http://www.drudge.com/user/doc_sarvis New links and comments. en-us http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Wordzilla/0.58 10 http://www.drudge.com/news/115529/college-becoming-unaffordable-most http://www10.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?_r=5&partner=rss&emc=rss The rising cost of college is putting higher education out of reach for most Americans, reports the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. College tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. "Already, we'r one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers," said center President Patrick Callan. Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:18:25 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115529/college-becoming-unaffordable-most#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115529 New York Times News, 115529 http://www.drudge.com/news/115516/new-york-times-hold-mr-holder http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/opinion/03wed1.html?ref=opinion Before he's confirmed as the new Attorney General of the United States, Barack Obama's nominee Eric Holder needs to answer a few questions. Comments he made after 9/11 require that he clarify whether he would stand up for the Constitution when times are tough. Then there's the Marc Rich pardon. After the disgraceful Alberto Gonzales we meed an AG we can trust. Editorial (NYT) The Next Attorney General <p>If he is confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for the job, will inherit a Justice Department that has been mired in scandal and that has seriously lost its way in critical areas. Under President Bush, the department has been used to defend the indefensible, like indefinite detention and torture of prisoners, and to undermine rather than protect Americans' cherished rights. Mr. Holder could be an exemplary choice to face this daunting agenda, but he must answer serious questions before the Senate votes on his confirmation. <p>Mr. Holder, who would be the first African-American attorney general, has a particularly good record of public service for this job. He has been a United States attorney for the District of Columbia, a prosecutor in the Justice Department's public integrity section and a deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton. <p>He has been outspoken on the most critical issue facing the department: restoring the rule of law. In a speech in June, he described the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies as "excessive and unlawful." And he has called for closing the prison in Guantnamo Bay, Cuba. <p> But senators should ask Mr. Holder to square those views with comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks when he defended the Bush administration's prisoner policies by declaring that "you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war." <p>Americans need to know that Mr. Holder does not believe that detainees can be held indefinitely without being brought before a judge and that he would stand up for the Constitution when times are tough. <p>There are other aspects of Mr. Holder's record that are of concern, starting with his role in Mr. Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who had fled the country rather than face federal tax-evasion charges whose ex-wife, Denise Rich, had contributed heavily to the Clinton presidential library and the Democratic Party. <p>The Senate needs to probe that serious lapse in judgment closely to seek assurances that Mr. Holder will be unyielding about keeping political influence out of the Justice Department, which was shamefully politicized under Alberto Gonzales. <p>In addition to signing off on torture memos and depriving detainees of basic rights, the Bush Justice Department adopted legal positions that greatly expanded executive power. These policies must be quickly undone. The next attorney general also will have to get to the bottom of the department's disgraceful record of politicized hiring and firing. The attorney general will need to ensure that the investigation of the firings of United States attorneys for what appear to be partisan reasons is thorough and credible, and that witnesses who have been defying subpoenas, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, testify under oath. <p>There already are people mainly Republicans who say investigating these matters would be divisive. But the department's integrity cannot be restored until the truth comes out and any wrongdoers are punished. <p>Many parts of the Justice Department must be pointed in a new direction. In the Bush years, the voting rights section worked against voting rights. The civil rights division too often sat idly by, or supported the wrong side, when rights were infringed. The antitrust division all but abandoned its responsibility to protect the public from the harm of monopoly power. <p>The attorney general is the nation's top law enforcement official. The Senate must make sure that Mr. Holder is committed to the right kind of change in that job. Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:51:43 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115516/new-york-times-hold-mr-holder#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115516 discussion, 115516 http://www.drudge.com/news/115489/corn-obamas-biggest-pick-wasnt-hillary http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/12/an-obama-national-security-pic.html#more David Corn: All the talk is Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. While this move remains a surprise and perhaps even a gamble, it could be that the more important pick of the day is retired General James Jones to be Barack Obama's national security adviser. Jones is an intellectual and a former Marine. He was not gung-ho on the Iraq invasion. He is regarded as a forceful leader who understands the value of diplomacy. He is no pushover, no ideologue. He appears to have the backbone and standing to be the guy in the middle of the national security vortex--someone who can referee (if it comes to that) bureaucratic disputes that arise between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and Langley. Given his experience, he should be able to advise Obama and oversee the flow of information and views that come from State, Defense, and the intelligence community. It's a tough job -- and perhaps the most critical post within Obama's national security team. Believe it or not--it's not always about the Clintons. How Jones performs in this position may be more crucial to the success of Obama's presidency than what Clinton does in her new job. Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:31:33 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115489/corn-obamas-biggest-pick-wasnt-hillary#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115489 news, 115489 http://www.drudge.com/news/115491/hitchens-india-our-most-important-ally http://www.slate.com/id/2205710/ It would be good to hear from the president and the president-elect that we regard attacks on the fabric and society of India with very particular seriousness, as assaults on a close friend that was battling al-Qaida long before we were. OUR FRIENDS IN BOMBAY: We Must Stand by Our Most Important Ally <p>By Christopher Hitchens <p>It's in human nature to mention any personal connection when offering solidarity, so I shall just briefly say that on my first visit to India, in 1980, I stayed at the Taj Mahal in Bombay, visited the "Gateway of India" and took a boat to Elephanta Island, toured the magnificent railway station, had my first diwali festival at Juhu beach, and paced the amazing corniche that was still known by someafter its dazzling string of lightsas "Queen Victoria's necklace." Wonderful though some of the 19th-century British architecture can be, Bombay is quintessentially an Indian achievement, and an achievement of all its peoples from the Portuguese-speaking Catholic Goans to the Zoroastrian Parsis. (The Jewish disciples of Rabbi Schneerson may be relatively recent arrivals, but there have been Baghdad Jews in Bombay since records were kept, and Jews in India since before Christ, and not until this week has a Jewish place in India been attacked for its own sake, so to speak.) <p>When Salman Rushdie wrote, in The Moor's Last Sigh in 1995, that "those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay," he was alluding to the Hindu chauvinists who had tried to exert their own monopoly in the city and who had forcibly renamed itafter a Hindu goddessMumbai. We all now collude with this, in the same way that most newspapers and TV stations do the Burmese junta's work for it by using the fake name Myanmar. (Bombay's hospital and stock exchange, both targets of terrorists, are still called by their right name by most people, just as Bollywood retains its "B.") <p>This may seem like a detail, but it isn't, because what's at stake is the whole concept of a cosmopolitan city open to its own citizens and to the worlda city on the model of Sarajevo or London or Beirut or Manhattan. There is, of course, a reason they attract the ire and loathing of the religious fanatics. To the pure and godly, the very existence of such places is a profanity. In a smaller way, the same is true of the Islamabad Marriott hotel, where I also used to stay. It was a meeting point and crossroads for foreigners. It had a bar where the Pakistani prohibition rules did not apply. Its dining rooms and public spaces featured stylish Asian women who showed their faces. And so it had to be immolated, like any other Sodom or Gomorrah. <p>I hope I am not alone in finding the statements about Bombay from our politicians to be anemic and insipid, and the media coverage of the disastrous and criminal attack too parochially focused on the fate of visiting or resident Americans. India is emerging in many ways as our most important ally. It is a strong regional counterweight to Russia and China. Not to romanticize it overmuch, it is a huge and officially secular federal democracy that is based, like the United States, on ethnic and confessional pluralism. Its political and economic and literary echelons speak English better than most of us do. Its parliament in New Delhithe unbelievably diverse and dignified Lok Sabhawas viciously attacked by Islamist gangsters and nearly destroyed in December 2001, a date which ought to have made more Americans pay more attention rather than less. Since then, Bombay has been assaulted multiple times and the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan blown up with the fairly obvious cross-border collusion of the same Pakistani forces who are helping in the rebirth of the Taliban. <p>It would be good to hear from the president and the president-elect that we regard attacks on the fabric and society of India with very particular seriousness, as assaults on a close friend that was battling al-Qaida long before we were. In response, it should be emphasized, our military and financial and nuclear and counterinsurgency cooperation with New Delhi will not be given a lower profile but a very much higher one. The people of India need to hear this from us, as do the enemies of India, who are our sworn enemies, too. <p>The inevitable question arises: Did our nominal ally Pakistan have a hand in this atrocity? In one sense, to ask the question is to answer it. Whether we refer to al-Qaida "proper," or to any of the armed Kashmiri formations that have lately been mentioned, we find some pre-existing connection to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. Another conceivable suspect, the former Bombay crime lord Dawood Ibrahim, wanted by the Indian authorities on suspicion of blowing up the Bombay stock exchange and killing 300 civilians in 1993, has long been a fugitive from justice living safely in Pakistan's main port of Karachi. Not a bad place from which to organize an amphibious assault team that acted as if it had been trained by serious military professionals. <p>Contrasted with the gruesome efficiency and premeditation of the murder tactics is the pathetic amateurism and cynicism of the propaganda side. In my boyhood geography lessons I learned that the Deccan is a plateau and plain, not a region or an identity. It is part of India's deep interior; its very diverse inhabitants would not in any case arrive in Bombay by high-speed boat! It's rather encouraging in a way that this is the best the jihadists can do by way of a fake cover story, but perhaps there will again be enough Western sapsas with the attacks on the United States and Britain and Turkey and Tunisiato claim that none of this would have happened if not for the foreign policy of Bush and Blair. (I do not hold my breath, but as of the time of writing, this moronic faction hasamazinglynot yet been heard from.) An impressive thing about India is the way in which it has almost as many Muslim citizens, who live with greater prospects of peace and prosperity, as does Pakistan. This comity and integration is one of the many targets of the suicide killers, and it is another reason why firm, warm solidarity with India is the most pressing need of the present hour. <p> <p> <p> Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:50:22 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115491/hitchens-india-our-most-important-ally#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115491 discussion, 115491 http://www.drudge.com/news/115451/pentagon-plans-20000-troops-us http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217.html?hpid=topnews The U.S. expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the U.S. by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe. Critics express concern the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:30:50 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115451/pentagon-plans-20000-troops-us#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115451 news, 115451 http://www.drudge.com/news/115424/sullivan-obama-must-address-bushs-use http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article5257597.ece Andrew Sullivan: How will President Obama deal with the legacy of criminal actions of his predecessor's administration when it comes to detention, interrogation, abuse and torture of terror suspects? Perhaps the sanest way forward is a truth commission, modeled on those in Chile and South Africa that maintained governmental continuity for a while but set up a process that allowed for a maximal gathering of the relevant facts and names. One way of another, Obama has to take a stand on Bush's dark legacy. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:31:04 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115424/sullivan-obama-must-address-bushs-use#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115424 news, 115424 http://www.drudge.com/news/115452/cohen-israel-needs-tough-love-us http://www10.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01cohen.html?_r=5&ref=opinion Roger Cohen writes, "During the campaign Hillary Clinton, incoming Secretary of State, said 'the United States stands with Israel, now and forever.'" He thinks it's time for some "tough love," time to stand against Israel so it can avoid "the curse of eternal militarism." Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:32:28 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115452/cohen-israel-needs-tough-love-us#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115452 news, 115452 http://www.drudge.com/news/115425/us-interrogator-our-torture-helped-al http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242.html Matthew Alexander, U.S. interrogator: I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:32:12 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115425/us-interrogator-our-torture-helped-al#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115425 news, 115425 http://www.drudge.com/news/115401/dalai-lama-s-e-x-spells-t-r-o-u-b-l-e http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081128183857.lgjbvt92&show_article=1 The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and "more freedom." "Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication," the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator. <p>He said conjugal life caused "too much ups and downs. <p>"Naturally as a human being ... some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make comprehension that those couples always full of trouble. And in some cases there is suicide, murder cases," the Dalai Lama said. <p>He said the "consolation" in celibacy is that although "we miss something, but at the same time, compare whole life, it's better, more independence, more freedom." <p>Considered a Buddhist Master exempt from the religion's wheel of death and reincarnation, the Dalai Lama waxed eloquent on the Buddhist credo of non-attachment. <p>"Too much attachment towards your children, towards your partner," was "one of the obstacle or hindrance of peace of mind," he said. Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:31:29 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115401/dalai-lama-s-e-x-spells-t-r-o-u-b-l-e#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115401 news, 115401 http://www.drudge.com/news/115402/haka-rocks-rugby-world http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/nov/29/rugby-union-england-new-zealand Few other topics in world rugby generate such conflicting emotions as the New Zealand All Blacks' ritualistic pre-game performance of the <i>Haka</i>, an ancient Maori war dance designed to work up players while intimidating opponents. The constant controversies, kerfuffles, argle-bargle and fooferah over the Haka are really getting quite tiresome. Our own Frank Keating waded into the debate recently and was greeted with howls of Antipodean anguish, followed by stern and sober British rebuttals. (last one, I promise: http://tinyurl.com/6484ab). Few other topics in world rugby generate such conflicting emotions. Your correspondent sat amongst a chorus of boos when the Haka was performed at Croke Park recently. But if you insist on scheduling Tests in the evening, in Dublin, then you must expect boozy belligerence. <p>Wales responded by locking the All Blacks in their dressing room, Ireland cunningly make them wait through two national anthems and Munster stole their thunder with their own version. Johnno says his men are just going to let them get on with it today. Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:25:54 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115402/haka-rocks-rugby-world#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115402 discussion, 115402 http://www.drudge.com/news/115326/whats-your-thanksgiving-meal http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/curtin.html We don't know much about the menu at the first Thanksgiving at Plimoth Plantation 387 years ago. Deer, for sure, and "fowl," according to one eyewitness account. Possibly lobsters, mussels, "salent herds," white and red grapes, black and red plums, and flint corn. So what are <i>you</i> having for Thanksgiving this year? <b>Based on information obtained from Kathleen Curtin, Food Historian at Plimoth (later Plymouth) Plantation foods that could have been on the menu include:</b> <p>Seafood: Cod, Eel, Clam, Lobster <p>Wild Fowl: Wild Turkey, Goose, Duck, Crane, Swan, Partridge, Eagles <p>Meat: Venison, Seal <p>Grain: heat Flour, Indian Corn <p>Vegetables: Pumpkin, Peas, Beans, Onoins, Lettuce, radishes, Carrots <p>Fruit: Plums, Grapes <p>Nuts: Walnuts, Chestnuts, Acorns <p>Herbs and Seasonings: Olive Oil, Liverwort, Leeks, Dried Currants, Parsnips <p><b>Foods That Weren't On The Menu</b> <p>Ham: The colonists had pigs but no evidence they'd butchered one by this time. <p>Sweet Potatoes/Potatoes: Not common <p>Corn on the Cob: Kept dried out at that time of year <p>Cranberry Sauce: No sugar <p>Pumpkin Pie: Recipe didn't exist, but they did make stewed pumpkin <p>Chicken/Eggs: They had hens but we dont' know how many or whether they were laying <p>Milk: No cows brought over, but maybe used goat milk for cheese (Source: http://www.history.com/minisites/thanksgiving/viewPage?pageId=873) <p>A most happy Thanksgiving to all, a time to reflect on the good things of the year. Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:25:39 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115326/whats-your-thanksgiving-meal#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115326 news, 115326 http://www.drudge.com/news/115307/bushies-rewrite-iraq-war-history-white http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/washington/25documents.html Historians researching the Bush Administration's efforts to create a "coalition of the willing" to aid and abet its war with Iraq say they are troubled by what seem to be deletions of and alterations to the early official lists of nations that supported the war effort. The lists were posted on the White House Web site. <b>Iraq Ally Lists Were Altered, Study Shows</b> <p>By Thom Shanker (NYT) <p>WASHINGTON Before invading Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration mounted a significant diplomatic offensive to rally international support, and officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department went to great lengths to trumpet those nations that joined what they termed "the coalition of the willing." <p>But historians researching those early alliance-building efforts say they are troubled by what seem to be deletions of and alterations to the early official lists of nations that supported the war effort. The lists were posted on the White House Web site. <p>While administration officials acknowledged that the number of nations supporting the war changed over time, academic researchers say three official lists appear to have been changed, yet retained their original release date, making them appear to be unaltered originals. <p>Two other White House lists appear to have been taken off the Web site, according to a study of the documents by Scott L. Althaus and Kalev H. Leetaru of the Cline Center for Democracy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. <p>There were 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion, but subsequent deletions of the earlier lists and revisions to critical documents made it seem that there were 49, the researchers found. <p>Two other countries that appeared on early lists of alliance partners were removed, but those updated rosters carried the original date and no mention that they had been changed. <p>White House officials confirmed Monday that the names of two countries were removed from the list of coalition partners initially listed on the Web pages, an action taken at the request of those nations. Costa Rica and Angola were dropped, but Angola subsequently reappeared. <p>In recent years, the White House has adopted a policy that requires its official Web site to note when such changes are made to an online item, a spokesman said Monday. <p>But that appears not to have been in effect for posts released early in the war effort. <p>In their study, the two University of Illinois researchers wrote that "whether by design or neglect, the result is the same: The removals and revisions of White House documents distort the historical record of what our government has said and done." In the new study, the researchers traced five online documents that listed the number and names of coalition partners. <p>The researchers report finding that two were removed, one in late 2004, and another in late 2005 or early 2006. "These two missing' lists represent earlier and smaller lists of coalition members," the researchers said. <p>One list posted by the White House on March 21, 2003, identified 46 countries in the coalition, including the United States. In April 2003, the list was updated to add Angola and Ukraine, bringing the total number of coalition countries up to 48, the researchers found. <p>"But instead of issuing a new list with a new date, the White House took the unusual step of retroactively revising the original March 21 press release, without indicating that the document had been modified from its original form," the researchers wrote. <p>On or before April 13, 2003, the White House posted an updated alliance list that added Tonga to the previous list of 48. This list was temporarily removed from public view in 2004, but by Nov. 3, 2004, the list had been restored with changes. <p>The revised list also carried a publication date of March 27, 2003, more than a year and a half before the revisions were made, the researchers report. The backdated list was modified again by changing the number of coalition countries back to 49, even though the document lists only 48 by name without Costa Rica. <p> Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:39:28 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115307/bushies-rewrite-iraq-war-history-white#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115307 discussion, 115307 http://www.drudge.com/news/115281/child-psychology-researcher-hid-drug-company http://www10.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/25psych.html?_r=5&pagewanted=1&ref=health&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Dr. Joseph Biederman, a Harvard University child psychology researcher whose work caused a huge increase in the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs on children, did not disclose to his university significant earnings he received from the drug giant Johnson & Johnson. E-mails and internal documents from Johnson & Johnson made public in a court filing reveal that Dr. Biederman pushed the company to fund a research center at Massachusetts General Hospital whose goal was "to move forward the commercial goals of J&J," the documents state. <p>Dr. Biederman's work helped to fuel a 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a rapid rise in the use of powerful, risky and expensive antipsychotic medicines in children. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, Dr. Biederman has had a vast influence on the field largely because of his position at one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world. Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:02:10 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115281/child-psychology-researcher-hid-drug-company#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115281 news, 115281 http://www.drudge.com/news/115238/friedman-bush-should-appoint-geithner-now http://www10.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23friedman.html?_r=5&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Thomas Friedman: The national economy is in a real code red, and addressing this issue can't be put off for two months. Bush should appoint Tim Geithner, Obama's proposed Treasury secretary, immediately. This is not a knock on Hank Paulson. It's simply that we can't afford two months of transition where the markets don't know who is in charge or where we're going. At the same time, Congress should remain in permanent session to pass any needed legislation. So, I have a confession and a suggestion. The confession: I go into restaurants these days, look around at the tables often still crowded with young people, and I have this urge to go from table to table and say: "You don't know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn't be here. You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning. Please, wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home." <p>Now you know why I don't get invited out for dinner much these days. If I had my druthers right now we would convene a special session of Congress, amend the Constitution and move up the inauguration from Jan. 20 to Thanksgiving Day. Forget the inaugural balls; we can't afford them. Forget the grandstands; we don't need them. Just get me a Supreme Court justice and a Bible, and let's swear in Barack Obama right now by choice with the same haste we did by necessity with L.B.J. in the back of Air Force One. <p>Unfortunately, it would take too long for a majority of states to ratify such an amendment. What we can do now, though, said the Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, co-author of "The Broken Branch," is "ask President Bush to appoint Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's proposed Treasury secretary, immediately." Make him a Bush appointment and let him take over next week. This is not a knock on Hank Paulson. It's simply that we can't afford two months of transition where the markets don't know who is in charge or where we're going. At the same time, Congress should remain in permanent session to pass any needed legislation. <p>This is the real "Code Red." As one banker remarked to me: "We finally found the W.M.D." They were buried in our own backyard subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them. <p>Yet, it is obvious that President Bush can't mobilize the tools to defuse them a massive stimulus program to improve infrastructure and create jobs, a broad-based homeowner initiative to limit foreclosures and stabilize housing prices, and therefore mortgage assets, more capital for bank balance sheets and, most importantly, a huge injection of optimism and confidence that we can and will pull out of this with a new economic team at the helm. <p>The last point is something only a new President Obama can inject. What ails us right now is as much a loss of confidence in our financial system and our leadership as anything else. I have no illusions that Obama's arrival on the scene will be a magic wand, but it would help. <p>Right now there is something deeply dysfunctional, bordering on scandalously irresponsible, in the fractious way our political elite are behaving with business as usual in the most unusual economic moment of our lifetimes. They don't seem to understand: Our financial system is imperiled. <p>"The unity seems to be gone. The emergency looks to be a little less pressing," Bill Frenzel, the former 10-term Republican congressman who is now with the Brookings Institution, was quoted by CNBC.com on Friday. <p>I don't want to see Detroit's auto industry wiped out, but what are we supposed to do with auto executives who fly to Washington in three separate private jets, ask for a taxpayer bailout and offer no detailed plan for their own transformation? <p>The stock and credit markets haven't been fooled. They have started to price financial stocks at Great Depression levels, not just recession levels. With $5, you can now buy one share of Citigroup and have enough left over for a bite at McDonalds. <p>As a result, Barack Obama is possibly going to have to make the biggest call of his presidency before it even starts. <p>"A great judgment has to be made now as to just how big and bad the situation is," says Jeffrey Garten, the Yale School of Management professor of international finance. "This is a crucial judgment. Do we think that a couple of hundred billion more and couple of bad quarters will take care of this problem, or do we think that despite everything that we have done so far despite the $700 billion fund to rescue banks, the lowering of interest rates and the way the Fed has stepped in directly to shore up certain markets the bottom is nowhere in sight and we are staring at a deep hole that the entire world could fall into?" <p>If it's the latter, then we need a huge catalyst of confidence and capital to turn this thing around. Only the new president and his team, synchronizing with the world's other big economies, can provide it. <p>"The biggest mistake Obama could make," added Garten, "is thinking this problem is smaller than it is. On the other hand, there is far less danger in overestimating what will be necessary to solve it." <p>Conventional wisdom says it's good for a new president to start at the bottom. The only way to go is up. That's true unless the bottom falls out before he starts. Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:33:54 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115238/friedman-bush-should-appoint-geithner-now#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115238 news, 115238 http://www.drudge.com/news/115263/why-us-feels-like-its-been-ruled http://www.drudge.com/news/115263/why-us-feels-like-its-been-ruled America fought a revolution to have its opinions represented by it's government. That has faded in Bush's term. Now it's returning; joy is understandable. Why America Feels Like it's Been Ruled by a Foreign Occupier <p>By John Hallmann <p>As Obama takes over the wreckage this country is in, one can't help but feel like something alien to America has been controlling it these past eight years. The wave of emotion that has erupted with the election of Barack Obama reminds me of the Allied victory in France in WWII. After a long foreign occupation in which foreign German interests occupied the agenda of France, French governance would once again be representing the concerns of it's populace. That hope seems to pervade America after it's long neocons occupation. Here are a few of the parallels that I see. <p><b>- American Public Opinion Has Been Ignored</b> <p>Polling has consistently shown that the American government pursues an agenda far to the right of American public opinion. For the slight margin of victory that Bush had in both elections he won, the sweeping changes he pursued illuminate his disregard for the sizable chunk of our society that disagree with him. <p>When Dick Cheney was questioned on ABC about whether the fact that two thirds of Americans were opposed to the Iraq War had any influence on decision-making, he basically said that the American people get to make their input every four years and after that they can be ignored. The government is there to represent the people and now that it seems like that is returning; joy is understandable. <p><b>- Core American Values Overturned</b> <p>America fought a revolution to have its opinions represented by it's government. That has faded in Bush's term. America set up the UN after World War II to set up international law and put an end to military aggression and imperialism. That went out the window. Habeas Corpus was inherited from England where it originated in the 12th Century. Bush in that sense has embraced the morals of the middle ages. Along that line, America reinstituted the use of torture. England discontinued its use in the 1600's Frederick the Great ended it in Prussia in 1740, Italy in 1786, France in 1789, and Russia in 1801. Besides moral reasons, the practice was written off as ineffective in terms of yielding useful information. This administrations moral conduct is clearly alien to the values of most Americans. <p><b>- Basic Infrastructure Neglected</b> <p>Bridges, roads, and environmental standards have degraded these past eight years. What could be of more interest to a population than the upkeep of these vital elements of society? Clearly the vital interests of the population did not matter. You would have to be completely foreign to what America is not to see it, as basic infrastructure degraded tremendously in Bush's tenure. <p><b>- National Resources Diverted Overseas</b> <p>If you study any foreign occupation, one common thread would be that national wealth would be diverted into foreign lands. While American healthcare, education, and infrastructure languished, we dumped billions of dollars into Iraq and pursued an otherwise aggressive and destructive foreign policy across the world at large at tremendous cost. <p>On top of that, national debt doubled the past eight years. It's like America lost a war, suffered an occupation and had to pay a 5 trillion dollar indemnity. We're in a similar position to France in 1870 or Germany in 1919 in that our common interests have been ignored, we've pursued an aggressive foreign policy to our own detriment and we are now deeply in debt. <p><b>- Propaganda Tuned Up</b> <p>Bush took the stance of a foreign occupier in his governance- rational argument would never win the minds and hearts of the masses so crude propaganda such as Fox News was trotted out to scare and paralyze America into obedience. The same quest for obedience through misinformation and crude scare tactics are the same you see in the totalitarian governments from South America to Asia that have brought nothing but misery to their own people and the world at large. <p><b>Barack Obama</b> As Obama takes over the wreckage this country is in, one can't help but feel like something alien to America has been controlling it these past eight years. The wave of emotion that has erupted with ... As Obama takes over the wreckage this country is in, one can't help but feel like something alien to America has been controlling it these past eight years. The wave of emotion that has erupted with ... Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:48:01 -0500 Doc_Sarvis http://www.drudge.com/news/115263/why-us-feels-like-its-been-ruled#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.115263 discussion, 115263