Articles of Interest 2-10-07
633 Days until election day.
Sorry for the delay, I got home and went straight to bed. No commentary today, I’ll catch up tomorrow.
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/METRO/702100339/1022/POLITICS
Saturday, February 10, 2007
State GOP tries to rebound
Convention agenda: Election recap and candidate pitches
Gary Heinlein / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
GRAND RAPIDS -- Michigan Republicans, who failed to capture the governor's office or a U.S. Senate seat and lost the state House, are regrouping and refocusing at their state convention this weekend.
They're also getting an early look at two aspiring 2008 presidential contenders: Ex- Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
In its first meeting since the November election, the party that ruled Michigan for about a decade decide how to regain power.
"We lost our brand name," said state GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis, who survived a post-election coup attempt.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/NEWS06/702100334/1008
Granholm's 2% is an excise tax
February 10, 2007
Love it or hate it, don't call Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposal to put a 2% tax on services a sales tax.
It's an excise tax.
Misunderstanding began with news reports Wednesday as word leaked out about her plan to expand the sales tax.
Why an excise tax and not a sales tax on services? Several reasons, Deputy Treasurer Scott Schrager said Friday.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION01/702100321/1008
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Editorial Quick Hits: Theirs
Granholm sets big government record
In her fifth State of the State address, Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed 20 new expansions of state government and two limitations. In the previous four years, Gov. Granholm proposed 62 new expansions of government (a single-term record) and 10 limitations. -- Michael LaFaive, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100367/1308
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Brian O'Connor
New tax is only common cents
H eads up, business folk: The new Consumer Reports is out with something all you suits need to know: the key to sidestepping our governor's proposed 2-cent sales tax on services.
At great risk to catching a bad case of ring-around-the-collar, CR's research staff tested wrinkle-free dress shirts and found the best buys. The thing is that these shirts don't have to be ironed, which means you don't have to go to the soon-to-be-taxed shirt laundry each week.
Simply shell out $40 for a Lands' End or LL Bean wrinkle-free pinpoint, and you can completely escape the outrageous, confiscatory and economically irresponsible sales tax tacked on to getting your Brooks Bros. button-downs starched at your local cleaners.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/VIDEO01/70210001/1008/NEWS06
Granholm on her relationship with Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson
Video by MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
"I think it's much healthier for us to be working together."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/NEWS06/702100369/1008
Racetrack slots on ballot?
Patterson says plan afoot; it faces long odds
February 10, 2007
LANSING -- A 2008 ballot proposal to legalize slot machines at six horse racing tracks is in the works, and it could solve the state's budget problems by taxing so-called racinos, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said Friday.
Patterson said the campaign would be well-funded by people who have talked to him about it. He declined to identify them.
"It's coming, guys," he said during a taping of public television's "Off the Record." He said racinos could be in operation within a year of ballot approval, generating $1.7 billion in tax revenue annually.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1171106155103970.xml&coll=8
'Racinos' proposal revived
Saturday, February 10, 2007
By Dave Alexander
CHRONICLE BUSINESS EDITOR WITH WIRE SERVICES
The "racino" issue has reappeared in Michigan's political debate on state finances and it's none too soon for Muskegon's Great Lakes Downs, which possibly faces its last year of racing this summer.
A group from outside the state will push to put a measure on the 2008 ballot allowing slot machines at state horse racing tracks, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said Friday on public television's "Off the Record." A percentage of the money bet could then go into state coffers through some form of tax or proceeds split.
"You could have a 'racino' (a racetrack that also offers casino-style gambling) up and running in less than a year. (It) could generate $1.7 billion at six sites," Patterson said during a taping of the show. He didn't elaborate on the revenue number he cited.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070209/COL10/702090340/1081/COL
Turn city around, one neighborhood at a time
February 9, 2007
Progress is hard when you're trying to curb murders, keep kids in school and raise expectations in neighborhoods so besieged that they think the sun has been blocked from their sky.
But sometimes, salvation is easier than we think.
The Junior League of Detroit, for instance, has the right idea. The 650-member women's volunteer organization, one of 294 leagues around the world, has adopted a ZIP code -- 48215.
No, its members are not delivering mail. Instead, they have chosen to serve an entire area of Detroit within a single ZIP code. Rather than write a check to one family or deliver supplies to one school, the League wants to help children in an entire area.
http://www.mlive.com/business/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1171084979159020.xml&coll=7
New economy depends on entrepreneurs for its survival
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Deep thinkers about the future of Michigan's economy say we must become a much more entrepreneurial state to kick-start job growth.
The way things are going, we might become a state of entrepreneurs by default.
Some 70,000 workers have taken buyouts or early retirement offers from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Delphi Corp. Many of them walked away with as much as $140,000 in their pockets.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-34/117109371355480.xml&coll=6
Schools get early start on all-day kindergarten
Saturday, February 10, 2007
By Beth Loechler
The Grand Rapids Press
As the 24 students from Room 15 at South Godwin Elementary file quietly down the hall and into the Spanish room, Kristin VerBeek welcomes them, inviting each one to take a seat on the floor.
She doesn't speak a single word in English when she asks someone to tell her the day of the week, then the date. They repeat the words as a group: "hoy es jueves" and "el ocho de febrero."
Hard to believe this group is mostly 5-year-olds, sitting still, almost all eyes on the teacher, no one speaking out of turn.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1171036277135730.xml&coll=6
School reforms paying off
Friday, February 09, 2007
Bring on the pizza parties and cupcakes because there is reason to celebrate. Michigan students improved at every grade level in math and reading on the state standardized test. Educators and students should be motivated to make similar progress in the consistently problem areas of writing and social studies, where scores dropped.
Locally, significant gains made by struggling districts such as Grand Rapids and Holland on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test should be applauded.
Kent and Ottawa County teachers should analyze what teaching methods work well and where a new approach is needed for more advancement. The test administered last fall measured the improvement of students in third through eighth grade.
http://www.mlive.com/columns/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/117094927616260.xml&coll=2
Power crisis looming for Michigan
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Even in Michigan's dimly lit economy of 2007, electric power needs are growing. Unless the state is going to buy that power elsewhere - at a cost both in dollars and reliability - plans must be made now to generate more electricity.
That message in a report issued last week by the Michigan Public Service Commission ought to get attention in the state. The Legislature, for sure, needs to read the report and react. There will be a price for doing nothing. The PSC puts that number at $4 billion by 2020: what Michigan would have to pay to Canada and to other states in the Midwest for electric power to meet demand here. Some of that power-shopping already is occurring, mostly to meet peak demand in summers. Greater dependence on outside supplies invites higher costs and reliability risks. The PSC report points out that a single auto plant can lose a half-million dollars within the first five to 10 minutes of a power interruption.
http://www.mlive.com/news/jacitpat/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1171038989295190.xml&coll=3
Palisades sale: Is it in public's interest?
Friday, February 09, 2007
Attorney General Mike Cox is no Attorney General Frank J. Kelley, who for years was either the arch-enemy of Michigan utilities, or the champion of customers -- depending on your perspective. Yet Cox is acting in Kelleyesque fashion by opposing Consumers Energy's proposed $380 million sale of its Palisades Nuclear Plant near South Haven.
According to Cox, ratepayers will pay at least $62 million more for electricity in the next nine years if the sale goes through. This week he asked the PSC to reopen its hearing on the proposed sale to consider new issues related to the purchase price and the long-term benefit to ratepayers. The PSC quickly agreed to consider Cox's objections, but not to delay the process. After all, delay could cost Consumers Energy a $6 million reduction in the purchase price -- certainly not in the public's interest.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/NEWS06/702100332/1008
Physicist defends evolution and God
Professor survived Calvin College trial
February 10, 2007
A Michigan scientist who was put on academic trial for teaching evolution at Calvin College in the 1980s is emerging as a national figure in the cultural war over faith and science.
On Wednesday, Dr. Howard Van Till was one of four scholars from across the country who debated faith and evolution at a conference at Grove City College, a Christian liberal arts school near Pittsburgh.
And Sunday, he will lecture at Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church in Bloomfield Hills.
http://www.mlive.com/columns/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1171033096287000.xml&coll=5
Seniors spending
Still time to set good policies for allocating new revenue
FLINT
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Friday, February 09, 2007
Sympathy goes out to Genesee County commissioners fumbling to spend $7.7 million from a new seniors' tax, for they've begun the process without a plan.
Without a blueprint it's hard to weed out the good ideas from the bad, especially with senior center officials, laying claim to some of the money, pressuring for quick action.
So far, it seems, the results are arbitrary and uncreative, not exactly what we had in mind when endorsing the 0.7-mill issue in last August's election. Rather than identifying and funding the best services for the county's senior population, the first allocations by the Board of Commissioners would support the existing senior center system - perhaps not wrong, but hasty.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION01/702100320/1008
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Editorial Quick Hits: Ours
Don't rush on Macomb exec idea
The Macomb County Board of Commissioners shouldn't jump the gun at a special Monday meeting and should resist putting a proposal for creating a county executive on the May school election ballot. The commissioners need to propose a specific plan -- not a vague idea that leaves the expensive details for later. The county needs an executive form of government, but voters need reassurance that a county executive won't result in more bureaucracy. The number of commissioners should be radically reduced, and their duties should be made part-time. The commission should study how other executives work in the state -- especially in successful Oakland County. After thorough study, a detailed plan should be created and then put on the November ballot, when the most county residents can make their voices heard.
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1171095058101960.xml&coll=2
EMU faces IRS fines for incorrect tax payments
Finance, business VP says 'loops' have been identified and won't happen again
Saturday, February 10, 2007
BY GEOFF LARCOM
News Staff Reporter
Eastern Michigan University faces fines from the Internal Revenue Service after an audit for 2002-04 discovered that the university had not paid taxes correctly in four areas.
The audit found that:
· EMU did not withhold Social Security taxes for enrolled students who were working for the university during times such as the summer but were not attending classes, said Janice Stroh, vice president of business and finance. EMU will need to repay about $188,000 related to the students.
http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1171106183103770.xml&coll=4
State orders halt to Toughman Extreme Caged Combat, other similar fighting
Saturday, February 10, 2007
By JEFF KART
TIMES WRITER
Promoters of a Toughman Extreme Caged Combat event held in December in Saginaw have been served with a cease and desist order from the state.
Stephen J. Coppler, with Adoreable Promotions Inc., 900 Truman Parkway, was served, along with Gregory Allen Ahrens of Battle Creek, according to officials from the Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
Coppler said Friday that the order had been revoked. But an official with the Attorney General's Office said the order still stands.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/METRO/702100337/1022/POLITICS
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Slot machine initiative may be on '08 ballot
Businessman's plan similar to Patterson's idea for Cobo funding.
Maureen Feighan / The Detroit News
PONTIAC -- A businessman with ties to the gaming industry intends to put a measure before voters in 2008 to allow slot machines at Michigan's six horse racing tracks.
The initiative would support a plan by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson who earlier this week outlined five possible ways to fund an expansion of Cobo Center in his annual State of the County address. The proposal calls for converting the state's six horse-racing tracks into "racinos," tracks with slots machines.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-34/117109202255480.xml&coll=6
Bush's proposed cuts a bitter pill for hospitals
Saturday, February 10, 2007
By Sarah Kellogg and Pat Shellenbarger
The Grand Rapids Press
WASHINGTON -- Training Michigan's doctors and nurses could become more difficult if Congress approves President Bush's 2008 budget proposal stripping up to $2 billion from medical training programs, including three in West Michigan.
Health-care officials Friday said the Bush plan to eliminate training funding from the Medicaid budget is short-sighted.
Right now, there's an increasing need for medical professionals, particularly as the baby boom generation is aging, said Douglas Kindschi, interim president of the Grand Rapids Medical Education and Research Consortium (MERC), which coordinates training of new doctors.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-2/117109231855480.xml&coll=6
A healthy development
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The business of making vaccines is making a welcome comeback. Scientific and technological breakthroughs, increased funding for research and higher profits are spurring a resurgence in vaccine discovery and development. This could save or improve countless lives in the coming years and well beyond.
Vaccines for a long list of diseases and illness have been among the great medical success stories of the last century. Diseases such as polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox and tetanus have been eradicated or held in check because of vaccines developed to treat them.
Three new vaccines hit the market last year, the most in a single year. They include vaccines for the virus linked to cervical cancer, for severe diarrhea which kills 600,000 children annually and another that prevents shingles in the elderly. Nearly a half dozen more -- against herpes simplex, rheumatoid arthritis, influenza, meningitis and encephalitis -- are expected to be introduced in the next couple of years.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/METRO/702100347/1022/POLITICS
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Levin looks for answers
Senator sends staffers to White House, Pentagon to ask questions about how Iraq war started.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Michigan's senior U.S. senator, Democrat Carl Levin, said Friday he plans to delve more deeply into the story of how the United States went to war in Iraq, sending staffers to interview key White House and Pentagon officials about how dubious intelligence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 terrorist attacks became part of the justification for the 2003 invasion.
The interviews could be a prelude to hearings in which Democrats could publicly question those who led the drive to war.
"They need to be interviewed. They need to be asked some critical questions," Levin said after a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he chairs, on a report by the Pentagon's top internal watchdog on efforts to link Iraq and al Qaeda.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110009653
The GOP Field
So who's the tax-cutting, reform candidate?
Saturday, February 10, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Now is the season of Republican discontent, extending even to the party's Presidential candidates. For the first time in decades, no dominant candidate has emerged and GOP voters seem to be in a Missouri state of mind: Show us what you really believe. We know exactly how they feel.
John McCain has been considered the front-runner, having lost a rough nomination fight in 2000 to President Bush. In the normal GOP habit of Presidential primogeniture, he'd be the likeliest nominee. The Arizona Senator has an inspiring personal story and a strong record on national security. His fortitude on Iraq has been all the more impressive since the war has become unpopular and threatens the media adulation he has long enjoyed. Tenacity is a Presidential asset, especially in dangerous times.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19347
Rudy Giuliani: Supply-Sider-in-Chief
by Deroy Murdock (more by this author)
Posted: 02/09/2007
Republican primary voters should rally around the GOP field's most accomplished supply-sider, the all-but-announced Rudolph W. Giuliani. Having sliced taxes and slashed Gotham's government, New York's former mayor is the leading fiscal conservative among 2008's GOP presidential contenders.
Before Giuliani's January 1, 1994 inauguration, New York's economy was on a stretcher. Amid soaring unemployment, 235 jobs vanished daily. Financier Felix Rohatyn complained: "Virtually all human activities are taxed to the hilt." Punitive taxes helped fuel a $2.3 billion deficit.
Mayor-elect Giuliani sounded Reaganesque when he announced he would "reduce the size and cost of city government" to balance the budget. In his first State of the City address, he said: "We're going to cut taxes to attract jobs so our people can work."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020901726.html
Huckabee Defends Traditional Marriages
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press
Friday, February 9, 2007; 9:25 PM
NASHUA, N.H. -- Republican Mike Huckabee said Friday that marriage shouldn't be treated as an experiment in response to questions about whether Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter should have the right to wed.
The former Arkansas governor, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said heterosexual marriages face enough challenges without adding new configurations to the mix.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/UPDATE/702100417
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Presidential candidate Obama: 'We can build a more hopeful America'
Nedra Pickler / Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Democrat Barack Obama declared himself a candidate today for the White House in 2008, evoking Abraham Lincoln's ability to unite a nation and promising to lead a new generation as the country's first black president.
The first-term senator announced his candidacy from the state capital where he began his elective career just 10 years ago, and in front of the building where in another century, Lincoln served eight years in the Illinois Legislature.
"We can build a more hopeful America," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery. "And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021000579.html
Obama Formally Launches Presidential Bid
By Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 10, 2007; 2:50 PM
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Feb. 10 -- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama formally launched his candidacy for the White House here this morning, invoking memories of Abraham Lincoln and challenging a new generation of Americans to help bridge political divisions and transform the nation.
Standing on the grounds of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln delivered his famous "house divided" anti-slavery speech in 1858, Obama opened what he described as an audacious campaign for president, one that barely seemed likely only six months ago -- and one that could make him the first African American ever to reach the White House.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021000812.html
For Obama, a Warm Reception in the Cold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; 3:00 PM
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Feb. 10 -- Raising questions about his judgment and risking the ire of the national press corps, Sen. Barack Obama held fast on his first major campaign decision: To conduct his announcement speech in the frigid outdoors here on Saturday.
And so, as much as it was a political story, the Obama event also became a weather story.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/
Posted at 10:55 AM ET, 02/10/2007
Clinton Explains Iraq Vote in Berlin, N.H.
BERLIN, N.H. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) arrived here this morning to address an overflow crowd that included the committed, the interested and the skeptical.
"I'd like to like her," said Nathaniel Gurien who drove from North Conway to see Clinton. "Now that she is running she has to show us what she's made of."
After arriving 15 minutes late, Clinton spent the next hour answering questions from the assembled throng who packed the Berlin City Hall on a frosty Saturday morning. (The reason for her late arrival? She was meeting and greeting late-arrivers in an overflow room at the Berlin Boxing Club across the street.)
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100414/1008/OPINION01
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Kathleen Parker
To flip is to flop -- or not
In a world wary of flip-floppery, it is nearly impossible for a politician to change his mind without appearing unprincipled.
Just ask John Kerry. Up front, I admit to enjoying a flip-flop moment now and again. U.S. Sen. Kerry made it too easy, with so many flip-flops that CBS News posted a "Top Ten" list during the 2004 presidential race. Famously, Kerry said: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," referring to supplemental funding for the war in Iraq. The flip-flop slogan stuck to Kerry like Spandex because he couldn't stop contradicting himself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020901949.html
Congress Must Act On Iraq
By Tom Vilsack
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A17
Think of the last time you were in a public place with 1,000 people -- a sports event, a Fourth of July parade, a concert.
Now imagine all 1,000 of those people dead.
If the number of American military deaths in Iraq in recent years is any guide, that's how many Americans will die in that country in the next year if Congress doesn't act immediately to take our troops out of harm's way in Iraq's civil war.
Now imagine the 5,000 more Americans likely to be wounded and maimed if Congress doesn't fulfill its duty to get our young men and women out of Iraq's war zone.
Feb 10, 12:54 PM EST
Change to federal education law expected
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Tori Boyles, of Columbia, Mo., takes a test at school, an adult often reads the questions to her because the 9-year-old has learning disabilities that make reading difficult.
That kind of accommodation generally is not allowed for the reading test that public school students take under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Also, skipping the exam is not permitted for Tori, who has spina bifida, a condition often accompanied by learning problems.
"Why isn't there an option to opt out of that?" asks her mother, Becky Boyles. "She just has to stare at this piece of paper. She'll tell you she feels stupid. She feels absolutely stupid."
Feb 10, 6:48 AM EST
Medicaid cuts could affect students
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats have made it clear: They don't support recommendations from President Bush that would shave an estimated $77 billion from government health programs for seniors and the poor. But Bush doesn't need lawmakers' support for some of the changes that he wants to make to Medicare and Medicaid. He could get about $23 billion in savings over the next five years by issuing new federal regulations.
Students are among those who could be hit by the regulatory changes.
School districts get reimbursed for arranging speech and physical therapy for Medicaid-eligible students. For example, when a student with autism gets speech therapy, the school can seek reimbursement for scheduling the therapy, confirming it gets done and transporting the student to the therapist, said Mary Kusler of the American Association of School Administrators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/opinion/10sat2.html
Bad Faith on Social Security
Published: February 10, 2007
In 2005, President Bush put his political capital where his mouth was, and lost. He went all-out to convince Congress and the American people that privatizing Social Security would be good and necessary. It’s neither — and his plan was justifiably and soundly rejected. This year, with his political capital on empty, Mr. Bush is talking about a bipartisan effort to reform Social Security. But his actions suggest that he has no intention of making any serious compromises.
In his new budget, Mr. Bush allocates $29.3 billion to establish private accounts in 2012, totaling $637 billion through 2017. That suggests that either Mr. Bush still hasn’t figured out that private accounts are a political nonstarter, or he’s hoping to use them as a bargaining chip in future negotiations. Either way, that attitude virtually ensures that Social Security reform will stall in this Congress, just as it did when the Republicans were in charge.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100416/1008/OPINION01
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Thomas Sowell
Why income gaps make sense
O ne of the questions often asked by those obsessed with income "gaps" and "disparities" is: "Is anyone really worth the millions of dollars a year that some people receive as personal income?"
Such a question presupposes that there is such a thing as "real" worth. That assumption goes back to the Middle Ages, when people thought that there was a "fair and just price" for things.
But if there were an objective value -- whether of goods or of labor -- then economic transactions would make no sense.
When you buy a computer, the only reason you part with your money is that the computer is worth more to you than the money. But the only reason someone sells you the computer is that the money is worth more to them than the computer.
http://www.mlive.com/columns/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1171035897108590.xml&coll=2
Time to curb American appetites
Gratifying our craving for cheap food and gas isn't as easy as it used to be
Friday, February 09, 2007
The price of corn is about $3.25 a bushel, more than half again what it was a year ago, and beginning to bring to mind the record $5.545 a bushel set in July 1996.
There are many reasons for this price spurt. The ethanol boom has created a sharp new demand for corn. The Department of Agriculture revised its estimate of the 2006 corn harvest downward by some 200 million bushels because of weather and other factors. There is also a smaller corn reserve on hand than usual - the smallest in a decade - which parallels shortages around the world.
Add to this the growing weight of commodities funds investing in agricultural markets, and you have daydreams - or nightmares - of that $5 mark.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION01/702100317/1008
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Pundits get fired up over warming report
Nancy Kruh
T he debate over global warming is ablaze again with the release of a report that predicts catastrophic consequences as a result of burning fossil fuels.
Self-described "global-warming agnostic" Debra Saunders is sobered by the "degree of certitude" expressed by the majority of climate researchers. "That said," writes the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, "it would be much easier for me to listen to that majority if I did not see how ruthlessly it imposes conformity by marginalizing any scientist who has a different view on climate change." For Jeff Jacoby , the report does nothing to allay doubts. The Boston Globe columnist writes, "There are quite a few skeptical scientists, including eminent climatologists, who doubt the end-of-the-world scenario. Why don't journalists spend more time covering all sides of the debate instead of just parroting the scaremongers?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/opinion/10evans.html
Follow That Lobbyist
By RANDY EVANS
Published: February 10, 2007
THE Democratic majority in Congress has made ethics reform a centerpiece of its agenda — and not a moment too soon. The list of members of Congress from both parties who have either pleaded guilty to or are under F.B.I. investigation for crimes involving their offices is embarrassing.
Unfortunately, the latest reforms (some adopted in the House by rule and others proposed by the Senate in legislation) tighten restrictions without actually addressing the real reasons that Congressional ethics rules have been ineffective in the past. The result is tougher rules that will rarely, if ever, be enforced. Here’s why.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CIA_LEAK_WHITE_HOUSE?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Feb 9, 9:22 PM EST
Trial exposes White House crisis machine
WASHINGTON (AP) -- David Addington, chief legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says he was taken aback when the White House started making public pronouncements about the CIA leak investigation.
In the fall of 2003, President Bush's press secretary was categorically denying that either Karl Rove or I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was involved in exposing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA employee married to a critic of the war in Iraq.
"Why are you making these statements?" Addington asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett.
"Your boss is the one who wanted" them, Bartlett replied, referring to Cheney.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1171052119189730.xml&coll=8
What did Cheney know and when did he know it?
Friday, February 09, 2007
Vice President Dick Cheney isn't on trial in the infamous Valerie Plame Wilson leak case, but his former chief underling is. It's inconceivable to us that President George W. Bush, now almost four years after the fact, hasn't demanded a public accounting about this affair from his own No. 2.
Yet Cheney blithely goes about his business, a heart beat away from assuming the presidency, under a cloud of suspicion that he may be at the center of a malicious plot to destroy the career of the wife of an administration critic.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100413/1008/OPINION01
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Eugene Robinson
It's time to save a great American city
NEW ORLEANS -- It's beyond frustrating to hear well-meaning bureaucrats cite all the reasons why so little has been done to rebuild this ruined city and the rest of the Gulf Coast -- why, for example, out of more than 100,000 Louisiana households that have applied to the state government for their share of $7 billion in federal reconstruction funds, fewer than 400 have received their money.
That's no misprint, and I'm being generous. As of last week, when I attended a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing at the Louisiana Supreme Court building in the historic French Quarter, the actual number of homeowners who had gotten reconstruction money from this program, called "Road Home," was 331. My hopeful assumption is that a few more checks have trickled out since then.
Feb 10, 12:24 PM EST
Lawmakers hold 'tele-town hall meetings'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- On a recent weeknight, Kansas Rep. Jerry Moran spoke to nearly 10,000 of his constituents at once - from the comfort of his Capitol Hill office.
Technology that can connect thousands of people on a single phone call is letting Moran and other members of Congress connect with voters like never before.
"I'm not trying to replace the time I spend in Kansas," said Moran, a Republican. "But this kind of technology allows me to tie my district together in a way that 69 individual town hall meetings does not."
A "tele-town hall meeting" lets lawmakers call up to 35,000 households in their district at random by using a special automated dialing system. A recorded voice tells those who answer to stay on the line if they want to participate in the meeting.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AILING_SENATOR?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Feb 9, 9:24 PM EST
Sen. Tim Johnson working from hospital
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Tim Johnson is reading news clippings and starting to do some office work from the hospital, almost two months after suffering a life-threatening brain hemorrhage. "At this point, he has requested more contact with office and is looking for updates from staff," his office said in a statement Friday.
Spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said the South Dakota Democrat is starting slowly.
"We do not anticipate him back (in the Senate) for several weeks," Fisher said. "We are bringing work to him rather than him coming to us. His first priority still is rehabilitation."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHERTOFF_CONGRESS?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Feb 10, 2:10 AM EST
Chertoff hears panel's security concerns
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is trying to fund homeland security "on the cheap," cutting grants to local emergency workers and other programs, the chairman of a House committee said Friday.
Visiting Congress for the second time this week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was criticized anew by lawmakers of both parties upset with the government's security efforts, including at the borders and at airports.
"Millions of lives are at stake and we cannot continue to protect the homeland on the cheap," Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Chertoff.
At a panel hearing, Thompson and Rep. Peter King of New York, top Republican on the committee, told Chertoff they were unhappy with the administration's plans for a $1 billion fund meant to upgrade communications systems for emergency workers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/opinion/10sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The Build-a-War Workshop
Published: February 10, 2007
It took far too long, but a report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.
The report said the team headed by Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, developed “alternative” assessments of intelligence on Iraq that contradicted the intelligence community and drew conclusions “that were not supported by the available intelligence.” Mr. Feith certainly knew the Central Intelligence Agency would cry foul, so he hid his findings from the C.I.A. Then Vice President Dick Cheney used them as proof of cloak-and-dagger meetings that never happened, long-term conspiracies between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that didn’t exist, and — most unforgivable — “possible Iraqi coordination” on the 9/11 attacks, which no serious intelligence analyst believed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021000670.html
Gen. Petraeus: Mission in Iraq 'Is Doable'
Three U.S. Service Members Killed in Baghdad
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; 12:30 PM
BAGHDAD Feb. 10 -- The new U.S. military commander in Iraq said Saturday that the "rucksack of responsibility" was too heavy to carry alone there, and that without cooperation between Iraqi and U.S. forces, "Iraq will be doomed to continued violence and civil strife."
During a hand-over ceremony under the crystal chandeliers and marble columns of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, Gen. David H. Petraeus characterized the challenges facing Iraq as daunting, but said "these tasks are achievable, this mission is doable."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902250.html
Senators Debate Significance of Pentagon Report On Intelligence
By Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A01
Senate Democrats and Republicans disagreed yesterday over the meaning and importance of a Defense Department inspector general's conclusion that a Pentagon policy office produced and gave senior policymakers "alternative intelligence assessments on Iraq and Al Qaida relations" that were "inconsistent" with the intelligence community's consensus view in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had no evidence that the Pentagon activities were illegal and said they were authorized by then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BINDING_BUSH?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Feb 10, 1:15 PM EST
Dems seek to limit U.S. Iraq involvement
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even before they cast symbolic votes against the Iraq war, newly empowered congressional Democrats are clamoring for a chance to limit and eventually end U.S. involvement in a conflict that has killed more than 3,000 troops.
"Will I vote for a nonbinding resolution? Yes, but it's insufficient," says first-term Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, author of one of more than a dozen competing proposals that would impose a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"I think eventually without a question that we will have the House move to that position," the former three-star admiral added. "The country is already there."
Sestak spoke in an interview just off the House floor, which will serve as a nationally televised stage this week for a marathon debate over Bush's war policy.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100411/1008/OPINION01
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Michelle Malkin:
How the left defines a 'hero'
A ngry, left-wing Washington Post blogger William Arkin considers American troops in Iraq who believe in their mission "mercenaries" who are "naive" and should be thankful they haven't been spit upon yet. Curdled Democrat Sen. John Kerry thinks those soldiers, who volunteer for service, didn't "make an effort to be smart" and are "stuck in Iraq" because of their intellectual deficiencies. At the last anti-war spasm in Washington, liberal peace-lovers vandalized a military recruitment office -- repeating an act of destruction taken by rock-wielding thugs across college campuses and at ROTC headquarters nationwide.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902344.html
For Eminent Sunni, Lessons in Weakness
Maliki Deputy Describes Marginalization
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 -- Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salam Z. al-Zobaee's cousin has been in government custody for eight months.
He hasn't been charged, Zobaee said, and the formal inquiries he himself has made to have the oil engineer released, or at least get the case before a judge, have been rebuffed.
"He was detained because they looked at him like he didn't belong here," Zobaee said during a recent interview in his spacious office in the fortified Green Zone. "He has been in detention for eight months -- and I am a deputy prime minister."
Zobaee, in principle one of Iraq's most powerful men, offers the anecdote to illustrate his powerlessness, which he says is a product of the Shiite-led government's efforts to cast aside high-ranking Sunnis like him.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/OPINION03/702100410/1008/OPINION01
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Charles Krauthammer
It doesn't matter if there's 'civil war' in Iraq
N ational Intelligence Estimates are not supposed to be amusing. And the latest NIE on the situation in Iraq was uniformly grim. But the document's determined effort to split the difference on the use of the phrase "civil war" did verge on the comical.
One can only imagine the interagency wrangling that produced the classic bureaucratic compromise: "The Intelligence Community judges that the term 'civil war' does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict" but "nonetheless, the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GATES?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Feb 10, 7:21 AM EST
Gates: Bombs tie Iran to Iraq extremists
MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- Serial numbers and other markings on bombs suggest that Iranians are linked to deadly explosives used by Iraqi militants, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in some of the administration's first public assertions on evidence the military has collected.
While the Bush administration and military officials have repeatedly said Iranians have been tied to terrorist bombings in Iraq, they have said little about evidence to bolster such claims, including any documents and other items collected in recent raids in Iraq.
National security officials in Washington and Iraq have been working for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence for Bush administration claims of what they say are Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021000524.html
Putin Blasts U.S. on Iraq, Defends Russia's Iran Ties
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; 2:46 PM
MUNICH, Feb. 10 --Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the United States today for acting in a unilateral, militaristic fashion that he said "overstepped" its role and made the world a more dangerous place than during the Cold War.
"Nobody feels secure anymore, because nobody can take safety behind the stone wall of international law," he told an international security conference here attended by dozens of foreign and defense ministers and other officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a congressional delegation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902294.html
Al-Qaeda Suspects Color White House Debate Over Iran
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A01
Last week, the CIA sent an urgent report to President Bush's National Security Council: Iranian authorities had arrested two al-Qaeda operatives traveling through Iran on their way from Pakistan to Iraq. The suspects were caught along a well-worn, if little-noticed, route for militants determined to fight U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, according to a senior intelligence official.
The arrests were presented to Bush's senior policy advisers as evidence that Iran appears committed to stopping al-Qaeda foot traffic across its borders, the intelligence official said. That assessment comes at a time when the Bush administration, in an effort to push for further U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic, is preparing to publicly accuse Tehran of cooperating with and harboring al-Qaeda suspects.
