Hillary challenged in Iowa for Iran vote

This just goes to show Hillary doesn't have the judgment or the guts to be President.

Bush has proven that if you give him an inch, he'll take a mile. Hillary's vote to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization" is just such an instance, and a repeat of her dumb vote in 2002 to give Bush Congressional carte blanche to attack Iraq.

Hillary is so worried about looking "tough" in front of GOP voters and pundits (who will hate her forever, no matter what she does) that she forgot about being smart, and true to her base, which doesn't want war with Iran. This Rolph was right to challenge her vote; and Hillary showed her true colors by trying to bully and intimidate him when she couldn't explain herself.


Clinton's Iran Vote Prompts Harsh Back and Forth
By Dan Balz
October 7, 2008 | Washington Post - Blog

Report: War on Terra fueling al Qaeda

Well, duh.

Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda
By Kate Kelland
October 8, 2007 | Reuters

Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.

A report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) said a "fundamental re-think is required" if the global terrorist network is to be rendered ineffective.

"If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut," said Paul Rogers, the report's author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England.

"Combined with conventional policing and security measures, al Qaeda can be contained and minimized but this will require a change in policy at every level."

He described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "disastrous mistake" which had helped establish a "most valued jihadist combat training zone" for al Qaeda supporters.

The report -- Alternatives to the War on Terror -- recommended the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq coupled with intensive diplomatic engagement in the region, including with Iran and Syria.

In Afghanistan, Rogers also called for an immediate scaling down of military activities, an injection of more civil aid and negotiations with militia groups aimed at bringing them into the political process.

If such measures were adopted it would still take "at least 10 years to make up for the mistakes made since 9/11."

"Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades," the report added.

Rogers also warned of a drift toward conflict with Iran.

"Going to war with Iran," he said, "will make matters far worse, playing directly into the hands of extreme elements and adding greatly to the violence across the region. Whatever the problems with Iran, war should be avoided at all costs."

4th Estate Sale

What!? Government ought to subsidize the media in order to keep it free and fearless?

Sounds crazy, and counter-intuitive. But as Ezra shows, today's corporate-controlled, profit-driven U.S. media are not giving us what we want: the whole truth. Whereas countries like Britain and Sweden do ensure a free, fair, competitive, and informative media thanks to targeted government subsidies.

It all boils down to this: Is it more important for the media to be private, or for the media to serve its vital democratic function as the "4th estate?"


The Truth -- So Long As It's Profitable
Journalist trends prove that profit-seeking and truth-telling don't really mix. Is publicly supported media the answer?

By Ezra Klein

October 4, 2007 | Prospect.org


"I have always been firmly persuaded," wrote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "that our newspapers cannot be edited in the interests of the general public, from the counting room." Increasingly, the slow decline of American media is proving him right. As the Internet deprives newspapers of the monopolistic business models of yesteryear and the cable channels construct a realm of perfect competition in which mild consumer preferences -- say, for the channel with a bright American flag in the corner rather than the one without -- can be expressed with a click of a remote, the newsroom's traditional buffers against triviality and hollow sensationalism are showing themselves to be deeply inadequate.

Additionally, increased competition and less cross-subsidization from classified ads means that every week's news stories come with a couple articles on how there will be fewer news stories; how this or that paper needed to close this or that bureau because this or that corporate overlord just didn't see the point.

And ah, yes, the corporate overlords. Or even just the accountants. They matter, too. The mandate of the media is not merely to inform. It is to generate revenue for stockholders, or turn enough of a profit to pay its employees. As the authors of Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Company sadly conclude, "News has become secondary, even incidental, to markets and revenues and margins and advertisers and consumer preferences. At its worst, the publicly traded newspaper company, its energy entirely drawn to the financial market's unrealistic and greedy expectations, can become indifferent to news and, thus, ultimately to the fundamental purposes served by news and the press." Or, as George Saunders pithily puts in his essay "The Braindead Megaphone," asking the media to "tell us the truth" is not the same as asking the media to "tell us as much truth as you can, while still making money."

But what if we could go back to "tell us the truth"? What if we could create a funding source that recognized the news' role as a "public good," worthy of some protection from the vicissitudes of quarterly earning reports? What if, in other words, we subsidized it? "Journalism is a rare business in that its product -- news -- has a public-service function, but unlike other public-service activities, like public education or scientific research, it is not protected from market forces by government support," writes Bree Nordenson in the September issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. "So when the financial viability of the news business is threatened, so too is the press's role as the fourth estate."

And the market forces are threatening. As Nordenson explains, there's an explosion of activity in the commentary and entertainment sectors of the media, but a decided decline in the resources and viability of the unglamorous, economically intensive news-gathering functions. "[W]ith the business model for news in transition," he writes, "mainstream media owners are cutting staff and reducing content, particularly hard-news coverage, in order to maintain the high profit margins newspapers have historically enjoyed."

But government involvement in journalism -- even to protect it -- is supposedly a radical notion. Just as we fear that corporate ownership of the press will lead to an insufficiently critical approach to corporate power, so too does public subsidy look likely to breed a cozy, even pleading, relationship to those holding power. Yet government has helped the press for years, and the reduced postal rates, copyright protections, favorable tax treatment, and other sundry subsidies don't appear particularly causal in the press's treatment of government action. And that's not even getting into the huge subsidies the government offers in the form of radio and television wave licenses, which grant public bandwidth to private companies. The government is so quiet about this giveaway that they don't so much as demand a few preempted sitcoms to allow full coverage of the quadrennial political conventions.

Nordenson also tells of some stronger subsidy schemes in Europe. Sweden, for instance, has a system dedicated to encouraging reportorial competition. They allocate money to all but the dominant paper in a given market, so as to ensure that no town is stuck being dependent on a single newspaper or news source. The system is fully automatic, and works off a transparent and perfectly predictable formula. And the result? According to Daniel Hallin, chairman of the department of communication at the University of California, San Diego, the implementation of this system was concurrent with "a shift toward a more adversarial press. It is actually very strong evidence that press subsidies don't lead journalists to be timid."

Elsewhere, the United Kingdom spends about $7 billon on public broadcasting, while the United States spends about $480 million. So the British are spending about 15 times as much as we are, despite being only one-fifth our size. The result is that in a country renowned for a vicious, tabloid-style press, the BBC stands protected in the center, producing constant, credible, adversarial journalism that need not compete on grounds of sensationalism.

There are many models America could adopt. An independent commission that allocates money raised by an automatic tax that exists outside -- and thus away from the influence of -- the congressional appropriations process. Or Dean Baker's idea for an "Artistic Freedom Voucher" that would be controlled by taxpayers. Or even a simple, renewed commitment to publicly financed media. This requires overcoming our allergy to government support of goods with a public function. But what an odd nation we are if our discomfort with government support outweighs our fear of a media whose first imperative is to profit, rather than to inform. Such peculiar values would make for a helluva newspaper story, if there's anyone left to write it.

Our Angry Sun: Record Arctic Heatwave

Even if the earth is getting warmer -- which it isn't -- it's not man who's causing it, it's increased solar radiation. So, even if the Arctic ocean is melting -- which it's not -- we shouldn't reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, because that would only slow down the world economy and make the days we have left to live on Earth less profitable. Only God can save us from our angry Sun. Man can do nothing but keep on truckin'.

Which is why I like to say:
Each and every sunny day,
Drive your Hummer to church and pray.
Those who mourn their wicked ways
Jesus saves from cosmic rays --
Well, except the French, and gays.


Record 22C temperatures in Arctic heatwave
By Steve Connor
October 3, 2007 | The Independent Online

Parts of the Arctic have experienced an unprecedented heatwave this summer, with one research station in the Canadian High Arctic recording temperatures above 20C, about 15C higher than the long-term average. The high temperatures were accompanied by a dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice in September to the lowest levels ever recorded, a further indication of how sensitive this region of the world is to global warming. Scientists from Queen's University in Ontario watched with amazement as their thermometers touched 22C during their July field expedition at the High Arctic camp on Melville Island, usually one of the coldest places in North America.

"This was exceptional for a place where the normal average temperatures are about 5C. This year we frequently recorded daytime temperatures of between 10C and 15C and on some days it went as high as 22C," said Scott Lamoureux, a professor of geography at Queen's.

"Even temperatures of 15C are higher than we'd expect and yet we recorded them for between 10 and 12 days during July. We won't know the August and September recordings until next year when we go back there but it appears the region has continued to be warm through the summer."

The high temperatures on the island caused catastrophic mudslides as the permafrost on hillsides melted, Professor Lamoureux said. "The landscape was being torn to pieces, literally before our eyes."

Other parts of the Arctic also experienced higher-than-normal temperatures, which indicate that the wider polar region may have experienced its hottest summer on record, according to Walt Meir of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

"It's been warm, with temperatures about 3C or 4C above normal for June, July and August, particularly to the north of Siberia where the temperatures have reached between 4C and 5C above average," Dr Meir said.

Unusually clear skies over the Arctic this summer have caused temperatures to rise. More sunlight has exacerbated the loss of sea ice, which fell to a record low of 4.28 million square kilometres (1.65 million square miles), some 39 per cent below the long-term average for the period 1979 to 2000. Dr Meir said: "While the decline of the ice started out fairly slowly in spring and early summer, it accelerated rapidly in July. By mid-August, we had already shattered all previous records for ice extent."

An international team of scientists on board the Polar Stern, a research ship operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, also felt the effects of an exceptionally warm Arctic summer. The scientists had anticipated that large areas of the Arctic would be covered by ice with a thickness of about two metres, but found that it had thinned to just one metre.

Instead of breaking through thicker ice at an expected speed of between 1 and 2 knots, the Polar Stern managed to cruise at 6 knots through thin ice and sometimes open water.

"We are in the midst of a phase of dramatic change in the Arctic," said Ursula Schauer, the chief scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, who was on board the Polar Stern expedition. "The ice cover of the North Polar Sea is dwindling, the ocean and the atmosphere are becoming steadily warmer, the ocean currents are changing," she said.

One scientist came back from the North Pole and reported that it was raining there, said David Carlson, the director of International Polar Year, the effort to highlight the climate issues of the Arctic and Antarctic. "It makes you wonder whether anyone has ever reported rain at the North Pole before."

Another team of scientists monitoring the movements of Ayles Ice Island off northern Canada reported that it had broken in two far earlier than expected, a further indication of warmer temperatures. And this summer, for the first time, an American sailing boat managed to traverse the North-west Passage from Nova Scotia to Alaska, a voyage usually made by icebreakers. Never before has a sail-powered vessel managed to get straight through the usually ice-blocked sea passage.

Inhabitants of the region are also noticing a significant change as a result of warmer summers, according to Shari Gearheard, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre. "People who live in the region are noticing changes in sea ice. The earlier break-up and later freeze-up affect when and where people can go hunting, as well as safety for travel," she said.

Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, said: "We may see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer within our lifetimes. The implications... are disturbing."

The North-west Passage: an ominous sign

The idea of a North-west Passage was born in 1493, when Pope Alexander VI divided the discovered world between Spain and Portugal, blocking England, France and Holland from a sea route to Asia. As it became clear a passage across Europe was impossible, the ambitious plan was hatched to seek out a route through north-western waters, and nations sent out explorers. When, in the 18th century, James Cook reported that Antarctic icebergs produced fresh water, the view that northern waters were not impossibly frozen was encouraged. In 1776 Cook himself was dispatched by the Admiralty with an Act promising a £20,000 prize, but he failed to push through a route north of Canada. His attempt preceded several British expeditions including a famous Victorian one by Sir John Franklin in 1845. Finally, in 1906 Roald Amundsen led the first trip across the passage to Alaska, and since then a number of fortified ships have followed. On 21 August this year, the North-west Passage was opened to ships not armed with icebreakers for the first time since records began.

Spiegel: Sy Hersh on war with Iran, Iraq

'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
Interview by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith
Spiegel Online International | September 28, 2007

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam, and how the US press failed the First Amendment.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?

Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?

Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?

Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?

Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?

Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?

Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?

Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?

Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the lessons of the Surge?

Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?

Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US, will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?

Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic. How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front, though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again, there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they did in the run-up to the Iraq War?

Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.