Undernews For January 7, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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Editor: Sam Smith

7 January 2009

FLOTSAM & JETSAM

TIME TO STOP BEING AFRAID OF ISRAEL
Sam Smith

Every time Israel doesn't something mean, cruel or stupid you can almost hear the sound of liberals and progressives rushing for a place to hide. Strip away the rhetoric and the excuses and the problem basically comes down to the fact that people don't like being called anti-Semitic.

It's a great shtick the Israelis have used so effectively that behaving appropriately towards their country has cost the U.S. over $100 billion since Israel was founded. For gratitude we have been granted a plethora of unnecessary conflicts, anger in the Muslim world that contributed to 9/11 and the madness of the war on terror, as well as periodic spying on the U.S. by Israeli agents. What other country to whom we have given so much has been so loath to return the favor?

Israel's attack on Gaza, for example, is not only vicious, inexcusable and a violation of international law, it is a direct attempt to interfere with American politics by making sure Obama's hands are completely tied.

Yet, once again, the Israelis are getting away with it because even such supposedly enlightened corners of America as the media and liberal groups are afraid to take them on.

If, the other hand, one feels that it is far worst to support a cruel and unnecessary war than it is to be labeled an anti-Semite then it may be time to be as brave in the face of right wing Jewish accusations as we are confronting criticism by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. It is, after all, a partner in illogic - of the sort where unsupportable accusations are used to drown actual facts - such as the constant evocation of the Holocaust in which past victims are shamefully dishonored by using them to justify the creation of still more victims.

Once you take the simple liberating step of saying that you don't give a damn what Abe Foxman says about you, then the whole Mid East issue takes on a new look.

For example, you are suddenly free to wonder whether some sort of boycott against Israel might not be worthwhile. As UN General Assembly President, Miguel D'Escoto Brockman put it recently, "More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we. . . should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Such a boycott might include all of the following: AOL Time Warner, Coca-Cola, Disney, Estee Lauder, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oreal, Nokia, Revlon, Sara Lee, Home Depot, Starbucks, Timberland, or McDonald's. Or it might include just one for ease of organizing.

Another approach would be a campaign to cut aid to Israel. A modest ten percent - $300 million - would start to make the point.

If you're not quite up to being at least as tough on Israel as Congress was on the auto workers, there are other ways to make your discomfort known - including sending some money to groups like the New Israel Fund that are trying to set an example of what a progressive Israel would be like.

But whatever the approach one prefers, we should all take a New Year's vow not to be afraid of pro-Israeli extremists anymore. They are bullies and it's long past time that we started treating them as such.
HOMELAND SECURITY CAPTURES SENATOR LEAHY
This is old news but it is too good to let disappear without a trace. Speaking at a Senate hearing on homeland security (sic) last March, Senator Patrick Leahy offered this ignored testimony:

Senator Leahy - DHS established a temporary checkpoint on I-91 in Hartford, Vt. from Dec 2003 -May 2005. I'd wondered how you can spend that kind of money so far from the border. Even people like former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said this is unnecessary government intrusion. If it made us safer it would be one thing, but of course there are about 20 parallel two-laned roads that go down there. And the checkpoint picked up a couple lazy people with drugs. But mostly it just ticked off everybody.

So I'd asked about that at my last hearing because we had heard that the department was quietly conducting a feasibility study to see whether it would build a permanent checkpoint there - a hundred miles from the border. . .

I'm worried only because we don't have the adequate number of people on the border. We sometimes have hours, hours wait, just for tourist to go across the border. And of course it will get worse once it starts to require more paperwork. Many of the lanes aren't open, we are short of people there. But somehow we can put symbolic checkpoints 100 miles from the border.

It's interesting - I went through one of those symbolic checkpoints in the state of New York driving back here. It was about 125 miles from the border. In a car with license plate on it from Vermont. With little letters underneath it that said US Senate. We were stopped and ordered to get out of the car and prove my citizenship. And I said "what authority are you acting under?" and one of your agents pointed to his gun and said "that's all the authority I need." Encouraging way to enter our country.
BLAMING HISPANICS FOR HOUSING CRISIS

Chief Organizer - There was an incredible and irresponsible article in the Wall Street Journal by Susan Schmidt and Maurice Tamman called "Housing Push for Hispanics Spawns Wave of Foreclosure" in which once again there is an effort to blame the folks at the bottom for the mistakes at the top. Perhaps worse, the conclusions from the statistics the Journal uses to excuse its business base instead make the case for a huge advance in citizen wealth for Hispanic families. What in the world could be wrong with that? Here are the facts the reporters shared:

There was a huge 47% increase in home ownership for Hispanics in the USA in a seven-year period from 2000-2007 that saw 2 million Hispanic families become new homeowners in that period and the total numbers of Hispanic homeowners go from 4.1 million to 6.1 million.

Since there are very few tools as powerful as homeownership for increasing citizen wealth, this is a huge advance on all fronts. . .

The foreclosure rate across all US counties where Hispanic families constitute more than 25% of the population is 6.7 homes per 1000, while it is 4.6 homes per 1000 families overall. . .

If the 6.7% foreclosure rate was applied against all 2 million new Hispanic homeowners, that would mean that 134,000 of the new 2 million Hispanic homeowners had lost their houses. That would be a tragedy no doubt for all 134 thousand of these homeowners, but it is still good news for 1,866,000 Hispanic families who are still homeowners. . .

Remember as well that the foreclosure estimates now range past 5,000,000 homes. Lots of everybody losing homes, and it certainly does not seem inordinately Hispanic when you look at the numbers without bias. .
IMPORTANT GLACIER MELTING AT MORE THAN GLACIAL SPEED

Telegraph, UK - With the possible exception of the ice that covers Greenland, the West Antarctic ice shelf is the most important body of water in the world. If it thaws, the results will be disastrous for millions, raising sea levels and flooding coastal cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and Calcutta. So it is understandable that scientists are alarmed as to why one particular section of it - Pine Island Glacier - is melting so much faster than the rest.

Pine Island, which contains around 30 trillion liters of water, is slipping into the sea at an ever accelerating rate, a development that alone could raise sea levels by as much as 10cm over the next century. Starting at an altitude of 2,500m, the glacier is 95 miles long and 18 miles wide, reaching the sea as an ice wall 750m high. Even before it began to speed up, it was one of the fastest-flowing glaciers in the world, at nine yards a day.

Scientists believe that the thinning of the glacier, and its acceleration, are due to unusual melting under the base as it enters the ocean. This is caused by either global warming or a hitherto unknown factor, such as an underwater volcano.

Finding proof of either, however, has been problematic. The mountain glaciers in the west of the Antarctic have the worst blizzards and some of the harshest temperatures on the planet. The zone is too hostile for any research station, so scientists have to base information on satellite studies and aerial surveys.
OBAMA'S TOP JUSTICE PICKS WORKED FOR RIAA MOGULS

Declan McCullagh, CNET - As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the "free culture" movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party.

That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension Act--the same law that Lessig and his allies unsuccessfully sued to overturn. . .

Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music.

Perrelli is currently a partner in the Washington offices of Jenner and Block, where he represented the RIAA in a a slew of cases, including a high-profile bid to unmask file sharers without the requirement of a judge reviewing the evidence first. Verizon initially lost to the RIAA, but eventually prevailed in 2003 when a federal appeals court ruled the record labels' strategy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was unlawful.

Perrelli has represented the RIAA in other lawsuits against individual file sharers. One filed in Michigan accuses a university student of distributing "hundreds of sound recordings over his system without the authorization of the copyright owners." A lawsuit against a Princeton University student makes similar arguments; Perrelli and his colleagues also tried to force Charter Communications to give up the names of 93 file-trading subscribers.

A 2004 summary of a Boston lawsuit written by Harvard's Berkman Center--which opposed the RIAA in this and a current case--quotes Perrelli as telling a federal judge that it would be easy to determine who was using a wireless network to share music. "It is correct that the actual downloader may be someone else in the household," he said, but any errors can be determined easily after a "modest amount of discovery.". . .

Obama's choice for deputy attorney general--the second-in-command at Justice--is David Ogden, who's currently a partner at the WilmerHale law firm.

As assistant attorney general for the civil division, Ogden was responsible for organizing the defense of the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, an antiporn law that has been challenged by the ACLU in court for more than a decade with no resolution. His department also successfully defended the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ogden's biography at Wilmer Hale says only that he represents the "media and Internet industries, as well as major trade and professional associations," without listing details.

Obama loses 2 points on the Obama Meter for these selections. Obama's rarting now stands at 18%
GIRL KILLED IN ISRAELI INVASION OF GAZA

AFTENBLADET
RICK WARREN INVOLVED WITH RIGHT WING AFRICAN PREACHERS ANTI GAY AND DAMAGING AIDS EFFORTS

Max Blumenthal, Daily Beast - Team Obama likes to cite Warren's work on AIDS in Africa to combat criticism about the controversial pastor. But how does burning condoms in the name of Jesus save lives?. .

Warren's defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa. Obama senior advisor David Axelrod cited Warren's work in Africa as one of "the things on which [Obama and Warren] agree" on the December 28 episode of Meet the Press. . .

However, an investigation into Warren's involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education. More disturbingly, Warren's allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent's most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations' special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is "resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred."

Warren's man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempe enjoys close ties to his country's First Lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa's stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.
ACLU SUES FOR GROUP OFFERING ALTERNATIVE RECRUITING TO MILITARY

Monte Mitchell, Winston Salem Journal, NC - The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Wilkes Superior Court on behalf of N.C. Peace Action and a Wilkes County pacifist who says she has been denied access to talk to students about alternative careers to the military. The dis¬pute be¬tween the school system and Sal Ferrell, a Wilkes representative for N.C. Peace Action, has been going on for nearly four years. Both sides said they regret that the issue is going to court, but both said they are convinced that their side is right.

Ferrell said that military recruiters are allowed in the county high schools to present information to attract students, and she wants to recruit for such groups as AmeriCorps, while also presenting information that could lead students to decide that the military is not the right choice for them. Ferrell says she has tried to talk to students about the same things that military recruiters talk about, including how long the commitments are, the working conditions and other information. . . Laws, the superintendent of Wilkes County Schools, said that the school system's policy allows recruiters to promote the benefits of the recruiter's own program or group, but not to denigrate other groups.
BUSH'S APPROACH TO SOCIAL SECURITY PROVED A DISASTER. . .IN ITALY

Bloomberg - Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn't do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn't have been worse.

The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to private funds meant to yield higher returns. Anger is rising both at the state, which promoted the change, and money managers such as UniCredit SpA and Arca Previdenza, which stood to profit.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's administration is now considering ways to compensate as many as 1.2 million people who made the switch, giving up a fixed return for private plans linked to financial markets. It's also letting people delay redemptions on retirement funds to avoid losses after Italy's benchmark stock index fell 50 percent in 2008, destroying 300 billion euros ($423 billion) in wealth.

"The reform didn't help anyone," said Gabriele Fava, who heads the Fava & Associati law firm in Milan and writes about labor law. "Not the government, which was hoping everyone would make the switch to take the strain off its coffers, nor the workers who have not resolved the problem of needing a supplement to their social security pensions."
NAT HENTOFF: JAZZ AND DEMOCRACY
Sam Smith - We'll still be blessed by his syndicated column, but now that the Village Voice has dumped Nat Hentoff, I'm reminded of what a long and steady influence he has been in my life. I first read him - not as most would today, dealing with such critical issues as our civil liberties - but when he was jazz critic for Down Beat, the must read of any high school and college drummer like myself, especially one who had a show, "Jam With Sam" on the campus radio station. For students like myself, Hentoff was right up there with Freud, Marx and Darwin and other such less swinging minds to which we were being introduced. His evolution from jazz critic to defender of the Constitution makes sense because jazz is one of the great metaphors of democracy.

The essence of jazz is the same as that of democracy: the greatest amount of individual freedom consistent with a healthy community. Each musician is allowed extraordinary liberty during a solo and then is expected to conscientiously back up the other musicians in turn. The two most exciting moments in jazz are during flights of individual virtuosity and when the entire musical group seems to become one. The genius of jazz (and democracy) is that the same people are willing and able to do both.

Daniel King, Jazz Times - From syndicated columnist to social historian, Constitutional scholar and music critic, Nat Hentoff has played many roles in the field of journalism since the 1950s, but none more notable in the eyes of jazz fans than his roles as leading jazz historian, biographer and anecdotist.

He attended Northeastern University and Harvard University in the 40s and hosted a radio show on WMEX in Boston. He took strongly to the local Boston jazz scene and after studying a year at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950, he returned to the United States to become associate editor of Down Beat magazine (1953-1957). From there, he launched what would soon become one of the most celebrated careers in jazz journalism.

Hentoff was co-editor of the short-lived Jazz Review from 1958 to 1961 and A&R director of the Candid label in 1960 to 1961, during which time he produced important sessions by musicians Charles Mingus, Phil Woods, Benny Bailey, Otis Spann, Cecil Taylor, Abbey Lincoln and other jazz giants.

Apart from Hentoff's fame in the jazz world, he has also become a fixture in the debate over free speech; a dual-tasked spokesperson whose writing on jazz music and the First Amendment has done much to concretize the link between the two ideals. His writing on the American legal system landed him an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award, an honorary doctorate of law from Northeastern University, a Guggenheim Fellowship in education and the respect of a faithful readership worldwide.

Nat Hentoff, Village Voice - I'm not retiring; I've never forgotten my exchange on that decision with Duke Ellington. In those years, he and the band played over 200 one-nighters a year, with jumps from, say, Toronto to Dallas. On one of his rare nights off, Duke looked very beat, and I presumptuously said: "You don't have to keep going through this. With the standards you've written, you could retire on your ASCAP income."

Duke looked at me as if I'd lost all my marbles. "Retire!" he crescendoed. "Retire to what?!"

I'm still writing. In 2009, the University Press of California will publish my At the Jazz Band Ball: 60 Years on the Jazz Scene, and, later in the year, a sequel to The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance will be out on Seven Stories Press with the title Is This America? And I'll be breaking categories elsewhere, including in my weekly syndicated United Media column, which reaches 250 papers, and my jazz and country music pieces in The Wall Street Journal.

I came here in 1958 because I wanted a place where I could write freely on anything I cared about. There was no pay at first, but the Voice turned out to be a hell of a resounding forum. My wife, Margot-later an editor here and a columnist far more controversial than I've been-called what this paper was creating "a community of consciousness." Though a small Village "alternative" newspaper, we were reaching many around the country who were turned off by almost any establishment you could think of.

Being here early on, I felt I'd finally been able to connect with what had first startled and excited me as I was reading my journalism mentor, George Seldes, the first press critic. When I was 15, I saw his four-page newsletter, "In Fact: An Antidote to Falsehoods in the Daily Press." He broke stories I'd never seen in any other paper, including The New York Times, stories that gave scientific data on how cigarette smoking caused cancer.

Seldes was also a labor man. You could find "In Fact" in some union halls, and for years, his name was blacked out of The New York Times because, in 1934, he testified about journalists' wages before the National Labor Relations Board just as the Newspaper Guild was trying to organize the Times. . .

Seldes was also my hero when, after Senator Joseph McCarthy called him into a closed-door session to admit to his Bolshevism, the Great Red Hunter eventually came out of the room, looking unprecedentedly subdued as he told the waiting press that Seldes had been "cleared." George had intimidated Tailgunner Joe. . .

At 94, Seldes was no longer in the news business, but as I came into his hotel room around nine one morning, he was doing what I do every morning: tearing pages out of stacks of newspapers. Instead of saying, "Hello," he grabbed a handful of clips, gave them to me, and said, "You ought to look into these stories!" Then, smiling, he said, "I'm getting old, yes, but to hell with being mellow." In 1995, he died at the age of 104 in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont.

My other main mentor, I.F. "Izzy" Stone, was inspired by "In Fact" to start "I.F. Stone's Weekly," where mainstream newspaper reporters also sent stories that they couldn't get into their own papers.

One of the lessons I learned from Izzy was to avoid press conferences: "You're not going to get the real story there," he'd say. Instead, I learned from him to find mid-level workers in bureaucracies whom reporters seldom thought to interview. . .

I was in my twenties when I learned my most important lesson from Izzy Stone: "If you're in this business because you want to change the world, get another day job. If you are able to make a difference, it will come incrementally, and you might not even know about it. You have to get the story and keep on it because it has to be told."

Around the country, a lot of reporters are being excessed, and print newspapers may soon become collectors' items. But over the years, my advice to new and aspiring reporters is to remember what Tom Wicker, a first-class professional spelunker, then at The New York Times, said in a tribute to Izzy Stone: "He never lost his sense of rage."

Neither have I. See you somewhere else. Finally, I'm grateful for the comments on the phone and the Web. It's like hearing my obituaries while I'm still here.
AFGHNISTAN: OBAMA'S IRAQ?

Tom Hayden, Huffington Post - The war in Iraq already is fading from public view, although more than 140, 000 American troops remain stationed there. The major television networks have withdrawn. US casualties are far fewer than in traffic accidents on American streets. Iraqi violence is down as well, with 8,955 civilian deaths in 2008 compared to 51,894 in the bloodiest years of 2006-2007. The shift is towards a low-visibility counterinsurgency war like those that ravaged Central America in the 1970s.

The conditions for a massive social movement against the Iraq War are ebbing, for now, unless large-scale fighting suddenly resumes or President Obama unexpectedly caves in to the Pentagon and blatantly breaks his promise to withdraw combat troops in 16 months and all troops by 2011.

That makes Afghanistan the growing focal point for public debate over what counterinsurgency gurus call "the long war" against Islamic jihad. . .

The Pentagon paradigm is to defeat al-Qaeda militarily while refusing to address, and thereby worsening, the dire conditions that gave rise to the Taliban and al- Qaeda operatives in the first place. . .

There are some 36,000 US troops stretched across Afghanistan, another 17,500 under NATO command, and 18,000 in counterinsurgency and training roles. It costs the Pentagon $2 billion per month to support the American troops. . .

Even Afghanistan's client president, Hamid Karzai, complains of extra-judicial killings and civilian casualties from the American air war, a pattern of repression and suffering which will only worsen with more American troops pouring into combat zones.

Meanwhile, the war in Pakistan and other Central Asian countries will expand as the additional US troops seek to recover supply lines closed by recent Taliban attacks. [. . .

The question is not simply a moral one, but whether the expanding war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fueled by troop transfers from Iraq, is winnable, and in what sense?

Transferring an additional 20, 000 American troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, which Obama proposes, is symbolic, a step on the treadmill of escalation. The American troop level will be pushed to 58,000, in addition to 30,000 other foreign troops. Obama may be proposing an escalation simply in order not to lose, a pattern well documented in Daniel Ellsberg's history of the Vietnam War.

The questionable premise of the coming escalation is that military success must precede any political solution. . . But it could deepen the quagmire and turn more Afghans against Obama and the US as well. . .

If Obama appears to be negotiating a diplomatic solution with some success, he will enjoy wide support within the media and Congress. If the additional 20-30,000 American troops appear to be "stabilizing" the situation, public criticism may be modest in scale. But there is widespread, if latent, public opposition to anything resembling an occupation or quagmire in Afghanistan-Pakistan, especially with the American economy in dire straights. The time is coming when these will be known as Obama's wars, and seen as an unproductive distraction from his main mission as president. . .

BREVITAS

ALL IN THE FAMILY

NY Times - An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project. Robert J. Congel donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation as Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed bills to help his mall project. Mrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J. Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.

Mrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction. . . Mr. Congel and Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, both said there was no connection between his donation and her legislative work on his project's behalf. Mr. Reines said Mrs. Clinton supported the expansion of Carousel mall "purely as part of her unwavering commitment to improving upstate New York's struggling economy, and nothing more."

Portland Press Herald, ME - Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson has instructed local police to treat certain crimes, including some cases of operating with a suspended license, as traffic offenses in order to reduce prosecutors' caseloads. An increase in criminal cases and the loss of a prosecutor to state budget cuts have left the district attorney looking for ways to trim roughly 4,000 cases per year from the criminal docket.

Boston money manager Harry Markopolos sent a stunning memo to the SEC's New York office in November 2005. In the memo, he says, "The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud." Of course, he was talking about Bernie Madoff's investment fund. In the memo, he lays out a compelling case for why Madoff's investment returns were impossible and even goes as far as to call the operation a Ponzi scheme. It appears that Markopolos' memo was not taken seriously, as the SEC only performed cursory investigations of Madoff's firm and declined to subpoena documents to determine the validity of Madoff's claims. Text of memo

ARTS & CULTURE

Discovery Channel - Stonehenge was built as a dance arena for prehistoric "samba-style" raves, according to a study of the acoustics of the 5,000-year-old stone circle. . . Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University in northern England, discovered that Stonehenge's megaliths reflect sound perfectly, making the stone circle an ideal setting for listening to repetitive trance rhythms.

OBAMALAND

We've spotted the term "Obama haters" for the first time. . on the Open Left site. The use of the term "hater" for someone who opposes a particularly politician gained widespread use by the Clintonistas. Anyone who didn't agree with Clinton was a hater, a phrase that raised Clinton to the status of other oppressed peoples of the world like blacks and Jews. Clever but pretty sick.

DRUG BUSTS

Boston Globe - Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana. "We're just basically not enforcing it right now," said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. . . Andrew J. Sluckis Jr., chief of police in Auburn, said his 39 officers would not be issuing $100 citations for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, as required under the ballot initiative . . . "If the Legislature enacts some changes, we'll be happy to do it in the future, but as it stands now we're not going to be issuing civil citations," he said. If an officer spots someone smoking marijuana, he said, "We will confiscate it and the person will be sent on their way."

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

Harry Reid is not only wrong, he's a little delusional. Here's from a memo he sent out the day after the Burris disaster: "Yesterday was a terrific day to be a Democrat. We swore in 7 new senators, a true testament to all the hard work you put in to ensure a Democratic victory last November. We still face huge challenges - a slumping economy, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a looming climate crisis. But looking out over the Senate chamber yesterday, I feel more confident than ever that our new senators - backed by your tireless grassroots support - will be a huge part of turning this country around." Unless, of course, Harry Reid screws it up again.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

LA Times - Blue Shield has agreed to reissue medical coverage to nearly 700 Californians that the company dropped after they got sick and to make other changes in the way it handles insurance purchased by individuals, state officials said. . . The deal is the latest between state regulators and health insurers that attempts to settle investigations prompted by a series of articles in The Times examining rescission, the controversial practice of canceling policyholders after they get sick. Most of the state's major health insurers remain mired in litigation over the practice that led to the cancellation of thousands of policies of sick patients, as well as financial losses for them, physicians and hospitals. . . Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said he hoped the settlement would "make whole" 678 consumers dropped by Blue Shield and "put an end to rescission practices that were hurting consumers."

HOW SERIOUS IS NUT POISONING?

CITIES

Seattle Times - Following the lead of cities such as London and Singapore, officials in San Francisco are considering a plan to ease traffic by charging drivers a fee upon entering notoriously clogged sections of the city. Using $1 million in federal funds, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is studying various "congestion-pricing" options. If approved, such pricing would make San Francisco the first U.S. city to charge cars a fee to enter certain neighborhoods at certain times. . . In 2003, London began charging drivers to enter the central part of the city; Singapore and Stockholm, Sweden, also have such fees. Last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg advocated a proposal to charge drivers $8 upon entering a heavily trafficked part of Manhattan, but the plan died in the state Assembly.

SUSTAIN YOURSELF

Tree Hugger - We often write about how the dumb solutions make a lot more sense than the complicated and expensive ones. A great example is the Hurriquake nail, designed by Ed Sutt of Bostitch. For just fifteen bucks over the cost of a house, it makes it twice as resistant to high winds and 50% more resistant to earthquake forces. All through careful design of a nail. We often use ring nails on flooring or for drywall (they hold better; according to a nail guide, "When pounded into wood, they split the fibers. The fibers then settle into the spaces between the rings for an incredibly strong hold." Spiral nails act much like screws and grab tightly as well.
But a spiral nail doesn't cut away as much metal and has better shear strength, needed for lateral forces like an earthquake, so the Hurriquake nail combines both. Add a big head to withstand pull-through and you have a sophisticated little piece of wire.

ECO CLIPS

Daily Mail, UK - Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water. A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were at their highest in the UK. . The study uncovered pesticides in some fizzy drinks at up to 300 times the level permitted in tap water. . .

USA Today - Many hybrid car owners, who often get tax credits and special use of HOV lanes, are getting another perk: parking privileges. An increasing number of offices, hotels and others are giving drivers of hybrids free or reduced-cost parking or reserved spots closer to entrances, similar to those for the disabled or for pregnant women. They're following at least a dozen cities, which introduced such perks in 2004.

ELDERS

Unsilent Generation - As one of its final acts in the worst economic year since the Great Depression, the federal government passed legislation suspending for 2009 the rule requiring old people to withdraw a minimum amount of money from their 401Ks, IRAs, or other individual retirement accounts. The current rule imposes a 50 percent tax penalty on anyone over age 70 1/2 who fails to take their so-called mandatory distributions by the end of the year. . . The idea behind the legislation is that seniors shouldn't be forced to sell off their investments at a loss. Unfortunately, however, it applies to 2009, not 2008-which is, of course, when our retirement accounts got gutted. According to the New York Times, some members of Congress urged Henry Paulson's Treasury Department to apply the same change to 2008, but it declined to do so.

FREEDOM & JUSTICE

Washington Post - Jet Blue Airways and two officials with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration have paid $240,000 to settle charges that they illegally discriminated against an Iraqi-born U.S. resident who was barred from a flight until he covered his T-shirt, which carried an Arabic phrase, his attorneys announced yesterday. . . Jarrar, a U.S. legal permanent resident who immigrated in 2005 with his wife, an American citizen, alleged that he was barred from boarding an August 2006 flight to Oakland, Calif., because he wore a T-shirt that read "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic. He was not permitted to board until he covered his shirt and then was re-seated at the rear of the plane.

ACTIVIST UNMASKS HIMSELF AS FBI INFORMANT IN G.O.P. CONVENTION CASE

RECOVERED HISTORY

Discovery Channel - Stonehenge was built as a dance arena for prehistoric "samba-style" raves, according to a study of the acoustics of the 5,000-year-old stone circle. . . Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University in northern England, discovered that Stonehenge's megaliths reflect sound perfectly, making the stone circle an ideal setting for listening to repetitive trance rhythms.

FURTHERMORE . . .

Al Kamen, Washington Post - If Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) is confirmed this month as interior secretary, he'll have a snappy, scarcely used bathroom in his fifth-floor office, thanks to Dirk Kempthorne, the outgoing secretary. Seems Kempthorne spent about $235,000 in taxpayer funds renovating the bathroom a few months ago, which included installing a new shower, a refrigerator and a freezer and buying monogrammed towels, department officials told our colleague Derek Kravitz. . . "If Gale Norton needed to shower, at least she was conservative enough to go to the gym in the basement of the building," one career employee quipped, referring to Kempthorne's predecessor.

CRASH TALK

CNN - As more stores exit malls, vacancies in regional malls could rise past 7% by year-end, a level not hit since the first quarter of 2001, according to real estate research firm Reis. . . Many municipalities are heavily dependent on retailers for the tax revenue and jobs that they generate. For example, Montgomery County, Pa., gets as much as 50% of its tax revenue from the local King of Prussia mall. . . .The village of North Randall in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, is on the verge of extinction after a challenging economic and competitive climate has crippled business at the Randall Park Mall. The shopping center, once the largest enclosed mall in the greater Cleveland area, is closing after 32 years.

The International Council of Shopping Centers, in its most recent forecast, expects that 6,100 chain stores will shutter this year, the highest level since 2004 "as the U.S. recession continues to take its toll on the retail sector and its job market."

The ICSC projects that about 148,000 retail establishments - both public and private - will go out of business this year and another 73,000 stores will close in the first half of 2009.

The ICSC projects that about 625,000 retail jobs will be eliminated this year "with little change in the pace for early 2009."

World Socialist - For weeks, spokesmen for the incoming Barack Obama administration have suggested that they would respond to the economic crisis by launching a massive program of public spending, with some supporters comparing the scope of the planned economic stimulus package to Roosevelt's New Deal measures during the Great Depression.

Details of Obama's proposals began to emerge on Monday, and it is clear that the US president-elect is proposing a relatively small "stimulus" package, which will include further massive tax incentives for corporate America. The provisions for ordinary people will do next to nothing to alleviate the impact of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

This weekend the Obama transition team revealed that 40 percent of the estimated $675-775 billion it plans to spend over the next two years on its economic package would be earmarked for tax cuts, with about half going to big business.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the "Obama tax-cut proposals, if enacted, could pack more punch in two years than either of George W. Bush's tax cuts did in their first two years." Many of Obama's proposals, the newspaper wrote, were, in fact, extensions of measures carried out by the Republican administration over the last eight years. .

GAZA BEAT

Gush Shalom - At the same time as Ehud Barak was ordering the army to start the bloody ground offensive against Gaza, some ten thousand protesters from all over Israel marched in Tel-Aviv in a massive demonstration against the war.

"One does not build an election campaign over the dead bodies of children!" shouted the protesters in Hebrew rhymes. . .

The demonstration took place after a fight with the police, which tried to prevent or at least limit it, arguing that they would not be able to stop right-wing rioters from attacking it. Among other things, the police demanded that the organizers undertake to prevent the hoisting of Palestinian flags. The organizers petitioned the High Court of Justice, which decided that the Palestinian flag is legal and ordered the police to protect the demonstration from rioters,

The demonstration was decided upon by Gush Shalom and 20 other peace organizations, including the Women's Coalition for Peace, Anarchists Against the Wall, Hadash, the Alternative Information Center and New Profile. Meretz and Peace Now did not participate officially, but many of their members showed up. Some thousand Arab citizens from the north arrived in 20 buses straight from the big demonstration of the Arab public which had taken place in Sakhnin.

The organizers themselves were surprised by the large number of protesters. "A week after the start of Lebanon War II, we succeeded in mobilizing only 1000 demonstrators against it. The fact that today there came 10,000 proves that the opposition to the war is much stronger this time. If Barak goes on with his plans, public opinion may completely turn against the war in a few days."

Sara Roy, Christian Science Monitor - As Jews celebrated the last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights commemorating our resurgence as a people, I asked myself: How am I to celebrate my Jewishness while Palestinians are being killed?

The religious scholar Marc Ellis challenges us further by asking whether the Jewish covenant with God is present or absent in the face of Jewish oppression of Palestinians? Is the Jewish ethical tradition still available to us? Is the promise of holiness - so central to our existence - now beyond our ability to reclaim?. . .

It is one thing to take an individual's land, his home, his livelihood, to denigrate his claims, or ignore his emotions. It is another to destroy his child. What happens to a society where renewal is denied and all possibility has ended?

And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in Israel or not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries? Rather, we reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing. Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone.

Our rejection of "the other" will undo us. We must incorporate Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish understanding of history, because they are a part of that history. We must question our own narrative and the one we have given others, rather than continue to cherish beliefs and sentiments that betray the Jewish ethical tradition.

Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable - indeed, for some, it's an act of heresy - to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end.

Wired - On Dec. 31, just two days after Israel launched its current offensive against Hamas, U.S. Military Sealift Command issued a solicitation for two container vessels to ship ammunition from Greece to the Israeli port of Ashdod. . . Bids were requested by Jan. 5, but that does not mean a shipment will happen. "Funds are not currently available for this procurement," the solicitation states. "In the event funds remain unavailable, this procurement will be cancelled without an award being made."

Robert Fisk, Independent - Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead - almost all civilians, most of them children and women - in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. . .

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 - when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel - is on a quite different scale.

Dennis Kucinich - In light of press reports that Israeli forces fired on a United Nations school where civilians were taking shelter, I sent notice today to Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, that Israel's actions in Gaza may constitute a violation of the requirements of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976. When the president is aware of the possibility of such violations, the AECA requires a report to Congress on the potential violations. The AECA outlines the conditions under which countries may use military articles or services obtained from the U.S. government, which include "internal security" or "legitimate self defense." But the AECA prohibits actions that "increase the possibility of an outbreak or escalation of conflict." The Israeli assault on Gaza creates such a possibility because it is a vastly disproportionate response to the provocation, and the Palestinian population is suffering from those military attacks in numbers far exceeding Israeli losses in life and property.

READER COMMENTS

HOW CITIES AFFECT YOUR BRAIN

Why do you think artists and writers move to the country? We all need a Walden's Pond like Henry David Thoreau. I also find cities cause people to stop thinking because everything is manufactured and unnatural. No one even thinks twice where their food comes from or who will pick up the garbage if they cast it on the ground. One need not even give any thought to where one places one's feet as there is always a stair or concrete path. I find the urban environment entirely artificial and stifling. I would sooner live in hell than in a city. I find one of the most frightening things about cities is people's failure to make eye contact or to respect one another's personal space. It is dehumanizing. - Beth

One of the major ways cities harm us is by the constant noise level. It's just never-ending and practically impossible to escape. One good way to help reduce it would be electric vehicles. Imagine cities without the noise of traffic.

WHY REPUBLICANS WORRY ABOUT FDR

As a progressive Democrat, I have to disagree with this conclusion, which I find rather simplistic. If Obama continues with his plan to significantly increase the national deficits and national debt, he will essentially be handing the country over to the republicans. There's no way the Democrats can go to the American people with a $15-20 trillion dollar debt, and four years of trillion dollar-plus deficits, and expect to win. Sorry, not going to happen. Hope I'm wrong, though.

Actually, WWII spending alone wasn't enough to fix corporate capitalism's chronic over-accumulation and under-consumption problems. What really did the trick (at least for the u.s. economy) was when FDR (with the help of Hitler, Churchill and Stalin) blew up most of the plant and equipment in the world outside the US that postponed corporate capitalism's terminal crisis for a generation or so, until around 1970 when Europe and Japan had finally rebuilt their industrial capital. - Kevin Carson

DEMOCRATS READY TO PLAY GAMES WITH THE CAPITAL COLONY

"Statehood cannot be repealed."

What an extraordinary statement. Not correct though. Of course it can be repealed. The fact that the federal government has used violence to kill those who disagree doesn't change the facts. The supreme court hasn't ruled on the issue, because the lawyers know damn well that they would have no choice at all but to rule that it is legal for the voters of a state to go their own way, and so the lawyers won't let them rule. But you can't read the constitution and claim that there's any provision at all that prevents a state from doing what they want. No way. If so, show me the clause, please.

We were speaking of the federal government repealing statehood, not a state declaring its independence.

OBAMA AS A FOOD CRITIC

Why does the Review's staff seem to feel that this clip is pertinent to anything whatsoever? Explain, please.

The Review staff realizes that life would be truly dull if we only tended to the pertinent.

OBAMA SILENT ON ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL WAR

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies - but the silence of our friends." - Elder Lady

TIME TO STOP BEING AFRAID OF ISRAEL

"The Israelis" are not the bullies. A deeply flawed and misguided Israeli governmental policy and military are to blame here. As nearly always, it is the politicians--and their military arm-- who are at the root of the problem.

The piece is irresponsibly worded. In it, you continue to propagate the lack of distinction between Israeli political policy and the Jewish people--and Israeli citizenry--as an entirety. I foresee nothing from this but the encouragement toward more Jew-bashing posing as 'enlightened political commentary' from the more troglodytic members of your readership (who, unfortunately seem to be the quickest on the trigger to post responses). Stop and think about this for a moment is all that those of us ask who aren't cheering for the death and misery of the Palestinians, but who do tremble to see a very old, malignant and persistent demon being given an entryway through which to poke its ugly head, no matter the presumed rationale for permitting it. This solves absolutely nothing whatsoever.

When "the Israelis" keep voting for politicians who pursue genocidal policies, they are most definitely to blame for the situation. When they eventually elect a government that wants to pursue a peaceful solution, then, and only then, they will be off the hook for this.

Furthermore, we regularly apply a similar phrase to ourselves - i.e. "the Americans" refuse to leave Iraq. The reason for this is that Americans elect their leaders just as Israelis do.

Just want to thank you for bluntly stating the truth, and i'm sorry your posts don't elicit more intelligent replies. - mc

Why do you hate the Jews? - Chris Collins

Does criticizing the Bush administration imply that we hate Americans?

Actually it's the anti-Semites and Palestinian supporters who are bullies. They're the ones breaking the law and attacking civilians. Israel is just defending itself, hardly the thing bullies do.

It would be great for Israel if the us stopped selling its arms. They don't need them, and as a failing state the us is no longer a significant global power and doesn't have much to offer an ally. Israel has been able to defend itself for 3,000 years without American aid, and it will do fine without it.

But that won't happen, because the failing American economy is desperate for any jobs it can get, and its arms sales are one of its few bright prospects. So it will continue to sell arms to all sides in the Middle East, and then complain about how they fight all of the time.

Just imagine if America handled its "black problem" in the 1960s the way Israel has been handling its "Palestinian problem" the last 50 years. Israel will become a great and peaceful democracy only when it can elect a Palestinian as its president. I have often wondered why is there a Jewish state. The separation of church and state is a good thing. Aren't all people supposed to be treated equally? Isn't America supposed to be promoting democracy in the Middle East?

It's time to ban the word "anti-Semitic". It has been conflated inappropriately with the concept of Nazism to mean "someone who hates all Jews". Unfortunately, from an anthropological - biological standpoint, there are far more Semitic Palestinians in the modern world than there are Semitic Jews. I guess an academic-sounding word is easier to hide behind than the truth: Zionists just hate all Palestinians and anyone who thinks they deserve a homeland just as much as the Jews do.

Here is an interesting intellectual exercise. If you replace "Israel" and "Palestine" with "China" and "Tibet" and all else being the same, would people think it anti-Chinese bias to criticize China's actions. I think not.

Jews and by definition Israel (a nation for the Jewish people) are subject the same standards as everyone else. When they violate those standards they are to be criticized.

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