This "listening tour" is trying to draw attention to immigration reform and trying to make it happen this year. DP
By Karen Lee Ziner, Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Close to a thousand people packed a Providence church last night to launch a national “family unity” campaign designed to draw attention to the disruptive effects of the country’s immigration policies. Organizers said their goal is President Obama’s signature on comprehensive immigration reform.
The 17-city “listening tour” is being led by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Conducted through faith-based organizations, the tour will gather “the human stories of the impact of immigration policies” on “mixed-status” families, including U.S. citizens, and bring them to Washington, D.C., in April.
“We have five million citizen children wondering whether their parents will be there when they get home from school” each day, Gutierrez told an overflow crowd at Trinity Methodist Church on Broad Street.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Ronault "Polo" Catalani provides a 'bigger voice' for immigrants
This is about a civil rights lawyer who helps the city and the immigrant community understand each other better. This way everyone benefits. DP
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Ronault L.S. Catalani -- aka "Polo" -- is a Portland civil rights lawyer and coordinator at Portland's Office of Human Rights. Catalani specializes in advocacy for the area's immigrants and refugees, with his distinct approach of solving problems "around the kitchen table."
After an alarm went off at Roosevelt High School, Portland police arrested two Hmong teens, members of an ethnic group from Southeast Asia. The youths later were released and found innocent. The police apologized, but many of Portland's Hmong refugees from war-torn Laos remained frightened and confused.
Ronault L.S. Catalani, a Portland-area lawyer and community activist who also hails from Asia, advised an odd repayment.
"I explained to the policemen that, for us, saying sorry is not enough. We have a proverb: 'Respect is not in words, respect is in deeds.' You have to give something to heal the break."
So, one morning Catalani ushered the officers into a Hmong leader's home. The policemen wielded two live chickens. Hmong elders and their families crowded in.
The chickens were sacrificed in a special ceremony, their lives given in an effort to repair the relationships that had been breached.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Ronault L.S. Catalani -- aka "Polo" -- is a Portland civil rights lawyer and coordinator at Portland's Office of Human Rights. Catalani specializes in advocacy for the area's immigrants and refugees, with his distinct approach of solving problems "around the kitchen table."
After an alarm went off at Roosevelt High School, Portland police arrested two Hmong teens, members of an ethnic group from Southeast Asia. The youths later were released and found innocent. The police apologized, but many of Portland's Hmong refugees from war-torn Laos remained frightened and confused.
Ronault L.S. Catalani, a Portland-area lawyer and community activist who also hails from Asia, advised an odd repayment.
"I explained to the policemen that, for us, saying sorry is not enough. We have a proverb: 'Respect is not in words, respect is in deeds.' You have to give something to heal the break."
So, one morning Catalani ushered the officers into a Hmong leader's home. The policemen wielded two live chickens. Hmong elders and their families crowded in.
The chickens were sacrificed in a special ceremony, their lives given in an effort to repair the relationships that had been breached.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
Jindal Flip-Flops on "Pork"
Louisiana's transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the president's economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.
NOLA
Jindal Flip-Flops on "Pork"
Louisiana's transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the president's economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.
NOLA
Happy birthday, dear Robert....
....Happy birthday to you.....Robert Mugabe was 85 years old on February 21; but he had his party today. The old rogue is still at it, chumping on birthday cake, nationalising farms and impoverishing Zimbabweans with hyperinflation.
It is sad to think that back in the 1980s this old fool was a great hero of the left.
The banking crisis is over, the fiscal crisis is about to begin
The UK government wants to borrow ₤120 billion during fiscal year 2009-10. That means the government needs to flog ₤10 billion worth of new government bonds every single month. It is a tall order. As this borrowing binge gathers momentum, it will be hard to keep interest rates low on government bonds.However, the deficit is not the only financial problem facing the government. Brown and Darling offered virtually unlimited backing to the largely insolvent UK banking behemoths. Public sector debt levels are now rising dramatically. In the short run, this has prevented a full blown banking crisis. In the long run, it has put the financial viability of the government in doubt.
The banking crisis may be over; a new crisis is about to hit us; a fiscal crisis, where the government has difficulty financing its deficit and covering the growing losses of the now nationalized banking sector.
Now some Lloyds numbers
(Click on the chart for a larger image)Lloyds TSB reported a 16 percent increase in customer lending last year. The bank doesn't seem to have crunched that much credit. I wonder what is behind that startling growth rate?
The bank continues to have quite a large customer funding gap (deposits minus loans).
However, there is some good news, customer deposit volumes are up slightly. Did they take anything from their sister bank - HBOS?
Some HBOS numbers
(Click on the chart for a larger image)It is a strange looking institution;
It wasn't so long ago that the FSA was threatening to investigate anyone who questioned the viability of HBOS. It was groundless rumour mongering.
Is it fair to say that without government support and the Lloyds merger that HBOS would now be bankrupt?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Half of British Bankers would quit if bonsuses were capped
Some more good news; how soon can we cap their bonsuses? Could we get it done by the end of next week. Only half of bankers would leave? Perhaps we could encourage the other half to depart. After all, these jokers have done a great job destroying the UK economy. We can do without them.
The poll by jobs website eFinancialCareers.com found that 49 percent of British-based bankers would consider voting with their feet such a limit to their income were introduced. That figure rose to 71 percent among financiers with six to ten years experience.
"Were bonuses to be capped unilaterally in the UK, the country would run the risk of an exodus of top financial talent," said John Benson, chief executive of eFinancialCareers.
However, where would they go? Wall street has already fired legions of bankers. The Swiss banking system is also in trouble. Things aren't that rosy in the far east.
Does that mean that these talented financiers are going to stay?
The poll by jobs website eFinancialCareers.com found that 49 percent of British-based bankers would consider voting with their feet such a limit to their income were introduced. That figure rose to 71 percent among financiers with six to ten years experience.
"Were bonuses to be capped unilaterally in the UK, the country would run the risk of an exodus of top financial talent," said John Benson, chief executive of eFinancialCareers.
However, where would they go? Wall street has already fired legions of bankers. The Swiss banking system is also in trouble. Things aren't that rosy in the far east.
Does that mean that these talented financiers are going to stay?
Where Is the Congressional Black Caucus on Energy Ownership?
The federal government is handing over hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up or take over private companies of all kinds. Our interest is in energy companies and we wonder why the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is not proposing legislation or amending energy legislation to direct some of those billions to black ownership of energy companies. Besides Kase Lawall, blacks do not own any part of the energy infrastructure in the United States. Not one oil company, nor coal company, nor pipeline nor wind company. You get the idea. The long history of developing energy companies and the high capital costs for equity participation, combined with the exclusion of blacks in the marketplace up until about 40 years ago, has left African Americans absent from the energy sector.Now some will holler because some get angry whenever there are proposals to 'assist' blacks. Yet there is not hollering over bailing out and otherwise providing welfare for corporate America. AAEA could start a solar or wind or liquefied natural gas company with a billion or two.
We're talking green company ownership here, not just green jobs. We are even talking about ownership in traditional energy sectors. We would operate a coal mine in an environmentally friendly manner. And work with President Obama on clean coal solutions.
So come on CBC. President Obama will sign the bill if you originate or amend energy legislation that helps blacks to get in the energy business.
Yes, but what did he say in Hebrew?
Even at the height of the Oslo process in the 1990s, Israelis remained suspicious of Palestinian intentions, and especially suspicious of "Mr. Palestinian", Yassir Arafat. So when Mr. Arafat would make speeches in Washington or London about peace, many Israelis would typically counter with: "It's what he says to his people in Arabic that matters, not what he tells the Americans [or Brits] in English." The point was that, in his speeches for domestic consumption, Arafat was never as dainty.
I was reminded of that argument this week, after I read Avigdor Lieberman's attempt to portray himself as an A-1 moderate in an op-ed in the New York Jewish Week.
Here is just one of Lieberman's gems: "Yisrael Beiteinu has no objection to the nonviolent expression of opinion. It is violent speech that forms a clear and present danger that we refuse to tolerate."
But what, pray tell, does the man say in Hebrew? Here's just one snippet from the party's platform. Try and find where the party is only opposing "violent speech":
Citizenship Law:
"An important section of Israel's security as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic [sic] state is a law that makes the citizenship contingent on a declaration of loyalty to the State as a Jewish State, to its symbols, to its sovereignty, and to its declaration of independence, and to accepting the obligation to serve the State in military or alternative non-military service. Only he who signs the declaration will be a citizen entitled to full rights and obligations. Whoever refuses will be entitled to the full rights of a permanent resident, without the right to vote or be elected to the Knesset."
Not a word about "violent speech" or even violence as a criterion for anything. If you don't believe me, here's the item in its original Hebrew:
חוק האזרחות
נדבך חשוב לביטחון ישראל כמדינה יהודית, ציונית ודמוקרטית הוא חוק, המתנה קבלת אזרחות בהצהרת נאמנות למדינה כמדינה יהודית, לסמליה, לריבונותה, ולמגילת העצמאות, וקבלת החובה לשרת את המדינה בשירות צבאי או אזרחי חלופי. רק מי שיחתום על ההצהרה יהיה אזרח הזכאי למלוא הזכויות והחובות. מי שיסרב יהיה זכאי למלוא הזכויות של תושב קבע, ללא הזכות לבחור ולהיבחר לכנסת.
Even David Harris of the American Jewish Committee seems embarrassed by Lieberman's sad attempt to dress up in sheep's clothing. In a so-called "rebuttal op-ed" that the Jewish Week prudently ran (although I don't agree with giving Lieberman a legitimate platform in the first place), here's what Harris had to say:
"[H]is essay does not own up to the views he has expressed elsewhere, or, no less important, to the ugly words he has chosen to express them."
In other words, even the AJC - no bastion of progressive Zionism - realizes just how pathetically hollow Lieberman's op-ed is.
(Unfortunately, Harris refuses to condemn Lieberman outright as an irreparable danger to Israeli democracy. Instead, he feels obliged to help whitewash Lieberman (using phrases such as, "Avigdor Lieberman has a point" and suggesting that Lieberman's campaign was just populist politicking) - just like other mainstream American Jewish organizations, including the ADL and ZOA.
But Lieberman is not the only example. Yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu spoke in his polished English to George Mitchell, promising to honor "all international commitments" made by Israel. But here's what his protege, Likud MK Gilad Erdan, had to say today - in Hebrew - about Tzipi Livni's refusal to join a government that didn't support a two-state solution:
"It's sad that Ms. [Livni] is so worried about Palestinian interests that she's ready to damage national unity and the Israeli interest. In doing so, she is placing herself and Kadima on the extreme, hallucinatory left that always justifies the Palestinians, while the residents of the South continue to endure Kassams and the Iranian threat is closer than ever."
In other words, while Netanyahu plays nice in English, his hatchet man brands former Likudnik Livni as an "Arab lover" and "enemy of the State". It all smells very foul.
So each time we hear Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Lieberman, or others kissing up to the American audience, we need to give them a dose of their own medicine and ask: Yes, but what did he say in Hebrew?
I was reminded of that argument this week, after I read Avigdor Lieberman's attempt to portray himself as an A-1 moderate in an op-ed in the New York Jewish Week.
Here is just one of Lieberman's gems: "Yisrael Beiteinu has no objection to the nonviolent expression of opinion. It is violent speech that forms a clear and present danger that we refuse to tolerate."
But what, pray tell, does the man say in Hebrew? Here's just one snippet from the party's platform. Try and find where the party is only opposing "violent speech":
Citizenship Law:
"An important section of Israel's security as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic [sic] state is a law that makes the citizenship contingent on a declaration of loyalty to the State as a Jewish State, to its symbols, to its sovereignty, and to its declaration of independence, and to accepting the obligation to serve the State in military or alternative non-military service. Only he who signs the declaration will be a citizen entitled to full rights and obligations. Whoever refuses will be entitled to the full rights of a permanent resident, without the right to vote or be elected to the Knesset."
Not a word about "violent speech" or even violence as a criterion for anything. If you don't believe me, here's the item in its original Hebrew:
חוק האזרחות
נדבך חשוב לביטחון ישראל כמדינה יהודית, ציונית ודמוקרטית הוא חוק, המתנה קבלת אזרחות בהצהרת נאמנות למדינה כמדינה יהודית, לסמליה, לריבונותה, ולמגילת העצמאות, וקבלת החובה לשרת את המדינה בשירות צבאי או אזרחי חלופי. רק מי שיחתום על ההצהרה יהיה אזרח הזכאי למלוא הזכויות והחובות. מי שיסרב יהיה זכאי למלוא הזכויות של תושב קבע, ללא הזכות לבחור ולהיבחר לכנסת.
Even David Harris of the American Jewish Committee seems embarrassed by Lieberman's sad attempt to dress up in sheep's clothing. In a so-called "rebuttal op-ed" that the Jewish Week prudently ran (although I don't agree with giving Lieberman a legitimate platform in the first place), here's what Harris had to say:
"[H]is essay does not own up to the views he has expressed elsewhere, or, no less important, to the ugly words he has chosen to express them."
In other words, even the AJC - no bastion of progressive Zionism - realizes just how pathetically hollow Lieberman's op-ed is.
(Unfortunately, Harris refuses to condemn Lieberman outright as an irreparable danger to Israeli democracy. Instead, he feels obliged to help whitewash Lieberman (using phrases such as, "Avigdor Lieberman has a point" and suggesting that Lieberman's campaign was just populist politicking) - just like other mainstream American Jewish organizations, including the ADL and ZOA.
But Lieberman is not the only example. Yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu spoke in his polished English to George Mitchell, promising to honor "all international commitments" made by Israel. But here's what his protege, Likud MK Gilad Erdan, had to say today - in Hebrew - about Tzipi Livni's refusal to join a government that didn't support a two-state solution:
"It's sad that Ms. [Livni] is so worried about Palestinian interests that she's ready to damage national unity and the Israeli interest. In doing so, she is placing herself and Kadima on the extreme, hallucinatory left that always justifies the Palestinians, while the residents of the South continue to endure Kassams and the Iranian threat is closer than ever."
In other words, while Netanyahu plays nice in English, his hatchet man brands former Likudnik Livni as an "Arab lover" and "enemy of the State". It all smells very foul.
So each time we hear Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Lieberman, or others kissing up to the American audience, we need to give them a dose of their own medicine and ask: Yes, but what did he say in Hebrew?
Pelosi & Reid Recommend Capitol Power Plant Switch From Coal To Natural Gas
February 26, 2009
Mr. Stephen T. Ayers
Acting Architect of the Capitol
SB-15 U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Switching From Coal To Natural Gas at Capitol Power Plant
Dear Mr. Ayers:
We want to commend your office for working to implement the Green the Capitol Initiative by increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is a shadow that hangs over the success of your and our efforts to improve the environmental performance of the Capitol and the entire Legislative Branch. The Capitol Power Plant (CPP) continues to be the number one source of air pollution and carbon emissions in the District of Columbia and the focal point for criticism from local community and national environmental and public health groups.
Since 1910, as you know, the CPP has continuously provided the Capitol, House and Senate office buildings, and other facilities with steam and chilled water for heating and cooling purposes. The plant remains an important component of the facilities master plan and the future of the Capitol complex, and we know your office has taken steps to make the plant cleaner and more efficient. While your progress has been noteworthy, more must be done to dramatically reduce plant emissions and the CPP’s impact. Since there are not projected to be any economical or feasible technologies to reduce coal-burning emissions soon, there are several steps you should take in the short term to reduce the amount of coal burned at the plant while preparing for a conversion to cleaner burning natural gas.
We encourage you to take advantage of current excess capacity to burn cleaner fuels and reduce pollution. According to the General Accounting Office (GAO) and an independent analysis from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the boilers at the CPP are now running with more capacity than has been historically demanded or anticipated. Even with the new Capitol Visitor Center in operation, these analyses show there is sufficient capacity to further increase the burning of natural gas and still meet energy demands at peak hours.
We are also interested in identifying and supporting funding to retrofit CPP if necessary so that it can operate on 100 percent natural gas. Unfortunately, our staff has received conflicting information and cost estimates on what would actually be required to operate the CPP year-round with exclusively natural gas. If a retrofit of two remaining boilers is indeed required, then we encourage you to develop realistic budget numbers to accomplish the retrofit expeditiously including any costs for the purchase of additional quantities of natural gas. In your budget analysis, it is important to take into account that time is of the essence for converting the fuel of the CPP. Therefore it is our desire that your approach focus on retrofitting at least one of the coal boilers as early as this summer, and the remaining boiler by the end of the year.
While the costs associated with purchasing additional natural gas will certainly be higher, the investment will far outweigh its cost. The switch to natural gas will allow the CPP to dramatically reduce carbon and criteria pollutant emissions, eliminating more than 95 percent of sulfur oxides and at least 50 percent of carbon monoxide. The conversion will also reduce the cost of storing and transporting coal as well as the costs associated with cleaning up the fly ash and waste. Eliminating coal from the fuel mixture should also assist the City of Washington, D.C., in meeting and complying with national air quality standards, and demonstrate that Congress can be a good and conscientious neighbor by mitigating health concerns for residents and workers around Capitol Hill.
Taking this major step toward cleaning up the Capitol Power Plant’s emissions would be an important demonstration of Congress’ willingness to deal with the enormous challenges of global warming, energy independence and our inefficient use of finite fossil fuels. We strongly encourage you to move forward aggressively with us on a comprehensive set of policies for the entire Capitol complex and the entire Legislative Branch to quickly reduce emissions and petroleum consumption through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean alternative fuels.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter.
best regards,
NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House
HARRY REID
Senate Majority Leader
CML stops releasing arrears and BTL data
The Council of Mortgage lenders were happy to publish data free when the housing market was booming. Now, that it is crashing, they have restricted their data to CML "members and associates".
This is what their website says:
We compile and publish a range of statistics on the UK housing and mortgage markets including key data on mortgage lending, arrears and possessions, payment protection insurance and buy-to-let. With effect from January 2009, the full range of data is available only to CML members and associates. Details on how to join the CML can be found in our membership section.
I thought I might try and join. However, it is a little pricy. Here are the membership fees:
The annual subscription for associates is levied from 1 January to 31 December and is currently £6,610 plus a one-off joining fee of £1,525. The subscription is charged on a pro-rata basis for applications approved after January
Does the CML have anything to hide? I think they do. They don't want us to know just how bad the mortgage market has become. Better keep it secret; better keep it out of sight from the likes of Alice Cook and other bloggers.
This is what their website says:
We compile and publish a range of statistics on the UK housing and mortgage markets including key data on mortgage lending, arrears and possessions, payment protection insurance and buy-to-let. With effect from January 2009, the full range of data is available only to CML members and associates. Details on how to join the CML can be found in our membership section.
I thought I might try and join. However, it is a little pricy. Here are the membership fees:
The annual subscription for associates is levied from 1 January to 31 December and is currently £6,610 plus a one-off joining fee of £1,525. The subscription is charged on a pro-rata basis for applications approved after January
Does the CML have anything to hide? I think they do. They don't want us to know just how bad the mortgage market has become. Better keep it secret; better keep it out of sight from the likes of Alice Cook and other bloggers.
House prices down 21 percent
Two years ago, if anyone said that house prices would fall 21 percent, most people would have thought them mad. The UK was the home of ever appreciating property values. This was the land of no more boom and bust.Well, the wildest of the most wild forecasts are coming true. Prices peaked in October 2007, and since then, it has been crash city. Over five years of house price appreciation has been wiped out.
There is more to come.
Police state Britain
Here is a challenge; can anyone reconcile these three statements; all from today's guardian...
On any objective basis, this government has done more to reinforce and strengthen liberty than any since the war.
Jack Straw, Justice Secretary
The government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned Britain's retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database, the Guardian has learned.
The Guardian
Genetic information taken from nearly 1.1 million children is now stored on the national DNA database, official figures show, and campaigners believe that as many as half of them have no criminal convictions.
The Guardian
On any objective basis, this government has done more to reinforce and strengthen liberty than any since the war.
Jack Straw, Justice Secretary
The government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned Britain's retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database, the Guardian has learned.
The Guardian
Genetic information taken from nearly 1.1 million children is now stored on the national DNA database, official figures show, and campaigners believe that as many as half of them have no criminal convictions.
The Guardian
Give back the pension, Goodwin
"I do not agree with your rationale for declining my request that you voluntarily reduce your pension. And indeed I hope that on reflection you will now share my clear view that the losses reported today by the bank which you ran until October cannot justify such a huge award."
Lord Myners' letter to Sir Fred Goodwin
This is so undignified; a minister writing a letter to a disgraced banker demanding that he volunteer to give up his bloated and scandalously generous pension.
Behind this fiasco lies a deeper question; why didn't the government stop Goodwin from taking out such a huge payout when it became necessary to nationalise RBS?
I have my theory. When the issue came up, no one thought it abnormal for a former CEO to run off with a multi-million pound pension. In fact, this was the normal course of affairs, and why should it be any different for the hapless Sir Fred?
The problem became obvious only later, when the public made it clear that it wouldn't wear such a generous payout. By then, Sir Fred's pension was legally untouchable, leading to the humiliating begging letter from Lord Myers today; a correspondence that basically said to Sir Fred "you were such a failure as a banker, but nevertheless, we would like you give us back the money".
Actually, I am beginning to warm to Sir Fred. This man has probably done more than anyone to wreck New Labour's slim chances of being re-elected. Fred the Shred may have just lauched his last big downsizing. Fred's pension will ensure that scores of New Labour MPs will soon be looking for work.
Lord Myners' letter to Sir Fred Goodwin
This is so undignified; a minister writing a letter to a disgraced banker demanding that he volunteer to give up his bloated and scandalously generous pension.
Behind this fiasco lies a deeper question; why didn't the government stop Goodwin from taking out such a huge payout when it became necessary to nationalise RBS?
I have my theory. When the issue came up, no one thought it abnormal for a former CEO to run off with a multi-million pound pension. In fact, this was the normal course of affairs, and why should it be any different for the hapless Sir Fred?
The problem became obvious only later, when the public made it clear that it wouldn't wear such a generous payout. By then, Sir Fred's pension was legally untouchable, leading to the humiliating begging letter from Lord Myers today; a correspondence that basically said to Sir Fred "you were such a failure as a banker, but nevertheless, we would like you give us back the money".
Actually, I am beginning to warm to Sir Fred. This man has probably done more than anyone to wreck New Labour's slim chances of being re-elected. Fred the Shred may have just lauched his last big downsizing. Fred's pension will ensure that scores of New Labour MPs will soon be looking for work.
Drivers Can Pay
Money is tight and social services are being cut. Britain's Liberal Democrats party has proposed to continue all services by simply stopping funding on national highways. As expected, the auto industry responds with platitudes and fear.
Drivers Can Pay
Money is tight and social services are being cut. Britain's Liberal Democrats party has proposed to continue all services by simply stopping funding on national highways. As expected, the auto industry responds with platitudes and fear.
ROOKIES PROMO
The snow promotions continue in Rochester, New York. The pictures below are from a February promo at Rookies Sports Bar. Yuengling fans enjoyed $2.00 Lager pints and $6.50 Lager pitchers on this evening. They had the chance to win some cool winter Yuengling apparel as well. Thanks to our wholesaler, Wright Wisner, for doing such a great job promoting in the New York market.
You can visit the Rookies website at http://www.therookiesbar.com/. Enjoy the pictures below.
You can visit the Rookies website at http://www.therookiesbar.com/. Enjoy the pictures below.
Lib Dems propose scrapping ministerial veto
The Liberal Democrats have launched a draft Freedom Bill detailing the party's plans to restore civil liberties:
The Freedom Bill website states that the Bill is intended to be a consultative document. You can add your views and sign a petition.
See
The Freedom Bill website
Our first draft of the Freedom Bill contains twenty measures to restore the fundamental rights that have been stripped away in recent years. We would:The explanatory note on the Bill's FOI provisions states:
- Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
- Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
- Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
- Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
- Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
- Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
- Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
- Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
- Stop criminalising trespass.
- Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
- Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
- Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
- Prevent bailiffs from using force.
- Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
- Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
- Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
- Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
- Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
- Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.
The Liberal Democrats would bring the rest of the UK in line with Scotland, where exemptions have to pass a higher test of ‘substantial harm’ to public interests, rather than ‘prejudice to’. The current situation allows those who hoard our personal data far too much room for manoeuvre. Public access to information should be as free as possible and requests should only be refused if the release of information into the public domain will cause significant harm to society. The idea of substantial harm featured in the original White Paper preceding the 2000 Act but was eventually watered down. The Liberal Democrats would put an end to such watering down of access to information.The only exemptions the Bill amends as it stands however are those in section 36 of the Act for prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs. As well as repealing the ministerial veto, the Bill would amend section 59 of the Act so that there would be no further right of appeal from the Information Tribunal.
The Freedom Bill website states that the Bill is intended to be a consultative document. You can add your views and sign a petition.
See
The Freedom Bill website
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Team USA Profiles: Alison Crocker
Time for another profile! This time we get to present an athlete who has had great success at a high level in other sports before switching to orienteering just a couple of years ago and already starting to kick some butt. Here is Alison Crocker. Look out for her name at the top of some results lists in the next few years!
1) What's your name?
Alison (Ali) Crocker
2) What's your hometown?
Grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY. Currently in Oxford, UK, but going to move to Amherst, MA in October!
3) Marital status/ kids/ pets
My boyfriend returns from New Zealand tomorrow! For sure no kids though, and not really a pet person. Seem to be allergic to most of them. I like plants though- particularly those that produce yummy food.
4) What's your club?
OUOC - Oxford University Orienteering Club. This year I'm the President and Women's captain. We're organizing the British University championships in 1.5 weeks time, where we'll take on the orienteering powerhouses of Edinburgh and Sheffield Universities!
5) What's your birthday?
August 20, 1984
6) What do you do when not orienteering?
I am studying for my DPhil (=PhD) in astrophysics here in Oxford. I specialize in galaxy evolution, trying to explain why the galaxies we observe look the way they do. Mostly this involves looking at data on my computer, but every once in awhile I get to go somewhere cool and use a telescope (Japan, Holland, Spain x 2) to get more data. I also spend some time doing other sports- running, skiing, cycling.
7) How did you start orienteering?
I orienteered a handful of times while at boarding school in New Hampshire- one of the teachers there took a group of us to local meets, and I really loved it! But then I dislocated my shoulder while orienteering and my rowing coach said I wasn't allowed to do that again.
Six years later, I came to Oxford and met this guy on the running team (ok, my now-boyfriend!) who suggested I come along to a local orienteering event. I went and was completely confused for most of the way around, but had a blast (team members Boris and Kat were on this trip and probably remember). Then have been orienteering as much as possible since then!
8) What are your biggest orienteering successes so far?
I had great races as last years JK Festival of Orienteering here in the UK. I was 8th overall, combining the middle and long race, amid some really good competition. And I was really psyched last year to get my first World Cup point at the middle distance race at the O-ringen. It was a good race for me and squeaked into 40th place!
9) What are your goals for 2009? What are your more long-term orienteering goals?
Major goal this year is to keep improving. I've been a bit hampered by injuries in the past few months, but I hope to have top 10 finishes at British Champs and hopefully get to go to some World Cups sometime over the summer and place a bit higher than last year!
Long-term, I'd like to be consistently competitive internationally. Will definitely try to make WOC teams in future years!
10) What is your most memorable orienteering experience so far?
Probably last year's TioMila or O-ringen. Such a blast having so many people around orienteering, a great atmosphere, great terrain!
11) What are your favorite orienteering disciplines?
Think I like them all! Great to have the variety. I probably get most excited for sprints and relays as they're least frequent. Although I'm not entirely sure I have middle-distance races figured out.
12) What would be your ideal training session?
13) Can you describe a typical training week?
England
Ah yes, my other life - cross-country skiing! So cross-country skiing definitely was my sport before coming over to mostly-snowless England. I trained the whole year round, which is lots of running and rollerskiing in the warm months, then chasing the snow in the fall (far north and high elevations to start with), and then racing nearly every weekend all winter. The fall particularly takes lots of travel and I generally took the term off from my studies at Dartmouth to get to early-season snow. I raced for the US at Junior Worlds, U-23s, and World Cups.
I mostly miss the skiing out of the life of an elite skier. Cross-country skiing is really a wonderful sport. It's super-demanding physically, but is also just such a fun motion and you go fast! What I don't miss are the other things that go with being a skier- the endless amount of stress and money that goes into waxing skis, having to carry 16 pairs of skis with me wherever I went, and having to work so hard to avoid getting sick, which generally was unavoidable anyways.
15) Which are tougher, skiers or orienteers?
Oh gosh, unsure! Both wear lycra (obviously makes one tough!). But actually, I think there are two slightly different flavors of mental toughness. In orienteering, you have to push hard physically, but still have the ability to make sensible descisions, which is mentally very demanding. In skiing, you have to just completely surrender all mental faculties to being able to withstand the physical pain of pushing at your absolute limit. Different. But both tough.
16) What is the most annoying/scary/dangerous orienteering hazard?
Two things annoy me. I keep running into trees while reading my map (ok, only happened twice, but still...) Secondly, I often find exactly the deepest place to put a foot into a stream or puddle and end up chest-deep in water.
17) What would you take with you to a deserted island?
An axe. I like axes- I was a lumberjill on the woodsmen's team at Dartmouth. Or a 10m telescope with an integral field unit spectrograph. That'd be sweet too, but maybe less critical to survival!
18) Do you think you are weird enough to be an orienteer? If yes, illustrate with an amusing anecdote.
Yes. I think fractal broccoli is about the coolest thing in the world.
19) If you could be any orienteering features, which would you be?
Sand dunes! They're super neat, plus they actually move.
20) What kind of music makes you invincible against wicked course setters and Canadians?
Music is too distracting before racing for me! But based on a Dartmouth-ski girls tradition love country for post-workout.
1) What's your name?
Alison (Ali) Crocker
2) What's your hometown?
Grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY. Currently in Oxford, UK, but going to move to Amherst, MA in October!
3) Marital status/ kids/ pets
My boyfriend returns from New Zealand tomorrow! For sure no kids though, and not really a pet person. Seem to be allergic to most of them. I like plants though- particularly those that produce yummy food.
4) What's your club?
OUOC - Oxford University Orienteering Club. This year I'm the President and Women's captain. We're organizing the British University championships in 1.5 weeks time, where we'll take on the orienteering powerhouses of Edinburgh and Sheffield Universities!
5) What's your birthday?
August 20, 1984
6) What do you do when not orienteering?I am studying for my DPhil (=PhD) in astrophysics here in Oxford. I specialize in galaxy evolution, trying to explain why the galaxies we observe look the way they do. Mostly this involves looking at data on my computer, but every once in awhile I get to go somewhere cool and use a telescope (Japan, Holland, Spain x 2) to get more data. I also spend some time doing other sports- running, skiing, cycling.
7) How did you start orienteering?
I orienteered a handful of times while at boarding school in New Hampshire- one of the teachers there took a group of us to local meets, and I really loved it! But then I dislocated my shoulder while orienteering and my rowing coach said I wasn't allowed to do that again.
Six years later, I came to Oxford and met this guy on the running team (ok, my now-boyfriend!) who suggested I come along to a local orienteering event. I went and was completely confused for most of the way around, but had a blast (team members Boris and Kat were on this trip and probably remember). Then have been orienteering as much as possible since then!
8) What are your biggest orienteering successes so far?
I had great races as last years JK Festival of Orienteering here in the UK. I was 8th overall, combining the middle and long race, amid some really good competition. And I was really psyched last year to get my first World Cup point at the middle distance race at the O-ringen. It was a good race for me and squeaked into 40th place!
9) What are your goals for 2009? What are your more long-term orienteering goals?
Major goal this year is to keep improving. I've been a bit hampered by injuries in the past few months, but I hope to have top 10 finishes at British Champs and hopefully get to go to some World Cups sometime over the summer and place a bit higher than last year!
Long-term, I'd like to be consistently competitive internationally. Will definitely try to make WOC teams in future years!
10) What is your most memorable orienteering experience so far?Probably last year's TioMila or O-ringen. Such a blast having so many people around orienteering, a great atmosphere, great terrain!
11) What are your favorite orienteering disciplines?
Think I like them all! Great to have the variety. I probably get most excited for sprints and relays as they're least frequent. Although I'm not entirely sure I have middle-distance races figured out.
12) What would be your ideal training session?
A full day, with no pressure of thesis hanging over my head, somewhere with really technical and interesting terrain.
It would start with lots of technical little exercises, line courses and control picks, then a map memory exercise before lunch. Then lunch and some time to hang out, preferably, in the sun with an ice cream van nearby... In the afternoon, more racing-focused, trying to go fast in the terrain, maybe throwing in a peg-relay at the end because those are always fun!
It would start with lots of technical little exercises, line courses and control picks, then a map memory exercise before lunch. Then lunch and some time to hang out, preferably, in the sun with an ice cream van nearby... In the afternoon, more racing-focused, trying to go fast in the terrain, maybe throwing in a peg-relay at the end because those are always fun!
Whew. Don't think typical ever happens. =) If it did, it would go something like this:
Monday- 40 min run + club circuits
Tues- 50 min run (intervals session w/ running club)
Wed- club run 45min-1h
Thurs- 50 min club hill reps + hurdle drills (I run the steeplechase on the track)
Fri- off
Sat- running/track race/orienteering training/rollerskiing
Sun- orienteering event
Monday- 40 min run + club circuits
Tues- 50 min run (intervals session w/ running club)
Wed- club run 45min-1h
Thurs- 50 min club hill reps + hurdle drills (I run the steeplechase on the track)
Fri- off
Sat- running/track race/orienteering training/rollerskiing
Sun- orienteering event
Ah yes, my other life - cross-country skiing! So cross-country skiing definitely was my sport before coming over to mostly-snowless England. I trained the whole year round, which is lots of running and rollerskiing in the warm months, then chasing the snow in the fall (far north and high elevations to start with), and then racing nearly every weekend all winter. The fall particularly takes lots of travel and I generally took the term off from my studies at Dartmouth to get to early-season snow. I raced for the US at Junior Worlds, U-23s, and World Cups.
I mostly miss the skiing out of the life of an elite skier. Cross-country skiing is really a wonderful sport. It's super-demanding physically, but is also just such a fun motion and you go fast! What I don't miss are the other things that go with being a skier- the endless amount of stress and money that goes into waxing skis, having to carry 16 pairs of skis with me wherever I went, and having to work so hard to avoid getting sick, which generally was unavoidable anyways.
15) Which are tougher, skiers or orienteers?
Oh gosh, unsure! Both wear lycra (obviously makes one tough!). But actually, I think there are two slightly different flavors of mental toughness. In orienteering, you have to push hard physically, but still have the ability to make sensible descisions, which is mentally very demanding. In skiing, you have to just completely surrender all mental faculties to being able to withstand the physical pain of pushing at your absolute limit. Different. But both tough.
16) What is the most annoying/scary/dangerous orienteering hazard?
Two things annoy me. I keep running into trees while reading my map (ok, only happened twice, but still...) Secondly, I often find exactly the deepest place to put a foot into a stream or puddle and end up chest-deep in water.
17) What would you take with you to a deserted island?
An axe. I like axes- I was a lumberjill on the woodsmen's team at Dartmouth. Or a 10m telescope with an integral field unit spectrograph. That'd be sweet too, but maybe less critical to survival!
18) Do you think you are weird enough to be an orienteer? If yes, illustrate with an amusing anecdote.Yes. I think fractal broccoli is about the coolest thing in the world.
19) If you could be any orienteering features, which would you be?
Sand dunes! They're super neat, plus they actually move.
20) What kind of music makes you invincible against wicked course setters and Canadians?
Music is too distracting before racing for me! But based on a Dartmouth-ski girls tradition love country for post-workout.
The Moral Order
The notion that there was a way of life characteristic of modern (or industrial) societies that was qualitatively different from the way of life found in pre-modern (or folk) societies goes back, at least, to the German sociologist Max Weber. Modern societies, said Weber, were governed by bureaucracy; the dominant ethos was one of “rationalization,” whereby everything was mechanized, administered according to the dictates of scientific reason. Weber famously compared this situation to that of an “iron cage”: there was no way the citizens of these societies could break free from their constraints. Pre-modern societies, on the other hand, were permeated by animism, by a belief in magic and spirits, and governance came not through bureaucracy but through the charisma of gifted leaders. The decline of magic that accompanied the transition to modernity Weber called die Entzauberung der Welt–the disenchantment of the world.
The distinction between these two fundamental types of social orders emerged in a variety of contexts in the decades that followed. Thus Ferdinand Tönnies saw the two in terms of Gemeinschaft (community) vs. Gesellschaft (society, especially the culture of business), noting that whereas the former was characterized by bonds of kinship or friendship, the latter was notable for the preponderance of impersonal or contractual relations. Linguist Edward Sapir, in turn, cast the dichotomy in terms of “genuine” vs. “spurious” cultures, and eventually the American anthropologist Robert Redfield would label it the “moral vs. the technical order.” In one of his last books, The Primitive World and Its Transformations, Redfield tried to argue that the technical order would eventually give rise to a new moral order; but it was finally not very convincing. Ultimately, Redfield believed that while the human race had made great advances in the technical order, it had made virtually no progress in the moral order–the knowledge of how to live, as it were–and that because of this, the human prospect was rather dim.
Indeed, for all one can say about the scientific inaccuracy of the pre-modern world, at least it was imbued with meaning. This is not the case with the modern industrial-corporate-consumer state, which expands technologically and economically, but to no other end than expansion itself. As the sociologist Georg Simmel wrote over a century ago, if you make money the center of your value system, then finally you have no value system, because money is not a value. All of these writers (a list that includes Franz Boas, Arthur Koestler, Jacques Ellul, and Lewis Mumford, inter alia) were pessimistic because they could see no way of reversing the direction of historical development. It was obvious that as time went on, the technical order was not merely overtaking the moral order, but actually obliterating it. This loss of meaning does much to account for the rise of the secular-religious movements of the twentieth century, including Communism, Fascism, Existentialism, Postmodernism, and so on. It also accounts for the depth and extent of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States. For there is no real meaning in the corporate-consumer state, which is at once empty and idiotic. On some level, everybody knows this.
We might, then, characterize the crashes of 1929 and 2008 as spiritual rather than strictly economic in nature. John Maynard Keynes saw the fluctuations of the stock market as being governed by human psychology, i.e. by faith and fear. So while in the case of both crashes, one can point to financial “bubbles” and hyperinflated investments, the core of meaninglessness at the center of the consumer-driven economy means that a boom-and-bust cycle is inevitable. In the case of the Depression, it took a war–which involved a huge mobilization of Meaning–to pull us out of it. At the present time, the situation is very different: American wars are now neo-colonial and self-destructive, a drain on the economy. They can only make the situation worse. Hence, the U.S. government has turned to massive bailouts of financial institutions as a solution, but this is analogous to putting band aids on the body of a cancer patient: the core of the problem remains untouched.
And what is the core of the problem? Basically, that the technical order is meaningless; that the American Way of Life finally has no moral center. Indeed, I doubt whether it ever did. In Freedom Just Around the Corner, historian Walter McDougall characterizes the United States as a “nation of hustlers,” going back to its earliest days. What began as trade and opportunism finally issued out into a full-blown crisis of meaning, and it is this that now constitutes the crisis of late capitalism.
It is with this understanding that the political scientist Benjamin Barber recently (9 February 2009) published an article in The Nation magazine claiming that the only thing that could save us now was “a revolution in spirit.” Barber points out that President Obama’s economic advisory team (which includes Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers) is squarely in the tradition of neoliberalism and the Corporate State. How, then, can we possibly expect the “change that makes a difference” that Obama promised the American people during his presidential campaign? As Barber notes, “it is hard to discern any movement toward a wholesale rethinking of the dominant role of the market in our society. No one is questioning the impulse to rehabilitate the consumer market as the driver of American commerce.” His solution is to “refashion the cultural ethos” by shifting our values from shopping to the life of the mind. We need, he says, a new cabinet post for the arts and humanities, which will somehow get Americans to think in terms of creativity and the imagination, not in terms of mindless consumerism. “Imagine,” writes Barber, “all the things we could do without having to shop: play and pray, create and relate, read and walk, listen and procreate–make art, make friends, make homes, make love.” “Idealism,” he concludes, “must become the new realism.”
How is this change going to happen? What are the political forces that will bring it about? Barber doesn’t say, and I confess that when I read his article, I couldn’t help wondering if the man had recently suffered some kind of mental lapse. What also came to mind was a book written in 1977 by the American sociologist John Robinson, entitled How Americans Use Time. Robinson discovered that on an average daily basis, five minutes were spent on reading books (of any kind), one minute on making music, thirty seconds attending theater and concerts, and less than thirty seconds on visits to art galleries or museums. As depressing as these figures are, they are surely much worse thirty-two years later, given the heavy corporatization of the culture, the dramatic increase in the attention paid to television and video screens in general, and the widely acknowledged decay of the American educational system. Indeed, the square footage of shopping malls in the U.S.–4 billion as of ten years ago–vastly exceeds that of schools and churches. All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about as much interest in the life of the mind as your average armadillo. Rather than being on the verge of some possible cultural renaissance, or a reversal of our entire history, what we are now witnessing is the slow-motion suicide of the nation, with Mr. Obama guiding us, in a genteel and intelligent way, into the grave. Indeed, what more can he, or anybody, do at this point? For despite appearances to the contrary, Professor Barber must know that substantive political change is not a matter of voluntarism or exhortatory messages or a purported cabinet post in the arts and humanities. These are little more than jokes. To buck 200-plus years of history requires massive political power moving in the opposite direction, and no such force has emerged on the horizon.
Nor will it. There is no record of a dying civilization reassessing its values (or lack of values, in our case) and altering its trajectory. Whether the type of moral order that Professor Barber imagines can ever become a reality somewhere on the planet is certainly worth debating. But what is not worth debating is whether such a moral order might make an appearance on American soil. History is about many things, but one thing it is not about is miracles.
©Morris Berman, 2009
The distinction between these two fundamental types of social orders emerged in a variety of contexts in the decades that followed. Thus Ferdinand Tönnies saw the two in terms of Gemeinschaft (community) vs. Gesellschaft (society, especially the culture of business), noting that whereas the former was characterized by bonds of kinship or friendship, the latter was notable for the preponderance of impersonal or contractual relations. Linguist Edward Sapir, in turn, cast the dichotomy in terms of “genuine” vs. “spurious” cultures, and eventually the American anthropologist Robert Redfield would label it the “moral vs. the technical order.” In one of his last books, The Primitive World and Its Transformations, Redfield tried to argue that the technical order would eventually give rise to a new moral order; but it was finally not very convincing. Ultimately, Redfield believed that while the human race had made great advances in the technical order, it had made virtually no progress in the moral order–the knowledge of how to live, as it were–and that because of this, the human prospect was rather dim.
Indeed, for all one can say about the scientific inaccuracy of the pre-modern world, at least it was imbued with meaning. This is not the case with the modern industrial-corporate-consumer state, which expands technologically and economically, but to no other end than expansion itself. As the sociologist Georg Simmel wrote over a century ago, if you make money the center of your value system, then finally you have no value system, because money is not a value. All of these writers (a list that includes Franz Boas, Arthur Koestler, Jacques Ellul, and Lewis Mumford, inter alia) were pessimistic because they could see no way of reversing the direction of historical development. It was obvious that as time went on, the technical order was not merely overtaking the moral order, but actually obliterating it. This loss of meaning does much to account for the rise of the secular-religious movements of the twentieth century, including Communism, Fascism, Existentialism, Postmodernism, and so on. It also accounts for the depth and extent of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States. For there is no real meaning in the corporate-consumer state, which is at once empty and idiotic. On some level, everybody knows this.
We might, then, characterize the crashes of 1929 and 2008 as spiritual rather than strictly economic in nature. John Maynard Keynes saw the fluctuations of the stock market as being governed by human psychology, i.e. by faith and fear. So while in the case of both crashes, one can point to financial “bubbles” and hyperinflated investments, the core of meaninglessness at the center of the consumer-driven economy means that a boom-and-bust cycle is inevitable. In the case of the Depression, it took a war–which involved a huge mobilization of Meaning–to pull us out of it. At the present time, the situation is very different: American wars are now neo-colonial and self-destructive, a drain on the economy. They can only make the situation worse. Hence, the U.S. government has turned to massive bailouts of financial institutions as a solution, but this is analogous to putting band aids on the body of a cancer patient: the core of the problem remains untouched.
And what is the core of the problem? Basically, that the technical order is meaningless; that the American Way of Life finally has no moral center. Indeed, I doubt whether it ever did. In Freedom Just Around the Corner, historian Walter McDougall characterizes the United States as a “nation of hustlers,” going back to its earliest days. What began as trade and opportunism finally issued out into a full-blown crisis of meaning, and it is this that now constitutes the crisis of late capitalism.
It is with this understanding that the political scientist Benjamin Barber recently (9 February 2009) published an article in The Nation magazine claiming that the only thing that could save us now was “a revolution in spirit.” Barber points out that President Obama’s economic advisory team (which includes Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers) is squarely in the tradition of neoliberalism and the Corporate State. How, then, can we possibly expect the “change that makes a difference” that Obama promised the American people during his presidential campaign? As Barber notes, “it is hard to discern any movement toward a wholesale rethinking of the dominant role of the market in our society. No one is questioning the impulse to rehabilitate the consumer market as the driver of American commerce.” His solution is to “refashion the cultural ethos” by shifting our values from shopping to the life of the mind. We need, he says, a new cabinet post for the arts and humanities, which will somehow get Americans to think in terms of creativity and the imagination, not in terms of mindless consumerism. “Imagine,” writes Barber, “all the things we could do without having to shop: play and pray, create and relate, read and walk, listen and procreate–make art, make friends, make homes, make love.” “Idealism,” he concludes, “must become the new realism.”
How is this change going to happen? What are the political forces that will bring it about? Barber doesn’t say, and I confess that when I read his article, I couldn’t help wondering if the man had recently suffered some kind of mental lapse. What also came to mind was a book written in 1977 by the American sociologist John Robinson, entitled How Americans Use Time. Robinson discovered that on an average daily basis, five minutes were spent on reading books (of any kind), one minute on making music, thirty seconds attending theater and concerts, and less than thirty seconds on visits to art galleries or museums. As depressing as these figures are, they are surely much worse thirty-two years later, given the heavy corporatization of the culture, the dramatic increase in the attention paid to television and video screens in general, and the widely acknowledged decay of the American educational system. Indeed, the square footage of shopping malls in the U.S.–4 billion as of ten years ago–vastly exceeds that of schools and churches. All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about as much interest in the life of the mind as your average armadillo. Rather than being on the verge of some possible cultural renaissance, or a reversal of our entire history, what we are now witnessing is the slow-motion suicide of the nation, with Mr. Obama guiding us, in a genteel and intelligent way, into the grave. Indeed, what more can he, or anybody, do at this point? For despite appearances to the contrary, Professor Barber must know that substantive political change is not a matter of voluntarism or exhortatory messages or a purported cabinet post in the arts and humanities. These are little more than jokes. To buck 200-plus years of history requires massive political power moving in the opposite direction, and no such force has emerged on the horizon.
Nor will it. There is no record of a dying civilization reassessing its values (or lack of values, in our case) and altering its trajectory. Whether the type of moral order that Professor Barber imagines can ever become a reality somewhere on the planet is certainly worth debating. But what is not worth debating is whether such a moral order might make an appearance on American soil. History is about many things, but one thing it is not about is miracles.
©Morris Berman, 2009
February NeighborWorks Alert
NeighborWorks America Applauds the Obama Administration’s Efforts to Combat ForeclosureIn just over one month since taking office, President Barack Obama has taken significant steps to address the economic crisis. On February 17, he signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and one day later announced his Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. He also reaffirmed his administration's commitment to taking on the banking and foreclosure crises in his Address to a Joint Session of Congress on February 25.
NeighborWorks America applauds these efforts, which take important steps to get ahead of future foreclosures and provide substantial funding for initiatives including homeownership, low-income housing, affordable housing, energy efficiency improvements and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. View more information:
News Release: NeighborWorks America Applauds the Obama Administration's Efforts to Combat Foreclosure
NeighborWorks Summary: President Obama's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan (Watch this page for more details on the plan, after they are announced March 4.)
NeighborWorks Analysis: Housing Provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
NeighborWorks Highlights: President Obama Addresses Joint Session of Congress
Also in this Issue
News:
- NFMC Program Releases Second Report to Congress
- Leadership on Homeownership Counseling Promoted as Key Role for CDOs at NeighborWorks Symposium on Homeownership
- NeighborWorks America Invests $230,000 into Green Residential Rehabilitation Projects that Focus on Energy Conservation
- NeighborWorks America Works to Thwart Foreclosure 'Rescue' ScamsOffers Consumers Tips to Avoid Being Scammed
- NeighborWorks America Joins HOPE NOW and Queen Latifah in Kicking Off ‘Bringing Hope Home’ Campaign and Bus Tour in Newark
- NeighborWorks Center for Foreclosure Solutions Receives Donation from Smith Barney
Public Sector Alert:
- HUD Allocates More Than $10 Billion of Recovery Act Funding
- Treasury Department Touts Expanded Tax Credit for First-Time HomebuyersCredit Offers Up to $8,000 to Qualifying Taxpayers Now. See also NeighborWorks America's First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Quick Reference Guide.
- Revisiting the Community Reinvestment Act: Perspectives on the Future of the Community Reinvestment Act
Funding Opportunities
- Smart Growth Implementation Assistance 2009 Request for Applications, deadline April 23
- Bank of America Charitable Foundation Initiative Neighborhood Excellence Initiative Award Applications
Resources
Supreme Court Hears Challenge to Identity-Theft Law in Immigration Cases
The Supreme Court is deciding if people who make up Social Security numbers should be punished more severely when those numbers actually belong to someone. Some prosecutors say this is I.D. theft, others argue that point. DP
By ADAM LIPTAK and JULIA PRESTON
WASHINGTON — A federal identity-theft law that has become a favorite tool of the government in immigration prosecutions appeared imperiled on Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard arguments about it.
Prosecutors have relied on the law to seek or threaten two-year sentence extensions in immigration cases against people who used fake Social Security numbers that turned out to belong to real people.
“There’s a basic problem here,” said Justice John Paul Stevens. “You get an extra two years if it just so happens that the number you picked out of the air belonged to somebody else.”
Other justices also expressed skepticism about the government’s interpretation of the law.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
By ADAM LIPTAK and JULIA PRESTON
WASHINGTON — A federal identity-theft law that has become a favorite tool of the government in immigration prosecutions appeared imperiled on Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard arguments about it.
Prosecutors have relied on the law to seek or threaten two-year sentence extensions in immigration cases against people who used fake Social Security numbers that turned out to belong to real people.
“There’s a basic problem here,” said Justice John Paul Stevens. “You get an extra two years if it just so happens that the number you picked out of the air belonged to somebody else.”
Other justices also expressed skepticism about the government’s interpretation of the law.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
Secretary Seeks Review of Immigration Raid
Obama supporters were dismayed when 28 illegal immigrants were arrested after a work place raid. But Sec. Napolitano says she did not know about it and is investigating. DP
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered a review of a raid at an engine plant in Washington State that resulted in the arrests of 28 people suspected of being illegal immigrants.
A high-level official in the Department of Homeland Security said that Ms. Napolitano had not been informed about the raid on Tuesday before it happened, and that she was seeking details about its planning and scope.
“She was not happy about it because it’s inconsistent with her position, and the president’s position on these matters,” said the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the secretary had not authorized the conversation.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered a review of a raid at an engine plant in Washington State that resulted in the arrests of 28 people suspected of being illegal immigrants.
A high-level official in the Department of Homeland Security said that Ms. Napolitano had not been informed about the raid on Tuesday before it happened, and that she was seeking details about its planning and scope.
“She was not happy about it because it’s inconsistent with her position, and the president’s position on these matters,” said the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the secretary had not authorized the conversation.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
Struggling illegal immigrants yearn for reform
The economy is hard on immigrants too. This couple was being sponsored for citizenship by his employer, but he lost his job when the plant closed. They have been here 20 years and have to start over now. DP
By Joseph Ruzich | SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE
Sal didn't just get laid off from his factory job in 2001; the Cicero resident also lost out on a chance to become an American citizen.
At that time, Sal and his wife—who both came from Mexico 20 years ago—were being sponsored for citizenship by his employer. But when the plant closed, his wish of living in America without the constant fear of being deported evaporated.
"The entire [citizenship application] process was stopped," said Sal, 39, who entered the U.S. with a work visa that was good for only six months. "It was very frustrating for us," he said. "We really thought we would finally become citizens."
Sal, who has two American-born children, a 9-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son, said he plans to apply for citizenship again but added that doing so is very expensive.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
By Joseph Ruzich | SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE
Sal didn't just get laid off from his factory job in 2001; the Cicero resident also lost out on a chance to become an American citizen.
At that time, Sal and his wife—who both came from Mexico 20 years ago—were being sponsored for citizenship by his employer. But when the plant closed, his wish of living in America without the constant fear of being deported evaporated.
"The entire [citizenship application] process was stopped," said Sal, 39, who entered the U.S. with a work visa that was good for only six months. "It was very frustrating for us," he said. "We really thought we would finally become citizens."
Sal, who has two American-born children, a 9-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son, said he plans to apply for citizenship again but added that doing so is very expensive.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
HUD Allocates More Than $10 Billion of Recovery Act Funding
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on February 25 allocated nearly 75 percent of its funding, or $10.1 billion, made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Recovery Act includes $13.61 billion for projects and programs administered by HUD, 75 percent of which was allocated to recipients today — only one week after President Obama signed the Act into law. Learn more.
Treasury Department Touts Expanded Tax Credit for First-Time Homebuyers
In an ongoing effort to deliver on swift implementation of the Obama Administration's recovery, stability and affordability plans, the U.S. Department of the Treasury touted today the availability of an expanded tax break for first-time homebuyers — a provision under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that will make up to $8,000 available now to qualifying taxpayers who buy homes this year. Read Treasury Department press release. See also NeighborWorks America's First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Quick Reference Guide.
Diversity Plan for Public Schools, Using Hebrew
This group of Jewish Americans is trying to keep their own culture alive in the NJ school system. School officials have proposed alternative plans that might work for everyone. DP
By PETER APPLEBOME
ENGLEWOOD, N.J.: The surprise wasn’t that a meeting envisioned as an informal conversation among about 10 people drew more than 300 from across Bergen County. It was that something like Raphael Bachrach’s modest proposal — and the fevered debate it has set off — didn’t happen sooner here or someplace else like it.
Mr. Bachrach is a Jewish parent in a suburban school district where a majority of Jews are Orthodox and send their children to Jewish day schools. A year ago, he proposed a Hebrew-language charter school as an alternative.
That was turned down, but local school officials proposed an alternative. The district has a highly regarded program where elementary school students learn in both English and Spanish. Englewood’s interim superintendent, Richard Segall, raised the possibility of a similar dual-language program — strictly nonreligious — in Hebrew and English, that would attract both Jews and non-Jews. It would be the first public school Hebrew-English program of its kind in the country.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
By PETER APPLEBOME
ENGLEWOOD, N.J.: The surprise wasn’t that a meeting envisioned as an informal conversation among about 10 people drew more than 300 from across Bergen County. It was that something like Raphael Bachrach’s modest proposal — and the fevered debate it has set off — didn’t happen sooner here or someplace else like it.
Mr. Bachrach is a Jewish parent in a suburban school district where a majority of Jews are Orthodox and send their children to Jewish day schools. A year ago, he proposed a Hebrew-language charter school as an alternative.
That was turned down, but local school officials proposed an alternative. The district has a highly regarded program where elementary school students learn in both English and Spanish. Englewood’s interim superintendent, Richard Segall, raised the possibility of a similar dual-language program — strictly nonreligious — in Hebrew and English, that would attract both Jews and non-Jews. It would be the first public school Hebrew-English program of its kind in the country.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
Immigrant-Owned Businesses Contribution To The Economy Detailed In New Report
This new report looks at business ownership rates for immigrants and the findings are very important. Many people will be surprised at the good news. Please go to the full report, it is very interesting! DP
First Research To Study Ownership Rates, Business Income
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Immigrant-owned businesses generate approximately
11.6 percent of all business income in the United States. Moreover,
immigrants own 11.2 percent of businesses with $100,000 or more in sales and
10.8 percent of all businesses with employees. These figures are contained in
a report released today by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business
Administration.
“This report is the first time that immigrant business ownership rates and
immigrant-owned businesses contributions to the economy have been studied
in detail,” said Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist for the Office of
Advocacy. “These findings can make a significant contribution to public policy
debates,” he added.
The report, Estimating the Contribution of Immigrant Business Owners to the
U.S. Economy, written by Dr. Robert Fairlie with funding from the Office of Advocacy, analyzes data from the 2000 Census five percent Public Use Microdata Sample, the 1996-2007 Current Population Survey, and the 1992 Characteristics of Business Owners.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
First Research To Study Ownership Rates, Business Income
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Immigrant-owned businesses generate approximately
11.6 percent of all business income in the United States. Moreover,
immigrants own 11.2 percent of businesses with $100,000 or more in sales and
10.8 percent of all businesses with employees. These figures are contained in
a report released today by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business
Administration.
“This report is the first time that immigrant business ownership rates and
immigrant-owned businesses contributions to the economy have been studied
in detail,” said Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist for the Office of
Advocacy. “These findings can make a significant contribution to public policy
debates,” he added.
The report, Estimating the Contribution of Immigrant Business Owners to the
U.S. Economy, written by Dr. Robert Fairlie with funding from the Office of Advocacy, analyzes data from the 2000 Census five percent Public Use Microdata Sample, the 1996-2007 Current Population Survey, and the 1992 Characteristics of Business Owners.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
The Google cloud speaks 7 new languages
Today felt like a normal day. I woke up and went through my normal morning routine: got my clothes together, checked the news, watched a few minutes of the Golden Girls (hey – just being honest!), and drove off through the gray day towards work. Indeed, it turned out to be an appropriately "cloudy" day.
Because without any work on my part, without any software updates or downloads, hardware patches or rewiring, today, our Google Translate team added seven new languages to our Google Translate tool in the cloud. This means that anyone using Google Translate technologies, including all the Google Search Appliance customers currently using Cross-Language Enterprise Search (a recent feature added to our Enterprise Labs), instantly had their repertoire of languages increase to include Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician. With this launch, Google Translate has now achieved automatic translations between 41 languages (that's 1640 language pairs!).
This, to me, is the beauty of the cloud, and the beauty of where we're headed in Enterprise search: securely bridging the gap that had existed in traditional enterprise deployments, bringing together the best of the corporate network and the cloud. With the Google Search Appliance, you get a hardware unit that packages the powerful algorithms of Google.com, and which allows you to search all of your internal documents securely behind your corporate firewall. While this hardware sits safely in your office, tools like Cross-Language Enterprise Search, Google Apps integration and Google Sites integration, allow an IT department to tap into the unique features and "versionless" innovation possible only in the cloud.
Previously, bringing seven new languages into an enterprise search solution would have required the addition of entirely new hardware or software, taking hours or days to update and to train people on. Today, the cloud allows these innovations to flow directly into the Google Search Appliance, for any and all to take advantage of. Any Google Search Appliance customers interested in utilizing this tool and others like it can download these features in our Enterprise Labs.
Here's to future innovations - or as some might say:
"gelecek yenilikler"
"นวัตกรรมในอนาคต"
"jövőbeni innovációk"
"tulevikus uuendused"
"ardhmen novacioneve"
"innovazzjonijiet fil-futur"
"innovacións futuras"
And to all on the Google Translate team: thank you for being a friend.
Because without any work on my part, without any software updates or downloads, hardware patches or rewiring, today, our Google Translate team added seven new languages to our Google Translate tool in the cloud. This means that anyone using Google Translate technologies, including all the Google Search Appliance customers currently using Cross-Language Enterprise Search (a recent feature added to our Enterprise Labs), instantly had their repertoire of languages increase to include Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician. With this launch, Google Translate has now achieved automatic translations between 41 languages (that's 1640 language pairs!).
This, to me, is the beauty of the cloud, and the beauty of where we're headed in Enterprise search: securely bridging the gap that had existed in traditional enterprise deployments, bringing together the best of the corporate network and the cloud. With the Google Search Appliance, you get a hardware unit that packages the powerful algorithms of Google.com, and which allows you to search all of your internal documents securely behind your corporate firewall. While this hardware sits safely in your office, tools like Cross-Language Enterprise Search, Google Apps integration and Google Sites integration, allow an IT department to tap into the unique features and "versionless" innovation possible only in the cloud.
Previously, bringing seven new languages into an enterprise search solution would have required the addition of entirely new hardware or software, taking hours or days to update and to train people on. Today, the cloud allows these innovations to flow directly into the Google Search Appliance, for any and all to take advantage of. Any Google Search Appliance customers interested in utilizing this tool and others like it can download these features in our Enterprise Labs.
Here's to future innovations - or as some might say:
"gelecek yenilikler"
"นวัตกรรมในอนาคต"
"jövőbeni innovációk"
"tulevikus uuendused"
"ardhmen novacioneve"
"innovazzjonijiet fil-futur"
"innovacións futuras"
And to all on the Google Translate team: thank you for being a friend.
President Obama & CO2 Allowance Auction Program
AAEA supports a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide (CO2) and we solve the environmental justice 'hot spots' issue through our Environmental Justice Allowance Reserve reocmmendation. AAEA has also formulated an Elderly Allowance Reserve. AAEA believes the CO2 cap-and-trade program should be modeled on the successful Clean Air Act Acid Rain Program.
In the Acid Rain Program Allowances were allocated for each year beginning in 1995. Phase I included certain electricity generating units. EPA allocated allowances at an emission rate of 2.5 pounds of SO2/mmBtu (million British thermal units) of heat input, multiplied by the unit's baseline mmBtu (the average fossil fuel consumed from 1985 through 1987). In Phase II, which began in the year 2000, EPA expanded the group of affected sources to include virtually all units over 25 MW in generating capacity. EPA allocated allowances to each unit at an emission rate of 1.2 pounds of SO2/mmBtu of heat input, multiplied by the unit's baseline. Beginning in 2010, the Act places a cap at 8.95 million on the number of allowances issued to units each year. This effectively caps emissions at 8.95 million tons annually and ensures that the mandated emissions reductions are maintained over time. (EPA)
To supply the auctions with allowances, EPA set aside an Auction Allowance Reserve of approximately 2.8 percent of the total annual allowances allocated to all units. During Phase I, when the allocated allowances totaled 5.7 million allowances annually, 150,000 allowances were withheld every year for auctions. During Phase II, when allowance allocations total 8.95 million allowances annually, 250,000 allowances were withheld annually for auctions.
For the first 13 years, the auctions were conducted for EPA by the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). CBOT was not compensated by EPA for its services nor allowed to charge fees. Beginning with the fourteenth annual auction in March 2006, CBOT chose to stop administering the auctions for EPA. This means EPA now handles all aspects of the auctions. (EPA)
In the Acid Rain Program Allowances were allocated for each year beginning in 1995. Phase I included certain electricity generating units. EPA allocated allowances at an emission rate of 2.5 pounds of SO2/mmBtu (million British thermal units) of heat input, multiplied by the unit's baseline mmBtu (the average fossil fuel consumed from 1985 through 1987). In Phase II, which began in the year 2000, EPA expanded the group of affected sources to include virtually all units over 25 MW in generating capacity. EPA allocated allowances to each unit at an emission rate of 1.2 pounds of SO2/mmBtu of heat input, multiplied by the unit's baseline. Beginning in 2010, the Act places a cap at 8.95 million on the number of allowances issued to units each year. This effectively caps emissions at 8.95 million tons annually and ensures that the mandated emissions reductions are maintained over time. (EPA)
To supply the auctions with allowances, EPA set aside an Auction Allowance Reserve of approximately 2.8 percent of the total annual allowances allocated to all units. During Phase I, when the allocated allowances totaled 5.7 million allowances annually, 150,000 allowances were withheld every year for auctions. During Phase II, when allowance allocations total 8.95 million allowances annually, 250,000 allowances were withheld annually for auctions.
For the first 13 years, the auctions were conducted for EPA by the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). CBOT was not compensated by EPA for its services nor allowed to charge fees. Beginning with the fourteenth annual auction in March 2006, CBOT chose to stop administering the auctions for EPA. This means EPA now handles all aspects of the auctions. (EPA)
AAEA believes President Obama should pattern his cap-and-trade program after the Acid Rain Program. President Obama currently wants to auction the initial allocation of allowances and use the proceeds to fund renewable energy projects and provide additional payments to low-income families to help them pay for any increase in utility bills. Proceeds from the auction would come in to the federal government and then would be redistributed as described above. We beleive this recommendation is too complex and will also be politically bludgeoned at a 'carbon tax.' All stakeholders agree the Acid Rain Program was a complete success. The CO2 cap-and-trade program could be equally successful if it is modeled after the Acid Rain Program.
LAS VEGAS LOUNGE
Philly samplings continue! In the spirit of the winter season, the team in Philly was out sampling Black & Tan this month. Our dark beers, Porter and Black & Tan, are brewed year round, and Yuengling enthusiasts definitely enjoy raising their glasses up in the winter months when the temperatures are down. We were at the Las Vegas Lounge for this sampling on the first Friday in February. The bar is located in Philadelphia at 7th & Chestnut Sts. After sampling the product, patrons enjoyed Black & Tan bottles for the special price of $2.50 during the Friday Happy Hour. For those who prefer the Traditional Lager, the taps were flowing filling 20oz glasses all evening. Thanks to everyone for coming out and enjoying the evening with us. You can visit the Las Vegas Lounge website at http://www.lasvegaslounge.com/.
If you are in the Philadelphia area, stay tuned to the Yuengling Blog for information on the events of Philly Beer Week!
If you are in the Philadelphia area, stay tuned to the Yuengling Blog for information on the events of Philly Beer Week!
House prices are falling fast....
I am on the road at the moment, so no time to chart the latest Nationwide price index. However, come the weekend, and I have time, this latest number will make for a very pretty picture. Prices are coming down; liberation is at hand....
House prices fell by 1.8% in February as confidence in the UK property market failed to pick up, according to the Nationwide building society. The lender said that the average UK property had fallen in value by 17.6% over the past 12 months, to £147,746.
Although cuts in interest rates have made mortgage repayments cheaper for some, this has yet to be seen in increased sales, it said. But it added that "curiosity" in the market was growing.
House prices fell by 1.8% in February as confidence in the UK property market failed to pick up, according to the Nationwide building society. The lender said that the average UK property had fallen in value by 17.6% over the past 12 months, to £147,746.
Although cuts in interest rates have made mortgage repayments cheaper for some, this has yet to be seen in increased sales, it said. But it added that "curiosity" in the market was growing.
Time to rent
Frustrated property sellers equals happy renters.
The cost of renting a home has dropped as frustrated property sellers have been flooding the market, according to two separate surveys. Owners were choosing to let rather than sell, having accepted that property prices were likely to stay low for some time, said property website Globrix.
Cities such as Manchester continue to have an oversupply of new-build apartments, said Findaproperty.com. Its research chief said landlords were adding perks to attract tenants.
The cost of renting a home has dropped as frustrated property sellers have been flooding the market, according to two separate surveys. Owners were choosing to let rather than sell, having accepted that property prices were likely to stay low for some time, said property website Globrix.
Cities such as Manchester continue to have an oversupply of new-build apartments, said Findaproperty.com. Its research chief said landlords were adding perks to attract tenants.
RBS - the loss of the century
Only the century? This is the biggest loss in UK corporate history.
Now it is time for the UK taxpayer to suck it up. However, I hope no one is going to start complaining. We brought this upon ourselves. This is judgement, my friends; righteous judgement for transgressions committed in the past.
We allowed RBS to run wild; we talked up the housing market; we believed it all and it all proved false. House prices do not keep on rising for ever, and loans must be repaid.
My only hope is that we might learn something from this sorry mess.
Now it is time for the UK taxpayer to suck it up. However, I hope no one is going to start complaining. We brought this upon ourselves. This is judgement, my friends; righteous judgement for transgressions committed in the past.
We allowed RBS to run wild; we talked up the housing market; we believed it all and it all proved false. House prices do not keep on rising for ever, and loans must be repaid.
My only hope is that we might learn something from this sorry mess.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Abu Vilan on what went wrong, Part 2
When Livni failed to form a government with the far more moderate outgoing Knesset in the fall, she lost her chance to run from the strength of being the incumbent prime minister. (Although this might also have happened if Olmert had been willing to step down as caretaker prime minister in favor of his successor as head of the Kadima party.)
Abu sees Kadima and Labor dooming themselves if they choose to be in a coalition with a Likud-led government. He sees Labor’s precipitous decline from being Israel’s governing party in the early 1990s and again in 1999-2000, to a record low of 13 seats today, as stemming from its decision to serve as a junior partner in coalition with Sharon’s Likud and more recently with Olmert’s Kadima.
You may recall that Ariel Sharon formed Kadima as a centrist offshoot of Likud as a result of his new policy of unilateral withdrawals, beginning with Gaza in 2005, and with further withdrawals anticipated from parts of the West Bank thereafter. These were plans that his successor Ehud Olmert intended to pursue but were waylaid by the war with Hezbollah in 2006, attacks from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and the mounting corruption probes against Olmert.
Abu is not impressed by either Livni’s abilities as a national leader or her moderate/dovish credentials. And much of Kadima’s Knesset list consists of relative hawks or right-wingers, including Shaul Mofaz, the party list’s number two name and Livni’s main rival for leadership. Still, many former Labor and Meretz voters were attracted to Livni by the exciting prospect of a second woman prime minister and their view that she is a moderate. And in contrast to the 2006 election when most Kadima seats were drawn from Likud, this time out, most Kadima voters were traditional supporters of Labor and Meretz.
Abu sees a need for a new configuration of the center-left and left that would reclaim these voters. He also notes that 70,000 Israelis "wasted" their votes by casting ballots for several lists on the left that individually failed to pass the threshold of two percent required to make it into the Knesset. These included Greens, a Green Leaf party (dedicated to the legalization of marijuana), the liberal Orthodox Meimad (who had left its alliance with Labor to ally with a group of Greens), and an independent list formed by a rebel personality from Labor, Efraim Sneh. Abu hopes for an alliance that would include Labor’s traditional base as well as these 70,000 "lost" voters. In his view, Meretz can no longer sustain itself as a progressive beacon whose policies are then adopted by the larger parties; Meretz would need to be part of a larger bloc contending directly for power.
As for peace, he sees Israel as having an opportunity to pursue a treaty with Syria, which in turn would weaken Hezbollah and Iran as threats. But Israel would have to be willing to pay the price in terms of losing control over the Golan Heights.
He’d like to see Israel take up the Arab League peace offer. He noted approvingly that the refugees’ component of the Arab offer mentions UN Resolution 194, which he reads as providing Israel with sovereign discretion on who is admitted to Israel, thereby defanging the "right of return" issue.
Abu mentioned the 250 tunnels used for smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, but still movingly expressed compassion for the people of the Gaza Strip, indicating that Israel destroyed or damaged 10 percent of the buildings there. In noting the heavy toll of civilians (more than half of the 1300 Palestinians killed), he recalled Israel’s state of national mourning over its 3,500 war dead in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 – a magnitude of loss still felt by Israel 35 years later. He said that this death toll for Palestinians, especially from this smaller population of Gaza, will have a lasting impact. (Click here for Ron Skolnik's analysis of Abu's talk.)
Abu sees Kadima and Labor dooming themselves if they choose to be in a coalition with a Likud-led government. He sees Labor’s precipitous decline from being Israel’s governing party in the early 1990s and again in 1999-2000, to a record low of 13 seats today, as stemming from its decision to serve as a junior partner in coalition with Sharon’s Likud and more recently with Olmert’s Kadima.
You may recall that Ariel Sharon formed Kadima as a centrist offshoot of Likud as a result of his new policy of unilateral withdrawals, beginning with Gaza in 2005, and with further withdrawals anticipated from parts of the West Bank thereafter. These were plans that his successor Ehud Olmert intended to pursue but were waylaid by the war with Hezbollah in 2006, attacks from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and the mounting corruption probes against Olmert.
Abu is not impressed by either Livni’s abilities as a national leader or her moderate/dovish credentials. And much of Kadima’s Knesset list consists of relative hawks or right-wingers, including Shaul Mofaz, the party list’s number two name and Livni’s main rival for leadership. Still, many former Labor and Meretz voters were attracted to Livni by the exciting prospect of a second woman prime minister and their view that she is a moderate. And in contrast to the 2006 election when most Kadima seats were drawn from Likud, this time out, most Kadima voters were traditional supporters of Labor and Meretz.
Abu sees a need for a new configuration of the center-left and left that would reclaim these voters. He also notes that 70,000 Israelis "wasted" their votes by casting ballots for several lists on the left that individually failed to pass the threshold of two percent required to make it into the Knesset. These included Greens, a Green Leaf party (dedicated to the legalization of marijuana), the liberal Orthodox Meimad (who had left its alliance with Labor to ally with a group of Greens), and an independent list formed by a rebel personality from Labor, Efraim Sneh. Abu hopes for an alliance that would include Labor’s traditional base as well as these 70,000 "lost" voters. In his view, Meretz can no longer sustain itself as a progressive beacon whose policies are then adopted by the larger parties; Meretz would need to be part of a larger bloc contending directly for power.
As for peace, he sees Israel as having an opportunity to pursue a treaty with Syria, which in turn would weaken Hezbollah and Iran as threats. But Israel would have to be willing to pay the price in terms of losing control over the Golan Heights.
He’d like to see Israel take up the Arab League peace offer. He noted approvingly that the refugees’ component of the Arab offer mentions UN Resolution 194, which he reads as providing Israel with sovereign discretion on who is admitted to Israel, thereby defanging the "right of return" issue.
Abu mentioned the 250 tunnels used for smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, but still movingly expressed compassion for the people of the Gaza Strip, indicating that Israel destroyed or damaged 10 percent of the buildings there. In noting the heavy toll of civilians (more than half of the 1300 Palestinians killed), he recalled Israel’s state of national mourning over its 3,500 war dead in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 – a magnitude of loss still felt by Israel 35 years later. He said that this death toll for Palestinians, especially from this smaller population of Gaza, will have a lasting impact. (Click here for Ron Skolnik's analysis of Abu's talk.)
Nat'l Black Chamber of Commerce Hosts Luncheon on Unions
The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) host as luncheon conference at the National Press Club today to voice opposition to organized labor’s anti-growth agenda and the potential harm it could inflict on African American-owned businesses and the greater small business community. Speakers discussed how the so-called Employee Free Choice Act and a string of recent labor-related executive orders signed by President Obama stand to damage minority-owned businesses. Speakers included:
Harry Alford, President and CEO, National Black Chamber of Commerce
John F. Biagas, CEO, Bay Electric Co.
Josh Ulman, Ulman Public Policy and Federal Relations
Mike Little, Chairman of the Board, National Black Chamber of Commerce
John Macklin, National Association of Minority Contractors
Michelle Bernard, CEO of the Independent Women's Forum, MSNBC Political Analyst
The National Black Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to economically empowering and sustaining African American communities through entrepreneurship and capitalistic activity within the United States and via interaction with the Black Diaspora. The NBCC reaches 100,000 Black owned businesses.
AAEA President Norris McDonald is pictured with NBCC President Harry Alford at the luncheon.
Harry Alford, President and CEO, National Black Chamber of Commerce
John F. Biagas, CEO, Bay Electric Co.
Josh Ulman, Ulman Public Policy and Federal Relations
Mike Little, Chairman of the Board, National Black Chamber of Commerce
John Macklin, National Association of Minority Contractors
Michelle Bernard, CEO of the Independent Women's Forum, MSNBC Political Analyst
The National Black Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to economically empowering and sustaining African American communities through entrepreneurship and capitalistic activity within the United States and via interaction with the Black Diaspora. The NBCC reaches 100,000 Black owned businesses.AAEA President Norris McDonald is pictured with NBCC President Harry Alford at the luncheon.
New Status Dashboard for Google Apps
We made a commitment last year to increase transparency and communication with Google Apps customers in several ways. We heard your feedback around the need for better communication when issues like yesterday's Gmail outage occur.
Google Apps Help Forum. In addition to our own online support resources (see below), we have a vibrant community of Google Apps administrators who are always willing to lend a helping hand. To read tips and get help from your peers, join this discussion board for IT admins. This forum is moderated by Google Apps Advisors and fueled by the knowledge of expert Power Posters. Recent questions answered in the Help Forum include ones on IMAP functionality and MX record settings.
Google Apps update alerts. Whenever we launch improvements to any of the apps or add new administrative capabilities – whether it's a minor user interface tweak or the release of major new functionality – we publish a summary with usage instructions and links where you can find more details. For example, we recently shared information on new capabilities for administrators to authorize who can upload videos to Google Video for business and instructions for setting password strength requirements. You can automatically get this information either as email alerts to your inbox, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
Google Apps Channel on YouTube Here you can find product tutorials and overviews, as well as video testimonials from Google Apps customers and recordings of Google Apps-related talks and webinars. We recently posted a tour of a corporate intranet built by one of our customers and created a Google Apps Learning Center playlist to educate end users on topics such as "Webmail vs. Desktop," "Archiving or Deleting" in Gmail, for example. Take a look at the videos we've created.
The Solutions Marketplace. If you know that Google Apps is right for you but need some extra help, visit the Solutions Marketplace to find details about products and services from vendors whose solutions integrate and extend Google Apps. You can find vendors to help you with setup and deployment, data migration, integration with existing IT systems, user training and more. You can see how vendors have been rated by other customers and also read about customer experiences with partners.
I hope that this information helps you get the most out of Google Apps. One of the great things about Google Apps is the community that has grown up around it, thanks to you!
Posted by Tessa Prescott, Google Apps Sales Team
As part of that commitment, we're pleased to announce today the availability of the Google Apps Status Dashboard. Customers can use this Status Dashboard to check on the current service status of individual services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Video for business. Administrators of Google Apps for their businesses, schools and organizations can also view the performance of the administrative control panel.
The Google Apps Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will be particularly useful for our business users, and it's also relevant to users of our consumer products. The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for information on service availability for Google Apps anywhere in the world. In my role on the sales team, I regularly talk with customers to make sure that they're getting the most out of Google Apps and I think that you will find this tool indispensable in managing your Google Apps deployment.
Google Apps Help Center. Our Help Center for Google Apps admins can answer questions on "getting started" and also help you troubleshoot or find out the status about known issues. Topics include everything from email routing to data migration. We update the information in the Help Center regularly so it's a good starting point for any questions you encounter as you setup and manage your Google Apps account.
Google Apps Help Forum. In addition to our own online support resources (see below), we have a vibrant community of Google Apps administrators who are always willing to lend a helping hand. To read tips and get help from your peers, join this discussion board for IT admins. This forum is moderated by Google Apps Advisors and fueled by the knowledge of expert Power Posters. Recent questions answered in the Help Forum include ones on IMAP functionality and MX record settings.
Google Apps update alerts. Whenever we launch improvements to any of the apps or add new administrative capabilities – whether it's a minor user interface tweak or the release of major new functionality – we publish a summary with usage instructions and links where you can find more details. For example, we recently shared information on new capabilities for administrators to authorize who can upload videos to Google Video for business and instructions for setting password strength requirements. You can automatically get this information either as email alerts to your inbox, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
Google Apps Channel on YouTube Here you can find product tutorials and overviews, as well as video testimonials from Google Apps customers and recordings of Google Apps-related talks and webinars. We recently posted a tour of a corporate intranet built by one of our customers and created a Google Apps Learning Center playlist to educate end users on topics such as "Webmail vs. Desktop," "Archiving or Deleting" in Gmail, for example. Take a look at the videos we've created.
The Solutions Marketplace. If you know that Google Apps is right for you but need some extra help, visit the Solutions Marketplace to find details about products and services from vendors whose solutions integrate and extend Google Apps. You can find vendors to help you with setup and deployment, data migration, integration with existing IT systems, user training and more. You can see how vendors have been rated by other customers and also read about customer experiences with partners.
I hope that this information helps you get the most out of Google Apps. One of the great things about Google Apps is the community that has grown up around it, thanks to you!
Posted by Tessa Prescott, Google Apps Sales Team
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