BakerMuckraker
Blogs in the Month of
March - 2006
- March 31, WHEELCHAIRGATE
- March 29, MUCKRAKER
CONFESSES!
- March 25, DEAR
DIARY
- March 22, A
PERIODIC DISCLAIMER FROM THE MANAGEMENT AT MUCKRAKER
- March 17, WAR
GOOD, BUT NOW ‘NOT WORTH IT’
- March 14, THIS
IS NOT GOOD, CHAPTER 47
- March 11, GENEVA
AIN’T BAD
- March 07, HEADLESS
HORSEMAN? NO PROBLEM
- March 04, ROUND
EM UP, BOYS
WHEELCHAIRGATE
Am I dreaming? This White House is so good at doing crazy things that it’s hard to imagine a whole new level of insanity. But here it is:
In February, the president signed a different bill than the one Congress sent him. No explanation of how a bill could miraculously change on its way from the Capitol to Bush’s desk. And the White House won’t even acknowledge requests for an explanation. The Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee have had to pass a resolution seeking “all documents…relating to the receipt and consideration by the Executive Office of the President of any information concerning the variation between” what was sent to Bush on Feb 1 and what he signed Feb 8.
What were those differences? Here’s Waxman’s statement (via Buzzflash):
>On February 8, 2006, President Bush signed into law a version of S. 1932 that was different in substance from the version the U.S. House of Representatives passed on February 1, 2006. The House-passed version of the legislation required the Medicare program to lease “durable medical equipment,” such as wheelchairs, for seniors and other beneficiaries for up to 36 months, while the version of the legislation signed by the President limited the duration of these leases to just 13 months. As the Congressional Budget Office reported, this seemingly small change from 36 months to 13 months has a disproportionately large budgetary impact, cutting Medicare outlays by $2 billion over the next five years.<
So what’s going on? Bush unilaterally doing an end run on the legislative branch? Why would that be so surprising? He’s already virtually neutered the judiciary.
WHO’S YOUR BADDIE?
Everyone has their favorite leader. For some, it’s Bush, who famously strummed a guitar while New Orleans went under. The truly discriminating appreciate Berlusconi, who has insulted many different nationalities and ethnicities in a fairly brief time, but also enjoys his recreation.
From Slate:
>The Journal fronts a rousing profile of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and gaffemaster who's facing a tough election in early April. The media tycoon and self-styled friend of the working man has courted controversy during his time in office, perhaps "because he has spent so much energy pushing laws to help himself avoid criminal charges from bribery to false bookkeeping." Not that it's all work and no play—on Saturdays he often vacations at a villa where "a personal musician is frequently on hand to play the guitar as Mr. Berlusconi sings songs of his own composition."<
WAIT 'TIL OPERATION RESCUE HEARS THIS
This report from the International Herald Tribune, datelined New Delhi:
>An Indian doctor has been jailed for two years for disclosing the sex of a fetus to its parents in the first instance of a physician's being jailed under legislation designed to stop the abortion of unwanted girls.
An Indian law passed in 1994 bans doctors from using ultrasound tests on pregnant women to determine the sex of the unborn child, but the legislation is widely flouted.
A study published in the Lancet medical journal in January estimated that as many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India in the past 20 years.
Activists praised the conviction, which was reported in the Indian media Wednesday, as "positive" but said that one jail sentence in 12 years was hardly cause for celebration.
Dr. Anil Sabani and his assistant, Kartar Singh, were caught during a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana, which has one of the most skewed sex ratios in the country, with an estimated 861 women for every 1,000 men….
…The doctor was secretly videotaped telling one woman that the scan had shown that she was carrying a "female fetus and it would be taken care of." Abortion is legal in India, but aborting on grounds of gender is not.
Sentencing the doctor, the magistrate said: "Because of persons like the convict, the day is not far when there will be no girl child."
With ultrasound equipment increasingly widely available and affordable to clinics even in the most impoverished parts of the country, the Indian cultural preference for sons has distorted the sex ratio across the nation. In 1991, there were about 945 girls per 1,000 boys, but this dropped to 927 by 2001, according to the national census.
The Lancet report explained that daughters were "regarded as a liability."
"Because she will eventually belong to the family of her future husband, expenditure on her will benefit others," it said. "In some communities where the custom of dowry prevails, the cost of her dowry could be phenomenal."
SPOILING FOR A FIGHT
I’m bored. What about you?
I know—let’s invade someplace.
The following, by Joseph Cirincione, director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ran in the online version of Foreign Policy magazine:
>Does this story line sound familiar? The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary of state tells congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on U.S. troops. The intelligence agencies say the nuclear threat from this nation is 10 years away, but the director of intelligence paints a more ominous picture. A new U.S. national security strategy trumpets preemptive attacks and highlights the country as a major threat. And neoconservatives beat the war drums, as the cable media banner their stories with words like “countdown” and “showdown.” <
Bet you know where this is going….
>The nation making headlines today, of course, is Iran, not Iraq. But the parallels are striking. Three years after senior administration officials systematically misled the nation into a disastrous war, they could well be trying to do it again.
Nothing is clear, yet. For months, I have told interviewers that no senior political or military official was seriously considering a military attack on Iran. In the last few weeks, I have changed my view. In part, this shift was triggered by colleagues with close ties to the Pentagon and the executive branch who have convinced me that some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran….
The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war. It is now trying to link Iran to the 9/11 attacks by repeatedly claiming that Iran is the main state sponsor of terrorism in the world (though this suggestion is highly questionable). It is also attempting to make the threat urgent by arguing that Iran might soon pass a “point of no return” if it can perfect the technology of enriching uranium, even though many other nations have gone far beyond Iran’s capabilities and stopped their programs short of weapons. And, of course, it is now publicly linking Iran to the Iraqi insurgency and the improvised explosive devices used to kill and maim U.S. troops in Iraq, though Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace admitted there is no evidence to support this claim.
If diplomacy fails, the administration might be able to convince leading Democrats to back a resolution for the use of force against Iran. Many Democrats have been trying to burnish a hawkish image and place themselves to the right of the president on this issue. They may find themselves trapped by their own rhetoric, particularly those with presidential ambitions……<
Hillary fans? Your take on this please….
>Fortunately, we know more about Iran’s nuclear program now than we ever knew about Iraq’s (or, for that matter, those of India, Israel, and Pakistan). International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have been in Iran for more than 3 years investigating all claims of weapons-related work. The United States has satellite reconnaissance, covert programs, and Iranian dissidents providing further information. The key now is to get all this information on the table for an open debate…..
An accurate and fully understood assessment of the status and potential of Iran’s nuclear program is the essential basis for any policy. We cannot let the political or ideological agenda of a small group determine a national security decision that could create havoc in a critical area of the globe. Not again. <
Well, why not again? We do seem to now inhabit Groundhog Day World, where anything can happen again and again, or get worse and worse in an almost predictable fashion. For more on that, see item #1 above, on WheelchairGate.
DON’T HAVE A PRAYER
Turns out the expression, “You don’t have a prayer,” is literally true. According to a new study, after sick people were told that someone was praying for them, they got sicker. Probably just plugged into the wrong deity pipeline, but anyway, here are the details, from a report in the New York Times.
>Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.
And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.
Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.
The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.
At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday….<
They apparently had a change of heart.
>….Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends. ….
The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers….<
But televangelists need not be discouraged….
>…[E]xperts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.
Bob Barth, the spiritual director of Silent Unity, the Missouri prayer ministry, said the findings would not affect the ministry's mission.
"A person of faith would say that this study is interesting," Mr. Barth said, "but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started."<
Mr Barth presumably hopes that prayer research is done by those with a proper education, not those who were taught that Creationism is legitimate scientific theory.
ATTENTION INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS: RED MEAT ALERT
Murder mystery fans will enjoy this Ukrainian strangeness, as reported in the New York Times: [this goes on a bit, but we promise it is actually kind of interesting….]
>The official residence of the managing director of a company now set to control Ukraine's supply of natural gas is a one-story, clapboard house in a tumbledown village bordering a defunct collective farm outside Moscow. A dirty rug covers the floor, a bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling and scraps of plywood plug gaps in the wall.
Olga P. Sakharova, 49, lives there with her mother and a German fox terrier called Lyusa and has never heard of the director, Oleg A. Palchikov, who operates a business worth $7 billion a year.
"What boss would want to live here?" Ms. Sakharova asked, surprised to learn that she occupied one of the few known addresses of any of the executives of the shadowy gas trading company involved in a deal between Ukraine and Russia that continues to roil politics here in Kiev, nearly 400 miles away.
The company, RosUkrEnergo, became a broker in a deal to resolve a New Year's confrontation between Russia and Ukraine over the price of natural gas — a deal that has prompted accusations of corruption and almost certainly contributed to President Viktor A. Yushchenko's poor showing in parliamentary elections last Sunday, when his party finished a distant third.
The mysteries surrounding the company — ranging from the identity of its owners and the circumstances of its selection, to even the places its executives live and work — reflect the post-Soviet combustion of politics and business that still afflicts Ukraine despite the significant progress that Mr. Yushchenko and his allies have made in making the country a freer, more democratic society.
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, Mr. Yushchenko's erstwhile ally in the mass protests that swept him to the presidency in 2004, campaigned fiercely against the deal, citing it as an example of the corruption and untrustworthiness of the leadership of Mr. Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine.
With her party having won significantly more votes than Mr. Yushchenko's, according to nearly complete results announced Wednesday, she has now claimed the right to lead the coalition in Parliament representing the reformist, Western-leaning forces who took part in what came to be known as the Orange Revolution.
And she has promised that one of her first acts as prime minister, should she return to the post she held for the first eight months of Mr. Yushchenko's presidency, would be "by all means" to scuttle the deal and RosUkrEnergo's part in it…..
….The deal's critics say the instability comes from the murky nature of the arrangement, which granted substantial control over Ukraine's gas market to a little-known company with links to Russia's state energy monopoly, Gazprom, and unknown investors.
Even now, nearly three months after the deal was announced, the ownership and operations of RosUkrEnergo remain murky. Registered in Zug, Switzerland, it is owned half by Gazprom and half by Centragas, an umbrella corporation run by Austria's Raiffeisen bank for a group of investors whom the bank will not identify, despite pressure from American and European officials.
Officials in Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of having beneficiaries in the company and have provided contradictory accounts of who suggested that RosUkrEnergo be included in the first place.
"This is the Ukrainian part and you need to ask them," President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told journalists earlier this month. Mr. Yushchenko, by his own accounting, knows no more. "I have personally turned several times to the Russian side to receive this information," he said at a news conference earlier this month. "Unfortunately, as of today, I do not have any information about the founders of this structure."<
Cue up scary music….
>Executives of the company, some of whom also work for Gazprom itself, declined to discuss the matter in detail. Aleksandr I. Medvedev, the director of Gazprom's export arm, Gazexport, and one of eight members of the board of RosUkrEnergo, has denied knowing the unknown investors.<
“Vee chalvays meet in the dark,” Mr. Medvedev said [NOT]. "I chavv been ordered not to turn dze lights on….chhh...ever!
Konstantin A. Chuychinko, the head of Gazprom's legal department and a longtime associate of Mr. Putin, is a co-director of RosUkrEnergo with Mr. Palchikov. The head of Gazprom's banking subsidiary, Andrei I. Akimov, also sits on the board.
Little else is known about the company. There is an office of a company called RosUkrEnergo on Saksagansky Street here in Kiev, but it operates a series of gas stations, and according to a woman there, has no connection to the company with its name.<
Why should it? There are probably hundreds of companies called RosUkrEnergo. Why, Muckraker tried to trademark the name the other day, but found a long line of outfits ahead of him.
>Wolfgang Putschek, a member of RosUkrEnergo's board representing Centragas, said in a telephone interview that the company had an office in Moscow, but he referred questions about it to a public relations agency in London, Merlin PR.<
Muckraker has learned that "Wolfgang Putschek" means "The Joke is On You" in Lower Slobovian. And further research reveals [NOT] that Merlin PR is not a real company but was stolen from a recent Harry Potter film.
>Michael Rummel, a spokesman for the agency, could not provide an address for any office, and said officials would not comment. At the same time, he defended the company's role. Only a company like RosUkrEnergo, he said, could handle the complicated transactions necessary to supply natural gas from Russia and Turkmenistan to Ukraine and onward to Romania and Hungary.<
Only a company this complicated could handle transactions this complicated.
>The vacuum of information has led to reports, so far unsubstantiated, that RosUkrEnergo's beneficiaries have links to Mr. Yushchenko's top advisers. Mr. Yushchenko himself was forced to deny any involvement by his brother, Petro, who has been involved in the gas-trading business.<
“Petro”? In the gas business? Muckraker smells a rat, and wonders if that is even a real name.
>Although much remains unclear, there is little doubt the deal has weakened Mr. Yushchenko politically, tarnishing his reputation as an uncorrupted reformer. Mychailo Wynnyckyj, a professor of sociology at the University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy, attributed the electoral failure of Mr. Yushchenko — and Ms. Tymoshenko's success — to the gas deal.
"Yushchenko came to power on the whole idea of transparency," he said. "And he was pushing a deal that obviously had some corrupt aspect to it."<
One thing Muckraker loves about the New York Times. It is completely unafraid to quote sources calling the government corrupt. Um, provided it is a foreign government.
IDEAS ON HUMILIATION
This article from the New York Times posits an interesting approach to penalizing selfish people.
>Tillie the mannequin got Greg Pringle in trouble with the law, but her life of crime might have saved her own neck.
Consisting of powder blue scrubs and a gray sweatshirt stuffed with newspaper, topped with a Styrofoam head, Tillie sat in the passenger's seat of Mr. Pringle's car for the better part of a year as he commuted to Denver in a high-occupancy-vehicle lane. The ruse, which he said saved him about 30 minutes each way, came to an end on Jan. 26 when Mr. Pringle, of Broomfield, Colo., was pulled over by the police and charged with driving illegally in a lane with a one-passenger minimum.
As punishment, a judge ordered Mr. Pringle to stand with Tillie for four hours at a busy intersection holding a sign: "HOV lane is not for dummies." Mr. Pringle completed that requirement two weeks ago and also paid a fine of $115.
On Wednesday, Mr. Pringle finished the final piece of his sentence, donating the $15,000 that he earned auctioning his former seat-mate on eBay. The money was given to the National Safety Council's "Alive at 25" campaign, which is dedicated to promoting safe driving among teenagers. ….
….As for Mr. Pringle, he still commutes to Denver on U.S. 36, now relegated to the slow lanes with other solo drivers.
"I'll need to set my alarm earlier," he said.<
Muckraker hereby volunteers to write better “kickers” (the final line in an article) for the Times. If you’re going to run a light piece, you owe it to readers to give it a little pizzazz. In this case, one wanted to read that, say, Mrs Pringle now drives Mr Pringle to the office, while he sits in the “dummy” seat. Or that the dummy has now joined the board of RosUkrEnergo.
MUCKRAKER CONFESSES!
So, the other day, Muckraker was out enjoying the backyard of his 20-acre spread here in the heart of Manhattan, appreciating the private lake and collection of rare Arabian Striped racehorses, when whom should he run into, but his eagle-eyed and curmudgeonly neighbor, Duddy Margolick. Leaning over our mutual fence, Duddy registered a complaint. As an avid reader of this blog, he had caught Muckraker fabricating material. Shades of Jayson Blair! Margolick asserted--based on personal knowledge--that some material contained in a blog item from Saturday, regarding rumors of outrageous doings in Costco parking lots, was untrue. Specifically, he argued that no young lovelies could possibly have pressed themselves against Muckraker’s windshield, because, as he well knows, Muckraker has no windshield, as he has no car.
Muckraker was caught! Thinking quickly, he pointed out that he occasionally employs–somewhat recklessly, to be sure—such arcane devices as satire and parody. In his defense, he noted that these were popular with humorists far superior to Muckraker such as Art Buchwald and Russell Baker. That’s the other Russell Baker – click here for details on the two Russ Bakers.
As for the cranky Margolick, Muckraker would like to remind readers that Duddy once berated Art Buchwald for a conversation Buchwald claimed to have held with his next-door neighbor, a conversation that turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy designed to illustrate some point, important or not, about the economy. Margolick nevertheless had Buchwald brought up on charges before the Columnists’ Board of Review.
Not really – just made the Buchwald bit up. Darn! Note to self: better self-control needed. Anyway, thanks to our readers for [NOT] keeping us on the straight and narrow.
THE DOWNER STREET MEMO
This headline just in from the New York Times:
Bush Actually Didn’t Decide to Invade Iraq at Last Minute!
That’s the crux of a good piece that ran Monday on the paper’s front page. The problem is how verrrrry slow the Times has been in getting around to what everyone who reads more edgy publications or blogs has known for a long time: evidence has been everywhere that Bush was pushing for an invasion since – well, not only since 9/11 but since even before he was president. Anyway, we may be grateful for this gift from the Times, late or not: (the following item is on the longish side, so settle back into that recliner....)
>In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. <
He was certain? That suggests a reluctant conclusion rather than an intention. Yet the rest of the piece strongly implies that he very much wanted to invade.
>During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin." ....
Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum, which was circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair's most senior aides, had not been made public. Several highlights were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by a British lawyer and international law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the memo.
Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in its entirety. While the president's sentiments about invading Iraq were known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an unfiltered view of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely confident. <
Subtext: The Times was really late to the table, but look, at least we helped carry the dessert over – and isn’t it a perfect complement to the rest of the menu?
>The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment. <
Mr. Blair thanked the president [NOT], and noted Mr. Bush's extensive knowledge of the ins and out of Muslim and Iraqi sectarianism.
>The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.
Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's plan.
Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to talk further about it....
The January 2003 memo is the latest in a series of secret memos produced by top aides to Mr. Blair that summarize private discussions between the president and the prime minister. Another group of British memos, including the so-called Downing Street memo written in July 2002 showed that some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war. <
Those being memos the Times ignored or minimized.....
The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank, almost casual, conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar Iraqi government. "As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator," the prime minister is quoted as saying.
"Bush agreed," Mr. Manning wrote. This exchange, like most of the quotations in this article, have not been previously reported. <
Okay, then, fella, you got yourself a real scoop and a real headline. How about: “Bush Incredibly Casual About Complex, Urgent Matters.”
>Mr. Bush was accompanied at the meeting by Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser; Dan Fried, a senior aide to Ms. Rice; and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Along with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blair was joined by two other senior aides: Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide and the author of the Downing Street memo.<
So, let’s see. For the American side, a president not known for his attention span, his appetite for two-sided debate or for the details of policy choices at all, nor for his own military experience, is joined by Condi Rice, a fair lightweight in such matters, and her aide, and Andy Card, who has since been bounced from the administration altogether. Yet that’s the group laying it all out to Blair, who is only too happy to comply. Yegads, Bush really does make the decisions!
>….At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks,... <
Or months, or years.
>….Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. Since they were first reported last month, neither the White House nor the British government has discussed them.
"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach." <
Isn't painting your planes in UN colors some kind of serious no-no, whether or not someone fires on them?. Isn't that a big story in and of itself, shades of the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Why are we not discussing this point?
>It also described the president as saying, "The U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's W.M.D," referring to weapons of mass destruction. <
“Bush has Judy Miller and Ahmad Chalabi working on that,” the memo [DID NOT] say.
>A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Mr. Bush, a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.<
“Um, yes, rather. Well,” Blair actually responded [NOT], blushing deeply in pleasure at Bush’s raw masculinity.
>Mr. Sands first reported the proposals in his book, although he did not use any direct quotations from the memo.<
And we (the Times) did. Nyah nyah nyah…. Who’s got the hot sources now?
> He is a professor of international law at University College of London and the founding member of the Matrix law office in London, where the prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, is a partner.<
What? Blair’s wife is a law partner of the guy who blew the whistle on Blair and Bush? Please to explain. Please to not simply gloss over.
>Mr. Jones, the National Security Council spokesman, declined to discuss the proposals, saying, "We are not going to get into discussing private discussions of the two leaders."<
Yes, well. Enron’s Ken Lay doesn’t want to get into discussing his private discussions either. Only, a court is compelling him.
>….The memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, "If anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning the oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq, a second resolution would give us international cover, especially with the Arabs."<
Wow. That Blair sure was prescient. Maybe he should be president of the United States.
>Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.<
“I’ve been twisting arms and threatening for years,” Bush told Blair [NOT]. “It is totally cool – and boy does it work. You gotta try it.”
>"…Bush….commented that he was not itching to go to war, but we could not allow Saddam to go on playing with us. <
Bush winked, and the assembled burst into laughter [NOT]. Condi high-fived a top Blair aide, the author of the best-seller, “E is for Empire.”
>Mr. Bush devoted much of the meeting to outlining the military strategy….<
“First, we bomb the bejeebers out of them, and then a mess of Americans who have never been out of a small town pacify the entire country,” Bush said [NOT]. “Rocks, huh?”
> The president, the memo says, said the planned air campaign "would destroy Saddam's command and control quickly." It also said that he expected Iraq's army to "fold very quickly." He also is reported as telling the prime minister that the Republican Guard would be "decimated by the bombing." <
Despite his optimism, Mr. Bush said he was aware that "there were uncertainties and risks," the memo says, and it goes on, "As far as destroying the oil wells were concerned, the U.S. was well equipped to repair them quickly, although this would be easier in the south of Iraq than in the north." <
Bush said that while he was confident that the military and civilian aspects of the invasion would go as smoothly as a film he’d seen with a similar plot, he and his boss, er, assistant, Dick Cheney, had spent days personally poring over maps of oil deposits. [NOT]
>The two men briefly discussed plans for a post-Hussein Iraqi government. "The prime minister asked about aftermath planning," the memo says. "Condi Rice said that a great deal of work was now in hand.<
Those plans were indeed at hand, having been crumpled into a large ball, and were now being used as a chair cushion for Ms. Rice [NOT]
>The leaders then looked beyond the war, imagining the transition from Mr. Hussein's rule to a new government. Immediately after the war, a military occupation would be put in place for an unknown period of time, the president was described as saying. He spoke of the "dilemma of managing the transition to the civil administration," the memo says. <
Actually, he did not use quite those words. That’s a paraphrase from the Blair aide. What he actually said [NOT] was, “Laura's got the willies a little bit about what might go down over there after we blow the place to smithereens. But I think somebody is working on that.”
PERMISSION TO APOLOGIZE
It being so hard to say you were wrong, whether you are Bush, Blair, or a major newspaper, some help is now on the way, albeit on the wrong side of the border (courtesy of Reuters):
>British Columbia wants to make it easier for people to say they are sorry without the fear of being sued. The province proposed legislation to allow people, companies and public officials to apologize without it becoming an admission of liability. "There are times when an apology is very important and appropriate, but the legal implications have been uncertain," Attorney General Wally Oppal said. The province's ombudsman had asked for the legislation, saying in a report in February that apologies can soothe the anger of citizens wronged by the government. <
Well, yes. Um, raaather. Quite right. Indeed.
ONE FOR THE BOOKS
We’re no Lou Dobbs (for one thing, he makes in an hour what we earn in a year), but we do think this foreign outsourcing is getting a little out of hand. Muckraker recently noted (see below somewhere) that Wal-Mart, not content with making everything in China, now plans to sell most of its stuff over there, by opening loads of new stores. In that case, all the money simply stays abroad (except for the salaries to the executives in Bentonville, ARK and shareholders).
Now, we have the exciting prospect of Indian students studying in Indiana with textbooks brought in from India. Got that?
According to the Times,
>Vikas Rajkumar, an engineering student at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., has found a way to save up to $1,000 a year on textbooks. He buys them in India when he visits his home there, or has relatives ship them to him.
Over the last few years, many American students have been cutting costs by buying textbooks published in the United States for half the price, or less, from booksellers in Europe. But recently, more of them have been buying American textbooks printed in India, as word has spread of the larger savings available, publishers and booksellers say.
The textbooks are printed legally in India under copyright arrangements worked out over the last decade by American and British publishers. Using tax breaks and cheap labor, Indian companies publish the books in black-and-white, low-quality paperback editions, and sell them for as little as 10 percent of the cost of the same book in the United States. But under the licensing agreement, the books may be sold only on the Indian subcontinent and in surrounding countries — limits that are stamped on the books' covers.
There are no penalties for students who import books for their own use, under a 1998 Supreme Court decision that ruled that manufacturers who sell goods more cheaply overseas than in the United States have no protection against having their products sold back to the American market. But businesses or individuals who buy books for resale outside India could face prosecution for copyright infringement…..
Akash Chittranshi, a lawyer in New Delhi who has investigated the practice for British publishers…said one of the first signs of the trend was the mushrooming in India of Web sites devoted to textbook sales, even though few Indian students buy books online. A quick Internet search reveals many sites selling books, many labeled "Special Indian Edition" at big discounts. For instance, one electrical engineering book, "Analog Signal Processing," was found for under $8, compared with $140 on Amazon.com.<
The only problem is, with the purchase of each book, you agree to work in India for at least a year for 75c an hour.
>…."We've had people offering 20-foot containers of books," Mr. Chittranshi said.
….Tom Frey, the owner of the University Bookstore at Purdue, said he was taken aback when he was approached for advice by a student collecting orders for a shipment of books from India — enough to fill a shipping container.
The student had, in effect, set himself up as a low-cost alternative to Mr. Frey's store.
"He was doing it out of his dorm room," Mr. Frey said. ….<
What’s to complain about? The Religious Right is up in arms about more problematical goings-on in dorm rooms.
>Mr. Rajkumar, the Purdue engineering student, is the president of the Indian Students Association at the university.<
And probably a future president of India.
BEARLY SUSPICIOUS
As long as we’re stoking panda-monium over the US’s rapidly growing shrinkage, here’s some paranoia from abroad, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times (published sometime back):
>Taiwan and China quibble about everything from diplomatic slights and hidden meanings to ancient history and obscure definitions. So perhaps it's not surprising that they'd argue over two chubby animals that bite each other's ears and have trouble procreating.
China's latest weapon in its increasingly effective charm offensive against Taiwan is an offer of giant pandas. Who would think of turning down two lovable animals that zoos around the world can only dream about, you might ask?
The government of archrival Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, for one, which finds itself tied in knots over the offer. Let one panda's nose in the tent, Chen and his allies fear, and you buy into Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of China, a notion impossible for the pro-independence government on the island to accept.
"The pandas are a trick, just like the Trojan horse," said lawmaker Huang Shi-cho of the Taiwan Solidarity Union party. "Pandas are cute, but they are meant to destroy Taiwan's psychological defenses." <
Muckraker isn’t entirely sure how he feels about this, but it does give him paws. (No, Duddy, not literally.)
Dear Diary:
An acquaintance pointed out someone the other day. This woman, from the fastidious Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, supposedly connected somehow to the Bhutanese royal family, is apparently taking a break from her studies -- but also has supposedly been told by her government she is not allowed to return home for any reason until she finishes college here. Now that’s what I call a forceful education policy!
No wonder Bhutan outpaces the US these days in nearly every category. (Or at least that’s what I hear, but I’d check it out before passing it on. I might be confusing Bhutan with China, or India, or somewhere else Thomas Friedman has been invited to speak lately.)
YO IRAQ -- REMEMBER WHAT I PROMISED? FUGGEDABOUDIT
As noted by Slate, Friday’s USA Today featured the director of the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq giving Iraq the bad news that, endless promises from 2003 onward notwithstanding, further reconstruction monies will not be forthcoming. And keep in mind the country’s infrastructure looks like a bone china collection after an army of three-year-olds has examined it unsupervised.
>Iraq must now fund the projects itself, or find money from other countries. While it is giving up on money for reconstruction, the Bush administration continues to request significant sums of money to build large bases in Iraq, which is raising concerns about whether they are being thought of as permanent outposts, reports the Los Angeles Times in its lead story. <
But…but…but that just confirms all those crazy conspiracy theories that the invasion of Iraq was always meant to be about grabbing the oil and building bases -- not stopping a dangerous madman or introducing democracy. If that’s the case, and gutsy political leaders (that being who exactly?) begin raising this with the American public, it could convulse this nation.
Now, if I were Karl Rove, I would be looking for more distractions. Let’s see—how about some exciting military operation (wouldn’t matter that it didn’t yield results) . We could call it “Operation Swarmer.” That would get some attention.
(From Time.com:
On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled
Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing
Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.
The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence.
But contrary to what many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no air strikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders…..
Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman’s freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they’d found all day.
Wandering among cows? Sounds like a load of bull.
What else? People like heroism and results, even on a small scale. Some symbolic rescue of some ‘Christian aid workers’ amidst all the kidnappings? [More Slate…:]
>The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox, and the LAT and the WP front, the rescue of three peace activists, two from Canada and one from Britain, who had been held hostage since November in Baghdad. British and U.S. troops (the LAT says the operation was "British-led") acted on information they obtained from two detainees and went to rescue the activists, who were tied up in an empty house. Meanwhile, yesterday's Iraq death toll was 58, says the WSJ.<
Which is more important? That rescue or the horrible truth behind the botched invasion itself? How much attention will the latter get? [More Slate….:]
>The United States is winding down its rebuilding programs in Iraq, which, according to one expert, has been a "dismal failure" that has "left a legacy of half-built projects." One of the goals was to create jobs for 1.5 million Iraqis, but USAID said last week they've only managed to get to 77,000.
Although the House of Representatives approved the money for the bases, which was included in the general war funding, Congressional leaders are now asking for explanations on why they are needed. Some lawmakers fear they could further incite terrorism, since it might help to confirm theories that the United States plans to have a permanent presence in the country for economic reasons.<
Well, 'inciting terrorism' is hardly the biggest problem here. It is that the government of the United States would have massively deceived its own people and the world – and embarked on a crazy, mindbogglingly dangerous imperial adventure. That’s a pretty big story, so that requires yet another distraction, and a larger one. How’s this (from CNN, posted Saturday):
>As U.S. troops moved toward Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein received intelligence about their battle strategy and troop movements from a Russian ambassador, according to a Pentagon report.
The Russians claimed they obtained the information from sources inside the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and conveyed it to Hussein via the Russian ambassador to Iraq, the report said.
Russia dismissed the report on Saturday. "Such unfounded accusations have been voiced regularly," said a Russian spokesman. "We do not see fit to comment on these insinuations."
Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, one of the Pentagon officials who helped put the report together, was quick to say that there was no indication the Russians had a spy inside Central Command.
Also, key details provided to Hussein by the Russians were wrong -- not that it would've mattered because the Iraqi dictator ignored the intelligence in formulating his losing war strategy, Cucolo said.
Word of Russian-Iraqi collaboration came as part of an analysis by U.S. Joint Forces Command, which looked at combat operations from an Iraqi perspective as a tool for shaping future U.S. operations. An unclassified version of the analysis was released Friday.<
Well….maybe. If true, it would be a pretty big deal, and would justify Bush’s demanding answers from his friend Putin. But, you know how it is with US government reports these days—they all turn out to have been requested by Dick Cheney’s office, with, perhaps, some input from Mr. Rove.
Anyway, none of these have played out quite the way those eager-beaver ex-Bush advance men turned-administration p.r. folks would prefer -- including the hostage rescue. This from CNN:
>Freed British hostage [and Christian aid worker] Norman Kember, who was held captive in Iraq for nearly four months, arrived in London on Saturday and thanked the soldiers who rescued him and two others.
Kember was reunited with his wife, Pat, after his plane landed at Heathrow airport amid criticism that he had not expressed gratitude to the soldiers who freed him.
"I do not believe that a lasting peace is achieved by armed force, but I pay tribute to their courage and thank those who played a part in my rescue," Kember, 74, said in a statement read to reporters before being taken by car to the couple's London home.
"There's a real sense in which you are interviewing the wrong person. It's the ordinary people of Iraq you should be talking to, the people who have suffered so much over many years and still await the stable and just society they deserve."<
THINKING OF CONVERTING?
Speaking of being of the wrong religious persuasion in the wrong place at the wrong time, this from the New York Times
>Preachers used Friday Prayer services to call for the execution of an Afghan Muslim who converted to Christianity, despite growing protests in the West. The conversion of the man, Abdul Rahman, 15 years ago was brought to the attention of the authorities as part of a child custody dispute.
The Bush administration and European governments have strongly protested the case as a violation of religious freedom. But Mr. Rahman has drawn a strong reaction in Afghanistan, too, and for many hardline clerics, there is no greater offense than apostasy.
One speaker, Maulavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people gathered in Kabul: "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws. The prophet says, when somebody changes religion, he must be killed."
He and others demanded that the country's political leaders and judges resist international pressure.<
Think how unfortunate the whole thing is, beyond the obvious awfulness facing Rahman personally. You’ve got a fundamentalist US administration asking its friends in a fundamentalist Afghan administration not to whack ‘one of our guys.’
One wonders when, in certain more severe backwaters of the United States, similar thinking will prevail . Already, politicians are made to prove their fundamentalist credentials. You practically can’t even contest some offices unless you can claim to have been born again at some point -- or, at the very least, trudge dutifully to church and try to stay awake in the pews for those inevitable photo opportunities out front afterwards.
TENDING TO THE EXTREME
If that comparison of religious extremism in the two countries seems a stretch, do check out a Washington Post article from mid-week that reported on the massive infusion of federal grants under the Bush White House into faith-y organizations that promote abstinence and antiabortion messages, largely run by big Bush backers.
>Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.
An example is Heritage Community Services in Charleston, S.C. A decade ago, Heritage was a tiny organization with deeply conservative social philosophy but not much muscle to promote it. An offshoot of an antiabortion pregnancy crisis center, Heritage promoted abstinence education at the county fair, local schools and the local Navy base. The budget was $51,288.
By 2004, Heritage Community Services had become a major player in the booming business of abstinence education. Its budget passed $3 million -- much of it in federal grants distributed by Bush's Department of Health and Human Services -- supporting programs for students in middle school and high school in South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky.<
Some quick math, then: $50,000 into $3 milllion -- something like a 60-fold increase for these advocates, once kept busy amusing the folk down at the county fair...
>Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the African American and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush's presidential campaigns…..
"If what you are asking is, has George Bush as president of the United States established priorities in spending for his administration? The answer is yes," said Wade F. Horn, who as assistant secretary for children and families at HHS oversees much of the spending going to conservative groups. "That is a prerogative that presidents have."<
“Did he install all manner of idiot in his administration?” Horn asked [NOT]. “That is a prerogative that presidents have.”
>…"These are just slush funds for conservative interest groups," countered Bill Smith, vice president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, one of the most outspoken critics of abstinence-only sex-education programs. "These organizations would not be in existence if not for the federal dollars coming through."
Most, but not all, of the money going to conservative groups has come from two programs that did not exist before Bush took office in 2001. The Compassion Capital Fund, which distributed $148.3 million from 2002 to 2005, was created "to expand the role that faith-based and community groups play in providing social services to those in need," according to the White House.<
And who, we wonder, might that be? Why….the president himself!
>….Beneficiaries of more than $2 million each from the compassion fund include five organizations run by black and Hispanic leaders who endorsed Bush and Operation Blessing, a charity run by television evangelist Pat Robertson. It has received $23.5 million, which includes $1.5 million from the Compassion Capital Fund and $22 million in surplus dry milk from the Agriculture Department.
Hundreds of struggling antiabortion and pregnancy crisis centers have received federal grants that often doubled or tripled their annual budgets, allowing them to branch out and hire staff, especially for abstinence education….<
Muckraker suggests restyling that “abstinence from education” – already a popular movement in this country.
>……The distribution of new money to conservative organizations is a small part of an estimated flood of $2 billion a year in federal grants to religious and religiously affiliated organizations. …..The shift under Bush in part grows out of the administration's Faith and Community Based Initiative. Under the initiative, White House officials and new offices in 10 Cabinet-level departments have aggressively sought to widen the "pool" of applicants for federal grants for all kinds. Faith-based organizations are encouraged to apply for grants to operate Head Start and subsidized housing programs.
In a Dec. 12, 2002, executive order, Bush addressed one of the major concerns of religious groups considering applying for public money. Bush declared that religious groups receiving federal grants would not be required to comply with certain civil rights statutes, and could discriminate by hiring employees of specific religious faiths.<
Um, and we don’t really like Mr. Rahman down here round the county fair circuit, since he looks kinda funny, so we won’t be hiring him even if he isn’t executed for his Christian beliefs and is instead shipped over here from 'Afghan'. That’s a prerogative we have.
>….Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) was [highly critical]…. "I believe ultimately this will be seen as one of the largest patronage programs in American history," he said.
…..In Milwaukee, a 2004 presidential battleground state, Pentecostal Bishop Sedgwick Daniels's Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ was awarded $626,598 in 2003 and $824,471 in 2004 from the Compassion Capital Fund. Daniels, a Bush supporter, was a 2004 Republican National Convention delegate.
In Florida, another presidential battleground state, the National Center for Faith Based Initiatives, run by one of Bush's earliest 2000 supporters in the black community, Bishop Harold Calvin Ray, has received $1.75 million over three years from the compassion fund.
In addition to liberals, there are conservative critics of taxpayer funding of groups on the right.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the grant-making is "corrupting."
"The danger is that any group that gets money from the government will end up serving the interests of the state rather than the constituencies they are trying to serve," he said. "The guy who writes the check writes the rules."<
And, get this, folks. Grover Norquist of course twists the whole thing to make the government the problem here. But still, he is critical of the situation, and he's the guru of the Bush Administration! As Muckraker has said before, either the revolution has gone so far that its architects are having genuine second thoughts, or the outlines of the counterrevolution are now so clear that the gurus are bailing out of the Rolls Royce before it is overtaken by the mob.
BOSTON…ILLEGAL! (SAYS BUSH)
For the best commentary on what is going on, we turn, of course, to the realm of fiction. Blogger Steve Pizzo sent this around, and it’s a winner. If you’ve never clicked on a link and watched an excerpt from a tv show, you’re in for a real thrill.
Now get a chilled glass of tomato juice, or perhaps blend up a chocolate bourbon smoothie, and settle down to watch, after clicking for this closing argument from an episode of Boston Legal, right BELOW:
http://www.boston-legal.org/19-stickit/BL-2x19-StickIt-ClosingArguments.asx
AND YOU THOUGHT WAL-MART WAS BAD….
The following is, as they say, ‘going around’ – like a case of the clap, that is. It’s an e-email that you may or may not want to hurriedly forward to your friends and enemies:
>Subject: Costco Scam
Guys this is serious, protect your friends by passing this along!
I don't know if you shop at Costco, but this may be useful to know.
I have become a victim of a clever scam while out shopping.
Here's how the scam works:
Two seriously good-looking 18-year-old girls come over to your car as
you are packing your shopping in the trunk.
They both start wiping Your windshield with a rag and Windex,
their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy t-shirts.
It is impossible not to look.
When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead ask
you for a ride to another Costco.
You agree and they get in the back seat.
On the way, they start having sex with each other.
Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and performs oral sex
on you, while the other one steals your wallet.!!
This is a really clever scam and I must admit I had my wallet stolen
last Tuesday, Wednesday, twice on Thursday, again on Saturday,
also yesterday and most likely tomorrow.
So be careful. <
Purely for research purposes, Muckraker rushed to his nearby Costco, after of course emptying his already slim wallet and filling it with business cards for Kleptomaniacs Anonymous (and a copy of Muckraker’s TomPaine piece about Bush’s domestic affairs adviser getting busted recently for allegedly ripping off Target stores.) But no hell-bound 18-year-olds approached him. Ditto at another Costco. And another. Even Muckraker wearied of his dedicated search for the truth on this pressing issue.
When he got back home, he thought about it. With all the criticism about WalMart and all the praise of Costco’s more civic-minded policies, was this e-mail just a coincidence?
He won’t be hazarding a guess, but next time he sees some bodacious carwashers at a Costco, he intends to get right to the point:
Is Costco going to save me money, or not?
A PERIODIC DISCLAIMER FROM THE MANAGEMENT AT MUCKRAKER
Sometimes – often, indeed, Muckraker is joking, or at least half joking, or at least utilizing humor to make a legitimate point. If anyone should be offended by anything stated here, or ever intends to use any of this material as evidence of insensitivity or hypocrisy on the part of Muckraker, or reason why he should be deported, or not elected to high office or not invited out on a date, he would just like to point out that the offending item may have been a joke.
Or not. You never know. And that’s the beauty of it all.
Now, on with our previously scheduled program….
***********
DEAR DIARY: THE CELL PHONE REPORT
Dear Diary:
Today, in a café, a guy was talking into his computer headset, making a call over the free digital telephone service, Skype. “Mom, can you hear me?” After talking to mom, he started making business calls. When Muckraker suggested that this was too stressful and distracting for all the people who had come to the café precisely to get away from the guy in the next cubicle making endless phone calls, he got all huffy.
But there is justice in the world. After a while, another fellow came in and sat next to him, and he was on something even more annoying and intrusive – those two way walkie talkies where you hear both sides of the conversation. Even Mr. Skype seemed chagrined – but too embarrassed to admit it.
So, Dear Diary, do a good deed today: tell someone to stop yakking in your ear.
THAT’S A HUM(MER)DINGER OF AN EXCUSE!
On the weekend, the New York Times ran an interesting piece on the front of the Business section, whose stories now are often promoted on Page One, reflecting the paper’s growing realization that business can’t just be about profits and losses, and that business is everybody’s business, even us church mice. What big companies and consumers and accountants are up to is actually important to society in general, hence the need to find a more compelling way to tell these stories.
Annnnywho…….
“For Janna Jensen, it was the dirty looks and nasty gestures from other drivers that finally persuaded her to give up the family's $55,000 Hummer H2. Her husband, Michael, meanwhile, was tired of the $300 monthly gasoline cost and the quality problems that began soon after they bought it.
So the Jensens of Reno, Nev., dumped the sport utility vehicle this year for a more modest Honda Element, still an S.U.V. but one with better gasoline mileage and a lower profile than the H2. And they are not alone.<
Obviously not, though it seems to Muckraker that anyone with a name that similar to the porn superstar Jenna Jameson might have other reasons for getting a dirty look and a nasty gesture. More importantly, however, is Ms. Jensen’s admission that she is willing to ever-so-slightly help save life on the planet if it improves her personal image.
>Luxury sport utilities are becoming decidedly less cool than just three years ago, when they were the hottest things on wheels and dealers had long waiting lists for the most popular models.
On top of the sales drop that has hurt all sport utilities, fewer than half the people who bought luxury S.U.V.'s are going back for another one. Incentives for the vehicles are at record levels and for the first time, luxury automakers are paying out more for rebates and lease deals to entice consumers to buy luxury S.U.V.'s than to buy cars.<
Doesn’t that seem just a tad irresponsible? Anybody who tries to “entice” people to buy SUV’s ought to have their very own spot in hell, which itself must be warming up quite a bit thanks to global warming.
>The higher cost of gasoline plays a big role, as it has for the last year of high oil prices. But wealthy buyers, who used to shrug off the expense, are shifting gears, as excessive energy consumption is becoming socially embarrassing….
Dub magazine, a specialty publication aimed at car enthusiasts, remains packed each month with images of customized cars, including celebrities' wheels. But now, its editors are seeing that trend setters, especially those who have families, are trying to appear as if they are environmentally aware.
"Everyone is concerned with giving back," said Myles Kovacs, the magazine's editor…..<
That’s a pretty lame quote, and doesn’t track with the summary from the previous paragraph. The truth is that probably a few of these show-offs have decided in retrospect that they really ought to try ‘giving back’, and the rest are concerned with what other people are ‘giving back’ to them, most of which begins with a flying middle digit.
Social embarrassment, Muckraker predicts, will be the next big thing. How about regular newspaper ads listing and picturing the people who are doing the most to destroy the ecosystem? Let their kids explain that at school, after they’re dropped off in the SUV limo. I’d start with whoever is behind the “incentive” to buy SUVs.
IMELDA CHENEY?
Funny piece in Tuesday’s Times, catching up with our old friend Imelda Marcos, she of dictatorial kleptocracy and a taste for shoes.
>Imelda Marcos pointed a tiny pistol straight ahead of her and a red laser dot appeared on a screen in the middle of a heart-shaped face labeled "Happy."
The dot moved sideways to a scowling upside-down heart marked "Sad," and then to a fractured circle called "Pacman," a symbol of aggressive consumption. The story of her life.
"You put it all together," she said hopefully, aiming now at a shape that looked a bit like a flower, "an upright heart, an upside-down heart, and what you get is peace. Peace and freedom."
Mrs. Marcos, still as large as life, is almost 77 now, fraying a bit at the edges but bravely maintaining the peculiar frantic dignity that has always set her apart from the rest of us, who might be labeled ordinary.
"I've had the best-best-best and the worst-worst-worst," she said in an interview in her apartment, with its golden upholstery, its Masters paintings, its ranks of framed photographs and its buckets of artificial flowers.
In the 20 years since she and her husband, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, were driven into exile and disgrace by something called People Power, she has retrofitted her tangled philosophy of life into a truly incomprehensible Power Point presentation.
Her patter is so realistic that it gives the illusion of making sense.
"Beauty is God made real," she said, and, "The opposite of love is not hate, it is selfishness," and, "The only things we keep are those we give away," and, "Common sense is common to all."….<
Sure, Imelda Marcos is a character. What would be great is if the media devoted more resources to examining the wackiness of those who are currently in power – and closer at home.
DICK MARCOS
Wait, I take that back. After years of excessive deference, the American media now smell blood in the water, and so are – gasp! – doing their job of explaining that the emperor has no clothes.
From Tuesday’s New York Times, albeit in the less widely-seen Metro section:
>In the biggest campaign fund-raiser yet on behalf of State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to New Jersey on Monday and praised Mr. Kean as someone with "the experience, the values and the vision to be a superb United States senator."
But there was one problem: Mr. Kean was a no-show.
Actually, Mr. Kean did show up at the event, which was held at the offices of the IDT Corporation in downtown Newark. But he did not make it until 6:15, roughly 15 minutes after Mr. Cheney's motorcade had left.
So what should have been a routine political story about a successful fund-raiser, netting close to $400,000, became one in which Mr. Kean was asked repeatedly whether he had deliberately avoided being photographed with the vice president, who is deeply unpopular in New Jersey…..
For his part, Mr. Kean said he had been in Trenton all day, voting on important bills, because "I would not miss votes in order to make a political event." As soon as the Senate wrapped up, around 4 p.m., he traveled north "as quickly as I could." But instead of taking the New Jersey Turnpike, like any regular commuter between Trenton and Newark, he and his driver chose Route 1, which is usually crawling with bumper-to-bumper traffic at that hour.
Mr. Kean said he did so because there were delays on the Turnpike in the morning. But at 6 p.m., there were no reported delays between Exit 7A, not far from Trenton, and the George Washington Bridge, according to the Turnpike's Web site.
And Anton Peters, an executive producer at Shadow Traffic, said that Route 1 was relatively trouble-free on Monday afternoon, with the only significant problem a northbound accident near Linden that was cleared up by 2 p.m. "If he was going north, it wouldn't have affected him," Mr. Peters said.<
Now that’s investigative reporting. Would that the Times had put a fraction of that enterprise into scrutinizing early Bush Administration claims on obscure topics like, say, Weapons of Mass Destruction.
>…Mr. Cheney did not appear to feel slighted by the absence of the man for whom he was raising money. "I'm sorry he's not here right now," Mr. Cheney said, referring to the younger Mr. Kean. "But I do some of my best work without a candidate."<
And without a boss.
LET’S MOVE THE WHOLE COUNTRY TO CHINA
Speaking of bosses, the Associated Press reports that
>Wal-Mart Stores plans to hire up to 150,000 employees in China over the next five years, five times the number of workers it currently has there, as it expands its number of stores, the company said Monday.
Wal-Mart now has 56 stores in China, with about 30,000 employees, and plans to open 20 stores this year. Amy Wyatt, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, declined to say how many stores would be added longer term.
China has long been a major supplier of Wal-Mart products. The company bought about $18 billion in goods from China in 2004, the last year for which it has released numbers, Ms. Wyatt said…..<
Here’s a business model Wal-Mart might consider: Manufacture and sell all of its goods in China – which is going to be the only place that matters anyway, with the way the US trade deficit is going. All the Wal-Mart monies will stay in China, financing the country’s continued economic expansion. The only portion that will return to the US will be executive salaries and dividends – and some of that could go to financing the political campaigns of those who are willing to ensure that the exodus to China continues. The rest of us can provide non-exportable service labor – taking care of their homes, polishing their SUVs, preparing their food. To top it off, they probably only want Mu Shu Pork and General Tso's Chicken.
CHINESE TASTES BETTER
Speaking of China, never thought I’d say this, but sometimes those authoritarian regimes have a thing or two to teach us about taste. From the Times:
>One of China's most popular television programs last year, an "American Idol" knockoff called "The Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl Contest," is apparently about to be reined in by government regulators here.
The state administration of radio, film and television issued a notice last week that seemed directly aimed at altering the show's format, and possibly keeping it off the air.
"Supergirl" was watched by more than 400 million people in China last year, making it one of the most successful shows in Chinese television history. At its conclusion last summer, a spiky-haired 21-year-old college student named Li Yuchun was voted most popular singer by fans of the show.
The contest transformed its finalists into pop stars with big endorsement deals. And it was also a sensation for Hunan Satellite Television, a popular and sometimes risqué television network based in central China.
Now, other television stations are producing copycat versions of the show, and major advertisers have been lining up to be sponsors of this year's "Supergirl" contest.
But media experts here say the slightly rebellious nature of the show, which showed participants in baggy jeans singing with unusual emotion, crying on stage and punching their fists in the air, may have gone too far.
The contest was a significant shift away from China's usual television fare, which often revolves around soap operas and delicate women in traditional Chinese dresses, singing and dancing.
Some experts and commentators on the Chinese media called the notice a reaction against the show by conservatives in the government.
Such television contests, the notice said, would now be more strictly regulated and controlled by the authorities than before.
For instance, the notice said that some contests might not even be allowed to be broadcast in certain regions. And the contests should not promote "philistinism" or allow presentations that have "low class," the notice went on.<
Well, okay, that’s a little extreme. What do they want to do, eliminate tv altogether? Doubt they even have Masterpiece Theatre anyway.
>Many who watched the program said that Ms. Li, last year's "Supergirl" winner, dressed and danced like a boy, and that several other contestants gyrated wildly on stage.
In its notice, the government also called for strict controls to avoid "vulgar" displays of clothes or jewelry. And the notice even went so far as to instruct contest judges, advising them to be "practical and realistic," "positive and healthy," and not to make contestants feel embarrassed….<
Now all we need to do is apply the same standards to government officials. Just ask Tom Kean, Jr (See Cheney item, above)
AGGRESSIVE (AND OUT OF BUSINESS?)
The American Journalism Review points out something Muckraker has often observed: that the Knight-Ridder chain’s Washington Bureau has some of the toughest, no-nonsense reporters around. This outfit produces revelations other news organizations only acknowledge weeks or months later, if ever. With Knight-Ridder being sold recently, this was cause for concern. So it comes with considerable relief that the successful bidder, McClatchy Newspapers of Sacramento, California, is also serious about journalism. Let’s hope they don’t tinker with the KR formula.
This excerpt via Romenesko:
>Knight Ridder's Washington bureau "has flowered into a formidable journalistic force, emphasizing hard-nosed, fact-based watchdog reporting…. "[Its reporters] are out there every day competing against the big boys, and it is impressive how often they get good stories first, and get them right." But many of the bureau's best efforts have been ignored by the national newspapers and the networks….<
There’s a ripe scandal in the untold story of how the major news organizations ignore scoops from smaller competitors. A confident, mature news organization would recognize important information irrespective of where it came from, share it with its own vast audience, and be unafraid to acknowledge that others got there first. (And when they do, Muckraker has about a thousand past scoops he'd like to submit for consideration.)
MAKE US PROUD, WARREN
In a letter to Romenesko's MediaNews, a reader makes a great suggestion. Since the above-mentioned McClatchy plans to dispose of a dozen of Knight Ridder’s best papers (including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Jose Mercury News), why doesn’t trillionaire Warren Buffett buy them and guarantee their futures?
>"How about the mild-mannered Oracle of Omaha swooping in from the heartland to save an industry that is vital to Truth, Justice and the American Way?" writes Scott Harris. "Warren Buffett could have snapped up KR for about 1/10th of his net worth. He cares about quality journalism. He's an admitted news junkie who served on the Washington Post board of directors and was a close friend of the late Katharine Graham. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns the Buffalo News. Plus, young Warren was a paperboy -- and he leveraged those earnings into his empire. (He owes us!)"<
If you know Warren (and even if you don’t) give him a shout. Tell him Muckraker sent you.
SIMPLY NOTED