Immediate withdrawal? No

But a major withdrawal from Iraq within a year makes a lot of sense to the Center for American Progress. We would extract the vast majority of our troops in a phased 'redeployment' and leave about 10,000 in northern Iraq and some Marines to protect the embassy. There would be help nearby: a brigade and airmen in Kuwait, the navy and Marines in the Persian Gulf.

One of the authors is Lawrence Korb, who has produced a number of provocative articles over the past year or so.

Some details

Today's NY Times has some details about the growing investigation into likely financial crimes in connection with the reconstruction of Iraq. The article updates a recent post of mine and names a company - Lee Dynamics (formerly known as American Logistics Service) - that may be at the heart of the scandal. One officer who was paid $225,000 by the company killed herself a day after admitting her culpability.

IBM is at it again

Things in the computer world are moving down to the level of an atom, a very far cry from the Univac II I cut my programming teeth on.

IBM announced that their Almaden lab is now dealing with reading and writing onto individual atoms. Their Zurich lab is way behind; it's still dealing with molecules.

It was only in May that IBM announced another breakthrough.

Turning Points?

Foreign Policy has a list of the supposed turning points in the battle of Iraq.

"This is not the way an institution created to promote democracy should function."

The above is a quote from Tova Wang describing her experiences with the Election Assistance Commission, which was set up after the debacle in Florida.

Wang, a Democrat, and an unnamed Republican were hired by the commission to produce a report on voter raud and intimidation and make recommendations as to how the problem could be cured. Although the writers set out to make sure the report was as non-partisan as possible, apparently the commission did not feel that was the case at least as Wang describes what happened to their draft.

It's another sad tale of where this country is today.

Wait till Tuesday

That's when a GAO report will come out (according to the Washington Post) on how well Iraq has met the benchmarks set by Congress.

Last month the administration said that progress had been made towards eight of the eighteen benchmarks. The GAO report disputes that assertion; they say three benchmarks have been met, thirteen have not and two are possible.

The GAO also has concerns about the quality of the administration's assessments; more facts to support their conclusions would be nice. And, there is a question as to whether sectarian violence has decreased as the administration claims. The GAO says that there were 25 attacks against civilians each day in February; in July that number was 26.

The report is being vetted by other agencies. We'll see what, if anything, gets cut.

True, it's a small market

Not many cars are sold in Senegal today. Until fairly recently almost all the cars sold were used cars from Europe. That is changing.

First, Senegal has changed its laws so that used cars cannot be older than five years. And, China is now exporting new cars to Senegal and most other African companies. Sales of Chinese cars have gone from just about zero in 2001 to $8,000,000 last year, while the used car market has been cut by two-thirds.

Not only is China exporting cars, it is also building cars outside of China. It has plants in Iran and Egypt.

Not Exactly News

We, the people, have more guns than anybody else in the world. We own 270,000,000 guns; that's almost one per person. Which country is second in terms of guns per capita? Did you guess Yemen? Next come Finland and Switzerland (this surprised me.)

Better than one a month

I've known that there has to be some chicanery when billions of government dollars are involved. I just didn't realize that there are now 73 separate investigations into possible crimes committed by a few of our fellow citizens and our allies in Iraq. That averages out to better than one investigation a month. Some are for small potatoes (a couple of thousand dollars). Others are for very big potatoes; a major, his wife and sister have been indicted for accepting bribes of almost $10,000,000.

The situation is so serious that the Defense Department's Inspector General has been sent to Iraq, along with an entourage of investigators.

Another gay conservative unmasked?

By now you've read about Senator Larry Craig of Idaho being arrested for playing footsie with an undercover cop in an airport bathroom. It turns out that this is not the first time allegations have been made about the sexual proclivities of the senator. Here's something by BlogActive from last year.

Book a flight through your local church

The Vatican is launching a travel service focusing on Catholic shrines. Will they start building hotels at their various shrines? Coupled with the selling of Mother Teresa's letters (as reported by Sparrow Chat) maybe Benedict will soon be leading Vatican, Inc.

Two Years On

Two years ago Katrina hit and still New Orleans suffers, says Douglas Brinkley in today's Washington Post. He concludes that the government really does not want to rebuild the Ninth Ward. And he acknowledges that the rebuilding of the area, which is below sea level, may not make "cold, pragmatic sense"; rebuilding the levees will be really expensive and will take almost a decade. However, he is furious that the administration is as forthcoming about its plans here as its plans in Iraq - that is, it is not forthcoming at all. He asks, "Why can't Bush look his fellow citizens in the eye and tell them what seems to be the ugly truth? That as long as he's commander in chief, there won't be an entirely reconstructed levee system."

Could it be that the decider is afraid that doing so will mean that he has to say the same thing to the wealthy who continue to build their mansions in areas that are also hurricane-prone?

Had the Outer Banks been hit the same way as Katrina, would it be in the same pickle as New Orleans two years after the fact?

Learning from our mistakes

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs James Dobbins, who served as Assistant Secretary of State Under both Clinton and George W., argues that we need to stop the blame game and look at the underlying reasons why we lost Iraq. Dobbins argues that we all are to blame. We, the voters, elected those - both Democrat and Republican - who went into and have conducted the war ineptly. Bushies "emphasized inspiration and guidance from above and loyalty and compliance from above" rather than fostering a climate of structured debate and disciplined dissent. The Democrats sat on their hands. We need to accept these facts and learn from them.

Dobbins stresses the need for hard behind-the-scenes work - the blocking and tackling I have spoken of earlier - to promote democracy, rather than the flashy world of voters displaying their purple thumbs.

His concluding section (note the use of the word 'competent'):

THE FAULT IS NOT IN OUR STARS

By January 2009, nearly everyone responsible for launching and directing the war in Iraq will have left office. Sorting out who did what will then become a job for historians. In choosing successors, however, Americans should insist on leaders who will foster debate and welcome disciplined dissent. These leaders should be surrounded by advisers chosen primarily for their relevant experience and demonstrated competence, not their ideological purity and partisan loyalty.

Leaders of this caliber, supported by more competent and professional staffs, will make better use of existing structures for policy formulation and implementation. These structures can be strengthened by the establishment of an enduring division of labor for postconflict stabilization and reconstruction among the national security agencies and by the building of a cadre of senior career officials with experience across the national security establishment.

The "war on terror" should be reconceived and renamed to place greater emphasis on its police, intelligence, and diplomatic components. The U.S. Army should continue to improve its counterinsurgency skills, with a particular emphasis on training, equipping, and advising others to conduct such campaigns. The United States should avoid allowing al Qaeda and its ilk to dictate its alignment in any particular dispute, should take sides when necessary based on an objective calculation of national interests, and should directly engage U.S. troops in local civil wars only in the rarest of circumstances. "Preemption" should be retired from the lexicon of declared policy, democratization should be pursued everywhere as a long-term objective in full recognition of its short-term costs and risks, and nation building should be embarked on only where the United States and its partners are ready for a long, hard, and expensive effort. Above all, Americans should accept that the entire nation has, to one degree or another, failed in Iraq. Facing up to this fact and drawing the necessary lessons is the only way to ensure that it does not similarly fail again.

Whither our military?

Yesterday the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was reported as being ready to tell the President that we need to reduce the number of troops in Iraq in order to maintain our ability to respond to other threats. Today, General Pace says that he has not made up his mind yet.

Today the LA Times questions the morale of our troops in Iraq, which, as you would expect, is not very high at least in the view of those on the front lines or those who responded to an Army survey.

The Army's suicide rate is at its highest since the 1980s. Almost 30% of the suicides have been in Iraq.

We have almost as many private contractors as soldiers in Iraq.

Recruiting goals are being met only by lowering the standards.

Our leading military hospital, Walter Reed, can't give many of the wounded the care they need.

Russia seems to be moving toward regaining its place as a country to be feared.

Another effect of the surge

Both the Red Crescent and the UN report that the number of internally displaced Iraqis has increased since the surge began. The Red Crescent says the number has doubled since February, the start of the surge.

An Iraq partitioned into three primary regions is looking more and more likely.

Power to the People

That's electrical power. And the people are Iraqi militias. They've taken over many of the electrical switching stations so that there really are some cities in Iraq which have electricity for most of the day and night, unlike Baghdad which is lucky to have more than two hours of power a day.

Who is in charge?

Another example of the gap between words and actions

Many politicians inveigh against the evils of illegal immigration. But, since most politicians have a hard time squaring their actions with their words, should we be surprised that governments - federal, state and local - are among the largest employers of illegal immigrants? That's what this report claims.

Don't believe a word I say

The following was taken from the web site of the White House Office of Administration:

Freedom of Information Requests

The Office of Administration's (OA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Office is responsible for responding to requesters who are seeking OA records under the FOIA. A handbook has been prepared to provide instructions on obtaining information through FOIA. In addition, the Electronic Reading Room contains documents specifically identified for inclusion by FOIA, as well as documents for which the office has received multiple FOIA requests.

The Office of Administration has its own FOIA officer who responded to sixty-five requests last year. Yet, in court the Office argues that it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. More 1984 reasoning by our leaders!

Contrasting Treasury Secretaries

Mark Thoma at Economist's View reflects on the inaction and relative silence of Paulson during the current crisis. Thoma argues that Paulson seems to be too much of a believer in the wisdom of the market. On the other hand, Rubin, together with Greenspan and Summer, worked hard to correct problems when the markets were failing.

It seems that almost everyone in this administration prefers to believe rather than think.

War's Costs

Here are excerpts from the "Purple Hearts" series of photographs by Nina Berman. Look especially at photo #6.

Geography is not a specialty of our Congressmen

They think Menominee, MI is within the Chicago metropolitan area, Toledo is near Ann Arbor, Albany is part of the Hartford area, Kingston and Pemberton, NJ are in New York City. Or, at least these are the conclusions they reached when they passed the new child health care bill. The Congressmen deliberately flunked geography as they wanted hospitals in their district to get more of our money, i.e., the money that goes to pay hospitals for Medicare patients.

And you thought that the Democrats would get rid of earmarks! We have a very serious problem in that there is no branch of government that you can admire as one containing a majority of competent, reasonably honest people who actually want to serve their country rather than themselves.

Do you believe the experts or the politicians?

Foreign Policy has updated its 'terrorism index'. The last version of the index showed a very poor assessment of our progress in the battle against terrorism. In the current one the assessment is even bleaker.

One of the pieces in the current index compared the statements of some of our presidential candidates to the opinions of the experts whose opinions form the basis of the index. In each case, the experts disagreed with the candidates.

Didn't Kennedy attribute the Cuba imbroglio to his reliance on the experts?

The Lily Pond

at the New York Botanical Garden

Another day in the news

It's getting so that each day another news story about Putin appears. This time it's about his desire to have new history books written. The current Russian history books are too negative because, in Putin's view, the authors received grants from foreign countries. The new histories will likely be based on "The Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006", a handbook for teachers which was written by a team of writers only one of whom was an historian.

The difference between a governor and a president

Flimsy Sanity has posted an intriguing video which makes one wonder.

View from the ground

Here's one of the best articles you'll read on our progress in Iraq. You will not recognize the names of any of the authors. You will recognize the truth they speak.

Different Views

A recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art prompted me to reflect on the differences between the art of the Greeks and Romans and the art of Africa, particularly as regards statues of nude men. In Greek and Roman sculpture, testicles are dominant; with African sculpture, the penis predominates. Are there two views of man represented by this little quirk?

Discrimination by the ADL

The ADL is the Anti-Discrimination League. It's goal is to fight discrimination against Jews. Obviously, one of its hot buttons is the Holocaust, which in most people's estimation is genocide. The ADL just fired its New England Director because he protested the League's position relative to the massacre of Armenians by the Turks; most people call this massacre genocide. The ADL does not, not because it is not so. But because doing so might anger the Turks, who are one of Israel's few Muslim friends.

I guess one discriminates based on who does the killing and who are killed.

The Greedy Judge

Or should I have titled this 'The Weird Judge'? Judge Ernest Murphy won his libel case against the Boston Herald and was awarded over $3,000,000. Apparently, this was not enough as he wrote a couple of threatening letters to the publisher of the Herald seeking more money; for these he will be called before the ethics board. Earlier this month he asked for an early retirement on the grounds of disability; the governor denied it. Now, he has sued the Herald's insurance company on the grounds that they should have stopped the Herald from going to trial and appealing the verdict.

This guy is a judge? He seems to have some deep-seated problems; otherwise, he would stop making an ass of himself.

Placing Blame

The media has been filled with news of the latest recall by Mattel. The impression created is that it is all China's fault. Well, 18.6 million toys have been recalled in the latest fiasco. 436,000 were recalled because of lead paint. The remaining 18,000,000 were recalled because magnets may come off the toy. Mattel has not yet named the supplier of these 18,000,000 toys, but it does not appear to be a Chinese company. Further, the problem may be in the design, not the manufacture, of the toy. Who is the designer? Mattel?

Growing up younger and younger

Many - perhaps most - of my fellow college graduates do not practice in the field of their college major. Heck, I didn't know what I wanted to do until I was a couple of years out of graduate school and even then I just fell into the programming field, which did not exist when I was in high school.

Over the past few years there has been a quiet movement to have high school freshmen declare a major. In some cases the schools are hoping that the kids will be better students as a particular school's performance has been very poor. Yes, we all know the kid who at a very early age knew what she wanted to do when she grew up. But there are very few of those types of kids. Most of us have no idea what we can do and what the world may hold for us. Experimenting is the stuff of life. We should give our kids a chance to try different things.

And now the book

Walt and Mersheimer created quite a controversy earlier this year when they published an article in the London Review about the Israeli Lobby. Now they've expanded their article into a book and are getting more flak.

A new world

I thought that I had seen just about all of Van Gogh's work or at least that which was worth seeing. I was wrong. Today we went to the Clark Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Not only were there wonderful Van Goghs I had not seen, but there were an amazing number of Impressionists and post-Impressionists I had never seen. Here are two of the paintings you should travel to Williamstown to see.

He's not fiddling

David Walker, head of the GAO, issued his most dire warning about our fiscal condition yet. He likened us to Rome, which was the original superpower.

A job for Crocodile Dundee

An Australian was stuck up a tree located in a crocodile nest for seven nights. Every night two crocodiles would serenade him to sleep.

Routine Maintenance and the Government

West Tisbury will be spending more than $4,000,000 on renovating its Town Hall. Note that the town only has 2612 year-round residents; $4,000,000 is a lot of money for a small town. The building needs this massive renovation because very little money was spent on routine maintenance.

This same refusal to maintain our public assets is the subject of an op-ed in today's NY Times. The op-ed is about our infrastructure, particularly our bridges. The author was formerly chief engineer for the city's Department of Transportation. He argues that many states and cities let their bridges deteriorate to such a degree that the federal government - which is considered free money by the state officials - will step in. The basic argument of the piece is the old cliche that still rings true - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Misusing privileges

The Registry of Motor Vehicles is finally cracking down on the misuse of handicapped placards that allow one to park in spots reserved for the handicapped. Today's Boston Globe cited some of the more egregious uses of the placard:

A Brockton woman who inherited her well-worn placard from her mother, who got it from her now-deceased mother.

The operators of a spa on the first block of Newbury Street who left their vehicle for hours at meters near the spa using a placard issued to a 78-year-old relative. They were spotted by investigators 10 times.

A career planning specialist at the Blaine School of Cosmetology, who swore she used someone else's placard just twice -- the two times troopers spotted her vehicle parked in a handicapped zone near the school's Downtown Crossing location.

Two years later

Where does New Orleans stand two years after Katrina? It still has a fair way to go according to the latest issue of the New Orleans Index.

More than highways

I've driven through Rhode Island many, many times. Except for trips to Newport, I've stayed on the major highways. Well, yesterday we missed our exit off Rte.95 and had a wonderful ride through a Rhode Island I'd never really seen: A two lane road surrounded by trees. A couple of huge lakes. Signs advertising vegetables and eggs beings sold by local farmers. A small horse farm. An even smaller mule farm. The Washington and Rochambeau pathways.

I should get lost like this more often.

Very interesting Friday Wall Street Journal

"Money & Investing" featured a world map showing countries seriously affected by the Dow's plunge - France, Germany, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Romania, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, Canada. It really is a global economy.

The SEC is investigating whether some brokers are using different values for their own mortgage holdings and those of its customers as few of the firms reported big sub-prime losses as of June. Maybe they are managing well.

JC Flowers is in the news again. They are getting ready to pull out of the Sallie Mae deal, wherein Flowers offered a 47% premium to buy the company. He claims Congress is changing the rules of the game and thus he has the option to get out. If he does not win his point, he could have to pony up a $900,000,000 breakup fee.

And this quote from Ann Rutledge, a consultant, "No one really knows how to price asset-backed securities and CDOs and that's a real problem in the market now." I couldn't agree more. We have created securities that really make sense to only a few people in the world, but we have all these average Joe Finance guys who think that they understand everything financial.

A French Model?

Paul Dutton in today's Boston Globe is talking about a model of healthcare. He claims that the World Health Organization rated France the best healthcare system in the world - everybody is covered, the people are healthy and live long lives, doctors are responsive and freedom is widespread. And it costs $3500 per person as opposed to our $6100.

The question is whether the situation in 2007 is the same as that of six years earlier. Our system has not improved. Has the French system gotten worse?

It's easy to get nuclear material

The GAO was able to get a license to buy dangerous radioactive material by lying. Using a fake company, they filed for a license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The GAO altered the license to increase the amount of material they could buy and sent letters of intent to buy to two suppliers, who agreed to ship the material.

Fortunately, the Commission halted licensing until they adjusted the process.

The Fishermen May Have a Case

The fishing industry is still an important industry for Massachusetts and the Vineyard. As the government tries to help the oceans recover from overfishing, the fishermen have been vociferous in their claim that they are getting screwed. Well, the GAO thinks that they are, at least as regards the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) plan to protect large whales from becoming tangled in commercial fishing gear.

The nature of the screwing is basically the crappy economic assessment made by the NMFS. They really had little data to back their assumptions as to what the costs of the plan would be to fishermen. Yet, they produced a magic number that they claimed was the cost of the plan. Further, there are many questions as to how effective the plan would really be.

Killing Gaza

The Israeli control of border crossings in and out of Gaza will very likely make Gaza totally reliant on aid, so says the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Since access has been restricted, every one of Gaza's 600 garment factories has closed because of the lack of raw materials. 90% of the factories involved in the building trades have closed. The number of trucks crossing the border daily has been cut in half. Production of power is way less because they can't get maintenance supplies on a regular basis.

Israel is really showing Hamas what it means to call for the destruction of Israel. I'm sure that the average Gaza resident understands why she should be on the road to extermination so that Hamas can learn its lesson.

A Visit to Guam

Two Russian bombers flew 13 hours "to meet [US] aircraft carriers and greet [US pilots] visually." This was a fairly common practice during the Cold War. A more assertive Russia seems to be doing a lot to let us know that they are once more a world power.

The Golfer

How did the TSA miss this?

Now we're going to have to take off our hats when going through airport security. A marmoset, a form of monkey, flew from Peru to Florida and then on to New York. On the latter flight, the monkey came out from under his owner's hat. The monkey behaved for the remainder of the flight. I wonder if the owner had to pay an extra fare.

One a week?

Last week a member of the Chinese cabinet spoke of using China's vast dollar reserves as a bargaining chip with the U.S. This week a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was more blunt, "China is unlikely to follow suit (i.e., reduce their dollar holdings) as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar."

Who will speak next week? How do we start getting out of this mess?

Another loss for the judge?

The judge who sued his dry cleaner for $54,000,000 may soon no longer be a judge. He may not be reappointed.

The group keeps getting smaller

Five more Iraqi cabinet ministers have decided to boycott cabinet meetings. This leaves no Sunnis at cabinet meetings.

Branding is rampant

Thailand is branding its police force, that is, the part of its police force that litters, parks in no-parking zones, comes to work late. For those officers, they will be forced to wear a pink kitty armband, but only in the police station.

"We are living in the Stone Age"

That's a quote from an Iraqi describing his life. The limited availability of electricity is part of the problem; there have been four nationwide blackouts in two days. The limited availability of electricity has shut down some water plants, so water has become scarce. Gas is now $5 a gallon, which has translated into sewage seeping from the ground as the trucks that pump out septic tanks cannot afford gas.

A very discouraging article.

The piper must be paid

The Highway Trust Fund is the source of funds used to repair and maintain our highway system. Gas taxes and some taxes on trucks are used to supply the Trust Fund with cash. But the current rate of taxation (18.5 cents per gallon) is not enough. This year the fund will have a deficit of almost $4 billion. The GAO has estimated that this deficit will continue to grow each year through 2011. It sounds as though we will have to increase the tax or expect more bridges, tunnels and roads to fail.

Insourcing

Tata, a very large Indian company, has established a call center in Ohio. That's Ohio as in the U.S. of A. It's a small but possibly significant move.

Doing God's Work

The Christian Embassy does God's work in Washington, D.C. It seeks to evangelize members of the military and politicians. It holds regular Bible studies meetings and prayer breakfasts; every Wednesday the breakfast is held in the executive dining room of the Pentagon.

God's work does not come cheaply, so the embassy decided to create a fundraising video espousing its worth. They were able to get several generals to tout the virtues of the embassy. It so happens that the generals, who were all on active duty, were in uniform when they gave their spiel. It also so happens that such behavior violates Army regulations. Thus far, no action has been taken against these generals.

Earlier this year a corporal and a sergeant were prosecuted for marching in an antiwar protest while wearing their uniforms. Will the generals be prosecuted and threatened with dishonorable discharge?

Everybody affiliated with making this video was doing God's work. Therefore, the film crew was given unrestricted access to the Pentagon. Should they have been?

The Army Was Warned

Professionals in on-line learning technology warned the Army years ago that it should beef up the security surrounding their promotion tests. The Army appears to have done nothing, with the result that cheating on promotion exams seems to be increasing.

Prescient Paul

Here's a quote from a speech made by Ron Paul in April 2005:

Today it’s easier to get funding to rebuild infrastructure in Iraq than to build a bridge in the United States.

While this comment is relevant today in light of the Minneapolis bridge disaster, the speech as a whole is also quite relevant to today's predicaments.

Another PTSD Victim?

Being involved in a law suit is a stressful experience. But one would think that the experience would be less stressful for an attorney or a judge. Apparently that is not the case with Judge Ernest Murphy.

Murphy won a libel suit against the Boston Herald and was awarded $2,010,000. This was not enough as he demanded more money from the publisher of the Herald. For this demand Murphy is facing charges that he violated judicial ethics.

Now, Murphy has applied for a disability pension from the state that would pay him $99,350 annually free of state income taxes. He claims that the experience of the legal matter caused him to develop PTSD. Fortunately, the governor has disallowed Murphy's request.

The cancer spreads

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a table of some of the companies damaged by the woes in the sub-prime market. There were companies in the U.S., Australia, Germany, Switzerland, England and Japan. Only ten companies were listed, but the loss among these was at least $3.75 billion.

Mistake #1?

Obama agrees with Bush in that it's okay to go after the terrorists any way we see fit, including invading a sovereign nation. I guess his ambition is starting to override his sense.

A War Tax?

In light of yesterday's congressional hearing wherein the costs of the Iraq war were estimated to be in the range of $1 trillion, James McGovern, a Massachusetts Congressman, suggested we institute a war tax so that the credit card bill for our kids and grandkids will be a manageable bill. Of course, the idea of sacrifice other - than that of the military and their families -has never entered Bush's lexicon.

Note that some economists have predicted a cost of $2 trillion.