introverteddeviate

Virus from China the gift that keeps on giving

2008-02-17T19:25:00.000-05:00

Virus from China the gift that keeps on giving
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 15, 2008

An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.

"It is a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence," said Brian Grayek, who heads product development at Computer Associates, a security vendor that analyzed the Trojan Horse.

The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.

The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has "specific designs to capture something and not leave traces," Grayek said. "This would be a nuclear bomb" of malware.

By studying how the code is constructed and how it's propagated, Computer Associates has traced the Trojan to a specific group in China, Grayek said. He would not name the group.

The strength of the malware shows how skilled hackers have become and how serious they are about targeting digital devices, which provide a new frontier for stealing information from vast numbers of unwary PC owners. More than 2.26 million digital frames were sold in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, and it expects sales to grow to 3.26 million in 2008.

The new Trojan also has been spotted in Singapore and the Russian Federation and has 67,500 variants, according to Prevx, a security vendor headquartered in England.

Grayek said Mocmex might be a test for some bigger attack, because it's designed to capture any personal, private or financial information, yet so far it's only stealing passwords for online games.

"If I send you a package but it doesn't explode, why did I send it?" he said. "Maybe I want to see if I can get it out to you and how you open it."

The initial reports of infected frames came from people who had bought them over the holidays from Sam's Club and Best Buy. New reports involve frames sold at Target and Costco, according to SANS, a group of security researchers in Bethesda, Md., who began asking for accounts of infected devices on Christmas Day. So far the group has collected more than a dozen complaints from people across the country.

The new Trojan isn't the only piece of malware involved. Deborah Hale of Sans said the researchers also found four other, older Trojans on each frame, which may serve as markers for botnets - networks of infected PCs that are remotely controlled by hackers.

There is W32.Rajump, which deposits the same piece of malware that infected some of Apple's video iPods during manufacturing in October 2006. It gathers Internet Protocol addresses and port numbers from infected PCs and ships them out, according to Symantec. One destination is registered to a service in China that allows people to conceal their own IP addresses.

Then there is a generic Trojan; a Trojan that opens a back door on PCs and displays pop-up ads; and a Trojan that spreads itself through portable devices like Mocmex does.

How all this malware got onto the photo frames and what it's doing there is unclear. Trojans can download other Trojans, which is part of how botnets are controlled.

While SANS is investigating the infections, the retailers are saying little.

Sam's Club said it has found no infected frames, and its distributor, Advanced Design Systems, did not return calls seeking comment.

A few Target customers complained about frames distributed by Uniek, a store spokesman confirmed. Target is no longer selling those frames, but that's because the frames didn't sell well over the holidays, he said. Target has found no infections, he said, but is watching for them.

Best Buy said one line of its Insignia frames - also now discontinued - was infected during manufacturing but would not provide details.

Costco did not return calls seeking comment.

How to avoid problems
Protecting against these new computer viruses, which so far are aimed at PCs running Windows, is hard - and sometimes impossible.

Updated antivirus software works unless the malware writers get ahead of the antivirus vendors, which is what happened with the new Trojan. Computer Associates, for example, just began protecting against it last week.

While some advise disabling Autorun in Windows, which allows devices to run automatically when they're plugged into a USB port, it's not a failsafe. Doing so requires some computer expertise, and this Trojan re-enables Autorun if it's turned off, according to Brian Grayek of Computer Associates. "If you plug in (the frame), you're already infected," he said.

Deborah Hale at SANS suggested that PC users find friends with Macintosh or Linux machines and have them check for malware before plugging any device into a PC.

She also recommended backing up data with an online service such as Mozy.com that offers free backup for home users with less than 2 gigabytes of data. But it does not back up the operating system, she warned. If you're attacked and your PC fails, you'll have to reformat and reload all of the programs.

If you think bought an infected device, e-mail SANS at info@sans.org and call your retailer.

-- Best Buy: (877) 467-4289

-- Sam's Club: (888) 746-7726

-- Target: (800) 591-3869

-- Costco: (800) 955-2292

E-mail Deborah Gage at dgage@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

© 2008 Hearst Communications Inc

Child health veto will be election issue

2007-10-03T22:02:00.000-04:00

Child health veto will be election issue
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
54 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush cast a quiet veto Wednesday against a politically attractive expansion of children's health insurance, triggering a struggle with the Democratic-controlled Congress certain to reverberate into the 2008 elections.

"Congress will fight hard to override President Bush's heartless veto," vowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Republican leaders expressed confidence they have enough votes to make the veto stick in the House, and not a single senior Democrat disputed them. A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to override a veto.

Bush vetoed the bill in private, absent the television cameras and other media coverage that normally attend even routine presidential actions. The measure called for adding an estimated 4 million mostly lower-income children to a program that currently covers 6.6 million. Funds for the expansion would come from higher tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase on a pack of cigarettes.

"Poor kids first," Bush said later in explaining his decision, reflecting a concern that some of the bill's benefits would go to families at higher incomes. "Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system," he added in remarks to an audience in Lancaster, Pa.

The president said he is willing to compromise with Congress "if they need a little more money in the bill to help us meet the objective of getting help for poor children."

It was the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, at a time his popularity is low, the legislation popular enough to draw support from dozens of GOP lawmakers, and an override certain to seal his lame-duck status.

Democratic leaders scheduled the showdown for Oct. 18 to allow two weeks for pressure to build on Republicans. A union-led organization said it would spend more than $3 million trying to influence the outcome. "It's going to be a hard vote for Republicans," promised Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Criticism of the veto was instantaneous, from every quarter of the Democratic political firmament.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, a presidential hopeful, called it unconscionable, party chairman Howard Dean labeled it appalling, and Pelosi said, "It's very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care for ten million American children for the next five years."

Republicans said none of the criticism would matter. "I'm confident that the more time we have to explain the veto, the more people will be with their position,' said Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, second-ranking GOP leader in the House.

Longer term, Republicans said their goal was to sustain the veto and force Democrats into negotiations on a compromise that GOP lawmakers could embrace.

"Democrats now face an important choice: Either work with Republicans to renew this program or continue to play politics on the backs of our nation's children," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.

He and other Republicans said Democratic plans to delay an override vote revealed an eagerness to score political points.

The Democratic legislation would add $35 billion to the program over five years to expand coverage. Bush argued the bill was too costly, took the program too far beyond its original intent of helping the poor and would entice people with private insurance to switch to government coverage. He has proposed a $5 billion increase in funding.

Democrats, sensing a political advantage, said they were in no mood to compromise. Several officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing strategy, said Pelosi and Reid seemed set on sending Bush successor bills that are nearly identical with the one he just vetoed. The goal would be to force him — and his congressional allies — to repeatedly expose themselves to criticism that they were denying health care for kids.

Both sides took comfort from polling data as they settled in for their struggle.

Democracy Corps, which offers advice to Democrats, said its poll showed the public sides with Democrats by a margin of 60-35. The veto battle "gives Democrats a large advantage with independents, as well as mobilizing Democratic supporters. Indeed, the president has not won over Republican voters on this issue," said an accompanying memo.

House Republicans quietly distributed a survey by David Winston, who is close to Boehner, that came to a different conclusion. It said critics of the legislation can win the public debate if they say they favor "covering uninsured children without expanding government coverage to adults, illegal immigrants and those who already have insurance...." A copy of the poll was obtained by The Associated Press.

Numerous polls have shown health insurance to be an important issue with the public, and Democrats have made expansion of the children's health program a priority since taking control of Congress in January.

Health care also has figured prominently in the campaign for the White House, with presidential hopefuls in both parties sketching plans to reduce the swelling population of the uninsured, now estimated by the Census Bureau to number 47 million.

There was no doubting the bill's political appeal.

Eighteen Republicans in the Senate supported the measure when it passed, including four who face difficult challenges next year. In the House, 45 GOP lawmakers defected.

There were 265 votes in all for the measure when it passed last month. Supporters need to pick up 25 more votes to override the veto.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said a few of the eight Democrats who originally voted no — principally because of the tax increase — would switch sides, and one or two more votes were available from a small group that was absent on the earlier vote.

But 151 Republicans opposed the bill when it passed, enough to sustain the veto, and absent numerous switches, Bush's veto seemed secure.

"We got what we wanted," said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the GOP campaign committee and an opponent of the bill.

"Once they vote it's pretty hard to change," conceded Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who supported the legislation and said repeatedly he hoped Bush would sign it.

Some Republicans joined in the criticism of Bush.

"I believe this is an irresponsible use of the veto pen," said Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican facing a difficult re-election next year.

The original Senate vote was 67-29, enough to override. But the House votes first, and if Bush's allies sustain his veto there, the bill dies.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Answering to No One By Walter F. Mondale

2007-07-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

Answering to No One
By Walter F. Mondale
Sunday, July 29, 2007; B07

The Post's recent series on Dick Cheney's vice presidency certainly got my attention. Having held that office myself over a quarter-century ago, I have more than a passing interest in its evolution from the backwater of American politics to the second most powerful position in our government. Almost all of that evolution, under presidents and vice presidents of both parties, has been positive -- until now. Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it has gone seriously off track.

The Founders created the vice presidency as a constitutional afterthought, solely to provide a president-in-reserve should the need arise. The only duty they specified was that the vice president should preside over the Senate. The office languished in obscurity and irrelevance for more than 150 years until Richard Nixon saw it as a platform from which to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1960. That worked, and the office has been an effective launching pad for aspiring candidates since.

But it wasn't until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency that the vice presidency took on a substantive role. Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.

Our relationship depended on trust, mutual respect and an acknowledgement that there was only one agenda to be served -- the president's. Every Monday the two of us met privately for lunch; we could, and did, talk candidly about virtually anything. By the end of four years we had completed the "executivization" of the vice presidency, ending two centuries of confusion, derision and irrelevance surrounding the office.

Subsequent administrations followed this pattern. George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Al Gore built their vice presidencies after this model, allowing for their different interests, experiences and capabilities as well as the needs of the presidents they served.

This all changed in 2001, and especially after Sept. 11, when Cheney set out to create a largely independent power center in the office of the vice president. His was an unprecedented attempt not only to shape administration policy but, alarmingly, to limit the policy options sent to the president. It is essential that a president know all the relevant facts and viable options before making decisions, yet Cheney has discarded the "honest broker" role he played as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff.

Through his vast government experience, through the friends he had been able to place in key positions and through his considerable political skills, he has been increasingly able to determine the answers to questions put to the president -- because he has been able to determine the questions. It was Cheney who persuaded President Bush to sign an order that denied access to any court by foreign terrorism suspects and Cheney who determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rather than subject his views to an established (and rational) vetting process, his practice has been to trust only his immediate staff before taking ideas directly to the president. Many of the ideas that Bush has subsequently bought into have proved offensive to the values of the Constitution and have been embarrassingly overturned by the courts.

The corollary to Cheney's zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.

Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.

Three decades ago we lived through another painful example of a White House exceeding its authority, lying to the American people, breaking the law and shrouding everything it did in secrecy. Watergate wrenched the country, and our constitutional system, like nothing before. We spent years trying to identify and absorb the lessons of this great excess. But here we are again.

Since the Carter administration left office, we have been criticized for many things. Yet I remain enormously proud of what we did in those four years, especially that we told the truth, obeyed the law and kept the peace.

The writer was vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

Child health insurance bill faces veto

2007-07-15T02:51:00.000-04:00

Child health insurance bill faces veto
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Saturday that senior advisers would recommend the president veto Senate legislation that would substantially increase funds for children's health insurance.

The legislation calls for a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes. The revenue would be used to subsidize health insurance for children and some adults with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford insurance on their own. Members of the Senate Finance Committee brokered a bipartisan agreement Friday that would add $35 billion to the program over the next five years. The Bush administration had instead recommend $5 billion.

The Senate legislation expands the State Children's Health Insurance Program beyond the original intent of the program, said White House Spokesman Tony Fratto.

"It's clear that it will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage — purchased either through their employer or with their own resources — to go on the government-subsidized program," Fratto said. "Tax increases are neither necessary nor advisable to appropriately fund SCHIP."

Congress is considering renewing the program before it expires Sept. 30. When Congress approved the program in 1997, it provided $40 billion over 10 years. States use the money, along with their own dollars, to subsidize the cost of health insurance. The federal government covers about 70 percent of the cost.

"Congress needs to deliver a bill the president can sign or they need to send him an extension so that people don't worry about losing their current coverage," Fratto said. "It's important that Congress understands the serious consequences of delaying this or sending the president legislation that he clearly cannot sign."

Fratto also called on the Senate Finance Committee to consider the president's recommendation to tax employees on the health insurance premiums paid by their employers. The president would offset the increased taxes by giving taxpayers a deduction or credit. The result would be a tax cut for most families, but not for those with the highest-priced insurance plans.

"We believe that these proposals would mean that as many as 20 million others who have no health insurance would purchase basic coverage," Fratto said.

Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had called on the president Thursday to step back from veto threats of legislation that had not been finalized yet.

Grassley and Hatch said they would like to consider the president's proposals to change how tax law treats health insurance. Such changes could make insurance more affordable for many families, but now is not the time, they said.

"Not taking that (tax proposal) on is a missed opportunity, but it's not realistic given the lack of bipartisan support," the senators said.

Grassley and Hatch were among the lawmakers that backed the agreement reached late Friday with key Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee's chairman, said the proposal would lead to more than 3 million uninsured children obtaining health coverage. But others said that estimate is high because they believe some families that would sign up for the program would have already been getting their coverage through the private sector.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Bush admits administration leaked agent name

2007-07-14T00:50:00.000-04:00

MSNBC.com
Bush admits administration leaked agent name
President seeks to put Libby issue to rest
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:47 a.m. ET July 12, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday acknowledged publicly for the first time that someone in his administration likely leaked the name of a CIA operative, although he also said he hopes the controversy over his decision to spare prison for a former White House aide has "run its course."

"And now we're going to move on," Bush said in a White House news conference.

The president had initially said he would fire anyone in his administration found to have publicly disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and a CIA operative. Ten days ago, Bush commuted the 30-month sentence given to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by a federal judge in connection with the case.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, had been convicted of lying and obstruction of justice in the CIA-leak case.

Bush would not directly address answer a question about whether he is disappointed in the White House officials who leaked Plame's name.

"I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person," Bush said. "I've often thought about what would have happened if that person had come forth and said, 'I did it.' Would we have had this endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? But, so, it's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House. It's run its course and now we're going to move on."

He also defended the decision to commute Libby's sentence. "The Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision," Bush said.

Full Libby pardon?
In comments shortly after the commutation was announced, the president left open the possibility of an eventual pardon for Libby.

"As to the future, I rule nothing in and nothing out," the president said a day after commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.

Bush said he had weighed his decision carefully to erase Libby's prison time for lying and obstruction of justice. He said the jury's conviction should stand but the prison term was too severe.

"I made a judgment, a considered judgment, that I believe was the right decision to make in this case," the president said. "And I stand by it."

Chief Bush spokesman Tony Snow has said Bush was satisfied with his decision to commute Libby's sentence.

"He thought any jail time was excessive. He did not see fit to have Scooter Libby taken to jail," Snow said.

The spokesman told reporters at a White House briefing last week that even with Bush's decision, Libby has a felony conviction on his record, two years probation, a $250,000 fine and probable loss of his legal career. "So this is hardly a slap on the wrist," Snow said. "It is a very severe penalty.

While Democrats criticized the president, Snow said Bush was "getting pounded on the right for not granting a full pardon."

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who sentenced Libby to prison, declined Tuesday to discuss the case or his views on sentencing. "To now say anything about sentencing on the heels of yesterday's events will inevitably be construed as comments on the president's commutation decision, which would be inappropriate," the judge said in an e-mail.

Clemency timing
With prison seeming all but certain for Libby, Bush suddenly spared Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. His move came just five hours after a federal appeals court panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. The Bureau of Prisons had already assigned Libby a prison identification number.

Asked whether Cheney — who calls Libby a friend and who has enormous influence within the White House — had pressed for Bush to commute Libby's sentence, Snow said, "I don't have direct knowledge. But on the other hand, the president did consult with most senior officials, and I'm sure that everybody had an opportunity to share their views."

"I'm sure that the vice president may have expressed an opinion. ... He may have recused himself. I honestly don't know," Snow said.

However, the president made the decision without seeking any advice from the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department, the White House had previously said.

Snow defended Bush's decision to not follow the usual course of running the matter past the Justice Department, saying details of the case were still fresh in everybody's mind, and that the president did not need to be brought up to date on details.

Democrats have charged cronyism in Bush's sparing Libby jail time. But Snow said, "The president does not look upon this as granting a favor to anyone, and to do that is to misconstrue the nature of the deliberations."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© 2007 MSNBC.com

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

We had a pretty good one. We were going to go to Ohio to see Angi's parents, but the kiddos have been snotty and stuff, and her parents are going to Mexico in a few days also. So, we stayed home. What the eff has the weather been all about??? It has been around 30 degrees give or take, and been snowing. WHAT THE HECK!?!?!?!?!?!?! We also colored easter eggs today, for the first time. What a headache!

HOLY FARK!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-04T22:29:00.000-05:00

The INDIANAPOLIS COLTS have won the SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOOOOOOOOO!!

HOOOOOOOOOO!!

I Just Don't Get It

2007-01-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

My plant is hiring more temps again for this summer for about seventeen bucks an hour. The app. is due Thursday morning. How many people do I know that wanted it????

ZILCH.

Fricking Fracking Freezing!!

2007-01-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

We got thumped with a half a foot of snow, and it is about zero degrees outside. I was off work today , because Angi had to see a doctor, and did not want to drag the kids out, and stuff. I shoveled this morning, and by evening the wind made a snow drift about a foot or two high, so I had to shovel again. The kiddos are in the middle of potty training. No fun.

The Fire 40 Years Ago

2007-01-27T23:29:00.000-05:00

APOLLO 1
The Fire
27 January 1967

Background

The first manned Apollo mission was scheduled for launch on 21 February 1967 at Cape Kennedy Launch Complex 34. However, the death of the prime crew in a command module fire during a practice session on 27 January 1967 put America’s lunar landing program on hold.

The crew consisted of Lt. Colonel Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom (USAF), command pilot; Lt. Colonel Edward Higgins White, II (USAF), senior pilot; and Lt. Commander Roger Bruce Chaffee (USN), pilot.

Selected in the astronaut group of 1959, Grissom had been pilot of MR-4, America’s second and last suborbital flight, and command pilot of the first two-person flight, Gemini 3. Born on 3 April 1926 in Mitchell, Indiana, Grissom was 40 years old on the day of the Apollo 1 fire. Grissom received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1950. His backup for the mission was Captain Walter Marty “Wally” Schirra [shi-RAH] (USN).

White had been pilot for the Gemini 4 mission, during which he became the first American to walk in space. He was born 14 November 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, and was 36 years old on the day of the Apollo 1 fire. He received a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1952, an M.S. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1959, and was selected as an astronaut in 1962. His backup was Major Donn Fulton Eisele [EYES-lee] (USAF).

Chaffee was training for his first spaceflight. He was born 15 February 1935 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was 31 years old on the day of the Apollo 1 fire. He received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1957, and was selected as an astronaut in 1963. His backup was Ronnie Walter “Walt” Cunningham.

The Accident

The accident occurred during the Plugs Out Integrated Test. The purpose of this test was to demonstrate all space vehicle systems and operational procedures in as near a flight configuration as practical and to verify systems capability in a simulated launch.

The test was initiated at 12:55 GMT on 27 January 1967. After initial system tests were completed, the flight crew entered the command module at 18:00 GMT. The command pilot noted an odor in the spacecraft environmental control system suit oxygen loop and the count was held at 18:20 GMT while a sample of the oxygen in this system was taken. The count was resumed at 19:42 GMT with hatch installation and subsequent cabin purge with oxygen beginning at 19:45 GMT. The odor was later determined not to be related to the fire.

Communication difficulties were encountered and the count was held at approximately 22:40 GMT to troubleshoot the problem. The problem consisted of a continuously live microphone that could not be turned off by the crew. Various final countdown functions were still performed during the hold as communications permitted.

By 23:20 GMT, all final countdown functions up to the transfer to simulated fuel cell power were completed and the count was held at T-10 minutes pending resolution of the communications problems.

From the start of the T-10 minute hold at 23:20 GMT until about 23:30 GMT, there were no events that appeared to be related to the fire. The major activity during this period was routine troubleshooting of the communications problem; all other systems were operating normally. There were no voice transmissions from the spacecraft from 23:30:14 GMT until the transmission reporting the fire, which began at 23:31:04.7 GMT.

During the period beginning about 30 seconds before the report, there were indications of crew movement. These indications were provided by the data from the biomedical sensors, the command pilot’s live microphone, the guidance and navigation system, and the environmental control system. There was no evidence as to what this movement was or that it was related to the fire.

The biomedical data indicated that just prior to the fire report the senior pilot was performing essentially no activity until about 23:30:21 GMT, when a slight increase in pulse and respiratory rate was noted. At 23:30:30 GMT, the electrocardiogram indicated some muscular activity for several seconds. Similar indications were noted at 23:30:39 GMT. The data showed increased activity but were not indicative of an alarm type of response. By 23:30:45 GMT, all of the biomedical parameters had reverted to the baseline “rest” level.

Beginning at about 23:30 GMT, the command pilot’s live microphone transmitted brushing and tapping noises indicative of movement. The noises were similar to those transmitted earlier in the test by the live microphone when the command pilot was known to have been moving. These sounds ended at 23:30:58.6 GMT.

Any significant crew movement resulted in minor motion of the command module and was detected by the guidance and navigation system. The type of movement, however, could not be determined. Data from this system indicated a slight movement at 23:30:24 GMT, with more intense activity beginning at 23:30:39 GMT and ending at 23:30:44 GMT. More movement began at 23:31:00 GMT and continued until loss of data transmission during the fire.

Increases of oxygen flow rate to the crew suits also indicated movement. All suits had some small leakage, and this leakage rate varied with the position of each crew member in the spacecraft. Earlier in the Plugs Out Integrated Test, the crew reported that a particular movement, the nature of which was unspecified, provided increased flow rate.

This was also confirmed from the flow rate data records. The flow rate showed a gradual rise at 23:30:24 GMT which reached the limit of the sensor at 23:30:59 GMT.

At 23:30:54.8 GMT, a significant voltage transient was recorded. The records showed a surge in the AC Bus 2 voltage. Several other parameters being measured also showed anomalous behavior at this time.

Beginning at 23:31:04.7 GMT, the crew gave the first verbal indication of an emergency when they reported a fire in the command module.

Emergency procedures called for the senior pilot, occupying the center couch, to unlatch and remove the hatch while retaining his harness buckled. A number of witnesses who observed the television picture of the command module hatch window discerned motion that suggested that the senior pilot was reaching for the inner hatch handle. The senior pilot’s harness buckle was found unopened after the fire, indicating that he initiated the standard hatch-opening procedure. Data from the Guidance and Navigation System indicated considerable activity within the command module after the fire was discovered. This activity was consistent with movement of the crew prompted by proximity of the fire or with the undertaking of standard emergency egress procedures.

Personnel located on adjustable level 8 adjacent to the command module responded to the report of the fire. The pad leader ordered the implementation of crew egress procedures and technicians rushed toward the White Room which surrounded the hatch and into which the crew would step upon egress. Then, at 23:31:19 GMT, the command module ruptured.

All transmission of voice and data from the spacecraft terminated by 23:31:22.4 GMT, three seconds after rupture. Witnesses monitoring the television showing the hatch window reported that flames spread from the left to the right side of the command module and shortly thereafter covered the entire visible area.

Flames and gases flowed rapidly out of the ruptured area, spreading flames into the space between the command module pressure vessel and heat shield through access hatches and into levels A-8 and A-7 of the service structure. These flames ignited combustibles, endangered pad personnel, and impeded rescue efforts. The burst of fire, together with the sounds of rupture, caused several pad personnel to believe that the command module had exploded or was about to explode.

The immediate reaction of all personnel on level A-8 was to evacuate the level. This reaction was promptly followed by a return to effect rescue. Upon running onto the swing arm from the umbilical tower, several personnel obtained fire extinguishers and returned along the swing arm to the White Room to begin rescue efforts. Others obtained fire extinguishers from various areas of the service structure and rendered assistance in fighting the fires.

Three hatches were installed on the command module. The outermost hatch, called the boost protective cover (BPC) hatch, was part of the cover which shielded the command module during launch and was jettisoned prior to orbital operation. The middle hatch was termed the ablative hatch and became the outer hatch when the BPC was jettisoned after launch. The inner hatch closed the pressure vessel wall of the command module and was the first hatch to be opened by the crew in an unaided crew egress.

On the day of the fire, the outer or BPC hatch was in place but not fully latched because of distortion in the BPC caused by wire bundles temporarily installed for the test. The middle hatch and inner hatch were in place and latched after crew ingress. Although the BPC hatch was not fully latched, it was necessary to insert a specially-designed tool into the hatch in order to provide a hand-hold for lifting it from the command module. By this time the White Room was filling with dense, dark smoke from the command module interior and from secondary fires throughout level A-8. While some personnel were able to locate and don operable gas masks, others were not. Some proceeded without masks while others attempted without success to render masks operable. Even operable masks were unable to cope with the dense smoke present because they were designed for use in toxic rather than dense smoke atmospheres.

Visibility in the White Room was virtually nonexistent. It was necessary to work essentially by touch since visual observation was limited to a few inches at best. A hatch removal tool was in the White Room. Once the small fire near the BPC hatch had been extinguished and the tool located, the pad leader and an assistant removed the BPC hatch. Although the hatch was not latched, removal was difficult.

The personnel who removed the BPC hatch could not remain in the White Room because of the smoke. They left the White Room and passed the tool required to open each hatch to other individuals. A total of five individuals took part in opening the three hatches. Each were forced to make several trips to and from the White Room in order to reach breathable air.

The middle hatch was removed with less effort than was required for the BPC hatch.

The inner hatch was unlatched and an attempt was made to raise it from its support and to lower it to the command module floor. The hatch could not be lowered the full distance to the floor and was instead pushed to one side. When the inner hatch was opened, intense heat and a considerable amount of smoke issued from the interior of the command module.

When the pad leader ascertained that all hatches were open, he left the White Room, proceeded a few feet along the swing arm, donned his headset and reported this fact. From a voice tape it has been determined that this report came approximately 5 minutes 27 seconds after the first report of the fire. The pad leader estimates that his report was made no more than 30 seconds after the inner hatch was opened. Therefore, it was concluded that all hatches were opened and the two outer hatches removed approximately five minutes after the report of fire or at about 23:36 GMT.

Medical opinion, based upon autopsy reports, concluded that chances of resuscitation decreased rapidly once consciousness was lost (about 15 to 30 seconds after the first suit failed) and that resuscitation was impossible by 23:36 GMT. Cerebral hypoxia, due to cardiac arrest resulting from myocardial hypoxia, caused a loss of consciousness. Factors of temperature, pressure, and environmental concentrations of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and pulmonary irritants were changing rapidly. The combined effect of these environmental factors dramatically increased the lethal effect of any factor by itself. Because it was impossible to integrate the variables with the dynamic physiological and metabolic conditions they produced, a precise time when consciousness was lost and death supervened could not be conclusively determined.

Visibility within the command module was extremely poor. Although the lights remained on, they could be perceived only dimly. No fire was observed. Initially, the crew was not seen. The personnel who had been involved in removing the hatches attempted to locate the crew without success.

Throughout this period, other pad personnel were fighting secondary fires on level A-8. There was considerable fear that the launch escape tower, mounted above the command module, would be ignited by the fires below and destroy much of the launch complex.

Shortly after the report of the fire, a call was made to the fire department. From log records, it appeared that the fire apparatus and personnel were dispatched at about 23:32 GMT. The doctor monitoring the test from the blockhouse near the pad had already proceeded to the base of the umbilical tower.

The exact time at which firefighters reached Level A-8 is not known. Personnel who opened the hatches unanimously stated that all hatches were open before any firefighters were seen on the level or in the White Room. The first firefighters who reached Level A-8 stated that all hatches were open, but that the inner hatch was inside the command module when they arrived. This placed arrival of the firefighters after 23:36 GMT. It was estimated on the basis of tests that seven to eight minutes were required to travel from the fire station to the launch complex and to ride the elevator from the ground to Level A-8. Thus, the estimated time the firefighters arrived at level A-8 was shortly before 23:40 GMT.

When the firefighters arrived, the positions of the crew couches and crew could be perceived through the smoke but only with difficulty. An unsuccessful attempt was made to remove the senior pilot from the command module.

Initial observations and subsequent inspection revealed the following facts. The command pilot’s couch (the left couch) was in the “170 degree” position, in which it was essentially horizontal throughout its length. The foot restraints and harness were released and the inlet and outlet oxygen hoses were connected to the suit. The electrical adapter cable was disconnected from the communications cable. The command pilot was lying supine on the aft bulkhead or floor of the command module, with his helmet visor closed and locked and with his head beneath the pilot’s head rest and his feet on his own couch. A fragment of his suit material was found outside the command module pressure vessel five feet from the point of rupture. This indicated that his suit had failed prior to the time of rupture (23:31:19.4 GMT), allowing convection currents to carry the suit fragment through the rupture.

The senior pilot’s couch (the center couch) was in the “96 degree” position in which the back portion was horizontal and the lower portion was raised. The buckle releasing the shoulder straps and lap belts was not opened. The straps and belts were burned through. The suit oxygen outlet hose was connected but the inlet hose was disconnected. The helmet visor was closed and locked and all electrical connections were intact. The senior pilot was lying transversely across the command module just below the level of the hatchway.

The pilot’s couch (the couch on the right) was in the “264 degree” position in which the back portion was horizontal and the lower portion dropped toward the floor. All restraints were disconnected, all hoses and electrical connections were intact and the helmet visor was closed and locked. The pilot was supine on his couch.

From the foregoing, it was determined that the command pilot probably left his couch to avoid the initial fire, the senior pilot remained in his couch as planned for emergency egress, attempting to open the hatch until his restraints burned through. The pilot remained in his couch to maintain communications until the hatch could be opened by the senior pilot as planned. With a slightly higher pressure inside the command module than outside, opening the inner hatch was impossible because of the resulting force on the hatch. Thus the inability of the pressure relief system to cope with the pressure increase due to the fire made opening the inner hatch impossible until after cabin rupture. Following rupture, the intense and widespread fire, together with rapidly increasing carbon monoxide concentrations, further prevented egress.

Whether the inner hatch handle was moved by the crew cannot be determined because the opening of the inner hatch from the White Room also moves the handle within the command module to the unlatched position.

Immediately after the firefighters arrived, the pad leader on duty was relieved to allow treatment for smoke inhalation. He had first reported over the headset that he could not describe the situation in the command module. In this manner he attempted to convey the fact that the crew was dead to the test conductor without informing the many people monitoring the communication channels. Upon reaching the ground the pad leader told the doctors that the crew was dead. The three doctors proceeded to the White Room and arrived there shortly after the arrival of the firefighters. The doctors estimate their arrival to have been at 23:45 GMT. The three doctors entered the White Room and determined that the crew had not survived the heat, smoke, and thermal burns. The doctors were not equipped with breathing apparatus, and the command module still contained fumes and smoke. It was determined that nothing could be gained by immediate removal of the crew. The firefighters were then directed to stop removal efforts.

When the command module had been adequately ventilated, the doctors returned to the White Room with equipment for crew removal. It became apparent that extensive fusion of suit material to melted nylon from the spacecraft would make removal very difficult. For this reason it was decided to discontinue removal efforts in the interest of accident investigation and to photograph the command module with the crew in place before evidence was disarranged.

Photographs were taken and the removal efforts resumed at approximately 00:30 GMT, 28 January. Removal of the crew took approximately 90 minutes and was completed about seven and one-half hours after the accident.

Chronology of the Fire

It was most likely that the fire began in the lower forward portion of the left equipment bay, to the left of the command pilot, and considerably below the level of his couch.

Once initiated, the fire burned in three stages. The first stage, with its associated rapid temperature rise and increase in cabin pressure, terminated 15 seconds after the verbal report of fire. At this time, 23:31:19 GMT, the command module cabin ruptured. During this first stage, flames moved rapidly from the point of ignition, traveling along debris traps installed in the command module to prevent items from dropping into equipment areas during tests or flight. At the same time, Velcro strips positioned near the ignition point also burned.

The fire was not intense until about 23:31:12 GMT. The slow rate of buildup of the fire during the early portion of the first stage was consistent with the opinion that ignition occurred in a zone containing little combustible material. The slow rise of pressure could also have resulted from absorption of most of the heat by the aluminum structure of the command module.

The original flames rose vertically and then spread out across the cabin ceiling. The debris traps provided not only combustible material and a path for the spread of the flames, but also firebrands of burning molten nylon. The scattering of these firebrands contributed to the spread of the flames.

By 23:31:12 GMT, the fire had broken from its point of origin. A wall of flames extended along the left wall of the module, preventing the command pilot, occupying the left couch, from reaching the valve that would vent the command module to the outside atmosphere.

Although operation of this was the first step in established emergency egress procedures, such action would have been to no avail because the venting capacity was insufficient to prevent the rapid buildup of pressure due to the fire. It was estimated that opening the valve would have delayed command module rupture by less than one second.

The command module was designed to withstand an internal pressure of approximately 13 pounds per square inch above external pressure without rupturing. Data recorded during the fire showed that this design criterion was exceeded late in the first stage of the fire and that rupture occurred at about 23:31:19 GMT. The point of rupture was where the floor or aft bulkhead of the command module joined the wall, essentially opposite the point of origin of the fire. About three seconds before rupture, at 23:31:16.8 GMT, the final crew communication began. This communication ended shortly after rupture at 23:31:21.8 GMT, followed by loss of telemetry at 23:31:22.4 GMT.

Rupture of the command module marked the beginning of the brief second stage of the fire. This stage was characterized by the period of greatest conflagration due to the forced convection that resulted from the outrush of gases through the rupture in the pressure vessel. The swirling flow scattered firebrands throughout the crew compartment, spreading fire. This stage of the fire ended at approximately 23:31:25 GMT. Evidence that the fire spread from the left side of the command module toward the rupture area was found on subsequent examination of the module and crew suits. Evidence of the intensity of the fire includes burst and burned aluminum tubes in the oxygen and coolant systems at floor level.

This third stage was characterized by rapid production of high concentrations of carbon monoxide. Following the loss of pressure in the command module and with fire now throughout the crew compartment, the remaining atmosphere quickly became deficient in oxygen so that it could not support continued combustion. Unlike the earlier stages where the flame was relatively smokeless, heavy smoke now formed and large amounts of soot were deposited on most spacecraft interior surfaces as they cooled. The third stage of the fire could not have lasted more than a few seconds because of the rapid depletion of oxygen. It was estimated that the command module atmosphere was lethal by 23:31:30 GMT, five seconds after the start of the third stage.

Although most of the fire inside the command module was quickly extinguished because of a lack of oxygen, a localized, intense fire lingered in the area of the environmental control unit. This unit was located in the left equipment bay, near the point where the fire was believed to have started. Failed oxygen and water/glycol lines in this area continued to supply oxygen and fuel to support the localized fire that melted the aft bulkhead and burned adjacent portions of the inner surface of the command module heat shield.

The Investigation

Immediately after the accident, additional security personnel were positioned at Launch Complex 34 and the complex was impounded. Prior to disturbing any evidence, numerous external and internal photographs were taken of the spacecraft. After crew removal, two experts entered the command module to verify switch positions. Small groups of NASA and North American Aviation management, Apollo 204 Review Board members, representatives, and consultants inspected the exterior of Spacecraft 012.

A series of close-up stereo photographs of the command module was taken to document the as-found condition of the spacecraft systems. After the couches were removed, a special false floor with removable 18-inch transparent squares was installed to provide access to the entire inside of the command module without disturbing evidence. A detailed inspection of the spacecraft interior was then performed, followed by the preparation and approval by the Board of a command module disassembly plan.

Command module 014 was shipped to NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 1 February 1967 to assist the Board in the investigation. This command module was placed in the Pyrotechnics Installation Building and was used to develop disassembly techniques for selected components prior to their removal from command module 012. By 7 February 1967, the disassembly plan was fully operational. After the removal of each component, photographs were taken of the exposed area. This step-by-step photography was used throughout the disassembly of the spacecraft. Approximately 5,000 photographs were taken.

All interfaces such as electrical connectors, tubing joints, physical mounting of components, etc. were closely inspected and photographed immediately prior to, during, and after disassembly. Each item removed from the command module was appropriately tagged, sealed in clean plastic containers, and transported under the required security to bonded storage.

On 17 February 1967, the Board decided that removal and wiring tests had progressed to a point which allowed moving the command module without disturbing evidence. The command module was moved to the Pyrotechnics Installation Building at KSC, where better working conditions were available.

With improved working conditions, it was found that a work schedule of two eight-hour shifts per day for six days a week was sufficient to keep pace with the analysis and disassembly planning. The only exception to this was a three-day period of three eight-hour shifts per day used to remove the aft heat shield, move the command module to a more convenient workstation and remove the crew compartment heat shield. The disassembly of the command module was completed on 27 March 1967.

Cause of the Apollo 1 Fire

Although the Board was not able to determine conclusively the specific initiator of the Apollo 204 fire, it identified the conditions that led to the disaster. These conditions were:

A sealed cabin, pressurized with an oxygen atmosphere.

An extensive distribution of combustible materials in the cabin.

Vulnerable wiring carrying spacecraft power.

Vulnerable plumbing carrying a combustible and corrosive coolant.

Inadequate provisions for the crew to escape.

Inadequate provisions for rescue or medical assistance.

Having identified these conditions, the Board addressed the question of how these conditions came to exist. Careful consideration of this question led the Board to the conclusion that in its devotion to the many difficult problems of space travel, the Apollo team failed to give adequate attention to certain mundane but equally vital questions of crew safety. The Board’s investigation revealed many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture, and quality control.

As a result of the investigation, major modifications in design, materials, and procedures were implemented. The two-piece hatch was replaced by a single quick-operating, outward opening crew hatch made of aluminum and fiberglass. The new hatch could be opened from inside in seven seconds and by a pad safety crew in 10 seconds. Ease of opening was enhanced by a gas-powered counterbalance mechanism. The second major modification was the change in the launch pad spacecraft cabin atmosphere for pre-launch testing from 100 percent oxygen to a mixture of 60 percent oxygen and 40 percent nitrogen to reduce support of any combustion. The crew suit loops still carried 100 percent oxygen. After launch, the 60/40 mix was gradually replaced with pure oxygen until cabin atmosphere reached 100 percent oxygen at 5 pounds per square inch. This “enriched air” mix was selected after extensive flammability tests in various percentages of oxygen at varying pressures.

Other changes included: substituting stainless steel for aluminum in high-pressure oxygen tubing, armor plated water-glycol liquid line solder joints, protective covers over wiring bundles, stowage boxes built of aluminum, replacement of materials to minimize flammability, installation of fireproof storage containers for flammable materials, mechanical fasteners substituted for gripper cloth patches, flameproof coating on wire connections, replacement of plastic switches with metal ones, installation of an emergency oxygen system to isolate the crew from toxic fumes, and the inclusion of a portable fire extinguisher and fire-isolating panels in the cabin.

Safety changes were also made at Launch Complex 34. These included structural changes to the White Room for the new quick-opening spacecraft hatch, improved firefighting equipment, emergency egress routes, emergency access to the spacecraft, purging of all electrical equipment in the White Room with nitrogen, installation of a hand-held water hose and a large exhaust fan in the White Room to draw smoke and fumes out, fire-resistant paint, relocation of certain structural members to provide easier access to the spacecraft and faster egress, addition of a water spray system to cool the launch escape system (the solid propellants could be ignited by extreme heat), and the installation of additional water spray systems along the egress route from the spacecraft to ground level.

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy

2007-01-17T20:42:00.000-05:00

January 17, 2007
Economix
What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
By DAVID LEONHARDT

The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.

All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:

The war in Iraq.

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.

These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.

But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.

That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct spending.

The two best-known analyses of the war’s costs agree on this figure, but they diverge from there. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more than $2 trillion on the war. They include a number of indirect costs, like the economic stimulus that the war funds would have provided if they had been spent in this country.

Mr. Wallsten, who worked with Katrina Kosec, another economist, argues for a figure closer to $1 trillion in today’s dollars. My own estimate falls on the conservative side, largely because it focuses on the actual money that Americans would have been able to spend in the absence of a war. I didn’t even attempt to put a monetary value on the more than 3,000 American deaths in the war.

Besides the direct military spending, I’m including the gas tax that the war has effectively imposed on American families (to the benefit of oil-producing countries like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia). At the start of 2003, a barrel of oil was selling for $30. Since then, the average price has been about $50. Attributing even $5 of this difference to the conflict adds another $150 billion to the war’s price tag, Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz say.

The war has also guaranteed some big future expenses. Replacing the hardware used in Iraq and otherwise getting the United States military back into its prewar fighting shape could cost $100 billion. And if this war’s veterans receive disability payments and medical care at the same rate as veterans of the first gulf war, their health costs will add up to $250 billion. If the disability rate matches Vietnam’s, the number climbs higher. Either way, Ms. Bilmes says, “It’s like a miniature Medicare.”

In economic terms, you can think of these medical costs as the difference between how productive the soldiers would have been as, say, computer programmers or firefighters and how productive they will be as wounded veterans. In human terms, you can think of soldiers like Jason Poole, a young corporal profiled in The New York Times last year. Before the war, he had planned to be a teacher. After being hit by a roadside bomb in 2004, he spent hundreds of hours learning to walk and talk again, and he now splits his time between a community college and a hospital in Northern California.

Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.

Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.

“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”

As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.

But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.

This time, it would be nice to have that discussion before the troops reach Iraq.

leonhardt@nytimes.com

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Happy New Year

2006-12-31T17:49:00.000-05:00

I hope this coming year is better than the last, geeeez.....

A Xmas Like No Other

2006-12-26T23:41:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

The weather has been so strange here. The first or second week of December, we got about 5 inches of snow. That melted in about 3 or 4 days, and then, well, nothing. But rain. And more rain. Since when do we get flood watches in December???? During that snow, we had a forty car pile-up on the highway, and it got shut down in both directions. You would think with just ONE snowstorm, (especially in this midwestern city), that people would take it easy, but what the hey. We usually get thumped, but just rain, rain, rain.

The kids had a awesome Christmas!!!!!!! It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! Angelina definantly has the Christmas bug, she LOVES Christmas music, and lights, and she just loves the whole thing in general. That came from me. William is more like Angi. Just kind of like "eh, whatever".

We took the kids to see !!SANTA!! on December 19th. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!! Sissy was just about as good as she has ever been, I mean, she was just a little angel. Mister Mister however, was a COMPLETE PAIN! He threw a fit and screamed and sassed the whole entire time. I think he had a bit of a cold though, but GOOD GOD, it was hard not to just leave. She totally freaked and was scared when it came to see Santa, he still scares her quite a bit. But she was perfect besides that, so it was no big deal at all. He was just being a complete craphead the whole way, but on the way home he straightened up, (what the hell??).

I suprised Angi and got her a gift card for Christmas, and she got pissed because we were not supposed to get each other anything. (We have ZERO money!!) We pretty much spent all the money on the kids. But she was very suprised. Her actual gift is a sewing machine I am paying off for a year ( A Designer ONE, which costs a shitload ), but I felt she deserved something on Christmas Day. It is just once a year, and I love every minute of it.

NORAD's Santa-Tracking Web Site Opens for 2006 Season

2006-12-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

NORAD's Santa-Tracking Web Site Opens for 2006 Season
American Forces Press Service

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Nov. 17, 2006 –

In advance of the holiday season and its 51st season of tracking Santa Claus on his annual journey around the world, the North American Aerospace Defense Command today activated its "NORAD Tracks Santa" Web site for 2006.

The U.S.-Canadian command's program began in 1955 when an errant phone call was made to NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement.

The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information he requested - the whereabouts of Santa Claus - and thus the tradition of NORAD tracking Santa began.

The program has grown immensely since it was first presented on the Internet in 1998. Last year, the Web site received 912 million "hits" from 204 countries and territories. In addition, the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center, occupied by 550 volunteers on Christmas Eve, answered nearly 55,000 phone calls and nearly 98,240 e-mails from children around the world.

The Web site -- www.noradsanta.org -- features the history of the program, information on how NORAD tracks Santa and interactive games. On Dec. 24, beginning at 2 a.m. Mountain Time, the Web site will feature a minute-by-minute update on Santa's travels around the world. All of this information is available English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

Island Web Studios, America Online, Akami, Analytical Graphics, Globelink Language and Cultural Services, Qwest Communications, Verizon, and Microsoft Virtual Earth help to make the program possible, NORAD officials said.

(From a North American Aerospace Defense Command news release.)

Related Sites:NORAD Tracks Santa

North American Aerospace Defense Command

Visit the Defense Department's Web site "America Supports You" at http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, that spotlights what Americans are doing in support of U.S. military men and women serving at home and abroad.

Giving Thanks

2006-11-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

I am thankful for my wife, and kids, without which, I would have nothing to live for.

I am thankful for my job, without which, I could not provide for my wife and kids.

I am thankful for the internet people that I have had the wonderful opportunity to know.

I am thankful for my life, because I love it, and would not change a damn thing.

Illness unmasks generous ‘Secret Santa’

2006-11-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

MSNBC.com

Illness unmasks generous ‘Secret Santa’
Missouri exec gives money to needy, reveals ID to pass mission to others
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:08 p.m. ET Nov 16, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The answer to one of the happiest mysteries in the Kansas City area is being revealed this year.

A man who has given away millions of dollars and become known as Secret Santa for handing out Christmas cash to the needy is allowing his name to be publicized after 26 years.

But the reason for the revelation is an unhappy one. Secret Santa has cancer. He wants to start speaking to community groups about his belief in random acts of kindness, but he can't do that without telling people who he is.

The man who has spread cheer for 26 years is Larry Stewart, 58, of Lee's Summit, who made his millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service.

Stewart told The Kansas City Star that he was the man who would walk up to complete strangers, hand them $100 bills, wish them "Merry Christmas" and walk away, leaving astonished and grateful people in his wake. He handed out money throughout the year, but he said it was the Christmas giving that gave him the most joy.

Devoted life to returning favors
Now, he wants to inspire others to do the same. He said he thinks that people should know that he was born poor, was briefly homeless, dropped out of college, has been fired from jobs, and once even considered robbery.

But he said every time he hit a low point in his life, someone gave him money, food and hope, and that's why he has devoted his life to returning the favors.

Stewart grew up in Bruce, Miss., reared by his elderly grandparents, who survived on $33 a month and welfare staples. They heated water on the stove for baths and used an outhouse.

After he left home and college, he found himself out of work in 1971. After sleeping in his car for eight nights and not eating for two days, Stewart went to the Dixie Diner in Houston, Miss., and ordered breakfast. When the bill came, he acted as if he'd lost his wallet.

The diner owner came to him.

"You must have dropped this," the owner said, slipping a $20 bill into the young man's hand.

He paid, pushed his car to the gas station, and left town. But he vowed to remember the stranger's kindness, and to help others, when he could.

Triple failure
He arrived in Kansas City because he had a cousin here. He got married and started his own company, with money from his father-in-law.

But the company failed in 1977 and he couldn't pay the bills. It was the lowest point in his life.

"I was a failure in business. I was a failure as a husband. I was a failure as a father," he remembers thinking.

He got into his car with a handgun and thought about robbing a store. But he stopped and went home — and got a call from his brother-in-law, offering him money to tide him over.

After being fired from two jobs on two successive Christmases, Stewart stopped at a drive-in. Although he had little money himself, Stewart gave a cold and miserable carhop the change from a $20, much to her delight.

That's when Stewart's mission to secretly give away money at the holidays began.

Eventually, Stewart became a success and started Network Communications in 2002. The firm used independent sales agents to enroll customers for Sprint long-distance service.

In 1996, an arbitration panel ordered Sprint to pay Network and its sales agents $60.9 million in commissions it owed. Stewart got $5.2 million.

The poor boy from Mississippi now had a family, lived in a nice house and drove nice cars.

So, he started giving away more money, to dozens of causes. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The Salvation Army. The National Paralysis Foundation. The ALS Foundation. He supports the Metropolitan Crime Commission's Surviving Spouse and Family Endowment program.

And, all along, he gave away money to needy strangers.

But Christmas was special. He'd distribute thousands of dollars during visits to coin laundries, thrift stores, barbershops and diners.

People shouted with joy, cried, praised the Lord, and thanked Stewart repeatedly.

But Secret Santa moved on quickly to avoid attention.

Reporters sworn to secrecy
He did sometimes invite newspaper and TV reporters along, if they promised not to reveal his identity. It was reporters who dubbed him "Secret Santa."

In 1989, after some people chased his car when they saw the cash he carried, he decided he needed protection. He called Jackson County Sheriff's Capt. Tom Phillips.

"I thought, 'OK, this guy's nuts,'" recalls Phillips, now the Jackson County sheriff. "But at the end of the day, I was in tears — literally — just seeing what he did to people."

Eventually, Secret Santa took his sleigh ride to other places.

In 2001, after the terrorist attacks, he went to New York. The New York cop who accompanied him said he'd never forget the experience.

In 2002, Secret Santa was in Washington, D.C., victimized by the serial snipers. In 2003, it was San Diego neighborhoods devastated by wildfires. And in 2004, he was in Florida, helping thousands left homeless by three hurricanes.

Last Christmas, Secret Santa went back to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast.

He stopped in Houston, Miss., where the diner owner had helped him so many years ago. On a previous visit he had surprised the owner, Ted Horn, with $10,000. This time, they stamped $100 bills with the name "Ted Horn," and gave Horn money to distribute. And Horn took money from his own bank account to give away, too.

Secret Santa’s ‘elves’
Stewart has enlisted "elves" for years — George Brett, the late Buck O'Neil, Dick Butkus. He's already inspired copycats.

Four other Secret Santas plan to distribute a total of $70,000 of their own cash this year.

And Secret Santa plans to give away $100,000 this year. Since he started, he estimates he's given out more than $1.3 million in Christmas cash.

But this will likely be the last Christmas for Stewart's tradition. In April, doctors told Stewart that he had cancer of the esophagus. It had spread to his liver. He needed treatment, fast.

With help from Brett, he got into a clinical trial at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. Doctors tell him the tumors have shrunk, but they can't say whether the cancer is in remission.

"I pray for that man every single day," former Kansas City Chiefs star Deron Cherry — one of Stewart's elves — says. "There's a lot of people praying for him."

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15751409/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2006 MSNBC.com

...

2006-11-11T23:30:00.000-05:00

You paid attention during 80% of high school!

68-84% Pretty good, you know that there are libraries and newspapers, and you remember what you've read. You were a child that wasn't left behind!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

DAMN CHECKING ACCOUNT!

2006-11-11T00:52:00.000-05:00

DAMN CHECKING ACCOUNT!

A crusty old man walks into a bank and says to the woman at the window,
"I want to open a damn checking account." The astonished woman replies,
"I beg your pardon, sir. I must have misunderstood you what did you
say?"

"Listen up. Damn it. I said I want to open a damn checking account now!"

"I'm very sorry sir, but that kind of language is not tolerated in this
bank." The teller leaves the window and goes over to the bank manager to
inform him of her situation. The manager agrees that the teller does not
have to listen to that foul language they both return to the window and
the manager asks the old geezer,

"Sir, what seems to be the problem here?

"There is no damn problem," the man says. "I just won $200 million bucks
in the damn lottery and I want to put my damn money in the damn bank."

"I see," says the manager, "and is this bitch giving you a hard time?"

TOP FOUR ADULT JOKES OF 2005

Number 4

A man bumps into a woman in a hotel lobby and as he does, his elbow goes into her breast. They are both quite startled.

The man turns to her and says, "Ma'am, if your heart is as soft as your breast, I know you'll forgive me."

She replies, "If your penis is as hard as your elbow, I'm in room 221."

Number 3

One night, as a couple lays down for bed, the husband starts rubbing his wife's arm. The wife turns over and says "I'm sorry honey, I've got a gynecologist appointment tomorrow and I want to stay fresh."

The husband, rejected, turns over. A few minutes later, he rolls back over and taps his wife again. "Do you have a dentist appointment tomorrow, too?"

Number 2

Bill worked in a pickle factory. He had been employed there for a number of years when he came home one day to confess to his wife that he had a terrible compulsion. He had an urge to stick his penis into the pickle slicer.

His wife suggested that he should see a sex therapist to talk about it, but Bill said he would be too embarrassed. He vowed to overcome the compulsion on his own.

One day a few weeks later, Bill came home and his wife could see at once that something was seriously wrong.
"What's wrong, Bill?" she asked. "Do you remember that I told you how I had this tremendous urge to put my penis into the pickle slicer?"

"Oh, Bill, you didn't!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, I did." he replied.

"My God, Bill, what happened?" "I got fired."

"No, Bill. I mean! , what happened with the pickle slicer?"

"Oh...she got fired too."

Number 1

A couple had been married for 50 years. They were sitting at the breakfast table one morning when the wife says, "Just think, fifty years ago we were probably sitting here naked as a jaybird."
"Well," the husband snickered. "Let's relive some old times."

Where upon, the two stripped to the buff and sat down at the table.

"You know, honey," the little old lady breathlessly replied, "My nipples are as hot for you today as they were fifty years ago."

" I wouldn't be surprised," replied Gramps. "One's in your coffee and the other is in your oatmeal."

hahaha

2006-11-10T00:25:00.000-05:00

A City cop was on his horse waiting to cross the street when a little girl on her new shiny bike stopped beside him. "Nice bike", said the cop, "Did Santa bring it to you?" "Yep," the little girl said, "He sure did!" The cop looked the bike over and handed the girl a $5.00 ticket for a safety violation. The cop said, "Next year tell Santa to put a reflector light on the back of it." The young girl looked up at the cop and said, "Nice horse you got their sir, did Santa bring it to you?" "Yes, he sure did," chuckled the cop. The little girl looked up at the cop and said, "Next year tell Santa the dick goes underneath the horse, not on top."

Not Soon Enough

2006-11-08T00:46:00.000-05:00

With a landslide for the House, and a nail biter for the Senate, the DEMS have finally come back after 12 long years. My hope for our country is SO looking up.

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms

2006-10-28T22:52:00.000-04:00

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms
By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer
Sat Oct 28, 4:38 PM ET

David M. Walker sure talks like he's running for office. "This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids," the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel. "We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed."

But Walker doesn't want, or need, your vote this November. He already has a job as head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.

Basically, that makes Walker the nation's accountant-in-chief. And the accountant-in-chief's professional opinion is that the American public needs to tell Washington it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin.

From the hustings and the airwaves this campaign season, America's political class can be heard debating Capitol Hill sex scandals, the wisdom of the war in Iraq and which party is tougher on terror. Democrats and Republicans talk of cutting taxes to make life easier for the American people.

What they don't talk about is a dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.

There's a good reason politicians don't like to talk about the nation's long-term fiscal prospects. The subject is short on political theatrics and long on complicated economics, scary graphs and very big numbers. It reveals serious problems and offers no easy solutions. Anybody who wanted to deal with it seriously would have to talk about raising taxes and cutting benefits, nasty nostrums that might doom any candidate who prescribed them.

"There's no sexiness to it," laments Leita Hart-Fanta, an accountant who has just heard Walker's pitch. She suggests recruiting a trusted celebrity — maybe Oprah — to sell fiscal responsibility to the American people.

Walker doesn't want to make balancing the federal government's books sexy — he just wants to make it politically palatable. He has committed to touring the nation through the 2008 elections, talking to anybody who will listen about the fiscal black hole Washington has dug itself, the "demographic tsunami" that will come when the baby boom generation begins retiring and the recklessness of borrowing money from foreign lenders to pay for the operation of the U.S. government.

"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

Walker can talk in public about the nation's impending fiscal crisis because he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. As comptroller general of the United States — basically, the government's chief accountant — he is serving a 15-year term that runs through 2013.

This year Walker has spoken to the Union League Club of Chicago and the Rotary Club of Atlanta, the Sons of the American Revolution and the World Future Society. But the backbone of his campaign has been the Fiscal Wake-up Tour, a traveling roadshow of economists and budget analysts who share Walker's concern for the nation's budgetary future.

"You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved," Walker says.

Polls suggest that Americans have only a vague sense of their government's long-term fiscal prospects. When pollsters ask Americans to name the most important problem facing America today — as a CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,131 Americans did in September — issues such as the war in Iraq, terrorism, jobs and the economy are most frequently mentioned. The deficit doesn't even crack the top 10.

Yet on the rare occasions that pollsters ask directly about the deficit, at least some people appear to recognize it as a problem. In a survey of 807 Americans last year by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, 42 percent of respondents said reducing the deficit should be a top priority; another 38 percent said it was important but a lower priority.

So the majority of the public appears to agree with Walker that the deficit is a serious problem, but only when they're made to think about it. Walker's challenge is to get people not just to think about it, but to pressure politicians to make the hard choices that are needed to keep the situation from spiraling out of control.

To show that the looming fiscal crisis is not a partisan issue, he brings along economists and budget analysts from across the political spectrum. In Austin, he's accompanied by Diane Lim Rogers, a liberal economist from the Brookings Institution, and Alison Acosta Fraser, director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"We all agree on what the choices are and what the numbers are," Fraser says.

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

People who remember Ross Perot's rants in the 1992 presidential election may think of the federal debt as a problem of the past. But it never really went away after Perot made it an issue, it only took a breather. The federal government actually produced a surplus for a few years during the 1990s, thanks to a booming economy and fiscal restraint imposed by laws that were passed early in the decade. And though the federal debt has grown in dollar terms since 2001, it hasn't grown dramatically relative to the size of the economy.

But that's about to change, thanks to the country's three big entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicaid and especially Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare have grown progressively more expensive as the cost of health care has dramatically outpaced inflation over the past 30 years, a trend that is expected to continue for at least another decade or two.

And with the first baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security in 2008 and for Medicare in 2011, the expenses of those two programs are about to increase dramatically due to demographic pressures. People are also living longer, which makes any program that provides benefits to retirees more expensive.

Medicare already costs four times as much as it did in 1970, measured as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product. It currently comprises 13 percent of federal spending; by 2030, the Congressional Budget Office projects it will consume nearly a quarter of the budget.

Economists Jagadeesh Gokhale of the American Enterprise Institute and Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania have an even scarier way of looking at Medicare. Their method calculates the program's long-term fiscal shortfall — the annual difference between its dedicated revenues and costs — over time.

By 2030 they calculate Medicare will be about $5 trillion in the hole, measured in 2004 dollars. By 2080, the fiscal imbalance will have risen to $25 trillion. And when you project the gap out to an infinite time horizon, it reaches $60 trillion.

Medicare so dominates the nation's fiscal future that some economists believe health care reform, rather than budget measures, is the best way to attack the problem.

"Obviously health care is a mess," says Dean Baker, a liberal economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. "No one's been willing to touch it, but that's what I see as front and center."

Social Security is a much less serious problem. The program currently pays for itself with a 12.4 percent payroll tax, and even produces a surplus that the government raids every year to pay other bills. But Social Security will begin to run deficits during the next century, and ultimately would need an infusion of $8 trillion if the government planned to keep its promises to every beneficiary.

Calculations by Boston University economist Lawrence Kotlikoff indicate that closing those gaps — $8 trillion for Social Security, many times that for Medicare — and paying off the existing deficit would require either an immediate doubling of personal and corporate income taxes, a two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits, or some combination of the two.

Why is America so fiscally unprepared for the next century? Like many of its citizens, the United States has spent the last few years racking up debt instead of saving for the future. Foreign lenders — primarily the central banks of China, Japan and other big U.S. trading partners — have been eager to lend the government money at low interest rates, making the current $8.5-trillion deficit about as painful as a big balance on a zero-percent credit card.

In her part of the fiscal wake-up tour presentation, Rogers tries to explain why that's a bad thing. For one thing, even when rates are low a bigger deficit means a greater portion of each tax dollar goes to interest payments rather than useful programs. And because foreigners now hold so much of the federal government's debt, those interest payments increasingly go overseas rather than to U.S. investors.

More serious is the possibility that foreign lenders might lose their enthusiasm for lending money to the United States. Because treasury bills are sold at auction, that would mean paying higher interest rates in the future. And it wouldn't just be the government's problem. All interest rates would rise, making mortgages, car payments and student loans costlier, too.

A modest rise in interest rates wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, Rogers said. America's consumers have as much of a borrowing problem as their government does, so higher rates could moderate overconsumption and encourage consumer saving. But a big jump in interest rates could cause economic catastrophe. Some economists even predict the government would resort to printing money to pay off its debt, a risky strategy that could lead to runaway inflation.

Macroeconomic meltdown is probably preventable, says Anjan Thakor, a professor of finance at Washington University in St. Louis. But to keep it at bay, he said, the government is essentially going to have to renegotiate some of the promises it has made to its citizens, probably by some combination of tax increases and benefit cuts.

But there's no way to avoid what Rogers considers the worst result of racking up a big deficit — the outrage of making our children and grandchildren repay the debts of their elders.

"It's an unfair burden for future generations," she says.

You'd think young people would be riled up over this issue, since they're the ones who will foot the bill when they're out in the working world. But students take more interest in issues like the Iraq war and gay marriage than the federal government's finances, says Emma Vernon, a member of the University of Texas Young Democrats.

"It's not something that can fire people up," she says.

The current political climate doesn't help. Washington tends to keep its fiscal house in better order when one party controls Congress and the other is in the White House, says Sawhill.

"It's kind of a paradoxical result. Your commonsense logic would tell you if one party is in control of everything they should be able to take action," Sawhill says.

But the last six years of Republican rule have produced tax cuts, record spending increases and a Medicare prescription drug plan that has been widely criticized as fiscally unsound. When President Clinton faced a Republican Congress during the 1990s, spending limits and other legislative tools helped produce a surplus.

So maybe a solution is at hand.

"We're likely to have at least partially divided government again," Sawhill said, referring to predictions that the Democrats will capture the House, and possibly the Senate, in next month's elections.

But Walker isn't optimistic that the government will be able to tackle its fiscal challenges so soon.

"Realistically what we hope to accomplish through the fiscal wake-up tour is ensure that any serious candidate for the presidency in 2008 will be forced to deal with the issue," he says. "The best we're going to get in the next couple of years is to slow the bleeding."

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

'She was a great kid'

2006-09-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

Emily Keyes is shown here in this Platte Canyon High School yearbook photo, courtesy of the Twyford family of Bailey. Emily, who has a twin brother, Casey, died from a gunshot wound in the head at 4:32 p.m. at Denver's St. Anthony Central Hospital, after a desperate transfer on a Flight For Life helicopter.

'She was a great kid'
By Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News
September 28, 2006

BAILEY - Just about everyone in town knew Emily Keyes, the friendly high school girl who waited tables at the Cutthroat Cafe downtown.
She was the girl with the ever-present smile and no shortage of "please" and "thank yous."

So when news spread through this mountain town Wednesday that it was 16-year-old Emily who was shot and killed during a standoff at Platte Canyon High School, the shock was felt everywhere.

Friends rushed to St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver where Emily was airlifted. A devastated group of young people gathered at the cafe. A special rosary was held at St. Mary of the Rockies Church. And at the Woodside Inn in nearby Pine, three grown women sat at the bar and cried.

"This whole community is affected by this," said Chip Thomas, owner of the Cutthroat Cafe. "I mean, you're talking Bailey, Colorado. For something like this to happen, it touches everyone."

Thomas said he hired Emily about two years ago. The high school junior worked three or four days a week, when she wasn't busy with speech or volleyball.

"She was a great kid," Thomas said.

Monte Fisher, of Bailey, said he watched Emily grow up. Fisher's step-daughter, Jessica Leedom, met Emily in second grade and the two were best friends.

"She was like part of our family," Fisher said.

Emily, who has a twin brother, Casey, always would thank Fisher and his wife for letting her come over, Fisher said. On her way out the door, she would hug them goodbye.

"Out of all of Jessica's friends, she was our favorite," Fisher said. "She was one of the nicest girls. Just a real sweetheart."

Shawn Swigert, 15, said Emily did such an outstanding job on a world history paper that her teacher read it out loud to his class of sophomores Wednesday morning because she wanted the underclassmen to hear an example of the kind of work she wanted from them.

The paper was set in medieval times, and a boy died in the end, Swigert said while attending the rosary at St. Mary of the Rockies.

Bishop Michael Sheridan, of Colorado Springs, performed the service. He said Emily was still alive when he left Colorado Springs for Bailey. "We hoped to pray for her recovery," Sheridan told about 60 people. "But now we must pray for her family."

Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co.

Events in Bailey rattle Columbine survivors
By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
September 27, 2006

Connie Michalick and her son, Richard Castaldo, sat in a Social Security office this morning, trying to explain to a newcomer to Colorado about the Columbine shootings that left Castaldo paralyzed.

Michalick turned on her television this afternoon to see frightened students running for school buses.

"Oh my God," she said. "This is actually giving me chills. I want to cry.

"I hope some poor parent doesn’t have to stand and wait for a bus and a child who doesn’t come home."

A hostage situation at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey revived harrowing memories for those parents whose children who attended Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.

Terry Savage’s son, John, was in the school library that day when seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed Columbine.

John, who was hiding under a table, moved. One gunmen said, "Halt, who goes there?"

John knew Klebold and asked him what he was doing.

"I’m killing people," Klebhold calmly replied.

"Are you going to kill me?" John asked.

"No, get out of here," Klebold said.

John escaped, but his parents wouldn’t know that for more than two frantic hours.

"I get very tense when I think about it," Savage said in a trembling voice. "This thing in Bailey brings back memories, doesn’t it?"

Klebold and Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before commiting suicide.

They injured about two dozen more, including Castaldo, a junior who was sitting outside the school with friends when he was shot in the chest, back and arm.

His mother recalled waiting at nearby Leawood Elementary School for hours that day.

After police finally stormed Columbine, classrooms were emptied and students ran from the schools to waiting buses that took them to Leawood.

"We were all standing there and a bus would come. You would look for your child. You would say, ‘Surely he’ll be on the next bus.’ The crowd kept getting smaller and smaller and finally they said, ‘That’s the last bus,'" Michalick said.

"The parents that were left were in a panic. It was excruciating."

Only then did she learn that her son was in the hospital.

In the days that followed, TV stations endlessly replayed footage of students running from the school to the buses.

Michalick said it seemed almost unreal to think that earlier Wednesday, she and her son were talking about the Columbine shootings with a Social Security administrator.

Castaldo, now 25, is a paraplegic and receives disability payments.

Michalick said the Bailey situation on top of shootings recently in Montreal are too much to compehend.

"This is just horrible," she said. "I just don't know what the answer is."

Another Columbine parent, Sue Townsend, had also waited that day at Leawood for a bus that never came. Her stepdaughter, Lauren Townsend, had been killed in the library.

Sue Townsend heard about the hostage situation at Platte Canyon High School on the radio, but declined to immediately turn on the TV.

"It just dredges up all those emotions," she said. "I don’t want to relive it.

"I’ll say a prayer for the families involved."

Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co.

Hostage texted love to family before she was shot
POSTED: 7:42 p.m. EDT, September 28, 2006

BAILEY, Colorado (CNN) -- As 16-year-old Emily Keyes was being held hostage by a gunman in the last hours of her life, she tapped out one last text message to her family: "I love u guys."

Police released the text message and a photo of Keyes on Thursday, as they continued to investigate the Wednesday incident in classroom 206 at Platte Canyon High School.

Keyes was one of two girls whose screams spurred SWAT teams to storm a Colorado classroom where a gunman was holding them hostage, officials said Thursday.

Duane Morrison, 53, had already sexually assaulted and "traumatized" the students when the raid was ordered to end the Wednesday standoff, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said.

Morrison used Keyes as a human shield when the officers burst in. Morrison shot her in the back of her head when she tried to escape, Joe Morales, executive director of Colorado's Department of Public Safety, told reporters.

The gunman then shot himself. When his body was removed from the classroom, authorities found a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver on him, the sheriff said. (Watch sheriff reveal what happened after the gunman was pinned down in a classroom -- 3:05)

Morrison had told the police he had a bomb in his backpack, Wegener said, but after it was over, he said, "It looks like there was nothing in the backpack."

Keyes was taken by helicopter to a Denver hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Morrison, who had an arrest record in neighboring Jefferson County and was wanted on a fugitive-from-justice warrant, took six girls hostage inside a classroom of Platte Canyon High School, in Bailey Colorado.

He released four students one-by-one in a three-hour standoff but negotiations then broke down.

Wegener said the gunman threatened that something would happen at 4 p.m.

"It was then decided that a tactical solution needed to be done in an effort to save the two hostages that were in the room," Wegener said.

The screams from the hostages "moved up the tempo of the operation a bit," Morales said.

Wegener said: "We had to go try and save them."

He added that any motive for the attack was "still a mystery."

In an interview with KOKI in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the gunman's father, Bob Morrison, described his son as "just different" and "a loner."

Mom: My son lied

A purported witness to the standoff said the gunman wanted to take only girls hostage, but his mother said later that her son was lying.

Cassidy Grigg, 16, told NBC's "Today" that the gunman fired a warning shot as he entered the classroom, then lined up the students in front of a chalkboard.

However, Grigg's mother said he was in a nearby computer lab when he heard the commotion. Grigg went to check it out but was turned away by his teacher, his mother said.

Larina Grigg elaborated to the Rocky Mountain News, saying her son "wants to say he's sorry. I know and he knows he made a huge mistake. He lost one of his dear friends."

She added that Cassidy wanted to be a hero and "got caught up in the chaos" of television crews scrambling to interview him.

Grigg told "Today" that Keyes "was one of my first friends." (Read how Emily will be remembered as a 'great kid')

"She was always sweet, she always welcomed people," he said. "She was just friendly, she was a good person in general."

'Scared to death'

Authorities have searched Morrison's car, in which he appeared to be living, the sheriff said.

Wegener said the suspect did not have much of a criminal history and only minor things were on his record.

Bailey is not far from Columbine, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves in 1999.

"I know we talk about the Columbine connection," Wegener said. "This is something that has changed my school, changed my community.

"My small county is gone," he added.

"I've gone from upset to angry that this man has done this to our community, has done this to our children," Wegener said.

On Wednesday, Wegener said he was "scared to death" as he was deciding whether to order police to storm the classroom.

"Nobody wants anything to happen like this at their school," said Wegener. He said his own son was in the building. Asked whether he was second-guessing his decision, Wegener said, "I have to go and eventually I have to face a family about the fact their daughter is dead. So what would you do?"

© 2006 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

Colo. school attack 'sexual in nature'
By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 28, 12:19 PM ET

"He did traumatize and assault our children," Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said. "I'll only say that it's sexual in nature."

Wegener identified the suspect as Duane R. Morrison, 53, and said was he from the Denver area but had been living in his car. He said investigators had not established any previous connection between him and the hostages.

State records showed he was arrested in July in the west Denver suburb of Lakewood on a charge of obstructing police in another suburb. He was also arrested for larceny and marijuana possession in 1973.

Authorities said Morrison had let four of the hostages go before a SWAT team stormed the Platte Canyon High School classroom where he had been cornered Wednesday.

The gunman fatally wounded one of the girls and killed himself as the deputies charged in. The other girl escaped.

The victim was identified by acquaintances and a co-worker as 16-year-old Emily Keyes, shown in a yearbook photo as a smiling blonde who played volleyball and was on the high school debate team.

She was pronounced dead at a Denver hospital after Wednesday's standoff, which reminded many people of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High, less than an hour's drive away.

"This is something that has changed my school, changed my community," said Wegener, a 36-year resident of Bailey. "My small county's gone."

Wegener said Morrison made few demands. "Most of the demands were, 'Leave me alone, get out of here,'" he said.

Asked about his decision to storm the classroom, Wegener said:

"Being a sheriff in a small community, knowing all the parents, knowing the kids — my daughter graduated last year, my son's a junior here — it is very difficult. Because I'd want whoever was in my position to do the same thing. And that is to save lives," he said.

Morrison began the takeover by ordering students to line up at the chalk board as he tapped each with his gun and told them to stay or go, a student in the classroom said.

Cassidy Grigg, 16, said the man walked in, fired a warning shot at the floor and ordered the students to line up. He told some to leave and others — all girls — to stay.

"You could tell that he wanted the females," Cassidy said on NBC's "Today" Thursday. "He tapped me on the shoulder and he told me to leave the room. I told him, 'I don't want to leave.'"

"He told me that if I didn't go then he would pretty much kill me," Cassidy told ABC's "Good Morning America." "I noticed that he wanted to keep the females in the class. That's the main reason why I didn't want to go because I'm sure the girls would have felt more support if there would have been some males in the class with them."

No one recognized the man, who seemed to be dressed as a student, Cassidy said.

"He was just an old guy who came on a mission, and I think he got what he wanted," he told "Today."

"We are a community in mourning," schools superintendent Jim Walpole said. "Our thoughts, our prayers are with our students, staff and their families. Especially the family of the student we lost."

Residents gathered quietly Thursday morning at the Cutthroat Cafe, where Keyes had been a waitress for about two years, to grieve and remember, said Bobbi Sterling, a waitress and cook there.

"It's very sad here. You know, the family lost their daughter but as a community, we lost a child," she said. "We're just sitting here, numb and in shock. We're all just kind of stunned. People are here for mutual support."

Wegener was at a loss to explain a motive.

"I don't know why he wanted to do this," Wegener said, his voice breaking.

The gunman claimed he had explosives in a backpack and was wielding a handgun, authorities said. He released four hostages one by one, then abruptly cut off communication with authorities and set a deadline that forced authorities to act.

He said authorities used explosives as they entered the classroom, only to have the suspect fire at officers, shoot one of the girls and then himself.

School was canceled for the rest of the week at the high school and the adjoining middle school in this tiny mountain town.

The lines of students fleeing the schools, the bomb squads and the frantic parents scrambling to find their loved ones evoked memories of the Columbine attack, where two students killed 13 people before taking their own lives.

Michael Owens, who has one son at the middle school and another in the high school, said the anxiety was worse because the memory of Columbine was still fresh.

"Things that are out of your control, you just do what you can do," he said. "It's like an earthquake."

Sophomore Zack Barnes, 16, said his class moved to a room that turned out to be next to the one where the hostages were being held. They turned out the lights and sat in silence in the dark for about 20 minutes before police guided them out.

"I was just praying it wasn't a mass killing," Barnes said.

The schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

In My Inbox

2006-09-24T04:03:00.000-04:00

The 4 Great Truths:

1. Muslims do not recognize the Jews as God's chosen people.

2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian World.

4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

I Want To Cry

2006-09-12T05:26:00.000-04:00

Our twin beedees are starting pre-school today, Angi is supposed to take pics and stuff. I really, really, really, hope she does. Man, how depressing, and yet, exhilarating.

Full Coverage: 9/11 FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY

2006-09-11T14:21:00.000-04:00

Elsewhere on the Web
CNN.com: 9/11: Remembering the valor
ABC News: 9/11 Through the Eyes of Children
USATODAY.com: Nation stops again to remember 9/11 tragedy
Detroit News Online: 9-11 Five Years Later

Full Coverage: 9/11 Anniversary

Full Coverage: Space Shuttle

Major League Baseball: September 11, Five Years Later

September 11 Links:
September 11 Memorial Events
September 11, 2001 Attacks
World Trade Center Photo Gallery
More September 11 Links:
9/11 Memorial Events in Queens
9/11 Memorial Events in Brooklyn
September 11 Films at the Tribeca Film Festival

Related Interactive:
9/11 Five Years Later

More Interactives:

Then and Now
Photos comparing scenes from 9/11 and now.

Skyscrapers
How 9/11 affected the architecture of skyscrapers.

Protestors and Theorists Gather at NYC 911 Site
People commemorating the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, weren't the only ones who showed up at the New York City site for events on Sunday. (Sept. 11)

LIVE - Memorial service at ground zero

Slideshow: 9/11 Anniversary

History of the Manhattan Landmark Destroyed on September 11, 2001

2006-09-11T14:15:00.000-04:00

World Trade Center
From Pamela Skillings

History of the Manhattan Landmark Destroyed on September 11, 2001

The two identical 110-story towers of the World Trade Center opened in 1973 and went on to become New York City icons and key elements of Manhattan's famous skyline. Once home to almost 500 businesses and approximately 50,000 employees, the World Trade Center towers were tragically destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Origins of the the World Trade Center

In 1946, the New York State Legislature authorized the development of a "world trade mart" in downtown Manhattan, the branchild of real estate developer David Scholtz.

However, it wasn't until 1958 that Chase Manhattan Bank vice chair David Rockefeller announced plans to build a 500-million-square-foot complex on Lower Manhattan's east side. The original proposal was for only one 70-story building, not the final Twin Towers design. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to oversee the building project.

Protests and Changing Plans

Protests soon arose from residents and businesses in the Lower Manhattan neighborhoods slated for demolition to make way for the World Trade Center.

Final building plans were eventually approved and unveiled by principal architect Minoru Yamasaki in 1964. The new plans called for a World Trade Center consisting of 15 million square feet distributed among seven buildings. The standout design features were two towers that would each exceed the Empire State Building's height by 100 feet and become the world's tallest buildings.

Building the World Trade Center

Construction of the World Trade center began in 1966. The south tower was completed first in 1971. The Towers were built using a new drywall system reinforced by steel cores, making them the first skycrapers ever built without the use of masonry. The two towers -- at 1368 and 1362 feet and 110 stories each -- bested the Empire State Building to become the tallest buildings in the world.

The World Trade Center -- including the Twin Towers and four other buildings -- officially opened in 1973.

A New York City Landmark

In 1974, French high-wire artist Philippe Petit made headlines by walking across a cable strung between the tops of the two towers using no safety net. The world-famous restaurant, Windows on the World, opened on the top floors of the north tower in 1976. The restaurant was hailed by critics as one of the finest in the world and offered some of the most breathtaking views in New York City. In the South Tower, the public observation deck called "Top of the World" offered similar views for New Yorkers and visitors.

The World Trade Center also starred in many movies -- including memorable roles in Escape from New York, the 1976 remake of King Kong, and Superman.

Terror and Tragedy at the World Trade Center

In 1993, a group of terrorists left a van loaded with explosives in an underground parking garage of the north tower. The resulting explosion killed six and wounded more than a thousand, but caused no major damage to the World Trade Center.

Sadly, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, caused much greater destruction. Terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center towers, causing massive explosions, the destruction of the towers, and the deaths of 2,749 people.

Today, the World Trade Center remains a New York City icon years after its destruction.

©2006 About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.

Turned Upside Down, Then Right Side Up

2006-09-10T23:56:00.000-04:00

This past month has been freaking crazy. My mom from Ohio, who works(ed) at Delphi Dayton, has transferred to my plant here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I first hired in the plant in Dayton, OH (When it was still owned by General Motors) in November of 1997. I got my mom hired in there in March of 1999. I transferred from there to Muncie, Indiana in Febuary 2000. After that, I transferred to Fort Wayne, Indiana in April 2003. Well, my mom transferred here in August. She got here letter of notice (or whatever the hell it's called) in July, and she accepted, so before she started here in August, here and dad came out and stayed in a hotel a couple of weekends, and she ended up buying a house just south of here in Huntington, Indiana. Her closing date for her house was not until two weeks AFTER her start date here in Fort Wayne, so she stayed with us for a couple of weeks, until her house closed, and it was a very, very, very

long

two

weeks.

During that time, I finally got moved to the new job I posted for at work, one I got back in June. It was for first shift in Material Department, as opposed to where I was, which was secong shift in Final Department. So, I was on a new job on first shift for a couple of weeks, but that changed last week. I was bumped back to second shift, however, it is still in Material, because that is my department. So, now I am back on second shift again, just a differant job. The couple of weeks that I was able to spend with my kids being on first shift was so nice. I just wish it could have lasted longer.

AT LEAST MY MOM IS LIVING IN HER OWN PLACE!!!!!!

Reutersgate strikes other news outlets

2006-08-11T12:50:00.000-04:00

Aug. 11, 2006 0:26 Updated Aug. 11, 2006 17:11
Reutersgate strikes other news outlets
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL

At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media.

Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets.

More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.

The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."

"In a blog you don't have to be accurate to anyone but yourself and your readers," said Laya Millman from the Jewlicious.com blog. "There is a great deal of accountability because, if you get anything wrong, the readers will quickly, very quickly, point it out."

As was demonstrated in the case with the Reuters photograph, blogs come with their own teams of investigators: the thousands of readers who stream through the site. Within hours of Charles Johnson's posting on Little Green Footballs, readers of the Web site had gone to work uncovering an array of damning evidence against Hajj, the most serious of which - a second doctored photograph, an Israeli plane altered to make it look as though it was dropping a series of bombs - may have pushed Reuters to fire Hajj after initially announcing that the freelance photographer would be suspended. That photograph, which was discovered by blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report, included an illustrated account of how the photos had been doctored.

Photographs whose veracity has been questioned by blogs in the past few weeks since Reutersgate began include:

Two pictures used by The Associated Press and Reuters, in which the same woman appeared to be crying over the destruction of her Beirut home. Distinguished by a red-checkered scarf and scar on her right cheek, the woman was pictured crying in front of two different locations two weeks apart.

Several photographs of a bombed bridge in Beirut which appear on Reuters and AFP with the different captions stating that the bridge had been bombed on July 18, July 24 and August 5. Bloggers claim that the striking image was photographed to look like several different bombings in order to make destruction in Beirut appear more severe.

In The New York Times photo essay "Attack on Tyre," a photograph of a man who appears dead is accompanied with the caption reading "bodies were still buried under the rubble." However, in a later photograph in the same series, the same man appears to be walking in the foreground of a photo. The Times issued a correction for the first photograph, stating that the man was injured.

Some claim that the online controversy over the photos has gotten out of hand, with many blogs now launching investigations and hurling accusations at a variety of news sources.

"These accusations can be very damning, and need to be handled with care and not thrown out by any angry blogger," said one anonymous poster on Little Green Footballs.

In the meantime, however, Little Green Footballs - along with many other online forums - has been flooded with investigations into mainstream media, with the entire army of its hundreds of thousands of readers eagerly at hand.

© 1995 - 2006 The Jerusalem Post. All rights reserved.

GOOD... GOD.

2006-08-01T07:41:00.000-04:00

High: 95°F
Wind: SW 14 mph
Max. Humidity: 65%
UV Index: 9 Very High
Heat Index: 105°F
Sunrise: 6:37 AM ET
Avg. High: 84°F
Record High: 96°F (1955)

Lego Bank Robbery

2006-07-30T04:37:00.000-04:00

Lego Bank Robbery

(CLICK~~~~~~~~~HERE)

Tip leads to arrest in Indiana sniper case

2006-07-26T03:04:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, July 25, 2006
UPDATED: 9:56 PM
Tip leads to arrest in Indiana sniper case
By Lesley Stedman Weidenbener and Dick Kaukas
The Courier-Journal

INDIANAPOLIS — A 17-year-old Delaware County high school student was charged with murder Tuesday after police said he confessed to a series of interstate sniper shootings that left a New Albany man dead early Sunday morning.

Zachariah Blanton of Gaston was being held in the Jackson County Jail on charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness after a hearing before Jackson Superior Court Judge Bruce Markel.

As a 17-year-old charged with murder, Blanton will be tried as an adult in accordance with the law, said Jackson County Prosecutor Stephen Pierson.

Pierson said he doesn’t know whether he will seek the death penalty, in part because of the defendant’s age.

“It’s just a tragic situation all the way around,” he said. “I haven’t made up my mind, and I’m going to take my time.”

Blanton is charged in the death of Jerry L. Ross, 40, who was shot while riding in a pickup truck on Interstate 65 near Seymour.

He also is charged with wounding Robert John Otto Hartl, 25, of Audubon, Iowa, who was riding in another pickup in the same area early Sunday. Hartl was released after being treated at a Seymour hospital.

Police said Blanton also is responsible for two shootings that occurred about two hours later along I-69 near Muncie. Delaware County authorities have not charged him in those shootings.

State Police Superintendent Paul Whitesell said the break in the case came when a Delaware County reserve deputy talked to someone who knew Blanton and was concerned that he might have been involved.

He said investigators followed up on the tip Monday night, searched Blanton’s home and found a Remington Model 710 rifle with a scope that fires a .270-caliber round.

Whitesell said that matches the type of weapon used in the shootings, but he said tests to confirm whether the weapon is actually the one that was fired have not been completed.

Suspect called cooperative, remorseful
Investigators who interviewed Blanton Tuesday in Delaware County said he was cooperative and remorseful.

Blanton’s legal guardians — his grandparents — were present for the interview. An attorney was not, Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan said.

Whitesell said information that Blanton provided led to the charges.

“I would call that a confession,” he said.

After the interview, Blanton was transferred to Jackson County for a probable-cause hearing.

Police said they have not determined a motive, and Sheridan declined to speculate about whether Blanton chose his victims at random.

Whitesell said the investigation determined that Blanton, who had hunted in Jackson County, drove onto an overpass near Seymour, leaned across the trunk of his vehicle and shot at pickups there.

He then drove north to the Muncie area and found a position near mile marker 42 on I-69, where he fired shots before driving south to the exit at mile marker 41 and shooting at a parked car, Whitesell said.

Sheridan said Blanton has faced charges involving sexual offenses and theft, but never was convicted and never served any time in jail or in a juvenile detention center.

'A great kid'
Blanton, who would be a senior at Wes-Del High School in Gaston this year, is a varsity football player and member of the track team. According to an Internet listing of high school football teams, he stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 330 pounds.

His uncle, Joseph Blanton, a mechanic who has a business near Gaston, described the alleged shooter as “a great kid” who sometimes helped him around the shop, most recently a couple of weeks ago.

He said he is “a good worker” who likes to talk about sports and car racing.

“I’m just heartbroken,” Joseph Blanton said. “I don’t think he done it.”

Several others who know Zachariah Blanton said they were stunned when they heard he had been accused.

Wes-Del principal Phillip Gardner said Blanton “was on course to graduate this year” and took half his classes at the “career center,” or vocational school.

“This is a very, very small school,” Gardner said, with about 530 students in the middle and high school.

“Everybody knew him. To me he was a student like everyone else, just a Wes-Del kid. It’s shocking.”

Stephen McColley, superintendent of the 880-student school district, said he knows Blanton’s family and “they are good people.”

He said there was nothing in Blanton’s background that would make anyone suspect “he would do this.”

Was a former church group member
Joseph Fights, pastor of Prairie Grove Congregational Christian Church in Gaston, said Blanton grew up in the area, was raised by his grandparents and attended the church’s youth group “until a couple of years ago.”

Fights said he doesn’t know what led to the grandparents’ getting custody. He said he thought Blanton “always had a few problems” that he associated with his coming from “a broken home.”

But Fights said he was “totally shocked” by the charges.

At a news conference Tuesday, Gov. Mitch Daniels said citizen participation and the cooperation of law-enforcement agencies led to a quick arrest.

“Indiana has been spared the sort of fear and uncertainty and disruption that has befallen other jurisdictions,” he said.

Immediately after the shootings, sheriff’s deputies from across the state — including those in Jackson, Clark and Scott counties — joined state police, conservation officers and excise police in the investigation.

The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also took part.

In addition, Whitesell said, Ohio agencies sent investigators who had worked to solve a series of sniper shootings in that state.

Whitesell also confirmed yesterday that as part of the investigation, police found a note written on bathroom tissue and threatening a “bloodbath” in northeastern Indiana. But he said the note is believed to be a hoax and unconnected to Blanton.

Reporter Lesley Stedman Weidenbener can be reached at (317) 444-2780. Reporter Dick Kaukas can be reached at (812) 949-4033.

Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal.

8:14 PM July 25, 2006
Hunch leads to sniper suspect
By Tim Evans and John Strauss

A sheriff deputy's hunch led to the arrest today of a teenage hunter in the interstate sniper case, State Police Commissioner Paul Whitesell said.

Zachariah Blanton, 17, of Gaston in Delaware County was held today on murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness charges. Blanton was held in the Jackson County Jail in Seymour, near the location where one motorist was killed and another wounded early Sunday.

Whitesell discussed the charges in a late afternoon news conference with Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan and Gov. Mitch Daniels.

All three credited the public with responding to the police request for tips in the case.

“Without the alertness and volunteer cooperation of citizens in at least two places, this could not have been brought to as swift a resolution,” Daniels said.

Whitesell said the break in the case came when a reserve deputy from Delaware County spoke to an acquaintance of Blanton who was concerned about the teen.

“He (the acquaintance) was concerned about whether or not the suspect might have been involved,” Whitesell said. “The reserve deputy took that lamentation and followed up and called Sheriff Sheridan.”

The deputy was aware of the massive local, state and federal probe into Sunday’s shootings.

Jerry L. Ross, 40, New Albany, was killed by a gunshot while traveling on I-65 just north of Seymour. Robert Otto Hartl, 25, Audubon, Iowa, was treated after being hit by gunfire near the same location. The men were in southbound pickup trucks, and both shootings occurred at about 12:30 a.m.

Two hours later, a semi was hit by gunfire on I-69 near Muncie, and an unoccupied pickup truck was hit nearby in the same area. No one was injured in those shootings.
A Jackson County judge found probable cause to issue a warrant for Blanton on the three charges.

During a hearing this afternoon in Brownstown, investigators also presented testimony tying Blanton to the shootings in Delaware County, according to Jackson Superior Judge Bruce Markel III.

Markel said there was no testimony linking anyone else to the shootings.

Denise Blanton, the suspect's great-aunt, told The Star-Press of Muncie that she was shocked by the charges. “I can’t imagine that he would be involved."

Phillip Gardner, principal of Wes-Del High School in rural Delaware County, told The Associated Press that Blanton was on course to graduate next year.

Wes-Del has 300 students. Blanton was an average student who played football and was a shot putter for the track and field team.

“I know he was into mechanics,” Gardner told AP. “He had a big, old four-wheel truck that he was driving all the time. That kind of kid.”

He called the arrest “just tragic.”

“It’s very difficult for our whole community. We’re all just shocked.”

Staff writers Theodore Kim and Vic Ryckaert contributed to this report.
This story will be updated.

Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved

tim.evans@indystar.com

Interstate sniper suspect in custody
CRIME Police: 17-year-old admits to weekend shooting that killed one, injured another
BY PATRICK GUINANE
317.637-9078

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, July 26, 2006 12:09 AM CDT

INDIANAPOLIS A 17-year-old from Delaware County has confessed to a series of sniper shootings that killed one motorist and injured another along Indiana highways last weekend, police said.

Zachariah Blanton, of Gaston, was arrested Tuesday afternoon on charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness with a firearm. He is being held in the Jackson County Jail, near Seymour, where the first of two sniper attacks on Interstate 65 early Sunday killed Jerry Ross, 40, of New Albany, and injured Robert Otto Hartl, 25, of Audubon, Iowa.

Police do not yet have a motive in the case, though Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan Jr. said Blanton has a history with police. Sheridan said Blanton has no convictions on his record and has never served time, even as a juvenile. He would not comment further.

The sniper attacks early Sunday sparked statewide concern, with electronic message boards on Indiana interstates instructing motorists to "report suspicious overpass activities -- call police."

Investigators received more than 50 tips Monday, but didn't see a break in the case until that evening.

An acquaintance of Blanton told a Delaware County reserve deputy he was concerned that a friend might be responsible for the Interstate 65 attacks and similar shootings reported two hours later on Interstate 69, near Muncie. No one was injured in the second round of shootings.

Blanton cooperated with investigators Monday night, and during a search of his grandparents' home, officers recovered a rifle and scope that matched the type of weapon used in the shootings, police said.

Indiana State Police Superintendent Paul Whitesell said there was no need for a written confession, given Blanton's cooperation with investigators.

Police said Blanton, a student at Wes-Del High School, knew the area around Seymour -- where the shootings began about 12:20 a.m. Sunday -- from past hunting trips.

"(That) helps explain why he was able to perpetrate the crime from that overpass because it requires a certain esoteric knowledge of the lay of the land, and to egress out of there in the fashion that the shooter did," Whitesell said.

Police said Blanton then drove about 100 miles northeast, stopped at an I-69 overpass and shot a moving semitrailer. Blanton then a drove a mile south to another overpass, where he shot an unattended vehicle, Whitesell said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

pguinane@nwitimes.com

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Copyright © 1996-2006 nwitimes.com. Reproduction or redistribution of content is expressly forbidden without the express written consent of nwitimes.com.

Boy's Recovery Considered Miracle

2006-07-23T22:49:00.000-04:00

Dad Breathes Air Into Son Trapped Underwater For 7 Minutes
Boy's Recovery Considered Miracle

POSTED: 10:19 am EDT July 21, 2006
UPDATED: 10:29 am EDT July 21, 2006

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A 14-year-old who was sucked to the bottom of a hotel hot tub and kept under water for at least seven minutes was likely saved by air his father breathed into his mouth during the ordeal.

Aljuwon Pipkin, who was visiting Walt Disney World from New Jersey, became stuck at the bottom of the hot tub last Thursday at the Radisson Parkway Hotel.

Officials said a grate at the bottom of the tub apparently broke and created a strong suction that pulled the teen underwater.

Pipkin's father was at the pool and noticed his son stuck at the bottom of the hot tub.

"I get chills now even speaking about it," father Sharif Pipkin said. "I was truly a traumatic moment. I figured he was at the bottom and they just couldn't pull him up and then he didn't come up. And, I pulled again and he didn't come up. I began to holler for help from people."

As people jumped in to pull the teen from the bottom of the tub, Pipkin's father jumped in and began to breathe air into his son's mouth, the report said.

"(Aljuwon Pipkin) doesn't remember the frantic help from hotel guests and doesn't remember his father breathing into his mouth underwater," Local 6 reporter Jessica Sanchez said.

Pipkin was transported to Florida Hospital South in critical condition and initial scans of his brain were abnormal. Doctors feared he suffered brain damage.

However, seven days after the near drowning, Pipkin was given the OK to leave the hospital. He was diagnosed as being healthy with no permanent damage from the incident.

"The fact that he woke up at all is being considered a miracle," Sanchez said.

"I just remember going down to the pool and then waking up in the hospital," Pipkin said. "I can appreciate life more," Aljuwon Pipkin said. "It makes you want to work harder for things."

Pipkin's family said they do not blame the Radisson Hotel and said they believe what happened was an accident, the report said.

Copyright 2006 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

No Spare Time....

2006-07-18T04:02:00.000-04:00

at all. None. I am lucky enough to have the past two weeks paid vacation from work, and that is awesome! We have been nothing but busy.

Angi turned the big 3 - 0 on Tueday. She was born July, 11 1976. Wow.
I got her a birthday cake, a total of seven birthday cards from me and the kids, a dozen doughnuts, three reese cup candy bar things, and that's about it. We also went to Red Lobster, and my parents watched the kids (they were in state). She got a crap load of sewing stuff for her birthday a week or so ago, and we got a new Canon Digital Rebel XT also. With an extended warranty, extra battery, it (the Rebel) came to a bit over $1,000 bucks. But at least there is a one hundred dollar mail in rebate. We are going to sell the old camera, and accesories on eBay, probably.

I have done the following (Or will get finished this weekend):

Change the Trailblazer's oil

Change the Aspire's lightbulbs

Get the Aspire's transmission, AC unit, serviced, new fuel filter

Change the belts, spark plugs, wires, and airfilter on Aspire

Vacuum both cars, and clean them out real good

Rotate and balance tires on both cars

Vacuum up and clean the garage

Get the lawnmower serviced

Get Trailblazer into dealer because of engine light came on

Get Trailblazer into shop to fix cracked mirror (already cracked when we bought it)

Get my eyeglasses for work repaired (both pairs)

Replace door locks on house and new garage code

and........BY THE WAY..........

my mom bought a house in Huntington, Indiana, because she took a transfer offer she got for my plant.

HAPPY 230TH BIRTHDAY!!!!

2006-07-04T17:25:00.000-04:00

I stood out on the back porch to watch the fireworks, and Angi stayed inside, because she could not care less about them. We decided to wait another year if we can, before we have any more kids, if we have any at all I mean.

Happy 230TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Liftoff: Discovery soars on July 4th By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
Tue Jul 4, 7:09 PM ET

NASA gave the shuttle Discovery a majestic Fourth of July send-off and said early signs showed the spacecraft to be in good shape, despite once again being struck by the flying foam that has plagued the program.

The first-ever Independence Day manned launch came after two weather delays and over objections from those within NASA who argued for more fuel-tank repairs.

Shuttle managers said early video images of liftoff showing small pieces of foam breaking away — and one even striking the spacecraft — were not troubling.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said of the launch: "They don't get much better than this."

It was Griffin who chose to go ahead with the mission over concerns from the space agency's safety officer and chief engineer about foam problems that have dogged the agency since Columbia was doomed by a flyaway chunk of insulation 3 1/2 years ago.

Discovery thundered away from its seaside pad at 2:38 p.m EDT.

About three minutes later, as many as five pieces of debris were seen flying off the tank, and another piece of foam popped off a bit later, Mission Control told the crew. The latter piece seemed to strike the belly of Discovery, but NASA assured the seven astronauts it was no concern because of the timing.

Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said Discovery was so high when the pieces came off that there wasn't enough air to accelerate the foam into the shuttle and cause damage.

"That is the very raw, preliminary data," he said. "It will be a while before we get a complete picture of what happened during the ascent."

The astronauts reported seeing what they described as a large piece of cloth tumbling away from Discovery soon after reaching orbit. It looked like one of the thermal blankets that protects the shuttle, they said, but Mission Control later told them it may have been ice and that a similar observation was made during Discovery's flight a year ago. "Wow, that's real good news," said shuttle commander Steven Lindsey.

Hale and others on the launch management team were in a jubilant mood over the smooth liftoff.

"No, we did not plan to launch on the Fourth of July, but it sure did work out to be great to launch on Independence Day," said Hale, who was wearing a patriotic tie.

Lindsey, an Air Force fighter pilot, was at Discovery's controls and aiming for a Thursday linkup with the international space station.

"Discovery's ready, the weather's beautiful, America is ready to return the space shuttle to flight. So good luck and Godspeed, Discovery," launch director Mike Leinbach said just before liftoff.

"I can't think of a better place to be here on the Fourth of July," radioed Lindsey. "For all the folks on the Florida east coast, we hope to very soon get you an up-close and personal look at the rocket's red glare."

It was unclear for a while Monday whether Discovery would fly at all.

A slice of foam, not much bigger than a crust of bread, fell off an expansion joint on the external fuel tank as the spacecraft sat on the launch pad. Shuttle managers concluded Monday night after intensive engineering analysis that the remaining foam on that part of the tank was solid.

Engineers said the piece — 3 inches long and just one-tenth of an ounce — was too small to pose a threat even if it had come off during launch and smacked the shuttle. Inspectors devised a long pole with a camera to inspect the joint and found no evidence of further damage. NASA also made sure there was no excessive ice buildup at that spot Tuesday.

The fallen foam, albeit harmless, added to the tension already surrounding this mission.

NASA's chief engineer and top-ranking safety official objected two weeks ago to the 12-day mission without eliminating lingering dangers from foam loss, considered probable and potentially catastrophic.

They were overruled by shuttle managers and, ultimately, Griffin. He stressed the need to get on with building the half-done, long-overdue space station before the shuttles are retired in 2010 to make way for a moonship, per President Bush's orders.

Griffin said he welcomed the debate over Discovery's launch and acknowledged that the space agency plays the odds with every shuttle liftoff.

"If foam hits the orbiter and doesn't damage it, I'm going to say ho-hum because I know we're going to release foam. The goal is to make sure that the foam is of a small enough size that I know we're not going to hurt anything," Griffin said in a weekend interview with The Associated Press.

"It's hardly the only thing that poses a risk to a space shuttle mission," he said.

If photos during launch or the flight show serious damage to Discovery, the crew could move into the space station. Then a risky shuttle rescue — fraught with its own problems — would have to be mounted. The rescue ship, Atlantis, would face the same potential foam threat at launch. NASA also worked on a possible plan for flying Discovery back to Earth unmanned if necessary.

Many have speculated that if anything happens to Discovery or its crew, the shuttle program could end with this mission, and plans for moon and Mars exploration could be put in jeopardy.

In its flight last July, Discovery experienced dangerous foam loss, though the chunk was smaller than one that slammed into Columbia's left wing, and it missed Discovery altogether.

Just like a year ago, more than 100 cameras and radar were trained on Discovery at liftoff to spot any foam shedding. The intensive picture-taking continued with on-board cameras and the astronauts snapping zoom-in shots upon reaching orbit.

NASA figures it will be nearly a week before it can decisively say whether any debris hit Discovery during launch.

Last July, cameras caught a 1-pound chunk two minutes after liftoff, despite extensive repairs that came after the Columbia disaster killed seven astronauts in 2003. The big piece of foam came off an area untouched in the wake of the tragedy. Smaller pieces popped off other parts of the 154-foot tank.

Over the past year, NASA has removed foam from the location of last year's largest foam loss, saying it represented the biggest aerodynamic change to the shuttle in 25 years of flight. Engineers deemed the foam there unnecessary.

Shuttle managers put off repairs to another potentially dangerous area of the tank, foam wedges to insulate the metal brackets that hold pressurized lines in place. The foam prevents ice and frost from forming on the brackets once the tank is filled with super-cold fuel.

Managers said they wanted to make one major change at a time. The space agency's chief engineer disagreed as did the chief safety officer, saying they would rather take the extra six months to fix the problem before launching.

Griffin contends NASA doesn't have time to spare with the shuttles set to be phased out in 2010.

One of the seven crew on Discovery is a German, Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, who will move into the space station for a half-year stay, joining the American and Russian there already.

Reiter will bring the size of the station crew to three for the first time since 2003.

Besides commander Lindsey and Reiter, Discovery is carrying pilot Mark Kelly; Michael Fossum and Piers Sellers, who will conduct at least two spacewalks at the station; and Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson.

Beginning Wednesday, they will survey use a 50-foot inspection boom to view the shuttle for damage. They also will make repairs to the space station and deliver much-needed supplies.

___

On the Net:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Bittersweet Symphony

2006-06-23T04:11:00.000-04:00

I have been neglecting you haven’t I?

On Wednesday at work, our department foreman got a call. Well, The foreman on days apparently got in a wreck, a big one. He rear-ended a semi on US 30, and was care flighted to one of our hospitals here in Fort Wayne, (we have three with helicopters). He was looking really bad at first, and that night, they said he probably would not make it. But by the next day, it was in the news, and he was in serious but stable condition. His name is Casey Mack. He is really (and I am serious) one of the best supervisors I have ever had, and that is saying a lot, because I have had some shitty ass bosses. He is a great guy, and everyone I work with is shocked. It always happens to the wrong people, and everyone has said, that there are more than a few bosses in the plant who should be the one that rear ended a semi, not him.

We are hiring AGAIN!!!! Nobody took me up last time, I guess everyone is earning $17.00 an hour (starting wage, plus cost of living). We are hiring a few more hundred people, apparently more that 37,000 people across the country have taken the buyouts at GM and Delphi. And we have a new 50 million dollar extension on the plant, plus an entirely new building across from the plant, that will cost a fortune I am sure. So, we will be adding people from other plants, and when that runs out, we may permanently hire new people here, which is a once in a lifetime thing. The last time GM hired anyone of the street was when I came in, in 1997, through about 2000. I was in the first 100 people to be hired in my “home” plant, in Delphi Dayton, OH, which is now a HUGE parking lot. (Actually, it is just leveled). But the other plant for that location is still operational, that is where my mom works. I got my mom hired on in 1999, and the chance has perhaps come again.

I am not so sure on having more kids. Angi wants some NOW, NOW, NOW. I just don’t to become overextended, I mean, depend on every dollar I get. That, and I feel I don’t need to be the Brady Bunch, with a litter of kids, and repopulate the whole Earth. As if there is not enough people in the world, and it’s a real shitty world. On the other hand, I do feel a need to give my son and daughter some siblings, because I miss the tiny little babies. They were so small, and adorable, and exhausting. They both got up every hour on the hour, and that is after the nightmare of the neonatal unit. Can I go through that again? But I want to contribute more to this world I live in. Boy, that sounded dumb and corny. What to do????? Keep on keepin’ on, and think really hard, that’s what.

And I freaking LOVE that song by The Verve. Gots to go to work now.

Idaho girl becomes superhero for a day

2006-06-18T23:40:00.000-04:00

Idaho girl becomes superhero for a day
Sun Jun 18, 6:57 AM ET

Most days, 6-year-old Aubrey Matthews spends her energy fighting a brain tumor growing behind her eyes. But the first-grader managed to foil crimes and chase an arch-nemesis through Boise on Friday, serving the city as the superhero "Star" with assistance from the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Idaho, The Idaho Statesman reported.

When she donned her blue and metallic superhero costume, Star took on the super-powers of X-ray vision, superhuman strength, speed and blowing power — and a mission: To capture the villain who had stolen a golden star from the Idaho Historical Museum.

After Star was alerted by authorities, she hopped on a Life Flight helicopter to reach the crime scene, where she found a clue linking the crime to a known evildoer.

The chase was on, with plenty of opportunities for Star to use her superpowers along the way.

Before catching the bad guy, she rescued people from a "smoke"-filled building, saved a citizen from drowning in ParkCenter Pond, and vindicated ferrets at Zoo Boise who had been framed for stealing the golden star.

It was a busy day for Aubrey, a little girl with an incredible imagination whose biggest foe is the inoperable optic glioma tumor growing in the center of her brain. The tumor was diagnosed when Aubrey was 6 months old.

"I try to enjoy every day with her," said her mother, Elisa Matthews. "Life is just precious, and you can't blow it away. You have to take it for what it is, no matter what it is."

The tumor is inoperable because of its location and the way it grew into her optic nerve and against her hypothalamus, said her father, Dave Matthews.

Aubrey began chemotherapy when she was 15 months old. The tumor was stabilized for three and a half years but started to grow again last summer. A second round of chemotherapy began in August and was completed in January, her father said.

So far the news is good — the tumor has shrunk some, and Aubrey isn't as ill as doctors expected her to be after the chemotherapy. She has not lost her hair and her white blood cell count is stable, representing a small victory over the toxic chemotherapy drugs.

Most kids making a wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Idaho wish to go someplace, to meet someone or to have something special.

Aubrey's request — to "be" something — is the rarest kind of wish, said executive director Marcia Karakas. It's the first time in at least 10 years that a "be" wish has been received in the Idaho office, which serves the state's lower 35 counties.

Windermere Real Estate's 150 employees took part in scripted superhero scenes, and the caper was filmed by Area 02, a local production company, for a special premiere this fall.

"I'm overwhelmed with all the time that people have put into this," Dave Matthews said. "The whole day is centered around her, and it's just awesome. This is truly a dream come true for her."

Aubrey came up with other superhero characters to help her fight crime — Lion Lady, Frog Lady, Dog Man, House Lifter, Sky Girl, Martian Manhunter and Tree Girl — all played by volunteers. She also helped design the costumes.

"I think she's brought out the child in all of us," said Jessie Gillingham, volunteer coordinator for the foundation.

By noon on Friday, Star had rescued a hostage from the villain's grip and tied the miscreant to the replica Liberty Bell in front of the Statehouse, cheered by hundreds of fans.

"I'd like to thank you for your extreme bravery," Mayor David Bieter said when the bad guy was in custody. He swore Aubrey in as an honorary police officer and proclaimed June 15 as Make-A-Wish Day and Star Day.

"You have shown extraordinary crime-fighting skills," Boise Police Mike Masterson said before presenting her with an Aubrey-sized police uniform.

For the little girl whose strength helps her fight cancer, it was all in a day's work.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Record Deficit...... Eh, Deficit Schmeficit

2006-06-14T10:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, we currently have a record deficit. We have TWO wars (Iraq, Afghanistan), and one on the way. (IRAN). Yet the effing bums in Washington- Republicans, Democrats, who the blank ever...) just voted themselves a raise!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Our country is completely and utterly SCREWED.

Your congressman just got a raise
Tuesday, June 13, 2006;
Posted: 7:53 p.m. EDT (23:53 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. Last year, the Senate voted 92-6 to deny the raise but quietly surrendered the position in House-Senate talks.

As part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, Congress gave up their ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.

The pay issue has been linked to the annual Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill because that measure stipulates that civil servants get raises of 2.7 percent, the same as military personnel will receive. Under a complicated formula, the increase translates to 2 percent for members of Congress.

Like last year, Matheson led a quixotic drive to block the raise. He was the only member to speak on the topic.

"I do not think that it is appropriate to let this bill go through without an up or down vote on whether or not Congress should have an increase in its own pay," Matheson said.

But by a 249-167 vote, the House rejected Matheson's procedural attempt to get a direct vote on the pay raise.

The pay raise would also apply to the vice president -- who is president of the Senate -- congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices.

This year, Vice President Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Chief Justice John Roberts receive $212,100. Associate justices receive $203,000. House and Senate party leaders get $183,500.

President Bush's salary of $400,000 is unaffected by the legislation.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

June 6

2006-06-07T05:38:00.000-04:00

June 6

1944 D-Day

On this day in 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, code-named D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France.

By daybreak, 18,000 British and American parachutists were already on the ground. At 6:30 a.m., American troops came ashore at Utah and Omaha beaches. At Omaha, the U.S. First Division battled high seas, mist, mines, burning vehicles-and German coastal batteries, including an elite infantry division, which spewed heavy fire. Many wounded Americans ultimately drowned in the high tide. British divisions, which landed at Gold, and Sword beaches, and Canadian troops, landing at Juno beach, also met with heavy German fire, but by the end of the day they were able to push inland.

Despite the German resistance, Allied casualties overall were relatively light. The United States and Britain each lost about 1,000 men, and Canada 355. Before the day was over, 155,000 Allied troops would be in Normandy. However, the United States managed to get only half of the 14,000 vehicles and a quarter of the 14,500 tons of supplies they intended on shore.

Three factors were decisive in the success of the Allied invasion. First, German counterattacks were firm but sparse, enabling the Allies to create a broad bridgehead, or advanced position, from which they were able to build up enormous troop strength. Second, Allied air cover, which destroyed bridges over the Seine, forced the Germans to suffer long detours, and naval gunfire proved decisive in protecting the invasion troops. And third, division and confusion within the German ranks as to where the invasion would start and how best to defend their position helped the Allies. (Hitler, convinced another invasion was coming the next day east of the Seine River, refused to allow reserves to be pulled from that area.)

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of Britain's Twenty-first Army Group (but under the overall command of General Eisenhower, for whom Montgomery, and his ego, proved a perennial thorn in the side), often claimed later that the invasion had come off exactly as planned. That was a boast, as evidenced by the failure to take Caen on the first day, as scheduled. While the operation was a decided success, considering the number of troops put ashore and light casualties, improvisation by courageous and quick-witted commanders also played an enormous role.

The D-Day invasion has been the basis for several movies, from The Longest Day (1962), which boasted an all-star cast that included Richard Burton, Sean Connery, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum-and Fabian, to Saving Private Ryan (1998), which includes some of the most grippingly realistic war scenes ever filmed, captured in the style of the famous Robert Capa still photos of the actual invasion.

Memorial Day

2006-05-29T21:53:00.001-04:00

Myself, Angi, and the kids had a decent day and weekend. We did nothing. We did not go anywhere, call anyone, or do anything much. They had two or three parades downtown, but we just saw them on the news a little bit. Yesterday's INDY 500 was one of the best ones I have seen in over a decade. It was fucking awesome! I LOVE the Andretti guys! They have ALWAYS been my favorite, which I got from my dad. Michael Andretti (My favorite race driver ever), led a couple of laps, but his son Marco Andretti, A ROOKIE, ALMOST WON IT. HOLY SHIT, HOW COOL IS THAT??!! He led the last three or four laps, but in the LAST turn, the douche bag in second place over took him, and that douche bag guy won, with Marco Andretti in second, and Michael Andretti in third.

The weather has been stunning. No clouds, around 85 to 90 degrees out, just awesome. It sprinkled this evening after clouds moved in out of nowhere (we get the "Great Lakes Effect"). Both of the twins are just plain jabber jaws. All they do is "talk, talk, talk", and "why, why, why". They are a lot of fun though. William is caught up to his sister in pretty much everything, thankfully, because of the therapy people who have been just awesome. The one therapy he just "graduated" from, he gets a checkup from her in a couple months.

Last month, we got a 2004 CHEVY TRAILBLAZER EXT LT. It is fucking AWESOME!!!! I traded in the 1996 GMC YUKON, and the 1999 JEEP, and put $2,000 down, and I actually was able to get a loan on the rest!!!! Just me, no co-signers or anything. I got a 17 % interest rate, but am well on my way to restoring my credit.

MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU TO ALL VETERANS, LIVING AND DEAD.

I have not spoken to anyone in Ohio since last month (literally). I did not send my mom a card, email, or phone call on Mother's Day. I don't feel bad about it either.

Huh.

I got a email from my mom in Ohio today:

Mon May 29 07:31:11 2006
re: Mothers Day

Hi Matt- Was I a bad mother or what? Mothers Day was two weeks ago yesterday and I never received a phone call, got a card or even an e-mail from you. I just don't understand. You have told me how much you love me and even respect me, but I never heard from you. I would really love to see the kids again. I thought when you got the trailblazer that Angi was going to bring them over here for a couple of days when dad got back from turkey camp..That was over two weeks ago. I miss you all so bad!!!! Please call me and let me know what I have done, ok? I'll be at Grannys today or call me tomorrow at work. I have a new job and my breaks are at different times every day, so I can't give you a good time to call unless its at 11:00 which is lunch. Love you!! Mom

seek strength amid loss

2006-05-29T03:29:00.000-04:00

Iraq war widows seek strength amid loss
By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 28, 1:26 PM ET

War lives on long after the last clods of dirt turn over a soldier's grave. It hangs from the faces of husbands and wives — mostly wives — whose lives crumble after foreign horrors take their spouses.

Those who lost husbands early have been living their grief, raising children without fathers and building futures with memories of hard men who turned soft with children.

For those recently widowed, grief chokes out the hope.

Here are sketches of some of the wives whose soldier husbands were killed in Iraq, and the complex changes they felt after hearing simple words — "Ma'am, we regret to inform you ..."

___

Kathy Kennedy stopped crying for her husband on the anniversary of his death.

Surrounded by friends at a backyard campfire she held one year after his helicopter was shot down near Tikrit, they exchanged stories, told jokes and laughed.

At that moment, things felt different for the first time since his death.

"I felt, 'we made it through a year, we're going to make it again,'" she says now, two and a half years after the death of her husband, Chief Warrant Officer Kyran E. Kennedy, 43, of Boston.

Kennedy, a pilot in the 101st Airborne Division's aviation brigade, was flying a Black Hawk over Tikrit in November 2003 when he was shot down. Three others died in the crash.

The years since have brought a purpose to life with her two children, she said, even if it's only to remember the man she married and loved and pass on those memories to his children who barely knew him.

Her oldest son, Christopher, then 11, told her quietly in the moments after they learned the news that they would have to remember his father for the youngest boy in the family, who was too young to remember anything.

Even with pictures and stories, there are challenges.

When Kevin, now 6, reminisces with the family, he contributes memories of hunting outings with his father that never happened. He recalls with vivid clarity scuba diving with his dad at a time when he could barely swim.

These are memories he would have had, and they will pass — just like her tears have dried up in exchange for smiles through the years, Kennedy said.

Her family will find normalcy in unordinary circumstances. It will just take time.

"We're not forever going to be that family whose husband was killed in Iraq," she said.

___

Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Christopher Dostie died as 2005 came to a close. An improvised explosive device, like those that have killed many soldiers in Iraq, detonated near his Humvee in Baghdad while on patrol.

His wife, Stephanie, was home with her two children, savoring the changes the coming of a new year brings. Then she heard the news.

"We had all these plans together, and now none of that is going to happen," she says, her voice still raw with emotion a few months after her husband, a soldier in the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade, was killed during an insurgent attack in Baghdad on Dec. 30.

For Dostie, the aftermath of losing a husband to war is still unfolding. She has seen women who have survived, watched as other families recovered and moved on. She sees them at grief support groups she has begun attending.

But to her and her children, there are too many questions yet unanswered to move on.

Her oldest son, Cameron, 8, peppers teachers with questions. Why did his dad have to die? Why did God let it happen? He pleads with them to know what it was like that day, what his father was feeling. "Was daddy happy or sad?" he asks.

His mother has heard the questions countless times.

"I've run out of answers," she said, the exhaustion clear in her voice.

Maybe they need a change, she thinks. Dostie has debated returning to the woods of Lewiston, Maine, where her husband's family lives.

It's just so hard to live around soldiers.

She said she feels like an impostor on streets where wives see their husbands come home at night. It's painful to see families reunited every afternoon when hers will never be.

"This was the life we had together," she said. "I don't belong here anymore."

___

Kimberly Hazelgrove believes in military protocol.

She was a military intelligence officer when her husband, a native of Edinburgh, Ind., was killed in a 2004 helicopter crash over Mosul. She knew what to expect — knew the possibilities.

She also knew exactly why officers in dress uniforms came to her door. It was a reality of a soldier's life at war, one she and her husband both recognized before he deployed to Iraq with the Army's 10th Mountain Division.

Instead of focusing on the loss, though, Hazelgrove considers what fortune she can in the circumstances around his death — she was home sick the week before her husband was killed and was able to speak to him daily on the telephone.

"I generally didn't get to do that," she said.

Hazelgrove has since left the military, and moved from Fort Drum, N.Y., to Lorton, Va., to work and raise her family.

"I don't survive. I live," Hazelgrove, 32, said. "I live every day for me and my children."

With the sternness of a military mom, she has kept their lives stable, remaining in the military for a year after her husband was killed. She surrounded the family with supportive friends to keep life from unraveling uncontrollably.

Even now, she is stern with her children, now 2 and 5.

"I teach them life is not fair, and sometimes you have to make it through the really bad times, but it only makes us stronger," Hazelgrove said.

Her 5-year-old son Brandon answers his mother quickly when she asks where is daddy is.

"My daddy is heaven with Jesus," the boy says loudly. "He died in a helicopter."

___

Terri Seifert knew her husband could die in Iraq. She didn't expect it to come as it did.

Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of Easton, Pa., assigned to the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, died when another soldier threw a grenade into a tent during an attack at Camp Pennsylvania in the dawning days of the 2003 invasion.

Terri has carried the sadness of her husband's death like a proud keepsake since.

"I have survived something that I would have thought to be unsurvivable," she said.

Ironically, she said, there is victory in that sense of achievement as she looks back on the years when all seemed lost. Somehow a new life emerged from the painful void.

Along with other wives at Fort Campbell who lost soldiers in Iraq, she has made herself available to the war's newest widows.

She has walked and stumbled down the paths they are now struggling to travel.

Seifert said early widows in the war had no peers. It was a time when each death was unexpected, government death notifications were uncommon and war widows on post were rare.

"It's an isolating experience," she said. But there is comfort for new widows in people like her, widows who have survived and moved on to build new lives.

She still misses her husband and wishes he were "somewhere out there." She wishes she could have someone to touch.

But there is promise even in tragic death, she said.

"There was much more to Chris' life than his death," she said. "Chris died a hero, but more importantly, he lived as a hero."

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

63 years later, WWII vet gets mother's letter

2006-05-29T03:22:00.000-04:00

63 years later, WWII vet gets mother's letter

May 27, 2006 07:18 PM EST
ASSOCIATED PRESS

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A World War Two veteran will remember his mother this Memorial Day after recently receiving a letter she wrote to him 63 years ago.

Raphael Shackleford said he was shocked to receive a letter from his mother last Wednesday, which was dated May 17, 1943. The letter was written to him as he set off to join the Navy in World War II.

The two-page letter conveys his mother's regrets of signing her 17-year-old son over to the U-S Navy, her pride in the young man he had become and some updates from home. Shackleford got the letter on Wednesday after his nephew found it in a box belonging to Shackleford's sister.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Three Day Weekend!!!!

2006-05-27T22:26:00.000-04:00

We have Monday off for Memorial Day at work!!!! William "graduated" from his speech therapy on Tuesday, so he has only three more therapy's to go before he is done, and by that time, both of the kids will be starting to go to preschool. Life is pretty cherry at the moment.

...meohmy...

2006-05-23T07:25:00.000-04:00

HOLY SHIT!!!!!! (First link--scroll down--push play)

I love the internet so GDed much! (Second link--scroll down--push play)

You Know Your Getting Old When....

2006-05-22T06:20:00.000-04:00

You can spend three hours on this website:

YOUR MEMORY MACHINE

Difey's Day

2006-05-14T14:39:00.000-04:00

Angi is still in bed, it's about 2:40 p.m.. I got her:

5 cards
40 Reese Cups
12 frosted doughnuts with sugar gummy worms on top of them
and a sewing thingy that I will get for her when I get our tax return. A bigger "hoop", for her sewing machine, the biggest one available for her type of machine.

So far, I have taken care of the kids all day long, and I only got a half more day to go. When she gets up, I hope she likes what I got her.

Chh, Chh, Choo, Choo

2006-05-11T08:10:00.000-04:00

Well, we went to Decatur, Indiana yesterday, and went to a place called Back 40 Junction Restaurant. It is awesome. It's a buffet place, and the food is un-frickin-believable! It is set up like a railroad station kind of, with a couple of rail cars, and an engine, actual real life ones. It took about 45 minutes or so to get there, and the kids loved it! William is ALL about trains. He points and says: CHOO CHOO!!!!!! CAAAAAR!! BEEP BEEP!! Angelina had a great time also! The food was UNbelievable.............my LORD. We did not do anything today, because Angi had a headache.

Stink, Stank, Stunk

2006-05-10T00:59:00.000-04:00

Well, we did not make to the zoo, because bubbarooney got sick. At the same exact time last night, at different parts of the house, me and Ang smelled something like cat shit, in that area. For instance, I was in the computer room, and I smelled something, and I looked everywhere for it, what I thought was cat shit. In the bedroom, Angi was doing the same thing. I gave up, and said well, I will find it tomorrow. Angi did the same thing. I only found out that she did it also when I went to bed, and I asked her if she smelled anything, and she told me what she did, and I told her what I did, and that was REALLY weird we both thought. I mean, imagine, BOTH of us doing the same thing, at the same time, (I mean looking for, and smelling what, we thought was cat shit).

Well, the next morning, Angi woke me up out of bed, saying she needed help. She found the problem. Bubby Ralph Buicked EVERYWHERE last night, all of his dinner, his baa baa, EVERYTHING....EVERYWHERE. Big chunks of mac and cheese, curdled up this, and chewed up that. Amazingly, he did not wake us up with crying or anything. Angi went to get the kiddos out of bed in the morning, at the usual time, with the usual routine. He just barfed everywhere, and fell asleep. She had to take his sheets, pillow, teddy, to the washer, about five cycles covered it. His room STILL smells like barf. She lysoled his crib, sprayed the crap out of his room with odor neutralizer, left his window open, and man, he upchucked his chuckup EVERYWHERE, AND LOTS OF IT.

So, we stayed home.

Big Bang Baby

2006-05-08T04:43:00.000-04:00

Well, I am off this week, because the plant is shut down to retool for the GMT 900, our new "got to have" pickup truck. We got two weeks off in Feb. for the same thing, and we will have one week off in November for the same thing also. GM is pouring BIIIIG money into Fort Wayne Assembly, and that's good for my wife, kids, and me that's for sure!! They are adding a plant extension also, and a completely new building directly across the street from our plant. That is in addition to all the stuff their doing inside the plant, which is why we are down, with new machines, new lines, new stuff of all kinds. I think GM is putting in 400 million or something.

A second shift guy was killed last week. He was going to work, and pulling into one of the plant entrances, (we have a bunch), and I guess he did not see oncoming traffic, and a big semi plowed right into him, or maybe it was the other way around. They closed half of the road down, there was cops, ambulances, firetrucks EVERYWHERE. I guess Angi saw it on the news. Security was directing traffic in the plant parking lots, (we have a few of those too). MAN IT WAS A MESS. I think the semi driver was hurt pretty bad too, and the guy's van (who was killed) was totally demolished, I mean, like it exploded. I knew the guy, but I wasn't friends with him or anything, I just knew his face. He was a skilled trades guy.

Life is freaking awesome right now. Me Ang, and the kiddos went out today, our first outing in several months. We went to Smokey Bones (OH MY GOD!), had some awesome freaking BBQ, and they have 12 different tv's and, you can tune them in with a speaker thingy at the tables, so I tuned in a baseball game also. Good times! Then we went to one the parks in the area, there is one right behind the highschool in our district that is right down the road from where we live. GM (Fort Wayne Assembly) paid to have it built, and it is FREAKING HUGE!!!!!! It has soccer fields, baseball fields, basketball courts, tennis courts, you get the idea. They got a big area for toddlers also. Perfect for our kiddos. They swung on the swings, played on a giant train, that has a big slide, and played in a car, they had a blast!!!!

Tomorrow:

Children's Zoo!!!!

CIA boss Goss is cooked

2006-05-07T02:20:00.000-04:00

CIA boss Goss is cooked

Tied to contractor's poker parties -
hints of bribes & women

BY RICHARD SISK and JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.

A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."

Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA operative and a Bush administration critic, said Goss "had a relationship with Dusty and with Brent Wilkes that's now coming under greater scrutiny."

Johnson vouched for the integrity of Foggo and Goss but said, "Dusty was a big poker player, and it's my understanding that Porter Goss was also there \[at Wilkes' parties\] for poker. It's going to be guilt by association."

"It's all about the Duke Cunningham scandal," a senior law enforcement official told the Daily News in reference to Goss' resignation. Duke, a California Republican, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty in November to taking $2.4 million in homes, yachts and other bribes in exchange for steering government contracts.

Goss' inability to handle the allegations swirling around Foggo prompted John Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence, who oversees all of the nation's spy agencies, to press for the CIA chief's ouster, the senior official said. The official said Goss is not an FBI target but "there is an impending indictment" of Foggo for steering defense contracts to his poker buddies.

One subject of the FBI investigation is a $3 million CIA contract that went to Wilkes to supply bottled water and other goods to CIA operatives in Iraq and Afghanistan, sources said.

In a hastily arranged Oval Office announcement that stunned official Washington, neither President Bush nor Goss offered a substantive reason for why the head of the spy agency was leaving after only a year on the job.

"He has led ably" in an era of CIA transition, Bush said with Goss seated at his side. "He has a five-year plan to increase the analysts and operatives."

Goss said the trust Bush placed in him "is something I could never have imagined." "I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well," he said.

The official Bush administration spin that emerged later was that Goss lost out in a turf battle with Negroponte, but Goss' tenure was marked by the resignations of several veteran operatives who viewed him as an amateur out of his depth.

White House officials said Bush would announce early next week his choice to succeed Goss. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, heads the list of potential replacements, with White House counterterror chief Fran Townsend also on the short list.

Negroponte "apparently had no confidence" in Goss, and Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was also "very alarmed by problems at the CIA," said a congressional source involved in oversight of U.S. spy agencies.

"Supposedly the \[Cunningham\] scandal was the last straw," the source said. "This administration may be on the verge of a major scandal."

Problems at spy agency

Here are some other scandals in the CIA's recent history:

A human-rights furor erupted in 2005 with revelations that the CIA had set up secret prisons in Eastern European countries to interrogate terror suspects.

CIA Director George Tenet took blame for the since-debunked claim in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had purchased enriched uranium from Africa — a major part of his case for why the U.S. should go to war. Heavily criticized over questionable intelligence on the Iraq war and terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Tenet resigned in 2004.

Former CIA Director John Deutch's security clearance was suspended in 1999 because he improperly kept classified material on a home computer vulnerable to Internet hackers.

A State Department official revealed in 1994 that the CIA covered up what it knew about the role of a Guatemalan colonel, a paid informer, in the slaying of rebel leader Efrain Bamaca, who was married to an American citizen.

CIA agent Aldrich Ames spied for the KGB for nine years, until his arrest in 1994, giving the Soviets the names of every undercover agent the CIA had in Moscow, leading to the deaths of at least nine agents.

The agency was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, the Reagan-era scheme to secretly fund Nicaraguan rebels by illegally selling arms to Tehran.

Originally published on May 6, 2006

Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda

2006-05-07T01:09:00.000-04:00

Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda
Party Plans Probes Of Administration If It Wins the House

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 7, 2006; A01

Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures and reinstate lapsed budget deficit controls.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview last week that a Democratic House would launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House's first-term energy task force and probably including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Pelosi denied Republican allegations that a Democratic House would move quickly to impeach President Bush. But, she said of the planned investigations, "You never know where it leads to."

In recent days, Democratic confidence has been buoyed by a series of polls indicating that not only is Bush growing increasingly unpopular, so are Republicans in Congress. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Friday found that 33 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, the lowest rating of his presidency. And only 25 percent approves of the job Congress is doing, a figure comparable to congressional approval ratings before the 1994 elections that swept Republicans to power.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress. Only 34 percent favor Republican control.

"We have to be ready to win," Pelosi said, "and we have to tell [voters] what we will do when we win."

Republicans say Democratic leaders run the risk of looking overconfident -- if not foolish -- in predicting they will win the 15 net seats necessary to take the House.

"If they fall short [of control], she's going to be severely damaged," Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said of Pelosi.

But Democratic planning parallels similar efforts 12 years ago, when GOP leaders were plotting a return to control after 42 years. By May 1994, Republicans had the outlines of a legislative agenda that would become their "Contract With America," said Richard K. Armey, who was the chairman of the House Republican Conference at that time.

Republicans then needed to pick up 40 seats, something most analysts considered virtually impossible six months before the election.

Democrats need to pick up 15, a task that many analysts still believe is a long shot. Democratic leaders do not.

"We are more and more confident that we are going to have the responsibility of leading the House, so we have to prepare," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.).

Despite waves of redistricting that have solidified the positions of incumbents from both parties, Pelosi said 50 Republican seats are in play, while fewer than 10 Democratic seats face strong challenges. That figure of GOP seats is disputed by independent analysts, but even the most cautious estimates put more than 15 Republican seats in jeopardy.

Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said his most expansive estimate classifies 52 seats as "unsafe," 40 of them Republican, 12 of them Democratic. But, he said, only a tidal wave would dislodge the incumbent party from many of those seats, and more realistically, 30 Republican seats and five Democratic districts are vulnerable.

To seize control in 1994, Armey said, Republicans needed three key ingredients: scandal, which was provided by House members' abuse of the House bank and postal system; a policy fiasco, provided by the Clinton administration's failed national health-care plan; and a coherent plan of action, which came with the "Contract With America."

This year, the House is engulfed in bribery and influence-peddling scandals that have forced the resignation of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), sent former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) to jail, and yielded guilty pleas from two former DeLay aides and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

But those scandals are also linked to a Democrat, Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.), leading some Republicans to conclude they have been inoculated.

The war in Iraq has provided a policy debacle at least on par with the health-care issue, Armey said. But Democrats cannot offer policy alternatives because, he said, Americans remain leery of their prescriptions for an activist government and higher taxes.

To counter that perception, House Democrats have formulated a plan of action for their first week in control. Their leaders said a Democratic House would quickly vote to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1997. It would roll back a provision in the Republicans' Medicare prescription drug benefit that prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices for drugs offered under the program.

It would vote to fully implement the recommendations of the bipartisan panel convened to shore up homeland security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Democratic leaders said.

And it would reinstate lapsed rules that say any tax cuts or spending increases have to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases to prevent the federal deficit from growing.

Armey dismissed the substance of the Democratic proposals as demagoguery but said that the politics "really, frankly, are not too bad."

Pelosi also vowed "to use the power to investigate" the administration on multiple fronts, starting with the task force convened in secret by Vice President Cheney to devise the administration's energy policy. The administration has successfully fought lawsuits since 2001 that sought to reveal the names of energy company executives tapped to advise the task force.

"Certainly the conduct of the war" in Iraq would be the subject of hearings, if not a full-fledged House investigation, Pelosi said. Another subject for investigation could be the use of intelligence on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction to make the case for the 2003 invasion.

Hoyer added that he would like to see investigations into the extent of domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency, and the billions of dollars wasted by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Campaign chiefs for Republican Senate and House candidates have already begun using the threat of such investigations to raise money and rile core Republican voters. A recent mailing by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, warned that Democrats "will call for endless congressional investigations and possibly call for the impeachment of President Bush!"

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Counting Up What Indians Are Owed

2006-05-07T00:56:00.000-04:00

Counting Up What Indians Are Owed

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

May 6, 2006, 2:16 PM EDT

LENEXA, Kan. -- Seventy feet beneath the prairie, the government is filling limestone caverns -- protected by guards and a bomb-sniffing dog -- with truckloads of American Indians' financial and cultural records.

What is ground zero for an accounting that will take seven years and cost $335 million owes its existence to a bitter class-action lawsuit brought against the Interior Department a decade ago. Still, it's only a short version of the historical accounting that Indians demanded but no longer want, because they do not think it can be done properly.

The Indians say the government mismanaged a trust in their names for 120 years and now owes them tens of billions of dollars.

The dispute dates to 1887, when Congress made the Interior Department the trustee for 145 million acres of Indian lands. Indians were supposed to benefit, but the government gave most of the land to white settlers.

Today, the department manages 10 million acres of trust land for individual Indians and 46 million acres for tribes. In 1996, the Indians sued to reconcile their historical accounts. The Indians, and Congress, demanded an audit. The Indians may be owed a century's worth of grazing rents, oil and gas royalties and timber sales from the land, plus interest.

Both the Indians and the Interior Department agree $13 billion was collected between 1909 and 2001.

The Indians had claimed the unpaid interest could be more than $150 billion, but have offered to drop the whole thing if the government coughs up $27.5 billion. They would spread the money among individual Indian accountholders, about one-fifth of the 2.5 million Indians now living in the U.S., mainly in the West.

No way, the Bush administration replied, saying the government all along has forwarded most of the rents and royalties to tribes and individual Indians.

"It could be just $30 million that's owed to the Indians," said Ross Swimmer, the department's special trustee for Indians. He also is a member of Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation.

During a tour of the Kansas cave, Swimmer and other department officials were eager to show that many more Indian records exist than people realize. They also wanted to demonstrate their ability to check the accuracy of financial transactions with Indians.

"They're finally going to get their accounting," Swimmer said. "For once we've gotten something right for the Indians."

In an irony befitting an "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" legal war, the government is relying on the Indian-demanded accounting -- actually, it's a statistical sampling -- to come up with figures that Indians claim low-ball what they are owed.

"It's a number in the m's, not the b's," said Fritz Scheuren, who oversees the department's sampling. Scheuren was president of the American Statistical Association last year.

The Indians who sued say now that too many records have been destroyed to come up with an accurate figure. Before 1990, the Treasury Department routinely destroyed the Indian trust's canceled checks, and court documents attest to numerous destroyed records.

"The documents that the government has preserved are a fraction of those that have been lost and destroyed," said Dennis Gingold, a lawyer for the Indians. "Massive hard copy and electronic destruction ... make the accounting legally and factually impossible."

The Indians' biggest ally is U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a former Reagan administration official whose strongly worded rulings condemn the Interior Department.

After nine years presiding over the case, Lamberth concluded last July that the agency is a "pathetic outpost" that has bungled its fiduciary duty.

"For those harboring hope that the stories of murder, dispossession, forced marches, assimilationist policy programs, and other incidents of cultural genocide against the Indians are merely the echoes of a horrible, bigoted government-past that has been sanitized by the good deeds of more recent history, this case serves as an appalling reminder of the evils that result when large numbers of the politically powerless are placed at the mercy of institutions engendered and controlled by a politically powerful few," the judge wrote.

Not surprisingly, the department wants Lamberth removed from the case and a different judge assigned.

* __

Down the rabbit hole, tractor trailers disappear into an obscure grassy knoll just off the Prairie Star Parkway. The cave, in an industrial park a half hour southwest of Kansas City, offers few indications it houses a semi-secretive government facility.

After several minutes of driving through the dark, a faint dankness and dust fill the nostrils. Pocked walls climb into shadow. Painters have brightened them, like gardeners painting red roses white.

In dimly lit parking spaces, trucks disgorge box after box of documents to be catalogued, computerized and stashed away.

Two years and $120 million into the accounting, the archive has amassed 140,000 boxes with 300 million pages of old leases, bills, ledgers, account statements, school records, maps, letters and black-and-white photographs.

In a space the size of Kansas City's 79,451-seat Arrowhead Stadium, boxes extend close to the ceiling and down aisles so long they fade into the caverns -- reminiscent of the fate met by Indiana Jones' recovered ark.

"People come in and ask, 'Where is the Lost Ark?'" said Jeffrey Zippin, deputy director of the Interior Department's Office of Historical Trust Accounting.

The shelves are coated with an electrostatically charged powder to resist corrosion or chemical action. The air in the painted cavern walls is kept at 60 degrees and 40 percent humidity. High-efficiency air filters catch 99 percent of all microscopic particles.

The facility is leased for $900,000 a month from Minneapolis-based Meritex Enterprises Inc. Its security and climate controls are matched only by the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and an annex in College Park, Md.

The cavern teems with a small army of federal contractors -- five accounting firms and 15 other businesses -- assisting about a dozen Interior and National Archives employees. Thirty students at Haskell Indian Nations University, in nearby Lawrence, use the documents for training.

It is closed to all but federal workers, contractors, Indian tribal representatives and researchers; privacy laws protect the names of living accountholders.

The boxes come from about 100 of the department's Bureau of Indian Affairs offices and from National Archives' record centers. At a nondescript warehouse nearby, 100 workers sort through the boxes and log their contents into computers.

The records are an eclectic mix: 1943 photographs of Navajo women cooking; a handwritten appeal from a Great Plains Indian for compensation because some of his cattle died; and a 16-page list of Sioux Indians killed and wounded -- Black Moon, Sore Eyes Woman and Afraid of Left Hand, among them -- on Dec. 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee, S.D.

Some boxes are tattered, faded or water-damaged. A few were decontaminated because of animal droppings.

* __

Concerns about the how the trust accounts are managed are almost as old as the trust itself.

In 1915, the Joint Commission of Congress on Indian Funds warned of "fraud, corruption and institutional incompetence almost beyond the possibility of comprehension." In 1928, the Interior Department found Indian trust data unreliable and almost useless. Dozens of other scathing reports followed.

Finally, in 1994, Congress demanded that the department fulfill an obligation to account for money received and disbursed. A year later when account statements still had not been reconciled, Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet Indian tribe in Montana joined with the Boulder, Colo.-based Native American Rights Fund and others in suing.

"Fractionalization" of accounts is a major obstacle in managing the trust. As ownership of the 160-acre and smaller land parcels transferred from generation to generation, proceeds from the trust accounts had to be divided among more and more descendants. Department officials say 90 percent of the transactions are for less than $100.

"In every category it has cost us more to find the errors than the total amount of the errors we found," said departing Interior Secretary Gale Norton. "When you consider that we have millions of transactions under $1, you're spending $3,500 to find out if we handled $1 correctly."

Norton's plan for the accounting includes checking half the 57 million transactions and one-quarter of the $5 billion at stake between 1985 and 2000.

"We don't have every single record of every single transaction that has occurred since the 1800s. We certainly do have enough records to do a complete accounting," she said.

Accountants are examining nearly all financial transactions over $100,000 in the 1985-2000 window. That represents $276 million -- or about 5 percent of the money at stake from those years. Also being checked is nearly every payment an Indian tribe made to its members or resulted from a suit or settlements. They total $784 million -- or about 16 percent of the transactions.

An additional 4 percent of the money -- 19 million transactions, most for less than $1 -- is considered interest. That represents about $177 million. All those transactions are checked, too.

For the other half of the transactions -- three-quarters of the $5 billion at stake -- the department uses statistical sampling to the check the accuracy. It's a method the Indians and Lamberth rejected, but a federal appeals court approved for use as a tool. The courts must sign off on any final accounting.

* __

After 10 years of battling in court, no one knows how much was collected or paid out to the Indians.

"The previous administration as well as ourselves tried in good faith to tackle this problem. It was a much larger undertaking than anyone imagined," Norton said. Early in her tenure, Norton half-joked about how she divided her time. "Indian trust, Indian trust and Indian trust," she told The Associated Press.

Geoffrey Rempel, an accountant working for the Indian plaintiffs, said the evidence is undisputed that trust records were destroyed over the past century, so there is no way officials can claim to have enough of them for a proper accounting.

"All they're doing is matching bad documents to bad documents, showing you what they want you to see," he said. "People would be thrown in jail if they audited banks like this. This is completely unacceptable -- unless it's for the Indians."

Most people agree the only acceptable solution will come from Congress.

Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., oversaw a recent hearing to find the quickest and fairest way to end the dispute.

Experts urged them to study the legal arguments -- then arbitrarily pick a settlement figure.

Stuart Eizenstat, a former deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, believes Congress should create a settlement commission to process claims, similar to the reparations made after World War II.

"It would be a disaster to go back to court. It would just resign the Indians to another decade of fruitless litigation," he told the AP. "This cries out for an administrative, rough justice solution."

Eizenstat negotiated the historic agreement with Switzerland's two largest banks to pay Holocaust survivors $1.25 billion. He said Congress should pick a figure that errs on the side of overpaying to handle both accounting claims and anticipated claims from Indians challenging how the government actually managed the lands.

"You presume that if the records weren't there, it's because of mismanagement," he said. "If they themselves as trustees mishandled records, then they have to handle the burden."

Even Swimmer, who wants Congress to give the department some "clear direction on its responsibilities," agrees with the concept of a big, somewhat arbitrary payout.

"Just pick a number," he told the AP. "It's reparations, not repayment."

* __

On the Net:

Interior Department: http://www.doi.gov/ost

Indian plaintiffs: http://www.indiantrust.com

Senate Indian Affairs Committee: http://indian.senate.gov/public
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

A legacy of love

2006-05-04T03:16:00.000-04:00

click here:

Saying Goodbye: A mother's final gift
A legacy of love
'I will be with them as they're growing up. I'll be with them. Up in heaven.'

I'm A Saaaaaaaaad Panda.........

2006-05-03T07:40:00.000-04:00

My wife Angi had surgery on her leg last Tuesday (APRIL 25th), and had a HUGE vericos (spelling?) vein removed. She was out of it for about three days, I ran her medicine, food, and her tea. (She lives on Iced tea)..... I took Tuesday through Friday off (last week), and took care of her and the kids. She is such a awesome mommy, wife, and person. I love her more than I EVER HAVE. I realized how HARD she works on the kids, the house, and sometimes, (If I'm a really good boy), on ME.

THE GOOD NEWS:

She is much, much better now, and the kids are happy to see their mi-mee, and the house is clean, the kids are clean, and she has shown me how HARD it is to be the mommy, and it whooped my ass hard!! The house was a wreck, and the kids were filthy, but very happy, and fed, and alive, so I think that counts as a success....I think..... anyways, I made it those three days, and she was able to watch them a little bit over the weekend!

THE BAD NEWS:

The "doctor" totally effed up her leg. He did NOT get all of the vein, there is like 8 inches of vericosed vein in there, the part at the bottom at her foot, where it all started to begin with, I guess (when she says) she was around 18 years old. So, if he left that in there, won't it get like it did, and grow all the way up to her (bleep bleep) again??? You know what I mean? If there is a some left (it ran all the way from her foot to her (bleep bleep), won't it get real bad and grow AGAIN?????? So, guess what, she has to have surgury AGAIN!!!!!!!!
(poor baby) : (

MORE BAD NEWS:

One of her stiche areas (she has three or four, where they cut in different places on her leg to remove the vein) is infected, and it is not good. Not good at all. Really though.

Medicare Will Go Broke By 2018

2006-05-03T05:52:00.000-04:00

Medicare Will Go Broke By 2018, Trustees Report

By Amy Goldstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 2, 2006; Page A03

The financial troubles daunting the Medicare system have deepened during the past year, according to a government forecast that says the federal fund that pays for hospital care for older Americans will become unable to cover all its bills a dozen years from now.

The annual report, issued yesterday by the trustees who monitor the fiscal health of the Medicare and Social Security programs, said the trust fund for the health insurance system for the elderly will run out of money in 2018 -- two years sooner than predicted a year ago and 12 years sooner than had been anticipated when President Bush first took office.

The problem, the report says, has accelerated largely because hospital costs last year were greater than expected.

The forecast also said that Social Security's financial condition has weakened, although its problems are not as great or urgent. It said the retirement system will have enough cash to pay the benefits it owes retirees, disabled workers and workers' survivors until 2040 -- one year less than expected in the 2005 forecast.

In releasing the report, the trustees -- including three of Bush's Cabinet secretaries -- slightly altered the message accompanying the forecast the past few years, when the administration sought to use the predictions as leverage to persuade a reluctant Congress to embrace the president's goal of letting Americans divert some of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts. That emphasis prompted Democrats and other critics to chastise the administration for dwelling on Social Security while Medicare's problems were more acute.

Yesterday, the president's aides -- and Bush himself -- drew attention equally to the frailty of the two largest benefits programs that form the twin pillars of the government's assistance to the elderly. The solution, they said, is for Congress to approve changes Bush already has proposed.

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, one of the trustees, said the programs "form the basis of a looming fiscal crisis for our nation as the baby-boom generation moves into retirement."

"The systems are going broke," Bush said in a health-care speech earlier in the day. "And now is the time to do something about it."

Administration officials portrayed the report as containing some bright news, because spending on the new Medicare prescription drug benefits -- paid for from general revenue, not the same trust fund as covers hospital bills -- appears less than expected. Several of Bush's aides said costs will be lower because drug companies are charging less than predicted for medicine. However, two independent trustees had a different explanation: Fewer Medicare patients are signing up for the drug benefits than anticipated last year.

Administration officials did not emphasize yesterday the idea of private retirement accounts, a plan that is relatively inert on Capitol Hill. Instead, they focused on proposals Bush made early this year -- to create a federal commission on the plight of entitlement programs and to slow Medicare spending by $36 billion during the next five years. Neither has drawn much enthusiasm among lawmakers.

And yesterday's report -- released a month after its due date -- did not produce any surge of momentum. The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee are griping that the White House has diminished the role of independent experts in preparing the trustees' report, by failing to appoint replacements for the public trustees, economists Thomas R. Saving and John L. Palmer, when their terms expired a year ago.

Instead, the White House renominated them last November and, after lawmakers complained that they preferred to rotate outside trustees, installed them without Senate confirmation as "recess appointments" while Congress took Easter vacation. Saving and Palmer said yesterday they had served as unpaid consultants in preparing the report until they were reappointed.

White House spokesman Ken Lisiaus said that Saving and Palmer were reappointed because they "are true experts in economics" and that the position of public trustee, created in 1984, is too recent "to establish any sort of long-held precedent" that they must serve only one term.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

'Mission Accomplished' Anniversary

2006-05-02T03:46:00.000-04:00

'Mission Accomplished' Anniversary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Declared End To Major Combat Operations In Iraq 3 Years Ago

BAGHDAD, May 1, 2006

(AP) Three years ago on Monday, aboard the Everett-based USS Abraham Lincoln, "The tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free," President Bush declared, standing underneath a banner proclaiming: "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

Those two words have lingered uneasily since. A look at Iraq today shows that despite progress toward democracy, billions spent on reconstruction and the best efforts of its own people and an international coalition, the battle for Iraq's future is far from over.

The building boom in the small city of Kut in southeastern Iraq started soon after Saddam Hussein's ouster in spring 2003, and lasted through his capture and into 2004. Jobs blossomed as empty lots filled with new apartment buildings and homes.

Then the construction dried up. Although Kut was relatively peaceful, private investors became nervous as the insurgency took hold. Now, says construction worker Mohammed Nasser Atwan, "out of 30 days in a month, there are 10 days of work" — not enough to feed his family of eight and pay the rent. "My kids have had to leave school to work."

It is even tougher for the estimated 5,700 Shiites who fled this spring to Kut, leaving behind sectarian violence in Baghdad, Diyala and Kirkuk. Some live in donated tents, others in tin shacks on the edge of town.

Supporters of a radical Shiite cleric roam the streets. Weeds choke the Tigris River, disrupting irrigation because the Water Resources Ministry is paralyzed.

"We're refugees in our country," said a 52-year-old man, a Shiite Muslim who fled from a Sunni area near Baghdad. He and his older son sometimes drive back to Baghdad, looking for work. He is too scared to give his name.

"We've been waiting for years, asking when true freedom will come," he said.

—-

Lawyer Hussein Ali says freedom has already arrived. From the holy city of Najaf in the south, a Shiite stronghold now relatively free of violence, the 39-year-old lawyer sees long strides that his country has made in three years.

Iraqis have twice voted for a national government and have passed a new constitution. Recently, political leaders in Baghdad broke a logjam, agreeing on a new prime minister who many hope will forge a united government and stabilize Iraq.

Ali said it's time for U.S. troops to leave. Hussein Abdul-Zahra, a 35-year-old seminary student, agreed.

Iraq now has "very good achievements" from which it can move ahead without "regional and foreign interference," a reference to the United States and Iran, Abdul-Zahra said.

The optimism in Najaf reflects the blossoming of Shiite political and religious hopes. The Shiites were brutally suppressed by Saddam, a Sunni.

But Shiite power has spawned a bitter backlash from Sunnis, who lost power and prestige when Saddam fell. Shiite militias, fighting in response, are accused of operating death squads.

The violence has sowed fear even in stable Najaf.

Each day as she waits at a bus stop in her veil and black robe, Marwa Mahdi Karim worries about suicide attackers. Heading to her computer college, even as she celebrates Iraq's progress, the 21-year-old student looks nervously around.

"We did not expect to reach such a stage of fear — three years after the fall of Saddam," she said.

—-

Soon after Mr. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, for his "mission accomplished" speech, the U.S. military was struggling to keep control in Iraq. The Bush administration dissolved the Iraqi army, but found it had too few coalition troops to secure a country with a history of violence.

Saddam's capture in December 2003 provided a burst of optimism. But a brutal attack on U.S. contract workers, burned in Fallujah in spring 2004, led to a U.S. siege of that city. It became clear the insurgency would be tough to defeat.

The rest of 2004 and much of 2005 saw violence grow even as democratic institutions were being built. The U.S. handed over sovereignty, Iraq held its first free election, a new constitution was approved and then, last December, a permanent parliament was elected.

Schools were built, power stations repaired, dams improved.

But Iraq's vital oil industry, which has one of the world's largest pool of reserves, continues to struggle. Production fell to about 2 million barrels a day last year, down from 3.5 million a day in 1990.

Power blackouts remain a constant frustration. Only 19 percent of Iraqis today have working sewer connections, down from 24 percent before the war, according to U.S. government figures.

A recent U.S. report rated 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces as mostly stable, six as "serious" and one, Anbar, which includes Fallujah, was "critical."

Insurgents continue their intimidation, recently murdered the sister of the Sunni vice president.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said last week that the U.S. might be able to withdraw some troops later this year. But at the same time, the army's chief of staff in Washington, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, warned that "this is going to take time."

—-

In the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah in the north, it is different.

There, apartment towers and villas sprout up. Workers come from around Iraq come for jobs, many sleeping at construction sites.

Inflation is high and corruption suspected. But the people here — safe in their pocket of security — think themselves lucky.

Saman Karim does not even feel as if he lives in Iraq. The 25-year-old physics student used to believe the war would open a new chapter — "Like Bush said ... a model of democracy in the Middle East."

Now he says the country has become worse. "It's on the verge of civil war," he said.

Saleh Ayoub, 59, sells cheap clothes and had hoped for a commercial boom across Iraq. He dreamed of opening a big store in Baghdad once Saddam fell.

But in the capital, tension grows. Residents hastily throw up roadblocks of wrecked cars and mounds of dirt to keep out attackers. A once-mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood is now Sunni only, its Shiite-owned homes abandoned.

"I've been to Baghdad once since the regime's fall," Ayoub said. "And I decided not to go back again."

©MMVI, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

No evidence of pump price profiteering: Bodman

2006-04-30T23:41:00.000-04:00

No evidence of pump price profiteering: Bodman

Reuters

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration sees no direct evidence of profiteering by big U.S. oil companies and is doing all it can to tame near-record prices, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Sunday.

With average U.S. gasoline pump prices near $3 a gallon and politicians clamoring to rein in record oil industry profits, President George W. Bush is trying to stave off a potential election-year problem for Republicans eager to hang on to control of the U.S. Congress.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if oil companies are exploiting consumers, Bodman said "we see no evidence of it, but this is one of those situations where I guess I would call it 'trust but verify."'

Bodman pointed to an ongoing probe by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission into gasoline prices.

Bush last week unveiled a string of actions to tame energy prices, including suspending filling the U.S. emergency crude oil stockpile and taking a closer look at environmental rules that have limited gasoline supplies.

"This administration is doing everything it can do" Bodman said.

U.S. Senate Republicans last week unveiled their proposal to soften the gasoline price blow by giving taxpayers a $100 check and suspending an 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal tax.

Some Democrats and at least one Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, have said the government should tax "windfall" industry profits.

Exxon Mobil Corp. in January reported U.S.-record profits of $36 billion over the past year. Many Americans were stunned by the size of the $400 million retirement package for former Exxon chief Lee Raymond. The company also last week reported an $8.4 billion profit for the first three months of 2006, its biggest first-quarter profit ever.

"If you do not tax these corporations ... they will continue to run up the profits to sky heavens," said Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat.

Bodman reiterated that such a tax is a bad idea because it could spur the industry to produce less oil to avoid paying, which happened when such taxes were last enacted in the 1970s.
"That was tried 30 years ago -- it did not work," Bodman said. "That proposal does not hold water."

Separately, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday he will head a task force of state governors to simplify "boutique fuel" rules that can exacerbate fuel shortages , and will soon cap the number of blends to comply with energy legislation signed last year.

Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

In Leak Cases, New Pressure on Journalists

2006-04-30T22:56:00.000-04:00

April 30, 2006

In Leak Cases, New Pressure on Journalists

By ADAM LIPTAK

Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources.

But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws.

Such an approach would signal a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades.

Leaking in Washington is commonplace and typically entails tolerable risks for government officials and, at worst, the possibility of subpoenas to journalists seeking the identities of sources.
But the Bush administration is putting pressure on the press as never before, and it is operating in a judicial climate that seems increasingly receptive to constraints on journalists.

In the last year alone, a reporter for The New York Times was jailed for refusing to testify about a confidential source; her source, a White House aide, was prosecuted on charges that he lied about his contacts with reporters; a C.I.A. analyst was dismissed for unauthorized contacts with reporters; and a raft of subpoenas to reporters were largely upheld by the courts.

It is not easy to gauge whether the administration will move beyond these efforts to criminal prosecutions of reporters. In public statements and court papers, administration officials have said the law allows such prosecutions and that they will use their prosecutorial discretion in this area judiciously. But there is no indication that a decision to begin such a prosecution has been made. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Friday.

Because such prosecutions of reporters are unknown, they are widely thought inconceivable.

But legal experts say that existing laws may well allow holding the press to account criminally.

Should the administration pursue the matter, these experts say, it could gain a tool that would thoroughly alter the balance of power between the government and the press.

The administration and its allies say that all avenues must be explored to ensure that vital national security information does not fall into the hands of the nation's enemies.

In February, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales whether the government's investigation into The Times's disclosure of a National Security Agency eavesdropping program included "any potential violation for publishing that information."

Mr. Gonzales responded: "Obviously, our prosecutors are going to look to see all the laws that have been violated. And if the evidence is there, they're going to prosecute those violations."
Recent articles in conservative opinion magazines have been even more forceful.

"The press can and should be held to account for publishing military secrets in wartime," Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote in Commentary magazine last month.

Surprising Move by F.B.I.

One example of the administration's new approach is the F.B.I.'s recent effort to reclaim classified documents in the files of the late columnist Jack Anderson, a move that legal experts say was surprising if not unheard of.

"Under the law," Bill Carter, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said earlier this month, "no private person may possess classified documents that were illegally provided to them."

Critics of the administration position say that altering the conventional understanding between the press and government could have dire consequences.

"Once you make the press the defendant rather than the leaker," said David Rudenstine, the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a First Amendment scholar, "you really shut down the flow of information because the government will always know who the defendant is."

The administration's position draws support from an unlikely source — the 1971 Supreme Court decision that refused to block publication by The Times and The Washington Post of the classified history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers. The case is generally considered a triumph for the press. But two of the justices in the 6-to-3 majority indicated that there was a basis for after-the-fact prosecution of the newspapers that published the papers under the espionage laws.

Reading of Espionage Laws

Both critics and allies of the administration say that the espionage laws on their face may well be read to forbid possession and publication of classified information by the press. Two provisions are at the heart of the recent debates.

The first, enacted in 1917, is, according to a 2002 report by Susan Buckley, a lawyer who often represents news organizations, "at first blush, pretty much one of the scariest statutes around."

It prohibits anyone with unauthorized access to documents or information concerning the national defense from telling others. The wording of the law is loose, but it seems to contain a further requirement for spoken information. Repeating such information is only a crime, it seems, if the person doing it "has reason to believe" it could be used "to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation." That condition does not seem to apply to information from documents.

In the Pentagon Papers case, Justice Byron R. White, joined by Justice Potter Stewart, said "it seems undeniable that a newspaper" can be "vulnerable to prosecution" under the 1917 law.

Indeed, the Nixon administration considered prosecuting The Times even after the government lost the Pentagon Papers case, according to a 1975 memoir by Whitney North Seymour Jr., who was the United States attorney in Manhattan in the early 1970's. Mr. Seymour wrote that Richard G. Kleindienst, a deputy attorney general, suggested convening a grand jury in New York to that end. Mr. Seymour said he refused.

Some experts believe he would not have won. The most authoritative analysis of the 1917 law, by Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt Jr. in the Columbia Law Review in 1973, concluded, based largely on the law's legislative history, that it was not meant to apply to newspapers.

A second law is less ambiguous. Enacted in 1950, it prohibits publication of government codes and other "communications intelligence activities." Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who took part in terrorism investigations in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks, said that both The Times, for its disclosures about the eavesdropping program, and The Post, for an article about secret C.I.A. prisons, had violated the 1917 law. The Times, he added, has also violated the 1950 law.

"It was irresponsible to publish these things," Mr. McCarthy said. "I wouldn't hesitate to prosecute."

The reporters who wrote the two articles recently won Pulitzer Prizes.

Even legal scholars who are sympathetic to the newspapers say the legal questions are not straightforward.

"They are making threats that they may be able to carry out technically, legally," Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime," said of the administration. The law, Professor Stone added, "has always been understood to be about spying, not about newspapers, but read literally it could be applied to both."

Others say the law is unconstitutional as applied to the press under the First Amendment.

"I don't think that anyone believes that statute is constitutional," said James C. Goodale, who was the general counsel of The New York Times Company during the Pentagon Papers litigation. "Literally read, the statute must be violated countless times every year."

Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of the University of Richmond law school, took a middle ground. He said the existing laws were ambiguous but that in theory it could be constitutional to make receiving classified information a crime. However, he continued, the First Amendment may protect newspapers exposing wrongdoing by the government.

The two newspapers contend that their reporting did bring to light important information about potential government misconduct. Representatives of the papers said they had not been contacted by government investigators in connection with the two articles.

That is baffling, Mr. McCarthy said. At a minimum, he said, the reporters involved should be threatened with prosecution in an effort to learn their sources.

"If you think this is a serious offense and you really think national security has been damaged, and I do," he said, "you don't wait five or six months to ask the person who obviously knows the answer."

Case Against 2 Lobbyists

Curiously, perhaps the most threatening pending case for journalist is one brought against two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac. The lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted in August on charges of violating the 1917 law by receiving and repeating national defense information to foreign officials and reporters.

The lobbyists say the case against them is functionally identical to potential cases against reporters.

"You can't say, 'Well, this is constitutional as applied to lobbyists, but it wouldn't be constitutional if applied to journalists,' " Abbe D. Lowell, a lawyer for Mr. Rosen, said at a hearing in the case last month, according to a court transcript.

In court papers filed in January, prosecutors disagreed, saying lobbyist and journalist were different. But they would not rule out the possibility of also charging journalists under the law.

"Prosecution under the espionage laws of an actual member of the press for publishing classified information leaked to it by a government source would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly," the papers said. Indeed, they continued, "the fact that there has never been such a prosecution speaks for itself."

Some First Amendment lawyers suspect that the case against the lobbyists is but a first step.

"From the point of view of the administration expanding its powers, the Aipac case is the perfect case," said Ronald K. L. Collins, a scholar at the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit educational group in Virginia. "It allows them to try to establish the precedent without going after the press."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Powell Forces Rice to Defend Iraq Planning

2006-04-30T22:48:00.000-04:00

Powell Forces Rice to Defend Iraq Planning

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer

Just back from Baghdad and eager to discuss promising developments, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice found herself knocked off message Sunday, forced to defend prewar planning and troop levels against an unlikely critic — Colin Powell, her predecessor at the State Department.

For the Bush administration, it was a rare instance of in-house dissenter going public.

On Rice's mind was the political breakthrough that had brought her and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to Iraq last week and cleared the way for formation of a national unity government.

Yet Powell sideswiped her by revisiting the question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to oust Saddam Hussein and then secure the peace.

He said he advised Bush before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to send more troops to Iraq, but that the administration did not follow his recommendation.

Rice, Bush's national security adviser during the run-up to the war, neither confirmed nor denied Powell's assertion. But she spent a good part of her appearances on three Sunday talk shows reaching into the past to defend the White House, which is trying to highlight the positive to a public increasingly skeptical in this election year of the president's conduct of the war and concerned about the large U.S. military presence.

"I don't remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to, but I'm quite certain that there were lots of discussions about how best to fulfill the mission that we went into Iraq," Rice said.

"And I have no doubt that all of this was taken into consideration. But that when it came down to it, the president listens to his military advisers who were to execute the plan," she told CNN's "Late Edition."

Powell, in an interview broadcast Sunday in London, said he gave the advice to now retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who developed and executed the Iraq invasion plan, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld while the president was present.

"I made the case to General Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld before the president that I was not sure we had enough troops," Powell said in an interview on Britain's ITV television. "The case was made, it was listened to, it was considered. ... A judgment was made by those responsible that the troop strength was adequate."

In an interview with AARP The Magazine released Sunday, Powell did not say what advice he gave Bush about whether to go to war. Known to be less hawkish than Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and some other presidential advisers, Powell implied he had been more cautious.

"The decisions that were made were not made by me or Mr. Cheney or Rumsfeld. They were made by the president of the United States," he said.

"And my responsibility was to tell him what I thought. And if others were going in at different times and telling him different things, it was his decision to decide whether he wanted to listen to that person or somebody else."

Rice said Bush "listened to the advice of his advisers and ultimately, he listened to the advice of his commanders, the people who actually had to execute the war plan. And he listened to them several times," she told ABC's "This Week."

"When the war plan was put together, it was put together, also, with consideration of what would happen after Saddam Hussein was actually overthrown," Rice said.

In January, Pentagon officials acknowledged that Paul Bremer, the senior U.S. official in Iraq during the first year of the war, told Rumsfeld in May 2004 that a far larger number of U.S. troops were needed to effectively fight the insurgency, but his advice was rejected.

Bremer said his memo to Rumsfeld suggested half a million troops were needed — more than three times the number there at the time.

"There will be time to go back and look at those days of the war and, after the war, to examine what went right and what went wrong," Rice said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"But the goal and the purpose now is to make certain that we take advantage of what is now a very good movement forward on the political front to help this Iraqi government," she said.

Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War and is known for his belief in deploying decisive force with a clear exit strategy in any conflict.

"The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate; they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't. I don't," Powell said. "In my perspective, I would have preferred more troops, but you know, this conflict is not over."

"At the time, the president was listening to those who were supposed to be providing him with military advice," Powell said. "They were anticipating a different kind of immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad; it turned out to be not exactly as they had anticipated."

Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he sent too few U.S. troops to Iraq, saying that Franks and generals who oversaw the campaign's planning had determined the overall number of troops, and that he and Bush agreed with them. The recommendation of senior military commanders at the time was about 145,000 troops.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Grand jury probing '05 BP Texas blast -reports

2006-04-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

Grand jury probing '05 BP Texas blast -reports

Sun Apr 30, 5:51 PM ET

A U.S. grand jury is probing the deadly 2005 blast that claimed 15 lives at BP Plc.'s giant Texas refinery, according to reports in two Texas newspapers.

The Galveston County Daily News and The Houston Chronicle said federal prosecutors filed motions in state and federal court late last week seeking to limit lawyers for blast victims suing BP from obtaining documents and discussing the federal investigation with witnesses.

State and federal judges will have to rule on the motions before they can take effect.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP a record $21.3 million in September for over 300 safety violations discovered during the investigation of the March 23, 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City, Texas, refinery.

After the fine was levied, OSHA turned the case over to the U.S. Justice Department for investigation of possible criminal violations.

BP has paid over $492 million to settle claims from people injured and relatives of those killed in the blast.

Some lawsuits stemming from the explosion are set to go to trial in the fall.

BP has claimed responsibility for the blast. An internal investigation found employees and supervisors failed to follow written procedures in restarting an octane-enhancing unit.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board continues to probe the explosion and has pointed to nonworking monitoring equipment and fatigued workers among factors that may have contributed to the blast.

On Tuesday, OSHA recommended a $2.4 million fine against BP for safety violations found at an Ohio refinery that the agency said were like those that led to the Texas City explosion.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

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Chevron Earnings Soar 49 Percent to $4B

2006-04-28T09:35:00.000-04:00

Chevron Earnings Soar 49 Percent to $4B

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer 23 minutes ago

SAN RAMON, Calif. - Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices.

The San Ramon, Calif.-based company's net income, reported Friday, translated into $1.80 per share, two cents above the average estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Financial. It compared to a profit of $2.7 billion, or $1.28 per share, in the same January-March period last year.

Revenue totaled $54.6 billion, a 31 percent increase from $41.6 billion last year.

If not for continuing production problems caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last summer, Chevron said it would have made an additional $300 million — an amount that would have generated the highest quarterly profit in the company's 127-year history.

As it was, the performance marked the fourth consecutive quarter that Chevron has earned at least $3.6 billion as the company continued to capitalize on oil prices that have climbed above $70 per barrel since the first quarter ended.

The run-up recently has pushed gasoline prices above $3 per gallon, much to the frustration of consumers and politicians looking to win votes in an election year.

Chevron released its results after two of its biggest rivals, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., already provoked public outrage with similarly large first-quarter profits. Combined, the three oil companies earned $15.7 billion during the three months of the year.

Exxon's $8B 1Q Profit Is 5th Highest Ever

2006-04-27T14:57:00.000-04:00

Exxon's $8B 1Q Profit Is 5th Highest Ever

By STEVE QUINN,
AP Business Writer

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest oil company, reported Thursday the fifth highest quarterly profit for any public company in history, posting gains from higher oil prices that were likely to stoke the furor over outsized oil company earnings.

Despite the 7 percent gain in earnings to more than $8 billion in the first quarter, Exxon Mobil said its earnings came in below its record fourth-quarter because all three of its business — exploration and production; refining; chemicals — didn't perform as well.

The earnings report comes amid consumer outcry in the U.S. about soaring gasoline prices. The average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. is now $2.91 a gallon, or 68 cents higher than a year ago.

It also comes as Washington lawmakers are looking to appease consumers with various proposals to make big oil companies pay more taxes or provide consumers with some other relief.

In January, Exxon posted the highest quarterly profits of any public company in history: $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005 and $36.13 billion for the full year.

In the first quarter, net income rose to $8.4 billion, or $1.37 per share, from $7.86 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago. Excluding a gain on the sale of an interest in China's Sinopec, the company's year-ago profit was $7.4 billion, or $1.15 per share.

But analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for a higher profit of $1.47 per share for the latest quarter, and shares fell $1.02, or 1.6 percent, to $62.08 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst for Standard & Poor's, said the latest profit figure still places Exxon fifth historically among quarterly earnings. Exxon also holds the first, second and fourth spots; Royal Dutch Shell PLC has the third spot.

The company said its average sale price for crude oil in the U.S. during the quarter was $55.99 per barrel compared to $42.70 a year ago. It sold natural gas in the U.S., on average, for $8.31 compared to $6.18 during the same period one year ago.

Earnings from exploration and production of oil and gas rose to $6.4 billion from $5 billion a year ago. Refining profits fell from $1.4 billion to $1.2 billion and profits from its chemical business fell to 949 million from $1.4 billion

Revenue grew to $88.98 billion from $82.05 billion a year earlier. Higher crude oil and natural gas prices and improved marketing margins were partly offset by lower chemical margins.
Placed in perspective, Exxon's revenue for the three-month period was still greater than the annual gross domestic product of some major oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates ($74.67 billion) and Kuwait ($55.31 billion), according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Exxon said it invested $4.8 billion in capital and exploration projects, a 41 percent increase from 2005.

"In the first quarter of 2006, the results of our continuing long-term investment program contributed to a 5 percent increase in production," Exxon chief executive said in a prepared statement.

Exxon also said it returned $7 billion to shareholders through dividends of $2 billion and buying back $5 billion worth of shares.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Oil Prices Drive Up Exxon Mobil 1Q Profit

2006-04-27T10:22:00.000-04:00

Oil Prices Drive Up Exxon Mobil 1Q Profit

By STEVE QUINN, AP Business Writer

DALLAS - Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest oil company, said Thursday that higher oil prices drove first-quarter profit up 7 percent from the prior year.

Net income rose to $8.4 billion, or $1.37 per share, in the January-March period from $7.86 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago. Excluding a gain on the sale of an interest in China's Sinopec, the company's year-ago profit was $7.4 billion, or $1.15 per share.

But analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for a higher profit of $1.47 per share for the latest quarter, and shares fell $1.55, or 2.5 percent, to $61.55 in premarket trading.

Revenue grew to $88.98 billion from $82.05 billion a year earlier. Higher crude oil and natural gas prices and improved marketing margins were partly offset by lower chemical margins.

Its worldwide production of oil equivalent in the first quarter of 2006 rose 5 percent.

The earnings report comes amid consumer outcry in the U.S. about soaring gasoline prices. The average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. is now $2.91 a gallon, or 68 cents higher than a year ago.

It also comes as Washington lawmakers are looking to appease consumers with various proposals to make big oil companies pay more taxes.

In January, Exxon posted the highest quarterly and annual profits of any U.S. company in history: $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005 and $36.13 billion for the full year.

Exxon said it invested $4.8 billion in capital and exploration projects, a 41 percent increase from 2005.

"In the first quarter of 2006, the results of our continuing long-term investment program contributed to a 5 percent increase in production," Exxon chief executive said in a prepared statement.

Exxon also said it returned $7 billion to shareholders through dividends of $2 billion and buying back $5 billion worth of shares.

ConocoPhillips Reports Record Oil Profits

2006-04-26T22:55:00.000-04:00

Apr 26, 2006 7:36 pm

US/Central

ConocoPhillips Reports Record Oil Profits

(CBS) NEW YORK ConocoPhillips, the nation's third-largest oil and gas producer, said Wednesday that its profits rose 13 percent as stronger exploration and production results yielded the best first-quarter earnings since Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. combined in 2002.

Net income jumped to $3.29 billion, or $2.34 per share for the January-March period, from $2.91 billion, or $2.05 per share, in the year-earlier period. Those results were in line with analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Financial.

ConocoPhillips is the first of the three largest U.S. oil companies to report earnings this week. Exxon Mobil Corp. reports Thursday and Chevron Corp. on Friday. The three were expected this week to report a total of more than $16 billion in first-quarter profits.

Revenue at ConocoPhillips grew to $47.9 billion in the first quarter from $38.9 billion last year. The company said higher oil prices were partially tempered by lower natural gas prices compared with the fourth quarter.

Fadel Gheit, analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., said things will only get better for the company, citing its $33.9 billion acquisition of Burlington Resources completed March 31.

The swelling oil company profits and soaring gasoline prices have prompted both political parties to scramble to gain the high ground on an issue of extreme importance to many voters.

President Bush announced several initiatives Tuesday aimed at curbing the high price of filling up. He relaxed clean-fuel standards and ordered a temporary halt to deposits to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve — ostensibly making more oil available for consumer needs and relieving pressure on pump prices.

The president also vowed to pursue any collusion or price gouging and directed the Justice Department to help states pursue allegations that "gas prices have been unfairly manipulated."

Democrats dismissed Mr. Bush's actions as too little and too late.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said big oil companies were the culprits behind runaway gas prices, which, he says, go "way beyond what supply and demand would merit."

He said Mr. Bush refused to "get tough on big oil."

In an interview with CBS News, another Democrat, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said taking action only after prices skyrocketed at the pumps showed a lack of preparation and insight by the Bush administration.

With daily global demand at roughly 85 million barrels per day, the world's oil producers have less than 2 million barrels per day of spare production capacity. This means that amid a tight global market, tensions with oil-rich nations and increased demand, particularly in China, have severe effects on the commodities market — and at the pump.

"I would suggest that in the international markets, there is a disequilibrium," Spitzer told CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell. "We have seen demand for oil increase dramatically year after year, especially due to the increase in demand in the Asian markets," which the Bush administration could have anticipated, Spitzer claimed.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

China heckler at White House charged in court

2006-04-23T06:58:00.001-04:00

China heckler at White House charged in court

Fri Apr 21, 2006 09:21 PM ET

By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A heckler from the Falun Gong spiritual movement who disrupted a White House appearance by Chinese President Hu Jintao was charged on Friday with harassing, intimidating and threatening a foreign official.

The federal misdemeanor charges against Wang Wenyi -- a 47-year-old who said she had carried out an individual act of conscience -- are punishable by up to six months in jail.

Wang entered the White House grounds as a reporter before interrupting the highly scripted welcome ceremony for Hu hosted by President George W. Bush on Thursday.

"President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong," she yelled, referring to the spiritual meditation movement that is banned in China.

Bush personally apologized to Hu for the incident, said by officials to have been deeply resented by the Chinese authorities.

Outside the courthouse after being charged, Wang said she was a physician who had decided to speak out as "an individual act of conscience."

"It is not a crime, but an act of civil disobedience," she said, reading from a prepared statement.
The law at issue bars willfully harassing, intimidating, coercing or threatening a foreign official in the performance of their official duties.

U.S. officials said Wang entered the White House grounds as a reporter with The Epoch Times, an English-language publication strongly supportive of the meditation movement that is banned in China.

Wang, in an interview on the CNN program "The Situation Room," said she had lived in the United States for nearly 20 years and was awaiting a naturalization ceremony to become a U.S. citizen.

She said she realized the charges might hurt her naturalization prospects but said it was worthwhile to call attention to what she called "unspeakable" human-rights abuses in China.

She said the news organization she had represented did not know that she would disrupt the event.

Wang did not speak during the court hearing, which lasted
about 30 minutes. But her court-appointed lawyer, David Bos, challenged the criminal charge on free-speech grounds.

"It's making the First Amendment rights of all Americans just evaporate," he said, calling Wang's remarks "relatively innocuous."

Angela George, from the U.S. attorney's office, said Wang had gone beyond political speech and that the verbal attack was personally directed at Hu.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson did not rule on the free-speech issue. She refused to dismiss the criminal complaint against Wang, saying it was too soon to make a decision about throwing out the case.

Robinson released Wang without bail, but ordered her to stay away from the White House.

© Reuters All Rights Reserved

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

China heckler at White House charged in court

2006-04-23T06:58:00.000-04:00

Air Force One Subject of Internet Hoax

2006-04-22T15:15:00.000-04:00

Air Force One Subject of Internet Hoax

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A startling Internet video that shows someone spraying graffiti on
President Bush's jet looked so authentic that the Air Force wasn't immediately certain whether the plane had been targeted.

It was all a hoax. No one actually sprayed the slogan "Still Free" on the cowling of Air Force One.

The pranksters responsible for the grainy, two-minute Web video — employed by a New York fashion company — revealed Friday how they pulled it off: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

"I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment," said Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises. "It's this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath."

The video shows hooded graffiti artists climbing barbed-wire fences and sneaking past guards with dogs to approach the jumbo jet. They spray-paint a slogan associated with free expression.
After the video began circulating on the Web on Tuesday, the Air Force checked to see whether the plane had been vandalized.

"We're looking at it, too," said Lt. Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, which operates Air Force One. "It looks very real."

Alexander later confirmed that no such spray-painting had occurred.

Ecko acknowledged Friday that his company had rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernardino's airport and covertly painted one side to look like Air Force One. Employees signed secrecy agreements and worked inside a giant hangar until the night the video was made. Ecko declined to say how much the stunt cost.

"It's not cheap," he said. "You have to be rich."
___
On the Net:
Hoax video: http://www.stillfree.com
Air Force One: http://public.andrews.amc.af.mil

$1 Trillion

2006-04-21T10:26:00.000-04:00

The One Certainty About Iraq: Spiraling Costs for Americans

Poor Planning, Need for New Equipment Could Push War Costs to $1 Trillion

By KEITH GARVIN

April 20, 2006 — - There are many uncertainties about the progress made by coalition forces and the future prospects for stability and democracy in Iraq, but there is at least one indisputable fact: The Bush administration vastly underestimated the costs of the Iraq war.

Not only in human lives, but in monetary terms as well, the costs of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq far exceed the administration's initial projection of a $50 billion tab. While the number of American casualties in Iraq has declined this year, the amount of money spent to fight the war and rebuild the country has spiralled upward.

The price is expected to almost double after lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week when the Senate takes up a record $106.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes $72.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House passed a $92 billion version of the bill last month that included $68 billion in war funding. That comes on top of $50 billion already allocated for the war this fiscal year.

Poor Planning Could Push War Costs to $1 Trillion

ABC analyst Tony Cordesman, who also holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the exorbitant costs come down to poor planning.

"When the administration submitted its original budget for the Iraq war, it didn't provide money for continuing the war this year or any other. We could end up spending up to $1 trillion in supplemental budgets for this war."

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the United States spent $48 billion for Iraq in 2003, $59 billion in 2004, and $81 billion in 2005. The center predicts the figure will balloon to $94 billion for 2006. That equates to a $1,205 bill for each of America's 78 million families, on top of taxes they already pay.

Bill Will Linger Long After Withdrawal

Analysts say the increases can be blamed on the rising cost of maintaining military equipment and developing new equipment. As the cost of military equipment escalates, the cost of the war escalates. In fact, developing state-of-the-art weapons to defeat insurgents and their roadside bombs will hit the wallets of American taxpayers for years to come.

"The Department of Defense has increased its investment in new equipment from $700 billion to $1.4 trillion in the coming years," Cordesman said.

Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker recently warned lawmakers that the cost of upkeep and replacement of military equipment would continue even after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq. To fully reequip and upgrade the U.S. Army after the war ends will cost $36 billion over six years, and that figure assumes U.S. forces will start withdrawing from Iraq in July, and be completely out of the country by the end of 2008.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

Sums It Up REAL Nice.....

2006-04-18T07:38:00.000-04:00

It says:

MISTAKES

It Could Be That The Purpose Of Your Life Is

Only To Serve As A Warning To Others.

So Close, So Far

2006-04-17T05:01:00.000-04:00

Well, on eBay, I sold 10 of my items for $420.31. So that is great!

Angi's stuff is still for sell, but at the moment, she has 12 items that will sell for $87.50.

I relisted more of my stuff that did not sell, and I probably will put more up for sell tomorrow, (We have a holiday from work on Monday). Which I guess is really today.
We are well on our way to get more money to put with our tax return ,(which should be coming in the next few weeks), and the trade in money from our Yukon, and stuff.

My mom is leaving today (monday), she has a holiday also. She bought the kids a couple of Easter baskets, and suprised them, and they said "WOOOOOOOOOOOW", it was so cute!! The kids have yet to be in a Easter egg hunt, does that make us bad parents, considering they are two??

I Am Happy And I Know It (Clap My Hands!)

2006-04-16T00:24:00.000-04:00

Life is awesome! Our stuff on eBay is selling well, and we are going to take our tax return, and use it towards a bigger family roadster. Maybe a GMC Yukon XL. Maybe a (who gives a shit??) . Well, we will trade our 1996 Yukon in (with 150,000 miles) towards a vehicle, use the tax return for the rest, and finance what's left over. My mom is visiting us this weekend, just her. She is very pleasant to be around by herself!!!! She is SO NICE when she is not around my dad. She is also nice enough to co-sign on a small loan if I need it, to get said family roadster. We might sell the Jeep outright also. I am on my way to restoring my credit. I got a secured credit card through my bank, and I will use it to buy gas, and pay it 100% EVERY MONTH, which will help my credit out big time!! Not to mention a small loan for a newer vehicle, it will help my credit SO MUCH, so I hope this works out!!!! Our kids had SO MUCH FUN today!!!!! The weather was around 75, MAYBE one small wisp of a cloud in the sky, got the lawn mowed for the first time this year, I LIVE FOR DAYS LIKE THESE!!!! Me and ANG are better than ever! We get along so well, and are closer than we have EVER been, even before the Nov. incident that was four years ago (or around there), we are so close!!!! The kids had a MAJOR a fit when we brought them back in, (it was HILARIOUS!!!! seriously!!!!) after being outside, they were having SO much fun!!!!!

HAPPY EASTER!!!!

HAPPY SPRING!!!!

Life is just awesome!

Suprise!

2006-04-11T03:33:00.000-04:00

Well, Ang talked to her mom yesterday, and she said I DON'T THINK SO! ANGI WAS DEAD ON!! She was so upset, she was balling ( SHE NEVER EVER CRIES!!), and she got diarreah, and she about puked. WHY?? You might ask?? Because her brother has been the following:

drug addict

in and out of jail a LOT

welfare fraud

grand theft auto

steal and pawn his parent's stuff

bring drugs and sell drugs in their house

married a dipfuck of a woman after :

SIX YEARS, TWO KIDS, ONE ABORTION

and that is the TIP OF THE ICEBURG!!!!!!

Everytime he needs anything, he runs to them, and sucks on mommy's tit, and they treat him as if he is GOD'S gift to earth. Angi, is nothing to them. They would'nt come out to see the kids if WE PAID THEM. In fact, they (her mom) were supposed to come out and watch and help with the kids once last yaer, and she called at the last second to say she could'nt because they were getting their big screen $4,000 TV delivered that day. She would'nt change the delivery day, she shrugged us off, and that has happened SO MANY times........... that is just one example.

Angi told me herself, the ONLY time her mom has come out, it is because she needed her help with a computer program they both use, and I WON'T EVEN GO THERE ABOUT HER DAD. They go to Mexico two or three times a year, but they can't think about us, especially our kids if their life depended on it. But her brother's kids, they take in, and watch, and take them out ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

FUCKING ASSHOLES.

Fuck them.

For Sale!

2006-04-09T20:55:00.000-04:00

Well, a couple of days ago, our neighbor directly across from us is taking the GM buyout package, and according to them, they are moving back to California. SOOO, he walked over and rang our doorbell, and told my wife Ang all of that, and get this...... if we are interested, they will give us first choice on their house!!!!!!!! COOL HUH?! That means NO realtor fees, just lawyer fees for the sale contract!! WOOHOO!!! The house is awesome!!

We are currently raising the money to cover the down payment. We have our tax return, and we can sell our Yukon, and we need just a tad bit more. So we are selling our stuff! CHECK IT OUT HERE !!!! We are definantly going to be able to have enough money for the down payment so that is not a problem. The only problem is financing. We MIGHT be able to do it with a co-signer, but I really doubt it. HOWEVER, Ang's parents might help us out. You see, they helped out her older brother by buying their house, renting it to them until they can get a loan with a half way decent interest rate. So the question here is...........

Will they help US also?????? Ang is very doubtful. She has always played second fiddle to her older brother. They have helped him time after time after time his whole life. She however, well that is a differant story all together. But that is her story to tell........

"The Lifeline"

2006-04-07T03:54:00.000-04:00

Whether or you, or I for that matter, agree or disagree, or agree to disagree with the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, I found this story about what is happening over there. This trans-sends WAY past what you, I, or whoever else believes what is right and wrong. It's a "A three-part Los Angeles Times series following the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq", and it is really, really intense. It might make you cry, or just feel a little nausiated, or maybe nothing at all. I guess that depends on your own self. It follows a military hospital with a 96% success rate, and a soldier who got hit with FOUR IED's IN SEVEN DAYS, among other things.

"The Lifeline" (story link)

It covers the lives of soldiers from the battlefield, to the moment when their life changes, or sometimes ends, forever. It JUST only shows the true ugliness of war. It is not saying whether the war is right or wrong, or anything like that........ it is just showing what is going on to OUR soldiers, OUR countrymen, and women.

About This Series (story link)

"Reporter David Zucchino and photographer Rick Loomis spent several weeks in October and November embedded with Army and Air Force medical units in Baghdad and Balad, Iraq, and with two Army air ambulance medical companies at the Balad military air base north of Baghdad. This series, The Lifeline, is the result of those assignments.The two journalists were provided complete access to the work of doctors, surgeons, nurses and Black Hawk medevac helicopter crews as they evacuated and treated wounded U.S. troops, Iraqi military and police, and Iraqi civilians. The access extended to helicopters and operating rooms."

I think maybe I just need a couple of days without getting blown up.
— Army Spc. Corbin Foster

(STORY LINKS:)

• Improved care

• Wounded in Iraq

• In harm's way

• How they were hurt

• Treatment in Iraq

• The road back

PART ONE OF THREE:
Bringing Back the Wounded

GALLERY: VOICES FROM THE FRONT

PART TWO:
Journey Through Trauma

GALLERY: VOICES FROM THE FRONT

PART THREE:
Battle on the Home Front

GALLERY: VOICES FROM THE FRONT

FOR THE WEB
Produced by Diana Swartz
Designed by Stephanie Ferrell
Multimedia produced by John Vande Wege
Interactive design by Bill Bergren

Homeland Deputy Arrested in Seduction Case

2006-04-05T04:33:00.000-04:00

Homeland Deputy Arrested in Seduction Case (story link)

By MICHELLE SPITZER,

Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) — The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said.

Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla.

Authorities said he was online with the "girl," a Florida undercover sheriff's deputy, when police arrived at his Silver Spring, Md., house to arrest him.

Doyle had a sexually explicit conversation with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he saw on the Internet on March 14, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
The girl was really an undercover Polk County Sheriff's Computer Crimes detective, the sheriff's office said.

Doyle sent pornographic movie clips and had sexually explicit conversations via the Internet, the statement said.

During other online conversations, Doyle revealed his name, that he worked for the Homeland Security Department, and offered his office and government issued cellphone numbers, the sheriff's office said.

Doyle also sent photos of himself that were not sexually explicit, authorities said. One photo, which authorities released to the news media, shows Doyle in what appears to be homeland security headquarters. He is wearing a homeland security pin on his lapel and a lanyard that says "TSA."

The Transportation Security Administration is part of the Homeland Security Department.
On several occasions, Doyle instructed the girl to perform a sexual act while thinking of him and described explicit activities he wanted to have with her, investigators said.

Doyle later had a telephone conversation with an undercover deputy posing as the teenager and encouraged her to purchase a webcamera to send graphic images of herself to him, the sheriff's office said.

Carrie Rodgers, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said an undercover detective posing as the girl call Doyle at work Tuesday and said "she had gotten the webcamera like he told her and her mom wouldn't be home that night and she wanted to try it out."

"He said he would get on the computer when he got home from work so we knew he would be on," Rodgers said. "When (police) went to his door, he was on the computer in the middle of a conversation with the girl."

He was booked into Maryland's Montgomery County jail where he was waiting to be extradited to Florida, the sheriff's office said.

There was no immediate response to messages left on Doyle's government-issued cellphone and his e-mail, and he could not be reached by phone at the jail for comment.

Homeland Security press secretary Russ Knocke in Washington said he could not comment on the details of the investigation. "We take these allegations very seriously, and we will cooperate fully with the ongoing investigation," Knocke said.

Washington television stations showed footage of police escorting Doyle from his home in handcuffs. One arresting officer carried a large box. Doyle was bent over in the front seat of the police vehicle in an apparent attempt to hide his face.

Doyle, who is the fourth-ranking official in the department's public affairs office, was expected to be placed on administrative leave Wednesday morning.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted 4/4/2006 10:13 PM

Updated 4/5/2006 2:25 AM

Baseball Is Here!!!!!!

2006-04-02T06:09:00.000-04:00

It's about time!!!!!!!

I am happy!

Also, you should use this to occupy your brain.

heroin

2006-03-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

A homeless beauty and the beast, heroin. A slave to her addiction, young woman squanders her family and her potential

Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Rhonda Bye had a lot going for her -- brains, beauty, feisty strength.

Heroin and crack crushed it all.

The narcotics ruined her looks and attention span, snuffing out her potential both as a young clothing model for Nordstrom and as a computer whiz who could fix office network problems. Three years ago, a slave to her heroin addiction, Bye landed on San Francisco's streets as a homeless panhandler.

Still, she refused to give up, fighting her way through a frustrating maze of city social services to get into housing and drug rehabilitation. She shook off her addiction, and in the last couple months she had been talking about retraining to work with computers again.

But it was too late. Drug abuse and the ravages of street life had damaged her kidneys so badly that, in mid-February, doctors told her she would need dialysis for the rest of her life.
She missed her treatments three times in a row and went into a coma three weeks ago.
On Wednesday, she died. She was 39.

Bye leaves behind two sons and a daughter -- and a lifetime that her family hopes will be an example, in the harshest way possible, of how drugs and homelessness can destroy a person.
"She is an Exhibit A on what heroin and crack does to someone who is unbelievably beautiful, has the sweetest personality in the world, and is even smart," said Bye's brother, Robert Davis of Everett, Wash. "She could have done so much in life, so much. But drugs. ... It was drugs."

Bye lies in the San Francisco General Hospital morgue, the destination of all such indigents who die alone in the city from the ravages of drug abuse. But members of her family, many of whom haven't seen her in years, aren't focusing on that image. They choose to remember her in the days before everything went bad.

"She had such a great smile, back when she had teeth, and such a cute giggle," said her mother-in-law, Kay Vestre of Kent, Wash., who is raising Bye's three children and is a manager for the local child protective services office. "Back before she did drugs, they hired her at my workplace to work on the computer system, and oh, my, was she good. She became a trainer for other technicians."

But that -- like most of the promising things in Bye's life -- was before heroin seized her.
Bye was raised in Washington state, by a single mother who struggled on welfare or low-paying jobs for much of her childhood, her brother said, "but she always had the strength and brains to try to make something of herself."

Throughout middle school, she attended Bellevue Modeling Academy and walked the runway showing off clothes for Nordstrom. She pulled A's and B's in school, he said, "and by high school she was probably the most popular, cutest girl in class."

Then she met David Bye, whom as recently as this winter she called "the love of my life and the most interesting guy I ever met." By 17, she had dropped out of high school, and they were married, their first child on the way.

"The two of them just started doing cocaine a bit, and very slowly over the next bunch of years they lost what they had," Davis said. Jobs came and went, but about six years ago heroin had gripped them both, and they wound up on and off the streets. Vestre got custody of their three children -- and three years ago, things exploded out of control.

David Bye shot a man to death in Seattle in a fight over insurance money, and the couple fled toward Mexico. San Francisco police found them huddled in an alleyway, arrested David Bye and extradited him to Washington. His wife was left on the street -- and there she stayed.
Over the next year, she became a fixture at the Duboce Street off-ramp from Highway 101, the smiling, gentle woman with the ever-ready sign pleading for "just a little help." With her husband out of the picture for the first time since she was 17 -- he was convicted last year of second-degree murder and is serving 32 years in prison -- she was truly on her own for the first time in her life.

"This is not how I wanted to end up," she said one rainy day in 2004 as she begged in traffic. "I want to set a better example for my kids. All I need is a little more of a chance."

That chance came that year, when city Human Services Director Trent Rhorer struck up a conversation with her as she visited with a Chronicle reporter and photographer. He summoned an outreach worker, who signed her up for housing and rehab appointments.

It proved to be the one spark she needed. Bye followed up her many appointments diligently, and nearly three months later, she had a room in the Elm residential hotel and was firmly on methadone treatment to kick heroin.

"Rhonda struck me as someone who genuinely recognized her plight and really wanted to live a better life," Rhorer said. "She was no dummy. But sometimes the toll of drugs is just too much, and it catches up with you.

"What this tells me is that we have to work even harder to get the chronically homeless inside before this kind of damage sets in so deeply."

Her family hoped that she would learn so much from her street ordeals that she could become a counselor someday. Bye herself held that ambition.

"I know how the whole thing works now," she said one day last month in her hotel room, going over brochures of computer training classes. "Man, I could actually help people avoid the crap I've had to live through. Wouldn't that just be great?"

In addition to her husband, brother and mother-in-law, Bye is survived by two sons, David Bye Jr. and Chad Bye, and one daughter, Crystal Bye, all of Kent, Wash.; three other brothers, Billy Davis of San Diego and Sol and Cyrus Davis, both of Washington state; mother and stepfather, Phyllis and Ben Jones of Colorado; and her father, Bill Davis of Washington state.

Bye's family intends to have her cremated and her ashes flown to Washington state to her children.

E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

Gas tax on miles, not gallons??!! WTF!!

2006-03-26T14:40:00.000-05:00

Volunteers sought to test alternative to gas tax

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

James Mayer

The state is seeking volunteers to test the idea of replacing Oregon's gas tax with a fee based on how far you drive.

The project will test several aspects of charging a per-mile fee at the pump instead of paying the state's 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax. Volunteers for the one-year pilot program will use a mileage-counting device for in-state travel and will buy gas at specific Portland service stations.
Oregon, like other states, has seen a drop in gas tax revenue because of increased fuel efficiency. A task force set up by the 2001 Legislature developed the mileage fee idea.
Shelley Snow, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, said the project is the first of its kind in the country.

ODOT is looking for about 280 volunteers. To participate, you must have a vehicle made between 1996 and 2004, and allow all the vehicles in your household to take part. The participating service stations are at Southeast 114th Avenue and Powell Boulevard, and Northeast 102nd and Sandy Boulevard, so residents of those areas are encouraged to volunteer.
To get information on how to volunteer, check the department's Web site at www.oregon.gov/ODOT.

The project will test the system's ability to accurately collect the fee at the pump. When a purchase is totaled, the gas tax will be deducted and the fee added automatically.
One group will pay a flat fee of 1.2 cents a mile, and a second group will pay a variable fee based on how many miles are driven in rush-hour zones. A third group will pay the gas tax as a control.

-- James Mayer

Oregon to test mileage tax as replacement for gas tax

By Eric Pryne

Seattle Times staff reporter

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Let's pretend someone waves a magic wand and turns every car into a fuel-sipping, gas-electric hybrid. What difference would it make?

The air would be cleaner.

Oil imports would drop.

And the transportation budgets of Oregon, Washington and almost every other state would deflate like a punctured balloon.

Think about it: Most money for highway construction and maintenance comes from state and federal taxes on gasoline. If people bought a lot less gas, highways would get a lot less money.
In Oregon, a state task force has concluded this scenario isn't all that far-fetched. It has proposed a possible long-term replacement for the gas tax, something no one has tried before:
A tax based on how many miles you drive.

The Oregon Road User Fee Task Force has spent two years fleshing out the concept, thinking through how such a tax might be calculated and collected. Now it's ready to test its ideas in the real world.

At the panel's request, Oregon State University researchers have developed technology that can distinguish miles driven in Oregon from those driven elsewhere, then allow a mileage tax to be calculated and paid at the pump in place of the state gas tax.

Next year, the researchers' mileage-recording devices are to be installed on 400 private cars in Eugene. Some of the volunteers will become the first people in the country to pay road taxes based not on how much fuel they burn, but on how far they travel.

A mileage tax has been discussed in Washington, too — not as a replacement for the gas tax, but as a supplement to it. A bill allowing the Regional Transportation Investment District to propose one to King, Snohomish and Pierce county voters cleared the state House of Representatives earlier this year. It died in the Senate, in part because no one could say exactly how the tax might work.
The Oregon task force, whose work has attracted national attention, has gone a long way toward answering that question.
But even if the Eugene field test resolves the technical and administrative issues, tough policy questions about privacy, equity and the environment will remain.
"We know that, if you do this in a certain way, you can actually make it work," says Jim Whitty, the task force's administrator. "But working through these issues is very, very difficult."
Four miles for a nickel?

In 1999, Ford brought some of its alternative-fuel-concept cars to Salem, Oregon's capital, for a demonstration. Bruce Starr, then a Republican state representative from the Portland suburbs, took a spin in a $6 million fuel-cell vehicle. "I got to thinking, 'What happens when you encourage high-mileage vehicles?' " Starr remembers. "That was in some respects the genesis of this."

Starr's epiphany led him to introduce the bill that created the task force in 2001. He became its chairman.

The panel spelled out the underlying problem in a 2003 report. Cars will get more fuel efficient as gas prices continue to climb, it said. More automakers will offer hybrids. The Bush administration plans to spend $1.7 billion over five years to develop fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen.

So Oregon's gas-tax revenues will gradually level off, the task force said. Around 2014, it projected, collections will actually start to drop.

The panel sifted through 27 other options before settling on the mileage tax as a replacement. The other possible revenue sources either weren't user fees, had already been claimed by local government, or wouldn't generate enough money.

It suggested a tax of 1.25 cents per mile to eventually replace the state's gas tax of 24 cents per gallon. For a car that gets average gas mileage — 19.7 miles per gallon in Oregon — the total tax bill would be about the same.

But few cars are average. A 2004 Honda Civic that gets 36 miles to the gallon would pay more tax than today; a 2004 Range Rover that gets 12 would pay less.

Treating them the same is fair, Whitty argues. Each vehicle uses up about the same amount of space on the highway, he says, and there's little difference in the wear and tear they inflict on roads.

Besides, he adds, the gas tax was effectively a mileage tax 40 years ago, when almost every car got eight to 12 miles to the gallon. The introduction of fuel-efficient cars shifted more of the highway-finance burden to gas guzzlers, but "there was never public policy set for that," Whitty says. "It happened by accident."

Once the task force settled on a mileage tax, it had to figure out how to make it work.
The panel quickly decided Oregonians shouldn't pay tax on miles driven out of state. The problem: Conventional odometers don't make such distinctions.

It also decided the tax should be calculated and paid at the pump, so people wouldn't have to go to a government office or deal with another bill in their mailbox. The problem: Such a collection system didn't exist.

For solutions, the panel turned to Oregon State engineering professors David Kim, a former General Motors research scientist, and David Porter, an information-technology specialist.
They set up shop in an old storage compound, installing computers and a gas-pump simulator that does everything but pump gas. For more than a year, they tested different devices on three 1991 Dodge Dynasties the state once used to collect litter.

In the spring, Porter and Kim announced they had designed a system that did everything the task force wanted.

For vehicles, they crafted a device with an electronic odometer and a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver that determines whether a car is being driven in a predetermined "zone" — inside or outside Oregon, for instance. The miles in each zone are recorded separately.

When the car pulls into a gas station, its mileage data is uploaded by short-range radio frequency to a wireless reader. It sends the numbers to the station's computer, which, in turn, asks a central computer for information on the car's last reported mileage.

Once that data arrives, the gas-station computer does the math. It calculates new taxable miles, computes how much tax is owed and relays that information back to the pump.

All this takes about as long as a credit-card approval, Kim says. After that, the gas station's computer subtracts the gas tax from the per-gallon price displayed on the pump. You fill your tank, pay for the fuel plus the mileage tax, and drive away.

Cars that don't have the odometer-GPS devices — older cars, out-of-state cars — won't have any data for the reader to download. They'll continue to pay the gas tax; the task force has concluded that, while the state could reasonably require the devices on new cars, retrofitting every vehicle in Oregon would be too expensive.

The system's use of satellite-based GPS technology raises the specter of Big Brother, of government tracking where and when you drive. "If you wanted to, you could design a system that would do that," Porter acknowledges.

But he and Kim say their system doesn't; the task force didn't want anything that intrusive.
Their on-vehicle device doesn't store trip details, the professors say — only total miles and the zones into which those miles fall. That's the only information that would be transmitted at the gas pump, they add; no one could use the technology to track you while you're driving, or reconstruct where you've been.

"All that would be stored is a number," Whitty says. "If the police wanted to go into that device, there wouldn't be anything to find."

As an added safeguard, the task force has recommended that collection and dissemination of information about a car's movements without the driver's consent be prohibited by law.
Such assurances don't satisfy David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. Oregon's prototype probably presents little threat to privacy, he says — but government officials almost certainly would want something more.
The state would need a record of a car's movements to document the mileage-tax assessment if someone contested it, Sobel says: "Just from a due-process perspective, there will be pressure to retain data."

Privacy isn't the only concern. Chris Hagerbaumer, of the Oregon Environmental Council, says a mileage tax that treats a hybrid and a Hummer the same would discourage consumers from buying fuel-efficient cars.

"The gas tax sends a valuable signal," she says. "I'd hate to see that go away."
Oil companies don't like the task force's plan to collect the mileage tax at the pump, through gas stations' computers.

"They want to go into our proprietary systems," says Brian Doherty, a lobbyist for the Western States Petroleum Association. "Would you open up your million-dollar computer and let them have access to it?"

The task force hopes to install mileage-tax technology at up to five service stations next year for its Eugene field test. It may have trouble finding guinea pigs. "Until we get real comfortable with it, we're not ready to go there," Doherty says.

The task force's timetable calls for the first 20 cars to be equipped with mileage recorders next February. The experiment should be in full swing by fall 2005. Later, the technology would be used to test "congestion pricing" — charging some drivers a higher mileage fee during rush hour, or in particularly congested areas, to see if they drive less as a result.

The test should be finished in early 2007. Then what?

If the experiment works, Whitty says, the task force probably would draft a bill proposing a statewide mileage tax. Starr, the legislator who chairs the panel, doubts it would pass right away.

He says he's comfortable with the system's privacy protections, but the public isn't yet. Cost is another big hurdle, Starr adds: The task force has calculated the on-vehicle devices might add up to $225 to the price of a new car.

It's probably unrealistic anyway for a small state like Oregon to adopt a mileage tax by itself, Starr says, but the task force's work could provide the foundation for a larger state or the federal government to take that leap.

Whitty agrees. "Oregon is the tip of the tail of the dog," he says. "It's hard to wag the dog from that vantage point."

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

WWII airman found frozen in mountainside

2006-03-25T10:51:00.000-05:00

WWII airman found frozen in mountainside to be buried

Associated Press Mar. 24, 2006 07:47 AM

BRAINERD, Minn. - A World War II airman whose body was found frozen in a glacier last fall was to be buried in his hometown Friday, six decades after his plane crashed in the Sierra Nevada.

Leo Mustonen was 22 when his AT-7 navigational plane disappeared after taking off from a Sacramento, Calif., airfield on Nov. 18, 1942.

An engine, scattered remains and clothing were found over the following years, far from the plane's intended course, but Mustonen remained missing until last year, when two mountain climbers in California spotted an arm jutting out of the ice.

Authorities in October were able to chip out the remarkably well-preserved body of an airman who was carrying a fountain pen, an unused parachute and 51 cents in dimes, nickels and pennies dated between 1920 and 1942. There was a metal badge attached to his brown U.S. Army Air Forces uniform, but it was heavily corroded.

It took forensic scientists at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii examining the bones, DNA samples and the airman's teeth to officially declare the body as Mustonen.

Mustonen's relatives felt it was important for him to return to Brainerd and be buried with his parents, said the Rev. Andy Smith. Smith was asked to preach at the funeral Friday before Mustonen' burial in the same cemetery as his family.

Leane Mustonen Ross, the airman's niece, said there was no question about bringing him home after the anguish the family suffered not knowing what had happened to him.

It's "certainly nice to know he won't be left alone up in the mountains in a pile of snow," she said in a recent interview. "It's good to give him a decent burial."

Abramoff Has Ties To Slaying Case

2006-03-25T02:28:00.000-05:00

Abramoff May Be Subpoenaed in Slaying Case
Mar 24 1:52 PM US/Eastern

By CURT ANDERSONAssociated Press Writer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

A judge has approved subpoenas for former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an ex-business partner to answer questions about the mob-style slaying of the owner of a gambling fleet they bought.
Abramoff and Adam Kidan have insisted, through their attorneys, that they know nothing about the slaying of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, who was ambushed in his car by a gunman in Fort Lauderdale a few months after the pair bought SunCruz Casinos from him.

A lawyer for Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, one of three men charged in the 2001 slaying, wants to question Abramoff and Kidan, according to court documents. Circuit Judge Michael Kaplan approved the request Thursday, but the subpoenas had not been issued by Friday morning.

The SunCruz purchase is "at the heart" of the murder case, Moscatiello attorney Dave Bogenschutz said in court papers.

Abramoff and Kidan are not charged in the slaying but are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in federal court after pleading guilty earlier this year to fraud charges stemming from the purchase. Their lawyers did not return telephone calls or e-mails seeking comment Friday.

Abramoff, once a prominent Republican lobbyist and political fundraiser, has also pleaded guilty to federal charges in a Washington corruption investigation that threatens several powerful members of Congress and their staff members.

As part of their federal plea deals, Abramoff and Kidan are required to cooperate with prosecutors in any state or federal investigation.

Moscatiello, 67, allegedly has ties to New York's Gambino crime family and worked as a consultant for Kidan at SunCruz.

Kidan paid companies linked to Moscatiello about $145,000 while he ran SunCruz. Prosecutors have said they believe Boulis was slain in a battle for control of the gambling fleet out of concern that those payments might dry up.

Moscatiello is charged along with Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, 49, and 28-year-old James "Pudgy" Fiorillo in the Boulis killing. All three have pleaded not guilty and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Investigators have testified that records show that cell phones belonging to Ferrari and Fiorillo were within 500 feet of the Boulis murder scene moments after the killing and that one was used to call Moscatiello.

Kaplan was scheduled to hear testimony Friday on a motion by Moscatiello and Fiorillo claiming the prosecution's case isn't strong enough to warrant keeping them in custody without bail. Ferrari has not joined in that motion.

Abramoff and Kidan face prison sentences of just more than seven years in the Florida fraud case. They admitted fabricating a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable chunk of their own money into the $147.5 million purchase of the gambling fleet.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Money Talks (2)

2006-03-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

Bush uncle benefits from war spending

By WALTER F. ROCHE JR. ,
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — As President Bush embarks on a new effort to shore up public support for the war in Iraq, an uncle of the chief executive is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war.

A report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that William H.T. Bush collected a little less than $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 as a result of the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey.

The $1.7 billion deal closed Jan. 31. Both businesses have extensive military contracts.

The elder Bush was a director of Engineered Support Systems. Recent SEC filings show he was paid cash and DRS stock in exchange for shares and options he obtained as a director.

Missouri-based ESSI experienced record growth prior to its purchase by DRS through expanded U.S. military contracts — many to supply current U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — and an aggressive buyout strategy targeted at other defense contractors. The military contracts, some awarded on a sole-source basis, include a $77 million pact to refit military vehicles used in Iraq with armor.

Other ESSI products used in the war include radar and detection services, field medical stations and field electrical generator units.

SEC filings show there are two ongoing federal investigations of ESSI — one involving a stop order issued by the federal government on the ESSI contract to supply field generators. The order was issued because of operational problems with the units.

The field-generator contract was a major source of revenue, but SEC files show ESSI did not inform stockholders of the stop order until last June, about seven months after it was issued.

During the interim, several ESSI executives, including Bush's uncle, cashed in stock and stock options worth millions of dollars, SEC filings show.

According to one recent filing, both the SEC and the U.S. attorney in St. Louis are investigating the delayed disclosure and other matters. Unnamed members of the ESSI board and corporate officers have been subpoenaed, according to documents filed with the SEC.

William Bush, 67, SEC filings show, exercised options on 8,348 shares of ESSI stock Jan. 18, 2005, about two months after the stop order was issued. He collected about $450,000 in cash.

Bush, known in the president's family as "Uncle Bucky," joined ESSI's board in 2000, several months before his nephew became president. The Bush uncle heads a St. Louis investment firm and is a younger brother of former President Bush.

William Bush declined to comment yesterday. However, in an interview last year, he said he played no role in ESSI getting federal contracts.

"I don't make any calls to the 202 (Washington, D.C.) area code," he said.

Patricia Williamson, a spokeswoman for DRS, would not comment on the status of the federal investigations. The company has disclosed that it is cooperating in the investigations, which also involve an inquiry into an ESSI insurance contract.

Date of Publication: March 22, 2006 on Page

Strategy

2006-03-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

Good versus evil isn't a strategy
Bush's worldview fails to see that in the Middle East, power politics is the key.

By Madeleine AlbrightMarch 24, 2006

THE BUSH administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.

The administration is now divided between those who understand this complexity and those who do not. On one side, there are ideologues, such as the vice president, who apparently see Iraq as a useful precedent for Iran. Meanwhile, officials on the front lines in Iraq know they cannot succeed in assembling a workable government in that country without the tacit blessing of Iran; hence, last week's long-overdue announcement of plans for a U.S.-Iranian dialogue on Iraq — a dialogue that if properly executed might also lead to progress on other issues.Although this is not an administration known for taking advice, I offer three suggestions.

The first is to understand that although we all want to "end tyranny in this world," that is a fantasy unless we begin to solve hard problems. Iraq is increasingly a gang war that can be solved in one of two ways: by one side imposing its will or by all the legitimate players having a piece of the power. The U.S. is no longer able to control events in Iraq, but it can be useful as a referee.

Second, the Bush administration should disavow any plan for regime change in Iran — not because the regime should not be changed but because U.S. endorsement of that goal only makes it less likely. In today's warped political environment, nothing strengthens a radical government more than Washington's overt antagonism. It also is common sense to presume that Iran will be less willing to cooperate in Iraq and to compromise on nuclear issues if it is being threatened with destruction. As for Iran's choleric and anti-Semitic new president, he will be swallowed up by internal rivals if he is not unwittingly propped up by external foes.

Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker. Bush's "march of freedom" is not the big story in the Muslim world, where Shiite Muslims suddenly have more power than they have had in 1,000 years; it is not the big story in Lebanon, where Iran is filling the vacuum left by Syria; it is not the story among Palestinians, who voted — in Western eyes — freely, and wrongly; it is not even the big story in Iraq, where the top three factions in the recent elections were all supported by decidedly undemocratic militias.

In the long term, the future of the Middle East may well be determined by those in the region dedicated to the hard work of building democracy. I certainly hope so. But hope is not a policy. In the short term, we must recognize that the region will be shaped primarily by fairly ruthless power politics in which the clash between good and evil will be swamped by differences between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Arab and Kurd, Kurd and Turk, Hashemite and Saudi, secular and religious and, of course, Arab and Jew. This is the world, the president pledges in his National Security Strategy, that "America must continue to lead." Actually, it is the world he must begin to address — before it is too late.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, secretary of State from 1997 to 2001, is the author of "The Mighty and the Almighty -- Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs," to be published by Harper Collins in May. This essay appears by special arrangement with the Financial Times.

Not A Good Idea....

2006-03-24T01:28:00.000-05:00

IRS plan would allow sale of tax data to marketers
March 21, 2006

BY JEFF GELLES
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

PHILADELPHIA -- The Internal Revenue Service is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns.

If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers for the first time would be able to sell information from individual returns -- or even entire returns -- to marketers and data brokers.
The change is in a set of proposed rules the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."

IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning needed to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.

Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.

"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism of the proposal also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. In a letter March 14 to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that, once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.

The IRS announced the proposal in a news release the day before the notice was published, headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."
The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax information.

IRS spokesman William M. Cressman said, "The heart of this proposed regulation is about the right of taxpayers to control their tax return information. The idea is to emphasize taxpayer consent and set clear boundaries on how tax return preparers can use or disclose tax return information."