Bush's Hugs Iraq Embassy...Is A Mess....

From In These Times:

Features > January 2, 2008
Empire’s Architecture
Should it ever be finished, the U.S. embassy in Iraq will stand as a colossal monument to the Bush administration’s failures
By Allen McDuffee

The U.S. embassy in Iraq stands unfinished in Baghdad.

Panic shot through the State Department and White House earlier this summer when the American architecture firm Berger Devine Yaeger posted computer-generated images and layout of the forthcoming U.S. embassy in Baghdad on its website. Ostensibly concerned with security, government officials urgently acted to remove graphics to avoid aiding potential insurgents in their plots to disrupt the embassy’s progress.

The real fear, however, may have been that the disclosure would draw public and congressional attention to everything that’s gone wrong with the embassy. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how insurgents could be any more disruptive to the embassy’s existence than those who are building it. Allegations of mismanaged funds, shoddy workmanship, kickback schemes, exploitative labor practices, ill-gotten contracts, blocked investigations, trafficked humans and covered-up deaths have plagued the construction of the world’s largest embassy.

The planned 104-acre, 21-building compound on the Tigris River will include two office buildings, six apartment buildings, a pool, a gym, a movie theater and a food court. The embassy will be supported by its own power and water treatment plants—probably wise in a country that has, on average, one hour to four hours of electricity daily, and where 70 percent of the population lacks clean drinking water.

The White House originally requested $1.3 billion to build the compound, but Congress allocated $592 million for the project in 2005. It was a hefty sum given that the United States didn’t pay a cent to Iraq for the four-square-mile stretch of land in Baghdad’s Green Zone, roughly the size of Vatican City. By comparison, the United States paid $22 million for land that was less than one-tenth that size for a planned new embassy in Beirut, which will now no longer be built because of security concerns over its proximity to a Hezbollah stronghold.

Nevertheless, the nearly $600 million wasn’t enough for the embassy in Iraq. According to documentation provided to Congress by the State Department, an additional $144 million is needed for completion and the embassy may cost as much as $1 billion each year to operate.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3458/empires_architecture/

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New Authors' Site: Redroom....

From SF Gate. com :

Literary Web site Redroom a new chapter for authors, book lovers
Carolyne Zinko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Ivory Madison, serial entrepreneur, doesn't want much from her latest venture, Redroom.com. Not much, that is, except to build it into the Internet's premier site for authors and the discussion of books and ideas.

Redroom.com, which premiered Dec. 21, is one of the more ambitious online communities for writers to date and perhaps the most timely, aiming to capitalize on the current potential for profitability of social-networking sites. It features 150 authors (with 400 more to come), ranging from Amy Tan and Salman Rushdie to Edinburgh Castle Pub owner Alan Black; Graham Leggatt, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, who moonlights as a sci-fi writer; and local mystery writer Cara Black.

Whereas publishing houses tend to put the bulk of their promotional efforts into big-name authors, Redroom.com puts writers of varying success on an equal footing, providing each with a Web page and blog. The site is meant to appeal to readers, authors, booksellers and publishers as a kind of one-stop shop for biographical information, book reviews, blogs, video and audio content and author appearances. It's a virtual place where "midlist" authors in particular, who are watching their books get knocked off store shelves with alarming speed, can network and promote themselves, much as emerging musicians do on MySpace.com.

There's a philanthropic component as well. Authors designate their favorite charities or nonprofits, and a portion of the revenue generated from page and ad views goes to good causes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/08/DDD9U9GHI.DTL&nl=top

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Nobody left to test toys for safety....

From Tom Paine:

The Last Toy Tester Says Goodbye

The sole toy tester at the Consumer Product Safety Commission has retired, leaving behind a shrunken, rundown, neglected agency.

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Watch out for this guy...

From The LA Times via truthout.org :

Chamber of Commerce Vows to Punish Anti-Business Candidates

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010808L.shtml

Tom Hamburger reports for the Los Angeles Times, "Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business."

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San Diegans in mourning....

Here in San Diego, on the corner of Balboa Ave and Genesee Ave, is Marie Callendar's Restaurant.

Marie's has been in operation in the Balboa Mesa Shopping Center for 39 years now. But on Feb 1st, it will be bulldozed out of existance by order of the LLC landowner. Stepstone, the realty management company has informed the franchise owners.

And who is the LLC landowner? Stepstone refuses to say, even to the franchise owner. Stepstone does say that the LLC landowner will now build a 3-story building in Marie's place.

That's not the way the Stepstone talked when Marie's lease expired in late 2006. No. The plan was that the lease would be extended until a new Marie's was built on an unused area of the shopping center and Marie's, they said, would be able to move into the new Marie's sometime around November, 2007.

Try as they might, Marie's franchise owners could not get Stepstone's bosses to produce the new lease. But of course they wouldn't, because they knew there would be no new Marie's. All they needed was for the present Marie's to continue to pay rent until they could throw them out and demolish the building.

Greed. Pure and simple.

So, this past weekend, a sign was posted on Marie's entrance door. It announced that Marie's would close permanently on January 20th, but would be open until then provided enough staff remained to make staying open possible. This caused several regular customers who have come for years and years to enter with tears filling their eyes.

And caused other patrons, also regulars for years and years, to damned near explode with rage upon hearing more details of the dirty dealing landlords and management company. It wasn't only that a beloved restaurant would disappear, it was also that a well-liked staff of approximately 70 people would lose their jobs, including the manager who has never worked anywhere else.

There is nothing akin to feeling rage and knowing one is helpless to do anything about righting the wrongs one sees happening before one's eyes, as another regular patron put it.

Hearing on the radio that Starbuck's is also in the process of closing many of it's coffee shops does not help. It's Marie's famous pies and most excellent food...the ambience of a well-loved place, a meeting place for a large neighborhood...a restaurant that cannot be replaced, even by a 3-story building that's needed like a hole in the head in that location... Well, events such as this are attributable to one thing only: CORPORATE GREED.

May they strangle on their money.

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From Gitmo to...Spiderman?!!!

From American Progress:

Think Fast...

With the push to close the Guantanamo stalled, "a similar effort to scale down a larger and more secretive American detention center in Afghanistan has been troubled by political, legal and security problems." Last summer, the Red Cross warned that some prisoners at the site "were kept from its inspectors and sometimes subjected to cruel treatment in violation of the Geneva Conventions."

Martin Feldstein, former chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, "said the odds of a recession have risen to more than 50 percent after a report showing unemployment jumped in December. 'We are now talking about more likely than not,' Feldstein said."

Blacks in the United States are "consistently" more likely than whites to receive "inferior cancer treatment." According to the findings published in the journal Cancer, the problem was "just as bad in 2002 as in 1992."

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Indiana's voter ID law, "the strictest in the nation." The Court will issue its decision by late June, "in time to affect the November elections."

President Bush is preparing to head to the Middle East tomorrow -- "his first extended presidential visit to the region" -- amid "low expectations." One Arab diplomat expressed "disbelief that the president will use the trip to renew his drive for Middle East democracy. 'Is that still on?' the Arab official replied sarcastically."

The Washington Post writes that President Bush "intends to use his first extended tour of the Middle East to rally support for international pressure against Iran, even as a recent U.S. intelligence report playing down Tehran's nuclear ambitions has left Israeli and Arab leaders rethinking their own approach toward Iran and questioning Washington's resolve."

Al Qaeda operative "Azzam the American" told his followers to welcome President Bush "with bombs and traps" upon his upcoming visit to the Middle East. Israeli officials in Jerusalem are to deploy more than 10,000 police officers in a vast security operation ahead of the arrival.
"Pakistan will not allow any country to conduct military operations on its territory, officials said on Monday, rejecting a report that said the United States was considering authorizing its forces to act in Pakistan." "This has been conveyed at the highest level," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.

"In another sign of a weakening job market," the number of Americans working part-time hours increased to 2.8 million in 2007 "because of slower business conditions" up 231,000, or nine percent, from 2006. "Since August of 2007, the upward trend has accelerated, and it ticked up again in December to 3.1 million people, the highest monthly figure in four years."

And finally: Critics often attack the United Nations as a "web of bureaucracy." To battle that image and inform children of the body's humanitarian work, the United Nations has teamed up with the comic book company, Marvel, to print a special comic that will feature Spiderman fighting "alongside UN aid workers and peacekeepers." Outspoken United Nations critic former U.N. ambassador John Bolton called the comic an "act of desperation."

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Vietnam: The "Bats" of Sigint....

From Secrecy News:

NSA RELEASES HISTORY OF AMERICAN SIGINT AND THE VIETNAM WAR

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese intelligence units sometimes succeeded in penetrating Allied communications systems, and they could monitor Allied message traffic from within. But sometimes they did more than that.

On several occasions "the communists were able, by communicating on Allied radio nets, to call in Allied artillery or air strikes on American units."

That is just one passing observation (at p. 392) in an exhaustive history of American signals intelligence (SIGINT) in the Vietnam War that has just been declassified and released by the National Security Agency.

From the first intercepted cable -- a 1945 message from Ho Chi Minh to Joseph Stalin -- to the final evacuation of SIGINT personnel from Saigon, the 500-page NSA volume, called "Spartans in Darkness," retells the history of the Vietnam War from the perspective of signals intelligence.

The most sensational part of the history (which was excerpted and disclosed by the NSA two years ago) is the recounting of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which a reported North Vietnamese attack on U.S.forces triggered a major escalation of the war.

The author demonstrates that not only is it not true, as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was "unimpeachable," but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that "no attack happened that night."

Several other important Vietnam War-era episodes are elucidated by the contribution of SIGINT, including the Tet Offensive, the attempted rescue of U.S. prisoners of war from Son Tay prison, and more.

The author, Robert J. Hanyok, writes in a lively, occasionally florid style that is accessible even to those who are not well-versed in the history of SIGINT or Vietnam.

The 2002 study was released in response to a Mandatory Declassification Review request filed by Michael Ravnitzky. About 95% of the document was declassified. (Unfortunately, several of the pages were poorly reproduced by NSA and are difficult to read. A cleaner, clearer copy will need to be obtained.)

See "Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War,1945-1975" by Robert J. Hanyok, Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 2002:

http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/spartans/index.html

Some background on the Tonkin Gulf Incident from the National SecurityArchive with links to related documents may be found here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm

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Germany: They like Obama.....

From The International Herald Tribune:

Barack Obama's popularity soars - in Germany
By Nicholas Kulish
Published: January 6, 2008

BERLIN: Barack Obama's popularity extends far beyond Iowa and into the heart of Central Europe. Germany has swiftly developed a serious case of Obama-mania.

Obama's high standing goes beyond his opposition to the Iraq War, which has always been unpopular here. The sudden crush is intimately bound up with the near constant comparisons here between the young senator from Illinois and President John F. Kennedy - still admired in Germany and particularly in Berlin - which have stuck fast as his identity in the German press.
The Berliner Morgenpost over the weekend ran with the headline, "The New Kennedy." The tabloid Bild went with, "This Black American Has Become the New Kennedy!"

An editorial in the Frankfurter Rundschau went one historic president better with a headline that read simply: "Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama," adding that "hope and optimism" are "the source of the nation's strength."

Obama's newfound popularity among Germans underscores not only the breadth of his appeal but also the opportunity he might have as president - though he is still far from the White House, much less his party's nomination - to mend fences abroad as well as at home.

"There are similarities between JFK's time and today," said Karsten Rossow, 49, of Berlin, who was visiting the small Kennedy Museum by the Brandenburg Gate on a dark, snowy afternoon Sunday with his wife. "People are ready for the politics of change."

His wife, Änne Rossow, added that "after so much disappointment" - she was referring to the Bush administration - "one seizes on these liberal ideals."

While all of Europe keeps a close eye on U.S. elections, Germans learned to pay particularly close attention because of the influence that America had as both occupier and protector after World War II. That is true not only for supporters but also for detractors on the political left, who held furious demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.

During the Cold War, West Germany was dependent on the United States, nowhere more so than in West Berlin. President Kennedy is remembered here for the support that he gave the city as the Berlin Wall was built during his presidency in 1961, crystallized in his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

Fair or unfair, the comparisons to Kennedy stand Obama in good stead here. The man who could best lay claim to the title of importer of the Kennedy association is Christoph von Marschall, Washington bureau chief for the Tagesspiegel newspaper and author of a book released here last month called "Barack Obama, The Black Kennedy."

As for many American voters, von Marschall said, Obama represents a change from the present government and policies in America, even if he was until recently an unknown quantity compared with Hillary Clinton.

"Only a small, informed minority knew about Barack Obama in December," said von Marschall, who returned to Germany for the release of his book.

After the Iowa caucuses Thursday, however, interest in Obama and sales of the book took off.
Despite the fact that Obama is not associated with Europe in general or Germany in particular, he has "a cultural record that the rest of the field does not have, a better international and intercultural record," von Marschall said.

His race also plays well here, according to Uwe Andersen, a professor of political science at Ruhr University in Bochum: "In Germany, there is great sympathy first for Native Americans and second for black Americans."

Some are still reserving judgment.

"It's too early," said Udo Schacht, 53, at a train station on Friedrichstrasse, the street where the border crossing Checkpoint Charlie once stood. "Too early to say that he's the new Kennedy."

Victor Homola contributed reporting.

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One torqued soldier...

From Information Clearing House:

An American Soldiers Opinion on The war

9 Minute Video

"I am outraged at what's going on"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19007.htm

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BushCo will do anything to shut her up...

From Information Clearing House:

For Sale: West's Deadly Nuclear Secrets

The Sunday Times

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19006.htm

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McGovern: Bush & Cheney must go....

From The Washington Post via truthout.org :

George McGovern | Why I Believe Bush Must Go

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010608C.shtml

Writing for The Washington Post, George McGovern says, "As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president."

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Those mysterious, treacherous e-voting machines...

From The NY Times via truthout.org :

Can You Count On These Machines?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010508C.shtml

Clive Thompson, The New York Times, reports: "As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope. In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics.

Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways."

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Recession coming...jobs going....

From The International Herald Tribune:

U.S. labor market worsens, sinking Wall Street
By Peter S. Goodman and Michael M. Grynbaum Published: January 4, 2008

NEW YORK: The U.S. unemployment rate surged to 5 percent in December as the nation added only 18,000 jobs, the smallest monthly increase in four years, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists absorbed the report as the most powerful signal to date that the United States is likely headed for recession.

"This is unambiguously negative," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "The economy is on the edge of recession, if we're not already engulfed in one."

The swift deterioration in the job market resonated as a warning sign that troubles once confined to real estate and construction are now spilling over into the broader economy, threatening the ability of American consumers to keep spending with their customary abandon.

Wall Street read the report that way: It triggered a broad sell-off that sent major stock indexes down more than 1 percent.

The lone consolation for investors and workers was that the bad news seemed severe enough to force the Federal Reserve to again cut interest rates when it convenes at the end of this month. Lower interest rates decrease borrowing costs and encourage banks to lend more freely, spurring investment, spending and hiring.

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The Fed has eased rates three times since September in a bid to inject confidence into jittery markets. But analysts cautioned that Fed governors may now feel constraints against bringing rates further down: Inflation is growing as a source of concern, particularly as oil hovers near the symbolic $100-per-barrel level.

Lower interest rates generally increase inflation, and could make an already weak dollar worth less against foreign currencies. That could cause oil producers to demand even more dollars for their wares, exacerbating inflation and constraining economic growth.

"The Fed is trying to juggle a two-sided sword," said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management. "They're trying to fight inflation moving higher and they're trying to fight a slowdown in growth," he said, adding: "The Fed is really between a rock and hard place right now in terms ofwhat to do."

Much of the Fed's concern about the health of the economy centers upon a severe shortage of credit: Spooked by mortgage losses and general business uncertainty, banks around the world have gotten tight with their dollars, choking off economic growth.

In an effort to break the logjam and spur the economy, the Fed has been pumping cash through the banking system by auctioning off loans at discounted rates. On Friday, in the wake of the disappointing jobs report, the Fed said it would expand by 50 percent a pair of auctions scheduled for later this month, offering up $30 billion.

For months, the economy has continued to grow vigorously despite a string of worrying developments, from the unraveling of real estate to the turmoil in mortgage markets. Through it all, economists have marveled at the resilience of the labor market, suggesting that if the economy can keep creating work and distributing wages, Americans will maintain the wherewithal to spend, and growth will carry on.

But the December jobs report shot a considerable hole in that scenario, economists said, heightening the likelihood of a recession. The myriad negatives dogging the economy finally appear to be dragging it down.

"There's no mystery as to why the unemployment rate went up," said Robert Barbera, chief economist at research firm ITG. "The mystery is why it took so long."

The addition of 18,000 jobs to the December non-farm payrolls marked an abrupt drop from the 115,000 created in November - a figure revised Friday from an initial estimate of 94,000. It was well below the 70,000 jobs anticipated by economists, and it put the annual rate of job growth at its lowest level since 2004.

Some areas of the economy continued to expand in December. The health care sector added 28,000 jobs, and 381,000 for the year. Food services generated 27,000 new jobs in December.

But that growth was largely overshadowed by the pain in other areas. The retail sector lost 24,000 jobs in December in a disappointing holiday shopping season. Construction shed 49,000 jobs for the month, and financial services lost 7,000.

Despite the weak dollar, which has helped American exports and spawned hopes that sales abroad might compensate for weak business at home, 31,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in December.

"The economy tanked in December," said Ellen Zentner, U.S. macroeconomist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. "Domestic demand has slowed, so there's less need for companies to hire."

For the third straight month, wages grew more slowly than the pace of inflation, meaning that many employees saw the value of their income decrease.

http://www.iht.com:80/articles/2008/01/04/business/usecon.php?WT.mc_id=newsalert

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Dem congress did THIS to us...

From Information Clearing House:

Extinguishing Liberty’s Light and Independent Views

Thinking for yourself is now a crime

By Paul Craig Roberts

01/04/08 "ICH " -- -- What was the greatest failure of 2007? President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq? The decline in the value of the US dollar? Subprime mortgages? No. The greatest failure of 2007 was the newly sworn in Democratic Congress.

The American people’s attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue government, which has committed the US to costly military adventures while running roughshod over the US Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.

The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman, chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and assembly.

The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6. In the Senate the bill is sponsored by Maine Republican Susan Collins and apparently faces no meaningful opposition.

Harman’s bill is called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.” [ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955 ] When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of dangerous people and beliefs. The bill will, in short, create massive terrorism in the United States. But the perpetrators of terrorism will not be Muslim terrorists; they will be government agents and fellow citizens.

We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.

Who will be on the “extremist beliefs” list? The answer is: civil libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the administration’s wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration’s use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions, and critics of the administration’s spying on Americans. Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.

The “Extremist Beliefs Commission” is the mechanism for identifying Americans who pose “a threat to domestic security” and a threat of “homegrown terrorism” that “cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.”

This bill is a boon for nasty people. That SOB who stole your girlfriend, that hussy who stole your boyfriend, the gun owner next door--just report them to Homeland Security as holders of extreme beliefs. Homeland Security needs suspects, so they are not going to check. Under the new regime, accusation is evidence. Moreover, “our” elected representatives will never admit that they voted for a bill and created an “Extremist Belief Commission” for which there is neither need nor constitutional basis

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19002.htm

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Bush: No Medicaid for them...Bush, Huckabee cousins....

From American Progress:

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION LIMITS STATES' ABILITY TO EXPAND MEDICAID ELIGIBILITY: The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is now restricting states' efforts to provide Medicaid to more families of modest incomes. In its Aug. 17 directive, the Department of Health and Human Services limited families eligible for SCHIP to those who earn less than two and a half times the poverty level. Until now, the administration had not "openly declared that it would apply the August directive to Medicaid." State officials in Louisiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma, however, say they have discovered the administration's intent to do just that in recent weeks. Arguing that expanding Medicaid eligibility requirements will crowd out private insurers, the administration on Dec. 20 rejected Ohio's proposal to expand eligibility to families earning three times the poverty level and thereby cover 35,000 additional children."

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Think Fast...

A "wide-open race in both parties sparked a record turnout" in last night's Iowa caucuses. Turnout for Democrats exceeded 220,000, compared to 124,000 who participated in 2004. On the Republican side, there were approximately 114,000 people, compared to the last contested Republican caucuses in 2000, which drew 87,666.

A new Labor Department report out this morning finds that employers added fewer jobs than expected in December, while the unemployment rate shot up to a two-year high. The economic statistics were "much weaker" than Wall Street expectations.

Bloomberg News writes that the halting progress of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R-CA) $14 billion-a-year plan to provide health insurance to everyone is showing the power of interest groups to resist change. "Businesses are fighting a new payroll tax to fund coverage."

Attorney General Mike Mukasey announced yesterday "that he's appointing Chicago federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the Attorney General's advisory committee of U.S. attorneys." As attorney general, Alberto Gonzales "did not re-appoint Fitzgerald to the advisory panel," which counsels on law enforcement issues.

Yesterday was the last day on the job for Fran Townsend, Bush's top homeland security advisor. "The White House has not announced any replacement, raising questions about the future of the position." There is speculation that the office will be folded into the National Security Council.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday, making them the first American casualties of the new year. These latest deaths "bring the total number of American soldiers killed since the 2003 US-led invasion to 3,905."

President Bush told Reuters yesterday that he is "considering whether to propose" an economic stimulus package, "the clearest indication yet of a growing concern inside the White House over rising oil prices, the subprime mortgage crisis and the possibility of recession."

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf "defended his police force and investigators" yesterday, "saying that [Benazir] Bhutto had defied the government's warnings when she decided to go ahead with the rally in Rawalpindi." Musharraf also "denied that he was unpopular in the country."

And finally: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Vice President Cheney aren't the only well-known politicos who are distantly related. The Washington Post reveals that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is also ninth cousins with President Bush, and the 10th cousin once removed to his rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

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Not the New Hampshire your daddy knew....

From McClatchy Newspapers via truthout.org :

Focus Turns to a Changing New Hampshire

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010408D.shtml

Matt Stearns, reporting for the McClatchy Newspapers, writes, "This is not your father's New Hampshire, as presidential candidates of both parties are about to learn Tuesday, when the state holds the first primary of the 2008 campaign."

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A Fascinating Column & One Very Hot Book....

THE WORD ON THE STREET:

The buzz around the publishing world in NY City about Linda Ellison's forthcoming memoir,"The Spiral Jetty" is something that would excite any new author.

What's the buzz? Listen to these descriptions: "lyrical and haunting", "utterly engaging," and "staggeringly astonishing"....

Additionally, a couple of major magazines are interested in making a deal for first serial rights. Fascinating, since they're bidding after having seen only the proposal for the book and not a galley copy!

Don't think that we on the West Coast don't get wind of these things! When a book is hot, it's really hot! So big congratulations to the author, Linda Ellison.

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Note: The columnist below wants to thank several of the Indy-Weblogs bloggers for their assistance in the matter of presidential succession. Mr Van Deerlin very much appreciated the information they supplied.
Herewith, the resulting column:

Assassin's bullets alter history


UNION-TRIBUNE
January 3, 2008

Assassination. It's one of the ugliest words in human history, describing a crime so heinous it rates a special definition beyond murder. Not always the action of demented malcontents, the killing of political leaders – from the plot against Julius Caesar to the recent outrage in Pakistan – has often foiled workable self-government. For Benazir Bhutto's troubled country, her killing may mean yet another discouraging resort to martial law.

Americans this week are reminded that assassination never has been limited to parts of the world where terrorism and despotism may flourish. The release from prison of Sara Jane Moore 32 years after her failed attempt on the life of President Gerald Ford serves to highlight a sad history of our own. Four U.S. presidents have been killed by assassins' bullets.

Our Secret Service has become one of the largest executive entities, charged with guarding the president and others in leadership. Two killings in 1968 – of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in quick succession – were adjudged as grievous in their way as presidential slayings.

An attempted assassination 75 years ago, had it succeeded, would surely have altered national and possibly even world history. On Feb. 15, 1933, a deluded misfit, Giuseppe Zangara, took aim at Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after the president-elect had debarked from a yacht at Miami's Bayfront Park. Jostled by a crowd surrounding the dock, a bullet intended for Roosevelt hit and fatally injured the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak.

Four other people were struck by Zangara's erratic gunfire. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that if Roosevelt, rather than the luckless Mayor Cermak, had been felled that day, there would have been no New Deal to combat the Depression, and – who knows? – a possible absence of U.S. leadership in the war against facism a decade later. The attempt on his life, remember, was just 17 days before FDR was sworn in as president.

What if a president-elect were to die? Would we reconvene the Electoral College? Leave a choice to Congress? Schedule a new national election? The Constitution had been strangely silent on this possible dilemma for nearly one-and-a-half centuries. By almost incredible coincidence, however, a 20th Amendment to the Constitution had been ratified on Jan. 23, 1933, scarcely three weeks before the Miami shooting. The new language provided:

“If at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.”

Thus, in the event of Roosevelt's death there in Miami, a former House speaker, John Nance Garner of Texas, would have been sworn in as president on the following March 4. Garner had been a contender for the 1932 presidential nomination, but settled for second place as a condition of the convention's switch to Roosevelt.

But Garner was an uncharismatic conservative who shared none of FDR's aspirations for fundamental change. Through two subsequent terms as vice president, he never sought to hide his contempt for Roosevelt's New Deal as “alphabet soup.” In an economically stricken nation with 15 million unemployed, one can only guess how a restless citizenry would have responded to Garner's leadership. Social Security, guaranteed home loans, the WPA? – his presidency would have pushed for none of these.

A further irony surrounds the drama of Feb. 15, 1933. Mayor Cermak was hustled to a hospital in the car carrying Roosevelt. A marker still on display at the Bayfront site where he was shot quotes Cermak as saying to the president-elect, “I'm glad it was me instead of you.”

Possibly true. If so, however, the mayor proved himself a man of truly generous spirit. The fact is, he was no admirer of Roosevelt. As host mayor to the previous year's Democratic convention, Cermak had not been a part of the delegate switch that gave FDR the two-thirds margin needed for the nomination. A typical Chicago politician who had clawed his way to the top through ward politics, Cermak nurtured a natural hostility toward persons of patrician background, such as Roosevelt.

Then why had he gone to Miami? Because Chicago was broke. School teachers were being paid in scrip, with no relief in sight. A well-remembered alderman, bar owner Paddy Bauler, admitted he persuaded Cermak to go begging to the next president for help.

“He wouldn't a gone down there except for me,” Bauler later wailed. “And how was I to know some nut would put a shot in 'im?”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.

Wrap...

Rich vs Poor earns votes....

From David Sirota:

http://www.credoaction.com/sirota/2008/01/the_numbers_dont_lie_as_i_said.html

As Predicted, Populism Is On the Rise - Who's Laughing Now?

By David Sirota

Credo Action, 1/3/08

Back in August, I wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled
"An Economic Populist Is Rising In the GOP Presidential Primary." In
that article, I predicted that Republican Mike Huckabee would rise
and potentially win the Iowa caucuses based on his relentless focus
on economic inequality and class-based populism. I chided the media
and Democrats for ignoring him, and when I wrote this article, I was
laughed at by many reporters, pundits and readers alike.

In November, I wrote a nationally syndicated column for Creators
Syndicate entitled "The Huey Longs of Iowa" about both Huckabee and
John Edwards. I once again noted that these two underdog candidates
were competing in the Iowa caucus despite being outspent precisely
because both men were running as bare-knuckled economic populists. As
the only nationally syndicated columnist to write something like this,
I was largely dismissed and laughed off by national political
reporters, pundits and many readers, with most telling me the Iowa
race was between only Romney and Giuliani on the Republican side, and
only Clinton and Obama on the Democratic side (You can read both
articles attached below).

Now the results are in: Huckabee has resoundingly won the Iowa
caucuses, John Edwards is in a dogfight with Barack Obama, who has
over the last month adopted much of Edwards' populist rhetoric. That
Edwards is even in this race at all, and that Huckabee won is a
success for both candidates considering they were grossly outspent by
candidates being funded by huge corporate interests. More importantly,
these results (regardless of who ends up winning what is effectively a
tie in the Democratic race) resoundingly support precisely what I
wrote way back when the Punditburo in Washington was still berating
economic populism, and downplaying the very real class-based anger
that is roiling America.

In the last week, a few columnists have scurried to point out what I
pointed out a long time ago about both Huckabee and Edwards - as if
it is some sort of new revelation that the country is ready for a
truly populist economic politics. However, watching CNN, it is clear
national political reporters will continue to ignore economic
populism's central role in American politics. When it comes to
Huckabee, all the talk is about religious conservatism, even as
conservative publications like the Weekly Standard have very recently
acknowledged that Huckabee's economic message is what has propelled
him to victory. Similarly, when it comes to Edwards miraculously
being in the middle of the race despite being outspent, all the talk
is about the horserace. It is as if the Washington media and
political Establishment will do anything to pretend that the public's
anger at corporate greed and economic inequality simply does not
exist.

They don't want to admit this anger exists because it fundamentally
indicts the corrupt system that has allowed such economic oppression
to flourish - a corrupt system brought on by the hostile takeover of
our government by big money interests that I described in my first
book. But, as they say, the numbers do not lie. They are there for
all to see - and they prove what I and many progressives have been
saying for years.

To read the Huffington Post article about Huckabee from back in
August, go to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/dems-beware-an-economic-_b_60370.html

To read the nationally syndicated Creators column about Huckabee and
Edwards from back in November, go to:

http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/the-huey-longs-of-iowa.html


[Use links above to continue reading]

Wrap...

From Bush's end to Kristol fired....eventually....

From American Progress:

ELECTION '08
The Beginning Of The End Of Bush
In Jan. 2007, Newsweek conducted a poll asking Americans if "they wish the Bush presidency [were] simply over." Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they did, including 59 percent of independents and 21 percent of Republicans. Today in Iowa, the final chapter of President Bush's two terms in office will begin to unfold as an estimated 200,000 to 240,000 voters participate in the first nominating battle of the 2008 election. With Bush's approval rating hovering around 33 percent -- and with roughly 67 percent of Americans believing that the country is on the "wrong track" -- a common thread running through the campaigns of the candidates from both parties is the need for a break from the policies and passions of the Bush years. Last month, Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Bill McInturff surveyed whether Americans were looking for "small adjustments," "to turn the page," or to start "a brand new book." Respondents preferred "a brand new book" by a margin of 17 percentage points over "turn the page" and 22 percentage points over "small adjustments." As the Des Moines Register editorializes today, for a country yearning for a new beginning, participants in the Iowa caucuses have "a more awesome responsibility this year than ever" to pick someone who can fix the problems wrought by eight years of Bush.

RUNNING AWAY FROM BUSH: On MSNBC's Hardball last month, host Chris Matthews asked Sen. John McCain (R-TX): "Should the Bushies vote for you because you're the closest thing to keeping him in for a third term?" Instead of embracing the President, McCain laughed awkwardly before saying, "I hope they would vote for me because they recognize the challenges, particularly in national security." McCain isn't the only conservative avoiding comparisons to Bush. In a recent CNN debate, Bush's name was never once mentioned by any of the candidates from his own party. Writing in Foreign Affairs, former Republican Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee directly criticized the Bush administration for having an "arrogant bunker mentality" that "has been counterproductive at home and abroad." Huckabee's rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, originally attacked him over his criticism, saying he owed Bush an apology, but now Romney is "distancing himself from his party's unpopular president" by calling him a bad manager.

THE CHANGE ARGUMENT: "After a yearlong campaign in Iowa, the Republican and Democratic presidential front-runners are boiling down their arguments to a six-letter word: change," writes Bloomberg's Julianna Goldman. Though each candidate has a different idea of what form that change should take and how it can best be delivered, almost all of them are arguing that it is necessary. In a recent event in Indianola, IA, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) mentioned the word "change" 21 times. In his televised closing argument yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) asked, "Who can take us in a fundamentally new direction?" Romney says he wants to bring the "spirit of change" to Washington, DC. "If we don't make some changes to the way we do business in this country," argues Huckabee, "there won't be enough of an America left to still be fighting for." Former Democratic senator John Edwards tells crowds that "unless you've got a president who's willing to take on" special interests to which the Bush administration catered, "nothing's going to change." Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who has raised more money this quarter than any other Republican, considers himself "a genuine true believer that this country is ready for a real change."

Wrap....

Stacy Taylor...from KLSD...to 1700AM..on now!!!

From San Diego City Beat:

Walkie-talkie
The life and times of well-traveled San Diego radio host Stacy Taylor
By David Rolland 01/01/2008

Stacy Taylor recalls a conversation back in the summer of 2004 with Cliff Albert, Clear Channel’s San Diego operations manager.

“I think the first thing he said to me was, ‘Do you know, when we do surveys and research, the word that comes up most when your name is mentioned?” Taylor says. “And I said, ‘In terms of what?’ He said, ‘In terms of your political position.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t have any idea,’ and he said, ‘Progressive.’

“I said, ‘Progressive—what exactly does that mean?’ He said, ‘Well, I’m not exactly sure.’”

Taylor had described himself as “populist,” but never as “progressive.”

He’d been doing a 6 to 9 p.m. show on the conservative talk station KOGO. And there had been some rumors that Clear Channel was planning to turn its KPOP station at 1360 on the AM dial from an adult-standards music station into a liberal talk format. But in the “typically slippery ways of Clear Channel,” Taylor says, “nothing is ever explicitly said,” so he really didn’t know what the meeting was about. “You never know what they’re doing. You never know what they’re planning,” he says. “You hear more in the halls than you hear from management.”

Weeks later, on a Monday, management told Taylor that in three days’ time, KPOP was going to become KLSD, and they wanted him to do the morning show. His KOGO show had run its course, Taylor says, and he jumped at the chance to do morning drive time.

He asked Albert, “‘What am I supposed to be? Tell me about being progressive.’ He said, ‘I don’t care what you are.’ He said, ‘Just be you.’”

Taylor’s on-air persona was a matter of debate. A few weeks after his show launched, one commenter on a local blog said, “Stacy Taylor seems extremely uncomfortable in ‘pretending’ to be liberal....” Another responded, “… I think the Stacy on KLSD is closer to his real politics than what you used to hear.”

In truth, throughout a career that has spanned nearly four decades, Taylor’s been a radio humorist who’s simply responded to a series of opportunities. His politics were always more libertarian than liberal or conservative. He’s a mixed bag: pro-union, anti-gay-marriage, pro-gun, anti-George Bush.

In his last incarnation, he became a darling of San Diego liberals. He offered a bully pulpit to people like City Councilmember Donna Frye and City Attorney Mike Aguirre, and he provided a forum for rage and ridicule at Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, as well as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage—until Clear Channel pulled the plug on KLSD on Nov. 12, 2007, and turned 1360-AM into a sports-talk station.

The debate over who Taylor is can begin anew this week; on Jan. 3, Taylor will start his new job, hosting a talk show daily from 4 to 7 p.m. on 1700-AM, a station owned by The Broadcast Company of the Americas, which formed in 2003 and also owns XX Sports Radio (1090-AM and 105.7-FM), the flagship station of the San Diego Padres.
His new show will take shots at any public figure who displays “weakness, compromise or mendacity,” Taylor says. “Expect me to infuriate both sides of the aisle.”

Listeners who heard Taylor only on KLSD might think he’d been political-minded all his life. They’d be wrong.
He grew up in Coudersport, a tiny north-central Pennsylvania town of about 1,800 people near the southern border of New York. Located where the Allegany River is little more than a creek, Coudersport is a place for rich folks from Philadelphia “to kill animals and catch trout.” He and his brother would pass the time catching crawfish; Taylor described the setting as “idyllic.”

Taylor’s father, Walter Taylor, had been the editor of Dance magazine in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, but he considered it no place to raise children, so he moved the family to Coudersport, where he took a job as editor of the weekly Potter County Enterprise.

Taylor’s brother, Lex, followed his dad into the print media business, becoming the editor of the now-defunct Washington Star, then a Middle East correspondent and Beijing bureau chief for U.S. News and World Report. But from his view of his dad’s career, Taylor didn’t like the look of print journalism, so he pursued a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Florida. He loved the production process of broadcast media, having been inspired by a professor who Taylor says helped male students steer clear of the draft board. He’d call them in one by one and ask them what grade they thought they deserved and what grade they needed to avoid the draft. He’d give each young man the latter grade. Taylor considered that a pretty sweet deal.

After graduating in 1971, Taylor moved to Oregon, Ohio, where his family had since relocated. Needing a job, he sought assistance at an employment agency, where an agent asked young Taylor what his interests were and, upon hearing his answer—broadcast media—found just the thing: overnight projectionist in an East Toledo porn theater.
What Taylor saw there was “grotesque,” he says, adding that the stuff nearly turned him away from sex altogether. He held that job for about six weeks.

Smoking pot in his room in his parents’ house late one night, he was messing around with the Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder his parents had given him as a graduation gift, speaking stream-of-consciousness into the machine, adding weird sound effects and whatnot. On a whim, he sent the tape to the program director of WGLN, a jazz station in Berkey, Ohio. The guy called Taylor the next day and offered him a midnight-to-3 a.m. on-air shift. After about six months, though, the station was bought out and Taylor was laid off.

“That was my introduction to the ‘Screw you’ version of radio,” he says.

During the next year, Taylor did radio at stations in Bryan, Ohio, and Huntington, Ind., but he wanted the big time. He wanted to be at WOR in New York. So, he and his wife Donna—they’d been married for about three years at that point and remain so to this day—packed up the car and headed to the big city. He managed to get someone at WOR to accept his tapes, but when he went to open the locked briefcase his friend had loaned him, he forgot the combination—his friend’s birth date. And that was how his first lunge for the big time ended.

The Taylors then made their way south: Washington, D.C.; Richmond, Va.; Wilmington, N.C. The couple liked North Carolina. Taylor got a job there as morning host at a country-music station—he went by the on-air name of The World Famous Dan LaRose—followed about six weeks later by a promotion to program director.

“I realized right away in radio two things were facts: First of all, most people were idiots and I wasn’t,” he says. “And secondly, the attrition rate, because of the pay and the hours, and being jerked around, and the moving, was extremely high.”

Like every job he’d had in radio, he eventually got fired, for refusing to do a late-night live show at the Wilmington Armory.

Taylor moved to another station in town, where he went by the moniker The World Famous Sal Paradise. Then it was off to Evansville, Ind., where he worked at a hybrid talk-music station. The eccentric owner brought in a myna bird, mic’d the cage and left it there, figuring that would make for some entertaining radio. “But the fucking myna bird never said a word,” Taylor recalls.

The owner finally came in and got the bird to say something, Taylor says, “and the bird—on mic, on air—finally said the one and only thing it ever said, which was, ‘Nobody smells worse than you.’

“We ended up killing the myna bird,” Taylor says. He and a colleague went into the station late one night, “probably drunk,” and gave it some chewing gum, “and the next day the bird was dead.” Again, Taylor was fired.

Next up was a gig as program director for a station in Winterhaven, Fla. It was there that Taylor decided he’d had enough of being a deejay; talk radio was his future. He parlayed a one-off weekend show for WPLP in Tampa into a temporary job in Columbus, Ohio, which, in turn, he parlayed into his first full-time talk show in Ann Arbor, Mich.—from which he was, of course, fired.

His next gig, a late-night show at WING-FM made Stacy Taylor a household name in Dayton, Ohio—not just among radio listeners but also folks who watched the nightly news.

As Taylor tells the tale, two narcotics officers with the Dayton Police Department, Bob Clemmer and Nick Zukowitz, had become the fall guys in a department scandal. Yeah, they were pocketing money from drug busts, but they maintained that the corruption went much higher than just a couple of narcs. They went to a local paper with their story, and the first article of what was supposed to be a multipart series was published. But, Taylor says, the paper unceremoniously spiked the series. One of the cops called Taylor’s show one night and asked to meet him.

“So, I met him and his buddy, and they told me that story, and they said, ‘We’re being hung out to dry right now, and we’ve got no place to turn unless you’re willing to take a risk.’ I said, ‘Fuck yeah.’

“So, every night for probably six months, I’d have one of these guys on, or another cop that was sort of tangentially related to it, started hanging around with these guys—a wild bunch of characters,” he said, recalling nights of hard drinking and random discharging of weapons. “These guys were the craziest SOBs I’d ever met.”

Taylor helped form a group aimed at helping defend his news friends, organizing events and generally selling these guys to the public as a bit more saintly than they really were. An FBI agent was assigned to try to glean whatever information could be gleaned from Taylor, who found himself on the local news when he testified before a federal grand jury.

In the end, neither Clemmer nor Zukowitz was convicted of any crime, Taylor says, “and yet everybody in the command structure of the Dayton, Ohio, police department—from the rank of sergeant on up to just short of chief—was ultimately federally indicted and convicted of corruption.” But Taylor had become “scared shitless” living in Dayton; at one point, he even hired a bodyguard.

Taylor calls the radio business a game of Chutes and Ladders, and an escape chute out of Dayton came in the form of a job offer from KING-FM in Seattle, where he and Donna lived for a little more than half a year before Taylor got a job offer in 1986 from KSDO, the San Diego talk-radio station.

At KSDO, Taylor’s show aired from noon to 3 p.m. and followed Roger Hedgecock. “He and I owned the airwaves for three years,” Taylor says, “pulling down impossible ratings numbers, like 12 and 13 shares. Today, the top stations rarely draw five shares.”

Following Hedgecock was “like shooting fish in a barrel,” Taylor says. He says he’d simply counter much of “Republican talking points” the former mayor would deliver on such Reagan-era topics as trickle-down economics and the U.S.’s role in Central America.

Nonetheless, the pair became friends, partying and camping together, bar-hopping in Tijuana and off-roading in Baja.
“I was actually thrown in the Tecate jail for an afternoon because a cop down there thought I’d called him a puerco, a pig,” Taylor says. “I’ll have to say, Roger and I shared the same passion for partying just a little outside the law.”
Taylor recalls all-night parties at his home in Point Loma. “Radio was a blast in those days,” he says. “Money was good. Talent was king. We thought we were movie stars.”

But Taylor left San Diego in 1989 after a contract dispute with KSDO, only to get “snookered” into signing a memorandum of understanding with the ABC-owned AM-station WLS in Chicago—he thought it was an offer sheet that he could take back to KSDO for a match; WLS’ lawyers considered it a binding contract. KSDO couldn’t match it anyway—it was for $1.5 million over five years. A protracted legal battle with ABC followed, but Taylor finally gave in and endured more than two years in Chicago, where he never wanted to live, until ABC let him out of his contract early.

By April 1992, he was back in San Diego, this time working at KFMB, where he did a satirical show for seven years before getting canned—for union activism, he says.

A temporary job at KOGO led to a permanent show, which he did until KLSD launched in 2004.
By then, Taylor had become tired of his KOGO show.

“As things progressed, I became less and less tolerant of most of the KOGO listeners and callers,” he says. “At that point, I just wanted to have fun with the audience, because they were idiots. By and large, they were idiots.”

Taylor had been parodying right-wingers by having comedian Russ T. Nailz play extremist roles on his show, such as a sexist advocate for wholesale mountain-lion hunting. “Nobody ever seemed to get it,” Taylor says.

It was no wonder that Clear Channel management told Taylor that he was testing “soft” among KOGO listeners on such things as President Bush, Jesus and Muslims: “I wasn’t pro-Bush, I wasn’t pro-Jesus and I was too pro-Arab.
“After a while, if you poke fun at your core audience on a regular basis, for months on end, they eventually can turn on you, and they clearly had begun to turn on me,” he says. “It was almost like the last off-ramp of that particular freeway before you hit the dead-end sign, and so it seemed to me kind of convenient, all of a sudden, at the very last second, to look up and veer off on KLSD.”

Another escape chute had opened.

He and producer Scott Tempesta, who’d been his producer at KOGO, now had a free pass to lampoon conservative crazies. As Taylor puts it, it was “open season on nut jobs.” Taylor and Tempesta immediately took aim at the religious right. But a funny thing happened: liberals began to take offense, so they brought on Madison Shockley, pastor of the Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, as a regular Friday morning guest to serve as “a counterweight.”

Having been born in 2004 and perished in 2007, KLSD’s entire life was contained within the span of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, so it’s not surprising that the conflict was issue No. 1 on Taylor’s show and each of the syndicated shows that followed throughout the course of the day. Taylor’s position against the Bush foreign-policy apparatus was candy for his listeners and callers.

But he and Tempesta began to grow weary of talking about it day in and day out. They didn’t want a whine-fest. They wanted to have fun. Ironically, they found themselves poking fun at their core liberal audience just as they’d done at KOGO with conservatives.

“Any time we wanted to branch off onto something that was kinda fun—you know, that was not hardcore hating Bush or [the] Iraq War, something like that—we had an inside joke there that was, like, it was ‘a distraction,’” Taylor says. “Somebody would always call up and no matter what the issue was: ‘Well, you’re distracting from the real issue, and the real issue is—fill in the blank—Karl Rove, the erosion of the Constitution, the war in Iraq, etc., etc. And so we actually began to make fun of them with a little game that we started called ‘Wheel of Distraction,’ based on Wheel of Fortune. We would just spin the wheel of distraction and come up with a Britney Spears story and we would refuse to not talk about it.”

Taylor and Tempesta also grew disenchanted with some of the other KLSD offerings. The lineup after their show included Al Franken (eventually replaced with Tom Hartman), Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Jon Elliott and Bill Press. They found much of it tedious and predictable, particularly Rhodes’ show. They appealed to management to freshen things up and bring in some “young turks,” but if the advice was ever heard, it certainly wasn’t heeded.
When Taylor’s contract was nearing expiration last summer, he met with Bob Bollinger, Clear Channel’s San Diego vice president and general manager.

“I suppose you’ve heard the rumor,” Taylor says Bollinger said to him,” referring to talk of yet another format change for 1360-AM, this time to sports talk. Taylor hadn’t heard that one. Bollinger said the company was about “70 percent” sure the switch would be flipped. Bollinger told Taylor he could see him doing sports talk and asked him to “marinate” on it.

Taylor did some marinating and then went to Bollinger and told him he could see himself doing an “observational” show, sort of like broadcaster Dan Patrick, who, Taylor says, “can make a story about having dinner after a game at Madison Square Garden be more interesting than his description of the game.”

Taylor says he asked Bollinger: “Could I bash the Chargers?’” Clear Channel carries Chargers games on radio.
Taylor says Bollinger told him that if the team “stunk up the field on Sunday,” it would certainly be fine to talk about that on Monday. But, he said, criticism of the Spanos family, which owns the Chargers, was off-limits.

What about the stadium issue? Taylor asked. That would be fine if the conversation was “balanced,” Taylor says Bollinger responded.

“It was sounding less and less like something that would be fun,” Taylor says.

Conversations about the station’s fate dragged on for months. Clear Channel fired Tempesta for reasons Taylor says remain unclear to him. Factions in the building started choosing sides—sports talk or progressive talk. Taylor says he believes Cliff Albert was in favor of keeping the progressive format.

No matter—the decision was in the hands of the bean counters at Clear Channel headquarters in San Antonio.
Nevertheless, numerous listener rallies, cheered on by Clear Channel management and featuring folks like Frye, Aguirre and liberal TV-news personality Bree Walker, were held in the company’s parking lot.
Were the company’s efforts to support the rallies merely—

Taylor finished the question himself: “Cynical ploys to placate a pissed-off audience? The thought occurred to me.”
But he insists that he believed the format could be saved if the protests were passionate enough.

There was talk of Air America helping to subsidize the format. “We were the fourth largest market in the country to carry Air America—there was New York, L.A., San Francisco, San Diego,” he says. “So they had a vested interested in keep the format the way it was.”

And there was talk of putting the progressive format on a digital sub-channel, but Air America balked at being subjugated to a lesser realm wherever it was underperforming.

The announcement that the station would be switched to sports was made in early November, and Taylor’s been engaged in talks with Clear Channel about returning to KOGO ever since—that is, until last week, when he cut ties with Clear Channel and accepted the offer from 1700-AM.

A week or so before making his decision, Taylor sits on the patio of a new North Park eatery and ponders modern radio. It’s clear he doesn’t think much of the industry that’s employed him since the early 1970s.

“Radio in San Diego is like radio everywhere—it’s monotonous and not very local,” he says. “You’ve got your local morning shows and a bunch of piped-in shit the rest of the day.”

The industry “has become controlled by the accountants, and talent is now subservient to accounting and cost-cutting and maximizing resources,” he adds. “The only thing radio has going for it now is it’s free. [But] if radio was still satisfying a need, would there be two satellite companies out there, where people are actually paying that kind of money to have something installed in their car to listen to commercial-free whatever?

“It’s the chicken-and-egg thing, really,” he continues. “Is radio reacting to the marketplace by becoming watered down and shitty and cost-cutting, or is the marketplace reacting to the fact that radio has become shitty and watered down and cost-cutting. It’s really kind of hard to tell.”

But not too hard. The industry would claim that it’s reacting to the marketplace, he says, but if you look closely, you’ll see that it’s the other way around.

With that in mind, how’s he feeling about beginning a new show on modern radio?

“As Kevin Spacey said in American Beauty, ‘I’m just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose.’”

Wrap...

Pakistan....very sticky situation...

From Stratfor:

Geopolitical Intelligence...

Pakistan, Bhutto and the U.S.-Jihadist Endgame
January 2, 2008 | 2205 GMT
By George Friedman

The endgame of the U.S.-jihadist war always had to be played out in Pakistan. There are two reasons that could account for this. The first is simple: Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda command cell are located in Pakistan. The war cannot end while the command cell functions or has a chance of regenerating. The second reason is more complicated. The United States and NATO are engaged in a war in Afghanistan. Where the Soviets lost with 300,000 troops, the Americans and NATO are fighting with less than 50,000. Any hope of defeating the Taliban, or of reaching some sort of accommodation, depends on isolating them from Pakistan. So long as the Taliban have sanctuary and logistical support from Pakistan, transferring all coalition troops in Iraq to Afghanistan would have no effect. And withdrawing from Afghanistan would return the situation to the status quo before Sept. 11. If dealing with the Taliban and destroying al Qaeda are part of any endgame, the key lies in Pakistan.

U.S. strategy in Pakistan has been to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and rely on him to purge and shape his country’s army to the extent possible to gain its support in attacking al Qaeda in the North, contain Islamist radicals in the rest of the country and interdict supplies and reinforcements flowing to the Taliban from Pakistan. It was always understood that this strategy was triply flawed.

First, under the best of circumstances, a completely united and motivated Pakistani army’s ability to carry out this mission effectively was doubtful. And second, the Pakistani army was — and is — not completely united and motivated. Not only was it divided, one of its major divisions lay between Taliban supporters sympathetic to al Qaeda and a mixed bag of factions with other competing interests. Distinguishing between who was on which side in a complex and shifting constellation of relationships was just about impossible. That meant the army the United States was relying on to support the U.S. mission was, from the American viewpoint, inherently flawed.

It must be remembered that the mujahideen’s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan shaped the current Pakistani army. Allied with the Americans and Saudis, the Pakistani army — and particularly its intelligence apparatus, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — had as its mission the creation of a jihadist force in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. The United States lost interest in Afghanistan after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the Pakistanis did not have that option. Afghanistan was right next door. An interesting thing happened at that point. Having helped forge the mujahideen and its successor, the Taliban, the Pakistani army and ISI in turn were heavily influenced by their Afghan clients’ values. Patron and client became allies. And this created a military force that was extremely unreliable from the U.S. viewpoint.

Third, Musharraf’s intentions were inherently unpredictable. As a creature of the Pakistani army, Musharraf reflects all of the ambivalences and tensions of that institution. His primary interest was in holding on to power. To do that, he needed to avoid American military action in Pakistan while simultaneously reassuring radical Islamists he was not a mere tool of the United States. Given the complexity of his position, no one could ever be certain of where Musharraf stood. His position was entirely tactical, shifting as political necessity required. He was constantly placating the various parties, but since the process of placation for the Americans meant that he take action against the jihadists, constant ineffective action by Musharraf resulted. He took enough action to keep the Americans at bay, not enough to force his Islamist enemies to take effective action against him.

Ever since Sept. 11, Musharraf has walked this tightrope, shifting his balance from one side to the other, with the primary aim of not falling off the rope. This proved unsatisfactory to the United States, as well as to Musharraf’s Islamist opponents. While he irritated everybody, the view from all factions — inside and outside Pakistan — was that, given the circumstances, Musharraf was better than the alternative. Indeed, that could have been his campaign slogan: “Vote for Musharraf: Everything Else is Worse.”

From the U.S. point of view, Musharraf and the Pakistani army might have been unreliable, but any alternative imaginable would be even worse. Even if their actions were ineffective, some actions were taken. At the very least, they were not acting openly and consistently against the United States. Were Musharraf and the Pakistani army to act consistently against U.S. interests as Russian logistical support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan waned, the U.S./NATO position in Afghanistan could simply crack.

Therefore, the U.S. policy in Pakistan was to do everything possible to make certain Musharraf didn’t fall or, more precisely, to make sure the Pakistani army didn’t fragment and its leadership didn’t move into direct and open opposition to the United States. The United States understood that the more it pressed Musharraf and the more he gave, the less likely he was to survive and the less certain became the Pakistani army’s cohesion. Thus, the U.S. strategy was to press for action, but not to the point of destabilizing Pakistan beyond its natural instability. The priority was to maintain Musharraf in power, and failing that, to maintain the Pakistani army as a cohesive, non-Islamist force.

In all of this, there was one institution that, on the whole, had to support him. That was the Pakistani army. The Pakistani army was the one functioning national institution in Pakistan. For the senior leaders, it was a vehicle to maintain their own power and position. For the lowest enlisted man, the army was a means for upward mobility, an escape from the grinding poverty of the slums and villages. The Pakistani army obviously was factionalized, but no faction had an interest in seeing the army fragment. Their own futures were at stake. And therefore, so long as Musharraf kept the army together, they would live with him. Even the less radical Islamists took that view.

A single personality cannot maintain a balancing act like this indefinitely; one of three things will happen. First, he can fall off the rope and become the prisoner of one of the factions. Second, he can lose credibility with all factions — with the basic political configuration remaining intact but with the system putting forth a new personality to preside. Third, he can build up his power, crush the factions and start calling the shots. This last is the hardest strategy, because in this case, it would be converting a role held due to the lack of alternatives into a position of power. That is a long reach.

Nevertheless, that is why Musharraf decided to declare a state of emergency. No one was satisfied with him any longer, and pressure was building for him to “take off his uniform” — in other words, to turn the army over to someone else and rule as a civilian. Musharraf understood that it was only a matter of time before his personal position collapsed and the army realized that, given the circumstances, the collapse of Musharraf could mean the fragmentation of the army. Musharraf therefore tried to get control of the situation by declaring a state of emergency and getting the military backing for it. His goal was to convert the state of emergency — and taking off his uniform — into a position from which to consolidate his power.

It worked to an extent. The army backed the state of emergency. No senior leader challenged him. There were no mutinies among the troops. There was no general uprising. He was condemned by everyone from the jihadists to the Americans, but no one took any significant action against him. The situation was precarious, but it appeared he might well emerge from the state of emergency in a politically enhanced position. Enhanced was the best he could hope for. He would not be able to get off the tightrope, but at the same time, simply calling a state of emergency and not triggering a massive response would enhance his position.

Parliamentary elections were scheduled for Jan. 8 and are now delayed until Feb. 18. Given the fragmentation of Pakistani society, the most likely outcome was a highly fragmented parliament, one that would be hard-pressed to legislate, let alone to serve as a powerbase. In the likely event of gridlock, Musharraf’s position as the indispensable — if disliked — man would be strengthened. By last week, Musharraf must have been looking forward to the elections. Elections would confirm his position, which was that the civil institutions could not function and that the army, with or without him as official head, had to remain the center of the Pakistani polity.

Then someone killed Benazir Bhutto and changed the entire dynamic of Pakistan. Though Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party probably would have gained a substantial number of seats, it was unlikely to sweep the election and seriously threaten the military’s hold on power. Bhutto was simply one of the many forces competing for power. As a woman, representing an essentially secular party, she was unlikely to be a decisive winner. In many ways, she reminds us of Mikhail Gorbachev, who was much more admired by Westerners than he ever was by Russians. She was highly visible and a factor in Pakistani politics, but if Musharraf were threatened, the threat would not come from her.

Therefore, her murder is a mystery. It is actually a mystery on two levels. First, it is not clear who did it. Second, it is not clear how the deed was done. The murder of a major political leader is always hard to unravel. Confusion reigns from the first bullet fired in a crowd. The first account of events always turns out to be wrong, as do the second through fifth accounts, too. That is how conspiracy theories are spawned. Getting the facts straight in any murder is tough. Getting them straight in a political assassination is even harder. Paradoxically, more people witnessing such incidents translates into greater confusion, since everyone has a different perspective and a different tale. Conspiracy theorists can have a field day picking and choosing among confused reports by shocked and untrained observers.

Nevertheless, the confusion in this case appears to be way beyond the norm. Was there a bomber and a separate shooter with a pistol next to her car? If this were indeed a professional job, why was the shooter inappropriately armed with a pistol? Was Bhutto killed by the pistol-wielding shooter, shrapnel from the bomb, a bullet from a third assassin on a nearby building or even inside her car, or by falling after the bomb detonated? How did the killer or killers know Bhutto would stand up and expose herself through her armored vehicle’s sunroof? Very few of the details so far make sense.

And that reflects the fact that nothing about the assassination makes sense. Who would want Bhutto dead? Musharraf had little motivation. He had enemies, and she was one of them, but she was far from the most dangerous of them. And killing her would threaten an election that did not threaten him or his transition to a new status. Ordering her death thus would not have made a great deal of sense for Musharraf.

Whoever ordered her death would have had one of two motives. First, they wanted to destabilize Pakistan, or second, they wanted to kill her in such a way as to weaken Musharraf’s position by showing that the state of emergency had failed. The jihadists certainly had every reason to want to kill her — along with a long list of Pakistani politicians, including Musharraf. They want to destabilize Pakistan, but if they can do so and implicate Musharraf at the same time, so much the sweeter.

The loser in the assassination was Musharraf. He is probably too canny a politician to have planned the killing without anticipating this outcome. Whoever did this wanted to do more than kill Bhutto. They wanted to derail Musharraf’s attempt to retain his control over the government. This was a complex operation designed to create confusion.

Our first suspect is al Qaeda sympathizers who would benefit from the confusion spawned by the killing of an important political leader. The more allegations of complicity in the killing are thrown against the regime, the more the military regime is destabilized — thus expanding opportunities for jihadists to sow even more instability. Our second suspects are elements in the army wanting to use the assassination to force Musharraf out, replace him with a new personality and justify a massive crackdown.

Two parties we cannot imagine as suspects in the killing are the United States and Musharraf; neither benefited from the killing. Musharraf now faces the political abyss and the United States faces the destabilization of Pakistan as the Taliban is splintering and various jihadist leaders are fragmenting. This is the last moment the United States would choose to destabilize Pakistan. Our best guess is that the killing was al Qaeda doing what it does best. The theory that it was anti-Musharraf elements in the army comes in at a very distant second.

But the United States now faces its endgame under far less than ideal conditions. Iraq is stabilizing. That might reverse, but for now it is stabilizing. The Taliban is strong, but it is under pressure and has serious internal problems. The endgame always was supposed to come in Pakistan, but this is far from how the Americans wanted to play it out. The United States is not going to get an aggressive, anti-Islamist military in Pakistan, but it badly needs more than a Pakistani military that is half-heartedly and tenuously committed to the fight. Salvaging Musharraf is getting harder with each passing day. So that means that a new personality, such as Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, must become Washington’s new man in Pakistan. In this endgame, all that the Americans want is the status quo in Pakistan. It is all they can get. And given the way U.S. luck is running, they might not even get that.

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Ashcroft's secrecy still stands....

From Secrecy News:

NEW FOIA LAW DOES NOT "RESTORE PRESUMPTION OF OPENNESS"

On December 31 President Bush signed into law the "Openness Promotes
Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act of 2007," which
amends the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/12/wh123107.html

The new law makes several constructive procedural changes in the FOIA
to encourage faster agency response times, to enable requesters to
track the status of their requests, to expand the basis for fee
waivers, and more.

One thing it does not do, however, is alter the criteria for secrecy
and disclosure. Whatever records that a government agency was legally
entitled to withhold before enactment of the "OPEN Government Act" can
still be withheld now that the President has signed it.

Some reporters and editorial writers, perhaps enchanted by the name of
the new law, mistakenly assumed that it accomplishes much more than
that.

"The law ... restores a presumption of a standard that orders
government agencies to release information on request unless there is a
finding that disclosure could do harm," according to a January 1
Associated Press account that appeared in the Washington Post, the New
York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-31-bush-foia_N.htm

Further, the widely-published AP account continued, "The legislation is
aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft
after the 9/11 attacks in which he instructed agencies to lean against
releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so
would affect national security."

But that is incorrect.

Although the original House version of the OPEN Government Act did
include a provision that would have repealed the Ashcroft policy and
established a "presumption of openness," that provision was removed
from the bill prior to passage.

Thus, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) noted with regret on the House floor on
December 18 that the final legislation "does not include a provision
which I thought was a key one establishing a presumption that
government records should be released to the public unless there is a
good reason to keep them secret."

From an opposing perspective, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) expressed his
approval that "the provision repealing the so-called Ashcroft
memorandum was eliminated.... The Ashcroft memorandum established that
the administration would defend agency decisions to withhold records
under a FOIA exemption if the decision was supported by a sound legal
basis, replacing the pre-9/11 Janet Reno standard of always releasing
information absent foreseeable harm."

"I think preservation of the Ashcroft policy is the right policy to
adopt in the current environment," Rep. Davis said.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/oga121807.html

Right or not, the Ashcroft FOIA policy remains the policy of the Bush
Administration even after enactment of "The OPEN Government Act."

[Use links above to continue reading]

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Bush has Jackson & Calendar has Coulter...

From American Progress:

Think Fast...

According to the Washington Times, President Bush "is benefiting from a Karl Rove-free White House and the lower-profile approach of his successor," Barry Jackson, who is now "the right fit for a president now reliant on Republican legislators sticking with him."

After enjoying "a good rest" at his Crawford, TX, ranch, President Bush returns to Washington with an "ambitious agenda for 2008," which includes "tackling the mortgage lending crisis," "securing more money from Congress for Iraq," and pushing Congress to "permanently revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

In "the most brazen and deadly attack" that Baghdad has seen in months, 36 people were killed and 32 were wounded by a suicide bomber who "targeted a funeral procession for a victim of another bombing." There has been "a slight rise in suicide car and vest bombs" in Iraq since October.

"An outspoken Saudi blogger is being held for 'purposes of interrogation,' the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday." Fouah al-Farhan, whose blog "discusses social issues," wrote in a letter to friends before he was arrested that he is being targeted because of his writings on "political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia."

"Five years after passage of a federal law to create electronic registration databases to deter voter fraud, the new technology is posing hurdles that could disenfranchise thousands of legal voters," according to USA Today.

"The Pakistani election commission, citing uncivil unrest following the assassination of political leader Benazir Bhutto last week, on Wednesday delayed upcoming parliamentary elections until Feb. 18."

"Aid agencies today warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kenya as post election violence escalated amid claims of 'ethnic cleansing' by rival tribes." Estimates say up to 100,000 people have been displaced and more than 300 have been killed.

Oil prices fell two cents on Monday, yet still closed out 2007 "57 percent higher than where they began."

And finally: The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute wants you to keep track of the new year with its annual "pinup calendar of conservative women." Gracing the pages are political commentator Bay Buchanan, blogger Michelle Malkin, and "author and calendar stalwart" Ann Coulter. Institute President Michelle Easton "fantasizes about a day when a conservative women's magazine competes for supermarket shelf space with Glamour and Cosmopolitan."

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Electoral College...Going, going,...gone?

From In These Times:

News > December 31, 2007
Dropping Out of Electoral College
Maryland is the first state to pass the National Popular Vote (NPV) into law, and several others are right behind
By Martha Biondi

A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as “ingenious” by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including Illinois and New Jersey, are likely to follow suit.

How NPV works is this: Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state’s winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would be perfectly legal because the U.S. Constitution grants states the right to determine how to cast their electoral votes, so no congressional or federal approval would be required. NPV could go into effect nationwide as soon as enough states pass it (enough states to tally 270 electoral votes—the magic number needed to elect a president). In 2008, NPV bills are expected to be introduced in all 50 states.

“We’ll have it by 2012,” says Robert Richie, executive director of the reform group Fair Vote.

NPV is an agreement between the states to honor the wishes of a plurality of American voters. (Koza came up with the idea from his experience working on lotteries, where state compacts are common.)

In the last 20 years, partisan trends have made presidential elections a series of separate contests in a shrinking number of competitive states. Republican and Democratic candidates alike consider two-thirds of the states to be “spectator states.” They often ignore voter registration efforts and spend considerably less money in those states—if they visit them at all.

In 2004, candidates spent 99 percent of campaign funding in only 16 states, leaving the rest of the country without a political voice. Highly populated states like New York and California, and states in much of the South, are considered “safe” and therefore offer little incentive for candidates to pay attention to their residents.

Currently, 70 percent of white voters and 80 percent of non-white voters live in spectator states. In the ’70s, three in four black voters lived in swing states where their population total was larger than the margin of difference in elections. But today, only 17 percent of black voters are in that position. Not surprisingly, presidential candidates pay less attention to issues that concern many African Americans.

According to its advocates, NPV promises basic fairness. For example, as electoral rules stand now, the loser of the national popular vote can still be elected president, as happened in 2000. Under NPV, all votes in the country would count the same. NPV would, in Richie’s view, “awaken people’s belief in the possibility of change” and prove that fundamentally unfair structures can be reformed.

Over the years, according to Koza and Richie, 65 to 70 percent of U.S. voters have supported direct election of the president. The declining number of battleground states now gives many states an incentive to sign on.

Illinois is the quintessential example of the flaws in the current system. As a safe state for Democrats, both major party candidates ignore it. There is little motivation to campaign there since the winner in Illinois gets only 21 electoral votes and the loser gets nothing. As a result, Illinois voters play virtually no role in shaping the issues of the election.

Illinois stands to become the second state to pass an NPV law. Last spring, the state house and senate passed bills that are currently being resolved and will head to the desk of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who as a member of Congress supported efforts to reform the Electoral College.

According to advocates, New Jersey also appears likely to pass the law this year.

Koza, who originated the plan for NPV, also chairs National Popular Vote Inc., the coalition leading the national campaign. He predicts the 2008 presidential election will be a turning point in the rise of NPV.

Currently, it’s hard to imagine a party’s presidential nominee visiting Harlem, N.Y., Compton, Calif., or Detroit, Mich., never mind investing in voter registration efforts in these poor, predominantly black and Latino areas. But a fairer, more democratic voting system could hold the potential to transform the electoral process and revive grassroots participation in politics.

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Individual Privacy is being invaded...

From Associated Press via Information Clearing House:

Individual privacy under threat in Europe and U.S., report says
The Associated Press
Published: December 30, 2007

LONDON: Individual privacy is under threat in the United States and across the European Union as governments introduce sweeping surveillance and information-gathering measures in the name of security and controlling borders, an international rights group has said in a report.

Greece, Romania and Canada had the best privacy records of 47 countries surveyed by Privacy International, which is based in London. Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst.

Both Britain and the United States fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies."

"The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire."

In the United States, the administration of President George W. Bush has come under fire from civil liberties groups for its domestic wiretapping program, which allows monitoring, without a warrant, of international phone calls and e-mail messages involving people suspected of having terrorist links.

"The last five years has seen a litany of surveillance initiatives," Davies said.

He said little had changed since the Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.

"We would expect the cancellation of some programs, the review of others, but this hasn't occurred," Davies said.

Britain was criticized for its plans for national identity cards, a lack of government accountability and the world's largest network of surveillance cameras.

Davies said the loss earlier this year of computer disks containing personal information and bank details on 25 million people in Britain highlighted the risks of centralizing information on huge government databases.

The report, released Saturday, said privacy protection was worsening across Western Europe, although it was improving in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe.

It said concern about terrorism, immigration and border security was driving the spread of identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to individual privacy.

The report said the trends had been fueled by the emergence "of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes."

The survey considers a range of factors, including legal protection of privacy, enforcement, data sharing, the use of biometrics and the prevalence of closed circuit TV cameras.

"People shouldn't feel despondent about the results," Davies said. "Our view is that privacy-friendly systems will emerge in coming years and that consumers will soon begin to see privacy as a political issue."

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Stacy Taylor of KLSD is coming back...

From The San Diego Union-Tribune:

MORNING SURF

Stacy Taylor gets p.m. shift on AM

Fans still mourning the loss of progressive talk-radio station KLSD/AM 1360 in November, take heart. Former KLSD morning personality Stacy Taylor returns to the local airwaves this week when he takes the afternoon-drive shift on San Diego AM 1700

Taylor will begin his 4-to-7 p.m. shift Thursday.

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