Undernews For April 1, 2009

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Editor: Sam Smith

1 April 2009

WORD

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. -- Mark Twain

PAGE ONE MUST

COMBAT TROOPS WILL STAY IN IRAQ UNDER A NEW LABEL

Gareth Porter, IPS - Despite President Barack Obama's statement at Camp LeJeune that he had "chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months," a number of Brigade Combat Teams, which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.

A spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS that "several advisory and assistance brigades" would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be "re-designated" as a "transition force headquarters" after August 2010.. . .

But the "advisory and assistance brigades" to remain in Iraq after that date will in fact be the same as BCTs, except for the addition of a few dozen officers who would carry out the advice and assistance missions, according to military officials involved in the planning process.

SY HERSH: CHENEY STILL HAS PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT REPORTING TO HIM

Think Progress - In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, "more people" were "coming forward" to talk to him now that "the president and vice president are no longer in power." Hersh replied that though "a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, 'call me next, next February,' not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.

HERSH: I'll make it worse. I think he's put people . . . back. They call it a stay behind. It's sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you've driven out the, you know, you've lost the war. You leave people behind. It's a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney's left a stay behind. He's got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what's going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there's still people that talk to him. He still knows what's going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he's still there. He's still a presence.

GRAND JURY INVESTIGATING JOHN EDWARDS' AFFAIR

Radar - Former presidential candidate John Edwards is being investigated by a federal grand jury, probing if he misused campaign funds to pay his mistress, the National Enquirer is reporting in its new issue.

The bombshell report says that at least four former campaign workers for Edwards received subpoenas to testify in Raleigh, N.C.

Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, was on his campaign payroll. He at first denied the affair charge and finally admitted it after the Enquirer caught him in a late-night visit to Hunter's hotel room.

The Enquirer now quotes a source saying the probe is centered around whether Edwards used campaign money to cover up the affair. The IRS is also reportedly involved.

Edwards still denies he is the father of Hunter's baby and his close pal and former campaign aide Andrew Young came forward to claim paternity. But Young's "admission" has been met with severe skepticism. He is not listed as the baby's father on the birth certificate and Hunter has told friends that Edwards is the father.

IS OBAMA OUT TO CRUSH THE AUTO WORKERS?

David Sirota, Alternet - Remember Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street? Specifically, remember how Gekko's entire scheme for the airline industry was based on crushing the blue-collar union that Bud Fox's dad (Martin Sheen) was part of? Welcome to a real life version of that story, starring corporate raider Steve Rattner, who President Obama appointed to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner's strategy is to use the government's leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they've already agreed to:

"After studying the plight of the companies, the president's auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler's survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union. The White House has total leverage over the situation because the UAW knows that if the industry doesn't get the loans it needs, it will be forced into bankruptcy court, where judges will shred labor contracts . . . Indeed, many analysts believe this is the administration's ultimate goal."

I'm not saying that the auto industry's legacy costs are sustainable - not at all. But I am saying that when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem. If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.

CRASH TALK

Dean Baker, AlterNet - Some hedge and equity fund managers could make hundreds of millions or even billions off the Geithner plan. And, under current law, they will pay a lower tax rate on this money than a schoolteacher or firefighter.

One other outcome of the Geithner plan is that the folks who bankrupted their banks and wrecked the economy will be able to continue to earn multi-million dollar salaries. Of course this is necessary, because who else has the skills to run these banks, other than the people who drove them into bankruptcy?

For some reason, every plan developed so far involves using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the bankrupt banks and keep them breathing a little bit longer, while offering opportunities for other Wall Street actors to get hugely wealthy. . .

Hit and Run - Eonomist Arnold Kling digs Matt Taibbi's groovy extended narrative about the causes and fallout of the economic crisis in a recent Rolling Stone. Kling's summation of the lesson:

"I think that Taibbi's basic 'power play' narrative is correct. His view that the government money going to AIG is more of a bailout of Goldman Sachs than of AIG strikes me as on target. However, his implication that it is a one-way takeover of Washington by Wall Street is incorrect, in my view. I think that all along we have had a Washington/Wall Street industrial complex, particularly with regard to housing finance.

"For quite a while, but especially over the last nine months, the best way to predict developments in politics and finance has been to ask: what will do the most to increase the concentration of power? Every headline, from the Geithner regulatory plan to the proposed cap on the charitable deduction, to the resignation of the General Motors CEO, should be viewed in that light."

ABC News - "Our concern right now is that we do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department," Elizabeth Warren chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel told a Senate Finance Committee hearing. "We have sent letters. We have requested that there be someone named so that we can get technical information. And so far, we have not been a first priority.

"As I see it, you really have two options here," Warren said. "Either you get Treasury to get some religion on this point -- and put their own standards in place, or Congress is forced to step in. We will do everything we can on your behalf, as your congressional oversight panel, but what we can best do for you now is to identify and pinpoint that this is precisely where the problem starts."

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for TARP, voiced similar concerns. He noted that his office had recently conducted a survey of all 364 TARP recipients on their use of government funds, something his office had requested Treasury do, only for the department to decline to do it except for Citigroup and Bank of America.

"One thing is clear: Complaints that it was impractical, impossible or a waste of time to require banks to detail how they used TARP funds were unfounded," Barofsky said.

"The survey strongly supports my earlier recommendation to Treasury," he emphasized. "Banks can and should be required to report on their use of taxpayer money to provide maximum transparency and not simply be asked to report on the possible impact of the funds, such as giving only lending activity.". . .

Barofsky also told the committee about concerns his office now has to monitor nearly $3 trillion, which "is just short of what the entire federal government spent in fiscal year 2008. . .

F William Engdahl, 321 Gold - The 'dirty little secret' which Geithner is going to great degrees to obscure from the public is very simple. There are only at most perhaps five US banks which are the source of the toxic poison that is causing such dislocation in the world financial system. What Geithner is desperately trying to protect is that reality. The heart of the present problem and the reason ordinary loan losses as in prior bank crises are not the problem, is a variety of exotic financial derivatives, most especially so-called credit default swaps. . .

What Geithner does not want the public to understand, his 'dirty little secret' is that the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000 allowed the creation of a tiny handful of banks that would virtually monopolize key parts of the global 'off-balance sheet' or over-the-counter derivatives issuance.

Today five US banks according to data in the just-released Federal Office of Comptroller of the Currency's Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activity, hold 96% of all US bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default. . .

The Government bailouts of AIG to over $180 billion to date has primarily gone to pay off AIG's Credit Default Swap obligations to counterparty gamblers Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, the banks who believe they are 'too big to fail.' In effect, these five institutions today believe they are so large that they can dictate the policy of the Federal Government. Some have called it a bankers' coup d'etat. It definitely is not healthy.

This is Geithner's and Wall Street's Dirty Little Secret that they desperately try to hide because it would focus voter attention on real solutions. The Federal Government has long had laws in place to deal with insolvent banks. The FDIC places the bank into receivership, its assets and liabilities are sorted out by independent audit. The irresponsible management is purged, stockholders lose and the purged bank is eventually split into smaller units and when healthy, sold to the public. The power of the five mega banks to blackmail the entire nation would thereby be cut down to size. . .

Every hour the Obama Administration . . . refuses to demand full independent government audit of the true solvency or insolvency of these five or so banks, inevitably costs to the US and to the world economy will snowball as derivatives losses explode. . .

Once the five problem banks have been put into isolation by the FDIC and the Treasury, the Administration must introduce legislation to immediately repeal the Larry Summers bank deregulation including restore Glass-Steagall and repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that allowed the present criminal abuse of the banking trust. Then serious financial reform can begin to be discussed, starting with steps to 'federalize' the Federal Reserve and take the power of money out of the hands of private bankers such as JP Morgan Chase, Citibank or Goldman Sachs.

NY Times - The bad economy is creating a flotilla of forsaken boats. While there is no national census of abandoned boats, officials in coastal states are worried the problem will only grow worse as unemployment and financial stress continue to rise. Several states are even drafting laws against derelicts and say they are aggressively starting to pursue delinquent owners. "Our waters have become dumping grounds," said Maj. Paul R. Ouellette of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "It's got to the point where something has to be done.". . .

Marina and maritime officials around the country say they believe that most of the abandoned vessels cluttering their waters are fully paid for. They are expensive-to-maintain toys that have lost their appeal.

The owners cannot sell them, because the secondhand market is overwhelmed. They cannot afford to spend hundreds of dollars a month mooring and maintaining them. And they do not have the thousands of dollars required to properly dispose of them.

John Nichols, Nation - How come, if the auto industry must feel the pain, the speculators on Wall Street and the CEOs of the big banks and insurance companies only feel the love of the TARP program?

Why is it, as the Politico headline suggested, "Carrots for banks, sticks for autos"?. . .

Despite the fact that the United Auto Workers union called more than 30 years ago for a retooling the industry to produce smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, despite the fact that union members have accepted deeper cuts in pay and benefits than their foreign counterparts, [GM CEO] Wagoner kept trying to balance his books by discharging his most skilled employees and devastating communities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and other states.

But when will this administration get as tough with Wall Street as it has with Main Street? Didn't they screw up in far more dramatic, and damaging, ways than did Rick Wagoner?

Robert L. Borosage, Campaign for America's Future - We need a grand inquest -- either a special congressional committee or an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission armed with subpoena power -- to expose misbegotten policies, malpractices, and mistaken ideas that allowed the wizards of Wall Street to transport us over the cliff.

In the 1930s, the dramatic hearings by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee became known as the Pecora Commission, after Ferdinand Pecora, the fierce former assistant prosecutor from New York who served as general counsel. Born in Sicily, the son of an immigrant cobbler, Pecora was a crusader. As counsel, he hauled the barons of Wall Street before the committee, and took them apart with often withering cross examination. By the time Pecora was done, the hearings had captivated the country's attention and, as Ron Chernow reports, Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana was comparing the bankers to Al Capone and the public began calling them "banksters," rhyming with gangsters.

The Senate committee unearthed the assorted frauds, the abuses, the ponzi schemes that led to the 1929 crash. And in doing so it provided both the case for reform and built a public demand in support of it.

The hearings came under fierce criticism. Wall Street bankers charged that they were "undermining confidence." Some Senators scorned them as running a "circus," and in fact, some of the excesses deserved the tag.

Yet, Pecora was deadly serious. By the time the hearings ended in May 1934, they had generated 12,000 printed pages of testimony -- providing the source that historians have mined ever since to fuel their descriptions of the era. And they paved the way for reform: the Securities Act of 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In recognition, Roosevelt named Pecora to be a commissioner of the new SEC.

We need the same fearless investigation now.

Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest - It may be a coincidence, but some banks are repaying the aid they received from the federal government just as some real accountability is finally being injected into the massive financial bailout that has been going on since last fall. The repayment moves so far involve relatively small regional banks, but there have been reports that Goldman Sachs, the recipient of a $10 billion federal capital infusion, is eager to buy out Uncle Sam’s holding.

The stricter accountability that the banks may be responding to is coming not from the Treasury Department but rather from the watchdog bodies that were created in the bailout legislation enacted last year—especially the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The SIGTARP himself, Neil Barofsky, just offered some remarkable testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

First of all, he provided a clear estimate of how much the federal government is potentially on the hook for in the dozen different bailout-related programs: up to $2.976 trillion, not counting the yet-to-be-determined cost of the capital that will be offered to banks after they are subjected to a stress test.

Second, Barofsky reported that he demanded and received reports (still being analyzed) from every one of the 364 TARP recipients about how they are using federal funds and whether they are complying with restrictions on executive compensation. . .

Barofsky emphasizes that his office is the only TARP watchdog that has criminal law enforcement powers, and he clearly intends to use them. He's launched "more than a dozen criminal investigations" of possible bailout fraud and is working with the New York division of the High Intensity Finance Crime Area program, an initiative launched in the Treasury Department in 1999 to coordinate the prosecution of money laundering. Barofksy has even set up a whistleblower hotline (877-SIG-2009).

David Sirota, Open Left - In Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei's nauseating tribute to D.C. conventional wisdom that claims it's fine to shove automakers into union-busting bankruptcy court while coddling banking industry executives, we get this truly unfathomable quote from "a Democratic official close to the White House":

"[White House officials] have more confidence in the leadership on the banking side - that there are people in place who understand what went wrong and the steps necessary to deal with this disaster."

If this is to be believed - and the double-standard treatment of Detroit and Wall Street makes it believable - then there really are no words to describe how unfathomable that kind of thinking is. How could anyone - even people in the Washington bubble - honestly "have confidence" that the leadership of the banking industry "understand what went wrong and the steps necessary to deal with this disaster?"

PETRAEUS CLAIMS COLONIAL POWERS FOR U.S. OVER PAKISTAN

Fox News - The U.S. military will reserve the "right of last resort" to take out threats inside Pakistan, but it would prefer to enable the Pakistani military to do the job itself, Gen. David Petraeus said in an exclusive interview with FOX News. The commander of U.S. Central Command was interviewed as the Obama administration prepares to step up the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. . .

SOUTH AFRICAN FARMERS LOSE MILLIONS AS GM CORN CROP FAILS TO PRODUCE SEEDS

Digital Journal - South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds. The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered compensation. Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces, on alleged 'underfertilisation processes in the laboratory". Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn problems.

However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto's genetically-manipulated technology.

Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in three provinces - North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers' cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that 'less than 25%' of three different corn varieties were 'insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory'.

However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem. According to her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures. The centre is strongly opposed to GM-food and biologically-manipulated technology in general. . .

GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER TO BECOME ALL TWITTER

Guardian, UK - Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

The move, described as "epochal" by media commentators, will see all Guardian content tailored to fit the format of Twitter's brief text messages, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters each. . .

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Skeptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.

For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original. . .

ccording to unconfirmed rumours, Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, will next month announce plans for a new system of telepathy-based social networking that is expected to render Twitter obsolete within weeks.

Highlights from the Guardian's Twitterised news archive

1927 OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool! Boring day otherwise *sigh*

1940 W Churchill giving speech NOW - "we shall fight on the beaches .. we shall never surrender" check YouTube later for the rest

1961 Listening 2 new band "The Beatles"

1989 Berlin Wall falls! Majority view of Twitterers = it's a historic moment! What do you think??? Have your say

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ARTS IN BAD TIMES

Morris Dickstein, LA Times - Studies of the 1930s have shown how the economic meltdown was accompanied by psychological depression: loss of morale, a sense of despair, grave fears for the future. Going to the movies or listening to the radio could not solve these problems, but they could ease them in the same way that President Franklin D. Roosevelt's intimate fireside chats boosted morale and restored confidence.

The most durable cliche about the arts in the 1930s is that despite the surge of social consciousness among writers, photographers and painters (some of it supported by federal dollars), the arts offered Depression audiences little more than fluffy escapism, which was just what they needed.

But that's not the whole story. It's certainly a paradox that dire economic times produced such a fizzy, buoyant popular culture. From the warring couples of screwball comedy and the magical dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to the sophisticated music and lyrics of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and the Gershwins, the '30s generated mass entertainment legendary for its wit, elegance and style. This culture had its roots in the devil-may-care world of the 1920s, but it took on new meaning as the Depression deepened.

The engine of the arts in the '30s was not escapism, as we sometimes imagine, but speed, energy and movement at a time of economic stagnation and social malaise. When Warner Bros. -- which avoided bankruptcy with its lively and topical gangster films, backstage musicals and Depression melodramas -- promised a "New Deal in Entertainment," it was offering the cultural equivalent of the New Deal, a psychological stimulus package that might energize a shaken public. . .

If we look at the arts as a life-giving form of social therapy, many other fads and fashions of the 1930s fall into place. . . The public also loved comedies about the very rich. Everyone could feel superior to their silliness, the weightlessness of their lives, yet live vicariously through their energy, irresponsibility and freedom, the snap of their delicious dialogue. Meanwhile, musical standards created a seductive dreamland, somewhere "over the rainbow," a better world where cloudy skies and rainy days somehow promised "pennies from heaven."

The propulsive swing music of the big bands, produced by performers and band leaders such as Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, brought jazz to a mass audience for the first time -- jazz to dance to, not simply to listen to. It filled the airwaves, ballrooms, nightclubs, even concert halls.

The visual equivalent of swing music was Art Deco. Gifted designers such as Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague and Norman Bel Geddes stimulated consumption by putting a fluid sense of movement into everything from locomotives to table radios, projecting the consumer into a streamlined future otherwise hard to imagine. This culminated in the design of the 1939 New York World's Fair, with its flowing crowds and futuristic visions of "The World of Tomorrow.". . .

There is little sign so far of how the arts will respond to the damage done to our confidence and morale this time around. But movie-going has already increased by almost 16% this year. We know from the 1930s that the stimulating effect of art and entertainment comes not only in the jobs produced but in the emotional links with the public that absorbs this work and takes it to heart.

BREVITAS

JUST POLITICS

Fair Vote - The Los Angeles County Supervisors voted unanimously to establish a commission to study the use of instant runoff voting for future special elections in the county.

SCIENCE & HEALTH

John Timmer, Arstechnica - If there were any doubt that open access publishing was setting off a bit of a power struggle, a decision made by the MIT faculty should put it to rest. Although most commercial academic publishers require that the authors of the works they publish sign all copyrights over to the journal, Congress recently mandated that all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health retain the right to freely distribute their works one year after publication (several foundations have similar requirements). Since then, some publishers started fighting the trend, and a few members of Congress are reconsidering the mandate. Now, in a move that will undoubtedly redraw the battle lines, the faculty of MIT have unanimously voted to make any publications they produce open access.

MID EAST

Angry Arab - "21% of Israeli exporters have been directly affected by the boycott movement since the beginning of 2009. So reports The Marker, a Hebrew-language economic newspaper. This number is based on a poll of 90 Israeli exporters in fields such as high tech, metals, construction materials, chemistry, textile and foods. The poll was conducted in January-February 2009 by the Israeli Union of Industrialists."

BUSH CRIME WATCH

Craig Crawford, CQ Politics - Earlier this month the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh claimed that his research for an upcoming book uncovered evidence of a secret special operations unit unmonitored by Congress with authority to assassinate high-value targets in a dozen countries. "They've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving," Hersh said. Enter John Hannah. The former Cheney aide told CNN on Monday that Hersh's claim "is not true." But when asked about possible assassination targets, Hannah seemed to reverse himself, saying that "troops in the field" are given "authority" to "capture or kill certain individuals" who are perceived as a threat. "That's certainly true."

AFGHANISTAN

NPR - Gen. Petraeus . . . called Afghanistan and Pakistan "a single theater."

DRUG BUSTS

Reason - Writing in Parade magazine, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) notes that the war on drugs is largely responsible for America's remarkably high incarceration rate: "The United States has by far the world's highest incarceration rate. With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners. We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000. . . Drug offenders, most of them passive users or minor dealers, are swamping our prisons. According to data supplied to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, those imprisoned for drug offenses rose from 10% of the inmate population to approximately 33% between 1984 and 2002." . . . Justice statistics also show that 47.5% of all the drug arrests in our country in 2007 were for marijuana offenses. Additionally, nearly 60% of the people in state prisons serving time for a drug offense had no history of violence or of any significant selling activity."

LOCAL HEROES

Glenn Greenwald, Salon - There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb's impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that. Webb's interest in the issue was prompted by his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession. After decades of mindless "tough-on-crime" hysteria, an increasingly irrational "drug war," and a sprawling, privatized prison state as brutal as it is counter-productive, America has easily surpassed Japan -- and virtually every other country in the world -- to become what Brown University Professor Glenn Loury recently described as a "a nation of jailers" whose "prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history." What's most notable about Webb's decision to champion this cause is how honest his advocacy is. He isn't just attempting to chip away at the safe edges of America's oppressive prison state. His critique of what we're doing is fundamental, not incremental. And, most important of all, Webb is addressing head-on one of the principal causes of our insane imprisonment fixation: our aberrational insistence on criminalizing and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders (when we're not doing worse to them).

INDICATORS

Stuff, New Zealand - Dating culture is dead - instead, young New Zealand women are regularly getting drunk and cruising around in packs looking for men to have sex with. That's one of the findings of a TVNZ Sunday investigation into the sexual behavior of New Zealand women. . . . They are reported to have an average of 20 sexual partners, double that of their Australian and British counterparts and almost three times the global average of seven.. . . In candid interviews about their sexual experiences some of the women who are all in their twenties felt empowered by having sex and wanted to celebrate and enjoy it. McIntyre said all the women who had experienced one-night stands had been affected by alcohol, a term described by at least one expert in a report as "getting pissed and hooking up". Men are also feeling the impact from the new sexual tactics being employed by women. The Sunday Star-Times' Being a Bloke survey last year found that 29% of the 5000 men surveyed felt they had been pressured into having sex or had had sex unwillingly.

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