Undernews For April 8, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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Editor: Sam Smith

8 April 2009

HEADLINES

OBAMA GOES BEYOND BUSH IN SUPPORT OF ILLEGAL WIRETAPS

LIBERAL GROUPS HAPPILY ENLIST IN OBAMA'S WAR

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL HOLDS SEMINAR TO TEACH GREEDSTERS HOW TO DEAL WITH ANGRY PUBLIC

FACING THE DEPRESSION OF THE SPIRIT

DUMP DUNCAN, RHEE & KLEIN AND LET THE FINNS TEACH US HOW TO RUN OUR SCHOOLS

WORD

Jesus' life didn't go well. He didn't reach his earning potential. He didn't have the respect of his colleagues. His friends weren't loyal. His life wasn't long. He didn't meet his soul mate. And he wasn't understood by his mother. Yet I think I deserve all those things because I'm so spiritual. -- Hugh Prather, "Spiritual Notes to Myself"

PAGE ONE MUST

OBAMA GOES BEYOND BUSH IN SUPPORT OF ILLEGAL WIRETAPS

Raw Story - In a stunning defense of President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, President Barack Obama has broadened the government's legal argument for immunizing his administration and government agencies from lawsuits surrounding the National Security Agency's eavesdropping efforts.

In fact, a close read of a government filing reveals that the Obama Administration has gone beyond any previous legal claims put forth by former President Bush.

Responding to a lawsuit filed by a civil liberties group, the Justice Department argued that the government was protected by "sovereign immunity" from lawsuits because of a little-noticed clause in the Patriot Act.

For the first time, the Obama Administration's brief contends that government agencies cannot be sued for wiretapping American citizens even if there was intentional violation of US law. They maintain that the government can only be sued if the wiretaps involve "willful disclosure" -- a higher legal bar.

Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the government over the warrantless wiretapping program, notes that the government has previously argued that the government had "sovereign immunity" against civil action under the FISA statute. But he says that this is the first time that they've invoked changes to the Patriot Act in claiming the US government is immune from claims of illegal spying under any other federal surveillance statute.

Salon columnist and constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald -- who is generally supportive of progressive interpretations of the law -- says the Obama Administration has "invented a brand new claim" of immunity from spying litigation.

"In other words, beyond even the outrageously broad 'state secrets' privilege invented by the Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama administration, the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them unless they 'willfully disclose' to the public what they have learned," Greenwald wrote.

DUMP DUNCAN, RHEE & KLEIN AND LET THE FINNS TEACH US HOW TO RUN OUR SCHOOLS

Six Degrees, Finland, 2007 - OECD statistics show that Finland spends just 6.1% of its gross domestic product on education, significantly below the OECD average of 6.3%, and well below spending levels in many similarly wealthy countries. . .

Finnish kids only graduate from the kindergarten sandpit to the primary school at age 7. Their schooldays remain short, often ending as early as midday or one o'clock, and their 10-week summer holidays must be the envy of kids all over the world. All in all, Finnish pupils spend an OECD record low total of some 5,523 hours at their desks, compared to the average of 6,847 hours. . .

The results of Finland's brightest students are not significantly above those from other successful countries, but where Finland really shines is in the scores of the lowest performing students. This means that very few Finnish schoolchildren are falling fall through the educational net. . .

Looking after low achievers The Finnish system is designed along egalitarian principles, with few fee-paying private schools, and very little streaming of pupils into different schools or classes according to their exam results. . .

Karen Utley. Statesman Journal - Educators from around the world are fascinated by the success of Finnish schools. With dropout rates of about 7 percent, top scores on international tests and students who transition into one of the most productive work forces in the world, Finnish education is impressive.

Visitors to Finland in search of its educational secrets discover relaxed, cooperative classrooms, strong early emphasis on math, science and languages - physics and chemistry in middle school, and proficiency in Finnish, English and Swedish by the seventh grade - and high-quality, creative teaching.

Americans notice particularly the absence of some favorite strategies: early childhood education (Finnish kids start school at age 7), restrictive rules (no tardy bells, no school uniforms), continuous standardized testing (high school students don't even experience standardized tests until they take exit exams at age 18.)

One of my daughters-in-law is Finnish and is a graduate of Finland's education system. She explained to me how the casualness of the Finnish language and culture affects the dynamics of classroom relationships. In Finnish, for example, it is perfectly respectful to call a teacher by her first name. She described how some students are selected (according to their grades) for specialty schools, such as the math-focused high school she attended, and how students who excelled there were challenged by increasingly difficult assignments - matched to their abilities.

She assured me that Finnish teenagers are quite similar to American kids - not necessarily more bookish or less rebellious. She reported that Finnish parents allow their children much more unsupervised independence at younger ages than is common in the United States.

Teachers in Finland's schools are given more freedom too. Finnish teachers . . . customize lessons, choose books and select activities - within the expectations of national standards - to shape their programs around the skills of their particular students. By comparison, education in many other countries "feels like a car factory," according to Andreas Schleicher, director of the international PISA tests.

Perhaps it is because teachers are encouraged to think for themselves that so many talented people in Finland are attracted to the profession. Although teachers there must hold master's degrees and salaries are not high - they're comparable to those of U.S. teachers - competition for jobs is stiff; 40 applicants may apply for a single position.

LIBERAL GROUPS HAPPILY ENLIST IN OBAMA'S WAR

Justin Raimondo, Anti War - As John Stauber points out over at the Center for Media and Democracy Web site, the takeover of the antiwar movement by the Obamaites is nearly complete. He cites MoveOn.org as a prime but not sole example:

"MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama's policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so."

Picking up on this in The Nation, John Nichols avers that several antiwar groups are not toeing the Afghanistan-is-a-war-of-necessity line, including Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, and the American Friends Service Committee, yet there is less to this than meets the eye. Naturally, the Friends, being pacifists, are going to oppose the Afghan "surge" and the provocative incursions into Pakistan: no surprise there. Peace Action is not making a whole lot of noise about this, in spite of the issue's relative importance. They are confining their opposition to an online petition. As for UFPJ, their alleged opposition to Obama's war is couched in all kinds of contingencies and ambiguous formulations. Their most recent public pronouncement, calling for local actions against the Af-Pak offensive, praises Obama for "good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan." So far, this "diplomacy" consists of unsuccessfully finagling the Europeans and Canada to increase their "contributions" to the Afghan front - and selling the American people on an escalation of the conflict.

Although energized and given a local presence nationwide by a significant pacifist and youth contingent, UFPJ is organizationally dominated by current and former members of the Communist Party, USA, and allied organizations, and you have to remember that Afghanistan is a bit of a sore spot for them. That's because the Kremlin preceded us in our folly of attempting to tame the wild warrior tribes of the Hindu Kush and was soundly defeated.

The Soviet Union did its level best in trying to accomplish what a number of liberal think-tanks with ambitious agendas are today busily concerning themselves with solving the problem of constructing a working central government, centered in Kabul, which would improve the lot of the average Afghan, liberate women from their legally and socially subordinate role, eliminate the drug trade, and provide a minimal amount of security outside the confines of Kabul - in short, the very same goals enunciated by the Bush administration and now the Obama administration. The Kremlin failed miserably in achieving its objectives, and there is little reason to believe the Americans will have better luck. . .

The pro-war progressive think-tanks's role is to forge a new pro-war consensus, one that commits us to a long-range "nation-building" strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are the Center for a New American Security, explicitly set up as home base for the "national security Democrats" who make up the party's hawkish faction; Brookings; and, last but not least, the Center for American Progress, which was an oasis of skepticism when Team Bush was "liberating" Iraq, and a major critic of the occupation. Now the leadership of CAP is making joint appearances with the neocons over at the newly christened Foreign Policy Initiative and issuing lengthy white papers outlining their Ten Year Plan for the military occupation of Afghanistan. . .

I am truly at a loss to describe, in suitably pungent terms, the contempt in which I hold the "progressive" wing of the War Party, which is now enjoying its moment in the sun. These people have no principles: it's all about power at the court of King Obama, and these court policy wonks are good for nothing but apologias for the king's wars.

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL HOLDS COURSES TO TEACH GREEDSTERS HOW TO DEAL WITH ANGRY PUBLIC

Linton Johnson, Chief Spokesperson, BART - A fun-packed, knowledge filled two day course that leaves you feeling energized and armed with strategies to resolve real world crises in your workplace.”

Harvard Law School - How can you avoid disaster when your organization has triggered a crisis that threatens your reputation and your image?

What specific steps can you take to turn consumer anger into opportunities for gain, whether you are dealing with:

- customers who are dissatisfied because the product doesn’t work, or because they think you lied about service or cost;

- concerned interest groups who are blocking a license, rate increase or permit;

- potential litigants who are seeking to assign liability or sue for damages;

- the need to develop new media strategies that rely less on image manipulation and more on cooperating with opposing groups?

In our special, two-day, executive program Dealing With an Angry Public, we share a powerful negotiating technique for managing or avoiding public disputes - and for dealing with the media - that you can apply whether you are attempting to defend controversial decisions or trying to protect your organization from the consequences of an accident or a mistake. Called "mutual gains," this innovative approach offers a set of specific action steps you can take to turn public threats into opportunities for gain. Please accept my personal invitation to attend. - Lawrence E. Susskind Co-Director, MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program

Lisa Ross, Director, Corporate Communications, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals - Great program. Very relevant to my current role, and I will be able to use some of the strategies right away.

FACING THE DEPRESSION OF THE SPIRIT

David Sirota, Open Left - Over the last decade, I went from idealistic college kid, to idealistic Hill staffer, to cynical political campaign operative, to angry/angsty writer/activist, to full-time journalist, and in this last stage, I've hit an existential question that I think many are struggling with in their own lives, regardless of their age: What the fuck am I doing?

What, for instance, am I doing working in a media/political business that is so often governed with no rhyme or reason, and so often rewards the foolish, the stupid and the immoral? For every Rachel Maddow, there are five Sean Hannitys, but it's not even that. That's just an ideological bias against progressives, and that I can make sense of (even though it disgusts me). The worse truth - the one I simply cannot grasp - is that for every Harold Meyerson (ie. for every legitimately brilliant progressive writer) there are 25 Joe Kleins (ie. braindead megaphones). .

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to throw my computer out the window, wear my PJ's and a robe to the supermarket, and play Halo all Though I certainly don't want that for myself (thus, my flee to the sanity of the Rocky Mountain West), I'm struggling with the questions about the system. I wonder: What am I doing working in a system that creates those desires, rewards that idiocy, and creates a gross incentive structure?

Thanks to the economic meltdown, ensuing AIG bonuses, and promotion of economic criminals to top White House jobs, it has never been more clear that the American economy and political system is one that rewards everything we say we don't want to reward. The media world I work in rewards David Brooks, the economy rewards AIG executives, the political system rewards Larry Summers. It's all the same fucking thing - everything we say we want to punish, but instead systemically cheer on.

So again, what the fuck are we doing? Why do we just sit here and take it? And if we're not going to take it, what the hell should we do? Most of us who have a job are totally overworked - we barely have time for our families. Those of us who are out of work are scratching and clawing to survive - they barely have time for anything else. So what should we do?

I don't have an answer to these existential questions...at least not yet. And I certainly don't know what to do in reaction to asking them. One voice in the chorus that is my inner monologue says "you're right, what am I doing? Fuck this, I'm moving to Costa Rica."* Another voice says "I'm not getting out - I'm doing the right thing by keeping the faith that this is important work." And yet another voice says, "Just don't ask those questions - they will only give you heartbreak."

Sam Smith, 2004 - We must learn to stand outside of history. Quakerism, for example, prescribes personal witness as guided by conscience - regardless of the era in which we live or the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And the witness need not be verbal. The Quakers say "let your life speak," echoing St. Francis of Assisi's' advice that one should preach the gospel at all times and "if necessary, use words."

There are about as many Quakers today in America as there were in the 18th century, around 100,000. Yet near the center of every great moment of American social and political change one finds members of the Society of Friends. Why? In part because they have been willing to fail year after year between those great moments. Because they have been willing in good times and bad -- in the instructions of their early leader George Fox -- "to walk cheerfully over the face of the earth answering that of God in every one "

The existentialists knew how to stand outside of history as well. Existentialism, which has been described as the idea that no one can take your shower for you, is based on the hat trick of passion, integrity and rebellion. An understanding that we create ourselves by what we do and say and that, in the words of one of their philosophers, even a condemned man has a choice of how to approach the gallows.

Those who think history has left us helpless should recall the abolitionist of 1830, the feminist of 1870, the labor organizer of 1890, or the gay or lesbian writer of 1910. They, like us, did not get to choose their time in history but they, like us, did get to choose what they did with it.

Would we have been abolitionists in 1830?

In 1848, 300 people gathered at Seneca Falls, NY, for a seminal moment in the American women's movement. On November 2, 1920, 91 year-old Charlotte Woodward Pierce became the only signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions who had lived long enough to cast a ballot for president.

Would we have attended that conference in 1848? Would we have bothered?

Or consider the Jewish cigar makers in early 20th century New York City each contributing a small sum to hire a man to sit with them as they worked - reading aloud the classic works of Yiddish literature. The leader of the cigar-makers, Samuel Gompers, would later become the first president of the American Federation of Labor. And those like him would become part of a Jewish tradition that profoundly shaped the politics, social conscience, and cultural course of 20th century America. It is certainly impossible to imagine liberalism, the civil rights movement, or the Vietnam protests without the Jewish left.

These are the sort of the stories we must find and tell each other during the bad days ahead. But there is a problem. The system that envelopes us becomes normal by its mere mass, its ubiquitous messages, its sheer noise. Our society faces what William Burroughs called a biologic crisis -- "like being dead and not knowing it." Or as Matthew Arnold put it, trapped between two worlds, one dead, the other unable to be born.

The unwitting dead -- universities, newspapers, publishing houses, institutes, councils, foundations, churches, political parties -- reach out from the past to rule us with fetid paradigms from the bloodiest and most ecologically destructive century of human existence. What should be merely portraits on the wall of our memories run our lives still, like parents who retain perpetual hegemony over the souls of their children.

Yet even as we complain about and denounce the entropic culture in which we find ourselves, we are unable bury it. We speak of a new age but make endless accommodations with the old. We are overpowered and afraid.

To accept the full consequences of the degradation of the environment, the explosion of incarceration, the creeping militarization, the dismantling of democracy, the commodification of culture, the contempt for the real, the culture of impunity among the powerful and the zero tolerance towards the weak, requires a courage that seems beyond us. We do not know how to look honestly at the wreckage without an overwhelming sense of surrender; far easier to just keep dancing and hope someone else fixes it all.

We are overpowered and afraid. We find ourselves condoning things simply because not to do so means we would then have to -- at unknown risk -- truly challenge them.

Yet, in a perverse way, our predicament makes life simpler. We have clearly lost what we have lost. We can give up our futile efforts to preserve the illusion and turn our energies instead to the construction of a new time.

It is this willingness to walk away from the seductive power of the present that first divides the mere reformer from the rebel -- the courage to emigrate from one's own ways in order to meet the future not as an entitlement but as a frontier.

How one does this can vary markedly, but one of the bad habits we have acquired from the bullies who now run the place is undue reliance on traditional political, legal and rhetorical tools. Politically active Americans have been taught that even at the risk of losing our planet and our democracy, we must go about it all in a rational manner, never raising our voice, never doing the unlikely or trying the improbable, let alone screaming for help.

We will not overcome the current crisis solely with political logic. We need living rooms like those in which women once discovered they were not alone. The freedom schools of SNCC. The politics of the folk guitar. The plays of Vaclav Havel. Unitarian church basements. The pain of James Baldwin. The laughter of Abbie Hoffman. The strategy of Gandhi and King. Unexpected gatherings and unpredicted coalitions. People coming together because they disagree on every subject save one: the need to preserve the human. Savage satire and gentle poetry. Boisterous revival and silent meditation. Grand assemblies and simple suppers.

Above all, we must understand that in leaving the toxic ways of the present we are healing ourselves, our places, and our planet. We must rebel not as a last act of desperation but as a first act of creation.

NYC CHANCELLOR USED TAXPAYER'S TIME TO RAISE MONEY FOR CONSERVATIVE EDUCATION LOBBY

NY Post - Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has used taxpayers' time to raise $1.5 million for a national nonprofit he co-founded last year -- with the blessing of the city's ethics board, The Post has learned. In November, Klein and other top Department of Education staffers were quietly granted permission by the city's Conflict of Interest Board to raise funds "using both city time and city resources" for the Education Equality Project.

Klein co-founded the group in June 2008 to push for national reforms aimed at closing the educational achievement gap between white and minority students. Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernie Logan, who is himself a signatory of the Education Equality Project's platform, called the fund-raising arrangement "the most absurd thing I've ever heard." But education officials argued the nonprofit's agenda advanced the city's educational efforts.

BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS MEET WITH FIDEL

LA Times - The aging, ailing, cigar-smoking icon Fidel Castro had three members of Congress visit with him in Havana, which resulted in the bearded one asking, "How can we help President Obama?" In an effort to improve the relationship between Cuba and the U.S., Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) were the first U.S. officials to meet with the 82-year-old former dictator since his intestinal surgery in July 2006.

Greg Adams of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana confirmed that the three members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro, who handed the communist torch to his brother Raul in early 2007. . . . Six members of the caucus met with Raul Castro on Monday for more than four hours. That meeting was also a first, as he had not yet met with any U.S. officials since he became the Cuban in charge.

"I'm convinced Raul Castro wants a normal relationship with the United States," Lee said after the meeting with the 77-year-old, the Associated Press reported. "He's serious."

TAPED EVIDENCE THAT ARMY IS CONCEALNG POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AMONG VETS

Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin, Salon - For more than a year [Sergeant X] been seeking treatment at Fort Carson for a brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, the signature injuries of the Iraq war. Sgt. X is also suffering through the Army's confusing disability payment system, handled by something called a medical evaluation board. The process of negotiating the system has been made harder by his war-damaged memory. Sgt. X's wife has to go with him to doctor's appointments so he'll remember what the doctor tells him. . .

When she couldn't accompany him to an appointment with psychologist Douglas McNinch last June, Sgt. X tucked a recording device into his pocket and set it on voice-activation so it would capture what the doctor said. Sgt. X had no idea that the little machine in his pocket was about to capture recorded evidence of something wounded soldiers and their advocates have long suspected -- that the military does not want Iraq veterans to be diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that obligates the military to provide expensive, intensive long-term care, including the possibility of lifetime disability payments. And, as Salon will explore in a second article, after the Army became aware of the tape, the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to investigate its implications, despite prodding from a senator who is not on the committee. The Army then conducted its own internal investigation -- and cleared itself of any wrongdoing. . .

"OK," McNinch told Sgt. X. "I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead]." McNinch told him that Army medical boards were "kick[ing] back" his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have "serious PTSD issues."

"Unfortunately," McNinch told Sgt. X, "yours has not been the only case ... I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair. I think it's a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, 'Well, these people don't have PTSD,' and stuff like that."

HOMELAND SECURITY READY TO RUIN HISTORIC HOSPITAL

NY Times - St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington was founded in 1852 as an insane asylum. It is the site of a $3.4 billion headquarters for the Homeland Security Department, the largest public building project since the Pentagon during World War II. . .

The mammoth undertaking has also drawn sharp criticism from preservationists, who say it will be devastating to a certified national historic landmark, the now-shuttered St. Elizabeths Hospital, a pioneering mental institution. Its residents over the years have included the poet and fascist propagandist Ezra Pound after World War II and, more recently, John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Objections were also raised by the National Park Service and the United States Department of the Interior, which owns parkland through which an access road is to be carved. Nevertheless, construction is to begin by Sept. 30 . . . The G.S.A. promises to restore 52 of 62 historic structures. . .

The strongest outside objections have come from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which issued a report in 2007 concluding that more than 2.5 million square feet of development would overwhelm the national historic landmark.

HISTORIC PHOTOS FROM ST. ELIZABETHS

NIH - Established in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, St. Elizabeths HospitalDistrict of Columbia." During the Civil War, wounded soldiers treated here were reluctant to admit that they were in an insane asylum, and said they were at St. Elizabeths, the colonial name of the land where the Hospital is located. Congress officially changed the Hospital's name to St. Elizabeths in 1916. By the 1940s, the Hospital complex covering an area of over 300 acres housed 7,000 patients. It was the first and only federal mental facility with a national scope.

In 1987, the federal government transferred the hospital operations to the DC Department of Mental Health, while retaining ownership of the western campus. The original 1850s building has been designated a National Historic Landmark. On the grounds of St. Elizabeths, there is also a Civil War cemetery where 300 Union and Confederate soldiers who died here are buried. The Hospital complex is located on a hill in southeast Washington, overlooking the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. However, it is closed to the public.

Wikipedia - It is speculated that St. Elizabeths has treated over 125,000 patients, though an exact number is not known due to poor recordkeeping. Additionally, thousands of patients are believed to be buried in unmarked graves across the campus, but, again, records for the individuals buried in the graves have been lost. More than 15,000 known autopsies were performed at St. Elizabeths between 1884 and 1982, and a collection of over 1,400 brains preserved in formaldehyde, 5,000 photographs of brains, and 100,000 slides of brain tissue was maintained by the hospital until it was transferred to a museum in 1986. In addition to the mental health patients buried on the campus, several hundred Civil War soldiers are interred there as well.

At its peak, the St. Elizabeths campus housed 7,000 patients and employed 4,000 people. Beginning in the 1950s, however, large institutions such as St. Elizabeths were being criticized for hindering the treatment of patients. Community-based healthcare, which included local outpatient facilities and drug therapy, was seen as a more effective means of allowing patients to live near-normal lives. The patient population of St. Elizabeths steadily declined.

BREVITAS


Tree Hugger - Eric Morrow, executive director of the Maendeleo Foundation in Uganda, operates a computer-lab-on-wheels that takes teachers to multiple schools each week to provide PC skills, training to up to 100 children per day. Topped with solar panels to re-charge the computers, the MSCC is a modified SUV with a foldable tent, tables, chairs and 15 Intel-powered classmate PCs. The foundation hopes to open the doors to better paying jobs and to spur an African-owned and operated computer services industry to boost local economies, decrease unemployment and help alleviate poverty.

MONEY & WORK

CEPR - A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that unionization significantly boosts the wages of service-sector workers. The report finds that unionization raises the wages of the average service-sector worker by 10 percent, which translates to about $2.00 per hour. On average, unionization increases the likelihood that the average service-sector worker will have employer provided health insurance by 19 percentage points. Unionized service-sector workers were also 25 percentage points more likely to have a pension than their non-union peers.

MID EAST

Anti War - Haaretz is reporting that in recent days, officials from the Obama Administration have been briefing Congressional Democrats that they expect a clash with Israel's new Netanyahu-led government over the Palestinian peace process. It was speculated that the briefing was an attempt to preempt an attempt by Netanyahu to bypass the administration and lobby Congress directly.

Anti War - Less than a week after declaring that the new Israeli government did not consider itself bound by the Annapolis Conference commitment to a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman today declared that all peace talks with the Palestinians were "at a dead end." Minister Lieberman also cautioned foreign powers to "not interfere" in Israeli affairs, seen by some as a reference to President Barack Obama's comments in favor of a two-state solution. He insisted that Israel has "never interfered in the affairs of others, and we expect from others that they not interfere in ours." Speaking at the convention of his Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman declared that most of the world had come to accept his ideas, and that the only people who take issue with them are Israeli leftists. His party gained enormously in this year's elections, on the back of Lieberman's pro-war statements and the demand that Arabs take loyalty oaths or lose their citizenship.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Susanne King, Berkshire Eagle - As we know from our Massachusetts experience with health care reform, preserving the role of private health insurance companies does not lead to universal coverage or contain rising health care costs. The Massachusetts reform program has not been affordable for the individual or for the state, and access to health care continues to be problematic, with nearly a quarter of the state's residents saying they had difficulty getting care in 2008. . . Four hundred billion dollars would be saved annually by eliminating insurance company profits and overhead, as well as the paperwork that burdens doctors and hospitals. Dr. Uwe Reinhardt said at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, "We have 900 billing clerks at Duke (a 900 bed university hospital). I'm not sure we have a nurse per bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed. . . it's obscene."

POLICE BLOTTER

Star Telegram, TX - A woman who ordered shrimp fried rice at A&D Buffalo's called police when she believed that she didn't get the extra shrimp she had requested. Cook June Lee said Monday that there wasn't anything wrong with the meal. She started yelling, and said that she wasn't happy," Lee said. The woman left the restaurant in the 4000 block of East Belknap Street and called for a patrol officer shortly after 3 p.m. But when the officer arrived, the woman and her boyfriend were gone. . . In March, a woman was cited by police in Florida for misuse of a 911 system when she called dispatchers to complain that she couldn't get a refund when a McDonald's ran out of McNuggets and offered her a McDouble instead.

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