They said it

Who said

• the number of self-supporting Iraqi battalions has dropped from three to one
• Iraq police and army units are riddled with insurgents
• the border between Iraq and Syria is still not under our control?

The leading generals of the US Army in testimony before the Senate yesterday.

A history lesson

"Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed." So said Judge Alvin Hallerstein in denying the government's arguments that release of additional Abu Gharaib photographs would fuel anti-American feeling and hinder our efforts in the war on terror. Isn't freedom what our country is about?

Words we don't hear today

These are words our leaders should be saying:

"We've been treated to the spectacle of a Republican-controlled House and Senate abdicating their constitutional responsibility to conduct rigorous oversight of actions and failings of the executive branch of government. This has gone on for the four-plus years that George W. Bush has occupied the White House, and it looks as if we'll get more of the same for three more years and a bit.

There have been 17 separate investigations of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other prisoner abuse scandals. All have gone straight to the bottom of every case. All have consistently claimed that no one higher up the chain of command, including the civilian leadership in the Pentagon, bears any responsibility for any of this.

Hogwash. BS. Nonsense.

If the lowest private fails, then others have failed in training, leading and directing that private. The chain runs from sergeant to lieutenant to captain to lieutenant colonel to colonel to one, two, three and four stars, on to the longest serving, most arrogant secretary of defense in our history, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and beyond him to the commander in chief, President Bush.

It's long past time for responsibility to begin flowing uphill in this administration. It's time for our leaders to take responsibility for what's being done in all our names and under our proud flag. It's time for Congress to do its job if the administration won't do its job.

The Teflon is wearing off this administration in a hurry. It's past time for an end to strutting, victory laps, crowing to the skies and boasting "Bring 'em on!" Now is the time to provide the leadership our troops deserve. Now is the time to state plainly and unequivocally that we are Americans, and we live by a rule of law that protects everyone, even the worst terrorist who ever fell into our hands. Maybe especially the worst terrorist who ever fell into our hands."

Obviously, these words did not come from one of our elected leaders. They came from Joseph Galloway, author of "We Were Soldiers Once....And Young", who is not exactly a screaming liberal. Read the full article here.

A word from a former Secretary of Education

William Bennett, Secretary of Education under Reagan, said the following on a recent radio program of his, "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

This is one guy who is not shy about revealing his true feelings. I wonder if Barack Obama was listening.

The things some people do for or to their kids

Would you give your four-year-old a cup and a half of coffee? Apparently, some parents think the amount of caffeine in this quantity of coffee will help their four-year-old become a superior athlete, so they give their kids a sports drink called Spark which has the equivalent amount of caffeine.

Is caffeine good for kids? The Academy of Pediatrics discourages caffeine consumption by kids. Drugs containing caffeine are forbidden to be given to kids under 12. The NCAA bans caffeine supplements. The long term effects of caffeine on kids has never been tested. Do you get the idea that there may be something amiss in parents who give their kids Spark?

Some parents apparently are convinced that their kids can become outstanding athletes only by taking caffeine. One mother hopes for a college scholarship for her 12-year-old who practices gymnastics twenty hours a week. The mother wants this to happen so much that she gives her kids the adult dose of Spark, even though it is labeled not for use by children. Another kid is quoted as taking it even when he's "just playing football for fun with my friends".

This is really very far from the neanderthal days when I was a kid and a parent of kids, who, by the way, were decent athletes without taking any stimulants. One was good enough to be named Player of the Year for Ohio when in college.

Who are the fiscal conservatives?

Certainly not the Republican leaders in Congress! They said no when asked to give back some of the pork allocated to their districts by the highway bill. Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader, offered to return $70 million that had been allocated to highway projects in her district.

What's going on here? Where are the hard-headed Republicans? They're displaying their compassion by approving money without any idea of what the money will be used for, how it will be controlled or how it will be financed.

Chinese commission new class of warship

From the Associated Press:

SHANGHAI, China - China's navy has commissioned the first in a new class of domestically designed and built warships, official media reported Tuesday.

The missile frigate Wenzhou, named after a port city in eastern China, entered service Monday at a ceremony attended by East China Fleet commander Zhao Guojun, according to a brief report on the official Wenzhou Newsnet.

The report gave no other details about the ship, but Western military experts have described it as the first in the 054 Ma'anshan class, representing China's most advanced missile frigates.

Along with superior electronics, anti-submarine capabilities and air defenses, the ships boast sloped, covered sides and a special exterior paint intended to make it more difficult to spot by radar, according to the reports.

The ships are designed to operate far out at sea, part of the People's Liberation Army's development of a "blue water" navy intended to assert Chinese claims to Taiwan and other territories and protect sea lanes transporting vital natural resources.

Getting our money's worth?

In this month's Atlantic Monthly Richard Clarke refers to a comparison by Mother Jones of the costs of the Iraq war and the projected costs of various aspects of homeland security. While the comparison was made based on the FY2005 budget, I suspect that, in general, the situation has not changed much.

Here are some comparisons:

• Basic security upgrades for mass transit in large cities - $6 billion, or 20 days spending in Iraq.
• Equip all US airports with machines to screen baggage for explosives - $3 billion, or 10 days spending in Iraq.
• Security upgrades at 361 US ports - $1.1 billion, or 4 days spending in Iraq.
• Radiation portals for US ports to detect dirty bombs in cargo - $290 million, or 23 hours spending in Iraq.
• Help local firefighters prepare for terrorist attacks - $36.8 billion, or 122 days spending in Iraq.
• Get local emergency medical crews ready for terrorist attacks - $1.4 billion or 5 days spending in Iraq.

Since 9/11 we've spent only 14% of our defense money on homeland security. That's in line with the administration's view that fighting terrorists over there is stopping them from coming here. It seems to me that fighting over there is only increasing the number of terrorists in the world. Sooner or later, they will strike here in a big way unless we start to change our approach.

Who's the next thief to get caught?

Over the past six years over $11 million was stolen from the Rosyln, NY, school system. The primary thief was the superintendent; he stole $2 million. Others were high ranking staff, including the assistant superintendent of finance. Where were the auditors?

Helping Katrina Victims

The LA times had an interesting article yesterday about the federal government's programs to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Is it enough to say that Newt Gingrich opposes at least one of these programs? He feels that putting people in trailer parks creates "ghettos with no jobs, no community, no future". Plus, it looks like the trailer parks will cost us a lot more than the existing HUD emergency voucher system.

The concept of not using existing systems is the basic theme of the article. The authors claim - and I think they're correct - that the administration is afraid of permanently expanding existing programs, although such an expansion did not occur with previous disasters, such as the Northridge earthquake.

I suppose that some may call the administration's stance standing up for principle. But, principles should be questioned when the result is that people suffer longer than they need to at a cost greater than it should be.

The Mainframe is not dead - Part 3

Today's Wall Street Journal had an article on Microsoft's new way to build an operating system: "old-fashioned computer science (that) called for methodical coding practices to ensure that large computers... wouldn't break." You know - use such old-fashioned ideas as modular programming, systematic testing, incremental development. The ideas that have made such mainframe software as IBM's operating systems so sturdy for so many years.

You just never can predict people's behavior

It's been said that Robert McNamara went to the World Bank as penance for his role in Vietnam. I wonder whether we'll be saying a similar thing about Paul Wolfowitz, a major architect of our Iraq fiasco, years from now.

Thus far, almost four months into the presidency of the World Bank, Wolfowitz seems to be doing a good job. Sure, he's made some changes in emphasis, but they seem sound. He's spending more money on agriculture in Africa and on infrastructure projects. He wants to put more money in the hands of small business rather than the big businesses Wolfensohn preferred. And, he's moving more of the bank staff out into the real world.

A good start. Pray he keeps it up.

Are there any cost accountants at DOD?

The latest GAO report on the Global War on Terror has some disturbing news about cost control within DOD.

Some quotes from the report:

• "neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details on how appropriated funds are being spent, or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs."
• "long-standing deficiencies in DOD's financial systems, the lack of a systematic process to ensure that data are correctly entered into these systems, inaccurately recorded costs and difficulties in properly categorizing costs."
• "reported obligations for Army reservists in fiscal year 2004 (which ended September 30, 2004) were based primarily on estimates rather than actual information"
• "inadvertent double counting"
• "DOD has not updated its policy to address GWOT spending."
• "DOD has not established guidelines that would require all commands involved in GWOT to take steps to control costs"

It sounds like the basic principles of cost accounting don't exist at DOD.

Inherit the Wind

"Inherit the Wind" was a play and movie about the 1925 Scopes trial, which was the first attempt in this country to deny the theory of evolution in the courts. Next week, the court in Harrisburg will see another attempt. I doubt that this one will be made into a movie. The attorneys could not compare in fame and theatricality to Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the attorneys in the Scopes trial.

The 2005 attempt to deny the theory of evolution is being brought by the parents of 9th grade students in the Dover, PA schools. As you'd expect, they are being aided by the ACLU, that bugbear of ultra-conservatives. The case involves the requirement by the local school board that each biology class is read a statement that "The theory (of evolution) is not a fact...Intelligent Design (note the capitalization) is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view".

Here's a suggestion from an August posting of mine:

Daniel Dennett, who teaches philosophy at Tufts, suggests in today's NY Times that the Discovery Institute, the large backer of intelligent design, publish a peer-reviewed journal in which the 'theory' of intelligent design can be explained and argued over as most scientific theories are.

Not a bad idea.

What's with the emphasis on sex?

AID has made abstinence a requirement in distributing AIDS funds to foreign government.

Congress has approved $200,000,000 for an abstinence program here.

Now, we learn that it has passed a law directing the FBI to devote ten agents to the task of finding and rooting out adult pornography, which, obviously, is why we ungodly souls will be damned to hell and may even bring the country with us.

Let me see. Ten agents earning at least $100,000 in salary and benefits each equals another $1,000,000. Chump change, I know. But, hey, that's a small cost to pay for saving souls.

Of course, we could always turn the job over to Pat Robertson.

A Third World Country?

Many of the photos from Katrina reminded us of similar photos taken in third world countries. Now, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) gives us another reminder of how far we have strayed in governing this nation in an intelligent, humane fashion.

Their latest report on the state of the world economy casts doubt on the reach of and the ability to achieve the administration's goal of halving the deficit by 2009. First, the goal is too modest and ignores the looming dramatic increases in Social Security and Medicare. Second, it can't be achieved without increased revenue, i.e., taxes, plus fiscal discipline.

An investigation? Oh, really

Frances Fargos Townsend will lead a White House Investigation into what worked and what didn't work re Katrina. She is now Bush's Homeland Security adviser. This appointment raises once more the question of the calibre of the people leading us.

It's unclear exactly what her credentials are to be Homeland Security adviser, a post formerly held by generals. Of course, her husband being a classmate of Bush's at both Andover and Yale had little to do with her appointment. Her previous work of the Department of Justice was so sterling that her office has been blamed by both the GAO and the 9/11 Commission for our intelligence failures re 9/11.

Now, she owes her job to her connections. She has no background in security. Her previous performance is questionable. Even if she does find out what went wrong, will she tell Bush?

Karl Rove Is Ready

I can't believe that the media is not questioning Rove's capability to oversee one of the largest reconstruction projects in history. Didn't they learn anything from Brown's experience?

The Constant Gardener

It's possible that the film version of LeCarre's novel will result in a little more attention paid to drug research performed in the Third World. If so, we'll realize a few things:

• The drugs being tested on people in the Third World are for maladies of people in the developed world.
• It's estimated that half of the clinical trials are now being performed in developing countries. The reason being it's cheaper and faster.
• Companies can avoid following FDA requirements such as detailed description of the research, plans for getting informed consent and monitoring the progress of the study.
• Usually, the FDA does not validate the assertions of the company doing the research in a developing country; they assume the information reflects reality.
• It's not only drug companies that test new drugs on people in developing countries. The NIH and CDC have also done so.

One Year Later

Last September Stephen Flynn of the Council of Foreign Relations published "The Neglected Home Front" in Foreign Affairs. As the title indicates, he argued that we are failing to protect our homeland despite the degree of vulnerability we face every day. It doesn't appear that his argument, despite its validity, has caught on with the people who lead us.

Flynn argues that we are kidding ourselves by separating homeland security from national security. Fighting terrorism abroad does not mean that we should neglect preparing for the next terrorist attack here. But that is what we are doing.

Interestingly, he compares our attitude towards and preparations against terrorism to the Maginot Line idea before World War II. The French could not conceive that the world of war had changed. In our zeal to "take the battle to the enemy" we are ignoring our vulnerabilities here at home. Flynn points out that the costs of 3 days in Iraq are more than what we have spent in 3 years on protecting our 361 seaports.

He takes Bush to task for that part of our National Homeland Security Strategy which states, "The government should only address those activities that the market does not adequately provide." The market is interested in beating the competition. Unless all companies in an industry spend on security, very, very few will. Yet, there is no incentive or mandate for companies to improve security. Again, another example of the belief in slogans of the people who govern us.

He concludes by suggesting the formation of a new 'structure that allows the private sector and civil society to participate as equal partners in the process of designing and implementing security for the U.S. homeland'. That structure is very much like the Federal Reserve System, which has worked well over the seventy years since its creation.

How do you define success

Najaf is often cited as a success in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And there have been successes there: security is in Iraqi hands, police and fire stations have been refurbished, schools are being worked on; but even Americans involved in the rebuilding effort are frustrated. One is quoted in today's NY Times, "This country is filled with projects that were never completed or were completed and have never been used." But

• at a water treatment plant that was supposed to be finished in June the pipe to feed the plant from a nearby river was buried unmarked and has not yet been found
• only now is the Army producing a list of all current and future projects to prioritize the allocation of funds
• American officers say there is almost no oversight after a contract is awarded
• four water treatment plants, on which almost a $1 million has been spent, are in danger of being repossessed by the Army
• a newly built sewage plant could not be used for eight months because no one was trained how to use it
• another sewage plant has lain dormant since December for the same reason
• contracts are let without consulting the institutions involved
• to refurbish a hospital that was looted we paid $2 million for new linoleum, new ceiling tiles, draining a flooded basement and fixing the air conditioning. We did not spend any money on the stolen MRI or CT scanner
• we paid Parsons to fix the hospital's incinerators, but it supposedly completed the work without hooking up the gas lines needed to fuel them

How much of a success is Najaf?

PBGC makes vultures happy

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) had a shortfall of $23 billion last year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit will almost quadruple (to $87 billion) in ten years.

Now, I've spoken before about the impending crisis at PBGC which we, the taxpayers, will be asked to solve with our tax dollars. But, the really galling part of the whole situation is that many of the guys who pass their company's pension obligations to us are actually getting quite rich doing so.

Consider, for example, Bethlehem Steel. In 2002, they passed us $3.7 billion in pensions via PBGC. Wilbur Ross, who eventually bought Bethlehem - without its pension obligation - made a return of 1000% on his investment. (1000% is not a typo). And, Bethlehem is not a unique case. Think Polaroid, US Airways, Cone Mills, WestPoint Stevens and a lot of other companies you've never heard of.

We're getting shafted two ways - an abysmally low amount of money is being paid to PBGC as premiums and the 'turnaround specialists' are making money off of us. Of course, the ones getting shafted the most are the workers, many of whom devoted their lives to a company and now they are being screwed out of a lot of the money due them.

Oh, to be a micropurchaser

Surely, the prefix 'micro' connotes smallness and smallness varies with your perceptions. But, if you are a government employee with a government-issued credit card you can charge $250,000 in one shopping trip. I don't think $250,000 without anyone's written okay is a micropurchase. Do you?

A few years ago Congress was told that

• 1116 former employees could still charge on their government cards
• 6533 cardholders could charge $100,000 a month every month
• 40 cardholders had a credit limit of $9,999,999
• Defense Department found $4+ million in unjustifiable purchases, including some at antique shops and jewelry stores.

Who is minding the store in this administration of 'conservative' businessmen?

Is this the kind of government we want?

Pay the piper twice

FEMA's lack of preparation is still a big problem as reported in today's NY Times.

Is Rove in charge of Katrina reconstruction?

The NY Times claimed he was. Clearly, Rove is a master of politics, just as, I guess, Brown was a master of horses. But what background he has in running a small, let alone perhaps the largest, reconstruction project in history is unknown as are his management skills and his ability to coordinate the branches of government and to meet a payroll and.........

If this is true, how can Bush possibly believe that he is acting for the good of this nation? Everything is politics to him.

This is not the kind of government I want. Do you?

One of Bush's Economic Gurus Speaks

From today's Washington Post:

Allan Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy, told reporters that Bush remains committed to slashing the deficit. "This in no way will adversely impact his commitment to cut the deficit in half by 2009," Hubbard said. He said the economy "is very, very strong now" and "the last thing in the world we need to do is raise taxes and retard economic growth."

What planet is Mr. Hubbard living on? We're going to spend maybe $200 billion on Katrina, run a war in Iraq, refuse to cut taxes and still cut the deficit in half in four years. Does that sound right to you? I know it doesn't sound right to the 40,000,000 of our neighbors living below the poverty line, nor to our workforce whose wages decreased in 2004, nor to those who have stopped looking for work, nor to anybody with an IQ above 50.

Where does Bush find these guys?

Forget about increasing revenue

As expected, Bush vowed to pay for Katrina without raising taxes (or, as liberals say, rolling back the tax cuts). Of course, one has to wonder about Bush's definition of taxes; he claimed that the increased gasoline prices were due to taxes.

I guess he's going to pay for Katrina by floating more debt. He just has to break his own record and have even higher deficits. In his canon, debt is something the next guy will have to pay. The higher the debt, the greater confidence the world should have in us, right?

He'll probably also cut some fat out of non-essential areas like the EPA and other government agencies that are not needed and, in fact, impede our economic progress.

The idea of maybe taking some of the pork that was in the highway bill and using it to resurrect New Orleans and environs has occurred to the people in Bozeman, Montana, and the editors of the Wall Street Journal but not to the people running our government. Like we need to pay for a museum of the Packard automobile or for a couple of bridges to nowhere in Alaska and another couple of thousand of bullshit projects in that bill!

Is this the kind of government we want?

Talk about dumb

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese woman called in the police after a hitman she paid to kill her lover's wife failed to carry out the job.

The 32-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested Wednesday for incitement to murder, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said Friday.

The woman contacted a private detective through a Web site last November and paid him 1 million yen in cash to murder her love rival, the paper said.

The 40-year-old detective accepted the money and suggested he could carry out the job by chasing the victim on a motorcycle and spraying her with a biological agent in a tunnel.

Police also arrested the private detective and found the alleged target safe and well, the paper said.

How to make money in Pakistan if you're a woman

Here's how according to President Musharraf:

"You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money-making concern," he said.

"A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

As quoted in the Washington Post.

Cameraman in Iraq

On April 5 Abdul Amir Younes Hussein was shot and wounded by our soldiers while he was working as a cameraman for CBS. Three days later he joined the detainees.

CBS has been trying to find out just why Mr. Hussein was detained. But, as of today, they have been unsuccessful,"no one concerned has been informed of evidence against him".

During these five months the military has changed course with regard to its handling of Hussein. They said CBS could come get Hussein's camera and videotape; then refused to turn it over. They said CBS could submit evidence at a hearing in July; they cancelled the hearing. They turned Hussein over to Iraqi police; when the Iraqis decided to free him, our army put him back in our jail. CBS asked after Hussein's health and was told that the army could not give that information as it was forbidden by a US law to release health information on US citizens. (Of course, Hussein is not a US citizen when it comes to detaining him.)

Is this the kind of government we want?

Revolutionary China, Complacent America

That's the title of an op-ed by Charlene Barshefsky and Edward Gresser in today's Wall Street Journal. It sums up my feelings that the US is living in a dream world convinced that we will lead the world forever without really doing anything to make it happen. Here are some quotes from the article:

"The powerful competitive challenge cannot be met by protectionist legislation, penalty tariffs or bans on Chinese investment. Instead, America needs a strategic response that rethinks our own consumption and debt-led growth, addresses our competitive weaknesses and reshapes our approach to Asian trade and global financial institutions."

"The plain fact is that our competition has gotten tougher, and we need to match it. Two hundred years ago the Chinese emperors failed. America must act now to succeed."

Do we want a government that does not want to recognize and develop solutions for basic problems?

What’s happening at Gitmo?

Apparently a hunger strike has broken out. 128 prisoners (out of the 502) are not eating in an attempt to either be released or granted the legal rights to defend themselves against the charge of ‘terrorist’. We have begun force-feeding 18 of the strikers.

Is this what we expect of our government?

It's a great economy

The Department of Labor reports that the average annual wage for all occupations declined last year by .4% when adjusted for inflation. To quote yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "Most paychecks fell in 2004."

I don't think this survey includes CEOs whose salary is now 431 times that of a typical worker.

This is the best of all possible worlds. Is it not?

The message of Hurricane Katrina...

is a question: Is this the kind of government - federal, state and local - we want in this country? The sad thing is that you can ask the same question about a hell of a lot of things in this country. Just look around you.

We don't make mistakes

Here's an excerpt from Chris Matthews' interview of David Brooks on September 11:

MATTHEWS: Do you think there's a problem with this? I remember when the president wrote in his diary -- his father, President Bush senior -- "you know, I picked [former Vice President Dan] Quayle the first time around, and I wish I hadn't. But I'm stuck with him, and I can't admit it." Is there a problem with this president simply admitting, "I put the wrong people at certain jobs, I didn't get back fast enough to the White House, I wasn't calling the orders fast enough?"

BROOKS: From Day One, they had decided that our public relations is not going to be honest. Privately, they admit mistakes all the time. Publicly -- and I've had this debate with them since Day One; I always say admit a mistake, people will give you credit -- (my emphasis)

MATTHEWS: Who do you debate this with?

BROOKS: With people who work in the White House.

MATTHEWS: I thought you were talking about with the president in the back room.

[laughter]

BROOKS: Not with him, but they represent what he believes, which is, if you admit a mistake, you get no credit from your enemies, and then you open up another week's story, because the admission of a little mistake leads to the admission of big mistakes and another week's story. It's totally tactical and totally insincere. (my emphasis)

A Vineyard Wedding

They came tonight to dismantle the tent. So ends months of planning for the wedding of my youngest son. He was married to the woman of his dreams this past Saturday.

The weather was gorgeous, a really beautiful September day on the Vineyard: sunshine, a cooling, gentle breeze. A contingent of new family, this one from New Jersey. And a reunion of old family, mostly from the great state of Massachusetts. A wonderful meal planned by the bride and groom, with the able assistance of his oldest brother. A peaceful, human ceremony in which the grandchildren participated. A video presentation orchestrated by my wife. Strong support and real, physical help by old friends.

A really nice time. But, thank the Lord, it is over. We can all return to our regular life, knowing we really know how to party.

How it should be done

The column heading in today's Wall Street Journal was "At Wal-Mart, Emergency Plan Has Big Payoff". 126 of their stores were closed by the storm. As of last Friday 111 stores had re-opened plus Wal-Mart had served as the basic supplier for many government agencies in the areas hit by Katrina. How did they do it?

Well, first of all, the guy in charge, who is only 33 by the way, has a degree in emergency management and a masters in security management. He was at Wal-Mart's emergency command center on the Wednesday before the storm. By the time Katrina hit Florida he was joined by 50 people ranging from trucking experts to loss-prevention specialists. On Sunday before the storm hit, he had emergency supplies delivered to staging areas. By Tuesday trucks were delivering generators and tons of dry ice to closed stores.

How did Wal-Mart do it? Qualified management, competent people, comprehensive planning, excellent execution of the plan and dedicated employees.

O Canada

Canada is a very accepting country, but the Province of Ontario has drawn the line when it comes to allowing religious law to supersede the laws of Canada. The former attorney general of Ontario was commissioned to study whether Sharia should be used to settle such matters as divorce and child custody among Muslims. She recommended that it be so. The premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, has decided that, "There should be one law for all Ontarians."

So, the first attempt to introduce Sharia in the West has failed. I'm sure it will not be the last.

Another FEMA possibility?

In today's column, Paul Krugman of the NY Times raises the possibility that other important government agencies may be as ineffective as FEMA has shown itself to be over these past two weeks. He lists as possible losers: EPA, FDA, CPB, Treasury and DHS. Clearly, over the past five plus years none of these agencies has demonstrated a talent for making government work for the people.

Krugman may have something as, by and large, Bush's appointments seem to have been much more ideologically based than those of previous administrations, be they Republican or Democrat. Appointing ideologues need not always be a bad thing. The problem with this administration is that talent does not seem to be a very important criterion in choosing people.

Another case of resume polishing?

Time Magazine reports that FEMA director Brown may not have the experience in emergency management that he claims on his resume.

Even Powell Tells It As It Is

Tonight on ABC, Colin Powell will speak on many things. Here are some of his comments about Katrina.

• There had been "a lot of failures at a lot of levels - local, state and federal".
• There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done."
  
• It "should have been a blinding flash of the obvious... that when you order a mandatory evacuation, you can't expect everybody to evacuate on their own".

Add to the above his embarassment re his UN speech about the weapons in Iraq and you have a man who is once more being himself, rather than a good soldier and agreeing with the party line.

It's back

Last year for the first time in my knowledge, a jack-o-lantern mushroom grew on the Vineyard. The official name is omphalotus olivascens. It does not normally grow in the East; usually you see it only in California. This year's mushroom, pictured above, is larger and more beautiful than last year's crop.

For a super site about mushrooms, try www.mykoweb.com.

Still one more report before the fact

In July the GAO issued a report (GAO-05-652) entitled "DHS' Efforts to Enhance First Responders' All-Hazards Capabilities Continue to Evolve". Two interesting observations in hindsight:

• State preparedness officials and local first responders said that "DHS's emphasis for grant funding was too heavily focused on terrorism and they sought to acquire dual use equipment and training that might be used for emergency events that occur more regularly in their jurisdictions". Variations of this comment are studded throughout the report.
• "Achieving national preparedness and response goals hinges on the federal government's ability to form effective partnerships with nonfederal stakeholders. By working collectively with state and local governments, the federal government gains the resources and expertise of the people closest to the challenge."

There are probably many reasons

Back in July I reported on the work of Robert Pape, who, in a study of just about all suicide bombings from 1980 to early 2004, concluded that the basic reason for the attacks is the desire to remove foreign troops from your soil. I questioned whether in some cases religion was another factor.

Now I learn of the work of Farhad Khosrokhavar, who has studied young Islamists - some of whom tried suicide bombing - in French prisons. His conclusion is that it's more cultural. These young people are relatively well-educated but feel looked down upon in the countries of the West where they were born and have grown up. They dream of a restoration of the glory days when they would have been respected and been part of a, perhaps the, leading nation of the world, rather than being a second or third class citizen in their country of birth.

Words are important

If we were not conducting a "war on terrorism", would FEMA's response re Katrina have been so poor? When you are at war, you pour in as many resources as possible. Thus, grants that formerly went to local communities for disaster prevention now go to the war against terrorism. National Guard troops and their equipment are in Iraq, not next door. Washington has more of a say in what local communities do to protect themselves, sapping initiative somewhat.

Reaching Out

US Muslims are finally starting to do something. Apparently, they've become convinced that there are some bad, or about to be bad, apples in their midst.

The Islamic Society of NA will distribute pamphlets that spell out the Koran's injunctions against violence at mosques and other Islamic centers. The Muslim Public Affairs Council will teach mosques how to partner with local communities and police. The council has also started a program to teach Muslim college students that they are part of our society.

It's a start.

Investigation? We don't need no investigation.

I don't think we need a rocket scientist or a panel of disaster experts spending months and dollars on telling us what went wrong in governments' - local, state and federal - handling of the Katrina disaster. The reasons why we screwed up so badly are obvious.

The immediate causes are incompetent people, poor planning, slow implementation and inept management of whatever planning there was, poor communications, budget cutting, little or no leadership, "it can't happen here" attitudes.

However, as Brian Hughes of Oak Bluffs points out in the Vineyard Gazette, a local paper here on Martha's Vineyard, this disaster has been in the works for a while, at least looking at our federal government. Mr. Hughes does not mince words. Let me quote from his letter to the editor.

"The election of Ronald Reagan began a 28-year destruction of the accomplishments of the New Deal, the social contract and the sense of shared responsibility. Even the Democratic party abandoned the poor. The long progression of regression has led us to George Bush and a federal government unwilling and unable to effectively intervene in the disaster in New Orleans.

A federal government that cannot provide health care to 45 million American citizens.

A federal government that wants to set the market free to destroy Social Security and the stability of our eldest citizens' lives.

A federal government that refuses to tax the wealthiest of our citizens but is happy to tax the poor and the middle class to fund the adventurism of the rich.

A federal government that marshals an army of the poor and disadvantaged to advance the interests of the rich.

A federal government that turns away when faced with the awful truth about the death rate of our babies.

A federal government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.

And we are responsible, we the middle class."

The letter concludes, "Government is not the problem, it's the people we elected to government and it's our responsibility to throw them out. (my emphasis)

"Them" are most of our politicians at all levels. We need to take our government back from the professional hacks who have been destroying this country for too long.

I know I'm whistling Dixie when I say we don't need an investigation. Politics demands one. I hope that Bush appoints Nagin, Blanco, Brown and Chertoff to the panel, which, of course, Bush should chair. I'm sure that this panel will be as impartial as any panel Bush will appoint.

Perhaps, senility has set in.

But, yesterday, the former first lady and the current President’s mother, Barbara Bush, said of the poor whose already difficult life has been devastated, "This is working very well for them." This was heard yesterday by the audience for NPR’s Marketplace.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, she went on to say, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

What’s that bromide? The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree?

From the Times Picayune to George W. Bush

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

Mitt does the right thing

Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has announced that the state will host 2500 refugees from Katrina and send 535 National Guardsmen to the Gulf Coast.

Romney also criticized the feds' response to Katrina last week.

I've criticized him in the past, but have to praise him today.

Will September top August?

Another local airline crash. A plane carrying 117 went down in Indonesia today. This is the fifth crash since August of a local airline.

Is David Brooks Changing?

Or am I?

His column in today's NY Times concludes with "We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore."

He recognizes that this country is in bad shape and the only people that can change it are you and me and our 300,000,000 fellow Americans.

Hedge the Hedge Funds

If the newspapers are correct, more and more people are investing in hedge funds. The number of stories about hedge funds are becoming as frequent as those touting the Internet boom in the late 1990s. When everybody starts proclaiming the wonders of a particular type of investment or particular stock, it’s time to watch your wallet.

Andrew Lo, who teaches at MIT’s Sloan School, has been studying hedge funds for almost a decade and has been running a hedge fund for a couple of years. His web site includes some of his papers, including his latest, “Systemic Risk and Hedge Funds”, written with Nicholas Chan, Mila Getmansky, and Shane M. Haas. It is this paper that those considering investing in hedge funds should read.

Basically, Lo warns that investors should be afraid when the funds start posting smooth returns, as, in many cases, these ‘returns’ are based on the fund’s own - not the market’s or an independent party’s - valuation of their illiquid and hard-to-appraise investments, such as real estate and interest-rate swaps. The markets can have an entirely different view of these investments should there be a need to sell them.

His studies of the Long Term Capital brouhaha of 1998 show that it was preceded by months of poor performance by the industry in general. When performance is fading for a period of time, managers tend to ‘leverage up’ and borrow more to invest more. Eventually, when these new investments do not pan out and the old ones are still in the doldrums, the banks turn off the credit spigot and start looking for their money. At this point the only way the funds can pay the banks is by selling their investments. When everybody is selling, prices fall.

In April the hedge fund industry began posting mediocre results, no matter the strategy or the type of fund. To Lo, that is a big warning sign. He thinks conditions are ripe for a ‘perfect storm’ that can be triggered by something such as another spike in the price of oil or a tightening of FNMA’s lending criteria, or......

Don’t you just wish to hear some good news soon?

The Feds Are Not The Only Ones To Blame

CNN reports that Homeland Security has stashed $2.2 million worth of rescue gear in each of nine locations around the country. Homeland Security told Barbour and Blamco about it on Wednesday and Thursday, but, thus far, the governors have not asked for the gear.

Another One Leaves the Coalition of the Willing

Bulgaria has announced it will be pulling its troops out of Iraq. How many countries still have troops remaining?

Every 560 Days

Now I freely acknowledge that all presidents screw up big time, as do all of we human beings. But, I wonder whether any president has screwed up as much as the incumbent.

There have been three major disasters on his watch: 9/11, Iraq and Katrina. That works out to one every 560 days of Bush's presidency.

I can accept that most other presidents would have been blindsided by 9/11. In hindsight it's easy to criticize the administration. But if you want to take that approach, your criticism has to extend to a couple of administrations prior to this one.

However, Iraq and Katrina can be laid squarely on Bush's doorsrep. I've spoken about the Iraq fiasco enough on this blog, so regular readers know how I feel. And, it seems in the last few days I've been posting about Katrina.

The whole Bush idea about 'starving the beast' of government has been clearly shown to be almost suicidal for this country. The idea of cutting taxes when over 12% of the country is in poverty, the country's deficit is at the highest level ever, we can't properly equip our troops, we can't swiftly move to help our fellow man is more than ludicrous; it is sinful and a crime against all of us.

We can cut the money that might have better protected New Orleans, but we can spend $200,000,000 on assinine abstinence programs. We can promise AIDS monies but only if nations agree with us and support abstinence over all other means of reducing the problem.

When Bush won, I told myself four years can move swiftly. But now I wonder what kind of country we'll have in four years. There are more than 560 days left in his term.

A Must Read

An excellent article from the BBC. It's difficult to disagree with it.

From the Army Times

Here are some quotes:

“We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force.

“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard.

“I never thought that as a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”

Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances. “This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”

The Story Gets Worse and Worse

Here are some blunders by our government re the Katrina 'rescue':

• FEMA refused an offer by Chicago's Mayor Daley "to send hundreds of emergency workers and dozens of pieces of equipment to the area" before the hurricane hit New Orleans.


• Homeland Security would not allow a "specialized urban search and rescue team from Vancouver" to enter the US.


• Helicopter rescues were halted for twenty-four hours because of false reports that snipers were shooting at them. The FAA denied that any shots were fired and they control the air space there.


• The director of FEMA claimed not to know about the thousands at the Convention Center until Thursday. Since Monday, New Orleans radio and television stations had been relaying directions from government officials that people should go to the convention center to get supplies and be evacuated.


• Black Hawk helicopters scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000-pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach were diverted on rescue missions.

More trouble

Now there are blasts and fires in New Orleans

It's more than New Orleans

Here's part of an editorial from the Sun Herald, a Biloxi newspaper.

Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!

When asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, our reporters were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris.

Litter is the least of our problems. We need the president to back up his declaration of a disaster with a declaration of every man and woman under his command will do whatever is necessary to deal with that disaster.

We need the governor to provide whatever assistance is at his command.

We certainly need our own county and city officials to come together and identify the most pressing needs of their constituents and then allocate resources to meet those needs. We appreciate the stress that theses elected and appointed officials have been under since the weekend but they must do a better job restoring public confidence in their ability to meet this challenge.

Another Voice

I repeat below a posting from one of my son's friends.

It took me a few days to get angry at Bush and his administration for the catastrophe in New Orleans. I didn't want to jump to rash conclusions without hearing the facts. Now I have heard the facts, and once again, Bush and company have continued their habit of being incompetent, ignorant, careless, reckless, and dishonest.

Here is an article in the Houston Chronicle from 2001, talking about FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) prediction in early 2001 (before 9/11) ranking the three most likely, most catastrophic disasters facing the country.

They were:

New Orleans hurricane/flood

New York terrorist attack

San Francisco earthquake

We already know that even after this report but before 9/11, the Bush administration ignored the intelligence memo titled "Bin Laden determined to attack within the US" and that Ashcroft told the justice department that he didn't want to hear anything else about terrorism.

Now we find out that since that FEMA report, the Bush administration and a compliant congress has been slashing budgets for FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers (who knew that the levees needed to be fortified but couldn't finish the work for lack of money), and federal funds for New Orleans flood mitigation and preparedness.

Bush, in an interview on Good Morning America today, said that the breaching of the levees had not been anticipated.

Maybe he just meant it had not been anticipated by him since he previously didn't know what a levee was; he certainly couldn't have meant it had not been explicitly anticipated by the federal government during his presidency. Maybe if he hadn't been so busy giving billions of dollars in tax cuts to the already rich, and making sure his friends in the oil industry get extra, extra richer (while, by the way, the poverty rate in this country has now increased for the 4th straight year), it might have been easier to pay for the completion of the Army Corps of Engineers levee project, but that would have also involved the recognition of science as a credible way to make assessments, and we know that Bush and his gang are hostile to science.

Also, here is a related editorial from the New York Times:

But the right wing says that the NY Times is too liberal, so let's hear from a conservative newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader:They lament Bush's "diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty."

A Dutch Perspective

The BBC World program interviewed a television reporter from Holland who is now in New Orleans. This guy has been to Bosnia and other war zones. He likened New Orleans to a war zone, even including the guns going off in the streets. He can't understand why the federal government has been so slow in helping people out and why martial law has not been declared. He feels that this story is one of the top ones world-wide due to the enormity of the problem but also due to our government's floundering.

On a related note, the bastion of capitalism, the Wall Street Journal, pointed out that the feds were helping Florida the day after their hurricane last year. Was it because Jeb is George's brother? Or, is Jeb just a more forceful person than Blanco, Louisiana's governor. She and the mayor of New Orleans will never be mistaken for Rudy Giuliani. They seem totally ineffectual and in need of someone to boost their morale and give them confidence to act.

Another cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom

It seems as though the White House opposed Louisiana's efforts over the years to secure federal funding to mitigate the damage that might be cause by a severe hurricane. The money not spent in Louisiana was spent fighting to promote democracy in the Middle East.

I wonder which way the Louisiana voters will go in the 2006 mid-term elections.

Often it's the simple things

One of the major problems that authorities had in the 9/11 disaster has repeated itself in the country's latest disaster, Hurricane Katrina: the inability of rescuers to communicate with each other.

It would seem a far simpler task to ensure that rescuers are on the same frequency - with compatible equipment - than to monitor all air travelers. Yet, it's evident that, at least in Louisiana and Mississippi, that hasn't been done.

Also, why did the government focus its terrorist monitoring efforts almost solely on airplanes when many more people travel via other mean of transportation?

It seems we spend a lot of time on something after the barn door has been destroyed.