Articles of Interest 9-16-07
418 Days Until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
Just remember…the Democrats HAVE the votes to pass whatever they want to pass. The Democrats have a 58-52 majority…but they have NO leadership.
Democrats put up “budget cut” bill for a vote that EVERY legislator voted against…nothing more than gamesmanship. It wasn’t a real proposal, they were just playing games and no one was biting.
If we have NO budget…if state government shuts down…it’s because of House Democrat Speaker Andy Dillon and the rest of the Democrats in the House.
The Democrats are in the driver’s seat…Michigan waits and suffers.
We don’t need a bi-partisan solution…we just need a solution.
We don’t need a bi-partisan solution…we just need a solution. As we debate partisanship vs bi-partisanship it maybe worth considering this commentary:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/06/tax_debate_begi.html
THE REST OF THE STORY:
- Democrat Speaker Andy Dillon continues to play politics with the state budget and is trying to blackmail Republicans into voting for the Democrat's tax plan...I hope reporters and editorial writers take Speaker Dillon to task for his hypocrisy and blackmail attempts...leadership requires honest leadership among his "own" team...and if he can't even produce Democrat votes for a Democrat tax increase...why in the world would he expect, blackmail or cajole Republicans to join them?
Speaker Dillon has had the votes all day...for the last two days. Why can’t he lead his own party toward the solution his party insists is the only option?
Governor Granholm has NOT been able to lead her own Democrat majority.
If the Democrats believe they have an electoral mandate…do something…anything!
Michigan House Republicans have been consistent since day one: no consideration of a tax increase until the House takes a serious and honest look at the reforms and cost-saving measures GOP members have offered to solve the persistent structural problems in Michigan’s budget. If ordinary working families can tighten their belts and cut spending when times are tough, state government can, too.
- The Democrats are arguing they “need” a “bi-partisan” solution. What they mean by that is that they want BOTH parties to join in THEIR bad idea. How is that bipartisan?
Here’s an idea: (I know, just pretend along with me for a minute.) How about a Michigan Governor actually leading?
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/NEWS06/709150313
September 15, 2007
Divided House stalls on tax increase
Speaker hopes for bipartisan deal by Sunday
LANSING -- As midnight struck, a House vote to raise the state income tax 18% was still in limbo early today, nearly 10 hours after voting began.
The voting board, which never recorded an official tally, was wiped clean and lawmakers resumed efforts to reach the needed 56 votes, quickly reaching the 43 votes they had before midnight
Majority Democrats said they were planning what could be a long weekend waiting for a handful of Republicans to join them in supporting increasing the income tax to 4.6%
Democrats had hoped Friday would be a day of decisive action to resolve the budget crisis and avoid an Oct. 1 partial shutdown of state government. It remained unclear whether the marathon session would solve the problem.
House Speaker Andy Dillon said he hoped for a bipartisan agreement -- by Sunday.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/NEWS06/709150386/1008
September 15, 2007
Lengthy vote on tax hike notable but not unprecedented
The Michigan House of Representatives is notorious for spending hours to record a single vote on a thorny issue.
The process, known as "leaving the board open," allows supporters (usually the governor and legislative leadership) to work over the opposition or holdouts in private, offering reward or punishment (depending on which has the better chance of working).
On Friday, voting on an 18% increase in the state income tax began around 2:30 p.m., and the voting board was still open at 11 p.m. -- the deadline for this edition.
No official records are kept of the longest such vote in state history. Technically, none can last more than 24 hours because the session day ends at midnight.
Here are a couple of other extended House votes:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/UPDATE/709160341/1022/POLITICS
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Talks go on, no resolution in state budget debate
Gary Heinlein / The Detroit New
LANSING --- Nerves frayed, tempers flared and words were more heated Saturday as Republicans and Democrats in the state House -- which has met almost continually since Friday morning -- struggled unsuccessfully to find common ground that will balance the state budget and avoid a government shutdown Oct. 1.
They are trying to resolve a $1.75-billion hole in next year's budget that Democrats say requires a tax hike. Republicans, demanding budget cuts and government spending reforms, continued to oppose it.
Minority Leader Craig DeRoche called an afternoon press conference during the marathon session. He and a contingent of fellow Republicans vowed they won't cast a single vote in favor of a Democrat-proposed tax hike to help wipe out the looming 2008 deficit.
"Our position will not change this weekend," vowed DeRoche, R-Novi.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/OPINION01/709160301/1008
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Low-ball revenue estimates to keep spending in check
Michigan taxpayers who are about to get whacked with a massive tax increase to cover the state's $1.8 billion budget deficit might rightly ask, "How'd we get in this mess?"
The obvious answer is that governors and lawmakers have spent more money than the state has taken in for the past seven years.
They then used a combination of borrowing, revenue grabs and accounting tricks to cover the hole.
The nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan says nearly $8 billion of deficit has been hidden this way during those seven years.
The overspending is allowed to happen because revenue projections made at the start of the budgeting process rarely match the actual revenue that is collected over the course of the year.
The House and Senate fiscal agencies use the best information available to predict revenues, but it's an inexact science. Economic fluctuations throughout the year invariably change the numbers.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/BUSINESS01/709150375&theme=AUTOTALKS072007
September 15, 2007
CONTRACT TALKS STRIKE DEADLINE
Workers at GM fret over future
They await word on contract as shift ends
General Motors Corp. workers filed out of plants Friday, unsure whether they would be returning to their jobs Monday or carrying picket signs.
UAW locals informed members that GM had been selected as the strike target, meaning the union would focus on working out a deal with GM before shifting to Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. The contracts were set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Friday. Locals already had prepped workers on strike
As they left Friday, GM workers on the first shift, which ends in midafternoon, were told to wait for notice. Workers on the second shift, which runs until about 11 p.m., said UAW leaders told them they could get word by the end of their shifts.
Robert Kowalik of Walled Lake, a 42-year-old worker at GM's Pontiac Assembly Center, said he hoped a strike would be avoided, but he backed his UAW leadership if it called for action. Kowalik said he set up a personal strike fund a year ago to tide him over for four months.
The UAW needs to take a stand if the company tries to dramatically lower wages or benefits, Kowalik said.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/OPINION03/709160306/1008/OPINION01
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Autoworker braces for another jolt
Nolan Finley
There's a character in the John Candy comedy "The Great Outdoors" who's a human lightning rod -- struck 66 times and counting -- and so dissolves into a stuttering puddle every time a black cloud passes overhead.
I thought about that guy the other day when my cousin, Jeff Sells, called from New Castle, Ind., frantic for any shred of information I might have on the UAW-Big Three contract talks.
Jeff works for Chrysler and has been hit by just about every storm that's slammed into the American auto industry during the past three decades.
New Castle used to be a blue collar paradise. The sprawling Chrysler plant not only paid top wages, it also drew other big, union-represented manufacturers to a town that was so grateful it named its high school -- built on land the company donated -- in honor of the automaker's founder. Half my kinfolk left the Kentucky hills for New Castle
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-38/118984290340110.xml&coll=6
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Seen & Heards: VP Cheney
The Grand Rapids Press
A special moment with Cheney
In a side room at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, Spc. Kristy Plaska was among a group of National Guard members waiting to greet Vice President Dick Cheney. As he came through the door, "He looked at my nametag, and he's like, 'Oh, I heard about your family,'" recalled Plaska, 23.
She assumed it was because three members of her family had been deployed overseas as part of the war on terror. Meeting Cheney "was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," she said, adding that Cheney handed her a coin embossed with the seal of the vice president
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/POLITICS/709160324/1022
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Michigan's Stabenow endorses Clinton
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow on Saturday endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying the New York senator and former first lady "will make sure the people of Michigan are on her radar screen."
"I'm endorsing somebody who will understand Michigan and has been my ally in fight after fight for the people of Michigan," said Stabenow, D-Lansing.
Clinton, in a brief conference call with reporters, pledged to aid the manufacturing sector, protect the Great Lakes environment and take up other issues of importance to Michigan voters -- even as she has pledged not to campaign in the state as part of the standoff with the national Democratic Party over the state's Jan. 15 primary.
"I'm hopeful that the state party in Michigan and the (Democratic National Committee) will work out an agreement that enables Michigan to be compliant with the calendar and play an important role in choosing our nominee," said Clinton, who will attend a fundraiser in the Detroit area on Sunday.
http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/2007/09/essay-throwaway.html
September 14, 2007
Essay: Throwaway People
Back in the nineteen-thirties it was still possible to believe in a world revolution and the eventual triumph of Communism.
Here’s what the Party thought about workers who were displaced by foreign competition or because their industry or their skills became obsolete. Whatever you do, don’t help them. That’s right. Don’t help them. Because when we get enough totally desperate men without jobs and prospects, they will rise up and make the revolution. Well, almost nobody believes in the revolution or the triumph of socialism any more.
Yet you don’t have to be a Marxist, or even very well educated, to know that a society filled with desperate men who have no prospect of good jobs is an eventual prescription for disaster of some kind.
However, figuring that out is evidently beyond the understanding of the U.S. Congress, which has dragged its feet on reauthorizing the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. Unless they do something by Sept. 30, the act will expire. That will leave a growing number of displaced workers without any help in seeking new training and new jobs.
NATIONAL STORIES
Last Updated: 1:28am BST 16/09/2007
'God, guns and gays' don't derail Giuliani lead
By Philip Sherwell in Ada, Oklahoma
Jow Hisle, an evangelical minister for 43 years, liked what he saw as he watched Rudolph Giuliani joke with patrons and tuck into fried green tomatoes at the Blue Moon Café in Ada, Oklahoma.
"He did a great job as mayor of New York, he sure would be tough on those terrorists and he has a fine chance of beating Hillary Clinton," said Mr Hisle, 64, a regular at the café. "And this is pretty much anyone-but-Hillary territory."
The tall, amiable pastor, who tends to his flock in an area of America so devout that it is known as the buckle on the Bible belt, even said he could live with Mr Giuliani's multiple marriages and rather colourful private life.
But there is still one obstacle preventing Mr Hisle from voting for him as the Republican presidential candidate.
Mr Giuliani supports abortion - something that is absolute anathema to the conservative Christians of this small oil and farming town.
"We are people of faith here and, for us, to be pro-life is a deal-breaker," Mr Hisle said.
September 16, 2007
Rudy Giuliani mocks Hillary claim to be Iron Lady
Sarah Baxter
THE frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani, has attacked Hillary Clinton’s attempts to represent herself as a new “Iron Lady” by accusing her of surrendering to the hard left over the Iraq war.
Giuliani flies into London this week to give the inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture, organised by the Atlantic Bridge think tank. He will be awarded the Margaret Thatcher medal of freedom by the original Iron Lady, 81, who is revered by American conservatives.
The former New York mayor has accused Clinton of pandering to left-wing Democrats by casting doubt on the testimony of General David Petraeus, the commander of American forces in Iraq, on the progress of the US troop surge.
“I don’t think Margaret Thatcher would impugn the integrity of a commanding general in a time of war, as Hillary Clinton did, or require an army to give a schedule of their retreat to the enemy, as the Democrats are suggesting,” said Giuliani.
He went on the offensive against Clinton after she said Petraeus’s report required “the willing suspension of disbelief”. He won praise from Republicans by claiming she was echoing MoveOn.org, a left-wing group, which attacked General “Betray Us” in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times for “cooking the books” on behalf of the White House.
Giuliani took out his own full-page advertisement on Friday, accusing Clinton of “spewing political venom” against a decorated soldier committed to defending America.
September 16, 2007
Sparse Schedule for Thompson on Trail
By JULIE BOSMAN
LAKELAND, Fla., Sept. 15 — At his second campaign stop of the day on Friday, just after 2 p.m., Fred D. Thompson was deep into a riff on the benefits of high-quality American health care.
“It’s allowing us to live healthier lives and to live longer,” Mr. Thompson, a former Republican senator from Tennessee, said at a Jaycee park here. “That’s good news. But we have more retired folks. I hope to become one of them one of these days.”
Nervous laughter from the audience.
“Not too soon,” he added hastily.
So much for dispelling the idea that he is too lazy to run for president. For months, Mr. Thompson has fought off suggestions that he is not motivated enough to weather the round-the-clock campaign trail required of serious presidential candidates. (Or, as a recent headline in Newsweek put it, “Lazy Like a Fox.”)
His critics, already pointing to what they call Mr. Thompson’s skimpy Senate record, might find even more ammunition in his campaign schedule. In his second week as an officially declared candidate for the Republican nomination, Mr. Thompson has made a languid three-day swing through Florida ending Saturday with the candidate watching a football game in Gainesville. The pace has kept him on a jumbo air-conditioned bus far more often than he is actually campaigning.
http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070914/NEWS0206/709140441
Friday, 09/14/07
Fred Thompson's hometown turns on the charm for kickoff rally
Lawrenceburg spruces up for native son
LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — Around town they call it, "Getting ready for Freddie."
The streets around Lawrenceburg's postcard-perfect town square have been swept, cracked sidewalks replaced and the statue of David Crockett scrubbed until it gleams. Even the new welcome signs posted at the city limits picture an oversized Fred Thompson beaming at visitors
Thompson is coming home to this charmed rural hamlet Saturday evening, and Lawrenceburg wants to do right by him.
"This is our chance to show everyone who we are," said Jim Looney, chairman of the Lawrence County Republican Party and one of the city leaders who has been scrambling to finalize plans for a rally for the newly minted presidential candidate on one week's notice after getting a specific date. "We love Fred Thompson."
For Lawrenceburg, Saturday's rally will be the culmination of months of planning, preparation and reshuffled municipal maintenance schedules in anticipation of Thompson's announcement.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5848.html
Democrats battle for supremacy in Iowa
Six Democratic presidential candidates, 174 reporters, and some 10,000 ticket-holders head to Indianola, Iowa Sunday for Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry.
On their way through the small town (pop. 12,066) just south of Des Moines, they’ll pass by field offices of three of those campaigns — three among at least 96 outposts the six leading Democratic candidates have opened around the state.
“I’m not sure at this time in the last cycle anybody had an office here in Indianola,” marveled Matt Paul, the Harkin staffer organizing the annual gathering.
For all the chatter about a re-jiggered primary calendar and jockeying from California to Michigan to Florida, the January 14 Iowa caucuses have emerged as the central battle of the Democratic primary.
Aides to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all realize that, to varying degrees, victory or defeat in the caucuses is probably the single likeliest predictor of the nomination.
And for the three other major Democratic politicians running full-scale campaigns — Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Joe Biden (D-Del.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — the centrality of the state is a reason to stay in the game.
Sunday, September 16th 2007, 4:00 AM
Silence far from golden when a Prez wanna-be is afraid to talk the talk
Michael Goodwin
She's getting pounded by rivals in her own party on charges she's wishy-washy on Iraq and by Republicans who say she's prejudiced against the military. She's got a big funder who's so crooked she's giving back $850,000 and scrambling to make sure he's the only one with a criminal record. And through it all, Hillary Clinton is saying next to nothing.
The Big Week that was in Washington happened with Clinton playing bystander, though not an innocent one. With the congressional grilling of our top Iraq commander and President Bush starting to withdraw troops, the week shaped up as a watershed moment in the 2008 campaign. Yet except for a snippy speech she read to Gen. David Petraeus before she asked him and our ambassador inconsequential questions at a Senate hearing, the Democratic front-runner was mostly a no-show.
Even after Bush's crucial prime-time address, when most candidates rushed to give their take, Clinton offered only a lackluster printed statement. And ditto for her response after GOP tag-teamers Rudy Giuliani and John McCain bashed her for attacking Petraeus and not rebuking the radical MoveOn.org for its smear of him.
Sometimes it seems her main flack Howard Wolfson is really the senator, since he does most of her talking. You know, Sen. Wolfson said yesterday....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/NATION/109160046/1001\n
September 16, 2007
'Thermometer' finds voters cool to Hillary
By Donald Lambro
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has the highest negative ratings of any presidential candidate in the 2008 race, can add another voter designation to her image: the coldest.
The Gallup Poll recently asked voters to rank the candidates on a "feeling thermometer," in which zero was the coldest and 100 was the warmest. The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was the "most polarized" of all the candidates in either party, according to the poll.
"Nearly as many Americans say she leaves them cold as say they feel warmly about her," Gallup said.
The poll showed 49 percent considered Mrs. Clinton a warm personality, but 44 percent thought she was "totally cold" and the remainder rated her as "neutral."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070914/POLITICS01/709140370/1022/POLITICS
Friday, September 14, 2007
Campaign ads just for you coming to TV
Cable companies working with politicians could air messages based on viewer's race, habits.
Samantha Gross / Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Imagine: You turn on the TV and see a campaign ad. Your neighbor down the hall, watching the same channel at the same moment, sees a different ad selected for her in part because she's Hispanic, single, owns a dog and drinks Bud Light.
For years, politicians have been using massive databases that cover everything from what you drink to what you drive to decide which fliers to mail you and whether to send someone to knock on your door.
But with new technology that can send individualized ads to cable boxes, candidates will soon have an unprecedented ability to send their images into voters' living rooms while tweaking their voice, appearance and policy focus to match each viewer's predilections.
In short, voters' race, income, marital status and favorite brands could soon determine exactly what they learn about political candidates while watching cable TV.
The technology, built to deliver what's known as "addressable advertising," is not yet widely available, but the nation's largest cable operators have made preparations to change that.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ATTORNEY_GENERAL?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sep 16, 2:53 AM EDT
Conservatives eye possible AG nominee
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conservatives on Saturday lined up for and against potential attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, the man they believe has ascended to the top of President Bush's list of replacements for Alberto Gonzales.
Earlier in the week, Democrats in the Senate threatened to block confirmation of another prospect - Theodore Olson, a longtime GOP ally and former solicitor general who represented Bush before the Supreme Court in the contested 2000 presidential election.
The behind-the-scenes battle over who will succeed Gonzales heated up over the weekend as the president, who was at Camp David, moved closer to announcing his choice.
So far, the White House has stayed quiet about who will replace Gonzales. An announcement is expected this week, and some legal conservatives and Republicans told The Associated Press that the White House appeared to be signaling that Mukasey was Bush's pick.
That prompted questions and praise for the former U.S. district judge from New York, who is an adviser to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.
Brian Burch, president of the Catholic-based advocacy group Fidelis, said he started getting calls early Saturday from members of his group and other conservative groups who were worried that Bush was getting ready to nominate Mukasey.
"His federal judicial record has been at times hostile to the issues that we care and have concern about, like abortion," Burch said.
Others hailed Mukasey's record.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GREENSPAN_BOOK?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sep 16, 2:32 AM EDT
Greenspan faults Bush over spending
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in his new book, bashes President Bush for not responsibly handling the nation's spending and racking up big budget deficits.
A self-described "libertarian Republican," Greenspan takes his own party to task for forsaking conservative principles that favor small government.
"My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan wrote.
And he weighed in briefly but pointedly on the Iraq war: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
Bush took office in 2001, the last time the government produced a budget surplus. Every year after that, the government has been in the red. In 2004, the deficit swelled to a record $413 billion.
"The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."
In 2006, voters put Democrats in charge of Congress for the first time in a dozen years.
Greenspan's memoir, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," is scheduled for release Monday. The Associated Press purchased a copy Saturday at a retailer in the Washington area
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070916/OPINION03/709160304/1008/OPINION01
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Gold card credit doesn't come with annual income of $52
Manny Lopez
Want to know why identity theft and credit problems are rampant in America? Read your junk mail.
Or, more important, read the junk mail that comes for your kids.
"As the membership criteria at American Express remains stringent, the Rewards Plus Gold Card is difficult to acquire for all but the most financially disciplined," reads a solicitation addressed to my daughter. "For this reason, you have been selected to apply for the American Express Rewards Plus Gold Card. Only a select group of people will ever carry the Rewards Plus Gold Card. It instantly identifies you as someone special -- one who has earned a superior degree of financial freedom."
Because she's such a coveted customer, the credit card company agreed to waive the first year's $150 annual fee. How nice.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-3/1189830113185510.xml&coll=7
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Should we help save endangered species?
Any species that has become endangered as a result of the human race should be subject to protection. Ecological damage caused by cruelty and greed that is otherwise preventable is a theft to both present and future generations.
Plants and wildlife offer valuable natural resources to the human race. If destroyed, their absence would be a catastrophic loss to society. The presence of varied species of plants and wildlife promote biodiversity, an important aspect of normal life.
Humanity derives all of its food, many of its medicines, as well as industrial products from biodiversity. If these things go unprotected, the benefits of biodiversity would no longer be available for human use.
The diversity of life cannot be estimated. It is the foundation for the existence and upkeep of a healthy planet and the well-being of all people.
The extinction of species may not always be caused by humans. Species gradually become extinct without the interference of humans. It's a natural part of the changing world. The natural balance of the world should not be upset, and it is imperative that this is understood when calculating which species require protection.
As the world grows and changes, it is important to have concern for the well-being of wildlife and plant species. While species that have become endangered as a result of the naturally changing planet should be left as they are, species endangered by human activity should be protected, as their absence could alter normal life for the present and the future. We would do well to remember the words of President Theodore Roosevelt who said, ``The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16wwln-freakonomics-t.html?ref=magazine
September 16, 2007
Freakonomics
The Jane Fonda Effect : Nuclear Energy
By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT
If you were asked to name the biggest global-warming villains of the past 30 years, here’s one name that probably wouldn’t spring to mind: Jane Fonda. But should it?
In the movie “The China Syndrome,” Fonda played a California TV reporter filming an upbeat series about the state’s energy future. While visiting a nuclear power plant, she sees the engineers suddenly panic over what is later called a “swift containment of a potentially costly event.” When the plant’s corporate owner tries to cover up the accident, Fonda’s character persuades one engineer to blow the whistle on the possibility of a meltdown that could “render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable.”
“The China Syndrome” opened on March 16, 1979. With the no-nukes protest movement in full swing, the movie was attacked by the nuclear industry as an irresponsible act of leftist fear-mongering. Twelve days later, an accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in south-central Pennsylvania.
Michael Douglas, a producer and co-star of the film — he played Fonda’s cameraman — watched the T.M.I. accident play out on the real TV news, which interspersed live shots from Pennsylvania with eerily similar scenes from “The China Syndrome.” While Fonda was firmly anti-nuke before making the film, Douglas wasn’t so dogmatic. Now he was converted on the spot. “It was a religious awakening,” he recalled in a recent phone interview. “I felt it was God’s hand.”
Fonda, meanwhile, became a full-fledged crusader.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/16/INDVS3NC6.DTL
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Microsoft vs. Europe - shaping the global marketplace
Dick Armey
On Monday, the European Court of First Instance is widely expected to rule against Microsoft - to what extent is open to debate - in the ongoing battle between the softwaremaker and the European Commission. For Microsoft, which leads the operating system market, the costs are clear: It will almost certainly see fines, and restrictions are likely to be placed on its business practices.
Less obvious are the adverse implications for consumers and American firms doing business in the global marketplace.
Instead of allowing market forces and innovation to shape product development, the ruling reaffirms the government's ability to second-guess important company decisions about product design and improvement. Not only does this stifle innovation and competition, it threatens every technology company doing business in Europe and will prove detrimental to consumer choice.
Microsoft stands accused of using its market power to extract monopoly profits in the sale of its workstation servers. After complaints from American rivals such as Sun Microsystems and IBM, the European Commission devised a two-part solution. First, Microsoft would be forced to license its software code to its rivals in order to improve "interoperability" and increase competition in the software market. Second, the company would face restrictions on bundling, or adding new capabilities to existing software. In addition, Microsoft has been assessed more than $680 million in fines.
http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/2007/09/essay-aging-boo.html
September 12, 2007
Essay: Aging Boomers
About a quarter-century ago, Newsweek Magazine did a special issue on Yuppies. They were baby boomers who were financially successful. And they were the most obnoxious people in the world. One woman proudly proclaimed that she had met her second husband while on her honeymoon with her first one.
“That may sound callous, but I think you have to go after what you want it and better yourself,“ she said.
That night, gnawing my crust of bread in my hut, I gave thanks I wasn’t husband number two. At the time, the oldest boomers were thirty-six, the youngest eighteen, and I was thirty. None of us was thinking about old age, or even Viagra. One futurist did venture a prediction, however: “The baby boomers will dominate the culture in every way as long as they are around.
“And you’ll know the boomers are dying out when Newsweek does a cover story on designer funeral homes.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-brownstein16sep16,0,986741.column?coll=la-opinion-center
September 16, 2007
Will Iraq sink the GOP?
Unhappiness with the war cost Republicans in '06, and now they must face it again in '08.
Next summer, less than four months before the November election, there will still be about as many American troops fighting in Iraq as there were on the day of the Democratic sweep in the November 2006 election. That is the most politically significant fact that emerged from last week's congressional hearings with Gen. David H. Petraeus. The general said that from now until at least the middle of July, he plans to maintain about as many troops in Iraq as were in the field in the fall of 2006 -- about 140,000 in all. President Bush endorsed that strategy in his speech Thursday.
Those plans virtually assure that Iraq will dominate the presidential and congressional campaigns and divide the parties as much in 2008 as it did in 2006 and 2004.
"What this guarantees is that Iraq is still going to be as front and center in the general election as it is today," said Gregory Craig, a former State Department director of policy planning for President Clinton who now advises Sen. Barack Obama. "If there are 130,000 or more American troops in Iraq next summer, there are going to be comparable casualties and uncertainty about the future. So it is going to loom large at the expense of every other issue."
The scenario Petraeus presented to Congress could create some strains for Democrats. Unless Congress can force Bush to accelerate troop withdrawals, which seems less likely than ever after last week's hearings, antiwar activists will grow increasingly frustrated with party leaders. That could pressure Democrats toward positions that alienate general-election swing voters disillusioned about the war but not ready to entirely abandon Iraq (though Obama avoided that trap in his detailed Iraq speech last week).
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010610
Sunday, September 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
'You Have Liberated a People'
Iraqis of all sects report progress, not "civil war."
BY FOUAD AJAMI
BAGHDAD--"We liberated the Anbar, we defeated al Qaeda by denying it religious cover," Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha said with a touch of pride and impatience. This was the dashing tribal leader who emerged as the face of the new Sunni accommodation with American power, and who was assassinated by al Qaeda last week. I had not been ready for his youth (born in 1971), nor for his flamboyance. Sir David Lean, the legendary director of "Lawrence of Arabia," would have savored encountering this man. There was style, and an awareness of it, in Abu Reisha: his brown abaya bordered with gold thread, a neat white dishdasha, and a matching headdress. "Our American friends had not understood us when they came, they were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be. The tribes hate religious parties and religious fakers."
We were in Baghdad, and the sheikh gave me his narrative. There was both candor and evasion in the story he told. Al Qaeda and its Arab jihadists had found sanctuary and support in the Anbar; they had recruited the "criminal elements" and the "lowly," they had brought zeal and bigotry unknown to the Iraqis. Initially welcomed, they began to impose their own tyranny. They declared haram (impermissible) the normal range of social life. They banned cigarettes, they married the daughters of decent families without the permission of their elders. They violated the great code of decent society by "shedding the blood of travelers on routine voyages." The prayer leaders of mosques were bullied, then murdered.
Abu Reisha and a small group of like-minded men, he said, came together to challenge al Qaeda. "We fought with our own weapons. I myself fought al Qaeda with my own funds. The Americans were slow to understand our sahwa, our awakening. But they have come around of late. The Americans are innocent; they don't know Iraq. But all this is in the past, and now the Americans have a wise and able military commander on the scene, and the people of the Anbar have found their way. In the Anbar, they now know that the menace comes from Iran, not from the Americans."
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/559144,CST-EDT-HUNT16.article
September 16, 2007
Iraq promises could haunt a Dem president
CAMPAIGN '08 | Candidates' rhetoric could run up against war's reality
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
Would a President Hillary Clinton, as the first woman commander in chief, or a President Barack Obama, as the first African-American chief executive, want to begin work in the White House by ordering an American army to retreat from the field of battle?
That doesn't exactly sound like the way you'd want to start a historic presidency.
Yet, such a dilemma for a new Democratic president should not be considered out of the realm of possibility. Clinton and Obama regularly say that if President Bush doesn't end the Iraq war, they would -- first thing -- if elected to the White House. That promise usually comes in the context of a new proposal to begin a steep pullout of troops while Bush is still in office. But what happens should Bush stubbornly stay the course, and one of them has to make good on that promise?
I've got no idea where the military or political situation in Iraq will be six months from now, much less in 2009 when the next president takes over. Only a couple of months ago, I shared the prevailing pessimism that the military surge would fail. Now you can argue for hours about exactly how much progress has been achieved on Gen. David Petraeus' watch, but it takes, well, a willing suspension of disbelief to say that nothing good has occurred.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091402050.html?sub=AR
Sunday, September 16, 2007; Page B07
Lindsey Graham's Realism
Now that the president has endorsed the Petraeus-Crocker plan for Iraq, it is worth noting one exchange from their Senate hearings.
Some senators, such as Barbara Boxer of California, were so self-absorbed they could not manage to ask a single question in their allotted time, even when they had Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker ready to provide answers.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is not like that. An Air Force Reserve officer, Graham is an incisive questioner whose unexpected and provocative inquiries often produce revealing answers, whether the subject is Iraq, immigration or a Supreme Court nomination.
A Republican with a notable record of independence, Graham has been an outspoken advocate of the surge strategy -- claiming real success on the ground and urging its continuation.
But Graham's first question to Petraeus
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CIA_APPOINTMENT?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sep 16, 2:34 AM EDT
Veteran to head CIA clandestine service
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The new head of the CIA's clandestine service is a veteran operative who joined other high-ranking officials in quitting the spy agency in 2004 after clashing with aides to then-director Porter Goss.
Michael Sulick, who has 25 years of experience at the CIA, was named Friday to become director of the service that includes most of its foreign posts and covert officers.
He is take over on Sept. 30.
In a note to employees that the agency released, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sulick was "ideally prepared to guide the National Clandestine Service as it strives to meet the range of security challenges facing our country, starting with the fight against terror. He knows that espionage demands constant change and adaptation."
Sulick had held the No. 2 job in the clandestine service, as the CIA's associate deputy director for operations, for only several months before he decided to leave and become a private consultant. He also had been a CIA division chief and chief of the agency's counterintelligence.
Sep 16, 2:34 AM EDT
Spy chief has learning curve on politics
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's spy chief is in the midst of a crash course on how to navigate some of Washington's most dangerous terrain: Capitol Hill.
By many accounts, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has a lot to learn as the administration's point man on its controversial effort this fall to overhaul the law that governs how national security agencies snoop on U.S. soil.
When Congress created McConnell's job in late 2004, lawmakers intentionally kept the spy chief off the president's Cabinet, adhering to the tradition that intelligence officials should eschew politics. But in recent months, McConnell has opened himself up to criticism that he has become too political to oversee the 16 spy agencies.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., a co-author of the legislation that helped create his job, put it bluntly to a Washington audience last week: "Jane to Mike: Please stop. You're undermining the authorities of your office."
To some, McConnell is a well-regarded retired Navy vice admiral who left a lucrative career as a government consultant to respond to Bush's search for a spy chief; a much-needed veteran to help the often clumsy intelligence agencies adapt to a post-Sept. 11 world.
To others, McConnell is out of the shadows and in over his head. Worse, he either does not always think before he speaks or he intentionally misstates key facts. Just last week, he waited two days before retracting Senate testimony in which he wrongly credited changes in August to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with this month's success in breaking up a plot against U.S. targets in Germany.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NARCOTICS?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sep 16, 2:35 AM EDT
U.S. waives drug sanctions on Bolivia