[Note: I love this column!]
From Panoka News. com :
Police Blotter
By Cst. Douglas Enns
Nov 15 2006
Between November 5th and the 12th, Ponoka RCMP members responded to approx. 130 complaints and requests for assistance. During that time our Gallery was populated by a mere 15 Rogues. This week; an ode to idioms.
Police were alerted to five 911 calls originating from the same cell phone. Nothing was heard and there was no answer each time that the operator called back. Checks of our police databases were performed in order to determine the owner of the phone and in doing so, discovered that the cell phone had been reported stolen from a man in Ponoka several months earlier and apparently hasn’t been reassigned to any other subscriber. Police never did locate the caller and don’t know what he called 911 for. Too bad. Police would have liked to locate the person in possession of that stolen property to render any assistance which seemed appropriate. Two birds. One phone.
Police observed a man, in the act of, breaking into a car with a coat hanger. At first his story seemed credible enough. He stated that he had locked his keys inside and in fact the keys were in the ignition. He was using a coat hanger to break in and police know that no self-respecting car thief would use one of those. It’s so ‘old school’. On a sub-conscious level the man must have wanted to get arrested. He was asked for one thing and would direct you to something that was illegal. For instance, he directed police’s attention to his car keys. Police noted that his car keys featured a fob which was a small burnt spoon with cocaine residue upon it. When asked for his insurance and registration he could not produce either but in looking through his things he pulled out a stolen licence plate. Interesting. That led to some closer scrutiny of the licence plate on his car. Stolen too. A bill of sale was never located either. Police continue to look into the ownership of the vehicle. A Red Deer man will be appearing in Ponoka Provincial Court soon to face a number of charges, give or take a count of auto theft. If at first you don’t succeed ... wait for the police car to drive by before trying again.
A woman called 911 to report that she could hear voices outside of her door and that someone was trying to get in. Police attended and located two drunks seated in a vehicle outside of that residence and questioned them. Despite there being two fresh sets of zig zagging footprints in the snow going from the front stoop of the complainants residence to this very vehicle, both denied any involvement. Both were given accommodations for the evening to prevent them from being the victim of any more false allegations. One of them had some outstanding warrants he’d managed to avoid for the last 5 years and he was afforded the opportunity to deal with them. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can get arrested for 5 years from now.
Police were dispatched to a local bar at closing time to deal with a patron in the washroom who was refusing to leave. Police attended and discovered that the subject of the complaint was not so much refusing to leave as he was unable to leave. More could not than would not. Perhaps in part because of being ‘over served’ but mostly because of neglecting to put the toilet seat down before sitting ... the man had become stuck inside the bowl with his feet just off the ground and nothing more substantial than some crude graffiti scratched onto the stall walls to grasp onto in order to pull himself up. The toilet paper dispenser had already failed him and had since dropped uselessly onto the floor. Police offered up a helping hand (a gloved, helping hand) and helped the man to ‘pop’ free from the predicament posed by his precarious perch. I wonder if this is what was meant by that mathematical / philosophical idiom: the hole is greater than some of (his) parts.
There were a handful of complaints involving rural community mailboxes this week. Not so much complaints about the boxes themselves but the in fact that people were hooking chains to them and dragging them down the country roads. Some were found but some, suspected of suffering the same fate, are unaccounted for. Due to the serial nature of these crimes our Behavioral Sciences Section was called in to assist investigators. They came up with this profile of the suspects. Likely a small group, consisting of two or three Caucasian males, aged 17 - 19 years old, who claim Johnny Knoxville as their spiritual leader and who, despite the warnings on their favorite TV show, “Jackass”, their stunts are not performed by professionals or under the supervision of professionals. They enjoy things like filming each other doing stunts like mailbox skiing or those involving fireworks and body cavities. Should anyone be surprised that one or more of them may have been on board that mail box as it was being dragged down the road. You shouldn’t be. These incidents occurred along 604 between the QEII and Gull Lake. All play and no work makes Jack (and his pal’s) dull witted boys.
If you can identify these melon-headed miscreants and want to help us save them from themselves or if you have information about any unsolved crime or any ongoing criminal enterprise, you can call the Ponoka RCMP at 783-4472 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
© Copyright 2006 Ponoka News
Wrap...
Sunday, November 19, 2006
No WMD in Iran...More BushCo bull....
From Information Clearing House:
CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive
By Agence France-Presse
A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter said on Saturday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15674.htm
Wrap...
CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive
By Agence France-Presse
A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter said on Saturday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15674.htm
Wrap...
Friday, November 17, 2006
They aren't 007s....
From Information Clearing House:
Exclusive: "Inside Al-Qaeda: A Spy's Story"
It's rare to speak to someone who's been a member of al Qaeda, and rare too to interview a spy. BBC Video Report
His story is extraordinary, revealing the extent of al-Qaeda's preparations - years before 9/11 - to target the west, but also the British authorities' lack of awareness of the growing threat of Islamic terrorism. Watch It
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15639.htm
Wrap...
Exclusive: "Inside Al-Qaeda: A Spy's Story"
It's rare to speak to someone who's been a member of al Qaeda, and rare too to interview a spy. BBC Video Report
His story is extraordinary, revealing the extent of al-Qaeda's preparations - years before 9/11 - to target the west, but also the British authorities' lack of awareness of the growing threat of Islamic terrorism. Watch It
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15639.htm
Wrap...
Snippets of news...
From American Progress:
Think Fast
“The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were ‘enemy combatants,’ according to a new report.”
31 percent: President Bush’s approval rating on his handling of the Iraq war, “the lowest level ever,” according to a new AP-Ipsos poll.
“Pentagon guidelines that classified homosexuality as a mental disorder now put it among a list of conditions or ‘circumstances’ that range from bed-wetting to fear of flying.”
The new “State of the Arctic” analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that “Arctic sea ice coverage this past March was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began in the early 1970s.”
“Global talks to widen a fight against climate change reached gridlock on their final day on Friday after scant progress overnight to encourage rich nations to help Africa.” The nations remain deadlocked on the extension of the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol for fighting warming beyond 2012.
“Violence in Iraq continues to increase in scope, complexity, and lethality,” Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He described “an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus, and shaking confidence in government and security forces.”
Former Secretary of State James Baker met recently with Syrian officials to urge their cooperation in quelling the violent insurgency. The developments suggest the Iraq Study Group “will recommend that President George W. Bush reverse current policy and engage in talks with the leadership in Damascus.”
The incoming majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday “vowed to impose intense oversight on the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division next year, telling a Bush administration official in charge of the agency that the next Congress will scrutinize whether civil rights laws are being properly enforced.”
And finally: Mackris v. O’Reilly: an opera in 31 parts. Composer Igor Keller has written an opera “in the style of Handel’s Messiah” that “touches on all the embarrassing details mentioned in” the Oct. 2004 sexual harassment suit producer Andrea Mackris brought against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Performances will be held on January 12 and 13 at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Wrap...
Think Fast
“The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were ‘enemy combatants,’ according to a new report.”
31 percent: President Bush’s approval rating on his handling of the Iraq war, “the lowest level ever,” according to a new AP-Ipsos poll.
“Pentagon guidelines that classified homosexuality as a mental disorder now put it among a list of conditions or ‘circumstances’ that range from bed-wetting to fear of flying.”
The new “State of the Arctic” analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that “Arctic sea ice coverage this past March was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began in the early 1970s.”
“Global talks to widen a fight against climate change reached gridlock on their final day on Friday after scant progress overnight to encourage rich nations to help Africa.” The nations remain deadlocked on the extension of the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol for fighting warming beyond 2012.
“Violence in Iraq continues to increase in scope, complexity, and lethality,” Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He described “an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus, and shaking confidence in government and security forces.”
Former Secretary of State James Baker met recently with Syrian officials to urge their cooperation in quelling the violent insurgency. The developments suggest the Iraq Study Group “will recommend that President George W. Bush reverse current policy and engage in talks with the leadership in Damascus.”
The incoming majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday “vowed to impose intense oversight on the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division next year, telling a Bush administration official in charge of the agency that the next Congress will scrutinize whether civil rights laws are being properly enforced.”
And finally: Mackris v. O’Reilly: an opera in 31 parts. Composer Igor Keller has written an opera “in the style of Handel’s Messiah” that “touches on all the embarrassing details mentioned in” the Oct. 2004 sexual harassment suit producer Andrea Mackris brought against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Performances will be held on January 12 and 13 at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Wrap...
Thursday, November 16, 2006
From KGB to GUSP in Russia....
From Secrecy News:
ILLUMINATING RUSSIA'S MAIN DIRECTORATE OF SPECIAL PROGRAMS
The Main Directorate of Special Programs (Russian acronym: GUSP) is a somewhat mysterious Russian security organization that was established as one of the various successors to the former KGB. "The directorate's specialists have a great deal of experience in building fortified structures and tunnels and know how to handle explosives," according to an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets (16 September 1999)."Moreover, the GUSP is the president's very own special service and is accountable only to the head of state."
In a neat bit of detective work, the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noticed that new details of GUSP's internal structure could be gleaned from official badges sold by commercial vendors of military paraphernalia."Russian commercial websites specializing in the sale of military insignia provided identifying information for a number of military units belonging to the Special Facilities Service (SSO) of the Main Directorate for Special Programs of the Russian Federation President (GUSP)," the Open Source Center reported this week.
"[This] is in most instances the only available public reference for these units and their affiliation with the Special Facilities Service," the OSC said.
In another neat bit of work, Allen Thomson retrieved images of those telltale military insignia and combined them with other published material to produce "A Sourcebook on the Russian Federation Main Directorate of Special Programs (GUSP)" which may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gusp.pdf
Wrap...
ILLUMINATING RUSSIA'S MAIN DIRECTORATE OF SPECIAL PROGRAMS
The Main Directorate of Special Programs (Russian acronym: GUSP) is a somewhat mysterious Russian security organization that was established as one of the various successors to the former KGB. "The directorate's specialists have a great deal of experience in building fortified structures and tunnels and know how to handle explosives," according to an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets (16 September 1999)."Moreover, the GUSP is the president's very own special service and is accountable only to the head of state."
In a neat bit of detective work, the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noticed that new details of GUSP's internal structure could be gleaned from official badges sold by commercial vendors of military paraphernalia."Russian commercial websites specializing in the sale of military insignia provided identifying information for a number of military units belonging to the Special Facilities Service (SSO) of the Main Directorate for Special Programs of the Russian Federation President (GUSP)," the Open Source Center reported this week.
"[This] is in most instances the only available public reference for these units and their affiliation with the Special Facilities Service," the OSC said.
In another neat bit of work, Allen Thomson retrieved images of those telltale military insignia and combined them with other published material to produce "A Sourcebook on the Russian Federation Main Directorate of Special Programs (GUSP)" which may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/gusp.pdf
Wrap...
Asia keeping an eye on Bush visit and intentions...
From Strategic Forecasting Inc:
The New, Old Face of Asia
By Rodger Baker
U.S. President George W. Bush travels to Vietnam this week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The visit will include bilateral and multilateral meetings with several heads of state -- including those from China, Russia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. The eight-day trip is Bush's first venture overseas since the Democratic Party defeated his Republican Party in congressional elections -- which were closely watched in Asia to gauge what Washington's relations in the region may be like for the next two years.
Bush will arrive in an Asia where North Korea has (somewhat) successfully tested a nuclear device, where Japan is openly discussing the merits of discussing the merits of a nuclear weapons program, South Korea seems to be coming into closer alignment with North Korea than with the United States, and China reportedly is shadowing U.S. carrier battle groups and planning to buy advanced carrier-based aircraft from Russia.
With its resources and priorities squarely centered on Iraq, the United States has paid scant attention to East Asia -- despite its involvement in six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program and trade negotiations with Vietnam, South Korea and China. Asia, as a result, has been left to develop in its own natural direction, without U.S. "interference" and with emphasis more on regional concerns than global ones. The Cold War paradigm of global blocs has been swept away, and the post-Cold War sense of supreme and unchallengeable U.S. global hegemony has been shattered. In other words, the "old" shape of Asia is re-emerging.
And when Washington once again has the need and ability to focus its attention there, U.S. leaders may find themselves on unfamiliar ground.
A Strategic Alliance
Historically, East Asia has revolved around two poles. On one side is China -- a massive land power that once exerted direct influence over much of the region and, under Mongol leadership, up to the very gates of Europe. On the other side is Japan -- a maritime power that is protected by an oceanic buffer, but with limited resources and space.
Much as European history has been dominated and shaped by the power struggles between Continental powers and Britain, Asian history has been shaped by and expressed through the struggle between China and Japan. By the 1930s, Japan had become the dominant power in the region. Japanese forces occupied Manchuria and subjugated eastern China before embarking on an attempt to create a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
But with the Japanese defeat in World War II, the United States began to emerge as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan was occupied and, thereafter, constrained by its demilitarization and its pacifist constitution. Over time, Tokyo learned to exploit this unnatural state of affairs for its own benefit. During the Cold War, Washington needed Japan to act as a cork on Soviet naval power in the Pacific, and as a forward staging ground for any potential East Asian contingency.
But it was the United States that had designed the Japanese Constitution, which forbade collective self-defense or the possession of an offensive military. Because of this, U.S. forces were based in Japan, and Japan's national security became a core of U.S. strategic interests. Washington provided for Japan's defense, and Japan used the money and energies normally associated with national defense and securing of national interests to build a massive economic machine instead.
As it was expanding to become the world's second-largest economy -- a title that is still far from being challenged -- Japan also built (with Washington's encouragement) a technologically advanced and well-armed "Self-Defense Force." However, it never was required to contribute anything but money to international or U.S.-led peacekeeping or military operations. The end of the Cold War terminated this comfortable arrangement, however.
In the late 1980s, China was not seen by the United States as a major military threat -- at least not on the scale of the former Soviet Union. Japan and other East Asian allies became less important to U.S. strategic thinking. Although the legacies of the Cold War structure were not readily abandoned -- and North Korea provided a convenient reason to avoid any significant change -- Washington's strategic need to ensure Japan's economic and national security diminished.
Japan's rise as an economic power in the late 1980s gave rise to a fear in the United States that the island nation once again would come to dominate the Asia-Pacific region, that American schoolchildren would need to learn Japanese, and Japan would overtake the United States economically. These fears, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet bloc (and of the Soviet Union itself) triggered a shift in U.S.-Japanese relations. The natural order of competition (fierce at times) between the world's largest and second-largest economies was restored.
Due to concerns about North Korea and, later, a rising China, the security relationship has remained largely intact, but economic security issues have grown more contentious -- most recently with the spat between Tokyo and Washington over Japan's energy relations with Iran. In this case, a fundamental interest of Japan (having a secure and diverse supply of energy) and a fundamental interest of the United States (constraining Iran in order to stem nuclear proliferation and to better manage the security situation in Iraq) came into conflict.
That said, shared concerns such as the rise of China in the mid- to late-1990s and North Korea's periodic outbursts have helped to reduce the potential for direct confrontations in U.S.-Japanese relations. As Washington's attention and resources turned to the Middle East and South Asia following the 9/11 attacks, its allies in the Asia-Pacific region -- particularly Japan and Australia -- took on greater responsibilities for ensuring regional security.
This process was already under way before 9/11 -- Canberra's intervention in East Timor being a case in point -- but accelerated after the attacks, and particularly as the United States became more deeply engaged in Iraq.
Japan's New Concerns
During the past decade, most notably under the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan began to take a more serious look at its own fundamental interests and taking steps to ensure them. These steps ranged from developing and practicing combined operations to deploying forces to Iraq, as well as openly discussing and preparing for a change in the Japanese Constitution -- and its restrictions on the military. Today, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese leadership is continuing efforts to abolish the half-century-old psychological taboo concerning military capabilities.
The Defense Agency is rising to a Cabinet-level position, and there is an open debate about the potential for Japan to eventually develop nuclear weapons. For Japan, the core national imperative is protection of supply routes. Japan is an island nation that lacks sufficient arable land and natural resources. This reality has been central to Japan's political development: Successive waves of imperialism emerged as Japan sought to gain and control access to resources and materials.
Because it is a maritime nation with minimal strategic depth, Japan's natural security concerns are less about securing its actual borders than about ensuring that no one can reach its borders -- or cut its vital supply lines. This is why, despite economic linkages with the United States and beyond, Tokyo considered it necessary to attack Pearl Harbor, a seat of U.S. naval power, in 1941. The United States was the only naval power capable of challenging Japan's control of the seas in the Pacific theater.
Currently, Japan sees its greatest risks in the area running along the Chinese coast through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, through the Indian Ocean to the Middle East. This is the route that energy supplies -- so fundamental to the Japanese economy and national strength -- travel. Tokyo cannot allow any other state to threaten its energy lifeline. Therefore, we expect to see Japan expanding security arrangements with Taiwan, Singapore and India -- all key states along the route -- and developing additional naval power, including light aircraft carriers (which Tokyo euphemistically refers to as "helicopter destroyers").
The Chinese Trajectory
As Japan reassesses its strategic concerns in a region with less direct U.S. involvement, China too has developed along its own path. As a land power, China's first concern is its neighbors. Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are all key factors in China's desire to maintain strategic depth and build buffers against potential invaders. On the international front, China's concerns since the Communist victory in 1949 have matched those of Chinese empires for millennia: protection of the borders and the dominance of a central, unopposed leadership. The concerns over its borders and territorial security led to skirmishes with India, Russia and Vietnam, and to Chinese involvement in the Korean War.
More recently, however, China has taken a different approach -- engaging its neighbors to formalize borders and offering economic trade and interaction as a way to mitigate potential security threats. Now, with its land borders largely under control, China once again is looking eastward, to the sea. Unlike Japan with its limited resources and space, China has not traditionally been an expansionist power (aside from the aforementioned Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia). The Chinese have access to plenty of resources within their territory or from just across the border.
But with economic modernization has come a rapidly increasing need for additional energy supplies. This is driving China's more active foreign policy -- the search for access to, and security of, energy and certain raw materials. And that, in turn, is moving Chinese and Japanese interests toward confrontation. For instance, there have been very vocal disagreements over access to energy deposits in the waters between the two nations, as each seeks supplies close to home.
The Koreas: Caught in the Middle
Now, without the external dynamic imposed by the United States, the long-standing rivalry between mainland China and maritime Japan once again is becoming the driving force in Asia. For many countries, particularly those in Southeast Asia, this translates to a low-key struggle for influence through economic and political means. But on the Korean Peninsula -- which is the traditional invasion route between China and Japan -- the struggle is expressed differently.
Consider the North Korean nuclear issue. Neither China, which has relations with Pyongyang, nor Japan, with its Cold War alliance with South Korea, views that as a Korean issue. Rather, Beijing sees North Korea as a means of maintaining a buffer between China and potential challengers, and uses the issue as a way to counterbalance U.S. influence and Japanese interests. Japan sees the issue as one of national security, but also as part of the broader competition shaping up with China.
Meanwhile, the two Koreas have become more closely aligned -- often to the chagrin of their erstwhile sponsors, Beijing and Washington -- in the post-Cold War system. Though they are pursuing different paths, both Koreas see their futures as being shaped by the resurging competition between China and Japan. Korea long has been the "minnow between two whales," stuck between China and Japan, and historically has pursued two paths to preserve its independence -- attempted isolation or reliance on one big power to fend off another. Neither strategy has worked very well.
Both Koreas, independently but in parallel, are now pursuing more robust domestic defense capabilities and eyeing eventual reunification on mutual terms. To end their dependence on third parties for security, the only path that Pyongyang and Seoul see is to join together -- creating a nation of some 70 million or more that combines South Korea's technological strengths with North Korea's resources and labor. Such a unified state remains a distant goal, but the vision drives much of the strategic thinking in both Pyongyang and Seoul -- and causes confusion in the six-party talks, as Pyongyang bucks Chinese influence when possible and Seoul counters U.S. goals.
This is the dynamic that Bush will encounter during his travels to East Asia. The fundamental forces are local, the Cold War paradigm is finally being shed and the United States -- though still influential -- is no longer the driver. It is a return to the Asia of the past, shaped by natural geopolitical forces and competitions.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
Wrap...
The New, Old Face of Asia
By Rodger Baker
U.S. President George W. Bush travels to Vietnam this week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The visit will include bilateral and multilateral meetings with several heads of state -- including those from China, Russia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. The eight-day trip is Bush's first venture overseas since the Democratic Party defeated his Republican Party in congressional elections -- which were closely watched in Asia to gauge what Washington's relations in the region may be like for the next two years.
Bush will arrive in an Asia where North Korea has (somewhat) successfully tested a nuclear device, where Japan is openly discussing the merits of discussing the merits of a nuclear weapons program, South Korea seems to be coming into closer alignment with North Korea than with the United States, and China reportedly is shadowing U.S. carrier battle groups and planning to buy advanced carrier-based aircraft from Russia.
With its resources and priorities squarely centered on Iraq, the United States has paid scant attention to East Asia -- despite its involvement in six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program and trade negotiations with Vietnam, South Korea and China. Asia, as a result, has been left to develop in its own natural direction, without U.S. "interference" and with emphasis more on regional concerns than global ones. The Cold War paradigm of global blocs has been swept away, and the post-Cold War sense of supreme and unchallengeable U.S. global hegemony has been shattered. In other words, the "old" shape of Asia is re-emerging.
And when Washington once again has the need and ability to focus its attention there, U.S. leaders may find themselves on unfamiliar ground.
A Strategic Alliance
Historically, East Asia has revolved around two poles. On one side is China -- a massive land power that once exerted direct influence over much of the region and, under Mongol leadership, up to the very gates of Europe. On the other side is Japan -- a maritime power that is protected by an oceanic buffer, but with limited resources and space.
Much as European history has been dominated and shaped by the power struggles between Continental powers and Britain, Asian history has been shaped by and expressed through the struggle between China and Japan. By the 1930s, Japan had become the dominant power in the region. Japanese forces occupied Manchuria and subjugated eastern China before embarking on an attempt to create a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
But with the Japanese defeat in World War II, the United States began to emerge as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan was occupied and, thereafter, constrained by its demilitarization and its pacifist constitution. Over time, Tokyo learned to exploit this unnatural state of affairs for its own benefit. During the Cold War, Washington needed Japan to act as a cork on Soviet naval power in the Pacific, and as a forward staging ground for any potential East Asian contingency.
But it was the United States that had designed the Japanese Constitution, which forbade collective self-defense or the possession of an offensive military. Because of this, U.S. forces were based in Japan, and Japan's national security became a core of U.S. strategic interests. Washington provided for Japan's defense, and Japan used the money and energies normally associated with national defense and securing of national interests to build a massive economic machine instead.
As it was expanding to become the world's second-largest economy -- a title that is still far from being challenged -- Japan also built (with Washington's encouragement) a technologically advanced and well-armed "Self-Defense Force." However, it never was required to contribute anything but money to international or U.S.-led peacekeeping or military operations. The end of the Cold War terminated this comfortable arrangement, however.
In the late 1980s, China was not seen by the United States as a major military threat -- at least not on the scale of the former Soviet Union. Japan and other East Asian allies became less important to U.S. strategic thinking. Although the legacies of the Cold War structure were not readily abandoned -- and North Korea provided a convenient reason to avoid any significant change -- Washington's strategic need to ensure Japan's economic and national security diminished.
Japan's rise as an economic power in the late 1980s gave rise to a fear in the United States that the island nation once again would come to dominate the Asia-Pacific region, that American schoolchildren would need to learn Japanese, and Japan would overtake the United States economically. These fears, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet bloc (and of the Soviet Union itself) triggered a shift in U.S.-Japanese relations. The natural order of competition (fierce at times) between the world's largest and second-largest economies was restored.
Due to concerns about North Korea and, later, a rising China, the security relationship has remained largely intact, but economic security issues have grown more contentious -- most recently with the spat between Tokyo and Washington over Japan's energy relations with Iran. In this case, a fundamental interest of Japan (having a secure and diverse supply of energy) and a fundamental interest of the United States (constraining Iran in order to stem nuclear proliferation and to better manage the security situation in Iraq) came into conflict.
That said, shared concerns such as the rise of China in the mid- to late-1990s and North Korea's periodic outbursts have helped to reduce the potential for direct confrontations in U.S.-Japanese relations. As Washington's attention and resources turned to the Middle East and South Asia following the 9/11 attacks, its allies in the Asia-Pacific region -- particularly Japan and Australia -- took on greater responsibilities for ensuring regional security.
This process was already under way before 9/11 -- Canberra's intervention in East Timor being a case in point -- but accelerated after the attacks, and particularly as the United States became more deeply engaged in Iraq.
Japan's New Concerns
During the past decade, most notably under the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan began to take a more serious look at its own fundamental interests and taking steps to ensure them. These steps ranged from developing and practicing combined operations to deploying forces to Iraq, as well as openly discussing and preparing for a change in the Japanese Constitution -- and its restrictions on the military. Today, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese leadership is continuing efforts to abolish the half-century-old psychological taboo concerning military capabilities.
The Defense Agency is rising to a Cabinet-level position, and there is an open debate about the potential for Japan to eventually develop nuclear weapons. For Japan, the core national imperative is protection of supply routes. Japan is an island nation that lacks sufficient arable land and natural resources. This reality has been central to Japan's political development: Successive waves of imperialism emerged as Japan sought to gain and control access to resources and materials.
Because it is a maritime nation with minimal strategic depth, Japan's natural security concerns are less about securing its actual borders than about ensuring that no one can reach its borders -- or cut its vital supply lines. This is why, despite economic linkages with the United States and beyond, Tokyo considered it necessary to attack Pearl Harbor, a seat of U.S. naval power, in 1941. The United States was the only naval power capable of challenging Japan's control of the seas in the Pacific theater.
Currently, Japan sees its greatest risks in the area running along the Chinese coast through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, through the Indian Ocean to the Middle East. This is the route that energy supplies -- so fundamental to the Japanese economy and national strength -- travel. Tokyo cannot allow any other state to threaten its energy lifeline. Therefore, we expect to see Japan expanding security arrangements with Taiwan, Singapore and India -- all key states along the route -- and developing additional naval power, including light aircraft carriers (which Tokyo euphemistically refers to as "helicopter destroyers").
The Chinese Trajectory
As Japan reassesses its strategic concerns in a region with less direct U.S. involvement, China too has developed along its own path. As a land power, China's first concern is its neighbors. Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are all key factors in China's desire to maintain strategic depth and build buffers against potential invaders. On the international front, China's concerns since the Communist victory in 1949 have matched those of Chinese empires for millennia: protection of the borders and the dominance of a central, unopposed leadership. The concerns over its borders and territorial security led to skirmishes with India, Russia and Vietnam, and to Chinese involvement in the Korean War.
More recently, however, China has taken a different approach -- engaging its neighbors to formalize borders and offering economic trade and interaction as a way to mitigate potential security threats. Now, with its land borders largely under control, China once again is looking eastward, to the sea. Unlike Japan with its limited resources and space, China has not traditionally been an expansionist power (aside from the aforementioned Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia). The Chinese have access to plenty of resources within their territory or from just across the border.
But with economic modernization has come a rapidly increasing need for additional energy supplies. This is driving China's more active foreign policy -- the search for access to, and security of, energy and certain raw materials. And that, in turn, is moving Chinese and Japanese interests toward confrontation. For instance, there have been very vocal disagreements over access to energy deposits in the waters between the two nations, as each seeks supplies close to home.
The Koreas: Caught in the Middle
Now, without the external dynamic imposed by the United States, the long-standing rivalry between mainland China and maritime Japan once again is becoming the driving force in Asia. For many countries, particularly those in Southeast Asia, this translates to a low-key struggle for influence through economic and political means. But on the Korean Peninsula -- which is the traditional invasion route between China and Japan -- the struggle is expressed differently.
Consider the North Korean nuclear issue. Neither China, which has relations with Pyongyang, nor Japan, with its Cold War alliance with South Korea, views that as a Korean issue. Rather, Beijing sees North Korea as a means of maintaining a buffer between China and potential challengers, and uses the issue as a way to counterbalance U.S. influence and Japanese interests. Japan sees the issue as one of national security, but also as part of the broader competition shaping up with China.
Meanwhile, the two Koreas have become more closely aligned -- often to the chagrin of their erstwhile sponsors, Beijing and Washington -- in the post-Cold War system. Though they are pursuing different paths, both Koreas see their futures as being shaped by the resurging competition between China and Japan. Korea long has been the "minnow between two whales," stuck between China and Japan, and historically has pursued two paths to preserve its independence -- attempted isolation or reliance on one big power to fend off another. Neither strategy has worked very well.
Both Koreas, independently but in parallel, are now pursuing more robust domestic defense capabilities and eyeing eventual reunification on mutual terms. To end their dependence on third parties for security, the only path that Pyongyang and Seoul see is to join together -- creating a nation of some 70 million or more that combines South Korea's technological strengths with North Korea's resources and labor. Such a unified state remains a distant goal, but the vision drives much of the strategic thinking in both Pyongyang and Seoul -- and causes confusion in the six-party talks, as Pyongyang bucks Chinese influence when possible and Seoul counters U.S. goals.
This is the dynamic that Bush will encounter during his travels to East Asia. The fundamental forces are local, the Cold War paradigm is finally being shed and the United States -- though still influential -- is no longer the driver. It is a return to the Asia of the past, shaped by natural geopolitical forces and competitions.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
Wrap...
Liberal Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives...
From Michael Moore via an email from a Republican cousin in Illinois:
A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
November 14th, 2006
To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,
I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.
Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.
Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:
Dear Conservatives and Republicans,
I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:
1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.
2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.
3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.
4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.
5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.
6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.
7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.
8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.
10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.
11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.
12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.
I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.
Signed,
Michael Mooremmflint@aol.com(Click here to sign the pledge)www.michaelmoore.com
P.S. Please feel free to pass this on.
Wrap...
A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
November 14th, 2006
To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,
I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.
Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.
Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:
Dear Conservatives and Republicans,
I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:
1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.
2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.
3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.
4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.
5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.
6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.
7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.
8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.
10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.
11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.
12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.
I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.
Signed,
Michael Mooremmflint@aol.com(Click here to sign the pledge)www.michaelmoore.com
P.S. Please feel free to pass this on.
Wrap...
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A mix of films and books...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
Camilla Way's debut novel of teen violence and angst in London in the 80s, THE DEAD OF SUMMER, to Adrienne Brodeur of Harcourt, by Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit (US).
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Linda Castillo's SWORN TO SILENCE, about a series of murders in Amish country and an Amish policewoman, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, at auction, for three books, for publication beginning in 2008, by Nancy Yost at Lowenstein-Yost (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Ildefonso Falcones' Spanish bestseller THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA, to Julie Doughty at Dutton, publication in for spring 2008, by Sandra Dijkstra at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (NA).
History professor at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin Dan Vyleta's PAVEL & I, about an American in post-war Berlin and his young German orphan friend -- and what happens after a dead Russian spy is left at his apartment, to Kathy Belden at Bloomsbury and Mike Jones at Bloomsbury UK, in a pre-empt, for publication in spring 2008, by Simon Lipskar at Writers House (world English).
Twenty-three-year old activist Rachel Corrie's collected letters and other writing, by an American, was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in March 2003 as she tried to block the bulldozing of a Palestinian home, compiled and annotated by her sister Sarah Corrie Simpson, and already the basis of a play adapted by actor Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, to Jill Bialosky at Norton, by Bill Clegg of the William Morris Agency (NA).Lbrockett@wwnorton.com
UK:
Brent Ghelfi's VOLK'S GAME, introducing a Russian gangster with ties to both the Cold-War Russian military and the mafia, and the plot to steal a long-lost painting by a famous artist, to Walter Donohue at Faber & Faber, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by David Grossman, on behalf of Denise Cronin at Holt.denise.cronin@hholt.com
FILM:
A.N. Wilson's novel A JEALOUS GHOST, to Paramount Vantage, for Kirsten Dunst to star in and produce, along with Film 360.
Sarah Dunant's novel about a courtesan and her companion dwarf in sixteenth century Renaissance Italy, optioned for feature film to producers Donna Gigliotti (Emma and Shakespeare in Love) and Barry Weissler (Chicago), by Lesley Thorne at Gillon Aitken Associates, on behalf of colleague Clare Alexander .
Daniel Handler's novel ADVERBS, about a daisy chain of gay and straight relationships, to GreeneStreet Films and producer Ross Katz (Marie Antoinette).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Stephan Talty's narrative THE EMPEROR AND THE MICROBE, a look at the epidemic that defeated Napoleon and his magnificent army, mixing conquest and megalomania with a medical detective story, to Rick Horgan at Crown, in a pre-empt, by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency (NA).
NYT bestselling author of Kingdom Coming Michelle Goldberg's TYRANNY OF VIRTUE: FUNDAMENTALISM, WOMEN AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD, about the globalization of the culture wars, to Vanessa Mobley at Penguin Press, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary.
NARRATIVE:
Joel Chasnoff's THE UNLUCKIEST DOG IN LEBANON, about the author's year serving in the Israeli army as "a wiseass American surrounded by teenagers with rifles," and a younger generation's shifting views on Israeli politics, to Maris Kreizman at Free Press, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (NA).
Emily Yellin's YOUR CALL IS (NOT THAT) IMPORTANT TO US, an investigative narrative about the customer service industry, from outsourced IT helpdesks in India to Mormon housewives taking reservations for JetBlue to the corporate boardrooms where the policies that make customer service experiences so frustrating are made, to Liz Stein at Free Press, for publication in fall 2008, by Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (NA).
SPORTS:
Former baseball star Steve Garvey's BAT BOY DAYS: LESSONS I LEARNED FROM THE BOYS OF SUMMER, anecdotal vignettes of the keys to life and baseball, which he learned from being a bat boy for the "last great generation of men who played baseball," including Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Pee Wee Reese and Sandy Koufax, to Brant Rumble at Scribner, by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency (World).
TRUE CRIME:
NYT journalist Marek Fuchs's A COLD-BLOODED BUSINESS: THE MURDER OF DAVID HARMON AND THE RISE OF MARK MANGELSDORF, chronicling Mangelsdorf's rise from humble origins to Harvard MBA and high-flying corporate executive -- until a stunning break in a decades-old murder investigation, involving a horrific crime of passion at a Kansas Bible college, causes his life to unravel, to Brando Skyhorse at Skyhorse, by Albert LaFarge at the Albert LaFarge Literary Agency (US).
Wrap...
FICTION/DEBUT:
Camilla Way's debut novel of teen violence and angst in London in the 80s, THE DEAD OF SUMMER, to Adrienne Brodeur of Harcourt, by Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit (US).
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Linda Castillo's SWORN TO SILENCE, about a series of murders in Amish country and an Amish policewoman, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, at auction, for three books, for publication beginning in 2008, by Nancy Yost at Lowenstein-Yost (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Ildefonso Falcones' Spanish bestseller THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA, to Julie Doughty at Dutton, publication in for spring 2008, by Sandra Dijkstra at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (NA).
History professor at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin Dan Vyleta's PAVEL & I, about an American in post-war Berlin and his young German orphan friend -- and what happens after a dead Russian spy is left at his apartment, to Kathy Belden at Bloomsbury and Mike Jones at Bloomsbury UK, in a pre-empt, for publication in spring 2008, by Simon Lipskar at Writers House (world English).
Twenty-three-year old activist Rachel Corrie's collected letters and other writing, by an American, was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in March 2003 as she tried to block the bulldozing of a Palestinian home, compiled and annotated by her sister Sarah Corrie Simpson, and already the basis of a play adapted by actor Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, to Jill Bialosky at Norton, by Bill Clegg of the William Morris Agency (NA).Lbrockett@wwnorton.com
UK:
Brent Ghelfi's VOLK'S GAME, introducing a Russian gangster with ties to both the Cold-War Russian military and the mafia, and the plot to steal a long-lost painting by a famous artist, to Walter Donohue at Faber & Faber, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by David Grossman, on behalf of Denise Cronin at Holt.denise.cronin@hholt.com
FILM:
A.N. Wilson's novel A JEALOUS GHOST, to Paramount Vantage, for Kirsten Dunst to star in and produce, along with Film 360.
Sarah Dunant's novel about a courtesan and her companion dwarf in sixteenth century Renaissance Italy, optioned for feature film to producers Donna Gigliotti (Emma and Shakespeare in Love) and Barry Weissler (Chicago), by Lesley Thorne at Gillon Aitken Associates, on behalf of colleague Clare Alexander .
Daniel Handler's novel ADVERBS, about a daisy chain of gay and straight relationships, to GreeneStreet Films and producer Ross Katz (Marie Antoinette).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Stephan Talty's narrative THE EMPEROR AND THE MICROBE, a look at the epidemic that defeated Napoleon and his magnificent army, mixing conquest and megalomania with a medical detective story, to Rick Horgan at Crown, in a pre-empt, by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency (NA).
NYT bestselling author of Kingdom Coming Michelle Goldberg's TYRANNY OF VIRTUE: FUNDAMENTALISM, WOMEN AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD, about the globalization of the culture wars, to Vanessa Mobley at Penguin Press, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary.
NARRATIVE:
Joel Chasnoff's THE UNLUCKIEST DOG IN LEBANON, about the author's year serving in the Israeli army as "a wiseass American surrounded by teenagers with rifles," and a younger generation's shifting views on Israeli politics, to Maris Kreizman at Free Press, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (NA).
Emily Yellin's YOUR CALL IS (NOT THAT) IMPORTANT TO US, an investigative narrative about the customer service industry, from outsourced IT helpdesks in India to Mormon housewives taking reservations for JetBlue to the corporate boardrooms where the policies that make customer service experiences so frustrating are made, to Liz Stein at Free Press, for publication in fall 2008, by Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (NA).
SPORTS:
Former baseball star Steve Garvey's BAT BOY DAYS: LESSONS I LEARNED FROM THE BOYS OF SUMMER, anecdotal vignettes of the keys to life and baseball, which he learned from being a bat boy for the "last great generation of men who played baseball," including Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Pee Wee Reese and Sandy Koufax, to Brant Rumble at Scribner, by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency (World).
TRUE CRIME:
NYT journalist Marek Fuchs's A COLD-BLOODED BUSINESS: THE MURDER OF DAVID HARMON AND THE RISE OF MARK MANGELSDORF, chronicling Mangelsdorf's rise from humble origins to Harvard MBA and high-flying corporate executive -- until a stunning break in a decades-old murder investigation, involving a horrific crime of passion at a Kansas Bible college, causes his life to unravel, to Brando Skyhorse at Skyhorse, by Albert LaFarge at the Albert LaFarge Literary Agency (US).
Wrap...
Monday, November 13, 2006
Low Life S.O.B.s ripping off New Orleans....
From truthout.org:
Robin Hood in Reverse: Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf Coast
By Bill Quigley
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributor
Monday 13 November 2006
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal, state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.
Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina.
The need is still great. Over 300,000 people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people, and Georgia reports another 100,000.
Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes.
Example one: Congress allocated $10.4 billion through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people. As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18!
Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million.
While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were renters.
Example two: Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent, Entergy Inc., which reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006.
Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people of New Orleans - most of whom have not even made it back to the city.
Example three: US Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African-American. Most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.
These apartments are safe and could have already been repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans.
Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows.
Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to repair the apartments.
After taking millions in hurricane relief money, will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished. Public housing residents remember a 1600-apartment development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families have been allowed to live in the new place.
A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing allies. AIUSA has mounted a campaign calling on people across the country to "stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents."
Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by Congress to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private projects, including the building of a mall for Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding an auto dealership in Baton Rouge, and converting a plantation in Livingston into a hotel.
This corporate plundering follows the path taken in the immediate days after Katrina, when politically connected corporations were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts:
Ashbritt Inc., of Pompano Beach, Florida, has received contracts worth over $579 million for debris removal from Army Corps of Engineers despite apparently not owning a single dumptruck.
[1] Ashbritt had only recently paid $40,000 to the lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, which had been run by Mississippi governor and former National GOP chair Haley Barbour. The owners of Ashbritt gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004.
[2]
Ceres Environmental, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, was given a $500 million contract for debris removal in Louisiana by the Corps on September 16, 2005. Additional contracts bring the company up to $555 million. In the previous 4 years, the company had received a total of $29 million in government contracts.
[3] The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance lists the company as a provider of "yard waste compost and horticultural potting soil."
[4]
Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in contracts for housing by FEMA, despite not even being licensed to build homes in its own state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 2003.
[5] The company does not even have a web site.
Other corporations profiting off the devastation include Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary KBR and many others.
There has been no real oversight of these misdeeds. The only criminal charges filed have been against individuals who ripped off programs for a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars. Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds - of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being diverted without a peep from the government.
The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are fighting against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief funds, but the clock is ticking.
Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity of those who contributed to help those harmed by Katrina will be snugly in the pockets of developers and corporations. Affordable housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the elderly and the disabled will remain displaced. The next disaster will occur, and this will happen again.
Support the people and community organizations of the Gulf Coast in this fight. Raise righteous and holy hell! Join with Amnesty International USA in the human rights campaign to stop the demolition of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected officials for an immediate investigation into the looting of the Gulf Coast. We need your help, before all the money is gone.
[1] Patrick Danner, "Ashbritt Cleans Up in Wake of Storms," December 5, 2006, Miami Herald.
[2] (Matera, "Profiles of 12," P 4)
[3] http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/contracts/ceres.pdf
[4] http://www.moea.state.mn.us/rpdir/rpbrowse2.cfm?CatgID=17
[5] Washington Post, "Emergency Housing Contractor Hired by FEMA Lacks License," October 5, 2005.
--------
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu. If you want to know more, check out www.justiceforneworleans.org and look at the CorpWatch report, "Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast."
Wrap...
Robin Hood in Reverse: Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf Coast
By Bill Quigley
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributor
Monday 13 November 2006
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal, state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.
Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina.
The need is still great. Over 300,000 people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people, and Georgia reports another 100,000.
Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes.
Example one: Congress allocated $10.4 billion through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people. As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18!
Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million.
While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were renters.
Example two: Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent, Entergy Inc., which reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006.
Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people of New Orleans - most of whom have not even made it back to the city.
Example three: US Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African-American. Most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.
These apartments are safe and could have already been repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans.
Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows.
Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to repair the apartments.
After taking millions in hurricane relief money, will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished. Public housing residents remember a 1600-apartment development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families have been allowed to live in the new place.
A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing allies. AIUSA has mounted a campaign calling on people across the country to "stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents."
Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by Congress to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private projects, including the building of a mall for Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding an auto dealership in Baton Rouge, and converting a plantation in Livingston into a hotel.
This corporate plundering follows the path taken in the immediate days after Katrina, when politically connected corporations were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts:
Ashbritt Inc., of Pompano Beach, Florida, has received contracts worth over $579 million for debris removal from Army Corps of Engineers despite apparently not owning a single dumptruck.
[1] Ashbritt had only recently paid $40,000 to the lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, which had been run by Mississippi governor and former National GOP chair Haley Barbour. The owners of Ashbritt gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004.
[2]
Ceres Environmental, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, was given a $500 million contract for debris removal in Louisiana by the Corps on September 16, 2005. Additional contracts bring the company up to $555 million. In the previous 4 years, the company had received a total of $29 million in government contracts.
[3] The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance lists the company as a provider of "yard waste compost and horticultural potting soil."
[4]
Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in contracts for housing by FEMA, despite not even being licensed to build homes in its own state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 2003.
[5] The company does not even have a web site.
Other corporations profiting off the devastation include Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary KBR and many others.
There has been no real oversight of these misdeeds. The only criminal charges filed have been against individuals who ripped off programs for a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars. Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds - of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being diverted without a peep from the government.
The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are fighting against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief funds, but the clock is ticking.
Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity of those who contributed to help those harmed by Katrina will be snugly in the pockets of developers and corporations. Affordable housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the elderly and the disabled will remain displaced. The next disaster will occur, and this will happen again.
Support the people and community organizations of the Gulf Coast in this fight. Raise righteous and holy hell! Join with Amnesty International USA in the human rights campaign to stop the demolition of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected officials for an immediate investigation into the looting of the Gulf Coast. We need your help, before all the money is gone.
[1] Patrick Danner, "Ashbritt Cleans Up in Wake of Storms," December 5, 2006, Miami Herald.
[2] (Matera, "Profiles of 12," P 4)
[3] http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/contracts/ceres.pdf
[4] http://www.moea.state.mn.us/rpdir/rpbrowse2.cfm?CatgID=17
[5] Washington Post, "Emergency Housing Contractor Hired by FEMA Lacks License," October 5, 2005.
--------
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu. If you want to know more, check out www.justiceforneworleans.org and look at the CorpWatch report, "Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast."
Wrap...
Networks watch out.."Dan Rather Reports" returning..
From AP via Breitbart via Drudge:
'Dan Rather Reports': Newsman returns to TV with a 'pioneering experience'Nov 13 12:20 PM US/Eastern
'Dan Rather Reports': Newsman returns to TV with a 'pioneering experience'
FRAZIER MOORE NEW YORK (AP) -
Dan Rather has gone digital. Dan Rather has gone boutique.
Returning to television with "Dan Rather Reports," his new weekly magazine, he will now be available in just the four million satellite and cable homes reached by media mogul Mark Cuban's high-definition channel HDNet. By contrast, "The CBS Evening News," which Rather anchored for 24 years, reaches virtually all the nation's 111 million TV homes, and it's watched by more than seven million viewers nightly.
"We are broadcasting to a tiny audience," Rather readily acknowledges.
Even so, his new venture is commanding attention beyond the relative handful who will catch its premiere Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST.
Why not? Rather, who in June left CBS News after 44 years, is beginning a new chapter at age 75. From scratch. Lickety-split. And defying everyone who figured - whether with regret or glee - that he was finished.
Who wouldn't be wondering if he can pull it off?
Headquarters for his new production company is a small high-rise suite just a block from Times Square. The paint is dry. Furniture and state- of-the-art production equipment are in place. Any further refinements can wait.
"Right now, trying to get this program off the ground, I have about all I can say grace over," Rather says in his comfortable but no- frills new office, where his own high-def flatscreen (he points out with a chuckle) still isn't operative.
Not only is his team - fewer than two dozen overseen by Rather and executive producer Wayne Nelson - focused on opening night, but after that: another 41 weekly hours in the coming year, plus additional documentaries.
Exactly what viewers will see Tuesday won't be locked down until the last minute, Rather says, with portions likely to be aired live.
"I want us to be right up on the balls of our feet, able to shift in a nanosecond if we have to," he says, listing three areas to concentrate on: investigative stories, in-depth interviews and "hard-edged field reports." Favourite subjects are likely to include the nation's fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic squeeze on middle-income families and politics.
"I see this as a pioneering experience," Rather says. And he could be right. Here is TV news issuing not from a huge organization, but, uniquely, from the vision of one guy.
"When I first talked to Mark Cuban, he told he that he was prepared to give me total, complete and absolute editorial and creative control," Rather says. "Now stop and think about that for a moment: do you know any journalists past and present (with such an arrangement)?"
Yeah, but for most of his run at CBS News, wasn't Rather the reigning presence, the 900-pound gorilla?
"I was responsible for the 'Evening News' and accountable for the 'Evening News,"' he allows, "but I had to, and did, answer up." He ticks off the steps of the corporate ladder that ascended even higher than his lofty perch on West 57th Street. "There are people above you."
Not now. According to Rather, Cuban "only asked two things of me: 'I want you to strive for excellence, and be fearless."'
So, now for Rather, it's no excuses. And like him or not, how he manages this gift of total independence could well be instructive for anyone who worries about journalism under a corporate thumb.
"Increasingly, most of the major news outlets in this country are owned by very large corporate entities, and, in some cases, international conglomerates," notes Rather. And, among their many interests, some "increasingly come in conflict with what I think is strong journalism, the kind of role I think journalism should play in the country."
Rather doesn't mention it, but a classic example is the 1995 "60 Minutes" expose that charged the tobacco industry with ignoring, and lying about, evidence of its products' harmfulness. Big Tobacco threatened lawsuits and top CBS executives caved. Savvy business, maybe. But cowardly journalism.
While declaring he was proud to be at CBS News throughout his 44-year stretch, Rather admits to harbouring concerns about corporate co- opting when he was there.
"I tried to speak about it sometimes," he says. "Sometimes the management didn't take all that kindly to my speaking out about it. Could I have done more myself? Yes. Should I have done more? Yes."
But that's behind him now. So are his final, stormy years at CBS News, when he (and others) suffered the aftershocks of his discredited "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President George W. Bush's military service that aired in 2004. The resulting scandal led to his departure from the "Evening News" anchor chair and, 15 months later, his exit from the network.
Some of the hits he took were deserved, he says, while the rest - well, that story ignited a firestorm that almost ruined Rather's reputation.
"Let's face it," he reasons, "over the length and breadth of a career, I've gotten a whole lot more than I ever deserved on the upside. So if I got some things I didn't deserve on the downside, I can't and won't complain about it."
Instead, his eyes are on the far horizon, he says. He has a brand-new broadcast to get on the air. And he believes that, if he makes the most of his opportunity, "Dan Rather Reports" could make a difference. A positive force in journalism, even for people who can't see it.
-
On the Net:
http://www.hd.net
-
EDITOR'S NOTE - Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org
Wrap...
'Dan Rather Reports': Newsman returns to TV with a 'pioneering experience'Nov 13 12:20 PM US/Eastern
'Dan Rather Reports': Newsman returns to TV with a 'pioneering experience'
FRAZIER MOORE NEW YORK (AP) -
Dan Rather has gone digital. Dan Rather has gone boutique.
Returning to television with "Dan Rather Reports," his new weekly magazine, he will now be available in just the four million satellite and cable homes reached by media mogul Mark Cuban's high-definition channel HDNet. By contrast, "The CBS Evening News," which Rather anchored for 24 years, reaches virtually all the nation's 111 million TV homes, and it's watched by more than seven million viewers nightly.
"We are broadcasting to a tiny audience," Rather readily acknowledges.
Even so, his new venture is commanding attention beyond the relative handful who will catch its premiere Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST.
Why not? Rather, who in June left CBS News after 44 years, is beginning a new chapter at age 75. From scratch. Lickety-split. And defying everyone who figured - whether with regret or glee - that he was finished.
Who wouldn't be wondering if he can pull it off?
Headquarters for his new production company is a small high-rise suite just a block from Times Square. The paint is dry. Furniture and state- of-the-art production equipment are in place. Any further refinements can wait.
"Right now, trying to get this program off the ground, I have about all I can say grace over," Rather says in his comfortable but no- frills new office, where his own high-def flatscreen (he points out with a chuckle) still isn't operative.
Not only is his team - fewer than two dozen overseen by Rather and executive producer Wayne Nelson - focused on opening night, but after that: another 41 weekly hours in the coming year, plus additional documentaries.
Exactly what viewers will see Tuesday won't be locked down until the last minute, Rather says, with portions likely to be aired live.
"I want us to be right up on the balls of our feet, able to shift in a nanosecond if we have to," he says, listing three areas to concentrate on: investigative stories, in-depth interviews and "hard-edged field reports." Favourite subjects are likely to include the nation's fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic squeeze on middle-income families and politics.
"I see this as a pioneering experience," Rather says. And he could be right. Here is TV news issuing not from a huge organization, but, uniquely, from the vision of one guy.
"When I first talked to Mark Cuban, he told he that he was prepared to give me total, complete and absolute editorial and creative control," Rather says. "Now stop and think about that for a moment: do you know any journalists past and present (with such an arrangement)?"
Yeah, but for most of his run at CBS News, wasn't Rather the reigning presence, the 900-pound gorilla?
"I was responsible for the 'Evening News' and accountable for the 'Evening News,"' he allows, "but I had to, and did, answer up." He ticks off the steps of the corporate ladder that ascended even higher than his lofty perch on West 57th Street. "There are people above you."
Not now. According to Rather, Cuban "only asked two things of me: 'I want you to strive for excellence, and be fearless."'
So, now for Rather, it's no excuses. And like him or not, how he manages this gift of total independence could well be instructive for anyone who worries about journalism under a corporate thumb.
"Increasingly, most of the major news outlets in this country are owned by very large corporate entities, and, in some cases, international conglomerates," notes Rather. And, among their many interests, some "increasingly come in conflict with what I think is strong journalism, the kind of role I think journalism should play in the country."
Rather doesn't mention it, but a classic example is the 1995 "60 Minutes" expose that charged the tobacco industry with ignoring, and lying about, evidence of its products' harmfulness. Big Tobacco threatened lawsuits and top CBS executives caved. Savvy business, maybe. But cowardly journalism.
While declaring he was proud to be at CBS News throughout his 44-year stretch, Rather admits to harbouring concerns about corporate co- opting when he was there.
"I tried to speak about it sometimes," he says. "Sometimes the management didn't take all that kindly to my speaking out about it. Could I have done more myself? Yes. Should I have done more? Yes."
But that's behind him now. So are his final, stormy years at CBS News, when he (and others) suffered the aftershocks of his discredited "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President George W. Bush's military service that aired in 2004. The resulting scandal led to his departure from the "Evening News" anchor chair and, 15 months later, his exit from the network.
Some of the hits he took were deserved, he says, while the rest - well, that story ignited a firestorm that almost ruined Rather's reputation.
"Let's face it," he reasons, "over the length and breadth of a career, I've gotten a whole lot more than I ever deserved on the upside. So if I got some things I didn't deserve on the downside, I can't and won't complain about it."
Instead, his eyes are on the far horizon, he says. He has a brand-new broadcast to get on the air. And he believes that, if he makes the most of his opportunity, "Dan Rather Reports" could make a difference. A positive force in journalism, even for people who can't see it.
-
On the Net:
http://www.hd.net
-
EDITOR'S NOTE - Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org
Wrap...
Mr Gates: Go for it!
From Secrecy News:
ROBERT GATES ON OPENNESS, OVERSIGHT
As Director of Central Intelligence from 1991-1993, Robert M. Gates,the nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense, grappled with questions of government secrecy more than almost any other agency head and helped to inaugurate a decade of increasing openness in intelligence and elsewhere.
Though he said the term "CIA openness" was "an oxymoron," Mr. Gates also expressed the view that the interests of the CIA would best beserved by eliminating unnecessary restrictions on disclosure of Agency information.He undertook several initiatives to increase openness in U.S.intelligence, some of which did not fail. He directed the publication of unclassified and declassified articles from the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence; he began the process of declassifying records concerning major U.S. covert actions during the cold war; he signaled the CIA's willingness to cooperate in a government-wide program of declassifying records pertaining to the assassination of President Kennedy; and he initiated a program of declassification of National Intelligence Estimates on the former Soviet Union.
"Over the years, CIA's approach to dealing with the media and the public has been, at best, uneven," he said in a 1992 speech. It"took place against a backdrop of overall continuing and undifferentiated secrecy.... This is going to change."
Mr. Gates laid out his views on the subject and his new initiatives in "CIA and Openness," a speech to the Oklahoma Press Association, on February 21, 1992:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/gates1992.html
Most of Mr. Gates's changes in intelligence disclosure policy were incremental and did not fundamentally transform either internal or external communications. Many of the proposed changes were adopted half-heartedly or inconsistently, or later abandoned. Some were not implemented at all.
For example, at his 1991 confirmation hearing, Mr. Gates expressed support for the idea of declassifying the intelligence budget total, but he never did so. An excellent proposal that he presented in his 1992 speech -- to"publish on an annual basis an index of all documents [CIA] has declassified" -- was never accomplished, though it remains a valuable and perfectly achievable objective, for CIA and other national security agencies.
Mr. Gates' halting efforts to increase openness were explicitly motivated by bureaucratic self-interest, but they were not less effective for that reason. To the contrary, he seemed to understand what few agency heads do: that openness and responsiveness to the public can advance the interests of an agency over the long run.
Mr. Gates has also displayed an appreciation for the role of congressional oversight that may yet serve him and the nation well. "I sat in the Situation Room in secret meetings for nearly twenty years under five Presidents, and all I can say is that some awfully crazy schemes might well have been approved had everyone present not known and expected hard questions, debate, and criticism from the Hill," he wrote in his 1996 memoir "From the Shadows" (p. 559).
"And when, on a few occasions, Congress was kept in the dark, and such schemes did proceed, it was nearly always to the lasting regret of the Presidents involved. Working with the Congress was never easy for Presidents, but then, under the Constitution, it wasn't supposed to be. I saw too many in the White House forget that."
Wrap...
ROBERT GATES ON OPENNESS, OVERSIGHT
As Director of Central Intelligence from 1991-1993, Robert M. Gates,the nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense, grappled with questions of government secrecy more than almost any other agency head and helped to inaugurate a decade of increasing openness in intelligence and elsewhere.
Though he said the term "CIA openness" was "an oxymoron," Mr. Gates also expressed the view that the interests of the CIA would best beserved by eliminating unnecessary restrictions on disclosure of Agency information.He undertook several initiatives to increase openness in U.S.intelligence, some of which did not fail. He directed the publication of unclassified and declassified articles from the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence; he began the process of declassifying records concerning major U.S. covert actions during the cold war; he signaled the CIA's willingness to cooperate in a government-wide program of declassifying records pertaining to the assassination of President Kennedy; and he initiated a program of declassification of National Intelligence Estimates on the former Soviet Union.
"Over the years, CIA's approach to dealing with the media and the public has been, at best, uneven," he said in a 1992 speech. It"took place against a backdrop of overall continuing and undifferentiated secrecy.... This is going to change."
Mr. Gates laid out his views on the subject and his new initiatives in "CIA and Openness," a speech to the Oklahoma Press Association, on February 21, 1992:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/gates1992.html
Most of Mr. Gates's changes in intelligence disclosure policy were incremental and did not fundamentally transform either internal or external communications. Many of the proposed changes were adopted half-heartedly or inconsistently, or later abandoned. Some were not implemented at all.
For example, at his 1991 confirmation hearing, Mr. Gates expressed support for the idea of declassifying the intelligence budget total, but he never did so. An excellent proposal that he presented in his 1992 speech -- to"publish on an annual basis an index of all documents [CIA] has declassified" -- was never accomplished, though it remains a valuable and perfectly achievable objective, for CIA and other national security agencies.
Mr. Gates' halting efforts to increase openness were explicitly motivated by bureaucratic self-interest, but they were not less effective for that reason. To the contrary, he seemed to understand what few agency heads do: that openness and responsiveness to the public can advance the interests of an agency over the long run.
Mr. Gates has also displayed an appreciation for the role of congressional oversight that may yet serve him and the nation well. "I sat in the Situation Room in secret meetings for nearly twenty years under five Presidents, and all I can say is that some awfully crazy schemes might well have been approved had everyone present not known and expected hard questions, debate, and criticism from the Hill," he wrote in his 1996 memoir "From the Shadows" (p. 559).
"And when, on a few occasions, Congress was kept in the dark, and such schemes did proceed, it was nearly always to the lasting regret of the Presidents involved. Working with the Congress was never easy for Presidents, but then, under the Constitution, it wasn't supposed to be. I saw too many in the White House forget that."
Wrap...
Sunday, November 12, 2006
This week that was...Next time...KISS.
Been quite a week. No question about that. Now, if the various States can just finish counting all the mailed in absentee and provisional ballots so we know, finally, just who got elected and who didn't.
Brad Blog is having quite a time keeping up on those matters. Had San Diego's Bilbray/Busby mess last time I looked...and since I'm a voter in the 50th District, I can tell you I am one unhappy camper. Registrar's site has Bilbray the winner with 100% of the vote counted. Just a flat out lie. There are thousands of votes yet to be tallied.
Have a friend, a former auditor who dealt with the military both here and overseas. She's a real hardnose about doing things right. Last Tuesday she worked at a polling place. Asked her how it went for her. "GAWDAWFUL", she said. That alone told me we were in deep yogurt and sure enough.
Don't understand the people in the 50th. Our area is a recent addition due to redistricting. Not enough of us to override the voters who put in and kept in Cunningham...now biding his time in prison. So here is Bilbray to take his place. Lovely. The guy originally was elected down in Chula Vista, way south of here. Eventually lost his seat in the House to a Dem. Became a lobbyist. Pays a chunk of money for his child's school in DC...where he owns a home and is registered to vote. So also was registered as living in Chula Vista. Said he was living at his Mother's in Carlsbad and registered there...which made him eligible to run for office in the 50th. Gimme a break. In any case, the 50th - North County location - votes him in. Or at least seems to have since the votes are still being counted. I guess for those people it's a Republican or nothing. Amazing.
Causes me to think of the small Tennessee town who unknowingly elected a guy who was on the wanted list of the Sheriff in another town not far away. Now there's a situation.
Or the tiny town with a population of 80: Two guys running for Mayor. A third guy decides he'll run too, even though he figures he doesn't have a prayer of winning. Told his wife he'd vote for himself and did. Couple of his friends said they'd vote for him too...maybe 8 or 9 of them. Comes the vote tally and the two guys split the vote 50-50. The third guy, even though he'd voted for himself as did his friends, got ZERO votes. Gonna be a hot time in that little town.
And so it went. I think it's time all voting machines are trashed and the nation returned to keeping voting KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. A pen and a paper ballot and a count by hand. No machines involved.
Wrap...
Brad Blog is having quite a time keeping up on those matters. Had San Diego's Bilbray/Busby mess last time I looked...and since I'm a voter in the 50th District, I can tell you I am one unhappy camper. Registrar's site has Bilbray the winner with 100% of the vote counted. Just a flat out lie. There are thousands of votes yet to be tallied.
Have a friend, a former auditor who dealt with the military both here and overseas. She's a real hardnose about doing things right. Last Tuesday she worked at a polling place. Asked her how it went for her. "GAWDAWFUL", she said. That alone told me we were in deep yogurt and sure enough.
Don't understand the people in the 50th. Our area is a recent addition due to redistricting. Not enough of us to override the voters who put in and kept in Cunningham...now biding his time in prison. So here is Bilbray to take his place. Lovely. The guy originally was elected down in Chula Vista, way south of here. Eventually lost his seat in the House to a Dem. Became a lobbyist. Pays a chunk of money for his child's school in DC...where he owns a home and is registered to vote. So also was registered as living in Chula Vista. Said he was living at his Mother's in Carlsbad and registered there...which made him eligible to run for office in the 50th. Gimme a break. In any case, the 50th - North County location - votes him in. Or at least seems to have since the votes are still being counted. I guess for those people it's a Republican or nothing. Amazing.
Causes me to think of the small Tennessee town who unknowingly elected a guy who was on the wanted list of the Sheriff in another town not far away. Now there's a situation.
Or the tiny town with a population of 80: Two guys running for Mayor. A third guy decides he'll run too, even though he figures he doesn't have a prayer of winning. Told his wife he'd vote for himself and did. Couple of his friends said they'd vote for him too...maybe 8 or 9 of them. Comes the vote tally and the two guys split the vote 50-50. The third guy, even though he'd voted for himself as did his friends, got ZERO votes. Gonna be a hot time in that little town.
And so it went. I think it's time all voting machines are trashed and the nation returned to keeping voting KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. A pen and a paper ballot and a count by hand. No machines involved.
Wrap...
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The Dems are in business...
From The Hill :
Freshmen arrive in Washington on Monday for Orientation
The House Administration Committee released a list of scheduled events for the new member class of the 110th Congress yesterday.
This Monday, the class, which is comprised of 29 members, will have their picture taken on the front of the Capitol steps at 7:30 a.m. and then will meet from 9:45 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. for orientation in the Cannon House Office building. The House Administration Committee is hosting the orientation.
Orientation will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday and House Administration Committee Chairman Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) will hold a reception honoring the class at the Botanical Gardens.
The lottery for new member Congressional offices will occur Friday, according to the schedule.
Wrap...
Freshmen arrive in Washington on Monday for Orientation
The House Administration Committee released a list of scheduled events for the new member class of the 110th Congress yesterday.
This Monday, the class, which is comprised of 29 members, will have their picture taken on the front of the Capitol steps at 7:30 a.m. and then will meet from 9:45 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. for orientation in the Cannon House Office building. The House Administration Committee is hosting the orientation.
Orientation will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday and House Administration Committee Chairman Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) will hold a reception honoring the class at the Botanical Gardens.
The lottery for new member Congressional offices will occur Friday, according to the schedule.
Wrap...
USA...One of a kind nation...
From truthout.org :
A Deep, Deep Breath
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 09 November 2006
I will sew no silken seam on a fine May mornin',You can bide your time 'til your time runs out,So take this as fair warning ...
- "Shepherd Lad," The Battlefield Band
Let us be absolutely clear on what has taken place. This was not simply a midterm election, not just a historic running of the table, not just a scathing repudiation of virtually everything the Bush administration has stood for since they swaggered into Washington six long years ago.
It was so very much more than this.
The back of the "Neo-conservative Revolution" has been broken, perhaps not for all time - simply because nothing truly evil ever really dies - but for a good long while. The ideology foisted upon an unwilling public by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen and the rest, the ideology that has given us slaughter in Iraq and a ravaged reputation abroad, has been exposed and eviscerated. The Project for the New American Century, and all that was spawned from it, has been relegated, for now, to the dustbin of history.
As unutterably massive as this is, it still does not capture the entirety of the event.
There are many things that make the United States of America unique, but one stands out above all. Every other nation on Earth has within it cultural, religious or historical threads, often stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years, which bind its people together.
When you see the Orangemen march in Ireland, when you see the Serbs mark the anniversary of a massacre that happened 900 years ago, when you see the British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, you are witnessing an echo out of time that, for good or ill, silently reminds the people of those countries that they have a shared heritage which stretches back dozens of generations.
The United States stands apart from this. We are an invention, the product of an idea, the children of a dream. We come from everywhere, and though our history is stained with far too much blood shed during the unfolding of our own history, the sum total is an amalgamation of the best and worst of the human experience. Nothing like this has ever existed anywhere, ever.
All we have to tie together this amazing and confusing experiment are a few old pieces of paper. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the only truths that each and every citizen of this country have completely in common. They are our unifying theme, our organizing principle, and we share this together because the basic idea was, and remains, that these belong to us and defend us and set us, now and forever, free.
It was not always so, and remains today a dream unfulfilled, but in the end, that was the genius of it all. These three documents, and the ideology behind them, were created to be self-improving entities. Much remains to be done to move along the "more perfect Union" Lincoln spoke of, and that work will never be completed ... and that is the point. These things are ours, and they are all that we truly have to bind us together, and our purpose as citizens is to bend our will toward the creation of that more perfect Union.
Before the sun came up on Wednesday, that shared heritage had been under a savage, unrelenting attack by men and women who have no respect for the idea and the dream which makes us all that we are as a people. The right to a trial has been shattered, the right to stand before your accuser has been removed, the right to be secure in home and person from governmental intrusion has been swept by the boards, and all by a president who once referred to the Constitution as "just a God damned piece of paper."
These cancers have not been cut out simply because of an election, of course. But the first, vital step towards repairing our shared heritage was taken on Tuesday night, simply because we have at long last returned to the basic Constitutional requirement of checks and balances within this government. No longer will the best interests of the people be slapped aside by people who have no patience for the process that was laid out by wiser and better men. Some logs have been thrown in the road, and for now, a real chance for healing has been gifted to us by the very democratic institutions these people would shun and shatter. The power of the vote, so often maligned and disdained, has been restored.
A more perfect Union, indeed.
Much remains to be done. The departure of Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon will not heal Iraq, nor will it bring back to life the soldiers and civilians who have died thanks to the hubris of others. The cornering of Dick Cheney has not sapped him of his power. George W. Bush remains an incurious front man whose very existence in that seat of power will stand as a constant threat to the safety and security of this nation and the world entire.
"U.S. envoy tells Iraqis election won't change policy," reads the Associated Press headline from Wednesday. That, in and of itself, says all we need to know about what remains to be done. For the first time in far too long, however, an opportunity has arrived to do more than scream into the thunderstorm and damn the rain.
The real work begins now.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.
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Wrap...
A Deep, Deep Breath
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 09 November 2006
I will sew no silken seam on a fine May mornin',You can bide your time 'til your time runs out,So take this as fair warning ...
- "Shepherd Lad," The Battlefield Band
Let us be absolutely clear on what has taken place. This was not simply a midterm election, not just a historic running of the table, not just a scathing repudiation of virtually everything the Bush administration has stood for since they swaggered into Washington six long years ago.
It was so very much more than this.
The back of the "Neo-conservative Revolution" has been broken, perhaps not for all time - simply because nothing truly evil ever really dies - but for a good long while. The ideology foisted upon an unwilling public by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen and the rest, the ideology that has given us slaughter in Iraq and a ravaged reputation abroad, has been exposed and eviscerated. The Project for the New American Century, and all that was spawned from it, has been relegated, for now, to the dustbin of history.
As unutterably massive as this is, it still does not capture the entirety of the event.
There are many things that make the United States of America unique, but one stands out above all. Every other nation on Earth has within it cultural, religious or historical threads, often stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years, which bind its people together.
When you see the Orangemen march in Ireland, when you see the Serbs mark the anniversary of a massacre that happened 900 years ago, when you see the British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, you are witnessing an echo out of time that, for good or ill, silently reminds the people of those countries that they have a shared heritage which stretches back dozens of generations.
The United States stands apart from this. We are an invention, the product of an idea, the children of a dream. We come from everywhere, and though our history is stained with far too much blood shed during the unfolding of our own history, the sum total is an amalgamation of the best and worst of the human experience. Nothing like this has ever existed anywhere, ever.
All we have to tie together this amazing and confusing experiment are a few old pieces of paper. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the only truths that each and every citizen of this country have completely in common. They are our unifying theme, our organizing principle, and we share this together because the basic idea was, and remains, that these belong to us and defend us and set us, now and forever, free.
It was not always so, and remains today a dream unfulfilled, but in the end, that was the genius of it all. These three documents, and the ideology behind them, were created to be self-improving entities. Much remains to be done to move along the "more perfect Union" Lincoln spoke of, and that work will never be completed ... and that is the point. These things are ours, and they are all that we truly have to bind us together, and our purpose as citizens is to bend our will toward the creation of that more perfect Union.
Before the sun came up on Wednesday, that shared heritage had been under a savage, unrelenting attack by men and women who have no respect for the idea and the dream which makes us all that we are as a people. The right to a trial has been shattered, the right to stand before your accuser has been removed, the right to be secure in home and person from governmental intrusion has been swept by the boards, and all by a president who once referred to the Constitution as "just a God damned piece of paper."
These cancers have not been cut out simply because of an election, of course. But the first, vital step towards repairing our shared heritage was taken on Tuesday night, simply because we have at long last returned to the basic Constitutional requirement of checks and balances within this government. No longer will the best interests of the people be slapped aside by people who have no patience for the process that was laid out by wiser and better men. Some logs have been thrown in the road, and for now, a real chance for healing has been gifted to us by the very democratic institutions these people would shun and shatter. The power of the vote, so often maligned and disdained, has been restored.
A more perfect Union, indeed.
Much remains to be done. The departure of Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon will not heal Iraq, nor will it bring back to life the soldiers and civilians who have died thanks to the hubris of others. The cornering of Dick Cheney has not sapped him of his power. George W. Bush remains an incurious front man whose very existence in that seat of power will stand as a constant threat to the safety and security of this nation and the world entire.
"U.S. envoy tells Iraqis election won't change policy," reads the Associated Press headline from Wednesday. That, in and of itself, says all we need to know about what remains to be done. For the first time in far too long, however, an opportunity has arrived to do more than scream into the thunderstorm and damn the rain.
The real work begins now.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.
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Wrap...
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
BushCo about to get what they deserve....
From Wayne Madsen Reports.com [an excerpt] :
John Conyers (D-MI) becomes chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. His portfolio to investigate election fraud and Patriot Act abuses may result in possible impeachment articles being put forward.
John Dingell (D-MI) becomes chairman of the House Commerce Committee. His committee has oversight for energy (Cheney's secret energy task force is under the gun), telecommunications (media consolidation issues could be on the table), consumer protection, and public health.
Barney Frank (D-MA) becomes chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Minimum wage increase on the agenda.
Charlie Rangel (D-NY) becomes chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rolling back tax cuts for billionaires as well as corporate offshore tax havens will be on the agenda.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) becomes chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. He will exercise subpoena power to bring witnesses (friendly and hostile) before his committee to investigate Pentagon contract fraud (watch out Halliburton and KBR).
Ike Skelton (D-MO) becomes chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Will also investigate Pentagon contract fraud.
Alcee Hastings (D-FL) may become chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Look for real fireworks here with former members of the US Intelligence Community being called to testify on pre-war intelligence cooking.
Neo-conservative ally Tom Lantos is slated to take over the House International Relations Committee. This is the only committee where the Bush administration will have anything close to a safe haven. Lantos was a supporter of the Iraq war.
In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Patrick Leahy will be able to bottle up any right-wing nominations to the Supreme Court, if any should arise. Bush will be forced to submit the names of moderate consensus judges.
Joe Biden will become Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Iraq will be at the top of the agenda.
Jeff Bingaman becomes Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where gasoline price gouging and Interior Department scandals will feature prominently.
Jay Rockefeller becomes Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence with subpoena power on pre-war intelligence cooking. Pat Roberts, who has stonewalled for the White House, will be relegated to ranking member.
Carl Levin becomes Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Max Baucus becomes Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Robert Byrd takes over as Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd also becomes President pro tem of the Senate, fourth in line for the White House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wrap...
John Conyers (D-MI) becomes chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. His portfolio to investigate election fraud and Patriot Act abuses may result in possible impeachment articles being put forward.
John Dingell (D-MI) becomes chairman of the House Commerce Committee. His committee has oversight for energy (Cheney's secret energy task force is under the gun), telecommunications (media consolidation issues could be on the table), consumer protection, and public health.
Barney Frank (D-MA) becomes chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Minimum wage increase on the agenda.
Charlie Rangel (D-NY) becomes chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rolling back tax cuts for billionaires as well as corporate offshore tax havens will be on the agenda.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) becomes chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. He will exercise subpoena power to bring witnesses (friendly and hostile) before his committee to investigate Pentagon contract fraud (watch out Halliburton and KBR).
Ike Skelton (D-MO) becomes chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Will also investigate Pentagon contract fraud.
Alcee Hastings (D-FL) may become chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Look for real fireworks here with former members of the US Intelligence Community being called to testify on pre-war intelligence cooking.
Neo-conservative ally Tom Lantos is slated to take over the House International Relations Committee. This is the only committee where the Bush administration will have anything close to a safe haven. Lantos was a supporter of the Iraq war.
In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Patrick Leahy will be able to bottle up any right-wing nominations to the Supreme Court, if any should arise. Bush will be forced to submit the names of moderate consensus judges.
Joe Biden will become Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Iraq will be at the top of the agenda.
Jeff Bingaman becomes Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where gasoline price gouging and Interior Department scandals will feature prominently.
Jay Rockefeller becomes Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence with subpoena power on pre-war intelligence cooking. Pat Roberts, who has stonewalled for the White House, will be relegated to ranking member.
Carl Levin becomes Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Max Baucus becomes Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Robert Byrd takes over as Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd also becomes President pro tem of the Senate, fourth in line for the White House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wrap...
Some Mighty Interesting Books...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
O. Henry Prize winner Mary Swan's BOYS IN THE TREES, the story of an unthinkable crime that destroys one family and reverberates in the lives and imaginations of the town's inhabitants for generations to come, to Jack Macrae at Holt, by Dorian Karchmar and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris Agency (NA).
THRILLER:
Former Army intelligence officer Steven Graham's THE ARCHANGEL PROJECT, a debut in which a Gulf War vet with a psychiatric discharge attracts unwanted attention from a defense conglomerate after participating in a university study on a psychic method known as "remote viewing," inspired by actual classified programs the U.S. government once pursued to train operatives, to Lyssa Keusch at William Morrow, by Helen Breitwieser at Cornerstone Literary (World). hb@cornerstoneliterary.com
Mafia Summer author E. Duke Vincent's BLACK WIDOW, in which a Navy pilot falls for a gorgeous young widow and finds himself at the glamorous, dangerous intersection where the military meets Hollywood and the Mob,to Karen Rinaldi at Bloomsbury, by Ed Victor at Ed Victor Ltd. (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
The Wife and The Position author Meg Wolitzer's THE TEN YEAR NAP, following Sarah McGrath to Riverhead, by Suzanne Gluck at William Morris Agency.
MIT behavioral economist, Dan Ariely's PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL, showing how the world often works according to principles of irrationality in the places where we expect rationality, with research that shows people make the same types of mistakes over and over, in a predictable manner -- which means understanding this behavior can improve decision-making, to Jonathan Burnham and Claire Wachtel at Harper, for publication in winter 2008, by James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world English).
Entertainment Weekly writer Karen Valby's WELCOME TO UTOPIA: A Ballad of a Small-Town (or, How Broadband, the Internet, and MySpace are Forever Changing Rural America, about a blissfully isolated rural Texas town called Utopia on the cusp of dramatic change brought about by an invasion of mainstream American culture via the web, to Chris Jackson at Spiegel & Grau, by Betsy Lerner at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (NA).gkoss@randomhouse.com
FILM:
Susan Wiggs's TABLE FOR FIVE, in which two unlikely guardians and three orphaned children cobble together a family in this domestic drama, to producer Kate McArdle and Zimand Entertainment, by Meg Ruley at Jane Rotrosen Agency, with Maria Ruvalbaca Hackett at Intellectual Property Group.
HISTORY/POLITICS/WORLD AFFAIRS:
AOL director of news programming and former U.S. News & World Report chief congressional reporter Terrence Samuel's TOP OF THE WORLD, BOTTOM OF THE CLASS, which will follow a handful of freshman U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle, as their idealism confronts political reality in a sort of "One-L" for Senators, to Will Murphy at Random House, in a pre-empt, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (world).
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt's book based on their article "The Israel Lobby," describing the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel, to Farrar, Straus, in a pre-empt, by Bill Clegg of the William Morris Agency.
NARRATIVE:
U.S. Memory Champion (and brother of novelist Jonathan) Joshua Foer's MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN: A Journey into Memory and the Mind, an exploration of the art and science of memory, and the people who master it - using the World Memory Championship as the book's spine, to Vanessa Mobley at Penguin Press, for publication in spring 2009, by Elyse Cheney of Elyse Cheney Agency (NA).
Neil White's THE OUTCASTS, the story of imprisonment, friendship and transformation after spending a year in the last leper colony in the continental United States, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, at auction, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (NA).Film: Howard Sanders at UTAForeign: Anna Stein
Lisa R. Cohen's AFTER ETAN, a narrative account of the disappearance in 1979 of six-year old Etan Patz, and the subsequent search for his abductor, to Amy Einhorn at Warner, in a pre-empt, by Alice Martell.
New Yorker writer Dan Baum's THE NEUTRAL GROUND, about New Orleans, before, during, and after the hurricane, as told through the lives of a small cast of characters -- rich and poor, black and white, men and women, heroic and venal, famous and obscure, to Chris Jackson at Spiegel & Grau, by Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency (NA).mailto:.gkoss@randomhouse.com
SPORTS:
Winner of five major championships and 32 titles overall, Hall of Fame golfer Amy Alcott's GOLF LESSONS, in which she and other renowned golfers, business leaders, movie stars, and other high achievers discuss how golf captured them, its mysteries and pleasures, and what it has taught them on and off the course, to Judith Curr at Atria, with Wendy Walker editing, by Amy Rennertat the Amy Rennert Agency.
UK:
Jennifer Worth's CALL THE MIDWIFE, the life of a midwife in 1950s east end of London, and SHADOWS OF THE WORKHOUSE, to Kirsty Dunseath at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, by Eugenie Furniss at William Morris Agency.
Wrap...
FICTION/DEBUT:
O. Henry Prize winner Mary Swan's BOYS IN THE TREES, the story of an unthinkable crime that destroys one family and reverberates in the lives and imaginations of the town's inhabitants for generations to come, to Jack Macrae at Holt, by Dorian Karchmar and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris Agency (NA).
THRILLER:
Former Army intelligence officer Steven Graham's THE ARCHANGEL PROJECT, a debut in which a Gulf War vet with a psychiatric discharge attracts unwanted attention from a defense conglomerate after participating in a university study on a psychic method known as "remote viewing," inspired by actual classified programs the U.S. government once pursued to train operatives, to Lyssa Keusch at William Morrow, by Helen Breitwieser at Cornerstone Literary (World). hb@cornerstoneliterary.com
Mafia Summer author E. Duke Vincent's BLACK WIDOW, in which a Navy pilot falls for a gorgeous young widow and finds himself at the glamorous, dangerous intersection where the military meets Hollywood and the Mob,to Karen Rinaldi at Bloomsbury, by Ed Victor at Ed Victor Ltd. (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
The Wife and The Position author Meg Wolitzer's THE TEN YEAR NAP, following Sarah McGrath to Riverhead, by Suzanne Gluck at William Morris Agency.
MIT behavioral economist, Dan Ariely's PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL, showing how the world often works according to principles of irrationality in the places where we expect rationality, with research that shows people make the same types of mistakes over and over, in a predictable manner -- which means understanding this behavior can improve decision-making, to Jonathan Burnham and Claire Wachtel at Harper, for publication in winter 2008, by James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world English).
Entertainment Weekly writer Karen Valby's WELCOME TO UTOPIA: A Ballad of a Small-Town (or, How Broadband, the Internet, and MySpace are Forever Changing Rural America, about a blissfully isolated rural Texas town called Utopia on the cusp of dramatic change brought about by an invasion of mainstream American culture via the web, to Chris Jackson at Spiegel & Grau, by Betsy Lerner at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (NA).gkoss@randomhouse.com
FILM:
Susan Wiggs's TABLE FOR FIVE, in which two unlikely guardians and three orphaned children cobble together a family in this domestic drama, to producer Kate McArdle and Zimand Entertainment, by Meg Ruley at Jane Rotrosen Agency, with Maria Ruvalbaca Hackett at Intellectual Property Group.
HISTORY/POLITICS/WORLD AFFAIRS:
AOL director of news programming and former U.S. News & World Report chief congressional reporter Terrence Samuel's TOP OF THE WORLD, BOTTOM OF THE CLASS, which will follow a handful of freshman U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle, as their idealism confronts political reality in a sort of "One-L" for Senators, to Will Murphy at Random House, in a pre-empt, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (world).
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt's book based on their article "The Israel Lobby," describing the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel, to Farrar, Straus, in a pre-empt, by Bill Clegg of the William Morris Agency.
NARRATIVE:
U.S. Memory Champion (and brother of novelist Jonathan) Joshua Foer's MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN: A Journey into Memory and the Mind, an exploration of the art and science of memory, and the people who master it - using the World Memory Championship as the book's spine, to Vanessa Mobley at Penguin Press, for publication in spring 2009, by Elyse Cheney of Elyse Cheney Agency (NA).
Neil White's THE OUTCASTS, the story of imprisonment, friendship and transformation after spending a year in the last leper colony in the continental United States, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, at auction, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (NA).Film: Howard Sanders at UTAForeign: Anna Stein
Lisa R. Cohen's AFTER ETAN, a narrative account of the disappearance in 1979 of six-year old Etan Patz, and the subsequent search for his abductor, to Amy Einhorn at Warner, in a pre-empt, by Alice Martell.
New Yorker writer Dan Baum's THE NEUTRAL GROUND, about New Orleans, before, during, and after the hurricane, as told through the lives of a small cast of characters -- rich and poor, black and white, men and women, heroic and venal, famous and obscure, to Chris Jackson at Spiegel & Grau, by Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency (NA).mailto:.gkoss@randomhouse.com
SPORTS:
Winner of five major championships and 32 titles overall, Hall of Fame golfer Amy Alcott's GOLF LESSONS, in which she and other renowned golfers, business leaders, movie stars, and other high achievers discuss how golf captured them, its mysteries and pleasures, and what it has taught them on and off the course, to Judith Curr at Atria, with Wendy Walker editing, by Amy Rennertat the Amy Rennert Agency.
UK:
Jennifer Worth's CALL THE MIDWIFE, the life of a midwife in 1950s east end of London, and SHADOWS OF THE WORKHOUSE, to Kirsty Dunseath at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, by Eugenie Furniss at William Morris Agency.
Wrap...
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Olbermann and Rather!!!
Dan Rather will do election news at 11 tonight on the Daily Show! :)))
Bush Has Gone Unchecked For Too Long:
By Keith Olbermann
Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you've stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you've now resorted, sir, to this? Video and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15537.htm
Wrap...
Bush Has Gone Unchecked For Too Long:
By Keith Olbermann
Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you've stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you've now resorted, sir, to this? Video and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15537.htm
Wrap...
LA Times editor fired!!!
From the New York Times:
Editor Is Forced Out at Los Angeles Times
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: November 7, 2006
Dean Baquet, the editor of The Los Angeles Times, who refused to go along with staff cutbacks ordered by its owner, the Tribune Company, was forced out of his job today.
Al Seib/Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press
Mr. Baquet will be replaced as editor by James O’Shea, who is currently managing editor of the Tribune Company’s Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. It said Mr. O’Shea was expected to take over the post on Monday.
The departure of Mr. Baquet follows that of the publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, who had joined him in openly objecting to the cuts sought by the Tribune Company and who was fired last month. Mr. Baquet has said that he did not leave in solidarity with Mr. Johnson at the time because he thought he could work with the new publisher, David Hiller, who was installed in Mr. Johnson’s place.
The Los Angeles Times said in an article on its Web site that Mr. Baquet told reporters and editors at the paper that he did not know whether the newsroom staff would be cut. But the article said newsroom executives expected substantial cutbacks, probably by next year.
Mr. Baquet and Mr. Hiller were in preliminary discussions about staffing levels when Mr. Baquet gave a speech late last month in New Orleans in which he encouraged editors at other newspapers to “push back” more against owners who wanted to reduce the size of newsrooms.
Mr. Hiller was angered and disappointed at the New Orleans speech, according to people at the newspaper, especially as he and Mr. Baquet were trying to reach an accommodation over the budget for The Los Angeles Times.
Neither Mr. Baquet nor Mr. Hiller could be reached immediately for comment.
Wrap...
Editor Is Forced Out at Los Angeles Times
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: November 7, 2006
Dean Baquet, the editor of The Los Angeles Times, who refused to go along with staff cutbacks ordered by its owner, the Tribune Company, was forced out of his job today.
Al Seib/Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press
Mr. Baquet will be replaced as editor by James O’Shea, who is currently managing editor of the Tribune Company’s Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. It said Mr. O’Shea was expected to take over the post on Monday.
The departure of Mr. Baquet follows that of the publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, who had joined him in openly objecting to the cuts sought by the Tribune Company and who was fired last month. Mr. Baquet has said that he did not leave in solidarity with Mr. Johnson at the time because he thought he could work with the new publisher, David Hiller, who was installed in Mr. Johnson’s place.
The Los Angeles Times said in an article on its Web site that Mr. Baquet told reporters and editors at the paper that he did not know whether the newsroom staff would be cut. But the article said newsroom executives expected substantial cutbacks, probably by next year.
Mr. Baquet and Mr. Hiller were in preliminary discussions about staffing levels when Mr. Baquet gave a speech late last month in New Orleans in which he encouraged editors at other newspapers to “push back” more against owners who wanted to reduce the size of newsrooms.
Mr. Hiller was angered and disappointed at the New Orleans speech, according to people at the newspaper, especially as he and Mr. Baquet were trying to reach an accommodation over the budget for The Los Angeles Times.
Neither Mr. Baquet nor Mr. Hiller could be reached immediately for comment.
Wrap...
YAAAYYYY for Fred!!!
Who just sent this email, and who writes just terrific mysteries! :
A little BSP...sorry, but I had to tell ya:
Publisher's Weekly has chosen IMPULSE as one their 100 Best Books of the Year.
--Frederick Ramsay
ARTSCAPE: Poisoned Pen Press, 2004
SECRETS: Poisoned Pen Press, 2005
IMPULSE: Poisoned Pen Press, 2006
BUFFALO MOUNTAIN: September, 2007
www.frederickramsay.com
Wrap...
A little BSP...sorry, but I had to tell ya:
Publisher's Weekly has chosen IMPULSE as one their 100 Best Books of the Year.
--Frederick Ramsay
ARTSCAPE: Poisoned Pen Press, 2004
SECRETS: Poisoned Pen Press, 2005
IMPULSE: Poisoned Pen Press, 2006
BUFFALO MOUNTAIN: September, 2007
www.frederickramsay.com
Wrap...
Monday, November 06, 2006
Bush...time to go back to Crawford...
From The Salt Lake Tribune via truthout.org :
The Retiring Type? Not Me
Garrison Keillor
The Salt Lake Tribune
Saturday 04 November 2006
It took me an hour to turn the clocks back an hour, coordinating all watches and digital alarm clocks and oven clock and kitchen clock and car clocks to Central Standard Time, during which a man starts to question the entire concept of promptitude, meetings, appointments, etc., which leads to thoughts of retirement, the End of the Trail, Old Paint, the part of your life when it doesn't matter so much if it's 9:30 or 10:05, or even if it's Tuesday or Saturday, when you drift along as most mammals do, eating when hungry, sleeping when sleepy and meeting whomever you meet whenever you meet them.
People my age are retiring one after the other, which scares the bejeebers out of me. It's like when I sat in Toni McNaron's Milton class wrestling with the first question of the final exam, which was about "Lycidas," which I had not actually read, so it was difficult for me to discuss how the form of the poem was integral to its meaning - difficult, but not impossible, by any means - and suddenly two women stood up and walked to the front of the room and turned in their tests. Done! Finished! And me still trying to get traction!
It is tempting, the thought of escaping from these clocks and learning to savor ordinary life at a mammalian pace. It's November, the squirrels are fat, the frost glitters on the grass in the morning. Stunning fall days with a high blue sky over a landscape of grays and browns.
A retired gent could stroll around and gaze on this and inhale the air and slip into the grocery to select a caramel apple from the big display next to the pumpkin cakes. The soup of the day in the cafe is creamed corn. That would taste good.
I could volunteer at school. The fifth-graders are in the midst of a unit on manners, learning how to say "Please pass the salt" and what to do with your napkin during a meal. (Put it on your lap, please.) Next week they will write letters to their pen pals in Denmark. I could help with that.
And it would keep me out of the senior citizen center, where a nutritionist is scheduled to talk about the importance of diet and exercise, after which everybody will tuck into a lunch of meatballs and gravy, mashed potatoes, brown-sugared carrots, buttered rolls and apple crisp. No thanks.
The Current Occupant, who is two years and three months away from retirement, was quoted last week as saying, "They can say what they want about me, but at least I know who I am, and I know who my friends are."
A pathetic admission of defeat for one who has owned all three branches of government for the past six years - did he seek power so that he could attain self-knowledge? If so, the price is too high. The beloved country endures a government that merges blithering corruption with murderous incompetence.
Congress, which once spent an entire year investigating a married man's attempt to cover up an illicit act of oral sex, has shown no curiosity whatsoever about a war that the administration elected to wage that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands and led our own people to commit war crimes and squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and degenerated into civil war.
The contrast is deafening. Republicans haven't tolerated much dissent in their ranks, the voice of conscience has not been welcome, and now the herd finds itself on the wrong side of the river. It's discouraging seeing so many people go so wrong all at once. It makes you question the idea that each of us has unlimited potential for good.
Washington is a city where a bill to relax air-pollution standards would be called the Clean Air Act and a bill to protect government officials from war-crimes prosecution would be called the Military Commissions Act, and so a man's statement that he knows who he is and who his friends are needs to be taken as meaning the opposite, a cry for help.
You come to office as a uniter and you wind up doing the opposite. You stand for American values and you wind up defending torture and waste of resources. Knowing who you are is a minimal adult requirement, and you don't get there by being an object of attention. Retirement is recommended. The sooner the better.
Garrison Keillor can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.
Wrap...
The Retiring Type? Not Me
Garrison Keillor
The Salt Lake Tribune
Saturday 04 November 2006
It took me an hour to turn the clocks back an hour, coordinating all watches and digital alarm clocks and oven clock and kitchen clock and car clocks to Central Standard Time, during which a man starts to question the entire concept of promptitude, meetings, appointments, etc., which leads to thoughts of retirement, the End of the Trail, Old Paint, the part of your life when it doesn't matter so much if it's 9:30 or 10:05, or even if it's Tuesday or Saturday, when you drift along as most mammals do, eating when hungry, sleeping when sleepy and meeting whomever you meet whenever you meet them.
People my age are retiring one after the other, which scares the bejeebers out of me. It's like when I sat in Toni McNaron's Milton class wrestling with the first question of the final exam, which was about "Lycidas," which I had not actually read, so it was difficult for me to discuss how the form of the poem was integral to its meaning - difficult, but not impossible, by any means - and suddenly two women stood up and walked to the front of the room and turned in their tests. Done! Finished! And me still trying to get traction!
It is tempting, the thought of escaping from these clocks and learning to savor ordinary life at a mammalian pace. It's November, the squirrels are fat, the frost glitters on the grass in the morning. Stunning fall days with a high blue sky over a landscape of grays and browns.
A retired gent could stroll around and gaze on this and inhale the air and slip into the grocery to select a caramel apple from the big display next to the pumpkin cakes. The soup of the day in the cafe is creamed corn. That would taste good.
I could volunteer at school. The fifth-graders are in the midst of a unit on manners, learning how to say "Please pass the salt" and what to do with your napkin during a meal. (Put it on your lap, please.) Next week they will write letters to their pen pals in Denmark. I could help with that.
And it would keep me out of the senior citizen center, where a nutritionist is scheduled to talk about the importance of diet and exercise, after which everybody will tuck into a lunch of meatballs and gravy, mashed potatoes, brown-sugared carrots, buttered rolls and apple crisp. No thanks.
The Current Occupant, who is two years and three months away from retirement, was quoted last week as saying, "They can say what they want about me, but at least I know who I am, and I know who my friends are."
A pathetic admission of defeat for one who has owned all three branches of government for the past six years - did he seek power so that he could attain self-knowledge? If so, the price is too high. The beloved country endures a government that merges blithering corruption with murderous incompetence.
Congress, which once spent an entire year investigating a married man's attempt to cover up an illicit act of oral sex, has shown no curiosity whatsoever about a war that the administration elected to wage that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands and led our own people to commit war crimes and squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and degenerated into civil war.
The contrast is deafening. Republicans haven't tolerated much dissent in their ranks, the voice of conscience has not been welcome, and now the herd finds itself on the wrong side of the river. It's discouraging seeing so many people go so wrong all at once. It makes you question the idea that each of us has unlimited potential for good.
Washington is a city where a bill to relax air-pollution standards would be called the Clean Air Act and a bill to protect government officials from war-crimes prosecution would be called the Military Commissions Act, and so a man's statement that he knows who he is and who his friends are needs to be taken as meaning the opposite, a cry for help.
You come to office as a uniter and you wind up doing the opposite. You stand for American values and you wind up defending torture and waste of resources. Knowing who you are is a minimal adult requirement, and you don't get there by being an object of attention. Retirement is recommended. The sooner the better.
Garrison Keillor can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.
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