Someone is attempting to rewrite history!
Burn these Republican words into your mind

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 1:35 PM on December 11, 2006.

Ike's farewell...


On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower said goodbye to public office with an address that concluded with the words below [strangely, the Eisenhower Library's version and the audio in the video to the right, differ slightly. Brackets represent the text in the Library version omitted from the audio file...].

You're familiar with the warnings in this speech against the "military-industrial complex," but the subtler parts of the speech are every bit as powerful and refreshing...

As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

During the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

[Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.]

[Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.] Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war - as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years - I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So - in this my last good night to you as your President - I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith, that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace, with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

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Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.

"He's not an ordinary soldier, of course."
Harry's deployment poses royal challenge

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 19, 8:05 PM ET

LONDON - He's a freckle-faced royal rascal who has led a life of privilege. But Britain's Prince Harry is also an army officer — and he could soon be heading to
Iraq to face the reality of combat.


No matter that royal officials have said no decision about a deployment has been made, or that the Ministry of Defense has dismissed such reports as "entirely speculative." Newspapers are filling their pages about the security headache that a war zone assignment for Harry — who is third in line to the throne — could bring for the British army.

"Harry's always wanted to be treated as an ordinary soldier," the Daily Mail quoted an unidentified army source as saying. "He's not an ordinary soldier, of course."

When Harry, 22, left Sandhurst Military Academy last year, he became a second lieutenant and joined the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. At the time, the defense ministry said he could possibly be deployed to Iraq, but that there might be situations when the presence of a member of the royal family could increase the risk for his comrades.

Harry himself was having none of it.

"There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst, and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he said in a television interview to mark his 21st birthday.

"It's entirely understandable that he should want to go," said William Wallace, a professor emeritus of international relations at the London School of Economics and a British defense expert. "There's not much point of being in the army unless you experience the same things as your men."

Harry went to the elite all-boys school, Eton, and has been described as "one of the lads" by celebrity gossip magazine Hello! Harry is considered more impetuous than his elder brother Prince William; he has often been seen leaving posh London nightclubs — and once scuffled with a photographer.

Harry has also acknowledged drinking underage and smoking marijuana, and in January 2006, he apologized after being pictured in a national newspaper at a costume party dressed as a Nazi, including a swastika armband.

But he's also been photographed working with
AIDS orphans in Africa during a year spent abroad. And while Harry has been pictured with a beer or a cigarette in his hand, stories about his possible deployment to Iraq were accompanied by more dignified shots of the prince in battle gear.

Harry and William — who graduated from Sandhurst late last year and is also with the Blues and Royals — join a long line of royals in the military. Their uncle, Prince Andrew, served in the Falklands war as a Royal Navy pilot; Prince Philip, their grandfather, had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy during World War II.

Even
Queen Elizabeth II, their grandmother, served — she was trained as a driver in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II.

Amyas Godfrey, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, said Harry could do a number of jobs in Iraq. As a junior officer, that might mean patrolling the streets of Basra, working inside the command headquarters, or training Iraqi police officers.

"It would be untrue to say he will be like everyone else — and he'll want to be like everyone else — but he won't be able to because he is Prince Harry," said Godfrey, a former Army officer who has served in Iraq. Godfrey said that one of the biggest obstacles to the prince serving in the field is his recognizability, which could make him vulnerable to attack.

The Ministry of Defense said William technically could be deployed to Iraq. However, it was highly unlikely that the second in line to the throne would be placed in harm's way.

The publicity surrounding Harry's possible deployment in April could affect whether he is sent to Iraq, where Britain has about 7,500 troops, based mostly in Basra, 40 miles southeast of Baghdad. More than 100 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in 2003.

"I think the military will be very wary about getting it right — getting it right in the public eye," he said. "If he doesn't go, (the public) will say, bad decision, because they're treating him with kid gloves.

"If he does go and gets hurt, then it'll be a bad decision," Godfrey said. "The fact that it's in the public eye makes it a difficult decision."

Parallels are more revealing than an idiot like Bush can appreciate...! BIG HERO!
Bush looks to historic parallels for final legacy

By Steve Holland Sun Feb 18, 10:08 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the Lincoln Bedroom,
President George W. Bush likes to show off one of the most treasured historical artifacts in the White House, a handwritten copy of Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address.

The building's walls speak of past battles, victories, defeats, heartache. President George Washington's portrait hangs in the Oval Office. Civil War Commander and two-term President Ulysses Grant is placed in Bush's private study.

The Queen's Bedroom offers memories of Winston Churchill, who stayed there before and after World War Two, as Bush told C-SPAN, "waddling around ... with a cigar in one hand, a brandy in the other, demanding attention."

As Bush marks the Presidents Day holiday and George Washington's 275th birthday on Monday, he faces a drumbeat a criticism for the event that will likely be a big part of his legacy -- the
Iraq war.

The president believes it will take some time to determine his place in the pantheon of presidents, despite the negative assessments some historians have already made.

"I don't think you'll really get the full history of the Bush administration until long after I'm gone. I tell people I'm reading books on George Washington and they're still analyzing his presidency," Bush told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview last month.

Many in the current crop of historians are already prepared to declare Bush's presidency a failure.

In a December opinion article in The Washington Post, Columbia University history professor Eric Foner wrote that Bush was likely to join mediocre presidents like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

"Even after being repudiated in the midterm elections of 1854, 1858 and 1866, respectively, they ignored major currents of public opinion and clung to flawed policies. Bush's presidency certainly brings theirs to mind," Foner wrote.

Foner's article was headlined, "He's the worst ever."

BE LIKE IKE?

But Vanderbilt University history professor Thomas Alan Schwartz said it was too soon to judge Bush. "Presidential reputations tend to go up and down," he said.

He cited Dwight Eisenhower as a president whose stock has risen in the decades since he handed over power to John Kennedy in 1961.

"But Bush will face some enormous obstacles to being fully rehabilitated. Much does depend on Iraq, but even if that does not end in disaster -- still an open question -- the mistakes made in the occupation will be ascribed to him. Were Osama Bin Laden to be captured or killed before Bush leaves office, that could help, but the uncertainties involving
Afghanistan will also hurt him," Schwartz said.

Bush, a Republican, sees historical parallels in Democrat Harry Truman's presidency. Truman set in motion the Cold War doctrine that shifted U.S. foreign policy from one of getting along with the Soviet Union to trying to contain its expansion.

Bush sees his ultimate legacy as starting a years-long effort to check a radical Islamist militant movement from spreading globally. He sees Iraq as a central battleground.

"Today, at the start of a new century, we are again engaged in a war unlike any our nation has fought before. And like Americans in Truman's day, we are laying the foundations for victory," he said last May.

After Truman, presidents from Eisenhower to
Ronald Reagan confronted the Soviet threat. Will future presidents similarly continue to wage Bush's war on terrorism?

Many of the 2008 presidential candidates are searching for a way out of Iraq. Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), for example, says he would bring U.S. forces home by March 2008.

And Obama's comments on the war on terrorism, laid out in his February 10 speech announcing his candidacy, did not appear as muscular as the president's. He said terrorists could be tracked down with a stronger military and better intelligence.

"But let us also understand that ultimate victory against our enemies will come only by rebuilding our alliances and exporting those ideals that bring hope and opportunity to millions around the globe," Obama said.

The war for Independence was diredted by those who wanted to cut King George out of his slice of the Pie, dumb-ass!
Bush links terror war to independence war

By Steve Holland Mon Feb 19, 5:08 PM ET

MOUNT VERNON, Virginia (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush linked the U.S.-led war on terrorism on Monday to the country's struggle for independence led by George Washington more than 200 hundred years ago.

Bush visited the snow-covered grounds where Washington lived and died and which today is a popular tourist attraction.

Joined by his wife Laura, with a military honor guard wearing Revolutionary War uniforms standing at attention, Bush laid a wreath at the tomb of the first American president on the Presidents Day holiday to mark Washington's birth 275 years ago.

Standing before the Mount Vernon mansion and sharing the stage with an actor dressed as Gen. George Washington, Bush said Washington's Revolutionary War leadership inspired generations of Americans "to stand for freedom in their own time."

"Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone," Bush said.

"He once wrote, 'My best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom,"' Bush said.

Bush is locked in a dispute with the Democratic leaders of the U.S. Congress over his deployment of 21,500 more U.S. troops to
Iraq, which Bush considers a central front in the war on terrorism.

The House of Representatives voted last week to oppose his troop buildup in a nonbinding resolution, while a similar measure in the Senate failed to advance due to opposition from Bush's Republican allies.

The real test of Bush's Iraq policy is to come in weeks when the House and Senate consider the president's $100 billion request for funding wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Bush has vowed to fight hard against any attempt by members of Congress to reduce funding for U.S. troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801335.html?referrer=emailarticle
THE OTHER WALTER REED
The Hotel Aftermath
Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 19, 2007; Page A01

The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Oil paintings hang in the lobby of this strange outpost in the war on terrorism, where combat's urgency has been replaced by a trickling fountain in the garden courtyard. The maimed and the newly legless sit in wheelchairs next to a pond, watching goldfish turn lazily through the water.
Holding Pattern at Mologne House
Photos
Holding Pattern at Mologne House
Mologne House, on the grounds of the 113-acre Walter Reed Army Medical Center, opened in 1997 as a short-term lodging facility for military family members and retirees visiting Walter Reed and Washington. But the hotel has been completely overtaken by the war-wounded, housing some 300 soldiers, Marines and their family members.

Today's story is the second of a two-part series on outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Sunday's story and a collection of photographs of Cpl. Dell McLeod and his wife, Annette, who lived at a short-term facility for outpatients for 14 months, can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/nation.

Chat: Staff writers Dana Priest and Anne Hull will be online Tuesday at 12 p.m. to answer questions about this story at www.washingtonpost.com/

liveonline.

WASHINGTON POST RADIO

Priest and Hull will also discuss this story at 7:30 a.m. today.

Tune in to 1500 AM, 107.7 FM

More on Walter Reed
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients.


Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, an amputee, was at Walter Reed for 16 months. He expressed frustration with his time there, calling it a 'nonstop process of stalling.' (Michel du Cille -- The Washington Post)
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But the wounded of Mologne House are still soldiers -- Hooah! -- so their lives are ruled by platoon sergeants. Each morning they must rise at dawn for formation, though many are half-snowed on pain meds and sleeping pills.

In Room 323 the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., but Cpl. Dell McLeod slumbers on. His wife, Annette, gets up and fixes him a bowl of instant oatmeal before going over to the massive figure curled in the bed. An Army counselor taught her that a soldier back from war can wake up swinging, so she approaches from behind.

"Dell," Annette says, tapping her husband. "Dell, get in the shower."

"Dell!" she shouts.

Finally, the yawning hulk sits up in bed. "Okay, baby," he says. An American flag T-shirt is stretched over his chest. He reaches for his dog tags, still the devoted soldier of 19 years, though his life as a warrior has become a paradox. One day he's led on stage at a Toby Keith concert with dozens of other wounded Operation Iraqi Freedom troops from Mologne House, and the next he's sitting in a cluttered cubbyhole at Walter Reed, fighting the Army for every penny of his disability.

McLeod, 41, has lived at Mologne House for a year while the Army figures out what to do with him. He worked in textile and steel mills in rural South Carolina before deploying. Now he takes 23 pills a day, prescribed by various doctors at Walter Reed. Crowds frighten him. He is too anxious to drive. When panic strikes, a soldier friend named Oscar takes him to Baskin-Robbins for vanilla ice cream.

"They find ways to soothe each other," Annette says.

Mostly what the soldiers do together is wait: for appointments, evaluations, signatures and lost paperwork to be found. It's like another wife told Annette McLeod: "If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."

After Iraq, a New Struggle

The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post.

The luckiest stay at Mologne House, a four-story hotel on a grassy slope behind the hospital. Mologne House opened 10 years ago as a short-term lodging facility for military personnel, retirees and their family members. Then came Sept. 11 and five years of sustained warfare. Now, the silver walkers of retired generals convalescing from hip surgery have been replaced by prosthetics propped against Xbox games and Jessica Simpson posters smiling down on brain-rattled grunts.

CONTINUED 1 2 3 4 5 Next >

Bite me.
Traumatized US soldiers being treated in 'virtual Iraq'

by Rob Woollard Sun Feb 18, 7:53 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Traumatized US soldiers are being treated for post-war psychological disorders by going out on patrol in a computer-generated "virtual
Iraq," experts told a conference.

Skip Rizzo, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, has helped create a program that simulates life in the war zone for Iraq veterans suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The ground-breaking treatment allows soldiers to experience the sights, sounds and even the smells of a war-zone, courtesy of wrap-around goggles linked to a startlingly realistic virtual world.

The idea is to re-introduce veterans to the experiences that have inflicted mental scars until gradually they are no longer haunted by the memories, a long-established therapeutic technique known as "exposure therapy."

"What we do is put somebody in a virtual Iraq but at a level where initially there will be minimal anxiety," Rizzo said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting.

"Say for example their trauma event was being blown up in a Humvee -- we might start them off just standing in the desert next to a Humvee.

"Gradually we would put them in the Humvee and have them start driving down a desert road. Eventually over the course of the therapy you introduce elements that increase the realism -- bombs going off, things blowing up.

"It's a gradual exposure to a realistic environment which you can't really do just through imagination."

Soldiers undergoing the treatment can be placed in a variety of situations -- either as the passenger, driver or gunner in an armored vehicle or as a soldier on a foot patrol walking through an Iraqi city.

"You could be walking down one street and a child will come up to greet you, you could be walking down another street and a car explodes," Rizzo said.

The virtual Iraq experience is designed to be completely immersive.

Fake aromas -- including gunpowder, burning smoke, diesel fuel, body odors, exotic spices and roast mutton -- are wafted under the patient's nose.

The boom of bombs is simulated by giant speakers placed under the patient's chair. "If you've ever stopped at a set of traffic lights and a kid has pulled up next to you playing rap music and you can feel your car shaking -- it's the same principle," Rizzo said.

The realism of the graphics has impressed patients, Rizzo said. "We've have had people ask us in certain situations 'Is that real or is that video?'," Rizzo said.

So far the 'Virtual Iraq' has been used in clinical trials at 10 locations across the United States, although only four soldiers have completed a course of the treatment.

One of the first successful patients was a 21-year-old female treated for PTSD. "She was a support staff person that had frequent exposure to suicide bombing sites and areas where there was significant human carnage," Rizzo said.

"I'm very conscious about making any grand claims about this treatment yet because there is such a small group of patients. But the early results have been encouraging," Rizzo said.

An object destined to miss us eventually hits us because we deflect it... Can't play Shapes! DON'T play Nine Ball!
UN urged to take action on asteroid threat

By Irene Klotz Sat Feb 17, 8:03 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the
United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.

Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.

Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for
NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.

"It's not just Apophis we're looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue," Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the moon in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Francisco.

Schweickart plans to present an update next week to the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space on plans to develop a blueprint for a global response to an asteroid threat.

The Association of Space Explorers, a group of former astronauts and cosmonauts, intends to host a series of high-level workshops this year to flesh out the plan and will make a formal proposal to the U.N. in 2009, he said.

Schweickart wants to see the United Nations adopt procedures for assessing asteroid threats and deciding if and when to take action.

The favored approach to dealing with a potentially deadly space rock is to dispatch a spacecraft that would use gravity to alter the asteroid's course so it no longer threatens Earth, said astronaut Ed Lu, a veteran of the
International Space Station.

The so-called Gravity Tractor could maintain a position near the threatening asteroid, exerting a gentle tug that, over time, would deflect the asteroid.

An asteroid the size of Apophis, which is about 460 feet

long, would take about 12 days of gravity-tugging, Lu added.

Mission costs are estimated at $300 million.

Launching an asteroid deflection mission early would reduce the amount of energy needed to alter its course and increase the chances of a successful outcome, Schweickart said.

NASA says the precise effect of a 460-foot (140-meter) object hitting the Earth would depend on what the asteroid was made of and the angle of impact.

Paul Slovic, president of Oregon-based Decision Research, which studies judgment, decision-making and risk analysis, said the asteroid could take out an entire city or region.

Guatemala: Pursuing justice for Claudina Velasquez' killing
Claudina Velasquez
Claudina Velasquez? AI

“Claudina was killed by one thing: impunity…Claudina’s killer knew that the likelihood of him being found was very remote.”
– Claudina’s father

19 year-old university student Claudina Velasquez had been studying to become a lawyer when her dead body was found on 13 August 2005. She had been shot and traces of semen were found on her body.

As serious deficiencies have been reported in the investigation into Claudina's murder, her killers may not be brought to justice. For example, no tests were performed on the primary suspects to establish whether or not they had fired a gun. A high number of similar cases in Guatemala are shelved on the grounds of lack of evidence, due to poor quality investigations.

Families seeking help from the authorities are often faced with indifference and discrimination, and a particularly worrying tendency to blame the victim's behaviour or background for their death.

"The investigator said they thought Claudina was a nobody because she was wearing sandals and a belly button ring."
- Claudina's father

Despite such obstacles, Claudina's family have been active in pursuing justice. They have been in close contact with the Public Prosecutor’s Office exerting pressure to ensure that the investigations are not abandoned, proposed lines of investigation, and have even carried out their own independent inquiries. Even so, no significant progress has been achieved.

In November 2005, recognizing the deficiencies in the investigation into Claudina's murder, the head of the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Against Life took over. Since then investigations have effectively restarted, including the blood samples of five suspects being sent to Spain for DNA analysis. While this is a positive step, it is likely that critical forensic evidence has now been lost, and so far, no significant progress has been achieved. Possible witnesses have still not been interrogated.

Due to the lack of results, Claudina's family has denounced the case before the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office. The Office’s preliminary report on Claudina’s case, presented in October 2006, highlighted many of the deficiencies mentioned above. Attention was drawn to the inadequate processing of the crime scene, and the initial police assumption that Claudina was a sex worker. This included the failure to run basic forensic tests on her clothing, which was instead returned unexamined to her family.

New lines of investigation must be opened. Were a thorough and effective investigation to be carried out, the potential to find Claudina's killers would be high.

Take action!

Write to the Guatemalan President to ask for urgent investigations into Claudina Velasquez' murder.
Dear President Berger Perdomo, I am calling for the investigation into Claudina Velasquez’ murder, currently under the responsibility of the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Life, to be conducted in a coordinated, comprehensive and effective manner so that those found to be responsible can be brought to justice without further delay. The effectiveness of investigations into all cases of abduction and murder of women and girls must be improved in the future, for example by ensuring that police investigators and forensic experts receive intensive training in investigative procedures and techniques. Particular attention to training in the collection and preservation of forensic evidence in relation to gender-based violence should be paid, in accordance with international standards. I urge you to strengthen the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Witness Protection Programme to ensure the safety of all witnesses to crime and that of their family members. The authorities must address the high rate of violent crimes against women in Guatemala by overturning discriminatory legislation, which perpetuates violence against women and fosters a climate of impunity for crimes against women and girls. Yours sincerely,


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President of the Republic of Guatemala
Presidente de la Republica de Guatemala
Licenciado Oscar Berger Perdomo
Casa Presidencial, 6a. Avenida, 4-18 Zona 1.
Ciudad de Guatemala
Guatemala

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Tet, 2007, and whatever animal it is this time...I don't have a place-mat in front of me...
Chinese crowds greet the New Year with a bang

By Lucy Hornby Sun Feb 18, 2:17 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Bright, deafening explosions and thick smoke covered China's capital at midnight, as Beijingers celebrated the beginning of the New Year and the end of a firework ban in exuberant fashion.


Chrysanthemum bursts several stories high alternated with loud strings of crackers at every intersection, with scant regard for passing bicycles or milling crowds.

"I hope that during the Year of the Pig I get really rich, and will be healthy and joyous," said Deng Yu, a white collar worker enjoying the cacophony with his friends near Beijing's ancient Bell and Drum Towers.

"I also hope my parents will stay healthy, and my friends -- a lot of them, all of them around the world can be peaceful and happy."

Chinese cities have been gradually loosening firework restrictions, instituted over decade ago due to fire and safety concerns. This year was the first that fireworks were allowed throughout Beijing.

The city recruited 20,000 workers to sweep the streets of red firework debris that collected centimeters thick in some areas.

The volume of text messages, or SMSs, spiked by 40 percent as Chinese wished each other a prosperous Year of the Golden Pig. Children born when the gold and pig years coincide, or once every sixty years in the Chinese lunar calendar, are supposed to have a fat and easy life.

On Sunday, the first day of the New Year, an estimated 40,000 people jammed into Beijing's largest Daoist Temple to burn incense and make a wish. Religion is making a comeback after decades in which China's communist rulers tried to ban or co-opt "feudal superstition."

A recent poll by Shanghai-based East China Normal University found that nearly one-third of Chinese, or about 300 million, are religious. But most worshippers standing in line at the Baiyun Temple, built in 1224, were more pragmatic than theological.

"I hope I can be blessed with happiness and my dreams will come true. But as for whether I am religious...as long as I get my wish that's enough," said Ling Bencui, waiting in line to have her incense thrown in the flames.

The Chinese New Year marks the world's largest human migration, as millions of workers overload trains and buses in the struggle to get home and feast with their families. This year, China's people will collectively make 2.2 billion trips.

The overstretched system leaves some in the cold. Housecleaner Liu Jin spent a lonely midnight on the train, since she couldn't buy a ticket that would get her home early enough to join her family.

"I was the second in line when the tickets went on sale, but already not a single ticket was available. Those jerks at the Ministry of Railways had sold them all out the back door," said Liu, a widow whose son and mother live hundreds of miles away in Harbin.

"I was so mad I marched over to the police to complain, but they said 'what could they do?' China has too many people."

(Additional reporting by Eve Johnson)

Word at the barber shop is the team will be named, "The Mob!"
Las Vegas shoots for an NBA team
Sin City hosts All-Star weekend, but gambling is the deal-breaker on having a pro team.
By Michael A. Hiltzik, Times Staff Writer
February 16, 2007

Don't bet on it!

LAS VEGAS — To hear Mayor Oscar Goodman tell it, this city of extravagance has everything: the best hotels, the best entertainment, the best retail shopping, the most spectacular events.

But the one sign of a major league city that it lacks is, well, a major league team. The mayor wants to fix that — and he thinks playing host to Sunday's National Basketball Assn. All-Star game will help his city's case.

The NBA has never played its showcase game in a city without an NBA team. Goodman, who made his fortune as a defense lawyer representing Las Vegas mobsters, is prone to crowing already about its apparent Vegas success.

"You want tickets, fuhgeddaboutit, it's sold out," he says.

He sees local support for the game as evidence that his "great American city" would be a great home for a professional sports team.

But Goodman's city also is Sin City, a community commonly regarded as a great place to carouse. And the mayor faces a tough sell.

For starters, NBA Commissioner David Stern says Goodman is mistaken if he thinks the league is using the game to test the Las Vegas waters.

The attraction of Las Vegas as an All-Star venue, he said, was the availability of hotel rooms and convention space for all the activities that surround the game.

"But that's a different analysis from the one that goes on with respect to whether a city can support a franchise," Stern said.



One problem: gambling

And then there's gaming. Nevada is the only state in which sports gambling is legal.

As the NBA commissioner put it in an interview with The Times: "If they'll take the NBA off the board" — that is, eliminate betting on league games — "we could consider Las Vegas for an NBA franchise."

Many gambling and sports experts say Stern's demand is anachronistic when 48 of the 50 states have legalized gambling in some form.

"There's a little disconnect between the people in the leagues and the reality of what gambling is in the United States," says David Schwartz, a gaming industry expert at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "Gambling today is strictly regulated."

That reassurance doesn't seem to impress pro league officials, many of whom fear even the public perception that gamblers might fix a game to fill their own pockets. The nationwide prevalence of legalized gambling, moreover, has not fully dispelled its unsavory aura.

As for the NBA, Stern says, it is concerned about gambling more as a distraction than as a moral issue or a threat to the game's integrity. He says he wants customers focused on what's happening on the basketball courts, not among oddsmakers.

"Historically, there's a notion that most of our fans are basketball fans," he says, "not point-spread fans."

The quest to bring a top sports franchise to town dates back years. With a population of 1.7 million, the Las Vegas metropolitan area is equal to or larger than many communities that have major league football, basketball, hockey and baseball teams.

Its population has more than doubled since 1990, but the prominence of gambling has been an enduring obstacle to major league interest.

More recently, Goodman has made landing a sports franchise a cornerstone of mayoral policy. In a January "state of the city" speech, Goodman pledged: "This is going to be the year that we are going to be involved with serious discussions about having a professional sports team locate in Las Vegas."


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Not all the big money opportunists think they should support Republican hooey!

Financier Soros puts millions into ousting Bush


Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday November 12, 2003
The Guardian

George Soros, one of the world's wealthiest financiers and philanthropists, has declared that getting George Bush out of the White House has become the "central focus" of his life, and he has put more than $15m (#9m) of his own money where his mouth is.

Mr Soros argues that the Bush White House is guided by a "supremacist ideology" that is leading it to abuse US power in its dealings with the rest of the world, and creating a state of permanent warfare.

Article continues
He has mounted a single-minded campaign involving a book, magazine and newspaper articles as well as multi-million dollar donations to liberal groups, all aimed at defeating President Bush in the November 2004 elections, a contest he describes as "a matter of life and death".

The Hungarian emigre and finance genius has given nearly $5bn to oppose dictators in Africa, Asia and the former Soviet bloc, but now he is directing his energies at the elected leader of his adopted country.

"It is the central focus of my life," he told the Washington Post in an interview published yesterday, after announcing a donation of $5m to a liberal activist organisation called MoveOn.org. The gift brings the total amount in donations to groups dedicated to Mr Bush's removal to $15.5m.

Other pledges of cash have gone to America Coming Together (ACT), an anti-Bush group that proposes to mobilise voters against the president in 17 battleground states. Mr Soros and a friend, Peter Lewis, the chairman of a car insurance company, promised $10m.

Mr Soros has also helped to bankroll a new liberal think-tank, the Centre for American Progress, to be headed by Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta, which will aim to counter the rising influence of neo-conservative institutions in Washington.

The 74-year-old investor, who made a fortune betting against the pound in the late 80s and against the dollar this year, is to lay out the reasons for his detestation of the Bush administration in a book to be published in January, titled The Bubble of American Supremacy, a polemic which he has half-jokingly dubbed the 'Soros Doctrine'.

In the book, he will argue that the US is doing itself immeasurable harm by its heavy-handed role in the world. "The dominant position the United States occupies in the world is the element of reality that is being distorted," he writes, according to an excerpt to be published in next month's Atlantic Monthly magazine. "The proposition that the United States will be better off if it uses its position to impose its values and interests everywhere is the misconception. It is exactly by not abusing its power that America attained its current position."

The Bush administration's "war on terrorism" cannot be won, he argues, but is instead ushering in "a permanent state of war". He uses the emotive terms like "supremacist ideology" deliberately, saying that some of the rhetoric coming from the White House reminds him of his childhood in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

"When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans," he said in yesterday's interview. "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me."

His remarks have infuriated the Republican party, which has accused him of promoting his interests with the steady flow of money to like-minded institutions, and avoiding federal limits on donations to political parties - an allegation which Democrats consistently level at big business for its links with the Republicans.

"George Soros has purchased the Democratic party," said Christine Iverson, a Republican national committee spokeswoman.

So, yadda, yadda, yadda, everyone is still getting hosed, right? Wait till everyone starts dying of Measles!
Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work

By Sue Pleming Sat Feb 17, 10:32 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in
Iraq.

Now she is back home, angry, and convinced that
President George W. Bush's new strategy of doubling the number of such groups to 20 along with a troop surge of 21,500 will not help stabilize Iraq.

A diplomat for 22 years, she quit her job last month as leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- groups made up of about 50 civilian and military experts that try to help Iraqi communities build their own government while strengthening moderates.

"In spite of the magnificent and often heroic work being done out there by a lot of truly wonderful people, the PRTs themselves aren't succeeding. The obstacles are too great," Munshi said this week in Washington, where she was pressing her view at the State Department and to Congress.

"Once again we are proceeding to lay people's lives on a line drawn with faulty information. Once again the fantasies of the 'policy-makers' drive decisions without much link to the realities on the ground," said Munshi, who retired from the foreign service in 2002 .

Her postings included Romania, India and Sierra Leone before Iraq, where Munshi said he had felt a "moral obligation to sort out the mess we have made there."

An audit by the special inspector general for Iraq last October found similar problems with the PRTs to those listed by Munshi, including an "ever-changing security situation, the difficulty of integrating civilian and military personnel, the lack of a finalized agreement on PRT operational requirements and responsibilities."

REJECTION

Members of Congress have also been critical of the program, which suffered early on from not being able to attract enough civilian staff and a dispute between the State and Defense departments over who would provide security for the teams.

The Bush administration rejects Munshi's views and the State Department said the expanded PRT plan was more focused, requiring team members to do pre-deployment training and with a clear goal of bolstering moderates and sidelining militants.

"We have been very mindful of the problems our PRT leaders have reported to us. We have worked very hard to streamline it," said Barbara Stephenson, the deputy coordinator for Iraq at the State Department, which oversees the PRT plan.

Munshi said the PRT plan was ill-conceived, under-funded and poorly staffed.

She said security was so bad that the council in the town in Diyala province where she was based had not had a quorum since last October and that death squads were rife.

PRT members found it hard to meet with Iraqis because of intimidation, she said, giving the example of training sessions that had been canceled because of poor security.

The PRTs are embedded with the military, a tactic Munshi says has varying results depending on the ability of the unit.

"All the PRTs embedded with the military are subject to the vicissitudes of military fortune, for good or ill," she said.

But the State Department countered that Munshi's experiences were not repeated in all the provinces and set up interviews with two PRT leaders who said while there were difficulties, they believed their work was making an impact.

Stephanie Miley, a PRT leader in the Iraqi town of Tikrit, said her teams managed to get out to see Iraqi officials five or six times a week but security issues meant they could not stay for long.

"I just hope that people will recognize that this is not something we will achieve overnight," she said.

Japan's fisher folk don't seem to get what motivates Greenpeace! Greed darkens the souls of all who approach!
Japan turns down Greenpeace help on whaling ship

Sat Feb 17, 5:21 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has turned down an offer from Greenpeace to tow a whaling ship that caught fire off the Antarctic coast, recalling that activists of the conservation group had boarded the same vessel almost a decade ago.

The fire broke out the Nisshin Maru, the 8,000 ton flagship of the Japan whaling fleet, on Thursday, sparking fears that it could spill oil or chemicals.

Japan's Fisheries Agency said in a statement that the fire had killed at least one Japanese seaman on board.

Maritime authorities said anti-whaling protesters in the Southern Ocean, which clashed with the whalers earlier in the week, were not involved.

"The fire has almost been extinguished," Hideki Moronuki, a Japanese Fisheries Agency official in Tokyo, told Reuters on Saturday. "But it will take a while before we can go into the engine room and see whether the engines are okay and the ship can sail on its own."

Greenpeace had offered on Friday to tow the stricken boat with its converted salvage ship Esperanza as the Nisshin Maru wallowed without power less than 100 nautical miles from the world's largest Adelie penguin colony.

"We would appreciate their offer, but I don't think we will accept such an offer," Moronuki said, recalling that the vessel had been boarded by Greenpeace activists in New Caledonia in 1998 as it lay in port after another fire.

He said that if the ship failed to set sail on its own, Japan would ask for help from a Japanese tanker sailing close by.

Moronuki denied news reports that the ceiling of the engine room had burned down and there was a threat of sea pollution.

"These are malevolent reports. The Nisshin Maru is not carrying chemicals at all, except for fuel, and the ceiling of the engine room was not burned down," he said.

"There has been no oil leak and there will be no oil leak."

The fire, fueled in part by whale oil, burned in a factory area above the engine room and below the ship's bridge.

Maritime New Zealand spokesman Lindsay Sturt said on Friday that fears were easing of an oil or chemical leak spill after the crew managed to pump off excess water and correct the list to the ship.

After Army Posts were erected throughout the West, do you remember what happened next to the Indian Nations?
Italians protest U.S. base expansion

By COLLEEN BARRY, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 17, 2:52 PM ET

VICENZA, Italy - Tens of thousands of people marched through the northeastern Italian city of Vicenza under heavy police guard on Saturday to protest a planned U.S. military base expansion.

Despite fears that violent demonstrators would be drawn to the protest, the march took place without incident, finishing outside the main train station where it started, as hundred of police officers stood guard and helicopters hovered overhead. The route did not pass the airfield where the expanded base is to be built, where critics keep a permanent picket.

"The government majority — whether they agree with the protest or, like me, do not — welcomes that the demonstration in Vicenza finished in an orderly fashion," said Premier Romano Prodi, who had urged protesters to be peaceful. "This must be stressed."

Police estimated the crowd at 50,000 to 80,000, while organizers put the numbers at 120,000.

"To build a military base is not the gesture of a peaceful government," said 24-year-old city resident Simone Pasin, draped in a rainbow peace flag. "I think it's time to dismantle military bases and put up structures of peace."

Trains and buses brought in leftist activists and anti-globalization protesters from across Italy to support residents concerned that the expansion would increase traffic and noise and air pollution, deplete local resources and raise the risk of terrorist attacks.

Prodi's government has approved the project, angering his far-left allies. The Communist and Green parties, members of the governing coalition, have backed the protest, though no one from the government showed up after Prodi banned ministers from attending.

Prodi has said his government had no reason to halt the expansion, which also has been approved by local authorities.

The Ederle base has about 2,900 active duty military personnel. The expansion at the Dal Molin airport, on the other side of town, would allow the U.S. military to move four battalions now based in Germany, raising the number to 5,000.

The move is part of the U.S. Army's overall transformation into a lighter, more mobile force — reducing its numbers in Europe from a Cold War high of 480,000 to 88,000 by 2012. Under the plans, elements of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade, a rapid reaction unit now spread between Italy and Germany, would be united.

"I think it is a done deal. I don't think there is any turning back. This is what Prodi has said and what the local authorities have said," said David Bustamente, a spokesman at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. "This demonstration is about process."

Construction is scheduled to begin later this year and to be completed by 2011 at a total cost of $576 million. Before construction begins, a task force run by Italians has been set up to hear community concerns and make adjustments to the plans where possible.

"We're trying to show sensitivity, because we know people are concerned," Bustamente said.

The 173d Airborne Brigade, Europe's quick response force, is scheduled to redeploy soon for
Afghanistan.

Some in Italy's ruling coalition feared the demonstration might suggest anti-U.S. sentiment in the country, but despite the presence of some "Yankees Out!" T-shirts, the mood was more anti-military than anti-American.

"The problems is not that Americans are in Vicenza," said Pasin. "The problem is that there is a military base."

A group of Americans ignored a warning by the U.S. Embassy to avoid Vicenza and joined the protest behind a banner reading "Not in our name," cheered by passing Italians who shook their hands and snapped their photos.

"The U.S. should not build military bases, the U.S. should think of its domestic problems," said John Gilbert, an American living in Italy for the past 25 years who was in a group of about 20 Americans who had traveled from Rome and Florence.

Spineless Democrats are causing the continued loss of life, Schumer and Clinton at the top of the list!
Senate Republicans block Iraq measure

By Susan Cornwell and Donna Smith 2 hours, 47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans blocked the U.S. Senate on Saturday from considering a rebuke to
President George W. Bush's
Iraq troop buildup, but lawmakers vowed to continue waging a bitter struggle over war policy.

For the second time in two weeks, Republicans senators halted progress on a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's recent decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the resolution the day before.

The Senate's vote in favor of the resolution was 56-34; four short of the number needed to allow the full Senate to debate the measure.

The rare Saturday session came on a day U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit to Baghdad and asserted an U.S.-Iraqi military crackdown was off to a good start.

"The majority in the U.S. Senate just voted against the escalation of the war in Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), a Nevada Democrat. Seven Republicans, five more than the previous time, had voted for the measure.

"The Senate is not done with this issue," he added. "The Senate will keep trying to force
President Bush to change course in Iraq."

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), a Kentucky Republican, said the House resolution was a "nonsensical proposition" that asserted support of U.S. troops while disapproving of their mission.

"The Senate was created to block that kind of dealing and today it stops at the doors of this chamber," McConnell said.

Republican senators vowed to block all similar measures unless Democrats promise to also allow consideration of a proposal forbidding a cutoff of funds to U.S. troops.

THE NEXT BATTLE

Both Reid and McConnell mentioned a domestic-security bill coming soon to the Senate floor as a possible venue for their next battle over Iraq.

The 435-member House defied the Republican Bush on Friday, voting 246 to 182 against the troop increase. The measure does not, however, force the president to do anything, and the administration says the president's plan is underway.

The House measure passed with the support of 17 Republicans, many worried about their political fate if they stick with Bush on the unpopular war.

But in the Senate, a minority can block debate, and Democrats have only a 51-49 majority.

Senate Democrats said they would seek ways other than nonbinding resolutions to change Iraq policy, including revisiting the 2002 congressional authorization of the war.

Democrats would "ratchet up the pressure on the president, on those who are still on his side in terms of this policy, until they change," vowed Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), Democrat of New York. "We will be relentless."

McConnell said Republicans would keep trying to shift terms of the debate toward funding, arguing that if Democrats felt the war was wrong, they should vote to cut funds.

House Democrats are considering ways to restrict Bush's use of $93.4 billion in new war funds to keep him from using it for the troop buildup.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record) said Senate Democrats feared funding votes because it would put numerous presidential candidates on record on the contentious issue.

"If you did have this vote, the radical left would eat every Democratic hopeful for president alive," Graham said.

The White House also looked ahead to the funding battles.

"Both houses of Congress within a matter of weeks will conduct binding votes on a matter of cardinal importance for America's future security and global credibility: whether to fund the president's (spending) request for our military. The president urges both houses to approve his request," a White House statement said.