carapace – Not your father's america

Is it the Apocalypse, or just the federal Real ID Act?

Fourteen people in West Virginia won a special exemption from having digital photos taken for their driver’s licenses, which have new security features required by the federal law. The group objected to their digital photographs being stored in the state motor vehicle department computer system on grounds it conflicts with their religious beliefs. The group fears storing the pictures could be the beginning of the biblical “mark of the beast,” according to The Charleston Gazette.

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=333828

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Dinosaurs helped build the pyramids, school director says 

Raphael Vassallo

Far from becoming extinct 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids.

This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18.

“Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed (as Fenech pronounces the word). It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids,” he says, adding that this latter observation is only “his personal belief”, and that it does not form part of the school’s curriculum.

But the curriculum of the Accelerated Christian Academy in Mosta is not exactly free of such fanciful reinventions of history. Fenech reiterates the basic Evangelist tenet that the entire universe was created in 4004 BC… and this time, he also supplies “proof”.

“When man landed on the moon (in 1969), they expected the landing module to sink in a deep layer of dust. But the layer was only a few inches deep. This proves that the universe is still young!”
Does it? I would have thought it merely illustrates that unlike the Earth, the moon has little or nothing in the way of atmosphere… and dust is usually generated as a result of particles which combine as they are buffeted around by the movement of atmospheric molecules. Also, the moon’s gravity is two thirds less than it is on Earth… which in turn means that dust is practically weightless, and therefore doesn’t settle.

But of course there is little point in saying so, because as far as Fenech in concerned, it is the word of God alone that counts. Fenech confirmed this during an impromptu interview at the MaltaToday office in San Gwann, where he irrupted last Thursday on a Divine Mission to correct my misconceptions about his Mosta academy.

“Your write-up last Sunday was full of mistakes,” he pointed out. Foremost among the mistakes is the incorrect identification of Fenech as “headmaster” instead of director… an error which I acknowledge, and for which I apologise.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2007/10/14/n5.html

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THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT’S SLICK CAMPAIGN TO MAKE ABSTINENCE SEEM TRENDY

By Vanessa Valenti, AlterNet

Conservatives finally learned that moralizing doesn’t keep teens from having sex. Now they have a creepy new tactic.

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/95249/

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A Pop-Star Pastor’s Public Fall and the Christian Cult of Celebrity (by Jarrod McKenna)

It was only last month that Sydney newspaper The Herald Sun’s Faithworks blog carried a post with this paragraph: “There is an amazing moment on the latest Hillsong DVD, This Is Our God, when Michael Guglielmucci, stricken with cancer, walks on stage with an oxygen tent to boldly sing his song “Healer.” He doesn’t know how long he has to live, but still proclaims the goodness of his God.” Earlier in the year, Mike’s overtly Christian worship song “Healer,” which he said was inspired by his struggle with a deadly form of cancer, debuted at number two on Australia’s official music charts. Tragically, last week another news source headline read: “Pop star pastor lied about cancer.”

http://tinyurl.com/56reqx (blog.beliefnet.com)

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THEOCRATIC SECT PRAYS FOR REAL ARMAGEDDON

By Casey Sanchez, Southern Poverty Law Center

The end-times are coming. Are you a soldier in God’s army, fighting to bring about the millennial reign of Christ?

http://www.alternet.org/story/96945/

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Swedish government makes it illegal for schools to teach religious doctrine as if it were true

Thu, 03/06/2008

The Guardian – The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools – after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum’s time will have to be secular. “Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism,” said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Creationism and ID are explicitly banned but so is proselytising even in religious education classes. The Qur’an may not be taught as if it is true even in Muslim independent schools, nor may the Bible in Christian schools. The decision looks like a really startling attack on the right of parents to have their children taught what they would like. Of course it does not go so far as the Dawkins policy of prohibiting parents from trying to pass on their doctrines even in their own families – and, if it did, it would certainly run foul of the European convention on human rights. It does not even go as far as Nyamko Sabuni, the minister for integration – herself born in Burundi – would like: she wanted to ban all religious schools altogether. But it is still a pretty drastic measure from an English perspective.

The law is being presented in Sweden as if it mostly concerned fundamentalist Christian sects in the backwoods; but the Christian Democratic party, which represents such people if anyone does, is perfectly happy with the new regulation. There is little doubt that combating Islamic fundamentalism is the underlying aim, especially in conjunction with another new requirement that all independent schools declare all their funding sources. This would allow the inspectors – whose budget is being doubled – to concentrate their efforts on those schools most likely to be paid to break the rules.

In the background to these announcements comes the release of a frightening documentary film on Swedish jihadis, which follows young men over a period of two years on their slow conversion to homicidal lunacy.

From: http://tinyurl.com/6zkepr (politicalbunker.com)

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THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT’S GOT A NEW STEALTH TACTIC TO SMUGGLE CREATIONISM INTO SCIENCE CLASS

By Sandhya Bathija, Church & State Magazine

A new law in Louisiana allows teachers to bring in “supplemental textbooks” about evolution, the origins of life and global warming to science class.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/96490/

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New Words From The Seminal – Love of God, Love of Country: The Right Doesn’t Know The Difference

24 Aug 2008

Today, I saw two bumper stickers on a mini-van that frightened me. One simply said, “McCain. Country First.” Right next to it was a miniature version of the Ten Commandments. The very first of those Ten Commandments states, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This means that for Christians (and also for Jews), there is no priority greater than following God. Neither self, nor family, nor career, nor favorite sports team, nor even country should come first. Only God.

I wonder if the contradiction presented by the two stickers has even occurred to the driver of that mini-van. Probably not, since conservative Christians in the United States tend to equate God with country. To be a good Christian is to be a good American and vice versa. Therefore, when they say “country first,” they might as well be saying “God and country first.” In their minds, it’s the same thing. This simplistic equation allows them to put a divine sanction on all of their political views, and to push their policies with a “bomb-proof” certainty that more nuanced minds on the left and in the middle cannot arrive at.

The really frightening part is that the people pushing the buttons on faith and patriotism don’t seem to be all that faithful themselves. It’s dangerous territory to start questioning the religious convictions of others, but I don’t get the sense that the driving force behind Bush, Cheney, Rove, McCain and the other top neo-cons is their desire to follow God, or for that matter to serve their nation and its Constitution. Their top priority seems to be something else – and God and country are tools that they use to accomplish their own agendas. History shows that this is a dangerous equation – religion and nationalism being used by politicians in order to gain power.

“McCain. Country First.” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” In previous generations, these two bumper stickers would not have been so frightening. But in a time when the president lies to get us into a war with religious overtones; in a time when the Christian right is making great political efforts to get their minority views enacted into law; in a time of expanding executive power; in a time when civil liberties are eroding; and in a time when politicians routinely provoke fears of terrorism and immigration, we should all take notice.

From: The Seminal :: Independent Media And Politics

http://www.theseminal.com/

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Missouri Public School Must Stop Distribution of Bibles to Fifth-Graders, Americans United Tells Court

August 25, 2008

Gideon Bible Handouts Put Pressure On Students To Conform, Says Church-State Watchdog Group

A Missouri public school must end its policy of allowing an evangelical Christian group to distribute Bibles to fifth-graders on school property during school hours, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told a federal appellate court.

In a friend-of-the court brief filed with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Americans United insists that school-sanctioned distribution of religious materials to students violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

AU urges the appellate court to uphold a Missouri district court’s decision that ordered South Iron R-1 School District to stop the practice.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said the brief was filed because important principles are at stake.

“The Constitution forbids government officials to meddle in religious matters,” Lynn said. “Decisions about religion are up to parents, not school board members.

“If parents want their children to have a Bible, they are perfectly free to go out and buy one,” Lynn continued. “This school board is way out of line.”

For more than 30 years, South Iron R-1 School District permitted Gideons International to distribute Bibles during class time under the supervision of school officials, but revamped its policy as soon as the federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of parents by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The new school policy allows the Gideons to hand out Bibles in the cafeteria or in front of administrative offices between classes. The federal district court invalidated both policies.

The school board appealed the court’s Roark v. South Iron R-1 School District decision, hoping to continue the unconstitutional practice.

In its brief, AU asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that school district promotion of religion puts pressure on nonbelievers or dissenters and is unconstitutional.

“In the cafeteria, students who choose to take Bibles and those who choose not to will be visible to much, if not all, of the student community — a prospect made more likely given the school’s small size, 427 students,” the brief said. “Any child visibly ignoring the availability of the Bibles or returning to class empty-handed will stand out to his peers and thus feel pressured to take a Bible.”

The Gideons distribute the Bibles “to encourage the children to accept Christ as their personal savior.” The Bibles distributed at South Iron also include a place for students to sign under the written statement: “My Decision to Receive Christ as My Savior.”

The school board continued to allow the Gideons to distribute Bibles at the school even after warnings from the school’s attorneys, superintendent and insurance carrier. The superintendent resigned soon after the board ignored this legal advice, indicating in his resignation letter that the board was “headed down a path that is both illegal and costly.”

AU’s brief was drafted pro bono by attorney Kristina Silja Bennard of the national law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, in consultation with AU Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan and AU Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser.

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State  www.au.org

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An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson’s ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be cancelled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson’s prayers — except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don’t blame You, I know You’re angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an “Act of God” — when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized — and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush’s FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again!”

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven’t been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America’s “wholesale slaughter of unborn children.” His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don’t do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven’t sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time — they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don’t know what, Bush’s head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government’s response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W’s to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It’s done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I’ll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God’s fellow children who are reading this, the city New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast.

http://tinyurl.com/6ont93 (troublethewaterfilm.com)

And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

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Former priest sentenced for decades-old Wis. abuse … and more 

Fort Mills Times – Fort Mill,SC,USA

In its ruling the high court said clergy can be prosecuted for decades-old sexual abuse if they left Wisconsin before a six-year statute of limitations …

http://tinyurl.com/5f7jv9  (www.fortmilltimes.com)

Priest defrocked over sex abuse allegation

Albany Times Union – Albany,NY,USA

By JIMMY VIELKIND, Staff writer ALBANY — Officials of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese have defrocked a priest accused of sexually abusing boys in the …

http://tinyurl.com/5wqh6x  (timesunion.com)

Priest sex abuse case gets green light

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES …

Roman Catholic priest sex abuse case gets green light in Belleville, Ill. -

http://tinyurl.com/64rlm6  (www.suntimes.com)

Court reinstates child neglect charges against East Tenn. minister

Jackson Sun – Jackson,TN,USA

AP KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Supreme Court says a minister accused of contributing to the cancer death of a 15-year-old girl can be charged with child …

http://tinyurl.com/6a5eul  (www.jacksonsun.com)

Testimony: Gregory released priest files missing information on …

Belleville News Democrat – IL, USA

Petersen said Wisniewski, as a 13-year-old, had little chance of preventing abuse by an authoritarian figure such as a priest who told him the sexual
…

http://www.bnd.com/homepage/story/444637.html

More Alleged Priest Sex Abuse Victims Take the Stand

Fox44 News – Colchester,Vermont,USA

He says when the Diocese received complaints about the priest, they simply moved him, instead of protecting him from Father Paquette. …

http://www.fox44.net/Global/story.asp?S=8881776

 

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three thousand words

Mike Peters: think of it as an “IGOD”

http://tinyurl.com/6f8osd (www.grimmy.com)

Free Thinking is Bad…

http://ufailpix.com/2008/08/free-thinking/

YES THIS IS BALAAM, NO I WON’T ACCEPT A COLLECT CALL FROM ‘DONKEY’

http://tinyurl.com/6anhhl (www.reverendfun.com)

Noonan claimed Obama’s DNC speech at Invesco Field “has every possibility of looking like a Nuremberg rally”

In her online column, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote that Sen. Barack Obama’s DNC speech at Denver’s Invesco Field “has every possibility of looking like a Nuremberg rally.” Other conservative pundits have made references to Nazis when talking about Obama or discussing his speeches, including radio host Tom Sullivan, who once aired what he called a “side-by-side comparison” of an Adolf Hitler speech and an Obama speech.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200808280008?lid=554381&rid=13378779

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Iraq and China agree to $3 billion oil service deal

27 Aug 2008

Iraq and China have agreed the terms of a $3 billion oil service contract, Iraq’s oil minister said on Wednesday, announcing the first major oil contract with a foreign firm since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/6antfr (www.reuters.com)

From: CLG News

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Iraq Oil Report – ‘Even Obama needs more than Biden to make sense of Iraqi oil deals’ … and more

Barack Obama’s approach to Iraq is strikingly similar to that of the Bush administration and John McCain. In theory, the addition of Joe Biden to Obama’s ticket could change this, but over the last weeks and months there have been interesting moves by Biden to remove most traces of his “Iraq plans” from the [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/57mnqr  (www.iraqoilreport.com)

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Iraq power generation at 2003 levels’

Iraq is now producing as much power as it did on the eve of the US-led invasion of 2003 but is still meeting barely 50 percent of peak demand, a senior electricity ministry official said. “2008 is the first year when production has reached the level prior to that of Saddam Hussein’s fall,” the ministry’s [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/57366j (www.iraqoilreport.com)

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Iraqi oil exports up for July’ 

The Iraqi Oil Ministry says that oil exports in July inched up to 58.8 million barrels — a 0.7 percent increase from the previous month, the AP reported. The statement says the barrel was sold at an average price of $113.8 and yielded $6.692 billion. June’s price stood at $123 a barrel. The statement adds that 46.9 [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/5adhv2 (www.iraqoilreport.com)

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Joint Economic Committee Report: U.S. Families Are in Worse Economic Shape Now Than in 2000

News release: “Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairman and Vice-Chair of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) released statements in reaction to troubling new data from the U.S. Census Bureau on household incomes, health care coverage, and poverty. While wages have risen slightly from 2006 to 2007 and fewer families are without health insurance coverage, over 30 million Americans are still living in poverty. More importantly, in the last seven years, the vast majority of Americans’ incomes are down, more families are going without health insurance, and millions more are living in poverty.”

http://tinyurl.com/6huoo9 (jec.senate.gov)

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CFTC.gov Enforcement Actions Updates

August 26, 2008

Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC
Sanctions: Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC
CFTC Press Release 5535-08 CFTC Sanctions Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC $310,000 for Failing to Enforce Compliance Procedures and Diligently Supervise Employees.

http://tinyurl.com/6ejbq2 (www.cftc.gov)

Settlement: Alvin Perez
CFTC Press Release 5534-08 CFTC Sanctions Former NYMEX Employee for Disclosing Non-Public Information to NYMEX Floor Brokers.
 

http://tinyurl.com/6hoayk (www.cftc.gov)

CFTC.gov Press Releases Update

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Press Release# 5536-08, CFTC Sanctions Former NYMEX Broker Ryan Tremblay $50,000 for Fraudulent Trade Practice Scheme

http://tinyurl.com/6b4ypv (www.cftc.gov)

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EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – Natural Gas Weekly Update

Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Natural Gas Weekly Update has been updated and is available on the EIA Website:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp

Electric Power Monthly (08/26/2008):

“The latest EPM issue (July 2008) is now available. Data being published in the July 2008 EPM include April 2008 data. Historical copies of the EPM tables in Excel format have also been posted on the EIA website, dating back to the May 2003 publication of the EPM. These files can be accessed here.”

http://tinyurl.com/35lb4 (www.eia.doe.gov)

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Georgia and Kosovo: A Single Intertwined Crisis

By George Friedman
 

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance.

There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions and of U.S. and European perceptions of Russian capabilities. This context shaped the policies that led to the Russo-Georgian war. And those attitudes can only be understood if we trace the question of Kosovo, because the Russo-Georgian war was forged over the last decade over the Kosovo question.

Yugoslavia broke up into its component republics in the early 1990s. The borders of the republics did not cohere to the distribution of nationalities. Many — Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and so on — found themselves citizens of republics where the majorities were not of their ethnicities and disliked the minorities intensely for historical reasons. Wars were fought between Croatia and Serbia (still calling itself Yugoslavia because Montenegro was part of it), Bosnia and Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. Other countries in the region became involved as well.

One conflict became particularly brutal. Bosnia had a large area dominated by Serbs. This region wanted to secede from Bosnia and rejoin Serbia. The Bosnians objected and an internal war in Bosnia took place, with the Serbian government involved. This war involved the single greatest bloodletting of the bloody Balkan wars, the mass murder by Serbs of Bosnians.

Here we must pause and define some terms that are very casually thrown around. Genocide is the crime of trying to annihilate an entire people. War crimes are actions that violate the rules of war. If a soldier shoots a prisoner, he has committed a war crime. Then there is a class called “crimes against humanity.” It is intended to denote those crimes that are too vast to be included in normal charges of murder or rape. They may not involve genocide, in that the annihilation of a race or nation is not at stake, but they may also go well beyond war crimes, which are much lesser offenses. The events in Bosnia were reasonably deemed crimes against humanity. They did not constitute genocide and they were more than war crimes.

At the time, the Americans and Europeans did nothing about these crimes, which became an internal political issue as the magnitude of the Serbian crimes became clear. In this context, the Clinton administration helped negotiate the Dayton Accords, which were intended to end the Balkan wars and indeed managed to go quite far in achieving this. The Dayton Accords were built around the principle that there could be no adjustment in the borders of the former Yugoslav republics. Ethnic Serbs would live under Bosnian rule. The principle that existing borders were sacrosanct was embedded in the Dayton Accords.

In the late 1990s, a crisis began to develop in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Over the years, Albanians had moved into the province in a broad migration. By 1997, the province was overwhelmingly Albanian, although it had not only been historically part of Serbia but also its historical foundation. Nevertheless, the Albanians showed significant intentions of moving toward either a separate state or unification with Albania. Serbia moved to resist this, increasing its military forces and indicating an intention to crush the Albanian resistance.

There were many claims that the Serbians were repeating the crimes against humanity that were committed in Bosnia. The Americans and Europeans, burned by Bosnia, were eager to demonstrate their will. Arguing that something between crimes against humanity and genocide was under way — and citing reports that between 10,000 and 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing or had been killed — NATO launched a campaign designed to stop the killings. In fact, while some killings had taken place, the claims by NATO of the number already killed were false. NATO might have prevented mass murder in Kosovo. That is not provable. They did not, however, find that mass murder on the order of the numbers claimed had taken place. The war could be defended as a preventive measure, but the atmosphere under which the war was carried out overstated what had happened.

The campaign was carried out without U.N. sanction because of Russian and Chinese opposition. The Russians were particularly opposed, arguing that major crimes were not being committed and that Serbia was an ally of Russia and that the air assault was not warranted by the evidence. The United States and other European powers disregarded the Russian position. Far more important, they established the precedent that U.N. sanction was not needed to launch a war (a precedent used by George W. Bush in Iraq). Rather — and this is the vital point — they argued that NATO support legitimized the war.

This transformed NATO from a military alliance into a quasi-United Nations. What happened in Kosovo was that NATO took on the role of peacemaker, empowered to determine if intervention was necessary, allowed to make the military intervention, and empowered to determine the outcome. Conceptually, NATO was transformed from a military force into a regional multinational grouping with responsibility for maintenance of regional order, even within the borders of states that are not members. If the United Nations wouldn’t support the action, the NATO Council was sufficient.

Since Russia was not a member of NATO, and since Russia denied the urgency of war, and since Russia was overruled, the bombing campaign against Kosovo created a crisis in relations with Russia. The Russians saw the attack as a unilateral attack by an anti-Russian alliance on a Russian ally, without sound justification. Then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin was not prepared to make this into a major confrontation, nor was he in a position to. The Russians did not so much acquiesce as concede they had no options.

The war did not go as well as history records. The bombing campaign did not force capitulation and NATO was not prepared to invade Kosovo. The air campaign continued inconclusively as the West turned to the Russians to negotiate an end. The Russians sent an envoy who negotiated an agreement consisting of three parts. First, the West would halt the bombing campaign. Second, Serbian army forces would withdraw and be replaced by a multinational force including Russian troops. Third, implicit in the agreement, the Russian troops would be there to guarantee Serbian interests and sovereignty.

As soon as the agreement was signed, the Russians rushed troops to the Pristina airport to take up their duties in the multinational force — as they had in the Bosnian peacekeeping force. In part because of deliberate maneuvers and in part because no one took the Russians seriously, the Russians never played the role they believed had been negotiated. They were never seen as part of the peacekeeping operation or as part of the decision-making system over Kosovo. The Russians felt doubly betrayed, first by the war itself, then by the peace arrangements.

The Kosovo war directly effected the fall of Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The faction around Putin saw Yeltsin as an incompetent bungler who allowed Russia to be doubly betrayed. The Russian perception of the war directly led to the massive reversal in Russian policy we see today. The installation of Putin and Russian nationalists from the former KGB had a number of roots. But fundamentally it was rooted in the events in Kosovo. Most of all it was driven by the perception that NATO had now shifted from being a military alliance to seeing itself as a substitute for the United Nations, arbitrating regional politics. Russia had no vote or say in NATO decisions, so NATO’s new role was seen as a direct challenge to Russian interests.

Thus, the ongoing expansion of NATO into the former Soviet Union and the promise to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO were seen in terms of the Kosovo war. From the Russian point of view, NATO expansion meant a further exclusion of Russia from decision-making, and implied that NATO reserved the right to repeat Kosovo if it felt that human rights or political issues required it. The United Nations was no longer the prime multinational peacekeeping entity. NATO assumed that role in the region and now it was going to expand all around Russia.

Then came Kosovo’s independence. Yugoslavia broke apart into its constituent entities, but the borders of its nations didn’t change. Then, for the first time since World War II, the decision was made to change Serbia’s borders, in opposition to Serbian and Russian wishes, with the authorizing body, in effect, being NATO. It was a decision avidly supported by the Americans.

The initial attempt to resolve Kosovo’s status was the round of negotiations led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari that officially began in February 2006 but had been in the works since 2005. This round of negotiations was actually started under U.S. urging and closely supervised from Washington. In charge of keeping Ahtisaari’s negotiations running smoothly was Frank G. Wisner, a diplomat during the Clinton administration. Also very important to the U.S. effort was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, another leftover from the Clinton administration and a specialist in Soviet and Polish affairs.

In the summer of 2007, when it was obvious that the negotiations were going nowhere, the Bush administration decided the talks were over and that it was time for independence. On June 10, 2007, Bush said that the end result of negotiations must be “certain independence.” In July 2007, Daniel Fried said that independence was “inevitable” even if the talks failed. Finally, in September 2007, Condoleezza Rice put it succinctly: “There’s going to be an independent Kosovo. We’re dedicated to that.” Europeans took cues from this line.

How and when independence was brought about was really a European problem. The Americans set the debate and the Europeans implemented it. Among Europeans, the most enthusiastic about Kosovo independence were the British and the French. The British followed the American line while the French were led by their foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who had also served as the U.N. Kosovo administrator. The Germans were more cautiously supportive.

On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized rapidly by a small number of European states and countries allied with the United States. Even before the declaration, the Europeans had created an administrative body to administer Kosovo. The Europeans, through the European Union, micromanaged the date of the declaration.

On May 15, during a conference in Ekaterinburg, the foreign ministers of India, Russia and China made a joint statement regarding Kosovo. It was read by the Russian host minister, Sergei Lavrov, and it said: “In our statement, we recorded our fundamental position that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo contradicts Resolution 1244. Russia, India and China encourage Belgrade and Pristina to resume talks within the framework of international law and hope they reach an agreement on all problems of that Serbian territory.”

The Europeans and Americans rejected this request as they had rejected all Russian arguments on Kosovo. The argument here was that the Kosovo situation was one of a kind because of atrocities that had been committed. The Russians argued that the level of atrocity was unclear and that, in any case, the government that committed them was long gone from Belgrade. More to the point, the Russians let it be clearly known that they would not accept the idea that Kosovo independence was a one-of-a-kind situation and that they would regard it, instead, as a new precedent for all to follow.

The problem was not that the Europeans and the Americans didn’t hear the Russians. The problem was that they simply didn’t believe them — they didn’t take the Russians seriously. They had heard the Russians say things for many years. They did not understand three things. First, that the Russians had reached the end of their rope. Second, that Russian military capability was not what it had been in 1999. Third, and most important, NATO, the Americans and the Europeans did not recognize that they were making political decisions that they could not support militarily.

For the Russians, the transformation of NATO from a military alliance into a regional United Nations was the problem. The West argued that NATO was no longer just a military alliance but a political arbitrator for the region. If NATO does not like Serbian policies in Kosovo, it can — at its option and in opposition to U.N. rulings — intervene. It could intervene in Serbia and it intended to expand deep into the former Soviet Union. NATO thought that because it was now a political arbiter encouraging regimes to reform and not just a war-fighting system, Russian fears would actually be assuaged. To the contrary, it was Russia’s worst nightmare. Compensating for all this was the fact that NATO had neglected its own military power. Now, Russia could do something about it.

At the beginning of this discourse, we explained that the underlying issues behind the Russo-Georgian war went deep into geopolitics and that it could not be understood without understanding Kosovo. It wasn’t everything, but it was the single most significant event behind all of this. The war of 1999 was the framework that created the war of 2008.

The problem for NATO was that it was expanding its political reach and claims while contracting its military muscle. The Russians were expanding their military capability (after 1999 they had no place to go but up) and the West didn’t notice. In 1999, the Americans and Europeans made political decisions backed by military force. In 2008, in Kosovo, they made political decisions without sufficient military force to stop a Russian response. Either they underestimated their adversary or — even more amazingly — they did not see the Russians as adversaries despite absolutely clear statements the Russians had made. No matter what warning the Russians gave, or what the history of the situation was, the West couldn’t take the Russians seriously.

It began in 1999 with war in Kosovo and it ended in 2008 with the independence of Kosovo. When we study the history of the coming period, the war in Kosovo will stand out as a turning point. Whatever the humanitarian justification and the apparent ease of victory, it set the stage for the rise of Putin and the current and future crises.

George Friedman is chairman of Strategic Forecasting, Inc.  http://stratfor.com/ , dubbed by Barron’s as “The Shadow CIA,” it’s one of the world’s leading global intelligence firms, providing clients with geopolitical analysis and industry and country forecasts to mitigate risk and identify opportunities. Stratfor’s clients include Fortune 500 companies and major governments.

                          ==========

A Note I Sent to You — Three Years Ago

Friday, August 29, 2008

I’m am speechless after listening to Barack Obama’s speech last night. So I’m sending you something I wrote to you two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. It remains every bit as relevant today, on Katrina’s 3rd anniversary, as when I wrote it on September 11, 2005. Please give it another look. Here it is in full:

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush… from Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I’m just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that, the man you re-elected to lead us AFTER we were attacked, went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That’s right. Horse shows.

I really want to know — and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect — how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C’mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don’t start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that, after the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have… zero experience in emergency preparedness (!), do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military, and have never seen young men die in battle, send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?!

With the nation’s debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn’t he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That’s not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him at some fundraiser with John McCain. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a “flyover” in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2,500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read “My Pet Goat” to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying “Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you’re doing a heck of a job!”

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn’t up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren’t up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn’t a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

(And my idea now, some three years later, is that they seek forgiveness and redemption by voting for Barack Obama — or just stay home on November 4.)

P.S. An excellent film on Katrina, “Trouble the Water,” is currently playing around the country. Go see it!

                          ==========

Borowitz Report – McCain Veep Shocker

August 29, 2008

McCain: Obama Lacks Experience Running 5,000-Person Town in Alaska

Extolls Veep Pick’s Qualifications
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) used the announcement of his vice-presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin,  to blast the experience of his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), arguing that Sen. Obama has never been the mayor of a 5,000-person town.

“The Presidency of the United States of America is the toughest job on the planet,” Sen. McCain said.  “And my friends, the best testing ground for that job is being the mayor of a 5,000-person town in Alaska.”

Sen. McCain unleashed a savage attack on Sen. Obama, claiming that his Democratic opponent would be “at a loss” when faced with the challenges of running a 5000-person municipality in Alaska.

“Let’s say a constituent calls you and says that a caribou has wandered onto his front lawn,” he said.  “My friends, Barack Obama wouldn’t know what to do.”

He used the hypothetical situation to draw a sharp contrast with his vice-presidential choice: “Sarah Palin would take out her gun and shoot the caribou.”

Mr. McCain said that an understanding of foreign affairs, Congress, and other issues that a president has to deal with is “overrated,” adding, “That’s what ‘Presidency for Dummies’ is for.”

While saying that her “vast experience” was the main reason he selected Gov. Palin, Sen. McCain said that she also had the other three qualifications he was looking for in a vice president: “She is pro-life, pro-drilling, and willing to housesit.”

Upcoming Events

September 23, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Columbus
Come see Andy at his first-ever Columbus, Ohio show! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center

September 24, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Cleveland
Andy comes home to Cleveland for one show only! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Pickwick & Frolic, 2035 East 4th Street

October 22, 2008 at 8:00PM

Countdown to ’08
Andy hosts “Countdown to the Election, with special guests Joy Behar (The View) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of “The Nine”)

Location:
92nd Street Y in NYC
For tickets go to www.92y.org

November 2, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in New Haven
Spend “An Evening with Andy Borowitz” in New Haven on Sunday, November 2. Cocktails before the show start at 6:30

Location:
Joseph Slifka Center at Yale
For tickets go to JewishNewHaven.org

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

                          ==========

And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

Democratic convention delegates were reported Thursday to have been very drunk in Denver bars every night. It just takes one at that altitude. It was foolish to schedule a tribute to the hundredth anniversary of Mark Twain’s I Have a Drink speech.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

                          ==========

three thousand words

Ann Cleaves: why don’t they hire legal workers??

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/CleavA/2008/CleavA20080829_low.jpg

Dick Locher: air traffic control – our computer is down! …

http://img.slate.com/media/91/080828_ed.gif

Trouble Town (Lloyd Dangle): reality

http://troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttownclassic.gif

August 2008 Southwest Climate Outlook

The August Southwest Climate Outlook is online. This month’s outlook provides recent drought conditions and the latest seasonal forecasts. The feature article is entitled “Phenology, citizen science, and Dave Bertelsen.”  This month’s cover photo was provided by Zack Guido. You can both view the latest Southwest Climate Outlook in html format or view the printer-friendly PDF file at:

http://tinyurl.com/5bocag (www.climas.arizona.edu)

Highlights from the August 2008 Outlook

Drought – Monsoon precipitation and heavy rains from Hurricane Dolly have improved drought status for most of New Mexico; nearly all of Arizona remains abnormally dry with improvement in drought status occurring only in the Southeast.

Temperature – During the past 30 days, northern and western Arizona generally were 1–4 degrees F above average. In New Mexico, the higher elevations and southwestern areas saw 1–3 degree F below-average temperatures, while the remainder of the state had 1–3 degrees F above-average temperatures.

Precipitation – The White Mountains and the far southeastern corner of Arizona have been relatively wet. Central New Mexico has received 130–300 percent of normal precipitation and the Navajo Nation area has received only 5–25 percent of average.

Monsoon – Monsoon precipitation since July 1 has been above average in most of the Southwest; southeast Arizona and most of New Mexico have receive more than 125 percent of average rainfall, with some locations receiving more than 200 percent.

ENSO – ENSO is in a neutral phase with conditions characterized by slightly above-average eastern Pacific and slightly below-average western Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs); the entire basin has near-average SSTs.

Climate Forecasts – Slightly above-average temperatures in Arizona and New Mexico between May and July are mostly consistent with the long-lead temperature forecast.

The Bottom Line – Monsoon storms have delivered variable but copious amounts of precipitation. In many parts of New Mexico, monsoon rain is above average. These rains have helped New Mexico experience widespread short-term drought improvements. Extremely dry conditions in northern Arizona counties have harmed many crops.

Kristen E. Nelson
Associate Editor
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
715 N. Park Ave., 2nd FloorTucson, AZ 85721(520) 622-9001

                          ==========

Yet Another Kind of Fake News

Source: MinnPost.com, August 18, 2008

As more newspapers and other media outlets cut staff, public relations and advertising make gains. The Minnesota-based firm ARAnet provides “free print and Web content. … More than 65 of the nation’s top 100 newspapers, including the Star Tribune, use” ARAnet content, which “carries client messages.” ARAnet president Scott Severson says his firm provides “high-quality consumer content” that “just happen[s] to be underwritten by our clients.” ARAnet clients pay $4,500 for content creation, tracking and reporting; media outlets use it for free. One ARAnet article “offered to auto sections” was sponsored by Lexus. Severson explains, “The article was about safety systems and mentioned Lexus. The best advertising doesn’t look like advertising.” It also doesn’t carry clear disclosure. ARAnet’s “online articles typically are identified as sponsored content,” but its “print articles merely carry an ‘ARA’ designation, similar to the ‘AP’ identifier that runs with Associated Press articles.” Other ARAnet clients include Home Depot, Microsoft, Best Buy and UPS.

                          ==========

Mind Control Technology.

CRG E-Newsletter
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Defense Intelligence Agency Seeking “Mind Control” Weapons
By Tom Burghardt

Global Research, August 24, 2008
Antifascist Calling…

http://tinyurl.com/6ftg66
 

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council (NRC) argues that the Pentagon should harvest the fruits of neuroscientific research in order to enhance the “warfighting” capabilities of U.S. soldiers while diminishing those of enemy personnel.

The 151-page report issued by a 16-member blue ribbon commission, “Cognitive Neuroscience Research and National Security,” was quietly announced in an August 13 National Academy of Sciences Press Release.

http://tinyurl.com/5hkaag (www8.nationalacademies.org)

Commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon spy shop, the study asserts that the U.S. intelligence “community” must do a better job following cutting-edge research in neuroscience or as is more likely, steering it along paths useful to the Defense Department. According to the NRC,

A 2005 National Research Council report described a methodology for gauging the implications of new technologies and assessing whether they pose a threat to national security. In this new report, the committee applied the methodology to the neuroscience field and identified several research areas that could be of interest to the intelligence community: neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological states and intentions of individuals, the development of drugs or technologies that can alter human physical or cognitive abilities, advances in real-time brain imaging, and breakthroughs in high-performance computing and neuronal modeling that could allow researchers to develop systems which mimic functions of the human brain, particularly the ability to organize disparate forms of data. (“National Security Intelligence Organizations should Monitor Advances in Cognitive Neuroscience Research,” National Academy of Sciences, Press Release, August 13, 2008)

Unlocking the secrets of the brain is projected as the next growth industry for the military, academia and corporate grifters hoping to land huge Pentagon contracts. As defense analyst Noah Shachtman reported in Wired, the “Army has given a team of University of California researchers a $4 million grant to study the foundations of “synthetic telepathy.” Unlike “remote viewing” research funded by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency between 1972 and 1996, variously known as “Grill Flame,” “Sun Streak” and finally, “Star Gate” before the plug was pulled, the Army-U.C. Irvine joint venture are exploring thought transmission via a brain-computer mediated interface.

Recently New Scientist reported on a series of bizarre experiments at the University of Reading in the UK. Researchers there have connected 300,000 disembodied rat neurons suspended in “a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics” to 80 electrodes at the base of the growth medium. As journalist Paul Marks informs us, the “rat neurons have made–and continue to make–connections with each other.” The voltages sparked by the firing cells are displayed on a computer screen.

Welcome to the “brave new world” of neural prosthetics and the militarists who are exploiting science and technology for new weapons applications.

…

Complete article at:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9931

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press.

Electronic binoculars from Northrop Grumman to detect threats through brain activity

23 Aug. 2008

Everyone who has ever watched the Star Wars films has probably at one moment wished they had Jedi abilities such as mind control or what Lucas called Jedi reflexes – knowing something will happen a second before it does. A team led by Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems Sector is looking to bring a similar threat detection capability to warfighters as part of an advanced research contract to develop a panoramic day/night optical system that will utilize human brain activity to detect, analyze, and alert foot-soldiers to possible threats.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/6xu83v (mae.pennnet.com)

From: CLG News

                          ==========

Bankruptcy Filings Near Million Mark for 12-Month Period Ending

June 30, 2008

U.S. Courts: “In the 12-month period ending June 30, 2008, there were 967,831 bankruptcy cases filed, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That is a 28.9 percent increase compared to filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2007, when cases totaled 751,056. Historic data on bankruptcy filings is available on the Judiciary’s website under Bankruptcy Statistics.”

http://tinyurl.com/atomz (www.uscourts.gov)

                          ==========

SYNTHETIC FUELS FOR COMBAT AIRCRAFT

U.S. Air Force researchers have developed a promising alternative fuel for the F-15E Strike Eagle. The fuel, a combination of jet fuel and a natural-gas-based synthetic, got its first full test at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia on August 19.

The test demonstrated the safety of the alternative fuel and met the high performance standards for combat aircraft, according to Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification office.

The work on new fuels comes from a directive from the Air Force Secretary to move the entire fleet to synthetic fuels by 2011.

DETAILS: United States Air Force

www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123111838

From:

FUTURIST UPDATE September 2008 www.wfs.org

                          ==========

EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – Energy in Brief — What are biofuels and how much do we use?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

What are biofuels and how much do we use?

Biofuels are liquid fuels produced from biomass materials and are used primarily for transportation. The term biofuels most commonly refers to ethanol and biodiesel. In 2007, the United States consumed 6.8 billion gallons of ethanol and 491 million gallons of biodiesel…

Read the entire Brief:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/biofuels_use.cfm

                          ==========

EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – This Week in Petroleum (TWIP)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

This Week in Petroleum (TWIP) has been updated to the EIA website:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

You might also be interested in the following product from EIA.

Petroleum Navigator:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_top.asp

                          ==========

Is Oil the Future? Even If It Is, Would Offshore Oil Drilling Do Anything?

By Dan Shapley
 

Offshore drilling became a campaign issue as gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon. Public opinion polls show that not only do Americans want their elected leaders to do something about it, but they think drilling for oil on the continental shelf is a great idea.

Public opinion, however, isn’t made up of enough geologists, engineers, Wall Street trader or energy policy experts to have all the facts straight.

Drilling for oil in the outer continental shelf, primarily off the coasts of California and Florida, would yield about 200,000 barrels a day, but not for 10 years, according to an Energy Information Administration analysis. Even if companies drill more oil (some estimate there’s 400,000 or even 1 million barrels a day available, at current prices) or access it more quickly, there wouldn’t be enough, most experts agree, to have a significant effect on prices. That said, changing the offshore drilling policy might influence the futures market in the short-term, since traders react to news about impending supply and demand changes.

Drilling for oil can be done more cleanly than in the decades when offshore oil drilling was banned after a spill in California, but it still poses risk to the ocean environment. The bigger issue is what investing in new oil supply means, strategically: Is the United States of the future going to be relying on oil, or moving to renewable alternative fuels – ethanol, biodiesel, electric cars and the like? If it will, then investing so much in a policy that won’t affect gas prices for a decade makes no sense. If, however, America just isn’t ready to give up oil, than it may be more ethical to drill for it here than to outsource the environmental risk.

What’s a President to Do?

President Bush already lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling, so all that remains in the way, legally, is Congress. Therefore, the next president would be able to affect change only by throwing around political weight.

Sen. John McCain’s Position on Offshore Oil Drilling

Offshore drilling holds the No. 1 position in John McCain’s energy policy and stump speech. Drill here now is a common refrain.

Sen. Barack Obama’s Position on Offshore Oil Drilling

Obama would accept offshore drilling only as part of a compromise to achieve broader energy policy goals, which include massive investments in renewable and alternative energy.

http://tinyurl.com/62sd3q (www.thedailygreen.com)

                          ==========

And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

Condi Rice flew to Israel and Ireland Tuesday after assessing the situation in Iraq. She wanted to reassure Ireland and Israel because they’re afraid we’re going in alphabetical order. They’re just lucky that cars don’t run on blintzes or potatoes.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

                          ==========

three thousand words

Tom Tomorrow: What’s your favorite Stupid Campaign Season Distraction?

http://tinyurl.com/5cjoyh (politicalirony.com)

Steve Benson: gop hoax exposed

http://tinyurl.com/6q2of5 (www.azcentral.com)

Ann Cleaves: the surge is working!

http://tinyurl.com/5lc6u4 (editorialcartoonists.com)

WOMEN’S RIGHTS  -  Debunking The Spin Campaign

According to a 2008 Planned Parenthood Action Fund poll, many pro-choice voters are under the impression that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would protect women’s rights, particularly in the area of reproductive rights. Forty-six percent of women supporting McCain said they’d like to see Roe v. Wade upheld, and a quarter of the all the pro-choice women polled thought McCain’s views were consistent with theirs. The poll reflects the need for greater awareness of McCain’s record, as 51 percent of female voters in battleground states don’t know what McCain’s positions are on women’s reproductive health issues. The poll numbers also hint at a spin campaign from McCain and his surrogates to portray a “maverick” image on women’s issues and cover up his hard-right record. McCain’s long opposition to birth control measures, fair pay legislation, and his support for conservative justices such as Sam Alito and John Roberts — who have undermined women’s rights on the Supreme Court  — underscore his poor support for women.

THE REALITY: McCain said in 2006 that he would repeal Roe v. Wade. His campaign website calls for overturning Roe, returning the issue of abortion to the states, and then building “the necessary consensus to end abortion at the state level.” “I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies,” he told Pastor Rick Warren this month. Planned Parenthood and NARAL have both given him a zero rating on abortion issues. According to NARAL, of 130 congressional votes by McCain related to reproductive freedom, 125 have been against abortion. “I’ve got a consistent zero from NARAL throughout all those years,” he trumpets. On other reproductive health issues, McCain toes the right-wing line, having voted against requiring health care plans to cover birth control, comprehensive sex education, public education for emergency contraception, and restoring Medicaid funding for family planning for low-income women. “The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn,” McCain told the New York Times in March 2007, referring to the vociferously anti-abortion Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). McCain has also supported anti-women’s rights judges such as Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

THE SPIN: McCain and his campaign, however, have wildly misrepresented McCain’s record on reproductive health. McCain supporter Debra Bartoshevich said at a press conference yesterday that McCain is pro-choice, referring to a 1999 quote of McCain saying that “overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t make any sense.” McCain chief surrogate Carly Fiorina in July suggested that McCain opposes “health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won’t cover birth-control medication,” forgetting that in 2003, McCain voted against legislation requiring coverage of birth control. Fiorina falsely told women in Ohio this year that McCain “has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade.” “When pressed to speak about [women's issues], he often evinces stunning ignorance, a fact that helps reassure the moderate middle that he could not possibly be as conservative as his record suggests,” Sarah Blustain of The New Republic observes this week. In July, a reporter asked McCain if it is “unfair” that insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. “I certainly do not want to discuss that issue,” he said, pausing uncomfortably for several seconds. “It’s something that I had not thought much about.” When asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV, he paused, finally answering, “You’ve stumped me. … I think I support the president’s policy.”

“The Progress Report” thinkprogress.org

                          ==========

MCCAIN SURROGATE FALSELY SUGGESTS MCCAIN DOES NOT WANT TO OVERTURN ROE

By Faiz Shakir, Think Progress

More multi-messaging from team McCain.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/reproductivejustice/96311/

                          ==========

ABC, NBC reported on ad of Clinton supporter backing McCain without noting her false suggestion that McCain supports abortion rights

The evening newscasts on ABC and NBC each aired a portion of a McCain campaign ad featuring Clinton supporter Debra Bartoshevich. But neither noted that at a Republican press conference, Bartoshevich reportedly falsely suggested that Sen. John McCain does not support overturning Roe v. Wade. In fact, McCain’s campaign website says that he “believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned.”

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200808260024?lid=547272&rid=13250974

                          ==========

Finding the Mess Behind the Mess

By TYLER COWEN

August 23, 2008

A BURSTING real estate bubble set off the Japanese recession of the 1990s, which deepened as ailing banks languished. It took Japan’s economy more than a decade to resume steady, noticeable growth.

Will this happen to the United States? Probably not, but we may face a protracted process of recovery, stretching longer than the two or so years usually required to climb out of recession.

Behind every financial crisis there is usually a crisis in the real economy, based in some underlying structural deficiency. Even if the financial crisis is bottoming out, sooner or later the real crisis must be faced.

The fundamental problem in the American economy is that, for years, people treated rising asset prices as a substitute for personal savings. The thinking went something like this: As long as your home’s value rose every year, you didn’t have to set aside so much from your paycheck. If your stocks went up, too, so much the better; don’t forget that the Dow Jones industrial average stood in the 800 range in 1982 and seemed to rise almost nonstop for many years.

Of course, asset prices haven’t been rising much lately, so many people will need more savings for their retirement or for possible emergencies.

The need to save more sharpens a number of interrelated secondary problems. First, America is aging. More people than ever are entering the years when they stop saving and start spending their nest eggs. That means the transition to higher-than-expected savings may be drawn out and painful.

The second problem is that the American economy is enduring a credit crisis, with many banks trying to raise more capital and make fewer loans. Savings are good for the economy when they lead to investment, but there is no guarantee that financial institutions will be allocating capital efficiently.

The third problem is that lower consumer spending will require the American economy to make some shifts. That may mean fewer Starbucks and fewer new homes but more tractor production for export to foreign markets. In the long run, shifting some consumption to investment is probably beneficial to the economy; in the short run it means job losses and costly readjustments.

In addition, there are still excess homes on the market, and housing prices need to fall further. Of course, such price declines can make banks less solvent and thus worsen the credit crisis. And politicians would like to moderate this fall in prices, again prolonging the adjustment process.

On top of all that is the largely separate matter of energy prices. High prices will encourage conservation and cleaner energy alternatives, but voters want low gasoline prices and winter heating bills. Politicians see lower energy prices as a way to help the economy in the short run — and as a way to win votes.

The evolution of energy prices may not follow any kind of desirable logic. There’s also the danger that the Fed will view high energy prices as a sign of permanent inflation and tighten money supply growth prematurely.

What should policy makers do? One path that is likely to prove counterproductive is further fiscal stimulus in the form of tax rebates. Such stimulus can raise consumer spending and bolster the economy in the short run, but it works — if it works at all — only by pushing consumers to spend rather than to save. It merely postpones needed adjustments by providing a grab bag of goodies at exactly the wrong time.

Excessive bank regulation is another danger. To be sure, the regulatory structure for financial institutions failed in the current crisis, and change is in order. But we shouldn’t reform in a way that will discourage bank lending and weaken the tie between savings and investment. Banks are already allergic to very risky mortgages — probably excessively so — and we shouldn’t overreact by punishing them for past mistakes.

In other words, regulatory reform needs to be forward-looking rather than focused on penance. Given that politics often revolves around assigning blame, it’s not obvious that we will succeed in this task.

Emerging from the current slowdown isn’t just a matter of political will or smart central banking. If the recipe for success requires smooth adjustment into new growth sectors, more savings from disposable income, cleaning up the housing mess, well-functioning energy markets, and more effective financial intermediation — all in the right combinations and in the right sequences — neither the government nor the Federal Reserve can control this process. The Fed can add regulatory and monetary clarity, but there isn’t any magic bullet. Beware of anyone who tells you there is.

The Japanese failed to break out of their recession quickly because they didn’t promptly close down or clean up their problem banks. So far, the Fed and other regulators show no signs of making this mistake; they have been vigilant in resolving crises as they occur. But that’s not enough to guarantee a successful transition. The American economy will be tested for its deftness — and the test will be difficult precisely because there isn’t a single enemy on which to focus.

HAVE you ever tried to undo a bunch of tangled wires or cords? If you don’t pull on the right wires in the right order, the mess becomes worse. If you pull too hard, the whole thing can break. But if your first pulls are good ones, the untangling becomes easier with each move.

That’s like our economy’s situation today. If we expect too much too quickly, we’ll make matters worse. But there is a way out of the mess, and it lies in our hands.

Be careful, and start pulling.

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

http://tinyurl.com/4333zf  (www.nytimes.com)

                          ==========

THE VILLAINS OF THE HOUSING CRISIS ARE DENYING ALL RESPONSIBILITY

By Dean Baker, TruthOut.org

The housing crisis is a result of reckless deregulation by specific individuals.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/96433/

                          ==========

EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – Petroleum Supply Monthly

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Petroleum Supply Monthly

The August Petroleum Supply Monthly with June data has been updated to the EIA website on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

Petroleum Supply Monthly website:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/fwd/psm.html

Petroleum Navigator:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_top.asp

                          ==========

US Budget Watch – “Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter’s Guide to the 2008 Election.”

http://www.usbudgetwatch.org/files/crfb/usbw082108promises.pdf

Introduction:

The two major political parties’ presidential candidates are campaigning on a lengthy list of policy initiatives, most of which would have significant impact on the federal budget. While not all of these proposals will become law, they do reflect the candidates’ values and priorities, and the policies each candidate is likely to pursue once in office. In addition to these new initiatives, a number of outstanding tax and budget issues exist that will need to be addressed, such as which of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be made permanent, how to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, what to do about growing entitlement spending, how to control health care cost growth, and how to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The next president will face difficult fiscal challenges. It is therefore critical that voters understand the potential budgetary impacts of the candidates’ plans.

US Budget Watch’s report, Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election, will help voters find their way through the thicket of policy proposals put forward by the likely Republican candidate for president, Senator John McCain, and the likely Democratic candidate for president, Senator Barack Obama. It presents a capsule summary of the candidates’ major policy proposals and includes an estimate of the likely fiscal impact of each proposal. The guide is not intended to express a view for or against either candidate or any specific policy proposal. This report will be followed by other more detailed reports on the candidates’ tax and spending proposals.

…

                          ==========

GOP to Counter Dem Convention With New Strategy: It’s the Obama, Stupid

By R J Shulman

26 Aug 2008

(Satire) The Post Times Sun Dispatch has obtained a copy of the memo which sets forth the new Republican strategy. As you all know, the last time the Democrats won the White House it was due in large part to the clever Clinton people coming up with the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” We won the White House back with “It’s the stupid, stupid,” the idea Americans wanted a cuddly but dumb President, a guy just as moronic as the guy you would sit and have a beer with. McCain is just not that cuddly. As a matter of fact, the less the American people know about the flip-flopping, war mongering, anger driven, over the hill McCain, the better. So in order to get this race close enough to steal, we have to make this campaign about how bad Obama is and that McCain is not Obama. Hence the slogan — “It’s the Obama, stupid.”

At:
http://tinyurl.com/6ln5my (www.legitgov.org)

From: CLG News

                          ==========

Borowitz Report – Obama Kids Shocker

August 26, 2008

New McCain Ad Attacks Obama Kids
Cute, Not Ready to Lead, Ad Claims

In what might be his most controversial attack ad in a campaign dominated by them, presumptive G.O.P. presidential nominee John McCain today launched a new TV spot attacking Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill)’s two children.

According to political insiders, a negative ad targeting a rival’s offspring is highly unorthodox, especially when the children in question are under the age of ten.

But after the two Obama kids scored in their performance on national television last night at the Democratic convention, “we had to do something to give the American people some straight talk on those two brats,” Sen. McCain said today.

In the ad, which is being broadcast in key swing states, an announcer intones, “They’re the cutest children in the world – but are they ready to lead?”

The spot uses visuals to link the two Obama kids to other famously cute kids, such as the young Drew Barrymore and the Cabbage Patch dolls.

The commercial goes on to blast the Obama children for “smiling and giggling but refusing to state their position on offshore oil drilling.”

While some critics questioned how well the ad would play in living rooms across America, Sen. McCain defended it, telling reporters, “It played very well in all of my living rooms.”

Upcoming Events

September 23, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Columbus
Come see Andy at his first-ever Columbus, Ohio show! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center

 

September 24, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Cleveland
Andy comes home to Cleveland for one show only! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Pickwick & Frolic, 2035 East 4th Street

 

October 22, 2008 at 8:00PM

Countdown to ’08
Andy hosts “Countdown to the Election, with special guests Joy Behar (The View) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of “The Nine”)

Location:
92nd Street Y in NYC
For tickets go to www.92y.org
November 2, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in New Haven
Spend “An Evening with Andy Borowitz” in New Haven on Sunday, November 2. Cocktails before the show start at 6:30

Location:
Joseph Slifka Center at Yale
For tickets go to JewishNewHaven.org

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

                          ==========

three thousand words

Jimmy Margulies: … this president will never surrender …

http://tinyurl.com/57ywxy  (editorialcartoonists.com)

Tony Auth: Every home needs a 14 bus garage, and a swift boathouse.

http://tinyurl.com/5c85hv (politicalirony.com)

Mr. Fish(Dwayne Booth): here oil, oil, oil …

http://www.cagle.com/working/080806/booth.jpg

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read! September 27 – October 4, 2008

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups–or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.

According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007. The 10 most challenged titles were:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes

4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle

8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

…

Complete article at:

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/info.html

==========

CEO of Nigeria gets a solicitation from the Fed Chairman

FROM: Dr Ben Bernanke
Central Bank of United States of America
01-658-555-1234

TO: CEO
Lagos, Nigeria

Dear Friend:

I have been requested by the regional members Federal Reserve of the USA to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Federal Reserve of the USA has recently concluded a large number of contracts for credit derivative investment vehicles “CDIV” in the Wall Street region of the USA. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equaling US$40,000,000. The Federal Reserve of the USA is desirous of CDIV in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the USA Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region.

Your assistance is requested as a non-USA citizen to assist the Federal Reserve of the USA, and also the investment bank community of Wall Street USA, in moving these funds out of USA. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your Nigerian account, then you can forward the funds as directed by the Federal Reserve of USA. In exchange for your accommodating services, the Federal Reserve of USA would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or Nigerian $4 million of this amount.

However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to USA law, you must presently be a depositor of at least $100,000 in a USA bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of USA. If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in New York, NY USA, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of the Wall Street USA, as well as with certain officials of the Central Bank of USA.

Please call me at your earliest convenience at +1-212-555-1234. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the USA Government will realize that the Central Bank is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.

Yours truly,

The Esteemed Arch-Chairman

==========

Inequity between top executives and average workers remains at jaw-dropping levels.

Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0825/p16s01-wmgn.html

By David R. Francis
August 25, 2008

Some 77 percent of Americans polled last year felt that corporate executives “earn too much.” Most corporate boards apparently disagree. Last year, although the nation’s economy was already in trouble, they gave the chief executive officers of the Standard & Poor’s 500 largest companies on average a 2.6 percent pay hike to $10,544,470….

So are CEOs worth their fancy pay, as they usually argue?

A new study by ECONOMISTS ULRIKE MALMENDIER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and Geoffrey Tate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, cast some doubt for some “CEO superstars.” After gaining fame and prestigious awards from business magazines and others for their corporate performance, they are rewarded with even more pay. But in the next three years their firms underperform by 15 to 20 percent compared with firms of non-prize-winning executives.

Ms. Malmendier suspects the CEOs are too busy writing books, sitting on other company boards, taking prestigious public service jobs, and improving their golf handicaps.

==========

Executive Excess 2008 – How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay – 15th Annual CEO Compensation Survey, August 25, 2008

“CEOs in the United States, despite our current hard economic times, continue to pocket outlandishly large pay packages. S&P 500 CEOs last year averaged $10.5 million, 344 times the pay of typical American workers. Compensation levels for private investment fund managers soared even further out into the pay stratosphere. Last year, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million each, more than 19,000 times as much as typical U.S. workers earned.”

http://faireconomy.org/files/executive_excess_2008.pdf

==========

I’ve Written a Book I’d Like You to Read …a note from Michael Moore

This morning my new book officially goes on sale. It has a fancy title: “Mike’s Election Guide.” It’s cheap ($11.19 on Amazon). It’s got a cool quote on the back cover from Republican congressman Tom Davis: “The Republican brand is in the trash can … If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf.”

And it’s got 200+ pages of facts and ideas that you won’t read anywhere else, like:

** Does John McCain think it’s right to drop bombs on civilians in (his words) “heavily populated” cities?

** The only reason Social Security is running out of money is because people who make over $102,000 a year pay NO social security tax on what they make over $102,000 (if they did, we’d have enough money in Social Security for the next 75 years!).

** Bring back the draft — but only draft the rich. If they have to serve, they won’t be so eager to start ridiculous wars.

** Despite what you’ve heard, we actually pay more “taxes” than France or any European country — and get none of the benefits they receive.

** Why we must arrest Misters Bush and Cheney as they slip out of the White House this coming January 20th for the crimes they have committed.

The early reviews are in. The New York Daily News declares that “Mike’s Election Guide” “takes no prisoners.” The Associated Press calls it “a manual of mockery for the 2008 presidential election.” And the St. Petersburg Times says that “Mike’s Election Guide” is a “mix of outrageous humor, passionate partisanship and common sense.” The McClatchy Newspaper chain calls it a “no-holds-barred examination of our politics. Pages explode with so much humor, you’ll find yourself laughing out loud at Moore’s sharp wit on serious topics such as health care, childcare, taxes and terrorism.” And this piece from AlterNet lays out my reasoning for telling the whole truth about what John McCain did in the Vietnam War — and asks why everyone else seems afraid to bring this up.

I’ve written this book to give you some good arguments to make as you discuss the election with family and friends. And I’ve laid out the 12 Senate seats and 30 House seats we can win — and how to do that.

I need to warn you — I don’t let the Democratic Party bigwigs off the hook. I challenge them to have a spine, to not repeat the past mistakes they’ve made in the past two elections, and I ask them why they’re so afraid of Republicans (“Is it true that Democrats still drink from a sippy cup and sleep with the light on?”).

I hope you get a chance to read my book and that it gives you a good (and needed) laugh — and also a bit of inspiration as we head toward that fateful day on November 4th.

Thanks for all your support of my work. I wish all of us well as we have but ten weeks to go before Redemption Day!!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Join Mike’s Mailing List
http://tinyurl.com/5oumjz (www.michaelmoore.com)

Join Mike’s Facebook Group
http://tinyurl.com/56egzr (www.new.facebook.com)

Become Mike’s MySpace Friend

http://www.myspace.com/mmflint

==========

EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – Today’s Gasoline Prices

Monday, August 25, 2008

Due to the Federal government holiday on Monday of next week, the retail gasoline prices will be released on Tuesday by 5:00 P.M. (Eastern standard time). The data will still represent Monday’s prices.

RETAIL GASOLINE: (Self Service Prices per Gallon, Including Taxes) This report contains price estimates for gasoline sold in ozone non-attainment areas which require the sale of reformulated gasoline (RFG) as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and Conventional areas which includes both attainment areas and carbon monoxide non-attainment areas.

Mogas web site url

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/fwd/wrgp.html

==========

Reliability of oil supply, demand forecasts challenged

Doris Leblond
OGJ (Oil & Gas Journal) Correspondent

PARIS, Aug. 22 — The discrepancies between actual world oil supply and demand and the forecasts provided by leading agencies—the International Energy Agency, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the US Department of Energy—show an unreliable track record since 2001, indicated a study recently carried out by Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Lewis.

In his assessment of global oil demand and non-OPEC supply growth, Lewis found that, with the exception of 2003-04, all three agencies have been too optimistic about the strength of oil demand, with OPEC the most cautious. All three agencies have been too optimistic about non-OPEC production growth, with DOE the least bullish and therefore the most accurate in its forecasts.

Concerning global oil demand growth since 2001, Lewis found that forecasts have been “quite similar” in their under or overestimation, with OPEC the most accurate over the decade. Lewis worked out that in absolute percentage terms, since 2002 OPEC has averaged a forecasting error of 53.5%, compared with IEA’s and DOE’s error rates hovering at 70-75%. OPEC’s greater demand forecast caution “may help to explain its reluctance to increase oil quotas and production for fear of bearish implications for the oil price,” said Lewis.

However, in 2003-04, “all three agencies underestimated the surge in global oil demand and specifically the strength in Chinese and US oil demand during those years,” he noted. The discrepancy was large in 2004 as DOE forecast demand growth of some 1.6 million b/d whereas the actual increase exceeded 2.5 million b/d. In contrast, in 2005 DOE overstepped market demand accuracy by forecasting a 2 million b/d growth compared with the actual 1.3 million b/d.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/5mu5fy (www.ogj.com)

==========

Geopolitical Weekly : The Real World Order

August 18, 2008
By George Friedman

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.

The global system is suffering from two imbalances. First, one nation-state, the United States, remains overwhelmingly powerful, and no combination of powers are in a position to control its behavior. We are aware of all the economic problems besetting the United States, but the reality is that the American economy is larger than the next three economies combined (Japan, Germany and China). The U.S. military controls all the world’s oceans and effectively dominates space. Because of these factors, the United States remains politically powerful — not liked and perhaps not admired, but enormously powerful.

The second imbalance is within the United States itself. Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United States remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

As Iraq pulled in the bulk of available forces, the United States did not shift its foreign policy elsewhere. For example, it remained committed to the expansion of democracy in the former Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, to include Ukraine and Georgia. From the fall of the former Soviet Union, the United States saw itself as having a dominant role in reshaping post-Soviet social and political orders, including influencing the emergence of democratic institutions and free markets. The United States saw this almost in the same light as it saw the democratization of Germany and Japan after World War II. Having defeated the Soviet Union, it now fell to the United States to reshape the societies of the successor states.

Through the 1990s, the successor states, particularly Russia, were inert. Undergoing painful internal upheaval — which foreigners saw as reform but which many Russians viewed as a foreign-inspired national catastrophe — Russia could not resist American and European involvement in regional and internal affairs. From the American point of view, the reshaping of the region — from the Kosovo war to the expansion of NATO to the deployment of U.S. Air Force bases to Central Asia — was simply a logical expansion of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a benign attempt to stabilize the region, enhance its prosperity and security and integrate it into the global system.

As Russia regained its balance from the chaos of the 1990s, it began to see the American and European presence in a less benign light. It was not clear to the Russians that the United States was trying to stabilize the region. Rather, it appeared to the Russians that the United States was trying to take advantage of Russian weakness to impose a new politico-military reality in which Russia was to be surrounded with nations controlled by the United States and its military system, NATO. In spite of the promise made by Bill Clinton that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union, the three Baltic states were admitted. The promise was not addressed. NATO was expanded because it could and Russia could do nothing about it.

From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation. In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States.

If the United States had intended to break the Russian Federation once and for all, the time for that was in the 1990s, before Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and before 9/11. There was, however, no clear policy on this, because the United States felt it had all the time in the world. Superficially this was true, but only superficially. First, the United States did not understand that the Yeltsin years were a temporary aberration and that a new government intending to stabilize Russia was inevitable. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. Second, the United States did not appreciate that it did not control the international agenda. Sept. 11, 2001, took away American options in the former Soviet Union. No only did it need Russian help in Afghanistan, but it was going to spend the next decade tied up in the Middle East. The United States had lost its room for maneuver and therefore had run out of time.

And now we come to the key point. In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia’s southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The American calculation was that the Russian government would not confront American interests in the region. The Russian calculation was that it could not wait to confront these interests because the United States was concluding the Iraq war and would return to its pre-eminent position in a few short years. Therefore, it made no sense for Russia to wait and it made every sense for Russia to act as quickly as possible.

The Russians were partly influenced in their timing by the success of the American surge in Iraq. If the United States continued its policy and had force to back it up, the Russians would lose their window of opportunity. Moreover, the Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the Unit ed States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.

http://www.stratfor.com

                          ==========

Jack Cafferty: Is McCain another George W. Bush?

Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/18/cafferty.mccain/index.html

By Jack Cafferty

NEW YORK (CNN) — Russia invades Georgia and President Bush goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas, on vacation.

His time away from the Oval Office included the month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.

Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California.

I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain didn’t bother to show up. Now I know why.

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. “It means I’m saved and forgiven.” Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we’ve all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day.

He was asked “if evil exists.” His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to “the gates of hell.” That was it.

He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question — his wife is worth a reported $100 million — he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich.

One after another, McCain’s answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has — virtually none.

Where are John McCain’s writings exploring the vexing moral issues of our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education, America’s moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the “Straight Talk Express” for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he’s reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner — short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush’s record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens’ faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one- liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

From: http://democrats.com/

==========

Borowitz Report – Convention Shocker

August 25, 2008

Bill Clinton’s Denver Speech to be on Five-second Delay
‘Just in Case,’ Convention Planners Say

Former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver Wednesday night will be broadcast on a five-second delay similar to that used to screen callers on talk radio programs, party officials confirmed today.

The five-second delay, customarily used to censor callers who might use profanity or other unacceptable speech on a radio show, has never before been used in the broadcast of a speech by a former President of the United States, experts believe.

But convention planners, nervous that Mr. Clinton might depart from his prepared remarks in an unacceptable way, said that they were using the delay “just in case.”

“We hope and expect that Bill Clinton will give a stirring and perfectly acceptable speech, by broadcast standards,” said DNC chairman Howard Dean. “However, if we see his face turning red and his forehead starting to throb, we’ll be there to pull the plug.”

For his part, former President Clinton said that he was “surprised” by the DNC’s decision to institute the five-second delay, but added, “It’s just like those motherfuckers.”

Upcoming Events

September 23, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Columbus
Come see Andy at his first-ever Columbus, Ohio show! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center

September 24, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Cleveland
Andy comes home to Cleveland for one show only! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Pickwick & Frolic, 2035 East 4th Street

October 22, 2008 at 8:00PM

Countdown to ’08
Andy hosts “Countdown to the Election, with special guests Joy Behar (The View) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of “The Nine”)

Location:
92nd Street Y in NYC
For tickets go to http://www.92y.org

November 2, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in New Haven
Spend “An Evening with Andy Borowitz” in New Haven on Sunday, November 2. Cocktails before the show start at 6:30

Location:
Joseph Slifka Center at Yale
For tickets go to http://JewishNewHaven.orgJewishNewHaven.org

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

==========

three thousand words

Mike Peters: … his cone of silence

http://tinyurl.com/5mftjk (www.grimmy.com)

Mike Luckovich: I’ll have no comment on the lies and smears …

http://tinyurl.com/63yjpo (picayune.uclick.com)

Bruce Beattie: undecided voter 2008

http://tinyurl.com/67z7eq (editorialcartoonists.com)

NEW PULSE POSTED

Monday, August 25, 2008

http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v268_08.html

That’s the url to the August 25, 2008, 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:

* NETL: Studying CO2 in coal

* Livermore: ‘Frozen smoke’ in 3D

* Idaho: Nondestructive testing

* Los Alamos: ‘Hopping’ wireless net

Feature: NETL’s global methane hydrate research

Researcher profile: Ames Laboratory’s Dan Schechtman

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CFTC.gov Commitments of Traders Reports Update

The current reports for the week of August 22 are now available.

http://tinyurl.com/3ymzao (www.cftc.gov)

                          ==========

Norges Bank. – Commodity prices, interest rates and the dollar

Q. Farooq Akram

Oslo : Norges Bank, August 2008.  (Working paper ; no. 2008/12)

http://tinyurl.com/6jvmze  (www.norges-bank.no)

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U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. – Friends or foes? : the stock price impact of sovereign wealth fund investments and the price of keeping secrets

Jason Kotter, Ugur Lel

Washington : Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, August 2008.  (International finance discussion papers ; no. 940)

http://tinyurl.com/6jtn27 (www.federalreserve.gov)

                          ==========

Cubic Simulations Unveils Tactical Robot for Military, Law Enforcement Use

Orlando Sentinel, (07/15/2008), Richard Burnett

Law enforcement agencies may be able to add COUGAR, short for Combined Operations Unmanned Ground Assessment Robot, as a tool in their technology arsenal. The primary market for the developer, Cubic Simulation Systems, is military training simulator technology, but they are using COUGAR to expand their offerings to the public safety community. The units are capable of providing public safety organizations with audio and video capabilities that allow for a range of up to 500 feet, plus it is equipped with anti-detonation charges to aid in disarming explosives. Also, to assist SWAT teams with entry, the units can deliver flash-bang grenades in an effort to keep officers safe. Cubic designed the units to be rugged and inexpensive for agencies to acquire.

http://tinyurl.com/6hrtrs  (www.orlandosentinel.com)

                          ==========

I SPENT YEARS AS A POW WITH JOHN MCCAIN, AND HIS FINGER SHOULD NOT BE NEAR THE RED BUTTON

By Phillip Butler, Military.com

A fellow Vietnam POW of McCain’s warns of the candidate’s “quick and explosive temper” and suggests McCain is exaggerating his imprisonment.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/95825/

POW, FORMER CLASSMATE EXPOSES THE REAL MCCAIN

By  dday, Hullabaloo

He should have some fun with his newfound not-stardom, with all the not-appearing on news programs and not-being cited in the print media.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/95646/

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US Budget Watch – “Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter’s Guide to the 2008 Election.”

http://www.usbudgetwatch.org/files/crfb/usbw082108promises.pdf

Introduction:

The two major political parties’ presidential candidates are campaigning on a lengthy list of policy initiatives, most of which would have significant impact on the federal budget. While not all of these proposals will become law, they do reflect the candidates’ values and priorities, and the policies each candidate is likely to pursue once in office. In addition to these new initiatives, a number of outstanding tax and budget issues exist that will need to be addressed, such as which of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be made permanent, how to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, what to do about growing entitlement spending, how to control health care cost growth, and how to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The next president will face difficult fiscal challenges. It is therefore critical that voters understand the potential budgetary impacts of the candidates’ plans.

US Budget Watch’s report, Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election, will help voters find their way through the thicket of policy proposals put forward by the likely Republican candidate for president, Senator John McCain, and the likely Democratic candidate for president, Senator Barack Obama. It presents a capsule summary of the candidates’ major policy proposals and includes an estimate of the likely fiscal impact of each proposal. The guide is not intended to express a view for or against either candidate or any specific policy proposal. This report will be followed by other more detailed reports on the candidates’ tax and spending proposals.

…

                          ==========

Congressman Paul’s Texas Straight Talk

Freedom is Golden

“As the Olympics wind down, I am amazed at how things change every four years. Many Americans were glued to their televisions to watch the excitement from Beijing, and also heard announcers wax nostalgic with memories of times when the Soviet Union was the USA’s biggest competitor for Olympic gold. There was a time when it was unthinkable that a government as powerful as that of the Soviet Union’s could possibly crumble, yet crumble it did. The irony is that the strength of the Soviet government was also its weakness, as no country, no economic system can remain strong under the crushing burden that is central planning.”

Click here for the full article:

http://www.house.gov/paul/index.shtml

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Borowitz Report – Labor Day Shocker 

August 25, 2008

In Week Before Labor Day, Pointless ‘Filler’ Columns Abound
Lazy Columnists Pad Out Stories by Quoting Experts, Experts Say

In a phenomenon that occurs every year in the week before Labor Day, national columnists across America file pointless, content-free “filler” columns, enabling the lazy scribes to hit the beach earlier, according to observers who have been following this trend.

The “filler” columns are churned out in a matter of minutes with no loftier goal than meeting a deadline and filling up space — meaning that columnists will often resort to using the same words or phrase again and again and again and again and again.

And rather than doing any original writing, the slothful columnists will rely on so-called “experts” to supply them with quotes to fill up space, experts say.

“They’ll often quote people you’ve never heard of,” says Harold Crimmins, an expert in the field of filler columns. “It’s pretty shameless.”

The typical “filler” column is often a reprint of a previously published column, but the writer will later plug in one cursory reference to current events, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to disguise this fact.

And in order to fill up space even faster, Crimmins says, the lazy beach-bound columnist will compose his summer “filler” columns with short paragraphs.

Many of these paragraphs will be as short as one sentence, he says.

“Or shorter,” he adds.

There are other telltale signs a reader can look for in order to determine whether a writer has, in fact, filed a so-called “filler” column, according to Crimmins.

One of these is a tendency to repeat information that the reader has already read earlier in the article, with columnists even stooping to using the same quote twice.

“They’ll often quote people you’ve never heard of,” Crimmins says.

Another tip-off is if the column ends abruptly.

Upcoming Events
September 23, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Columbus
Come see Andy at his first-ever Columbus, Ohio show! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center
For tickets go to The Audacity of Jokes
September 24, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in Cleveland
Andy comes home to Cleveland for one show only! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200

Location:
Pickwick & Frolic, 2035 East 4th Street
For tickets go to The Audacity of Jokes
October 22, 2008 at 8:00PM

Countdown to ’08
Andy hosts “Countdown to the Election, with special guests Joy Behar (The View) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of “The Nine”)

Location:
92nd Street Y in NYC
For tickets go to www.92y.org
November 2, 2008 at 7:30PM

Andy in New Haven
Spend “An Evening with Andy Borowitz” in New Haven on Sunday, November 2. Cocktails before the show start at 6:30

Location:
Joseph Slifka Center at Yale
For tickets go to JewishNewHaven.org

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

                          ==========

three thousand words

Jim Morin: the happy warrior

http://tinyurl.com/55dtag (picayune.uclick.com)

John Branch: the four r’s

http://tinyurl.com/66d3tl (editorialcartoonists.com)

Cartoon du Jour – By Khalil: safety net

http://tinyurl.com/55lhak (www.bendib.com)