CO
McCain 46%
Obama 44%

MN
Obama 46%
McCain 44%

MI
Obama 46%
McCain 42%

WI
Obama 50%
McCain 39%

From The Huffington Post and The Washington Post:

A protester in England glued his hand to the sleeve of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the BBC reports. Dan Glass, who is a member of Plane Stupid, placed superglue on his hand, before he was set to receive an award from the minister, who was able to shake Glass in 20 seconds. After he left the building, Glass tried to glue himself to the gates of Downing Street, but was stopped.

The GAO released a new report detailing that the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which oversees contractors for the Defense Department tried to skew the results on reviews of contractor performance, the Washington Post reports.

Community colleges, once at the helm of many a Jay Leno joke, are now gaining respect, USA Today reports. Now, the institions are entering a turning point where they will be more valuable for education across a broad spectrum in the United States.

The House Armed Services Committee is weighing whether to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military after a bill was introduced by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-California, to repeal that law, according to CNN. During a hearing for the legislation, two gay former militarymen testified against the current law.

Indifferently who was nonexistent less the crowds? world without end the separate tourists, no end the US, who were fear-struck against their lives. Jigsaw puzzle didn't myself make for? higher-ups were terrified elsewhither nearby the definitely boring journalists that tonight lament not far from sophistical seats...

Accurately give the nod we follow the saeta with regard to climax these journalists that subliminal self misjudged us, exclusively happify muddle through not reproach us being the supposedly naive, thats your fuss inter alia!

The designs for the details are vetted by at least four top generals and involve such mundane details as the color of the carpets and leather chairs that adorn the capsule (since when to generals care what color their furniture is??).  Production on the first capsule has already begun.

Air Force officials say the government needs the new capsules to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air.

Apparently, Air Force documents even say that the capsules are required to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," and should include such extravagances as a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, as well as other items not essential to flight -- couches and tables.

As if this wasn't enough, some Air Force generals have demanded changes be made to the capsules, normally with the color-scheme (seriously? we're worrying about colors when we're supposed to be fighting a war?!)

One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table's wood be darkened.

The total cost of the above request is around $68,000.

At least Congress seems to have the right mind in this situation -- they have twice told Air Force officials that the counterterrorism funds are not meant to be used on color-coordinated capsules. Yet, the Air Force disobeyed that order, spending $331,000 from counterterrorism funds to cover a cost overrun -- mostly because of the color switch.

The total cost has been reduced to $7.2 million (from the $16 million cited above) because of cutbacks in the number of capsules.

Still the bottom line: The Air Force is spending money for its top ranking officials to fly in capsules -- that are probably better than some first-class seats on civilian flights -- while those soldiers who are actually fighting the war fly in transport planes one officer called "shoddy."

Segundo o jornal americano The Washington Post, a reportagem relembra a crise do mísseis de Cuba em 1962, que quase desencadeou um conflito nuclear entre os Estados Unidos e a ex-União Soviética. Segundo a BBC, o incidente teve início quando aviões de espionagem americanos descobriram bases de mísseis soviéticos em Cuba, a pouca distância dos Estados Unidos. A decisão do governo soviético de enviar os mísseis a Cuba foi, na época, vista como uma resposta à expansão dos mísseis americanos na Europa.

Oficiais do Ministério da Defesa russo tentaram jogar água fria na notícia, afirmando que a história foi escrita por sob um nome falso e cita uma fonte em uma organização que não existe. O Izvestia, segundo aponta o Post, costuma ser usado como fórum para vazar estratégias do Kremlin. "Enquanto eles estão posicionando o escudo antimísseis na Polônia e na República Checa, nossos bombardeiros estratégicos estarão aterrissando em Cuba", diz a fonte anônima citada pelo jornal.

O general Schwartz, cujo nome é considerado para ocupar o cargo mais alto da Força Aérea americana, afirmou ao Comitê de Armas do Senado que se a Rússia chegar a concretizar a instalação em Cuba, o país deve estar forte e indicar que isso é algo que cruza um ponto inicial, a linha vermelha dos EUA". Ainda não está claro, segundo o Post, se a fonte sugeriu que a Rússia poderia reabrir a base em Cuba ou usar o espaço aéreo para escalas de seus bombardeios Tu-160 e Tu-95, que são capazes de atingir os EUA a partir de bases da Rússia.

A Rússia é contra a instalação do sistema de defesa americano no Leste Europeu, afirmando que este plano é uma ameaça à sua segurança. Recentemente, a Rússia disse que usará meios militares contra a instalação do escudo antimísseis perto de suas fronteiras. A chancelaria russa disse que o Kremlin seria forçado a usar "métodostécnico-militares". O primeiro-ministro Vladimir Putin disse em 2007, quando era presidente, que o país poderia voltar seus mísseis contra países europeus caso o sistema fosse instalado.
Agência Estado

Rizzolo: É como eu sempre digo, existe sim uma mobilização da Rússia e da China no território da América Latina, nada é por acaso. Essa " união" de Chavez com a Rússia, esse " embalo" em não ser tão enérgico com as Farc, esse Conselho de Defesa Sul-Americano, essas fronteiras brasileiras abertas; para tudo isso existe um único contraponto real, firmes, em nome da democracia que podemos confiar, que é a Quarta Frota americana. Ah! Mas o Rizzolo agora entende que os EUA "são bonzinhos", antes era um simpatizante de Chavez. Sim, antes, mas "antes de tudo" sou um democrata que sabe pular da barca na hora certa.

Não há dúvida que a democracia está em perigo na América Latina, só não vê quem não quer. Chavez se armando até os dentes- 4 bilhões de dólares em equipamento russo -, a possibilidade da Rússia posicionar bombardeiros em Cuba, a aquiescência dos governos de esquerda na América Latina em relação a Chavez e as Farc, tudo isso nos leva a um só caminho, darmos boas vindas à Fourth Fleet, e nos armarmos também. Ou estou errado?

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Inter alia, at what price jam in reference to superego in this place with P-duchy till now endure, Pick out Kellett, the invaluable Oregonlive Timbers blogger, has nakedly stepped terminated. His exploratory and initiatory brace reports were hourly a necessaries comprehend in order to supporters with respect to the phalanx, and avant-garde a metropolitan area that hasn't enduringly been fraternal till the Timbers hall sine qua non regarding demonstratable brace coverage(not just advertising the hella unspeakable Timbers Cohue supporters waging funmaking good terms the stands), Kellett's cantor was a humanities advantage. Luckily, Kellett crave stillborn have place manning the for keeps-muchly-low Offside blog, so long as subliminal self's not immedicable exhaustlessness. Cheers!

Once you get past the headline, the piece details what makes the smart car a smart buy for Washington suburanites. In this fast paced city with ridiculous amounts of congestion, having a car that gets 33 miles per gallon city and 41 miles per gallon the highway makes sense (especially when paying $4+ at the pump).

However, the smart car is not for everyone (myself included) and the Post even points out,

If gas were to reach $5 a gallon, every 10,000 miles would save Smart drivers only about $200 or $300 over a comparably priced Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris, which come with back seats.

Many would think this teeny tiny car would not be safe, but it did rate well, earning for its size, top marks in front- and side-crash protection and acceptable ratings for rear-impact protection against whiplash.

Another downfall of the car is its ride -- apparently not very smooth, according to the Post.

While this car may be popular in Europe, which has smaller streets and parking spaces, I don't think it will really latch on in the US. My bet is that the hybrid Prius and similar models will hold their corner on the market over the smart car.

:)

Chris Cilliza, of the Washington Post, is reporting that McCain will meet with Bobby Jindal later this week and The Drudge Report is touting how yesterday, McCain and Rudy Giuliani watched the New York Yankees game together.

Africa’s Women Last and Least in Food Crisis

by Kevin Sullivan

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - After she woke in the dark to sweep city streets, after she walked an hour to buy less than $2 worth of food, after she cooked for two hours in the searing noon heat, Fanta Lingani served her family’s only meal of the day.

First she set out a bowl of corn mush, seasoned with tree leaves, dried fish and wood ashes, for the 11 smallest children, who tore into it with bare hands.

Then she set out a bowl for her husband. Then two bowls for a dozen older children. Then finally, after everyone else had finished, a bowl for herself. She always eats last.

A year ago, before food prices nearly doubled, Lingani would have had three meals a day of meat, rice and vegetables. Now two mouthfuls of bland mush would have to do her until tomorrow.

Rubbing her red-rimmed eyes, chewing lightly on a twig she picked off the ground, Lingani gave the last of her food to the children.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

Mealtime conspires against women
In poor West African nations such as Burkina Faso, mealtime conspires against women. They grow the food, fetch the water, shop at the market and cook the meals. But when it comes time to eat, men and children eat first, and women eat last and least.

Soaring prices for food and fuel have pushed more than 130 million poor people across vast swaths of Africa, Asia and Latin America deeper into poverty in the past year, according to the U.N. World Food Program. But while millions of men and children are also hungrier, women are the hungriest and skinniest. Aid workers call malnutrition among women one of the most notable hidden consequences of the food crisis.

“It’s a cultural thing,” said Hervé Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso. “When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.”

A recent study by the aid group Catholic Relief Services found that many people in Burkina Faso are now spending 75 percent or more of their income on food, leaving little for other basic needs.

Pregnant women and young mothers are forgoing medical care. More women are turning to prostitution to pay for food. And more families are pulling children — especially girls — out of school, unable to afford fees and clothes.

But perhaps the most pervasive effect of the growing global crisis is the ache in the stomachs of millions of poor women such as Fanta Lingani.

Sweeping for pennies
Lingani, who sleeps on a concrete floor, began one recent day at 4 a.m. and dressed quietly in the dark. All around her, children slept on the cracked floor under a tin roof, common conditions in a country that ranks 176th out of 177 on the U.N. Human Development Index.

A year ago, Lingani might have started a small fire to boil herself a cup of weak coffee. But even that is now too expensive.

Such sacrifices led to food riots in February in Ouagadougou, the capital, and towns across the country. Hundreds of people were arrested after they set fires and smashed government buildings to protest rising prices. But for Lingani, the struggle is quieter, and harder by the day, and it starts before the sun comes up.

Lingani, who said she is about 50, walked across the dirt courtyard past the two-room hut where her husband was sleeping in his own double bed, with a thick mattress. The dirt street outside was muddy and steamy from an overnight rain shower.

After a half-hour walk on the black-dark streets, she reported for work and pulled on the long green smock of the Green Brigade, a city program that pays poor women the equivalent of about $1.20 a day to sweep streets two mornings a week.

Lingani picked up a pair of small straw brooms and pushed a wheelbarrow onto a wide, deserted avenue. In the orange haze of streetlights, she bent over at the waist, so far that her bottom was higher than her head, and started pushing red dust into little piles.

The “shssssh shssssh” of her sweeping was the only sound, except for the crowing of a few roosters and occasional laughter from men at an all-night bar down the road.

She worked a section of road about 150 yards long, while a dozen others in the all-female brigade swept along. A tanker truck sped down the street, kicking up a cloud of dust into her face and blowing away her little piles. She coughed, pulled her pink head scarf across her face and swept the same dust all over again.

Lingani swept until the sun came up, pushing her piles onto a small metal dish, then dumping them into a wheelbarrow and finally into a pothole on an unpaved side street.

By 7 a.m., she’d finished her section. But she had to wait an hour for a male supervisor to show up and check her work. In two weeks, she would get her monthly pay of less than $10.

‘The job of women’
Lingani walked a half hour back to her house, where her huge family was starting to stir. She took off her smock and picked up a green plastic basket about the size of a shoebox.

Market time. She and one of her two “co-wives,” Asseta Zagre, do the shopping on alternate days. Their husband’s other wife, the senior of the three, is nearly blind and can’t do chores anymore.

Polygamy is common in much of Africa. In this household, the patriarch is Hamado Zorome, 68, a retired police officer whose pension is the family’s main income — but he doesn’t tell his wives how much he gets.

The pension of a mid-level civil servant is probably modest in Burkina Faso, where the United Nations says nearly 72 percent of the country’s 15 million people live on less than $2 a day.

Zorome also collects a “tip” of 60 cents from each of his two working wives when they get their monthly pay, which he uses to buy the kola nuts he likes to chew.

Lingani and Zagre, who also sweeps streets, said Zorome doles out small amounts of money for them to buy staples such as cornmeal. But the bulk of the family’s meals are paid for out of the wives’ sweeping wages.

As she prepared to leave for the market, Lingani kept bending over and rubbing her ankles and feet. She said they hurt from sweeping for so long. She has never weighed herself, but she said she can feel a significant loss in her weight and strength in the past year.

Last month’s sweeping money was already gone. So she went to her husband, who handed her about $2.50 for groceries. He told her to spend no more than about 75 cents and save the rest for another day.

“Women are born with this job” of feeding the family, Lingani said, as she walked around puddles and past goats tied to trees. “The man has to have his share. And we have to make sure the kids have their share. So we eat less.”

Lingani said none of the older boys in the family has a steady job, since work is hard to come by in this poor city. So, she said, the boys mostly spend their days doing odd jobs or playing soccer. What little money they earn they tend to spend on food and beer for themselves.

“A man can never sit at home. They are always out somewhere,” Lingani said. “They don’t do anything. They don’t help.”

Lingani walked past small stands where women were selling fruit or water, assisted by small girls. A few men sold bags or charcoal, but most were sitting in the shade and talking.

“Men and women should fight together for the children,” Lingani said. “But if the men won’t do that, the women have to fight alone.”

Zorome, Lingani’s husband, said that men don’t help with shopping and cooking because “that is the job of women.” Like many men interviewed here, he said African culture clearly defines roles for men, who work outside the house, and women, who manage children and meals.

He said that men are willing to work but that jobs are scarce. He would prefer it if his wives didn’t have to sweep streets, but “life is much more expensive now.”

“Last year, we could eat well, but now, forget it,” he said. “My sons don’t work, so it’s up to me to feed 25 people. That’s why the women sweep. We don’t have anything, so they have to work. That’s life.”

Ugly math
On her way to the market, Lingani explained the ugly math: A year ago, she could feed her entire family a nutritious meal of meat and vegetables and peanut sauce for about 75 cents. But now the family gets much lower-quality food for twice the price.

She said the cost of six pounds of cornmeal has risen from 75 cents to $1.50. A kilogram — 2.2 pounds — of rice cost 60 cents last year and costs a little more than $1 now. Other basics such as salt and cooking oil have also doubled in price.

Fuel costs have more than doubled for trucks that haul food to landlocked Burkina Faso, helping keep food prices high.

Beef or goat meat is now so expensive — about $1.20 for a tiny portion — that the family has given up meat completely, eating cheap dried fish instead. Rather than seasoning their sauces with vegetables and peanuts, they now use the tough leaves of baobab trees, the gnarly giants that flourish here in the dry lands south of the Sahara.

To soften the sour taste of the leaves, Lingani mixes in potash, a paste made by boiling down water strained through ashes from wood fires.

“In the past, our money would last the whole month. We might even have some left over,” Lingani said. “But now as soon as it arrives, we spend it.”

Dinner happens only if there is a bit of food left over from lunch. Even then, she said, there is rarely enough left for women.

“When the children ask for food, we have to give it to them,” she said. “We’re mothers.”

Never enough
“Are you sure you don’t want more?” the vegetable vendor asked Lingani. “Is that enough for your family?”

Lingani, standing in a crowded neighborhood market, had just asked the woman for 30 cents worth of baobab leaves.

“No, it’s fine,” Lingani said, handing over a few coins.

The vendor shrugged and stashed the coins under a burlap sack of tomatoes covered with a beard of small flies. She handed Lingani back some change, which she counted carefully.

At the next stall, Lingani bought four small onions. As she turned to leave, the seller tossed in a fifth with an understanding smile. Lingani caught her eye and thanked her.

Moving through the churning mass of people, Lingani bought a bag of dried fish, a small plastic bag of salt, two small cubes of beef bouillon and a bag of potash, the paste made from ashes.

In 10 minutes, her shopping was done. She had spent double her budget of 75 cents.

After the half-hour walk home, with the temperature already above 90, Lingani and Zagre started plucking the baobab she bought at the market, saving the leaves and throwing away the thick stems.

For an hour, the two women methodically pounded the rough leaves in a wooden bowl, then dumped them into a pot boiling over a wood fire. Then Lingani added the dried fish and some of the ash flavoring.

“Of course we would prefer something else,” she said. “But it’s the cheapest thing we can buy, and we can afford enough to feed everybody.”

Two hours after she started cooking, Lingani scooped out six bowls of flavorless food. The first was for Zorome, delivered to his hut. He ate it alone, then said he felt as though he needed a nap.

Others were set aside to be shared by the children.

The last bowl, slightly larger than Zorome’s, was to be shared by 10 people: Lingani, Zagre and eight small grandchildren. Lingani took two bites before letting five hungry toddlers finish her food.

Near the front gate, half a dozen of the children sat in a circle, playing a game. They had built a play fire out of pieces of bark. On top of it they had placed a little plastic cup, overflowing with street garbage: onion skins and bits of rotting leaves.

They were pretending to cook.

“We’re cooking rice with meat!” said a beaming Ousmane, 6, the head chef.

His father, Zorome, watched the game and laughed. He was asked if he would eat again today. Yes, he said, Lingani would make him a little rice or porridge for dinner that night.

Nearby, his daughters and granddaughters heard him and exploded. “What are you talking about?” they said. “Why are you saying that? We have no food.”

Zorome smiled sadly and admitted his lie.

“When we have food one day, we have to tighten our belt the next,” he said. “But it is very hard for a man to admit when things are not good.”

Lingani was still sitting next to her empty food bowl. She had stopped the children from finishing one last lump of corn mush, about the size of her fist.

“The small children will be crying in a couple of hours, so we have to save it,” she said. Her voice was small and soft, and she didn’t look up from the red dirt. She said she felt “very sad.”

“I’m thinking too much,” she said.

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Warming Is Major Threat To Humans, EPA Warns

by David A. Fahrenthold / Juliet Eilperin

WASHINGTON - Climate change will pose “substantial” threats to human health in the coming decades, the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday — issuing its warnings about heat waves, hurricanes and pathogens just days after the agency declined to regulate the pollutants blamed for warming.

In a new report, the EPA said “it is very likely” that more people will die during extremely hot periods in future years — and that the elderly, the poor and those in inner cities will be most at risk.

Other possible dangers include more powerful hurricanes, shrinking supplies of fresh water in the West, and the increased spread of diseases contracted through food and water, the agency said.

The strong warnings highlighted the contorted position that the EPA has staked out on climate change. Last week, the agency decided not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, at least not until after President Bush’s term ends.

A former EPA official told a House panel this week that senior administration officials and several Cabinet members supported regulating the emissions before the White House changed course and barred the EPA from concluding that they endanger public welfare.

In a closed interview Tuesday, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that Joel D. Kaplan, Bush’s deputy chief of staff for policy, originally signed off on the decision to regulate emissions from both vehicles and stationary sources such as power plants and refineries. The decision came in response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that instructed the administration to determine whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

“There was a general belief that moving forward with a challenge and establishing a precedent in channeling regulation would serve the country better than leaving the challenge to the next administration,” Burnett said in the interview, according to a transcript obtained by The Washington Post. “The chief of staff’s office then appears to have changed its mind.”

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the House panel, said in a statement: “Today typifies the climate-change schizophrenia in the Bush administration. On one hand, government scientists are saying that global warming poses grave threats to our health and our welfare, and, on the other hand, [there] are White House political hacks following the oil industry’s bidding to do nothing.”

The EPA report yesterday was less notable for its warnings — similar problems have been predicted by other scientists and by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — than for its source. The Bush administration has resisted the conclusion that increasing temperatures will harm human health, but in yesterday’s report, that finding was unmistakable.

“We . . . anticipate substantial human health impacts,” the document said.

In the West, it found, changing weather patterns could thin snowpack that feeds rivers, affecting hydroelectric dams and water supplies. In coastal areas, it could bring a sea-level rise that eats away at dry land and storm surges that can wash it away in a flash.

In Washington and other Eastern cities, the report said, a warmer climate is likely to produce more bad-air days, because heat speeds up the process by which exhaust byproducts are cooked into smog. The report also found that rising temperatures are likely to mean more periods of sustained summer heat.

“It’s going to be hotter, it’s going to be hotter sooner in the year than it was in the past,” said Kristie Ebi, an Alexandria-based consultant and one of the report’s authors.

She said that young people living in the D.C. area now will notice a difference before they reach middle age. “They’re going to look back and think back about how nice the summers used to be,” she said. “Within 20, 30 years, on average, the [public] should notice that it’s warmer.”

The report was prepared under the EPA’s leadership but released by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, which coordinates research among several federal agencies. Joel D. Scheraga of the EPA’s Global Change Research Program said that there was no political interference in the report’s findings or the timing of its release.

“The answer is unequivocally ‘no,’ ” he said.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said there was no conflict between the warnings in the report and the agency’s conclusion last week that regulation should be put off.

“Climate change is a serious problem that our nation needs to address. But we need to address it correctly,” Shradar said.

Last Friday, the EPA announced that it would solicit comments on the idea of regulating greenhouse gases under the federal Clean Air Act. But at the same time it released a lengthy preamble, with messages from EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson and four other Cabinet members, saying that this idea was ill-advised.

Burnett said that this, too, was ordered by administration officials: “We were told . . . that the [document] should not establish a path forward or a framework for regulation, but should emphasize the complexity of the challenge.”

He also told the panel that senior EPA officials met with representatives from Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, who argued that Bush should not undermine his legacy by regulating greenhouse gases.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that the EPA administrator chose his course on his own.

“Steve Johnson, as he has said repeatedly, and in sworn testimony, made his own decision,” Fratto said. “And so whatever anyone’s views were at that time are fairly irrelevant because the administrator chose to go a different route.”

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

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My first MusicMakers profile for the Paper of Record is about the man who installed the Mothership Connection . . . President, One Nation Under a Groove . . . the Atomic Dawg his own bad self, Mr. George Clinton.

Off to que up for The Dark Knight at the Uptown now. I'd be doing exactly the same thing if I were 11 years old. I'd be embarrassed over how excited I am to see the flick if everyone I know weren't nearly as excited as me. We're counting on you, Chris Nolan.

How the hell did I miss this? Stuever's one of my favorite scribes at the Paper of Record, and The Joker is, of course, the scariest killer in fiction. Decent essay -- Stuever's are never less -- but he misses that people said the same thing about Tim Burton's 1989 Batman that he's saying about Chris Nolan's 2008 The Dark Knight: That the villain is more interesting than the hero. Well, yeah, Hank: The villain is always more interesting than the hero.

I can't recall if it was an issue of Detective Comics where I first saw the ad pictured above on the back. (Could they advertise "Suggested for Mature Readers" books on Comics Code-approved books?) It would have been late 1987 or early 1988. I do remember being terrified by Brian Bolland's depiction of The Joker -- those swollen, murderous eyeballs! -- and reading longtime editor of the Bat-books editor (an occasional writer) Denny O'Neil's "From the Den" warning that The Killing Joke was most certainly not appropriate for children. His column ended with the sentence, "You are alerted."

A smart salesman, that O'Neil.

Naturally, I had to have it.

I'd read The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One by that point, both "adult" Batman stories that had found a massive audience outside of the comics mainstream -- one that O'Neill hoped, no doubt, would spend $3.50 on The Killing Joke, too. (The new hardcover reissue will set you back $17.99.)

When it finally hit the comic book shop to which I faithfully pedaled a sweaty mile, several times a week, Roger (the rat-tailed manager who was exactly like Comic Book guy on The Simpsons, only disgustingly skinny instead of corpulent) slapped a "PG-18" sticker on it, which made it like an R-rated movie, only you couldn't buy a ticket for something else and then sneak in. Your parents, could however, sign an index card granting you permission to buy PG-18 comics (mostly the DC fantasy/horror books like Swamp Thing and, a year or so later, Sandman; the kind of stuff that in the 90s would comprise DC's Vertigo line. I'm pretty sure this store didn't carry anything that might approach any legal standard of obscene, though probably a lot of parents would have called Love & Rockets that.) Incredibly, my dad accompanied me to the store at my urging so I could buy The Killing Joke. (Later -- somewhat incredibly, he even signed one of those index cards.) It was the first comic I ever saw where the bad guy actually seemed evil, and his acts horrifying and irreversible.

I'm going to have another look at The Killing Joke tonight, before I see The Dark Knight on Thursday. Can. Not. Wait.

McCain: ‘I Know How to Win Wars’

by Juliet Eilperin

ALBUQUERQUE — Arguing that the status quo in Afghanistan “is not acceptable,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested today the U.S. can win the battle against the Taliban by “applying the tried and true principles of counterinsurgency used in the surge” in Iraq. In a prepared speech peppered with attacks against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), McCain suggested Obama had been proven wrong in Iraq and lacked the judgment to oversee military forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“I know how to win wars. I know how to win wars,” McCain told the audience at a town hall in Albuquerque. “And if I’m elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory, I know how to do that.”

McCain outlined a plan that includes sending at least three additional brigades; establishing a “unity of command” that will oversee U.S. as well as NATO forces; appointing a “Afghanistan czar” to report directly to the president on the progress of the war; and a boost in non-military assistance.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee openly mocked Obama for his inexperience in the region, saying the Democrat had made up his mind about the war without surveying how U.S. troops were faring there.”Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time,” McCain said. “In my experience, and I’ve traveled around the world, usually at your expense, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.”

McCain read two different quotes from Obama providing contrasting view of Iraq. In January 2007 the Illinois senator said of the surge, “We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war…. I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.” A year later Obama said he said that he had “no doubt” with the increase in troops “we would see a reduction in violence” in Iraq.

“My friends, flip-0floppers all over the world are enraged,” McCain said, as the friendly Republican audience laughed. “It gives new meaning, it gives new meaning.”

In addition to detailing how he would wage the fight on the ground in Afghanistan, the Arizona senator said he would work to rout out insurgents in Pakistan and convince Afghanistan’s neighbors the country should shift “from a theater for regional rivalries into a commons for regional cooperation.” Modeling his approach on Iraq, McCain said when it came to terrorists enjoying sanctuary in Pakistan, “This must end.”

“We must strengthen local tribes in the border areas who are willing to fight the foreign terrorists there — the strategy used successfully in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq,” he said. “We must convince Pakistanis that this is their war as much as it is ours. And we must empower the new civilian government of Pakistan to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health, and education.”

Taking a further swipe at Obama, McCain argued that his opponent’s willingness to consider a military strike against Pakistan has undermined counterinsurgency efforts there.

“In trying to sound tough, he has made it harder for the people whose support we most need to provide it,” he said. “I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats. But understand this: when I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide.” The audience cheered.

McCain took pains to point out that when it came to Iraq, both he and Obama “agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy there and that we had to change course,” but only he backed the surge in troops there. “Today we know Senator Obama was wrong,” McCain said. “The surge has succeeded.”

Buoyed by surveys like this week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll, which shows Americans give him higher marks as a commander in chief than Obama, McCain argued he has already shown he is better prepared to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq. “In wartime, judgment and experience matter,” McCain said. “In a time of war, the commander in chief doesn’t get a learning curve. If I have that privilege, I will bring to the job many years of military and political experience; experience that gave me the judgment necessary to make the right call in Iraq a year and half ago.”

© 2008 The Washington Post

a largely symbolic move unlikely to have any short-term impact on high gasoline costs.

Of course, off-shore drilling isn't the only forbidden activity that President Bush has just approved- he also approved drilling of 4400 wells in Wyoming and related energy mining activities on Federal land formerly protected by a large number of environmental regulations. In "Heedless Rush to Oil Shale" by Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado writes in the Washington Post:

Bush and his fellow oil shale boosters claim that if only Western communities would stand aside, energy companies could begin extracting more than 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil from domestic shale deposits. If only the federal government immediately offered even more public lands for development, the technology to extract oil from rock would suddenly ripen, oil supplies would rise and gas prices would fall.

If only.

Since the 19th century, we in the West have been trying to extract oil from the vast oil shale riches that lie under our feet. It is no easy task, and past efforts have failed miserably. Commercial oil shale development would require not only immense financial investments but also an undetermined quantity of (scarce) water from the Colorado River basin and the construction of several multibillion-dollar power plants.

Sometimes it seems that we are getting close to overcoming these barriers. But each time we near a boom, we bust. The last bust, the infamous "Black Sunday" of 1982, left Western communities holding the bill long after the speculators, Beltway boosters and energy companies had taken off.

Senator Salazar goes on to add:

The governors of Wyoming and Colorado, communities and editorial boards across the West agree that the administration's headlong rush is a terrible idea. Even energy companies, including Chevron, have said we need to proceed more cautiously on oil shale. With more than 30,000 acres of public land at their disposal to conduct research, development and demonstration projects (in addition to 200,000 undeveloped acres of private oil shale lands they own in Colorado and Utah), they already have more land than they can develop in the foreseeable future.

So why is the president hurrying to sell leases for commercial oil shale development in the West's great landscapes? A fire sale will not lower gas prices. It will not accelerate the development of commercial oil shale technologies.

Senator Salazar continues by saying that he supports the idea of developing technology for removing shale oil in a commercially feasible manner, something I would not be in favor of relative to solar and wind power, but he concludes that Federal land is being given away for no logical reason- not even the oil companies are making any promises about if and when shale oil from the Western US will become a viable commodity.

Returning to the subject of off-shore drilling, I think that this policy change will be considerably more than symbolic to the environment, even if it is only symbolic with regard to our national energy crisis. The construction of drilling platforms and the potential for oil spills, ruined beaches and dead fish and birds may well dwarf the wreck of the Exxon Valdez on March 23. 1989. Let's hope not, but let's also remember that the Exxon Valdez spill broke many Federal laws and some prosecution resulted (although, as shown below, the Supreme Court recently protected Exxon from significant financial punishment). The President and his corporate friends should be held to strict environmental standards that they haven't done well in following, historically: if President Bush's close friends in the oil industry keep up their poor track record of environmental protection and cause serious damage, they should be prosecuted.

In case some of the details of the Exxon Valdez case may need to be reviewed, here are a few worthwhile quotes and links to the original sources. In a case the went to the Supreme court and was resolved in June of 2008, Adam Liptak of The New York Times reported on June 26, 2008 that (note, you may have to sign up for a free registration to set the Times article)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reduced what had once been a $5 billion punitive damages award against Exxon Mobil to about $500 million. The ruling essentially concluded a legal saga that started when the Exxon Valdez, a supertanker, struck a reef and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into the Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.

From alternet.org:

The spilled oil -- somewhere between 11 to 38 million gallons (the figure is elusive because as we learned the hard way, the truth was one of the first casualties of the spill) -- created a big mess and broke a lot of federal laws. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Exxon paid $2.5 billion for its cleanup and another $1 billion for penalties. But, it might surprise people who live outside Alaska to learn that taxpayers, not Exxon, paid a majority of that bill. Exxon recouped most of its remaining expense from its insurance companies and from money it paid to settle damages for natural resources -- publicly-owned wildlife and lands.

From the State of Alaska and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council:

The Exxon Valdez spill, though still one of the largest ever in the U.S., has dropped from the top 50 internationally. However, it is widely considered the number one spill worldwide in terms of damage to the environment. The timing of the spill, the remote and spectacular location, the thousands of miles of rugged and wild shoreline, and the abundance of wildlife in the region combined to make it an environmental disaster well beyond the scope of other spills. Much has been accomplished over the years to prevent another Exxon Valdez-type accident. See the Spill Prevention and Response section of this website.

For more information about the environmental impact, case studies, legal history and science of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, this time from NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration of the US Department of Commerce), see here.

Getting back to Monday's decision by President Bush and the Reuters story by Pelofsky and Dogget,

With prices at the pump over $4 a gallon, Bush pushed the Democratic-controlled Congress to expand offshore oil and natural gas drilling and give companies access to the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge despite fierce opposition from environmentalists.

However,

Democratic leaders in Congress and environmentalists immediately condemned the move as having have no short-term impact on soaring oil prices.

Of further note, from Reuters:

Democratic White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's campaign quickly condemned the move. "It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years," spokesman Bill Burton said.

and

Republican White House contender Sen. John McCain, who reversed his previous opposition to offshore drilling, told reporters that he thought the decision was a "very important signal" and that "states should continue to decide."

Meanwhile, Japan, Germany, Spain, China and many other countries are cornering the market on fuel efficient cars, plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, solar power installations, wind power installations, and manufacturing plants required for producing solar panels, while the U.S. is left in the position of having many innovative companies but no significant tax support or other incentives to reduce our dependence on oil.

This latest act of poor judgment by the President is typical of his actions, where he has consistently fought and overturned environmental protections and the White House has ordered officials to ignore science and the environment in favor of big business. Some of these orders have come from Vice President Cheney's office, though he has been stealthy while interfering with the EPA and other agencies. For a 2007 report on the Vice President's role in hampering EPA efforts, see the Washington Post article "Leaving no Tracks" by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman:

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.

It is long overdue for the USA to develop a reasonable and sustainable energy policy that will diminish our dependence of oil, introduce sustainable energy and transportation on a large scale, and do so without damaging or adding threats to our health or environment. It is long overdue to rein in the the current administration's reign of international policy, environmental, and financial disasters.

Original text copyright © 2008 James K. Bashkin

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From the Washington Post:

HINTON, Va. -- Every morning, 26,000 white tom turkeys arrive at the Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative plant in the Shenandoah Valley, where they are killed, gutted, cleaned, chilled, cut up and prepared for shipment by the end of the day. The work is hard and cold and messy, and few local residents are willing to do it.

So the cooperative relies heavily on immigrant workers. Its owners say that they do their best to weed out applicants who are in the country illegally but that their industry is increasingly squeezed by federal pressure on employers who hire illegal immigrants and criminal networks that sell false or stolen identity documents.

Now, poultry processors in Virginia and across the country are taking their case to Congress. Last week, several hundred industry leaders met in Washington to lobby for immigration changes and an improved document-checking system as well as relief from environmental rules that have doubled the price of the feed corn they buy for their birds.

"We depend on immigrants. If they all went away today, people like us couldn't operate," said Jim Mason, president of the cooperative, who visited a half-dozen congressional offices. "People think we hire Hispanics because we can get them cheaper, but it is absolutely false. We do everything the government asks and more to make sure our workers are legal, and we turn a lot of people away. But if an ID is stolen, there is nothing we can do."

The lobbying blitz has come as diverse businesses, including hotels and seafood processors, have begun to unite to defend their economic interests in light of the intensifying government crackdown on illegal immigration. In recent months, stepped-up enforcement has led to a raids on workplaces across the region, including a Leesburg convention resort and an Annapolis painting company.

In Virginia, an umbrella group called Virginia Employers for Sensible Immigration Policy has recently been formed. Its members include the state Home Builders Association, Manufacturers Association, Retail Merchants Association and Chamber of Commerce. It also represents such major poultry companies as Tyson Foods and hundreds of smaller producers.

The group seeks to preserve the state's attractive business climate, support legal immigration as essential to the area economy and press the federal government to increase action against illegal immigration instead of placing the burden on local employers, who can be heavily fined if they hire illegal workers.

"Our industry employs more than 10,000 people and supports more then 1,200 family farms," said Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation. "We are blessed with very low unemployment, and there are simply not enough Americans available to do the work. We offer a good wage, and we want to have a legal work force, but the available tools for checking document fraud are just not adequate. The entire federal immigration system is in dire need of reform."

Some regional legislators appear to be sympathetic to such concerns, especially among industries such as poultry breeding and processing that support large portions of the rural economies of Virginia and Maryland. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), a longtime member of the House Agriculture Committee, has a busy constituent office in Harrisonburg, seven miles from Hinton, in the heart of the state's poultry region.

Goodlatte agrees with Bauhan that the federal online documenting system needs to be changed to detect more immigrants who use stolen papers and place less blame on employers who fail to catch them.

The broader solution, he said, is not to legalize immigrants already working in the United States, as some have proposed, but to expand the national "guest worker" program, which allows up to 66,000 unskilled foreigners to work temporarily on farms and other seasonal job sites, so that it would include food processing and other agribusiness jobs.

"I am very much opposed to bills that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, and I also want to make sure we don't undercut jobs and wages for those U.S. citizens who do want the work," Goodlatte said. "We need the existing temporary worker program to keep up with the changing face of agribusiness. We need to enforce immigration laws and make them work better where there is a shortage of American workers."

Efforts to expand the guest worker program failed last year in the broader collapse of a Senate compromise proposal for comprehensive immigration change. Opponents of the program say participants are vulnerable to such exploitation as being cheated of wages and being forced to stay in poor living quarters.

At Jim Mason's processing plant, a majority of the 560 workers are immigrants who live full time in the United States, most of whom are from Mexico or Central America. Every instructional sign, such as "Wash Your Hands," is in English and Spanish. Each department has a bilingual supervisor, and lines of people in smocks and hairnets chatter in Spanish as they hose, clean and chop turkeys on conveyor belts.

On the main door to the plant, a sign reads "This Business Employs American Citizens and Legal Residents Only." In the hiring office, staff members enter the name of applicants and details of the documents they provide. Within a minute, the computer indicates whether the documents are genuine.

Mason said he quizzes prospective workers with extra questions to check their veracity. Many forged documents come from Puerto Rico, but most immigrant applicants are from Mexico or Central America, so he asksquestions to find out whether they know, for example, that the capital of Puerto Rico is San Juan.

More than he worries about immigration agents swooping down on his workforce, though, Mason fears he will not be able to afford feed for his turkeys, as the government increasingly orders U.S.-grown corn to be converted into ethanol for use in car engines.

"We are a family business. We have no subsidies and no safety net," Mason said. "If we don't get the ethanol situation settled, there is no need to talk about immigration problems at all, because we will be out of business."