Wanna buy a used FEMA trailer?
FEMA is selling off used trailers

By JILL ZEMAN, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 7, 8:46 PM ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA is auctioning off at fire-sale prices thousands of trailers used by storm victims, raising fears among mobile-home dealers that the government will flood the market and depress prices.

Mobile home dealers are finding that some potential customers would rather wait to make a deal on a used FEMA trailer than drop $25,000 to $40,000 for a brand-new one.

"People think they're just going to get to buy them for nothing," said Gale Crews, owner of Diamond State Mobile Home Sales in Hope, where FEMA is storing 20,000 trailers at the city's airport. Some of the FEMA trailers will sell for less than half of what they cost new.

Some critics of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency said the sale of emblematic of the way FEMA botched its handling of Katrina: FEMA ordered more trailers than it needed, it let many of them sit out in the open, exposed to the elements, and now, some fear, it is about to double-cross the trailer dealers.

FEMA spokeswoman Debbie Wing defended the agency, saying it "wanted to be prepared to house as many victims as possible" when it bought the trailers. She said the agency is now trying to lower its storage costs by reducing the number it is holding in reserve for the next disaster.

"We're being cautious not to flood the market," she said. "We appreciate the fact that these manufacturers sold us these units during the height of it."

FEMA spent $2.7 billion to buy 145,000 mobile homes and trailers after Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in August and September 2005, paying a bulk-rate price of about $19,000 per trailer, on average. FEMA now has 60,000 trailers in storage nationwide; several thousand of them — exactly how many is not clear — were never used.

The agency said it plans to sell the ones that suffered a lot of wear and tear from being used by storm victims. As for the never-used trailers, Wing said FEMA has no plans for the time being to sell those.

"Our efforts were not perfect. However, we created an emergency sheltering program that, with all its faults, provided shelter for unparalleled numbers of displaced evacuees," she said.

To dispose of the used trailers, FEMA is operating an auction through a government Web site. Wednesday evening, the agency had 47 trailers on sale from its Hope depot. Bids ranged from $5,191 for a 2006 Coachmen Spirit of America trailer with possible water damage and a missing stove grate, battery and other items, to $12,600 for a 2006 Sunnybrook RV Sunset Creek trailer with "no obvious exterior damage."

Hope has the largest stockpile of FEMA trailers, while others are stored at Selma, Ala.; Madison, Ind.; Cumberland and Frostburg, Md.; Carnes and Purvis, Miss.; Edison, N.J.; Jasper and Texarkana, Texas; and Fort Pickett, Va.

FEMA wants Hope to be a staging ground during disasters because it's close enough to the Gulf Coast to store trailers but far enough inland to be out of harm's way. The city is making the most of it, entering a $25,000-a-month contract with FEMA.

"They've got to be somewhere, and we've got the land and the infrastructure out there," Mayor Dennis Ramsey said. "It's economically good for the city."

Rep. Mike Ross (news, bio, voting record), D-Ark., said FEMA should send some of the Hope trailers to Dumas, where tornadoes hit Feb. 24. "This is a symbol of what is wrong with FEMA and why so many people have lost confidence in their very own government," he said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.gsaauctions.gov

I'm too astonished to comment!
"'Don't discuss polar bears": memo to scientists

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Thu Mar 8, 5:27 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Polar bears, sea ice and global warming are taboo subjects, at least in public, for some U.S. scientists attending meetings abroad, environmental groups and a top federal wildlife official said on Thursday.
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Environmental activists called this scientific censorship, which they said was in line with the Bush administration's history of muzzling dissent over global climate change.

But H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said this policy was a long-standing one, meant to honor international protocols for meetings where the topics of discussion are negotiated in advance.

The matter came to light in e-mails from the Fish and Wildlife Service that were distributed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, both environmental groups.

Listed as a "new requirement" for foreign travelers on U.S. government business, the memo says that requests for foreign travel "involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears" require special handling, including notice of who will be the official spokesman for the trip.

The Fish and Wildlife Service top officials need assurance that the spokesman, "the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears" understands the administration's position on these topics.

Two accompanying memos were offered as examples of these kinds of assurance. Both included the line that the traveler "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

ARE POLAR BEARS 'THREATENED'?

Polar bears are a hot topic for the Bush administration, which decided in December to consider whether to list the white-furred behemoths as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, because of scientific reports that the bears' icy habitat is melting due to global warming.

Hall said a decision is expected in January 2008. A "threatened" listing would bar the government from taking any action that jeopardizes the animal's existence, and might spur debate about tougher measures to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming.

Hall defended the policy laid out in the memos, saying it was meant to keep scientists from straying from a set agenda at meetings in countries like Russia, Norway and Canada.

For example, he said, one meeting was about "human and polar bear interface." Receding Arctic sea ice where polar bears live and the global climate change that likely played a role in the melting were not proper discussion topics, he said.

"That's not a climate change discussion," Hall said at a telephone briefing. "That's a management, on-the-ground type discussion."

The prohibition on talking about these subjects only applies to public, formal situations, Hall said. Private scientific discussions outside the meeting and away from media are permitted and encouraged, he said.

"This administration has a long history of censoring speech and science on global warming," Eben Burnham-Snyder of the Natural Resources Defense Council said by telephone.

"Whenever we see an instance of the Bush administration restricting speech on global warming, it sends up a huge red flag that their commitment to the issue does not reflect their rhetoric," Burnham-Snyder said.

A Ernest, va con il dio, il mio amico grande! Salute!
Winemaker Ernest Gallo dies at age 97

By MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

BERKELEY, Calif. - Ernest Gallo, who parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from a public library into the world's largest winemaking empire, died Tuesday at his home in Modesto. He was 97. "He passed away peacefully this afternoon surrounded by his family," said Susan Hensley, vice president of public relations for E.&J. Gallo Winery.

Gallo, who would have been 98 on March 18, was born near Modesto, a then-sleepy San Joaquin Valley town about 80 miles east of San Francisco. He and his late brother and business partner, Julio, grew up working in the vineyard owned by their immigrant father who came to America from Italy's famed winemaking region of Piedmont.

They founded the E.&J. Gallo Winery in 1933, at the end of Prohibition, when they were still mourning the murder-suicide deaths of their parents.

Using $5,900 they borrowed and a recipe from the Modesto Public Library, Ernest and Julio rented a ramshackle building, and everybody in the family pitched in to make ordinary wine for 50 cents a gallon — half the going price. The Gallos made $30,000 the first year.

"They started with virtually zero knowledge, they started with an idea and a drive that created the family empire that still exists and dominates today," said Peter Mondavi Jr., co-proprietor of Charles Krug Winery and a member of another influential winemaking family.

It grew to become the world's largest wine company by volume, a title since taken by Constellation Brands of New York. But Gallo remains second, selling an estimated 75 million cases under more than 40 labels.

"My brother Julio and I worked to improve the quality of wines from California and to put fine wine on American dinner tables at a price people could afford," Mr. Gallo told The Modesto Bee on his 90th birthday. "We also worked to improve the reputation of California wines here and overseas."

Ernest directed sales, devised marketing strategies and kept a short leash on distribution. Julio, who died in 1993, made the wine.

Gallo was no less tough on the people who worked for him as on those he battled for business. He also demanded total loyalty from his employees. In 1986, when he learned that two longtime Gallo executives were secretly planning to buy a winery of their own, he fired them on the spot.

Gallo was a courtly man with Old World manners. But in business he was tenacious, shrewd, aggressive, and secretive. He and others of the Gallo clan shunned publicity. The reason for the secretiveness, many of their former associates said, was the way his parents had died.

Fresno County records say their father, Joseph, shot their mother, Susie, to death in June 1933, then killed himself. That was two months before the founding of the Gallo winery.

Ernest Gallo was one of the country's wealthiest men, listed on the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans with a family worth of $1.3 billion.

His company employs more than 4,600 people and markets its wines in more than 90 countries.

Does it even work?
Russia questions missile defense plans

By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer Tue Mar 6, 5:04 PM ET

MOSCOW - The United States has not adequately answered Russia's questions on its plans to build components for its missile defense system in former Soviet satellite states in Europe, Russia's top diplomat said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks were the latest expression of irritation from Moscow over Washington's plans to base parts of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Washington says the defense system is intended to defend against missile attacks from countries such as
Iran, not Russia. But Moscow has warned the system would disrupt the balance of power in the region and that it would take countermeasures.

"We are discussing this with our American colleagues and we are asking them to answer our questions, the concerns that we have, which are absolutely fair and justified," Lavrov told reporters.

"Meetings devoted to this are being held, briefings are being organized for us, quite useful ones, but we haven't received intelligible answers to the majority of our questions," he said.

Lavrov, speaking at the end of talks with his South Korean counterpart, stressed "the need to resolve such questions in a transparent, democratic way and not unilaterally."

He also claimed the United States was announcing plans to deploy the defense installations without first consulting the countries in question, citing Ukraine as an example.

Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering, the general in charge of developing U.S. missile defenses, said last month the United States was looking for ways to involve Ukraine in its plans.

Ukraine has refrained from giving an official response to Washington's plans. Its leaders, however, have been sending mixed signals. The prime minister has warned it could hurt relations with neighboring countries, while the president has indicated tacit support for the plan.

Obering said last week that Washington might also seek to base an anti-missile radar site somewhere in the Caucasus — the strategic region consisting of ex-Soviet republics Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia that lies between the Caspian and Black seas.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin warned the three Caucasus states against considering any such offers, according to Russian news agencies.

All three countries have denied they were considering any such offers.

...and sofar as anyone knows,the system works because we have ...what proof?
Russia questions missile defense plans

By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer Tue Mar 6, 5:04 PM ET

MOSCOW - The United States has not adequately answered Russia's questions on its plans to build components for its missile defense system in former Soviet satellite states in Europe, Russia's top diplomat said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks were the latest expression of irritation from Moscow over Washington's plans to base parts of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Washington says the defense system is intended to defend against missile attacks from countries such as
Iran, not Russia. But Moscow has warned the system would disrupt the balance of power in the region and that it would take countermeasures.

"We are discussing this with our American colleagues and we are asking them to answer our questions, the concerns that we have, which are absolutely fair and justified," Lavrov told reporters.

"Meetings devoted to this are being held, briefings are being organized for us, quite useful ones, but we haven't received intelligible answers to the majority of our questions," he said.

Lavrov, speaking at the end of talks with his South Korean counterpart, stressed "the need to resolve such questions in a transparent, democratic way and not unilaterally."

He also claimed the United States was announcing plans to deploy the defense installations without first consulting the countries in question, citing Ukraine as an example.

Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering, the general in charge of developing U.S. missile defenses, said last month the United States was looking for ways to involve Ukraine in its plans.

Ukraine has refrained from giving an official response to Washington's plans. Its leaders, however, have been sending mixed signals. The prime minister has warned it could hurt relations with neighboring countries, while the president has indicated tacit support for the plan.

Obering said last week that Washington might also seek to base an anti-missile radar site somewhere in the Caucasus — the strategic region consisting of ex-Soviet republics Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia that lies between the Caspian and Black seas.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin warned the three Caucasus states against considering any such offers, according to Russian news agencies.

All three countries have denied they were considering any such offers.

It's whats for dinner!
Cloned beef: It's what's for dinner
The FDA declared it safe last year. And in a taste test, diners couldn't tell the difference.
By Karen Kaplan and Betty Hallock, Times Staff Writers
March 4, 2007

Cloned beef

The cloning genie is out of the bottle. It's going to happen in food distribution systems where people who eat the food could care less whether it's labeled this or that. It's just something that's going to keep them alive.

The cloned steak was served medium rare.

Inside the unusually hushed atrium of Campanile, the guests lifted slices of beef onto their plates. Executive chef Mark Peel had prepared the porterhouse with fleur de sel and cracked black pepper before pan-searing it with a little canola oil — a simple preparation to highlight the meat's natural flavor.

It was the centerpiece of a dinner party convened to taste the future of food.

After years of research, meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are moving toward supermarkets, restaurants and backyard barbecues. The Food and Drug Administration recently declared the fare safe to eat, although it took scientists 678 pages to make their case. They said the meat was so much like regular beef that special labeling would be unnecessary.

Thousands of consumers, unswayed by the promise of genetically superior steaks, have written the agency in opposition. Still, cloned products could become part of the food supply by year's end.

The general public has been shielded from cloned meat by a voluntary moratorium issued by the FDA in 2001. But six intrepid diners agreed to participate in cloned beef's debut on the culinary scene in a private dinner convened by The Times.

Several prospective diners declined the invitation.

Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation" and self-described omnivore, said: "I'd rather eat my running shoes than eat meat from a cloned animal."

Spago chef Lee Hefter, who recently opened the Beverly Hills steakhouse Cut, agreed to host this dinner before abruptly changing his mind.

"I don't want people to think that I would ever use it," he said. "I don't want to condone cloned beef. I don't want to eat it. I don't want it in my kitchen."

But Evan Kleiman, host of the weekly radio show "Good Food" on KCRW, accepted the invitation in spite of her initial revulsion at the idea of eating cloned meat.

USC sociologist Barry Glassner, author of "The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong," was so enthusiastic he asked whether his wife could join the party.

In the kitchen, Peel laid out the porterhouse steaks on his stainless steel worktable, along with packages of ground chuck and sirloin, which he molded into thick patties and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

The cloned meat, provided by the Collins Cattle ranch in Frederick, Okla., was accompanied by corresponding cuts of conventional beef. All were prepared in identical fashion. Peel's idea was to conduct a double-blind taste test — a 21st century version of the Pepsi Challenge.

"I'm actively trying not to guess," he said as he prepared his cast-iron skillets and copper sauteuses. "I don't want to say, 'This one feels more supple, this one feels less supple.' My hypothesis is that they will be very close, if not identical."

As the dinner guests sampled caramelized onion tarts with feta cheese, Peel considered whether cloned beef was the most unusual thing he'd prepared since his landmark restaurant opened in Los Angeles 18 years ago.

"Yes," he said. "I think so."

First course: the science

THE guests took their seats at the well-appointed table and began munching on grissini and sipping glasses of Bandol red wine.

UC Davis animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam pulled out a photo of a stout, jet-black Chianina bull from Canute, Okla., named Full Flush — one of the most sought-after sires of recent times.


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Studying the Hole in the World...!
Missing: a huge chunk of the earth's crust

By Stefano Ambrogi Mon Mar 5, 11:22 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A team of British scientists has set sail on a voyage to examine why a huge chunk of the earth's crust is missing, deep under the Atlantic Ocean -- a phenomenon that challenges conventional ideas about how the earth works.

The 20-strong team aims to survey an area some 3,000 to 4,000 metres deep where the mantle -- the deep interior of the earth normally covered by a crust kilometres thick -- is exposed on the sea floor.

Experts describe the hole along the mid-Atlantic ridge as an "open wound" on the ocean floor that has puzzled scientists for the five or so years that its existence has been known because it defies existing tectonic plate theories of evolution.

"We know so little about it," said Bramley Murton, a senior research scientist at Southampton's National Oceanography Center.

"It's a real challenge to our established understanding of what the earth's surface looks like underneath the waves," he told Reuters by telephone from the brand new, hi-tech British research ship RRS James Cook.

Mid ocean ridges are places where new oceanic crust is born, with red-hot lava spewing out along the seafloor.

What scientists are keen to know is whether the crust was ripped away by huge geological faults, or whether it never even developed in the first place.

The primary motivation for the project was to understand how the earth continues to evolve.

"The area that we are looking at is part of a mountain range that spans thousands of square kilometres, but we are beginning to realize that there are probably millions of square kilometres where the ocean floor is missing," Murton said.

The six week mission, led by geophysicist Roger Searle of Durham University and Chris MacLeod of Cardiff University's School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences, will recover sample cores of rock by drilling into the mantle using a rig lowered on to the sea floor.

Asked if the discovery posed a threat to the environment, Murton replied: "It's not problematic for the earth because it is a natural earth process -- but in terms of knowing how the earth works and how the world is put together it is important."

Murton also said the expedition would shed light on the composition of sea water amongst other initiatives.

Crust formation is a fundamental mechanism of the earth which affects the chemistry of the world's oceans.

Progress by the research team can be monitored via a live web link to the ship at: http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/classroom@sea/JC007/.

Maybe the kids could have been motivated to fix the place.
Crews tear down Copenhagen youth center

By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Demolition crews started tearing down a graffiti-sprayed brick building Monday, prompting tears and cries of protest from youths whose eviction from the makeshift cultural center led to three nights of rioting.

Workers wore face masks under their helmets to conceal their identities as an excavator tore into the so-called Youth House.

As dust from the demolition filled the air, angry youth yelled obscenities at police who had cordoned off the area around the building. Others hugged and cried.

Riot police kept a growing crowd away from the demolition site. Six people were arrested in the area for refusing to obey police orders, or trespassing, but no violence was reported.

"They are breaking my heart. I cannot stand it," said Birgitte, a black-clad 21-year-old woman with dreadlocks. She refused to give her last name, saying using one name was the norm among the people frequenting the building.

A police anti-terror squad evicted squatters from the building on Thursday, triggering three nights of clashes with youths that turned parts of the city into a battle zone.

More than 650 people, including scores of foreign activists, were arrested and at least 25 were injured as protesters hurled cobblestones at riot police and set fire to cars and trash bins in Copenhagen's worst riots in 14 years.

The Youth House served for years as a popular cultural center for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups. The squatters considered it free public housing, but courts ordered them out after the city sold the building to a Christian congregation.

Ruth Evensen, leader of the small congregation that bought the Youth House in 2001, said the four-story structure had to be torn down because it was "a total wreck" and posed a fire hazard.

"It would cost us a fortune to have it fixed," she said, declining to reveal the congregation's plans for the site.

Local left-wing lawmakers and a construction workers union tried to halt the demolition, citing health hazards caused by dust containing carcinogenic asbestos, but a demolition company representative denied there was any danger.

Environmental officials visited the site and gave the green light for the work to continue.

Those arrested in the riots included more than 140 protesters from Sweden, Norway, Germany and the United States, police said.

They said 189 people were remanded in custody, while 26 were released. Others were still awaiting court hearings.

A demonstration was planned Monday afternoon outside Copenhagen jail, where many of the alleged rioters were being held. Organizers encouraged participants to make noise by banging drums, playing loud music and blowing whistles in a show of support for those in jail.

The riots were Denmark's worst since May 1993, when police fired into a crowd of rioters protesting the outcome of a
European Union referendum. Ten protesters were wounded.

Question: Why does Coulter have her name written on the back of her belt?
Controversial columnist draws fire for gay slur

Sun Mar 4, 3:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outspoken U.S. conservative columnist Ann Coulter is drawing fire from Republicans and Democrats alike after publicly using a derogatory gay slur in reference to Democratic presidential hopeful
John Edwards.

"Ann Coulter not only once again went out of her way to use a nasty epithet, she pushed her offensiveness up a notch," Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said on Sunday.

Coulter made the comments on Friday during a speech at the influential American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference, calling Edwards a "faggot."

"We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot," Ridenour, whose group helped sponsor the conference, said in a statement on the center's Web site.

Coulter said the comment was a joke and on her Web site she carried the speech with the comment, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She then said Edwards' campaign chairman's main job was "fronting for Arab terrorists."

Edwards, a 2008 presidential contender and the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, said Coulter's comments were "un-American and indefensible."

"The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large," he wrote in comments posted to his Web site on Saturday.

"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.

The candidate also posted a video of Coulter's comments, asking supporters to raise $100,000 in so-called "Coulter Cash" for his campaign to "fight back against the politics of bigotry."

Coulter's Friday speech raised objections from Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as well as Democrats.

In a statement on Sunday, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful." McCain, the only contender who did not attend the event, and Giuliani called Coulter's words inappropriate, according to the New York Times.

"Ann Coulter's words of hate have no place in the public sphere much less our political discourse," Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts said in a statement released on Saturday.

Several conservatives were also quick to denounce Coulter's comments in a variety of online columns.

Coulter is no stranger to controversy.

At the same conference last year, she used the word "raghead" -- a slur against Muslims -- in referring to U.S. homeland security policies. In a column published in the National Review after the September 11 attacks she urged an invasion of Muslim countries and forced conversion to Christianity.

Ossenfuse, pilot, Nicaragua
We are having difficulty locating any information about this subject. Why?

The Dems JUST DISCOVERED the WAR is worse than a Dead End! Gosh! Who Knew?
Congress' Iraq struggle evokes Vietnam years

By Susan Cornwell Sat Mar 3, 8:39 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A large portrait of Mike Mansfield, dogged Democratic foe of the Vietnam war, hangs near the Senate chamber where a new generation of Democrats is trying to stop another unpopular conflict -- in
Iraq.

But Democrats who look back at Mansfield's experience may not be encouraged. As Senate majority leader from 1961-1977, he tried many times publicly and privately to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Congress spent years debating a slew of resolutions and funding limits on the Indochina war but failed to stop it or cut off funding for all combat operations until after the United States pulled its ground troops out of Vietnam in 1973.

"I think Mansfield's experience shows that political persuasion can only go so far if a president refuses to be persuaded," said Don Oberdorfer, who wrote a biography of the Montana lawmaker who died in 2001.

"Mansfield considered the war in Vietnam to be the greatest tragedy of his times and his inability to head it off, his greatest failure," said Oberdorfer, a journalist and professor at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Decades later, Congress again is skirmishing over how to bring Americans home from a war the public largely opposes but that the president insists is a noble mission and many lawmakers say cannot be abandoned.

The four-year-old war in Iraq has revived constitutional arguments about the limits of congressional and presidential powers. Congress declares war and controls funding, but
President George W. Bush is commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces.

The Democratic-controlled House voted last month to denounce Bush's Iraq troop buildup. The Senate, despite having a 51-49 Democratic majority, bogged down on procedural rules and failed to follow suit.

Some House Democrats now want to attach conditions to the nearly $100 billion spending bill for military operations in Iraq, to be debated later this month. But others do not want to do anything that could be construed as undermining support for U.S. troops abroad.

'KICKS OF THE CAT'

"There were 31 kicks of the cat with Vietnam. We're on kick number three here," Democrat David Obey (news, bio, voting record) of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees spending, said on Wednesday as he and his colleagues sought consensus on their next move on Iraq.

During the Indochina conflict, Congress considered 21 proposals to restrict funding for military operations between 1970 and 1973, but only five were enacted, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

A 1971 provision, for example, prohibited using any appropriated funds to reintroduce U.S. ground troops into Cambodia.

There were also proposals that urged the president to withdraw forces, terminate military operations, seek congressional authorization for military operations and set a date for U.S. troop withdrawals.

President
Richard Nixon was drawing down U.S. troops from 1969 onwards but set no goal for total withdrawal. Only after U.S. ground forces withdrew following 1973 peace accords did Congress cut off combat funds, to keep Nixon from reintroducing U.S. troops and to stop the bombing of Cambodia, the CRS said.

In 1975, after Congress refused to send more aid to South Vietnam, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese.

"In a sense, the Vietnam experience just reiterates the obvious. Foreign and national security policy are nearly impossible to make from Capitol Hill," said Bradford Berenson, who was a White House associate counsel in Bush's first term.

Some see it differently.

"Vietnam did come to an end because of an act of Congress," when it refused to send more aid to South Vietnam, said Walter Dellinger, who was acting solicitor general, the government's chief advocate before the Supreme Court, under then-President
Bill Clinton. "It could have ended a lot earlier."

One senator said current congressional pressure may have produced some results by helping goad the Bush administration into agreeing to attend a regional conference on Iraq to which
Iran and
Syria are also invited.

Bush has resisted dialogue with the two countries, which the administration accuses of fueling violence in Iraq.

"There's something going on here," said Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), a Rhode Island Democrat who opposes the Iraq war. "Maybe we're not the catalyst but we're certainly part of it."

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MILWAUKEE OFFICIALS DROP PLANS FOR VA CENTER --

Say veterans' groups opposed their proposals.

Background here... http://www.vawatchdog.org/old%
20newsflashes%20JUL%2006/newsflash07-29-2006-4.htm

Story here... http://www.jsonline.com/
story/index.aspx?id=571325

Story below:

---------------

City officials drop plans for Zablocki VA center

Veterans groups opposed proposals

By TOM DAYKIN
tdaykin@journalsentinel.com



Mayor Tom Barrett's administration is dropping plans to create a high-tech business park and veterans housing at Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center, with city officials saying Tuesday that opposition from veterans groups killed the proposal.

Barrett's proposal called for preservation of five historic buildings on the VA grounds that are either vacant or largely unused. The restored buildings would include Old Main, the original Soldiers Home that opened in 1869 atop a hill that now overlooks Miller Park. The Soldiers Home grounds, which include several 19th-century buildings, are adjacent to the modern medical center complex.

Under the city's plan, Old Main would be converted into apartments for elderly veterans. CommonBond Communities, a St. Paul, Minn., housing developer, would have created 57 assisted-living units, along with 17 apartments set aside for veterans with spinal cord injuries.

CommonBond planned to renovate another building into 62 apartments for veterans. A 14,000-square-foot building would have been used as offices for veterans groups. The chapel would have been restored for its original use, and the former Ward Memorial Theater would have housed America's Freedom Center Museum.

Barrett also wanted to develop an office park on 27.5 acres of vacant land east of the medical center, near Miller Park Way and W. National Ave. The office park would have targeted biomedical firms and other high-tech companies.

Some veterans, however, said the office park would interfere with efforts to expand Wood National Cemetery, a burial ground for veterans that borders the medical center and the Soldiers Home grounds.

Wood National Cemetery should be expanded on to that vacant land to provide more burial plots, said Joe Campbell, vice president of the Allied Veterans Council of Milwaukee County. Campbell said the city's plan for a columbarium, a building for interment of ashes of cremated vets, amounted to a "token" gesture.

Campbell said commercial development of the vacant land would intrude on the tranquility of the cemetery and Soldiers Home grounds.

Also, both Campbell and Terry Troutman, state adjutant of the Wisconsin American Legion, said the city's plan would have allowed non-veterans to live in the CommonBond apartments if there were open units and no veterans to fill them.

"This should be for veterans only," Campbell said.

The apartments, working with veterans groups, would have maintained an active waiting list of veterans, said Andrea Rowe Richards, Department of City Development spokeswoman.

Barrett said the city's proposal respected the cemetery, complemented the Zablocki center's mission and sought to create job opportunities at the business park.

But the opposition was too strong, Barrett said. Even when city officials changed plans to accommodate the concerns of veterans, including the housing plan, those efforts were "met with derision," he said.

The city plan, including the development of vacant land, became "a very, very emotional issue" for some veterans, said Rocky Marcoux, Barrett's development secretary.
Funds for improvements

The city wanted to lease the land and buildings from the Department of Veterans Affairs and spend $21 million on the improvements. That money would have been repaid through property taxes generated by some of the new developments. Additional funding would have come from CommonBond and private fund-raising efforts.

City and federal officials also said the development would have created new revenue for the Department of Veterans Affairs, allowing it to plow more money back into maintaining and preserving the 19th-century buildings.

Campbell said local, state and federal officials should work with veterans groups to create an alternate plan to preserve the buildings. He said possible uses could include a recreation center for Zablocki patients, housing for families of veterans receiving long-term care at the medical center, and a facility to help homeless veterans.

---------------

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PANEL SAYS MILITARY MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM FAILS --

American Psychological Association finds Iraq War

veterans and families are not getting needed help.




American Psychological Association



APA Press Release here...
http://www.apa.org/releases/military_health.html

Full APA report here...
http://www.apa.org/releases/MilitaryDeploymentTaskForceReport.pdf

Story here... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2007/02/25/iraq/main2511948.shtml

Story below:

---------------

Panel: Military Mental Health System Fails

American Psychological Assoc. Finds Iraq War Veterans, Families Not Getting Needed Help



(AP) Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists found.

The panel's 67-page report calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental health system. It cites a 40 percent vacancy rate in active duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.

The findings were released Sunday by the American Psychological Association.

More than three out of 10 soldiers met the criteria for a "mental disorder," but far less than half of those in need sought help, the report found. Sometimes that is because of the stigma of having mental health problems, other times the help simply was not available, according to the task force. And there are special difficulties in getting help to National Guard and Reserve troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq, the report said.

The special task force found no evidence of a "well-coordinated or well-disseminated approach to providing behavioral health care to service members and their families."

The psychology task force, chaired by an active military psychologist and comprised of psychologists working for the military or Veterans Administration, said "relatively few high-quality" mental health programs exist in the military now.

"There are tremendous needs; the system is stressed by these needs," said pediatric psychologist Jeanne Hoffman, a task force member and a civilian pediatric psychologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.

The Defense Department's mental health experts had not read the report. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the military is proud of its mental health services record, including a new program this year that checks up on service members after they return home to their families.

"For the past four years, DOD has been aggressively reaching out to support our military personnel before and after deployments. This is unprecedented," Smith said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We have assessed the health, including the mental health of more than 1 million service members before and after deployments. We have worked with their families and others to address mental health concerns associated with deployments and with war."

One of the major problems is that four out of 10 "active duty licensed clinical psychologist" slots in the Army and Navy are not filled, a problem worsened by the dire need to send mental health experts into war zones, the report said.

That high vacancy rate has several side effects. One is that the psychologists left are overwhelmed, the report said. It found that one-third of Army mental health personnel reported "high burn out" and 27 percent reported "low motivation for their work."

Because of the shortage, there are even fewer stateside therapists to help families of those deployed and to help returning soldiers readjust, the report found.

Hoffman, the pediatric psychologist, said she's seen children regress on toilet training, have severe headaches, stomach pains, and suffer in school because of the stress of having a parent deployed.

And for soldiers and veterans returning home, only 10 to 20 percent of the military's mental health experts are trained to help those with post-traumatic stress disorder, the report found.

"I know guys that are waiting for appointments," said Russell Terry, chief executive officer of the Iraq War Veterans Organization. "I know guys who are dealing with doctors who have no concept of PTSD."

Terry was on the phone with an Iraq war veteran last year when the vet killed himself.

Report co-chair Michelle Sherman, a psychologist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Oklahoma City, said the military and VA are "working very hard to meet the needs" of those returning from Iraq.

At VA headquarters, Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief consultant in the agency's office of mental health services, said the report "misses the mark by quite a way." She said her agency didn't have "an opportunity to present data (to the panel) about what the VA is really doing."

Sherman said the panel did seek data from the VA, but when asked if the agency provided information to the psychologists' panel, she said: "I'm not supposed to answer that question."

Zeiss said the VA has been increasing spending on mental health services yearly, opening new centers and hiring more psychological professionals.

"We have the strongest mental health system in the country and we are making it stronger," she said.

But veterans groups disagree.

"The system as it exists today ignores the readjustment needs specific to Iraq and Afghanistan service members," Veterans for America President Bobby Muller said in a statement. "We have to stop throwing money at a problem that requires a complete overhaul. The system is broken."

---------------

Larry Scott --

Don't forget to read all of today's VA News Flashes (click here)

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Scape-Goating is a clear indication of malfeasance! Make no mistake!
Army secretary quits in veterans scandal

By Steve Holland and Kristin Roberts 32 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey has resigned after reports that troops wounded in
Iraq and
Afghanistan were being poorly treated at the Army's top hospital, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday.

The resignation of Harvey, the top civilian at the
Pentagon overseeing the army, was announced a day after the head of the Walter Reed Medical Center hospital was fired. Gates said problems at the Washington hospital were due to leadership.

"I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates said.

"Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems."

Gates said a new permanent chief of the medical center would be announced later on Friday.

The Bush administration has put Army surgeon-general Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, a former commander of Walter Reed, in temporary charge but that decision was criticized by some who noted Kiley had been accused of ignoring earlier complaints about outpatient care.

Problems at an adjunct building of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington were brought to light by a Washington Post investigation published last month. It found that recuperating soldiers were living in a dilapidated building infested with mice, mold and cockroaches.

The Washington Post reports were particularly embarrassing because
President George W. Bush and defense officials have repeatedly visited the wounded in the hospital to show their concern for those who served in battle.

Bush, scrambling to respond to the outcry over shoddy health care and the complex bureaucracy facing U.S. soldiers, said he would name a bipartisan panel to review medical care for military veterans.

"This is unacceptable to me, it is unacceptable to our country and it's not going to continue," Bush said in his weekly radio address, taped on Friday and released ahead of its usual Saturday morning delivery.

Bush, who learned of the problems by reading the newspaper, said he was deeply troubled by the reports. He said while most of the people working at the hospital are dedicated professionals, "some of our troops at Walter Reed have experienced bureaucratic delays and living conditions that are less than they deserve."

Members of the presidential commission are to be announced in coming days and will be given a deadline to report back. They will conduct a comprehensive review of the care that the U.S. government is providing the wounded.

The White House said the bipartisan panel's review would be separate from a similar investigation ordered by the Pentagon.

More than 10,000 U.S. troops in the Iraq war and more than 600 involved in the Afghan conflict have been wounded so seriously they were unable to return to duty within 72 hours, according to Pentagon statistics.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray)

Even "Attempted Kidnapping" does not adaquately apply. Comprehension of her mental state is being disregarded as relevant!
Lovelorn astronaut won't face murder charge

By Barbara Liston 1 hour, 46 minutes ago

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Astronaut Lisa Nowak, who stunned colleagues by driving from Houston to Orlando in a diaper to confront a woman she thought was a love rival, was charged with attempted kidnapping but not with attempted murder on Friday, prosecutors said.

The former space shuttle crew member also was formally charged on Friday with battery and using a weapon to attempt a car break-in. She is accused of pepper spraying the girlfriend of fellow astronaut Bill Oefelien, the prosecutors in Orlando said in a news release.

Shortly after Nowak was arrested on February 6, police said she was trying to kill U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman. The police then charged Nowak, 43, with attempted first-degree murder, which carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

But the murder accusation was dropped without explanation when prosecutors brought the formal charges almost a month later. The prosecutors declined to comment.

In February, Nowak's lawyer, Donald Lykkebak furiously accused police of adding the attempted murder charge at the last minute in order to delay Nowak's release on bail. Orlando Police Sgt. Barbara Jones denied that police tried to manipulate the system.

"The charges we brought forward, we believed the elements were there," Jones said. "We do the probable cause and they (prosecutors) have to decide the formal charges and what can they prove beyond a reasonable doubt and these are the charges."

Nowak, who has three children and recently separated from her husband, was freed on bail and allowed to return to her home in Houston. She was ordered to stay away from the Florida county where Shipman lives and was fitted with a global positioning device so authorities can track her movements.

Police said Nowak, a flight engineer who made her first trip into space in July to the
International Space Station aboard shuttle Discovery, sped the 950 miles from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers so she would not have to stop at a bathroom.

She disguised herself in a dark wig, glasses and trench coat to confront Shipman at Orlando International Airport but told police she "only wanted to scare" the woman into talking to her.

Nowak waited for Shipman's flight from Houston to arrive and then followed her to the parking garage armed with pepper spray, a steel mallet and a pellet gun, police said.

She also carried black gloves, a folding knife, rubber tubing and trash bags, they said.

Nowak tried to get into Shipman's car and sprayed the pepper spray through the window when Shipman refused to open the door, police said. Shipman alleged afterward in a court document that Nowak had been stalking her for nearly two months.

NASA placed Nowak on a 30-day leave of absence, which ends next week.

"There's no speculation beyond that," said James Hartsfield, a spokesman at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Nowak, who grew up in Rockville, Maryland, and attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, became an astronaut in 1996 and waited 10 years for her first space flight.