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Open Letter to Senator McCain: I Am Elated You Did Not Win

2008-11-11T11:58:00.003-05:00

Dear Senator McCain:

As one of the so-called independent voters your campaign seemed so concerned to persuade, I would like to let you know how elated I am that you did not win the presidential election. I did not vote for you because I believe you are a phony and because the decisions you made during your campaign demonstrated that you would have been a horrible president.

First, I believe you are a phony. I do not believe your claim that you are a “maverick” and I do not believe you, as president, would have changed the status quo that paralyzes the federal government from the meaningful changes that are needed if the United States is to remain strong economically and as a world leader. I do not believe you ever truly worked a day in your life. I do not believe you have any real idea of how the majority of your countrymen struggle every day to meet their basic needs for shelter, food, health care, security, etc. You cheated on and unceremoniously dumped your first wife so you could marry that tarted-up, makeup-slathering termagant you call a wife in order to gain access to her enormous wealth, which, by the way, she did not produce either. Because of your wife, you are now so wealthy that you do not even know how many houses you own: was it seven or eight? I can assure you the average citizen of the United States has no trouble recalling how many houses he or she owns, if any. You are nothing like the average American citizen. I do not believe you can relate to average American citizens, and you possess no insight into how to improve their lives. In fact, the prescriptions you proposed during your campaign, in my opinion, were actually designed to enrich large corporations at the expense of individuals.

Second, the decisions you made during your campaign were disastrous and demonstrate that you lack sound judgment, which leads me to conclude you would have made a horrible president. The people you chose to run your campaign, such as Schmidt, Salter, and Rick Davis, were awful. They were so uncreative, all they could do is run the tired playbook of Karl Rove. Rick Davis came across on television as a belligerent, condescending, arrogant prick. Your spokespeople, such as Tucker Bounds and Nicolle Wallace, were whiny, unctuous prevaricators who could not give a straight answer to a question if their lives depended on it. For example, Tucker Bounds, when asked by CNN’s Campbell Brown to explain Gov. Palin’s foreign policy experience, could only defiantly assert she was in charge of the Alaska National Guard, and acted all offended when the sufficiency of that ridiculous answer was questioned. Then your campaign whined like little babies about how “unfair” the interview was. How absurd!

Your choice of Gov. Palin for your running mate was the worst decision you could have made. It appeared you made a snap decision; you shot from the hip, knowing very little about Gov. Palin. This was an enormously important test of your decision-making ability and your judgment, and you blew it big time! Her interview with Katie Couric showed Gov. Palin is empty-headed and grossly unprepared to run a convenience store, let alone the United States. Her selection, and your expectation that the American people should believe she would be capable of becoming president in the event of your death, was an insult to the American people's intelligence. Her explanation of her foreign policy experience, that Alaska is next to Russia and President Putin flies over Alaskan airspace when he comes to the United States, literally made me laugh out loud. My wife thought she was watching a parody and was shocked to learn it was really Gov. Palin speaking. Several prominent Republicans in my community told me they would not vote for you because Gov. Palin is not qualified for the one job you nominated her for: to replace the president in the event of his death.

Your campaign was tawdry, mean-spirited, and stupid. Accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists” was blatantly untrue. The notion your campaign tried to sell, that this U.S. Senator from Illinois, former state senator, and former law professor, was somehow hiding his true identity and agenda and would suddenly, if elected president, transform into some kind of “un-American” or “terrorist” president was absurd on its face. Your campaign was just more of the same old negative bullshit that was not indicative of a new style of politics. The dramatic suspension of your campaign to go to the capital to lead the nation in dealing with the economic crisis was a transparently cheap stunt. You did not lead. You accomplished exactly nothing. Your decisions were terrible, and judging from those decisions, I can only conclude you would have selected idiots to run your administration and you would have made terrible decisions as president.

In sum, I think you are just a phony old grump who thought he was entitled to be president because of being a war hero when in fact you are just a lowlife political scumbag who helped Charlie Keating steal and who cares about nothing and no one but himself and being a lackey for wealthy individuals and corporate interests. Thank you for your consideration.

Goodbye Dick!

2008-11-09T23:59:00.005-05:00

I am so happy Dick Cheney's reign of vice-presidential tyranny is soon coming to an end. Cheney is an arrogant, power-hungry miscreant who operates in secrecy, like a spider, and a bloodthirsty orderer of torture with no respect for the rule of law and no respect for anyone who dares to disagree with him.

Dick Cheney has done nothing good for the United States or its people. I hope when he skulks out of office, he goes far away and just dies a slow, horrible, painful death.

Wall Street Crisis Timeline

2008-10-19T16:39:00.002-04:00

TIMELINE: How the Wall Street Crisis unfolded (as of October 1, 2008)

Reuters 02 October 2008 06:45

(Reuters) - The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression nearly 80 years ago has hit the world this year. Here are some key dates:

January 11 - Bank of America pays $4 billion for Countrywide Financial after the mortgage lender goes bust when risky loans to shaky borrowers fail.

February 17 - Britain's Northern Rock is nationalised after funding crisis.

March 16/17 - Bear Stearns sold to U.S. investment bank JP Morgan Chase for about $2 a share.

July 13 - U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve effectively nationalizes mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a bid to support U.S. housing market.

Sept 14/15 - Investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc files for bankruptcy protection; rival Merrill Lynch & Co Inc agrees to be taken over by Bank of America Corp

September 16 - Fed announces plan for $85 billion loan to American International Group Inc in return for 80 percent stake in the insurer; Britain's Barclays buys parts of Lehman's North American assets for $1.75 billion.

September 17 - British bank Lloyds TSB Group Plc agrees to rescue rival HBOS Plc, scooping up Britain's biggest home loan lender in an all-share deal.

September 18 - The UK Financial Services Authority imposes a temporary ban on short-selling financial stocks, a move echoed in other centers.

September 19 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calls for the government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to take toxic mortgage assets off the books of financial companies to restore financial stability. News of the bailout plan helps world stock markets soar.

September 20 - Details emerge of a $700 billion plan to bail out firms burdened with bad mortgage debt.

-- A U.S. bankruptcy judge approves a revised version of Barclays purchase of the core U.S. business of Lehman.

September 21 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley become bank holding companies regulated by the Fed.

September 22 - Nomura Holdings Inc says it will buy Lehman's franchise in Asia Pacific and acquires Lehman's business in Europe. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial agrees to buy up to 20 percent of Morgan Stanley for $8.5 billion.

September 23 - AIG signs "definitive" agreement for up to $85 billion in borrowings from the Fed, the main part of a rescue plan that will see it take a 79.9 percent stake in the insurer.

September 24 - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc says it will buy up to 9 percent of Goldman, which also announced plans to sell $2.5 billion in common stock.

-- CNN says the FBI is investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and AIG and their senior executives for potential mortgage fraud.

September 25 - Washington Mutual is closed by the U.S. government in the largest failure of a U.S. bank. Its banking assets are sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.

September 29 - Britain announces the nationalization of mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley Plc. Spain's Banco Santander SA will buy its retail deposits and branch network. Banking and insurance company Fortis NV is bailed out by Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments to the tune of 11.2 billion euros ($16.4 billion). Wachovia Corp agrees to sell most of its assets to Citigroup Inc in a deal brokered by regulators.

-- U.S. House of Representatives rejects the $700 billion rescue plan for the financial industry. Dow Jones posts its largest point decline ever while the S&P 500 has its worst day since 1987 with an 8.8 percent drop.

September 30 - World stocks fall to near three-year lows but fears of a major meltdown ease as European losses are muted.

- EU regulators endorse a 6.4 billion euro public bailout of Belgian-French financial services group Dexia SA.

-- Ireland pledges more than double its GDP to guarantee all bank deposits.

October 1 - U.S. Senate passed a revamped U.S. financial rescue plan aimed at restoring global financial stability, sending the measure to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote expected on Friday.

2008 Credit Crisis Update: Trouble Behind, Trouble Ahead

2008-07-19T19:32:00.003-04:00

The July 19, 2008 edition of The Wall Street Journal reports that, although Wall Street seemed to be relatively pleased with Citigroup's recent announcement of a $2.5 billion quarterly loss (because it was less of a loss than expected), some forbidding clouds loom on the horizon:

Credit problems are spreading to a wider array of loans around the world. As a result loan losses are likely to swell for at least another year;
Loan problems are cascading from mortgages to credit cards to commercial loans;
Bankers are shifting more of their concern from subprime borrowers with blemished credit to solid customers who as a group are increasingly falling behind or defaulting on their loan payments;
Rising defaults in credit card loans and prime mortgages will further drain bank profits and capital at a time when many banks are already restraining lending;
Citigroup's delinquency rates for prime mortgages and credit card debt are rising;
Citigroup reported a rise in defaults on credit card loans worldwide: in Brazil, Mexico, India, and Japan.

Buying Time For Homeowners In Foreclosure

2008-07-19T14:00:00.004-04:00

From the July 18, 2008 Miami Herald, an article about mortgage foreclosure defense, an area of the law in which my firm practices:

Foreclosure defense buys homeowners time

By MONICA HATCHER

As foreclosures continue to mount, borrowers who have run out of options are turning to attorneys to fight back -- and they're living mortgage-free for months in the process.

Although the chances of ultimately keeping a foreclosed home are slim, for $1,500 to $3,000 some lawyers are offering to defend borrowers in court, causing the wheels of justice to turn more slowly.

Duking it out can add months and sometimes years to a foreclosure process that in Florida already takes an average of seven months to complete. Homeowners can use the extra time to save for a move, sell the house or mull other options.

Investors can continue collecting rent from tenants, recouping at least some of their losses.

Foreclosure defense is proving popular enough that some South Florida bankruptcy and real estate lawyers said they were refocusing their practices to meet the growing demand.

As with many issues surrounding foreclosures, the practice is not without controversy. Delaying the inevitable is costly for lenders and for taxpayers who fund the court system, according to some lawyers who represent lenders. The process may also be unethical, they claim, and can put delinquent borrowers into a deeper financial hole.

Florida is a ''judicial foreclosure'' state, meaning a lender must sue to force the sale of a property. Yet the majority of cases are tried without the defendant -- the borrower -- even showing up in court, said Timothy Kingcade, a prominent bankruptcy attorney who also defends foreclosures.

'If you are accused of murder and you are guilty, you don't walk into court and say, `I did it!' You make the prosecuting attorney prove their case,'' Kingcade said.

While a foreclosure may seem straightforward -- a borrower doesn't pay and the bank takes back the home -- lawyers say there are numerous ways to fight.

THE PAPER CHASE

One way is forcing the lender to prove it owns the debt behind the mortgage by producing a promissory note. A mortgage is a security instrument pledging property as collateral for a loan if a borrower defaults, but it is not the promissory note itself.

As mortgages were bought, bundled and sold off to investors, notes got lost in the shuffle, landing in vaults or warehouses around the country. Physically retrieving them can be difficult and sometimes impossible.

About 80 percent of the time, lenders fail to attach a copy to the lawsuit, Kingcade and others said.

When lenders can't prove they own the loan, lawyers can get cases dismissed, said Peter Ticktin of the Ticktin Law Group in Deerfield Beach, whose firm has advertised foreclosure defense services on television.

He began taking foreclosure clients about eight months ago. So far, none of his cases have gone to trial. His clients are still in their homes.

Some lawyers also ask lenders to produce all the documents in a loan file, transcripts of phone conversations with the borrower and copies of written correspondence, which can take up to a year or more to compile. Several businesses are involved, and some may have gone out of business.

Kingcade said requesting and reviewing a complete file could turn up fraud or other inconsistencies leading to a successful defense, though ``the bank may be entitled to its money, and 99.9 percent of the time the bank is absolutely right.''

Neither Kingcade nor other attorneys interviewed said seeking out such documents was intended only to stall the process, which could be considered unethical.

''I hold the banks to their burden of proof in court,'' Kingcade said. ''Of course justice isn't doled out in a day. It takes sometimes six, eight to 12 months for that to happen,'' Kingcade said.

Ticktin said many borrowers were duped by dishonest brokers and took on loans they could never afford. They could have their cases successfully mediated. Some borrowers' payments were misdirected and not properly credited to their accounts.

''People think I am dealing with a bunch of con artists,'' Ticktin said.

``I'm talking about families, innocent kids, people who got led into deals that are causing them trouble.''

Angela Bellsanctious, of Lauderhill, is an example. She admits she is careless about opening her mail and said her mortgage was bought by a new servicer without her knowledge.

Because her payments were automatically withdrawn from her bank account, she didn't know her loan wasn't being paid until it was too late. On June 12, the home she had lived in since 1990 was sold. Last week she got notice from the Broward sheriff that she had 48 hours to move.

''I was freaking out. I was praying and praying, and this lawyer came on the TV and said something about foreclosures,'' Bellsanctious, 58, said.
It was Ticktin, who for $360 got a judge to waive the writ of possession while he tries to sort out the problem with the lender.

''I have no idea where I would have gone,'' Bellsanctious said.

ABUSING THE SYSTEM

Yet, for every legitimate miscommunication and misconduct by a mortgage lender, dozens of bogus defenses are filed, clogging up the courts, some lawyers said.

Iris Hernandez, a lawyer who files foreclosures on behalf of lenders, said some local attorneys were known for filing boilerplate defenses without supporting their positions, acting for borrowers seeking to take advantage of the system.

'Some people feel that ` If I don't pay for a year, I'm getting my down payment back,' '' Hernandez said.

Furthermore, not all clients deserve or need a foreclosure defense, Hernandez said. Some lawyers, she noted, appeared to be using it as a way to bilk clients for fees -- once with an unnecessary defense and again after persuading the client to file bankruptcy.

What's more, Hernandez said, a borrower can easily extend the sale date of a home by up to 90 days by showing up at the last hearing and explaining to the judge why more time is needed.

NO FREE RIDE

Marc Ben-Ezra, who also files foreclosures statewide for lenders, said the borrower who seeks to delay the inevitable can face consequences.

Interest rates and other costs continue to pile up as the process drags on. Borrowers could be liable for the difference between what the lender recoups from the eventual home sale and the amount owed on the loan. Plus, homeowner and condo fees aren't being paid, which places hardships on people who are paying their debts.

''With every single day that goes by, they could be helping their clients get into bigger and bigger debt, rather than if they face the problems head on and resolve them as quickly as possible,'' Ben-Ezra said.

Get Free eBooks from the World eBook Fair

2008-07-19T13:29:00.002-04:00

At the World eBook Fair, which runs from July 4 through August 4, you can download for free more than 1 million books, which includes free sheet music. These are all works in the public domain, but you can find a lot of treasures there.

This year, the theme of the fair is Own Your Own Library and it promises 1 million-plus books free for the taking. The sheer number and the range and variety of titles make the World eBook Fair a veritable treasure trove for book lovers.

As of midnight CDT July 4, 2008, these were the approximate numbers:

100,000-plus from Project Gutenberg
500,000-plus from the World Public Library
450,000-plus from the Internet Archive
160,000-plus from eBooks About Everything
17,000-plus from International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP—sheet music)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1,227,000-plus Total

Does Your Mutual Fund Manager Eat His Own Cooking?

2008-06-16T15:00:00.002-04:00

Morningstar has released data, for the top 500 mutual funds it covers, on how much each fund manager invested in his or her fund. The data are here.

The data can be disheartening. In U.S.-stock funds, 47% report no manager ownership.

If the manager of a mutual fund does not feel strongly enough to invest his or her own money in the fund, why should anyone else?

Cold Stone Leaves Many Franchisees Feeling Stone Cold

2008-06-16T14:35:00.003-04:00

The June 16, 2008 Wall Street Journal reports on problems faced by franchisees of Cold Stone Creamery.

The Inside Scoop
Cold Stone Creamery attracted a lot of franchisees thinking it was a sure thing. It wasn't.
By RICHARD GIBSON

Earlier in this decade, Cold Stone Creamery was one of the hottest franchises around. The super-premium ice-cream stores attracted scores of franchisees hungry for a piece of the "Ultimate Ice Cream Experience."

Now many franchisees are selling their stores, overwhelmed by soaring bills and shrinking profits. Some have lost their homes, broken their retirement nest eggs or filed for bankruptcy.

What happened?

A number of franchisees also contend the company misled them, giving them promises of profit potential that proved unrealistic or inaccurate revenue numbers from existing stores. And some say that they got little help from the company as their stores went under.

"They have a defective business model, there's no question about it," says Ken Gornall, a former franchisee who closed his Glendale, Ariz., store last October. He adds that the average revenue numbers he received before signing up "were quite misleading," exaggerating likely annual sales.

Cold Stone says more than 100 of its stores closed last year. That's up from 60 in 2006. One list on a Cold Stone Web site recently had 303 stores for sale -- more than 20% of the company's 1,384 as of last December.

This "combination of numbers is very, very high," says franchise attorney Eric Karp of Boston law firm Witmer, Karp, Warner & Ryan LLP. "I think it's a symptom of bad news and not good news." (Mr. Karp, who specializes in representing franchisee associations and individual franchisees, hasn't represented Cold Stone store owners.)

Cold Stone has been franchising only since 1995, and Mr. Karp concludes that 12 years or so would be an unusually short time for first-generation franchisees to be cashing out and retiring.

Chris Prasifka, Cold Stone's president, acknowledges that the "inventory of stores for sale now is higher than it has been." But a company spokeswoman terms the for-sale number "at par with industry expectations," given "the economically challenging times." She adds that about 230 of those listed for sale are stores in operation; the rest are "awards" to develop future stores.

The company also contests the franchisees' charges. Cold Stone insists it doesn't provide profit potential to prospective franchisees. It also says the revenue figures it gave for existing stores were based on franchisee reports.

Costs, meanwhile, "will depend on how well a store is operated," Mr. Prasifka says. Cold Stone says it uses a one-stop distributor to ensure efficiency, quality and economies of scale. It adds that franchisees can buy ingredients elsewhere at lower prices if the product is identical. Cold Stone says it won't distribute national two-for-one coupons this year, after franchisee complaints.

And the company says that it's selective about adding franchisees, typically approving about 2% of applicants. As for their chances of succeeding, Mr. Prasifka asserts that "it's no different from any other business. You've got to work it." He adds, "It does take a year or two to understand the business."

Overall, Mr. Prasifka says, "We want all franchisees to succeed. However, minimal restaurant experience, a lack of desire to do local-store marketing or the inability to be operationally excellent can all contribute to a franchisee's inability to succeed."

Cold Stone was a stand-alone brand for 19 years before being acquired by fast-food franchiser Kahala Corp. last year. Other Kahala brands include Blimpie sandwiches and TacoTime Mexican food. Kahala's plans call for slowing Cold Stone's expansion, reducing new-store construction costs and finding ways to grow average annual store sales to about $500,000 from about $360,000 now.

For many franchisees, the new ownership comes too late. Formerly an independent real-estate agent, Mr. Gornall signed up for a Cold Stone franchise in June 2004. "The stores seemed busy all the time. You assume that 'busy' equates to profitability," he says.

Before buying, Mr. Gornall called half a dozen franchisees. "No one said, 'This is a bad deal,' " he remembers. But it soon became clear that something was amiss. Mr. Gornall already faced high overhead such as a $3,700-a-month lease, he says. Then, he says, the company squeezed his margins further by mandating that he buy what he considered expensive ingredients, in larger quantities than he needed. Mr. Gornall adds that the company's promotional couponing shrank his profits.

Along the way, he says, he didn't get much help, either from Cold Stone or the area developer -- a company representative assigned to sell franchises in the area and monitor the franchisees. The area developer, Sean Brown, visited his store only once, Mr. Gornall recalls, and didn't have any good ideas for boosting sales.

Mr. Gornall and his wife borrowed on their personal credit cards to pay the store's bills. But after their losses exceeded $100,000 last fall, they gave up and closed their store. They lost their house and are filing for bankruptcy. "It's been pretty devastating," he says.

Still, "I share some responsibilities" for failing, Mr. Gornall adds. "Maybe I should have closed sooner, but I kept on thinking things would be better."

The company wouldn't comment directly on the Gornalls' case. But Mr. Prasifka says, "When a franchisee asks for support, we make it a priority to get someone from our team to visit them, discuss their situation and get to the root cause."

He says if franchisees aren't satisfied with the support they receive from their area developer, there are "multiple resources," including an ombudsman, available. But he acknowledges that "during tough times, we will have some franchisees who will struggle."

The company didn't comment on Mr. Gornall's complaints about Mr. Brown, which were echoed by several other ex-franchisees. Cold Stone terminated Mr. Brown in January 2007 after he "habitually failed to pay royalties, rent, advertising and other amounts" on Cold Stone stores he owned, according to a company document in a tax-levy dispute with the government in U.S. District Court in Houston. The dispute arose over who should pay income and employment taxes owed on Mr. Brown's stores. The government looked to Cold Stone, but the company argued that Cold Stone didn't have an interest in Mr. Brown's properties at the time the lien arose. Mr. Brown declined to comment.

Citing surveys of franchisees, Mr. Prasifka says that overall "they're very satisfied with their area developers," whom he calls "world class." He says three of the two dozen or so have left the system in the past two years.

Some franchisees argue that the chain expanded too rapidly in its early years. "They did overbuild across the country, no question about it," says Michael Goldman, a Northern California franchisee with seven stores and a seat on Cold Stone's National Advisory Board, a group of franchisees who meet to discuss the business and give franchisee feedback to management.

The rapid growth meant new stores were frequently close to old ones, cannibalizing sales, Mr. Goldman argues. "I'm sure there are sites that should never have been picked and franchisees that should never have been picked" because of their lack of experience, he says.

But while many failed Cold Stone franchisees were new to franchising, experienced franchisees also have lost money. "This was not our first rodeo," says Deborah Lickteig, whose family had operated KFC chicken outlets in Arizona and New Mexico.

"We worked it real hard for a year," she says. But she and her husband sold their store in June 2006 after weekly sales at the San Antonio outlet fell several thousand dollars short of what she calls "skewed" pro-forma figures from the company. A glut of Cold Stone stores in the area, high food costs and the buy-one, get-one-free coupons made things worse, she says. Cold Stone wouldn't comment directly on the Lickteigs.

Former Florida franchisee Cecil Rolle has become more nettlesome to Cold Stone than most. After the company terminated him last year, it alleged in a Florida circuit court action that he had been caught removing equipment from one of his three Florida stores in the middle of the night. The company also filed suit in federal district court in Tallahassee to recover what it said are substantial sums he owes.

Mr. Rolle acknowledges seeking to remove equipment and withholding payments. But he and his wife have countersued, contending among other things that they were misled when told they would make "right around a 20% profit" on a mall store they bought. Cold Stone wouldn't comment on Mr. Rolle's allegations, but in a recent email to franchisees, a Cold Stone attorney sought to counter what he termed "Mr. Rolle's inaccurate and misleading attacks against us."

Mr. Rolle is trying to organize other franchisees for a possible class-action suit seeking some remedy from Cold Stone and Kahala. He spends much of his days at his Gainesville, Fla., home emailing with disillusioned former and current franchisees. "I feel like I'm doing something good," he says. And last month, Mr. Rolle opened an ice-cream shop in Tallahassee -- on the site of a former Cold Stone store.

--Mr. Gibson is a special writer for Dow Jones Newswires in Des Moines, Iowa.

Write to Dick Gibson at dick.gibson@dowjones.com7.

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McCain Dropped the C Bomb on His Wife

2008-06-01T16:05:00.004-04:00

New York Review of Books reports an account of John McCain's famous temper in a review that includes Cliff Schecter's book The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him - and Why Independents Shouldn't.

Schecter, a freelance liberal commentator who contributes frequently to The Huffington Post, recounts, for the first time, a tale—confirmed to him, he writes, by three Arizona reporters—that in 1992, after Cindy McCain teased her husband about his thinning hair, McCain snapped at her, in front of the reporters and two staffers: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c—." One wonders if on such occasions she reminds her husband who it was that made his political career possible. She has recently called the idea that her husband has a temper "a concoction."

Given the apparent bias against McCain revealed by his book's title, it is, of course, fair to question whether Schecter's C bomb story is also a concoction. If the words were indeed spoken, perhaps John and Cindy simply like to joke around with each other in a crude manner. If John really said such a thing to his wife in anger, then Cindy must be a very forgiving person.

TransUnion to Provide Free Access to Credit Scores

2008-05-30T16:15:00.003-04:00

Under a class-action settlement, one of the big three credit reporting agencies, TransUnion Corp., will provide free access to credit scores to anyone who had any type of loan account between January 1987 and Wednesday, May 28, 2008, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Federal law entitles everyone to a free copy of his or her credit report once a year from each of the three major credit-reporting companies, but it doesn't provide access to credit scores.

Under the settlement, anyone who had any type of loan account between January 1987 and Wednesday would be able to select one of two options:

A basic service would provide free credit monitoring for six months. It normally retails for $59.75, according to the settlement. Those who select this service can also apply for a cash payment.

An enhanced service would provide nine months of free monitoring, plus use of a "mortgage simulator" that lets consumers see whether improving their credit score would affect their mortgage rates and how much they could save if it did. This option also includes access to one's insurance score, which is used by some insurers to set rates (though California bars their use).
The settlement values this option at $115.50.

Under the settlement, a credit card number would not be required to sign up for either service. After the free service ends, TransUnion could not charge for an extension unless it was requested by the consumer.

World Oil Shortfall Likely By 2015

2008-05-24T18:23:00.004-04:00

According to the May 22, 2008 Wall Street Journal, with crude oil prices rocketing to over $130 a barrel, double what they were a year ago, a growing number of people in the oil industry are endorsing a version of the "peak oil" theory: that oil production will plateau in coming years, as suppliers fail to replace depleted fields with enough fresh ones to boost overall output.

On May 22, 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that the world's premier energy monitor, the International Energy Agency (IEA), is predicting that the world could face an oil shortfall by 2015 of as much as 12.5 million barrels a day, unless there is a sharp drop in expected demand.

The United States Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration has made preliminary findings that daily output of conventional crude oil alone, now about 73 million barrels, will plateau at 84 million barrels, and that it will take a significant uptick in production of nonconventional fuels such as ethanol to push global fuel supplies over 100 million barrels a day by 2030, when global oil demand is predicted by the IEA to be in excess of 116 million barrels a day.

On May 23, 2008, the WSJ reported how mounting concerns about the global energy supply and public outrage over high gasoline prices are increasing pressure on the United States government and Congress to end longstanding bans on domestic drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, such as off the coasts of California and Florida, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Oil company executives, such as Exxon's President Rex Tillerson, claim to have no doubt there are significant conventional oil resources in the off-limits areas.

However, WSJ admits that little data exist about how much oil and gas might be found under the waters now closed for exploration. I have heard people assert that there is enough oil in the closed areas to supply the U.S. with oil for the next fifty years. Apparently, there is no data to support such an assertion.

Therefore, it is not necessarily the case that increased drilling will lead to lower gasoline prices.

Another Sign of Foreclosure Crisis: Personal Property Auctioned for Unpaid Storage Fees

2008-05-17T12:15:00.008-04:00

The New York Times reports on another sign of the foreclosure crisis:

When homes go into foreclosure and the owners leave, many move their possessions, such as furniture, electronic equipment, exercise bikes, lamps, fish tanks, etc., into self-storage units. This is generally hoped to be a temporary situation.

One poignant quote from the report: “Storage has my hopes in it,” said Mr. Martin, who sleeps on a foldout bed in his mother’s guest room. “I don’t tell anyone this, but at least once a week I go over and look at my couch, my refrigerator, my TV stand, my mattress and realize I did have a life, and maybe there’s a way to go back to it.”

However, in some instances, the same economic and financial problems that resulted in defaulting on the mortgage cause people to fall behind on the storage fees. If the storage fees remain unpaid, the storage facility owner will change the lock on the unit and auction off the contents of the storage unit. People buy the contents at very low prices and then sell the items on E-Bay or at yard sales.

There are no statistics measuring this phenomenon. "It is impossible to put precise numbers on the phenomenon, partly because the industry is highly fragmented — the majority of facilities are locally owned — and also because the topic is not one the industry cares to dwell on. But auctioneers who dispose of units in default, as well as the bidders who try to buy their contents, say they see increasing signs of strain. They note that more auctions involve people who appear to have had their homes foreclosed."

The bright side is that times are good for storage companies. "U-Store-It’s stock is up 33 percent this year. Extra Space is up 18 percent. Public Storage is up 18 percent."

Foreclosure Sales in Broward County Up 500%

2008-05-15T16:27:00.002-04:00

South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports: For the month of April 2008, scheduled mortgage foreclosure sales in Broward County hit 2,568, a more than 500% increase over the 426 in April 2007, according to Realestat.com, a Plantation-based research firm.

In Palm Beach County, there were 785 scheduled sales in April, a 370 percent increase over the 167 from a year ago.

In April, there were 3,150 delinquent property owners in Broward, up from 1,135 last April, according to Realestat.com. Palm Beach County had 1,984 people facing foreclosure, up from 814 a year ago.

Reasons given by report for this spike in foreclosures:

1. Home sales have slowed;
2. Refinancing is difficult in many cases because of falling home values;
3. Adjustable-rate mortgage resets; and,
4. Deteriorating economy leading to significant job losses across the region and hindering homeowners from paying their mortgages.

Prosecutorial and Judicial Shenanigans in Broward County?

2008-05-14T17:11:00.003-04:00

Imagine the Assistant State Attorney prosecuting a capital murder case out partying at night and discussing the case with the presiding Judge during the pendency of the trial. Go here for the scoop.

Only in Broward County?

Dr. Peter Boxall's 1001 Books (Novels) You Must Read Before You Die

2008-05-13T19:56:00.002-04:00

According to this book's editors, each work of literature listed here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word. These works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others. (Description from Amazon.com)

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Underworld – Don DeLillo
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
London Fields – Martin Amis
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
Libra – Don DeLillo
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
Foe – J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
A Maggot – John Fowles
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavic
The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
Shame – Salman Rushdie
Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
La Brava – Elmore Leonard
Waterland – Graham Swift
The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Newton Letter – John Banville
On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
The Names – Don DeLillo
Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
Broken April – Ismail Kadare
Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Rites of Passage – William Golding
Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
Shikasta – Doris Lessing
A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
Yes – Thomas Bernhard
The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
The Shining – Stephen King
Dispatches – Michael Herr
Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
The Public Burning – Robert Coover
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
W, or the Memory of childhood – Georges Perec
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
Grimus – Salman Rushdie
The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
Fateless – Imre Kertész
Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
High Rise – J.G. Ballard
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Dead Babies – Martin Amis
Correction – Thomas Bernhard
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Crash – J.G. Ballard
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
The Breast – Philip Roth
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
The Bell – Iris Murdoch
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Rebel – Albert Camus
Molloy – Samuel Beckett
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
The Third Man – Graham Greene
The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
The Victim – Saul Bellow
Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
The Plague – Albert Camus
Back – Henry Green
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
Arcanum 17 – André Breton
Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
Transit – Anna Seghers
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caught – Henry Green
The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
Embers – Sandor Marai
Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
The Outsider – Albert Camus
In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
The Hamlet – William Faulkner
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
Party Going – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Years – Virginia Woolf
In Parenthesis – David Jones
The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
England Made Me – Graham Greene
Burmese Days – George Orwell
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
A Day Off – Storm Jameson
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
Passing – Nella Larsen
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Living – Henry Green
The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Amerika – Franz Kafka
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
Germinal – Émile Zola
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Florida State Prison Population Has Grown Twice As Fast As Florida Residential Population

2008-05-13T10:29:00.006-04:00

From 1990 to 2007, Florida's residential population increased by approximately 44%.

According to the February 2008 Pew Center on the States report, between 1993 and 2007, Florida's inmate population has increased from 53,000 to over 97,000, an increase of more than 83%.

Thus, the population residing in Florida's state prisons has grown at double the rate of Florida's population of residents.

Crime in Florida has dropped substantially between 1993 and 2007, but crime has fallen as much or more in some states that have not grown their prison systems, or even shrunk them, such as New York.

Why has Florida's prison population grown at such a high rate compared to overall population growth? Analysts agree most of the growth has stemmed from a host of correctional policies and practices adopted by the state:

1. In 1995, the Florida legislature abolished "good time" credits and discretionary release by the parole board, and required that all prisoners - regardless of their crime, prior record, or risk to recidivate - serve 85% of their sentence;

2. A "zero tolerance" policy for parole violations and increasing prison time for even "technical violations."

In addition, some observers point to the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. According to South Florida Sun Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo here, at 20.7 percent, drug offenders make up the biggest segment of the state prison population, according to the state. Of the 3,307 people sent to prison from Broward last year, 537 (16.2 percent) were for cocaine possession, according to the Broward State Attorney's Office.

If the same trend continues, Florida is expected to reach a peak of nearly 125,000 inmates by 2013. Based on that projection, the state will run out of prison capacity by early 2009 and will need to add another 16,500 beds to keep pace. According to Mayo, the upcoming Florida state budget includes $309 million to build three new prisons. That's in addition to the $2.5 billion the Department of Corrections gets for annual operating expenses.

Meanwhile, the May 15, 2008 Florida Bar News laments massive cuts to funding for Florida's judicial branch that could result in 299 full-time court employees (not judges) being laid off. The final court system budget for FY 2008-09 adopted by the legislature sliced an additional $18.4 million and impacts 182.5 positions on top of two previous reductions the court system suffered last year. Calculate the latest reduction to hefty previous cuts since July 1, 2007, and the bottom line for the judicial branch general revenue base budget totals $43,716,419, or a 9.8 percent decline from where the courts started a year ago.The net loss to the salary budget totals is 299 FTEs (full-time equivalent positions) or 6.8 percent of the court system workforce.

Is it possible the budget cuts to the judicial branch might slow the growth in Florida's prison population?

Interesting Mormon Beliefs About Polygamy

2008-05-12T18:39:00.003-04:00

According to an article in the May 16, 2008 issue of The Week magazine:

1. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, said that, on July 17, 1831, God told him that only a man with at least three wives could enter heaven;

2. In Mormon theology, the individual human soul exists both before and after mortal life, and it was therefore considered the duty of all Mormon men to have as many children as possible in order to spare those souls the indignity of being born, as Mormon apostle Orson Pratt put it, "among the Hottentots, the African negroes, the idolatrous Hindoos, or any other fallen nations that dwell upon the face of the Earth;"

3. All Mormons are not polygamous because God changed his mind just in time for Utah to join the United States. In 1890, while Utah territory was applying to become a state, church president Wilford Woodruff received a revelation from God to the effect that Mormons were to submit themselves to U.S. law and to cease the practice of plural marriage. The "mainstream" Mormons followed Woodruff's revelation. The "fundamentalist" sects did not.

Thousands of Board of Patent Appeals Decisions Since 2000 May Be Questionable Due To Unconstitutional Appointment Process

2008-05-12T17:17:00.003-04:00

John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University, has recently released a controversial paper that calls into question thousands of decisions made by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences since 2000. According to Duffy, the appointment process used to select judges for the panel has been unconstitutional since 1999, when a law was passed that gave the power of appointment, once enjoyed by the Secretary of Commerce, to the director of the Patent and Trademark Office. Duffy contends that the Constitution clearly delineates who can make what appointments, and that the undersecretary of a department does not meet these qualifications. Thus, the justices were appointed improperly, and judging from the amount at stake in many of their decisions, losing parties to their cases are now likely to challenge their decisions.

One such challenger is the company Translogic Technology, which lost its case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in January previous to the release of Duffy's article. Translogic has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has not yet agreed to hear the case.

Source: Fastcase Blog (who got it from New York Times)

U.S. Consumer Bankruptcy Filings Up 50%

2008-05-12T16:30:00.003-04:00

U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings increased 47.7 percent nationwide in April 2008 from the same period a year ago, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), relying on data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center (NBKRC). The overall April consumer filing total of 92,291 also represented a 7.1 percent increase from the 86,165 filings in March. Chapter 13 filings constituted 31.14 percent of all consumer cases in April, a slight decrease from March.

“The sharp spike in consumer bankruptcies reflects the growing financial stress faced by American families, saddled with household debt and mortgage woes,” said ABI Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano. “We expect consumer bankruptcies to top 1 million new cases this year".

Separated At Birth? GEICO Caveman and Former American Idol Contestant Bo Bice

2008-05-08T14:54:00.005-04:00

Thanks to my wife Linda for noticing this!

2008 Credit Crisis

2008-04-06T19:05:00.002-04:00

From the Washington Post, here is a good explanation of the recent actions of the Federal Reserve in connection with the credit crisis:

Dreams End With Collapse of Tinker Bell Market

By Allan Sloan
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; D01

What in the world is going on here? Why is Washington spending billions to bail out Wall Street titans while leaving struggling homeowners to fend for themselves? Why are the Federal Reserve and the Treasury acting as if they're afraid the world may come to an end, while the stock market seems much less concerned? And finally, what does all this mean to those of us who aren't financial professionals?

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson officially unveiled his new regulatory proposals; however, those have no bearing on today's problems. So, take a few breaths, pour yourself a beverage of your choice, and I'll tell you what's happening -- and what I think is going to happen. Although I expect our current mess will resolve itself without a catastrophic meltdown, I'll also tell you why I'm more nervous about the world financial system now than I've ever been in my 40 years of covering business and markets. Finally, I'll tell you why I fear that the Wall Street enablers of the biggest financial mess of my lifetime will escape with relatively light damage, leaving the rest of us, and our children and grandchildren, to pay for their misdeeds.

We're suffering the aftereffects of the collapse of a Tinker Bell financial market, one that depended heavily on borrowed money that has now vanished like pixie dust. Like Tink, the famous fairy from Peter Pan, this market could exist only as long as everyone agreed to believe in it. So because it was convenient -- and oh, so profitable! -- players embraced fantasies like U.S. house prices never falling and cheap short-term money always being available. They created, bought, and sold, for huge profits, securities that almost no one understood. And they goosed their returns by borrowing vast amounts of money.

The fantasies began to fade last June when Bear Stearns let two of its hedge funds collapse because of problems with mortgage-backed securities. Debt markets, here and abroad, went sour big-time. That, in turn, became a huge drag on the U.S. economy, bringing on the current economic slowdown.

Whether we're in a recession is academic. What matters is that we're in a dangerous and messy situation that has produced an economic slowdown unlike those we're used to seeing.

How is this slowdown different from other slowdowns? Normally the economy goes bad first, creating financial problems. In this slowdown the markets are dragging down the economy -- a crucial distinction, because markets are harder to fix than the economy.

The last time this happened was in 1929. And it touched off the Great Depression. The precedent is unsettling, to say the least. You can only imagine how unsettling it is to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a former economics professor who made his academic bones writing about the Great Depression.

Academics now feel that the 1929 slowdown morphed into a Great Depression in large part because the Fed tightened credit rather than loosening it. With that precedent in mind, you can see why Bernanke's Fed is cutting rates rapidly and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at today's problems. (Bernanke will probably throw that in too, if the Fed's plumbers can unbolt it.)

So why hasn't the cure worked? The problem is that vital markets that most people never see -- the constant borrowing and lending and trading among huge institutions -- have been paralyzed by losses, fear and uncertainty. And you can't get rid of losses, fear and uncertainty by cutting rates. Giant institutions are, to use the technical term, scared to death. They've had to come back time after time and report additional losses on their securities holdings after telling the market that they had cleaned everything up. It's whack-a-mole finance -- the problems keep appearing in unexpected places. We've had problems with mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, collateralized loan obligations, financial insurers, structured investment vehicles, asset-backed commercial paper, auction rate securities, liquidity puts.

To paraphrase what a top Fednik told me in a moment of candor last fall: You realize that you don't know what's in your own portfolio, so how can you know what's in the portfolio of people who want to borrow from you? Combine that with the fact that big firms are short of capital because of their losses (some of which have to do with accounting rules I won't inflict on you today) and that they're afraid of not being able to borrow enough short-term money to fund their obligations, and you can see why credit has dried up.

The fear -- a justifiable one -- is that if one big financial firm fails, it will lead to cascading failures throughout the world. Big firms are so linked with one another and with other market players that the failure of one large counterparty, as they're called, can drag down counterparties all over the globe. If the counterparties fail, it could drag down the counterparties' counterparties, and so on. Meltdown City. In 1998, the Fed orchestrated a bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund because it had $1.25 trillion in transactions with other institutions. These days that's almost small beer.

Add to that the Wall Street ethos: If you take big, even reckless, bets and win, you have a great year and you get a great bonus -- or in the case of hedge funds, 20 percent of the profits. If you lose money the following year, you lose your investors' money rather than your own, and you don't have to give back last year's bonus. Heads, you win; tails, you lose someone else's money.

Bernanke and his point man on Wall Street, New York Fed president Tim Geithner, know everything I've said, of course. They know a lot more, too, such as which specific institutions are running out of the ability to borrow and have huge obligations they need to refinance day in and day out. Walk by Fed facilities in New York or Washington and you can feel the fear emanating from the buildings.

Because these aren't normal times, the Fed has tried to reassure the markets by inventing three new ways to inundate the financial system with staggering amounts of short-term money. This is in addition to the Fed's existing mechanisms, which are vast. The three newbies -- the term auction lending facility, the primary-dealer credit facility and the term securities lending facility -- total more than half a trillion dollars, with more if needed. Much of this money is available not only to commercial banks but also to investment banks, which normally aren't allowed to borrow from the Fed.

How can the Fed afford this largesse? Easy. Unlike a normal lender, the Fed can't run out of money -- at least, I don't think it can. It can manage monetary policy while in effect creating banking reserves out of thin air and lending them out at interest. That's how the Fed reported a $34 billion profit in 2006, the last available year, of which $29 billion was sent to the Treasury. The Fed can even add to its $800 billion stash of Treasury securities by borrowing more of them from other big players.

Then there's the Treasury. In March, the Treasury unleashed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities, supporting a troubled market that was seeing prices drop sharply because of large forced sales from the collapse of Carlyle Capital and from hedge funds desperate to pay off some of their borrowings.

Still with me? Good. Now let me show you how we taxpayers are picking up the tab for much of this rescue mission to the markets, even though Uncle Sam isn't sending checks to Wall Street. Here's the math: Say the Fed extends $500 billion of emergency loans to firms in need of short-term money. They're paying about 2.5 percent interest to Uncle Ben (or Uncle Sam, if you prefer). That rate is way below what they'd pay to borrow in the open market, if they could borrow. The difference between the open-market price and 2.5 percent is a gift from us, the taxpayers. I think that's better than letting the world financial system collapse, but it's a serious subsidy to outfits that made a lot of money on the way up and that are now whining about losses. You gotta love it -- private profits, socialized losses.

Now to the infamous Bear Stearns deal. Bear shareholders are set to get $10 a share -- about $1.2 billion -- from J.P. Morgan Chase. That's $1.2 billion more than they were likely to realize in a bankruptcy had the Fed and the Treasury dared let Bear go broke. More important, Bear's creditors, who were asleep at the switch and ought to be forced to pay for it, got out whole because J.P. Morgan agreed to take over Bear's obligations.

The only reason Morgan did that is its deal with the Fed, in which the Fed is taking over $30 billion of Bear's financial toxic waste. J.P. Morgan eats the first $1 billion of losses -- a concession it made to the Fed, which was embarrassed and enraged when Morgan raised the price it was paying for Bear to $10 a share from the $2 originally agreed to.

The securities that Bear is shedding aren't worth $29 billion in today's markets. If they were, Morgan wouldn't need the Fed's dough. The Fed -- which is to say the taxpayers -- is eating the difference between $29 billion and what that stuff is worth. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Fed end up with a $4 billion haircut, but we'll probably never know. (Once you take that haircut into account, you see why Bear shareholders should stop complaining about getting "only" $10, and why Bear debt-holders should erect a statue to Bernanke.)

Fedniks are furious about the Wall Street enablers of the mortgage mess and other financial excesses being able to escape the full cost of their folly, with the public picking up the cost. But as one of them asked, "Is it better to let Bear Stearns fail and risk setting off a market collapse that costs a million jobs?" The answer, of course, is no. Bear had about $13 trillion of derivatives deals with counterparties, according to its most recent financial filings. If Bear had croaked, large parts of the world could have croaked. And the economic damage could have been catastrophic.

Okay. Is there good news here? Indeed, there is. Sooner or later, all this money being thrown at the debt markets will stabilize things.

But the costs will be steep. Those of us who have been prudent, lived within our means, and didn't overborrow are paying a huge price for this. Income on our Treasury bills, money market funds, and CDs has dropped sharply, thanks to the Fed's rate cuts, and our wealth has eroded relative to foreign currencies and commodities. As an indirect result of the Fed cutting short-term rates, we've already seen a loss of faith in the dollar by our foreign creditors. That's helped run up the price of commodities that are priced in dollars and may well be stirring up inflation even as the Fed lowers retirees' incomes.

It's going to get harder and harder to finance our country's trade and federal budget deficits, with our seemingly ever-falling dollar carrying such low interest rates. The dollar has been the world's preeminent reserve currency, but I think those days are drawing to a close. Don't be surprised if in the not-too-distant future the United States is forced by its lenders to borrow in currencies other than its own. It could get really ugly.

It's going to take years to work out our country's excess borrowings, with lenders and borrowers -- and quite likely American taxpayers -- all bearing the cost.

So, after all this, we end up with the same old story. Whenever you see a financially driven boom and people tell you, "This time it's different," don't listen. It's never different. Sooner or later, the bubble pops, as it has now. And you and I end up paying for it.

Allan Sloan is Fortune magazine's senior editor at large. His e-mail address isasloan@fortunemail.com.

Trillion Dollar Meltdown? The 2008 Credit Crisis

2008-04-06T18:11:00.005-04:00

Foreign Policy Magazine has a good summary of Charles Morris's new book Trillion Dollar Meltdown, which purports to explain how we got into the credit crisis that is currently beginning to wreak havoc in financial markets, the collapse of Bear Stearns being just the tip of the iceberg:

No, it’s not the Great Depression, but the United States is facing a nasty economy-wide retrenchment following the excesses of the 2000s, with no easy way to dance through it. Think 1979 to 1982, when then U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker exorcised consumer price inflation from the economy. The difference today is that the inflationary explosion has been absorbed by prices of assets—houses, stocks and bonds, office buildings—rather than by the prices of things you buy at the store. Here’s how it happened.

1. The Fed spikes the punch bowl. In the wake of the dot-com bust and 9/11, the Fed lowers interest rates to 1 percent, the lowest since 1958. For more than 2½ years, long after the economy has resumed growing, the Fed funds rate remains lower than the rate of inflation. For banks, in effect, money is free.

2. Leverage soars. Financial sector debt, household debt, and home prices all double. Big banks shift their business models away from executing transactions for customers to “principal trading”—or gambling from their own accounts with borrowed money. In 2007, the principal-trading accounts at Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch balloon to $1.3 trillion.

3. Consumers throw a toga party. Soaring home prices convert houses into ATMs. In the 2000s, consumers extract more than $4 trillion from their homes in net free cash (excluding financing costs and housing investment). From 2004 through 2006, such extractions exceed 7 percent of disposable personal income. Personal consumption surges from its traditional 66 to 67 percent of GDP to 72 percent by 2007, the highest rate on record.

4. A dollar tsunami. The United States’ current-account deficits exceed $4.9 trillion from 2000 through 2007, almost all for oil or consumer goods. (The current account is the most complete measure of U.S. trade, as it encompasses goods, services, and capital and financial flows.) Economists, including one Ben S. Bernanke, argue that a “global savings glut” will force the world to absorb dollars for another 10 or 20 years. They’re wrong.

5. Yields plummet. The cash flood sweeps across all risky assets. With so many people taking advantage of cheap loans, the most risky mortgage-backed securities carry only slightly higher interest rates than ultra-safe government bonds. The leverage, or level of borrowing, on private-equity company buyout deals jumps by 50 percent. Takeover funds load even more debt onto their portfolio companies to finance big cash dividends for themselves.

6. Hedge funds peddle crystal meth. Aggressive investors pour money into hedge funds generating artificially high returns by betting with borrowed money. To maximize yields, hedge funds also gravitate to the riskiest mortgages, like subprime, and to the riskiest bonds, which absorb losses on complex pools of lower-quality mortgages known as collateralized debt obligations or CDOs. The profits from selling bonds based on very risky underlying securities override bankers’ traditional risk aversion. By 2006, high-risk lending becomes the norm in the home-mortgage industry.

7. A ratings antigravity machine. Pension funds cannot generally invest in very risky paper as a mainstream asset class. So, banks and investment banks, with the acquiescence of the ratings agencies, create “structured” bonds with an illusion of safety. Eighty million dollars of “senior” CDO bonds backed by a $100 million pool of subprime mortgages will not incur losses until the defaults in the pool exceed 20 percent. The ratings agencies confer triple-A ratings on such bonds; investors assume they are equivalent to default-proof U.S. Treasury bonds or blue-chip corporates. To their shock, investors around the world discover that as pool defaults start rising, their senior CDO bonds rapidly lose trading value long before they suffer actual defaults.

8. The Wile E. Coyote moment arrives. Suddenly last summer, all the pretenses start to come undone, and the market is caught frantically spinning its legs in vacant space. The federal government responds with more than $1 trillion in new mortgage lending and lending authorizations in multiple guises from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Board, and the Federal Reserve. Home prices still drop relentlessly; signs of recession proliferate; risky assets plummet.

What now?

The collapse of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns may be a watershed moment. Participant reports suggest that JPMorgan Chase came into weekend negotiations last month prepared to do a deal without Fed support. But after examining Bear’s balance sheet, which looks completely conventional, except for $46 billion of hard-to-value mortgage assets, Morgan apparently said, “Hell no!” The $30 billion backup line of credit Morgan got from the Fed implies that they expect mortgage portfolio losses of some 70 cents on the dollar. Had Morgan recognized those losses, they could have forced comparable write-downs on a string of other banks. Bear’s default, in addition, could have triggered huge cash liabilities by thinly capitalized “bond insurers” and hedge funds that had guaranteed Bear’s debt. Many of the guarantors might have failed to have made good their guarantees. The Fed chose to pay up.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs recently estimated the total losses from this mess at $1.2 trillion, including nearly $500 billion at the banks. The cleanest solution would be for regulators to force banks to revalue their assets down to realistic levels in one fell swoop. (If the Fed and the Securities and Exchange Commission drive such a process, it might be accomplished within a single quarter.) The revaluations would almost certainly wipe out all or most equity capital at a number of the larger banks. Since it is unlikely that new private, nongovernmental capital could supply the entire shortfall, the federal government would have to act as the equity supplier of last resort.

But what about the homeowners who are stuck with mortgages they can no longer pay? Helping them will be simpler once their problems are untangled from the banks’ goal of protecting overpriced assets. A change in the bankruptcy laws, for example, could empower judges to convert excessive mortgages into market-rate rentals, which are usually much cheaper.

All current rescue proposals being floated in the U.S. Congress have the taxpayer buying up the loans the banks no longer want, absorbing the losses just as taxpayers did in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s. As an equity investor, however, the U.S. government would get the same terms as other private investors, leaving the losses to fall on the shareholders and executives who either caused the debacle or allowed it to happen. Concerns about the government’s holding bank stock directly could be allayed by depositing the shares in the Social Security trust funds. As the banks return to normal operations, they would become quite valuable securities and probably greatly improve the system’s returns.

Bank shareholders and executives made extraordinary financial gains during the 2000s. Now that their Ponzi scheme has been exposed, they are demanding that the public absorb much of their losses, and the Federal government has been responding with huge showers of money. The Bear Stearns rescue demonstrates the need to draw a line. From now on, the banks, their shareholders, and their executives should eat their own losses. If that wipes out the capital of essential depositary institutions, the federal government should step in. Save the banks and help struggling homeowners, yes. But no more largesse for bank executives and shareholders.

Fort Lauderdale Law Firms Cashing In On Foreclosures in Hillsborough County

2008-04-06T14:43:00.005-04:00

On April 1, 2008, the Tampa (Florida) Tribune published an article concerning the filing of mortgage foreclosure lawsuits in Hillsborough County, Florida during February 2008.

First, they found that foreclosure filings in Hillsborough County had more than doubled from the previous year. According to clerk records, there were 1,475 new mortgage foreclosure suits in Hillsborough County in February compared with 562 cases in February 2007 and 271 cases in February 2006.

Second, they determined which law firms were responsible for the most foreclosure filings in Hillsborough County during February 2008. Not surprisingly, a Tampa-based firm had filed the most. That firm was followed, however, by a number of "foreclosure mill" law firms based in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. The list follows:

1. Florida Default Law Group — Tampa.......415
2. David J. Stern — Plantation....................263
3. Marshall C. Watson — Fort Lauderdale.....182
4. Shapiro & Fishman — Tampa..................133
5. Smith, Hiatt & Diaz — Fort Lauderdale......75
6. Albertelli Law — Tampa...........................61
7. Daniel C. Consuegra — Tampa................47
8. Adorno & Yoss — Miami...........................41
9. Ben-Ezra & Katz — Fort Lauderdale..........33
10. Spear and Hoffman — Miami..................33

Fort Myers/Cape Coral Florida Has Highest Rate of Subprime Mortgage Foreclosures in the U.S.

2008-04-06T14:34:00.003-04:00

According to the April 6, 2008 New York Times here, the highest rate of subprime mortgage foreclosures in the United States is in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral area of Southwest Florida.

Florida Attorney General Issues Consumer Advisory on Mortgage Foreclosures

2008-04-06T14:19:00.004-04:00

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has recently issued a consumer advisory on mortgage fraud and foreclosure-related scams. Noting that Florida now ranks first in the nation for the number of home foreclosures, the Attorney General encouraged Floridians to educate themselves about the various types of mortgage fraud and learn about the foreclosure process to protect themselves from becoming potential victims.

A page dedicated to helping consumers educate themselves about mortgage foreclosures is available online here:

How to Protect Yourself: Tips for Avoiding Mortgage Foreclosures

Source: The Florida Attorney General

Contact your lender or loan servicer as soon as you realize you may have a problem and may have missed a payment. Studies show that at least 50 percent of all consumers that have defaulted on a mortgage or missed payments never contact their lender. This is a mistake. Lenders can discuss options with you to help you work through payments during difficult financial times. Lenders prefer to have you keep your home and most will work with you. Be honest with your lender about your financial circumstances. For more information about contacting your lender and what documents you should gather before speaking with your lender, refer to http://www.fha.gov/ or use this link http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page?_pageid=33,717348&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL.

Gather information. Learn all that you can about your mortgage rights and foreclosure laws in Florida. Review your loan documents to determine what your lender may do if you can’t make your payments. Review Florida laws, particularly Chapter 702, Florida Statutes and Section 45.031, Florida statutes to learn about foreclosure proceedings. Attend a foreclosure prevention information session. Information on local sessions may be available on http://www.fha.gov/ under “hot topics, foreclosure prevention events for homeowners.”

Contact a nonprofit housing counselor. Help and information is available to you free of cost. The HOPE NOW alliance provides a 24-hour hotline to provide mortgage counseling assistance in multiple languages. 1-888-995-HOPE. You may also obtain a list of HUD-approved counseling services in Florida at http://www.hud.gov/ or at this webpage:http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/hcc/hcs.cfm?webListAction=search&searchstate=FL .

Understand the relevant terms: If you are working with your lender or an approved housing counselor to keep your home, there are several options:

Reinstatement: Your lender may agree to let you pay the total amount you are behind, in a lump sum payment and by a specific date. This is often combined with forbearance when you can show that funds from a bonus, tax refund, or other source will become available at a specific time in the future. Be aware that there may be late fees and other costs associated with a reinstatement plan.

Forbearance: Your lender may offer a temporary reduction or suspension of your mortgage payments while you get back on your feet. Forbearance is often combined with a reinstatement or a repayment plan to pay off the missed or reduced mortgage payments.

Repayment Plan: This is an agreement that gives you a fixed amount of time to repay the amount you are behind by combining a portion of what is past due with your regular monthly payment. At the end of the repayment period you have gradually paid back the amount of your mortgage that was delinquent.

Loan modification: This is a written agreement between you and your mortgage company that permanently changes one or more of the original terms of your note to make the payments more affordable.

If you and your lender agree that you can not keep your home, there may still be options to avoid foreclosure:

Short Payoff: If you can sell your house but the sale proceeds are less than the total amount you owe on your mortgage, your mortgage company may agree to a short payoff and write off the portion of your mortgage that exceeds the net proceeds from the sale.

Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure: A deed-in-lieu of foreclosure is a cancellation of your mortgage if you voluntarily transfer title of your property to your mortgage company. Usually you must try to sell your home for its fair market value for at least 90 days before a mortgage company will consider this option. A deed-in-lieu of foreclosure may not be an option if there are other liens on the property, such as second mortgages, judgments from creditors, or tax liens.

Assumption: An assumption permits a qualified buyer to take over your mortgage debt and make the mortgage payments, even if the mortgage is non-assumable. As a result, you may be able to sell your property and avoid foreclosure.

Refinancing: While refinancing is not necessarily a good option when facing foreclosure and can sometimes even be a predatory practice, there are instances where it may help. Talk to your lender to see if refinancing is an option for you.

Avoid foreclosure prevention or loss mitigation companies. If you fall behind in your mortgage payments, many for-profit companies will contact you promising to help you avoid foreclosure. Some may even appear to be affiliated with your lender. Many also list their services on the internet and ask that you fill out a referral form online. It is best to avoid dealing with these companies. Most will charge you a hefty fee upfront for information that your lender or a HUD approved counselor will provide to you for free. You can obtain the same workout plan or a better plan for free by contacting your lender or a HUD approved counselor. Use your money to pay the mortgage instead.

Do not fall victim to a foreclosure recovery scam. If any business or individual offers to help you stop foreclosure immediately by signing a document authorizing them to act on your behalf or to set up financing for you, do not sign without consulting a professional (an attorney or HUD-approved counselor). This may be a trick to get you to sign over title to your home. You are then vulnerable to losing your home and all of your equity in your home to the so called “rescuer.”

Carefully examine your finances. Can you cut spending on optional expenses, delay payments on credit cards or other unsecured debt until you have paid your mortgage? Do you have assets that you could sell to help reinstate your loan? Can anyone in the household get a second job to help with income? These efforts to manage your finances may help you find income to apply to your outstanding payments and will demonstrate to your lender that you are willing to work on your finances and make sacrifices in order to keep your home.

For more information contact the AG consumer hotline at 1-866-966-7226 or visit http://www.hud.gov/ for these and other helpful tips.

Lenders Swamped By Foreclosures Let Homeowners Stay

2008-04-06T14:00:00.002-04:00

According to Bloomberg.com here, banks are so overwhelmed by the U.S. housing crisis they've started to look the other way when homeowners stop paying their mortgages.

The number of borrowers at least 90 days late on their home loans rose to 3.6 percent at the end of December [2007], the highest in at least five years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. That figure, for the first time, is almost double the 2 percent who have been foreclosed on.

Lenders took an average of 61 days to foreclose on a property last year [2006], up from 37 days in the year earlier [2005], according to RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure database in Irvine, California.

``Some people stay in their houses until someone comes to kick them out,'' said Angel Gutierrez, owner of Dallas-based Metro Lending, which buys distressed mortgage debt. ``Sometimes no one comes to kick them out.''

Banks are reluctant to foreclose on homeowners for a variety of reasons that include the cost, said Peter Zalewski, real estate broker and owner of Condo Vultures Realty LLC, a property consulting firm in Bal Harbour, Florida.

Legal fees and maintaining a vacant property while paying the mortgage, insurance and taxes can add up to as much as 15 percent of the value of the home, and it may take months for the foreclosure to work through the legal system, he said.

``The end result is taking back a property that the bank will have to manage, rent out and or sell,'' Zalewski said.

In many cases, lenders also have to foot the bill for fixing up vacant homes that have been vandalized.

With home sales dropping and national inventories rising, the lenders have another reason to delay foreclosures, said Howard Fishman, a real estate investor based in Minneapolis.

``What are the banks going to do?'' Fishman said. ``They don't want the house. They have a mortgage for $1 million and the house is worth $750,000.''

The civil court in St. Lucie County, Florida, is getting about 44 foreclosure cases to file every day. That's the same number it averaged in a typical month in 2005, said Clerk of the Circuit Court Ed Fry.

J.P. Morgan Chase spokesperson Thomas Kelly wouldn't say how many Chase borrowers have quit paying their mortgages and remain in their homes.

Efforts to keep borrowers paying their bills have slowed the foreclosure process, Mark Rodgers, a spokesman at CitiMortgage, a division of New York-based Citigroup Inc., said in an e-mail message.

``In a number of cases, we have delayed foreclosure proceedings to allow our loss mitigation teams additional time to explore potential solutions to keep distressed borrowers in their homes,'' Rodgers said.

Joe Ohayon, vice president of community relations for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Frederick, Maryland, a unit of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, said trying to modify loan terms case by case adds time to the foreclosure process.

``Foreclosure is only a last resort after all available options for keeping the customer in the home have been exhausted,'' Ohayon said in an e-mail message.

Olivia Riley, a spokeswoman at Seattle-based Washington Mutual, said in an e-mail that the company's goal is to keep customers in their homes ``with payments they can afford.''
Representatives for Calabasas, California-based Countrywide, the biggest U.S. mortgage servicer last year, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Few mortgage companies will admit they allow homeowners to stay in their homes without paying their bills.

``No servicer will say you can live rent-free for six months, go ahead,'' said Paul Miller, a mortgage industry analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. in Arlington, Virginia. ``Eventually, the servicers will clear these guys out.''

Homeowners usually get 90 days to resume paying before foreclosure proceedings begin with the filing of a complaint or notice of non-payment.

State laws determine the length of time between the filing and an auction of the house. In most states, it's two to six months, according to Foreclosures.com. In Maine, it can be up to a year and in New York, 19 months; in Georgia, it's as quickly as one month, and in Nevada, it can be 35 days, according to the database.

Borrowers in California who fight foreclosure can stretch the process to 18 months, said Cameron Pannabecker, chapter president of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers and president of Cal-Pro Mortgage Inc. in Stockton.

U.S. Consumers Should Boycott Southwest "Islamic Fundamentalist" Airlines

2007-09-13T20:01:00.000-04:00

If you are a woman flying on Southwest Airlines, here is how Southwest Airlines would apparently prefer you to dress.

According to the Associated Press on September 12, 2007, a second young woman has come forward to claim that Southwest Airlines employees made her cover up on a recent flight, leading jet-setters to ask: Will my outfit fly?

Setara Qassim said a flight attendant confronted her during the trip from Tucson, Arizona, to Burbank, California, and asked whether she had a sweater to go over her green halter-style dress.

Qassim, 21, told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles she was forced to wrap a blanket around herself for the rest of the flight. She complained that if Southwest wants passengers to dress a certain way, it should publish a dress code.

Each airline has filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation a series of statements about its obligations to its passengers and its limitations of liability. These tariffs and conditions are the terms of your contract with the airline, also known as a Contract of Carriage.

With regard to clothing, Southwest Airlines' Contract of Carriage provides:

"Carrier may refuse to transport or remove from the aircraft at any point any passenger in the following categories as may be necessary for the comfort or safety of such passenger or other passengers:
(1) Persons whose conduct is or has been known to be disorderly, abusive, offensive, threatening, intimidating, or violent, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive;"

Southwest — which dressed its stewardesses in hot pants and called itself "the love airline" back in the 1970s — relies on employees to decide whether a passenger's attire may offend other customers. Apparently, Southwest Airlines allows its employees to decide on an ad-hoc basis when a person's clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive. They claim they usually exercise this authority only when there are complaints from other passengers that someone's clothing makes them "uncomfortable."

However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, I found a certain man's business suit and tie to be patently offensive and it made me uncomfortable. Do you suppose Southwest Airlines would make the person cover up his or her suit and tie so that I would feel more comfortable? Of course not. So what's really going on?

Who gets to decide what is or is not offensive? Who are these self-righteous, moralistic clothing police going around looking up young women's skirts in airports and then complaining because they see too much? Perhaps Southwest Airlines should decree that all woman should wear burkas so that no one could possibly be uncomfortable with anyone's clothing choices. Isn't that the direction in which we are heading if we continue allowing the airlines to act as the clothing police? I thought we were fighting a war in order to preserve and protect our open and free American society from the repression inherent in the Islamic fundamentalist way of life? Southwest Airlines acting as the clothing police is just plain un-American!

As a private company, Southwest Airlines claims the right to refuse to transport, or remove from its aircraft, just about anyone it wants to for almost any reason. However, consumers are also free not to choose Southwest Airlines for their air travel needs. As long as Southwest Airlines feels it is appropriate to act as the clothing police by catering to the prudish sensibilities of a certain uptight and priggish segment of their passengers in refusing to transport young women whose clothes are deemed too "revealing" or otherwise "inappropriate," then I believe it is appropriate for U.S consumers to decline to be transported by Southwest Airlines.

I Call Upon You: Avi Frier of The Florida Jewish News

2007-09-13T15:32:00.000-04:00

On September 7, 2007, before the trial of subsequently-convicted Keith Wasserstrom was concluded, Avi Frier, publisher of The Florida Jewish News, proclaimed Wasserstrom's innocence of all charges and blasted the local South Florida media for shoddy journalistic ethics here. Frier wrote:

When all this is over, I call upon the Herald, the Sun Sentinel, and the New Times to do the same thing that Michael Irvin requested. Devote as many pages to Keith’s innocence as you did to his guilt. For every time you ran that awful mug shot on the front page, run the dashing headshot with the toothy grin the rest of us are accustomed to. Pursue the truth with the same intensity. Don’t lose the intensity. Don’t lose the intensity.

Now that Wasserstrom has been convicted on two felony counts, I call upon Avi Frier of the The Florida Jewish News to devote as many pages to Keith's guilt as he did to his innocence. For every time you ran the dashing headshot with the toothy grin, run that awful mug shot. Pursue the truth with the same intensity. Don't lose the intensity. Don't lose the intensity!

Keith Wasserstrom: Convicted Felon!

2007-09-12T19:14:00.000-04:00

Suspended Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom was convicted Wednesday, September 12, 2007, on two felony charges of official misconduct for violating the state's conflict of interest laws.

What happened? Let's review.

Let's go back to the October 12, 2006 Press Release issued on Keith's behalf by Keith's former attorney Larry Davis:

"Before the vote on whether Hollywood should enter into the contract, Keith obtained clear advice from Hollywood City Attorney, Dan Abbott, regarding the potential for ethical conflict and the state of the law as to his involvement with Normandy Group. Attorney Abbott specifically advised Keith that, if he recused himself from voting on the contract, and if he disclosed to the board his relationship with Normandy, he would not breach his ethical duty or violate the law. Keith followed Attorney Abbott’s advice, recused himself from the vote regarding the contract with Schwing-Bioset, and with Attorney Abbott’s assistance, Keith prepared and filed conflict disclosure forms."

Apparently, Keith was pinning his political and professional future on the advice of then-Hollywood City Attorney Dan Abbott. Apparently, following Abbott's advice did not turn out so good for Keith. The problem is Keith forgot the City Attorney's ethical blessing is a GIGO (garbage-in, garbage-out) issue: it only works if you fully disclose all pertinent facts to the City Attorney. I am willing to bet Dan Abbott would say Keith did not fully disclose all of the pertinent facts to him in seeking his advice.

Back to the Press Release:

"Keith is confident that the charges levied against him have no support in law or fact, and he will be cleared of these charges. He has not broken any law nor has he violated any ethical obligations to his constituency and his community."

So Keith, how confident that you will be cleared of these charges are you now? I think the problem is that Keith was overconfident.

Keith appears to suffer from excessive pride. The Greeks called this sin hubris. Hubris is a Greek word that is sometimes translated into English as "pride" or "arrogance." Hubris involves a combination of excessive pride, ambition, and self-confidence. It means thinking you are better than you really are, as in the expression: "Pride goes before a fall." In a sense, a person who commits the sin of hubris creates his own sense of morality that may run counter to the basic moral rules of the society. In tragic literature, the punishment for hubris is often a slow and painful death, in which the hero must first be stripped of personal possessions and public favor.

Keith appears to be well on his way: as a convicted felon, he is stripped of public favor. After he is disbarred, he will lose his profession and his ability to financially support himself and his family in the luxury to which they are accustomed.

Of course, people like Keith always blame someone or something else for the consequences of their actions instead of putting the blame where it belongs: on themselves. Rarely will you hear someone like Keith admit that he has only himself to blame for the wreckage of his life. Rarely will you hear someone like Keith admit that he did anything wrong or apologize for his transgressions. For Keith's felony convictions, you can bet Keith will blame everyone and everything other than his own decisions and actions. Perhaps Keith will blame Dan Abbott, his uncle Arnold, the newspaper reporters, the media, the prosecutors, the judge, the jury, his former law partner(s), the relatively low salaries paid to city commissioners, or even anti-semitism, but never will he blame himself.

True to form, Keith hired a criminal defense attorney who appears to have been well-suited to represent Keith's holier-than-thou response to the felony charges lodged against him. Keith's trial defense was suffused with hubris. Keith wore a yarmulke on his head during the entire trial (presumably to emphasize his pious religiousness). In addition, for the first day of his trial, Keith selfishly pulled his kids out of school and made them attend the trial in order to, in essence, use them as props, so the jury could see what a "wonderful family man" Keith is. (Keith's son was heard to remark that he was bored and would rather have gone to school).

I am grateful the jury was apparently not taken in by the smarmy, unctuous, patronizing arrogance, and supercilious condescension inherent in Keith's attorney Milton Hirsch's arguments that Keith had only "pure motives," was not motivated by money, and "in many ways, he was indeed doing God's work." What, God falsifies ethics forms so he can shill for a sludge company?

Did Keith and his attorney really think people are so naive and credulous as to buy into a story that was so obviously not true? During opening statements, Hirsch held up a penny and said of his client, "He made not a single, shiny penny." Apparently, Keith's defense was not worth a single, shiny penny either.

Keith's friends, god bless 'em, are still loyal. "This verdict won't have any impact on how people who really know Keith feel about him,'' said Avi Frier, a longtime friend and publisher of the Florida Jewish News. "Keith is honest to his own detriment sometimes. If the jurors knew the real Keith, how he has such great integrity, they wouldn't have convicted him.''

However, it appears Keith was convicted precisely because the jury saw the "real Keith." The jury was shown in great detail that Keith's conduct did not measure up to his much-vaunted integrity. Thousands of pages of court records shed light on how Wasserstrom operated as a commissioner. The records and e-mails showed Wasserstrom spoke disparagingly of some commission colleagues, helped spread false information about companies bidding for the city sludge contract and asked another lawyer to investigate a resident who opposed Wasserstrom's choice for the contract. This is someone who has "such great integrity?"

Unfortunately, it appears Keith may still have farther to fall. In February, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation found Wasserstrom voted on projects involving companies that had paid him more than $400,000 for lobbying activities, legal services or to handle transactions through Wasserstrom's title company.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, through his law firm or title company, Celebrity Title, Wasserstrom received more than $250,000 from MCZ/Centrum Development, which has done four large condominium projects in Hollywood. The records also show his companies received more than $160,000 for lobbying efforts and title work on behalf of Triad Housing Partners, which unsuccessfully sought to build on Hollywood Beach.

On Feb. 8, Assistant State Attorney Catherine Maus announced two new criminal investigations based on the Sun-Sentinel findings, and two weeks ago she confirmed they remain open but wouldn't comment further.

Outlaw Political Vanity Spending

2007-09-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo wrote recently:

Ken Jenne is gone as Broward Sheriff, but his felony-tainted name is still everywhere at the Sheriff’s Office – enmeshed in the agency’s logo on shirts, pins, doors, buildings, flags, business cards and stationery.

It will probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace all the Jenne-branded equipment and supplies.

Jenne’s not the only one who did this. Just about every elected constitutional officer --from Broward Property Appraiser Lori Parrish to Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes -- plasters their names in as many places as they can.

Why? Because they want to keep their names familiar to voters. It’s one of the powerful advantages of incumbency.

Plastering, weaving, printing, embossing, or emblazoning the names of public officeholders into or on every item of personal property belonging to an agency must be at least as expensive as removing the names or replacing the items when a new office holder is elected or appointed. What is the public purpose or justification for spending taxpayers' money on this kind of self-aggrandizement of the office holder? Officials are elected to serve the people, not to gratify their narcissism and massive egos.

Perhaps the total amount of taxpayer money spent in placing or removing office holder names is not a large percentage of of an agency's annual budget, but why should taxpayers be forced to tolerate such wasteful expenditures of money? The Florida legislature should seriously investigate outlawing or limiting this practice for all Florida public agencies and office holders.

Excellent News for Keith Wasserstrom?

2007-09-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Broward Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus today dismissed a felony corruption
charge against suspended Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom, saying he is
"presumed innocent" of obtaining unlawful compensation. That means the
jury will consider only the four remaining felony charges, that Wasserstrom lied
on his conflict of interest statements and that he misled the mayor into lying
on hers. The maximum penalty for each of those counts is five years in
prison. Lazarus agreed with the defense that the state had failed to prove
its case on the main corruption count.

Southwest Airlines: The Clothing Police

2007-09-10T08:52:00.001-04:00

Southwest Airlines, recently in the news for banning a female passenger for wearing clothes one of its agents found too "revealing," apparently also bans passengers for wearing clothes with political messages.

Southwest boots woman for shirt
Lorrie Heasley to sue for being asked to leave a flight due to profane, politically charged shirt.

October 7, 2005: 3:00 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Southwest Airlines kicked a woman off one of its flights over a political message on her T-shirt, the airline confirmed Thursday, and published reports say the passenger will sue.

Lorrie Heasley, of Woodland, Wash., was asked to leave her flight from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., Tuesday for wearing a T-shirt with pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a phrase similar to the popular film title "Meet the Fockers."

A spokesman for Southwest Airlines (down $0.03 to $15.18, Research) told CNN that the airline used the "common sense" approach when they decided to escort Heasley from the plane in Reno, Nevada, during a stopover between Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

The airline felt that the T-shirt was offensive and that other passengers would be outraged by it, the spokeswoman said, adding that the incident is about "decency."

"I have cousins in Iraq and other relatives going to war," Heasley told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane in midflight over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."

According to the airline spokeswoman, Heasley was asked to leave after she refused to cover up her T-shirt, an account that conflicts with Heasley's version in the Gazette-Journal.

Heasley told the newspaper that she agreed to cover her shirt with a sweatshirt, but it slipped as she slept. After she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave, she and her husband chose to leave, the paper said.

The 32-year-old lumber saleswoman said in the report that no one from Southwest said anything about the shirt while she waited near the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, nor did anyone mention the shirt as she boarded the aircraft.

Southwest Airlines (down $0.03 to $15.18, Research) spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told the Gazette-Journal that the airline's contract with the Federal Aviation Administration contains rules that say the airline will deny boarding to any customer whose conduct is offensive, abusive, disorderly or violent or for clothing that is "lewd, obscene, or patently offensive."

FAA spokesman Donn Walker told the newspaper that no federal rules exist on the subject.

"It's up to the airlines who they want to take and by what rules," he was quoted as saying. "The government just doesn't get into the business of what people wear on an aircraft."

Heasley wants Southwest to reimburse her and her husband for the last leg of their trip and pay for her gasoline, a $68 rental car from Avis and a $70 hotel bill, according to reports.

David Bogenschutz: Deceptive Pile of Excrement or Credulous Flunkie?

2007-09-10T08:10:00.000-04:00

A public statement made last year by Fort Lauderdale Attorney David Bogenschutz on behalf of his client former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne does not appear to square with the facts.

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jenne's attorney David Bogenschutz issued a statement on Jenne's behalf last year saying:

Jenne is an "honest public servant," and, "At no time during [Jenne's]
long and distinguished career has he ever violated … the trust placed in him
by the public that he continues to serve."

However, according to the Sun-Sentinel on September 5, 2007:

Jenne will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and
three counts of tax evasion. Another key concession: Jenne will admit that
he abused the public trust, which increases the odds he will lose his public
pension.

In light of Jenne's admission that he broke the law and abused the public trust, how does Bogenschutz retain any credibility after publicly vouching for Jenne's honesty and declaring that Jenne never violated the public trust? Bogenschutz's statement was more than declaring his client is innocent until proven guilty. Bogenschutz's statement implied that Bogenschutz himself had personally investigated every allegation of wrongdoing that had ever been made against his client and was personally vouching for his client's innocence.

Perhaps Bogenschutz does not believe that anything Jenne did was dishonest? Perhaps Bogenschutz does not believe what Jenne did violated or abused the public trust? Perhaps Bogenschutz, at the time he issued his statement, did not know what Jenne had done and simply accepted at face-value Jenne's protestations of innocence? Perhaps Bogenschutz simply did not tell the truth?

Perhaps Bogenschutz is a criminal defense attorney and saw it as his job to make a statement like that on behalf of his client? If so, then why should the public assume any such statement has any truth value?

Wasserstrom Partisans Riding High on Windol Green Testimony May Overly Optimistic

2007-09-09T15:30:00.000-04:00

Avi Frier, publisher of the The Florida Jewish News, launches an impassioned attack on what he sees as the lack of journalistic ethics demonstrated by reporters covering the Keith Wasserstrom scandal here:

Keith Wasserstrom’s Media Trial
By Avi Frier - FJN
Publisher

"[Journalists should] make certain that headlines, news teases and
promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations
do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of
context."
From the Code of Ethics of theSociety of Professional Journalists

It seems to me that a number of my colleagues at the Sun Sentinel, Miami Herald, New Times, and other local news publications are in dire need of a journalism ethics refresher course.
Or perhaps I am giving them too much credit; the term "refresher" assumes they ever learned this Code of Ethics in the first place…
Almost a year ago, when Hollywood Commissioner (and Jewish community activist) Keith Wasserstrom was indicted on corruption charges, a media feeding frenzy began. Seeming to use the prosecution’s statement as their sole source of information, our local newspapers delivered the following "facts"
of this case (in a nutshell):
That when the Hollywood City Commission voted to choose Schwing Bioset to process their waste water, they had chosen the company that was "rated dead last" among the other bidders for the contract.
That by choosing Schwing Bioset, the city was needlessly spending millions of dollars more than they would have/should have/could have spent to get better service from a better provider.
That Schwing Bioset was chosen because the choice had been orchestrated by Commissioner Wasserstrom.
That Commissioner Wasserstrom had orchestrated this choice because he stood to make millions of dollars in lobbying fees when cities other than Hollywood hired
Schwing Bioset to process their waste water as well.
That getting other cities to hire Schwing Bioset would be very easy once Hollywood was on board, since, through a process known as piggybacking, the other cities could
circumvent the bidding process, since Hollywood had already researched the
company and handled the bidding process for them.
That, although Wasserstrom disclosed his relationship with Schwing Bioset, and filed the necessary Conflict of Interest Disclosure Forms with the city, he knowingly and deceitfully withheld his plans to make millions piggybacking Schwing Bioset into other cities after the Hollywood deal was done.
So I’m seeing these stories in the newspapers, one after another. At first, I couldn’t believe a word of it. No one who knew Keith could believe these allegations! We’re talking about a truly religious man here. Not a corrupt faker who hides behind his Yarmulke as he cheats you blind. Keith is one of those people you can really trust.
But then more news reports come out with information that seems to back up the
allegations. More stories. And more. All front page. And soon, even the people
who knew Keith were starting to wonder.
People began to talk. Could he have done it? One news report quoted an elected official in Hollywood, suggesting that Keith wasn’t bad; he was naive. Sure, he did it, but he didn’t mean to.
More people began to talk. What if he did it, whether he meant to or not?
Could all of these upstanding, trusted news sources be wrong? You may
even have wondered the same thing yourself.

Well, wonder no more. This week, I learned the answer. Our local journalists were more interested in giving you a big story than they were in giving you the whole story.
Where did I learn this, you ask? I learned it from watching Keith’s trial, which began
on Tuesday. I learned that Schwing Bioset was "rated dead last" only because
of their price. They were rated best in every other area: pollution levels, environmental impact, ability to deliver what they promise, etc. But they were
more expensive, so they lost points in the overall rating scale.
So, had the City Commission chosen a competitor strictly based on the ratings of the
committee that analyzed each bidder, they may have saved piles of money, but
parts of our fair city would stink like piles of dung.
Could the newspapers have found this out? Sure they could. It was all public record, and the information was located in the same files the reporters had to access in order to deliver the skewed information they did deliver.
And how about the piggybacking? According to one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, former purchasing director Windol Green, piggybacking would never have applied to a major project like constructing and maintaining a waste water treatment plant. Piggybacking, it turns out, is a process reserved for commodities like computers, paper clips, and golf balls. If Hollywood had gone through the
competitive bidding process to purchase a truckload of golf balls, and
Hallandale realized they too needed to purchase a truckload of golf balls, they
could buy their golf balls from Hollywood’s vendor, since Hollywood had already
bid out the purchase.
But for a major project to fill needs specific to each city? Not possible to piggyback. Every city needs to go through their own bidding process. Could the newspapers have found this out? Sure they could.
Do you think they didn’t interview Windol Green when the story broke? Of course
they did.

So if there were so many holes in the case against Keith, why didn’t the local media let us know about any of them?
The answer is really quite simple.
In the grand scheme of things, Hollywood is a pretty boring place. We don’t get our fair share of Rush Limbaugh drug busts, Larry Craig bathroom antics, or Michael Vick dog fights. So when a juicy scandal comes our way, we jump at the opportunity!
So what if we don’t report the whole truth? At least we gave you a great story.
So what if we ruined a man’s life in the process? At least it didn’t happen to us!
And what will be when the jury finds him innocent? We’ll either blame a loophole, or bury the story on page 27. We have more important things to do than let you know that what we swore was a scandal really wasn’t! We have bigger, juicier scandals to look for!

In December 1996, a topless dancer accused Dallas Cowboy Erik
WIlliams of raping her while teammate Michael Irvin held a gun to her
head. As one might expect, the media jumped right on it. The pair was found
guilty in the newspapers and on TV before they were even charged by the
police. The end result? The accusation was false. The stripper admitted to
police that she had fabricated the entire story. And Michael Irvin made one
request of the press: "Rerun it, rewrite it, reprint it," he said. "Just like
you did, with the same intensity that you did - the same intensity. Don’t lose
the intensity. Don’t lose the intensity."

When all this is over, I call upon the Herald, the Sun Sentinel, and the New Times to do the same thing that Michael Irvin requested. Devote as many pages to Keith’s innocence as you did to his guilt. For every time you ran that awful mug shot on the front page, run the dashing headshot with the toothy grin the rest of us are accustomed to. Pursue the truth with the same intensity. Don’t lose the intensity. Don’t lose the intensity.

However, leaving aside the inaptness of Frier's comparison of a completely fabricated rape story to the actual facts of Wasserstrom's dealings in relation to Schwing (the dispute being whether Wasserstrom's conduct was illegal or not), it may be a bit premature for Mr. Frier to proclaim Wasserstrom's innocence. Under Florida law, Wasserstrom could still be found guilty regardless of whether "piggybacking" was actually a realistic possibility in this instance, or whether or not Wasserstrom actually made "one shiny penny" from the deal. See Sec. 838.016(3), Florida Statutes 2007->Ch0838->Section%20016#0838.016">here.

See this from Bob Norman of The Daily Pulp Blog:

The Miami Herald's Todd Wright has proven himself a good reporter, but he got it dead wrong about the Keith Wasserstrom corruption trial in a big way this morning. On a day featuring two star witnesses in the trial -- Mayor Mara Giulianti and Wasserstrom's uncle, Arnold Goldman -- Wright led with ... Windol Green?

Green, for those of you who don't know who he is (which excludes Mrs. Green), is a former Hollywood bureaucrat who had very little role in the affair. But Wright saw great significance in him, writing:

Windol Green, now retired, testified that the state's theory about how Wasserstrom planned to profit from a city sludge-processing contract has a fatal flaw: There was no money to be made, Green said.
Prosecutors said Wasserstrom expected to pocket lobbying fees when other cities ''piggybacked'' on the 2004 Schwing Bioset contract. But Green told jurors there's no way other cities would have tried to share that contract.

Wright then belabored Green's testimony in his article, writing that it "appeared to damage the state's case significantly."

Poppycock, utter nonsense. Green's statement about piggybacking, in the eyes of the law, is absolutely meaningless. The statute for the unlawful compensation specifically states that it doesn't matter whether or not money was made by the elected official -- it's the intent and whether a corrupt deal was struck that matters.

In other words, being incompetent doesn't excuse corruption.

And the fact that a corrupt deal was solidified later in the day, when Goldman, the real star of the day (Mara notwithstanding), testified that he and Wasserstrom were planning for other municipalities -- including Fort Lauderdale and Miami-Dade -- to piggyback on the Hollywood contract as they pushed the Schwing Bioset contract through Hollywood. And that, good jury, is all that matters.

UPDATE: September 10, 2007 - Excellent news for Keith Wasserstrom:

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Broward Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus today dismissed a felony corruption charge against suspended Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom, saying he is "presumed innocent" of obtaining unlawful compensation. That means the jury will consider only the four remaining felony charges, that Wasserstrom lied on his conflict of interest statements and that he misled the mayor into lying on hers. The maximum penalty for each of those counts is five years in prison. Lazarus agreed with the defense that the state had failed to prove its case on the main corruption count.

Politicians Behaving Badly: Former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne

2007-09-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

Fla. Sheriff Resigns in Corruption Probe

By CURT ANDERSON

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne resigned Tuesday [September 4, 2007] after agreeing to plead guilty to federal tax evasion and mail fraud charges after a corruption investigation uncovered crimes in his outside business dealings, federal prosecutors said.

The plea deal came as Jenne faced a possible grand jury indictment on more serious money-laundering charges, and it likely will mean at least a year in prison for the longtime force in state Democratic politics.

Under the agreement signed Friday, Jenne will plead guilty to three counts of tax evasion and one count of mail fraud conspiracy, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said.

"Ken Jenne has been a staple of South Florida government for decades. For many years, he served Broward County well," Acosta said. "But he stayed too long, and in the end, he lost sight of what it means to serve the public."

The total involved in the wrongdoing amounted to more than $80,000, including payments made from sheriff's office vendors to Jenne's secretaries, who arranged for the money to go to his personal accounts.

Jenne made his resignation official Tuesday morning in an e-mail to his employees and in a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist.

"I need to turn my attention to myself and my family," Jenne wrote in the e-mail.

As St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief Steve Bousquet put it here: "Jenne sold his office and his integrity for about $84,000."

I find Jenne's statement interesting. When Jenne was putting $84,000 from Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) vendors in his own greedy little pockets, where was Jenne's attention turned other than to himself and his family?

I think it is also fair to ask where was this egomaniacal scumbag's attention turned to other than himself when he plastered his name on practically every item of personal property and parcel of real property belonging to the BSO such that it is now going to cost Broward County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove his name?

When Jenne began the job as Sheriff, he had the BSO logo redesigned to include his name. Now, getting rid of it from the many places it’s located is a daunting task, BSO officials said.

The logo, which prominently featured the words ''Ken Jenne'', has been displayed throughout BSO's 14 district buildings, as well as on SWAT uniforms, supplies, stationery and promotional items.

“I’m 69 and was a journalist for 40 years and I never seen an elected official put his name on so many things, said John de Groot a former aid of Jenne.

BSO has already ordered 82,000 labels to cover Jenne’s name on binders, letterheads and envelopes.

Some SWAT team members have used masking tape on the back of their black T-shirts to cover Jenne’s logo and they’ve written in acting Sheriff Lamberti’s name. Others simply used black marker to scribble out Jenne’s name.

Lamberti said he has no intention of putting his name on such items. "It's not about me. It's about the men and women who work here. It's about them. The agency doesn’t belong to me."

Great Quote

2007-09-09T12:39:00.000-04:00

"No man is fit to govern who hesitates about disobliging the few who have access to him for the sake of the many he will never see."

----British politician Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Separated At Birth?

2007-08-27T20:02:00.000-04:00

Barack Obama Lieutenant Commander Tuvok

Find Out What Else is Happening At the Broward County Courthouse

2007-07-08T00:18:00.000-04:00

For anyone interested in the judicial system in Broward County, Florida, I highly recommend the Justice Advocacy Association of Broward Blog a/k/a JAABlog, which aims some much-needed disinfectant of sunlight into the murky world of judicial politics in Broward County.

Congratulations to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

2007-01-06T13:55:00.000-05:00

The people who live in Florida's 20th congressional district, which includes most of western Broward County, are very fortunate to be represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Just starting her second term in Congress, Debbie, through her hard work, keen intellect, and political savvy, has risen to an important position within the House Democratic leadership as a Chief Deputy Majority Whip. In addition, Debbie was selected to serve on the enormously powerful House Appropriations Committee, which, along with its Senate counterpart, is in charge of setting specific expenditures of funds by the federal government.

As a resident of Cooper City, I am proud to be represented in Congress by Debbie. Debbie is a consummate politician. She seems to instinctively know exactly how to maneuver and operate behind the scenes to accomplish her legislative and political objectives. More than that, I admire Debbie's courage and conviction to stand up and speak out for what she believes is right. For example, I was very impressed with Debbie's efforts on the House floor to point out the hypocrisy and falsehoods inherent in President George W. Bush and the Republicans' grandstanding on the Terry Schiavo case. In addition, I cheered when Debbie took to the House floor with her colleagues Kendrick Meek and Bill Delahunt to criticize the Republicans giving huge tax breaks and federal subsidies to the oil industry during a time when that industry is enjoying record profits.

I look forward to Debbie continuing her stellar record of achievement on behalf of the citizens of South Florida and the United States.

Carl Sagan Put Things In Perspective

2006-12-06T18:44:00.000-05:00

In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1, as it was leaving our solar system, took these photographs of the Earth from 4 billion miles away.

In the photograph on the left, the Earth appears smaller than a single pixel between the white lines. The photograph on the right is an enlargement of the photograph on the left. The Earth is that little white dot in the center.

According to the Big Sky Astronomy Club of Flathead Valley, Montana: In a lecture at Cornell University on October 13, 1994, astronomer Carl Sagan presented these photographs and said the following:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at
it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever
heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate
of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every
creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young
couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and
explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar,
every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species,
lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers
of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in
triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of
the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on
scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How
frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how
fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the
delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged
by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great
enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no
hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to
us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a
character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better
demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny
world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and
compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot,
the only home we've ever known.

Local Miami Television News Poll Shows Vast Majority Agree With Tancredo Miami "Third World Country" Comments

2006-11-30T07:07:00.000-05:00

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, recently outraged Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Miami politicians and business leaders by pointing to Miami as an example of what he calls uncontrolled immigration. World Net Daily quotes Tancredo as saying, "Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a third world country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace, you would never know you're in the United States of America."

Florida elected officials and business leaders predictably reacted to these comments with righteous indignation and passionate defenses of Miami as a vibrant, multi-ethnic, diverse, but nevertheless "All-American," community.

The local NBC affiliate conducted a non-scientific poll in which it asked viewers what they thought of Tancredo's comments. In what appears to be a remarkable disconnect between the expressed views of the politicians and business leaders and the views of ordinary citizens, 78% of those responding to the poll said they agree with Tancredo, 14% said Tancredo's comments are ridiculous, and 8% allowed that Tancredo is entitled to his opinion.

Politicians Behaving Badly: Cooper City Commissioner Bart Roper

2006-11-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

Imagine, if you will, you are an elected city commissioner. Within the past month, a scandal has erupted concerning allegations of you and your fellow commissioners meeting for dinners, just prior to commission meetings, at which the commissioners order as many as twenty (20) alcoholic drinks during a 45-minute period, bill their dinners and drinks to the taxpayers, and perhaps, in violation of the state's open meetings law, discuss matters that may foreseeably come before the commission. Your state's governor has recently ordered a law enforcement investigation into these troubling allegations.

What do you do? Well, if you're Cooper City Commissioner Bart Roper, one of the things you do is you go out and get so inebriated from drinking mass quantities of alcohol that, according to the police report, you pass out behind the wheel of your truck in the middle of a turn lane on a busy public roadway, and when police officers and paramedics come to see if you're alright, you wake up and give them the finger. After the police officers smell you reeking of alcohol and hear you slurring your speech, you admit "you had a few drinks in Cooper City," you are repeatedly unable to produce your driver's license, which was found by the police in your front pocket, you stumble and fall into the police officer, you fail roadside sobriety tests, and you refuse to take a breathalyzer test. After you are arrested on charges of Driving Under the Influence (DUI), and you bond out of jail the next morning, you look at the throng of local reporters and the television cameras, and you give them the finger as you are driven away.

Mr. Roper, you are a class act! I'm sure your eight (8) grandchildren: Crystal, Dustin, Christopher, Katie Lyn, Cody, Meaghan, Samantha, and Emily Grace are very proud of you. What a wonderful role model you are for them!

As a resident of Cooper City, I would like to thank you for preserving jobs for bartenders and servers by patronizing drinking establishments in Cooper City. After all, if you had gotten drunk in Davie or Pembroke Pines, that would really have added insult to injury.

In addition, I would like to praise you for the excellent judgment you showed, especially during the pendency of a law enforcement investigation into the current scandal involving City Commissioners' drinking alcohol before Commission meetings, in going out and getting all liquored up and driving while intoxicated. Among other things, this shows you get drunk on nights when there is no Commission meeting, instead of only on nights when there is a Commission meeting. So you can't blame the City's taxpayers for buying you all those drinks and making you into a boozehound. In my opinion, any doubts as to the source of your dull, glassy-eyed stare from the commission dais, as shown in the CBS4 reports, have now been resolved.

Perhaps you will find a way to blame your drunken carousing on those pesky citizen-activists, just like Mayor Eisinger blamed them for exposing your taxpayer-funded pre-commission meeting soirees. It is likely you will look to blame anyone other than yourself for your conduct.

Thank you, again, Mr. Roper, for being such a credit to Cooper City.

Doublespeak Alert: Bush Administration Redefines "Hunger" as "Low Food Security"

2006-11-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

From Wikipedia: Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is often associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions and its deliberate use by these is what distinguishes it from other euphemisms. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms ("downsizing" for "firing of many employees") or deliberately ambiguous phrases ("wet work" for "assassination", "take out" for "destroy").

The word doublespeak was coined in the early 1950s. It is often incorrectly attributed to George Orwell and his 1945 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The word actually never appears in that novel; Orwell did, however, coin newspeak, oldspeak, and doublethink, and his novel made fashionable composite nouns with speak as the second element, which were previously unknown in English. It was therefore just a matter of time before someone came up with doublespeak.

Doublespeak may be considered, in Orwell's lexicography, as the B vocabulary of Newspeak, words "deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them."

Doublespeak is most reminiscent of Orwell's "newspeak" when it is used by a government agency to cover up something unpleasant. The government may find the need to talk about something that has negative connotations to large portions of the public, and avoids backlash by replacing the term with a new one that most people will not recognize as the same thing.

Doublespeak was very common in the Third Reich. Goebbels' Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Ministry of the Reich for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) coined thousands of new German words. Other examples include "concentration camp" (labor/death camp, or "joycamp" in Newspeak), "protective custody" (imprisonment without due process of law), "Heim ins Reich" (occupation of Austria), and particular new meanings for "Volk" (people) and "Rasse" (race). The "Final Solution", i.e. Extermination of all Jews is probably the most well-known of such words.

A prominent example of doublespeak in the corporate world is the number of different phrases that all describe the action of "firing lots of employees", usually obliquely. These phrases include "layoffs," "downsizing," "right-sizing," "headcount adjustment," "RIF" (reduction in force), and "realignment." The Dilbert comic strip satirizes this in one strip in which an employee understands none of these terms and is unable to figure out that he has been fired. Corporate doublespeak can also involve downplaying problems, such as calling a fix for a software bug a "reliability enhancement."

Doublespeak Alert: The Bush Administration has ended the crisis of hunger by redefining it as “low food security.” According to the Washington Post, in a November 16, 2006 article:

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put
food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported
going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low
food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

Cooper City Mayor Debby Eisinger and Commissioner Elliot Kleiman: Deceptive Pieces of Excrement

2006-11-16T07:41:00.000-05:00

From Mayor Debby Eisinger's November 8, 2006 letter to Governor Bush:

During my tenure as Mayor, and previously as a City Commissioner, I have never
participated in and have never observed any unlawful discussion of City business
at any of the dinners prior to Commission meetings.

From Commissioner Elliot Kleiman's website:

TRUTH: There has never been a violation of the Sunshine law by any member of
this Cooper City Commission at any time anywhere!

However, according to a November 16, 2006 article in the Miami Herald:

[A]t one dinner last year, the commissioners, in a group, discussed possible
school sites to ease crowding in Cooper City elementary schools and earmarked
county Open Space Bond funds for Cooper City, according to County Commissioner
Lois Wexler, who attended one March 2005 dinner.

Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine law applies to any gathering of two or more members of the same board to discuss some matter which will foreseeably come before that board for action. Whether the matters discussed are actually scheduled to be brought up on an upcoming board agenda is irrelevant.

There can be no doubt that the issues of possible school sites to ease crowding in Cooper City elementary schools and the earmarking of Open Space Bond funds for Cooper City are issues that, in one form or another, could foreseeably come before the Cooper City Commission for action. Any gathering of two or more Cooper City Commissioners at which these issues were discussed, which was not open to the public, of which reasonable public notice was not given, and of which minutes were not taken, would constitute a violation of the Sunshine law.

The dinner described by County Commissioner Wexler, as reported in the November 16, 2006 Miami Herald article, demonstrates that, contrary to Mayor Eisinger's statement, there was at least one “unlawful discussion of City business” during at least one of “the dinners prior to Commission meetings,” and, contrary to Commissioner Kleiman's statement, there was at least one violation of the Sunshine law by members of the Cooper City Commission.

From these facts, it can only be concluded that Mayor Eisinger and Commissioner Kleiman were not telling the truth, which means that it is now established, in my opinion, that Mayor Eisinger and Commissioner Kleiman are deceptive pieces of excrement.

Schwinging It With Keith Wasserstrom

2006-11-15T22:26:00.000-05:00

Imagine, if you will, you are a lawyer who is also an elected City Commissioner of a municipality with a population of approximately 140,000 people. A man who was once married to your Aunt contacts you. Let's call him Uncle Albert.

Uncle Albert explains he has been hired as a lobbyist for a company called Schwind that has a unique, environmentally-friendly process for treating wastewater sludge. (You already know this, by the way, because the only reason Schwind hired Uncle Albert, who had no previous experience as a lobbyist and is certainly not a sludge expert, was to curry your favor by giving a job to someone close to you). Uncle Albert has a business proposition for you. Uncle Albert wants to retain you as his lawyer to assist him in getting sludge treatment contracts for Schwind from municipalities and other governmental entities, starting with the City of which you are an elected Commissioner. (You already knew about this also, as Uncle Albert's role in this was largely scripted in advance by you and Schwind). Uncle Albert emphasizes that if you, as his lawyer, assist him in getting sludge treatment contracts for Schwind, he will be able to make a lot of money and, more importantly, you and your law firm will stand to reap handsome financial rewards.

Of course, being the great guy you are, you want to help Uncle Albert and you want to help the environment by propagating Schwind's process in as many municipalities as possible, including the City of which you are an elected Commissioner. In addition, you think of your law partner, your law firm's employees, and your wife and children, and how much all concerned would benefit from the handsome financial rewards to be gained if you are able to assist Uncle Albert.

But then it occurs to you: Wait just a minute! Yes, I am a lawyer and I could assist Uncle Albert, but I am also an elected City Commissioner. Might it not present an ethical problem for me to be a lawyer whose job it is to help Schwind get a contract from my City, regardless of whether Schwind getting the contract is in the best interests of the City, and, at the same time, to be a City Commissioner who is supposed to decide fairly and objectively whether awarding a contract to Schwind is truly in the City's best interest and gets to participate and vote in the decision whether to award a contract to Schwind?

Realizing this potential ethical dilemma, do you:

A. Tell Uncle Albert you're very sorry but, because you are concerned to avoid even the appearance of impropriety as both a lawyer and as an elected official, you will not be able to represent him as a lawyer to help Schwind get a contract from the City of which you are an elected Commissioner, and, because of your personal relationship and the conversations you have had concerning this matter, you are now going to abstain from participating in any way in the City's decision whether to award a contract to Schwind; or,

B. Make a deal with Uncle Albert that you will represent him as a lawyer to help Schwind get a contract from the City of which you are an elected Commissioner, but, instead having Uncle Albert agree to pay you for helping Schwind get a contract from your City, have Uncle Albert agree to pay you for Schwind getting contracts from other cities or counties that will be able to “piggyback” on your City's contract with Schwind, and, while you will abstain from actually voting for your City to award the contract to Schwind, you will, as Uncle Albert's lawyer, pull every possible string and exert maximum pressure behind the scenes and utilize all the power, contacts, and access to crucial decision-makers you have as a City Commissioner to ensure that the City awards the contract to Schwind, except you won't tell anyone at the City that you are actually acting as Uncle Albert's lawyer in helping Schwind get a contract from your City, and you won't tell anyone at the City about the huge financial rewards you and your law firm stand to reap down the road once the City awards the contract to Schwind.

If you are Hollywood City Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom, and we're talking about Keith's Uncle Arnold and Schwing, you chose B.

In my opinion, in order to have chosen B, Keith must have followed a line of thought that went something like this: Yes, I am a lawyer and I am a City Commissioner. If I was just a lawyer and not a City Commissioner, there would be no problem with me representing Uncle Arnold to help Schwing get a contract from the City of Hollywood. But I'm such a wonderful person and I perform a wonderful public service giving of my time above and beyond to the citizens of the City of Hollywood as a City Commissioner. So how is it fair that I, as a lawyer, should be penalized and not be able to make this money, just because I also happen to be a City Commissioner? There must be a way I can circumnavigate the ethical problems here so that I can make the money as a lawyer and still be a City Commissioner! I know! I'll talk to the City Attorney! He's a credulous flunkie and he'll believe anything I tell him about all this and he'll give me a clean bill of ethical health! And then later, if anyone questions my conduct, I can say the City Attorney told me it was ok! Excellent plan!

So where did Keith go wrong? Why is Keith now suspended from public office, facing felony corruption charges and a possible 25-year prison sentence? In my opinion, among the flaws in Keith's thinking, as I have imagined it, were the following:

Keith pretended that Schwing hired Uncle Arnold for his vast lobbying and sludge expertise, and Keith pretended that Uncle Arnold would have been interested in hiring Keith as his lawyer to help Schwing get a contract from the City of Hollywood even if Keith was not a Hollywood City Commissioner.
Keith apparently saw nothing wrong with using his position as an elected official to line his own pockets. In fact, Keith's enormously high opinion of himself as morally above-reproach and infallible made him feel entitled to do so.
Keith convinced himself that what was in his client's best interest (having the City award a contract to Schwing), which would also eventually result in money in his pocket, was also in the City's best interest. In Keith's tortured analysis, everyone would win! Yay!
Keith's opinion of his own cleverness and craftiness was so out-of-proportion to reality that he thought he would be able get away with using his position as an elected official to line his pockets by "structuring" the arrangement and "gaming the system" so as to avoid breaking the law.
The City Attorney's ethical blessing is a GIGO issue: garbage-in, garbage-out. It only works if you fully disclose all pertinent facts to the City Attorney.
Reliance on the City Attorney's flawed judgment is not a defense if you broke the law.

UPDATE: September 10, 2007 - Excellent news for Keith Wasserstrom:

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Mayor's Sister Defends Mayor

2006-11-13T12:21:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, November 11, 2006, the Miami Herald ran two letters to the editor concerning the Cooper City debacle. One was from Commissioner Elliot Kleiman, who has been out in front in justifying the City Commission's conduct. The other letter was from 24-year Cooper City resident Wendy Rosenberg, who offered a spirited defense of Mayor Debby Eisinger:

I have been a Cooper City resident for 24 years, and I think it's a
disgrace how WFOR-CBS4 focused its investigation on the negative complaints of a
few residents. Only a handful of residents complained about the raises voted by
our City Commission.

Has anyone bothered to compare our commissioners' salaries to those in
neighboring cities? Our commissioners and mayor have not had a raise since 1994.
When I moved here, Cooper City had a population of 12,000. Today it is nearly
30,000. Has it occurred to our residents that maybe the responsibilities of the
commission also have grown?

Since Debby Eisinger has been elected mayor, she has promoted ''City
Government Week'' in the five schools throughout Cooper City. She also organized
an essay contest for the students of the middle school. The celebration of these
events at a recent City Commission meeting drew a crowd with standing room only.
Where was Channel 4 then?

WENDY ROSENBERG, Cooper City

The Miami Herald, however, did not disclose (perhaps it simply did not know) that Wendy Rosenberg is Mayor Debby Eisinger's sister! At least the Mayor's sister would still vote for her.

Cooper City: Mayor's Letter Fails to Persuade Governor Not To Order Investigation

2006-11-09T22:24:00.000-05:00

Imagine, if you will, you are the mayor of a city. Local media have recently reported that you and the entire city commission, as well as the city manager and staff, have engaged in conduct that, at the very least, appears to be improper.

In the wake of the media reports and resulting pubic outcry, the governor of your state sends you a letter expressing concern about serious allegations of misconduct and asking you to respond with detailed information that he will consider in deciding whether to request a formal law enforcement investigation into the matter.

As the mayor, your mission is now to try to persuade the governor that there is no need for him to request a formal law enforcement investigation. How do you respond? Do you:

A. take responsibility for what happened, express your sincere regret over the situation, apologize for engaging in conduct that even appeared to be improper, and demonstrate that you are taking action to correct and make amends for past mistakes; or,

B. sanctimoniously and viciously attack the news organizations, reporters, and citizens who were involved in bringing the conduct to the public's attention, unconvincingly deny you engaged in the alleged conduct, and arrogantly and self-righteously boast of your public service and excellent personal reputation.

If you are Mayor Debby Eisinger of Cooper City, you chose B.

The Mayor's November 8, 2006 letter to Governor Bush was ill-conceived and completely ineffective. The tone of Mayor Eisinger's letter is combative and is suffused with a sense of the Mayor's overbearing self-importance.

She attempts to portray herself as the victim of "cunning videography" wherein she is repeatedly shown holding a full glass of wine in her hand, but "Nowhere within the extensive secret filming over this extensive period of time is there portrayal of me even drinking a sip of wine or any alcoholic beverage."

This, to me, is reminiscent of when Bill Clinton was asked if he ever tried marijuana and he said he tried it, "but I didn't inhale." Are we supposed to believe the Mayor orders a full glass of wine to carry around with her in bars as a prop? If the Mayor is charging the glass of wine to the taxpayers, the least she could do is drink it and not waste it. Perhaps the Mayor just brought the same full glass of wine to each of these events so she could look like she was fitting in with her fellow commissioners who were actually drinking their drinks? Who does Mayor Eisinger think she is kidding?

One would think that Mayor Eisinger, who earned a Master's Degree in Physical Education from the University of Florida with a 3.91 GPA, and who spent eight years working as a word processor for WC Publishing Company, would have been able to do a better job of persuading the Governor that there was no wrongdoing.

Having received this ridiculous letter from Mayor Eisinger, it is no wonder Governor Bush ordered a formal law enforcement investigation into the matter.

It should also be noted that Judicial Watch, a national, conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law, has a blog entitled Corruption Chronicles, which did a post on November 9, 2006 about the Cooper City situation that concludes as follows:

Residents of Cooper City should be outraged that their public officials are
dining and drinking on their dime.

I am a resident of Cooper City, and I am outraged that my public officials are dining and drinking on my dime.

I agree with Miami Herald columnist Wingate Payne, who, in a November 7, 2006 op-ed piece made the following comments:

Seems that the City Commission was taking itself out to dine on the
taxpayers' tab before commission meetings, with some commissioners liking a lot
of wine.
Why on Earth would anyone think that this is an appropriate use of public
money? A clear case of feeling entitled to just desserts for their work.
It's one thing to expect the public to pay for some entertainment required as
part of the job, such as dinners at conventions, but regular feedings at the
public trough just go too far.
If they're talking public business at these dinners, they're violating the
open-meetings law. If they aren't, then these are social occasions and don't
qualify for public dollars. Building fellow feeling over meatballs and red wine
isn't a public purpose, either.

Cooper City Commission - Very Thirsty Folks

2006-11-08T09:51:00.000-05:00

According to a November 7, 2006 article in the Miami Herald reported by Breanne Gilpatrick, on August 22, 2006, six Cooper City officials were at Landlubbers Raw Bar & Grill in Cooper City where, between 5:15 and 6:00 p.m., they ordered twenty (20) drinks, including ten (10) vodka drinks, two Manhattans, two glasses of wine, two beers and a Bloody Mary.

Of the twenty drinks, City Commissioner Elliot Kleiman admits to having only one. Assuming that to be true, let's do the math: 19 drinks divided by 5 Cooper City commissioners or staff in 45 minutes. According to my calculations, that means each of the 5 commissioners or staff consumed an average of 3.8 drinks at the rate of one drink every 11.84 minutes.

According to the minutes, the August 22, 2006 Cooper City Commission meeting began at 7:32 p.m. I'm no expert, but I believe that magnitude of alcohol consumption within that amount of time means someone was still intoxicated at 7:32 p.m. when Mayor Eisinger gaveled the City Commission meeting to order. If these people managed to consume that much alcohol in that short a time without becoming intoxicated, then they must have that extraordinary tolerance to alcohol that only comes from drinking mass quantities of alcohol on a very frequent basis.

On the plus side, the Commissioners and staff should be commended for patronizing an establishment in Cooper City, thus contributing to the economy of, and helping to keep jobs for bartenders and servers in, Cooper City. In addition, they should be commended for their thrift in saving the taxpayers' money by ordering the drinks during the 2 for 1 Happy Hour special.

Update: On November 7, 2006, after I e-mailed a copy of the above post, Commissioner Kleiman was nice enough to send me an e-mail with his take on the report:

I am making the following guess and assumption. Being happy hour
the server must have served up a second round without being asked ( or
consumed) or there were more than 6 people present, I can't attest to either
assumption but if these people did drink all that, they wouldn't have been able
to walk next door for dinner at Vita's. Further, the public both present and
watching the commission meeting on Comcast would have observed the effects. They did not. Why, because they were all very sober.

I stand by the statements on my website. http://www.goodguy2005.com/ I can sleep very
well because what I have said is true.

Feel free to forward this to those to whom you copied your email. I would be happy to discuss this or any other issue by phone of email with any or all.. (954) 392-6792

Elliot

Cooper City: Crisis Mismanagement

2006-11-05T09:32:00.000-05:00

As a result of the disclosure of the City Commission and City Manager treating themselves at taxpayer expense to expensive food, wine, and liquor just before City Commission meetings, Governor Bush had his General Counsel, on November 3, 2004, send a letter to Mayor Eisinger demanding an explanation within three business days. This letter, for what it's worth, was also cc'd to Broward State Attorney Mike Satz, as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

In addition, some Cooper City residents are circulating a petition. I have not seen this petition yet, so I am unclear as to exactly what it asks for.

In my opinion, the City Commission and the City Manager are taking exactly the wrong approach to managing this crisis. I believe, in general, people are very understanding and forgiving. If you make a mistake, telling the truth, apologizing, and making amends are the most effective way to put the mistake behind you.

History has shown this is true when mistakes are made at the highest levels of government. For example, if President Clinton had simply admitted what he did with Monica Lewinsky and apologized right away, it is unlikely there would have been nearly as much momentum as there was for impeaching him.

The City Manager's public response of denial and righteous indignation at "innuendos" that City Commissioners were intoxicated before City Commission meetings is very similar to President Clinton's angry denial that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." No one believed President Clinton then. No one believes the City Manager now.

Moreover, in my opinion, the City Manager's public statement misses the point. I feel it is none of my business if City Commissioners and the City Manager feel the need to fortify themselves with steak or pasta dinners and a few glasses of wine just prior to Commission meetings. But when they do so at taxpayer expense, that is when it becomes my business.

In theory, you don't serve on a city commission to make money or for any kind of financial rewards. Even with the hefty pay raises the Cooper City Commissioners voted themselves, they still don't make what anyone would consider a living wage. It is supposed to be a part-time job for people who want to "give something back" to the community in which they live. In my opinion, the essence of the problem is as follows: wining and dining at taxpayer expense shows the City Commissioners taking, not giving back. (This is especially true to the extent that some of the establishments at which they wined and dined were not even in Cooper City.)

The City Commissioners and the City Manager have reacted to the public disclosure of their activities with arrogance, anger, and self-righteous indignation. Their attitude seems to be "how dare anyone question our activities?" The way they are handling this crisis is only making it worse, for them and for the City. Personally, I am embarrassed for the City Commissioners, the City Manager, and their families, that they seem unable or unwilling to face this crisis in a more intelligent and politically less disastrous manner.

Here is CBS 4 Miami's latest report on the situation:

(CBS4) COOPER CITY Governor Bush is asking Cooper City’s mayor to respond
to allegations that several commissioners met in private and drank alcoholic
beverages at various bars and restaurants before conducting public meetings.
Cooper City residents are rallying for these officials to be kicked off their
posts for their actions.

General Counsel for Gov. Jeb Bush, Raquel Rodriguez, wrote to Cooper City
Mayor Debbie Eisinger on Friday, asking for information to examine if any open
records laws were violated by any private meetings. It also requested the mayor
to explain whether staff drove city vehicles while under the influence of
alcohol.

The letter also asked the city to respond within three business days. Bush
will then decide whether to request a law enforcement investigation or take
other action.

CBS4 I-Team Investigator, Mike Kirsch reported that the mayor, four other
city commissioners, the city manager and other senior staff members representing
Cooper City allegedly met in restaurants and bars before meetings. Some were
seen holding wine glasses in the television report.

City leaders said the dinners are considered a tradition meant as a
relationship builder with other political leaders. The city also has rejected
claims that anyone at the dinners was intoxicated or discussed matters related
to city business.

Florida's open records or "sunshine" laws call for commissioners, board
members or other officials to make their governmental meetings open to the
public.

CBS4's Dave Malkoff reported that the residents of Cooper City are outraged
at these allegations and are writing, circulating petitions and coming together,
demanding that local leaders be removed from office after they saw them
allegedly drinking on the job. Kirsch attempted to contact City Hall, but
received only one email saying that his report on the allegations was insulting.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Politicians Behaving Badly: Cooper City Commission

2006-11-03T08:33:00.000-05:00

According to this article in the November 3, 2006 Miami Herald, the elected Cooper City Commissioners (pictured above from left to right: Valenti, Roper, Kleiman, Eisinger, and Ferrara), along with City Manager Chris Farrell and staff, have been meeting at various local restaurants and pubs before Commission meetings to eat and to drink wine, beer, and liquor at taxpayer expense.

When confronted by a citizen at a recent Commission meeting about their pre-meeting soirees, City Manager Farrell said "I won't dignify myself by responding." He certainly did not dignify himself. His wits were so dulled by food and liquor that he couldn't even articulate his misgiven thought properly, which would have been that he won't dignify the question by giving a response.

As a Cooper City homeowner, I am appalled and outraged, more than anything else, by the Commissioners' self-righteous attitude that they are entitled to charge expensive meals and liquor to the City's taxpayers, and their arrogant and condescending attitude toward anyone who would have the audacity to question their activities.

If the Commissioners were discussing City business at these dinners, then they violated the Sunshine law. If they were not discussing City business, then how dare they bill their dinners to the City's taxpayers?

If the Commissioners have even one shred of decency, they will, at the very least, agree to reimburse the taxpayers for these illegitimate expenses, and issue a public apology.

''As with any type of PR activity, it gets expensed to taxpayers,'' Commissioner Elliot Kleiman said. ``The whole purpose was to develop our image.''

Is that their best defense?

In my opinion, the only image they have developed is the image of a bunch of greedy pigs gorging themselves from the public trough.

Update: After I posted the above, I had a telephone conversation with Commissioner Elliot Kleiman concerning this matter. Commissioner Kleiman made a number of interesting comments:

Kleiman stuck to the story that "we've been doing this for fifteen (15) years" and these expenses were justifed because, he claims, they were used to entertain elected officials from other jurisdictions, such as state representatives, to "develop rapport" with them, which he claimed has resulted, for example, in state grant money being awarded to Cooper City.

Kleiman also claimed that the expenses for these dinners are or were included in the City's budget for"public relations."

He said that, at some point in the past, an attorney (he didn't say which one) had advised City Commissioners against having these dinners because it could create an appearance of impropriety, but the City Commissioners and/or the City Manager decided to go ahead and have the dinners anyway.

Before the CBS 4 report aired, the City Manager suggested that the dinners should stop because of concerns that were being raised about similar activites in other cities.

The City Commissioners never tried to "hide" the fact that these dinners were taking place, and, because no one ever objected in the past, the City Commissioners assumed that it was permissible and unobjectionable. Kleiman conceded, however, that neither did the City advertise or notify taxpayers that these dinners were taking place, or make it clear that the taxpayers were footing the bill for the food and drink.

No public apology or reimbursement of taxpayer dollars spent on these dinners is likely to be forthcoming because neither the Commissioners nor the City Manager believes they did anything wrong.

Update: At 4:26 p.m., on November 3, 2006, City Manager Farrell's office sent the following e-mail:

The story broadcast by Channel 4 on November 2, 2006, contained insinuations
of wrong-doing by members of the Cooper City Commission and staff.
These innuendos have no basis and are false.

At no time have I ever witnessed a violation of the Sunshine Law or seen any member of the Commission or staff members consume an inappropriate amount of wine or any other alcoholic beverage, and no member of the City Commission or staff has ever been intoxicated while attending a City Commission meeting. Any allegation or insinuation to the contrary is without basis and is insulting to each member of the City Commission, City Staff and to the citizens of Cooper City. In
addition, each and every Regular Meeting of the Commission is broadcast live on
the local cable network, and is viewed regularly by numerous residents of the
community. Also, members of the press are in attendance at all meetings.

Each and every member of the Cooper City Commission is a dedicated and hard-working public servant who has and continues to serve our citizens with the highest level of professionalism and integrity.

Christopher J. Farrell
City Manager

Oleaginous Tony Snow In Full Effect

2006-11-01T18:12:00.000-05:00

Isn't this a great photo of the unctuous prevaricator-in-chief a/k/a Bush Administration Propaganda Minister Tony Snow? Doesn't it perfectly capture his expression when he is confronted with some inconvenient truth that is unfavorable to the Bush Administration and has to quickly spin out some sincere-sounding lie?

Keith Wasserstrom's Second Defense: I Acted In Accordance With Jewish Law

2006-10-29T20:52:00.000-05:00

This article in the October 29, 2006 edition of the Miami Herald describes how Keith studied Jewish law and ethics at lunch meetings, and contains a quote from Menashe Frank, described as a close friend of Keith Wasserstrom and a fellow lawyer who has known Wasserstrom for the past 12 years:

In the time I've been with him, I've seen him only act with accordance to
ethics and that's why I firmly believe in this case, when all the facts come
out, I'm very confident that he'll be shown to have acted within the ethical
framework of Jewish law.

I guess Menashe Frank is saying that, according to Jewish law, it is permissible for an elected official to falsify ethics disclosure forms, and to make a few extra shekels down the road by lobbying his fellow elected officials to give a lucrative contract to a company who just happens to be his law firm's client. This might be a winning argument, if Keith was going to be judged by the Sanhedrin.

So Keith's first defense was the City Attorney said it was ok. The article does not report Keith is retreating from that defense, but it does suggest Keith's second defense: I'm a good little Jewish boy and the Torah says what I did is ok.

My parents were both Jewish, I went to Hebrew school, and I was Bar Mitzvah. My opinion: It is an insult to the Jewish religion for Keith and his friends to try to absolve Keith's apparently unlawful alleged conduct by (figuratively) wrapping him in a tallis and implying that purported conformance with some religious code trumps or excuses compliance with Florida law.

Update: On November 15, 2006, I was contacted by Menasche Frank, the friend of Keith Wasserstrom who was quoted in the October 29, 2006 Miami Herald article. Mr. Frank made the following points of clarification:

He believes Keith did not engage in the conduct of which he is accused, and he believes Keith did not violate either Jewish law or Florida law.
He did not intend to imply that Jewish law and ethics would permit the falsification of disclosure forms or any of the other conduct of which Keith is accused.
He contacted the Miami Herald on his own initiative to provide a good character reference on Keith's behalf. Therefore, my post was incorrect if it intended to imply that he did so as part of some coordinated public defense of Keith by Keith and his friends.

What's This About: Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean

2006-10-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

John W. Dean, White House legal counsel to President Nixon, during the Watergate era, and author of numerous best sellers since then, wrote a book published in July 2006, entitled Conservatives Without Conscience.

What does this book say?

Dean believes the conservative movement that has come to dominate American politics in the past 20 years is much different from traditional conservatism, as well as the conservative movement of the 1960's and 70's embodied by Barry Goldwater.

Traditional conservatism, according to Dean, was cautious, defended the staus quo, believed change should occur incrementally and gradually, and was averse to dramatic social upheavals. Dean believes the modern conservative movement departs from traditional conservatism by embracing radical means and adopting drastic measures to achieve the goal of restoring what they perceive as America's cultural traditions.

According to Dean, Goldwater's conservatism emphasized libertarianism, fiscal responsibility, civil rights, and equality. In contrast, Dean claims modern conservatives are moralists and spendthrifts who want to see government regulate private conduct and curb civil liberties.

Much of Dean's book appears to be devoted to elaborating on what he believes to be the psychological profile of modern conservatives, both the followers and the leaders. According to Dean, forty years of psychological data and sociological studies suggest that people who identify themselves as conservatives do so because they have "a heightened psychological need to manage uncertainty and threat." Among the psychological characterisitics associated with political conservatives are: high levels of fear, an aversion to ambiguity, overreaction to threats, an inordinate need for structure and a strong desire to dominate others. Dean claims this constellation of traits is not normally correlated with liberals.

Dean draws on the work of linguist George Lakoff, whom Dean cites for the proposition that different models of the "ideal family" drive conservatives and liberals. According to Dean, Lakoff believes that liberals are unconsciously shaped by what he calls the Nurturant Parenting model, which emphasizes traits such as equality, empathy, and understanding, while conservatives are shaped by the Strict Father parenting style, which emphasizes obedience, discipline, and following rules, and engenders a reverence for authority figures as being necessary to stand up to and defeat evil in a highly dangerous world.

Research shows, claims Dean, that "authoritarianism is consistently associated with right-wing but not left-wing ideology." Dean cites scientist Bob Altemeyer as having developed the Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale, under which the following criteria are used to identify the authoritarian personality type:

The Followers:

Submissive to authority - accept without criticism the statements and actions of authority figures (parents, political leaders, police, and religious figures). Are intolerant when such figures are criticized.
Aggressive support of authority - easily accept aggression sanctioned by authority figures.
Conventionality - accept follow, and defend the traditional norms of society. Often tend toward fundamentalism in religious matters.

The RWA scale is useful for identifying followers, but is far less useful for identifying authoritarian leaders. For this, says Dean, scientists have developed the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) theory.

The Leaders:

Control and command - seize every opportunity to lead and enjoy having power over others.
Inequality is inevitable - social dominators believe some people are just more worthy than others.
Rough world - social dominance orientation emphasizes traits like toughness, hardness, and ruthlessness as opposed to compassion, altruism, and caring.

According to Dean, social dominators exhibit little moral restraint; for them, there is no right and wrong, only what you can get away with. As a result, they tend to be highly manipulative. Authoritarian followers are especially likely to trust someone who tells them what they want to hear. Social dominators are very adept at spinning stories they believe will get them what they want from followers. Thus, the two groups form a mutually reinforcing dyad.

Dean acknowledges that not all conservatives are authoritarians. Nevertheless, Dean contends that most authoritarians are conservative.

Dean believes that only recently has authoritarian conservatism gained widespread acceptance in American political life, threatening libertarian and traditional thinking. According to Dean, Bush and Cheney have used 9/11 as an excuse to enact their authoritarian tendencies. Bush has claimed extraordinary powers and the right to conduct executive activities in total secrecy and without accountability - all hallmarks of authoritarian thinking - but the results have not been greater success in the war on terror. Rather, authoritarianism and secrecy have bred incompetence. Perversely, the dangers that flow from incompetence are often cited as proof that the authoritarian leader requires even greater powers.

Dean asserts that Bush and Cheney, in contrast to other American leaders, have made fear mongering standard operating procedure. But fear mongering takes reason out of the decision making process, which history shows is a dangerous route to take.

Dean believes authoritarianism carries many risks. First, it is a precursor to fascism. Second, it isolates the ruling class in unhealthy ways. Finally, authoritarian personalities in government will seek to eliminate checks and balances intended to function as error-correcting mechanisms. Left unchecked, the authoritarian conservative movement may dismantle our democratic system of government.

Iraq: It's the Oil, Stupid!

2006-10-23T00:08:00.000-04:00

Aside from his laughable claim that, with regard to Iraq policy, "we've never been stay the course," [are you KIDDING me? yes, he really said that!] President George W. Bush, in an interview aired on ABC television on October 22, 2006, let some truth slip about why the U.S. really went to war in Iraq.

In his usual inarticulate manner, President Bush appears to have said, in essence, that it is important to establish a democracy in Iraq because that would be a defeat for "the terrorists" and that control of Iraq by "the terrorists" is a threat because "I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up. Or withdraw…"

These words from President Bush appear to strongly support the contention that the entire Iraq debacle was and continues to be about ensuring United States access to, control over, and/or development of, Iraq's vast oil reserves, the second-largest amount of proven oil reserves in the world.

To minimize claims of my taking the President's words out of context, below is the context. The entire interview transcript is here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But whatever you call it, aren't American men and women now dying to prevent Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other?

BUSH: No. George, I — it's dangerous. And you're right, no matter what you call it.

The fundamental question is: Are we on our way to achieving a goal, which is an Iraq that can defend itself, sustain itself and govern itself and be an ally in the war on terror in the heart of the Middle East.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It seems like, every month, we're going farther from that.

BUSH: Well, I don't know why you would say that. I mean…

STEPHANOPOULOS: The casualties are going up.

BUSH: … if that's the definition of success or failure, the number of casualties, then you're right. But that's what the enemy knows. See, they try to define success or failure.

I define success or failure as to whether or not the Iraqis will be able to defend themselves. I define success or failure as whether the unity government's making difficult — the difficult decisions necessary to unite the country.

I define success or failure as whether schools are being built, or hospitals are being opened. I define success or failure as whether we're seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East.

Because a democracy in the Middle East, a society based upon liberty, will be a defeat for the terrorists, who have clearly said they want a safe haven from which to launch attacks against America, a safe haven from which to topple moderate governments in the Middle East, a safe haven from which to spread their jihadist point of view, which is that there are no freedoms in the world; we will dictate to you how you think.

I know some Americans don't think that is a threat. I view it as a threat because — and the reason it's a threat is I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up. Or withdraw…

I might have guessed that this utterance by President Bush was inadvertent, but I would have been wrong. President Bush was merely echoing a theme he included in a speech he gave on October 20, 2006 at a National Senatorial Committee Reception in Washington, D.C., in which he stated:

Imagine a world in which radical extremists not only topple moderate governments so they can have territory from which to plan, plot, and attack America and our allies, but they have the capacity to control oil resources, which they would be more than willing to use in order to blackmail America and our allies into further retreat. You can imagine a circumstance in which these radicals say, we'll run up the price of oil by denying oil on the markets unless you abandon your allies such as Israel, or unless you further withdraw from the world. And compound that with a nuclear Iran, and the world 20 or 30 years from now is going to say, what happened to them in 2006? How come they couldn't see the threat? What blinded these people in order that they did not do their job?

It appears the Bush Administration is fighting back against being ridiculed for its apparently disastrous policy in Iraq by finally disclosing the actual rationale for the entire Iraq invasion, regime-change, and nation-building enterprise: control of oil resources! Ironically, if you analyze the President's remarks, Iraq was not a moderate government, and it was not toppled by the radical extremists Bush is referring to. Iraq's government was toppled by the United States. [But the U.S. is not radical extremists, is it?] Bush appears to be referring to the perceived threat of radical extremists toppling the moderate government in the Middle East with the largest amount of proven oil reserves in the world, i.e., Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia does not have much, if any, military of its own. Good thing the U.S. has thousands of troops nearby in case any radical extremists were to threaten Saudi oil reserves!

What's This About: Buck Wild by Stephen A. Slivinski

2006-10-22T23:00:00.000-04:00

Stephen A. Slivinski, director of budget studies at the Cato Institute, wrote a book published in August 2006, entitled Buck Wild: How Republicans Blew the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government.

What does this book say?

The book presents a critique of the Republican Party, more specifically, Republicans in Congress and in the White House since Reagan Administration. It is a critique levelled at Washington Republicans from the right, from the perspective of a fiscal conservative who feels the true principles of the Republican Party have been betrayed.

Slivinski believes the Republican Party has abandoned limited government principles and thereby has betrayed the very foundations of the Party and threatens the future of the United States. Slivinski tries to show that Republicans, not Democrats, have become the biggest spenders in Washington.

Slivinski relates how, in May 2004, members of the Republican Study Committee, formed in 1973 by fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives who viewed President Nixon as fiscally irresponsible, had to meet in the basement of the Capitol building lik a band of insurgents because they are alone against President George W. Bush and most of the Republican Congress who have embraced Big Government and expanded the welfare state beyond the dreams of even the most starry-eyed liberal Democrat.

According to Slivinski, Republicans in Congress were supposed to combat the big spending Democrats and give the power back to the people. Instead, they have far surpassed the Democrats in government growth, spending, and entitlement programs. The Republican Revolution of 1994 was about sending Republicans into the cesspool that was Congress to clean it up. Instead, Republicans got into the cesspool, found it felt more like a hot tub and decided to keep it the way it was.

Slivinski asserts that President George W. Bush has presided over a budget that has grown by 27% after adjusting for inflation. That's more than twice as fast as during the eight years of Clinton's presidency. In historical context, Bush is second only to Lyndon Johnson in federal spending. This remains true even if you deduct spending on defense, homeland security, and entitlements.

Government spending under George W. Bush, with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, is 20% of U.S. gross domestic product. Slivinski cites data from the Joint Economic Committe of the U.S. Congress that performance of the U.S. economy is maximized when government spending is less than or equal to 15% of GDP. Under Clinton, when the White House and Congress were controlled by different parties, government spending was headed toward 17% of GDP.

Slivinski appears to claim that a divided government, in which Congress and the White House are controlled by different political parties, is better for U.S. economic performance. From the last eight presidencies, Slivinski says the facts show that government grows the slowest when it is divided because divided government means less government spending and, consequently, more economic growth. According to Slavinski, the statistics from 1965 to 2006 show that the slowest growth in government spending comes when there is a Democrat in the White House and Republican-controlled Congress. Second to that is a Republican President and a Republican Senate coupled with a Democratic House.

Twilight in the Desert - Piercing the Veil of Saudi Oil Secrecy

2006-10-21T17:18:00.000-04:00

Matthew Simmons is a well-connected oil industry insider who has concluded that some of the world's largest oil beds may be on the verge of production collapse.

Author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, published in May 2005, Simmons is founder of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank that handles mergers and acquisitions among energy companies, and counts among its clients Halliburton, General Electric, and the World Bank. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, he served as an energy-policy adviser to the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.

A new review of Simmons' book recently ran on the Motley Fool website, and I thought it was worth sharing here.

Book Review: "Twilight in the Desert"

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2006/commentary06101819.htm

By Jean Graham

10/18/2006

In Twilight in the Desert, Matthew Simmons has written a pivotal and accessible work confronting the complacent notion that there is an inexhaustible supply of oil to be readily tapped when needed. Simmons has searched through hundreds of obscure SPE documents (Society of Petroleum Engineers) and found the paper trail that suggests the Saudi Oil Miracle may be entering its senescence, taking with it the capacity to produce more oil on demand.

The importance of Saudi oil cannot be disputed. The Saudis claim petroleum reserves of 262.7 billion barrels. In the Middle East, Iran reserves run a distant second at 130.7 billion barrels, and Bahrain has 0.7 billion barrels. There are 726.6 billion barrels under the sands of the Middle East, representing 63.3% of the world reserves. The Saudis have 22.9% of world reserves.
Matthew Simmons questions the accuracy of Saudi estimates of 262 billion barrels, and the capability of the aging giant fields to increase oil output on demand.

The golden age of exploration in Saudi Arabia lasted from 1941-1965 and saw the discovery of the major fields -- Ghawar, Abquaiq, Safaniya, and Berri. The Saudi oil miracle has been anchored by the largest and inarguably greatest oil field ever found -- Ghawar. Ghawar output has been strongly supported by the other super-giant fields -- Abqaiq, Safaniya, and Berri. In 1979, when Saudi Arabia's oil output was near its peak, these fields produced 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of the 9.8 million barrels a day of Saudi output. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 at 10 million barrels per day and is now around 5 million bpd. The giant U.S. fields are in decline, as are many of the greatest oil fields around the world. Declining production is an inevitable, calculable series of events. Are the Saudi fields the exception? Simmons says no.

Ghawar has produced 55 billion barrels of oil and accounts for 55%-65% of all Saudi output. Because the world has relied on the Saudis' ability to open wellhead valves and provide the spare capacity in oil production needed in times of crisis and shortage, Simmons believes there may have been irreparable damage done by overproducing the giant oilfields, including Ghawar. This will ultimately lower the volume of recoverable oil. Since field-by-field data has not been available for more than two decades, it is difficult to know how the fields are faring.

Simmons clearly discusses the critical components of oil recoverability -- oil reservoir pressure, porosity, and permeability of the rock formations, fractures, and faults in the field. Reservoir pressure is produced by the presence of aquifers below the oil. This keeps gas bubbles trapped in the oil, much like the fizz in a can of soda. When fields are young, the pressure is naturally high, and the oil flows to the surface without artificial lifting or pushing. As the Saudi (and all) oil fields age, pressure can be created by injecting water at the edges of the field, which is what the Saudis have been aggressively doing for decades. More injected water produces higher percentages of water mixed with the oil (water cut).

As more complicated technology is used to suck oil out of declining fields, oil becomes expensive and the fields less productive. Even the greatest fields decline and fail. Prudhoe Bay, the last great U.S. giant, peaked at 1.5 million bpd in 1989 and has since declined to 300,000 bpd. The peak output lasted only 10 years. It happens to the best of them.

Ghawar was blessed with:

Fabulous permeability
Low-viscosity oil
High porosity
Very thick columns of oil

In its first decade of production, reservoir pressure was high enough to produce vast quantities of water-free oil. To maintain critical pressure, the Saudis began an early and intensive program of water injection at the flanks of the field. As water cuts reach unacceptable percentages, those wells must be shut down.

Ghawar has had water cut problems since the 1970s. The presence of water also makes measurement of oil production difficult, which throws into question any predictions of recoverable reserves. These are classic signs of problems in an aging field. Twilight for Ghawar may be approaching.

Abqaiq, Safaniya, and Berri are subject to similar aging problems:

Falling reservoir pressure
Rampant corrosion from years of water injection
Erratic water flow behavior in the rock
Growing water cuts in the oil
Lower productivity in the parts of each field remaining to be drilled

Although the Saudis have drawn a veil of secrecy over both individual field production and their technical problems, glimpses of the challenges involved in producing oil from aging fields are found in Aramco brochures meant to extol Saudi technology, but which are in fact admissions of difficult oil recovery. Technological advances include newer, vastly more expensive drilling techniques involving horizontal wells instead of vertical wells and the most sophisticated computer models of 3-D reservoir structures available, requiring millions of data points. Clearly, increasingly expensive and complex technology is necessary to produce the remaining oil, while massive water injection creates lower production in the form of higher water cuts.

If there were easy spare capacity available to increase production from the current nine million barrels a day to 12 or 15 million barrels a day the Saudis claim is possible, they wouldn't require these recovery methods. It's an admission of difficult production in aging fields, according to the author.

In spite of high oil prices, levels of non-OPEC oil production have been largely disappointing. The most surprising and unanticipated gains were from the former Soviet Union (FSU), emerging from reworked oil fields. There is little spare capacity available from non-FSU and non-OPEC fields, and there is uncertainty around the sustainability of Russian production. Because the Saudis have kept much of the intelligence regarding their oil output and field-by-field reserves secret, the world can only speculate about their ability to supply the ever-increasing global oil demands. Most of the world chooses to believe Saudi reassurances that the reserves are there.

Mr. Jum'ah of Aramco, the Saudi Arabian production and distribution company, was recently quoted in The Wall Street Journal as confirming more than a century's worth of recoverable oil reserves (5.7 trillion barrels) worldwide. Only 1.2 trillion barrels are deemed recoverable with current technology. The other estimated reserves will require technology that is yet to be developed or has been too expensive at current prices (as in tar sands) Of the proven recoverable reserves, the Saudis claim to have 262 billion barrels, which Simmons disputes, citing inaccurate measurement from water cuts and recovery methods that are forced to bypass much of the estimated recoverable oil in the ground.

Simmons believes that the other pillars of predicted reserves -- undiscovered super-giant fields -- are not there. The Saudis have failed to discover any notable fields since Shaybah in 1968, despite intensive exploration. It is their last multibillion-barrel field (reserves 14 billion barrels), able to produce 500,000 barrels per day. The recent Jack field discovery in the Gulf of Mexico may contain 3-15 billion barrels, which pales in comparison to the giants in the Kingdom. When these aging fields begin to fail, the world will experience oil shortages much sooner than the predicted 100 years.

Hey Abbott!!!! Keith Wasserstrom's Defense: City Attorney Said It Was OK

2006-10-13T18:46:00.000-04:00

An October 12, 2006 press release from Keith Wasserstrom's criminal defense attorney announces the basis for Keith's (Keith is pictured above right) defense:

Before the vote on whether Hollywood should enter into the contract, Keith obtained clear advice from Hollywood City Attorney, Dan Abbott (pictured left), regarding the potential for ethical conflict and the state of the law as to his involvement with Normandy Group. Attorney Abbott specifically advised Keith that, if he recused himself from voting on the contract, and if he disclosed to the board his relationship with Normandy, he would not breach his ethical duty or violate the law. Keith followed Attorney Abbott’s advice, recused himself from the vote regarding the contract with Schwing-Bioset, and with Attorney Abbott’s assistance, Keith prepared and filed conflict disclosure forms.

It appears Keith is pinning his political and professional future on the advice of Hollywood City Attorney Dan Abbott, who, at least in the opinion of some people, is dumber than a bag of rocks. See also here. What if Abbott's advice was incorrect? Does that get Keith off the hook? Hey Keith, if Dan Abbott had advised you it was legal to rob a bank, would that be your defense to bank robbery?

Politicians Behaving Badly: Hollywood City Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom

2006-10-11T15:08:00.000-04:00

Hollywood City Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom, who is also an attorney in South Florida, has been charged with five felonies: one count of unlawful compensation for official behavior and four counts of official misconduct arising out his relationship, while he was a city commissioner, as a lobbyist for a St. Paul, Minnesota-based company, called Schwing Bioset (“Schwing”), which he helped obtain an $18 million wastewater treatment contract from the City of Hollywood.

According to the Probable Cause Affidavit, Wasserstrom and his law firm at the time were retained to assist Schwing obtain a contract from the City of Hollywood. In exchange, Wasserstrom and his firm would be paid money when Schwing got contracts from other cities or counties, which would be a lot easier once Schwing had a contract with the City of Hollywood because other cities and counties would be permitted by Florida law to “piggy-back” off the Hollywood contract, avoiding the time and expense of a competitive bidding process. According to the Probable Cause Affidavit, while engaged in intensive lobbying of the City of Hollywood and his fellow commissioners on behalf of Schwing, Wasserstrom filed conflict forms in which he falsely stated that he and his law firm did not represent Schwing or its representatives in connection with efforts to win the Hollywood contract for Schwing.

To my knowledge, it is relatively common in Florida for local and state lawmakers to act as lobbyists for companies seeking business from governmental entities other than the ones they were elected to. I do not know enough about the facts or the applicable law to express an informed opinion as to whether Wasserstrom actually violated any laws.

But I have to ask: Hey Keith, was it worth the few extra shekels to lobby for a company to get a contract from the very city you were elected to represent as a commissioner? Did you really think you were being hired to help Schwing because you are such a great lawyer? Was it enough money to make it worth it for you to tarnish your image and potentially ruin your professional and political career, and jeopardize the well-being, reputation, and future of your wife and children? When did greed and avarice come to prevail in your mind over altruism and your desire to do good as a public servant?

What's This About: American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips

2006-10-11T09:52:00.000-04:00

Kevin Phillips, former Republican strategist and current political commentator, wrote a book published in March 2006 entitled American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.

What does this book say?

All great world-dominating powers - from ancient Rome to the British Empire - have been brought down by a lethal combination of global overreach, militant religion, diminishing resources, and crippling debt.

America's security, solvency, and standing in the world are being undermined by:

1. military miscalculations in the Middle East;

2. the surge of fundamentalist religion; and,

3. the staggering national debt and the costs of U.S. oil dependence.

President George W. Bush's political base has three main pillars: oil interests, religious fundamentalists, and the financial services sector. Bush's policy decisions - both domestic and foreign - particularly the invasion of Iraq - are best understood as responses designed to serve the interests of his political base. Unfortunately, the interests of Bush's base are inimical to the interests of the United States as a whole. If America cannot reverse course from the agenda set by the Bush Administration, the future of the United States is likely to be very bleak.

Why Did the United States Invade Iraq?

The United States' emergence as a global empire was predicated on an oil-based industrial complex fueled by access to cheap and abundant petroleum. The era of inexpensive and abundant oil may be coming to an end. The precise state of Saudi oil reserves is a closely guarded secret, but many experts have warned American policy makers that the Saudis may be close to, or already have passed, the point of peak oil production. This means that in the near future, the law of diminishing returns will govern oil production - it will begin to cost more to produce oil even as there is less oil to produce. This could set the stage for resource wars as competing powers - China, the U.S., and Europe - scamper to maintain their oil lifelines.

The invasion of Iraq had a great deal to do with ensuring that America maintained control over a resource that is essential to its well-being. After 9/11, the Bush Administration had the perfect pretext for deposing Saddam Hussein and trying to establish American hegemony over Iraq's oil reserves (the second largest proven reserves in the world).

The opportunity to develop Iraq's relatively untapped oil fields was a tantalizing prospect for America's oil giants, whose long-term prospects have been in doubt because of a marked decrease in the share of the world's oil reserves they control. The Bush Administration could not sell the campaign to oust Saddam Hussein to the American people as a war for oil. Bush's political base, which includes a high percentage of devout Christians, would find the idea of a war for natural resources offensive to their deeply held beliefs. However, the Bush Administration's efforts to demonize Saddam Hussein and cast the notion of regime change as a crusade to spread liberty throughout the Islamic world was certain to strike a chord among many evangelical Christians.

What is the Role of Religious Fundamentalists?

According to Phillips, many in the Christian right, of which George W. Bush is the de facto leader, have an apocalyptic mindset, which is shaping the way a significant portion of the electorate approaches current events, particularly foreign policy issues regarding America's involvement in the Middle East. According to the apocalyptic scenarios subscribed to by religious fundamentalists, the faithful can expect wars on a worldwide scale, economic crashes, earthquakes, diseases, and virtually every other calamity imaginable. Thus, for a large segment of the population, the troubled occupation of Iraq and the administration's larger policy failures in the Middle East are not signs of executive incompetence, but rather, evidence of apocalyptic prophecies coming true.

It is not clear to what extent Phillips is asserting that the Bush Administration policy is shaped by such fundamentalist beliefs, or whether the Bush Administration cynically tailors some justifications for its policies to fit in with such beliefs, thus garnering popular support from fundamentalist voters. Phillips is clear, however, in asserting that such end-of-times views, in which religious fever was translated into military fervor, have, historically, proven dangerous and delusional.

The Financialization of the Economy

According to Phillips, the so-called FIRE sector - finance, insurance, and real estate - now accounts for 20 percent of America's GDP, well ahead of the 14.5 percent represented by manufacturing. The displacement of manufacturing by finance has prompted some to describe the U.S. as the "borrower-industrial complex."

It is estimated that he national debt the U.S. owes to foreign lenders exceeds $7.8 trillion. Household and corporate debt are also at record levels.

Historically, the ascension of finance is invariably associated with large gaps between rich and poor. In other words, when the most important economic activity is the creation and trading of abstract financial instruments, rather than the production of real goods and services, the rift between the haves and have-nots widens and society begins to fall apart.

Historically, a financial-services economy is not a recipe for long-term national success. This is because money is not necessarily wealth unless it is "expended on things that yield profits and attract riches from without to augment riches from within." It is questionable whether the U.S. can continue to attract the foreign investment it needs if it lacks "hard industries," companies that actually make products the rest of the world wants to buy. Many experts argue that if the U.S. loses its manufacturing lead, it will also lose its lead in research and development and once it loses that, it loses everything.

Rather than develop a comprehensive national economic strategy for the 21st century, the Bush Administration has placed its faith in "the invisible hand of the marketplace." For many critics, such as Warren Buffet and Clyde Prestowitz, relying on the "magic of the market" when factories are closing, neighborhoods are crumbling, and jobs are being outsourced is a myopic abdication of responsibility. This amounts in the end, as in so many other contexts for the Bush Administration, to a substitution of faith for reason.

Conclusion

Phillips warns that America's indebtedness and oil-dependence are symptomatic of imperial senescence. The United States can avoid the fate of past fallen empires only if it stops allowing ineffective bunglers and weak-willed leaders to try to preserve the status-quo by relying on a feeble faith that the future will always resemble the past even if one fails to prepare for it. Instead, the U.S. must forthrightly address the challenges ahead by, among other things, curbing public fuel consumption and controlling spending.

Broward County School Board Buys Swampland

2006-10-08T16:04:00.000-04:00

When it comes to the Broward County School Board's above-market-value
purchase of thirty acres of unusable wetlands from Southwest Ranches, the
Broward County School Board has no one to blame but itself.

Under Florida law, only in residential real estate transactions are sellers
required to disclose facts materially affecting the value of the property
which are not readily observable and are not known to the buyer. In
non-residential transactions, the law in Florida is "let the buyer beware."

In a non-residential real estate transaction in Florida, there is no duty of
disclosure. In reality, a buyer of non-residential land has no excuse for
relying on representations about the land made by the seller, much less the
seller's broker.

Perhaps the Florida legislature should look into making a law to impose a
duty of disclosure on the sellers of land to school boards and other
government entities in order to protect taxpayers from ill-advised real
estate purchases made by credulous politicians and staff.

Democrats and Republicans Financed by Same Large Corporations and Have Similar Agendas?

2006-10-07T00:41:00.000-04:00

According to J.F. Miglio, writing at the website Online Review of Books and Current Affairs, the Democratic Party's apparent meekness while being subjected to continual electoral defeats for the past six years is explainable by the Democrats being in thrall to the same corporate overseers as the Republicans:

Democrats and Republicans are two branches of the same party. Call it the
Demopublican Party or the Republicrat Party-- call it whatever you want. The
reality is that both Democrats and Republicans are financed by the same large
corporations and have similar agendas.

The Democratic agenda is a bit more liberal than the Republican one,
but when it comes to legislation regarding their mutual big contributors-- the
oil and gas oligopolies, the insurance companies, the Wall Street investment
firms, the pharmaceutical giants, the military hardware manufacturers, etc.--
the Democrats are only slightly less guilty than Republicans of prostituting
themselves for money to finance their campaigns.

Teddy Roosevelt warned us about this problem at the beginning of the
last century, calling the Big Money interests who buy and sell politicians the
"malefactors of wealth." His cousin, FDR, cut into their power during the Great
Depression and they plotted to overthrow him. Eisenhower admonished us about
them in his famous beware the military/industrial complex speech. And even Nixon
butted heads with them on occasion.

But ever since Ronald Reagan became the standard-setting shill for Big
Business, political candidates know their place and rarely cross their corporate
sponsors. Ditto with members of the mainstream news media. And anyone who dares to create legislation or tax policy to cut into their profits or attempts to
promote a populist agenda will be marginalized or destroyed. Howard Dean found
that out the hard way when he ran in the Democratic primary against Kerry.
AAARRR!!

And this is why Democrats have kept their mouths shut in the last three
elections and have accepted their losses with humility. If they want to stay in
the game and continue to accept the largesse of their malefactors, they must be
"good team players," a code phrase that transcends politics and applies to all
craven employees who want to survive in today's cutthroat work
environment.

Great Quotes About Freedom and Tyranny

2006-10-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other. (Bertrand Russell: Freedom, Harcourt Brace, 1940)

Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred. - Bertrand Russell, Unpopular essays

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. (FDR: message to Congress proposing the monopoly investigation, 1938)

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” - Haile Selassie

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. – Aristotle

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. - Voltaire. François Marie Arouet (1694-1778)

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day": Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions: Robert Lynd (1879-1949), Anglo-Irish essayist, journalist.

The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny: William Ellery Channing

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people: Black Hugo L.

There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." : George Orwell

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910)

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy: James Madison: US fourth president, 1751-1836

A great wave of oppressive tyranny isn't going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty: George Baumler

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home: James Madison: US fourth president, 1751-1836

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous : William Proxmire

U.S. Consumers Should Boycott Citgo

2006-09-28T08:44:00.000-04:00

Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). PDVSA is run by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who called U.S. President George W. Bush "the devil" during a recent speech at the United Nations.

President Chavez may have had the right to say whatever he wanted at the United Nations. American consumers have the right to express their disagreement with President Chavez's remarks by boycotting Citgo gas stations and Citgo petroleum products.

7-Eleven is terminating Citgo as its gasoline supplier. Florida State Representative Adam Hasner has called on the State of Florida to terminate Citgo's contract as the exclusive supplier of gasoline to Florida's state-owned gas stations along the Florida Turnpike.

American consumers who are outraged by President Chavez's intemperate remarks should stop filling their vehicles at Citgo gas stations.

Review of Recent Jazz Album Release: Dead Men Are Heavier Than Broken Hearts

2006-09-26T15:34:00.000-04:00

Artist: Christopher Woitach and the Cathexis Orchestra

Album: dead men (are heavier than broken hearts)/February 15-18, 2006/teal creek records TC2009

Review: Christopher Woitach's second album as a leader signifies the breakout on the jazz scene of a highly evolved and still-evolving artist who dares to innovate with an astounding arsenal of unusual and powerful compositional tools to create a distinct sound that swings and bops and floats and grooves and surprises with shifting tempos, moods, layers, textures, and colors. While drawing on a thorough grounding in existing blues and jazz styles and traditions, Woitach blends these elements with thoughtful invention into an original synthesis that defies easy categorization.

This 2006 album of original music composed, arranged, and produced by guitarist Christopher Woitach grew out of a project he began more than ten years ago to set music to the words of beloved American detective novelist Raymond Chandler. This is by no means an attempt at "film noir" music. While utilizing Chandler's writings as a creative spark and lyrical source, Woitach stays true to his musical vision as a jazz composer and guitar virtuoso.

Woitach's harmonically-advanced, cool-toned, and subtle guitar playing is featured throughout the album. He is technically brilliant and versatile - using the guitar in different contexts as a percussive, harmonic, melodic, rhythm, and lead instrument. His improvisational prowess is demonstrated both vertically - building and smoothly manipulating dense chordal and harmonic voicings, and horizontally - propelling his compositions with polished, expressive, melodically-advanced, and flowing lines.

Woitach includes generous space in his compositions for improvisations from his sidemen who are all first-rate musicians in their own right. Tim Jensen (flute), Keller Coker (trombone), and Tom Bergeron (alto) contribute outstanding improvisations on the album's first cut. Bergeron's alto solo on the third track blasts into orbit with a muscular free-jazz explosion reminiscent of John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman at their most untethered.

Woitach's compositional sophistication, his use of counterpoint and canon and fugal structures, and the deployment of alto, trombone, flute, baritone, bass clarinet, bass, and drums in his arrangements is nothing less than inspired. For example, the album's opening cut interleaves improvisational sections with five-voiced fugue interludes of precise lengths determined by a descending Fibonacci number series. In the hands of a less-skilled composer and musician, such a calculated scheme might result in music that is overly mechanical, unduly complicated, and devoid of feeling.

Woitach's breakthrough on this album is the culmination of years of applied effort to plumb the mysteries and depths of classical mathematical constructs to discover their underlying organic, natural, and musical implications. On this album, Woitach applies his complex compositional techniques to create jazz music that is impressively unconventional, atypical, and decidedly uncommon. Woitach does not emulate other composers and musicians. His music is not an exercise in intrinsic geekery or cybernetic noodling. Although knowledge of harmonic and contrapuntal music theory and applied mathematics no doubt enhances appreciation, it stands on its own as enjoyable jazz music. He captivates the listener with what I call "pure grooving" and music that is capable of expressing and reflecting a wide range of emotion, but he does so in his own uniquely refined yet mischievous Woitachian way.

Jazz critic Scott Yanow once wrote: "The most important jazz musicians are the ones who are successful in creating their own original world of music with its own rules, logic, and surprises." By this criterion, Woitach's latest album is persuasive evidence of his emergence as an important jazz musician. Woitach has created and continues to create his own original world of music that exhibits internal logic and surprises that can be found in the music of no other.

Woitach is an extraordinarily talented musician and composer, and with this album, he has succeeded brilliantly by creating music that simultaneously appeals to the emotions and the intellect - music that is interesting, dynamic, accessible, and rewards repeated listenings. The best part is that Woitach is still evolving, still exploring the ramifications of his creative genius. There is a lot of great music yet to come from, and the world would do well to pay attention to, this amazing artist.

For bookings, information, and other albums from Christopher Woitach, go here. The album dead men (are heavier than broken hearts) can be purchased here.

Bush and Musharraf On Capturing or Killing bin Laden

2006-09-24T08:31:00.000-04:00

Joseph Curl of the Washington Times reports here on a September 22, 2006 joint press conference of President Bush and President Musharraf of Pakistan in which they said they are united in the effort to capture or kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, even though the Pakistani general has signed a treaty with tribes along the Afghanistan border thought to harbor members of the Taliban.

According to the Washington Times: "Bush has said U.S. forces cannot simply walk into Pakistan in search of the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Gen. Musharraf did not invite troops to scour the mountainous border region, where bin Laden is thought to be holed up. But Mr. Bush also did not back off his pledge this week that if he had convincing U.S. intelligence that bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would send troops in to capture or kill him."

If he had convincing intelligence that bin Laden is in Pakistan? Doesn't Bush already have this, and hasn't he had such intelligence for a long time? All Bush's flunkies claim, when asked, that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan!

Interestingly, while the Washington Times reported that Bush did not back off on his pledge to send troops into Pakistan to get bin Laden, the Los Angeles Times reported here that "President Bush, struggling with turbulence in the important U.S.-Pakistani relationship, eased back Friday from his vow to order U.S. troops to invade Pakistan, if necessary, to track down Osama bin Laden."

According to the Los Angeles Times: "U.S. confidence in the Pakistani government has recently been shaken by Musharraf's decision to end his army's attempt to root out Taliban from the border territory of North Waziristan and to reach a peace deal with tribal leaders there."

The Washington Times reported: "Gen. Musharraf said a peace treaty between his government and tribes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is not meant to support the Taliban, and that news reports had mischaracterized the deals.

"The deal is not at all with the Taliban. This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders," Gen. Musharraf said.

Mr. Bush said: "I believe him."

So the bottom line is the U.S. is trusting that the government of Pakistan will capture or kill bin Laden. It really looks to me as if, despite all of their "wanted dead or alive" rhetoric, capturing or killing bin Laden is not very high on the list of Bush Administration priorities.

Five Years After 9/11: Will the Realistic Risk Assessment Please Stand Up?

2006-09-08T12:04:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Opinion page on September 7, 2006 presented two op-ed pieces that seem to reflect markedly different understandings of the situation with which America is presented five years after the 9/11 attacks.

At the top of the page is former House speaker Newt Gingrich who believes we need to prepare for an imminent World War III. Underneath Gingrich's piece is City Journal contributing editor Heather MacDonald who, while advocating increased intelligence to ascertain their actual capabilities, apparently believes we may be overestimating the capacity of Muslim jihadist terrorists to attack the United States.

According to Gingrich, President Bush is faced with a parallel situation to that which confronted President Lincoln in the summer of 1862, i.e., "the dangers are greater, the enemy is more determined, and victory will be substantially harder than we had expected in the early days after the initial attack." Gingrich believes American survival is at stake and President Bush's strategies are failing because, among other things: "They do not define the scale of the emerging World War III, between the West and the forces of militant Islam, and so they do not outline how difficult the challenge is and how big the effort will have to be."

Among other things, Gingrich recommends:

1. "President Bush should address a Joint Session of Congress to explain to the country the urgency of the threat of losing millions of people in one or more cities if our enemies find a way to deliver weapons of mass murder to American soil."
2. "Congress...should pass an act that recognizes we are entering World War III and serves notice that the U.S. will use all of its resources to defeat our enemies, not accomodate, understand or negotiate with them...."

Compare Gingrich's apocalyptic view with that of MacDonald:

MacDonald writes: "Since 9/11, it has been generally assumed that Islamic extremists have an almost infinite capacity to wreak large-scale destruction in the U.S....There is reason to think, however, that we may have overestimated Muslim terrorists' reach."

According to Macdonald, "In assessing where the country is five years after 9/11, we need to begin by recognizing that security and intelligence reforms have made it much harder for an Islamic terrorist to get into the country and inflict large-scale damage....Nor is there evidence that terrorists abroad have any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or could obtain them in the foreseeable future....The domestic plots uncovered so far do not suggest that at present we face anything like an omnipresent, omnipotent enemy;....Yet the security-industrial complex continues to trumpet the notion that we are everywhere under growing threat...."

So who is correct? Does WSJ's presentation of both opinions on the same page without an accompanying editorial expressing a preference for one over the other reflect some ambivalence on the part of the WSJ editorial board concerning this issue? MacDonald supports her opinion with quotes from anonymous former government counterterrorism experts and high-ranking intelligence officials. Gingrich does not cite any evidence to support his thesis that the U.S. is on the eve of World War III. Gingrich apparently believes his assertions are self-evident.

Obviously, as Gingrich states, an enemy who believes in religiously sanctioned suicide-bombing is an enemy who, with a nuclear or biological weapon, is a mortal threat to our survival as a free country. The U.S. must obviously prevent such weapons from ending up in the control of factions or governments who would use or threaten to use them against the U.S. What is the U.S. government doing to accomplish this? What is the actual and realistic risk of such weapons going to the wrong people? How can the public obtain a clear answer to these question when the government refuses to disclose such information on national security grounds? Based on their record, which appears to be mixed at best, can we trust that those in charge of this are doing the right things? Whom do you trust in our government?

Credulous and Ignorant Fanatics

2006-09-07T18:23:00.000-04:00

George Orwell in his novel "1984" described the ideal qualities for a member of the Party (i.e., the Party symbolized by Big Brother): "Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph."

Isn't that such an apt description of all those fear-mongering and hate-spewing pundits such as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Michelle Malkin, and all their imitators and other boot-licking "conservative" toadies who wax in adulation of the virtues of making war in Iraq, fighting terrorists, increasing the power of the President so he can do whatever he believes is right to "protect" Americans by creating secret government programs and operations with no oversight from any other branch of government, and diminishing the freedom and civil rights of all Americans, and who triumphantly and orgiastically proclaim the victory of their ideas over those morally-bankrupt and godless "liberals" who have the audacity to question whether the war in Iraq has anything to do with the so-called War on Terror, whether the President may be arrogating to himself powers that are not provided in the U.S. Constitution, and who have the audacity to be concerned about protecting and preserving the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution?

Are there such credulous and ignorant fanatics in the so-called "liberal" camp? I am certain there are an equal or greater number than on the "conservative" side. James Carville? Al Franken? Frank Rich? Randi Rhodes? Maureen Dowd? Sidney Blumenthal? Paul Begala? Do they have the kind of self-righteous, snide, sneering, bombastic, and belligerent demeanor exhibited by Hannity or O'Reilly for example? Does one's opinion of their demeanor depend on the extent to which you agree with the points of view they express?

U.S. Attorney General Seeks to Reassure on bin Laden

2006-09-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

On September 5, 2006, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Blitzer asked some mildly pointed questions about the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, to which Gonzales responded in his typically evasive manner with the usual empty platitudes.

A very interesting point brought out by Blitzer is that, in the White House’s updated Counterterror Strategy, the list of “major challenges” set forth by the Administration did not include capturing or killing bin Laden or his second-in-command Zawahiri. Nevertheless, Gonzales sought to reassure the American people that “bringing bin Laden to justice” is an important priority of the Bush administration.

Gonzales gave what I thought was a very telling response, in terms of his thought process, to Blitzer’s final question as to whether America remains vulnerable to terrorism today. Gonzales said, in essence, America is safer but not yet safe “because of the type of society that we have, because of the type of freedoms that we enjoy in this country, because of the type of enemy that we're dealing with.” Apparently, according to Gonzales, only one of the three reasons America is not yet safe is because of our enemy. The other two of the three reasons America is not yet “safe” are our fault because of the type of society we have (presumably he means a relatively open, egalitarian, and free society), and the types of freedom we enjoy. Therefore, one might ask the Attorney General if America would be safer if we had less freedom, and is he in favor of decreasing our freedom.

Transcript of interview:

BLITZER: Most Americans look back at five years ago, what happened on 9/11 and they immediately ask this question -- where is the most wanted man in the world? Why haven't you, the United States government, been able to find, capture or kill Osama bin Laden?

GONZALES: Well, we have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort in trying to locate Bin Laden. And it again, as the president has said many times, it's not a question of if, it's simply a question of when. We are going to capture Bin Laden. And we're working with our friends and allies around the world to try to find out where he's at. But even if we --

BLITZER: You want him more than any other criminal out there?

GONZALES: I think it's very, very important.

BLITZER: He's at your top priority?

GONZALES: I think it's very important to get Bin Laden.

BLITZER: But is he your top priority? GONZALES: Again -- BLITZER: In terms of America's most wanted.

GONZALES: There are a lot of very important people that we want to prosecute and Bin Laden would certainly be at the top of that list. But I don't want the American people to believe that if he were captured that America would be safe. I think that would be important in our battle against terrorism, but there are others who are dangerous and would want --

BLITZER: Who is at that level of Osama bin Laden?

GONZALES: Well, I'm not going to get into specific names, but as I said, Wolf, capturing Bin Laden would be very, very important. It would be important for operational reasons. It would be important for symbolic reasons. So clearly, he would be at the top of the list.

BLITZER: Because we hear from him occasionally, more often from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. They show up on these videotapes and they make these declarations. You would think that that would be your number one priority.

GONZALES: Well, there's a lot of effort that is expended by the U.S. government in trying to identify, trying to locate where Bin Laden so that we can bring him to justice.

BLITZER: Because I asked the question, I read this morning this national strategy for combating terrorism that the administration put out. And in a detailed summary, I didn't see a lot of new information in there, but there was a lot of material about the war on terrorism. At one point though, there were a list of successes, what has been achieved over these past five years, a lengthy list. And then there's a list of what are called challenges. Some of the major challenges facing the United States right now in the war on terrorism. None of that -- in none of those challenges did I see any reference to Osama Bin Laden himself or his Deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

GONZALES: Well I want the American people to know that that still remains an objective, an important priority for the administration is to get Bin Laden and to bring Bin Laden to justice.

BLITZER: You have just come back from the region. You were in Iraq, you went to the Persian Gulf, you were in London. Do you, as the nations top law enforcement official, do you have a sense of where Osama bin Laden is right now?

GONZALES: I do. I have a sense of where he's at but I --

BLITZER: Where is that?

GONZALES: Well, in the Middle East is all I'm going to say. But we have difficult terrain that we sometimes have to work with. We have sometimes sympathetic people in the region. Sometimes there are issues relating to cooperation with governments. And so there are challenges that we have to deal with in trying to find one individual in a region of the world. And -- but I guess what I want to reassure the American people is that we remain focused on this challenge and that there are obviously other challenges that we have to worry about, other issues that we have to worry about. But capturing Bin Laden remains an important priority for the administration.

BLITZER: You keep saying an important. It's not the most important priority in this war on terrorism? Symbolically a man who ordered the murder of 3,000 Americans and others in the World Trade Center, Pennsylvania, and here in Washington?

GONZALES: Perhaps the reason I don't say it is the number one objective, is because even if he were captured -- if we could capture him and that would win the war on terror, I think I could without qualification say that is the number one objective. But that doesn't end the fight. And so there are other challenges to this government and to our country that we also have to focus on. Because those continue and will continue even after Bin Laden is captured.

BLITZER: And just to reiterate, America remains vulnerable today?

GONZALES: I think America is safer today, but yes, it is possible because of the type of society that we have, because of the type of freedoms that we enjoy in this country, because of the type of enemy that we're dealing with. I think we're safer today but we are not yet safe.

After Five Years, Osama No Closer To Being Captured or Killed

2006-09-01T19:59:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press reports that hopes of cornering Osama bin Laden seem distant as ever:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2006-->Published: August 31, 2006

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN BORDER The al-Qaida terror camps are gone from Afghanistan, but the enigma of Osama bin Laden still hangs over these lawless borderlands where tens of thousands of U.S. and Pakistani troops have spent nearly five years searching for him.

Villagers say the CIA missed by only a few kilometers (miles) when it targeted bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, with a missile strike in January. Then in May, U.S. Special Forces arrested one of al-Zawahri's closest aides, suggesting the trail has not gone entirely cold.

As for bin Laden himself? He may be nearby. Yet hopes of cornering the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader seem distant as ever. The last time authorities said they were close to getting him was in 2004, and in hindsight those statements seem more hope than fact.

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the most publicized manhunt in history has drawn a blank. The CIA has dismantled its unit dedicated to finding the al-Qaida chiefs. And the American military's once-singular focus is diffused by the need for reconstruction and a growing fight against the Taliban, the resurgent Afghan Islamic movement that once hosted bin Laden.

American soldiers climbing through the forested mountains of Afghanistan's Kunar province — where in the 1980s bin Laden fought in the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviets — still hope to catch or kill him. But they say bolstering the Afghan government is their primary mission now, amid the worst upsurge in Taliban attacks in five years.

"It is like chasing ghosts up there," said Sgt. George Williams, 37, of Watertown, New York, part of the Army's 10th Mountain Division pushing into untamed territory along the border with Pakistan. "Osama bin Laden is always going to be a target of ours as long as he is out there, but there are other missions: to rebuild Afghanistan and attack the militants still here."

The top leaders of al-Qaida remain free despite more than 100,000 U.S., Afghan and Pakistani forces at the frontier. High-tech listening posts, satellite imagery, unmanned spy planes — not to mention a $25 million bounty on each man from the U.S. government — all aid the hunt.

Yet both bin Laden and al-Zawahri are communicating to the outside world, posting messages on Islamic Web sites to inspire further attacks on the West. Although the al-Qaida leaders are too isolated to run directly a terrorist operation like Sept. 11, Pakistan says the latest alleged plot, to bomb U.S.-bound jetliners from Britain, may have been blessed by al-Zawahri.

The frustrating campaign has frayed critical cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, neighbors separated by an ill-defined frontier and a history of mutual suspicion.

Pakistan has captured most of bin Laden's lieutenants, including 9/11 attacks coordinator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and claims to have reduced the remaining al-Qaida command to mere figureheads. Pakistan has lost 350 troops fighting al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants.

Yet Afghan officials allege that Pakistan is sanctuary for Taliban rebel leaders and lets them recruit from radical Islamic schools. They even suggest that Pakistan is hiding bin Laden, perhaps to ensure Pakistan remains of strategic importance to Washington.

"We believe he is being kept as a prize, as an ultimate bargaining chip," said a senior Afghan government official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of his comments.

Latfullah Mashal, a former Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman, goes so far as to pinpoint bin Laden's hideout in a remote valley in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. He says there's a mountain fortress with a network of tunnels, guarded by African militants who never venture outside.

Pakistan, which formally ended its support for the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, rejects both allegations. It has about 80,000 troops in its wild tribal regions along the Afghan frontier, including a U.S.-trained and equipped quick-reaction force.

"I don't think any other country has played a bigger role than Pakistan," said Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, who led the Pakistani army into the region after the Sept. 11 attacks, said sealing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan would require between 150,000 and 200,000 troops "and still there's no 100 percent guarantee that infiltration would not take place."

Strained by the demands of Iraq, the U.S. has only about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. The roughly 10,000 in the border area must cover about 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) of some of the most forbidding territory on Earth: jagged mountains, both arid and forested, that become impassable in winter. There are steep valleys and rushing rivers spanned by rickety rope bridges; dark caves that could be booby trapped. Deeply religious and xenophobic villagers also obstruct efforts to run down al-Qaida remnants.

"Bin Laden has a network of contacts and places to go to if he needs to that's pretty close to 20 years old. He's a veteran of that region, so it's very hard to find him," said Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's now-disbanded unit dedicated to hunting the al-Qaida leader.

"Bin Laden's status as a hero in the Islamic world is also a telling factor in why he's not been caught."

A senior former Pakistani intelligence official put it more bluntly. "These (ethnic) Pashtuns have their own traditions. They'll die but they'll not hand over bin Laden," said the official, who declined to be named because of the secretive subject matter.

For U.S. troops, the Afghan mission is increasingly dangerous. At least 272 U.S. service members have died in and around Afghanistan since October 2001, including three recently from Williams' unit. Some 44 U.S. servicemembers died in Afghanistan in 2004, 92 in 2005 and 61 so far in 2006.

Western, Afghan and Pakistani officials agree that the nearest they got to bin Laden was in the Tora Bora mountains, south of Kunar, in November 2001 when he was fleeing the U.S.-backed war that toppled the Taliban regime.

The Pakistani intelligence official said Pakistan at first thought bin Laden was dead, perhaps killed by a bomb at Tora Bora, until a letter he penned to his family was recovered from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when he was arrested in March 2003.

After that, repeated attempts have been made to get bin Laden and al-Zawahri.

-- In late 2003, Pakistani forces raided Lattaka, a village in North Waziristan, to get bin Laden but he wasn't there, said the intelligence official.

-- In 2004, amid a flurry of military action on both sides of the border, U.S. Lt. Gen. David Barno said he expected to bring bin Laden to justice that year — although officials now say they had no hard intelligence to go on. "It was all guesswork. No one ever gave us precise information that bin Laden or al-Zawahri is in such-and-such area, even a general area," said Pakistan's Aurakzai.

-- Pakistan stepped up its military action in 2004 with a series of bloody operations in South Waziristan province. They busted al-Qaida bases complete with computer and communications equipment. However, most foreign militants at these sanctuaries were not Arabs close to bin Laden but Central Asians, Pakistani officials said.

-- Sometime that year, Pakistan learned that either bin Laden or al-Zawahri was elsewhere in South Waziristan. "An operation was carried out where we were close to getting him but the trail got cold," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf. He declined to be more specific.

-- In the most recent case, in January, the CIA fired a missile from a Predator drone into the remote Pakistani village of Damadola, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Waziristan. The target was al-Zawahri, who was expected to attend a dinner there. Pakistani intelligence and local residents say the Egyptian doctor-turned-terrorist did not show, but they later learned he was at a supporter's home in Salarzi, about 11 kilometers (7 miles) to the east.

The missile killed at least 13 civilians. Reports that a number of senior al-Qaida operatives also died were never confirmed, as none of their bodies were found.

The associate who allegedly hosted al-Zawahri, a timber merchant and tribal chief called Haji Nader, was later arrested by U.S. Special Forces and taken to the American air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, said Commander Youssef, police chief in Naray, where the military also has a base.

Youssef declined to give further details, but Pakistani intelligence officials and local residents said the arrest was made in May in Kunar province and that Nader's family in Pakistan had since received a letter from him, sent from Bagram. The U.S. military declined to confirm the information.

Talk of al-Zawahri's whereabouts persists. In Pakistan's Bajur region, opposite Kunar, tribesmen say al-Zawahri moves with a small entourage between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They say al-Zawahri briefly visited near Damadola in July and got engaged or married to the teenage daughter of another local associate, Kawas Khan, and the ceremony was attended by tribal elders including pro-Taliban militants.

Pakistani intelligence confirmed the reports but Aurakzai, who is now the provincial governor, maintained they were speculation.

Getting solid information is a dangerous business.

In Pakistan's border region, resentment has grown over the presence of the army. Until the Sept. 11 attacks, the military had left the semi-autonomous region alone since Pakistan won independence from Britain in 1947.

Aurkazai said that since late 2004, about 70 tribesmen have been killed, mostly for cooperating with the government; other officials report more than 100 such deaths. A senior officer in Pakistan's intelligence service, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 30 of its informants were assassinated, often beheaded and their heads displayed in a public place.

On Aug. 7, the decapitated corpse of a 38-year-old former militant-turned-informer, Loi Khan, was dumped in a North Waziristan village. An attached note read: "See this man's body. Anyone spying on us will face the same end."

Another intelligence officer said it was harder for Pakistani agents to operate in their own tribal areas than inside archrival India. "In the enemy country, we know who is our enemy but in the tribal areas it is extremely difficult to differentiate between the enemy and the friends," he said.
Pakistani intelligence officials say bin Laden and al-Zawahri likely live separately, each with a tight entourage of trusted Arab retainers and several rings of defense, the outermost ring manned by local militants.

They use a complex chain of human couriers, rather than intercept-prone electronics, to get out their messages. Al-Zawahri has issued 10 video or audio messages this year. Bin Laden — last seen in video in October 2004 — has released five audio messages during 2006.

Among the messages was a June 30 tribute to al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed north of Baghdad on June 7, and another soon afterward endorsing al-Zarqawi's successor.
Although Pakistan claims to have reduced al-Qaida's leaders to symbols, Pakistani intelligence says its agents have heard that the alleged British-based scheme to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners was blessed by al-Zawahri. If true, that would mean Afghanistan remains the headwaters of the world's most feared terrorist movement nearly five years after 3,000 people were killed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"There's a little bit of whistling past the graveyard when we say the organization (al-Qaida) is broken," said Scheuer.
_______
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report. Paul Garwood reported from Kabul and Kunar province, Afghanistan. Matthew Pennington reported from Islamabad and Peshawar.

Is Osama bin Laden Still A Threat Five Years After 9/11?

2006-08-26T19:52:00.000-04:00

According to the Hartford Courant's Roger Catlin, here, CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour said Osama bin Laden's influence remains enormous.

"The fact that he has eluded capture does not mean that he has left the scene," she said. "It's incredible to me that he still manages to put out fairly sophisticated video and audiotapes, that his presence is still there."

For that reason, said Gary Berntsen, former head of the CIA's Jawbreaker Unit assigned to track and capture bin Laden, "I believe it is very important that we get bin Laden."

Berntsen, speaking on behalf of the National Geographic Channel's "The Final Report: Osama's Escape," in which he appears, said, "Bin Laden has demonstrated his ability to conduct a catastrophic attack on the United States. He's still a formidable opponent. His resources are somewhat diminished, but he can still be very lethal."

Michael Scheuer, author of "Imperial Hubris" and former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, which was disbanded recently, appears in the National Geographic Channel report.

Scheuer, speaking to reporters via satellite, called the disbanding of the unit "an extraordinary decision" that "sends a terrible message to people like Pakistan who we keep urging to help us. And it really sends a message to the American people that we're no longer chasing bin Laden."

"The action was taken by those who simply don't like bureaucracies, he said."I would doubt that the president even knew about it being dismantled," Scheuer said.

In the film, he says the failure to find bin Laden after five years is embarrassing: "The greatest power the world has ever seen can't find one 6-foot, 4-inch Saudi in Afghanistan. On the face of it, it looks very, very silly."

The biggest mistake in the pursuit of bin Laden may have been not having enough troops on the ground to catch him in Tora Bora, Scheuer said.

"The CIA begged and pleaded with the U.S. military to put the troops on the ground and block the mountain passes in the back, and the U.S. military, for various reasons, did not do that," said Philip Smucker, a former foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and author of "Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail."

Scheuer says such decisions have caused a number of agency officers to speak out.

"Clearly, we've experienced over the course of our career an increasing moral cowardice among the leaders of both parties when it comes to protecting Americans," he said.

"Protecting Americans simply does not come first."

The lack of troops on the Pakistan border in 2001 is also cited in the CNN report. But so is evidence that some of the Afghan warlords enlisted to help were actually paid off to look the other way.

Amanpour says bin Laden continues to benefit from "a blanket of support."

"Look, how is he able to put out the videos? How is he able to put out the audiotapes? How is he able to still, we think, to be with his key lieutenant, al-Zarqawi? You know, for those reasons, it's very, very, very difficult and because he's protected in those areas that he stays in."

Bush Administration Public Statements Concerning the Failure to Capture or Kill Osama bin Laden

2006-08-26T18:57:00.000-04:00

After the terrorist attack on the United States of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Congress jointly enacted the Authorization of Use of Military Force (the "AUMF"), Pub. L. No. 107-40, sec. 2(a), 115 Stat. 224 (Sept. 18, 2001)(reported as a note to 50 U.S.C. sec. 1541). The AUMF authorized the President:

to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations,
organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such
organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international
terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or
persons.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush announced that the terrorist organization al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, planned and executed the attacks. President Bush promised to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

Five years since the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden still has not been captured or killed. The question is why not? How could the combined might of the United States and allied military and intelligence forces have failed for five years to have captured or killed the "most wanted" terrorist in the world? And as the President and his military and intelligence forces have failed to capture or kill bin Laden, how effective has the President been at implementing the AUMF to future acts of international terrorism against the United States?

Try getting a straight answer to these questions from President Bush or any other present or former Bush Administration official. This post will set forth some examples of their public statements on this subject.

On March 1, 2006, President Bush held a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Afghanistan:

QUESTION: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, there was a time when you
talked about getting Osama bin Laden dead or alive. Why is he still on the loose
five years later? And are you still confident that you'll get him?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am confident he will be brought to justice. What's
happening is, is that we got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden, but
anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden. There are Afghan forces on the hunt
for not only bin Laden, but those who plot and plan with him. We've got Pakistan
forces on the hunt. And part of my message to President Musharraf is, is that
it's important that we bring these people to justice. He understands that. After
all, they've tried to kill him four times. So we've got a common alliance, all
aimed at routing out people who are evildoers, people who have hijacked a great
religion and kill innocent people in the name of that religion. We're making
progress of dismantling al Qaeda. Slowly but surely, we're bringing the people
to justice, and the world is better for it, as a result of our steady progress.

On March 4, 2006, President Bush answered questions at a joint appearance in Islamabad, Pakistan with Pakistani President Musharraf:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, what would you like to see
President Musharraf do in the war on terrorism that he's not doing now? Is the
United States getting the access and the help that it needs to go after al Qaeda
and Osama bin Laden?

PRESIDENT BUSH: There's a lot of work to be done in defeating al Qaeda.
The President and I know that. We spent a good while this morning talking about
the work that needs to be done. The best way to defeat al Qaeda is to find -- is
to share good intelligence to locate them, and then to be prepared to bring them
to justice. So, one, the first question that I always ask is whether or not our
intelligence-sharing is good enough, and we're working on it to make sure it's
good enough. Intelligence is gathered by -- in a lot of different ways, but the
key thing is that, one, it be actionable, and two, it be shared on a real-time
basis. Secondly, in order for Pakistan to defend herself from al Qaeda, she must
have equipment necessary to move quickly, without tipping off the enemy. The
President is training up special forces teams to do just that. And so while we
do have a lot of work to be done, it's important that we stay on the hunt. Part
of my mission today was to determine whether or not the President is as
committed as he has been in the past to bringing these terrorists to justice,
and he is. He understands the stakes; he understands the responsibility; and he
understands the need to make sure our strategy is able to defeat the enemy. Do
you want to say something to that?

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: May I add to this, with your permission? The first
element that one needs to be very clear is the intentions. And it's very clear
that the intentions of Pakistan and my intentions are absolutely clear that we
are a very strong -- we have a strong partnership on the issue of fighting
terrorism. So the intentions should be very clear. Then we need to strategize. We have strategized. We have strategized how to deal with terrorism, and then strategized also on how to deal with extremism, which is very different from terrorism. So we have strategized both. Then we need to come forward to the implementation part. Now, the implementation has to be strong also, with all the resolve. We are doing that also. So if at all there are slippages, it is possible in the implementation part. But as long as the intention is clear, the resolve is there, and the strategy is clear, we are moving forward toward to delivering, and we will succeed. That is all.

During on April 24, 2006 press briefing en route to Athens, Greece, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice had this to say:

QUESTION: On the bin Laden tape, what do you make of it? What's your
reaction? Is he still trying to seem relevant? Does the U.S. still think that he
is relevant and also what do you say to critics that said our efforts in Iraq
are taking away from actually capturing him?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, there is -- all the time, every
day, all the time, an effort to continue to degrade and round up the al-Qaida
network, including efforts against Osama bin Laden. But the effort is more than
one man. This is about disabling the al-Qaida network. It is the scores of
important field generals of al-Qaida that have been put out of commission one
way or another in the last three and a half years, and that's the real story of
dealing with al-Qaida. I don't know what to make of the tape, except that he
continues to say things that he's always said. You know, what it is a reminder
of is that we have a determined enemy that we need to fight, but I don't give it
any credence beyond that. And the effort in Iraq to help bring about an ally in
the middle of the -- in the center of the Middle East that will be a stalwart
fighter against terrorism, that will be a state that speaks to the ideology of
hatred that has produced the al-Qaidas of the world, I think is a very
short-sighted view to say that somehow because you are engaged in the efforts to
build a different kind of Iraq and a different kind of Middle East, that you're
somehow not focused on the efforts of al-Qaida; it's both shortsighted and a
very narrow definition of what actually produced al-Qaida.

On April 5, 2006, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher was interviewed on Pakistani television by Hamid Mir. Here is how he addressed the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden:

MIR: What is the level of U.S. engagement in nabbing terrorists within
Pakistan?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER: This is a task that is being carried out
by the Pakistani forces and very sadly they have lost people doing this. We’ve
pointed out many times that no country has caught more Al Qaeda or lost more men
doing that than Pakistan. So it’s a very strong fight that Pakistan has carried
forward. We talked, President Bush and President Musharraf have talked quite a
bit about this during their visit. Pakistan is working on all the terrorists,
the Taliban, the Al Qaeda, all the violent groups that are trying to upset and
destabilize Pakistani society. So that is very important to us. But it is, it’s
a Pakistani fight. To the extent that we can help them, we will. But Pakistan is
very much engaged.

MIR: U.S., U.S. forces are not active in Pakistani territory?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER: U.S. forces are active on the Afghan side.
And again it’s a common enemy and we all need to do what we can, but not on the
Pakistani side.

MIR: Recently, U.S. troops have started a new operation in Afghan
province, Kunar. So can you tell us that, do you have any clue about Osama Bin
Laden and any other big Al Qaeda fish?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER: I don’t know, I don’t have any new
information on that and certainly I’ll leave the military operations to the
military people.

MIR: So can you tell us that, why the most wanted person is still at
large?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER: I’ve only come here a few times. I’ve only
flown over those areas of mountains a few times, but it’s pretty obvious that it
is a difficult area to operate in. It’s a difficult area to find somebody in.
You know we’ve had cases in the United States of people going up in the hills
and have been able to hide for a few years. So the success of this fight doesn’t
depend on one person. Certainly we would like to capture Osama Bin Laden and
Mullah Omar. I think we are all interested in doing that, but there is a, a
violent group, a violent element of Taliban and Al Qaeda people who’ve been
really trying to kill us all, kill Pakistanis, Americans and Afghans, who’ve
been exploding bombs and shooting bullets that kill a lot of people. And we’ve
got to stop them all. Catching the leaders is certainly important, but we’ve got
to stop them all. And not just in military ways. We have to extend government on
both sides so that government really has control over these areas and is able to
provide for the needs of the people in these areas. We’ve got to extend economic
opportunity and we’ve been working with Pakistan and Afghanistan on proposals
like the Regional Opportunity Zones. So we recognize there is a
multi-comprehensive need for working on the military side, the police side, the
economic side and the government administration side. And trying to coordinate
on both sides is very important. It’s a common enemy, it’s a common problem and
it needs a common solution. And we’ll do what we can to work together.

On April 20, 2006, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte responded to a question at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. as follows:

MR. SALANT: Speaking of al Qaeda, have we gotten any closer to catching
Osama bin Laden over the past year? And is the intelligence information flow
about him growing, lessening or remaining the same?

MR. NEGROPONTE: I think that first -- the first thing I'd say about Mr.
bin Laden is that I believe his range of action, his operational capacity has
been substantially diminished since the year 2001. He no longer has a sanctuary
from which he can operate with impunity, as he did when the Taliban governed
Afghanistan. And I think his style has been cramped. He's hiding -- in hiding
somewhere, we believe, in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area, and I don't
believe is nearly as operationally active as he previously was. It would,
of course, be desirable that he be captured or killed at the earliest
opportunity. And one could say that about him as well as his deputy, Mr.
Zawahiri, and others. We wish that this might have happened sooner. But on the
other hand, I think it would also be fair to point out that since 9/11, many,
many of Mr. bin Laden's principal lieutenants and deputies have been captured or
killed. And his high command is not nearly what it used to be. And I think this,
too, has diminished the operational effectiveness of the al Qaeda movement. So I
think we've dealt them a number of body blows, but we haven't yet dealt a
knock-out blow to Mr. bin Laden himself.

Summary: When confronted with the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, President Bush and Administration officials, for all their double-talk and mumbo-jumbo, have three basic answers: (1) the War on Terrorism really is not about capturing or killing one man; (2) we have captured or killed many other members of al Qaeda; and (3) bin Laden is hiding in a place where it is difficult to find him.

None of them has explained, even in the most general terms, what has been done to try to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. None has explained how it is possible for Osama bin Laden to have evaded being captured or killed for so long. Are you satisfied with their answers?

City of Black Jack, Missouri Forced to Renounce Ordinance Prohibiting Unmarried Couple and Children From Living in City

2006-08-25T23:23:00.000-04:00

The City of Black Jack, Missouri and its Mayor Norman McCourt disgracefully tried to run a law-abiding, tax-paying family out of town ostensibly because there are too many “unrelated” people living in their house, i.e., the unmarried couple and their three children. Olivia Shelltrack, Fondray Loving and their three children were denied a permit to live in the City of Black Jack because of a law that prohibited more than three people from living together unless they are related by “blood, marriage or adoption.”

On May 5, 2006, the Black Jack City Council refused to amend the ordinance to allow a family like the Shelltrack/Loving family to obtain an occupancy permit to live in the city.

On August 10, 2006, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit, Loving v. City of Black Jack, in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, challenging the ordinance as a violation of the family’s rights to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution, as well as family status discrimination under fair housing laws. The lawsuit names the City of Black Jack and several city officials as defendants.

On August 15, 2006, less than a week after the lawsuit was filed, the Black Jack City Council voted UNANIMOUSLY to reverse its policy and amend the definition of "family" to include unrelated people and the children of both or either person who live together as a single housekeeping unit. The amendment would make the family eligible for an occupancy permit.

Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt insisted the city ordinance had nothing to do with morality but was intended to prevent crowding. In my opinion, the ordinance had everything to do with allowing the stodgy Mayor McCourt and his puritannical and small-minded cronies to impose their morality and to try to discriminate against and exclude from "their" community people to whom they condescended in their arrogance to judge as unworthy.

My opinion in this regard is supported by a letter Mayor McCourt wrote in 1999 when the city refused to issue an occupancy permit to an unmarried couple and their triplets. In that letter, Mayor McCourt wrote:

It is apparently the opinion of the majority of the City Council, the Board of
Adjustment and certainly the input received from the majority of the City's
residents, in this instance, that they do not believe that an unmarried couple
having children residing in our community is an appropriate standard that they
wish to approve....

We believe our community standards and the morals
thereof are something that the City can and must enforce....

The easiest resolution to cure the situation would be for them to be married. Our community believes that this is the appropriate way to raise a family. While it would be naive to say that we don't recognize that children are born out of wedlock
frequently these days, we certainly don't believe that is the type of
environnment within which children should be brought into this world. I believe
the City has acted appropriately in keeping with the law, consistent with our
community's moral and standards, and that we will continue to enforce our
ordinances to protect the interests of our community.

Yes, Mayor McCourt, you ARE a hypocrite. Your insistence that the ordinance was only intended to prevent crowding is belied by your 1999 letter which shows you used the ordinance to impose your narrow-minded standards of morality. Yes, Mayor McCourt, you ARE a spineless worm because you used your ordinance to bully countless defenseless people who were not willing or able to fight tough-talking, moralizing, insufferable prigs like you and your cronies at City Hall. But when faced with a lawsuit that would subject your city's actions to scrutiny in a court of law that would demonstrate that the City's ordinance and its actions were NOT consistent with the Constitutions of the United States and Missouri, you and your City made a rapid retreat and hastily amended the ordinance.

Politicians Behaving Badly: Broward School Board Member Darla Carter

2006-08-18T07:33:00.000-04:00

I love when politicians can be observed in situations where they don't think they are going to be accountable that expose their true character as people.

According to this article in the August 18, 2006 edition of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel:

[Ordinary citizen] Anita Borrero e-mailed Broward County School Board
member Darla Carter in August 2004 asking for help with problems she was facing
regarding the school bus. She told Carter in the e-mail that she was not
satisfied with the way the district's transportation department had treated her.
Carter forwarded the e-mail to the transportation officials, which left Borrero
unsatisfied.

"I am extremely disappointed in your response -- I would have preferred
none at all," Borrero wrote.

Carter's answer: "Believe me, It's people like you that we as Board Members
really HATE to try and help because they're NEVER THANKFUL FOR A DAMN THING!! Boy, I feel sorry for your kids, you must be under a lot of stress. … Gee, Maybe you need a Doctor or a Psychologist, maybe you need to email them and ask what you need to take???"

When reminded of the conversation Wednesday, Carter was unrepentant.: "Oh,
I'm proud of myself. I'm honest, upright and blunt and I don't play games. I'm
there for the people. I work for the students. And if they're unhappy with one
answer that I give them, then so be it. You can't please all the people all the
time."

Darla Carter, who is married to waste management executive Butch Carter, probably assumed, if she thought about it at all, that her response to Ms. Borrero would never see the light of day. For Mrs. Carter, a school board member, to have sent such a repugnant e-mail to a constituent demonstrates that it is Mrs. Carter who was under a lot of stress and may have needed some kind of medication. The fact that Mrs. Carter was so unrepentant about her e-mail speaks volumes about her true character as a person: arrogant, conceited, haughty, and condescending. This type of behavior by Mrs. Carter is why some people see her only as the jumped-up wife of a garbageman. The bright side is that at least she didn't try to deny she sent the e-mail or try to make up some ridiculous story as an excuse or justification. I guess sometimes what you see is what you get.

Update: In the September 6, 2006 election, Darla Carter was voted out of office. Voters favored a politically-connected former teacher and lobbyist named Jennifer Gottlieb whose campaign was better financed and who received endorsements from the teachers' union and some incumbent school board members. Carter told the Miami Herald (here) she does not plan to run for any other office and blamed her loss on what she called attacks from Gottlieb, the third candidate, and the rain.

As If Democrats Would Have Done Anything Different...

2006-08-15T13:23:00.000-04:00

Buzzflash.com ran an interesting editorial on August 13, 2006. Excerpts:

[The Bush Administration] will never seriously battle
the sources of terrorism in an effective, strategic fashion. That is because
politically they need the terrorists as much as the terrorists need them. And
the goals of the Bush Administration are the consolidation of power and the
acquisition of natural resources and economic dominance, not the eradication of
terror.

NBC just confirmed -- as BuzzFlash
editorialized earlier this week about the politics of terrorism -- that the White House forced the UK to move up
the timing of the alleged terror cell arrests, against the recommendations of
the British intelligence agencies. By so doing, the Bush Administration
compromised the investigation and kept it from obtaining further evidence and
contact names. In short, for purposes of political timing -- in order to make
partisan points from the election of Ned Lamont -- the Bush Administration
compromised our national security. This is an extraordinary betrayal of
America's national security, purely done so that Cheney, Snow and Bush could
attack the Democrats as weak on national security, knowing that the arrest
announcement was going to be made on Wednesday, because they picked the day of
the arrest.

These use of Rovian-timed terrorist announcements -- often extremely,
extremely exaggerated (as in the case of the Liberty City Insane Clown Posse and
the alleged Manhattan Tunnel explosions that would have defied the laws of
gravity if they were planned to "flood" lower Manhattan) -- are basically
treason. They are meant to frighten Americans into voting Republican. The only
viable winning platform of the Busheviks now (and remember that they cannot
afford either House of Congress to become Democratic, because it would likely
lead to investigations and the impeachment and prosecution of the senior Bush
Administration staff) is something like: "You see what the terrorists will do if
the Republicans are not here to protect you. The Democrats will just mollycoddle
them. Fear for your lives and vote Republican." After six years of cynical rule
and five years of an alleged "war on terrorism" that has killed tens of
thousands more people than the terrorists have, all the White House has to do is
invoke premeditated fear into Americans. And it has worked up to now. Look at
the media this week. The alleged British terror plot dominates the leads in
television, radio and newpapers around the nation. Fear is a powerful tool. It
goes right from the media into the brain. It appeals to our Reptilian sense of
self-protection. That is why it is the tool of demagogues. Yes, there are
terrorists out there who wish to do citizens of the United States harm. But yes,
we also unleashed them in Iraq to do us and each other harm. Bush is breeding
new ones every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush hasn't reduced terrorism; he
has increased its threat.

The Bush White House and GOP campaign apparatus will lie,
cheat, steal, manipulate our emotions -- and even carry out policies that breed
terrorists, because they need terrorism in order to win elections. They would
lose in a landslide if people were to vote on public policy
issues.

The goals of the White House are not to stop terrorism; the goal of the
White House is to allow terrorism to fester in order to -- as is the basic game
plan for dictators goes -- use fear to consolidate tyrannical power and do away
with our Constitutional checks and balances of government and guarantee of
individual liberties.

The Buzzflash editorial seems to view the political use or manipulation of terror as a Republican vs. Democrat issue. When it says “the goals of the Bush Administration are the consolidation of power and the acquisition of natural resources and economic dominance, not the eradication of terror,” that is partly true.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the goal of terror eradication is not as high on the list of priorities as the other goals that were mentioned. But, in my opinion, it is a mistake to think this prioritization of goals is unique to the Bush Administration.

If the Democratic Party was in power, I believe their ranking of these goals would be so similar as to make no difference. This is because economic dominance and acquisition or access to natural resources (i.e., oil) is the primary agenda of the major corporate interests that underwrite both the Republicans and the Democrats.

Yes, “the Bush White House and GOP campaign apparatus will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate our emotions.” But, on the whole, the Democrats are not different. Remember Vietnam? In general, both Republicans and Democrats alike think nothing of currying favor and ensuring generous campaign contributions and other support by enacting legislation and policies that inure only to the benefit of large corporate interests while detrimentally impacting the financial well-being, and sometimes even the physical health, of ordinary Americans.

If the Democrats had controlled the White House after the 2000 election, I have no doubt that the Democrats would have played the “terror” card, much in the same way the Bush Adminstration has, to justify foreign interventionist adventures, the accelerated deprivation of civil rights, and to grab and hold on to political power. The evidence supporting this is the shameful way the Democratic congressional “opposition,” for fear of being branded as “soft on terror”, has for the past six years, with very few exceptions, meekly gone along with and failed to object to the Bush Administration on every initiative, including, but not limited to, the War on Iraq and domestic spying on American citizens. Only now that the Iraq War has become verifiably-based-on-poll-data “unpopular” are Democrats speaking out against the Bush Administration’s policy.

9/11 Commission Neither Exhaustive Nor Independent

2006-08-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

The co-chairmen of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the 9/11 Commission, hoped to avoid "the kinds of conspiracy theories that have followed in the wake of other inquiries."

The proliferation on the internet of so-called "conspiracy theories" concerning 9/11 demonstrate that they failed to achieve this goal.

The August 12, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) contains a review of a book entited Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission written by co-chairmen Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton. The WSJ review was written by Edward Jay Epstein, the author of a book about the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy. Epstein is currently writing a book about the 9/11 Commission.

Some salient points from the WSJ's review:

1. In reality, the 9/11 Commission was neither exhaustive nor independent. If the investigation had truly been as exhaustive as advertised, it would have made a genuine effort to weigh evidence that ran counter to its thesis. But it did not.

A. For example, Capt. Scott Phillpott, a high-ranking naval intelligence officer asserted that through data-mining his military intelligence unit, code-named Able Danger, had identified Mohamed Atta as a potential terrorist in 2000 and even had his photograph on a chart.
B. Since the 9/11 Commission staff could not find any such chart in the documents it had obtained from the Pentagon, and because Capt. Phillpott's account "failed to match up" with the staff's conclusion that Atta was unknown to U.S. intelligence prior to 9/11, this putative identification of Atta was omitted from the commission's report (and a number of commissioners were not informed about it).
C. Later, the Pentagon said that at least four other intelligence officers in the unit had confirmed that they had seen the photograph of Atta or recalled hearing Atta's name prior to 9/11. The Pentagon also explained one possible reason the chart with Atta's photo was missing: The military had destroyed many Able Danger records in 2001.
D. An exhaustive investigation would have at least heard these eyewitness accounts.

2. The 9/11 Commission was not able to independently evaluate or verify crucial information it received from intelligence agencies.

A. The CIA refused to give the commission access to seven imprisoned al Qaeda conspirators who had planned, directed, and co-ordinated the 9/11 attack. The commission was not even allowed to question the prisoners' CIA interrogators.
B. The co-chairmen admit they "had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information."
C. The 9/11 Commission accepted, at face-value, information from the prisoners delivered via a CIA "project manager," if it would fill in gaps in the commission's investigation.
D. The 9/11 Commission relied on this information, giving it the benefit of the doubt when conflicting information surfaced.
E. As a result, the 9/11 Commission discarded and ignored evidence found in CIA documents of Iran and Hezbollah's involvement with and aid to the 9/11 hijackers, allowing the commission to conclude that al Qaeda carried out 9/11 with no help from any outside party or government.

The jumping off point for most 9/11 conspiracy theories is that the "official" story embodied in the 9/11 Commission Report is questionable. The WSJ's review certainly does not validate or endorse claims made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, such as the "controlled demolition" theory. However, the WSJ's review shows that the starting point for 9/11 conspiracy theories is valid, i.e., there is a rational basis for questioning the findings and conclusions of the 9/11 Commission Report.

Dead Men Are Heavier Than Broken Hearts

2006-08-07T16:59:00.000-04:00

Artist: Christopher Woitach and the Cathexis Orchestra

Album: dead men (are heavier than broken hearts)/February 15-18, 2006/teal creek records TC2009

Review: Christopher Woitach's second album as a leader signifies the breakout on the jazz scene of a highly evolved and still-evolving artist who dares to innovate with an astounding arsenal of unusual and powerful compositional tools to create a distinct sound that swings and bops and floats and grooves and surprises with shifting tempos, moods, layers, textures, and colors. While drawing on a thorough grounding in existing blues and jazz styles and traditions, Woitach blends these elements with thoughtful invention into an original synthesis that defies easy categorization.

This 2006 album of original music composed, arranged, and produced by guitarist Christopher Woitach grew out of a project he began more than ten years ago to set music to the words of beloved American detective novelist Raymond Chandler. This is by no means an attempt at "film noir" music. While utilizing Chandler's writings as a creative spark and lyrical source, Woitach stays true to his musical vision as a jazz composer and guitar virtuoso.

Woitach's harmonically-advanced, cool-toned, and subtle guitar playing is featured throughout the album. He is technically brilliant and versatile - using the guitar in different contexts as a percussive, harmonic, melodic, rhythm, and lead instrument. His improvisational prowess is demonstrated both vertically - building and smoothly manipulating dense chordal and harmonic voicings, and horizontally - propelling his compositions with polished, expressive, melodically-advanced, and flowing lines.

Woitach includes generous space in his compositions for improvisations from his sidemen who are all first-rate musicians in their own right. Tim Jensen (flute), Keller Coker (trombone), and Tom Bergeron (alto) contribute outstanding improvisations on the album's first cut. Bergeron's alto solo on the third track blasts into orbit with a muscular free-jazz explosion reminiscent of John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman at their most untethered.

Woitach's compositional sophistication, his use of counterpoint and canon and fugal structures, and the deployment of alto, trombone, flute, baritone, bass clarinet, bass, and drums in his arrangements is nothing less than inspired. For example, the album's opening cut interleaves improvisational sections with five-voiced fugue interludes of precise lengths determined by a descending Fibonacci number series. In the hands of a less-skilled composer and musician, such a calculated scheme might result in music that is overly mechanical, unduly complicated, and devoid of feeling.

Woitach's breakthrough on this album is the culmination of years of applied effort to plumb the mysteries and depths of classical mathematical constructs to discover their underlying organic, natural, and musical implications. On this album, Woitach applies his complex compositional techniques to create jazz music that is impressively unconventional, atypical, and decidedly uncommon. Woitach does not emulate other composers and musicians. His music is not an exercise in intrinsic geekery or cybernetic noodling. Although knowledge of harmonic and contrapuntal music theory and applied mathematics no doubt enhances appreciation, it stands on its own as enjoyable jazz music. He captivates the listener with what I call "pure grooving" and music that is capable of expressing and reflecting a wide range of emotion, but he does so in his own uniquely refined yet mischievous Woitachian way.

Jazz critic Scott Yanow once wrote: "The most important jazz musicians are the ones who are successful in creating their own original world of music with its own rules, logic, and surprises." By this criterion, Woitach's latest album is persuasive evidence of his emergence as an important jazz musician. Woitach has created and continues to create his own original world of music that exhibits internal logic and surprises that can be found in the music of no other.

Woitach is an extraordinarily talented musician and composer, and with this album, he has succeeded brilliantly by creating music that simultaneously appeals to the emotions and the intellect - music that is interesting, dynamic, accessible, and rewards repeated listenings. The best part is that Woitach is still evolving, still exploring the ramifications of his creative genius. There is a lot of great music yet to come from, and the world would do well to pay attention to, this amazing artist.

For bookings, information, and other albums from Christopher Woitach, go here. The album dead men (are heavier than broken hearts) can be purchased here.

The Big Ripoff - Why Corporate America Needs Welfare Reform

2006-08-02T18:17:00.000-04:00

In the July 29, 2006 edition of Wall Street Journal, Jacob Laksin, a senior editor at FrontPageMag.com, reviewed a new book entitled The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney. At least one aim of the book is to debunk the myth that big business and big government are enemies. Some salient points highlighted in the review:

1. Carney does not begrudge businesses their right to make a profit. His objection is to their doing so by enlisting government bureaucrats and by shortchanging taxpayers.

2. Corporations are not practitioners of laissez-faire ruthlessness - they defend all sorts of impediments to competition and court the government for every sort of handout and favor.

3. Enron built its fortune on the strength of $7 billion in government subsidies, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. These came mostly in the form of discounted loans from government agencies, supposedly required to create American jobs but in fact used to bankroll several ill-fated Enron projects abroad.

4. Members of the Fanjul family - the "sugar sultans" of South Florida - collect $65 million in subsidies annually.

5. Regulations are not the scourge of the business world. Many top companies welcome these rules. The airline industry sees burdensome federal oversight as a means of discouraging upstart competition. Tobacco giant Philip Morris is only too happy to submit to government curbs on advertising, confident that the effect is to keep smaller, lesser-known manufacturers on the margins, to the benefit of its already famous brands.

6. Many lawmakers rely on corporate backing to get into positions of power and to stay there.

7. Businesses will always do whatever they can to make money.

Disgraceful Behavior by Proponents of Book Ban

2006-08-02T11:13:00.000-04:00

Following on from my previous post on this topic, it should be noted that the Court in its Order Granting Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction made the following finding of fact concerning the conduct of some individuals in favor of the book ban:

Throughout the [June 5, 2006] meeting [of one of the school district
committees considering whether the book should be removed from the schools],
members of the public interrupted the committee's discussions, often whispering
the word 'communist' whenever committee members spoke favorably about the Cuba books.

See Order, page 18.

I understand how upset some of these people are about this book, but the conduct in which these people indulged themselves at a public meeting is disgraceful. These kind of mean-spirited, narrow-minded, whispered denunciations are among the features of living in a totalitarian dictatorship that many people escaped Cuba to get away from. And here they are in the United States acting like the very dictatorial monsters they condemn. Those who engaged in this conduct and those who condoned it should be ashamed of themselves!

Hypocrites in Miami: Cuban Refugees Trying to Ban School Library Book

2006-07-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

On June 14, 2006, the Miami-Dade County School Board voted to remove the book "Vamos A Cuba" from all school libraries in the school district. The ACLU challenged this decision in Federal District Court. In an extremely detailed, thorough, and well-reasoned opinion, the Court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the book to be returned to the shelves pending final hearing.

According to Frontpage Magazine writer Humberto Fontova, in this commentary, the book "depicts Castro's fiefdom as a combination Emerald City and Willi Wonka's Chocolate Factory." This is such a gross distortion of reality that it's obvious Fontova never even looked at the book.

Here are some of the allegedly pro-Castro communist statements contained in the book, which is a library book, not required reading in any classes, and was written for elementary school students: "Cuba is a country in the Caribbean Sea, south of Florida." "Cuba has flat plains that are used for farmland." "Many kinds of fruits grow in Cuba." "Baseball is Cuba's national sport." The book is replete with this kind of outrageous propagandistic misinformation.

What Fontova omits from his commentary is that two separate school district committees comprised of numerous local professional educators, as well as the School Superintendent himself, rigorously analyzed and evaluated the book and found it to be "scrupulously apolitical," accurate, and educationally significant and developmentally appropriate.

The School Board voted to ban the book because it omits the harsh truth about totalitarian life in Communist Cuba. In other words, because the book is neutral in its viewpoint, it is too favorable to Communist Cuba. Remember, this is a book that was written for kids ages 4 to 8.

The problem with the School Board's position is that the First Amendment prohibits school officials from removing books from library shelves "simply because they dislike the ideas contained in the books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'" The Miami-Dade County School Board voted to remove the book precisely and only for those reasons which are prohibited by the very law they were sworn to uphold.

Amador Rodriguez, the concerned parent who initiated the book ban, said: "The book is correct in that in Cuba you can read, but you can only read what they tell you to." How ironic it is that by trying to make the school board remove the book from the library, this professed freedom-loving Cuban refugee is seeking to accomplish exactly that which he says he was trying to escape.

The solution that is supported by the First Amendment is for Mr. Rodriguez not to seek to ban books he doesn't agree with, but to write a competing book to be placed in the school library that depicts how terrible life is in Cuba under the Communist regime. Let the Miami-Dade School Board fill the library shelves with anti-Castro books if they want to. If they really care about the First Amendment and freedom, that is what they would be doing instead of wasting taxpayer dollars trying to defend their indefensible book banning.

Wilson v. Libby, Rove, Cheney et al.

2006-07-14T16:56:00.000-04:00

Valerie Plame Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson IV, on July 13, 2006, filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Case No. 1:06-cv-01258-JDB) against Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney and 10 unnamed government officials.

A lot of misinformation has been published in the MSM and the blogosphere concerning this lawsuit. I would like to try to comment on a few aspects of the lawsuit in a more objective manner.

Who is the Judge?

The case appears to have been assigned to U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, a former Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater Investigation from 1995 to 1997, who was appointed to the bench in December 2001 and, since February 2006, also serves as a judge on the FISA court. This is not a judge one would expect to be overly friendly to Wilson and Plame's position.

Who Are The Attorneys for Wilson and Plame?

The attorneys who filed the lawsuit are not some 14th Street ambulance chasers looking to cash in on a big contingent fee. Appearing on the Complaint as counsel of record for Plame and Wilson are three attorneys from the law firm of Proskauer Rose LLP, one of the nation's largest law firms, with its main office in New York City. Joining Proskauer as counsel is Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a very well known and highly respected scholar of constitutional law who is currently a professor at Duke University School of Law. Chemerinsky has written several casebooks and treatises on constitutional law and federal jurisdiction, hundreds of law review articles that have appeared in all of the major law journals, and in April 2005, was named by Legal Affairs as one of “the top 20 legal thinkers in America.” Chemerinsky has argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. Say what you want about Plame and Wilson, but the attorneys who prepared and filed this lawsuit on their behalf did not just fall off a turnip truck, and they are intelligent, skilled, and experienced enough to craft a complaint that will not subject them to sanctions for filing a factually or legally frivolous lawsuit. Speculate all you want as to the political and financial motivations for the filing of this lawsuit, but I strongly doubt these attorneys would risk their professional reputations or their personal or firm's finances on a lawsuit that is so legally flawed or factually unsupported that it would result in them being sanctioned by the Court.

It should be noted, however, that Christopher Wolf, the Proskauer partner who is lead counsel, has been Wilson and Plame's next door neighbor and close personal family friend for the past eight years. In addition, Wolf appears to be politically connected to former Clinton administration officials and has personally made donations to Democratic candidates.

How Are Wilson and Plame's Attorneys Being Paid?

It is highly doubtful the attorneys involved would take a case like this on a contingency. Three characteristics of contingency cases are potential class action status, the potential for a huge damages award, and the lawyers view establishing liability as a "slam-dunk" or close to it. These characteristics do not appear to be present in this case. There is no class action involved. The amount of potential damages does not appear to be huge. Whatever else the attorneys may think about this case, it is highly doubtful they view it as a "slam-dunk" as to liability or anything close.

Wilson and Plame do not appear to be financially-destitute or penurious and have established and publicized the existence of a fund and a website for the purpose of receiving contributions toward their attorneys' fees. These facts appear to preclude the notion that the attorneys have taken the case pro bono. Even if Wolf is Wilson and Plame's neighbor and friend, Proskauer is unlikely to allow Wolf to commit the services and resources of his firm for free. The Proskauer attorneys typically bill their clients anywhere between $400-800 per hour and are probably billing Wilson and Plame at their customary hourly rates and keeping detailed time records, as they usually do. I confess I am not familiar with the type of fee arrangements utilized by high profile law professors like Chemerinsky when they represent clients outside of their law school employment. Given the political subject matter of the lawsuit, it is certainly possible, or even likely, that Wilson and Plame may have received or been pledged, or will receive, financial backing for their attorneys' fees and court costs from liberal financiers or foundations, just as Paula Jones received such aid from conservative financiers or foundations. I have not heard anything yet to substantiate or disprove this. The actual fee arrangement pursuant to which the attorneys agreed to this representation is not likely to be disclosed and would not be subject to discovery unless and until such time as Wilson and Plame were to prevail on their claims and seek recovery of their attorneys' fees and court costs as prevailing parties in the lawsuit.

What Are Wilson And Plame's Legal Claims?

In summary, Wilson and Plame allege that Libby, Rove, Cheney, and ten unnamed government officials or political operatives (John Does 1-10) violated their First and Fifth Amendment constitutional rights, and their common law privacy rights, by conspiring to discredit, punish, and seek revenge against Wilson for making public statements perceived to be critical of the Bush Administration and that Libby and Rove acted in furtherance of this conspiracy by disclosing to various media reporters Plame's secret and classified status as a CIA employee. Wilson and Plame allege they were both significantly damaged by the public disclosure of Plame's classified status as a CIA employee.

Don't Libby, Rove, and Cheney Have Automatic Immunity From Suit Since They Were Government Officials Acting Within the Scope of Their Employment?

No. In the first four counts of the Complaint, Libby, Rove, and Cheney are being sued as individuals, under what is known as the Bivens doctrine, for allegedly depriving Wilson and Plame of certain constitutional rights. In Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the United States Supreme Court held that a cause of action for money damages exists against agents of the United States, in their individual capacities, for conduct in violation of the Fourth Amendment while acting under color of law. The right to recover exists although no statute establishes it - it is a judicially created cause of action. In Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980), the Court noted that punitive damages "are especially appropriate to redress the violation by a government official of a citizen's constitutional rights" and reiterated the plaintiff's right to a jury trial in Bivens actions.

While Bivens itself dealt only with the Fourth Amendment, the Court subsequently allowed Bivens claims arising under the Fifth Amendment. See Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 248-249 (1979). The Third Circuit Court of Appeal extended the action to encompass First Amendment claims. See Milhouse v. Carlson, 652 F. 2d 371, 373-74 (3d Cir. 1981). In essence, Bivens claims may arise out of virtually any deprivation of a constitutionally protected right. The rationale of Bivens is to deter unconstitutional conduct by exposing individual officers to liability for their constitutional torts. See generally, Note, New Life for a Good Idea: Revitalizing Efforts to Replace the Bivens Action with a Statutory Waiver of the Sovereign Immunity of the United States for Constitutional Tort Suits, 71 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1055 (November 2003).

Doesn't Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's Failure to Indict Libby and Rove For Violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act Necessarily Preclude Wilson and Plame's Civil Action?

No. In order to establish a violation of Title 50, United States Code, Section 421 [the Intelligence Identities Protection Act], it would be necessary to establish that Libby or Rove knew or believed that Plame was a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years. Apparently, the Special Prosecutor was not able to find evidence that Libby or Rove knew or believed that Plame was engaged in covert work.

None of the claims contained in the civil action filed by Wilson and Plame are predicated on an alleged violation of 50 U.S.C. sec. 421. Instead, Wilson and Plame are claiming that Plame's status as a CIA employee was secret and classified and not publicly known until revealed for the first time in Novak's July 14, 2003 newspaper column. Wilson and Plame are claiming that Libby and Rove's disclosure to reporters of Plame's classified CIA employment status in furtherance of a conspiracy involving Cheney and others to discredit, punish, and seek revenge against Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration violated their constitutional and common law rights and caused them economic losses and fears for their and their childrens' safety.

Therefore, in order to prevail on their civil claims, Wilson and Plame will not be required to prove Plame was a "covert" operative, only that her CIA employment status was classified, a fact that Fitzgerald announced at an October 28, 2005 press conference. Of course, this is not all Wilson and Plame will be required to prove in order to prevail on their civil claims. The point here is that Wilson and Plame will not have to meet the same standard with regard to Plame's CIA status as was required to be met by Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald in order to bring criminal charges against Rove and Libby for violating 50 U.S.C. sec. 421.

Count Two of Wilson and Plame's Complaint Alleges a Violation of the Fifth Amendment Right to Equal Protection of the Laws, but the Fifth Amendment Does Not Contain an "Equal Protection" Clause. Doesn't This Show Wilson and Plame's Attorneys Are Stupid?

No. The Fifth Amendment Due Process clause, although not expressly containing "equal protection" language, has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to afford the same protection as the 14th Amendment equal protection clause.

Thus, in Bolling v. Sharpe, a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that segregation of pupils in the public schools of the District of Columbia violated the due process clause. ''The Fifth Amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The 'equal protection of the laws' is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than 'due process of law,' and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process."

''Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area,'' the Court has said, ''is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.'' So saying, the court has applied much of its Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence to strike down sex classifications in federal legislation, reached classifications with an adverse impact upon illegitimates, and invalidated some welfare assistance provisions with some interesting exceptions.

In sum, the fact that the Fifth Amendment does not contain an express equal protection clause does not mean that the Fifth Amendment does not prohibit violations of equal protection.

Is There Precedent For Any of Wilson and Plame's Legal Claims?

For anyone who would like some insight into the law relating to Wilson and Plame's First Amendment retaliation claim in Count One of their Complaint, and the standards governing a good-faith or qualified immunity defense that may be asserted by Cheney, Rove, and Libby, check out the decision in Blankenship v. Manchin, 410 F. Supp. 2d 483 (S.D.W.V. 2006), in which a similar claim of free speech retaliation against the Governor of West Virginia in his individual capacity survived a Rule 12(b)(6) motion (meaning the claim was allowed to proceed to the discovery phase at least). Interestingly, one of the attorneys for the Plaintiff in that case was none other than Robert D. Luskin, who is Libby's attorney now.

Will Wilson and Plame's Lawsuit Be Immediately and Summarily Dismissed and Thrown Out of Court?

None of my comments have been intended to imply that I think Wilson and Plame will "win" this lawsuit. I'm certain Wilson and Plame's lawyers, if asked, would have refused to guarantee or even predict that they will "win."

Based on my review of Wilson and Plame's Complaint, and a very cursory review of the applicable law, I do believe the Complaint does not violate Rule 11 (imposing sanctions for frivolous lawsuits), and I believe at least one of the Complaint's eight counts would survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. In other words, leaving aside the ultimate merits of the case, it does not appear that Wilson and Plame's lawsuit will be automatically and summarily thrown out or laughed out of court.

However, I have not yet looked into and have not formed any opinion on whether and to what extent the case might be stayed pending the resolution of the criminal case against Libby, or whether or to what extent Vice President Cheney might be excused from responding to a civil lawsuit while he remains in office.

Osama bin Laden: Why Has He Not Been Captured?

2006-07-12T10:51:00.000-04:00

Since September 11, 2001, why haven't efforts to capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (the former leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan) been successful? How is it possible for two individuals to elude the combined might of the United States and allied military and intelligence forces?

I am posing this question to a number of government agencies and officials. I hope to post some of their responses in the near future.

Update: On July 12, 2006, the U.S. Department of State responded as follows:

You will need to contact the Department of Defense for specific information
although most materials will most likely be classified. You should also ask your
local congressman.Thank you.

Update: On July 13, 2006, the U.S. Department of State provided this additional response:

The best we can give you is information on Afghanistan (http://www.state.gov/p/sca/ci/af/), Pakistan (http://www.state.gov/p/sca/ci/pk/), coutner (sic) terrorism (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/), and the State Department Intelligence division (http://www.state.gov/s/inr/). You may want to check out some open sources like the DoD Jane's Report, the Economist magazine, and Foreign Affairs. Try doing a Lexis Nexus search on Osama Bin Laden and see what comes up. Check out the CIA and DIA websites as well. Thank you.

Update: On July 14, 2006, the National Security Agency responded as follows:

The National Security Agency does not speak on behalf of the Armed Forces nor the Intelligence Community. The Department of Defense (for the Armed Forces) and the Director of National Intelligence (for the Intelligence Community) would be the appropriate points of contact.

Dimwit of the Day Award to Dania Beach City Commissioner John Bertino

2006-07-11T22:41:00.000-04:00

According to the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (here), this fine elected official, Mr. Bertino, a 63 year old real estate broker, will be charged with criminal mischief for allegedly keying the car (a black 2004 Audi A8) of a person who pulled into the restaurant parking space Bertino wanted.

Bertino would probably not have been charged with the crime, but for the fact that his conduct was reportedly witnessed by an Assistant State Attorney who, while enjoying her breakfast and looking out the window in the restaurant, apparently observed Bertino, with key in hand, scratching the car.

Bertino declined comment to the local newspaper, and his attorney David Bogenschutz (defense attorney of choice for criminally-accused or investigated Broward County public officials) said he will plead not guilty. Just remember, folks, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Mr. Bertino has only been accused of a crime. He has not been convicted. I'm not saying he did it. I'm not saying he didn't do it. I was not a witness, although I can testify that Bertino was not with me that morning, and I was nowhere near the restaurant in question. I'm only repeating what has been reported in the newspaper.

Nevertheless, Bertino still meets the criteria for a Dimwit of the Day Award. Hey, Bertino, great example to set for your children and grandchildren! I'm sure your family and your constituents are very proud of you.

Response to Reason Magazine's Ronald Bailey on "Energy Security"

2006-06-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

On June 11, 2006, the Dallas Morning News published an essay by Ronald Bailey, the science correspondent for Reason magazine, in which he attempts to debunk “peak oil” pessimism while simultaneously lamenting that much of the world’s remaining oil reserves are controlled by governments who may not have the best interests of the United States at heart.

Bailey admits the world consumes about 87 million barrels of oil per day, and that proven oil reserves – i.e., oil that is recoverable under current economic and operating conditions – are estimated by various authorities at between 1.1 and 1.3 trillion barrels. Although Bailey does not say so, at current demand levels, this would mean proven oil reserves will be depleted in about forty (40) years.

Bailey fails to acknowledge the fact that world oil demand is projected to increase by 37%, to 115 million barrels per day, by 2030. (In the Dallas Morning News essay, Bailey incorrectly cites the November 2005 International Energy Agency (IEA) Report as stating that world oil production is predicted to grow to 115 million barrels a day. In fact, the 115 million barrels a day is the projected world oil demand. As the Wall Street Journal reported on June 14, 2006, the IEA has projected that oil production will fall short of the projected 115 million barrel per day demand.)

Nevertheless, Bailey finds cause for optimism in certain analysts’ claims that reserve growth – i.e., largely technology-driven increases in production in already discovered and developed oil fields – and new discoveries have been outpacing oil production. Thus, according to Bailey, the good news is that “Most analysts believe that world petroleum supplies will meet projected demand at reasonable prices for at least thirty (30) more years.” What Bailey overlooks is that, according to the IEA, this rosy scenario can occur only if there is cumulative energy-sector investment of about $17 trillion (in 2004 dollars) between 2004 and 2030. That this investment will occur is far from certain.

The bad news, according to Bailey, is that “the vast majority of the world’s remaining oil reserves are not possessed by private enterprises. Seventy-seven percent of known reserves belong to [non-U.S.] government-owned companies. That means oil will be produced with all the effeciency associated with central planning.”

Bailey asserts: “If ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil or other private companies owned the reserves, the world would be in a much more secure position with regard to oil production. Instead, we are subject to the whims of figures like [Venezuelan president] Mr. Chavez, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and must worry about the doubtful stability of their personalities and regimes.”

Bailey’s essay stops short of exploring the policy implications of this assertion, other than a vague reference to “trusting markets” to “assure future energy abundance." However, roughly 60% of the world's proven oil reserves are located in a "golden" triangle running from Mosul in northern Iraq, to the Straits of Hormuz, to an oil field in Saudi Arabia 75 miles in from the coast, just west of Qatar, then back up to Mosul. The U.S. military already occupies part of this area and surrounds the remainder. These facts arguably lead to the conclusion that the U.S. government has already long known, acted upon, and continues to base much of its foreign policy on Bailey's assertion about the desirabilty of being in a more "secure" position with regard to the world's remaining oil reserves.