The Hijacked Commission - NYTimes.com

The Hijacked Commission - NYTimes.com:

“So the Bowles-Simpson proposal is basically saying that janitors should be forced to work longer because these days corporate lawyers live to a ripe old age.”

"Matters become clearer once you reach the section on tax reform. The goals of reform, as Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson see them, are presented in the form of seven bullet points. “Lower Rates” is the first point; “Reduce the Deficit” is the seventh.

“So how, exactly, did a deficit-cutting commission become a commission whose first priority is cutting tax rates, with deficit reduction literally at the bottom of the list?”

Actually, though, what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class.

They suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.

It will take time to crunch the numbers here, but this proposal clearly represents a major transfer of income upward, from the middle class to a small minority of wealthy Americans. And what does any of this have to do with deficit reduction?

Let’s turn next to Social Security. There were rumors beforehand that the commission would recommend a rise in the retirement age, and sure enough, that’s what Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson do. They want the age at which Social Security becomes available to rise along with average life expectancy. Is that reasonable?

The answer is no, for a number of reasons — including the point that working until you’re 69, which may sound doable for people with desk jobs, is a lot harder for the many Americans who still do physical labor.

But beyond that, the proposal seemingly ignores a crucial point: while average life expectancy is indeed rising, it’s doing so mainly for high earners, precisely the people who need Social Security least. Life expectancy in the bottom half of the income distribution has barely inched up over the past three decades. So the Bowles-Simpson proposal is basically saying that janitors should be forced to work longer because these days corporate lawyers live to a ripe old age."

Mr Krugman thinks the problem is the commission. I think the problem is the co-chairs. I suspect the final report won't look much like their PowerPoint presentation or they wouldn't have been in such a hurry to preempt it.

Still, there are people praising them. People who haven't paid attention to what the job actually is. The problem is that they sound like they're working on our problem. When in fact they're working us through our prejudices and fears. But hey, they're politicians who've been out of the limelight and are back with s vengeance. Al Ingram

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Proposed Internet Guidelines Unlikely to Fill Content

Proposed Internet Guidelines Unlikely to Fill Content

Poynter Online - Feedback:

"Success is not an option.

Posted by Alfred Ingram 11/11/2010 4:38:31 PM

The reason we seldom make sense of the News is simple. What's sensible seldom makes the News and almost never makes the headlines. .

The sensational lie gets repeated. The sensible truth often fails to get a footnote. Volume trumps verity. The public drowns in data while starving for meaning. The simply wrong gets covered while complex,nuanced reality is ignored like a family values politician's illegitimate child."

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=193748

Supremely Bad Judgment - NYTimes.com

Supremely Bad Judgment - NYTimes.com:

"Christine O’Donnell may not believe in the separation of church and state, but the Supreme Court does not believe in the separation of powers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24dowd.html?th&emc=th

A Perfect (Accidental) Argument For Net Neutrality

Internet a Weapon in Fox-Cablevision Dispute - NYTimes.com:

“When we realized we were affecting non-Cablevision video subscribers, we quickly altered our position,”

"A Hulu spokeswoman did release a statement to the technology news site All Things D: “Unfortunately, we were put in a position of needing to block Fox content on Hulu in order to remain neutral during contract negotiations.” Hulu refused to comment further.

But for reasons that remained unclear, the blockade did not work in all Cablevision households. Furthermore, within hours, the News Corporation realized that by blocking Cablevision subscribers’ computers it was also blocking some people who pay Cablevision for Internet only and pay competitors like DirecTV for television. Those people were “caught in the crossfire,” Ms. Wright said.

The News Corporation reinstated access in a matter of hours.

The action was hotly debated within the company, according to three people who were aware of the conversations. While some executives said it had helped in the negotiations with Cablevision, others said it had backfired because it stirred up questions about net neutrality, according to people who insisted on anonymity."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/business/media/20hulu.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Econbrowser: The "Ever-Expanding" Government Sector, Illustrated (Part II)

Econbrowser: The "Ever-Expanding" Government Sector, Illustrated (Part II):

"Notice that government transfers as a share of GDP looks particularly high because of the collapse of GDP in the Great Recession which started in 2007Q4. Normalizing by potential GDP highlights the fact that, while the ratio is the highest over the last forty three years, it is only slightly higher than that recorded in the mid-1980s, during the Reagan administration.

Normalizing government consumption and investment illustrates that overall spending by the government in purchases of goods and services is not particularly high. Even dividing by nominal GDP indicates that we are only (almost) back to the levels of 1990. Normalizing by potential GDP indicates that we are still only back to the levels of the early 1990's (this spending includes defense)."

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2010/10/the_everexpandi_1.html

Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science - Magazine - The Atlantic

Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science - Magazine - The Atlantic:

"Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269

Make Wall Street Risk It All - NYTimes.com

Make Wall Street Risk It All - NYTimes.com:

William D. Cohan on Wall Street and Main Street

"The days of privatizing the profits for Wall Street and socializing the risks must end."

“ As radical as this sounds, in truth it would be no different from when — before 1970 — Wall Street was a series of private partnerships.We can’t turn back the clock: Wall Street’s big firms will never again be private partnerships.

Create a new security for each Wall Street firm that represents — and is secured by — the entire net worth of its 100 top executives.

Instead, I propose that each large Wall Street firm create a new security that represents — and is secured by — the entire net worth of its 100 top executives. This security would be subordinated to all other creditors as well as to all preferred and common shareholders; in other words, if a firm goes bankrupt, this security is the first to be wiped out.Had such a security existed at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the net worth of the top 100 Lehman executives — no doubt totaling several billion dollars — would have been collected after liquidating everything they owned and paid to Lehman creditors, who under the current system will be lucky if they get back 10 cents on the dollar.

Wall Street’s first reaction to this idea — aside from profanities — will be that it cannot possibly be done. Or that it would somehow threaten the sanctity of our capital markets.But, in fact, it can and should be done. Indeed, Wall Street has all the intellectual capital it needs in its own archives to construct such a security: in the old partnership days every partner signed an agreement requiring him (and rarely her) to put his net worth on the line every day. Surely, clever Wall Street lawyers can draft a 21st-century version of the old partnership agreement.

What’s more, Wall Street should take the initiative to do this unprompted. As John Whitehead warned, the banks’ failure to show responsibility will only invite more government intervention.If, however, the firms balk, the S.E.C. should require this sort of accountability from the senior managements as part of its new regulations governing Wall Street compensation. Or Congress should take advantage of the still-brewing outrage against Wall Street to force the creation of such a security.

Pretty harsh, right? Maybe, but Wall Street deserves no sympathy. Had this security, or something like it, been in place at every Wall Street firm five years ago, there would have been no mortgage bubble, no financial crisis, no deep and unsettling economic recession with nearly 10 percent unemployment, no need for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and no need for Dodd-Frank or Basel III.
Why? Because human beings do what they are rewarded to do — especially on Wall Street —”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/make-wall-street-risk-it-all/?nl=opinion&emc=tya2

Don't They Know Ayn Rand Wrote Fiction?

Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com:

"Keynesian economics won, hands down."

“So: first of all, the other side in this debate generally adheres, more or less, to something like what Keynes called the “classical theory” of employment, in which employment and output are basically determined by the supply side. Casey Mulligan has been most explicit here, coming up with increasingly, um, creative stories about how what we’re seeing is a choice by workers to work less; but the whole Kocherlakota structural unemployment thing is similar in its implications.

Oh, and the Cochrane-Fama thing about how a dollar of government spending necessarily displaces a dollar of private spending is basically a classical view, although there doesn’t seem to be a model behind it, just a misunderstanding of what accounting identities mean.

Once you have a more or less classical view of unemployment, you naturally have the classical theory of the interest rate, in which it’s all about supply and demand for funds, and something like a quantity theory of money, in which increases in the monetary base lead, in a fairly short time, to equal proportional rises in the price level. This led to the prediction that large fiscal deficits would lead to soaring interest rates, and that the large rise in the monetary base due to Fed expansion would lead to high inflation.

You can see the classical theory of interest and the soaring-rate prediction clearly in Niall Ferguson’s remarks:

After all, $1.75 trillion is an awful lot of freshly minted treasuries to land on the bond market at a time of recession, and I still don’t quite know who is going to buy them … I predict, in the weeks and months ahead, a very painful tug-of-war between our monetary policy and our fiscal policy as the markets realize just what a vast quantity of bonds are going to have to be absorbed by the financial system this year. That will tend to drive the price of the bonds down, and drive up interest rates

and, of course, in many WSJ op-eds, in analyses from Morgan Stanley, and so on.

Meanwhile, you can see the high-inflation prediction in pieces by Meltzer andLaffer — with the latter helpfully titled, “Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates”.…

So, how has it turned out? The 10-year bond rate is about 2.5 percent, lower than it was when Ferguson made that prediction. Inflation keeps falling. The attacks on Keynesianism now come down to “but unemployment has stayed high!” which proves nothing — especially because if you took a Keynesian view seriously, it suggested even given what we knew in early 2009 that the stimulus was much too small to restore full employment.”

Their theories are just plain nuts.

They never, ever, let reality get in the way of belief.

So, they ‘pledge’ to return to faith based economics, to unleash business via faith based nonregulation and they'll pay down the deficit with faith based income.

The hungry will eat by and by, work all day, live on hay. There'll be pie in the sky when they die.

Not much while they live, but man doesn't live by bread alone!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/how-the-other-half-thinks/

HTML is Not Harmless – Email Security Update � The Barracuda Labs Internet Security Blog

HTML is Not Harmless – Email Security Update � The Barracuda Labs Internet Security Blog:

“What harm can an HTML file do?

The answer is ‘plenty’.”

“Attracting attention by latching on to the latest breaking news is a technique that attackers have been using for quite some time. In fact, several examples of SEO poisoning and search malware are explored throughout barracudalabs.com and this blog. Google hot topic search results frequently are littered with links to hacked sites that serve up malicious JavaScript. Now, the attackers are taking that a step further and not requiring the user to come to their hacked sites but rather simply emailing the same malicious JavaScript sites straight to an inbox.”

“These emails are presented as something just innocent enough that a user might allow curiosity to overrule caution and click “open”. However, once that happens, the HTMLs suddenly don’t seem so harmless.”

Opened in a browser window, this JavaScript sends the browser to a variety of destinations depending on the spammer

.

Read the article at

http://www.barracudalabs.com/wordpress/index.php/2010/09/23/html-is-not-harmless-email-security-update/

No Need To Fix That Bridge?

Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com:

“An important new report from EPI on why you shouldn’t believe the hype about structural unemployment.
Why is this so important? Claims that there has been a huge jump in structural unemployment — that is, unemployment that can’t be cured by increasing aggregate demand — are playing a large role in the argument that we should basically do nothing in the face of a terrible economy. No need for the Fed to do more; no need for more fiscal stimulus — hey, it’s all about defective labor markets, and we should work on structural reform, one of these days. And don’t expect improvement for years to come. Structural unemployment is invoked by Fed presidents who want to raise rates, not cut them, by economists who want austerity now now now, and in general by almost everyone in the pain caucus.”

“ The question is, why on earth would you believe that structural unemployment is our main problem right now?

Basic textbook macro tells you how to distinguish between slumps brought on by supply shocks and those brought on by demand shocks: look at inflation. If you have stagflation, rising unemployment combined with accelerating inflation, that’s the signature of a supply shock; if you have unemployment with disinflation, that’s the signature of a demand shock. And guess what we see?

Now, you might second-guess this basic observation if there were strong direct evidence of some kind of labor mismatch — layoffs in some industries combined with labor shortages in others; high unemployment for some types of labor combined with tight markets and soaring wages for others; high unemployment in some regions but exceptionally good hiring in others. But as EPI documents, none of these things are, in fact, visible.

Is it possible that there has been some rise in structural unemployment that’s swamped by a much larger rise in cyclical unemployment? Yes, conceivably. And let’s talk about that when unemployment gets below, say, 7 percent — which at current rates of progress will happen, well, never.

I really don’t think there’s any way to make sense of the fuss about structural unemployment unless you posit that a lot of influential people are looking for reasons not to act. ”

So, why don't Republican'ts see the need to fix our bridges?

Why won't they repair our roads and upgrade our rail system?

Why aren't they able to call investment in future tech anything but waste?

A Harsh Thing I Should Have Said (Martin Peretz Dept) Updated - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic

A Harsh Thing I Should Have Said (Martin Peretz Dept) Updated - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic

James Fallows

“The upsurge in expressed hostility toward Muslims -- not toward extremists or terrorists but toward adherents of a religion as a group -- creates an American moment that isn't going to look good in historical retrospect. The people indulging in this kind of group-bias speech deserve to be called out. ”

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/09/a-harsh-thing-i-should-have-said-martin-peretz-dept-updated/62613/

Update

A Primer on Bigotry - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic

Sep 17, 2010 ... Why it's as wrong to talk about "the Muslims" as about "the blacks" or "the Jews

“…one obvious truth is that the more populous the category, the less it tells you about any individual within it. Yes, "men" are all a certain way. But there are three billion of us, and Kim Jong-Il doesn't have that much in common with Lance Armstrong -- or either of them with Benedict XVI or Stephen Hawking or Lil Wayne. Another obvious truth is that the less contact you have with individuals, the more you necessarily rely on group traits -- or stereotypes - for your images.”

“I suggested that if such a person were any less well-connected, or if the sentiment had been about any other religious or racial group, he would be taking much more heat. (See: Marge Schott, Al Campanis, Trent Lott, Mel Gibson, Pat Buchanan, Dinesh D'Souza, Helen Thomas, etc. Think even of the flap over Lawrence Summers's comments about gender differences in math-and-science skills, or James Watson or William Shockley on racial differences in IQ. Try to find in one of these cases something approaching "Group X's life is cheap.") The question was all the more salient because, when called on this claim by Nicholas Kristof in a New York Times column, the editor doubled down and said that "Muslim life is cheap" was "a statement of fact."

The dissenting mail I've gotten has fallen into two main categories. Category one: He's right! Islam is a culture of violence, and Muslim life really is cheap! Category two: That was an unfortunate statement, but he's a great guy with a big heart. ”

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/09/a-primer-on-bigotry/63056/

Stories about Quran Burning Reveal Shortcomings of U.S. Media's Coverage of Islam

Stories about Quran Burning Reveal Shortcomings of U.S. Media's Coverage of Islam

Arsalan Iftikhar

“An estimated 6,000 Muslim Americans serve in the U.S. military, many of them in Afghanistan. If any media outlets, including the many with embedded reporters, asked those troops what it's like to be facing the threat of riots and violent action against them in Afghanistan while worrying about hate discrimination and hate crimes against their loved ones at home, I didn't see it. ”

“Reporters "know better than to ever say, 'Christianity says ...' because we recognize there is diversity inside the Christian faith."

The news media must generate as much discussion and critical thinking about issues concerning Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment as it does with politics, the White House, and other topics that receive more critical coverage,”

Asra Nomani

http://www.poynter.org/q/?id=A190532

Google Instant Is Cool, But Check Out YouTube Instant

Google Instant Is Cool, But Check Out YouTube Instant

“You’ve heard of Google Instant, well, how about YouTube Instant? Yes, this is a novelty toy built by a college student (Feross Aboukhadijeh of Stanford University), but it’s a pretty fun way to pass a lazy Friday morning.”

http://feross.net/instant/

Way cool.

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist: "

It is telling that net neutrality has become far more politically controversial in America than it has elsewhere. This is a reflection of the relative lack of competition in America’s broadband market. In Europe and Japan, “open access” rules require network operators to lease parts of their networks to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition. A study comparing broadband markets, published in 2009 by Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, found that countries with such rules enjoy faster, cheaper broadband service than America, because the barrier to entry for new entrants is much lower. And if any access provider starts limiting what customers can do, they will defect to another.

America’s operators have long insisted that open-access requirements would destroy their incentive to build fast, new networks: why bother if you will be forced to share it? After intense lobbying, America’s telecoms regulators bought this argument. But the lesson from elsewhere in the industrialised world is that it is not true. The result, however, is that America has a small number of powerful network operators, prompting concern that they will abuse their power unless they are compelled, by a net-neutrality law, to treat all traffic equally. Rather than trying to mandate fairness in this way—net neutrality is very hard to define or enforce—it makes more sense to address the underlying problem: the lack of competition.
It should come as no surprise that the internet is being pulled apart on every level. “While technology can gravely wound governments, it rarely kills them,” Debora Spar, president of Barnard College at Columbia University, wrote several years ago in her book, “Ruling the Waves”. “This was all inevitable,” argues Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, under the headline “The Web is Dead” in the September issue of the magazine. “A technology is invented, it spreads, a thousand flowers bloom, and then someone finds a way to own it, locking out others.”
Yet predictions are hazardous, particularly in IT. Governments may yet realise that a freer internet is good not just for their economies, but also for their societies. Consumers may decide that it is unwise to entrust all their secrets to a single online firm such as Facebook, and decamp to less insular alternatives, such as Diaspora.
Similarly, more open technology could also still prevail in the mobile industry. Android, Google’s smart-phone platform, which is less closed than Apple’s, is growing rapidly and gained more subscribers in America than the iPhone in the first half of this year. Intel and Nokia, the world’s biggest chipmaker and the biggest manufacturer of telephone handsets, are pushing an even more open platform called MeeGo. And as mobile devices and networks improve, a standards-based browser could become the dominant access software on the wireless internet as well.

The danger is not that these islands become physically separated, says Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota. There is just too much value in universal connectivity, he argues. “The real question is how high the walls between these walled gardens will be.” Still, if the internet loses too much of its universality, cautions Mr Werbach of the Wharton School, it may indeed fall apart, just as world trade can collapse if there is too much protectionism. Theory demonstrates that interconnected networks such as the internet can grow quickly, he explains—but also that they can dissolve quickly. “This looks rather unlikely today, but if it happens, it will be too late to do anything about it.” "

Technology changes — Society changes

How we communicate has always had a profound effect on both the structure of our societies and our personal opportunities. Freer, wider communication gives us power to improve and damage the institutions that affect our lives and livelihoods, even in societies that tightly regulate speech and behavior.

For example, without direct dialing, there would have been no Montgomery bus boycott and probably no Southern Christian Leadership Conference without Martin Luther King's resulting prominence. Civil Rights in the United States would have progressed on a different, likely slower, path. The shape of legislation would differ. Court decisions would happen later and happen in different order.
Would Barack Obama be President? Or even a Senator?




Can we afford to let a few corporations control how far and whom our voices reach? Control how much we have to say? How often? How loud?

I don't think so. How about you?
– Al Ingram
http://www.economist.com/node/16941635

Mideast Peace? Bulldozed Pieces

Israel: New Peak in Arbitrary Razing of Palestinian Homes | Human Rights Watch: "Israeli authorities destroyed 141 Palestinian homes and other buildings in July 2010, the largest number in any month since at least 2005, and have already carried out dozens of demolitions in August.

'While Israel is demolishing more and more Palestinian homes, it continues to subsidize the Jewish settlements nearby,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 'Israel has flouted international law not only by supporting settlements on occupied territory, but also by erasing longstanding Palestinian communities next door.'"

The talks haven't started, but the grounds for failure are in progress. House by house, village by village.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/08/19/israel-new-peak-arbitrary-razing-palestinian-homes?tr=y&auid=6892591

Is Microsoft a Platform Dancer?t

If you watched Charlie Rose last night,

…you heard the common assumption that Microsoft is lagging because it spends too much time protecting Office and Windows. I say that's myopic. Microsoft treats developers like royalty. It nurtures 5hem from beginner to expert. Their great innovation is to turn curious people with problems into innovators or connect them with solution providers. Office and Windows aren't products. They're platforms. The Cloud will make them platforms in hyper-drive. If Google had spent half the energy nurturing Wave developers  The Vista of collaboration would be evolving into its Windows 7.

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• RightScale: Windows now 'usable' in cloud (zdnet.com)

Why do republicans rely on bad-faith accounting?

Op-Ed Columnist - Attacking Social Security - NYTimes.com:

“ Social Security’s attackers claim that they’re concerned about the program’s financial future. But their math doesn’t add up, and their hostility isn’t really about dollars and cents. Instead, it’s about ideology and posturing. And underneath it all is ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.

About that math: Legally, Social Security has its own, dedicated funding, via the payroll tax (“FICA” on your pay statement). But it’s also part of the broader federal budget. This dual accounting means that there are two ways Social Security could face financial problems. First, that dedicated funding could prove inadequate, forcing the program either to cut benefits or to turn to Congress for aid. Second, Social Security costs could prove unsupportable for the federal budget as a whole.

But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won’t have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program’s actuaries don’t expect to happen until 2037 — and there’s a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come.

Meanwhile, an aging population will eventually (over the course of the next 20 years) cause the cost of paying Social Security benefits to rise from its current 4.8 percent of G.D.P. to about 6 percent of G.D.P. To give you some perspective, that’s a significantly smaller increase than the rise in defense spending since 2001, which Washington certainly didn’t consider a crisis, or even a reason to rethink some of the Bush tax cuts.

So where do claims of crisis come from? To a large extent they rely on bad-faith accounting. In particular, they rely on an exercise in three-card monte in which the surpluses Social Security has been running for a quarter-century don’t count — because hey, the program doesn’t have any independent existence; it’s just part of the general federal budget — while future Social Security deficits are unacceptable — because hey, the program has to stand on its own.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of Bush Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com

Greenspan Calls for Repeal of Bush Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com:

“I’m in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money,” Mr. Greenspan, 84, said Friday in a telephone interview. “Our choices right now are not between good and better; they’re between bad and worse. The problem we now face is the most extraordinary financial crisis that I have ever seen or read about.”

"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/business/economy/07greenspan.html?ref=us

Are These The Real Republican Principles?

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com:

"The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

 In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

 “They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

 That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/opinion/31herbert.html?th&emc=th 

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
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These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


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These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


linkholder

These are the real Republican Principles

Op-Ed Columnist - A Sin and a Shame - NYTimes.com: "The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.

In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.

“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”

That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II."

“”
‘’


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Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales - NYTimes.com

Amazon Says E-Books Now Top Hardcover Sales - NYTimes.com:

"Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.

In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.

The pace of change is quickening, too, Amazon said. In the last four weeks sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover copies. Amazon has 630,000 Kindle books, a small fraction of the millions of books sold on the site.”

I've been reading more e-books, but I don't own a Kindle, or an iPad. They're just fine on my laptop's screen. I still prefer paper, but money and shelf space are both in short supply.

All my e-books are nonfiction. None are about art or graphics, though my shelf is loaded with art and graphics. On my laptop graphic articles, but not books.

Yesterday, I downloaded Street Fighting Mathematics from M.I.T. Press. I've got the C# Pocket Reference, How To Use Twitter For Business, Sexy Web Design ( Preview), The PHP Anthology, Windows 7 Tips & Tricks. Just one design book and it's technical.

Do you read e-books? What's your pattern?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html?th&emc=th

America Speaks to BP

A fraction of this made the airwaves Friday on the PBS Newshour. Watch Mr. Dudley carefully. Learn to avoid without appearing to avoid
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Book Review - The Facebook Effect - By David Kirkpatrick - NYTimes.com

Book Review - The Facebook Effect - By David Kirkpatrick - NYTimes.com: "THE FACEBOOK EFFECT
The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
By David Kirkpatrick
Illustrated. 372 pp. Simon & Schuster"

“ According to “The Facebook Effect,” Facebook is the second-most-visited Web site on earth (after Google). The average member spends almost an hour there each day. It has more than 400 million active users — over 20 percent of everyone on the Internet — and is growing by 5 percent a month.

But according to David Kirkpatrick, who for many years was a technology editor at Fortune, Facebook is more than big. It’s a “platform for people to get more out of their lives,” a “technological powerhouse with unprecedented influence across modern life” and an “entirely new form of communication.”

No wonder he has written what amounts to two books about it: the first and second halves of “The Facebook Effect.” The first part is a fascinating but flawed corporate history, starring Facebook’s reticent creator, the Harvarddropout Mark Zuckerberg; the second is a thoughtful, evenhanded analysis of the Web site’s impact.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/books/review/Pogue-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3&pagewanted=all

The Invisible Bond Vigilante and The Confidence Fairy.

Op-Ed Columnist - Myths of Austerity - NYTimes.com: "So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we’re bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we’re good. And real-world policy — policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families — is being built on that foundation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ref=opinion

Dick Cheney, Exploding Uderwear, Undisclosed Locations

nImage via Wikipedia

I can't.

I really can't.

I just can't get the image out of my head.

On a beautiful clear September 11th, firefighters are running up the stairs of the burning twin towers. At the Pentagon wounded are helping those worse wounded to evacuate. Over Pennsylvania the passengers of the last hijacked plane give their lives, saving lives.

Dick Cheney is hiding in his undisclosed location. Right there and right then, the first case of  terrorist caused exploding underwear in the United States happens.  It's just an image I see every time I hear him whine, Air freshener please.

Look at New Audience Values to Rethink Future of Local News

"Local news has become commoditized by the incessant coverage and
promotion of cheap, easy-to-find crime and mayhem. As a result, every newscast
across the country looks and sounds very similar. Is that really a winning
strategy for local news? In effect, local news has become a national network of
disconnected minor mayhem, and as a result has swapped its credibility with
local audiences over the long term for short-term gains in audience ratings for
a particular month -- but masking the long-term decline of audience share
overall."

John Lansing:

News has to get beyond stenography and recording to tell us thungs search engines don't. News must concentrate on "how" and "why."


http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=175085

So do you still eat hot dogs?

When I was much younger, I had the misfortune of reading a document that specified how many rat hairs and other loathsome contaminents were allowed in a frankfurter. It was years before I was able to eat a hot dog again. the weird thing was that back then chicken wasn't allowed, but rat hair (and other leavings) below a certain amount were.

Watching Lieberman and Nelson during the course of these negotiations, brings back those memories and the disgust. Did they ban chicken while alowwing rat leavings?

Will reconciled with the House Bill will it turn our stomachs?

Will it save lives?

in reference to: Negotiating to 60 Votes, Compromise by Compromise - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Older Workers Face New Challenges in Tough Job Market | PBS NewsHour

looking for work may be a fulltime job, but the pay sucks.

Recovery?

In some places every other family suffers job loss. This seems to be the real tipping point on the path to every family in a neighborhood suffering. We started tolerating this inequality under Reagan. A generation now grown knows no other way to survive except to hope that spme of the value they produce will tridkle down from the advantaged people. Less and less does as time passes. Less and less will.

in reference to:

"A recent survey for the policy institute found that one in four families had been hit by a job loss during the past year and 44 percent had suffered either the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or hours worked. Economic insecurity has spread like a debilitating virus through scores of millions of American families. What kind of recovery are we talking about if blue-collar workers, and men and women without college degrees, and large percentages of ethnic minorities and the young and the poor are not part of it? And how can any recovery be sustained if economic insecurity is a permanent feature of even middle-class life?"
- Op-Ed Columnist - A Recovery for Some - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Along With Layoffs, Recession’s Cost Can Be Seen in Pay Cuts - NYTimes.com

Along
With Layoffs, Recession’s Cost Can Be Seen in Pay Cuts - NYTimes.com

:

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track pay cuts, but it suggests
they are reflected in the steep decline of another statistic: total weekly pay
for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work
force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented
string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the
large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose
wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the
1981-1982 recession.

“What this means,” said Thomas J. Nardone, an assistant
commissioner at the bureau, “is that the amount of money people are paid has
taken a big hit; not just those who have lost their jobs, but those who are
still employed.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/economy/14income.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

Villains Hate Being called Villains

There shouldn't beany surprises here. All the insurace companies ever really supported was an expansion of their market. Even this is less an effort to derail reform, than a rationale for steply raising rates after reform's passage. They may even succeed in further weakining already weak cost sontrols.

in reference to: Democrats Call Insurance Industry Report Flawed - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Clear and Future Danger

Op-Ed Columnist - The Uneducated American - NYTimes.com

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Chicago School Violence Plan Focuses on Potential Victims - NYTimes.com

Chicago School Violence Plan Focuses on Potential Victims - NYTimes.com

“”

Really complex problems tempt us to favor solutions that are simple, straightforward, and don't, won't and can't work.

We label schoolchildren thugs. (Remember super predators?)

We never ask how our economy, schools and politics, somehow combine to create so many desparate kids who don't value their own lives (or anyone else's).

I live on the streets where these kids die. They go to schools in my neighborhood. I'm 59, almost 60. I had jobs after school. They don't even have the memory of after school jobs. These kids have post traumatic stress.

Society at large wishes they would disappear, and they know it.

Their teachers don't believe they can learn, and they know it.

They're viewed as criminals, whether or not they've ever committed a crime, and they know it.

We've taught them some lessons well.

Adult's can't be counted on.

Don't expect help.

We'll record their trouble, upload it to YouTube, shake our heads in disgust, but never even try to stop the fights.

There were plenty of adults there when Derrion Albert died.

Police were there, before Derrion Albert died.

That honor student, that good kid looked too much like the kids they labled thugs. So nobody bothered to stop them from killing him.

If he hadn't been an honor student, he';d have never made the news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/us/07chicago.html?hp

Six Online Resume Tools Reviewed by Webware

Job hunting is a stressfull way of life in the current economy. Cnet's Webware introduces six tools that relieve some of that stress by making it easier to build and make available resumes.

in reference to: Get that job: Six online resume tools | Webware - CNET (view on Google Sidewiki)

Don't Underestimate Searchwiki

I think you're all underestimating this tool. You can simultaneously pubish poste to Blogger and share Published posts via Twitter, Faxebook, or your Graduating Class' Google Or Yahoo Group. Ignore at your own risk.

in reference to:

"However, it should be noted that not everyone is going to download the browser toolbar and see the comments. Out of that subset of the population, fewer of them will actually place comments or participate in the discussions."
- Google Force Feeds Social Media On The World | Social Media Explorer (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Great Rant About Twitter's Suggested User List

I consider this a must read. Scoble's at the top of his game. Twitter's got some 'splainin to do, but don't hold your breath while waiting.

in reference to: You’re not on Twitter’s suggested user list but you are in good company: (view on Google Sidewiki)

Unwanted Software from Apple

For a long time now, I've wasted time unchecking items that are useless to me. I've never owned an ipod or iphone. I don't need mobileme, safari, for most of the time apple has pushed it has been a security problem in Windows, but that hasn't slowed apple down. Not one bit

in reference to: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

We're in a service war

This is Bings attempt to differ from other engines by making life easier for the searcher. Booble has already begun to respond. For the casual searcher, Bing might be more useful. Definitely more usable.
in reference to: Bing - Deep Links Makes Life As A New Mom Easier - Search Blog - Bing Community (view on Google Sidewiki)

Deeper Links in the Chain of Competition

Competition is a beautiful thing. Bing uses deep links as a standard feature. Google shows more deep links in varied contexts and formats. May the user win.

in reference to: Yes, Google Is Showing Deeper Sitelinks In Different Formats (view on Google Sidewiki)

Israel: Stop Demolishing Palestinian Homes | Human Rights Watch

Israel: Stop Demolishing Palestinian Homes Human Rights Watch:
"Israeli authorities destroyed the homes and property of 18 shepherd families in the northern Jordan Valley on June 4, 2009, displacing approximately 130 people, after ordering them on May 31 to evacuate because they were living in a 'closed military zone.' Some of the families whose homes and property were destroyed had been living in their village since at least the 1950s.

'Giving families less than a week to evacuate their homes, without any opportunity for review or appeal, is as heartless as it is unfair,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 'Israel should have given these people due process to contest their displacement.'

At 7:30 a.m. on June 4, witnesses said, around 20 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) jeeps, three bulldozers, and several white cars belonging to the Israeli Civil Administration Authority arrived and blocked off the dirt access roads to the shantytown of ar-Ras al-Ahmar. The demolition operation began at 8 a.m. and destroyed 13 residential structures, 19 animal pens, and 18 traditional, underground ovens, according to the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The 18 displaced families included 67 children, the agency reported. Israeli soldiers also confiscated a tractor, a trailer, and a portable water tank that residents used to truck in water, witnesses said.Under an Israeli military order from 1970, the government may evict persons living in a "closed military zone" without any judicial or administrative procedures. Section 90 of the order states that "permanent residents" can remain in an area later designated as closed, and that eviction orders cannot change their status as permanent residents. However, the Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that because the shepherds in the area are pastoralists, the term "permanent residents" does not apply to them.

Residents say that ar-Ras al-Ahmar and al-Hadidiyya date from at least the 1950s. The Israeli settlement of Ro'i was built between the two villages in 1978. The two communities and Ro'i lie within "Area C" of the West Bank, over which Israel retains near-total control under the Oslo Agreements of 1995.
"It's astonishing to see Israel evict Palestinians from their villages in the West Bank, yet again violating the rights of the occupied population, while allowing a settlement which by law should never have been built in the first place, to remain," said Whitson.

On June 9, Jabarin said, the Israeli High Court of Justice temporarily enjoined the state from further demolitions against the people remaining in ar-Ras al-Ahmar. In al-Hadidiyya, Jabarin said, seven families who received stop-construction orders will have the chance to appeal and to apply for building permits at the hearing.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in December 2006, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition against earlier demolition orders for al-Hadidiyya, because the affected buildings were in an area defined as agricultural in master plans from the British Mandatory period and posed a security threat to the nearby Ro'i settlement. Israeli authorities demolished homes in al-Hadidiyya in February and March 2008, displacing about 60 people in all. Some of the displaced families returned to the area later, but due to repeated evictions over the years, more than a dozen households from al-Hadidiyya have been permanently displaced.

While Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, may in some cases lawfully require residents to leave their homes, it must not do so arbitrarily and must afford affected persons meaningful due process. Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), among other treaties to which Israel is a party that apply in the West Bank, prohibits arbitrary or unlawful state interference with anyone's home."


It's strange that the closed military zone is only dangerous to Palestinians while remaining perfectly safe for illegal jewish settlers. Natural growth isn't legal unless you're illegal,and jewish. Palestinians have no rights a Jewish state feels bound to consider. Which is why Israel's right to exist as a state is one thing and its desire to be recognized as a Jewish state is something totally different and unacceptable. As unnacceptable as a White Christian state, about as democrastic as apartheid in South Africa.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/12/israel-stop-demolishing-palestinian-homes

The Definitive Definition of Genocide

Op-Ed Columnist - Holding On to Our Humanity - NYTimes.com:

“ ‘They said to us: ‘If you have a baby on your back, let us see it.’ The soldiers looked at the babies and if it was a boy, they killed it on the spot [by shooting him]. If it was a girl, they dropped or threw it on the ground. If the girl died, she died. If she didn’t die, the mothers were allowed to pick it up and keep it.’

The woman recalled that in that moment, the kind of throbbing moment when time is not just stopped but lost, when it ceases to have any meaning, her grandmother had a boy on her back. The grandmother refused to show the child to the soldiers, so both she and the boy were shot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/opinion/30herbert.html?ref=opinion

What's Sauce for Palestinians Must Apply to Israelis

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the center-left Labor Party, gave a hypothetical example of a family of four that originally moved into a two-room home in a settlement. “Now there are six children,” he said. “Should they be allowed to build another room or not?”

Not when a Palestinian's home is bulldozed for merely adding a room or a floor. Not when Palestinians lose not only the land the settlement expands to, but also the land for roads they're not allowed to travel on, and land for checkpoints so the settlers can feel protected while Palestinians are prevented from going to schools, hospitals, or just to work.

“The Israeli government wants to reach understandings with the Obama administration that would allow some new construction in West Bank settlements, an Israeli official said, despite vocal American and Palestinian opposition.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion in his meeting with President Obama in their meeting scheduled for Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.
President  Obama and other senior American officials have called on the government of Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud Party to halt all settlement activity.
Dan Meridor, the Israeli minister of intelligence, and other senior Netanyahu aides returned on Wednesday from meetings in Europe with President Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, and other American officials. The purpose was to continue discussing issues raised in last week’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting, including that Mr. Obama’s objections to settlement expansion.

Close to 300,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, dominating a Palestinian population of some 2.5 million. Most of the world considers the settlements a violation of international law.

Mr. Netanyahu says that his government will not build any new settlements and will take down a number of outposts erected in recent years by settlers without proper government authorization. But he insists that his government will allow building within existing settlements to accommodate what he termed “natural growth,” essentially continuing the policy of the last few Israeli governments.
Israel claims understandings with the Bush administration — some formal, some informal and some tacit — on building within settlements. Construction was limited in small settlements but tolerated in large ones in areas that Israel intends to keep under any deal with the Palestinians.

“We want to work to reach understandings with the new administration” that are “fair” and “workable,” said the Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.

Obama's administration wants a settlement freeze to create an environment for peace-making, encouraging gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel from Arab governments, and buttressing a coalition of countries opposed to Iran developing nuclear weapons.

In an effort to show goodwill, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have been underscoring their willingness to take down 22 small outposts that are illegal under Israeli law, and which were supposed to have been removed under the 2003 American-backed peace plan known as the road map. That plan specified that Israel should halt “all settlement activity (including natural growth).”

Mr. Barak has said he will try to remove the small outposts by agreement with the settlers, and if agreement is not reached, then by force. Settlers have vowed to rebuild any outpost that is removed and to create more.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the police removed some sheds and a tent from two tiny outposts in the Hebron area.

Another small outpost was demolished in the Ramallah region last week, but new shacks have already appeared there. None of the three outposts were on the list of 22, but the measures against them prompted furious reactions from the hard right.

Many religious Jewish nationalists say it is their right to settle in the biblical heartland of the West Bank, which they refer to as Judea and Samaria. Others cite security reasons for holding on to the areas captured in the 1967 war. Settling occupied territory is a violation of international law.

A rather sore point of contention between the Israeli government and the Obama administration is Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to publicly endorse a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a cornerstone of American policy. ”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html?ref=worldThere seems to be no desire toreach fair and workable understandings with the Palestinian Authority.

US Passport Security Procedures Fail Under GAO Test - Security Watch

US Passport Security Procedures Fail Under GAO Test - Security Watch:

"If you have applied for a US passport in recent years you would have noticed that you have to bring a fair amount of documentation. But that doesn't mean you can't scam the process. A recent series of tests of the security of the passport application process by the US GAO (Government Accountability Office) showed that the measures to prove identity of the people applying for passports falls short of the mark:

• Four genuine US passports were obtained using counterfeit or fraudulently-obtained documents.
  
• One passport was obtained using counterfeit documents and the social security number of a man who died in 1965.
  
• Counterfeit documents for a 53 year old man were used to obtain a passport using the genuine social security number of a 5 year old.
  
• In none of the 4 undercover test cases were the fraudulent methods discovered.
  

It's hard to argue with results like this and the State Department is said, in the report, to agree that the problems are serious.

The problems described here might be addressed if the State Department actually verified the documents they demanded. But that doesn't solve all the problems in passport identity, as those documents themselves are not especially secure. And nothing to make passport application significantly more onerous will be sellable politically."

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/04/us_passport_security_procedure.php