KRT Wire | 03/16/2005 | U.S. officials worry about civilians obtaining traffic-light changers: "U.S. officials worry about civilians obtaining traffic-light changers
BY AMAN BATHEJA
Knight Ridder Newspapers
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) - The tag lines on various Web sites make them seem too good to be true.
'CHANGE STOPLIGHTS FROM RED TO GREEN IN SECONDS!'
'NOW YOU CONTROL THE INTERSECTIONS!'
The devices, mobile infrared transmitters, allow a person to change an upcoming traffic light from red to green from as far as 1,500 feet.
They are intended for emergency personnel, but sales of the devices to civilians on the Internet are making authorities nervous.
While the devices can cost more than $1,000 each from official dealers such as 3M, various Web sites sell knockoffs for less than $200.
Most of the Internet sites selling the devices advertise them for emergency personnel, but some broaden the definition to include private investigators and funeral homes. Some sites also claim to target groups that have a right to the technology but could afford only the cheaper versions, like volunteer fire departments.
Due mostly to the availability of the cheaper versions online, police and fire officials have been hearing accounts of signal changers being used by civilians in other states, Aghamalian said.
'We can't have that type of technology in the wrong hands,' said Brandon Aghamalian, director of governmental relations for Fort Worth, Texas.
Four bills before the Texas Legislature this session propose to make it illegal for anyone but emergency personnel to possess a signal changer.
Using such a device is already against the law because it is illegal to tamper with a traffic control device, said Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety.
A bill by state Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, would make possessing a signal changer a Class B misdemeanor. A bill proposed by Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, would make possession a third-degree felony.
There have been no reported problems with unauthorized use of the devices locally, said Harry Jones, supervisor of the Fort Worth Police Department's traffic division.
---
Traffic Signal Changers
For emergency vehicles racing toward a crisis, signal changers can mean the difference between life and death. They allow emergency crews to respond to an emergency more quickly and reduce the chance of an accident when they are passing through intersections.
When a signal changer on a traffic light detects a properly equipped emergency vehicle approaching, the light responds accordingly. If the light is red, the signal changer will immediately give vehicles in other directions a yellow light, followed by a red light. Then the emergency vehicle will be given a green light.
If the light is already green, it will remain green until the vehicle has passed.
---
� 2005, Fort Worth Star-Telegram."
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Monday, March 14, 2005
ChrenkoffYou know they are serious, when...
Chrenkoff
You know they are serious, when...
First off, we've had the Hizbollah, pro-Syrian, pro-government rally, which according to various estimates attracted somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people to the center of Beirut.
Now, we have an opposition, anti-Syrian, anti-Government rally, with anywhere between 800,000 and 1.3 million people in the streets.
Lebanon's total population is 3.7 million.
To get your head around the magnitude of these events, think the United States. Think the Presidential campaign 2004. Think a Kerry rally, somewhere outside Boston, attracting somewhere between 40 and 80 million people. Then think a Bush rally, on the outsikirts of Dallas, with a field crowded with between 63 and 103 million Americans.
That's somewhere between one third and two thirds of the US population coming out into the street, and the lower overall estimate of just over 100 million people protesting is not significantly lower than the total number of people who have voted at the 2004 presidential election (over 120 million).
And everyone thinks that the Americans are passionate about politics!
But speaking of knowing when they are not serious... Amir Taheri has another good opinion piece about the reluctance of the Western anti-war crowd to support democracy throughout the Middle East. "There are, as yet, no signs that the 'Western street' may, at some point, come out in support of the new 'Arab street'," he writes.
Indeed, over the last three years, millions marched around the world to get the US troops out of Iraq. Over the last 15 or even 30 years - and much more importantly, over the last few weeks - how many in the West marched to get the Syrian troops out of Lebanon?
Taheri wonders: "Is it because many of those who will be marching in support of Saddam Hussein this month are the remnants of totalitarian groups in the West plus a variety of misinformed idealists and others blinded by anti-Americanism? Or is it because they secretly believe that the Arabs do not deserve anything better than Saddam Hussein?"
No - it's because the Western left is now isolationist. It has been following, with a significant time lapse, the transition from Trotskyism-Leninism to Stalinism. Just like the Soviet communists had once raged with revolutionary fervor and dreamed of spreading dictatorship of the proletariat across Europe and then the rest of the world, only to eventually settle for "socialism in one country", so had the Western left-of-centrists once dreamed of spreading democracy, freedom and human rights around the world, only to champion today the doctrine of "democracy in one country" - ours.
So if the critics of the Bush Administration like to point out to the Trotyskite roots of neo-conservatism, that's fair enough as far as it goes, but they should accept that by the same token today's left is Stalinis
You know they are serious, when...
First off, we've had the Hizbollah, pro-Syrian, pro-government rally, which according to various estimates attracted somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people to the center of Beirut.
Now, we have an opposition, anti-Syrian, anti-Government rally, with anywhere between 800,000 and 1.3 million people in the streets.
Lebanon's total population is 3.7 million.
To get your head around the magnitude of these events, think the United States. Think the Presidential campaign 2004. Think a Kerry rally, somewhere outside Boston, attracting somewhere between 40 and 80 million people. Then think a Bush rally, on the outsikirts of Dallas, with a field crowded with between 63 and 103 million Americans.
That's somewhere between one third and two thirds of the US population coming out into the street, and the lower overall estimate of just over 100 million people protesting is not significantly lower than the total number of people who have voted at the 2004 presidential election (over 120 million).
And everyone thinks that the Americans are passionate about politics!
But speaking of knowing when they are not serious... Amir Taheri has another good opinion piece about the reluctance of the Western anti-war crowd to support democracy throughout the Middle East. "There are, as yet, no signs that the 'Western street' may, at some point, come out in support of the new 'Arab street'," he writes.
Indeed, over the last three years, millions marched around the world to get the US troops out of Iraq. Over the last 15 or even 30 years - and much more importantly, over the last few weeks - how many in the West marched to get the Syrian troops out of Lebanon?
Taheri wonders: "Is it because many of those who will be marching in support of Saddam Hussein this month are the remnants of totalitarian groups in the West plus a variety of misinformed idealists and others blinded by anti-Americanism? Or is it because they secretly believe that the Arabs do not deserve anything better than Saddam Hussein?"
No - it's because the Western left is now isolationist. It has been following, with a significant time lapse, the transition from Trotskyism-Leninism to Stalinism. Just like the Soviet communists had once raged with revolutionary fervor and dreamed of spreading dictatorship of the proletariat across Europe and then the rest of the world, only to eventually settle for "socialism in one country", so had the Western left-of-centrists once dreamed of spreading democracy, freedom and human rights around the world, only to champion today the doctrine of "democracy in one country" - ours.
So if the critics of the Bush Administration like to point out to the Trotyskite roots of neo-conservatism, that's fair enough as far as it goes, but they should accept that by the same token today's left is Stalinis
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Jack Kelly: The hubris of Giuliana Sgrena
Jack Kelly: The hubris of Giuliana Sgrena: "k Kelly: The hubris of Giuliana Sgrena
A naive Italian communist journalist got herself into big trouble in Baghdad
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Giuliana Sgrena does not lack a sense of self-importance. The 56-year-old journalist for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto thinks she knows so many deep dark secrets the U.S. military tried to shut her up permanently.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
Sgrena went to Iraq to report on the heroic resistance to the American imperialists. Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos rode in the airplane to Baghdad with her.
'Be careful not to get kidnapped,' Doornbos warned Sgrena.
'You don't understand the situation,' she responded, according to Doornbos' account last week in Nederlands Dagblad. (Excerpts were translated into English and posted on a Dutch writer's Web blog.) 'The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers. The enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.'
Sgrena left her hotel the morning of Feb. 4 to interview refugees from Fallujah, the resistance stronghold captured by U.S. Marines in November. The interviews didn't go well.
'The refugees ... would not listen to me,' she said. 'I had in front of me the accurate confirmation of the analysis of what the Iraqi society had become as a result of the war and they would throw their truth in my face.'
Sgrena's feelings were hurt that the refugees could be so curt to her: 'I who had risked everything, challenging the Italian government who didn't want journalists to reach Iraq and the Americans who don't want our work to be witnessed of what really became of that country with the war and notwithstanding that which they call elections.' (Maybe it reads better in Italian, or maybe she just can't write worth a damn.)
She got nabbed on her way back to her hotel. Sgrena told her captors she was on their side, and suggested they kidnap an American soldier instead. But the U.S. government doesn't pay ransoms.
The Italian government did pay a ransom estimated by various sources at between $1 million and $10 million, and Sgrena was released into the custody of Italian intelligence officers. On the night of March 4, their vehicle approached a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport. The car did not stop. U.S. troops opened fire. Nicola Calipari was killed, Sgrena was slightly wounded.
Sgrena said the soldiers deliberately tried to kill her, but didn't hazard a guess as to how the soldiers knew she was in that vehicle. According to the U.S. embassy and the Third Infantry Division, the Italians did not inform the Americans she'd been released. And Calipari had rented a nondescript sedan to pick up Sgrena, rather than utilize one of the Italian embassy's armored SUVs, which the soldiers might have recognized.
Sgrena and the driver said they approached the checkpoint slowly. But 'slowly' seems to be a relative term for Italian drivers, and for communists. An Army officer told ABC News the car may have been going 100 mph when it was fired upon.
Sgrena claims the Americans shot without warning. 'A tank started to shoot at us without any sign or any light,' she told reporters March 7.
The soldiers say they used lights, and hand signals, and fired warning shots before shooting into the engine block to stop the vehicle. The car's driver said the soldiers did shine a spotlight, but opened up almost immediately afterwards.
Sgrena said 'the tank' fired 300-400 shots at her car. But photographs of it published March 8 by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica indicate the vehicle suffered remarkably little damage for such a fusillade. There is a single bullet hole in the windshield, but the window glass and the fenders are otherwise intact, as is the hood.
Perhaps the soldiers were remarkably lousy shots. But if they were trying to kill Sgrena, why did they take her to the hospital instead of finishing her off?
There are questions that need answers. The Italians say they notified the Americans of Sgrena's release, but the Americans deny it. Was the car going 'slowly,' as the Italians claim, or was it trying to run through the checkpoint, as the Americans say?
But there is no doubt about the credibility of Giuliana Sgrena. She entitled her story 'My Truth,' perhaps to distinguish it from the bourgeois concept of truth that depends on adherence to fact.
Many on the left in America embraced Sgrena's 'truth,' while refusing to give their countrymen the benefit of the doubt. But hey, liberals support our troops. They say so all the time.
"
A naive Italian communist journalist got herself into big trouble in Baghdad
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Giuliana Sgrena does not lack a sense of self-importance. The 56-year-old journalist for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto thinks she knows so many deep dark secrets the U.S. military tried to shut her up permanently.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
Sgrena went to Iraq to report on the heroic resistance to the American imperialists. Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos rode in the airplane to Baghdad with her.
'Be careful not to get kidnapped,' Doornbos warned Sgrena.
'You don't understand the situation,' she responded, according to Doornbos' account last week in Nederlands Dagblad. (Excerpts were translated into English and posted on a Dutch writer's Web blog.) 'The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers. The enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.'
Sgrena left her hotel the morning of Feb. 4 to interview refugees from Fallujah, the resistance stronghold captured by U.S. Marines in November. The interviews didn't go well.
'The refugees ... would not listen to me,' she said. 'I had in front of me the accurate confirmation of the analysis of what the Iraqi society had become as a result of the war and they would throw their truth in my face.'
Sgrena's feelings were hurt that the refugees could be so curt to her: 'I who had risked everything, challenging the Italian government who didn't want journalists to reach Iraq and the Americans who don't want our work to be witnessed of what really became of that country with the war and notwithstanding that which they call elections.' (Maybe it reads better in Italian, or maybe she just can't write worth a damn.)
She got nabbed on her way back to her hotel. Sgrena told her captors she was on their side, and suggested they kidnap an American soldier instead. But the U.S. government doesn't pay ransoms.
The Italian government did pay a ransom estimated by various sources at between $1 million and $10 million, and Sgrena was released into the custody of Italian intelligence officers. On the night of March 4, their vehicle approached a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport. The car did not stop. U.S. troops opened fire. Nicola Calipari was killed, Sgrena was slightly wounded.
Sgrena said the soldiers deliberately tried to kill her, but didn't hazard a guess as to how the soldiers knew she was in that vehicle. According to the U.S. embassy and the Third Infantry Division, the Italians did not inform the Americans she'd been released. And Calipari had rented a nondescript sedan to pick up Sgrena, rather than utilize one of the Italian embassy's armored SUVs, which the soldiers might have recognized.
Sgrena and the driver said they approached the checkpoint slowly. But 'slowly' seems to be a relative term for Italian drivers, and for communists. An Army officer told ABC News the car may have been going 100 mph when it was fired upon.
Sgrena claims the Americans shot without warning. 'A tank started to shoot at us without any sign or any light,' she told reporters March 7.
The soldiers say they used lights, and hand signals, and fired warning shots before shooting into the engine block to stop the vehicle. The car's driver said the soldiers did shine a spotlight, but opened up almost immediately afterwards.
Sgrena said 'the tank' fired 300-400 shots at her car. But photographs of it published March 8 by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica indicate the vehicle suffered remarkably little damage for such a fusillade. There is a single bullet hole in the windshield, but the window glass and the fenders are otherwise intact, as is the hood.
Perhaps the soldiers were remarkably lousy shots. But if they were trying to kill Sgrena, why did they take her to the hospital instead of finishing her off?
There are questions that need answers. The Italians say they notified the Americans of Sgrena's release, but the Americans deny it. Was the car going 'slowly,' as the Italians claim, or was it trying to run through the checkpoint, as the Americans say?
But there is no doubt about the credibility of Giuliana Sgrena. She entitled her story 'My Truth,' perhaps to distinguish it from the bourgeois concept of truth that depends on adherence to fact.
Many on the left in America embraced Sgrena's 'truth,' while refusing to give their countrymen the benefit of the doubt. But hey, liberals support our troops. They say so all the time.
"
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Friday, March 11, 2005
Anatomy of Credit Card Numbers
Anatomy of Credit Card Numbers
by Michael Gilleland, Merriam Park Software
Introduction
Major Industry Identifier
Issuer Identifier
Account Number
Check Digit
Examples
Java Source Code
Introduction
This is not an essay on credit cards per se. If that's what you're looking for, I recommend Joe Ziegler's excellent series Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Credit Cards. This essay has a narrower focus -- to explore the anatomy of your credit card number, and to provide Java source code which determines if a given credit card number might be valid.
Specifications for credit card numbering have been drawn up by the International Standards Organization (ISO/IEC 7812-1:1993) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI X4.13). These eminent organizations refuse to make their publications freely available on-line, and so the following information on the format of credit card numbers comes largely from an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft by Donald E. Eastlake 3rd, "ISO 7812/7816 Numbers and the Domain Name System (DNS)" (draft-eastlake-card-map-08, expires August 2001), available at the time of this writing at http://www.globecom.net/ietf/draft/draft-eastlake-card-map-08.html. I have not linked to this URL, because individual versions of IETF drafts are notoriously ephemeral.
Digit numbering in this essay is left to right. The "first" digit, therefore, means the leftmost digit.
Major Industry Identifier
The first digit of your credit card number is the Major Industry Identifier (MII), which represents the category of entity which issued your credit card. Different MII digits represent the following issuer categories:
MII Digit Value Issuer Category
0 ISO/TC 68 and other industry assignments
1 Airlines
2 Airlines and other industry assignments
3 Travel and entertainment
4 Banking and financial
5 Banking and financial
6 Merchandizing and banking
7 Petroleum
8 Telecommunications and other industry assignments
9 National assignment
For example, American Express, Diner's Club, and Carte Blanche are in the travel and entertainment category, VISA, MasterCard, and Discover are in the banking and financial category, and SUN Oil and Exxon are in the petroleum category.
Issuer Identifier
The first 6 digits of your credit card number (including the initial MII digit) form the issuer identifier. This means that the total number of possible issuers is a million (10 raised to the sixth power, or 1,000,000).
Some of the better known issuer identifiers are listed in the following table:
Issuer Identifier Card Number Length
Diner's Club/Carte Blanche 300xxx-305xxx,
36xxxx, 38xxxx 14
American Express 34xxxx, 37xxxx 15
VISA 4xxxxx 13, 16
MasterCard 51xxxx-55xxxx 16
Discover 6011xx 16
If the MII digit is 9, then the next three digits of the issuer identifier are the 3-digit country codes defined in ISO 3166, and the remaining final two digits of the issuer identifier can be defined by the national standards body of the specified country in whatever way it wishes.
Account Number
Digits 7 to (n - 1) of your credit card number are your individual account identifier. The maximum length of a credit card number is 19 digits. Since the initial 6 digits of a credit card number are the issuer identifier, and the final digit is the check digit, this means that the maximum length of the account number field is 19 - 7, or 12 digits. Each issuer therefore has a trillion (10 raised to the 12th power, or 1,000,000,000,000) possible account numbers.
If we consider the large number of potential customers and usurious interest rates charged by issuers, there is obviously a lot of money to be made in the credit card industry. In more civilized ages, people believed that usury was a grievous offense contrary to nature or a mortal sin, not an acceptable business practice (Aristotle, Politics 1.10; St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 13.4; Dante, Inferno 11.94-111; etc.).
Check Digit
The final digit of your credit card number is a check digit, akin to a checksum. The algorithm used to arrive at the proper check digit is called the Luhn algorithm, after IBM scientist Hans Peter Luhn (1896-1964), who was awarded US Patent 2950048 ("Computer for Verifying Numbers") for the technique in 1960. For details about Luhn's life, see
* Biography on the American Society for Information Science and Technology's Web site, at http://www.asis.org/Features/Pioneers/luhn.htm.
* Notes compiled by Susan K. Soy on "H.P. Luhn and Automatic Indexing" at http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~ssoy/organizing/l391d2c.htm
Thanks to Aleksandar Janicijevic for directing me to information about H.P. Luhn.
The most succint description of the Luhn algorithm I have found comes from the hacker publication phrack 47-8: "For a card with an even number of digits, double every odd numbered digit and subtract 9 if the product is greater than 9. Add up all the even digits as well as the doubled-odd digits, and the result must be a multiple of 10 or it's not a valid card. If the card has an odd number of digits, perform the same addition doubling the even numbered digits instead."
The bit about even and odd is a little confusing. The main point is that you don't want to double the check digit, and this can easily be done by starting with the check digit, going backwards, and doubling every other digit. See the source code below for details.
Examples
These examples are drawn from junk mail I received from credit card issuers in August 2001. Some of this junk mail contained glossy pictures of credit cards, and the sample numbers come directly from two of these pictures.
4408 0412 3456 7890
The first credit card offer showed a picture of a card with the number 4408 0412 3456 7890.
The Major Industry Identifier (MII) is 4 (banking and financial), the issuer identifier is 440804 (a VISA partner), the account number is 123456789, and the check digit is 0.
Let's apply the Luhn check to 4408 0412 3456 7890. In the following table,
* The top row is the original number.
* In the second row, we multiply alternate digits by 2. Don't multiply the check digit by 2.
* In the third row, we force all digits to be less than 10, by subtracting 9 where necessary.
* The bottom row contains the digits to be added together.
4 4 0 8 0 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
4 x 2 = 8 4 0 x 2 = 0 8 0 x 2 = 0 4 1 x 2 = 2 2 3 x 2 = 6 4 5 x 2 = 10 6 7 x 2 = 14 8 9 x 2 = 18 0
8 4 0 8 0 4 2 2 6 4 10 - 9 = 1 6 14 - 9 = 5 8 18 - 9 = 9 0
8 4 0 8 0 4 2 2 6 4 1 6 5 8 9 0
If we add all of the digits in the bottom row together, we get 67, which is not a multiple of 10, and therefore we conclude that the number 4408 0412 3456 7890 is an invalid credit card number.
By changing the check digit from 0 to 3, we arrive at the number 4408 0412 3456 7893, which does pass the Luhn check, since the sum of the digits in the bottom row would be 70, which is divisible by 10. 4408 0412 3456 7893 is, on the face of it, a valid credit card number.
4417 1234 5678 9112
The second credit card offer showed a picture of a card with the number 4417 1234 5678 9112.
The Major Industry Identifier (MII) is 4 (banking and financial), the issuer identifier is 441712 (a VISA partner), the account number is 345678911, and the check digit is 2.
Let's apply the Luhn check to 4417 1234 5678 9112, as we did in the previous example.
4 4 1 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 2
4 x 2 = 8 4 1 x 2 = 2 7 1 x 2 = 2 2 3 x 2 = 6 4 5 x 2 = 10 6 7 x 2 = 14 8 9 x 2 = 18 1 1 x 2 = 2 2
8 4 2 7 2 2 6 4 10 - 9 = 1 6 14 - 9 = 5 8 18 - 9 = 9 1 2 2
8 4 2 7 2 2 6 4 1 6 5 8 9 1 2 2
If we add all of the digits in the bottom row together, we get 69, which is not a multiple of 10, and therefore we conclude that the number 4417 1234 5678 9112 is an invalid credit card number.
By changing the check digit from 2 to 3, we arrive at the number 4417 1234 5678 9113, which does pass the Luhn check, since the sum of the digits in the bottom row would be 70, which is divisible by 10. 4417 1234 5678 9113 is, on the face of it, a valid credit card number.
Warning
These two credit card offers contained pictures with numbers which the Luhn check proved to be invalid. A change to their check digits made them ostensibly valid. But if I were you, I wouldn't try to charge anything with them.
Java Source Code
The following simple Java class is free for you to use as you wish, without any restrictions or guarantees.
//---------------------------------------------------------
// Checks for valid credit card number using Luhn algorithm
//---------------------------------------------------------
public abstract class LuhnCheck {
//--------------------------------
// Filter out non-digit characters
//--------------------------------
private static String getDigitsOnly (String s) {
StringBuffer digitsOnly = new StringBuffer ();
char c;
for (int i = 0; i < s.length (); i++) {
c = s.charAt (i);
if (Character.isDigit (c)) {
digitsOnly.append (c);
}
}
return digitsOnly.toString ();
}
//-------------------
// Perform Luhn check
//-------------------
public static boolean isValid (String cardNumber) {
String digitsOnly = getDigitsOnly (cardNumber);
int sum = 0;
int digit = 0;
int addend = 0;
boolean timesTwo = false;
for (int i = digitsOnly.length () - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
digit = Integer.parseInt (digitsOnly.substring (i, i + 1));
if (timesTwo) {
addend = digit * 2;
if (addend > 9) {
addend -= 9;
}
}
else {
addend = digit;
}
sum += addend;
timesTwo = !timesTwo;
}
int modulus = sum % 10;
return modulus == 0;
}
//-----
// Test
//-----
public static void main (String[] args) {
String cardNumber = "4408 0412 3456 7890";
boolean valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4408 0412 3456 7893";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4417 1234 5678 9112";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4417 1234 5678 9113";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
}
}
by Michael Gilleland, Merriam Park Software
Introduction
Major Industry Identifier
Issuer Identifier
Account Number
Check Digit
Examples
Java Source Code
Introduction
This is not an essay on credit cards per se. If that's what you're looking for, I recommend Joe Ziegler's excellent series Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Credit Cards. This essay has a narrower focus -- to explore the anatomy of your credit card number, and to provide Java source code which determines if a given credit card number might be valid.
Specifications for credit card numbering have been drawn up by the International Standards Organization (ISO/IEC 7812-1:1993) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI X4.13). These eminent organizations refuse to make their publications freely available on-line, and so the following information on the format of credit card numbers comes largely from an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft by Donald E. Eastlake 3rd, "ISO 7812/7816 Numbers and the Domain Name System (DNS)" (draft-eastlake-card-map-08, expires August 2001), available at the time of this writing at http://www.globecom.net/ietf/draft/draft-eastlake-card-map-08.html. I have not linked to this URL, because individual versions of IETF drafts are notoriously ephemeral.
Digit numbering in this essay is left to right. The "first" digit, therefore, means the leftmost digit.
Major Industry Identifier
The first digit of your credit card number is the Major Industry Identifier (MII), which represents the category of entity which issued your credit card. Different MII digits represent the following issuer categories:
MII Digit Value Issuer Category
0 ISO/TC 68 and other industry assignments
1 Airlines
2 Airlines and other industry assignments
3 Travel and entertainment
4 Banking and financial
5 Banking and financial
6 Merchandizing and banking
7 Petroleum
8 Telecommunications and other industry assignments
9 National assignment
For example, American Express, Diner's Club, and Carte Blanche are in the travel and entertainment category, VISA, MasterCard, and Discover are in the banking and financial category, and SUN Oil and Exxon are in the petroleum category.
Issuer Identifier
The first 6 digits of your credit card number (including the initial MII digit) form the issuer identifier. This means that the total number of possible issuers is a million (10 raised to the sixth power, or 1,000,000).
Some of the better known issuer identifiers are listed in the following table:
Issuer Identifier Card Number Length
Diner's Club/Carte Blanche 300xxx-305xxx,
36xxxx, 38xxxx 14
American Express 34xxxx, 37xxxx 15
VISA 4xxxxx 13, 16
MasterCard 51xxxx-55xxxx 16
Discover 6011xx 16
If the MII digit is 9, then the next three digits of the issuer identifier are the 3-digit country codes defined in ISO 3166, and the remaining final two digits of the issuer identifier can be defined by the national standards body of the specified country in whatever way it wishes.
Account Number
Digits 7 to (n - 1) of your credit card number are your individual account identifier. The maximum length of a credit card number is 19 digits. Since the initial 6 digits of a credit card number are the issuer identifier, and the final digit is the check digit, this means that the maximum length of the account number field is 19 - 7, or 12 digits. Each issuer therefore has a trillion (10 raised to the 12th power, or 1,000,000,000,000) possible account numbers.
If we consider the large number of potential customers and usurious interest rates charged by issuers, there is obviously a lot of money to be made in the credit card industry. In more civilized ages, people believed that usury was a grievous offense contrary to nature or a mortal sin, not an acceptable business practice (Aristotle, Politics 1.10; St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 13.4; Dante, Inferno 11.94-111; etc.).
Check Digit
The final digit of your credit card number is a check digit, akin to a checksum. The algorithm used to arrive at the proper check digit is called the Luhn algorithm, after IBM scientist Hans Peter Luhn (1896-1964), who was awarded US Patent 2950048 ("Computer for Verifying Numbers") for the technique in 1960. For details about Luhn's life, see
* Biography on the American Society for Information Science and Technology's Web site, at http://www.asis.org/Features/Pioneers/luhn.htm.
* Notes compiled by Susan K. Soy on "H.P. Luhn and Automatic Indexing" at http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~ssoy/organizing/l391d2c.htm
Thanks to Aleksandar Janicijevic for directing me to information about H.P. Luhn.
The most succint description of the Luhn algorithm I have found comes from the hacker publication phrack 47-8: "For a card with an even number of digits, double every odd numbered digit and subtract 9 if the product is greater than 9. Add up all the even digits as well as the doubled-odd digits, and the result must be a multiple of 10 or it's not a valid card. If the card has an odd number of digits, perform the same addition doubling the even numbered digits instead."
The bit about even and odd is a little confusing. The main point is that you don't want to double the check digit, and this can easily be done by starting with the check digit, going backwards, and doubling every other digit. See the source code below for details.
Examples
These examples are drawn from junk mail I received from credit card issuers in August 2001. Some of this junk mail contained glossy pictures of credit cards, and the sample numbers come directly from two of these pictures.
4408 0412 3456 7890
The first credit card offer showed a picture of a card with the number 4408 0412 3456 7890.
The Major Industry Identifier (MII) is 4 (banking and financial), the issuer identifier is 440804 (a VISA partner), the account number is 123456789, and the check digit is 0.
Let's apply the Luhn check to 4408 0412 3456 7890. In the following table,
* The top row is the original number.
* In the second row, we multiply alternate digits by 2. Don't multiply the check digit by 2.
* In the third row, we force all digits to be less than 10, by subtracting 9 where necessary.
* The bottom row contains the digits to be added together.
4 4 0 8 0 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
4 x 2 = 8 4 0 x 2 = 0 8 0 x 2 = 0 4 1 x 2 = 2 2 3 x 2 = 6 4 5 x 2 = 10 6 7 x 2 = 14 8 9 x 2 = 18 0
8 4 0 8 0 4 2 2 6 4 10 - 9 = 1 6 14 - 9 = 5 8 18 - 9 = 9 0
8 4 0 8 0 4 2 2 6 4 1 6 5 8 9 0
If we add all of the digits in the bottom row together, we get 67, which is not a multiple of 10, and therefore we conclude that the number 4408 0412 3456 7890 is an invalid credit card number.
By changing the check digit from 0 to 3, we arrive at the number 4408 0412 3456 7893, which does pass the Luhn check, since the sum of the digits in the bottom row would be 70, which is divisible by 10. 4408 0412 3456 7893 is, on the face of it, a valid credit card number.
4417 1234 5678 9112
The second credit card offer showed a picture of a card with the number 4417 1234 5678 9112.
The Major Industry Identifier (MII) is 4 (banking and financial), the issuer identifier is 441712 (a VISA partner), the account number is 345678911, and the check digit is 2.
Let's apply the Luhn check to 4417 1234 5678 9112, as we did in the previous example.
4 4 1 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 2
4 x 2 = 8 4 1 x 2 = 2 7 1 x 2 = 2 2 3 x 2 = 6 4 5 x 2 = 10 6 7 x 2 = 14 8 9 x 2 = 18 1 1 x 2 = 2 2
8 4 2 7 2 2 6 4 10 - 9 = 1 6 14 - 9 = 5 8 18 - 9 = 9 1 2 2
8 4 2 7 2 2 6 4 1 6 5 8 9 1 2 2
If we add all of the digits in the bottom row together, we get 69, which is not a multiple of 10, and therefore we conclude that the number 4417 1234 5678 9112 is an invalid credit card number.
By changing the check digit from 2 to 3, we arrive at the number 4417 1234 5678 9113, which does pass the Luhn check, since the sum of the digits in the bottom row would be 70, which is divisible by 10. 4417 1234 5678 9113 is, on the face of it, a valid credit card number.
Warning
These two credit card offers contained pictures with numbers which the Luhn check proved to be invalid. A change to their check digits made them ostensibly valid. But if I were you, I wouldn't try to charge anything with them.
Java Source Code
The following simple Java class is free for you to use as you wish, without any restrictions or guarantees.
//---------------------------------------------------------
// Checks for valid credit card number using Luhn algorithm
//---------------------------------------------------------
public abstract class LuhnCheck {
//--------------------------------
// Filter out non-digit characters
//--------------------------------
private static String getDigitsOnly (String s) {
StringBuffer digitsOnly = new StringBuffer ();
char c;
for (int i = 0; i < s.length (); i++) {
c = s.charAt (i);
if (Character.isDigit (c)) {
digitsOnly.append (c);
}
}
return digitsOnly.toString ();
}
//-------------------
// Perform Luhn check
//-------------------
public static boolean isValid (String cardNumber) {
String digitsOnly = getDigitsOnly (cardNumber);
int sum = 0;
int digit = 0;
int addend = 0;
boolean timesTwo = false;
for (int i = digitsOnly.length () - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
digit = Integer.parseInt (digitsOnly.substring (i, i + 1));
if (timesTwo) {
addend = digit * 2;
if (addend > 9) {
addend -= 9;
}
}
else {
addend = digit;
}
sum += addend;
timesTwo = !timesTwo;
}
int modulus = sum % 10;
return modulus == 0;
}
//-----
// Test
//-----
public static void main (String[] args) {
String cardNumber = "4408 0412 3456 7890";
boolean valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4408 0412 3456 7893";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4417 1234 5678 9112";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
cardNumber = "4417 1234 5678 9113";
valid = LuhnCheck.isValid (cardNumber);
System.out.println (cardNumber + ": " + valid);
}
}
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
From Proverbial Wife
Fresh from the Mind of God
When I look at her and touch her and smell her, I breathe His presence, so sweet and subtle. She began as His thought, conceived in perfect love and painstakingly let go into a fallen world. In her purity, I find traces of Eden, of humanity as God intended, but her fragility reminds me of how easily we were, are, broken.
Yet the Creator goes on creating, knowing some will seek Him out to find wholeness, while most will be in eternal bondage to the original sin of pride, bandaging themselves and hobbling along until their days are finally, mercifully, ended. They will have exchanged the intangible truth for the material lie, transcendance for mere existence, and a relationship with the One who thought them into being for the meaningless companionship of self.
Oh, little one, so fresh from the mind of God, the most untainted of His creation, yet already flawed by your very nature, you are a precious glimpse into the divine. To have carried you inside my body, to nourish you now from my flesh--such is the design of the nurturing Father who made you--I am blessed beyond my own understanding. May you always see Him as clearly as I see Him in you.
When I look at her and touch her and smell her, I breathe His presence, so sweet and subtle. She began as His thought, conceived in perfect love and painstakingly let go into a fallen world. In her purity, I find traces of Eden, of humanity as God intended, but her fragility reminds me of how easily we were, are, broken.
Yet the Creator goes on creating, knowing some will seek Him out to find wholeness, while most will be in eternal bondage to the original sin of pride, bandaging themselves and hobbling along until their days are finally, mercifully, ended. They will have exchanged the intangible truth for the material lie, transcendance for mere existence, and a relationship with the One who thought them into being for the meaningless companionship of self.
Oh, little one, so fresh from the mind of God, the most untainted of His creation, yet already flawed by your very nature, you are a precious glimpse into the divine. To have carried you inside my body, to nourish you now from my flesh--such is the design of the nurturing Father who made you--I am blessed beyond my own understanding. May you always see Him as clearly as I see Him in you.
From Proverbial Wife
Fresh from the Mind of God
When I look at her and touch her and smell her, I breathe His presence, so sweet and subtle. She began as His thought, conceived in perfect love and painstakingly let go into a fallen world. In her purity, I find traces of Eden, of humanity as God intended, but her fragility reminds me of how easily we were, are, broken.
Yet the Creator goes on creating, knowing some will seek Him out to find wholeness, while most will be in eternal bondage to the original sin of pride, bandaging themselves and hobbling along until their days are finally, mercifully, ended. They will have exchanged the intangible truth for the material lie, transcendance for mere existence, and a relationship with the One who thought them into being for the meaningless companionship of self.
Oh, little one, so fresh from the mind of God, the most untainted of His creation, yet already flawed by your very nature, you are a precious glimpse into the divine. To have carried you inside my body, to nourish you now from my flesh--such is the design of the nurturing Father who made you--I am blessed beyond my own understanding. May you always see Him as clearly as I see Him in you.
When I look at her and touch her and smell her, I breathe His presence, so sweet and subtle. She began as His thought, conceived in perfect love and painstakingly let go into a fallen world. In her purity, I find traces of Eden, of humanity as God intended, but her fragility reminds me of how easily we were, are, broken.
Yet the Creator goes on creating, knowing some will seek Him out to find wholeness, while most will be in eternal bondage to the original sin of pride, bandaging themselves and hobbling along until their days are finally, mercifully, ended. They will have exchanged the intangible truth for the material lie, transcendance for mere existence, and a relationship with the One who thought them into being for the meaningless companionship of self.
Oh, little one, so fresh from the mind of God, the most untainted of His creation, yet already flawed by your very nature, you are a precious glimpse into the divine. To have carried you inside my body, to nourish you now from my flesh--such is the design of the nurturing Father who made you--I am blessed beyond my own understanding. May you always see Him as clearly as I see Him in you.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Everything I Know Is Wrong: Solar Flare Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss
Everything I Know Is Wrong: Solar Flare Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss: "March 01, 2005
Solar Flare Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss
'Scientists,' as the press almost universally labels anonymous theoreticians, have discovered that the 60% reduction in Arctic ozone was mostly due to the largest solar flares ever recorded.
Sun's Temper Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss
Charged particles from the storms triggered chemical reactions that increased the formation of extra nitrogen in the upper stratosphere, some 20 miles up. Nitrogen levels climbed to their highest in at least two decades.
A massive low-pressure system that confines air over the Arctic then conspired to deplete ozone.
Upper-atmosphere winds associated with the system, called the polar stratospheric vortex, sped up in February and March of 2004 to the fastest speeds ever recorded, the new study found. The spinning vortex allowed nitrogen gas to sink from the high stratosphere, some 20 miles up, to lower altitudes.
The nitrogen gas is known to destroy ozone.
'This decline was completely unexpected,' said Cora Randall, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder who led the study. 'The findings point out a critical need to better understand the processes occurring in the ozone layer.'
Aaaugh! Even though they admit to complete surprise over the results of these completely natural phenomena in the Northern Hemisphere, they purport to know the exact cause of a similar thinning of the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere.
The upper-level ozone layer has thinned dramatically in the Southern Hemisphere in recent decades, creating a dangerous hole through which UV rays stream. The decline is due largely to man-made chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere.
If the reader is not confused enough by one flip in logic, fear not--they flop right back again.
The new study suggests a better understanding is needed of how the Sun itself alters the ozone layer.
'No one predicted the dramatic loss of ozone in the upper stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 2004,' Randall said. 'That we can still be surprised illustrates the difficulties in separating atmospheric effects due to natural and human-induced causes.'
Advice to scientists: When you don't know say, 'I don't know.'"
Solar Flare Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss
'Scientists,' as the press almost universally labels anonymous theoreticians, have discovered that the 60% reduction in Arctic ozone was mostly due to the largest solar flares ever recorded.
Sun's Temper Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss
Charged particles from the storms triggered chemical reactions that increased the formation of extra nitrogen in the upper stratosphere, some 20 miles up. Nitrogen levels climbed to their highest in at least two decades.
A massive low-pressure system that confines air over the Arctic then conspired to deplete ozone.
Upper-atmosphere winds associated with the system, called the polar stratospheric vortex, sped up in February and March of 2004 to the fastest speeds ever recorded, the new study found. The spinning vortex allowed nitrogen gas to sink from the high stratosphere, some 20 miles up, to lower altitudes.
The nitrogen gas is known to destroy ozone.
'This decline was completely unexpected,' said Cora Randall, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder who led the study. 'The findings point out a critical need to better understand the processes occurring in the ozone layer.'
Aaaugh! Even though they admit to complete surprise over the results of these completely natural phenomena in the Northern Hemisphere, they purport to know the exact cause of a similar thinning of the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere.
The upper-level ozone layer has thinned dramatically in the Southern Hemisphere in recent decades, creating a dangerous hole through which UV rays stream. The decline is due largely to man-made chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere.
If the reader is not confused enough by one flip in logic, fear not--they flop right back again.
The new study suggests a better understanding is needed of how the Sun itself alters the ozone layer.
'No one predicted the dramatic loss of ozone in the upper stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 2004,' Randall said. 'That we can still be surprised illustrates the difficulties in separating atmospheric effects due to natural and human-induced causes.'
Advice to scientists: When you don't know say, 'I don't know.'"
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Airborne Combat Engineer: The Freshour Pauza Semi-Auto .50 BMG
Airborne Combat Engineer: The Freshour Pauza Semi-Auto .50 BMG: "Saturday, 26 February 2005
The Freshour Pauza Semi-Auto .50 BMG
This 'P-50' semi-auto .50 BMG was designed by Robert Pauza and is sold (with rifle or carbine length barrel) by Freshour Manufacturing (Ron Freshour, CEO) in Texas City, Texas.
You'll find a couple of short video clips of it being fired from the prone position and off the hip at the Freshour site."
The Freshour Pauza Semi-Auto .50 BMG
This 'P-50' semi-auto .50 BMG was designed by Robert Pauza and is sold (with rifle or carbine length barrel) by Freshour Manufacturing (Ron Freshour, CEO) in Texas City, Texas.
You'll find a couple of short video clips of it being fired from the prone position and off the hip at the Freshour site."
Belmont Club More on W Churchill
Belmont ClubThe Cancer Ward
Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for linking to an Inside Denver article on Ward Churchill which catalogues the lengthy history of his denunciation by bona-fide Indians before Colorado University. His accusers include his ex-inlaws. Some excerpts:
David Bradley, a Santa Fe-area American Indian artist whose feud with Churchill has endured more than a decade, says he told CU a long time ago that Churchill should be fired. ...
Vernon Bellecourt, an American Indian Movement activist, says he first approached the university with questions about the veracity of Churchill's claim to American Indian heritage in 1986. "We went out there with a stack of documents to tell them about him," Bellecourt said. "I made a special trip to Colorado and went to the university.
"We told the university he wasn't Indian and was disruptive in the community," said Carole Standing Elk, a California Indian activist. "We said, 'He doesn't represent us, and how did you put him in the ethnic studies department?' "
"I sent a letter to the university in 1992 saying he's not a native person," said Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute. She says she received a response from a university official saying Churchill had not been hired because he was an American Indian.
Bradley, a Chippewa, said there are several reasons he and Churchill clashed. ... In 1994, Bradley contacted CU, lodging his complaint with Evelyn Hu-De-Hart, then director for CU's Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America. ...
Rhonda Kelly, 41, of Winnipeg, the older sister of Churchill's deceased third wife, Leah Renae Kelly, also contacted CU. ... Churchill later published a book of Kelly's writings, In My Own Voice. In a lengthy preface, he contended that the American Indian woman's alcoholism and other personal troubles could be traced ... Rhonda Kelly, a second-year law student, has produced a 15-point brief of inaccuracies she said she has found in Churchill's preface. She has asked the book's publisher to remove it from circulation, and to ask a man writing a screenplay based on the book to desist. ... He said his wife was a victim of acute alcoholism and that he "fought a long and lonely battle to save her." ... Churchill, in the wake of Leah Kelly's death, established a fund at CU for Rhonda Kelly's two children and contributed $200. ... "My sister Leah Renae Kelly had so much promise, but ... she instead turned to alcohol to escape the torment and humiliation in her marital home."
Controversy, or perhaps more accurately, acrimony, has been on Churchill like a cheap suit from the git-go. At least some of the accusations leveled against him received official cognizance from the University, which used the equal opportunity argument as a justification for retaining him, whatever he was and whatever he claimed to be.
"However, given the fact that equal opportunity is the law of the land and that positions in the public sector are to be awarded to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and based only on their ability to do the job, the university does not believe that any attempt to remove Mr. Churchill because of his ethnicity or race would be appropriate. Even if Mr. Churchill is not an American Indian, as he claims, Title VII protects Caucasians as well as persons of color. Further, it has always been university policy that a person's race or ethnicity is self-proving. ... observation and self-identification are the most reliable indicators of one's racial grouping."
But allowing a person to adopt any race that he chooses makes a nonsense of racial preferences. There is an inner and inescapable logical contradiction between adopting a policy based on racial diversity and then making race, in turn, a dependent on some other variable. By transitivity, the policy based on 'racial diversity' would really be driven by this hidden variable, which is a function of 'consciousness'. In other words, 'racial diversity' becomes a dummy for ideological quotas. In plain English: "all your base are belong to us".
posted by wretchard at 2:03 AM
Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for linking to an Inside Denver article on Ward Churchill which catalogues the lengthy history of his denunciation by bona-fide Indians before Colorado University. His accusers include his ex-inlaws. Some excerpts:
David Bradley, a Santa Fe-area American Indian artist whose feud with Churchill has endured more than a decade, says he told CU a long time ago that Churchill should be fired. ...
Vernon Bellecourt, an American Indian Movement activist, says he first approached the university with questions about the veracity of Churchill's claim to American Indian heritage in 1986. "We went out there with a stack of documents to tell them about him," Bellecourt said. "I made a special trip to Colorado and went to the university.
"We told the university he wasn't Indian and was disruptive in the community," said Carole Standing Elk, a California Indian activist. "We said, 'He doesn't represent us, and how did you put him in the ethnic studies department?' "
"I sent a letter to the university in 1992 saying he's not a native person," said Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute. She says she received a response from a university official saying Churchill had not been hired because he was an American Indian.
Bradley, a Chippewa, said there are several reasons he and Churchill clashed. ... In 1994, Bradley contacted CU, lodging his complaint with Evelyn Hu-De-Hart, then director for CU's Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America. ...
Rhonda Kelly, 41, of Winnipeg, the older sister of Churchill's deceased third wife, Leah Renae Kelly, also contacted CU. ... Churchill later published a book of Kelly's writings, In My Own Voice. In a lengthy preface, he contended that the American Indian woman's alcoholism and other personal troubles could be traced ... Rhonda Kelly, a second-year law student, has produced a 15-point brief of inaccuracies she said she has found in Churchill's preface. She has asked the book's publisher to remove it from circulation, and to ask a man writing a screenplay based on the book to desist. ... He said his wife was a victim of acute alcoholism and that he "fought a long and lonely battle to save her." ... Churchill, in the wake of Leah Kelly's death, established a fund at CU for Rhonda Kelly's two children and contributed $200. ... "My sister Leah Renae Kelly had so much promise, but ... she instead turned to alcohol to escape the torment and humiliation in her marital home."
Controversy, or perhaps more accurately, acrimony, has been on Churchill like a cheap suit from the git-go. At least some of the accusations leveled against him received official cognizance from the University, which used the equal opportunity argument as a justification for retaining him, whatever he was and whatever he claimed to be.
"However, given the fact that equal opportunity is the law of the land and that positions in the public sector are to be awarded to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and based only on their ability to do the job, the university does not believe that any attempt to remove Mr. Churchill because of his ethnicity or race would be appropriate. Even if Mr. Churchill is not an American Indian, as he claims, Title VII protects Caucasians as well as persons of color. Further, it has always been university policy that a person's race or ethnicity is self-proving. ... observation and self-identification are the most reliable indicators of one's racial grouping."
But allowing a person to adopt any race that he chooses makes a nonsense of racial preferences. There is an inner and inescapable logical contradiction between adopting a policy based on racial diversity and then making race, in turn, a dependent on some other variable. By transitivity, the policy based on 'racial diversity' would really be driven by this hidden variable, which is a function of 'consciousness'. In other words, 'racial diversity' becomes a dummy for ideological quotas. In plain English: "all your base are belong to us".
posted by wretchard at 2:03 AM
Friday, February 25, 2005
HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs
HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free - Engadget - www.engadget.com: "HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free"
DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD burning package// Freeware
DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD burning package: "DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD Burning Packageorganizer
DeepBurner is an advanced and powerful CD and DVD burning package that utilizes power and efficiency. It takes away the hassle of making CDs, DVDs, autoruns, creating and printing labels and booklets. The program supports a very wide range of internal and external (USB 2.0 and FireWire) CD and DVD writers. Burn any data, copy discs, make backups, burn astonishing photo cd albums, make ISO CDs and Video DVDs with just one easy to handle software- DeepBurner."
DeepBurner is an advanced and powerful CD and DVD burning package that utilizes power and efficiency. It takes away the hassle of making CDs, DVDs, autoruns, creating and printing labels and booklets. The program supports a very wide range of internal and external (USB 2.0 and FireWire) CD and DVD writers. Burn any data, copy discs, make backups, burn astonishing photo cd albums, make ISO CDs and Video DVDs with just one easy to handle software- DeepBurner."
Monday, February 21, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Bad Example
Bad Example: "ON THE USS CARTER (AGAIN)
Good points from BadExample!
"So, the USS Carter (a fast attack submarine) is being commissioned, and folks are having a field day with it, since Carter was a crappy president.
All well and good.
But after you get done making your killer rabbit jokes, please keep in mind that American Sailors will be serving on board that boat. Show them some respect.
I blogged about this last June when they first announced that the sub would be called the Carter, and I think the bulk of that bears re-posting. I'd also suggest reading the comments to the original post, as one of my readers was kind enough to provide more details on Carter's career.
Anyway, here's what I had to say then:
As I pointed out in my tribute to Reagan, Carter was an incompetent bungler of a President who did little-to-nothing right, and mostly-to-everything wrong, both in domestic and foreign policy. His record stands on its own and I won't re-hash it here.
However, before he was President, he was an officer in the US Navy, and a damn fine one. He graduated from the Naval Academy, and he was one of the few officers chosen by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to help develop the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program. You've probably never heard of Rickover, but suffice it to say that he was to the Nuke Program what Patton was to the European Theater during WWII. He was a fanatic about the virtues of nuclear power as a means of powering Naval vessels, and with his eccentric personality and his insatiable drive for perfection, he made the dream a reality. He was EXTRAORDINARILY particular about whom he chose to work on this project. In his eyes, Carter measured up. Mere words cannot express the honor so bestowed.
During his time as a Nuke, Carter was attached to one of the first nuclear submarines, the USS Seawolf - the first of a class of ships, the last of which is now being christened with his name some 50 years later. Considering that he was there at the beginning, it's fitting that his name should be attached to the ending.
And considering that Carter is the ONLY President who ever qualified to command a submarine, it is doubly fitting.
So even though I have no love for Carter the politician, and even less for Carter the post-Presidential diplomat, I have nothing but the highest respect for Carter the Naval Officer. He served his country to a degree that few men can claim the equal of, and I believe with all my heart that any Sailor attached to the USS Jimmy Carter can serve aboard her with the greatest of pride and honor."
Good points from BadExample!
"So, the USS Carter (a fast attack submarine) is being commissioned, and folks are having a field day with it, since Carter was a crappy president.
All well and good.
But after you get done making your killer rabbit jokes, please keep in mind that American Sailors will be serving on board that boat. Show them some respect.
I blogged about this last June when they first announced that the sub would be called the Carter, and I think the bulk of that bears re-posting. I'd also suggest reading the comments to the original post, as one of my readers was kind enough to provide more details on Carter's career.
Anyway, here's what I had to say then:
As I pointed out in my tribute to Reagan, Carter was an incompetent bungler of a President who did little-to-nothing right, and mostly-to-everything wrong, both in domestic and foreign policy. His record stands on its own and I won't re-hash it here.
However, before he was President, he was an officer in the US Navy, and a damn fine one. He graduated from the Naval Academy, and he was one of the few officers chosen by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to help develop the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program. You've probably never heard of Rickover, but suffice it to say that he was to the Nuke Program what Patton was to the European Theater during WWII. He was a fanatic about the virtues of nuclear power as a means of powering Naval vessels, and with his eccentric personality and his insatiable drive for perfection, he made the dream a reality. He was EXTRAORDINARILY particular about whom he chose to work on this project. In his eyes, Carter measured up. Mere words cannot express the honor so bestowed.
During his time as a Nuke, Carter was attached to one of the first nuclear submarines, the USS Seawolf - the first of a class of ships, the last of which is now being christened with his name some 50 years later. Considering that he was there at the beginning, it's fitting that his name should be attached to the ending.
And considering that Carter is the ONLY President who ever qualified to command a submarine, it is doubly fitting.
So even though I have no love for Carter the politician, and even less for Carter the post-Presidential diplomat, I have nothing but the highest respect for Carter the Naval Officer. He served his country to a degree that few men can claim the equal of, and I believe with all my heart that any Sailor attached to the USS Jimmy Carter can serve aboard her with the greatest of pride and honor."
Rethinking the 'Clinton' Surplus
The Skeptical Optimist says in "Rethinking the surplus:", "The chart below shows what caused my detour; for me, it was deja-vu, because it reminded me of one undeniable point: Our 1990's decision to reduce national security spending, i.e., our decision not to invest 'The Peace Dividend' in enhancing future peace prospects, was a huge factor in the creation of the falsely-revered surplus. (Falsely-revered because it made only a small dent in our ho-hum debt burden.)
Would the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and Langley have used a reinvested Peace Dividend to successfully counter the asymmetric threats which subsequently destroyed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killed seventeen servicemen on the USS Cole, or murdered thousands on 9-11-01? Maybe, maybe not; "
Interesting Curves. What surplus?
Would the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and Langley have used a reinvested Peace Dividend to successfully counter the asymmetric threats which subsequently destroyed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killed seventeen servicemen on the USS Cole, or murdered thousands on 9-11-01? Maybe, maybe not; "
Interesting Curves. What surplus?
EconoPundit
EconoPundit: "At last, undeniable proof sea levels are rising!
What's that? You say this all happened some time ago? Okay, sorry...
Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:56 AM"
What's that? You say this all happened some time ago? Okay, sorry...
Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:56 AM"
The Star Online: Survey: 77% of Chinese women can afford what they want
The Star Online: Survey: 77% of Chinese women can afford what they want
"Survey: 77% of Chinese women can afford what they want
CHINESE women have a strong say in household purchases, though it’s usually the men who foot the bill, a recent survey indicates.
Synovate, affiliated with the British group Aegis, polled almost 4,000 women in nine countries such as China, the United States and Japan last month about their attitudes towards financial matters.
In China, 314 women aged 15-64 were interviewed.
Almost nine out of 10 Chinese married women or those living with a partner claimed to have at least an equal say in big-ticket purchases such as property and cars, third behind Britain and France.
Although 74% of respondents said their partners earned more, 75% disagreed that whoever holds the money holds the power in the relationship.
Apart from having unrestricted access to their men's wallet, 77% of Chinese women said they can pretty much afford what they want without asking for money from their partners, second behind British women.
Hong Yuanyuan, a China Network Communications Group Corp staffer, said she can decide on all small purchases, and, as for big items, she “decides all the details after settling on basic principles with her husband.”
Hong’s husband Zhang Ying, who earns double what Hong does and can afford most purchases, attributes the situation to a “mutual respect” in the family relationship.
“I don’t care about details. It seems better not to be fussy about whatever she has bought,” he said.
The findings also show that half of Chinese respondents subscribe to the philosophy that “my partner’s money is my money, my money is mine.”
Larry Wu, director of Synovate China, explained: “The money earned by women is a bonus to them. It is still part of the family wealth, but Chinese women tend to keep part of that money as their own savings.”
He said the survey reflects a deeper involvement of Chinese women in family financial issues compared to just a decade ago.
And Wang Zhenyu, an expert in family issues at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the survey results are similar to those she found eight years ago, which indicated that Chinese women enjoy a high employment rate and a considerably high-degree of financial independence. – China Daily "
© 1995-2004 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
"Survey: 77% of Chinese women can afford what they want
CHINESE women have a strong say in household purchases, though it’s usually the men who foot the bill, a recent survey indicates.
Synovate, affiliated with the British group Aegis, polled almost 4,000 women in nine countries such as China, the United States and Japan last month about their attitudes towards financial matters.
In China, 314 women aged 15-64 were interviewed.
Almost nine out of 10 Chinese married women or those living with a partner claimed to have at least an equal say in big-ticket purchases such as property and cars, third behind Britain and France.
Although 74% of respondents said their partners earned more, 75% disagreed that whoever holds the money holds the power in the relationship.
Apart from having unrestricted access to their men's wallet, 77% of Chinese women said they can pretty much afford what they want without asking for money from their partners, second behind British women.
Hong Yuanyuan, a China Network Communications Group Corp staffer, said she can decide on all small purchases, and, as for big items, she “decides all the details after settling on basic principles with her husband.”
Hong’s husband Zhang Ying, who earns double what Hong does and can afford most purchases, attributes the situation to a “mutual respect” in the family relationship.
“I don’t care about details. It seems better not to be fussy about whatever she has bought,” he said.
The findings also show that half of Chinese respondents subscribe to the philosophy that “my partner’s money is my money, my money is mine.”
Larry Wu, director of Synovate China, explained: “The money earned by women is a bonus to them. It is still part of the family wealth, but Chinese women tend to keep part of that money as their own savings.”
He said the survey reflects a deeper involvement of Chinese women in family financial issues compared to just a decade ago.
And Wang Zhenyu, an expert in family issues at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the survey results are similar to those she found eight years ago, which indicated that Chinese women enjoy a high employment rate and a considerably high-degree of financial independence. – China Daily "
© 1995-2004 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
A Western Heart
A Western Heart
Great Quote, "the United Nations itself had been founded, according to its own charter:
* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Yet, this organization that supposedly sees individualism and human rights and dignity as its aims, has done nothing to spread democracy. Even the first purpose, which is to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, has been largely ignored, efforts only being extended when the United States is party to military confrontation."
Western Heart thinks UN should be replaced and gives an alternative.
Great Quote, "the United Nations itself had been founded, according to its own charter:
* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Yet, this organization that supposedly sees individualism and human rights and dignity as its aims, has done nothing to spread democracy. Even the first purpose, which is to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, has been largely ignored, efforts only being extended when the United States is party to military confrontation."
Western Heart thinks UN should be replaced and gives an alternative.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
EconoPundit Problems in Europe
EconoPundit
"Europe is facing real problems. But they are not the ones that American free-market critics recount with such grim glee. Yes, the European Commission periodically makes an ass of itself, aspiring to regulate the size of condoms and the curvature of cucumbers. The much-vaunted Stability Pact to constrain national expenditure and debt has broken down in acrimony, though with no discernible damage to the euro it was designed to protect. And pensions and other social provisions will be seriously underfunded in decades to come unless Europeans have more children, welcome more immigrants, work a few more years before retiring, take somewhat less generous unemployment compensation, and make it easier for businesses to employ young people. But these are not deep structural failings of the European way of life: they are difficult policy choices with political consequences. None of them implies the dismantling of the welfare state...
Europe's true dilemmas lie elsewhere. In the Netherlands, in Paris and Antwerp and other cities, antagonism and incomprehension between the indigenous local population and a fast-growing minority of Muslims (one million in the Netherlands, over five million in France, perhaps 13 million in the EU to date) has already moved on from graffiti and no-go zones to arson, assaults, and assassinations. Turks, Moroccans, Tunisians, Algerians, and others have been arriving in Western Europe since the 1960s. We are now seeing the emergence of a third generation: in large part unemployed, angry, alienated, and increasingly open to the communitarian appeal of radical Islam...." discussed.
"Europe is facing real problems. But they are not the ones that American free-market critics recount with such grim glee. Yes, the European Commission periodically makes an ass of itself, aspiring to regulate the size of condoms and the curvature of cucumbers. The much-vaunted Stability Pact to constrain national expenditure and debt has broken down in acrimony, though with no discernible damage to the euro it was designed to protect. And pensions and other social provisions will be seriously underfunded in decades to come unless Europeans have more children, welcome more immigrants, work a few more years before retiring, take somewhat less generous unemployment compensation, and make it easier for businesses to employ young people. But these are not deep structural failings of the European way of life: they are difficult policy choices with political consequences. None of them implies the dismantling of the welfare state...
Europe's true dilemmas lie elsewhere. In the Netherlands, in Paris and Antwerp and other cities, antagonism and incomprehension between the indigenous local population and a fast-growing minority of Muslims (one million in the Netherlands, over five million in France, perhaps 13 million in the EU to date) has already moved on from graffiti and no-go zones to arson, assaults, and assassinations. Turks, Moroccans, Tunisians, Algerians, and others have been arriving in Western Europe since the 1960s. We are now seeing the emergence of a third generation: in large part unemployed, angry, alienated, and increasingly open to the communitarian appeal of radical Islam...." discussed.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Telegraph | Money | India and China battle over Russian oil
Telegraph | Money | India and China battle over Russian oil"
India and China battle over Russian oil
By Malcolm Moore (Filed: 14/02/2005)
India is fighting China in the battle for Russian oil by angling for a supply deal and a stake in Yuganskneftegaz, the oil unit that was seized from Yukos and is now owned by Rosneft, the state oil company.
Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's petroleum minister, will visit Russia on February 21 to discuss the possibility of the country taking a 15pc to 20pc stake in the oil unit, which is still the focus of legal action in the US. "There are no full stops and the dialogue is continuing," he said.
The fact that Yukos has threatened to sue anyone who interferes with its former unit has not put India or China off. China has offered $6billion (£3.34billion) to fund the purchase of Yugansk, in return for a guaranteed 360m barrels of oil over the next five years. India has been offered a similar quota but wants a slice of equity for its national oil company ONGC.
Rosneft paid $9billion for Yugansk, which pumps about a million barrels a day, through a holding company called Baikal Finance. Yukos has filed for damages concerning the sale of Yugansk, and is petitioning for $20billion from Rosneft, Gazprom and their subsidiaries. Yukos also said it would pursue Deutsche Bank, a situation that could see the German bank threatened in the US.
One source claimed Yukos had discovered proof that Deutsche had played a role in the sale of Yugansk, a situation that would put it in clear contravention of the US bankruptcy court that ruled that the auction should be delayed.
Yukos returns to court on Wednesday to persuade the judge that it should be allowed to continue its bankruptcy proceedings, and to plead that any claims against the company from the Russian government be heard in an international arbitration forum. Under its new plan for repaying creditors, the Russian government has slipped substantially down the list of importance.
Meanwhile, a former Russian prime minister has hit out at the destruction of Yukos and the climate of uncertainty that it has brought to the economic outlook in Russia. Yegor Gaidar, who was briefly prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and is a noted free-market economist, told a group of institutional investors in London last week: "What they are doing could be explained rationally only if the goal was to stop economic growth.
"Growth is very difficult to stop. It is very robust. Even the 1998 crisis only stopped growth for one year. So it is a very ambitious target but then, as Stalin said 'There are no fortresses that the Bolsheviks cannot storm'."
He added: "Ten days ago we held a seminar with Russian government officials to try to set the agenda for this year. They asked how could we compensate for the negative effects. The answer is that it is impossible. You cannot compensate for this sense of unpredictability by any improvement in regulations when Russians really do not believe that tax and property rules will be upheld. No laws will resolve this problem."
Mr Gaidar also called on the government not to bow to political pressure to use the country's savings to cut taxes. Russia has been building a budgetary stabilisation fund off the back of recent high oil prices, which amounts to 647.2billion roubles (£12.3billion)."
India and China battle over Russian oil
By Malcolm Moore (Filed: 14/02/2005)
India is fighting China in the battle for Russian oil by angling for a supply deal and a stake in Yuganskneftegaz, the oil unit that was seized from Yukos and is now owned by Rosneft, the state oil company.
Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's petroleum minister, will visit Russia on February 21 to discuss the possibility of the country taking a 15pc to 20pc stake in the oil unit, which is still the focus of legal action in the US. "There are no full stops and the dialogue is continuing," he said.
The fact that Yukos has threatened to sue anyone who interferes with its former unit has not put India or China off. China has offered $6billion (£3.34billion) to fund the purchase of Yugansk, in return for a guaranteed 360m barrels of oil over the next five years. India has been offered a similar quota but wants a slice of equity for its national oil company ONGC.
Rosneft paid $9billion for Yugansk, which pumps about a million barrels a day, through a holding company called Baikal Finance. Yukos has filed for damages concerning the sale of Yugansk, and is petitioning for $20billion from Rosneft, Gazprom and their subsidiaries. Yukos also said it would pursue Deutsche Bank, a situation that could see the German bank threatened in the US.
One source claimed Yukos had discovered proof that Deutsche had played a role in the sale of Yugansk, a situation that would put it in clear contravention of the US bankruptcy court that ruled that the auction should be delayed.
Yukos returns to court on Wednesday to persuade the judge that it should be allowed to continue its bankruptcy proceedings, and to plead that any claims against the company from the Russian government be heard in an international arbitration forum. Under its new plan for repaying creditors, the Russian government has slipped substantially down the list of importance.
Meanwhile, a former Russian prime minister has hit out at the destruction of Yukos and the climate of uncertainty that it has brought to the economic outlook in Russia. Yegor Gaidar, who was briefly prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and is a noted free-market economist, told a group of institutional investors in London last week: "What they are doing could be explained rationally only if the goal was to stop economic growth.
"Growth is very difficult to stop. It is very robust. Even the 1998 crisis only stopped growth for one year. So it is a very ambitious target but then, as Stalin said 'There are no fortresses that the Bolsheviks cannot storm'."
He added: "Ten days ago we held a seminar with Russian government officials to try to set the agenda for this year. They asked how could we compensate for the negative effects. The answer is that it is impossible. You cannot compensate for this sense of unpredictability by any improvement in regulations when Russians really do not believe that tax and property rules will be upheld. No laws will resolve this problem."
Mr Gaidar also called on the government not to bow to political pressure to use the country's savings to cut taxes. Russia has been building a budgetary stabilisation fund off the back of recent high oil prices, which amounts to 647.2billion roubles (£12.3billion)."
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Chrenkoff
Chrenkoff
Thats the attitude of our MSM: "the sleazy UN goings-on in Congo (or the Balkans for that matter) will not elicit the same sort of salivating fascination from our Western media as reports of military misdeeds in Iraq. The reason is simple: the perpetrators are not American, and the victims are African. The former is arguably more important a factor than the latter; if the Marines were raping Rwandan women we wouldn't be able to turn on the news without another live report from the dark heart of Africa.
As it is in Congo, the locals are being abused multilaterally with no oil wells in sight; so, no story. Pity the Congalese, because if anything, the plight of their country deserves far more attention than it's currently getting. Since 1998, some 3.3 million people have died (that's 33 times the unreal leftoid figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians) and 2.25 million have been displaced as a result of the conflict, a savage struggle over political influence and the prodigious bounty of mineral resources and precious stones. Foreign corporations are profiting out of the scramble, but there's no Halliburton in sight and far too many of the companies are European (only 8 out of 85 implicated in illegal exploitation of Congalese resources are American firms).
The media yawns and the world nods off. A combination of four widely-held beliefs will conspire to keep the fate of Congo and many other places from generating sufficient levels of international outrage: American misdeeds are the worst in the world; there are worse misdeeds in the world, but that's to be expected of others, so who cares? now back to American misdeeds; American misdeeds are the most offensive because America holds itself to the higher moral standard than others; American misdeeds deserves the most attention because by publicizing them within the Western world you actually have the greatest chance of affecting change (this is a sort of backhand, and often unintended, compliment to the strength of the American political system).
Whichever way you look at it, it would have been better for the Congalese had their country been invaded by the US: for a right-winger this would hold a promise of bringing peace and stability there; for a left-winger it would provide a spur into action to expose and publicize the Congolese disaster. From either point of view, the people of Congo would be now better off." Read the whole story!
Thats the attitude of our MSM: "the sleazy UN goings-on in Congo (or the Balkans for that matter) will not elicit the same sort of salivating fascination from our Western media as reports of military misdeeds in Iraq. The reason is simple: the perpetrators are not American, and the victims are African. The former is arguably more important a factor than the latter; if the Marines were raping Rwandan women we wouldn't be able to turn on the news without another live report from the dark heart of Africa.
As it is in Congo, the locals are being abused multilaterally with no oil wells in sight; so, no story. Pity the Congalese, because if anything, the plight of their country deserves far more attention than it's currently getting. Since 1998, some 3.3 million people have died (that's 33 times the unreal leftoid figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians) and 2.25 million have been displaced as a result of the conflict, a savage struggle over political influence and the prodigious bounty of mineral resources and precious stones. Foreign corporations are profiting out of the scramble, but there's no Halliburton in sight and far too many of the companies are European (only 8 out of 85 implicated in illegal exploitation of Congalese resources are American firms).
The media yawns and the world nods off. A combination of four widely-held beliefs will conspire to keep the fate of Congo and many other places from generating sufficient levels of international outrage: American misdeeds are the worst in the world; there are worse misdeeds in the world, but that's to be expected of others, so who cares? now back to American misdeeds; American misdeeds are the most offensive because America holds itself to the higher moral standard than others; American misdeeds deserves the most attention because by publicizing them within the Western world you actually have the greatest chance of affecting change (this is a sort of backhand, and often unintended, compliment to the strength of the American political system).
Whichever way you look at it, it would have been better for the Congalese had their country been invaded by the US: for a right-winger this would hold a promise of bringing peace and stability there; for a left-winger it would provide a spur into action to expose and publicize the Congolese disaster. From either point of view, the people of Congo would be now better off." Read the whole story!
2Slick's Forum: Thinking Outside the Box
2Slick's Forum: Thinking Outside the Box''
A suggestion for the first major decision of the new government: a new name for the country.
'Iraq' has a history basically from WWI, and the British mandate following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - the last vestige of the Muslim Caliphate. The problem is (besides a name imposed by the British Empire) that the name does nothing to unify or appeal to the people who live their now. There is no overwhelming sense of Iraqi nationalism- no ethnic, religious, political or cultural unifying theme in Iraq.
I would suggest that the new government look to the rich history of the region - the birthplace of civilization, and appeal to the historical significance of the area within Iraq's borders. By going back before the birth of Islam, you bypass the Shia-Sunni strife, and going back far enough you can claim the first modern culture in the world. Call the new Nation Sumer or Babylon appeals to the pride, nationalism, and helps redefine an identity. That identity will be key in defeating the Sunni-Shia-Kurd-insurgent factions as they struggle to find a place in the new country. Calling it Babylon appeals to the people and helps them define themselves in a new way, outside of the horrible history of the last century - much in the same way Egypt or Syria claim a historic heritage to the ancient civilizations, the newly elected government should choose a new name that unifies the country, appeals to their rich history, and by passes the existing divisions with a goal of building a newer, stronger nation.
Anyway, just a thought. If I lived there, I'd want people to identify themselves as a Babylonian (or Sumerian, whatever - Babylon may have poor connotations to the Christian world) than a Sunni, or Shia, or Kurd - it's a way to build some unity, and capitalize on the promise of the elections. "
A suggestion for the first major decision of the new government: a new name for the country.
'Iraq' has a history basically from WWI, and the British mandate following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - the last vestige of the Muslim Caliphate. The problem is (besides a name imposed by the British Empire) that the name does nothing to unify or appeal to the people who live their now. There is no overwhelming sense of Iraqi nationalism- no ethnic, religious, political or cultural unifying theme in Iraq.
I would suggest that the new government look to the rich history of the region - the birthplace of civilization, and appeal to the historical significance of the area within Iraq's borders. By going back before the birth of Islam, you bypass the Shia-Sunni strife, and going back far enough you can claim the first modern culture in the world. Call the new Nation Sumer or Babylon appeals to the pride, nationalism, and helps redefine an identity. That identity will be key in defeating the Sunni-Shia-Kurd-insurgent factions as they struggle to find a place in the new country. Calling it Babylon appeals to the people and helps them define themselves in a new way, outside of the horrible history of the last century - much in the same way Egypt or Syria claim a historic heritage to the ancient civilizations, the newly elected government should choose a new name that unifies the country, appeals to their rich history, and by passes the existing divisions with a goal of building a newer, stronger nation.
Anyway, just a thought. If I lived there, I'd want people to identify themselves as a Babylonian (or Sumerian, whatever - Babylon may have poor connotations to the Christian world) than a Sunni, or Shia, or Kurd - it's a way to build some unity, and capitalize on the promise of the elections. "
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Power Line: Rope-a-dope works, but the blogosphere is no dope
Power Line: Rope-a-dope works, but the blogosphere is no dope"Given its lack of desire to report the news objectively, only two things can motivate the MSM to report stories that are embarrassing to liberals. The first is the desire to spin the story and the second is the desire not to be embarrassed itself. Both motives kick in only after a story has gained a considerable amount of buzz, but it's clear that blogs can generate that buzz in certain cases."
Power Line: Moral Guidance From the U.N.
Power Line: Moral Guidance From the U.N."A basic assumption of American liberalism is that the United Nations occupies a higher moral plane than the United States. Thus, actions taken under the U.N.'s auspices are automatically vested with more moral authority than those taken unilaterally by the U.S. And liberals take seriously hectoring of the U.S. by lightweights like Kofi Annan."
Itzaz� Around Here--Great Thoughts!
Itzaz� Around Here!Monday, February 07, 2005
What IS a Job?
JOHN GLENN (ON THE SENATE FLOOR) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13
Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they
do for a living.
This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum
is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but
it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the
armed services do what they do for a living.
This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never
served, think of the military.
Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn): "How can you run for
Senate when you've never held a real job?"
Senator Glenn (speaking) D-Ohio: "I served 23 years in the United States
Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane
was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space
program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It
was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash
receipts to the bank."
"I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's
hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and
tell THEM they didn't hold a job! You go with me to the Space Program at
NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus
Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell
them that their DADS didn't hold a job. You go with me on Memorial Day
and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends
buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags.
You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that
those people didn't have a job?
I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME MEN - who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty - that was more
important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"
For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an
attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA. Now he's a Senator!
Things that make you think a little........
But Wait, there's more......................
1. There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during January.... In
the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.
That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn
country of Iraq
2. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state
the following:
* FDR...led us into World War II.
* Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
* Truman...finished that war and started one in Korea. North Koreanever attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of18,334 per year.
* John F. Kennedy. .started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
a. c. d. e. Johnson...turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000
lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
* Clinton...went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multipleoccasions.
* In the years since terrorists attacked us President Bush hasliberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, andcaptured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...It
took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch
Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less
time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to
destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the
police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chapaquiddick.
It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in
Florida!!!!
Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is
high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English
thank a Veteran.
What IS a Job?
JOHN GLENN (ON THE SENATE FLOOR) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13
Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they
do for a living.
This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum
is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but
it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the
armed services do what they do for a living.
This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never
served, think of the military.
Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn): "How can you run for
Senate when you've never held a real job?"
Senator Glenn (speaking) D-Ohio: "I served 23 years in the United States
Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane
was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space
program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It
was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash
receipts to the bank."
"I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's
hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and
tell THEM they didn't hold a job! You go with me to the Space Program at
NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus
Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell
them that their DADS didn't hold a job. You go with me on Memorial Day
and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends
buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags.
You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that
those people didn't have a job?
I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME MEN - who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty - that was more
important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"
For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an
attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA. Now he's a Senator!
Things that make you think a little........
But Wait, there's more......................
1. There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during January.... In
the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.
That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn
country of Iraq
2. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state
the following:
* FDR...led us into World War II.
* Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
* Truman...finished that war and started one in Korea. North Koreanever attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of18,334 per year.
* John F. Kennedy. .started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
a. c. d. e. Johnson...turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000
lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
* Clinton...went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multipleoccasions.
* In the years since terrorists attacked us President Bush hasliberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, andcaptured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...It
took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch
Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less
time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to
destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the
police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chapaquiddick.
It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in
Florida!!!!
Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is
high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English
thank a Veteran.
Power Line: Remembering Mr. Lincoln
Power Line: Remembering Mr. Lincoln
Remembering Mr. Lincoln
Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. I've been studying Lincoln's life and speeches in reverent awe for over thirty years. Five years ago Rocket Man and I picked up one thread in Lincoln's life that led to the most famous of the cases he tried as a practicing lawyer: "A genius for friendship." In that piece, we note that Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal. Here is one example of how he did it -- one that we usually run on July 4 -- teaching the eternal meaning of Independence Day to Americans.
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience when Douglas prepared to speak and invited Lincoln to sit on the balcony. In his speech Douglas rang the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and fall for Douglas's senate seat.
Douglas paid tribute to Lincoln as a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent," but expressed his disagreement with Lincoln's June 16 speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas's seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist "half slave and half free." According to Douglas, Lincoln's assertion was inconsistent with the "diversity" in domestic institutions that was "the great safeguard of our liberties." Then as now, "diversity" was a platitude hiding an evil institution that could not be defended on its own terms.
Douglas responded to Lincoln's condemnation of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision -- a condemnation that was the centerpiece of Lincoln's convention speech. "I am free to say to you," Douglas said, "that in my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine."
Lincoln invited Douglas's audience to return the next evening for his reply to Douglas's speech. Lincoln's speech of July 10, 1858, is one of his many great speeches, but in one respect it is uniquely great. It concludes with an explanation of the meaning of Independence day to Americans with matchless eloquence and insight in words that remain as relevant now as then.
lincoln.jpg
Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometime about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them.
We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty---or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,---with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,---we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves---we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men---descended by blood from our ancestors---among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe---German, Irish, French and Scandinavian---men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, [loud and long continued applause] and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]
Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of "don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down" [Douglas's "popular sovereignty" position on the extension of slavery to the territories], for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice---"Hit him again"], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices---"me" "no one," &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of "no, no,"] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]
Posted by The Big Trunk at 07:31 AM
Remembering Mr. Lincoln
Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. I've been studying Lincoln's life and speeches in reverent awe for over thirty years. Five years ago Rocket Man and I picked up one thread in Lincoln's life that led to the most famous of the cases he tried as a practicing lawyer: "A genius for friendship." In that piece, we note that Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal. Here is one example of how he did it -- one that we usually run on July 4 -- teaching the eternal meaning of Independence Day to Americans.
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience when Douglas prepared to speak and invited Lincoln to sit on the balcony. In his speech Douglas rang the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and fall for Douglas's senate seat.
Douglas paid tribute to Lincoln as a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent," but expressed his disagreement with Lincoln's June 16 speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas's seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist "half slave and half free." According to Douglas, Lincoln's assertion was inconsistent with the "diversity" in domestic institutions that was "the great safeguard of our liberties." Then as now, "diversity" was a platitude hiding an evil institution that could not be defended on its own terms.
Douglas responded to Lincoln's condemnation of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision -- a condemnation that was the centerpiece of Lincoln's convention speech. "I am free to say to you," Douglas said, "that in my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine."
Lincoln invited Douglas's audience to return the next evening for his reply to Douglas's speech. Lincoln's speech of July 10, 1858, is one of his many great speeches, but in one respect it is uniquely great. It concludes with an explanation of the meaning of Independence day to Americans with matchless eloquence and insight in words that remain as relevant now as then.
lincoln.jpg
Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometime about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them.
We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty---or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,---with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,---we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves---we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men---descended by blood from our ancestors---among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe---German, Irish, French and Scandinavian---men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, [loud and long continued applause] and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]
Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of "don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down" [Douglas's "popular sovereignty" position on the extension of slavery to the territories], for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice---"Hit him again"], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices---"me" "no one," &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of "no, no,"] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]
Posted by The Big Trunk at 07:31 AM
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Yahoo! News - THE LITTLE INJUN THAT COULD
Yahoo! News - THE LITTLE INJUN THAT COULD
Ann Coulter exposes Churchill:
THE LITTLE INJUN THAT COULD
Wed Feb 9, 7:59 PM ET
Add to My Yahoo! Op/Ed - Ann Coulter
By Ann Coulter
If Ward Churchill loses his job teaching at the University of Colorado, he could end up giving Howard Dean (news - web sites) a real run for his money to head the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites).
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record -- just like John Kerry (news - web sites)! (Someone should also check out Churchill's claim that he spent Christmas 1968 at Wounded Knee.) In 1983, Churchill met with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and later felt it necessary to announce that his group, the American Indian Movement, "has not requested arms from the Libyan government." In 1997, he was one of the "witnesses" who spoke at a "Free Mumia" event in Philadelphia on behalf of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Come to think of it, Churchill could give Hillary a run for her money. All that's left for Churchill to do now is meet with Al Sharpton (news - web sites) and kiss Suha Arafat.
Churchill's claim that he is an Indian isn't an incidental boast, like John Kerry pretending to be Irish. It is central to his career, his writing, his political activism. Churchill has been the co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, the vice chairperson of the American Indian "Anti-Defamation" Council, and an associate professor and coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado.
By Churchill's own account, a crucial factor in his political development was "being an American Indian referred to as 'chief' in a combat unit" in Vietnam, which made him sad. This is known to con men everywhere as a "two-fer."
In addition to an absence of evidence about his Indian heritage, there is an absence of evidence that he was in combat in Vietnam. After the POW Network revealed that Churchill had never seen combat, he countered with this powerful argument: "They can say whatever the hell they want. That's confidential information, and I've never ordered its release from the Department of Defense (news - web sites). End of story." Maybe we should ask John Kerry to help Churchill fill out a form 180.
In one of his books, "Struggle for the Land," Churchill advances the argument that one-third of America is the legal property of Indians. And if you believe Churchill is a real Indian, he also happens to be part owner of the Brooklyn Bridge.
In his most famous oeuvre, the famed 9/11 essay calling the 9/11 World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," he said "Arab terrorists" -- his quotes -- had simply "responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq (news - web sites)" by giving Americans "a tiny dose of their own medicine."
Having blurted out "Iraq" in connection with 9/11 in a moment of pique, Churchill had to backpedal when the anti-war movement needed to argue that Iraq had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Arab terrorism. He later attached an "Addendum" to the essay saying that the 9/11 attack was not only payback for Iraq, but also for various other of this country's depredations especially against "real Indians" (of which he is not one).
In light of the fact that Churchill's entire persona, political activism, curriculum vitae, writings and university positions are based on his claim that he's an Indian, it's rather churlish of him to complain when people ask if he really is one. But whenever he is questioned about his heritage, Churchill rails that inquiries into his ancestry are "absolutely indefensible."
Churchill has gone from claiming he is one-eighth Indian "on a good day" to claiming he is "three-sixteenths Cherokee," to claiming he is one-sixty-fourth Cherokee through a Revolutionary War era ancestor named Joshua Tyner. (At least he's not posing as a phony Indian math professor.) A recent investigation by The Denver Post revealed that Tyner's father was indeed married to a Cherokee. But that was only after Joshua's mother -- and Churchill's relative -- was scalped by Indians.
By now, all that's left of Churchill's claim to Indian ancestry is his assertion: "It is just something that was common knowledge in my family." (That, and his souvenir foam-rubber "tommyhawk" he bought at Turner Field in Atlanta.)
Over the years, there were other subtle clues the university might have noticed.
Churchill is not in the tribal registries kept since the 1800s by the federal government.
No tribe will enroll him -- a verification process Churchill dismisses as "poodle papers" for Indians.
In 1990, Churchill was forced to stop selling his art as "Indian art" under federal legislation sponsored by then-representative -- and actual Indian! -- Ben Nighthorse Campbell, that required Indian artists to establish that they are accepted members of a federally recognized tribe. Churchill responded by denouncing the Indian artist who had exposed him. (Hey, does anybody need 200 velvet paintings of Elvis playing poker with Crazy Horse?)
In the early '90s, he hoodwinked an impecunious Cherokee tribe into granting him an "associate membership" by telling them he "wrote some books and was a big-time author." A tribal spokeswoman explained: He "convinced us he could help our people." They never heard from him again -- yet another treaty with the Indians broken by the white man. Soon thereafter, the tribe stopped offering "associate memberships."
A decade ago, Churchill was written up in an article in News From Indian Country, titled, "Sovereignty and Its Spokesmen: The Making of an Indian." The article noted that Churchill had claimed membership in a scrolling series of Indian tribes, but over "the course of two years, NFIC hasn't been able to confirm a single living Indian relative, let alone one real relative that can vouch for his tribal descent claim."
When real Indians complained to Colorado University in 1994 that a fake Indian was running their Indian Studies program, a spokeswoman for the CU president said the university needed "to determine if the position was designated for a Native American. And I can't answer that right now." Apparently it was answered in Churchill's favor since he's still teaching.
If he's not an Indian, it's not clear what Churchill does have to offer a university. In his book, "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present," Churchill denounces Jews for presuming to imagine the Holocaust was unique. In the chapter titled "Lie for Lie: Linkages between Holocaust Deniers and Proponents of the Uniqueness of the Jewish Experience in World War II," Churchill calls the Third Reich merely "a crystallization" of Christopher Columbus' ravages of his people (if he were an Indian).
His research apparently consisted of watching the Disney movie "Pocahontas," which showed that the Indians meant the European settlers no harm. (That's if you don't count the frequent scalpings.)
Even the credulous Nation magazine -- always on red alert for tales of government oppression -- dismissed Churchill's 1988 book "Agents of Repression" about Cointelpro-type operations against the American Indian Movement, saying the book "does not give much new information" and "even a reader who is inclined to believe their allegations will want more evidence than they provide." If The Nation won't buy your anti-U.S. government conspiracy theories, Kemosabe, it's probably time to pack up the old teepee and hit the trail of tears.
In response to the repeated complaints from Indians that a phony Indian was running CU's Indian Studies program, Churchill imperiously responded: "Guess what that means, guys? I'm not taking anyone's job, there wouldn't be an Indian Studies program if I wasn't coordinating it. ... They won't give you a job just because you have the paper." This white man of English and Swiss-German descent apparently believes there are no actual Indians deserving of his position at CU. (No wonder the Indians aren't crazy about him.)
As long as we're all agreed that there are some people who don't deserve jobs at universities, why isn't Churchill one of them?
Ann Coulter exposes Churchill:
THE LITTLE INJUN THAT COULD
Wed Feb 9, 7:59 PM ET
Add to My Yahoo! Op/Ed - Ann Coulter
By Ann Coulter
If Ward Churchill loses his job teaching at the University of Colorado, he could end up giving Howard Dean (news - web sites) a real run for his money to head the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites).
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record -- just like John Kerry (news - web sites)! (Someone should also check out Churchill's claim that he spent Christmas 1968 at Wounded Knee.) In 1983, Churchill met with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and later felt it necessary to announce that his group, the American Indian Movement, "has not requested arms from the Libyan government." In 1997, he was one of the "witnesses" who spoke at a "Free Mumia" event in Philadelphia on behalf of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Come to think of it, Churchill could give Hillary a run for her money. All that's left for Churchill to do now is meet with Al Sharpton (news - web sites) and kiss Suha Arafat.
Churchill's claim that he is an Indian isn't an incidental boast, like John Kerry pretending to be Irish. It is central to his career, his writing, his political activism. Churchill has been the co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, the vice chairperson of the American Indian "Anti-Defamation" Council, and an associate professor and coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado.
By Churchill's own account, a crucial factor in his political development was "being an American Indian referred to as 'chief' in a combat unit" in Vietnam, which made him sad. This is known to con men everywhere as a "two-fer."
In addition to an absence of evidence about his Indian heritage, there is an absence of evidence that he was in combat in Vietnam. After the POW Network revealed that Churchill had never seen combat, he countered with this powerful argument: "They can say whatever the hell they want. That's confidential information, and I've never ordered its release from the Department of Defense (news - web sites). End of story." Maybe we should ask John Kerry to help Churchill fill out a form 180.
In one of his books, "Struggle for the Land," Churchill advances the argument that one-third of America is the legal property of Indians. And if you believe Churchill is a real Indian, he also happens to be part owner of the Brooklyn Bridge.
In his most famous oeuvre, the famed 9/11 essay calling the 9/11 World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," he said "Arab terrorists" -- his quotes -- had simply "responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq (news - web sites)" by giving Americans "a tiny dose of their own medicine."
Having blurted out "Iraq" in connection with 9/11 in a moment of pique, Churchill had to backpedal when the anti-war movement needed to argue that Iraq had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Arab terrorism. He later attached an "Addendum" to the essay saying that the 9/11 attack was not only payback for Iraq, but also for various other of this country's depredations especially against "real Indians" (of which he is not one).
In light of the fact that Churchill's entire persona, political activism, curriculum vitae, writings and university positions are based on his claim that he's an Indian, it's rather churlish of him to complain when people ask if he really is one. But whenever he is questioned about his heritage, Churchill rails that inquiries into his ancestry are "absolutely indefensible."
Churchill has gone from claiming he is one-eighth Indian "on a good day" to claiming he is "three-sixteenths Cherokee," to claiming he is one-sixty-fourth Cherokee through a Revolutionary War era ancestor named Joshua Tyner. (At least he's not posing as a phony Indian math professor.) A recent investigation by The Denver Post revealed that Tyner's father was indeed married to a Cherokee. But that was only after Joshua's mother -- and Churchill's relative -- was scalped by Indians.
By now, all that's left of Churchill's claim to Indian ancestry is his assertion: "It is just something that was common knowledge in my family." (That, and his souvenir foam-rubber "tommyhawk" he bought at Turner Field in Atlanta.)
Over the years, there were other subtle clues the university might have noticed.
Churchill is not in the tribal registries kept since the 1800s by the federal government.
No tribe will enroll him -- a verification process Churchill dismisses as "poodle papers" for Indians.
In 1990, Churchill was forced to stop selling his art as "Indian art" under federal legislation sponsored by then-representative -- and actual Indian! -- Ben Nighthorse Campbell, that required Indian artists to establish that they are accepted members of a federally recognized tribe. Churchill responded by denouncing the Indian artist who had exposed him. (Hey, does anybody need 200 velvet paintings of Elvis playing poker with Crazy Horse?)
In the early '90s, he hoodwinked an impecunious Cherokee tribe into granting him an "associate membership" by telling them he "wrote some books and was a big-time author." A tribal spokeswoman explained: He "convinced us he could help our people." They never heard from him again -- yet another treaty with the Indians broken by the white man. Soon thereafter, the tribe stopped offering "associate memberships."
A decade ago, Churchill was written up in an article in News From Indian Country, titled, "Sovereignty and Its Spokesmen: The Making of an Indian." The article noted that Churchill had claimed membership in a scrolling series of Indian tribes, but over "the course of two years, NFIC hasn't been able to confirm a single living Indian relative, let alone one real relative that can vouch for his tribal descent claim."
When real Indians complained to Colorado University in 1994 that a fake Indian was running their Indian Studies program, a spokeswoman for the CU president said the university needed "to determine if the position was designated for a Native American. And I can't answer that right now." Apparently it was answered in Churchill's favor since he's still teaching.
If he's not an Indian, it's not clear what Churchill does have to offer a university. In his book, "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present," Churchill denounces Jews for presuming to imagine the Holocaust was unique. In the chapter titled "Lie for Lie: Linkages between Holocaust Deniers and Proponents of the Uniqueness of the Jewish Experience in World War II," Churchill calls the Third Reich merely "a crystallization" of Christopher Columbus' ravages of his people (if he were an Indian).
His research apparently consisted of watching the Disney movie "Pocahontas," which showed that the Indians meant the European settlers no harm. (That's if you don't count the frequent scalpings.)
Even the credulous Nation magazine -- always on red alert for tales of government oppression -- dismissed Churchill's 1988 book "Agents of Repression" about Cointelpro-type operations against the American Indian Movement, saying the book "does not give much new information" and "even a reader who is inclined to believe their allegations will want more evidence than they provide." If The Nation won't buy your anti-U.S. government conspiracy theories, Kemosabe, it's probably time to pack up the old teepee and hit the trail of tears.
In response to the repeated complaints from Indians that a phony Indian was running CU's Indian Studies program, Churchill imperiously responded: "Guess what that means, guys? I'm not taking anyone's job, there wouldn't be an Indian Studies program if I wasn't coordinating it. ... They won't give you a job just because you have the paper." This white man of English and Swiss-German descent apparently believes there are no actual Indians deserving of his position at CU. (No wonder the Indians aren't crazy about him.)
As long as we're all agreed that there are some people who don't deserve jobs at universities, why isn't Churchill one of them?
Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections = Venezuela USA Chrisis?
Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections = News and Trends
Analysis on the Venezuela-USA oil relationship
17-01-05 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been ratcheting up the rhetoric over cutting off US markets from Venezuelan oil supplies during the past several weeks. On the surface the idea seems preposterous. Along with Mexico, Canada and Saudi Arabia, Venezuela has ranked among the top four US oil suppliers for decades and currently supplies approximately 11 % of US oil needs.
Located just across the Caribbean from the US Gulf Coast, it is ideally situated to supply the US market. Denying that in order to supply customers in Asia or Europe would cut deeply into Venezuela's profit margins.
However, Chavez's primary rationale is not economic, it is political. Opposition to the United States is an ideological fact for him, and he wants to reduce Venezuela's economic links to the superpower to his north -- even if it means a little less cash for his coffers.
Now, we do not take Chavez exactly at his word. We never expect him to stop all shipments to the United States, not out of love or kindness, but because the primary customer for Venezuelan crude in the United States is CITGO, a subsidiary of PdVSA, the state-owned Venezuelan oil company. Chavez might be many, many things, but he is not about to cut off supplies to one of his own companies -- or at least not before he sells it (although that is another issue we will get to in good time).
CITGO uses about 860,000 bpd to supply its refineries and approximately 700,000 bpd of that total comes from PdVSA. To fill domestic refinery needs, Venezuela keeps about another 1.3 mm bpd at home, of which some 900,000 bpd of product is shipped abroad with the remaining 400,000 bpd being used at home.
That leaves Venezuela with only about 600,000 bpd of additional crude exports to play with. In a global system where demand is at about 80 mm bpd, 600,000 bpd can be mopped up pretty quickly.
But Chavez has even selected where he wants his country's crude to go: China. Chinese representatives have been hop scotching all over Latin America during the past few months attempting to pen trade and investment deals. For China, energy security is an acute issue.
The Persian Gulf states enjoy a near monopoly on exports to Asia, resulting in a stiff premium on supplies. Venezuela's heavy crude might be of inferior quality to the lighter, sweeter streams that come from the Middle East, but it does not have to steam past regional rivals Australia, India, Singapore or Vietnam to reach Shanghai.
The lower cost of Venezuelan crude -- not to mention the lack of a premium -- should also offset the higher transport cost of getting it across the Pacific. Venezuela is already in advanced negotiations with Panama to trim some of that transport cost. Panama possesses a pipeline -- the Petroterminales de Panama -- that transports crude from its Pacific to its Atlantic coast.
Chavez wants to reverse the flow so Venezuelan crude can reach the Pacific basin. The process is rather simple and cheap -- and with oil prices where they are Venezuela can afford it. Should an agreement be struck, Venezuelan cargos could be steaming to Asia by August. At maximum capacity the Petroterminales de Panama can handle 800,000 bpd.
The one hitch in the plan is that Venezuelan crude is so thick that very few Chinese refineries can run it at all. Refitting sufficient capacity to use the stuff could take up to two years. Currently, China could handle no more than 100,000 bpd according to sources in the US Department of Energy.
But even here Venezuela has a bridge to make things work out. Singapore currently has spare capacity of about 300,000 bpd which is capable of handling the Venezuelan crude, and the US West Coast has plenty of refineries that would be willing to take a few cargos to supplant or supplement -- Middle Eastern deliveries even if only on a temporary basis.
When Venezuelan crude oil hits the Pacific, Chavez will have his pick of potential customers -- even if the Chinese are not among them at first. That leaves only the pesky issue of CITGO, a front on which no moss is gathering. On Jan. 13, Chavez restructured the PdVSA board of directors and installed Bernard Mommer, until now PdVSA's UK director, in the new line-up. Mommer favours PdVSA selling all of its international holdings.
Add that PdVSA President Rafael Ramirez's first assignment for the new board was to completely review all of PdVSA's contracts and agreements with foreign firms, and it appears ground is being laid for a rolling Venezuelan disengagement from the United States.
Source: Stratfor
Analysis on the Venezuela-USA oil relationship
17-01-05 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been ratcheting up the rhetoric over cutting off US markets from Venezuelan oil supplies during the past several weeks. On the surface the idea seems preposterous. Along with Mexico, Canada and Saudi Arabia, Venezuela has ranked among the top four US oil suppliers for decades and currently supplies approximately 11 % of US oil needs.
Located just across the Caribbean from the US Gulf Coast, it is ideally situated to supply the US market. Denying that in order to supply customers in Asia or Europe would cut deeply into Venezuela's profit margins.
However, Chavez's primary rationale is not economic, it is political. Opposition to the United States is an ideological fact for him, and he wants to reduce Venezuela's economic links to the superpower to his north -- even if it means a little less cash for his coffers.
Now, we do not take Chavez exactly at his word. We never expect him to stop all shipments to the United States, not out of love or kindness, but because the primary customer for Venezuelan crude in the United States is CITGO, a subsidiary of PdVSA, the state-owned Venezuelan oil company. Chavez might be many, many things, but he is not about to cut off supplies to one of his own companies -- or at least not before he sells it (although that is another issue we will get to in good time).
CITGO uses about 860,000 bpd to supply its refineries and approximately 700,000 bpd of that total comes from PdVSA. To fill domestic refinery needs, Venezuela keeps about another 1.3 mm bpd at home, of which some 900,000 bpd of product is shipped abroad with the remaining 400,000 bpd being used at home.
That leaves Venezuela with only about 600,000 bpd of additional crude exports to play with. In a global system where demand is at about 80 mm bpd, 600,000 bpd can be mopped up pretty quickly.
But Chavez has even selected where he wants his country's crude to go: China. Chinese representatives have been hop scotching all over Latin America during the past few months attempting to pen trade and investment deals. For China, energy security is an acute issue.
The Persian Gulf states enjoy a near monopoly on exports to Asia, resulting in a stiff premium on supplies. Venezuela's heavy crude might be of inferior quality to the lighter, sweeter streams that come from the Middle East, but it does not have to steam past regional rivals Australia, India, Singapore or Vietnam to reach Shanghai.
The lower cost of Venezuelan crude -- not to mention the lack of a premium -- should also offset the higher transport cost of getting it across the Pacific. Venezuela is already in advanced negotiations with Panama to trim some of that transport cost. Panama possesses a pipeline -- the Petroterminales de Panama -- that transports crude from its Pacific to its Atlantic coast.
Chavez wants to reverse the flow so Venezuelan crude can reach the Pacific basin. The process is rather simple and cheap -- and with oil prices where they are Venezuela can afford it. Should an agreement be struck, Venezuelan cargos could be steaming to Asia by August. At maximum capacity the Petroterminales de Panama can handle 800,000 bpd.
The one hitch in the plan is that Venezuelan crude is so thick that very few Chinese refineries can run it at all. Refitting sufficient capacity to use the stuff could take up to two years. Currently, China could handle no more than 100,000 bpd according to sources in the US Department of Energy.
But even here Venezuela has a bridge to make things work out. Singapore currently has spare capacity of about 300,000 bpd which is capable of handling the Venezuelan crude, and the US West Coast has plenty of refineries that would be willing to take a few cargos to supplant or supplement -- Middle Eastern deliveries even if only on a temporary basis.
When Venezuelan crude oil hits the Pacific, Chavez will have his pick of potential customers -- even if the Chinese are not among them at first. That leaves only the pesky issue of CITGO, a front on which no moss is gathering. On Jan. 13, Chavez restructured the PdVSA board of directors and installed Bernard Mommer, until now PdVSA's UK director, in the new line-up. Mommer favours PdVSA selling all of its international holdings.
Add that PdVSA President Rafael Ramirez's first assignment for the new board was to completely review all of PdVSA's contracts and agreements with foreign firms, and it appears ground is being laid for a rolling Venezuelan disengagement from the United States.
Source: Stratfor
Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections = Changes in Venezuela
Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections = News and TrendsThere is a change in the way things are done in Venezuela
by Simon Romero and Brian Ellsworth
26-01-05 Venezuela may be increasing tension in energy markets with decisions that are confounding international oil companies, but the government there says it is merely seeking more income and new markets for its oil.
Peter Hill, CEO of Harvest Natural Resources of Houston, which gets all its oil from Venezuela, has one view of the policies unfolding there. Harvest's stock lost a quarter of its value after the Venezuelan national oil company unexpectedly told it to suspend exploration efforts.
ConocoPhillips's plan to develop a new oil field in Venezuela was put on hold about two weeks ago, and Rafael Ramirez, the Venezuelan energy minister, said that the government would review its 33 operating agreements with oil companies from the 1990s to see if they still made sense for Venezuela. Those delays come as officials have held talks with government-run oil companies from China, Russia and Iran.
"I'm a businessman, and I don't like to get involved in politics," Hill, whose company has operated in Venezuela for more than a decade, said. "But there's been a demonstrable change in the way things are done in Venezuela."
In Venezuela, the view is somewhat different. The government of President Hugo Chavez has said it would negotiate its disputes with Harvest and ConocoPhillips to reach agreement on production and spending. But analysts add that at a time of high crude oil prices and a shift in attention toward China, Venezuela is also trying to exert greater control over its resources and expand its range of buyers, as well as getting more lucrative deals.
Access to some of the most coveted oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere is at stake, with Venezuela exporting about 1.2 mm bpd of oil to the United States, or nearly 15 % of American imports. But the overtures to the Chinese, Russians and Iranians have added to worries among private oil companies that Venezuelan policies toward them are becoming increasingly unpredictable.
Concern is also rising over the possibility that Venezuela may eventually divert shipments from the United States, which receives more than half of the country's total production. The Venezuelans say they still consider the United States their principal market, adding that only new production would be moved to China.
All this concern has been acutely felt in Houston in recent days. Shares in Harvest, which produces about 30,000 bpd of oil in Venezuela, have plunged almost 30 % since it said that Petroleos de Venezuela, the government-controlled oil company, had told it to effectively cut its production by one-third.
"I'm not able to read the mind of the Venezuelan government," said Hill, who added that officials from the Venezuelan Energy Ministry had signalled they were open to negotiations on Harvest's activities in the country. He said he did not know why the government oil company "would want to restrict investment and production."
"The interface for communication with the government is becoming much cloudier to read," Hill added.
Investors are focusing on the Venezuelan operations of ConocoPhillips, one of the largest international energy companies operating there, after its $ 480 mm plan to develop an oil field off the eastern coast was put on hold amid feuding with Petroleos de Venezuela over the project's terms. ConocoPhillips gets about 7 % of its worldwide production from Venezuela. Ramirez was quoted as saying that the government was close to an agreement with the company.
Paul Sankey, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note to investors that "we are extremely concerned about what seems to be an escalating situation in Venezuela." He recommended reducing holdings of ConocoPhillips shares. Sankey said that American companies in Venezuela, including ConocoPhillips, Harvest and ChevronTexaco were the "main potential losers from the unpredictable situation."
Higher oil prices, which increased the flow of hard currency to Venezuela's treasury, appear to have emboldened the dealings of Chavez's leftist government with foreign energy companies, as the rise in oil revenue offset the effects of declining production.
Output fell to an estimated 2.7 mm bpd from nearly 3.5 mm bpd in the late 1990s, after strife in the state oil company resulted in a purge of employees, many of them virulently anti-Chavez. Venezuela's output is about 400,000 bpd short of its OPEC production quota of 3.11 mm bpd, according to the International Energy Agency.
But even as Venezuelan oil production has declined over all, foreign companies have contributed more of the output, accounting for roughly 1.2 mm bpd a result of the opening of the Venezuelan energy industry to greater foreign investment by previous governments in the 1990s. With oil prices and demand high, Chavez appears to be seizing the moment to get more favourable contracts from the oil companies and greater control of his oil resources.
"I tend to believe that these disputes have to do the government wanting a bigger share of the pie," said Roger Tissot, director for markets and countries at PFC Energy, a consulting group in Washington. He added that "in the past, they have been notoriously clumsy in asking for it."
But there is growing concern that oil production in Venezuela, which has the largest reserves in Latin America, could decline further if exploration ventures with international companies were suspended. That, in turn, could restrict global energy supplies and push prices even higher, producing an even larger windfall for Chavez's government.
"This type of strategy is fine as long as oil remains high," said Antonio Szabo, a former executive at Petroleos de Venezuela, who now runs an energy and software consulting company in Houston. "But if prices retreat, they'll have grave difficulty in fulfilling the promises that are now being made."
by Simon Romero and Brian Ellsworth
26-01-05 Venezuela may be increasing tension in energy markets with decisions that are confounding international oil companies, but the government there says it is merely seeking more income and new markets for its oil.
Peter Hill, CEO of Harvest Natural Resources of Houston, which gets all its oil from Venezuela, has one view of the policies unfolding there. Harvest's stock lost a quarter of its value after the Venezuelan national oil company unexpectedly told it to suspend exploration efforts.
ConocoPhillips's plan to develop a new oil field in Venezuela was put on hold about two weeks ago, and Rafael Ramirez, the Venezuelan energy minister, said that the government would review its 33 operating agreements with oil companies from the 1990s to see if they still made sense for Venezuela. Those delays come as officials have held talks with government-run oil companies from China, Russia and Iran.
"I'm a businessman, and I don't like to get involved in politics," Hill, whose company has operated in Venezuela for more than a decade, said. "But there's been a demonstrable change in the way things are done in Venezuela."
In Venezuela, the view is somewhat different. The government of President Hugo Chavez has said it would negotiate its disputes with Harvest and ConocoPhillips to reach agreement on production and spending. But analysts add that at a time of high crude oil prices and a shift in attention toward China, Venezuela is also trying to exert greater control over its resources and expand its range of buyers, as well as getting more lucrative deals.
Access to some of the most coveted oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere is at stake, with Venezuela exporting about 1.2 mm bpd of oil to the United States, or nearly 15 % of American imports. But the overtures to the Chinese, Russians and Iranians have added to worries among private oil companies that Venezuelan policies toward them are becoming increasingly unpredictable.
Concern is also rising over the possibility that Venezuela may eventually divert shipments from the United States, which receives more than half of the country's total production. The Venezuelans say they still consider the United States their principal market, adding that only new production would be moved to China.
All this concern has been acutely felt in Houston in recent days. Shares in Harvest, which produces about 30,000 bpd of oil in Venezuela, have plunged almost 30 % since it said that Petroleos de Venezuela, the government-controlled oil company, had told it to effectively cut its production by one-third.
"I'm not able to read the mind of the Venezuelan government," said Hill, who added that officials from the Venezuelan Energy Ministry had signalled they were open to negotiations on Harvest's activities in the country. He said he did not know why the government oil company "would want to restrict investment and production."
"The interface for communication with the government is becoming much cloudier to read," Hill added.
Investors are focusing on the Venezuelan operations of ConocoPhillips, one of the largest international energy companies operating there, after its $ 480 mm plan to develop an oil field off the eastern coast was put on hold amid feuding with Petroleos de Venezuela over the project's terms. ConocoPhillips gets about 7 % of its worldwide production from Venezuela. Ramirez was quoted as saying that the government was close to an agreement with the company.
Paul Sankey, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note to investors that "we are extremely concerned about what seems to be an escalating situation in Venezuela." He recommended reducing holdings of ConocoPhillips shares. Sankey said that American companies in Venezuela, including ConocoPhillips, Harvest and ChevronTexaco were the "main potential losers from the unpredictable situation."
Higher oil prices, which increased the flow of hard currency to Venezuela's treasury, appear to have emboldened the dealings of Chavez's leftist government with foreign energy companies, as the rise in oil revenue offset the effects of declining production.
Output fell to an estimated 2.7 mm bpd from nearly 3.5 mm bpd in the late 1990s, after strife in the state oil company resulted in a purge of employees, many of them virulently anti-Chavez. Venezuela's output is about 400,000 bpd short of its OPEC production quota of 3.11 mm bpd, according to the International Energy Agency.
But even as Venezuelan oil production has declined over all, foreign companies have contributed more of the output, accounting for roughly 1.2 mm bpd a result of the opening of the Venezuelan energy industry to greater foreign investment by previous governments in the 1990s. With oil prices and demand high, Chavez appears to be seizing the moment to get more favourable contracts from the oil companies and greater control of his oil resources.
"I tend to believe that these disputes have to do the government wanting a bigger share of the pie," said Roger Tissot, director for markets and countries at PFC Energy, a consulting group in Washington. He added that "in the past, they have been notoriously clumsy in asking for it."
But there is growing concern that oil production in Venezuela, which has the largest reserves in Latin America, could decline further if exploration ventures with international companies were suspended. That, in turn, could restrict global energy supplies and push prices even higher, producing an even larger windfall for Chavez's government.
"This type of strategy is fine as long as oil remains high," said Antonio Szabo, a former executive at Petroleos de Venezuela, who now runs an energy and software consulting company in Houston. "But if prices retreat, they'll have grave difficulty in fulfilling the promises that are now being made."
Weblog: No Justice for 'Murdered' Missionary Roni Bowers and Daughter - Christianity Today Magazine
Weblog: No Justice for 'Murdered' Missionary Roni Bowers and Daughter - Christianity Today Magazine
Justice Department calls off criminal investigation into 2001 Peru shooting
The New York Times reported Sunday that the U.S. government won't pursue action against Central Intelligence Agency officers regarding the April 2001 downing of a plane carrying American missionaries. Association of Baptists for World Evangelism missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed as the Peruvian Air Force, guided and supervised by the CIA, shot the plane repeatedly. James Bowers and his son survived, and pilot Kevin Donaldson was injured
"The Justice Department's decision ended an inquiry that current and former government officials say was the most serious to focus on the official conduct of CIA officers since the Iran-contra affair in the late 1980's," Times reporters Douglas Jehl and David Johnston wrote. The article continues:
More broadly, the inquiry had been seen within the CIA as a message that employees could be held accountable for operations that go awry, at a time when officers at the agency are coming under scrutiny in other areas, like the interrogation and detention of terror suspects. …
The criminal investigation focused on whether the officials lied in closed-door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee and to their CIA superiors about events surrounding the shooting down of the missionaries' plane, a Justice Department official said.
Roni Bowers's parents say there's a bigger problem than lying here. "They came up behind and shot her in the back with no warning," John Luttig told the Associated Press. "To me, that's murder."
Gloria Luttig says the government "hushed up" the investigation. "I'd like to know what's at the bottom of this and why it happened," she said. "From what I understand, the Americans didn't understand the Peruvians, the Peruvians couldn't understand the Americans. Well, how come? Why?"
The Luttigs are calling their congressional representative to ask that investigations continue.
Weblog really wishes that the video of the shootdown was still online, since it puts the lie to the U.S. government's repeated claims that language differences weren't the problem. Six-year-old Sesame Street watchers demonstrate better knowledge of Spanish than the Americans: "No b-r-r-r-r-r" is not a proper translation of "Do not shoot the plane." Missionary pilot Donaldson, on the other land, spoke in perfect Spanish when he screamed into the radio, "They're killing us!"
But perhaps the most damning statement the CIA team made wasn't in Spanish, and wasn't directed at the Peruvian Air Force plane—it was in plain English, one crew member to another. "I think we're making a mistake but … "
Not "they're making a mistake." We, the American CIA guys paid to go down to Peru to spot drug planes, are making a mistake. "But … " But we're going to approve this shooting, even though the procedures for identifying drug planes and safeguards against shooting innocent people haven't been followed. It came down to this: "Are you sure it's a bandito?" one of the Americans asked the Peruvians. "Okay, if you're sure."
Seconds later, Roni and Charity Bowers were dead, and Donaldson was shot in the leg, desperately trying to save his other two passengers as his plane fell out of the sky. (If anyone knows were the video can be found online, please contact Weblog.)
So what happened to the CIA workers? One might think that killing innocent Americans — missionaries, for crying out loud — might tarnish one's record. The New York Times reports that "the CIA officers who were the subjects of the investigation … [are] now serving at a senior level within the CIA. … Those who faced potential charges included at least one former CIA station chief in Lima, Peru's capital, at least one former chief of the aviation mission assigned to a base in Peru, and at least one official who had been based at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va."
Senior CIA officials have been pushing the Justice Department for years to halt the investigation. "A criminal investigation is something that breeds a risk-averse culture at CIA," an unnamed Bush administration official explained to The New York Times.
Interesting. Seems like the CIA could use a little risk aversion. And having CIA workers break the law and approve the killing of overseas missionaries for no good reason—and then get promoted instead of disciplined or prosecuted—just might breed an unhealthy culture in the U.S., don't you think?
Justice Department calls off criminal investigation into 2001 Peru shooting
The New York Times reported Sunday that the U.S. government won't pursue action against Central Intelligence Agency officers regarding the April 2001 downing of a plane carrying American missionaries. Association of Baptists for World Evangelism missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed as the Peruvian Air Force, guided and supervised by the CIA, shot the plane repeatedly. James Bowers and his son survived, and pilot Kevin Donaldson was injured
"The Justice Department's decision ended an inquiry that current and former government officials say was the most serious to focus on the official conduct of CIA officers since the Iran-contra affair in the late 1980's," Times reporters Douglas Jehl and David Johnston wrote. The article continues:
More broadly, the inquiry had been seen within the CIA as a message that employees could be held accountable for operations that go awry, at a time when officers at the agency are coming under scrutiny in other areas, like the interrogation and detention of terror suspects. …
The criminal investigation focused on whether the officials lied in closed-door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee and to their CIA superiors about events surrounding the shooting down of the missionaries' plane, a Justice Department official said.
Roni Bowers's parents say there's a bigger problem than lying here. "They came up behind and shot her in the back with no warning," John Luttig told the Associated Press. "To me, that's murder."
Gloria Luttig says the government "hushed up" the investigation. "I'd like to know what's at the bottom of this and why it happened," she said. "From what I understand, the Americans didn't understand the Peruvians, the Peruvians couldn't understand the Americans. Well, how come? Why?"
The Luttigs are calling their congressional representative to ask that investigations continue.
Weblog really wishes that the video of the shootdown was still online, since it puts the lie to the U.S. government's repeated claims that language differences weren't the problem. Six-year-old Sesame Street watchers demonstrate better knowledge of Spanish than the Americans: "No b-r-r-r-r-r" is not a proper translation of "Do not shoot the plane." Missionary pilot Donaldson, on the other land, spoke in perfect Spanish when he screamed into the radio, "They're killing us!"
But perhaps the most damning statement the CIA team made wasn't in Spanish, and wasn't directed at the Peruvian Air Force plane—it was in plain English, one crew member to another. "I think we're making a mistake but … "
Not "they're making a mistake." We, the American CIA guys paid to go down to Peru to spot drug planes, are making a mistake. "But … " But we're going to approve this shooting, even though the procedures for identifying drug planes and safeguards against shooting innocent people haven't been followed. It came down to this: "Are you sure it's a bandito?" one of the Americans asked the Peruvians. "Okay, if you're sure."
Seconds later, Roni and Charity Bowers were dead, and Donaldson was shot in the leg, desperately trying to save his other two passengers as his plane fell out of the sky. (If anyone knows were the video can be found online, please contact Weblog.)
So what happened to the CIA workers? One might think that killing innocent Americans — missionaries, for crying out loud — might tarnish one's record. The New York Times reports that "the CIA officers who were the subjects of the investigation … [are] now serving at a senior level within the CIA. … Those who faced potential charges included at least one former CIA station chief in Lima, Peru's capital, at least one former chief of the aviation mission assigned to a base in Peru, and at least one official who had been based at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va."
Senior CIA officials have been pushing the Justice Department for years to halt the investigation. "A criminal investigation is something that breeds a risk-averse culture at CIA," an unnamed Bush administration official explained to The New York Times.
Interesting. Seems like the CIA could use a little risk aversion. And having CIA workers break the law and approve the killing of overseas missionaries for no good reason—and then get promoted instead of disciplined or prosecuted—just might breed an unhealthy culture in the U.S., don't you think?
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Les Jones: Democrats Were for Social Security Reform Before They Were Against It
Les Jones: Democrats Were for Social Security Reform Before They Were Against ItDemocrats Were for Social Security Reform Before They Were Against It
So the Democrats are opposing Bush's proposed partial privatization of Social Security as part of an effort to save it in the long run. That's fine, but if it's such a bad idea then why did so many Democrats previously support some variation of privatization or investment in the private sector?
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) Press Release: “Durbin Said Due To The Increasing Number Of ‘Baby Boomers’ Reaching Retirement Age, Social Security Will Be Unable To Pay Out Full Benefits … But The Sooner Congress Acts To Avert This Crisis The Easier And Less Painful It Will Be.” (Sen. Dick Durbin, “Reforming Social Security,” Press Release, 9/15/98)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “Fixing Social Security Is An Urgent Priority. It Ought To Be At The Top Of Both Parties’ Agendas.” (Sen. Byron Dorgan, “Fixing Social Security Must Top Both Parties’ Agendas,” Roll Call, 12/6/99)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “The Potential [Social Security] Crisis Should Be Viewed As An Enormous Success, Because It Means That We Are Living Longer And Healthier Lives.” (Betty Mills, Op-Ed, “What Would You Do About Social Security?” Bismarck Tribune, 8/5/98)
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): “I Was At The Social Security Summit At The White House, Along With 40 Of My Colleagues, Republicans And Democrats. And There Was Virtual Unanimity Of Opinion That We Simply Have To Get A Higher Return From The Social Security Investments.” (Fox News’ “Special Report,” 1/20/99)
House Members: Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI): “People Can See, I Think, A [Social Security] Crisis Where There Immediate Family Is Affected Even If Not Immediately … This Is Something That Affects Almost Everybody’s Immediate Family.” (Richard A. Ryan, “Social Security Reform Stalls,” The Detroit News, 2/2/02)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): “I Am One Democrat That Truly Believes That Democrats Will Not Benefit By Doing Nothing On Social Security.” (Rep. Charles Rangel, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA): “I Am An Advocate For Investing A Portion Of The Surplus In The Private Sector …” (Rep. Edward J. Markey, Committee On Commerce, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 2/25/99)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): “[I]t’s A Way Of Getting More Money – A Higher Return On The Trust Fund, And Is A Prudent And Good Thing To Do.” (Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO): “Why Should Social Security Recipients Be Disadvantaged By Not Getting To Be Able To Have Higher Returns Out Of The Stock Market?” (Rep. Dick Gephardt, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Clinton: President Clinton: “[Investing] Will Earn A Higher Return And Keep Social Security Sound For 55 Years.” (President Bill Clinton, State Of The Union, 1/19/99)
President Clinton: “[W]hat I Believe We Should Do Is To Invest A Modest Amount Of This In The Private Sector, The Way Every Other Retirement Plan Does. The Arizona State Retirement Plan Does; Every Municipal Retirement Plan Does; Every Private Plan Does.” (President Bill Clinton, Remarks To The Citizens Of Tucson On Medicare And Social Security, Tucson, AZ, 2/25/99)
President Clinton: “[E]ven After You Take Account Of The Stock Market Going Down And Maybe Staying Down For A Few Years, Shouldn’t We Consider Investing Some Of This Money, Because, Otherwise, We’ll Have To Either Cut Benefits Or Raise Taxes To Cover Them, If We Can’t Raise The Rate Of Return.” (President Bill Clinton, Remarks Via Satellite To The Regional Congressional Social Security Forums, Albuquerque, NM, 7/27/98)
Bill Clinton in 2002:
When I left office, there was enough money to keep Social Security going till 2053, enough money to keep Medicare going tail 2027, through half the life of the baby boomers. I don't know what the latest numbers are going to show but they won't be good. If we don't modify the tax cut to have more tax cuts now but we reinstate fiscal responsibility over the long run, we're going to be in real trouble there. So, what's our option? If you don't like privatizing Social Security and I don't like it very much, but you want to do something to try to increase the rate of return, what are your options? Well one thing you could do is to give people one or two percent of the payroll tax, with the same options that Federal employees have with their retirement accounts; where you have three mutual funds that almost always perform as well or better than the market and a fourth option to buy government bonds, so you get the guaranteed social security return and a hundred percent safety just like you have with Social Security.
FDR in 1935 via James Taranto:
In an address to Congress on January 17, 1935, President Roosevelt foresaw the need to move beyond the pay-as-you-go financing of the current Social Security system. "For perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions," the president allowed. But after that, he explained, it would be necessary to move to what he called "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age." In other words, his call for the establishment of Social Security directly anticipated today's reform agenda: "It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans," FDR explained.
"What Roosevelt was talking about is the need to update Social Security sometime around 1965 with what today we would call personal accounts," says one top GOP member of the Ways and Means Committee. "By my reckoning we are only about 40 years late in addressing his concerns on how [to] make Social Security solvent."
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) in 1999:
Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector.
Posted by lesjones | TrackBack
So the Democrats are opposing Bush's proposed partial privatization of Social Security as part of an effort to save it in the long run. That's fine, but if it's such a bad idea then why did so many Democrats previously support some variation of privatization or investment in the private sector?
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) Press Release: “Durbin Said Due To The Increasing Number Of ‘Baby Boomers’ Reaching Retirement Age, Social Security Will Be Unable To Pay Out Full Benefits … But The Sooner Congress Acts To Avert This Crisis The Easier And Less Painful It Will Be.” (Sen. Dick Durbin, “Reforming Social Security,” Press Release, 9/15/98)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “Fixing Social Security Is An Urgent Priority. It Ought To Be At The Top Of Both Parties’ Agendas.” (Sen. Byron Dorgan, “Fixing Social Security Must Top Both Parties’ Agendas,” Roll Call, 12/6/99)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “The Potential [Social Security] Crisis Should Be Viewed As An Enormous Success, Because It Means That We Are Living Longer And Healthier Lives.” (Betty Mills, Op-Ed, “What Would You Do About Social Security?” Bismarck Tribune, 8/5/98)
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): “I Was At The Social Security Summit At The White House, Along With 40 Of My Colleagues, Republicans And Democrats. And There Was Virtual Unanimity Of Opinion That We Simply Have To Get A Higher Return From The Social Security Investments.” (Fox News’ “Special Report,” 1/20/99)
House Members: Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI): “People Can See, I Think, A [Social Security] Crisis Where There Immediate Family Is Affected Even If Not Immediately … This Is Something That Affects Almost Everybody’s Immediate Family.” (Richard A. Ryan, “Social Security Reform Stalls,” The Detroit News, 2/2/02)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): “I Am One Democrat That Truly Believes That Democrats Will Not Benefit By Doing Nothing On Social Security.” (Rep. Charles Rangel, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA): “I Am An Advocate For Investing A Portion Of The Surplus In The Private Sector …” (Rep. Edward J. Markey, Committee On Commerce, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 2/25/99)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): “[I]t’s A Way Of Getting More Money – A Higher Return On The Trust Fund, And Is A Prudent And Good Thing To Do.” (Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO): “Why Should Social Security Recipients Be Disadvantaged By Not Getting To Be Able To Have Higher Returns Out Of The Stock Market?” (Rep. Dick Gephardt, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Clinton: President Clinton: “[Investing] Will Earn A Higher Return And Keep Social Security Sound For 55 Years.” (President Bill Clinton, State Of The Union, 1/19/99)
President Clinton: “[W]hat I Believe We Should Do Is To Invest A Modest Amount Of This In The Private Sector, The Way Every Other Retirement Plan Does. The Arizona State Retirement Plan Does; Every Municipal Retirement Plan Does; Every Private Plan Does.” (President Bill Clinton, Remarks To The Citizens Of Tucson On Medicare And Social Security, Tucson, AZ, 2/25/99)
President Clinton: “[E]ven After You Take Account Of The Stock Market Going Down And Maybe Staying Down For A Few Years, Shouldn’t We Consider Investing Some Of This Money, Because, Otherwise, We’ll Have To Either Cut Benefits Or Raise Taxes To Cover Them, If We Can’t Raise The Rate Of Return.” (President Bill Clinton, Remarks Via Satellite To The Regional Congressional Social Security Forums, Albuquerque, NM, 7/27/98)
Bill Clinton in 2002:
When I left office, there was enough money to keep Social Security going till 2053, enough money to keep Medicare going tail 2027, through half the life of the baby boomers. I don't know what the latest numbers are going to show but they won't be good. If we don't modify the tax cut to have more tax cuts now but we reinstate fiscal responsibility over the long run, we're going to be in real trouble there. So, what's our option? If you don't like privatizing Social Security and I don't like it very much, but you want to do something to try to increase the rate of return, what are your options? Well one thing you could do is to give people one or two percent of the payroll tax, with the same options that Federal employees have with their retirement accounts; where you have three mutual funds that almost always perform as well or better than the market and a fourth option to buy government bonds, so you get the guaranteed social security return and a hundred percent safety just like you have with Social Security.
FDR in 1935 via James Taranto:
In an address to Congress on January 17, 1935, President Roosevelt foresaw the need to move beyond the pay-as-you-go financing of the current Social Security system. "For perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions," the president allowed. But after that, he explained, it would be necessary to move to what he called "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age." In other words, his call for the establishment of Social Security directly anticipated today's reform agenda: "It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans," FDR explained.
"What Roosevelt was talking about is the need to update Social Security sometime around 1965 with what today we would call personal accounts," says one top GOP member of the Ways and Means Committee. "By my reckoning we are only about 40 years late in addressing his concerns on how [to] make Social Security solvent."
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) in 1999:
Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector.
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