of the paper, the status of women in Islam is briefly discussed. Emphasis in this part is placed on the original and authentic sources of Islam. This represents the standard according to which degree of adherence of Muslims can be judged. It is also a fact that during the downward cycle of Islamic Civilization, such teachings were not strictly adhered to by many people who profess to be Muslims. Such deviations were unfairly exaggerated by some writers, and the worst of this, were superficially taken to represent the teachings of "Islam" to the Western reader without taking the trouble to make any original and unbiased study of the authentic sources of these teachings. Even with such deviations three facts are worth mentioning: 1. The history of Muslims is rich with women of great achievements in all walks of life from as early as the seventh century (B.C.) 2. It is impossible for anyone to justify any mistreatment of woman by any decree of rule embodied in the Islamic Law, nor could anyone dare to cancel, reduce, or distort the clear-cut legal rights of women given in Islamic Law. 3. Throughout history, the reputation, chastity and maternal role of Muslim women were objects of admiration by impartial observers. It is also worthwhile to state that the status which women reached during the present era was not achieved due to the kindness of men or due to natural progress. It was rather achieved through a long struggle and sacrifice on woman's part and only when society needed her contribution and work, more especial!; during the two world wars, and due to the escalation of technological change. In the case of Islam such compassionate and dignified status was decreed, not because it reflects the environment of the seventh century, nor under the threat or pressure of women and their organizations, but rather because of its intrinsic truthfulness. If this indicates anything, it would demonstrate the divine origin of the Qur'an and the truthfulness of the message of Islam, which, unlike human philosophies and ideologies, was far from proceeding from its human environment, a message which established such humane principles as neither grew obsolete during the course of time and after these many centuries, nor can become obsolete in the future. After all, this is the message of the All-Wise and all-knowing God whose wisdom and knowledge are far beyond the ultimate in human thought and progress. more

Resolved Question: Where can I find articals relating to politicization of public administration from a professional journal?

I have to review an article for my PUA class, and I need to review an article relating to politicization. From my understanding I just need an article where a policy decision was made by non political figures. I hope that is not too confusing. The article could talk about how a committee was formed by experts and non experts in order to implement a policy. All I need is a website to search on, that would be really helpful. more

Resolved Question: Bush & the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions: What do you think of this VERY LONG email I received tonight?

Bush and the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions By John P. Briggs, MD, and J.P. Briggs II, PhD Thursday 18 January 2007 President George W. Bush prides himself on "making tough decisions." But many are sensing something seriously troubling, even psychologically unbalanced, about the president as a decision-maker. They are right. Because of a psychological dynamic swirling around deeply hidden feelings of inadequacy, the president has been driven to make increasingly incompetent and risky decisions. This dynamic makes the psychological stakes for him now unimaginably high. The words "success" and "failure" have seized his rhetoric like metaphors for his psyche's survival. The president's swirling dynamic lies "hidden in plain sight" in his personal history. From the time he was a boy until his religious awakening in his early 40s, Bush had every reason to feel he was a failure. His continued, almost obsessive, attempts through the years to emulate his father, obtain his approval, and escape from his influence are extensively recorded. His biography is peppered with remarks and behavior that allude to this inner struggle. In an exuberant moment during his second campaign for Texas governor, Bush told a reporter, "It's hard to believe, but ... I don't have time to worry about being George Bush's son. Maybe it's a result of being confident. I'm not sure how the psychoanalysts will analyze it, but I'm not worried about it. I'm really not. I'm a free guy." A psychoanalyst would note that he is revealing here that he has been worrying about being his father's son quite a lot. Resentment naturally contaminated Bush's efforts to prove himself to his father and receive his father's approval. The contradictory mix showed up in his compulsion to re-fight his father's war against Iraq, but this time winning the duel some thought his father failed to win with Saddam. He could at once emulate his father, show his contempt for him, and redeem him. But beneath this son-father struggle lies a far more significant issue for Bush - a question about his own competence, adequacy and autonomy as a human being. We have seen this inner question surface repeatedly, and we have largely conspired with him to deny it. • On September 11, 2001, we saw (and suppressed) the image of him sitting stunned for seven minutes in a crowd of school children after learning that the second plane had hit the Twin Towers, and then the lack of image of him when he vanished from public view for the rest of the day. Instead, we bought the cover-up image, three days after the attack, of the strong leader, grabbing the bullhorn in New York City and issuing bellicose statements. • In 2004, we saw and denied the insecurity displayed when the president refused to face the 9/11 Commission alone and needed Vice President Cheney to go with him. • In 2003, we saw and suppressed the dark side of the "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier landing, in which a man who had ducked out on his generation's war and dribbled away his service in the Texas Air National Guard dressed up like Top Gun and pretended that he was a combat pilot like his father. • Asked by a reporter if he would accept responsibility for any mistakes, Bush answered, "I hope I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not quick - as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." What we heard, and yet didn't hear, was a confession of his feelings of inadequacy and an arrogant denial those feelings all at once. • In early 2006, when his father moved behind the scenes to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the son responded, "I'm the decider and I decide what's best" - and when he clenched his fist at a question about his father's influence, proclaiming, "I'm the Commander in Chief" - we glimpsed what was going on. To cover up and defend himself against his feelings of his inadequacy and incompetence, Bush developed a number of psychological defenses. In his school years he played the clown. (His ability to joke about his verbal slip-ups is an endearing adult application of this defense to public life.) His heavy drinking was a classic way to anesthetize feelings of inadequacy. Indeed, drinking typically makes the alcoholic grandiose, which has led some commentators to argue that Bush has the "dry drunk" syndrome, where the individual has stopped drinking but retains the brittle psychology of the alcoholic. Other defenses now play especially powerful roles to protect the president against his internal feelings of insufficiency. The Christian Defense Bush has carefully let it be known that he believes the decisions he makes in office are directed by God. His famous claim to make decisions by "gut" ("I'm a gut player," he told Bob Woodward) equates with his claim of the spiritual inspiration he receives through prayer, his own and the prayers of others. Whatever else it is, this equation of his own choices with God's will has unparalleled advantages. It creates the perfect defense against any doubts he or anyone else might have that he can't make the right decision. The need to engage in analysis and explore alternatives to get there comes off the table. Instead, he has his gut; he has his God. Being "born again" also allows the president to present himself as having relegated to the past all those previously inadequate behaviors of his younger days: the poor academic performance, the drinking, the failed businesses. He's a new man, no longer incompetent but now supremely competent as a result of his faith. When Woodward asked Bush if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq, he replied, "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to." How wonderfully that appeal must seem to resolve the internal conflict about adequacy we have described above. The Bully Defense Bush's mother, Barbara (sarcastic, mean, disciplinarian, always with an acid-tongued retort), is probably the model for another major defense Bush deploys to defend himself against feelings of inadequacy. A friend at the time described her as "sort of the leader bully." That bullies are insecure people is well known and fairly obvious. A bully covers insecurity with bluster and intimidation so that others won't find an opening to see how weak he feels. Much of the world outside the US considers Bush a bully. "You're either with us or against us" is a bully's threat that anyone can recognize. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is a bully's doctrine. For his intimates and those closer to home, Bush appears to be what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them. In report by Gail Sheehy in 2000, recalled recently by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, we get a glimpse of how Bush's pervasive fear of failure (his absolute refusal to consider "failure as an option") and his bully defense go together. Sheehy interviewed friends from his teenage years and college years. In basketball or tennis games he would insist points be played over because he wasn't ready; he would force opponents who had beaten him to continue playing until he beat them. At Yale he would interrupt his fellow students' studying for exams (helping them fail) to compete in a popular board game, "The Game of Global Domination," at which he was the player noted for taking the most risks, being the most aggressive. It's likely that speculations about Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice functioning as Bush's puppet-masters are 180 (or at least 160) degrees off. Bush is the president; he gets his way, and they know it. Chances are they have learned to channel his "gut" and give him policy advice that matches it. They may even imagine they are steering him, not clear about the ways that he has bullied them, elicited in them "The Stockholm Syndrome," in which hostages come to identify with and even defend the very person who is threatening them. This is the same dynamic evident in the behavior of battered spouses and members of gangs. Ron Suskind described the small group around the president: "A disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness - a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners." Biographical reports tell us that Bush's parents taught him to keep his inner feelings to himself. As psychiatrist Justin A. Frank noted in Bush on the Couch, this results in a "self-protective indifference to the pain of others." This is another aspect of his bully defense, projecting his inner pain onto others. Bush's remarkable drive for the power to torture terrorist suspects and his reported glorying in Texas executions during his terms as governor testify to his lack of compassion, despite his recent statement of qualms about seeing Saddam Hussein drop through the trap. The Man of Splits and Oppositions Being in the world, for all of us, involves the challenge to somehow integrate the opposites of our nature and to select our way through the many opposing choices presented us in life. The bully polarizes the natural ambivalence (the internal opposition) anyone feels about whether he is strong or weak, safe or vulnerable. A person who needs to feel invulnerable and completely adequate all the time, or who always feels helpless and inadequate, has polarized these emotions and leads a deformed life. The degree of internal polarization in President Bush appears to be serious - and widespread. Commentators have made lists of the president's polarities: the proclaimed uniter who is a relentless divider, the habit of "saying one thing and doing another," as Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords put it. The list is long and growing. It should include the oppositions that show up in his famous Bushisms, such as: There is no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons. They [the terrorists] never stop thinking of ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we. To a psychiatrist, these are not mere malapropisms and mistakes in speech. They suggest ambivalence oscillating violently between poles. They suggest a desperate uncertainty about everything that the president reflexively seeks to hide by taking absolutist, rigid positions about "victory," "success," "mission accomplished," "stay the course," "compassion," "tax cuts," "no child left behind," and a host of other issues. The Presidential Defense Once Bush took the bullhorn at ground zero, he found perhaps the ultimate defense for his secret fears of inadequacy. As he told Bob Woodward, in Bush at War, "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." As commander in chief, as a war president, he could assemble his other psychological defenses around him. He could split the world into good and evil and the country would follow. His internal oppositions could be projected without much resistance from the populace or his adversaries. He could be the gut-led, divinely inspired "Decider," to save the country. He could project own internal fears of being "discovered as a fraud" into a threat "out there" waiting to happen. He could surround himself with loyalists whom he could emotionally bully, creating a new family that would admire him and that he could control. Meanwhile the ambiguities of political decisions that can always be rationalized offer a safe haven. Until history judges me (and that's a long way off, maybe never) I can't be definitively seen as incompetent. But as much as the presidency is a perfect defense for disguising incompetence, it's also the perfect trap. It accelerates the positive feedback loop that was set in motion when he "changed his heart" around age 40 (committing himself to God) and presumably put his failures, and his feelings of failure behind him. In recent weeks, anyone following the news must have intuitively sensed from watching and hearing the president that he would reject the Iraq Study Group's report, co-authored by a person he must have felt was the emissary of his father come to tell him that he had failed again. He chose escalation, the one solution most knowledgeable people agree cannot succeed, in order to keep alive the fiction that success still lies in the future. The dynamic is becoming obvious to almost everybody. But how much is Bush aware of this psychological dynamic and of the secret he's keeping? Not aware enough. That's the problem. Psychotherapists use the term "unconscious," but it isn't quite an accurate descriptor. We are aware of feelings, sensations and scripts that occur when one of our unseen psychic mechanisms is triggered. So, when an interviewer asked about the generals who demanded Rumsfeld be removed, and the president knew his father had been working behind the scenes to replace Rumsfeld, the question would not have triggered the conscious thought: there goes dad again trying to make me feel incompetent. Instead, the president may have felt a hollow sensation or a flush of anger, an urge to form a clownish grin to cover his watery feelings, and a script that would come out of his mouth as "I'm the decider." Beneath that would be the inadequacy and cover-up dynamic outlined here. A president's psychology and his inner secrets are his or her own business, except in one important area. That is area covered by the question, "Does the psychology of this individual interfere with his or her ability to make sound decisions in the best interest of the nation?" Recent history has certainly been witness to presidents with psychodynamics that have damaged their historical legacies. Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind. But in neither case was the very ability to make sound decisions compromised to the extent we believe it is with this president. A Failed Process Many accounts of the president suggest that his decision-making process is a failed one; in an important sense, it is no process at all. Ambivalent feelings are normal at certain stages of decision-making, and the ability to tolerate ambivalence has been shown to be the hallmark of creative thinkers. The inability to tolerate uncertainty because you think that may imply incapacity brings decision-making to an end. Thus, instead of focusing on the process needed to arrive at a decision, Bush marshals his defenses in order not to feel incompetent. That doesn't leave much room for exploring the alternatives required of competent decision-making. Not interested in discussion or detail (where the devil often lies), he seeks something minimal, just enough so he can let the decision come to him; it's his "gut" (read "God") that will provide the answer. But these gut feelings are the very feelings associated with his deep sense of inadequacy and his defenses against those feelings. So while he brags that he makes the "tough decisions," psychologically, he's defending himself against the very feelings of uncertainty that are the necessary concomitant to making tough decisions. His tough decision-making is a sham. In the recent maneuvering toward the "new strategy" in Iraq, we have witnessed a great pretense of normal decision-making. But the president clearly made up his mind almost as soon as the "surge" alternative appeared, and apparently moved to cow others, including his new secretary of defense Robert Gates (his father's man) in the process. "Success" is the only alternative for him. "Failure" and disintegration of Iraq is unthinkable because it would be synonymous with his own internal disintegration. As his decisions go awry, he exudes a troubling, uncanny aura of certitude (though some find it reassuring). He seems to expect to feel despised and alone (and probably has always felt that), as he has always secretly expected to fail. That expectation of failure leads to sloppy, risky, incompetent decisions, which in turn compel him to swerve from his fears of incompetence. At this point, the president seems to have entered a place in his psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication, because he's still "The Decider," who can just keep deciding until he gets to success. It's hard not to feel something heroic in this position - but it's a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions. Psychologically, President Bush has received support for so long because many have thought of him as "one of us." Most of us feel inadequate in some way, and watching him we can feel his inadequacies and sense his uncertainties, so we admire him for "pulling it off." His model tells us, "If you act like you're confident and competent, then you are." We are the culture that values the power of positive thinking and seeks assertiveness training. We believe that the right attitude can sometimes be more important than brains or hard work. He's bullied us, too. We don't dare to really confront the scale of his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to face what it means to have such an incompetent and psychologically disabled decision-maker as our president. It raises everyone's uncertainty. And that is, in fact, happening now. ---------- John P. Briggs, MD, is retired from over 40 years of private practice in psychotherapy in Westchester County, New York. He was on the faculty in psychiatry at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City for 23 years and was a long-time member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He trained at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. J.P. Briggs II, PhD, is a Distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University and is the senior editor of the intellectual journal The Connecticut Review. He is author and co-author of books on creativity and chaos, including Fire in the Crucible (St. Martin's Press); Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos (Simon and Schuster); and Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (HarperCollins), among others. He is currently at work with Philadelphia psychologist John Amoroso on a book about the power of ambivalence in the creative process.This is propaganda, FYI. If it were not, it would mention the elitist families who are telling Bush what to do. Bush is a puppet and I never did like puppet shows and I friggin' HATE puppet masters. more

Resolved Question: Help me???

CLEAN NEEDLES BENEFIT SOCIETY USA Today Our view: Needle exchanges prove effective as AIDS counterattack. They warrant wider use and federal backing. Nothing gets knees jerking and fingers wagging like free needle-exchange programs. But strong evidence is emerging that they’re working. The 37 cities trying needle exchanges are accumulating impressive data that they are an effective tool against spread of an epidemic now in its 13th year. • In Hartford, Conn., demand for needles has quadrupled expectations— 32,000 in nine months. And free needles hit a targeted population: 55% of used needles show traces of AIDS virus. • In San Francisco, almost half the addicts opt for clean needles. • In New Haven, new HIV infections are down 33% for addicts in exchanges. Promising evidence. And what of fears that needle exchanges increase addiction? The National Commission on AIDS found no evidence. Neither do new studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Logic and research tell us no one’s saying, “Hey, they’re giving away free, clean hypodermic needles! I think I’ll become a drug addict!” Get real. Needle exchange is a soundly based counterattack against an epidemic. As the federal Centers for Disease Control puts it, “Removing contaminated syringes from circulation is analogous to removing mosquitoes.” Addicts know shared needles are HIV transmitters. Evidence shows drug users will seek out clean needles to cut chances of almost certain death from AIDS. Needle exchanges neither cure addiction nor cave in to the drug scourge. They’re a sound, effective line of defense in a population at high risk. (Some 28% of AIDS cases are IV drug users.) And AIDS treatment costs taxpayers far more than the price of a few needles. It’s time for policymakers to disperse the fog of rhetoric, hyperbole and scare tactics and widen the program to attract more of the nation’s 1.2 million IV drug users. We’re a pragmatic society. We like things that work. Needle exchanges have proven their benefit. They should be encouraged and expanded. PROGRAMS DON’T MAKE SENSE Peter B. Gemma Jr. Opposing view: It’s just plain stupid for government to sponsor dangerous, illegal behavior. If the Clinton administration initiated a program that offered free tires to drivers who habitually and dangerously broke speed limits—to help them avoid fatal accidents from blowouts—taxpayers would be furious. Spending government money to distribute free needles to junkies, in an attempt to help them avoid HIV infections, is an equally volatile and stupid policy. It’s wrong to attempt to ease one crisis by reinforcing another. It’s wrong to tolerate a contradictory policy that spends people’s hard-earned money to facilitate deviant behavior. And it’s wrong to try to save drug abusers from HIV infection by perpetuating their pain and suffering. Taxpayers expect higher health-care standards from President Clinton’s public-policy “experts.” Inconclusive data on experimental needle-distribution programs is no excuse to weaken federal substance-abuse laws. No government bureaucrat can refute the fact that fresh, free needles make it easier to inject illegal drugs because their use results in less pain and scarring. Underwriting dangerous, criminal behavior is illogical: If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. In a Hartford, Conn., needle-distribution program, for example, drug addicts are demanding taxpayer-funded needles at four times the expected rate. Although there may not yet be evidence of increased substance abuse, there is obviously no incentives in such schemes to help drug-addiction victims get cured. Inconsistency and incompetence will undermine the public’s confidence in government health-care initiatives regarding drug abuse and the AIDS epidemic. The Clinton administration proposal of giving away needles hurts far more people than [it is] intended to help. more

Resolved Question: What is the relationship between 911 and Saddam?

Resolved Question: Argument Evaluation- Lets see how good you guys are. Identify 2 arguments in each article?

CLEAN NEEDLES BENEFIT SOCIETY Our view: Needle exchanges prove effective as AIDS counterattack. They warrant wider use and federal backing. Nothing gets knees jerking and fingers wagging like free needle-exchange programs. But strong evidence is emerging that they’re working. The 37 cities trying needle exchanges are accumulating impressive data that they are an effective tool against spread of an epidemic now in its 13th year. • In Hartford, Conn., demand for needles has quadrupled expectations—32,000 in nine months. And free needles hit a targeted population: 55% of used needles show traces of AIDS virus. • In San Francisco, almost half the addicts opt for clean needles. • In New Haven, new HIV infections are down 33% for addicts in exchanges. Promising evidence. And what of fears that needle exchanges increase addiction? The National Commission on AIDS found no evidence. Neither do new studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Logic and research tell us no one’s saying, “Hey, they’re giving away free, clean hypodermic needles! I think I’ll become a drug addict!” Get real. Needle exchange is a soundly based counterattack against an epidemic. As the federal Centers for Disease Control puts it, “Removing contaminated syringes from circulation is analogous to removing mosquitoes.” Addicts know shared needles are HIV transmitters. Evidence shows drug users will seek out clean needles to cut chances of almost certain death from AIDS. Needle exchanges neither cure addiction nor cave in to the drug scourge. They’re a sound, effective line of defense in a population at high risk. (Some 28% of AIDS cases are IV drug users.) And AIDS treatment costs taxpayers far more than the price of a few needles. It’s time for policymakers to disperse the fog of rhetoric, hyperbole and scare tactics and widen the program to attract more of the nation’s 1.2 million IV drug users. We’re a pragmatic society. We like things that work. Needle exchanges have proven their benefit. They should be encouraged and expanded. PROGRAMS DON’T MAKE SENSE Opposing view: It’s just plain stupid for government to sponsor dangerous, illegal behavior. If the Clinton administration initiated a program that offered free tires to drivers who habitually and dangerously broke speed limits—to help them avoid fatal accidents from blowouts—taxpayers would be furious. Spending government money to distribute free needles to junkies, in an attempt to help them avoid HIV infections, is an equally volatile and stupid policy. It’s wrong to attempt to ease one crisis by reinforcing another. It’s wrong to tolerate a contradictory policy that spends people’s hard earned money to facilitate deviant behavior. And it’s wrong to try to save drug abusers from HIV infection by perpetuating their pain and suffering. Taxpayers expect higher health-care standards from President Clinton’s public-policy “experts.” Inconclusive data on experimental needle-distribution programs is no excuse to weaken federal substance-abuse laws. No government bureaucrat can refute the fact that fresh, free needles make it easier to inject illegal drugs because their use results in less pain and scarring. Underwriting dangerous, criminal behavior is illogical: If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. In a Hartford, Conn., needle-distribution program, for example, drug addicts are demanding taxpayer-funded needles at four times the expected rate. Although there may not yet be evidence of increased substance abuse, there is obviously no incentive in such schemes to help drug-addiction victims get cured. Inconsistency and incompetence will undermine the public’s confidence in government health-care initiatives regarding drug abuse and the AIDS epidemic. The Clinton administration proposal of giving away needles hurts far more people than [it is] intended to help.Whether sound/unsound vail/invalid, good/bad or strong/weak more

Resolved Question: Political experts on conservatives?

Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations? Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include: Fear and aggression Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity Uncertainty avoidance Need for cognitive closure Terror management "From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin. Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism. The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies. Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser said. The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they said. The terror management feature of conservatism can be seen in post-Sept. 11 America, where many people appear to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of cherished world views, they wrote. Concerns with fear and threat, likewise, can be linked to a second key dimension of conservatism - an endorsement of inequality, a view reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South S.C.). Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way, the authors commented in a published reply to the article. This research marks the first synthesis of a vast amount of information about conservatism, and the result is an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political conservatism under the rubric of motivated social cognition, said Sulloway. That entails the tendency of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained by individual needs based on personality, social interests or existential needs. The researchers' analytical methods allowed them to determine the effects for each class of factors and revealed "more pluralistic and nuanced understanding of the source of conservatism," Sulloway said. While most people resist change, Glaser said, liberals appear to have a higher tolerance for change than conservatives do. As for conservatives' penchant for accepting inequality, he said, one contemporary example is liberals' general endorsement of extending rights and liberties to disadvantaged minorities such as gays and lesbians, compared to conservatives' opposing position. The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled." They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental. "In many cases, including mass politics, 'liberal' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote. This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes, the researchers advised. The latest debate about the possibility that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the conservative intolerance for ambiguity and or need for closure, said Glaser. "For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said. Glaser acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about conservatism, but not about liberalism. The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism. Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. The researchers noted that Stalin, for example, was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system. Although they concluded that conservatives are less "integratively complex" than others are, Glaser said, "it doesn't mean that they're simple-minded." Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser said. He pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter, "Look, my job isn't to nuance."to mr phatt phatt The only thing which really links conservatives and religion is that they both cater to chold molesting preists. more

Resolved Question: Outline argument premises and conclusions for Clean Needles Benefit Society and Programs Don’t Make Sense?

CLEAN NEEDLES BENEFIT SOCIETY USA Today Our view: Needle exchanges prove effective as AIDS counterattack. They warrant wider use and federal backing. Nothing gets knees jerking and fingers wagging like free needle-exchange programs. But strong evidence is emerging that they’re working. The 37 cities trying needle exchanges are accumulating impressive data that they are an effective tool against spread of an epidemic now in its 13th year. • In Hartford, Conn., demand for needles has quadrupled expectations— 32,000 in nine months. And free needles hit a targeted population: 55% of used needles show traces of AIDS virus. • In San Francisco, almost half the addicts opt for clean needles. • In New Haven, new HIV infections are down 33% for addicts in exchanges. Promising evidence. And what of fears that needle exchanges increase addiction? The National Commission on AIDS found no evidence. Neither do new studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Logic and research tell us no one’s saying, “Hey, they’re giving away free, clean hypodermic needles! I think I’ll become a drug addict!” Get real. Needle exchange is a soundly based counterattack against an epidemic. As the federal Centers for Disease Control puts it, “Removing contaminated syringes from circulation is analogous to removing mosquitoes.” Addicts know shared needles are HIV transmitters. Evidence shows drug users will seek out clean needles to cut chances of almost certain death from AIDS. Needle exchanges neither cure addiction nor cave in to the drug scourge. They’re a sound, effective line of defense in a population at high risk. (Some 28% of AIDS cases are IV drug users.) And AIDS treatment costs taxpayers far more than the price of a few needles. It’s time for policymakers to disperse the fog of rhetoric, hyperbole and scare tactics and widen the program to attract more of the nation’s 1.2 million IV drug users. PROGRAMS DON’T MAKE SENSE Peter B. Gemma Jr. Opposing view: It’s just plain stupid for government to sponsor dangerous, illegal behavior. If the Clinton administration initiated a program that offered free tires to drivers who habitually and dangerously broke speed limits—to help them avoid fatal accidents from blowouts—taxpayers would be furious. Spending government money to distribute free needles to junkies, in an attempt to help them avoid HIV infections, is an equally volatile and stupid policy. It’s wrong to attempt to ease one crisis by reinforcing another. It’s wrong to tolerate a contradictory policy that spends people’s hardearned money to facilitate deviant behavior. And it’s wrong to try to save drug abusers from HIV infection by perpetuating their pain and suffering. Taxpayers expect higher health-care standards from President Clinton’s public-policy “experts.” Inconclusive data on experimental needle-distribution programs is no excuse to weaken federal substance-abuse laws. No government bureaucrat can refute the fact that fresh, free needles make it easier to inject illegal drugs because their use results in less pain and scarring. Underwriting dangerous, criminal behavior is illogical: If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. In a Hartford, Conn., needle-distribution program, for example, drug addicts are demanding taxpayer-funded needles at four times the expected rate. Although there may not yet be evidence of increased substance abuse, there is obviously no incentive in such schemes to help drug-addiction victims get cured. Inconsistency and incompetence will undermine the public’s confidence in government health-care initiatives regarding drug abuse and the AIDS epidemic. The Clinton administration proposal of giving away needles hurts far more people than [it is] intended to help. more

Resolved Question: Clean Needles Benefit Society and Programs Don’t Make Sense Do the premises support the conclusions?

CLEAN NEEDLES BENEFIT SOCIETY USA Today Our view: Needle exchanges prove effective as AIDS counterattack. They warrant wider use and federal backing. Nothing gets knees jerking and fingers wagging like free needle-exchange programs. But strong evidence is emerging that they’re working. The 37 cities trying needle exchanges are accumulating impressive data that they are an effective tool against spread of an epidemic now in its 13th year. • In Hartford, Conn., demand for needles has quadrupled expectations— 32,000 in nine months. And free needles hit a targeted population: 55% of used needles show traces of AIDS virus. • In San Francisco, almost half the addicts opt for clean needles. • In New Haven, new HIV infections are down 33% for addicts in exchanges. Promising evidence. And what of fears that needle exchanges increase addiction? The National Commission on AIDS found no evidence. Neither do new studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Logic and research tell us no one’s saying, “Hey, they’re giving away free, clean hypodermic needles! I think I’ll become a drug addict!” Get real. Needle exchange is a soundly based counterattack against an epidemic. As the federal Centers for Disease Control puts it, “Removing contaminated syringes from circulation is analogous to removing mosquitoes.” Addicts know shared needles are HIV transmitters. Evidence shows drug users will seek out clean needles to cut chances of almost certain death from AIDS. Needle exchanges neither cure addiction nor cave in to the drug scourge. They’re a sound, effective line of defense in a population at high risk. (Some 28% of AIDS cases are IV drug users.) And AIDS treatment costs taxpayers far more than the price of a few needles. It’s time for policymakers to disperse the fog of rhetoric, hyperbole and scare tactics and widen the program to attract more of the nation’s 1.2 million IV drug users. PROGRAMS DON’T MAKE SENSE Peter B. Gemma Jr. Opposing view: It’s just plain stupid for government to sponsor dangerous, illegal behavior. If the Clinton administration initiated a program that offered free tires to drivers who habitually and dangerously broke speed limits—to help them avoid fatal accidents from blowouts—taxpayers would be furious. Spending government money to distribute free needles to junkies, in an attempt to help them avoid HIV infections, is an equally volatile and stupid policy. It’s wrong to attempt to ease one crisis by reinforcing another. It’s wrong to tolerate a contradictory policy that spends people’s hardearned money to facilitate deviant behavior. And it’s wrong to try to save drug abusers from HIV infection by perpetuating their pain and suffering. Taxpayers expect higher health-care standards from President Clinton’s public-policy “experts.” Inconclusive data on experimental needle-distribution programs is no excuse to weaken federal substance-abuse laws. No government bureaucrat can refute the fact that fresh, free needles make it easier to inject illegal drugs because their use results in less pain and scarring. Underwriting dangerous, criminal behavior is illogical: If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. In a Hartford, Conn., needle-distribution program, for example, drug addicts are demanding taxpayer-funded needles at four times the expected rate. Although there may not yet be evidence of increased substance abuse, there is obviously no incentive in such schemes to help drug-addiction victims get cured. Inconsistency and incompetence will undermine the public’s confidence in government health-care initiatives regarding drug abuse and the AIDS epidemic. The Clinton administration proposal of giving away needles hurts far more people than [it is] intended to help. 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 81 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 more

Resolved Question: A neo conservatives hero exposed?

Limbaugh vs. Reality Bogus Economics LIMBAUGH: On California contractor C.C. Myers completing repairs 74 days early on the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway: "There was one key element that made this happen. One key thing: The governor of California declared the [freeway] a disaster area and by so doing eliminated the need for competitive bids.... Government got the hell out of the way." (TV show, 4/13/94) "They gave this guy [Myers] the job without having to go through the rigmarole...of giving 25 percent of the job to a minority-owned business and 25 percent to a woman." (TV show, 4/15/94) REALITY: There was competitive bidding: Myers beat four other contractors for the job. Affirmative action rules applied: At least 40 percent of the subcontracts went to minority or women-owned firms. Far from getting out of the way, dozens of state employees were on the job 24 hours a day. Furthermore, the federal government picked up the tab for the whole job (L.A. Times, 5/1/94). LIMBAUGH: "Banks take the risks in issuing student loans and they are entitled to the profits." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Summer/93) REALITY: Banks take no risks in issuing student loans, which are federally insured. LIMBAUGH: "Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America [in the '80s] resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth." (Ought to Be, p. 70) REALITY: CBO figures do nothing of the sort. Its numbers for after-tax incomes show that in 1980, the richest fifth of our country had eight times the income of the poorest fifth. By 1989, the ratio was more than 20 to one. LIMBAUGH: Comparing the 1950s with the present: "And I might point out that poverty and economic disparities between the lower and upper classes were greater during the former period." (Told You So, p. 84) REALITY: Income inequality, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, fell from the 1940s to the late 1960s, and then began rising. Inequality surpassed the 1950 level in 1982 and rose steadily to all-time highs in 1992. (Census Bureau's "Money Income of Households, Families and Persons in the United States") LIMBAUGH: "Oh, how they relished blaming Reagan administration policies, including the mythical reductions in HUD's budget for public housing, for creating all of the homeless! Budget cuts? There were no budget cuts! The budget figures show that actual construction of public housing increased during the Reagan years." (Ought to Be, p. 242-243) REALITY: In 1980, 20,900 low-income public housing units were under construction; in 1988, 9,700, a decline of 54 percent ;Statistical Abstracts of the U.S).In terms of 1993 dollars, the HUD budget for the construction of new public housing was slashed from $6.3 billion in 1980 to $683 million in 1988. "We're getting out of the housing business. Period," a Reagan HUD official declared in 1985. LIMBAUGH: "The poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Spring/93) REALITY: Huh? The average cash income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans is $5,226; the average cash income of four major European nations--Germany, France, United Kingdom and Italy--is $19,708. LIMBAUGH: "There's no such thing as an implied contract." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Spring/93) REALITY: Every first year law student knows there is. LIMBAUGH: "Ladies and gentlemen, we now know why there is this institutional opposition to low tax rates in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. It's because [low tax rates] are biblical in nature and in root. When you can trace the lowering of tax rates on grain from 90 percent to 20 percent giving seven fat years during the days of Pharaoh in Egypt, why then you are tracing the roots of lower taxes and rising prosperity to religion.... You can trace individual prosperity, economic growth back to the Bible, the Old Testament. Isn't it amazing?" (Radio show, 6/28/93) REALITY: Amazingly wrong. Genesis 41 is about the wisdom of instituting taxes, not cutting them. After Pharaoh had a dream that prophesied seven fat years to be followed by seven lean years, Joseph advised him to "appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years...and lay up corn under the hands of Pharaoh." In other words, a 20 percent tax on the grain harvest would put aside food for use during the famine. Pharaoh took Joseph's advice, and Egypt avoided hunger during the famine. Weird Science LIMBAUGH: "It has not been proven that nicotine is addictive, the same with cigarettes causing emphysema [and other diseases]." (Radio show, 4/29/94) REALITY: Nicotine's addictiveness has been reported in medical literature since the turn of the century. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's 1988 report on nicotine addiction left no doubts on the subject; "Today the scientific base linking smoking to a number of chronic diseases is overwhelming, with a total of 50,000 studies from dozens of countries," states Encyclopedia Britannica's 1987 "Medical and Health Annual." LIMBAUGH: "We closed down a whole town--Times Beach, Mo.--over the threat of dioxin. We now know there was no reason to do that. Dioxin at those levels isn't harmful." (Ought to Be, p. 163) REALITY: "The hypothesis that low exposures [to dioxin] are entirely safe for humans is distinctly less tenable now than before," editorialized the New England Journal of Medicine after publishing a study (1/24/91) on cancer mortality and dioxin. In 1993, after Limbaugh's book was written, a study of residents in Seveso, Italy had increased cancer rates after being exposed to dioxin, The EPA's director of environmental toxicology said this study removed one of the last remaining doubts about dioxin's deadly effects (AP, 8/29/93). LIMBAUGH: "The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane -- or put your children on a plane -- if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks." (Ought to Be, p. 135) REALITY: A one in five AIDS risk for condom users? Not true, according to Dr. Joseph Kelaghan, who evaluates contraceptives for the National Institutes of Health. "There is substantive evidence that condoms prevent transmission if used consistently and properly," he said. He pointed to a nearly two-year study of couples in which one partner was HIV-positive. Among the 123 couples who used condoms regularly, there wasn't a single new infection (AP, 8/29/93). LIMBAUGH: "Most Canadian physicians who are themselves in need of surgery, for example, scurry across the border to get it done right: the American way. They have found, through experience, that state medical care is too expensive, too slow and inefficient, and, most important, it doesn't provide adequate care for most people." (Told You So, p. 153) REALITY: "Mr. Limbaugh's claim simply isn't true," says Dr. Hugh Scully, chair of the Canadian Medical Association's Council on Healing and Finance. "The vast majority of Canadians, including physicians, receive their care here in Canada. Those few Canadians who receive health care in the U.S. most often do because they have winter homes in the States--like Arizona and Florida--and have emergent health problems there." Medical care in Canada is hardly "too expensive"; it's provided free and covered by taxes. more

Resolved Question: Don't believe Al Gores Hype!?

Don't Believe the Hype Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming. BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN Sunday, July 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now. Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over." That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place. The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know." So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming. They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why. The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia--mosquitoes don't require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession. Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling. A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science. A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998. There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected. Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto. The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability." This was sufficient for CNN's Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Well, no. More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it. Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open. So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points. First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade. Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky. Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. more