carapace – Not your father's america

CASCADES project: Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks.

If I can read 100 blogs, which should I read to be most up to date?

At:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/blogs/blogs-uc-pa.html

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Dick Morris vouches for Novak: “He’s never proven wrong. He’s always right”

In a Hannity & Colmes discussion of Robert Novak’s column claiming that “[a]gents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information” about Sen. Barack Obama, Dick Morris said of Novak: “I know that Robert Novak is almost never wrong,” adding: “He’s never proven wrong. He’s always right.” Media Matters for America has identified numerous instances in which Novak has been “proven wrong” — by others, and by himself.

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200711210006?src=other

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A plan to attack Iran swiftly and from above –A bombing campaign has been in the works for months – a blistering air war that would last anywhere from one day to two weeks

Nov 22 2007

Massive, devastating air strikes, a full dose of “shock and awe” with hundreds of bunker-busting bombs slicing through concrete at more than a dozen nuclear sites across Iran is no longer just the idle musing of military planners and uber-hawks. Although air strikes don’t seem imminent as the U.S.-Iranian drama unfolds, planning for a bombing campaign and preparing for the geopolitical blowback has preoccupied military and political councils for months.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/366e8x   (www.theglobeandmail.com)

From: CLG News

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Fine-Tuning the Sell Job for the Next War

Source: Mother Jones, November 19, 2007

“The basis of the whole thing was, ‘we’re going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to go along with it,’” said Laura Sonnenmark, a participant in a recent focus group apparently funded by the Republican-associated lobbying group Freedom’s Watch. Sonnenmark, a “focus group regular,” said the moderator “used lots of catch phrases, like ‘victory’ and ‘failure is not an option.’” She added, “I’ve never seen a moderator who was so persistent in manipulating and leading the participants.” The final questions of the session were: “How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?” Neither the firm involved, Martin Focus Groups, nor Freedom’s Watch would confirm that the organization funded the focus group. But focus group participants were handed a flier with a Freedom’s Watch logo, and the group has advocated for confronting Iran, organizing forums on the “threat” posed by the country, and running ads calling the Iranian president a “terrorist.”

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Good Riddance to Them All

At:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112207Y.shtml

Joseph L. Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers writes that, “There was little for the unindicted co-conspirators of the Bush administration to give thanks for this week as the clock winds down on the 14 months they have left in power. With former White House press secretary Scott McClellan spilling the beans on who told him to lie to the American people and cover up the White House’s responsibility for the criminal act of revealing the identity of a covert CIA officer, it clearly was time for some folks to begin drafting their requests for presidential pardons.”

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American Gangsters In The White House

By Ron Fullwood

THIS generation’s ‘American Gangsters’ are imminently more dangerous and pernicious than the pimps, drug dealers, and thieves who roam and rule over our nation’s most vulnerable and malleable citizens. This generation’s ruling class of thugs have been elevated to the highest levels of our government by Bush and his corporatist cronies.

At:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_071122_american_gangsters_i.htm

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More of the Same: Import Safety Panel Leaves Business in Charge 

The Bush administration’s cabinet-level Interagency Working Group on Import Safety released its final report Nov. 6 on ways to improve the safety of food and consumer products imported into the U.S. The report calls for limited increases in some federal agencies’ responsibilities but does little to change the current voluntary regulatory scheme that governs some $2 trillion worth of products, 800,000 importers and more than 300 ports-of-entry.

At:

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4083/

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Bush FAA Policies Lead to Flight Delays, Near Misses

by James Parks, Nov 21, 2007
If you’re flying somewhere for Thanksgiving dinner and your plane is late, more than likely it’s because there aren’t enough experienced controllers to handle the volume of air traffic this holiday weekend—the busiest travel season of the year.

In an ad this week in USA Today, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) shows the link between Bush administration’s policies, which have forced controllers to retire in large numbers, and the abysmal on-time records of the nation’s airlines.

According to NATCA, since 2002, the percentage of veteran controllers on the job has decreased by 12 percent and the number of late arrivals has more than doubled at 105.9 percent.

And what about President Bush’s much ballyhooed decision to open military airspace to commercial flights for the holiday? Won’t make a bit of difference, NATCA President Patrick Forrey says:

This will have no real effect whatsoever. This is because there are fewer veteran, fully trained air traffic controllers on staff at air traffic facilities nationwide this holiday season than in 2006, handling 4 percent more traffic. If anything, delays will increase this holiday season, not decrease.

At the same time, the number of serious incidents of aircraft getting too close in the air also rose sharply last month, exceeding the FAA’s goal for the month by 36 percent. Click here to listen to a radio report on two recent near misses.

Forrey said it is alarming, but certainly not surprising, that errors are up. That’s because there are 1,200 fewer veteran controllers working now than a year ago. Additionally, new hires and trainees comprise one-quarter of the workforce, he says, an unmanageably high level not seen in more than 25 years.

Many veteran air controllers are leaving because the controllers have worked more than 440 days without a contract. They cannot strike or withhold their critical services to the public. But they can retire—and many of the veterans are doing just that.

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a contract on the controllers that NATCA says poses real and potentially dangerous consequences for the safety of airline passengers and NATCA.

Over the past few years, the FAA repeatedly has cut staffing at control towers and decreased the amount of time between work shifts, forcing controllers to work even when they have not had sufficient rest. NATCA says the agency’s announcement in March that it would begin to hire more controllers is years too late and won’t bring staffing back to the pre-cutback levels until 2016. In a statement, NATCA says:

Our labor situation is damaging the U.S. economy and hurting travelers in the form of delayed flights and decreased safety. The FAA’s imposed work and pay rules have fueled a critical staffing shortage, resulting in controller fatigue, Nearly 1,000 of our most veteran and experienced controllers [retired] in the period from Sept. 3, 2006, to Oct. 1, 2007, mainly out of protest of the abysmal working conditions and unfair treatment they received from the FAA.

As a result, the errors are piling up:

Near Chicago, two private aircraft got much closer than rules allow on Nov. 13—the second serious episode in four days attributable to an error made by a tired and overworked controller and the fourth such error in the first six weeks of the 2008 fiscal year. Only one serious error was made during the entire 2007 fiscal year. The Chicago air traffic center’s control room takes 11 fully certified controllers to staff and run, but due to staffing shortages in the facility, there were only nine controllers working at the time.
Two aircraft passed dangerously close over the skies above Northern California on Nov. 11. NATCA discovered the FAA is charging the air traffic controller with an operational error and is protesting the outrageously unsafe working conditions in which this incident occurred. The controller was being forced by the FAA to work his second overtime shift and seventh straight day of the week, a violation of federal law.
Scott Conde, the NATCA representative at the Oakland air traffic center, says:

These types of mental errors will continue to happen as staffing erodes due to retirements and resignations. The FAA needs to step up and accept responsibility for putting the controller in this situation, and it needs to address the imposed working conditions that are driving controllers to retire and resign from the agency in bunches.

Forrey sums it up this way:

There is only one possible solution to this crisis: We must have a contract that NATCA members can ratify so that veteran controllers will stay.

At:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/11/21/bush-faa-policies-lead-to-flight-delays-near-misses/

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USGAO: Information on Recent Default and Foreclosure Trends for Home Mortgages and Associated Economic and Market Developments.

GAO-08-78R, October 16.

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-78R

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Dollar Crash: The Real Challenge For OPEC

By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Global Research, November 22, 2007

At its recent summit in Riyadh, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries faced an unprecedented crisis: the price of oil was edging up towards the $100 per barrel mark, as the dollar itself was continuing its inexorable slide on all financial markets.

Although the Saudi hosts were eager to keep the dollar’s agony out of the debate, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez forced it onto the agenda, triumphantly announcing that the dollar decline signalled the end of the American empire. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quipped that the oil producers were delivering their vital goods, and in return, were getting only “a worthless piece of paper.” The idea emerged, that OPEC should study the matter, perhaps seeking an alternative currency or currencies, in which to trade oil.

The word “dollar” was not referenced in the final document, mainly because of (justified) fears voiced by the Saudi hosts, that any such mention might precipitate a further crash of the greenback. B ut the summit did decide to set up a committee, of their oil and finance ministers, to study the matter and come up with recommendations before their next meeting, scheduled for December 5.

Chavez and Ahmadinejad were those pressing most energetically for open debate on the fate of the dollar. “Don’t you see how the dollar has been in a free-fall without a parachute?” Chavez asked. In his address to the conference, the Iranian president stated, “Due to the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, oil transactions should be conducted through a combination of other major hard currencies, and oil bourses should be requested to replace the U.S. dollar with other currencies,” as reported by Mehr News Agency. He also voiced agreement with an idea Chavez had floated, of setting up an “OPEC bank” which would protect the hard currencies of the oil producing states.

Ahmadinejad told reporters following the summit that the leaders were “unhappy with the fall in the value [of the dollar],” adding that “even the American people have lost out.” He reported that “All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency,” and that “some” favored an alternative to the dollar. These “some” emphatically did not include Saudi Arabia, which issued a statement later, that the Kingdom had absolutely no intention of abandoning the dollar.

Nonetheless, the issue was hot enough to make its way, albeit indirectly, into the summit’s final statement. The “Riyadh Declaration” [www.opec.org/] after stressing OPEC’s commitment to maintain stability of the petroleum market, providing “adequate, timely, efficient, economic and reliable petroleum supplies to world markets,” made brief reference to the currency issue. It said the OPEC members resolved to “Instruct our Petroleum/Energy and Finance Ministers to study ways and means of enhancing financial cooperation among OPEC Member Countries, including proposals by some of the Heads of State and Government in their statements to the Summit.” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hussein Nozari explained that this committee had been decided on, “to study the impact of the dollar on oil prices,” while his Iraqi counterpart Hussein al-Shahristani said the committee would “submit to OPEC its recommendation on a basket of currencies that OPEC members will deal with.”

…

Complete article at:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7407

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ISN Security Watch – The urban warfare dilemma

20 November 2007

The urban warfare dilemma
 

By Peter Buxbaum in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch (20/11/07)

The first half of 2003 was, for some, the heyday of US military operations in Iraq. To a large extent, it has been downhill ever since.

On 20 March that year, US and UK forces executed a classic military invasion of Iraq. Within three weeks, Iraqi conventional forces were defeated, the Iraqi government was deposed and Baghdad was occupied by US troops.

On 1 May, President George W Bush declared an end to conventional military operations under the banner of the now-infamous slogan, “Mission Accomplished.”

But the US soon learned that military decisiveness would not spell victory in Iraq. The war the US military had been organized and trained to win – fast paced, mechanized and expeditionary – turned out to be ill-suited for counterinsurgency operations on complex urban terrain.

Thirty-five years ago, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the US military vowed never again to get bogged down in a static, counterinsurgency operation. Yet that is precisely the kind of war it now faces in Iraq. Some futurists want the US military to adopt its post-Vietnam stance again once it leaves Iraq.

MRAP: US military’s post-Iraq future

…

Complete article at:

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/  ISN Security Watch

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three thousand words

Trouble Town (Lloyd Dangle): the technique really works!

http://troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.886.gif

Mike Keefe: Wall Street Bear

http://www.intoon.com/toons/2007/KeefeM20071123.jpg

Sandy Huffaker: wall street bonuses – stockholders

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/HuffaS/2007/HuffaS20071122_low.jpg

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. – Adam Smith

WARREN BUFFETT TO CONGRESS: KEEP TAXING THE MEGA-RICH

By Chuck Collins, AlterNet

Calls “death tax” rhetoric “intellectually dishonest” and “clever, Orwellian and dead wrong.”

At:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/68145/

“U.S. consumers will pay 11 percent more for the traditional Thanksgiving meal this year, due in part to higher energy costs, the American Farm Bureau Federation said on Thursday.”

Center for American Progress Action Fund www.americanprogressaction.org

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Black Friday Shopping

http://TheBlackFriday.com

http://bfads.net

http://BlackFriday.info

http://Dealtaker.com/blackfriday

http://Gottadeal.com

http://www.ecoustics.com/

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Toxic Toys

MARK SCHAPIRO, via Beau Friedlander, simnyc@rcn.com,

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071105/schapiro,

http://chelseagreen.com/2007/items/exposed/AssociatedArticles

Reuters reports: “The California attorney general and Los Angeles city attorney filed a lawsuit on Monday against 20 companies accusing them of manufacturing or selling toys with unlawfully high levels of lead.”

Schapiro wrote the recent piece “Toxic Toys” and the book “Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products.” He said today: “The current ocus on Chinese imports obscures the deep responsibility of U.S. egulatory authorities in permitting toxins such as lead into the country to begin with. Another important aspect to this controversy: the array of consumer products that are perfectly legal to import into the U.S., but which many other countries — in step with the European Union — are banning from use in cosmetics, toys, electronics and other consumer products due to their toxicity.

“In the big picture, while the U.S. retreats from environmental protection, much of the world is moving forward — again, led by the EU, which in 2005 became the world’s largest single market. The power that comes with the EU’s economic heft radiates through the global economy — leaving the United States isolated in its unwillingness to actively protect the health of its citizens and the environment. The pressure to sell into Europe’s market means that some Americans are becoming the accidental beneficiaries of environmental protection laws passed in Brussels (over which they have no input); while, at the same time, the U.S. is becoming a dumping ground for toxic products banned elsewhere in the world.”

Schapiro is editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, based in California. His latest book is the just-published “What’s at Stake for American Power.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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Gag me with a chainsaw! Publisher: McClellan doesn’t believe Bush lied –Spokesman ‘did not intend to suggest’ the president purposely misled him

Nov 21 2007

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President [sic] Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, according to McClellan’s publisher. Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.”

At:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917188

From: CLG News

MCCLELLAN GOES FROM COMING CLEAN TO GETTING DIRTY

By Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone

Scott McClellan is now hedging on his own accusations, who got to him?

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/68664/

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Roving Reporter

Source: Radar Online, November 19, 2007

Former Bush administration political advisor Karl Rove has signed on as a columnist for Newsweek magazine, with his first column titled “How to Beat Hillary (Next) November.” Charles Kaiser notes the irony in Rove’s decision to join the mainstream media: “In public, Rove is one of dozens of conservatives who assiduously bash the press. Last summer, channeling Agnew, Rove told Rush Limbaugh that ‘the people I see criticizing [Bush] are sort of elite effete snobs.’ But at the same time, Rove was constantly massaging big-time Washington journalists over long lunches at the Hay Adams Hotel.”

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CLG: Law and Resistance: The Republic in Crisis and the People’s Response –

By Professor Francis A. Boyle

Nov 21 2007

Today, the American people must reaffirm our commitment to the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding our government officials fully accountable under international law and U.S. domestic law for the commission of such grievous international and domestic crimes. We must not permit any aspect of our foreign affairs and defense policies to be conducted by acknowledged “war criminals” according to the U.S. government’s own official definition of that term as set forth in U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S. War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions. The American people must insist upon the impeachment, dismissal, resignation, indictment, conviction, and long-term incarceration of all U.S. government officials guilty of such heinous international and domestic crimes.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/ywq48u  (www.legitgov.org)

From: CLG News

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Iraq Oil Report – ‘Iraqi Kurds vs. Baghdad heats up over oil deals … Kirkuk vote unclear … Unspinning the Surge … Remembering Basra ‘

Iraqi Kurds issued a scathing rebuke of Iraq’s oil minister, who has warned companies signing deals in the north will be kept out of the rest of the country.

“Our contracts with the (international oil companies) are both constitutional and legal within the framework of the Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law, the only existing framework [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/2jn2wn  (iraqoilreport.com)

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Oil gulf widens between KRG and Baghdad

… Iraq oil exports up … Iran, U.S. meet over Iraq … Turkey tension down’

The dispute between Baghdad and Iraq’s Kurds over the oil sector deepens, Steve Negus and Dino Mahtani report in the Financial Times.

Security around Iraq’s northern pipeline has been sustained enough in recent months to boost oil exports to near 2 million barrels per day, reports Thompson Financial news.

Baker Botts Cuts an Iraqi Oil Deal [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/ywl7lj  (iraqoilreport.com)

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Regional Threats and Security Strategy: The Troubling Case of Today’s Middle East.

by James A. Russell.

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=814

The United States confronts an altered distribution of regional power in the aftermath of its invasion of Iraq. That distribution of power features new internal political dynamics that are shaping the ways that states are responding to the security environment. The United States needs to come to grips with these emerging dynamics if it is to successfully continue in its role of guarantor of regional security and stability.

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National Security Archive Update, November 22, 2007 – NEW EVIDENCE ON THE ORIGINS OF OVERKILL

First Substantive Release of Early SIOP Histories

For more information contact:
William Burr – 202/994-7000

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington D.C., November 22, 2007 – The first comprehensive U.S. nuclear war plan, produced in 1960, was controversial within the U.S. government because top commanders and White House scientists objected to its massive destructiveness–the “high level of damage and population casualties”–according to newly declassified histories published today by the National Security Archive. The war plan also appalled Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who wanted to find ways to curb its overkill, but the first nuclear plan revised on his watch remained massively destructive.

The nuclear war plan, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), has been among the U.S. government’s most sensitive secrets. No SIOP has ever been declassified, and details about the making of U.S. nuclear war plans have been hard to pry loose.

Declassified histories from the early 1960s of SIOP-62 (for fiscal year) and SIOP-63 provide an acute sense of the way that the U.S. government planned to wage nuclear war, as well as how the plans were made and the inter-service conflicts over them. Among the disclosures:

* The availability of options for preemptive or retaliatory strikes against Soviet and Chinese targets.

* Goals of high levels of damage (“damage expectancy”) were intrinsic to the plan, which explains why historians have treated “overkill”, or excessive destruction, as one of its most distinctive features.

* The internal debate within the military over the war plan, especially Army and Navy concern about excessive destruction and radiation hazards to U.S. troops and people in allied countries near targeted countries.

* The high priority of military targets; according to the National Strategic Targeting and Attack Policy (NSTAP), one of the SIOP’s purposes was “to destroy or neutralize the military capabilities of the enemy.”

* How the JSTPS constructed the five alternative strikes that constituted SIOP-63 (fiscal year 1963) in order to be responsive to Secretary of Defense McNamara’s quest for alternatives to nuclear attacks on urban-industrial areas, and limit the destructiveness of nuclear war, by focusing on nuclear targets only (“no cities/counterforce”).

* The role of “strike timing sheets” in the plan, showing how each bomber and missile would reach its target without destroying each other (“fratricide”).

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information about today’s posting.

http://www.nsarchive.org

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BUSH’S SELECTIVE ANGER:

Earlier this week, Bush used his sixth-ever veto to squash “a measure to fund education, job training and health programs” because, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, the bill contained “extra spending.” Bush said, “The majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it’s acting like a teenager with a new credit card.” While Bush was trying to cast the majority in Congress as “acting like drunken sailors with federal tax dollars,” he failed to take notice of who placed the largest earmarks in the bill he vetoed: Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Congressional Quarterly reported, “The single biggest earmark in the Labor-HHS-Education section of the bill belongs to Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., who won $9.3 million for the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The second-largest was requested by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — $8.4 million for the University of Louisville Research Foundation.” If Bush were serious about restraining spending and cutting earmarks, he would take on McConnell and Shelby, but he has yet to do so.

Center for American Progress Action Fund www.americanprogressaction.org

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three thousand words

blaugh.com: Be careful how you blog…

http://blaugh.com/cartoons/071101_business_blogging.gif

MStreeter: stuffed yet?

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/StreeM/2007/StreeM20071122_low.jpg

Steve Benson: well, so much for flying this year

http://azcentral.com/sshow/News/Benson/5089_87091.jpg

THANKSGIVING – 21 Reasons To Give Thanks

We’re thankful for our country’s troops.

We’re thankful the minimum wage has been increased for the first time in a decade.

We’re thankful MC Rove has more free time to work on his dance moves.

We’re thankful Congress has “wasted time” trying to end the war in Iraq. 

We’re thankful radio stations don’t play “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”

We’re thankful for journalists like Molly Ivins, who was never afraid to “raise hell.”

We’re (not) thankful for wide stances.

We’re thankful to Michael Moore, whose documentary SiCKO started a national discussion on health care reform.

We’re thankful people don’t call us Buzzy, Cookie, Brownie, or Scooter.

We’re thankful we can now call Al Gore the “Oscar-winning, Emmy-winning, Nobel Prize laureate” former vice president of the United States.

We’re thankful Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales won’t visit our bedside if we’re sick in the hospital.

We’re thankful not all Dick Cheney’s cousins think like he does.

We’re thankful to be considered one of the “ten most dangerous organizations in America.”

We’re thankful that visiting the Mall of America isn’t really like visiting Iraq.

We’re thankful President Bush isn’t giving out any more back rubs.

We’re thankful for 12-year olds who can take down Rush Limbaugh in a fight.

We’re thankful our Halloween costumes aren’t very “original.”

We’re thankful no one (except the birds) gets hurt when Dick Cheney goes hunting now.

We’re thankful for “phony soldiers” who have the courage to speak out about the war in Iraq.

We’re thankful the “Commander Guy” has only 425 days left in office.

From: Center for American Progress Action Fund  www.americanprogressaction.org

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THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING

by Susan Bates

Most of us associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that did happen – once.

The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags.

But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought.

In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.

Cheered by their “victory”, the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.

Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of “thanksgiving” to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts — where it remained on display for 24 years.

The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War — on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.

This story doesn’t have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast. But we need to learn our true history so it won’t ever be repeated. Next Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their lives and raise their families. They, also took time out to say “thank you” to Creator for all their blessings.

It is sad to think that this happened, but it is important to understand all of the story and not just the happy part. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim’s arrival. Here is part of what was said:

“Today is a time of celebrating for you — a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people.

Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important.”

From: http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/real-thanksgiving.htm

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Real story of first Thanksgiving differs from romanticized myth

Saturday, 11/17/07

By SCOTT CRAVEN
The Arizona Republic

On Nov. 22, families will sit down at a Thanksgiving table where fine china brims with food, perhaps reminded of a similar scene nearly four centuries ago when Pilgrims sat among a few curious natives, sharing a turkey feast.

Though time has painted an idyllic scene of two cultures befriending one another amid care and compassion, the truth is as complex as the people involved. And as toasts are made to family and friends today, few know how children of those Pilgrims nearly wiped out the native population in a brutal war before the 17th century was out.

Welcome to the Thanksgiving you don’t know.

Turkey not the main dish

The first Thanksgiving, as detailed in Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War (Viking Adult, 2006, paperback $16) by award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick, was a less-than-glorious affair that was more harvest festival than spiritual feast, where Indians outnumbered Pilgrims two to one and even supplied the main course: five freshly killed deer.

And that traditional Thanksgiving turkey? Even if turkeys had been served, they would have been lost among the ducks, geese and fish that were a staple of Pilgrim diets, Philbrick says.

The historian never intended to write a book on the Plymouth Colony until, while researching the history of his home in Nantucket 10 years ago, he stumbled across a curious tale: King Philip, a noted Indian leader of the late 17th century, crossed 60 miles of water to visit the tiny island.

Philbrick wondered why. The answers would eventually become Mayflower. And in that book is the surprising true story of the first Thanksgiving in 1621, which is nothing like the scene on various greeting cards or holiday mugs.

“I had a sort of Currier & Ives image of Thanksgiving,” Philbrick says. “Lots of Pilgrims at a long table with white tablecloth, turkey in the middle, hands intertwined in prayer.”

He unearthed several facts that did not coincide with the Pilgrim stories he was taught in the third grade — the menu, the cultural makeup of the crowd, even the seating arrangements (a lack of furniture meant diners likely crouched around fires where meat was roasting).

Nor was it the start of sustained peace between Pilgrims and natives. Skirmishes ignited by treachery and fear marked the next 50 years until, driven by fights over land, war broke out between Indians and colonists. Indians once constituted almost 30 percent of New England’s population, but they made up only 15 percent by 1680, Philbrick writes.

“By the second generation of Pilgrims, their numbers were such they no longer needed help from the Indians,” Philbrick says. “And Indians were no longer infatuated by Pilgrims’ technology. Now they were threats to one another.”

Early narrative fed myth

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/yun8lz   (tennessean.com)

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Taxpayers for Common Sense: Top Turkeys

TOP TURKEY

Volume XII No. 35 – November 21, 2007

Another Thanksgiving has arrived, and our thoughts naturally turn to the big, plump turkey that will adorn our table tomorrow. And while we are certainly thankful for the turkey on which we’ll dine, Congress has given us some turkeys this year that taxpayers could do without. Subsidies to big businesses and goodies to pad the waistline of special interests were plentiful, all of which, like a plump turkey, should never fly.

The Fat Farm Bill – With farm crops at record-high prices, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its re-write of the farm bill back in July, which is little more than a recycling of the old subsidy-heavy legislation. Since 1995, more than $165 billion has been funneled to farm states, with annual costs to taxpayers exceeding $20 billion in many years. The Senate will likely wait until next year to take up consideration of the farm bill.

Million Dollar Oil Royalty Loophole- In October, while oil prices were nearing $100 a barrel, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, the second-largest oil and natural-gas producer in the U.S., won a court decision arguing that it doesn’t have to pay taxpayers for oil and gas it removed from federal waters.

Oil and gas companies lease taxpayer-owned lands and waters from the federal government to drill for oil and gas.  In return for this right, they give taxpayers a percentage of the revenue generated from the oil and gas that is extracted. Congress needs to make sure that Anadarko pays their fair share.

Nuclear Power Loan Guarantees – Lawmakers created a new loan guarantee program run by the Department of Energy (DOE) for nuclear power and other energy sources called “innovative technologies” in the 2005 energy bill. This fall Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) inserted language in the new Senate energy bill that cuts Congress out of the process and hands DOE a blank check for loan guarantees. If enacted, the Senate bill will exempt the loan guarantee program from current oversight law – removing the minimal financial safeguards in place.

Gutting of Earmark Disclosure – In the wake of the last election, transparency was the hot new Washington buzzword. Disregarding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) strong opposition, Senators unanimously passed a bill to require disclosure of the beneficiaries and purpose of each earmark, require that the information be searchable and online, and that each Senator stipulate that neither they nor their family have a financial interest in a project.

Then, later in the year and behind closed doors, leadership gutted the original bill by subtly changing the disclosure language. Now, the only documents that will be publicly released are the worthless statements from lawmakers that the earmarks they requested won’t result in personal financial gain. Taxpayers remain in the dark.

Lawmakers need to give thanks and start remembering the voters who got them there in the first place, rather than the special interest campaign cash they rely on to keep them in power.  Just yesterday, the President held his annual White House ceremony where he pardoned two turkeys from the carving knife. In this case, however, lawmakers need stop stuffing themselves with special interest gravy and give these legislative turkeys the axe.

Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week

Check out TCS’s Complete Coverage of FY08 Spending Bills

http://tinyurl.com/yux5yw  (capwiz.com)

TCS Releases Database of Defense Spending Bill Earmarks

http://tinyurl.com/ywykno  (capwiz.com)

TCS in the News

Clinton leads senators seeking presidency in use of earmarks (Green Bay Press Gazette)
DHS Erred in $475 Million Contract Given to Native Firm (Washington Post)
‘Brothers’ Stevens, Inouye share defense-earmark haul (The Hill)
New rules may help GOP to stall spending omnibus (The Hill)
Why Congress won’t reform: Changes in wake of Cunningham scandal don’t dent corrupt ‘earmarking’ system (North County Times, California)
Lewis gets most federal money in state (San Bernardino Sun)

Notable Quote

“He actually believes in transparency in government and believes that we shouldn’t waste money. Now, he’ll spend a whole lot more than I ever would.”

–Anti-Earmark Crusader Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), commenting on Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) , in the November 8th issue of U.S. News and World Report.

From: Weekly Wastebasket at www.taxpayer.net

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Corn, Fuel Prices Drive Up Prices of Turkeys

Consumers may find the price of fresh or frozen turkey has increased for this year’s Thanksgiving Day. Driving the increases are greater competition for feed corn used in turkey production and higher fuel costs, forcing turkey farmers to pass on the increased costs. The growth of ethanol plants, which use feed corn as their source of production, has boosted the cost of feeding the birds by 35 percent, according to the National Turkey Federation. Turkey prices for shoppers should be about a dime higher per pound than last year, and about 20 cents or more per pound higher for premium, free-range turkeys.

(Toledo Blade, November 14, 2007)

From: http://factsaboutethanol.org/

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Ethanol Dominoes: Happy Thanksgiving Edition

More in our sporadic series on ethanol dominos* from the TimesOnline (November 3):

http://tinyurl.com/2ddafg  (business.timesonline.co.uk)

When Americans sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks’ time, they will not be expressing gratitude for the surging price of the food on the table. The price of only one main ingredient in the traditional meal has remained stable over the past year. The turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans, ingredients for the pastry for pumpkin pie, ice-cream on top, and the cheese to go with crackers, have all soared in price. Only potato has held steady.

A global shortage of dairy produce and a doubling of the price of corn in the past 12 months has propelled food price inflation to its highest rate in America since the early 1990s.

Corn prices have shot up because energy companies are buying the grain to produce ethanol. While America this year produced about 200 million barrels of the clear, clean biofuel, the process withdrew 10 per cent of supplies from US grain stores.

Corn is crucial to America’s food industry. Half of it is used as animal feed, so the soaring price has lifted the cost of maintaining dairy and beef herds, poultry farms and piggeries. The oil price – which hit $96 a barrel on Thursday – means that the cost of distributing food has also climbed.

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BF Shopping

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http://bfads.net

http://BlackFriday.info

http://Dealtaker.com/blackfriday

http://Gottadeal.com

http://www.ecoustics.com/

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Borowitz Report – Bush Thanksgiving Shocker

Bush Issues “Thankfulness List”

Pre-Thanksgiving Radio Address

In a special pre-Thanksgiving radio address broadcast from the White House, President George W. Bush asked his fellow Americans to join him in giving thanks for the following things:

“My fellow Americans, let’s be thankful for global warming, because as these winter months approach, it makes the world such a nice, toasty place.”

“Let’s be thankful for all of the food on our tables, unless some of it is from China.”

“Let’s be thankful that Pakistan will have free and fair elections, and maybe someday we will, too.”

“Let’s be thankful for the iPhone, except for those losers who actually paid full price for it.”

“Let’s be grateful that I didn’t take out a subprime mortgage on the White House like Mr. Cheney told me to.”

“Let’s be thankful that nuclear weapons haven’t fallen into the hands of the wrong people, like Nancy Pelosi or Rosie O’Donnell.”

“Let’s be thankful that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s writers are on strike, and hopefully will stay that way for the rest of my term in office.”

“Let’s be thankful that even though my approval numbers are falling, they’re still higher than my grades at Yale.”

“Let’s be thankful that Osama bin Laden dyed his hair in his last video, because that made him look really gay.”

“Let’s be thankful for Guitar Hero III, which really helps you get through those long Cabinet meetings when they’re going on and on about the economy.”

“Let’s be thankful that our military commanders have nothing bad to say about the war in Iraq until after they’re retired.”

“Let’s be thankful that in nine months it will be August and then I can go on summer vacation again.”

“And finally, my fellow Americans, let’s be thankful that, even though Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, I’m still a lock for the Nobel War Prize.”

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

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three thousand words

David Horsey: happy thanksgiving … so do we still get pumpkin pie?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20071121/cartoon20071121.gif

RJ Matson: the same turkey gets a pardon every year

http://www.rjmatson.com/images/cartoons/RC1180.jpg

Charlie Daniel: so, tom- what does the ol’ horoscope have to say??

http://editorialcartoonist.com/cartoons/DanieC/2007/DanieC20071120_low.jpg

HOT STUFF

Bite into a hot pepper, and you’ll feel the burn. But then, your tongue will go numb. It is that numbing process that scientists are studying in an effort to reduce post-surgery pain. Scientists have found that the chemical that makes chile peppers so hot (capsaicin) can actually relieve the pain of surgery. Capsaicin is being dripped into open wounds during knee replacements and other highly painful operations.

Bathing surgically exposed nerves in a high enough dose of capsaicin numbs them for weeks, so patients have less pain and require fewer painkilling drugs after surgery. Researchers at Harvard University and the National Institutes of Health, and pain specialists in Denmark, have been researching capsaicin in combination with other anesthetics for cancer patients, dental injections, and epidurals used during childbirth.

Anesiva, a California company, has produced purified capsaicin called Adlea, which is dripped into cut muscle and tissue. The surgeon waits five minutes and then stitches up the wound. The capsaicin is a one-time dose that works inside the wound, rather than body-wide, and reduces the need for morphine and other narcotic painkillers. The numbness lasts for weeks.

Visit http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20071105A2 for more information.

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NY Times, AP again reported McCain’s pledge of civility and respectfulness, ignoring his prior shots at Clinton and Obama

The New York Times, in a November 19 article by staff writer Marc Santora, and McClatchy Newspapers, in a November 18 article, uncritically reported Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) assertion, “You can be tough, but you should never degrade or ridicule anyone who is seeking public office.” McCain made his comments during the question-and-answer portion of his November 18 appearance at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire, where he asserted that he was “the conservative Republican with the best chance of defeating” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) if they faced each other in the general election, adding that if they were their party’s nominees, he “intend[s] this to be a respectful debate.” Neither the Times nor McClatchy noted that McCain has previously mocked Clinton, as well as Sen. Barack Obama (IL).

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200711190006?src=other

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BILL O’REILLY RUNS ADS FOR THE SAME ANTI-WAR MOVIE HE CLAIMS “HURTS OUR TROOPS”

By Matt Corley, Think Progress

Mark Cuban says the point of the ad buy was to see what O’Reilly’s real motivation for attack the film was.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/mediaculture/68444/

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A myth in the unmaking

Fox News’s status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction

Michael Tomasky
Monday November 19, 2007
The Guardian

Britons may be familiar with Rupert Murdoch, but I don’t think the UK has a beast quite like the American Fox News Channel. Celebrating its 11th year on the air, Fox is a breathtaking institution. It is a lock, stock and barrel servant of the Republican party, devoted first and foremost to electing Republicans and defeating Democrats; it’s even run by a man, Roger Ailes, who helped elect Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior to the presidency. And yet, because it minimally adheres to certain superficial conventions, it can masquerade as a “news” outfit and enjoy all the rights that accrue to that.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2213075,00.html

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Wall Street Plans $38 Billion of Bonuses as Shareholders Lose

Nov 19 2007

Shareholders in the securities industry are having their worst year since 2002, losing $74 billion of their equity. That won’t prevent Wall Street from paying record bonuses, totaling almost $38 billion.

At:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahE8xVisWsbE

From: CLG News

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Joseph Stiglitz (Vanity Fair): Economic consequences of Mr Bush

“When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.”

Source: Joseph Stiglitz, Vanity Fair, December 2007.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712

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Trouble Brewing In America’s Backyard

by Michael Orme

Mexico as a nation-state is under threat and with it the US’s third largest source of oil. The Federal government does not have the forces to smoke out, let alone counter the drug barons who virtually control such provinces as Sinaloa, Nuevo Leon and Sonora. Nor can they tackle the rebels and privateers who have been disrupting the country’s oil infrastructure. There has been a mass exodus from the police and the army in the wake of the assassinations of hundreds of public officials. Indeed, by some definitions, Mexico is no longer a functioning nation state.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/3buyuq  (www.dailyreckoning.co.uk)

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The Tax Policy Center is pleased to announce TaxVox, our new tax and budget policy blog.

TaxVox will provide a forum for discussion and debate on a wide range of fiscal policy issues. We’ll be commenting on federal, state, and local legislation; tax administration; and new research in both individual and business taxation. We’ll also have lots to say about the tax agendas of the Presidential candidates.

Access TaxVox at taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org

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WashingtonWatch

– WashingtonWatch determines the average cost, or savings, per individual of each bill introduced in Congress by performing calculations on government estimates compared to the US population. The Web site provides users with pro and con arguments for each bill, allows comments on each bill, allows users to vote “yes” or “no” on the bills and provides a “write your rep” function. WashingtonWatch also provides a wiki that allows users to add content to each bill. (WashingtonWatch is a Sunlight grantee.)

At:

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/

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three thousand words

Tom Tomorrow: Oh, for those happy, carefree days of the president and the intern.

http://images.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/11/19/tomo/story.jpg

Tom Toles: The Telltale Signs

http://img.slate.com/media/23/071119_ed.gif

Walt Handelsman: our flight’s been canceled! … that’s a relief

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmwha/2007/tmwha071115.gif

NEW PULSE POSTED

At:

http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v248_07.htm

That’s the url to the Nov. 19, 2007, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. Here is some of what you’ll find in this issue:

* Pacific Northwest: Molasses cleanup

* Oak Ridge: Partnership crosses Atlantic

* SLAC: Light of the moon

* Oak Ridge: Disaster resilience

Feature:  DOE Joint Genome Institute’s case of the lethal genes

Researcher profile: Pacific Northwest’s Julia Laskin

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Wash. Post article called Giuliani “America’s mayor,” referred to his “triumphal leadership on Sept. 11″

The Washington Post referred to Rudy Giuliani as “America’s mayor” and suggested that after his “triumphal leadership on Sept. 11″ Giuliani “transcended the life that was,” including controversies involving his friend and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as well as controversies in his personal life. The Post article repeated a tendency by some in the media of touting Giuliani’s actions as mayor of New York on 9-11 or labeling him “America’s mayor” without mentioning that his performance before, during, and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has been questioned and criticized.

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200711180004?src=other

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Coalition ‘cannot win’ in Iraq or Afghanistan

Nov 18 2007

One of Australia’s top defence experts says the United States-led ‘coalition’ cannot win the conflicts in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Professor Hugh White, the head of Canberra’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, has told the ABC’s Correspondents Report the coalition will eventually abandon Afghanistan. He says the US cannot succeed in Iraq, but has no escape from the tragedy its invasion has created in the strategically important Gulf region.

At:

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2094012.htm

From: CLG News

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U.S. Digs In to Guard Iraq Oil Exports –Long-Term Presence Planned At Persian Gulf Terminals Viewed as Vulnerable

Nov 12 2007

The U.S. Navy is building a military installation atop this petroleum-export platform as the U.S. establishes a more lasting military mission in the oil-rich north Persian Gulf. The new construction suggests that one footprint of U.S. military power in Iraq isn’t shrinking anytime soon: American officials are girding for an open-ended commitment to protect the country’s oil industry. [Will the 'insurgents' start to focus on this platform?]

At:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119482675431289543.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

From: CLG News

US, British and Australian forces build oil-protection base in Iraq By Patrick Martin

Nov 13 2007

The US Navy, with the assistance of British and Australian commandos, is building a permanent base to guard two oil-export platforms in Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal… The Journal account also notes that the oil-export installation could play a role in forthcoming US moves against Iran: “The new outpost also offers a convenient perch from which to monitor Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps… The naval component of the Revolutionary Guards Corps operates from a partially submerged barge and crane visible on clear days.” The British sailors captured earlier this year by Iranian forces were among those participating in the oil-protection mission–a fact that was suppressed in the media accounts at the time.

At:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/oil-n13.shtml

From: CLG News

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A Financial System under Siege

By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research, November 15, 2007

“If these items [promised benefits in Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration and other entitlement programs] are factored in, the total [debt] burden in present value dollars is estimated to be about $53 trillion. Stated differently, the estimated current total burden for every American is nearly $175,000; and every day that burden becomes larger.”

David Walker, comptroller general of the United States
  

“The economic forces driving the global saving-investment balance have been unfolding over the course of the past decade, so the steepness of the recent decline in long-term dollar yields and the associated distant forward rates suggests that something more may have been at work.”

Alan Greenspan, former Fed Chairman, July 20, 2005

“The subprime black hole is appearing deeper, darker and scarier than they [the banks] thought. They’ve worked through … about 40 percent of the backlog of the leveraged loan side, and there’s definitely some signs of thaw there.”

Tony James, president and CEO of Blackstone Group LP

The global dollar-based financial system is in crisis and is threatening the prosperity and stability of many economies. Financial excesses of all kinds have undermined its legitimacy and its efficiency. The U.S. dollar is losing its preeminence as the main international reserve currency while many banks are caught in the turmoil of the subprime credit crisis.

The overall background is the unprecedented real estate bubble that took place worldwide, from 1995 to 2005. In the United States, for example, owner-occupied home prices increased annually by an average of about 9 percent. The market value of the stock of owner-occupied homes in the U.S. rose from slightly less than $8 trillion in 1995 to slightly more than $18 trillion in 2005. It has been contracting ever since, confirming the working of the 18-year Kuznets realestate cycle, which has gone from the top of 1987 to the 2005 top.

What makes this period especially dangerous is the fact that the average 54-year long inflation-disinflation-deflation Kondratieff cycle is also at play, having begun in 1949 after prices were unfrozen. World inflation then rose for twenty years, until 1980, which was followed by a period of disinflation under the Volcker Fed. The entry of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001, with its abundant labor and low wages, unleashed strong deflationary forces worldwide. This in turn led to lower inflation expectations paving the way for the Greenspan Fed to keep interest rates abnormally low.

Persistent low interest rates and low inflation expectations led to a binge in borrowing and to a vast increase in market valuation, not only in real estate but also in stocks and bonds. Banks and other mortgage lending institutions took advantage of the opportunity to introduce some financial innovations in order to finance the exploding mortgage market. These innovations resulted in the severing of the traditional direct link between borrower and lender and the reduction in the lending risk normally associated with mortgage loans.

 Thus, with the connivance of the rating agencies and of the Federal Reserve System, large banks invented new financial products under various names such as “Collateralized Bond Obligations” (CBOs), “Collateralized Debt Obligations” (CDOs), also called “Structured Investment Vehicles” (SIVs), which had the characteristics of unfunded short term commercial paper. In the residential mortgage market, for example, mortgage brokers and retail lenders would sell their mortgage loans to banks, which in turn would package them together and slice them into different classes of mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), carrying different levels of risk and return, before selling them to investors.

Indeed, these new financial instruments were the end result of a process of “asset securitization” and were slices of bundles of loans, not only of mortgage loans but also of credit cards debts, car loans, student loans and other receivables. Each slice carried a different risk load and a different yield. With the blessing of rating agencies, banks went even one step further, and they began pooling the more risky financial slices into more risky bundles and divided them again to be sold to investors in search of high yields.

By selling these new debt instruments to investors in search of high yields and higher yields, including hedged funds and pension funds, banks were doubly rewarded. First, they collected handsome managing fees for their efforts. But second, and more importantly, they unloaded the risk of lending to the unsuspected buyer of such securities, because in case of default on the original loans, the banks would be scot-free. They had already been paid and had been released from the risk of default and foreclosure on the original loans.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7333

Rodrigue Tremblay is a Canadian economist who lives in Montreal; he can be reached at  rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com

Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author’s Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/

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Expecting A Recession

 

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

November 12, 2007

Expecting a recession

In recent months, I’ve repeatedly noted that while recession risks were gradually increasing, there was not sufficient evidence to expect an imminent economic downturn. Most economists still believe this. On Saturday, the consensus of economists surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators indicated expectations that growth will be sluggish into next year, but that there will be no recession. Unfortunately, the economic consensus has never accurately anticipated a recession. For my part, the outlook has changed. I expect that a U.S. economic recession is immediately ahead.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc071112.htm   Hussman Funds

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Willis Analyzes ‘Subprime Crisis’

November 13, 2007

Willis Group Holdings has released an alert from the Company’s Financial Institutions (FI) practice, which looks at the meltdown in the U.S. subprime mortgage industry, which it notes is an “issue that has dramatically impacted individuals and financial institutions around the world marketplace.”

Willis said its alert “gives background on the situation, an explanation of what went wrong, examines the impact on other outside industries, and reviews how the insurance marketplace has reacted.”

The Alert also notes that “Directors and Officers insurers and Errors & Omissions insurers have seen a number of claims arising from the subprime issue,” but the claims made so far may be “just the tip of a huge iceberg,” Willis indicated.

Among some of the findings in the Willis report are the following:
– A worst case loss scenario for Directors & Officers (D&O) insurers could be in the realm of $3 billion;
– The downturn in the real estate market resulted in a 52 percent increase in the amount of title insurance claims paid in the second quarter of 2007 as compared to 2006;
– Foreclosure activity in the first half of 2007 was up 55 percent from 2006;
– Foreclosures for the month of July rose 93 percent from the prior July, and 115 percent from the prior August; and
– Forty-three states have reported an increase in foreclosure activity in 2007.

Willis explained that the Alert was “the direct work product of a task force that the FI Practice has created to monitor the situation and make recommendations to businesses. The task force consists of FINEX, Executive Risks and FI Associates in the U.S. and London.

“In the coming weeks, the team plans to issue an Alert on some insurance coverages that will receive more prominence as a result of the crisis, such as Mortgage Impairment, Foreclosed and Forced Placed covers. Further updates will be issued as circumstances develop.”

To down load a copy of the study go to:

http://www.willis.com/news/Publications/FI_Alert_1007_Subprime.pdf

Source: Willis

                          ==========

Taxpayers for Common Sense: Record Prices, Record Ripoff

RECORD PRICES, RECORD RIPOFF

Volume XII No. 33 – November 9, 2007

One of the first lessons we learn as kids is that taking something without permission that belongs to somebody else is stealing.  Executives at the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, the second-largest oil and natural-gas producer in the U.S., seem to have never learned this important lesson.  Last week, while oil prices were nearing $100 a barrel, the oil services giant won a court decision arguing that it doesn’t have to pay taxpayers for oil and gas it removed from federal waters.

Oil and gas companies lease taxpayer-owned lands and waters from the federal government to drill for oil and gas.  In return for this right, they give taxpayers a percentage of the revenue generated from the oil and gas that is extracted. The $7 billion in annual oil royalty payments are the nation’s third largest source of revenue.

So how can a company get away with not paying the royalties they owe to taxpayers? By taking advantage of a loophole created by Congress.

In the early 1990s, when oil prices were $15- $20 a barrel, lawmakers were concerned that oil companies didn’t have enough financial incentive to continue exploring for oil in the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico.  Lawmakers decided that for leases signed between 1996 and 2000, oil companies would pay royalties only if the price of oil exceeded the $34 a barrel threshold. (The notable exception are leases signed in 1998 and 1999, which, inexplicably, didn’t include any threshold).

Anadarko (then Kerr-McGee) saw this loophole and decided to drive a tanker through it.  The companies’ lawyers argued that price thresholds were illegal, and that regardless how high prices rose, the Department of Interior (DOI) could not use them as the basis for assessing royalties.  Their argument is simple: even as prices rise, royalties cannot be assessed on any lease signed under the 1995 legislation.  The Federal District Court agreed.

If oil and gas companies are allowed to avoid paying royalties on these taxpayer-owned leases, the impacts on the Treasury will be devastating.  The Government Accountability Office estimates the value of royalties from these leases to be as high as $60 billion dollars.  Another government estimate put it as high as $80 billion.  Leases in the Gulf held by Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Chevron have already produced $1.2 billion in royalty payments to the federal Treasury that would have to be paid back.

All of this for a royalty incentive the oil and gas industry simply doesn’t need. The President, dozens in Congress and even representatives of the oil and gas companies themselves have gone on record saying oil companies do not need incentives given the record high prices.

The administration and both the House and Senate have weighed in on the prospect of this multibillion dollar giveaway.  Congressional leadership and others believe that requiring oil companies with royalty-free contracts to pay a fee or renegotiate their leases will ensure American taxpayers get their money.  Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and several Senate colleagues have proposed an excise tax on oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf that may ensure companies pay up.  The administration may appeal the court’s decision.

If the Anadarko decision isn’t challenged legally or legislatively,  tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-owned assets will be given free of charge to oil and gas companies at a time when prices are at or near record highs.  Enough is enough.  Congress and the administration must roll up their collective sleeves and work together to ensure that these oil giants pay for the resources they take from taxpayer-owned land and waters.

Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week

Check out TCS’s Complete Coverage of FY08 Spending Bills

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/GRKPHVOYDQ/MUORHVOYRD/1548856956

Congress Slams Home Water Pork

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/GRKPHVOYDQ/DGKGHVOYRE/1548856956

New TCS Database Tracks Beneficiaries of House Defense Earmarks

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/GRKPHVOYDQ/DDXBHVOYRF/1548856956

Joint Letter to Congress: Stop No-Bid Earmarks

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/GRKPHVOYDQ/HHIGHVOYRG/1548856956

TCS in the News

Farm Bill Boosts Old Barns, Fancy Cheese (Associated Press)
A Bush Veto Is Overridden for the 1st Time (Washington Post)
Lucas: Farm Bill needs a miracle (Pauls Valley Daily Democrat, Oklahoma)
Water bill benefits hurricane-hit Louisiana (Bogalusa Daily News, Louisiana)
Clyburn defends DOD money for golf program (The State, South Carolina)
Democrats To Tie War Funding, Pullout (U.S. News & World Report)
Water bill overcomes Bush veto (Orlando Sentinel)
Water bill override gives $480M to New Jersey (Gannett News Service)
Louisianans vote to override Bush water bill veto (Shreveport Times)
BAE earmark stays in defense bill (Lexington Herald-Leader)
Senate rejects Bush veto (St. Petersburg Times)
Defense Bill has over 2000 earmarks (The Hill)
Nuclear advocates try to clear obstacles (The Hill)
COVER- DOA? Who killed the Ruckersville Parkway? (The Hook, Virginia)
The Orange Grove: Another year of earmark abuses (OC Register, California)
Door is left open for NY ‘Hippie museum’ cash (The Hill)
Water bill could be first Bush veto override (Water Technology Online)
Bush Faces Possible Veto Override on Water Bill (Bloomberg)
Spending Bill Carries at Least 2200 Earmarks Totaling More Than $1 Billion (CQ Today)
Senate Farm Bill increases MILC program caps (Dairy Herd Management)
Watchdogs push for limits on contractor earmarks (Federal Times)
What is it with porky politicians, anyway? (Ridgecrest Daily Independent, California)
Veto of Senate farm bill threatened (Los Angeles Times)
Scant resources (Washington Times, DC)
Senate seeks big increase in dairy support program (Newsday, NY)
Don’t even ask about the budget (Mountain Mail Newspaper, CO)
Diverse Groups Come Together to Kick Off Senate Farm Bill Floor Debate with Urgent Call for Real Reform (Earthtimes, UK)
Even Cut 50 Percent, Earmarks Clog a Military Bill (New York Times)
Funds for naval guns questioned (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Bush vetoes $23-billion water bill (Los Angeles Times)

Notable Quote

“I don’t call it pay-go anymore, I call it ‘Swiss-cheese-go.’”

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) regarding budget gimmicks in the farm bill and other bills

From: Weekly Wastebasket at www.taxpayer.net

                          ==========

Congressman Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk – The True Cost of Taxing and Spending 

Mon, 19 Nov 2007

“Tax and spend policies create needs they can never satisfy.  A government check does not make up for a lost job.  Americans do not want more of this.  Americans believe in hard work and self-sufficiency, not standing in line for government hand-outs.  We are supposed to be living in a land of opportunity, but opportunities fade fast if more tax and spend policies are enacted.  The more Congress meddles in the economy, the bigger the problems get.”

Click here for the full article

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst111807.htm

                          ==========

three thousand words

Jen Sorensen: the great wingnut walkout

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/SorenJ/2007/SorenJ20071119_low.jpg

Jeff Danziger: Recruiting, US Veterans

http://danzigercartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/dancart3427.jpg

Cartoon du Jour – By Khalil: the problem in iraq is all the foreign forces!

http://www.bendib.com/newones/2007/september/small/9-22-Foreign-forces.jpg

WHAT’S WORSE? FOX NEWS’ BIAS OR CNN’S IRRELEVANCE?

By Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny!

I mean where do they find such low-grade anchors and questioners? It must be difficult.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/mediaculture/68203/

                          ==========

Glenn Beck guest: “Believe it or not, tax cuts bring in revenue” — several Bush economists don’t believe it

On CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck, David E. Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, asserted that “the tax cuts are … really what’s saving this country right now. … Believe it or not, tax cuts bring in revenue.” However, several Bush administration officials have stated that tax cuts, including those enacted during the Bush administration, produce a net decrease in revenue, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, who said during his confirmation hearing, “As a general rule, I don’t believe that tax cuts pay for themselves.”

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200711160007?src=other

                          ==========

Lies, Damned Lies and Bush Lies

by Tula Connell, Nov 16, 2007

This is a cross post from the Firedoglake blog.

What happens when you e-mail President Bush with concerns over the president’s handling of workers’ rights? You get an auto-generated e-mail, natch—but one filled top to bottom with lies. Let’s take a look.

From: “White House Strategic Initiatives”

Subject: Thank you for sharing your concerns about U.S. workers’ rights

Reply-To: “White House Strategic Initiatives“

Thank you for sharing your concerns about U.S. workers’ rights.

President Bush is committed to the well-being of America’s working men and women and their families, and his economic policies are having a real effect.
 

Now, here are the facts:

Job growth over the past business cycle has been slower than in any other business cycle lasting at least 78 months: Payrolls were only 4.3 percent higher in September 2007 than in March 2001, compared with the other three recent cycles, which posted growth rates of at least 10 percent.

The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up sharply from 19 percent in 2004. The bottom 50 percent earned 12.8 percent of all income.

Workers’ productivity grew 18 percent between 2000 and 2006—but most people’s inflation-adjusted weekly wages rose only 1 percent during that time. This was the first economic expansion since World War II without a sustained pay increase for rank-and-file workers.

Under Bush, the number of those without health insurance rose from 38.4 million (13.7 percent of the population) in 200 to 47 million (15.8 percent of the population) in 2006.

Health care premiums have increased 78 percent since 2001, the year Bush took office.

…

Complete article at:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/11/16/lies-damned-lies-and-bush-lies/

                          ==========

Inflation and the Average Item

November 17, 2007

by Andrew S. Fischer

The federal government claims (as usual) that inflation was mild in October. Just 0.3% for the month and 3.5% year-over-year. Yet again we will hear so-called financial experts on television and other media parrot the government’s inflation figures, as if they had any semblance to reality. Shadow Government Statistics, a far more believable source, shows a 7% year-over-year increase in CPI, and this correlates quite well with (at least my) real-world experience.

The feds’ BLS website shows these price increases for the 12 months ended October 2007 (unadjusted):

Food and beverages: +4.4% (ludicrous)
Housing: +3.1% (I thought prices were coming down….)
Apparel: -1.2% (perhaps)
Transportation: +5.8% (possibly)
Medical care: +4.8% (are they kidding?)
Recreation: +0.5% (unlikely)
Education & communication: +2.6% (this combo makes no sense)
Other goods & services: +3.5% (really?)
Energy: +14.5% (up from a mere 5.3% at 9/30/07)
Overall, 12 mos. ended 10/31/07: +3.5% (ha ha ha!)

These ridiculously low government inflation figures are easily swallowed by the craven financial media, a gullible public, and deluded Keynesian economists on cable TV. As pointed out by others more knowledgeable than I, the government’s numbers are distorted via various means, such as substitution and hedonic pricing.

What really matters, in my opinion, is the absolute price increase of the average item of its type over the period of time in question. For example, say last year’s average PC cost $600. This year it costs $660, an increase of 10%. The government may believe that this year’s average PC includes double the RAM and a faster hard drive, and this may, in fact, be true. It will thus contend that these enhancements make the new PC 10% better, and exactly offset the $60 price increase and therefore the average PC (on the market today) had no year-over-year increase, and thus an annual inflation rate of zero.

However, I contend that this is a disingenuous sleight of hand, since in today’s world you must pay $60 more for a computer that functions according to today’s standards of what is average. This perception of “average” is fueled by millions of consumers with individual demands. For the PC, what is of average value today may be vastly different from what it was last year. The same principle applies to cars, cellphones and everything else. If the price of an “average item” of its type has increased, then that becomes the new standard. If the cost of that average item has increased by 10%, then it doesn’t matter how much better the new version of “average” has become – its price has inflated by 10%, and should be recorded as such in government calculations.

Manufactured products always increase in quality, and older versions eventually become obsolete or wear out, e.g., older vacuum cleaners, flashlights, televisions, cars, coffee makers and computers. A consumer can “make do” with some items, such as stereo speakers, for decades, but since new and improved models appear all the time, the quality of the average speaker is always increasing. My half-decent thirty-year-old speakers still work, although they now have a market value of zero. Assuming I paid $50 thirty years ago, and half-decent speakers (by today’s standards) cost $200 now, in my view the price of speakers has quadrupled. However, the government could claim, with a figurative straight face, that since the new speakers are four times better than the old ones, there has really been a zero increase in price.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/fischer/fischer31.html

Andrew S. Fischer [send him mail] is a controller for an investment advisory firm in Pennsylvania.

Shadow Government Statistics

Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting.

At:

http://www.shadowstats.com/

                          ==========

Kerry takes $1M challenge to disprove Swift Boat claims

Nov 17 2007

Sen. John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record, said Friday he has personally accepted a Texas oilman’s offer to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Fascism.

At:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-11-16-kerry-swiftboat_N.htm

From: CLG News

                          ==========

Report: 15 percent of mines uninspected

Nov 17 2007

The federal agency responsible for mine safety failed to carry out required inspections at 15 percent of the nation’s underground coal mines, according to an internal Labor Department report. The report, by the department’s inspector general, also said Mine ‘Safety and Health’ Administration records of an inspection of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, where six miners died in roof collapse in August, were dated four months before the inspection started.

At:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071117/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mine_safety_2

From: CLG News

                          ==========

War Funding

JEFF LEYS, jeffleys@vcnv.org,

http://vcnv.org/slip-sliding-away-house-votes-on-iraq-war-funding-today-november-14

Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Leys wrote the piece “Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on Iraq War Funding Today, November 14,” which notes: “The Democratic Party leadership in the House shifts its position on redeployment from a MANDATORY completion date of the end of August 2008 to a GOAL completion date of December 15, 2008. The only thing mandatory about the goal date is that it be by December 15, 2008. But, as any labor union negotiator will tell you, a GOAL is permissive and unenforceable absent any language to make it enforceable. And, guess what, there is no enforcement mechanism in HR 4156 if President Bush does not meet the goal of completing redeployment by December 15, 2008.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE FALLING CASUALTY RATE IN IRAQ

AlterNet

Much is being made of an apparent decrease in violence in Iraq. Here’s the rest of the story.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/67638/

Basra attacks down 90% since British troops left

Nov 16 2007

The British army says violence in Basra has fallen by 90% since it withdrew from the southern Iraqi city earlier this year. Around 500 British soldiers left one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in the heart of the city in early September and stopped conducting regular foot patrols.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/2553jn  (www.independent.ie)

From: CLG News

                          ==========

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Shahristani all for non-”opportunist” oil firms … Iraq production up in north and south …  Forgotten Halabja survivors’

Oil companies are welcome to Iraq, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said, except for the “opportunist” firms already in Iraqi Kurd territory — Ben Lando for United Press International.

Iraq is producing nearly 2.5 million barrels per day, a giant step forward, as the security situation improves, its oil minister said — Ben Lando for UPI.

Iraqi engineers [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/29jydd   (iraqoilreport.com)

IRAQI KURDS’ OIL DEALS PROVOKE CONFLICT WITH BAGHDAD

AlterNet

Kurdish authorities signs multiple deals; creating “facts on the ground” in legal dispute with central government.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/68140/

                          ==========

As oil prices rise, many grow concerned about the coming months

NPR: High Oil Prices Affect Many Products
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16211938

Is $100 Oil As Lethal As It Looks?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_47/b4059057.htm

In Maine, ‘a lot of fear out there’ as heating oil prices keep rising
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=147368&ac=PHnws

Over a barrel, cruise lines boost ticket costs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21755394/

USA National Gas Temperatures Map
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Mud, Sweat and Tears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/30/energy.oilandpetrol

                          ==========

Conservative ‘War Over Earmarks’ Backfires

Congressional conservatives announced earlier this month that they had mapped out a plan to engage in a “war over earmarks” with the majority in Congress by targeting “certain earmarks” deemed “egregious” and “wasteful” to attack spending priorities. This “war over earmarks” coincides with President Bush’s strategy to veto nearly all appropriations bills passed by Congress. But as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Scott Lilly notes, “No one with any recollection of the performance of Congress over the past decade can have any doubt that earmarking exploded during that period” and “that the practice became most egregious after George W. Bush moved into the Oval office.” When former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) placed earmarks in the transportation bill to turn a profit on his personal property, Bush applauded. When former Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) tried to secure funding for a “bridge to nowhere,” Bush said nothing. Now the new majority in Congress is beginning to repair the damage. An analysis by Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that earmarks in FY08 appropriations bills are “down about 33 percent from the $29 billion in earmarks in FY06 spending bills.” (See a graphic here.) “While asserting that more progress hacking earmarks off of spending bills must be made, Citizens Against Government Waste Vice President David Williams said there was credit to go around on Capitol Hill for the reduction that has occurred.” At a time when Congress is cutting into earmark practices, Bush and his congressional allies have opted to play disingenuous political games, in hopes of making the American public forget conservatives’ long tenure of fiscal irresponsibility.

From:

Center for American Progress Action Fund   www.americanprogressaction.org

                          ==========

Taxpayers for Common Sense: The Fires Next Time

Volume XII No. 34 – November 16, 2007

Last month’s fires in southern California were nothing less than catastrophic. As we watched American homes literally turn to ashes on CNN, we were left with a sense of national self-doubt about whether these types of horrific disasters can be prevented in the future.

For decades, local governments have allowed development in fire prone areas. This “tinderbox development” occurs along the blurry line where urban and suburban meets rural and wilderness. A Colorado State University study estimates that in 2000, 12.5 million housing units stood in this area, a 52% increase in development since 1970.  More than two-thirds of this area is a high historical fire risk.  A University of Wisconsin analysis estimates that had the fires that affected California this year occurred in the same area in 1980, only 61,000 homes would have been at risk, rather than the 125,000 that were in danger this year.

Worse yet, this year’s fires may only be a canary in the coal mine. According to the Insurance Information Institute, “more than half of California’s 12.5 million homes face wildfire dangers that pose a financial loss potential well in excess of $100 billion.”

In 2003, fires swept through much of the same area of southern California and resulted in $2.3 billion in losses.  While some lessons were learned – the need for slightly stricter building codes, for example – the idea of discouraging or forbidding development in high-risk areas hasn’t entered the lexicon. The San Diego Union Tribune recently reported on one couple who fireproofed their rebuilt home after the 2003 fires. The new house, surrounded by the Cleveland National Forest, was again destroyed by the 2007 fires. There are some areas that are just not suited to development.  States and communities have to make tough choices about where the risk to life and property is too great and too costly to allow future construction.

Here’s where the federal government can help. Disaster aid and firefighting assistance must come with incentives for communities to make the hard choices they have been avoiding until now.  Disaster payments cannot be blank checks that simply allow redevelopment in the same places and the same way as before. Instead, communities must develop fire plans and other methods to reduce the risk and avoid development in fire-prone locations.  Failure to do so will result in less federal help the next time a problem occurs.

In addition, communities should be responsible for a larger share of the costs of firefighting, especially in high-risk areas, which would provide a tangible dollar and cents incentive for them to reduce their fire risk.

Disaster avoidance isn’t just about southern California and wildfires. Wildfires happen across the west and the rest of the nation.  In addition to fires, there are frequently flooded areas in the heartland and hurricanes along the coastlines. Governments should not be in the business of insulating individuals and communities from losses that occur as a result of poor decision making. Local communities should be responsible for the local decisions that lead to catastrophic loss.

The troubling part is that when state or local officials don’t do their job, Uncle Sam has to write a larger check than is prudent or otherwise necessary. Whether it is fire or flood, individuals and communities must accept, understand, and plan better for these potential risks. Paying a greater share of the tab and giving incentives to make better decisions will go a long way toward accomplishing that.
Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week

Check out TCS’s Complete Coverage of FY08 Spending Bills

TCS Releases Database of Vetoed Labor-HHS-Education Earmarks

TCS in the News

Giuliani, Romney Offer Tax Cuts, Omit Spending Curbs (Bloomberg)
Farm reform fizzles in Congress (Christian Science Monitor)
Timely message on budget bloat (Charleston Post Courier)
Earmarks ‘airdropped’ for freshmen (The Hill)
Mollohan: Under Investigation, Under the Radar (Human Events)
Will it be deal or no deal on spending bills? (Christian Science Monitor)
Earmarks Now Everybody’s Business (Washington Post)
Farm bill includes $10 billion in new aid (Longview Daily News, Washington)
Peter Bronson (Cincinnati Enquirer)
IN OUR VIEW: Does a pig know it’s fat? (Daily Herald, Utah)
One Lawmaker’s Waste Is Another’s Namesake (New York Times)
US Rep. Don Young Used Position For Funds And His Donors’ Projects (Free Internet Press)
Visclosky at center of Washington pork storm (Munster Times, Indiana)
Donations for Young, then an earmark (Anchorage Daily News)
Clyburn’s add to defense bill blasted (Charlotte Observer)
Navy faces battle of the bulge in shipbuilding costs (The Virginian-Pilot, Virginia)
Tech center churns out Visclosky campaign cash (Munster Times, Indiana)
Democrats To Tie War Funding, Pullout (U.S. News & World Report)
Water bill overcomes Bush veto (Orlando Sentinel)
Senators Defend Massive Farm Bill (The Associated Press)

Notable Quote

“Taxpayers…have a right to access information about how the federal government plans to spend their money.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) regarding a provision added during conference on the Transportation spending bill that would have made it harder for the public to get timely information about potential transportation boondoggles. At Coburn’s insistence, the provision will be removed from the final bill.
 

Weekly Wastebasket at www.taxpayer.net

                          ==========

three thousand words

Tom Toles: surge

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20071118/ltt071118.gif

Sandy Huffaker: these guys sure follow orders!

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/HuffaS/2007/HuffaS20071113_low.jpg

And I am Caesar

http://2parse.com/?p=127/